There are a number of industries that survive solely upon white guilt: Penguin Classics, the SPCA, free range chicken farms, and the entire rubber bracelet market. Yet all of these pale in comparison to classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.
Though white people do not actually listen to classical music, they like to believe that they are the type of people who would enjoy it. You can witness this first hand by going to any classical performance at your local symphony where you will see literally dozens of white couples who have paid upwards of $80 for the right to dress up and sit in a chair for hours reading every word in the program.
After leaving the concert hall, white people will immediately begin telling everyone they know about how much they loved the performance and how they plan to “go more often.” This is because white people see little to no value enjoying classical music without recognition from other white people. This can be seen first hand by looking at the plaques and bricks around all opera houses: they are covered in white person names.
If a white person starts talking to you about classical music, it’s essential that you tread very lightly. This is because white people are all petrified that they will be exposed as someone who has only a moderate understanding of classical music. When a white person encounters another white person who actually enjoys classical music (exceptionally rare), it is often considered to be one of the most traumatic experiences they can go through.
“Really? Beethoven’s 5th Symphony….that’s your favorite.”
“um, no, I mean…”
“You sure it’s not Pachebel’s Canon?”
“well, ah, I like that, ah, song”
“sigh, of course you do.”
Even the possibility of this conversation happening is enough to scare white people into attending up to (but no more than) two performances in any given classical season. Therefore it is essential that even if you possess a massive amount of knowledge about classical music, do not share it with a white person regardless of how much they profess to love it. It’s a recipe for disaster and shame.
As a defense mechanism against the possibility of being called out for a lack of familiarity with the early works of Antonin Dvorak, white people have started to list more contemporary composers as their favorites. Of course, the easiest way for them to do this is to choose composers with music that appears in independent films. Knowing these composers is almost a golden ticket into making white people think you are smart, but not TOO smart.
The first, of course, is Philip Glass. Not only does he have one of the best last names a white person can have, but he writes music used in smart documentaries. Thus combining multiple white passions into a single artist.
The second, and slightly more obscure, is Erik Satie. Composing at the end of the 19th century, Satie has risen to prominence among white people because his music has been sampled by popular musicians and featured in a number of independent films. Dropping this name at a dinner party will show that you are modern and post-modern at the same time. It is also a good idea to tell white people that your tastes in general are “modern and post-modern at the same time.” Don’t worry, you won’t have to explain it.
Note: Under no circumstances should you ever list John Williams or Danny Elfman as your favorite composer.
Stuff White People Like 
Damn, I pooped my pants.
Sorry – this is a bit unrelated.
I’m going to Vancouver, Portland & Seattle in a few weeks and from what I understand these are very good towns in which to engage in white-people-behaviour. Being of Scandinavian (yes, European white) pedigree I’d like some tips on recommended white-people-activities in the area for my trip.
I’m interested in the whole works – farmers’ markets, local designers, hipster hangouts, single-speed/fixie shops. You get the idea.
Cheers and thanks!
Per in Stockholm, Sweden
Does this also include going to the opera?
if your white friend owns this CD. Run.
http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Music-People-Who-Hate/dp/B000003QWH
Does this apply to actual classically trained musicians, say, the ones IN the symphony? Contrary to popular belief they do have social lives…I was just curious.
There’s a classic white-classical-person-ism in your post – white people pretend to like contemporary composers, when in fact what they mean is that they like composers who are not quite as dead as other composers. Satie died in 1925…
You can scupper a white person’s Philip Glass gambit by saying “Oh yes, didn’t he do the music for Candyman 2?”. Thus, you win. In fact, you can be super-white by claiming that all film music is drivel. Which it is. This can even be extended to good music which has been (over)used in films – Barber’s Adagio for Strings, say.
Going to the opera is even better, since you will frequently get to hear black people singing. You can then expand upon the traditional “Ooh, wasn’t he eloquent?” by saying “Didn’t he have good diction?”.
NOBODY knows about the early works of Antonin Dvorak. Nobody wants to, either.
EVEN BETTER WHITE PERSON GAMBIT – say you like black composers. There aren’t many that anyone else will have heard of, but you can say whatever you like about their music because nobody ever listens to it. Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the “Black Mozart”, gets you triple bonus points, but people will probably realise your intentions if you bring him up.
Scott Joplin is easier to remember, but you must know that he wrote operas. Actually, you get points for saying “Really, I regard jazz as a form of classical music”. Make sure you do this with Thelonius Monk. Not so much George Benson.
