Classical - (Jazz) - Pop

[teamsaint]

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.

quite. And just to prove the point

http://everynoise.com/engenremap.html

( Although I'm not sure even the Classical/Non Classical split is either clear or always helpful either.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You do get classical buskers. . .

Sometimes you do, though my experience of the best example is not recent - the slow movement of the Bach Double in a London Underground station, played by a violinist, a flautist and a cellist. And of course, it wasn't amplified - they were good musicians who didn't need to shout.

[NatBalance]

MrGongGong, thank you very much for those links, brilliant stuff, love 'em (except the John Cage). I would call them all effect music (or atmospheric / ambient music). When it comes to effect music I'm not sure if there is much destinction between classical effect music and pop effect music.

Ah yes, the old 4'33" by John Cage. Don't know what the hell that is. I think I understand what he was getting at but he went to such an extreme to put his point over that he has gone into another world, the world of meditation. Sometimes extremes are a good way of putting a point across, but in this case he has gone into another field of human spirituality, and that looses his point entirely and infact makes his way of expressing it absolutely laughable rediculous. Why was he looking at a score? What's on the score? And three movements??? I mean, come on! If John Cage had actually composed some sounds to go with the silence (or the ambient music of life), then he would have put his point over much better. He may only have needed to play one note every so often. Perhaps the same note, on the piano, or a violin (what ever instrument and note or chord suits the ambient sounds of the particular location) perhaps played so quietly that you can only just distinguish it from the surrounding soundscape. THEN I would have understood his point.

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")

You remind me of one of my favourite pieces of music, Holsts' Choral Symphony. In the beautifull second movement he uses Keats' poem Ode on a Grecian Urn. At the start of the second verse it goes:-

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: …..

I only notice now that it's "spirit ditties" and not "spirit deities" as I've always thought. 'Spirit deities' seems to make more sense. Anyway, do these words go anywhere towards what you are aiming at?

Can you HEAR one?

Ha ha, good point. No, I can't HEAR one.

[MrGongGong]

Ah yes, the old 4'33" by John Cage. Don't know what the hell that is.

It's MUSIC

I think your term "effect music" is greatly lacking and simplistic
Leigh Landy (who writes on electroacoustic music) has used the division of "Sound Based" and "Note Based" musics .... you might find that an interesting way to think about things?

Maybe you could start by thinking about what music is "for"?
Makle a list of it's possible functions and go from there

And while you are at it listen to this work of sublime beauty, book yourself a trip to Huddersfield and have a cup of tea (as the late, great Daevid would have sung )

Anyway, do these words go anywhere towards what you are aiming at?

in a short word...... NO

[doversoul1]

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.

What kind of music are you referring to as Jazz? Any performers (dead or alive) you can name? Have you read the Jazz Board on the forum? Do you think pop music can be discussed in the same way?

Some of us on this forum use the term ‘art music’ to cover the music played on Radio3. This (sometimes) saves a lot of problems. What isn’t art music can be termed as commercial music. There are many types inbetween but that’s another discussion.

[NatBalance]

Actually, it's a list of 'popular' musics not 'pop'.

Well it's a list of all the music I would put under the heading pop, although I don't know what avant-garde is doing there.

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.

We used to have a Jazz Festival here for a number of years, lasted a few days I seem to remember but that's gone, don't know why? I think there are other places that hold jazz festivals.

Welcome. May I call you NB?

Jazz certainly demands a higher degree of Musical Literacy by the performers and listeners than most MOR pop music

Hi Richard, yes you may call me NB, although that makes me sound more like Nota Bene :) Actually, NatBalance stands for Natural Balance, something I am very concerned about when it comes to volumes.

I've heard it said a lot that you need a greater degree of musical literacy or tallent to play jazz than any other form of pop music and that's what makes it more like classical but I'm not sure about that. We must remember that it's what music sounds like that's important, not whether it only using three chords and all that theory stuff. Is it a good sound. As for technical difficulty I can play some piano, not to performance standard, I can do some classical and I got to Grade V but I find that of all the pop type music I have tried playing it is something like boogee woogy that I find the most difficult. Combining that left hand along with the right is bonkers difficult:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ojt7e88g2I

Cripes, Chopin's a doddle by comparison :)

Why classify music, there's probably good and bad and which is which is all subjective.

