We live in an age of boredom, lack of fulfillment and wasted time. Modern culture has become so idle that pursuing a hobby intensively is almost considered to be “a bit weird” and a little old-fashioned. On the other hand, loitering around a public square with a Frappuccino in hand gossiping to your “female friends” is seen to be far more appealing.
It is therefore most welcoming when we are encouraged to take up a new hobby. Masculine pursuits, especially barbell training are slowly becoming outdated, yet are essential to cultivating a strong identity.
It is for this reason that classical music should be considered as a viable option for any aspiring man. Undoubtedly, there have been astounding feats in popular music as has been written about here and here. But with the constant supply of bilge we are subjected to, the more traditional form of music may well be a more suitable form of expression.
Let us examine five reasons to take up classical music performance.
1. The Mindset Is Transferable
First of all, we must concede that this hobby is extremely challenging. The amount of skill it takes to perform the most difficult of pieces takes years and sometimes decades of practice.
The mindset required to persevere with classical music is one of great patience, attention to detail, and robust resilience. Mastering the fickle intonation of a stringed instrument for example can be frustrating and many young players give in early, failing to endure the perpetual squeaking and lack of quick progress.
But the rewards for continuing are great: there is no version of a piece of music in the world better than the one which you play correctly yourself. Furthermore, the days of hard labour show themselves clearly in other pursuits, such as work, sport, or game.
2. It Makes You More Interesting
Wilhelm Furtwangler faced an array of accusations of Nazism and criticism throughout his illustrious career
The average millennial is frightfully dull, lacking in personality or depth, square-eyed and pasty-faced. This is largely down to the fact that there is no incentive to put effort into anything: our living standards are high, technology provides us with a pain-free world, and being uptight and determined is simply not favorable any more.
The most interesting people have lived, suffered, and toiled. Soldiers of war, craftsmen and journeymen provide us with the greatest stories and perspectives of life which many cannot fathom. That which links the above examples is experience, and experience requires effort.
The process of learning and working nurtures a personality and a person worth hearing about. Men are inspired by and women attracted to an achievement one has worked at for a long period of time. Becoming a classical musician is a great antidote to the uninspiring norm.
3. Understanding Ideas Of The Past And Present
A key way that one becomes more interesting through classical music is the ability to convey certain ideas and emotions through sound which are less accessible through prose or images.
Classical music still remains to this day one of the most effective ways of truly understanding the atmosphere and emotion of ages lost. Nothing can portray the burning spirit of patriotism like the booming brass section of a marching band, or the subtleties of a country’s rural culture like a European folk song.
The modern age is almost devoid of any profound emotion and its people only respond well to clown-like routines or minute-long Youtube gags. Behind this superficiality is real meaning, and to gain access to it is both fulfilling and respectable.
4. It’s Traditional
Classical music is traditional in every positive sense of the word. It is not particularly surprising that it has little place in a decaying civilisation. Leftists and Philistines have even threatened on occasion to drag this noble practice down to their level. We saw this recently in 2013 where the distinguished conductor Valery Gergiev was confronted with ludicrous accusations of homophobia by Gay Rights supporters.
Despite this feeble opposition, classical music’s long standing traditions soldier stubbornly on. We see this most clearly in opera and dance, which could not have flourished in a SJW-infested world. As has been written before here and here, dancing relies upon strict gender roles to be the best it can be: the man leads, the woman follows in his step.
Opera is very similar: Wagner’s operas would be nonsensical without its strong, masculine heroes. Italian Opera buffa would be not be allowed to be written nowadays because of its misogyny humor and the tradition would be cast into the dustbin of history.
5, Escape
Arguably the most important reason of the five to take up Classical Music is to escape the senseless drudgery of life. The stories of Ludwig Van Beethoven wandering across German pasture writing his Pastoral Symphony and Jean Sibelius’ long stays in his country cabin still remain well-known today
By taking up classical music, we follow in the footsteps of those who opened their minds to something far beyond the mundane. It has inspired people over the centuries right up until the modern day: the waiting list for the Bayreuth festival, celebrating the music of Richard Wagner, can last up to ten years.
It is an indulgence far greater than drugs or idleness and will continue to be so for many centuries, and perhaps millennia to come (if humanity gets that far).
In Closing
Classical Music is the perfect compliment to a modern man yearning for tradition, depth, and aesthetic beauty. Undertaking it will transform him into something greater and provide him with fulfilment and most importantly, pleasure. Finally, let us end with some class:
Read More: 5 Things Wrong With Modern Music
All those reasons point to why I listen to and play prog rock (Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, etc.). I know, quite wank. But as a drummer/percussionist since 1980, I find no other genre, classical included, challenges me quite as much.
the only thing i don’t like about jethro tull is that it’s a bit leftist in lyrics. but back then, it wasn’t that unusual. actually, even today, it’s hard to find music with good lyrics – surprisingly or not.
Agreed, to a point. I find the lyrics on the Aqualung album quite enlightening, myself. Pro-God, but anti-organized religion. The song “My God,” to me anyway, gets back to what the relationship should be, minus modern dogma.
Have you listened to “Thick as a Brick” all the way through? Quite good.
More times than I can count. 🙂
indeed, i may have been referring to the newer installment of thick as a brick. aqualung was interesting, especially cross-eyed mary. it’s not too sentimental, considering that the covered topics include a bum. i also greatly enjoyed the heavy horses album, which i believe is less political.
Thought Tull was a bit pagan. His later album “Songs of the Wood” was a pagan(ish) wasn’t it??
