What drives us to classical music?

Discussion in 'Classical Music' started by Zohia, Mar 3, 2006.

  1. Zohia

    Zohia

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    Though I know the discussions around here are usually focused on classical music per se, I thought this might be an interesting subject to discuss as it has been intriguing me for a while now.

    So... :rds2:

    What has driven each of us to classical music?

    What intrigues me most about this question is the fact that there are people who truly enjoy classical music without having ever played a musical instrument. I can’t say I know anyone who can be included in this category… Sadly, I can’t even say everyone I know that plays an instrument likes classical music.

    In my particular case, I didn't grow up listening to classical music as none of my family was interested or listened to it. I did start playing an instrument at 8 years old (my grandmother had been taught the piano as a child and was truly fond of having her grandchildren playing it as well) but I don’t think I had a clear idea of what classical or, to be honest, any kind of music was. I just played the notes… mainly trying to reproduce the tune someone had previously played for me (which reminds me of the Suzuki method) – and though I wasn’t very conscious of the whole process, it surely was fun!...

    As time went by, I remember finding at home a lost Dvorak cd (being a doctor my father was sometimes offered LPs or Cds of various kinds of music – one of the few good things about medical propaganda) and listening to it time after time.
    That might have been when I realised the existence of different composers (besides Mozart and Beethoven, who figured in two pictures at my music school) and started to attend to some concerts in my small town, where there would be just about 10 people in the audience…. truly depressive as the entrance was for free.
    Out of curiosity, there was only one time when the hall was full and that was when a famous Portuguese maestro was in town…. It’s useless to say that people weren’t there to listen to him playing the piano but to take a glimpse of his unusual appearance and tell their friends they had seen a famous person…

    Anyway, it was only by then (I might have been about 14) that I had my first strong musical experience, when I gained true consciousness about classical music. But I’ll leave that for another topic.

    Joana
     
    Zohia, Mar 3, 2006
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  2. Zohia

    alanbeeb Grumpy young fogey

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    Hi Joana - I don't know what the answer is. Classical music just made sense to me at a particular time in my life where before it had not, and I don't really know why.

    I do not play any musical instruments, having lacked the patience and application when I was a child. I have almost no technical understanding of music.

    I did not have any exposure to classical music when I was a child either, my parents listened to not very much, a few records of the Beatles, Nana Miskouri (where is she now?) and songs from musicals. As a child my main musical experience came from my older brothers' records of Led Zeppelin, Yes, Bob Dylan and some others. Today I still love the Zep and Yes, but I cannot stand Bob Dylan! Both my older brothers took up playing the guitar and piano, and one of them is still quite accomplished. But I was content to listen.

    Classical music just happened to me in my early twenties while I was at University, I heard some of a friends compilation CD (The Essential Classics Collection) and I wanted to hear the whole thing. I do not know why I became receptive to it then, I had tried listening to classical music before but it didn't appeal much.

    After that I went to a few concerts, then worked in a classical record shop for a year before getting a 'real' job. That was 16 years ago now..... The CD collection keeps on growing.

    My father taught himself to play the piano very badly, and a few years ago bought a 2nd hand Roland keyboard to experiment with. He has now given it to me in the hope that my young daughter will take an interest, so I will hopefully get it working and teach myself some basics soon.
     
    alanbeeb, Mar 4, 2006
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  3. Zohia

    Zohia

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    :banghead:
    I'm sorry, it seems you had already discussed this here :notworthy

    Joana
     
    Zohia, Mar 4, 2006
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  4. Zohia

    PeteH Natural Blue

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    In my case, it basically boils down to the fact that the majority of classical music isn't boring, unlike nearly all pop music. :)

    Following exposure to the richer, subtler, more powerful and more extreme experiences available through classical music, it's all but impossible to derive any lasting pleasure from most pop. I think it's telling that you'll sometimes see people trying to "break into" classical music from a pop / rock background, but it's pretty rare to see anyone trying to "break into" pop / rock from a classical music background. Essentially, by the time you've got to grips with a few decent classical works, the amount of actual musical material in yer average pop album just isn't sufficient to hold your attention; there's more inspiration, imagination, power and drama in, say, a movement of a Beethoven string quartet than there is in the entire recorded output of many pop acts.
     
