Thread: Why do people seem to hate classical music?

Originally Posted by Boogieman

....as, one very wet day when, at school, we were not allowed out, but had to stay in the classroom with a teacher to watch over us. The teacher was Mrs Hopkirk, and to quieten the class down, she approached the old piano that stood against the back wall. We expected the usual Puff The Magic Dragon or some such (I was 8 at the time). Wrong!! She gave a spellbinding display of boogie-woogie that had us all enthralled. A spark had been lit. The flame was touched off at about the same time when I watched Jimi Hendrix on the TV (rare to see in those days) give an electric, in more ways than one, performance of Johnny B. Goode that had me bouncing around the room. I had discovered, by sheer good fortune, the overridng and overwhelming JOY that music can bring. I like that word, so I'll say it again. JOY. That's happiness. Feeling good. Upbeat. Light. Optimistic. Well. Content. JOYfull. Victor Kiam might have been so impressed that he bought the company, but I bought the music, by the score. A wonderful, happy journey that took me to Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Hendrix, Led Zep, Vintage (60s era) Clapton, Albert Ammons, Ten Years After, Deep Purple, AC/DC, Motorhead, Sex Pistols and latterly The Answer and Buckcherry. I even bought the guitar and have enjoyed playing for many years now. No ballads, no depressing stuff, no ********. I can survive the blips of Indie (dirge), Rap (just bloody awful), techno and boy bands (talentless twaddle), and shrug off the wimp-outs (Bowie, Queen, Status Quo, Robert Plant, Richie Blackmore, Green Day) because I've got an arsenal of pure adrenalin that spans about 80 years. [...]

Classic rock enthusiasts who dislike David Bowie, Queen, may be uncomfortable with their own sexuality.

Dr Philip

Originally Posted by Philip

Dr Philip

Is this a new meme that I'm not aware of?

My mum doesn't like classical music because it doesn't give her what she wants. She likes "happy music" which translates as mostly three or four minute pop songs that one can jig around to - and (to my recent surprise) 50's jazz such as the Birth of the Cool & Charles Mingus. She doesn't want to sit and contemplate a symphony and finds the overblown nature of opera too much- it's simply not what she wants from music.

Music, like many things come down to personal taste.

Good question with a simple yet confounding answer. Why do people hate classical? The answer is that most people are simply a mass of tastless, materialistic, never questioning drones I'd rather kill my self then be part of. The confounding part of the answer is trying to fathom the horrible tragedy of being in their shoes and the abominableness of why it's like this. The world's itself is the greatest horror film imaginable, Freddy Kruger is Thumbellina in comparison.

Originally Posted by larryfeltonj

Very few people "hate" classical music. Most people listen to the music which gets distributed in the popular media of their time. Bach was the improvisational jazz musician of his place and era. The question should probably be "why do most people not put the sufficient thought into their musical choices which might lead them to appreciate Gabrieli, Verdi, Bach, or Stravinski?"

Personally I'm a big fan of the composers I've mentioned, plus (in no chronological order), Duke Ellington, Scott Joplin, Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline, the Kinks, Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, Diana Ross, Elvis Costello, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, the Seekers (God did Judith Durham have one of the best voices of all time!!!), Woody Guthrie, and hundreds of other composers, artists, and songwriters.

If you were to poll the enthusiasts for any of the people I've mentioned above about music from other genre, you might get the general consensus of "Yewwww. How can you listen to that stuff?".

If you want to proselytize for your own musical enthusiasm, there are two important things you can do.

First, fund those sources which distribute and highlight classical music.

Second, expose your friends to it at every opportunity.

A few days ago I put on a recording of the opening movement Beethoven's fifth symphony (Vienna Phil/Carlos Kleiber) for someone who never pays much attention to classical music at all and they sat down and concentrated on the entire seven minutes and twenty-two seconds of the first movement (probably because they recognised the opening bars) and told me that they enjoyed it and asked me to play another classical piece for them.

So what larryfeltonj here says would probably be true. I don't know anyone at all who hates Beethoven's symphony no. 5, but I know a whole heap of people who would listen to more of the music that they're exposed to in the world of popular culture.

Originally Posted by Philip

Classic rock enthusiasts who dislike David Bowie, Queen, may be uncomfortable with their own sexuality.

Dr Philip

I'd like Boogieman's opinion on the New York Dolls before I'd make such a critical judgement.

Originally Posted by Clovis

Good question with a simple yet confounding answer. Why do people hate classical? The answer is that most people are simply a mass of tastless, materialistic, never questioning drones I'd rather kill my self then be part of. The confounding part of the answer is trying to fathom the horrible tragedy of being in their shoes and the abominableness of why it's like this. The world's itself is the greatest horror film imaginable, Freddy Kruger is Thumbellina in comparison.

You sound like a fun, down-to-earth kinda guy.

Originally Posted by Composer of AvantGarde

A few days ago I put on a recording of the opening movement Beethoven's fifth symphony (Vienna Phil/Carlos Kleiber) for someone who never pays much attention to classical music at all and they sat down and concentrated on the entire seven minutes and twenty-two seconds of the first movement (probably because they recognised the opening bars) and told me that they enjoyed it and asked me to play another classical piece for them.

The problem with the fifth is it shoots its load too early. The first movement eclipses the rest of it. The sixth has a better spread of interesting material with the beginning and ending both being top class.

Hmm,...I'm glad no one I come across truly hates classical if even a little bit...if anything, they'll have that distant respect that they know it's something they don't like nor understand but they would feel dumb if they said they hated it because it's 'supposed' to be good.

Originally Posted by kv466

Hmm,...I'm glad no one I come across truly hates classical if even a little bit...if anything, they'll have that distant respect that they know it's something they don't like nor understand but they would feel dumb if they said they hated it because it's 'supposed' to be good.

That's my experience too.

Originally Posted by Argus

The problem with [Beethoven's] fifth is ... [the] first movement eclipses the rest of it.

Yeah? Well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Originally Posted by science

Yeah? Well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

It's an empirically objective fact relayed to me by an infallible source.

Originally Posted by Argus

The problem with the fifth is it shoots its load too early. The first movement eclipses the rest of it.

Que?

The second movement is the perfect antidote to the first. I find that the last movement has the most immediate visceral impact, not the first.

Originally Posted by Argus

It's an empirically objective fact relayed to me by an infallible source.

My best guess is that, as so often, She has been misunderstood.

Originally Posted by science

My best guess is that, as so often, She has been misunderstood.

''A new born child has no teeth.”—“A goose has no teeth.”—“A rose has no teeth.”—This last at any rate—one would like to say—is obviously true! It is even surer than that a goose has none.—And yet it is none so clear. For where should a rose’s teeth have been? The goose has none in its jaw. And neither, of course, has it any in its wings; but no one means that when he says it has no teeth.—Why, suppose one were to say: the cow chews its food and then dungs the rose with it, so the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast. This would not be absurd, because one has no notion in advance where to look for teeth in a rose.

My favorite movement of the 5th is the 3rd movement. Mysterious, brooding.

You are wrong Argus.

Originally Posted by science

Yeah? Well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

I'd say the entire site is based on this principle.

And just who are these people who hate classical music? I'll bet you'd even get a decent favorable percentage at a NASCAR event.

I think everyone likes some form of classical music, even if it's just the easy to follow stuff.