response 26 of 88:

Feb 2 16:34 UTC 2001

Re #20 and #21:  Actually, Baroque music doesn't have "original
time signatures."  The metronome wasn't invented yet.  Any numerical
tempo marking in a published edition was added much later by some
editor.

response 28 of 88:

Feb 3 16:18 UTC 2001

Erlkonig is disturbing.

response 30 of 88:

Feb 4 06:34 UTC 2001

What is Erlkonig and why is it disturbing? I heard a song Schubert wrote
at the age of 17 today (as part of my piano teacher's group class in
preparation for a mostly-Schubert recital) "Gretchen at the Spinning-Wheel"
was the English translation she gave of its name. I don't suppose it's the
same piece...

response 32 of 88:

Feb 5 07:31 UTC 2001

To say that Schubert's lieder are classical music while Beatles songs 
are not is not to pass judgment on their quality.  It is merely to 
observe the style and medium in which they were written, and the 
context in which they were issued.  One striking difference that may 
not be obvious is that the music of the Beatles' songs were never 
written down by their composers.  (Any sheet music of Beatles songs was 
prepared by arrangers, and there exists a large book of painstakingly 
detailed transcriptions of every note of Beatles recordings.)

I've heard some of Sir Paul's reputed classical music.  (That's one ex-
Beatle, so I didn't realize this music was what was meant by "the 
Beatles writing classical music," or one of the things that was 
meant.)  My personal judgment is that it hovers on the edge of 
classical but doesn't really belong there.

Arguments in favor: the instrumentation; the fact that classical 
musicians have played it, and not in an "arranged pops" context; the 
fact that McCartney thinks it's classical; that record stores shelve it 
there.  These are not trivial points: they are all part of medium and 
context.

Arguments against: that McCartney doesn't do his own orchestration, or 
even all his own composition, relying on his arrangers to pull his 
musical thoughts together; that at least some of the shorter works (all 
I've heard in full) have an entirely episodic structure without the 
kind of development and variation universal in classical music; 
harmonic writing characteristic of orchestral muzak and not of 
classical, even light classical pops.  These, to my mind, are stronger 
arguments, but the definition of "classical" may change in the future 
to include these works.

It's worth noting that George Gershwin, a supreme master of jazz 
composition, wanted desperately to be a real classical composer too.  
He started at the beginning, took lessons in classical composition, 
learned to orchestrate his own works.  He wasn't very good at 
orchestration or structure, but he followed all the rules and was 
getting better at it when he died, still very young.  Sir Paul hasn't 
yet reached the point that Gershwin was at when he started.

response 34 of 88:

Feb 5 18:26 UTC 2001

Are Sousa marches classical?  Is anyone still writing marches - maybe for
football games?  Any classical marches written since Sousa?  Is all music
written recently for use in churches classical?  Has there been any classical
religious music written recently?  

response 36 of 88:

Feb 5 20:04 UTC 2001

It occurs to me that there cannot be a rigid distinction between popular
and classical music because, if there were, someone could write music
that included the properties of both, and hence there would not be. 
(An example of reductio ad absurdum.)

So...what are we talking about? Grays. I think that a number of responses
here have touched upon musical properties that lead music to tend to 
be considered toward the classical or popular, but we will never have
a clear distinction. (Ravel's classical Bolero is certainly popular!)

response 38 of 88:

Feb 6 03:16 UTC 2001

If all music *must* be classified as classical or popular, that cannot
happen. Nothing prevents a person from satisfying both criteria. You
would then have to invent a third category - but that would only be
defined by not being a or b, and would itself have no specific definition,
so you could not tell how to identify music fitting the "neither" category
without reference to the others. You would also have to specify what
a piece must NOT have in order to be classical or popular. I don't
think this whole mess is feasible. 

response 40 of 88:

Feb 6 16:58 UTC 2001

I tend to agree with davel (and dbratman), but only qualitatively. My
problem is what constitutes categories when there are only grays. For
example, can we logically classify the visible spectrum of colors into
two categories in some meaningful way? 