    PeteH, Mar 5, 2006
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  5. Zohia

    tones compulsive cantater

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    Dat's m'boy!!!:D I still find it incomprehensible that most contributors to these on-line hi-fi forums spend these huge fortunes on equipment to listen to absolute rubbish. Occasionally there comes a catchy tune or an interesting ear-hooking arrangement in a pop/rock record, but the overwhelmingly vast outpouring (and it is indeed overwhelmingly vast) is absolute rot.
     
    tones, Mar 5, 2006
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  6. Zohia

    alanbeeb Grumpy young fogey

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    Spot on.
     
    alanbeeb, Mar 5, 2006
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  7. Zohia

    Zohia

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    I know the quote isn't directly related to the following subject but since the main forum is about hi-fi and I'm not an expert on the matter of this "science":D and the love you seem to nourish for it:
    :rds2: Given the opportunity would you prefer to listen to a recording or go to a live concert?

    I can understand that a good equipment allows listening to good sound quality in the privacy of your home, but is it really the same?

    One of the clearest musical memories I have is of the thrill I felt when I went to a live concert of Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto. I had been listening to recordings of that concert till exhaustion but listening to it live definitely brought something new to my experience of that particular piece (it certainly was a favorite back then).
    Nowadays I still love a good live concert... For me recordings never (yet) replaced the performance (even if not great) of "live" musicians... Maybe it's because it gives us the chance to share their physical/bodily experience of the music.

    Any ideas?

    Joana
     
    Zohia, Mar 6, 2006
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  8. Zohia

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    Ah, Joana: No, a recording can never replace the experience of live music, I think. And I feel you are right: 'the first time' live is always absolutely magic (unless rather badly played).

    Moreover, even the best hi-fi system cannot be faithful to the space and the marvellous shifting of sound in space (some people might disagree: Titian tells me that with his system he gets very close to the real thing). However I never, ever, had the feeling that it is the same, even in terms of pure sound. And, of course, a concert hall or a church are usually more thrilling than our homes. Seeing the musician may help, too (with organists one usually sees very little but when one does, as in Lisbon Cathedral, it is quite a show, as I think you know).

    That is not to say that records are only a poor relative of live music. For one thing, you can listen to dead masters - for instance, Kempff: it is an important part of my musical life and yet I could never listen to him. The same for Walcha, and indeed to all of 'them'.

    Also there are scores that one does not have (or, in the case of a symphony, that I am quite incapable of understanding) and that are very seldom played.

    But I really feel the 'alone' listening experience is the key to the importance of records: you may actually let go of yourself.

    Of course this needs a rather expensive system. Most of the classic people here have good equipment (and the non classical perhaps even better!). Never-theless, I would say that even with a cheap but honest system that may happen.

    Of course, all the social involvement of playing with others is lost: to sing in a choir, for instance is, as you know, an unforgettable experience.

    So, it’s different.
     
    Rodrigo de Sá, Mar 7, 2006
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  9. Zohia

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    I couldn't agree more, but I think those people like hi-fi better than music. Or, perhaps, sound better than music.

    But, you know, many (by no means all) instrument makers do not really like music, just the sound. I naturally know harpsichord and organ-makers better than the rest, but almost every time I spoke with one it was all about sound and nothing about music. Conversely, musicians do care about sound, but not always: I've known people that were quite indifferent to the kind of instrument in which you play: many organists just think 'large is better'.
     
    Rodrigo de Sá, Mar 7, 2006
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  10. Zohia

    tones compulsive cantater

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    No matter how good the equipment, nothing can match The Real Thing. A brilliant recording brilliantly reproduced remains only a facsimile of a performance, totally lacking in sense of occasion and risk. Our friend Titian, who occasionally graces these pages, has the best hi-fi I've ever heard. His object in life is quite simple - to reproduce what he hears and loves in concert halls. His stuff comes closer to that goal than anything else I've heard, but he would cheerfully admit that it's not perfect nor will it ever be. In the end, we all have to accept that near enough is good enough, and we vary only in how "near" that is.
     
    tones, Mar 7, 2006
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  11. Zohia

    Joe

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    I've only ever strummed an acoustic guitar, but I think I truly enjoy classical music, if only on a very philistine level. My earliest exposure to classical music was at school, where our music teacher played us stuff like Haydn and Mozart, but at that age I was in thrall to pop music and didn't really get 'into' classical music until my mid-20s, and only within the past few years have my tastes widened beyond the 'obvious' (ie classical/romantic) stuff, I can now listen with enjoyment to earlier and more complex works and am even able to sit through Bach cantatas that would have made me run from the room not so many years ago, though the charm of opera still eludes me.

