# Who thinks contemporary classical discussions suck?



## mud

Merely because the music itself sucks...


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## Guest

Who thinks discussions about discussions about discussions suck?

Why not just listen to the music you enjoy and stop trying to bully others into your point of view?


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> Why not just listen to the music you enjoy and stop trying to bully others into your point of view?


How is my question bullying you? It is sincere.


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## mud

I can also qualify it by saying that classical music is both the best and worst music I have ever encountered. Therefore, the discussions follow suit, because their basis is the music. They may be very articulate and technically sound, but this only reminds me that the music was thought out in great detail to achieve the worst result imaginable.


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## MaestroViolinist

mud said:


> Merely because the music itself sucks...


Do they - the music and the discussions - suck? Wow, someone could have informed me earlier.


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## mud

Yes, on the basis that I qualified my question, suckiness comes to mind.



mud said:


> I can also qualify it by saying that classical music is both the best and worst music I have ever encountered. Therefore, the discussions follow suit, because their basis is the music. They may be very articulate and technically sound, but this only reminds me that the music was thought out in great detail to achieve the worst result imaginable.


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## mud

Anyhow, maybe I should have made this a poll.


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## crmoorhead

Not all. I like them, though I do not take part in them all. I've been introduced to many interesting ideas though such discussions. They suck a lot less than, say, discussions about Burlesque....


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## Art Rock

MacLeod said:


> Who thinks discussions about discussions about discussions suck?
> 
> Why not just listen to the music you enjoy and stop trying to bully others into your point of view?


Alternatively: Why not just listen to the music you enjoy and accept that others have a different point of view?


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## mud

crmoorhead said:


> Not all. I like them, though I do not take part in them all. I've been introduced to many interesting ideas though such discussions. They suck a lot less than, say, discussions about Burlesque....


That seems to be the consensus, no idea why. Burlesque is certainly more celebrated in society.


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## mud

Art Rock said:


> Alternatively: Why not just listen to the music you enjoy and accept that others have a different point of view?


I wouldn't know what music I enjoyed if I accepted every point of view. Do you have no opinions yourself?


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## Art Rock

How on earth do you get to that question from my post?


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## mud

Art Rock said:


> How on earth do you get to that question from my post?


You did not answer my question, but instead suggested that I should not have this opinion.


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## Kopachris

mud said:


> Art Rock said:
> 
> 
> 
> Alternatively: Why not just listen to the music you enjoy and accept that others have a different point of view?
> 
> 
> 
> I wouldn't know what music I enjoyed if I accepted every point of view. Do you have no opinions yourself?
Click to expand...

Ah... now things come to light! You see, most people around here can hold opinions _and_ accept other points of view. I wonder, does your attitude extend to other media? For example, I enjoy watching _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_, but I understand the point of view of those who don't enjoy it and prefer to watch action movies, and I accept it as being just as valid as my own.

Now, to answer the original post, I thought the answer was obvious enough to not be asked. People probably would have responded better to the question, though, had you phrased it "Who thinks the quality of music discussions is dependent on the perceived quality of the music?" Unfortunately, "quality" in both cases is ambiguous and dependent on personal opinion and definition. This is then basically asking if the strength of a discussion is dependent on the strength of people's perceptions, and any discussion about an extremely divisive topic is obviously going to be very heated.


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## Art Rock

You can decide for yourself that contemporary music sucks. For you it probably does. For others not.


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## Guest

mud said:


> How is my question bullying you? It is sincere.


Don't worry - I'm not feeling bullied, nor am I going to report you for bullying 

It is the hectoring approach that you have developed over a couple of threads, where others have rejected your insistence that atonal be discussed separately from classical, so you start another thread, repeating your well-established (though not well-argued) view that "contemporary classical sucks."

At every point where your posts are responded to with a question, you yourself prefer not to explain ("I'll just repeat myself"), yet when others make deductions about what you're saying (in the absence of an explanation) you reject them.

You're a hard person to have a conversation with.


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## Chrythes

Should we open a thread questioning if mud sucks?

Honestly, that thing makes my trip home quite annoying, my shoes usually get wet and dirty, sometimes it's slippery and smelly, and sometimes it yells at me when I listen to Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge" unless I wash it away.


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## mud

Art Rock said:


> You can decide for yourself that contemporary music sucks. For you it probably does. For others not.


Why not say what you think?

It is a yes or no question. That everone is reading into it is not my problem. I even qualified it and nobody has responded to that.


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## mud

Kopachris said:


> Ah... now things come to light! You see, most people around here can hold opinions _and_ accept other points of view. I wonder, does your attitude extend to other media? For example, I enjoy watching _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_, but I understand the point of view of those who don't enjoy it and prefer to watch action movies, and I accept it as being just as valid as my own.


I already said that discsussions may be very articulate and technically sound. The point of view I am not accepting is the basis for the discussions, which is contemporary classical music (not that others have a different point of view from mine on that).

Is this not clear?


mud said:


> I can also qualify it by saying that classical music is both the best and worst music I have ever encountered. Therefore, the discussions follow suit, because their basis is the music. They may be very articulate and technically sound, but this only reminds me that the music was thought out in great detail to achieve the worst result imaginable.


An analogy would be a health and wellness forum where half the discussions were about autopsy. They may be informative and all, but I would think they sucked because the basis for discussion was offputting.


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## Guest

OP question: "Who thinks contemporary classical discussions suck?Merely because the music itself sucks..."

Answer 1: I don't know who thinks...etc.
Answer 2: I can say that I don't think such discussions suck because the music itself sucks (though that begs the question, do I think such discussions suck for any other reason).


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## Kopachris

mud said:


> I already said that discsussions may be very articulate and technically sound. The point of view I am not accepting is the basis for the discussions, which is contemporary classical music (not that others have a different point of view from mine on that).


Now that you've made it clear that you find it disparaging and offensive for someone to assume that you're making an absolute value judgement when you only meant to make a personal value judgement, your intent has become a bit clearer. However, saying something sucks still offends those who assume you're making an absolute value judgement. I suggest that, in future discussions, you try to meet us half-way and not be so ambiguous about your meaning.

So, no, no one here except you thinks that contemporary classical music discussions suck merely because the music itself sucks. They think the discussions suck because the topic is too divisive and the argument too heated, but some people don't think the discussions suck at all for exactly the same reason.


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## mud

Kopachris said:


> Now that you've made it clear that you find it disparaging and offensive for someone to assume that you're making an absolute value judgement when you only meant to make a personal value judgement, your intent has become a bit clearer. However, saying something sucks still offends those who assume you're making an absolute value judgement. I suggest that, in future discussions, you try to meet us half-way and not be so ambiguous about your meaning.
> 
> So, no, no one here except you thinks that contemporary classical music discussions suck merely because the music itself sucks. They think the discussions suck because the topic is too divisive and the argument too heated, but some people don't think the discussions suck at all for exactly the same reason.


How do you know that no one else shares my opinion? Or do you mean not so far? That is the only reason I asked, and it was a blunt question, but so is the music (and my opinion of it).


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## Lukecash12

mud said:


> I wouldn't know what music I enjoyed if I accepted every point of view. Do you have no opinions yourself?


"Accepting" and "accepting *that*" are two fundamentally different propositions. One is more relational and the other is more observational. One has to do with what is acceptable for what to do with one's own time, and one has to do with what is acceptable that other people do with their time. You really shouldn't need it spelled out like this, though.



mud said:


> How do you know that no one else shares my opinion? Or do you mean not so far? That is the only reason I asked, and it was a blunt question, but so is the music (and my opinion of it).


And... your phrasing of it. That is, your phrasing of: your opinion. What is a surprise, is that you are surprised at the responses here. You seem to have derailed your own thread, by obfuscating it so.


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## Kopachris

mud said:


> How do you know that no one else shares my opinion? Or do you mean not so far? That is the only reason I asked, and it was a blunt question, but so is the music (and my opinion of it).


No one here, in this thread. So I suppose "not so far" would fit best. Question answered, I'm out of here.


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## mud

Lukecash12 said:


> "Accepting" and "accepting *that*" are two fundamentally different propositions. One is more relational and the other is more observational. One has to do with what is acceptable for what to do with one's own time, and one has to do with what is acceptable that other people do with their time. You really shouldn't need it spelled out like this, though.


Can you contrast those in a sentence? 



Lukecash12 said:


> And... your phrasing of it. That is, your phrasing of: your opinion. What is a surprise, is that you are surprised at the responses here. You seem to have derailed your own thread, by obfuscating it so.


I am not surprised, just pointing out that the responses are not reflecting an actual answer to my simple and sincere question.


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## Guest

mud said:


> just pointing out that the responses are not reflecting an actual answer to my simple and sincere question.


My post #20 isn't an actual answer? Or it doesn't give you the answer you want?


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> My post #20 isn't an actual answer? Or it doesn't give you the answer you want/


I was responding in the context of what I had pointed out before you responded.


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## mud

Chrythes said:


> Should we open a thread questioning if mud sucks?
> 
> Honestly, that thing makes my trip home quite annoying, my shoes usually get wet and dirty, sometimes it's slippery and smelly, and sometimes it yells at me when I listen to Stockhausen's "Gesang der Junglinge" unless I wash it away.


You could probably relate it to music if it was about mud wrestling... might not be classical though.


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## BurningDesire

Nice troll thread bro.


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## neoshredder

Contemporary music is pretty good. Schnittke, Ligeti, Saariaho, Berio, Gubaidulina, Takemitsu, and etc. Why not enjoy some of the interesting pieces these days rather than condemn it?


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## starthrower

Mud, you've got the appropriate handle because you sling heaps of the stuff. You are unnecessarily preoccupied with M-usic U D-espise. Why not go start a thread about music you enjoy?


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## Guest

mud said:


> I was responding in the context of what I had pointed out before you responded.


Slippy aintcha!?

Did I answer your question or not? Did I answer it to your satisfaction?


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## Renaissance

I don't know if these discussions suck, but they are really too many on this forum. It seems like people forgot about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Brahms, Wagner and so.


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## Guest

Renaissance said:


> I don't know if these discussions suck, but they are really to many on this forum. It seems like people forgot about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Brahms, Wagner and so.


Maybe people have just run out of things to say about them? Invitations abound to join topics on all sorts of things, but not everyone wants to discuss music on someone else's terms.


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## neoshredder

Renaissance said:


> I don't know if these discussions suck, but they are really to many on this forum. It seems like people forgot about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Brahms, Wagner and so.


There are a lot more Composers to explore in the 20th Century. I think it is interesting to listen to Composers that dealt with issues of this day. Composers that now have the privilege to listen to music of all Eras and make his own style based on it while further exploring what has not been explored before. I have 60 Composers on the polls and there are many more in the 20th Century worth checking out. And I could do without Brahms and Wagner.


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## Renaissance

Maybe this forum should change its name to Talkmodernclassical. 

Actually, Neo, you are right, I know some good 20th century composers, but "contemporary classical music" usually refers to atonal and noisy stuff...


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## neoshredder

Renaissance said:


> Maybe this forum should change its name to Talkmodernclassical.
> 
> Actually, Neo, you are right, I know some good 20th century composers, but "contemporary classical music" usually refers to atonal and noisy stuff...


What do you think about Schnittke?


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## Renaissance

Acceptable. I like his Requiem, but I am not mad about his other works.


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## neoshredder

Renaissance said:


> Acceptable. I like his Requiem, but I am not mad about his other works.


Have you heard this?


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## quack

His symphonies certainly start off rather noisy and confusing but the later ones, and the concerto grossi tend to be easier to listen to. Also his viola concerto is great.

Thread hijack! Take this thread to contemporary classical or i'll kill every last one of you.


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## BurningDesire

Renaissance said:


> Maybe this forum should change its name to Talkmodernclassical.
> 
> Actually, Neo, you are right, I know some good 20th century composers, but "contemporary classical music" usually refers to atonal and noisy stuff...


Actually it always refers to contemporary music in the classical idiom. Sometimes its atonal, sometimes its tonal


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## Renaissance

@Neo :

Yes, I've heard it a few times ago, but it feels weird to me, I don't know, I seem to distance myself more and more from modern harmonic systems. Maybe I will remain only with Renaissance, Baroque and Beethoven... :lol:


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## Ramako

I think the discussions tire some people, but they also add some interest around.


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## Ramako

Kopachris said:


> I enjoy watching _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic_


I thought you would like Pingu


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## BurningDesire

Contemporary music need not be imposing or difficult. It can be witty and silly, and fun and full of personality and joy. It can even be cute 

............My Little Avant-Garde: Modernism is Magic


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## bigshot

Mud, replace the words contemporary classical with Mozart and the same people slagging on you will instantly become your best friends.


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## Guest

bigshot, what you just said is wrong.

For one, no one's really slagging on mud, though mud is certainly slagging on contemporary music.

For two, how many of the supposed slaggers do you suppose dislike Mozart like mud dislikes contemporary music? My guess would be none.


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## clavichorder

Is mud a parody of a "musical conservative" or something? Rabble rouser.


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## moody

Ramako said:


> I thought you would like Pingu


I don't believe he listens to that stuff at all! But there is no music in Pingu---is there?


