in defense of rock music
Alex Temple
rec.music.classical. I love classical music, but not exclusively, so
when I saw a thread called "Besides Classical, What Music Genres Do You
Like?", I was curious. I opened it, and was rather shocked to find
statements such as "all rock is crap" and "anything close to rock is
crap". Not just de facto--automatically, simply because it is rock.
I am a person who loves both classical and rock music. Admittedly, if I
had to choose one type of music to take to a desert island, it would be
classical. However, there is some rock that I think is really
excellent. So I'm going to defend it.
First of all, we need to get definitions straight. What does "rock"
mean? Does it have to have electric guitars? Does it have to have
vocals? Does it have to be based on blues progressions? Does it have
to be syncopated and in 4/4? Those may have been elements of the
original definition, but there are plenty of exceptions that people
would unquestioningly consider "rock." To limit the definition of
"rock" to a description of the way rock started would be equivalent to
saying anything after Gregorian chant is "not classical music." So, I'm
going to propose some possible differences between rock and classical
music that denigrators of rock music would probably agree with.
1. "Rock music is very limited in instrumentation--voice, bass,
guitars, drums, maybe a synthesizer--whereas classical music has a huge
variety of instrumentation to choose from." This is simply false.
There are plenty of rock bands that use some classical instruments, and
some use only classical instruments, such as Volapuk (clarinet, cello,
percussion) and Rasputina (three cellos and voice). Rock albums that I
own include such instruments as violin, flute, piano, pipe organ,
trombone, hammer dulcimer, euphonium, flugelhorn, cimbalom, mellotron,
musical saw, oud, timpani, banjo, accordion, harpsichord, theremin,
vibraphone, jew's harp, panpipes, xylophone, chahanai, air organ and
water harp. In one extreme case, the French band Magma used full brass
and percussion sections and a choir in their album "Mekanik Destruktiw
Kommandoh." (Incidentally, anyone who automatically denigrates
electric guitars should note that they've been used in classical music
by such composers as George Crumb, Alfred Schnittke, Steve Mackey, Louis
Andriessen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzystof Penderecki, Peter Maxwell
Davies, Charles Wuorinen, Michael Tippett, Mauricio Kagel and Hans
Werner Henze.
2. "Rock music is just about making money, while classical music is
about sincere expression of emotion/intellectual rigor." First of all,
classical composers have been known to sell out. Listening to Mozart's
late masterpieces shows his capacity for genius, but you'd never know it
listening to most of the fluff he wrote to please the aristocracy.
Copland started writing his bland folk-inspired stuff only after he got
sick of being insulted by critics for his dissonant, Stravinsky-esque
and far superior early work. More importantly, though, there is plenty
of sincere expression of emotion and intellectual rigor in rock--not in
all rock, of course, but in some. Songs like Jefferson Airplane's
"Comin' Back To Me" (no connection to the Celine Dion song) or The
Incredible String Band's "First Girl I Loved" are as poignant and
beautiful as Schubert's "Die Erlkonig" or Ives' "Tom Sails Away". And
as for intellectual rigor, there exist such things as rock fugues
(Gentle Giant's "On Reflection"). There are also rock albums, such as
the 5uu's "Crisis in Clay", which contains true motivic development.
3. "Rock music is all in 4/4, while classical music has enormous
variety in terms of rhythm." Also wrong. There are plenty of bands
(Thinking Plague is an excellent example) that use irregular rhythms
such as 5/4 and 7/4 on a regular basis, and sometimes even polyrhythms.
Even a song as successful as Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" has long
sections in 7/4.
4. "Rock music is harmonically limited, while classical music is
harmonically varied." Also not true. First of all, even some
relatively simple rock songs, such as the Beatles' "Because", Jefferson
Airplane's "rejoyce" or Radiohead's "Just", have some very complex chord
progressions. But more important are bands whose music is polytonal or
atonal. Some, like Kukl, reached this level of harmonic complexity by
extending the language of rock, exactly as composers from Beethoven to
Schoenberg did with classical music. Others, like Thinking Plague,
draw their inspiration directly from 20th century classical composers:
Thinking Plague guitarist and composer Mike Johnson says, "My main
influences are still the 20th century composers". To go even further,
bands from Sonic Youth to the Art Rock Circus have written music with
non- standard and microtonal guitar tunings.
5. "Rock music is improvised over chord changes, while classical music
is notated, and therefore more precise." While not all non-notated
music is vague or unmusical--the majority of classical musicians
acknowledge that jazz can be artful--there is in fact quite a bit of
rock music that is notated. Cuneiform Records says that their catalog
has "an emphasis on rock bands playing intricate, rehearsal intensive
music," and that it includes many "rock bands who are rock bands only
because of their instrumentation." (Note: while I did argue that
something can be considered a rock band without rock instrumentation, I
think anyone would agree that a vocals-guitar-bass-drums combo is a rock
band, so the idea of considering something a rock band because of its
instrumentation doesn't contradict what I've already said.) You can go
to their website, http://www.cuneiformrecords.com, and listen to sound
samples from Cartoon, the Danubians, Otolithen, Thinking Plague and the
Motor Totemists Guild--and, whether you like the music or not, you can't
deny that it's complex and sophisticated.
6. "Rock music is about 3-minute songs, whereas classical music
produces works that are multiple hours in length." First of all, there
are some excellent rock songs (The Legendary Pink Dots' "So Gallantly
Screaming" or Thinking Plague's "Organism" are good examples) that are
over ten minutes long. There are also some excellent classical
pieces--such as Chopin's Preludes, Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze,
Scarlatti's sonatas, Schoenberg's Op. 19, and most of Webern--that are
very short. But more importantly, the proper analogy is not between a
classical piece and a rock song, but between a classical piece and a
rock /album/. There are a lot of albums that are very clearly designed
as a whole, whether because thematic material is shared between songs,
because there are no breaks between tracks, or because it simply forms a
satisfying dramatic curve. The "concept album" dates back at least to
the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967) and maybe to
the Mothers of Invention's "Freak Out" (1966), and I would argue that to
some extent the American LP version of the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" (1965)
is designed to be listened to as a whole. But since that time, there
have been more successful examples of the same idea, a prime example
being Kukl's "Holidays in Europe" or the Olivia Tremor Control's "Black
Foliage." There are also bands who release 30+ minute albums that are
entirely on one track, such as Faust's "The Faust Tapes."
7. "Rock music is in service of the lyrics, whereas in classical music
the music comes first." I actually have heard claims to this effect,
and while it may be true of Britney Spears, it's certainly not true of
all rock. Not only are their bands and rock musicians who have released
all-instrumental albums (Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma", for example, or Leo
Kottke's "One Guitar No Vocals"), but there are bands who don't even
have vocalists! These include Tortoise, Rachel's, Volapuk, Biota (until
their most recent album "Object Holder"), Forever Einstein, Aksak
Maboul and Djam Karet, to name just a few. There are also bands who
bury their vocals so deepy that the lyrics are inaudible, such as The
Frosted Ambassador, and bands whose prosody is so bizarre that it's
clear that they write the music first and then write lyrics to go with
it, such as Mr. Bungle. Finally, there are bands I love whose lyrics I
can't stand! The 5uu's are an excellent example of this. I wince when
I think about their lyrics--so obviously it's the music I'm reacting to.
8. "Rock music is stagnant and derivative, while classical music is
constantly pushing the boundaries and innovating." This is the most
ridiculous claim yet. There has been an avant-garde rock scene starting
with the Mothers of Invention and some of the more out there psych bands
in the 60s, continuing with Faust, Can, the Residents, Magma, Henry Cow
and the whole RIO school in the 70s, and with Nurse with Wound,
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic and Current 93, as well as Thinking Plague and
the other Totemists in the 80s. The 90s has brought the continuation of
many of these bands, as well as many new bands such as the musique
concrete ensemble The Black Swan Network.
As you can see, I'm not convinced that there /is/ a firm boundary
between rock and classical music. You can't even say that rock is
released by groups of people, because there is a long tradition of solo
rock musicians from Bob Dylan to Tim Hodgkinson. Worse, you can't say
that rock is released to the world at large in the form of recordings
instead of scores, because the same is true of electronic classical
music such as Ligeti's "Artikulation" and Stockhausen's "Gesang der
Junglinge." Admittedly, the stereotypical rock and classical music
(say, Metallica and Beethoven) are as far away from each other as two
types of music could possibly be. But at the fringes, distinctions
become difficult.
