The Importance Of Classical Music

From the rituals of Aborigines to the Catholic Mass, from minstrels to symphony orchestras, music is everywhere and pervades our life. People listen to music, to make their lives more human and civilized, to relieve the stress, or to elevate their minds. One’s preferences of music reflect one’s need, formulated by his way of living, which is determined by his social status. But if we continue to scrutinize this, how exactly does our respective socioeconomic status define our music preferences? It seems hard to draw solid conclusion from a qualitative background. Nevertheless, everything has its logic; the point is that it should be studied with a correct method. Meanwhile, the American society seems to have a reduced interest in classical music.

Considering that the subjects are undergrad students, in this case, the social status is measured by two standards: parents’ annual income and highest educational qualification. The education of the respondents themselves, since they are all undergrads, is determined by their ability to play any instruments. Most of the students taking part in this survey are of middle socioeconomic status. The result shows intriguing information. The respondents were asked to select their favorite genre of music, but also rating their fondness of other genres from 1 (hating) to 9 (love). Though none of the respondents rated classical music their favorite, some of them rated 9, and all of them can play instruments. This shows the importance of education on the formation of highbrow musical taste. They generally do not give a very low rating like 1 and 2 for other genres, which exemplifies that American undergrads have omnivorous tastes. Next the respondents were asked if they know the provided musicians, singers and bands. For less known musicians, the majority (83% avg.) of those who know them can play instruments. There is an analogous situation when the participants were presented with names of music. However, those

If they feel that they were not able to do so, they were provided with links to YouTube videos of the music to see if they have listened to them before and give their favorite one piece among them. Performance in this question is still associated with music education, not social origin. The respondent from lower class who can play the piano did much better than the one from upper-middle class who could not play any instrument. These people typically have less exposure to even “popular” type of classical