How to Listen to Classical Music: The Basics
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ค. 2022
- In this chat, I offer suggestions on how to put yourself in the best frame of mind to enjoy music in large forms, which is what the majority of "classical" music really is. The key is learning to think about music "musically"--that is, recognizing that it comes in an endless variety of shapes and sizes, each of which needs to be understood on its own terms, but each of which CAN be understood quite easily once you recognize just a few basic facts.
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The first Mahler symphony I bought on CD I listened to in the car on an hour's drive to work. I didn't like it at all on first listen. Then I played it again on the way home and thought its not quite a bad as I originally thought. Then I played it again the next day and thought it's actually fairly good and after the 4th or 5th listen I absolutely loved it! Then I bought a different Mahler symphony on CD and repeated the process going from not being impressed to begin with but playing it a few times until I loved it and so on.
That's a very interesting observation. There are pieces, like Beethoven, Brahms symphonies, or other pieces like Franck's symphony, Schumann 3rd, Mendelssohn 4th, which grabbed me at first hearing. But long symphonies by Bruckner, Mahler or Shostakovich, are slow-burners for me. They become more lovable, the more I listen to them. I had the same journey with many of those pieces, 1st time you listen, you know there's something in them, but you don't know exactly what. It's only the repeated listening, which reveals all the intricacies and brilliance in those works. Especially those really long movements, they take many attempts to grasp, at least for us and I'm sure for many others too.
David, I love reading these kinds of stories. My experience with Mahler (and others) was quite similar! There was very little in the way of the music being “catchy” like a pop tune that gets stuck in your head on first listen. But, as one might expect with Mahler, the music was so bizarre that I decided I had to listen to another of his symphonies… and then another and another. And then I listened through the whole cycle again and have been repeating that for three years. Now the symphonies are some of my favorites. But even the other day I was listening to his third and for the first time felt completely blown away by it - after God knows how many listens. I truly think classical music is something where the pleasure derived is very often proportional to the effort to understand or at least the time to listen!
Just Stockholm Syndrome my way into liking the music. Got it.
Classical music is a lot like wine. You have your light White Zinfandels and your Pinot Noirs. That's your Mozarts, Haydns, Brahms, etc. Those are very easy for a novice to get into. Beethoven is your Cabernet Savignon. A step up, but still very accessible. Mahler and Shostakovich is more like an expensive dry French wine. People who appreciate wine will like it, but non-wine drinkers might have a little trouble with it. @@socaranectien1933
As a geology professor, I am particularly fond of your mineralogical analogy!
When I was 10 years old my mother took me to concert with the the St Louis Symphony Orchestra and was hooked ever since on classical music.I was fascinated by the Percussion players in the back of the orchestra and later on became a Percussionist myself specialising in playing the timpani. The classical music repertoire has beautiful timpani parts . David speaks from a Percussionist s point of view which I enjoy very much. His reviews are unsurpassable. Keep up the good work, David
I've been listening (listening, not hearing) Classical Music for fifty years, and know a bit by now, but there's still much more of the mountain to climb. I must commend this video as a beautiful thing - a wonderful explanation for newcomers and the experienced alike. Well done Dave.
The first movement of Mahler's third symphony to me is almost quite literally 'rock' music - it portrays the first appearance of inanimate matter in the universe before the arrival of animate life!
More advice for novices: 1) If there's a specific instrument you like, look for music that features that instrument, e.g. I love harp music; 2) Concentrate on movements, you don't have to listen to an entire symphony every time. I love the first movement of Beethoven's 3rd symphony. It's a roller coaster ride. You can listen to the rest of the symphony later; 3) Modern music isn't always dissonant and may make more sense to you. Check out Philip Glass's first violin concerto, for instance. 4) The revered composers aren't always the most fun to listen to. Find what tickles you and don't worry about if the composer is considered great. I will seek out composers I"ve never heard of. David Hurwitz's videos are good for finding "unfamous" composers.
Great talk, something I'm sure we wish we all had when we first started.
In my experience, one of the other things that trips up new listeners is the very thing this channel has spent so much time focusing on: the sheer abundance of recordings available for any given work. For any other genre of music, an album is an album is an album. You might come across all sorts of lists and debates and arguments over, let's say, which jazz albums a beginner to check out. But if that listener decides to go out and get Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," there's no question about which version to get -- there's only one version. Sure, there might be some "special edition" with bonus tracks or what have you, but by and large, that's inconsequential. The only time they might experience any option anxiety is when searching for a compilation or greatest hits -- an older artist like Muddy Waters or Patsy Cline might have multiple compilations on the market at any given time. But even then, it's much harder to go wrong.
