[verme (prevaricator)]

the professor seems to be an advocate of the music-appreciation racket.

the sort of thing that has kept me away from classical music.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by Glice

I can only imagine that the context is more than enough. I think if you're in a composition class it's more difficult to qualify the Beatles as 'real' music than it is to agree they're not 'real'.

And John Coltrane and various modern composers are easier to qualify as real music? What right does composition have to quality? It should be taken as indicative to the placement of the composition class if it isn't advanced enough to address complex music.

[Seandi]

I suppose any 12 tone modernism is what, the opposite of real music? And Charles Ives composed anti music.

[Sonic Youth 37]

Originally Posted by terriblecanyons

Heh, real music. Real music to me is something that moves you, that can change your mood completely and make you dance like a fucking crazy idiot or sob in a corner.

This. Examples: Andrew W.K., Current 93, and The Cure.

[terriblecanyons]

IT'S TIME TO PARTY LET'S PARTY
HANG OUT WITYOSELF AND HAVE A CRAZY PARTY

Oh god.

[demonrail666]

Next time i'm in Tower Records I'm gonna ask them where there 'Real' music section is so i can see what's in it. That should settle it.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by pbradley

And John Coltrane and various modern composers are easier to qualify as real music? What right does composition have to quality? It should be taken as indicative to the placement of the composition class if it isn't advanced enough to address complex music.

I don't care about defining what makes music 'real'. It's something that isn't important to me. 'Real' in most musical conversations is understood as 'authentintically part of x'. Willie Nelson is not 'real' music in the context of a lecture on hip-hop.

Composition, as I either said or alluded to or intended to allude to, defines the parameters of description. It also tends to expand the vernacular of description. This is a null-statement.

The quality in the context of modern composition is not the same quality as in, say, Khoomei singing.

If I was teaching a class on music (and thank fuck I'm not), I would be very inclined to dismiss lots of sorts of music not because they're not good but because they're not conducive to the purposes of education. If, as a lecturer, I'd had 30+ years of people mentioning the Beatles, I'd probably dismiss them out of hands not on the grounds of their merits, but on the grounds that I'd be paid to explain fugues, not whether straberry fields forever is 'really' about acid.

I'm not intimating a sense of quality in any, I just reckon it just seems very self-explanatory that in a classical music class certain sorts of music are not really part of the deal. Obviously, you're right that Coltrane and the like potentially provide a challenge to that, and you could always put forward a Simon Williams-esque argument for Wonky, or whatever, ought to be included in the critical lexicon. But there is definitely a time and a place for that sort of criticism, and I imagine the hitherto mentioned professor was intimating this.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

It depends. V/VM regularly posts on his forum, the guy from Pink Reason does that too on another forum, and also Jay Reatard, plus William Bennett seems to be on facebook every time I log in, Alec Empire literally posted on the same site that he loved chatting about the recording of his latest album etc etc. I used to think something similar to that, then it started making no sense whatsoever, since chatting on forums/networking sites isn't going to take away any motivation that you might have to make records, if you really have any.

There's always exceptions, and it does very much depend on the individual. Obviously, people like Herr Park are serial forummers as much as serial musicians. I suppose I'm imputing my own ideal-case music made by people who hate music. That's half a joke, obviously.

[floatingslowly]

Paul Leary is a gold-star forum-poster.

the "new" album by Carny is almost 2 years overdue (and likely never to hit shelves).

coincidence? you tell me.

[demonrail666]

his royalties may have plummeted but i'm sure his rep is triple platinum.

[Glice]

Butthole Surfers. Now there's a shit band.

[floatingslowly]

Carny > Butthole Surfers

[Glice]

Whatever <> whatever.

[SONIC GAIL]

Originally Posted by Glice

If I was teaching a class on music (and thank fuck I'm not), I would be very inclined to dismiss lots of sorts of music not because they're not good but because they're not conducive to the purposes of education. If, as a lecturer, I'd had 30+ years of people mentioning the Beatles, I'd probably dismiss them out of hands not on the grounds of their merits, but on the grounds that I'd be paid to explain fugues, not whether straberry fields forever is 'really' about acid.

