# Is "Dark Side of the Moon" classical music?



## KenOC

It would be interesting to hear opinions on this. What do you think? Maybe more important, why?


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## MoonlightSonata

I'm honestly not sure. It seems to be halfway there.


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## Crudblud

If it is, then so is this.






In any case I can see this fast becoming another death metal thread.


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## Bulldog

I consider it rock music. I don't know why anyone would think it's classical music.


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## KenOC

Bulldog said:


> I consider it rock music. I don't know why anyone would think it's classical music.


Why would you consider it not classical?


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## brotagonist

It isn't, to me.

Aside from the fact that this album was a great shock to me when it came out, being a departure from the earlier (post Syd Barrett) PF that I had loved and heralding a more mainstream format that won them widespread appeal with a different and more populous audience, it is still a rock album, whatever exactly that means. Perhaps I mean that it has the standard rock group personnel of lead and bass guitars, drums, synth/keyboard and vocals.

Not being schooled in music, I cannot give a more precise and academic answer.


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## scratchgolf

No. It's simply Pink Floyd's 5th best album.


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## SimonNZ

KenOC said:


> It would be interesting to hear opinions on this. What do you think? Maybe more important, why?


Isn't the burden of proof here on you to try to convince us that it is?


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## KenOC

SimonNZ said:


> Isn't the burden of proof here on you to try to convince us that it is?


No, since I make no assertion. Those who say it is, or isn't, may have such a burden (if they care to bear it).


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## Woodduck

Why would anyone consider this classical? Because rock music isn't supposed to go on for 43 minutes?


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## senza sordino

I think this is a good question. Because a few days ago I listened to this 
Philip Glass.
View attachment 53928
So why is this classical?

I mean what we're doing is broadening our concept of what we call classical. Does Dark Side of the Moon fall into this expanded definition of classical?

I'm not convinced, my gut instinct tells me no. Dark Side of the Moon is rock and roll, performed by musicians who listened to classical, I'm sure. But classical music, probably not. It's more likely it broadens what we call rock and roll.

I cannot include Dark Side of the Moon into the world of classical, and I could drop much of the music of Philip Glass from classical.


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## SimonNZ

Have Hypgnosis ever designed covers for classical albums? (I mean apart from Dark Side, of course). That might prove interesting.


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## SONNET CLV

_Dark Side of the Moon _remains a unique feature in rock music. It allows for quite a few transmogrifications. I have collected this particular album and have the original Pink Floyd issue in several formats and pressings. As well, I have a jazz rendition and an a capella rendition. Too, I'm familiar with this piece performed by symphony orchestras (often with a supplementing rock band). But is it "classical music"?

A lot depends upon how one defines "classical music", and from prior posts on this Forum I can say that there is disagreement among members. I'm not sure a definitive definition _can_ be formed. Perhaps the Floyd music _becomes _"classical" when it is arranged for a symphony orchestra or a string quartet or a concert pianist to perform. If Beethoven's Fifth (a classical piece by most definitions) can become a rock piece (as in the Walter Murphy _A Fifth of Beethoven _from some years back), why can't the reverse be true?

Concert pianist (and host of NPR's radio show "From the Top") Christopher O'Riley arranged Radiohead songs on his album _True Love Waits_. Is this music rock, jazz, classical?

The Russian symphonist Dmitri Shostakovich wrote a couple of _Jazz Suites_, which to many ears sound more "classical" than "jazz", but are certainly not to be confused with the seriousness of his symphonies or string quartets.

On the album _Jazz Side of the Moon _(Chesky JR2338), four jazz musicians "replicate" the album's songs in a jazzy fashion, utilizing a Hammond B3 Organ, guitars, drums, and Tenor Sax. It works. It's jazz. But ... is the original Pink Floyd issue jazz? Or rock? Or something else?

Sometimes it's difficult to categorize exactly what something is. Some pieces seem to fall onto the boundary lines between categories we often feel we know until we meet the boundary line pieces. Is Gershwin's _Rhapsody in Blue _a classical piece or a jazz piece, or is it something else? A hybrid type of music, perhaps? Is Duke Ellington's _Black, Brown and Beige_, which he called a "jazz symphony" a classical piece or a jazz piece ... or, again, something of a hybrid?

I've often used the term "serious music" when I talk about "classical music". I'm not sure that one term in an improvement over the other, because rock music can be created quite seriously (the Beatles certainly seemed serious when making their albums) and there is often a playfulness in classical compositions. (How else can one explain Don Gillis's Symphony No. 5 1/2, which he subtitled "A Symphony for Fun"? Is this "serious" music?)

Perhaps we are remiss to get too involved in categorizing music by type. Maybe leave things in broad categories if you must categorize at all -- broad as in "Music you like/Music you don't like". After all, you have a right to like and dislike whatever you want. And there is a lot of music out there. Don't get hung up on definitions. You'll just come across as an old coot. No matter your age.

I'm pretty much a classical guy. I have a large classical vocabulary, I've heard nearly every major piece of music and quite a few of the minor "classical" works as well as quite a few of the more obscure pieces. But I also cherish jazz, which itself is a wide-ranging field that includes ragtime piano, big band swing music, bebop, and avant-garde jazz. And my knowledge of "classic rock" aint too bad, either. ("Classic rock"? What kind of oxymoronic term is that?)

Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon _is a piece of music I like. As is Beethoven's Fifth. And Gillis's Symphony No. 5 1/2. And the Beatles. And Gershwin's _Rhapsody in Blue_. And Shostakovich's _Jazz Suites_. And Radiohead and Chris O'Riley's arrangements of Radiohead. And Ellington's _Black, Brown and Beige_.

Frankly, I'd rather listen to this music than debate its categorization. I would hope you would, too.

Meanwhile, enjoy this:


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## tdc

Pink Floyd is a band that from the early going wanted to create a kind of serious music, perhaps closer to classical but that didn't require (to paraphrase a quote I read) "needing to play an instrument for 10 years" to perform. 

I think they are a grey area band that is hard to classify as any one thing. I tend to agree they are closest to rock music. I think they are more or less their own genre.


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## Blancrocher

I consider it to be a classical film score, myself.


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## PetrB

"I don't sense a question there."

But to respond to the non-question it is:
_Gee_, even to the most inexperienced ear, 80% of it is straight-ahead rock genre music -- I suppose if one wanted to call that as 'classical' music is anyone's prerogative, but so too is saying something so inane that barely anyone could take it seriously 

If the undecided mind needs a little help, listen to Elliott Carter's _String Quartet No.3,_ composed in the same year.


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## KenOC

Obviously, the question is: What is classical music? We're Talk Classical after all, and this is the "Classical music" sub-forum. I would think we could define what classical music is!

So Pink Floyd is not, and Elliott Carter is? And Babbitt and Cage? Again I ask, why?


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## stevens

Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A- CMaj7 (surprise!!)

..oh, how boring


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## KenOC

Does a simple chord pattern mean it's not classical music? Are Glass and Reich composers of classical music? Eine Kleine Nachtmusik? Pretty formulaic, that...

Or is it not classical music if it's boring? That would certainly reduce the field!


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> Obviously, the question is: What is classical music? We're Talk Classical after all, and this is the "Classical music" sub-forum. I would think we could define what classical music is!
> 
> So Pink Floyd is not, and Elliott Carter is? And Babbitt and Cage? Again I ask, why?


In this case I think it's simply that, as PetrB points out, most of the piece is clearly what virtually everyone calls rock. Trying to classify it as "classical" by some idiosyncratic criterion simply makes no sense. No one considers rock to be classical music, and we don't need a clear definition of "classical" to understand and accept that.

There is music far more ambiguous in style which might more profitably be argued over, although not with any real hope of classifying it definitively. And even what is most conservatively thought of as classical music embraces such a range of styles that style would appear to be a poor criterion for inclusion under the term "classical." It might, however, be a criterion for _ex_clusion.

I think it's a lot easier to agree on what should _not_ be considered classical than on what _should_. "Dark Side of the Moon" clearly should not.


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> No one considers rock to be classical music, and we don't need a clear definition of "classical" to understand and accept that... I think it's a lot easier to agree on what should _not_ be considered classical than on what _should_. "Dark Side of the Moon" clearly should not.


An opinion, which you have not supported other than to say "no one" would disagree with you.


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## BurningDesire

KenOC, I really like this question, because it basically shows how arbitrary alot of these walls and definitions are. Really, these aren't genres, if anything one could call them traditions, and in that context saying that Pink Floyd's works are rock whilst something like Carter is classical makes sense. However, this distinction is often tinged with connotations of quality; many classical fans think of rock music as inherently inferior or less intellectual. Its possible to be of a certain musical tradition, but to come into contact with music of other styles and learn from them and create something great that isn't necessarily a cheap imitation. Its also possible for artists to come from mixed traditions. Many great jazz composers had deep training in classical music as well. Frank Zappa was both a self-taught composer in the classical sense, and a self-taught composer who grew out of the rock and blues traditions (which is why you'll have a piece that mixes modernist classical and musique concrete techniques with doo-*** vocal harmonies and improvised guitar solos).

Bottom line is that even if something comes from the rock tradition, that doesn't mean it can't be great, complex, interesting, intellectual, deep, incredibly serious music, or even more-so than alot of "classical music". Also the arguments about whether something fits these dumb labels or not are quite silly. When does something stop being something and start being something else? Is Cage still classical even at his most experimental? Is Yoko Ono classical then because she is connected to that experimental scene? Is Brian Eno classical? Is a piece like Elenor Rigby by The Beatles a rock piece? It makes use of no standard rock instruments, is it rock simply because its written by a "rock band"? Is Aphex Twin classical? His work is just as intricate and interesting and crafted and complex, sometimes considerably more-so than that of "classical" electronic composers like Ligeti (his electronic pieces at any rate) and Pierre Schaeffer. Is complexity the quality that makes something classical, and simplicity makes something pop? Then by that definition wouldn't much of the Classical period be pop music and not classical, because alot of the is quite simple and predictable music (not necesarilly a bad thing), whilst music by a "roc band" like Gentle Giant or King Crimson is anything but simple or predictable.


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## BurningDesire

As far as how I'd define this piece, I'd define it as a great piece of music. Pink Floyd I think is more connected to the rock and blues and jazz traditions than the classical one, but they certainly take alot of cues from the classical, especially in the sense of grandeur and of exploring large musical ideas and in the prominent use of themes and leitmotifs.


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## BurningDesire

KenOC said:


> An opinion, which you have not supported other than to say "no one" would disagree with you.


And I do disagree with Woodduck :3 Frank Zappa is the clearest example. There is no line. His music is rock and it is classical as well.


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## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Obviously, the question is: What is classical music? We're Talk Classical after all, and this is the "Classical music" sub-forum. I would think we could define what classical music is!
> 
> So Pink Floyd is not, and Elliott Carter is? And Babbitt and Cage? Again I ask, why?


Why not? If there was a glimmer of a shred of a real question, and you were in a quandary of sorting out what is what, and this were not a board, I would give you twenty minutes face to face time to help settle this humongous question.

But as I said, "I don't sense a question there."


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> But as I said, "I don't sense a question there."


Your quote from my post ends in a question mark and pretty obviously asks a question, one which seems clear enough. You have not bothered to answer it...yet.


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## Guest

Does it matter? Does it need to be categorised here? (After all, we're not running a shop where people like to know whereabouts to find stuff.)


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## KenOC

BurningDesire said:


> Bottom line is that even if something comes from the rock tradition, that doesn't mean it can't be great, complex, interesting, intellectual, deep, incredibly serious music, or even more-so than alot of "classical music".


BurningDesire, I agree with you. The artificial walls we build around what we want to think of as "classical music" make it more and more remote from the everyday listening of people everywhere. The result is apparent. Some composers are trying to knock these walls down, but the classical music elite are intent on retaining and even strengthening them. This is a great shame.

Music will survive, but perhaps not a living art that some of us call "classical music" -- at least per their definitions.


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## stevens

KenOC said:


> Does a simple chord pattern mean it's not classical music? Are Glass and Reich composers of classical music? Eine Kleine Nachtmusik? Pretty formulaic, that...
> 
> Or is it not classical music if it's boring? That would certainly reduce the field!


No, you are right, Even classical music could be rather boring and repetitive (especially two hundred years ago). But, simple chord patterns are ONE main and important factor in pop music. Other factors are the choice of instruments, steady drum beats, studio sound-effects, chord based music (as your example), no polyfony, etc. Your example is a good one and shows that pop music often sounds like a repetitive soft sound wallpaper.


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## Guest

I notice that in defence of 'classical', the terms 'pop', 'rock' and 'rock and roll' are sprayed around with much less concern and the same fuzzy lack of definition.


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## GioCar

KenOC said:


> Does a simple chord pattern mean it's not classical music? Are Glass and Reich composers of classical music? Eine Kleine Nachtmusik? Pretty formulaic, that...
> 
> *Or is it not classical music if it's boring*? That would certainly reduce the field!


Many of my friends actually think that classical music is boring...


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## Badinerie

No..............


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## MoonlightSonata

GioCar said:


> Many of my friends actually think that classical music is boring...


Many people do. It's their loss.
(well, not entirely, but you know what I mean, I hope)


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## aleazk

Of course not, it's rock.


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## stevens

GioCar said:


> Many of my friends actually think that classical music is boring...


I think there are two reasons why music is perceived as boring. First one, when it contain too little information (Em7-A-Em7-A-Em7-A), and second; when it contains too *much* information. -When the listener cant recognize a pattern or structure (modern classical music).


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## Kopachris

No, it's not classical. Why? Dunno. I guess I'll stick with my old distinction that "classical music is inherently individual, while popular music (of which rock is a subclass) is inherently collaborative," with regard to the process of writing music. May seem pretty arbitrary a distinction, but then so is everything to do with music.


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## Piwikiwi

KenOC said:


> BurningDesire, I agree with you. The artificial walls we build around what we want to think of as "classical music" make it more and more remote from the everyday listening of people everywhere. The result is apparent. Some composers are trying to knock these walls down, but the classical music elite are intent on retaining and even strengthening them. This is a great shame.
> 
> Music will survive, but perhaps not a living art that some of us call "classical music" -- at least per their definitions.


It is not about strengthening walls or elitism. The thing that annoys me is that a lot of people tend to use the label "classical" to legitimize their own music or musical taste. They use the image of Classical music being serious and complex in the hopes that it reflects on the music they like or create.

I think that it is absolutely absurd and it sounds like those people have some kind of inferiority complex regarding music. Why on earth shouldn't that album be called rock? Is it somehow impossible to have a great and complex rock album?

Albums like this should serve as an example that rock can be complex on it´s own without needing any labels such as jazz or classical.


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## Haydn man

We might as well widen the argument to What is music?
I don't care about what label we stick on any piece of music all I care about is how much it appeals to me or articulates something inside me.
DSOM is an all time "classic" but I would also say that about Teenage Kicks by the Undertones. 
Are they classical music, well frankly I don't know and don't care, but I have enjoyed reading these posts watching people dance on the head of a pin


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## BurningDesire

Kopachris said:


> No, it's not classical. Why? Dunno. I guess I'll stick with my old distinction that "classical music is inherently individual, while popular music (of which rock is a subclass) is inherently collaborative," with regard to the process of writing music. May seem pretty arbitrary a distinction, but then so is everything to do with music.


Thats not really true though, tons of rock music is individual. I mean, bands are often the big name listed, but take a work like Pet Sounds. That's Brian Wilson's work. There is collaboration, but classical is not without collaborations as well.


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## GioCar

In terms of fruition

Classical music:
- written to be played/performed live
- recording a plus but not necessary. Most of the contemporary works remains unrecorded, just performed live (and just one time...)
- Interpretation is a key feature.

Dark Side of the Moon:
- written to be recorded. The work of art is actually the recording, to be played at home and not in front of an audience.
- Live performances a plus but not necessary.
- Interpretation is feasible, of course, but not a key feature (and most of the time the so called covers are worse than the original)

There are possibly more, and of course with relevant exceptions on both sides but, based on these points, I have to conclude that Dark Side of the Moon is not classical music. It is good music indeed, and I would like to repeat here the famous quote by Duke Ellington (just seen in a recent thread)

_There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind_


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## stevens

Piwikiwi, I agree whith you *but* where is the complexity in the "Dark side of the moon" example?


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## stevens

I remember that Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor) said that pop music is basically a marketing thing
(said in front of ABBA members Björn and Benny)


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## Piwikiwi

stevens said:


> Piwikiwi, I agree whith you *but* where is the complexity in the "Dark side of the moon" example?


Oh I didn't listen to it. I have zero interest in the music of Pink Floyd myself to be honest.


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## Nereffid

Well to me it doesn't _sound_ classical, whereas Glass's Glassworks does, which I know is the same sort of decision as that American judge who defined pornography as "I know it when I see it". 
We probably all have our own personal Venn diagrams about what fits where (I'm talking music, not pornography!) but they're not based on specific defined rules that we can articulate coherently. And there'll always be exceptions. One of my go-to criteria for "it's not classical" is the presence of a rock drumkit... but there are always exceptions. Ultimately it comes down to what we "allow".

One question that interests me is, how easy would it be for classical musicians to perform or record Dark Side of the Moon in a "classical" manner such that someone who had never heard Pink Floyd's version might think it was originally a classical work?


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## schigolch

About "Dark Side of the Moon", I don't know. But listen to the first bars of this and maybe you will find something familiar and Pink Floyd-like:


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## maestro267

It's not classical, but it is a symphony scored for rock band. A single 43-minute work in ten movements with recurring ideas (mainly the Breathe chord progression, plus the effects in Speak to Me).


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## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Obviously, the question is: What is classical music? We're Talk Classical after all, and this is the "Classical music" sub-forum. I would think we could define what classical music is!
> 
> So Pink Floyd is not, and Elliott Carter is? And Babbitt and Cage? Again I ask, why?


So, taking that as face value and not disingenuous, we all know there is only the most general of 'definitions' of classical music -- so elusive is that definition. "Art music" doesn't help much, either, in that there is a lot of music I would call artful, and art, which is not classical.

A colleague once answered it as best I think anyone could:
Listen to classical music, listen to lots of it, all kinds and eras, and over years, and at some moment you will know why you know the difference between Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Elliott Carter, Ligeti, Berio, etc. and music which is other than classical.

This is where for those with the experience just described, there is no question that a film score is a film score, Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ is not classical, and so forth.

Why is it / is it not classical? Listen to a lot of classical, all sorts and eras, and a lot, and for years, and the cumulative experience of that leads to 'answering' the question, well... "and then, Bob's your Uncle."


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## PetrB

Nereffid said:


> One of my go-to criteria for "it's not classical" is the presence of a rock drumkit... but there are always exceptions.


Lol, One movement of John Adams' Chamber _Symphony_ uses a drumkit, yet it sounds nothing like pop or rock genre music


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## stevens

Characteristics of pop/rock:

1) Drumbeat 
2) Instrumentation (guitarr, bassguitarr, drums, electr-keyb etc)
3) Simple chord based music
4) Simple "natural" way of singing
5) Often several Verses

All of these must not be achieved


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## Kopachris

PetrB said:


> "Art music" doesn't help much, either, in that there is a lot of music I would call artful, and art, which is not classical.


And some classical music which I would not call art. (Thinking of _Leck mich im Arsch_.)


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## violadude

PetrB said:


> Lol, One movement of John Adams' Chamber _Symphony_ uses a drumkit, yet it sounds nothing like pop or rock genre music


Same is the case with Schnittke's 2nd Concerto Grosso






2:06


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## shangoyal

To me, the question only has limited importance. What does it matter if we consider it classical or not? Some people do, and some don't. Neither of these choices really affects whether you like the music itself or not. Btw, in my book, it is not classical.


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## Guest

> Why would you consider it not classical?


Ken, would YOU like to spend all day answering questions like "Why wouldn't you consider Beethoven to be death metal?" or "Why wouldn't you consider Metallica to be classical music?" or "Why wouldn't you consider the sky to be a collage of a trillion unicorns?"

The burden of proof lies with anyone who suggests what is NOT widely accepted. Pink Floyd is not widely considered classical music, so the question is akin to the above examples.


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## Guest

stevens said:


> Characteristics of pop/rock:
> 
> 1) Drumbeat
> 2) Instrumentation (guitarr, bassguitarr, drums, electr-keyb etc)
> 3) Simple chord based music
> 4) Simple "natural" way of singing
> 5) Often several Verses
> 
> All of these must not be achieved


I don't know about some of these, but don't forget the ever-important "If I played it once, why not repeat the exact thing for 4-8 bars?!" This style of writing is true from Pink Floyd to Slayer.


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## Guest

BurningDesire said:


> Its not dissimilar to people who complain to trans people that pronouns don't matter, but then are the same folks who are hardline on gender roles.


Oh lord have mercy


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> So, taking that as face value and not disingenuous, we all know there is only the most general of 'definitions' of classical music -- so elusive is that definition. "Art music" doesn't help much, either, in that there is a lot of music I would call artful, and art, which is not classical.
> 
> A colleague once answered it as best I think anyone could:
> Listen to classical music, listen to lots of it, all kinds and eras, and over years, and at some moment you will know why you know the difference between Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Elliott Carter, Ligeti, Berio, etc. and music which is other than classical.
> 
> This is where for those with the experience just described, there is no question that a film score is a film score, Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ is not classical, and so forth.
> 
> Why is it / is it not classical? Listen to a lot of classical, all sorts and eras, and a lot, and for years, and the cumulative experience of that leads to 'answering' the question, well... "and then, Bob's your Uncle."


This this this this this this this. After listening to classical music for only 2 years, I can't think of any music that stumps my intuition, and if I find some - well I'll just keep on "studying" (listening).

I would advise you listen to music, Ken!


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## GGluek

By my ever so simplistic definition, if it's held together by a (sometimes monotonously) steady drumbeat -- even a variegated one -- it's pop/rock. Of course, that could be applied to Bolero, but what the hell.


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## Blue Miasma

Well for me I like to think of it like this, Classical music has evolved over the years everything evolves it isn't so much about when as it is for how it's a natural process look at some of the composers that evolved the music already. 

Now I see it like this we had Mozart and Beethoven, then Shostakovich and Schoenberg, I think we can all safely agree they are classical now I see further evolution being compositions (note I'm saying compositions) like Dark Side of the Moon and even Tubular Bells they are a breakaway from tradition they are a advancement in composition but I don't see it as pure Classical music and therefore can't fully call it Classical music but this is what I'm asking myself at the moment will music like Dark Side of the Moon be considered or called Classical in the future?


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## hpowders

Piwikiwi said:


> Oh I didn't listen to it. I have zero interest in the music of Pink Floyd myself to be honest.


You and me both. It just doesn't interest me. I therefore abstain.

No interest. No burden. Me happy!


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> An opinion, which you have not supported other than to say "no one" would disagree with you.


Sorry, I forgot that Harvey Horenstein in apartment 3B at the Stratford Arms in Queens considers rock to be classical music.

Happy now?


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## Guest

Blue Miasma said:


> Well for me I like to think of it like this, Classical music has evolved over the years everything evolves it isn't so much about when as it is for how it's a natural process look at some of the composers that evolved the music already.
> 
> Now I see it like this we had Mozart and Beethoven, then Shostakovich and Schoenberg, I think we can all safely agree they are classical now I see further evolution being compositions (note I'm saying compositions) like Dark Side of the Moon and even Tubular Bells they are a breakaway from tradition they are a advancement in composition but I don't see it as pure Classical music and therefore can't fully call it Classical music but this is what I'm asking myself at the moment will music like Dark Side of the Moon be considered or called Classical in the future?


I don't really consider prog rock to be "advancement in composition" so much as "advancement in composition of rock music" - it narrows the massive gap in compositional talent, but I'd hardly call it a universal advance.

This all being said, Dark Side Of The Moon is clearly one of the immortal pieces of popular music.


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## Couac Addict

*FOR THOSE ABOUT TO*_....listen to serious or conventional music following long-established principles rather than a folk, jazz, or popular tradition.._..*WE SALUTE YOU!!!!!*


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## BurningDesire

PetrB said:


> So, taking that as face value and not disingenuous, we all know there is only the most general of 'definitions' of classical music -- so elusive is that definition. "Art music" doesn't help much, either, in that there is a lot of music I would call artful, and art, which is not classical.
> 
> A colleague once answered it as best I think anyone could:
> Listen to classical music, listen to lots of it, all kinds and eras, and over years, and at some moment you will know why you know the difference between Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Elliott Carter, Ligeti, Berio, etc. and music which is other than classical.
> 
> This is where for those with the experience just described, there is no question that a film score is a film score, Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ is not classical, and so forth.
> 
> Why is it / is it not classical? Listen to a lot of classical, all sorts and eras, and a lot, and for years, and the cumulative experience of that leads to 'answering' the question, well... "and then, Bob's your Uncle."


I have the experience you've described Petr, and that conclusion is not something I have reached. Its not from the sound that these things are to be classified in this manner, because that makes no sense given that classical music is so extremely diverse in sound and technique (I love John Cage, but if his work is to be considered classical alongside Beethoven, then you really don't have any case to make against Pink Floyd or film scores). If we're talking about the traditions these pieces arise out of, it would make a little more sense, but then of course most film scores are classical as they are composed in a classical way by classically trained composers for classical musicians.


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## BurningDesire

stevens said:


> Characteristics of pop/rock:
> 
> 1) Drumbeat
> 2) Instrumentation (guitarr, bassguitarr, drums, electr-keyb etc)
> 3) Simple chord based music
> 4) Simple "natural" way of singing
> 5) Often several Verses
> 
> All of these must not be achieved


1, I wasn't aware that ostinati in non-pitched percussion sounds played by a single musician were exclusive to rock and pop music.

2, I also wasn't aware that instruments determined genre. I suppose if its played by violins and clarinets its classical then eh?

3, Simple chord based music.... like Mozart? Or how about Satie?

4, What does this even mean? A classical composer can request other manners of singing besides the really narrow spectrum of the "classical voice" style.

5, Well yeah, thats kind of something common in many poems, so when you're dealing with most kinds of songs you'll get that, but its not really something that defines the music those poems are set to.

Not really good criteria here.


----------



## BurningDesire

hpowders said:


> You and me both. It just doesn't interest me. I therefore abstain.
> 
> No interest. No burden. Me happy!


If you're not even going to give the piece a chance, then why even bother giving a contribution to the thread? You didn't put any effort in.


----------



## BurningDesire

shangoyal said:


> To me, the question only has limited importance. What does it matter if we consider it classical or not? Some people do, and some don't. Neither of these choices really affects whether you like the music itself or not. Btw, in my book, it is not classical.


Its actually of pretty significant importance because its not so much the question of if this one piece falls in this one particular arbitrary box, it is a question of how these boxes are even defined, and most of the people who are saying it clearly isn't don't even have a clear definition for what rock or classical are to begin with. Its more a question about how arbitrary alot of these classifications are to begin with.


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## BurningDesire

arcaneholocaust said:


> Ken, would YOU like to spend all day answering questions like "Why wouldn't you consider Beethoven to be death metal?" or "Why wouldn't you consider Metallica to be classical music?" or "Why wouldn't you consider the sky to be a collage of a trillion unicorns?"
> 
> The burden of proof lies with anyone who suggests what is NOT widely accepted. Pink Floyd is not widely considered classical music, so the question is akin to the above examples.