I can't see that it's subjective to that extent.

[MrGongGong]

Actually, NatBalance stands for Natural Balance, something I am very concerned about when it comes to volumes.
.

Alarm bells

[Quarky]

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

A good point, NatBalance.

As regards BBC programmes, a little research shows that BBC has published its schedules for the Third Programme and later the Music Programme, right from its inception in 1946 to 1965:

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/third/1946-09-29

All frighteningly intellectual! Radio 3 does not bear much resemblance!

Apparently Jazz featured in the Third Programme, although post-war, the first Jazz programme was Jazz Club, first broadcast in 1947 on the Light Programme. (JRR did not start until 1964 with Humphrey Lyttleton):

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ndvkTwjfP9kC&pg=PA685&lpg=PA685&dq=third+programme+jazz&source=bl&ots=DUQHx3sIaG&sig=hfq4uvPzU4kYtEOQpifGj8WOZF0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCWoVChMIk92-qtO4yAIVisAUCh3lTgfK#v=onepage&q=third%20programme%20jazz&f=false

Much discussion post -war about the division between pop and Jazz. I guess in the 30s and 40s , the Swing/ dance big bands were the pop music of the day, but pop and jazz developed separately in the late '40s.

The lumping together of Jazz and Classics strikes me as a typically British compromise . According to that erudite reference FAQ, Radio 3 Forum:
Does the music include jazz?
Yes. Jazz has had a regular slot on Radio 3 for forty-five years; over the decades the amount of jazz has increased from the original thirty-minute weekly programme to the current 5-6 hours per week. We find that jazz enthusiasts have much in common with classical music lovers and we support the presence of serious jazz programmes on Radio 3

[doversoul1]

Much discussion post -war about the division between pop and Jazz. I guess in the 30s and 40s , the Swing/ dance big bands were the pop music of the day, but pop and jazz developed separately in the late '40s.

My understanding is that in the 50s, with the development of mass media (radio, records, even juke box maybe) a new kind of popular music was created with the aim to sell to a new group of consumers: teenagers with enough pocket money to spend. Pop music was largely manufactured by record companies for a mass market. Jazz, on the other hand, remained in the hands of musicians* and the music was their creations. Of course, record companies had much to do with the development of Jazz but their role was different from that of pop music.

This is why Jazz is (I think) seen as serious music, which is probably the reason why it is often ‘lumped together’ with classical music. Progressive Rock and other experimental Rock music is broadly speaking, a development from pop, although it has come a very long way, rather than Jazz.

Along the way, some Jazz players diverted into a new kind of music called fusion which some people don’t regard as Jazz. As for the word Jazzy, it usually has nothing whatsoever to do with Jazz.

*John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson etc.

[Serial_Apologist]

Alarm bells

Did Kafka write the text to this thread, do you reckon?

[french frank]

My understanding is that in the 50s, with the development of mass media (radio, records, even juke box maybe) a new kind of popular music was created with the aim to sell to a new group of consumers: teenagers with enough pocket money to spend. Pop music was largely manufactured by record companies for a mass market.

Insofar as 'pop' is a broad category, rather than the current distinction which refers to rather insipid boy-band material, that is what 'pop' means to me, in essence: mass market, commercial, industry-led music. Jazz was never that even though some performers might run it close (same with classical).

[NatBalance]

It's MUSIC

If that's music (Cage's 4'33"), what isn't? Naa, I would call that a simple form of meditation, something like nature meditation, but consentrating on one aspect, the sounds:-

http://www.meditationoasis.com/how-to-meditate/simple-meditations/nature-meditations/

I think your term "effect music" is greatly lacking and simplistic
Leigh Landy (who writes on electroacoustic music) has used the division of "Sound Based" and "Note Based" musics .... you might find that an interesting way to think about things?

Well, I can see that Sound Based and Note Based could describe different types of 'effect' music and how they are produced but those words on their own are too technical, too detailed and would not tell me what kind of music it is that is sound or note based. The term effect (atmospheric or ambient) music says to me what it is, it says that it is music that creates an effect, a feeling, an atmosphere, it's the type of music used in films behind certain action to add to the effect of the action.

Great piece of music you linked. Like the Sleep music they broadcast recently. That's what John Cage's 4'33" needs, except a little quieter and far more silence of course, or time to listen to the ambient 'music'.

