Dumb newbie question - length of a work?

[MishaK]

The best site I know for seeing what is available is www.headphone.com

Very helpful, indeed! I was just in the process of trying to pick some portable headphones for use with my iPhone.

Price is less important as there are good headphones at every price point. A good resource is head-fi forum if you are interested in getting advice. There are a lot of helpful and knowledgeable people over there.

That said, you could get a Senn PX100 or low level Koss for $30-50. It wil be a nice step up at a reasonable price. Alternatively, there is the Senn HD 595, a very all around can that might suit you better in some ways as it is built to be all around (at least marketed that way) and can be had for $150. But I would suggest setting your price first (if you choose to get anything) and then match the phone to your price level. 

Question: amazon has the Senn MM60 on sale for $45, down from $129. I am considering these for use with my iPhone. Can't stand the stupid earbuds. I hear the MM60 is essentially a mobile version (with mic and iphone music/phone control) of thr PX100. Does it produce a realistic sound? The one thing I can't stand at any price point is artifically boosted, boomy bass.

[mc ukrneal]

Question: amazon has the Senn MM60 on sale for $45, down from $129. I am considering these for use with my iPhone. Can't stand the stupid earbuds. I hear the MM60 is essentially a mobile version (with mic and iphone music/phone control) of thr PX100. Does it produce a realistic sound? The one thing I can't stand at any price point is artifically boosted, boomy bass.

Sorry, I'm just not familiar enough with that one to comment. I have the PX100 and love it though if that helps.

[Scarpia]

As to pop music being less dynamic in volume, I think that statement might be stereotyping as much as saying classical music is dull.  Many (unfortunately not enough) pop musicians have come from classical roots.  Pat Benetar studied opera at a conservatory level.  Gods know Jim Steinman has listened to way too much Wagner.  Barry Manilow, among others, has had pop hits with adaptations of classical pieces.  I'd be greatly disappointed to learn that of first chair violinists who haven't at least occasionally tried a bit of country fiddling, or of a concert pianist who doesn't sneak in a little 'Great Balls of Fire" when warming up.

I am not trying to make a value judgement regarding pop music (I've listened to a lot of it) just making the observation that the vast majority of pop music proceeds at a fairly uniform volume level.  Certainly there are songs (like the classic 'Stairway to Heaven') which start with a solo guitar before the rhythm section kicks in, for example, but there you have the piece getting twice or four times as loud.  But I do not know of any pop music which goes from, for example, a solo flute playing softly to a 100 piece orchestra with every instrument playing as loudly as physically possible.   Classical recordings try to approximate this, but cannot duplicate the experience of being in the concert hall.   As you noted yourself, these dramatic changes in volume strain audio equipment in a way that pop music doesn't.

[MishaK]

I am not trying to make a value judgement regarding pop music, just making the observation that the vast majority of pop music proceeds at a fairly uniform volume level.  Certainly there are songs (like the classic 'Stairway to Heaven') which, for example, start with a solo guitar before the rhythm section kicks in, and so forth, but there you have the piece getting twice or four times as loud.  But I do not know of any pop music which goes from, for example, a solo flute playing softly to a 100 piece orchestra with every instrument playing as loudly as physically possible.   Classical recordings try to approximate this, but cannot duplicate the experience of being in the concert hall.   As you noted yourself, these dramatic changes in volume strain audio equipment in a way that pop music doesn't.

It's not just the difference from ppp to fff that taxes the equipment. Orchestral music is the most sonically complex stuff out there. The variety of colors it can produce (in the hands of good musicians and conductors) is much larger than what you even find in very inventive rock music like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. It takes really exceptional audio equipment to reproduce a full orchestral sound without congestion in tutti passages.

[Palmetto]

Benitar - try "Hell is for Children".

Meat Loaf - go with "Objects in the Rear View Mirror" or "For Crying Out Loud".  (No, these didn't get much radio play; the problem with Steinman is most of his stuff is too long for Top 40 radio formats)  "I'd Do Anything for Love" went Top 10 in the US.  Heck, if I had a better grasp of movements, I'd try to make a case that "Paradise" can be broken into three.

