Music Chat: The Inclusive and Exclusive Definitions of "Classical Music"
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 11 окт 2024
- Recently we've been having a thoughtful discussion about whether or not popular songs (like The Beatles') merit characterization as "classical," as opposed to being merely "classics" of their type. I stand firmly in the "classical" camp, and in this video I explain why.
![VENEZUELA vs. ARGENTINA [1-1] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 9](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/SJfoPdeOPCQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Beatles fan here. I totally agree! Thanks for so much Dave! Love!
That is a clear and structurally right way of putting it. Bravo.
Thank you, Dave. One of the issues with the word canon is that it suggests there's nothing left to say: the canon says it all, and therefore there is nothing left to say. A less restrictive way of using the word canon is to say (as I think you are) that canon is evaluative: it doesn't close the door to other things, it shows us, instead, how to evaluate them and compare them to the existing standard. Thanks so much for this thoughtful commentary. Wesley
I think that's exactly right. The "canon" is a process, not a thing carved in stone. It's changing all the time.
I still think that, of the various possible definitions for “classical music,” the idea of “music created through notation” is the best. It is the writing of music that makes the “long form” that Dave uses as a criterion possible. It is the writing of music that makes music for such “classical formations” as orchestras possible. You can't improvise a symphony.
Pop songs are typically created orally and usually recorded only by lyrics and chord symbols, and performed by ear. Songbooks with full scores are generally written by third parties, afterwards, specifically for preservation. Many songwriters are not musically literate. Several of these creators employ professional musicians as arrangers, but this role has increasingly migrated to “producers” who rely more on software that deals with the sound material directly, without the mediation of notation.
I think creation-via-notation differentiates the songs that Mahler composed from the “Wunderhorn” from the Beatles' songs much better than any other criterion.
Yes, the notation criterion ends up encompassing “popular” genres like musical theater and film music, and excluding some avant-garde music that doesn’t use notation (electronic music, musique concrète). But I don’t think there is any problem with these inclusions/exclusions. In fact, I think they make a lot of sense.
Well, obviously I disagree. I don't understand why we obsess over notation and who is doing it. A recorded song has been preserved just as definitively as one that has been written down. The method of its transcription and transmission is simply a technical matter. You cannot consider the meaning of a "score" in the modern era without acknowledging the impact of recordings and other electronic media as valid counterpoints to the traditional writing of music on paper. To do so is to disregard half the story, never mind the reality of how music is made today. It's a Luddite fallacy to insist on the primacy of a written score when modern means of music composition render it unnecessary for the creation of "the work."
@@DavesClassicalGuide Very well said.
@@DavesClassicalGuide But I am not creating a value scale, nor am I saying that written music is fundamental or necessary. I am simply noting that writing modifies the outcome of music. Creating by writing - that is, through composition technique - is different from creating at the instrument - that is, through performance technique. I am not saying that one is better or superior to the other. I am merely commenting that they are different things and that the process fundamentally influences the result. In other words, it is not about writing as a means of recording, as the phonograph is, but about writing as a means of creation, like today's DAWs. The means greatly influence the outcome. You yourself noted this when you compared your unscripted videos with your written texts.
At this level of abstraction, yes, I'm on the side of inclusion. In terms of personal, subjective preferences, I come off looking quite exclusive in practice.
Over time, listening to the great classics has allowed me to appreciate listening to other music in other genres...well-written, well-instrumented music, it must be said. jazz, film music, rock, etc. etc. you are talking about songs in popular music... yes of course but also in popular music there are these instrumental pieces which are also there, instrumental pieces of short or long duration. and which over time have become "classics. I am thinking of "echoes" by pink floyd, or "evolution" by gorgio moroder. I am also thinking of these names unknown for the most part who write instrumental pieces and this in all genres which sometimes astound me by the musical quality which can be heard there, and this even today. as for the beatles. it must be said that without their producer george martin (the 5th beatle) who had a classical training (it is he who thought of putting a string quartet on the song "yesterday") .... the group would not be quite so far in terms of popularity... these songs, these pieces instrumental, this music which over time always gives us the taste to listen to it again....for me it remains a "classic"
Thanks for another thoughtful video. I agree that the definition of classical is at the heart of the debate. Since the word classical has so many definitions (the Oxford English Dictionary offers 11), we need to start from a common place and your inclusive definition seems a good place to start. Apart from the difficulties agreeing on what the word means, I see another problem: consensus and taste change over time, and each shift reconfigures the “canon.” Although one might like to believe that “excellence” will ultimately prevail and “universal quality” transcends all, the determination of what is “quality” has a subjective component which means that works have come and gone in popular favor. What makes us think that our decision should be definitive as to what is best and what everyone should want to hear? Some works have lasted for decades but then vanished; similarly, we “rediscover” others that enjoyed success in their day yet subsequently fell out of favor. These shifts occurred because people “kept on listening” and enjoying music. To give some perspective on the question of labels, I recall Louis Armstrong who said: “all music is folk music; I ain't never heard no horse sing a song,”
The songs I love are the ones where the words and the music reinforce each other. Could be Schubert's millwheel ("Das Wandern") or Irving Berlin's "...and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak...", where the music gives you the sensation of breathlessness in those short, rising phrases. Or Arlen/Gershwin: "The night is bitter/The stars have lost their glitter/The wind grows colder"--each repetition of those four notes emphasizes the end-of-my-rope despair. Or Verdi: "Sempre Libera"--she's been drinking, she's giddy, she doesn't know if she can actually give and receive love that lasts. Or the hammerblows of "Dies Irae". A great song catches you in the head and in the heart., whatever era it comes from.