I don’t know, maybe some leftist takes on some subjects but I think Ian Anderson is a very complex dude. I don’t think he was any kind of run of the mill hippy type like a lot of people think. His whole shtick was paying homage to 19th century English life (or some time back then, maybe 18th). “Bungle in the Jungle” was an anti-Vietnam statement. But you’d have to read a lot about him. He’s very capitalistic, I think. Strongly anti-drug, even in his heyday of late 60-70’s when it was everywhere. He’s quite a businessman and he produces a lot. Salmon farming, dabbles in cross breeding exotic cats etc. The guy is pretty cool and I’m not saying that I know, but there are some ways of seeing him as a very right wing type of guy. A watch collector too, I think, not exactly full of leftists, that. Maybe it’s impossible to know. He was certainly rebellious and unique but not necessarily leftist.
here is an excerpt from banker bets, banker wins on taab2:
i do think you have a point, though. his mistake is probably an innocent one. he is a musician, not a politician. i do believe he is a man who is open to rational arguments, but i can hardly know without talking to him. he seems cool, indeed.
Contradictions are a good thing. Many musicians use them deliberately, much like artists use blacks and whites, to add contrast.
Bill Bruford Yes or Alan White Yes? I personally like Bruford.
Steely Dan was always one of my favorites including the bands you mentioned.
Bruford. I always tried to play like Bruford, but probably ended up sounding more like White. It’s always inspiring to have unattainable goals to keep aspiring to, I suppose.
I can’t say I’ve ever been a Steely Dan fan, but I respect them nevertheless. I sway more toward EL&P.
If you can drum like Carl Palmer then you have my deepest respect. You have my respect as a drummer anyway!
Another aspiration. I try, but I’ll probably never equal him. Tarkus is just.. whoah.
All was great up through Works II. That 1st album, man oh man! So masculine. Tank, The Barbarian, Knife Edge. Then the sweeping grandness of the Three Fates and the thoughtful masterpiece of Take a Pebble. Then the medieval, folk style Lucky Man with its booming moog at the end. Just awesome – I never tire of this masterpiece.
Oh and the re-mastered issue is phenomenal.
The Barbarian and Knife Edge, such the one-two punch, I can’t refute it. But shall we talk of King Crimson? Starless and Bible Black? Red? I think those approach the intent of this article’s reverence for classical virtuososity, combined with a modern instrumentality.
Agreed. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic I – infinity …
Yes with Bruford. Looking Around, Astral Traveller, Starship Trooper, South Side of the Sky, And You and I.
Rare Bird, Blodwyn Pig, Wishbone Ash, Atomic Rooster, ELP, Hawkwind, Chicken Shack, Fleetwood Mac (the dudes) the English had the majority in the 60’s and 70s.
I’m with you on a good half of those, on vinyl. Also Renaissance, Uriah Heep, and Rick Wakeman/Patrick Moraz solo stuff.
I saw Uriah Heep a couple of months ago. They kicked arse.
You ever heard of Suck? They were a South African band from 1970 that released a whole album of covers before disbanding. I quite like their version of 21st Century Schizoid Man.
“You ever heard of Suck? They were a South African band from 1970 that released a whole album of covers before disbanding. I quite like their version of 21st Century Schizoid Man.”
No, but unfortunately now I have. Hmm, let’s see, we have the label “Time to SUCK” with a picture of what appears to be naked 3 to 5 year white girl with her mouth open and implied oral sex with the positioning of her fist.
Well, nobody can say they weren’t given fair warning that they would be listening to the Enemy’s music.
Vice President Joe Biden spoke at length Tuesday night about the influence of Judaism on the United States:
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/05/biden-jewish-heritage-is-american-heritage-164525.html
“I believe what affects the movements in America, what affects our attitudes in America are as much the culture and the arts as anything else,” he said. That’s why he spoke out on gay marriage “apparently a little ahead of time.”
“It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage, Biden said.
“Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good,” he said.
For the record, despite the Joe Biden quote, I’m not blaming “The Jews” collectively. I blame the elite Satanists, although nominal and crypto-Jews seem to make a up outsize portion of the elite Illuminati types pulling the strings behind the sham elections in the USA/NATO/EU countries.
The jewish religion is Satanic.
https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaupload/tmp/91f89002a2a639c19c6cba9e6bac0af64845ba29b6f26c5d297a1051/original.jpg
Allegedly this taboo-breaking piece of art was a very secret work of Hungarian painter genius, Munkácsy Mihály, realized between 1882-1887, at the request of Russian tzar, Alexander III, and inspired by the world-famous Tiszaeszlár Affair (Hungary, 1882), which was a blood-libel directed against a group of Jews, who murdered 14 year-old Solymosi Eszter inside a sacrificial ritual. The painting is absolutely monumental in depicting Jewish thirst for “goyim” blood.
The Devil lets his children have the run of the Earth.
Bill Bruford, say no more
I was trained as a classical singer. There is not much more fulfilling than singing praise to god in an incredibly complex way. I was raised catholic and I’m no longer religious in that way. I still believe in “God” in my own way and the music is no less powerful.
Yeah, bring god into the debate. Pfft. If you’d brought drugs into the debate that would be a different story.
Can’t separate the two.
You don’t need to believe in God to appreciate music ostensibly composed to praise or speak to God; it’s some of the most moving music I’ve heard, like Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang symphony or Bach’s “Ich habe genug” cantata, to say nothing of the famous requiem masses.
Don’t confuse songs “commissioned” by the church for church music. For all we know Bach was just in it for the money and fucking hated god (hell he pretty much had to come up with a new composition every week, who wouldn’t hate the kiddy-fucking priests after a few weeks of that).
