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Who Needs Classical Music?


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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.

 

Sorry but I think some of that has to be inherent. We have one of the best musical schools here in the world locally and those classical students would be lost in a soul or reggae groove. It's just not what they do. They are practicing Rachmaninoff or Shostakovitch not dissecting why a Temptation song works or doesn't work. It's a totally different type of musician. It's a completely different world as I work at the University it's attached too. That music school's vibe is definitely kind of elitist.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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. It's a totally different type of musician. It's a completely different world as I work at the University it's attached too. That music school's vibe is definitely kind of elitist.

 

Jason, this elitist attitude is prevalent in the European Clasical world. If you look at old issues of The Etude they are rife with articles on Why Ragtime is Dangerous to your Piano Technique etc. etc. ad nauseaum.

 

 

"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 was taught piano as a kid by learning classical pieces, but i long ago devolved to being a simple rocker. I'm now an old rocker. this thread, i'll tell ya, its really something else.

 

these cats are more elitist than those cats. These ones can't adapt like the others. and of course, these dudes love classical because of their neo-imperialist white male domination fetish. (thats my favorite sub-theme in the thread).

 

Being just an old rocker, i can tell you all of these sub-segments look down on me and my ilk. All i can add is that I'm very humored by the immense dense smug cloud collectively generated from this discussion - please continue.

 

The baiting I do is purely for entertainment value. Please feel free to ignore it.
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Not really a classical fan anymore as much as I used to, now Im more pushing towards the replacement of orchestras, horn sections, and string sections by synthesizers and VSTs. To me, a song should have at least bass, guitar, drums, and keys mostly and maybe ethnic instruments.
Yamaha MX49, Casio SK1/WK-7600, Korg Minilogue, Alesis SR-16, Casio CT-X3000, FL Studio, many VSTs, percussion, woodwinds, strings, and sound effects.
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Well I'm back for Forum Friday and pretty much the response I expected. Did anyone read the book yet? Because it addresses all this stuff and imo does it very well. You may be surprised how much the author agrees with many of the points here. But wait...there's more although I won't try to regurgitate any of my new found revelations or "aha" moments (there are plenty to be had). As I stated last time this book is not focused on musicians but on listeners of all kinds of music. Doesn't matter whether you grew up on classical music or play it currently; or if you're open to and value all kinds of music (including classical); or if your community has a large hand in supporting these type of arts. Btw the book could have easily been titled "Who Needs Art" ? (Cue Synthoid :snax: )

 

I tend to continually reinforce my own opinions with these type subjects, over and over and over. You may as well. Sometimes you need something to really shake up your deeply ingrained thinking. I don't think discussing it here is really going to change anyone's current thinking, and not saying that's the goal here. But reading the book just may...or not.

Btw I wasn't looking for this type of book, just happened to recently stumble upon it in a used book store.I only paid $5 for the book so count me out of the elitist book reader club. :keynana:

 

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This conversation has been thought provoking and interesting on many levels for me. Thanks to Mark for bringing it up. And to MOI for an interesting idea. I like to think that we can all carry more than one idea with us. I'm not trying to score points in an argument, but to add texture to our conversation. May I share a couple of personal vignettes?

 

My grandmother played classical organ in church in one of the British colonies and met my grandfather because he sought her out after hearing her play. He had been living in a different British colony. It's a beautiful love story for my family about how he courted her, swept her off her feet and took her to a country she didn't know. Lest you think that puts me in "all hail European music" camp how about a second story?

 

She used to love to sing with gusto, a song she was taught in school under colonial rule ... "Rule Brittania! Brittania rule the waves! Britons never never never shall be slaves." That song was written while the triangular trade (in slaves!) was still under way. You can imagine how wrecked I feel about that song and the mindshare it had with my grandmother.

 

I still love all kinds of music but perhaps Crazy Jane was right?

 

"Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent."

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Plenty of modern classical after Schoenberg. Thanks to this thread, I'm going to revisit this CD, if I can find it:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Asmat-Dream-Music-Indonesia-Sunda/dp/B0000022AA/ref=ntt_mus_dp_dpt_1

 

Indonesia was a former European colony but gamelan is said to have influenced some European composers from Debussy onwards. It's fitting that somebody produced this album featuring Indonesian composers doing their thing, and also incorporating modern tech such as synths and samplers.

 

 

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Ill try my own answer to the original question.

 

Yes, all humans need exposure to the classical arts: music, dance, sculpture, religion, painting, architecture, theater, poetry, literature, etc.

 

From multiple cultures.

 

This is the ocean in which our spirits swim.

 

Feed your head. But remember you can only lead a horse to water. Respect the horses choice to drink or not.

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Ill try my own answer to the original question.

 

Yes, all humans need exposure to the classical arts: music, dance, sculpture, religion, painting, architecture, theater, poetry, literature, etc.

 

From multiple cultures.

 

This is the ocean in which our spirits swim.

 

Feed your head. But remember you can only lead a horse to water. Respect the horses choice to drink or not.

