Requisite Knowledge Level for Understanding (* being beginner, ***** being expert): *
Why should you go to a concert?
If you've never been a fan of classical music, or if you've got some CDs that you like to listen to and don't want to shell out the money, what reason do you have for going to a concert? Going to a concert is a complete experience, very different from sitting at home and listening to a CD. Part of what music offers is the ability to spark your imagination, to lead you places that you've never been before. This is a complete and interactive experience, and you cannot fully get it from a recording (and if you could see the number of recordings that I've got, it would definitely appear that I have tried).
These days, access to recorded music is incredibly easy. Almost ridiculously simple. Heck, depending on how you want to access it, it can be completely free. We have spotify, et al. for online listening and you can find songs posted on Youtube, both of those with no monetary damage whatsoever. For $.99, you can get most songs from iTunes or Amazon.com as digital downloads, and put them on your iPod and listen to then whenever and wherever you want. That's not to mention those weirdos who still buy the physical CDs and then load them onto their computer (cards on the table, that's me), or the older generations who still maintain that nothing will ever replace their LPs, as well as the radio, from XM satellite to the regular stations of 97.5 or whatever it is in your area that you listen to. Point being, access to music is easy.
Now, that all being the case, here is the problem: Music was never intended to be a background tool. I'm betting that most of you use your iPod to listen to music while you're working out at the gym, or while you're in the car on the way to work. Maybe you put it on while you're cooking dinner or doing the laundry (though I usually use the TV for laundry). The point is that while you're listening to the music, you're more focused on something else. Driving safely, not running into someone else on the track, not burning the chicken, whatever.
Music was meant for much more. It was performed in front of a crowd so that they might dance. It was an interactive part of a religious service. It was a collection of songs brought together with action to tell a full story about two people in love. We lose some of this emotion and the full breadth of the music when we do not experience it as it is meant to be experienced. I'm not saying don't listen to your iPod while you're working out. Please do. I do, and I don't plan to stop. But know that you're missing part of the music, even while that steady beat is keeping your feet from running too slowly.
Now, this all could apply to more than classical music, and it does. If you've never been to any concert, go see a concert of a pop musician if that's what you like. That too is a good thing. Focusing on the classical, though (see this blog's title), I think that this is a thought that doesn't occur to people as often. You hear when your favourite bands or singers are in town, and you might go to a few of them. But for most places in this country, there is a very talented orchestra within an hour's driving distance (something you'd easily do for one of your favourites), and yet the thought never even occurs.
It's not that expensive. In fact, when you go to that concert of your favourite group, you're generally paying upwards of $50 for a seat at the very top tier of the local basketball stadium, and you're probably bringing a date, meaning you're paying twice that. Most professional orchestras have seats available at a fairly cheap rate. I live just north of Indianapolis, and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO) has seats available for every concert starting at $20 (the New York Philharmonic has seats starting at $41, sure that's more, but it's New York, $41 there is like $15 out in the country). Are they the best seats in the hall? No. But the halls where orchestras perform generally seat 1,250 - 2,500 people. The basketball arena probably seats like 18,000 - 20,000. That means you are sitting in a hall One-Tenth the size. The worst seat there is as close as a box seat in the basketball stadium.
You will get a quality performance. If you're going to a professional orchestra performance, you WILL get a quality performance. Sure, if you're in St. Louis, your orchestra is not probably talked about as being the single best orchestra in the world; most orchestras aren't. But these are musicians who have spent their lifetime perfecting their craft. They've spent just as much time practicing, if not more, than any other rock or pop group you've gone to see. They are quite excellent, and you can tell simply by listening that they are not fighting to make sure they get the right notes out, but instead are trying to shape the notes that they've been given into the most accurate representation of the music that they want to communicate as they possibly can. Most people wouldn't consider the ISO the best orchestra in the world, but I have left every performance thinking that I had heard good music.
Sitting in the seats at a concert, actually seeing and hearing musicians live and on stage producing the music is a far greater experience than hearing it over your headphones while you're cooking dinner. You can feel the excitement in the people around you, and you can concentrate 100% on the music in a way that you would never do while it's just background noise. Watching the violin player attack those really loud notes, seeing the trumpet player take a big breath before playing a passage, or seeing the arc of the mallet before it makes contact with the drum; these are things not to be found on an iPod.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Classical Music: Define It For Me
Requisite Knowledge Level for Understanding (* being beginner, ***** being expert): *
We'll start off with the basics here: What is "classical music"?
