MJ in Music classes

FullLipsDotNose

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Have you been taught in your Music classes (if you had them) about Michael? And if so, what level of education was it (elementary, secondary, university...)? What did you learn?

We did talk briefly about popular music in our lessons, but never really talked about Michael (although we discussed jazz, folk music, Beatles and such). Nor did we sing his songs :( It's really weird cause we were singing songs by famous rockers and folk songwriters, even a song by Paul Anka, but nothing else.
 
We discussed popular music in Art History classes and we talked about the major artists and influences of each decade from the 1960s to the 1990s. So naturally we learnt about Michael as well :) I wasn't a fan yet at the time so I don't remember too many details, but I do know that we watched the Thriller and Ghosts videos (long version) and we watched a sort of documentary with all the highlights of Michael's career. But my teacher was a big Beatles fan so we spent way more time on that :yawn:

As for Music classes, I stopped taking them as soon as they became elective (after two years) because I was never particularly "gifted" in that department, lol. But I'm pretty sure we never did any MJ songs. It was mostly folk music, classical music and Coldplay. Lots and lots of Coldplay -_-
 
We never discussed popular music in music class, only classical. I think my teacher probably didn't even like popular music. He seemed like that kind of very conservative music teacher. LOL.

We did listen to popular music in English class though as a part of our learning process (through song lyrics). Unfortunately our teacher did not seem to be an MJ fan so she never brought MJ's music, but she brought a variety of others. I learnt the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody in one of those classes. LOL. I remember we also learnt "You" by Ten Sharp. "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. And a couple of Euro dance songs as well that were popular at the time (early 90s) - like 2 Unlimited - "No Limit" (what complicated lyrics, LOL!), Haddaway - "What Is Love", Dr. Alban "It's My Life". Those are the ones I remember we listened to in English class.

I find it a bit sad that most of the time when I hear people mention discussions of popular music in music class that's almost always (very predictably and a bit boringly) limited to the Beatles. Surely they were influential but there is so much more colors to popular music than just them. Funk, soul, hip-hop, reggae, R&B etc.
 
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I remember that we sang "we are the world" together ,but we never discussed MJ or learned more about his music (that was 3 years ago) and that is very sad.I think we should have watched the thriller video at least!
 
IMO if a music class isn't strictly classical or something or something like that, while there are a lot of artist that should be learned about I think that the Beatles and MJ are a MUST (especially MJ because I'm an MJ fan).
 
In the music classes that I had in school. This was going back to my junior high days. Michael was literally someone we did not discuss or even talked about at all. All because of what was going on with him at the time. This was going back to 93. I was in 7th grade at the time. And seeing how the American media was with him at the time. He was someone we really could not talk about. Not even for a minute. Especially since everyone in my school except for me totally believe that he did that. In my school at the time it was not cool at all to like him. Let alone to even talk about him.:(
 
In the music classes that I had in school. This was going back to my junior high days. Michael was literally someone we did not discuss or even talked about at all. All because of what was going on with him at the time. This was going back to 93. I was in 7th grade at the time. And seeing how the American media was with him at the time. He was someone we really could not talk about. Not even for a minute. Especially since everyone in my school except for me totally believe that he did that. In my school at the time it was not cool at all to like him. Let alone to even talk about him.:(

I think often teachers stay away from discussing MJ even when they teach about popular culture because of the controversies and perhaps they do not know how to discuss them and what reactions they would get from the students, so it is safer for them to just avoid the topic. It is very unfair, because MJ is really someone who you should absolutely discuss when talking about popular music. There is no way around him in an honest and full discussion of popular culture.

On the other hand, I think also teachers are often of a certain demographics with a certain, predictable taste and preferences in music (Beatles, folk music, rockist aesthetics etc).
 
respect77;4159917 said:
I think often teachers stay away from discussing MJ even when they teach about popular culture because of the controversies and perhaps they do not know how to discuss them and what reactions they would get from the students, so it is safer for them to just avoid the topic. It is very unfair, because MJ is really someone who you should absolutely discuss when talking about popular music. There is no way around him in an honest and full discussion of popular culture.

On the other hand, I think also teachers are often of a certain demographics with a certain, predictable taste and preferences in music (Beatles, folk music, rockist aesthetics etc).

True dat.

We also did some lyrics in our English classes: Beatles, Bangles (ahem, ahem), and Green Day (erm). I think these performers were chosen cause our teachers' generation consisted of avid rock fans and I would argue that most of our class were into rock or punk. In fact, there were only 3-4 of us who listened to purely Black music (there was me, a girl listening to Sean Paul, a girl listening to Beyoncé, and a girl listening to hip-hop). Wait, there was a couple of Eminem fans back then...
 
Just spoke to my best friend who is at University studying for Bachelor of Recording Arts, more specifically the audio engineering side of it (she is a huge MJ fan herself). She said that sometimes in classes, they'll naturally end up talking about all sorts of things music-related. When I asked her if MJ is brought up, she said that "When referring to 'the greats' then yeah, otherwise not really haha. We had a class about Beatles recording techniques though".

I think often teachers stay away from discussing MJ even when they teach about popular culture because of the controversies and perhaps they do not know how to discuss them and what reactions they would get from the students, so it is safer for them to just avoid the topic. It is very unfair, because MJ is really someone who you should absolutely discuss when talking about popular music. There is no way around him in an honest and full discussion of popular culture.

On the other hand, I think also teachers are often of a certain demographics with a certain, predictable taste and preferences in music (Beatles, folk music, rockist aesthetics etc).

I sent her this message and while her class focuses more on the actual history of music itself (more so than the pop culture aspect), I still asked her if she thinks her tutors would avoid discussions on Michael because of controversies:

"Possibly. Or just because it's already common knowledge that he absolutely rekt the charts and was amazing at what he did. I imagine if my tutor was teaching and it got to talking about MJ he'd just be like "Michael Jackson - need I say more?" and everyone would just nod and move on hahha. But yeah I feel like it would be hard to talk about him without going into his personal life a little? And then when that topic of discussion starts its just a mess"
"Has that actually happened" [in reference to the "need I say more" line]
"Yeah sorta along those lines"
"And what about in comparison to his counterparts like Madonna and Prince?"
"More than both of them tbh - Madonna hasn't been mentioned tbh haha but we haven't really had a class on popular music/pop culture. Like we'll do genre studies but they'll be very brief cos obv u can't spend ages studying one genre so we'll look at he history and then very briefly look at how it's developed over the years and then fast forward to today - but we haven't looked at pop cos ya know... it stems from other things ahhaha"

Some perspective from someone who's actually studying university-level music classes :)
 
Back when i was in school Michael was considered a freak by many teachers and students. I vividly remember my music teacher giving me a dirty look when iI mentioned Michael Jackson.

Now, after his death and when the world finally woke up to the immense talent, i am sure the music classes are far more kinder to him. But in early 2000's, with all the molestation charges; Michael was taboo in my school..
 
I remember when I was in secondary school, I had music class and my teacher would bring up Michael Jackson. This was in 2003/4 and I had been a fan for 2 years then. I still know how nervous I was, because listening to Michael Jackson was something personal, something I always did alone, it felt too personal to share with a room of school children who'd make fun of him, especially with the teacher saying: this children's friend might end up in jail now he's facing charges. It made me so mad.
When we listened to We Are The World while watching the video, the whole group fell silent and was impressed. I remember this clearly. It is a special memory...
 
I'm waiting for my voice lesson right now. Through the door i can hear my teacher practicing "We are the world" with two young girls. So nice :)

Sent from my phone ?
 
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