Hi Doversoul. I try not to jump posts when replying and reply in sequence, that's why I'm a long time getting to yours.

What kind of music are you referring to as Jazz? Any performers (dead or alive) you can name? Have you read the Jazz Board on the forum? Do you think pop music can be discussed in the same way?

Some of us on this forum use the term ‘art music’ to cover the music played on Radio3. This (sometimes) saves a lot of problems. What isn’t art music can be termed as commercial music. There are many types inbetween but that’s another discussion.

I don't know a lot about jazz but I do know that Miles Davies is a mighty big name in jazz. I know of Oscar Peterson, a fantastic jazz pianist, and Louis Armstrong (jazz singer and trumpeter) and Humphry Littleton (jazz trumpeter), Ella Fitzgerald (jazz singer) and I love Take Five by Dave Brubeck. I was told by a mate, who loves jazz, about modern jazz and he played a recording of some for me and I heard classical in it, I even heard touches of Rachmaninov. I now discover I can't find a type of jazz called modern jazz on Google. Is there such a thing? When it comes to jazz songs the genre seems to gets a bit muddy for me. I mean My Baby Just Cares for Me by Nina Simone, is that jazz? What a Wonderfull World by Loius Armstrong, is that jazz? The popular version of that song sounds just like an ordinary pop song to me. You can hear different versions of that song that have jazz touches with trumpet and piano, does that then make it a jazz song?

The term 'art music' does not say specifically classical music to me. That implies that pop music is not art and I strongly disagree with that view.

Rich

[MrGongGong]

If that's music (Cage's 4'33"), what isn't?

Good question (but 4:33" is still music)

What is music "for"?
Is it's purpose (if it has one) universal?

You misunderstand the whole "sound based" / "note based" thing

Put simply

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsG4mhVuqO4

Is an example of "note based" music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iOV7LSqLUE

Is an example of "sound based" music

Its NOT "effects" any more than the first example is (unless, of course, you are regarding all acoustic phenomena as "effects"?)

This is where this is explained in depth

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/understanding-art-sound-organization

[BBMmk2]

Yes, 4.33" is still music. I did this on a brass band course, many moons ago. The professor was talking about the then contemporary classical music. Everything has a certain rhythm in what we do and how we do it. Life.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, 4.33" is still music. I did this on a brass band course, many moons ago. The professor was talking about the then contemporary classical music. Everything has a certain rhythm in what we do and how we do it. Life.

I suppose it depends on what people think "listening" is - a passive absorption of sound, or an active contribution to the Music. Those who just want Music to "wash" over them will never "get" 4.33" and will be irritated and even enraged by what they perceive to be a "con" - but if we accept that Music is something we help to create as we listen, then the sounds of everyday life can become Music - which can help us connect with the outside world, and derive greater (and "simpler") pleasure and satisfaction from it. Music is, indeed, "all around you. You just take of it as much as you want."

If I listen to the piece now, I become aware of a series of continuous glissando cresc and dims at irregular periods as traffic passes on the road outside, together with a more regularly spaced high-pitched chirrupping of a bird I can't identify, the low hum of the central heating, the clicks of the radiators warming up in counterpoint with the ticking of two clocks (not quite in sync with each other). This being "Essential Classics" time, I've only got time for one movement, but had I played the whole work, there'd be continuity (the clocks) and other things changing (more traffic - or less; the central heating turning off; people's voices; different birds) and/or I'd become aware of sounds that were there that I hadn't noticed (the purr of the computer engine!).

The Music is there, I simply have to give it my attention to "create" it - and it works on what I see, touch and smell, too - like many profound ideas, Cage's was devastatingly simple (obvious, even - how come nobody thought of it before? Well, some had, but Cage's piece was the one that most extravagantly articulated the idea ) as well as world-changing. And (and this is far more important) - it connects the attentive listener to the world around them, rather than alienating them from it: something I believe to be essential, as people are increasingly encouraged to cocoon themselves into isolated spending units, becoming fearful and distrusting of the world around them.

Now, there will be people who think that this is all rubbish - but that's true of all Music (there are even people who think that of The Dream of Gerontius). Like all the best Art, this tells us more about ourselves, who we are, where we "belong", and (with luck) how we get on with others.