Thoughts on Classical Music

Running a few miles this morning and listening to music through my headphones, with the shuffle setting on my ipod, I realized that I was working harder to listen when the classical music was being played. Let me digress for a minute as I pontificate about the term classical. In most ways I do not like this term and prefer art music or cultured music or cultivated or academic music but as I write those various terms, I found myself in personal disagreement since each term feels somewhat exclusionary. My dream, naive as it may be, is to embrace the totality of music with its myriad styles, instrumentation, background, and variety. But realistically that dream defies the idea of creating categories and labels. Are we a society of labeling and compartmentalization? Absolutely, but this is another subject for another day.

And so I return once again to the term classical knowing the fundamental flaws of the term. Classical music has a small but appreciative audience these days. I contend that some of the problem is related to our constant mobility and sound byte mentality. We love music as a society and can hear virtually anything at a moment's notice. We may only have 3-5 minutes to hear something or we might prefer sound while doing another activity. Classical music by its nature demands concentrated listening and a quiet environment. It tends to be sensitive, complicated, emotional, dramatic, and unpredictable. Classical music is also primarily acoustic, meaning that live instruments, real humans, have generated the sounds being heard. A great sound space with ideal acoustics allows for real human experience that is not electronically delivered.

Back to running. So I am listening to my iPod which is an app on my iPhone while pounding the pavement with my feet. It is sort of a fun adventure to hear the next selection since I have no idea what that will be. It could be a Michael Jackson song or a Stravinsky ballet or a part of a film score by Lalo Schifrin or a cowboy song by Michael Martin Murphey. Or it could be a Rachmaninoff symphony or a Claude Bolling jazz piece. Or a beautiful piano treatment of a Michel Legrand piece. The player "shuffles" around giving me something from my listening library. All great fun.

But in truth, as much as I love Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Corigliano, and Brahms, I have a difficult time enjoying their music while running. It is too expressive with too great a dynamic range. I strain to hear the softs and dread hearing the louds. I suddenly start worrying about the volume and cannot enjoy the music from constantly adjusting it. Plus my love of the sounds of Corigliano is without realization due to my huffing and puffing while running. Classical music does not work for every situation. Its power and expression, its complexity, its demands are not suited for driving, running, outdoor events, even social engagements are questionable. Our mobile world demands sound that is balanced, pulsated, electronically generated, and all one dynamic. Our lives ask for selections that are about 3 minutes--more than that does not fit our lifestyle. Classical music is losing the battle due its very nature!

I hit the pavement for a run and hope that I don't hear Rachmaninoff this time. I run better to Michael Jackson with its rock beat and driving rhythms. I must apologize to classical music--you are better for another day and time.