I think classical music takes a rather elitist and pretentious attitude toward their white male german composers. I think classical music is ok, but there is nothing special. Its too outdated, and music has evolved past the point that classical music is neccessary. We should be studying more recent music, like pink floyd since its universally liked and though a bit old, still follows modern music concepts. We could also study lil ______ or justin beiber music, or death, or anything recent that follows musical concepts that still are being used.
Classical is good stuff, but I find that I have to be in the mood for it and I'm not in the mood for it often. I go years between throwing on my Debussy or Tchaikovsky CDs. If you want to really up your game as a composer, you really should listen to some classical because all those 'great' European composers really were great composers.
But I hear you Lopyt. Classical isn't for the masses. It's for those who know music deeply and can appreciate all of its finest points. I just feel that music is a communication of feelings and emotions, and it's about connecting with people, and the masses (who may greatly enjoy music) will never appreciate it on its deepest levels like say Mozart or Beethoven did - and there's nothing wrong with that. That's why I love pop music. It's the best way to connect with as many people as possible.
Getting back to Chopin, it seemed that 88 keys wasn't enough for him, running 64th notes up and down and all over his tumultuous dark twisted minor left hand and a frenetic pace. It's very impressive, but as you say, it gets old fast.
I remixed the remix. Now it's back to normal. ~Mitch Hedberg
07-17-2021, 11:51 AM (This post was last modified: 07-17-2021, 11:56 AM by Lopyt.)
No thats not what I'm saying. There is nothing special about classical composing. I fail to see how it reaches 'deeper levels of composing' that jazz, metal,prog rock do not. It completely lacks any respect for mixing because that didn't exist back then. There are no effects to apply to the music, it is strictly about the notes. Music is much more than just notes. That places skrillex, drake, justin bieber, and pretty much anyone since the 1960s at deeper dimensions than classical.
If you care so deeply about music use it creatively, use different parts of different style of different songs to make a song that is creative and interesting, not repeat something another guy wrote hundreds of years ago that isn't really innovative or creative. Music is not as it was back then, and those composers aren't really that great anymore. This is the elitism that I'm talking about. Most people say classical is great, but they never listen to it,and I can definitely find more reasons why drake or black eyed peas or pink flpyd or led zeppelin or metallica or death or skrillex or plini, etc. are superior, in terms of musical ideas, innovation, sound design, creativity and even technicality sometimes, yet few reasons why classical is still even relevant. Music has evolved, its no longer about playing fast on a piano. Music is a creative art and should be treated as such.
(07-17-2021, 11:51 AM)Lopyt Wrote: No thats not what I'm saying. There is nothing special about classical composing. I fail to see how it reaches 'deeper levels of composing' that jazz, metal,prog rock do not. It completely lacks any respect for mixing because that didn't exist back then. There are no effects to apply to the music, it is strictly about the notes. Music is much more than just notes. That places skrillex, drake, justin bieber, and pretty much anyone since the 1960s at deeper dimensions than classical.
If you care so deeply about music use it creatively, use different parts of different style of different songs to make a song that is creative and interesting, not repeat something another guy wrote hundreds of years ago that isn't really innovative or creative. Music is not as it was back then, and those composers aren't really that great anymore. This is the elitism that I'm talking about. Most people say classical is great, but they never listen to it,and I can definitely find more reasons why drake or black eyed peas or pink flpyd or led zeppelin or metallica or death or skrillex or plini, etc. are superior, in terms of musical ideas, innovation, sound design, creativity and even technicality sometimes, yet few reasons why classical is still even relevant. Music has evolved, its no longer about playing fast on a piano. Music is a creative art and should be treated as such.
NOTHING special? Not deep? You're not listening. I understand that classical can be difficult to listen to because it is often quite abstract (certainly when compared to modern simple pop).
And you just spent nearly an hour in chat today waving away ALL of my arguments about pop music, simply dismissing them as matter of taste. I have already stated above that classical is not my fave go to listening choice, far from it, but I do appreciate the depth and intricacies of it and the high level of composition and structure in it which far outweighs pretty much anything in our billboard hot 100 in the last 20 years. I can admire it on its merits DESPITE my tastes.