I’m completely agnostic and went to an amazing chriiiiistian classical music performance last week. It was so good (especially the choir–noticing how all 4 vocal groups are singing the song in a different way) that I am considering going to church there tomorrow–just for the music and perhaps meet a nice church girl.
It’s doubtful that a composer with the quality and quantity of Bach’s output was atheistic, but it’s possible, which is why I used the word “ostensibly.” At the same time, it’s also possible, but still doubtful, that any artist (or, better yet, insert some poorly paid altruistic profession, like social worker) is more motivated by money than some nobler principle.
I guess I’m missing the point of your comment. I’m not a believer myself, but just listening to beautiful religious music while bearing in mind that it was composed by a human for, apparently, the highest possible purpose, is a very special experience.
Understood. We’re pretty much on the same page, but I don’t believe the ultimate goal of religious music is to glorify god (strange as that sounds), to me it’s about emotionally manipulating the masses. Why? Because the church is in the money business primarily. More congregation = more money in the coffers. I mean, religion was politics before politics existed. Was also the police force too.
i agree with number 1. indeed, my playing of the classical guitar was usually indicative of my mindset at a given time.
mastering a great piece is very fulfilling. although i don’t agree that there is always a “correct” way to play it. just listen to the same pieces from various interprets. they vary vastly, which is part of why it is so intriguing. giving your own touch to the music, with all the detail and dramaturgy in mind, is a lovely thing to do and when you listen to the great interprets, you can hear who has really thought it through and who did not. compare karajan with pinnock, for instance. both great, but each very different in style. not only your skill matters, also your instrument, the strings you put on it, the tuning, etc.
horowitz is indeed a good tip. i propose the cd “horowitz in moscow”. as a czech, i must also propose The Moldau, e.g. interpreted by Kubelik, a bit rare to find.
You and I are on the same wavelength. I have both of those recording’s. Smetana’s Ma Vlast is an absolute epic.
okay, how about some strauss’ metamorphosis by karajan and vivaldi’s four seasons by trevor pinnock.
Middle C, E flat and G walk into a bar. “Sorry, ” the bartender says. “We don’t serve minors ”
And then the E note hit 21 and grew a nice rack 🙂
You could apply the same consent to “ballroom dancing”, besides, Ballroom dancing is one type of dance where the whole idea is the man leads the woman, and the woman fallows, call it “alpha dancing” if you want.
Salsa dancing is all in the rage here in China. The Shanghai chicks love it. Get your basics down, hit a club on a Friday night and you can number close a dozen or more. A couple of Singapore girls took me out and I was completely useless! Meanwhile, the guys who knew what they were doing were tearing up the dance floor and giving tingles galour.
Right on! If you younger bucks don’t have a turntable, amplifier and speakers, consider making the investment and peruse a good used record store for the classics. They are usually pretty cheap and most of the time are in Near Mint condition.
Suggestions for a good start:
Franz Listz Piano Concertos 1 & 2
Greig Piano Concerto
All nine Beethoven Symphonies, especially 5 – 9. Hell, just get them all in a box set.
Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espanol
Excerpts from Wagner’s operas
Overtures – William Tell, Egmont, 1812
Dvorak New World Symphony
Happy hunting!
Most of modern contemporary top 40 music is garbage. Classical Music is one of a few last vestiges of real musical play.
I beg to differ…. If Beethoven were alive today he’d be programming techno…. real techno, not some EDM shite, is modern classical music, you just have to understand how to listen to it…. Carl Cox in your house, Oh yes, Oh yes, fantastic fantastic right here… live in today, stop moaning like old men about yesteryear…. I first saw this guy play in 1989…. there’s nothing like real house music…..
Give me a freaking break. 2:48 of techno light show? I find the cave dance scene of Zion in Matrix Reloaded more inspiring than this …
nice, nice. Acid house is def the shiz. Caught a set in a hipster pub somewhere in Bethnal Green few months ago and it blew me away….well I was uber drunk
And if you weren’t drunk you wouldn’t have been interested in it. Lolozlolzololz.
TECHNO MUSIC = FAT CHICKS
Nah mate that’s just the EDM label given by Vice networks to bastardised house music where fat chicks and gay guys with 15 tats listen to. Real house music can be found by going to the right sets, Ibiza and squat raves.
^ “You have to know how to listen to it” I listen with my ears. If it sounds good, to me, it’s good music. If it doesn’t sound good or sounds like noise with no good melody, it’s not good music.
Eine Klein Nachtmusik by Mozart, the 9th and 5th by Beethoven, E minor Pachelbel; all examples of music that sound good. This technobop and rap and other so called “music” – not so good.
No, you’re full of snobbery. I was like you when I was a teenager.
For the record, I play classical guitar and compose and love listening to classical music (but not Mozart, he’s just the gay-pop version of classical, give me Beethoven or Chopin or Bach any day)… and through my teens I looked down on pop music, dance music, heavy metal, etc.
