"Motive"ating Music...

You listen to a piece of classical music and you just hear the same thing over and over and over again. Nothing is new; the composer just repeats himself. Music like that really doesn’t show creativity does it? It’s nothing like the I-IV-V-I chord progression used in most pop or rock songs since they have been around. Yes, it is true that classical music does have motives that repeat themselves, but it is no different than more popular forms of music.

For example you can find repeating motives in the classical music which is the background noise in your favorite movie. Have you ever tried to watch a movie with no musical background? The scenes lose so much intensity and interest when there is nothing there to provide that subtle musical layer of the mood that the director is trying to portray in the scene-whether it be love, hate, or just moving from place to place in the movie. And a lot of it is repetitive.

A movie that most people have seen is Lord of the Rings, and if you’ve watched this movie more than once then you know what music is used to portray each character. You know this by the sound of the melody found in the background music-which is made in the modern classical style. You could buy the sound track of the movie and know exactly who is in the part you are listening to and what is going on based on what you’re hearing. It is these repeating motives that give the music meaning and make it more than simple background noise. They help you connect to the characters and story line and help to create the atmosphere that it would be like if you were in the movie.

Even though a lot of music has very repetitive elements, it does not show a lack of creativity on the part of the composer. Especially in the case of classical music, it shows an understanding of the power of music.

You Can Call Me Mr. Angry Eyes!

Many people think that classical music is not worth their time because it does not represent what they are feeling. They feel that they can only find things that show how mad, sad, or happy they are in their favorite modern composer. While they can find many of their emotions in the popular music of today they truly can find these same emotions in classical music. You can experience mad  classical music if you listen to the piece “Night on Bald Mountain". You can experience sad classical music if you listen to “Adagietto from Symphony no. 5” written by Gutav Mahler. You can also experience happy classical music if you listen to "Symphony No. 6, 3rd Movement" by Beethoven. While each of these pieces depicts a different mood they are not the only moods to be found in classical music. Just like the composers of today write what they are feeling, classical composers write the emotions they are feeling and so you can find every emotion in classical music.

Classical music can relate to so many different emotions because of the wide variety of instruments the composers have to use. The reason these instruments help create different moods is because of how they are built and what notes they are playing. Emotion is also created by how the instruments play the notes given to them. There are two main ways of playing these notes. The first is smoothly-which gives you the chance to make sad, moody music. The second way of playing different notes is short, which is very good for extremely mad music but can also provide a happy bouncy feeling. These are a few reasons why classical music is able to represent people’s emotions.

Here Comes the Bride...

Many people think that classical music is only used for weddings because is it nice and quiet, and because it is something that you would hear in a church. Although classical music can be quite it can also be very intense, loud, stately, resolute and many other things which are used to bring pictures to your mind. An few examples of this are “Mars” and “Jupiter” from the orchestral suite The Planets which was written by Gustav Holst. In “Jupiter” you not only hear intense sounds in the beginning of the piece, you can hear happy/easy going sounds as well as stately/grandiose parts in the middle of the piece. “Mars” starts off with more dark/intense sounds than “Jupiter”, and stays that way throughout the whole piece. Each of the pieces in this suite are supposed to depict different things, “Mars” was specifically created to depict War and those who bring it, and “Jupiter” is supposed to depict jovial feelings and actions.

As we see in these two pieces from the orchestral suite The Planets classical music can be more intense than you would find in a church setting. Although church settings such as weddings are one place where you can successfully have classical music to listen to, not all classical music is fit for that setting. This is why there are concerts, radio stations, CD’s, and more that allow you to listen to classical music wherever you are.

Classical=Old Dead White Guys

Joseph Boulogne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was a very well known French composer of classical music in his day. He was even referred to as the “black Mozart”. So why is this important for us to know? By knowing he exists and that he was such a well known composer we are eliminating the often thought of stigma that comes with classical music in general. 

Many people think that classical music was only created by old dead white guys, but in his day Joseph Boulogne was very well know. One of the main reasons that Boulogne is not well know is because of his status as a black composer. In 1803 when Napoleon reinstated slavery most of Boulogne’s works that were being performed at that time were stopped. It was not till the twentieth century when his works started to be played again, and it was not till the 1970’s when his music was actually recorded for people to listen too.

Boulogne was a composer that both black and white people enjoyed listening to in his day and our day is no different. You don’t have to a certain race or age to enjoy classical music, people from all walks of life can listen to and appreciate what classical music has to offer.