Classical Music is better than Pop (saw this in my Twitter feed)

So I saw this Tweet (look at end of post) in my Twitter feed. What are your thoughts around the statement "How Classical Music is Better than Popular Music"? This is how I responded in a Twitter comment:

Quote

I think what the article is trying to say, is that classical music is an acquired taste. Really, the only way to appreciate this type of music, is to sit down and "really" listen to it. Not just hear it. Certain genres though just aren't for everyone.

But here is my take on it:

I think that Classical Music (which is loosely defined here) tends to be more complex than today's Pop music. Of course, better is also subjective, because what is "better" to me, is not necessarily "better" to you. In my case, I agree with some parts of this article, BUT, just because I agree doesn't mean it is a fact and applies to everyone. It does however apply to me, because I love this type of music and I can understand it.

That said, there's some music in this genre that I do have a hard time understanding, such as Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum. Do I think that this specific piece is better than Pop? Well, maybe, but only because I find value in music that is complex. Reason being, music with more complexity is something I can always learn from. And a good example of this is, music notation and cadenzas. Now if I were to find out that this piece by Sorabji was just randomly thrown together, than my opinion could change. But I haven't delved too deeply into this piece, as there aren't many full recordings of Opus Clavicembalisticum floating around, for obvious reasons.

What are your thoughts though? To repeat the question, do you agree or disagree with the author's sentiment of classical being better than pop? And do you feel that it is right that people are criticizing the author of this article for being so passionate about how he feels about classical music over pop?

No, I definitely don't agree. Frankly, I've read more of these kinds of papers over the years than is probably healthy to do so, and my take is that it is usually coming from some guy whose only exposure to "pop" is AC/DC and Niki Minaj. It's as bad as some guy thinking Schoenberg is what "classical" is and writing the entire era off based on that.

There are only two types of music at the end of the day: Good and bad, and although the styles vary, a common thread runs through all of them.

Complex pieces are not automatically good, and are actually more likely to be bad because the more complex a system is, the more fault lines it has.

Anyway, just from what I see in the tweet, I can rapid fire some of his points as being largely nonsense:

1. "Greater potential for expressiveness..."

Expressiveness comes down to the capabilities of the performer, arrangement/orchestration choices, and to a lesser extent: The techniques available to an instrument.

Pop uses all of the same instruments of the classical world and more. So...yeah.

2. "Due to greater harmonic resources..."

To be honest, I lol'd at this claim of his. Classical music, especially if we're referring to the actual classical era, was well-known for being much more rigid in harmonic options than the Romantic Era onward. That was pretty much the defining musical difference.

Following his logic, he should be arguing that Jazz is superior to classical music, if "harmonic resources™" are what makes it better.

3. "more contrary motion is employed..."

♪ Electronic yet symphonic, this is our score...♫

You'll notice in that pre-chorus from pop-metal band Amaranthe that the bassline descends whilst the vocal line ascends. They even include the lyrics "polyphonic" in this same passage. Very on-the-nose.

Every decent pop or rock songwriter understands the importance of having solid voice-leading in their work. Most commonly between the bass and upper lines in a harmony.

Any keyboard player in a pop or metal band understands this. Again, this kind of claim just makes me think the author really doesn't know what he's talking about.

4. "There is less rhythmic variety..."

That's probably because most popular music is derived from dance music, which includes waltzes.

Waltzes have even less rhythmic variety than pop songs, at least where accompaniment is concerned.

However, there are plenty of vocal-driven pop works by the likes of Celtic Woman, Vanessa Williams, etc. that do not have a steady four-on-the-floor pulse and rather have a more fluid tempo and such.

Lastly, I will raise the point that most of the most well-received, famous-the-world-over classical pieces are not only often the composer's simplest, melody+accompaniment ones, they are sometimes even simpler than modern pop songs. At least the sections that everyone knows.

A few examples:

It hardly gets simpler than this

This old banger could be very easily arranged for any pop group, complete with drum set

Then there's our boy, Karl Jenkins and his neo-classical hit

All the rhythmic variety...

and this one isn't exactly Dream Theater

Yet they are great and they do and will endure.

My last thoughts on the subject: There is ultimately nothing from classical music which the author idealizes that is off limits in any other genre of music and (most) other ensembles. The composer or songwriter is only limited by their own skill and imagination in creating a good piece of music.

We have a myriad of styles and instruments available to us at our fingertips today that Beethoven and Mozart could've only dreamed of having. Sometimes, a certain approach or style fits one occasion and not another, but just as the masters made the best use of what was available to them in their time, so too must we in ours.

It just comes down to an opinion. The author presented his opinion and justified it how he felt necessary.

8 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

To be honest, I lol'd at this claim of his. Classical music, especially if we're referring to the actual classical era, was well-known for being much more rigid in harmonic options than the Romantic Era onward. That was pretty much the defining musical difference.

