# Classical vs Jazz



## PresenTense (May 7, 2016)

Since this is a classical forum, why do you prefer Classical over Jazz? I mean, I like both but I feel classical as my home right now. What do you think about that?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't prefer one over the other. In fact, both are my true loves.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I like the complex, goal-directed forms of classical music. Highly developed and precisely wrought structures, requiring powers of memory and cognitive integration, provide intellectual satisfaction even in music to which I have no strong emotional attachment. 

I can enjoy good jazz musicians playing with a tune, but my tastes in jazz are very limited, usually to harmonically rich, moody stuff. There are certain qualities of harmony and rhythm that make jazz jazz, and I'm not always in the mood for those, whereas classical, spanning many centuries and everything from solo instrumental to massive choral works and opera, is so broad there's really no quality that's typical of it.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Very very hard to know which is 'better.' But it is a classical music forum, and I know a heck of a lot more about classical music than I do about jazz. I still really respect and enjoy jazz.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Classical all the way for me, but jazz is a big part of who I am too and to deny it's place would be lying. :tiphat:
The saxophone is my favourite instrument outside of certain instruments associated with classical, aside the Vibraphone which they both share.

Whether it's Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Bach or Xenakis, you'll catch me driving with it up as loud as possible!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

clavichorder said:


> Very very hard to know which is 'better.' But it is a classical music forum, and I know a heck of a lot more about classical music than I do about jazz. I still really respect and enjoy jazz.


I second this .


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

I think I prefer Classical over Jazz for the simple reason that my childhood was filled with classical music. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy jazz, just that it evokes fewer pleasant childhood and youthful memories than classical does. If my early years had been filled by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington, my preferences might now be different. Both musical "homes" are quite distinct (but really not that dissimilar), but they each have their attractions. I think I'll play a little Antonio Carlos Jobim, instead of Heitor Villa-Lobos tonight (Corcovado being a fair trade for Chôros Typico No.1).


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I don't prefer one of them either and it depends on the mood I'm in but there are big differences between both, especially when it comes to rhythm or 'groove'. Generally speaking classical music appeals more to my cerebral appreciation of music and jazz more to my 'anima'. Somehow they seem to use different channels to enter my brain and nervous system. I enjoy both of them.


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## SimonDekkerLinnros (Jun 15, 2016)

Jazz is less serious and suits more as background music, and sometimes you just start drumming because it feels good!
Classical music however can amaze me in a way that jazz is not capable of.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Sometimes I'm in the mood for classical, sometimes jazz, sometimes pop/rock.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

*slams both fists on table*

Classical. CLASSICAL. All the way.


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## BoggyB (May 6, 2016)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> *slams both fists on table*
> 
> Classical. CLASSICAL. All the way.


+1



SimonDekkerLinnros said:


> Jazz is less serious and suits more as background music, and sometimes you just start drumming because it feels good!
> Classical music however can amaze me in a way that jazz is not capable of.


+1 (except I don't drum to it).

I've always regarded jazz as classical music that doesn't make an effort. It's as if its composers looked at the classical repertoire, decided they couldn't match up to it, and thought "sod it, let's just knock any old thing out".

Another way I think of it is this. Classical music is like an adventure, a theme park ride, and it can be exhilarating. But if you've been at work all day, using your brain, and you're at home in the evening, you want something to wind down with, so you stick on some jazz. On Sunday, however, when your brain wants stimulation, you stick on a symphony or concerto.

Finally, if the human metaphor for classical music is a wavy-haired man stomping through wild countryside shaking his fists, the metaphor for jazz is a depressed man dawdling down the sidewalk (to use an American word) kicking an empty can of coke as he goes.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Chalk and cheese. Not a comparison worth making.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

BoggyB said:


> Finally, if the human metaphor for classical music is a wavy-haired man stomping through wild countryside shaking his fists...


This seems to imply that all classical music is Beethoven.

I personally feel that a better anthropomorphic personification of classical music would be a Mozartian late-1700s violinist in a powdered wig, or a conductor with a baton.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

A lot of us here probably don't know enough about jazz to make intelligent comparisons, though it seems that hasn't stopped some.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Surely the difference is a question essentially of _modus operandi_.

