Why classical music is classic
gozy
I'm a long time pop oriented musician (guitar, bass, banjo, whatever) mostly
self schooled. I've worn tuxedos, cowboy boots, ruffled shirts, baseball
caps or any combination of the above on gigs. I've played Carnegie Hall,
the Bitter End and places where you don't want to touch anything in the
bathroom or kitchen.
Driving home at 3 AM I do NOT listen to the type of music I've been playing.
Usually it's Art Bell or whatever NPR is serving up at that hour. Over the
years it's become apparent to me that the classical guys had (still have)
much more freedom than any of the pop guys. The pop guys have to write
within certain ill defined but inherently present parameters, without which
the tune will not be accepted by the target market, be it country, jazz,
rock pop or what have you. I know the old masters were often commissioned
to write certain pieces for specific purposes, but I still suspect they
worked with more of a blank canvas than today's pop composers could hope to
enjoy. These guys could use any time signature, any combination of sounds,
any inversion that pleased them. They weren't expected to go to the IV
chord after 8 measures. It didn't have to be "danceable". It's just stand
alone great music. Greater understanding might enhance my enjoyment; but
understanding or no, the music reaches out and grabs you.
How close to right am I?
Ray Kelly
is intended to be profitable. But I would say that "pop" music leans
heavily towards the marketing of a product. For certain artists, classical
and jazz music allows more artistic freedom, but the audience is smaller.
Along with the marketing budget!
Ray
"gozy" <go...@hotmail.comNEGASPAM> wrote in message
news:Gw4j8.13152$4H5.8...@news1.east.cox.net...
Gary Rodriguez
Great music is about art. There is only one audience the artist is trying to
please - himself.
When you are wondering if the public will like it - that's called "pop."
gary
Http://www.ampcast.com/garyrodriguez
"gozy" <go...@hotmail.comNEGASPAM> wrote in message
news:Gw4j8.13152$4H5.8...@news1.east.cox.net...
Tim Berens
<midi-...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Close.
>
>Great music is about art. There is only one audience the artist is trying to
>please - himself.
>
>When you are wondering if the public will like it - that's called "pop."
>
>gary
>Http://www.ampcast.com/garyrodriguez
>
There is a lot of bad music that is about art too. It seems to me
that a bit of wondering if the public will like it would serve many
"artists" well.
Tim
Childbloom
please - himself. >>
J.S. Bach did not claim to write for himself, but for the "greater glory of
God." There is every indication that this was not false piety on his part.
Searching for an audience is a habit that slipped the minds of many 20th
century composers. "Pop" music is also a 20th century phenomenon. Perhaps there
is a relationship between the extremes of one and the other.
Kevin Taylor
Ray Kelly
news:20020312132624...@mb-cn.aol.com...
There has always been of the music of the common folk, which one could
consider "pop" music. Previous to the 20th century only the elite were able
to attend formal concert and opera halls. But with the 20th century came
mass media, and the music of the people became "pop".
Ray
Richard Jernigan
news:1Esj8.78254$6j2.4...@typhoon.austin.rr.com...
The great artist working only to please himself is basically a 19th
century concept in European art music. It is an exaggeration and
oversimplification. Even Beethoven was concerned about public reaction,
though at times he disparaged it. Before the 19th century, the composer
was regarded as an artisan, producing a product for an occasion. His or
her workmanship was criticized or appreciated in the same way as that of
a painter, sculptor or architect. Even great individualists such as
Haydn viewed themselves within the cultural context, not as lonely egos
expressing some unique insight.
The idea of the lonely genius, creating great works only for himself,
was an idea that arose when the middle class began to have access to
paid concerts at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.
The hype has stayed the same, only now pop performers are hailed as
great geniuses. As it has been since the 19th century, some of them
believe the hype.
RNJ
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Paul Bonner
I'm unable to come up with the reference, but I believe in one of his
letters he excitedly described overhearing an errand boy humming a theme
from one of his operas then playing. That doesn't mean it's not also great
music.
