The first 1000 people who click the link will get 2 free months of Skillshare Premium: skl.sh/12tone0820 Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) To be clear, you're allowed to like Beethoven! Lots of people do, and if you find his music meaningful and important I don't want to (and can't) take that away from you! But isn't it a bit weird that we've constructed a system where that's the only option? 2) Also, since I'm not sure I was clear enough on this point, I think DAMN is a very good album.
Great video! Some thoughts: If Beethoven had been a bad composer, say, if his 9th symphony used only two chords, he wouldn't have been part of the canon. It seems unreasonable to deny that aesthetic quality played some role in canon formation, just as it's unreasonable to deny that cultural factors also played a role. I also doubt the idea that there is *one* widespread use of the canon, as you implied by saying it's used as a gatekeeping device and not as a means for achieving musical quality. I agree that gatekeeping uses of the canon should be sharply critiqued, and I am on your side in that respect. Few things frustrate me as much as classical music lovers who look down on other kinds of music. But I think a more complete picture of the canon needs to acknowledge its use by practicing musicians as an impetus for and precondition of musical creativity. We don't create music ex nihilo. A canon, or canons if you prefer, allows us to enter into a musical tradition and develop it through contesting it. A tradition, in an important sense, is comprised of contestations of that tradition. The classical canon was formed by composers who, in various ways, went beyond and against the ideas of their predecessors. It is this side of canon formation that I think your video misleadingly leaves out. I agree with the gist of your video, I just wish it painted a more complex picture of canon formation. But I'm glad your video will spur conversations about this important topic!
@@m.l.pianist2370 I didn't go to music school, but I did take piano lessons with a couple different teachers over the span of about five years. They both heavily pushed the idea that Beethoven, Bach, Brahams, etc. were the greatest of all time. I didn't know enough at the time to contest that, so I believed it too despite none of their music resonating with me especially well. I thought there was something wrong with me, like I had bad ears or I wasn't smart enough to "get" the music. I think the point 12tone is making is that this type of attitude is pervasive in music education and popular understanding of music despite the fact that the composers that are on the list were simply, as he put it, at the right place at the right time. You say that aesthetic quality had to play a role, but how do you define what's good "aesthetically?" It's purely subjective whether a piece of music is "good." Complexity doesn't make a piece of music good, nor does simplicity. Consonance and dissonance can either be a good thing or a bad thing. A song can be great with or without lyrics or whether it has twenty key changes or zero. When you sit down and actually define "good," you'll realize that you can't because you can't describe something that's subjective using objective terms. Furthermore, I need to repeat 12tone's point that all of the composers in the Western Classical Music canon are white male German composers from a relatively specific time period. I'm going to assume that you agree that it's not a simple coincidence that all the "best" composers fit this description, so you have to admit that time, geography and culture played a significant part in choosing these composers. No one is really arguing that Beethoven was a *bad* composer, but it's completely valid to question whether he is a good composer and especially if he's one of the greatest of all time.
I'm a jazz musician and I started with Beethoven thinking he was overrated and could never be as good as everyone says. Then I really listened to his complete works and I must say he's really really that good, it's crazy how efficient and creative he was. And also looking at his context you can see how innovative he was, how he changed the course of classical music and how he battled and won trough all the struggles that came in his life. He's our hero in the western classical music world.
Compare it also to other fields, we all know Einstein, Picasso, The Beatles.. even if we are not familiar with their work. If you delve really deeply into their areas and historical contexts they definitely earn their place on the zeitgeist.
I think there is a lot that Beethoven wrote that is genuinely overrated in my book however I agree with you and listening to stuff like the Grosse Fugue ( honestly could've been written in 1925 not 1825) gives you an idea of how great and innovative he really was.
Tiago, I know that feeling so well. His immense reputation is to his detriment. I listen to all my Beethoven CDs in the car, and I love his music for its own merit. I would love to have an earnest conversation about the Archduke trio or the op. 110 sonata, but I feel like any praise I have for Beethoven is prejudged by others as fawning over someone inherently regarded as great with no merit. So it makes perfect sense that you would go into Beethoven imagining that he's overrated only to then be pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Genuine appreciation for his music in the modern day is a battle against the grassroots-esque mentality of "down with the dogma and hubris of status-seekers who listen to classical music in bad faith!"
Agreed. Strip away identity and judge the music entirely on the merits and you will probably still have some of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic masters show up on the list. Bach, Mozart, and Schubert might have gotten a little bump from being "old white guys" but to dismiss their greatness entirely because guilt over cultural exclusivity as opposed to the merit of the music seems to be falling into the same trap of dismissing music simply because of who wrote it. Haydn on the other hand was a hack who did just get a bump for being Austrian.
But in the same regard you are inside the system that created the canon so your opinions are distorted by it no matter how well intentioned you are. One would need a genuinely independent reviewer to see for sure. Some un-contacted islanders, aliens or AI!
Idk I’ve been exploring Beethovens actual obscure compositions and I’ve found many sonatas and piano pieces that are just magical that show a good understanding of how to make music that inspires
It's clear that Beethoven was exceptional, even if his importance was also inflated by German musicologists. We have quotes from Schubert talking about Beethoven as someone God-like even before this rise in nationalism. Beethoven was so important that his death caused a divide in the classical music world, the conservatives and New German School both believing themselves to be the correct answer to Beethoven's life. Clearly, Beethoven was amazing in his own right before his importance was blown up in later decades.
I agree. In the social circles I'm in, classical music is not seen as "high class" but pretentious, but I enjoy Beethoven anyway. His music works as low art that's nice to listen to and I'd argue that's much more impressive than any pedestal the rich can put him on.
@@PragmaticAntithesis lol "low art", wtf are you talking about? Beethoven sparked an era of music that spread well beyond pretentious aristocrats and is still taught to this day for a reason. You clearly are not a musician.
Every time a symphony does a piece of something less well known or more "weird" they'll do it alongside a Beethoven symphony or some equivalent. Ultimately they have to sell tickets.
If it were only about that, they wouldn't play new pieces at all. This is done to 'force' audiences to listen to the new pieces. Put Beethoven on your program and everyone will show up. Then play the new piece they wouldn't come for and people might discover something new they enjoy, or at least be exposed to things outside of Beethoven, Mozart etc. and slowly learn to appreciate new music.
I agree with Daniel Edwards. It’s not a bad thing that this happens. People like what they know and people know Beethoven (or at least those who appreciate classical music). Music is music and let people like what they want and let them discover new things! I think it’s too harsh to criticize Beethoven because the music is actually amazing! But it’s also completely ok and great to discover new music
All of this and so much of our world is just a sliver of what music is. Music is so vast and there’s so much of it around the world. I say just let people listen to what they want to listen! For example there isn’t a valid criticism against one a Hindu who only listens to classical Indian music. There shouldn’t be a criticism against one who only listens to the western classical “canon”
@@Nadav3.0 I'm not trying to criticize anything but I work with an orchestra and ultimately the decisions are financially motivated especially because people are starting to care less and less about classical music the so it's pretty much essential to milk the pieces that will sell yes it also gets more people listening to modern pieces but that frankly isn't the motivation
"Well, there was, his Fifth symphony, everyone knows that one, and his first, second, third, and fourth, which was like really cool too, and his, uh... His sixth one! Yeah, that was a great follow up, though his seventh was like not too great but okay. I loved his, uh, his moonlight sonata ones, and that one he didnt finish. Oh yeah, and his ninth."
@@jameswhitley4101 Don't forget the Pathetique Sonata (Opus 13), The Tempest (Opus 31), Apassionata (Opus 57), The Hammerklavier (Opus 106), and my father's favorite, the unnamed Opus 111. :)
@@photonicpizza1466 It's my 3rd favorite, after Pathetique, and Moonlight. While Moonlight is probably overrated, Tempest is definitely underrated, as you mentioned. ;) I note how all 3 of my favorites are piano sonatas, and if pressed I'd probably list more sonatas before listing a symphony (The 5th of course, followed by the 9th... I guess I'm pretty boringly conventional, and no surprise, the only instrument I can play at all is the piano... and no, I'm not good enough to actually play any Beethoven besides Fur Elise, and even that is a less than good rendition) I don't know where I was going with all this, but it is great to hear from someone who picks out the Tempest instead of Moonlight or the 5th... ;)
This whole conversation hits a lot of musicians who think the sheer quality of their music will be enough to gain an audience. Most artists hate the idea of marketing. Does great music rise like cream to the top on its own? Maybe some of it. The music industry would argue that they can make the public like anything with enough radio play, marketing and promotions. Some of yesterday's favorites are unknowns today.
I loved Billy Joel's "Shameless" when I got his album Storm Front. I was blown away. It seems like Garth Brooks felt the same and he was equally shocked it never appeared on the radio much less the charts. So he recorded a version which skyrocketed to the top of the charts. The song has become a part of the country canon and the canon of popular music in general. The difference? One person marketed it and the other didn't. You would think the sheer quality of the song would carry it but it didn't. But the big question is: Which artists and songs did history mistakenly forget and which ones did the industry push that should have been forgotten??
People think of The Doors and Queen as some of the greatest acts of the late 60s and 70s, but it wasn't until various movies came out that featured them that the public re-discovered them. I don't think they had that statue until the movies came out. The Val Kilmer one about the Doors and Bohemian Rhapsody was featured in at least two popular movies over the last couple decades.
The mention of how D.A.W.'s are ignored by school honestly made my day. as a mobile producers who specializes in hard bass music like Dubstep, I truly believe that EDM is one of the most forgotten and exiled umbrella genres. If you were to ask "name 5 music genres." or maybe "what music do you listen to?", most would either answer with "Pop, Rock, Metal, Country, and Rap." or "I don't know, whatever is on the radio I guess". and that really sucks, because there are some brilliant people who create amazing music that takes just as long, and just as much effort as other genres. hell, I decided to try and learn more about music to help me make my own better and be more happy with my final releases by taking a music theory class, and it has barely taught me anything of worth. I mean, it's barely even a music theory class, it's a music history class with occasional theory lessons thrown in. I don't even care about those lessons either though because I'm tired of that class and how much bs and useless info it's been giving me. I really wish that there was some class where one could learn about all 'main' genres of music. I want to learn more about how rock is made, have a lesson about how the vocalist of Gojira controls his voice so well while keeping the intense metal screaming and growling, something about the details in rap numbers, or something as broad as 'lyric writing'. sorry for the ramble, but thats been really getting under my skin for a while now...Have a nice day, Cheers! ^v^
If you're looking for more modern music that truly innovated and also happens to be more diverse in authorship, look at jazz. It stands on its own as a peer to the greats of classical tradition. The title of this video has little to do with its content and I wish a more relevant title were chosen instead of clickbait.
@@marioaviles19 if you have any recommendations that mirror the musicianship in Jazz, I'd love to learn more. I've found the popular music that I've heard to be bland especially from a melodic and harmonic perspective and that has been an obstacle to my appreciation of the genre. I think I am simply ignorant of what is out there, though I concede that I have a strong bias in favor of Western musical practice including the innovations that Jazz brings. That bias may be an insurmountable obstacle but if I can learn to appreciate it I would like to.
@@FubukiShiromiya well, I think that what will help you better appreciate this more modern style is by focusing less on the harmonic and melodic material and focus on the other elements of the song. Namely the production. That said, I think you'd get a lot out of Kendrick Lamar's music
@@marioaviles19 Thank you for the recommendation and perspective. I'll check it out and hopefully develop a deeper appreciation or at least better understanding of the genre.
In my long distant past, I played plenty of Beethoven. "Moonlight Sonata, the first movement" was my favorite piece for decades. He's got a LOT out there, and I enjoyed him greatly.
Another point about Ludwig was that he was mostly deaf for half of his life. I can't think of another composer who has that disability. Like an Olympic sprinter having one leg
Shakespeare is damn good, but he's so flawed, and we don't have any genuine manuscripts of his, afaik, they were all collected from each actors' parts. Academic Literature needs some better authors than an English guy and some white Americans who were to liberal in their use of the n word
@@spartacuz9er9er69 damn straight. he's good, don't get me wrong, one of the best to ever do it. but he's not the be all end all. hes really not all that relevant in today's field of literature, and I think we should stop acting like he is tbh
@@dylandarcy1150 I would disagree with that, many of his works still are relevant, Julius Caesar and the Tempest off the top of my head, but some (Taming of the shrew, say) do need to be left out, or at least critically analysed. Personally, I love to read his works with a feminist or progressive eye, just to see how much was a product of his time, and what wasn't. Take the work of Arthur Conan Doyle for instance, the original Irene Adler is a proto-feminist icon, she is objectively in the right in her story, and outsmarts Holmes. Is she a particularly powerful woman by modern standards? No, of course not, but the beginnings are there, they're just affected by the culture
I mean.. its obviously a clickbait title but you never even try to make that point. Trying to prove that Beethoven is considered great for reasons that aren't the quality of his music doesnt prove that the quality of Beethoven's music isn't great. I spent the whole video looking for an objective analysis to back up the title but it just isn't there. I love your work 12tone, but the title is too obvious of a troll, and unnecessarily agitating.
I agree the video title was clickbait, but based on the video itself, his focus wasn't on measuring the quality of Beethoven's music but on a distinct but related topic: the formation of the classical music canon. Keeping that in mind, I think his video did a great job of presenting his view on canon formation.
I think the title is really apt: the only reason the title is clickbait is because Beethoven is so accepted as one of the greats, and the video dives right into the analysis of why specific composers are considered great.
Beethoven has meant a lot to me over the years. He regularly explores tragedy and hope. He’s very versatile through different stages of life. I’ve also really come to enjoy Dvorák, Rossini, and others. I try to branch out and regularly engage with music by composers other than white men. Some of it really resonates me, and some of it doesn’t. Ultimately, I believe that’s okay. If you love Beethoven and want to listen to nothing else, that’s perfectly okay. If you hate Beethoven and he does nothing for you, that’s okay too. Art is subjective. Don’t force yourself to follow someone else’s standards-and don’t force someone else to follow yours. Find what you like, and allow others to do the same. It’s beneficial to branch out sometimes, but you do you.
