# Who appreciates Classical Music more?



## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Who appreciates Classical Music more, the musically ignorant (i.e. those who have no musical ability and can't read a note) or the musically educated (i.e. the trained, musicians, those who know the mechanics of music, etc.?)

First off, I know there isn't an actual answer but this may spur interesting discourse.

The reason I ask such a question with only subjective answers. I have seen on this forum quite a number of times where myself or another non musical person likes or comments positively about a piece of music or a certain recording, only to see comments to the effect that the piece isn't really that good. Or will see comments pertaining to pieces of music or certain recordings describing what, in detail is wrong with it, and I have no idea what they are talking about as it sounds good to me. 

Is my ignorance bliss? Does it aid me in liking what the educated person can only look at with a critical eye? Or, are the educated the true appreciators because they only like what is quality output?

If you are an ignorant, like me, do you believe you love music more openly and freely and that is best?

If you are an educated, do you believe that your ability to more closely critique helps you to love music in a more pure and exacting sense because you love only the truly good?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I do .


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MarkW said:


> I do .


You may now kiss the...


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

_"Who appreciates Classical Music more, the musically ignorant (i.e. those who have no musical ability and can't read a note) or the musically educated (i.e. the trained, musicians, those who know the mechanics of music, etc.?"_

An educated person on the technical side of music can be entirely wrong for other listeners. How many times have knowledgeable people made recommendations and after you hear the recording you didn't care for it at all? Each listener has his or her individual associations with the music that someone else might not have any idea of, so the knowledge pertaining to the technical side may not matter. Knowledge doesn't necessarily lead to an understanding of interpretation for someone else. Nor does the knowledge that a Symphony in C goes into the key of G in the development section necessarily add any significant enjoyment. So if one is not a musician, I don't think it matters. On the other hand, if one is a musician, it can matter a lot and add an appreciation of how something of genius is put together. But even then, such knowledge doesn't guarantee that any two people will ever agree on the worth or interpretation of a specific work.

But I'd like to add this: Even if one is not a musician, it is possible for anyone to learn the meaning of such terms as Allegro (fast), Moderato (moderately), and other such indications in the score for that work. Why? To see if the conductor is actually followed the composer 's performance indications. There are indications for loud and soft, for crescendos and diminuendos, for accents, for time signatures, that just about anyone can understand if they're able to follow a beat and keep up with it in the score. The score for just about anything in the major repertoire can be found at the IMSLP database for free. But such knowledge is still not a necessity to enjoy something; it's in addition, and it need not spoil the experience of the music itself. Yet even that does not necessarily signify that someone with knowledge will have a deeper experience than someone without it, based upon my own personal experience and observations as a musician.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

This IS a good question...and a major annoyance. I know many, many pros who make their living playing: everything from symphony, opera, broadway, weddings, church...you name it, they play it if they get paid. I thought they loved music, but no - they rarely attend concerts by other groups even when they aren't playing. They know little repertoire outside their own sphere of interest. They don't listen to new cds or broadcasts of concerts.

Then I know many school band and orchestra teachers who never play their own instrument anymore. They could have been a valuable asset to community groups which need good players. They're either burned out or just don't care.

The people who appreciate classical the most are generally those amateurs who love music, love playing music, love listening but weren't trained at Julliard, Curtis, Peabody or Eastman. Sometimes they play well, sometimes not so well. But they love it. They go to concerts given by groups they don't play with. They buy cds, listen to the classical FM station and most importantly, buy tickets. 

Then there are the non-musicians - people who know nothing about theory, don't know much about the composers...but they get something out of concerts. Sometimes these people are well-meaning and interesting. Sometimes, they're annoying - at a recent concert with the Brahms 1st I heard one of these creatures say "oh, that was pretty". Shallow, yes, but at least she was there supporting the orchestra.

I don't know many people like myself. I've been collecting records and cds for over 50 years. I have a vast library of scores, composer biographies, and books on music history and theory. I attend live concerts of pros and amateurs, and I play in many groups - some pro, some amateur. I also arrange, compose and conduct. I'm totally addicted to music and appreciate the most high minded, professional performances as well as the amateurish ones. I'm a great audience member; I wish there were more people like me. There are times when being musically educated is a problem - I tend to find fault when musically untrained listeners hear nothing wrong. 

