Drop the Beet(hoven): Audience

In general music publications, certain assumptions are made with regard to the audience which are necessary to a deeper discussion of music ideas but often exclude anyone who does not have a specific education in western classical music. In an article about Beethoven and his Jewish contemporaries, many assumptions are made with regard to the audience. The article was transcribed from a lecture originally given at a Jewish music festival in association with the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe (Miller, pg. 1). Given these supporters, it is not surprising that both Jewish and Hebrew terms are used as well as specific references to Beethoven and other composers. It is not uncommon to see stray references to specific sonatas and movements with an expectation that these are familiar and perhaps even studied among the audience, much like a millennial in a public university would be expected to know Taylor Swift’s greatest hit songs regardless of their personal preference in music. This expectation is effective and many times necessary in western music discussions but can be difficult to understand for anyone outside of the field. (to Discourse Community: Music Grows New Arm)

On the other hand, the inter-field nature of music scholarship often makes music publications inaccessible to musicians themselves, because of the wide variety of expertise expected by other fields. The Jewish Publication above offers an excellent example of this, when terms like haskalah (referring to the Jewish enlightenment) are used with an expectation that the audience is familiar with it.

Another example of this is in an article about post-tonal music analysis using a specific computer program. After a few pages of this dense article, most readers (including myself) will be lost in the not only specific musical terminology but also the computer coding terminology: