Interesting Links for 16-04-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Do You Actually Know What Classical Music Is? Does Anyone?

(tags:music writing )

Comments

[channelpenguin]

Do we have any classical composers here? Does anybody know any? I would like to ask if they hear the music in their head and write it down, or if they ever just write without hearing it until it's actually played. (The latter case I would find unutterably weird, but I guess so, because there are fugues and such like, but maybe people hear those too? And don't have to calculate them THEN play them?)

Some prog rock is composed and is much much longer (probably because writers were classically trained), so are musicals, right?

A lot of music made within DAWs (music programs like Logic, ProTools, Reaper or Ableton) on computers is 'written' first, albeit on MIDI editor and multitrack sessions and FX automation, and a lot of synth sounds are specifically devised in tools. That's all written, and can't be given in short verbal instructions.

There are also multiple tools that use traditional staves, but that's uncontroversial to the authors case, I assume.

I think "it's complicated" sums it up. I don't think "written music" suffices for me,as I think that covers way more than classical -unless the author means exactly only on traditional staves.

[hutchingsmusic]

Hi that would be me - will comment further below! (see https://www.hutchingsmusic.co.uk)

[hutchingsmusic]

And in response to your specific queries - after a lot of practice I can hear (mostly-tonal) melodies in my head and write them down, sometimes knowing what harmonies go with them first try, but usually having to try out a few different bits of accompaniment before I decide which one matches what I'm hearing in my head.

Hearing more than one note at a time in your head is tricky but not impossible. I can usually internally hear two without much difficulty and know what they'll sound like together based on previous experience, but three gets tricky and I usually have to try that out on a piano to work out what third note works with them.

Fugues are very calculated, and there are a lot of specific rules that I've never learned for them. I've written a few which are decent as music but probably break a lot of the rules.

Musicals are generally composed in a similar way to classical music, but sometimes they'll start as songs with just words, a melody and chords (when you just have those it's called a lead sheet and players will do harmonies based on the chords but quite flexible in style). By the end of the creative process, though, they're typically fully notated and would fit Aucoin's definition despite the style of performance sometimes being more jazz-like.

DAWs - sometimes yes, sometimes no. There are people who use DAWs in a way that completely maps on to Aucoin's definition of classical music, but much of it is audio editing and, while it could be notated step by step, that's not likely to be the *best* way of communicating it, which I think is where the division lies.

[channelpenguin]

Thanks very much.

I am/was a pretty serious amateur rock singer and songwriter (I CAN read music, sort of, played brass as a kid and teenager, but dont write that way), and I can hear melody, instrument parts etc in my heda, but often kinda roughly and have to try it out to get there.


I will write bass/synth parts on the MIDI roll in the DAW based on the chords, rather than playing them about half the time, which rises to 90-95% of the time for drums. Guitar chords, vox I will record. I often write any "solos" on the MIDI or sitch together then learn them, because I am a very rudimentary guitar player!


I can do good mental playback of known songs, better for vox, guitar, bass and melody/bass line than drums (I dont play drums!). I suppose from years of learning songs to perform them. About 20 years ago, UCL once wanted to drag my whole family in to test them out for some research after a musical memory test I did. It was REALLY easy. Or so I thought. Apparently not! That is when I first realised that not everyone's mental music eperiences are the same...

My BF can also hear /playback classical and prog in detail in his head, he is a semi-pro singer and partly musically-trained (keyboard, flute).

[anna_wing]

European music from the period between the Baroque and the Romantic musical eras was the definition that I learned in my piano theory class.

[simont]

Yes, when I saw the title I expected it to be talking about that strict sense of "classical" (later than baroque and earlier than romantic), and contrasting it with the more colloquial usage that includes baroque and romantic too. In fact the author is using the word in an even more general sense than the latter, and not one I'd heard from anyone before.

But then, they seem to be trying to propose this as a new definition that aligns with something they think is important, so it's not such a surprise that it doesn't match the previous ones. (If it did, they wouldn't need to propose it at all!)

[andrewducker]

I think we're differentiating "classical music" from "music from the classical period".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music#Contemporary_understanding fpr the different understandings of the term.

[simont]

Hmm. Definitions #3 and #2 in their list seem to be the ones I was vaguely referring to. But I don't like their #1, "of acknowledged excellence". Certainly I'd call something "a classic" or just "classic" as an adjective with that sense, but "classical" seems like a different adjective to me.

