Audiences hate modern classical music because their brains cannot cope

[ibanezmonster]

And you say "an onslaught of sound that really has no kind of journey or musical narrative" as if it's a bad thing . . . .
http://www.youtube.com/v/4fWTc6_-90I

https://www.youtube.com/v/JuZiVf6oVDE

[Florestan]

You realize, of course, that when you stoop to ad hominems, you have conceded the argument.

Oh, please!

smug: having or showing the annoying quality of people who feel very pleased or satisfied with their abilities, achievements, etc.

supercilious: having or showing the proud and unpleasant attitude of people who think that they are better or more important than other people.

Exhibit A:

What struck me most reading through the entire thread, gasoline-soaked handkerchief to my nose, of course, was what a cloth-eared dunderhead this "audience" entity is, to be sure.

Exhibit B:

a group of people with practically no skills who are terminally stupid as a group and who should never go to concerts or buy CDs because listening to music is such a foreign thing for them.

Exhibit C:

that category, which includes way more people(!) than the "audience" category, doesn't seem to include very much intelligence or perceptivity, either.

Exhibit D:

Defining a group by its most inept members seems a trifle off to me.

I rest my case.

I am not saying that I think that audiences, which consist of people with few or no listening skills, are daft, nor am I saying that people with few or no listening skills are daft.

Maybe, but you formulated it in such a way that two other posters beside me inferred exactly that.

And what do you mean by listening skills? Skills are needed for car repairing and brain surgery; what skills does one need in order to get your skilled-listener stamp of approval?

the music itself, which probably shouldn't be valuated anyway but listened to.

Amen!

each individual listener will like some things and dislike others. But so what?

Amen again!

[Florestan]

If I decide that Music X isn't likely to reward the time spent in listening to it, that's not (necessarily) an unintelligent choice. Knowing myself tolerably well, it may in fact be an intelligent one: we all have limited time, and choices have to be made about how we might most profitably fill it.

Thread winner and (possibly) post of the year.

[Mandryka]

This is not a new problem. Many composers in the past earned their living mainly as performing musicians, not as composers.

I suppose a big difference now is that, with streaming, it's hard to make a living performing.

[some guy]

Florestan, before I respond I promise you that this will be my last word about the original post you're responding to.

First, yes, an ad hominem is an admission of failure insofar as it substitutes something about the person you're arguing with for a response to the argument itself.

Next, I know what the words "smug" and "supercilious" mean. Your dictionary definitions simply convey information I already have. All the rest of us, too. (The next step would be to show how my post exemplifies those two qualities, but that would be, I'm sure you realize, the same substitution as before.)

Otherwise, your exhibits consist entirely of conclusions I have drawn about the assumptions of the scientists and of some of the posters to this thread about the audience they're pretending to describe. None of them are my conclusions about the audience. Indeed, you and I very probably agree wholeheartedly that these characterizations of "the" audience are all entirely false and delusory and rude.

That's what makes the whole "scientific" endeavor and several of the GMG responses to it daft.

It is not the audience being stupid that is daft--the audience is not a monolith and so consists of several individuals with several levels of intelligence; it is the assumption by the scientists that the audience is both monolithic and stupid that is daft. And further, the scientists' lack of awareness that they have even made this particular assumption that is also a part of the daftness.

I would agree that the scientists and several of the GMG posters have certainly exhibited smugness and superciliousness in this characterization of "the" audience.

[Florestan]

Indeed, you and I very probably agree wholeheartedly that these characterizations of "the" audience are all entirely false and delusory and rude.

Yes, we do. Wholeheartedly, as you say.

It is not the audience being stupid that is daft--the audience is not a monolith and so consists of several individuals with several levels of intelligence; it is the assumption by the scientists that the audience is both monolithic and stupid that is daft.

We agree on that, too.

Okay, it´s obvious now that I and others have misunderstood you and inferred from your post a view which was not your own. I for one apoiogize, but you see, everytime I see a subset of classical music lovers labeled this or that just because they like or dislike this or that music I tend to go berserk. We all like what we like and it´s not a matter of coping or not coping, or skills or no skills, it´s a matter of personal taste, preferences  and personalities. We seem to agree on this point, too and I am relieved we do.

Friends?   0:)

[Karl Henning]

And so the question will always be the same: do you like what you hear?  The technique can be irrelevant to the listener.