    However, I expect my wife gets more out of classical music than I do; she is a trained singer and pianist and has (more or less) perfect pitch, whereas I'm (more or less) tone deaf. Thus, she can follow different 'themes', key changes and suchlike, while I just listen to the nice tunes. The positive side for me is that I can listen quite happily to out-of-tune singing that my wife finds it painful to hear.
     
    Joe, Mar 7, 2006
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  12. Zohia

    alanbeeb Grumpy young fogey

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    Re concert-going vs. listening to recordings..... there are some concerts I've been to where the performance has taken flight and its been a wonderful experience, and not attainable at home with a recording.

    But I've probably been to more where the performance has not really taken off, and while its been nice, sitting at home in comfort, and not listening to other people twitch and cough and rattle jewellery would have been preferable and a lot cheaper too!

    Sometimes it is possible to suspend disbelief in a big way listening to a good recording, if you are in the right mood and all other factors are favourable. Listening in the dark with a glass of wine while not too tired usually helps for me.
     
    alanbeeb, Mar 7, 2006
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  13. Zohia

    Joe

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    A point made by H L Mencken, writing against prohibition in the US in the 1920s; whilst you will clearly not gain much insight from listening to Beethoven whilst completely sozzled, you will gain more insight from listening after a few glasses of wine than stone cold sober.
     
    Joe, Mar 7, 2006
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  14. Zohia

    PeteH Natural Blue

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    Actually, tones, I'd have to disagree with that in some specific cases. I vividly remember the first time I heard Argerich's famous live recording of Rachmaninov 3 on Philips - I was driving at the time when it came on the radio, and I was actually considering pulling over, because I really wasn't paying any attention to the road at all. Heart-stoppingly incendiary stuff, despite fistfuls of wrong notes in the last movement. It remains thrilling on repeated listening too, though the technical problems do intrude.

    I'd agree with alanbeeb here - there's an awful lot to be said for the comfort and convenience of your own home and the absence of excessively annoying audience noise. If you're a regular at concerts given by top international orchestras and ensembles in London (or another major capital) then you can probably expect a level of music-making at a similar level to what you generally get on major record releases, but for most of us the standards available (geographically and / or economically) are a lot more hit and miss.

    I think there are some works which lend themselves to recorded performance. It can't be denied (except by the hardest of the hardcore :) ) that there are practical problems with the likes of Wagner's epic operas in live performance, namely that the audience and performers alike are exhausted by the end of an act, never mind by the end of the evening. Despite this, of course, Parsifal or whatever can be really thrilling in live performance - but this is in spite of their endurance-test nature, not because of it. Taking it at your own pace at home - with tea and toilet breaks and comfortable seating - is generally much preferable IMO.

    Another example I always cite when this discussion comes up is Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, an example of a work where sympathetically contrived recorded balances can be very helpful. In the volcanic first number, for instance, in live performance you've either got to neuter the orchestral violence to a degree or risk losing the solo voice from time to time - in the recording studio, everyone can let rip with abandon and subtle adjusting of the relative levels can make it all work, for example in Haitink's classic account with James King and Janet Baker. Or something like Eliot Gardiner's DG The Planets, in which through tastefully-executed multimiking the individual instrumental lines and effects are much clearer than you'll ever hear them in the concert hall - and this is achieved without drawing attention to unnatural balances.

    I agree that hifi systems can't reproduce the nth degree of subtlety of live music or the full sensual impact of a pianopianissimo string section or whatever, though of course a better system will help in this regard. However, I don't think this is really key to the difference between experiencing music live and recorded - it's got much more to do with the charged atmosphere of a concert hall, the sense of risk and the communal, shared experience than the actual sound per se.
     
    PeteH, Mar 8, 2006
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  15. Zohia

    Rodrigo de Sá This club's crushing bore

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    In this post I will try to answer the question: why do people listen to pop music instead of good music, which appeared in this thread. The question has been laid down somewhat differently (why do people spend a lot of money to listen to garbage) but it is the same thing, really.

    I tried to have a young couple explain me what they liked, having at first tried to get their opinions on some 'easy music' (some thundering organ music - Bohm, Christ lag -, more thundering harpsichord music - Bohm's Prelude, fugue and postlude) and two softer pieces of music (chorale organ music and the g major sarabande from the French suites). I got very mixed feelings. I honestly think they didn't get it - only the thunder. I think 'pop' addicts are very ill at ease with tonality, but modality goes down (as long as it is very short). For instance, the 'Remember me' from Dido and Aeneas by Purcell was not understood (!!).

