Musical education

After following (still do actually) the thread by Proglover about musical form, I started wondering whether I am not missing anything or not fully appreciating the music I listen to due to lack of musical education. I don't mean I don't enjoy it, get ecstatic or feel pleasure when listening to music I love. I just wonder, could I have an even better listening experience to music as someone who is trained and/or taught in the musical arts.  I learned to play the piano for 7 years but I don't feel it has given me any supplemental value when hearing music. I do know, however, to appreciate good playing and virtuosity. Tell us what is your take on this, musicians and non-musicians.

goose wrote: Perfect pitch is entirely unrelated to an education in music, though , and moreover, is in fact a memory skill. Learning about music (not only learning an instrument, but that, too) can help with listening to some music, and generally not stop you enjoying music you did while blissfully unaware - unless you're impressionable to base your musical taste on the teachings of others. So, broadly, I don't see how learning about music can give anything but a more developed taste

Not a more developed taste, but an extra value or extra pleasure from what you hear.

I don't think that perfect pitch is necessarily a memory skill - I don't have a fantastic memory, but I do have perfect pitch.

Relative pitch is a memory skill, as you need to learn it and not forget the relative sounds of intervals to work the notes out.

With perfect pitch, you just hear a note and know what it is - there's no explanation - you just know. This is, of course, 100% provable, and a favourite party trick of mine when I was younger.

A musical education is not necessary to enjoy music - that's part of the point of it to some degree.

On the other hand, if you do have it, it's like having a literary education - you understand more of what the author is doing and the sources he quotes from. Without a solid literary education, you'd have real problems appreciating say, "Ulysses" by Joyce - but you could still form an opinion on it. It just wouldn't be an educated opinion.

The same with music. Anyone can enjoy Beethoven's 5th, but if you've studied music generally, and that particular work in depth, you'll understand the compositional pyrotechnics and virtuosity that Beethoven displayed much better.

A good example of how an education can help you to understand music better is Arnold Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire". To most non-educated people, it sounds like a complete racket - but I'd wager that a lot of proggers would enjoy it - click this link (Note that you'll need Quicktime in order to hear it - if you have problems with this, I can help): http://www.colleges.org/techcenter/music/modules/pierrot/200 3rec.html

For me, though, as a musically "educated" person (I'm not a professor or anything fancy), the delights are in the choices I have. I can simply switch off and listen, and be transported to wherever the music takes me, or I can rip the playing and compositional techniques to shreds and really enjoy being delighted at what the musicians have come up with - and feel like I've gained an insight into their creation process. It's almost like becoming a member of the band for a while.