# Analogy between history of classical and popular music



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Here you can find some analogies in history of two "musics": what do you think?


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

whola lotta other stuff


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

The stuff at the bottom about the peak of each music group is up for debate...for me things go uphill for classical after 1900 (not that they were that far down hill before) and probably the same for the popular music too. I really value the diversity of sound in popular music genres today.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

To be honest, it seems like someone just placed some stuff in rows together. Ragtime and Renaissance similarities (other than that they both start with an 'r')? Plus I'm not sure the maker of this chart really understands what popular music is and its origins. Hardly anyone would consider jazz pop music nor was anyone making pop music in the 1870s. Popular music had it's origins in the inter-war period when gramophones were first widely available and was essentially a professionalisation and commercialisation of folk music. However, it didn't really take off to the modernly recognisable form until the post-war era. 

I could probably make a chart comparing classical music and the history of suicide rates and it would have about as much meaning as this one.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Coincidentally, just hours before I saw this post, I was thinking about "people who like to discuss non-classical music vs classical music" at TC, and I thought about you.


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## Minneapple (Jan 14, 2020)

There's overlap in that jazz became free from its blues and songbook-big band origins during the 1950s while rock did the same in the post english invasion and motown era of the late 1960s. Classical saw this with the onset of modernism (Stravinsky, Debussy, Schoenberg) during the 1908-1920 period. But a lot of this creats false analogies.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

There are analogies between various musics, and the other arts, and science, and the general cultural zeitgeist at any particular time period in history, but not between disparate times -- except as OCD pattern finders see them (like similarities between the American, French, and Russian Revolutions). Unless there's something interesting or useful you can get from these supposed concordances, eating potato chips is just as satisfying.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

As we can see, at "hip hop and rap" and "modernism and beyond," everything went down the toilet at the same time. :lol:


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## mark6144 (Apr 6, 2019)

Is this supposed to show some kind of similarity between the ways classical and pop music evolved? I don't get it, and think it will take more explanation than just the chart.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Minneapple said:


> There's overlap in that *jazz became free from its blues *and songbook-big band origins during the 1950s.


blues was still massively influential on jazz in the fifties and sixties. Just think of the whole hard bop movement (and not just that).


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Every time I hear "In a Gadda-da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly I'm convinced it is classical music. So, I remain confused.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minneapple said:


> There's overlap in that jazz became free from its blues and songbook-big band origins during the 1950s


Jazz became free from its blues and songbook-big band origins, so it could become TV theme songs. :lol:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Every time I hear "In a Gadda-da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly I'm convinced it is classical music. So, I remain confused.


I agree, but I also wonder: is it religious music?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

ZJovicic said:


> Here you can find some analogies in history of two "musics": what do you think?
> View attachment 129482


The suggestion that Jazz evolved into rock'n'roll and rock in the same way that Baroque music matured into Classical and Romantic music is a very strange one. Jazz did not disappear or become rock, and rock'n'roll didn't come out of jazz. Much of the best jazz was happening at the same time that the great rock bands were holding sway. They are very different music forms and require very different skills and abilities. You need a third column to do something like this - one for (I suppose) folk to rock to rap; one for jazz in all its various manifestations (including now) and the one you have got for the evolution of classical music.

The suggestion that the best in each category is in the past makes you seem like you are stuck in the past when the present has so much to offer. You are welcome to your tastes, of course, but it seems a waste of time to use them as reliable assumptions for producing theoretical frameworks. You could use all that energy to explore the stuff you feel is rubbish a bit more.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

The chart doesn't represent what it thinks it does. Classical music's origins are in Gregorian chant which goes back to the 13th century. 

Popular music probably copies styles from religious hymns of the 17th century. There were clearly popular songs before 1870; "Long Time Ago," a song by Copland, is based on a Negro spiritual that black people sang during the Civil War and earlier that reminded them of home.

You can find collections of early American songs all over Amazon. The "Bonnie Blue Flag" was a song of the Confederacy that is written in styles existing 100-150 years before the advent of "Rock 'n Roll" on this chart. Ditto the "Red, White and Blue."

Did you ever sing "Aura Lee" in high school chorus? That's another one 100 years before popular music on this chart.

There was also the poplar music of the Roaring 20s and the big band music that followed and stayed in popularity through the 1970s by Lawrence Welk among others. His programs are still shown on American television; they are the most highly-rated programs on PBS.

All this constituted popular music in its day that isn't shown.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

larold said:


> The chart doesn't represent what it thinks it does. Classical music's origins are in Gregorian chant which goes back to the 13th century.


While I agree with the main thrust of your post, the date you've given is off by at least 600 years. As for the origins of classical music (whatever that means), it would be more accurate to say that the _notation system_ of classical music has its roots in chant, although some elements of that system owe much to secular art music.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

You can't compare the two, it's like comparing candy to prime beef. If you really want to make a comparison compare pop to 19th century folk music.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

SONNET CLV said:


> Every time I hear "In a Gadda-da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly I'm convinced it is classical music. So, I remain confused.





millionrainbows said:


> I agree, but I also wonder: is it religious music?


