[Tyson]

I've had a lot of people ask me for advice with regard to classical music.  I've tried to cull a few simple rules from those interactions, and I'd like to share it here.

Rule 1 - Classical music should be played LOUD!!!  - the "soft" parts of classical music should be played at what you would consider a "normal" volume level.  Which means that the loud portions will be VERY LOUD!!!  This is important, since quiet classical is equal to boring classical.

Rule 2 - Find a composer you like.  Between the poise and beauty of Mozart or Haydn, the mathematical precision of Bach, the extravagant baroque display of Vivaldi, the impetuousness of Beethoven, the romanticism of Brahms or Mahler, the pastel tone colors of Ravel and Debussy, the modernism of Bartok and Shostakovich, the post-modernism of Boulez or Reich or Ligeti, you should be able to find a composer or style that you really connect with.  This is your doorway, use it to the fullest.

Rule 3 - It's a different language.  Spend a little time learning about the different forms and the evolution of classical music.  You will be handsomely rewarded with a whole new world of music.

Rule 4 - Check your local library for lots and lots of classical music.  Google your local library and check out their website.  Oftentimes you will be able to access their entire database of music online and request that a particular disc be put on "hold" for you at the library.  If you are really lucky your local library will also be connected with other libraries in your city/state/country, and you can request a heck of a lot of stuff from the comfort of your computer screen.  This is a great way to get a lot of exposure to a lot of music for free (well, not really "free" since your taxes paid for it in the first place). 

Rule 5 - Be patient.  Listen to it loud.  Listen to it over and over.  Eventually it WILL sink in and you will "get it".  And believe me, that is a glorious moment.

That's it.  Remember, the next time you are reaching for that Timberlake or that Madonna CD, there's other choices you could be making 

[simoon]

Great post!

There was a time I didn't "get it". I was a rock/metal person. Then I got into progressive rock and my ears were opened!

The modernism influence in King Crimson, Anglagard, Deus ex Machina, The Underground Railroad (or are they influenced by post-modernism?),  got me listening to Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovitch, etc.

The post-modernism influences in Art Zoid, The Thinking Plague, Universe Zero, Magma, Henry Cow, got me listening to Penderecki, Messian, Ligheti, Wuorinen, Webern etc.

The romanticism & classicism of Genesis, P.F.M, ,Yes, Banco, Le Orme, got me listening to Beethoven, Schubert, Mussorgsky,  Sibelius,  Respighi.

With minimalism, it's kind of hard to draw the line between the prog-rock bands that were influenced by them and the minimalists themselves. Mother Mallard and Birdsongs of Mesozoic for example.

The unlikely mixture of modern chamber music and complex medial vocal music influences in Gentle Giant got me listening to even more varieties.

The majority of my listening is still progressive music (there's just so many great modern progressive bands to listen to), but has been largely augmented with classical, mostly modernism and post modernism.

[nathanm]

Tyson is on a mission today!

[ghersh]

I've had a lot of people ask me for advice with regard to classical music.  I've tried to cull a few simple rules from those interactions, and I'd like to share it here.

Rule 1 - Classical music should be played LOUD!!!  - the "soft" parts of classical music should be played at what you would consider a "normal" volume level.  Which means that the loud portions will be VERY LOUD!!!  This is important, since quiet classical is equal to boring classical.

You are so clueless, Sir.

[Wayner]

I think quite a few classical composers were fruit cups back then. Most men of the time were toiling in the fields to feed the family while these little prissy boys where taking music lessons, paid for by their very wealthy parents. The second I hear this music, I shut it off. I put opera in the same shit can. There are a few composers who wore rags and didn't become famous until their departure from this earth. Or someone like Beethoven who also faced a handicap, struggled to do some of his finest work.

I do have great appreciation for Great American composer Aaron Copland. He was a real man and his music in spades makes me feel the amber wave of grain in many of his creations, like Billy the Kid.

Don't get me wrong, I like lots of classical music, most of the time I don't know who's the writer, but I sure know when to flip the radio over to classic rock. I only have a few albums as most of my listening is via FM.

Wayner 

[Wayner]

My main reason for liking so much British rock is for 2 reasons. First, much of the '70's art rock was classically based and had great, ever changing structure that I really like. Second, while the American kids were over in the US, screwing their girlfriends, lots of British kids were getting bombed by the Germans (world war II). That is brought out in a lot of British rock. That is why we have Pink Floyd, the Wall and other greats like that.

Just my take, anyway.

Wayner

[Wind Chaser]

Rule 1 - Classical music should be played LOUD!!!  - the "soft" parts of classical music should be played at what you would consider a "normal" volume level.  Which means that the loud portions will be VERY LOUD!!!  This is important, since quiet classical is equal to boring classical.

