The Musical Culture Is Changing

[poliphilo]

Alex James- formerly of Blur- has started writing classical music. He was interviewed on Countryfile last night. He said pop music was like drawing with crayons- and classical music- well, he didn't pursue the analogy but you can see where it's going.

Paul Morley, the rock critic, has been saying the same sort of thing.

The Rock and Roll revolution has run its course.  A new century, searching for styles of its own, is going back to basics. I'm sensing it myself. Suddenly and more or less out of the blue I'm feeling the need for a little Beethoven in my life.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Heard this?



The composer, Richard Harvey was guitarist and tune writer with the folk rock band Gryphon in the seventies.

The late John Lord's compositions are also stunning.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

He was also quite the recorder player.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I have that album!

They were a talented bunch- I still run into Brian Gulland the bassonist occasionally as he plays in the New Scorpion Band with an old pal, Tim Laycock.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's lovely. No, I hadn't heard it before.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Try this too:

(John Lord)

[matrixmann]

Could understand the view.
Look what's wrong with popular music or with guitar music.
Artist's names sound like someone you shouldn't mess with and if you hear them you think like you're dealing with a bunch of kids which tries to be scary. It's been so for a very long time, so anytime you grow tired of it. - And electronic music isn't any help either, as artists only try their best to sound more shrill than the other, but all it does is make your head hurt.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The great days are long past. It's been over 50 years since Elvis burst on the scene. Everything grows old and tired.

[matrixmann]

Can't say if they're completely over, but it's another one of those 80s like times where everyone does something, but barely someone does something overwhelmingly.
Recently purchased a compilation released in 2007, I was like "Okay, Techno also isn't what it was like before", but you could still listen to it. The reason why I purchased it, it contained a song older than the others which still is from those better days. Strangely enough the put it on that and nowhere else. It also contained a newer song by someone whose name appears since the middle or at least the end of the 90s.
As I said, you can listen to and it's literally gold against what kind of electronic music that has been growing popular for years (perhaps that's why Arabesque Distribution have it on their list, usually they're accountable for all kinds of Psytrance stuff around the globe which nobody knows), but in comparison to the pioneer time, it does something different which makes you question if it had done so in this time, would it have become that famous as it became?

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Roll over, Beethoven.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Or, rather, roll back.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I've joined a choir here in Houston, and the repertoire for the up-coming Christmas concert is mainly all sorts of re-worked poppish and main-stream numbers, but... There's a Bach fugue re-worked for a men's chorus, and I just love it to bits! Oh, and a latin dona nobis pacem, which is also exquisite...

(Okay, there's also "A Texas Christmas", which has a country-music vibe to it and is actually great fun to sing... Country transposed to a four-part men's chorus is really rather an interesting sound!)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can't sing for toffee.

I was in a school choir once and they put me in the back row and told me to mime.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Most people can sing with the right instructor...

(I hate, though, that I can't read notes. I always have to move around my section to make sure I stand next to somebody who sings correctly and loudly enough for me to follow his lead at all times...)