Jazz was shit too… then I got into Charlie Parker. But electronic music is still shit… then I got into the Prodigy. And Pink Floyd is shit… then I realised how wrong I was, they’re the fucking best… but anyone who plays heavy metal is a moron… then I heard Nothing Else Matters by Metallica with the San Fransisco Orchestra backing it and I had that song on repeat and fucking love playing it on my guitar. Oh yeah, but dance music is still shit… then you take drugs in a club…
you proved my point exactly…. dance music is not about melody… i had a girlfriend once that objected because it had no lyrics… doh!… you can say the same thing about classical.
good techno, deep house, trance etc. is about the rhythm, the hypnotic effect that clears the scramble of thoughts from your brain… it’s highly meditative… it goes back to the cavemen beating sticks together….. Buddhist monks use the same thing to meditate.
classical is designed to convey an emotion, to reach out and touch you in some way, good dance music and yes 95% is crap, is the flow of life, it describes the pulse, the movement of the 4 dimensions, it takes you on a journey…. it is cerebral and experiential not emotional.
the only reason people think that it’s just repetitive beats is because they are looking for melody, lyrics and emotion… it’s the opposite of that…. it’s pure pulse…. you just don’t know how to listen to it….. and of course at first it makes you feel all jittery and wound up, because that is the under lying mental state…. once you let it work it’s magic the brain stops thinking thinking and you just flow….
Pink Floyd was pretty damn special. I dunno what was in the water in 1960s UK and Ireland, but we’ll never see musicians like that again,
Haha…yeah that’s the reason I don’t like techno dance music; because I’m a snob. haha…yep you nailed it on the head!
By the way, I went to a Metallica concert in the 80s when I was a teenager and have loved them since. I grew up on AC DC , JudasPriest , Van Halen, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, etc. I like John Mayer, all manner of acoustic guitar music, a lot of pop rock, some country. So, I’m not any music snob. I also love classical music as well as classical guitar. I just think techno doesn’t meet the thresh hold of what I consider quality music. Rap either.
Bach is alright but I’ll line up to hear Beethoven or Chopin.
LSD
Well it’s good that you have a solid education in composing, but with techno it isn’t about the composition (hell, they play the same hook over and over), it’s about the production. And having studied production there’s no purer form than techno or dance.
Think about it for a second. Try and make a hook that lasts about 4 or 5 seconds that you WOULDN’T find boring after 3 minutes on repeat and you’re a fucking genius. Classical music didn’t have those restrictions.
“I just think techno doesn’t meet the thresh hold of what I consider quality music. Rap either.”
It sounds like an issue of cheating more so than quality.
Techno production is as organic as GMO foods. Might as well have a band of computers. Sexy!
“I dunno what was in the water in 1960s UK and Ireland,”
I can tell you what wasn’t – fluoride.
You’re missing the point that you yourself just made. It’s background music, dude.
Just like ELEVATOR MUSIC.
Then you just don’t understand it properly. Note: I don’t sit at home on a sunday nitting and listening to techno, there’s a time and a place. When you hear good techno properly produced, designed to elicit the exact reactions from the crowd at the exact timing while you’re off your tits on speed, ecstacy, ketamine, meth and the rest THEN you can have an opinion. Like only after you’re drunk good wine can you have an opinion on it.
Haha…”It’s good that you have a solid education in composing” – Now who’s the effing “snob” ?
Yes, I don’t have a ‘solid’ education in composing, therefore, I couldn’t possibly understand or appreciate the nuances of techno or some other ‘music’ that you, “Floyd” who DOES have a solid education in composing can grasp.
ergo…”you see Rob, I’ve been trained to understand these loops and mesmerizing, entrancing loops that grasp our most primal innate rhythmic tendencies….and you dear lad, have not.”
That’s like saying, “well you’re not qualified to comment on politics, religion or war because you don’t have a political science degree, aren’t an ordained minister or have not served in the military”
I prefer Rossini
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLoVSAcz7M8
No old chap, you muddled what I was saying (understandable, you don’t seem to be too bright), I was saying that the bands you listen to are a fine example of composition. i.e. they play notes and chords and shit. Dance isn’t about notes and chords and shit, it’s about production. And you don’t have to have any education in production to listen or enjoy it, but if you’ve ever made a track you’ll see how much the rule of 4 comes into play. Dance music is very mathematical.
Anyway, in future, old chap, don’t try to talk down to someone if you’re not bright, you just come across as a stupid cunt and most people laugh at you.
It was people either born during the war or after during austerity.
Fluoride that leached the testosterone out of millenial pyjama boys.
You’re thinking of top 40 dance. Go to an underground rave and say that.
“Old chap”…. the fuck is that? You been watching The Great Gatsby or something? Ha…Floyd the barber realizes I destroy all of his little come backs so he resorts to the lowest base denominator ( “you’re not too bright and calling me a cunt) well first off “Floyd” which is a faggoty effeminate name to begin with you come off as some kind of close minded troll.
Honestly, now I think you’re just some troll trying to get a rise out of people and there is certainly an unmistakable hint of snobbery and even narcissism in your posts. Probably comes from a place of deep seated inferiority and a screaming primal urge to be right….if only just once.
Secondly, my original point stands as you still stick to the point that “you don’t have the education to enjoy it” which was the point of my previous post. That is, you were claiming that because I didn’t have a musical education as you, I could not be capable of appreciating techno or understanding it. I stand by my original assertion that it sucks.
Damn, these posts under the heading of “classical music” have really gone in the gutter. But remember Floyd, my dear cunt, you are the one who brought it here.
If you think all classical is good then you are wrong. And if you think all dance music is “just crap” you are wrong. If you think it’s all just generic and there is zero room for any creative structures and breaks and drops you are wrong. Now you don’t need an “education” in the formal sense to appreciate dance, that’s just dumb, all I’m saying is for me I needed to take drugs in a club before I understood why it’s so repetitive. And I needed to make a few dance tracks before I could appreciate the maths behind it. It’s all sine graphs and exponential graphs, fyi.
