I bet you don’t know what that means. Most people aren’t familiar with a term like this, and most feel stupified and sort of nauseated by someone who decides to bug with a term like this. But simply it is:

“A grace note which takes its time from the rest or note preceding the principal note to which it is attached. The acciaccatura is drawn as a small eighth note (quaver) with a line drawn through the flag and stem.”

For most of you, this term will be welcome (but useless) trivia that will only expand upon your twitting skills (and no, that’s not a mis-spelling). But, I mention this not because I wish to be a twit (or to pass on twit-ness), but rather to bring up a far more important point about music: degradation.

Specifically, I want to talk about how music has degenerated since modern theoretical thought in music. Pedagogy, the cornerstone of music and most all learned skills, is the best way to get a sense of this degradation.

As an aside, you can look at pedagogical practices in every skill or teaching forum to see where the philosophy of the time stands. You want to know why kids don’t remember anything they are taught in public schools? It’s because they are taught using “regurgitation methods.” Go in quickly, come out quickly, rinse, repeat (until graduated).

Music today, when taught, is taught with a specific philosophy in mind: get the kid playing. “They don’t have enough time to spend 15 minutes a day on boring reading, writing, and thought process. My kid is active (potentially ADHD but I’m not willing to admit it; he/she just needs a little help), and they don’t need or can’t afford to learn the fun of music, the joy of playing an instrument, with this kind of requirement. Give me the easy button!”

So, fast forward to high school and you realize that every guy above the age of 15 knows how to play 3 chords on the guitar (or piano) because they didn’t want to follow through with boring band, or orchestra, or dare I say choir! But just look at them! They can play!

Can they?

They may be able to use an instrument, but do they really know how to hear music? Play music? Interpret music?

I personally don’t have anything against guitars; they are so rad. But the western culture has a lot to do with my beef.

My beef first starts with our consumer/utilitarian culture. Most every product that has a battery or computer chip of some kind is designed to break down within 6 months – 2 1/2 years. A phone is designed to last just long enough to make it to contract renewal, when another better and smaller phone with supposed enhanced capabilities is more attractive. Moving parts within kitchen equipment (even if it is made by the same company) is designed to break down 3 – 4x quicker than the one with the exact same design in the 1950s. It is now more expensive to get your vacuum serviced and repaired (and some major appliances) than to just go the store and get a new one. This is because western society has taken the high-road and made life a lot simpler by recycling less stuff and consuming more. Indeed, the West has been blessed (I don’t mean to rhyme; but it seems like that time) with enormous textile advances and manufacturing practices; it is just silly. Meanwhile, we can travel more quickly, do more at home, stay up later, do more at work, and can cram more deadlines than you can shake a RedBull at in one square hour. This is a great gift in many ways, but great gifts come with great prices in this context.

What I am saying is not new. But if you ever wonder why I cringe when I think of certain piano methods; here is where it is coming from.

I taught a child that (apparently) has a busier schedule than the rest of their siblings combined. I remember coming out of a lesson and speaking with the parent, and the parent telling me, “Now [X] has such and such to do today, and has this going on this week, and I don’t know if we can do the theory book much longer; can you make it fun? Can [X] play something?” (By the way, one of my focal methods is teaching the basics of music theory before technique.)

I’m thinking, “You want fun? Here I am, explaining an alternative abstract language that transpires into organized sound, using phenomena and wonders of physics that can be harnessed into ten fingers, and that’s not exciting and fun?”

So I, sheepeshly, said, “Yah, I think we can learn something to play.”

I know the concerns of said parent, but their view has been affected by our culture. The culture says, “If it doesn’t turn over in a few weeks, it’s not worth it.” or, “It may be worth it, but you don’t have time for the long term; do something else that may be more effective.”

Where does the acciaccatura come into play? The acciaccatura is a term that has long lost its place in western pedagogy because of the difficulty of its meaning. It takes forever for children (especially in public schools) to remember this sort of thing; and if we did this with every part of music, little Joe would not be able to play recorder by the end of the 2nd grade.

Degredation in music is a sign of pedagogical weakness. We as a western society have reacted to the stresses of a (seemingly) busier lifestyle and have forged short, quick fixes for art and music. Music has gotten shorter (since the CD) and more “utilitarian” to fit our lifestyles.

But, I digress. I want to talk more or less about the effect of the quickened utilitarian lifestyle on learning music. When little Joe wants to learn how to play an instrument (which is seemingly harmless), he is not interested (or has not been taught an interest) in the long term; he has been excited by mom and dad and friends to invest an ambiguous amount of time to learn how to play an instrument, for the result of which is really just a chemical high in the brain. They are, since birth, trained to be this way; there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all that you want, so do the things that interest you. “Little Joe, you really want to play this instrument right? It will be fun! You’ll enjoy making music! You will have lots of fun playing for people! Isn’t that what you want to do?” This sounds a lot more like training a child what to desire more than discovering and helping “little Joe” figure out what he really wants.

So, mom and dad invest in a music teacher that is just as enthusiastic and very understanding of their situation; “Joe doesn’t have that much time, but with 30 minutes each week could you teach him how to play piano?” “Sure!” the teacher replies, “I can teach Joe how to play in a couple months; he will be playing in NO TIME!”

So, to get the child excited (kind of like candy) the teacher shows how easy it is to learn how to play piano, even in the first lesson! Wow! That sounds like fun! So 2 – 3 months down the road little Joe can already play some songs that he recognizes, which mom and dad like. Then a year passes by, and Joe, even though mom and dad are still paying for his lessons, is losing interest. He can’t read music very well; he doesn’t really practice. He doesn’t like practice! He likes playing, and whatever he doesn’t like to do, he doesn’t do. So, he eventually says to mom and dad that he would like to quit lessons and go to something else, like sports, or guitar, or drums (because, “drums are cool and anything that is cool must not be hard to learn”).

So, the degradation comes into play here: when music isn’t taught at a fundamental pace that actually explains, instills, and grows/cultivates mature principles of love, sacrifice, and practice, the child (affected in the same way in most other ways of life) learns a form of music mimicking. Degradation in the pedagogy of music teaches a child to know what positions their hands are supposed to be in, rather than understand the harmonic content of their music and adjust to those notes accordingly. Degradation teaches that doing is more important than understanding. The joy of music is ensured through cheap, “high-carb” fixes that, as long as the teacher feeds them more and more potently derived fixes, help them keep going.

The acciaccatura is really just a quick flip note between the first note it preceeds. So it sounds like a quick twitch… right? So, we just say it is a “grace-note,” a note which is supposed to gracefully lilt to the next note… Right?

More on Part 2