Classical Music ... I don't get it

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Classical Music is an immense amount of composers, styles, quality levels, transcriptions and performances.

 

 

True dat. Extremely diverse.

 

 

It plain sucks.....as a label....

 

 

As do most generalizations and labels. They aid but unfortunately also stereotype/trivialize communication.

 

 

apart the jokes (and the fact that it is made of many genres) for me it is like all other genres of music...2% is fantastic, 10% is good,30 percent is mediocre and what remains is an unbearable crap.

 

 

Much like any other genre. Well, no, that's probably a higher ratio than rock/pop.

[Ernest Buckley]

And you know, Mozart did have a lot of screaming girls. I think they created a sort of hype that made people like Mozart more.

 

I actually agree with that.

 

Seriously... you had to be there.

[UstadKhanAli]

Mozart did have quite a female following back in the day. He was sort of the classical David Lee Roth.

[alfonso]

 

Seriously... you had to be there.

 

 

Human mind is capable of visiting other places and other times. We tend to like what we know or at least what can make us "resonate" and recognize a part of ourselves. For example, while I find Mozart's Requiem a supreme masterpiece, some piano concertos very pleasing, other stuff of his is not really my cup of tea, for the same reasons that make me prefer the silence to a lot of hair metal or Celine Dion....not a judgement on quality but I just can't find anything of my inner world in it.

 

Knowledge is often based on projection and identification...I remember of a friend of mine who couldn't stand jazz music. One day in the early eighties I brought her to a concert not of ballads or dixieland or whatever "easy"...as someone wanting to "educate" would have thought...but to an Art Ensemble of Chicago concert, the one they opened rotating plastic tubes in the dark!

She got crazy that evening and became a fan!

Watching the genius at work live, seeing the humanity at it's creative best can give you that treasure of emotions that you can recall later when you play some music in your apartment or car, you have a "content" to fill those air movements coming from the speakers. Some times is some sort of an "easy" code, other times is your direct life experience, it all depends from your culture and acquisitions.

Music we don't like is the music we don't have an affinity with.

[alcohol]

Although the analogy sounds trite. Music is like a language, familiarity with the style is important, because each style has references to other pieces that preceded it. When styles emerge there is much redundancy, self reference. As the style becomes popular the references are to preceding works. Without those references, there needs to be a built in redundancy to give meaning.

 

In order to really appreciate any genre of music there needs to a sufficient exposure to the genre or else you miss the references, whether the references are compositional or to sonic textures.

 

To really appreciate classical music you need some exposure, then you'll get it. Luckily, we live in an age where the proliferation of recordings make it easy to do just that.

[BlueStrat]

And you know, Mozart did have a lot of screaming girls. I think they created a sort of hype that made people like Mozart more.

 

What's interesting is that Mozart had his detractors at the time, guys who were bitterly jealous of his success, saying he was not serious, he was too commercial, he didn't deserve the attention he was getting because he hadn't put in enough time, etc etc.

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

Classical Music is an immense amount of composers, styles, quality levels, transcriptions and performances. It plain sucks.....as a label....apart the jokes (and the fact that it is made of many genres) for me it is like all other genres of music...2% is fantastic, 10% is good,30 percent is mediocre and what remains is an unbearable crap.

Though I think your percentage breakdowns are unquantifiable and completely subjective, you are right in that what mistakenly gets labeled as classical music is not. The Classical was a period, just as was the Romance, the Baroque, the Roccocco, etc, and they were as distinct in their day as the difference between New Wave and death metal. It is a shame that Tchaikovsky or Dvorak gets lumped in with Beethoven and Strauss, as if they were anywhere near the same.

[Cry Logic]

Many people seem incapable of appreciating a genre

which doesn't reflect their own life experience.

 

IMHO those people are missing out on a lot of good music.

 

All they need, as Alfonso says in his post above, is the right

context and suddenly a light goes on and they get it.

 

As for Yngie ... well ... he's living proof that talent/technique

and good taste don't necessarily go hand in hand.

[alcohol]

What's interesting is that Mozart had his detractors at the time, guys who were bitterly jealous of his success, saying he was not serious, he was too commercial, he didn't deserve the attention he was getting because he hadn't put in enough time, etc etc. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Though I think your percentage breakdowns are unquantifiable and completely subjective, you are right in that what mistakenly gets labeled as classical music is not. The Classical was a period, just as was the Romance, the Baroque, the Roccocco, etc, and they were as distinct in their day as the difference between New Wave and death metal. It is a shame that Tchaikovsky or Dvorak gets lumped in with Beethoven and Strauss, as if they were anywhere near the same.

 

Nevertheless there is a continuum from Beethoven to Dvorak, which makes the lumping together somewhat cogent.

 

There is only the slightest connection between Chuck Berry and Beethoven, and a lot more disparity, which makes it understandable why someone could appreciate Berry and not Beethoven, and visa versa.

[blue2blue]

 

Nevertheless there is a continuum from Beethoven to Dvorak, which makes the lumping together somewhat cogent. There is only the slightest connection between Chuck Berry and Beethoven, and a lot more disparity, which makes it understandable why someone could appreciate Berry and not Beethoven, and visa versa.

Recommend Electric Light Orchestra's "Roll Over Beethoven" if -- unlike me -- one did not hear it to dreary death back when the Move first mutated into ELO. (I loved Roy Wood but I have to say that some ELO -- I'm a sucker for El Dorado, dang me -- really worked for me in an irresistably goopy but kind of haunting way. Sadly, they went from being one of the more interesting big pop outfits of the mid-70s to a hapless Bee Gees clone in the mass popularity phase of the disco era.)