No, the burden of proof lies with whoever is making a claim, not whoever suggests something that isn't widely accepted. Plenty of things with literally zero proof whatsoever are widely accepted. Even if 99% of people believed something and were making that claim for its veracity, its their responsibility to prove it if they expect that 1% to believe it at all. It doesn't magically become the other party's responsibility to prove them wrong simply because they are the majority.


----------



## BurningDesire

arcaneholocaust said:


> I don't really consider prog rock to be "advancement in composition" so much as "advancement in composition of rock music" - it narrows the massive gap in compositional talent, but I'd hardly call it a universal advance.
> 
> This all being said, Dark Side Of The Moon is clearly one of the immortal pieces of popular music.


What even constitutes advancement in composition? Other than inventing a totally new technique or, I suppose aesthetic approach?


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## scratchgolf

BurningDesire said:


> If you're not even going to give the piece a chance, then why even bother giving a contribution to the thread? You didn't put any effort in.


I hope this doesn't surprise you. As for Floyd, I've just updated my iTunes library and labeled Roger and Co. under the classical genre. It's just a label and changes nothing else. Oh, all songs except for "Seamus". No way is "Seamus" classical music.


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## BurningDesire

Couac Addict said:


> *FOR THOSE ABOUT TO*_....listen to serious or conventional music following long-established principles rather than a folk, jazz, or popular tradition.._..*WE SALUTE YOU!!!!!*


Those other styles have their own long-established principles. Many folk traditions have considerably longer history than our western classical music does. Then there are the classical musics of other parts of the world (many of which are akin to folk traditions in some ways, such as Indian classical music being primarily an oral tradition). Plus classical music is full of breaking principles and establishing new ones. Cage's indeterminate music makes use of practically no previously established classical principles, other than I suppose a certain compositional rigor. Yet its classical.


----------



## Guest

If the goal was to get people to squabble, and there is evidence here and on other forums that that is so, then goal met!

If, however, the goal was to get a substantive discussion about terminology and even about the future of "classical" music, then goal very much not met. Not even close.

I don't think the question "Is X classical music?" to be very interesting. And when X is _Dark Side of the Moon,_ it doesn't even seem like a real question, presence of a mark (?) notwithstanding, _Dark Side of the Moon_ being obviously rock. And "obviously" meaning, among other things, that no one would ever have put this in the classical section of a music store. The people one expects to sell this to are not any of them going to be looking in the classical section for it.

A much better test case, if one is genuinely interested in terminology and in the validity of categories, would be Towering Inferno's _Kaddish._






Much of it very much in the rock tradition, at least in sound. Much of it clearly influenced by twentieth century classical ways of handling form and making transitions and even, in much of it, in the sound of it. Much better as a test case of what "classical" can be made to cover.

Historically, "classical" started out covering symphonies and string quartets and piano sonatas but not songs or opera. (I know some people today who say that opera is not classical music, but then I know lots of strange people. I know people who say that Catholics are not Christian. I know people who, but soft. Let us pull the curtain to.) So Mendelssohn's symphonies were classical music, his songs were not. Eventually, the term was expanded to its present gargantuan dimensions, with Hildegard von Bingen being classical music and with Ludwig van Beethoven being classical music and with Gottfried von Einem being classical music. That was, however, around the time that Schoenberg and Stravinsky were shaking things up, followed in quick succession by Varese and Schwitters and Cage and Ignace and all the good folks over at Fluxus. The utility of "classical" has been under pretty intense scrutiny for around a hundred years, half of its life time.

Of course, the whole point of asking whether this or that non-classical thing can be considered "classical" is because apparently the word "classical" still has some cachet, at least among classical fans. Dunno about Pink Floyd fans. Are they wanting _Dark Side of the Moon_ recategorized? Are they going to be going in their droves to the dwindling classical sections of the dwindling numbers of music stores?

Anyway, wherever you stand on this burning issue, enjoy _Kaddish._


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## starthrower

Stupid Thread Idea!


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## Piwikiwi

BurningDesire said:


> Its actually of pretty significant importance because its not so much the question of if this one piece falls in this one particular arbitrary box, it is a question of how these boxes are even defined, and most of the people who are saying it clearly isn't don't even have a clear definition for what rock or classical are to begin with. Its more a question about how arbitrary alot of these classifications are to begin with.


For me those genres aren't that arbitrary but pretty clear in many regards. I still don't get why it should be bad that pink floydbia considered to be rock?


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## aleazk

Piwikiwi said:


> For me those genres aren't that arbitrary but pretty clear in many regards. I still don't get why it should be bad that pink floydbia considered to be rock?


Because it implies discrimination to trans people and right wing thinking, didn't you learn anything from the comments here! be careful, Adolf!


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## Morimur

No, it's not classical. The end.


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## aleazk

Morimur said:


> No, it's not classical. The end.


Antichrist! Mussolini! Tea party member!


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## Piwikiwi

aleazk said:


> Because it implies discrimination to trans people and right wing thinking, didn't you learned anything from the comments here! be careful, Adolf!


:lol: Haha! Categorizing music is literally the same as Jim Crow laws; Musical segregation.


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## Polyphemus

Piwikiwi said:


> :lol: Haha! Categorizing music is literally the same as Jim Crow laws; Musical segregation.


Happens all the time you don't file your Bruckner beside your Brubeck.


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## starthrower

Pink and Floyd were a couple of bluesmen, and that's where the band name is derived from. The music is obviously perceived as classic by rock fans. They made some good music utilizing space, and a minimum amount of notes, and it holds up pretty well 40 + years later, but I don't hear much classical music influence. They had some half baked attempts on the early 70s album Atom Heart Mother, but it doesn't do much for me. For rock bands with a heavy classical influence, listen to Gentle Giant, ELP, Gryphon, etc...


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## aleazk

Polyphemus said:


> Happens all the time you don't file your Bruckner beside your Brubeck.


I have OCD and can't do that because of 34 different reasons before the music genre issue even shows up!


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## Woodduck

Words and their definitions are not things. They merely refer to things. They are tools. They orient us amid the particulars and diversities and continuums and metamorphoses of reality. Words and definitions are the map, not the territory. And, like any map, their only job is to enable us to travel without getting lost.

There never will be a fixed and limited definition of "classical music" because music is not fixed and limited. We will use these words, as we use all words, in whatever way seems most useful. We can argue about what music it's most useful to call "classical" or "rock" or "jazz," and the most useful classification in one context may not be the most useful in another. 

We need definitions in order to think clearly, to know what we're talking about, and to communicate that to other people. We don't need them for any other purpose. But given that we do need them for these purposes, we need to choose them, and the phenomena we want to include under them, in an established context and for a good reason, which means, in part, a reason that promotes a general understanding among people.

In the context of our culture and for purposes of clearest general understanding, there is no reason I can imagine to include the music of Pink Floyd, which is considered by nearly everyone (except old Harvey Horenstein in apartment 3B at the Stratford Arms in Queens) to be rock, under any definition of "classical music." Anyone who wants to insist upon a definition of "classical" which will include this music needs to show that some legitimate purpose is served by doing so, needs to show how doing so clarifies our thinking and increases our general understanding.

I can't see how a discussion in which "rock" and "classical" are not distinguished will increase anything but confusion, or how a music store in which there is not an attempt to separate music by generally accepted categories will get us anything but lost. 

The territory needs a map, and not all maps are equally useful.


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## aleazk

Woodduck said:


> Words and their definitions are not things. They merely refer to things. They are tools. They orient us amid the particulars and diversities and continuums and metamorphoses of reality. Words and definitions are the map, not the territory. And, like any map, their only job is to enable us to travel without getting lost.
> 
> There never will be a fixed and limited definition of "classical music" because music is not fixed and limited. We will use these words, as we use all words, in whatever way seems most useful. We can argue about what music it's most useful to call "classical" or "rock" or "jazz," and the most useful classification in one context may not be the most useful in another.
> 
> We need definitions in order to think clearly, to know what we're talking about, and to communicate that to other people. We don't need them for any other purpose. But given that we do need them for these purposes, we need to choose them, and the phenomena we want to include under them, in an established context and for a good reason, which means, in part, a reason that promotes a general understanding among people.
> 
> In the context of our culture and for purposes of clearest general understanding, there is no reason I can imagine to include the music of Pink Floyd, which is considered by nearly everyone (except old Harvey Horenstein in apartment 3B at the Stratford Arms in Queens) to be rock, under any definition of "classical music." Anyone who wants to insist upon a definition of "classical" which will include this music needs to show that some legitimate purpose is served by doing so, needs to show how doing so clarifies our thinking and increases our general understanding.
> 
> I can't see how a discussion in which "rock" and "classical" are not distinguished will increase anything but confusion, or how a music store in which there is not an attempt to separate music by generally accepted categories will get us anything but lost.
> 
> The territory needs a map, and not all maps are equally useful.


Exactly. Unfortunaly some people react to this naive identification with another equally naive concept: total relativism. Both useless in the real world, of course.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> It would be interesting to hear opinions on this. What do you think? Maybe more important, why?


It might as well be. According to the new "punk" ethic which was emerging in 1976, such "prog rock" groups as *Floyd, Yes*, and *ELP *were dinosaurs, playing overly-complicated "rock" that was designed for virtuoso players who had thousands of dollars of equipment, which totally alienated the "generation X" teens who were coming up in the era of Margaret Thatcher, Reagan and the dole. Johnny Rotten even adapted an authentic Pink Floyd t-shirt to his own purposes, simply writing "I HATE" over the name in dripping black paint.

Prog-rock musicians openly admitted their debt to classical music, and *Keith Emerson* was a classical virtuoso himself, even penning a Piano Concerto (on the "Works" album). *King Crimson,* another prog-rock group, used complex time signatures; *Gentle Giant* were all graduates of the Royal Academy, and were very proficient at playing Renaissance madrigals and in ensembles, putting this to use on their albums as well (they even used *Webern's* "pointillism" in a cut called "So Sincere").

This trend toward complexity, and towards a more Western harmonic language and forms shows the trend rock was taking, going *away from blues,* *away from the pentatonic scale,* *towards a "whiter" harmonic language of Europe.*

*Ian Anderson* replaced his original guitarist, *Mick Abrahams,* because they disagreed on what direction to take *Jethro Tull;* Anderson had "high art" aspirations, and wanted to move away from Abrahams' more bluesy conception (Abrahams later formed *Blodwyn Pig,* worshipped by *Joe Perry* and *Steven Tyler *of *Aerosmith* for its bluesy sound).

Admittedly, prog-rock was miles away from its original black/R&B roots (Chuck Berry), and had become top-heavy, even alienating rank-and file rock fans (I worked with a drummer who refused to play a *Yes* song).


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Obviously, the question is: What is classical music? We're Talk Classical after all, and this is the "Classical music" sub-forum. I would think we could define what classical music is!
> 
> So Pink Floyd is not, and Elliott Carter is? And Babbitt and Cage? Again I ask, why?


What do you think makes Mozart considered classical, if Pink Floyd is not? Why? Again, why?


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> What do you think makes Mozart considered classical, if Pink Floyd is not? Why? Again, why?


Answer: Habits and prejudices. Certainly not definitions of the words, since those seem elusive, or more than elusive.


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## Radames

Woodduck said:


> There never will be a fixed and limited definition of "classical music" because music is not fixed and limited.


Maybe you can't define it, but I know it when I hear it. And Pink Floyd ain't it.


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## millionrainbows

First, let's get some background on this hybrid form we call "rock and roll." It was basically "invented" by Chuck Berry, when he used Fred Below (drums) and Willie Dixon (bass) on his first Chess sessions. These guys were the "house" rhythm section at Chess studios, playing on many blues classics with Muddy Waters and Little Walter Jacobs.
What Chuck Berry did was simply plat a "straight eight" rhythm on his guitar, over the "shuffle" blues beat played by Below and Dixon, turning the African-derived "shuffle/divided by three" beat of blues and jazz into the "straight eight" beat we now associate with rock, dividing the beat into units of two rather than three.

In fact, if one listens carefully to the early recordings of Chuck Berry (The Great 28, The Chess Box), one can still hear the "shuffle" rhythm section juxtaposed against Berry's rhythm guitar. It's hard to hear, but you can hear the high-hat keeping the shuffle, and the fills are "shuffle" in feel, too; and the bass player still plods along with his "walking bass" figure on every quarter not (not eighths.)






Another example of the "archaic" sound of early rock, a far cry from Pink Floyd:


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## Piwikiwi

KenOC said:


> Answer: Habits and prejudices. Certainly not definitions of the words, since those seem elusive, or more than elusive.


Those are rather poor arguments to support such a bold statement.


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## KenOC

Piwikiwi said:


> Those are rather poor arguments to support such a bold statement.


That was in answer to a question, not to support a statement.


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Answer: Habits and prejudices. Certainly not definitions of the words, since those seem elusive, or more than elusive.


Or perhaps because Mozart's music rests within a certain specific tradition which continues to this day as the western classical (or art music) tradition, while the band Pink Floyd comes out of a separate tradition which, while it may have marginal points of intersection with the classical tradition, exists independent of it?

It seems to make more sense than alleging prejudice in the case of something that is accepted as one of the defining cases of what classical music is.

To say that Pink Floyd is not classical music is not in any way meant to disparage Pink Floyd. There's plenty of classical music that's not worth the paper it was written on:
Richard Strauss - Japanese Festival Music

And there's a good deal of music outside of the classical tradition that's fully worthwhile.


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Or perhaps because Mozart's music rests within a certain specific tradition which continues to this day as the western classical (or art music) tradition, while the band Pink Floyd comes out of a separate tradition which, while it may have marginal points of intersection with the classical tradition, exists independent of it?


To my ears, Pink Floyd sounds much closer to Mozart than much of what we're happy to call "classical music," especially from the past hundred years. I suspect that dog won't hunt.


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> To my ears, Pink Floyd sounds much closer to Mozart than much of what we're happy to call "classical music," especially from the past hundred years. I suspect that dog won't hunt.


In what way, specifically? Phrasing? Harmony? Melody? Rhythm? Timbre? Orchestration? Form?

I think that in all of these ways, the thinking of composers like Carter and Ligeti is far closer to that of Mozart than Pink Floyd is.


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## PetrB

Blue Miasma said:


> ...like Dark Side of the Moon and even Tubular Bells they are a breakaway from tradition they are a advancement in composition but I don't see it as pure Classical music and therefore can't fully call it Classical music but this is what I'm asking myself at the moment will music like Dark Side of the Moon be considered or called Classical in the future?


If all memory and evidence of what we now call classical vanishes, entirely, then perhaps _Dark Side of the Moon_ and even _Tubular Bells_ will have "moved up one."


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## Figleaf

If you define classical music as whatever is boring, pretentious and loved by nerds, then this album is definitely classical! 

Edited to add: I'm nerdy and proud myself, but not a Pink Floyd fan, as you may have guessed.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> In what way, specifically? Phrasing? Harmony? Melody? Rhythm? Timbre? Orchestration? Form?
> 
> I think that in all of these ways, the thinking of composers like Carter and Ligeti is far closer to that of Mozart than Pink Floyd is.


Well, I did say "to my ears." But I might think of tonality, time signatures, clearly defined and regular phrases, a basis in generally recognizable melody, and a few other things that are common to both Mozart and Pink Floyd.

Can you honestly say that Babbitt's music is closer than Pink Floyd to Mozart? BTW "thinking" isn't music.


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> If all memory and evidence of what we now call classical vanishes, entirely, then perhaps _Dark Side of the Moon_ and even _Tubular Bells_ will have "moved up one."


The final words may suggest one reason that Pink Floyd is banished from what we call "classical music." I won't expand on that.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Mahlerian said:


> In what way, specifically? Phrasing? Harmony? Melody? Rhythm? Timbre? Orchestration? Form?
> 
> I think that in all of these ways, the thinking of composers like Carter and Ligeti is far closer to that of Mozart than Pink Floyd is.





KenOC said:


> Can you honestly say that Babbitt's music is closer than Pink Floyd to Mozart? BTW "thinking" isn't music.


KenOC, I think one can infer what Mahlerian meant with the word "thinking" in that context. Directly preceding "_the thinking of these composers_", he wrote "_I think that in all of these ways_" which directly refers to "_Phrasing? Harmony? Melody? Rhythm? Timbre? Orchestration? Form?_" (the thinking of those composers)


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Well, I did say "to my ears." But I might think of tonality, time signatures, clearly defined and regular phrases, a basis in generally recognizable melody, and a few other things that are common to both Mozart and Pink Floyd.


Pink Floyd's tonality is not anything that Mozart would have recognized, nor is their harmony. Their treatment of rhythm is not anything that Mozart would have recognized, nor are their melodies designed on the same principles.

Mozart has in common with Babbitt counterpoint, variation, development of both melody and rhythm, and a treatment of form that is not mostly limited to strophic and sectional.



KenOC said:


> Can you honestly say that Babbitt's music is closer than Pink Floyd to Mozart? BTW "thinking" isn't music.


Yes, but thinking is the reason behind the fundamental differences between classical and non-classical musics. It's a way of approaching material and developing it.

I'm not saying that the surface of Mozart's music and Babbitt's are particularly similar (of course, the same is true of Pink Floyd), but that on a deeper level, there is far more of a connection between the two.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Mahlerian: Pink Floyd's tonality is not anything that Mozart would have recognized, nor is their harmony. Their treatment of rhythm is not anything that Mozart would have recognized, nor are their melodies designed on the same principles.


Nor is Debussy's music anything Mozart would have recognized as such for that matter. _;D_


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## scratchgolf

Now, if Pink Floyd is ever categorized as "Classical Music" then Roger Waters will leap Elgar and RVW as my favorite British composer. Until then, it will have to wait. While there's no denying Gilmour's contributions, Waters was Pink Floyd. I also will never back off my stance that _The Final Cut_ was their crowning achievement.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Is "Dark Side of the Moon" classical music?
> It would be interesting to hear opinions on this. What do you think? Maybe more important, why?


It might be 'interesting'. Then again, it might be purposeless...is there any value in wanting to (re)categorise this piece as classical?

Woodduck suggests that he



> can't see how a discussion in which "rock" and "classical" are not distinguished will increase anything but confusion


But that rather depends on what the discussion is about. I can't see how distinguishing rock from classical would be necessary except in a discussion about distinguishing rock from classical.


----------



## Piwikiwi

I still don't see why it having this music labelled as rock is bad


----------



## Guest

Piwikiwi said:


> I still don't see why it having this music labelled as rock is bad


The "classical" label carries an implied prestige in our world, and people are so prone to insecurity these days as well. Why, just hours ago someone compared genre discrimination to gender discrimination.


----------



## HaydnBearstheClock

Pink Floyd is not classical! They may have some elements of it, but you can say that about most modern (at least western) musical forms.


----------



## HaydnBearstheClock

arcaneholocaust said:


> The "classical" label carries an implied prestige in our world, and people are so prone to insecurity these days as well. Why, just hours ago someone compared genre discrimination to gender discrimination.


And who did that?


----------



## Petwhac

In intent, in structure and in execution DSOTM is rock, rock, rock all the way!
Nothing 'classical' about it. Can't imagine why anyone would want to classify it that way.

However, I must disagree with Mahlerian and state that Mozart would find more points of similarity in Floyd than in Babbitt. True, Mozart would find PF's music odd but he would definitely know a common harmonic progression when he heard it and a 4/4 time signature. One could score certain passages of the album in a Mozartian style quite effectively and it would not sound a million miles away. The same cannot be said of many of Babbitt's works.

[edit]
Actually having just listened to the passage I had in mind. It would make very 'ugly' Mozart. Though it's still closer than Babbit!


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## Declined

I view it as rock music.


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> In intent, in structure and in execution DSOTM is rock, rock, rock all the way!
> Nothing 'classical' about it. Can't imagine why anyone would want to classify it that way.
> 
> However, I must disagree with Mahlerian and state that Mozart would find more points of similarity in Floyd than in Babbitt. True, Mozart would find PF's music odd but he would definitely know a common harmonic progression when he heard it and a 4/4 time signature. One could score certain passages of the album in a Mozartian style quite effectively and it would not sound a million miles away. The same cannot be said of many of Babbitt's works.


A time signature is a notational convenience and a pattern of (typical) rhythmic emphasis, but there is far more to rhythm than that. Likewise, a chord progression is not the only factor involved in harmony; many elements of tonal distance and emphasis that a musician of Mozart's day would have considered absolutely crucial to coherence are completely irrelevant in Pink Floyd's music. The way that rock music treats rhythm and harmony are completely removed from the way a classical era musician would have, and any reworking of passages to make them sound "Mozartian" would require a good deal of effort and it would no longer sound like rock music.

Beyond harmonic/rhythmic usage, I think it is obvious that Mozart and Babbitt actually have a good deal in common, including the contrapuntal treatment of lines as separate but interacting and the process of developing motifs into larger pieces, which gives rise to the form itself in many cases. Add to that the fact that Mozart and Babbitt did at times, as in the string quartet linked to above, score for the same forces and using the same notation, and the list of similarities is quite clearly far larger.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> A time signature is a notational convenience and a pattern of rhythmic emphasis, but there is far more to rhythm than that. Likewise, a chord progression is not the only factor involved in harmony; many elements of tonal distance and emphasis that a musician of Mozart's day would have considered absolutely crucial to coherence are completely irrelevant in Pink Floyd's music. The way that rock music treats rhythm and harmony are completely removed from the way a classical era musician would have, and any reworking of passages to make them sound "Mozartian" would require a good deal of effort and it would no longer sound like rock music.


No, it would no longer sound like rock music, I agree. And without taking substantial liberties with phrasing it would be tricky to make it sound Mozartian. But a chord progression or succession, while not being the _only_ factor involved in harmony, is, in Mozart and Floyd, the most fundamental. And while a 4/4 signature itself may be a 'notational convenience' it was not that I was referring to, but a strong, regular pulse.



Mahlerian said:


> Beyond harmonic/rhythmic usage, I think it is obvious that Mozart and Babbitt actually have a good deal in common, including the contrapuntal treatment of lines as separate but interacting and the process of developing motifs into larger pieces, which gives rise to the form itself in many cases. Add to that the fact that Mozart and Babbitt did at times, as in the string quartet linked to above, score for the same forces and using the same notation, and the list of similarities is quite clearly far larger.


Mozart and Babbitt may share many aspects of compositional technique and approach and I would classify Babbitt as 'classical' in a way I would not Pink Floyd. However, I stand by my assertion that Mozart would more easily recognise what what he was hearing in Floyd than in Babbitt.
Counterpoint for Mozart would be a complete nonsense if it was not bound absolutely and without deviation to an harmonic framework. Just as it was in Bach. In the background of Mozart's counterpoint is a simple diatonic chord progression, generally. Forces and notation are of little consequence and Mozart was quite capable, in the operas for example, of fairly simple song forms with little emphasis on motivic development.


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> No, it would no longer sound like rock music, I agree. And without taking substantial liberties with phrasing it would be tricky to make it sound Mozartian. But a chord progression or succession, while not being the _only_ factor involved in harmony, is, in Mozart and Floyd, the most fundamental. And while a 4/4 signature itself may be a 'notational convenience' it was not that I was referring to, but a strong, regular pulse.


Not only phrasing, but also harmonization and melodic contour. The fact that music has a pulse hardly explains the fundamental differences in rhythm between Mozart and Pink Floyd, which are not limited to the use of regular syncopation, but involve a kind of less rigid approach to emphasis and indeed the regularity of pulse and phrasing in a way that connects Mozart and Babbitt rather than Mozart and Pink Floyd.



> Mozart and Babbitt may share many aspects of compositional technique and approach and I would classify Babbitt as 'classical' in a way I would not Pink Floyd. However, I stand by my assertion that Mozart would more easily recognise what what he was hearing in Floyd than in Babbitt.
> Counterpoint for Mozart would be a complete nonsense if it was not bound absolutely and without deviation to an harmonic framework. Just as it was in Bach. In the background of Mozart's counterpoint is a simple diatonic chord progression, generally. Forces and notation are of little consequence and Mozart was quite capable, in the operas for example, of fairly simple song forms with little emphasis on motivic development.


We have had this argument before, but my position remains as follows. Mozart would not have recognized either Babbitt or Pink Floyd as music of any kind. The similarities which you point out are of a kind that would not be immediately apparent, while the differences, simply on a musical level without getting into questions of instrumentation or volume, would in any case be entirely obvious.


----------



## aleazk

What's the point of this silly 'what would Mozart think'? 

What would Newton think of quantum mechanics? I will tell you: "that's nonsense; now, where did I put my astrology and alchemy charts..."

Classical music is not defined by what would Mozart think, or physics by what would Newton think. It's defined in terms of the development of a tradition. Babbitt certainly is one link in that chain. PF, no.


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## senza sordino

I think it all depends on the clothing of the performers
This clothing says rock and roll
View attachment 53988


This clothing says classical
View attachment 53989


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## SONNET CLV

stevens said:


> Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A-Em7-A-Em7- A- CMaj7 (surprise!!)
> 
> ..oh, how boring


What is this? The chord patterns for Ravel's _Bolero_? Now _there's _a classic piece of rock music if I ever heard one!


----------



## trazom

arcaneholocaust said:


> The "classical" label carries an implied prestige in our world, and people are so prone to insecurity these days as well.


Especially if you happen to really, really dislike one classical composer and feel the need to make specious comparisons of that composer with pop icons(over and over again) under the guise of pointing out the argumentum ad populum fallacy when it's clear that you're doing it for shock value and being as obnoxious as possible.


----------



## BurningDesire

aleazk said:


> What's the point of this silly 'what would Mozart think'?
> 
> What would Newton think of quantum mechanics? I will tell you: "that's nonsense; now, where did I put my astrology and alchemy charts..."
> 
> Classical music is not defined by what would Mozart think, or physics by what would Newton think. It's defined in terms of the development of a tradition. Babbitt certainly is one link in that chain. PF, no.


Except if a classical composer is heavily influenced by Pink Floyd's compositions (or rather the compositions of Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, etc.) then they do become part of that chain.


----------



## BurningDesire

trazom said:


> Especially if you happen to really, really dislike one classical composer and feel the need to make specious comparisons of that composer with pop icons(over and over again) under the guise of pointing out the argumentum ad populum fallacy when it's clear that you're doing it for shock value and being as obnoxious as possible.


Hey, nice counter to all of my arguments  You guys are quite good at this.


----------



## Piwikiwi

BurningDesire said:


> Hey, nice counter to all of my arguments  You guys are quite good at this.


That is because you ignoring the good arguments people make....


----------



## Piwikiwi

BurningDesire said:


> Except if a classical composer is heavily influenced by Pink Floyd's compositions (or rather the compositions of Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, etc.) then they do become part of that chain.


I disagree and let me clarify. A lot of composers like Gershwin, Ravel, Milhaud and Bernstein are clearly intluenced by jazz and that doesn't turn jazz into classical music.


----------



## KenOC

aleazk said:


> Classical music is not defined by what would Mozart think, or physics by what would Newton think. It's defined in terms of the development of a tradition..


