Is classical music not liked by many people anymore?

[galante]

I'm getting a lot of anxiety over this, and I'm worried no one will care about classical music in the future. I'm also worried about AI being able to generate music, making the point of being able to compose useless. I would like to hear your opinions about it and if I should be worried about it.

[thorn]

I personally see two separate issues here: will classical music eventually die out, and will AI replace human composers. If classical music dies out I don't see AI being a significant factor compared to say government investment in arts education, concert halls, theatres etc. or social factors like do future generations see classical music as worth studying/do the current generation "sell" it to them properly (a topic for another thread but I think we could do better).

As for AI replacing composers, it has serious implications for funding/jobs. It's dramatic to suggest it will completely wipe these out, but ignorant to act like it won't impact them in a noticeable way. But at the same time the internet makes it a lot easier for composers to create their own opportunities- people who arrange film/tv/game music and put recordings on youtube with links to buy the sheets, for example.

[medtnerfan]

Whenever discussing the popularity of classical music (or jazz) it's important to make the distinction between vocal music and instrumental music.
Instrumental music (which is what most people think about when they are thinking about classical, maybe opera too, but mostly instrumental) has always been less popular than vocal music, here are some reasons why:
1. Vocal music has a smaller barrier for participation: anyone can hum or sing a melody and feel satisfied, even if they are singing the wrong notes, but with instrumental music one has to learn an instrument to try and replicate. There's also an element of participation in listening of course, but to feel more engaged one would have to do some work, such as listening more than once or reading about the pieces.
2. Vocal music has both poetry and music: the more senses/art types that are included in a work, the wider the net is for accessibility, that's songs with music videos are even more popular.
Words also gives a lot of people something to focus on while listening to a song, some may find listening an instrumental piece of music without context to be a bit abstract

That being said, some people like myself, really like to dive into the music part, so there's always be a demand for instrumental music for that smaller group of people. When you look at it as a style that has a heavy focus on instrumental music, then different genres like classical, jazz, film scores, and videogame music (all have vocal music too, but I think you get my point), will seem to have a lot in common, and personally I find it hard to make a real distinction between them when it comes to listening.The difference seems more in approach of composing or performing

[lelle]

I'm not too worried about AI replacing composers. AI can already make music, and will certainly get better at it, but I believe you are still going to need human input on what parameters should be used to generate the music and guide the final product for a long time to come. Corporate / commercial backing tracks might be taken over by AI sure.

Certain subsets of composers may be sidelined compared to today, but I also think that as AI grows, there will be a counter reaction where more people start to really value something that's genuine, imperfect, and confirmed to be created by an actual human. Similar to the resurgence of vinyl growing in parallel with digital streaming. Yes, the music industry is dominated by digital streaming so physical media might have seen a net loss, but people are buying vinyl now more than they have in decades because they want to hold something tangible and real in their hands when they consume their music. Not just put on a playlist on spotify.

The market may change as it has many times over the centuries, but classical music and composers will remain for a long time to come in one form or another.