Wow...is it just me or are classical music faculty really a bunch of bitter folks?

[Duddits]

Originally posted by Dan South:

In my unscientific and anecdotal observations, I have found the classical music community to be condescending in general. Their contempt for those outside of their sphere of influence manifests itself in multiple forms.

 

(1) Condescension toward non-classical music. If it wasn't written a long time ago by one of the "recognized masters," it's not to be taken seriously.

 

(2) Condescension toward non-classically-trained musicians. Your name might be Parker or Gillespie or Clapton, but as far as the classical set is concerned, you're a wanker.

 

(3) Condescension toward non-classical instruments. If you can plug your instrument into a tuner, or if it requires a power chord, you're not a real musician.

 

(4) Condescension toward the general public. If you don't attend classical performances or buy classical CD's regularly, you're an uninformed peon.

 

(5) Extra levels of reserve contempt for any music that's primarily intended to be fun. Rock and roll, rhythm and blues, funk, salsa, Broadway - that's not music. Music is supposed to be SERIOUS, dammit!

 

I thought that some of this stuffiness was going to pass when classical musicians, particularly the women, started marketing themselves with the aid of sexually provocative poses and outfits, but apparently the inherent bitterness of that end of the music business is immune to even the universal delights of lipstick and cleavage.

Sure, classical music has its problems, but I think this is a stereotype that really isn't true. I know many classical musicians, from weekend warriors to Grammy-winners, and if anything, they tend to be the opposite of what you describe: they listen to and enjoy other forms of music, are quietly in awe of them, and want like hell to modernize the museum of classical music, and infuse it with the vitality of popular genres. After all, who wants to be a relic?

 

You know, Horowitz said that Art Tatum was the best pianist of the day -- that he had the best technique of any living pianist, himself included!

 

BTW, I don't think innovation in classical music will come through the "provocative" sex-kittens you mention. I think they're more of a detour, a joke. Rather, innovation will come from people like Yo Yo Ma who are open to projects that take them into new, cross-cultural, stylistically diverse waters.

 

I suppose this is not excatly where the thread started -- with bitter classical academicians -- but outside the universities, classical musicians that I know are, at least in their minds, a very different and evolving animal.

[MattC]

And here's the problem: if you want to "make it" when you grow up...to shine, to be somebody, there's a missing mystical element: elan, panache, joy de vivre, style.

I remember making a similar statement to a friend, a music ed major, last evening. She commented that during her last jury, she had to stop half-way because her hands were shaking so much that she couldn't find the keys. Granted, juries can be a nerve-wracking experience. It seemed to cement in my mind how much clinical correctness is placed over soul and feeling in music education.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by Super 8:

I've studied some eastern music - not in great depth, but enough to give me a notion of what's going on. I have to be honest. I've never heard anything from from China or India nearly as sophisticated as western classical.

 

I'm not saying that to diminish those forms of music. But I'm not sure that the INTENTION of those musical forms was ever to be "sophisticated". I think the music in general is intended to be representational and programatic.

Basically, I don't think you can easily compare Western and Eastern classical music. I think they are two different animals.

Here's a guy who wrote a thesis composition called "Fake Chinese Music"- myself. Basically, western classical music had a barely vestigal sense of rhythm until various world traditions were pillaged by later western classical composers. But sophisticated harmony only cropped up in western classical music- curiously, some of the most sophisticated stuff was inspired by eastern music- see Debussy's Pagodes. Kind of my point in the title "Fake Chinese Music" is that possibly the less you know about it, the better, as you rip it off from a western standpoint. Then new things are created.

 

Basically absolutely nothing has happened harmonically since Debussy's works 100 years ago. Everything in modern jazz is all there- again, it's the complication of sophisticated rhythm that makes it a whole new animal.

 

As for the hallowed groves of academe, never forget that all that is an extremely reactionary holdover from the very stilted hidebound authoritarian heirarchies that colleges have been for the past several hundred years at least. Thank god for exceptional teachers.

 

I will say that Zappa is very exactly part of the problem, and his stilted hidebound authoritarian hierarchical approach has everything in common with the institutions he criticizes. Too bad. Another great one lost to pretentious geekiness.

[Jeebus]

Originally posted by Matt C:

It seemed to cement in my mind how much clinical correctness is placed over soul and feeling in music education.

Soul and feeling are not easy to teach... Theory and technique is.

[Kendrix]

I took my wife to see the curent Rod Stewart tour in which he does a set of his rock classics and a set of His "American Songbook" standards.

(Personally, I thought I'd hate it - but he pleasantly surprised me)

 

During the Songbook section he used a number of string and brass backup folks from the local/Buffalo symphony.

 

I so enjoyed watching this one classical violynist, I'd guess in his mid-fifties, earplug in place, wincing and generally tranmitting a holier-than-thou vibe while looking out at the audience and at Rod in disgust. His pompous facial expressions were unmistakable.

 

I found it very entertaining and sad at the same time. He was totally imune to the music and energy around him.

[The Soundsmith]

Sure, classical music has its problems, but I think this is a stereotype that really isn't true. I know many classical musicians, from weekend warriors to Grammy-winners, and if anything, they tend to be the opposite of what you describe

Those are the musicians. The LISTENERS (especially including critics) are the ones most prone to fit this generalization. Like most wannabes, they are more concerned with the superficialities that the substance. If classical music wasn't considered 'exclusive', these losers wouldn't listen to it...

 

Dasher

[Tedly Nightshade]

Originally posted by Kendrix:

I took my wife to see the curent Rod Stewart tour in which he does a set of his rock classics and a set of His "American Songbook" standards.

(Personally, I thought I'd hate it - but he pleasantly surprised me)

 

During the Songbook section he used a number of string and brass backup folks from the local/Buffalo symphony.

 

I so enjoyed watching this one classical violynist, I'd guess in his mid-fifties, earplug in place, wincing and generally tranmitting a holier-than-thou vibe while looking out at the audience and at Rod in disgust. His pompous facial expressions were unmistakable.

 

I found it very entertaining and sad at the same time. He was totally imune to the music and energy around him.

That's not limited to classical folks- although the pompous facial expressions are symptomatic. I saw Annie DiFranco with a band, and the horn players could have been counting rests at between blats at anybody's wedding- same for the playing. They didn't especially get or care for the music, it was just another day on the job for them. A subtraction rather than an addition to have those guys on the stage! These looked to be equally comfortable jazz or classical.

 

As for Zappa- it's kind of funny, he put a lot of effort into proving himself to such stuffed shirt types- not a musical exercise. My thesis advisor had been softened up on Zappa by previous students- I was far more into Hendrix, and didn't, couldn't or wouldn't sell him, just took my lumps and knew. Fortunately the guy was into Ellington, so we could get along- my old prof has had several pieces published in the distinguished New York Times defending Ellington as a legitimate composer like Gershwin or Copeland. Not interesting reading for me, I don't need convincing, and the terms on which Ellington is truly the greatest include a lot of terms classical academe will not deem to acknowledge as relevant.

[Jode]

Originally posted by Hendmik:

I just bought that book based on your link. Thanks.

Oh, just wait until you read the rest of it. You can't go wrong buying a book containing chapter subtitles such as, "How I Almost Blew My Nuts Off."