[ExI] for classical music lovers only

Fri Oct 30 21:04:17 UTC 2020

As I said, the standard grand operas are mostly soap operas - the
librettists, none of them in my opinion. were great writers.  By the way, I
read that at some choice venues translations appear on a crawl above the
stage.  Purists hate it.

I do not go to operas or listen to them:  I listen to the arias.  Think of
plainsong:  in Latin, which nobody but the priests could understand for
many centuries.  So the people knew only that it was about God in some way,
and could enjoy the music without paying any attention to the words.
That's the way I listen.

Did any of you ever hear the SWingle Singers?  Same thing.  No words - just
lalala or something.  I loved them.

Adrian - I don't know, and nobody I knows knows how to best define
'classical' music, but to paraphrase the Supreme Court justice and
pornography,and I know it when I hear it.  Tons of it are still being
written, the most popular being neo-romantic style.  I do not recognize
most of the composers in the American Record Guide.  There is also a
Classical music period identified with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
between Baroque and Romantic periods.

bill w

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 2:20 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> As I noted, you originally limited it to the past 20 years.  I take it as
> obvious that "classical" is mutually contradictory with such a recent time
> frame, so I thought you were seeking to step out of strictly classical
> stuff.
>
> Ironic that you note your experience with opera.  I have much the same
> problem - but in my case, I perceive that one is meant to understand and
> enjoy the words as the primary thing, with the tonal presentation merely
> being an enhancement.  If I can not understand the words, then I can not
> understand what people are doing on stage - and they're usually not
> dancing, or otherwise visually presenting in a way that would go along with
> audio where voice is more of a musical instrument than a conveyor of
> meaning.  For this reason, I tend to shun classical opera, as I can not
> enjoy it.  (Where the voice is just an instrument, I can enjoy that.  Where
> the words are clear, I can enjoy that.  But not where there are words that
> are supposed to be understood - and where this is more important than the
> music, if any - but the vocals are incomprehensible.  This does not seem to
> be due to any identifiable hearing deficit, which leaves me wondering if
> people who claim to enjoy classical opera are able to understand the lyrics
> as sung - or perhaps if they have cheats, such as printouts or prior
> knowledge of the lyrics, which they forget to mention because "any true fan
> should already know these things", which is a type of barrier to entry that
> I have seen in multiple other fandoms.)
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tAbhrDUrqM is an example of "has voice
> but only as an instrument, not words" that I listen to sometimes.  (Partly
> since I have a minor personal connection to the game this is part of the
> soundtrack of.)
>
> I sometimes listen to classical purely instrumental music, but only for
> "good + purely instrumental", not caring about "classical".
>
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 11:13 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> Adrian -I listened. Classical??  You listen to this sort of thing on a
>> daily basis?  Have you ever been in therapy? This is music that is
>> primarily about the words.  The music was probably made up when the band
>> got together to put words to music, much like commercials and Nashville
>> country music.  My hearing deficit does not permit me, usually, to even
>> understand the words, regardless of volume.  So it's like opera music sung
>> in Italian:  I really don't care what is being said.  It's mostly soap
>> opera anyway.  The joy is in the sound of the voice and accompanying music
>> -using the voice as just another instrument which could even be singing
>> lalalalala.  bill w
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 11:56 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was a notable production within that
>>> timespan, that conveyed a lot but not all of its plot through its songs.
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp_hlaXcniY&list=PL78B0B3p_qZQPO8VVNTRf6wSDP9ebIoTQ
>>> has the playlist (plus two non-song entries, which you can ignore for this
>>> exercise).
>>>
>>> The second LEGO Movie might be interesting to do this exercise with
>>> too.  Soundtrack at
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUEbWo1uIrg&list=PL5uTL9oHnU9gbfDveKd1kVKcXwydBb-1i
>>> .
>>>
>>> Granted, neither of these is particularly "old", but you limited it to
>>> the past 20 years.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 9:42 AM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> You  know, I have had this thought:  what if we heard the movie music
>>>> before we saw the movie?  After seeing the movie, we will have visual
>>>> images to go with most of the music, memory allowing.  ("I go to the
>>>> hills....."  Julie Andrews in an Alpine meadow)  The questions are:  can
>>>> the music stand alone?  Will your like or dislike of the scenes the music
>>>> accompanies influence your liking or disliking of the music?  I suppose a
>>>> test could be listening to old movie music whose movie you have not seen.
>>>> Or maybe someone in the group can tell me a movie they liked, and I can
>>>> listen to the score - or part of it, at least, should be on Youtube - an
>>>> invaluable resource.
>>>>
>>>> I have seen practically nothing in the last 20 years or so, so
>>>> please recommend a score.  (thanks Stuart)
>>>>
>>>> bill w
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 7:56 PM Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat <
>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Bill Wallace wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 3:36 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat
>>>>> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>> > I am at the point where I think I know just about every piece up
>>>>> until
>>>>> > about 1900 or maybe 1930 that I like.  So after that I am looking for
>>>>> > new music to buy.  I get the American Record Guide and buy CDs
>>>>> > based on reviews and have a success rate of maybe 10%.  The
>>>>> > others I give away.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > So, I am interested in finding out from other classical music lovers
>>>>> > who, since 1900, has become a favorite whose music I might like.  If
>>>>> > a composer is famous I very likely know all I need to know about
>>>>> > him or her.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would get the musical scores from the Star Wars movies performed by
>>>>> the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In so far as classical music can be
>>>>> considered a genre instead of a musical period ending in the 1800s,
>>>>> then John Williams is one of the best modern classical music
>>>>> composers. He is why the Star Wars movies are "space opera" instead
>>>>> of
>>>>> "space theater" or "space story".
>>>>>
>>>>> Stuart LaForge
>>>>>
>>>>>
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