People obsessed by categories: "Soundtracks are not classical music!!!"

[Cato]

I'm taking a break from thinking about how angels are dancing on the head of a needle to completely agree with you.  The only time I ever get annoyed about the defining of "Classical Music" - with a capital "C" is when by extension that definition confers on the user some sense of superiority or spirituality in their taste.  Sadly, such is the failing state of music education (blame the governments/authorities and those who set the curriculum not the teachers) that the mere use of CM as a title warns off more people than it engages.

Amen! 

You remind me of an idiotic Assistant Principal at the Catholic high school for boys, where I taught for 25 years.

He was 15 -20 years younger, yet assailed me now and then for playing Classical Music in my German classes and for the musical component of my European History course: his office was nearby.

"I HATE that music!  How do your students stand it?!  My parents went to classical concerts and sometimes took me along: I HATED it every time!"

The young man was not very bright, and his courses (he started out as a "Social Studies" teacher) were disasters, since he often told his students things which were not true or not quite accurate, which I needed to correct in the upper-level History courses.  He also showed movies quite a bit!  He was in charge of a course about the Vietnam War, which should never have existed on the high-school level, but which allowed him to show the many movies made about the war!

Did I mention he was also a coach? 

He was "perfect" therefore to be an administrator!   

As was typical, he left us to become a Principal at a grade school of the local public system, where his idiocy would find good company! * 

Anyway, I am sure he transmitted his hatred of Classical Music to his students.  Fortunately, he was not with us for too many years, maybe 3 or 4.

Other teachers supported my crusade to give Classical Music a chance in the classroom.


* (Mrs. Cato and I taught in Catholic schools throughout the years, and we both had literally dozens of students, whose parents taught in or were administrators of local public schools!  There was no way they would let their own children suffer through a public-school education!    At state and national conventions of Catholic school teachers, we discovered that this phenomenon was quite typical.

There were even Superintendents, whose children attended Catholic schools and NOT the public systems, of which their parents were in charge!  Not a great vote of confidence in their own system!)

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

If you have to create a library of music you can order it in every way you wish. For example, even the alphabetical order, if you want.
The fact that Mozart would be under the "M" and Beethoven under the "B" wouldn't make their music two separate genres.

If I had to create an online database of music, I'd create a system that allows you to assign more categories to a musical work.

I'd assign the categories "soundtrack" and "spanish music" to this piece.

"Soundtrack" + "jazz" to this one.

"Soundtrack" + "classical music" to this one.

The point is that the category "soundtrack" doesn't tell you the music genre. It only tells you that the music has been composed for a film.

If you want to give information about the style of music, soundtrack is not sufficient: you have to provide other information.

I don't see why I shouldn't assign the category "classical music" to a classical-style soundtrack and pretend that all soundtracks belong to the same musical genre.

Love the theme of The Fabulous Baker Boys. Nice composition while the performance is just average.

[VonStupp]

I don't see why I shouldn't assign the category "classical music" to a classical-style soundtrack and pretend that all soundtracks belong to the same musical genre.

Why don't you and who is stopping you? When Uncle Monty stops by my house for burglary to see how I categorize music, I tell him under M for Music. He is really just there for the burglary anyway.

With your original post, I feel like I have walked in on a couple having the same argument for 25 years and they ask me who is right. Instead of creating an OP that lays out every argument you have ever had on this subject, plus how you have supported it over that time to no avail, a simple question to the forum on 'How do you feel about categorizing film music with classical music?' would generate an organic conversation with which you could participate from its origin, while still reveling in your own backstory.

I feel you are prepared to argue based on all of your times on another forum, when in looking at the posts so far, not many people seem to care how you categorize music, but you seem to want to generate arguments for argument's sake instead of coming together for a consensus, or better yet, enjoy the sharing of differing points of view. It is like when my students ask me if a hotdog is a sandwich. They are ready for whichever answer I give, even though I just tell them to finish their work.

For my two cents, you can categorize modern music any which way you want, AND, I won't tell anyone!
VS

[Karl Henning]

(as wished by the fanatics of avantgarde music)

YMMV, but I really don't see the New Musicoids driving the conversation anymore.