This idea that music has to belong to a "tradition" or even to have an identifiable genealogy to be considered "classical" seems strange. It has been reinforced by the insistence (of some) that modern music, especial the 2nd Viennese school, is simply a natural development of earlier tradition. Nothing to see here folks, move along, etc.

I'd have to check with a geneticist to be sure, but it sure sounds to me like a formula for inbreeding. Will classical composers someday be reduced to sitting on rickety porches acting oddly and playing the banjo?


----------



## Couac Addict

Classical music has always been poorly defined. Most dictionaries will use the term 'serious music' without defining what serious music is. They tend to say something like 'not popular,folk, traditional music' which to me sounds a bit lazy. It's like...
_
*Dog* (noun)
Not a cat._


----------



## Nereffid

> Will classical composers someday be reduced to sitting on rickety porches acting oddly and playing the banjo?


If the banjo were a lute you might be onto something... 

By the way, I think Julia Wolfe's "Steel Hammer" is definitely a classical work, but her record label calls it "alt-folk".


----------



## Piwikiwi

KenOC said:


> This idea that music has to belong to a "tradition" or even to have an identifiable genealogy to be considered "classical" seems strange. It has been reinforced by the insistence (of some) that modern music, especial the 2nd Viennese school, is simply a natural development of earlier tradition. Nothing to see here folks, move along, etc.
> 
> I'd have to check with a geneticist to be sure, but it sure sounds to me like a formula for inbreeding. Will classical composers someday be reduced to sitting on rickety porches acting oddly and playing the banjo?


But almost all contemporary composers are greatly influenced by other genres of music. Nico Muhly and John Adams are examples of such composers.


----------



## Couac Addict

Next week:
_Rhapsody in Blue....classical or jazz?_


----------



## Piwikiwi

Couac Addict said:


> Next week:
> _Rhapsody in Blue....classical or jazz?_


Jazz inspired Classical. Next topic!

Lee Konitz with String. Classical or Jazz


----------



## KenOC

Piwikiwi said:


> Jazz inspired Classical. Next topic!


I'm reminded of an old Leadbelly LP I use to have, where he's backed by a mellifluous string orchestra. Some things are just very bad ideas from the get-go.

And no, I haven't heard Lee Konitz, so no reflection on him!


----------



## ptr

senza sordino said:


> This clothing says classical
> View attachment 53989


Not at all! That picture screams bad taste commercialism!

/ptr


----------



## Piwikiwi

KenOC said:


> I'm reminded of an old Leadbelly LP I use to have, where he's backed by a mellifluous string orchestra. Some things are just very bad ideas from the get-go.
> 
> And no, I haven't heard Lee Konitz, so no reflection on him!


Do you mean this recording or jazz with strings in general?


----------



## GioCar

One is considered a classical music piece. Which one? and why?



Fausto Romitelli - An Index of Metals (2003)





Ropert Fripp & Brian Eno - An Index of Metals (1975)





Thanks

PS One answer could be here


----------



## Couac Addict

ptr said:


> Not at all! That picture screams bad taste commercialism!
> 
> /ptr


I don't know what you mean.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> The final words may suggest one reason that Pink Floyd is banished from what we call "classical music." I won't expand on that.


Oh, but you should, expand widely and explain why, for instance, the argument that Pink Floyd's music should sit in an honored place right alongside that of Beethoven and Shostakovich (of course, after it has all been transcribed to scores so other players can replicate the music without need to refer to the recordings). After all, as you said they all use "recognizable" harmony, melody, meter, more or less 'regular length' phrasing....

"*The final words may suggest one reason that Pink Floyd is banished from what we call "classical music." I won't expand on that.*

But your above quote most reminds me of Andrew Lloyd Weber's printed complaint that the classical music critics were not taking his music seriously, and one critic's response, that if A.L. Weber ever wrote a classical piece he could rest assured that the classical music critics would give it the same attention they gave any other contemporary classical piece!


----------



## Couac Addict

PetrB said:


> But your above quote most reminds me of Andrew Lloyd Weber's printed complaint that the classical music critics were not taking his music seriously,


Well of course it's classical music. If Puccini and Mendelssohn are classical, then surely...
Of course he sounds like Pink Floyd as well. Therefore, by association, Pink Floyd_ must_ be classical, yes? :lol:


----------



## Guest

GioCar said:


> One is considered a classical music piece. Which one? and why?
> 
> 
> 
> Fausto Romitelli - An Index of Metals (2003)
> 
> Ropert Fripp & Brian Eno - An Index of Metals (1975)


Well, first I'd like an answer to the question that passive voice almost always raises, namely "by whom?"

I suppose you want someone to say the Romitelli is classical and the Fripp/Eno is not.

They are both contemporary non-commercial music.



GioCar said:


> PS One answer could be here


I find this a singularly unsatisfactory answer, though. Jazz is equally meant to be performed live and interpretation is key, even keyer than for classical. And fixed media music by "classical" composers (Varese, Cage, Stockhausen, Maderna, Berio, Xenakis, Ligeti) is meant to be recorded. The recording is the piece. The sounds are quite different, though. Nothing in your answer addresses the difference in sound, which is surely much more fundamental than media. (You can play church music or Bach fugues or rock music or Ligeti's _Volumina_ on organ. The medium, while quite plainly full of all sorts of associations, can be used to do any old kind of music.)

Anyway, no takers for _Kaddish?_ Pity. Board full of music lovers and no takers for _Kaddish._ Extraordinary.


----------



## OlivierM

Aaah, Fausto's Index Of Metals.

Guttural death metal songs are often based on polka rhythms. Classical or not ?


----------



## Skilmarilion

I don't know about 'Dark Side', but at 0:14 in 'Wish You Were Here' there is a direct quotation from Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. Therefore this must be classical music.


----------



## Stavrogin

Funny that in Wikipedia's articles about both Pink Floyd and The Dark Side of the Moon, the term "classical" appears only once and it's about the best sound engineering in non-classical albums.

And no, Wikipedia is not a source of truth, but hey... of all the Pink Floyd enthusiasts who contributed to those articles, noone thought that they have to do with classical music.
(A thing which occurs often, instead, for other "art rock" bands).


----------



## hpowders

So "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is classical music? I think not.


----------



## Polyphemus

Dark Side Of The Moon absolutely not but the following is classical rock :-


----------



## tdc

some guy said:


> Anyway, no takers for _Kaddish?_ Pity. Board full of music lovers and no takers for _Kaddish._ Extraordinary.


Listening to it right now - it strikes me as certainly farther away from rock than Pink Floyd, but I'm not sure I think its any closer to classical. I prefer the way Floyd uses recorded voice sounds. I find the over-all sound of this a little too distorted for my tastes. Brian Eno apparently thinks this is the most frightening album he's ever heard, I can't say I find it that scary.

I prefer this Kaddish:


----------



## Art Rock

some guy said:


> Anyway, no takers for _Kaddish?_ Pity. Board full of music lovers and no takers for _Kaddish._ Extraordinary.


I listened to it, and found it very interesting. The first few minutes remind me a bit of the recent album of David Sylvian* - another artist whose more recent work is difficult to put firmly in one category.

* yes, it should be the other way around, but I heard the Sylvian first.


----------



## GioCar

some guy said:


> Well, first I'd like an answer to the question that passive voice almost always raises, namely "by whom?"


Just to mention a few:
By Milano Musica, the annual festival of contemporary classical music in Milan.
By all reviewers of Romitelli's work, in their pages of classical music reviews.
By most people here (I believe), since we are discussing of classical music and Romitelli was mentioned here and there but always in classical music fora.



some guy said:


> I suppose you want someone to say the Romitelli is classical and the Fripp/Eno is not.
> 
> They are both contemporary non-commercial music.


Yes, if you take into account my "unsatisfactory" (i'd prefer "incomplete") answer, but I am open to other definitions and I like yours :tiphat:



some guy said:


> Jazz is equally meant to be performed live and interpretation is key, even keyer than for classical.


I agree. As a matter of fact I think that the boundaries between jazz and classical music are less defined. Not a case that who likes classical music tends to like jazz too (and vv)



some guy said:


> And fixed media music by "classical" composers (Varese, Cage, Stockhausen, Maderna, Berio, Xenakis, Ligeti) is meant to be recorded. The recording is the piece.


Yes, but with their recording they never made an album to be sold and played at home. 
Most of their recordings are integrated with other sonic material to be played in front of an audience. Of course there are exceptions (such as _It's gonna rain_).



some guy said:


> The sounds are quite different, though. Nothing in your answer addresses the difference in sound, which is surely much more fundamental than media.


I have already said that my answer may be incomplete... Very glad if someone (or some guy ) can help to make it more complete...


----------



## Guest

tdc said:


> Listening to it right now - it strikes me as certainly farther away from rock than Pink Floyd, but I'm not sure I think its any closer to classical.


Closer to contemporary classical, maybe.


tdc said:


> Brian Eno apparently thinks this is the most frightening album he's ever heard, I can't say I find it that scary.


Hah! Whatever Brian was smoking when he made this remark, I want some of it.

Probably he's referring simply to the subject matter, which is pretty scary. The music, though? Nah.



tdc said:


> I prefer this Kaddish:


Well, kinda hard to dislike anything by Ravel, hein? Except maybe that one piece that even Ravel didn't like.


----------



## Guest

GioCar said:


> Just to mention a few:
> By Milano Musica, the annual festival of contemporary classical music in Milan.
> By all reviewers of Romitelli's work, in their pages of classical music reviews.
> By most people here (I believe), since we are discussing of classical music and Romitelli was mentioned here and there but always in classical music fora.


Got it. Thanks!



GioCar said:


> i'd prefer "incomplete"


Indeed. "Unsatisfactory" is a judgment. I found it unsatisfactory because incomplete. "Incomplete" would have been better in all regards. More neutral. (Off-topic: it just occurred to me; I wonder if people really mean "neutral" when they say "objective"?)



GioCar said:


> Yes, but with their recording they never made an album to be sold and played at home.


Oh, but they did. At least Subotnick did. _Silver Apples of the Moon_ and _Wild Bull_ and _Touch_ and others were made as albums to be played at home.



GioCar said:


> Most of their recordings are integrated with other sonic material to be played in front of an audience. Of course there are exceptions (such as _It's gonna rain_).


Yes, there are exceptions. But the other comment is puzzling. What do you mean by "integrated with other sonic material"? Their fixed media pieces are just that, pieces made up of different sonic material, recordings of sounds, electronically produced sounds, electronically manipulated sounds.

And even the Subotnick and Reich can be diffused over a sound system in a hall if you want. And any fixed media piece will sound perfectly fine and complete and satisfying played over a home system with an audience of one (or two or seven, depending on spouses and kids and how many fellow music lovers you invite over--kinda like a Schubertiade, eh?)


----------



## GioCar

some guy said:


> But the other comment is puzzling. What do you mean by "integrated with other sonic material"? Their fixed media pieces are just that, pieces made up of different sonic material, recordings of sounds, electronically produced sounds, electronically manipulated sounds.
> 
> And even the Subotnick and Reich can be diffused over a sound system in a hall if you want. And any fixed media piece will sound perfectly fine and complete and satisfying played over a home system with an audience of one (or two or seven, depending on spouses and kids and how many fellow music lovers you invite over--kinda like a Schubertiade, eh?)


I mean works such as Gesang der Junglinge, where the recorded section (the boy voice) is integrated with (unrecorded) electronic music. Yes, they are just that, but are usually performed live, not just recorded on CDs.

And of course I was meaning performed for a public audience, in a concert hall


----------



## aleazk

KenOC said:


> This idea that music has to belong to a "tradition" or even to have an identifiable genealogy to be considered "classical" seems strange. It has been reinforced by the insistence (of some) that modern music, especial the 2nd Viennese school, is simply a natural development of earlier tradition. Nothing to see here folks, move along, etc.
> 
> I'd have to check with a geneticist to be sure, but it sure sounds to me like a formula for inbreeding. Will classical composers someday be reduced to sitting on rickety porches acting oddly and playing the banjo?


Oh, please, Ken. Are we going to rewrite all the music history/musicology books now just to have our tastes validated? Give me a break...


----------



## Bulldog

KenOC said:


> This idea that music has to belong to a "tradition" or even to have an identifiable genealogy to be considered "classical" seems strange.


Nothing strange about it. Humans love to create categories/traditions - gives life more order, security and comfort.


----------



## Stavrogin

Ken, I am quite new to this thread and I haven't read most of it.
So I apologize if this has been addressed already, but I just want to ask you if you think that TDSOTM is classical music, and what definition of classical music is implied by this opinion of yours.


----------



## julianoq

Why Esa-Pekka Salonen music not considered rock? Why he was never invited to play Wing on Wing on any rock festival? Why rock festival producers have so much prejudice against him?

Also, I think it is safe to say that his violin concerto would not be well received on a festival between The Killers and The Black Keys. These rock guys are really snobs!


----------



## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> so you read one of like what... twenty or so posts I've made? I've actually read all of your posts, and other than that one which was admittedly an exaggeration, you have not countered or answered any of the points I've made.


How could I do that if we agree 100% regarding the OP, BD 

You:



BurningDesire said:


> ...one could call them traditions, and in that context saying that Pink Floyd's works are rock whilst something like Carter is classical makes sense...
> 
> ...Pink Floyd I think is more connected to the rock and blues and jazz traditions than the classical one...


Me:



aleazk said:


> Of course not, it's rock...
> 
> Classical music is not defined by what would Mozart think, or physics by what would Newton think. It's defined in terms of the development of a tradition. Babbitt certainly is one link in that chain. PF, no.


Quite surprising to look yourself at the mirror only to find the image of your ugly opponent there. :lol:


----------



## nightscape

Are we really not able to agree that "classical music", as we've come to know it, doesn't encapsulate Dark Side of the Moon? Some of you gents are overthinking this.


----------



## Taggart

Members are once again reminded that they should



> Be polite to your fellow members. If you disagree with them, please state your opinion in a »civil« and respectful manner.


Some posts have been removed which may violate the ToS.

Please be polite. If a post offends you, do not reply but rather report it.


----------



## Itullian




----------



## PetrB

Itullian said:


>


:lol: _Andrew Lloyd Weber, eat your heart out!_ :lol:


----------



## cjvinthechair

NO - next thread.


----------



## PetrB

nightscape said:


> Are we really not able to agree that "classical music", as we've come to know it, doesn't encapsulate Dark Side of the Moon? Some of you gents are overthinking this.


I know I'm not the only one who is next to take an oath certain that the OP did not contain any real question, and that it was a severely inept attempt at yet another "_Why is it / isn't it classical?_" thread.

All one can sort of do with that is call the bluff - blunder :-/


----------



## Itullian

PetrB said:


> :lol: _Andrew Lloyd Weber, eat your heart out!_ :lol:


I like it. ..............


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC's opening post (asking if Pink Floyd is "classical"), and his subsequent replies (asking if Milton Babbitt is "classical") raises some interesting questions, and asks us to define more clearly the criteria we use to define musical genres.

I see the whole discussion as a failure to adequately define our parameters. Here are some observations:

Popular music (recorded) vs. scored music (classical):

*Not classical:* Pink Floyd did not write-out their music; it is "ear" music, and the definitive version is the recorded one. This makes it "ear" music, preserving a performance rather than preserving musical ideas in written (scored) form.

*Classical, not rock:* Milton Babbitt is "classical" in that he scored what he did; two versions of Philomel exist, with different singers.

*Not classical, not rock:* Milton Babbitt used the serial method; so his language, to our ears, is not the tonality of the classical era. Just because he manipulated material (a result of scored/visual recording of ideas), similar to the way Mozart did, is not as important as the aural result: Babbitt is not tonal, Mozart is.

*Popular, not classical:* Pink Floyd is popular, like most all folk, world, popular, and rock "ear" music except Zappa, in that it is recorded, not scored;

*Classical and rock:* Pink Floyd also shares with classical music, and most all other musics, including folk and indigenous world musics, *a sense of tonality in the broadest sense.*

In this regard, KenOC is making the point that *Pink Floyd is "more classical" than Milton Babbitt,* and if this *traditional language and sense of tonality *is a major criteria (that the criteria must be satisfied through the *ear *& listening), then he is justified in holding this opinion, which most "ear-oriented" listeners would agree with; and probably Mozart, too.

Mahlerian's comparison of Babbitt and Mozart's "similarities" does not hold up to the scrutiny of the *ear,* because* Babbitt is not tonal; he is serial. Babbitt has departed from traditional musical syntax. 
*Mahlerian's other considerations, such as similarities between Mozart's manipulation of scored ideas with Babbitt, is a visual/cerebral result of the scoring process, not the ear.

It seems that KenOC's argument is that "the ear trumps the eye/brain."


----------



## Taggart

KenOC put Dark side of Moon up on Current Listening here - http://www.talkclassical.com/32210-current-listening-vol-ii-851.html#post743061

senza sordino challenged this as "not classical" about 10 minutes later - http://www.talkclassical.com/32210-current-listening-vol-ii-852.html#post743066

KenOC then started the thread about half an hour later, which seems a reasonable response - moving the discussion to another thread.


----------



## stevens

I think this piece is easy to improvise and it would sound the same
-Did the piano survive?


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> *Not classical:* Pink Floyd did not write-out their music; it is "ear" music, and the definitive version is the recorded one. This makes it "ear" music, preserving a performance rather than preserving musical ideas in written (scored) form.


MR, thanks for a complete and closely reasoned post, easily the best I've seen here. I would ask one question though, WRT the snippet quoted above:

If Pink Floyd had written their music down (and for all I know, they did), would it then be "classical"? After all, it would be exactly the same music in either case.

To add to this, many pop songs are not "one off," whether written down or not. Scores are available for all the most popular songs. and cover versions of these songs are very common whenever economics permit and the copyright holder agrees. In other words, pop songs can and do take on lives independent of their original performers. This suggests that the songs are not just "preserving a performance."

Much of the pop scene may actually be quite close to the situation in the days of Mozart and Beethoven, the heyday of the composer/performer, where artists made much of their livings by composing music and playing the music in concerts. That tradition goes on through Chopin, Liszt, Litolff, and maybe further.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> If Pink Floyd had written their music down (and for all I know, they did), would it then be "classical"? After all, it would be exactly the same music in either case.


No, but that's not the only criteria. But in this sense, rock is like jazz: it is "ear" music, and the recording is the "score". Would you rather have the original Pink Floyd recording, or one by that copy group? The same with all Beatles recordings: what we want is that particular performance of that song; in this sense, the recording is the "definitive" version, similar to the way a score "fixes" a musical idea. The classical score can then be recorded in various ways, but we rarely agree on a "definitive" performance, because the score is where the idea originated.
We have to be careful not to confuse the overlapping of technologies.



KenOC said:


> To add to this, many pop songs are not "one off," whether written down or not. Scores are available for all the most popular songs. and cover versions of these songs are very common whenever economics permit and the copyright holder agrees. In other words, pop songs can and do take on lives independent of their original performers. This suggests that the songs are not just "preserving a performance."


Yes, but in many cases, the score (or "lead sheet") is just a reference. Listeners arte more interested in John Coltrane's performance and solos on "My Favorite Things" than they are in the song itself. Again, we must see how technologies overlap.

Much of the pop scene may actually be quite close to the situation in the days of Mozart and Beethoven, the heyday of the composer/performer, where artists made much of their livings by composing music and playing the music in concerts. That tradition goes on through Chopin, Liszt, Litolff, and maybe further.[/QUOTE]
That seem closer to the truth to me, although much


----------



## EdwardBast

It is simple really. Classical music is the kind people study in conservatories. It is performed in venues or in concert series to which people come to hear classical music. It is performed by people who call themselves classical musicians. It tends to be reviewed by classical music critics in columns devoted to classical music. Rock music, by contrast, is the kind people tend to learn by taking down songs from records or by learning them from other rock musicians. It is usually played in front of audiences expecting to hear rock music. It tends to be reviewed by rock and contemporary cultural critics in magazines and columns devoted to rock music. Dark Side of the Moon is rock music.


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> *Not classical, not rock:* Milton Babbitt used the serial method; so his language, to our ears, is not the tonality of the classical era. Just because he manipulated material (a result of scored/visual recording of ideas), similar to the way Mozart did, is not as important as the aural result: Babbitt is not tonal, Mozart is.
> 
> *Classical and rock:* Pink Floyd also shares with classical music, and most all other musics, including folk and indigenous world musics, *a sense of tonality in the broadest sense.*
> 
> In this regard, KenOC is making the point that *Pink Floyd is "more classical" than Milton Babbitt,* and if this *traditional language and sense of tonality *is a major criteria (that the criteria must be satisfied through the *ear *& listening), then he is justified in holding this opinion, which most "ear-oriented" listeners would agree with; and probably Mozart, too.
> 
> Mahlerian's comparison of Babbitt and Mozart's "similarities" does not hold up to the scrutiny of the *ear,* because* Babbitt is not tonal; he is serial. Babbitt has departed from traditional musical syntax.
> 
> It seems that KenOC's argument is that "the ear trumps the eye/brain."*


*

"Even a duck can hear." If we're to toss the brain out of the equation, there is no discussion, like, at all.

... but I kinda sorta have to love, though not admire, a doggedness that beneath all the dressing and "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même)," as it were, it all comes down to a more than tired sing-song argument that Mozart is tonal / Schoenberg is not -- ergo, Pink Floyd is more in a direct line of the tradition of classical music, ergo 'classical.'?

So zOMG, it all boils down to the 100 + year old (100 + years = antique, people) 'controversy' of common practice tonality vs. not common practice 'not your grandma's tonality?'

And to justify (supposedly) what, exactly, which is not already widely known, i.e. that some listener's preference, or habituated conditioning leaves them being most comfortably and readily grasping tonal music?

Is that what this whole exercise is about, and that all to merely include "I hear and follow Pink Floyd more easily and readily than I can follow Babbitt?

Pardon, but what the hey kind of argument is that for saying Dark side of the Moon is more like classical than Stravinsky, Babbitt, or Debussy?

If this was not such a weak tea argument that you might as well toss the beverage and drink the air out of that cup, I'd be ROFLMAOWTIME.*


----------



## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> Mahlerian's comparison of Babbitt and Mozart's "similarities" does not hold up to the scrutiny of the *ear,* because* Babbitt is not tonal; he is serial. Babbitt has departed from traditional musical syntax.
> *Mahlerian's other considerations, such as similarities between Mozart's manipulation of scored ideas with Babbitt, is a visual/cerebral result of the scoring process, not the ear.
> 
> It seems that KenOC's argument is that "the ear trumps the eye/brain."


Yeah, it's called music... after that, you only need to play it and voila, you hear these ideas.


----------



## Woodduck

MacLeod said:


> I can't see how *distinguishing rock from classical* would be necessary except in a discussion about distinguishing rock from classical.


Isn't doing that an essential part of what this discussion entails? The point is not that we need to go around making distinctions for no reason, but that distinctions need to be made when attempts to lump dissimilar things together lessen rather than increase our understanding. That doesn't mean that these distinctions have to be hard-edged and rigid.

As I read the arguments so far, no one denies that Pink Floyd's music is rock. So, in order to show that it is also classical, it is necessary to break down commonly observed distinctions between rock and classical. This is a formula for chaos and does not increase our understanding.

It isn't necessary to define either rock or classical music sharply and definitively to know that they are not the same. Disappointing as it may be to some, things are sometimes best considered to be what they are usually thought to be.


----------



## PetrB

Woodduck said:


> It isn't necessary to define either rock or classical music sharply and definitively to know that they are not the same. Disappointing as it may be to some, things are sometimes best considered to be what they are usually thought to be.


^^^ _"Gasp!"_ :lol:

Actually, to your post, it very much gets my _two thumbs up_ rating.


----------



## SONNET CLV

millionrainbows said:


> KenOC's opening post (asking if Pink Floyd is "classical"), and his subsequent replies (asking if Milton Babbitt is "classical") raises some interesting questions, and asks us to define more clearly the criteria we use to define musical genres.
> 
> *I see the whole discussion as a failure to adequately define our parameters. Here are some observations:*
> 
> *Popular music (recorded) vs. scored music (classical):
> 
> Not classical: Pink Floyd did not write-out their music; it is "ear" music, and the definitive version is the recorded one. This makes it "ear" music, preserving a performance rather than preserving musical ideas in written (scored) form.
> 
> Classical, not rock: Milton Babbitt is "classical" in that he scored what he did; two versions of Philomel exist, with different singers.*
> *Not classical, not rock:* Milton Babbitt used the serial method; so his language, to our ears, is not the tonality of the classical era. Just because he manipulated material (a result of scored/visual recording of ideas), similar to the way Mozart did, is not as important as the aural result: Babbitt is not tonal, Mozart is.
> 
> *Popular, not classical:* Pink Floyd is popular, like most all folk, world, popular, and rock "ear" music except Zappa, in that it is recorded, not scored;
> 
> *Classical and rock:* Pink Floyd also shares with classical music, and most all other musics, including folk and indigenous world musics, *a sense of tonality in the broadest sense.*
> 
> In this regard, KenOC is making the point that *Pink Floyd is "more classical" than Milton Babbitt,* and if this *traditional language and sense of tonality *is a major criteria (that the criteria must be satisfied through the *ear *& listening), then he is justified in holding this opinion, which most "ear-oriented" listeners would agree with; and probably Mozart, too.
> 
> Mahlerian's comparison of Babbitt and Mozart's "similarities" does not hold up to the scrutiny of the *ear,* because* Babbitt is not tonal; he is serial. Babbitt has departed from traditional musical syntax.
> *Mahlerian's other considerations, such as similarities between Mozart's manipulation of scored ideas with Babbitt, is a visual/cerebral result of the scoring process, not the ear.
> 
> It seems that KenOC's argument is that "the ear trumps the eye/brain."


But, when Beethoven improvised at the pianoforte, was he creating "ear" music or "classical" music? If he later wrote down the improvisation, does the music magically transform?

If Paul McCartney writes down the piano line for "Yesterday", does he create a classical composition?

I'm not clear on this "write down" v. "ear music" issue.


----------



## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Isn't doing that an essential part of what this discussion entails? The point is not that we need to go around making distinctions for no reason, but that distinctions need to be made when attempts to lump dissimilar things together lessen rather than increase our understanding. That doesn't mean that these distinctions have to be hard-edged and rigid.
> 
> As I read the arguments so far, no one denies that Pink Floyd's music is rock. So, in order to show that it is also classical, it is necessary to break down commonly observed distinctions between rock and classical. This is a formula for chaos and does not increase our understanding.
> 
> It isn't necessary to define either rock or classical music sharply and definitively to know that they are not the same. Disappointing as it may be to some, things are sometimes best considered to be what they are usually thought to be.


Er, well, yes...I think we agree on that...you've just confirmed that this is a discussion necessary only for a discussion like this. My post was a joke, intended to underline the needlessness of the query.


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> The classical score can then be recorded in various ways, but we rarely agree on a "definitive" performance, because the score is where the idea originated.


Disagree. In many or most cases, the score is the composer' best effort at transcribing what he/she "hears" as the music. The score is an imperfect medium at best, especially compared with a commercial recording by the composing artist(s).



millionrainbows said:


> Listeners are more interested in John Coltrane's performance and solos on "My Favorite Things" than they are in the song itself.