Following his logic, he should be arguing that Jazz is superior to classical music, if "harmonic resources™" are what makes it better.

To be honest, I lol'd at this. 

Following your logic, "classical music is harmonically simpler because a handful of composers were writing in an era where that was the taste of the public." We just pretending that Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Shosty ... don't exist? Or maybe you ignore them because they don't fit your argument. To me, it seems obvious that the author is not referring only to the Classical period.

The realtionship between of classical and pop music is not that clear cut. Circle of fifths, harmonic progression are first used in classical music and later pop music. How can we define "pop"? Italian operatic music is considered as pop. Gallant dance music is considered as pop. But with time elapsed, they remain classical since their value cannot be eradicated.

I agree that classical music is an aquired taste, but only after numerous re-listening, analysis and reflection. Take Shakespearean drama as an example. Anyone who knows English know what happen in the drama. Oh Hamlet's father was killed by his brother so Hamlet wanted to revenge. Oh Othello was instigated by Iago so he killed his wife Desdemona. These are direct understanding, but there are also numerous interpertations, elabaroations hidden, and that need numerous reflections from many people to find the underlyimg meaning and interpretation. Soap opera, meanwhile, is much more direct. There's still murder and love, but less underlying meaning. Audiences won't need to dig that deep to get that meaning.

The effect of both classical music and pop music can be enormous if they are good. However, classical music has a chance to contain more meaning as Heidegger said, more capable of disclosing the world's true meaning, due to its longer time span and more care on the structure. Music tends to be a sensual art since itself does not contain any concept, thus moving the sense is more important than other arts like poems. But meaning can be given to a longer work more easily than a shorter one. I don't think Mahler can contain world of idea in his Symhphonies if the length is only 5 minutes. With that time span, more compositional technique can be used and linked, contrast can be more varied, and that creates more meaning in it. Message from pop music tends to be more direct and succinct. That's important too, but the effort on disclosement of the message is not as difficult as in a good classical piece. A Chehkov or Kafka short story can provide excellent messages, but not in the way of War and Peace or The Karamazov Brothers. Obviously there are more rooms for interpretation in a longer work rather than a shorter one. I think the complexty in Brahms, Mahler, or many great composers' work are unmatched in pop music. Acquired taste, as Husserl said, is the ability to disclose and perceive more meaning than the others in an artwork. Good Classical music gives audience more chance to dig deep and bestow meaning to it, while pop music's capacity to be bestowed meaning is narrower. That's the sense I think Classical music is "better", not only in terms of its musical content but as a jug to see how many fruitful wine of meaning can be bestowed on it.

Henry

11 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

To be honest, I lol'd at this. 

Following your logic, "classical music is harmonically simpler because a handful of composers were writing in an era where that was the taste of the public." We just pretending that Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Shosty ... don't exist? Or maybe you ignore them because they don't fit your argument. To me, it seems obvious that the author is not referring only to the Classical period.

 

None of the composers you listed are classical composers and all were born towards the end of the common-practice period (Shosty was born in 1906...), specifically mentioned by the author in his opening lines as relevant to his paper.

A period which spanned 3 centuries and contains the entirety of literal, and the bulk of so-called "classical composers".

11 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

"classical music is harmonically simpler because a handful of composers were writing in an era where that was the taste of the public."

The "handful" of composers are the men who are the most-influential, defining composers of the occidental, Christian world.

Rameau's Treatise on Harmony is one of, if not the most important text in Western music, to quote from the google write up "describes music and how to write it based on the tonal system used today in classical music. It uses the modern major and minor keys to teach readers what to do to achieve good-sounding music based on the 12 tone music scale."

They were not writing "because that was the taste of the public", they were writing because that was understood as how music should be written, passed from master to student and through the church.

Most people don't realize: After Christianity took over in Europe, it destroyed like 90% of the ancient world and knowledge within, including about music. The church forbid instruments for centuries because it was "pagan". The understanding of harmony or music in general that Europe had post Greco-Roman era was abysmal; it's only because Ptolemy's writings survived and never stopped being copied that we didn't have to start from basically square 1 again, although very close to it.

The all-important renaissance period was characterized by a renewed interest and appreciation for the ancient world, rather than the seething hatred for it which had dominated the middle ages.

Interesting exchange occurring here -yet this topic isn't something new on this forum.

First, let me correct a few false statements above:

Harmony: Harmony wasn't the original basis of music prior to roughly the year 1650 (and some would argue 1700) -at least here in the West. Prior to the advent of the Baroque, music focused on the horizontal relationship between different contrapuntal lines. This is why intervallic relationships were focused on to such extent -with some intervals being nearly outlawed due to perceived dissonances. A deep perusal of music literature from before the advent of the Baroque Era would really open some ears -as some of the music from those epochs was almost up to what we'd expect of this modern era.

