"Enemies of Classical Music".

Curious how you choose to frame this debate - I begin by pointing to the 60 Minutes piece on how the dominant white male culture is dumbing itself down to the point of no longer really being competitive in a modern educational and economic environment, and my feeling that the resulting disrespect for achievements of the intellect translates into an active disrespect for classical music; and you interpret this as me being Euro-centric and bigoted, I suppose against blacks and black music.

Well, I dunno. It seems to me you're mis-characterizing my argument merely so that it will fit into your pre-formed one - classical used to be widely popular, and not just among 'intellectual elites'; Toscanini's radio broadcasts had a wide audience. But that time did not have quite the 'aggressively sneering' attitude present today, which is my point. When George Harrison said before his death that 'the present music scene had become very weird, it was either all sickly sweet or hyper aggression'; when Joni Mitchell has said that 'all the talent has been taken out of popular music,' what are they really saying? That talent, intelligence and discernment have gone missing, replaced with dumb aggression.

The argument you seem more familiar with, was perhaps more a parochial American one between a puritanized interpretation of classical, bled of all feeling and passion; and blues, jazz, and rock which insisted on the importance of feeling and passion. Seems to me what we have these days is both emotional aridity and intellectual vacuity; our art no different than a day at the office.

 

There's the rub.

Thank you for making the point so well.

 

Why not? Do you believe, like Jack Nicholson, that the members of this forum can't handle the truth?

 

Thank you Dan for this thread.
As you say "there are countless factors" for the decline. This guy adds an interesting concept - naming the transgressors. He does not write well but your sharing of the concept with us brings the point home. It is well worthwhile for us to explore the decline of interest in classical music.
John

 

Hi Ryan,

Again, another excellent insight IMO, This thread is generating a lot of smart opinions.

John

 

Too bad you feel that way. I feel that way myself sometimes. But it's nonsense. There's a lot of passionate, intelligent art and music being made these days but as always you have to look for it. Most of the time not even that hard. And appreciating it might take some 'work'. Some of it's even commercially successful or at least viable. Take for example Tom Waits, P.J. Harvey, Lucinda Williams, Youssou N'Dour, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, David Murray, James Blood Ulmer, Mekons, Boukman Eksperyans, Maurizio Pollini, John Adams, Meredith Monk, Arvo Part, John Zorn, Oumo Sangare, John Surman, Beck, Moby, Tom Petty, Chrissie Hynde, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Chucho Valdes for God's sake, man the list goes on and on and on...

 

Grant,

This is an IDEAL discussion for this forum and website. Sociological issues are the point of the thread.

Classical music is, by its nature, more cerebral than Rock 'n Roll. This is not prejudice, this is a fact.

I say this as a guy who prefers the Beatles to Beetoven. Motown hits me in the gut - I love it. Some classical music hits me in the gut too, but I find that it also hits me in the brain.

Some of your posts devalue the importance of how the music strikes us. You can't knock Europeans simply because classical music is cerebral. I am from European stock but the most moving music for me comes from R 'n R.

Should I take offence at people who find classical music more stimulating?

John

 

Good point!

 

I didn't care too much for the 'enemies of classical music' site, and as for this thread generating a lot of smart opinions, I find that there are actually just a couple of the same opinions expressed a bit differently. And not necessarily intelligently.

It's true that America does not subsidize the arts to the extent that other countries do, so if we want to see classical, jazz, and other marginalized musical idioms continue we'll have to seek them out and support them with our own hard earned cash. Let's all take responsibility for the lack of interest in this music and not just blame it on philistines like John Ashcroft, nutball that he is. Fortunately he's too busy suspending civil rights and screwing up the war on terrorism to have much time to spend making sure no one gets to hear classical music.

Also, I don't find it to be a question of either intelligence or education. I never learned about Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Lennon, or the hundreds of other popular and difficult artists I've listened to and enjoyed in any 'music appreciation course'; high school, college, or otherwise. So why would I need one to be able to love the music of Bach, Beethoven, Bartok, Debussy, Shostakovich or the hundreds of classical composers and performers I likewise enjoy?

 

Well, now that you mention it, ATR, I think you've got something worth investigating here.

