AudioNervosa
Systemic Development => Bipolar System Disorders => Topic started by: richidoo on November 10, 2009, 06:03:28 PM
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I can see why a lot of you guys like pop and rock music, modern "jazz" etc over classical. It is compressed, so you can adjust the volume to a tighter range, and adjust it to match the background noise and acoustic tolerance of your room. Less acoustic treatment, and less accurate amps are needed to get enjoyment when the music has a tighter dynamic range.
Tonight I listened to last years' grammy winning Sugarland CD, an awesome record. Punchy, raw, pure, intense, redneck lyrics and great vocal interpretation, I got a lot of chills. Then I switched to Tchaikovski violin piano duo on audiophile label. Now I could the fridge, kids, echo, etc. In the headphones the classical duet blows away the Sugarland for deep musical hypnosis and satisfaction. Because the rock is compressed, it can be played louder average volume, so it blocks out the noise and acoustic problems, until I turn it up too loud, but even then it peaks more gently than an uncompressed flute.
Uncompressed classical music has such large dynamic swings you have to ride the VC to be able to hear the softs and to keep it from overloading the room with the louds. Amps and speakers also have a tougher job to retain consistent sound at louder and softer levels. Acoustic distortion % increases exponentially with the volume level. A quiet controlled reflection room would have less problem than a plain room. Few audiophiles treat their rooms. Is that why they like compressed music? I have to admit, I have been listening to lot more rock lately ever since Carl played some Clutch for me. ;) It works better in my room, and most of it that's not top40 I have never heard, so it's a new horizon to explore.
Classical also requires absolute tonal reproduction cuz the instrument sounds either right or wrong. Easy to find fault in a violin on a cheap SS amp and aluminum dome tweeter, and easy to hear small differences when the system changes. Rock deliberately tweaks the sound of guitar and voices to make the recording sound "better" or "unique," so if playback is a little off you never know it cuz there's no absolute reference. There is no correct electric guitar sound. Good is good enough - whatever.
Classical recording tries to capture the art like a photo while a rock recording is the art like a painting. These are the extremes of a continuum into which all recorded music fits - be it closer to one end or the other. Even purist classical has hall reverb and electronic coloring, too much rosin or bad mic selection, or heavenly reverb of a choir or organ. And rock records usually do sound like real people singing with real guitars so it is not total tonal chaos. But I think some bands aim for chaos.... Like these new pop records with voices controlled by the synth?
What do you think about the differences between rock versus classical recordings?
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Unfortunately, I listen to every type of music except Rap and Classical but I enjoyed reading your comments. There is another thread that is a discussion about live concerts. Do you think that Classical recordings do a better job of capturing a live-like concert than does Rock Recordings? I have attended a few jazz and rock concerts and I don't feel many rock or jazz recording exhibit the same life-like energy as you experience at a concert. Of course one big difference is the volume levels at a rock concert are ear damaging!
Ken
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Ken, live rock recordings usually capture more of the onstage life-like feel than what is heard over the PA by the audience. Indestructible 120dB horn speakers driven by 20kW class B amps are not exactly "lit from within" hifi quality. Often the live rock recordings are more purist recordings of the band than their studio recordings where there is immense pressure to pump publishing money out of the ground. The live records can be looser, because the songs are already hits. A live sound engineer or location recordist will have a completely different goal than the pop producer in the studio.
Classical recordings can capture a lot of the feeling of a live concert, but it is still only 50% of the life. A couple records came out this year, recorded on audiophile label, which were recorded a just couple days after I attended the same concert in the same hall. It feels different, not as exciting as the natural sound in your ear and the spirit of the music in the air, but I can hear so much more information. It is night and day. The mics floating above the band closer to the musicians hear so much more information, with so much less low freq problems as when sitting close to the floor, even in ideal row 6 seats.
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Since very little rock is un-amplified you are only comparing your system/room to theirs (hardly a fair comparison). So there isn't much meaning in applying the concept of hi-fidelity to rock. But in my old man way of thinking, your system should help take out much of excess distortions that 120 dB playback, PA horns, arena acoustics, etc. that is present (even purposely added) to rock.
This isn't to say that classical doesn't have challenges comparing live to what you can hear at home. Hard to reproduce hall effects in a residential sized room and the typical classical miking techniques of locating them above the violins will always skew what you hear live versus from the recording. And of course the dynamic range of classical is a challenge.
Its been my opinion that most audiophiles spend way too much on equipment for the given room they listen in. Even if you have the ideal room, if you have to share it there are only so many hours in the day that you can use it exclusively for audio (unless everyone else is out of the house and you're a stay at home guy). That is the first key to having a dedicated audio room. The second is to dedicate yourself to audio within the room (and not turn it into a multi-purpose man cave). If you can get a decent room size and correct proportions, achieving good isolation and acoustics is relatively easy.
