# "The Awfulness of Classical Music Explained"



## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

Read this article today:



> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dare/classical-music-concerts_b_1525896.html


At the end of article he wrote:

_Here are the two most shattering facts about classical music today: *First, Americans are writing, playing, recording and listening to more orchestra music today than they ever have before in history -- mostly in the form of film music and video game soundtracks. So we know they like the general sound.

They just don't like listening to it with us, at concert halls. And that is the second fact.*

Perhaps it's because of trying to keep classical music audiences living in the dark, in perpetual fear that they might not understand the secret and elite codes of long-term insiders, brainwashing core subscribers into an irrational hatred of anyone who dares to disrupt their peace-and-quiet even if accidentally, regimenting the experience with a coerced and inculcated rigidity that would be abhorrent to any composer worth his or her salt: This is how we have made classical music so awful.

Perhaps it's time to tell our own darling leaders to bug off and in place of their formalities simply allow ourselves to react to classical music with our hearts just as we do when we meet other forms of art. Classical music belongs to the audience -- to its listeners, not the critics, to the citizens, not the snobs.

Why not reclaim your music today?

What do you think, readers? Do you think classical music could be presented in a better way than it is today?
_

What do you think? is his arguments valid about the state of classical music today?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

"Perhaps it's because of trying to keep classical music audiences living in the dark, in perpetual fear that they might not understand the secret and elite codes of long-term insiders, brainwashing core subscribers into an irrational hatred of anyone who dares to disrupt their peace-and-quiet even if accidentally, regimenting the experience with a coerced and inculcated rigidity that would be abhorrent to any composer worth his or her salt: This is how we have made classical music so awful."

What?. We go and listen in silence, for respect to the music, the composer, and the performers. Also, we put our brains to work because we want to understand what is going on in the music. That's all what we do at concerts. All the other things only exist in the paranoid mind of the person who wrote that article.

"Perhaps it's time to tell our own darling leaders to bug off and in place of their formalities simply allow ourselves to react to classical music with our hearts just as we do when we meet other forms of art. "

lol, no words... So, we, actually, hate classical music, but we listen to it because we are snobs. Sorry, that "critique" is so cliche that it is even of bad taste to write it.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Maybe they didn't have a complimentary press ticket for him at Will Call and he never got over it. (first paragraph of article)


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

People still jump up and yell "Bravo!" at the end of a particularly good performance. What does he want? People waving Bic lighters and singing "Kumbaya?"


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Weston said:


> People still jump up and yell "Bravo!" at the end of a particularly good performance. What does he want? People waving Bic lighters and singing "Kumbaya?"


I think most people would think that bad form during a performance of Barber's Adagio....


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I think they should try to involve the audience more, like they do at magic shows. Let children fool around with the timpanis during the performance and the 1st violinist should give up his stradivarius for a piece to a lucky audience member. And swap out the conductor for a random senior for that final movement of the Mahler. Further more, how about laser light shows and disco balls, serving cold beer and peanuts in the aisles, and having jeans as the official dress code. Then classical music will be saved.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

People go to concerts to listen to music otherwise you're there for the wrong reasons. The person who wrote this article is a moron who doesn't know anything about music.


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

Couchie said:


> I think they should try to involve the audience more, like they do at magic shows. Let children fool around with the timpanis during the performance and the 1st violinist should give up his stradivarius for a piece to a lucky audience member. And swap out the conductor for a random senior for that final movement of the Mahler. Further more, how about laser light shows and disco balls, serving cold beer and peanuts in the aisles, and having jeans as the official dress code. Then classical music will be saved.


Comedic Gold for Couchie! :tiphat:


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

A while ago I attended a performance of a piece of chamber music put on in the atrium of the computer science building at my university. The composer was in attendance, and he gave a short[sup]1[/sup] talk before hand. He specifically mentioned that he didn't want the concert-hall conventions followed: the audience should not feel obliged to be silent and we should come and go as we pleased. The audience was mostly made up of CS students and academics who happened to be in the area at the time, not classical music "insiders" or "elites", and probably not subscribers to the local symphony. Despite all that, they followed the concert-hall etiquette: nobody talked audibly, nobody rustled their candy wrappers, and people coming and going were scrupulously silent. I wonder why that was.