My personal collection of roughly 8000 LPs and CDs has approximately this mix:

Classical 40%
Jazz 20%
Rock 30%
Other 10% (Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Folk, Broadway musicals Big Band etc)

Most of the avid music collectors I know don't have as diverse a collection as mine, but I know one classical music enthusiast who has more than 20,000 classical records, and another 5,000 classical CDs, SACDs and DVD-A's.

Another collector I know has roughly 7,500 jazz and 10,000 classical lps (and does not own a CD player). He is active buying classical and jazz recordings on ebay, and from a number of vinyl mail order specialists.

Another classical music collector I know has nearly 20,000 CDs, and donated that many records to the local NPR station when he found out that CDs offered him perfect sound forever.

I certainly wouldn't want to characterize any one of us as "normal" collectors, and it's true that the last of these guys is, most assuredly, our local privately owned CD shop's very best customer. If I wanted someone else's opinion on which version of any given piece of classical music, I'd be certain to ask him since he has multiple performances of just about anything you could imagine.

I think that if anything is true, we who have a deep interest in classical music are more likely to buy multiple performances of the same work than many/most whose interest in music hasn't changed much since their high school days. At one time I owned 32 different recorded performances of Mahler's Second Symphony because I was interested in hearing how different conductors and singers interpreted the work.

 

I was referring to the logic behind the response in question

Agreed. Let us all take responsibility.

I don't believe the point is necessarily "either intelligence or education". You don't need either to enjoy the others. The issue, which I believe is valid, is that classical music is often more challenging to the brain than rock. There are exceptions but the point stands in general.

John

 

Cecil Taylor once said that the most frightening thing for people in America is to experience their own feelings, and that's one of the reasons he believed his music was not embraced by a large audience. Although I don't object to people appreciating music because of its complexity or braininess (I do a bit of that myself) I agree with Cecil that the main point of music is to communicate directly to the emotional self. And there's no brainier, more difficult, more intellectual music in the world than Cecil's.

John, I get the gist of what you're saying and in certain cases I would agree with you but not as a general rule. I think the best music regardless of genre appeals to the mind and the body equally. To add to what I said earlier in this thread, turn off your brain and open your mind to what you're feeling. You'll be dancing in your head, believe me.

 

I want to talk about this comment and answer your question of course only in relation to what i stated in my earlier statement. I never said you "needed" any kind of education to like classical music. I think perhaps your pigeonholing the idea of "class" into something that means class means you must be receiving education. That wasn't what my reference to class meant at all. If your interpretation of what i said about "music appreciation class" means that you have to have some education to "love" classical music then your incorrect in your interpretation. What my point was in stating those classes are lacking, is that the lack of musical education classes in minor and high schools, directly relates to the lack of exposure to those genres. Which in my opinion directly relates to less listeners for the genre. People need to hear the music before they can develop any kind of opinion, taste, like of it.

Since those classes don't exist, one more avenue for exposure doesn't happen like it used to, when those classes existed. In my opinion, those classes are an ideal environment for exposure because the listeners are in their younger years which most of the time are the formative years of musical interests in your life and it is often, not always, but often easier to peak someones interest in a genre, a sound, specific group, etc of music. Sense those exposures don't happen it's another missing factor. That's all I meant in regards to that.

I do totally agree with your statement that we need to all take responsibility for the lack of interest in this music and not just blame it on any one person or persons. The way to do that in my opinion on top of just spending money is to expose someone to that genre of music and keep exposing them as you can't ever tell when something might peak there interest.

 

Just out of curiosity...

Has anyone here heard Vangelis' "Mythodea"? Would you consider this a classical work?

 

Sorry to say, but as I read the above, I can't even tell for sure if you agree with yourself. And your definition of 'class' reminds me of Bill Clinton's remark about the meaning of the word 'is'.
At any rate, I wasn't even responding to anything you had said. I was just making the point that I have no formal academic background in music yet I equally appreciate many musical genres. It isn't any more complicated than that.
But just for the record, aren't you actually saying in the last paragraph that kids need 'classes' in their 'formative years of musical interests' so they'll have an opportunity to be 'exposed' to classical music? Why, then, don't they need to be similarly exposed to other musical genres?
Maybe we should go back to the 'sociological' reasons that were mentioned before. Is it possible that we subscribe to a cultural myth that popular music requires no education to appreciate, whereas classical, jazz and other 'intellectual' or 'difficult' musics cannot be listened to without specific preparation? Could be. Classical music is over 600 years old, jazz over 100, but rock has been with us for only about 55 years give or take. Maybe that's a clue.
Anyway, if you accept the fact that rock is technical and sophisticated (which is true if it's good), and likewise contrariwise classical music is emotional (also true if it's good), then the dispute simply resolves into a pure appreciation of music for what it is. Try that for a change.

