Tips on Critical Listening: Size Matters
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- In this chat I offer three very fundamental guiding principles to keep in mind when listening to music:
1. Slow = Big
2. Musical time moves faster than you may think
3. All "form" is nothing but repetition and variation
Re: slow tempo. A fellow musician once remarked to me, "Beware the slow stuff, the mistakes last longer!"
I probably shouldn’t do this but given a choice between several versions of the same work I’ll go for the one with the shortest time spent on the slow movement. On my favorite Mozart cycle (Mackerras) I’ve even edited out the repeats on the slow movements. I do feel guilty about it though. 😊
I'm sure I'm not the only long-time classical listener who has been surprised, delighted, and edified by the talks which aim at explaining "the basics." These are foundational features of music, but they aren't necessarily straightforward or easy for newcomers to grasp. However, you have an astonishing ability for making them accessible and comprehensible without being reductive. The 3 guiding principles here are really ingenious formulations, at once illuminating and memorable--the final observation on form a real knock-out of concision and insight. The video put me in mind of the one you did on Baroque vs. Classical and the differing rhetorical and dramatic intentions of the music. Like that, this video may cover basic territory, but you revisit it with such freshness and clarity that it's always stimulating and (at least for me) has the effect of polishing up my own listening, giving my ears a good scrubbing, by reminding me to be alert to these crucial features operating across all of the varied kinds of music I listen to. Many thanks.
Thank YOU for listening, and sticking with me over time.
I believe you were humming the Brahms requiem not the Verdi :)
Interesting subject. Thank you.
p.s.: I would be interested in how the different recording "innovations" have aged.... great early EMI stereo recording versus early digital (that today we consider very average)
Yes, hum one, you've hummed them all!
Architecture is also an art form in which there is movement through time, the object moving being you.
Sign at the Zoo: "This way to the egress... "
@@willsingourd2523 Thanks. Now I am enlightened and will mend my ways.
Thanks! These tips will enrich my listening experience!
My favorite example of the ratio between size and slowness is Haydn symphony 54's adagio. This was a good video to make meatballs to.
That's what they're calling it these days? Oy!... :-D
mahler fifth symphony adagietto
Your summary of basic form being repetition & variation gave me a lot to think about. Very illuminating!
On a totally different but current subject, any recommendations on the best recordings of Purcell's Funeral Music for Queen Mary? With choir please.
Nope.
probably Parrott best overall, but if you want the traditional drums in the march, Geraint Jones.
@@LB-ys6il Thanks!
I once had a discussion with a friend on Wagner's music. He complained about 'length' of the music. While sure, one could say some libretto cuts might be needed (or not) I told him based on the premises ... how he 'opens' and introduces an opera, how his musical writing work ... they are of the right length.
@@mattstapleton9584 which to be fair is a great one-liner
Wagner's music in my experience is packed full of stuff, but a lot of it is very subtle and cryptic and therefore passes by an inexperienced listener. It comes across as a lengthy meandering.
@@joncheskin right of course, it's a marvel of craftsmanship. But I talking about a musical premise & sound world ... given that premise the opera should unfold naturally and not rush abruptly because "oh well, people might get bored here", especially through composed music
@@TdF_101I don't disagree, I was just trying to describe the experience of some listeners. If you don't mind the time scale and can successfully engage the premise and the sound world. then Wagner is often an amazing musical experience.
Well. I am once again justified in (very recently) subscribing to your channel. Brilliant, unexpectedly illuminating! Returning to, reconsidering music fundamentals is never an error. Unexpected insights may abound. (Your: Size is both slow tempo and/or dense composition.) And you have slightly shocked me with your view that "Rock" may be viewed as "Classical", as the typical argument for this is merely that the current/pop style is/must be the "new Classical". Of course, redeemed by your sharply focused exegesis, not driven by a suffocating single false note - the mere assertion of our own coincidental "era".
I will often be surfacing your vids on my Tweetstream. (w/5,000+ "followers" - organic/vetted/fewest bots.)
Thank you.
May I suggest a topic for a video, if you wish of course. The topic is: "What is classical music?" For me (and many others like me), having been listening to composers since a young boy, the distinction is nevertheless still subtle. But to many, less inclined to this type of listening, the definition is obscure. I may add: Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Sibelius, Stockhausen, though active in very different eras, are "classical music" composers. Sinatra or Aznavour are not. But what about the Genesis, or the Beatles? I would say they are not, however their music is as compelling as Schubert's lieder or some short canon by Mozart or some of Chopin's Impromptu. And, symmetrically, are pieces like "Oh du lieber Augustin" classical music or not? Thanks.
Classical music? How about music that musicians choose to perform (and people wish to hear) regardless of the nationality or era of its creator.
Well, I've already done it: th-cam.com/video/mynMYQPE6V8/w-d-xo.html
Thanks, I missed it.