How much of your music listening is classical?

[Steve]

Salieri sounds Mozart but isn't Mozart. 

Enya is commercial music, not new age. Deal with it.

So let me get this straight, new age music is simply handed out to the masses? How could it not be commercial?

[71 dB]

So let me get this straight, new age music is simply handed out to the masses? How could it not be commercial?

It's not commercial in the way that commercial compromises are not made, at least not much. Enya's music is TAYLORED to appeal to the masses and I hear it in the musical structures. Yanni is another commercial artist. Real new age is not like that! 

[Don]

It's not commercial in the way that commercial compromises are not made, at least not much. Enya's music is TAYLORED to appeal to the masses and I hear it in the musical structures. Yanni is another commercial artist. Real new age is not like that! 

I find the argument that real new age music is not composed for monetary reasons pure speculation.  When a person writes a piece of music, how can we possibly know the motivations behind it?

[71 dB]

I find the argument that real new age music is not composed for monetary reasons pure speculation.  When a person writes a piece of music, how can we possibly know the motivations behind it?

Money and success are always some sort of motivation but you can tell what is the primary motivation. Even some popular music is made out of musical ambitition in which case the term popular music is miss-leading.

[Don]

Money and success are always some sort of motivation but you can tell what is the primary motivation.

Sorry, I can't buy it.

[71 dB]

Sorry, I can't buy it.

Once again someone has problems with my thought. I just have to smile. 

Don't give in to the hate 71 dB!

[Scriptavolant]

Moving this thread on a bit, is there any musical genre you've never been able to take to? For me, this would be Reggae/Ska.

For me it is blues, hip-hop, and most of all latin-american genre (I mean, things like Gipsy Kings, Compay Secundo and so on  ).

[karlhenning]

"Real new age artists" is a wonderful oxymoron 

[karlhenning]

Enya is commercial music, not new age. Deal with it.

New Age Music is a cottage industry.  Deal with it 

[71 dB]

New Age Music is a cottage industry.  Deal with it 

How many Sheila Chandra CDs have you heard Karl? Zero? Well, shup up then!

[karlhenning]

How many Sheila Chandra CDs have you heard Karl? Zero? Well, shup up then!

Ha ha, very witty, 71 dB!

I am sure that Sheila Chandra is even greater than Dittersdorf.

[71 dB]

Ha ha, very witty, 71 dB!

I am sure that Sheila Chandra is even greater than Dittersdorf.

Why don't you compare them yourself? 

[Greta]

90% orchestral, but 60% classical probably, the other 30% being film music and some pops stuff. The other 10% would be jazz/jazz singers.

Five years ago, it was totally the opposite, 90% jazz/soul. But I explored so much in that area in neglect of others, I've put it away for now.

When I do put it on, though, boy, it's great after being away!

You do realise we are going to feel the force of the Forum Jazzists when they start 'a readin' this thread  Grin

I've been holding back, I have!  But this is by far a HUGE passion of mine. Though I also totally get others not digging it. But there are SO many different kinds of jazz.

And I never really connected with the jazz I was "supposed" to love in college. Miles Davis and John Coltrane, though complete harmonic geniuses, become trying to me after a while. And hard bop is just hard hard at first, Charlie Parker seems to be throwing a blizzard of notes at you with seemingly no relation. And Dixieland is cute, but doesn't work for me either. Yeah, just like classical, it can be equally as hard to find something that appeals.

My favorite stuff is definitely modern big band, Latin jazz and funk.

Big Band = I mean not Glenn Miller or the older stuff (though Stan Kenton is great, he was very forward looking) but the more recent jazz orchestra stuff with more complex, introspective arrangements. Favorite arrangers/composers: Maria Schnieder, Bob Brookmeyer, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Rob McConnell, John Fedchock, Bill Holman. A guilty pleasure being Maynard Ferguson arrangements. This kind of thing is really great live too.    (I will admit I'm biased because in big bands these were my favorite kinds of charts to play, they are just too much fun.)

Like classical has chamber music orchestral and all sorts of styles, so does jazz. I would say the modern jazz orchestra stuff is equivalent to 20th c. on for classical. Some of the same kind of evolution. Earlier than 1960 or so for jazz is akin to the great Romantics of classical, more sentimental and extrovert. Pre 1940 or so, and especially early part of the century is more akin to say, the Classical period. (Remember Mozart and Bach liked to improv too!  ) Really the building blocks for jazz, a tremendously important period. And, jazz was born out of the African-American community after the Civil War, so going back to that era is more akin to the Medieval period.

