
Unexpected Thoughts Regarding Classical Music - rms
http://rinich.com/post/302316074/unexpected-thoughts-regarding-classical-music
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gb
Something that strikes me - whenever I've seen pieces like this before, they
often seem to ignore that people still write classical music. It's nearly
always Mozart, Beethoven, Bach but no mention of any modern or contemporary
composers... I wonder why that is. Sure some contemporary classical music is a
bit more esoteric and even less likely to appeal to the average listener, but
it's certainly not all like that.

Maybe I'm slightly unusual in that most of the classical music I enjoy comes
from the late romantic period onwards, but I do find it slightly disappointing
that often when people "discover" classical music they seem to think it mostly
stopped in the 1700s.

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jtnak
So what? Classical music will never have the same level of prominence that it
did before the 1900's. That's his point.

~~~
rinich
Actually, my point was that if we look at classical music and say "So what?"
we're losing a vast treasure.

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jtnak
What I was trying to say in my reply was that "he is ignoring the fact that
people still write classical music" is not a valid point. There are 6.7
billion people on this planet; if there are a couple of people with a hobby,
that does not prove anything.

~~~
rinich
Gotcha. But what if those "people with a hobby" are capable of doing
incredible things with music? They'd benefit from being in a field of music
that's _not_ neglected for being thought of as centuries-old.

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snitko
The reason classical music is less popular among the masses is not that it
does not appeal to emotions - a lot of people would argue with that. Half of
the story is indeed in the conservative nature of it (my father is a musician
and I know how he goes about interpretation of classical compositions, stage
appearance and all these rules).

But there's also another half of the story which is simply lack of education
in listeners. I only started to listen to different kinds of music (including
jazz and classical) after I played an instrument for a year. It takes
understanding and practice and since classical music is not really about any
social group (like, say, punk-rock or classical rock are to some extent) it's
hard for it to get this attention from people seeking for just emotional
satisfaction. Over time, when a person gets more musically educated (and I
mean doing music, not listening) his emotions require more intellectual
sources, which is the structure of the composition (harmony and melody) and
skills of the performers. That you can only appreciate when you try something
yourself.

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stcredzero
_another half of the story which is simply lack of education in listeners._

A lot of people just don't have the wherewithal to appreciate melodic music.
Melody just escapes them. They want chords and riffs to wash over them while
moving with a strong beat. The kind of lyric dance implied by other musical
forms escapes them, and they have no hope of appreciating anything that wasn't
once based on some kind of dance.

What really frightens me, though, are all these young people killing their
fine cochlear structures with headphones. The wispy nuances of acoustic music
don't even exist for them. They don't even exist in the same aural universe.

~~~
rinich
That's an utterly biased and thoroughly wrong accusation. Name one of those
songs lacking melody and I'll point out exactly what line could get stuck in
my head. Even songs that use chords as a hook don't get the entire chord
stuck: There's a single line that catches you.

The real problem is a little bit more complex: We instinctively set up divides
between us and things we don't know, so that we may more readily dismiss them.
I'm actually in the middle of writing a New Year's post about that now.

~~~
stcredzero
_That's an utterly biased and thoroughly wrong accusation._

I think not. If you are one of those people who can relate to snippets of
melody, then you are, _by definition_ , not one of those people devoid of
melodic perception. Or, are you assuming that your particular perceptions
represent the _entire spectrum_ of listeners of electronic music. I doubt
that's warranted.

What you do is fundamental to the human experience -- having a bit of music
stuck in one's head. Most of us are born with some ability like this. There
are entire musical traditions where this facility has been expanded and
developed to a very high degree, however. I can pay something like 350
distinct tunes from memory off the top of my head, well enough to perform in
front of a festival crowd. I probably have the "stuck in my head" impression
of another 700 or so tunes. I am not a prodigious talent in this way, however.
I know of traditional musicians who know something like 10,000 tunes, and 2 or
3 distinct versions of many of those.

