Do you have difficulty imagining an Invisible God in the sky

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Listen to Haydn and then listen to Strauss. If you think those belong in the same genre, you need a hearing test.


Is there another Bach?

Come now, his fugues were quite masterful.


OK, but the music majors I knew who participated in DCI were music ed, so they are definitely still amateur musicians. You don't exactly have Curtis students auditioning for the Phantom Regiment on a regular basis.

Ah yes... the "real world." I have heard rumors and legends of such a place, a hellish nightmare from which there is no return. After a few years of the purgatory known as "grad school," I hope to attain the salvation and safety to be found in academia.

Agreed.



Also agreed. Keep in mind that my keyboard skills were JUST good enough to get me kicked out of the piano lab classroom and force me to continue studies with a private instructor, expanding my study of "real" music despite my initial resistance.

So before I picked clarinet back up to play in community bands, I didn't really have much to do than buy used synthesizers off Ebay. My wife's objections were that I would study that fugue for no less than an hour, maybe an hour and a half when she'd come over for weekend visits. To this day I'm forbidden from playing that fugue in her presence.

My advice: Unless you actually WANT to be in the real world for some perverse reason, stick with academia.

Grad school isn't purgatory. It's the Garden of Eden. It CAN be regained, but not without difficulty. The problems you may face in academia is the real possibility of facing a hiring freeze. You may find yourself settling for a community college job, which brings with it a lot more actual labor than real thinking, and even worse you may develop the academic reputation of a community college professor even if you don't deserve it.

Even tenured professors are subject to "last hired, first fired." I've seen 'em all come and go.

For me, a more noble task is mingling among the commoners, rather than dictating the same old ideas from upon the ivory tower with no hands-on, practical experience. We teach PEOPLE, not university professors. If and when I DO go back to school, at the very least I can say I tried on my own and had moderate success and feel that something needs to change. And if I end up teaching, I can tell my students I know where they're going because I've been there myself.

I'm not saying my way IS the RIGHT and ONLY way. I'm just saying that I never felt that most college professors I've ever come into contact with really had a genuine clue about what they were doing. In my experience, the English lit. professors were the worst. They write and publish their little novels, all the while railing against formula fiction novelists because they lack any real depth for one reason or another. Well, Doc, I don't see YOUR books flying off the shelves! I mean, if you have nothing meaningful to contribute, if you have absolutely no audience at all, why even bother? "Publish or Perish" is a poor excuse for academic laziness.

"Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times.[1] The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music

If you'll see, the common practice period is from the Baroque to Romantic periods of music.

Even further, the term was meant to capture both Baroque and Romantic musicians:
"The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to "canonize" the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age."

Look, I am not saying that the music is the same, but it does have a type relationship that is hard to deny. Sort of like rock music. There are extreme versions of heavy metal and then there is soft rock. The two variations tend to be very different, but the similarities are easily noted.

OK, but if you simply mean "common practice" music, why not just say so? Why say "classical" as an umbrella term for all of it? There is a very CLEAR distinction between Romantic period practice and Classical period practice. Beethoven bridges the gap, but you can't honestly listen to Mahler and compare his symphonies to those of Haydn. There IS no comparison, and the symphonic genre, while retaining common forms, is not even recognizable from one style period to another.

Also, you don't seem to have a clear picture of what Baroque, Classical, and Romantic have to do with labeling a style period. They all have to do with respect to various architectural, artistic, and literary movements of different time periods. Baroque depends upon the rococo style (which is actually the root word for "Baroque"). Classical has to do with styles common to ancient Greece. Romantic refers to styles common to ancient Rome. The "common practice" music written across various style periods reflect the artistic, social, and cultural attitudes of the day. True Classical music is very elegant, even dainty as exemplified by Haydn and Mozart. Baroque music is EXTREMELY conservative, though highly contrapuntal due to its borrowing from liturgical practices, and is often (in my opinion) difficult to perform correctly as well as to listen to (though Vivaldi and similar composers may be the exception). I mean, Bach wrote primarily for the new Lutheran church. EVERYTHING had to be absolutely PERFECT, and Bach's attitude resulted in quite a unique aesthetic that I don't really hear any other composer trying to imitate. Handel might be easier than Bach, but he's no walk in the park, either.

Classical music HAS to be prim and proper because of its use in the courts of the nobility. It's MUCH more slimmed down than Baroque music.

Romantic music was written during a period of rebellion and revolution. It was composed for the common man, not the nobility alone. Their benefactors believed they were doing the people beneath them a favor when commissioning this music. And while the Romantics clung tightly to the "rules" of tonality, they were not afraid of nearly absurd variations of dynamics and extended harmonic practices. In the Romantic period, you didn't just "hear" the tragedy of opera seria. They wanted you to FEEL it, physically, mentally, emotionally, even spiritually. Wagner even consulted with instrument makers to INVENT instruments to get the effects he wanted. And Romantic composers appealed to the nationalist sensibilities of their audiences. You were German and you were PROUD to be German! If you were Russian, you sent your musicians to Germany so you could come back home and write better music than the Germans, and you did it for YOUR PEOPLE.