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## Sid James

Usually boils down to this. There are two extremes in these debates:

1. Music younger than the pyramids is rubbish, and those who don't appreciate it don't know what 'real' music is (or don't know music as 'great' or sanctified/canonical/set in stone as that, blah blah blah)
2. Music older than that composed today (right this minute!) is old hat, for conservative fuddy duddies, blah blah blah.

Of course these are two caricatures, equally ridiculous to some of the things people throw at eachother from these extreme angles.

But most people on this forum, and I think most listeners generally, are in between these two extremes. So no need to buy into these dichotomies, let the people at either extreme do the mudslinging.


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## bigshot

I actually don't think it has anything at all to do with the music itself. I don't doubt that there is a lot of great current music being made. I know of some myself, and I'm always on the lookout for more. But it isn't generally easy to find, and it most likely will be found in genres that sell well. 

It really has to do with the creators themselves. Creative geniuses need to make a living. It was as much of an issue for Mozart as it is today. If you're really really good, you go to where the audiences are. If you aren't very good, you use "conceptualism" as an excuse for it.


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## mmsbls

I do not believe discussions about contemporary classical music (CCM) suck _because_ CCM sucks. I can't believe that because I _do not_ believe that CCM sucks.

I actually feel that there have been several rather interesting discussions of CCM (or more generally modern classical music) on various threads. The famous What Is the Point of Atonal Music? has plenty of unpleasant posts, but it also contains a lot of fascinating discussion. Other threads contain interesting ideas, great links to good/interesting music, and informative posts. I've learned quite a bit about modern music (and CCM) on TC, and I expect to continue learning much more in the future.

I would say that posts or threads by people who believe CCM sucks often are much less interesting than posts or threads by those who find CCM good/interesting/enjoyable. There is a very large difference between someone who believes that CCM sucks and someone who simply does not enjoy CCM. The latter can ask interesting questions or make comments that contribute to informative discussion. The former generally only expresses an opinion.


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## Sid James

bigshot said:


> ...
> It really has to do with the creators themselves. Creative geniuses need to make a living. It was as much of an issue for Mozart as it is today. If you're really really good, you go to where the audiences are. If you aren't very good, you use "conceptualism" as an excuse for it.


I think that people like John Cage do (in my book) earn their stripes as great composers. They where innovators and did some great music. But I think that their imitators are another kettle of fish altogether. I'm less into those taking CAge's extremes into more extreme/out there territory, but I do like guys like Lutoslawski and Hovhaness who where influenced by Cage's music and concepts and incorporated them into their own unique visions (& Cage actually said he admired Hovhaness' music). So by that, often its the fans and groupies that are more sectarian, not the composers so much. So that's how we get bunfights on this forum about new/newer classical music, I think.


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## PetrB

If you are entering 'a discussion' on contemporary classical to solely say you think contemporary classical sucks, is an 'atonalist-serialist tyranny,' etc. etc. you might pause yourself for one moment and imagine about what kind of reception the same sort of commentary might get with a group in discussion about the Beethoven quartets.

Right. Not there to really discuss those quartets, are you?

What I find most interesting is most of those who like / love contemporary classical also like / love much classical music from all past eras, where the opposite is rarely true....

To quote Charles Ives' comment to some Yale student booing and heckling a performance of one of Ives' violin sonatas, and relevant to those with chiseled in stone anti opinions toward modern / contemporary classical, "Stop being such a musical sissy."


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## bigshot

I don't know a lot about contemporary classical music, but I did make an attempt by picking up several CDs of John Cage (along with Glass and Ligeti). If you folks don't understand what I mean when I say I'm looking for contemporary classical music on the same level as Mozart or Beethoven (or Wagner or Mendelssohn or Bach or Schubert or a hundred other classical composers) i can help you figure out what I mean when I tell you that John Cage isn't even close. Ligeti was the only one of those three who even attempted to operate in the same playing field. Avo Part apparently as well.

Does that make it clearer? I'm not interested in conceptualism. I'm looking for constructed music. Ives is a drop dead genius in my book.

The problem is conceptualism, not atonality or polyrhythms. Conceptualism is a cheat.


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## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> I don't know a lot about contemporary classical music, but I did make an attempt by picking up several CDs of John Cage (along with Glass and Ligeti). If you folks don't understand what I mean when I say I'm looking for contemporary classical music on the same level as Mozart or Beethoven (or Wagner or Mendelssohn or Bach or Schubert or a hundred other classical composers) i can help you figure out what I mean when I tell you that John Cage isn't even close. Ligeti was the only one of those three who even attempted to operate in the same playing field. Avo Part apparently as well.
> 
> Does that make it clearer? I'm not interested in conceptualism. I'm looking for constructed music. Ives is a drop dead genius in my book.
> 
> The problem is conceptualism, not atonality or polyrhythms. Conceptualism is a cheat.


Cage may not be close for you, but I think he wrote music just as beautiful as Beethoven and Chopin, just different, just as Beethoven and Chopin are different from eachother too. I'm sorry you can't hear that.

I'll also add that Cage really wasn't a "conceptualist". That would be many of his followers like Nam Jun Paik, and the Fluxus artists. Even so, Cage was more than his chance pieces. Personally, when I speak of his beautiful music, I mostly refer to the music of the 40s, because that is when you can hear _him_ in his music.


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## bigshot

I studied video art in college. Paik is not one of my favorites to be sure.

Can you recommend any Cage in the 40s. I always suspected he was a very good young musician who was seduced by the art scene to become a jaded sellout like Warhol (who also showed promise at the beginning).


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> I always suspected [Cage] was a very good young musician who was seduced by the art scene to become a jaded sellout like Warhol (who also showed promise at the beginning).


Very revealing remark.

Your suspicions do not touch reality at any point.


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## bigshot

He didn't show promise at the beginning? I always considered him the musical doppelganger to Warhol. Is that incorrect?


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> Your suspicions do not touch reality at any point.


Cage was nothing if not persistent. From a 1958 lecture:

"After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, 'In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony.' I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, 'In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.' "


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## Kevin Pearson

What I don't understand is if you think contemporary classical discussions suck then why even bother entering into those topics? It's not like you have to read the posts and discussions about contemporary music. Use some will power man! 

I fully admit that I am not an ardent fan of a lot of contemporary music but I am willing to explore it to discover what I do like. What's different for me in modern music is that I find I enjoy maybe 25% of say Philip Glass' works whereas I like 90% of Brahms' works. So to me that equates using a lot of valuable time to find that 25% I would enjoy where I could be using that time to listen to the 90% I know I will enjoy. I just personally find modern music not as "consistently" good but I certainly wouldn't discard it's validity by saying it "sucks".

Kevin


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## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> I studied video art in college. Paik is not one of my favorites to be sure.
> 
> Can you recommend any Cage in the 40s. I always suspected he was a very good young musician who was seduced by the art scene to become a jaded sellout like Warhol (who also showed promise at the beginning).


Actually if you learned about Cage (rather than making assumptions like many people do) you'd know that he went into using chance operations for three main reasons. First was his interest in Eastern philosophy, especially Buddhism. Second was his love of sounds, in all their variety. Third was the emotional struggles he went through as a gay man attempting to live in a heterosexual relationship in bigoted mid-century America. He became somewhat jaded when a very openly emotional piece of his was compared to woodpeckers randomly hitting a tree, and so he delved into his love of sound and his Buddhist ideas about distancing himself from things, wanting to make music that was so connected to his ego. It's not about selling out, it is simply the direction that he felt he needed to take his art.


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## neoshredder

Not that I want to know but what other Composers are gay? I know about Tchaikovsky but not sure about others. I've heard things about Ravel and Barber.


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## starthrower

neoshredder said:


> Not that I want to know but what other Composers are gay?


:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## KenOC

Barber's preferences are well-documented. Ravel seems to have left no evidence of any sexual connection, one way or the other.


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## Kevin Pearson

neoshredder said:


> Not that I want to know but what other Composers are gay? I know about Tchaikovsky but not sure about others. I've heard things about Ravel and Barber.


Surely this topic has to have been discussed on this site before? If not then maybe a separate thread should be started so as not to hijack and derail this topic.

Kevin


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## bigshot

BurningDesire said:


> Actually if you learned about Cage (rather than making assumptions like many people do) you'd know that he went into using chance operations for three main reasons.


Did he take drugs?


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## moody

Kevin Pearson said:


> Surely this topic has to have been discussed on this site before? If not then maybe a separate thread should be started so as not to hijack and derail this topic.
> 
> Kevin


Particularly as he doesn't want to know!


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## clavichorder

neoshredder said:


> Not that I want to know but what other Composers are gay? I know about Tchaikovsky but not sure about others. I've heard things about Ravel and Barber.


Barber was one of many big time American composers who was gay, its unbelievable how many of them were; seems to me a much higher percentage than the European classical composers. Bigger names like Copland and Bernstein, and lesser or more alternative names like Rorem and Partch. As KenOC said, Ravel seems to have been asexual or else very secretive. As for older composers, there is strong speculation about Schubert(though he loved a woman apparently) and some about Handel too, though I don't know specifically what the grounds are. Some "straight" composers like Robert Schumann fell madly in love with men; he appears to have had a thing for the underrated but obscure English romantic composer William Sterndale Bennett. Benjamin Britten is also a well known major composer who was gay(and also liked men who were too young for him). Was John Cage gay? I wasn't really sure, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Anyway...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Renaissance said:


> I don't know if these discussions suck, but they are really too many on this forum. It seems like people forgot about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Brahms, Wagner and so.


We would need to step out of the internet world and into the broader real world for great composers.


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## KRoad

REAL men prefer Beethoven... and yet the man himself admired Handel who never married. So much confusion. Yet who amongst us will deny that a composer's sexual orientation penetrates to the very deepest level of his/her moral aesthetic? Very few I suspect.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> Mud, replace the words contemporary classical with Mozart and the same people slagging on you will instantly become your best friends.


Well, I couldn't find anyone "slagging on" Mud in this thread because of his attitude to CCM. In fact, I don't think anyone has been "slagging on" Mud at all, though some have been firm in their responses.


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## aleazk

neoshredder said:


> Not that I want to know but what other Composers are gay? I know about Tchaikovsky but not sure about others. I've heard things about Ravel and Barber.


I have read here in this forum that Pierre Boulez is gay. Also in wikipedia.


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## Guest

KRoad said:


> REAL men prefer Beethoven... and yet the man himself admired Handel who never married. So much confusion. Yet who amongst us will deny that a *composer's sexual orientation penetrates to the very deepest level of his/her moral aesthetic*? Very few I suspect.


Well, _you _might be confused.

I'm sure that the inner drives of all of us have some connection with our creative expression, but I'm not sure what you mean by the phrase I've emboldened - especially 'moral aesthetic'.


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## aleazk

KRoad said:


> REAL men prefer Beethoven... and yet the man himself admired Handel who never married. So much confusion. Yet who amongst us will deny that a composer's sexual orientation penetrates to the very deepest level of his/her moral aesthetic? Very few I suspect.


:lol:, really?, and what are the preferences of "non-real man"?.


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## Andreas

Boulez gay? With a comb-over like that? Excellent disguise!


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## KRoad

MacLeod said:


> Well, _you _might be confused.
> 
> I'm sure that the inner drives of all of us have some connection with our creative expression, but I'm not sure what you mean by the phrase I've emboldened - especially 'moral aesthetic'.


The phrase is deliberately devoid of any meaning. I felt it refelected the silliness of the topic being discussed.


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## Lukecash12

mud said:


> Can you contrast those in a sentence?


That's a moot point. Can I formulate such a sentence? Of course. Most anyone should know grammar that well.


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## KRoad

aleazk said:


> :lol:, really?, and what are the preferences of "non-real man"?.


My own remark was made in jest, sir. Kindly explain what a non-real man is before we tackle his preferences.


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## Lukecash12

Sid James said:


> Usually boils down to this. There are two extremes in these debates:
> 
> 1. Music younger than the pyramids is rubbish, and those who don't appreciate it don't know what 'real' music is (or don't know music as 'great' or sanctified/canonical/set in stone as that, blah blah blah)
> 2. Music older than that composed today (right this minute!) is old hat, for conservative fuddy duddies, blah blah blah.
> 
> Of course these are two caricatures, equally ridiculous to some of the things people throw at eachother from these extreme angles.
> 
> But most people on this forum, and I think most listeners generally, are in between these two extremes. So no need to buy into these dichotomies, let the people at either extreme do the mudslinging.


Ummm.... Of course if you are going to draw a ten thousand foot line people are going to be between the lines. I don't see what's so novel or original about saying that people are in-between the huge and divergent extremes. Have I met anyone who only listens to music literally as old as the pyramids (not what you meant, of course)? Dunno. I'd probably be interested in meeting someone like that though, sounds pretty quirky. I thought you'd come at us with your typical kind of hyperbole that maybe fits a couple of people, but this pyramid stuff has got me thinking. Maybe some other people here are into ancient music, too? I'll have to start a thread on that some time.


----------



## Lukecash12

bigshot said:


> I actually don't think it has anything at all to do with the music itself. I don't doubt that there is a lot of great current music being made. I know of some myself, and I'm always on the lookout for more. But it isn't generally easy to find, and it most likely will be found in genres that sell well.
> 
> It really has to do with the creators themselves. Creative geniuses need to make a living. It was as much of an issue for Mozart as it is today. If you're really really good, you go to where the audiences are. If you aren't very good, you use "conceptualism" as an excuse for it.