I'm not saying that rock music has produced anything at the level of
"The Well-Tempered Clavier" or "The Rite of Spring." But it's only been
around for about 45 years! Masterpieces don't come along that often.
And because of the nature of the music industry and who the main buyers
of rock are, intelligent rock music is usually forced underground. If
Gyorgy Ligeti wants to write a great piece of music, he can rest assured
knowing that the classical music world--at least, the modernist
classical music world--will accept it. A rock musician has to deal with
the knowledge that his music will be unaccepted by the mainstream
popular music world, and rejected by a lot of classical music listeners
simply because it is rock. But I do think that the fuzziness of the
rock/classical boundary is evidence that it could happen. If the next
Schoenberg wants to create the next "Pierrot Lunaire" (or whatever) by
forming a band and performing it himself... well, why not?
Finally, I would like to say that, in my opinion, nobody has the right
to say that "all rock is crap" until they've listened to each of the
following at least twice:
ALBUMS
1. Thinking Plague: "In This Life" [an amazingly-crafted album of
complex rock songs ranging from 3 to 15 minutes, making constant use of
irregular rhythms and non-tonal harmonies]
2. The Legendary Pink Dots: "Island of Jewels" [a very interesting
integration of beautiful, if poppy, harmonies, modern-classical
experimentation (including a string orchestra piece!),
pre-modern-classical instruments and phrasings, music-theatre drama, and
80s drum machines]
3. Kukl: "Holidays in Europe" [a little like a rock "Pierrot Lunaire":
half-spoken vocals over an often atonal background. scary as hell,
too.]
4. The Olivia Tremor Control: "Black Foliage" [a 70 minute composition
of psychedelic pop songs and musique concrete, played on a huge variety
of instruments
SONGS
1. The Beatles: "Because" [some very startling chord progressions]
2. Radiohead: "Paranoid Android" [parts in 7/4, a choral-sounding
middle section, and some surprisingly artful use of electric guitar
noise]
3. The Incredible String Band: "First Girl I Loved" [quite simple, more
of a folk song, but very powerful]
4. Gentle Giant: "On Reflection" [a rock fugue]
EXCEPTION: If you think all modernist music is crap too, and can't stand
a note of
Bartok, Schoenberg or Stravinsky, you may as well give up right now.
Gert Ouderits
groups that bring very good classical influenced parts, Yngwie Malmsteen,
Vow Wow (break down), Stratovarius (yes, that's a hard rock group), Dream
Theatre and more .....
Alex Temple schreef:
you...@net.com
A well-thought out post with many good points. Still, without glossing
the
post directly, I'd like to take some general exceptions to it in terms
of
aesthetic logic.
1. There is no reason why classical and Rock should be argued
antithetically like this. This is still limiting the aesthetic issues
involved. One does not argue, for example, that "cinema is still young;
give it time and it too will produce a master like Dante or Milton or
Shakespeare." Cinema has its own aesthetics; it is, indeed, old enough
and
has proven its aesthetics. It need go no further. Either take the
cinematic masterpieces on its own terms, or leave 'em alone.
2. Same with range of instrumentation. There is no INHERENT
aesthetic
virtue to having a lot of instruments in your piece! I need go no
further
than speak the talismanic words, "Violin Partita" and Cello sonatas of
Bach
to clinch my argument.
3. Same with chord progressions, and all the rest. "Maybelline" is
a
towering masterpiece PRECISELY because of its august simplicity (like
Bach's
C-major Prelude, for example; or, for that matter, the simplicity of
late
Yeats, late Beethoven as in the C-major Chorale tune that a child can
finger
bit by bit on a toy piano or late Eliot).
4. Trying to correlate Rock and classical is a fruitless exercise
and,
in any case, concedes too much already in the doing than receiving an
equal
amount in the conclusion. Everly harmonies stand on its glorious own; I
don't care whether one compares them to classical choral music, or
Poulenc's
Stabat Mater, or oratorio or the Baroque period or Romantic period or
whatever. As Jesus says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. That's
what all musical aesthetics comes down to really. If you can't hear the
musicality in a Blind Lemon Jefferson or Everly track or Beatles song or
Jerry Lee Lewis cut or Elvis hit or Miles Davis solo, then the music is
not
for you. Comparing it with other types of music may help a little but,
ultimately, it is self-defeating; because the music stands on its own or
will not stand at all. The music creates its own aesthetic rules.
Alex Temple
> Alex Temple wrote:
> A well-thought out post with many good points. Still, without glossing
> the
> post directly, I'd like to take some general exceptions to it in terms
> of
> aesthetic logic.
I'm not saying there's no value in more traditional rock; my CD collection
includes the Beatles, the Doors, Country Joe and the Fish, and so on. The
point of my post, however, was that there is rock that you can enjoy even
if you
a) have a classical-related aesthetic of what makes music good, or
b) like very complex music.
Whether or not there is value in rock music that's further from the
rock/classical boundary is irrevelant to those who claim that rock is
crap--I need to cite the boundary examples to prove my point.
Oisk17
Why close your otherwise interesting post with this?>
>Usenet TROLLS who have had their ass kicked:
>John E Harrington AKA "jbayer34" 4/2/01
Do you think you are the winner because you call yourself the winner, or that
John is the loser because you say so? You are hardly an impartial referee!
Would you be amused if I closed all my posts with something like "Arrogant
punks who think they can kick John's ass...Myron Stackpool"? I think not, and
I would not do it, nor do I consider you an arrogant punk.
Respectfully,
Paul Cohen
you...@net.com
Well put; however you might have included this "a fortiori" caveat in your
original post.
Still, I think my own point is worth repeating. Gregorian chant, for
example, needs no apologies, no more than a Cimabue painting. It does not
need to be "rehabilitated," as it were, by contemporary classical aesthetic
norms, as, for example, often Bach was rehabilitated in romantic
arrangements. (And, by the way, I have nothing necessarily against these
arrangements; I believe anything that sheds a different perspective on a work
is productive, and aesthetically productive, provided, however, that it is
kept in respectful, if not reverential, bounds: the work is superior to my
arrangement of it; nonetheless, this may help some listeners get access to the
work.)
To me, a Duane Eddy instrumental is definitive in itself. That's what
makes it great and enduring art. I have no desire to rehabilitated or
"normalize" it in terms of classical aesthetics, as if it were aesthetically
abnormal to begin with!
Same with the Beatles. And, by the way, this kind of mechanical aesthetic
normalization of other art is probably why some inferior versions of Rock are
often considered "superior," precisely because they "normalize" or otherwise
attenuate the Rock aesthetic; in the same way, for example, that, say, the
films of Ingmar Bergman were preferred over the films of Hitch or Hawks;
because Bergman's films are, in many ways, adulterations, in their leanings
towards traditional visual aesthetics, of the cinematically pure audio-visual
lexicon. And if you don't "get" a Hawks movie on its own pure, or, if you
will, rareified, terms, then why bother. One might as well "improve"
Shakespeare by writing him up as colorful novel with a lot of explanatory
passages.
"Wake Up Little Suzie," "Good Golly, Miss Molly," "Maybeline," "Stalkin',"
and "La Donna e mobile" are sublime in their aesthetic vulgarity. It's like
Woody's famous joke about sex, that it's dirty, at least if it's done right!
Well, Rock is gritty, at least if it's heard right. If one hears Jerry Kern
in a rock song (for example, Yesterday), then something is wrong with the
song. "Wake Up LIttle Suzie" is a far greater Rock song than "Sounds of
Silence," because the Simon song tends to attenuate the glory of Rock's
aesthetics (I'm not dismissing Simons' song, which has its own peculiar charm,
I'm just saying it is nowhere near the masterpiece that "Good Golly, Miss
Molly" is).
Mike O'Sullivan
electronic devices rather than genuine musical instruments. It seems to be
largely the product of sound engineers and other manipulators, and to be
largely devoid of humanity.
.
"Alex Temple" <fiber_opti...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3ACF624C...@yahoo.com...
Archer070
--Leaonard Bernstein
Archer070
Leonard Bernstein
Alex Temple
> Alex Temple wrote:
>
> > Whether or not there is value in rock music that's further from the
> > rock/classical boundary is irrevelant to those who claim that rock is
> > crap--I need to cite the boundary examples to prove my point.
>
> Well put; however you might have included this "a fortiori" caveat in your
> original post.
Of course not! That's like defending gay rights to a member of the religious
right and starting out your message with "by the way, I'm an atheist." He'll
discount everything you say.
