Originally posted by GTM
How does it??
Discounting the obviously inane and simplistic chart music, in what way is classical a far more intellectual genre of music ? It's complexity stems predominantly from the fact that there are more instruments (read voices) involved not from any inherent intellectual superiority of the scales, harmonies etc used. But even that is immensly variable, being entirely dependant on the exact genre of classic music that one chooses. Or does this intellectual depth come from the composers desicion to essentially depict fairytales with his music? In which case I don't think you can gain intellectualism through association. ie the story, tale, myth etc may be intellectual but that doesn't make the music created to depict it inherently intellectual. In any case if it did then any other genre of music which did the same thing could lay claim to the label of being intellectual.
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Haven't really got the time to devote to these good questions, GTM, and I may be the wrong person anyway, but here's a quick (and not necessarily comprehensive, comprensible or correct) response. Graham or RdS would be much better.
It's more intellectual quite simply because the composers involved were better trained and much more knowledgeable of their art and craft than any modern tunesmith. It has nothing to do with fairy tales or number of instruments. It comes about as a combination of superior technique and superior intellect. Think of a Chopin piano piece for example. Sublime beauty, yet only realisable by someone with both the technique and the artistic sensitivity. Both are necessary. The classical composers had a deeper insight into the music they wrote and how they achieved their effects. Bach couinterpoint is another thing - far more complex than any modern tunesmith could even contemplate
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Rock/pop music is just a form or rebellion?
If so, then so was classical music. At least in the sense than many composers sought to challenge the established and accepted tastes with their compositions, and may well have gained a following for that reason alone.
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Sometimes yes, but usually not. Initially music was written for either the church or the nobility, so it didn't really challenge any accepted taste. It really wasn't until the rise of a paying public that anything revolutionary took place, and then slowly. Beethoven was a revolutionary in his day; he generally stayed true to established classical forms, but broke the mould with his later quartets. It really wasn't until Stravinsky nearly caused a riot with "Le Sacre du Printemps" that we had a real scandal
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The way I see it, music is music. Like art it only boils down to whether an individual likes it or not. A painting may be technically brilliant but that does't make it art. Just like a technically virtuoso peice of music doesn't make it good music.
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I'm not sure that that's true. Indeed, great art often goes against popular taste. How many people really like Picasso's cubist efforts (not me!). But they are regarded as great art by people who know more about such things than I, and I'm happy to accept that. I don't have to like it. I agree that technical virtuosity does not make a piece of music great, but then, I've never said that.
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I feel that a lot of the time it is the fact that something is old that makes some people think that it must be inherently superior, (just like there are people that believe the same because something is new). Much like Shakespeare is held up as a literary genius today, when in fact in his day he was nothing more than a writer of plays that were created for the masses. The historical equivilent of Neighbours, full of murder, revenge, adultory, blood and love. What separates Shakespeare from the writers of Neighbours? well apart from a couple of hundred years, nothing but the change of the english language. Lending modern day critics to place his writings on a pedestal because his use of language is apparently more complex than our own. It isn't. It's just different and therefore more difficult to comprehend. The fact that something is more difficult to grasp, may make it more satisfying when it is finally understood, but it doesn't make it inherently superior to something that is easy.
GTM
I think 4 songs they'll be remembered for.
