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It will be interesting to see how they define "classical" — Does it include only Western art music? Does it include only music from the Baroque and after? What

It will be interesting to see how they define "classical" — Does it include only Western art music? Does it include only music from the Baroque and after? What about Perotin? Does it include classical musical traditions from non-western musics? Does it include folk musics? How about modern movements like 'musique concrète' or avant-garde jazz? How about instrumental film scores? Anime film scores?

alkonaut 4y ago
The need for this is because of metadata, not genre really. Something that works in the artist/album/track format has no need for it, and something that doesn't adhere to the composer/orchestra/recording/etc format of metadata and organization that classical uses, also doesn't fit very well. Classical film scores are definitely good fits, because they have composers and there exists multiple recordings done by different orchestras and so on. It may be that some categories of music that aren't traditional western classical will fit right in, and might be put here instead of in the regular Apple Music, who knows. But mainly, this is just a way of finally recognizing that Artist/Album/Track doesn't work and never worked for classical, so it's a way of correctly organizing/browsing/consuming classical music.
- klodolph 4y ago
  This is exactly it—it’s the metadata problem. The question is not “how do we draw the line between classical music and non-classical music”, but how do we fix the problem of sorting / organizing music that has a known composer and multiple recordings by different musicians / orchestras. Even though people play covers in popular music styles, people rarely care about organizing the music that way. I don’t think, “I want to hear Yesterday” and then look up a list of covers. But I do think, “I want to listen to Rite of Spring” and then look up a list of recordings. Even though composers are a big deal in Jazz, I still usually care more about the performer. Most of the time, I’m not going to ask the computer for a list of Autumn Leaves recordings.
  - contravariant 4y ago
    Seems to me that the metadata problem inevitably becomes prominent over time. Good luck trying to find all music composed or performed by George Harrison for instance. And some musicians do rerecord popular songs, which means you've got several different performances of the same thing. This isn't even that rare with live albums. I mean sure for the most recent pop music it won't be a problem, but that's a very narrow window of time.
niek_pas 4y ago
An interesting question for sure. I think film scores tend to have one canonical recording, which sets them apart from other 'classical' music in which the interpretating performer is of high importance. But it's always going to be a blurry line, and arbitrary choices will need to be made.
golergka 4y ago
I think that reasonable approach would be to include all music that has been published as sheet music first and foremost and where there is no one canonical recording that renders all other recordings to be mere tributes.
giraffe_lady 4y ago
Lol yeah exactly. I do think it kinda makes sense, because classical music listening is more oriented around certain performances by specific musicians, rather than the piece itself, which normal music platforms aren't well suited for. But that isn't quite unique to classical, which as you've pointed out is going to be a denotational quagmire and almost certain to piss people off. Hopefully they take the dumbly funny but also appropriate approach of just also putting jam bands, gospel and dj sets in there, which share this performance-orientation with classical music.
- niek_pas 4y ago
  To add to this good point — jazz is another genre where the performer is hugely important.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Yeah for sure. I didn't mention it because there's a lot of overlap between jazz and classical listeners so probably some awareness of that already. And both groups tend to think highly of their own tastes in my experience; I wanted to draw attention to this being a broadly shared characteristic of many types of music completely orthogonal to how "sophisticated" it is.

alkonaut 4y ago

The need for this is because of metadata, not genre really. Something that works in the artist/album/track format has no need for it, and something that doesn't adhere to the composer/orchestra/recording/etc format of metadata and organization that classical uses, also doesn't fit very well. Classical film scores are definitely good fits, because they have composers and there exists multiple recordings done by different orchestras and so on. It may be that some categories of music that aren't traditional western classical will fit right in, and might be put here instead of in the regular Apple Music, who knows. But mainly, this is just a way of finally recognizing that Artist/Album/Track doesn't work and never worked for classical, so it's a way of correctly organizing/browsing/consuming classical music.

klodolph 4y ago
This is exactly it—it’s the metadata problem. The question is not “how do we draw the line between classical music and non-classical music”, but how do we fix the problem of sorting / organizing music that has a known composer and multiple recordings by different musicians / orchestras. Even though people play covers in popular music styles, people rarely care about organizing the music that way. I don’t think, “I want to hear Yesterday” and then look up a list of covers. But I do think, “I want to listen to Rite of Spring” and then look up a list of recordings. Even though composers are a big deal in Jazz, I still usually care more about the performer. Most of the time, I’m not going to ask the computer for a list of Autumn Leaves recordings.
- contravariant 4y ago
  Seems to me that the metadata problem inevitably becomes prominent over time. Good luck trying to find all music composed or performed by George Harrison for instance. And some musicians do rerecord popular songs, which means you've got several different performances of the same thing. This isn't even that rare with live albums. I mean sure for the most recent pop music it won't be a problem, but that's a very narrow window of time.

niek_pas 4y ago

An interesting question for sure. I think film scores tend to have one canonical recording, which sets them apart from other 'classical' music in which the interpretating performer is of high importance. But it's always going to be a blurry line, and arbitrary choices will need to be made.

golergka 4y ago

I think that reasonable approach would be to include all music that has been published as sheet music first and foremost and where there is no one canonical recording that renders all other recordings to be mere tributes.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

Lol yeah exactly. I do think it kinda makes sense, because classical music listening is more oriented around certain performances by specific musicians, rather than the piece itself, which normal music platforms aren't well suited for. But that isn't quite unique to classical, which as you've pointed out is going to be a denotational quagmire and almost certain to piss people off. Hopefully they take the dumbly funny but also appropriate approach of just also putting jam bands, gospel and dj sets in there, which share this performance-orientation with classical music.

niek_pas 4y ago
To add to this good point — jazz is another genre where the performer is hugely important.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  Yeah for sure. I didn't mention it because there's a lot of overlap between jazz and classical listeners so probably some awareness of that already. And both groups tend to think highly of their own tastes in my experience; I wanted to draw attention to this being a broadly shared characteristic of many types of music completely orthogonal to how "sophisticated" it is.