# Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?



## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

*Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?*

Prompted by a discussion in this thread. Classical music was described as "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history," to which I replied:



Portamento said:


> In my opinion, calling classical/concert-hall music the "highest form of musical arts in recorded human history" is dead wrong. It's elitist, and precisely the reason why so many have flocked to other genres (where they might be welcomed) instead. We-the CM community in general-seem to think that, since we notate everything, our music is the most sophisticated. Try notating the subtle inflections of an improvising saxophonist or the 'flow' of a rapper: you'll find that the result is just as complicated and multi-faceted as a typical classical work.


The response:



bz3 said:


> If you think saxophone noodling or, heaven forbid, rap music is 'just as complicated and multi-faceted' as typical classical music then I am not sure this discussion will bear further fruit. I disagree, and vigorously. Rap is not even music, it is retrograde art beneath even a McDonald's advertisement.


I thought this might be an interesting point of discussion.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

As a non-schooled consumer of art, my point of view might well be different from those who have studied art or even make art. OK, I hobby a bit in artistic photography (self-taught), and I do exhibit and sell work, but I'm not a professional.

As a consumer, I don't care for technicalities like "how clever is that fugue", or "what a brilliant unexpected shift in tonality" or whatever. I can't even recognize those most of the time. It's like my wife (professional artist) waxing lyrical about the particular stroke used in a painting. For me the only thing that counts is: does this piece of art fascinate me, and stir up emotions. Lots of classical music does that to some degree or more to me. But there are also plenty of pop/rock songs that do the same. So I (as a consumer and based on personal taste) would not agree with the description.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> does this piece of art fascinate me, and stir up emotions.


These are performance things. If it fascinates you and stirs up emotions in you, that's a consequence of the interaction of you and the noise the performers make. It's time specific and person specific. Another performance, and you in a different state of mind, may not work in the same way.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> These are performance things. If it fascinates you and stirs up emotions in you, that's a consequence of the interaction of you and the performers. It's time specific and person specific Another performance, and you in a different state of mind, may not work in the same way.


I disagree. There are plenty of compositions that always do that to me, never mind who performs it, never mind what my state of mind is.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> I disagree. There are plenty of compositions that always do that to me, never mind who performs it, never mind what my state of mind is.


Ah, definitely not for me.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Whether or not classical music is the highest form of musical art (it is), I'd disagree with you, Portamento, when you say that our elitism is why most people prefer to listen to other genres. In my experience, the reality is that most people just don't like how classical music sounds. They find it unmemorable and boring. The snobby ethos of the community, undesirable though I agree it is, is of much less importance. 

I'd also suggest that its elite reputation actually attracts some people, though it puts off perhaps a greater number of others.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

Yes it is.
Rap is not art.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

I don't know the answer, but I know that a child's daub that gets magnetically attached to the fridge for a week isn't in the same artistic league as a Rembrandt or a Botticelli. I don't know technically _why_ it isn't, but it clearly isn't.

Which is not to say the child's daub isn't very important to the parents involved!

Rap may be music. I'm prepared to accept that for those who are keen on it, it is. But it's _clearly_ not in the same league of artistic significance or merit as Beethoven's 7th or Bach's BWV 140.

Neither is anything produced by Queen (a fan), or Erasure (ditto) or R.E.M. (also ditto) or Enya (ditto-ish). I get a lot of pleasure from listening to that non-classical stuff occasionally, but it's the equivalent of getting pleasure from reading a comic book rather than a Hardy novel. Or picking up a nice bit of fish and chips from the local chip shop (when not in lock-down) rather than doing a 4-course banquet at the Ritz. Or listening to HMS Pinnafore rather than Parsifal.

Genuine pleasure, no doubt. But it's tickling different neurons or synapses or something. They just aren't equivalent experiences.

Whether one is 'higher' than another, that's possibly a different question. I'd prefer 'deeper' and 'shallower', I think. Or 'complex' and 'simpler'.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Rap gets picked on in these threads, but surely it's more inventive than a lot of pop.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dizwell said:


> I don't know the answer, but I know that a child's daub that gets magnetically attached to the fridge for a week isn't in the same artistic league as a Rembrandt or a Botticelli. I don't know technically _why_ it isn't, but it clearly isn't.
> 
> Which is not to say the child's daub isn't very important to the parents involved!
> '.


And maybe more important than Rembrandt and Botticelli. What this shows is that Art Rock's suggestion, that what counts is



Art Rock said:


> does this piece of art fascinate me, and stir up emotions.


misses the point completely. Those things may count most _to him_, but so what? That just says something about him.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Portamento said:


> In my opinion, calling classical/concert-hall music the "highest form of musical arts in recorded human history" is dead wrong. It's elitist, and precisely the reason why so many have flocked to other genres (where they might be welcomed) instead. We-the CM community in general-seem to think that, since we notate everything, our music is the most sophisticated. Try notating the subtle inflections of an improvising saxophonist or the 'flow' of a rapper: you'll find that the result is just as complicated and multi-faceted as a typical classical work.


I agree. Certainly if comparing like with like the claim makes little sense: a Schubert lied versus a rap, or a Chopin nocturne versus an improvising jazz pianist. But what about something like a Beethoven or Mahler symphony? Isn't that a whole level of complexity above pretty much any other kind of music? As a fan of the likes of Reich and Glass, my answer has to be "yes, but who cares?" Complexity in of itself has little value. Classical music comes with a particularly weighty baggage which says it's supposed to be both intellectually and emotionally profound, and this is used as a stick to beat other music (if I may mix my metaphors). Thus, popular music is too simplistic or lacking in profound emotions, while complex modern music can be dismissed as having limited emotional range, and minimalism dismissed as vapid. But actually most classical music is fairly generic stuff. I don't deny for a second that many CM listeners obtain huge emotional and intellectual satisfaction from CM that they don't get from anything else, but I reject the notion that this satisfaction is somehow better or more important than the satisfaction others get from other music.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Nereffid said:


> ...Complexity in of itself has little value...


I am going to disagree with that, I think. Crossword puzzles (of the cryptic sort) are more complex than, I don't know... Gin Rummy to play. But their complexity is _why_ they are satisfying to complete. They're bloody hard! So if you complete them, there's a sense of having mastered the complexity.

Now, I speak as one who wouldn't be sure he'd heard a fugue unless it was marked 'fuga' in the score. So I'm not talking about being able to understand the chromatic complexities of a work; or being able to describe technically the intricacies of a development section and the recapitulation. But one can _feel_ the presence of those sorts of complexities, even if you can't specifically point to them at the time.

I think that sort of complexity _does_ add to the pleasurable experience of listening to classical music. Subconsciously, perhaps. But definitely.

I also think that makes the pleasurable experience more... <searching for words>... _significant_ than the pleasure others get from their music. In the same way that a Rembrandt is a more signficant artist than Eva, the 3 year-old who did finger painting this morning. (But obviously not to Eva herself).

So I agree with you: I won't say "better or more important". But it's definitely more _something_. I think I'm going to stick with "Significant".


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

hey! it's the twentieth century...
Whatever you can do to have a good time, let's get on with it,
so long as it doesn't cause a murder...
I agree with Zappa. 
Discussing the thread topic makes me sad, it happened to me last week. It's not a personality trait I look up to. Think I'll go for a walk in the woods.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Ok, here we go again, discussion 257, or is it 258? 

"the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history." 

What is the measurement tool whereby we determine "highest?" Who determines what "musical arts" are? Who recorded that human history and what were their biases?


I'll now await the inevitable deluge of thoughts from Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

First of all, regardless of whether rap is an art form, I think we can agree that it is not music as we know it. It is more like a highly distinct form of poetry. There is no melody or harmony, the interest comes through rhythmic patterns of peculiar sprechstimme over the exact same thumping bass note. Because it is so different from conventional conceptions of "music," I think we should turn our attention to pop and rock in relation to CM. That being said, I'm about to unleash the longest stream of ideas I've ever written on this forum, and I expect I'll get lots of agreement and lots of disagreement with little room for middle ground. That's totally fine - I just feel the need to say what I think needs to be said. Of course, what is to come is purely my opinion and perception of things.

Pop and rock is meant to sell, entertain, and please. The sensation I get from today's popular music culture is that music is marketed as a drug - get your daily fix, support the artists that satisfy you, get the shock of pleasure that you find temporarily rewarding in a small little package. That may sound harsh, but how else do we explain the immense attraction of pop singers who make songs featuring the same 3-4 chords repeated over and over again, sing lyrics about superficial obsessions that probably weren't even written by them, and whose image seems to lie not in the music they produce but in their outfits, stage personality, and celebrity? To me, this is not art - this is entertainment. Now, the case gets more complex with more obviously "artful" popular music - lots of classic rock and jazz music, for example, features a certain level of craftsmanship that is admirable. I've heard a lot of talk on this forum about how jazz improvisation is the "way forward," the key to maintaining the classical music tradition while appealing to fans of popular music. Well, I've heard a little bit of it (artists like Art Tatum and Miles Davis who seem to be the bedrocks of the jazz tradition), and I don't hear what the hype is about. It's highly repetitive, with a very consistent beat, and the improvisatory element is minimized when you're just working within the same basic chordal structure with no modulation. For me, it has nothing on more traditional classical music. My highly subjective criteria explaining why I believe classical music to be the higher art form consists of these three points. I believe that we must adhere to them for a reasonable definition of what makes Western Art Music (my preferred name for CM) so different from Popular Entertainment Music:

1. Infinitely greater amount of variety. I always find it amusing when people think I'm "rigid" or "limited" in my listening preferences. "Alright, so you only listen to music from the last 40 years in 3 genres. I listen to music within a 900-year span. I listen to orchestral music, chamber music, concerti, operas, art songs, cantatas, choral works, piano music, organ music, medieval music, Renaissance music, 20th century music, tonal music, atonal music, contemporary music. So, you were saying that I'm closed-minded?"

2. Greater focus on personal expression and artistry. I'll admit that, unlike my first reason, this one is highly subjective, and will probably garner the most controversy of my three points. My reasoning is thus: the greatest and most eternal composers of history didn't care in the least how much money they made, how popular they were, how appealing their art was to the masses. There are exceptions (even Beethoven wrote "Wellington's Victory" for a healthy profit and Mozart had to keep the syrupy serenades pouring out for the court), but in general, they had an artistic vision to release and they devoted their attention to doing so. Listen to the almost unbearably personal outpourings of a Beethoven or Shostakovich string quartet, a Mahler symphony, or even a mass by Josquin; and your heart just may break. Listen to the incredible marriage of spirituality and intellect contained within _Kunst der Fuge_, _Don Giovanni_, _Der Ring des Nibelungen_, and the _Quatuor pour la fin du temps_, and you'll be sent into a state of pure marvel. Do even the most "personal" popular songs have a chance to compete?

3. Finally, musical structures that focus on _music_ and not external elements. When someone says they are moved by a popular song, it's almost always due to the extramusical content conveyed through the lyrics, which they project onto the musical accompaniment. If I played the piano part to "Imagine" or the basic harmonic skeleton to "Hallelujah" (2 songs off the top of my head that seem to move people) without words, would you cry? But the music to a Wagner opera or a Bach cantata is rich enough to portray the requisite emotions and ideas of the text by itself - it serves and supports the text, not vice versa. A heavy metal song is not judged by how well-constructed the music is; how ravishing the melodies are, how creative the harmonies function, how timbre, color, rhythm, and contrast are unleashed to great artistic effect. No, it is all about how much it moves people to headbang mindlessly along. A Billboard-topping pop ditty is not meant to convey mastery and craftsmanship of its medium, it is meant to get people to tap and hum along and to get them coming back for more to support their habit. Western Art Music is about the art within music itself, not transforming music into a stripped-down vehicle for other whimsies.

One last point: the idea that we need to shed the "elitist" stereotype of CM by compromising the aesthetic that most of us associate with CM. For me, the "elitist" idea is a construct in the minds of popular music fans. Classical music costs more, it isn't immediately "exciting" or "appealing" to the sensibilities of many, and it's seen as a stuffy hobby for the wealthy upper class. The last one concerns me most, as all the classical concerts I've been to (not very many, 'cause I'm a young person on a budget) have been utterly dominated, probably 97%, by people over the age of 60. This is not good for the future of our art form. But in order to hook this generation on the glories of Western Art Music, we don't degrade what makes it so great. I was planning on attending the Oregon Bach Festival this summer, which is very close to my future college, but concluded that it wasn't worth it to support a program that sets Bach's Cello Suites to "interpretive dancing" and rearranges his cantatas for modern instrumentation and styles. No, we market CM to our culture by inviting listeners to partake of its immense breadth of expression and variety, and to discover the immeasurable riches of the greatest music ever written. We invite them to be moved, transformed, changed by the music; and we invite them to observe how, without it, we wouldn't have any popular music at all. I'm not saying that we snobbishly assert its "superiority" and shove it in the faces of the uncultured swine. That's the kind of attitude that people _think_ we have, but which I haven't detected at all on this forum and elsewhere. I'm saying that we introduce the purpose and scope of CM, tell them what to listen for, and watch them be transformed. We do not defeat challenges by pushing ahead fruitlessly towards some unknown goal; we do it by going back to the roots of our challenge, assessing what should be done, and find ways to make Art Music relevant without sacrificing its inherent nobility. I expect I'll need to clarify several things in this post, and I expect I will be challenged on many points. I'll be around all week to answer them, and maybe even see if my perspective can be changed on some things


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I would say classical music is the most complicated form of music perhaps ever written on a mass scale. The average sonata, symphony. opera or concerto tries to do a whole bunch of things popular forms of music do not -- speak in multiple movements or scenes to tell a story musically (not necessary with text), speak with or to God, intertwine a number musical ideas in a stew, things like that.