Certainly rock has much more audience interaction and so good live rock recordings have good "energy" compared to studio work or any classical recording. Classical is much more cerebral and inner focused. And restricted dynamic range helps "sell" rock in noisy settings or where background music is the goal (car, elevators).
Actually I compare rock to classical in terms of history. Try hearing Bach as a rocker in his day (he was an animal!). And I reverse your analogy richidoo. I see classical more like a painting, with depth, texture, and overtones while rock is normally like a photoshopped image.
My music collection is split between classical (baroque is a favorite), jazz (I'll admit lots of old man small ensembles), and pop/latin. (The pop is mostly stuff from the 50's/60's and the latin genre is from the 60's/70's with lots of jazz tones.)
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I like classical music more for the sense of hearing "real" instruments that can be older than dirt and still sound way better than anything else! The few classical artists that have I met, are not the usual. They are so in love with the music and the instrument they play, that they are indeed on a different level. One of my all time favorite recording is Ravels' Bolero. I always feel I am there watching the whole scene unfold. Of course there are a lot of old men who love it for different reasons.
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I think the reproduction quality of various types of music lends well to analogies to visual media.. Photographs vs. paintings, interesting.. but there are many levels of 'in between'... and it's not consistent.
Rich's choices of classical music are likely close to an original painting. Many of my choices of rock are like a pretty good reproduction of a painting, but not the real thing... and some actually are originals.. Live and untouched.
Then there is some classical that just sounds blatty and hard and like it was recorded by someone with no recording talent/budget/whatever. That's like news print. Then there's punk.. always recorded like shit to piss everyone off.. Is that noisy video? Same with hair bands and generic hard rock.. purposefully distorted and compressed.. not a photo but overly processed video.. hence the video craze in the 80's and 90's. The music didn't stand alone, it needed visualization.. but that's a digression.
In any case, I think you find the music you love and then find the best possible recording of it. If that can't be done, you find the best possible equipment match to what you like to hear. That touches on your point, Rich.. where I think you're saying Rock music is most likely to sound best due its 'easy-to-crank' nature. There are very little lulls or nuance... but then, that might be because you're new to that type of music.
There is a lot going on in Clutch, and in other rock.. and I would liken that to mountain bike riding.. what?! It's like being on a really rocky, bumpy ride but you still need fine motor skills. You have to listen into the music.. and often there's something new (and unexpected) each time.
-C
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It is very hard to stereotype rock. There is obviously some very well produced rock and some that fuse/crossover with all sorts of other genres. Then there is chick rock, bubble gum rock, and the like. :roll:
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Not just easy to crank, but easy to turn down and use a cheaper system in a worse acoustic and still get the reward. I think that's the crux of my question. Rock is easier to reproduce, because it is deliberately encoded with excitement cues separate from the music, so it can sound exciting and loud even when it's soft. It thrills with less energy. Classical thrill comes from harmonic sophistication and dynamic subtlety. These require stereo horsepower, which is expensive. iPod can get a big part of the value of a rock tune into the head without riding the VC.
My OP was not a diatribe on which music is better than the other. The kind of rock is irrelevant, all compressed popular genres are similar in their ease of consumption. I am interested to know if anyone has experienced the same difficulty making classical music sound as good as rock or any modern pop/jazz production with compression. It is more of a technical question about hifi, but it necessarily has artistic strings attached since we aren't supposed to pick music for its compatibility with our hifi system, but we do. I love all music types, but I notice big differences and I see problems in reproducing one over the other. My 10W amps have no problem with rock, but they struggle with the harmonic complexity of symphonies played at the same level or even softer than the simpler rock. On rock I don't hear any echo in my room, on classical it is obvious.
I listen to a classical radio station run by an audiophile who has modded her processors for sound quality, but the compression does take a lot of fun out of it. But rock is designed from the beginning to be compressed, so compression is part of the art. It is a sound that we are used to and expect. Classical is not created with compression in mind, so ladling it on afterward so car passengers can hear it better is a negative.
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Has anyone heard the Rock reissues from Classic records ? These were totally remastered from the original analog master tapes.
Just so you know Jazz and Classical are the main stay with some occasional rock. Now lets take the Aqualung or Who LPS. They will change ones mind about rock recordings NO compression. I own many copies including the famed Mobile Fidelity which was out classed by the Classic issue. The Creedance and Zeppelin reissues from Acoustic Sounds are killer as well. Have you experienced their 45 series. Oh my what ya waiting for. If your a rock fan these are must haves.
If you can find some of your favorites on these labels and have the original recording compare them. The difference is statling.
charles
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Ah, you're writing of dynamics.
