The enjoyment you get from Classical music is at least two-fold.
First, there’s immediate, purely sensual pleasure of experiencing beautiful music. That’s the most important and the place where everyone can start.
Then, comes wonder when you discover all the little surprises, references and Easter eggs that a composer has hidden in a work for us. It’s what keeps centuries-old pieces fresh and fascinating after dozens of listenings. Add the multiple ways in which you can interpret the same work and a lifetime isn’t enough to discover all that it has to offer. But you definitely don’t need this to enjoy Classical music.
I certainly could be. I have been deeply moved by songs in a language I don’t understand and by abstract painting or sculpture. Their beauty was not enhanced by finding out there was a deeper meaning.
It’s like someone who knows nothing about cricket watching a cricket match, or someone who knows nothing about baseball watching a baseball match, or any other sport we are not familiar with.
Our initial reaction is, ‘This is very boring, it means nothing to me’. We have to learn about it in order to appreciate it. That doesn’t happen instantaneously. We can learn about it either by being exposed to it over many years from childhood, or else by reading up on it, watching it regularly, and speaking to knowledgeable people.
A gut reaction, on the basis of unfamiliarity, is misleading. Once we learn about the sport and start to watch it, we begin to enjoy it more and more. If we haven’t previously been exposed to that sport, the enjoyment won’t happen without taking the trouble to learn about it.
I’ll assume you actually don’t perceive any element of snootiness in how classical music is performed. Fine. I - and I believe many others - feel differently. But I have no interest in trying to change your mind.
Why would I dislike music I enjoy, depending on where it is played? Would you dislike a classical quartet dressed casually and playing in your backyard?
I’m with you there. Which is tough, because my wife LOVES it. Every once in a while I’m pleasantly surprised - Hamilton was VERY enjoyable. But for me, sitting through another rendition of Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, Rent, whatever - is essentially torture. I’d rather clean house! In a weird way, I often feel somewhat embarrassed for the performers - hard to put into words.
To further explain my amusement at this thread - I play music with others outside of my home at least 7 hours a week, in addition to the couple of hrs my wife and I play together 3-4 days/week. I probably attend 2-3 live concerts per month. I’ve studied classical piano, taken musical appreciation in college, have a child who studied music education in college.
I don’t consider myself ignorant about classical music. I simply have preferences. Moreover, my preferences have changed over my lifetime.
A favorite item from the New York Times column “Metropolitan Diary”, where anecdotes of life in the city are sent in by readers: A young man is talking to his girlfriend on a bus. The reader overhears them talking about Rent, the musical to which they had just gone to see. Not quite familiar with the concept of a musical, the woman says to the man, “you know, I really enjoyed it. The story was interesting, but it was weird how all of a sudden they would just start singing at each other.”
I agree, it was an accusatory post because I did get a very poor impression from the first sentence they used i.e.
Sounds condescending to me. The term “lite” certainly seems to be used in a dismissive way and I can’t think of any reason for mentioning “advanced university degrees” other then to make sure we know how they clever they are, it seems bordering on the snobby to me.
At the risk of sounding condescending : yes, you do and no, you’re not.
Appreciating an artwork is an active endeavour. You may think that you are passive, but your brain is constantly processing, comparing and judging what it’s experiencing and deciding whether it likes it or not. Which is why, if you’re unwilling to let someone tell you about a particular piece, you’re just stuck in your own monologue.
Again, no-one has to enjoy Classical music. But it really is something that can offer amazing, may-layered pleasures for a lifetime, so excuse us if we feel passionate about it, especially when it’s a bit… misunderstood and an easy target for snark since relatively few people listen to it regularly.
On a side-note, frankly, the whole “it’s so snobbish” schtick is annoying. The most heated musical discussions that I’ve had were with people who berated me for not knowing that The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Everything Playing came out after Hums of the Lovin’ Spoonful, or not understanding the difference between Post-Irony Californian Doo-Wop and Lo-Fi Mumble Surf.