Rule 1 - Don't sit in the sweet spot and listen to it the way you listen to music you like.  As someone who isn't into classical music, I don't have the patience or the interest just sit there and suck it down.  However as background music, classical is quite okay as long as you have something else going on.  In this non-invasive way I found it actually grows on you.

On another note, some mental health experts recommend listening to classical music for those suffering from depression.

[Russell Dawkins]

I think quite a few classical composers were fruit cups back then. Most men of the time were toiling in the fields to feed the family while these little prissy boys where taking music lessons, paid for by their very wealthy parents. The second I hear this music, I shut it off. I put opera in the same shit can. There are a few composers who wore rags and didn't become famous until their departure from this earth. Or someone like Beethoven who also faced a handicap, struggled to do some of his finest work.

I do have great appreciation for Great American composer Aaron Copland. He was a real man and his music in spades makes me feel the amber wave of grain in many of his creations, like Billy the Kid.

Don't get me wrong, I like lots of classical music, most of the time I don't know who's the writer, but I sure know when to flip the radio over to classic rock. I only have a few albums as most of my listening is via FM.

Wayner 

This hardly justifies a reply in detail, but, depending on your definition of "real man", you might be interested in the end of the paragraph labeled "Personal life" half way down the Wikipedia entry on Copland:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland

As to your generalizations on the lives of composers, from "classical" to the British invasion - well, I was told "if you can't say anything nice", etc., so I won't say anything, except I think you may have a few facts backwards.

[Wayner]

Russell,

I could give a shit less of what you think about how I think about music. "I know what I am and I know what I like" (Genesis, Selling England by the Pound). As far as the personal life of Copland, he kept it out of his music, which I certainly can't say for many other composers. HIS MUSIC WAS NOT HIS LIFE. That's my whole point of the great composers, they had the ability to keep their own personal shit out of the music. Same goes with rock music. There are no facts that are backwards. These are my own personal feelings about people in music. There probably isn't a composer ever that didn't have a sorted life. Most are internally persecuted. That is why they made music, to relieve themselves of their personal tragedies.

By the way, your little smug little belittling comments don't do you honors, either, pal, but I have thick skin.

Wayner

[Photon46]

Ghersh, I don't think Tyson is clueless at all. While I don't agree that classical at low volume equates to boring, classical music has a very wide dynamic range in real life as you no doubt know. I work at a university fine arts department and I constantly get to hear live classical music ensembles of all kinds in rooms/halls of various sizes and the music is painfully loud much of the time. When our vocal ensembles are in full voice, the db levels will peel paint off the rehearsal hall walls. Even in our largest performance halls, which are acoustically treated, the volume levels orchestras produce at mid-hall perspective are louder than I want to listen to at home. Exceptions exist of course. I can remember how relatively subdued (decibel level) the performance of the Tallis Scholars was when heard them a few years ago in a mid size church chapel. I think Tyson's trying to suggest there's more vim, vigor, and hot blood in classical music than is perhaps commonly perceived.

[Zero]

There's nothing wrong with not liking classical.  Millions of people manage to live life day to day without it.  Millions more will follow the same path.

That said, I'm not one of them, or at least, to a degree. I developed an interest in classical very early on in life. I began listening to it before any other genre of music. Heck, by age 8 or so, I was crafting my own melodies and riffs on my mothers Casio - long before I was exposed to "top 40" tunes, and *way* before hi-fi. So what drew me into it?

The intensity. The Emotion. The depth, and the seemingly endless cavern of creative possibility. It fascinated me. With regular music - I noticed that once you develop a riff, the rest of the music is rather slave to it... classical was the exception....  able to take you on a wild journey that departs from standard bars and repetitive riffs, yet at the same time managing to tie it all together into one complete package. Of course, that's not always the case.

As much as I loved classical, like any genre, there is plenty of classical I cannot stand. Call me plebian. Call me what you will, but I enjoyed the more standards from the likes of Tchaikovsky, Bach, Chopin, etc..  the stuff that always remained original, exiting, and easy to listen to.  It's the classical that drones on and on, incorporating an overuse of silence and delicate tones to convey a message - it's just so, cliche.  It's boring, and it's predictable -  like a cheesy chick flick.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, I cannot stand sheer bombast and intensity, which strikes me as an effort which borrows from the formula, only in inverse style.

Admittedly, I am also impatient. I have absolutely zero desire to sit down and 'learn' how to 'enjoy' or 'appreciate' a certain piece of music. If I don't like it, I may give it a second or even a third try - but I'm not going to waste my time trying to like music I don't care for when there is so much that I do enjoy! I'd rather spend my time with that stuff - classical or not!

Hmm, I guess this post wasn't very helpful, but it sure felt good typing it! 