Yes, drum sets of nearly any genre will do as a start into the challenges of dynamics. I've found that higher efficiency speakers are the most dynamic, but unfortunately add lots of colorations (mostly via non-elastic compression of the air being moved and pressure induced cabinet distortions typical of horn loadings).
An audio truth that I've learned is the need to have sufficient power gain to maintain a "commanding grip" on the speakers. You must be able to reach 105 - 110 dB in room in order to achieve completely detailed presentation with realistic dynamics and full soundstage. The audiophile experience (not background music) requires this IMO.
At the end of the day, there is no substitute for displacement and power. Big speakers (garage sized cabinets with lots of drivers and reinforced cabinet walls or concrete bass horns) and "grown-up amps if you want to realistically reproduce dynamics while covering the full musical frequency range without colorations.
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You must be able to reach 105 - 110 dB in room in order to achieve completely detailed presentation with realistic dynamics and full soundstage.
Oh, my aching old ears! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Ken
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I think you've probably answered your own question but you lean toward loving classical more than rock. You'd need people who also love classical AND rock to offer valuable opinion. I'm not such a person.
I think I would have to take a classical music appreciation class to understand what it is about classical to really enjoy it. You've played a couple of tracks here that I thought were quite nice. But just liking something doesn't help me understand what it is I like about it.
So, if you want to give me a primer on classical, I'll make time for it. I'll be quiet, listen, and even take notes! Or, recommend a class to take. I've tried learning to play music and found it extremely difficult teaching myself. I liken that to learning classical appreciation. I know I'd like it more if I understood it.
Anyway, that's a big digression. Yes, rock's easier to reproduce and has more emotional hooks, and more often than classical. So, it's like 'bite-size' enjoyment rather than an 8-course meal.
-C
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Ken,
I tried a speaker/amp combo that would only cleanly/safely reach about 100 dB in room and it sounded fine (like polite dinner guests). I'm an old fart, so any serious headbanging days are well behind me. The amp had its problems, so I switched to my current bigger monoblocks that would allow me to reach 108 dB in room. Now we're cooking. The polite dinner guests turned into NFL linebackers wearing tuxedos. Detail and dynamics improved (as did imaging but that might be attributed to going mono). And of course the speakers are now better protected as "clean" overload is better than receiving a clipped/distorted signal.
I normally listen below 80 dB, but classical can have peaks of 30 dB (a 1,000 fold difference in terms of wattage as the relation between watts and dB of gain is logarithmic). So it's those nasty peaks that can sneak up and bite. Rock is typically played much louder but the peaks are only 10 dB (again very hard to generalize rock music).
Years ago I was fascinated with the single ended triode amps and high efficiency speaker route so I picked up a cheap Radio Shack sound pressure meter, which I've found to be quite instructional. The SET crowd is fairly obsessed with wattage and speaker efficiency as they run only 1 - 8 watts. Alas the amount of colorations and nearly universal lack of deep bass turned me away from that so romantic, vintage, and simple path.
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Carl,
It's just as hard to classify classical as it is rock. Some is easy to handle (harp or guitar solos for example) versus full orchestral performances with choral accompaniment. Personally I seem to prefer the small ensembles.
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Now don't read me wrong; I'm not a fan of over-compression. But some of the totally uncompressed CD's I've heard, usually classical, do have large dynamic swings. I find myself reaching for the volume control to boose the soft passages so I can hear them clearly, then reaching frantically again when the booming starts.
This is the same problem on my home theater, where my wife complains that the loud dynamic stuff is way too loud (it is) if you set the volume so you can hear the voices clearly.
I think dynamics are very impressive and certainly necessary for accurate reproduction, but when I'm listening in my home I sometimes want things a little more balanced out. It makes it more comfortable and enjoyable overall.
I also believe that there is a fundamental difference between live music and reproduced music and I really don't think that live music is the goal we're trying to reach in our home systems. Maybe one optional goal for demonstration or occasional use, but probably not the goal I would use all the time in my home. Don't get me wrong, I would love to hear instruments like I hear them live, but I also like close miking and the stereophonic image and separation, which is not at all like having instruments in your room.
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Ken,
I don't think anyone is advocating playing a system at a steady 110 db, but the ability to reach that kind of dynamic, if only for a millisecond makes quite a difference in presenting a realistic sound picture. back in the late 80s some did an experiment (I believe it was J. Peter Moncreiff of IAR) that used an oscilloscope to look at the microphone feed of the click made by a pair of scissors opening and closing. He recorded this and then tried to reproduce the same sound through a spare of speakers, at the same SPL as the original.When he looked at the output of the amp on a scope he saw that the waveform was clipped as compared to the input signal. He kept substituting bigger and bigger power amps until he found one that didn't clip the output (again with the same spl.) It wasn't until he got up to nearly 1000 (yes 1K) watts that the signal out of the amp was a faithful reproduction of the input signal. Now granted, it only needed that amount of power for a mere fraction of a second, but without that kind of headroom you could not reproduce the full fidelity of the signal. And while there are not too many scissor clips in most of our music collections, I dare say that they do contain a lot of cymbal crashes, which have a very similar transient profile. The bottom line is that the advantage of a big amp is not that it can drive your system to higher volume levels, but rather it can make your system sound better when it is playing at lower volume.
