Why isn't classical music more popular?

[zakkrusz]

In music terms classical music is a baseline product from which other more interesting forms of music evolved.

Well, I would respond to this in three ways.

First, what is "more interesting" is a matter of taste and opinion. What you find interesting I might find quite dull. In fact, looking over your list of musical groups, I'm sure of it.

Of course, to each his own. I like nearly everything personally classical/instrumental, rock, metal, jazz, swing, blues, techno/trance etc. The only genres I find the least appealing are rap and country. However, I'm a child of the '80s so I'm biased twards the various forms of rock and metal. It's what my parents listen to, it's what my friends all listened to, I just developed a preference for it and it dominates my 200 something CD collection.

Second, I don't think it's correct to say that today's popular music "evolved" from classical. Popular music is highly syncretic and has incorporated elements from several musical cultures and traditions.

...and styles of classical music are just as varied with composers of the stuff from all corners of the globe. Although, in my view I'd say it was logical enough to say certain musical forms evolved from others. Metal came from rock artsts who wanted a defferent sound and speed metal and industrial metal thusly evolved from that. I'm sure if you looked back in time you could find a missing link somewhere.

Finally, given the way classical music is marketed and consumed, I think it hardly makes sense to compare it to a commonplace grocery item like chicken. In today's musical marketplace, country music would be chicken, heavy metal would be hamburger, hip-hop would be pork chops, and classical music would be--I don't know--live lobster, or something.

I thought about that aspect but decided on chicken since I didn't think it would be good to compare classical music to something that wreaks havoc with my digestive track.

 

[Wheo]

I was in band and choir for years (joined both right after fifth grade), so, even though I wasn't raised on classical music, I learned to love it, I suppose. A lot of my friends like classical music, as well. I have a couple friends who don't listen to anything BUT classical, but most of us like other things in addition to classical. *shrugs* It might have a lot to do with what people are surrounded with, musically, and for how long.

 

[Holdfast]

BTW, on the subject of classical music not having frequent enough hooks to be populist, I realised there is one exception, which is why (in combination with its relatively short duration) it gets replayed on classical radio stations so much. In fact it's such a good hook, it was abused in Blues Traveler's song Hook which rather makes fun of it for being so catchy.

I'm sure you've seen Rob Paravonian's rant on the subject, but if not, I think you'll enjoy it. ;-)

That is a thing of beauty, thank you.

 

[Australis]

I liked both of those they were great.

Somewhere way upthread I referred to a pice of music as "a Prelude by Kiril". Later, I thought that didn't sound right, and spent a while tracking it down.

It's actually Prelude: My Life Before Me, by Woiciech Kilar, which was apparently used in the film 'Portrait of A Lady'. Highly recommended piece of music.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I would even be willing to wager that opera-haters don't hate all opera. I mean, who could hate Pavarotti singing "Nessun dorma"?

I could. Sick to death of it. You'd think it's all the man ever sang, the way it's played. Pavarotti got pop in his waning 10 years, and it's all the masses seem to know. Give me his golden voiced Rudolfo circa 1975.

And the worst part is the masses don't know the difference. America's Got Talent recently featured an absolutely unskilled, untrained tenor who sang Nessun Dorma, and brought the house down, despite the fact he was dreadful. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd2QTP0yH_o&feature=related

 

[A beaker full of death]

I prefer music I can sing along to.

Classical is fine as background music, but it doesn't hold my attention otherwise.

Oh, fuck. So that's what a stroke feels like. I can feel my brain dribbling out my left ear.

These are all very intereresting replies--if somewhat depressing, and sometimes downright baffling.

I'm with you. Bloody depressing.
I think it's simply a combination of American lack of cultural education and intellectual laziness. Even fairly accessible music is outside the comprehension of pop listeners, let alone 20th century experiments like atonality.

The length of the pieces does make it a lot harder to sample classical music.

That's because it should not be sampled, it should be experienced.

I like a lot of classical music, but I have no way of knowing the good from the bad unless I hear it or it comes recommended by a friend or popular opinion.

I admire your honesty. Knowing music requires both study and exposure, over many years.

Classical music is ... [g]ood but generic ... I like ... techno/trance music and the like.

 

[M'Sharak]

The Ligeti stuff in 2001 is nicely schpooky.

It is, but there's Ligeti from other periods of his career which is very different from Lux Aeterna or Atmospheres. Very interesting composer, he was.

Excellent!