Manilow - okay, it's been a while since I've listened to any Barry.  A bit of Googling brought "Could It Be Magic" back to mind.  It's the one I was trying to remember in the first place, the one that opens and closes with a bit of Chopin.

I'll toss in Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" at no extra charge.  I still get goose bumps when the final layer of tubas kick in at the end, even though I know they're coming and they only get the same note eight times.

I'm not here to make a case that any of these will have the lasting appeal of 'Ode to Joy', just that seeing popular music disparaged en masse strikes me as narrow-minded as regarding 'classical music' as the realm of college music departments and stuffy upper crust matrons (see Margaret Dumont in "A Night at the Opera").  Yeah, there's a lot of fluff but that doesn't mean it's all the same.  Geez, I'll bet even Beethoven has some pieces that don't get played very often because they just aren't considered his 'A' game.  Even Shakespeare wrote stuff just to put food on the table.  (Put down the tar and pitchforks.)

[Palmetto]

Maybe I'm not ready for something that goes from a flute solo to 100 instruments and back.  I suspect I'd be scrabbling for the volume control regardless of the quality of the speakers.  I've been known to wear ear plugs when attending some pop or rock concerts that are more about the experience than the music.  I certainly wear them full time when attending auto races, where some bare-eared fans find the roar of the engines every bit as beautiful as anything Bach wrote.

Perhaps I need to seek forms where the variation is more gradual or over less wide a range.  Say, gregorian chants or piano solos.

Oh, and Mensch, what do you mean by 'ppp' and 'fff'?

[Scarpia]

Maybe I'm not ready for something that goes from a flute solo to 100 instruments and back.

Then you'll be forgoing some of the killer stuff.  How about one trumpet to 100 piece orchestra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj6_MSF4bPA

Oh, and Mensch, what do you mean by 'ppp' and 'fff'?

p means piano (softly) f means forte (loud).  pp means pianissimo (very soft), ff means fortissimo (very loud).  fff is like a specially designed marshal amp that goes to 11.   

[mc ukrneal]

Maybe I'm not ready for something that goes from a flute solo to 100 instruments and back.  I suspect I'd be scrabbling for the volume control regardless of the quality of the speakers.  I've been known to wear ear plugs when attending some pop or rock concerts that are more about the experience than the music.  I certainly wear them full time when attending auto races, where some bare-eared fans find the roar of the engines every bit as beautiful as anything Bach wrote.

Perhaps I need to seek forms where the variation is more gradual or over less wide a range.  Say, gregorian chants or piano solos.

Oh, and Mensch, what do you mean by 'ppp' and 'fff'?

ppp and fff are markings used on sheet music. They tell the performer how loudly or quietly to play. ppp is very, very soft and fff is very,very lound. The 'p' stands for piano and the 'f' for forte. It is a standard marking in music that is still used today.

Of the ones I listed for you, perhaps try the Chopin (piano piece) or Brahms (chamber piece). These will have less of the issue you were complaining about.

By the way, another super piece to start off with, and a brilliant piece, is Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. It is a piece that tells a fairy tale type story to music and narration (about animals). It uses different, short melodies for each character in the story. It is often used with kids, but I think it is one of the most brilliant pieces ever written and is wonderful for any age.

[MishaK]

p means piano (softly) f means forte (loud).  pp means pianissimo (very soft), ff means fortissimo (very loud).  fff is like a specially designed marshal amp that goes to 11.   

And ppp is on the verge of inaudibility. It's also a difference between older analog and newer digital recordings. Older recordings have a compressed dynamic range, whereas some newer digital recordings have a huge difference between the softest and loudest bits (Barenboim's Mahler 5 comes to mind), such that unless you turn it up you can't hear the soft parts, but the loud parts will blow your neighbors a few blocks farther. In other words, it more accurately replicates the real concert experience. 

[Palmetto]

Aw, c'mon!  I've still got training wheels on!

"Marty, that was very ... interesting music."

[Szykneij]

Benitar - try "Hell is for Children".