Not being a trained musicologist, I don't have sufficient vocabulary to
try to explain how I distinguish "classical" and "popular", but in lay
terms, I find that what I consider classical works with musical ideas for
their own sake for our enjoyment, with harmonic and rhythmic modulations,
thematic development, and with greater varieties of themes, harmony,
rhythm and development within a piece. Someone else said "classical" is
more complex, but that is not quite the same as variety. Popular music
does all these things too, but (as it becomes more "popular") to a lesser
extent. The emphasis in popular music is often primarily the rhythm, or
the harmony, or the theme. I consequently usually find popular music more
repetitive and less musically interesting. On the other hand, popular
music is often more utilitarian - such as for dancing, or telling a story
(ballads). 

response 42 of 88:

Feb 7 19:02 UTC 2001

Russian Orthodox church music was, at least much of it, written by composers
in the nineteenth century is a specific style that stressed a strong bass
part, and gave the melody to the first tenors.  I know, because I sang second
tenor in one choir (the other tenors could not read music so had to sing the
melody).  Tchaikovsky wrote some.  Some of the music is quite nice.  I used
to know the Old Church Slavonic version of Pater noster - (Oche nash).   The
Catholic church music that we sang, the modern stuff, included some that was
really, really boring - the same few notes repeated with different words, much
less interesting than Gregorian chant.  The message was important, I suppose,
but we could not stand more than two years in a row of each week's 'music'.
I think Orthodox Jewish religious music must not have changed much over the
past five hundred years or so, but the Reformed music has been modernized and
sounds pretty Western to me.  The Orthodox sounds more like Gregorian chant.

response 44 of 88:

Feb 9 15:16 UTC 2001

At best tangentially relevant to the overall discussion:

Re #41: Dan, I meant "classical" as opposed to popular, as we generally have
been in this discussion, not as opposed to baroque, romantic, etc.  The
Orthodox liturgical music I've heard has included some chant that is either
early music or imitative of that - that's part of what I meant by "would have
to be called classical", as early music is definitely classical-as-opposed-
-to-pop.  (Possibly another reason for rejecting complexity as *the*
distinguishing character of classical music, BTW.)  And Sindi is right that
you can find plenty of Orthodox liturgical music written by 19th-c. composers;
my point was that I have no direct knowledge of what you'd find actually being
played and sung in an Orthodox church any given Sunday.  My impression is that
they are pretty committed to an older tradition, but I don't know for myself.

Re #42: Sindi, just to be picky, it's "Reform" (not "Reformed") Judaism, and
some of those so described tend to be a bit sensitive about it.

response 46 of 88:

Feb 18 04:14 UTC 2001

More thoughts:  Yes, marches are still being written today, usually for
college or especially high school bands.  They are in the style of Sousa (or
not :-) but need not be so formulaic in structure.  Marches certainly go
closer to classical than any other category.

Now take Leroy Anderson.  You know many of his works, even though you don't
know it :-) - Sleigh Ride, Syncopated Clock, Bugler's Holiday, Waltzing Cat,
the list goes on.  Many of them were "delivered" as orchestra pieces.  It was
popular music of its era, but delivered by a "classical" mechanism.

Lastly, do NOT, I repeat, *NOT* ever let musak orchestrations of anything lead
you to believe that whatever it is could be classical therein!  :-)

response 48 of 88:

Mar 8 03:39 UTC 2001

Jim and I were trying to come up with some simple scheme that could be used
to classify the various genres of music, such as how much they were based on
melody, harmony, rhythm, and variation.  What we came up with is:
jazz - lots of variation, little rhythm or melody (but the jazz that we hear
is mostly what the dentist plays - please correct us).
new age - all harmony, no variation and not much melody.  Simple rhythm,good
for falling asleep by.  Possibly, again, we have not heard the better ones.
rock music - no variation (except for words),no melody,very simple and
repetitive rhythm and harmony.
folk music - melody and rhythm, simple harmony, little variation
dance and march music - lots of rhythm and melody, little harmony and
variation (unless you get more towards classical such as Strauss and Sousa)
baroque classical - stresses harmony and variations, repetitive rhythm (the
instrumental works, anyway)
classical classical - stresses melody more than harmony, lots of variation
classical music in general has more variation than pop and less than jazz
moderm classical - melody (but thenotes in the melody often bear little or
no harmonic relation each other, lots of rhythm (Stravinsky) - I don't listen
to enough post-1900 to really know much about it, due to lack of whatIthink
of as melody. Are things changing?
medieval classical - complex rhythm and variation, harmony less important.
rock music Ithink started as dance music, they both stress repetitive rhythm
jazz supposedly also started as dance music but lost its repetitiveness
marching is not seriously different from dancing except that I don't think
you usually march in 3/4 time.

Please prove us wrong.