In the past, I would regularly go to the monthly concerts of the resident symphony orchestra, the chamber music groups, and the occasional fancier performances held by VIP guests or at VIP venues (like an organ concert at the cathedral).

Back then, I was quite naive and wasn't all that aware of the class issues. I actually stopped going to the concerts mainly because I saw myself becoming a snob and didn't have the money to justify it. For example, for a piano concerto, I would pick a seat in the front row right before the piano, so that I could focus on the piano best. Or I would collect and compare different interpretations of the same piece, and I would get a thrill out of watching out for how each interpretation handled a particular passage. I just don't have it in me to "sit down, relax, and enjoy" the music. I don't know how other people do it. — baker

Ok! I take my words back. I think it is you who got bored with the people...

Your front row experience make's me remember when I was a child, I was dragged to see ballets with my father and his cousins family. Actually I liked it, but we we're always at the cheapest seats high up many times on the last row sweating. Few years ago my wife bought tickets to a ballet with seats on the parquet actually close to the dance. And for the first time I saw that the dancers had expressions. The classic Swan lake was far more awesome to see the expressions of the dancers.

So you really, genuinely believe that anyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, can be the appropriate audience for a classical music piece?
If yes, what is the basis of this belief of yours? — baker

If they genuinely like the music, why on Earth not?

So yes. Assuming the person doesn't mind the "what the hell is a person like that doing here??!!!"-looks from others and people will try to ignore you. You see, people won't be thrown out because of their socioeconomic status in any open event. A private club is a different matter.

And if we start arguing if a homeless guys that stinks horribly (for not taking a shower) for months will be thrown out or not let in or not, the conversation is a bit off the actual issue.

How is it that, for example, Lady Gaga, who, given her education and musical experience, should know better, nevertheless makes such mediocre music? — baker

Goodness - I think the answer to this is obvious. Kinkade, Eco and Gaga made the artistic choices they did not to subvert anything but to make money. In case you haven't noticed, the biggest market on earth is for the mediocre and the kitsch.

Then hurry up, because I have less and less time for this forum. — baker

I'm running to my timetable, not yours.

I wish we we were all like artists; not letting our emotions muck up our work. In fact it seems as though an artist's creative spark is ignited to full luminosity under the most abhorring of circumstances. :point: The tortured Artist. Deface the artist and be amazed!

hurry up — baker

:grin:

A tortured artist is a stock character and stereotype who is in constant torment due to frustrations with art, other people, or the world in general. The trope is often associated with mental illness.

This applies very well to my neighbor, that f...

but we we're always at the cheapest seats high up many times on the last row sweating. — ssu

Seats so far from the stage that it's the next best thing to not being there!

Part of the problem is the rectangular design of a lot of concert barns (halls). The wall opposite the stage will be distant. The side balconies close to the stage have partial views. 1/3 of the hall is cheap sats for a reason--people with enough cash won't sit there.

Concert halls don't have to be rectangular barns. Rounded designs can provide better sight lines and reduce distance from the performers. Smaller might be better.

I enjoy first-class orchestra concerts once in a while (too expensive to do often). However, the pleasure I have obtained from small concerts in more intimate settings like small churches with good acoustics, or even places that don't have great acoustics, has been just as good if not better. Semi-professional groups can deliver splendid performances. University orchestras can deliver great results, sometimes in free (!) concerts.

Indeed.

What is really fascinating in live music is that a lot of music that you wouldn't otherwise listen to and would immediately change the channel while listening to the radio while driving, suddenly feels great when you hear it played live. And naturally the smaller more intimate the music session is, you naturally focus even more.

However good our headphones and audio systems have become, there is so much more to a live performance. It just shows there's more to music than our ear sensoring the vibration of acoustic waves.

Question: If you can't tell where the "art work" ends and the "vandalism" begins, then how much creative value does the work have? — Bitter Crank

Considering this work: clearly yes.

