Deveno said:
There are different schools of thought on this: some people see rock (in its more primitive forms) as a kind of "everyman's music" rather than a stylized art-form for aficionados. For such people, the "emotional content" is the main thing, not "virtuosity".
And therein lies my objection to rock music. Rock music, at least the vast majority of it, appeals to the emotions and/or the body only. It does not appeal to the mind (something as technically simple as most rock pieces are is not capable of appealing to the mind - you need some complexity to it).
On the other hand, my user-name-sake, J. S. Bach, more than any composer who has ever lived, appealed to the whole person. His music not only sounds great to the ear (appeals to the body and the emotions), but appeals to the mind as well. That latter fact is because his music has immense complexity. I go back to the ancient definition of beauty: beauty is that which has form, harmony, and complexity. If it doesn't have complexity, it will not appeal to the whole person, and in some ways is less human.
After all, I am not just my body, but have a mind as well.
On the other hand, there are a number of rock/pop musicians (especially guitarists) who have made careers out of exceptional technical prowess; names like Steve Vai, Steve Howe or Michael Hedges come to mind.
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While some of this obviously represents a personal taste, there is a sound physical reason behind it: the overtone series produced by amplification causes a fair amount of dissonance, especially when more than one note at a time is sounded (causing more "fuzz"). Many people, however, appreciate the "piercing" tones, especially those produced by the higher strings, which are not unlike the frequency distribution of a violin (some people find these "too shrill" as well).
The type of amplification can affect this a lot: tube amplification produces approximations of square waves, which sound less "rough" to the ear than solid-state amplification, which produce "sawtooth" waves.
The quality of one's sound reproduction equipment can also make a large difference: most inexpensive speakers have poor bass response, creating a "tinny, scraping" sound, which may lack the "warmth" of the original performance. Listening to different types of music with different equalization (frequency filtering) settings can improve the overall pleasantness of the experience.
It's not that I object to dissonance. Most music totally lacking in dissonance is boring, because it has no tension. However, does the dissonance/tension have resolution or redemption? Dissonance for the sake of dissonance is not pleasant to the ear, and does not, to my mind, reflect reality accurately. There is resolution and redemption in this world. Distortion does not typically have resolution - it's there for the whole piece, and tends to be a constant. So, I prefer not to torture my ears. It reminds me of that hilarious piece of musical criticism of Eduard Hanslick, speaking of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto: "...brought us face to face with the revolting thought that music can exist which stinks to the ear."
Modern classical music has done things along these lines as well - tension with no resolve. I think of the composers in the 1960's who called each other up on the phone and said, "Hey, I'll bet I can write an uglier piece than you." Again, go back to the definition of beauty: form,
harmony, and complexity. If there's no harmony, it will not be beautiful.
For my money, any music written after the year 1900 is automatically suspect. I do think Copland, Morten Lauridsen, Arvo Pärt, and Eric Whitacre are fantastic composers. But the vast majority of modern music, it seems to me, is either in-your-face ugly, or too simple to spend much time on. Now this is obviously (I hope!) not a function merely of when it was written. Great music has been written during all ages, I'm sure. The advantage older music has is that it's been sifted by time: bad music (and there definitely is such a thing!) doesn't tend to survive.
Here's a test: can you listen (and I mean really listen! - paying close attention) to the piece of music 50 times in a row, and like it better at the end than at the beginning?
I always find it fascinating when people "cross genres". Genres, in truth, do not exist, music is just music, we are the ones who classify it, and such classifications are often arbitrary, or driven by business concerns. Woe betide the musician whose art does not fit into a ready-made category: how will they ever be marketed?
I think people are becoming more aware of the fact that they do not have to listen to what is offered to them via mass media (radio/television/movie soundtracks/"arena" festivals), thanks in part to the ease of digital distribution of music. One of *my* fervent hopes is that the "top 10" lists disappear forever, to be superceded by a host of niche markets, where people can like what they like, without having to label it.
I liken this to choosing one's own wardrobe to suit one's self, instead of "buying a look off the rack" (e.g.: everyone is wearing Dior this season).
Classical music definitely needs to enter the 21st century. It has not, yet. If you want to listen to classical music, you're pretty much tied to the radio and CD's. There are some Internet stations, but none of them is as good as, say,
Minnesota Public Radio (probably THE best classical station on the planet). In particular, classical mp3's need to become ubiquitous. I'm not sure I know the right way to market themselves in the 21st century. Classical music (and many kinds of folk music as well, such as jazz, celtic, etc.) gives you what you put into it, quite unlike any pop music or rock music which are immediately accessible. Someone who listens to Mussorgsky's
Night on Bald Mountain is not going to think that the piece is giving him everything right then and there.
But post-modern culture does not put up with anything smacking of "effort". Everything must be instantly available, require no effort (no assembly required!), induce no perplexities, and always be "new and different". So long as these are the prevailing opinions, classical music will be a niche. Classical music, in the days of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, was everyone's music. It was the "popular music" of the day.
So classical music depends for its existence on education. You must educate people to appreciate it, or they will not. If they don't appreciate it, they will not go to concerts, and orchestras will start failing financially, as they have been, http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/orchestras/suggested_readings/Flanagan_musicians.pdf. (It would also help greatly if orchestras shed their ridiculous unions. In my book, there is only one valid reason to have a union: to improve the safety of working conditions. Orchestras hardly need to worry about that.)
