Tired of music?

[Serial_Apologist]

Apple is one such, and their classical option is pretty good.
That said, they answer pretty quickly too, so you're not waiting long.

They probably have a core repertoire - which some people find a peeling!

[Pulcinella]

They probably have a core repertoire - which some people find a peeling!

Well at least it didn't give me the pip!

[Dave2002]

They probably have a core repertoire - which some people find a peeling!

Oooh - you are naughty!

[Serial_Apologist]

I started losing interest in pop music when I was around 20 years old, in the mid seventies, as it all seemed to be a watered down repeat of what had preceded it. That era is now viewed as a Golden Age of pop music. However, to be fair, and with due respect to Living Composers such as RB, Classical Music has become a type of Museum Art. This is no longer the mid twentieth century when the likes of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bartok, Hindemith, etc were still active. Yes, there are times when I feel a real ennui with all types of Music

I think when Modernism was a guiding principle for composers, enthusiasts felt it spoke of progress in terms of social awareness and politics to match. How does progress come about in either sphere and what criteria are used to judge what we mean by it? For centuries until the turn of the 1600s music mostly evolved gradually, the changes brought about by Monteverdi and some of his contemporaries both reflected and expressed fast emerging changes in the socio-economic sphere with the rise and consolidation of mercantile capitalism from feudalism between producer, owner and recipient. Similarly the changes around the times of Beethoven, Debussy and Schoenberg, Stockhausen and Cage. If what drives change is critical nodal points in human advance - war, scientific and other discovery, the rise of new socio-economic classes - it is the factors and forces driving change that determine its nature and character. Change in the musics and arts of today is most prominently guided in the public mind by turnover because turnover in a consumerist age is the measure of success, and success in the breadth of ability to pay. Manufacturers do not want publicity that shows them not keeping up with "popular demand" but consumer capitalism manufactures the needs that then have to be fulfilled in terms of successful businesses, and success on the individual level becomes measured in such terms - which become evermore short-term in aim. As a consequence larger and arguably deeper questions concerning the meaning of life (our lives) are framed in terms of artistic output, the single criterion informing each and ever one of us that we have a common vision in terms of the basics we agree on and confirm we are sane and therefore qualified to contribute and comment. However the vagaries of capitalism - its inbuilt uncertainties, undependabilities, increasingly short term driven imperatives - leave these "bigger" existential questions deferred, in turn leaving people floudering on where to turn for answers and solutions which would once have been sought in religious or artistic vision: hence the apparent durability of heritage, in the arts in general and music in particular to older age groups instilled with educational values more appropriate to earlier eras - viz the Proms, the power of nostalgia. At the same time those same groups see a younger generation emerging into a world in which these values have little or no relevance, and so it is understandable that their own tastes and preferences are experienced as more and more questionable. This I think is the question behind this particular thread.

[RichardB]

First I would say to RF that yes, Classical Music has become a museum art, but that doesn't impinge on me overmuch since I don't describe what I'm doing as "classical", it doesn't sound classical, it often isn't played in classical-music venues and it isn't all written with classically trained musicians in mind (& I'm not one myself). As will be clear from many of my posts, I do love a great deal of classical music (and not only this, of course) but what concerns me is renewal rather than preservation. I am working mostly with musicians much younger than myself, and in this way trying to inspire the coming generations to forge a path for themselves with something other than the museum as their starting point.

the vagaries of capitalism - its inbuilt uncertainties, undependabilities, increasingly short term driven imperatives - leave these "bigger" existential questions deferred, in turn leaving people floudering on where to turn for answers and solutions which would once have been sought in religious or artistic vision: hence the apparent durability of heritage, in the arts in general and music in particular to older age groups instilled with educational values more appropriate to earlier eras - viz the Proms, the power of nostalgia. At the same time those same groups see a younger generation emerging into a world in which these values have little or no relevance, and so it is understandable that their own tastes and preferences are experienced as more and more questionable. This I think is the question behind this particular thread.

Nevertheless, I think it's possible for music being produced now to embody a vision that goes beyond this hegemony of the ephemeral and the short attention-span. This after all is what motivated many of those composers who made decisive contributions to a new music in the late 20th century, for example Cage, Stockhausen, Xenakis and, perhaps most relevantly, Nono. What makes you think that kind of vision has disappeared from view? It doesn't matter whether or not one calls it "Modernism" any more. Against the music that passively reflects the short-termism of 21st century capitalism there can be another that brings into view what might be possible if people were to turn things around, whether this actually eventually happens or not. I agree with you that there is not so much art around that encapsulates such a vision, but a couple of weeks ago I spent three days going around the Venice Biennale (staying at the house of a musicologist friend who is, not coincidentally, a Nono expert) and saw that the most vital and optimistic work was coming from people who a few years ago wouldn't have been considered for inclusion in such a context - indigenous communities, especially women artists from those communities, younger artists, artists concerned with the relationship between people and their social/natural environment, and so on. I'm not an expert in visual art by any means, and its commodification is certainly a factor that warps it into sometimes very ugly shapes (like that of Damian Hirst and his ilk) but I came out thinking that all is not lost. The capacity to get excited about someone else's vision is still there.

Apart from which, less than two weeks ago the latest instalment of my large-scale work based on poems by our late friend Simon Howard was premiered, unfortunately for me in Brazil, and the performers put up a video of 37 seconds from their soundcheck, which brought tears of joy to my eyes, not just because the poetic complexity of Simon's words comes through in such a beautiful way (the text here consists of the words "I'm not here or there" repeated several times) but also to see these young performers so clearly negotiating the considerable coordinational challenges of the music with an almost jazz-like sense of rhythm. Whoever was at the concert, I hope that one or more of them might have retained or kindled a belief that all isn't lost as far as a future for (this) music is concerned.

[antongould]

As someone who has always considered music an important part of my life. Recently I have gone through short periods of time when I’ve not wanted to play music, listen to music, sing or even think about music. These do not last long but I think it may be a reaction to the amount of unavoidable bad pop music that seems to be everywhere.

Sad that cloughers ….. luckily I never feel I want to leave music ….. my early morning 45 minute walk with Breakfast on 3 is a highlight of every day ….

[Old Grumpy]

Sad that cloughers ….. luckily I never feel I want to leave music ….. my early morning 45 minute walk with Breakfast on 3 is a highlight of every day ….

for the walk and for Breakfast