Are you kidding? I love Beethoven and have listened to *a lot* of his works. All of his symphonies, most of his sonatas, a lot of his string works, all bagatelles. And Beethoven is my favorite composer. And there are so many things that make Beethoven great, with these just being a few: - Quick, 1 chord modulations, often using a diminished seventh chord - Unifying themes of extreme contrast via shared motifs(Like for example, a fast, tense, energetic, minor theme unified with a slow, peaceful, tranquil, major theme e.x Fifth Symphony First Movement) - Parallel major-minor motions that feel like modulations in their own right(In fact, I often use the term Parallel Modulation to describe what happens in for example the second B section of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata Rondo, where it sounds like it's going to end in a peaceful C major and then *Bam!* 1 chord and you are back in the tense C minor, because just saying Modal Interchange sounds so wrong when it isn't only a few chords of major in otherwise minor or vice versa, but Parallel Modulation sounds right, regardless of how many people say it isn't a thing) - His use of Chromatic Mediants to both add and release tension(His Pastoral Symphony and the Tarantella from his 18th piano sonata both have these distant but still connected chord relations) And I could go on and on, but you get the point. Point is, so what if musicology is screwed at it's core? So what if Beethoven broke the rules more often than Mozart and Haydn before him? He is still a great composer because his music is great. Beethoven didn't suck! People say he's a rough orchestrator. Not for his time he isn't! People say he wasn't good at Counterpoint. Uh, have a listen to Grosse Fuge and see if you still think he isn't good at Counterpoint. Counterpoint changes with time you know, from the strictly algebraic that is Bach's day to just 2 melodies that sound good combined(Modern times). You can't judge a book by it's cover. You need context. I have that context because I listen to Beethoven all the time. Most people do not have that context.
As much as I agree with you, I do think Beethoven still revolutionized music by using very clever ideas to push classical forms and tonality to their limits, thus allowing romanticism to blossom. A closer look at his music easily reveals the scope of his intelligence. But admittedly, it could have been anyone else. He happened to have pretty much nothing more to do, had access to top-notch education, and the time was very right.
Vayhef - this argument cannot mean ‘anyone else’ it could mean something similar to what Malcolm Gladwell says about Bill Gates. He was born in the perfect year (1955) to an upper middle class family with access to a time sharing computer. But the many thousands of others with similar advantages didn’t create Microsoft. Beethoven has an incredible ear, endlessly inventive and exhaustive. He worked his buttons off and struggled with the rich assholes he depended upon. It wasn’t a difficult or close call about Beethoven, Mozart or Bach. Musicians knew this and the Canon is influenced by that the same way Dizzy can vouch for Parker or Keith Richards for the Blues masters who never profited from their work.
@@reganjo1955 good point, I should have been more nuanced on that. After all, many 19th century composers were so impressed by Beethoven's work that it detered them from walking in his steps, stating there was no point in doing so since he had already reached the top of the mountain. They refused to write pieces that would sound like "Beethoven but worse". If anything, that has to be the proof that in addition to having created the right art at the right time, he did actually perfect it, so much so that no one would dare walk in his shoes for decades. So yeah, he had it all : circumstances and genius.
@@jankbunky4279 it's still a bit confusing imo since I don't remember him really stating how witful and impactful Beethoven's writing was, which would make one think his fame is undeserved. But yeah it's no big deal, the video is still very insightful.
I don't believe it could have been anyone else. There are maybe a handful of other composers throughout history you could put in Beethoven's place and yielded results of the same magnitude.
I'm so glad you mentioned Florence Price. I started listening to her work when my piano teacher assigned one of her pieces to me, and I was really taken aback by how incredible she was. Her symphonies are easily some of my favorite pieces of music, period.
@@rossconnolly3402 -Beethoven sucks, who has even listened to him? Its probably because hes old. Do you like music? Well I bet you havent listened to him anyway, god forbid studied him. Etc etc etc
@@RobinJWheeler I'm a 20 year old classically trained pianist and I compose, the uploader is an idiot and not qualified to make videos about the master Beethoven.
@@rossconnolly3402 I like a lot of his other videos and he knows what hes talking about a lot more than me. Its just a bit weird for him to act like Beethoven wasn't as incredible as he was.
recognizing other new geniuses does NOT require to destroy and replace old school composers! Why should we replace them, when we can just add more to the canon?
To add to that: who can say that our changes to a canon are not just as politically motivated? Sure a canon will represent the zeitgeist but I find it worrying when people say we can update or change a canon to be "correct". It will always be an imperfect tool, which luckily plenty of people already know. Contrary to what this video seems to suggest.
@@kj_H65f I did watch a video, did you? The video literally suggests that Beethoven literally got on the cannon out of sheer f****** luck. It named some women composers and composers of color, but I wonder what those composers had said about Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart? All right, they all hail damage the greatest composers and would have never have dared to even try to compare themselves, as most composers during the nineteenth century Europe also would never have dared.
@@kj_H65f If Beethoven actually sucks at music and is only on the canon as a matter of some cosmic fluke, he OUGHT to be removed. Follow the reasoning of the argument ACTUALLY being made in this video.
Beethoven wasn’t such a snob himself: everyone knows about his Pastoral 6th Symphony, but he also included Folk influences in his 2nd Symphony, which I like to call the “Rodney Dangerfield” symphony because it don’t get no respect. The second Larghetto movement is gorgeous, the Scherzo is Schizoid, the final movement starts with a musical fart joke, and it’s generally quite nuts.
I'm interested in an explanation to the "fart joke" in the finale. I've been exploring Beethoven's symphonies lately, and gave the 2nd a listen. I absolutely loved the 1st movement, thought the 2nd was great too, and was disappointed in the 3rd and 4th movement.
Any Scherzo that isn't schizoid is doing it wrong. Scherzo literally means "joke" and sometime I feel like the only person who ever understood that was Dvorak who starts the scherzo for the New World with a percussionist going nuts on the triangle. :) I've definitely always described the opening of the 2nd's finale as the musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel :)
@@5BBassist4Christ The "fart joke" isn't canonical: it's based on what people knew about Ludwig at the time, complaining about gastric problems. I see that as trying to cheer himself up and have some fun during the very difficult period when his hearing was clearly deteriorating.
I dunno about the music theory world, but in my very first year of my undergrad in lit, all my profs tried to remind us at every turn that the literature canon is inherently political and reflects the priorities of the academics who defined in during the 1900s. Given, I like to think I was in a lit program that tried really had to include nonwhite, female, lower-class voices in its program. My topics classes were all on things like the relationship between slavery and the literature by black authors over time, literature written by women who live in war-torn regions, the navigation of culture identities by writers who immigrated to our country, ect. Can't say if that's reflected in some of the more *ahem* "prestigious" programs in lit academia.
I always love these videos that are critical of how we think about and evaluate music. It’s all ultimately subjective, but the powers that be are always trying to create hierarchies that justify their own preferences and positions. Music is not a competition.
I'm a fan of this nuanced critique of a canon that I never gave much thought to. Makes me glad that some of my favorite artists don't just pull from classical influences, but also non-western stuff to. I also thank peeps like Adam Neely for opening my ears to "non-standard" harmonies, scales, and rhythms.
I think it presents a one-sided portrayal of the classical canon. He does present that one side accurately, but he leaves out how the classical canon has always been contested by its participants. As Charles Rosen puts it, "The essential paradox of a canon, however-and we need to emphasize this repeatedly-is that a tradition is often most successfully sustained by those who appear to be trying to attack or to destroy it. It was Wagner, Debussy, and Stravinsky who gave new life to the Western musical tradition while seeming to undermine its very foundations."
This video has several of the kinds of moments that I find the most persuasive of all; where I put my agreement or disagreement to the side because what I'm hearing is so plainly-simple and good humored (I laughed at the parts about Pink Floyd) that it makes more sense than something complicated, snobbish or mean-spirited possibly could. By 5:42, you've at least hinted at the main point. The late 1700s were a time of great worldwide class struggle, where an upper class had their elite music, and the "lower classes" still wanted to sing songs and have parties and dancing. It was two directly-conflicting ways of "owning" music (and other arts) that has for centuries been a defining aspect of the struggle for spiritual freedom. Long live rock and roll, folk, hip-hop, and enjoying life.
When people critically discuss the canon why do they focus so much on German composers? I've never thought of the canon as consisting primarily of composers of the Austro-German tradition. Think of all the operas that come out of Italy and France, not to mention their instrumental music. There are Russian composers (Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Korsakov, Mussorgsky), Czech (Dvorak, Smetana Janacek), Spanish (De Falla, Albeniz, Granados), Finish (Sibelius), English (Elgar, Holst, Britten, Vaughan Williams), Hungarian (Liszt, Bartok, Kodaly), American (Gershwin, Copland, Stil), French (Saint Saens, Faure, Lalo, Debussy, Ravel), Italian (Vivaldi, Rossini, Puccini, Verdi), just to name a few.
Yes, but all these names are all white Europeans. According to the youtuber it must be because of the canon. Otherwise why we can't name any African or Chinese classic European music composer? That's why Beethoven sucks 🤔
@@dav77h He specifically says the canon focuses on Germanic composers. This is just not correct. And of course the European canon is predominated by white people, it's European. Also, the view of history presented in this video is high biased, IMO. Moreover, the music of William Grant Stil (who I mention above) and more recently Florence Price are receiving quite a bit of performance time. Beethoven clearly deserves to be in the canon; it is a difficult thing indeed to alter the course of music history. It wasn't just because Beethoven was born at the right place and in the right time; it was because other composers deemed him worthy of imitation.
@@FraudMonet You got me. I watched to the end of the video because I disliked it so much. I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
I think that this is very true for non classical musicians and composition and theory students. However, as a performer, I don’t view the canon as, well, a unified canon, but more a set of ancestral lines with music. For example, I trace a line from Haydn to Mozart to Schubert, because their music is similar. There’s a line of French music which culminated in Debussy and Ravel, a line of Italian works, especially in opera, a line of Russian, a line of Eastern European (Chopin and Liszt), a folk line, and... yes, a German line, which brings me to my other point. There is a lot of argument, to this day, as to what defines the real German lineage. Brahms and Mahler went off in one direction and Wagner and Strauss in another. I think this is another reason why we see an over representation of Germans in the overall canon: because the true lineage is highly contested and there are 2 competing lines instead of one.
I love this so much. It’s very reminiscent of what’s happening in the visual art world. For so long we were told, in particular, that female artists just didn’t exist in the past, and now suddenly many of the big galleries are looking into some apparently long forgotten room in their stacks and finding art made by women to go out on display.
Say one thing for old Ludwig: while all the classical canon composers were rhythmically stunted as a result of not being exposed to African music (that's why I had expected this video to be about), Beethoven was shockingly funky in comparison to the others. Just listen to the rhythms in the first minute or two of Symphony 3: Mvt. I. You can find the most prevalent West African bell pattern in there and he's doing wild things with it. I'm guessing that if Beethoven had been given access to 2020 TH-cam, he would have gone wild with it. He was also considered a wildly anti-canon musical arsonist during his lifetime. In fairness, he also appears to have been one of the most appalling jackasses in history in terms of his personal life.
10:00 "can we do something about that"? yes. - classical german canon - new german canon - english canon - french canon - etc etc etc. - european canon (assembled from equal number of things chosen from national canons of european cultures) - western canon (assembled from equal number of things chose from european+english+american(+australian?) canon - eastern cannon with similar structure under it (i'm no expert on eastern cultures so i can't enumerate it in as much detail as the western one (or even american one)) this kind of granularity basically for every subject if you want. then every region/school/state/whatever entity people decide that is appropriate decides the primary canon of its educational institutions, and some secondaries (which are optional). students can then choose which canon they want as their primary and optional secondary, and would get education according to that. - ...humanity canon? an extraction of all knowledge, ideals, and morals which are the intersection of everything that humanity can agree on as a whole? hm... naiive. but a nice sentiment/aspiration.
I get the relativization of the canon, but in a way such a line of thinking seems unavoidable. Why is Kendrick Lamar the best and not some obscure rapper from the Middle East or whatever?
Sure, but 1. the Pulitzers are for American composers and musicians specifically (I think). 2. Kendrick is new. There is a hip-hop canon, for sure, but it’s still more malleable than the classical canon. 3. The problems with the classical canon are tied to the problems of Western/European/white society as a whole. The hip-hop canon isn’t like that (though you could say it has a different set of problems from a different culture-a culture that isn’t dominant or politically powerful like the one that determines the Western classical canon). This video kind of covers two topics in one: the inherent problems of the classical canon and the problems of having such a canon in our culture and history in the first place. It’s a lot more than about relativization specifically.
Yeah, back when it first came out, I kind of didn't care much at all, but now, when it's highlighted like this, I'm like "Well, he's good, but, really, the best? He's not even the best with a wide audience."
Because his writing and rapping ability is so exceptional and filled with so much personality that other rappers with similar abilities don't have mainstream appeal because of their non-mainstream rap style. But Kendrick still managed to have a wide appeal with his music despite his unique style.
@@genm4827 Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I'm not dissing on Kendrick, or the Pulitzer pick; it's just that "there's no objective metric to take Beethoven as being better than Kendrick" can also be applied within the same genre of music, as the video actually does within the classical canon ("why not chopin?").
@@BCKBCK Sure. I don't think it's wrong to have preferences or rankings both personally and socially, but I think it's important to keep in mind who's writing the narrative and why (and maybe do something about it, like talking about it to the public in a TH-cam video). That way individuals can maintain their agency, while society as a whole can prevent itself from being entrenched in bad habits from the past (ideally). Kendrick Lamar, for example, has married social commentary, rap virtuosity, and fantastic storytelling into a number of albums considered modern classics. Most people haven't done that, especially in the past decade. But yes, there are less famous rappers who might be glossed over in conversations like this-say, Black Thought, for instance, who deserve more recognition. I know a number of rappers myself in the underground New York rap/jazz scene that are fantastic, but keep mainly a local following. I'm fine with people holding Kendrick Lamar in high regard, even considering him the best (at the moment), but I think it's dangerous to start worshipping artists and assuming they somehow are inherently synonymous with being the best, or what others' opinions have to be about them. I think that's one takeaway of the video, but with classical music, the whole history of European nationalism, colonialism, and aristocratic and racial elitism do come into play. A person who thinks Beethoven is the best, even if he came to that conclusion after listening to a lot of classical pieces, probably didn't come to that opinion in a vacuum; in fact, it's kind of impossible, considering Beethoven's reputation. It's fine to have that opinion, but it is important to keep in mind why there is social pressure for others to share that opinion, and critically examine what those social pressures really mean.
