Why Don’t More [North] Americans Like Jazz?

Dyske Suematsu says Americans like songs with lyrics, even [especially] rap music, but are far less interested in music that has no words. Suematsu notes that many foreigners, while liking N. American music, do not listen to the words so much and hence have a better appreciation of music for the sake of the music itself. Suematsu also claims that these foreigners have better understanding of and richer appreciation for instrumental music, including jazz.

And here is why [h/t to RonN]:

… American ears are getting lazier and lazier. It wasn’t so long ago that most people knew how to play a musical instrument or two. Now the vast majority of Americans couldn’t tell the difference between a saxophone and a trumpet. Thanks partially to music videos, music is now a form of visual art. The American culture is so visually dominant that a piece of music without visuals cannot command full attention of the audience. For Americans, music is a background element, a mere side dish to be served with the main course. If they are forced to listen to a piece of instrumental music without any visuals, they don’t know what to do with their eyes, much like the way a nervous speaker standing in front of a large audience struggles to figure out what to do with his hands. Eventually something visual that has nothing to do with the music grabs their attention and the music is push[sic] to the background.

… If we were to reverse this trend, we would need to make a conscious effort in promoting the abstract aspect of music. For instance, play more instrumental music in schools or teach how to play an instrument instead of how to sing. We could go as far as to teach kids in school instrumental music only, because their musical exposure outside of school would be dominated by non-instrumental music anyway. It would be a good way to balance things out.

It is certainly the case that children in the schools in this century have far less exposure to instrumental music than my generation did. But as self-anointed chair of the Philistine Liberation Organization, I have to ask whether it really matters.

The sad, simple fact is that even I, someone who knows a little about music, don’t much care for tonnes of improvisational jazz, where I sit and listen to talented musicians try to make things up on the fly. I do really like the older jazz of Brubeck (especially with Paul Desmond) and Miles Davis, to name a few, and when I was quite young I enjoyed myself at some jazz performances. But for the most part I prefer baroque muzak instead.

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Why Don’t More [North] Americans Like Jazz?

Dyske Suematsu says Americans like songs with lyrics, even [especially] rap music, but are far less interested in music that has no words. Suematsu notes that many foreigners, while liking N. American music, do not listen to the words so much and hence have a better appreciation of music for the sake of the music itself. Suematsu also claims that these foreigners have better understanding of and richer appreciation for instrumental music, including jazz.

And here is why [h/t to RonN]:

… American ears are getting lazier and lazier. It wasn’t so long ago that most people knew how to play a musical instrument or two. Now the vast majority of Americans couldn’t tell the difference between a saxophone and a trumpet. Thanks partially to music videos, music is now a form of visual art. The American culture is so visually dominant that a piece of music without visuals cannot command full attention of the audience. For Americans, music is a background element, a mere side dish to be served with the main course. If they are forced to listen to a piece of instrumental music without any visuals, they don’t know what to do with their eyes, much like the way a nervous speaker standing in front of a large audience struggles to figure out what to do with his hands. Eventually something visual that has nothing to do with the music grabs their attention and the music is push[sic] to the background.

… If we were to reverse this trend, we would need to make a conscious effort in promoting the abstract aspect of music. For instance, play more instrumental music in schools or teach how to play an instrument instead of how to sing. We could go as far as to teach kids in school instrumental music only, because their musical exposure outside of school would be dominated by non-instrumental music anyway. It would be a good way to balance things out.

It is certainly the case that children in the schools in this century have far less exposure to instrumental music than my generation did. But as self-anointed chair of the Philistine Liberation Organization, I have to ask whether it really matters.

The sad, simple fact is that even I, someone who knows a little about music, don’t much care for tonnes of improvisational jazz, where I sit and listen to talented musicians try to make things up on the fly. I do really like the older jazz of Brubeck (especially with Paul Desmond) and Miles Davis, to name a few, and when I was quite young I enjoyed myself at some jazz performances. But for the most part I prefer baroque muzak instead.

.

Why Don’t More [North] Americans Like Jazz?

Dyske Suematsu says Americans like songs with lyrics, even [especially] rap music, but are far less interested in music that has no words. Suematsu notes that many foreigners, while liking N. American music, do not listen to the words so much and hence have a better appreciation of music for the sake of the music itself. Suematsu also claims that these foreigners have better understanding of and richer appreciation for instrumental music, including jazz.