But that doesn’t matter, old chap, because you’re closed minded and don’t want to change. That’s fine, if it makes you happy you can go back to your country music (which, btw, is just about the lowest form of music, next to nursery rhymes) and classical music. And, no, you didn’t mention that you liked country music, that was just a guess on my part as I assume you’re american. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Floyd, I take what you’re saying at face value. I’ve actually, when smoking pot, appreciated certain kinds of music better, as I ‘hear things’ that are already there…that I just didn’t notice before. Let’s return to civility here.
btw…I can’t STAND “bro” country. But some Waylon, Johnny Cash,Hank and some classics I can appreciate.
As someone who composes both metal and concert music… I don’t even try to pretend that they are both the same level of difficulty. I’m not composing Nu metal stuff either, I’m talking about atmospheric black metal, some doom-type stuff. Concert music is a whole ‘nother level, but also something completely different. It can take me a day or two to write a metal track, but more than a week for a concert piece of the same length.
I’m a little surprised to hear an advocate for computer-generated music admit that the music depends on such a massive crutch, drugs, to maximize its appreciation.
No, you got it backwards. What normally goes down when producing is you’ll be high on something (e.g. coke, speed, ecstacy, weed) and often you’ll try to mimic the feeling of these drugs with sound, and engineer the music/rhythm to maximise the drug’s effect that’s coursing though your brain. Then when someone hears that music and happens to be on the same drug, if you’ve done your job well, they will be off their tits and rushing.
So it’s not a crutch, it’s the magic ingredient. Like vanilla in coke.
Yep. Like writing a rap song requires roughly 3 times more words than a “normal” song. Same with classical. You have to compose for more instruments. But complexity does not equal greatness (see Inception). One of the greatest songs written is… I don’t know the name… fuck… it’s by Bach, I believe, learned it on guitar. Open E (1st and 6th), open B, open G, repeat. Then pretty much the entire melody is played on the 1st E string. Try it on guitar, you’ll probably know which song I’m talking about straight away.
Alight. Truce and all. And, for the record, I fucking love Dolly Parton’s “I will Always Love You,” which is a staple country song and also a full on chick song and is fucking gay. So I’m no connoisseur, or nothing, fyi.
Very much in the same boat and have to agree. Metal is fun to play and listen to, whereas transposing a classical piece to guitar fills me with such a huge amount of pride and feeling. Different styles for different moods.
I think you’re referring to one of the Cello Suites.
kinda like a Nuremburg rally for post-modern nihilists. all lights no cattle.
yea lets take some stupid dance beat and repeat it 1000 times, speed it up and speed it up more. glimmer a break.
let’s take some dusty old violins and repeat the same watery riff (with no beat) for 2 hours… and pretend we’re sophisticated because we go to listen in a suit and tie.
A “beat” isn’t what you think it is. The modern conception of “beat” is the essence of boring; it is a constant, preferably loud, thumping of computer-generated bass. “I love the beat” is a pedantic way for musically challenged people to say “I like this but I don’t have the capacity to explain why.”
EDM has such a profound impact on the listener for the same reason The Greateful Dead have had such an enduring legacy….DRUGS! Dont kid yourself.All you need is a constant beat+ drugs and hot sweaty girls= hooked.
i’m am pretty sure if you dropped an E or some acid and went to the philharmonic orchestra you’d get the same heightened experience… it’s just classical types are too tight assed to try something like that….. just because some people take drugs and listen to music doesn’t make the music shit… actually it makes it better…. horrible music would be even more horrible on mood enhancing drugs…
monosodium glutamate flavor enhancer on dog shit will only make it taste worse…
Do you know DeQuincey? Confessions of an English Opium Eater?
He would take opium and go to the opera.
He’s saying the only reason edm is viewed as anything significant is because of the use of drugs. Nobody thinks classical music is great because they listen to it while on drugs.
Thanks for showing me this, I came of age at the tail end of this era of trances/house/techno. I saw Above & beyond play a few weeks ago in norfolk. Best show i’ve been too in awhile
If Beethoven was alive he would be a metal guitar virtuoso. Not standing behind some cowardice turntable.
Now the ’90s certainly brought a lot of new innovative dance music that give me nostalgic feelings whenever I hear songs from that time, but there is something with this endless monotonous dance music that I really hate. I can understand you need drugs to survive two hours of this.
Thing is, there is good music out there, just not the music teenage girls like. The top 40 only represents teenage girls.
“Most”?!? I think you’re being too kind!
Yes music you can thank the white man for that also.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InV2vogeiec
My teenage daughter listens to music from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. She thinks the current stuff is a load of rubbish.
Thank you for writing this. I agree 100%.
Actually, I have wanted to write something similar for some time–more like, “Why You Should Listen To Classical Music.”
Personally, my lifelong interest caused me to start taking violin lessons at the age of 28 (about four years ago).
My thoughts on the subject tend towards something like a prior response I gave to someone online:
Wagner, Stravinsky, Strauss, Monteverdi, Britten, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich. Gym-rats and egg-heads abound, so I suppose the most unique thing about me is my passion for classical music. No, I don’t find it relaxing; it’s a mystery to me why so many people believe that the only use for classical music is as a sleep aid. For me it is emotionally evocative, exiting, and beautiful. I’ll confess when it comes to the Moderns the experience is a lot like a horror show, but whatever it may lack in beauty it makes up for in shock and terror.
Whether Baroque, Romantic, Impressionist, or Modern, I’ve come to expect the same experience from any good show: somewhere between flexing every muscle in my body and feeling like I’m going to vomit, I scorn my instinct for rebellion and take pleasure in submission. The tense muscles, anguished grunt, and crinkled face are all too reminiscent of the 70’s era, pornographic money-shot, which is an appropriate observation since the experience I’m describing is sensual through and through.