[DaveF]

In my experience, those who are really obsessed with categories are the devotees of "pop" music.  Here are the default categories from a well-known bit of music-playing software, presumably devised to coincide with the wishes of the majority of users:

Alternative
Blues
R&B
Country
Dance
Easy Listening
Electronic
Folk
Hip hop
House
Indie
Industrial
Pop
Rap
Rock
Techno
Trance

And users of this music player will also find the very useful category "Classical", which covers everything from Léonin to Dobrinka Tabakova.

[W.A. Mozart]

Have you explored Berio,  Schnitke, Rochberg, Silvestrov, Kagel,  the more recent music by Rihm and Finnissy?

No, because I don't like this kind of music. I only like the most melodic contemporary classical music.

However, what does this have to do with quoted text? I wrote that if someone support artistic freedom he doesn't want to dictate a universal direction of classical music.
Infact, since I support artistic freedom, I think that the most avantgarde composers are free to go on composing for people who like this kind of music.

I only wish that some contemporary composers also create more melodic music that fit my tastes... and they do this (not only inside soundtracks), and the fanatics of avantgarde music denigrate them and the people who like their music.

[Mandryka]

No, because I don't like this kind of music. I only like the most melodic contemporary classical music.

However, what does this have to do with quoted text? I wrote that if someone support artistic freedom he doesn't want to dictate a universal direction of classical music.
Infact, since I support artistic freedom, I think that the most avantgarde composers are free to go on composing for people who like this kind of music.

I only wish that some contemporary composers also create more melodic music that fit my tastes... and they do this (not only inside soundtracks), and the fanatics of avantgarde music denigrate them and the people who like their music.

Well, I guess it's perfectly understandable to want more music which fits your taste.

By the way some Sylvestrov is full of melodic material. Some Rochberg too.

I think (but I'm not sure) that the days of directing a universal direction for music are well and truely over - even in Darmstadt and Huddersfield.

[W.A. Mozart]

With your original post, I feel like I have walked in on a couple having the same argument for 25 years and they ask me who is right. Instead of creating an OP that lays out every argument you have ever had on this subject, plus how you have supported it over that time to no avail, a simple question to the forum on 'How do you feel about categorizing film music with classical music?' would generate an organic conversation with which you could participate from its origin, while still reveling in your own backstory.

If I create a discussion it means that I'm ready to hear to what the users have to say about the subject.
The title of the discussion is not important.

[DavidW]

Since we're on the subject of categories... my pet peeve is people labeling any type of neotonal music as neoromantic.  There is an enormous range of expression in tonal music written from 1950-present and most of it doesn't sound like Vaughan Williams!   I'm just saying it might be convenient but it is not necessarily accurate.

[W.A. Mozart]

In my experience, those who are really obsessed with categories are the devotees of "pop" music.  Here are the default categories from a well-known bit of music-playing software, presumably devised to coincide with the wishes of the majority of users:

Alternative
Blues
R&B
Country
Dance
Easy Listening
Electronic
Folk
Hip hop
House
Indie
Industrial
Pop
Rap
Rock
Techno
Trance

And users of this music player will also find the very useful category "Classical", which covers everything from Léonin to Dobrinka Tabakova.

Someone is not obsessed by categories if he uses them in a generic and descriptive way. He is obsessed if he tries to find rigid paramethers to determine if something belongs to a category or an other one and he uses them in a prescriptive way.
If you have to make sure that something that people perceive as "classical music" is not categorized as such, your are obsessed by categories.

The users of that software only want to find music that they like.

[W.A. Mozart]

Since we're on the subject of categories... my pet peeve is people labeling any type of neotonal music as neoromantic.  There is an enormous range of expression in tonal music written from 1950-present and most of it doesn't sound like Vaughan Williams!  I'm just saying it might be convenient but it is not necessarily accurate.

You are right. Of course music can be tonal without being romantic. Infact the music of the baroque and of the classical period is not romantic, but it's tonal.

In my playlist of contemporary music I have this piece of Marcus Paus... melodic but nor romantic.

... but there is certainly also neoromantic music.
The first thing that comes to my mind is the VC of Alma Deutscher.

[SimonNZ]

To the community:

The Alma Deutscher plug confirms what I had feared: this is the TC member ArtMusic.