Gustav Holst scores points because he was a socialist AND a vegetarian.
Can we include ballet as an adjunct to this entry? Classical music PLUS unhip dancing. Triple bonus score for being able to name major dance companies with minority primas.
Afterthought: I actually do subscribe to my local symphony. This is my own fault for marrying a music major. The caveat here is that only YOUNG white people fit this description. Approach old white people with caution on this, you may get more than you bargained for. (Apparently some of them have been going for years, and know quite a bit about classical music…)
Acceptable: Einstein on the Beach.
Unacceptable: The Forrest Gump Suite.
Just saying…John Williams has moved into respectability because he annually conducts the movie music night at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops, so…he may get a pass, but you have to let people know that you only enjoy him when in the Berkshires, sitting on a lawn, while listening to the Pops.
as a white person who has extensively studied and actually does enjoy classical music, i would like to suggest to white people who only pretend to to attend a concert of serial music. there you will listen to music that is so mathematically composed that none of the intricate patterns devised by the composer can actually be heard (especially not to untrained ears). you will feel infinitely smarter and more cultured after having sat through this, and then you can drop names that most people have not heard of, which will score you many white points.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialism)
Ditto going to the opera.
I beg to differ on the opera point – frequently I’ve heard people claim that they like Classical music (earning highbrow points for themselves) while claiming that they loathe opera (earning points for not appearing obnoxiously highbrow).
Actually it’s “Antonín Dvořák” 😛
…but also wrote martial music. Besides Mars, the Bringer of War is overused in documentaries. And college football games.
Guitly! Every year my boss buys our office season tickets to our local sympnony. The list was just given to me to pick out which ones I would like to attend today. Its just music. You like it or you don’t, but I guess some folks use it to stroke their ego. The atmoshpere and people are a little stuffy for me, but I won’t let that stop me from seeing a great show.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, anyone who drops Danny Elfman scores serious points with me, but I guess I’m the wrong kind of white person.
At some point, the white elite in Europe decided that classical music was high culture and had to be listened to to rank among them. It conferred status. So, white people everywhere seeking to gain status from being cultured listen to it.
And don’t forget that white people like to remind you of their experiences playing X instrument through high school (or MAYBE even college) as proof that they really know their shit.
They’ll sort of reminisce, looking really poetic and nostalgic, about their band experience in college — how it was SOOO competitive to get in and the incredible performances that reallys tuck with them.
Then, they’ll use this expertise to be brutally critical about the classical music performance they’ve currently just witnessed. “Can you believe that sloppy transition in the second movement?” and will probably shake their head in disbelief as they say it. It’s best to nod along.
http://polarbearswimming.blogspot.com
Sorry, guys… Satie (at least the works you’re probably talking about) and Glass are right up there in classical creampuff-land with Pachelbel’s canon. If you really want highbrow modernist white-person points, you’ve gotta go for someone like Elliott Carter, or, if you can’t quite get there, maybe Bartok. Opera is tricky unless you _actually_ know what you’re talking about, because most if it is, in fact, popularist drivel. And, of course, only a neophyte white-person music snob would disavow Beethoven.
If you are actually IN the orchestra, then you are a special person within the white community, with a status akin to that of a monk within the Church.
In the university town I am in, many white people really DO know classical music well. In this case, the stakes have been raised and people spend their time pretending to like string quartet music in particular.
I’m as white as you can get…and I’d rather listen to rap.
No, not classical music, JAZZ! White people claim to know, love and respect jazz, but everything in that article applies…just the wrong category of music.
I know that a lot of white people’s enjoyment of classical music comes from their 8th grade band experience.
Do white people also enjoy pretending that this blog didn’t jump the shark about a month ago?
I have tried to enjoy classical music–mainly I just fall asleep!
I know your comments about classical music are
tongue in cheek, just like the whole blog,
but the fact remains that if people did not actually
enjoy going to orchestra concerts and opera etc,
they would have stopped going long ago, and all
our orchestras and opera companies would have gone
out of business. But fortunately, that’s not happening.
The notion that classical music is stuffy, boring and
“elitist’, is a myth. It’s no more elitist than any other
kind of music.
But this myth misleads many people who know little or nothing about classical music into thinking
that they should not even try it.
If people would just keep an open mind, they might
really enjoy classical music. And it’s a good idea to
try classical Cds first, to familiarize yourself with the
music.