It seems to me that your definition of "classical music" as high quality exemplars of a genre (any genre) squares with the usage of the term in history, and also the history of the rise of public concert life. When people started referring to "classical music" explicitly in the 17th and 18th centuries, I believe this is what they meant--a body of work worthy of preserving and performing more than once because of its quality. Canon has become something of a dirty word, but if the canon is thought of as something that is fluid--ie works can enter and leave it based on the judgement of musical culture at a particular time-- then the canon of "classical music" would have plenty of room for some of our most ingenious rock musicians, including the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Queen and the like. Other supposedly popular genres as well.
I like using the term "art music" instead of classical music. What makes it different from popular "pop" music is that art music is passed down by musical notation, whereas pop music has definitive recordings, it's propagated by a specific recording.
I would like to throw an interesting hat into the ring. The American composer Stephen Foster. For those who don’t know Foster wrote songs around the Civil War/Romantic era. Foster wrote “Oh Susannah” and “Camptown Races”. This video reminded me of him becuase it’s debated if his songs are classical or folk/pop. I personally think he’s a classical composer becuase if we categorize Schubert as a composer who wrote similar stuff as Foster as classical music then I think it’s fair to assume Foster as a composer of classical music .
You're right.
If Renaissance and Baroque songs of all kinds are considered classical, I don't see why pop songs can't be. I agree with you!
No one buys tickets to "a classical concert" without knowing what they are getting. There is no reason that people who go to hear classical songs can't hear a wide range of such--from Schubert to Pink Floyd. In context it could be marvelous. No one has an issue with the inclusion of folk songs or spirituals in "classical" recitals, and no one suggests that they aren't "classical" enough to be there. Again, it's all a question of how you sell the product--not what the product actually is.
@SO-ym3zs The BBC Proms starts this week and Proms 2 is devoted to The Sound of Disco. Let's Dance! I can't imagine anyone insisting that's a "classical" concert nor anyone who wants to hear classical music buying tickets or tuning in to hear it. It might appeal to people who want to bathe in nostalgia for their 70s lost youth but that's about it.
The reason I like a "time criteria" definitions of classical (but I really mean something more like "perennial" here) is that it is an objective fact, independent of all subjectivity concerning quality, but as the term "classical" tends to have a specific (and objective) descriptive sense, maybe that term should just be reserved to "of that time, place, and method". The interesting question for me is whether pop/rock/jazz/folk constitute a musical "period" in the same sense baroque does, as in, wasn't baroque/classical/romantic styles also "popular" as well, though relatively economically costly for the times (and yeah, I know folk songs existed in all periods as well). Btw, nothing precludes independent musical periods/styles from existing at the same time, as currently better infra-structures than ever before, support this. Also BTW, was there ever any discussion of Kendrick Lamar, Ornette Coleman, and Wynton Marsalis all winning Pulitzer's for music? That puts them in the same drinking club as Eliot Carter and Samuel Barber, although I would not want to buy their records on that basis (although I did buy, or at least listened, to them to find out what's going in the history of "western" or US music, which Pulitzer is specifically bounded by).
Baroque/classical/romantic styles were never popular music as we define the term today because society was structured very differently. They were always the province of the "upper crust" with the single possible exception of some liturgical music played in large churches in major cities.
I'm with David on this one. A timeless song is a timeless song regardless of when and in what tradition it was written. When comparing the masterpieces of different traditions, one can add that in the case of Mozart it is his composed score and of the Beatles the disc itself with the songs, final decision in the choice of instruments, arrangements, technical aspects etc. Of course with the help of the producer.
None of the Beatles could read music!
Yes, but many other musician sing Beatles songs, so somewhere out there is a written text, published and copyrighted. I'm seen them. How you arrange it is another matter, but consider that most medieval songs consisted of simply a text and a melodic line (often the words weren't even fitted to the notes), and they had to be arranged in exactly the same way in order to be performed. That's just a technical matter.
