Classical Music for Those Who'd Love to Love it, but Never Learned it.

[sockpit]

Yeah, and the funny thing is: you get tired of the 3 minute pop song very quickly, whereas music as complex as most classical continues to grow on you indefinitely. I find myself not wanting to wear out new finds in jazz, bluegrass, rock by overplaying them. This is much rarer for me personally when it comes to classical.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[rando]

Going to request an update on this project before subject drops off the first page. Were a sufficient amount of interested parties found to author this series of small lectures? Could you provide a rough sketch of the leading points that will be attempted?

[rando]

On 11/22/2016 at 0:18 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Guys - I'm writing a review right now about a product and used some classical music during the review. In the review I describe my absolute idiocy with respect to classical music. I'd love to love it, but I don't understand it. It seems so untouchable to a peasant like myself.

Could we get an update following some recovery time stateside?  Your ears are probably blown out right now which seems a good time to address this.  As usual I'll offer to help you find an easily accessible local concert.

 

The articles mentioned further down in your initial post seem to have been a success even if a forcible love of ages old music didn't take.

[christopher3393]

...(the silence is deafening)...

[The Computer Audiophile]

This is in my "inbox" to make happen. 

[sphinxsix]

@The Computer Audiophile As for your lack of interest in classical music, Chris I think you have to get bored with the stuff you listen to and its musical (harmonic, rhythmic etc) limitations first to make the next step, to move forward (at least it worked with me in that way, quite naturally, organically). 'Understanding' the music, its historical and other backgrounds never worked that well in my case - eg my perception of 'Kind of Blue' changed very little after reading a book about this recording. But maybe it's just me and the fact that my perception of music is more connected with my emotional sphere than intelectual one. Good luck with this project (CA classical music experts knowledge calls for something like that), despite of what I've just written I believe it can be useful to many, me included.

[Solstice380]

@sphinxsix there are many genres of music to turn to that are as rhythmically and harmonically interesting as classical.  Many!  

[rando]

I didn't realize until a day or so after bumping this l'd authored the previous post asking a first time for an update.  Answer in your own time, I by no means intended to pester you.  We have the MQA threads for that. 

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

14 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

@The Computer Audiophile As for your lack of interest in classical music, Chris I think you have to get bored with the stuff you listen to and its musical (harmonic, rhythmic etc) limitations first to make the next step, to move forward (at least it worked with me in that way, quite naturally, organically). 'Understanding' the music, its historical and other backgrounds never worked that well in my case - eg my perception of 'Kind of Blue' changed very little after reading a book about this recording. But maybe it's just me and the fact that my perception of music is more connected with my emotional sphere than intelectual one. Good luck with this project (CA classical music experts knowledge calls for something like that), despite of what I've just written I believe it can be useful to many, me included.

 

I listen to many kinds of music – rock, jazz, classical, ethnic, so on, from Grateful Dead to Beethoven and from Keith Jarrett to Dagar Brothers. What I can see now, I listen for 30 or 40 years permanently to the same pieces of classical music in the same and many other performances, but I listen much less often even to my favorite albums or rock and popular music (Dead is an exception...)

[Daudio]

On 11/22/2016 at 1:18 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

with respect to classical music. I'd love to love it, but I don't understand it.

Chris,

 

I can see two ways to 'know' a music: #1 Intellectually and #2 Experientially.

 

1) To learn about the notes, structures, composers, works, popularity, etc. There are lots of fine things to read online and published. I'd suggest a good book or two that covers Classical. I'm sure CA members can suggest the best. Being older then you and many here, I had the advantage of a public Junior High School class in Music, that taught me the basics of musical notation (didn't take), significant composers, musician groups, etc. But more interestingly, exposed the class to the sights and sounds of the actual instruments !  (Also had classes in Art, Shop, Civics, and other well rounded subjects alongside the basics. WTF happened to that ??? )

 

2) All the above is pretty meaningless unless you 'know' the sound in your ears, And the best way to learn is immersion, or some form of it. In the mid '70's I decided that I wanted to learn Classical music, so I set my car radio to a FM station that played Classical (mostly the well known 'pot boilers', famous symphonies, and pieces like '1812 Overture', The Four Seasons', Pachelbel's 'Canon', and so on). I spent a lot of time in my car back then driving around the city fixing computer equipment, so lots of exposure. At home I set my FM to another station, a public radio station that played more esoteric classical: early music, contemporary composers, and odd stuff.

 

At first it was very strange, unfamiliar, boring, even distasteful at times. But as the days and weeks went by, I began to find some pieces that I enjoyed, then more, as my brain absorbed the new musical 'grammer' and my ears could 'understand' this new form (always an ongoing process). As I started to recognize or like various pieces, I began to pick up the names, significance, and composers as well. I think I continued in this way for a couple of years, adding trips to Peaches Records (remember them ?) to buy and try new classical vinyl, and find new things to add to my learning and now, great enjoyment. Then live concerts, big and small, for the music and absolute sound, enlarged my world.

