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Who Needs Classical Music?


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I said I didnt say classical music is racist, and then reiterated that I am saying that institutions that enshrine classical music have raciat and classist elements.

 

I then pointed out the irony of you mis-quoting me (or others) as calling classical music racist, accusing them (me) of wallowing in a cesspool by calling classical music racist (which I did not) when you yourself were the first person here to hurl that word, not at a poor defenseless musical genre, but at another poster to this forum.

 

Anyway, if it makes it any clearer, let me say: classical music is not racist. And you can quote me on that. Mozarts piano concerto no 21 is not racist. Bachs two part inventions are not racist. I couldnt even make sense of the sentence fur elise is racist. Its a nonsense sentence, and the sooner you realise its a strawman concept that youve invented the sooner you can let go of the illogic of your own invention.

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This Fly on the KC wall.

 

CG Jung's observation, people do not have ideas, rather, ideas have people.... has never resonated more true for me than this nonsense thread.

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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I think it is a shame that you were made to feel that you HAD to apologize. Making a provocative statement to foster discourse doesn't indicate mental illness IMO.

 

Thank you. I was apologizing for pushing the discourse into an area whose response is already known to me to be both inevitable and bad here. That is sincere. This topic just doesn't work here, and I know that by now.

 

I'm happy to talk about this stuff via messenger. Saying it "out loud" here brings out the worst in people, as we are still seeing, and as anyone who saw Davedorfler's now-deleted message more than saw.

 

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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I'm not familiar with the term "dynamic projection" apart from mapping, but have heard of the principle of 'projection' in psychology (loosely defined, a defense mechanism of refusing certain negative attributes in yourself while attributing them to others). Perhaps we're talking about the same thing.

 

Back to the topic at hand (and perhaps this is an unwelcome beating of the proverbial horse), I can understand the premise that classical music (like other fine art forms) benefits in the US from substantial patronage commitments from the wealthy. Here in the SF Bay Area, folks like Mark and I are fortunate to enjoy the SF Symphony, the SF Ballet and the SF Opera. We also have a diverse, thriving theater community which requires substantial private funding too.

 

By definition, funding for these things (as well as jazz radio, now that I think of it) will come from people with discretionary income who value these institutions in their lives. The reasons these things are valuable to an individual or a family may take familiar forms, and they also may include a wide swath of more personal motives.

 

I'm not sure I'd describe the ongoing support of the arts in the SF Bay Area as either stubborn or ritualistic. Someone else gets to assign those pejoratives to other people's behavior. Me, I'm glad that some folks who can afford it persist (or, are stubborn?) to allow me to take my gorgeous wife to Bach and Mendelssohn on Friday for a belated Valentine's Day celebration.

 

More salient, I don't reach the conclusion that "unspoken nostalgia for the days of European (white) dominance over the rest of the free world" serves as a primary motive for the wealthy's support of our arts in the Bay Area. While I'm not wealthy, anecdotally I have enough wealthy friends and acquaintances to understand how class distinctions play heavily into worldview and value assessments (which then precipitate as patronage decisions).

 

For some, their family has ALWAYS supported these institutions ("It's what we do..."). For others, they have their own great history, experiences and love for certain forms ("As a little girl I dreamed of being a ballerina..."). Yet others get philosophical (and class-bound?) about it ("The fine arts keeps the intellectual and cultural life of the Bay Area healthy...").

 

At its worst, is this last example 'classist' and/or 'elitist'? I guess it could be; I don't hear it that way. But I guess I can see how someone could smell that. Especially if that's the magnifying glass you use. In other words, I tend to think people arrive at that assessment IF THAT'S THE WORLDVIEW YOU USE, the prior model or analog you tend to use in analyzing social and cultural phenomena.

 

And I get how that happens. I can understand since race and music is the research and career focus of MOI's life how the lenses we use to refract and understand our work becomes the lenses we use to refract and understand our world. I'm guilty as charged - my career and teaching focus in business is typically the first arrow I pull from my quiver to look at an event, a news story or a challenge.

 

Where I choose to pause is in assigning motives to people (or whole swaths of people) absent their own comments on why they made certain choices.

 

All that being said, if MOI's copious research in race and music provided evidence of such commentary, I understand how he reached his conclusions.

