Animosity/hostility towards Classical Music?

Factual Questions
1

This isn’t a terribly heavy topic, but I’ve been wondering about it.

I grew up loving Classical music. I still love it. I listen to it almost exclusively today. I never did develop a strong liking for popular forms of music (though I don’t mind it in sporatic doses.) I have encountered many people through the years that cannot stand Classical music. Not only do they hate it, it irks them that I like it, and they will start arguments with me about it, and try to “deprogram” me from listening to it. (I admit, this happened more when I was younger. Younger people seem to be very troubled if someone else listens to something “different”.)

I have met people who don’t care for Classical, but don’t give a rat’s ass what I listen to. These people are not a problem. (I don’t care what they listen to, they don’t care what I listen to, all is Right With The World.)

However, through the years, I have encountered people who will go out of their way to not listen to it, or have it played in their presence. There are several incidents I can think of where, in a workplace, all the workers had a choice of what stations to listen to. Everyone seemed to have “their turn” at listening to their favorite station, except when it came to Classical. Then, all bets were off, and it was obvious that there was NO WAY that Classical was going to be played, even though most other styles of music were allowed, and tolerated.

I have experienced many variations on this theme through my life - an unfair prejudice towards Classical. (Another example that just sprung to mind was when a record store advertised that all records from a certain record label were on sale. When my dad came in with a Classical recording from that label, he was told that it wasn’t on sale. It was just assumed, or understood, that of course the sale didn’t include Classical, even though the ad said all records from that label! My dad made a big stink, wrote the record store’s headquarters, and eventually got the sale price.)

The question I have is, why the big deal? It’s just music. I dislike many forms of music, but I would never dream of going to such great lengths to prevent others from hearing it. I can tolerate listening to it without complaint. So I don’t understand why this tolerant behavior cannot be reciprocated when it’s “my turn” to listen to what I like for a while.

I recently had a lengthy email discussion with a friend of mine about this, (that’s what prompted this post.) My friend, who is from Seattle, didn’t experience such extreme reactions against Classical, though he has noticed a certain prejudice also. So, I wonder if I come from a neighborhood/social class that is more hostile towards Classical. (I’m from the San Fernando Valley.) Heaven knows I have encountered plenty of Straight Dopers that love Classical. So, any thoughts, input? I’m quite curious.

2

I’ve heard that a lot too. Many times I’ve been talking to people, getting to know them, and music comes up. They very often go on about how they really like all music. Then they said “Ugh, except [classical, country, rap, and/or opera]! It sucks!”

Sometimes this extreme intolerance is for classical, but it’s usually for country. What the people can never seem to explain, though, is why they hate it so much.

I can usually find certain songs in any genre that I like. There isn’t one whole style of music that I despise.

For the record, I’m in BC, Canada.

3

Yes, Zulu - County is another one of the “forbidden” forms of music also. I worked at a place for a while where I was not allowed to play my Classical station (though everyone else had “their turn” at whatever their favorite station was.)

Sometimes in the evening, I’d only work with this other woman - she liked Country, I liked Classical, we were the two musical lepers of the workplace. So, we’d happily take turns listening to our favorite stations, with no one else to freak out and “forbid” us!

4

“Classical” is kind of a wide-ranging term.

What sort of music are you springing on your co-workers? Vivaldi, or Schoenberg’s Piano Sonata?

Uke

5

WAG:

Classical music is often associated with elitism, cultural snobbery, class friction, and, in these later days, cultural imperialism. “Popular” forms of music are seen as rebelling against an imposed standard of good taste.

Not that I necessarily agree with these arguments; but they do seem to be widely-held.

6

Ike: The music usually played on the radio would be the likes of Mozart and Beethoven. Not usually considered hard to listen to.

My personal hunch (at least in some cases) is that the people who have such a extreme reaction against Classical are somehow annoyed by what they don’t understand. They don’t listen to it, they don’t get it, and they do probably consider it “elitist”. They maybe even worry that people who claim to like Classical are “puttin’ on airs”.