Most popular music is a strophe -- four verses with 1, 2 and 4 the same and sometimes a variant in No. 3. Some forms of popular music, such as long jazz (if you can any longer call that popular) or rock runs, may or may not use sonata format and more than one motif. These are the exceptions in popular music.

As to the "highest" form, I doubt classical music in itself is that at least to my way of thinking and defining the term. I think that probably church or religious music because it has monumental aspiration aside from its form. The only part of classical music I would put in this category would be sacred music and/or theater and opera music that aspires to some extraordinarily high plane...such as Beethoven's only opera that speaks to mankind, Mozart's Don Giovanni, the scoundrel that ruins people and ends up in Hell, etc. 

If you think the aesthete of classical music, or its form or whatever it patterns itself after, is the "highest" form then you agree with what I said in the first part of this post.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> ...it's seen as a stuffy hobby for the wealthy upper class. The last one concerns me most, as all the classical concerts I've been to (not very many, 'cause I'm a young person on a budget) have been utterly dominated, probably 97%, by people over the age of 60. This is not good for the future of our art form.


Couldn't agree more on these points specifically (there was much else in there which I think has validity too, of course!)

As a working class lad who used to queue up at the Coliseum to get the cheap tickets to whatever Britten opera the ENO were doing that season, and would attend fresh from whatever other activity I'd been up to in jeans and t-shirt, the upper class bit has always puzzled me. I never felt it applied to my circle of friends, anyway.

And yes, the average age of any concert I can bear to attend these days (the frequent unwrapping of throat sweets in the quiet parts of the slow movement has put me off live performances on the whole!) is pretty high and the hair colour is pretty uniformly white (with shades of purple). I don't think that's healthy.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Completely subjective and partly cultural. Is Beethoven improvising on the piano "higher" than Duke Ellington or Keith Jarrett or Vilayat Khan on the sitar? Is a play by Sophocles "higher" than a Noh Play? Is a landscape by Turner higher than one by Ma Yuan? I personally think Western CM is the highest musical art, but I also can't stand Faulkner or most of Joyce. So go figure.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

dizwell said:


> Couldn't agree more on these points specifically (there was much else in there which I think has validity too, of course!)
> 
> As a working class lad who used to queue up at the Coliseum to get the cheap tickets to whatever Britten opera the ENO were doing that season, and would attend fresh from whatever other activity I'd been up to in jeans and t-shirt, the upper class bit has always puzzled me. I never felt it applied to my circle of friends, anyway.
> 
> And yes, the average age of any concert I can bear to attend these days (the frequent unwrapping of throat sweets in the quiet parts of the slow movement has put me off live performances on the whole!) is pretty high and the hair colour is pretty uniformly white (with shades of purple). I don't think that's healthy.


They said the same thing 50 years ago about the average ago of concert attendees.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't know about that; I attend concerts at two universities where I live (University of Michigan and Michigan State University) and the audiences are a mixed age group, not just old guys like me (age 69.)

I think the reason these people find audiences full of old people is for a couple reasons: the venues they are attending where most younger people don't go to classical music concerts; older people are going to be more likely to afford it; the long-time subscribers are usually older.

I don't know if you can attend concerts at a university or academy but try that and see what happens.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

MarkW said:


> Completely subjective and partly cultural. Is Beethoven improvising on the piano "higher" than Duke Ellington or Keith Jarrett or Vilayat Khan on the sitar? Is a play by Sophocles "higher" than a Noh Play? Is a landscape by Turner higher than one by Ma Yuan? I personally think Western CM is the highest musical art, but I also can't stand Faulkner or most of Joyce. So go figure.


I don't think it's _entirely_ subjective.

There are things which are surely _objectively_ more signficant, in cultural terms and personal esteem, than others. _Casablanca _v. _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_, for example.

I get what you're saying, such that I wouldn't like to have to say whether a Henry Moore was better/higher/more significant than, say, a Michaelangelo. Those have different contexts and cultural norms against which to judge them, so the comparative judgment is probably meaningless.

But surely we would all agree on Henry Moore being of more cultural significance than a play-dough shape Alby squished together this afternoon at play group? Apart from Alby and his parents, of course.

Like you, however, I don't like 'higher' as a comparison for these sorts of things.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Rap is absolutely art. At its best it is tormented poetry from the bowels of the filth of society, at its worst it is the glorification of greed and sex. All genres have their good and bad. But I find the good from rap to be among the greatest art that human culture has ever produced. Whoever says otherwise is ignorant-the message and wordplay is often very complex and profound and deserves as much respect as any other art.

Kendrick Lamar in particular is always experimental and interesting to me. And good rap is almost always tonal, which goes against the assumption here:



Allegro Con Brio said:


> First of all, regardless of whether rap is an art form, I think we can agree that it is not music as we know it. It is more like a highly distinct form of poetry. There is no melody or harmony, the interest comes through rhythmic patterns of peculiar sprechstimme over the exact same thumping bass note.


Take a good listen to some of these "non-music" rap songs and read the lyrics with them:


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> For me, the "elitist" idea is a construct in the minds of popular music fans.


Hmm... I have to disagree with that. Classical music is funded by the wealthy and has been for centuries. It is inherently exclusionary.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> Classical music costs more, it isn't immediately "exciting" or "appealing" to the sensibilities of many, and it's seen as a stuffy hobby for the wealthy upper class. The last one concerns me most, as all the classical concerts I've been to (not very many, 'cause I'm a young person on a budget) have been utterly dominated, probably 97%, by people over the age of 60. This is not good for the future of our art form.


Actually, a classical music concert would cost less than going to see the most famous pop/rap artists. Classical music has historically been an upper-class pursuit, and it has failed to change that. I am not upper-class, but when I go to a concert I recognize that I am in the minority.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> But in order to hook this generation on the glories of Western Art Music, we don't degrade what makes it so great. I was planning on attending the Oregon Bach Festival this summer, which is very close to my future college, but concluded that it wasn't worth it to support a program that sets Bach's Cello Suites to "interpretive dancing" and rearranges his cantatas for modern instrumentation and styles. No, we market CM to our culture by inviting listeners to partake of its immense breadth of expression and variety, and to discover the immeasurable riches of the greatest music ever written. We invite them to be moved, transformed, changed by the music; and we invite them to observe how, without it, we wouldn't have any popular music at all.


(A fellow Oregonian!)

When did I suggest that we should "degrade" classical music in any way? If you think that considering other modes of expressing oneself equal to classical music is degrading, then I suppose that's your (wild!) opinion. Actually, classical music wouldn't be there without popular forms such as folk music. It's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" scenario, but composers have been taking inspiration from popular music long before the Beatles got hooked on Stockhausen.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> I'm not saying that we snobbishly assert its "superiority" and shove it in the faces of the uncultured swine. That's the kind of attitude that people _think_ we have, but which I haven't detected at all on this forum and elsewhere. I'm saying that we introduce the purpose and scope of CM, tell them what to listen for, and watch them be transformed.


For me, saying that "rap is not music/art" is an example of that snobbishness. It is a very close-minded thing to say.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> We do not defeat challenges by pushing ahead fruitlessly towards some unknown goal; we do it by going back to the roots of our challenge, assessing what should be done, and find ways to make Art Music relevant *without sacrificing its inherent nobility*.


What is "without sacrificing its inherent nobility" supposed to mean? We live in 2020, not the days of kings and queens (well, for the most part anyway). The root of the problem, in my opinion, _is_ the inherent nobility. That is why classical music has not been able to connect with a large audience. That is why so many feel uncomfortable in a concert-hall setting.

I reject the notion that the primary cause of our problem is that people find the music boring. From my experience, this is not the case (and is sometimes symptomatic of the perceived elitism).


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

How many people who casually dismiss rap have actually spent a lot of time listening to rap? My guess is not many here have. (I don't listen to rap much either.) I don't know people who prefer art form A presume to have the ability to pass such judgment on art form B.

So rap doesn't have the harmonic or melodic richness of classical music (or some other kinds of music). Okay, but so what. You may as well complain that painting doesn't have the same three-dimensional presence as sculpture. Or the kinetic dynamic of dance.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

> Hmm... I have to disagree with that. Classical music is funded by the wealthy and has been for centuries. It is inherently exclusionary.


Just because something is funded by the wealthy doesn't mean it is not available to the masses. Simply because millionaires inject their money into several parts of society does not imply exclusion/suppression. Popular music performers are among the wealthiest people alive. I have always been puzzled by the "elitist" argument since the same thing could be applied to virtually everything.



> Actually, a classical music concert would cost less than going to see the most famous pop/rap artists. Classical music has historically been an upper-class pursuit, and it has failed to change that. I am not upper-class, but when I go to a concert I recognize that I am in the minority.


I am struggling to reconcile your first sentence here with the rest of the paragraph. By the logic of your first statement, you would appear to be saying that popular music is even more exclusionary than classical music because it costs more for the average person. Any sort of culture/entertainment can be seen as an "upper class pursuit" because it involves spending money for something that is not essential.



> (A fellow Oregonian!)
> 
> When did I suggest that we should "degrade" classical music in any way? If you think that considering other modes of expressing oneself equal to classical music is degrading, then I suppose that's your (wild!) opinion. Actually, classical music wouldn't be there without popular forms such as folk music. It's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" scenario, but composers have been taking inspiration from popular music long before the Beatles got hooked on Stockhausen.


It is definitely true that folk music and classical music are entwined in many ways. But when I say "popular music," I mean the pop, rock, jazz, etc. of the 20th century onward. Can you please explain more in-depth what you mean by "other modes of expressing oneself equal to classical music?"



> For me, saying that "rap is not music/art" is an example of that snobbishness. It is a very close-minded thing to say.


I never said it was not art; I said it does not belong to our traditional conceptions of music, which is true. It does not feature melodic singing (neither does _Pierrot Lunaire_, but that has harmony and texture), has very few if any harmonic changes, and all in all functions more like spoken poetry than arranged sound.



> What is "without sacrificing its inherent nobility" supposed to mean? We live in 2020, not the days of kings and queens (well, for the most part anyway). The root of the problem, in my opinion, is the inherent nobility. That is why classical music has not been able to connect with a large audience. That is why so many feel uncomfortable in a concert-hall setting.
> 
> I reject the notion that the primary cause of our problem is that people find the music boring. From my experience, this is not the case (and is sometimes symptomatic of the perceived elitism).


I'm sorry if you misunderstood my usage of the term "nobility." I did not mean it in the royal, elitist sense; I meant it in the sense of high art. We need to separate art from outside factors such as funding, audience, etc. to determine its inherent worthiness. For me, it is clear that the classical music tradition (and yes, in that I include even avant-garde experiments, whose creativity I acknowledge even if I don't personally care for them) is inherently more worthy, enriching, and of greater value (a.k.a. "noble") than music which consists of the same four chords, and which is not concerned with qualities of musical craftsmanship. You may disagree with that, and that's fine. Please do correct me if I'm wrong (I legitimately do want to understand your points as best as I can), but I think what you are saying is, essentially, there should be no barriers between "classical" and "popular" music, and that the best way to attract new listeners is to fuse the two and sacrifice traditional definitions in order to appeal to our modern age. Perhaps if I understood your opinions better, we could have a more robust discussion. I do think we are in agreement on several things.

One of those points of agreement is that the primary reason most people don't appreciate CM is not because they find it boring. There is certainly perceived elitism (though I do not think it is factual elitism, as I explain above). But the main reason is because they don't know how to approach it. What I should have said in my original post is that the best way to get new CM listeners is to _equip_ them with the listening tools necessary to appreciate it. I see classical and popular music as inherently opposed, water and oil (again, referring to "popular music" from 20thc onward). Let's face it - those who listen to nothing but pop and rock are not going to like classical simply because they don't know how to listen to it - as pure music, as craftsmanship in itself. So we need to let people know that this is accessible, beautiful, meaningful, life-enhancing music - but the way it will affect them is very different from what they're used to. If I were to play someone, say, the Kyrie Eleison from Bach's Mass in B Minor and not tell them how to listen to it or what it is, they would say "This is unbearably long and boring!" But if I told them to adjust their conceptions of listening to music - tell them to sit back, close their eyes, soak it up, and then try to understand how it makes you feel - then progress would be made. In my humble opinion, popular music does not have those ends in mind while classical music does. That is the disparity, and I don't see how it can be reconciled. I'm not talking about letting them know about all the musicology/technical stuff (bad idea), but just telling them that this music is worth the time it takes to change one's preconceptions and get to know it. It's like making the leap from trashy mass-market romance novels to Shakespeare and Dostoevsky - I really do believe that it can be done, as long as we are willing to devote the requisite time to digesting and comprehending it. We live in an instant-gratification culture, and CM is inherently opposed to that. If acknowledging the tensions between classical and popular music, and the fact that they are both conceived for totally different ends, is "snobbish elitism," then it is also elitism to say that horror movies and Hallmark movies are conceived with different audiences in mind.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Portamento said:


> I reject the notion that the primary cause of our problem is that people find the music boring. From my experience, this is not the case (and is sometimes symptomatic of the perceived elitism).