 

_____________

 

 

As an OG punk who's seen probably around 130 symphonic concerts as well as a number of quartet and small ensemble concerts and recitals, I have to say that what folks often call 'classical' music can be enormously rewarding on a number of levels, though not necessarily all at once. The commercial dynamics of classical music mean that, outside the major art capitals, many orchestras must lean heavily on audience favorites (for obvious commercial reasons but also, in some cases, to help reduce rehearsal costs). So there are times when I'm watching some less-than-totally-intellectually-involving piece that I additionally find overexposed... at that point, I start focusing on the details... the playing, the majesty of the sound... and if it's something really pandering, to that cute blonde in the violas and the sexy Asian girl buried in the cello section.

[AluminumNeck]

Classical was the Pop Music of its day. Mozart was akin to the beatles.

[pink floyd cramer]

Anybody here have any public, classic-themed playlists on Rhapsody? I would like to give them a listen. I've been enjoying Rhapsody's "Classical Moods"and "Classical Piano" channels but they're a little "light". From the time I started piano lessons as a kid, I have always liked classical music but have gone for long periods of time forgetting about it.

 

+1 for Mozart's "Requiem" (my university choir performed it with full orchestra). I also was forced to play some Russian 20th century music and found I liked the moodiness and dissonance. Debussy gave me some insight into Bill Evan's music. But all that didn't keep me from getting into blues and rootsy, down-home music, both as a player and a listener. No reason why someone can't do both- but maybe it helps to be somewhat schizo.

[kurfu]

Mozart did have quite a female following back in the day. He was sort of the classical David Lee Roth.

 

Mozart used too many notes.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Classical was the Pop Music of its day. Mozart was akin to the beatles.

 

 

... and what did all the people listen to which did not fit into the concert hall, and did not have a ticket to the court where Mozart perfomed, nor had the money for the shellac records of Wolfgang?

[blue2blue]

... and what did all the people listen to which did not fit into the concert hall, and did not have a ticket to the court where Mozart perfomed, nor had the money for the shellac records of Wolfgang?

 

The music of the streets and bawdy houses, of course.

 

 

There was the music of the churches. There was the music of the courts and associated concert halls. And there was the music of streets, public houses, and brothels.

[Anderton]

... and what did all the people listen to which did not fit into the concert hall, and did not have a ticket to the court where Mozart perfomed, nor had the money for the shellac records of Wolfgang?

 

They listened to the band "Moe's Art," the inventors of the tribute band. According to reviews of that time, they actually weren't half bad.

[UstadKhanAli]

Mozart used too many notes.

 

Yes, that's what I've heard!!!

[blue2blue]

They listened to the band "Moe's Art," the inventors of the tribute band. According to reviews of that time, they actually weren't half bad.

 

I knew a band in the 90s called that and for a sec I though you were actually referring to them. Sorta. But a quick google made me realize it's a pun that has occurred to more than a few isolated souls... looks like there are a lot of Moe's Arts in this world.

 

[AluminumNeck]

It was the pop music of its time. there isn;t anything to face palm. Its simply was what it was and Mozart was famous for it. Also alot of orchestra performed for commoners as well.

 

The world really different vs today in that regard. Mozart was enormously famous and sucessful.

 

... and what did all the people listen to which did not fit into the concert hall, and did not have a ticket to the court where Mozart perfomed, nor had the money for the shellac records of Wolfgang?

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

It was the pop music of its time. there isn;t anything to face palm. Its simply was what it was and Mozart was famous for it. Also alot of orchestra performed for commoners as well. The world really different vs today in that regard. Mozart was enormously famous and sucessful.

 

 

You possibly watch too much Tinseltown kitch movies.

 

There where a few composers who where really successful at this time, for example Georg Friedrich H

[alcohol]

Now why I remember why I didn't get a graduate degree in musicology.

[chevybusa]

I never used to either...give it time....

[Ernest Buckley]

 

Or before Mozarts time, the court composer of Louis XIV, Giovanni Battista Lulli. He was so smart that he had the king sign a law that made Lully the only composer which can perfom music in Paris, all other had to sell their music to him in order to get a chance to be performed at all, Lully was some sort of Andrew Lloyd Webber of his time.

 

 

Or a Hans Zimmer... no?

[Jeff Leites]

How can anyone not like this?:

[YOUTUBE]

[/YOUTUBE]

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

Or a Hans Zimmer... no?

 

 

Ido not know Hans that good, I believe that I heard that he is into tinkering tinseltown soundtracks, something I did for years in Burbank, but I had to stop, it had nothing to do with music

[birt]

sorry for bumping this older topic but i noticed that in a discussion about classical music there is hardly any comment about contemporary classical music. there are many different approaches to it but Champ d'Action (an ensemble i worked with) goes pretty far. they also use various kinds of non-classical instruments, circuit bending, improvisation, circuit bending and children's toys. they even had a scratching deejay and a beatboxer on stage at one point.

 

ever heard a hoboists sound through a foot controlled Moog ringmod amplified through flying (and i really mean flying, with propellors...) speakers above the audience? this was incorporated in a piece that also included a surround system, 2 synths with vocoders, 2 trombones, tuba, 6 snares, 6 crashes, double kick, electric guitar, cello, violin, sax, flute, theremin, optical synth.... someone described this piece as classical music that didn't sound like metal but had the feel of a Dream Theater concert.

 

they also do a lot of experimenting with sound prior to making compositions..

 

allmost all of the composers and musicians are highly trained classical musicians who also teach Mozart and other old composers ;-)

 

here's some things to get you started if you want:

(sadly youtube doesn't let you hear the details of rubbing and hitting various parts of the body. i have the score for this and that alone is a piece of art )