Who Were the Public? It's important to remember that the history of classical music (and I use the term as the Twitter author did in its generic reference to the overarching genre itself) is -for the most part- is the history of the aristocracy. Composers prior to late Mozart and Beethoven were employed by the aristocratic class. Their music was written for aristocratic ears. The audiences outside of the court that came to hear their music weren't your modern-day Jack and Jill. They were nobles, middle class merchants, and people with mobility. This historic reality is the centerpiece of the modern-day perception of concert hall music as being for the wealthy. So, when we say they wrote their music for the public... that's not entirely true. Later composers, post Mozart and Beethoven, are a bit different. While many of them didn't work in royal courts or church posts, they still targeted audiences of mobility. We don't hear of Mahler going to the impoverished, working-class neighborhoods and performing his works -nor do we hear of Prokofiev performing his works in the ghettos of Moscow. Just as with businesses today, you have to go where those who will buy your products are. Patrons of classical music aren't commonly found working in gas stations and fast-food restaurants.

Church Legacy: The legacy of the Catholic Church in Europe is a mixed bag. While it is true that the church forbids pagan worship -and went to great lengths to bring the flock away from worshipping a blade of grass, it isn't true to say that the church destroyed 90% of the ancient world and the knowledge therein. Quite the opposite is true in that regard. We owe a great debt to the church in terms of its fastidious monks painstakingly transcribing the works of Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, Josephus, and countless other ancient historians/philosophers from throughout Europe and the Mediterranean basin. We also owe the church a great debt in their written records of ancient cultures and non-Christian traditions. Further, the church was largely responsible for transforming the decayed remains of the Roman collapse into a breeding ground for the ideas that led to the Renaissance. It may have taken a thousand or so years to recover... but it did. Now, thats not to say that the ancient knowledge preserved by the Church was not tinkered with to promote the pro-Christian doctrine -that's another argument.

Anthropological View of Music: Music activates the same areas as speech in the Human Brain. What does this mean? That means music is similar to a spoken language. We also know that music has been with our species since very early in our evolutionary development. Bone flutes and other musical artifacts have been uncovered throughout Africa -a testament to early man's immediate interest in music. So, from this, there isn't any consensus that there was a 'restart from square one' of musical theory and practice. Just like any other linguistic, music has steadily evolved and mutated alongside all of our other cultural relics. What this means is that just like pottery or construction type, all human creations are subject to the cultural norms and toolkit available at any given time (more on this in a minute).

So the take away from the above points is that many of these topics are interconnected. Its a fascinating topic on something so subjective. Anyways, now for my opinion on all of this:

Music is music.

Modern generations aren't that different from those that came before. Where else can you hear dissonant chords and twelve-tone rows being played in front of millions of screaming fans (Nirvana, Metallica, SOTD, Seether, etc.)? Where else can you hear atonal collages that encourage psychedelic usage (Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, The Screaming Trees, Phish)? While I only mentioned modern artists here... I could also include the Troubadours of Spain and Italy from the Medieval and Renaissance periods (though its difficult to pinpoint exactly who the audiences for these ancient avant garde artists were).  The focus here isn't on the quality of the music that these artists created, but instead should be on the tools they are using to create their work.

If we look at the entirety of the genre of Classical music (not just the masterworks), we notice that many of what we consider modern tools appear over and over again in composers as distinct as Palestrina, Scarlatti, Purcell, Mozart, Debussy, etc. The tools have always been available for use by any who wish to use them -regardless of legal ramifications (and this important to remember). So whether your Mozart or Jason Lacy doesn't necessarily make much of a difference in terms of the tools that you use to make your music.

So what is the difference?

What makes the music of Stravinsky different from the music of Soundgarden? Why is Mendellsohn so far removed from Justin Bieber? The answer comes down to the audience and the marketability of the music itself (at least here in the modern era). While there is value in the Rite of Spring... its hard to take such a large work and market it to masses at an economically feasible means. That 4 minute diddy by Bieber, on the other hand, is primed for the masses in that it is written and produced expressly to be marketable. That's fact. It doesn't mean that the musical content of "Boyfriend' is elementary in its use of musical technique -though many would argue that is the case. It also doesn't mean that the audiences who consume modern pop music aren't capable of consuming Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. The brains are the same after all. 

Thus, the question shouldn't be which is better: Pop or Classics? Instead, it should be how do we take classical music and make it marketable to a much larger audience than it has ever received? 

On 12/14/2022 at 9:54 AM, chopin said:

do you agree or disagree with the author's sentiment of classical being better than pop?

hard disagree

5 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

it isn't true to say that the church destroyed 90% of the ancient world and the knowledge therein.

My friend, it absolutely is.