It may be that less elitism would get more people to attend concerts. But anyone can listen to classical music all day long on YouTube or iTunes, and yet most people still choose not to listen to it at all, or they use it only as background muzak for studying. It is essentially a niche interest, like poetry or arthouse cinema. Of course certain changes might help - less snobbery, better music education, cheaper tickets, more explanatory notes and talks. But how many people are willing to listen to a 40-minute symphony again and again until it chimes with them? That is the sort of thing classical fans routinely do, and it is not an appealing prospect to the average Joe.

Any way those of us who think that classical music really is "better" than other music can hardly be asked to conceal an honest opinion for the sake of public relations.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

> I said it does not belong to our traditional conceptions of music, which is true. It does not feature melodic singing (neither does Pierrot Lunaire, but that has harmony and texture), has very few if any harmonic changes, and all in all functions more like spoken poetry than arranged sound.


I find it hard to believe that you have had much experience with hip hop if you still believe this is true; perhaps it was right in the 70s and 80s but since the 2000s, virtually all hip hop is heavily harmonic and melodically inclined. I had already posted some examples of this and I can give you more if you'd like.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

chu42 said:


> Rap is absolutely art. At its best it is tormented poetry from the bowels of the filth of society, at its worst it is the glorification of greed and sex. All genres have their good and bad. But I find the good from rap to be among the greatest art that human culture has ever produced. Whoever says otherwise is ignorant-the message and wordplay is often very complex and profound and deserves as much respect as any other art.
> 
> Kendrick Lamar in particular is always experimental and interesting to me. And good rap is almost always tonal, which goes against the assumption here:
> 
> Take a good listen to some of these "non-music" rap songs and read the lyrics with them:


Thank you. I hate coming into these threads to be the only person defending rap music. Emphasis on MUSIC. Why is rap not music? It features all the elements of music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color. Why is it not art? It is no less expressive than any classical music... I have been a hip-hop head my whole life. I'm much newer to classical music, but still I would assert that placing rap music in a category outside of (or in the case of many here, below) classical or any other kind of music is driven by ignorance at best, and hatred at worst.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Ignorance is the main reason why anybody dismisses any sort of great music. It took me years to become acquainted with the modern classical scene, for example—starting with Ives, Bartok and Stravinsky, and then working up to Schoenberg, Ligeti, etc....voila, new horizons have been opened.

The mindset of people who immediately dismiss the unfamiliar is in fact mindless.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

flamencosketches said:


> Thank you. I hate coming into these threads to be the only person defending rap music. Emphasis on MUSIC. Why is rap not music? It features all the elements of music: melody, harmony, rhythm, tone color. Why is it not art? It is no less expressive than any classical music... I have been a hip-hop head my whole life. I'm much newer to classical music, but still I would assert that placing rap music in a category outside of (or in the case of many here, below) classical or any other kind of music is driven by ignorance at best, and hatred at worst.


Any music that gloifies killing cops and the mistreatment of women is bad.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

apricissimus said:


> How many people who casually dismiss rap have actually spent a lot of time listening to rap? My guess is not many here have. (I don't listen to rap much either.) I don't know people who prefer art form A presume to have the ability to pass such judgment on art form B.
> 
> So rap doesn't have the harmonic or melodic richness of classical music (or some other kinds of music). Okay, but so what. You may as well complain that painting doesn't have the same three-dimensional presence as sculpture. Or the kinetic dynamic of dance.


Exactly. I love both hip hop and classical. Through much experience with them, I can come to the conclusion that there are great things to both genres.

On the other hand, I haven't had much of a liking to country music, but I'm not going to go so far as to say that it's "lesser art" or even an epithet as judgmental and nonsensical as "not art". People will get different things out of different genres. Just because someone else gets more out of a genre than you do, it doesn't mean said genre is necessarily inferior.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?*

Maybe, if it's in SACD. *(bah-dah-boom!)

*A society will be judged by the kind of man it produces.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Johnnie Burgess said:


> Any music that gloifies killing cops and the mistreatment of women is bad.


And you claim to be able to compress a massive, broad, diverse, genre into that one statement? That is just as asinine as assuming all classical music sounds like Mozart.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

chu42 said:


> And you claim to be able to compress a massive, broad, diverse, genre into that one statement? That is just as asinine as assuming all classical music sounds like Mozart.


I did not say all did that, but the part that does is bad. Do you defend the bad?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I do think the question implies something which must be accepted as a 'given' or as a distinction. 
High art needs to be distinguished from other more utilitarian art by its function. 
By the definition of art, it is designed for "divine contemplation." so it should have some kind of deep spiritual significance. (thus the centuries-old connection of The Church and art)

If there is some rap which does this, then it is high art.

If it does not, and is designed for dancing or the expression of lifestyle or making money, then it is more utilitarian.

True "high art" is the expression of 'being.' True high art must be a personal expression of the artist's "being."


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I did not say all did that, but the part that does is bad. Do you defend the bad?


The hip hop artists I listen to do not fall under the category of which you speak. There are certainly specific artists that I do not like. Hip hop is remarkably diverse anx if you do not have broad experience with it you are in no position to comment on it.

Using up the worst elements of a genre in order to bring down the whole genre is a bad form of strongman argument. We judge a composer by his best works and not his worst, yes?

Do you judge Wagner based on his piano sonatas?
Tchaikovsky on his chamber works?


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> I do think the question implies something which must be accepted as a 'given' or as a distinction.
> High art needs to be distinguished from other more utilitarian art by its function.
> By the definition of art, it is designed for "divine contemplation." so it should have some kind of deep spiritual significance. (thus the centuries-old connection of The Church and art)
> 
> ...


I completely agree. Much of Nas, early 2000s Kanye West, Jay Z, Childish Gambino, MC Ride, Kendrick Lamar, among many others, is often high art. It either says something about society or contains deep personal expression. Here is a good example:






This song has a vivid and humanitarian message. It is lyrical and expressive, and it is not meant to be danced to in a social setting.

On the other hand, we have utilitarian hip hop. Most of the rappers that have "Lil'" in front of their name, makes up utilitarian rap. Others would include Soulja Boy, 50 Cent, Migos, Nicki Minaj, Pitbull, etc. Here is a good example:






This song is only vaguely personal. It contains no strong message about anything in particular. But it is catchy and meant to be fun or humorous, and thus functions as utilitarian art.

With that being said, these definitions do not necessarily mean good or bad. There is plenty of rap I consider high art rather than utilitarian art that I dislike. For example the music of Juicewrld, Lil Xan, and XXXTentacion is often deeply personal yet I don't see much musical value in it.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Since I am quoted in the OP I will first state that I didn't really believe that the assertion I made about 'classical music being the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history' would be in much contention, except perhaps from a culturally relativist perspective. It is possible that if you judge western classical music from another culture's values and traditions that it is not the highest form of musical arts. But for the values of western civilization (very broadly some concoction of objective truth, rationalism, individual rights) I don't think it's up for debate that classical music is the high water mark. Is some particular classical piece (such as Wellington's Victory) lesser than some particular rock/pop piece (such as Yes's Close to the Edge)? Sure, but that is not the discussion at hand.

I don't really think most rock fans (especially prog and metal fans) would even argue for the notion that their favorite genre is a higher form than classical. It seems generally to be people who are fans of genres that place a decidedly low emphasis on achievement, skill, or merit such as rap or punk rock. Most apologia of this type in years past seem to be jazz fans who think the improvisational aspect of the genre achieves what classical cannot, but again that would be judging these forms on some other cultural values that emphasize 'living in the moment.' I would fully concede this point I just do not find it to be a useful metric for what is a European art by and for European people.* 

*this does not mean others cannot enjoy and even participate, just that it arose in a separate tradition


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

As to the rap question, I stand by what I said that it is not music. That is not meant as a criticism, but merely fact. When I said it is retrograde art that was a criticism. I don't care to argue for whether it's music as others have been more eloquent than I would be able to on why it is not. In the end it doesn't matter just as the notion of whether a teepee counts as architecture does not, ultimately, matter. 

I will add too that I am young enough to where it would have been impossible for me to have not been exposed to rap. I have heard a lot of it, and I don't even hate all of it. For instance I thought Wu Tang Clan's 36 Chambers was an interesting piece because of its cinematic scope, style, and infectious rhymes. However, on the whole, I dislike the genre.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

bz3 said:


> As to the rap question, I stand by what I said that it is not music. That is not meant as a criticism, but merely fact. When I said it is retrograde art that was a criticism. I don't care to argue for whether it's music as others have been more eloquent than I would be able to on why it is not. In the end it doesn't matter just as the notion of whether a teepee counts as architecture does not, ultimately, matter.
> 
> I will add too that I am young enough to where it would have been impossible for me to have not been exposed to rap. I have heard a lot of it, and I don't even hate all of it. For instance I thought Wu Tang Clan's 36 Chambers was an interesting piece because of its cinematic scope, style, and infectious rhymes. However, on the whole, I dislike the genre.


Please, demonstrate your thought process that led you to the "factual" conclusion that hip-hop is not music. You can't cop out and say you don't care to argue when you make a hugely contentious claim against an entire culture. I stand by the fact that you are speaking of ignorance, or possibly hatred-your mention of



> European art by and for European people


... leads me to believe that your motivations here are beyond the purely musical, to put it nicely.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

bz3 said:


> As to the rap question, I stand by what I said that it is not music. That is not meant as a criticism, but merely fact. When I said it is retrograde art that was a criticism. I don't care to argue for whether it's music as others have been more eloquent than I would be able to on why it is not. In the end it doesn't matter just as the notion of whether a teepee counts as architecture does not, ultimately, matter.
> 
> I will add too that I am young enough to where it would have been impossible for me to have not been exposed to rap. I have heard a lot of it, and I don't even hate all of it. For instance I thought Wu Tang Clan's 36 Chambers was an interesting piece because of its cinematic scope, style, and infectious rhymes. However, on the whole, I dislike the genre.







You consider this retrograde art and not music?


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

flamencosketches said:


> Please, demonstrate your thought process that led you to the "factual" conclusion that hip-hop is not music. You can't cop out and say you don't care to argue when you make a hugely contentious claim against an entire culture. I stand by the fact that you are speaking of ignorance, or possibly hatred-your mention of
> 
> ... leads me to believe that your motivations here are beyond the purely musical, to put it nicely.


Fine it's music. Does that make you happy?

And if classical music was not by and for European people then who was it by? Who was it for? I have no 'extra-musical' motives I was simply informing an earlier statement that when I made the original assertion about classical music being the high water mark for music that I was using the standards within the culture where it was birthed. Of course others can participate and enjoy a European art, plenty of Europeans participate and enjoy other culture's traditions.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

I must add that for all of my hip hop "apologism", I do firmly believe that Western classical music contains most of the high points of human musical achievement.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

bz3 said:


> Fine it's music. Does that make you happy?


:lol: You seem to play fast and loose with your "facts". And here I thought you actually had an explanation behind that assertion. 



bz3 said:


> And if classical music was not by and for European people then who was it by? Who was it for? I have no 'extra-musical' motives I was simply informing an earlier statement that when I made the original assertion about classical music being the high water mark for music that I was using the standards within the culture where it was birthed. Of course others can participate and enjoy a European art, plenty of Europeans participate and enjoy other culture's traditions.


Classical music was birthed in Europe, yes. But by no means does it or has it ever carried an exclusive stigma of being strictly _for_ Europeans, especially in this day and age when classical music is just as popular in Asia and the Americas as anywhere else.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Just an idea but when actually searching “low art” and “high art” it seems that classical music is just defined as part of “high culture” and pop music as part of “low culture” thanks to its mass appeal. That does not mean that pop music is actually in any way lower (how could one even evaluate such a thing?) than classical but it has just been categorized that way for a long time. You could exchange the “high” for X and “low” for Y. “High” and “low” are just definitions but correct me if I’m wrong.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Maybe someone is interested: https://spot.colorado.edu/~jafisher/OnLine papers/High Low Art Ch 46.pdf . Seems to be a pretty interesting analysis of the matter but I sadly didn't have time to read it thoroughly through yet.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Just because something is funded by the wealthy doesn't mean it is not available to the masses. Simply because millionaires inject their money into several parts of society does not imply exclusion/suppression. Popular music performers are among the wealthiest people alive. I have always been puzzled by the "elitist" argument since the same thing could be applied to virtually everything.


For a long time, composers were servants to the Church. By Bach's time, however, they had salaried positions. Part of why Bach's music is so great and sophisticated is because he had a group of professional musicians to write for. At this time, "classical" music was only heard in the Church and the houses of aristocrats (i.e. it was exclusionary and classist). After Bach's death, the emergence of the public concert as the primary source of music consumption led to the rise of a revolutionary bourgeoisie class, who replaced the Church as music's patron. This allowed for composers from Mozart onwards to be independent but severely limited the market: Mozart was the most popular composer in his day, yet he died in poverty.

