# Timelessness



## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

I always hear people saying about how great music has a timeless quality about it.

Do you agree with these people?

I find a lot of music I like captures the zeitgeist more than possessing any kind of eternal novelty. You do occasionally get music that is 'ahead of its time', as well as the slew of music that attempts to ape styles of the past, both of which can provide some great music. However, I really do like music that can evoke a specific time period that it belongs to and all the cultural baggage that goes along with it.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I think I've been guilty over the years of using the expression for describing some rock music without really trying to figure out what it actually might mean. For example, I've associated timelessness with a) any kind of music which sounded great when it was made and to me still stands the test of time however dated it may sound now, and b) music which seemed to defy any real kind of genre categorisation but still somehow succeeded in encapsulating the times when it appeared - two diverse but contemporaneous examples for me would be The Band and The Velvet Underground. Perhaps in the case of b) I've confused the definition of 'timelessness' with that of 'time-in-a-bottle'.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Even Brahms won't survive the heat death of the universe.

In seriousness, I think every piece of music is a product of its time, and our reactions to works from our previous centuries, although wonderful, can never be as authentic as those of its contemporaries. I think a mark of great music is that it stays appealing when its contemporary connotations and associations have been shed, but it's always _better_ when we try to recapture those feelings by learning about the music, and its historical innovations and reception. It's always better to situate it in its contexts rather than to hope for it to transcend them.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I believe time goes in cycles, and any music that accurately captures the essence of its time is in a sense 'timeless'. But I don't think anyone has yet composed music that is always representative of all times simultaneously, nor is it likely possible to do so on this plane of existence.

I guess another way of putting it is - music can be 'timeless' in a spiritual sense, in so far that it may communicate unchanging inner truths over eons of time, but not in an earthly sense in terms of always being an accurate representation of our current outer surroundings which are constantly changing.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Even Brahms won't survive the heat death of the universe.
> 
> In seriousness, I think every piece of music is a product of its time, and our reactions to works from our previous centuries, although wonderful, can never be as authentic as those of its contemporaries. I think a mark of great music is that it stays appealing when its contemporary connotations and associations have been shed, but it's always _better_ when we try to recapture those feelings by learning about the music, and its historical innovations and reception. It's always better to situate it in its contexts rather than to hope for it to transcend them.


The heat death is actually a big fan of Brahms.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

it means it is culturally significant or inventive and people still find a use in it. so it has not been effected by time.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Sometimes, music that has responded to the zeitgeist of the time of its creation is the most timeless music of all, because we can witness the timeless human response to a particular, non-timeless situation.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> I think I've been guilty over the years of using the expression for describing some rock music without really trying to figure out what it actually might mean. For example, I've associated timelessness with a) any kind of music which sounded great when it was made and to me still stands the test of time* however dated it may sound now,*


Timeless music doesn't sound dated. It may exist within the context of an era so that timeless music may be polyphonic and have a late medieval context, but when one listens to it with 21st century ears and a musical education one knows its era. However, if one had ears that had no education and no head knowledge of the history of music then one would just hear good music. True of rock music today.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

I think with most classical music, we meet it half way,some more than others. Usually we are ready to accept the perspective that comes with it due to the time or conditions under which it was written. This thread does remind me of the phrase " As a Musician/Composer he/she is ahead of their time. Occasionally they can meet _us_ half way. Time is mostly relative anyway! Strictly speaking of course all music is dated the moment its composed. The composed has done their bit. The rest is up to us.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Argus said:


> I always hear people saying about how great music has a timeless quality about it.
> 
> Do you agree with these people?
> 
> I find a lot of music I like captures the zeitgeist more than possessing any kind of eternal novelty. You do occasionally get music that is 'ahead of its time', as well as the slew of music that attempts to ape styles of the past, both of which can provide some great music. However, I really do like music that can evoke a specific time period that it belongs to and all the cultural baggage that goes along with it.


Any genre can do that, a carbon-microphone studio recording of a 1920's crooner ballad evokes the era.

Beethoven evokes an era.

The shelf life of one as 'still speaking directly to us' despite that fact it is of its era, but about something, here is the cliche word, 'universal' is more part of the 'timeless' quality. If it is strong enough, it becomes part of the public imagination, like a collective dream all have had.

The more pop genres may 'speak to us.' but seem already further distant than Beethoven, or 'sound archaic' and are more in the realm of 'cultural objects' more a matter for a journalist or a museum.

Beethoven got his current 'zeitgeist,' but from an angle where we find it still vital, that 1920's carbon microphone recorded crooner ballad sounds more 'distant,' and less vital.


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