Kinda interesting that this is coming out at this time... As something similar is happening across the board in various music genres and cultures, rap and rock especially. Would've been interesting if you touched on this phenomenon's relationship with other genres of music, how elitism and taste are the double edged swords that are acknowledging key players in a given scene, but also tearing communities apart over who is the best in a given genre instead of just simply enjoying the music. I'm not talking about people giving their reasons as to why they like a certain artist or not... I'm talking about people that merely say "oh, that artist is cringe" because they don't understand the intention or simply don't like the artist or they play the race card, or argue that quantifying "success" such as longevity or albums sales is a trash way to say an artist is good. Perhaps next video could dig a little deeper into this rabbit hole, just by going over other representations of this happening in other genres... It'd at least be an interesting discussion. End note: enjoy the music you want to listen to, but also don't be afraid to check out other artists of different styles of music. And the end of the day, musicians and artists just want to make a living doing what they enjoy doing. Support smaller artists when you can.
One thing that is often missed in the conversation: I can sit down at my piano right now and play through a Beethoven or Florence Price Sonata. My relationship with them is active and ongoing. I enjoy Kendrick Lamar, but as his art is in the form of mechanical reproduction my relationship with him is a passive one.
I mean, if you just listen he is pretty freakin good lmao. It isn't like he had Pro Tools or Ableton to record his symphonies and sonatas. He even wrote great music when deaf. And the ideas and structure are about as sonically pleasing as any music from his age. That being said composers back then had to be sponsored by roaylty so of course there was tons of musical potential untapped due to lack of opportunity. But if you don't think Beethoven was all time great, just try to do some of what he did. Put away all your music tech and compose something using only paper and your memory.
I can never answer the question "What's your favorite movie?" How do I compare a Billy Wilder Comedy to Guardians of the Galaxy? The idea that some specific composer, some style or canon of music, etc. are the "best" just doesn't make any sense to me. I can't compare Brandenburg Concerto #3 qualitatively to Bowie's Life on Mars.
What you enjoy is better. That's it :) If you enjoy post malone more than beethoven then that means, to you posty is better. That's literally it. F*ck the haters.
I started liking Beethoven when I watched the movie "My Immortal Beloved". Lol. Hard to imagine I liked his music just because I'm a haughty little bitch.
12tone, I don't disagree with the essence of your thesis here, but I don't think you give an accurate depiction on a lot of the things in this video, and you can lead your audience to misinformation. For example, in OUR generation Beethoven might be only known for a handful of snippets from his most famous compositions, so calling him great would be hypocritical by this standard, but Beethoven enjoyed a huge longevity throughout the XIXth and XXth centuries with (white) people loving many of his sonatas, string quartets and symphonies. Beethoven really captivated audiences before and after his death, so it was not merely a case of people repeating the word of authority. Today it might be the case, but historically it was not coincidence or conspiracy that put Beethoven at the top of the pedestal. And we'll also find many detractors comfortable enough to share their opinon for not liking his style. Things were a lot more genuine when classical music was still a living thing in culture instead of a museum relic.
"So does Beethoven suck at music? Nah I don't think so, but more importantly I think that question misses the point." My brother in Christ, YOU named the video.
Years ago In an interview Mike Tyson was asked to comment on Floyd Mayweather’s assertion that he (Floyd) was the greatest boxer ever, instead of muhammad ali who is widely recognized as boxing’s GOAT. Floyd cited his perfect record, unique defensive style, and “not taking punishment” during fights that makes him the greatest boxer ever. Mike responded (I’m paraphrasing): “he’s delusional. Greatness isn’t insisted upon or argued over- it’s simply understood.”
I have so many complaints that I don't know where to start and I'm too lazy to write about all of it. First off, music is subjective sure, but music theoretical standards still emerge which can almost be treated as objective. There is bad music, like the futurism "music" which is not necessarily bad because the concept was bad but rather because the composers were bad. Beethoven was a musical genius and can be judged as such by the almost objective standards. I'm not putting him on a pedestal with Mozart and Bach, I think Mozart is boring and overrated (which might just be that I can't relate to his music), and I barely listen to Bach and don't understand why he is as famous as he is, and I only like some of Beethoven's music, but the thing is that my taste is irrelevant for whether or not Beethoven was a musical genius. I've played some of Beethovens works and regardless whether they are my taste of music or not the, orchestration for example is really good for how the orchestra looked at the time, and when playing a bad composer, it's immidiately noticeable that the music was done by someone who didn't know what they were doing. That said I don't think Beethoven deserves to be some kind of undisputed genius. My favourite composer is Shostakovich and I think a lot of other composers like Mahler and Brahms compete for the title of writing the best music, and they had the advantage of being able to use the full symphonic orchestra at its height while Beethoven wrote for an orchestra where the brass and percussion were still developing. Which composers are good ultimately gets decided by which music the classical community likes the most. It's a completely separate genre from pop music and barely comparable. Comparing them would be like comparing Shakespeare with fan made short stories. Do you have to like Shakespeare more than the shirt story? No. Is Shakespeare objectively better than the short story? No. Can you compare the two? Not really. Yet still, if someone wondered why that short story was not counted as equivalent to the works of Shakespeare you would laugh at them unless it was just out of this world good on a deeper level than that it just fitted your tastes more than Shakespeare. Shakespeare might be a bad example because I haven't read or watched any Shakespeare, but I'm certain that if you were to critically review his works, just like with the great composers it would turn out he became accepted as being a great writer for a reason. Yes the cannon reinforces itself but mostly among non musicians. Most people I've talked to who think Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are the 3 best composers don't even listen to classical music. Ask actual musicians and the opinions will be far more diverse but the names will still be there because they like the music, Mozart and Beethoven at least. I barely hear anything about Bach. People who do not listen to classical music do not set trends. Yes, the cannon is full of white men but even though there are some female and non white composers in history, if they had written music as good as the recognized masters, that would have been brought up in an era where everyone is head over heels to promote female and racially diverse people. Speaking of skin colour, Mahler was a jew living in Austria during the rise of nationalism. He got famous during his own time for being a great composer despite being of a race that everybody hated throughout most of history. It's not that white men wrote better music it's just that most white men wrote shit music and were forgotten to history, and so most female composers should also be expected to write shit music, but because there were so many more white men dedicating their lives to music, there are so many more great white male composers. As for why there are so many German composers. In and around the 19th century the musical centres of the world were Paris, Wien and Moscow where Paris and Wien competed with eachother and Moscow was a bit isolated from the rest of europe and produced distinctly Russian composers with different styles from the central European one. Paris and Wien were where central European people studied to get the best musical education and learned from the great masters at the time. Is it so weird that French, German/austrian and Russian composers are overrepresented?
I suspect that many people know at least part of Moonlight Sonata if for no other reason than it appears in the soundtrack for numerous '80s/'90s era computer games
i love to think about the drawings you do during these because sometimes they just confuse me entirely or make me die from laughter. >white men >*draws fry from futurama*
The opinion that Beethoven is one of the greatest composers doesn't come from people who hardly know his music. It comes from people who really studied many of his works. A great deal of musicians, conductors etc and 'just' listeners in the 200 years since he died, enjoyed and admired his music. It was/is deeply meaningfull too them. That is what gave him his reputation, the music itself. It has little to do with people idolising someone or the opinion of experts or canon. Many composers who were considered great in their days have been forgotten. Beethoven is still played and listened too by people today because they enjoy it and it is meaningfull to them. I think this will stay the same in the future for a long time. You should ask yourself which music that is produced today will still be listened to in 200 years.
There must be something on B's music what makes his music beloved for generations. Sure, there's also some portion of luck, why it was him and not someone else from his generation. But even comparing "historical" classical musical with "modern" classical music (which is more fair than comparing with other genre) one easily recognizes, that while old pieces are melody to the ear, modern classical music is either cacophony garbage (most performance music) or simplified version of the art (some OST).
Overall I appreciate this video. I am developing a serious interest in Renaissance polyphony, and I continually marvel at the fact that my gronding in common practice period harmony and formal construction has done nothing to prepare me to grapple with modal compositional practice.
Why did Germans get to decide what the canon was? Why didn't, say, the English write about musicology and declare that English composers were the greatest? Or likewise with Italians? Was music just more popular in Germany?
Music wasn’t more popular in Vienna than in London,say, but it had a higher concentration of talent and infrastructure I guess. A bit how New York gets to decide financial matters today or LA decides entertainment things. And the English and Italians have their own composers but with still champion Beethoven that’s what gives his place in the Western canon rather than just the German one. Also influence is a big thing. Essentially all subsequent classical music is influenced by Beethoven.
Alex Shih i’m way more into mozart than beethoven--same way i’m way more into jerry garcia than jimi hendrix--the melodies, to my ear and sensibility and soul-r sooo much more sweeter and dripping w/ pathos. so ur not alone!!! but i wudnt necessarily recommend my company-i’m a dipshit!!!
I love Beethoven, and really kind of feel like Mozart is overrated. Mozart is good, no denying that, but there is key difference between the two. Everything just comes so easy to Mozart. Every single note just leaves you thinking, "Yeah, that was the right note, of course it was. There is no doubt about it." For Beethoven, it didn't come as easier. He explored every musical possibility until he found the right note, and you can feel that quest in his music. Sometimes he had the "right note" syndrome of Mozart, but then he frequently also had notes that left you thinking, "That wasn't what should have been the right note, but it was the perfect alternative note to open a new world of possibilities to what the right note can be." And that is why Mozart is the perfect prodigy who never messes up, and Beethoven is the man struggling through life, but never gives up until he finds his own way. Beethoven better captures the essence of being human.
@@5BBassist4Christ We're all entitled to our own opinions, but my problem with this common justification is this: why is being "perfect" less interesting than having to struggle? Why does contentment have to be less interesting than strife/angst? For me, it's Mozart who captures the essence of being human. Beethoven captures the essence of being Beethoven.
Of course, 12tone recognizes this point later in the video by saying that Beethoven doesn’t suck. The title is purposely provocative to demonstrate the ridiculousness of outrage despite 99% of the audience having barely listened to Beethoven’s music. His point is that those upset by this statement aren’t formulating their own opinions by blindly trusting the canon.
@deez No. His point is that you should make up your own mind. I think Beethoven had some really good pieces. Some not so good. He's criticising the cultish mentality people have to 'the Western Canon' (which doesn't even really exist, as he explains).
@@shogan3243 It's so confusing to me, you don't need a deep understanding of quantum physics to understand that Einstein was one of the greatest physicists ever, next time someone mentions how smart Einstein was, ask them if they've solved a physics problem using his Theory of Relativity. It's like these people are being pretentious while pretending to not be pretentious.
2:05 _"but in terms of cultural influence, the classical canon is by far the most important one"_ XD !! Love your talk and how much you are fighting against your cultural conditioning, but you couldn't escape it here. Not sure how you are defining 'cultural influence' or 'important', but most of the definitions I can think of would mean the contemporary hip hop canon is more important than the classical one. Seems more honest to say 'my expertise is in the classical canon, so I'm focusing on that one here'
There is a generalization regarding the canon of Western music which could be asserted and that I believe is both valid & true; an idea/concept/notion which you have kind of hinted at, but not fully expressed... While there is probably some music in the canon that doesn't really deserve to be there, it is all of the music that should be there which is missing that is far more important & upsetting than the music that may not really deserve the continued recognition & attention it gets. And, BTW, I am referring to music which has not been lost to us. In other words, music for which some kind of score or viable & sufficient instructions exist to reproduce it, or of/for which a recording exists... (Just to be clear)
I find it interesting that no new classical music is written that is as good a the canon. Why not? Surely the musical talent exists, probably way more than back in the days. Do all talented musicians do modern music styles instead? Or is it somehow "lame" to do old school classical music that is pleasant to the ear? I genuinely wonder! The only modern orchestral music that pleases the crowd seems to be movie score like John Williams etc.
Oh, there are thousands of composers today that write fugues alla Bach and piano concerti alla Mozart. You can find such music on musescore where they share their scores, or even on TH-cam. Unfortunately, noone cares, because imitating Bach is somewhat unoriginal, and also because their music just sounds like second rate Bach.
Yup, this is just America - or maybe just you. I'm from Europe, I've been educated in music, and no one has ever told me that there is "one singular greatest composer of all time". Music history covered everything from Ancient Greece to 20th century and yes, it was mostly Europe, because that's what music schools in Europe are for: teaching western classical music (classical in broader meaning, of course, not just classicist). That's our legacy and we have every right to teach it, learn it and explore it. That said, no one has ever been stopped from learning about other styles of music. There are rock academies and all kinds of lessons you can take if you are interested in anything else - although, someone with classical education will quickly pick up anything else that interests them simply by listening and studying theory. I've known many musicians, have sang in choirs for decades, and we all played and sang everything: medieval European music, Renaissance, Baroque etc., rock and punk and folk music, jazz and blues and soul... Should we include female composers like Fanny Mendelssohn in the canon? Yes, I believe we should - but we also shouldn't take anyone out. The reason is simple: we play that music because it's beautiful, not because someone told us it's good. Beethoven is responsible for some of the most profound experiences I've ever had in music; it was as if he reached through time and gave me a gift I could never repay. I am grateful for that. Many are. And just to point out: classical music has always been and still is practiced and cherished by a small percentage of people. Don't take it away, don't politicise it. Modern music has more than enough attention, money and awards, so you don't have to take anything away from other areas to make them relevant. Just listen to what you like and let the small number of people who actually like this tradition cherish it.