Almost nothing of continental Germanic society survives beyond surviving writings from the Romans; Charlemagne killed thousands of Saxons and assured the destruction of their "pagan altars" and sacred sites. Early Christians destroyed the temple of Serapis — then widely-regarded as the most beautiful building of the ancient world — among countless other temples to Athena and Aphrodite from Greece to Syria, they forbid so much as hair-plucking when they took over and smashed down statues and ancient buildings to use in the construction of churches.

Philosophy was outlawed; they put all of Athens' last great philosophers (who could trace their lineage directly to philosophers of Plato's day) into hiding, destroyed most of the mathematicians works, they dragged philosopher-mathematician Hypatia from her chariot and flayed her, burned down what remained of the city's library and the list just goes on and on.

The Christian side of the argument always brings up that certain monks and Saints preserved works, but this was centuries post collapse of Rome, and it is rarely discussed how much couldn't be preserved because it was already destroyed centuries prior and we only have shadows of its existence.

I recommend the book "The Darkening Age" by Catherine Nixey. It is a very good book on this subject, with parts about music of course, and contains an extensive bibliography for further reading

But that's basically getting off-topic.

We agree on key points, though

5 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

Music is music.

5 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

Thus, the question shouldn't be which is better: Pop or Classics? Instead, it should be how do we take classical music and make it marketable to a much larger audience than it has ever received? 

Read a bit more of the paper on more of the twitter feed and can't quite understand what the author is getting at.

"The harmony is more likely to be functional" in classical music.

I really don't think it is. Even in the strictest common practice period (a very specific area of music which the author refers to once and then effectively drops) there are examples of non-functional harmony, often in favour of melodic lines. And nowadays, non-functional harmony in pop music is an exceptional circumstance.

Anyway, it's right to say that "music is music." All (most) musical traditions are based off each other, and modern day pop music clearly owes something to classical, just like, say, Neapolitan songs owe a lot to classical music. This is even without taking into account those musicians who walk that line.

While it's impossible to form an opinion about whether or not classical music is better than pop without the "I'm right you're wrong" attitude that becomes so frequent here, the author is largely at fault for failing to 

a) define exactly what they mean by classical music

b) define exactly what they mean by pop music

c) make it clear that this can only ever be an opinion.

It's obvious that the title of the paper is just designed to be sensational and make people read the research that is probably actually quite interesting.

1 hour ago, aMusicComposer said:

The harmony is more likely to be functional" in classical music

Functional harmony only appears after Ramaeu. But there's so many coloristic non functional harmony as well. There's so many dissonance in Beethoven's music, a classical composer. The most pure composer is Palestrina, but he doesn't use functional harmony with the concept of "function" at all.

The writer's conception of classical music should be an Austro-Germanic one. But even so there's so many common feature between it and pop music. I think the so called "better" can only mean the amount if meaning can be interpreted and bestowed on it, but not the so much on music's content. 

It’s too vague to be discussable, surely. Depends on context which in turn depends on fashion of the day and so on; and what classical music is aside from its strict definition in current terms.

To me it’s all sound organisation, some supporting an industry aimed at popular culture, of which music is just a part. By its nature, “pop music” has to be conservative based on principles accepted broadly by those who buy into it. That means simple harmony; regular phrasing in 2, 4 or 8 bars, 2, 3 or 4 beats to the bar or a compound thereof; and usually a strong rhythm. More akin to “classical music” was the era of progressive semi-pop from between about 1962 and 1975 (used the word “semi” as it appealed to a more discerning audience but based on the instrumentation and studio techniques originating in both pop and classical studios – the 48 track recorders and Neve sound desks the size of a double bed at least.

The Beatles were inspirational – proved that composing good music didn’t need academic musical credentials, plus they turned the business upside down by writing and performing their own songs. Believe it or not Sgt Pepper was done on a 4-track recorder. They and Pink Floyd in the UK at least, spearheaded a changed ethos. If an LP had more than 6 tracks it should be discarded.  You wouldn’t turn up at a psychedelic party with a bunch of pop 45s… but nor turn up for an office party with a bunch of psychedelia (although of course there are always cliques on either side). The music was part of a scene that included the Oz magazine, dope in quid deals, acid as spots on filter paper, etc., flamboyant fashion (if you bothered to wear clothes, weather permitting) and everything was far out.

But then we get to ‘contemporary’ which obviously isn’t classical and may be “pop” but probably isn’t. It can use anything that makes sounds. 

In the end, no “music” is “better” than any other. It all depends on the who? and what?

As a contemporary composer (mainly) I find British punk cleansing, refreshing, succinct, visceral, energising, along with post punk romanticism. Give me Strawberry Switchblade any time...although I suppose on the time line that's now effectively classical - or at least 'history'.