Herm... "If you aren't very good, you use "conceptualism as an excuse"? I didn't know that we were living in a culture that demanded creative geniuses. At least, that isn't what I see where I live. But I certainly have met some people whose music hadn't sold in the bay area, because of the "concept", and it didn't look like an excuse for them not being good. It looked like they didn't want to sell crap, and so they didn't make money. Of course, I don't mean that people won't buy good music, or that there isn't any good music that is more popular.


----------



## bigshot

Lukecash12 said:


> I didn't know that we were living in a culture that demanded creative geniuses.


You put your finger right on one of the big problems today. No one is trying to excel any more. It isn't required. Compared to the great generation, we're a bunch of lazy whining bums who always take the shortcut.


----------



## Guest

bigshot said:


> No one is trying to excel any more.


You really need to get out more.


----------



## bigshot

No. It's endemic. It goes all the way to the core of modern society. Business used to be about "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door". Now MBAs are taught how to suppress competitors to gain an advantage and not have to compete on the open market. Fine artists like Damien Hirst play the fine art field like the commodities market, throwing an added level of disrespect for their "customers" by selling them junk for King's ransoms. Reams of words are vomited out justifying complete zilches. The product isn't as important as the marketing of it.

Maybe art reflects society, and modern artists are callowly exploiting and commenting on the greed and avarice of the world around them. But I think art should be more than just a mirror to society reflecting its ugliness. I think art should try to raise mankind up and give inspiration. Bach said that the sole purpose of music was the glorification of God, and I don't think he was wrong. Leaning a bit towards humanism myself, I would say that art exists for the glorification of the human spirit.


----------



## KRoad

bigshot said:


> Maybe art reflects society, and modern artists are callowly exploiting and commenting on the greed and avarice of the world around them.


Axiomatic, dear bigshot. And possibly, by doing so, it will inspire and cajole those at whom it is aimed to better themselves.


----------



## bigshot

I have to be honest. I love Frank Zappa as much as I love any creative human being, but I don't think he ever convinced anyone of anything that wasn't already convinced. I think it's very difficult to cajole when you're carrying a stick. People are more likely to be inspired to great acts than they are to be shamed into them.


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> You put your finger right on one of the big problems today. No one is trying to excel any more. It isn't required. Compared to the great generation, we're a bunch of lazy whining bums who always take the shortcut.


Speak for yourself dude. Some of us hold ourselves to high standards.


----------



## bigshot

Hold everything you listen to to the same high standards. If you are creative, you can't just "like". You have to know why and you have to be critical of everything you like. Know its strengthsand weaknesses. Garbage in, garbage out. And no one wants that to happen.


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> Hold everything you listen to to the same high standards. If you are creative, you can't just "like". You have to know why and you have to be critical of everything you like. Know its strengthsand weaknesses. Garbage in, garbage out. And no one wants that to happen.


I do hold everything I listen to to those standards, whether they be jazz or classical or rock or electronic or whatever. It also helps for the artist to be open-minded, open to possibilities, and learning new things.


----------



## Guest

I have a modest proposal for bigshot, before you post another hellinahandbasket screed, look to your own sweet self.

Maybe some of us have motes in our eyes. It could be true.

But dude! Is that a beam I see in yours. Why it is!! That sucker is HUGE!!

(I'm getting the strangest feeling of... ...deja vu right now.)

Specifically, I'd like to see you hold your own listening up to the highest standards. And that means no more lazy reliance on others' opinions--no more "test of time" or "informed consensus" types of nonsense. And that also means no more false expectations, either. Beethoven was Beethoven, for good or for ill. Xenakis is not Beethoven, nor is Lachenmann or Neumann or Andre or Merzbow. Xenakis is Xenakis. You are able to listen to Beethoven for what Beethoven has to offer. You don't criticize Beethoven for not writing like Bach. You don't even criticize Beethoven for not writing like Mozart. Beethoven was Beethoven.

Now, extend the favor to other composers. Xenakis has certain things to offer. Certain other things he does not offer. Listen to him for what he has to offer, not comparing him in some impossible way to Beethoven or Mozart, who have other things to offer, but for himself. In short, no more applying standards that do not apply.

Once you are able to hold yourself to the highest standards, then maybe we'll talk again. (And the topic will be, surprise surprise, *Who sets those standards we keep hearing about?*)


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## bigshot

some guy said:


> *Who sets those standards we keep hearing about?*)


Discriminating listeners. Indiscriminate listeners think everything is equal and there is no good or bad, just different.

Everyone's standards don't have to be the same. They just have to be supportable through analysis and debate. Oscar Wilde said "Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those that he has selected."

Feel free to disagree, just be prepared to say what qualities are important and how the particular work embodies those qualities. If your criteria are particularly well chosen, they will relate to the way the work utilizes the medium, not just the particular genre. That approaches a universal truth a bit closer than focusing on the details that separate things. Don't be afraid to accept convincing arguments that differ from your own. Incorporate them and build your theory stronger. The goal is to learn, not intractably defend a fixed opinion.


----------



## KenOC

bigshot said:


> Indiscriminate listeners think everything is equal and there is no good or bad, just different.


Wow! You really know people like that? Have to admit that I don't Certainly many listeners are in error, as when (for instance) they don't like the music I do. But I try to be tolerant!


----------



## neoshredder

My biased opinion is that indiscriminate listeners like hip-hop.


----------



## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> My biased opinion is that indiscriminate listeners like hip-hop.


Same could be said of fans of heavy metal and baroque music 

And all 3 statements would hold equal amounts of non-truth.


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> Discriminating listeners. Indiscriminate listeners think everything is equal and there is no good or bad, just different.
> 
> Everyone's standards don't have to be the same. They just have to be supportable through analysis and debate. Oscar Wilde said "Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those that he has selected."
> 
> Feel free to disagree, just be prepared to say what qualities are important and how the particular work embodies those qualities. If your criteria are particularly well chosen, they will relate to the way the work utilizes the medium, not just the particular genre. That approaches a universal truth a bit closer than focusing on the details that separate things. Don't be afraid to accept convincing arguments that differ from your own. Incorporate them and build your theory stronger. The goal is to learn, not intractably defend a fixed opinion.


You know, just because somebody is smart, or a great artist doesn't make it impossible for them to say incredibly stupid things, and that is a rather stupid remark from good old Oscar.


----------



## silex

lol xD you're right


----------



## neoshredder

silex said:


> lol xD you're right


Great first post I'd say.  Welcome.


----------



## bigshot

neoshredder said:


> My biased opinion is that indiscriminate listeners like hip-hop.


It's a pretty barren field, but I have heard one excellent hip hop/rap record. It gives me hope that someday someone will point me to more.


----------



## bigshot

BurningDesire said:


> You know, just because somebody is smart, or a great artist doesn't make it impossible for them to say incredibly stupid things, and that is a rather stupid remark from good old Oscar.


If you know anyone who is incredibly talented, you know it's true. We get catty quotes from Stravinsky here every week that prove the point!


----------



## Guest

bigshot said:


> Discriminating listeners. Indiscriminate listeners think everything is equal and there is no good or bad, just different.


Yes, of course. Discriminating listeners. And since I am a discriminating listener but disagree with you, I get to be categorized as...

you got it, an indiscriminate listener. But bigshot, you don't get to decide. Sorry.



bigshot said:


> Everyone's standards don't have to be the same.


Whew!



bigshot said:


> They just have to be supportable through analysis and debate.


OK, go ahead. You first.



bigshot said:


> Don't be afraid to accept convincing arguments that differ from your own. Incorporate them and build your theory stronger. The goal is to learn, not intractably defend a fixed opinion.


Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

No, really. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry. I think I'm going to start... Yes, I've started hiccoughing now. Great job!:tiphat:


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> If you know anyone who is incredibly talented, you know it's true. We get catty quotes from Stravinsky here every week that prove the point!


Jeez, I love Stravinsky, but the guy was like a broken record of saying totally stupid crap.


----------



## bigshot

He couldn't imagine music being made in any other fashion than his own.

Once you realize that, you can put the comments in context and they are actually valuable for illuminating who Stravinsky was as a composer and what his criteria were.

Some Guy, you have to be brave enough to make a statement and support it with evidence if you want to participate. Post a youtube video that you think is truly great and explain why you think that. Then allow other people to disagree and provide their own arguments and evidence. Consider those contrary opinions and then rethink your own opinion. Then you are part of the game. Sitting on the sidelines and spitting out snappy one liners doesn't get you very far.

This is exactly what happened last time I challenged folks to come up with an example of contemporary classical music that was on a level with the greatest composers of the past... Everyone dodged the challenge by claiming it was impossible because everything was different but equal. Then they claimed that there was no good and bad, just differences of opinion. Then they started attacking me personally. I'm a big boy. I can take it. But it tells me something about your opinions whether you like it or not.


----------



## Guest

bigshot said:


> Some Guy, you have to be brave enough to make a statement and support it with evidence if you want to participate.


Thanks for the advice, big guy..., for making up rules for me that I've never seen you follow yourself.

Great game. Heads you win, tails I lose. I'm supposed to want to play this game? Hmmmm.


----------



## Kevin Pearson

Enough already guys! There's no need to get so personal and attacking with your little knives of words. We're not in elementary school anymore. Sheesh! Let's shake hands and move on already.

Kevin


----------



## neoshredder

You can't compare Contemporary with the All-Time greats. WIth that said, I really enjoy Contemporary sometimes and glad to have an alternative style to go to. I think I've liked every Era of Music for one reason or another. Each Era fits a different mood.


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> He couldn't imagine music being made in any other fashion than his own.
> 
> Once you realize that, you can put the comments in context and they are actually valuable for illuminating who Stravinsky was as a composer and what his criteria were.
> 
> Some Guy, you have to be brave enough to make a statement and support it with evidence if you want to participate. Post a youtube video that you think is truly great and explain why you think that. Then allow other people to disagree and provide their own arguments and evidence. Consider those contrary opinions and then rethink your own opinion. Then you are part of the game. Sitting on the sidelines and spitting out snappy one liners doesn't get you very far.
> 
> This is exactly what happened last time I challenged folks to come up with an example of contemporary classical music that was on a level with the greatest composers of the past... Everyone dodged the challenge by claiming it was impossible because everything was different but equal. Then they claimed that there was no good and bad, just differences of opinion. Then they started attacking me personally. I'm a big boy. I can take it. But it tells me something about your opinions whether you like it or not.


Not really. He praised music by Carter, even though his never really sounded much like Carter's. He had many nasty things to say about Britten, even though both worked in a similar aesthetic (one thinks Stravinsky's comments were more out of jealousy of Britten's success, or just the fact that he was a bigot and was likely homophobic)


----------



## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> You can't compare Contemporary with the All-Time greats. WIth that said, I really enjoy Contemporary sometimes and glad to have an alternative style to go to. I think I've liked every Era of Music for one reason or another. Each Era fits a different mood.


Sure you can, as in the statement "I would rather listen to Schnittke than Boccherini, because I think his music is better." :3 And I find most eras span a variety of moods.


----------



## neoshredder

He also mentioned that Vivaldi played the same Concerto over and over again.


----------



## neoshredder

BurningDesire said:


> Sure you can, as in the statement "I would rather listen to Schnittke than Boccherini, because I think his music is better." :3 And I find most eras span a variety of moods.


Many moods but a similar atmosphere. I'm surprised you held back. Why not say "I would rather listen to Schnittke than Mozart, because I think his music is better".


----------



## clavichorder

BurningDesire said:


> Not really. He praised music by Carter, even though his never really sounded much like Carter's. He had many nasty things to say about Britten, even though both worked in a similar aesthetic (one thinks Stravinsky's comments were more out of jealousy of Britten's success, or just the fact that he was a bigot and was likely homophobic)


There is a touching account of Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff agreeing on something. It wasn't music by any means though. They were "set up" to be dinner guests at the same person's house. Then they were encouraged to make conversation and things were stony at first but somehow they ended up getting along reasonably well on a subject very antithetical to ideal of what great musical artists "should be" interested in: money. They talked and agreed passionately on the subject of how much money they were cheated out of thanks to the circumstances of the 1st World War. LOL.


----------



## clavichorder

KRoad said:


> REAL men prefer Beethoven... and yet the man himself admired Handel who never married. So much confusion. Yet who amongst us will deny that a composer's sexual orientation penetrates to the very deepest level of his/her moral aesthetic? Very few I suspect.


Wait is that sarcasm? I know this isn't what you are implying, but I for some reason feel the need to assert that I'm not gay(though I've gone far further in that direction than your average straight man), and am quite horny for women, yet no music moves me like Tchaikovsky's.


----------



## neoshredder

clavichorder said:


> Wait is that sarcasm? I know this isn't what you are implying, but I for some reason feel the need to assert that I'm not gay(though I've gone far further in that direction than your average straight man), and am quite horny for women, yet no music moves me like Tchaikovsky's.


Too much info there. lol But glad you appreciate Tchaikovsky's music. Living in pain (emotional) sometimes brings the best out of Composers.