Meat Loaf - go with "Objects in the Rear View Mirror" or "For Crying Out Loud".  (No, these didn't get much radio play; the problem with Steinman is most of his stuff is too long for Top 40 radio formats)  "I'd Do Anything for Love" went Top 10 in the US.  Heck, if I had a better grasp of movements, I'd try to make a case that "Paradise" can be broken into three.

Manilow - okay, it's been a while since I've listened to any Barry.  A bit of Googling brought "Could It Be Magic" back to mind.  It's the one I was trying to remember in the first place, the one that opens and closes with a bit of Chopin.

I'll toss in Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" at no extra charge.  I still get goose bumps when the final layer of tubas kick in at the end, even though I know they're coming and they only get the same note eight times.

I'm not here to make a case that any of these will have the lasting appeal of 'Ode to Joy', just that seeing popular music disparaged en masse strikes me as narrow-minded as regarding 'classical music' as the realm of college music departments and stuffy upper crust matrons (see Margaret Dumont in "A Night at the Opera").  Yeah, there's a lot of fluff but that doesn't mean it's all the same.  Geez, I'll bet even Beethoven has some pieces that don't get played very often because they just aren't considered his 'A' game.  Even Shakespeare wrote stuff just to put food on the table.  (Put down the tar and pitchforks.)

The music you've mentioned has limited dynamic variety. There might be changes in intensity, but not in actual volume. If there were, this stuff would never get played on the radio. That isn't a value judgement. It's not a disparaging statement. It's just stating the way things are.
  I enjoy all types of music and probably listen to more pop/rock than I do classical. Simon and Garfunkel are high on my list of favorites. I've played in bands that covered Pat Benatar and Meatloaf as well as in classical orchestras and it's clear to me that one of the many major differences between pop and classical is the dynamic palette. Even Manilow's "Could it be Magic" based on Chopin's Prelude in C Minor is pretty even in dynamic level throughout.
To make sure my memory wasn't failing me, I just leafed through several books of pop sheet music I've accumulated over the years, and as I  remembered, there are virtually no dynamic markings at all. Pick up any orchestral score, and you'll find all kinds of dynamic markings (pp. ff, sfz, cresc., dim., etc.) attesting to the importance of these elements to the composition.

[DavidRoss]

It's not just the difference from ppp to fff that taxes the equipment. Orchstral music is the most sonically complex stuff out there. The variety of colors it can produce (in the hads of good musicians and conductors) is much larger than what you even find in very inventive rock music like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. It takes really exceptional audio equipment to reproduce a full orchestral sound without congestion in tutti passages.

And this doesn't take into account the fact that virtually all pop recordings these days suffer from horrendous dynamic compression.  The phenomenon is well documented.  See The Loudness Wars: Why Music Sounds Worse.

[DavidRoss]

Benitar - try "Hell is for Children".

Guess I'm not the only one here who likes this--pretty damned kickass stuff for mainstream rock in its day!

[Renfield]

Then you'll be forgoing some of the killer stuff.  How about one trumpet to 100 piece orchestra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj6_MSF4bPA

Exactly what came to mind!


If I may be permitted to interject in this wonderful thread, Palmetto, as a listener frequently going from classical (which comprises about 98% of my collection), to genres such as black metal and early electronica, what has always distinguished my classical listening from anything else is what you could call its dialectic dimension.

Otherwise put, classical music is, more often than any other kind of music, arranged as a discussion: an argument.

You know the opening bar - the first few notes - of Beethoven's 5th, right? Everyone does. But not many outside the classical crowd realise how that theme is only one half of the equation. There's two sides of the argument!

Now, you'll rarely get such obvious demonstration (or such obvious presentation, musically) of a classical 'argument'. But almost all classical music contains these musical dialogues, which pop can also contain, but is not defined by.

Pet Sounds wouldn't be nearly as awesome without all those (instrumental) voices Brian Wilson came up with.

But Beethoven's 5th wouldn't exist at all, if a tune was all it was.


On another note, quite related to my extra-classical musical interests, all music is about sound.

That is, about the experience of sound. In some cases, this is a deliberately beautiful experience. In others, a deliberately ugly one. Yet in every case, there is something aurally interesting going on, or we wouldn't call it music*.