When they encounter someone who does like it (and Classical lovers among my peers do not seem to be plentiful) they are almost like “What are you trying to pull?!? You can’t really like it!” It’s not a matter (in least in the incidents that I have encountered) that I am representing the traditional “norm”, it is that I am unusual, aberrant. (This has been implied to me many times, especially when I was younger.) They think popular music is the “norm”, Classical is not, so what’s my problem?

At least that is a theory I have developed to explain some of this behavior…I’m not sure how accurate it is.

7

“Classical music is often associated with elitism, cultural snobbery, class friction, and, in these later days, cultural imperialism.”

Jiminy—no wonder I like it!

Like Ike said, there’s lots of different kinds of classical music; just as both Ricky Nelson and Ice Cube could be considered “rock stars.”

Me, I love the Baroque: Vivaldi, Corelli, Bach. Could listen to 'em all day. But Brahams, Beethoven, some of the “moderns,” I could live without and would much rather put on a good ragtime tune by Billy Murray and Ada Jones.

8

yosemitebabe sez:

I agree with that. I come from a background of …how do I put this… simple country folk. There is a reverse snobbism that rejects anything not lowbrow. I’ve tried to break away from that and keep my tastes eclectic. The radio in my truck (sorry, no rifle rack in the back window but a truck is pretty redneck) is usually tuned to the NPR jazz station or classical. How’s that for breaking the mold. I’m no country music fan but one of my favorite records is a compilation from the Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys box set and I know all the lyrics to Fist City by Loretta Lynn.

“Popeye? Hm? He’s not much of a judge of women!” King Blozo

9

Some convenience stores in rough neighborhoods have talen to playing it in their parking lots. Chases the thughs away. Not all classical music is old. John Williams has composed many pieces, popular in Star Wars movies. I have a Star Trek tape with original classical tunes. THe Marines seem to use haunting Brahm’s work (I think)in their commercials.

While I can appreciate classical music as background music on occasion, I do not really like to see it live. Too many rules. Get in your seat. Be quiet. Don’t get up to take a leak. Don’t bring your beer into the auditorium.

I would much rather see a good blues, rock, or industrial band at a bar where I am free to be noisy, take a leak when I want, and walk around with my beer wherever I want.

10

Good jazz (i.e., real jazz, not that Kenny G. crap) gets the same reaction as classical. People just go nuts.

11

I haven’t noticed an animosity directed at classical music as such. Opera, yes. People find it hardest to get used to alien vocal styles. (Now there is an example of advantages in the writing medium. I can italicize “vocal” so nobody will think I’m emphaisizing “alien”.) That is, people are a lot more comfortable listening to a tabla/tanpura/sitar ensemble - no familiar instruments at all - than to somebody singing in a Southern accent or operatic style. Naturally, the people in that example are just the ones I’m around, Northern and Western United Statesians. The reverse might not be true from other cultures to my own, but from personal experience, I know that Americans typically react to Chinese instrumental stuff with a reaction like, “Hey, exotic! Neat! Novel!” Their reaction to Chinese vocal music? “Couldn’t they find somebody who isn’t tone-deaf? Or is that a dying animal?”

Not a very nice reaction, but an interesting one. If my theory is right, it explains the three prongs of musical animosity I see the most, directed at opera, country-western, and rap.

It’d be interesting to ask a European from the 17th Century, or a modern Asian, or a die-hard country fan, what they think of modern Anglo-American radio.