Jazz is improvisational music - classical anything but. Classical music is notated, though the degree to which this is the case varies between genre and composer e.g. Baroque: Telemann Vs. Bach. Jazz uses lead sheets for the "Head" then musician(s) improvise over the changes before returning to the Head in the close.

I see the two, Jazz and Classical, as equals. I wish others here would refrain from pretentious pronouncements over the integrity of one over the other. It only serves to highlight one's lack of understanding. Really.


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## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

I like Jazz, but I prefer Classical Music.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Yeah, I like good music.
What's "good"?
The stuff I like.
Classical? Jazz? Pop?
Yeah. That works for me. Like I said: good music!


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

I love classical music, but I don't like singing classical nearly as much as I like singing jazz. In fact, I don't listen to many classical vocal works, and (as blasphemous as this is) I'm really not a big fan of opera.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

BoggyB said:


> +1
> 
> +1 (except I don't drum to it).
> 
> ...


I quite often wind down to stuff like this when I'm dawdling down the sidewalk!!






or this


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## Scopitone (Nov 22, 2015)

I can't choose. 

Both are complex, emotional, and enthralling. And both have seemingly endless artists and pieces and styles to absorb and discover. Either one could make a lifetime of study.

Fortunately, I love both. Unfortunately, I do not have two lifetimes. LOL


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

It's all music. I would not make such a comparison. Some days I want to listen to Beethoven, some days Brubeck. They're different, but "better"? No, just different. Most jazz is theme & variations based, and that's not exactly rare in the classical genre.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

KRoad said:


> Jazz is improvisational music - classical anything but.


I'd ask "Why do people say this?" but it would be rhetorical, because I know the answer is that jazz has to pretend it invented improvisation, because otherwise it would have to admit that it didn't invent much of anything.

re: OP - Jazz is classical music. It stopped being popular music after the 1960s. So this question is like asking "Classical music vs stylus fantasticus."


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> I'd ask "Why do people say this?" but it would be rhetorical, because I know the answer is that jazz has to pretend it invented improvisation, because otherwise it would have to admit that it didn't invent much of anything.
> 
> re: OP - Jazz is classical music. It stopped being popular music after the 1960s. So this question is like asking "Classical music vs stylus fantasticus."


Oh geez not this again.

No one ever said jazz invented improvisation, which would be absurd.

There is no truth at all in the statement that jazz "is classical music."


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> Oh geez not this again.


What? A discussion of classical vs jazz in a thread called "classical vs jazz"?



isorhythm said:


> No one ever said jazz invented improvisation, which would be absurd.


No? At least in a USA/European context, what's the difference between that and saying "Jazz is improvisational music - classical anything but"?



isorhythm said:


> There is no truth at all in the statement that jazz "is classical music."


You might as well say 'There is no truth at all in the statement that monody [or whatever - anything that was ever perceived as new] "is classical music."'


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I love jazz. It is complex yet immediate. I love it so much that I can only listen sporadically, or else my mind gets too wrapped up into it. I like classical. I can listen to it without turning into a sociopath.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

May I add, nothing compares to the sexiness of saxophone and "cool jazz", classical can't touch that sort of eroticism. 

(But as most of you would know or realise, I'm a classical Composer and also fanatic way more than any other genre)


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

OldFashionedGirl said:


> I like Jazz, but I prefer Classical Music.


Works for me all the time.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

My least favorite form in classical music is theme and variations. My least favorite form in jazz is (improvised) theme and variations. The form is more prevalent in jazz.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I respect Jazz but I think it has limitations regardless its idea of being open ended. That's not to say that it won't morph into something different. I heard that Marvin Minsky the computer scientist improvises classical music. I think Jazz can inspire us to do things like that. I was recently enjoying the Norwegian electric jazz guitarist Terje Rypdal's music, and also the Finnish progressive rock bassist Pekka Pohjola, who sometimes played an interesting type of fusion and wrote a symphony. These people were doing things with jazz that Americans were not. I wish I could easily point out all the jazz I thought was great, but I would have to master the form of it, and remember my favorites, which with classical on my mind so much I don't have the time. 

