# The connections between 'alternative' music and the contemporary classical scene



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I don't like the term alternative, but its the common parlance we have to work with, and despite its extreme vagueness as a category, most people will generally understand what I mean by using that term. Basically, in this context it refers to a diverse collection of connected rock (and other) music scenes, in particular things like punk, glam, grunge, lo-fi music, and generally eclectic music.

On to the topic of this thread. I have noticed an interesting connection between certain contemporary classical music and the music of many alternative artists and bands. You have bands like The Velvet Underground being heavily tied to the New York art scene of the 60s, being sponsored by Andy Warhol and experimenting with noise, and featuring John Cale, a violist who had worked with La Monte Young, John Cage, and Terry Riley (and was one of the performers of the Cage-organized 18-hour performance of Satie's Vexations). There's Brian Eno, an electronic music composer who has collaborated with many rock bands and artists, including David Bowie and had been a member of the band Roxy Music, and who is generally held in a similar regard as many of his "classical" contemporaries of minimalist and electronic music. There's the punk band Sonic Youth, who have performed pieces by John Cage and members of the Fluxus movement, and utilize prepared guitar sounds. Their lead guitarist was also a former member of composer Glenn Branca's ensemble. Damon Albarn, the musician who was the lead singer of Blur and the main musical component of Gorillaz, composes diverse music that defies categorization, including two operas that combine elements of electronic and "pop" music with different classical idioms.

I was curious as to anybody else's thoughts.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I'm always surprised at those who have some (oddly) polarized view of music and musicians.

Go back to Scott Joplin, find late romantic procedures and configurations ala Chopin in his piano music, rags complete with a trio section, slippery-slidey chromatics, ditto some modulations.

Next we have the well known phenomenon of Jazz fueling the classical composer's imaginations (Milhaud, Stravinsky, Ravel -- among many others) while the Jazz musicians were eagerly looking at the same classical composers and taking ideas from them.

And so it goes. The notion of polarization, and that silly political / social "I belong to this group and we have an allegiance to this genre of music only" (and by Apollo, many do make a huge stink about that being a sub-strata social / cultural group -- always 'very exclusive,' as well is, I think, what allows many people to not realize _that musicians in general tend to keep an ear out for any and all other musicians doing interesting things, whether those things are done within or outside the parameters / corral / box, of any one particular genre._

Talent tends to recognize other talent; fine performers from one genre are readier to recognize and admire a fine performer in many another genre -- far more quickly and without reservation -- than the fans of those same genres.

I guess that openness is more an 'inside thing' than what is to be found in the way of openness among fan bases.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I'm always surprised at those who have some (oddly) polarized view of music and musicians.
> 
> Go back to Scott Joplin, find late romantic procedures and configurations ala Chopin in his piano music, rags complete with a trio section, slippery-slidey chromatics, ditto some modulations.
> 
> ...


I agree. It really just makes me hate the idea of genres in music at all, because I think its really just an excuse to not listen to certain kinds of music without even giving it a chance. I've had people tell me they won't listen to something I suggest because when they ask me what kind of music it is I tell them its hip-hop, or classical, or metal or whatever.

I was just thinking it was funny that this set of connected musical scenes, that is often highly beloved by rock music critics, is so heavily connected in many ways to contemporary classical music, when those same critics scoff at and bash "progressive" rock music (also heavily connected to classical music) for being too pretentious and elitist. I am pretty sure that most of these critics likely also completely ignore classical music as a thing that exists. Its ironic.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't like the term alternative, but its the common parlance we have to work with, and despite its extreme vagueness as a category, most people will generally understand what I mean by using that term. Basically, in this context it refers to a diverse collection of connected rock (and other) music scenes, in particular things like punk, glam, grunge, lo-fi music, and generally eclectic music.
> 
> On to the topic of this thread. I have noticed an interesting connection between certain contemporary classical music and the music of many alternative artists and bands. You have bands like The Velvet Underground being heavily tied to the New York art scene of the 60s, being sponsored by Andy Warhol and experimenting with noise, and featuring John Cale, a violist who had worked with La Monte Young, John Cage, and Terry Riley (and was one of the performers of the Cage-organized 18-hour performance of Satie's Vexations). There's Brian Eno, an electronic music composer who has collaborated with many rock bands and artists, including David Bowie and had been a member of the band Roxy Music, and who is generally held in a similar regard as many of his "classical" contemporaries of minimalist and electronic music. There's the punk band Sonic Youth, who have performed pieces by John Cage and members of the Fluxus movement, and utilize prepared guitar sounds. Their lead guitarist was also a former member of composer Glenn Branca's ensemble. Damon Albarn, the musician who was the lead singer of Blur and the main musical component of Gorillaz, composes diverse music that defies categorization, including two operas that combine elements of electronic and "pop" music with different classical idioms.
> 
> I was curious as to anybody else's thoughts.