Philip Glass and Alfred Schnittke are examples of compisers with both a pop and 'classical' following.
Thank you David. I am 65, Ecuadoran, living in Quito. I have learnt quite a treasure with you over the last two months.
On the issue, I'd like to know whether you abide, accept or reject the concept of Art Music. As you know, just like in English the concept "música clásica" is understood in the same way. I guess the same happens throughout the Western World.
I started to prefer the label "Art Music" from the time I had a radio programme on ... hehehe classical music. At first I did so because the term (in my feeling and opinion) prevented people to give our music a chance and also to make listeners to elaborate a bit on the concept of Art and music, as well. Of course the move did provoque a reaction, especially from colleagues of other radios.
Indeed, two of the most frequent comments were 1. what is Art, then? (for heavens sake) and 2. my approach was takean as an elitist, arrogant way to despise other people's preferences.
Hope you are fine and will continue eagerly awaiting for your fascinating tour around the world of Art Music. Greetings from Quito. Roberto Reece
I think the concept of "art music" is ridiculous. All music is art. Period.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I strongly disagree, David. Your assertion would include computer generated music as art. Soon the best performances and, indeed, the best recordings would be those by AI and ranked by AI aswell.
Yeah Dave seems the avoiding the fact that there in most art there’s a difference between stuff you engage with and stuff that you consume for entertainment. You see this in books and movies too for example. With this logic a movie like Twilight and say Good Will Hunting are of the same caliber. Plus if everything that is a song is classical music then it’s a useless word. Literally just saying “song music”
I still find it odd when RUclips calls The Rite of Spring a "song by Igor Stravinsky "
Film music using classical ensembles are classical, even if written last week.
It’s indeed interesting that almost all popular music is in the form of a song. Classical songs however are above all settings of existing texts, especially poems that appeal to the composer in terms of musical potential. Britten was someone who spent his life looking for the right texts to set. Schubert wasn’t so picky. But the point is that whereas all successful pop songs have the attributes necessary to become popular, many classical songs don’t. Take for example Nacht und Traume by Schubert. One of the greatest settings ever written but with absolutely zero chance of ever becoming popular. The Beatles were fantastic at what they did but I don’t really think the separate categories are entirely artificial. Indeed I’d say they endure for a reason. Personally I loved the Beatles when I was younger but don’t feel any inclination to sit down and listen to them nowadays though it is not hard to see why they’re more popular than say Hugo Wolf.
Yes, but once again "settings of existing texts" is not a musical consideration. It has nothing to do with the form, size, or style of the music itself. So who cares? And I disagree completely when you say that classical songs don't have what it takes to become popular. That's all a matter of packaging and presentation. Nothing more. You might say that Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto doesn't have "what it takes" (whatever that is) to become popular, but set the opening tune to the words "Tonight We Love" and BANG! It's popular.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I personally can’t think of a single song in the so-called “classical” repertoire that has become popular but I’m v happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.
@@IP-zv1ihNot in original form, perhaps, but Della Reese sold millions of copies of her "cover" of Musetta's Waltz from Puccini's La Boheme.
Everyone, even classical music haters, know the Toreador Song from Bizet's Carmen.
While Wagner's Wedding March from his Lohengrin is the most universally known tune in existence. At one time, no wedding ceremony could take place without it. Not to mention Mendelssohn's Wedding March at the end of it.
@@bbailey7818I was really thinking about art songs and should have been specific. I’m obviously not suggesting that tunes from the classical repertoire don’t enter the public consciousness (although even in these cases they are often extracted from their original context or arranged).
@@IP-zv1ih Just a few: Brahms' Lullaby. Haydn's hymn to the emperor. Weill's Mackie Messer. Sibelius' Christmas song and hymn from Finlandia. Beethoven's Ode to joy. Gershwin's Summertime....
As a songwriter, I am comfortable with your definitions. But as a listener, I have often wondered why my fave songwriters (Beatles, Sondheim, Simon) are so much more accessible, even when they're being'experimental', than, say German lieder. Whereas the reverse is true in regards to instrumental music where I prefer 18th c. repertoire to what came later. Perhaps Chuck Berry's Roll Over Beethoven had it right when it announced the departure from Euro-centric classic of Afro-American pop music..
I don't know what you mean by "more accessible." I think it's just a question of presentation. Everyone sings Brahms' Lullaby and everyone knows it. If you did it as part of a Lieder recital, it would be much less accessible than if your mother sang it to you at bedtime.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Keeping to strictly musical criteria, classical music is more complex, harmonically etc; while pop is simpler, quicker to satisfy with an octave leap or resolve to tonic, and primarily rhythmic; hence it's immediate appeal to a broad swath of 'untrained' listeners. I have written 18 songs based on Shakespeare speeches, in which, allowing for my limited musical knowledge I tried to combine elements of pop and so-called art song.