> To me, a Duane Eddy instrumental is definitive in itself. That's what
> makes it great and enduring art. I have no desire to rehabilitated or
> "normalize" it in terms of classical aesthetics, as if it were aesthetically
> abnormal to begin with!
>
Wait a minute!! Rock that's influenced by classical music is not
"normalization"! It's experimentation! You're being just as purist as the
anti-rock snobs on this newsgroup, and you're being prescriptive about what rock
"should" be. Art can't get anywhere if people insist that everything should stay
at its origins! There may be some value in the grittiness of rock 'n' roll
before 1965 (or whenever), but that doesn't mean that all further experiments,
whether based on classical music or not, are worthless, simply because they have
a degree of refinement and complexity that isn't "natural" to rock music!
Classical music's aesthetics have changed enormously over time--do you see much
similarity in Hildegard and Henze?
Alex Temple
> My objection to most pop music is based simply on its' reliance on
> electronic devices rather than genuine musical instruments. It seems to be
> largely the product of sound engineers and other manipulators, and to be
> largely devoid of humanity.
> .
Of the music I suggested as "recommended listening" at the end, some use
acoustic instruments and others use electronics.
Do you consider an electric guitar "not geniune"? How about a clarinet with
a pickup? Are Crumb's amplified instruments "fake"?
On the flip-side, do you think that an electronic piece like Ligeti's
"Artikulation" is devoid of humanity?
Electronics can be used in very human ways, /if they're done right/.
Particularly successful (imho) are live players and electronics
simultaneously, as in Davidovsky's "Synchronisms #6" or a live Olivia Tremor
Control show.
Alex Temple
> "She's Leaving Home" is as good as anything Schubert ever wrote.
>
>
I hate that song! :P
you...@net.com
> On Sun, 08 Apr 2001 14:05:48 -0700, you...@net.com wrote:
>
> > "Wake Up Little Suzie," "Good Golly, Miss Molly," "Maybeline," "Stalkin',"
> >and "La Donna e mobile" are sublime in their aesthetic vulgarity. It's like
> >Woody's famous joke about sex, that it's dirty, at least if it's done right!
> >Well, Rock is gritty, at least if it's heard right. If one hears Jerry Kern
> >in a rock song (for example, Yesterday), then something is wrong with the
> >song. "Wake Up LIttle Suzie" is a far greater Rock song than "Sounds of
> >Silence," because the Simon song tends to attenuate the glory of Rock's
> >aesthetics (I'm not dismissing Simons' song, which has its own peculiar charm,
> >I'm just saying it is nowhere near the masterpiece that "Good Golly, Miss
> >Molly" is).
> >
>
> I'm following your posting, and agreeing with you but I
> wouldn't have called 'Sounds of Silence' a rock song,
> myself. Just because Paul Simon has written rock, doesn't
> mean *all* his songs are rock.
>
> Hmmm...now am I opening a can of worms? What's the
> definition of rock?
>
> Pat
This itself poses an interesting problem of defining styles according to an object
aesthetics, pragmatic aesthetics, audience reception, and so forth. I'd say,
Simon's song is Rock based on audience reception: the Rock audience treated Simon
(and his records) as Rock records. Also, don't forget, Silence failed on its first
issue; it was not until an electric guitar was added to the mix that it took off.
So that electric guitar made it Rock, rather than folk. So now we mix reception
aesthetics, audience response, and object aesthetics (electric guitar),
biographical factors in aesthetic evaluation (Simon has prospered in a Rock
aesthetic, not a folk aesthetic), and you get Silence as mostly a Rock song. Of
course, Silence may count as the dividing line between Simon's folk period and his
nascent Rock period. But a hallmark of even early Rock, anyway, has always been
its cross-cultural forms: Simon himself has dabbled in a variety of forms,
self-consciously so, as with Folk, Gospel (he's a big fan of the Swan Silvertones,
among other Gospel groups), African musics, Tin Pan Alley music, Doo-Wop singing
(his musical has a great Doo-Wop cut), Latin-American influences (Me and Julio),
jazz (much of Still Crazy) and almost everything in between (remember the Philip
Glass coda on one of his albums, following the reference to John Lennon and Johnny
Ace. Thee's also the homage to Chuck and Every stylings on the Live in Central
Park album (as if we need to be told of the Everly influence on S&G!).
you...@net.com
> "She's Leaving Home" is as good as anything Schubert ever wrote.
>
> Leonard Bernstein
>
>
And who, may I ask, is Schubert?
you...@net.com
> you...@net.com wrote:
>
> > Alex Temple wrote:
> >
> > > Whether or not there is value in rock music that's further from the
> > > rock/classical boundary is irrevelant to those who claim that rock is
> > > crap--I need to cite the boundary examples to prove my point.
> >
> > Well put; however you might have included this "a fortiori" caveat in your
> > original post.
>
> Of course not! That's like defending gay rights to a member of the religious
> right and starting out your message with "by the way, I'm an atheist." He'll
> discount everything you say.
Unfortunately, what you're doing here is no longer rhetoric (at least not in the
Aristotelian sense), but polemics. There's a difference. We're not talking, in
classical rhetoric, about burning bridges, but building them. And a forteori
arguments will never burn a bridge, unless one's auditor is a complete idiot in the
first place, or you're speaking to an angry mob (say, a lynch incident). Even then,
well-chosen AF arguments are very effective.
>
>
> > To me, a Duane Eddy instrumental is definitive in itself. That's what
> > makes it great and enduring art. I have no desire to rehabilitated or
> > "normalize" it in terms of classical aesthetics, as if it were aesthetically
> > abnormal to begin with!
> >
>
> Wait a minute!! Rock that's influenced by classical music is not
> "normalization"! It's experimentation!
Wait a minute! We're talking two different things here: One is Rock aesthetics; the
other is arguing Rock aesthetics. Rock is whatever a Rock artist wishes it to be;
that's agreed. If The Beatles want to call Yesterday a Rock song, Rock automatically
assimilates that song into its vocabulary, just as it assimilated gigues, pavanes,
hornpipes, and all the rest in Handel's and Bach's baroque period. By definition, if
Bach uses a gigue, it becomes classical; if Handel uses a hornpipe, it becomes
classical (baroque); if The Beatles use a sitar or a string octet, it becomes Rock.
BUT if I argue for a Rock aesthetics, I cannot argue what are not necessarily
integral instrumentations in this field. In the same way, I will not defend
classical music by indicating a tonal painting in Flight of the Bumblebee or thunder
in Beethoven's Pastoral or an earthquake in Haydn's Seven Last Words. These
pictorial effects are NOT integral to classical muic; and it would be demeaning to
the music to convert a limited audience to it (say, pubescents) on what are obviously
non-integral musical effects. For those who love Rock, it is Berry's clanging guitar
or Bo's shave-and-a-haircut beat, although I wouldn't limit to this. But to give a
very clear example, I would NOT argue a vocal aesthetics of Rock by pointing out
Elvis' later pop stylings (Are You Lonesome Tonight, It's Now or Never, "Can't Help
Fallin' in Love," etc.). This is NOT to say that these wonderful pop stylings (and I
love all of Elvis) are not genuinely a part of Rock history, merely that they are not
an integral part of Rock aesthetics, in the same way that the string arrangements on
"She's Leaving Home" and "Yesterday" are not integral Rock arrangements. In the same
way, the fugue is NOT an integral of Romantic musical aesthetics, although some
compositons feature fugues, of course (there's a lot of fugal activity for example in
Mahler, and several great fugues in Nielsen's symphonies). (I'm being fast and loose
with the term Romantic, but that's not an essential part of my argument here.
Clearly, some musical styles feature some musical forms only incidentally, not
integrally. The sonata form is integral to Romantic and post-Romantic or late
Romantic music.) It would thus be dishonest of me to point out a fugal development
in, say, Mahler's Fifth in order to "justify," or otherwise "sell" this music to a
Baroque fanatic. Au contraire, I'd tell this Baroque fanatic to accept Mahler on his
terms or leave the music alone.
> You're being just as purist as the
> anti-rock snobs on this newsgroup, and you're being prescriptive about what rock
> "should" be.
We're talking rhetoric and art; two different things (see above). I love anything in
Rock, whether Reggae rhythms, the strings in She's Leaving Home, the horn arrangment
in Got to get you into my life, the harpsichord in In My Life, Stevie's wonderful use
of synths, and everything in between too. Duane Eddy uses strings on his later RCA
Victor albums; and I love those too, where the music is good (not all Eddy's string
albums are aestheticaly equal). Ray Charles uses sentimental choirs on his Country
tracks; and, believe me, when Ray Charles uses choirs, then he singlehandedly
redefines the parameters of Blues and Country music. STILL, that would NOT be a
representative paradigm of what the Blues is or what Country is. On the contrary, it
is what RAY CHARLES is more than anything else. In the same way, Yesterday says less
about Rock than about the Beatles; or the sinuous violin lines in Desire says less
about Rock than about Dylan.
