My title looks so special.

I've been giving this a lot of thought.

I'm a bit of an armchair anthropologist, and a music geek, so naturally I was wondering what cultural effect music has. Not on a culture necessarily, but on the people within it. In my teenaged social circle, music is what really defines you. The punk kids go over there, the rap kids go over there, the pop kids go over there, techno kids go and spaz out somewhere else, and the classical music kid hides under the table, cranks up the Sibelius and cries...anyway.

The general association with classical music -that I know of- is of the highbrow intellectual. Get your robe on, a snifter -whatever that is- of brandy and put on some Bach. Putting on, say, a record by the Beatles or Ramones would be seen as wildly incongruos.

So, why classical? How much of an impact does that stereotype, that classification, have on us?

Do we listen to it because we're smart? Or do we listen to it because it makes us seem smart? Would we still be as drawn to Tchaikovsky as much if everyone were listening to him? Give that some honest thought.

Assuming you weren't raised in a classical music family. Would Beethoven's pull been quite as strong if everyone on the street had the Ninth Symphony blasting from their headphones? Would rap have had more appeal? Jazz? Techno? Pop? Rock? Metal? Ska?

This is really incoherent but half past midnight seems to be the only time I can get on the computer.

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Abducted by a French marquis!
Though loss of honor was a wrench
Just think how it's improved her French.

You ask, Azathoth, wheher classical music is a minority interest because it is bound to be like that since, if a much bigger percentage of people were to like it, it would lose its value to others who would then find something else to listen to instead.

I don't buy this self-stabilising, fixed market share idea. This is because I believe tastes in music are more absolute than relative, in the sense that people will be guided by what they genuinely like rather than what they perceive other people like. Classical music has a small following because, on the whole, people don't care for it, not because there is some kind of pre-ordained limit on its market share. The reason why people don't care for it is because (i) their knowledge about music is highly limited, and (ii) because there is a plentiful supply of other, much simpler forms to appreciate. Their knowledge is limited partly because of poor education, and partly because there are so many other competing opportunities for social enjoyment (sports, clubs & pubs, PC gaming, TV etc).

I'm a multi-interested music fan, happy to listen to anything except Rap. I can see examples of brilliance in many genres.

However, classical music has had far more brilliance applied to it. I do not believe that only one or two classical composers are worth listening to. I tended to think that way when I was much younger, but I grew grew out of it in my mid-20's. The height of human ingenuity is not so great that only a tiny number of composers have produced works of outstanding excellence. In history there has never been just one or two really outstanding miltary commander, artist, scientist, philosopher, musician or whatever. Knowledge is cumulative and progress has mainly proceeded mainly on the basis of the big "spikes" in advancement: Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner etc. If anyone, for example, thinks that Bach or Mozart or Beethoven is the last word in music, let them listen to some of the glorious passages in Wagner: Tristan, or Entry of the Gods into Valhalla, or to some of the most beautifully crafted symphonic structure in Brahms symphonies, to name but a tiny few examples.

These are my quick thoughts for an early Sunday morning while istening to some classical rock guitar with Jimi Hendrix. I joke: it's currently Shostakovich's Cello Sonata.

Why classical? As opposed to the other absurdly horrible, infantile, abhorrent noise that pervades contemporary culture? That's like asking why I breathe oxygen instead of cyanide gas.

Society is rotting like a maggot infested corpse, and most modern music contributed to its death.

I just recently discovered and began listening to classical music in earnest, so I don't pretend to be a connoisseur, but it is just about the only form of music I enjoy listening to, although I don't mind certain classic rock bands/songs.

Modern music, namely "rap" and the various forms of abominable, whimpering, sophomoric "rock" disgust me. I am forced to listen to these every day, at school, on television, in movies, on the radio, blaring obnoxiously from cars, etcetera, etcetera, and I am sick of it. "Rap" in particular has had a pronounced and extraordinarily adverse affect on culture, especially on youth, in my experience.

Like most of today's teenagers, this music exemplifies all the things I hate about humans, and has no redeeming aspects. It is moronic, uninteresting, unpleasant to hear, expresses views and ideals that I detest, and incites only stupidity and pretension.

Of course, it fits this generation like a glove. I don't want to sound pompous, but it seems to me like this generation is deplorable. People of my age group (I'm 17) are, in general, stupid, selfish, avaricious, and have an undeserved sense of self-entitlement.

I have a tendency to rant late at night, sorry. Anyway, that's my view at the moment.