And there ARE some blacks who do enjoy classical
music. For people to say they shouldn’t listen to
classical music because they aren’t white is like saying
that you should only eat Chinese food if you are
Chinese.
I am one of those rare white people who enjoys (and has knowledge of) classical music. The only thing I hate worse than people who pretend to like classical music are those people who lump all musical periods into the ‘classical’ category. 😉 To be fair, my favorite is the Baroque.
What?!? I was totally going to say John Williams. But then again, I don’t profess to even have the slightest interest in classical music and feel no guilt due to it.
I keep wondering when “Stuff White People Like” will be listed as one of the things that white people like complete with funny insightful post about how its incredibly “hip” for white people to talk about the blog and how many things actually apply to themselves in a self deprecating nature.
If we were all able to laugh at our own shortcomings, what a wonderful world this would be! Take a deep breath, America, and stop taking yourselves so seriously!
I agree with Umm: the real genre for this post should be jazz. Fact is, the audience for classical – which I have loved since childhood – has fallen so far, the remaining fans I believe are the diehards. It’s jazz that suffers from a disconnect. Many white people say they love jazz, but record sales and jazz club attendance just don’t bear that out.
I used to listen to classical music in traffic. It calmed me. I stopped when I moved to a more rural area with less traffic.
White people like to support crappy local orchestra’s. It shows how much more cultured they are than the beer drinking, country music loving crowd.
I like that guy, you know the one who did the score for “Young Hott Ones III” and “The Other Bone’n Girl.”
Classical Music affectation? Pshaw! (a white person’s archaic expression of distain and disagreement.) You have not seen such raw pretension and fear of intellectual exposure comingled in an audience until you’ve attended the Cabrillo Music Festival of Contemporary Music. This event is a perfect example of white people esoterica. It’s not really music, but a performance experience albeit with no melody to follow, no rhythm to tap your foot to (unless you are having a seizure) and percussion that is so out of sync it can be used to fix arrhythmia.
I learned to appreciate opera and classical music from the background music to Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbera cartoons–and that’s as far as I’m willing to take it.
Does that mean that composers are like prophets?
Hmmm…this may be the first STWPL post that misses the mark somewhat.
So few people go to classical concerts, the only ones I know who do go genuinely enjoy it. And I do feel a certain amount of white guilt about not going “more often”, but this has never actually stirred me into going.
Here in the UK there is an enormously popular radio station called Classic FM. It plays popular classical pieces, and markets said pieces not under any intellectual banner but under the label of “chilled out”, “smooth”, “relaxing” etc. It undoubtedly attracts a fair portion of “the wrong kind of white people”, but I believe it has also lessened the white obligation to sit through classical music that you don’t enjoy.
PS – as the person said above, reading satirical material about themselves is something all white people genuinely love.
Although, I’m not quite as bad as some of those to whom this blog applies.
But then, I would say that.
Ludovico Einaudi. haha this post made me laugh so much.
http://superhomeless.wordpress.com/
I second this one. The people I know who seek out classical music and bring it up in conversation are the ones who actually enjoy it and know something about it. More people try to sound cool by name dropping jazz musicians. That way, they seem both edgy (drug addicts! black people!) and cultured at the same time.
Some white people really do know classical music. I’ve had the conversation in the article, at least in my head, more times than I care to recount. It was funny working in a CD shop as “the classical music guy,” and being approached for help finding something, only to end up selling “Classical Music for Bathtime” or some such silliness.
Even better is when classical music comes up and people start talking about Andrew Lloyd Webber and Andrea Bocelli. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been enheartened by thinking that someone with whom I was conversing might actually like classical music, only to be let down by “And isn’t that Josh Groban something!”
And for all of the white people out there taking cues from SWPL for where to focus your energies: Philip Glass sucks, and I don’t know a single fellow serious musician who disagrees. He’s produced a small handful of somewhat interesting scores out of a lifetime of dreck. Go with John Adams or Steve Reich, at the very least.
Wow, I’m a snob!
I would add Hans Zimmer to John Williams and Danny Elfman.
I don’t ‘get’ your blog. If it a send up–fine. I would stop right here. But the comments seem to be taking it literally–at least that’s what they indicate to me.
If you’re serious, your blog is divisive, cliched, unrealistically generalized & just plain stupid.
I hope it’s a send up.
Fran
Don’t forget that every high school and mediocre college orchestra loves to perform “Jupiter” from the Planets. Ah, Holst…how do we love thee?