I often refer to the classical composers as “masters of tension,” that is, since they know how to disturb us with dissonance, then please us with harmony, and finally make us irrelevant in the grip of some higher idea.
Good comments.
When I turned forty many years ago, I went into my office at work, locked the door, put on Wagner “Siegfried’s Funeral March”, turned it up really loud (to this day I keep a turntable with speakers in my office with a mini-collection of about 100 albums) and let the somberness of it soak in to me. After it was over, I opened my office door. There was my supervisor, looking at me with concern. I smiled and said, “OK, I’m ready for mid-life.”
Oh man, I actually commented with this exact video here on ROK not too long ago, but whatever, here it is again in all of its glory:
Great! Thanks …
Thank you. Having music on in the background pretty often worsens my concentration. Music is either stimulating or relaxing; not both.
Good stuff. I love reading posts like these and hope to see more.
I started playing piano (or keyboard) last year; I love it. It’s truly amazing how long it takes to learn a piece of music. Yet when you do it’s so fulfilling.
I doubt most men are up to picking up an instrument as it really requires discipline and dedication to practice each and every day.
“We live in an age of boredom, lack of fulfillment and wasted time.”
We do? I have more entertainment at my disposal than was imagineable twenty years ago.
The article looks like an awesome read (I love Classical music, was raised on it), but the article begins on such a strange note that I had to take issue with it.
“I have more entertainment at my disposal than was imagineable twenty years ago.”
Q.E.D.
Ever see a shark chase a school of fish?
Yep. I’ve also hauled their carcasses up onto the beach. Some of the “fish” were equipped with bang sticks.
And most of the scores (sheet music) is available under public domain.
Though I don’t play music anymore, one thing I do like to do is download a score and listen along to a recording of it on YouTube.
I play classical music on the radio when I drive because the stuff that they play on the radio now days are absolute crap. I like Maksim Mrvica’s music. Listen to one of his work–> Croatian Rhapsody.
When I was a kid, I hated classical music.
As I got older, I started listening to scores from movies I liked. When Master and Commander came out, I listened nonstop to Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. I’ve been hooked on classical ever since. Hell, I’m listening to it now.
It’s funny how your tastes change as you get older.
^ That is one profound, emotion evoking piece of modern classical music. Comes at you in powerful waves.
It really does. I love to listen to this at the beach or on a boat.
My boy, we’re pilgrims in an unholy land.
The second movement of Rachmaninov’s ‘Piano Concerto No.2’ is the greatest piece of music ever composed.
That whole suite is certainly the most ripped off piece of music of the 20th century.
Every film score composer plundered it, especially John Williams.
Today’s Brief Encounter would be in a back alley outside a nightclub.
I love classical music and I’m a geek. Since I was a kid I’ve loved Switched On Bach. It combines the classical with the electronic. I never get tired of hearing it. There’s almost always one playing in my head.
There is nothing more masculine than Classical music. It’s reason, math, precision and art in one glorious fusion. One of the true glories of western cultural achievement.
Pythagoras laid it out 2500 years ago. The only criticism of classical I can muster is that it is in 3/4 or 4/4 time or something similar. You don’t get eclectic, creative pieces like the theme from Mission Impossible (5/4) or Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill (7/4).
you do from the 20th century onwards: stravinsky, even pictures from an exhibition. Composers started to try more complex rhythms at about the same time as they started pushing for more complex dissonant harmonies.
Blues is more masculine than Classical, by far.
Classical music is the foundation of all good music, like French technique is the foundation of all great cooking. Without the foundation, you’re left with a hodge-podge of unstructured, mostly simplistic or nonsensical music.
I trained classically and ended up primarily in jazz improvisation. Without the foundation I dare say I’d never achieved the level I’ve achieved. Not only do I perform jazz, but any genre of music on a number of instruments.
I’ve seen plenty of kids chase jazz without the foundation only to spin their wheels. It’s the same with most pursuits. And, I speculate that much of the decline of thought and reason in today’s idealism and philosophy comes form lack of proper foundation — the study and analysis of classical literature, philosophy, science, etc that form the foundation necessary to think and reason clearly.
As a musician I’ve burned out on every genre of music except for one — classical. It’s the only genre of music I can listen to from sunrise to sunset. And it’s about the only music I can listen to while working as it stimulates my thinking and reasoning allowing me to be more productive.
I have a “friend” and I use the term loosely, classically trained musician, now a composer(?). Technically very talented but when it comes to original scoring his influences are very obvious, also with his dabbling in contemporary music. Needless to say he is the biggest wet blanket of a SJW I know. Used to be pretty fun to hang out with but he has become so sanctimonious in the last number of years I avoid him. Thinks he’s so intellectual because he reads a few books and talks down to others. A total white knight also I might add.
I used to listen to quite a bit of classical when I was younger. I will have to get back to it. Shostakovich’s 7th, Leningrad….. metal……
My response to the posting will give you a clue to my musical talents. I thought you meant to LISTEN to classical music. Hee, hee. I cannot hold a note in a fifty gallon pail.
Those who can play something, why not?
I do really think that to listen to classic music, even if you are nearly tone deaf as I am, can make your life better. We respond emotionally to the music we hear, and the sounds of breaking glass, which roughly represents a lot of music today, can leave you stressed out.
I don’t have a lot of access to classic music in rural Mexico, except the music channels on satellite TV. Great stuff.
Hi anon, you’re probably not tone-deaf.
Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion
To be honest, I don’t know for sure. I can hear music and know when it is good.
For example over my 73 years, Beethoven’s Fifth has been my favorite piece of classic music.