 

I discovered composers and pieces that I liked, loved, and loathed. Who would have thought that someone raised on Motown and the Beatles would be into early music like Teleman, or the more contemporary Britten and Stravinsky ?

 

When I lived in the Twin Cities (1979-81) there was a fine FM classical station, and I'd hope there still is one, but failing that, Internet radio stations are legion, search and ye shall find !

 

What better way to learn classical then to turn on a nice radio station on your fine system, and sit back with a great book on the subject. Learn and enjoy 

I think that having someone knowledgeable in the music do the programming for you, is preferable early in the process, to provide a broad range of exposure. You can pick and choose later, when you know your preferences better. Turning on some classical radio in the background when you aren't listening to something specific, or when you are writing, or some other non-audio task, will help you absorb the 'inner rules' of the music without overt work on your part, and make the learning a part of your life, and later, hopefully, your expanded joy.

 

OT but related...

I unconscionably turned away from classical music, shortly after I belatedly switched to CD's. Long after that I came to realize that the CD tech, just did not delivery the 'soul' of classical to me, it was flat, dead, lifeless, boring, and I fell out of the habit. Even through I have spent a lot of time learning and enjoying this music, it is still not my most preferred genre, it sits at about 3rd place, through digital audio and my improving system have brought back most of the 'soul' of vinyl. But the bad digital habits of bouncing all over multiple genres, dozens of tracks, maybe not even listening to them all the way through, doesn't serve classical well, with the long symphonies, multiple movements, etc. Some discipline to commit to focusing on an entire piece of music would be advised.

 

Ok, I went on far longer then maybe you were expecting or wanted, but it was a good question, and deserved a good answer

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

7 minutes ago, Daudio said:

<..>

At first it was very strange, unfamiliar, boring, even distasteful at times. But as the days and weeks went by, I began to find some pieces that I enjoyed, then more, as my brain absorbed the new musical 'vocabulary' and I could 'understand' this new form (always an ongoing process). As I started to recognize or like various pieces, I began to pick up the names, significance, and composers as well. I think I continued in this way for a couple of years, adding trips to Peaches Records (remember them ?) to buy and try new classical vinyl, and find new things to add to my learning and now, great enjoyment.

<...>

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly. Many good things come as an acquired habit. It takes about two weeks to eliminate sugar from tea before one will be completely comfortable with sugarless tea even he or she was not drinking tea without sugar for whole life. And it might take not much longer before one would have classical music as something irreplaceable in life.

[AnotherSpin]

Also – I started to buy classical LPs very early, and one of the reason was my rock idols seemed to be very interested in classical music! ELP performed Pictures, Yes started their live album with Stravinsky, ELO used 5th, Jethro Tull and Deep Purple used neo-baroque elements in their solos, examples were plenty. And I was not able to ignore such authoritative suggestions..))

[Daudio]

46 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

my rock idols seemed to be very interested in classical music!

 

Right. I was a big fan of early Tull probably due to that. The folk-rock group 'Pentangle's John Renbourn brought updated early classical music to their album releases, and were my favorite tracks among their genre stew !

 

Many of us older folks were probably also influenced by disguised classical pieces in popular movie themes, like 'Elvira Madigan' (Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C ).

 

20 movies with themes of, now well known, classical music

 

[Jud]

I like the sense of the historical development of music that you can get from classical.  You can almost hear Bach inventing the rules of counterpoint if you listen to a really good recording of the Brandenburgs; Beethoven pushing the limits past pleasant harmonies in the late String Quartets, presaging compositional movements of a century later; Stravinsky borrowing African syncopation from early jazz in the Rite of Spring, which sounded so unfamiliar to the European ear it provoked riots in its Paris premiere.

 

Of course that continues with jazz and rock and rap, but you can go back a little further with classical. 

[rando]

1 hour ago, AnotherSpin said:

Also – I started to buy classical LPs very early, and one of the reason was my rock idols seemed to be very interested in classical music! ELP performed Pictures, Yes started their live album with Stravinsky, ELO used 5th, Jethro Tull and Deep Purple used neo-baroque elements in their solos, examples were plenty. And I was not able to ignore such authoritative suggestions..))

 

A very good point as much 'programmed' popular music is very mathematically sound and ends up borrowing a lot from the last 500 centuries.  If Beethoven was still under copyright U2 wouldn't exist.  With a computer doing the heavy lifting that phenomenon has gotten much more prevalent though you'd be hard pressed to pick it out in synthesized music.  This has the effect of lending classical a double hammer blow of being extremely worn out musically on top of having an air of at best imparting Viagra into an 80 year old's proclivities.