In the final analysis, it's the combined task of composer, conductor, orchestra or ensemble, and concert presenter to find and play music that reaches the heart and mind of the listeners, trained and untrained alike. And I think that's why the warhorses, the "standard rep", the chestnuts are played an replayed - they've proven to be appealing to pro, amateur and audiences alike. Bring on 1812, Beethoven 5, and the New World!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It's possible to lose your taste for something when knowledge alters your expectations. We do leave some things behind as we form certain standards and become aware that some music and performances fail to meet them. It's that way with everything, isn't it? But sometimes people who criticize things they formerly enjoyed (or enjoyed more) do so for inappropriate reasons. I don't criticize my first great musical love, the music of Johann Strauss and family, because it lacks elaborate counterpoint or thematic development, or because I now find their dances merely pleasant and sometimes formulaic (like most popular music) rather than profoundly glorious (although their best inspirations are infectiously tuneful, deliciously romantic and, in our crass era, a precious memento of a bygone world). I have little interest now in Donald Duck comic books (although I'm grateful to them for teaching me the word "haggis" so that I'll know what not to order if I eat out in Scotland), but I feel no need to criticize Huey, Dewie and Louie or Uncle Scrooge for not being characters in an Ibsen play. 

Popping into a discussion of music people are enjoying to point out that the music in question isn't very good may or may not be well-motivated. In some cases people just want to share their knowledge and insights, and we can profit by listening to them. But there's a sort of person who's acquired a certain amount of knowledge and feels that the best way to prove it is to criticize things, and another sort who really doesn't know much at all but likes to appear as if he does by noting what the first sort of person criticizes and doing likewise. If we're going to annoy people by pointing out what's wrong with their tastes we ought at least to have some real knowledge to back it up.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

I attended a local free concert of Beethove's 5th. Summer concert. Musicians in shorts and casual attire. Guest conductor for the orchestra. Concert was designed to appeal to the general public and the place was packed. Probably not your usual concert crowd with lots of families attending. Conductor very animated. 

Each movement received a standing ovation. I've never seen that at a regular concert.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Performing Experiences*

As a matter of fact I think it is the opposite.

I have made this observation before. As a musician, even an amature like myself, one has to play all sorts of music. I have played everything from Bach to the Beach Boys. As a result those of us who play a lot get an appreciation for all sorts of music, classical and non-classical.

I remember when Prince passed away. There was a band rehearsal that night. So here was a room of classically trained musician types bemoaning his passing.

Because of their performing experiences, not their training, most musicians I know are very open minded.

I reviewed my ignore list. It includes some of the most opinionated members of this forum. The vast majority of them are non-musicians.

The majority of the members here, musicians and non-musicians, are very open minded and realize that the appreciation of music is very subjective. That one person's meat is another person's poison.

It is one experience to take music lessons. It is completely another experience to actually spend weeks rehearsing a work and actually performing it.

I mentioned a few years ago that I never really got Schubert's _Unfinished Symphony_. Then I had the opportunity to perform it. Wow. Actually playing it blew me away. When I mentioned this in a post several non-musician types were very critical of me. They could not understand how I could dislike the work until I actually performed it. It is one thing to listen to a recording of it but as I rehearsed it I heard things I never heard before.

I am very uncomfortable being critical of some of the non-performers. Many have accuse me of being an elitist. In a sense maybe I am. But as a result of my performing experiences, I have trouble understanding much of the criticisms that I have read here. At times it seems that in order not to offend some members I have to deny my experiences.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Certainly no one more than I,


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

> Quote Originally Posted by MarkW View Post
> I do .





Woodduck said:


> You may now kiss the...


He must have posted in the wrong thread, or the wrong forum. Perhaps he meant to post in www.onlineweddings.com?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I hope I am not missing much by being a musical ignoramus, but I don't have the time or desire to know the whole theory behind all of it. I once read a book about piano and how the scale works and what the black keys mean and that sort of stuff. Not sure what I gained from it as I forgot most of it, but it seems that I retained enough (or misunderstood enough of it) to think that because the western musical scale is based on the piano which is uneven, that is why a different key changes a musical work profoundly. Am I understanding it, or full of beans? Anyway, for the most part I am happy just to listen. If I were in my 20s I might have the desire to do more, even sing perhaps.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

I am about half educated and trying to become more educated. My mind is very open and I don't have any sort of elitist attitude. I think the downfall of some educated people is thinking that what they've learned are criteria for what makes "good" art/music, when really it's more like a history of what has been enjoyed in the past. Rather than taking it as gospel, I take it as a baseline of suggestions, or even as things to be directly opposite of. I think the downfall of some educated people is taking their learned knowledge as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, rather than wanting to expand on it. I don't know what causes that, perhaps ascribing too much prestige to school knowledge. 

Personally, I feel that my musical knowledge helps me appreciate music more. It lets me analyze the music and describe what exactly I like about it. It also let's me know something that seems to escape others, that any music has the potential to be enjoyed, even if I don't like it. 

