# Contemporary Classical Music Poll (Poll included!)



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Thinking of the discussion on the What's So Great About the 20th Century Music. I'm curious what the numbers are among Classical Music fans.

Pick the option that best describes your position. By follow I mean what the composer is "saying" at just about all times (the phrases, the interaction of different sounds), not just a very vague sense.

*Clarifications:*

- If you think you can follow but it's trash, pick the "other" option and make that distinction.

- If you think the composers are not doing their proper job to make it clear enough to you, then pick the 2nd option (it's trash). ie. It's not your fault, it's the composers' fault. And you have no intention to make sense of the muck.

- The idea is the first option is for people who appreciate the music and have at least modest respect for it.

C'mon haters. Show us your hate for the degenerative stuff (I was expecting more for option 2). It's an anonymous poll. I would have picked option 2 myself, a couple years back.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"I believe I am able to follow at least a good majority of the music including the most 'difficult'".
But at the same time, I think avant-garde stuff is a genre on its own, separate from classical music.

I don't necessarily think it's inferior to classical music in values and aesthetics. Just a different genre that reflects the modern society and its philosophies.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I chose Other. I'm not sure what you mean by "follow" a piece. On first hearing, I can't say I "follow" the details, like the micropolyphony in a Ligeti piece, but I can follow its direction, sound accumulations and sound blocks, etc.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> I chose Other. I'm not sure what you mean by "follow" a piece. On first hearing, I can't say I "follow" the details, like the micropolyphony in a Ligeti piece, but I can follow its direction, sound accumulations and sound blocks, etc.


Sounds damn good enough to me! I meant in general what the composer is doing or "saying"


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I can grasp some of the avant-garde and atonal pieces, but not all of them.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I can grasp atonal, avant-garde if I want to, although ears alone may not suffice - a score helps. But frankly, I don't care to spend the time and energy listening to modern, dissonant, atonal "music". It's C R A P written by self-important poseurs who aren't worth my time or money. Some of it is interesting, but as Mahler said "Interesting is easy; beautiful is difficult". I'll take the latter.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I don't have any particular position.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I do not "follow" any kind of music, so I picked other. I do enjoy listening to a lot of contemporary music though.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I love contemporary music. I have my periods I listen a lot to it, but now it's baroque time.


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## Kilgore Trout (Feb 26, 2014)

Where is "I believe I am able to follow at least a good majority of the music including the most 'difficult', and I think some of it is trash, and some of it isn't"?


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

I can “follow” most avant-garde music and enjoy much of it with the caveat that I do much better with it when I read program notes or hear a lecture “explaining” it. I generally enjoy and appreciate all classical music more when I am better informed about its historical and musicological features, but with avant-garde music this is well-nigh indispensable (philistine that I am).


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I don't know what this poll is supposed to show. You can "follow" something without particularly liking it. I can "follow" the Second Viennese School composers, but it doesn't mean I enjoy listening to them. The same with most other "modern" composers, for that matter. And it varies from composer to composer and work to work. There's not much of it I would call outright "trash", except maybe quite a bit within the past 40 years or so. Therefore I voted A. (edit) ...er, the first option.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

It would help if you didn’t insult people by calling them ‘haters‘. Because I do not care for certain types of music does not make me a ‘hater’. I’m afraid it’s a word of abuse that is far too often use these days far too readily. We ensure we have discussion without degenerating into this sort of personal abusive language.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

The Mods must be feeling their oats or something. Maybe some explication of some of this (we're told) great music would go further than trying to find out which ones among us are fellow travelers.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

DavidA said:


> It would help if you didn't insult people by calling them 'haters'. Because I do not care for certain types of music does not make me a 'hater'. I'm afraid it's a word of abuse that is far too often use these days far too readily. We ensure we have discussion without degenerating into this sort of personal abusive language.


How is it abusive language? If you hate a certain piece of music or a composr, you are a hater of that piece or composer. No one should be offended by that fact.


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## Byron (Mar 11, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> *Clarifications:*
> 
> - If you think you can follow but it's trash, pick the "other" option and make that distinction.