Just as we are probably more likely to discuss Pollini versus Serkin in Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto than the actual music. I'm not sure there's a qualitative difference here.


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## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> No, but that's not the only criteria. But in this sense, rock is like jazz: it is "ear" music, and the recording is the "score". Would you rather have the original Pink Floyd recording, or one by that copy group? The same with all Beatles recordings: what we want is that particular performance of that song; in this sense, the recording is the "definitive" version, similar to the way a score "fixes" a musical idea. The classical score can then be recorded in various ways, but we rarely agree on a "definitive" performance, because the score is where the idea originated.


That happens in rock music as well. Plenty of people may find a covered version better than the original, or different takes and different live recordings or re-recordings of the original piece better or worse, and just because people don't agree doesn't mean that people don't have an idea of what the definitive version of a piece by Beethoven is. If I hear a performance that sounds off in the interpretation based on how I think it should sound, I'll think its not definitive. Plus what if we take the hypothetical route of having Beeethoven with modern recording technology, and he got his definitive performance of one of his sonatas on record and thats the version that was released. Does that make him not classical, if he produced and disseminated his music in that manner? I just don't think thats a very good basis for classification either.


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## BurningDesire

EdwardBast said:


> It is simple really. Classical music is the kind people study in conservatories. It is performed in venues or in concert series to which people come to hear classical music. It is performed by people who call themselves classical musicians. It tends to be reviewed by classical music critics in columns devoted to classical music. Rock music, by contrast, is the kind people tend to learn by taking down songs from records or by learning them from other rock musicians. It is usually played in front of audiences expecting to hear rock music. It tends to be reviewed by rock and contemporary cultural critics in magazines and columns devoted to rock music. Dark Side of the Moon is rock music.


I've studied Toto and ska bands and DJ Shadow and Aphex Twin and Laurie Anderson and such at my music school. Also the rest of your argument basically boils down to "This is this because its this."


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## Stavrogin

BurningDesire said:


> That happens in rock music as well. Plenty of people may find a covered version better than the original, or different takes and different live recordings or re-recordings of the original piece better or worse, and just because people don't agree doesn't mean that people don't have an idea of what the definitive version of a piece by Beethoven is. If I hear a performance that sounds off in the interpretation based on how I think it should sound, I'll think its not definitive. Plus what if we take the hypothetical route of having Beeethoven with modern recording technology, and he got his definitive performance of one of his sonatas on record and thats the version that was released. Does that make him not classical, if he produced and disseminated his music in that manner? I just don't think that's a very good basis for classification either.


The point is not having a "definitive version". The point is that the product of the composer's activity is a score, whereas the product of a rock musician's activity is a recording.
(This, of course, does not exclude, that a composer (or other musicians) can record a "definitive" performance of the score, or that a rock musician can write down a score of his recording).

_Górecki's Symphony No.4 receives its premiere on 12 April 2014 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrey Boreyko at the Royal Festival Hall. 
_

_Thom Yorke has confirmed that recording sessions for Radiohead's ninth studio album began this week._

See the difference?


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## BurningDesire

Stavrogin said:


> The point is not having a "definitive version". The point is that the product of the composer's activity is a score, whereas the product of a rock musician's activity is a recording.
> (This, of course, does not exclude, that a composer (or other musicians) can record a "definitive" performance of the score, or that a rock musician can write down a score of his recording).
> 
> _Górecki's Symphony No.4 receives its premiere on 12 April 2014 by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrey Boreyko at the Royal Festival Hall.
> _
> 
> _Thom Yorke has confirmed that recording sessions for Radiohead's ninth studio album began this week._
> 
> See the difference?


Well my point is that both kinds have definitive versions... and they don't. The composers have their definitive versions of their pieces (both rock and classical), and individual fans have their own conceptions of defintive. Plenty of people will say that seeing the band live is far more definitive a version of the piece than the album version, just as many would say otherwise.

I do see the difference, but you're comparing two totally different processes. One is the set-up for a live performance versus getting ready to create a recording. You could put "Radiohead is premiering new material at blah blah show on the 15th of November" or whatever, or "Steve Reich is working on the mixes for a recording of his new piece that repeats alot".

See how that really doesn't make this a good reasoning for classification?


----------



## Stavrogin

BurningDesire said:


> Well my point is that both kinds have definitive versions... and they don't. The composers have their definitive versions of their pieces (both rock and classical), and individual fans have their own conceptions of defintive. Plenty of people will say that seeing the band live is far more definitive a version of the piece than the album version, just as many would say otherwise.
> 
> I do see the difference, but you're comparing two totally different processes. One is the set-up for a live performance versus getting ready to create a recording. You could put "Radiohead is premiering new material at blah blah show on the 15th of November" or whatever, or "Steve Reich is working on the mixes for a recording of his new piece that repeats alot".
> 
> See how that really doesn't make this a good reasoning for classification?


It's not two different processes.
We have a composer who has produced something new. That product is a musical composition, given to the world in the form of a score. Then, it is performed by someone.
On the other hand we have a rock band who is going to produce something new. That product is a musical composition, given to the world in the form of an album recorded by the composers. Then, it will be performed live, porbably written down in a score, covered, etc.

And yes, there can be exceptions to the above, of course. But they're exceptions.


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## PetrB

BurningDesire said:


> I've studied Toto and ska bands and DJ Shadow and Aphex Twin and Laurie Anderson and such at my music school. Also the rest of your argument basically boils down to "This is this because its this."


Those are usually in classes called contemporary pop/rock/alternative rock music, yes? I'd be surprised if they were a required core course for a degree in classical music; those were elective courses.

I took a one semester course on classical and traditional ethnic musics of Asia, China, India and Indonesia. It was an elective not required of those majoring in 'classical music.' It was also, imo, invaluable, partly due to the fact it was the only music course in in undergrad where a place and time were given over to discussion of musical aesthetics


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## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> The point is that the product of the composer's activity is a score, whereas the product of a rock musician's activity is a recording.


The point of a composer's activity is to produce music not scores. Scores are merely a medium for expressing the music. And since the perfection of recording technology, they are very much not the only way to express music, no matter what kind of music you're talking about.

Since at least 1947, the product of a composer's activity has been also an object other than a score, a reel of tape music, a computer program, a sound file on a laptop, a CD. Varese, Berio, Ligeti, Xenakis, Cage, Stockhausen, Oliveros. All these people can be found in the classical section of a music store. All of them wrote music for performers in the form of scores. All of them wrote electroacoustic music, too, which are pieces that can be performed (diffused) but exist as some sort of sound file, not as a score. Are we back to Mendelssohn, here, with his symphonies considered classical music and his songs not? That was just silly, and it was eventually understood by everyone as silly, hence the inclusion of songs by classical composers in the definition of classical music. And opera, too.

If Varese's instrumental music, complete with scores, is classical music, then his _Poeme electronique,_ complete as a sound file, is also classical music. It's certainly the same kind of thing--sounds like the same kind of thing--as his instrumental music. It doesn't become a separate type of music somehow because it's a different genre. Dvorak's operas sound like Dvorak. Like Dvorak's symphonies and string quartets and concertos. Hence Dvorak's operas are also classical, hein?

Not that a "composer" cannot write different types of music, of course. Zappa wrote fairly ordinary mid-twentieth century pantonal music, with scores, and he also wrote unmistakably brilliant rock music, too, for performance and for recording. I don't understand this point about rock being done in the studio for producing an album. What about all those sold out arenas full of screaming fans? Sounds like live music with an audience to me. Point is, since the invention of recording technology, everyone in whatever type of music produced music for live shows and for recording. The difference between those two is just not a basis for distinguishing country/western from hiphop or ska from classical.


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## Stavrogin

Sure. I meant the "physical" product, the "materialization" of the musical idea.
In my last post I actually wrote: "the product is a new musical composition, given to the world in the form of a score (or, for rock bands, recorded albums)".
I also said there are exceptions to this general criterion, and all the electro/concrete/something composers are such (this in no way dimishes them).

As for the live shows, my point is still missed. Live shows come after the product has been materialized, as do concerts.
The products are the same (musical ideas). Their first materializations (most of the times) are not.
It's a very practical criterion, and coupled with the "tradition" one I think gives a good definition of what classical music is.


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## stevens

Classical composers write *scores* and rockmusicians write a *paper of chords*. That not a significant difference in my view


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## Stavrogin

Sure, but rock musicians don't usually give out papers of chords for other performers to show their music to the world.
They show it themselves. Then, others will take down the chords (or maybe they will get the papers of chords somewhere, or even a proper score) to "cover" it (which is different from "performing" it).
The separation between the composer and the common performers is relevant.

...And no, pop song writers (separated from pop performers) don't do the same thing, because they usually compose a piece of music for a specific performer to make it their own and record it, unlike classical composers who may dedicate the piece to someone, but give their product to the world for any performer (including themselves) willing to play and/or record it.


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## PetrB

stevens said:


> Classical composers write *scores* and rockmusicians write a *paper of chords*. That not a significant difference in my view


The vast majority of classical scores are _set_, to be executed as written, with exceptions of _designated areas_ where the performer is given choices (and there are a handful of scores which are suggestions, the performers to come up with the rest. The median, or far over, is the score 'as written.'

A pop chart is immediately understood as something which the musician is expected to fill in, the configurations variable, the registration (orchestration) is usually left wide open, too.

There is an enormous difference between the two, and as much a difference again between what is demanded / expected of the performers. The disciplines are two, and they could not be much more different than they already are.


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> A pop chart is immediately understood as something which the musician is expected to fill in, the configurations variable, the registration (orchestration) is usually left wide open, too.


Which is very much like how scores functioned in the Baroque era.

I don't suppose Stavrogin would argue on that basis that Vivaldi and Handel and Bach were not "classical" composers.

And I don't see the utility of using non-sonic criteria for distinguishing between types of music. Hiphop is different from Renaissance madrigals because it sounds different, not because the means of production (Python reference, not Marx are different. Of course, Babbitt's _Philomel_ is different from Renaissance madrigals because it sounds different, too. That, if we really wanted to validate the category of "classical," would be where we would spend our time more profitably. What do _Philomel_ and _Shall I sue?_ have in common that justifies their being put into the same category?

I, just as an aside, have no trouble with the idea of jettisoning the term "classical music" entirely. None of the composers up to the 19th century had any idea they were writing "classical" music. None of the composers in the so-called Baroque era had any idea they were writing Baroque music. [Classical was first applied to music in 1810, Baroque about a hundred years later.] Didn't hold any of them back in any way. Didn't interfere with the palpable stylistic similarities that allow us now to distinguish between Baroque and Classical, either. And we have all sorts of vocabulary for identifying things: symphony, concerto grosso, opera, musique concrete. Do we really need a big old container to put everything into, from plainchant to eai?


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## Petwhac

PetrB said:


> The vast majority of classical scores are _set_, to be executed as written, with exceptions of _designated areas_ where the performer is given choices (and there are a handful of scores which are suggestions, the performers to come up with the rest. The median, or far over, is the score 'as written.'
> 
> A pop chart is immediately understood as something which the musician is expected to fill in, the configurations variable, the registration (orchestration) is usually left wide open, too.
> 
> There is an enormous difference between the two, and as much a difference again between what is demanded / expected of the performers. The disciplines are two, and they could not be much more different than they already are.


Give a jazz or rock keyboard player a chart and s/he'll voice the chords of the _given_ harmony as s/he sees fit.
This is similar to giving the Baroque keyboard player some figured bass. 
Both players know what's expected - to fill in the harmony in an appropriate way.

True, figured bass died with the Baroque era as musical styles evolved.

Just thought I'd mention it. 

OOPS! some guy must have posted that as I was typing!


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## Stavrogin

some guy said:


> Which is very much like how scores functioned in the Baroque era.
> 
> I don't suppose Stavrogin would argue on that basis that Vivaldi and Handel and Bach were not "classical" composers.
> 
> And I don't see the utility of using non-sonic criteria for distinguishing between types of music. Hiphop is different from Renaissance madrigals because it sounds different, not because the means of production (Python reference, not Marx are different. Of course, Babbitt's _Philomel_ is different from Renaissance madrigals because it sounds different, too. That, if we really wanted to validate the category of "classical," would be where we would spend our time more profitably. What do _Philomel_ and _Shall I sue?_ have in common that justifies their being put into the same category?
> 
> I, just as an aside, have no trouble with the idea of jettisoning the term "classical music" entirely. None of the composers up to the 19th century had any idea they were writing "classical" music. None of the composers in the so-called Baroque era had any idea they were writing Baroque music. [Classical was first applied to music in 1810, Baroque about a hundred years later.] Didn't hold any of them back in any way. Didn't interfere with the palpable stylistic similarities that allow us now to distinguish between Baroque and Classical, either. And we have all sorts of vocabulary for identifying things: symphony, concerto grosso, opera, musique concrete. Do we really need a big old container to put everything into, from plainchant to eai?


Scores were like that in the Baroque era because it was the only way. Nowadays, you have different possibilities.

But I do agree that the ideal criteria for telling apart classical and other types of music should involve... the music, and not its form of materialization. I also think that that's an impossible goal.

However, I do like the big old container. It's just a label. Doesn't modify the "thing" it's applied to; it's just useful (for discussion, research, etc). Like "Rock" or "Jazz". As long as one is aware that they are wide definitions with blurred limits and overlapping areas, I'm ok with them.


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## BurningDesire

PetrB said:


> Those are usually in classes called contemporary pop/rock/alternative rock music, yes? I'd be surprised if they were a required core course for a degree in classical music; those were elective courses.
> 
> I took a one semester course on classical and traditional ethnic musics of Asia, China, India and Indonesia. It was an elective not required of those majoring in 'classical music.' It was also, imo, invaluable, partly due to the fact it was the only music course in in undergrad where a place and time were given over to discussion of musical aesthetics


No, they were in my composition lessons, and in my contemporary music class (the class where we study Stravinsky and Luigi Russolo and Ligeti). I actually never got the chance to take a rock music course, but I already have fairly comprehensive knowledge of alot of rock music from my own research.


----------



## EdwardBast

BurningDesire said:


> I've studied Toto and ska bands and DJ Shadow and Aphex Twin and Laurie Anderson and such at my music school. Also the rest of your argument basically boils down to "This is this because its this."


No, it comes down to the fact that the most essential differences between classical and rock are institutional and not a matter of musical materials. There are concert series, music societies, conservatories, programs for developing technique and literacy skills, etc. This really is the difference.


----------



## Guest

BurningDesire said:


> I actually never got the chance to take a rock music course, but I already have fairly comprehensive knowledge of alot of rock music from my own research.


Not something that's very difficult to come by thanks to the internet, but I'm glad you take pride in it nevertheless.


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## BurningDesire

EdwardBast said:


> No, it comes down to the fact that the most essential differences between classical and rock are institutional and not a matter of musical materials. There are concert series, music societies, conservatories, programs for developing technique and literacy skills, etc. This really is the difference.


There wasn't always. There was no such thing as concert series or conservatories for ancient music. And, incidentally there's plenty of that kind of thing in rock music nowadays. There are schools that deal with writing and performing on the kind of instruments typical of rock music, on music production, musical literacy, etc. and there are music societies based on these things, and there are, obviously concert series by plenty of ensembles (often these are called tours, but its really not that different).

My point in alot of my posts here is that there's more things in common with music from different backgrounds than there are things different, especially because there isn't a single element in either "genre" that isn't used in the other. People bring up improvisation and ambiguous notation, there's plenty of the in many different kinds of classical music. You can and plenty have written "classical music" using electric guitars and drum set, or using vocalists who don't sing in that narrow "classical vocal style". Likewise there is plenty of pop and rock music which uses counterpoint, and uses diverse sets of timbres (orchestration eh?), and is complex and plenty where the writing is set in stone, in that a proper performance of the piece will be played the same-ish (the ish is the interpretational element... doesn't that sound familiar to everybody here too?).

This, to me, diminishes the usefulness of these strong distinctions. The only good distinction would be the kind of background and discipline and approach to writing that comes from these... the musical traditions. This distinction makes some sense to me, as opposed to the distinction alot of people are making based on extremely vague things. I keep reading how "obvious" it is that the Floyd piece is rock music and not classical, and yet nobody really has any good solid argument for WHY. Its all just stuff thats really arbitrary, and its stuff that is clearly common to both "types" of music. To make these arguments in this manner you simply have to ignore chunks of reality.


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## Guest

BurningDesire, do you perhaps post on a particular metal forum?


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## OlivierM

I read metal, then "is it classical", so I post this :




It's classical, right ? :tiphat:


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## Guest

It has the word "symphony" in the title - how would it not be classical?!?!


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## Piwikiwi

BurningDesire said:


> There wasn't always. There was no such thing as concert series or conservatories for ancient music. And, incidentally there's plenty of that kind of thing in rock music nowadays. There are schools that deal with writing and performing on the kind of instruments typical of rock music, on music production, musical literacy, etc. and there are music societies based on these things, and there are, obviously concert series by plenty of ensembles (often these are called tours, but its really not that different).
> 
> My point in alot of my posts here is that there's more things in common with music from different backgrounds than there are things different, especially because there isn't a single element in either "genre" that isn't used in the other. People bring up improvisation and ambiguous notation, there's plenty of the in many different kinds of classical music. You can and plenty have written "classical music" using electric guitars and drum set, or using vocalists who don't sing in that narrow "classical vocal style". Likewise there is plenty of pop and rock music which uses counterpoint, and uses diverse sets of timbres (orchestration eh?), and is complex and plenty where the writing is set in stone, in that a proper performance of the piece will be played the same-ish (the ish is the interpretational element... doesn't that sound familiar to everybody here too?).
> 
> This, to me, diminishes the usefulness of these strong distinctions. The only good distinction would be the kind of background and discipline and approach to writing that comes from these... the musical traditions. This distinction makes some sense to me, as opposed to the distinction alot of people are making based on extremely vague things. I keep reading how "obvious" it is that the Floyd piece is rock music and not classical, and *yet nobody really has any good solid argument for WHY*. Its all just stuff thats really arbitrary, and its stuff that is clearly common to both "types" of music. To make these arguments in this manner you simply have to ignore chunks of reality.


You are the one that is making the claim which is different from the accepted view, that it is rock. YOU should prove that it isn't rock, the burden of proof is on you.


----------



## OlivierM

arcaneholocaust said:


> It has the word "symphony" in the title - how would it not be classical?!?!


That's indeed my thought. Cheers !


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## Woodduck

MacLeod said:


> Er, well, yes...I think we agree on that...you've just confirmed that this is a discussion necessary only for a discussion like this. My post was a joke, intended to underline the needlessness of the query.


Sorry, MacLeod! :lol: Your humor was subtle and the brim of my professor's hat was blocking the light.

The inquiry is indeed needless - for the purpose of identifying what things "are." I would change the question to "Why, and when, do we call a thing what we call it?" It's perfectly possible to call a given piece of music "rock with classical elements" or "classical with rock elements" or "God knows what to call this but what does it matter anyway I like it" and be saying something equally useful.

In the case of "Dark Side...", I say "it's rock and God knows it's rock and I don't like it but that's my cross to bear."


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## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> Sorry, MacLeod! :lol: Your humor was subtle and the brim of my professor's hat was blocking the light.


That. . . or you're using a demitasse for a sombrero.


----------



## BurningDesire

Piwikiwi said:


> You are the one that is making the claim which is different from the accepted view, that it is rock. YOU should prove that it isn't rock, the burden of proof is on you.


I'm not arguing that it isn't rock. I'm saying that people have this view, but they don't have any good reasons for why they have that view. The thread is about critical and nuanced thinking as to why one piece is placed in one category or another, because alot of it is extremely arbitrary. Also, you can't prove a negative Piki. Something that is a widely-accepted view is not immune from having to have proof for its validation as an idea. Sheer numbers doesn't make something more right. Nobody has shown me why these classifications are clear, because most people just come in this thread and start arguing with some fictional entity who is trying to re-classify this record. Neither me nor Ken have been. Its about why is it or isn't it, not is it or isn't it. If its not classical, why isn't it classical. The reasons some people have posted are totally arbitrary and not convincing to me. Many of them are things that both classical and rock have in common. I have given my own reasoning that I believe is pretty sound.


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## Radames

Maybe we should move on to less controversial topics - like abortion or guns. Should a conductor be allowed to open carry a glock while conducting? lol


----------



## Woodduck

BurningDesire said:


> there isn't a single element in either "genre" that isn't used in the other. People bring up improvisation and ambiguous notation, there's plenty of the in many different kinds of classical music. You can and plenty have written "classical music" using electric guitars and drum set, or using vocalists who don't sing in that narrow "classical vocal style". Likewise there is plenty of pop and rock music which uses counterpoint, and uses diverse sets of timbres (orchestration eh?), and is complex and plenty where the writing is set in stone, in that a proper performance of the piece will be played the same-ish (the ish is the interpretational element... doesn't that sound familiar to everybody here too?).
> 
> This, to me, diminishes the usefulness of these strong distinctions. The only good distinction would be the kind of background and discipline and approach to writing that comes from these... the musical traditions. This distinction makes some sense to me, as opposed to the distinction alot of people are making based on extremely vague things. *I keep reading how "obvious" it is that the Floyd piece is rock music and not classical, and yet nobody really has any good solid argument for WHY. *Its all just stuff thats really arbitrary, and its stuff that is clearly common to both "types" of music. To make these arguments in this manner you simply have to ignore chunks of reality.


Actually, _all_ the arguments are good and solid. It's just that none of them taken by itself creates, _or needs to create,_ completely distinct, mutually exclusive categories into which every piece of music must be jammed. It isn't a matter of this factor or that - style, technique, tradition, performance practice, cultural associations, artistic intention - but a blend of some or all of them that creates an impression or "gestalt" that most people will recognize.

Concepts are distinct, but reality contains continuums; it is, to evoke not a mere analogy but a literal example, prismatic. The concepts of "red" and "orange" are distinct and useful, and their usefulness makes them legitimate and necessary. There is no specific point at which adding a bit of yellow to red makes orange, but there will be some point at which we will clearly have orange, perceptible to all but the color-blind and no longer reasonably debatable. And yet, before we get to that point, we will have gone through an infinity of hues which are not definitively red or orange. These hues we may identify as either red or orange, depending upon their context or our own taste, and there need be no definitive classification or argument - good, solid, or otherwise - made.

If I say "Dark Side of the Moon" is clearly rock and not classical, it's because I perceive a "gestalt," a peculiar blend of qualities which I've been hearing in what is called rock music, but not nearly so much in what is called classical music, for the last five or six decades.

There just isn't enough yellow mixed with the red to make it orange.


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## Polyphemus

Radames said:


> Maybe we should move on to less controversial topics - like abortion or guns. Should a conductor be allowed to open carry a glock while conducting? lol


Not sure about the legality of it but I have seen one or two who should for self protection or in defence of badly prepared concerts. But would that not require the front desks of the orchestra to wear bullet proof vests.


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## Piwikiwi

Polyphemus said:


> Not sure about the legality of it but I have seen one or two who should for self protection or in defence of badly prepared concerts. But would that not require the front desks of the orchestra to wear bullet proof vests.


Isn't the orchestra the reason conductors should carry guns?


----------



## Polyphemus

Or perhaps the other way round.


----------



## Radames

How do we know no musician has a gun hidden in an instrument? A cello with a removable back and a little snub nosed .38 concealed in it! I bet the sound of the instrument would suffer.


----------



## Stavrogin

Woodduck said:


> Actually, _all_ the arguments are good and solid. It's just that none of them taken by itself creates, _or needs to create,_ completely distinct, mutually exclusive categories into which every piece of music must be jammed. It isn't a matter of this factor or that - style, technique, tradition, performance practice, cultural associations, artistic intention - but a blend of some or all of them that creates an impression or "gestalt" that most people will recognize.
> 
> Concepts are distinct, but reality contains continuums; it is, to evoke not a mere analogy but a literal example, prismatic. The concepts of "red" and "orange" are distinct and useful, and their usefulness makes them legitimate and necessary. There is no specific point at which adding a bit of yellow to red makes orange, but there will be some point at which we will clearly have orange, perceptible to all but the color-blind and no longer reasonably debatable. And yet, before we get to that point, we will have gone through an infinity of hues which are not definitively red or orange. These hues we may identify as either red or orange, depending upon their context or our own taste, and there need be no definitive classification or argument - good, solid, or otherwise - made.
> 
> If I say "Dark Side of the Moon" is clearly rock and not classical, it's because I perceive a "gestalt," a peculiar blend of qualities which I've been hearing in what is called rock music, but not nearly so much in what is called classical music, for the last five or six decades.
> 
> There just isn't enough yellow mixed with the red to make it orange.


I nominate this as Best Post of 2014.


----------



## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> ...it all comes down to a more than tired sing-song argument that Mozart is tonal / Schoenberg is not -- ergo, Pink Floyd is more in a direct line of the tradition of classical music, ergo 'classical.'?...So zOMG, it all boils down to the 100 + year old *(100 + years = antique, people)* 'controversy' of common practice tonality vs. not common practice 'not your grandma's tonality?'...Is that what this whole exercise is about, and that all to merely include "I hear and follow Pink Floyd more easily and readily than I can follow Babbitt?...Pardon, but what the hey kind of argument is that for saying _Dark side of the Moon_ is more like classical than Stravinsky, Babbitt, or Debussy?


That's the gist of the argument, as I see it. As long as Pink Floyd is "more classical" than Babbitt, then *tonality *emerges as the deciding criteria.

There *are* _other _criteria, though. I see "musical complexity" as one of those, which I will go into later, after responding to some things.


----------



## science

PetrB said:


> So, taking that as face value and not disingenuous, we all know there is only the most general of 'definitions' of classical music -- so elusive is that definition. "Art music" doesn't help much, either, in that there is a lot of music I would call artful, and art, which is not classical.
> 
> A colleague once answered it as best I think anyone could:
> Listen to classical music, listen to lots of it, all kinds and eras, and over years, and at some moment you will know why you know the difference between Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Elliott Carter, Ligeti, Berio, etc. and music which is other than classical.
> 
> This is where for those with the experience just described, there is no question that a film score is a film score, Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_ is not classical, and so forth.
> 
> Why is it / is it not classical? Listen to a lot of classical, all sorts and eras, and a lot, and for years, and the cumulative experience of that leads to 'answering' the question, well... "and then, Bob's your Uncle."


I'm unwilling to accept "answers" that amount to, "I know, but I'm unwilling/unable to explain it to you."

Perhaps my pea-brain really isn't able to grasp the great wisdom of some sage, but I'm not going to trust anyone who tells me that is why I can't understand their argument.


----------



## millionrainbows

About scored music:

Scoring, or writing down musical ideas, provides a unique way of "abstracting" a musical idea. Notation provides a way of recording pitch and rhythm, mainly; dynamics are specified in ways outside the "notes" themselves with ff, PP, etc. The instrumentation is simply specified by words, not notes.

So, scoring music is a way to reduce a musical idea to its essential musical elements, pitch and rhythm. This allows Mozart to turn a phrase upside-down, or backwards, or elongate it; Milton Babbitt does the same thing with his tone rows. So Mahlerian was correct in seeing that Babbitt and Mozart are both "classical," in that they both manipulate the musical material in similar ways, in the visual scoring process. 
Even if the musical idea originated by "ear" or by playing it, it can still be manipulated and abstracted by the scoring process, which is essentially a _visual_ medium, even though it refers to sounds. This crucial distinction must be grasped in order to see the _differences_ between scored and recorded music.