Well, that can be answered in a number of ways. We can define "classical" from its root "classic" to being music that has already come into existence, it was written, performed and/or recorded, and for one reason or another, it continues to be performed and/or recorded today. E.g. a "classic movie" being "The Godfather" which, while it premiered in 1972, is still being sold as a DVD/Blu-Ray/shown on TV/Netflix/etc, and talked about by people, even today. In this way we arrive at ideas like "Classic Rock" (e.g. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc...) whose music permeates today's culture despite these groups being no longer touring, or, in some cases, no longer alive. This is NOT what most people mean when they say "classical music".
"Classical music", as most people define it, isn't so much a definition, as it is a concept. They hear that phrase and they picture an orchestra. Or they think of that little melody someone was told was written by Beethoven. They know anything Beethoven is "classical music". Or Mozart. Or Bach. Possibly Haydn, Handel or Schubert. If it's got a lot of violins and no words, that's definitely "classical music". It sounds kind of like a movie score (e.g. "Star Wars"), only it was written a long time ago, and they don't know it nearly as well. If they hear an opera singer, they know that that's classical music.
In reality, “classical music” is as varied as the music that you hear on the radio, or have in your complete iTunes music library. You recognize the difference between “pop”, “rock”, “R & B”, “rap”, maybe you have some “alternative”, and possibly some “folk” or “world” because you like the variety it gives you and you feel like it expands your horizons. And then you have that one CD of “classical” that’s got stuff on it like a Mozart piece you hear in commercials and movies all the time, or that one Beethoven piano piece that everyone knows because it’s really pretty. "Classical music" has just as many categories as the music you already have on your computer and that one CD barely scratches the surface.
"Classical music" includes a wide range of music, including many types and sizes of ensembles and types of compositions. Among the categories of "classical music" you'll hear bandied about, here are the terms that are the most relevant to identifying a particular piece of music or composer.
-Symphonic/Orchestral vs. Chamber
-Baroque, Classical or Romantic
Symphonic or Orchestral (the two are essentially interchangeable) music, just like you think it means, means that this stuff gets played by a symphony or an orchestra, often with the full complement of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Chamber music usually was intended for a small chamber setting and thus has a smaller number of performers. A solo piano, or sonata for violin and piano, trios, quartets, and even a "chamber orchestra" (which has a small number of performers) would fall into this category. Baroque, Classical and Romantic refer to the time period, or style, in which the music was written (others such as Medieval, Renaissance or Modern exist but are less popular and are subjects for later articles). These are irrespective of the "symphonic" or "chamber" classification. Thus I could have a piece which is a Baroque Chamber piece, a Romantic Symphonic piece, a Classical Chamber piece or a Romantic Chamber piece. It's like wearing a top. You can wear a T-shirt, a dress shirt or a sweater. Then, you can choose whether it will be blue, green or red, and you have some of each variation (if your closet is big enough).
When a piece was composed can tell you a lot about the style of composition, but for right now, let's just define the approximate time periods of each era. Because these are periods of time coordinating general style characteristics, the dates should not be seen as exact (as in, it was composed in 1751, it MUST be from the "classical" era!!) but rather as a guide. Scholars can argue for hours about these dates if you let them. If you look at the composer's life span and he lived for the most part in one era, that's probably a good guess for his music.
-Baroque: 1600 - 1750
-Classical: 1750 - 1825
-Romantic: 1825 - 1910
If there is "classical" music that you've heard others talking about, it was probably composed (i.e. written) sometime in that time range, or very nearly outside.
So if you hear any of those things listed above, like "chamber music" or "Romantic", you're talking about what is generally referred to as "classical music". And yes, there is the generally understood popular concept of "classical music" referring to everything above as well as the much more defined "Classical" period of music from about 1750 - 1825. So if you're still new to this stuff and talking about "classical music" and someone starts getting inquisitive about dates and the name of the composer and asking weird questions, they're probably just trying to determine whether you're talking about it all in general, or that specific time period. Just explain to this person that you're new to "classical music" and this is what you currently know, and they should be helpful enough to properly answer any question you have.