----------



## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> Many moods but a similar atmosphere. I'm surprised you held back. Why not say "I would rather listen to Schnittke than Mozart, because I think his music is better".


Well I actually like some of Mozart's music. And I don't want to sound like a broken record like the modern music haters :3


----------



## neoshredder

I can see why they hate it. I just don't agree with it. It is a little noisy at times. But I can't get enough of it.


----------



## BurningDesire

I don't really see how sexuality has much to do with an audience's capacity to enjoy somebody's music o3o


----------



## clavichorder

neoshredder said:


> Too much info there. lol But glad you appreciate Tchaikovsky's music. Living in pain (emotional) sometimes brings the best out of Composers.


You weren't around in the days when I was even more frequently forthcoming about things that were TMI.


----------



## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> I can see why they hate it. I just don't agree with it. It is a little noisy at times. But I can't get enough of it.


Can you see why I'm not crazy about the Classical period?


----------



## KenOC

neoshredder said:


> You can't compare Contemporary with the All-Time greats.


Well, you can and you do. Whenever you decide whether or not go to a concert, which CD to buy, and so forth, you're picking your favorites. Maybe it's Mozart, maybe it's Stockhausen. Everybody, I think, makes this sort of comparison all the time. Voting with your bucks is certainly more meaningful than posting on a forum like this one.


----------



## neoshredder

BurningDesire said:


> Can you see why I'm not crazy about the Classical period?


I see why but I don't agree with it.  But you are alright with Baroque? I would think anything before Beethoven would not be your thing. I guess Bach is the exception as he can get loud.


----------



## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> I see why but I don't agree with it.  But you are alright with Baroque? I would think anything before Beethoven would not be your thing. I guess Bach is the exception as he can get loud.


I like plenty of music pre-Beethoven. I love Bach, Vivaldi, Biber, and Telemann. I also love alot of Renaissance and Medieval music.


----------



## Guest

bigshot said:


> Discriminating listeners. Indiscriminate listeners think everything is equal and there is no good or bad, just different.
> 
> Everyone's standards don't have to be the same.


Everyone's standards don't = no-one's standards do. You may be a discriminating listener, but your English needs work. On the other hand, I'm happy with your definition of an indiscriminate listener. I just wonder how it is relevant here on TC.



bigshot said:


> Post a youtube video that you think is truly great and explain why you think that. Then allow other people to disagree and provide their own arguments and evidence. Consider those contrary opinions and then rethink your own opinion.


I did that. No-one responded. Seems actually talking about music isn't as popular round here as I thought it might be, which is why talking about talking about music is what actually happens.



bigshot said:


> This is exactly what happened last time I challenged folks to come up with an example of contemporary classical music that was on a level with the greatest composers of the past... Everyone dodged the challenge by claiming it was impossible because everything was different but equal. Then they claimed that there was no good and bad, just differences of opinion. Then they started attacking me personally. I'm a big boy. I can take it. But it tells me something about your opinions whether you like it or not.


Well go on then...find the last time you did that and I'll give you a read...Or have another go and I'll read. Just try not to simultaneously condescend to the indiscriminate listener and pose as a learner.


----------



## mud

BurningDesire said:


> Nice troll thread bro.


Sincerity is the sincerest form of trolling. You know, if my question had been taken at face value, the only responses would have been by those who agreed with it.


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> You know, if my question had been taken at face value, the only responses would have been by those who agreed with it.


Perhaps. Would that have been the kind of thread you'd have wanted: a succession of "Aye!"?


----------



## mud

MacLeod said:


> You're a hard person to have a conversation with.


Well, if you would resist profiling me, you might be able to see each of my topics as more of an independent thought than an agenda.


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> Well, if you would resist profiling me,


Profiling you? What do you mean?


----------



## mud

Kevin Pearson said:


> What I don't understand is if you think contemporary classical discussions suck then why even bother entering into those topics? It's not like you have to read the posts and discussions about contemporary music. Use some will power man!
> 
> I fully admit that I am not an ardent fan of a lot of contemporary music but I am willing to explore it to discover what I do like. What's different for me in modern music is that I find I enjoy maybe 25% of say Philip Glass' works whereas I like 90% of Brahms' works. So to me that equates using a lot of valuable time to find that 25% I would enjoy where I could be using that time to listen to the 90% I know I will enjoy. I just personally find modern music not as "consistently" good but I certainly wouldn't discard it's validity by saying it "sucks".
> 
> Kevin


I agree that the good contemporary music is hardly worth searching for, and I know from experience. I appreciate the good works I have found about as much as those from other eras. What I was mostly discussing about contemporary classical music is that it is not categorized correctly. If it were, I would be able to find new music in a retro classical style without having to listen to 99% of what I consider to be a separate genre.


----------



## mud

Lukecash12 said:


> That's a moot point. Can I formulate such a sentence? Of course. Most anyone should know grammar that well.


I am not clear on how the word "that" would have changed the connotation of my sentence: "I wouldn't know what music I enjoyed if I accepted every point of view."



Lukecash12 said:


> "Accepting" and "accepting *that*" are two fundamentally different propositions. One is more relational and the other is more observational. One has to do with what is acceptable for what to do with one's own time, and one has to do with what is acceptable that other people do with their time. You really shouldn't need it spelled out like this, though.


If I literally inserted "that" there, it would be a grammatical error.


----------



## KRoad

clavichorder said:


> I'm not gay(though I've gone far further in that direction than your average straight man)


Specific details are essential before we bring Tchaikovsky into this discourse, surely.


----------



## mud

MacLeod said:


> Perhaps. Would that have been the kind of thread you'd have wanted: a succession of "Aye!"?


Attempting to understand the question before jumping to conclusions would be acceptable. The level of misunderstanding here borders on disinformation. Likewise, contemporary classical music comes across as a form of disinformation. So the discussions of it tend to suck.


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> Attempting to understand the question before jumping to conclusions would be acceptable. The level of misunderstanding here borders on disinformation.


I agree. But to promote understanding, it helps if people are a little more expansive in their explanations. If one wants to get a message across, the onus is on one to make it as clear as possible, taking into account the fact that not all listeners are equally perspicacious. Brief, opaque, cryptic posts that seem, for example, to be rhetorical questions do not promote understanding but scepticism and misunderstanding.

If I'd misinterpreted your opening post as a rhetorical question, you could have just put me right. Since I then actually took the question at face value and answered it, you could have come back and confirmed that I'd got it right. Of course it's your choice whether to post, but please don't complain if we don't post the way you want either.


----------



## mud

MacLeod said:


> I agree. But to promote understanding, it helps if people are a little more expansive in their explanations. If one wants to get a message across, the onus is on one to make it as clear as possible, taking into account the fact that not all listeners are equally perspicacious. Brief, opaque, cryptic posts that seem, for example, to be rhetorical questions do not promote understanding but scepticism and misunderstanding.


"Brevity is the soul of wit." It makes me laugh too.



MacLeod said:


> If I'd misinterpreted your opening post as a rhetorical question, you could have just put me right. Since I then actually took the question at face value and answered it, you could have come back and confirmed that I'd got it right. Of course it's your choice whether to post, but please don't complain if we don't post the way you want either.


I qualified it (which was ignored). I said it was sincere (not complex). I made an analogy (to describe its logic). While you asking me if your answering "no" was the answer I was looking for was a rhetorical question.


----------



## mud

I am surprised this did not turn into a debate on the semantics of _suck_, and how suckiness is such a relative term that we can only define it in light of all music sucking equally in comparison to the cutting edge of contemporary classics, which set the standard of what sucks.


----------



## moody

clavichorder said:


> Wait is that sarcasm? I know this isn't what you are implying, but I for some reason feel the need to assert that I'm not gay(though I've gone far further in that direction than your average straight man), and am quite horny for women, yet no music moves me like Tchaikovsky's.


You didn't really need to say some of that my friend.


----------



## moody

BurningDesire said:


> Well I actually like some of Mozart's music. And I don't want to sound like a broken record like the modern music haters :3


But you do!


----------



## BurningDesire

moody said:


> But you do!


I take offense! I sound like a pristine hi-fi recording of somebody who think's Mozart is over-rated, thank you very much sir!


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> "Brevity is the soul of wit." It makes me laugh too.
> 
> I qualified it (which was ignored). I said it was sincere (not complex). I made an analogy (to describe its logic). While you asking me if your answering "no" was the answer I was looking for was a rhetorical question.


Sorry, Mud, but you don't come across as witty. As for your qualification, I just didn't understand it.


----------



## neoshredder

I thought mud was cool until this thread. Amazing how one bad thread can change your perception of a poster.


----------



## LordBlackudder

the critics and well informed don't get payed as much to discuss contemporary.

so the trend is to speak about the old.

if you gave them a fat paycheck all the magazines, radio, tv and blogs would be contemporary.


----------



## bigshot

neoshredder said:


> You can't compare Contemporary with the All-Time greats. WIth that said, I really enjoy Contemporary sometimes and glad to have an alternative style to go to. I think I've liked every Era of Music for one reason or another. Each Era fits a different mood.


I can identify the top creators in a genre... Ellington and Armstrong are the Beethoven and Mozart of Jazz. Hank Williams and Johnny Cash represent the best of country. Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald are tops in pop vocals. Piece of cake.

Are Glass and Cage as good as contemporary classical gets? That was why I bought a stack of records by them originally. Was I wrong? Who else would be the top creators in that genre?


----------



## bigshot

MacLeod said:


> Well go on then...find the last time you did that and I'll give you a read...Or have another go and I'll read. Just try not to simultaneously condescend to the indiscriminate listener and pose as a learner.


I posted that here a few weeks ago, but no one replied. They were too busy talking about philosophy!

This is a series of articles I did on BoingBoing.net as a guest poster. They were all written and posted over the course of a Saturday. I started at 9am and finished up with the series around 9pm. My goal was to offer young people a taste of the best of various genres they might not have considered before, and to give them a process for analyzing what they hear. Unfortunately, I didn't save the discussion that went on with each posting. Some of them got as high as 100 comments in the space of a couple of hours.

I work in animation, so the perspective of the posts isn't as a musician, it's as a cartoonist. Here is my archive of the posts. Enjoy.

Adventures in Music
http://animationresources.org/?p=3563

By the way, everyone should be simultaneously a teacher and a learner. I share what I know as a teacher and I ask those with experience in other areas I'm interested in to teach me what they know. That's the game.


----------



## bigshot

mud said:


> I agree that the good contemporary music is hardly worth searching for, and I know from experience. I appreciate the good works I have found about as much as those from other eras. What I was mostly discussing about contemporary classical music is that it is not categorized correctly. If it were, I would be able to find new music in a retro classical style without having to listen to 99% of what I consider to be a separate genre.


I wouldn't mind hearing music from a separate related genre if it was really good. I don't demand retro. It just seems like the pickin's get mighty slim after a certain point. It takes someone in the know to point you to the stuff that's worth the time and navigate you past the musical icebergs.


----------



## bigshot

neoshredder said:


> I thought mud was cool until this thread. Amazing how one bad thread can change your perception of a poster.


Never decide who you like based on whether you agree with them or not.

"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." -Thomas Jefferson


----------



## KenOC

bigshot said:


> "I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." -Thomas Jefferson


Fine talk from Tom! He split rather thoroughly with John Adams for many years over just such a circumstance. Happily they reconciled in old age.


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> I wouldn't mind hearing music from a separate related genre if it was really good. I don't demand retro. It just seems like the pickin's get mighty slim after a certain point. It takes someone in the know to point you to the stuff that's worth the time and navigate you past the musical icebergs.


Or if you approach music with an open mind, you'll discover mountains of great music from the 20th Century through to today. There's a huge range of composers from this past century, who wrote tons of great music. I find the Classical period far more in the lacking, to be honest. The late "classical" composers like Beethoven and Schubert (both of whom I consider to be more Romantic, even in their most Classical sounding material) are reliably brilliant, but there's a ton of stuff from the "golden age" that all just sounds basically the same, from more obscure composers to better known ones to those that are considered the best of all time. Haydn is usually reliable in having a voice that stands out, and Mozart does as well, especially in his later works, but still, the homogenization isn't very interesting nor inviting. I guess you can excuse it by the fact that many of the better works are those more often recorded, or more in the zeitgeist, but there's still bland crap that gets recorded, and there's stuff that's pretty good by composers who are more obscure, or get shoved to the side in favor of more Mozart and Haydn worship. Even so, you're still going off of recommendations from others for music in that case. I think doing that can be fun, and point you in directions you may not have explored on your own, but really a passionate listener should get their hands dirty and just do some research themselves, explore things on their own and develop their taste on their own pathways.


----------



## bigshot

I don't want "mountains of great music" from the modern era of classical music. I want the sparkling gems on the top of the heap. From there, I can find my way. Care to offer a couple of sparkling gems?


----------



## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> I don't want "mountains of great music" from the modern era of classical music. I want the sparkling gems on the top of the heap. From there, I can find my way. Care to offer a couple of sparkling gems?