Oh yes: it was _because they wanted to hear the freaking music_.

Seriously: concert etiquette isn't some mystical set of stone tablets handed down by the snobs, it's there because _people understand how not to be annoying when other people are trying to enjoy art_. People generally don't talk at movie theatres because _that's really annoying_. It's not that difficult to extend the same logic to the concert-hall.

1. Long.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

"Nowadays, however, Beethoven it seems in spite of all his revolutionary fervor has along with the whole kit-and-caboodle of classical music become something of a rather dull commodity -- so perfect in every way that his music displays not really greatness or excitement anymore, but (I am sad to report) only "packaged greatness.""



Speak for yourself Mr. Dare! Every time I listen to a work, I am struck anew by its sheer grandiosity and beauty. If a listerner has become inured to great music, I don't blame the dread etiquette, the operative [I want to say 'guilty' but that word is a bit too loaded] quality probably lies with the listener.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*The author of "The Awfulness of Classical Music Explained" explained....*

This man clearly needed to be allowed to stay overnight -- unaccompanied by a family member -- at some friend's house when he was not older than six years old, preferably before age six. Then he would not have later in life been so uncomfortable as to need an escort to the ticket box, nor need his hand held to purchase that ticket and sit in the auditorium and listen.

Take the rest of the article from that premise of his childhood deprivation as explaining his lack of development into an eventual adulthood, and the article will make a kind of sense.

Otherwise, in this case, there is, yet again, plainly a need to place that urgent call to 911 for the Wambulance.
http://www.thewambulance.com/


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Hmm. Never obviously been to the last night of the proms. Or to some of our more enlightened Baroque concerts:









This is Crispian Steele-Perkins about to play Handel's water music (what else) using a genuine baroque trumpet mouth piece.

Perhaps the British are more relaxed about music?


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## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I think most people would think that bad form during a performance of Barber's Adagio....


Or Tristan und Isolde :


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Taggart said:


> Hmm. Never obviously been to the last night of the proms. Or to some of our more enlightened Baroque concerts:
> 
> View attachment 17859
> 
> ...


Yes, this was a fabulous concert. I have never heard such stirring music played on a garden hosepipe & I don't suppose I ever will again. Crispian Steele-Perkins is about as far as you can get from a stuck-up musician demanding respect from a stiff, formal audience. He rides a motor-bike & is a skilled raconteur. Waiting in the queue, I overheard a conversation; a person who'd put C S-P up overnight during his stay in Norwich was telling someone else what a really nice, charming guest he had been. So the public face is the same as the private. He was the guest of Norwich Baroque, our local ensemble, and if you visit their FB page, you'll see a lot of chat & badinage, just as it should be.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

No, this guy is absolutely right. And here's another elitist convention I can't stand. You know when you go to an art gallery and they hang the paintings at roughly eye level and facing away from the wall? How stuffy is that??! Amiright? You have to _literally_ walk from painting to painting like a mindless drone, a pathetic supplicant in a parade of obsequiousness, shuffling along in debasement to the zealous gods of art. And if you want to really enjoy the painting you're forced to Just. Stand. There. Who the hell designed art galleries? Stalin? Etc etc.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> And if you want to really enjoy the painting you're forced to Just. Stand. There. Who the hell designed art galleries? Stalin? Etc etc.


and you can't even touch the artwork when you feel like it! at least galleries allow refreshments.

on a serious note, I actually am the nerd who stands quietly and only gets drinks between acts during pop music shows.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Actually I wish more people would behave with less enthusiasm at non-classical concerts. I stopped going to avoid people throwing up on my shoes. It's distracting. DVDs are the way to enjoy concerts for me -- of any genre.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The Establishment Strikes Back! 

You are rebuffed, Mr. Opinionator on Huff-Post. 

Anyway, I don't go to many big time concerts of any sort, because they're just too darned expensive. Almost all the concerts I go to are free or less than $10 or so. So I won't be helping to support any major orchestras or anything in the near future, and if they all go out of business I'll take my share of the blame. 