    So I asked them to show me what they liked. We switched the computer on and they did various searches. I do not remember what I heard: some Dead can dance, something akin to 'sonic boy', a famous fellow that committed suicide, and what they called post-punk.

    I understood what they liked in 'Dead can Dance': a sense of suspension of time and of mystery. And I must say the music did not seem bad.

    For the rest I was totally amazed. Nothing what I would call music. Very strong and very simple rhythms (and a melody ?? of about three notes), played hard. Or plain bad singing (the fellow who killed himself - something Coburn?) and noise and pure crap and nothing like music (Sex Pistols, Smashing Pumpkins). I was honestly bewildered: after all, both are cultivated persons. And the girl is actually quite intelligent (I know because she is one of my PhD students). So what is going on?

    I feel I had, for the first time, taken a peep into the world of adolescent culture (I do not mean to be patronizing, I'm only saying that I do not understand that world). All the music explores very simple emotions. And, what is perhaps more interesting, they are *not* ego emotions at all. The rock seems just an expression of repressed fury or, perhaps just energy. The slower ones are just 'spatial', in the sense of 'self dissolution'. I may be generalizing a great deal: after all I only listened to bits.
    What surprised me was something that was said: most adolescent 'groups' (I mean Gothic, Punk, Metal - in all its bewildering varieties) base their identity on the music they listen to. This was quite a surprise. At first I thought it meant that there was a kind of analysis of the music and 'lyrics' that was later taken to other fields. But it seems it is nothing of the kind. All fury and despair (there does not seem to be much else) is cued by the crudest form of lyrics. For instance I listened to a bit of a song (!) in which the suicidal vocalist kept saying 'rape me'. Others just say 'hate', and so on. But there usually is nothing else than cueing. The rest of the music is just felt as if there was nothing but energy or rhythm.

    I thought about it, and I reached the conclusion that whereas in my generation or my wife's generation (she is younger than me) people took 'lyrics' into account - there was a 'message', nowadays it is just the excitement released by very strong sounds that is the essence of the message. That is, what rockers seek is a complete denial of the ego and the full concentration on pure bodily emotion. It is, I really think, akin to what trance-inducing music creates: a way of forgetting about oneself and to drawn oneself into some kind of trance.

    Of course this happens, to a certain extent, with 'erudite' music: many polyphonists do just that. But it is, one must agree, a quite different kind of emotion. It is structured (not always 'forte' and there is a sense of progression, there is tension and release, and so on).

    Now, what does this mean in terms of the 'world view' of urban cultures? It is so very different from my own I may well exaggerate on what I will say.
    My impression was that there is a lot of non-verbal, non-logical, messages. Of course all music is non-verbal (even, to a certain amount, lied and opera). But it is a kind of non-verbal complexity. Even without bringing Bach into this (his fugues), the late Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler or Bruckner give us 'structured emotion'. I don't mean 'structured' in musical terms: I mean emotional structure. For instance, in the last sonata (op. 111-2), Beethoven presents to us a trajectory, a kind of purely musical narrative that must be understood in terms of emotion, even if one has difficulty in putting it to words.

    Not so in rock: it is pure energy, pure dissolution, pure energy. And, what is more, here is no 'wordy' superstructure. The music, not movies, is the key to identification. If there was some kind of symbolic (I mean words!) message, I could understand. But it does not seem so. There is just a kind of body feeling that is conveyed by sound and nothing else. Or perhaps something else: clothing (Gothics go black and white, punks go all sorts of colours, metal has nails and sado-maso paraphernalia, wikers go mysterious and aggressive and so on, and on, and on). Really, it cannot really get more primitive.
    So, really, I think this is not a very good sign of a substantive culture growing in youngsters. A totally barren mental landscape.
    Am I totally wrong? Zophia, perhaps you can shed light on this?
     
    Rodrigo de Sá, Mar 13, 2006
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  16. Zohia

    tones compulsive cantater

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    Pete, I don't disagree with what you said, but the above-quoted passage encapsulates very nicely my views on live v. recorded music.

    You're 100% right of course, in that a top-flight ensemble nicely recorded will always play the notes better than a local group or small provincial orchestra. And I do take your point about tea and toilet breaks at will! However, the element of risk, of seeing musicians do their stuff before your very eyes as it were, is an essential element of the performance. The thing comes out as an organic whole, with no opportunity to edit out mistakes.