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Bob Smith has written about this high power peaks issue too, not on his website, maybe on AC. And it's not just high level peaks that relate to this. That's the joy of high efficiency speakers. Micro dynamics even at 80dB come through easier on lower power when the speaker requires less current.
Nice post BobM, my feelings exactly
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That stands to reason since dynamic range is always measured relative to a starting point. Say you have a peak that, even for a small amount of time requires 100 times more power than your steady state listening level. If you have a set of very high efficiency speakers that only require 1/2 watt to produce a normal listening level, the peak will only be 50 watts, not a big challenge for most amps. However if your speakers are starting with a 5 watt steady state requirement then the peak jumps all the way up to a hefty 500 watts, a tough job for even some out our best high end behemoths.
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There is no perfect speaker. The best you can do is to find the optimumal set of trade offs to fit your individual wish list. I chose to give up some efficiency to get reduced colorations.
I agree that the dynamic range of movies is bothersome as our HT system is not in an enclosed room away from family. An isolated/dedicated room helps.
And some of the numbers I've thrown out are way low according to some (but they are in the minority). They advocate for being able to reproduce peaks around 130 dB!! That would correlate with the 1,000 watts to do the scissors.
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Thanks for fleshing that out with numbers, tmazz. Makes sense! I guess a 110dB sensitive horn can make 2A3 amp sound like kingkong.
On the other hand, hitting the peaks without clipping is not as important to me as clipping softly so it doesn't hurt my eays from distortion. Another way to do it is compress the top 3dB to soft clip. If the microdynamics are happening within the normal macrodynamic range, then it sounds alive and I'm satisfied. The dynamic peaks are just fun spice. But full dynamics can blow unsuspecting people away who have never heard that on a stereo. To get the frighten factor from powerful transients you either need low noise floor or high power amps. Is it worth it? And how many records leave the raw fear in there, uncompressed?
We need a good old fashioned sound effects CD, like in the golden era of vinyl audiophiles. Recorded digitally with full dynamic range. Some lightning storms, train whistles, drag racing. woohoo!
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Rich,
You have just run into the First Law of High End Audio - "You can never have it all, so you must prioritize what sonic characteristics are important to you and then make a series of compromises that preserve the things at the top of your list." And of course the ranking of characteristics on your list will be heavily influenced by the types of music that you listen to most often. And there is no right or wrong. Your list is just that, your list. If it makes you happy, that's all that counts. My mancave is my domain and I am very comfortable with the decisions and comprises I made in putting together the system down there. If anybody else doesn't like it, as far as I don't hold it against them, but I really don't care either.
Here is one other monkey wrench to throw into the works. For various reasons hearing is not a consistant thing amongst all people. While the range of human hearing theoretically goes from 20 to 20kHz if you gave everybody a hearing test and plotted there sensitivity vs frequency you would find that not two people had exactly the same curve.So what we hear out of an audio system is a combination of what the system is able to put out combined with what our individual ears are able to take in. So it is very possible that two people with different sounding systems and different hearing capabilities are actually "hearing" the exact same things from there systems when you factor in there hearing differences. This is not to say that there are not a number of common characterises to all good systems, but there are just too many moving parts for there to no one best or right answer. Live and let live.
Tom
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Here is one other monkey wrench to throw into the works. For various reasons hearing is not a consistant thing amongst all people. While the range of human hearing theoretically goes from 20 to 20kHz if you gave everybody a hearing test and plotted there sensitivity vs frequency you would find that not two people had exactly the same curve.......
So it is very possible that two people with different sounding systems and different hearing capabilities are actually "hearing" the exact same things from there systems when you factor in there hearing differences. .....
Don't forget the 3rd major component.. not everyone LISTENS the same way. I can have better hearing and still miss he most important part of the arrangement... How you choose to focus when you listen is a big factor.
Rich knows all of this.. I'm just adding my 2 pennies for 'thoroughness'. ;) ha.
-C
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You're right. And this could go on and on... Like I said, lots of moving parts. But if it was too easy it wouldn't be any fun, would it?
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Everyone knows the feeling of wanting more. It is a belief not a law. If I keep learning and pushing back then the wall of resistance moves. Technology changes are making more things possible. I like to discuss the possibilities with other like minded audiophiles! :D
It's boiling down to how do we value dynamic performance of the audio system.
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We would all need bank accounts like Donald Trump if we were to buy as much as we talk :rofl:
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Music or System(?)