So while you have music within the period of "common practice" that does have elements drawn from earlier periods, the end results are distinctly different aesthetics, for the most part due to the changing artistic and idealogical trends of the time. That's not to say there wasn't music written in the Romantic period that didn't belong in the classical, classic case being Felix Mendelssohn. But for the most part, composers generally stuck within the practices of their time.

Won't you like this Bach cover?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_1fgbOpjHY[/youtube]

'Classical music' is a broad gerne and there are contemporary 21st century music that are classified as classical music.

Yes.

Umm.... because "common practice music" is CALLED "Classical music" in common parlance. Did you completely miss my point and what wikipedia wrote?? I am using the term "classical music" in the sense that most people mean the term "classical music". I don't see why I should switch my terminology around when it is the more common one.

Here's what it says verbatim:

"Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times.[1] The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period."

The common practice period's norms are the basis of determining music as classical. Not whether it belongs to the "classical period".

I am not saying that the stylings of music are "the same" across musical periods. I said "there is a type resemblance", which there is. Even the wikipedia article admits that there is not a clear resemblance but rather just vague similarity across the varieties of classical music.

So, talking about how the classical and romantic periods are different in their musical stylings is irrelevant, as "classical music" is broader than the classical period.


I haven't said anything about that, so for you to say "I lack a clear picture" is not based upon any factual detail as I have not provided any.


Umm.... ok?

This does not really rebut the idea that all of those different styles are often considered part of "classical music", as they actually are. Now, you might dislike how common parlance has reduced all of those different styles to one label, but for most people, this works, as the styles are more similar to each other than they are to other variations of music that people know of, as in "classical music" is notably distinct from "jazz music", or "rock music", or "country music" or "rap" or any of these other styles in a manner that allows it to be distinguished with ease between them. The distinction between Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons isn't going to be that noticeable compared to the difference between any Jazz musician and Metallica, or between Eminem and Handel's Messiah or any country western. Heck, Symphonie Fantastique and Vivaldi' Four Seasons likely have the same sociological position in our society, or at least one very similar, and where we do not see the overlap in any other musical stylings today.

That's completely correct.

And you're completely missing MY point. What I'm saying is "common parlance" is wrong. If you want to say "common practice," that means one thing. If you say, "classical," you're talking about a specific time period within which certain types or aesthetics of music were written.

It's not MY fault people don't have a clue as to how to properly reference periods of music and their associated genres. And you can't believe EVERYTHING wikipedia has to say about it. I've spent most of my time throughout college studying music history, theory, and performance. There IS a difference. Anyone with class, having a well-rounded study and appreciation of the arts to INCLUDE musical arts, would know that.

So you are saying that a usage of words is wrong. That there is an absolutely correct way to use words, and that this absolutely correct way to use words is in complete disagreement with the standard usage of words?

That's f*****g ret*d.

Now, I will admit that some uses of words are better than others, or better in certain contexts than others. However, my use of "classical" isn't wrong, but rather is common, and if I am using the term "classical", I am usually referring to the most common usage.


We're talking about the definition of a term. Wikipedia, or really any dictionary, is enough to say that one's usage is valid. Commonness is sufficient for determining words.

Now, that's nice that you've spent a lot of time studying music, but it isn't relevant, as your response to me shows a complete lack of knowledge of the workings of languages, which is the real question. You can say that you think that the use of "classical" in that broader sense can be confusing in certain contexts, or dislike it, but you can't pretend that my use of it is necessarily a matter of stupidity, or even that it is wrong if it is actually more common, and if I am using it in the right context for the right purpose as I am clearly intending where it would make sense to anybody else. In this case, my use of the term "classical" really does correspond less to the "classical period" and more to the broad notion of "classical music" that people have today, particularly given that my claim that Orwell deserves to be smote for liking the music really would have more to do with the view held towards a certain kind of music than anything about the style. Classical music is regarded as elitist and nerdy to enjoy, regardless of whether it is Baroque or Romantic, although Romantic is considered less bad obviously. So, that's kind of my point as Orwell rails against rock.

From Bach to Beethoven is very clearly the classical age in the strict sense—baroque music preceded Bach and Beethoven was the first proto-Romantic composer.


OK, but then you have to accept everything from dixie, blues, jazz, rock, metal, and probably some other crap as all falling within the same genre. Categorizations that broad aren't always all that useful.

No, I really don't. Orwell, have you gone as ret*d as AngelRho? That claim is just incredibly stupid. Genres are decided by parlance, not by the "genre-decider", an analytical program of specified diversity. Do we have to have a set analytical pattern for words? No, we really don't and most of the time there isn't a strict reason why words are what they are, you're being demonstrably ret*d. If you disagree, then I will gladly take you to task on the issue, because you really are being unimaginably stupid here.

Categorizations this broad are very useful, depending on the context, and guess what? The context in which my comment resides, is a context in which I am referring to you as a dork. In this case, it doesn't matter whether the music is technically Romantic or Baroque, but rather whether it fits into the broad category of "classical music", which we all know has its own connotations.

None of this makes St Anger any better as an album...