> Art can't get anywhere if people insist that everything should stay
> at its origins!
Again see above. And, of course, in a strict sense, one often has to redefine the
music, as in Reggae or Bop. Today Bop is conflated with Jazz; but many purists don't
consider Bop jazz in a strict sense. But this is an issue I don't want to get into
here; let others get involved. My main point is that when one defends a music one
must choose paradigmatic examples (or samples) of that music. Bridge Over Troubled
Water can convert many gospel enthusiasts, but is it Rock in the "evident" sense?
It's a great song; a great record. But I wouldn't cheat on Rock aesthetics by using
that song to convert Gospel and other-music enthusiasts to an aesthetics of Rock.
> There may be some value in the grittiness of rock 'n' roll
> before 1965 (or whenever), but that doesn't mean that all further experiments,
> whether based on classical music or not, are worthless,
Wow, don't jump all over the place here. Who's throwing around words like
worthless? You know, I rarely use that word of any music. Non-representative is
more like it.
> simply because they have
> a degree of refinement and complexity that isn't "natural" to rock music!
I wouldn't say natural, but essential or integral. There are certain parameters
integral to jazz; and in some cases, one can legitimately say that, for example, Paul
Whiteman falls outside those parametric bounds, as do a lot of Bop artists. One
would be cheating to convert someone to jazz with Whiteman. One hasn't really
accomplished much by selling Rhapsody in Blue as jazz, however admirable, even
remarkable, that composition may otherwise be.
>
> Classical music's aesthetics have changed enormously over time--do you see much
> similarity in Hildegard and Henze?
Okay, but purists, or otherwise educated auditors, clearly divide the so-called
generic "classical" canon into different "periods," "styles," and so forth, which is
essentially saying the same thing. Whatever else, nobody believes that Hildegard is
the same music as Beethoven or Gorecki. I've no problem with a loose reference to
Hildegard as "classical"; but you can see where it would pose problems in a literate
discussion of aesthetic issues of canonic Western music.
John Harrington
fiber_opti...@yahoo.com wrote on 4/7/01 11:54 AM:
> I don't read newsgroups much, but at some point I decided to check
> rec.music.classical. I love classical music, but not exclusively, so
> when I saw a thread called "Besides Classical, What Music Genres Do You
> Like?", I was curious. I opened it, and was rather shocked to find
> statements such as "all rock is crap" and "anything close to rock is
> crap". Not just de facto--automatically, simply because it is rock.
Why not? Are you the only one who is entitled to opinions? The
characteristics which differentiate rock from classical are *stark*.
Defining them is beside the point: JUST LISTEN!! Naturally there will be
people who *hate* what rock does. Why does that bunge you up so?
> I am a person who loves both classical and rock music.
So what? That's you.
> First of all, we need to get definitions straight.
Huh? Why? Just listen. Are you deaf?
> What does "rock"
> mean? Does it have to have electric guitars?
Certainly not.
> Does it have to have
> vocals?
No.
> Does it have to be based on blues progressions?
Absolutely not.
> Does it have
> to be syncopated and in 4/4?
Syncopation maybe, but syncopation isn't the only problem. 4/4? no.
> Those may have been elements of the
> original definition,
Why is it so important to "define" it? Is there anyone in the world who
can't instantly tell a rock song from classical, no matter the arrangement,
no matter the progressions, no matter the time signature? Of course not.
What an absurd idea.
If an instance of rock music gets so far from the rock aesthetic as to be
truly indistinguishable from classical, then I charge it has become
something else entirely.
> 1. "Rock music is very limited in instrumentation--voice, bass,
> guitars, drums, maybe a synthesizer--whereas classical music has a huge
> variety of instrumentation to choose from."
Not necessarily. Rock music has been scored for orchestra. And it's still
crap.
> This is simply false.
No kidding.
> There are plenty of rock bands that use some classical instruments, and
> some use only classical instruments, such as Volapuk (clarinet, cello,
> percussion) and Rasputina (three cellos and voice).
Sure there are. Doesn't make them classical.
> 2. "Rock music is just about making money, while classical music is
> about sincere expression of emotion/intellectual rigor."
No. There are classical composers who have written great works simply
because they needed the money. I do detect a certain false enthusiasm in
rock music, so I would agree that classical music is more sincere, or, at
least it sounds that way. I heard Tod und Verklarung in concert last night.
That work was written by an extremely insincere, acquisitive, manipulative,
pandering person, but there is hardly a greater expression of human divinity
and triumph, hardly a more sincere-sounding work, and the idea that there is
anything comparable in the rock music is laughable....
> 3. "Rock music is all in 4/4, while classical music has enormous
> variety in terms of rhythm." Also wrong.
I don't know whom you're quoting here. Certainly not me.
> 4. "Rock music is harmonically limited, while classical music is
> harmonically varied." Also not true.
I long ago stipulated this.
> 5. "Rock music is improvised over chord changes, while classical music
> is notated, and therefore more precise."
Obviously untrue.
> 6. "Rock music is about 3-minute songs, whereas classical music
> produces works that are multiple hours in length."
Length has something to do with it but not all.
> 7. "Rock music is in service of the lyrics, whereas in classical music
> the music comes first."
Oh nonsense.
> 8. "Rock music is stagnant and derivative, while classical music is
> constantly pushing the boundaries and innovating."
One of the perversions of our times is that everything must be "innovative".
Some of the least innovative music in the history of music is the
greatest--e.g., Mozart's 40th symphony. Some of the greatest composers have
arguably not been innovators but perfectors.
> This is the most
> ridiculous claim yet.
Again, just who are you quoting? Or are you making up strawmen, so you can
tear them down with a tissue knife?
> As you can see, I'm not convinced that there /is/ a firm boundary
> between rock and classical music.
Then you're tone deaf. A nine year old could instantly tell the difference
by ear. "Definitions" are worthless. The complex, subtle experience of
listening to music can't be reduced to a few pithy strawman definitions.
> I'm not saying that rock music has produced anything at the level of
> "The Well-Tempered Clavier" or "The Rite of Spring."
Of course it hasn't! Not *ANY*thing.
> But it's only been
> around for about 45 years! Masterpieces don't come along that often.
Huh?
Bach wrote all his music in about 45 years. About 45 years encompassed the
time from Die Zauberflote to Symphonie Fantastique. In the 45 years from
1756 to the dawn of 19th century we saw counless masterpieces, including the
entire works of Mozart. There hasn't been a period of 45 years in the
entire history of classical music that hasn't known countless masterworks.
There will never be a great work of rock music. We could wait 450 years and
not see it. Rock will have to become something other than rock, and even
that is unlikely, I charge. Yes, that's my "opinion". I'm entitled to one
just as you are. Get over it.
> Finally, I would like to say that, in my opinion, nobody has the right
> to say that "all rock is crap" until they've listened to each of the
> following at least twice:
Oh bull. I've heard this before, and, until recently, I've always accepted
the invitation to listen to putatively "great" rock music. But finally I
realized that one doesn't need to eat a whole apple to know that it is
rotten. *Rock* is the problem, not any particular song or album. When
someone undertakes a work of music in the rock style, it will inevitably be
crap, because the style itself is anti-music.
Rock does have fuzzy boundaries, I own, but its fuzzy boundaries are with
things like country, pop, reggae, punk, funk, motown, soul, even jazz,
perhaps rap, etc., not classical music.
You propose a list of qualities--then cite counterexamples of each quality:
this rock song uses classical instruments, that one uses counterpoint,
another posesses motivic development. So what? None of those things in
isolation makes the classical style. Even a rock song that combined them
all wouldn't necessarily be a work of classical music, and a work of
classical music could omit them all. Perhaps if the rock piece in question
possessed the...subtlety of phrasing, the...dynamic variation of classical
music...the agogic variation, the... <things for which there are no words>
... then it would be truly indistinguishable from classical music. But, for
one, most rock musicians don't have the ability to write and play such
stuff, and, even if one or two do, and they chose to, the work in question
would be misnamed.
You say people like me haven't a right to opinions. Fortunately, you're
full of shit.
