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I always feel like this question begs this elitist perspective on progress and art. I don’t hate classical music, but I also don’t deify it. Classical jazz, o

I always feel like this question begs this elitist perspective on progress and art. I don’t hate classical music, but I also don’t deify it. Classical jazz, other forms of “art” music, they’re great, and maybe they do reflect some kind of intellectual pinnacle, but as someone who was a big clubbed in my youth, I don’t see how sitting in a concert hall in a 3 piece suit is a more peak human experience than sweating and grooving in a dance hall. I would like to see some fusion, I like longer works, concept albums, I’d really like to see more of it in modern aesthetics. I keep meditating on the phrase synthwave symphony for my next project.

JodieBenitez 2y ago
Synthwave symphony... interesting. Try a Perturbator album maybe ?
EGreg 2y ago
Fusion, behold: https://www.bso.org/pops/about/history https://www.bso.org/pops/about/history NY Pops is here too
graycat 2y ago
The concert hall environment used to be a practical approach to hearing the music, now is a traditional approach, but due to technology of the past 50-100 years is no longer needed. I'm a super+++ fan of classical music from a little before Bach through Wagner and some since him. E.g., the end of the Republican National Convention had a live performance of Nessum Dorma with none of the environment, e.g., the singer was not on the main stage. I like classical music as art with the definition "communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion", and according to that definition to me that music has some astounding examples. For Bach, okay, at one point I wanted to convert over from listening to the music to playing some of it, got a violin (easier to carry than a piano), some lessons (Indiana University, where I was a math grad student, with a terrific music school) and got through most of the famous E major Partita and, transposed up for violin, the famous cello piece. Both are very popular sometimes in surprising circumstances, e.g., the cello piece was used in an ad selling bathtubs! Tough to put either piece into words, but a rough attempt is: They start with something simple, not very emotional, but suggesting someone beginning something challenging. Then the pieces move forward with some changes in different parts of the scale but with the rhythm slowly changing as if the person's experience was progressing, developing, but in a way that was close to clockwork, maybe driven, no big interruptions or distractions, even irresistible and inevitable. But in both cases the development leads to a climax of some success or, for the cello piece, some grand success. Well, from that a listener can conclude that they are not the only one progressing on some situation that has some irresistible challenge and ending with a victory. The grand case of this, in words, roughly, moving ahead on a challenge, having a sweet, happy victory (2/3rds of the way through), having a catharsis after the victory, and then slowly reaching a deeply understood resolution is, of course, the Chaconne. It was written for solo violin but is taken seriously in transcriptions for piano and full orchestra -- there is a good Stokowski performance; he seems to really understand the music and presents a good, expressive version. So, I like the music for the effectiveness of the art. Uh, in summary, to write music like, as good as, Bach's have to write not just in his style but with comparable effectiveness in his art. The tough part is the art, not just the style.
- techostritch 2y ago
  I’m glad classical music has done this for you. I’ve always heard of people appreciating the an ability of music to tell a story, and I’ve wondered if it would make my music better if I used a story as inspiration, and maybe this is the post modernist in me, but I’ve always appreciated music as a form that expressed something you couldn’t put into words, even as you’ve expressed here, the narrative is fairly simple, isn’t there a much richer je ne sais Quias or spirit behind the music? In which case I’ve never really gotten the richest version of that from classical.
coldtea 2y ago
>I don’t see how sitting in a concert hall in a 3 piece suit is a more peak human experience than sweating and grooving in a dance hall. Don't know about peak, but sure sounds like a more cultured, intellectual, and refined human experience.
- somedude895 2y ago
  Equating sitting for 90 minutes focusing on a single thing with a single or maybe two senses to jerking your limbs along to droning sounds in a dark room surrounded by drunk people is pure cultural nihilism. Sounds harsh, but that kind of thinking just makes me sad.
  - techostritch 2y ago
    I’m curious why it makes you sad? I feel exactly the opposite. Dancing is an old cultural tradition that has meditative and spiritual qualities. What about that is cultural nihilism. Or maybe I just don’t think cultural nihilism is a bad thing?
    - coldtea 2y ago
      As an American you're raised not to think cultural nihilism as a bad thing. And have been exporting this nihilism to Europe for several decades :)
- techostritch 2y ago
  I had to second guess myself because I don’t know if I really know what cultured means, but Apparently the dictionary definition of the word cultured is “produced under artificial conditions” so I would say I agree with you. Can’t argue with refined. Probably won’t reasonably argue with intellectual, but then again I think I don’t know that I think that I get into art for intellectual reasons exactly, I would describe them as spiritual reasons.