I think that classical music is not so easy to listen to. Of course, the most accessible composer is Mozart but, as a matter of fact, young people are not quite openly ashamed of telling their friends they enjoy it - for it seems most conventional.

More sophisticated composers are appreciated after much exertion. And I agree with Mango when she says that their knowledge is limited partly because of poor education.

Besides, if you compare music with literature, you would find the same phenomenon. Voltaire said that 80% of people don’t read anything, and 80% of the other read novels. Can I say that 80% of people don’t listen any music, and 80% of the other listen pop, rock and R n’ B?

From then on, we are privileged persons.


PS :
1° I don’t intend to offend the readers of novels, as I read novels myself;
2° does anybody knows a web site that corrects the mistakes of language?

ROFL.

Let me know what table you're at, I'll join you.

To paraphrase and rephrase what everybody else has been saying: Classical Music has always been an elitist phenomenon. Whether supported by royalty, clergy or wealthy benefactors, its roots are in the minority upper-class, whether intellectual or material, and to some degree it will always stay there. And to be honest, I think that's healthy.

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I hesitated to contribute here, because I'm not sure that what I'd add would be worthy of the topic. What a great topic! (That, and there has to be a special place in my heart for a place where the Big A and someone named Alnitak can share thoughts [meeting "as the night winds meet beyond Arcturus' pale," as Ezra Pound would say].) Carrying on in the dialectical tradition, I'd ask, "is our appreciation of Classical Music an expression of our intellect, or is it a reflection of our aesthetic?" I realize that, for all of us, there's considerable overlap between the two, but overlap doesn't equate to identity. Can we "know through feeling," in the words of my beloved Wagner? It's a question that suffuses all of Art, not just music.

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My conception is pretty more simple (I am not a philosopher, ain’t I?).

As for me, there are two kinds of music: the music of the spheres and the galactic music.
You asked me : "is our appreciation of Classical Music an expression of our intellect, or is it a reflection of our aesthetic?"

Hmm…I’d answer that aesthetic is to music that vector spaces are to euclidean spaces, in the same way that the galactic music is Transcendental to the spheres one. The intellect is only a vector of transparency.

[quote=Kurkikohtaus;12019]ROFL.

Let me know what table you're at, I'll join you.

To paraphrase and rephrase what everybody else has been saying: Classical Music has always been an elitist phenomenon. Whether supported by royalty, clergy or wealthy benefactors, its roots are in the minority upper-class, whether intellectual or material, and to some degree it will always stay there. And to be honest, I think that's healthy.[/QUOTE]

I strongly agree with Kurkikohtaus.

Classical music IS elitist. It is elitist in the best possible sense. In the sense that the music of this world (i.e. this civilization in which we live) is rubbish and is at best a clumsy impersonation. Classical music is of a different, orderly, creative world than that of our civilization and the fact that its creation has often been patronised by the elites of this world is of little relevance. If asked which music IS classical my reply is that it's that music whose power is such that we see our nakedness and rejoice in being covered by the atonement that it brings. It is a manifestation of grace.

I think perhaps there is a marked difference in my attitude towards this subject as I am writing at 8:30 in the morning. I see no nakedness in classical music, and frankly the galactic music vs. music of the spheres issue strikes me as a tad extreme. I listen to Classical music because it's good music, which I can appreciate on an emotional, physical, and intellectual level. I don't really care if other people listen to it or not, as long as the performances keep coming.

My first full-blown rant. [It was bound to happen sooner or later.]

It's been noted that the stereotype for the Classical Music aficionado revolves around erudition and intellect (to the point of intellectual snobbery). Our exposure to the genre has either been the result of fortuitous education, overcoming compromised education, or simply having an environment free from active hostility to Classical Music, and letting nature take its course (for some of us). Although I agree with a summation that Classical Music is "elitist in the best sense," in the words of Mr. N, there are some of us who make our way out of the imprisonment in the cave, to reference Plato's famous metaphor.

To review, when I posited the "intellect vs. aesthetic" duality in my earlier post, I was attempting to drive the discussion towards the following point: although no one can argue with Classical Music's ability for cognitive enagagement, I submit that it can engage emotions at the profoundest levels, as well. In spite of this truth, the perception that Classical is appreciated by the dispassionately rational remains- and remains with sufficient pervasiveness as to affect our own self-perceptions. Consider, when non-Classical fans discover your interest in Classical Music, do they consider it a reflection of your educational status, or could they possibly contemplate the chance that it's emblematic of one's emotional depth or heightened sensitivities?

