Why don't you give rap music the same "respect of their opinion".
I do, as i said in a previous post I certainly would agree that rap IS music, I just don't personally consider it to be good, maybe this is because I listen to classical music so much and therefore find it hard to get into, I just feel that sometimes if i have an opinion that suggests that I don't consider rap to be good music compared to classical than I am called a snob, which I feel is unjust.
Brahms and rap are different, but musicians sticking up their noses to something new isn't.
I understand exactly what you mean but rap music isn't really that new, its certainly been around for as long as I can remember (at least 15 years in that case). Also I think that maybe there is a difference, the reason why people didn't like Brahms' music or Stravinskys' music at first was because it wasn't understood (Stravinsky in particular with the famous premier of the rite of spring), I don't however feel that the same applies in quite the same way to rap music now. Also another aspect of rap music in particular that deters and worries me is the content of some of the lyrics and sometimes the image that is conveyed.
Just aside from this, I was having an argument with someone once about the difference between music that is popular and successful and music that is good, they were basically saying that music that is popular is automactically good, as you may already guess I didn't agree with this! Just because some music is popular doesn't mean it is good, it could equally be good marketing etc.
You see, the main problem I have with this premise is that most of the music so described is 150 years old.
This, in my opinion, is simply not true, there is music composed within the last 20 years that I feel the same way about, even songs by the beetles and certainly not forgetting jazz musicians. If you say 150 years old then you are leaving out Wagners' Tristan, Rachmaninovs' music, Stravinsky, Debussy , Ravel the list goes on.
I love the music passionately, but I equally embrace the new, different and experimental. I am also convinced that Beethoven and Bach and Mozart and whoever would have relished the equipment and opportunities of these modern times. Just imagine a synthesizer in the hands of Beethoven!
Yes I agree that new and experimental music is very valid and important. I think that rap music is important and that all experimental forms of music demand recognition. It is vital that people try new directions as in doing so it causes us to have dicussions like this and it causes us to ask oursleves what is it that makes music music? How do we define what music is? Of course it is impossible and is something that makes music so special as we can never fully understand how it works, why for example do certain sounds create certain chords and why do they have the effect on us that they do? However as new forms of music come and go some are bound to be dismissed by people as not being music or as not being good music, this is simply a matter of taste and a matter of what the induvidual thinks music to be, it is not snobbery unless there is no reason to back it up with.
Exclusivity in any endeavor locks out so many people.
I know exactly what you mean, but I don't think that classical music should be exclusive at all, there is very often a feeling, a very wrong feeling, that the world of classical music is only open to a select few people. This is a great tradegy as it puts people off from trying to get into it. Classical music may be something that only a number people can fully understand but it is something that everyone can enjoy. People sometimes ask me why classical-pop fusions make me cringe when it is bringing classical music to people that wouldn't normally hear it, I don't dispute that it does this but I think that it is uneccessary, classical music is not unaccessible to people and people shouldn't be made to feel that they can't try and listen to it because they are not musicians. It is a shame that classical music has this rediculous "elitist" image, as result it has to be packaged in such a way so as to appeal to people.
Pronouncements denigrating anyone anytime are dangerous ground in my mind
The little people maybe, or whatever. But there is something in their heart that is being expressed when they take the time to produce or perform that has value.
I hope you didn't miss understand me, I would never be disrespectful to people who like rap or whatever, and through liking classical music I do not think I am better than anyone else. In fact it is this kind of attitude that I can't stand, I like classical music but would never look down on people who don't, I acknowledge completely that folk music and even rap are valid and important forms of music and that people go out of their way to create these forms of music, it is that personally I can't warm to it and don't feel any connection with it.
Topic: Rap IS NOT Music