Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[Florestan]

Have you bought 50 Shades of Gray? 

No but I might have stepped in one. 

[Madiel]

Exactly. Do you think a cognitive system trained on 5 decades of popular music from *one* tradition ("western and anglophone") would be as flexible with regard to different music than a system trained on 5 centuries of a respective variety of styles and genres?
Do you think we should teach English literature with superhero comic books (because there are so many different ones and they span the last 80 years) instead of using material from Shakespeare through Irving or other contemporary authors? Or say, to be fairer to pop music, use only post war science fiction stories?

I don't think you're being much fairer to pop music, frankly. And this is one of the things that irritates me so much about GMG. My nephew, who is into what I merely call "heavy metal", can rattle off a heck of a lot of subgenres of heavy metal, in much the same way that people here can have discussions about whether it's best to have someone of Austrian background playing Mozart (as is currently happening in the Mozart thread).

It's an inherent cultural bias to subdivide what you know and care about in great detail, and to treat something that you only know sketchily as less diverse. It's exactly the phenomenon that allows people to talk about individual states of the USA but treat "Africa" as if it's a single undifferentiated culture. It's exactly why people distinguish people of their own 'race' far better than people of a different 'race'. It's exactly why I'm as interested in whether or not someone from my own city is a northsider or a southsider, but couldn't tell you much about the characteristics of different districts of Paris and absolutely nothing about the different districts of Lagos.

What you use to teach English literature is going to depend a great deal on the depth with which you're teaching it. You're unlikely to introduce kids to authors from previous centuries in primary school. When they're a bit holder you might throw them a few of history's greatest hits like Shakespeare, but you're still not going to introduce them to a range of authors from across the centuries, only the really huge names. Once someone gets to university and decides they're going to study literature as a dedicated subject they might end up in a course about Scottish authors during the Enlightenment.

But not everyone's going to spend their life studying literature. Frankly not everyone has time for it. Everybody specialises. Everybody who bothers to post on this message board is inherently a specialist, because you care enough about music to want to talk to other people about it. Should anyone who wants to specialise in music as an interest be aware of a wide range of traditions? Absolutely.

But does this mean the general masses ought to be instructed past being vaguely aware of a few really big names like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven? No. Because in the same way that some of my friends deeply into literature discover that I haven't read many of the great pieces of literature (hey, I've seen a movie version of some of them), anyone who is deeply into music is going to discover that a lot of their friends haven't heard many of the great pieces of music. It's simply not realistic to expect that everyone has the same knowledge and experience base. It's never going to happen because people are off exploring a hundred other things that I, personally, don't find as riveting as I find music.

[James]

The point is not to denigrate ALL popular music ..

True. Only to highlight that their is so much more to music than it. So much more.

Speaking for myself, I have put my ears/mind through barriers and put in a lot of time exploring/learning, time most people wouldn't ..I simply didn't stop at the simple pop tunes I grew up on during youth & adolescence. If I did, I can say with absolute certainty that my musical experience & understanding would have been tremendously limited and impoverished. It was beneficial to explore everything that I could before 20th century pop music. And that stuff that came before is a lot of major, major human creativity.

[Florestan]

But does this mean the general masses ought to be instructed past being vaguely aware of a few really big names like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven?

Yes. People should be instructed to know and appreciate what is best in music as in all other arts.

And can one get more elitist than suggesting that "the general masses" (whatever this might mean) ought not to be instructed past a superficial and vague awareness that there is more to classical music than that Fuer Elise "song" composed by that funny named Baitoven guy? 

[Madiel]

True, no doubt at all. Simple sound bite format to something generally much more elaborate & involved musically. Not to forget the presentation/performance aspects too. But yea, it is quite an a adjustment to go from being raised on 3-4 minute simple song form, to what you find in Art/Classical music with all of it's musical information, 4 hour opera, 3 hour mass, 1 hour symphony etc., etc. People raised on pop music are more or less to conditioned to think that this is what music is. Again, most of them haven't go a clue about what music is and can be - just try talking to them about it, they know nothing about it, it can be an impossible task to navigate without having them perceiving you as being arrogant. Meanwhile it is them who are plain ignorant.