> EXCEPTION: If you think all modernist music is crap too, and can't stand
> a note of
> Bartok, Schoenberg or Stravinsky, you may as well give up right now.
On the contrary, Bartok, Schonberg and Stravinsky each wrote works of great
beauty and art, but I would never dare say that someone doesn't have a right
to his or her opinion of those composers.
John
John Harrington
arch...@aol.com wrote on 4/8/01 7:05 AM:
> "She's Leaving Home" is as good as anything Schubert ever wrote.
>
> Leonard Bernstein
"Rock music is crap."
Andre Previn
John Harrington
wrote on 4/8/01 10:32 AM:
> 1. There is no reason why classical and Rock should be argued
> antithetically like this. This is still limiting the aesthetic issues
> involved. One does not argue, for example, that "cinema is still young;
> give it time and it too will produce a master like Dante or Milton or
Hear hear. Very well said.
> 2. Same with range of instrumentation. There is no INHERENT
> aesthetic
> virtue to having a lot of instruments in your piece! I need go no
> further
> than speak the talismanic words, "Violin Partita" and Cello sonatas of
> Bach
> to clinch my argument.
Amen.
> 4. Trying to correlate rock and Classical is a fruitless exercise
It sure is.
> Comparing [rock] with other types of music ...
> ultimately ... is self-defeating; because the music stands on its own or
> will not stand at all. The music creates its own aesthetic rules.
Bravo.
John
John Harrington
ois...@aol.com wrote on 4/7/01 9:59 PM:
Paul, as it happens, Myron Stackpool (a pseudonym--but his real name is
unknown) is a "professional"--a usenet troll who goes by various aliases and
has been stalking me and others for years. When I (finally) realized this,
I immediately kill-filed him. Suggest you do the same.
regards,
John
Archer070
>
>> "She's Leaving Home" is as good as anything Schubert ever wrote.
>>
>>
>
>I hate that song! :P
It's not my favorite, either. On the other hand, "I'm Looking Through You" is a
more beautiful song than, say, any of those songs Wagner wrote for Mathilde,
and the instrumental buildup to the lovely climax of "Abbey Road" ("And in the
end...") is far more efficient, rhythmically effective, and beautiful than
anything in, e.g. Vincent D'Indy.
Knudsen
>>electronic devices rather than genuine musical instruments. It seems to be
>>largely the product of sound engineers and other manipulators, and to be
>>largely devoid of humanity.
>
>much humanity as anyone else.
If you check out the audio pro and 4-track engineering groups, you'll
find a wealth of intelligent, creative nice guys. Actually I take derogatory
remarks about sound engineers personally, since I am a sound engineer. Fact is,
engineers will do whatever it takes to get the client the results he/she wants,
be it classical or rap. I know guys who work on EVERYTHING.
>It would make more sense - to me - to think of it as a
>collaboration between the musician and the sound engineer:
>both equally human and both sharing in the creative process.
Which is exactly how it works in practice. Sometimes a producer is added
to the mix, or sometimes the producer is the engineer or artist. Good engineers
can do some amazing things to pump up the arrangement of a song.
We toured like maniacs and released six albums, and from time to time we had
some of our songs played on the radio. We never fit in too well in the rock
world, but many people were kind enough or not conspicuously cool enough to
worry about such things
Alex Temple
> For those who love Rock, it is Berry's clanging guitar
> or Bo's shave-and-a-haircut beat, although I wouldn't limit to this.
Now I understand what you're saying, but I still don't agree. Of course, maybe I don't
/really/ love rock. But there is rock music that I love.
> Okay, but purists, or otherwise educated auditors, clearly divide the so-called
> generic "classical" canon into different "periods," "styles," and so forth, which is
> essentially saying the same thing. Whatever else, nobody believes that Hildegard is
> the same music as Beethoven or Gorecki.
I think, actually, that dividing "rock" into different categories would clear up this
whole debate enormously. Just as my uncle loves classical music of the Baroque through
Romantic periods, but not of the 20th century, I love psychedelic rock, avant-rock, and
spatterings of other things (XTC's "The Big Express", for example), but I don't love
early 50's rock 'n' roll (or techno, or heavy metal, etc.). As I said above, perhaps I
am not a "true" rock-lover. But I still believe there is something in the rock genre
that is really excellent and that might appeal to a classical mind, and that music
shouldn't be ignored even if it's not essential to the development of rock as a whole.
It's essential to the development of itself and to the development of the avant-garde as
a whole.
Archer070
solar battery and a Bose Wave CD player and a bunch of coconuts, and as your
parachute opens you realize you will die unless you get rid of either:
(a) The complete Beatles CD set (about 10.5 hours of music); Or
(b) Your recording of Olivier Messaen's "Turnagalila" Symphony (about the same
playing time, or at least it seems that way).
Alex Temple
> Why is it so important to "define" it? Is there anyone in the world who
> can't instantly tell a rock song from classical, no matter the arrangement,
> no matter the progressions, no matter the time signature? Of course not.
> What an absurd idea.
I want you to listen to Faust's "Meadow Meal" before you say you know what a
rock song sounds like. You're making statements based purely on ignorance.
> > 1. "Rock music is very limited in instrumentation--voice, bass,
> > guitars, drums, maybe a synthesizer--whereas classical music has a huge
> > variety of instrumentation to choose from."
>
> Not necessarily. Rock music has been scored for orchestra. And it's still
> crap.
I would agree that Yes, ELP, etc. are crap. Same with XTC's "Apple Venus Vol
1" and a lot of Moody Blues. I agree that an orchestra doesn't inherently mean
that something is good--look at the Leningrad Symphony! BUT you haven't heard
the music *I'm* talking about, so you don't have any right to an opinion on it.
> > There are plenty of rock bands that use some classical instruments, and
> > some use only classical instruments, such as Volapuk (clarinet, cello,
> > percussion) and Rasputina (three cellos and voice).
>
> Sure there are. Doesn't make them classical.
I didn't say they *were* classical. I was citing them as examples of fuzzy
boundaries in a certain direction
> > 8. "Rock music is stagnant and derivative, while classical music is
> > constantly pushing the boundaries and innovating."
>
> One of the perversions of our times is that everything must be "innovative".
> Some of the least innovative music in the history of music is the
> greatest--e.g., Mozart's 40th symphony. Some of the greatest composers have
> arguably not been innovators but perfectors.
I agree. I never denied that.
> > This is the most ridiculous claim yet.
>
> Again, just who are you quoting? Or are you making up strawmen, so you can
> tear them down with a tissue knife?
I have heard most, if not all, of these claims made.
If none of these are your objections to rock, can you tell me what *is*?
> > As you can see, I'm not convinced that there /is/ a firm boundary
> > between rock and classical music.
>
> Then you're tone deaf. A nine year old could instantly tell the difference
> by ear.
Oh, fuck you. I said it before, I'll say it again. You haven't heard the
music I'm talking about! Play Brian Eno's ambient music and Morton Feldman's
"Cripped Symmetry" for a nine-year-old, and see if he can tell which is rock
and which is classical. Play Faust's first album and certain pieces by
Stockhausen for a nine-year-old--same thing. You have no right to call me
tone-deaf because--I realize I've said this before, but you don't seem to get
it--YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE MUSIC THAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!!
> > But it's only been
> > around for about 45 years! Masterpieces don't come along that often.
>
> Huh?
>
> Bach wrote all his music in about 45 years. About 45 years encompassed the
> time from Die Zauberflote to Symphonie Fantastique. In the 45 years from
> 1756 to the dawn of 19th century we saw counless masterpieces, including the
> entire works of Mozart. There hasn't been a period of 45 years in the
> entire history of classical music that hasn't known countless masterworks.
>
Thank you for completely ignoring the other half of my argument. That's
generally a good debating strategy.
Anyway, Bach had a huge tradition behind him. Classical music had had
centuries to develop by his time.
> There will never be a great work of rock music. We could wait 450 years and
> not see it. Rock will have to become something other than rock, and even
> that is unlikely, I charge.
Rock has already become something other than what you think rock is. In fact,
it has been since the 70s. Listened to Art Bears lately? I didn't think so.
> Yes, that's my "opinion". I'm entitled to one just as you are. Get over it.
But your opinion is based on ignorance.
> > Finally, I would like to say that, in my opinion, nobody has the right
> > to say that "all rock is crap" until they've listened to each of the
> > following at least twice:
>
> Oh bull. I've heard this before, and, until recently, I've always accepted
> the invitation to listen to putatively "great" rock music.
