Very thoughtful comments and well written. It always surprises me that aesthetic pleasure is not the measure by which EVERYONE determines the value of an artistic creation. And it amazes me even more that some people claim to be the authority on what is aesthetically pleasing.

Unfortunately, all of this is a function of human behavior. Some people aren’t confident enough in their own opinions and they look to others to tell them whether something is good or not. Critics make a living off of this. Now let’s look at the role of art and music appreciation classes. There is nothing wrong with learning interesting facts from these classes, and you will certainly be exposed to works of art that you normally wouldn’t be exposed to. Those are all great things. But you shouldn’t need another person to tell you what music and art you should like. Listen to music and look at art yourself. If you like it, it’s good. Period.

And as I mentioned earlier, other people feel the need to determine for you, what is good or bad music. So it’s really up to us to expose ourselves to all of the creativity that is around us, and to decide for ourselves what we like.

- Gary

It was used to generate feelings of awe in movies like Jurassic Park, feelings of love in Spiderman, feelings of despair in Empire Strikes Back. All those examples mirroring those symphonic tone poems that attempted to do the same thing in an epoch when moving pictures were still nonexistent. I wouldn’t qualify it as pure intellectual fulfillment in order to contrast that aspect with pop music, far from it!

In that sense, classical music could be as pop as one can get. My guess is that snobbery of the few in power within the classical music world contributed to its separation from the public mind.

I’d say that classical music has the potential to appeal to everyone as much as pop music. The latter uses a fusion of music with language, poetry, a sense of personality exuding from the singer’s mouth, all of which combining to generate emotions. If we take a pop tune and we remove all those parts, it would probably appeal to way less people than it would with them.

Same for classical. Maybe it does seem intellectual to the majority without the help of supportive media such as the items listed above, but it would seem that the vast majority who would usually ignore this type of music do get heavily emotionally involved when that music is supplemented with an intuitive visual and verbal medium so as to clarify its purpose, like in movies.

Hopefully one day this will be acknowledged, and then there would be balance, reconciliation, and no one would refer to “pop” music or “classical” music anymore. What a dream this would be!

I couldn’t agree more with your conclusion. I’m very happy you’ve greatly expanded your musical horizons.

- Gary

What changed my mind? Watching “The Partridge Family”! No kidding! In one episode, David Cassidy’s character, Keith Partridge, (a rock musician), has a super-crush on a beautiful classical musician. He even tries to write his own concerto, in the classical style. Since this is NOT where HIS talents lie, his “concerto” is the worst-sounding and composed in history. So, he goes back to his own type of music…. During the last scenes, the Partridge Family is giving a concert in the style THEY do best. In the audience, Keith’s classical-musician girlfriend is seated next to her teacher. “That music,” she says, “is SO simplistic!” “Maybe”, replies her professor. “But it MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY…AND THAT’S WHAT MUSIC IS SUPPOSED TO DO!”

I still like classical music — and Broadway Show music and movie background music. But I now see the poetry of the Beatles, the joy-in-freedom of Elvis Presley’s music, the heart and soul which is so real in Country Music, and the joyous abandon in Latin Music. And just about every other kind of music, too!
Gregorian Chant or Hip-Hop….if it makes people HAPPY, then it’s MY kind of music, now!