Really interesting video, lots that I agree with and some things that I disagree with. Let’s start what I agree with: are women and people of colour marginalised by the current academic circle jerk of classical music? Yes. Are the late german romantic anti semites incredibly overrated and is their music overly pompous and far too long? Yes. Is a modern classical composer, who’s work now falls into relative obscurity, more deserving of that award than the modern cultural hallmark that is Kendrick Lamar? No, of course not. What you say about the clout of white men in classical music is something that I agree with and wholeheartedly endeavour to dispel. However, I am a person who is a thorough music nerd across all of our music history - I adore the work of Amy Beach and Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn is a babe and I love to jam to Scott Joplin, Miles Davis, Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk. I love the music of all of the above, especially Amy Beach, whom I believe is a true gem who everyone who listens to Romanticism should engage with. However, I also love Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Brahms; and I struggle especially to agree with you when you insinuate that Beethoven is perhaps only where he is because of an aristocratic artistic elite that repelled everything that wasn’t “art” from the canon. I’m not denying that this elite didn’t exist - by all accounts, it did. But let us not forget that Beethoven’s family were farmers from a small German town. Let us not forget the abuse that Beethoven endured as a child. Let us not forget that, at the precipice of deafness, Beethoven produced some of the most influential music of all time, including but not limited to the Eroica, the 9th, the late quartets and sonatas. Beethoven’s Eroica in particular is surely the single most influential work of all time, it gave birth to romanticism, romanticism leads us eventually to Joplin which in part leads to Jazz which takes us to Rock and then all modern pop. Beethoven isn’t remembered because he was in the right place at the right time, or because he was noted by the racist musicologists who dictate the canon - Beethoven is remembered because he radically influenced every other composer then composing in Europe and gave rise to a century long musical movement which still permeates so many aspects of our culture today. Is he the greatest of all time? I don’t know, to me he is, but that’s because I like his music. Who is your greatest of all time? If it’s Jimi Hendrix, Tyler the Creator, Scriabin, Kanye West or the Jonas Brothers, whatever it is, if you enjoy it then it is the “greatest of all time for you” - and that is the only thing that matters. Music today is just as important and significant as music 200 years ago. The music of Amy Beach is just as sublime as the music of Bach. But please, do not say that Beethoven’s legacy is the product of racist historians. Beethoven’s legacy is the product of his own hard work and grind (I do not say genius, Beethoven was not a genius, he was a tormented soul who dedicated all of his life to producing music, despite all the self doubt and anger he was plagued with). That is why I love Beethoven so much, he’s not some godly genius, he is a human just like you and me, who through hours and hours of scribbling out music, beating himself up for his own failures, produced music that has influenced countless musicians from his time until ours. Surely, a creator whom I respect as much as you, who is so obviously versed in the history of music and of the intricacies of classical musical construction and form, cannot say that Beethoven “sucks” with a straight face?
Is this really what it's like in America? I'm really confused. Who says Beethoven is the most important composer? I always heard it's Mozart. Here in Switzerland where I live, we talked more about Mozart, Bach and the romantic era (Chopin, Liszt, Schubert etc.) than Beethoven in school. This whole video is kinda strange for me. The German speaking part of Europe was already a big cultural pillar before the nationalists were around especially in the classical era (First Viennese School --> Mozart, Salieri and Haydn). Musical traditions certainly don't come only from the german speaking part, opera is massively dominated by Italians, later the Romantic and Modernist era was very important in France. Also worth noting that nationalism ≠ nazism, there were national schools all over Europe: Spain, Hungary, Russia, Scandinavia. Finally it would be more interesting to look at why English speaking composer are underrepresented in the "canon" (I never saw a list like that and did not learn about it tbh). My guess is that they often actively separated themselves from continental Europe. And why again does Beethoven suck at music, I did not understand this point of the video.
The take-home message here is that titles like 'genius' or 'greatest of all time' don't really mean anything, and say far more about those giving them than about those receiving them.
@@iloveraisins4137 "common sense" as a concept is the mind projection fallacy - assuming that things you've learned through experience are self-evident to others.
I would be really interested to hear more about the differences between how American and European/British music education breaks down the study of music - you briefly mention 'musicology and music theory' and that they European approach works slightly differently. I grew up with the British curriculum and academic approaches to the study of music and, having watched a couple of videos today, the American concept of 'music theory' feels very alien but I can't actually find much discussing the differences. Could easily be I don't know what phrases to google (I'm mostly getting hits about the differences in nomenclature instead).
Man I want I want to put this video and "Why You Are Wrong About Music Theory" on my wall, they are brilliant! Thank you so much! I would like it 100 times if I could!
I believe there are music critics that spend their entire lives deciding what is good and what is not. My ears also tell me what is good and what is not. Beethoven is damn good!!
12-tone can ditch Beethoven, but now you're crossing the line! :) Actually, though, it is easy to dismiss any canon. Is Casa Blanca really that great a film? Wizard of Oz? Gone with the Wind is really problematic, and, well, Birth of Nation, ouch. Is Harry Potter stuff really that much better than hundreds of other juvenile lit collections?
One difference (as I see it), is that the Beatles are way less likely to be put on a pedestal by people who do not actually enjoy their music. Listening to the Beatles is not generally considered a sign of status.
Right, so having watched the entire video here is why I think you're wrong: I was born and raised with non-western classical music. No one around me ever talked about it and my family and the community in which I grew up actively chose to listen to persian traditional music in favor of any western music. Yet the first time I ever heard Bach's music I was hooked and Beethoven's music still makes me tear up when I hear it. The fact that their music is amazing is not because the public says so, in fact the majority of the public prefers to listen to other music which I don't enjoy. Their music is known to be great because it's great as a standalone piece of art.
As a classical musician, I am very much appalled by your opinion, but I can understand what you mean. What I don’t understand is why you would title your video like that, I get it’s for clickbait, but you could just say that Beethoven is not the best but is a great composer, everybody has different opinions so there is no greatest composer.
Thanks for the history lesson. We definitely need to increase awareness of composers outside the canon. I personally can't name a female composer between Hildegard von Bingen and Laurie Anderson. That's pretty screwed up. We need more exposure to the music of women and of people of different races and nationalities. While we're at it let's give a chance to some self-taught composers who are outside of the scene of universities and symphony orchestras. Most of the stuff in the canon is great music, but not all of it is. And there's definitely music that should be in there but isn't. Having said that, Beethoven's music is both objectively and subjectively excellent. His music reaches such high peaks and goes on such long, epic journeys that are so intricately developed while having such an emotional arc, that when one finishes listening to Beethoven there is usually no music that can follow it but more Beethoven. Listen to the Kreutzer Sonata and tell me if any music can follow that piece and sound good. If you personally don't like Beethoven's music, fine. I don't get it. I don't understand your criterion for musical excellence, but whatever. You do you. But when people actively insult Beethoven's music I want to grab them and shake them. It seems to me that someone who actively dislikes Beethoven's music is someone untrustworthy and unfit to live in society.
First of all, saying that the Canon is biased because it has no women or minorities is ridiculous. Imagine if I went to Africa and said "why wasn't any of your historical music composed by white people? Your Canon is clearly biased!" ? That would be utterly ridiculous. Well the same logic is being applied here. Europe in the 17th, 18, and 19th century was extremely homogenous. Of course almost none of the famous WESTERN CLASSICAL composers were non-white. What next, are we going to demand that Japan's classical music show more Latino composers? As for women, they simply had a different role in society. Women were expected to be caretakers and not musicians. Clara Schumann for example was a brilliant concert pianist who by her own choice gave it up to be a housewife for Robert Schumann, as society was different back then. You can't just ignore historical context to fit your political narrative. That's not history, that's propoganda. Second, the three great German composers "Bach Beethoven and Mozart" keep coming up because they are simply that great. Take the three favorite composers of any famous 18th century composer, and I can almost GARUNTEE one of their favorites was one of the big three Who were Chopin's favorite composers? Mozart, Bach, and Hummel Who were Liszt's favorite composers? Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin Who were Brahm's favorite composers? Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert Who were Schubert's favorite composers? Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn Who were Debussy's favorite composers? Chopin, Bach, and Mozart Who were Mendelssohn's favorite composers? Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart Who were Tchaikovsky's favorite composers? Mozart, Rubinstein, and Schumann (he also deeply respected Beethoven but in his own words "I [did] not love Beethoven") Who were Wagner's favorite composers? Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach I could go on. Seriously. I COULD GO ON. But the point has been made. The Canon has its biases, but all of the composers in it are brilliant and there for a reason
I've always been a proponent of the idea that music exists to evoke emotion, so if you like a piece that in itself is justification for it being good. I'm a HUGE Mendelssohn nerd and I'll freely admit that his oeuvre isn't the most complex or revolutionary in classical music, but it SLAPS. And at the end of the day that's all it needs to do.
what he is trying to say is that its subjective, no doubt Bach and Beethoven slap, but other Asian and African composers slap too in their cultures. the problem comes when we teach it as GENERAL music theory, and just european style of music. I for once only learnt music this european way and didnt learn other ways while I wish I could have.
@@ShadowD2C What is the alternative? Do you learn Chinese authors in a French literature class? Western classical is Western classical, Chinese music is Chinese music. The principles are totally different and you need to spend years and years to build any mastery of it - and learn Mandarin, Chinese history & culture, literature, philisophy, etc. I wish that other cultures would do more to preserve and promote their classical traditions, but that's not up to us.
@@jpiccone1 Im not sure about the chinese traditions, but for example guitar which I learnt the western way is most defently derived from middle eastern music theory and their oud (lute) scales. The issue just lies with the naming when youre learning it should be taught as western classical or smth so you dont internalize it as the basic of everything
@@jpiccone1 except it’s just presented as “music theory”. Not “18th century European music theory”, but simply “music theory”, and it’s held as some sort of objective measure of musical worth when it’s just…not.
The word is 'canon', not 'cannon'. canon noun (1) can·on | \ ˈka-nən 4a: an accepted principle or rule b: a criterion or standard of judgment the canons of good taste c: a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms [Late Greek kanōn, from Greek, model] : a contrapuntal musical composition in which each successively entering voice presents the initial theme usually transformed in a strictly consistent way Have a great day!😃👍
Dont listen to this stupid video. Beethoven was recognised as the greatest all across Europe by those who were educated in music. Men who were far smarter and knowledgeable than this uploader.
The only problem with this is that there were tons of people in the same place and the same time. There were princes, people of nobility and men of renown. How many of their names would be more recognizable to someone on the street today between them or Beethoven? Not many I'd presume. What he said in the video is true, but it also lacks an important component: "He was the right person in the right place at the right time." How many other people do you think you supplant in his place at that time and they would have had the same legacy? Very, very few.
@@rossconnolly3402 This channel is a more contemporary music channel. I don't expect him to just give the praise Beethoven needs. He is pretty annoying too, the way he approaches music is just awkward and he usually speaks with floating terminology instead of concrete examples. Adam Neely for example, teached me a lot about jazz music theory and music theory in general. This channel is an utter garbage.
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Some additional thoughts/corrections:
1) To be clear, you're allowed to like Beethoven! Lots of people do, and if you find his music meaningful and important I don't want to (and can't) take that away from you! But isn't it a bit weird that we've constructed a system where that's the only option?
2) Also, since I'm not sure I was clear enough on this point, I think DAMN is a very good album.
If I already on the page and register, but I don't have a credit target right now, if I already on the link I still have the opportunity?
Man, that sponsor plug was smooth AF.... (video was great too)
Great work, keep it up!
Great video! Some thoughts: If Beethoven had been a bad composer, say, if his 9th symphony used only two chords, he wouldn't have been part of the canon. It seems unreasonable to deny that aesthetic quality played some role in canon formation, just as it's unreasonable to deny that cultural factors also played a role. I also doubt the idea that there is *one* widespread use of the canon, as you implied by saying it's used as a gatekeeping device and not as a means for achieving musical quality. I agree that gatekeeping uses of the canon should be sharply critiqued, and I am on your side in that respect. Few things frustrate me as much as classical music lovers who look down on other kinds of music. But I think a more complete picture of the canon needs to acknowledge its use by practicing musicians as an impetus for and precondition of musical creativity. We don't create music ex nihilo. A canon, or canons if you prefer, allows us to enter into a musical tradition and develop it through contesting it. A tradition, in an important sense, is comprised of contestations of that tradition. The classical canon was formed by composers who, in various ways, went beyond and against the ideas of their predecessors. It is this side of canon formation that I think your video misleadingly leaves out. I agree with the gist of your video, I just wish it painted a more complex picture of canon formation. But I'm glad your video will spur conversations about this important topic!
great video!! i agree the canon is an ugly beast as it is.
@@m.l.pianist2370 I didn't go to music school, but I did take piano lessons with a couple different teachers over the span of about five years. They both heavily pushed the idea that Beethoven, Bach, Brahams, etc. were the greatest of all time. I didn't know enough at the time to contest that, so I believed it too despite none of their music resonating with me especially well. I thought there was something wrong with me, like I had bad ears or I wasn't smart enough to "get" the music. I think the point 12tone is making is that this type of attitude is pervasive in music education and popular understanding of music despite the fact that the composers that are on the list were simply, as he put it, at the right place at the right time.
You say that aesthetic quality had to play a role, but how do you define what's good "aesthetically?" It's purely subjective whether a piece of music is "good." Complexity doesn't make a piece of music good, nor does simplicity. Consonance and dissonance can either be a good thing or a bad thing. A song can be great with or without lyrics or whether it has twenty key changes or zero. When you sit down and actually define "good," you'll realize that you can't because you can't describe something that's subjective using objective terms.
Furthermore, I need to repeat 12tone's point that all of the composers in the Western Classical Music canon are white male German composers from a relatively specific time period. I'm going to assume that you agree that it's not a simple coincidence that all the "best" composers fit this description, so you have to admit that time, geography and culture played a significant part in choosing these composers. No one is really arguing that Beethoven was a *bad* composer, but it's completely valid to question whether he is a good composer and especially if he's one of the greatest of all time.
Beethoven: Canon
Mozart: Canon
Vivaldi: Canon
Tchaikovsky: Cannon
I see what you did there...
This made my day😆😆
Underrated comment
Tchaikovsky was a little dyslexic but he had the right spirit
Hahahahaha Tchaikovsky go brrrrrrrrr
idk why anyone would disagree. beethoven hasn't uploaded a single piece for 200 years ffs the man is slacking
Daniel Ek approves of this comment
We all get those dry spells every once in a while.
You must have missed the latest album he did with 2Pac.
Agree, unsubbed
Spotify 10/10 agrees. God, make more music, you decomposing hack
apparently, Beethoven didn't watch "How to not suck at music" by Adam Neely
hahahahaha-gold!!!
“Music sucks because it doesn’t have timber.”
He didnt put the vocals and the synths in the same key
But he didn't use Eb11, therefore he was good at music.
But he did probably write his music at A=432Hz
My only complaint, especially as you're left handed is that you drew Hendrix playing right handed, I mean come on
@John Verne of course
@John Verne A room full of mirrors, surely?
He’s been dead over 40 years who cares
Wasn't he able to play lefty and then just flip the guitar over mid-song and play righty?
@@ceilidh169 that's not how guitars work, the strings would be facing your belly if you did that
14:15 the most subtle rick roll of all time
how
@@dakotaashe3184 the 7 midi notes he wrote follows a peculiar pattern 🤡
@@notkiji which part tho, the intro, the vocal melody etc?
@@dakotaashe3184 chorus vocal melody '-'
@@notkiji wtff
I'm a jazz musician and I started with Beethoven thinking he was overrated and could never be as good as everyone says. Then I really listened to his complete works and I must say he's really really that good, it's crazy how efficient and creative he was. And also looking at his context you can see how innovative he was, how he changed the course of classical music and how he battled and won trough all the struggles that came in his life. He's our hero in the western classical music world.
