Serious Music - Definition

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's all very well, but what is 'Music'?

How about: "sound per se - which might or might not have other function/purpose* - which is given structure by attentive listening"?

(* = So if somebody hears a poem or a shopping list spoken in a language they do not understand, s/he might experience enjoyment hearing the words for their sonic qualities, as opposed to the linguistic intention of the speaker.)

[jean]

...Viennese audiences who seemed to go for more lightweight music like Rossini's operas...

I was with you until that last bit!

[jean]

How about: "sound per se - which might or might not have other function/purpose* - which is given structure by attentive listening"?

But it's the amount of attention that's necessary that is the nub of this, surely? The more attention, the more 'art'.

(But ars est celare artem of course.)

[Richard Barrett]

Art music sounds like an elitist idea, that's all I'm saying.

Does it? What about the idea that art should be for all?

It's also axiomatic, surely.

I'm not sure what that means.

Why else would Beethoven have declared his music was for 'later ages'

Did he? I don't think there's any hard and fast evidence of this.

I'll say that 'serious music' is a term of engagement for the listener as much as for the creator.

What I've been saying all along is that "seriousness" is indeed a term of engagement for the listener, and for that reason that "serious music" is not a useful term.

Why do people think it's necessary at all to have a special word for (what they regard as) "serious music"? What purpose does it serve?

[jean]

Why do people think it's necessary at all to have a special word for (what they regard as) "serious music"? What purpose does it serve?

It serves to underline their pretensions.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But it's the amount of attention that's necessary that is the nub of this, surely? The more attention, the more 'art'.

I think so, yes - certainly the works that I find most compelling are those that "get better" the greater amount of attention I give them. (Although I wonder if it is each listener who decides what is "necessary" for them? Reading reactions to works on the Forum, it frequently seems that I am giving attention to completely different features/aspects from those which are most important to many other Forumistas who find those ["most compelling"] works equally compelling).

(But ars est celare artem of course.)

I think it is the Buxton Art Gallery (which has some Turner watercolours in its possession that are never put on public display) that has taken this motto completely the wrong way!

[Padraig]

.
What I've been saying all along is that "seriousness" is indeed a term of engagement for the listener, and for that reason that "serious music" is not a useful term.

Why do people think it's necessary at all to have a special word for (what they regard as) "serious music"? What purpose does it serve?

Richard, why does seriousness have to be for the listener to decide? Does the composer not have to try to engage the listener? Where does the process of listening to music start?

The purpose the word 'serious' has for me in this context is to acknowledge respect for the work that composers do to encourage appreciation of artistic achievement in music.

Jean, I think you go too far.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The purpose the word 'serious' has for me in this context is to acknowledge respect for the work that composers do to encourage appreciation of artistic achievement in music.

Respect for what an Artist (if we allow that word) depends on what they achieve, though, doesn't it - and how the listener/reader/viewer responds to it? McGonagall's intentions were entirely serious - his achievement, for the reader, exactly the opposite.

[MrGongGong]

The purpose the word 'serious' has for me in this context is to acknowledge respect for the work that composers do to encourage appreciation of artistic achievement in music.
.

"encourage appreciation of artistic achievement"
What on earth does that mean?

I'm just preparing some materials for a couple of gigs next week in Norway and Finland i'm not sure that the work i'm doing is towards the end of anything like that at all, more that I want to create some things that will be effective for the contexts in which I will perform them in.
I will probably spend as much time and energy on this stuff as I would with anything I do.

[MrGongGong]

It serves to underline their pretensions.

[Padraig]

As long as the intentions are genuine, i.e. 'true to oneself', the question of merit is for the recipient to decide. That is what I meant by asking where the original stimulus comes from. I think one has to trust practitioners (?)

Best of luck MrGongGong.

[french frank]

Why do people think it's necessary at all to have a special word for (what they regard as) "serious music"? What purpose does it serve?

If you haven't a name for it, you can't talk about it.

[ahinton]

If you haven't a name for it, you can't talk about it.

But even if and to the extent that this might be true, what word would you use and to what extent might you assume it to be capable of serving as a viable descriptor?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If you haven't a name for it, you can't talk about it.

Not necessarily - I talk (BOY! do I talk) at great length about it all the time, and have done for over forty-five years (with long pauses in between to listen to it) but I've never used the expression "Serious Music" except in an ironic sense. I talk of Bach, or "The Symphony", or Coltrane, or Isorhythm, or Furtwangler, or Fugue, or Bowie, or even "Classical Music" (in its literal and its colloquial sense - the latter having made sure that the word is understood as shorthand for "the Musics of the Western Classical Traditions").

I would no more think of referring to any particular type of Music as "Serious Music" than I would talk of "Serious Literature" or "Serious Sculpture".

[MrGongGong]

I always wonder if there is a "frivolous fraud squad" ?