# WCM listener/ musician stereotype



## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

What's the stereotypical personality for a Western-classical music listener or musician to your perception? Does it vary from place to place? Is it true on the whole? Does it apply to you? Is there a reason for its existence?

The sense I get is that people view you as being among the intellectual elite, on the level of a scientist or economist or something. 

I find this to be a silly notion because no system of music around could possibly be more complex than human languages, yet most people who can speak are not given the honor of being regarded as having a superior mind. It takes effort to learn music because it's not ubiquitous the same way language is - most people who learn it thoroughly enough are brought up with it, and the rest have to rely on talent and desire and shirking other responsibilities to learn, if they ever have the opportunity at all.

Not only that, the faculty that allows one to appreciate musical stimulation isn't intellect primarily. It's sensitivity, which in my view is the bestower of any true greatness. You have composers who are technically inferior to other composers and musicians (Berlioz and Tchaikovsky come to mind) but achieve infinitely more because of higher sensitivity. 

Even though it is a silly idea, I think it may end up being true that WCM listeners are smarter than average because of the cultural forces at work. People who are in intellectually rigorous fields or among intellectual elites might feel more comfortable listening and associating with classical music, and a patient temperament regarding art might be inculcated as a value of the people they are around.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

You asked a lot of questions and I will get to them in subsequent posts, but for now I will just let them stew in my brain for a while 

I think I likely have many different WCM personalities simultaneously :lol: I've got the Bach personality, the Beethoven personality, the Liszt personality, the Schoenberg personality, the Stockhausen personality... Perhaps not all of them, but certainly some of them are different personalities and not all WCM listeners exhibit them all.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

I haven't known that many serious WCM listeners and musicians in real life - a dozen at most. All were (or are being) educated and from comfortable middle-class backgrounds, which I think implies something about the opportunities for exposure to WCM and other WCM listeners. They have all been very different people, temperamentally.

And here on TC it seems to me that we're really quite a mixed group although I think most will be from fairly comfortable, fairly well educated backgrounds in fairly prosperous societies.

That's my stereotypical view, anyway.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^ That's sort of what I think. Maybe the Bach and Stockhausen personalities aren't so distant after all?  But I do think that newer composers likely appeal more to younger audiences.

The odd thing, though, is that I have family and friends with the same demographic background as me who have no interest in WCM.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I am white (non-Latino), middle/upper-class, live in Western World. That covers the stereotypes. Female? I'd say it's stereotypical to be a male involved in listening to classical music (women are busy not sitting there unless it's watching TV ). Young? It's also stereotypical to be at least with gray hair and liking classical music.

_The new Russian music fan stereotype:_

Young adult, dark-eyed, swooning romantic with a trace of frivolity.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> You have composers who are technically inferior to other composers and musicians (Berlioz and Tchaikovsky come to mind) but achieve infinitely more because of higher sensitivity.


Please explain why you claim that Berlioz is technically inferior to 'other' composers


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Please explain why you claim that Berlioz is technically inferior to 'other' composers


I don't listen to his music much but his training differed from many other great composers before and during his lifetime, and his counterpoint and harmony received criticism from people who thought it was adolescent or preferred the established voice-leading technique.

I found this in an attempt to find an example of the phenomenon I'm describing (people who think Berlioz is unpolished technically) - I haven't read it all but I think it illustrates what I'm talking about:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1984/apr/26/battle-over-berlioz/

"Few contest his greatness; what is in question is his competence."


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I don't listen to his music much but .....
> 
> I haven't read it all but ......


Ah, yes. I see what you build the argument upon.

Of course, Rosen's review of Rushton's book contains some thought-provoking points, but the fundamental criticism seems to be that Berlioz decided not to the theoretical 'rules'. Ah well, in that he is quite often 'guilty' but I find it interesting that in music such an approach leads to accusations of 'technical inferiority' that don't appear to apply to painters, sculptors, poets, novelists etc


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

brotagonist said:


> ^ That's sort of what I think. Maybe the Bach and Stockhausen personalities aren't so distant after all?  But I do think that newer composers likely appeal more to younger audiences.
> 
> *The odd thing, though, is that I have family and friends with the same demographic background as me who have no interest in WCM.*


As do I. I don't think it is odd. Nearly all my friends (and some of my family) are educated to university level yet only a handful have any interest in WCM.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Of course, Rosen's review of Rushton's book contains some thought-provoking points, but the fundamental criticism seems to be that Berlioz decided not to the theoretical 'rules'. Ah well, in that he is quite often 'guilty' but I find it interesting that in music such an approach leads to accusations of 'technical inferiority' that don't appear to apply to *painters*, sculptors, poets, *novelists* etc


I have certainly seen it applied frequently to these two categories, and I don't see any reason why it couldn't be to the others as well.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

^^^ I hesitate because I'm not knowledgeable enough to back up my point effectively with reference to paintings (or maybe even to select appropriate examples) but wouldn't it be unfair to claim that (say) Bridget Riley is 'inferior' because her paintings don't use chciaroscuro as well as Carravaggio did? Or that a Dadaist artist is 'inferior' because their use of line isn't the same as Holbein or Durer?

Yes, I've heard similar accusations of 'technical inferiority' but surely they are inappropriate unless the artist (in the widest sense)is merely to produce a paraphrase using established forms, structures and techniques?


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