No mixing in classical???? Are you nuts? There's a 57 piece orchestra, each piece often with its own charts. Arrangements galore, all playing dynamically. Comparing dynamics between classical and modern pop is laughable. Dynamics are rampant in classical, pretty much non-existent in today's pop. Today we crush the headroom out of everything. And dynamics is the FIRST and most important basic building block of mixing often overlooked, which parts are quieter and which parts are louder, that was how mixing was born with simple mic placement. Classical composers didn't have that but they still mixed. What do you think all the p<f 's were on the charts? That's mixing. Yes they didn't have multitracks and effects, but they had acoustics and dynamics, which means that they actually still got the job done WITH LESS! Mixing a 57 piece orchestra with nothing but pen and paper is an order of magnitude harder than a drum beat a bassline, a guitar or two, some vocals and some effects, yet they still did it 400 years ago masterfully.
You can't seriously argue that Bieber with his chopped up vocal over a looped beat and two chords for three and a half minutes is deeper than Beethoven. Cardi B is worse, she doesn't even have chords in half of her stuff just a 3 note bassline.
Not relevant? So many people on this site in particular love video game music. There's tons of cool video game music out there, but what is the most famous and beloved video game music of all? Tetris. That's Tchaikovsky, so he's VERY relevant - directly relevant, even today.
And finally Chopin may be about playing fast on a piano, but he is only one composer. He's the minority. There's far far FAR more to classical than shred piano. Listen to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, a beautiful piece of chordscape, a slow arpeggio with subtle changes and dramatic dynamics.
Lopyt, you tell everyone good advice almost daily, you say 'listen to something you don't like, and try to write in a style that you don't like, you'll learn something'. I'll give you that same advice. You don't have to like classical (that's never what this debate has been about), but you're not doing yourself any favors dismissing it outright as not relevant. Listen to some Beethoven for an afternoon. You will learn stuff, about arrangements, dynamics, changes, themes. Even if they are too abstract for casual listening, they ARE master compositions.
I remixed the remix. Now it's back to normal. ~Mitch Hedberg
"NOTHING special? Not deep? You're not listening. I understand that classical can be difficult to listen to because it is often quite abstract (certainly when compared to modern simple pop)."
Tell me what makes it any better??
"And you just spent nearly an hour in chat today waving away ALL of my arguments about pop music, simply dismissing them as matter of taste. I have already stated above that classical is not my fave go to listening choice, far from it, but I do appreciate the depth and intricacies of it and the high level of composition and structure in it which far outweighs pretty much anything in our billboard hot 100 in the last 20 years. I can admire it on its merits DESPITE my tastes."
Again modern music is much more deep because its about the sound, ratger than just the notes.
"No mixing in classical???? Are you nuts? There's a 57 piece orchestra, each piece often with its own charts. Arrangements galore, all playing dynamically. Comparing dynamics between classical and modern pop is laughable. Dynamics are rampant in classical, pretty much non-existent in today's pop. Today we crush the headroom out of everything. And dynamics is the FIRST and most important basic building block of mixing often overlooked, which parts are quieter and which parts are louder, that was how mixing was born with simple mic placement. Classical composers didn't have that but they still mixed. What do you think all the p<f 's were on the charts? That's mixing. Yes they didn't have multitracks and effects, but they had acoustics and dynamics, which means that they actually still got the job done WITH LESS! Mixing a 57 piece orchestra with nothing but pen and paper is an order of magnitude harder than a drum beat a bassline, a guitar or two, some vocals and some effects, yet they still did it 400 years ago masterfully."
And yet most of the instruments blend together because its heavy on the reverb and no mixing. Modern music has different kinds of dynamics than just volume, when you think about modern music with a classical perspective it falls apart because ITS NOT CLASSICAL. Mixing is about making instruments more clear, something classical really doesn't do well. There are many more layers of synths and guitars in recordings than you think, everything is carefully placed exactly where it should be in the song, and in the sound. Its actually quite impressive how they get it all to work. Headroom was crushed out of stuff sometimes in that loudness war thing, and it is pretty noticable om some albums, like Death Magnetic, but I think music is beyond the point where loudness dynamics give a song their structure. The truth is that we have more ways of accomplishing the same goals, classical was really limited and their ways of accomplishing dynamics were also limited,but these days we can use much more and that reall helps boost the creativity of music. Music is a creative art,not a science. It doesn't need to be defined by a very specific set of rules, like classical music theory. We are beyond the point that is relevant. Think about death metal, think about techno, think about rap. Most of those songs don't even have melody or harmony, instead focusing on rhythmic and timbral dynamics to convey chamge in the song. Pop uses all three. Think of the REASON why they used tempo changes and volume changes back then, npt what they did but why they did it .