So why not try one more time? Are you afraid that you'll be proven wrong?
> When
> someone undertakes a work of music in the rock style, it will inevitably be
> crap, because the style itself is anti-music.
>
What the hell does that MEAN? No musical style is "anti-music". Come /on/.
You're just spouting bloated, meaningless rhetoric now.
> Perhaps if the rock piece in question
> possessed the...subtlety of phrasing, the...dynamic variation of classical
> music...the agogic variation, the... <things for which there are no words>
> ... then it would be truly indistinguishable from classical music.
Thinking Plague's music does have the subtlety of phrasing and the dynamic
variation of classical music. And it's mind-blowing. Again, you don't know
what you're talking about.
(Also, can you define "agogic"? It's not in the Merriam-Webster or the OED.)
> But, for
> one, most rock musicians don't have the ability to write and play such
> stuff, and, even if one or two do, and they chose to, the work in question
> would be misnamed.
It seems to me that you're defining "rock" as automatically being bad, and if
something with subtlety and depth came out of that genre, even if it had
electric guitars and drums and was performed by a band, it would still be
classical music. Bullshit.
>
> You say people like me haven't a right to opinions.
I said you didn't have the right to an opinion because you haven't heard the
music I'm talking about, not because I disagree with your opinion. I said that
before. Geez.
> Fortunately, you're full of shit.
And you're an asshole. So I guess we're even then, huh.
>
> > EXCEPTION: If you think all modernist music is crap too, and can't stand
> > a note of
> > Bartok, Schoenberg or Stravinsky, you may as well give up right now.
>
> On the contrary, Bartok, Schonberg and Stravinsky each wrote works of great
> beauty and art, but I would never dare say that someone doesn't have a right
> to his or her opinion of those composers.
That's /not/ what I said. I said that if you don't like the modernist
aesthetic, you may as well give up on trying to like rock, because the only
*successful* attempts at breaking down the boundary between rock and classical
music are those which are based on that aesthetic.
I'm going to take my leave of this newsgroup now. I don't want to deal with
people as stupid, closed-minded, snobby, and obnoxious as you. And yes, I did
call you an asshole, and that is obnoxious, but I didn't say anything ad
hominem until you started with your whole tone-deaf shit. So, in conclusion,
go fuck yourself.
Knudsen
I'll toss em both and stick with the sound of surf and birds baby.
Thing is, I would take ANYTHING over the complete Beatles. ANYTHING.
Myron Stackpool
> >From: Myron Stackpool
>
> Why close your otherwise interesting post with this?>
> >Usenet TROLLS who have had their ass kicked:
> >John E Harrington AKA "jbayer34" 4/2/01
>
> Do you think you are the winner because you call yourself the winner, or that
> John is the loser because you say so? You are hardly an impartial referee!
He obviously plays "whoever gets in the last word wins" games, so yes by default
-- and I don't see him contesting the outcome.
> Would you be amused if I closed all my posts with something like "Arrogant
> punks who think they can kick John's ass...Myron Stackpool"? I think not, and
> I would not do it, nor do I consider you an arrogant punk.
There are several reasons why that wouldn't bother me at all. Since it appears
that he has "kill-filed" me now (though I do take *all* his claims with a grain
of salt), most of them will be moot points now. But one point I'd like to make
is that in using that post signature I effectively put the kibosh on his
following up my posts with snide comments.
I just came over here to discuss classical music related topics--but people like
john make it very unpleasant to do so for alot of people. I just see him as a
school-yard bully, so I took the initiave and gave him a healthy dose of his own
medicine. If John learns some manners, than I will give him some respect, but
not until then.
You, OTOH, are a gentleman---even, as some might say, to a fault!
> Respectfully,
>
> Paul Cohen
Myron Stackpool
>Paul, as it happens, Myron Stackpool (a pseudonym--but his real name is
>unknown) is a "professional"--a usenet troll
*lol*
You should talk about being a "professional troll"!!
>who goes by various aliases and
Bullshit. The only other name I've posted under *is* my real name.
>has been stalking me and others for years.
What the hell are you talking about?????? Oh, I let me guess: I'm part of a
global capitalist conspiricy to brainwash all of humanity into accepting "crap"
for music, but when it became apparant that the hypnosis wasn't working on you I
was sent as a goon to make things difficult for you.
Though I'm hardly surprised that you'd be such a paranoid, given the way you
talk to other people on the Internet.
> When I (finally) realized this,
>I immediately kill-filed him.
This is the absolute best thing I've heard all week ;-)
(Not that I believe you or anything.)
> Suggest you do the same.
Once again, good night!
you...@net.com
> you...@net.com wrote:
>
> > For those who love Rock, it is Berry's clanging guitar
> > or Bo's shave-and-a-haircut beat, although I wouldn't limit to this.
>
> Now I understand what you're saying, but I still don't agree. Of course, maybe I don't
> /really/ love rock. But there is rock music that I love.
I tend to believe you don't really like Rock! But that's neither here
nor there, except for
defending an aesthetics of Rock. You know, it's like someone defending
opera by appealing
to Webber's musicals. I've nothing strongly against them; I just don't
think one has
accomplished anything in defense of classical opera by citing those
works, which are not
only not opera in the strict sense, but not even good musicals (none of
them, for example,
would compare with KISS ME KATE or ANNIE GET YOUR GUN by any aesthetic
criteria I'm familiar
with). The fact that there is some pedigree with Webber's works and
opera does not
necessarily mean they share the same aesthetics rather than merely the
same pedigree.
Obviously, HM is heavily Blues-influenced (Plant, et. al.), but I would
not aesthetically
defend or prosletyze the Blues by using HM as a norm (that's Heavy
Metal).
>
>
> > Okay, but purists, or otherwise educated auditors, clearly divide the so-called
> > generic "classical" canon into different "periods," "styles," and so forth, which is
> > essentially saying the same thing. Whatever else, nobody believes that Hildegard is
> > the same music as Beethoven or Gorecki.
>
> I think, actually, that dividing "rock" into different categories would clear up this
> whole debate enormously.
Absolutely; that's a problem too. I tend to define the music, at times,
in terms of
marketing, which is somewhat legitimate. An easy way, for example, to
define a Hollywood
genre, is simply by marketing (audience reception, etc.). Is High Noon
a Western? Adult
Western? Gary Cooper film? Message film (Kramer and writers)? Kramer
film? Focus on
story, theme, director, cast, even musical score (epic score, for
example) can shift generic
classification. In one sense, HM, Rockabilly, even Johnny Mathis are
all Rock because they
all end up in the same bins in many smaller stores. This is beginning
to change in the
larger stores (HMV, Virgin, Tower, I think, although I haven't
investigated all of them).
Now, in HMV, for example, you're unlikely to find Mathis with Rock
albums, but more likely
with ballad stylists, such as Doris Day, Dean Martin, Sinatra, and
numerous others. And Rap
of course has its own area, Soundtracks, vocal classical, instrumental
classical, composers,
etc. Yet smaller stores will have Marvin Gaye, Mathis, Sinatra, Mariah,
Zeppelin, Spice
Girls, and Puff Daddy all mixed together. Classification is, in itself,
an interesting
subject. Why is a whale a mammal rather than a fish? Obviously, all
classification systems
(taxonomies) are motivated, and are not transparent in any "evident"
sense.
> Just as my uncle loves classical music of the Baroque through
> Romantic periods, but not of the 20th century, I love psychedelic rock, avant-rock, and
> spatterings of other things (XTC's "The Big Express", for example), but I don't love
> early 50's rock 'n' roll (or techno, or heavy metal, etc.).
I have a deep and abiding passion for almost all 50s Rock; yet for some
reason I find Eddie
Cochran and Gene Vincent difficult to take! They sound almost like Sid
Caesar-like
imitations of true Rock. Still these two singers are highly esteemed in
British Rock
histories. A lot of other "Rock" music eludes me ("Industrial," even
HM, despite Pat
Boone's heroic evangelicism for the music: just kidding).
> As I said above, perhaps I
> am not a "true" rock-lover. But I still believe there is something in the rock genre
> that is really excellent and that might appeal to a classical mind, and that music
> shouldn't be ignored even if it's not essential to the development of rock as a whole.
> It's essential to the development of itself and to the development of the avant-garde as
> a whole.
True, but as I think I've argued, one is no longer really selling Rock,
but an attenuated or
compromised form of the Rock aesthetic; just like selling Glenn Miller
(whatever other
aesthetic virtues the music may have) is not succeeding in "proving"
that jazz has aesthetic
value, because Miller is not really representative of what people like
Armstrong or Coleman
Hawkins or Lester Young or Art Tatum have done in that field.
