in 50 years

[Skeptopotamus]

Just think of how much different music has the potential to be in 50 years.  People may have stopped listening to Mozart or Bach.  John Cage may seem like a conservative.  Our repertoires will be outdated.  All the different music that's gonna be heard and become the norm to play.


kind of scary.......

[Tash]

but people already did stop listening to bach after he died. like after the baroque period bach and monteverdi and the others were pretty neglected until like the 1930's when they became more of the norm, and people weren't just playing their own compositions. i highly doubt 50 years is going to make a huge difference.  because i can't see AMEB or the other music syllabuses out there suddenly ditching the entire classical repertoire because it's outdated- hello it's already been composed like 300 years ago!! just the contemporary music of today will cease to be contemporary in 50 years.

[leahcim]

Just think of how much different music has the potential to be in 50 years.  People may have stopped listening to Mozart or Bach.

If they did then Mozart II could "compose" Mozart / Bach pieces and have "new" music, which I'd expect to be received well by some audience - even if the technology to generate the sound is more electronic than mechanical.

Today mainstream classical is sold like pop - a silly haircut gave Gary Rhodes a mainstream career [or is it Nigel Kennedy? What works for pop, works for cooking and violin playing so it doesn't really matter which is which]

A few nubile young ladies get a record deal too - they are really no different from Britney w.r.t their celeb status. The fact they sell classical music is really immaterial - some might say "it attracts a new young audience to classical music" but that's a load of hogwash imo.

OTOH there are greater musicians in non classical music than a look at who is a big celeb would suggest. So it's not as though well played classical is less popular than other well played music. Thus where's the credence to the idea that classical should disappear over any other music? It's already as hidden [or visible] as any form of music.

It might not be the most valuable when it's put into a product by comparison, but that's probably evidence of its longevity into the future. Pop /rock is valuable [and thus visible] because it's designed to be disposable as much as because it's "alive" whereas the other is dead.

That said, even music that's designed to be disposable to create products shows a tendancy to return, often in a way that's far more revered than it was originally [either with cover versions / tribute bands or revivals - artist death helps too. Look at the status of Abba and Queen for example]

I can't see Mozart disappearing if Waterloo and dancing queen can return.

Technology-wise the piano [at least in some form] is more and more accessible - the orchestra too. It'll probably take a lot longer than digital cameras did to kill off film or digital storage to kill off LPs - irrespective of differences - but you can see one day the instruments changing for most players. Similary, recording and producing at good quality is getting cheap.

The internet means that people can group together. Thus an audience and peer-group can be found however non-mainstream your tastes - assume in 50 years that some economic model is worked out as well and it might even suit the professional as well the amateur to distribute their music across it. So finding someone who has recorded Mozart [to whatever quality your ear is trained to - a mobile ring tone'll do for a lot of the population] is as likely to get easier as it is to disappear. Bandwidth'll probably mean you can play along with folk across an ocean.

But equally I guess technology makes music much easier to listen to without having to learn to play. Of course, someone has to play it, but the technology to keep the recordings of great current pianists / composers around across lifetimes exists too [well, at least in the sense that you can keep re-burning CDs, the actual storage itself doesn't last, but the digital nature means it can be flawlessly copied and kept alive]

Technology also introduces more and more shiny toys to distract - so keeping the interest in learning the skill alive and generating interest about a new player when you've got xxx years of previous recordings, may be difficult.

[jeremyjchilds]

I just feel bad for the history students of 2505...

How will they make sense of the musical collage that we find ourself in?

[Waldszenen]

In my humble opinion in fifty years time it'll be no different from now; just look at 1955 - in terms of classical music, people were listening to basically the same stuff we listen to now, albeit now we have a higher tendency to listen to Handel, Grieg and Mendelssohn, whereas fifty years ago those three were far more neglected.

[pianistimo]

maybe they will have a teacher chip that you can insert in the back of your head.  it will give you up to ten lessons, and then has to be taken out.  overnight, you learn to play things taht used to take people several years.  you perform recitals almost daily (after 20 lessons) because you also have a memory chip (kind of like a cd) that helps you 'hear the music in your head.'  technology will have vastly improved the ability to learn, but still many people play unmusically.  that is only function (in 50 years) of live teachers.  to help people play musically. 

they come in to studio.  teacher gives them lots of verbal and emotional pain.  they go out.  play musically more sensitively.

[Nordlys]

Just think of how much different music has the potential to be in 50 years. People may have stopped listening to Mozart or Bach. John Cage may seem like a conservative. Our repertoires will be outdated. All the different music that's gonna be heard and become the norm to play.


kind of scary.......

 
John Cage is already old. His most famous work, 4'33' is more than 50 years old. But the music is still regarded as experimental.

I just feel bad for the history students of 2505...

How will they make sense of the musical collage that we find ourself in?

I actually think that the contemporary age has always seemed chaotic and like a "collage". It is the music historians who create and define an ordered history of music. For example, in baroque times the musicians didn't think of themselves as baroque - only as musicians, and the musical scene probably seemed chaotic to them.

In my humble opinion in fifty years time it'll be no different from now; just look at 1955 - in terms of classical music, people were listening to basically the same stuff we listen to now, albeit now we have a higher tendency to listen to Handel, Grieg and Mendelssohn, whereas fifty years ago those three were far more neglected.

Very interesting.
In 50 or 500 years time:
1 - will the same music be played and listened to? Thus Schönberg will always be considered modern, and the classical music will not develop much more?
2 - Or will the classical music change, new music be composed and replace some of the classics?
3 - Or maybe a combination? So that ever more variety?

Actually, 50 years ago we did not have the same classical canon. For example, Vivaldi was not known, his music was just then being discovered. Mahler was not played, he was not considered a good composer.

[jeremyjchilds]

.

I actually think that the contemporary age has always seemed chaotic and like a "collage". It is the music historians who create and define an ordered history of music. For example, in baroque times the musicians didn't think of themselves as baroque - only as musicians, and the musical scene probably seemed chaotic to them.

I do see what you are saying, but Music has progressed more due to technology, population growth, cultural convergance, information sharing and exposure etc. Consider the fact that in our society, music styles are fashionable and then unfashionable in a matter of months...a far cry to the enduring popularity of the sonata cycle for many years.