"You can't seriously argue that Bieber with his chopped up vocal over a looped beat and two chords for three and a half minutes is deeper than Beethoven. Cardi B is worse, she doesn't even have chords in half of her stuff just a 3 note bassline."
I most certainly can. You can say bad things about any style of music, and I'll do it to all genres if you want me to. That criticism usually is HEAVILY biased by our taste though. The genre isn't what makes songs bad. Chopped vocals aren't really a problem since music is recorded these days, not preformed as much. The goal is to make it sound as good as possible, so chopping a few vocal takes doesn't really mean anything, just makes production take less time. A lot of classical recordings are chopped up as hell too, especially old piano ones, where there can be more than 500 takes per song. Chords aren't necessary either, look at every metal song ever,look at techno, look at dubstep, etc. We don't need chords anymore since we have more tools to achieve the same results that classical artists were trying to achieve.
"Not relevant? So many people on this site in particular love video game music. There's tons of cool video game music out there, but what is the most famous and beloved video game music of all? Tetris. That's Tchaikovsky, so he's VERY relevant - directly relevant, even today."
Thats only because classical music lovers are elitists often, and while agree that classical does have influence today, that is mostly because thats all the education system for music likes to teach for music classes. Sad isn't it? Yes some people do like classical today and I myself like a lot of it, but I think its history, outdated, not relevant due to the lack of technology and science about audio and waves and that kind of stuff.
"And finally Chopin may be about playing fast on a piano, but he is only one composer. He's the minority. There's far far FAR more to classical than shred piano. Listen to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, a beautiful piece of chordscape, a slow arpeggio with subtle changes and dramatic dynamics."
Moonlight Sonata sounds like the generic slow music they play in ads or TV shows because its really simple and sounds sad, and doesn't really get in the way of the show while conveying that this scene means sadness. You can do a lot more with sad though. I don't listen to a lot of rap, so I don't know many examples for that, but there is a pop song that goes like "once I was seven years old" or something that does sound very sad also, there are many metal songs that sound sad, an album I recommend is My Arms, Your Hearse. There are skrillex songs that sound sad. There are cpuntry songs that sound sad. You can use emotion in any genre really but you don't really need to.
I am not sayng classical music is too abstract for modern listeners at all. I would say that about metal and jazz more than I would say that about classical. I am saying that its very shallow for the lack of technical and scientifical advancement over hundreds of years that makes it very outdated and shallow compared to music of today. It is objectively worse than modern music because of that. There is less creativity. There is a religious mindset of the people.of the day. There are many factors to why it is worse, and thats ok. It would suck if after hundreds of years, our music hasn't gotten any better, but the truth is, it has gotten better!
You are just looking at one side of a very complex object that is music. Think outside the box of classical and see the world of music as it is! A complicated creative expression of art, that isn't limited to rules, but by technology.
I have a feeling music will eventually be written by algorithms, and thats fine by me, people are still going to put a lot of effort into getting those algorithms to make music they want, and it will be interesting and great.
(07-17-2021, 07:36 PM)Lopyt Wrote: Let me just point out that you didn't really tell me why classical music is great in your message, just that "I cannot deny that it is"
I told you all kinds of stuff, read it again. I'm not going to be your broken record if you refuse to read.
But I will say this: you say that you can say bad critical things about any genre of music. I say that I don't criticise genres. There are no bad genres. Each genre has good and bad. I only criticise bad music. There's tons of great pop music out there. None of it is on our commercial radio these days. I've never ever once claimed that one genre is better than another. I'm not so foolish as to claim that pop is superior to classical or anything else, nor that classical is superior to pop or country or rap or jazz or anything else because there are no bad genres.
And you're the one calling me narrow-minded all afternoon.
Although if you want to cite elitism, jazz is the snootiest BY FAR. I can't stand the attitudes of half the jazz players out there (I've met many, have one in the family). Doesn't mean that the genre is bad, but there is a thick arrogance in the room at most jazz shows that flows off the stage. I can agree that there are some classical FANS out there who are elite about it, but you can't fault the genre just for the attitude of some of its listeners. That's like saying that AC/DC sucks because many of their hooligan fans throw ***** at the opening act trying to boo them off stage. That's not AC/DC's fault and certainly has nothing to do with their music. Neither do snooty music teachers have anything to do with the work of the classical composers of the last 400-500 years. That's a completely invalid argument.
I remixed the remix. Now it's back to normal. ~Mitch Hedberg
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