As an aside; I'm trying to find a CD of that stuff Russell helped record in Armenia..      I love that Eastern European style..   Any leads would be appreciated.

[Tyson]

Smart people like classical music.  Average people like jazz.  Dumb people like rawk.  Hehehe.

[Randy]

Wayner should try the first movement of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, one among many dozens of irresistible pieces of music.

Oh well, some people feel compelled to attack anything they can't understand. There have been vandals and barbarians as long as there have been human beings.  BTW,that was a laugher, calling Aaron Copland a "real man," but sexual orientation or gender has nothing to do with being a great artist or not.

[TONEPUB]

Why does it have to be an either/or thing?

It's perfectly ok if you don't like classical music, and the advice to "just play classical music loud" is pretty
uneducated as well.  If you actually go to listen to live classical music, it isn't all loud, but again if that's what
turns your crank that's ok too.

I would just look at classical as something else to add to the plate.  It took me a long time to warm up to
it.  There are a few things I now enjoy (opera, who would have EVER guessed that), but it's still an "in
small doses" kind of thing.

On our last readers survey, we found out less than one percent of our readers are interested in classical,
so our classical editor is spinning off his own website devoted to classical.  When we finish Classical A-Z
in the dec issue, we'll have a couple of new cd's reviewed here and there, but that's it.  Our audience just
doesn't want more classical.

Hey, I hate the Beach Boys, so who can vouch for my tastes?  I listen to Pet Sounds every year thinking
that one of these days I'm going to respond to it, but I never do.

There's so much music out there, even with a huge record collection, there isn't time to scratch the
surface.

[ooheadsoo]

I've got to disagree with the Rule 1 naysayers.  Classical music is LOUD, but it's also generally very dynamic.  But there's no denying the loud parts are friggin LOUD.  They just don't play fff for the entire piece.  There are generally only two times when I don't think classical music is loud - as background music at a party/funeral/wedding etc, and chamber music in an inappropriate arena, such as outdoors or in a hall too large for it.  Even quartets are loud, in the right setting (especially if you're playing in it.)  If the live event you're at isn't loud during the loud parts, either the group is off that night, they suck in general, the music wasn't written to be loud in the first place, or they are a bad match for the venue.

The soft parts, I think, should be soft, not quite so loud as "normal"

[TheChairGuy]

Smart people like classical music.  Average people like jazz.  Dumb people like rawk.  Hehehe.

Yikes Tyson - you DO like it rough 

[ghersh]

Ghersh, I don't think Tyson is clueless at all. While I don't agree that classical at low volume equates to boring, classical music has a very wide dynamic range in real life as you no doubt know.

Some has and some has not.

[saisunil]

I am generally into acoustic and vocals and that includes mostly Jazz and classical for me.
I think - there is very little close miking done during most Classical recordings - Russell Dawkins is professional recording Engineer and can tell more about it. Perhaps, it allows for more dynamic headroom during loud and dynamic passages when the whole symphony if going full steam ahead.

Though I grew up listening to mostly pop or Indian Classical - listening to live classical at the Lincoln Center about 15 years ago - opened new doors for me. I entered the audiophile world only recently - about 5 years ago.

For me, it is the clarity and speed of Jazz and dynamic nature of classical music (while staying within acoustic realm) that I love hearing on good recordings.

In other words, for me, it is important to listen to good to excellent classical recordings to really enjoy them on a nice system - to really get the most out of it - from emotional, physical and cerebral level. Reference Recordings and XRCD / K2 make some good ones.

I am still trying to connect with Rock music 

Enjoy the music, whatever you listen to and however it works for you ...
Cheers and have a happy weekend.

[BobRex]

Actually, classical music in and of itself is not that loud.  There are loud peaks, but listening live in the hall (as opposed to on the podium or in the orchestra) the peaks rarely go into 100dB territory.  Yes, there are a few bombastic pieces that may exceed this, but the majority of the classical repitiore is quieter.  The problem is that very little rock (including most progressive) has the dynamic swings of a classical orchestra.  So if you think that Peter Gabriel playing a single flute in a Genesis piece is low level, it's substantially louder than a single flute in an orchestral piece.  Compression strikes!  The other problem  (not to sound like a snob, but) is that many systems can't reproduce the low level parts in proper fidelity, so many people think it has to be played louder than it should. 

BTW - yes I've heard the chior overload a room while singing Orff's Carmina Burana, and yes I heard many bombastic pieces played by the Philly Orchestra from different seats in the house.  Really, it ain't that loud.

[Randy]

Classical music in a good hall is plenty loud but the acoustics are usually so good it the sonics never get oppressive like they can on a hi fi rig. The lack of electronic distortions in live classical music also gives it a smoothness that a hi fi system can never approach, which also lends to the perception that it is not all that loud.