These people obviously never watched I Love Lucy
These people obviously never watched I Love Lucy
I have an idea. Have Snoop and Fitty Cent write something better than Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and all the rest. That’s all it would take.
Waiting. Not holding breath.
Will be waiting for them to take on the NBA next.
“The Barber of South Central LA.”
You know what was good music? Bugs Bunny soaking in that black pot while natives danced around him singing and banging the drums.
It’s actually pretty darn female and oriental these days too.
Haters gonna hate.
Actually classical music is mostly Asian and often females.
Without the Asians there would be no more classical music.
They really want Chinese opera from the 50s and 60s. Makes Yoko Ono bearable.
Other than one black guy back in the 1700s, and maybe a couple of others through the centuries, there just aren’t any non-white Romantic and pre-Romantic composers, certainly not of the stature of a Haydn, Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart et al. Classical music is the White Man’s music, and nothing is going to change that.
When I lived in India, there was a program at the university where I worked that strove to expose Indians to the great music of the West, billing it as of approximate maturity and complexity to the incredible catalog of Indian music. Apart from those two musical traditions, and to a lesser extent the musical developments of the Orient (maybe not as towering as the symphony but in some cases far more sublime), there just isn’t a comparable body of musical work.
If anything shows the fallacy of diversity, it’s this. If there was any good non white-male classical music, people would listen to it. It’s the music of 18th and 19th century Europe.
As for Modern classical music, music by non-whites isn’t any less listened to than modern classical music of whites. It all sucks and people want to listen to the good stuff that happened over a century ago in Europe.
This is from “The Onion”. Right??
I’ll keep my ears open for the next Jay-Z symphony har, har, har...
NPR radio station managers shudder...
While I love Classic Rock, Blues, and Jazz, as an honest musician I have to say it does not compare with Classical (from Handel and Bach all the way up to Prokofiev and Khachaturian, a period of about 300 years)in terms of emotional depth, range and variety, orchestral complexity, incredible skill required for its execution, and shear, glorious beauty.
And, yes, I am female, of mixed ethnicity, and a full-time working rock musician and teacher.
But I have ears and a brain.
Tired of the demonization of white males and the trashing of our cultural and artistic heritage as a result.
Is any good classical music even being composed today? It seems the world has been without a first-rate classical composer since Igor Stravinsky died in 1971.
“All the rest, without exception, are white men.” (Referring to the composers on their schedule)
Maybe that’s because white men wrote the most beautiful music.
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I like that era Cuban music, but it isn’t classical.
But that’s the other part of the fallacy, in the modern forms of music, non-whites are as important as whites and you can argue that blacks were the MVPs in 20th century music for inventing most of the popular genres. Think of Blues, Jazz, Soul, Spiritual, even can be argued they invented Rock, The best Rock acts were totally inspired by black Blues music.
This same mindset is behind the rock and roll hall of fame calling ANYTHING after the advent of rock music "the new rock and roll".
If Pearl Jam and Beatles and even Ice T are all supposed to be "decedents" of the Blues, when do they get their inductions in the blues hall of fame?
There is something to be said for preserving a tradition and not altering definitions of what "something is" to "remain relevant in the 21st century". Once lost it cannot be recaptured. And no, classical music does not need to be played strictly by white men. Plenty of women in orchestras are playing violins, cellos, harps, pianos, horns, drums, et al. Plenty of Asian, black, or whatever ethnic people.
But don't redefine what classical music IS. That doesn't make classical music "better".
There are black revisionist historians who call jazz "african-american classical music". Jazz is played by people of all colors and backgrounds. Classical is not a synonym for "instrumental" or "fancy".