For chamber music, just like those players have an incredible amount of communication, that's the highlight for me of combo jazz. I absolutely think with combo jazz you lose a whole dimension on record. Live: it can be a truly fascinating experience. The way great players play off each other is magic. Kenny Garrett, he's a current accessible funk/bop sax player that has an insanely talented group. I had a whole new level of appreciation after seeing them live, it was like they were musically "talking" to each other!

And if any of you love classical pianists, try something like Bill Evans (heavenly!) or Oscar Peterson, or in a more modern vein, Chick Corea.

Moving this thread on a bit, is there any musical genre you've never been able to take to?

Metal and really hard rock is a no go for me. Death/thrash metal, what is it? Ick. As far as rock Aerosmith and Pearl Jam are about the furthest I'll go. And rap, hiphop, dance/trance/house/techno whatever, nope.

I do find it fascinating that a good amount of classical fans love hard rock and heavy metal! I was looking up minimalists/postminmalists on MySpace, and got all these hits of people that had them in their list of favorite composers, and it was lo and behold many obvious metal fans (especially guitarists). What's going on there? Ozzy Osbourne to John Adams is an awfully big leap!

There is just one type of music I cannot stand, and that is marching band music (like they play on Independence day and so on). That is gruesome.

You know marching bands don't play music like that these days? The performance at the link below was my introduction to Shostakovich, when I saw this program live - and it was devastating. Last 5 mins with Shosty's 5th blew me away. Same summer that Independence Day came out, college age kids.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5192456731110229868

All over, marching bands (in America) do these types of shows every year, with classical pieces. If you're in school band over here, this is a first introduction for a lot of kids to classical music. It was for me, and I discovered many classical composers that way. Film music (which we also played in school) shouldn't be discounted either as a back door into classical, it is for many young people.

[Haffner]

I respect, but dislike, reggae, hip hop, "pure" blues,jazz, "popular" hip hop and vocal,and country-n-western.

So I'm limited. At our house, it's Classical and Opera, and Rock,Metal, and Extreme Metal.

[Haffner]

Metal and really hard rock is a no go for me. Death/thrash metal, what is it? Ick. As far as rock Aerosmith and Pearl Jam are about the furthest I'll go.  Ozzy Osbourne to John Adams is an awfully big leap!

You'd be surprised. There are more things in common between,say, Necrophagist and Arnold Schoenberg than you'd first guess.

[71 dB]

I don't have a problem to jump from The Prodigy to Rodrigo's Piano Music.

People limit themselves in regards of musical genres. I rather limit myself in regards of quality. I listen to music that sounds good to me. Music from any* genre can sound bad or good to me. That's because my brain processes music on high level and mostly in relativistic way.

Normally people react to the sound of an instrument like this:

a) "I hate electric guitar! The sound is so distorted!"
b) "Electric guitar rules! I love it!"

I react like this:

c) "Hmm, the sound of the electric guitar is a little bit too bright compared to the other sounds but it's okay and the riff that is played is nice."

______________________________________
*Certain genres such as operetta, r&b, blues, hip hop, death metal, etc. are less probable to contain music I like but you never know!

[karlhenning]

Normally people react to the sound of an instrument like this:

a) "I hate electric guitar! The sound is so distorted!"
b) "Electric guitar rules! I love it!"

I think normal reaction is a good deal broader than these two caricatures.

[greg]

95% nowadays, since i've yet to find any more good rock artists, even though i've heard a lot

[71 dB]

Since i've yet to find any more good rock artists, even though i've heard a lot

Try British Lowgold and Danish Kashmir. 

[Mirror Image]

I would definitely say that I listen to classical more than any other genre, but there was a time before I got hooked on classical that all I listened to was jazz. I go through these musical phases. I listened to jazz for a straight 10 years before I even pursued classical. Before jazz, I was into rock music and it was all I listened to, but these days I try to make more time for a variety of music, but this doesn't happen as often as I would like to think it does because when my mind gets hooked on a composer's music, then it could be weeks, months, or even a year before I move on.