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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Back to the first page with you. Slightly excessive help: I think it's better to familiarize yourself with classical music by listening to it, really. There are academic analyses of pieces and so on, but beyond what's in the liner notes, or on wikipedia, it's usually more than you're really going to want. The main point is that nobody gets it all the first time, or the fifteenth: that complexity and learning to appreciate it are an integral part of the experience. And you can just enjoy it as sound, too: it's not like it's wrong to do so. Supposedly for a lot of Baroque music that we listen to in concert halls and such, originally half the audience would have been talking over it or eating or asleep or drunk, just like a rock show. Also, if you can recognize a whole-step key change, you already know a fair amount of theory. Most classical music until well into the romantic period is based on simpler (and more rule-based) key changes than rock music: relative minor/major, fifth above, and so on. It sounds more complex because there are complicated rules for how to modulate 'right' and how to get from one supporting chord to another: V must resolve to I, iii almost always is followed by ii or V, etc, and well, because it's polyphony: instead of a melodic line chugging away in one instrument or the vocal line with support from the bass and the drums, as you can here, there are usually multiple lines going on at the same time that are interwoven with each other. You don't really need to get this stuff to enjoy the music, but it might help to know that pretty much everything in classical music from 1200 A.D. until about 1900 A.D. resolves on a V-I cadence. If you want to get a feel for how classical polyphony works, listen to Bach. Pretty much all Bach, even the complicated stuff, is based on very simple four-part chorales like people sing in church. The fancy forms of polyphony in a peice like The Well-Tempered Clavier are based on the same rules of 'voice-leading' as the chorales. The formal ideas in Bach are usually clearly laid out (three part Fugue, four part Fugue, etc etc) and they help in developing an ear. If you want to listen to later classical music with structure and get used to the major forms (theme and variations, sonata form, and so on, all of which are in wikipedia) used in romantic music, you should try Mozart. Mozart usually has very clear delineation of the different themes in the piece and fairly simple key changes. What's going on is not so complicated as in romantic composers who come later. Of course, the best way to learn all the genres and forms in classical music is to listen to lots of music! I can't possibly list all those genres here: I can say one piece that helped get me into classical music when I was younger was Mozart's Requiem, which has a lot of different, contrasting movements, all about five minutes long or so, unified by a clear dramatic and narrative structure (i.e. the ressurection of the dead) and words--it's a bit like a rock album, something that definitely helps in getting through an hour-long piece. Anyway, in the Dvorak you were listening to, there are also going to be fancier key changes based on circles of thirds (C major to E major, etc). But as far as the structure of something like the Dvorak concerto, you've already kind of got it. The first movement of a cello concerto's going to have a relatively free structure, usually with a clearly stated opening theme and some fancy stuff in the middle, followed by a recapitulation at the end (the introduction before the cello entrance in the first movement of the Dvorak's on the long side). I have some classical training, and the main things I can catch listening to the Concerto right now are first theme, second theme, return to the main key, about at that level, nothing really that intricate. To some extent Dvorak is 'program music': the flow of musical ideas are supposed to illustrate changes of emotion, scenery, and so on, instead following a strict form. Now, in something like Wagner, the relationship of keys and themes is very complex and nobody, not even a trained classical musician can hear them all on first listening. It takes repeated hearings and familiarity with the piece, and there are some very complicated things going on: Wagner uses the relationship between themes to foreshadow elements of the plot, illustrate symbolic relationships, (if I'm remembering correctly, the 'Oath' theme is the 'Sword' theme with a chromatic 'break' in it, because there's this whole thing about the 'Sword' being broken, etc.), even this whole metaphysical statement about the universe (the theme for the Rhine is basically just an Eb-major triad, to illustrate the flux that order emerges out of, etc). Obviously, nobody can hear this all the first time. It's something you get partially intuitively, partially intellectually. The point being, don't worry about understanding it all at once. Nobody does. Anyway, there are as many ways of listening to the repertoire as you want. It helps to listen to a range of composers, and a range of genres--I certainly don't recommend sitting down and say, trying to get through all the Beethoven string quartets over a month or something at first, because you'll get bored. Figure out what you like first. One final thing I'd recommend: listen to some contemporary, 20th century music and some early music (medieval, etc) too. With contemporary music you'll generally feel like you know if you hate it, or if it blows your mind, immediately. Early music will either grow on you or just leave you cold. A lot of contemporary music is actually more like rock music, in a way, in that it is about the texture of sound, the feel, as much as it is about structure. One CD which really amazed me ten years ago was called 'Black Angels' and it was put out by a string quartet, the Kronos Quartet.