Many listeners go into classical music expecting a similar experience, and the sheer volume of recordings is both overwhelming and intimidating. Regular viewers of this channel know the drill -- I seriously doubt anyone willing to sit through a 30 minute talk about the best recordings of the Busoni Piano Concerto doesn't know that being discriminating in your recording selections pays off. But that's not necessarily true for beginners. Streaming services only worsen the problem, as a simple search for basic repertoire can give you dozens if not hundreds of results.
One thing I always recommend to new people is to start with Chopin because the romantic style (especially his) is more suited to modern tastes than the classical or baroque styles. The beauty of Chopin's music is also undeniable and extremely obvious, anyone can appreciate it. You don't have to think too hard to appreciate a good melody. His pieces are also mostly very short so they're easy for people to listen to even if they don't have time. Chopin is a great gateway drug into classical music.
Baroque music is very close to modern pop and rock music, because of the basso continuo.
@@gartenkauz2152 Baroque music is technically close to modern music, but it doesn't sound that way. Romantic harmonies/melodies sound much closer to the type of stuff modern people are used to. Classical music has the reputation of being "stodgy" and boring, I think Chopin totally defies that stereotype.
Generally I find that Baroque music is harder to appreciate, especially for someone who doesn't normally listen to classical.
@@JG_1998 I don't know. Vivaldi is much more popular among casual listeners than enthusiasts, and Max Richer "recomposed" the Four Seasons for non-classical audiences.
Completely agree. I started with Chopin
One thing I have noticed about people who don't know classical music is that they think it means listening to Vivaldi's four seasons. They are completely oblivious to more modern composers like Stravinsky or Shostakovich or even Mahler.
I love classical, pop, jazz, new world, soul, blues...you name it, there is something somewhere i like. I listen to all music the same way. Probably the main difference with classical, especially 20th century, is duration. I think the key to ANY music (especially if it seems challenging initially) is to listen to it several times.
I still consider myself to be near the beginning of my dive into classical music, so I always appreciate these more beginner-oriented videos, and hopefully other beginners come across this as it does a great job of reinforcing some of the most fundamental principles of listening to classical music when coming from perhaps a more pop-oriented, or song-oriented, background. As someone who also liked to collect rocks as a kid (I remember one tiny store in particular I used to like to visit when we took vacations in Vermont), I also liked the mineral-based metaphors. Beautiful quartz symphony.
Dave--you must remember the Stereo Review Basic Repertoire: like 100 pieces with a single recommended recording for each. It made it very easy to start. Ever thought of doing something like this on Classics Today? I understand the videos do this, but the information is a bit dense for a complete neophyte. A simple checklist of available performances would lower the barrier to entry.
Sure, I may well. Thanks for the suggestion.
Since I started to seriously listen back in the 80s with rock music, there was always an album of 40 - 50 minutes length, where the 8 or 10 songs on it where the chunks. So for old school album listeners the longer formats of classical music are really no problem. Furthermore there's rock music albums which have the same format that many classical compositions have, namely progressive rock. Listen to the classic "Yes" albums like "Close To The Edge" or "Tales From Topographic Oceans" for example, you'll get about 20 minute long pieces, you can't call them songs no more.
Younger people who only listen to music by streaming, and often only to the most popular songs by any given artist, may have a harder task in adjusting to classical music. But for me, if I listen to "Tommy" by The Who or to Beethoven's 9th make formatwise no big difference.
I thought you were taking a break and then I see a new video appear?! 😕
I couldn't help it.
@@DavesClassicalGuide"add to watch later" +1 🙂
@@DavesClassicalGuide thats great lmao
Some advice for novices-- I don't have a long attention span, so I tend to repeatedly play less familiar works and pay attention to it some of the time but not for 40 minutes of focused listening. Over time, the whole work becomes familiar to me.
(Sometimes, I do focus on a work for its entire length, but even then repeated listening is neccessary to familiarize oneself with a work)
So... classical music is rock music? Did I get that right? Kidding aside, what a wonderful video, Dave. Helpful and entertaining as only you could present it.
Yes, because rocks stay at the same place. If you got smaller rocks like stones they may start rolling.