But on the whole I think the Huff-Post opinionator is right - most people know that they are not going to enjoy spending a couple of hours among people like us, and we know that we won't enjoy them being there, and the whole set-up is designed in part (maybe even primarily) to ensure that neither they nor we are forced to endure the unpleasant encounter. We are essentially a clique defending our cultural territory. 

And hey, that's our right. We live in a big multicultural world and there's room for us all, and now that robots are about to take most of our jobs away, we need something to distract us and all this'll do just fine.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Sounds like much ado about nothing, from a writer scrambling for a last-minute piece.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

I'd like to see the spirit of competition more in the concert hall. So when you get home, the first thing everybody will want to know is "who won?" Like a "Dancing With The Stars" or "American Idol " thing. Look at how much interest the "Mozart vs. Beethoven " thread generated. I can see Ludwig being interviewed by the press after a close loss blaming Schuppanzigh for being to fat or "the first movement killed us, we came out flat."


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## Unbennant (May 12, 2013)

> One step therefore we might take to make classical music less boring again is simply for audiences to quit being so blasted reverential.


Um, no. If he wants to "w00t w00t" like he does at hip hop concerts, he can attend these instead. Some things deserve ceremony, it's part of the ritual that makes it a satisfying experience.

Dare is the kind of person who wants to level everything off until you have one big, flat, faceless cultural landscape where everything equals everything else. He even equates film scores and video game soundtracks with actual Western concert music. As if the typical 14-25-year-old wastoid addicted to Final Fantasy is a Beethoven fan waiting to happen.

This is why I never read the Huffington Post and these liberal loons' cultural Marxist blabberings.



ahammel said:


> People generally don't talk at movie theatres because _that's really annoying_.


Obviously not a New Yawker.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Unbennant said:


> Obviously not a New Yawker.


Fine: *Canadians* generally don't talk at movie theatres because that's really annoying


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I must admit I have not attended all that many classical concerts in my life yet, but the few times I did, I have not seen a trace of any "secret and elite codes", "a coerced and inculcated rigidity" or anything that would make me feel like the author of that article. In fact, at least once I have experienced just the opposite - an atmosphere of freedom and exhilaration that made even total strangers perfectly comfortable sharing their impressions with one another afterwards (it was a concert of Wagner excerpts, by the way). 

It is self-evident even to a teenager who has been brought to a concert with his parents, that classical music is meant to be enjoyed in silent concentration. Whoever is not ready for that, simply does not belong to a classical concert, let him go someplace else.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I have to say I don't enjoy going to concerts much, but that is mainly because I don't enjoy being surrounded by hundreds of people. At home, I control the environment, the programming, the level of extra-musical noise etc. and I'm free to do as I please while the music is playing. Concert halls are nice, but they just don't suit me personally.

By the way, the OP makes reference to video game and film music as classical music, I've already explained how I feel about that idea here.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> No, this guy is absolutely right. And here's another elitist convention I can't stand. You know when you go to an art gallery and they hang the paintings at roughly eye level and facing away from the wall? How stuffy is that??! Amiright? You have to _literally_ walk from painting to painting like a mindless drone, a pathetic supplicant in a parade of obsequiousness, shuffling along in debasement to the zealous gods of art. And if you want to really enjoy the painting you're forced to Just. Stand. There. Who the hell designed art galleries? Stalin? Etc etc.


Damned right! Forcing you, in a diabolical ploy, to purchase it if you really want to enjoy it. That is the only option if you wish to _freely_ enjoy it, say, while laying about in your bathrobe, sweatsuit or nothing, have a snack -- perhaps something other than the wine, cheese and bottled water gallery cliches), have the music on you like, smoke (and smoke whatever you wish) etc.

It's an @)(%*(#$ing elitist capitalist imperialist fascist conspiracy, I say.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

Unbennant said:


> As if the typical 14-25-year-old wastoid addicted to Final Fantasy is a Beethoven fan waiting to happen.