Are petroglyphs more archeological in value, or is this "art" — Bitter Crank

None of both. Just old "killroy was here".

Ok! I take my words back. I think it is you who got bored with the people... — ssu

I had a Gary Oldman moment, like here, in The Professional, starting at 2.40.

Your front row experience make's me remember when I was a child, I was dragged to see ballets with my father and his cousins family. Actually I liked it, but we we're always at the cheapest seats high up many times on the last row sweating. Few years ago my wife bought tickets to a ballet with seats on the parquet actually close to the dance. And for the first time I saw that the dancers had expressions. The classic Swan lake was far more awesome to see the expressions of the dancers.

I've always been fortunate enough to get good seats. The programme was published for the entire season in advance. I had the time to study the music pieces (with the help of the library mostly, there wasn't that much on the internet back then yet) and I knew the acoustics in each of the halls, so I bought the tickets for the seats most suitable for each piece.

So you really, genuinely believe that anyone, regardless of socioeconomic status, can be the appropriate audience for a classical music piece?
If yes, what is the basis of this belief of yours?
— baker
If they genuinely like the music, why on Earth not?

I only need to remember my music teacher and my literature teacher from elementary school! And then some teachers from college, and the general attitude among the academics and the intelligents.
In their view, people like me are not able to "genuinely" like the music. I mean, there are essays and other texts written on how people from lesser socio-economic classes (ie. "peasants") can have only a shallow and sentimental understanding of art. One of my college professors convinced me to never go anywhere near a theatre again or to read a book by a notable author.

So yes. Assuming the person doesn't mind the "what the hell is a person like that doing here??!!!"-looks from others and people will try to ignore you. You see, people won't be thrown out because of their socioeconomic status in any open event. A private club is a different matter.

Of course. One can even sufficently externally blend in and "pass for" a suitable audience. But in one's mind, the severe judgment reverberates.

What is really fascinating in live music is that a lot of music that you wouldn't otherwise listen to and would immediately change the channel while listening to the radio while driving, suddenly feels great when you hear it played live. And naturally the smaller more intimate the music session is, you naturally focus even more. — ssu

I don't listen to music while driving. I focus on the road, the traffic, the engine.

However good our headphones and audio systems have become, there is so much more to a live performance. It just shows there's more to music than our ear sensoring the vibration of acoustic waves.

A recording is mastered for optimum sound. What you hear in an actual music hall depends a lot on where you sit. The overall sound quality is worse live than it is on a mastered recording. Live, sit a bit too far to the left, and the right side of the orchestra will be too quiet and the violins too overwhelming. Sit too close, and the sound will be off entirely (the front row is only for when you know exactly what you're doing).

But listening to a recording, it's easy to forget there are actually people playing this, making this music, so the music gets a surreal, mystically pure quality.

Goodness - I think the answer to this is obvious. Kinkade, Eco and Gaga made the artistic choices they did not to subvert anything but to make money. In case you haven't noticed, the biggest market on earth is for the mediocre and the kitsch. — Tom Storm

People typically try to earn a living by what they do. It's hardly an ignoble outlook.
As to how much they earn with their art, this is not within their control, or otherwise plannable.
So your objection strikes me as rather shallow.

I only need to remember my music teacher and my literature teacher from elementary school! And then some teachers from college, and the general attitude among the academics and the intelligentsia. In their view, people like me are not able to "genuinely" like the music. I mean, there are essays and other texts written on how people from lesser socio-economic classes (ie. "peasants") can have only a shallow and sentimental understanding of art. One of my college professors convinced me to never go anywhere near a theatre again or to read a book by a notable author. — baker

Your paragraph perfectly captures the view of 'the elite'. I remember, with dismay, a professor at university (19th c. American lit) saying that literature was the business of an elite coterie, a clique. This statement seemed then (1967) to be discordant with the popular '60s mood.