About the stylistic trappings of music:

Babbitt wrote music for orchestras and string quartets, so he is "classical" in this regard as well.

Where Babbitt departs from many people's idea of "classical" music is in his harmonic language. Admittedly, this is an important criteria which has proven to be a "deal-breaker" with many classical listeners.

Pinl Floyd exhibit the _stylistic trappings_ of rock. They were a small group who had the traditional ensemble of bass, drums, guitars, keyboards, and vocals, heavily amplified and lit as a stage show, and recorded in recording studios, and promoted.

It depends what your criteria is: tonality, or the stylistic trappings.

I will add that Pink Floyd is "watered-down" rock _(as I define rock in its origins)_, because it begins the trend of rejecting all the "African" elements of 3-division rhythms and pentatonic scales, in favor of a more grandiose, more Westernized European approach, harkening back to the classical tradition. The same "Westernization" happened in jazz. The bluesy David Gilmour guitar solos are about the only vestiges of true rock that are left in Pink Floyd's music.


----------



## millionrainbows

> *millionrainbows*: The classical score can then be recorded in various ways, but we rarely agree on a "definitive" performance, because the score is where the idea originated.





KenOC said:


> Disagree. In many or most cases, the score is the composer' best effort at transcribing what he/she "hears" as the music. The score is an imperfect medium at best, especially compared with a commercial recording by the composing artist(s).


In order to follow my argument, one must see the _differences_ in visual/scored and sound-recorded music as different and _unique_ ways of recording and preserving _definitive forms_ in music. Otherwise, there is no point in my continuing this line of reasoning.

The score holds a _unique_ place in classical music, and is _more essential_ to that genre. The _composer_ is tied to the score, moreso than a performer; that's why classical music is listed by composer, and less so by performer.

In jazz, a "lead sheet" is used, which is simply a rough outline of the chord changes, in order to aid the soloists. The important thing in jazz is the performance (and recording) of solos.



KenOC said:


> ...Just as we are probably more likely to discuss Pollini versus Serkin in Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto than the actual music. I'm not sure there's a qualitative difference here.


That is of course true, if you are discussing_ recorded performances._ It's easy to confuse the issue, now that we have recordings of scored classical music.

This misses the point that "The Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto" is a definitive musical idea which originated in scored form. The _performances_ of Pollini and Serkin are _after that fact,_ as performances. 
Additionally (in many traditional minds), classical performances are supposed to _enhance _or _articulate and clarify_ a scored idea,_ in service to that score. _Performers do not deviate substantially from the score; *the score is the definitive version of the idea,* and is adhered to note-for-note, unlike jazz or pop.

If music is _conceived_ as a performance, rather than a written idea, we listen to it for those reasons. A Sinatra recording of "I've Got You Under My Skin" is listened to as a Sinatra performance, not as much for the song itself.

Pink Floyd was a performing group, and they used the studio to record their performances of their song ideas as _sound,_ not as scored ideas. They might have used a chord sheet as reference, but this was not where the idea originated or developed. This is the territory and medium of the *ear,* not the eye.


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> It depends what your criteria is: tonality, or the stylistic trappings.


Except that "atonality" is surely a worthless idea in this context, as in most other contexts.

"The works that followed [the String Quartet No. 2 op. 10], many of them now familiar, include the _Five Pieces for Orchestra, Erwartung, Pierrot Lunaire_, and *they and a few yet to follow soon were termed "atonal," by I know not whom, and I prefer not to know, for in no sense does the term make sense*. Not only does the music employ "tones," but it employs precisely the same "tones," the same physical materials, that music had employed for some two centuries. In all generosity, "atonal" may have been intended as a mildly analytically derived term to suggest "atonic" or to signify *"a-triadic tonality,"* but, even so there were infinitely many things the music was not; what it was is better described by such terms as "automorphic," "contextual," "self-referential," and others, all agreeing on a charaterization of the music so context dependent as to be highly sensitive to its statement of its initial conditions, and defining its modes of relation and progression within itself, that is, within each composition." - Milton Babbitt


----------



## millionrainbows

> Originally Posted by *KenOC*:
> 
> ...Just as we are probably more likely to discuss Pollini versus Serkin in Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto than _*the actual music.* _I'm not sure there's a qualitative difference here.


You seem to have made a slip, in saying _"the actual music"_ as opposed to a performance.

We would never think that way about "the actual music" of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, because _the recording *IS* the "actual music".
_
See how *the score separates "the actual music"* from a performance of it?

That's the nature of the score, and is unique to classical music as a genre.

Pink Floyd's manner of working-out musical ideas in a recording studio is unique to popular recorded music, and to rock as a genre.

These are the differences one must acknowledge in order to follow my line of thought.


----------



## millionrainbows

SONNET CLV said:


> But, when Beethoven_* improvised *_at the pianoforte, was he creating "ear" music or "classical" music?


 The method of preserving an idea does not define it, but can shape it. Preserving the idea is intimately tied to the way musical ideas are originated. If Beethoven was improvising, it was "ear" music, as a performance, like folk, jazz or other "ear" musics. It was still classical in style.



SONNET CLV said:


> If he later wrote down the improvisation, does the music magically transform?


Preserving the idea is intimately tied to the way musical ideas are originated.The method of preserving an idea does not define it. You're taking it too literally. Scoring is just a way of recording a musical idea, before sound recording existed.

The closest thing we have to an accurate version of an "improvisation" is the fantasy form. Chopin's ideas are like this, too. Mozart's and Bach's fantasias are attempts to capture an improvised performance, but it is still scored, still fixed. A sound recording would be the only truly accurate way to capture every detail and nuance of an improvised performance, and this technology did not exist until much later.

Back then before sound recording, the only other alternative was "biological recording" in memory, which was notorious for being changeable and impermanent as a definitive form. This is how folk forms were generated. They changed a lot.They did not have definitive, fixed forms unless they were written down. This is the area of the ear.

Scoring did not "define" classical music, it just allowed it to be preserved in score as a definitive, unchanging form. Scoring is a visual, "eye" medium. Scoring did, however, affect the way ideas are generated and can change.



SONNET CLV said:


> If Paul McCartney writes down the piano line for "Yesterday", does he create a classical composition?


No; the method of preserving an idea does not define it. It can affect the way an idea is originated, though; McCartney, like all pop and folk musicians, wrote his songs by ear, not behind a desk with pen and ink. He then recorded his ideas in a "definitive" fixed form on audio tape, then released that as the "definitive" version. *The method of preserving the musical idea is intimately tied to the way musical ideas are originated.*



SONNET CLV said:


> I'm not clear on this "write down" v. "ear music" issue.


There are differences, I assure you, and each one has its unique strengths.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Except that "atonality" is surely a worthless idea in this context, as in most other contexts.


However, it's not a worthless idea to most people out there, and their definitions may not match yours or mine or academia's. Remember the story of William Schuman in Macon!

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/06/or_on_the_upper.html


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> However, it's not a worthless idea to most people out there, and their definitions may not match yours or mine or academia's. Remember the story of William Schuman in Macon!
> 
> http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/06/or_on_the_upper.html


Well, then you have to realize that Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine are equally as atonal, then, having also had the term applied to them at various points.

The problem in this instance is that you are attempting to use "atonal" as the crux of your argument: if the music is "atonal", then it is therefore less clearly a part of what we call classical music, and probably less clearly related to classical music than a rock album like Dark Side of the Moon. You have not explained what atonality is, and I believe that you can't do so in any coherent way, simply because the term itself is problematic and vague to the point of meaninglessness.

It surely cannot be "any music that has been called atonal", as this includes a good deal of music that you would not wish to call atonal, such as Debussy, Scriabin, Mahler, Reger, early Schoenberg, early Stravinsky, and so forth.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Well, then you have to realize that Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine are equally as atonal, then, having also had the term applied to them at various points.
> 
> The problem in this instance is that you are attempting to use "atonal" as the crux of your argument: if the music is "atonal", then it is therefore less clearly a part of what we call classical music, and probably less clearly related to classical music than a rock album like Dark Side of the Moon. You have not explained what atonality is, and I believe that you can't do so in any coherent way, simply because the term itself is problematic and vague to the point of meaninglessness.
> 
> It surely cannot be "any music that has been called atonal", as this includes a good deal of music that you would not wish to call atonal, such as Debussy, Scriabin, Mahler, Reger, early Schoenberg, early Stravinsky, and so forth.


In order to have a fruitful discussion, we need to bypass definitions and "assume" what the other person is meaning. I know that Babbitt is not Mozart, and it's that diffefrence in harmonic language, whatever you want to call it, that makes Pink Floyd closer in many people's minds to Mozart than Babbitt.

Of course, you have to get into some really sloppy thinking in order to do this.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> I'm unwilling to accept "answers" that amount to, "I know, but I'm unwilling/unable to explain it to you."


Except of course that that is not what PetrB's answer amounts to. What it amounts to is something more like, "while difficult to explain in words, it can easily be explained in experience."

Indeed, most experts in any field report the same phenomenon, that they can recognize when something doesn't quite fit by the feel of it, by the sense, developed by years of experience, that the thing doesn't fit. Of course categories and the knowledge of the logic of categories can be useful, but there's really no substitute for experience. The categories are part of the experience, not a substitute for it. Same for logic and arguments and detailed examinations of musical elements. All very nice. All a part of experience, which will always transcend them and always trump them because it is bigger and more inclusive than any of the elements that make it up.


----------



## Mahlerian

A comment on Roger Waters' attempt at writing an opera:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/a...x=1186027200&en=890e37809f677d19&ei=5070&_r=0



> Yet the overture to "Ça Ira" ("So It Will Be") is couched in Brahmsian moves and sonorities, and the work rarely lurches forward. A listener soon bumps into orchestral effects that have their roots in Beethoven's "Egmont" or, in more adventurous passages, Puccini's "Tosca" or the Battle on the Ice from Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky."





> But if you were to walk into a room in which the CD happened to be playing, you would be far less likely to say, "Hey, it's an opera" than "Hey, it's one of those overblown musicals that have taken over Broadway" - or words to that effect. If you were feeling charitable, you might add, "At least it's a few steps closer to Stephen Sondheim than to Andrew Lloyd Webber" - although if you stay long enough, you'll go back and forth on that one, possibly settling on Claude-Michel Schönberg's score for "Les Misérables."


----------



## aleazk

-"_The sky is blue, you say? give me arguments! how are you so sure?! have you studied the sky like me?!_" 

-"_No, I opened the window and simply saw that the sky is indeed blue..._"


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Well, then you have to realize that Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine are equally as atonal, then, having also had the term applied to them at various points.


I am merely pointing out that it's the views of the broader spectrum of listeners, not just yours or mine or academia's, that ultimately count. Some of the works mentioned, a few may call "atonal." Others, many. Consider that there may be a meaningful difference there.

BTW, liked your quote from Babbitt: "...what it was is better described by such terms as "automorphic," "contextual," "self-referential," and others, all agreeing on a characterization of the music so context dependent as to be highly sensitive to its statement of its initial conditions, and defining its modes of relation and progression within itself, that is, within each composition." Uh, yeah, OK...


----------



## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> In order to have a fruitful discussion, we need to bypass definitions and "assume" what the other person is meaning. I know that Babbitt is not Mozart, and it's that diffefrence in harmonic language, whatever you want to call it, that makes Pink Floyd closer in many people's minds to Mozart than Babbitt.
> 
> Of course, you have to get into some really sloppy thinking in order to do this.


Well, amen to that!


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> I am merely pointing out that it's the views of the broader spectrum of listeners, not just yours or mine or academia's, that ultimately count. Some of the works mentioned, a few may call "atonal." Others, many. Consider that there may be a meaningful difference there.


A whole bunch of people being wrong doesn't suddenly make them right. Descriptions of the music should be based in musical elements.



> BTW, liked your quote from Babbitt: "...what it was is better described by such terms as "automorphic," "contextual," "self-referential," and others, all agreeing on a characterization of the music so context dependent as to be highly sensitive to its statement of its initial conditions, and defining its modes of relation and progression within itself, that is, within each composition." Uh, yeah, OK...


He means that, as opposed to referring to an already-understood system such as traditional tonality, the music is self-generating in that its motifs are the basis for the form and content of the piece. How would you prefer him to have phrased it?


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> A whole bunch of people being wrong doesn't suddenly make them right. Descriptions of the music should be based in musical elements.


The point is, it doesn't matter whether they're "right" or "wrong". I may think it's wrong for a shark to bite me. But if the shark's big enough, it's opinion will prevail.


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> The point is, it doesn't matter whether they're "right" or "wrong". I may think it's wrong for a shark to bite me. But if the shark's big enough, it's opinion will prevail.


Call me old-fashioned, but I happen to believe that if you're in an argument, it matters quite a bit that you're actually using terms that mean something, especially when the use of that term forms the entirety of your argument.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Call me old-fashioned, but I happen to believe that if you're in an argument, it matters quite a bit that you're actually using terms that mean something, especially when the use of that term forms the entirety of your argument.


I don't think I've misused the term "atonal," by your definition or any other. I've merely spoken of others' views. So I guess I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. I repeat that I believe the views of the broader listening public are more important than yours, or mine, or anybody else's, in determining the future of styles of music and individual works. "Right" or "wrong"!


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> I don't think I've misused the term "atonal," by your definition or any other. I've merely spoken of others' views.


No, you have, over the course of this discussion, injected plenty of your own. You are also very selective in your presentation of others' views.

You have misused the term atonal by representing it as a meaningful distinction that somehow trumps other considerations, even the most basic, when comparing pieces of music.

I don't like using the term because I think that it is meaningless, both as a distinction from earlier practice (it says that it's different, but not in what way) and as a description of style (lumping together composers that are easily as different, if not more so, than Monteverdi and Brahms). At best, it doesn't mean what it purports to mean, and it is contradictory at worst.



> So I guess I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. I repeat that I believe the views of the broader listening public are more important than yours, or mine, or anybody else's, in determining the future of styles of music and individual works. "Right" or "wrong"!


Will you agree that plenty of this music is surviving just fine, then? Carter, Lutoslawski, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, and so forth are all played and recorded relatively often, and I'm not sure why you think that their lack of performances and recordings compared to the absolute most popular composers of all time somehow constitutes a rejection by the listening public.

Furthermore, the opinions of the listening public change over time with exposure and taste. "Atonal" music is more acceptable to the listening public now than it has ever been. Stockhausen concerts and performances sell out in advance. Schoenberg's Violin Concerto formed half of a bestselling, Grammy-winning album by a superstar. Boulez is set to be feted next year on his 90th birthday.

I think that people are finding things that appeal to them in supposedly unappealing music.


----------



## BurningDesire

aleazk said:


> -"_The sky is blue, you say? give me arguments! how are you so sure?! have you studied the sky like me?!_"
> 
> -"_No, I opened the window and simply saw that the sky is indeed blue..._"


Its considerably more complex and nuanced than that. But I suppose making fun of the people you're arguing with, over and over again, is better than creating a real counter-argument.


----------



## Piwikiwi

BurningDesire said:


> Its considerably more complex and nuanced than that. But I suppose making fun of the people you're arguing with, over and over again, is better than creating a real counter-argument.


No you got it all wrong! Being passive aggressive the whole time is clearly the way to do it.


----------



## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> Its considerably more complex and nuanced than that.


No, it's not. For PF's Dark side of the Moon is very simple. You even already recognized it, so give me a break...



BurningDesire said:


> But I suppose making fun of the people you're arguing with, over and over again, is better than creating a real counter-argument.


We can argue about the boundaries of these labels, and certainly they shouldn't be taken as absolutes and even less to degrade other music. But you are simply mixing things, and I'm making fun of these exaggerations of yours. And I will keep doing it since I know you know they are exaggerations.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> No, you have, over the course of this discussion, injected plenty of your own. You are also very selective in your presentation of others' views. You have misused the term atonal by representing it as a meaningful distinction that somehow trumps other considerations, even the most basic, when comparing pieces of music.


[Keen sense of puzzlement] Where did I do that? I did say that "atonal" as understood by the broader musical public is certainly important, but have offered no definitions of my own (nor misused the term, to my knowledge). Is my writing that unclear?


----------



## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> You have misused the term atonal by representing it as a meaningful distinction that somehow trumps other considerations, even the most basic, when comparing pieces of music.





KenOC said:


> [Keen sense of puzzlement] Where did I do that?


Well, almost immediately, here: "I did say that "atonal" as understood by the broader musical public is certainly important"

And here: "it's not a worthless idea to most people out there, and their definitions may not match yours or mine or academia's."

And here: "it's the views of the broader spectrum of listeners, not just yours or mine or academia's, that ultimately count."



KenOC said:


> but have offered no definitions of my own


Well, not as such. But then, no one has said that you did, just that you represented it as "a meaningful distinction... when comparing pieces of music." You did do that. As to whether or not that representation constitutes "misusing the term," well that's a matter of judgment. Mahlerian would judge so. So would I.



KenOC said:


> Is my writing that unclear?


No, but the rhetorical tactics you favor do tend to obscure things rather. And offering your opinions under the cover of only offering others' opinions plays right into the essential obscurantism.


----------



## Guest

Has this question already been asked (by any chance) : is Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Piano Concerto to be considered as "classical music"? Here's the link; you decide!


----------



## Guest

BurningDesire said:


> But I suppose making fun of the people you're arguing with, over and over again, is better than creating a real counter-argument.


It probably is, when all the real counter-arguments have been virtually ignored.


----------



## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> About scored music:
> 
> Scoring, or writing down musical ideas, provides a unique way of "abstracting" a musical idea. Notation provides a way of recording pitch and rhythm, mainly; dynamics are specified in ways outside the "notes" themselves with ff, PP, etc. The instrumentation is simply specified by words, not notes.
> 
> So, scoring music is a way to reduce a musical idea to its essential musical elements, pitch and rhythm. This allows Mozart to turn a phrase upside-down, or backwards, or elongate it; Milton Babbitt does the same thing with his tone rows. So Mahlerian was correct in seeing that Babbitt and Mozart are both "classical," in that they both manipulate the musical material in similar ways, in the visual scoring process.
> Even if the musical idea originated by "ear" or by playing it, it can still be manipulated and abstracted by the scoring process, which is essentially a _visual_ medium, even though it refers to sounds. This crucial distinction must be grasped in order to see the _differences_ between scored and recorded music.


Manuscript paper and pencil is a technology to allow the musical idea to be transmitted and set down (recorded). Tape, wax, mics, and DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) are other technologies for the same purpose.
It is quite possible to write invertible counterpoint or manipulate material in a Babbitt-like or Mozartian way without even being able to read music notation. Any midi sequencer makes it possible and it is a common way of working for some. (Although the score edit window in a DAW can be used, it is not necessary).
Before DAWs, to write music down was the only way to get both an overview of a longer composition and to manipulate the fine detail in it. The important thing is to be able to scroll back and forth between sections in pieces in progress, edit them as needed and to play them through in one's head or from the computer.

I don't think anyone would claim that music created in a DAW will always be 'classical' but the DAW serves the same purpose as the manuscript.



millionrainbows said:


> About the stylistic trappings of music:
> 
> Babbitt wrote music for orchestras and string quartets, so he is "classical" in this regard as well.
> 
> Where Babbitt departs from many people's idea of "classical" music is in his harmonic language. Admittedly, this is an important criteria which has proven to be a "deal-breaker" with many classical listeners.
> 
> Pinl Floyd exhibit the _stylistic trappings_ of rock. They were a small group who had the traditional ensemble of bass, drums, guitars, keyboards, and vocals, heavily amplified and lit as a stage show, and recorded in recording studios, and promoted.


I don't think instrumentation is that important a criteria. 'Piggies' by The Beatles, if I remember rightly, is written for voices, string quartet and harpsichord.

Not many people would argue that Pink Floyd are more classical than Babbitt but I believe most people can recognise (intuitively) that both examples are rooted in common diatonic harmony and melody. You know, the type of stuff people generally sing along to.



millionrainbows said:


> I will add that Pink Floyd is "watered-down" rock _(as I define rock in its origins)_, because it begins the trend of rejecting all the "African" elements of 3-division rhythms and pentatonic scales, in favor of a more grandiose, more Westernized European approach, harkening back to the classical tradition. The same "Westernization" happened in jazz. The bluesy David Gilmour guitar solos are about the only vestiges of true rock that are left in Pink Floyd's music.


I find it interesting (revealing?) that you use the term "watered-down" rock instead of say, "enhanced". 
The blending of African and European ways of making music is one of the USA's greatest legacies.
And besides, The Floyd were always an artsy Prog-rock band, never really just rock and roll. Although Dark Side was chosen by Ken in his OP, it's quite a pop like album compared for example to Atom Heart Mother and side two of Meddle.

Anyway, Woodduck's excellent post about red to orange gets to the heart of the whole classification and definition mess!


----------



## Guest

Mozart: "Note to self - I want to write classical music, so I must be serious about it and write it down."

I'm interested in this idea that because it's a written tradition, it's classical. How else was a 17C composer of any kind of music to share his ideas with the players, or get it to a publisher?


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## PetrB

OlivierM said:


> I read metal, then "is it classical", so I post this :
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's classical, right ? :tiphat:


Sure, why not? It uses "classical elements" like scales, older style common practice harmony (updated just a little, rhythm, and meter -- and dagnabbit if them unkempt 'n' unlettered rockers di'n't pick up the word _symphony_ while they were on the street picking the pockets of the classical music crowd as that audience was leaving a concert:

ergo _it must be classical._ :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## science

some guy said:


> Except of course that that is not what PetrB's answer amounts to. What it amounts to is something more like, "while difficult to explain in words, it can easily be explained in experience."
> 
> Indeed, most experts in any field report the same phenomenon, that they can recognize when something doesn't quite fit by the feel of it, by the sense, developed by years of experience, that the thing doesn't fit. Of course categories and the knowledge of the logic of categories can be useful, but there's really no substitute for experience. The categories are part of the experience, not a substitute for it. Same for logic and arguments and detailed examinations of musical elements. All very nice. All a part of experience, which will always transcend them and always trump them because it is bigger and more inclusive than any of the elements that make it up.


It is precisely what PetrB was saying, and it is what you are saying too.

We're not talking about some ineffable thing here; we're talking about a definition. If you can't put a _definition_ into words, then don't blame others for being too stupid to understand the definition.

It's becoming mysticism here: you have to have the vision of the ultimate supremo whateverimitzky before you're allowed to talk about this subject with the experts. Otherwise, silence, you heretic.

Hey, look, I know I have no right to have an opinion on whether "classical music" is a thing that exists objectively and can be exactly defined, its boundaries precisely drawn, let alone an opinion on what that exact definition and those precise boundaries would be, so I'm already put in my place. What's important is that everyone else is in theirs too. If we don't share your great expertise, we need to keep our mouths shut about what is or is not classical music. We should be mocked and slapped around until we're too humiliated to participate in these elite conversations.


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## science

I wonder whether such an argument would actually work in any other field?

To the degree that I have a field, it is religion. There have been books and many articles written debating what religion is, whether it's a useful category, how it could be defined, and so on. I would never dream of telling someone new to the field, new to these questions, "You'll just magically know what it is when you're a true expert," or anything synonymous.

That's the kind of thing we might have to say about love, grief, ecstasy, whatever; but we're talking about a _genre_ here, a thing that by its nature is a _defined_ thing. Not, I'd guess, the kind of thing that can be given super-precise boundaries (a few pages ago Woodduck made a great analogy with colors) so that we just write off stuff we don't like, but still, a genre.

Or perhaps that gets to what's really going on here: "classical music" is used to mean "good music," so that the issue is the experience of quality. That probably is an ineffable experience like love, grief, and so on. It is unfortunately not one that I'm willing to surrender my own judgement on - the experts can stick their fists in their mouths, I will be true to myself. Well, no, that's not true, I will surrender my own judgement because I know my place. If they say "this is good enough to be 'classical' and that is not" then I will nod sagely to save my own back. But in the privacy of my heart, while such a place is still allowed to exist, I will allow my own experience and conscience to rule. (Edit: Well, no, that is not true either. I submit, I submit, I surrender, and I repent of my vile pride.)

I'd guess that most of us here are postmodern enough to shy away from actually saying that "classical music" is "good music," but perhaps the exercise of implying it without stating it is difficult enough to fill so many pages of discussion.

Avoiding issues of what's "good," classical music is not too hard to define clearly enough: it is a tradition of music in which the composition ordinarily has priority over the performers. There you go. That's a fine first approximation. Over the course of the thread, other people have put similar ideas in their own words. Taking away all pretense about what is good or better or best or who has a right to have an opinion about it, it's pretty easy to do.

Next, we shouldn't imagine that any definition is going to cover all cases: after all, in absolutely any realm of human activity, as soon as some definition becomes really firm, some creative person is going to challenge it by creating something that blurs the boundaries, that crosses the boundaries, whatever. And then we can discuss questions like whether there's enough yellow in that red to call it orange or not. But this really is such a simple, obvious thing that it's almost insulting to mention. A definition isn't a law, it's a description. I'm really sorry for saying such things.

Ok, clearly I've gotten above myself here and I'll go back to my subdued fuming. I have not enough expertise in anything to make ex cathedra declarations about what is and is not this or that, let alone classical music. I defer as always to the experts and the powerful.


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## Guest

science said:


> classical music is not too hard to define clearly enough: it is a tradition of music in which the composition ordinarily has priority over the performers.


If you take "classical music" in its broadest sense (broadest chronologically) then you quickly find that the "composition over performers" idea only applies to a fairly narrow band. 'Course, that narrow band is the band in which most listeners listen, but that's as may be. (And musics outside that band have been persistently played in modern times as if they had been composed in every detail in their time. They weren't.)

The biggest difficulty with the term "classical music" is that it was made up fairly late in the day, after quite a lot of music had been written, which was then retrofitted into the category. And not all the music we now think of as "classical" made the cut right at first. It took awhile for songs and opera to be included, for instance.

Once the contents of "classical" had been fairly well set, along comes Schoenberg and Stravinsky, followed in short succession--but haven't I already made this point?

The term "classical music" did not, from its first coining, ever point to anything specific. It was more a term of approbation. It was a feeling that these things belonged together and those other things did not. There was no general agreement about its contents for most of the century (19th) from whence it sprang.

So it was, from the first, a matter of "experts" telling people what was "classical" and what not. And as the contents became accepted, what was or was not classical was very much a matter of experience, of trained intuition. There's nothing mystical about it at all. It's just ordinary common-sense. You listen to a lot of what is called classical, you get a sense of what classical is. Or, better, what _are_ the things that can be included under the banner. Since the word has been made to cover widely different musics, from all over the world and from several centuries of music making, there's no surprise that people have a hard time defining it. There's no "it" to define, just a widely various hodge-podge of many different kinds of music. The only way to deal with such a situation is to listen to a lot of them and get a sense of what they have in common.

If you're into that kind of thing.

