Quote:
Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds
Been meaning to respond to this for some time now.
Ask the average person to name three classical composers. Chances are, you'll hear Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. Those three are like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Led Zeppelin of classical music. However, most of those people would only be able to hum a brief snatch of Beethoven's 5th, a brief snatch of Beethoven's 9th, and maybe "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". Anyone who's into classical music is familiar with both other, less notable composers from their eras and possibly the current. Just as anyone who's into rock music is aware of The Kinks.
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Anyway, I don't see how this is responsive to anything in Batlord's post other than "harms modern classical composers", and even that relies on misinterpretation. Batlord tells you that people don't pay attention to modern classical composers (and because the set of classical fans is much smaller than the set of rock fans, that means a lot fewer people know Max Richter or whoever than know, uh, the Kinks) because of too much respect for elders. The list of rock bands that people outside of the rock nerd community (although I'd note that these two aren't super comparable because many more people listen to much more rock music than people listen to classical) know updates with time. Everyone knows the Beatles and Zeppelin, but everyone also knows the Black Keys. This hurts modern classical composers because the image people have of the genre (which, as you say, is massive and varied) is of old dudes in wigs making absurdly boring music. So not only do people not go into the genre if they want to create great, daring music, but listeners don't pay any attention to whatever great modern classical stuff is coming out, because of the Mozart-Beethoven-Bach image that you talk about.
I don't entirely agree with Batlord - I think the causal link doesn't make a ton of sense (this could be due to lots of things that aren't "respect for elders") and I don't think it's really true that
nobody pays attention to modern classical music - but I think it's just not correct that this is the same as rock so it isn't a big deal. Moreover, I think Batlord would agree that the "respect for elders" that, for example, results in people thinking that the Beatles are the greatest band of all time (seriously, where'd they get
that idea?
) is a problem in rock music too.