Well, why not? I agree with your post but only to a degree. I do think there might be a beethoven fan waiting to happen in many many people, we just have to convince them to give two or three full attentive listens to the Eroica


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## Unbennant (May 12, 2013)

niv said:


> Well, why not? I agree with your post but only to a degree. I do think there might be a beethoven fan waiting to happen in many many people, we just have to convince them to give two or three full attentive listens to the Eroica


Well, that may be true of many people, sure. I just didn't buy the author implying someone who likes Uematsu's Final Fantasy scores is a step away from a philharmonic subscription just 'cause the scores are orchestral. S' all I'm sayin'.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Unbennant said:


> Well, that may be true of many people, sure. I just didn't buy the author implying someone who likes Uematsu's Final Fantasy scores is a step away from a philharmonic subscription just 'cause the scores are orchestral. S' all I'm sayin'.


Fair enough, but it probably wasn't necessary to attack gamers to make that point.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

the concert hall etiquette and elitism might play some part but i don't think its the main reason for people not liking classical music.

they seem to be genuinely disgusted by it. their faces turn to stone and they look away, fidget, start up their ipod and play some pop music.

it probably seems worse if you put CM against the entirely false image of pop music. but if you measure it's popularity against real music CM comes out quite high.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think the orchestra should be outside on the ground, and people can come up and sit as close as they want to, and smoke dope.


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

I'm not in total agreement with the article, but I think the author does make a bit of a point, though. My father began to develop an interest in classical music upon his retirement, so I took him to see Murray Perahia perform in a solo recital at Chicago's Orchestra Hall. I thought it would be an easier one for my father to handle as Perahia would be performing a charming Haydn sonata, Moonlight, and a Chopin. My father grew fidgety from having to sit for too long ("long" defined as about 4 minutes into the Haydn, which was the first piece), pulled out his iPhone and began checking the scores of various sports games.

And that's just my father's generation. I hear the scene is a bit different outside of the US, but I have yet to attend a single CSO concert in which the average age does not appear to be less than 60...and this genuinely concerns me. There is a Juilliard professor who has complained openly that funding for the NY Phil has been in decline due to the inability to attract younger concert goers (his intriguing datapoint being that, previously, the highest-income region of Manhattan was the Upper East Side which more generously funded classical music; but today it is the much younger/hipper Tribeca…with many of its residents never having attended a classical music concert...prefering contemporary art, theater and dance instead). His point being that funding for orchestras in the US has been too dependent on the middle-aged. And as these organizations braced themselves for new funding as soon as Gen-X turned 45, the new funds did not come because these individuals are listening to the same music as their kids!

That said, I also have read somewhere that classical music is the fastest growing segment for downloaded music...and is particularly high for Korea and other developed Asian countries. So, this genre does have a brighter side in some parts of the world.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

IBMchicago said:


> I'm not in total agreement with the article, but I think the author does make a bit of a point, though. My father began to develop an interest in classical music upon his retirement, so I took him to see Murray Perahia perform in a solo recital at Chicago's Orchestra Hall. I thought it would be an easier one for my father to handle as Perahia would be performing a charming Haydn sonata, Moonlight, and a Chopin. My father grew fidgety from having to sit for too long ("long" defined as about 4 minutes into the Haydn, which was the first piece), pulled out his iPhone and began checking the scores of various sports games.


I'm not sure there's anything "classical music" can do to solve that particular problem, though - aside from only programming 3-minute works, of course!


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> I'm not sure there's anything "classical music" can do to solve that particular problem, though - aside from only programming 3-minute works, of course!


the "first salvo" thread might be the way to go - program 100 30sec works and bam! influx of people for the concert hall.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

deggial said:


> the "first salvo" thread might be the way to go - program 100 30sec works and bam! influx of people for the concert hall.


Ringtone concerts! I knew there was a frontier yet to be broken in the concert halls!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

niv said:


> Well, why not? I agree with your post but only to a degree. I do think there might be a beethoven fan waiting to happen in many many people, we just have to convince them to give two or three full attentive listens to the Eroica


Naw, first you have to re-train them to have an attention span longer than three minutes or less


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Naw, first you have to re-train them to have an attention span longer than three minutes or less


I know how to do that: just make them listen to the Ring a few times over.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I know how to do that: just make them listen to the Ring a few times over.