Compare it also to other fields, we all know Einstein, Picasso, The Beatles.. even if we are not familiar with their work. If you delve really deeply into their areas and historical contexts they definitely earn their place on the zeitgeist.
I think there is a lot that Beethoven wrote that is genuinely overrated in my book however I agree with you and listening to stuff like the Grosse Fugue ( honestly could've been written in 1925 not 1825) gives you an idea of how great and innovative he really was.
Tiago, I know that feeling so well. His immense reputation is to his detriment. I listen to all my Beethoven CDs in the car, and I love his music for its own merit. I would love to have an earnest conversation about the Archduke trio or the op. 110 sonata, but I feel like any praise I have for Beethoven is prejudged by others as fawning over someone inherently regarded as great with no merit.
So it makes perfect sense that you would go into Beethoven imagining that he's overrated only to then be pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Genuine appreciation for his music in the modern day is a battle against the grassroots-esque mentality of "down with the dogma and hubris of status-seekers who listen to classical music in bad faith!"
Agreed. Strip away identity and judge the music entirely on the merits and you will probably still have some of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic masters show up on the list. Bach, Mozart, and Schubert might have gotten a little bump from being "old white guys" but to dismiss their greatness entirely because guilt over cultural exclusivity as opposed to the merit of the music seems to be falling into the same trap of dismissing music simply because of who wrote it. Haydn on the other hand was a hack who did just get a bump for being Austrian.
But in the same regard you are inside the system that created the canon so your opinions are distorted by it no matter how well intentioned you are. One would need a genuinely independent reviewer to see for sure. Some un-contacted islanders, aliens or AI!
Idk I’ve been exploring Beethovens actual obscure compositions and I’ve found many sonatas and piano pieces that are just magical that show a good understanding of how to make music that inspires
His piano sonatas are amazing. I especially like 8 and 15.
Don’t worry he’d have to decipher all the little drawings to understand that he was being insulted
No he wouldn't, he was deaf not blind
wait
@@rafaeldiehl8553 I forgot how being deaf works don't mind me
it’s called pictography!!!
He could just turn on captions, come on
It's clear that Beethoven was exceptional, even if his importance was also inflated by German musicologists. We have quotes from Schubert talking about Beethoven as someone God-like even before this rise in nationalism. Beethoven was so important that his death caused a divide in the classical music world, the conservatives and New German School both believing themselves to be the correct answer to Beethoven's life. Clearly, Beethoven was amazing in his own right before his importance was blown up in later decades.
I agree. In the social circles I'm in, classical music is not seen as "high class" but pretentious, but I enjoy Beethoven anyway. His music works as low art that's nice to listen to and I'd argue that's much more impressive than any pedestal the rich can put him on.
@@PragmaticAntithesis lol "low art", wtf are you talking about? Beethoven sparked an era of music that spread well beyond pretentious aristocrats and is still taught to this day for a reason. You clearly are not a musician.
sure but that's besides the point. There's certainly someone less deserving of the canon that has been propped up by German musicologists
He was a huge influence on subsequent composers - so his importance was not "blown up" in later decades.
@@joniii_W
Every time a symphony does a piece of something less well known or more "weird" they'll do it alongside a Beethoven symphony or some equivalent. Ultimately they have to sell tickets.
If it were only about that, they wouldn't play new pieces at all.
This is done to 'force' audiences to listen to the new pieces. Put Beethoven on your program and everyone will show up. Then play the new piece they wouldn't come for and people might discover something new they enjoy, or at least be exposed to things outside of Beethoven, Mozart etc. and slowly learn to appreciate new music.
I agree with Daniel Edwards. It’s not a bad thing that this happens. People like what they know and people know Beethoven (or at least those who appreciate classical music). Music is music and let people like what they want and let them discover new things! I think it’s too harsh to criticize Beethoven because the music is actually amazing! But it’s also completely ok and great to discover new music
All of this and so much of our world is just a sliver of what music is. Music is so vast and there’s so much of it around the world. I say just let people listen to what they want to listen! For example there isn’t a valid criticism against one a Hindu who only listens to classical Indian music. There shouldn’t be a criticism against one who only listens to the western classical “canon”
@@Nadav3.0 I'm not trying to criticize anything but I work with an orchestra and ultimately the decisions are financially motivated especially because people are starting to care less and less about classical music the so it's pretty much essential to milk the pieces that will sell yes it also gets more people listening to modern pieces but that frankly isn't the motivation
@@Nadav3.0 not trying to criticize anyone. Love what you love!
"So, you like Beethoven? Name ten of his records".
"Well, there was, his Fifth symphony, everyone knows that one, and his first, second, third, and fourth, which was like really cool too, and his, uh... His sixth one! Yeah, that was a great follow up, though his seventh was like not too great but okay. I loved his, uh, his moonlight sonata ones, and that one he didnt finish. Oh yeah, and his ninth."
@@jameswhitley4101 Don't forget the Pathetique Sonata (Opus 13), The Tempest (Opus 31), Apassionata (Opus 57), The Hammerklavier (Opus 106), and my father's favorite, the unnamed Opus 111. :)
@@renegade4dio The Tempest is one of the few Beethoven compositions I genuinely enjoy. Glad to see it mentioned, deserves more attention.
@@photonicpizza1466 It's my 3rd favorite, after Pathetique, and Moonlight. While Moonlight is probably overrated, Tempest is definitely underrated, as you mentioned. ;) I note how all 3 of my favorites are piano sonatas, and if pressed I'd probably list more sonatas before listing a symphony (The 5th of course, followed by the 9th... I guess I'm pretty boringly conventional, and no surprise, the only instrument I can play at all is the piano... and no, I'm not good enough to actually play any Beethoven besides Fur Elise, and even that is a less than good rendition) I don't know where I was going with all this, but it is great to hear from someone who picks out the Tempest instead of Moonlight or the 5th... ;)
Now that I think of it, I don't think I would recognize 5 of his works... I only know the 4 everyone talks about all the time...
This whole conversation hits a lot of musicians who think the sheer quality of their music will be enough to gain an audience. Most artists hate the idea of marketing. Does great music rise like cream to the top on its own? Maybe some of it. The music industry would argue that they can make the public like anything with enough radio play, marketing and promotions. Some of yesterday's favorites are unknowns today.
I loved Billy Joel's "Shameless" when I got his album Storm Front. I was blown away. It seems like Garth Brooks felt the same and he was equally shocked it never appeared on the radio much less the charts. So he recorded a version which skyrocketed to the top of the charts. The song has become a part of the country canon and the canon of popular music in general. The difference? One person marketed it and the other didn't. You would think the sheer quality of the song would carry it but it didn't. But the big question is: Which artists and songs did history mistakenly forget and which ones did the industry push that should have been forgotten??
People think of The Doors and Queen as some of the greatest acts of the late 60s and 70s, but it wasn't until various movies came out that featured them that the public re-discovered them. I don't think they had that statue until the movies came out. The Val Kilmer one about the Doors and Bohemian Rhapsody was featured in at least two popular movies over the last couple decades.
To the Swifties I say...David Cassidy (he warned his half brother Shaun of exactly this).
The mention of how D.A.W.'s are ignored by school honestly made my day. as a mobile producers who specializes in hard bass music like Dubstep, I truly believe that EDM is one of the most forgotten and exiled umbrella genres. If you were to ask "name 5 music genres." or maybe "what music do you listen to?", most would either answer with "Pop, Rock, Metal, Country, and Rap." or "I don't know, whatever is on the radio I guess". and that really sucks, because there are some brilliant people who create amazing music that takes just as long, and just as much effort as other genres.
hell, I decided to try and learn more about music to help me make my own better and be more happy with my final releases by taking a music theory class, and it has barely taught me anything of worth. I mean, it's barely even a music theory class, it's a music history class with occasional theory lessons thrown in. I don't even care about those lessons either though because I'm tired of that class and how much bs and useless info it's been giving me. I really wish that there was some class where one could learn about all 'main' genres of music. I want to learn more about how rock is made, have a lesson about how the vocalist of Gojira controls his voice so well while keeping the intense metal screaming and growling, something about the details in rap numbers, or something as broad as 'lyric writing'.
sorry for the ramble, but thats been really getting under my skin for a while now...Have a nice day, Cheers! ^v^
If you're looking for more modern music that truly innovated and also happens to be more diverse in authorship, look at jazz. It stands on its own as a peer to the greats of classical tradition.
The title of this video has little to do with its content and I wish a more relevant title were chosen instead of clickbait.
Impressionist music as well
Or hip hop, it's also very diverse and innovative
@@marioaviles19 if you have any recommendations that mirror the musicianship in Jazz, I'd love to learn more. I've found the popular music that I've heard to be bland especially from a melodic and harmonic perspective and that has been an obstacle to my appreciation of the genre. I think I am simply ignorant of what is out there, though I concede that I have a strong bias in favor of Western musical practice including the innovations that Jazz brings. That bias may be an insurmountable obstacle but if I can learn to appreciate it I would like to.
@@FubukiShiromiya well, I think that what will help you better appreciate this more modern style is by focusing less on the harmonic and melodic material and focus on the other elements of the song. Namely the production. That said, I think you'd get a lot out of Kendrick Lamar's music
@@marioaviles19 Thank you for the recommendation and perspective. I'll check it out and hopefully develop a deeper appreciation or at least better understanding of the genre.
Imagine what will happen in 200 years when someone unearths a hard drive full with youtube "top tenz" videos.....you want canons? here you have'em.
@NTDM 😂
In my long distant past, I played plenty of Beethoven. "Moonlight Sonata, the first movement" was my favorite piece for decades. He's got a LOT out there, and I enjoyed him greatly.
Another point about Ludwig was that he was mostly deaf for half of his life. I can't think of another composer who has that disability. Like an Olympic sprinter having one leg
He wasn't born deaf though. He knew what the music he was composing sounded like.
as a literary nerd I have to say- this is all true of Shakespeare
Shakespeare is damn good, but he's so flawed, and we don't have any genuine manuscripts of his, afaik, they were all collected from each actors' parts.
Academic Literature needs some better authors than an English guy and some white Americans who were to liberal in their use of the n word
@@spartacuz9er9er69 damn straight. he's good, don't get me wrong, one of the best to ever do it. but he's not the be all end all. hes really not all that relevant in today's field of literature, and I think we should stop acting like he is tbh
@@dylandarcy1150 I would disagree with that, many of his works still are relevant, Julius Caesar and the Tempest off the top of my head, but some (Taming of the shrew, say) do need to be left out, or at least critically analysed. Personally, I love to read his works with a feminist or progressive eye, just to see how much was a product of his time, and what wasn't.
Take the work of Arthur Conan Doyle for instance, the original Irene Adler is a proto-feminist icon, she is objectively in the right in her story, and outsmarts Holmes. Is she a particularly powerful woman by modern standards? No, of course not, but the beginnings are there, they're just affected by the culture
@@spartacuz9er9er69 yo im aware you probably already know this but you probably should acknowledge that shakespeare didn't write sherlock holmes lol
I'm a fan of the Theater of the Absurd, so my love of Shakespeare is pretty invalid
I mean.. its obviously a clickbait title but you never even try to make that point. Trying to prove that Beethoven is considered great for reasons that aren't the quality of his music doesnt prove that the quality of Beethoven's music isn't great. I spent the whole video looking for an objective analysis to back up the title but it just isn't there. I love your work 12tone, but the title is too obvious of a troll, and unnecessarily agitating.
I agree the video title was clickbait, but based on the video itself, his focus wasn't on measuring the quality of Beethoven's music but on a distinct but related topic: the formation of the classical music canon. Keeping that in mind, I think his video did a great job of presenting his view on canon formation.
I think the title is really apt: the only reason the title is clickbait is because Beethoven is so accepted as one of the greats, and the video dives right into the analysis of why specific composers are considered great.
@@v2snyder654 I feel that way too. There's a layer to the title that nearly all other youtube videos lack, which is neat, but confusing.
Beethoven has meant a lot to me over the years. He regularly explores tragedy and hope. He’s very versatile through different stages of life. I’ve also really come to enjoy Dvorák, Rossini, and others. I try to branch out and regularly engage with music by composers other than white men. Some of it really resonates me, and some of it doesn’t. Ultimately, I believe that’s okay. If you love Beethoven and want to listen to nothing else, that’s perfectly okay. If you hate Beethoven and he does nothing for you, that’s okay too. Art is subjective. Don’t force yourself to follow someone else’s standards-and don’t force someone else to follow yours. Find what you like, and allow others to do the same. It’s beneficial to branch out sometimes, but you do you.
Mahler
Are you kidding? I love Beethoven and have listened to *a lot* of his works. All of his symphonies, most of his sonatas, a lot of his string works, all bagatelles. And Beethoven is my favorite composer. And there are so many things that make Beethoven great, with these just being a few:
- Quick, 1 chord modulations, often using a diminished seventh chord
- Unifying themes of extreme contrast via shared motifs(Like for example, a fast, tense, energetic, minor theme unified with a slow, peaceful, tranquil, major theme e.x Fifth Symphony First Movement)
- Parallel major-minor motions that feel like modulations in their own right(In fact, I often use the term Parallel Modulation to describe what happens in for example the second B section of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata Rondo, where it sounds like it's going to end in a peaceful C major and then *Bam!* 1 chord and you are back in the tense C minor, because just saying Modal Interchange sounds so wrong when it isn't only a few chords of major in otherwise minor or vice versa, but Parallel Modulation sounds right, regardless of how many people say it isn't a thing)
- His use of Chromatic Mediants to both add and release tension(His Pastoral Symphony and the Tarantella from his 18th piano sonata both have these distant but still connected chord relations)
And I could go on and on, but you get the point. Point is, so what if musicology is screwed at it's core? So what if Beethoven broke the rules more often than Mozart and Haydn before him? He is still a great composer because his music is great. Beethoven didn't suck! People say he's a rough orchestrator. Not for his time he isn't! People say he wasn't good at Counterpoint. Uh, have a listen to Grosse Fuge and see if you still think he isn't good at Counterpoint. Counterpoint changes with time you know, from the strictly algebraic that is Bach's day to just 2 melodies that sound good combined(Modern times). You can't judge a book by it's cover. You need context. I have that context because I listen to Beethoven all the time. Most people do not have that context.
Good thing the video isn't actually claiming Beethoven sucks, then
@@Copperhell144 Yeah, it's not like it's title of video or anything.