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Oct 6, 2012 08:26
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Dr. Video Games 0081 posted:I've been listening to Claude Vivier lately: My boring choice, but, I promise, great music: Bartok. Fourth String Quartet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWgb-8t43P0 Second Violin Concerto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TryUuUVaHjY
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Oct 6, 2012 08:41
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oiseaux morts 1994 posted:Those goddamn chords. Goddamn. French composers around 1900 loved power chords. Have you listened to the Debussy preludes?
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Oct 6, 2012 09:03
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nomadologique posted:Hey, I'm looking for some help getting into classical music. It's maybe too much and too broad, but you could look at the Norton Recorded Anthology of Western Music. College level music history classes usually use it. It is a bit academic but truly comprehensive. It's a set of box sets in three volumes and expensive as hell, BUT the track listing is free and publicly available, and probably everything on it is on youtube. I'm not suggesting you try to listen to everything, but it's a place to start with. The allmusic listing also has short ten-second samples which play in sequence, which can help give a sense, since you'll end up focusing in on something you like anyway. Here are the url's: note that the track listing is divided up into minute-long chunks within each piece (I guess so people can cue excerpts for classes) and there aren't quite as many pieces as first appears. It also looks pointlessly intimidating. But it's good. http://www.allmusic.com/album/norton-recorded-anthology-of-western-music-vol-1-ancient-to-baroque-box-set-mw0001407742 (this is Ancient Greece (!) up to Bach. most people consider this really overemphasized in the norton anthology, but it's easy enough to skip.) http://www.allmusic.com/album/norton-recorded-anthology-of-western-music-vol-2-classic-to-twentieth-century-box-set-mw0001869809 (this is 'classical music proper,' namely 1750 up to 1900. it's probably what you're thinking of.) http://www.allmusic.com/album/norton-recorded-anthology-of-western-music-vol-3-twentieth-century-mw0001410138 (twentieth century, including Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, etc. Very biased towards American composers, but still not at all bad.) Since this is still a lot of stuff, I'd recommend starting with volume 2. I'm guessing it takes maybe an hour to listen through each set of excerpts. EDIT: I'm looking at the twentieth-century volume and it's great now--it used to be awful. It's still a little over-heavy on Americans, but whatever. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Oct 13, 2012 |
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Oct 13, 2012 09:04
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How do people feel about Arvo Part? He kind of gets dumped on a lot but I have to admit I really like his music. The Seven Maginficat-Antiphons has some very cool stuff in it (ignore the creepy MYSTICAL ANIMATED JPG FIRE visuals on the video below: it's a good recording) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4wwGWPWeeo&feature=autoplay&list=PLE08D2D5F3887E9B2&playnext=1
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Oct 13, 2012 09:29
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sina posted:I've been on a string quartet kick lately. I didn't know the Vaughan Williams String Quartet: this is cool! The Shostakovich 8th string quartet is probably the most famous one, for a good reason. I don't know if the music he wrote for Battleship Potemkin exists as a separate suite (it's mostly stuff from one of the symphonies, I forget which one) but if it does, I'd snap it up. Also, the 14th Beethoven string quartet. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Oct 23, 2012 |
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Oct 23, 2012 06:53
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Was going to effort post this, but will make it short: Any fans of Iannis Xenakis out there? I think he's amazing. Here's Rohan De Saram playing a solo cello piece, Kottos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKDIQSyR4G0 Also, here's an early computer music piece, 'Mycenae Alpha,' partly famous for its really pretty graphic score (which is not totally beside the point-Xenakis was also an architect) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yztoaNakKok I've also been trying to get into Giancinto Scelsi but haven't really got it yet. Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Oct 25, 2012 |
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Oct 25, 2012 07:12
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Case271 posted:Are there any early music specialists on here? No clue about the piece, and he might be improvising. But pretty much all early vocal music can also be performed for instrumental ensembles. Have you checked out any of the hurdy-gurdy videos on youtube? Some of those show pieces. Also, unrelated--been listening to this lately (Erki-Sven Tuur) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFXUEfW6xJU&feature=related
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Nov 20, 2012 07:28
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