MUB Blog 15: Classical Music vs. Pop Music

A common theme in our music business class is classical music versus pop music. And by classical, I’m referring to Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20^th century music, and everything in between. In other words, I’m referring to art music. The Wednesday panel that we held made me really curious as to come up with reasons as to why I believe that classical music needs to still be relevant in today’s society. This topic is actually a big chunk of my music education philosophy.

Let’s face it; classical music is not as popular as pop music in today’s time and age. I mean, there is a reason it’s call popular music. Even so, I still think that classical music earned its right to be studied and appreciated. It’s not a dying genre if people can learn to appreciate it. I’m not saying that everyone needs to binge listen to Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart. I’m saying that it’s been an important part of history, so it needs to be studied much like we study the Civil War in history class. Germany understands this. Classical music is big part of their culture and their government is trying to maintain that culture.

Is there a notion of superiority when it comes to listening to classical music? The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about this is how pregnant women let their unborn infant listen to classical music to make them smarter. I think that is a myth, but I do think that everyone is able to appreciate to classical music if they have an open mind. This is no different than classical musicians who refuse to listen to pop music. If you want to be a well-rounded individual, you won’t close your mind to different genres of music. You don’t have to like it, but you can at least appreciate it for what it is.

Where does the music business come in? Well as previously mentioned in class, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is going through a lockout. They are refusing to cooperate with the new financial contract, in which musicians are being cut and getting paid less. These classical musicians are being paid less than pop musicians. The reason this is happening is because tickets are not selling like they used to. Of course, there are many factors that pop musicians get paid more besides the obvious. Nonetheless, it affects the market for classical music, which affects how people see classical music in general. I think that we can help society learn to appreciate classical music or that the ASO needs to incorporate popular music in their repertoire. Obviously, the latter is more extreme, but something needs to be done.

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