That which does not kill me just makes me really irritable

12

Well, god. This one strikes close to heart. First of all, Uke, I love your choices :slight_smile: How about some Dvorak thrown in there? Or some nice atonal 20th Century stuff? Nothing like the sound of Philip Glass shattering…<smirk>
I’m a rock fan. All kinds, but mostly older ( 70’s/80’s ) stuff. I married into a family of classical musicians. REAL SNOBS- they are all top-notch, two of them are world-famed types. They loathe that I even listen to anything of this “ilk”.
I happen to love some classical works, Mozart’s Requiem Mass always gives me shivers, and the Firebird Suite wrecks me. I also happen to love “London Calling”. Odd, but true. Perhaps people are both prejudiced, and are afraid to give some stuff a good listen. My wife ( the coloratura soprano and music teacher ) hates the idea that I listen to a rock band whose members have a very firm grounding in classical theory and education. They just chose to make music a different way. “YES” remains, to this day, my fave band.
It’s hard to make people listen. Time is short, and everyone has their own agendas. I was accused of being narrowminded by my best friend, because I didn’t like the “Simply Red” CD she sent me. I listened to the whole thing, it left me cold. At least I LISTENED. Most people won’t give classical a chance. “Fantasia 2000” may get a few people to listen,and enjoy. I just saw it, it’s amazing. Take your kids, parents, spouses, significant others and pets.
Perhaps the worst part of this debate is that there are snobs on the other side of the fence who are JUST as virulent in their hatred of MY music. I lost my cool, when “Live AID” was on, all those years ago. I said, " I don’t see Issac Stern or Pinchus Zuckerman raising millions for starving people of NON White European descent". That really stuck in the In-Laws craw, lemme tell you.

Cartooniverse

" If you want to kiss the sky, you’d better learn how to kneel. "

13

I don’t hate classical music, but I’ve come to accept over the past few years that I’m just not a fan. I don’t mind it as background music, but when I’m in a situation where I’m expected to do nothing but listen to the music, my brain eventually tunes it out and I daydream about things unrelated.

That’s not a universal rule, of course, because (as has been pointed out), “classical” is a big category. I like Dvorak, for example, and many 20th century pieces.

Interestingly (to me, at least), I love listening to intsrumental jazz – the good stuff, not Kenny G. – and the one time I’ve been to the opera (Turandot) I thoroughly enjoyed it. And something like Fantasia works because it has the visual component as well; this might explain the opera. Then again, I’m bored by ballet, so who knows?

I know plenty of people who enjoy classical music as well as rock/pop. I’m sure I know some people who’d militate against classical, were I to play it for them, but I more often hear dirision turned towards country.

It is interesting how often people feel compelled to voice their musical distastes. I may not enjoy classical, but I can listen to it for a while in exchange for being able to put Mingus in the CD player.

The categories are Authors, Chaos Vs. Superstring, and Rub-a-dub.
Magnolia, scr. Paul Thomas Anderson

14

Beruang:

I think you’ve got it, it’s often a snob thing, like a redneck thing, or a skater thing, or whatever. Many people do things just for appearance and often, suddenly liking classical music is one of those.

This is because classic is very old and complex. It’s not enough just to like it, if you like it without being able to explain, thesis level, why you do, you’ll often be browbeaten by these same people who adopted it as their snob things…

I got this with wine, I can’t remember what the meal was, but I asked for a sweet red wine, because I like the taste more than most dry wines, and white is often dryer, so to save trouble explain exactly what I want, with vocabulary I don’t know, I ask for sweet red. Anyways, I got layed into by one of the people we were eating with because I was drinking the wrong wine with this meal, and even if it was a red wine meal, it was the wrong red, and so on. Since then, I have an urge to smack people who know a lot about wine because of my experience with wine snobs.

Ditto, I think, with classical. The same type of person as the wine snob is also a classical music snob. Being just as obsessed as a rap fan, or whatever, able to identify various pieces, and composers, they are somehow better because their music is old and refined, where the same behaviour in someone about newer music, that’s just childish.

I personally don’t listen to a lot of music, I’m fairly intense and tend to ignore music while working, chatting, or eating, so it’s only really used when I want to drown something out, so I don’t see either side of the music thing much, but I know both types, the snobs, and the snob-haters who turn into classical-haters.

Boris:

Yup, Opera, and musicals in general, are something I see this in.

I was listening to (because someone in the same room was, at high volume) Les Miserables, (Don’t bother correcting that spelling) and afterword, they asked me what I thought. I said I didn’t pay much attention, but I liked some songs, (I only remember two lines now “Master of the house” and “I smell Women, smell em on the air”) more than others (Something where the male lead sounded like a cat under a rocking chair) and then I was told that I liked simplistic music, etc.