@@samuelterry6354 Yeah, it's not like a video is anything else other than just a title or anything.
@@Copperhell144 You can't call a video Beethoven sucks and then say you never claimed Beethoven sucks.
As much as I agree with you, I do think Beethoven still revolutionized music by using very clever ideas to push classical forms and tonality to their limits, thus allowing romanticism to blossom. A closer look at his music easily reveals the scope of his intelligence.
But admittedly, it could have been anyone else. He happened to have pretty much nothing more to do, had access to top-notch education, and the time was very right.
Vayhef - this argument cannot mean ‘anyone else’ it could mean something similar to what Malcolm Gladwell says about Bill Gates. He was born in the perfect year (1955) to an upper middle class family with access to a time sharing computer. But the many thousands of others with similar advantages didn’t create Microsoft. Beethoven has an incredible ear, endlessly inventive and exhaustive. He worked his buttons off and struggled with the rich assholes he depended upon. It wasn’t a difficult or close call about Beethoven, Mozart or Bach. Musicians knew this and the Canon is influenced by that the same way Dizzy can vouch for Parker or Keith Richards for the Blues masters who never profited from their work.
I think the title was mostly clickbait, but imo in this case it's not done in bad taste or as false advertising.
@@reganjo1955 good point, I should have been more nuanced on that.
After all, many 19th century composers were so impressed by Beethoven's work that it detered them from walking in his steps, stating there was no point in doing so since he had already reached the top of the mountain. They refused to write pieces that would sound like "Beethoven but worse".
If anything, that has to be the proof that in addition to having created the right art at the right time, he did actually perfect it, so much so that no one would dare walk in his shoes for decades.
So yeah, he had it all : circumstances and genius.
@@jankbunky4279 it's still a bit confusing imo since I don't remember him really stating how witful and impactful Beethoven's writing was, which would make one think his fame is undeserved.
But yeah it's no big deal, the video is still very insightful.
I don't believe it could have been anyone else. There are maybe a handful of other composers throughout history you could put in Beethoven's place and yielded results of the same magnitude.
I'm so glad you mentioned Florence Price. I started listening to her work when my piano teacher assigned one of her pieces to me, and I was really taken aback by how incredible she was. Her symphonies are easily some of my favorite pieces of music, period.
Now do a video about why Beethoven was by far the best composer of his time.
hahaha, that wud be awesome!!! jealous u came up w/ this and i didnt!!! brilliant brilliant brilliant!!!
Judging by the video the uploader has no understanding of music and isnt fit to discuss that matter
@@rossconnolly3402
-Beethoven sucks, who has even listened to him? Its probably because hes old.
Do you like music? Well I bet you havent listened to him anyway, god forbid studied him. Etc etc etc
@@RobinJWheeler I'm a 20 year old classically trained pianist and I compose, the uploader is an idiot and not qualified to make videos about the master Beethoven.
@@rossconnolly3402 I like a lot of his other videos and he knows what hes talking about a lot more than me. Its just a bit weird for him to act like Beethoven wasn't as incredible as he was.
recognizing other new geniuses does NOT require to destroy and replace old school composers! Why should we replace them, when we can just add more to the canon?
To add to that: who can say that our changes to a canon are not just as politically motivated? Sure a canon will represent the zeitgeist but I find it worrying when people say we can update or change a canon to be "correct". It will always be an imperfect tool, which luckily plenty of people already know. Contrary to what this video seems to suggest.
Nobody is getting replaced you bozo, did you even watch the video?
@@kj_H65f I did watch a video, did you? The video literally suggests that Beethoven literally got on the cannon out of sheer f****** luck. It named some women composers and composers of color, but I wonder what those composers had said about Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart? All right, they all hail damage the greatest composers and would have never have dared to even try to compare themselves, as most composers during the nineteenth century Europe also would never have dared.
@@babygottbach2679 Once again, nobody is getting replaced. I don't know what you're getting all worked up about.
@@kj_H65f If Beethoven actually sucks at music and is only on the canon as a matter of some cosmic fluke, he OUGHT to be removed. Follow the reasoning of the argument ACTUALLY being made in this video.
Beethoven wasn’t such a snob himself: everyone knows about his Pastoral 6th Symphony, but he also included Folk influences in his 2nd Symphony, which I like to call the “Rodney Dangerfield” symphony because it don’t get no respect. The second Larghetto movement is gorgeous, the Scherzo is Schizoid, the final movement starts with a musical fart joke, and it’s generally quite nuts.
I'm interested in an explanation to the "fart joke" in the finale. I've been exploring Beethoven's symphonies lately, and gave the 2nd a listen. I absolutely loved the 1st movement, thought the 2nd was great too, and was disappointed in the 3rd and 4th movement.
Any Scherzo that isn't schizoid is doing it wrong. Scherzo literally means "joke" and sometime I feel like the only person who ever understood that was Dvorak who starts the scherzo for the New World with a percussionist going nuts on the triangle. :)
I've definitely always described the opening of the 2nd's finale as the musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel :)
@@5BBassist4Christ The "fart joke" isn't canonical: it's based on what people knew about Ludwig at the time, complaining about gastric problems. I see that as trying to cheer himself up and have some fun during the very difficult period when his hearing was clearly deteriorating.
But the 2nd is one of my favourites
I dunno about the music theory world, but in my very first year of my undergrad in lit, all my profs tried to remind us at every turn that the literature canon is inherently political and reflects the priorities of the academics who defined in during the 1900s.
Given, I like to think I was in a lit program that tried really had to include nonwhite, female, lower-class voices in its program. My topics classes were all on things like the relationship between slavery and the literature by black authors over time, literature written by women who live in war-torn regions, the navigation of culture identities by writers who immigrated to our country, ect. Can't say if that's reflected in some of the more *ahem* "prestigious" programs in lit academia.
I always love these videos that are critical of how we think about and evaluate music. It’s all ultimately subjective, but the powers that be are always trying to create hierarchies that justify their own preferences and positions. Music is not a competition.
"Invisible hand of the canon" made me laugh. She picked the perfect descriptor for that alleged process.
I'm a fan of this nuanced critique of a canon that I never gave much thought to.
Makes me glad that some of my favorite artists don't just pull from classical influences, but also non-western stuff to. I also thank peeps like Adam Neely for opening my ears to "non-standard" harmonies, scales, and rhythms.
I think it presents a one-sided portrayal of the classical canon. He does present that one side accurately, but he leaves out how the classical canon has always been contested by its participants. As Charles Rosen puts it, "The essential paradox of a canon, however-and we need to emphasize this repeatedly-is that a tradition is often most successfully sustained by those who appear to be trying to attack or to destroy it. It was Wagner, Debussy, and Stravinsky who gave new life to the Western musical tradition while seeming to undermine its very foundations."
rumor is, adam neely is a direct descendant of beethoven... so how can beethoven suk at music when mr neely is god at music??? hmmm??? just sayin...
M.L. Pianist interesting
This video has several of the kinds of moments that I find the most persuasive of all; where I put my agreement or disagreement to the side because what I'm hearing is so plainly-simple and good humored (I laughed at the parts about Pink Floyd) that it makes more sense than something complicated, snobbish or mean-spirited possibly could.
By 5:42, you've at least hinted at the main point. The late 1700s were a time of great worldwide class struggle, where an upper class had their elite music, and the "lower classes" still wanted to sing songs and have parties and dancing. It was two directly-conflicting ways of "owning" music (and other arts) that has for centuries been a defining aspect of the struggle for spiritual freedom.
Long live rock and roll, folk, hip-hop, and enjoying life.
That moment when you realize the entire video was a prolonged ad for Skill Share
When people critically discuss the canon why do they focus so much on German composers? I've never thought of the canon as consisting primarily of composers of the Austro-German tradition. Think of all the operas that come out of Italy and France, not to mention their instrumental music. There are Russian composers (Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Korsakov, Mussorgsky), Czech (Dvorak, Smetana Janacek), Spanish (De Falla, Albeniz, Granados), Finish (Sibelius), English (Elgar, Holst, Britten, Vaughan Williams), Hungarian (Liszt, Bartok, Kodaly), American (Gershwin, Copland, Stil), French (Saint Saens, Faure, Lalo, Debussy, Ravel), Italian (Vivaldi, Rossini, Puccini, Verdi), just to name a few.
Yes, but all these names are all white Europeans. According to the youtuber it must be because of the canon. Otherwise why we can't name any African or Chinese classic European music composer? That's why Beethoven sucks 🤔
@@dav77h He specifically says the canon focuses on Germanic composers. This is just not correct. And of course the European canon is predominated by white people, it's European. Also, the view of history presented in this video is high biased, IMO. Moreover, the music of William Grant Stil (who I mention above) and more recently Florence Price are receiving quite a bit of performance time. Beethoven clearly deserves to be in the canon; it is a difficult thing indeed to alter the course of music history. It wasn't just because Beethoven was born at the right place and in the right time; it was because other composers deemed him worthy of imitation.
My God, the segue into the ad read ... masterful. Worthy of Beethoven himself.
Truly the Beethoven of TH-cam sponsorship.
(Okay, so now I wonder how the Xenakis of TH-cam sponsorship would look like...)
Seems like an insult with the context of the video.
@@FraudMonet You got me. I watched to the end of the video because I disliked it so much. I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.
Seriously! I'm calling that "buttery smooth".
Saw it coming right up fifth avenue. Called it around the time he said, "After all, Beethoven..."
I think that this is very true for non classical musicians and composition and theory students. However, as a performer, I don’t view the canon as, well, a unified canon, but more a set of ancestral lines with music. For example, I trace a line from Haydn to Mozart to Schubert, because their music is similar. There’s a line of French music which culminated in Debussy and Ravel, a line of Italian works, especially in opera, a line of Russian, a line of Eastern European (Chopin and Liszt), a folk line, and... yes, a German line, which brings me to my other point. There is a lot of argument, to this day, as to what defines the real German lineage. Brahms and Mahler went off in one direction and Wagner and Strauss in another. I think this is another reason why we see an over representation of Germans in the overall canon: because the true lineage is highly contested and there are 2 competing lines instead of one.
I love this so much. It’s very reminiscent of what’s happening in the visual art world. For so long we were told, in particular, that female artists just didn’t exist in the past, and now suddenly many of the big galleries are looking into some apparently long forgotten room in their stacks and finding art made by women to go out on display.
Say one thing for old Ludwig: while all the classical canon composers were rhythmically stunted as a result of not being exposed to African music (that's why I had expected this video to be about), Beethoven was shockingly funky in comparison to the others. Just listen to the rhythms in the first minute or two of Symphony 3: Mvt. I. You can find the most prevalent West African bell pattern in there and he's doing wild things with it. I'm guessing that if Beethoven had been given access to 2020 TH-cam, he would have gone wild with it. He was also considered a wildly anti-canon musical arsonist during his lifetime. In fairness, he also appears to have been one of the most appalling jackasses in history in terms of his personal life.
@@gotex2796what do you see? You should listen
10:00 "can we do something about that"? yes.
- classical german canon
- new german canon
- english canon
- french canon
- etc etc etc.
- european canon (assembled from equal number of things chosen from national canons of european cultures)
- western canon (assembled from equal number of things chose from european+english+american(+australian?) canon
- eastern cannon with similar structure under it (i'm no expert on eastern cultures so i can't enumerate it in as much detail as the western one (or even american one))
this kind of granularity basically for every subject if you want.
then every region/school/state/whatever entity people decide that is appropriate decides the primary canon of its educational institutions, and some secondaries (which are optional). students can then choose which canon they want as their primary and optional secondary, and would get education according to that.
- ...humanity canon? an extraction of all knowledge, ideals, and morals which are the intersection of everything that humanity can agree on as a whole? hm... naiive. but a nice sentiment/aspiration.
I get the relativization of the canon, but in a way such a line of thinking seems unavoidable. Why is Kendrick Lamar the best and not some obscure rapper from the Middle East or whatever?
Sure, but 1. the Pulitzers are for American composers and musicians specifically (I think). 2. Kendrick is new. There is a hip-hop canon, for sure, but it’s still more malleable than the classical canon. 3. The problems with the classical canon are tied to the problems of Western/European/white society as a whole. The hip-hop canon isn’t like that (though you could say it has a different set of problems from a different culture-a culture that isn’t dominant or politically powerful like the one that determines the Western classical canon).
This video kind of covers two topics in one: the inherent problems of the classical canon and the problems of having such a canon in our culture and history in the first place. It’s a lot more than about relativization specifically.
Yeah, back when it first came out, I kind of didn't care much at all, but now, when it's highlighted like this, I'm like "Well, he's good, but, really, the best? He's not even the best with a wide audience."
Because his writing and rapping ability is so exceptional and filled with so much personality that other rappers with similar abilities don't have mainstream appeal because of their non-mainstream rap style. But Kendrick still managed to have a wide appeal with his music despite his unique style.
@@genm4827 Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I'm not dissing on Kendrick, or the Pulitzer pick; it's just that "there's no objective metric to take Beethoven as being better than Kendrick" can also be applied within the same genre of music, as the video actually does within the classical canon ("why not chopin?").
@@BCKBCK Sure. I don't think it's wrong to have preferences or rankings both personally and socially, but I think it's important to keep in mind who's writing the narrative and why (and maybe do something about it, like talking about it to the public in a TH-cam video). That way individuals can maintain their agency, while society as a whole can prevent itself from being entrenched in bad habits from the past (ideally).
Kendrick Lamar, for example, has married social commentary, rap virtuosity, and fantastic storytelling into a number of albums considered modern classics. Most people haven't done that, especially in the past decade. But yes, there are less famous rappers who might be glossed over in conversations like this-say, Black Thought, for instance, who deserve more recognition. I know a number of rappers myself in the underground New York rap/jazz scene that are fantastic, but keep mainly a local following.
I'm fine with people holding Kendrick Lamar in high regard, even considering him the best (at the moment), but I think it's dangerous to start worshipping artists and assuming they somehow are inherently synonymous with being the best, or what others' opinions have to be about them. I think that's one takeaway of the video, but with classical music, the whole history of European nationalism, colonialism, and aristocratic and racial elitism do come into play. A person who thinks Beethoven is the best, even if he came to that conclusion after listening to a lot of classical pieces, probably didn't come to that opinion in a vacuum; in fact, it's kind of impossible, considering Beethoven's reputation. It's fine to have that opinion, but it is important to keep in mind why there is social pressure for others to share that opinion, and critically examine what those social pressures really mean.
imagine comparing art like they are yughioh cards
Symphonic Warriors vs. Solfachords
Kinda interesting that this is coming out at this time...