Trying to convince him that if he actually listened to some post WW2 classical he might actually like it, instead of disparaging it based on almost no exposure will be fruitless.

[VonStupp]

If I create a discussion it means that I'm ready to hear to what the users have to say about the subject.
The title of the discussion is not important.

I don't think I mentioned anything of the title, but yours has three exclamation points, so it obviously bears some emotional weight, especially as what you view as the correct answer. But then again, I would rather confront this topic from its genesis, where your OP examples are brought up as an organic component of the discussion.

Then again, I haven't had much time for music discussion on this forum this past year or so, so perhaps I am just feeling cranky and riled up today.
VS

Indeed there is some relevance however, since I am listening to quite of bit of Shostakovich since the new year. Here is a composer, like Prokofiev, who has a musical populous side and a musical serious side, and some in between.

Like Vaughan Williams, when I am listening to Shostakovich's film music, I usually put it in the Film Music thread, whether they are a concert suite or not. Would anyone care if I put it in the main Classical Music Listening thread; probably not. Would some care if I put Hans Zimmer there; perhaps not, but there might be a eyebrow raised against it belonging there. Often times, it is all orchestral music, so does it matter? Not to me...

[Karl Henning]

To the community:

The Alma Deutscher plug confirms what I had feared: this is the TC member ArtMusic.

Trying to convince him that if he actually listened to some post WW2 classical he might actually like it, instead of disparaging it based on almost no exposure will be fruitless.

Thanks for the tip!

[Karl Henning]

Basically, what this guy wrote, is that in classical music should be forbidden to use determined chord progressions.

Incorrect.

[Roasted Swan]

NO MINOR CHORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Maestro267]

The title is just clickbait, nothing more. And yes, I have bitten the bait, deal with it.

[Jo498]

The purpose of giving names to different kinds of music is to understand, more or less, what to expect from a musical work, but there are people in the classical music world who are literally obsessed with categories, as if it was possible to scientifically determine the genre of a musical work.

You are the person obsessed with categories but unfortunately in an inconsistent way. Because on the one hand you clearly want to "ennoble" your favorite movie soundtracks by stressing the closeness (in some respects) to some (undoubtedly) classical music, on the other hand you (correctly) stress that cultural history is not like chemistry, so there will always be some uncertain borders and borderline cases.

There cannot be another chemical element "between" hydrogene and helium [note that even here finer distinctions are possible eg. He3 and Tritium are "closer" in a sense than H and He4 but this distinction is not on the granularity level of chemical elements but nuclear physics] but there can be a whole genre like 1870s-1930s operetta on the border between classical and popular/light music.
They are played by the same orchestras and singers in the same theatres and it's hard to give exceptionless criteria (while easy to give rough, fallible criteria, like far more spoken dialogue, comic subject matter etc. in operetta) but it's not that hard to distinguish clear cases like e.g. Salome vs. Merry Widow.

The solution (inasmuch there can be a solution to a somewhat ill posed question) begins with realizing that "classical music" and "movie soundtrack" are orthogonal ways of categorization. The first is (mainly) historical, the second one is functional.

It's like asking if church music is classical music. Mozart's "Coronation mass" is both, a traditional gospel setting of "Swing low, Sweet Chariot" is churchy but not classical, and Handel's "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" is not church music, even if someone plays an organ arrangement of this as a processional or prelude in a church service.

Similarly, some movie music is classical, some is re-arranged classical music, some is clearly not classical and there will be borderline cases.

[Florestan]

To the community:

The Alma Deutscher plug confirms what I had feared: this is the TC member ArtMusic.

I am not so sure. The avatar and the posting pattern and style (especially the "How do you rate this piece? Write everything you want about it." threads) point rather to TC member HansZimmer --- but maybe HZ and ArtMusic is one and the same person.

[SimonNZ]

I am not so sure. The avatar and the posting pattern and style (especially the "How do you rate this piece? Write everything you want about it." threads) point rather to TC member HansZimmer --- but maybe HZ and ArtMusic is one and the same person.

I must have left before before the arrival of this HZ. Do you remember seeing the two names at the same time? Because I'm seeing many telltale signs. Including all the polls.