Ray Kelly <kel...@austin.rr.com> wrote in article
<1Esj8.78254$6j2.4...@typhoon.austin.rr.com>...
JH
If you study music of different periods, you find a mixture of
approaches, but largely music is written in a form or style.
For example, the dance music of the late Renaissance has to conform to
the dance concerned. Clearly, rules.
In the baroque period, you have a quite well defined series of sets of
rules, depending on the period (early, middle, late), form (dance
suite, song, opera, oratorio, concerto or whatever) and often by
country as well. At various times an innovation would take off, or one
country would adopt the style of another to a greater or lesser extent
(eg. the French took over much of the Italian style, largely because
of Lulli).
The classical period saw a simplified style, compared to the baroque;
there were still clear if not always exactly defined rules that
composers had to keep to. The classical period saw the development of
sonata-allegro form, a very detailed rulebook for larger works.
Even in the Romantic era, you had to write particular things in
particular ways if you really wanted to make money from music. One
could define the Romantic era as a rule-bending period, and in
"serious" music, the 20th century could be called a rule breaking
period, but only for the existing "rules" defined in earlier periods.
Of course, it all depends on what you mean by "classical" music.
Mozart, for example, was clearly trying to write popular music for
much of the time, rather than "pure art" or for "posterity". Earlier
composers were mainly writing for their patrons, or the Church:
similar constraints in many ways to writing for a large record company
today, I suspect. Meanwhile, of course, much of what we call classical
today is stylised folk music of earler periods. I'm inclined to think
that rap music will in some way mutate to a "classical" concert music
in the next 200 years.
The rules, to me, seem important. If you keep to at least some of the
established ones, it makes your music easier for your audience to
understand. I think that music has to have an audience, even if only a
small one; part of its role is communicative. Having said that, all of
the great composers bent and broke the existing rules in some ways, or
worked to new ones. It's not like the rules of the road...
John H
"gozy" <go...@hotmail.comNEGASPAM> wrote in message news:<Gw4j8.13152$4H5.8...@news1.east.cox.net>...
Bob Ashley
> J.S. Bach did not claim to write for himself, but for the "greater glory of
> God." There is every indication that this was not false piety on his part.
So, to get this straight, that is, to situate this 'indication' within the
marketing frame in your mind, Kevin. Bach hired a consulting firm to do
market research, them finding that better to fan out to wide, but dilute
demographic, was to zero in on a tightly-focused, yet potent prospective
Client. Further, they would urge him that to develop and sustain this
'mono-market' he would have keep the faith in his Client at all times,
provide gold-medal service at all times, and remain fecund at all, both
gestationally in terms of fostering child-agents, and artistically, to
satisfy this Client's cosmic hunger for harmonies and melodies for His own
chorus of the Heavenly Host.
See, this isn't all just 'Greek', what with that pop-pantheon's heterogenous
diversity of divine caprice and fussiness.
> Searching for an audience is a habit that slipped the minds of many 20th
> century composers. "Pop" music is also a 20th century phenomenon. Perhaps
> there is a relationship between the extremes of one and the other.
Maybe it slipped their minds thenceforth from that day of dying gods, when
spake Zarathustra thus. Walmart doesn't open in a ghost town.
***
rib
--
Sam Culotta
"Bob Ashley" <ax...@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote in message
news:B8B56CB6.21728%ax...@chebucto.ns.ca...
Truely inspired, Bob, I don't care WHAT Zarathustra spake.
Sam
JCDSALSYM
>today is stylised folk music of earler periods. I'm inclined to think
>that rap music will in some way mutate to a "classical" concert music
>in the next 200 years.
I agree totally. Duets, trios, quartets, etc., were the "garage bands" of
earlier days, so why not?
John (living the classical life) Davis
John W. Blossick
>From: jed...@hotmail.com (JH)
>Date: 3/13/02 2:38 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id:
wrote:
<snipping nice post>
> I'm inclined to think
>that rap music will in some way mutate to a "classical" concert music
>in the next 200 years.
>
If it does...Thank goodness I'll be long gone by then.