I just enjoy Rock music more than Classical, and I've built my system to get the most out of the music I enjoy...
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That's the whole idea. :D
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That's the whole idea. :D
Exactly. Float ones own boat.
charles
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Thought you all might get a kick out of this picture I found.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-04JJSA-lUbc/VkMgJascCmI/AAAAAAAAIeE/6NMNi5QiVZc/w426-h592/2015%2B-%2B1)
For me it depends on the mood I'm in. I've come to enjoy classical music now but will always listen to various forms of Rock. For me it gets the blood pumping. My favorites have always been the rock/classical collaborations.
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I have never been into classical. I guess maybe I'm simple minded..not smart enough to enjoy it :duh For music, I like a beginning, middle and end. No more than 4 minutes usually. To me classical oftentimes is not "tuneful" and meanders for many minutes. Anyone else have similar feelings??
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Random thoughts:
Reproduction of classical vs. rock: In college many moons ago we pitted my DCM Timewindows against my buddies Polk something-or others. On rock, probably Steely Dan or Zappa, the speakers were close - I preferred mine but I admit it was close. But on classical the difference was night and day, w/ the Polks pooping out and the Windows winning clearly. Getting classical right is much harder, it seems.
Rock vs. classical music: I became interested in classical by playing drums in the HS band/pit band/jazz band and then one year in the top Rutgers U wind ensemble (apparently one of the best bands they had ever had, but while some of the drummers were cool, man did I not fit in w/ the rest of the clique). We listen mostly to classical at home now, often streaming 320 and 256K internet stations all day (gotta love free, 24/7, commercial and announcer free music that you've never heard before) and our (my wife too :thumb:) brains have become accustomed to the dense harmonies and tonal colors and the harmonic motion inherent in the music. Then we'll play some rock etc. and our brains feel starved for the aforementioned goodies. There is just so much more there there with classical, its hard to go back. Not that Joe's Garage didn't get a good workout the other day... To me, music (usually) needs that "statistical density" (great Zappa line) to keep me interested.
Funny story: In HS I was considered the music snob and my friends thought that my tastes were so limited because I only liked jazz (Ellington to Coltrane to Corea/Cobham/Mahavishnu) and classical (Bach to Stravinsky) while they were the enlightened ones because they liked Lynyrd Skynrd AND Marshall Tucker :rofl:
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Can't stand classical in the car. Background music..maybe. When i sit in an office for an appointment and classical is coming out of the ceiling speakers forget it. It comes across more like garbage "acid Jazz". :rofl: But on a powerful detailed system that can layer with lots of air ..Gonzo. No music imo can benefit from a good system like classical. Rock does not require air or transients to make sense. Its 4/4 with hopefully some catchy beats by talented musicians but you get the gist of it. Classical is different when heard right. What I love about hi fi. The ability to pull apart the music leaving the musicians (to demonstrate) what they offer to the final outcome. Its what makes hifi worth it for me. I don't listen to much classical. I try and i like it. But i look for good electric jazz or early Brass Swing. Jazz suffers the same. No one hears it like its supposed to until its on a good powered system that layers with ease. Classical is more demanding than jazz. Like by about 10 fold.
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After listening to rock/pop from ages 12-37, it simply became boring and I listened less and less. I've always been a classical fan from my early days of piano lessons and daily drill of Bach and Chopin. I rediscovered my love of music with a system upgrade and exposure to high quality source material around 2002 (thanks Danny Richie).
Since then, 95% of my listening is classical and jazz. The occasional soundtrack, folk, or classic rock lp finds the turntable, but most of those genres don't do much for me.
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I agree the music I grew up on doesn't do it for me anymore.
I am 90% classical, well baroque more accurately, it just works for me.
The other day I went to a concert, not classical, some of the type of music I listened to when I was younger. I sat there and was sort of bored, it was music just to sell tix, it could not fill my soul.
Classical in the car is awesome, any music in the car is awesome, best time I had with music was in the car. I wouldn't spend another dime on audio gear for my home, but I would invest in a better stereo for the car, just more smiles per mile!!
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Raised on jazz, no rock no classical. My high school friend invited me to go see the last great tour of Earth Wind & Fire in 1980 with Maurice White still singing. I said no I don't like that shit. Now I have all their vinyl and will always regret missing that. My friends loved Bryan Adams, Journey, Van Halen, etc but I couldn't stand it. I was not exposed to good hard core rock until much later. I finally started shedding my jazz snobbery and listening to Bach in late teens after hearing Double Harpsichord concerto on the radio. Bought lots of Glenn Gould Bach. Added Holst Planets and Appalachian Spring both Bernstein NYP. That's about it until a decade later when I heard Dvorak American String Quartet on the radio. That got me into hifi and Dvorak 9th symphony got me into symphony craze. That led to Beethoven and eventually Russians and I really fell in love with music again. After all that, I finally started enjoying jazz again. Beethoven was very important to me on every level.