The 19th century saw incremental social progress and a new society that was struggling to break through (which it finally did with WWI). When composers such as Beethoven and Chopin used folk and other popular elements in their work, it was encouraged by the bourgeoisie. As revolutionaries, they sought to make music accesible and mobilize the masses: through popular elements, the more abstract elements of classical form were grounded in everyday reality. By the end of the century, however, the ruling class had become self-satisfied in their position. Classical music had abandoned its roots and became music for the bourgeois, above the masses. This is seen in the fallout over the 3rd movement of Mahler's _Symphony No. 1_, the "Frère Jacques" funeral march. Booed at its premiere by Viennese bourgeois for its incorporation of popular music, this same element gave his music mass appeal without compromising artistic integrity (something that was lost for most composers after him).

Around the same time began an idolization of Beethoven. Stripped of its revolutionary nature, Beethoven's spirit came to be known as inspired and noble, rising above mundane everyday life. There was "high" and "popular" art, and Beethoven was decidedly in the former. Today, boundary-drawing serves to protect classical music's privileged position. Sure, the music is available to the masses, but the classist and exclusionary culture remains. The masses aren't just going to come back after over a century of being shunned -- the whole apparatus needs to be reworked for that to happen.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> I am struggling to reconcile your first sentence here with the rest of the paragraph. By the logic of your first statement, you would appear to be saying that popular music is even more exclusionary than classical music because it costs more for the average person. Any sort of culture/entertainment can be seen as an "upper class pursuit" because it involves spending money for something that is not essential.


Popular music does not have the exclusionary culture that classical music has. Clearly this is a much bigger problem than ticket prices, as, through sold-out stadiums, popular music engages with the working class far more than classical music. You do not need to be part of the upper class to spend money on "something that is not essential."

On another note, what happened with Beethoven has happened to most popular forms as well. With the commodification of music, what's revolutionary quickly becomes conservative as the ruling class flocks to it. Jazz started to become commercial, and soon you got figures such as Wynton Marsalis dictating what jazz is and isn't; the same thing is currently happening to hip-hop.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> It is definitely true that folk music and classical music are entwined in many ways. But when I say "popular music," I mean the pop, rock, jazz, etc. of the 20th century onward. Can you please explain more in-depth what you mean by "other modes of expressing oneself equal to classical music?"


Other modes of expressing onself, i.e. other forms of music.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> I never said it was not art; I said it does not belong to our traditional conceptions of music, which is true. It does not feature melodic singing (neither does _Pierrot Lunaire_, but that has harmony and texture), has very few if any harmonic changes, and all in all functions more like spoken poetry than arranged sound.


I was not referring to you, but other users on this forum.



Allegro Con Brio said:


> I'm sorry if you misunderstood my usage of the term "nobility." I did not mean it in the royal, elitist sense; I meant it in the sense of high art. We need to separate art from outside factors such as funding, audience, etc. to determine its inherent worthiness. For me, it is clear that the classical music tradition (and yes, in that I include even avant-garde experiments, whose creativity I acknowledge even if I don't personally care for them) is inherently more worthy, enriching, and of greater value (a.k.a. "noble") than music which consists of the same four chords, and which is not concerned with qualities of musical craftsmanship. You may disagree with that, and that's fine. Please do correct me if I'm wrong (I legitimately do want to understand your points as best as I can), but I think what you are saying is, essentially, there should be no barriers between "classical" and "popular" music, and that the best way to attract new listeners is to fuse the two and sacrifice traditional definitions in order to appeal to our modern age. Perhaps if I understood your opinions better, we could have a more robust discussion. I do think we are in agreement on several things.
> 
> One of those points of agreement is that the primary reason most people don't appreciate CM is not because they find it boring. There is certainly perceived elitism (though I do not think it is factual elitism, as I explain above). But the main reason is because they don't know how to approach it. What I should have said in my original post is that the best way to get new CM listeners is to _equip_ them with the listening tools necessary to appreciate it. I see classical and popular music as inherently opposed, water and oil (again, referring to "popular music" from 20thc onward). Let's face it - those who listen to nothing but pop and rock are not going to like classical simply because they don't know how to listen to it - as pure music, as craftsmanship in itself. So we need to let people know that this is accessible, beautiful, meaningful, life-enhancing music - but the way it will affect them is very different from what they're used to. If I were to play someone, say, the Kyrie Eleison from Bach's Mass in B Minor and not tell them how to listen to it or what it is, they would say "This is unbearably long and boring!" But if I told them to adjust their conceptions of listening to music - tell them to sit back, close their eyes, soak it up, and then try to understand how it makes you feel - then progress would be made. In my humble opinion, popular music does not have those ends in mind while classical music does. That is the disparity, and I don't see how it can be reconciled. I'm not talking about letting them know about all the musicology/technical stuff (bad idea), but just telling them that this music is worth the time it takes to change one's preconceptions and get to know it. It's like making the leap from trashy mass-market romance novels to Shakespeare and Dostoevsky - I really do believe that it can be done, as long as we are willing to devote the requisite time to digesting and comprehending it. We live in an instant-gratification culture, and CM is inherently opposed to that. If acknowledging the tensions between classical and popular music, and the fact that they are both conceived for totally different ends, is "snobbish elitism," then it is also elitism to say that horror movies and Hallmark movies are conceived with different audiences in mind.


The "trashy mass-market romance novels" : Shakespeare :: popular music : classical music comparison is pretty disingenuous. So is your opinion that popular music does not value musical craftmanship. Many jazz musicians wanted to be classical musicians but were excluded due to the (you guessed it!) exclusionary culture. You are making broad generalizations which lead me to assume that you are not too familiar with popular music. You also seem to imply that classical music encompasses a broad range of emotions that popular music cannot match; this is not the case. The idea that people who listen to pop/rock music don't know how to listen to classical music is a joke. _No one_ listens for "craftsmanship in itself" -- if many on this forum did, they would be able to appreciate the superb craftsmanship in Stockhausen's early work (which they can't). What if I said that learning to listen to Stockhausen is like transitioning from reading graphic novels to prose?

As it stands, whether they like it or not, classical composers are writing (generally) for the bourgeoisie and popular composers for the everyday person. For this to change, which it should, composers and audience members need to relearn how to treat popular music as an equal form. I am not arguing for a synthesis of the two, but a willingness on the part of the composer to exit their classical echo chamber. There _should_ be a distinction between classical and popular music, but one should not be called "high" or "art" music. Ideally, the distinction would be between "vernacular" and "non-vernacular" music.

I have a "trashy mass-market romance novel" for you to listen to: Anthony Braxton's _For Alto_.

Link:


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Portamento, I enjoy reading your ideas and find them quite intriguing. We are both passionate about music but differ in our opinions when it comes to the value of popular music. I'm content to let this debate end here and concede some of your points about me making generalizations, which I certainly did, and some of them were probably not warranted. Three more things: the "trashy mass-market romance novel" analogy was not an analogy of value but simply of adapting one's method of consuming art to a totally different realm. I cannot accept that one can always listen to classical and popular music with the same mindset - I'm sure many do, but I cannot fathom the idea since what they aim to do is so radically different. I should have said it's like changing your criteria for movies in watching an epic Western vs. an animated short, or something like that. And, once again trying to confirm your viewpoint - you assert that classical music is alienating and exclusionary to the middle/lower classes... your solution to this problem is for composers/performers/arrangers/consumers to be willing to treat popular music as an equal art form and adapt its idiom to the classical idiom. I just want to understand your position since it's one I've never heard before. Finally, I am intimately familiar with two forms of popular music - classic rock and country, having gone through pretty hardcore obsessive phases of both those genres years before discovering classical. Since I've been into classical, whenever I hear what used to be one of my favorite songs, I simply can't abide it, finding the lack of craftsmanship appalling. That's my experience and it's no less valid than yours. 

Tomorrow, I will make sure to take a listen to the piece of music you linked. Thank you for an interesting discussion.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

flamencosketches said:


> :lol: You seem to play fast and loose with your "facts". And here I thought you actually had an explanation behind that assertion.


I meant that I was asserting that 'rap is not music' not as a criticism but as a plain and neutral statement, such as stating that 'Beethoven is a romantic era composer.' People can disagree and say he's classical era but neither is necessarily a criticism on its face. Others have debated whether rap is music recently in either this or the thread that started this thread and I said I am not particularly interested in that discussion and am willing to stipulate that rap is music, even if I personally don't think so. Nobody is being 'fast and loose,' it's just not important to me.



flamencosketches said:


> Classical music was birthed in Europe, yes. But by no means does it or has it ever carried an exclusive stigma of being strictly _for_ Europeans, especially in this day and age when classical music is just as popular in Asia and the Americas as anywhere else.


It's popular among Europeans almost exclusively in the Americas. Yes the Asian, Jewish, Indian, and perhaps a few other minorities like it in appreciable numbers but the non-Europeans in the Americas mostly do not much care about classical music. East Asians, and Chinese in particular seem to be an exception as far classical music being popular in non-European (or European peoples-dominated) nations. I would guess it is a phase, sort of how the Middle East had their Islamic Golden Age's fascination with Hellenism before turning back inward. A place like Israel would likely be an exception due to the fact that many Jews are, for all intents and purposes, culturally European even if they arrived later.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

chu42 said:


> You consider this retrograde art and not music?


I do not care for Kendrick Lamar and yes I have heard his music. I am young enough to have heard most popular rap at one point or another. I would agree that Kanye West's more recent works are indeed music, even if his earlier work is mostly uninteresting as 'music' qua music.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

bz3 said:


> I meant that I was asserting that 'rap is not music' not as a criticism but as a plain and neutral statement, such as stating that 'Beethoven is a romantic era composer.' People can disagree and say he's classical era but neither is necessarily a criticism on its face. Others have debated whether rap is music recently in either this or the thread that started this thread and I said I am not particularly interested in that discussion and am willing to stipulate that rap is music, even if I personally don't think so. Nobody is being 'fast and loose,' it's just not important to me.
> 
> It's popular among Europeans almost exclusively in the Americas. Yes the Asian, Jewish, Indian, and perhaps a few other minorities like it in appreciable numbers but the non-Europeans in the Americas mostly do not much care about classical music. East Asians, and Chinese in particular seem to be an exception as far classical music being popular in non-European (or European peoples-dominated) nations. I would guess it is a phase, sort of how the Middle East had their Islamic Golden Age's fascination with Hellenism before turning back inward. A place like Israel would likely be an exception due to the fact that many Jews are, for all intents and purposes, culturally European even if they arrived later.


I do not care if you think it's "criticism" or not. The burden of proof is on you either way for saying something so flippant and ludicrous; I'm sure you would expect the same of me if I said: "Beethoven is not music", and what you've said is no different. If it's not important to you, you should keep your mouth shut about it, and I'm glad to see you seem to be taking heed to this.

You can guess and speculate as much as you want to, the fact of the matter is that classical music is very popular in China, Japan, and many other non-European countries. I repeat, Classical music is not, and never will be, "by Europeans for Europeans" as you have stated, and we'll leave it at that. You say that again, it's an insult to all the brilliant Indian, Chinese, African, Japanese, etc, classical musicians that I know and love.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

flamencosketches said:


> I do not care if you think it's "criticism" or not. The burden of proof is on you either way for saying something so flippant and ludicrous; I'm sure you would expect the same of me if I said: "Beethoven is not music", and what you've said is no different. If it's not important to you, you should keep your mouth shut about it, and I'm glad to see you seem to be taking heed to this.
> 
> You can guess and speculate as much as you want to, the fact of the matter is that classical music is very popular in China, Japan, and many other non-European countries. I repeat, Classical music is not, and never will be, "by Europeans for Europeans" as you have stated, and we'll leave it at that. You say that again, it's an insult to all the brilliant Indian, Chinese, African, Japanese, etc, classical musicians that I know and love.


Deep breath and relax. Not everybody is going to agree with everything you believe. And classical music remains a European art, everyone else is culturally appropriating it which I'm told is the worst.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Portamento, I enjoy reading your ideas and find them quite intriguing.


Same to you. To be fair, these are not _my_ ideas so much as they are ideas which I happen to agree with.

It seems that I am not articulating myself clearly enough. I'll try one last time:

- The schism which formed between "classical" and "popular" music in the late 19th century led to the former losing mass appeal and both sides having mutual contempt for each other.
- From the late 19th century to now, the idea that classical music is snooty and popular music is inferior has been deeply ingrained in our society. Neither of these is true; classical music itself is not snooty and popular music is not inferior. 
- Many TC members want to 'save' classical music (i.e. restore its mass appeal). Well, what was classical music doing right when it _did_ have mass appeal? Works such as Mahler's _Symphony No. 1_ balanced abstract classical form with popular music reference points for the general public to latch onto. I believe that this can be done today without sacrificing artistic integrity. I am not arguing for arrangements of, say, rap songs for string quartet; I would hope for a much more subtle synthesis. Composers cannot ignore popular music -- if they want mass appeal, then they need to engage with the music the masses listen to. 
- Secondly, classical music as we know it is inherently exclusionist for the historical reasons listed in my previous post. Treating popular music as equal (which I believe it is) instead of sitting on a high horse would go a long way towards mending that. I have played Xenakis to hip-hop heads, and they _liked_ it! When asked why they haven't gone to any classical concerts, they replied that they felt they wouldn't belong.