Your concert hall experience tells me you have much better ears than I did, once upon a time. And you were diligent in your preparation to hear formal music -- something I never was.

"The peasants", like goats, need the hay put down where they can get at it, not locked up in art barns. My guess is that if you took small art shows to the local mall, staged concerts of formal music in neighborhood venues, sent acting companies on the road to small towns, etc. "the people" would be responsive audiences. This wouldn't happen over night. Someone raised on rap and nothing but won't be ready for the full court press of 'high' art. Give it time.

I had a Gary Oldman moment, like here, in The Professional, starting at 2.40. — baker

Sorry, I don't get it.

So your objection strikes me as rather shallow. — baker

It's not an objection, it's just a statement trying to provide a more realistic account of how mainstream pop music and art works. It seems shallow to you probably because you don't understand the world of mainstream cultural product. As someone who has worked in media as a second career and met quite a few successful artists (including pop stars, actors and artists ) the market is one of the only topics of conversation. How to get a hit. Oh, and artists are often appalled by what sells - even if it is theirs.

Oh, and artists are often appalled by what sells — Tom Storm

Why? Isn't that what they want?

Why? Isn't that what they want? — Raymond

What people want is rarely what they want. :scream:

It's not hard to understand - many artists do mainstream, compromised work for the money and exposure. This often annoys and frustrates because anything they might want to do with a richer imaginative vision is simply a risk and unlikely to sell. Audiences are frustrating and this often breeds contempt for the stuff which sells.

But I should add that some artists are exactly as they appear - superficial, predictable and gravid with kitsch and cliché. They are all tip and no iceberg.

It's not hard to understand - many artists do mainstream, compromised work for the money and exposure. This often annoys and frustrates because anything they might want to do with a richer imaginative vision is simply a risk and unlikely to sell. Audiences are frustrating and this often breeds contempt for the stuff which sells. — Tom Storm

And yet the world is full of wonderful, beautiful music, visual art, poetry, literature, architecture....

And yet the world is full of wonderful, beautiful music, visual art, poetry, literature, architecture.... — T Clark

What world do you live in? :razz:

But yes, I never argued that across time people have not also done (and still do) good things.

I only need to remember my music teacher and my literature teacher from elementary school! And then some teachers from college, and the general attitude among the academics and the intelligents.

In their view, people like me are not able to "genuinely" like the music. I mean, there are essays and other texts written on how people from lesser socio-economic classes (ie. "peasants") can have only a shallow and sentimental understanding of art. — baker

Well, if you wrap yourself around old social structures, you'll find awfully many instances of how it is said that the peasants/ the rednecks/ the white trash don't appreciate the higher things in life. Or understand them. You see, to uphold a class society in things like art, culture or sport, you not only have to have those that think it's their thing, you also have to have the others who think that it's not for them, but only for those other people who they don't belong to. At worst, the thinking goes, if someone likes for example the music of "the other class", they are just trying to be someone who they aren't. Phonies.

Basically it comes to this: if you cannot laugh at haughty people, it's more of a problem of yours. Because those people who say they can like "genuinely" more music than others are simply very silly, haughty people.

Liking music isn't the same as understanding everything about quantum mechanics or molecular biology.

Now you might disagree with me, fine, but please understand that I was brought up in a society that isn't so class conscious in every way as the US or UK are.

Who made the "defaced" painting?

But yes, I never argued that across time people have not also done (and still do) good things. — Tom Storm

I know you didn't, but sometimes I just want to say to people - "Stop with the hell in a handbasket/why, when I was a boy! The world is a wonderful place. We're lucky to be here."

Who made the "defaced" painting? — Raymond

"Either way, the piece, “Untitled,” by John Andrew Perello, the graffiti artist known as JonOne, is now a magnet for selfies. And on social media, South Koreans are debating what the vandalism illustrates about art, authorship and authenticity."

The piece was valued at $400,000. Don't now who determined its value.

