Thread: Anyone else feel a bit isolated with their love of classical music?

Originally Posted by eorrific

When you talk to them, do they talk back?

That's the convenient part. If I'm fed up with one of them, I can turn them off with just a switch of a button. Or when I'm in front of the computer, with the click of a mouse. But it works in reverse too. If I'm feeling particularly lonely and I'm in dire need of some company, then boom! I flip on Le Nozze di Figaro and suddenly I have a whole palace full of singsong people chattering away at me in Italian.

Great post science, btw.

Originally Posted by Air

That's the convenient part. If I'm fed up with one of them, I can turn them off with just a switch of a button. Or when I'm in front of the computer, with the click of a mouse. But it works in reverse too. If I'm feeling particularly lonely and I'm in dire need of some company, then boom! I flip on Le Nozze di Figaro and suddenly I have a whole palace full of singsong people chattering away at me in Italian.

Great post science, btw.

Not to disturb you, but your confessions about your friends: the Classical Music composers, remind me of the scientific warnings against living inside 'a bubble', which Facebook and internet as such are able to create. Many of those Facebook-bubblers are not able to deal with the real ('real') world anymore. Anyhow, the Classical Music bubble seems more comfortable & comforting to me.

Originally Posted by TxllxT

Not to disturb you, but your confessions about your friends: the Classical Music composers, remind me of the scientific warnings against living inside 'a bubble', which Facebook and internet as such are able to create. Many of those Facebook-bubblers are not able to deal with the real ('real') world anymore. Anyhow, the Classical Music bubble seems more comfortable & comforting to me.

Au contraire TxllxT - actually the main point I was making on this thread is that we don't need this classical music 'bubble' in the first place (see post #52, which is a more accurate summary of my views). The last post (#61) was mostly a tongue-in-cheek reply to eorrific's question. Overall, I do agree with you that one cannot simply 'hide' within the confines of classical music - but at the same time, the fact that one can resort to these things regularly during one's life, just as one can resort to 'real-life' things like friends or family, means that there's no need for isolation if not everyone listens to the same music as you do. It's all about breaking compartmentalization and finding integration.

As you mention, I do think this argument kind of parallels my views about all sorts of modern entertainment as well. Too many arguments I hear about the technological age steer completely to the right or to the left but I feel that the trick to living a healthy life nowadays is to learn how to integrate these quite useful, quite beneficial things into the varied whole (which imo, is different from 'balancing'). Balancing suggests an opposition between different aspects of life, while integration allows all interests at hand to work together to ultimately make something even more complete.

I think most people, when saying they consider classical composers their friends, are saying just that. The composers don't replace their tangible, modern day friends, however they connect with the music so well that it seems as if the composer is right there in front of them.

On the other hand, people are using networking sites like FB to connect with their real, tangible friends. It is hardly necessary (a lot of the time. I can understand how useful it is for long distance friends), but a lot of people use it for local friends. Why not just meet up and have a cup of coffee instead of chatting away at a computer screen? That's my opinion on the matter.

One thing I've learned from facebook vs. sites like talkclassical: I didn't go to high school with the people who should've been my friends.

Also, I'm glad you didn't know me in high school....

I must add that I have had some interesting conversations with "total strangers" sitting next to me or near me at classical concerts. Sometimes you can see that people are receptive to opening up a bit and sharing some of their thoughts in a natural way to you about the music. It may not be an "in depth" conversation about key modulations or modified sonata forms, it may just be a brief exchange, but it can be quite interesting. At two seperate concerts I went to alone in the past 12 months I bumped into two very interesting people, one of them had little experience with classical music but loved Peter Sculthorpe's piece being premiered there so much, she went up to him after and hugged him & he kissed her back on the cheek (he was in the audience). At another concert more recently this year, I sat next to an older gent who had seen Sir Yehudi Menuhin when he came to Sydney in the 1950's. We actually continued chatting throughout the interval and after the concert, he on his way home nearby and I catching the bus not far away. Of course, we not only talked about music but general life things. Jobs, money or status never came into it. It was all very natural and human. I remember these kinds of occassions even more than the music being played at those concerts...