Juozas Rimas wrote, on Saturday, July 21, 2001, at 20:56:

>I don't understand how anyone who has listened to classical music and liked
>it can ever LOVE soft rock.  Some Sinatra, Streisand, maybe some Beatles
>but, excuse me, "pop and soft rock"?

Yes.  I've loved classical music since before I was 3 and spend most of my
listening- (and some playing-) time with it, but in my car and when I need
that kind of relaxation or stimulation I turn to pop and soft rock and at
times to hard rock or acid rock.  I've sung with both the San Francisco
Opera Chorus and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus.  I like to play the
piano and harpsichord and other instruments.  But I love pop and soft and
some harder rock.

>And the subsequent miserable assurance that he's "not an old
>stick-in-the-mud" is really bad...  I feel sorry for a musician who has
>to spend hours daily in contact with classical music that he compares to
>"mud".

You're being too literal.  He means that he's not in something that you
have to pull him out of to get him interested in other aspects of life.

>What is your opinion on this matter?

See above:-)

>I know some classical musicians listen to (more seldom "love") pop and
>soft rock but, to my mind, it shows a certain inner conflict in them -
>maybe they were forced to study music (a very frequent scenario!) or
>realized the absence of vocation to music.

Not at all.  I'm sorry your perspective is this narrow and so demeaning of
others who love both classical and pop.  I have no conflicts whatsoever -
they're different types of music that I have responses to at different
times.

>A classical music lover switching to pop is almost unimaginable for me,
>although the opposite happens quite often.  The content, emotion,
>complexity of classical music leave pop absolutely bland.

While classical music is in most ways more complex, I know too many
classical musicians who have no inkling of how to play a natural song
without the notes written before them and then trying to interpret it
'just so.' Music includes the ability to improvise, or did before we
got wrapped up in just-reading.

I consider much of popular music original and I've learned from it.  I
don't understand putting down people who love something different with the
"level above" thing that's taken for granted in some quarters.  Sure, our
particular values might give higher marks for musical complexity but there
is more to music than that.  There's the true creative impulse, the beauty
of musical expression in a less schooled manner.  There are those who, in
pop, are more 'musical' than some in classical (I'm talking about
professionals.)

>But that doesn't seem to apply to the New York
>Philharmonic concertmaster whose true artistry is now doubtful for me...

I would gravitate more toward someone who could appreciate the other forms
of music.

 - Andrys
http://mp3.com/andrys