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>Today, most young people encounter classical music not as a popular art form but as a class signifier, a set of tropes in a larger system of encoded communicat

>Today, most young people encounter classical music not as a popular art form but as a class signifier, a set of tropes in a larger system of encoded communication that commercial enterprises have exploited to remap our societal associations with orchestral sound. Most young people? I'd venture that most children who attend US public school encounter classical music in K-5 at some point. >The average American does not recognize the opening chords of The Four Seasons as the sound of spring but the sound of snobbery. Rolled my eyes here. We're talking about Burger King, not a country club. Edit: I disagree with the conclusion but the article is pretty interesting with the history of 'weaponized' classical music.

internetman55 8y ago
+1 I heard the whole four seasons in middle school and we analyzed them
jpmoyn 8y ago
The point they are making is that most of America is turned off by classical and baroque music. Whether or not most children encountered it in school is less relevant than the fact that most children don't like it. I think the same could be said about the average American. I don't think the people who browse hacker news are the average American.
- kpil 8y ago
  My theory is that classical music is so much complex so you literally have to level up your musical listening skills to make any sense of it. Also they dynamics is different, typically a piece is building up some sort of context that adds to the experience - even more so than modern music - if you get home and someone blasts the final parts of a symphony on the stereo, it's easily perceived as just a cacophony of irritating tunes. It might have been enjoyable if you had been listening from the beginning. It seems to me that a lot of recent songs reduce complexity even further - It seems common now with songs that are basically just a repeating theme with minor variations. I'm not saying it's bad, but it doesn't really require much effort to understand the structure, and it probably makes classical music seem even more alien.
megaman22 8y ago
The only time I ever had music class in school was K-5. It was a lot of standing in a row singing out of terrible song books and playing Hot Cross Buns on the recorder. That rather understandably soured most of us on music. Classical music would have been a far more stimulating exposure.
- kolpa 8y ago
  Playing Beethoven's 5th on a recorder might not have been any better.
electricslpnsld 8y ago
>Today, most young people encounter classical music not as a popular art form but as a class signifier I'd wager that most people encounter classical music whenever John Williams lifts Dvorak/Holst/etc.
vixen99 8y ago
Reminded of Shaw's Devil in Man and Superman: "At every one of those concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. Well, there is the same thing in heaven. A number of people sit there in glory, not because they are happy, but because they think they owe it to their position to be in heaven. "

internetman55 8y ago

+1 I heard the whole four seasons in middle school and we analyzed them

jpmoyn 8y ago

The point they are making is that most of America is turned off by classical and baroque music. Whether or not most children encountered it in school is less relevant than the fact that most children don't like it. I think the same could be said about the average American. I don't think the people who browse hacker news are the average American.

kpil 8y ago
My theory is that classical music is so much complex so you literally have to level up your musical listening skills to make any sense of it. Also they dynamics is different, typically a piece is building up some sort of context that adds to the experience - even more so than modern music - if you get home and someone blasts the final parts of a symphony on the stereo, it's easily perceived as just a cacophony of irritating tunes. It might have been enjoyable if you had been listening from the beginning. It seems to me that a lot of recent songs reduce complexity even further - It seems common now with songs that are basically just a repeating theme with minor variations. I'm not saying it's bad, but it doesn't really require much effort to understand the structure, and it probably makes classical music seem even more alien.

megaman22 8y ago

The only time I ever had music class in school was K-5. It was a lot of standing in a row singing out of terrible song books and playing Hot Cross Buns on the recorder. That rather understandably soured most of us on music. Classical music would have been a far more stimulating exposure.

kolpa 8y ago
Playing Beethoven's 5th on a recorder might not have been any better.

electricslpnsld 8y ago

>Today, most young people encounter classical music not as a popular art form but as a class signifier I'd wager that most people encounter classical music whenever John Williams lifts Dvorak/Holst/etc.

vixen99 8y ago

Reminded of Shaw's Devil in Man and Superman: "At every one of those concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. Well, there is the same thing in heaven. A number of people sit there in glory, not because they are happy, but because they think they owe it to their position to be in heaven. "