James, your tone deafness for your own tone is bordering on legendary. You spent a considerable amount of your GMG career by copying and pasting material written by others, word for word, and you have the nerve to talk about how much more knowledgeable you are than other people?

I think you are far too proud of your own state of "knowledge" and actually don't know nearly as much about music as you like to claim that you know. You present the most simplistic caricatures both of the music that you like and of the music that you're denigrating.

I mean, reducing pop music to 3-4 minute soundbites... pop music includes great big sprawling concept albums that don't fit on a single CD. Meanwhile, you talk about multi-hour classical works while ignoring all the little songs and piano pieces that decorated the centuries. You basically pick what you consider the greatest of one genre and pit it against what you consider the worst of the other.

[Karl Henning]

I don't think you're being much fairer to pop music, frankly. And this is one of the things that irritates me so much about GMG. My nephew, who is into what I merely call "heavy metal", can rattle off a heck of a lot of subgenres of heavy metal, in much the same way that people here can have discussions about whether it's best to have someone of Austrian background playing Mozart (as is currently happening in the Mozart thread).

It's an inherent cultural bias to subdivide what you know and care about in great detail, and to treat something that you only know sketchily as less diverse. It's exactly the phenomenon that allows people to talk about individual states of the USA but treat "Africa" as if it's a single undifferentiated culture. It's exactly why people distinguish people of their own 'race' far better than people of a different 'race'. It's exactly why I'm as interested in whether or not someone from my own city is a northsider or a southsider, but couldn't tell you much about the characteristics of different districts of Paris and absolutely nothing about the different districts of Lagos.

What you use to teach English literature is going to depend a great deal on the depth with which you're teaching it. You're unlikely to introduce kids to authors from previous centuries in primary school. When they're a bit holder you might throw them a few of history's greatest hits like Shakespeare, but you're still not going to introduce them to a range of authors from across the centuries, only the really huge names. Once someone gets to university and decides they're going to study literature as a dedicated subject they might end up in a course about Scottish authors during the Enlightenment.

But not everyone's going to spend their life studying literature. Frankly not everyone has time for it. Everybody specialises. Everybody who bothers to post on this message board is inherently a specialist, because you care enough about music to want to talk to other people about it. Should anyone who wants to specialise in music as an interest be aware of a wide range of traditions? Absolutely.

But does this mean the general masses ought to be instructed past being vaguely aware of a few really big names like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven? No. Because in the same way that some of my friends deeply into literature discover that I haven't read many of the great pieces of literature (hey, I've seen a movie version of some of them), anyone who is deeply into music is going to discover that a lot of their friends haven't heard many of the great pieces of music. It's simply not realistic to expect that everyone has the same knowledge and experience base. It's never going to happen because people are off exploring a hundred other things that I, personally, don't find as riveting as I find music.

Thanks for the on-point rant.

James, your tone deafness for your own tone is bordering on legendary.

It's something, to excel at . . . something 

[Madiel]

Yes. People should be instructed to know and appreciate what is best in music as in all other arts.

Okay, so which names should we cut out, and which other subjects will we shrink so that there's time to give people a proper grounding in, say, the 40 greatest composers (assuming we can cobble together a list that all us specialists are sufficiently comfortable with)?

How much time are we going to allocate to this instruction, for everyone, that we think is currently lacking? And what are we deciding people can do without? The day is not getting longer to accommodate this information we want to supply people with.

[Madiel]

Thanks for the on-point rant.

You're welcome. You'll have to excuse me, it's very late here and I should get to bed. Plus I wanted to explore another Prince album if possible while getting ready. Honestly, I had no idea before today how much good material there was on the Batman soundtrack.