 

I just haven't encountered it, and rather I've run across other sorts of reasons why my friends and acquaintances persist in their support of the arts here in my neck of the woods.

 

Tim

..
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Thanks for the input, Tim.

 

I can promise that the underlying point is not a case of "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail." More a case of, once you discover your own worldview has been either wrong or incomplete, tracking down the "rest of the story" becomes an obsession for some. I'm one of those.

 

In other words, it wasn't, "topic first then conclusion." It was a mind-opening discovery (in my case regarding our utterly incorrect understanding of the development of the blues), then a commitment to keep going deeper (which led to enrolling in the doctoral program). If you keep asking "why," you get to some interesting places.

 

More via messenger if you wish or after teaching.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!

Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen

und freudenvollere!

 

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,

Tochter aus Elysium,

Wir betreten feuertrunken,

Himmlischer, Dein Heiligtum!

Deine Zauber binden wieder,

Was die Mode streng geteilt;

Alle Menschen werden Brüder,

Wo Dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

(u.s.w)

 

This passage actually has a lot to do with racism...but not with condoning it.

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Thanks for the input, Tim.

 

I can promise that the underlying point is not a case of "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail." More a case of, once you discover your own worldview has been either wrong or incomplete, tracking down the "rest of the story" becomes an obsession for some. I'm one of those.

 

My world view is music, separated from the proposed (by often pompous academics) opinions of others; is how I roll. I do not care nor think about the social conditions that were in play, when I hear Bach or Charlie Parker. Music lifts ignorant men ( whether educated or not) out of their fashionable theories and into another world. Or maybe I should rephrase that last sentence ... Music lifts the Composers and artists out of their opinions while they are focussed on The Music Itself.

The current trends in academia are revolting to me... and I cannot help but think that those ideas found today in academia seep into the minds of appreciators of the Music.

I entirely reject the academics abstruse ideas... for me, it is soully the Music. Aka the thing itself.

I NEED Classical Music. period.

 

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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IMRT, I am not sure why you feel the need to paint the entire field of "academics" with the same brush, nor what you are referring to as the "current" trends in academia, but I can promise you that most of the people I have met either coming through the program or on faculty have an expansive, almost boundless love of music. Fanboys and fangirls supreme. In our department are literally some of the world's premiere players and composers--people I knew about as gods and legends back in NY before I ever even considered another degree. Pulitzer winners and MacArthur Genius recipients. Founding members of the AACM. Jazz legends. Guys who play Lincoln Center. A two-time Grammy winner. These guys don't relinquish their talent, career, and fanatical love, when they take a job at a university. They just get health insurance for it.

 

Yeesh. As you have been known to say: "Lighten up, Francis."

 

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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Book Link

 

This is a short read, a bit annoying at times, repetitive but still well worth it imo. Some will like it, some won't. I'm finding that it answers a number of questions for me personally including why I find myself at odds and so annoyed with the general concert/show going experience (it's not you, it's me :freak:). That and the concept of music's purposes and challenging the idea that "valid" music comes down to our subjective tastes.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Mark! Added to my Amazon shopping list.

 

I've got a good friend who alerts me whenever there's a Mahler symphony performance coming up and teaches me a bit about it. I've seen 3 with him now, the first one being #6 which is the one with the hammer. That's still my favorite show so far, because of the hammer. We've also gone to shows at Library of Congress where the classical programming has been adventurous. That's where I caught performances of Messaien's Vingt Regards sur l'enfant-Jésus, Ethel String Quartet, Arditti Quartet playing Beethoven's more avant-sounding quartets, John Cage stuff, etc.

 

When I was younger I didn't understand why some jazz musos included classical music in their personal practice, but I think I get it a little more now.

 

Ever watch Mozart in the Jungle? The RIkers Island episode was aweome imo.

 

One of the weirder depictions of classical composers I've seen - weirder than the Bill & Ted movies:

 

[video:youtube]

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One of the weirder depictions of classical composers I've seen - weirder than the Bill & Ted movies:

My copy of the book is en route as we speak.

 

Assuming it navigates its way to the Antipodes safely after being buffeted by the wind and/or the waves (apologies Edward Gibbon), I'm going to be massively disappointed if it doesn't play out pretty much exactly like that Anime clip.