One more thing about rap: the genre contains amazing rhythmic innovations that classical composers can learn from. Here is a transcription of rapper MF DOOM's rhythms in his song "Vomitspit": 
https://www.rapanalysis.com/2013/04/mf-doom-vomitspit-sheet-music/

Here are the same rhythms as one would hear them:





Oh, and how are you judging craftsmanship? Do you hold a degree in music?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

bz3 said:


> Deep breath and relax. Not everybody is going to agree with everything you believe. And classical music remains a European art, everyone else is culturally appropriating it which I'm told is the worst.


Don't believe everything you're told.


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## 13hm13 (Oct 31, 2016)

Yes. (I would've posted just "Yes", but TC's comment engine forces me to use >15 charac.)


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Portamento said:


> Same to you. To be fair, these are not _my_ ideas so much as they are ideas which I happen to agree with.
> 
> It seems that I am not articulating myself clearly enough. I'll try one last time:
> 
> ...


OK, I understand your points much better now I think your analogy with Mahler's 1st is a good one. Perhaps something like this would fit your theoretical criteria?






And no, I do not have a degree in music (do you?). In fact I don't have a degree in anything because I haven't even been to college yet! (I will next year in Oregon). I recognize that I'm talking with someone who is much older and more experienced than me, and I respect your thoughts - you obviously love CM and want to see that it survives, and I certainly can't blame you for that. We just have different ideas about how to ensure its survival I don't believe you need a degree to judge "craftsmanship," which I admit is a very abstract term and which needed to be defined robustly before embarking on this discussion. I thought the essay that annaw linked to in post #45 (didn't read the whole thing, but skimmed it) does a good job at explaining the concept of "value" that I'm getting at - the article is very balanced in its treatment of "high" and "low" art.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

bz3 said:


> I do not care for Kendrick Lamar and yes I have heard his music. I am young enough to have heard most popular rap at one point or another. I would agree that Kanye West's more recent works are indeed music, even if his earlier work is mostly uninteresting as 'music' qua music.


Kendrick Lamar is not "popular" rap, save for a few songs from his album DAMN. Most popular rap music is garbage.

And about Kanye West, you have it backwards. Today's Kanye West is a sellout and a hypocrite save for his most recent album (which I do not consider to be very good nonetheless). It is his early albums that are subversive and deeply musical.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

Portamento said:


> At this time, "classical" music was only heard in the Church and the houses of aristocrats (i.e. it was exclusionary and classist).


Of course the Church was an extremely important patron of classical music in Bach's day, and the further you move back from there, the more important it becomes. But in what way was church music 'exclusionary and classist'? Everybody went to church, regardless of class. Bach didn't just compose for St Thomas's, but was also required to supply music (and trained singers) for other major churches in Leipzig. I presume the congregations there were as socially diverse as everywhere else. That certainly applied to the great cathedrals of Europe. Class distinctions there certainly were, but they were internal - the best pews reserved for the nobs and so on. The plebs got to sit at the back.

So far as church music and exclusion is concerned, I think the 'excluded' owed their status far more to location than social standing. Obviously it was only the cathedrals and the larger (and wealthier) churches in towns and cities which had the musical resources to put on the good stuff. If you attended a small village church, you just weren't going to get it, and that applied as much to the squire as his footman. But there must have been plenty of other footmen, living and working in the right places, who were lucky enough to get themselves a weekly dose.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

My answer to the thread title's question would be "probably, yes." The slight qualification would be an acknowledgment of the rich and complex music of India, which as a Westerner I understand only partially despite enjoying it enormously and standing in awe of its great practitioners, who are at once creators and performers.

That said, I know of no music in the world that affords such a degree and variety of cognitive stimulation, challenge, and pleasure, or which has developed a language capable of expressing such a range of feeling, as the classical music of the West. "Feeling" is of course the subjective part of music appreciation, but it seems clear that a more complex musical language has the potential to evoke more and subtler shades of emotion. The tonal system of Western music, with its complex hierarchy of relationships, evolved in large part as an expressive tool, responsive to the changing sensiblities of the culture and so becoming capable of giving voice both to the culture's universal aspirations and to composers' most intimate feelings. Complex structures, complex feelings - classical music is a unique human achievement which has proven capable of appealing to virtually the entire world.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> OK, I understand your points much better now I think your analogy with Mahler's 1st is a good one. Perhaps something like this would fit your theoretical criteria?


Sure, and it need not be as overt as that. I'm not the arbiter of what classical music should and shouldn't be going forward; I can only share what I hope to see.

I don't have a degree in music, but know enough theory to (badly) analyze works till about Boulez. I'll check out that article you mention.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

My experience has been that people who dive deep into both classical AND other genres do not tend to elevate one over the other, but love both for the unique experiences they offer. I've personally been mainly a classical listener over my life, but when I noticed this respect given to other genres by people who also are experiencing the richness that the classical tradition offers...I had to see what the fuss was about. I've been focusing mainly on Jazz for the moment and have been rewarded immensely in a short time span by music that does not seem at all 'inferior': things like late Coltrane, some Miles Davis (Bitches Brew, On the Corner), various Mingus albums; and then artists like Zappa, Beefheart, Robert Wyatt, etc. I've been very pleasantly surprised and am greatly looking forward to diving deeper.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

My sister's colleagues were recently putting together their 'desert island disk' selections of classical music for the lock-down and emailing their choices to each other. Her classical music tastes extend, on a good day, to the Vivaldi concerto. Yeah, that one. :lol:

Anyway, she asked me to produce a list she could pass off as her own, since she wanted to appear more musically sophisticated than she really is  A bit of innocent fun really -and anyway, I enjoyed putting together a list that included Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Bieber, Britten, Pendercki, Mozart, Havergal Brian amongst others.

So I sent it to her, and she sent it off to her colleagues with a comment that she could 'produce a more low-brow list if asked'. I wrote back to her to say that her email was _almost_ convincing, but that she had given the game away by that comment, since if she _really_ loved this stuff, she wouldn't regard it as high-brow but merely the ordinary soundtrack to life.

And that's my considered view on 'High' v. 'Low' music.

PS. The price for my doing this work for her is that she now has to listen to all of the 8 listed works. She doesn't get off that lightly!


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

dizwell said:


> My sister's colleagues were recently putting together their 'desert island disk' selections of classical music for the lock-down and emailing their choices to each other. Her classical music tastes extend, on a good day, to the Vivaldi concerto. Yeah, that one. :lol:
> 
> Anyway, she asked me to produce a list she could pass off as her own, since she wanted to appear more musically sophisticated than she really is  A bit of innocent fun really -and anyway, I enjoyed putting together a list that included Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Bieber, Britten, Pendercki, Mozart, Havergal Brian amongst others.
> 
> ...


Let us know if she inadvertently finds that any of them speak to her!


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

No, people who say goofy stuff like that don't even like music.


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## ilokfrancis3 (4 mo ago)

Art Rock said:


> As a non-schooled consumer of art, my point of view might well be different from those who have studied art or even make art. OK, I hobby a bit in artistic photography (self-taught), and I do exhibit and sell work, but I'm not a professional.
> 
> As a consumer, I don't care for technicalities like "how clever is that fugue", or "what a brilliant unexpected shift in tonality" or whatever. I can't even recognize those most of the time. It's like my wife (professional artist) waxing lyrical about the particular stroke used in a painting. For me the only thing that counts is: does this piece of art fascinate me, and stir up emotions. Lots of classical music does that to some degree or more to me. But there are also plenty of pop/rock songs that do the same. So I (as a consumer and based on personal taste) would not agree with the description.


I think that is a problem with your level of self control and what not, music is an art form that is expressed though tunes that are created from instruments, pure music is meant to be taken in, enjoyed, dissected and discivering the hidden secrets beyond the outside, music is not meant to control you but for your amusement and feed to your ears and exercising of your brain, if yoy only listen to music that moves you sounds like you saying you only eat junkfood because its sweeter in taste but not necessarily healthyband pure. Classical musis is looking at the interior mechanics of a car go to work and you enjoying it automatically makes you human with a deeper form of thinking and self control.


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## ilokfrancis3 (4 mo ago)

Room2201974 said:


> Ok, here we go again, discussion 257, or is it 258?
> 
> "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history."
> 
> ...


Measurement is not meant to be taken literally sir, just calm down.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

In my opinion it is. Nobody has to agree with me though.


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## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

Portamento said:


> The response:


The user who gave you that reply doesn't clearily know how much eleboration there can be in the lyrics/metric of a rap music piece.






He probably only pays attention to the beat and he concludes that rap music is not elaborated because the beat is simple. Some persons seem to not understand what is the goal of a determined style of music.


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## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

rice said:


> Rap is not art.


ROTFL


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## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

Xisten267 said:


> In my opinion it is. Nobody has to agree with me though.


It is if we speak about thematic elaboration and instrumentation. However some styles of music elaborate much more other things, see for example the videos above which explains the high lyrical elaboration of a rap piece. Have you ever seen anything similar in vocal classical music?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I only listen to European classical music, but I respect views like


Eva Yojimbo said:


> One thing I often pay attention to in pop vocalists is what "truth" they're telling with their style, what kind of person, personality, or, at the very least, persona are they projecting, what is the tone behind the tone, so to speak. Not long ago I was very struck by a performance by Chance the Rapper on Colbert's show, because the voice sounded like that of a prophet come to guide the lost souls beaten down by life. I'm not even a fan of hip-hop, but I was in tears after watching this:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> The slight qualification would be an acknowledgment of the rich and complex music of India, which as a Westerner I understand only partially despite enjoying it enormously and standing in awe of its great practitioners, who are at once creators and performers.


which begs the question-








superficial kinds of Non-Western classical music


Are there any kinds of Non-Western classical music you consider to be "superficial" or "superficially pleasing" compared to others? For instance, are there any musicians or works in Indian classical music whom/that you consider as more superficial than other musicians or works in Indian...




www.talkclassical.com


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

HansZimmer said:


> ROTFL


_"Why do many people think that rap music is not classical music?"_


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

What else would be even a serious candidate? 
To my knowledge no extra-european tradition (Indian, Persian etc.) has "works" in the sense of the Western tradition. You typically have some "masters" performing 30+ min. improvisations according to some traditional? or modified patterns. Vaguely similar to some Jazz. Now some people might think that his is as great or greater than the best works of the western tradition that are less transient because the can be (partly) written down. But that's obviously comparing rather different things and very hard to compare them at all because one would have to determine from recordings? what some analogue to a work like Mahler's 9th or Tristan or whatever would be. 

I admittedly have rather limited experience with this music (partly because of the non-western tuning systems a lot sounds like "slightly out of tune" and I am neither musical nor patient enough to get used to these systems) but I honestly doubt that a mainly improvised music following traditional patterns could develop a "language" that would make something like Tristan even possible. It has neither the precision nor the freedom that becomes possible by notation. (A bit like that some geniuses with special techniques can do incredible maths in their head but there are some things of higher maths etc. a culture is very unlikely to come up with without some notation on wax tablet or blackboard; notation also "opens up" music, poetry, maths to people who don't have savant-style memorizing skills.)

It would be like comparing spontaneous slam/rap poetry to "composed poetry". Obviously, there would be clear differences and it would be very likely that the latter would be obviously superior in many respects because one can take ones time, revise, achieve much longer works etc. than with spontaneous "jamming". It would also be easier to "grasp" all these aspects for comparion and evaluation because it was written down. This would be again a methodological problem that would tend to favor the written down elaborate art.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Well, classical music is definitely the best form of music for accomplishing its specific aesthetic goals within the systems and languages its composers developed for those purposes. Don't see much point, dignity, or grace in chest thumping and shouting "Higher than thou!


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I sometimes wonder though, what if this, which has got hundreds of millions of accumulated views on youtube worldwide, was non-Western classical music? Would we have called it a "miracle" (in our "elitist" circles)?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

To whom is this question being posed? A white European? A native American? Someone from Ethiopia? There is no definitive answer.


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## znapschatz (Feb 28, 2016)

Easy question. My answer is anything expressing art as its driving force is art. Everything else is conversation.


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## sworley (6 mo ago)

I feel like it is, but it is not an opinion I would want to argue in the great wide world. It will never be a majority opinion because the majority is not up to it. And really there's no need to promote the idea and when institutions or, more commonly, people trying to make a buck push it, it quickly becomes false and stale--"high culture" to be bought. Those who recognize the value of classical music don't need persuading and those who will value it in the future just need the chance to find it, whether through school music programs, radio, or a generous family member.


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## AndorFoldes (Aug 25, 2012)

Why, yes of course it is, except for that highest of art forms, 1960s pop music.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't know why so many people disregard rap or hip hop as a legitimate musical art form. It came of age about simultaneous with other popular forms called grunge and punk in the years following disco. I doubt any of these same people would say disco isn't legitimately music.

Rap, which began as an urban expression of rage and dismay, actually shares something with classical music: it is poetry based in meter not much different from the repetitive form of classical music we know as minimalism. Both grew in the period when melody died and share a respective disregard of that long-dead and once-cherished device.

