From PBS NewsHour:

Thoughts?

I have grown quite weary of the “calming classical* music” or the “music to help you fall asleep” stuff. I also grow weary of the “It’ll make you smarter” thoughts. I much prefer people have a yearning to hear the music. And I’ve always hated the places that play classical music to discourage people from lingering.

*I use lower case “classical” to refer to all the music in our symphonic/opera/concert hall (etc.) world.

And then there’s this:

People have sent this my way. It’s made its rounds on Facebook. And something about it troubled me immediately, but I didn’t want to go all Negative Nellie on people so I just thanked them. But now I read a comment on one of the Facebook pages that explains my discomfort:

I aggressively disagree. Generally speaking, art and music are not mere ‘decorations’, but expressions of human points of view that are worth listening to. Art, literature and music can teach us great things that we would not otherwise see, not just a way to fill up space and time.

—Vernon Garcia Rivas

Again … thoughts?