Now I'm ready to get into rock for the first time. I have a Jimmy Hendrix record, 1 Zeppelin, Hmmm not much else from the classic rock era. It's all wide open. I love it and I listen to the classic rock station all the time. I really listened close to Doobies China Road a couple weeks ago, incredible masterpiece!
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there was a period in my life of about 1.5 years in the 90's when I listened to a lot of hard core death metal.
certain groups were just very talented in their own way. My wife and friends thought I was nuts but there was a certain visceral dynamic emotion to the music that grabbed me in a primitive way.
From Bach cantatas to death metal strange journey, but my understanding of music made it just a bit more interesting for me, and the violent emotion just grabbed me and threw me around...it was fun....
groups like Grip Inc, Life of Agony, Clutch...system of a down when they first came out....Ministry...so many groups I forget them now.
now......bach cantatas......Matthew passion has been in my car for like 4 months now!
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I sat through Matthew live once, never again. What is it, 3 hours long? I lost some of my respect for Bach that night. He must have been paid by the note for that one.
Sure it's beautiful, for the first 20 minutes, but after an hour I'm ready for Shostakovich 5th Symphony to kill some people. After 3 hours I never want to hear the word Bach ever again. :rofl:
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I can't listen to any minor Bach
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Was traveling to California today and tuned in a classical station for about 20 minutes. That's about all I could take. What is it about classical that is most enjoyable... The structure of the piece... The complexity and beauty of the different instruments?
Is it sometimes an acquired taste and, if so, how did you go about acquiring it. If you didn't enjoy it at first, did you keep at it so to speak and begin enjoying it over time?
If you didn't enjoy a piece, what was it that was lacking?
I am curious Rich why you loved the first 20 minutes and didn't care for the rest.
I am just trying to understand classical on a much deeper level
Thanks
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What is it about classical that is most enjoyable... The structure of the piece... The complexity and beauty of the different instruments?
Classical is more complex, more sophisticated than popular music. The sophistication is primarily harmonic, which allows more intense emotional development. More dopamine, the hormone that makes life worth living.
Is it sometimes an acquired taste and, if so, how did you go about acquiring it.
Everything is an acquired taste. Music listening is a skill. Popular music takes advantage of the skills you already have and does not challenge the listener at all. Well that's not true, most pop is deprave and challenges you to accept new negative thoughts that bring your consciousness down. It's designed to slip right in unnoticed, to overcome your resistance to the depravity, and tickle your funny bone, give you the beat, appeal to your animal instincts, maybe plant a few subliminal negative messages, but no higher order comprehension required. Other genres deliberately challenge your listening skills, your musical sophistication, you knowledge, your tolerance of dissonance, your ability and willingness to have a dopamine response (strong and meaningful emotional experience.) So with genres other than pop you have to learn to listen to it, it has to grow on you. Like any genre, classical offers easy music to start off with, and this leads you to harder material that offers more intense experience when you are ready. That's how I look at it. There are many classical works written to appeal to popular music listening skill. Mozart wrote what later came to be known as "twinkle twinkle little star," etc. A few pieces from 1800s became pop hits in 1970s with little change. But Bartok and Schoenberg never had any hits. Most beginners will really hate their music. But it grows once you have been introduced gently by Dvorak to the concepts that they dive very deeply into like dissonant or atonal composition. People reject music because it forces your mind to open to ideas and feeling you don't want to experience.
If you didn't enjoy it at first, did you keep at it so to speak and begin enjoying it over time?
Forcing yourself to listen to hard music will not be successful. You are only practicing rejecting it. To grow as a listener, you should listen to music you like, but avoid boredom. If you want to add classical music to your listening repertoir, you need to find classical music that appeals to you, and wear it out. When you wear out music, or get bored of it, that means you are craving something more powerful, and classical can supply what you crave. The next thing will come along. You'll hear it on the radio, or read about it. Over time your listening skill and craving for musical intensity and the feelings it brings will increase. When I started listening to classical I discovered new composers and stuck with them until I got it, then another would come along and I'd go off with them. I still return to the others to dig deeper, but the big treasures are easy to find. Once you've found 10 treasures by Dvorak you are getting into the weeds and might start hearing the "house sound." If you have a deep spiritual connection to his music it will last longer, but otherwise you'll move on, seeking deeper more powerful music. You'll start to sense there is a treasure inside yourself that you are digging for and the music is the shovel.
