What to call the Music: Piece vs. Song/Tune

Requisite Knowledge Level for Understanding (* being beginner, ***** being expert): *

There is a certain amount of vocabulary that comes with everything.  An IT tech will likely use words like "network" or "password" on a daily basis on the job, while a grocer will use words like "turkey" and "apples" on their job.  The same holds true for social events or free time activities.  Someone who loves attending movies or watching TV might talk about the "actors/actresses" or the "director" while someone who loves to bowl might discuss the "pin action".  As one goes further and further into any one topic, the vocabulary eventually arrives at a point where only the well initiated truly will be able to follow the conversation.

This is news to no one.  In fact, this is often the case in sports, with on caveat:  sports are incredibly popular.  Here in the good old US of A, Football (American, that is) is the name of the game.  The Superbowl is so popular that pretty much nothing happens during the game excepting Superbowl parties.  Everyone can use fairly specific terminology like referring to the "tight end" or the "line of scrimmage" which you would only know if you have paid attention to this sport for at least a few games.  I, personally, know very little about American Football and do not care for sports in general (the only sport I somewhat follow is Tennis), and as such, I often sound like an idiot when in social situations when things like Football or Basketball are discussed, not to mention the fact that most people can name the best couple of players on each of the major teams.

I mention this because of a stigma that Classical music has achieved over the years.  Classical music has the stigma on it of being too "intelligent" or too "inaccessible" for the average person, and that people talking about it sound "pretentious".  I do not like this application of this word, pretentious.  Sure, when us classical aficionados discuss things like "sonata form" or the evolution of composition from Bach through Beethoven to Berg and the freeing of tonality in the Second Viennese School, if you do not know what those things mean or to what they are referring, it does sound confusing.  But to say that is pretentious is, in my opinion, rude.


A lot of this, as it stands, has to do with how people feel who do NOT know much about Classical music.  As I have stated above, I do not follow sports at all.  Why then, can I not consider it pretentious when someone comes up to me and starts talking about what X player on Y team can be doing when running a "screen play" (I may or may not know what that means) when near the "end zone"?  And it is not so much the fact that they ask me the questions, I am fine with that.  They like this sport, and things are happening which are exciting enough that they would like to discuss, and so they turn to me.  So I tell them that I know nothing about these sports and so they try to tell me enough about the situation that I may be able to follow the significance of their question.  I feel fine with myself for not knowing sports, and learning about it in this manner, hodgepodge like in random situations.

But if the question goes the other way around and I turn to someone and ask what they think about Sibelius's 5th Symphony, for example, the reaction is different.  Certainly I get the "I don't know much about Classical music" response.  But from there, if I start trying to explain my question, the person with whom I am talking often gets defensive.  As if they are thinking, "why should I have to know about this Classical music?" or "did I ASK you to teach me about this stuff?" while I am simply trying to have the same kind of conversation that they would be having with me about sports.  I did not ask for their question or instruction there, but I did not complain but instead welcomed the information.  Why should not the response be the same way?  Instead, the stuff I wish to discuss is "pretentious" because it is "unimportant" because Classical music is not popular.

That statement above may have gone on longer than I intended it to, but that is intended as a preamble to this:  what to call Classical music.  We call each work of music a Piece.  We do not, as a rule, call them songs or tunes or anything else like that.  Jazz musicians will sometimes call their music tunes or heads or charts, but we classical musicians like to use the word Piece.  No, we are NOT being pretentious.  We are just calling it what it is called.  We correct people who call a "piece" a "song" in the same way that my sister corrects me when I can say that the quarterback "threw" the ball that he instead "passed" the ball down field.  There is no reason to get emotional or feel anything other than you are learning something new.  I do not get upset when my sister tells me that I am using incorrect sports term, and yet people feel strongly about learning new music terms.  (Just to be thorough, there ARE specific instances where a given "piece" might be ALSO a "song", but it is still a "piece of classical music" but these are not incredibly common, particularly if you are talking about an orchestra performance.)

The reason for this is that each piece is something different.  It is unique.  As is each performance of each piece.  With most pop songs, you have the same artist performing the song.  Each time you hear "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", it is being performed by U2.  It is a U2 song, they sing it, it is theirs (by the way, I am a big fan of U2).  Even when it isn't being performed by U2, but instead by a cover band, usually their number one main goal is to make it sound as much exactly like it does when U2 sings it as their possibly can.  This is NOT the case with classical music.  Each and every performance is intended to sound like it sounds.  Each conductor makes his/her very own statement of what Beethoven's 5th Symphony should sound like.  What is more, that even changes with whichever orchestra they are conducting.  An interpretation by one conductor in front of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra might vastly differ from their interpretation in front of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.  Thus each piece is its own artistic statement in the same way that an artist who paints presents a piece and not just another painting, even if it is just of another landscape.