For years some people have been saying that there is a vast untapped market out there of adherents of pop and rock music who can be converted to the more satisfying and longer lasting pleasures of classical music.
This may well be the case, and I certainly for one hope it is. But I wonder. We are still waiting for this great change over to take place. There was a programme recently where a young female chorister at Cambridge University changed places for a week with a girl in a rock band. The Cambridge girl seems to have made a real effort to embrace rock culture, but the extraordinary thing was, that the rock chick was utterly lost and at sea in the Kings College Chapel Choir. The Cambridge girl said she was glad to get back to the choir and found rock music appallingly trivial. The rock chick clearly found classical music far too challenging and the Cambridge girl said she found it impossible even to communicate with her on anything outside rock music and not just classical, where as she was prepared to discuss anything. In this case, are we dealing with closed minds?. One of the things about classical music surely, is that is opens the heart and mind to the universe, whereas rock music seems to be locked in its own world.
It may be that classical music is just too challenging for the head-bangers.
I mean, let's face it, if someone is really turned on to Beethoven, surely the pleasure they can get from any rock music has got to be extremely limited. I like watching the odd Hollywood movie, but really, it could sink into a swamp as far as I am concerned, after I have watched a good performance of a Shakespeare play. The point is that rock music and poor art is just blown away by classical music and great art.
[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 09, 2004).]
This may well be the case, and I certainly for one hope it is. But I wonder. We are still waiting for this great change over to take place. There was a programme recently where a young female chorister at Cambridge University changed places for a week with a girl in a rock band. The Cambridge girl seems to have made a real effort to embrace rock culture, but the extraordinary thing was, that the rock chick was utterly lost and at sea in the Kings College Chapel Choir. The Cambridge girl said she was glad to get back to the choir and found rock music appallingly trivial. The rock chick clearly found classical music far too challenging and the Cambridge girl said she found it impossible even to communicate with her on anything outside rock music and not just classical, where as she was prepared to discuss anything. In this case, are we dealing with closed minds?. One of the things about classical music surely, is that is opens the heart and mind to the universe, whereas rock music seems to be locked in its own world.
It may be that classical music is just too challenging for the head-bangers.
I mean, let's face it, if someone is really turned on to Beethoven, surely the pleasure they can get from any rock music has got to be extremely limited. I like watching the odd Hollywood movie, but really, it could sink into a swamp as far as I am concerned, after I have watched a good performance of a Shakespeare play. The point is that rock music and poor art is just blown away by classical music and great art.
[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited January 09, 2004).]
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