I think there are four possibilities. You can be uneducated and not interested in music, uneducated and interested in music on the surface, educated and lose passion for music and become closed-minded, or educated and gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of music and having a more open mind.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> You may now kiss the...


I thought it was 'you may now kiss your...'


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Fritz Kobus said:


> I hope I am not missing much by being a musical ignoramus, but I don't have the time or desire to know the whole theory behind all of it. I once read a book about piano and how the scale works and what the black keys mean and that sort of stuff. Not sure what I gained from it as I forgot most of it, but it seems that I retained enough (or misunderstood enough of it) to think that because the western musical scale is based on the piano which is uneven, that is why a different key changes a musical work profoundly. Am I understanding it, or full of beans? Anyway, for the most part I am happy just to listen. If I were in my 20s I might have the desire to do more, even sing perhaps.


No really keys have nothing to do with sound in the well tempered system. Maybe you are thinking of modes? The major and minor scales are the only remaining modes (modes can be thought of as scales beginning on the white notes of a keyboard. If you start on c, you have the major scale or the ionian mode. From g, you have the mixolydian g-g)

Although some synaesthesists deny this and say that keys have some kind of 'colour relationship'. Generally I see this as baloney


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

What music means to you depends on so many aspects of your make up. At some extremes it is probably possible to say that this group of classical music lovers actually love classical music more than that group. Indeed I too know many professional musicians and gifted amateurs who seem to get less out of classical music than I do, who seem to listen to it less and so on and, as I grew up with one, I know this is not just a question of becoming jaded. But some of them still play beautifully and anyone listening would not think that their appreciation of the music is in doubt. And, of course, it seems very clear that when it comes to some highly gifted musicians (the ones most likely to be in the public eye) their love of the music is quite simply not in doubt. Some may express that love enthusiastically, others - like Glenn Gould - may be given to highly critical opinions. Perhaps there are many different things to find in CM and many different ways to approach it. How do you gauge the extent of appreciation or compare two different people's very different ways of appreciating?


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

I'm not sure there's a way to measure and compare enjoyment levels... And don't give me some cr*p about 'dopamine levels' or 'brain activity'. I'm sure understanding the music in a more theoretical way offers new ways to enjoy it. But it's like Berlin's idea about the fox and the hedgehog: the the fox knows many small things, the hedgehog knows one big thing. Neither knows 'more' than the other. In this instance (just in case any of you haven't worked this out yet!) musicologists might be called the foxes, but the hedgehog is the listener who simply experiences the raw transfiguration of the Liebestod, the purity of a Schubert sonata, the excitement of the climaxes of a symphony as they appear directly in front of their aesthetic faculty (I like to avoid the word 'soul', chilly materialist that I am).


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

What a great discussion.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

*Who Appreciates Classical Music More? Round II.*

wrong thread sorry


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

This seems to me to be like situations at work, when we are debating two different approaches to a problem. Too often, the question becomes which advocate is "smarter," as if that grants special authority to a given approach (and even when advocates of competing approaches are both clearly quite smart). I always say that is the wrong question, and that the approaches should be evaluated based on their own merits or demerits. (The "who is smarter" question really can rarely be answered, and in the particular discussion, has no place. There may be a question about who has more experience in a given area related to the approach, but that is a separate consideration.)


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

We've had similar questions before. Personally I think you have to make a distinction between A. appreciating music (when not listening) and B. the raw experience of listening to music (in a non-analytical way). 
A. We all appreciate classical music a lot, or we wouldn't be here, but being educated leads to a deeper understanding of classical music and in that way enhances apprecation of the music.
B. Anyone who's really into classical music, educated or not, can potentially "enjoy" a piece of classical music to the fullest. Ok, maybe the uneducated sometimes have to listen more often to a piece, getting into it more gradually... but eventually I think there is no difference, because the expression of the music is the same to everyone. Understanding theoretical and technical aspects of the music shouldn't make a difference in being able to experience and "feel" the full expression of the music.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

i think that musical knowledge (meaning knowing a lot of music) could help to appreciate better a piece of music. That doesn't mean that a person who has a very little knowledge can't get any piece of music obviously, but certainly exposure helps to have a deeper understanding of music. On the other hand I don't know how much TECHNICAL knowledge is useful to get music. It's useful to understand the technical details of music, but artistic sensitivity is a much complex thing than just being able to recognize a modulation, a cadenza, a signature, a sonata form or stuff like that.
And obviously taste is another big factor. So I don't think that just dividing in "ignorant vs musically trained" has a lot of sense.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> Who appreciates Classical Music more, the musically ignorant (i.e. those who have no musical ability and can't read a note) or the musically educated (i.e. the trained, musicians, those who know the mechanics of music, etc.?)
> 
> First off, I know there isn't an actual answer but this may spur interesting discourse.
> 
> ...