Classical music, apart from (but hand-in-hand with) the formal elements, is about sound, in its purest, prettiest, ugliest, loneliest, busiest, quietest, or loudest form. In many instances, it explores sound for its own sake.

That's a very big part of why classical music is so dynamically extreme - quiet, then loud, then quiet again, perhaps. Listen to the Mahler piece linked above: the trumpet blurts out its fanfare, and then the music crashes down on it.

Imagine that same crash with just more voices coming in, around the same volume. It's not a crash, is it?


Another example: you've tried your hand at the 1st Brandenburg, and saw how performances can differ in length.

Although it's not the only reason, sometimes playing something slower, or faster, can also change the way it sounds. What was once lazy and plodding becomes insistent, even angry; or nervous, anxious, like in Mahler's music.



All this must come with the caveat that the appreciation of music, the 'whether-you-like-it', as well as the 'how-you-like-it" is a very subjective thing. Some people just don't like loud sounds, period. Some people only like loud sounds!

For some of us, as you've probably seen from the various responses you've received, classical music is a lifetime journey, an adventure; for some, like jochanaan, a vocation. Try to get to know it like you would a new friend.

Most importantly, give it time. If a piece doesn't do it now, move on. It may do it later. Or never! Sometimes, it's just a matter of adjusting your expectations to the context: you don't look for tunes in black metal. But since classical pieces hardly ever come with tags - 'this has tunes', 'this is about math, really' - you really have to listen to find out!





* Since someone is bound to notice eventually, and point it out: I don't think Cage's 4'33'' fails this criterion.

[Palmetto]

S., I can only express how I hear it, using the vocabulary I have.  If you say it's changing in intensity more than volume, I'll have to get back to you if / when I know the difference.

R., I can follow where you're going with Pet Sounds, and carry it over to the Carpenters, Wilson Phillips, and other demonstrations of vocal pyrotechnics.  I don't know how to apply that to instruments yet.  Maybe I'm missing something, but right now that crashing that many respondents enjoy I find jarring and disruptive.  I tried the Mahler piece.  I didn't think it spread over as wide a volume range as the pieces I noted earlier (especially Beethoven's 7th) but still adjusted the volume control frequently.  To abuse your 'argument' analogy, it's like one participant is presenting his position calmly while his opponent chooses TO SUDDENLY SCREAM AT YOU!!!  (See how unpleasant that could seem?  )

"...you don't look for tunes in black metal."

I've never heard the term before today, and the Wikipedia description gave me plenty of interest in maintaining my ignorance.  But you won't run me off that easily.  There's got to be something here that will make me say "Holy $#!+" and beat the replay button to death.

[Renfield]

o abuse your 'argument' analogy, it's like one participant is presenting his position calmly while his opponent chooses TO SUDDENLY SCREAM AT YOU!!!  (See how unpleasant that could seem?  )

Hah! That is a fairly apt description of what I perceive as Mahler's intent - as well as a paraphrase of what someone once told me, to whom I played a recording of Mahler's 5th. The same person now swears by the piece.

Without wishing to make this (yet another - I can almost hear someone say) thread about Mahler, the same piece, the 5th symphony, contains this movement here [edit: of which this is an extract], a bit later on. Quite the contrast, isn't it?

(That's a good example of why 'movements' are useful: they cut up a work into parts, giving it macro-structure.)

"...you don't look for tunes in black metal."

I've never heard the term before today, and the Wikipedia description gave me plenty of interest in maintaining my ignorance.  But you won't run me off that easily.  There's got to be something here that will make me say "Holy $#!+" and beat the replay button to death.

You will typically find even more derision addressed towards extreme forms of metal than you will towards pop!

To me, however, black metal in specific - the Scandinavian-born 'ugly' metal subgenre - is like listening to structurally minimalistic symphonic music (not unlike, say, certain English compositions for string ensemble) played very fast in drums and electric guitars, with superimposed effects and lyrics no one, including the singers, is really interested in.

This is a fairly hardcore example - this is more traditional. Phasing out black metal vocals is about as involving an exercise as following Bach's counterpoint (i.e. juxtaposed musical voices), sometimes! Certainly not everyone's cup of tea.


