Classical - (Jazz) - Pop

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  • NatBalance
    Full Member
    • Oct 2015
    • 257

    Classical - (Jazz) - Pop

    Hello folks, I've jusy joined this forum and for my first post I thought I'd give myself a good bit of hassle. See how polite Radio 3 listeners are :)

    It has always puzzled me why jazz is connected with classical. The way I see it jazz is a form of pop music, not classical. Uh? … Shock! … Horror!

    Sorry folks but that's the way I see it I'm afraid and I know I'll get plenty of stick for this but please bear in mind I am not sure about the following views I will relate. These are the conclusions I have come up with so far and I see this as still a very confusing subject. Please bear in mind I am thinking out loud here, not sure my views are correct, I am posing these views with a hope to learn further and hopefully consolidate them.

    To my way of thinking there are basically two genres of music - Classical and Pop. There are many types of music that straddle those two forms, such as prog rock and modern jazz, but I think that on the whole most music can be placed in either one of these two genres.

    Classical Music - this type of music originated from religious music and the first form of classical music was Gregorian Chant. It branched out from there to form many different types, such as romantic, baroque, renaissance, minimalist(?), one of which is actually called classical. In live performance such music is very rarely amplified, only when the venue is very big or outside will it be amplified. I have recently been told that the truer name for classical music is Art Music (don't know if that name describes it any better).

    Pop Music - this type of music I think has originated from traditional folk music. It has of course also branched out and now encompasses a vast variety of styles such as country, blues, rock, house, heavy metal and again (like with classical), one of which is actually called pop. In live performance this music is virtually always amplified, no matter how small the venue.

    Now then, (here comes trouble) it seems to me that jazz fits into the latter genre. I thought it had its origins in traditional folk music and in live performance is always amplified, and it always sounds like a type of pop music to me, only modern jazz sounds classical. I think the reason jazz fans do not like their music associated with pop music is that they think pop is a lower class of music. I do not see pop music that way (except the vulgar way in which it is always amplified loud no matter how small the venue), I see it as just a different type of music, it satisfies a different part of my nature, a part that has equal validity and importance as the part of my character satisfied by classical music. I love both classical and pop in equal measure so I do not see the placing of jazz into the pop genre as an insult ….

    …. right, think I better scarper …. TAXI!

    Rich
  • MrGongGong
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 18357

    #2
    Originally posted by NatBalance View Post
    I do not see pop music that way (except the vulgar way in which it is always amplified loud no matter how small the venue),
    Look Alpen it's a fellow foil hatter for your club

    Hi Rich

    I would take issue with this though matey

    To my way of thinking there are basically two genres of music -
    Maybe

    Music of sound / Music of imagination ?

    Comment

    • french frank
      Administrator/Moderator
      • Feb 2007
      • 30301

      #3
      Originally posted by NatBalance View Post
      …. right, think I better scarper …. TAXI!
      Hello NatBalance

      Welcome - the skill is to say the contentious things in a non-contentious manner. It makes for a good debate rather than a BATTLE

      I don't think you have to make any kind of comparison between classical and jazz (though I see strong similarities between the respective enthusiasts).

      Jazz is 'connected' with Radio 3 because it has been covered since the early years of the Third Programme; and there have always been other genres of music, even though classical was - and is - the core of the music content.

      For me (uninterested in jazz) I see a parallel in jazz like the difference for (Radio 3) classical listeners between the 'Classic FM-classical' and the Radio 3 classical: general and 'specialist' (or something vaguely like that).

      Radio 2 covers jazz but it's mainly for a 'Radio 2 audience': I don't think it always satisfies jazz fans. But what do I know
      It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

      Comment

      • Old Grumpy
        Full Member
        • Jan 2011
        • 3617

        #4
        Welcome, NatBalance

        An interesting analysis!

        I have with an interest in, and appreciation of, music in all three fields in your thread title - you make some valid points. I would disagree that all jazz is amplified though. I heard the scottish ensemble, Brass Jaw perform in Hexham Abbey the other day - not a microphone in sight, and all the better for it. I'm sure there are other examples in the more intimate setting.

        I hope your taxi has not yet arrived. Stick around - could be interesting...