Interesting proposition though..I'm more inclined to think that the future may
look back upon rap as a folk idiom of sorts. With any luck it will pass into
oblivion much like disco.
JohnB
Childbloom
<< So, to get this straight, that is, to situate this 'indication' within the
marketing frame in your mind, Kevin. Bach hired a consulting firm to do
market research, them finding that better to fan out to wide, but dilute
demographic, was to zero in on a tightly-focused, yet potent prospective
Client. Further, they would urge him that to develop and sustain this
'mono-market' he would have keep the faith in his Client at all times,
provide gold-medal service at all times, and remain fecund at all, both
gestationally in terms of fostering child-agents, and artistically, to
satisfy this Client's cosmic hunger for harmonies and melodies for His own
chorus of the Heavenly Host.
See, this isn't all just 'Greek', what with that pop-pantheon's heterogenous
diversity of divine caprice and fussiness. >>
Bob,
Inspired or not, I'm not sure what your point is, here. Are you writing for
yourself or for an audience? Certainly not one as simple as me.
My point was to state my belief that narcissism is not the wellspring of
creativity, that communication is an attrubute of true art and thus the
artist's success as value to others may be a function of either the reach to a
multitude or the impact to a few. Art cannot be solipsistic. It takes an ear
to hear (and make) the _sound_ of the tree falling in the forest, a mind to
respond to its crash.
Bach was a pious man whose music arose within a community of faith. I suppose
some creative persons find the consideration of others - either God or man -
distracting in their attempts to create art and must look away temporarily.
They risk the economic and spiritual consequence of irrelevancy. To denigrate
modern pop music because it purposely tries to engage an audience is misguided,
to my mind. I think that is one of its strengths. Pop music's simplicity and
naivete may generate valid criticism from persons of complexity. Likewise,
much "art music's" irrelevancy is equally and justifiably derided by the
simple. That is a dilemma that unfolds in a historical context and is the
source of much gnashing of teeth among unemployed artists. The employed ones
seem a bit more sanguine about the matter.
Kevin Taylor
Evan Pyle
"Childbloom" <child...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020314131301...@mb-fx.aol.com...
Childbloom
is an engaging topic for me.
There was a terrific music ed study done in the JRME during the eighties
exploring style preferences among children between 5 and 12 (I believe the
researcher's name was Larson.) Bottom line: all music is one to the innocent
ear. Music is preferenced according to salient features (speed, mass, volume,
regularity, timbre change, familiarity.) We rigidify as we age and this is
associated with our increased ability to discern style. The other conclusion:
we (children) preference what we (they) can do - regardless of style!
I asked musicians on the music theory newsgroup if they preferred listening to
music or playing music. Playing was preferred unanimously.
What does this have do do with the definition of "classical Music?" Perhaps
classical music (or any msuic) is not primarily an auditory art after all, but
primarily a kinetic one! The composers' muse is the player, not a listener.
That hypothesis is as initially repugnant to me as it is intruiging. What do
you all think? Do you prefer to play or listen? If so, are pieces or genres
categorized differently as to their play/listen worthiness ?
Kevin Taylor
Phillips Guitar Studio
suggestion at same time). I do find, personally, that I prefer to play.
Although I love to listen. I couldn't do just one or the other (be listener but
not a player, or the reverse).
S.
Childbloom wrote:
--
Phillips Guitar Studio
P.O. Box 836
Boston, MA 02103-0836
phillipsgu...@attbi.com
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Nuair a bhonn an cat amuigh, bonn an luch ag rince.
{ When the cat is outside, the mouse does be dancing. }
~Irish proverb
Bob Ashley
Engaging musings, Kevin.
> I asked musicians on the music theory newsgroup if they preferred listening to
> music or playing music. Playing was preferred unanimously.
I'll join the playful flock of lambs.
Though this unanimity alerts me to a danger, one along the lines which
cautions that there are lots and lots of billions of talkers in the world,
but perhaps, oh, maybe six or eight people on the planet who know how to
listen.
