# classical music and classical method



## arnerich (Aug 19, 2016)

Often when the average person thinks about classical music they may associate it, understandably, with a style. The style being music from the classical era. 

Here on the forums we all pretty much understand that classical music encompasses more than just music from the classical era but from many eras. These eras are notably different from one another.

But because all these eras get lumped under one term I think it's worth considering redefining classical music altogether so that it doesn't define any era at all! But rather defines a method for making music; the classical method. 

Why is this worth doing? Because if we define music by it's forms and processes (like sonata form, fugue, variation form and so on) then it doesn't matter if we're talking about music from the classical era, romantic era, tonal, atonal, etc. Then we're talking about a framework for making music rather than a style. 

Personally, as a composer, one of my goals is to help non-musicians become aware of these forms and procedures. Whats the best way to do that? I recently composed a work that I posted in the "Today's Composers" section of the forum, Rhapsody on Themes from the Legend of Zelda (the link is in my signature below).

I used only themes from the hugely popular Zelda video game and made it into a sonata form movement that also displays variation form and even fugue. I wanted to use existing melodies people were familiar with and then, unbeknownst to them, turn it into "classical music" by using these classical methods.

If we can introduce classical methods to a new generation by applying it to music they're familiar with than perhaps we can bring interest back to classical music as a whole. What are your thoughts?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I think it's a very interesting, even admirable idea. Novices would be attentive because they can relate to the music.

The problem as I see it is exposure. How does one get this idea out there among the non-classical music loving masses?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

One way to approach defining "classical" music is to stipulate that once it has been composed, it is then available as a published score or recipe for how the music is to be played. And that there is then an expectation that subsequent performances will closely mimic one another--there will be no such concept as a "cover" version, or "improvisations" upon Work X, unless that is clearly noted in advance. That the work is to be subsequently performed using the instrumentation specified by the composer/score in such a manner that wherever and whenever subsequent performances are performed, they sound very similar to one another. This would, I think, separate classical from jazz, pop, etc. It would include film scores, very likely.


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