 

Steve,

I think you misunderstood my post. I meant that I used to run into the house to listen to it. See, as a kid, I used to literally sit in front of the stereo between the speakers and listen to the records.

I was making the point that many people who hate rock music and think it is evil have tried to tell us that those who shun classical must not be as intelligent as those who are avid listeners. The mentioning of intelligence is what raised my red flag.

I would say the majority of people here are rock fans, and some do not care for classical music. I interpreted this to mean that they are not as intelligent. It doesn't have to be rock, you know. It could be country...

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding.

 

Yes and no.

 

Stating that something is a 'fact' doesn't make it so. If you have some proof or perhaps even good empirical evidence to back this claim up, I'd love to see it.

 

Another 'fact'. hmmm... One of my favorite bands is Nirvana. They are neither technical nor sophisticated in my mind. I think they are definitely 'rock.' They hit my emotions.

In fact, I find the 'rock' that is technical and sophisticated like Rush and other progressive artists to be some of the most boring garbage in the world. My failure to enjoy them has nothing to do with their talent. It has to do with a complete lack of emotional connection between myself and the artist.

 

Rush wouldn't be an example of technical or sophisticated rock for me, although I do find them bombasitic (the little I've heard, I don't have any of their records) though, like a lot of King Crimson or Emerson Lake and Palmer.

I totally agree that making an emotional connection with any music is important in whether or not you like it, as you can tell from my earlier comments.

I find for example The Beatles, Beach Boys, Frank Zappa, and Jimi Hendrix to be examples of highly technical and sophisticated music in many ways. The problem with the use of terms like 'technical' and 'sophisticated' is that they can be misleading unless we're talking about specific examples of what we define as technical or sophisticated. Technical and sophisticated is in the ear of the behearer, and it all depends on what you know.

 

My use of the word "fact" was sloppy. I'd love to see the proof too.

 

IMHO, maybe you don't have to be 'intelligent' to listen to classical music, BUT you have to have 'some' musical "intelligence" (if you will), to understand classical music. I really don't know how else to put it, (nor do I have the time to do much typing now), but as a music theory major, years ago; I believe the above statement stands, especially when comparing classical to many other genres of music.
By the way, I believe the 60 Minutes episode really holds some weight in what they had to say. This is obvious in our society, to a large extent.
Classical music is definitely not in the disposable category that so much other music that permeates the airwaves is.

 

ATR,
I think it is fair to separate different styles of music according to their appeal. A great pop song need not be cerebral at all. A song such as "Satisfaction" combines attitude (which while cerebral is not deeply so) with a catchy riff and beat. A great disco song doesn't need brain appeal at all - it needs the rhythm to get your hips swaying and a strong melody with some simple words that the dancers can sing along too. The brain gets in the way.
Beetoven's late quartets are intellectually profound and sombre. I can't see much body appeal.
Classical music is about feeling and much of it is accessible hence those late night ads for the greatest classical melodies. You'll note that most of the works have been chopped up to give you three minute song bites. The full works require a longer attention span and a willingness to commit to that. The appeal is deeper and more cerebral. Do you like your Dickens unabridged? Or do you prefer the Reader's Digest Version? Or, do you wait until the movie comes out? The first requires the most intellectual rigour.

Good advice. We all like to analyse here, so it would be revealing to forget about that aspect of the music and just feel it for a change.

 

Everyone,

Musical taste is in the mind of the beholder. You either like something or you don't. IQ has nothing to do with the issue, either. Classical music has a structure, rock music has a structure. One may be heavily melodic with little or no percussion, one heavily rhythmic with percussive instruments. You don't have to understand the structure of a classical piece to enjoy it. Enjoying something with a 4:4 beat with repetition does not mean one is musically ignorant. You can mix and match styles. In our diverse US culture, one style of music is no more or less important or relevant than another.