:up:

I had a Gary Oldman moment, like here, in The Professional, starting at 2.40.
— baker

Sorry, I don't get it. — Bitter Crank

In the film, the character played by Gary Oldman at first passionately listens to classical music.
In the scene I referred to, he says:
You don't like Beethoven. You don't know what you're missing. Overtures like that get my... juices flowing. So powerful. But after his openings, to be honest, he does tend to get a little fucking boring. That's why I stopped!

Not to be so crass, but I experience something similar: Classical music now mostly strikes me as pretty things that are ultimately vain and serve no wholesome purpose.

No doubt there are those who will say that I am missing something vital, that I don't have a properly developed taste for the aesthetic, that I am, simply, primitive.

Basically it comes to this: if you cannot laugh at haughty people, it's more of a problem of yours. Because those people who say they can like "genuinely" more music than others are simply very silly, haughty people. — ssu

I don't see it that way, and I don't see those people as "haughty". The elite have different cultural and practical predispositions than the lower class, so it only makes sense that they experience things differently.

"The peasants", like goats, need the hay put down where they can get at it, not locked up in art barns. My guess is that if you took small art shows to the local mall, staged concerts of formal music in neighborhood venues, sent acting companies on the road to small towns, etc. "the people" would be responsive audiences. This wouldn't happen over night. Someone raised on rap and nothing but won't be ready for the full court press of 'high' art. Give it time. — Bitter Crank

If a person works in some lowly job for long hours for meagre pay, how can they possibly relate to classical music or high art in general?

And even when they do, it's classical music lite, like Vivaldi's Four Seasons and such. Not Stravinsky.
Moreover, these people will never become members of the music community, they will never meaningfully contribute to it, they don't have the socio-economic means for doing so. The most they can do is "enjoy" some piece in their dark corner. They can be consumers, and nothing more. A nameless, faceless mass.

It's not hard to understand - many artists do mainstream, compromised work for the money and exposure. This often annoys and frustrates because anything they might want to do with a richer imaginative vision is simply a risk and unlikely to sell. Audiences are frustrating and this often breeds contempt for the stuff which sells. — Tom Storm

In that case, those artists are confused, to say the least. They want to make money with their art (and a lot of money, at that), and they want it all on their terms. Hm. That's an enormous sense of entitlement. Nobody gets to make money that way, not even mobsters.

Classical music now mostly strikes me as pretty things that are ultimately vain and serve no wholesome purpose. — baker

If all the classical music heaped up over the centuries serves "no wholesome purpose", what in God's name does? That many people find classical boring, I can understand. Some of it bores people who love classical music.

like Vivaldi's Four Seasons and such. Not Stravinsky. — baker

Stravinsky reportedly said, "Vivaldi didn't write 500 concertos; he wrote the same concerto 500 times."

The quip is established enough that a 1986 book—Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys by David W. Barber—riffed on it: “People who find [Vivaldi’s] music too repetitious are inclined to say that he wrote the same concerto 450 times. This is hardly fair: he wrote two concertos, 225 times each.”

Or

"Even someone as informed as pianist/musicologist Charles Rosen attributed the quote to him [Stravinsky] when asked which composer he found most overrated:

“I'm tired of [Vivaldi]. Stravinsky once said that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 500 times. I disagree. Instead, I think he began 500 concertos and never achieved anything in them. So he kept trying over and over again without ever quite succeeding.”
—Charles Rosen to The New York Times, 1987

The most they can do is "enjoy" some piece in their dark corner. They can be consumers, and nothing more. A nameless, faceless mass. — baker

It would be clinically interesting to know more about the source of such opinions as this that you expose to the right of day.

The elite have different cultural and practical predispositions than the lower class, so it only makes sense that they experience things differently. — baker

Money or influence doesn't make you hear things differently.

On the other hand, it's understandable that people don't have as a sport hobby polo as horses are expensive. But listening to classical music isn't.