Yeah. Sophisticated. Not like Grey Poupon-elite sophisticated, more in the sense that iPhones are sophisticated technology.
Music is also a technology. You can appreciate that it puts nice sounds in your earholes, or you can also appreciate that some pieces have a lot of highly engineered layers that took a lot of thought to create, or that this one guy was the first to do it in this particular way, or that this one piece borrows parts of other pieces in interesting ways. Or they made this thing that looks very simple but turns out complex, or they took this complex thing and then put a 6,000 year old ditty in there just for giggles.
I’m not going to invest much more effort explaining this to someone determined to prove that it doesn’t exist. If you don’t care about it, fine. But why expend so much effort arguing that nobody can perceive things that you don’t perceive, or that things that aren’t important to you aren’t important to anybody?
Easy, easy. I was just suggesting you listen to a great piece of music, and thought it might be a bit amusing bringing in the classical music venue angle.
I’ll just say that the term “lite” classical music has been very common for years, decades even, and that it does typically refer to pieces that are more accessible, if that’s the right word. And as I said in my previous post, Schoenberg is by no means accessible the first time you hear him. So I don’t think Limmin was necessarily being condescending. That’s all.
I am one of those people who wants to know as little background as possible. I want to experience art, literature, film and music without preconceptions as much as possible.
I’m passionate about it too.
My only accusation of snobbery was against someone who seemed to equate “difficult” music with brainpower. Liking classical music is not snobbish.
Same reason I don’t generally care for Rap, soft rock, or Pop–it just doesn’t do anything for me, or where I think the music is coming from doesn’t have an analogous place in my heart. Classical can be quite pretty, and I can marvel intellectually at the technical prowess of composer, conductor, and musician; but while it may speak to my brain no part of my heart understands or embraces the sound. So it’s just noise.
Seven to ten years ago, or so, I decided to really make an effort to learn to appreciate classical music. I didn’t hate it, but just hadn’t listened to much of it on purpose.
It worked, in that I have a greater appreciation for it, and there are pieces I love and that truly move me. On the other hand, I learned that I’ll never get much beyond “casual appreciator,” because in general, violins are not pleasing to my ear. I much prefer to listen to a piece for piano than one with a full orchestra that features heavy strings. I don’t know exactly what it is…it’s too high, or the tone grates, or something, but I can’t take more than a minute or two before I start to crawl out of my skin.
Full disclosure: I am ridiculously sensitive to certain noises, so I understand that this isn’t most people’s experience with violins.
My mom had Handel’s Water Music when we were kids. We listened to the Jackson Five, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd in those days. One day on a whim, my twin brother slapped Handel on. Fell in love with it immediately. The point being, there is next to no development in that piece of music. Lovely music all around, requiring nothing more than a love of melody and rhythm. We were lucky that way in that Mom wasn’t a Bartok fan. Who knows how long we would have taken to put on another classical piece!
I’m all for widening the reach of music and the arts and think that we turn people off if we start using language like “lite” and “difficult” and “sophisticated”. They carry far too much baggage. Heck even the word “popular” gets spat out as a pejorative.
It’s a lot more entertaining with the cannon, as with the heavy ordnance towards the end of the 1812 Overture.
I spent a lot of years playing “classical” piano, then got into rock. I still listen to a lot of both. Never have liked vocal/choral music and find most everything written in the last century unlistenable.
Tastes vary. I’m not offended if others hate music I like.
Except for works by Gershwin, the all-time greatest American composer.
Sure, I don’t think it helps and that it continues to propagate the belief that classical music lovers are snobbish, that’s all. Limmin probably does not hold a condescending bone in their body but the words used were like nails on a blackboard to me and they perhaps don’t see how they might be interpreted. In a thread entitled “Classical music haters: why” it seems relevant to bring it up.
This is the key reason that fails for me for most classical pieces. Too many damn movements and journeys and meanderings, not enough hook. There are exceptions, like Ravel’s Bolero or Bach’s Bouree that are joys to listen to because they are built around nice tight hooks.