Going back on topic, I think you'll find that a lot of the things classical listeners tend to talk about as if they listened, say, to Bruckner's chorales in their mother's womb (which they may have, admittedly) are all products of experience.

Speaking from experience (and a casual, if consistent professional interest in music as a cognitive phenomenon), many features of music as complex as classical may only 'resolve' in your head after quite a bit of listening.

It's quite a surprising, almost cartoon-like 'pop-up' effect when you notice something that previously just wasn't there.

[Palmetto]

Rhythm: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic/ram/cdm0401slat1of4.ram
Melody: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic/ram/cdm0402slat2of4.ram
Harmony: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic/ram/cdm0403slat3of4.ram
Tone Colour: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic/ram/cdm0404slat4of4.ram

I was looking forward to hearing these this evening.  Unfortunately, my experience with RealPlayer was less than satisfactory.  Clicking the links started the app, but nothing happened.  The file name was displayed at the bottom, but the progress bar never moved and the 'time elapsed' never changed.  I clicked the 'play / pause' button several times, closed and reopened the app, clicked the link repeatedly; nothing.  When I uninstalled it a survey opened in my browser, so at least I could relate my problems to them.  Most discouraging.  My attempts to find these in MP3 were fruitless.

However, somewhere above Opus106 also linked to other content from the same site in MP3 form.  I pulled down the discussion of Holst's 'The Planets' and spent a pleasant hour learning the depths of my ignorance.  That's why I wanted to listen to the above content this evening.  I didn't follow the discussions of beats, measures, times, or other technical terms.  (I also think Holst's interpretation of heavenly bodies was based more on the gods they were named after than their physical characteristics, but that's a whole 'nuther conversation and I'm looking at them with 100 years of additional astronomical knowledge.  He does seem to have nailed Mercury and Neptune.)

I'm going to take the suggestion of whoever mentioned 'Peter and the Wolf' and see if I can find it.  I think at this point I'm not ready for 'great music'; I need 'easy to grasp music'.  I want to go from frozen pizza to maybe putting jarred sauce and toppings on a ready-made crust.  I'm not prepared to grind flour, make sauce from fresh tomatoes, or age mozzarella yet.

EDITED - Found it for free, and even I've heard of conductor Leopold Stokowski.

http://www.archive.org/details/PeterAndTheWolf_753

[ibanezmonster]

You will typically find even more derision addressed towards extreme forms of metal than you will towards pop!

And often equally enough from listeners of extreme forms of metal towards pop. 

[Opus106]

I was looking forward to hearing these this evening.  Unfortunately, my experience with RealPlayer was less than satisfactory.  Clicking the links started the app, but nothing happened.  The file name was displayed at the bottom, but the progress bar never moved and the 'time elapsed' never changed.  I clicked the 'play / pause' button several times, closed and reopened the app, clicked the link repeatedly; nothing.

Just a guess here: a slow Internet connection might have hampered with the streaming*. However, if you were able to watch YouTube videos at the same time, that shouldn't have been a problem. Have you tried VLC, per Bruce's (Brewski) suggestion?



*EDIT: Scratch that. I just remembered that you work as a network support technician.

[Palmetto]

I have now, but it behaved the same way.  Just for giggles I told Windows Firewall to allow VLC out; I'd also done that with RealPlayer but it didn't affect it either.  TaskManager doesn't show VLC doing anything in terms of disk activity or I/O.  I get no error messages, it just sits there

No, I don't have any problems with YouTube videos.  I didn't have problems with Am I just not waiting long enough?  I'm expecting to see something after at least five minutes.  While I deal with these systems for a semi-living, multimedia and players doesn't come up at work.  I've never had reason or interest in these type of applications before.

A-HA! It's not the players, it's the links or the content!  I had already been to

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/discoveringmusic/listeninglibrary.shtml

and tried the links for these four topics with no success.  This time I tried some of the others and noticed a pattern.  I had no problems with anything linked from /discoveringmusic/pip, but it's 'hit or miss' with links to /discoveringmusic/ram.  More specifically, it looks like those programs that are 45 minutes long come through okay, but those that RealPlayer or VLC display as 1:15:02 in length don't work for me.