Appreciation of Beauty of Violin Music and Playing,,,in you or acquired?

February 3, 2011 at 04:45 AM ·

????  Beauty of a nice melody is not a cultural thing (just imho)...

Just make someone who was never exposed to classical music listen to a very lyrical and melodious classical composition (as some parts of the Mendelshon or Vitali Chaconne)  and they have good chances to like it...

I think that would also work with a very "glorious melodious" composition as some Brahms or Beethoven 9th etc. 

I'm not sure if it would work with dissonant, atonal stuff though?  That might be like giving grapefruit to a baby...  Do they really like it at first?  I ask myself the question??? 

I sure did agree with the phrase "people finds beautiful when someone does something well"

Interesting topic,

Anne-Marie

February 3, 2011 at 07:51 AM ·

It is astonishing how classical music has taken some hold in virtually every culture that is exposed to it.  At least i think so.  Which raises the question - are there cultures/races that do not like it?  I ask because there are music forms that I don't really get or appreciate...

February 3, 2011 at 09:34 AM ·

I pretty much disagree with that man, except in that my evolutionary programming insists that I be less involved with his mouthy smacking sounds on account of germs.

February 3, 2011 at 03:29 PM ·

 haha, perhaps his pressured speech has something to do with an effort to match the live cartoons? :)    i think deep inside he wants to be a rapper.

but i feel he touches on a subject that most of us have not thought about much: do we find certain music beautiful instinctively or through a music education process...

for instance, when i first heard some bach pieces, i did not comprehend its beauty as much as i did later when i was exposed to it again and again.   i did not sense the structure of his construct initially.  still not sure, but slightly more enlightened:)

but some other phrases, such as the slow section of the zeigeunerweisen,  are just beautiful the first time i heard it.  

elise's point is interesting.  for instance, in china, kids grew up listening to both chinese music (think erhu) and western music (think violin).  i am curious how they feel in terms of a natural affinity to one over the other,,,or not.

February 3, 2011 at 11:11 PM ·

The best music IME is beautiful on multiple levels.  It sounds beautiful to the naive listener, to the learner, to the experienced musician, and to the knowledgeable listener, to people who "get" the cultural context, to people outside that culture ...  If it's good on only one level and not much on the others, it will be a niche interest.  If it's good on all levels, it ends up in the canon in 100 years.

The big advantage classical music has is simply that it's, according to how you estimate this, around 800 years old.  The best-of-the-best has been boiled down until you have a list of the Billboard Top 40 for all of Western civilization since the awakening.  Of course that's going to be good stuff.

February 3, 2011 at 11:39 PM ·

February 4, 2011 at 08:41 AM ·

 I think there's a fairly simple reason why Western classical music is so widespread, and that's because of the strong presence of the harmonic series (a universal and natural phenomenon) in the main body of instruments employed (the strings and winds etc.) and then the strong influence of the lower orders of the harmonic series on the structure of the music composed for it.