 

Hip-hop never left NYC and classical never left Bavaria. 

[AnotherSpin]

27 minutes ago, Daudio said:

Many of us older folks were probably also influenced by disguised classical pieces in popular movie themes, like 'Elvira Madigan' (Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C ).

 

20 movies with themes of, now well known, classical music

 

 

Yes! My interest to many pieces of classical music started from movies. And, in some cases movie episode changed my approach to certain composer. As it happened with Arvo Pärt, even though I heard his music for decades I was never much interested before that astonishing moment in Paolo Sorrentino's La grande bellezza (My Heart's In The Highlands). Here in CA is a thread about classical music in movies.

[Daudio]

30 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

My interest to many pieces of classical music started from movies

 

And those movie themes, stolen from the great composers, then also appeared in many an 'Easy Listening' album (Mantovani, Percy Faith, Ferrante & Teicher), which I must guiltily confess to owning more then a few back in the day (and even now). Spreading and deepening the exposure to the general public. Lucky us, until we got to be SQ snobs 

 

 

To the classically influenced, and influencing, Rock artists, we can't forget The Moody Blues ! In addition to the symphony orchestras important contributions to their 'Days of Future Passed' album, their signature use of the Mellotron had a very orchestral feel to its sound, at least, IMO.  BTW the HD version of that album manages to retrieve a damn fine orchestra sound, for the time !

 

[sphinxsix]

20 hours ago, Solstice380 said:

there are many genres of music to turn to that are as rhythmically and harmonically interesting as classical.  Many!  

I listen to every genre of music - blues, jazz, rock, world music.. I didn't say they are not interesting for me. Will never be. I got more seriously interested in classical music just a couple of years ago. I'm not an expert in classical but I'm sure that if you check out especially 20th century composers you will also agree many of them have gone beyond musical limitations of other genres - even remembering eg Frank Zappa using very complicated (for rock but bear in mind that he was interested in classical especially in Varese and Stravinsky) time signatures in some of his compositions or general rhythmic and harmonic freedom of free jazz.

[Solstice380]

I agree that a great many musical structures were developed within "modern" classical music - meaning the last few centuries - but many forms of music preceded them as well.  And there are more after the "masters" - heck, even the Grateful Dead used complex time signatures - 11/8, 10/4.  As an aside, I'm pretty sure you haven't heard all the music in the world nor have I.     

[Jud]

29 minutes ago, Solstice380 said:

As an aside, I'm pretty sure you haven't heard all the music in the world nor have I.  

 

But it's fun to try.

[sphinxsix]

1 hour ago, Solstice380 said:

 As an aside, I'm pretty sure you haven't heard all the music in the world nor have I.     

 

55 minutes ago, Jud said:

But it's fun to try.

Yeah, doing my best to hear the best of it just like most people here I believe

[Solstice380]

9 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

Yeah, doing my best to hear the best of it just like most people here I believe

 

Agreed!  One of the pleasures of CA is checking out the music people recommend in Album of the Evening, etc.   I've learned about a lot of music here that's new to me. 

[AnotherSpin]

9 hours ago, Solstice380 said:

 And there are more after the "masters" - heck, even the Grateful Dead used complex time signatures - 11/8, 10/4.  

 

Grateful Dead used extremely fine rhythmic structures, incorporating many old and new traditions. Even though they positioned themselves as a 'dance band' Dead's music was never simplistic – I would trace analogy only to Zappa here. And they knew a lot for this, for instance, Phil Lesh studied music from Luciano Berio in one class with Steve Reich.

[wgscott]

On 5/24/2017 at 1:46 PM, sphinxsix said:

Chris I think you have to get bored with the stuff you listen to and its musical (harmonic, rhythmic etc) limitations first to make the next step, to move forward (at least it worked with me in that way, quite naturally, organically). 'Understanding' the music, its historical and other backgrounds never worked that well in my case - eg my perception of 'Kind of Blue' changed very little after reading a book about this recording. But maybe it's just me and the fact that my perception of music is more connected with my emotional sphere than intelectual one. Good luck with this project (CA classical music experts knowledge calls for something like that), despite of what I've just written I believe it can be useful to many, me included.

 

In my case, it had nothing to do with getting bored with something else.  OTOH, my interest in classical music developed well before my interest in "rock" or whatever.  I think they were completely separate developments.

 

My 'understanding' of classical music remains next to nonexistent.  Although I wish I were more classical music-literate, I don't think it necessary to enjoy it (although it may well enhance the enjoyment).

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, wgscott said:

My 'understanding' of classical music remains next to nonexistent.  Although I wish I were more classical music-literate, I don't think it necessary to enjoy it (although it may well enhance the enjoyment).

 

Exactly where I'm at.