In that case, why not list the choice as "I can follow the difficult avant garde stuff but think its trash" rather than "other" so its clear what we are voting for.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

flamencosketches said:


> How is it abusive language? If you hate a certain piece of music or a composr, you are a hater of that piece or composer. No one should be offended by that fact.


I don't 'hate'. I don't care for certain types of music but hate is not a word I use for music or people. You are using the wrong word. You need to brush up on your English use friend.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> Thinking of the discussion on the What's So Great About the 20th Century Music. I'm curious what the numbers are among Classical Music fans.


A poll at TC, of course, will not really show this in any meaningful sense.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Why not have a poll:

Modern music?

I like to listen to it, at least sometimes.

It's mostly trash and I don't even consider some of it music.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

DavidA said:


> It would help if you didn't insult people by calling them 'haters'. Because I do not care for certain types of music does not make me a 'hater'. I'm afraid it's a word of abuse that is far too often use these days far too readily. We ensure we have discussion without degenerating into this sort of personal abusive language.


It was an exaggeration just as the use of "degenerative stuff" was, to spur those onto voting option 2 who are inclined. Maybe it worked! There was a huge jump relative to the others since that edit.



Byron said:


> In that case, why not list the choice as "I can follow the difficult avant garde stuff but think its trash" rather than "other" so its clear what we are voting for.


I somewhat agree. It was too late to change the poll options by that time. *Also, it's too easy to assume you can follow, and say it's trash (speaking from my own experience)*. I'd rather make one have to go the extra step to explain it in that case. I suspect most would rather pick "I can follow, and it's trash", than "I can't follow, and it's trash" as clickable options, if they don't hold the music in high regard, even if the latter is more true.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Phil loves classical said:


> It was an exaggeration just as the use of "degenerative stuff" was, to spur those onto voting option 2 who are inclined. Maybe it worked! There was a huge jump relative to the others since that edit.
> 
> I agree. It was too late to change the poll options by that time. But I think it still shows something meaningful to me.


What about, 'I don't care for avant-garde Music.' ? Doesn't that tell you everything you want? Nobody is hating anybody by saying that


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

consuono said:


> I don't know what this poll is supposed to show. You can "follow" something without particularly liking it. I can "follow" the Second Viennese School composers, but it doesn't mean I enjoy listening to them. The same with most other "modern" composers, for that matter. And it varies from composer to composer and work to work. There's not much of it I would call outright "trash", except maybe quite a bit within the past 40 years or so. Therefore I voted A. (edit) ...er, the first option.


2nd Viennese is not considered Contemporary. Contemporary Period started either 1945 or 1950, overlapping with Modern period at the time, but in earnest, post-1975 after Shostakovich. Would you still choose the first option for the last 45 years?


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> 2nd Viennese is not considered Contemporary. Contemporary Period started either 1945 or 1950, overlapping with Modern period at the time, but in earnest, post-1975 after Shostakovich. Would you still choose the first option for the last 45 years?


Well again it depends on the composer. I like or at least respect a lot of Messiaen, Pärt and Górecki (especially after he apparently realized what a dead end atonality is). And yes I know the Second Viennese School isn't exact contemporary, but I can "follow" what they were doing without particularly enjoying listening to it. I can understand somewhat what Ferneyhough is up to, but I can't stand that racket and similar racket-maker products.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> Why not have a poll:
> 
> Modern music?
> 
> ...


The question whether some pieces of contemporary classical should be considered music or not seems to be irrelevant as long as we cannot mutually agree what _is_ and what should be considered "music".

This brings to my mind what one person who has arts education and has worked as an artist said to me - for something to be considered art, there has to be a person who points his finger and says: "this is art." This is probably what makes Marizio Cattelan's _Comedian_ a piece of art, not just a banana duck-taped on the wall. Although Cattelan said himself: "In the end, one day I woke up and I said 'the banana is supposed to be a banana." And traffic noise is still traffic noise, even if _in some context_ we might say it's music. The definition of art and music often becomes so arbitrary that there's no point in arguing whether this or that is music or not, although, I admit, it's a crazy interesting discussion topic.