30 - 50 years ago, you'd have found more competent orchestral composers than rock musicians. Why? Because the only way to get your music played by an orchestra was to actually have an orchestra play it. It was an enormous expense, not many around, you'd have to have someone else financially backing you, and because of that, standards were upheld. They were (usually) only going to let people who had proven their skills pass the filter.

But anyone could go out and buy a strat copy + cheap practice amp and form a band with a bunch of other stoned teenagers who all suck as bad and can't see it because they're in an echo chamber.

Today, everyone, across all genres, can suck because for the same price as a low-end Ibanez and an audio interface, you can buy a laptop and subscription to EW Composer Cloud.

What happens though, is that guys take composers from an aristocracy 2-300 years ago, who had been trained in music since their first steps, and compare that with some teenager who pirated FL studio + auto-tune a year ago and got picked up by a multi-national corporation to market his "brand" and image to teen girls, then write a paper entitled "Is Classical Music Better Than Pop?" based on such comparisons.

Bruh

On 12/14/2022 at 8:54 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

To be honest, I lol'd at this claim of his. Classical music, especially if we're referring to the actual classical era, was well-known for being much more rigid in harmonic options than the Romantic Era onward. That was pretty much the defining musical difference.

This is true, the "true" classical era is sometimes quite boring for this reason. But what often gets confusing is that "classical music" often refers to the baroque + classical + romantic + in my opinion, even contemporary musical periods.

On 12/14/2022 at 8:54 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Complex pieces are not automatically good, and are actually more likely to be bad because the more complex a system is, the more fault lines it has.

Definitely! But those that are actually good is what I am referring to. Show me some complex pop pieces that aren't generic sounding, and I will take a listen. There are some pop songs that I like and find catchy, but the problem I have with most of that type of music, is that I find the music to have very low replay value. Any of Tchaikovky's 6 symphonies are symphonies I can listen to over and over again, and find something new that I missed.

6 hours ago, Quinn said:

But then we get to ‘contemporary’ which obviously isn’t classical and may be “pop” but probably isn’t. It can use anything that makes sounds. 

Just for a reference, here are some of the Classical Music Eras. Contemporary may not be classical literally, but if we are using the term in a not so literal sense, I would say  that some contemporary music may fit into "Classical Music" depending how it is being used. And in this paper, I am assuming the author is not using it to discuss the Classical era itself.

21 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

What makes the music of Stravinsky different from the music of Soundgarden? Why is Mendellsohn so far removed from Justin Bieber? The answer comes down to the audience and the marketability of the music itself (at least here in the modern era). While there is value in the Rite of Spring... its hard to take such a large work and market it to masses at an economically feasible means. That 4 minute diddy by Bieber, on the other hand, is primed for the masses in that it is written and produced expressly to be marketable.

This is an interesting point. From a marketing perspective (and I am big on branding and marketing) it should be easier to sell "image" while keeping the music concise. It's very hard to get someone to listen to the full 1st symphony of Rachmaninoff (some listening times of an hour required!), and Rachmaninoff is not exactly the image most young people today can relate to. But young people surely can relate to Justin Bieber. He's cool, he's hip, and his audience goes crazy over him. Same can be said of Michael Jackson in the 80s. If you are just grading music purely on musical quality, (in my opinion again), Michael Jackson's music was nowhere the quality of someone like a Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Chopin or Stravinsky.  But who's going to relate to Chopin? Even if he were alive today, have you seen his pictures? lol.  But Michael Jackson? Or Justin Bieber? It's not just about music, its about the total package, the music + image + branding + dance moves / performance + singing.

1 hour ago, chopin said:

This is true, the "true" classical era is sometimes quite boring for this reason.

So I heard you like alberti bass

Chopin: "Just for a reference, here are some of the Classical Music Eras. Contemporary may not be classical literally, but if we are using the term in a not so literal sense, I would say  that some contemporary music may fit into "Classical Music" depending how it is being used. And in this paper, I am assuming the author is not using it to discuss the Classical era itself."

This makes discussion even less valid for me. I can appreciate what the author is trying to say but lines like:

"These dates act as a guideline to help represent the gradual shift in compositional style, instrumentation, etc. as the music continues to develop." is more about the development of formal music as a whole. To the hoi polloi terms like classical music refer to any music not vying for a position on the various genres of popular charts, to do with marketing and sales. Music stores of former times made the distinction so people like me would venture toward the "classical department."

To the more discerning, yes, fashion and technical development comes into music but I ask why bother to try to classify it? Sure, the semiotics of a particular style tend to develop, become imposed, making it accessible for a while - fashion - until the creative types come along wanting to do something different.  Certain fundamentals remain through all genres, usually around the harmonic series and how that seems neurally "understood" (and why popular music depends very much on conventions around it. Mozart and Haydn wrote popular music for the elite - people who could afford the weekly concert.). We're still using the 12-note chromatic scale; acoustic instruments that have been around for half a millennium; tape recorders around for almost a century.