I think it is possible to say classical music beginning with sonata form is perhaps the most _complex _form of music ever developed but I doubt it is "the highest form." I don't think there is much question religious music is the highest form of musical expression. It was the first -- developed by monks in monastaries as chants -- and its forms continue today unabated with expressive devices similar to those used by the greatest masters of the last 500 years.

It may not be as complex as opera with its many moving parts but its aspiration is certainly the "highest" insofar as it addresses a God/deity/deities that transcend human experience. You can't say that about any absolute form of classical music or other forms of popular musicmaking.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> I sometimes wonder though, what if this, which has got hundreds of millions of accumulated views on youtube worldwide, was non-Western classical music? Would we have called it a "miracle" (in our "elitist" circles)?


Why a miracle? The Pachelbel "canon" is a "common" piece (i.e. with a rather obvious pattern) for the Western tradition, therefore popular, but it probably would be a miracle coming from a pentatonic or whatever tradition 
There are/were a few exotic hits, such as Mbobe? (better known as "The lion sleeps tonight") but most of them were at least somewhat adopted to 20th century popular music forms/tastes and there is also the particular attraction of exotism. But although not a huge aspect of this, I don't think it is totally insignificant that Indian or Persion classical music has not travelled so well internationally, compared e.g. to oriental visual arts or ornaments.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> Why a miracle?


One could ask-
"Upon seeing the phenomenon of hundreds of millions of people (even without the knowledge of how a canon works) going onto youtube to listen to it (something written for the sensibilities of an age 350 years of the past), -aren't you in AWE, of the power of Western classical music?"


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

----------------------


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

what do I think of mysoginy? that's woman-hating isn't it? not sure CM does that though it pretty much dismissed them for five centuries. but so did everything else.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think that classical music is one of the great achievements of Western civilisation. Standard notation is part of that, and if you think about it, that doesn't contradict other types of music (e.g. jazz) which have retained a stronger improvisatory element. The likes of Bach, Beethoven and Liszt where brilliant improvisers, and their music can be seen as frozen improvisations. Classical music is unique, but there are not only differences, but also connections. Over its long history, it has been enriched by and made its own impacts upon different types of music.

I don't see a need to pit classical against other types of music. Is it so weak that it needs a dichotomy in order to prove that it has value? I don't think that's necessary, because classical is more than strong enough to be of value on its own terms.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Sid James said:


> I think that classical music is one of the great achievements of Western civilisation. Standard notation is part of that, and if you think about it, that doesn't contradict other types of music (e.g. jazz) which have retained a stronger improvisatory element. The likes of Bach, Beethoven and Liszt where brilliant improvisers, and their music can be seen as frozen improvisations. Classical music is unique, but there are not only differences, but also connections. Over its long history, it has been enriched by and made its own impacts upon different types of music.
> 
> I don't see a need to pit classical against other types of music. Is it so weak that it needs a dichotomy in order to prove that it has value? I don't think that's necessary, because classical is more than strong enough to be of value on its own terms.


I agree with the points you have made in your post. It pretty much sums up the attitudes I bring to TalkClassical. So where's the problem? There seem to be needs among some to bring tremendous pressure against classical music, to make cases for every form of transgression, to exaggerate minor exceptions to accepted concepts, and to place this art form as a target to aim at rather than as a valuable part of our society.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Highest form? I'm not sure what this means.

Most 'elaborate'...that could be argued.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Portamento said:


> *Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?*
> 
> Prompted by a discussion in this thread. Classical music was described as "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history," to which I replied:
> 
> ...


So if you say something is better than something else its elitist?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> So if you say something is better than something else its elitist?


Since no-one is asking a question as generic as you've phrased yours ("something is better than something else"), I'd say you've missed the point.

The issue posed by the OP is that which arises when a comparison is made between different genres of music, making claims that one is superior to another, and disrespecting other genres, without even considering whether such comparisons are valid.


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Forster said:


> Since no-one is asking a question as generic as you've phrased yours ("something is better than something else"), I'd say you've missed the point.
> 
> The issue posed by the OP is that which arises when a comparison is made between different genres of music, making claims that one is superior to another, and disrespecting other genres, without even considering whether such comparisons are valid.


It might be helpful if the person who posted it responds. They can explain what they meant. I don't want to just argue for the sake of it.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> It might be helpful if the person who posted it responds. They can explain what they meant. I don't want to just argue for the sake of it.


It might indeed, but they've not posted for 10 months, and this thread was started more than two and a half years ago, so they may not come back to you. You could try a Conversation, ask them directly.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> Why a miracle? The Pachelbel "canon" is a "common" piece (i.e. with a rather obvious pattern) for the Western tradition, therefore popular, but it probably would be a miracle coming from a pentatonic or whatever tradition


I feel, sometimes, we could look at ourselves in the mirror how elitist we are, how much we indulge in double standards.
_"Schoenberg is not as great as Mozart cause Schoenberg is a niche interest."
"Beethoven's 3rd was innovative. The fact that Schoenberg was doesn't matter."
"Beethoven's 5th, Mozart's 40th (for example) are music for intellectuals. Pachelbel's canon is merely entertainment glorified as high art, even though it has most definitely "survived the test of time". As for the Beethoven and Mozart sounding 'simpler' than Schoenberg, that's because they were writing music for their time."_
[ Gould discusses some of what he feels are "obvious patterns"-
youtube.com/watch?v=SHogW8FnFZM&t=17m ]


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Forster said:


> Most 'elaborate'...that could be argued.


And how we interpret/evaluate the content is ultimately subjective. Are notation and tonality inherently superior to other systems? Let's say the music of a certain European CP composer, for example, conjures up images of a civilized 18th century European society of fluffy powdered wigs, whereas Indian classical music reminds of images of awe-inspiringly exotic Indian traditional culture. Are the sentiments evoked by the latter necessarily inferior to the ones by the former? (I'm just asking.)


Woodduck said:


> The tonal system of Western music, with its complex hierarchy of relationships, evolved in large part as an expressive tool





Sid James said:


> I think that classical music is one of the great achievements of Western civilisation. Standard notation is part of that


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## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

Highwayman said:


> _"Why do many people think that rap music is not classical music?"_


Because it's rap music and not classical music.

It would be like to ask "Why do many people think that if you are a male you are not a female?". If I say that there is art inside rap it doesn't mean that I'm saying that it's classical music, unless the word "art" is not a synonymous of "classical music", but it's not.

The question about film music makes sense for the simple fact that "film music" is not mutually exclusive with "classical music", unless you add to the definition of classical music that it's standalone music not composed for a program. This would exclude incidental music in general (including the famous works of Tchaikovsky) from classical music.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Forster said:


> It might indeed, but they've not posted for 10 months, and this thread was started more than two and a half years ago, so they may not come back to you. You could try a Conversation, ask them directly.


Amazing how someone can enter a room, rip a smelly fart, then exit and leave the odor for everyone else.

Again, a subjective subject like suggested by the OP, cannot truly be answered. 

There are other forms of highly evolved non-"Western" music.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Portamento said:


> *Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?*
> 
> Prompted by a discussion in this thread. Classical music was described as "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history," to which I replied:
> 
> ...


The "Classical" period initially referred to when the ancient Greek and Roman empires were at their peak. Much of western culture, especially its languages, literature and philosophy, derives from ancient Greece and Rome. In its more general and today more common meaning, classical art is supposed to be a distillation of what is most profound, lasting and universal in a culture's aesthetic values and traditions. If one defines that as "highest", then yes, it is true by definition. 

Alas, this seems to cause two major and recurring sources of confusion and contention here and elsewhere. First, the concept of classicism I just (very briefly) summarized is often taken as elitist, condescending and disrespectful of some or even all popular music genres and traditions. Second, some try to add an element of ethnocentrism to the concept, arguing explicitly or implicitly that only white European art or its direct descendants can be "classical".

To me, the first of these falsehoods results from a misunderstanding of what the term 'classical' means, and the second, well, I need to keep this post within the bounds set by the moderators, but let's just say it is uninformed.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_So if you say something is better than something else its elitist? _

I don't think so but look at the title thread: the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history. That's a little more than saying it's better don't you think?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

larold said:


> _So if you say something is better than something else its elitist? _
> 
> I don't think so but look at the title thread: the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history. That's a little more than saying it's better don't you think?


You have to define what you mean by "highest form". Popular music can be extraordinarily sophisticated, effective, and created by the most skilled and talented musicians. But its main purpose is to capture the prevailing mood of the moment and often also to have a big and immediate, if short term, impact. Classical music seeks to reflect the more profound, universal and lasting values and traditions of a culture, even if at the expense of the highest degree of short-term notoriety. Both are important. The term "higher form" adds little, imo. 

"Better" is much easier to understand and reflects subjective preference. That isn't really relevant to the distinction between classical and popular music.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I think we've seen what happens when people ascribe god-like qualities to lower music and the people who make it. Look at the havoc idolizing rock stars has had on society. Every year you can type into You Tube "rap stars killed in *___*" putting in a year and there are usually about 50 to 100 there. Higher forms of art do not have such negative results in the people that follow them.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

And when people ascribe god-like qualities to the practitioners of high art, you get James Levine.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

fbjim said:


> And when people ascribe god-like qualities to the practitioners of high art, you get James Levine.


You can't pretend great artists are necessarily great people. I hate to think what a full examination of the lives of certain ancient Greek and Roman poets would reveal.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

regenmusic said:


> I think we've seen what happens when people ascribe God-like qualities to lower music [etc]


Has anyone been ascribing God-like qualities?


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Forster said:


> Has anyone been ascribing God-like qualities?


Sorry, I meant small g god.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

regenmusic said:


> Sorry, I meant small g god.


Upper case or lower, my question still applies.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Roger Knox said:


> I agree with the points you have made in your post. It pretty much sums up the attitudes I bring to TalkClassical. So where's the problem? There seem to be needs among some to bring tremendous pressure against classical music, to make cases for every form of transgression, to exaggerate minor exceptions to accepted concepts, and to place this art form as a target to aim at rather than as a valuable part of our society.


I don't really see much use in arguing that one type of music is inherently superior. Its not only a dichotomy, but an argument which has no real use, other than to serve some agenda. Utimately, what is being argued about is lacking a fundamental logical basis in the first place, which is why in an online context it tends to descend into fairly cliche territory.

If there is a need to defend classical music, it should involve better reasoning. If comparisons are made with other types of music, the main point should be to explain why classical is unique. There's no harm in celebrating the many unique qualities of classical, but it doesn't need to be at the expense of other types of music.

In short, using logical fallacies to argue a point simply demonstrates weakness of argument and lazy thinking.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Forster said:


> Has anyone been ascribing God-like qualities?


Yes! 

If you've never heard of the expression "rock god" then I cannot really dialog you much on this.

Rock stars are now considered our new canon of saints. The original saints created orphanages, hospitals, improved the economic situation of failing towns, even physical miracles, whether you believe that or not. And, many people have experienced such miracles first hand (myself included) to know the difference between a saint and someone who is treated as such with that kind of reverence.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

In terms of divinity being above human standards of morality, society ascribes these aspects to artists all the time, be it popular or "elevated" artists. 

There is even backlash when people point out the ways that great artists have been morally flawed- vis complaints about "cancel culture".


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Sid James said:


> I don't really see much use in arguing that one type of music is inherently superior. Its not only a dichotomy, but an argument which has no real use, other than to serve some agenda. Utimately, what is being argued about is lacking a fundamental logical basis in the first place, which is why in an online context it tends to descend into fairly cliche territory.
> 
> If there is a need to defend classical music, it should involve better reasoning. If comparisons are made with other types of music, the main point should be to explain why classical is unique. There's no harm in celebrating the many unique qualities of classical, but it doesn't need to be at the expense of other types of music.
> 
> In short, using logical fallacies to argue a point simply demonstrates weakness of argument and lazy thinking.


I said previously that I agreed with the points that you had made in your earlier post. And now, where did I argue that one type of music (I assume you refer to classical music) is inherently superior? I don't think that way.

Classical music has been my main musical interest both professionally and personally, but both in TC posts and in my life I've also played and supported folk, pop, blues, and American Songbook-type music. I took up tenor sax, 5-string banjo, and harmonic specifically to play in groups for fun and for occasional gigs. I've written songs, gone to songwriters meetings, made demos. For many years I worked with disabled people on using musical technology to participate in music-making. Here on TC I've made many positive comments about popular singers, groups and songwriters in different genres.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

The idea that any genre is superior to all others is anathema to my way of thinking about music. Not only do I consider the question irrelevant, but more importantly, needlessly divisive.


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## Otis B. Driftwood (4 mo ago)

Very little music has survived from antiquity, there's no telling how much great music we've missed out on.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

regenmusic said:


> Yes!
> 
> If you've never heard of the expression "rock god" then I cannot really dialog you much on this.
> 
> Rock stars are now considered our new canon of saints. The original saints created orphanages, hospitals, improved the economic situation of failing towns, even physical miracles, whether you believe that or not. And, many people have experienced such miracles first hand (myself included) to know the difference between a saint and someone who is treated as such with that kind of reverence.


Seriously?

