Music For 8 Year Olds

Tonight I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a concert by the Carmel Symphony Orchestra. I didn’t realize I would know several people in it, including my son’s current violin teacher and the teacher of his first teacher.

I only found out about the concert yesterday, and quickly made plans to attend. The main reason was because the program included the Concerto for Horn and Orchestra by John Williams. I love Williams’ music – and not only his film scores. The Horn Concerto was composed for Dale Clevenger, the principal horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and soloist on tonight’s performance.

The concert opened with Rimsky-Korsakov’s spectacular and rousing Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op.36. This was followed by the Williams Horn Concerto, which consists of five movements (like his bassoon concerto), entitled Angelus, That Battle of the Trees, Pastorale, The Hunt, and Nocturne. The last movement was particularly beautiful, as was the Pastorale, which begins with a solo on the oboe (performed tonight by Andrea Gullickson of Butler University). The oboe is joined by the bassoon and eventually the horn (and of course the rest of the orchestra). The opening Angelus is reminiscent of the style and mood of the opening of TreeSong, and while the concerto, like most of Williams’ concert works, eschews the sing-along melodies found in his film scores, the concerto nonetheless includes the beautiful, mood-creating timbres and modes of expression beloved of all fans of Williams’ music. The concert concluded after an intermission with a performance of Dvorak’s Symphony No.7 in D minor, Op.70.

The title of this blog entry comes from a reply that John Williams gave to Dale Clevenger when the latter asked him to include a great horn melody of the sort we know and love from his film scores. Williams’ reply was that he writes film music for 8 year olds.

Music is deeply connected with my spirituality (perhaps one might argue that it is my spirituality), and so I immediately thought of how the same could be said of much religion today, which is likewise for 8 year olds. I say this as someone who loves Williams’ film scores, and I don’t think the point is that once you are older you should stop enjoying such melodic treats. But cultivating taste, whether in music, food, religion, or anything else, involves getting beyond only eating bite-sized melt-in-your-mouth sweet things. Meat, vegetables, spices, and lots of things that your average 8 year old won’t want to try, and probably wouldn’t enjoy if he or she did.

Appreciating anything takes time and exposure. There is lots of music that I appreciate now that I once didn’t. I’m glad that, having had an initial impression that was not entirely favorable, I kept giving the music another chance. Really what I was doing was giving myself another chance to experience the music, to have it grow on me.

Many people flit from one religion to another, or from religion in general to atheism or vice versa, less out of conviction than out of boredom. Those who stop listening to the radio have become tired of the same old songs, heard over and over again. Even in relationships we see people move from casual relationship to casual relationship.

In so many ways, contemporary life is characterized by superficiality. But to get the richest experiences, one has to make room in one’s menu for things other than candy. Sure, candy tastes good, that film score is fun to hum along with, and that Our Daily Bread devotional offers bite-sized conservative morsels of chicken soup for the evangelical soul.

I hope that whatever you do – whether it is music, or religion, or atheism, whether it is reason, or mysticism, science or service of the needs of others, you will explore these things in all their richness and depth. It takes good teeth and healthy gums to chew that beef and those vegetables. But the nourishment you’ll get will sustain an adult life with mature significance.

The problem is not with enjoying the same treats we enjoyed as kids. The problem is when we do not cultivate our tastes and our palates to appreciate things that are for a more mature audience. Eating a diet of what an 8-year old would choose as adults might well rot our teeth, or at least fail to adequately nourish us. And what would a diet of only reasoning and entertainment for 8-year olds do to our minds, and to our souls?

But don’t worry. You can still have candy for dessert…