I take the Alfred E Neumann approach. What, me worry? I can barely read Music and haven't touched a Piano for years. Having devoted over 40 years to this hobby, and read quite a bit about it, I bristle at being described as "uneducated ", however. Surely my education is different from that of one who has studied Music, but doesn't avid appreciation count for something?
I've known many Professional Musicians and on occasion our tastes differ concerning a given piece. I used to be concerned about that but I've stopped caring. People have individual likes and dislikes for all kinds of reasons. And we all have been known to change our opinions over time


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

> Quote Originally Posted by Fritz Kobus View Post
> I hope I am not missing much by being a musical ignoramus, but I don't have the time or desire to know the whole theory behind all of it. I once read a book about piano and how the scale works and what the black keys mean and that sort of stuff. Not sure what I gained from it as I forgot most of it, but it seems that I retained enough (or misunderstood enough of it) to think that because the western musical scale is based on the piano which is uneven, that is why a different key changes a musical work profoundly. *Am I .. full of beans?* Anyway, for the most part I am happy just to listen. If I were in my 20s I might have the desire to do more, even sing perhaps.





Eusebius12 said:


> No really keys have nothing to do with sound in the well tempered system. Maybe you are thinking of modes? The major and minor scales are the only remaining modes (modes can be thought of as scales beginning on the white notes of a keyboard. If you start on c, you have the major scale or the ionian mode. From g, you have the mixolydian g-g)
> 
> Although some synaesthesists deny this and say that keys have some kind of 'colour relationship'. Generally I see this as* baloney*


Baloney! Beans! We could make quite a dish of it. Maybe better I don't try to understand it at this point. I'd have a looooooong way to go. :lol:


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

I think this is a bit of a loaded question because we use the word 'appreciate' to mean different things in different contexts. Just in this thread so far I get the sense there are three distinct connotations: that of valuing or finding worth in; that of liking or enjoying; that of being able to recognize or understand the features or qualities in something. These are all different things and not necessarily overlapping. Personally, I've always understood appreciation of music to mean the third of these, and that it's something that comes with learning and understanding. Music appreciation can be taught, but enjoyment or value cannot, and one can appreciate something without necessarily liking it, although at the same time I do think that learning about music can contribute one's enjoyment because in the process you often discover aspects of the works that you have not previously noticed or paid attention to and that can in turn make music more enjoyable. I really believe that appreciation of music requires an effort to learn and understand, but that doesn't necessarily require technical skills or advanced knowledge - anyone can learn to appreciate in that sense of the word - but just as a matter of the course of exposure over long periods of time, trained musicians and scholars of music probably have a more extensive reservoir of acqurired skill for appreciation than many casual listeners.


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

While in college years ago, my wife had a professor who told the class one had to be an intellectual to appreciate classical music.ut:


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

For an analogy that may be totally unapplicable, note how many people enjoy driving their cars and havn't the slightest idea what goes on under the hood, etc. I do have a general idea what goes on, have read hot rod magazines off and on all my life, and have worked on cars a bit, though nothing too deep. I generally have a subconscious sense of the whole process as I am driving along or even thinking about driving. To me, I find it amazing that people will not even know what size engine is in ther car. So I suppose that those who are very knowledgeable in music theory may wonder how a musical theory ignoramus like me can enjoy music. But I guess everybody has their own priorities, and thankfully, one does not need to understand how a car works to enjoy using it, likewise with music.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I think it's probably fairly hard to predict who will appreciate music more, the person trained as a musician or the untrained. My uncle couldn't play an instrument but he loved music, particularly jazz, possibly he was the most musical person I met who couldn't read music or play an instrument. My mother, his sister, had some training in piano, she reads music and plays. But she's less tolerant of anything new. While she likes music she knows, she still plays piano at home and attends concerts, she doesn't really like listening to anything new. Her musical universe is more narrow than my uncle. 

As mentioned before, you can find music teachers who never perform themselves, and professional musicians in an orchestra who are so frustrated with music, and music making. And you will find music teachers who love playing and professionals who can't get enough music. I think it's hard to predict. The original question is a good question, and I haven't answered it.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

You could conduct a Sociological study to gain statistical trends, that would be the best solution. There are always outliers, though. Also, how useful the results would be in terms of the usefullness of the solutions to problems the results would help us find would be an important question.

