When I was in school, I noticed this trend of people being really vocal about dismissing entire genres/composers/techniques—they were actually rather unfamiliar with—in order to appear more opinionated, and therefore educated. This flawed thinking rampantly permeates our field.

People with comp/performing classical music degrees are largely 1600-1950 (if I’m being generous) European music specialists...there’s a TON of techniques/harmonic & rhythmic language/history/cultural influence that this degree skips over and even purposely ignores.

You can dislike things!! I dislike things—and sometimes it’s even fun to talk about why!—but your dislike does not invalidate a entire genre/artist/style as a genuine, important, and meaningful part of music. ESPECIALLY if your “research” into it is only surface level.

It’s exhausting to see people flip from “listeners need to know things like history, harmony, and form to *really* appreciate this music” when it’s European classical music to “I am entitled to dismiss an entire genre after listening to a few songs” when it’s anything else.

Just a general plea for anyone sitting down to dedicate themselves to music this week to keep an open mind as you do so.

Love to you all.