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

[W.A. Mozart]

Yes, this is true. But note that a) it isn't coincidental that Pachelbel's Canon is about as close to 'popular music' as 'classical music' gets; that the Pachelbel canon sequence is famously used in a large number of pop songs; and c) that this technique of playing over repeating chord patterns was born in the popular music of the day eg the Passamezzo antico or the Romanesca (there are many more). In other words, that the short repeating chord sequence has always been a particularly popular and accessible form - relatively easier to play, to improvise on, to extend, to remember, to add new words to, to join in with.

Ok, thanks for the information!

However, the point is that there are classical music pieces with repeating chords. Unless we don't want to expel them from classical music, at the moment repeating chord progressions can not be seen as something that makes something not classical.

We might say that developing chord progressions connotate classical music but that they don't define it.

Yes.

Yes what?

I think you are misunderstanding my use of the term microclimax - which is fair enough, as I am using it in a way that I'm rather making up! For me it doesn't mean simply a smaller or subsidiary moment of climax, but instead something that happens on an almost imperceptible level. When we journey from one chord to another each one adds a new step on the journey, a new harmonic vista opens up... but with a repeating chord pattern we quickly return to the beginning and do it again, which gives us this small sense of release at having completed one cycle and started a new one. It's as if every four bars (usually four) we get a tiny thrill of pleasure at this return, over and over again. Because in much 'classical' music this repetition is absent and the harmonic development is more spun out and complex, the release takes longer to happen, but is bigger - more of a real climax - when it does.

The repeating chord sequence can do some quite subtle things that would be hard to do in any other way. In this song for example

the unusual harmonic movement, especially with the third chord, imbues the whole song with an interestingly hard-to-pin-down atmosphere. The four chords move from:
1) the comforting solidity of the home major chord, I
...to...
2) a tiny movement in the bass which turns major to a questioning minor chord, III
...to...
3) an interesting thirdless chord, neither major nor minor, which adds an open and unsure quality to the music, VI
...to...
4) the broad solidity of a subdominant major, IV, which shares a pivot note with the previous chord thus resolving it in a satisfying way, but which itself prepares for the return of 1)

The song then repeats this pattern over and over, so that our minds are filled with this repeating progression of feelings. When I teach children about this I ask them what the mood of this song is. They always find it hard to pin down - and this repeated journey from away from and back to major I, via that mysterious third chord, is why.

The microclimax here, then, is simply that return to I, reinforcing itself over and over for most of the song's length.

In general 'classical' music does not do this but, like the Chopin E minor Prelude, it explores a longer, more varied and less repetitive journey. Again, I am not making a value judgement, just observing a difference.

The rest of your post rest on the wrong assumption of what I meant by microclimax.

Ok, I know what you want to say, but I wouldn't speak simply of repeating chord progressions. I think that the correct sentence is: repeating themes.

For example, if someone who has never been exposed to classical music opens the first movement of the symphony 40 of Mozart, right at the beginning he might think: "What a beautiful theme", but after only 30 seconds the beautiful theme goes away and it returns only after 1 minute and 20 seconds.

The theme is repeated in the original form only three times and only for a short time (exposition, repetition, recapitulation). There also the variations in the development section, but they are not the same thing.

Now, the person might be disappointed, because if it was a pop song the beautiful theme would be repeated many times with slight variations.

A guy in the web told me that Mozart's music has no melody and I was confused since Mozart is considered a skilled melodist. Later, I realized that his issue was that the themes have only a short life in Mozart's music.
For the people who have been exposed only to popular music, a melody is a repeating hook. If you give them a complex melody, they will tell you that it's not a melody.

I think that if you composed a piece with repeating chord progressions but with an unpredictable melody and no hooks, it would suffer of the same problem.

We can call this the "too many notes" issue.

[Luke]

Ok, thanks for the information!

However, the point is that there are classical music pieces with repeating chords. Unless we don't want to expel them from classical music, at the moment repeating chord progressions can not be seen as something that makes something not classical.

