Music and struggling

[some guy]

...classical is complex and intimidating, to use your words...

Not my words.

Look at the bit you quoted, again. "It seems, according to many different posts in many different threads, that listening to music, especially to classical music is an effort, sometimes a quite large effort. Classical music in this scenario is complex and intimidating..."

You see what I was doing there? Describing a situation. The key words for the context in which the words "complex and intimidating" occur are "in this scenario."

I do not find classical music complex and intimidating. I find classical music various and enticing, "various" meaning (among other things) that some pieces are simple and some complex and most a combination of the two and "enticing" meaning that it's all pretty attractive, no matter what it's level of complexity.

Now those are my words.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

Not my words.

Ah, well, now you're splitting hairs, but yes, I know you weren't asserting your personal opinion that classical music is complex and intimidating. Since you weren't quoting anyone else, the words were your own in that sense and that was the sense I was referring to.

[bigshot]

You get out what you are willing to put in. If you listen to some classical music, but you aren't willing to make any effort to understand it, learn about the context or think about what you're listening to, all you get is background music... which is fine. Background music is nice. But that doesn't mean that you are appreciating the music on all available levels. That takes effort.

[Henk]

I find distinguishing between and listening to the various instruments the easiest way to listen to classical music. With piano, left hand and right hand.

[Henk]

Though that can be quite hard for example with Stravinsky's music. But it still is a practical aid, you can focus on it, it's know-how.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

You get out what you are willing to put in. If you listen to some classical music, but you aren't willing to make any effort to understand it, learn about the context or think about what you're listening to, all you get is background music... which is fine. Background music is nice. But that doesn't mean that you are appreciating the music on all available levels. That takes effort.

True. I spent many years listening to classical as background music before discovering that it was a whole new experience when I actually paid attention.

I find distinguishing between and listening to the various instruments the easiest way to listen to classical music. With piano, left hand and right hand.

Yes, that's what I do, since I lack the ability to follow the development of themes and whatnot.

[Monsieur Croche]

Classical was the first music to which I was exposed sometime in my late fourth or fifth year; that music was LP's, the music Prokofiev, Janacek, Bach [Landowska on harpsichord], and some others. The gift of a record player and those LP's was, I'm certain, because I had demonstrated a very strong response to music in general.

Piano lessons started at age six, starting in the first lesson directly with Bartok's Microkosmos, followed in that same first year with selections from a collection of 'Beginner's Bach,' pieces from Schumann's Album für die Jugend, and several of the mildly modern Scenas Infantis of Octavio Pinto.

I can recall but one minor speed bump I had in finding any music "difficult to listen to" along the entire way from earliest childhood through the continual lessons and learning which ran nonstop up through conservatory. In retrospect, the only thing that created the alleged difficulty was my expecting a piece to be something it was not, thereby missing completely "what was going on."

I recall initially 'just not getting' and thereby rejecting Stravinsky's lovely and highly accessible neoclassical opera, The Rake's Progress. The reason being I was at the time only accustomed to the early ballets; much in love with both Petrushka and Le sacre du printemps. As much as I was fairly well-acquainted with the 'standard' harmonic vocabularies of the baroque and classical eras, I was unable to take in Stravinsky's lush modern and subtle neoclassical harmony. It took not too long an interval of time and another listen for the "Rake" to click and become a piece I truly love.

Ergo, I can see that some find works 'difficult' while I am more than convinced that difficulty comes from a context of some limitations acquired via a person's listening habits of a certain repertoire only.

Any time I have seen the "difficult / inaccessible" comment or heard it, the truth of the matter is that the person who says it -- and genuinely feels/thinks that -- is most often bumping into their own listening experience and the subsequent acquired cumulative listening habit. I.e. the music itself Is Not Really 'The Problem.'

When it comes to naming or pointing out what those barriers are which have a listener saying 'difficult / inaccessible," and because along with those habits I strongly believe there are also non-musical sentimental attachments formed to the repertoire listened to, I've seen that most people take that as a negative comment upon their musical taste or intelligence -- or both -- while of course it has nothing to do with either.

