Dear Margaret and Vocalisters:
I agree with you. The ability to sing a melody with breath-long
phrases and connect these phrases together into a coherent complete
song is not common today. Very little of the music heard and bought
by the young have melodies of this kind. Most schools in the country
have cut their music programs so singing is not taught. And fewer
young people can replicate even a short melodic fragment which is the
best test of pitch memory. I know of no other cause for this
phenomenon than the pops music field with its emphasis on short
melodic fragments that seldom cover the range of a melodic fifth and
which, by their structural nature place an emphasis on other
parameters of music such as rhythm, timbre, and, in some cases
texture.
It is a free country. Emphasis can be placed where it is desired.
And one can always quote the mantra of the business world: "It must
be good, everyone is buying it." But each choice has effects and I
believe the lack of melodic consciousness in our young is one of the
consequences of the melodic wasteland that is found in a lot of pops
music.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson
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