You may want to look up a series of CDs collectively titled The Ligeti Project (beginning on Sony Classics, I think, and continued by Teldec.) Good stuff -- the aim is to eventually have all of his works recorded.

Because it doesn't have words. I hate instrumental music of any type.

I don't understand this at all.

Besides, there's quite a lot of music in what's broadly described as the classical genre which does have words: church music and cantatas, for example, or oratorio and opera. One of the main reasons people started writing music down in the first place at all, centuries ago, was so that they could have a place to put the words and notes together on the same page. The man who invented what became the modern system of written musical notation did so in order that singers would be able to more quickly learn the intricate vocal lines of Gregorian chants.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Because it doesn't have words. I hate instrumental music of any type.

I don't understand this at all.

I understand it to an extent. Although I like classical music, I really hate instrumental pieces in more contemporary types of music. I can't stand it when the guitarist goes on some tangent. You find a lot of this in 70s rock and I find it so very boring. But I love piano and violin solos. So really, it depends on the instrument for me.

 

[Ceridwen]

Classical music is like chicken. Good but generic as a meat.

If you think chicken is generic, you don't know how to cook.

Nope I don't cook either aside from about 3 complex dishes I made a point to learn because I liked them so much. I meant to make reference to the old saying "Tastes like chicken" which implies that chicken is unremarkable and other things taste like it...

Yeah, I know. What I was implying, in an admittedly oblique way, was that anything can seem generic until you understand it.

People think that chicken is unremarkable only because they don't really understand how to best prepare it. Most people just pop it in the oven until all the flavor has bled out onto the pan, then assume that chicken is bland. Meanwhile, all I need is a little salt, pepper, and olive oil, and I can make an ordinary chicken breast one of the juiciest pieces of meat you've ever enjoyed.

Similarly, people jump into... well, pretty much all kinds of music without really appreciating what goes into it. Taking a genre you love, to a lot of people, techno music just sounds like the same damn drum beat over and over and over and over again. To someone who understands it, you can appreciate the skill it requires to layer in the various elements that make up the track (including finding the perfect damn drum beat ). The same holds true for classical music, which requires this to an even greater extent due to many of the reasons already addressed in this thread.

 

[Aragorn]

Well, as Carl on The Simpsons said, why does the oldies station play the same songs? Why aren't there new oldies?

 

[M'Sharak]

Because it doesn't have words. I hate instrumental music of any type.

I don't understand this at all.

I understand it to an extent. Although I like classical music, I really hate instrumental pieces in more contemporary types of music. I can't stand it when the guitarist goes on some tangent. You find a lot of this in 70s rock and I find it so very boring. But I love piano and violin solos. So really, it depends on the instrument for me.

Okay, I get what you mean about some guitar players -- sax players can be just as bad, if not worse (and there are certainly instances of this in classical music, as well) -- but just because a few soloists are wankers is not a really solid reason to write off all instrumental music. There's plenty which is quite nice and not at all excessive and there are plenty of solo passages which have not a single wasted note.

Someone, (might have been Witold Lutosławski, but I'm not sure of that) on being asked if (some type or genre of music) was good or bad, replied "There are no bad kinds of music - only bad examples." I think he was right.

You're not required to listen again to the ones you don't like; there are always plenty of other pieces from which to choose. But be sure not to give up too soon; you might miss some of the really good ones.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

So, I'm in the middle of adding some new classical-music discs to my iTunes library, when something occurred to me: I've never encountered anybody who had a strong negative reaction to this type of music. That is to say, I've never met anybody who hated classical music.

Some people do hate certain genres and sub-genres of popular music. They can't stand to listen to them, and are quite vocal in their criticism thereof. But the only type of classical music to which people seem to react this way is opera.

Most people, it seems, like some classical or classical-style music--in film soundtracks, for example. At worst, people seem to be indifferent. I've heard people say, for example, that classical music makes them sleepy--but I've never heard anybody say "turn that shit off!"

I would even be willing to wager that opera-haters don't hate all opera. I mean, who could hate Pavarotti singing "Nessun dorma"?

And yet--there seem to be comparatively few classical-music fans out there. Why is that?

Or am I mistaken? Are there people out there who hate the sound of classical music? If so, why?

Short attention spans and the lack of words. I was listening to John Williams' Empire Strikes Back score at work one day and one of my co-workers was just baffled that I would listen to a soundtrack. He just couldn't wrap his tiny little brain around the idea of listening to something like that.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I don't understand this at all.