And here is why [h/t to RonN]:

… American ears are getting lazier and lazier. It wasn’t so long ago that most people knew how to play a musical instrument or two. Now the vast majority of Americans couldn’t tell the difference between a saxophone and a trumpet. Thanks partially to music videos, music is now a form of visual art. The American culture is so visually dominant that a piece of music without visuals cannot command full attention of the audience. For Americans, music is a background element, a mere side dish to be served with the main course. If they are forced to listen to a piece of instrumental music without any visuals, they don’t know what to do with their eyes, much like the way a nervous speaker standing in front of a large audience struggles to figure out what to do with his hands. Eventually something visual that has nothing to do with the music grabs their attention and the music is push[sic] to the background.

… If we were to reverse this trend, we would need to make a conscious effort in promoting the abstract aspect of music. For instance, play more instrumental music in schools or teach how to play an instrument instead of how to sing. We could go as far as to teach kids in school instrumental music only, because their musical exposure outside of school would be dominated by non-instrumental music anyway. It would be a good way to balance things out.

It is certainly the case that children in the schools in this century have far less exposure to instrumental music than my generation did. But as self-anointed chair of the Philistine Liberation Organization, I have to ask whether it really matters.

The sad, simple fact is that even I, someone who knows a little about music, don’t much care for tonnes of improvisational jazz, where I sit and listen to talented musicians try to make things up on the fly. I do really like the older jazz of Brubeck (especially with Paul Desmond) and Miles Davis, to name a few, and when I was quite young I enjoyed myself at some jazz performances. But for the most part I prefer baroque muzak instead.

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Rigoletto at the Toronto Opera Repertoire

Yesterday, out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Alon Eshet, a former student from one of my introductory economics courses, saying,

A number of years ago, outside of Economics 020, we discussed theatre and you mentioned that should a student take part in any production, you’d consider attending. Well, I was reminded of your blog a few days ago when reading http://www.mises.com and thought to invite you to a production of Verdi’s Rigoletto we’re performing. I realize this is very short notice and I wish I had remembered to send this out earlier, but all the information is here: www.toronto-opera.com (I have a lead role on Saturday’s performance)

It looks as if this coming weekend is the last weekend of performances, for those of you who live in/near Trono and who might be interested. I might make it, but I must confess to having some concern about how members of the PLO might react if I do.



From the write-up about the Toronto Opera Repertoire:

Cheap tickets (not much more expensive than a movie). No fussy dress code. Down-to-earth, approachable singers who might just be your friends and neighbours. Toronto Opera Repertoire makes opera accessible — both to the audience, through Supertitles in English, and to the performers.



… Our performances are fully staged, professionally costumed, and cost just $22 (less, if you’re a student or senior). …

Be sure to read Alon’s bio!

Aboriginal Land Claims in Caledonia

Things have been more than just “tense” in Caledonia, Ontario, with many native Canadians claiming a legal and moral right to land that was being developed for residential use. John Hagopian, writing in the Hamilton Spectator, critiques those legal and moral claims [thanks to Jack]:

It’s time for the politically incorrect truth to be told. In short, the Six Nations have no legal rights to the lands in question, and have had none for over a century.



They have never had any rights to land in Ontario by virtue of aboriginal title or by treaty. For a tract of land along the Grand River, they obtained in 1784 merely an occupancy permit from British colonial Governor Frederick Haldimand that endured only at the pleasure of the Crown. After 1784, the Six Nations surrendered to the Crown various portions of the Grand River tract, and by the middle of the 19th century all that remained was the land contained in the current Six Nations reserve south of Brantford. That is a summary of their legal rights.



As for moral obligations, a review of the history of the Six Nations Indians indicates that they are not innocent victims of land robbery by European colonizers, but are instead themselves the culprits who terrorized, conquered, and displaced many other Indian tribes whose lands and resources they sought to control.

These land claims, along with the legal, historical, and moral criticisms, remind me of the various historical claims I have read about land in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Emotions run high and cloud whatever clarity there may be in the law.

