Ascending

This blog post from a Mac!  Weird computing machines...

Anyway, thinking about something:  Why are so many people afraid of classical music?  Pop music is accessible to most people, and jazz and blues to a fair extant.   However, you have someone listen to a piece of classical music and their eyes glaze over.  First off, let's define classical music.  Classical is a heading with lots of little subheadings.  Classical music, little C, is a broad heading for all music from the "old world" European tradition.  This is a collective term for all of those composers that people think of when they hear the term "classical" (i.e. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms [the Big Bs], Mozart, Tchaikovsky, etc.)  Under this classical heading is a whole list of subheadings: Usually starting with the Renaissance, then Baroque, then Classical (big C), then Romantic, then Impressionism, and 20th Century.  So, when I say "classical" I mean all of that music, as a whole, and many music people are implying the same thing when they talk about classical.  Bach is Baroque, Mozart is Classical, Beethoven was a bridge between Classical and Romantic, and Brahms was a Romantic.  More on these later, I could go on about this for a while.

Now we have the formalities out of the way, back to the original question: Why are people so afraid of classical music?  Most people can identify this kind of music, and most people find it pleasant to listen to, but when asked what composer they are listening to, or what movement of a work, or even what symphony or lieder set they are listening to, most average listeners couldn't answer.  Why?  Many years ago, I read a great book, that I highly recommend to all music lovers, called The Musical Ascent of Herman Being.  The author's name escapes me at the moment, but it's a fascinating look at the answer to this question. 

I'd love you all to check into this book and read it yourself, but I'll give you the main idea: repetition and length play a huge part in how we respond to a piece of music.  Pop songs are usually short, no more than 4-5 minutes, ideal for radio play and those with short attention spans (the origins of the 4-5 minute cut off has something to do with the history of recording technology, but I'll spare you the details) and they are played repeatedly.  Because the songs, let's use Cee Lo's F**K You as an example, are short, catchy and are played a lot, your brain is given time to process and memorize the form and structure.  In short, you learn the song really quick.  You hear it in the car and sing along, you hear it on your MP3 player as you go for a run, you hear other people singing it, and you can watch it on YouTube without tying up the computer for too long.  You may now even be singing F**K You to yourself, now that I've suggested it to you.

Now, let's look at a classical piece, Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 as an example.  The movements of this work are longer than 4-5 minutes, and symphonies as a whole generally run longer than 30 minutes.  So, it takes some commitment to listen to the whole symphony.  With repeated listenings, though, if you can make it through the first few times, you'll start to notice parts of the music starting to become familiar.  Maybe you'll start to hum along with parts of the melody and begin to anticipate mood changes.  Eventually, you get to the point where you can sing the main melodies and may even have them stuck in your head (you know, like TV and radio commercial jingles that are short, catchy, played incessantly, and stick in your head.  Does that formula sound familiar?)

Now go out there and ascend with Mr. Being!!