I understand it to an extent. Although I like classical music, I really hate instrumental pieces in more contemporary types of music. I can't stand it when the guitarist goes on some tangent. You find a lot of this in 70s rock and I find it so very boring. But I love piano and violin solos. So really, it depends on the instrument for me.

Okay, I get what you mean about some guitar players -- sax players can be just as bad, if not worse (and there are certainly instances of this in classical music, as well) -- but just because a few soloists are wankers is not a really solid reason to write off all instrumental music. There's plenty which is quite nice and not at all excessive and there are plenty of solo passages which have not a single wasted note.

Someone, (might have been Witold Lutosławski, but I'm not sure of that) on being asked if (some type or genre of music) was good or bad, replied "There are no bad kinds of music - only bad examples." I think he was right.

You're not required to listen again to the ones you don't like; there are always plenty of other pieces from which to choose. But be sure not to give up too soon; you might miss some of the really good ones.

Well, it really has nothing to do with whether or not the guitarist is being a wanker. I don't like any instrumentals in contemporary music, even if it's well done, because I listen to contemporary music for the words. If I can't sing along to it, it doesn't interest me. When I listen to classical I have an entirely different mindset though.

 

[David cgc]

If I can't sing along to it, it doesn't interest me.

That's why God invented humming.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

I like "wanky" guitar instrumentals anyway. I'll never understand why musical skill is so frowned upon in our culture.

 

[JonathonWally]

I like "wanky" guitar instrumentals anyway. I'll never understand why musical skill is so frowned upon in our culture.

There's a difference between "skill" and self indulgence. Often times, players can get carried away.

 

[Goliath]

I like "wanky" guitar instrumentals anyway. I'll never understand why musical skill is so frowned upon in our culture.

There's a difference between "skill" and self indulgence. Often times, players can get carried away.

I agree. Solos have their place--but sometimes they don't know their place. The same is true of cadenzas in classical concertos.

I once knew a very talented young blues guitarist who didn't understand this, and would ruin songs with his endless soloing.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I like "wanky" guitar instrumentals anyway. I'll never understand why musical skill is so frowned upon in our culture.

I can recognize and appreciate the skill in many solos, but that doesn't mean I enjoy listening to them. Much like opera...I appreciate the skill but don't find it very interesting to listen to.

 

[Derishton]

Can I ask ... I don't think it's been directly addressed ... what fellow orchestral fans think of recent attempts at marketing classical music with sex appeal? I wouldn't say it started with Vanessa Mae, but it feels like they're trying to lay a "New Kids" veneer over older musical genres. It's clearly an attempt at reaching a younger audience, but looks completely misguided to me. Surely it just meant that old fogeys like myself get to have a little cheesecake with our string quartets?

Would it be better to stop worrying about the future of classical music, on the understanding that (like jazz) it's an acquired taste not intended for the young? Or is the fear that recent self-indulgent generations won't ever evolve past Avril Lavigne?

 

[Goliath]

Can I ask ... I don't think it's been directly addressed ... what fellow orchestral fans think of recent attempts at marketing classical music with sex appeal? I wouldn't say it started with Vanessa Mae, but it feels like they're trying to lay a "New Kids" veneer over older musical genres. It's clearly an attempt at reaching a younger audience, but looks completely misguided to me. Surely it just meant that old fogeys like myself get to have a little cheesecake with our string quartets?

From what I can tell, like you say, it's an attempt by the major record labels to apply the pop-music marketing model to classical music.

The reason such a model fits classical music so poorly is that classical music is dominated by composers rather than performers: and when it's not dominated by composers, it's dominated by conductors.

For the most part, in classical music, the performers are faceless and interchangeable. The level of skill is so high that one is just as good as another, and it's very hard for any of them to stand out.

It's very rare that I'll buy music for the performer rather than for the composer. Most of the time I hardly even notice the performer. The only exception I can think of is my favourite soprano, Vivica Genaux. I was blown away by her singing on a disc of arias written for the castrato superstar Farinelli, and as a consequence, I have purchased operas simply because she was in the cast (Handel's Arminio, Vivaldi's Bajazet, etc.).

But even then--I don't buy everything she records: only the Baroque stuff.

So, whenever I see a CD by someone like Lara St. John, with her half-naked on the cover, I feel like saying: "It's the music, stupid."

(I've actually seen St. John perform: she's quite a good violinist--and I'm certainly not averse to ogling half-naked young women. But I don't really care for Bach, and that's mostly what she performs.)