        OG

        Comment

        • Serial_Apologist
          Full Member
          • Dec 2010
          • 37691

          #5
          Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post
          Look Alpen it's a fellow foil hatter for your club

          Hi Rich

          I would take issue with this though matey



          Maybe

          Music of sound / Music of imagination ?
          I liked what NB had to say, because it reminded me that I thought that way when I was 16, when everything seemed much simpler, with less categories.

          I hadn't realised cryogenics had arrived. I am nearly 70 now.

          Comment

          • Quarky
            Full Member
            • Dec 2010
            • 2660

            #6
            What is the aim of your post, NatBalance?

            Are you suggesting that Jazz has no place in a Classical Music station- apart from Modern Jazz perhaps?

            Music can be classified and reclassified according to an individual's tastes. I do it myself, and find it a useful way of furthering my knowledge. But just two classes - that is a very broad brush, and as you admit yourself, not all jazz and not all pop fits into your "pop" classification.

            Further analysis required, may I respectfully suggest.

            Comment

            • french frank
              Administrator/Moderator
              • Feb 2007
              • 30301

              #7
              I think the real problem is the generic use of the word 'pop'. I can accept that, in addition to 'classical' with its origins in various religious musical forms, there were forms that were 'popular' in a literal sense: emanating from 'humble people'. So folk music and jazz might both be called 'popular' in that sense.

              But 'pop' in a general sense referring to musics taken up by a commercial industry and marketed to appeal to much bigger audiences ('popular' meaning having wide appeal, OED 'liked or admired by many people') - audiences that have increased with the explosion of new outlets for accessing it - seems a different class, regardless of the fact that some, like rock music, undoubtedly go back to music 'of the people', and others become more refined and esoteric.

              But jazz has never been a music of the (numerical) masses, has it?
              It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

              Comment

              • NatBalance
                Full Member
                • Oct 2015
                • 257

                #8
                Hello Old Grumpy, I'm still here, can't find a taxi anywhere on this Radio 3 forum. I reckon they want me to stick around and take the flack.

                Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post

                Music of sound / Music of imagination ?
                Well yes, that's one way of looking at it. I see it this way though - within the two genres I mention, Pop and Classical, their are three styles:-

                1. Rhythm music
                2. Melody music
                3. Effect music

                Originally posted by french frank View Post

                I don't think you have to make any kind of comparison between classical and jazz
                Well it's just that I have never understood why they are always put together. In music shops jazz and classical are usually grouped together and of course Radio 3 does aswell. I would have thought prog rock has more right to be on Radio 3 than jazz. I'm not complaining about jazz being on R3, I just don't understand why it is.

                Old Grumpy - glad you got to hear some unamplified jazz, I've never heard any, unless you count street performers and my mates playing it. Don't get me wrong, I like amplification (as long as it's not over the top), I just don't see why it's the type of music being played that decides whether it gets it or not and how much. It should be the venue that decides amplification needs (unless a special effect is required). I can't see that the type of music being played has got anything to do with it. Anyway, that's another subject.

                Originally posted by Oddball View Post
                What is the aim of your post, NatBalance?
                My aim is to understand why jazz and classical are so very often lumped together. I cannot see the connection.

                Originally posted by Oddball View Post
                But just two classes - that is a very broad brush, and as you admit yourself, not all jazz and not all pop fits into your "pop" classification.
                The only reason they don't fit into one category is because they are a mixture of both.

                Originally posted by Oddball View Post
                Further analysis required, may I respectfully suggest.
                Well, that's what this thread is supposed to be about. Please, if you can see anything wrong with my analysis let me know.

                Originally posted by french frank View Post
                But jazz has never been a music of the (numerical) masses, has it?
                Well I thought it had. In a pub where I live there used to always be a trad jazz band every Thursday, amplified too loud of course, and always well attended when ever I went. I think you'll find jazz being played by buskers just as much as any other form of pop music. Of course not all types of (what I call) pop music will have the same popularity and jazz may be low down the list but I certainly do not think it is bottom of the list or anywhere near it.

                Actually, this'll blow your mind, I just Googled 'Types of pop music' and found this:-



                Just look how many there are! Flippin heck! I can't find any form of classical there, but jazz is there.