On the other hand, there are more recent categories, much smaller in scope, both musically and chronologically. These are much easier to define because they are much more precise. But still, it still comes down to listening. And if you play a hundred people "Blue Rondo a la Turk," and ask them what kind of music it is, you will get a hundred responses of "jazz," even if they cannot come up with a definition of jazz that will cover all jazz music and exclude all non-jazz music. If you play a hundred people "Dark Side of the Moon," you will get a hundred responses of "rock," even if et cetera. If you play a hundred people a non-symphonic classical piece from some time other than the 19th century, however, you will not get anywhere near the same unanimity. If you get a hundred people who habitually listen to "classical music," however, then you will get unanimity. That is, you will get unanimity from the experts, of which you, science, are one. Just by the way.

And if, in either case, you ask other questions, like "could this be considered 'classical'?" or "could this other thing be considered 'rock'?" which are ways to get people to second guess their instincts, then of course you're going to get a lot more confusion and a lot less unanimity, from everyone, experts and non-experts alike. That's the whole point of questions like that, not to elucidate (though that may happen, anyway, in spite of everything) but to obfuscate.


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## science

some guy said:


> the experts, of which you, science, are one.


Let's be serious. There's no need for this.

It doesn't matter what "classical music" mean in 1848, unless we're interested in history or time travel. As far as I can tell, composition over performers applies pretty much to everything from Gregorian Chant to the uncontroversially "classical music" of the present.


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## scratchgolf

I remember after Billy Joel released the album _River of Dreams_, he stated he was done with Pop Music and would focus his career on Classical composition. I believe he released an album, which I don't own and haven't heard. But would his song "Nocturne" be considered Classical? It's a solo piano composition. Does solo piano music automatically get classified as Classical? Yann Tiersen would then be Classical as well. If I push the items from my desk to the floor, is that also Classical? Is Pink Floyd's "Terminal Frost" Classical? I think we can label this music until we're blue in the face. I just don't think it's necessary.


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## Art Rock

scratchgolf said:


> I remember after Billy Joel released the album _River of Dreams_, he stated he was done with Pop Music and would focus his career on Classical composition. I believe he released an album, which I don't own and haven't heard.


It's called _Fantasies & Delusions_ from 2001. Joel's piano compositions performed by Richard Joo - so according to some of the criteria proposed in this thread, classical. Indeed it sounds like a third rate Chopin clone (to me at least).


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## Guest

some guy said:


> the experts, of which you, science, are one. Just by the way.





science said:


> Let's be serious. There's no need for this.


In the context of the discussion, that is exactly what you are, though: someone who has spent a good deal of time listening to all types of classical music and who therefore has a pretty fair idea of what is included in that category and what isn't.



science said:


> It doesn't matter what "classical music" mean in 1848, unless we're interested in history or time travel. As far as I can tell, composition over performers applies pretty much to everything from Gregorian Chant to the uncontroversially "classical music" of the present.


Since the term has a quite definite terminus a quo (and loco as well)--1810, in Germany--which is quite recent, given the musics it's supposed to define, the history of what it meant and how its meaning changed should mean its history is interesting to anyone interested in meaning, meaning everyone on this thread, I guess. What does "classical" mean when applied to the word "music"?

Besides that, an interest in history might lead to the conclusion that in music, sacrosanct scores take up a very little portion of the time supposedly covered by the term "classical music." That time constitutes a huge portion of what most classical listeners spend time with, but the term itself covers way more than "classical" and "romantic." And the sacrosanct-ness of scores began to break down in the twentieth century, with alternate notations, graphic scores, and the ability to realize your musical ideas directly onto magnetic tape. Plus, the whole idea of improvisation, which had pretty much died out in classical music as scores became more sacrosanct (except for organists), began coming back in the twentieth century. Indeed, the whole idea of composer/performer, which had been really big back in the day, became much more common in the twentieth century. And whenever you have composer/performers (not just composers who can play an instrument or two), you almost inevitably have improvisation. Composer/performers are also just a skosh less inclined to avoid collaboration, too. Indeed, that's another thing that became huge in the twentieth century, collaborations. Cage and Tudor. Fluxus. Sonic Arts Union. AMM. MEV. Yoshihide and just about everyone else. Same with each of the everyone elses: Tetreault, Sachiko M, Karkowski, Rowe, Nakamura, Dörner, Masami, Mouri, for example. I have never seen Andrea Neumann or Jerome Noetinger or Lionel Marchetti do a solo set. Mostly they collaborate.

I wonder to what extent the classical and romantic eras will eventually be seen as a quite uncharacteristic blip in the overall history of music generally.



Art Rock said:


> It's called _Fantasies & Delusions_ from 2001. Joel's piano compositions performed by Richard Joo - so according to some of the criteria proposed in this thread, classical. Indeed it sounds like a third rate Chopin clone (to me at least).


 This is often the case for the people in pop music who are not current in their knowledge of non-pop musics. For so many, even Paul McCartney who really should know better, "classical music" means nineteenth century. Just look at the difference between Edgar Meyer's Violin concerto and the Eno/Fripp _Index of Metals_ referenced earlier in this thread. That's because Eno and Fripp both hang out with classical composers and are aware of current trends. Meyer hangs out with classical performers. Plus, Chopin sells. And, in 2014, even third-rate Frederic Chopin knock-offs sell better than Henri Chopin, who died in 2008. (



)


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## science

some guy said:


> Besides that, an interest in history might lead to the conclusion that in music, sacrosanct scores take up a very little portion of the time supposedly covered by the term "classical music." That time constitutes a huge portion of what most classical listeners spend time with, but the term itself covers way more than "classical" and "romantic." And the sacrosanct-ness of scores began to break down in the twentieth century, with alternate notations, graphic scores, and the ability to realize your musical ideas directly onto magnetic tape. Plus, the whole idea of improvisation, which had pretty much died out in classical music as scores became more sacrosanct (except for organists), began coming back in the twentieth century.


I suspected this was going to happen. The "composition over performer" principle does not rule out all improvisation. I'm sure that was apparent as I originally put it, "a tradition of music in which the composition ordinarily has priority over the performers." I'm sure it's _very unfair_ to get from that to "sacrosanct scores."

The elevation of the composition didn't begin with Chopin or something. It went back to the middle ages, and really hit its stride when the Notre Dame School began composing complex polyphony. It was centuries old when the term "classical music" was invented. (Knowing this doesn't make me an expert; it makes me a fan who's read a book or two.) At the other end of the tradition, alternative notations are probably usually just another development in the tradition of notation, which has been developing from the beginning.

When the term "classical music" was formed, it referred to something or other, and over time that "something or other" has changed. It might've implicitly excluded Machaut and Josquin; but so what? Now it explicitly includes them. This is something we all know. To insist the term can only mean what it meant at some point in the past - 1810, 1848, 1912, 1945, whatever - is even worse than prescriptivism ordinary. We need to coin a new term. "Reactionary prescriptivism" might do it. Looking at language with honesty, we have to admit that words change. If we're talking about what "classical music" means, the question is what it means to us, right now. Knowing what it meant two hundred years ago might inform that discussion, but it definitely doesn't conclude it.

With "a tradition of music in which the composition ordinarily has priority over the performers," there's a lot of room within that "ordinarily" for improvisations here and there, particularly when the composer instructs it (!), or even entire works of nothing but improvisation, though they would be exceptional - as it seems to me, they are. Using tape _according to the instructions of the composer_ isn't really a radical change either. (Of course if you believe that acoustic instrumentation is a vital part of the definition of classical music, then it would be something. I doubt many people here believe that, but I'm doing my best to make that relevant.)

A more reasonable issue for me is, as we get along into the 20th century, the elevation of the recording over everything else seems to be a genuinely new thing. We might, with another century or so of hindsight, look back and decide that, rather than a new development within the classical tradition, actually a new tradition was getting started. This won't be a problem for a generation of people who manage not to have any lingering "classical = good" prejudices floating around their rhetoric. That will have to be a future generation, however.

As for us, we're still striving to exclude "bad music" from our tradition. Perhaps I could be more generous to that. "A tradition of music in which the composition ordinarily has priority over the performers, and which we can enjoy without fearing the scorn of the cultural elite." That probably is more accurate, honestly. It points to the idea, very often implied, that "light music" of any era isn't "real classical music." It includes the idea that if New Age music is "good" then it is classical music.

You know, that really is the heart of the matter, isn't it? It's not only about carrying on a tradition, it's about what music we're allowed to enjoy.

I withdraw my suggestion about the composition's priority. "Classical music" is music we're able to admit enjoying free of the scorn of cultural elite.

Wow, once you realize it, it's so obvious!


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## KenOC

science said:


> "Classical music" is music we're able to admit enjoying free of the scorn of cultural elite.


An interesting view. Could it possibly -- just possibly -- be correct?


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## science

"Classical music is music we're able to admit enjoying free of the scorn of cultural elite"

And that is why my insistence on not scorning people is so unacceptable. It really is a threat to the tradition itself. I've imagined that you can catch more flies with honey, or "win an argument, lose a sale." But I've been wrong. 

It turns out I don't really love "the classical tradition." I love the music, but just the music itself, not the music as "classical" music. 

It's like shackles falling from me. I feel so much freer now. Now I know why I've been so out of place. 

But it's a coin situation, two sides. Maybe I can't have the music without the scorn. I'll think about this. I've often wished I didn't enjoy the music because the social stuff turns me off so much. But I can't stay away from the music. It's like a miniature Stockholm syndrome.


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> An interesting view. Could it possibly -- just possibly -- be correct?


Nah, there's plenty of classical music that would earn you plenty of scorn from those who enjoy doling out such, and there's a lot of non-classical music (including non-Western classical traditions, Jazz, and pop/rock aimed at a sophisticated audience) that nets you a good deal of cultural cache.


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## science

Mahlerian said:


> Nah, there's plenty of classical music that would earn you plenty of scorn from those who enjoy doling out such, and there's a lot of non-classical music (including non-Western classical traditions, Jazz, and pop/rock aimed at a sophisticated audience) that nets you a good deal of cultural cache.


I was turning that over in my mind. After all, the elite thing in our postmodern times is to like a bit of everything. But perhaps that is just another way of saying that the classical tradition is breaking down?

But as for that "classical music that would earn you plenty of scorn from those who enjoy doling out such" - I suspect those who do so would try, whether explicitly or through innuendo, to suggest that such "classical music" isn't "really" or "real" classical music. That's why I mentioned light music and "new age" music. If it's old and verboten, it's "light music;" if it's recent and verboten, it's "new age music."


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## Mahlerian

science said:


> I was turning that over in my mind. After all, the elite thing in our postmodern times is to like a bit of everything. But perhaps that is just another way of saying that the classical tradition is breaking down?


I think it's fair to say that classical music doesn't have the cultural cache that it did a generation or two ago, but in the late 18th century, music was thought to be more or less pleasant background by the cultural elite. I think we would all agree the tradition managed to survive that. There isn't a common practice today the way there was a little over a century ago, so the tradition has indeed splintered, but perhaps in the end this is a sign of growth and development, rather than stagnation or decay. It's difficult to gain a clear perspective of the present day.



> But as for that "classical music that would earn you plenty of scorn from those who enjoy doling out such" - I suspect those who do so would try, whether explicitly or through innuendo, to suggest that such "classical music" isn't "really" or "real" classical music. That's why I mentioned light music and "new age" music. If it's old and verboten, it's "light music;" if it's recent and verboten, it's "new age music."


I'm not sure. There is recent classical music that comes close to the sound of New Age, perhaps, in parts of Silvestrov or Glass, but I still think of it as classical music. New Age is more of a catch-all category for instrumental music closely aligned with the popular tradition. The only composer generally considered New Age that I'm aware had compositional training was Einaudi.

As for older light music, or operettas and such, sure it's a category that generally appeals to a different audience. I was referring to pieces generally considered shallow, though, like Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies or Beethoven's Wellington's Victory.

There's a certain segment of every group, also, that disdains popular things, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Pachelbel's Canon, the "Moonlight" Sonata, and so forth, but I don't think they would consider them "not classical music".


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## science

Mahlerian said:


> I think it's fair to say that classical music doesn't have the cultural cache that it did a generation or two ago, but in the late 18th century, music was thought to be more or less pleasant background by the cultural elite. I think we would all agree the tradition managed to survive that. There isn't a common practice today the way there was a little over a century ago, so the tradition has indeed splintered, but perhaps in the end this is a sign of growth and development, rather than stagnation or decay. It's difficult to gain a clear perspective of the present day.
> 
> I'm not sure. There is recent classical music that comes close to the sound of New Age, perhaps, in parts of Silvestrov or Glass, but I still think of it as classical music. New Age is more of a catch-all category for instrumental music closely aligned with the popular tradition. The only composer generally considered New Age that I'm aware had compositional training was Einaudi.
> 
> As for older light music, or operettas and such, sure it's a category that generally appeals to a different audience. I was referring to pieces generally considered shallow, though, like Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies or Beethoven's Wellington's Victory.
> 
> There's a certain segment of every group, also, that disdains popular things, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Pachelbel's Canon, the "Moonlight" Sonata, and so forth, but I don't think they would consider them "not classical music".


Seems like Karl Jenkins, Harold Budd, Mike Oldfield, and probably many more that I don't know about play on that edge between classical music and New Age music, so how do we "define them down?"

There is definitely an anomalous category of "classical music that is bad because it is popular" - or, to put it more charitably for the cultural elite - "classical music that is popular because it is bad." I'd guess this means "music that used to be ok to enjoy." Sort of the classical version of "before it sold out." It puts us in an awkward position because we like to imagine that the canon is an eternal thing, rather than that it is essentially a slow-burning fad. But perhaps we a lot of us could breathe a sigh of relief if we could put the 1812 Overture, Pachelbel's Canon, the Radetzky March, etc. out of the bounds of "classical" music?


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## Radames

People still think of the Radetzky March as classical???!?








The horror!


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## science

Radames said:


> People still think of the Radetzky March as classical???!?
> 
> View attachment 54179
> 
> The horror!



View attachment 54180


That's the real thing right there.

Of course back in his time listening to the old Radetzky was probably a bit less daring.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC's opening post, and subsequent replies, reinforce the harrowing truth: CP tonality is "the language of power" in music.

I've always said, back in my earliest blogs, that tonality is an hierarchical system which perfectly represents the existing social structure of that time. All ratios within the octave are ranked in order, and all relate to 1, or the root (God/king).

The triumph of absolutism saw royalty as divinely ordained to be God's representatives on earth, and gave rise to nationalism; and the rise of mercantilism, which saw gold as the only true source of wealth.

Since church and state were now virtually the same under absolutism, it should be no surprise that both institutions used the arts as ways of representing power (the power of God and his earthly representatives); display of splendor was one of the main social functions of baroque courts; this was only possible with money; the more money spent, the greater the display (Handel's Water Music, etc.)

Tonality, as understood by the masses in easily digestible form, has traditionally been the musical language of power. This is the main (historically proven) musical/social criteria which defines "classical music" for what it is: A display of power, and a tool for the elite.


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## millionrainbows

Serialism, and much modernism, is more hermetic and monk-like in nature; it is a rarified language of art music which was not designed for mass consumption.

But in being so, it also escapes the trap of being used as a propagandistic bludgeon of the State or the wealthy royals, or corporations. It has a purity of intent, a freedom from being appropriated, which makes it "real art."

KenOC can march off into oblivion with the masses, secure in the knowledge that he is "on the winning team" and will always wield the real power. This is a patriarchal sense of entitlement, which thrives and craves power.

I am more interested in hollow things, and empty vessels.


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> KenOC can march off into oblivion with the masses, secure in the knowledge that he is "on the winning team" and will always wield the real power.


Whoa Nellie! I'm being misrepresented here. I'm not at all concerned with a "winning team" or in stopping people from writing whatever music they like. But I am concerned with some people who want to build a higher and higher wall around "classical music" to keep out the weeds, threatening the entire ecosystem with death through inbreeding.


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> But I am concerned with some people who want to build a higher and higher wall around "classical music" to keep out the weeds, threatening the entire ecosystem with death through inbreeding.


Where? Where are these people?

Certainly, they are not the ones who allow influences from Jazz:





or non-Western musics:





or try out new means and methods:





Such things would never be allowed into a truly hermetic tradition.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Whoa Nellie! I'm being misrepresented here. I'm not at all concerned with a "winning team" or in stopping people from writing whatever music they like. But I am concerned with some people who want to build a higher and higher wall around "classical music" to keep out the weeds, threatening the entire ecosystem with death through inbreeding.


But if their are no walls around classical music, it will eventually cross-breed with other possible musical syntaxes, resulting in weird creatures like Milton Babbitt and Pink Floyd. Which mongrel do you think looks most like his father?


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## aleazk

Mahlerian said:


> Where? Where are these people?


Here's a recent picture of the fellow:


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## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> Serialism, and much modernism, is more hermetic and monk-like in nature; it is a rarified language of art music which was not designed for mass consumption.


Not to mention the masses that consumed _2001: A Space Odyssey_ and were deeply moved by Ligeti's modernist music there...


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## science

Mahlerian said:


> Where? Where are these people?


Honestly, every professional musician I've ever known or met has been a wonderful advocate for their music.

It's the fans that build the fences.


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Where? Where are these people?
> 
> Certainly, they are not the ones...


Birtwhistle, Boulez, and Babbitt as cross-pollinators who will renew "classical music"? Well, good luck with that!


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## aleazk

KenOC said:


> Birtwhistle, Boulez, and Babbitt as cross-pollinators who will renew "classical music"? Well, good luck with that!


Well, they actually did it... Boulez sounds like Stravinsky or Schoenberg? I don't think so... Boulez sounds like Babbitt? not with all these exotic percussion instruments...

Perhaps, perhaps... you missed it! Well, in that case, better to get with the times before making absurd claims...


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## dgee

Goshdarn guys, I feel like we're soooo close to solving this once and for all. I'll come back and check the thread in a coupla hours for the definitive answer but in the meantime I'll just refer to "music" as "music". 

Oh no - but what if someone asks me if 4'33" is even music at all?


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## Guest

science said:


> Honestly, every professional musician I've ever known or met has been a wonderful advocate for their music.
> 
> It's the fans that build the fences.


And for when there's no fences, we have threads like this to build some imaginary ones


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## Woodduck

I have known, associated with, and performed with classical musicians and lovers of classical music for nearly six decades, and I can't think of a single one of them who aspired to power, thought that a love of classical music gave them any sort of social cachet, or felt any need to keep "classical music" safe from "contamination". Sure, many of us felt that "our" music was better than "their" music - a pretty hard attitude not to hold for a seventeen-year-old listening to _Tristan und Isolde_ while his friends are listening to _Yellow Submarine_. We get a better perspective on these things with age and experience (so now I _really_ understand why _Tristan_ trumps _Submarine_ ). But, generally speaking, the people I've known simply love music, and though they tend to find the sorts of music traditionally considered "classical" most rewarding, they are neither resistant to other kinds of music nor particularly concerned with how classical or any other music is to be categorized. Most classical listeners, I dare say, enjoy various other genres quite unselfconsciously; they don't build fences, but they do see differences, and they appreciate those differences without needing to define them more closely than their indefinite boundaries can bear. Interesting as it is to discuss the differences we see, attempts to offer a sociology of classical music as a way of defining it strike me as less defining than confining, and as precisely the kind of fence-building we want to avoid.


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Birtwhistle, Boulez, and Babbitt as cross-pollinators who will renew "classical music"? Well, good luck with that!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule

*You are changing the subject.* Before you were suggesting that classical music is likely to die because it is not open to outside influences, and without considering my examples to the contrary, you have simply dismissed them out of hand. This is deplorable rhetoric and even worse logic.


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## PetrB

Couac Addict said:


> Next week:
> _Rhapsody in Blue....classical or jazz?_


Spare us! It is neither: but if you start a thread on it that will likely run to a good number of pages


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## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Birtwhistle, Boulez, and Babbitt as cross-pollinators who will renew "classical music"? Well, good luck with that!


My dear fellow, they have already succeeded in so doing. Denial will get you nowhere, unless the need for self-comfort is strong enough-- then of course the power to deny is strong, and the denial fully believed.


----------



## Torkelburger

It's an interesting question. There's a famous line from Duke Ellington when he once said that "Everything is jazz." So these kinds of ideas have been thought about long ago by great musical minds.

However, I'd have to disagree with The Duke on this. Because if everything is jazz, then nothing is jazz. If everything is classical, then nothing is classical. You get that confusion Woodduck wrote about earlier. You have to have some sort of definition or "wall" to determine one thing from the other, (keeping in mind yes, some things will fall "in between" the lines) or else nothing maintains its own uniqueness. I once worked at Tower Records twenty years ago and someone asked me for CDs to get them into classical music. It would not have been appropriate to have come back with Kind of Blue in my hands. And if they'd asked for a great classic rock album, I wouldn't have come back with Mozart's Requiem.

And yes, words are limited by their inability to relate perfectly the ideas they represent (so the labels and definitions we use have their flaws), and certain details in definitions may vary from person to person, and the general idea may involve traditions and prejudices, but without those definitions and walls you are left with confusion, like a world speaking different languages no one understands.


----------



## Varick

millionrainbows said:


> Tonality, as understood by the masses in easily digestible form, has traditionally been the musical language of power. This is the main (historically proven) musical/social criteria which defines "classical music" for what it is: A display of power, and a tool for the elite.





millionrainbows said:


> Serialism, and much modernism, is more hermetic and monk-like in nature; it is a rarified language of art music which was not designed for mass consumption.
> 
> KenOC can march off into oblivion with the masses, secure in the knowledge that he is "on the winning team" and will always wield the real power. This is a patriarchal sense of entitlement, which thrives and craves power.
> 
> I am more interested in hollow things, and empty vessels.


Then you must hate popular music (ie: Rock, pop, etc). It is certainly produced and enjoyed by the masses. You obviously disdain all things that represent power or hierarchy and things that are enjoyed by the elite. So I'm wondering How you reconcile the fact that most of the modernism in the arts that you so enjoy and connect with are really only enjoyed by the elites of today and the privileged. They certainly are not enjoyed nor sought after by the masses.

I definitely do not see the proletariat seeking out much of the modern art world. Much less so than they even do for the "old classics" if you will of the art world.

V


----------



## Morimur

Mahlerian said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule
> 
> *You are changing the subject.* Before you were suggesting that classical music is likely to die because it is not open to outside influences, and without considering my examples to the contrary, you have simply dismissed them out of hand. This is deplorable rhetoric and even worse logic.


Mahlerian, LOGIC isn't a defining characteristic in our species -- read the news lately?


----------



## KenOC

..... (thought the better of that, though it was quite correct!)


----------



## senza sordino

I've been reading the posts of this thread with some interest and some amusement. The amount of effort and thought that has gone into this effort to include or exclude Dark Side of the Moon has been admirable. It's been interesting reading how people define classical music. 

I personally like to define classical music as 1) being part of a tradition stretching back centuries; 2) scored and written; 3) created or performed by musicians with conservatory training 4) and at times elitist. Classical music doesn't fit all four at the same time. I'm not sure DSOTM fits any.

You may choose to define classical music another way, or choose not to define it at all.


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## Guest

Torkelburger said:


> You have to have some sort of definition or "wall" to determine one thing from the other, (keeping in mind yes, some things will fall "in between" the lines) or else nothing maintains its own uniqueness. I once worked at Tower Records ...


No, you don't have to have 'some sort of definition' except, as I've said once or twice already, in circumstances where you must have a definition...such as working in a record shop!


----------



## PetrB

*Stay tuned -- do not touch that dial!
Next on TC, immediately following this thread:

All Cultures Are of Equal Value.*


----------



## Piwikiwi

PetrB said:


> *Stay tuned -- do not touch that dial!
> Next on TC, immediately following this thread:
> 
> All Cultures Are of Equal Value.*


Nonsense, a culture in which people eat pancakes for breakfast instead of for dinner is clearly inferior.


----------



## science

PetrB said:


> *Stay tuned -- do not touch that dial!
> Next on TC, immediately following this thread:
> 
> All Cultures Are of Equal Value.*


Because that is really what has been at stake here, right?


----------



## SONNET CLV

Woodduck said:


> I have known, associated with, and performed with classical musicians and lovers of classical music for nearly six decades, and I can't think of a single one of them who aspired to power, thought that a love of classical music gave them any sort of social cachet, or felt any need to keep "classical music" safe from "contamination". Sure, many of us felt that "our" music was better than "their" music - a pretty hard attitude not to hold for a seventeen-year-old listening to _Tristan und Isolde_ while his friends are listening to _Yellow Submarine_. We get a better perspective on these things with age and experience (so now I _really_ understand why _Tristan_ trumps _Submarine_ ). But, generally speaking, the people I've known simply love music, and though they tend to find the sorts of music traditionally considered "classical" most rewarding, they are neither resistant to other kinds of music nor particularly concerned with how classical or any other music is to be categorized. Most classical listeners, I dare say, enjoy various other genres quite unselfconsciously; they don't build fences, but they do see differences, and they appreciate those differences without needing to define them more closely than their indefinite boundaries can bear. Interesting as it is to discuss the differences we see, attempts to offer a sociology of classical music as a way of defining it strike me as less defining than confining, and as precisely the kind of fence-building we want to avoid.


A wonderful statement.


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## science

Woodduck said:


> I have known, associated with, and performed with classical musicians and lovers of classical music for nearly six decades, and I can't think of a single one of them who aspired to power, thought that a love of classical music gave them any sort of social cachet, or felt any need to keep "classical music" safe from "contamination". Sure, many of us felt that "our" music was better than "their" music - a pretty hard attitude not to hold for a seventeen-year-old listening to _Tristan und Isolde_ while his friends are listening to _Yellow Submarine_. We get a better perspective on these things with age and experience (so now I _really_ understand why _Tristan_ trumps _Submarine_ ). But, generally speaking, the people I've known simply love music, and though they tend to find the sorts of music traditionally considered "classical" most rewarding, they are neither resistant to other kinds of music nor particularly concerned with how classical or any other music is to be categorized. Most classical listeners, I dare say, enjoy various other genres quite unselfconsciously; they don't build fences, but they do see differences, and they appreciate those differences without needing to define them more closely than their indefinite boundaries can bear. Interesting as it is to discuss the differences we see, attempts to offer a sociology of classical music as a way of defining it strike me as less defining than confining, and as precisely the kind of fence-building we want to avoid.


Wow. I have a very hard time believing you're genuine and serious here. Well, you'd better not spend too much more time among us because we are going to ruin this rosy picture.

One more time.



Woodduck said:


> I have known ... lovers of classical music for nearly six decades, and I can't think of a single one of them who ... thought that a love of classical music gave them any sort of social cachet


No, sorry, I just cannot for a moment agree with this. I cannot imagine that you're being totally sincere. Or if you are, I wish I had your power of charity, your faith in human goodness. I mean, can there be any evil, any injustice, for a person who could say such a thing with genuine conviction?

Dude, I have been mutilated and crushed and savaged in these discussion (edit: on this board but even worse on others), and I have seen others get it worse than I have, for liking something we're supposed not to like, or not liking something we're supposed to like. If you haven't seen that, it's because you've tried _hard_ not to see it, and if you've actually succeeded, you've accomplished something great.

But can anyone actually accomplish such a thing? I cannot believe it. You've seen what you've seen and we both know it.