Jazz is more a style of music whereas classical is a tradition of music that goes back more than a thousand years.


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

I hadn't been able to enjoy * listening* to most jazz performances so I gave up years ago. It occurs to me that the genres of classical music I love most are about the music rather than being a performance. I try to make it an intense experience that repays close concentration and closed-eyes self-forgetfulness. A much more selfish way of processing music than being in a sociable jazz audience.

I *do* enjoy trying to sing jazz numbers or jazz up something on the piano - I suppose I'm using all the more obvious tricks....


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Right now, I will probably give the nod to classical over jazz. But it is a narrow margin.



SimonDekkerLinnros said:


> Jazz is less serious and suits more as background music, and sometimes you just start drumming because it feels good!
> Classical music however can amaze me in a way that jazz is not capable of.


I'm not sure what kind of jazz you are listening to that lends itself more as background music than classical?

Most Coltrane, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cecil Taylor, Steve Coleman and the Five Elements, Panzer Ballett, and many more, require similar levels of concentration to enjoy as classical does. I could never imagine any of the above jazz artists being used as background music.

Classical can amaze me the way jazz can't, and jazz can amaze me in ways that classical can't.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> No? At least in a USA/European context, what's the difference between that and saying "Jazz is improvisational music - classical anything but"?


Also: Jazz can be non-improvisational. Pedants say Gershwin isn't jazz, but play "They Can't Take That Away" - just the melody and chords - to the person on the street and they'll say that's jazz. And even if we accept the pedants ' definition, some of the greatest, most famous moments in jazz may or may not have been improvised, but there's no way you could know from listening to them - e.g. the beginning of Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues."


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Some jazz is very nice music. I could do with it for background, but never pursued it much other than back around 1980 I bought all of the albums for Tom Scott and the LA Express. That was pretty much the extent of my jazz experience. 

I also notice some Jazzy piano in one of Bernstein's symphonies when checking them out on You Tube.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Florestan said:


> I also notice some Jazzy piano in one of Bernstein's symphonies when checking them out on You Tube.


#2, "The Age of S--- Poetry"


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Manxfeeder said:


> I like classical. I can listen to it without turning into a sociopath.


Who or what are you and how is this possible?! Someone once told me my spirit animal's a turtle because of the way I fall into a trance and stare at the sky when I get immersed in classical. (I avoid listening in public  )


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

Bebop is one of the most awesome things ever, for those that solely think jazz is "smooth jazz" or Swing. Jazz can be good for hitting yourself over the head too (in a Punk rock or thrash metal way), though my jazz preferences are very open. Coltrane and Coleman always get a good playing on my stereo when I'm in a Jazz mood!! :trp::guitar:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Florestan said:


> Some jazz is very nice music. I could do with it for background, but never pursued it much other than back around 1980 I bought all of the albums for Tom Scott and the LA Express. That was pretty much the extent of my jazz experience.
> 
> I also notice some Jazzy piano in one of Bernstein's symphonies when checking them out on You Tube.


Eileen Farrel, ( the one from Maria Stuarda with Sills) has some very fine recordings.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I love both and fortunately I don't have to choose.
Anyway those who say that "jazz is background music" know the genre well as those who say that "classical is background music".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

norman bates said:


> I love both and fortunately I don't have to choose.
> Anyway those who say that "jazz is background music" know the genre well as those who say that "classical is background music".


If music is worth hearing at all it's worth having in the foreground. If your dinner party is so dead that you need background music you should probably send everybody home and curl up with a good book - though I gather some of us need background music for that too now (if we even read books).


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> If music is worth hearing at all it's worth having in the foreground. If your dinner party is so dead that you need background music you should probably send everybody home and curl up with a good book - though I gather some of us need background music for that too now (if we even read books).