Possibly the invention of recorded music, even before tape - allowed manipulation that ordinary acoustic instrument didn't. Pierre Schaeffer with his Phonogëne - a precursor to some of the features of the analogue synthesizer, and certainly to tape manipulation? Sound organisation? The original Moog and EMS synthesisers - and now their revival as giant modular machines... not that in the 80s format it didn't stop the Japanese spotting a huge money making opportunity by sticking a chromatic keyboard on the front so this "keyboard" just made weird (and ordinary) chromatic sounds. But now with Alfa, Coolaudio and even the original Curtis (CEM, Curtis Electromusic Specialities) reissuing chips of old (!) these facilities once more burst the bounds of the auditory universe, limited only by the capacity of loudspeakers and the imaginations of artists. 

Is this "classical music"? Is that beautiful vocal work by Berio "Omaggio a Joyce" classical music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uIvzVgk16c

Or pop music: the White Noise album of 1969? ...Spooky Tooth's "Ceremony" with Pierre Henry?

Far out! 

.......

On 12/16/2022 at 2:13 AM, jawoodruff said:

What makes the music of Stravinsky different from the music of Soundgarden? Why is Mendellsohn so far removed from Justin Bieber? The answer comes down to the audience and the marketability of the music itself (at least here in the modern era). While there is value in the Rite of Spring... its hard to take such a large work and market it to masses at an economically feasible means. That 4 minute diddy by Bieber, on the other hand, is primed for the masses in that it is written and produced expressly to be marketable. That's fact. It doesn't mean that the musical content of "Boyfriend' is elementary in its use of musical technique -though many would argue that is the case. It also doesn't mean that the audiences who consume modern pop music aren't capable of consuming Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. The brains are the same after all. 

Thus, the question shouldn't be which is better: Pop or Classics? Instead, it should be how do we take classical music and make it marketable to a much larger audience than it has ever received? 

Interesting points here. They raise fundamental questions about "entertainment" as much as they do information science, linguistics and hence, semiotics (even if I believe an attempt to apply semiotics more than superficially to music is a waste of time).

What is entertainment for? As I see it - from an organisational perspective - it allies with the subject of what "work" is for. Perhaps cynical but I was drawn to an article, I can't remember who by - probably Graeber or one of his forebears - that the reality is work is to give people something to do to fill the gap between leaving school and death while conning them that it's all worthwhile. If this holds any validity then entertainment could be the means to keep people off tumbling to purposelessness; for probably about 90% of the western population waking up to the purposeless frittering of their lives on a great economic fraud would promote nihilism big time. 

As for "pop stars" it's pretty important to snare the young so they grow accustomed to entertainment as a distraction from the drudge of work which they will have jus started - and it's easy: the target market is young; has little responsibility; has yet to worry about long-term financial burdens, they have money to fritter. When it comes to music the moguls aren't selling just music, they're selling a scene: new fashionable attire "the look", an attitude, gestures, even their own verbiage/slang, whatever you want to call it. Effectively they're selling the target group a sub-culture that they can call their own so excluding any former authoritarian baggage. A thousand departments are directly or tangentially involved....and the young (mostly) don't realise what's under their feet. 

Attempts to apply similar principles to "art music" have to create an elite. Trouble is, outside pop-chart music the variety is so huge that focus becomes too hazy. There are enclaves for contemporary music; avant garde of the late 20th century (of which I'm a denizen) and of course, "classical". My text book sums various of these eras up well: Beethoven is a Public Limited Company, the big shareholders' names during the golden age began with K. Tchaikovsky would have been very rich if films existed in his time, etc. But instead of the disco clubs, the target market is more the soirées and cocktail parties. When miles younger I had a passion for Alban Berg's Musical Dramas. So very few were interested. I saved up to buy a score of Lulu. And then to my horror, after Lulu was staged at Glyndebourne, it became fashionable to treat it, Berg and Wedekind's play as small talk over cocktails!

It didn't last long, thankfully!

Man.... I chose a bad time to let the muses take control of me!!! SO much I missed in this thread.

Let me start with this:

On 12/16/2022 at 2:33 AM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Almost nothing of continental Germanic society survives beyond surviving writings from the Romans; Charlemagne killed thousands of Saxons and assured the destruction of their "pagan altars" and sacred sites. Early Christians destroyed the temple of Serapis — then widely-regarded as the most beautiful building of the ancient world — among countless other temples to Athena and Aphrodite from Greece to Syria, they forbid so much as hair-plucking when they took over and smashed down statues and ancient buildings to use in the construction of churches.

Philosophy was outlawed; they put all of Athens' last great philosophers (who could trace their lineage directly to philosophers of Plato's day) into hiding, destroyed most of the mathematicians works, they dragged philosopher-mathematician Hypatia from her chariot and flayed her, burned down what remained of the city's library and the list just goes on and on.

