Is ‘Classical Music’ Dead in the Water

On various blogs and message boards I’ve read lately I’ve encountered a lively argument on top of could you repeat that? We ought to call Classical Music. You know the kind of composition I mean: A conductor by the front, a cluster of musicians scraping, blowing, plucking and striking a variety of instruments ranging from the ‘fit your pocket’ small, to the ‘I need a dump truck to move this mother’ behemoth; all appraisal from printed scores, the largest part likely formally dressed, seldom smiling, earnest in their endeavours.

Polite applause ripples around the audience, generally initiated either by the ‘I know my stuff, so have under surveillance my go in front and praise as I do’ cognoscenti, or, more unsuccessfully, though admittedly more hilariously, by the enthusiastic ingenue who inadvertently claps linking schedule of a line quartet — “tut, tut!” Stifled guffaws and a kind of ‘there but pro the leniency of God perform I’ embarrassment wafts around the concert entry pro a instant. The cognoscenti get pleasure from their instant of schadenfreude, the Minuet begins.

This kind of composition bears the generic label ‘Classical’, but this is inaccurate, both in the significance of Classical Literature, which refers to Ancient Greece and Rome, and in the significance of Classical Music as a episode of musical history (see below).

Here are the minority quick view: ‘Classical Music’, in musicological provisions refers specifically to composition on paper roughly linking 1750 – 1820. It’s dominated by Sonata- and Ternary-form structures and adheres to a hierarchical vocal order proven as functional tonality. So, I say, don’t untidiness with it – it’s a sound, commonly expected label of reference. We know someplace we are with it; like comfy old slippers we give birth to grown-up accustomed to its feel — it fits. It ain’t broke, so don’t arrange it.

But, ‘Houston, we give birth to a problem’ – the label ‘Classical Music’ has been hijacked by indolent thinkers and good-for-nothing generalists to mean in the least form of composition someplace you might give birth to lone or more of the following:

A) a conductor

B) musicians appraisal from notated scores

C) musicians dressed as penguins

D) an absence of bare midriffs, thongs and lycra (and that’s only this minute the men!)e) singers singing lacking amplification, but mangling syllables and consonants into a ‘projected sound’, the volume of which would deposit in the least self-respecting Town Crier to disgrace. Come to think of it, they would produce a Jumbo jet a run pro its money in the decibel stakes.

So, composition on paper since 1820, even composition on paper remaining month, gets labelled ‘Classical’ if it meets the criteria traditional banned higher than.

Recently I’ve approach across various blogs and online articles discussing this publication, with more or less attention-grabbing suggestions pro alternatives. Let’s take a look by more or less of them:

Knack Music – Pleeeeease!!! Are you fatally suggesting with the aim of the Miles Davis / Gil Evans collaborations, or Charlie Parker’s pioneering attitude to harmony doesn’t amount to art? You can’t smash-and-grab a monopoly on the disguised worth associated with such a label lacking making by hand severely unpopular with musicians of other genres.

Serious Music – are you serious? Again, I know many Jazz musicians who are each crumb as serious with reference to their composition as in the least ‘Classical’ musician.

Notated Music – this is a no-go as well, for the reason that so many other forms of composition are notated, from Pop through to Jazz & Blues. You besides leave by hand inmate to the question ‘what is notation?’. Those who declare with the aim of notation doesn’t exist in Pop or stun composition are chatting rot – it’s alive and well and, with the advent of central processing unit notating software, more than continually obtainable to Popsters pro their horn and line arrangements.