I don't have actually anything against listening music as a background, I mean I don't have a problem with not being super focused on music all the time... but when someone says "classical music is good as background" (and I've heard a lot of persons saying that) I always wonder what's their idea of classical music and I can't help but imagine them in a classy restaurant while Xenakis's Jonchaies is playing. 
Same for jazz. I suspect that those who say things like that are completely unaware of the genre besides few tunes (Take five, So what and similar stuff usually).


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Not being musically trained, I must resort to non-musical descriptors when discussing the differences between Classical and Jazz. Those descriptors may also have relevance beyond those two broad genres, and apply to discriminating among other musics as well.

I view most Classical music as being "goal-oriented", or "linear" music, whereas Jazz is "process-oriented" or "circular" music. Mind you, these are endpoints on a spectrum, and so there can be varying positions between, but I observe that Classical music is about an evolving narrative, and Jazz is about the trance-like pleasure of execution. I find similar parallels in, say, Rock and Pop, which again are mostly about journey toward a goal and resolution, and for example Celtic pub/folk instrumental music which seems to be about sustaining a drone-like, continuing mood. My own particular interest in cante flamenco reflects my own preference for that end of the spectrum hosting goal-oriented musics, in that resolution and emotional catharsis is mostly what cante is about. But there are times when it is good, very good, to lose oneself in the process, in the drone, in the groove. If others find this differentiation useful, I'd be interested in their examples.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> I like the complex, goal-directed forms of classical music. Highly developed and precisely wrought structures, requiring powers of memory and cognitive integration, provide intellectual satisfaction even in music to which I have no strong emotional attachment.
> 
> I can enjoy good jazz musicians playing with a tune, but my tastes in jazz are very limited, usually to harmonically rich, moody stuff. There are certain qualities of harmony and rhythm that make jazz jazz, and I'm not always in the mood for those, whereas classical, spanning many centuries and everything from solo instrumental to massive choral works and opera, is so broad there's really no quality that's typical of it.


I like both but classical much much more, and Woodduck phrased my feelings better than I could have done myself.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> Not being musically trained, I must resort to non-musical descriptors when discussing the differences between Classical and Jazz. Those descriptors may also have relevance beyond those two broad genres, and apply to discriminating among other musics as well.
> 
> I view most Classical music as being "goal-oriented", or "linear" music, whereas Jazz is "process-oriented" or "circular" music. Mind you, these are endpoints on a spectrum, and so there can be varying positions between, but I observe that Classical music is about an evolving narrative, and Jazz is about the trance-like pleasure of execution. I find similar parallels in, say, Rock and Pop, which again are mostly about journey toward a goal and resolution, and for example Celtic pub/folk instrumental music which seems to be about sustaining a drone-like, continuing mood. My own particular interest in cante flamenco reflects my own preference for that end of the spectrum hosting goal-oriented musics, in that resolution and emotional catharsis is mostly what cante is about. But there are times when it is good, very good, to lose oneself in the process, in the drone, in the groove. If others find this differentiation useful, I'd be interested in their examples.


I think your differentiation rings true and is very useful. Before I discovered the joy of goal-oriented music (classical), I was losing myself in process-oriented neo-folk (Current 93, Death in June and their imitators). Still love that stuff but the "doing" of classical music, vs. the "being" of neo-folk (and other atmosphere/noise music I listened) was an eye-opener, if not a soul-opener.


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

norman bates said:


> when someone says "classical music is good as background" (and I've heard a lot of persons saying that) I always wonder what's their idea of classical music and I can't help but imagine them in a classy restaurant while Xenakis's Jonchaies is playing.


Sounds like my kind of restaurant then!


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

Definitely Classical for me, although I haven't heard nearly as much Jazz as Classical.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Xaltotun said:


> I think your differentiation rings true and is very useful. Before I discovered the joy of goal-oriented music (classical), I was losing myself in process-oriented neo-folk (Current 93, Death in June and their imitators). Still love that stuff but the "doing" of classical music, vs. the "being" of neo-folk (and other atmosphere/noise music I listened) was an eye-opener, if not a soul-opener.