Jeff, try listening to Gentle Giant albums, for instance, or Joe Jackson's "Heaven and Hell" [the latter with vocal fugues and a Passacaglia"].
I like the spirit of "inclusivity" but this definition of classical turns out to be more "exclusive" than anything!
Nothing is more exclusive and elitist that defining a musical genre by quality! 😂
I stick with the definition that classical music is music that is notated and (practically speaking) couldn't have been conceived purely by ear. I do agree that these categories reach a point where they are arbitrary and near meaningless - but I think this whole discussion proves the fact that there really is NO universally agreed-upon definition!
Being a fan of metal music - this same conundrum has happened in the metal scene ever since "Nu-Metal" emerged with bands like Korn, Linkin Park and Slipknot. You've got "inclusive" people on one end wanting to include them all - and the "exclusive" people - aka "gatekeepers" who say it's not "real metal".
To be fair to the latter - the music was drastically different! and in the modern day - most people see the definition of metal as being "any sufficiently aggressive guitar-based music". Inclusive people are very happy about the constant evolution of the scene - but exclusive people are very annoyed by the dilution of the definition - that it's come to mean a whole other thing.
I think the reason people are passionate about this relates to the "lane of consumption" that we choose to craft for ourselves.
I subscribe to musical outlets because I've tailored what I want to be exposed to - and when people start trying to shoehorn things that a large portion of the audience object to including - I can see why there would be an uproar!
At the end of the day - the definition of "Classical" has never really truly been codified by anything but tradition - so I'm okay to go with the flow of what the public wants. But I don't see "Popular Music" as a derogatory term. I look at The Beatles as "Classic Popular Music". And unlike Classical - "Classic" definitely has a connotation of true QUALITY!
I think there is some boring forgotten classical music out there - they're hardly "classics" - so i definitely don't think "Classical" has a connotation of quality.
The problem is not that there are different categories and that works from all categories deserve to become classical. The problem is that you are still trying to categorize at all; putting all the works of quality which is past a certain age into the category of “classical”.
I can accept the term “classical” should be available as a label for works which pass a certain quality measurement. I do and have done even before your video about the Beatles, Dave. I agree with you in that the classical genre should be inclusive rather than exclusive.
But your definition of classical music (which is mine also) does not match the consensus view of the genre which is a lazy categorization in the first place. You are speaking in “shoulds” rather than “is” or “are”. The classical genre should be inclusive and represent the best of all types of music from the past. But it doesn’t. The consensus view doesn’t and will not accept that ideal. And you trying to state that it should is futile.
Better you say that the songs of the Beatles and Pink Floyd is on par with Das Lied von der Erde as great music rather than categorizing them as one genre.
But having made my point, I agree with you that from now on we viewers of your channel hold to your view of what constitutes a piece of classical music; however different it is from the reality. Because as much as there is a consensus in the general public, it doesn’t mean it is accurate. And we are better to forge our own definition of it. Anyway, thanks for putting up with my long comments regarding this topic.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. You're right of course, but one of the reasons I am doing this channel is to get people thinking about what constitutes "great" music and how to think about music in musical (rather than historical or purely commercial) terms.
So then we can say: classical Country, classical Rap, classical Ethnic, etc. and of course classical Classical ?
So then does the term classical become our own subjective evaluation of its "Quality" and has nothing to do with Genre ?
It seems to become a problem of how we are using and understanding the terms, classical & Classical. and Classic.
Already we have Radio stations and programs devoted to what is termed "Classic Rock". Music usually devoted and
defined as the popular Rock music of the 60's, 70,s and early 80's. who's Quality is largely recognized.
I have to agree with the open concept that the term "Classic" is one that is totally "Inclusive" but how are we to term and
define the separate "Genre" that we all have come to recognize as "Classical" ???
WEBSTERS "Classical" - defined" - ""of or related to - music in the Educated European tradition including such forms as song, chamber, opera, and symphony as >Distinguished< from folk, pop, country, jazz. etc. ""
WEBSTERS "Classic" - defined - "" a work of enduring excellence, - a typical or perfect example of, ""
I'll just end with saying -- Your discussions on "The Ultimate Classical Music Guide" channel, is one CLASS act
that I look forward to
Thank you very much for your kind words. I think you are missing the point I was trying to make. What matters is not the meaning of classical as much as whether we are describing music in musical terms. Once we do that, the question of what should or should not be "classical" becomes much clearer (I think).