Peter T. Daniels
A bunch of brothers who once owned nearly every theater on Broadway. But
there's no c in their name.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
John Harrington
gram...@worldnet.att.net wrote on 4/8/01 5:46 PM:
<snip>
>> And who, may I ask, is Schubert?
>
> A bunch of brothers who once owned nearly every theater on Broadway.
And one in LA.
> But
> there's no c in their name.
J
John Harrington
knuds...@aol.comERASEMME wrote on 4/8/01 2:35 PM:
>> Okay gang, you're about to be stuck on a desert island for twenty years with
>> a
>> solar battery and a Bose Wave CD player and a bunch of coconuts, and as your
>> parachute opens you realize you will die unless you get rid of either:
>>
>> (a) The complete Beatles CD set (about 10.5 hours of music); Or
>>
>> (b) Your recording of Olivier Messaen's "Turnagalila" Symphony (about the
>> same
>> playing time, or at least it seems that way).
>
> I'll toss em both and stick with the sound of surf and birds baby.
>
> Thing is, I would take ANYTHING over the complete Beatles. ANYTHING.
I'd take Messiaen's Turangalila, an incredible work of genius.
J
you...@net.com
Thanks. Now I know whom you're talking about. Those must be the same
brothers who invented an iced cream they named after themselves.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> in article 3AD114...@worldnet.att.net, Peter T. Daniels at
> gram...@worldnet.att.net wrote on 4/8/01 5:46 PM:
> <snip>
> >> And who, may I ask, is Schubert?
> >
> > A bunch of brothers who once owned nearly every theater on Broadway.
>
> And one in LA.
Only one? I think they had *both* Broadway-style theaters in Chicago
(the Shubert and the Blackstone). And one in every important city.
> > But
> > there's no c in their name.
John Harrington
wrote on 4/9/01 3:12 PM:
No, you're thinking of the great French Emperor, Neapolitan Bonaparte.
J
you...@net.com
> in article 3AD233C4...@net.com, you...@net.com at you...@net.com
> wrote on 4/9/01 3:12 PM:
>
> > John Harrington wrote:
> >
> >> in article 3AD114...@worldnet.att.net, Peter T. Daniels at
> >> gram...@worldnet.att.net wrote on 4/8/01 5:46 PM:
> >> <snip>
> >>>> And who, may I ask, is Schubert?
> >>>
> >>> A bunch of brothers who once owned nearly every theater on Broadway.
> >>
> >> And one in LA.
> >>
> >>> But
> >>> there's no c in their name.
> >>
> >> J
> >
> > Thanks. Now I know whom you're talking about. Those must be the same
> > brothers who invented an iced cream they named after themselves.
>
> No, you're thinking of the great French Emperor, Neapolitan Bonaparte.
>
> J
Seriously, the Shuberts deserve credit if only for supplying the venues for
many great musicals and even musical series (such as those at the Princess
Theatre by the immortal Jerry Kern and many Sigmund Romberg operettas, which
premiered at Shubert's eponymous theatre. Another theatre, the Winter
Garden, on Noo Yawk's 50th street, premiered Lenny's musicals Wonderful Town
and the timeless West Side Story, as well as the timely Cats.
Sealy
depth if you can even possibly compare the rock bands you have mentioned to
the greats in classical music. You are a rock listener, and rock music has
no depth whatsoever.
Also- keep in mind this newsgroup is by far the most savage one I have ever
seen. The people who post here are RABID and will tear you apart over
anything..therefore, because its a classical music newsgroup in which rabid
classical music fans post messages at..you shouldn't be suprised to learn
that the overwhelming sentiment is that rock is crap.
sealy
"Alex Temple" <fiber_opti...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3ACF624C...@yahoo.com...
> I don't read newsgroups much, but at some point I decided to check
> rec.music.classical. I love classical music, but not exclusively, so
> when I saw a thread called "Besides Classical, What Music Genres Do You
> Like?", I was curious. I opened it, and was rather shocked to find
> statements such as "all rock is crap" and "anything close to rock is
> crap". Not just de facto--automatically, simply because it is rock.
>
> I am a person who loves both classical and rock music. Admittedly, if I
> had to choose one type of music to take to a desert island, it would be
> classical. However, there is some rock that I think is really
> excellent. So I'm going to defend it.
>
> First of all, we need to get definitions straight. What does "rock"
> mean? Does it have to have electric guitars? Does it have to have
> vocals? Does it have to be based on blues progressions? Does it have
> to be syncopated and in 4/4? Those may have been elements of the
> original definition, but there are plenty of exceptions that people
> would unquestioningly consider "rock." To limit the definition of
> "rock" to a description of the way rock started would be equivalent to
> saying anything after Gregorian chant is "not classical music." So, I'm
> going to propose some possible differences between rock and classical
> music that denigrators of rock music would probably agree with.
>
> 1. "Rock music is very limited in instrumentation--voice, bass,
> guitars, drums, maybe a synthesizer--whereas classical music has a huge
> variety of instrumentation to choose from." This is simply false.
> There are plenty of rock bands that use some classical instruments, and
> some use only classical instruments, such as Volapuk (clarinet, cello,
> percussion) and Rasputina (three cellos and voice). Rock albums that I
> own include such instruments as violin, flute, piano, pipe organ,
> trombone, hammer dulcimer, euphonium, flugelhorn, cimbalom, mellotron,
> musical saw, oud, timpani, banjo, accordion, harpsichord, theremin,
> vibraphone, jew's harp, panpipes, xylophone, chahanai, air organ and
> water harp. In one extreme case, the French band Magma used full brass
> and percussion sections and a choir in their album "Mekanik Destruktiw
> Kommandoh." (Incidentally, anyone who automatically denigrates
> electric guitars should note that they've been used in classical music
> by such composers as George Crumb, Alfred Schnittke, Steve Mackey, Louis
> Andriessen, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzystof Penderecki, Peter Maxwell
> Davies, Charles Wuorinen, Michael Tippett, Mauricio Kagel and Hans
> Werner Henze.
>
> 2. "Rock music is just about making money, while classical music is
> about sincere expression of emotion/intellectual rigor." First of all,
> classical composers have been known to sell out. Listening to Mozart's
> late masterpieces shows his capacity for genius, but you'd never know it
> listening to most of the fluff he wrote to please the aristocracy.
> Copland started writing his bland folk-inspired stuff only after he got
> sick of being insulted by critics for his dissonant, Stravinsky-esque
> and far superior early work. More importantly, though, there is plenty
> of sincere expression of emotion and intellectual rigor in rock--not in
> all rock, of course, but in some. Songs like Jefferson Airplane's
> "Comin' Back To Me" (no connection to the Celine Dion song) or The
> Incredible String Band's "First Girl I Loved" are as poignant and
> beautiful as Schubert's "Die Erlkonig" or Ives' "Tom Sails Away". And
> as for intellectual rigor, there exist such things as rock fugues
> (Gentle Giant's "On Reflection"). There are also rock albums, such as
> the 5uu's "Crisis in Clay", which contains true motivic development.
>
> 3. "Rock music is all in 4/4, while classical music has enormous
> variety in terms of rhythm." Also wrong. There are plenty of bands
> (Thinking Plague is an excellent example) that use irregular rhythms
> such as 5/4 and 7/4 on a regular basis, and sometimes even polyrhythms.
> Even a song as successful as Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" has long
> sections in 7/4.
>
> 4. "Rock music is harmonically limited, while classical music is
> harmonically varied." Also not true. First of all, even some
> relatively simple rock songs, such as the Beatles' "Because", Jefferson
> Airplane's "rejoyce" or Radiohead's "Just", have some very complex chord
> progressions. But more important are bands whose music is polytonal or
> atonal. Some, like Kukl, reached this level of harmonic complexity by
> extending the language of rock, exactly as composers from Beethoven to
> Schoenberg did with classical music. Others, like Thinking Plague,
> draw their inspiration directly from 20th century classical composers:
> Thinking Plague guitarist and composer Mike Johnson says, "My main
> influences are still the 20th century composers". To go even further,
> bands from Sonic Youth to the Art Rock Circus have written music with
> non- standard and microtonal guitar tunings.
