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Back to the first page with you. Like anyone else in our generation, there is more music available to me than I could ever get through. Classical has long been one of things that I'd put a track or two on at a time to feel intellectual, but end up moving on to other things. I've had enough exposure to the big names to know which ones get my attention more than others, but I never really dug in. For that reason, I've started intentionally listening to much, much, much more classical. I've been working through a pretty decent collection and would go so far as to say I've heard more classical music in the past month than 97% of the country will hear in their lives. But that's not really doing it for me, because I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. With pop music, everything is comfortable, I know when the breakdown is coming, and that they're building to an outro chorus, I know they might shift the key up a whole step for a little emphasis at the end, I know what the transition back to the verse is going to sound like before they play it, etc. But with classical music, I feel like a babe in the woods. Right now, I am listening to Dvorak's cello concerto in B minor. And it's a lovely little number with cellos playing the melody supported by some winds. But I don't really know what the gently caress. Sometimes they play a line I recognize from earlier in the piece, sometimes they get louder, sometimes it gets very soft, but I never know what they're playing, when, and why. I can enjoy it as a casual listening, oh that chord sure was pretty, but I want to understand it. Long rambling way of asking, is there a good guide to understanding the way this music is structured, or even analysis of more well know pieces that I could extrapolate to other works? How do I learn more about how to listen to classical music properly, and not just as pretty background music?
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Oct 4, 2012 18:36
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dromer posted:First, don't listen to a genre of music just because you think "smart" people listen to it. Listen to music you enjoy. I like your idea of listing to one part at a time. I've studied enough music theory and listened intently to enough non-classical music that I can pick out instruments at will, and I've had a lot of luck with classical music just picking out what the horns are doing, or the bass, etc. I'm not sure if I have an advantage with being able to pick out parts but I definitely feel like it helps me understand a piece better. Roadside_Picnic posted:Slightly excessive help: There is too much in your post to go through point by point and address, but I think you were able to take the hints I was dropping when I talked about understand music to know that I have a firm grasp of theory. It's the structures of a lot of classical music that throw me off, and why sometimes I have trouble with figuring out where we are in a piece. Like I said, in popular music, I know verse, chorus, verse. In jazz, I know head, solo, head. But in classical, this is new territory for me. I am getting a firm grasp of what I like. You said Bach would be a good place to start. I loving love Bach. I am not as wild about Mozart, but I dig the poo poo out of Tchaikovsky and Brahms. I don't fully understand enough about the music to know why I like Bach, Tchaikovsky and Brahms, what if anything they have in common, and what that means for me, but I'm at least recognizing things that I like and don't like. And speaking of don't like, can I just say that whether I understand every bit of structure or not, I simply can not freakin stand Anton Webern? I am trying to make it through Boulez's "complete" works, and man this is not going well at all. And yeah, I understand what he's doing, and yeah, I've listened to some loving weird poo poo, but this does not do a thing for me. I can't wait to delete this album. (e: strike that, I will listen to this album 3 times before deleting it. I believe in you, Webern, you can do it!) Worth nothing, I thought Schoenberg was alright-to-good, so it's not a "modern music" thing, I just do.not.like.this. MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Nov 1, 2012 |
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Nov 1, 2012 01:43
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Kytrarewn posted:Check out some Alvin Lucier. He does some really interesting stuff, especially his experiments with the interactions of very slightly (0.1Hz) varying soundwaves alongside microtone-capable acoustic instruments. You might find something you love. I Am Sitting in a Room, however, is amazing.
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Jan 15, 2013 08:51
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