Until then, we can just speculate, and be satisfied.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Baloney! Beans! We could make quite a dish of it. Maybe better I don't try to understand it at this point. I'd have a looooooong way to go. :lol:


Does that go with some Byrd, chicken perhaps, into the Beeth oven


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

Fredx2098 said:


> I am about half educated and trying to become more educated. My mind is very open and I don't have any sort of elitist attitude. I think the downfall of some educated people is thinking that what they've learned are criteria for what makes "good" art/music, when really it's more like a history of what has been enjoyed in the past.


Yes, I can't argue with keeping mind and ears open.

But, without denying that there is a lot to enjoy that's outside the current canon, I think that most of the musical works (or works in any of the humanities) that have been "enjoyed in the past" haven't survived the judgement of history, or have survived only on life-support from specialists.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> It's possible to lose your taste for something when knowledge alters your expectations. We do leave some things behind as we form certain standards and become aware that some music and performances fail to meet them. It's that way with everything, isn't it? But sometimes people who criticize things they formerly enjoyed (or enjoyed more) do so for inappropriate reasons. I don't criticize my first great musical love, the music of Johann Strauss and family, because it lacks elaborate counterpoint or thematic development, or because I now find their dances merely pleasant and sometimes formulaic (like most popular music) rather than profoundly glorious (although their best inspirations are infectiously tuneful, deliciously romantic and, in our crass era, a precious memento of a bygone world). I have little interest now in Donald Duck comic books (although I'm grateful to them for teaching me the word "haggis" so that I'll know what not to order if I eat out in Scotland), but I feel no need to criticize Huey, Dewie and Louie or Uncle Scrooge for not being characters in an Ibsen play.
> 
> Popping into a discussion of music people are enjoying to point out that the music in question isn't very good may or may not be well-motivated. In some cases people just want to share their knowledge and insights, and we can profit by listening to them. But there's a sort of person who's acquired a certain amount of knowledge and feels that the best way to prove it is to criticize things, and another sort who really doesn't know much at all but likes to appear as if he does by noting what the first sort of person criticizes and doing likewise. If we're going to annoy people by pointing out what's wrong with their tastes we ought at least to have some real knowledge to back it up.


Whoa, hold the phone here! Haggis is delicious. As Bob Dylan almost said - Don't criticize what you can't understand (or eat!).:lol:


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

they both enjoy the same, just different things/aspects of the music. I personally think that it is better to enjoy anything with an innocent/childlike mind unburdened with knowledge. The knowledge/judgement suffocates and narrows the enjoyment, creates a wall of prejudice. How many times did I hear that a work I enjoyed is derivative and hence somehow inferior? If I had no knowledge about it, I would just enjoy the work.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Haydn67 said:


> While in college years ago, my wife had a professor who told the class one had to be an intellectual to appreciate classical music.ut:


I hate that sort of attitude 

Classical music doesn't require intellectualism to appreciate. It can be appreciated on all sorts of levels, depending on the work, the composer, and the listener IMHO


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Jacck said:


> they both enjoy the same, just different things/aspects of the music. I personally think that it is better to enjoy anything with an innocent/childlike mind unburdened with knowledge. The knowledge/judgement suffocates and narrows the enjoyment, creates a wall of prejudice. How many times did I hear that a work I enjoyed is derivative and hence somehow inferior? If I had no knowledge about it, I would just enjoy the work.


Just don't rely on the opinions of others. Gain what you can from them, see if you can see what they say, perhaps, or not. Your own ears will ultimately be your guide. Study genuinely does enhance your appreciation of great music. But is not a necessary prerequisite for such appreciation. However, opinionated critiques aren't that useful ultimately unless they are based on
1. Intimate knowledge of the music
2. An artistically refined temperament and aesthetic sense (which we've debated endlessly here as to what it constitutes)


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: That's an excellent question. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, I guess. 

This is a question that Bettina would be able to provide a fine answer to, but alas, she is no longer around.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Bettina von Arnim?


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

hpowders said:


> OP: That's an excellent question. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, I guess.
> 
> This is a question that Bettina would be able to provide a fine answer to, but alas, she is no longer around.


I am often blissful in my ignorance. I see comments about recordings that baffle me because I don't hear anything wrong, I just enjoy. But there are times when I wonder what is going on with a piece of music and wish I knew more.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

I recently listened to a collection of piano concertos which are lesser known/recorded I suppose and then to a symphony by a composer known widely for mostly one work. Out of curiosity I looked up information on these and saw comments to the effect that they are best left forgotten. Comments not only by listeners/purchasers but by pro reviewers. Some went into detail with reasoning which is lost on me. 

