NerblyBear wrote:If you're interested, PM me and I'll send you five single-spaced pages I wrote analyzing only the first four songs on that album from a Kantian philosophical perspective.

...act now and receive this NerblyBear tote bag, free of charge.

NerblyBear wrote:To dismiss rock as being a lesser art form than classical music or poetry makes a tiny bit of sense to me, but I still strongly disagree with it.

You mean minor art form, which significantly different to 'lesser'. The distinction is crucial.

Cranius wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:To dismiss rock as being a lesser art form than classical music or poetry makes a tiny bit of sense to me, but I still strongly disagree with it.

You mean minor art form, which significantly different to 'lesser'. The distinction is crucial.

Why should there be a distinction?

Skronk wrote:

Cranius wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:To dismiss rock as being a lesser art form than classical music or poetry makes a tiny bit of sense to me, but I still strongly disagree with it.

You mean minor art form, which significantly different to 'lesser'. The distinction is crucial.

Why should there be a distinction?

Because distinctions are important when trying to be accurate in your speech.

Rock could be considered 'minor' in relation to say classical music, but that is not to say that it is 'lesser' or less adequate. In the same way that slang is minor to the Queen's English (the major/dominant form).

I think it's inevitable that "minor" ends up as "lesser".

tocharian wrote:...However, I still think that a lot of you guys are coming across as anti-intellectual crybabies who want your Slint albums christened as "art". Ace, if you want to know what the problem with art is in democratic societies, this is it.

Rock music does not require the degree of engagement that serious art requires (such as classical or jazz, I'm guessing, when it ceased to be principally the music of dive bars and brothels). Nor does it anywhere near approach the content of a serious work or art, such as a volume of poetry. Most people I know who "grow out" of rock do so for these reasons. What rock lacks in engagement and content it makes up for in affectation and stylization. See Fugazi, etc....

Fuck. You.

This whole thread has got my goddamn blood boiling.

Tocharian: You are not helping a damn thing with this attitude. Thank you. Your elitist attitude is the exact fucking problem in trying to promote classical music beyond its traditionally perceived dying audience of old ladies, rich snobs and academic blow-hards.

By dismissing one art form you create a reactive dismissal of the art you are trying to place on a pedestal as "high art". This attitude has had the effect of marginalizing an art form that once had a larger audience, and will continue to diminish what could be a potential audience though a continuing perceived arrogance. Nice job.

My listening for the last few years has consisted overwhelmingly of classical music. This did not occur because I "grew out of" rock, but because I was interested in expanding my horizons to a wider realm of musical art. This would also include Javanese, classical Japanese, Jazz, Renaissance through modern eastern european folk music, ancient music, etc... All brought about by the realization that human civilization has created a canon of music that goes back over 1500 years, and comprises many more styles and realizations than the last 50 years of so-called popular music. To leave a comfort zone based in the last 35 years of "recorded" music has been extremely rewarding. But, I find it offensive that you would suggest that this expansion of my tastes was some sort of maturation, or as Steve put it "graduation" from Rock. Bullshit. On the flip side, I do find this so called "Rockism" equally offensive from its seeming declaration that Rock is the final evolution of musical art and thus its highest elevation, by proxy of dismissing all other forms of past and contemporary music as irrelevant. Bullshit on that count as well.

The label of "kitsch" is offensive and ignorant. There are plenty of people who would label the work of someone like Les Baxter as kitsch. However, I might argue that Baxter's work is equally serious in it's ability to have created a new style by merging his experience with jazz, Ravel and Debussy, pop orchestration and the instrumentation of the world. Perception is everything, if not just subjective.

The question I put to you, and others on PRF, is: How does one expand the tastes of a rock audience beyond Rock? How does one expand a diminishing audience for classical music? How can the charges of elitism and snobbery that surround classical music be eliminated so that a "music lover" might regard Haydn, Bartok, Debussy, Slint, Ellington, Benny Goodman, or Led Zeppelin as equally "high art", each on its own terms?

Does classical music (as well as any music created outside of the last 35 or so years) deserve a wider audience and recognition? Can it reward a listener who takes the time to explore as much as any other types of music? What needs to happen to eliminate the perception that Tocharian so jackassedly propagates?

Gah! My fucking head hurts...

Geiginni, you da man.

I think that what rock may lack in comparison to the technical virtuosity of jazz and classical is made up for by its timbral possibilities. A loud electric guitar is just such a versatile instrument, and it's almost as though it were tailor-made for non-virtuosos to come up with cool shit on it. The possibilities are really endless. Look at someone like Jon Spencer. The guy hardly does more than pluck away at one string at a time, but when that is merged with a great drum pattern, the energy just pulsates through the whole thing.

geiginni wrote:[his whole thread has got my goddamn blood boiling.

Tocharian:

By dismissing one art form you create a reactive dismissal of the art you are trying to place on a pedestal as "high art".

Maybe, sometimes...
But i haven't seen anything on this thread since Tocharian's posts that used Tocharian's elitist and misguided musings as justification for anything other than dismissing the arguments themselves.

geiginni wrote:On the flip side, I do find this so called "Rockism" equally offensive from its seeming declaration that Rock is the final evolution of musical art and thus its highest elevation. Bullshit on that count as well.

Who has ever said this thing? This thing you are calling bullsiht on, that "Rock is the final evolution of musical art and thus its highest elevation," who ever said that? I think you made it up in order to call bullshit on it.

ERawk wrote:Are you instrumentally inclined? Have you ever played with a group of musicians, whether it's a large orchestra or a 4-piece band?

Yes. When I was 12 I received a full scholarship to study oboe at Mannes Conservatory in New York. I then moved to Washington DC and studied with the principal oboist in with National Symphony Orchestra for 7 years. The pressure was unreal, and in fit of teenage pique I quit.

Your characterization of classical musicians is inaccurate. Any professional classical musician can improvise, as well as play music by ear and sight-read highly complex scores. They're trained to do all three.

Listen, I like rock music. I don't think it's art. That's my right. You can go ahead and furnish a list of bands you think make great art, but I'll probably find them tedious, limited or totally camp.

And yes, as my friends near their 30s and seriously engage in serious matters such as careers and family, they are losing interest in rock because they don't find it nearly as satisfying as other forms.

In any case it is just silly to go around saying, yes rock is art but, no I don't want to read up on what people have written about art or be able to talk about it in any kind of intelligent way.

So go ahead and self-righteousize yourselves into oblivion. I am frankly surprised at how seriously you all take this. Rock is doomed indeed.