>
> 5. "Rock music is improvised over chord changes, while classical music
> is notated, and therefore more precise." While not all non-notated
> music is vague or unmusical--the majority of classical musicians
> acknowledge that jazz can be artful--there is in fact quite a bit of
> rock music that is notated. Cuneiform Records says that their catalog
> has "an emphasis on rock bands playing intricate, rehearsal intensive
> music," and that it includes many "rock bands who are rock bands only
> because of their instrumentation." (Note: while I did argue that
> something can be considered a rock band without rock instrumentation, I
> think anyone would agree that a vocals-guitar-bass-drums combo is a rock
> band, so the idea of considering something a rock band because of its
> instrumentation doesn't contradict what I've already said.) You can go
> to their website, http://www.cuneiformrecords.com, and listen to sound
> samples from Cartoon, the Danubians, Otolithen, Thinking Plague and the
> Motor Totemists Guild--and, whether you like the music or not, you can't
> deny that it's complex and sophisticated.
>
> 6. "Rock music is about 3-minute songs, whereas classical music
> produces works that are multiple hours in length." First of all, there
> are some excellent rock songs (The Legendary Pink Dots' "So Gallantly
> Screaming" or Thinking Plague's "Organism" are good examples) that are
> over ten minutes long. There are also some excellent classical
> pieces--such as Chopin's Preludes, Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze,
> Scarlatti's sonatas, Schoenberg's Op. 19, and most of Webern--that are
> very short. But more importantly, the proper analogy is not between a
> classical piece and a rock song, but between a classical piece and a
> rock /album/. There are a lot of albums that are very clearly designed
> as a whole, whether because thematic material is shared between songs,
> because there are no breaks between tracks, or because it simply forms a
> satisfying dramatic curve. The "concept album" dates back at least to
> the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967) and maybe to
> the Mothers of Invention's "Freak Out" (1966), and I would argue that to
> some extent the American LP version of the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" (1965)
> is designed to be listened to as a whole. But since that time, there
> have been more successful examples of the same idea, a prime example
> being Kukl's "Holidays in Europe" or the Olivia Tremor Control's "Black
> Foliage." There are also bands who release 30+ minute albums that are
> entirely on one track, such as Faust's "The Faust Tapes."
>
> 7. "Rock music is in service of the lyrics, whereas in classical music
> the music comes first." I actually have heard claims to this effect,
> and while it may be true of Britney Spears, it's certainly not true of
> all rock. Not only are their bands and rock musicians who have released
> all-instrumental albums (Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma", for example, or Leo
> Kottke's "One Guitar No Vocals"), but there are bands who don't even
> have vocalists! These include Tortoise, Rachel's, Volapuk, Biota (until
> their most recent album "Object Holder"), Forever Einstein, Aksak
> Maboul and Djam Karet, to name just a few. There are also bands who
> bury their vocals so deepy that the lyrics are inaudible, such as The
> Frosted Ambassador, and bands whose prosody is so bizarre that it's
> clear that they write the music first and then write lyrics to go with
> it, such as Mr. Bungle. Finally, there are bands I love whose lyrics I
> can't stand! The 5uu's are an excellent example of this. I wince when
> I think about their lyrics--so obviously it's the music I'm reacting to.
>
> 8. "Rock music is stagnant and derivative, while classical music is
> constantly pushing the boundaries and innovating." This is the most
> ridiculous claim yet. There has been an avant-garde rock scene starting
> with the Mothers of Invention and some of the more out there psych bands
> in the 60s, continuing with Faust, Can, the Residents, Magma, Henry Cow
> and the whole RIO school in the 70s, and with Nurse with Wound,
> Birdsongs of the Mesozoic and Current 93, as well as Thinking Plague and
> the other Totemists in the 80s. The 90s has brought the continuation of
> many of these bands, as well as many new bands such as the musique
> concrete ensemble The Black Swan Network.
>
>
> As you can see, I'm not convinced that there /is/ a firm boundary
> between rock and classical music. You can't even say that rock is
> released by groups of people, because there is a long tradition of solo
> rock musicians from Bob Dylan to Tim Hodgkinson. Worse, you can't say
> that rock is released to the world at large in the form of recordings
> instead of scores, because the same is true of electronic classical
> music such as Ligeti's "Artikulation" and Stockhausen's "Gesang der
> Junglinge." Admittedly, the stereotypical rock and classical music
> (say, Metallica and Beethoven) are as far away from each other as two
> types of music could possibly be. But at the fringes, distinctions
> become difficult.
>
> I'm not saying that rock music has produced anything at the level of
> "The Well-Tempered Clavier" or "The Rite of Spring." But it's only been
> around for about 45 years! Masterpieces don't come along that often.
> And because of the nature of the music industry and who the main buyers
> of rock are, intelligent rock music is usually forced underground. If
> Gyorgy Ligeti wants to write a great piece of music, he can rest assured
> knowing that the classical music world--at least, the modernist
> classical music world--will accept it. A rock musician has to deal with
> the knowledge that his music will be unaccepted by the mainstream
> popular music world, and rejected by a lot of classical music listeners
> simply because it is rock. But I do think that the fuzziness of the
> rock/classical boundary is evidence that it could happen. If the next
> Schoenberg wants to create the next "Pierrot Lunaire" (or whatever) by
> forming a band and performing it himself... well, why not?
>
> Finally, I would like to say that, in my opinion, nobody has the right
> to say that "all rock is crap" until they've listened to each of the
> following at least twice:
>
> ALBUMS
> 1. Thinking Plague: "In This Life" [an amazingly-crafted album of
> complex rock songs ranging from 3 to 15 minutes, making constant use of
> irregular rhythms and non-tonal harmonies]
> 2. The Legendary Pink Dots: "Island of Jewels" [a very interesting
> integration of beautiful, if poppy, harmonies, modern-classical
> experimentation (including a string orchestra piece!),
> pre-modern-classical instruments and phrasings, music-theatre drama, and
> 80s drum machines]
> 3. Kukl: "Holidays in Europe" [a little like a rock "Pierrot Lunaire":
> half-spoken vocals over an often atonal background. scary as hell,
> too.]
> 4. The Olivia Tremor Control: "Black Foliage" [a 70 minute composition
> of psychedelic pop songs and musique concrete, played on a huge variety
> of instruments
>
> SONGS
> 1. The Beatles: "Because" [some very startling chord progressions]
> 2. Radiohead: "Paranoid Android" [parts in 7/4, a choral-sounding
> middle section, and some surprisingly artful use of electric guitar
> noise]
> 3. The Incredible String Band: "First Girl I Loved" [quite simple, more
> of a folk song, but very powerful]
> 4. Gentle Giant: "On Reflection" [a rock fugue]
Knudsen
>no depth whatsoever.
Oh man, Bayer/Harrington has fussed up another name for the kill files. I
wonder if it will ever end?
>Also- keep in mind this newsgroup is by far the most savage one I have ever
>seen.
Then you are a total Usenet newbie and a wuss. This group is like friendly
forest critters compared to most of Usenet. Go hang out some other places then
came crying back here when you find out just how relative "savage" is.
>The people who post here are RABID and will tear you apart over
>anything.
Actually, no, just Bayer/Harrington. Otherwise this group has turned out to
be way more level-headed than I thought.
>.therefore, because its a classical music newsgroup in which rabid
>classical music fans
> post messages at..you shouldn't be suprised to learn
>that the overwhelming sentiment is that rock is crap.
Odd, you and bayer/harrington are enough to count as "overwhelming
sentiment?" thats rich.
Some people, unlike you and Harrington, listen to music for music's sake,
and not for extra-musical image reasons. You say:
>I don't think you've even tried to listen to classical music at any great
>depth
When you are really just talking about yourself. Its sad, but also funny.
Keep it up!
---
Check out the Bubblegum Crisis PC game work in progress page:
http://members.aol.com/starbrightsailor/BGCgame.html
Currently 3 graphics from the game are up.
Later G
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: Archer070 wrote:
:> "She's Leaving Home" is as good as anything Schubert ever wrote.
: And who, may I ask, is Schubert?
He was an extraterrestrial who landed on earth one day and said "take me
to your Lieder."
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"You go on playing Bach your way, and I'll go on playing him *his* way."
-- Wanda Landowska
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: Thing is, I would take ANYTHING over the complete Beatles. ANYTHING.
Your set of ABBA's Greatest Hits is in the mail.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> In article <20010408173538...@ng-cq1.aol.com>, Knudsen <knuds...@aol.comerasemme> wrote:
>
> : Thing is, I would take ANYTHING over the complete Beatles. ANYTHING.
>
> Your set of ABBA's Greatest Hits is in the mail.
There was a pretty big crowd in front of that theater in Toronto ...