As something similar is happening across the board in various music genres and cultures, rap and rock especially.
Would've been interesting if you touched on this phenomenon's relationship with other genres of music, how elitism and taste are the double edged swords that are acknowledging key players in a given scene, but also tearing communities apart over who is the best in a given genre instead of just simply enjoying the music.
I'm not talking about people giving their reasons as to why they like a certain artist or not... I'm talking about people that merely say "oh, that artist is cringe" because they don't understand the intention or simply don't like the artist or they play the race card, or argue that quantifying "success" such as longevity or albums sales is a trash way to say an artist is good.
Perhaps next video could dig a little deeper into this rabbit hole, just by going over other representations of this happening in other genres... It'd at least be an interesting discussion.
End note: enjoy the music you want to listen to, but also don't be afraid to check out other artists of different styles of music. And the end of the day, musicians and artists just want to make a living doing what they enjoy doing. Support smaller artists when you can.
One thing that is often missed in the conversation: I can sit down at my piano right now and play through a Beethoven or Florence Price Sonata. My relationship with them is active and ongoing. I enjoy Kendrick Lamar, but as his art is in the form of mechanical reproduction my relationship with him is a passive one.
"We have been metamorphosised from a mad body dancing on hillsides to a pair of eyes staring in the dark." - Jim Morrisson
"...Apocrypha, which mean that they don't count."
He also never got his picture on bubblegum cards.
How can you say someone's great if they never had their picture on a bubblegum card?
1:44 - There's also a canon of canons. Pachelbel's... um ... some others... 😳
Star Wars has a canon, X-Men has a canon, Pachelbel has a canon
I mean, if you just listen he is pretty freakin good lmao. It isn't like he had Pro Tools or Ableton to record his symphonies and sonatas. He even wrote great music when deaf. And the ideas and structure are about as sonically pleasing as any music from his age. That being said composers back then had to be sponsored by roaylty so of course there was tons of musical potential untapped due to lack of opportunity. But if you don't think Beethoven was all time great, just try to do some of what he did. Put away all your music tech and compose something using only paper and your memory.
Skill issue
Oh my god, this video just answered a question I could never quite formulate properly. Thank you for the write-up.
At 12:13 when you say hard, is that a Battletoad you're drawing? Because that game is pretty hard.
I just came in to see this video and an ad played the Pastorale Symphony right before
Sweet irony
I can never answer the question "What's your favorite movie?" How do I compare a Billy Wilder Comedy to Guardians of the Galaxy? The idea that some specific composer, some style or canon of music, etc. are the "best" just doesn't make any sense to me. I can't compare Brandenburg Concerto #3 qualitatively to Bowie's Life on Mars.
What you enjoy is better. That's it :)
If you enjoy post malone more than beethoven then that means, to you posty is better. That's literally it.
F*ck the haters.
Darth Vader in Soul Calibur is not canon? My world = shattered!
Of course White Male youtubers decide that Beethoven "sucked at music" the same year we found out that Beethoven was black...
I started liking Beethoven when I watched the movie "My Immortal Beloved". Lol. Hard to imagine I liked his music just because I'm a haughty little bitch.
"Nothing is better, nothing is best / Take care of your health and get plenty of rest." -- Bob Dylan
I was watching another 12tone video when I got a notification for this video
Creepy
if u followed q, u’d know, all the creepiness makes no sense watsoever!
Ok
...and Michelangelo sucks at painting ceilings
12tone, I don't disagree with the essence of your thesis here, but I don't think you give an accurate depiction on a lot of the things in this video, and you can lead your audience to misinformation. For example, in OUR generation Beethoven might be only known for a handful of snippets from his most famous compositions, so calling him great would be hypocritical by this standard, but Beethoven enjoyed a huge longevity throughout the XIXth and XXth centuries with (white) people loving many of his sonatas, string quartets and symphonies. Beethoven really captivated audiences before and after his death, so it was not merely a case of people repeating the word of authority. Today it might be the case, but historically it was not coincidence or conspiracy that put Beethoven at the top of the pedestal. And we'll also find many detractors comfortable enough to share their opinon for not liking his style. Things were a lot more genuine when classical music was still a living thing in culture instead of a museum relic.
"So does Beethoven suck at music? Nah I don't think so, but more importantly I think that question misses the point."
My brother in Christ, YOU named the video.
yeah, but if he named it something more reflective of his feelings then people wouldnt click on it.
Years ago In an interview Mike Tyson was asked to comment on Floyd Mayweather’s assertion that he (Floyd) was the greatest boxer ever, instead of muhammad ali who is widely recognized as boxing’s GOAT. Floyd cited his perfect record, unique defensive style, and “not taking punishment” during fights that makes him the greatest boxer ever.
Mike responded (I’m paraphrasing): “he’s delusional. Greatness isn’t insisted upon or argued over- it’s simply understood.”
I have so many complaints that I don't know where to start and I'm too lazy to write about all of it.
First off, music is subjective sure, but music theoretical standards still emerge which can almost be treated as objective. There is bad music, like the futurism "music" which is not necessarily bad because the concept was bad but rather because the composers were bad. Beethoven was a musical genius and can be judged as such by the almost objective standards. I'm not putting him on a pedestal with Mozart and Bach, I think Mozart is boring and overrated (which might just be that I can't relate to his music), and I barely listen to Bach and don't understand why he is as famous as he is, and I only like some of Beethoven's music, but the thing is that my taste is irrelevant for whether or not Beethoven was a musical genius. I've played some of Beethovens works and regardless whether they are my taste of music or not the, orchestration for example is really good for how the orchestra looked at the time, and when playing a bad composer, it's immidiately noticeable that the music was done by someone who didn't know what they were doing.
That said I don't think Beethoven deserves to be some kind of undisputed genius. My favourite composer is Shostakovich and I think a lot of other composers like Mahler and Brahms compete for the title of writing the best music, and they had the advantage of being able to use the full symphonic orchestra at its height while Beethoven wrote for an orchestra where the brass and percussion were still developing.
Which composers are good ultimately gets decided by which music the classical community likes the most. It's a completely separate genre from pop music and barely comparable. Comparing them would be like comparing Shakespeare with fan made short stories. Do you have to like Shakespeare more than the shirt story? No. Is Shakespeare objectively better than the short story? No. Can you compare the two? Not really. Yet still, if someone wondered why that short story was not counted as equivalent to the works of Shakespeare you would laugh at them unless it was just out of this world good on a deeper level than that it just fitted your tastes more than Shakespeare.
Shakespeare might be a bad example because I haven't read or watched any Shakespeare, but I'm certain that if you were to critically review his works, just like with the great composers it would turn out he became accepted as being a great writer for a reason.
Yes the cannon reinforces itself but mostly among non musicians. Most people I've talked to who think Mozart, Beethoven and Bach are the 3 best composers don't even listen to classical music. Ask actual musicians and the opinions will be far more diverse but the names will still be there because they like the music, Mozart and Beethoven at least. I barely hear anything about Bach. People who do not listen to classical music do not set trends.
Yes, the cannon is full of white men but even though there are some female and non white composers in history, if they had written music as good as the recognized masters, that would have been brought up in an era where everyone is head over heels to promote female and racially diverse people. Speaking of skin colour, Mahler was a jew living in Austria during the rise of nationalism. He got famous during his own time for being a great composer despite being of a race that everybody hated throughout most of history.
It's not that white men wrote better music it's just that most white men wrote shit music and were forgotten to history, and so most female composers should also be expected to write shit music, but because there were so many more white men dedicating their lives to music, there are so many more great white male composers.
As for why there are so many German composers. In and around the 19th century the musical centres of the world were Paris, Wien and Moscow where Paris and Wien competed with eachother and Moscow was a bit isolated from the rest of europe and produced distinctly Russian composers with different styles from the central European one. Paris and Wien were where central European people studied to get the best musical education and learned from the great masters at the time. Is it so weird that French, German/austrian and Russian composers are overrepresented?
I suspect that many people know at least part of Moonlight Sonata if for no other reason than it appears in the soundtrack for numerous '80s/'90s era computer games
i love to think about the drawings you do during these because sometimes they just confuse me entirely or make me die from laughter.
>white men
>*draws fry from futurama*
"its about what it means to you and its okay if it means nothing"
> *draws elephant happy*
okay makes sense
> *draws duck*
w h a t
@@athy8763 Do not question the duck
While I definitely support the discussion you're having in this video, I think Beethoven's music definitely speaks for itself
It sure does.
The opinion that Beethoven is one of the greatest composers doesn't come from people who hardly know his music. It comes from people who really studied many of his works. A great deal of musicians, conductors etc and 'just' listeners in the 200 years since he died, enjoyed and admired his music. It was/is deeply meaningfull too them. That is what gave him his reputation, the music itself. It has little to do with people idolising someone or the opinion of experts or canon. Many composers who were considered great in their days have been forgotten. Beethoven is still played and listened too by people today because they enjoy it and it is meaningfull to them. I think this will stay the same in the future for a long time.
You should ask yourself which music that is produced today will still be listened to in 200 years.
Tchaikovsky is definitely cannon.
There must be something on B's music what makes his music beloved for generations. Sure, there's also some portion of luck, why it was him and not someone else from his generation. But even comparing "historical" classical musical with "modern" classical music (which is more fair than comparing with other genre) one easily recognizes, that while old pieces are melody to the ear, modern classical music is either cacophony garbage (most performance music) or simplified version of the art (some OST).
no, i clicked on this video because my reaction to the title was "oh, this sounds interesting."
and I was right. it was interesting.
Overall I appreciate this video. I am developing a serious interest in Renaissance polyphony, and I continually marvel at the fact that my gronding in common practice period harmony and formal construction has done nothing to prepare me to grapple with modal compositional practice.
Why did Germans get to decide what the canon was? Why didn't, say, the English write about musicology and declare that English composers were the greatest? Or likewise with Italians? Was music just more popular in Germany?
Music wasn’t more popular in Vienna than in London,say, but it had a higher concentration of talent and infrastructure I guess. A bit how New York gets to decide financial matters today or LA decides entertainment things. And the English and Italians have their own composers but with still champion Beethoven that’s what gives his place in the Western canon rather than just the German one. Also influence is a big thing. Essentially all subsequent classical music is influenced by Beethoven.
I always liked Beethoven but never cared for Mozart so I get what u mean.
Same
I feel like I'm the only one who likes Mozart way more than Beethoven. We're all entitled to our own opinions, but I feel lonely lol.
Alex Shih i’m way more into mozart than beethoven--same way i’m way more into jerry garcia than jimi hendrix--the melodies, to my ear and sensibility and soul-r sooo much more sweeter and dripping w/ pathos. so ur not alone!!! but i wudnt necessarily recommend my company-i’m a dipshit!!!
I love Beethoven, and really kind of feel like Mozart is overrated. Mozart is good, no denying that, but there is key difference between the two. Everything just comes so easy to Mozart. Every single note just leaves you thinking, "Yeah, that was the right note, of course it was. There is no doubt about it."
For Beethoven, it didn't come as easier. He explored every musical possibility until he found the right note, and you can feel that quest in his music. Sometimes he had the "right note" syndrome of Mozart, but then he frequently also had notes that left you thinking, "That wasn't what should have been the right note, but it was the perfect alternative note to open a new world of possibilities to what the right note can be."
And that is why Mozart is the perfect prodigy who never messes up, and Beethoven is the man struggling through life, but never gives up until he finds his own way. Beethoven better captures the essence of being human.
@@5BBassist4Christ We're all entitled to our own opinions, but my problem with this common justification is this: why is being "perfect" less interesting than having to struggle? Why does contentment have to be less interesting than strife/angst? For me, it's Mozart who captures the essence of being human. Beethoven captures the essence of being Beethoven.
While interesting, none of this detracts from Beethoven's abilities.
Of course, 12tone recognizes this point later in the video by saying that Beethoven doesn’t suck. The title is purposely provocative to demonstrate the ridiculousness of outrage despite 99% of the audience having barely listened to Beethoven’s music. His point is that those upset by this statement aren’t formulating their own opinions by blindly trusting the canon.
Yeah. But that’s not at all the point
@deez No. His point is that you should make up your own mind. I think Beethoven had some really good pieces. Some not so good. He's criticising the cultish mentality people have to 'the Western Canon' (which doesn't even really exist, as he explains).
@@shogan3243 It's so confusing to me, you don't need a deep understanding of quantum physics to understand that Einstein was one of the greatest physicists ever, next time someone mentions how smart Einstein was, ask them if they've solved a physics problem using his Theory of Relativity. It's like these people are being pretentious while pretending to not be pretentious.
@@Alexander_Grant music theory is not science and if it was title of “greatest” would either go to a jazz musician or contemporary composer
I'm rereading 1950s Peanuts strips and Schroeder's devotion to Beethoven is still funny.
And a lot less violent than Alex DeLarge's devolution to LUDWIG VAN!
2:05 _"but in terms of cultural influence, the classical canon is by far the most important one"_ XD !!
Love your talk and how much you are fighting against your cultural conditioning, but you couldn't escape it here. Not sure how you are defining 'cultural influence' or 'important', but most of the definitions I can think of would mean the contemporary hip hop canon is more important than the classical one. Seems more honest to say 'my expertise is in the classical canon, so I'm focusing on that one here'
There is a generalization regarding the canon of Western music which could be asserted and that I believe is both valid & true; an idea/concept/notion which you have kind of hinted at, but not fully expressed...
While there is probably some music in the canon that doesn't really deserve to be there, it is all of the music that should be there which is missing that is far more important & upsetting than the music that may not really deserve the continued recognition & attention it gets.
And, BTW, I am referring to music which has not been lost to us. In other words, music for which some kind of score or viable & sufficient instructions exist to reproduce it, or of/for which a recording exists... (Just to be clear)
I find it interesting that no new classical music is written that is as good a the canon. Why not? Surely the musical talent exists, probably way more than back in the days. Do all talented musicians do modern music styles instead? Or is it somehow "lame" to do old school classical music that is pleasant to the ear? I genuinely wonder! The only modern orchestral music that pleases the crowd seems to be movie score like John Williams etc.
Oh, there are thousands of composers today that write fugues alla Bach and piano concerti alla Mozart. You can find such music on musescore where they share their scores, or even on TH-cam. Unfortunately, noone cares, because imitating Bach is somewhat unoriginal, and also because their music just sounds like second rate Bach.