My ignorance allowed me to enjoy these works. Maybe the ignorant enjoy more widely and numerously and the knowledgeable more thoroughly and purely.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> I recently listened to a collection of piano concertos which are lesser known/recorded I suppose and then to a symphony by a composer known widely for mostly one work. Out of curiosity I looked up information on these and saw comments to the effect that they are best left forgotten. Comments not only by listeners/purchasers but by pro reviewers. Some went into detail with reasoning which is lost on me.
> 
> My ignorance allowed me to enjoy these works. Maybe the ignorant enjoy more widely and numerously and the knowledgeable more thoroughly and purely.


It is hard to comment without knowing what you were listening to but why do you assume that the critics are right and your own ears are wrong? I might understand more if I knew what the music you refer to is.

I do think taste is important and that it grows with experience as well as through thinking about the views of other listeners. This doesn't require technical musical knowledge or even very much in the way of music history - it is largely about educating your ears.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

My own view, expressed many times and in many ways, is that one's own reaction to and appreciation of any form of art is paramount. Whatever one learns from close study of a work or of a particular art form is all well and good--how can more knowledge not be good? And it may alter one's opinion of a work, as may reading what a critic or critics might say. But the intrinsic validity of one's own tastes and assessments of and in the arts is inviolate. Art (unlike some other equally important human endeavors) is Opinion and only Opinion. And for any individual, one's own opinion in the Arts is the one that counts, or ought to. I stand with cap in hand before those artists and works I choose to venerate, not necessarily before those that some popularity poll of Excellent People has determined are worthy of my adulation.

:tiphat:


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

The opinions/conclusions of classical music critics are often best taken with a major grain of salt. I remember one saying that the Emporer Concerto was just a series of scales. I have also heard the comment that lesser known works are for the most part best left unknown. I have collected every lesser known piano concerto from the 19th century I can get my hands on from companies such as Hyperion and there is not a clunker in the bunch. 99% of them are wonderful works.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

I dont think it matters too much. What the musically literate would appreciate about music that I do not is the lesser part of music anyway. Putting labels on musical devices - understanding and identifying thematic development - tonality - key - etc etc. I think any musical academic would give this up in a second if it meant they could not take the core and essential enjoyment from music that is most likely common to all listeners. 

I have seen people go into concerts with a score on their lap - flipping pages over in unison with the conductor

Bully for them - a person who can read scores! please give me your autograph.

I am happy just to listen.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't think it depends most on level of knowledge, training or sophistication; I think the ability to love classical music comes from a desire to have it in your life and learn about it more as time progresses. 

One thing different about classical from popular music is it spans centuries, styles and nations. It started pretty simply as Gregorian chant then went on to become different forms in the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20th century and post-modern eras. There's a lot of discussion about where it is today -- in the 21st century -- but there's no question it went through a lot of phases in the 20th century and every century before that.

Your ability to enjoy more and more and more of differing styles, and having a desire to hear more, is more important than knowing the technique of it, in my opinion. If you keep listening to it, and keep updating yourself, you are bound to learn more about music and technique. That always helps, I think, but nothing is more helpful than wanting to hear it and know more.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

_Who appreciates Classical Music more, the musically ignorant (i.e. those who have no musical ability and can't read a note) or the musically educated (i.e. the trained, musicians, those who know the mechanics of music, etc.?)

_I think it is good to be an _experienced_ listener. This is different than being educated or ignorant. Experience is something we can all acquire.

Being musically educated makes little difference (unless the music is instrument-specific and you play that instrument; that might be an edge), because I feel that the best, most authentic music comes from the heart and being of the player (this is most obvious in solo piano music).

For instance, Debussy's Preludes seem to me to be near-improvisations which he managed to put into score form, and someone else (like Paul Jacobs or Richter) is talented enough to be able to translate back into sound, as if it were being spontaneously played. Seeing that most composers work from a piano, orchestral scores and chamber music can also share this quality of being generated from the composer's being into score form. So understanding the score is not really crucial, if one wants to experience the music as it really existed at its creation: an expression of the composer's being. The score is only a set of instructions.

It is nice to have a good ear, and be able to tell different intervals from one another, and know chords. But I'm not sure that even this is necessary to have a good musical experience. Probably not.

I don't think it takes a lot of music education to recognize the quality of this performance:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I think the key word is "appreciate", which doesn't necessarily mean like, love, or respect. You can "appreciate" a piece of music and make a pretty reliable judgment that it's garbage.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

KenOC said:


> I think the key word is "appreciate", which doesn't necessarily mean like, love, or respect. You can "appreciate" a piece of music and make a pretty reliable judgment that it's garbage.