Economics and the Traveling Salesman Problem

My younger son, Adam Smith Palmer, is studying computational physics and recently mentioned “the Traveling Salesman Problem” [TSP]. No, the TSP is not a problem involving where or with whom a visiting traveling salesperson must sleep when his/her car breaks down and s/he seeks assistance at nearby farm house. Here, from Wikipedia, is a description of the problem:

Given a number of cities and the costs of traveling from any city to any other city, what is the cheapest round-trip route that visits each city exactly once and then returns to the starting city?



… It can be shown that the requirement of returning to the starting city does not change the computational complexity of the problem.

My question is: Why does the problem require or constrain the salesperson to visit each city once and only once?

• I can readily imagine there might be solutions in which it is cheaper, even necessary, for the traveling salesperson to visit some cities more than once to reduce the costs of visiting other cities.
• For example, how can one arrive at a solution if the problem involves a city at the tip of a peninsula with only one road in and out (e.g. Tobermory, Ontario, at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, ignoring the ferry to Manitoulin Island)? This question reminds me of the old joke about Poland and the Mongol hordes.
• And from the revenue side, the constraint that the formulation of the problem, requiring the salesperson to visit each city no more than once, seems to assume that the incremental or marginal revenue of visiting a city more than once during the grand trip would be zero. Surely it is plausible that visiting some cities more than once and some cities not at all would be more profitable than the constrained solution of visiting each city exactly once.

Maybe the problem has some applicability in integrated circuitry, but I’m not sure it should be cast in terms of a profit-maximizing traveling salesperson. Surely the optimal route of a traveling salesperson should consider the incremental or marginal costs and marginal revenues of visiting each city. Indeed, most traveling salespersons do, in fact, spend more time visiting markets/cities with higher expected net revenues and less time in markets/cities with lower expected net revenues.

Time to Cash Out?

I’ve been pessimistic about the equity markets for a long time. If you had followed my advice from last year, you’d have partially missed out on a long rise in stock prices.



At this point, Irwin Yamamoto agrees. He has many reasons, listed here, but the best is this:

With all the frenzy, mania and froth, Wall Street failed to take note of how corporate insider selling has increased to its highest pace in 20 years.

He recommends going all cash (plus maybe shorting the market), but I don’t think I’ll go that far.



Also, see this in The Economist, which points out that margin borrowing is at its highest ratio since the 1920s.



[h/t to Jack]

A Cultural Tax on Employment?

Several years ago, a colleague told me that in many developing countries, when a person gets a job, suddenly dozens of relatives show up and expect to be supported by that person. But because this reaction is expected by possible job-seekers, it amounts to a fully anticipated tax that, not surprisingly, deters people from seeking reasonably paying jobs in the legitimate market, forcing more work into the underground economy.

Here is another effect [via Judith]. A Saudi female physician is being forced to divorce her husband, in part so her family can arrange her marriage to a partner of their choosing, and in part because they are dependent on her financial support.

The case of Rania Albou-Enin, a 27-year-old Saudi physician has caused particular concern. In her last month of pregnancy, she is anxiously awaiting an appeals court decision in a case of forced divorce brought by he father.

Her husband, Saud Al-Khaledi, is being held in a police jail in Alkhobar, according to her lawyer Ibrahim Al-Behairi. Rania, who had been paying all her family’s bills, has claimed she was beaten by one of her brothers and that the family brought the case to ensure they would not lose their main breadwinner.

Update: thanks to John Chilton for reminding me about this piece by Tyler Cowen, which sets out the family tax on employment. Be sure to read both the piece and all the informative examples provided in the comments!

Dangerous Joke

The next time the boss or maybe an annoying colleague or that officious pest from IT stops by to visit you, click on this link and shout “oh my god!”.



[via Stephen Pollard, who recommends a different use.]

Racism and Islamophobia

Is it racist to question whether Islamists can integrate into Western society? Surely some Muslims can and do (e.g. Salim Mansur,who writes a weekely column for the Toronto Sun newspaper chain). And yet I think it is a reasonable question to contemplate.



Raphael Israeli says no.



Not everyone agrees with him, of course.



And Raphael Israeli responds to his critics here.



Be sure, too, to see the book, Londonistan, by Melanie Phillips.



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