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[amzrigh]

Okay, just copy/pasting this from an e-mail I just received:

PLAY! A Video Game Symphony
Saturday January 19, 2008 8 p.m.
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Conductor

PLAY! A Video Game Symphony features award-winning music from titles such as Final Fantasy ®, Silent Hill ®, Battlefield 1942 ™, World of Warcraft ® and The Elder

Comments

[phoenix_seraph]

 
On a personal level, I often wonder about how I can share my love of popular music, whether early Green Day or some of the Final Fantasy remixes, without accidentally contributing to that cultural decay.   I wonder if my cheering for a game music concert is also my contributing to the decimation of classical music concerts in my nation.

One method I use in my classrooms is to intermix them.   For example, if I am teaching a unit on music, I might play for them both Mozart and a particularly good Final Fantasy remix to expose them to both.   Then we discuss the similarities and differences from aesthetic perspectives, contextual perspectives, and cultural perspectives.

I have also told my students repeatedly that I consider the division between High Art and Popular Culture to be absurd more often than not.   For example, Shakespeare included magnificent poetry which could only be understood by individuals with a sophisticated understanding of human nature and aesthetics, true, but in the same plays he would include some of the bawdiest, most lowbrow jokes ever to be taught in a college course.   He recognized our human interest in both.
 

[afe_coda]

Heh, well, I did say I wasn't a scholar in these things. I suppose I've been fortunate enough to be dealing with mostly well-rounded gamers instead of addicted ones. My friends all enjoy video games, but they also all enjoy good literature and good music. From this vantage point, I can see why I wouldn't know about the unfortunate state of the majority.

This has been very informative and enlightening for me; I feel I can better understand the criticisms levied at my generation and the next, and having heard what you have to say I share the same concerns.

[phoenix_seraph]

 
Thank you.   *beaming*

Like you, I also know mostly well-rounded gamers -- it's one of the reasons I've become friends with Amzrigh!

However, I teach a lot of first year composition, literature, and rhetoric courses, which exposes me to a wider variety of young adults.   Furthermore, one of my M.A. specialties is pedagogy, and I try to keep up with the most current literature to be a better professor.   This means I have to become intimate with the most culturally diminished parts of our nation as well as the culturally involved.

For example, I've had students fall into panic attacks and chose to lose credit rather than willingly enter a library -- the notion of using a hard copy book instead of one online terrified them.   I have had a number of students who tell me they know all about narrative because they play video games, and then tell me that after playing video games, they can't understand why anyone would "waste time" reading a book.

With them, I try to use my pop culture background to ease them into becoming comfortable with both pop culture and so-called high culture.

I still worry about our nation, however.   So many lost souls to reach out to, so little time -- the standard teacher's complaint, I know.

I look forward to meeting you RL via Amzrigh someday.   You claim not to be a scholar, but you have made a lot of sense to me!
 

[afe_coda]

I said I wasn't a scholar on these things. :P I am a scholar, in general; I've got a BS in Computer Science, I work as a professional software engineer, and I enjoy teaching people on an informal basis. My hobbies extend to linguistics, music, and abstract mathematics. In short, I enjoy intellectual pursuits, and I put effort into thinking critically about my experiences when I want to make discussion on things like these. But I've never done any research on this stuff before, so my only data are the people I know.

It would be interesting to get to know you.