 

:like:

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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This is a short read, a bit annoying at times, repetitive but still well worth it imo. Some will like it, some won't.

My copy has arrived today!

 

Early impressions:

 

1. The author is (unsurprisingly) a true believer in classical music.

2. The author is less passionate about the use of paragraphs.

 

We shall battle on, regardless!

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There have been some excellent points made about improvisation, and since I began a conversation with a concert pianist recently about why "many classical musicians can't improvise today and popular musicians can", I had to do a little research. This is what I found ...

 

The difference between jazz and classical is the pedagogy, not the people. In the galant period (end of baroque, beginning of classical), a number of devices such as Partimenti were utilized extensively to provide improvisation frameworks, learned in apprentice fashion, just like in jazz. Its a middle ground between musical theory and musical performance, because it is internalized (like driving a car), just as jazz licks, scales and patterns are. Galant schemata are quite detailed. and seemed to have begun at Naples and migrated elsewhere.

 

With the rise of formal theory in late 19th century conservatories, these tools became less internalized, and classical musicians began to lose the ability to 'jam". Recent research has rediscovered and implemented these tools. Rudolf Lutz and Bob Gjerdingen are key figures in this movement. One young student who has been taught partimenti is here improvising with her teacher on Skype:

 

[video:youtube]nubC3dktQ24

 

To me, Jazz is America's classical music hailing from New Orleans in the late 1800s. Her vocabulary has influenced, pop, rock, gospel and a host of musical traditions. Her cousin is the discipline of Partimenti, hailing from Naples in the late 1600s. Her vocabulary has influenced baroque, classical and other European traditions. They are both awesome. :love:

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The difference between jazz and classical is the pedagogy, not the people.

 

Sometimes you read something both obvious and mind-expanding. This rocked my morning JerryA; thanks for doing the research and digging that knowledge up!

 

Of course it makes total sense that classical forms and techniques can be understood, internalized, and used for improv just as we're familiar doing in jazz or other more contemporary idioms, and it amazes me that I've never had a teacher or been in a classical learning environment where anyone even mentioned such a thing.

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Thanks Jerry!

Robert Levin is also a great source.

He improvises his own cadenzas spontaneously in his Mozart concerto performances.

"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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To appreciate the similarities between what a keyboard player in the Baroque era and in the Jazz era were doing, compare a figured bass chart with a real book lead sheet.

 

 

Completely. I use this exact analogy when introducing Figured Bass.

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

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  • 1 year later...

TL; only viewed enough to be insulted a couple of times.

 

There's a severe irony in using the Internet as the medium to accuse virtually other aspects of western civilization "racist." If someone had made such an insulting essay, but switched the connotations of "white" and "black", the diatribe would have been rightly denounced as racist excrement.

-Tom Williams

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

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

 

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FWIW, this basically says everything I was getting at in this thread, for better or worse.

 

Adam did a great job making this video and documented his work. I hope Adam does some videos in future comparing the music theory of other parts of the world with Western music theory and the similarities and differences. There is another YT by on US music versus European music I've put the link below. I went to basically three different music schools, the two I finished were non-traditional so the theory was more what people would call Jazz theory. Later in life I thought why don't I do the traditional theory thing, but never finished it was pretty useless for me by then and I actually enjoyed the music history classes more than the theory classes.

 

[video:youtube]

 

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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.

 

After rereading most of this thread IMRT's quote above conveys the sentiment that I retained from the book. To me the point wasn't classical music but any music where the experience is strictly about the music. I'll accept that "strictly about the music" can entail other elements outside classical. But if you try to tell me that texting on your iPhone at a rock concert is one of those elements I might just :barf:

 

 

FWIW, this basically says everything I was getting at in this thread, for better or worse.

 

MOI - thanks for sharing this video. Parts of this video are enlightening and opened my mind to something I never considered. I will watch it again. I don't think musicians should feel insulted or be closed minded. IMO anyone can choose to agree or disagree without feeling their beliefs are threatened by anything presented here.

 

In light of what I got out of the book I do find it somewhat ironic you chose to present this concept here. This is far from "strictly about the music".

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MOI - thanks for sharing this video. Parts of this video are enlightening and opened my mind to something I never considered. I will watch it again. I don't think musicians should feel insulted or be closed minded. IMO anyone can choose to agree or disagree without feeling their beliefs are threatened by anything presented here.

 

In light of what I got out of the book I do find it somewhat ironic you chose to present this concept here. This is far from "strictly about the music".

 

To be completely honest, I didn't really remember the context of the OP, or even my own posts. I just remembered the abstract feeling that I'd started a minor KC-dumpster fire over the suggestion that classical music represented unspoken nostalgia for the dominance of Mother Europe, and yesterday, when a friend sent me the Adam Neely vid that did a slower and more patient job of extracting the same nuance, I related that fact to him. (I also teach this very topic.) It brought the thread/topic back to mind, so I searched for the thread and blind-posted. I still haven't reread the thread, but Tom's post reminded me how deep the topic cut for some.

 

Sorry if this hijacked again--I'm happy to delete. California already has enough fires raging....

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

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