Came for the music education, got some solid geologic facts to boot! What a great method to compare the disparate packets in which music manifests.Thanks for such an entertaining talk.
Great Talk! Never a dull moment.
It is just over fifty-one years since I discovered "classical' music as a nine year old.
Nobody actually explained how to listen or what to listen for, but we had a weekly music appreciation class where the music was played for whole symphonic movements or for a Haydn scaled symphony the whole thing straight off, if we had played the movements separately the week before. The music master was a crabby old man, who happened to dislike me from the off.
I was so taken with the music that I taught myself to read the symphonic full score. I could read music because I was a simply appalling player of the piano. I knew what I wanted my fingers to do, but they would not do it reliably!
I was at this school four just over four years and in that time I played over and learned the entire 200 LPs and about 3000 78 records.That was a good starting point.
Thanks for your video, which will surely help others. I think I would have found the classics anyway, but I "knew" this was the music for me from the very start, in spite of growing up in a household, completely devoid of anything more serious than songs from Jim Reeves, Nat King Cole, and many others in the style!
Best wishes from George
Wow Dave, you can always surprise your viewers! Besides being the great help of making sense of the classical music record industry, you are a rock and mineral collector! I would love to get to know your rock/mineral collection or to see it in more of your videos!
Thank you for your great help and take care!
So great! Thank you!
thank you.
A suggestion: Perhaps you could devote a video (or two?) on what is involved in how to actively listen to music, attention spans being what they are with popular background music that overwhelms us societally...active listening skills require a focus on form and awareness of instrumentation that greatly enhances actually hearing (and thus appreciating) the glorious treasures of classical music
Like this "How to Listen to Great Music Playlist" for instance: th-cam.com/play/PLAjIX596BriEA5ZIverqMWBdW-UfswGiU.html
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thanks...how could have I overlooked this series of videos? :)
The first movement of Mahler's 3rd symphony to me is almost quite literally 'rock' music - it portrays the inanimate hard matter of the universe before the advent of animate life.
Welcome back, Dave !!!! Nice talk. Glad to see you got your ROCKS off. OY VEY, I know..... A good audible example could be Rachmaninov's: THE ROCK, Opus 7. O.K. O.K. I'll stop. Keep the videos coming now that your vacation is over... Fred
It's not over until Monday. That's just my vacation recreation.
Hi Dave, love the channel. A truly inspirational channel. Would love to have some thoughts/reviews on Eric Coates the British light music composer. There are lots of other excellent light music composers like Robert Farnon, Arthur Bax, Gilbert Vinter and if course Malcolm Arnold. Keep up the great work.
i am working through your videos backwards. i love these longer types of videos. thanks for uploading :)
Great video. Came such a good time as I have been spending the last 2 weeks getting into classical music. So far I have discovered that Piano Trout Quintet by Franz Schubert is the same song played by my washing machine.
Webern’s Im Sommerwind and Mahler’s 3rd Symphony were the first classical pieces that I fell in love with. The Webern was on NPR, and it was the performance by Dohnányi and the Cleveland Orchestra. It’s now one of my least favorite version of the early, pre-Schoenberg Webern piece. The Mahler symphony I first encountered from catching a documentary on the symphony itself (It was narrated by Stockard Channing. That’s the one detail I recall.). The themes and origins of inspiration for the piece were laid out and discussed in great detail and plain language. So, I bought the first CD of Mahler’s 3rd I found and was entranced by it start-to-end, and replayed it thrice. Luckily I got Bernstein’s 1960s recording of the Mahler symphony, and it pretty much remains my favorite. Boulez does both pieces very well. The floodgates were open for me after that. This is not an uncommon phenomenon as I’ve come to discover. I’ve spoken to many music lovers who have just stumbled upon a composition that first ‘clicked’ for them, and all the subtleties of the genre fell into place quite naturally for them after that. Some can’t really distinguish a fugue from a toccata, but love and know all Bach’s works, but some have Peabody or Berklee level education that cannot grasp much beyond Beethoven’s 5th & 9th Symphonies.
I was curious about classical music, now I'm also curious about rocks 😄. Like the comparison 👍
This video rocks! Sorry, but someone had to embarass themselves by saying it.
I would emphasize the need to listen rather than "appreciate." With some frequency, people say to me: "Maybe if I took a music appreciation course I would enjoy classical music more." This is backward--you need to enjoy classical music before investing time into understanding how it works.