----------



## Jobis

science said:


> Wow. I have a very hard time believing you're genuine and serious here. Well, you'd better not spend too much more time among us because we are going to ruin this rosy picture.
> 
> One more time.
> 
> No, sorry, I just cannot for a moment agree with this. I cannot imagine that you're being totally sincere. Or if you are, I wish I had your power of charity, your faith in human goodness. I mean, can there be any evil, any injustice, for a person who could say such a thing with genuine conviction?
> 
> Dude, I have been mutilated and crushed and savaged on this board, and I have seen others get it worse than I have, for liking something we're supposed not to like, or not liking something we're supposed to like. If you haven't seen that, it's because you've tried _hard_ not to see it, and if you've actually succeeded, you've accomplished something great.
> 
> But can anyone actually accomplish such a thing? I cannot believe it. You've seen what you've seen and we both know it.


This is perhaps the tamest side of the internet, here no one gets mutilated, crushed or savaged, do you really need to be so hyperbolic about having your feelings hurt? In places where people have such an intense love of music (in addition to having virtual anonymity), it can make them very passionate about their own likes and dislikes; I don't advocate bashing other peoples tastes but I also don't like the idea of total subjectivism where all opinions are equally valid. Unfortunately the middle ground is a slippery slope.


----------



## science

Jobis said:


> This is perhaps the tamest side of the internet, here no one gets mutilated, crushed or savaged, do you really need to be so hyperbolic about having your feelings hurt? In places where people have such an intense love of music (in addition to having virtual anonymity), it can make them very passionate about their own likes and dislikes; I don't advocate bashing other peoples tastes but I also don't like the idea of total subjectivism where all opinions are equally valid. Unfortunately the middle ground is a slippery slope.


Yes, that "hyperbolic" is how I need to be. It is true not only to what I have felt but to what I was intended to feel. Edit: And for the most part, it's not about me. It's about what I've seen happen to others. After all, I rarely have verboten opinions. Or, I rarely offer them when I have them.

It is not a matter of "all opinions are equally valid." That is at best, at the very best, a straw man. It is a matter of being polite to someone who would like, say, to see the Vienna PO's New Year's concert. Or who enjoys, say, Xenakis. Or, say, Andre Rieu. Or, say, John Williams. Or, say, Philip Glass. Or, say, Frank Zappa. Or, say, Mozart. You don't have enjoy those things, you don't have to pretend to like them or pretend that they're all equally good. But let's not pretend that intentionally _vicious_ things have never been said to people who come down on what someone considers "the wrong side" of such discussions. Intentionally vicious and with all the subtle brilliance of which a human mind is capable, with the sole and precise intention of punishing that person for daring to have "the wrong" tastes or opinions or whatever.


----------



## Jobis

science said:


> Yes, that "hyperbolic" is how I need to be. It is true not only to what I have felt but to what I was intended to feel. Edit: And for the most part, it's not about me. It's about what I've seen happen to others. After all, I rarely have verboten opinions. Or, I rarely offer them when I have them.
> 
> It is not a matter of "all opinions are equally valid." That is at best, at the very best, a straw man. It is a matter of being polite to someone who would like, say, to see the Vienna PO's New Year's concert. Or who enjoys, say, Xenakis. Or, say, Andre Rieu. Or, say, John Williams. Or, say, Philip Glass. Or, say, Frank Zappa. Or, say, Mozart. You don't have enjoy those things, you don't have to pretend to like them or pretend that they're all equally good. But let's not pretend that intentionally _vicious_ things have never been said to people who come down on what someone considers "the wrong side" of such discussions. Intentionally vicious and with all the subtle brilliance of which a human mind is capable, with the sole and precise intention of punishing that person for daring to have "the wrong" tastes or opinions or whatever.


You could justifiably call it viciousness, but more often I expect it is careless snobbery. That being said there are clearly individuals who have a kind of totalitarian view of what constitutes acceptable music to listen to, but this being a classical music forum one must pander to them slightly, or expect to have scorn poured over their own tastes. (I don't like this nor do I feel it is right, but how else can you kindly respond to unreasonable people when you come across them?)

I just dislike hyperbole because it degrades language; one may feel crushed, but to say categorically 'I have been crushed and savaged by these people' just seems false, and confuses the true sense of the words.


----------



## science

Jobis said:


> You could justifiably call it viciousness, but more often I expect it is careless snobbery. That being said there are clearly individuals who have a kind of totalitarian view of what constitutes acceptable music to listen to, but this being a classical music forum one must pander to them slightly, or expect to have scorn poured over their own tastes. (I don't like this nor do I feel it is right, but how else can you kindly respond to unreasonable people when you come across them?)
> 
> I just dislike hyperbole because it degrades language; one may feel crushed, but to say categorically 'I have been crushed and savaged by these people' just seems false, and confuses the true sense of the words.


I cannot imagine more appropriate words - actually I can, but they would probably get the post deleted.

As for the difference between "snobbery" ("careless" is more than I can believe), a "totalitarian view of what constitutes acceptable music," and "viciousness," six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Why be kind? A few years ago, my wife, innocently wanting to enjoy it, asked me to ask whether we could view the the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert live over the internet. Kindness? The response to her scrubbed kindness forever from my intentions in such a discussion. I am sure this post will get deleted and I might be banned if I say more.

Needless to say, I saw her getting put "in her place." Oh, yes I did. You can be sure I did. And I will _never_ forget that. Ever. Nor forget, nor forgive. I've seen that kind of thing happen lots of times to other people, and that's bad enough. More than bad enough.

I am happy enough to return kindness where it seems to be offered with sincerity. But I'm not going to pretend not to have seen what I have seen.


----------



## science

Ah, but here is what it is all about:

View attachment 54232
View attachment 54234
View attachment 54233


I just listened to these for the first time tonight. What beautiful, fun, surprising, fascinating, moving, dramatic music! And that is without the score, without any insight into the whatever and the whatever, without studying, nothing but just sitting here in my room listening. Joy, pleasure. Wonderful.

I know that a lot of people disapprove of me or people like me or even of people not at all like me who have their own beloved music that we are all supposed to scorn. It is a terrible thing. Sickening. It is an intentional effort to elevate some of us about other of us, even at the cost - or even, hopefully at the cost of driving away the people we do not want to share this music with. Winning arguments, losing sales, intentionally or not.

Well, boys, it's too darn late here. I enjoyed this, and the rest of you....

Well, I hope you share my pleasure, or at least do not begrudge it. I doubt that this particular music - of course I probably should've listened to an old mono recording or something - but at least the works themselves can be subject to any scorn. But who cares? I've listened to other stuff too, worthy of all scorn, and I've enjoyed it. *And. I. Will. Do. So. Again!* And I hope others do too, because those who would scorn us do not deserve the pedestal on which they strive to place themselves. But

But this was sweet stuff to my ears, and no about of scorn is ever going to chase me from this music. I wish I could say the same for everyone who might've enjoyed it. But whatever. Let the dead bury the dead. I had this for a night and it will never be taken from me.


----------



## millionrainbows

> Serialism, and much modernism, is more hermetic and monk-like in nature; it is a rarified language of art music which was not designed for mass consumption.





aleazk said:


> Not to mention the masses that consumed _2001: A Space Odyssey_ and were deeply moved by Ligeti's modernist music there...


Kubrick edited and processed Ligeti's music, and Ligeti sued & won.

Music is almost always secondary in cinema, like Greek tragedy; and in the case of 2001 as well.

This is a poor counter argument


----------



## Marschallin Blair

millionrainbows said:


> Kubrick edited and processed Ligeti's music, and Ligeti sued & won.
> Music is almost always secondary in cinema, like Greek tragedy; and in the case of 2001 as well.
> 
> This is a poor counter argument


Ligeti's an ingrate.

Kubrick's a genius.

He got untold numbers of people into Ligeti's music by putting parts of _Lux Aeterna _and _Atmospheres_ into _2001_.


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## science

Yeah, I'm a little sad to hear that story, in case it's true.

But then again, a little posturing on behalf of the "purity" (or whatever) of a work of art probably never hurt an artist's status. 

Ligeti can just be happy he doesn't have to see the interpretive dance I do to his Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes. It's simply a violation of the intention of the work itself. But hey, my dance is my art, dance alone, directed against all ideologies and the petite bourgeoisie.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I have known, associated with, and performed with classical musicians and lovers of classical music for nearly six decades, and I can't think of a single one of them who aspired to power, thought that a love of classical music gave them any sort of social cachet, or felt any need to keep "classical music" safe from "contamination".


Just as, to a feminist, most patriarchal white men are not aspiring to power...
...and just as most white people deny that there is any problem with racism.

It seems to me the opening post, and replies which followed, revealed the perpetrator of this thread to be blithely unaware of their own assumed attitude of entitlement (the majority, the winning team, common sense, tonality, sales figures).

Posing a question which nominates Pink Floyd for possible classical status, while stepping on Milton Babbitt to do it, seems absurd.

Yet, look at how many here were suckered in to treating this proposition as if it were serious.

If nothing else, I hope the author got a good laugh out of pushing these buttons.

Classical music was a product of its times, and those times have changed, in case everyone hasn't noticed.


----------



## Morimur

Marschallin Blair said:


> Ligeti's an ingrate.
> 
> Kubrick's a genius.
> 
> He got untold numbers of people into Ligeti's music by putting parts of _Lux Aeterna _and _Atmospheres_ into _2001_.


Ligeti is a true genius. Kubrick is an ingrate.


----------



## millionrainbows

> Originally Posted by *millionrainbows*
> 
> Tonality, as understood by the masses in easily digestible form, has traditionally been the musical language of power. This is the main (historically proven) musical/social criteria which defines "classical music" for what it is: A display of power, and a tool for the elite.





Varick said:


> Then you must hate popular music (ie: Rock, pop, etc). It is certainly produced and enjoyed by the masses.


No, I don't. That's a distortion of my position. Much popular and folk music represents, at its best the aspirations and concerns of the "people" who created it. Most Classical music was funded and created for the divertessiment of The Church, royals, or the wealthy: whatever the dominant power structure was.



Varick said:


> You obviously disdain all things that represent power or hierarchy and things that are enjoyed by the elite. So I'm wondering How you reconcile the fact that most of the modernism in the arts that you so enjoy and connect with are really only enjoyed by the elites of today and the privileged. They certainly are not enjoyed nor sought after by the masses.


At least Milton Babbitt and Ilhan Mimaroglu are not pawns of the corporate music structure. Their music is art.



Varick said:


> I definitely do not see the proletariat seeking out much of the modern art world. Much less so than they even do for the "old classics" if you will of the art world.


You are distorting my position. You must distinguish between the power elite, the proletariat, and guys like Babbitt who are more or less monks.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Morimur said:


> Ligeti is a true genius. Kubrick is an ingrate.


True genius though Ligeti may be, he still wouldn't be able to clip Kubrick's toenails with a stepladder; not even with the tallest stepladder in the world.

--- So what would that make Kubrick?


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> Just as, to a feminist, most patriarchal white men are not aspiring to power...
> ...and just as most white people deny that there is any problem with racism.


Oh, that is loaded, but it might actually be a good example in the opposite way you intended - a good example for me to understand how perspectives different than mine seem plausible.


----------



## millionrainbows

Jobis said:


> You could justifiably call it viciousness, but more often I expect it is careless snobbery. That being said there are clearly individuals who have a kind of totalitarian view of what constitutes acceptable music to listen to, but this being a classical music forum one must pander to them slightly, or expect to have scorn poured over their own tastes. (I don't like this nor do I feel it is right, but how else can you kindly respond to unreasonable people when you come across them?)
> 
> I just dislike hyperbole because it degrades language; one may feel crushed, but to say categorically 'I have been crushed and savaged by these people' just seems false, and confuses the true sense of the words.


Okay, it's like being blithely unaware, or ignorance. Not malicious, just negligent and entitled; comfortable in the status quo.

Like a person who sits down in a hallway with their legs stretched out; sooner or later, someone will trip over him, and bad karma will be created out of a passive unawareness. Sloppy awareness. Unthinking statements, not meant maliciously, but revealing a entitled passive attitude, which is self-involved and unaware of its surroundings.

It's similar to the people who are trying to do their job will sue somebody like that for sexual harassment. It's sort of like that.


----------



## science

Woodduck, I know you just liked my post, but I really ought to take it back now. Millionrainbow's post about white privilege and male privilege has really changed my perspective on that. Perhaps you really have been unaware of the way the world looks to someone like me. I'm sorry that I found it so difficult to believe that. I was wrong.

A few months ago a guy obviously new to "classical" music showed up here enthusiastic about some new "violin concerto" that was supposedly a big hit in Italy. It was some poppy thing, catchy rhythm, some pretty melodies, nothing that would've surprised CPE Bach in a good way. It wasn't very good music except in the sense that Yanni is good music. But he dug it and he was enthusiastic and in his naive enthusiasm he wanted to share it with us. And he paid the price, of course. To be fair to us, several people here were obviously striving go be gentle as they explained their lack of enthusiasm. Quite a bit of the damning was with faint praise. But.... Well, much to my surprise, he actually came back a few months later to try again, but I'd guess he's done with us now. Us and our music. Once again, we did what we set out to do.

Perhaps a parallel situation from the other side. Yesterday or so a guy who is obviously an experienced listener here compared some modern music to jackhammers on a construction site. I'm sure that's about as mean-spirited, albeit much less clever, than the kinds of things our naively enthusiastic enemy (so I say based on our reaction) from Italy heard. Perhaps the two situations really are similar, but I don't think so - and I say this as someone who enjoys the Gubaidulina much more than I could ever enjoy the Italian piece. I don't think any of us read the jackhammer line and felt like, "Oh, if that's how people feel, clearly I don't belong here. Jackhammers! I feel so scorned by this clever wit, I will abandon my interest in this music." For all I know the jackhammers line was even supposed to make us feel something like that, but of course I suspect as we all must in our dark hearts that it was essentially a defensive rather than an aggressive comment. (Indeed, "I guess I'm just too stupid" or something like that followed hard upon.) There was no chance that we could scare this guy off our music, but even he was on the defensive.

Anyway, in both cases, there were attempts to legitimize and to delegitimize certain attitudes to music; in one case, to a person who I perceived as vulnerable, and in another case to people whom I do not perceive as vulnerable (although the reactions to the latter were much kinder than I'd anticipated and I'm thankful for that).

I think at bottom it is that perceived vulnerability that gets my fury up. A guy comes in here, enthusiastic about whatever lousy thing he's enthusiastic about, and we can't just welcome him and invite him to share music that we also like. I'd love to think that's what all of us would do in real life, in person, but I really don't think all of us would. Instead a lot of our reactions would be along the same lines that our reactions on the internet are, and with the same effect that the guy would be hounded out of our community, away from our music. I guess I should say "away from your music" because I no longer feel myself to be a part of this community.

I may be wrong about the numbers involved, but I suspect we chase away more people with those reactions than we attract. To be clear, we definitely do (I believe) attract people with those attitudes. I'm one. I will not let myself be looked down on if I can help it. And therefore I will learn to like whatever I'm supposed to like, and fortunately for me that's come very naturally so far. But I'm such a contrary son of a baloney roll that I also determine to listen to and enjoy the music that I see is forbidden. And so the Lang Lang thread, for example, or the thread on Higdon, the thread on Rutter, the thread(s) on Zappa, all of them pushed me to explore some new music. When I find out that something is scorned, that someone is scorned for liking something, I _will_ like it if I can. (To be clear and fair to everyone, I think this makes me in an ironic way the biggest snob.)

So obviously I do it to myself. But, whatever, I'm just that contrary, and I suspect most people aren't. _I know that I do not want my wife participating on this or any other classical music discussion board, even though I love to share my music with her, because the attitudes she would receive about the music she enjoys and the music she doesn't enjoy would turn her off to us and to the music that I love._ I've seen that kind of thing happen here over and over and over to people who I didn't care about, though for some reason I'm doomed to identify with them.

Like I said earlier, I have never known a professional musician of any stature to have attitudes like this. I haven't met them all of course, but the ones I have met have been without exception nonjudgemental, encouraging, open-minded, sympathetic, etc. That's a wonderful thing.

I also need to put in a good word for the mods here because this board is actually the friendliest one I've had experience with. And many - maybe most, I don't keep score or anything - of the people here are wonderful and friendly to everyone in all cases.

Anyway, that's where I'm coming form.


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> Wow. I have a very hard time believing you're genuine and serious here. Well, you'd better not spend too much more time among us because we are going to ruin this rosy picture.
> 
> One more time.
> 
> No, sorry, I just cannot for a moment agree with this. I cannot imagine that you're being totally sincere. Or if you are, I wish I had your power of charity, your faith in human goodness. I mean, can there be any evil, any injustice, for a person who could say such a thing with genuine conviction?
> 
> Dude, I have been mutilated and crushed and savaged in these discussion (edit: on this board but even worse on others), and I have seen others get it worse than I have, for liking something we're supposed not to like, or not liking something we're supposed to like. If you haven't seen that, it's because you've tried _hard_ not to see it, and if you've actually succeeded, you've accomplished something great.
> 
> But can anyone actually accomplish such a thing? I cannot believe it. You've seen what you've seen and we both know it.


Science, you have me laughing out loud with appreciation! Of course you're right that there is snobbery among classical music lovers. There is snobbery among lovers of everything! People love to feel superior. Why, I've actually been known to feel superior myself.  I guess my point was not to whitewash human nature or deny snobbery per se, but to downplay it as a factor in the discussion of how classical music is defined, where certain people seem to be trying to _define_ classical music by reference to its supposed function in separating the Brahmins from the plebes. It's one thing to think "my love of classical music is evidence of my superior intelligence, sensitivity, or whatever," but another thing to think "this is classical music because it's enjoyed by intelligent, sensitive people like me."

Sure, I've known people who are snobbish about the music they like - but not people who like it, and call it "classical," because they are snobs. I wouldn't be surprised if there are such out there, but I suspect that they are likely to consider Itzhak Perlman playing _The Four Seasons_ the pinnacle of "classical music" and that they are not a significant factor in any useful conception of what classical music is. (This is not, I hasten to add, any sort of snobbish put-down of any person whose perspective on classical music ends with Perlman or Vivaldi!).

I may be naive about this. I'm open to being set straight.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> Science, you have me laughing out loud with appreciation! Of course you're right that there is snobbery among classical music lovers. There is snobbery among lovers of everything! People love to feel superior. Why, I've actually been known to feel superior myself.  I guess my point was not to whitewash human nature or deny snobbery per se, but to downplay it as a factor in the discussion of how classical music is defined, where certain people seem to be trying to _define_ classical music by reference to its supposed function in separating the Brahmins from the plebes. It's one thing to think "my love of classical music is evidence of my superior intelligence, sensitivity, or whatever," but another thing to think "this is classical music because it's enjoyed by intelligent, sensitive people like me."
> 
> Sure, I've known people who are snobbish about the music they like - but not people who like it, and call it "classical," because they are snobs. I wouldn't be surprised if there are such out there, but I suspect that they are likely to consider Itzhak Perlman playing _The Four Seasons_ the pinnacle of "classical music" and that they are not a significant factor in any useful conception of what classical music is. (This is not, I hasten to add, any sort of snobbish put-down of any person whose perspective on classical music ends with Perlman or Vivaldi!).
> 
> I may be naive about this. I'm open to being set straight.


Ah, well then I misunderstood you even in my more recent response.

In this case, though, we'll just have to agree to disagree, at least partially. I'm pretty sure that "good" is built into most of our implicit assumptions about what classical music is, so that saying something like "the 1812 overture isn't really classical music" is a thing we would all understand immediately and agree with in some limited sense.


----------



## millionrainbows

I think part of the agression is due to the detachment and anonymity of the internet. As long as the mods don't get us, we can get away with all sorts of things we would normally not say in person. Also, I think the internet allows people to "nurse their neuroses," and they can play their favorite games of compensation/validation/power fantasies: "I'm always right" or "I'm smarter" and variations on that. Short, pithy invalidations, diagreeing just to be disagreeing, distractions which bolster the poster's self-image, and not really thinking about the issue.

I think that in real life, this is also true; personas are projected which have no substantial reality or veracity.


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> Ah, well then I misunderstood you even in my more recent response.
> 
> In this case, though, we'll just have to agree to disagree, at least partially. I'm pretty sure that "good" is built into most of our implicit assumptions about what classical music is, so that saying something like "the 1812 overture isn't really classical music" is a thing we would all understand immediately and agree with in some limited sense.


Actually, I've never questioned the _1812_'s status as classical music. Great classical music? Probably not - but I'm postulating that only those Perlman/Vivaldi devotees think that "classical" and "great" are synonymous. Or am I just a prisoner of my ivory tower?


----------



## Woodduck

Torkelburger said:


> It's an interesting question. There's a famous line from Duke Ellington when he once said that "Everything is jazz." So these kinds of ideas have been thought about long ago by great musical minds.
> 
> However, I'd have to disagree with The Duke on this. Because if everything is jazz, then nothing is jazz. If everything is classical, then nothing is classical. * You get that confusion Woodduck wrote about earlier. You have to have some sort of definition or "wall" to determine one thing from the other, (keeping in mind yes, some things will fall "in between" the lines) or else nothing maintains its own uniqueness. **I once worked at Tower Records twenty years ago and someone asked me for CDs to get them into classical music. It would not have been appropriate to have come back with Kind of Blue in my hands. And if they'd asked for a great classic rock album, I wouldn't have come back with Mozart's Requiem.*
> 
> And yes, words are limited by their inability to relate perfectly the ideas they represent (so the labels and definitions we use have their flaws), and certain details in definitions may vary from person to person, and the general idea may involve traditions and prejudices, but without those definitions and walls you are left with confusion, like a world speaking different languages no one understands.


The concept of "definition" is admittedly difficult when we're trying to designate areas along a continuum. I suspect that in referring to my remarks you've misunderstood them slightly, so let me try to clarify the point I think you're referring to.

What I've tried to assert - and others here have asserted in various ways - is that _we do not need an actual definition of classical music in order to know, in the normal course of things and for all practical purposes, whether we are listening to classical music as opposed to music of some other genre._ I used the analogy of colors along a spectrum: if we can call classical music, say, orange, and jazz, yellow, we know that mixtures of orange and yellow are possible which will give us an infinite number of intermediate hues, from warm yellows deepening slightly toward orange to brilliant oranges with a hint of yellow. The specific hue along this gradation of which any observer wishes to say "This is orangey yellow" or "this is yellowish orange" may vary according to the context in which the color is viewed, or simply according to the viewer's taste or experience. But there is still an area, at either end of the continuum, where most viewer's will say "this is orange" or "this is yellow." This occurs not because orange or yellow have been "defined" - indeed no color can be defined in such a way that someone hearing the definition could imagine that color in the way that, say, a table could be defined so that one could deduce from it the appearance of a table - but because the common experience of people looking at colors has led to the conventional use of color names to refer to certain areas of the spectrum.

The division of music into genres involves many more factors than the division of the spectrum into colors, but the principle is the same. We can discuss these many factors, which constitute classical music as we know it - the whole conversation is interesting and informative - but in the end we will inevitably use the term "classical music" in conventional ways that the common experience of people listening to and referring to music has led them to use it. Our use of it may vary somewhat from context to context, just as our use of "orange" or "yellow" will vary; but we have no significant range of choices in how we identify classical music (or any other genre of music) if we want to communicate and be understood. And this is as it should be.

I believe that no precise definition of classical music is necessary, possible, or desirable, for four reasons: _first_, the characteristics of music are infinitely variable along any number of continuums;_ second_, our perception of which characteristics are important in deciding to call a given work "classical" is variable according to the context in which we refer to it; _third_, that perception must to some extent derive from conventional usages of the term "classical," which are somewhat variable but will include one or more characteristics which are widely accepted; and _fourth_, these conventional usages should be respected for the same reasons that conventional usages of words, signs and symbols should generally be respected within a cultural context in which communication is necessary - and they should be respected even as we question and analyze those usages, and even as we recognize, in some contexts, a need to be more precise in saying what we mean when we employ them.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> Actually, I've never questioned the _1812_'s status as classical music. Great classical music? Probably not - but I'm postulating that only those Perlman/Vivaldi devotees think that "classical" and "great" are synonymous. Or am I just a prisoner of my ivory tower?


I don't know about the ivory tower. Surely you can imagine someone saying something like, "The 1812 overture isn't really classical music" - and instantly understanding exactly what that guy meant! You might have a discussion with him about the term "classical music" but you _would_ understand what he meant.

But if someone said something like, "Taj Mahal isn't really the blues," or, "Johnny Cash isn't really country," it be harder to figure out what would be meant. To figure out what they meant, we'd actually have to ask someone who said something like that a question like, "What do you mean by 'the blues?'"

Also, I now realize that a big part of the post I addressed to you a few moments ago responds not to you (though it was occasioned by me receiving your "like" all unexpectedly) but to Jobis. Anyway, I've had a bottle of wine and I'm too confused to sort out who said exactly what when! But I'm glad I got that post out....


----------



## Mahlerian

science said:


> But if someone said something like, "Taj Mahal isn't really the blues," or, "Johnny Cash isn't really country," it be harder to figure out what would be meant. To figure out what they meant, we'd actually have to ask someone who said something like that a question like, "What do you mean by 'the blues?'"


But this sort of thing does exist in other genres. All the time there are people who say The Beatles/The Rolling Stones/Metallica aren't really rock, or Duke Ellington/Brubeck/Ornette Coleman/Keith Jarrett aren't really jazz, because of their own boundaries for what those genres mean to them personally.

In my opinion, bad classical music is equally as much classical music as good or great classical music.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> The concept of "definition" is admittedly difficult when we're trying to designate areas along a continuum. I suspect that in referring to my remarks you've misunderstood them slightly, so let me try to clarify the point I think you're referring to.
> 
> What I've tried to assert - and others here have asserted in various ways - is that _we do not need an actual definition of classical music in order to know, in the normal course of things and for all practical purposes, whether we are listening to classical music as opposed to music of some other genre._ I used the analogy of colors along a spectrum: if we can call classical music, say, orange, and jazz, yellow, we know that mixtures of orange and yellow are possible which will give us an infinite number of intermediate hues, from warm yellows deepening slightly toward orange to brilliant oranges with a hint of yellow. The specific hue along this gradation of which any observer wishes to say "This is orangey yellow" or "this is yellowish orange" may vary according to the context in which the color is viewed, or simply according to the viewer's taste or experience. But there is still an area, at either end of the continuum, where most viewer's will say "this is orange" or "this is yellow." This occurs not because orange or yellow have been "defined" - indeed no color can be defined in such a way that someone hearing the definition could imagine that color in the way that, say, a table could be defined so that one could deduce from it the appearance of a table - but because the common experience of people looking at colors has led to the conventional use of color names to refer to certain areas of the spectrum.
> 
> The division of music into genres involves many more factors than the division of the spectrum into colors, but the principle is the same. We can discuss these many factors, which constitute classical music as we know it - the whole conversation is interesting and informative - but in the end we will inevitably use the term "classical music" in conventional ways that the common experience of people listening to and referring to music has led them to use it. Our use of it may vary somewhat from context to context, just as our use of "orange" or "yellow" will vary; but we have no significant range of choices in how we identify classical music (or any other genre of music) if we want to communicate and be understood. And this is as it should be.
> 
> I believe that no precise definition of classical music is necessary, possible, or desirable, for four reasons: _first_, the characteristics of music are infinitely variable along any number of continuums;_ second_, our perception of which characteristics are important in deciding to call a given work "classical" is variable according to the context in which we refer to it; _third_, that perception must to some extent derive from conventional usages of the term "classical," which are somewhat variable but will include one or more characteristics which are widely accepted; and _fourth_, these conventional usages should be respected for the same reasons that conventional usages of words, signs and symbols should generally be respected within a cultural context in which communication is necessary - and they should be respected even as we question and analyze those usages, and even as we recognize, in some contexts, a need to be more precise in saying what we mean when we employ them.