Ahh, then. Their first exposure should be to the music of Philip Glass


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Ahh, then. Their first exposure should be to the music of Philip Glass


Or Rothko Chapel. That'll get their toes tapping!


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Naw, first you have to re-train them to have an attention span longer than three minutes or less


Well, many people listen to albums or dj mixes, which are way longer than three minutes... The thing with these extended pieces I think is that your brain needs to make a little more effort to get them, to understand the full relationship between all the elements.

But I believe that if you have a little faith and repeat to them "THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT" and let them believe... they will get it.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

niv said:


> [...]
> But I believe that if you have a little faith and repeat to them "THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT" and let them believe... they will get it.


I think what I would 'get' is the need for preventive measures..


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## Guest (May 16, 2013)

peeyaj said:


> _What do you think, readers? Do you think classical music could be presented in a better way than it is today?
> _
> 
> What do you think? is his arguments valid about the state of classical music today?


Sorry peeyaj, but to be frank, it was so badly written that I lost the will to live after measure 394. Consequently, I doubt that such a poorly expressed opinion is worth worrying about.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A question: Why should we care about the music young people like? I don't remember anybody trying to convince me to favor this kind of music or that when I was young (other than the usual peer pressure), and am willing to offer today's young people the same courtesy.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Concert tickets are hard to afford for people under age 50, honestly.
At least concert tickets that are meant to be purchased on a semi-regular basis. I do know people who will pay $80 to go see U2, but they only do that once every 3 years or something. They couldn't possibly afford a several-times-a-year U2 concert subscription.
You guys remember that "how old are you" poll don't you? Our forum's average age is way below the average age of concert attenders. I honestly think cost has much more to do with it than musical interest.

I wonder what an average-age poll of itunes classical listeners would look like?


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

hreichgott said:


> Concert tickets are hard to afford for people under age 50, honestly.


It's only $35-$40 to sit in the cheap seats hear abouts. I can afford that once every couple of months pretty easily.

Only $25-$30 with a student discount.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

peeyaj said:


> Read this article today:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=460194
> 
> ...


_

Well, those film and video scores don't show up too often at Symphony Hall, now do they?
If you want to exchange almost the entire audience base, the more senior for the younger, you will also have to then drop at least 90% of the more standard programming of actual full-length classical works on the program, and exchange them for orchestral suites with no one segment lasting much more than, I'd guess five to six minutes.

That younger audience base is not going to be at all willing or happy to pay the ticket prices the senior audiences do, nor do I think they are going to show up regularly, single ticket purchases or subscription series.

Besides, how many Legend of Zelda suites are there, as it were, orchestrated from the original midi mini music chip they were first on?_


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

niv said:


> But I believe that if you have a little faith and repeat to them "THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT THIS WILL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT" and let them believe... they will get it.


Assumes they haven't already done that using various substances, or that they had one in the first place. 

Also assumes they can comprehend more than I IV V.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Well, those film and video scores don't show up too often at Symphony Hall, now do they?


They do occasionally. My local symphony will do a suite from a movie or video game score a couple of times a year, presumably to attract young (in some cases very young) audiences.

It's fine with me, as long as I'm not expected to attend.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

LordBlackudder said:


> the concert hall etiquette and elitism might play some part but i don't think its the main reason for people not liking classical music.
> 
> they seem to be genuinely disgusted by it. their faces turn to stone and they look away, fidget, start up their ipod and play some pop music.
> 
> it probably seems worse if you put CM against the entirely false image of pop music. but if you measure it's popularity against real music CM comes out quite high.


Yes, the fidgeting gives it away. I know as a teacher, one had to make lessons 'exciting' all the time, but since people can't stay excited all that long, the 'exciting' just became boring. As a child, I learned many excellent skills at school that aren't taught now commonly - Latin, bible studies, embroidery, the full stretch of English history (not just the 20th century) - but another very valuable lesson was the ability to cope with boring material because it was obviously useful.

It isn't that classical music is boring but that it does demand patience & concentration & that is not encouraged today in education or the media. I remember watching a video of their set Shakespeare play with an A-level group (16-18 year olds) and when I stopped it after a scene and asked them how an actor had treated a famous speech or interpreted a major character in that scene of about five minutes long, they could not tell me, even though they were intelligent & well-motivated.