But I don't know how learning to listen works these days. When I was first starting, it was the radio and a record of the month, leading to records of the paycheck when I got to college. With a limit supply, I had to listen over and over to the same pieces, so I learned to appreciate them. (Although it was decades later that I learned about the circle of fifths, sonata form, etc.)
With streaming and cheap downloads, how does anyone figure out what to listen to? And what makes people stick to listening to one performance of one piece? I'd be interested to hear how younger subscribers "got into" listening to classical music.
I remember a poster on a classical music forum who said they thought they should listen to classical music for "spiritual" reasons and asked for recommendations. I thought getting into CM for religious reasons (and not because one enjoys what they've heard) is a bad idea that will likely fail because CM requires an investment of one's time and attention.
I'm 25 years old, and I got hooked into classical music about 4 years ago, so I still consider myself as a "newbie" in the genre, even tho I already listened to a thousands composers works, because I'm a music lover and I love it every day almost all day; this is how my story went:
As a kid I had played clarinet for 3 years in the school's orchestra, so that might have helped with the basic understanding of certain musical forms, language that later on helped me to get into the genre. But I really got into classical music casually, as when I was a teenager I picked up a guitar; by that time I was just a rock/hard rock/metal/prog rock/blues/indie rock/sometimes jazz listener, so I was mainly into songs that could be played with just a guitar just as fine. Then I discovered classical guitar music, Tarrega in particular, that slowly opened me up to a new world of completely different guitar writing from our song-based era, not based on just "chords and solos", but whole musical stories that without too many cliches go straight to the heart and leave a sign like no other contemporary song can leave. Then, 4 years ago, after watching the movie Amadeus (which btw I had already seen as a kid but completely forgot) I checked out the Mozart's music that was accompanying the movie, and he himself the master opened me the door to this incredible world, that I never left since. I only listen to classical music by now, and I'm still discovering great pieces every day. All of the musical knowledge that I had to catch up with to understand what I was listening to came from just my curiosity, and there's plenty of books on the matter that helped me along the way too so that was rather natural. For that matter, I wish I'd known Dave's channel way earlier than just a couple of months ago! But basically yeah, that's how it went: Tarrega prepared me for the switch, and Mozart turned on the light. Since then it all came spontaneously as a burning unstoppable fire
@@fedegwagwa Thanks for sharing this. I think there are some people, like me and it sounds like you, who cannot be happy without music. I like all sorts, but there is such variety in classical and so much I still haven't really listened to, it takes up nearly all my listening time.
@@stephenkeen2404 Absolutely, I cannot imagine my life without music, and as I grow older I realize that for me it all revolves around it. Its probably the only thing that I actually could never give up on
Spectacular talk as always, Dave! This make me think a question, is there an objective list of introductory pieces to classical music, and I mean the most basic of basics? Would be a fun list to make, i hope 😁
I was thinking the same thing.
I think one relatively easy way is to look at what was played over a given season of a particular orchestra. For example, you could look at the website of the NJSO and see everything that they played in the last year. You could also read the notes (Most orchestras put the program notes online), and listen to many of those pieces on youtube (remember, we're just looking at introduction, not high fidelity). Then look at the year before etc. I'd guess that for any given orchestra if you listen to everything that they played in the last 3 or 5 years, you'd have a BASIC introduction to enough of the repertoire to know what you like.
Would love to see 10 best great works for beginners.
I will give a list:
Dvorak Symphony 9
Brahms Hungarian Dances
Beethoven Symphony 6
Handel Messiah Part 2
Mozart Piano Concerto no. 27
Schubert Trout Quintet
Haydn Cello Concerto no. 1
J.S. Bach Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue
Sibelius Symphony no. 3
Janacek Glagolitic Mass
@@patrickhackett7881 I aknoweldge all pieces on you list as being fantastic and ones I love, but I'm not sure a large wedge of Handel's Messiah, Sibelius' 3rd (why not the Karelia Suite, or En Saga or the 1st, 2nd or 5th Symphonies which, I would argue, are more initially excessible) and Janacek Glagolitic Mass (why not the Sinfonietta?) are good for beginners. I think we have be careful not to think what we like will be necessarily a good introduction for a novice classical music listener. Cheers
Great lesson for many people. I have people (including me) who wand to understand why I like classical music. One of the things that I can say is that it lasts or has lasted for a long time and has been revered over the years. I mainly have piano concertos and solo piano. I also like some pop music, mostly from my generation. W?hat would you say if asked why you like classical music? BTW, I enjoyed your review of the “Bar is Good Enough” with “Carrion”. Keep it going!
