dr. zooeuss said:
I agree partially, however, I think any future historian looking to find a "pop" group that encapsulates the 80s-00s the way the Beatles do for the 60s and early 70s, and Elvis for early rock, is going to be hard-pressed to do better than U2.
Also, I think contemporary composers like John Williams will be known for as long as the movies he composed for are, and it's hard to imagine Star Wars ever being completely forgotten, for the place it occupies in film and pop culture history, not necessarily for the enduring quality of the film(s).
I hadn't thought about film music and Williams; that's a good point. Yes,
Star Wars probably has a fairly good chance at enduring a while, especially if 'science fiction' in general does. Although my guess is that even now, not many people could name more than 3 or 4 (if that) of the 75 or so other films he's scored...I think film, in which music usually figures far less centrally than it does in opera or ballet, may have its limits as a shelf-life enhancer for music.
Why do you think U2 are uniquely qualified to "encapsulate" the 80s-00s? I don't really have any singular alternative in mind, but I don't think I'd say they fit that role to the extent the Beatles or Elvis do for their respective 'golden ages.' It seems to me that the most significant change in popular music 80-00 has been the rise of rap and hip-hop, genres which U2 have only the slightest of ties to.
I agree to a point. Maybe this is naive on my part, but I don't think history ever completely neglects to consider "what was known and popular at the time" as a good representative of what an era should be remembered by. And with the expansion of documentation afforded by new technologies, the issue of remembering or determining what was popular in this era of history should not be much of a guessing game, (barring some cataclysmic destruction of these records, I suppose)
Oh, I agree that "what was known and popular" is important too. And as far as that goes, plenty of classical pieces were and are famous above all because they're 'showstoppers,' not because they're seen as some aesthetic pinnacle--e.g.
The Nutcracker Suite, which few critics would consider Tchaikovsky's peak artistic achievement, but is almost certainly his best-known and loved work among the general public. However, I think sales figures are unlikely to become the critical factor in determining what's seen as worth preserving and/or what continues to hold considerable appeal.
I agree with this, however, it starts to erode my understanding of the distinguishing characteristics between classical and folk/pop/rock.
ie: what's an example of classical music that lacks a complex musical idea?
what's an example of folk/pop/rock that carries most or all of these complex ideas?
in these cases, what makes the simplistic classical piece "classical" and the complex folk piece "folk"?
Well, just for starters...Satie, Handel, Verdi and Schubert all come to mind as composers who wrote many pieces which could plausibly be described as "simple," while Frank Zappa and Phish come to mind as 'popular artists' whose works are often quite complex musically.
But certainly works can't be categorized as "classical" or "popular" based on technical complexity alone. Zappa actually wrote symphonies and jazz ensemble pieces as well as the "rock" he's better known for, and Phish certainly incorporated jazz and country elements into many of their songs, but insofar as I'd classify most of their works as some type or another of "rock," that'd be based on the prominence in them of certain signature features of rock such as the twelve-bar progression and its variants, backbeat, throaty/'rough' vocal timbre, and being guitar-and-drum-based. While jazz and country commonly display
some of those features, they're very rare in classical. And they're very rare in
most 'folk' musics too--at least if you're using 'folk' in the sense of 'traditional,' which presumably rules out rock (and jazz, and country), since those are very young, 'fusion' musics incorporating elements from multiple traditional cultures. (Obviously 'fusion' isn't unprecedented in tradtional musics, but not to anything like that degree, that I can think of anyway...and also, here's another instance where the development of recording technology--which happened right alongside the emergence of those genres--surely greatly enhanced the scope and speed of both that fusion and its broader influences.)
You're making a good point, definitely. However, on a common sense experiential level, I can say I do better studying for a test to Mozart than I do listening to Nine Inch Nails. That's not to say that Nine Inch Nails actually makes me less intelligent *BUT* in an extreme case where one child is exposed to 90% frantic, percussion-heavy music and another child is exposed to 90% soothing, classical music, is it completely off-base to consider this may impact their ability to focus and concentrate on tasks given them, and over time impact their perceived and//or applied level of "intelligence" as reflected in various academic pursuits?
Yes, for many people "frantic, percussion-heavy music" is probably a poor choice for enhancing attention to "academic pursuits," but actually I don't think that's what the 'Mozart Effect' people are getting at. Their claim seems to more be that structural complexity enhances certain cognitive skills by 'priming' the relevant neuroanatomical pathways, not whether or not the music is unduly 'distracting' or 'disturbing' to most people. ('Distracting' and 'disturbing' are also much more subjective judgments than structural complexity...there are plenty of classical pieces which strike many listeners as 'disturbing,' 'disquieting,' 'too loud' etc.)
Let me ask this then: to what extent would you agree that the presence of vocals and lyrics in music steer a piece toward the "folk/pop" end of the spectrum, while an instrumental piece more readily fits "classical" criteria?
I ask this specifically about Jazz, ie, say an Etta James tune in the first instance, and a Miles Davis piece in the second, but I think the implications could extend beyond Jazz as well.
I don't think the presence of vocals has much to do with it at all; hundreds of classical pieces include vocals--choral works, operas, works composed for soloists with or without instrumental accompaniment, etc. Every traditional music I'm familiar with includes both vocal and instrumental tunes, too. It is true that country, 'pop' and rock
almost always feature vocals, but I don't think that really amounts to much in terms of whether they're "more like folk" or "more like classical".
Also, I think I touched on this earlier, but pre-mid-20th-century jazz (i.e. pre-bebop jazz)--and I suppose, any contemporary jazz which self-consciously hearkens back to it--is a much more debatable contender for the 'more like classical' label IMO.
When I think of the most well-known classical composers I think Mozart, Beethoven and Bach, but I don't think of social unrest. Am I mistaken?
I think she maybe more meant "in times of considerable social and cultural change," not necessarily "unrest" in the sense of upheaval, war, decline etc. The former could certainly be applied to Mozart, Beethoven and Bach: the latter's era (late Baroque) was characterized by rapid consolidation of state power in royal courts (think Louis XIV); rapidly expanding trade; development of the printing press; a concerted drive on the Church's part to be more 'accessible' to the common man (musically and otherwise); and a shift to Church and court as the main sources of patronage for artists. Whereas the era of the former two (Classicist) was characterized by the rising influence of 'natural law' philosophy (think Isaac Newton) with consequent emphasis on meticulously orderly articulation; the growing public visibility of classical music as 'performance music,' with international tours for orchestras; and a shift to the nobility, not the Church or the courts, as the main sources of patronage (which among other things often meant 'economizing' by focusing on elaborate solo and small ensemble works).