[Florestan]

Okay, so which names should we cut out, and which other subjects will we shrink so that there's time to give people a proper grounding in, say, the 40 greatest composers (assuming we can cobble together a list that all us specialists are sufficiently comfortable with)?

First of all, given the presently miserable state of musical education at elementary, primary and secondary level in many regions of the Western world, to suggest that it would be necessary to shrink other subjects in order to familiarize people with Mozart or Beethoven sounds like involuntary humour.

Secondly, you don´t need 40 names to get people started and curious about classical music. 10 will suffice.

How much time are we going to allocate to this instruction, for everyone, that we think is currently lacking?

Ah, I see you actually got me wrong. I am not talking about grown up people who currently lack exposure to, and basic knowledge of, classical music --- moany (most?) of them might very well be hopeless in this regard. I am talking about a thorough and sustained musical education for kids and teens as part of a more general educational philosophy.

[James]

Plus I wanted to explore another Prince album if possible while getting ready. Honestly, I had no idea before today how much good material there was on the Batman soundtrack.

I listened to this one a few days back. Horrid.

[(poco) Sforzando]

No but I might have stepped in one. 

I think you stole that line from someone . . . .

[Florestan]

you don´t need 40 names to get people started and curious about classical music. 10 will suffice.

Heck, you don´t even need names. Give the kid as birthday present a violin or a flute or a guitar or a keyboard. That will suffice to trigger his interest. Now the question is how many parents, ie grown up people, realize the need for, and the importance of, classical musical education and are willing to provide it to their children...

[Ken B]

When the early English settlers arrived in America some communities almost starved because they would not eat the local produce, which was strange to them.
Imagine then a community living in subsitence unaware that the fruits around them are plentiful, flavourful, and and nourishing.
Jo498 and Florestan and James might suggest that these people are missing out, and that their lives would be enriched by partaking of the fruit.

I don't read that as Jo, Andrei, and James claiming that people who do are better people, only that they would have a better life, subjectively.
Some here, it appears, disagree with me. What food snobs you three are!

[James]

Jo498 and Florestan and James might suggest that these people are missing out, and that their lives would be enriched by partaking of the fruit.

They are missing out. Anyone who really loves music can't overlook all that History in order to get a better & deeper sense of it. Pop music is just a little over a 100 years old .. that's nothing.

You are what you eat, I'm a big believer in that. And it is not just limited to actual food.

[Mirror Image]

In my own defense, let me say, yes, I do love a lot of 'pop music' (Bjork and Seal for example), but I'm a musical omnivore. I love all kinds of music, but classical music, for me, is like the final stop and what I enjoy the most, because of the range of emotions I receive from it. In terms of popular music, I tend to like music that requires a high level of musicianship like progressive rock, jazz, bluegrass, contemporary folk music, etc. I have specific tastes in all of these genres just like I do in classical music, but I think it's a shame that in some cases people who do listen to pop music never branch out and discover other genres, but, in hindsight, perhaps my initial opinion was rather harsh and, thus, I decided that the opinion I expressed was completely wrong-headed and, yes, elitist.

[Jo498]

You really think that Heavy Metal, because there are silly names for lotsa subgenres, is as diverse as, say 1800-1830 in classical music? Not to speak of ca. 1500-2000 in classical music? I don't really know what to say about that, it's too obviously wrong as far as I am concerned.

yes, there were a few concept albums 40 years ago. Most of them did not remain very popular and most of the guys (it's almost only guys) who dig that stuff are today around 50 now or older. And many of them were much closer to song cycles than to symphonies (not that there is anything wrong with that) and overall the format did not really catch on (now with mp3 single downloads it seems almost as obsolete as classical symphonies).

Again, the point is not that there might not be some worthwhile popular music. There are gourmet burgers as well but most people go to McDonalds so I think this is besides the point I was trying to make.
Namely, that popular music (mostly the stuff that the connoisseurs of concept albums consider crap as well) is pervading our culture to such an extent that most people think that the natural unit of music is a "song" and they are not even aware how incredibly parochial and narrow their musical socialization has been.