And, Pepe Aguilar’s MUJERES COMO TU (see youtube) sends chills up my spine. I am talking the horns in that piece. I can listen to it over and over.
The problem is I can produce absolutely nothing anyone can stand to listen to. I cannot make a single note with my voice that sounds right. It’s like there is something broke between what I hear and what comes out of my voice.
Even for Happy Birthday I can’t make it sound right.
Bravo !! I just picked up Suzuki piano a month ago as I had been wanting to do for a while. I studied it as a kid. I’ve played trumpet, voice and guitar too … The piano puts me in a state of Zen like nothing else, TRULY THERAPEUTIC !!!!!
I can play July Morning on keys, but not much else. I hope to improve, though.
I would say about half of the music on my iPod is movie musical scores. Classical music is such a journey to listen to. It can take you through all stages of feeling, excitement, power, sorrow, longing.
Taking up classical music is a good idea. Taking up an instrument is an even better idea. If you get good enough it’l add immeasurable value. Just look at some of the ugly rockers that have landed hot wives. Sure they’ll never understand what it takes to be good and work hard at a craft like being a musician.They just like reaping the rewards of being with a great musician. Stick with it and get good enough as an option for side income and instant DHV at a gig.
I am kind of pissed at my parents because they didn’t beat me with a stick when I got bored of piano lessons. Now 40 years later I can’t play an instrument and my voice is shot but I am self taught in music theory and have a few dozen tunes that I want to record if I ever get my ass in gear. I have some other fish to be fried at the moment but I am looking for a good hardware and software suite to construct MIDI tunes that don’t sound like fucking Mario Brothers.
Great music:
Ahh, the ring cycle. I own a performance on blu ray. Yes, it’s a great racial nationalist epic written by an anti-Semitic, ego-maniacal madman….but its too great to let go.
How can you compare that Kraut Krap to real music?
LMAO 😀
Wow, gotta hear this live some day…. Thanks!
Get it out of your head that classical music is old or stodgy. Some of the greatest pieces of classical music were written in the 20th century such as Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man or the soundtrack from Star Wars.
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I tend to listen to Retro, Rock, Metal and such but the single biggest portion of my library is classical.
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Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a complete rock star who needed 3 or 4 pianos to do a performance because his style was so aggressive that he would break them. Meanwhile, the women in the audience would take off their clothes and throw them on stage, swoon and fall unconscious, or physically attack him to tear off bits of his clothes or hair.
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At the risk of sounding judgmental, classical music is a thinking person’s music. Unless your IQ is double-digits it is something that you should be listening to.
Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie wrote thinking person’s music as well. Classical is more emotive than intellectual since there are no lyrics of substance.
You have a point in that classical music has no lyrics. It adds a different dimension. Dylan, Guthrie, Morrison and others made you think about their words, not the music in particular.
With its many difficult rules, counterpoint is as intellectual as music gets.
There’s also nothing wrong with jazz. Not necessarily the 60’s free jazz garbage but perhaps the late swing and the entirety of the bebop era ( late 30’s to mid late 50,s) a lot of these musicians could also play classical as well as improvise
very different skillset though. Learning classical music doesn’t help that much with learning jazz
It helps with theory.
yes it does, but jazz theory is very different. You can get by without improvising in classical music, but jazz is improvisation, and to do that well you have to learn principles which bear little comparison with classical music beyond the basics of scales and harmonies (to be built upon)
This is an extraordinarily wrong statement.
really. you might be right, but can you explain. I play classical piano, but have never been able to make any headway with jazz, despite having had – briefly – a very talented professional jazz teacher. The scales are similar and yes you have to build on the basic harmonies, but everything else I found profoundly different.
I’d add the place where I’m coming from , is that I expected the progression from classical music to jazz to be natural, like an extra level. That’s not what I found. Even the touch you need to cultivate is entirely different
well right im not saying that it does. But its somewhat true that most skilled jazz players came from a classical background FIRST, then went to jazz and were highly successful because of it. Bud Powell, Barry Harris are a couple examples ( pianists ) Either way learning either styles takes a similar amount of time dedication and patience.
I’m sure that’s especially true today – I briefly had a jazz teacher – his uncle turned out to be Alfred Brendel so that’s a clear classical pedigree. Obviously at its roots though jazz is less ‘middle class’. I agree with your last point, although from a position of not having felt able to give that amount of dedication / patience.
Your right . Literally if you want to be anything near exceptional you basically have to practice a few hours a day 7 days a week. Brahms and Beetoven were probably by all means exemplar ” MGTOWS “. Both were bachelors their entire lives. But in a way it requires you to give up alot of relationships in order to play at that level. At least thats the way it is for me. ( not saying im brahms or anything )
music is a great pursuit but it does require sacrifice, even at below-professional level. Having said that a lot of hard-core musicians seems to live and breathe music so probably don’t see it like that. Re. your examples – I do think Brahms had a bad case of (platonic) oneitis in Clara Schumann. Beethoven’s seems to have combined MGTOW with being an incurable romantic (in more than one sense)
If you syncopate Nutcracker, you get jazz. All jazz was, in my opinion, was late Romantic period music put to a new kind of beat. Listen to Beethoven’s Sonata 109 movement 3 and imagine it with a swung beat.
Very much the remixing of its day, and it didn’t work very well back then as it doesn’t today.
Classical music is the epitome of western culture because it embodies subtlety. Rap on the other hand, is an inherently uncivilized form of music as its crude beats and troglodyte “lyrics” are more tribal in nature and celebrate the baser instincts of humanity.