Or, the other pathology; none of us can sit still for two seconds and simply
listen to whatever goes on all around, music, a breeze in the treetops, the
sound of that powdery stuff from a butterfly wing alighting on mum petal.
> What does this have do do with the definition of "classical Music?" Perhaps
> classical music (or any msuic) is not primarily an auditory art after all, but
> primarily a kinetic one!
Nice thesis! Bold, vivid, and gosh by darn, who is going to prove it
wrong?!! I think you're on to something, Sir Isaac.
> The composers' muse is the player, not a listener.
> That hypothesis is as initially repugnant to me as it is intruiging. What do
> you all think? Do you prefer to play or listen? If so, are pieces or genres
> categorized differently as to their play/listen worthiness ?
I like to play classical guitar but listening to it puts me to sleep. I'd
rather floss my teeth with razor wire than play country music, but I get a
kick outa listening to it. Big Napoleonic symphonies remind of that great
masterpiece of oil painting, 'The Oath of the Horatii', the machismo of the
spectacle is comical to me, but I'd volunteer for Anthrax experiments for a
chance to be an oboist in the Nova Scotia Symphony. Listening to children's
songs, (performed by adults) makes me sympathetic to capital punishment, but
watching kids play elevates me to the status of the statue of the Virgin
Mary who cries blood.
I think you're on to salvation, Nightengale, and quite evidently, praise
Grace! for the ear-bone is NOT connected to the 'p'... i-m-a' bone.
***
rib
--
John Wasak
> What does this have do do with the definition of "classical Music?"
Perhaps
> classical music (or any msuic) is not primarily an auditory art after all,
but
> primarily a kinetic one! The composers' muse is the player, not a
listener.
> That hypothesis is as initially repugnant to me as it is intruiging. What
do
> you all think? Do you prefer to play or listen? If so, are pieces or
genres
> categorized differently as to their play/listen worthiness ?
> Kevin Taylor
>
This reminds me of when I was a litle kid and me and my best friend Richie
next door got either his Mom or my Mom (the mists of the past obscure the
correct Mom) to take us to the movies to see "The Alamo". Richie and I both
agreed that it was the neatest movie we ever saw. We wanted to see it again.
So we did. It was so neat that for the rest of the week we played Alamo. We
couldn't get "The Alamo" out of our minds. We were Alamo obsessed. We
fired our toy rifles, we got shot and killed, and always got up to do it
again and again. That's what you do when things are the neatest. You do it
again and again and over again.
Music and Guitar playing's no different for me than "The Alamo". It's the
neatest. I like to listen again and again....I like to play again and
again.
Some things never change.
JW
Bob Ashley
Kevin Taylor wrote:
> Inspired or not, I'm not sure what your point is, here. Are you writing for
> yourself or for an audience? Certainly not one as simple as me.
Sure, just a pointless excursion! A distraction, disruption, insurrection.
> My point was to state my belief that narcissism is not the wellspring of
> creativity, that communication is an attrubute of true art and thus the
> artist's success as value to others may be a function of either the reach to a
> multitude or the impact to a few. Art cannot be solipsistic. It takes an ear
> to hear (and make) the _sound_ of the tree falling in the forest, a mind to
> respond to its crash.
More seriously, this is nicely put. Though, I'm not sure anyone would to
the view that 'narcissism is the wellspring of creativity', unless that
person was an entrenched cynic, an antisocial iconoclast. I'd suggest that
narcissism may well present itself as creativity's baggage, something
creativity often lugs behind it.
> Bach was a pious man whose music arose within a community of faith. I suppose
> some creative persons find the consideration of others - either God or man -
> distracting in their attempts to create art and must look away temporarily.
Do you? My sense is of a craving to communicate, though, I'd admit that
'consideration of others' is thornier, more difficult phrase to refute. With
that in mind we might speculate backwards, that Bach had a bigger, rounder,
more well-developed ego than his advertised piety would have us believe.
But, historical relativism must prevail, precluding us from getting to
muscular about imposing contemporary ideology on figures from an earlier
epoch. This is my roundabout agreement with you, Kevin.