The musicians you mention in this thread have long been a staple of my own listening, which always favored the avant in rock and pop. If there is a connection to contemporary classical music, it comes from the openness of the art. Music today allows for a lot of possibilities. Old harmonic rules no longer rule. Noise sounds become music sounds. And forms and rhythms exist in multifarious shapes. It's all rather wonderful, and today the lines between "serious" music and the "other kind" of music are getting blurred by the more imaginative composers on both sides.

I've heard many a rock-n-roller over the years boast about how "original" their music was, when it was not original at all. But there are folks out there today who are truly advancing the art of noise (or sound, or music -- use which word you will) and they need not inform anyone about their originality. It's obvious from the music.

I've enjoyed the industrialists, the concrete-ists, the abstractionists, and a lot of other "ists" in modern music, and though I count myself largely a "classical" guy, I have quite a collection of pop/rock in the avant-garde range (DNA, Lydia Lunch, Einstürzende Neubauten, Merzbow, Nurse With Wound ... the list goes on an on into ever more fantastical and obscure bands). I like experimental music, and I don't much care what the core root of it is in terms of genre (classical, jazz, rock ...).


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> The musicians you mention in this thread have long been a staple of my own listening, which always favored the avant in rock and pop. If there is a connection to contemporary classical music, it comes from the openness of the art. Music today allows for a lot of possibilities. Old harmonic rules no longer rule. Noise sounds become music sounds. And forms and rhythms exist in multifarious shapes. It's all rather wonderful, and today the lines between "serious" music and the "other kind" of music are getting blurred by the more imaginative composers on both sides.
> 
> I've heard many a rock-n-roller over the years boast about how "original" their music was, when it was not original at all. But there are folks out there today who are truly advancing the art of noise (or sound, or music -- use which word you will) and they need not inform anyone about their originality. It's obvious from the music.
> 
> I've enjoyed the industrialists, the concrete-ists, the abstractionists, and a lot of other "ists" in modern music, and though I count myself largely a "classical" guy, I have quite a collection of pop/rock in the avant-garde range (DNA, Lydia Lunch, Einstürzende Neubauten, Merzbow, Nurse With Wound ... the list goes on an on into ever more fantastical and obscure bands). I like experimental music, and I don't much care what the core root of it is in terms of genre (classical, jazz, rock ...).


Nowadays I more think of classical as referring to training, and stylistic traditions and idioms. I detest when it is taken as having a connotation of quality, because there's plenty of non-classical music that I hold in equal esteem as great music with great classical pieces, and there's classical music that to me is literally no better than the blandest Top-40 pop. People often defend it with arguments about craft, but craft is meaningless in art unless it goes into something with substance. Most pop music is very well crafted too.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> Nowadays I more think of classical as referring to training, and stylistic traditions and idioms. I detest when it is taken as having a connotation of quality, because there's plenty of non-classical music that I hold in equal esteem as great music with great classical pieces, and there's classical music that to me is literally no better than the blandest Top-40 pop. People often defend it with arguments about craft, but craft is meaningless in art unless it goes into something with substance. Most pop music is very well crafted too.


Correction: most _successful_ pop music is very well crafted... lol.

