Are not people entitled to have personal taste and opnions? I dislike the monstrosities Muzak does to any melody, by any artist - does that make me a snob?
I know there are Classical Snobs, but to be honest, I’ve never met any. I have, however, encountered multitudes of people who could not stand that I liked Classical, and tried to insult my taste in music in every way imaginable. Is that not being a “snob” as well? I daresay that there are more “Rock Snobs” or “Pop Snobs” out there than Classical snobs. Or maybe it’s because I’m middle-class, and I get all sorts of crap from my peers for liking a “high-falutin’” style of music. All I know is that I grew up constantly having to “defend” my musical tastes.
I’m sorry, I don’t encounter too many real Classical snobs. Usually they are just people who enjoy a lot of different music, have strong opinions and tastes, and feel free to express them. And sometimes (believe it or not) they don’t find a popular song all that artistically gratifying. And maybe (God Forbid) a person will feel like they can point that out, without being called a “snob”. I know that no one ever was shy about telling me how much they didn’t like my “boring church music”. Why is it any different when the tables are turned?
That point is too obvious to be made. The fact that I hear Bach’s great Toccata and Fugue in G Minor thirty times a day during Halloween has no effect whatsoever on the original piece of music. That is hardly the point. So take your anti-snobbery snobbery somewhere else.
She wrote it to Canon in D?
What the FUCK? Why can’t people be ORIGINAL?
I mean, fine, if you want to do it, I guess it’s kinda like what’s his name putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but, what the hey?
I don’t mind when people use a piece in their work, but come on, to call those people original pisses me off.
Like the fact that the Beatles don’t have the publishing rights to their songs…it kind of sucks that Jennifer Love Screwitt took the song I’ve Just Seen a Face as theme song for her crappy show…
Amen. I used to like Canon. I played it when I was in orchestra. It annoys me when you tell kids who like the song that the piece is famous and pre-dates Vitamin C by over 100 years, and they’re like, really? You’re kidding! It’s news to them. sigh
Funny thing, my awareness of Canon came from watching the soap opera Guiding Light when I was a VERY small child with my mother. It was the theme song for a couple on the show.
I’d love to use it at my own wedding someday, if ever I get married. It is such a beautiful piece.
OOH, something that I have written about before. The best analogy between most rock/pop music and classical music is the comparison: rock/pop music is to classical as comic books are to a novel. You get the idea. This said comic books are enjoyable to read but if you want real meat and interest you have to switch over to a novel. Sometimes one is preferable over the other. There are bad comic books out there (you all know who they are) and bad novels (see the thread about throwing books down in disgust). There are some days I would rather read Akira than read a biography on Rasputin (he was fascinating, btw). This all applies to music as well.
I have to admit that I am a bit biased on the topic as a classical musician. Classical music is still popular but has a more focused/aristocratic type of an audience. When people listen to classical music (not necessarily from the Classical period) they develop a similar “ear” for it as many people have for the pop music of today. I can’t remember the day care where the musicologists performed an expirement on their kids with music (with their parents consent of course) but the expirement was basically a study on musical tastes. The children were played very atonal 20th century pieces every day for about a year both at home and in the day care. They were not given any other type of music to listen to. Eventually the day care/musicologist/psychologists started playing Mozart, Bach, and several other big name tonal composers to the kids. Can you guess what happened? They all hated it. They had not developed a tonal aural vocabulary. It would be like a westerner listening to Peking Opera for the first time. (The movie “Farewell My Concubine” features a lot of this music and is very good in its own right. Most people think it sounds like a cat fight with an erratic beat. It is quite stylized with movements, dialogue, and the melody.) The same is true with the comparison to pop music. I believe someone said something similar above.
In the philosophy of music there is a huge cultural significance needed for an individual to form his/her musical tastes. The media has played the biggest part in forming rock music (which classical musicians call non-serious music…it really is less complicated than most classical pieces, not including some minimalists composers). The media popularized it originally in its demonization of the music saying it was the “Devil’s music” thus ensuring that “rebellious teenagers” would listen to it more. The rise of a “new” musical style is really a cultural phenomena there. Many of the early rock musicians were selling more an image than their actual music. Elvis didn’t write his own music but his sex appeal and rebellious personality (in those days) sold his music and brought rock music into the white mainstream. From there other image conscious individuals started writing more music. The Beatles had their image of some guys from Liverpool that had long hair out to have a good time. The universal ideals of having a good time and being new really caught on in the mainstream and their media attention thus threw them into starhood. The newness appeal is something that shouldn’t be discounted either. It is the reason we go to movies on opening night. They are new and we will see it. Classical music doesn’t have the new appeal anymore. It was basically the staple music of the aristocracy up until the second rise of the middle class and more people could afford the instruments and go to the concerts. At that time there was a huge increase in its popularity. The second rise was pretty close to the center of the Classical Period. This is evidenced by Mozart mainly when he was writing operas. His operas were written to appeal to the all classes of society and not just the aristocracy. This would also explain some of his immense popularity in his own time. (A side note, Mozart died a pauper. He was said to have been dead broke. Many historians have written that he probably died broke because he had at least one mistress on the side and kept her well in addition to just spending extravagantly.)
It is also easier to be a superstar if you are a solo performer or a small group. People don’t like to focus on large groups of people for the simple reason that it is not really relatable to the individual. That focus is often used by the media to make money for their pockets. Satan can probably inform you more of how the media manipulates bands to take them into stardom since that is a large part of what he does.
The question at hand will popular music ever be in vogue again as pop music is now. It could quite easily be. Some classical superstars like Yo Yo Ma and John Williams enjoy that type of starhood but there rise is due to the fact that they are solo performers with great virtuosity.
HUGS!
Sqrl
PS. I had to go out to shortly after I started typing this and haven’t read to see if these things have been covered.
Just as an FYI, the latest ratings for the Washington, DC radio market came out this week. (DC is, I believe, the No. 8 market in the country). The top 3 stations were urban hits and urban adult; the number 4 station was WGHS 103.5, a classical station. (And the station I usually listen to in the car.)
Yo-Yo-Ma is popular because he regularly plays on Sesame Street!! Kids growing up who don’t know classical music from pneumatic drilling knows of the Asian cello player with funny-looking glasses.
Seriously, he is one great performer who doesn’t mind where he plays, as long as his music is heard. He is as adept in playing in front of kids at a primary school as he is playing in Carnegie Hall. That what makes him a true ambassador to classical music.
Damn, between the rains and my boss Mayor Guiliani spraying for West Nile mosquitoes in Central Park, I couldn’t make it to any of the Central park performances this summer.
Mp3.com has some cool classical pieces performed by college professors. They are among the most popular in the site.
Classical music isn’t really a dying breed. Band programs are booming these days, and when you go to state music festivals, it’s great to wander around and hear snippets from Bizet, Bach, and Beethoven. (Not to mention numerous other composers.) I agree with those who have stated, “It’s an acquired taste.” I started with Classical Thunder, and am now enjoying some Rossini from my new Mercury Living recording of the Eastman Wind Ensemble. There seems to be kind of a cult following for classical now; even some of my hard-liner “Country’s best…who needs them German artists anyways?” friends have turned to some meatier music, to reuse Sqrlcub’s earlier phrasing.
'Course, I’m prejudiced, having spent 4 years in syphonic bands. High school/college musicians seem to have a higher respect for the classics, overall, when compared with their peers.
