Time to cancel the masterclass
NewsIn an age when many titles are being reconfigured for their race and gender associations, it is nothing less than astonishing that classical music continues to promote the masterclass – a noun redolent of gender and race superiority, not to mention other forms of domination.
Even such bastions of wokedom as Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music continue to advertise masterclasses.
Do yourselves a favour guys/gals/non-gens: Take down the masterclass tag, before anyone else notices.
And Sony Masterworks, watch out.
Cancel em’ unless your teacher is/was Josef Gingold.
No. Go away. Next stupid idea?
What?
I gotta give it to you, Norman. With your relentless focus on wokeism, Yuja’s shorts, Korean girls in sauna pics, Domingo, et al, you are cornering the market in blog comment clickbait – must be doing wonders for your reader stats! Keep up the good work. Serious content would be appreciated when you get a chance.
Much of the serious content appears in the comments section, for which the clickbait is the generous invitation.
Some ‘wo(r)ke’ is already being done in related spheres that may touch the music filed -at least from it’s tech side- by the Open Compute Project.
1OCP Terminology Guidelines for Inclusion and Openness: https://bit.ly/3B94efx
Are you being serious ? or is this ( I hope ) an ironic joke ?
This is a valid point, though it’s already been made a great deal in education discourse and research. Alternative formats like workshops are seemingly used far more frequently than they used to be, and there’s a lot more emphasis on mentor and facilitator roles than on the more traditional master–apprentice relationship. I’m not 100% certain how serious you’re being here, Norman, but it’s worth noting that the deconstruction of the masterclass and the conventions it represents has been underway and developing gradually for some time now. ‘Cancellations’ that we may perceive as being sudden are likely just the surface cracks appearing as a consequence of a far more long-term culture shift. Long may it continue – it would be a worrying sign for a creative industry if we were not continually questioning and re-imagining the way we go about it. We will likely continue to reap the many benefits that the masterclass has brought us, just in new ways.
Somehow, I don’t associate Heifetz, or other artists of similar truly rarified standing, with “workshops.” But, If you look online there now is something of a masterclass industry, much as Ted Talks became. That is, the term has become diluted.
Those who associate “master” only with “slavery” in a literal sense, don’t understand the English language or the concept and history of actual slavery.
Are not the people who are giving the master class not masters of their instrument, acting or filmmaking? As far as I know, one only sees the term master class as related to the arts. There is no sense of “master/slave” in the arts as concerns a master class.
As far as I know or have seen, Master class only seems to relate to the arts: music, acting or film making. There is no sense of “master/slave” there. Musicians have always benefited from Master classes.
Well masterclass.com seems to be doing something very different to what you describe. Maybe see the effect their tags have before lumping it all together?
Why “racial superiority” in the term ? It’s not an Übermensch class.
Puzzling
Of course it is. Nietzsche described the ‘master’ and ‘slave’ relationships in his forward looking work. A ‘Master class’ implies ‘slaves’ who simply obey the Master. But according to wokism, at musical master classes every student should protest anything the teacher has the temerity to present as well-meaning advice since this advice is intended to humiliate, suppress, exclude the student which is not fair at all. To make justice and equality converge, everything should be made equal first. So, in teh end, a master class would end-up without a master and without advice.
I take it that NL’s tongue is firmly in his cheek here, or would he also ban ‘The Mastersingers of Nuremberg’?
The fact is that the English word ‘master’ covers (at least) two different concepts: the opposite of a servant or slave; and the opposite of an apprentice. Many languages have distinct, indeed unrelated, words for the two notions. Thus German has ‘Herr’ (versus ‘Knecht’) and ‘Meister’ (versus ‘Lehrling’).
The Italian word ‘maestro’ corresponds pretty closely to the German ‘Meister’, and has already been imported into English. So if needs must we could speak of a ‘maestro-class’, or a ‘maestra-class’ if the teacher is a woman.
So, that kills immediately the respectful title Maestro. I guess words like “disciple” and “civil servant” are out too.
Are you by the way going to rename your most famous book?
“The Person-Who-Conducts Myth” does not have quite the same ring to it.
Bone: How about “The Myth of the power from the podium”?
That sounds saucy!
Cancel the cancel culture
More ‘woke’ nonsense. Surely there are more important things in life to concern ourselves with.
Of course there are. But try telling that to the committed victim class.
It’s good to see the Ministry of Truth is doing it’s job these days.
When I first saw the title, I thought this had something to do with the recent headlines concerning Pinchas Zukerman. I was wrong.
Time to cancel the masterclass but time to focus on Yuja’s shorts? Doesn’t seem quite consistent.
The term “accompanist” should also be banned and replaced by : “differently-paid musical partner”.
Yes, but that’s not enough: also terms like lecturer and student should be done away with, since it suggests a power relationship which puts one party in a vulnerable position. The same with doctor and patient. Society is saturated with secret suppressing power, meant to mentally incarcerate civilians into docile slaves of the institutions. I’m not making this up; it has been extensively described by influential French philosopher Michel Foucault:
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/352
As long as there are people who have mastered an instrument, there will be a place for the master class.
There are of course many folks deeply involved in this ongoing debate about the word “master.” These people are known master-debaters.
But maybe we are being distracted by the implications of “master” and failing to focus on the more troublesome matter of the word “class.” It reeks of a vertical separation and ranking of perceived abilities when our goal should be greater horizontality!