    Perhaps the DVD is, in some ways, the best of both worlds. I have Gardiner's Christmas Oratorio, recorded live at the Herderkirche, Weimar. Some folks have said that they watch a few minutes and then listen only. I find myself glued to the whole thing, watching in fascination as it all comes together. I really enjoy watching Gardiner, who's clearly having a ball, bringing in his soloists, singing along with his choir. It's a joy to behold, and I find myself rarely listening to the audio recording any more!
     
    tones, Mar 13, 2006
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  17. Zohia

    tones compulsive cantater

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    Some interesting thoughts there, RdS. Another aspect is that pop/rock in its present form is now 60 years old, so two generations have arisen since Bill Haley rocked around the clock and Elvis Aaron Presley tried to convince his Momma that it was alright. Rock and its successors have become mainstream - distressingly so as I have to listen to it in the local supermarket on Saturday mornings (if Whitney Houston tells me once more that "I-e-I-e-Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'll always lo-o-ove you-ou-ou-ou-ououououuuuaaaaaaaaah", I'm going to take an axe to their muzak machine). However, the rebel element in rock (i.e., wanting, even needing, to play something unacceptable to "adults") pushes rock to create even more awful noises. So, now we have rap (I'm sure the omission of the initial "c" is a mistake) and techno and goodness knows what else.

    However, to be young is to be hip, so these various noises find more and more acceptance among "adults", requiring the production of even worse noises. And of course it's worse because "artists" are now required to write their own "material". Now this trend, really started by the Beatles I guess, sometimes works - Lennon and McCartney were genuinely talented and innovative songwriters - but for every such writer, there are thousands of supremely untalented individuals writing. Add to that the fact that it's no longer necessary to be able to sing (Sir Michael Philip Jagger) and we have the present mess. I fully expect it to get worse.
     
    tones, Mar 13, 2006
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  18. Zohia

    bat Connoisseur Par Excelence

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    RdS, you have been exposed to some unique masterpieces such as Nirvana's "Rape me", written by Cobain, yes unfortunately he shot himself but he was very talented. I am glad that you reminded me of that song which is arguably the best song in recent history. Besides, Cobain's voice was pure gold.

    Of course songs like "Rape me" are unlike Bohm or Bach. But it is an expression of unique talent, not of "totally barren mental landscape". It is like comparing modern art with renaissance masterpieces - if we look at modern art excepting to see da Vinci or Tizian, we will be disappointed.

    About "Rape me": Yes, the rhytm is simple and the melody is simple but that is exactly the hard part. It is much harder to make something simple and good than to make something quasi-complicated and good. That is why we have literally tons of baroque keyboard music but very few rock songs of "Rape me"'s quality.

    Btw, don't miss Finland's entry at the Eurovision song contest in May:
    [​IMG]
     
    bat, Mar 13, 2006
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  19. Zohia

    Joe

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    Not totally wrong, but ... what you say is no different to what has been said of 'fans' of popular music going back at least to the 1920s and the popularisation of jazz (ironically itself now something of an elitist taste). Jazz was mere 'jungle music', a cacophony that required no mental effort on behalf of either its practicioners or its audience, and young peoples' liking for it was a sure sign of the degeneration of society.

    Every new generation outrages its predecessor generation by its taste in music; those who liked jazz were outraged by those who preferred rock 'n roll, who in turn were outraged by those who liked 'progressive' music, who in turn were outraged by those who liked punk and so forth.

    Most young people (and in my time I was no exception) align themselves to one tribe or another; identifying themselves by their taste in music as much as by their clothes and hairstyle. As they mature, their tastes tend to widen, and they become more tolerant of others' tastes. They might even dip a tentative toe into classical music!
     
    Joe, Mar 13, 2006
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  20. Zohia

    tones compulsive cantater

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    Good points all, Joe - people forget that the first singer to be "screamed" at was not "Elvis the Pelvis" but the young Frank Sinatra, fronting Tommy Dorsey's band in the 1940s. However, there is now a new element, the relentless commercial pressure to produce something to sell. Money and recording contracts played their part in the days of jazz, but never has it been so strong or all-pervading. As a result, there is this "hothouse" element, forever seeking to produce new sounds that will sell. As a result (IMHO anyway), the overall standard of popular music has declined precipitately.
     
    tones, Mar 13, 2006
    #20
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