The Life of Classical Music

The other night, I went out to dinner with some of my composer friends/colleagues (Cat, Branden, Will, Patrick, & David and our professor Michael Johanson).  We had a lengthy conversation about what music is and how one picks what they listen to.

Our conversation kinda foucsed around these questions:

• Do you put on different listening ears depending on the kind of music?
• Is there a difference between "art" song (like Schubert) and pop music (like Dido...?)?
• Do you listen differently depending on you mood? depending on what your doing?
• How do you pick your new (to your ears) tunes?
• What is the criteria for something to be music?

None of these really have any definite answers - at least none that people can agree on.

Let me tell you how we got to this conversation and some of the answers some of us posed along with more questions:

Branden asked if anyone would go with him to Ke$ha's concert with him next year - half of the group immediately said "NO!" and asked why he listens to "that stuff."

Defending himself, Branden argued that it was entertaining and, thus, fulfilled the requirement of music: to entertain.

Will and Patrick questioned this - what about evoking feeling?  the talent behind the artists?  what about invention?

Then we got to questions like:

• Are bands that are reviving old styles inventive?
• Can classically trained musicians really separate the music they hear?
• Why do all pop songs have the same chord progressions?
• Why do some have the same melodies?
• Have we written all of the possible melodies?

Cat brought up a YouTube video we had watched in Music History a couple years ago: every pop song can be related back to Pachebel's Canon...here's the rant.

What say you?

Please take the poll to the left since it is related!!!