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IMRT, I am not sure why you feel the need to paint the entire field of "academics" with the same brush, nor what you are referring to as the "current" trends in academia, but I can promise you that most of the people I have met either coming through the program or on faculty have an expansive, almost boundless love of music. Fanboys and fangirls supreme. In our department are literally some of the world's premiere players and composers--people I knew about as gods and legends back in NY before I ever even considered another degree. Pulitzer winners and MacArthur Genius recipients. Founding members of the AACM. Jazz legends. Guys who play Lincoln Center. A two-time Grammy winner. These guys don't relinquish their talent, career, and fanatical love, when they take a job at a university. They just get health insurance for it.

 

Yeesh. As you have been known to say: "Lighten up, Francis."

 

Dear Sergeant Hulka, I am not lightening up. Cold dead hands is more apt. The fact you are oblivious to what I am referring to in academia is an indicator of your Archie Bunker blinders. The topic is verbotten here, and has nothing to do with keyboards.

 

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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I try keep my vulgarities offline, but in the case of this whole "whiteness of classical music" thread I feel compelled to call bullshit.

 

If I write any more I fear will descend rather quickly into ad hominems against those with whom I disagree.

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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I try keep my vulgarities offline, but in the case of this whole "whiteness of classical music" thread I feel compelled to call bullshit.

 

If I write any more I fear will descend rather quickly into ad hominems against those with whom I disagree.

 

Didn't you already call me stupid, or something similar?

 

That is not a good encapsulization of the position I described, nor a thing I think or know. But the fact that it prompts this kind of reaction in otherwise-friends, suggests there is at least an element worth asking about in there. No?

 

 

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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Didn't you already call me stupid, or something similar?
Only hypothetically, since I obviously wasn't in the room full of friends at the time. (Okay, mea culpa, I would have called you stupid had I been there. Please accept my hypothetical apology. :) )

 

In this later post, I wasn't referring to your rhetoric so much as that of a later poster who posited that dressing up nicely to perform in an orchestra is somehow indicative of Caucasian bigotry.

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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Who needs classical music?

Everybody. I hope it's around as long as the human race.

 

 

Now, back to our show - as a man stuck in the past trades insults with a man in an ivory tower, and all trying to get the whole thread deleted.

 

Anybody ever like classical themes worked into pop songs? I thought ELO's Roll Over Beethoven was clever and entertaining . And what was the fast-paced Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring ? Something like Appollo 99 ?

Professional musician = great source of poverty.

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I'm not familiar with the term "dynamic projection" apart from mapping, but have heard of the principle of 'projection' in psychology (loosely defined, a defense mechanism of refusing certain negative attributes in yourself while attributing them to others). Perhaps we're talking about the same thing.

 

Tim

 

Yes, Tim, you are correct. We are talking about the same thing here.

 

I really appreciate your thoughtful response as well as your posts in general.

"I have constantly tried to deliver only products which withstand the closest scrutiny � products which prove themselves superior in every respect.�

Robert Bosch, 1919

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I wasn't referring to your rhetoric so much as that of a later poster who posited that dressing up nicely to perform in an orchestra is somehow indicative of Caucasian bigotry.

 

 

Why do you insist, like others, on putting words in my mouth that I did not say (type)?

 

The requirement to spend money on an expensive uniform in order to get access to an education in classical music is a barrier to access that has nothing to do with the music itself, but with the institutions that provide a home for most classical music education and performance around the world. I think that's more about classism than racism (though those two are certainly intertwined in most circumstances).

 

I am a scholarship judge for high school pianists, and I am required to rank them lower if they don't dress "appropriately". I find that requirement distasteful. Someone might play less well than someone else but win the scholarship because of their respective outfit choices.

 

But at any rate, I'm outta this thread. I'm a little sick of having to argue out of positions I did not take, and I'm disheartened that for many here disagreement on this issue so quickly took the form of name-calling. Why "I couldn't disagree more" wasn't enough, I'm not sure.

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Anyone reading this thread would think that music started in Europe 400 years ago.

 

Having visited central Australia and experienced first Australians performing their music, on their instruments, music about the the land we were sitting on, originally composed 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, a very moving experience for me, makes this debate seem like a discussion about who did what to whom last week.