Anyway, this is all beside the real point: surely what "classical music" really ought to be distinguishing itself from is quantum music. I hope somebody will publish that article at some point :-)

[hutchingsmusic]

As mentioned above, there are two standard definitions: there's a period of classical music which is called the Classical period (1800s-ish) but "classical music" without the capital refers to a much larger body of music from the Western canon. E.g. all the music that Beethoven wrote is classical music and from the Classical period within that. All the music that Benjamin Britten wrote is 20th-century classical music but not from the Classical era. We're talking about the lowercase definition from here on.

Most of what I've written is classical music, but some of it I would also class as jazz, pop or musicals. Aucoin would possibly classify everything I've written as classical music, because it's pretty much 100% notated, usually with staves.

Much like defining gender, "classical music" has a very flexible and questionable definition where it's always possible to find a counterexample! Here are a few non-exhaustive examples of what classical music does include:
- almost everything written for orchestra or entirely for "classical music" instruments
- almost any music that was written down before about 1900 using Western staff notation
- almost everything written pre-1900 that has a recognised "composer" who wrote it

and what it doesn't generally include:
- almost anything that has a drumkit and electric guitars
- music with an element of improvisation that's not part of the notation but which players are expected to learn by listening (i.e. the majority of jazz and pop music)
- folk music passed down by oral tradition (though some of it's been notated and arranged by classical musicians after its creation, and those notated arrangements would be classical music)

But all these are flexible.

Basically, if it's completely written down using Western music notation, and you can hand the score to classically trained musicians (playing orchestral instruments, organ, singing etc.) who have never seen or heard the piece, and they can produce something that sounds like what the creator intended, it's almost certainly "classical music" by any standard definition of the term.

Anything that breaks all of those rules is probably not classical music, but it still might be.

Aucoin's definition has written notation as the only real determinant. I wouldn't go as far as that, but counterexamples where notation isn't involved at all are quite hard to contrive. It's a very Western-centric definition, but the whole idea of classical music is Western-centric anyway. So maybe 7/10 for this argument.

More pettily: "An orchestra, a chorus, a jazz big band, a marching band—these are complex macroorganisms whose inner workings require formidable feats of interactive precision, all of which depend on information encoded in a written score. I can’t think of another comparably intricate form of social coordination outside the military." Aucoin has clearly never seen a dance performance, theatre production, or football game. Sigh.

[simont]

music with an element of improvisation that's not part of the notation

Don't I vaguely remember that ornaments, in the "trills and mordents" sense, were originally like that before they became part of the notation? I suppose that's one of your acknowledged exceptions.

[chickenfeet]

Yes. There was a time when soloists; both vocal and instrumental, were expected to improvise their cadenzas. The occasional singer sometimes still does; Hannigan, Bartoli for example.

[calimac]

There was a large element of improvisation in classical music up until about the time recordings became common, at which point, it being possible for everybody to hear what the leading performers did, and the expense and difficulty of making records in the early days leading performers to "freeze" into formal presentations, caused it to fade. It's still around in some ways, though.

The big difference between improvisation in the classical and nonclassical realms is the relationship of the improvisation to the predetermined music. In classical it's an ornamentation on top of a written score; in jazz and pop there may be a written guide sheet with the melodic line and chords, but everything else is improvised or done by ear.

[andrewducker]

Thank you! Really appreciate such a thorough reponse!

(And I agree with your pettiness)

[chickenfeet]

I actually find the question kind of pointless but if I had to answer it I would say it refers to music composed by composers trained in the western classical conservatory tradition writing (mostly) for musicians trained in the same way. That said, many of the composers I know combine that training with another cultural tradition and write music that draws on both. Composers also pull in elements from other genres. This has been going on for ages; from Bartok and Vaughan Williams using folk song melodies to Tippett using blues etc. So, yes, composers like Maxwell Davies and Mizzoli draw on rock, punk and more.

[juan_gandhi]

I trust Andrey Gavrilov's opinions.

[anna_wing]

In the Asian context there is also a definition that is more or less "music for traditional instruments, in styles originating from the court or temple and from a known canon of compositions, or similar music composed in that style in the modern era".

[andrewducker]

That makes sense

[andrewducker]

That makes sense. Thank you.

Church music ?

[bens_dad]

My wife has written and published music for the latest translation of the Catholic hymn book.
Since she composed these on staves, by this definition they are classical music, but she says they are "church music" instead.
My reply was, "Mozart wrote a lot of much to be performed in church services. Does that mean that church music *is* classical music ?".

Re: Church music ?

[andrewducker]

I would say that most church music is classical.