No, and I didn't say they were. I was just trying to explain what I think the person you quoted in your OP was referring to. To me it is self-evident that a piece of classical music can be built on a repeating chord sequence, but interesting to note that popular music of all sorts does so routinely (in fact, essentially ubiquitously these days), and that classical music which does so tends to have close roots in such popular sources, like all though Romanescas etc that I mentioned. Just an observation, that's all.

Yes what?

Just a general statement of agreement with what you'd just said.


quote author=W.A. Mozart link=msg=1553912 date=1709062879]OK, I know what you want to say, but I wouldn't speak simply of repeating chord progressions. I think that the correct sentence is: repeating themes.[/quote]
Then I'm afraid you don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm not talking about recurring themes, I'm talking about rigidly repeating chord sequences. The Adele song I quoted has the following harmonic structure, until the chorus, which has a closely-related and also repeating one.

I
III
VI
IV
I
III
VI
IV
I
III
VI
I
III
VI
IV
I
III
VI
IV
I
III
VI
IV
 Etc

[W.A. Mozart]

Then I'm afraid you don't know what I'm trying to say. I'm not talking about recurring themes, I'm talking about rigidly repeating chord sequences.

No, I know what you mean: that modern popular songs are usually a loop of 4 chords.

What I was saying is that I think that what makes classical music difficult to digest for the general public is primarily the melodic complexity.
The people who have been exposed only to modern popular music are used to melodies built around hooks and the sonata-form used in classical music is difficult to digest because it's about thematic development.

Infact, when you ask people "why don't you like classical music?", some of them tell you that it lacks hooks.
I think that these people would digest classical music, despite the harmonic complexity, if it was based on strong hooks like modern popular music.

What do you think?




In regards to the Pachelbel Canon, I was thinking that it's infact a canon... isn't the repetition a normal thing in this form? Are other canons of classical music not built in the same way?

[Florestan]

What I was saying is that I think that what makes classical music difficult to digest for the general public is primarily the melodic complexity.
The people who have been exposed only to modern popular music are used to melodies built around hooks and the sonata-form used in classical music is difficult to digest because it's about thematic development.

Infact, when you ask people "why don't you like classical music?", some of them tell you that it lacks hooks.
I think that these people would digest classical music, despite the harmonic complexity, if it was based on strong hooks like modern popular music.

What do you think?

The melodic, harmonic and rythmical complexity of "classical" music is a feature, not a bug. If you believe that by dumbing it down you will make fans of Brittney Spears to eventually love Brahms and Donizetti as well (the first two names that sprang to my mind) you are deluded. This kind of music requires levels of intellectual/emotional effort and attention span which many, if not most, people not familiar with it find exhausting and not commensurate with the instant gratification they expect from music. This is not a value judgment but simply a statement of facts.

[W.A. Mozart]

...and why do you swear for the fact that film music isn't?

I don't. It was simply natural for me to consider some soundtracks as classical music, and then I read people here and there in the web who wrote that we can not call determined soundtrracks "classical music" and I simply opened an innocent discussion in a forum with the title "Why do many people think that classical-style soundtracks are not classical music?".

In that discussion I realized that many people in the classical music world are obsessed by categories, because they think that they can formulate rigid and clear rules to determine if something is classical music or not, but you can't.

The position of me and other people in the discussion was: "If something sounds like classical music, it's classical music.". There is not other rule beyond this one. Is it a subjective paramether? Yes, it is, so inside a group of people there might be no agreement about the classification of a piece, but I don't see what's the problem.
The musical categories are meant to be generic and instinctive, not scientific.


Perhaps after the mentioned discussion in the other forum, the issue became a bit personal for me because I'm still angry with some unpolite users and with the moderators.
I might say that I don't really care if soundtracks are classical or not and that my concerns are more about the dogmatic idiots who scream "Classic FM is poop because it promotes soundtracks" and things like that.
I think that these people with snobbish attitudes damage the world of classical music.

It's a grey area. Speaking for myself only, very little strikes me as really being classical

I've never written that film music = classical music.

What I'm saying is that once we agree about the fact that a soundtrack is classical, it's a good idea to play it in symphonic classical concerts if many people like it.

I don't know how many soundtracks can be considered classical. Perhaps we should discuss about concrete examples. Here below some examples of soundtracks that I consider classical.