I'm not intimating a sense of quality in any, I just reckon it just seems very self-explanatory that in a classical music class certain sorts of music are not really part of the deal. Obviously, you're right that Coltrane and the like potentially provide a challenge to that, and you could always put forward a Simon Williams-esque argument for Wonky, or whatever, ought to be included in the critical lexicon. But there is definitely a time and a place for that sort of criticism, and I imagine the hitherto mentioned professor was intimating this.

This professor played trumpet which explains the Jazz obsession. Yes I do agree that in a classical learning atmosphere you will be taught the fuction, creation, and basic rules of writing and reading classical music. In the reality staying in that narrow minded world would limit the learning oppurtunities of what you can do to move classical music into modern times. The Beatle's music was not just about acid and hidden messages. They intigrated classical souds with Rock n Roll and did so very succesfully. There are many musical scores of the Beatle's that in my mind blow Mozart away.

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

Originally Posted by SONIC GAIL

When I was in College, my Music Theory Profesor once said that " The Beatles are not REAL Music" To sum up the underlying meaning of that comment he was stating that in his opinion the only real music is Classical or Jazz. This excludes pretty much all of today's music and at least over a hundred years of musical progression that has evolved over this period.

What do you think? Is Classical the only REAL music? Is all Rock n Roll crap? Is Punk Trash? Does pop suck? Is Folk just 2 chords and no brains? Are the bands that we love and respect as serious musicians just making uneducated noise?

My Opinion: That professor has a narrow mind that is encrusted with the shit of the world. I absolutely love classical music, for the fact that I was classicaly trained. I have to admit though that it bores me at times. What is often overlooked is the classical influence that bands over the generations integrated in with thier own style. I have much more respect for them than some composer trying to pump out the same old Mozart style Score that has reused for centuries.
And I have to say that this is one of the reasons that I love Sonic Youth they have managed to take what most consider to be racket and mesh it into "Real Music"
To me music is not about how many notes you know, how fast you can play or even how outrageous you are. Real music is most often simple and arises out of pain and sometimes joy. Real music is hearing what someone is feeling and feeling it with them.
Music is a spirituality that brings you closer to god and you're inner being. It's also quite fun to have around when you get trashed and need to get some of that little troubled girl out of your system.

It's music. Music isn't exclusively an art form. Music started out as folk music. Which is really what rock and roll is to us today. Many great classical composers had appreciation for this and did incorporate that into their music.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by SONIC GAIL

This professor played trumpet which explains the Jazz obsession. Yes I do agree that in a classical learning atmosphere you will be taught the fuction, creation, and basic rules of writing and reading classical music. In the reality staying in that narrow minded world would limit the learning oppurtunities of what you can do to move classical music into modern times. The Beatle's music was not just about acid and hidden messages. They intigrated classical souds with Rock n Roll and did so very succesfully. There are many musical scores of the Beatle's that in my mind blow Mozart away.

That last sentence is massively contentious to me, but it's good that someone thinks it, and I'm not sufficiently versed in classical criticism to negate it. The only question I'd ask is which Mozart?

I think the thing for me is that most musical worlds are narrow-minded, it's not exclusively classical musicians and composers who are myopic. One of the problems with a lot of rock music now is that it's a sufficiently expansive genre for people to not need to venture outside of it. I'd argue that rock, unlike jazz, doesn't become stolid when it's entirely self-referential (the Cramps vs Courtney Pine).

I mean, I think the basic division I'd make is that the classical era is definitely a limited corpus, and a lot of 'classical music' fans are obviously narrow-minded (this is true of fans of most things, in general) but I personally (and naively) believe in a sense of 'art music' which includes Bingen, Tallis, Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Cage, Feldman all the way through to, say, Sugimoto, Haco or at least Radelescu, Grisey, Parmegiani and Lachenmann.

[Satan]

ALL music is music.

however, there are only two kinds of music in the world:

good and bad.

[Glice]

That was a post so shiningly insipid it can only have been sarcastic.

[Satan]

you know me so well.

[SYRFox]

I think the whole argument can be resolved by the fact that if there is such thing as "Real music", then there is "False music". Then define it.
You should have answered your teacher "define false music"