Re: Classical music

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 01:26:30 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.music.rush
Size: 2,688 bytes

"Laurel" <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
news:CWiqa.1472$email-address-deleted...
> But, by all means, continue to be vague and non descriptive to your
heart's
> content :-)
>
> L.
I freely admit it the term "classical" evokes a voluminous collection of
musical composers and
ideas spanning several centuries, but it's hardly vague and
non-descriptive - especially in the
context of the original post.
Modifying your analogy somewhat, a "tool" should be analogous to "music".
"What kind of tool?" is
analogous to "what kind of music?"; "a saw" (as opposed to a wrench or
hammer) to
"classical" (as opposed to rock or country); and "miter" (as opposed to hand
or chain) to
"Baroque" (as opposed to Classical or Renaissance). Just as there are
several different types
and makers of saws, their are several different eras and composers in
classical music. And just
as there are different varieties of miter saws, so are there different
compositional styles and
composers in the Baroque period.
Unfortunately the tool/music analogy decomposes from there because a saw is
a concrete object
that performs a specific task, and thus you need to know what specific saw
you need for the job.
On the other hand, the delineation of musical terms (music - classical/
Medieval, Renaissance,
Baroque, Classical, Romantic, etc.) from general to specific are not
task-oriented, but a helpful
abstraction for understanding different types of music and periods in
musical history. Also,
tools are the objects of necessity, while music is a concept of taste.
Therefore, it's
understandably confusing if someone asks me what kind of saw I like, but not
if someone asks me
what kind of classical music I like - I can easily respond because it's a
matter of knowledge and
taste, not function. One could just as easily be less specific and ask me
what type of music do
I like, or be more specific and ask me what Renaissance composers or
compositions do I like, or -
even more specific - what compositions of John Dowland do I like.
When looking at an outline of different types of music, ie., rock, jazz,
hip-hop, classical, new
age, etc., the term "classical", does help a person differentiate between
types of music. Though, as I stated above, the term does evoke a large and
broad spectrum of music, it's hardly vague and non-descriptive, and any
attempt to make the term pejorative seems silly to me.
By the way, isn't the term "Classical", in relation to European music during
the latter half of
the 18th and the early 19th centuries, actually a misnomer itself, taken
from "Classical", as in
relation to Greek and Roman art, architecture and literature?
Regards,
Mike