John Williams - Star Wars: March of the Resistance

John Williams - Star Wars: Battle of the Heroes

Alan Menken - The Hunchback Of Notre Dame: Suite

Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy: Maria & Draco (miniopera)

James Horner - Braveheart: For the Love of a Princess

Patrick Doyle - Sense and Sensibility: My Father's Favourite

This is the only soundtrack I know that it's inspired to the classical period and not to the romantic period like most soundtracks.

Hans Zimmer - Glladiator: suite

Someone asked why not to play Justin Bieber's music... I think it was @Florestan, but I can't find his post.
Well, if we think that the music of Justin Bieber is classical why not? The problem is that no one considers it to be classical music.

What I'm saying is really simple: there are some soundtracks that are clearily classical and that have gained a high popularity.
If the classical musicians ignore the popular classical music of our time, they lose the contact with the real world and classical music will be damaged because it will lose popularity.

The snobs don't understand that Mozart in his time was a popular classical composer like John Williams in our time. He wasn't a beggar! As someone said in the famous discussion, the great composers of the past are highly romanticized, but most of them were PROFESSIONAL COMPOSERS WHOSE MUSIC WAS IMMEDIATELY SUCCESFUL.

It was POPULAR CLASSICAL MUSIC LIKE THE POPULAR CLASSICAL SOUNDTRACKS OF TODAY.

and the composer would have to extract a symphonic suite to make the music stand on its own, as Vaughan-Williams did for the seventh symphony and as many composers of ballet music did for their stage works.

Although I agree that it doesn't make sense to play the full original suites of soundtracks in the concert hall, I have to tell you that there usually different pieces inside the original suites that don't need any rework for the concert hall.

This live concert of the soundtrack of the Lion King is a good example.

00:00-02:41 - This Land
02:42-06:32 - To Die For
06:33 till the end - King of Pride Rock

All original pieces of the original suite, no rework. Even the concerts I put above are original pieces of soundtracks with almost no rework.

[Florestan]

I don't really care if soundtracks are classical or not and that my concerns are more about the dogmatic idiots who scream "Classic FM is poop because it promotes soundtracks" and things like that.

Thank you for admitting openly that you're fighting straw men and beating dead horses just for the sake of it. In the real world film music has already made their way into many concert halls or open air performances, especially in concerts specifically targeted at a more diverse and popular audience. Instead of acknowledging this fact (which incidentally gives the lie to your claim that musical institutions are controlled by elitist avant-garde fanatics) you keep harping on a handful of anonymous internet posters whose relevance to and influence on the musical life worldwide is zero. Do you really not realize how ridiculous all this sounds?

[Luke]

No, I know what you mean: that modern popular songs are usually a loop of 4 chords.

What I was saying is that I think that what makes classical music difficult to digest for the general public is primarily the melodic complexity.
The people who have been exposed only to modern popular music are used to melodies built around hooks and the sonata-form used in classical music is difficult to digest because it's about thematic development.

Infact, when you ask people "why don't you like classical music?", some of them tell you that it lacks hooks.
I think that these people would digest classical music, despite the harmonic complexity, if it was based on strong hooks like modern popular music.

What do you think?

Well, I don't think it's a lack of hooks, which is really another word for a designedly catchy variety of what in the world of classical music is usually called a motive or something similar. I think it's to do with rhythmic regularity/predictabilty more than anything. A hook isn't effective if it comes where it's not expected, but is almost physically satisfying when it does, thanks to the power of rhythm/metre. So the power of hooks in popular music goes hand in hand with the harmonic looping I've been talking about, being heard as fitting into a kind of matrix where we get fed something nice, like a homeopathic dose of dopamine (harmonic return; hook etc) at exactly the moment we expect and want it.

In regards to the Pachelbel Canon, I was thinking that it's infact a canon... isn't the repetition a normal thing in this form? Are other canons of classical music not built in the same way?