+1

[Jo498]

One interesting thing is that "technique" is almost exclusively discussed in the context of Schoenberg and later. People throw around "atonal", "dodecaphonic" or "serial" without understanding what it means (in another forum someone once claimed Schreker and Zemlinsky were atonal, so it was hardly a wonder they were not as popular as Richard Strauss...).
Usually, those listeners have, of course, no clue about tonal techniques, harmony or counterpoint either.
They simply look for a label they can use to dismiss music they do not like. But why should technique suddenly matter in the 1920s whereas listeners can safely ignore it in music from the Renaissance, Bach, Beethoven or Brahms which is often as "technical" as e.g. dodecaphonic music.

If one does not like a certain piece or style of music, one should be free to say so. But not pretend to know anything about the connection of certain techniques and musical result. Especially people who cannot even play a scale on the recorder or piano.

[Florestan]

If one does not like a certain piece or style of music, one should be free to say so. But not pretend to know anything about the connection of certain techniques and musical result. Especially people who cannot even play a scale on the recorder or piano.

True, and it also applies to other styles: people who can´t play a scale on the recorder or piano often dismiss Mozart, or Haydn, or Boccherini, or you name it.

[Jo498]

But they usually do not claim that Boccherinis music is "bad because evil freemason 18th cent. musical technique" whereas they try to find a pseudo-objective foundation in their dismissal of some or all modern music (if one thinks Schreker or Hindemith are "atonal" one is obviously not fond of minute distinctions) with the dubious claim that it was based on some kind of maths and therefore "unmusical"

[Ken B]

Oh, please!

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

I rest my case.

Maybe, but you formulated it in such a way that two other posters beside me inferred exactly that.

And what do you mean by listening skills? Skills are needed for car repairing and brain surgery; what skills does one need in order to get your skilled-listener stamp of approval?

Amen!

Amen again!

Some guy, taking a break from abusing logic, is now abusing logical fallacies. Ad hominem is a fallacious form of argument, "you are a bad person hence your argument is wrong." Andrei did not do that. He made (insulting) observations about some guy's behavior and persona. Well justified ones IMO: the passages Andrei quotes certainly seems smug and supercilious to me.

[some guy]

Friends?   0:)

I very much hope so, yes!!

[Elgarian]

Friends?   0:)

I very much hope so, yes!!

Well ... I go away for a couple of days (really lovely days too), and I come back, and here are two of the most rewarding, entertaining, thought-provoking, articulate GMG posters, having had a jolly good energetic and noisy bar-room brawl about something I never quite understood in the first place, sunning themselves quietly together in the corner sharing a pot of tea and a bun. It does my heart good.

[Elgarian]

Oh, and I feel the same exact way about you Elgar's Violin Concerto as you do.

I know you do, John, I know you do. And it just so happens that yesterday I attended the most staggeringly-heartbreakingly-riveting performance of it that I've ever heard. But more about that in the Elgar thread in due course.

[lisa needs braces]

Don't worry, modernist composers will displace the ancient composers who are the bread and butter of orchestral seasons any day now.

Just you wait!

[some guy]

Yeah, just like Mozart displaced Bach and Beethoven displaced Mozart and Berlioz displaced Beethoven and Schumann displaced Berlioz and Tchaikovsky displaced Berlioz and Brahms displaced Tchaikovsky and Mahler displaced Tchaikovsky.

Yep. It's the old "there ain't enough room in this town for the two of us" theory of the arts. It's good for creating a lot of paranoia but not for much else.

[Ken B]

Yeah, just like Mozart displaced Bach and Beethoven displaced Mozart and Berlioz displaced Beethoven and Schumann displaced Berlioz and Tchaikovsky displaced Berlioz and Brahms displaced Tchaikovsky and Mahler displaced Tchaikovsky.

Yep. It's the old "there ain't enough room in this town for the two of us" theory of the arts. It's good for creating a lot of paranoia but not for much else.

Exactly. Forms may evolve over time but artists not so much.  The great ones are great with the materials of their time.  Offering times, different art,  good for us to have them all available.

[Elgarian]

Yeah, just like Mozart displaced Bach and Beethoven displaced Mozart and Berlioz displaced Beethoven and Schumann displaced Berlioz and Tchaikovsky displaced Berlioz and Brahms displaced Tchaikovsky and Mahler displaced Tchaikovsky.

I'm just trying to follow this through ... and yes, I think I have it now: Brahms and Mahler, being the only contestants left standing, are the winners.
(Tchaikovsky got a double pounding, I see.)

[some guy]

That's called "who's editing my posts?"

Or, rather, "who's just been fired for editing so poorly?"



But let it stand. It IS funnier that way.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I hate this thread - my brain cannot cope with it.