First, I thought we were talking about TC members doing the ascribing, which prompted my asking. But if you're just waving in the general direction of the history of media hyperbole (which has been applied to CM 'gods' too), you're right that there is no need for a dialogue. No one _seriously _worships Freddie Mercury as a "rock god", though they may love his music.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

regenmusic said:


> Yes!
> 
> If you've never heard of the expression "rock god" then I cannot really dialog you much on this.
> 
> Rock stars are now considered our new canon of saints. The original saints created orphanages, hospitals, improved the economic situation of failing towns, even physical miracles, whether you believe that or not. And, many people have experienced such miracles first hand (myself included) to know the difference between a saint and someone who is treated as such with that kind of reverence.


Not a very insightful point. Hollywood stars and professional athletes also fall into this category, which I would call, not our new canon of saints, but rather our new royalty or aristocracy. Much as it is a fantasy, illusion or myth (and it always is, that being the fundamental nature of entertainment), people draw inspiration from these figures, and always have. Many in the UK would point out that much as Americans scorn actual royalty, i.e., hereditary kings and queens, at least their royalty has over 1,000 years of history and tradition behind it, and was responsible for such landmarks as the Magna Carta, a forerunner of the US Constitution. Meanwhile, we make do with this ersatz royalty, who aren't any more worthy of their social status than were Beethoven, Liszt or Wagner.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Not a very insightful point. Hollywood stars and professional athletes also fall into this category, which I would call, not our new canon of saints, but rather our new royalty or aristocracy. Much as it is a fantasy, illusion or myth (and it always is, that being the fundamental nature of entertainment), people draw inspiration from these figures, and always have. Many in the UK would point out that much as Americans scorn actual royalty, i.e., hereditary kings and queens, at least their royalty has over 1,000 years of history and tradition behind it, and was responsible for such landmarks as the Magna Carta, a forerunner of the US Constitution. Meanwhile, we make do with this ersatz royalty, who aren't any more worthy of their social status than were Beethoven, Liszt or Wagner.


Likewise, yours isn't a very insightful post as we are not talking about Hollywood stars and professional athletes, we were talking about whether classical music was "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history".

My point is that classical artists are and were always a fascinating group of people to study, and one's lives were always enriched in doing so. They achieved superhuman feats, not just did a string of albums in their 20s and then pretty much never put out anything as good for the rest of their lives. Some of the biggest were also deeply religious -- not of your "do anything you want and it's all cool man" variety. Liszt and Vivaldi were priests as well as Medieval ones also were as well. Studying classical music opens you up to studying myths and their archetypes in human behavior and their operas are not like acid trips or one-trick ponies.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Forster said:


> Seriously?
> 
> First, I thought we were talking about TC members doing the ascribing, which prompted my asking. But if you're just waving in the general direction of the history of media hyperbole (which has been applied to CM 'gods' too), you're right that there is no need for a dialogue. No one _seriously _worships Freddie Mercury as a "rock god", though they may love his music.


I was saying that Rock/Rap and classical music have very different outcomes in the type of influence they have in society. I was very much a part of the rock scene, even a part of the Seattle grunge scene and before it became grunge in the 1980s. I never was in a grunge band but my friends were, some of those friends were in an experimental music band with me.

So, I know the rock world very well, as well as what happens to people who think they can party like rock stars.

You would do well studying some linguistics, such as semantics, and so on. 

What does it mean to "worship"? Don't people pay large sums of money to things that they worship, ie paying money to churches? Don't they pay $500 and up for a seat to a rock concert? Also, maybe $2000 for an original vinyl record? Don't they follow the example of people they look up to like that? Wasn't the 1960s and 1970s all about the mainstream youth following the example of what their rock stars did?


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

regenmusic said:


> I was saying that Rock/Rap and classical music have very different outcomes in the type of influence they have in society. I was very much a part of the rock scene, even a part of the Seattle grunge scene and before it became grunge in the 1980s. I never was in a grunge band but my friends were, some of those friends were in an experimental music band with me.
> 
> So, I know the rock world very well, as well as what happens to people who think they can party like rock stars.
> 
> ...


I haven't been following your part of the discussion on this thread. But your mention of linguistics and semantics in connection with the influence of the rock scene on young people has triggered some memories. Could you explain it a bit more? I grew up in Vancouver, B.C. during the 1960's and '70's and was very involved in classical music as a pianist and composer, but I also hung out with jazz and rock musicians. Certainly I'm haunted still, 50 years later, with flashbacks of people I knew who went down.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

regenmusic said:


> I was saying that Rock/Rap and classical music have very different outcomes in the type of influence they have in society.


It might be interesting to pursue this line of thinking, but not if your premise is biased from the start (with your description of rock/rap as "lower music"). Moving beyond your initial bias, how might we measure the influences of different genres of music in society? How would we take account of the positives and negatives across generations and different demographics? How would we separate the range of influences on people so we could isolate which came from music and which came from, say, parental upbringing, schooling, other environmental and economic factors?

It's all too easy to presuppose a causal connection between this or that music and this or that outcome, but it's much harder to actually demonstrate it. It's also very easy to point to "the bad things" people have done and generalise across the demographic and pay no attention to the millions of young people across the world who've grown up without suffering any serious harm from their "worship" of your so-called rock gods.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Roger Knox said:


> I said previously that I agreed with the points that you had made in your earlier post. And now, where did I argue that one type of music (I assume you refer to classical music) is inherently superior? I don't think that way.


I didn't say you argued that. Apologies if I didn't explain this clearly enough. I was reflecting on the problems which you mentioned (your post which I replied to is below). They all come across as agenda driven. This is why I questioned the need to degrade one thing in order to elevate another. It doesn't particularly matter if this sort of dynamic is being used to defend or attack classical. Its the sort of thinking which lacks basic logic.



Roger Knox said:


> I agree with the points you have made in your post. It pretty much sums up the attitudes I bring to TalkClassical. So where's the problem? There seem to be needs among some to bring tremendous pressure against classical music, to make cases for every form of transgression, to exaggerate minor exceptions to accepted concepts, and to place this art form as a target to aim at rather than as a valuable part of our society.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

regenmusic said:


> Likewise, yours isn't a very insightful post as we are not talking about Hollywood stars and professional athletes, we were talking about whether classical music was "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history".
> 
> My point is that classical artists are and were always a fascinating group of people to study, and one's lives were always enriched in doing so. They achieved superhuman feats, not just did a string of albums in their 20s and then pretty much never put out anything as good for the rest of their lives. Some of the biggest were also deeply religious -- not of your "do anything you want and it's all cool man" variety. Liszt and Vivaldi were priests as well as Medieval ones also were as well. Studying classical music opens you up to studying myths and their archetypes in human behavior and their operas are like acid trips or one-trick ponies.


Yes, well said, as long as your religious terminology is intended as a metaphor. But none of that, or artistic talent or skill of any kind, necessarily implies that artists themselves are admirable people, much less worthy of worship. In fact, as I've mentioned before, in many cases, to the extent artists have admirable qualities, they focus them on their art, leaving what may be less admirable for other aspects of their lives. Thus, where their art shows skill, courage, energy, integrity, imagination, empathy, humility, perception, sensitivity and intellect, their private lives may be dominated by greed, cowardice, selfishness, arrogance, incompetence, foolishness and dishonesty, or worse.

That is why my reference to movie and sports stars is appropriate. They too have talents and skills that arguably are admirable. But these talents apply in a specific context and not necessarily anywhere else. Remember that all entertainment, not just music, is based on fantasy, illusion and myth. The ability to create those fantasies, illusions and myths does not by itself imply anything admirable about the creators.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

one of the aspects of divinity is being beyond human morality - IIRC this is sometimes an explanation why so many gods in myths have stories about them marrying siblings, because our revulsion to that sort of thing doesn't apply to them.

so yeah, that applies to revered artists. Like I said, look at the reaction when someone points out that artists- high and low- were human beings with human flaws, like greed, lust, bigotry, or name any other sin. Denial and anger.

Point out that a "low" artist has moral flaws and you get angry fans on you. Point out that a "high" artist had moral flaws and it's some high-minded statement about "cancel culture".


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Yes, well said, as long as your religious terminology is intended as a metaphor. But none of that, or artistic talent or skill of any kind, necessarily implies that artists themselves are admirable people, much less worthy of worship. In fact, as I've mentioned before, in many cases, to the extent artists have admirable qualities, they focus them on their art, leaving what may be less admirable for other aspects of their lives. Thus, where their art shows skill, courage, energy, integrity, imagination, empathy, humility, perception, sensitivity and intellect, their private lives may be dominated by greed, cowardice, selfishness, arrogance, incompetence, foolishness and dishonesty, or worse.
> 
> That is why my reference to movie and sports stars is appropriate. They too have talents and skills that arguably are admirable. But these talents apply in a specific context and not necessarily anywhere else. Remember that all entertainment, not just music, is based on fantasy, illusion and myth. The ability to create those fantasies, illusions and myths does not by itself imply anything admirable about the creators.


I had meant to say "not like acid trips or one-trick ponies." 

I wasn't saying worshiping saints was a good example. I meant in the culture heroes used to be really worthy of our consideration. Through "low music," now we do not follow the examples of saints or other heroes. We don't even know what they did. Most don't study proverbial wisdom (like the books of wise sayings/quotations) like they used to. That's why YouTube is filled up with "Idiots at Work" videos, and the like. That's why True Crime videos (on TV or YT) seem virtually endless and horrendous. 

The Pied Piper myth was once well understood. Music can lead you to darkness. Satan himself was occupied with the praise of God (music is used in praise, as in the Psalms) and then Satan fell and become completely demonic (the first rock star?).

(tongue in cheek, I know we are all human)

I listen to select "rock" but judiciously and try to stay aware of how aspects of these peoples lives and careers and works are often not something to aim at.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

regenmusic said:


> I had meant to say "not like acid trips or one-trick ponies."
> 
> I wasn't saying worshiping saints was a good example. I meant in the culture heroes used to be really worthy of our consideration. Through "low music," now we do not follow the examples of saints or other heroes. We don't even know what they did. Most don't study proverbial wisdom (like the books of wise sayings/quotations) like they used to. That's why YouTube is filled up with "Idiots at Work" videos, and the like. That's why True Crime videos (on TV or YT) seem virtually endless and horrendous.
> 
> ...


"Heroes" is the right word. Every society in every age has had them. Artists can create, or help create, mythical heroes for us, or anti-heroes. Your point that heroes in our society aren't what they used to be, or rather aren't understood in the way they used to be, is interesting. But my separate point was that the artists themselves aren't the heroes. This is the fallacy Richard Wagner created in his essays, but he had his own agenda.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

regenmusic said:


> aspects of these peoples lives and careers and works are often not something to aim at.


I think something of the same could be said of some classical composers too, don't you?


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Forster said:


> I think something of the same could be said of some classical composers too, don't you?


I really don't know enough about negative stories to have an opinion. I don't doubt there are some like perhaps Wagner, and Debussy was a serial adulterer.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I believe evaluating this claim is quite easy. The other genres of music must offer their greatest offering, and it has to be better than Bach. If it is inferior to Bach, then we can safely say that Classical is the best. So, who would like to propose a non-Classical artist greater than Bach? I would love to hear of it.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Couchie said:


> I believe evaluating this claim is quite easy. The other genres of music must offer their greatest offering, and it has to be better than Bach. If it is inferior to Bach, then we can safely say that Classical is the best. So, who would like to propose a non-Classical artist greater than Bach? I would love to hear of it.


But wait -- Who will be the judge for this spectacular battle of the genres? Will Bulldog put together one of his multi-stage tournaments? Actually, the answer is simple:

Me. Friendly advice: I can be bribed.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> These are performance things. If it fascinates you and stirs up emotions in you, that's a consequence of the interaction of you and the noise the performers make. It's time specific and person specific. Another performance, and you in a different state of mind, may not work in the same way.


Everything is relative. Life itself is relative.


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## Artran (Sep 16, 2016)

It helps when you look at music from functional approach. Classical music has different function than pop music. I listen genre called psybient before sleep because this music is like some kind of a sleep drug, but when I want to listen to something more thoughtful I listen to classical music. And the point is that these two "genres" are interchangeable. They have their own function, their own place in my life. You can't sing Schoenberg piece, but you can sing a song by Adele. Music is beautiful in all forms and classical composers often seek inspiration in folk/pop music.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Just to get a little backup, one of the greatest composers of the last 40 years, Vangelis, at the 2:05:30 mark. 





Vangelis - Interviews (2008)


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

*Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?* 

Yes.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Haydn70 said:


> *Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?*
> 
> Yes.


In order to establish such an assertion, wouldn't one need to demonstrate a hierarchy at the level of the individual composition? I'm not aware of such.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Haydn70 said:


> *Is classical music "the highest form of musical arts in recorded human history"?*
> 
> Yes.


No. It could be argued that it is the most elaborate, perhaps, or the most complex; the one with the longest tradition of structural sophistication (which might be just another way of saying 'complex').

But "highest"? What does that even mean (as the youth likes to ask these days).


