Music has changed a great deal over the last few centuries, the classical music that was popular before the 20th century is slowly fading into the past. The truth is that people who enjoy early styles of classical music tend to be older and with more refined tastes. Though having said that if you’re familiar with musical arrangements, then you will realize that a lot of modern music still uses some of the same composition techniques that were used by Beethoven, or Tchaikovsky. It sounds far fetched, but like all creative fields, artists learn from the techniques and methods of older generations, and then push them as far as they will go before they change into something new and current. The older classical music of the Baroque, Romantic, Renaissance and classical periods are not being played over the radio or on the televisions as much making it difficult for younger generations to learn to appreciate. These days our youth are being brought up on new forms of music, such as hip hop, R n B, or dance music, which use different formats that don’t really compliment classical music. If a child that had grown up listening to rock and hip hop was suddenly forced to listen to 3 hours of Mozart’s well known concertos, they would be less than happy. Medical psychologists actually believe that our brains search for patterns on music, once it learns the arrangement of one type of music, then listening to it is easy and satisfying. If it is not familiar with a new sound it would take several attempts to feel comfortable, this is why many people don’t like the sound of classical music; they never have the chance to hear any. Though classical music is still made use of in several bands; including a few recent and very popular bands, which could be called contemporary classical music groups.
The Beatles songs, especially from the album Sgt, Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album, contain tracks such as Eleanor Rigby and A day in the life, which clearly have classical influence mixed in with the forms of that time. More current bands that have successfully revived classical music styling’s are ‘Sigur Ros’ a Finnish band who use a stringed quartet to produce a strong orchestral sounds mixed in with soft rock to produce a music style that cannot really be placed in any genre. There is also ‘Godspeed you black emperor’ a band which constantly changes its band members, which at one time included 17 people. This is another band that uses both classical instruments and arrangements to produce a warm and powerful sound. The violin, cello, piano, trumpet and even a bowed guitar are used to create a dramatic feel to their music, which slowly builds up into a crescendo of warm noise.
So classical music isn’t gone there are many die hard fans out there, as well as radio shows, internet sites and television programs dedicated to this wonderful genre of music.