Very well done, Dave. It really rocks!
Rachs * you mean
Forgot to note earlier. That's a really outstanding hunk of blue smithsonite you have there. Ones that nice are hard to come by.
My parents' music of choice was classical music. They would play it more often than any other type in the 1960s when I was a young child, either from preferred radio stations or off of vinyl, both through a big old table radio. So I never "discovered" it. I was born into it. I find the way my contemporaries talk about music and their impressions of it is sort of foreign to me. I am trying to introduce a young person to this topic who is discovering it for the first time, and am trying to get him off this idea that everything is a song. But I take a lot of the classical forms for granted and it is difficult for me to explain the terminology. Why are symphonies broken into movements, and usually referred to in the key they are written in. As I teach, so I learn. Music without words is such an abstraction that it goes over the heads of many.
Love this video!! Thank you so much some of us don't have access to people to help guide us along and it's such a blessing to have a man who knows his stuff be able to guide you in the beginning!!! Your work is much appreciated sir!!!
Replying to my own comment beacuse I wanted to add that my biggest barrier was the words lol the terminology made it seem insurmountable but you really helped me see it in the proper form!!
Thank you!
Thanks for a great talk. I think I was always attracted to the idea of different and longer chunks of music, but what prepared me to begin my journey into classical music was listening to progressive rock music, which was itself influenced by classical musical forms. After listening to side or album length progressive rock 'songs' - really song suites with symphonic elements - and listening to them over and over again until I could really appreciate them, I was well and truly ready to listen to classical symphonies. I am not suggesting people listen to progressive rock before trying classical music. That just happened to be my own path.
That happened to me just the same!
Before the internet existed many of us were introduced to classical music from watching films. The 70's film Roller Ball featured a lot of Shostakovich. The Exorcist: Krzysztof Penderecki, Anton Webern, George Crumb and Hans Werner Henze. Stanley Kubrick films introduced me to Rossini, Beethoven, Khachaturian, Richard Stauss, Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki.......they were musical snippets and I wanted to hear more. Of course, many films featured original Classical music and being 61 years old I remember listening to Korngold's music while watching a film. Dare I forget to mention the music from the films of Sergei Eisenstein! This video had many words of wisdom for a newcomer to Classical music and the key, as Dave stated multiple times, is to have an open mind when listening. Great video!
You're so right, don't forget about classic cartoons and tv commercials, many of it included excerpts of classical music that were in public domain (like many other references like books and paintings from previous centures), that's one of the reasons of why many people are introduced to classical music, especially now that is availabe in Internet, especially TH-cam, probably the gemstone of classical music introduction to children is Disney's Fantasia. I have studied and admired Stanley Kubrick's filmography and he had such a great musical taste Music like Penderecki, Webern or Bartok really works in horror films, 2001: A Space dyssey is the reason of why Strauss II and The Blue Danube Waltz is related to space and why Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra intrdoduction is so famous and overplayed in media, it's so recognizable even for people who hasn't watched the film. I also discovered Rossini's La Gazza Ladra and William Tell overtures thanks to A Clockwork Orange, also Elgar's Pomp and Circunstance and I listened wholy to Beethoven's 9th, well I already loved Beethoven since I was a kid. Let's also remind that Prokofiev worked with Einsenstein! And yeah Korngold, the father of film music, also a great influence on John Williams scores!
I'm 18, I have always liked classical music since my Mother played classical music cds when she was pregnant, I listened to a cd of Beethoven's 5th many times when I was I started to go deep in classical music after listening to playlists and compilations of classical music in YT that included the most famous pieces, I wanted to know more about what those pieces meant and why they were called like that, since then my repertoire has expanded a lot, I'm currently in a conservatoire, I have been already in a music school because my country (Venezuela) has a network of orchestras, youth and children's choirs, I have played recorder yes, I've been in a children's choir and I have been part of ensembles of tubular bells (not the ones you might think, these ones are like a disassembled piano) and bronce bells, now I'm seekin to play piano.