Bleh. It wasn’t okay that I just liked the way it sounded, and it was fast and fun, etc. No, it wasn’t the proper part to like, for a snob, that’s just filler between the other stuff. Because that thirty-second note that sounded like wailing was hard, so because it had technical merit, the song was suddely better, and because the other songs were simple to sing, they were cheap and gimicky.

Turned me off to the whole thing, and by extension, probably made me less likely to listen to similar stuff in the future.

And that’s not even opera, you can get some real snobs there because there’s so much you have to read background on to know, with it often not being in english, and based on obscure works (to non opera fans.)

Zulu:

Another BCer, great. We should do a SD meeting sometime. I’m in Vancouver, and I know a SDer in North Van, and I know there are a few others.

15

I’m one of those people who would go out and buy a CD with all the “good parts” from classical music on it. I like classical music, the well known selections, just as I like some opera, operetta - Gilbert and Sullivan. I would like to appreciate jazz, but I just don’t get it. It seems to me classical and jazz music is something you have to learn to appreciate, to seek out, to go to a school where it is played and explained to you. I mean, there are classical and jazz radio stations, and people listen and enjoy that music. But they had to get that knowledge somewhere. When I was young, the only place I ever heard any classical music was in the background of Disney and Bugs Bunny cartoons!

16

This is all so interesting!

I’d like to give a little more background of my experiences:

My family is middle class (when I was young, lower middle class.) My dad had special education in music, he just decided he loved Classical music when he was young, and it blossomed from there. He married my mom, also not terribly well-educated, but a good singer and musician. My sisters and I grew up surrounded by my dad’s records, and my mom’s singing and piano playing, so of course it all stuck with us. My dad was the most blue-collar guy you’d ever meet. No pretense or snobbery from him - he’d never be able to pull it off, even if he had tried.

I noticed early on (probably age 8) that there was an uncommon animosity against Classical amongst my peers, (and sometimes their parents.) These people were unlikely to be the kind that had encountered the real Classical “snobs”, Hell, I really think most of them had never really met anyone that really liked Classical at all. I think that might of been partly why they seemed so annoyed by my family - we were so “weird”. I also suspect they thought we were “puttin’ on airs”.

When I was about 10 or so, there was this one appalling example with my Camp Fire Girl group. The group leader and her daughter wanted to have a “music day”, where all the girls brought a recording of their favorite piece, to share with the rest of the group. In front of everyone, the leader’s daughter said, "Everyone can bring some music to play but YOU! You can’t bring any of your Classical music!) I was too young, and too cowed, to put up a fight over it. But I am still appalled that a Camp Firge Girl leader went along with it. I had to sit there listening to everyone else’s music, knowing that my music would not be allowed! (Scarred for life, scarred for life…)

I got a lot of “You’re so closed-minded!” from my schoolmates, because I did not listen to their radio stations. (Of course, it never was suggested or expected that they would ever give my music a chance.) I grew up quite cowed by my peers, almost “apologizing” for my musical tastes. Eventually I got sick of that, and asked these people what they actually knew about Classical. Of course, it turned out they knew nothing, had never really heard any of it. (This technique was good for shutting people up when they were in the midst of giving me a hard time.)

It never has been an interest of mine to expose more people to Classical. I remember how it felt to have people try to shove Rock music down my throat, damned if I’m going to do that to anyone else. I have no intention of giving anyone a hard time for what they listen, as long as they do the same for me. (But if they start ragging on me first, all bets are off. I became Fed Up ages ago.) I think that music is a personal choice. I actually have found a smattering of popular music that I enjoy, but not enough to really get into it. I can’t begrudge someone else for doing the same thing with Classical.

So when I wonder why some people hate Classical so much, it is not because I wonder why they are so “closed minded”, or why they can’t expand their horizons. I don’t care about their horizons. I just want my “turn” at choosing a radio station to play at a workplace. I want to be able to play my music in “my space” without someone acting as if I am inflicting Chinese water torture on them, because they pass by and happen to hear some of it. I want to not be given a lot of shit (with the attitude “What went wrong with you?”) when people discover my musical preferences.