If one truly has 'open ears,' true enjoyment of classical music from the earliest medieval repertoire up to and including recent works where the ink on the score dried just yesterday is possible, and that without in any way lowering the standard of what is good, great, listenable, etc.'

[Karl Henning]

Fine and interesting post, thank you.

[Madiel]

And then there's pop music...

No, seriously. Because I read that last post and then couldn't help thinking about some of the remarks I've seen on this forum. It's a different style, it's a different genre, and I think it's just as inaccessible to some classical music buffs as anything else because they don't know it's musical vocabulary.

[some guy]

Sometimes I wonder how many of us have forgotten our early experiences with music. You know, in the long, long ago. In the before time--before we knew any vocabulary, for sure. But we responded, somehow. Listening to some of you, the "somehow" seems quite remote and inconceivable. How did you ever "get" the first things you got?

Whatever you first remember hearing and liking, it was long before you had any experience. And yet....

Monsieur Croche's experience is so close to my own, not only the beginning, but how it continued, that I'm feeling redundant!

At least I still do not like the Rake's Progress. That's one difference. But now I feel I should give myself another chance with that. It is the only Stravinsky I've never liked, after all. And why not? Maybe I just need to struggle more. ( )

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Don't worry, I certainly remember the time I discovered music in my early days! I haven't stopped

[Monsieur Croche]

As to

Monsieur Croche's experience is so close to my own, not only the beginning, but how it continued, that I'm feeling redundant!

S.G. -- my post is redundant; yours came before.

At least I still do not like the Rake's Progress. That's one difference. But now I feel I should give myself another chance with that. It is the only Stravinsky I've never liked, after all. And why not? Maybe I just need to struggle more. ( )

Well, the piece is dry, sardonic, witty (but, hey, the libretto is by W.H. Auden), while still being, imo, quite poignant as well, and to boot, it is very much in the manner of a finger-wagging Christian morality play... but, If you are going to give it a go, go for THE recording:
http://www.amazon.com/Stravinsky-The-Rakes-Progress-Igor/dp/B000002768

The review of the premiere had nearly all of the professional music critics crying "Pastiche," while, ironically, the names of the composer each mentioned as allegedly having been imitated cumulatively formed a rather full list of different composers The piece is as stamped all over with the composer's musical DNA as any other he composed.

At least we both have thinking Wagner a terrible composer 
[Wagner's music severely dissed. Flame War Erupting. Film at Eleven.]

[some guy]

Well, that is the recording I have.

And it's up next, right after Les Percussions de Strasbourg stop hitting things, that is, after this recording of them hitting things stops. I hope they never stop hitting things.

[Monsieur Croche]

Well, that is the recording I have.

And it's up next, right after Les Percussions de Strasbourg stop hitting things, that is, after this recording of them hitting things stops. I hope they never stop hitting things.

Oh dear, I bet Les Percussions de Strasbourg are also beating and slapping things, too. The abuse must stop!

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Wouldn't you prefer John Eliot Gardiner? I find that with composers performing their own music (which is a struggle in itself) a lot of additional interpretative elements may be overlooked.....compare people who have studied a Stravinsky score in greater detail than he did and Stravinsky's rather mediocre conducting skills....but then again, all personal preference.

[some guy]

I don't know.

All I know is that I have disliked and then, as of this morning, liked the opera in Stravinsky's own performance.

[Mirror Image]

I find that with composers performing their own music (which is a struggle in itself) a lot of additional interpretative elements may be overlooked...

Tell this to Britten and he'd slap you right across the face! One hell of a conductor IMHO. Of course, his music was incredible.

[Karl Henning]

No, I don't think Britten was a slapper

[Mirror Image]

No, I don't think Britten was a slapper

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Tell this to Britten and he'd slap you right across the face! One hell of a conductor IMHO. Of course, his music was incredible.

Actually Britten is my only exception...he was ONLY good at interpreting his own music