Pure unvarnished assertion. How do you know what anyone's motivations are for listening to classical music? You can only speak for yourself without projecting what may be your motives onto someone else. And PJ Harvey is still "a thing"?Strange Magic said:
What is "Profundity"?--Revisited!
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Just as an aside, it's funny how classical can be considered as something that could either increase or decrease social status. Listening to classical could make you look sophisticated, or... it could make you look like a snob who's just too good for whatever the "unwashed masses" listen to.
Quick, name me ten of those classical-loving 'Best and Brightest People" among whom I aspire to be numbered.Strange Magic said:
And pop's advantage is that it offers more sex and woke politics? Where is the pop Winterreise or Marriage of Figaro? I'm as much a pop fan as anyone else, but come on.
Actually if you want to increase your social status you'd be writing paeans to hip hop.
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Hip hop does appear to be the most popular genre nowadays, but that makes classical more attractive to hipsters.
Yeah actually on second thought jazz might be more popular among Best and Brightest chin-strokers.
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Actually (and you will find this hard to accept) my post was not all about you. But the pattern of your responses remains unchanged--a tribute to your perseverance. Why not develop your complaints about my posts into an actual essay or thesis carefully unrolling your position. I've missed it so far.
It didn't have to be all about me. And the reply wasn't all about you, either. See?
Maybe I'm not pretentious enough to think that I have a thesis to offer.
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Was that your thesis? Seriously, why not sit down and compose a reasoned position statement outlining and summarizing your views on art? I would be interested. Your gift so far is to lob squibs from the sidelines, but that must eventually grow stale.
Yes, squibs, challenging statements that I think are open to challenge. Your sweeping generalization (as usual) wasn't about me but it didn't exclude me either. Meanwhile I did ask some questions above that you ignore. Name ten of these Best and Brightest classical lovers that I fancy myself being among.
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I understand. I am to name 10 best and brightest classical lovers that you fancy yourself being among. Now how would I know that? You would know far more about that. It really, really isn't all about you. It is clear that the idea of a defining thesis is foreign to you. Continue to lob those squibs instead!
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Of course it doesn't, depending on what you mean by "aim." A great deal of what art represents and signifies isn't a result of conscious "aim." The more abstract arts such as music may not aim at anything but delightful and satisfying form, but that is far from from a meaningless objective. The perception and love of form is fundamental to our very natures as conscious beings, and so the play of form, both as the abstract expression of mental activity and as the representation of human gesture, utterance, and the trajectories of emotion, is a primary focus in the music we call "classical." Popular music tends to go no further into the exploration of form than it needs to in order to get its explicit message across.
Popular art is almost always explicitly about something, namely the concerns, events, fashions and sensibilities of its time. That's one reason why it tends to be - though it needn't be - more time-bound, more ephemeral. Classical music often ensures its longevity partly by not being explicitly "about" anything, though it may definitely be about something not, or only roughly, describable.
Again, explicit "aboutness" does nothing in the long run to ensure music's attractiveness beyond its time and place. It may have the opposite effect by limiting the precious flow of ideas from the artist's subconscious and so narrowing the "aim" of the work and its possible meaning for listeners, present and future.
What a load of #@$%&*$#.
Pick any of the well-known Best and Brightest classical fans. Surely you can think of some...
Oh, wait a second. Maybe what you're saying is that if I listen to Bach, then that makes me feel that I'm one of the Best and Brightest. But to be honest something like the B Minor Mass or the Art of Fugue just shows me how stupid I am, if anything. Trying to play Bach or Beethoven and do justice to the music, even more so.
Now now Woodduck. We mustn't talk about precise scientific observation in those terms.
You seem to be having some problems too on that front. No, I'm not into making word salads.... It is clear that the idea of a defining thesis is foreign to you. Continue to lob those squibs instead!
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Well, I suspect Newton said something similar - posthumously of course - when someone discovered that his laws of motion didn't always work.
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Taking lessons from dissident?
I take most of your post to be additional support for and a welcome further clarification of mine.
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Strange bedfellows: the essayist and the squibmeister.
The funny thing being that you are apparently unaware of being such a "squibmeister" yourself. Let's be honest, these threads are just high-falutin' trolling.
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I don't need lessons in #@$%&*$# - spotting.
What part of your post have I supported and clarified?
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I am quite conscious of being, if need be, a squibmeister nonpariel. But If you are willing to stop, so will I.
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