Sometimes the problem is that pop music has weakened you. It gives you everything, like a $20 hooker. Let's get this over with. Here's the beat now move! Here's some ear candy, now smile! Here's some sex lyrics, get horny! It is the music of the masses, the masses love to be massed, and corralled into the same conformitive thought and feeling. If you've only ever listened to pop, you may feel uncomfortable breaking off from the herd and flying on your own without max headroom telling you what to think and what to feel. The best way to cleanup a teenage loitering spot is to play classical music there. But use bulletproof speakers. It forces them to expand their mind which prevents herd/gang/crowd think, forces them to be individuals. This is why you don't have fights drugs and rape at music concerts playing music for individuals.
If you didn't enjoy a piece, what was it that was lacking?
It is lacking a fertile mind for the musical seed to take root. I swear at it and change to the pop station.
I am curious Rich why you loved the first 20 minutes and didn't care for the rest.
Because it is too long for my tolerance. Bach is a unique sound. All Bach music sounds similar in melody, harmony, and structure. Once you've heard a little, you got it. Whether you want more is a spiritual matter. It is as easy as pop to absorb, it just slips right in. But most people can't listen to that much Bach because it calls forth the deepest spiritual feelings possible from your current level of spiritual development. It has extremely intense harmony, very simple and pure which penetrates deeply into your soul. There is no music more musical than Bach. Some listeners are not ready or willing to open so deeply to the rays of heaven. But some are born with supernatural ability to listen to it without limit. Whoever commissioned St. Matthews Passion was one such superman, or got taken, we'll never know. I find it pretty easy to listen to Bach's tempo music, it has a beat, strong structure, it's a little music machine in bite sized chunks. Some of it is just exercises he wrote for his keyboard students. But it all has the Bach magic. But that is a small part of his canon. Most of what he wrote was church music, something new every Sunday for 3 decades? Most of it was choral music. St. Matthews Passion is mostly choral songs, lots of solo singers. It's kind of like a opera before opera got big. The singers sing simple Bach melodies over and over for hours. The music stops, starts, space and pause like an opera. It's not like his English Suites for Harpsichord that is a teletype machine pumping out intense melody and harmony for easy consumption. Unless you follow along with the story, understand German, it can be difficult to take that stop/start singing of the same sound over and over for 2 hours, no intermission. For 20 minutes it is new, and it sounds beautiful.
I am just trying to understand classical on a much deeper level
You can try to imagine it, to mentally process your current information into an illusion of understanding about something you've not fully experienced. But you'll find it difficult to imagine it accurately, so you'll be forced to make assumptions which leads to prejudice. To know classical music you have to jump in and do it. Find some classical works that you enjoy to listen to, then consume them over and over until you are bored. Then something new will come along, rinse, repeat.
In the past we have done threads about appropriate music for a beginner to start listening to a new genre, to get them hooked. I need to start one for rock, but it might be a good time for another classical thread like that.
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For me it is the content of the venue wether rock or classical. I'm trying to feel the emotion that the composer or writer had in mind.
Since rock is mostly over processed it just sounds unnatural to me most of the time.
No matter what format for me the recording just cannot be over processed. Interpretation of classical music varies from conductor to conductor. So what is right ? Who's interpretation is correct or just different.
Rock is a different animal s it thrives on bombastic sound which not even be instrument. Contrived sound as opposed to real instrument .
For the beginner I would play acoustic guitar at first a familiar sound most know. If the system is good than an immediate emotional impact is had.
From there once cozy with sound then different genre introduced.
I love all music except Rap. Bet is great lyrics not for me. I go by my mood for selecting the material to listen to any particular day. Not tied to any one genre.
charles
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What is it about classical that is most enjoyable... The structure of the piece... The complexity and beauty of the different instruments?
Classical is more complex, more sophisticated than popular music. The sophistication is primarily harmonic, which allows more intense emotional development. More dopamine, the hormone that makes life worth living.
Is it sometimes an acquired taste and, if so, how did you go about acquiring it.
Everything is an acquired taste. Music listening is a skill. Popular music takes advantage of the skills you already have and does not challenge the listener at all. Well that's not true, most pop is deprave and challenges you to accept new negative thoughts that bring your consciousness down. It's designed to slip right in unnoticed, to overcome your resistance to the depravity, and tickle your funny bone, give you the beat, appeal to your animal instincts, maybe plant a few subliminal negative messages, but no higher order comprehension required. Other genres deliberately challenge your listening skills, your musical sophistication, you knowledge, your tolerance of dissonance, your ability and willingness to have a dopamine response (strong and meaningful emotional experience.) So with genres other than pop you have to learn to listen to it, it has to grow on you. Like any genre, classical offers easy music to start off with, and this leads you to harder material that offers more intense experience when you are ready. That's how I look at it. There are many classical works written to appeal to popular music listening skill. Mozart wrote what later came to be known as "twinkle twinkle little star," etc. A few pieces from 1800s became pop hits in 1970s with little change. But Bartok and Schoenberg never had any hits. Most beginners will really hate their music. But it grows once you have been introduced gently by Dvorak to the concepts that they dive very deeply into like dissonant or atonal composition. People reject music because it forces your mind to open to ideas and feeling you don't want to experience.