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

What would even be an alternative candidate? Western popular music? Indian classical?
"Demonstrations" take place in maths. In no other field will there ever be a demonstration. For fields like arts plausibility arguments must suffice. There is no other musical tradition that even developed a real notation system. Indian classical or similar might have great subtleties but they are basically 30 min improvisations on traditional patterns. It's very narrow in variety and expression to Western classical music. Similarly for the typical 3 min songs for western popular music where one could also claim that most of the last 100 years of Western popular music are so dependent on the classical/basic Western music of the preceding centuries that it should not even count as a real alternative.

A discussion if classical Greek temples or chinese pagodas or gothic cathedrals are greater architecture might make some sense because they are all great achievements. (But we would not even start such a discussion with mudhuts vs. marble palaces because it would be obviously bizarre and unfair.)
Similarly maybe with Persian poetry vs. Shakespearean sonnets etc.

But what would even be a single non western classical *candidate *against Bach's St. Matthew or Beethoven's 5th or Wagner's Tristan or hundreds of other works from the Western tradition. 40 min. noodling on a sitar? Seriously? This might be comparable to Beethoven noodling 40 min on the piano. Maybe Shankar or some Persian Ustad (or Art Tatum) was more subtle an improviser than Beethoven. We will never know, I am happy to grant it for the sake of argument. But there is no Indian or Persian Appassionata written down, even less hundreds of works from 40 second etudes demanding years of virtuoso training to play to 3 hour operas with over a 100 participants that are generally recognized as among the most significant dramatic works in history.

Feel free to think that these are unanswerable questions (I think this is not really honest because we all act as if there were real differences in aesthetic achievements and only afterwards talk as relativists when we are not listening. It's a bit like free will denial, it's not livable.) But for most people the answer should be pretty clear. It's not even a contest because only Western music shows up at the startline.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Kreisler jr said:


> What would even be an alternative candidate? Western popular music? Indian classical?
> "Demonstrations" take place in maths. In no other field will there ever be a demonstration. For fields like arts plausibility arguments must suffice. There is no other musical tradition that even developed a real notation system. Indian classical or similar might have great subtleties but they are basically 30 min improvisations on traditional patterns. It's very narrow in variety and expression to Western classical music. Similarly for the typical 3 min songs for western popular music where one could also claim that most of the last 100 years of Western popular music are so dependent on the classical/basic Western music of the preceding centuries that it should not even count as a real alternative.
> 
> A discussion if classical Greek temples or chinese pagodas or gothic cathedrals are greater architecture might make some sense because they are all great achievements. (But we would not even start such a discussion with mudhuts vs. marble palaces because it would be obviously bizarre and unfair.)
> ...


As you said, you / we aren't demonstrating anything.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> But what would even be a single non western classical *candidate *against Bach's St. Matthew or Beethoven's 5th or Wagner's Tristan or hundreds of other works from the Western tradition. 40 min. noodling on a sitar? Seriously? This might be comparable to Beethoven noodling 40 min on the piano. Maybe Shankar or some Persian Ustad (or Art Tatum) was more subtle an improviser than Beethoven. We will never know, I am happy to grant it for the sake of argument. But there is no Indian or Persian Appassionata written down, even less hundreds of works from 40 second etudes demanding years of virtuoso training to play to 3 hour operas with over a 100 participants that are generally recognized as among the most significant dramatic works in history.


Do you think music of functional harmony and standard notation is fundamentally/intrinsically superior to music without functional harmony and standard notation? It seems related to the question; "What is the true heir of classical music", a topic hot on the forum these days (or perhaps all the time).


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Even if a writer has the tools to write stories, he can still write silly stories. It's up to you if you choose to believe the "tools" he possess still makes him intrinsically superior to others who don't. It has been argued in this thread that no non-Western classical music has been praised through history like Western classical music, but then — what non-Western classical music was criticized for expressions of sentiments of _naivety_ or _religious dogma_ and their outdatedness and things like that to the same extent as Western classical music? (It's not what I think; it's what I've heard people saying. I'm not criticizing anything as overrated here.) For example, people have reported the "general sound" of Mozart reminded of them of the civilized 18th century European scene of fluffy powdered wigs, whereas that of Indian classical music reminded them a cultural image of far greater exoticism. It's subjective.

"But generally speaking, the interest in the older oratorios is waning, not only in New York but all over the country. The ears of our audiences have lost pleasure in the simpler harmonies of Handel and Haydn, and accustomed to the richer orchestration of today, find the accompaniments of the Handelian orchestra thin and archaic. Something of the simple and naïve religious faith that inspired the old oratorios has also gone, and the composer has not yet been found who can voice the faith and aspirations of today. It is a pity that the old oratorio form should therefore be neglected. I think, however, that it is not dead but only sleeps, and will awaken again." -Walter Damrosch, 1923 (from "Reviving Haydn: New Appreciations in the Twentieth Century", by Brian Proksch, P. 54)

"[...] The music mainly is heard by the aristocratic few, helping them forget what they are doing to the impoverished and overworked many. It is no coincidence that the brief life of Mozart spans the years of both the American and French revolutions. [...]
[...] It is not true that he is the worst of all composers; his prodigious technical skills developed by age six. Sometimes it is not so great to be a prodigy,- I often feel his emotional and dramatic palette is set at the same age. [...]
[...] “Listen to the pieces, usually also in minor, where you can hear a contained smoldering prefiguring the romantic era”. Those excerpts do indeed exist, but they actually are the most convincing passages of the fact that the emperor has no clothes, as Mozart always follows them with silly kid-stuff. It is like topping off a fresh-herb flavored veal scallopine with Ready Whip. [...]" -Arnold Rosner


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Kreisler jr said:


> What would even be an alternative candidate?


This is like asking "if Jehovah isn't God, then who is the alternative candidate?" when one option is to be atheist or agnostic (or both, depending on definitions). I think the entire concept of "highest form of (musical) arts" is a silly one from an objective perspective, and from a subjective perspective it just comes down to what individuals, societies, and cultures value; which, like all values, can't be true or false. 



Kreisler jr said:


> "Demonstrations" take place in maths. In no other field will there ever be a demonstration. For fields like arts plausibility arguments must suffice.


I'd argue that proofs are for maths and demonstrations are for science; but either way, arguments may be powerful tools for convincing people, but arguments are built on foundations (often many layers down from the arguments themselves) that must be assumed to be true, and people don't always share the same assumptions. 



Kreisler jr said:


> Similarly for the typical 3 min songs for western popular music where one could also claim that most of the last 100 years of Western popular music are so dependent on the classical/basic Western music of the preceding centuries that it should not even count as a real alternative.


All generations are influenced by the previous ones; I don't think that fact alone makes the previous generations innately superior. FWIW, I'm not trying to make a case that western popular music is superior, I'm just saying I don't find yours a very convincing argument for why it couldn't be. 



Kreisler jr said:


> But what would even be a single non western classical *candidate *against Bach's St. Matthew or Beethoven's 5th or Wagner's Tristan or hundreds of other works from the Western tradition. 40 min. noodling on a sitar? Seriously?


To you it's noodling on a sitar; to those immersed in that music and culture I can imagine they hear it very differently than you do; just as you probably western classical music very differently than they do, and just how a jazz musician hears jazz very differently than either of you would. 



Kreisler jr said:


> Feel free to think that these are unanswerable questions (I think this is not really honest because we all act as if there were real differences in aesthetic achievements and only afterwards talk as relativists when we are not listening. It's a bit like free will denial, it's not livable.)


I don't know what "talking as relativists" means. I've said this many times, but subjectivists/relativists can make all the same claims objectivists can; the only difference is where each side thinks those claims are coming from. It's the same thing with free will (denial). There's nothing I can't do in denying free will (or, at least, libertarian free will; I still consider myself a compatibilist, or someone who thinks the free will thing is mostly a language problem) that anyone can do in accepting it; that belief doesn't impose any set of actions on me, the same that believing notions like "highest musical art" have no objectively true answer doesn't impose any limits on me in expressing what amounts to my opinions on classical music (or any other music).


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> Even if a writer has the tools to write stories, he can still write silly stories. It's up to you if you choose to believe the "tools" he possess still makes him intrinsically superior to others who don't. It has been argued in this thread that no non-Western classical music has been praised through history like Western classical music, but then — what non-Western classical music was criticized for expressions of sentiments of _naivety_ or _religious dogma_ and their outdatedness and things like that to the same extent as Western classical music? (It's not what I think; it's what I've heard people saying. I'm not criticizing anything as overrated here.) For example, people have reported the "general sound" of Mozart reminded of them of the civilized 18th century European scene of powdered wigs, whereas that of Indian classical music reminded them a cultural image of far greater exoticism. It's subjective.
> 
> "But generally speaking, the interest in the older oratorios is waning, not only in New York but all over the country. The ears of our audiences have lost pleasure in the simpler harmonies of Handel and Haydn, and accustomed to the richer orchestration of today, find the accompaniments of the Handelian orchestra thin and archaic. Something of the simple and naïve religious faith that inspired the old oratorios has also gone, and the composer has not yet been found who can voice the faith and aspirations of today. It is a pity that the old oratorio form should therefore be neglected. I think, however, that it is not dead but only sleeps, and will awaken again." -Walter Damrosch, 1923 (from "Reviving Haydn: New Appreciations in the Twentieth Century", by Brian Proksch, P. 54)
> 
> ...


I think the Rosen quote on Mozart demonstrates that we cannot establish incontrovertible meaning in music.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

This debate in various permutations has raged here TC for years in various discussions/threads. The relativist’s position is that the superiority of Western art music cannot be proven empirically. They might not state it in such terms but that is essentially what they are asking for: empirical proof.

Here I am bringing in a post by one of my favorite TCers, Woodduck. This reply is in a thread entitled “Why Postmodernism In Music Is Bad (Sucks)” and is dated April 9, 2019. For me, his response is spot on:



Woodduck said:


> The force of moral principles is found primarily in the degree to which they are true to human nature and human needs. It's that, and not "power" and "influence," that makes them persuasive and accounts for the high degree of agreement about them across cultures and through the ages. The same can be said of aesthetic principles.
> 
> It's unfortunate that there are truths which can't be be proved by the empirical methods of science, and doubly unfortunate that one of those truths is that there are truths that can't be proved by the empirical methods of science! Ethical and aesthetic truths - provinces of what, for want of a better term, has been called the spirit or soul (with no supernatural dimension necessarily implied) - can't be seen, tasted, or smelled, and don't show up under the microscope. Still, they insist and persist, arouse the strongest passions, and engender the highest ideals. I know, without a doubt, that it would be morally wrong for me to break into my neighbor's home and steal his computer. I also know, without a doubt, that _Aida_ is an aesthetically superior opera to _Stiffelio._ Can I prove either of those assertions "objectively"? No. Are they untrue because I can't? No. Not at all.
> 
> ...


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Haydn70 said:


> This debate in various permutations has raged here TC for years in various discussions/threads. The relativist’s position is that the superiority of Western art music cannot be proven empirically. They might not state it in such terms but that is essentially what they are asking for: empirical proof.
> 
> Here I am bringing in a post by one of my favorite TCers, Woodduck. This reply is in a thread entitled “Why Postmodernism In Music Is Bad (Sucks)” and is dated April 9, 2019. For me, his response is spot on:


Woodduck has always been able to very eloquently state the case for the "objectivist" side, but when pressed he has never, ever been able to define what this knowledge is, nor how to settle disputes between two sides who "know" contradictory things. Some people like to poo-poo the notion that empirical truths are the only objective truths, but the great virtue of science is that when there are disputes over what the truth is there is actually a method and standard for determining who's right and who's wrong. Even when we're currently not able to settle such disputes, perhaps due to the limitations of technology, we at the very least can conceive of ways in which we could definitively determine who's right and who's wrong if we had such technology or means. 

Moral and aesthetic disputes aren't even solvable hypothetically. They fundamentally boil down to how people feel, and feelings can only be true in relation to those who feel the same way. Even to the extent that humans share the same values and can universally agree on them, we often share many such values that end up in conflict with each other, and end up valuing one more than the other. Music itself contain so many elements that people innately value differently and to wildly varying extents; and genres exist, in large parts, because different genres focus and emphasize (or de-emphasize) different elements. Of course, we can resort to something resembling statistics (or "polls" as they were called in one of those threads) to determine what music connects with the most people, but I doubt this would satisfy most considering classical is a rather niche genre whose most popular works aren't even always considered the "best" among the genre's biggest fans.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Haydn70 said:


> The relativist’s position is that the superiority of Western art music cannot be proven empirically. They might not state it in such terms but that is essentially what they are asking for: empirical proof


Well at least you're not suggesting that the relativist is saying "anything goes". I get the gist and agree broadly, but I'd say that the relativist is not asking for proof of the superiority of anything: for day-to-day purposes, aesthetics is a matter of personal preference and function. That is to say, I listen to what I like and appreciate its effectiveness in achieving its purpose. I don't dance to Bach; I don't seek engagement with a classical mentality by listening to 50Cent, I don't teach my children nursery rhymes by playing Mahler's Symphony No 1.

If Woodduck's post is "spot on", it's only to the extent that he has elaborated the problem, not the solution; and he has determined for himself, a resolution. That's fine. That's what most of us do: we come down on one side or the other and live with the consequences.

(The business of an analogy with morals is unnecessary and ill-advised, as it leads people astray towards theology and politics.)


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