lukethebandgeek

I'm just remarking on how I see mostly popluar recorded music being discussed on the music page and not much art music (fine, you can call it "classical") being discussed.

How many of you go to the opera? How many of you listen to Shostakovich, or Debussy, or any other great composer?

How many of you can read music?

Perhaps those are a lot of questions, but thats the ballpark I'm looking for. I'm really interested to see how you all respond.

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saut

I dabble in classical, and I bet many others do as well. My favorites are Wagner, Debussey, and of course Mozart, but I'm really not into listening to them all the time.

I wouldn't call classical music alone "art music." There's plenty of other music that I consider to be art and not entertainment that is being made today (or was made in the past half century).

I can't read music and I don't have a musical bone in my body. The kazoo is about the most complicated instrument I've mastered. I don't think it's a requirement to be able to play music to enjoy it, although I suppose it could help in some cases.

trickyy

i also listen to a decent amount of classical. i can read music. i don't care for opera, only certain pieces.

i listen to some raymond scott, that (or post rock) is more like art music i'd say.

mikeylips

I listen to classical music. I study it too I'm a music major. I find it interesting you call it "art" music, I've never heard that before. I've heard jazz people call it "legit" and I've seen a lot of people get offended at that.

I'm interested too at how many people enjoy classical music. My trumpet prof. told us that less than 1% of all cd sales are in classical and jazz. That's a harsh reality. I can't be certain of the validity of that stat but he's an intelligent man so I believe him, and it makes sense when you see pop music sales like Brittney Spears and whatnot.

I'm a fan of Shostakovich and Brahms for orchestral stuff. I listen to a lot of solo trumpet literature, obviously, and a lot of wind band pieces too. For wind band my favorite it Eric Whitacre. That man is awesome.

MacGuyver

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lukethebandgeek

I call it art music because:

A. that's how it was taught to me

B. "Classical" refers only to the specific period of time that Mozart and Hayden wrote from around 1750 to around 1800. The phrase "Art Music" incorperates all historical periods of, well, art music.

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FoolThemAll

I like me some Mozart, Beethoven, Anton Webern, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky. I'm only beginning to explore 'art' music, though...I've a lot of ground to cover.

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shred_head

Yes, this is technically true, but if you ask anyone if they think Bach is classical music they will undoubtably say yes. No one is going to respond with "No, because he is actually Baroque, so clearly the question is flawed." Classical music will always be known as simply symphonic or orchestral music, separating it into it's historic periods of Medieval, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc., is generally only done by those who have studied it. So while you call it Art Music so has to encompass all the musical periods (and personally sounding a bit pompous) everyone else will still refer to it all as simply Classical music.

And while Mozart is my favorite to listen to, Shostakovich has some great pieces as well as Mahler and Prokofiev. And I only like a few Opera pieces. And yes I can read music, analyzing it is the real fun part...

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mikeylips

I've just started doing some deep analyzing in my theory class this semester. It's a bitch sometimes but it is kind of fun. I can't tell if you were being sarcastic about that. Next semester we study form and all we're going to do is analyze...might have to get pissed off after a while but it should still be fun.

I understand the logic behind calling it "art" music dealing with the history and all. I haven't taken a history class yet, is "art" what is taught or is that something that people just call it. I think it's an interesting title I'm not trying to argue or anything.

K-Wise

If I lived near any opera's I'd try to go as often as I can...Broadway too...prolly even audition for some of them if I had the time...I'm always joining the choirs at the schools I go to if they have one...when I was a Sophmore in highschool I got a chance to sing at Carnegie Hall under the conduction of John Rutter..while we were in New York we all went to see Phantom Of The Opera which of course was fantastic..Unfortunately me and my sis were on an extremely tight budget so no money to go to any other shows in our spare time away from rehearsals n what not.

Asta!!

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jakewesier

my classical music collection lacks a great deal. My fav composer has to be Debussey or Bartok (love Mauhler and Merlios) and of course the all importnat JS Bach. I've spent time studying and analyising their music years ago and I love their uses of harmony and melody. As a jazz musician (I would consider most jazz artish music) I have an extensive collection. Those composers remind me the most of Jazz music and therefore I am gravitated towards it more ethen Mozart or Hayden etc.

