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tarheel91 on 19 April 2010
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patapon said:
tarheel91 said:
patapon said:
pastro243 said:
patapon said:
pastro243 said:
Because you need a brain to listen to it, a normal guy would find it "boring" since they cant apreciatte the complexity and prefer simple tunes with simple beats that are easy to dance.

What, leaving the brain comment outside, what I wrote is completly true.

Alright, brain comment aside... I don't think liking/disliking classical music has anything to do with appreciation. It simply comes down to liking what you hear. That's what's important.

I enjoy all genres of music. On my ipod I have rap, metal, blues, classical, jazz, etc. No discrimination here. Hell, I even have a Madonna tune on my ipod (I'm not gay... I'M NOT!!!) Also, I'm a musician whose been playing music ever since I was a child. Not once has intricacy of a musical piece made me enjoy a tune. Impressed? Perhaps... but enjoyed more because of complexity? Don't see how that makes sense from a practical standpoint. People listen to music because they like what they hear...

Have you ever thought that perhaps people don't like classical music because they don't like conventional instruments? Or that perhaps the sound just doesn't flow with them? I don't think we need to regard these people as simpletons for not liking what we like. That's just... snobbish...

And not true.

Brain comment aside, he's right.  It's the same reason most people find literature boring and will only read popular fiction.  They can't appreciate what's going on.  If you've never been educated about prose, how are you going to be able to appreciate it?  Sophisticated art in general is one of those things where, the more effort you put into it the more you appreciate it.  The problem is that most people don't pay attention in English class and are never have the intricacies of music explained to them.  The only parts of music/writing that they're able to appreciate are the parts they're able to understand intuitively or teach themselves.  That limits them to quite a narrow selection (in thise case, pop music or fiction) of art.

As a musician, I'm much more focused on the ends rather than the means. I.E. the sound created. But as I said, musical pieces can be impressive. Enjoyed because of it? Personally, I'm not really like that, but I suppose I can see where others are coming from. So valid point.

The main issue with his comment that he IS wrong about though, is that people who don't like classical music are simpletons who like simply music that you can dance to. This was what was said... "they cant apreciatte the complexity and prefer simple tunes with simple beats that are easy to dance." We can both agree that this is incorrect, yes?

I mean, there's plenty of complex, beautiful music that fits into other genre of music! And I'm sure many people like these pieces without liking classical music...

 

Well, I think there is a minority of people who simply won't be able to comprehend certain things necessary to appreciating most of classical music no matter how much you try to teach them.  Once you start getting beyond one standard deviation below 100 on the IQ curve, people really are dense.

I think the main difference between classical music and other, equally complex forms of music is that classical music is so dependent on the intricacies that it's hard to enjoy unless you can appreciate them.  However, take something like music by Chemical Brothers or Daft Punk.  Spend some time listening to them, and you'll really start to notice some very subtle and impressive stuff going on.  You start to understand why many critics are so in love with their work.  At the same time, their songs have great beats and feel that is immediately apparent and are great to listen to no matter what level of musical knowledge you have.

Classical music is different.  There's nothing but intricacies.  Unless you know what they are and how they work and how to listen to them, you won't really be able to make much sense of it and it will quickly become uninteresting.  For many people, it's like listening to an entirely different culture's music.  Traditional Korean music sounded incredibly chaotic and annoying the first time I listened to it.  However, as I began to learn about the values of the music and the techniques used to uphold them, I began to understand the music more and more.