Why limit one's self? Very well, "The Seasons" by John Cage (either piano or orchestral versions), Piano Sonata No. 2 by Charles Ives, Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 by Alfred Schnittke, "Sweeney Todd" by Stephen Sondheim, "Dupree's Paradise" by Frank Zappa, "Lontano" by Gyorgy Ligeti, "Deserts" by Edgard Varese, Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki, "Transfigured Notes" by Milton Babbitt, "Offertorium" by Sofia Gubaidulina, "Music for 18 Musicians" by Steve Reich, "Piano Fantasy" by Aaron Copland, "Rothko Chapel" by Morton Feldman, and "Omega" by Iannis Xenakis


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## bigshot

I'm very familiar with Zappa and Ives. Ives was a contemporary of Stravinsky though. I've always thought his music was better and more modern than the moderns. Zappa's music crossed multiple genre lines. I don't know if there really is a genre for that, or if anyone else is in the same category. Hard to say. Copland doesn't seem to belong either. He was working well before 1950 wasn't he?

I'll start at the top of your list at youtube and create a new thread for the discussion.


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## neoshredder

The 3 top Composers of Contemporary imo are Messiaen, Schnittke, and Ligeti. There are many others but Glass wouldn't be one of them imo. Or very far down the list. Berio, Scelsi, Nono, Penderecki, Xenakis, and etc I would put ahead of Glass. I guess I'm not too fond of Minimalism.


----------



## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> The 3 top Composers of Contemporary imo are Messiaen, Schnittke, and Ligeti. There are many others but Glass wouldn't be one of them imo. Or very far down the list. Berio, Scelsi, Nono, Penderecki, Xenakis, and etc I would put ahead of Glass. I guess I'm not too fond of Minimalism.


Me neither, though I like Reich, and I've enjoyed music by Riley and Adams. Glass's music just bores me to tears most of the time. Sometimes he has something nice going on, or a neat core idea (like composing symphonies based on music by David Bowie), but the end product just doesn't do anything interesting, and most of it screams lazy to me. At least Reich has diversity and variety in much of his output.


----------



## mud

neoshredder said:


> I thought mud was cool until this thread. Amazing how one bad thread can change your perception of a poster.


And here I thought cool and bad were synonymous.


----------



## mud

MacLeod said:


> Sorry, Mud, but you don't come across as witty. As for your qualification, I just didn't understand it.


Okay, but my lack of wittiness sure has generated a lot of discussion. Anyhow, what is it about the following/preceeding statement that you do not understand?


mud said:


> I can also qualify it by saying that classical music is both the best and worst music I have ever encountered. Therefore, the discussions follow suit, because their basis is the music. They may be very articulate and technically sound, but this only reminds me that the music was thought out in great detail to achieve the worst result imaginable.


I also put it another way:


mud said:


> An analogy would be a health and wellness forum where half the discussions were about autopsy. They may be informative and all, but I would think they sucked because the basis for discussion was offputting.


Perhaps you simply do not agree (as you have also said), otherwise it is a question of reading comprehension. Do you comprehend this question on a philosophical level? It really is a philosophical question.


----------



## mud

bigshot said:


> I wouldn't mind hearing music from a separate related genre if it was really good. I don't demand retro. It just seems like the pickin's get mighty slim after a certain point. It takes someone in the know to point you to the stuff that's worth the time and navigate you past the musical icebergs.


I don't demand retro either, it is just that the lack of sufficient subcategorization in contemporary classical music leaves me approximating what I am referring to. What I mean by retro is that the music does not abandon the traditions of what has made classical music well known. When I refer to the cutting edge of contemporary music, it does abandon its (own) traditions. As I said before, if that is all classical music ever was, it would never have been popular enough to be called classical.

As with your mention of musical icebergs, I think it sucks that they were miscategorized. I do not have a problem with contemporary music on its own terms, but by comparison to the classical tradition; it is at odds with it, and this seems to be its only reason for existing. I think of it as the worst parody of music out there (when I say it is the worst result imaginable). But the real problem is that this becomes a barrier to finding (or discussing) new classical music, in the traditional sense of the term.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

BurningDesire said:


> Speak for yourself dude. Some of us hold ourselves to high standards.


Why don't you post some of your music that you composed? I mean, even Mozart and Haydn are bland crap according to your taste. I would love to listen to your pieces and contrast the difference. This might add some qualification to your opinions.


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## Guest

The person listening to BurningDesire's compositions, however, is going to have to be willing to take his standards as the standards. That is, they will very probably not be comparable to Mozart or Haydn.

"Not comparable" does not mean "inferior." This is a situation in which inferior and superior are not germane, anyway.

Do Burning's opinions need qualification? (Are you sure you mean "qualification"?)

Does HarpsichordConcerto have the right qualifications for performing this task? Remember, this is the listener who calls "crap" whenever he comes across anything he doesn't like or understand.


----------



## mud

some guy said:


> "Not comparable" does not mean "inferior." This is a situation in which inferior and superior are not germane, anyway.


Just to interject here, my saying that it sucks is in reference to it being incomparable, not inferior. It is in the context of classical music/discussion that I find it to suck, due to an implicit (and often explicit) comparison to music of which it is incomparable (other than on a broader topic of music in general).


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> The person listening to BurningDesire's compositions, however, is going to have to be willing to take his standards as the standards. That is, they will very probably not be comparable to Mozart or Haydn.
> 
> "Not comparable" does not mean "inferior." This is a situation in which inferior and superior are not germane, anyway.
> 
> Do Burning's opinions need qualification? (Are you sure you mean "qualification"?)
> 
> Does HarpsichordConcerto have the right qualifications for performing this task? Remember, this is the listener who calls "crap" whenever he comes across anything he doesn't like or understand.


Let's first allow BruningDesire to post her music before we jump to conclusions. I await with burning desire to listen to BurningDesire's epic pieces.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

mud said:


> Merely because the music itself sucks...


As a composer and a human being who has connections to other contemporary composers, this insults me very much.


----------



## mud

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> As a composer and a human being who has connections to other contemporary composers, this insults me very much.


Well, I apologize for insulting you. However, it insults my intelligence (and humanity) that this is considered classical music, and discussed as if the listener is required to conform to such a gross misrepresentation. As I have said, it may be an otherwise articulate discussion, based on technically sound music and concepts, but its premise is a lie. So I find that to suck (unfashionably, as it were).


----------



## BurningDesire

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Let's first allow BruningDesire to post her music before we jump to conclusions. I await with burning desire to listen to BurningDesire's epic pieces.


You've already heard a couple of my pieces.


----------



## violadude

mud said:


> Well, I apologize for insulting you. However, it insults my intelligence (and humanity) that this is considered classical music.


My intelligence feels much more insulted reading this post than listening to Stockhausen.


----------



## neoshredder

mud said:


> Well, I apologize for insulting you. However, it insults my intelligence (and humanity) that this is considered classical music, and discussed as if the listener is required to conform to such a gross misrepresentation.


Have you trolled enough yet? Or are you looking for more.


----------



## mud

neoshredder said:


> Have you trolled enough yet? Or are you looking for more.


I added to that statement, but to call it trolling is a pretty lame excuse for missing my point (especially when I was not responding to you in the first place).


mud said:


> Well, I apologize for insulting you. However, it insults my intelligence (and humanity) that this is considered classical music, and discussed as if the listener is required to conform to such a gross misrepresentation. As I have said, it may be an otherwise articulate discussion, based on technically sound music and concepts, but its premise is a lie. So I find that to suck (unfashionably, as it were).


----------



## neoshredder

Listen to some Schnittke, Ligeti, and Messiaen. Then come back. Until then, give it a rest.


----------



## mud

neoshredder said:


> Listen to some Schnittke, Ligeti, and Messiaen. Then come back. Until then, give it a rest.


Already have, and I do not discount composers carte blanche, just some or most of their music (when it belongs in another category).


----------



## neoshredder

And what category would that be? And since when was Classical Music described to be a certain style? Each Era had its own style. And yet they are considered Classical nowadays.


----------



## mud

neoshredder said:


> And what category would that be? And since when was Classical Music described to be a certain style? Each Era had its own style. And yet they are considered Classical nowadays.


It is described as classical music to distinguish it from other genres. Likewise, when developments within it distinguish those as being equally incomparable, that music should branch out to form another genre (call it what you will).


----------



## mud

violadude said:


> My intelligence feels much more insulted reading this post than listening to Stockhausen.


I think the intelligence (and humanity) of past composers (who are the archetypes of classical music) has been insulted none the less, concerning the hijacking (i.e., misattribution) of their namesake.


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> what is it about the following/preceeding statement that you do not understand?
> 
> Perhaps you simply do not agree (as you have also said), otherwise it is a question of reading comprehension. Do you comprehend this question on a philosophical level? It really is a philosophical question.


Ah, as I thought. My failure to comprehend is one of my reading comprehension, or my inability to keep up with 'philosophy' not with your inability to express yourself clearly.

Let's look at what you said.



> _I can also qualify it by saying that classical music is both the best and worst music I have ever encountered._


Do you mean that within the genre of classical (your definition, I presume) you have encountered some great music and some less so ? (my understatement, but I hate your term for the extreme negative.)_




Therefore, the discussions follow suit, because their basis is the music.

Click to expand...

_So, if I think Bizet sucks, then any conversation about his music will also suck? Actually, I think your philosophy sucks._




They may be very articulate and technically sound, but this only reminds me that the music was thought out in great detail to achieve the worst result imaginable.

Click to expand...

_No, it is not that I don't agree, or that this is too philosophical for me, or that I have reading comprehension problem. It just doesn't make sense.


----------



## mud

MacLeod said:


> No, it is not that I don't agree, or that this is too philosophical for me, or that I have reading comprehension problem. It just doesn't make sense.


Pick one or the other, or it is you who is not making sense. Besides, by taking the statement apart, you remove each substatement from its own context. Duh. Why not misunderstand each letter while you're at it.


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> Pick one or the other, or it is you who is not making sense.


I did pick one: I said, "It just doesn't make sense".


----------



## mud

MacLeod said:


> I did pick one: I said, "It just doesn't make sense".


All you did was to confuse my statement by not considering it comprehensively:


mud said:


> Besides, by taking the statement apart, you remove each substatement from its own context. Duh. Why not misunderstand each letter while you're at it.


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> All you did was to confuse my statement by not considering it comprehensively:


OK. Mea Culpa.
ut:


----------



## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> I did that. No-one responded. Seems actually talking about music isn't as popular round here as I thought it might be, which is why talking about talking about music is what actually happens.


Hear, hear! I love talking about actual examples of music, and things about those actual examples. Some other folks do it here a lot too, right? Maybe you should try again. I'd certainly be interested in talking about actual music with you, as opposed to talking about talking.


----------



## Lukecash12

mud said:


> Pick one or the other, or it is you who is not making sense. Besides, by taking the statement apart, you remove each substatement from its own context. Duh. Why not misunderstand each letter while you're at it.


Then why not graciously point out the context? Are you still really convinced that it's our problem that we don't get what you're trying to say? We have some pretty literate people here, several schooled in philosophy, even one in particular who is majoring in English, so why is it that we all haven't been able to understand you? It's nothing against you, because it would be nice to understand you. I'm pretty confident no one is trying to twist what it is that you've said, or is purposely not trying to understand you. You're in a playground where a lot of folks are either just as educated or more probably more educated than you. So it's starting to stretch the imagination that we are the ones doing the misunderstanding here.


----------



## mud

Lukecash12 said:


> Then why not graciously point out the context? Are you still really convinced that it's our problem that we don't get what you're trying to say? We have some pretty literate people here, several schooled in philosophy, even one in particular who is majoring in English, so why is it that we all haven't been able to understand you? It's nothing against you, because it would be nice to understand you. I'm pretty confident no one is trying to twist what it is that you've said, or is purposely not trying to understand you. You're in a playground where a lot of folks are either just as educated or more probably more educated than you. So it's starting to stretch the imagination that we are the ones doing the misunderstanding here.


I wasn't talking to you there, and I am not being misunderstood by everyone. I was talking to you here on the matter of clarifying grammar, if you wish to continue our conversation.


----------



## Lukecash12

mud said:


> If I literally inserted "that" there, it would be a grammatical error.


I wasn't suggesting a grammatical change to your sentence. I was defining two different kinds of propositions. You merely used "accepting", so one would assume the first proposition I defined from that sentence. If you were to "accept that", you would know what music you enjoyed while accepting that others can enjoy different music. You had originally confused the two propositions, because for some reason or another it seems that you took it that you ought to accept other music, from someone else. This was an apparent (and I mean "apparent" in the proper sense of "as it appears", without so strong a connotation as people think of the word) misinterpretation of the sense in which several people posted during the first few pages.


----------



## arpeggio

Lukecash12 said:


> Then why not graciously point out the context? Are you still really convinced that it's our problem that we don't get what you're trying to say? We have some pretty literate people here, several schooled in philosophy, even one in particular who is majoring in English, so why is it that we all haven't been able to understand you? It's nothing against you, because it would be nice to understand you. I'm pretty confident no one is trying to twist what it is that you've said, or is purposely not trying to understand you. You're in a playground where a lot of folks are either just as educated or more probably more educated than you. So it's starting to stretch the imagination that we are the ones doing the misunderstanding here.


Actually Mud's dilemma is that most of us do understand where he is coming from.

One of the problems that I have with some of these discussions is that many of us have had years of formal musical training and yet there are times when opinionated individuals feel that our experiences are invalid.