An example, please?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

> millionrainbows: "I think it is good to be an experienced listener. This is different than being educated or ignorant. Experience is something we can all acquire."
> 
> "Being musically educated makes little difference (unless the music is instrument-specific and you play that instrument; that might be an edge), because I feel that the best, most authentic music comes from the heart and being of the player (this is most obvious in solo piano music)."


Excellent points!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I think it was Dr Johnson who observed that you don't need to be a carpenter to recognise a good table.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> An example, please?


"Farnsworth, I assure you that I appreciate the enormity of this crime -- just as I appreciate, in the symphonies of Raff, the efforts of a composer to whom success meant merely getting through to the end."


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

KenOC said:


> "Farnsworth, I assure you that I appreciate the enormity of this crime -- just as I appreciate, in the symphonies of Raff, the efforts of a composer to whom success meant merely getting through to the end."


A fine example! But could you share perhaps your own specific example? I myself can think of none.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think being involved with "classical" music is good on any level. The worst thing is when people are involved with other present day music and media, and completely ignore the entire classical legacy, which is hundreds of years of development. That seems short-sighted, and is ignorance on a larger scale.
I also think schools should promote classical music and its instruments as well: the violin classes, the piano, school bands (not necessarily marching); etc.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Depends on which of the standard definitions of "appreciation" one is invoking. If one is interested in an individual's degree of enjoyment, obviously this is subjective and impossible to verify. If one is referring to the fineness of ones discernment in comprehending and contextualizing the aesthetic details of a musical work, then it might be reasonable to assume those with training and comprehension of such details tend to appreciate them more.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I think with tonal music, anyone can appreciate just as much. But with 20th century music, I have to say it was with ear training and examining techniques that I was able to detect and appreciate what is going on more. Before the training I wasn't really able to differentiate atonal serial music with music by Prokofiev, late Scriabin, and Bartok. They all sounded just as dissonant and bewildering.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> ...If one is referring to the fineness of ones discernment in comprehending and contextualizing the aesthetic details of a musical work, then it might be reasonable to assume those with training and comprehension of such details tend to appreciate them more.


This suggests that such "discernment" also aids in the identification of falseness, lack of originality, failure to achieve aesthetic goals, and so forth as well. If so, then "appreciation" certainly does not imply an increase in the ability to enjoy music of poor quality. And there's always been plenty of that!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> This suggests that such "discernment" also aids in the identification of falseness, lack of originality, failure to achieve aesthetic goals, and so forth as well. If so, then "appreciation" certainly does not imply an increase in the ability to enjoy music of poor quality. And there's always been plenty of that!


Perhaps. But for some, originality isn't high on the list, failure to achieve aesthetic goals implies untenable entanglement with the intentional fallacy, as does falseness--which is in any case a tough call.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> Depends on which of the standard definitions of "appreciation" one is invoking. If one is interested in an individual's degree of enjoyment, obviously this is subjective and impossible to verify. If one is referring to the fineness of ones discernment in comprehending and contextualizing the aesthetic details of a musical work, then it might be reasonable to assume those with training and comprehension of such details tend to appreciate them more.


For the individual--any individual, I submit--the first definition is the far more relevant, robust, consequential. When we get into "fineness of discernment in comprehending and contextualizing the aesthetic details...." as a necessary component of appreciation, then the atmosphere becomes thin and we become more detached from the immediacy of the experience of the music and of our primary reason for listening to it. But, in compensation, the symphonies of Raff may then provide an arid, brief _frisson_ of enjoyment.

I do repeat my request for a personal example of appreciation linked to garbage.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> For the individual--any individual, I submit--the first definition is the far more relevant, robust, consequential. *When we get into "fineness of discernment in comprehending and contextualizing the aesthetic details...." as a necessary component of appreciation, then the atmosphere becomes thin and we become more detached from the immediacy of the experience of the music* and of our primary reason for listening to it. But, in compensation, the symphonies of Raff may then provide an arid, brief _frisson_ of enjoyment.


Why would that be the case? Training and knowledge internalized is second nature and doesn't distract from immediate aesthetic experience. It's just a set of automatic faculties like any other. I have a friend who is a fine painter. When he looks at a landscape he sees and discerns without any mental exertion shades of color and qualities of light I don't. The same thing happens with musicians.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

^^^^The key word is "necessary". I will further clarify. If we require that the second of your definitions requires "fineness of...discernment" as a precondition for appreciation, a _sine qua non_, then I believe my criticism stands that this limits the "legitimacy" of appreciation that is guaranteed by the first definition. My remarks cannot be construed as a repudiation of knowing as much as one chooses about any art or work of art.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> ...I do repeat my request for a personal example of appreciation linked to garbage.