Siegfried forges his sword in the Metropolitan Opera’s rendition of the Ring Cycle.
Congratulations Ireland, you have just put another nail in the coffin of traditional marriage! The Marriage of Figaro will now have to be rewritten to accommodate our new definitions….. enjoy the decline……
I like classical music and I like this article. It does express certain emotions better than other kinds of music, which is why (if the world had a soundtrack) it is the best choice to accompany deeds of heroism and bravery. Of course, I love modern music too, and most of the classical type music I listen to is of the epic film score kind.
Wagner was the epitome of human musical achievement. After him, things went downhill.
Now in my in mid thirties, I realise tastes in music don’t change so much as expand, I love classical music, especially piano pieces but I also appreciate large orchestral pieces, but I’m enthusiastic still for late 90s early 2000s trance, 90s indie , heavy and Viking metal, prog rock, like pink floyd and early Bowie, but I cannot warm at all to styles such as rap or jazz, man , I fucking hate jazz.
If you fucking hate jazz, you dislike improvisation.
Ever hear a guitar solo? Hint: there’s improvisation involved.
Thanks for the hint Mr guest….. So I have to like jazz then, ignore my natural distaste for it and enjoy improvisations? Thanks man.
What a strange and rather pointless comment, but cheers guest, cheers, I feel much less of a philistine now.
My favorite new classical music are Arcana from Norway and Faun from Ireland and Germany which blends classical music with other sounds like rock or techno.
Sample of my favorites:
Variation of “Time Lapse” by Michael Nyman performed and arranged by Steve Bingham (4:20)
Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt (cello/piano) (9:25)
Tabula Rasa by Arvo Pärt (29:02)
Libertango by Astor Piazzolla (accordian) (2:48)
Oblivion by Astor Piazzolla (violin) performed by Arabella Steinbacher (4:34)
Trio élégiaque n°2 Op.9 by Sergei Rachmaninoff performed by
Kogan / Luzanov / Svetlanov (piano/cello/violin) (52:28).
Don’t be put off by the long run time, this was written in commemoration of the death of Tchaikovsky by his protege. The overall melody is haunting and the Allegro very powerful.
Bravissimo!
“there is no version of a piece of music in the world better than the one which you play correctly yourself.”
Correction: “there is no version of a piece of music in the world better than the one which you WRITE and play correctly yourself.”
Most classical musicians can’t compose music, can’t write lyrics, and can’t improvise for the life of them.
Wagner all day. There is also plenty of good neo-classical to indulge in as well. Look up a solo artist called Goatcraft, a duet called Autumn Tears and a label called The Fossil Dungeon and its artists.
Allan Holdsworth’s music is great too, check it out:
I only listen to space music these days or the drone zone (safe with all drugs).
You’ll notice the females in that old painting are the same as today’s, trying to show their boobs in low cut gowns.
4. Russia’s laws are not anti gay and there are just as many homos in Moscow and gay places as NY. The section of a law the gays complain about have to do with a number of things not just gay.It has to do with indoctrinating and propaganda aimed at minors not adults.Things like making kids read books like Ivan has 2 daddies and that sort of stuff.
‘It is an indulgence far greater than drugs’
But music acts like a drug by changing brain chemistry and the manner in which neurons fire and L-dopamine is released which is why people like it. It makes them feel good.
Prog rock does it for me. Keeps the T levels high as well.
Awesome band! m/
Just bought a new Ramirez guitar and this will be my next project to learn http://youtu.be/YY6tUIljfcU
Nothing compares to the rush of emotion you get while playing classical music.
I am sorry I did not read this article before the holiday weekend. Excellent.
I took up the guitar in my teens. After several months of constant practice and the realization that I could play practically everything that came on the radio, I figured one of two things must be true:
1) I must be an amazing musician (false)
2) Pop music must really fucking suck (true)
That’s what opened my eyes to both classical and jazz. Don’t get me wrong, I still loves me some punk/metal, but they just don’t hold a candle to the greats. When the generations of today are long dead and gone, great minds will still be finding inspiration in Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart.
Absolutely great article. ROK has won my respect. This is right on the money.
Listening to Opera is merely visiting a museum. For the High culture of the West, that museum is now a mausoleum. Jazz was America’s classical music, but the British invaded in 1964 and rolled over Jazz repeatedly till it is now mostly defunct.
The Broadway musical, which was in its time American opera, dide around the same time as Jazz. Broadway used to inspire Hollywood, and over two third the audiences were nativ4 New Yorkers. Now, the need for a sure thing drives Broadway to stage pop movies, and over seventy percent of the audiences are tourists. All these fine arts are memorials to worlds that are no more.
Never has it been easier to enjoy good books and music, but the numbers of the people who enjoy them are declining.
Consider the end state – Persephone’s Garden;:
Our culture has winded down to sea.
Sad but true. After the British invasion, anything that wasn’t guitar-oriented singer-songwriter fare largely died. The musical, one of the greatest artistic triumphs in both cinema and theatre, is pretty much dead. While I do think the British Invasion delivered a deathly blow to jazz and instrumental music in general, that is only partly the case. I think jazz was heavily responsible for its own demise beginning with the rise of bebop. What was previously a very danceable, crowd-oriented music largely became the property of musicians alone. As much as I love Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and their contemporaries and followers, it cannot be denied that jazz musicians largely stopped trying to be entertainers by the late 40s.
There’s some great stories about the composers too. Brahms’ first musical job was playing a piano in a Hamburg brothel, for example…
Learning to listen to classical music with appreciation and understanding is one of the great mental exercises and training.
Sure impresses the better quality women too.
Bach