----------



## mud

arpeggio said:


> Actually Mud's dilemma is that most of us do understand where he is coming from.
> 
> One of the problems that I have with some of these discussions is that many of us have had years of formal musical training and yet there are times when opinionated individuals feel that our experiences are invalid.


It is not my intention to invalidate your experience, which is why I stated that they may be very articulate and technically sound discussions on your part(s). This question is being asked from my perspective, simply enough. If you do not share this view, then feel free to tell me why. I do not consider it to be a dilemma as a listener or reader though. It is about the end result and its context rather than the process that brings it about.


----------



## arpeggio

mud said:


> If you do not share this view, then feel free to tell me why.


I have a sneaking suspicion that you already know the answer to that question.

Actually I am having to much fun watching you engage people who are a lot smarter than I am.


----------



## mud

arpeggio said:


> I have a sneaking suspicion that you already know the answer to that question.


Not many people have answered it, sneakily enough.


----------



## Guest

arpeggio said:


> One of the problems that I have with some of these discussions is that many of us have had years of formal musical training and yet there are times when opinionated individuals feel that our experiences are invalid.


Interesting that you should have said this now as I just read something very like it in a book by Herbert Brün:

"The vocabulary generally used to characterize and to explain the impact or the lack of impact which the composer's work has on its audience, or even on its contemporary society, stems from a well known and frequently exploited store of more or less metaphorical expressions. It has not changed much through the ages. But its significance for the composer has changed considerably because of a certain turn the meaning of this vocabulary has taken in this age, when unprecedented eloquence appears in print swiftly all over the world. What once was the listener's individual expression describing the quality of a personal experience, now has, purely by dint of quantity, adopted the quality of a judgement on the work in question. But because of the vocabulary used therein, this judgement always seems to refer to a musical work, which by the "judgers" is understood to propose rather than to represent music. In spite of the indisputable fact that, where music is concerned, the composers are the competent professionals, these "judgers" ask themselves where music is going in relation to their standards, instead of changing their standards in accordance to the music, which after all, notwithstanding anybody's opinion has come into existence. Since the composer's professional competence, however, does not teach---that is: according to standards or by referring to usefulness---but rather informs on facts, regardless of standards and oblivious to usefulness, the vocabulary of judgement has taken refuge by expressing doubt in the professional competence of the composer" (_When Music Resists Meaning,_ 90).


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> "In spite of the indisputable fact that, where music is concerned, the composers are the competent professionals, these "judgers" ask themselves where music is going in relation to their standards, instead of changing their standards in accordance to the music."


1. I hope the author is not suggesting that the aim of music is "competence." There are plenty of "competent" composers who wrote boring and tedious music, some little else.

2. I may be learned in poetry, and perhaps even degreed in same (God forbid!), but if a poet writes a fine poem in Urdu, and there is no good translation, I am likely to find it useless and move on to something else rather than learning Urdu.

3. Finally, Saint-Saëns wrote: "The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun has pretty sonority, but one does not find in it the least musical idea, properly speaking; it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture. Debussy did not create a style; he cultivated an absence of style, logic, and common sense." So which of these two composers was the "competent" authority on whom we should depend for our standards? :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

mud said:


> Merely because the music itself sucks...


I bring this thread forth as "exhibit A" in the argument that I am not the worst offender here in the forum...


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> 1. I hope the author is not suggesting that the aim of music is "competence."


No, of course he's not. The topic of that quote is quite other.



KenOC said:


> 2. I may be learned in poetry, and perhaps even degreed in same (God forbid!), but if a poet writes a fine poem in Urdu, and there is no good translation, I am likely to find it useless and move on to something else rather than learning Urdu.


This is germane how?



KenOC said:


> 3. Finally, Saint-Saëns wrote: "The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun has pretty sonority, but one does not find in it the least musical idea, properly speaking; it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture. Debussy did not create a style; he cultivated an absence of style, logic, and common sense." So which of these two composers was the "competent" authority on whom we should depend for our standards? :lol:


Lol? Really? That usually signals that someone has said something funny, though. Here, it's just awkward. The words "'competent' authority on whom we should depend for our standards" simply continue and elaborate a totally skewed view of what the original quote actually says.

I guess the question here is, why? Why the skew?


----------



## joen_cph

Please note: this thread will officially close on the 5th of November, 2062 (if there are any survivors).


----------



## aleazk

joen_cph said:


> Please note: this thread will officially close on the 5th of November, 2062 (if there are any survivors).


lol, while reading this, I was wondering what would have happened if Kennedy would had been a supporter of tonalism and Khrushchev of atonalism. Certainly a different history judging by the tenor of these kind of discussions here!. Gosh, thankfully, classical music enthusiasts only have a computer :lol:


----------



## joen_cph

aleazk said:


> lol, while reading this, I was wondering what would have happened if Kennedy would had been a supporter of tonalism and Khrushchev of atonalism. Certainly a different history judging by the tenor of these kind of discussions here!. Gosh, thankfully, classical music enthusiasts only have a computer :lol:


Things apparently still can get heated among classical music enthusiasts, cf. a recent "The Guardian" article about Henze (October 29th; Tom Service):


> Henze relates that at a dinner party (at which he wasn't present), the Italian composer Luigi Nono threw some Meissen porcelain to the floor in disgust at the mere mention of Henze's opera. The reason for the offence? Well, as the philosopher Theodor Adorno also said to Henze about the piece, "your music is not chaotic enough." As Henze put it, when I met him in 2009 at his home near Rome: "What a thing to say! There you are every day, trying to put something reasonable and clear on paper, and somebody comes and says it is not sufficiently chaotic."


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> I guess the question here is, why? Why the skew?


Sorry if you found my post confusing. Let me first repeat the quote: "In spite of the indisputable fact that, where music is concerned, the composers are the competent professionals, these "judgers" ask themselves where music is going in relation to their standards, instead of changing their standards in accordance to the music."

First the idea that listeners shouldn't judge music according to their standards is (to me) laughable. It seems like a variant of the "blame the audience" argument.

Second, the "appeal to authority" for standards is (again, to me) repellent. And, I suspect, to many others as well.

Third, the idea that composers are the "competent professionals" on whom we should depend for our standards is absurd. The Saint-Saens/Debussy example I gave shows that even composers disagree, sometimes quite violently, on the merits of each others' music. Thus the "laughy" you objected to.

I hope this clarifies the previous post!


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> .... In spite of the indisputable fact that, where music is concerned, the composers are the competent professionals, these "judgers" ask themselves where music is going in relation to their standards, instead of changing their standards in accordance to the music, which after all, notwithstanding anybody's opinion has come into existence.


Thanks for the quote. I'm glad I didn't buy the book, what rubbish. A long winded paragraph of polly-waffle, to encourage a license to promote junk art. When a comedian-composer like John Cage walked up on stage in front of a television audience and threw objects around like a two year old, of course by modern standards most would find that laughable, as piece of comedy, not music which Cage purported it to be. Now, I certainly don't need a book to tell me that I ought to change my standards (in this case lowering it miserably) to "understand" such crap.


----------



## millionrainbows

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> ...a comedian-composer like John Cage walked up on stage in front of a television audience and threw objects around like a two year old...I certainly don't need a book to tell me that I ought to change my standards...to "understand" such crap.


...and "I don't need no g-d politician up in Washington telling me what to do!" Sounds eerily similar to Southern politicians who resisted segregation.

It's become painfully obvious that you have no feeling for conceptual art or modern music, so please go back to your former job as janitor in the Mozart-Bach-Brahms museum of art.


----------



## arpeggio

*Christmas Can Be Cool*

Some of the above posts reminded me of a funny story my son told me. It probably has no bearing on the discussion but I hope some of you will find it amusing.

My son works as a studio musician in Los Angeles. As a professional, one does not always get to play the most profound music.

He has a jazz group. During the Christmas season they frequently will play music at the various large shopping malls. Well at one gig their regular sax player was unable to play so band's agent sent a replacement.

When he arrived he asked my son what they were playing and my son responded, "The usual Christmas stuff, 'Jingle Bells', 'Silent Night'".

The sax player responded, "Hey man, I don't want to play that junk."

My son answered, "We are getting paid $2,000 to play this gig. We can split it four ways or three. It is up to you."

The musician took out his tenor sax and played "Jingle Bells".


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Sorry if you found my post confusing.


I did not find your post confusing, no. Perfectly clear. It clearly and probably purposely misconstrued the quote. I'm sorry you have interjected a false conclusion into the discussion.



KenOC said:


> Let me first repeat the quote: "In spite of the indisputable fact that, where music is concerned, the composers are the competent professionals, these "judgers" ask themselves where music is going in relation to their standards, instead of changing their standards in accordance to the music."


Um, this is only part of the quote...



KenOC said:


> First the idea that listeners shouldn't judge music according to their standards is (to me) laughable. It seems like a variant of the "blame the audience" argument.


...but even with only that little snippet (with which it is childishly easy to distort the import of the whole passage), it is clear that "ask themselves where music is going" is _quite_ different from "judge music" as you have recast it.



KenOC said:


> Second, the "appeal to authority" for standards is (again, to me) repellent. And, I suspect, to many others as well.


Now you are quibbling on the word standards. (Well, actually everything in both your posts has quibbled on the word standards.) Either you do not understand how Brün is using the word, or you are purposely ignoring his point.



KenOC said:


> Third, the idea that composers are the "competent professionals" on whom we should depend for our standards is absurd. The Saint-Saens/Debussy example I gave shows that even composers disagree, sometimes quite violently, on the merits of each others' music. Thus the "laughy" you objected to.


Agreement or disagreement by composers over the merits of each others' music has absolutely nothing to do with the point Brün is making in the (entire) passage I quoted. Not to mention. And the business about us depending for our standards on some professional is yet another absurd distortion of what Brün has actually said.



KenOC said:


> I hope this clarifies the previous post!


One, I don't believe you. Two, the previous post was clear enough, as was the second one. The issue is not whether you're making your points clearly or not.


----------



## mud

millionrainbows said:


> Gosh, thankfully the music people like isn't an expression of their humanity and culture...*or is it?*


Ironically, I have found that people who espouse contemporary classical music as being comparable to that of which it broke tradition to be close minded. Whereas it would be open minded to acknowledge that it is a different genre, in as much as it has sought to distance itself from the archetypes of classical music, resulting in something essentially different. Therfore, it is an oxymoronical juxtaposition to attempt a balanced discussion of these under the same category, as they are inherently incomparable (by design).


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## Guest

mud said:


> Ironically, I have found that people who espouse contemporary classical music as being comparable to that of which it broke tradition to be close minded.


Ironically (?), I've found the opposite.


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> Ironically (?)


Yes, and with an air of reverse snobbery.


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## mud

Lukecash12 said:


> I wasn't suggesting a grammatical change to your sentence. I was defining two different kinds of propositions. You merely used "accepting", so one would assume the first proposition I defined from that sentence. If you were to "accept that", you would know what music you enjoyed while accepting that others can enjoy different music. You had originally confused the two propositions, because for some reason or another it seems that you took it that you ought to accept other music, from someone else. This was an apparent (and I mean "apparent" in the proper sense of "as it appears", without so strong a connotation as people think of the word) misinterpretation of the sense in which several people posted during the first few pages.


Since your comment was based on my sentence, why not spell out how it could have been constructed to your liking? This is the proposition we are really discussing.


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## Guest

mud said:


> Yes, and with an air of reverse snobbery.


As opposed to snobbery?


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> As opposed to snobbery?


As a crutch.


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## mud

I chose classical music to listen to and discuss as a genre, not as a gateway to its antithesis; you see? Obviously, the majority of contemporary composers are antithetical to it in their lack of eclecticism and aesthetics, as are their proponents. Are they seriously trying not to make their music suck by comparison, or do they also consider it to be incomparable?


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## Guest

I choose music to listen to. I can see the differences between genres, and I tend towards some genres more than others, but i don't fuss about the boundaries between them.


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## Guest

mud said:


> I chose classical music to listen to and discuss as a genre, not as a gateway to its antithesis; you see? Obviously, the majority of contemporary composers are antithetical to it in their lack of eclecticism and aesthetics, as are their proponents. Are they seriously trying not to make their music suck by comparison, or do they also consider it to be incomparable?


I have a question, why do you keep calling "classical music" a genre? You seem very interested in categorization and in getting the categories right, but you keep calling classical music a genre. This seriously undercuts the authority of your ideas, you know.

Related to this is that historical point that you have brushed off, which is that the term "classical music" was first coined in 1810, _after_ quite a lot of what we now include under that umbrella term was composed: Monteverdi, Palestrina, Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Gluck, and quite a sizeable chunk of Beethoven. I'm not sure, given the term's ability to retro-fit, why you are so concerned that contemporary classical has somehow moved out from under the umbrella.

Also of concern is how opposed you are to newness--or at least unable to see something as new qualifying as being under the umbrella. And yet, why else would one compose except to present something that hasn't existed until you made it? There's no artistic utility in producing something that's already been done, though there may be sound commercial reasons for doing so. I somehow I get the sense that you are anti-commercial. So there's a fundamental tension in your utterances; they seem to be expressing mutually exclusive things as co-existing.


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## mud

some guy said:


> So there's a fundamental tension in your utterances; they seem to be expressing mutually exclusive things as co-existing.