Woe is me... hey nonny nonny ... alack & welladay!


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

KenOC said:


> A question: Why should we care about the music young people like? I don't remember anybody trying to convince me to favor this kind of music or that when I was young (other than the usual peer pressure), and am willing to offer today's young people the same courtesy.


Good point. No one forced me to love classical music either as it was largely motivated by self discovery and exploration. However, I personally care about this because young people will eventually move the the markets. And if I am to continue to attend concerts by my beloved city orchestra for the remainder of my life, I need more people my age or younger to take an interest. Alternately, I need my friends to become super-ambitious and run large corporations that will blindly donate to the orchestra. Still, I can't convince even the most learned and most open-minded of them to enjoy/attend concerts as they prefer art, theater and literature/poetry. So, if the CSO collapses due to poor attendance and limited funding over the next few decades, then I'll just have to save up on airfare to Seoul, I suppose.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ahammel said:


> They do occasionally. My local symphony will do a suite from a movie or video game score a couple of times a year, presumably to attract young (in some cases very young) audiences.
> 
> It's fine with me, as long as I'm not expected to attend.


Not often, and on a non-subscription night, maybe part of a series, 'pop' and always a special occasion. Some symphonies have a mini series of running the movie with the soundtrack score played live by the band, again, an apart deal, a decent revenue maker not known or yet proven to attract any from that audience who get converted to the classical music evenings.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

IBMchicago said:


> Good point. No one forced me to love classical music either as it was largely motivated by self discovery and exploration. However, I personally care about this because young people will eventually move the the markets. And if I am to continue to attend concerts by my beloved city orchestra for the remainder of my life, I need more people my age or younger to take an interest. Alternately, I need my friends to become super-ambitious and run large corporations that will blindly donate to the orchestra. Still, I can't convince even the most learned and most open-minded of them to enjoy/attend concerts as they prefer art, theater and literature/poetry. So, if the CSO collapses due to poor attendance and limited funding over the next few decades, then I'll just have to save up on airfare to Seoul, I suppose.


Known and proven that if young people are given a healthy exposure, including hands-on experience with instruments, all with more than a nudge toward classical, that is where many a fan can be made / brought into the area so they later are and stay interested. Just like the young are systematically exposed to other disciplines thought of interest. The CSO did have and may still do, a program where a handful of players went to local public schools, played a bit, let kids try to make a sound on the bassoon, etc. May still do... that is invaluable.

I think a lot has to do with current seat prices. Though a young person will pay hundreds of dollars to hear a pop group in a vast auditorium, without first knowing what the repertoire is, or what the live experience is like, I don't think they are going to pop for a (less expensive) ticket to the symphony.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

KenOC said:


> A question: Why should we care about the music young people like? I don't remember anybody trying to convince me to favor this kind of music or that when I was young (other than the usual peer pressure), and am willing to offer today's young people the same courtesy.


Well, I personally have a drive to spread whatever I think it's great to my peers. That being an idea, a book, a movie, or even music. So whenever I introduce someone to something, and they like it, I feel a little bit happy inside. And a lot of people are like me, I guess it's a natural social drive we have, by evolution, God, Goddess, or whatever.
So, it's only natural that people on here want to spread classical music. I mean, isn't that why all those lists of top symphonies, operas, etc, are created?

That said, we should give everyone else the courtesy of letting them not like whatever we want to present to them. Because they like something else! And perhaps they have good reasons to like whatever they like, reasons that we don't understand, reasons that perhaps are a little bit more complex than "I don't get anything besides I IV V"


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

ahammel said:


> It's only $35-$40 to sit in the cheap seats hear abouts. I can afford that once every couple of months pretty easily.
> 
> Only $25-$30 with a student discount.


Hereabouts, you can go to the local orchestras' performances here for US $12-$25 -- decent community orchestras and college orchestras -- and those are incredibly age-diverse. When the BSO is at Tanglewood you can sit on the lawn for $20. Also quite age-diverse. But the local concert series that brings in the likes of Richard Goode and Brooklyn Rider is $45, and that's mostly older people.


