Classical Music ... I don't get it

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

there is no such genre as "contemporary classical music"

 

except you just finished the first piece of music in this by you newly created genre

[indigo_dave]

For those of us who grew up with rhythmic music I recommend checking out Beethoven and Schumann. The piano music of both of them and maybe Beethoven's string quartets. Both were great at creating inventive rhythmic thrust in their music. And Beethoven was incredibly inventive in general. I figure he'll catch on one of these days.

[birt]

 

there is no such genre as "contemporary classical music" except you just finished the first piece of music in this by you newly created genre

 

 

right.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

there is no such genre as "contemporary classical music"

 

 

You might want to correct all these people then.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_classical_music

 

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to a period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism.[1] However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music from the death of Anton Webern[2] (including serial music, Concrete music, experimental music, etc.)

 

 

 

http://www.last.fm/tag/contemporary%20classical

 

The oxymoron

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

You might want to correct all these people then.

 

 

should i?

 

is anyone interested what is what, and what the names are of the different eras, genres and substyles of European music?

[UstadKhanAli]

Sure. I'd like to know that.

 

And I'd also like to know these things:

 

What do you call classical music that's been made since the 1970s or thereabouts?

 

And what do you call the music that the people in the above links are referring to?

 

And why does classical music necessarily have to be European since North and South Americans and Asians and Australians and whoever else I've left out also play classical music in the sense that we are discussing here?

[alcohol]

You can always tell an academic because they act like they have a constant hair across their ass.

[blue2blue]

The term classical -- as its used in the US anyway -- is overloaded.

 

 

The dates of the Classical period in Western music are generally accepted as approximately 1750 to 1825. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or seventeenth to the nineteenth. This article is about the specific period from 1750 to 1825. The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. The best known composers from this period are Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven ; other notable names include Luigi Boccherini , Mauro Giuliani , Fernando Sor , Muzio Clementi , Johann Ladislaus Dussek , Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach , and Christoph Willibald Gluck . Beethoven is also sometimes regarded either as a Romantic composer or a composer who was part of the transition to the Romantic; Franz Schubert is also something of a transitional figure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_period_(music)

 

And much contemporary orchestral and other 'serious' music bears no relation to music of the classical period. So it's pretty silly to call it classical.

 

Unfortunately, to most folks anything with more than two fiddles is "classical music."

 

 

 

You can always tell an academic because they act like they have a constant hair across their ass.

I'm a college drop out. But I have seen around 130 symphonic/orchestral concerts and a number of quartet and other performances, so it's something that's pretty real to me -- and I've wondered what to call modern stuff from Reich, Reilly, and Glass. Besides terminally self-indulgent.

[alcohol]

We all know what the colloquial phrase, "classical music," means and correcting it's colloquial meaning is an academic's conceit. Is there anything more boring than an insistent pedant? Sure, let's not go there.

 

Not referring to you blue2blue.

[Duddits]

Mark Leyner's father promoted all sorts of discrimination in his household, except against Chinese people. He figured that discriminating against that many people all at the same time just wasn't right, although every other ethnicity was fair game.

 

That's kind of how I feel about classical music. Saying I don't get classical music is generalizing about over 1,000 years of music. It's one thing to hate Baroque music, or classical music from the Classical period, or Romantic music, or "modern classical" or whatever you want to call it (although even that is so broad people who say they hate modern classical are probably excluding examples of it they happen to like). But to hate all classical music is impossible. Has anyone even heard all of it? If you remove stuffy concert protocol and classical cliches, I'm sure there's things they'd like. There always is.

 

It's like people who say "I hate vegetables." Then, you put a plate of some amazingly prepared vegetable dish spiked with bacon, if necessary, in front of them, they love it, and as a last resort insist it's not a vegetable. Too late. They do not hate all vegetables.

 

There are plenty of classical pieces that have plenty of bacon. Bring a classical hater to a good orchestra, sit them in the 5th row for Rite of Spring, and see how they react. Or put on a Brandenburg Concerto and drive over the Continental Divide. Or watch Star Wars, Koyaanisqatsi, or WALL-E. I'm sure there's something they'd like in there.

[arcaneaether]

 

Listen to Mozarts Requiem... if you don`t feel it, you`re dead.

 

 

So very true. I'm part of a philharmonic choir at the university I attend and we performed it last night, even though I'm more of a rock, alternative etc. fan myself, yet the effects of hearing and singing it still linger! But that whole piece of music is just mindblowing. Technically, it's astounding of course. But emotionally, I don't think even the best popular songwriters (maybe one or two) can match it. Beautiful stuff.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

Sure. I'd like to know that. And I'd also like to know these things: What do you call classical music that's been made since the 1970s or thereabouts? And what do you call the music that the people in the above links are referring to? And why does classical music necessarily have to be European since North and South Americans and Asians and Australians and whoever else I've left out also play classical music in the sense that we are discussing here?

 

 

 

Kunstmusik, Musikstile der europ

[blue2blue]

We all know what the colloquial phrase, "classical music," means and correcting it's colloquial meaning is an academic's conceit. Is there anything more boring than an insistent pedant? Sure, let's not go there. Not referring to you blue2blue.

 

Well, I am, too... so, you know. It's just that in addition to being pedantic, I'm also highly disagreeable and contentious, often enough. And utterly dogged in my pursuit of an argument.

 

But my self-knowledge is pretty good...

 

 

 

But, you know, one wouldn't have to do too much googling to find me using "classical music" in the colloquial/umbrella sense in which it is so often used or misused, and which I decry immediately above. [so, in addition to being pedantic, contentious, and disagreeable, I'm also a bit of a hypocrite. ]

 

Now, for better or worse -- and I hate to tell some of you all this -- to large and increasing numbers of regular folks "classical music" means Boston, Led Zep, Eagles, Deep Purple, etc... I see that use/interpretation over and over again -- particularly if someone else has already used the idiomatic term "classical" without prior qualification in the dialog...

[Lee Knight]

 

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.

 

 

Good points. For me... I joined a Recorder Ensemble in high school. Hey, it was music, might be fun. Next thing I know, my simple little single note line I played on alto recorder was being wrapped in 7 other lines doing all different things. And I swore that little line of mine, (Bach's actually) was something more... than just a little single note line.

 

How could that one note mean that...

 

That was the first time I really got it. And it started me listening in a different way.

[Bookumdano2]

I'm kinda thinkin' maybe even I could do this-