The thing about the Pachelbel Canon is that it is both a) a canon and b) built on a repeating chord sequence. What Pachelbel has done, in effect, is to find a lot of short melodic phrases that fit that eight chord loop and then strung them together to create a single longer melody that will therefore automatically work as a canon if each entry starts at the beginning of the loop. Building canons over a repeating bass line like is a relative simple technique and a very effective one - Pachelbel's example is the most successful of all, but other pieces that do similar things are amongst the biggest 'hits' of the time and of the preceding century - for example Merula's sparkling Ciaconna, which isn't exactly a canon but which features bags of imitative and quasi-canonic writing (there's a small spoken introduction to this video, and the fast-cutting direction is a bit annoying, although it's trying to emphasize the imitation, but musically I love the vitality of it):

But this is not the usual practice in canons, where actually a lot of the interest can be found in making the same melodic lines exist in different harmonic contexts. Where in the Pachelbel each canon entry occurs when a harmonic loop restarts, there is no such loop in most canons, and so - for example - if the first entry occurs in bar 1 in one harmonic context, the second entry might occur in bar 3 in a different one.

[Karl Henning]

The melodic, harmonic and rhythmical complexity of "classical" music is a feature, not a bug.

Very well played.

[SimonNZ]

Infact, when you ask people "why don't you like classical music?", some of them tell you that it lacks hooks.

I've never heard that. And I've never read that anywhere. You just made that up.

Talking to the voices in your head again.

[W.A. Mozart]

Original soundtracks of scenes of famous films replaced with the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and other composers.

[W.A. Mozart]

Thank you for admitting openly that you're fighting straw men and beating dead horses just for the sake of it. In the real world film music has already made their way into many concert halls or open air performances, especially in concerts specifically targeted at a more diverse and popular audience. Instead of acknowledging this fact (which incidentally gives the lie to your claim that musical institutions are controlled by elitist avant-garde fanatics) you keep harping on a handful of anonymous internet posters whose relevance to and influence on the musical life worldwide is zero. Do you really not realize how ridiculous all this sounds?

Ok. We should develop this point, as it's interesting for this discussion.

Perhaps my perception is based on my local orchestra, which plays almost only old music and in the rare occasions in which a contemporary piece is programmed, it doesn't clearily belong to the category of "popular classical".

I don't know what other orchestras do, but in the discussion that you know very well the matter came out, and some people wrote that film music is usually played in events in which only film music is played.

I don't know if you are saying that it's usual to play film music together with the classics of concert music, but you should admit that if film music is played separately it doesn't help the overall promotion of classical music.

My idea is that the people who like determined classical-style soundtracks learn the historical roots of the music they like and that they are led to deepen their culture about classical music.

[W.A. Mozart]

The melodic, harmonic and rythmical complexity of "classical" music is a feature, not a bug. If you believe that by dumbing it down you will make fans of Brittney Spears to eventually love Brahms and Donizetti as well (the first two names that sprang to my mind) you are deluded. This kind of music requires levels of intellectual/emotional effort and attention span which many, if not most, people not familiar with it find exhausting and not commensurate with the instant gratification they expect from music. This is not a value judgment but simply a statement of facts.

I was not saying that it's a bug FOR ME, but that it's a bug for some people whose conception of music and melody is reduced to hooks over looping chords.

[Florestan]

I was not saying that it's a bug FOR ME, but that it's a bug for some people whose conception of music and melody is reduced to hooks over looping chords.

So what?

[W.A. Mozart]

Well, I don't think it's a lack of hooks, which is really another word for a designedly catchy variety of what in the world of classical music is usually called a motive or something similar.

It's not the same thing.

In popular music you have usually a singable hook that covers almost the entire piece, with slight variations here and there.

In classical music a sequence of various themes is exposed at the beginning and in the development you usually find variations... and the variation of the theme A is basically a new theme, so it doesn't count as a repetition.
Furthermore the themes are not always so singable: they are written for instruments, not for voice, so they must not be necessarily lyrical.


Basically, a theme is repeated in its original form only three times in a movement of 8-15 minutes: the average pop song contains much more melodic repetitions in 3 minutes in respect to a big classical movement.

However I agree about the fact that the loopping chords can further reinforce the sense of repetition. I also think that a pop song with a more complex harmonic structure would be tolerated if they had strong hooks.