OK, end of rant.

17

Oh shit, I just realized a major typo in that last rambling post:

My dad had NO special education in music. NO education. (I wrote it to sound as if he did. He didn’t.)

18

Sounds like some of you have had crappy luck with people introducing you to classical music. WhiteNight, I think you were dealing with someone with a big chip on their shoulder about their tastes. If they really like sophisticated music, they should realize it takes several listenings for just about anybody to really figure out what’s going on.

I have had fairly good luck with people introducing me to classical music. My main problem with classical music has been figuring out what I like. This is because, the first few listenings to just about any piece of music leave me pretty cold. I know enough not to give up, but I don’t know enough to know whether the piece will ever grow on me or not. I used to listen to the Brandenburg Concertos a lot, figuring, hey, it’s J.S. Bach, it’s got to be earth-shatteringly great. Eventually I gave up and decided that particular period wasn’t for me. In fact, most of the Baroque stuff isn’t quite for me; Vivaldi is almost cloying; Telemann seems militantly bland. But that’s just my taste.

I can definitely see how snooty fans can be a turn-off. I read a book called The Musical Ascent of Herman Being, in which the title character is confronted by a blowhard classical fan, who is deflated at one point when someone plays him part of Mozart’s “Musical Joke”. The blowhard says it shows all the great aspects of Mozart - it’s perfection. The piece, of course, is written to be just the opposite, to defeat all the expectations of a musical audience for humorous effect. But it doesn’t always sound that way to modern ears.

I think that a little hazing is going on. “Oh well you are a rock fan thus you like simplistic baloney and could never understand elevated music like I do.” They are just repeating the crap others have told them - crap that they believed, and thus felt the need to get at least a Readers’ Digest appreciation of classical music, so they could inflict it on others.

My advice is to ignore them, and if you’re going to get into classical music, don’t start with Schoenberg.

19

I think that people can create snobbery and reverse snobbery over music, but my own feeling is that snobbery has nothing to do with what people like or dislike. (Although it does affect how they express their likes and dislikes.)

My own guess is that we are acclimated to certain types of music as we grow up, and we prefer “comfortable” (to our ears) music.

As an example, every once in a while the discussion in the SDMB turns to Rap. There is always an immediate outburst by a number of people that it is “just noise” or that it is “hateful noise.” Every one of these tirades has been met by other people on this board who have laid out the musical theory and expression that underlies Rap. Those who oppose it never concede their points. To them, it is noise and will always remain noise.

My kids have grown up listeneing to classical, R&B, Rock and Roll, recent Rock, Rap, show tunes, and a lot of Celtic music. They rarely hear opera, country, or psychedelic rock. When they encounter opera or some of the experimental Rock and Roll from my youth, they generally demand that I turn it off. There is a certain amount of Country that they won’t listen to.

On the other hand, they can’t get their friends to sit still to listen to Celtic or symphonic pieces that my kids love, because the other kids are not used to listening to it.

I think the choices are determined by exposure and the snobbish rationales (or rationalizations) are imposed later.

Tom~

20

One of the main reasons why I hate Rap is that it sounds so talentless. There is more obvious evidence, to me, that the perpetrators of Rap and all its ilk are thieves more than talented musicians.

However, in relation to the OP, I hate Jazz!!! (though I like Swing in the Glenn Miller kind of style) And it definitely has a lot to do with snobbery. The clique of Oobie Doobie-type Jazz afficionados and musicians really make me want to throw up - they just make my skin crawl.

I think the same thing often applies for Classical Music and other styles too. I also don’t like Country, R&B, Metal, or Opera. Most other styles seem okay to me. And I think you’ll find that of the majority of people - they stick to a narrow range of music, and find fault in the rest. Human nature, maybe.

(I have probably just reiterated what has already been said — Oh well)

-PIGEONMAN-
Returning Soon!

The Legend Of PigeonMan - Watch this space…! Great things are afoot!