"Classical" music... or?

[Serial_Apologist]

Prompted by a posting by Mr GongGong on the "gay marriage" thread, I wondered about the widespread popular usage of this term.

As MrGG suggests, everyone uses the term classical music for the orchestral and chamber music that from the 18th century at least up to the 1930s - when venues also began being used for the presentation of jazz, and later rock concerts - to define the orchestral, choral, operatic, chamber and more recently electroacoustic music we cursorily include under a term academically defined by the second half of the 18th century?

Even here I find myself stumbling, given that there was clearly a lot more music played and heard outside church, theatre and concert hall than oratorios, operas, orchestral and chamber music.

Is it not time for a different definition for the kind of music with which most of the discussion is concerned on this forum? "Music of the Western church and concert hall tradition", maybe?

S-A

[MrGongGong]

Leigh Landy at DMU in Leicester makes a big distinction between
Note based music
and
Sound based music

in various discussions of electroacoustic and electronic musics

[amateur51]

Leigh Landy at DMU in Leicester makes a big distinction between
Note based music
and
Sound based music

in various discussions of electroacoustic and electronic musics

Nice distinction Mr GG .. and I like S_A's "Music of the Western church and concert hall tradition" though it doesn't slip easily off the tongue, does it

DMU = De Montfort University, I discovered

[Serial_Apologist]

Leigh Landy at DMU in Leicester makes a big distinction between
Note based music
and
Sound based music

in various discussions of electroacoustic and electronic musics

Interesting MrGG. In the "early days", I believe Dr Herbert Eimert strongly made a point that "electronische musik" was not devised for purposes of devising additional timbres to the orchestral palate, as eg Messiaen in "La Fete des Belles Eaux", but for producing entirely new sounds and soundworlds. It has to be admitted, however, that this has often been the de facto use composers have made of electronics, both within and without the "classical music world" (eg "Telstar").

It was more the use of "classical" to refer to all music within "the tradition" from, say, Machaut to today, I was referring to as "problematic" insofar as perhaps it's time to find a better definition?

[Pianorak]

I always find the idea that Johann Strauss is "serious" music hilarious
so what's the music of Metallica then ?
or Offenbach

Don't think I have ever heard anyone refer to Strauss' music as "serious". Light music?
Offenbach - Operettas?

[MrGongGong]

Interesting MrGG. In the "early days", I believe Dr Herbert Eimert strongly made a point that "electronische musik" was not devised for purposes of devising additional timbres to the orchestral palate, as eg Messiaen in "La Fete des Belles Eaux", but for producing entirely new sounds and soundworlds. It has to be admitted, however, that this has often been the de facto use composers have made of electronics, both within and without the "classical music world" (eg "Telstar").

I wouldn't say that was true in the electroacoustic traditions
(see Smalley, Emmerson, Wishart etc etc )

[cloughie]

Nice distinction Mr GG .. and I like S_A's "Music of the Western church and concert hall tradition" though it doesn't slip easily off the tongue, does it

DMU = De Montfort University, I discovered

Church and Western C&W - perhaps not!

Actually I think changing the name now serves little purpose - a bit like changing the numbers of Schubert Symphonies, Unfinished to me will always be 8 and the Great C Major 9.

[MrGongGong]

I'm more a fan of C&E myself (Surely that is what Nusrat was trying to do on Muust Muust ?)
It's interesting when one finds musical cultures that have NO "classical" music ! i.e NO court music and religion without buildings so NO tradition of music in that context........as in Tuva

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Actually I think changing the name now serves little purpose - a bit like changing the numbers of Schubert Symphonies, Unfinished to me will always be 8 and the Great C Major 9.

Well the Great C major has been 7, 8 and 9 at various times, and perhaps should be 10 or11

[cloughie]

Well the Great C major has been 7, 8 and 9 at various times, and perhaps should be 10 or11

But what have you always called it EA? ...and would you want them to start numbering R Strauss' symphonies?

[Pabmusic]

Well the Great C major has been 7, 8 and 9 at various times, and perhaps should be 10 or11

We don't need to number all of them anyway. There's no problem with 1-6 (even though Schubert never numbered them himself); they are followed by the Unfinished and Great C major. It's just too complicated trying to number the last two because of the confusion begun by Brahms (who numbered them 7 (Great) and 8 (Unfinished), and George Grove (who wanted 7 left for the E major symphony sketch he had found at Ferdinand Schubert's and brought back to the RCM, followed by the Unfinished at 8, and the Great at 9). The most logical order is in fact 7 (Unfinished) and 8 (Great), without the E major sketch - or any of the other sketches, for that matter. We don't include other composers' sketches in the canon of their symphonies.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

dear humans never use analytical categories to identify anything .... we use prototypical categories that stand on the basis that you will know it when you see it ... that is how we learn them in the first place, and it takes many years of rather rarified education to deal with any other kind of category satisfactorily and even so such highly developed categorisations undergo continuing refinements and occasional major reconfigurations ...

might i put the question differently ... what is embarrassing about using the phrase 'classical music' in what social contexts ...

[cloughie]

dear humans never use analytical categories to identify anything .... we use prototypical categories that stand on the basis that you will know it when you see it ... that is how we learn them in the first place, and it takes many years of rather rarified education to deal with any other kind of category satisfactorily and even so such highly developed categorisations undergo continuing refinements and occasional major reconfigurations ...

might i put the question differently ... what is embarrassing about using the phrase 'classical music' in what social contexts ...

Probably when you are 20 quite a bit, when you are 40 and more confident less so, when you are 60 not at all!

[Serial_Apologist]

dear humans never use analytical categories to identify anything .... we use prototypical categories that stand on the basis that you will know it when you see it ... that is how we learn them in the first place, and it takes many years of rather rarified education to deal with any other kind of category satisfactorily and even so such highly developed categorisations undergo continuing refinements and occasional major reconfigurations ...

might i put the question differently ... what is embarrassing about using the phrase 'classical music' in what social contexts ...

"Don't kid yourself - we're all wearing uniforms!" - Frank Zappa

[salymap]

I still have to remember that Dvorak's lovely op 88 is now no 8 and not no 4 and the D minor is no 7 and not no 2. {I think }