@@jesustovar2549 I am a visual artist and no one in the family is musical inclined so any exposure to classical music was due movies and cartoons, particularly Looney Toons. The Bugs bunny parody, which still has me laughing, is the lampoon of Richard Wagner...too funny. I watched it with an soprano and it looked like she was both laughing and crying. I also forgot to mention classical music exposure by listening to Emerson, Lake and Palmer. They introduced me to Copland, Mussorgsky, Bach and Janacek. Look up Keith Emerson's Piano Concerto (Works album) and it is pretty good. Good luck in school and study hard!
Wonderful talk, Dave. An excellent 101 course for interested beginners. As a fellow rockhound, I like the choice of visual aids. Essentially the same progression I went through in learning the landscape of classical music so very long ago.
What a lovely video …. not a classical fan rather am a metalhead but really loved the vibe of the video
Thank you.
Por supuesto. Por ejemplo de ello cuando se escucha Bach o Beethoven, estas entrando un palacio por obra, Chopin o Grieg se entran en algunas cabañas, pero bajo el manto imponente del paisaje crepuscular. Mozart o Haydn es ver Pinturas de elegantes colores. Lo mismo de los barrocos italianos en puntillismo y opulentas construcciones. Grandes Sinfónicos como Mahler o Bruckner es un universo muy bien definido con las interpretaciones correctas. Wagner, más allá de la persona, tiene su mundo con un continente mágico. Las composiciones escandinavos y rusos, muestran lo majestuoso de sus paramos nevados y culturales, al igual que los compositores checos con lo verde, los ríos, los viajes y aventuras. Los postromanticos, modernos y contemporáneos están la visión de lo material y conflicto emocional. Cantos que dicen una cosa y lo musical otra. Eso es lo que me llegó a comprender las composiciones y estilos de música y sus consecuencias sobre que conllevan
David, Nice rocks! Are you a rock collector as well? Perfect analogy.
As I said.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Indeed. My attention must’ve been divided when you said it. Another question though: Did you ever think you’d use those rocks in a music video before? It’s like a spark of genius.
A great talk, I just wish it was around in the mid-90’s when I started listening to classical! Early on I stumbled across Haydn’s Creation & Mahler and I was hooked. I’m just starting a book on 20th century classical music called ‘Surprised by Beauty: A Listener’s Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music’, by Robert Reilly. With short chapters on composers like Koechlin & Sallinen it might be a good companion to some of your talks.
Reilly's book is a very good way to learn about a slew of lesser known 20th century composers.
Berlioz would like that Smithsonite piece of rock!
Long Live Rock!
This was a wonderful analogy--I love these stones also although my collection have far smaller pieces 😁
Although I have been listening to classical music since I was a child I never had any good grounding in its foundations or basic structure. Thank you for this introduction! Would love further videos like this covering different styles, periods, structures, forms etc 💗🎶🎻
That's the plan.
@@DavesClassicalGuide great really look forward to this!
I have head that that some of the Early. Composers used mathematics to compose thare work is that. True? Mark. From. Denver. I liked that Thomas De Hartmann talk you gave
Dear David, I enjoyed this video, even though I have been listening to classical music for a long time (it all began for me at an early age, when I heard recordings of Beethoven symphonies and Bach cello sonatas). I have a question, though: around the year 1600, scholars thought that Ancient Greek plays were accompanied by music, and opera was predicated on that assumption. Hence the work of Monteverdi and so on. Then I heard that modern scholars are trying to interpret the fragments of such music that we still have. What do you know of these efforts? Isn't it possible that what we call classical is actually more than 2,000 years old?
And thank you for all the videos!
Thanks for your kind message and your question. As far as I know, no one has been able to recreate the music of the ancient Greeks from the very, very limited available sources in anything but a highly conjectural way.
Great talk. But my question is how to listen to Romantic music. LOL!!! To one of your excellent points, I took a class in music appreciation (we had to take courses in the humanities to graduate) where the teacher, a musicologist who I got to know quite well, went on a tirade about how virtually every piece of music is called a "song" just as you did (although you weren't doing a major rant). The one basic distinction you didn't specifically mention is that a song is almost always sung (which isn't the case 100% of the time, for example, Mendelsohn wrote many "Songs without Words"). You did mention that the accompaniment can be quite varied, of course. As you pointed out, Schubert didn't have electricity, so he couldn't use synthesizers. Music is affected by the available technology at the time a piece was written.
As someone else mentioned, it might be nice to compile a list of basic music to introduce novice listeners to the various forms and styles of music. Maybe we subscribers could make some suggestions, along with your obviously well-considered choices (some of your "Miniature Masterpieces" and/or "World's Most Beautiful Melodies" would be good places to start as they aren't too long). Maybe a historical overview would be good, although I'd be tempted to start with a piece like "The Rite of Spring" to illustrate the fact that all "Classical" music isn't soft and quiet, as can be the common stereotype.