Precisely this irresistible sense of a goal-oriented narrative is what makes Western music distinctive. Speaking philosophically, I suppose it was our cultural tradition's linear sense of time that impelled our Western music to develop the complex tonal system and musical forms it did. Our tonality's elaborate and subtle hierarchy of relationships is capable of articulating distinct forms and of conveying purpose, direction, tension, ambivalence, suspense and resolution both momentarily and on the level of time spans ranging from "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to _Tristan und Isolde_. It really is an incredible human achievement.

Other musical traditions - including our own at earlier stages of its history - while utilizing varied tonal systems with their own goal-directedness (tonality is by its nature goal- directed when deployed in time), tend to fill time in a less differentiated way, focusing on subtleties of pitch and rhythm meant to be savored in the moment with less of a view toward an ultimate outcome. Long pieces in jazz, or in Indian music, achieve a sense of progress by accumulating complexity, and end not when they've attained a foreordained destination but when they've exhausted their material (or their musicians). This sense of musical form has its own rewards.

For me some of the most powerful and profound music in our classical tradition hybridizes the Western "progressive" and the "in the moment" conceptions of time. I'm thinking especially of Bach.


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## SimonDekkerLinnros (Jun 15, 2016)

Simon Moon said:


> Right now, I will probably give the nod to classical over jazz. But it is a narrow margin.
> 
> I'm not sure what kind of jazz you are listening to that lends itself more as background music than classical?
> 
> ...


I listen to all sorts of jazz, but I prefer bop. Personally when I listen to jazz I don't concentrate as much as when listening to classical music.

I usually listen to jazz when I am busy with some activity such as studying or playing computer games, therefore I view it as background music. Of course this can differ from person to person but that's how I listen to jazz most of the time.

I definitely agree that jazz has some unique features that classical music lacks!


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Classical for me and it's not even close but that has much to do with my not having listened to a lot of jazz, although the jazz I've heard I've found just OK and hasn't made me take away listening time from my beloved classical. One day I might make a concerted effort to listen to more jazz but there is so much classical that I want to listen to again or for the first time and so little time ...


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## Xenakiboy (May 8, 2016)

How many of you people here have seen a Jazz band live? 

It's incomparable, it deserves to be treated with excitement just like classical, but obviously not the same atmosphere. Jazz should definitely not be treated just as background music, there is so much going on watching a Jazz band play their solos. Jazz festivals are bloody great, you have to be There!!! :guitar:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Most music is better seeing live.


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2016)

Music is favorable a social event but at the same time I have experienced the opposite.Sometimes the public generates a almost hostile atmosphere and the musician has to convince the audience that he or she has something to say.At home I can give my full attention to what the composer had in mind and that can be very exciting,a feeling of utterly happines or tears of joy.It is the human nature to share this feelings at least among friends.We want to communicate thats a fact.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Pugg said:


> Most music is better seeing live.


This is true. The problem is, to really get into it, I have to be in the right mood, and this happens maybe once or twice a day, and rarely coincides with concert time.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> This is true. The problem is, to really get into it, I have to be in the right mood, and this happens maybe once or twice a day, and rarely coincides with concert time.


We just had the North-sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam and it was a whole sold out, all the days .
People spend hours on their computer and queuing to get tickets .


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Xenakiboy said:


> How many of you people here have seen a Jazz band live?
> 
> It's incomparable, it deserves to be treated with excitement just like classical, but obviously not the same atmosphere. Jazz should definitely not be treated just as background music, there is so much going on watching a Jazz band play their solos. Jazz festivals are bloody great, you have to be There!!! :guitar:


Sometimes there is a middle ground between classical and jazz and, with deference to Woodduck's remarks above, there are occasions when jazz, even live, freely improvised jazz, attains the goal directedness and expressive continuity of classical music - with the added excitement of quasi-divine revelation in the moment. Two such occasions stick in my memory: Hearing the Ganelin Trio live in Pittsburgh during the last decade of the U.S.S.R. (their KGB minders stood out by the sheer horror of their bad suits ) The trio improvised with the rhythmic and tonal vocabulary of Stravinsky building extended structures of great intensity. Moving, disturbing, and sometimes frightening. And I also heard the early incarnation of Weather Report with Mrioslav Vituous on bass, playing to similar effect.