This describes the state of contemporary classical music and its discussion occupying the same genre as classical music. Saying that neither occupies a distinct genre is nonsense, this forum is based on that concept (although it does not properly subdivide them for rational discussion), it has a non-classical forum for other genres. Yet you want to say that classical music is the only one that does not belong to a genre.

Really, it is you insisting that mutually exclusive music coexists here.


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## Guest

mud said:


> Really, it is you insisting that mutually exclusive music coexists.


Don't mean to interrupt, someguy, but I can't let this comment pass without comment. There is, IMO, no such thing as 'mutually exclusive music'.


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## Logos

Classical music ended with the crumbling of the aristocratic and ecclesiastical society that produced it. When that was replaced by mass democracy and commercialism, the means for producing and the audience for appreciating that music almost entirely evaporated. To pretend that modern freakishness is part of the same societal tradition is ludicrous. One might as well say that Bill Clinton and Louis XIV ran the same sort of government.


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## BurningDesire

Logos said:


> Classical music ended with the crumbling of the aristocratic and ecclesiastical society that produced it. When that was replaced by mass democracy and commercialism, the means for producing and the audience for appreciating that music almost entirely evaporated. To pretend that modern freakishness is part of the same societal tradition is ludicrous. One might as well say that Bill Clinton and Louis XIV ran the same sort of government.


So good music ended when some rich douchebags lost some of their control over others' lives? Seems legit.


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> Don't mean to interrupt, someguy, but I can't let this comment pass without comment. There is, IMO, no such thing as 'mutually exclusive music'.


Except this is why it is categorized into genres. The word "music" is another crutch in these conversations: _"B... bu... but... it's music! How can it not be classical?"_


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## mud

Logos said:


> Classical music ended with the crumbling of the aristocratic and ecclesiastical society that produced it. When that was replaced by mass democracy and commercialism, the means for producing and the audience for appreciating that music almost entirely evaporated. To pretend that modern freakishness is part of the same societal tradition is ludicrous. One might as well say that Bill Clinton and Louis XIV ran the same sort of government.


I don't think it ended, although it was marginalized by its antitheses in contemporary classical works, for the most part. However, classical works are still being composed in spite of this.


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## Guest

Logos said:


> Classical music ended with the crumbling of the aristocratic and ecclesiastical society that produced it. When that was replaced by mass democracy and commercialism, the means for producing and the audience for appreciating that music almost entirely evaporated. To pretend that modern freakishness is part of the same societal tradition is ludicrous. One might as well say that Bill Clinton and Louis XIV ran the same sort of government.


Logos, if you're going to make historical types of statements, please do us the favor of making sure they correspond to documented historical fact.

From having read your other posts, I can see that this admirably expresses your idea that we're going to hell in a handbasket, but it is not good history. Try to put some dates to these conclusions and suddenly the disconnect between conclusion and historical fact will snap into sharp focus.


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## Logos

Certainly. I tried to be careful not to say that it entirely evaporated.


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## Logos

Dates? 1787, 1848, 1914. For starters. Each one a punch in the gut to civilisation.


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## Guest

mud said:


> Except this is why it is categorized into genres.


No, that's not why it is categorised. It's categorised so that the buyer/listener can be guided as to what to expect. Tea and coffee come with labels on so that you know what to expect when you drink them (ever drunk coffee from a cup that expected to be tea? Ghastly) But they're both still hot beverages with drug benefits!


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## Guest

Logos said:


> Dates? 1787, 1848, 1914. For starters. Each one a punch in the gut to civilisation.


OK. Now put those dates together with some of those conclusions you were drawing. Those were quite punchy dates, I agree, but how do they correlate with your conclusions about classical music?


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## Logos

They each helped to break up the ecclesiastical and aristocratic mores of society, which in turn had its effect (which obviously I deem to be negative) on all the arts.


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> It's categorised so that the buyer/listener can be guided as to what to expect.


This only proves my point that contemporary classical music should be categorized as a different genre (perhaps replacing the word classical with something appropriately descriptive of its antithesis to it).


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## Guest

mud said:


> This only proves my point that contemporary classical music should be categorized as a different genre (perhaps replacing the word classical with something appropriately descriptive of its antithesis to it).


It proves nothing of the kind, and certainly not that there is such a thing as 'mutually exclusive music'. It proves that in certain circumstances, categorisation of music may be helpful. It does not mean that such categories actually exist in any absolute sense.


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> It proves nothing of the kind, and certainly not that there is such a thing as 'mutually exclusive music'. It proves that in certain circumstances, categorisation of music may be helpful. It does not mean that such categories actually exist in any absolute sense.


So your opinion is absolute unless it concurs with mine? Whatever, you are really contradicting yourself there.


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## Guest

Logos said:


> They each helped to break up the ecclesiastical and aristocratic mores of society, which in turn had its effect (which obviously I deem to be negative) on all the arts.


Well, that wasn't quite as helpful as I would have liked, but OK.

1787. After which came Beethoven and Berlioz and Mendelssohn and Chopin and Cherubini.

1848. After which came Dvorak and Bruckner and Brahms and Wagner and Verdi.

1914. After which came Varese and Bartok and Prokofiev and some more Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

The musical arts don't seem to be doing too shabbily after those dates. Or?

After the 1787 punch, came the rise of the middle class. Co-terminous with that was the first use of the term "classical music" (in 1810) and the development of the idea that music had a moral component, that listening to "serious" music had a good effect on you. Along with those ideas came the break-up of the earlier form of collegial concert known as miscellany, with all types of music to satisfy all types of people all in the same show. From then on, you have a progression of exclusivist concert types. And an increasing resistance to and suspicion of "new" music.

The 1848 punch was seen at the time as being the end of Romanticism with a large R, though we now call all the music for the rest of the century Romantic. I suppose you could argue that the giants of the post-1848 world were smaller than the giants of the pre-1848 world, but only if you were willing to ignore the history of the idea of "greatness" as applied to music. And most people are quite willing to do that, if they're even aware of that idea having a history.

The 1914 punch came after the radical, avant garde experimentations of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, so can hardly be the cause of those things. If you're calling those things "negative," which I'm sure many people here will disagree with, just as I am sure that you will call the people who do typical products of a decadent society. Here we're getting into the realm of "heads I win, tails you lose" at which point I start to lose interest. Not a game I've ever been all that taken with....

But really. Is there any time in history when there weren't bad things going on? Any time when cultural and social traditions were not being pummelled or at least sternly questioned? Has history been a steady decline or have all ages had their ups and downs? (I'm not really asking at this point, just by the way. I already know your answers. What I'm really trying to encourage you to do is to question your own assumptions by comparing them to real, historical fact.)


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## Guest

mud said:


> So your opinion is absolute unless it concurs with mine? Whatever, you are really contradicting yourself there.


No, my opinion is my opinion, and is no more absolute than yours. We are exchanging opinions, aren't we?


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## Logos

"But really. Is there any time in history when there weren't bad things going on? Any time when cultural and social traditions were not being pummelled or at least sternly questioned? Has history been a steady decline or have all ages had their ups and downs? (I'm not really asking at this point, just by the way. I already know your answers."

What are my answers? How is any of this history lesson a refutation of what I've said?


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## Logos

I'll paint a different picture. 


From the time of the dark ages in the 9th Century there is a steady improvement in civilisation till the time of the late 18th Century, during which time drawing room intellectuals got the notion to remake the world from scratch and screwed up (and how), which was followed by a steady decline throughout the 19th Century and more bad experiments conducted by still stupider drawing room intellectuals, punctuated by the death blows of the two world wars. Goethe saw this coming, Nietzsche saw it happening, and Spengler saw it to its conclusion. The rest is silence.

We are living in a time of profound barbarism. This isn't the 21st Century, it's the 9th Century all over again, bottoming out to begin again.


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## joen_cph

Logos said:


> I'll paint a different picture.
> 
> From the time of the dark ages in the 9th Century there is a steady improvement in civilisation till the time of the late 18th Century, during which time drawing room intellectuals got the notion to remake the world from scratch and screwed up (and how), which was followed by a steady decline throughout the 19th Century and more bad experiments conducted by still stupider drawing room intellectuals, punctuated by the death blows of the two world wars. Goethe saw this coming, Nietzsche saw it happening, and Spengler saw it to its conclusion. The rest is silence.
> 
> We are living in a time of profound barbarism. This isn't the 21st Century, it's the 9th Century all over again, bottoming out to begin again.


It would be interesting to know: if free to choose to be transported back in time, where would you prefer to live in Western history, in order to be relieved from the conditions of our time & the humanity surrounding you ?

You´d have to succumb to statistical factors influencing you life though - thus most likely belong to the lower classes, even if the mentioned views might promote a career in the social hierarchy, if combined with some elbowing - and perhaps even a certain level of access to experiencing the dogmas of education and scholarship of those days. Provided, of course, that you are male ...


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## Logos

Obviously the material state of life is far better than ever before, and the average person is better educated certainly. To make a vast (but true) generality, in the old aristocratic societies either one was very well educated or not at all. Either one was cultured or completely uncultured; that was the broad tendency. Today, everybody is a mediocrity, can talk and write a little, but there are few who attain to the general cultivation that was ideal in those days which included the mastery of multiple languages, both ancient and modern, a knowledge of music, science and so forth. 

Your question of me seems to be leading to the question of whether the general welfare is more valuable than the welfare of the few, even if that general welfare (which in practice means leveling) leads to the decline of culture (whether that culture be represented by the few or the many). And while I'm not certain of the answer to that, I can say that it is undoubtedly easier to maintain a high level of culture in small groups than in large ones, which naturally discourages democratic currents as a matter of course.


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## Logos

For material consideration, I'd like to live in the present day, naturally. For cultural consideration I'd like to have lived in the late 18th or early 19th Century, at which time many cultural strengths were in their indian summer. But for the purposes of analyzing all these things and communicating them to my friends, once again I'd like to live in the present day.


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## joen_cph

Logos said:


> Obviously the material state of life is far better than ever before, and the average person is better educated certainly. To make a vast (but true) generality, in the old aristocratic societies either one was very well educated or not at all. Either one was cultured or completely uncultured; that was the broad tendency. Today, everybody is a mediocrity, can talk and write a little, but there are few who attain to the general cultivation that was ideal in those days which included the mastery of multiple languages, both ancient and modern, a knowledge of music, science and so forth.
> 
> Your question of me seems to be leading to the question of whether the general welfare is more valuable than the welfare of the few, even if that general welfare (which in practice means leveling) leads to the decline of culture (whether that culture be represented by the few or the many). And while I'm not certain of the answer to that, I can say that it is undoubtedly easier to maintain a high level of culture in small groups than in large ones, which naturally discourages democratic currents as a matter of course.


But there is an absence of being specific in your post, which is in a way understandable. Was there a culturally richer period than ours ? Does a rich culture imply the spectrum of political discussions, or just mean the entertaining privilege of making fun of a peasant in Latin ?


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## Logos

joen_cph said:


> But there is an absence of being specific in your post, which is understandable. Was there a culturally richer period than ours ? Does a rich culture imply the spectrum of political discussions, or just mean the entertaining privilege of making fun of the peasant in Latin ?


I'm a little more specific in my next post. A rich society does indeed include those volatile discussions, and therein lay the double edged sword of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. In all those rich speculations which are the truest sign of a cultural apogee is the seed of culural nadir--the implementation of certain clever yet half baked reforms led to a decline throughout the 19th Century and to a rise in Philistinism and commercialism that reinforced itself as the industrial revolution sped up exponentially.


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## BurningDesire

Logos said:


> We are living in a time of profound barbarism. This isn't the 21st Century, it's the 9th Century all over again, bottoming out to begin again.


As opposed to those centuries where those cultured and intellectual royalty would have anybody who bothered them violently killed. No, pop music and fast food and crappy movies, definitely the pinnacle of barbaric activities.


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## Logos

Not barbaric, barbarous. People in the times you're talking about were barbaric. In any case, those instances of violence must often be excused since their societies were so precariously situated that they had to fight savagery with savagery, so that the first steps of civilized man to reform his violent neighbors must have necessarily resembled the behavior of those neighbors.


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## quack

Also, the sky is falling, so watch out for that.


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## Logos

quack said:


> Also, the sky is falling, so watch out for that.


That's your own sense of melodrama talking. There's nothing outrageous or sensational in my observations on what is a normal cycle of rise and fall that has been demonstrated now by so many great historians from Toynbee and Schopenhauer, to Spengler and old Gibbon--and as I said before, there's no reason not to think it will rise again.


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## Guest

Logos said:


> That's your own sense of melodrama talking. There's nothing outrageous or sensational in my observations on what is a normal cycle of rise and fall that has been demonstrated now by so many great historians from Toynbee and Schopenhauer, to Spengler and old Gibbon--and as I said before, there's no reason not to think it will rise again.


What's "outrageous and sensational" is the idea that this has anything to do with music, classical or contemporary or any other kind!


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## Logos

You've got me there. Even I don't know what I'm talking about half the time. Oh well.


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## KenOC

Logos said:


> ... In all those rich speculations which are the truest sign of a cultural apogee is the seed of culural nadir...