> They risk the economic and spiritual consequence of irrelevancy. To denigrate
> modern pop music because it purposely tries to engage an audience is
> misguided,
> to my mind. I think that is one of its strengths. Pop music's simplicity and
> naivete may generate valid criticism from persons of complexity.
All this resonates for me, except for one flat note, that word 'valid'. I'd
incline to say that 'Pop music's simplicity and naivete may generate
criticism from persons who privilege complexity and urbane standards. After
all, pop music's simplicity and naivete are no more or less valid than any
criticism of it.
> Likewise,
> much "art music's" irrelevancy is equally and justifiably derided by the
> simple. That is a dilemma that unfolds in a historical context and is the
> source of much gnashing of teeth among unemployed artists. The employed ones
> seem a bit more sanguine about the matter.
Okay, I get what you are doing here....even-handedness of criticism leveled
on both sides at once. It's a simple matter to agree, I'd say. Makes sense.
***
rib
--
Richard Jernigan
<snip>
> What does this have do do with the definition of "classical Music?" Perhaps
> classical music (or any msuic) is not primarily an auditory art after all, but
> primarily a kinetic one! The composers' muse is the player, not a listener.
> That hypothesis is as initially repugnant to me as it is intruiging. What do
> you all think?
Anecdotes from a teenage orchestra player:
Beethoven 3, Schubert 9, Haydn 92, Handel Water Music: all tremendously
exciting to play. Brahms 2, not quite so exciting.
From a teenage mambo player:
Oye como va (later covered by Santana), Perez Prado's Mambo #5 and
Cereza Rosa, various Tito Puente pieces (classics): all tremendously
exciting. Prado's Patricia (popular at the time, but no legs), not so
exciting.
From the '60s folk boom: everybody knew the St Louis tickle and various
other little collections of licks. And played them obsessively. Don't
hang around with fingerpickers now, so can't say about longevity.
And for the longevity championship: a dozen pieces by Dowland, and
Mudarra's Fantasia que Contrahaze la Harpa...
I've spent hundreds of hours playing the Mudarra, over and over, trying
to go a little faster, trying to get a sequence to ring just so. Any
listener would have been bored to tears, but my enthusiasm never
flagged.
> Do you prefer to play or listen? If so, are pieces or genres
> categorized differently as to their play/listen worthiness ?
I play five times as much as I listen. Classical and flamenco guitar.
I seldom listen to classical guitar, occasionally to flamenco. I listen
mainly to classical music of all genres except guitar, to flamenco
cante, and to a little of everything else from rock 'n roll to
Indonesian gamelan.
> Kevin Taylor
Richard Spross
Seems to me classical music, the music so defined as such beginning in the
1400's to the present. Is music which is enjoyed as an acquired taste by
individuals who are drawn to it. The body politic which enjoys classical music
may also enjoy other forms of music. Thus who says what depends on one's likes
and dislikes. People who have acquired taste in more popular musics are just as
bit discriminating about their likes and dislikes as a "classical" listener. In
fact much of the evolution of their musical preferences would lead them to
describe musics as classic to them. And to us who have lived awhile here we may
agree. We might say that Benny Goodman playing thus and such was "classic" in
comparison to something else he did.
We might say Frank Sinatra's middle period was "classic" and when he tried to
popularize a few songs later in his career, well maybe not so classic. Since I
am not in the history channel of popular music, I have little to draw upon, but
these arguments have been made to me and it seems to make sense.
If we are talking about musics which speak to generations of humanity long
after the life of the composer has ended, then where ever that music comes from
is likely to be the music which the body politic that seeks such nourishment
will find and will classify as classic.
Richard Spross
Childbloom
That made me laugh out loud. Obviously, Bob, you are one of those 4 or 5 who
listen.
Kevin
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
John Wasak wrote:
> (snip)
>
> Music and Guitar playing's no different for me than "The Alamo". It's the
> neatest. I like to listen again and again....I like to play again and
> again.
You had me going for a while. Thought you might say music and guitar
playing were like "die again and again."
Steve
>
> Some things never change.
