# What draws you to Classical Music?



## hendrixchord (Apr 24, 2010)

What draws you to Classical Music?

For me.. a big part of what I like is the passion and the level of musicianship 
it requires to play a lot of classical music.. a ongoing learning experience
with anything from the very simple to the most complex. and of course just listening
to the countless amazing pieces and and trying to figure out what is going on musically.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Because it offers my psychotic temperament emotional stability


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Diversity. It is not really a genre. It is a massive tapestry weaving the entire history of music, past present, and future.

Depth . It withstands repeated listenings and even studying, often revealing new layers with every hearing. (Admittedly other genres can do this too.) 

Contrast - by allowing a far greater dynamic range and a good deal more the three minutes to stretch out, classical often can show greater contrasts than popular genres.

It also doesn't hurt that it is of low mass market appeal like the other genres I enjoy, progressive rock, jazz, and fusion.

I'm sure there are a lot of other reasons.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

http://www.talkclassical.com/8606-why-do-you-like.html

Ech, ech.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Do you mean "classical" in the way that popular culture does, ie "all music except vernacular music" - what is sometimes archly called "art music"? If so, it's because it provides emotional and intellectual rewards completely absent form commercial popular music.


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## KaerbEmEvig (Dec 15, 2009)

Weston said:


> Diversity. It is not really a genre. It is a massive tapestry weaving the entire history of music, past present, and future.
> 
> Depth . It withstands repeated listenings and even studying, often revealing new layers with every hearing. (Admittedly other genres can do this too.)
> 
> ...


True, I'm far from an elitist person, but I, too, find the fact that the market of classical, jazz, progressive rock and metal, funk and R&B (I'm talking about real funk and R&B, not Beyonce and others, which are doing African-American pop, not R&B) and fusion genres are rather small a good thing.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

What draws me to classical? THE BIG TUNES! (Only joking...)

What I like about classical is not only the music itself, but also the fascinating stories behind the music - the lives of the great composers, their times & people they knew. I also like the connections between different periods of music, often composers reach back into the past & grab something & then make something new & interesting out of it. Another aspect I like is the profundity & depth of classical, which is all the more apparent to me when I go to a live concert...


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> Do you mean "classical" in the way that popular culture does, ie "all music except vernacular music" - what is sometimes archly called "art music"? If so, it's because it provides emotional and intellectual rewards completely absent form commercial popular music.


Intellectual perhaps, but I'm not sure about emotional. In a longer piece there can be a greater interplay of different emotions perhaps, but even in the standard short song popular music can still stir emotions. And what is commercial or not commerical? Nearly everything is wrote for an audience.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Andre said:


> What draws me to classical? THE BIG TUNES! (Only joking...)
> 
> What I like about classical is not only the music itself, but also the fascinating stories behind the music - the lives of the great composers, their times & people they knew. I also like the connections between different periods of music, often composers reach back into the past & grab something & then make something new & interesting out of it. Another aspect I like is the profundity & depth of classical, which is all the more apparent to me when I go to a live concert...


Tunes help, although that doesn't have to mean big long ones it can just mean interesting motifs as well. In all music for me the basic material that a piece is built from is very important.

I'm not sure how important the lives are, some composers we don't know that much about so does that hurt their music? Probably not. Maybe in some ways it even helps us to imagine the music more for ourselves.


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## classidaho (May 5, 2009)

three things:

1. The satisfying musical quality (the same thing can drive me away; such as a piano or violin piece that is composed to show cleverness or finger dexterety and has zilch musical quality).

2. They way the power of the music can actually discribe the space in which it is performed........ a large, well done space reflects that feeling thru the sounds.

3. The quality of the people involved, performers and listeners.

There is nothing quite like the response of the audience after a great opera act


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

classidaho said:


> 1. The satisfying musical quality (the same thing can drive me away; such as a piano or violin piece that is composed to show cleverness or finger dexterety and has zilch musical quality).=


When you talk about the things that drive you away, I take it that you're describing Liszt


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## classidaho (May 5, 2009)

Yes, for an instance, or Paganini, or .......... There are many compositions that actually embarrass me when I am accompanied by someone that I am hoping might take a liking to classical music (mostly piano music that sounds like, purely, a finger exercise for covering the scales).

Many classic composers are guilty of this show of complexity that has little to do with coherent melodey. Watching fingers move on video is one thing, enjoying the sounds are another!


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Because it's all about the music.


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## KaerbEmEvig (Dec 15, 2009)

Polednice said:


> When you talk about the things that drive you away, I take it that you're describing Liszt


Hey, hey! You find La Campanella bad? What the heck...


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## classidaho (May 5, 2009)

OOoops!, I'm bad.......this is supposed to be a positive thread and I swerved to the right!, Sorry, Chuck


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

There doesn't even have to be a reason, it's what I do. I love learning and performing great masterpieces of music (on the piano, of course). When I'm listening, I do it for emotional and intellectual satisfaction.. unless I'm listening to Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov, I'm always trying to learn something when I listen to music.


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## James clerk (Jan 28, 2010)

because The Beatles released only 13 albums (?),


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