We'll start off with the basics here: What is "classical music"?
Well, that can be answered in a number of ways. We can define "classical" from its root "classic" to being music that has already come into existence, it was written, performed and/or recorded, and for one reason or another, it continues to be performed and/or recorded today. E.g. a "classic movie" being "The Godfather" which, while it premiered in 1972, is still being sold as a DVD/Blu-Ray/shown on TV/Netflix/etc, and talked about by people, even today. In this way we arrive at ideas like "Classic Rock" (e.g. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc...) whose music permeates today's culture despite these groups being no longer touring, or, in some cases, no longer alive. This is NOT what most people mean when they say "classical music".
"Classical music", as most people define it, isn't so much a definition, as it is a concept. They hear that phrase and they picture an orchestra. Or they think of that little melody someone was told was written by Beethoven. They know anything Beethoven is "classical music". Or Mozart. Or Bach. Possibly Haydn, Handel or Schubert. If it's got a lot of violins and no words, that's definitely "classical music". It sounds kind of like a movie score (e.g. "Star Wars"), only it was written a long time ago, and they don't know it nearly as well. If they hear an opera singer, they know that that's classical music.
In reality, “classical music” is as varied as the music that you hear on the radio, or have in your complete iTunes music library. You recognize the difference between “pop”, “rock”, “R & B”, “rap”, maybe you have some “alternative”, and possibly some “folk” or “world” because you like the variety it gives you and you feel like it expands your horizons. And then you have that one CD of “classical” that’s got stuff on it like a Mozart piece you hear in commercials and movies all the time, or that one Beethoven piano piece that everyone knows because it’s really pretty. "Classical music" has just as many categories as the music you already have on your computer and that one CD barely scratches the surface.
"Classical music" includes a wide range of music, including many types and sizes of ensembles and types of compositions. Among the categories of "classical music" you'll hear bandied about, here are the terms that are the most relevant to identifying a particular piece of music or composer.
-Symphonic/Orchestral vs. Chamber
-Baroque, Classical or Romantic
Symphonic or Orchestral (the two are essentially interchangeable) music, just like you think it means, means that this stuff gets played by a symphony or an orchestra, often with the full complement of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. Chamber music usually was intended for a small chamber setting and thus has a smaller number of performers. A solo piano, or sonata for violin and piano, trios, quartets, and even a "chamber orchestra" (which has a small number of performers) would fall into this category. Baroque, Classical and Romantic refer to the time period, or style, in which the music was written (others such as Medieval, Renaissance or Modern exist but are less popular and are subjects for later articles). These are irrespective of the "symphonic" or "chamber" classification. Thus I could have a piece which is a Baroque Chamber piece, a Romantic Symphonic piece, a Classical Chamber piece or a Romantic Chamber piece. It's like wearing a top. You can wear a T-shirt, a dress shirt or a sweater. Then, you can choose whether it will be blue, green or red, and you have some of each variation (if your closet is big enough).
When a piece was composed can tell you a lot about the style of composition, but for right now, let's just define the approximate time periods of each era. Because these are periods of time coordinating general style characteristics, the dates should not be seen as exact (as in, it was composed in 1751, it MUST be from the "classical" era!!) but rather as a guide. Scholars can argue for hours about these dates if you let them. If you look at the composer's life span and he lived for the most part in one era, that's probably a good guess for his music.
-Baroque: 1600 - 1750
-Classical: 1750 - 1825
-Romantic: 1825 - 1910
If there is "classical" music that you've heard others talking about, it was probably composed (i.e. written) sometime in that time range, or very nearly outside.
So if you hear any of those things listed above, like "chamber music" or "Romantic", you're talking about what is generally referred to as "classical music". And yes, there is the generally understood popular concept of "classical music" referring to everything above as well as the much more defined "Classical" period of music from about 1750 - 1825. So if you're still new to this stuff and talking about "classical music" and someone starts getting inquisitive about dates and the name of the composer and asking weird questions, they're probably just trying to determine whether you're talking about it all in general, or that specific time period. Just explain to this person that you're new to "classical music" and this is what you currently know, and they should be helpful enough to properly answer any question you have.
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