As for the "education of the masses". Of course we do it similarly to the other arts. We start with accessible stuff, do an outline of musical history, mostly stick to the great names and hope that they might discover others for themselves. We should also teach to play instruments, of course, although this is somewhat independent of music appreciation.

Why should we treat music differently from e.g. literature? The only reason we do it differently is that literature is more entrenched in curricula because it is somewhat loosely connected with being able to read and write on a certain level and we need this for some jobs. But a lot of that could be taught with non-literary texts as well.

And my second point was that we have, in a way, to do *more* in the case of music because "pop literature" is not blared from every speaker available and basic techniques in dealing with texts and language, including rudimentary appreciation of style etc. are still entrenched in all but the most elementary education.

[James]

Oh James. You are one of the worst offenders.

I can handle the notion of "missing out", in the sense of people simply not hearing a particular kind of music. But to take that into some statement of not "truly knowing what music is" is the worst kind of elitist crap that denigrates the incredible amount of skill and effort that the best pop musicians have put into their craft.

And frankly, if your beloved Stockhausen is what music is truly is, then I'm perfectly happy not being a fan of true music, thanks all the same. I have better ways to spend my life than to use up any more of it trying to grasp what anyone finds appealing in endless operas about new age gibberish. It's pretentious shite.

Like I said many times before on this forum. Elitism is a useful & necessary reality. It shouldn't have negative connotations .. but in today's PC world, we tend to ignore reality. People want to believe that everything is on an even keel. We know this is bullshit. And just try talking to pop consumers to see what I'm saying, most of them have no sense of history and all the great work that occurred within. They really haven't put their ears through the wringer, not much thought goes into what they are actually listening to. The focus for them is rarely on the raw 'musical plane'. Their view & understanding is limited & narrow. They may have 'heard' of it, but nothing more, nothing deeper or more intimate. The majority I've confronted are only interested in going back about 5 years or less. They gotta be hip to their peers, this is very important.

[Mirror Image]

Like I said many times before on this forum. Elitism is a useful & necessary reality. It shouldn't have negative connotations .. but in today's PC world, we tend to ignore reality. People want to believe that everything is on an even keel. We know this is bullshit. And just try talking to pop consumers to see what I'm saying, most of them have no sense of history and all the great work that occurred within. They really haven't put their ears through the ringer, not much thought goes into what they are actually listening to. The focus for them is rarely on the raw 'musical plane'. Their view & understanding is limited & narrow. They may have 'heard' of it, but nothing more, nothing deeper or more intimate. The majority I've confronted are only interested in going back about 5 years or less. They gotta be hip to their peers, this is very important.

Thankfully, there are people who are interested in a wide spectrum of music and, yes, they do exist, which blows your whole theory to hell. The reality, from where I sit, is everyone has a limited and narrow range of musical tastes, including yourself, as we (people who enjoy a variety of music) have our favorites in each genre. It's like Duke Ellington said "There's good music, then there's the other kind." I mean I've never seen you once listen to late-Romantic composer, for example, but I think your empty ideas and notions about music are completely ridiculous anyway. For you, if it's not on the cutting edge, then it's inferior or in your case 'bad music.' I'm always glad I've never developed your kind of attitude about music, because this very attitude you've exhibited throughout your time here on GMG has been disgraceful and, in many ways, pathetic.

[James]

Thankfully, there are people who are interested in a wide spectrum of music and, yes, they do exist, which blows your whole theory to hell.

Art/Classical music personifies breadth & depth (spectrum), well beyond popular music's relatively short history. And again, what I'm saying essentially is that exploring it will enrich one's musical experience & understanding tremendously .. well beyond what pop music is truly capable.

[Karl Henning]

Like I said many times before [...]

Exactly.