Is Classical Music considered to be inherently superior to all else?

I never said that rock couldn't be experimental. Progressive rock indeed incorporates many of the characteristics I listed that are usually applied to classical and the movement has yielded many fantastic results. Neither is classical homogenous, there are arrangements in classical music that are simpler than anything you'll find on the pop charts (Philip Glass' music, for example). But based on my look into classical, I've found that the genre has those characteristics I mentioned in my last post more often than other genres in modern music.
 
Your absolutely right, and earlier music might be studied in academic fielRAB; I'm no expert. I just know that virtually all forms of music that have cropped up in the past 100 years or so that don't fall under the classical urabrella tend to be regarded as crap (except maybe more traditional folk music from around the world, aka not jazz, rap, rock, electronica, etc). Obviously I don't agree with this statement, but it's what I learned when I looked into ethnomusicology.
 
Classical music isn't superior to other types of music in and of itself, though the characteristics associated with it often make it more interesting listening than a lot of what's out there. Musical complexity, variety, experimentation, and motivic development are far more prominent in classical music than than in many types of modern music. It's perhaps for this reason that I keep returning to classical music more than any other genre.
 
Considering he mentioned composers in the same sentence I would have thought it was blindingly obvious.

Or is this just you doing your usual thing of making a mountain out of a molehill.
 
Oh! I see your point. Thanks for clarifying it. I guess most people I've met who hate particular songs don't hate them because of their genre but because of how they sound...which is sort of the same thing. I agree with you, though, that if people don't even *listen* to a song because they have been told it is modern rock and they think "modern rock is awful," then those people might be a bit pretentious or at least guilty of stereotyping, since songs within a genre are not all the same. A related example would be when a person who dislikes "Achy Breaky Heart" dismisses all country music because she doesn't like that song and also has the negative stereotype that "country folk are silly and uncool bumpkins, and country songs are always uninteresting, corny love songs."
 
Your description of classical music lovers made me smile because it perfectly matches someone I know. He *despises* jazz and other modern music as insipid, lacking the complexity and refined structure of Bach. Rock music, he complains (with a rare show of animated disgust), is just a simplistic, repetitive "BOOM BOOM BOOM"-ing, dripping with sexuality and base emotions...to which I answer, well, *yes*, but that is part of the point of rock music!

I think he values self-control and intellectual ability, which are perhaps more evident in classical music than modern forms. He would probably say all non-classical music is like cat poop. Cat poop, however, could be considered a fine manure, so the human perspective *is* important. I certainly don't feel classical music is "better" than other types of music just because classical music may be more complex. I feel other types of music, like good cat poop, ground you more in the realities of "baser" human emotions by reminding you that inside every beautiful being is some poop.



Heh heh, CAPTAIN C, I *like* what you describe as a "self-righteous wordy style," a satisfying Bach prelude of verbiage. Yeay for deep dudes! Not only music but also other forms of human expression are subjective.
 
Here's my question. People talk about theoretical complexity in classical music. Modern music, as we all obviously know, adRAB lyrics to the music. Does the presence of those lyrics limit how theoretically complex the actual music behind the lyrics can potentially be?
 
Classical was the last genre I explored, and of all other styles of music it is the only one I'm really picky about.

The classical "fans" I've talked to are the predictable types of course, uptight, sniffling, cobbsnockers who'd **** themselves into orbit the minute a Disturbed track purrs from the stereo.
 
Those people drive me insane... I'll never be able to stand anyone like that. Because to be honest, I don't feel that saying classical music is the most complex music is a valid argument at all. While the vast majority of rock in terms of music theory can't approach it, jazz is very similar. But where classical focuses on crafting a masterpiece, writing each note down as it comes to you, perfecting pieces of a song slowly over time, jazz is playing something how you feel it should be played, reinterpreting the piece differently each time. The only real diference I see there is that classical music is about playing the exact same notes every time while jazz is about improvisation. I can even understand where someone could argue that most other types of music in general aren't as technically complex as classical. But jazz is, and to me it just makes those people seem like huge hypocrites.

And Partisan Ranger, that is just not true. What about experimental rock? And there are always new genres of music being created, it's just that there are so many more artists making albums rather than classical music that there is bound to be more overlapping.
 
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