But to finish with Cattelan's humorous words: "I'm not in Miami, but I'm sure it's full of paintings as well. I thought maybe a banana could be a good contribution!"


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## Andante Largo (Apr 23, 2020)

I could follow the atonal stuff, but I don't want, because it's trash.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> It was an exaggeration just as the use of "degenerative stuff" was, to spur those onto voting option 2 who are inclined. Maybe it worked! There was a huge jump relative to the others since that edit.


Phil loves classical: "Degenerative stuff" I take exception to. I'm sure in your profession or avocations there are some descriptions that are just unacceptable, even if the user doesn't intend them to cause harm. In the late 1930's the Nazis put on an exhibition -- Entartete Musik ("entartete" means "degenerate") -- and we have to consider what the word meant to Nazis. We just can't use that language anymore. Same applies to the word "hate" applied to works and composers. I'm a composer and "hate" sends off alarm bells.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

annaw said:


> The question whether some pieces of contemporary classical should be considered music or not seems to be irrelevant as long as we cannot mutually agree what _is_ and what should be considered "music".
> 
> This brings to my mind what one person who has arts education and has worked as an artist said to me - *for something to be considered art, there has to be a person who points his finger and says: "this is art."* This is probably what makes Marizio Cattelan's _Comedian_ a piece of art, not just a banana duck-taped on the wall. Although Cattelan said himself: "In the end, one day I woke up and I said 'the banana is supposed to be a banana." And traffic noise is still traffic noise, even if _in some context_ we might say it's music. The definition of art and music often becomes so arbitrary that there's no point in arguing whether this or that is music or not, although, I admit, it's a crazy interesting discussion topic.
> 
> But to finish with Cattelan's humorous words: "I'm not in Miami, but I'm sure it's full of paintings as well. I thought maybe a banana could be a good contribution!"


I agree with your artist friend, i.e. that art appreciation is subjective. I am just curious about all kinds of music. I don't invest a lot of my critical thinking when listening to something new, my first listen will be completely open to what the piece might have to offer. Later I might revisit the work and listen more critically, but usually my first impression is an accurate take-away.

If we are too critical at the outset, you're not really giving the work a chance, IMO.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Roger Knox said:


> Phil loves classical: "Degenerative stuff" I take exception to. I'm sure in your profession or avocations there are some descriptions that are just unacceptable, even if the user doesn't intend them to cause harm. In the late 1930's the Nazis put on an exhibition -- Entartete Musik ("entartete" means "degenerate") -- and we have to consider what the word meant to Nazis. We just can't use that language anymore. Same applies to the word "hate" applied to works and composers. I'm a composer and "hate" sends off alarm bells.


I don't mean that or believe that at all, actually. I was using a term someone else used to describe it before, and it is parody from that point of view. I believe I have been quite supportive of the music in the other thread.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Roger Knox said:


> Phil loves classical: "Degenerative stuff" I take exception to. I'm sure in your profession or avocations there are some descriptions that are just unacceptable, even if the user doesn't intend them to cause harm. In the late 1930's the Nazis put on an exhibition -- Entartete Musik ("entartete" means "degenerate") -- and we have to consider what the word meant to Nazis. We just can't use that language anymore. Same applies to the word "hate" applied to works and composers. I'm a composer and "hate" sends off alarm bells.


Well, just as long as that doesn't turn into a "like Hitler, a hater of degenerate music" sort of thing.


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## thejewk (Sep 13, 2020)

The fundamental problem with a poll like this is that the phrase 'contemporary classical music' embraces so many different styles of music, some which I greatly enjoy, others which I don't appreciate at all. So wide that I find most statements about it, here and in other realms, almost meaningless.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Not sure what you mean by 'follow'...

If you mean follow in a way that requires a good knowledge of theory, then no, I do not 'follow' it.

If you mean, able to get into it on am emotional, visceral, and intellectual way, then the answer it, hell yes!

Also, I am not sure exactly where you are drawing your line with regards to when contemporary classical music begins, but the vast majority of my classical music collection and listening begins post WWII.

With that being said, I selected the first option.


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