I don't know if you're interested - or if perhaps you know this already - but it looks to me like one of the ideas you have is "family resemblance." Wittgenstein used that concept in his discussion of what a "game" is.

I think that outside of pure math all our abstractions are actually something like "family resemblance." We could have a deep and hand-wringing discussion about what "a book" is or almost any other object, with all kinds of difficult cases on the margins or boundaries of our definition. So that "we all know it when we see it' is really a "family resemblance" argument. It's obvious to me that a genre - a much less concrete thing than a book - must be something like that, especially given that artists in our culture are driven to subvert expectations, so that if they even suspect we've got a firm definition of something like "classical music" some of them (and good for them!) will immediately set out to create works that challenge that definition.

In that sense, I personally believe (hey, this is just BS but it's my own personal BS) that in contemporary art genre is dead. Sure, it still has influence, but for forty-plus years many, many artists in all kinds of fields but especially in music have striven to situate their works beyond any definite genre categories.

If we really tried to categorize all the stuff getting done today according to the old categories, we'd need categories like classical-world-folk-electroacoustic-jazz fusion. And upon hearing that we'd applied that category to her work, the composer would say something like, "No, that was post-neo-piphat-hop-meta-jazz-funk-gamelan, and I'm offended that you misunderstood my work so much."


----------



## science

Mahlerian said:


> But this sort of thing does exist in other genres. All the time there are people who say The Beatles/The Rolling Stones/Metallica aren't really rock, or Duke Ellington/Brubeck/Ornette Coleman/Keith Jarrett aren't really jazz, because of their own boundaries for what those genres mean to them personally.
> 
> In my opinion, bad classical music is equally as much classical music as good or great classical music.


Right! My point isn't about whether the 1812 Overture (or whatever) is really classical music. It was that we would understand the guy who says that, and we would understand instantly, without needing to ask for clarification. That tells us something.

If someone says that Mingus isn't really jazz, I don't know what he means right way. Does he mean it's too thoroughly composed? Does he mean it's too free? Or of course, perhaps, he just means it's not good enough to be real jazz. Or any number of things. We'd have to ask.

But I think there is a thing like this in jazz too. If a guy says "Kenny G isn't really jazz," I don't have to ask what he means.

In rock, I don't see it. If a guy says something isn't really rock, unless I have some clue in the tone of voice, I think in all cases I'm going to initially assume he's talking about the way he defines rock rather than the quality of the album/song.

Pop might go the other way. If someone says "Madonna isn't really pop" I would probably think they intend it is a compliment.

But, anyway, we don't have to ask what "the 1812 Overture isn't really classical music" means. The fact that we understand that sentence instantly, even if we absolutely disagree with it, says something about how we all understand those words.

By the way, I still am curious about your answer to the question, how do we tell the difference between bad classical music and "new age" music? Would you agree that if "new age music" is "good enough" we call it "classical?" I suspect you would not, but if not, then I would love to see the explanation! Because I honestly think that's what we do!


----------



## Marschallin Blair

science said:


> I don't know if you're interested - or if perhaps you know this already - but it looks to me like one of the ideas you have is "family resemblance." Wittgenstein used that concept in his discussion of what a "game" is. I think that outside of pure math all our abstractions are actually something like "family resemblance." We could have a deep and hand-wringing discussion about what "a book" is or almost any other object, with all kinds of difficult cases on the margins or boundaries of our definition. So that "we all know it when we see it' is really a "family resemblance" argument. It's obvious to me that a genre - a much less concrete thing than a book - must be something like that, especially given that artists in our culture are driven to subvert expectations, so that if they even suspect we've got a firm definition of something like "classical music" some of them (and good for them!) will immediately set out to create works that challenge that definition.
> 
> In that sense, I personally believe (hey, this is just BS but it's my own personal BS) that in contemporary art genre is dead. Sure, it still has influence, but for forty-plus years many, many artists in all kinds of fields but especially in music have striven to situate their works beyond any definite genre categories.
> 
> If we really tried to categorize all the stuff getting done today according to the old categories, we'd need categories like classical-world-folk-electroaccoustic-jazz fusion. And upon hearing that we'd applied that category to her work, the composer would say something like, "No, that was post-neo-piphat-hop-meta-jazz-funk-gamelan, and I'm offended that you misunderstood my work so much."


Yeah, but Wittgenstein (that is to say: latter-day, 'linguistic-analysis' Wittgenstein and not earlier 'logical-positivist' Wittgenstein), doesn't believe in 'truth,' or in Aristotelian 'essences,' or in anything remotely approaching an objective ontology.

"Truth" (to him) is merely a shorthand convention on how a speech community agrees to use words.

Woodduck, if I understand him correctly, is saying that an objective, knowable world exists-- but that there is a subtle continuum of difference between blue and green; and that it is largely arbitrary to say where one color ends and where one begins.

_Mutatis mutandis_ for musical nomenclature.


----------



## Guest

Woodduck said:


> I have known, associated with, and performed with classical musicians and lovers of classical music for nearly six decades, and I can't think of a single one of them who aspired to power, thought that a love of classical music gave them any sort of social cachet, or felt any need to keep "classical music" safe from "contamination".





science said:


> Wow. I have a very hard time believing you're genuine and serious here. Well, you'd better not spend too much more time among us because we are going to ruin this rosy picture.


I have spent about the same amount of time among musicians, and I have had a very similar experience. The picture, as far as my experience goes as well, is not so much rosy as it is simply accurate.



science said:


> I cannot imagine that you're being totally sincere.


Imagine is le mot juste. Since you cannot in fact get inside anyone's head, the only way to present as if you could is to imagine. But still, you cannot.



science said:


> I have been mutilated and crushed and savaged in these discussion


I don't suppose it will do any good to repeat this, but really, no, you haven't. You report this quite frequently, but the only support for this perception is the distortions you present as observations. Such as:



science said:


> for liking something we're supposed not to like, or not liking something we're supposed to like.


I have participated in many of the same discussions as you have. I have yet to see anyone say anything one way or the other about what people are supposed to not like. I have seen people try to make their likes normative, valid for others besides themselves. And I have seen them taken to task for trying to do that. As it should be. There is very little of "you shouldn't like that." I can't recall seeing any of it, but I may have missed some.

I have yet to see anyone say anything one way or the other about what people are supposed to like, either. I have seen people state their dislike for things as if that personal response were an accurate description of the thing itself. And as if their dislike entitled them (required them) to attack the thing at every opportunity and even to attack the people who like what they dislike.

Again, they have been taken to task for making their dislikes normative, never (rarely) for simply having dislikes.

There is no group of people who claim to know what people should like or dislike. There's no list of must likes or must dislikes. If you think you have identified such a group, then I think I could very easily point out where the people in that suppositious group like as many different things from each other, and dislike as many different things from each other, as the beleaguered people they supposedly berate for liking and disliking the wrong things.

Let's suppose, however, that there really is such a group. Where does it get its power? Is it able to enforce its views? Can it force your wife, for instance, to stay away from shows she wants to attend? Can it force you, for instance, to attend shows you do not want to attend?



science said:


> If you haven't seen that, it's because you've tried _hard_ not to see it


There are more possibilities than just this one. It might be that the "that" hasn't been seen because there is no "that." It might be that the people seeing the "that" have some need to see it, and so they have tried hard to see it, and they do see it. That is at least another possibility.


----------



## science

some guy said:


> I have spent about the same amount of time among musicians, and I have had a very similar experience. The picture, as far as my experience goes as well, is not so much rosy as it is simply accurate.
> 
> Imagine is le mot juste. Since you cannot in fact get inside anyone's head, the only way to present as if you could is to imagine. But still, you cannot.
> 
> I don't suppose it will do any good to repeat this, but really, no, you haven't. You report this quite frequently, but the only support for this perception is the distortions you present as observations. Such as:
> 
> I have participated in many of the same discussions as you have. I have yet to see anyone say anything one way or the other about what people are supposed to not like. I have seen people try to make their likes normative, valid for others besides themselves. And I have seen them taken to task for trying to do that. As it should be. There is very little of "you shouldn't like that." I can't recall seeing any of it, but I may have missed some.
> 
> I have yet to see anyone say anything one way or the other about what people are supposed to like, either. I have seen people state their dislike for things as if that personal response were an accurate description of the thing itself. And as if their dislike entitled them (required them) to attack the thing at every opportunity and even to attack the people who like what they dislike.
> 
> Again, they have been taken to task for making their dislikes normative, never (rarely) for simply having dislikes.
> 
> There is no group of people who claim to know what people should like or dislike. There's no list of must likes or must dislikes. If you think you have identified such a group, then I think I could very easily point out where the people in that suppositious group like as many different things from each other, and dislike as many different things from each other, as the beleaguered people they supposedly berate for liking and disliking the wrong things.
> 
> Let's suppose, however, that there really is such a group. Where does it get its power? Is it able to enforce its views? Can it force your wife, for instance, to stay away from shows she wants to attend? Can it force you, for instance, to attend shows you do not want to attend?
> 
> There are more possibilities than just this one. It might be that the "that" hasn't been seen because there is no "that." It might be that the people seeing the "that" have some need to see it, and so they have tried hard to see it, and they do see it. That is at least another possibility.


As to its power, as I made clear, it can shoo people away from the music.

"I have yet to see anyone say anything one way or the other about what people are supposed to like...."

Really? You are a master with words, you use them with amazing power and subtlety. You control your innuendo and tone with superb precision. What you want to express, you express with force and clarity. So as you know very well, things don't need to be carved in stone to be stated. We both know what would sort of things would be said about and to a person (on this board or elsewhere) who admitted enjoying the 1812 Overture, Pachelbel's canon, the Four Seasons, and so on, and let's just say for fun too that this person enjoys Rutter and Whitacre and Jenkins and John Williams and Jennifer Higdon, but not Schoenberg or Cage or Babbitt.... Rather than the hypotheticals, we both know what kind of things _have actually been said_ and _are said all the time_ about such people, sometimes blatantly in such a fashion that the mods can bash heads (often so on other sites, just without penalty), more often with all the wile characteristic of human dialogue.


----------



## Woodduck

Marschallin Blair said:


> Yeah, but Wittgenstein (that is to say: latter-day, 'linguistic-analysis' Wittgenstein and not earlier 'logical-positivist' Wittgenstein), doesn't believe in 'truth,' or in Aristotelian 'essences,' or in anything remotely approaching an objective ontology.
> 
> "Truth" (to him) is merely a shorthand convention on how a speech community agrees to use words.
> 
> Woodduck, if I understand him correctly, is saying that an objective, knowable world exists-- but that there is a subtle continuum of difference between blue and green; and that it is largely arbitrary to say where one color ends and where one begins.
> 
> _Mutatis mutandis_ for musical nomenclature.


I admit to being Wittless when it comes to Wittgenstein, and if I've approximated or duplicated any of his thinking then I'm prepared accept my reward or my punishment as needed. My discussion of definitions was epistemological, not metaphysical; it assumes nothing about whether music (or color) exists outside our perception of it, but discusses only how we conceptualize what we perceive. For the record, though, I do believe that phenomena we perceive as music or color do exist in, and impinge upon our senses from, a reality independent of our perception. Of course, sound waves and light waves are not, prior to our perception of them, properly described as sounds or colors, but only as sound waves or light waves with particular physical characteristics such as length and frequency. The tree falling in the forest when no one is present creates sound waves, not sounds. Did Wittgenstein deny the independent existence of sound waves?


----------



## science

Marschallin Blair said:


> Yeah, but Wittgenstein (that is to say: latter-day, 'linguistic-analysis' Wittgenstein and not earlier 'logical-positivist' Wittgenstein), doesn't believe in 'truth,' or in Aristotelian 'essences,' or in anything remotely approaching an objective ontology.
> 
> "Truth" (to him) is merely a shorthand convention on how a speech community agrees to use words.
> 
> Woodduck, if I understand him correctly, is saying that an objective, knowable world exists-- but that there is a subtle continuum of difference between blue and green; and that it is largely arbitrary to say where one color ends and where one begins.
> 
> _Mutatis mutandis_ for musical nomenclature.


I don't know about Wittgenstein; I've never understood him or made much of an effort to. But I will take your word for it.

You've made a good point. I was probably misunderstanding Woodduck on this point.

With regard to the concept of "classical music," I agree with Wittgenstein. It is not something that exists _object_ively, something that we know by experience and seek to describe. It is a concept that our descriptions themselves create. Words mean what they are used to mean, and when we try to define genres all we have are words, words attempting to smash a simple order out of the complex chaos of reality.


----------



## science

Woodduck said:


> I admit to being Wittless when it comes to Wittgenstein, and if I've approximated or duplicated any of his thinking then I'm prepared accept my reward or my punishment as needed. My discussion of definitions was epistemological, not metaphysical; it assumes nothing about whether music (or color) exists outside our perception of it, but discusses only how we conceptualize what we perceive. For the record, though, I do believe that phenomena we perceive as music or color do exist in, and impinge upon our senses from, a reality independent of our perception. Of course, sound waves and light waves are not, prior to our perception of them, properly described as sounds or colors, but only as sound waves or light waves with particular physical characteristics such as length and frequency. The tree falling in the forest when no one is present creates sound waves, not sounds. Did Wittgenstein deny the independent existence of sound waves?


Was it you and I who recently discussed how true it is to say that our perceptions (of things like colors) are accurate reports about the world around us?


----------



## DiesIraeCX

science, for sure, some things _have actually been said_ and _are said_ about people who enjoy certain well-known composers, let alone the _1812 Overture_ and _The Four Seasons_. I do find, though, that for the most part, these are far and few in between. It can be easy to let the few bad apples ruin it (especially when frustration sets in, as it has with me a few times), but I have decided to let the _vast_, _vast_ majority outweigh the few. For every post that looks down on certain musical tastes, there are _plenty_ more that don't. I really can't express enough how much I've matured musically since joining here, thanks to suggestions and advice on all sorts of topics. I'm thankful to a lot of people on this forum. This is coming from someone who completely understands where you're coming from, I sympathize. I hope you are able to stick around and focus on the good that heavily outweighs the bad. Another thing to keep in mind, As Mahlerian already stated, this isn't just classical where this happens, it happens in a lot of musical genres. As someone who likes indie rock, believe me, there's a lot of snobbery to be had in those circles!


----------



## Guest

When I was in court for the custody battle for my kids, my ex's lawyer at one point tried to discredit my testimony by saying that as an English teacher, I was a master of words, and that the resulting eloquence couldn't be trusted. A very convoluted version of ad hominem, as I'm sure you've noticed.

And it didn't work, partly because the judge was not an idiot and partly because my lawyer was able to quietly point out that my ex-wife was also an English teacher. 

It's amusing to see the same criticism appearing on TC: you are eloquent, therefore you cannot be trusted.

Oh well.

Funny thing, I too enjoy the 1812 Overture and Pachelbel's Canon and the Four Seasons. I would never claim that any of them was the greatest piece ever. And if I did, I would certainly expect some backlash against that.

I grew up among white Republicans in the fifties and sixties. None of my relatives thought "classical music" was anything but sissy music. Same with the kids I went to school with. But I was well and truly hooked. No one would have had a snowball's chance in Hell of shooing me away from anything. People only have power to shoo if you give it to them. If you don't, they can rant and rave all they want. Won't have any effect at all.

And I repeat, I have never seen anyone criticized for liking 1812 Overture. I have seen people criticized for elevating their favorites above all others. I have seen it pointed out that there's more to classical music than a handful of warhorses. I have seen the warhorses criticized for being warhorsey. But people mocked for liking Pachelbel's Canon or Vivaldi's Four Seasons? Those, with the Tchaikovsky, are three pieces I enjoy myself, so it would certainly be rather "off" for me to criticize anyone else for liking them.

And so what if someone criticizes me for liking them? The notes are still the same. And my ears react to them the same way.

I like Schoenberg and Cage and Babbitt, too. Well, not Babbitt so much. I don't like everybody. Be fair, science. What are the kinds of things people say against these three guys? Are they intelligent or measured or unbiassed? Not at all. And so certainly it's OK for me to defend the music of any of those guys from ignorant or stupid attacks without being accused of being an elitist who insists that everyone should like their music. I've seen that revisionist stuff many times. Sometimes it's been you doing it, too. Someone, maybe it's me, criticizes someone's criticism of Cage. And then someone else, maybe it's you, tells me I shouldn't expect everyone to like Cage just because I do. But my criticism had nothing to do with liking or disliking--which everyone everywhere is always free to do with anything--but with the unfairness or the inaccuracy or the distortedness of the criticism. Nothing at all to do with what anyone should or should not like or dislike. Nothing. That is the strawest of straw men.


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> Was it you and I who recently discussed how true it is to say that our perceptions (of things like colors) are accurate reports about the world around us?


Nope. You must've had that conversation with someone else.


----------



## science

some guy said:


> When I was in court for the custody battle for my kids, my ex's lawyer at one point tried to discredit my testimony by saying that as an English teacher, I was a master of words, and that the resulting eloquence couldn't be trusted. A very convoluted version of ad hominem, as I'm sure you've noticed.
> 
> And it didn't work, partly because the judge was not an idiot and partly because my lawyer was able to quietly point out that my ex-wife was also an English teacher.
> 
> It's amusing to see the same criticism appearing on TC: you are eloquent, therefore you cannot be trusted.


Ah, is that what I said? I hadn't realized it before.

I guess we all have to run through the gauntlet as you did. Well, I can't, I don't want to, and, so.


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## Torkelburger

MacLeod said:


> No, you don't have to have 'some sort of definition' except, as I've said once or twice already, in circumstances where you must have a definition...such as working in a record shop!


Or radio, or concerts, or a billion other "circumstances" involving an arranger, an arrangement, a performer, musicians, a composer, or a zillion other musical contexts....

So...your basically saying you don't have to have a definition except when you do...brilliant.


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## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> Ligeti's an ingrate.
> 
> Kubrick's a genius.
> 
> He got untold numbers of people into Ligeti's music by putting parts of _Lux Aeterna _and _Atmospheres_ into _2001_.


Kubrick, for the film _2001_, infamously used a lot of music under copyright, not only without obtaining permission prior using it, but also with no thought as to payment for the use of it. (Hey, they're just composers, Mr. Auteur!)

Call it "ingrate," but being ripped off is being ripped off. I wonder what magnanimous thoughts and feelings about being ripped off are expected toward someone who has ripped you off


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## science

DiesIraeVIX said:


> science, for sure, some things _have actually been said_ and _are said_ about people who enjoy certain well-known composers, let alone the _1812 Overture_ and _The Four Seasons_. I do find, though, that for the most part, these are far and few in between. It can be easy to let the few bad apples ruin it (especially when frustration sets in, as it has with me a few times), but I have decided to let the _vast_, _vast_ majority outweigh the few. For every poster who looks down on certain musical tastes, there are _plenty_ more who don't. I really can't express enough how much I've matured musically since joining here, thanks to suggestions and advice on all sorts of topics. I'm thankful to a lot of people on this forum. This is coming from someone who completely understands where you're coming from, I sympathize. I hope you are able to stick around and focus on the good that heavily outweighs the bad. Another thing to keep in mind, As Mahlerian already stated, this isn't just classical where this happens, it happens in a lot of musical genres. As someone who likes indie rock, believe me, there's a lot of snobbery to be had in those circles!


You're right of course, about everything except perhaps "vast, vast majority." But that part doesn't matter.

It is just a little piece, and perhaps a representative piece, of life, which consists mostly of people manipulating and abusing and killing each other, in ambition or laziness or selfishness or sometimes even malice. And nature is even worse than people. But with a bit of luck to escape the worst of it, there is, or with effort there can be, enough love and beauty and so on to make it worthwhile for as long as it lasts.

I need to remind myself of that more often.


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## Guest

Torkelburger said:


> Or radio, or concerts, or a billion other "circumstances" involving an arranger, an arrangement, a performer, musicians, a composer, or a zillion other musical contexts....
> 
> So...your basically saying you don't have to have a definition except when you do...brilliant.


Thank you !


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## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> I admit to being Wittless when it comes to Wittgenstein, and if I've approximated or duplicated any of his thinking then I'm prepared accept my reward or my punishment as needed. My discussion of definitions was epistemological, not metaphysical; it assumes nothing about whether music (or color) exists outside our perception of it, but discusses only how we conceptualize what we perceive. For the record, though, I do believe that phenomena we perceive as music or color do exist in, and impinge upon our senses from, a reality independent of our perception. Of course, sound waves and light waves are not, prior to our perception of them, properly described as sounds or colors, but only as sound waves or light waves with particular physical characteristics such as length and frequency. The tree falling in the forest when no one is present creates sound waves, not sounds. Did Wittgenstein deny the independent existence of sound waves?


That's all I was getting at.

No further questions, Your Woodduck.
_
;D_


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## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> Kubrick, for the film _2001_, infamously used a lot of music under copyright, not only without obtaining permission prior using it, but also with no thought as to payment for the use of it. (Hey, they're just composers, Mr. Auteur!)
> 
> Call it "ingrate," but being ripped off is being ripped off. I wonder what magnanimous thoughts and feelings about being ripped off are expected toward someone who has ripped you off


I don't know the legal aspects of the suit with Ligeti; but I do know that the composer Alex North was originally commissioned to write the score for _2001_--- which he did. Kubrick didn't use it although North was paid in full for his endeavor.


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## SONNET CLV

Perhaps this would be an appropriate spot in this Thread to reconfirm our faith in the indisputable greatness of certain masterworks of music, namely the 1812 Overture and Pachelbel's Canon and the Four Seasons ... and, of course, Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon_!


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## KenOC

At least one of those qualifies.


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## Piwikiwi

KenOC said:


> At least one of those qualifies.


The four seasons is pretty nice


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## Guest

Piwikiwi said:


> The four seasons is pretty nice


'Nice' = 'classical'?


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## GioCar

"Nice" = "Good Music"

Of the 4, 2 of those qualify, 1 unsure, 1 definitely not imo (and it's not the PF)


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## nightscape

Marschallin Blair said:


> PetrB said:
> 
> 
> 
> Kubrick, for the film 2001, infamously used a lot of music under copyright, not only without obtaining permission prior using it, but also with no thought as to payment for the use of it. (Hey, they're just composers, Mr. Auteur!)
> 
> Call it "ingrate," but being ripped off is being ripped off. I wonder what magnanimous thoughts and feelings about being ripped off are expected toward someone who has ripped you off
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know the legal aspects of the suit with Ligeti; but I do know that the composer Alex North was originally commissioned to write the score for _2001_--- which he did. Kubrick didn't use it although North was paid in full for his endeavor.
Click to expand...

And a fine score it is!


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## Varick

I really enjoy the three "classical" pieces: The Four Seasons, 1812 Overture, and Pachelbel's Canon.

I also enjoy the "non-classical" album Dark Side Of The Moon, although I like other Pink Floyd albums better.

Fire Away! 

V


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## Simon Moon

I am way late to this thread, but I'll replay to the OP anyway.

I don't see DSotM as being classical in the least. To me, it is way too grounded in blues and R&B of the era just 10 years before it. 

Is the question in the OP posed because it it a long form, multi-part piece with connected musical ideas and concepts? Because if it is, that is the only connection to classical that I can see. And that is just not enough for me to consider it in the same realm as classical. 

There are a lot of bands in the rock realm that perform music that has a very fuzzy line between rock and classical, but Pink Floyd is not one of them.


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## Stavrogin

Simon Moon said:


> I am way late to this thread, but I'll replay to the OP anyway.
> 
> I don't see DSotM as being classical in the least. To me, it is way too grounded in blues and R&B of the era just 10 years before it.
> 
> Is the question in the OP posed because it it a long form, multi-part piece with connected musical ideas and concepts? Because if it is, that is the only connection to classical that I can see. And that is just not enough for me to consider it in the same realm as classical.
> 
> There are a lot of bands in the rock realm that perform music that has a very fuzzy line between rock and classical, but Pink Floyd is not one of them.


Do you have a dark side yourself?


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## Guest

If Dark Side Of The Moon is classical music, a vast portion of popular music must then be taken into consideration. 

If it's up to me, I'd rather avoid the headache.


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## aleazk

Speaking of Milton Babbitt, this documentary about him is one of the most hilarious, but in a good way, things out there:


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## Mahlerian

That scene where the director stands outside of Tower Records and asks people if they've heard of Milton Babbitt is great, especially when that one guy says he has and the director runs after him.


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## Morimur

Mahlerian said:


> That scene where the director stands outside of Tower Records and asks people if they've heard of Milton Babbitt is great, especially when that one guy says he has and the director runs after him.


The Babbitt fan didn't seem very sociable.


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## Morimur

Marschallin Blair said:


> True genius though Ligeti may be, he still wouldn't be able to clip Kubrick's toenails with a stepladder; not even with the tallest stepladder in the world.
> 
> --- So what would that make Kubrick?


One does not tire of listening to a great composer's music, but films? After a few repeated viewings, there's no reason to go back. Furthermore, Kubrick's work is mostly languorous, inert, and relies much too heavily on music's power to coax emotion out of the viewer. Tarkovsky and Bergman were infinitely better artists.


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## Guest

Morimur said:


> After a few repeated viewings, there's no reason to go back.


Films? There's all kinds of reasons to go back - the atmosphere (Kubrick), the dialogue (any Coen Bros), the company (any James Stewart), the style (any Humphrey Bogart), the action (Spielberg), the friends (Laurel and Hardy)...

...the very familiarity of an oft-watched movie.


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## science

MacLeod said:


> Films? There's all kinds of reasons to go back - the atmosphere (Kubrick), the dialogue (any Coen Bros), the company (any James Stewart), the style (any Humphrey Bogart), the action (Spielberg), the friends (Laurel and Hardy)...
> 
> ...the very familiarity of an oft-watched movie.


Indeed! I've often argued here my theory that the test of great art is how well it holds up to well-informed familiarity. If it's only good the first few times, it's not that good! But if it gets better every time....


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## violadude

Morimur said:


> One does not tire of listening to a great composer's music, but films? After a few repeated viewings, there's no reason to go back. Furthermore, Kubrick's work is mostly languorous, inert, and relies much too heavily on music's power to coax emotion out of the viewer. Tarkovsky and Bergman were infinitely better artists.


I feel the same way, but I'm not drawn to movies the same way I'm drawn to music in the first place.


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## Guest

I have listened to my most-listened music far more times than I have watched my most-watched movies.

That being said, I do absolutely love The Shining, but if you stop and think about it, it is a little hard to imagine The Shining in the absence of the musical avant-garde.


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