(How’s that for politically correct gobbledygook? Good enough to get tenure? And a master key to the executive washroom?)
And speaking of horizontality, tell us more about Yuja’s shorts …..
Thanks for this idea. The IRCPA has been presenting Encounters for 36 years to avoid the word especially since we cater to artists out of school and working on their careers as small businesses.
I’ve been a participant in and attended masterclasses for over 20 years. I’ve never found them to be a valuable education experience. They’re artificial, blowhard-y, and put the participants in extremely awkward and unnerving positions. Most of them are just an excuse for the “master” to show off fancy words and sentences that they’ve practiced over the past 60 years, then collect a ridiculous paycheck. Most of the time the “guidance” they give isn’t specific to the participant, it’s just recycled dribble.
What does it say about you if you continue to do this for 20 years despite not finding them to be educational?
Well it’s not like I choose to seek out these experiences. How many times in academia is a masterclass a “forced socializing” event? ex. “Oh… famous violinist so-and-so is a visiting guest artist for the month. You’ll be going out to dinner with him/her and you’d better be ready to mention something about the masterclass he/she just presented.” Also, isn’t it good to be open minded about educational experiences? Perhaps in my 21st year of going to these I’ll see something that changes my life? I’m not so close minded that I’m going to think that I can’t continue to learn something.
Perhaps you chose the wrong masterclass or weren’t advanced enough to take anything of value away from it.
What a load of horse#$^&.
Only those with eyes on everything but the task at hand of mastering an instrument would allow themselves to be triggered by something so innocuous. Grow up.
Whether a joke or serious, this post is just silly. If “mastery” is considered elitist, authoritarian, racist or anything else in that vein, it’s time to pack up and go home and let everyone else pride themselves on mediocrity.
From the OED:
Origin
Old English mæg(i)ster (later reinforced by Old French maistre), from Latin magister; probably related to magis ‘more’.
Seems to me that master classes just pair the more expert practitioner with the learner in the hope that something useful will be transmitted.
Skills and knowledge being transmitted to younger generations is evil because it supposes ignorance of the receiving party, which is violating social justice. Only when all people have reversed to the natural state where we started some 1,5 million years ago, will there be justice.
Spot on!
Perhaps anyone who finds the word “masterclass” offensive has simply not yet “mastered” the English language, but it would be a shame if they could not be taught by someone who has mastered the “masterpieces” of classical music 😉
Please just look it up:
adjective 1.
having or showing very great skill or proficiency.
verb 1.
acquire complete knowledge or skill in (a subject, technique, or art).
2.
gain control of; overcome.
NL the cancellers come up with enough stupid ideas of their own, please don’t help them- many of the things that are now happening would have been considered laughable even ten years ago.
I don’t think offering a “Mistress Class” is going to solve the imagined problem.
Too much baggage attached to “mistress”. Then again, “madam class” doesn’t quite cut it either.
Interesting. Realtors are moving away from the “master bedroom/suite” phrase and toward “primary.”
“the masterclass – a noun redolent of gender and race superiority, not to mention other forms of domination”
I do hope this is meant tongue-in-cheek!
If not….good grief.
And please do not use the term “mistressclass”.
Yuja’s shorts aside, NL seems to be a master at baiting his readership, to come out of the woodwork and comment on his blog. Kudos, Norm!
Yuja’s shorts aside, NL seems to be a master at baiting his readership to come out of the woodwork and comment on his blog. Kudos, Norm!
All notions of “superiority” are offensive. It must be called Mediocre Class, so as not to exclude those who are without the unfair privilege of talent.
Excellent comment.
The problem is the fact that people are different, so to help overcome that problem, everything that sticks-out above the average has to be pulled down, instead of trying to get the lower things to a higher level. It is choosing the lazy way.
The term “master” like professor and teacher can apply to any gender you like! Just make sure they are real masters before you apply it to anyone!
Soon there will be no Masters degrees. MBAs? Forget it! No job for you.
The Masters Tournament? Finished.
Master Chef—no more viewers lest a network risk it all.
Mastering a foreign language? Whoa, stop it! Invader!
No more ship masters…
No more headmasters at schools…
No more master copies…
Chess grandmasters? criminals!
Master of Ceremonies? put them on the stake!
Amazing that one word can have only one meaning, isn’t it?
Just Norman being silly and trying to be clever …. Again . I remember the 80’s when he said orchestras were finished and classical music had no future, hi , we’re still here and will be along with “ masterclasses “ long after Norman and his woke pals are long forgotten.
Just Norman being silly again I think. I remember the 80s when he was predicting that orchestras would no longer exist by now and that classical music had no future, hi we’re still here and will be for the foreseeable future along with master classes and will certainly outlive the trendy ephemeral woke nonsense being spouted by Norman Lebrecht and his privileged Ivory tower friends.
Provocative, divisive and unnecessary post.
It’s getting boring, now.
It would be better tot cancel Norman Lebrecht
Completely wrong, especially this: ” noun redolent of gender and race superiority, not to mention other forms of domination.”
Racial superiority? You gotta be kidding. I think that is Jascha Heifetz in the pic and he was Jewish: racial superiority, no, musical superlatives yes. (Apparently Heifetz’s teachers once told him to make a mistake, so they would know he was human!). I personally like the term “master class” as it is very descriptive of a master teaching others who are not in his class.