I posit that musicians like _that_ have a better appreciation of melody than I
do. Their brains are very good at processing that kind of information, and
have processed much more of it. I also suspect that I have a slightly more
developed sense of melody than someone who can recall some catchy hooks.

~~~
rinich
I look at it another way. When I play classical music, I find that I develop
an appreciation for its nuances that I don't initially have. I start liking
every individual line for its melody, whereas at first I only hear one or two
things. And the more I listen to music, the more quickly I'm able to break
down new music that I listen to.

 _Most of us are born with some ability like this._

Exactly why I'm confused as to your initial point:

 _A lot of people just don't have the wherewithal to appreciate melodic music.
Melody just escapes them._

Now, in modern music there _is_ a branch that focuses on rhythm more than it
does on melody (in classical music as well as in pop). However, that branch is
still _exceedingly_ rare compared to the rest of what's coming out. People who
listen to Lady Gaga, the Jonas Brothers, and J-Lo are all listening to music
for its melodies. So it's not the fact that classical music is melodic that
turns them off.

My suspicion is that a part of it is an inability to really sympathize with
the music. Pulsating beats are more instantly relatable than a complex sonata,
which can be more readily dismissed as "tinkly classical nonsense" if a
listener's apathetic.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Most of us are born with some ability like this.

Exactly why I'm confused as to your initial point_

My point is about degrees of development. Also, note that I leave room for
_some_ people to be devoid of melodic sense. I've taught music, and I'll tell
you there are a few out there.

Heck, we're mostly all born with some degree of hand-eye coordination. That
doesn't all make us star outfielders or professional jugglers. Someone won't
develop a sophisticated appreciation of baseball just because they were born
with the baseline set of neuromuscular resources.

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teeja
"When I listened to Mozart last year, I thought classical music was all about
the composer. Today I realized the performer matters just as much"

That's certainly true to an extent. But some performers won't suit your taste,
and if you judge the music because you picked a poor performance (like you
might get on the cheap imports), you might miss some incredible music. I can't
stand Karajan's Beethoven, good thing I didn't start listening with him.

I can't tell someone exactly why I like Mozart best when Marriner's
conducting, or why Serkin just does the Emperor better. But once you know you
like a composer's work, then you'll start to prefer some performances over
others.

The great part is that this slowly changes all your life, and that really
great music _never gets old_ and you can repeat the same chills you got when
you were 20. It's a lot like Sherlock Holmes that way!

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julius_geezer
Education: One thing that strikes me in looking at Loony Tunes from (I
suppose) that 1950s is how many allusions to classical and folk music they
could slip in. I'm guessing that something has been lost in music education in
the schools over the half century.

Stodginess: as aristoxenus says, the classical stations do figure on an older,
more conservative audience. I used to get a kick out of a Washington, DC
station, since defunct. It wasn't unusual to hear a commercial with a relaxed,
folksy voice telling one how important the F-15 was too our national defense.

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patrickgzill
The author does not have a place for comments on his blog ... so I will use
this space to suggest that:

1\. anyone interested classical music should use Pandora.com to find out what
they like: I ended up with a lot of Telemann and Corelli as performed by Manze
and Egarr

2\. if you have space in your apartment/house, go on Craigslist and get a
decent set of speakers and a CD player and tuner/amp. Listening to classical
on headphones is good but listening in open air is better.

~~~
rinich
I never thought to use Pandora for classical music! Upvote for a marvelous
suggestion.

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sp332
It took Pandora a long time to get classical music into their system because
they weren't sure how to classify individual pieces. I mean, once you have a
dozen versions of the same song by different orchestras with different
conductors, the "What's your favorite song?" interface kind of breaks down.

~~~
jobrahms09
The crappy thing about classical music in Pandora is that if your piece spans
multiple tracks (a good 80% of classical music falls into this category -
multiple movements) you never get to hear the entire piece at once.

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aristoxenus
The main buyers and patrons of "classical" music turn out to be a pretty
conservative bunch. Have you ever listened to radio stations or concert
promoters try to be humorous or hip? It's generally pretty puritan and sad,
like something you'd find on the Disney Channel.

Until a new generation really takes ownership of this stuff, selling it to new
listeners will remain an endeavor with dwindling returns.

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jtnak
OK, so he said that classical music and the community around it is more rigid
than most newer forms of music and their communities, and that it's dying, and
the former might cause the latter. What is so unexpected, I wonder

~~~
rinich
Unexpected not perhaps for a vast audience, but for me. What you didn't
mention was perhaps the core of the post: Classical music isn't dead, it's
living and breathing and subject to interpretation. Then the points you
mentioned carry with them certain implications, namely that classical music
could benefit from irreverence and innovation, and that _modern_ music would
benefit from classical music's being made more accessible.

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jberryman
as a classical musician, this was inspiring and makes me feel happy :)