JodieBenitez 2y ago

Synthwave symphony... interesting. Try a Perturbator album maybe ?

EGreg 2y ago

Fusion, behold: https://www.bso.org/pops/about/history https://www.bso.org/pops/about/history NY Pops is here too

graycat 2y ago

The concert hall environment used to be a practical approach to hearing the music, now is a traditional approach, but due to technology of the past 50-100 years is no longer needed. I'm a super+++ fan of classical music from a little before Bach through Wagner and some since him. E.g., the end of the Republican National Convention had a live performance of Nessum Dorma with none of the environment, e.g., the singer was not on the main stage. I like classical music as art with the definition "communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion", and according to that definition to me that music has some astounding examples. For Bach, okay, at one point I wanted to convert over from listening to the music to playing some of it, got a violin (easier to carry than a piano), some lessons (Indiana University, where I was a math grad student, with a terrific music school) and got through most of the famous E major Partita and, transposed up for violin, the famous cello piece. Both are very popular sometimes in surprising circumstances, e.g., the cello piece was used in an ad selling bathtubs! Tough to put either piece into words, but a rough attempt is: They start with something simple, not very emotional, but suggesting someone beginning something challenging. Then the pieces move forward with some changes in different parts of the scale but with the rhythm slowly changing as if the person's experience was progressing, developing, but in a way that was close to clockwork, maybe driven, no big interruptions or distractions, even irresistible and inevitable. But in both cases the development leads to a climax of some success or, for the cello piece, some grand success. Well, from that a listener can conclude that they are not the only one progressing on some situation that has some irresistible challenge and ending with a victory. The grand case of this, in words, roughly, moving ahead on a challenge, having a sweet, happy victory (2/3rds of the way through), having a catharsis after the victory, and then slowly reaching a deeply understood resolution is, of course, the Chaconne. It was written for solo violin but is taken seriously in transcriptions for piano and full orchestra -- there is a good Stokowski performance; he seems to really understand the music and presents a good, expressive version. So, I like the music for the effectiveness of the art. Uh, in summary, to write music like, as good as, Bach's have to write not just in his style but with comparable effectiveness in his art. The tough part is the art, not just the style.

techostritch 2y ago
I’m glad classical music has done this for you. I’ve always heard of people appreciating the an ability of music to tell a story, and I’ve wondered if it would make my music better if I used a story as inspiration, and maybe this is the post modernist in me, but I’ve always appreciated music as a form that expressed something you couldn’t put into words, even as you’ve expressed here, the narrative is fairly simple, isn’t there a much richer je ne sais Quias or spirit behind the music? In which case I’ve never really gotten the richest version of that from classical.

coldtea 2y ago

>I don’t see how sitting in a concert hall in a 3 piece suit is a more peak human experience than sweating and grooving in a dance hall. Don't know about peak, but sure sounds like a more cultured, intellectual, and refined human experience.

somedude895 2y ago
Equating sitting for 90 minutes focusing on a single thing with a single or maybe two senses to jerking your limbs along to droning sounds in a dark room surrounded by drunk people is pure cultural nihilism. Sounds harsh, but that kind of thinking just makes me sad.
- techostritch 2y ago
  I’m curious why it makes you sad? I feel exactly the opposite. Dancing is an old cultural tradition that has meditative and spiritual qualities. What about that is cultural nihilism. Or maybe I just don’t think cultural nihilism is a bad thing?
  - coldtea 2y ago
    As an American you're raised not to think cultural nihilism as a bad thing. And have been exporting this nihilism to Europe for several decades :)
techostritch 2y ago
I had to second guess myself because I don’t know if I really know what cultured means, but Apparently the dictionary definition of the word cultured is “produced under artificial conditions” so I would say I agree with you. Can’t argue with refined. Probably won’t reasonably argue with intellectual, but then again I think I don’t know that I think that I get into art for intellectual reasons exactly, I would describe them as spiritual reasons.