On craft -- a.k.a. technique. All the craft in the world might allow an artist with nothing to say to make a 'product' which is at least polished. That is still not necessarily anywhere near the arena of strongly communicating something of interest! A quick survey of _a lot_ of more than adequate and very-well functioning film scores, often pretty dazzling upon first hearing (also a requirement of type, be bold, and 'get the listener's attention immediately,') are mainly very high craft without much else in them... and this phenomenon is not unique to comps in any particular genre, as you have already said.


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I find the connection between these scenes interesting, but I haven't kept up like I used to when I was in my 20s. You gave me quite a lot of food for the ears, BD, in the last thread I started on experimental rock, and I admit that I only got about one third of the way through the list of suggestions... so far! In the meantime, I acquired nearly 20 new albums, of which I still have about 5 to hear for the first time, plus I am reading both Aaron Copland and Rob Kapilow's books on listening to music. I am neither a music student nor professional, but a keen listener, so I am pursuing this in my spare time (to the detriment of my many other pursuits and interests, no less)! The amount of information on TC regarding potentially great new musical experience is overwhelming: there are simply not enough hours in a day to hear it all. Some worthy music gets unintentionally put off. I am not sure how other listeners approach music, but genres are handy filters for narrowing the focus to known fields of interest. While I agree, BD, that genres can limit listeners, they can also give them more time for what they are really interested in and prevent them from sowing their few seeds too far afield to reap a harvestable crop.


----------



## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

brotagonist said:


> I find the connection between these scenes interesting, but I haven't kept up like I used to when I was in my 20s. You gave me quite a lot of food for the ears, BD, in the last thread I started on experimental rock, and I admit that I only got about one third of the way through the list of suggestions... so far! In the meantime, I acquired nearly 20 new albums, of which I still have about 5 to hear for the first time, plus I am reading both Aaron Copland and Rob Kapilow's books on listening to music. I am neither a music student nor professional, but a keen listener, so I am pursuing this in my spare time (to the detriment of my many other pursuits and interests, no less)! The amount of information on TC regarding potentially great new musical experience is overwhelming: there are simply not enough hours in a day to hear it all. Some worthy music gets unintentionally put off. I am not sure how other listeners approach music, but genres are handy filters for narrowing the focus to known fields of interest. While I agree, BD, that genres can limit listeners, they can also give them more time for what they are really interested in and prevent them from sowing their few seeds too far afield to reap a harvestable crop.


I can agree to an extent there, because I often get into styles and aesthetics at certain times. Like in high school I became hugely into nu metal music and heavily explored that style and the various bands that played it, and part way through college I fell in love with Romantic classical music. So I kinda get that. I'm curious, which 20 albums did you get? :3


----------



## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> I'm curious, which 20 albums did you get? :3


I can't recall each and every one, but if you have been following the current listening 2 thread, you would have 'heard' me introduce each one as I started to get into it. Also, I believe I listed each one in the recent purchases thread, so it's all there 

Anyway, to recap, just off the top of my head: a Bartók box, 2 Debussy albums (still in the mail), 2 Hartmann Symphonies albums (1 still unplayed), Mozart String Quintets, Stockhausen Aus den sieben Tagen (performed by Zeitkratzer), Elgar (performed by Maisky), Haydn's London Symphonies (conducted by Jochum), an early music album (performed by Sequentia) and I can't even recall what else. It's all posted in the threads: no secrets


----------



## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I don't mind genres of music, if their titles are specific. Vague stuff like Alternative, or World, doesn't do much for me.

Hip-Hop or Swing seem a little stupid, too, but I guess if they've been around for a while, people who care make allowances for vagueness.

Am I being vague?


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Vaneyes said:


> I don't mind genres of music, if their titles are specific. Vague stuff like Alternative, or World, doesn't do much for me.


LOL. Just thinking about it now, that vagueness of title is pretty apt for a lot of Alternative and World musics, because so much of it _is_ vaguely 'a bit like this, that, and something else,' -- perhaps that is the point. I can and do even like some 'New-age' genre stuff, for what it is since it cannot really be anything else, of course, but do recognize a bit of truth in the snarky, "Newage rhymes with Sewage."


----------