It is sad that Jazz/Classical music make up of just around %2 of the market in Music sales. Yet those are the styles of Music that require the largest grasp of their instrument and styles of Music. Not to shoot down other styles, that would be wrong since I play a wide range of Music and teach a wide range of music. The general comment is "Oh I like Jazz" and "I think Classical Music is beautiful" and they probably are not leading you on. However most haphazard listeners to this sort of music see it as diner music, or wedding music and not what they would put on their CD player at home.

It is hard to get your ears around music without Vocalists. Most people lose their interest in non lyrical music and dismiss it as something they cannot relate to. Hence why Vocal/Mainstream Jazz is probably 85% of that 2% of the market that sells in Jazz. If you have a Jazz record that sells 1000 units then you have a hit jazz album. If you sell 100,000 records of a Rock album you have a hit record.

vanblah

"classical" music refers to all of the composers from Bach to Phillip Glass. It is usually music that is played in a formal setting. Although, they were hardly the formal gatherings we have today. They were usually rowdy, hectic audiences ... very similar to rock concerts that we have now.

"Classical" music refers to a certain genre and time period between Haydn/Mozart and Beethoven (about 1750 to 1820 or so).

The difference is in the capitalization of the letter "c." Of course you can't hear the difference in spoken language. So you have to take what the speaker is saying in the context of the conversation. If you are talking specifically about Mozart or Haydn or early Beethoven then you are probably talking about "Classical" music. If you are talking about all composers then you are talking about "classical" music.

I love the English language.

roachboy

interesting thread.
when i saw the title, i immediately thought it was about "art songs" or leider, the type of vocal music composed for bourgeois parlors during the ninetheenth century that tended to be technically too difficult for most parlor players to either play or sing. but maybe not, as it turns out.

i listen to alot of "classical" music--mostly contemporary stuff, which strangely starts with schoenberg more or less and moves forward in time from there. schoenberg, webern, stockhausen, cage, morton feldman, james tenney, la monte young etc...
i listen to some earlier stuff as well. my preferences include palestrina, bach, some earlier orchestral music---not a fan of most 19th century orchestral music, particulay not of wagner, mostly because i do not think he knew how to write for horns but insisted on using them anyway.

i also listen to alot of "out" or "experimental" jazz--which really functions to make the category "classical" problematic--there is little difference between, say, what roscoe mitchell is doing and classical music except that mitchell is african american....it is interesting--classical performance royalties are paid at a higher rate then those of jazz composers. it kinda makes you wonder about these categories.

i read music but in the main find traditional notation useless for the type of music i am involved with. i am interested in graphic compositions, particularly in cornelius cardew's "treatise"--verbal scores as well. most of what i am involved with uses extended techniques that are not describable in conventional notation terms, and processes that run counter to euro-ideology of "legitimate" music, so there we are.

i am not a particular fan of opera. i dont like european classical vocal conventions in general.

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flat5

I'm a jazz musician by trade. I go to sleep listening to classical or jazz.
I have never been interested in pop or rock.
My listening is selective and mostly concentrated. I listen.
I know nothing about the other arts, or sports :-) I do like movies though.

tspikes51

Yes, I like opera. Yes, I listen to classical music. Yes I can read music in several different forms, standard notation, string tabalature, and solfege hand signals to name a few (some I do much better at than others). I do agree that most people think that classical music sucks (or think it's boring) because it is old. Then you have the other end of the spectrum that thinks that all new things suck, and only listen to music that most university music programs have coursework for (jazz and classical). That's just as bad. All music is legitimate.