                Rich

                Comment

                • MrGongGong
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 18357

                  #9
                  Originally posted by NatBalance View Post

                  Well yes, that's one way of looking at it. I see it this way though - within the two genres I mention, Pop and Classical, their are three styles:-

                  1. Rhythm music
                  2. Melody music
                  3. Effect music

                  OK, i'm not sure your reductionist approach works for this

                  Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.


                  or this

                  Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.


                  or this

                  Download: http://ks.kud.li/to47Subscribe: http://sb.kud.li/touchmusic33Official stream from Touch. Distributed by Kudos Records.On iTunes: http://it.kud.li...


                  or this



                  or this

                  Extract from 'Unnamed' (1997), a piece for solo shakuhachi played by Yoshikazu Iwamoto and composed by Frank Denyer. From the CD 'Music for Shakuhachi' by Fr...


                  and so on and so on

                  it's a slippery fish indeed


                  PS: "Music of imagination" could be the music that doesn't yet exist or even doesn't ever exist apart from in the mind (so 4:33" isn't in this "category")

                  My aim is to understand why jazz and classical are so very often lumped together. I cannot see the connection.
                  Can you HEAR one?

                  Comment

                  • french frank
                    Administrator/Moderator
                    • Feb 2007
                    • 30301

                    #10
                    Originally posted by NatBalance View Post
                    Actually, this'll blow your mind, I just Googled 'Types of pop music' and found this:-



                    Just look how many there are! Flippin heck! I can't find any form of classical there, but jazz is there.

                    Rich
                    Actually, it's a list of 'popular' musics not 'pop'. As I agreed, jazz could be termed 'popular' in one sense, distinguished from church and court music.

                    I don't see that classical and jazz are 'lumped together' in record shops or anywhere else. You mght as well say that Radio 3 'lumps drama and classical music' together just because it covers both. The only way it lumps classical and jazz together is in treating them seriously (jazz more seriously than classical, quite often ).

                    You do get classical buskers, but performing in a pub isn't what I intended by 'popular' still less 'pop'. Not like the tens of thousands you get at pop festivals.
                    It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

                    Comment

                    • teamsaint
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 25210

                      #11
                      Originally posted by french frank View Post
                      Actually, it's a list of 'popular' musics not 'pop'. As I agreed, jazz could be termed 'popular' in one sense, distinguished from church and court music.

                      I don't see that classical and jazz are 'lumped together' in record shops or anywhere else. You mght as well say that Radio 3 'lumps drama and classical music' together just because it covers both. The only way it lumps classical and jazz together is in treating them seriously (jazz more seriously than classical, quite often ).

                      You do get classical buskers, but performing in a pub isn't what I intended by 'popular' still less 'pop'. Not like the tens of thousands you get at pop festivals.
                      Outiside of the specialist Jazz Progs, There is a bit of jazz in the playlist programmes, and occasionally in the lunchtime concert I think, so they do get "Lumped together ," albeit in a rather insignificant way.
                      As a contrast, On R3 World music only really escapes from its specialist progs with the occasional appearance on In Tune.
                      I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                      I am not a number, I am a free man.

                      Comment

                      • burning dog
                        Full Member
                        • Dec 2010
                        • 1511

                        #12
                        There should be more Spice Girls on R3!

                        Comment

                        • MrGongGong
                          Full Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 18357

                          #13
                          Absolutely

                          Comment

                          • richardfinegold
                            Full Member
                            • Sep 2012
                            • 7666

                            #14
                            Welcome. May I call you NB?
                            I have always wondered why Classical and Jazz tend to be lumped together in shops, review magazines, etc. I have a handful of Jazz Albums but mainly listen to Classical. To me they are very different types of music but perhaps many others
                            Find them equally appealing. Jazz certainly demands a higher degree of Musical Literacy by the performers and listeners than most MOR pop music

                            Comment

                            • cloughie
                              Full Member
                              • Dec 2011
                              • 22126

                              #15
                              Why classify music, there's probably good and bad and which is which is all subjective. If pressed I'll split between Classical and Non-classical but going into further genres means so many overlaps it becomes a pointless exercise. There's a Georgie Fame sixties boxed set just released - is it pop, rock, jazz, blue-beat - back then he was R&B - a bit different to what is called R&B these days.

                              Comment

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