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## IBMchicago (May 16, 2012)

Some outdoor classical concerts with good programming are completely free to the public (e.g., Millenium Park). So accessibility is certainly there. Exposure in childhood never hurts. However, again, just about everyone I know has either played an instrument or played on a soccer team as a child, but neither experience translates into adult interest (in the US). I still think it has something more to do with the apparent formal nature and/or current attitudes in classical music, and the listening experience just not keeping with the times. Read about the experience of a concert goer 200 years ago and the experience honestly seems like a blast. Maybe they ought to bring back the tomatoes (or find some less hostile equivalent). Well...just a suggestion.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

IBMchicago said:


> the listening experience just not keeping with the times


I wonder why people claim this is a problem of classical music -- when today's movie audiences, drama audiences and dance audiences have no trouble at all sitting still and paying attention to the performance?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hreichgott said:


> I wonder why people claim this is a problem of classical music -- when today's movie audiences, drama audiences and dance audiences have no trouble at all sitting still and paying attention to the performance?


a-Yep. a-Yep. a-Yep.


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## niv (Apr 9, 2013)

I guess the reason is that youth nowadays are more interested in musical experiences that involve dancing, headbanging, or something of the sort. I personally think there's room for both kind of experiences, and there's nothing wrong with classical style IMHO, in fact it suits the style of music better*

* but I love dancing like a maniac while listening to the Rite Of Spring or Petroushka, but I guess that ain't going to be any more popular in the discotheques soon enough.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

peeyaj said:


> _Here are the two most shattering facts about classical music today: *First, Americans are writing, playing, recording and listening to more orchestra music today than they ever have before in history -- mostly in the form of film music and video game soundtracks. So we know they like the general sound.
> 
> They just don't like listening to it with us, at concert halls. And that is the second fact.*
> _


It is not, imo, the "elitist conventions' or cadres of cognoscenti, but a simple fact that those who love the film scores and video game scores generally do not have any developed sense of an extended attention span for listening to longer and more developed pieces.

The cited pops fare is all episodic, each episode brief, often simplistic (recognize that theme, over and over) and just lighter fare altogether. Often, the introduction to a piece of classical music runs at least the amount of time one of those film or video suites has completed one of its brief episodes.

There is a huge difference between listening to a three minute mini cantata the likes of one section of The Legend of Zelda vs just one section of Prokofeiv's Alexander Nevsky, _Battle on the Ice_. Battle on the ice, one part of the Prokofiev Cantata, has a duration nearly as long as the Zelda Suite in its entirety.

I suppose a program of much shorter single-movement or briefer multiple movement works might "accomodate" the newer listener who comes for and from the lighter semi-classical fare.

But it is clearly a matter of length of attention span before any other "issues."

"They just don't like listening to it with us, at concert halls." Well, if your attention span for length and content is the equivalent of a kindergartner, you might feel not so comfortable at an event pitched to adults, with adults all around you


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I sort of do wonder though, about audiences being a bit stilted. I mean, extraverted displays of enjoyment are what I'm all about at home when dancing around the room or something, so why is there this need to sit down and "be still" like some monk in a temple? 

Nonetheless, if you know how to meditate you could probably get a very enthralling experience without twitching about. 

I don't know. I have had an issue at concerts I've been to where the expectation to be still and polite has prevented me from enjoying my experience at all.


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## Yardrax (Apr 29, 2013)

clavichorder said:


> ]...extraverted displays of enjoyment are what I'm all about at home when dancing around the room or something, so why is there this need to sit down and "be still" like some monk in a temple?


Because you're not at home?


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

I have no problem with the stillness of the audience in a classical performance (although I prefer to be in nicer seats where you do have some wiggle room) because classical music fluctuates so much in sound-level; there are moments where it can be very quiet and the lack of noise from the audience is essential to hearing all parts of the music. It's not like a popular music concert where the music is ear-damaging loud the entire time. And this is coming from someone who considers "dubstep" among one of his favorite genres of music...

But I'm not going to try and pretend that the differences in the actual sound don't warrant some of the differences in the way the audience behaves.


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