Logos may appreciate Olin Downes' 1924 view of the Rite of Spring: "...the expression of one who is fundamentally a barbarian and a primitive, tinctured with, and educated in, the utmost sophistications and satieties of a worn-out civilization."


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## Guest

Logos said:


> But for the purposes of analyzing all these things and communicating them to my friends, once again I'd like to live in the present day.


In other words, the present day is the most convenient place for you to dump on ... the present day. How convenient, since the present day is indeed the only time in which you are able to be. You just lucked out, is all.

(Just by the way, repeating insupportable conclusions is not the same thing as analyzing. Quite otherwise. Just sayin'.)



Logos said:


> People in the times you're talking about were barbaric. In any case, those instances of violence must often be excused since their societies were so precariously situated that they had to fight savagery with savagery, so that the first steps of civilized man to reform his violent neighbors must have necessarily resembled the behavior of those neighbors.


Ouch!! Oh ouch. Oh very ouch indeed!!

"I am justified in killing you because I'm more civilized."

Yes, yes I see.


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## Logos

KenOC said:


> Logos may appreciate Olin Downes' 1924 view of the Rite of Spring: "...the expression of one who is fundamentally a barbarian and a primitive, tinctured with, and educated in, the utmost sophistications and satieties of a worn-out civilization."


Can't find much to dispute with Mr. Downes there.


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## Logos

some guy said:


> In other words, the present day is the most convenient place for you to dump on ... the present day. How convenient, since the present day is indeed the only time in which you are able to be. You just lucked out, is all.
> 
> (Just by the way, repeating insupportable conclusions is not the same thing as analyzing. Quite otherwise. Just sayin'.)
> 
> Ouch!! Oh ouch. Oh very ouch indeed!!
> 
> "I am justified in killing you because I'm more civilized."
> 
> Yes, yes I see.


That last part especially is a gross oversimplification. Looking at the map of Europe, those places which earliest came to be civilized, and therefore to enjoy a higher standard of material welfare and culture, were those conquered (often violently) by the Romans. Later on, remote areas became so acutely aware of the increased prosperity of their conquered neighbors that they lobbied with Rome to become a part of their Empire, knowing that as a Roman colony or province they would by default make an advance in stature, power, and wealth. And what happened to those areas who weren't so fortunate to fall under Rome's hand or who foolishly resisted? They remained backwaters for the better part of two thousand years. And these backwaters did resist and violently, for which there are counterparts all over the world. Can a Roman be censured for fighting against foolish resistance to increase his land and power, when that same desire is not only to his benefit, but also to that of the people he would conquer? Nothing could have done more to ameliorate the material condition of the millions of 'oppressed' than just such a procedure of incorporation.


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## KenOC

Logos said:


> Nothing could have done more to ameliorate the material condition of the millions of 'oppressed' than just such a procedure of incorporation.


Yes, we did something similar in the United States as I remember. The outcome was not equally beneficial to all parties involved.


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## Logos

Average Native American lifespan before colonization is estimated to have been somewhere between 18 and about 32. Let's say then for the sake of argument it was in the middle at about 25. Today their average lifespan is 75. Would they have been better off dying of malaria at 25 without the aid of western medicine and hygiene? That seems far the crueler prospect to me.


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## KenOC

Logos said:


> Would they have been better off dying of malaria at 25 without the aid of western medicine and hygiene? That seems far the crueler prospect to me.


The pre-Columbian native population of the New World is uncertain, but seems to have been about 40 to 50 million people. It was reduced, mostly through imported diseases, by about 80% (!) by the end of the 17th century.

In the United States alone, the native American population before the Europeans came seems to have been about 10 million. By 1800, the population had declined to approximately 600,000, and only 250,000 remained in the 1890s. (source for both: Wiki)

But I'm sure they appreciated the improved health care!


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## Logos

Then it comes down to a question of whether a nasty brutish and short life lived by a great many people is to be preferred to a longer life enjoyed by a steadily increasing population (now in the millions again of course, far more than the original population of the americas when compared in total). 

For another thing, nobody seems to have any idea how many native americans lived in the pre-columbian period. Researching the question briefly the estimates vary by a factor of 20, so I really don't know what to think about it.

Do I lament the fact that the Romans were horribly cruel to my German and English ancestors, killing many of them and taking their land? Certainly not, for that very invasion, through the spread of culture was ultimately to the benefit of the civilisation of north of Europe, which at a distant remove improved my own standard of culture and welfare. Those areas not so fortunate as to be conquered, remained, as I said, backwaters.

I simply can't help but think that the millions of native americans living to an average age of 75 are better off today than they would be (presumably living to the age of 25) in a world where colonization hadn't happened.


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## bigshot

How did we get from Music to Malaria? Did someone turn the page in the encyclopedia when I wasn't looking?


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## brianwalker

BurningDesire said:


> So good music ended when some rich douchebags lost some of their control over others' lives? Seems legit.


Control by the aristocracy has always been superior to control by the plebiscite. The arts were much better supported, proportionally, in the past than in the present. Remember when the cathedrals were built, and from whom the great Renaissance artists earned their bread.


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## brianwalker

Why does contemporary classical music discussion sucks? It sucks for same reason that a funeral is depressing. Pop music is alive and well; the David Matthew Band rakes in hundreds of millions in tour revenue. Classical music is being assaulted from all sides; when the time comes where the bureaucrats were of the generation that never listened to classical music in their youth the state funding will evaporate, and with that classical music institutions. Then it will be a true museum of vinyls and CDs.


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## Logos

brianwalker said:


> Control by the aristocracy has always been superior to control by the plebiscite. The arts were much better supported, proportionally, in the past than in the present. Remember when the cathedrals were built, and from whom the great Renaissance artists earned their bread.


Precisely, in all palmy times in art, it was the carefully arranged mutual respect of artists and a cultivated aristocracy (or church hierarchy) that allowed those works to come into being. Wagner I think was one of the last, in his fortuitous relationship with the King of Bavaria, to fully enjoy this kind of patronage, and he only came to such an arrangement after struggling for years without adequate patrons.


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## quack

Contemporary classical discussions suck because people would rather discuss their half-baked political ideas, apocalyptic worldviews, ahistorical musings and third hand psychological theories rather than discussing contemporary classical *music*.


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## brianwalker

Why does contemporary classical music discussions sucks? Why is there a dearth of scholarship on 15th century Italian poetry relative to the abundance of Dante scholarship? Modern scholarship on Dante surely dwarfs the aggregate scholarship on 15th and 16th century Italian poetry. If we lived in Venice in 1615 we'd all be saying "why does contemporary classical Italian poetry discussions suck?"

Inspiration is seasonal; a single season may last decades, centuries.



quack said:


> Contemporary classical discussions suck because people would rather discuss their half-baked political ideas, apocalyptic worldviews, ahistorical musings and third hand psychological theories rather than discussing contemporary classical *music*.


Those things are inseparable.


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> No, my opinion is my opinion, and is no more absolute than yours. We are exchanging opinions, aren't we?


Then my opinion is more absolute, because yours is flip flopping on the issue of genres. But it was nice that you agreed with me before I pointed it out.


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## Guest

mud said:


> Then my opinion is more absolute, because yours is flip flopping on the issue of genres. But it was nice that you agreed with me before I pointed it out.


Go on? "Flip-flopping" eh? Where did I "flip-flop"?


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> Go on? "Flip-flopping" eh? Where did I "flip-flop"?


Go back and trace the history of what you quoted, if you want to follow this discussion. If you get lost again, reread this statement.


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## joen_cph

brianwalker said:


> Control by the aristocracy has always been superior to control by the plebiscite. The arts were much better supported, proportionally, in the past than in the present. Remember when the cathedrals were built, and from whom the great Renaissance artists earned their bread.


This untimely romanticizing of our Western past is irrelevant. No, _the Egyptians _- they had things done. Whether the arts were accessible only to the dead or the elite is of course unimportant.


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## Guest

mud said:


> Go back and trace the history of what you quoted, if you want to follow this discussion. If you get lost again, reread this statement.


Now you're just trolling.


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> Now you're just trolling.


No, if you can't keep track of what you said then that is the only advice I have for you. Otherwise, you are just taking my quotes out of context, because the rest of what you quoted had already answered your question, or the quote before that, etc.

Besides, the only people who seem to play the troll card, are the ones who are trolling.


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## Guest

This is the second time you have claimed I have contradicted myself, without offering a shred of evidence. Every time I have asked you to elaborate, explain, clarify, you have obfuscated, avoided, diverted. You are not interested in something resembling an informed exchange of views: you just want to idle along with one-liners to provoke.

If this is a criticism of posting style, I'm happy to post it. I think I've given Mud the benefit of the doubt for quite long enough.


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## mud

MacLeod said:


> This is the second time you have claimed I have contradicted myself, without offering a shred of evidence. Every time I have asked you to elaborate, explain, clarify, you have obfuscated, avoided, diverted. You are not interested in something resembling an informed exchange of views: you just want to idle along with one-liners to provoke.
> 
> If this is a criticism of posting style, I'm happy to post it. I think I've given Mud the benefit of the doubt for quite long enough.


The evidence is what you said in the conversation, and I clearly pointed out what that was. If anything, it is your brand of obfuscation to have me respond to it again, but out of context, in order to confuse the issue.


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## KenOC

brianwalker said:


> Control by the aristocracy has always been superior to control by the plebiscite. The arts were much better supported, proportionally, in the past than in the present.


A bit oversimplified. Mozart had to support himself largely by public performances, as did Haydn in later years (though by all acounts he did very well indeed). Beethoven depended heavily on aristo support in his early years in Vienna, but by the 1820s those days were long gone. His later music was sold to publishers looking for sheet music sales, or was written for performance at concerts benefiting himself. Galitzin in Russia was the only aristo to commission new works; outside Russia, the world had changed.

The aristocratic support of new music had a relatively brief heyday. The "new aristocracy," today's governments, have largely played the same role in recent times.


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## mud

bigshot said:


> How did we get from Music to Malaria? Did someone turn the page in the encyclopedia when I wasn't looking?


Malaria is also a result of sucking, you see? There, we are back on topic.


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## BurningDesire

Discussions of contemporary classical music only suck when you're discussing it with people who don't know anything about it yet insist that it is total crap (and insist that there must be something wrong with you for liking it, which isn't something you see from the modern music lovers). I liken it to discussions with creationists about evolution.


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## BurningDesire

mud said:


> Malaria is also a result of sucking, you see? There, we are back on topic.


So music sucks? Why are you here monsieur troll?


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## neoshredder

I miss the days where mud discussed about the music he liked. Now all he does is trash Contemporary Music.


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## millionrainbows

The grey area between serialism and tonality, if looked at in terms of advanced serial thought, is struggling to reconcile certain aspects of serialism with tonality. Most listeners here who are vehemently anti-serial are probably unaware of this aspect of serialism.

"All-interval tetrachords" and "all-triad hexachords," are certain sets (out of all the possible sets) which exhibit certain symmetries, such as producing the same set of pitch letter-names under inversion. As I have said in my past posts and blogs, pitch names are tied to pitch identity, a tonal concept, rather than being quantities, as in interval distance.

Thus, using these special-case sets, the composer is able to control the vertical, as well as horizontal consequences of several 'stacked' rows, thus producing controlled harmonic effects, yet never straying from serial principles.

Milton Babbitt is responsible for generating interest in these all-interval sets, although his music (excepting his broadway-style songs) does not reflect an interest in "reconciling" 12-tone ideas with tonality. Elliott Carter comes closer to exemplifying this reconciliation; and George Perle, whose music is largely unknown, espouses these same concepts in his book "Twelve-Tone Tonality."


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## joen_cph

Yes, *George Perle*´s music shouldn´t scare anyone off - a piano concerto as an example:


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## millionrainbows

mud said:


> Merely because the music itself sucks...


_*WARNING!*_ Do not take bait of this nature, as when a member insults a form of music, or worse yet, a composer.

This type of baiting is being done to provoke responses of a personal nature. The baiter then lodges a complaint with moderators.

Ironically, the guidelines allow one to bash and insult forms of music, public figures and great composers, but _personal member-to-member insults result in warnings and bannings. _

*Do not take the bait!* The members who use these tactics are playing off of your love of said music or composer, and drawing you in to personal ad-hominem territory.


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## bigshot

That's what happened to me in the "Mozart is a bum" thread, and I didn't even insult anyone.


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## millionrainbows

joen_cph said:


> Yes, *George Perle*´s music shouldn´t scare anyone off - a piano concerto as an example:


Thanks, joen_cph> Beautiful stuff. I've read his book, now I need some of his music. I tend to work backwards...


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## neoshredder

I'd suggest everyone put mud on their ignore list. He will lose interest if he is getting no responses.


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## millionrainbows

neoshredder said:


> I'd suggest everyone put mud on their ignore list. He will lose interest if he is getting no responses.


He'd better hope he doesn't get complaints. Notice how he _carefully avoids actual member-to-member insults,_ and instead bashes _forms of music and composers_ of that music, making it seem _more personal, baiting, drawing you in..._


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## mamascarlatti

This moderator is getting sick of all the quarrelling. She is closing the thread as it is simply an invitation to be rude to each other.

Go and discuss something you like with others who have the same enthusiasms and leave those who don't alone.


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