A misguided plumber attempting to entertain | MainStage 3 | Axiom 61 2nd Gen | Pianoteq | B5 | XK3c | EV ZLX 12P

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Now, back to our show - as a man stuck in the past trades insults with a man in an ivory tower, and all trying to get the whole thread deleted.

I think it's fascinating to watch otherwise reasonable people resolutely missing each other's points...

Fight on!

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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I definitely understand MOI's perspective. It's a tough pill to swallow. Even he know it's a proverbial can of worms.

 

As evidenced by the course of this thread, there is a reason politics and religion are off limits.

 

There are some harsh realities human beings would rather not address. We'll get there eventually.

 

In the meantime, listen to whatever music floats your boat. When time permits, check the history. :cool:

PD

 

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return."--E. Ahbez "Nature Boy"

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In the meantime, listen to whatever music floats your boat.

 

:thu:

 

 

If it can be improvised by musicians, or reproduced by apprentices, or, in the very rare cases of some eccentric composers who have no knowledge of tradition, then, yes, one should get the music one deserves.

 

There is not a single good musician or composer in the world who is incapable of improvising.

 

That's one of the best reasons to listen to Western art music to see how it is possible to create and to work within the tradition.

 

If I'm wrong, I will go down on Boys in Sync personally on videotape.

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There is not a single good musician or composer in the world who is incapable of improvising.

 

Personally, I like to think that many of the classical performers who say they "can't improvise" just a need a little taste of possibility. They perch trembling at the edge of the water like ducklings, unaware of the potential within themselves.

 

One reason I love listening to classical organ, it because at least in this one sphere, the ducklings dive in regularly, sometimes more, sometimes less. ...

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Now, back to our show - as a man stuck in the past trades insults with a man in an ivory tower, and all trying to get the whole thread deleted.

I think it's fascinating to watch otherwise reasonable people resolutely missing each other's points...

Fight on!

 

PM coming your way.

You don't have ideas, ideas have you

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. "One mans food is another mans poison". I defend your right to speak hate. Tolerance to a point, not agreement

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Anyone reading this thread would think that music started in Europe 400 years ago.

 

Having visited central Australia and experienced first Australians performing their music, on their instruments, music about the the land we were sitting on, originally composed 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, a very moving experience for me, makes this debate seem like a discussion about who did what to whom last week.

 

I'd say that's part of MOIs point.

Kawai C-60 Grand Piano : Hammond A-100 : Hammond SK2 : Yamaha CP4 : Yamaha Montage 7 : Moog Sub 37

 

My latest album: Funky organ, huge horn section

https://bobbycressey.bandcamp.com/album/cali-native

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There is not a single good musician or composer in the world who is incapable of improvising.

 

Personally, I like to think that many of the classical performers who say they "can't improvise" just a need a little taste of possibility. They perch trembling at the edge of the water like ducklings, unaware of the potential within themselves.

 

One reason I love listening to classical organ, it because at least in this one sphere, the ducklings dive in regularly, sometimes more, sometimes less. ...

 

I fully agree.

 

If I had to guess, it's just a problem of education it's hard to read and remember complicated music in the Western Art music tradition. But it's arguably harder to understand why or how some of the music sounds good.

 

And, no, I'm not claiming to be any better than anyone else. It's a goal to strive for, to become a good musician, rather than just copying fly-shit off a page.

 

Yes, it is funny that organists are expected to improvise, as a matter of course, and that pianists these days...well, they have their hands full just doing concert études and so on.

 

If I were to guess, it's same idea as what you said: just not enough hours in the day, and people get big applause for recreating various things

 

And in "classical" music, it's convenient: there's a lot of fantastic music, and no shortage of people who know how to play it.

 

I don't think it's irrelevant that there are a comparatively few number of interpreters who understand the music, though: I'd be shocked if anyone who understands the structure of a piece weren't able to at least make a little pastiche in the style of so-and-so composer.

 

Well, there's marketing and the big labels putting people out there, but that's another thing.

 

Hell, I can do it and I'm no good at "concert repertoire," beyond like ABRSM 8. It may suck, but a big ego and a willingness to try helps.

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