The Christian side of the argument always brings up that certain monks and Saints preserved works, but this was centuries post collapse of Rome, and it is rarely discussed how much couldn't be preserved because it was already destroyed centuries prior and we only have shadows of its existence.

It's very difficult from an archaeological/historical standpoint to truly state the claims above. While, yes, we do have evidence of Christian marauding of pre-Medieval sites throughout Europe and Asia... we also have concrete evidence of preservation within the same area. Many Christian churches and cathedrals were built on top of earlier, non-Christian edifices throughout the Middle East and North Africa by the Romans, Byzantines, and later kingdoms. Further, we see many non-Jewish traditions incorporated into the Christian theological practices that many scholars often wonder if Christianity is instead based on many of these pagan traditions. 

I would argue that -regarding the mayhem mentioned in your second paragraph- that this was less due to Christianity and more due to the fact that a strong, centralized governing body gave way to a series of ill-conceived and short-lived polities that resulted in the populace lacking basic needs. The result was a breakdown of society that resulted in a turning away from the perceived indulgences of antiquity (philosophy, old religious systems, etc.). That's a much simpler and more grounded explanation for the mayhem post-Rome (we can see it played out in modern history with the mayhem in Germany that led to the rise of Nazism after WWI). 

Finally, the last point is well grounded. While we do have evidence of a continuation of pagan traditions well into today, there is a LOT that we don't know about those traditions. For instance, this time of year we celebrate Christmas -a holiday that is supposed to represent the birth of the central figure of Christianity. Yet, this holiday is full of pagan traditions that many practice but have no clue about: decorating a tree, giving presents, making a feast, etc. We take these things for granted but each of these things has at its foundation a pagan practice that predates Christian tradition. We can look at other practices as well within the Church. Ironically, the Jews often consider Christianity to be an idolatrous religion for many of these practices and other things!

On 12/18/2022 at 7:08 AM, Quinn said:

Interesting points here. They raise fundamental questions about "entertainment" as much as they do information science, linguistics and hence, semiotics (even if I believe an attempt to apply semiotics more than superficially to music is a waste of time).

What is entertainment for? As I see it - from an organisational perspective - it allies with the subject of what "work" is for. Perhaps cynical but I was drawn to an article, I can't remember who by - probably Graeber or one of his forebears - that the reality is work is to give people something to do to fill the gap between leaving school and death while conning them that it's all worthwhile. If this holds any validity then entertainment could be the means to keep people off tumbling to purposelessness; for probably about 90% of the western population waking up to the purposeless frittering of their lives on a great economic fraud would promote nihilism big time. 

As for "pop stars" it's pretty important to snare the young so they grow accustomed to entertainment as a distraction from the drudge of work which they will have jus started - and it's easy: the target market is young; has little responsibility; has yet to worry about long-term financial burdens, they have money to fritter. When it comes to music the moguls aren't selling just music, they're selling a scene: new fashionable attire "the look", an attitude, gestures, even their own verbiage/slang, whatever you want to call it. Effectively they're selling the target group a sub-culture that they can call their own so excluding any former authoritarian baggage. A thousand departments are directly or tangentially involved....and the young (mostly) don't realise what's under their feet. 

Attempts to apply similar principles to "art music" have to create an elite. Trouble is, outside pop-chart music the variety is so huge that focus becomes too hazy. There are enclaves for contemporary music; avant garde of the late 20th century (of which I'm a denizen) and of course, "classical". My text book sums various of these eras up well: Beethoven is a Public Limited Company, the big shareholders' names during the golden age began with K. Tchaikovsky would have been very rich if films existed in his time, etc. But instead of the disco clubs, the target market is more the soirées and cocktail parties. When miles younger I had a passion for Alban Berg's Musical Dramas. So very few were interested. I saved up to buy a score of Lulu. And then to my horror, after Lulu was staged at Glyndebourne, it became fashionable to treat it, Berg and Wedekind's play as small talk over cocktails!

It didn't last long, thankfully!

 

I'd argue that work and entertainment arose within human socio-cultural environments for very specific reasons. 

Work: This is a very generic and vague term. First, do we consider hunting and agriculture work? These two tasks are a means to provide sustenance necessary for survival. We have to do either of these two things to survive. Would this be considered work? Providing customer service, on the other hand, isn't really something we need to survive. We don't need to sit at a desk or stand behind a counter to really survive. In some facets this behavior is counter-productive to our physical needs (i.e. promotion of a sedentary lifestyle). Is this considered work? 