>
> JW
--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001
http://www.dentaltwins.com
John Wasak
> John Wasak wrote:
> > (snip)
> >
> > Music and Guitar playing's no different for me than "The Alamo". It's
the
> > neatest. I like to listen again and again....I like to play again and
> > again.
>
> You had me going for a while. Thought you might say music and guitar
> playing were like "die again and again."
>
> Steve
> >
Well, I might have said that...if I'd thought of it. Never really know what
I'm about to write until I write it. Sometimes I surprise myself.
JW
Bob Ashley
rib rote:
> << for the ear-bone is NOT connected to the 'p'... i-m-a' bone. >>
Kevin wrote:
> That made me laugh out loud. Obviously, Bob, you are one of those 4 or 5 who
> listen.
I don't know when or where it happens that the mouth and eye got to be the
boss, then eyes second boss, then nose third boss and then, and if and only
if no one else is home, the ear gets to be last boss when no one around
which is frequently rare. Ever notice that when people gush wonder over the
beauty of anothers' features, it's done in this same hierarchical order of
preference?
But any press is good press so even when bad, the bad-mouth, big-mouth,
blabbermouth, still gets all the attention, then the evil-eye, beady-eye,
steely-eye, then way on down the line, the ear, the neglected Cinder-ella of
the senses, listening to all this boistrous brouhaha gets no press at all.
Though the speech circuit, the logos, must go fully half-n-half, between
production and reception to work at all, the mouth part is Caesar Augustus
or Ralph Cramden, the ear part Bob Cratchet. Only Cinderella and a few
misfit others in the sooty (like Bob C. and Alice Cramden) fireplace
appreciate reception at all.
I think it may have something to do with the emperor complex, there being a
Ralph C. or Augustus C. inside each of us yearning to address, not listen
to, our supplicant masses.
Of me, it has been remarked by my familiars, that I have my own Napoleonic
qualities. Though far to go still, my goal is to become a C, that C of the
Alice or -Ella variety.
I think I've just therapeuticized that egocentric impulse which favors
playing over listening. The former flings me on a trajectory leading to
Augustus. I suppose I shall have to quit the guitar some day to ram into
reverse this imperial inertia.
I have noticed the emperor-complex elsewhere, where for those to be listener
is tantamount to being a leper.
Where do I pay my fee for this therapy?
***
rib
--
Bob Ashley
> Well, I might have said that...if I'd thought of it. Never really know what
> I'm about to write until I write it. Sometimes I surprise myself.
There now. This serves notice that all manuals of style may now be
discarded.
As John knows and as John does, writing plops one into the role of midwife,
not of military strategist. The midwife is essentially disinterested,
neither favoring boy or girl, black or white, blue or brown eyes.
In the writing delivery room Generals McArthur, Grant, and Franks are
quaking pipsqueaks alongside the likes of one diminutive Jane Austen.
But I've seen John in his lemon smocks and aqua surgical mask, alert and
eyes a-dart, ready for whatever baby calls in the moment of his/her
toboggan slide into the world.
"Sometimes I surprise myself". John Wasak
Why don't they get this in Comp 101?
--
rib
--
John Wasak
> "Sometimes I surprise myself". John Wasak
>
> Why don't they get this in Comp 101?
> --
Probably because sometimes when you surprise yourself it's one of those
scary movie kind of surprises, like when you open the closet to get out your
Red and Black plaid woodsman's wool flannel shirt and find there's a troll
hiding in there... that's right, hiding just behind the Red and Black plaid
woodsman's wool flannel shirt that you just removed, and you think: "Wow!
what's this troll doing in here?... this is a closet not a computer." And
then the troll jumps out and says: "Hah! ... thought I only inhabited
computers did you?...Well now you know better...and if you really want to
know what a troll is, look in the dictionary!" With that the troll grabs
the woodsman's wool flannel shirt out of your hand, puts it on, and takes
your dog for a walk down the block. So now...the dog's happy , the troll's
happy and you're surprised...
See what I'm saying?
Scary surprises.... I think this is why they don't get this in Comp 101.
JW