If you didn't enjoy it at first, did you keep at it so to speak and begin enjoying it over time?
Forcing yourself to listen to hard music will not be successful. You are only practicing rejecting it. To grow as a listener, you should listen to music you like, but avoid boredom. If you want to add classical music to your listening repertoir, you need to find classical music that appeals to you, and wear it out. When you wear out music, or get bored of it, that means you are craving something more powerful, and classical can supply what you crave. The next thing will come along. You'll hear it on the radio, or read about it. Over time your listening skill and craving for musical intensity and the feelings it brings will increase. When I started listening to classical I discovered new composers and stuck with them until I got it, then another would come along and I'd go off with them. I still return to the others to dig deeper, but the big treasures are easy to find. Once you've found 10 treasures by Dvorak you are getting into the weeds and might start hearing the "house sound." If you have a deep spiritual connection to his music it will last longer, but otherwise you'll move on, seeking deeper more powerful music. You'll start to sense there is a treasure inside yourself that you are digging for and the music is the shovel.
Sometimes the problem is that pop music has weakened you. It gives you everything, like a $20 hooker. Let's get this over with. Here's the beat now move! Here's some ear candy, now smile! Here's some sex lyrics, get horny! It is the music of the masses, the masses love to be massed, and corralled into the same conformitive thought and feeling. If you've only ever listened to pop, you may feel uncomfortable breaking off from the herd and flying on your own without max headroom telling you what to think and what to feel. The best way to cleanup a teenage loitering spot is to play classical music there. But use bulletproof speakers. It forces them to expand their mind which prevents herd/gang/crowd think, forces them to be individuals. This is why you don't have fights drugs and rape at music concerts playing music for individuals.
If you didn't enjoy a piece, what was it that was lacking?
It is lacking a fertile mind for the musical seed to take root. I swear at it and change to the pop station.
I am curious Rich why you loved the first 20 minutes and didn't care for the rest.
Because it is too long for my tolerance. Bach is a unique sound. All Bach music sounds similar in melody, harmony, and structure. Once you've heard a little, you got it. Whether you want more is a spiritual matter. It is as easy as pop to absorb, it just slips right in. But most people can't listen to that much Bach because it calls forth the deepest spiritual feelings possible from your current level of spiritual development. It has extremely intense harmony, very simple and pure which penetrates deeply into your soul. There is no music more musical than Bach. Some listeners are not ready or willing to open so deeply to the rays of heaven. But some are born with supernatural ability to listen to it without limit. Whoever commissioned St. Matthews Passion was one such superman, or got taken, we'll never know. I find it pretty easy to listen to Bach's tempo music, it has a beat, strong structure, it's a little music machine in bite sized chunks. Some of it is just exercises he wrote for his keyboard students. But it all has the Bach magic. But that is a small part of his canon. Most of what he wrote was church music, something new every Sunday for 3 decades? Most of it was choral music. St. Matthews Passion is mostly choral songs, lots of solo singers. It's kind of like a opera before opera got big. The singers sing simple Bach melodies over and over for hours. The music stops, starts, space and pause like an opera. It's not like his English Suites for Harpsichord that is a teletype machine pumping out intense melody and harmony for easy consumption. Unless you follow along with the story, understand German, it can be difficult to take that stop/start singing of the same sound over and over for 2 hours, no intermission. For 20 minutes it is new, and it sounds beautiful.
I am just trying to understand classical on a much deeper level
You can try to imagine it, to mentally process your current information into an illusion of understanding about something you've not fully experienced. But you'll find it difficult to imagine it accurately, so you'll be forced to make assumptions which leads to prejudice. To know classical music you have to jump in and do it. Find some classical works that you enjoy to listen to, then consume them over and over until you are bored. Then something new will come along, rinse, repeat.
In the past we have done threads about appropriate music for a beginner to start listening to a new genre, to get them hooked. I need to start one for rock, but it might be a good time for another classical thread like that.
Rich, thanks so much for your detailed and thoughtful response. I'll be looking for some Dvorak when I get home. As I was stuck in so California traffic this morning, I found the USC classical station and believe I listened to a march from Berlioz and a piece called The Ascending Lark. Was very enjoyable trying something different
Nick
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Look for Julia Fischer "The Lark Ascending" on her album Poeme.
Try Dvorak 9th Symphony "The New World" by New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting.
You should be able to find these free on Splatify. Sad but true.
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topround, I didn't mean to downer your St Matthews Passion, i was just teasing. I am curious how you listen to it? Do you ever sit down for the whole thing, or just leave it playing all the time and pick it up bit by bit. Did you ever hear it live?