Yup, this is just America - or maybe just you. I'm from Europe, I've been educated in music, and no one has ever told me that there is "one singular greatest composer of all time". Music history covered everything from Ancient Greece to 20th century and yes, it was mostly Europe, because that's what music schools in Europe are for: teaching western classical music (classical in broader meaning, of course, not just classicist). That's our legacy and we have every right to teach it, learn it and explore it. That said, no one has ever been stopped from learning about other styles of music. There are rock academies and all kinds of lessons you can take if you are interested in anything else - although, someone with classical education will quickly pick up anything else that interests them simply by listening and studying theory. I've known many musicians, have sang in choirs for decades, and we all played and sang everything: medieval European music, Renaissance, Baroque etc., rock and punk and folk music, jazz and blues and soul...
Should we include female composers like Fanny Mendelssohn in the canon? Yes, I believe we should - but we also shouldn't take anyone out. The reason is simple: we play that music because it's beautiful, not because someone told us it's good. Beethoven is responsible for some of the most profound experiences I've ever had in music; it was as if he reached through time and gave me a gift I could never repay. I am grateful for that. Many are.
And just to point out: classical music has always been and still is practiced and cherished by a small percentage of people. Don't take it away, don't politicise it. Modern music has more than enough attention, money and awards, so you don't have to take anything away from other areas to make them relevant. Just listen to what you like and let the small number of people who actually like this tradition cherish it.
No musician is giving me competition. Which is probably a good thing
Really interesting video, lots that I agree with and some things that I disagree with.
Let’s start what I agree with: are women and people of colour marginalised by the current academic circle jerk of classical music? Yes. Are the late german romantic anti semites incredibly overrated and is their music overly pompous and far too long? Yes. Is a modern classical composer, who’s work now falls into relative obscurity, more deserving of that award than the modern cultural hallmark that is Kendrick Lamar? No, of course not.
What you say about the clout of white men in classical music is something that I agree with and wholeheartedly endeavour to dispel. However, I am a person who is a thorough music nerd across all of our music history - I adore the work of Amy Beach and Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn is a babe and I love to jam to Scott Joplin, Miles Davis, Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk.
I love the music of all of the above, especially Amy Beach, whom I believe is a true gem who everyone who listens to Romanticism should engage with.
However, I also love Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Brahms; and I struggle especially to agree with you when you insinuate that Beethoven is perhaps only where he is because of an aristocratic artistic elite that repelled everything that wasn’t “art” from the canon.
I’m not denying that this elite didn’t exist - by all accounts, it did. But let us not forget that Beethoven’s family were farmers from a small German town. Let us not forget the abuse that Beethoven endured as a child. Let us not forget that, at the precipice of deafness, Beethoven produced some of the most influential music of all time, including but not limited to the Eroica, the 9th, the late quartets and sonatas.
Beethoven’s Eroica in particular is surely the single most influential work of all time, it gave birth to romanticism, romanticism leads us eventually to Joplin which in part leads to Jazz which takes us to Rock and then all modern pop.
Beethoven isn’t remembered because he was in the right place at the right time, or because he was noted by the racist musicologists who dictate the canon - Beethoven is remembered because he radically influenced every other composer then composing in Europe and gave rise to a century long musical movement which still permeates so many aspects of our culture today.
Is he the greatest of all time? I don’t know, to me he is, but that’s because I like his music. Who is your greatest of all time? If it’s Jimi Hendrix, Tyler the Creator, Scriabin, Kanye West or the Jonas Brothers, whatever it is, if you enjoy it then it is the “greatest of all time for you” - and that is the only thing that matters. Music today is just as important and significant as music 200 years ago. The music of Amy Beach is just as sublime as the music of Bach.
But please, do not say that Beethoven’s legacy is the product of racist historians. Beethoven’s legacy is the product of his own hard work and grind (I do not say genius, Beethoven was not a genius, he was a tormented soul who dedicated all of his life to producing music, despite all the self doubt and anger he was plagued with). That is why I love Beethoven so much, he’s not some godly genius, he is a human just like you and me, who through hours and hours of scribbling out music, beating himself up for his own failures, produced music that has influenced countless musicians from his time until ours.
Surely, a creator whom I respect as much as you, who is so obviously versed in the history of music and of the intricacies of classical musical construction and form, cannot say that Beethoven “sucks” with a straight face?
I wasn't actually triggered until you drew Beethoven as a bug. man...
Is this really what it's like in America? I'm really confused. Who says Beethoven is the most important composer? I always heard it's Mozart. Here in Switzerland where I live, we talked more about Mozart, Bach and the romantic era (Chopin, Liszt, Schubert etc.) than Beethoven in school. This whole video is kinda strange for me.
The German speaking part of Europe was already a big cultural pillar before the nationalists were around especially in the classical era (First Viennese School --> Mozart, Salieri and Haydn). Musical traditions certainly don't come only from the german speaking part, opera is massively dominated by Italians, later the Romantic and Modernist era was very important in France. Also worth noting that nationalism ≠ nazism, there were national schools all over Europe: Spain, Hungary, Russia, Scandinavia.
Finally it would be more interesting to look at why English speaking composer are underrepresented in the "canon" (I never saw a list like that and did not learn about it tbh). My guess is that they often actively separated themselves from continental Europe.
And why again does Beethoven suck at music, I did not understand this point of the video.
The take-home message here is that titles like 'genius' or 'greatest of all time' don't really mean anything, and say far more about those giving them than about those receiving them.
I thought this was common sense
@@iloveraisins4137 "common sense" as a concept is the mind projection fallacy - assuming that things you've learned through experience are self-evident to others.
@@notoriouswhitemoth ok
I would be really interested to hear more about the differences between how American and European/British music education breaks down the study of music - you briefly mention 'musicology and music theory' and that they European approach works slightly differently. I grew up with the British curriculum and academic approaches to the study of music and, having watched a couple of videos today, the American concept of 'music theory' feels very alien but I can't actually find much discussing the differences. Could easily be I don't know what phrases to google (I'm mostly getting hits about the differences in nomenclature instead).
Mozart was a cat boy
Mozart was a scat boy.
Man I want I want to put this video and "Why You Are Wrong About Music Theory" on my wall, they are brilliant! Thank you so much! I would like it 100 times if I could!
i am super partial to his vids on poetry and rhyme and lyric writing... 12 tone is the best!!!
I believe there are music critics that spend their entire lives deciding what is good and what is not. My ears also tell me what is good and what is not. Beethoven is damn good!!
wrt the canon being a self-perpetuating truth, this is true to this day not just with the classical canon. just look at the beatles as an example.
12-tone can ditch Beethoven, but now you're crossing the line! :) Actually, though, it is easy to dismiss any canon. Is Casa Blanca really that great a film? Wizard of Oz? Gone with the Wind is really problematic, and, well, Birth of Nation, ouch. Is Harry Potter stuff really that much better than hundreds of other juvenile lit collections?
One difference (as I see it), is that the Beatles are way less likely to be put on a pedestal by people who do not actually enjoy their music. Listening to the Beatles is not generally considered a sign of status.
Right, so having watched the entire video here is why I think you're wrong: I was born and raised with non-western classical music. No one around me ever talked about it and my family and the community in which I grew up actively chose to listen to persian traditional music in favor of any western music. Yet the first time I ever heard Bach's music I was hooked and Beethoven's music still makes me tear up when I hear it. The fact that their music is amazing is not because the public says so, in fact the majority of the public prefers to listen to other music which I don't enjoy. Their music is known to be great because it's great as a standalone piece of art.
As a classical musician, I am very much appalled by your opinion, but I can understand what you mean. What I don’t understand is why you would title your video like that, I get it’s for clickbait, but you could just say that Beethoven is not the best but is a great composer, everybody has different opinions so there is no greatest composer.
Thanks for the history lesson. We definitely need to increase awareness of composers outside the canon. I personally can't name a female composer between Hildegard von Bingen and Laurie Anderson. That's pretty screwed up. We need more exposure to the music of women and of people of different races and nationalities. While we're at it let's give a chance to some self-taught composers who are outside of the scene of universities and symphony orchestras. Most of the stuff in the canon is great music, but not all of it is. And there's definitely music that should be in there but isn't.
Having said that, Beethoven's music is both objectively and subjectively excellent. His music reaches such high peaks and goes on such long, epic journeys that are so intricately developed while having such an emotional arc, that when one finishes listening to Beethoven there is usually no music that can follow it but more Beethoven. Listen to the Kreutzer Sonata and tell me if any music can follow that piece and sound good. If you personally don't like Beethoven's music, fine. I don't get it. I don't understand your criterion for musical excellence, but whatever. You do you. But when people actively insult Beethoven's music I want to grab them and shake them. It seems to me that someone who actively dislikes Beethoven's music is someone untrustworthy and unfit to live in society.
First of all, saying that the Canon is biased because it has no women or minorities is ridiculous. Imagine if I went to Africa and said "why wasn't any of your historical music composed by white people? Your Canon is clearly biased!" ? That would be utterly ridiculous. Well the same logic is being applied here. Europe in the 17th, 18, and 19th century was extremely homogenous. Of course almost none of the famous WESTERN CLASSICAL composers were non-white. What next, are we going to demand that Japan's classical music show more Latino composers? As for women, they simply had a different role in society. Women were expected to be caretakers and not musicians. Clara Schumann for example was a brilliant concert pianist who by her own choice gave it up to be a housewife for Robert Schumann, as society was different back then. You can't just ignore historical context to fit your political narrative. That's not history, that's propoganda.
Second, the three great German composers "Bach Beethoven and Mozart" keep coming up because they are simply that great. Take the three favorite composers of any famous 18th century composer, and I can almost GARUNTEE one of their favorites was one of the big three
Who were Chopin's favorite composers? Mozart, Bach, and Hummel
Who were Liszt's favorite composers? Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin
Who were Brahm's favorite composers? Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert
Who were Schubert's favorite composers? Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn
Who were Debussy's favorite composers? Chopin, Bach, and Mozart
Who were Mendelssohn's favorite composers? Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart
Who were Tchaikovsky's favorite composers? Mozart, Rubinstein, and Schumann (he also deeply respected Beethoven but in his own words "I [did] not love Beethoven")
Who were Wagner's favorite composers? Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach
I could go on. Seriously. I COULD GO ON. But the point has been made. The Canon has its biases, but all of the composers in it are brilliant and there for a reason
"sucks at music" this is some clickbaitey nonsense
To be honest, Beethoven was pretty good, but his 808s didn't hit hard enough for me
Bro i died at this comment 😭😭😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think he was side chaining them too much
He shouldn't have used reverb on them, but you really can't blame him considering it was like 50 years ago and he probably just didn't know better
When a youtuber says "but that's a topic for another video", you know they'll never make that video 😢
It's the poorest, cheapest and dirtiest trick in the youtube video making book for sure 😢
Adam Neely did a good video about Schenker so you could check that out
And if they do it's usually on curiosity stream haha
Unless it's Terrible writing advice, lol.
unless it's MatPat. you know that boy is gonna come back... he always comes back
I've always been a proponent of the idea that music exists to evoke emotion, so if you like a piece that in itself is justification for it being good. I'm a HUGE Mendelssohn nerd and I'll freely admit that his oeuvre isn't the most complex or revolutionary in classical music, but it SLAPS. And at the end of the day that's all it needs to do.
what he is trying to say is that its subjective, no doubt Bach and Beethoven slap, but other Asian and African composers slap too in their cultures.
the problem comes when we teach it as GENERAL music theory, and just european style of music. I for once only learnt music this european way and didnt learn other ways while I wish I could have.
@@ShadowD2C What is the alternative? Do you learn Chinese authors in a French literature class? Western classical is Western classical, Chinese music is Chinese music. The principles are totally different and you need to spend years and years to build any mastery of it - and learn Mandarin, Chinese history & culture, literature, philisophy, etc. I wish that other cultures would do more to preserve and promote their classical traditions, but that's not up to us.
@@jpiccone1 Im not sure about the chinese traditions, but for example guitar which I learnt the western way is most defently derived from middle eastern music theory and their oud (lute) scales. The issue just lies with the naming when youre learning it should be taught as western classical or smth so you dont internalize it as the basic of everything
For me, music has to move me. Otherwise I like it & forget about it
@@jpiccone1 except it’s just presented as “music theory”. Not “18th century European music theory”, but simply “music theory”, and it’s held as some sort of objective measure of musical worth when it’s just…not.
Although there's a slight difference between "greatest that has ever lived" and "sucks".
There's also the use of hyperbole to make a point.
@@flatblack7406 which comes off as disingenuous and clickbait-y
@@flatblack7406 and he even says at the end of the video that beethoven doesn't actually suck at music
Oh, so he is SOOOO great? Name EVERY piece he made.
Exactly.
I love this channel, but that was a cheap clickbait and I feel cheated.
"The cannon has always been political"
*draws astronaut pointing gun*
amazing
oh my goddd i missed that
7:57
The word is 'canon', not 'cannon'.
canon noun (1) can·on | \ ˈka-nən
4a: an accepted principle or rule
b: a criterion or standard of judgment the canons of good taste
c: a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms
[Late Greek kanōn, from Greek, model] : a contrapuntal musical composition in which each successively entering voice presents the initial theme usually transformed in a strictly consistent way
Have a great day!😃👍
@@williaml.6922
cannon cannon cannon cannon cannon
@@user-qd7zb4wm9b you got him 👌🏾
can
"He was in the right place at the right time and history rewarded him for it." My man just pretty much summed up fame for ya..
summed up the universe since the big bang
And he was a master in business.
Dont listen to this stupid video. Beethoven was recognised as the greatest all across Europe by those who were educated in music. Men who were far smarter and knowledgeable than this uploader.
The only problem with this is that there were tons of people in the same place and the same time. There were princes, people of nobility and men of renown. How many of their names would be more recognizable to someone on the street today between them or Beethoven? Not many I'd presume.
What he said in the video is true, but it also lacks an important component: "He was the right person in the right place at the right time." How many other people do you think you supplant in his place at that time and they would have had the same legacy? Very, very few.
@@rossconnolly3402 This channel is a more contemporary music channel. I don't expect him to just give the praise Beethoven needs. He is pretty annoying too, the way he approaches music is just awkward and he usually speaks with floating terminology instead of concrete examples. Adam Neely for example, teached me a lot about jazz music theory and music theory in general. This channel is an utter garbage.
"The Cannon has always been political"
Tchaikovsky: Wait, what's this now?
Ok, now imagine Shostakovich to be complying with politics from his time.