Have you seen the How to Listen to Great Music playlist? I'm doing just that.
@@DavesClassicalGuide
No I haven't. Thanks for the heads up.
IMO, the best single investment a novice could make is buying a decent Beethoven symphony cycle.
Great Talk. I loved the rock illustrations. I've been listening and going to classical music concerts and opera for a really long time. I learned a lot. My problem is that after all these years of listening....I can't tell if the symphony or the opera is well performed. Other folks I know never have this problem. Anyway, thanks for a great talk.
Don't worry, that's next.
I can listen to excerpts from operas and ballets, but never from symphonies. It makes no sense to experience the final resurrection in Mahler 2, without being tormented first, right? I listen even to the compositions like The Planets or Má vlast always in their completeness. Btw, the minerals are fascinating. There must be a lot of space at your place. :)
I covet that symphony of smoky quartz....
Years ago, I presented an 20 minute orchestral work I composed to a class of 5th graders. After the performance, a girl asked me “How long did it take you to write that song?”. At first, I was tempted to correct her in saying that it was a piece, not a song. But then I decided not to do that, because it might have lessened her enthusiasm in this genre in being corrected in front of the whole class, and I would have been looked upon as some kind of arrogant intellectual jerk. I really believe that this arrogance is one of the biggest reasons why a lot of people are not that into the classical world. They feel they have to be educated in order to have the ‘right’ to hear it. And every time I teach music appreciation, I really try to eliminate that barrier. Should I have corrected that little girl in front of the class? I’ll never know. Great video as always, David!
I doubt this video is aimed toward children who are indifferent to classical music, and are hearing it in music class.
This video's target audience is almost certainly to people already interested in classical music (maybe even from music class) and perhaps exploring it. At that level, one HAS to shed the "all music is a song" preconception, explicitly or implicitly, in order to love CM.
@@patrickhackett7881 I don’t think children are specifically indifferent to the classical genre. When I did that presentation of a piece of mine, they were very attentive and interested. And David has done a couple of videos entitled “Unconventional classics for kids”, more geared to what we’re talking about. I myself got hooked after hearing Puccini’s ‘TOSCA’ when I was 9. So, I dunno.
@@charlescoleman5509 Prepare to be dissapointed, then, as very few of them become CM enthusiasts. I'm not saying kids never become hooked on CM-- I'm saying the vast majority don't. While Dave's target audience is likely already hooked
@@patrickhackett7881 I meet a lot of people who genuinely like what I do once they hear it or hear about it. That’s one of the reasons I love to teach. For me, the general problem is that the classical establishment is too arrogant and the pop culture is too ignorant. (A long story in itself). I just take it one person at a time. I know I can’t reach everybody, but I enjoy the journey.
@@patrickhackett7881 By the way, don't you think that your "Prepare to be disappointed" comment seems a little pretentious?
I now feel stuck between a rock and a hard place after this talk. What to do?
Listen to music (example: Mozart's Symphony no. 40-- there are a bazillion recordings of it on TH-cam so you can listen without spending a dime.). Keep in mind that it has four movements-- all dark emotionally in the common symphony sequence fast-slow-dance-faster respectively.
Hi David, this is maybe off topic but since this is a educational video for Newbies like me I want to ask a question that I want to ask for a long time. What is a "chorale" in relation to a instrumental part? I've seen you referring to some passages from big works (e.g. finale of Bruckner' 5th). Now internet says it is some type of hymn-like tune that was sung in Lutheran church, that is not very helpful as I am not familiar with that either and I thought that would be exclusively sung by a choir. I was wondering if there is a more concise and relatable definition?
Well, it is a hymn-like tune, originally sung in church, but the tune and the harmony can be played by instruments (often the brass section) just as easily, and so the definition is a bit broader, but that's really all there is to it. The term is now used pretty loosely to apply to any music of a solemn or religious character, usually harmonized in full chords throughout.
@@DavesClassicalGuide thanks David, appreciated!
I am so sorry I learned about chords and progressions. Now I hear and recognise them all the time. It blocks the experience of words, sound, style, delivery, performance, arrangement... 🤪
I started watching this video just to see what he was doing with the mineral specimens.