Can you get everyone to like classical music?

[amirm]

For years and years I was not attracted to classical music. I would find it without flow and rhythm that other types of music. So about a year and half to two years ago I decided to give it a strong effort. I asked for best classical music for me to experience and lots of great suggestions poured it.

It had a remarkable effect on me. It easily and rather quickly shattered the barriers that were there and I started to like and follow tons of classical music. Don't want to say that I am a classical buff but I say I went from enjoying 0.1% of it to good 20 to 30%. To this day it surprises me that this happened and all it took was exposure and staying with it for a few weeks.

That brings me to this wonderful Ted talk by Benjamin Zander. His aim in this talk is to get everyone to like classical music. I think he succeeds at the end with a great lesson on focusing on the flow than the individual notes. The rest of the talk while a lot of fun, didn't quite hang together for me. But was educational.

It is 20 minutes. Give it a try. It is a super uplifting talk with tons of energy and of course great piano music performance. It is titled, "The transformative power of classical music | Benjamin Zander":

 

[amirm]

For those of you curious what piece he is playing, it is Chopin's Prelude No. 4, Op. 28 in E minor:

I don't think this will ever have the same meaning as before I watched his Ted talk.

 

[RayDunzl]

First of all the term "Classical" is grossly misused to include any music that might have a Bassoon or a French Horn in it.

The musical periods are (roughly):

• Medieval or Gothic Period (approx. 800-1400)
• Renaissance Period (approx. 1400-1600)
• Baroque Period (approx. 1600-1750)
• Classical Period (approx. 1750-1820)
• Romantic Period (approx. 1820-1910)
• Modern Period (approx. 1910-present)

Now, I can listen to "Classical" all day on the radio, but don't get too excited, because it is all so damn consonant (with exceptions) and rhythmically benign (also with exceptions).

Ok now, everyone, in C, a one and a two...

 

[RayDunzl]

Oh look, a Bassoon... It must be Classical!

“The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has a medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball...I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon.” - Frank Zappa

 

[NorthSky]

From my own personal life experience, I exposed myself to Classical music @ an early age. And it grew in stages.
Also, something else I noticed in the last fifty years; people who are receptive to Classical music are from the gentle kind, sensitive, peaceful.
It's only my opinion from real life observations and experiences talking with Classical people.

The music @ the top of all my preferred genres is Classical music...from solo cello/piano/violin to full orchestral and Opera with choirs. ...Organ.
_____

But Blues is the music that makes me move physically, Classical is the one that moves me inside.
...And everything else between...all that jazz.

 

[RayDunzl]

 

[RayDunzl]

The highlight of my grade school years were the field trips (the whole county participated) to hear the local symphony orchestra.

I played clarinet starting in third grade - my grammar school was built in 1917 and had a proper auditorium with stage and thick musty smelling curtains and maybe two hundred seats (probably less).

I marched a football field a few times in the upper grades.

I was not a very good player, and I knew it.

 

[Cosmik]

I have a large classical (streaming) collection, but it features no Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Brahms, Liszt, etc.

Reading down the list it has: Vaughan Williams, Purcell, Bax, Faure, Prokofiev, Britten, Gabrieli, Shostakovich, Saints-Saens, Debussy, Mahler...

This I love:

This just leaves me cold (it can be any Mozart - I just typed in a random number):

I could probably tell you what it is I like about the Vaughan Williams. The Mozart just seems to be "going through the motions"; 'showing off'. I feel *nothing* when listening to it, except "When is this going to stop?".

 

[RayDunzl]

 

[RayDunzl]

 

[Cosmik]

I prefer this:

 

[The Smokester]

For those of you curious what piece he is playing, it is Chopin's Prelude No. 4, Op. 28 in E minor:

I don't think this will ever have the same meaning as before I watched his Ted talk.

I know these pieces well. I know what his message is. He is an infectious guy. Would I could live up to his standards.

 

[RayDunzl]

 

[RayDunzl]

 

[RayDunzl]

I prefer this

"Preference is inviolate." - J.J. Johnston (possibly paraphrased)

 

[Frank Dernie]

I listen about 80% to "classical" music but don't try to convince others...
Sometimes I feel like something else but I am afraid I find so much new music banal and unoriginal and as I get older and crankier resent the time spent listening to stuff that bores me whilst searching out stuff that doesn't.

 

[RayDunzl]

Can you get everyone to like classical music?

No.

Just as you can't get everyone to like Uni or Natto.

I find so much new music banal and unoriginal

That's because most music of any generation is banal and unoriginal.

Allow me yet another moment (at least up to the 2:40 mark), this time, concerning banal and insipid:

Can I get everyone to like FZ?

I don't think so.

 

[Blumlein 88]

No.

Just as you can't get everyone to like Uni or Natto.



That's because most music of any generation is banal and unoriginal.

Allow me yet another moment (at least up to the 2:40 mark), this time, concerning banal and insipid:

Can I get everyone to like FZ?

I don't think so.

I lost all respect for the Monkees when they dropped Jimi Hendrix as the opening act on their live tour.

 

[NorthSky]

Music from Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, ...all good places to start and then expand...Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Mahler, Scarlatti, Handel, Purcell, Salieri, Rossini, Berlioz, Mussorgsky, Bizet, Verdi, Dvorak, Offenbach, Saint-Saens, Janacek, Puccini, Debussy, Strauss, Chabrier, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Barber, Glass, Adams, Part, Ravel, Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin, Wagner, Boulez, Rachmaninoff, Villa-Lobos, Ligeti, Faure, Elgar, Chavez, Schoenberg, Reich, Nyman, Varese, Kronos Quartet, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, ...

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_opera_composers
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_classical_music

The universe of Classical music is as grandiose as all the space above the sky and the galaxies, over the stars and the planets and travelling on comets from far far away and abroad. It's worth taking the journey...IMHO. It expands the mind of the soul, and beyond.
Besides, people who love Classical music are the best lovemakers; the main essence itself of human life procreation. ...The subsistence of the human race. ...In harmony and in synergy and in synchronicity with all the entourage of peaceful surroundings...nature, mountains, oceans, rivers, forests, jungles, wildlife, earth, water, fire, air, aether, wood, metal, rock and paper, ...all that jazz.

Hey, where do you think Led zeppelin got their inspiration from?

 

[Frank Dernie]

No.

Just as you can't get everyone to like Uni or Natto.



That's because most music of any generation is banal and unoriginal.

Allow me yet another moment (at least up to the 2:40 mark), this time, concerning banal and insipid:

Can I get everyone to like FZ?

I don't think so.

I like Frank Zappa, neither banal nor unoriginal.