[W.A. Mozart]

I've never heard that. And I've never read that anywhere. You just made that up.

Talking to the voices in your head again.

It's the second time that I'm accused of speaking about the voices in my head, but I've already showed that I speak about real things: https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,32903.msg1553823.html#msg1553823

I might do the effort required to show that I'm speaking about real things even in this case, but I don't want to, because it would requires too much effort, since I'd have to search the messages inside a enormous amount of data.

The only thing that I can easily find is the following: two discussions opened in an other forum.


Title: Symphonies with clear straightforward melodies and themes.
---------------------

I have a hard time finding much if anything where you have a strong melodic line or theme thats repeated throughout the piece but it varies a little in its chords and instrumentation in each section but you u can hear its all tied together.

---------------------


Title: Support or Refute
----------------

Classical music tends to lack strong hooks. A large sum of it is largely forgettable.

----------------




I know what they are speaking about. Unlike some people who says that have listened to classical music since their childhood, I have grown up with pop music and I started listening to classical music only in my thirties.

If you have been exposed only to pop music for your entire life, it requires a bit of effort to get used to the complex forms of classical music.
When I was a newbie of classical, the only thing I used to like were miniatures with repeating themes, like the Rondo alla Turca of Mozart.

When I listened to big romantic symphonies, I had the feeling to be inside an infinite travel without stopovers.
The fact that the duration of the average pop song is about 3-4 minutes and with rapid cycles makes things much easier.

I might also mention a letter of Mozart, in which he wrote: "If you want to be applauded by the public you have to write something that even a coachman can sing".


Why is the Rondo alla Turca the most popular piece of Mozart?


James Horner for the film "Titanic" he had to write a piece of music to promote the film.
He already wrote the entire score. Why didn't he use this piece ("Death of Titanic") to promote it?

Why did he write this song if he already had a lot of music?

Note that the song has not been used in the score, so it's clear that it was an addition.

The answer is: because every crafted composer knows the thing that Mozart wrote in his letter. If you have to compose a piece with high commercial success, you have to compose something like the song here above. Something that even a child of the primary school can play with his recorder and with a simple melodic fragment repeated over and over.

The same child wouldn't be able to play "Death of Titanic" with his recorder or sing it in the bathtube, so it can not be used for commercial promotion.

[ritter]

So, the problem with classical music is that it isn't pop music?

And the solution to that problem is to take whatever run-of-the-mill film soundtrack and say it's classical music?

O ciel, che noia!

[W.A. Mozart]

So what?

You should read the discussion between Luke and me, which is about why pop music is written with looping chords.

It's basically an OT in respect to the main subject of this discussion.

[W.A. Mozart]

So, the problem with classical music is that it isn't pop music?

No, see my previous post. It's an OT. The subject is "why is pop music written with looping chords". Perhaps we should start a new discussion about this, because it has nothing to do with the main subject of this discussion.

And the solution to that problem is to take whatever run-of-the-mill film soundtrack and say it's classical music?

No, you don't have to call "classical music" soundtracks that are not classical music. Only the ones that are really classical music. The most popular classical soundtracks should be played regularly by all orchestras together with the classics of concert music.

[SimonNZ]

Why is the Rondo alla Turca the most popular piece of Mozart?

It isn't.

edit: thinking about this a little and I'm going to guess that in terms of record sales it would be Symphony 40 and in terms of ticket sales it would far and away be one of the operas - perhaps even in the top three spots.

James Horner for the film "Titanic" he had to write a piece of music to promote the film.
He already wrote the entire score. Why didn't he use this piece ("Death of Titanic") to promote it?

Why did he write this song if he already had a lot of music?

Note that the song has not been used in the score, so it's clear that it was an addition.

The answer is:

See...these questions will have actual answers. You could look to interviews with Horner or interviews with James Cameron, but you haven't done that.

So who is it you're listening to for these oh so certain answers? There's nobody else...just the voices in your head.

[Florestan]

You should read the discussion between Luke and me, which is about why is pop music it's written with looping chords.

It's basically an OT in respect to the main subject of this discussion.

You didn't get my point.

There are people for whom "classical" music is too complex. So what?