Rather difficult because classical music is time-filtered for quality. It is easy to say, however, that to some listeners much "modern" music is "garbage," if it is music at all. But that judgment may result from factors other than an accurate appreciation of it, especially given that quite a few people seem to hold a very different view.*

But here's an example: _Wellington's Victory_, a work which many or most critics consider garbage or close to it. We may understand exactly how it is put together tonally, structurally, and aesthetically; we may be conversant with its political background and its relationships to earlier battle music; we may even be aware of its initial performance at a charity concert, with the composer (at that point) foregoing any economic reward. In short, we may "appreciate" it rather well. Still, our appreciation results in a judgment that it is a very low-grade work, especially considering the talents of its composer.

This view seems to have existed from very early on. In a review of its première, where the 7th Symphony was also played, an AMZ reviewer wrote, "The effect, nay, even the very realistic impression, is quite extraordinary. One can say without hesitation that there is nothing in the realm of descriptive music that is its equal… We hardly need to add that laymen were completely amazed at this work and did not know what had happened to them, while on the other hand connoisseurs preferred the preceding symphony as a more noble work of art by far."

A decade later the critic Gottfried Weber wrote, "Should not everyone, the dearer Beethoven and his art are to them, the more fervently wish that oblivion might soon draw an expiatory veil on such an aberration of his muse, through which he has desecrated the glorified object, Art, and himself?" Of course this earned Beethoven's scrawled and obscene reply: "O du elender Schuft! Was ich scheisse, ist besser als du je gedacht!"

It's too bad Tchaikovsky didn't have Beethoven's verbal fluency, or he could have put Hanslick in his place!

*If we accept such an appeal to numbers, though, we may also have to accept that Justin Bieber is a finer musician than Beethoven.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^The key word is "necessary". I will further clarify. If we require that *the second of your definitions requires "fineness of...discernment" as a precondition for appreciation,* a _sine qua non_, then I believe my criticism stands that this limits the "legitimacy" of appreciation that is guaranteed by the first definition. My remarks cannot be construed as a repudiation of knowing as much as one chooses about any art or work of art.


It isn't a _precondition _for appreciation, it is the very _definition _of appreciation in one standard sense of the word, as any good dictionary will attest. Is this kind of appreciation essential to a meaningful listening experience? No. At least, I don't think so. There are different kinds of meaningful listening experiences. And I believe professional musicians can become jaded and inured to aesthetic listening purely for pleasure if they aren't careful. Having taught music classes (appreciation, history and literature) to both conservatory students on a professional trajectory and undergrad non-majors, I'd have to confess to finding the latter more satisfying in some ways, simply because the sense of wonder and discovery seemed to be greater in general.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Appreciation: Definitions
1.
the recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something.
"I smiled in appreciation"
synonyms:	valuing, treasuring, admiration, respect, regard, esteem, high opinion
"her appreciation of literature"
2.
a full understanding of a situation.
"they have an appreciation of the needs of users"
synonyms:	acknowledgment, recognition, realization, knowledge, awareness, consciousness, understanding, comprehension
"an appreciation of the difficulties involved"

Ken, you have presented an excellent example of Definition 2, and Edward, a useful critique of Def. 2 in actual practice. . Definition 1 remains for most listeners the operative and important one.


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## Steerpike (Dec 29, 2018)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> Who appreciates Classical Music more, the musically ignorant (i.e. those who have no musical ability and can't read a note) or the musically educated (i.e. the trained, musicians, those who know the mechanics of music, etc.?)
> 
> First off, I know there isn't an actual answer but this may spur interesting discourse.
> 
> ...


Classical music has a tendency to surround itself in a sort of mystique and snobbery, and I fear that presents a barrier to people getting into it. I'm happy to admit that I like a lot of classical works simply because they are full of good tunes, incorporate a lot of drama and excitement, and have a satisfying depth to them that I find absent from most other forms of music. I don't feel that my enjoyment of the music is somehow cheapened or ridiculous simply because I'm not au fait with musical terminology.

Like many 'uneducated' listeners, I guess I got into classical music through the more familiar works, but it's a musical universe I've enjoyed exploring ever since. My initial encounters with Beethoven's 5th and Holst's The Planets now seem a distant memory, but without them I wouldn't have discovered the wealth of music I now enjoy.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> It is hard to comment without knowing what you were listening to but why do you assume that the critics are right and your own ears are wrong? I might understand more if I knew what the music you refer to is.
> 
> I do think taste is important and that it grows with experience as well as through thinking about the views of other listeners. This doesn't require technical musical knowledge or even very much in the way of music history - it is largely about educating your ears.


I didn't want the discussion to divert onto the works themselves.


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