Historically, we see that work arose as a means to keep civilization moving. With advances in agriculture and hunting technologies, vast numbers of people had nothing to do. As idyllic as this sounds -being able to do nothing all day long- it was deemed counterproductive by our overall society. The resultant fix was to set up institutions such as pottery, woodworking, civil engineering, etc. Thus, one could argue that this gave rise to the birth of civilization itself. With all these new trades it became important to develop infrastructure to oversee the functioning of society. In time, this resulted in the need to provide workers with recreation. After all, people have to have something to placate the fact they can't just do anything all day long!

Ironically, I don't buy that narrative. As I mentioned in my prior post, music production has been around a LOT longer than civilization itself. Thus, to make the argument that music and entertainment stem from the need to drown out the abyss of working doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I do agree that there is a definite connection in the development of music from being akin to a linguistic form of communication to art. But then, we can also get into the subjectivity of artistic definition itself, right?

9 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

Ironically, I don't buy that narrative. As I mentioned in my prior post, music production has been around a LOT longer than civilization itself. Thus, to make the argument that music and entertainment stem from the need to drown out the abyss of working doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I do agree that there is a definite connection in the development of music from being akin to a linguistic form of communication to art. But then, we can also get into the subjectivity of artistic definition itself, right?

Indeed my opening remark was that it was too vague to be discussable. I rather wasted my time and yours reading it (but thank you that you did). Although you're exposing your flanks somewhat to hugely vague conjecture with music production being around a lot longer than civilisation! I won't get into the subjectivity of defining civilisation. Hence nor on subjectivity of artistic definition. You said it - subjectivity. "Is popular music better than classical" is an unanswerable question.  

I'm a bit late to the party, but I can never resist this conversation. I'll preface my opinions by saying that I have pop music on in the background as I'm writing this.

I would choose to listen to classical music over pop music 99% of the time. This is for a number of reasons, some of which have already been said. 

1. I think that the melodies in tonal classical music are far more interesting than those in pop music. They are more creatively written, scaffolded by what I find to be far superior harmony and counterpoint. Listen to any Rachmaninoff piano prelude (23/4 and 23/10 are gems among gems for counterpoint) or just any short classical piece and it's plain that classical music accomplishes more in the same amount of time as a pop song's length. On the other end of length, when I've had this conversation (classical v. pop) with my friends, one of their biggest gripes is how long-winded classical music is. That a symphony can be longer than an hour long seems to be an utterly foreign idea--"Surely you get bored listening to anything for that long!" Actually, not really. I find that the tendency of classical music to be longer than pop music allows for so much more possibility and variety that a skilled composer can manipulate so well that I listen engaged for the entire hour-long symphony. Thematic development, something pop music lacks the time to execute thoroughly, is necessary to a good piece. But even where pop music could have some degree of thematic development, we still get to hear the same identical chorus three times. I recently discovered Liszt's Harmonies poetiques et religieuses. What he does with the melodic material of the Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude for 18 minutes is amazing. Each time the A theme returns, it's different. This is rarely the case in pop music.
2. I think the harmonies in classical music are more engaging than those in pop music. To say nothing of the typical four-chord progression, I find the other harmonic elements to be very boring. Someone said something about how a good songwriter must have a skilled grasp of voice-leading. While one would assume that to be the case, I find that in practice, there is little proper voice-leading in pop music. The harmony, it seems, nearly always consists of a whole bunch of parallel fifths. Disregarding voice-leading errors, this means that harmonic devices as simple as chord inversions are few and far between. Even Classical period harmony is more interesting than that.
3. Classical music is more performance-focused. This is kind of out there, but I wanted to give more reasoning than just pure musical content since that's what's been happening elsewhere in the thread. Have you ever listened to a good pop song and then googled it to find that the singer isn't a performer? Maybe that's something that just drives me crazy? Or if there is a performance, it seems that it's always performed in a key in a more comfortable range. I'm not talking about all of the pop musicians who tour and give live performances and want to make that clear. It seems that there are more and more pop musicians who only make studio recordings and rely on autotune and editing magic to make a good song. Can you imagine if Lugansky or Argerich or some orchestra used editing to fix the wrong notes in their recordings? Scandal would ensue. In the classical world, it's always been perform first, and then record second [if you are famous enough that people will actually listen to your recording, haha], and I think that standard helps ensure quality. In the pop world, it's the other way around and so anyone who wants to can make a simple pop record. I for one vastly prefer a live concert, whether classical or pop, to a recording.

I'll refrain from commenting more on this. I tried to avoid the elusive conclusion that pop or classical is better than the other and just discuss why I prefer classical music. Hopefully I was marginally successful.

Lastly, yes--I think it is ridiculous that people are criticizing that author for his passion for classical music. Besides acknowledging that people are entitled to their own opinions and that there is nothing remotely harmful about shouting from the rooftops about how much one likes classical music, it all just comes down to personal taste. I've been glorifying classical music, but I like pop and rock and all of the others too (just not as much, haha).