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mikeylips

I've heard from "classical" solo artists that when you make a recording, if you break even that's doing really well. Most of the time by the time they pay everyone they end up losing money. Thank God we still have people who will record this kind of music despite the fact that there is basically no money in it (unless you are a huge recording artist like Wynton Marsalis for example) otherwise students like myself would fall short on study materials. Even with the amount of recordings there are out there I still come across solo literature that has never been recorded.

ubertuber

This is true - that is why there has been a sharp decline in the amount of recording work done by orchestras. Record labels are starting to commit only to projects that haven't been done and overdone. Hopefully this will lead to fewer Beethoven Symphony cycles and more from interesting new composers.

To reply to the original question, I listen to classical, I play classical, and I can read music. My interests have gotten too broad to pick favorites, but I did just get a couple of new CDs of John Adams' music. I'm pretty impressed with his stuff.

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loonatic8her

Art Music??? ok now we have a new word for classical. While I very much appreciate classical I do not listen to it by choice. I find it uninteresting.... to me Art music is beautiful music... for that style of music I tend to listen to... Sting - Nothing Like The Sun or maybe Nora Jones... something like that.

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brinkn1

I can read music, though not very well. I really don't listen to much classical music because I'm more interested in what current artists are making/what boundaries they are pushing. But since you said 'art music' I assume that includes contemporary artists as well as classical.

I've been listening to a LOT of Godspeed You Black Emporer lately, and they are simply put, amazing. Sprawling instrumentals convey despair, defiance, and dissatisfaction with epic proportions. I've been obsessed with a few post-punk bands too - Blonde Redhead, Autolux, Sonic Youth. Would you consider those 'art music'?

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onodrim

I'm a music major (vocal performance), so I obviously listen to loads of art music. I can also read music, and along with singing I play the piano and trumpet.

I think it would be nice to have more discussion of art music (and you used the term just fine, so don't worry ) on this board, it's just difficult to come up with discussion topics I think.

Some of my favorite composers are Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovich, and pretty much any of the Russian crowd, but Rimsky-Korsakov in particular. Of more modern composers, I'm a big fan of John Cage and George Crumb, and pretty much anything that Kornos Quartet plays.

Sadly, I've never seen a live performance of an opera at a professional level. I'm currently in a production of Mozart's <i>The Magic Flute</i> if that counts for anything.

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K-Wise

^ Thats awesome

Asta!!

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"I love music and it's my parents fault (closing statement)." - Me..quoting myself...from when I said that...On TFP..thats here...Tilted Forum Project

It ain't goodbye, it's see ya later! I'll miss you guys! - Asta!!

sirfunk

Heh, well i listen to classical all the time, I go to school for Music Ed. My main instrument is String bass.. at the moment i'm listening to Gary Karr play Rachmaninov's Vocalise

Suave

I listen to a bit of classical, and I used to be able to read music. If you gave me a piano, a piano book, and 10 minutes I'm sure I could remind myself how.

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Lak

I dig Tchaikovsky, and Bach, to name a couple, but I don't really have any classical stuff as part of my regular listening.

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lukethebandgeek

I would not consider anything that comes out of the popular music realm to be art music. You see, popular music is simple and easy to listen to because it uses simple harmony, and lyrics that people can "relate to." Art music is made by people who understand the complexities of rhythm, harmony, counterpoint and form.

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So I like Chrono... So what?

warrrreagl

Very, very cool. Which part?

Do we all get comp tickets?

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jonjon42

recently I played some gustav holsts with a group. Some wonderful stuff really.
I get exposed to alot of the more cutting edge avant gaurde art music. Some of it can be rather aweful but alot is rather good. (As long as I don't have to sit through the 500 year symphony.)
of course.. my favorite composer will always be Stravinsky.
He is probably one of the two people on my musical pedestal...
him and John Lennon...

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onodrim

Well I'm just in the chorus, so it's not a big deal. I think I might get a few comp tickets, but those are gonna have to go for my parents. But since it's just a University production, I think the ticket cost is only a few dollars anyway.

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"The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides"
-Carl Sagan

braindamage351

Wow. I generally prefer classical ("art music") to popular music, but that's just wrong. Although there may not be many, there are a bunch of bands who's best albums are just as good as any of the best classical music. And they're flat out better than almost all contemporary composers.