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)




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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Pugg said:


> Most music is better seeing live.


What rubbish! Music is for the ears and the unlimited vistas of imagination, not for the eyes!


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2016)

KRoad said:


> What rubbish! Music is for the ears and the unlimited vistas of imagination, not for the eyes!


In going to a life concert is more involved than only ears.Two concerts with the same program but with a different audience may have different results.A life concert can give a kind of surplus wich a recording can never catch.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Traverso said:


> In going to a life concert is more involved than only ears.Two concerts with the same program but with a different audience may have different results.A life concert can give a kind of surplus which a recording can never catch.


Hear hear :tiphat:


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Two totally different forms. I'll be honest, I dislike most jazz intensely. I play classical music, post-rock and noisier rock music in equal ratios most of the time but tend to have phases. I'm currently going thru a classical phase but still playing other forms of music. My tastes tend to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yesterday, in the car I listened to Mahler's 8th (I'm still trying to love it) followed by the Sex Pistols.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Merl said:


> Two totally different forms. I'll be honest, I dislike most jazz intensely. I play classical music, post-rock and noisier rock music in equal ratios most of the time but tend to have phases. I'm currently going thru a classical phase but still playing other forms of music. My tastes tend to go from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yesterday, in the car I listened to Mahler's 8th (I'm still trying to love it) followed by the Sex Pistols.


Very strange combination


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Pugg said:


> Very strange combination


Variety is the spice of life, Pugg. :lol:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Merl said:


> Variety is the spice of life, Pugg. :lol:


I know, it was just a observation


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## Hfrank83 (Feb 18, 2017)

Jazz musician here but with classical training. Apples and Oranges!! Literally!! There is not even one point to start the comparison. Reality both styles are so complex that it's really difficult to play really well both. Jazz players most of the time when playing classical tend to sound out of place because they approach it without the right feeling and in general don't have a clear understanding of the style. Classical players sound square trying to play jazz and that's not something you can learn playing what is written already. Classical needs more sense of style due to the fact that you are playing something in the style and idea of someone else and certain detail in a way jazz players can't just do it. Jazz needs a harmony and rhythm knowledge that classicals can't even dream of. Classical composers can express themselves better , and there is very little room for mistakes, Jazz composers Have to leave enough room for the players to compose on the spot and there's no limit as long as you respect the chords and there will be mistakes because you are composing on the spot, it's included the failure in the task of improvising. In a certain way I believe classical the great art of the composer, Jazz the great art of the player. In classical although there is a level of freedom the player will perform a given piece several times almost the same way. In jazz you don't want to play the same solo twice, neither change the melody the same way twice or play it on someone else's style even if the song is yours. That's a no no no !! Again Apples and oranges!! I am a jazz musician because it has to do with my personality but I really enjoy great classical music and I even include certain elements of classical legacy on my lines, even composing since I believe classical music is a most for everyone. I love stravinsky's harmony. I love good music. I don't go for the names. There are only to types of music for me the GOOD One and that other thing...

By the way unless someone is living on 1930s or believes elevator Music is jazz I don't think anyone would have jazz as a backgound music.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Hfrank83 said:


> Jazz needs a harmony and rhythm knowledge that classicals can't even dream of.


no























Hfrank83 said:


> In jazz you don't want to play the same solo twice, neither change the melody the same way twice or play it on someone else's style even if the song is yours. That's a no no no !!


Fortunately I know this isn't strictly the case, or I'd have to conclude that jazz is an extremely restrictive form.



Hfrank83 said:


> By the way unless someone is living on 1930s or believes elevator Music is jazz I don't think anyone would have jazz as a backgound music.


I live about three blocks from an Italian restaurant that uses Miles Davis as background music half the time (don't ask me what that has to do with Italian food, but I'll take it over Sinatra, which is what they play most the rest of the time).