Here are two "pop-culture" renderings of the Classical Music fan. One is Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Another is Charles Emerson Winchester of the M.A.S.H. TV show.

It is a peculiar pathology of our time that rationality and emotional capacities are considered opposite ends of some two-dimensional scale where if you have more of one, you perforce have less of the other. In this manner, some of the pop-culture consumers such as those hinted at by Horizontal earlier can claim to be "following [their] heart," with no more evidence of this than their mental disconnect. Furthermore, those people whose shallow feelings are exceeded only by their shallower thoughts can delude themselves into saying that feelings matter more to them. What some call "feelings" can be better classified as hedonistic pursuits, with all of the transience involved in such pursuits.

So, I'm saying that there are aspects of emotional profundity, the kind that stay with you for a lifetime, that can lead a person to understanding and help guide us towards what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." AND, if you know where to look, you can find more than a few of them in Classical Music, as well as all of the Fine Arts. That's my point.

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The hardest knife ill us'd doth lose his edge. Shakespeare- Sonnet 95

The main reason, I think, why some people enjoy and understand classical music and some do not, is the level of sensitivity.

1. We who listen to classical music require less external stimulus to feel the same intensity of emotional or aesthetic experience, that is, we are more sensitive for those things.

2. We might be generally more sensitive, or just considering art.

3. We might be more persistent in exploring art. A pop or rock listener searches for quick and intensive, loud and extreme kind of musical stimulation. They are not as calm and, to use the word, stubborn at trying to make something of the music, it's meaning.

4. We consider music not primarily as fun and pastime. We understand the world around us and unravel the world inside us, all through this medium.

5. Many people who listen to classical are, by tests, introverted. Are you too? Extroverts are more oriented to the outside world, and they may find classical music boring, hard to enjoy or simply not worth attention.

Thanks for waking this topic up again, Lisztfreak. I agree with most of what you say, but I would like to use your comments as a spring-board in making a tangential point:

While I agree with you in saying that we (classical music lovers) use music to explore the world around us and within us, are more persistant in exploring art... etc. etc. etc... I believe that this is something that has evolved over time in relation to classical music, and is something that has been tremendously accelerated through the growth of the recording industry for the past 50 years - It is therefore a rather new phenomenon and not necessarily directly related to the essence of Classical Music in the context in which most of our favourite works were composed. (it took a while, but that was the point I was trying to make).

Before the growth of the recording industry and full-time orchestras with 12 - 40 concerts subscription seasons, I believe classical music was indeed a very much more of a spectacular and sensationalist experience than it may be seen today, albeit for a small slice of the intellectual elite. Composers wrote their works in a context where they would be played once for an audience that would be hearing it for the first time, not for an audience who would study the work and experience it again and again through various (recorded) performances. Therefore to some degree, composers were at the very least aware of the instant impact (and possibly of the instant sensual gratification) that their work does or doesn't carry... and at the very most, they catered to this impact directly.

To make my main point again, this idea of introversion and intensity of the emotional/aesthetic experience (I am knowingly paraphrasing Lisztfreak here...) that we associate with classical music and the classical music listener is something quite new. This is not a criticism of Lisztfreak's views nor is it a criticism of the Classical Music listener or industry as a whole...

... but one negative aspect has paralleled the development of what I'm describing, and that is the general inability of the wider public to accept new music, heard for the first time in performance. The serialist school and the crap that they produced for the better part of the 20th Century has a lot to do with the public's turning away from new music, but on the other hand, in that process, we have lost the ability to listen to and digest new music at first hearing on a regular basis, and that is a shame. It's a shame because that is the seed of our tradition... we should never forget that Brahms, Berlioz, Tchaikovskij and Debussy were all writing new music, all of the time.

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Excellent thread here - the vitality with which teenage philosophers discuss aesthetics never ceases to amaze me. (no offense to thread participants over the age of 20)

Alright, it seems I've lost the ability to take this thread seriously. Carry on in peace, fellow music lovers.

Two cliches for our reflection...

"Out of the mouths of babes off-times comes wisdom."

"The child is father to the man."

And, as Dennis DeYoung would say to his stadium-sized audiences "We're GONNA carry on!"

Phatic, you're going to have to be a lot more specific in your criticism of the ideas presented in this thread for me to take you seriously. Care to elaborate and indoctrinate us into how aesthetics should be properly discussed?