It is, if you also worship at the shrine of the Butterfly!









I do.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

1996D said:


> You can't compare the two, it's like comparing candy to prime beef. If you really want to make a comparison compare pop to 19th century folk music.


Of course, candy and prime beef are both "something you eat", so the comparison may well be valid. You may wish to compare various facets of the two -- the flavor preference, the nutritional value, the average cost -- and this will further show similarities. As well, one will soon realize that both "candy" and "prime beef" are rather vague and broadly defined terms: there are many many kinds of candies and certainly different grades of prime beef (depending upon the type and quality of feed given the animals, the age and condition of the animal at slaughter, the butchering process, and the exact cut placed upon one's plate, let alone all the various differences that will accrue from the cooking process!).

And why choose 19th century folk music? Why not 18th or 17th or 16th …? I know that I have discs in my classical collection of Medieval and Renaissance "folk music" performed on what are purported to be original instruments and performed by players purported to be schooled in authentic performance practices of the day. Is this stuff really "classical music" at all? Can one consider the masses of Palestrina, written for purely religious use, as "classical music"?

Things start to get complicated when one truly starts to think about them, which is why I'd rather appreciate "music" and deal less with labels. I've seen it argued on this Forum that "writing down" a tune somehow makes it classical, yet is a Bill Evans tune like "Peace Piece" classical only if written down? Was it "classical" when first improvised, or was it jazz, which one might say is a fancy word for folk music? And is any of that stuff Bach, Beethoven and Mozart used to improvise, some of which apparently got written down eventually and now resides on discs in my "Complete Collection" box sets of the music of these three folks -- is any of that stuff "classical"? I mean, at the time it was improvised, not when it was written down?

Not simple to me at all, anyhow.

So, as far as I'm concerned, I will continue to compare various pieces of music I hear -- mainly comparing them for my own purposes of "like" or "dislike" or to make a judgment such as "the jury is still out". I enjoy comparing different readings of, say, Bruckner's Fourth Symphony (which is one reason I've collected so many of these on disc, vinyl and CD) as much as I do of hearing Jobim's "Girl From Ipanema" performed by various artists, or of hearing cover versions of "pop" music I have found intriguing. (I like "In a Gadda-da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly, and that band has several different recordings of the piece, from the familiar album version to the shortened radio play version to the very different various live concert versions; and much the same goes for any band doing any of their songs -- things seldom stay exactly alike. Nor will it in any two performances of a "classical" piece, even by the same artists!) In the cases of comparing differences in a work (because of performance) by Bruckner or Jobim or Iron Butterfly, one notes there are _essences_ of the music which remain in tact, those very essences that allow for the identification of the piece itself. A tempo change for a Beethoven sonata movement does not destroy the essence of what is essentially the Beethoven sonata movement. Same goes for the playing of Bill Evan's "Peace Piece", or of Jobim's "... Ipanema". In other words, there is much to compare. Not simple, at all.

But you can compared what is really the important thing -- whether you enjoy listening to the musical piece or whether you do not! What different who wrote it or who performs it or if it is improvised or written down or if it is categorized as "classical", "pop", "jazz", "folk", "Broadway showtune" or "Hollywood soundtrack" … or whatever! Do you like the piece or not? That's all that really matters in the end.

What adds up to spur your preferences will have a lot to do with your life experiences, sure, but in the end all that really matters is if you enjoy listening to the music. I mean, I like _some_ candy and dislike others; I've had great cuts of beef and many more lesser enjoyable cuts. I haven't stopped exploring the flavors of candy, beef, or music, and I don't believe I will. This is an adventure, this embarkation into the world of musical sound, and I want all I can get. I'll compare and choose from there, going back to what I liked and never-minding again that which I didn't. That much is at least simple to me.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

SONNET CLV said:


> Things start to get complicated when one truly starts to think about them, which is why I'd rather appreciate "music" and deal less with labels. *I've seen it argued on this Forum that "writing down" a tune somehow makes it classical*, yet is a Bill Evans tune like "Peace Piece" classical only if written down? Was it "classical" when first improvised, or was it jazz, which one might say is a fancy word for folk music? And is any of that stuff Bach, Beethoven and Mozart used to improvise, some of which apparently got written down eventually and now resides on discs in my "Complete Collection" box sets of the music of these three folks -- is any of that stuff "classical"? I mean, at the time it was improvised, not when it was written down?
> 
> This is an adventure, this embarkation into the world of musical sound, and I want all I can get. I'll compare and choose from there, going back to what I liked and never-minding again that which I didn't. That much is at least simple to me.


That's hilarious, writing down something doesn't change what it is.

It's simply high art vs the people's art or quasi-art, it's that simple. A good modern example would be comparing a Kubrick movie to whatever blockbuster just came out.

There are levels; you can enjoy whatever you want; but recognizing the levels helps you understand what it is you're doing; it helps you understand what you are and what your potential is.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

1824 was the best year in music. All downhill from there


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