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## Hfrank83 (Feb 18, 2017)

Magnum Miserium said:


> no
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I believe you misunderstood my post or maybe the fact that English not being my first language makes the ideas I want to express a bit tricky. Of course classical composers need a huge knowledge of Harmony.., even when we look at form classical composers definitely have a lot of freedom more than any other style of music. There is no limit at that point!! When I mean that in jazz you don't want to repeat the solo or whatever is because jazzers always try the NEW thing all the time, not because is forbidden. When I mean harmony and rhythm knowledge the from Jazz point of view I mean from the player, performer perspective in comparison to the classical performer not the composer. I am a big lover of Stravinsky's harmony which actually comes from early jazz, but he made it his way and took the classical approach to the next level. Debussy did have some of the early jazz harmony and chord extensions but although he was a great composer I just don't feel the same futuristic thing I feel in stravinsky. I love classical music as well. Just for different reasons. Whats the point of having two music styles with the same ways??


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Hfrank83 said:


> I am a big lover of Stravinsky's harmony which actually comes from early jazz,


No it doesn't. (It comes from Rimsky-Korsakov, who got it from Schubert by way of Glinka and Liszt.)



Hfrank83 said:


> Whats the point of having two music styles with the same ways??


Classical music and jazz aren't "two music styles." Neoclassicism and jazz, maybe even Romanticism and jazz, might be two musical styles.


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## Hfrank83 (Feb 18, 2017)

Magnum Miserium said:


> No it doesn't. (It comes from Rimsky-Korsakov, who got it from Schubert by way of Glinka and Liszt.)
> 
> Classical music and jazz aren't "two music styles." Neoclassicism and jazz, maybe even Romanticism and jazz, might be two musical styles.


Comes from isn't the term, better let's say his harmony was influenced by early jazz http://www.npr.org/sections/decepti...69/why-jazz-musicians-love-the-rite-of-spring Yes I know Classical isn't a music style but this term although truly misleading has been widely used in a colloquial way due to the huge amount of genres inside it. The same way is used jazz to cover ragtime, swing, bebop, hard bop, cool... and on.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Hfrank83 said:


> Comes from isn't the term, better let's say his harmony was influenced by early jazz http://www.npr.org/sections/decepti...69/why-jazz-musicians-love-the-rite-of-spring


No that didn't happen either.

The article you linked to says he wrote some "works inspired by ragtime records" starting in 1918 with the movement in "Histoire de Soldat" and, "long after he had actually heard live jazz," the "Ebony Concerto" in 1945 - all of which is correct and admirably precise. But you seem to be implying "Petrushka" and "The Rite of Spring" were influenced by jazz, which they weren't.



Hfrank83 said:


> Yes I know Classical isn't a music style but this term although truly misleading has been widely used in a colloquial way due to the huge amount of genres inside it. The same way is used jazz to cover ragtime, swing, bebop, hard bop, cool... and on.


No, not the same. "Romanticism," maybe, is used to cover Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and early Richard Strauss the same way "jazz" is used to cover swing, bebop, etc. "Classical music" is simply a bigger category than jazz.


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## David OByrne (Dec 1, 2016)

No, not classical vs jazz..it's classical AND jazz


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

Has anybody in here heard of Jono El Grande? Apparently he's a very eclectic musician and composer!


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

Depends if I wanna hear great composition and arrangements or if I wanna hear great instrumentalists improvise for 9 or 10 minutes a piece. A piece being a musical piece heh.


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

I've just been recently listening to Bartoks 6 string quartets and just wanted to get some feedback from you guys.


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

You sound like a music professor heh. I mean that as a compliment


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

SimonDekker: Bop is jazz last time I checked heh. Sorry if I sound like a jackass.


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

I know what you meant Hfrank. You were talking about performers not composers. And yes a jazz performer needs to know more theory than a classical performer because when you play a jazz solo it's like instant composition.


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

If classical isn't a style then what is it a subject?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

fz2017 said:


> I've just been recently listening to Bartoks 6 string quartets and just wanted to get some feedback from you guys.


Here's an old thread on the quartets. There was another good one with excellent responses that I started in Dec 2010, but it's not coming up in the search engine.

http://www.talkclassical.com/2096-bartoks-quartets.html?highlight=bartok+string+quartets


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## fz2017 (Feb 5, 2018)

Thanks man. For a while there I thought I was talking to myself.


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