Well, Disney’s “Little Einsteins” solves this problem for all us white moms. We can just eavesdrop while our white preschoolers watch it and learn all kinds of composers and pieces without actually listening to them.
Shut the fuck up!
Its true, Beethoven really does live up to his own hype. There’s a two bar transition in the third movement of the 5th Symphony that basically (and arguably) starts the shift from Classical to Romanticism. Amazing! And those two little bars will break your heart. God, I am a white nerd!
I have a really big confession to make. I have been playing the cello since the tender age of 9 (I can’t believe its been 19 years.) I even went to college for music (I snapped out of that and pursued an even whiter degree: anthropology!) I still play in a community orchestra every Monday night.
Okay, here’s the confession part. Classical music bores the hell out of me. I cannot listen to it. I own one Elgar CD and one Saint Saên CD, only because I was working on a few solos during my days as a music major. I just can’t stand it. I have tried to get into it for years. Nothing works.
Don’t get me wrong, I love playing. I take so much pleasure in performing a really exciting piece. I have even cried while playing a few pieces. For some reason, “The Pines of Rome” gets me every time. No one wants a weepy ‘cellist.
But I can’t listen to it, either live or recorded.
What’s wrong with me?
I feel some serious white angst coming on.
Uncannily enough, I am currently listening to excellent streaming classical radio–KBPS out of Portland. I do enjoy listening to classical music on the radio, but I know very little about it, and am happy to confess my ignorance to anyone who asks.
While this blog is usually dead-on with the white-people thing, I’d think “world music” is a far more apt target. It ties so many annoying white-people neuroses together!
Fran – You don’t get it. Please don’t come back.
Stravinsky’s a good one for sorting the classical lovers from the posers. If you can walk out of a (good) performance of “The Rite Of Spring” with clean underwear, you’re wasting your money. 8)
Thank God for all the posers of the world! If it weren’t for them, the supply of classical music recordings would be abysmally small, and horrifically expensive!
America? The dude who writes this is Canadian.
congrads on the first post
what about mark mothersbaugh? he does the music for all the Wes Anderson movies… again combining multiple white passions!
I have leaky anal warts.
You worry me Fran. I bet you’re being ignored in every conversation you try to take part in.
If the patron saint of white people appeared to a white person and offered them the choice between having a perfect understanding of classical or jazz, which would they choose?
Who IS the patron saint of white people?
(I know saints aren’t genies, but I’m just a white person and thus my canon is fuzzy).
Just like you can tell when a white person is not-so-sharp with classical when they mention Phillip Glass (whoever that is), you can know when you hear a White Person faking it when they list Kenny G and Branford Marsalis as musicians they like.
I’m a terrible white person, my knickname for classical is “Old White People Music” and I NEVER desire to hear it, live or recorded.
This blog is damn funny.
Bill N. in VT
Another reason to like Philip Glass is that his brother is Ira Glass. Ira Glass hosts This American Life, which is something else that White People Like. This American Life is on NPR, something else that White People Like. Also, This American Life is where many white people first became acquainted with David Sedaris, someone else that White People Like.
Also, Philip Glass has worked with Art Spiegelman, who wrote the book Maus which made it possible for white children to learn about the holocaust in graphic novel form (in order to start their white guilt early) and made it possible for white adults to read comic books again.
Quite simply, Philip Glass is possibly the very center of the White Pantheon.
Ira Glass is Philip Glass’ cousin, not brother.
This American Life is not “on” NPR. They are two wholly different production companies that happen to sell their product to many of the same clients: local public radio stations. Perpetuating white people stereotypes is awesome…
I suggest we go after WP liking Shakespeare, next.
Considering the level of racism displayed by the Roman Catholic Church (and, actually, most christian religions) over the centuries, I’d say pretty much ALL the saints are the patron saints of white people…
Y’all are forgetting the real reason Classical’s so cheap and abundant–it’s out of copyright. Musicians have to be a thrifty bunch and thrive on performing and recording public domain music with no rights to pay. 🙂
I’m the same way. I’m a music teacher and soon-to-be music therapist, and classical just really doesn’t do it for me. My attention span is simply too short.
AND was in Devo! Which white people enjoy ironically! Good call.
Well I can understand the cynism, but I think once people get into it the forget what brought them there in the first place. They might start of with Snobbery but in the end they might get into it.
http://stuffgirlslike.wordpress.com
I of course am a classically trained pianist. Of course I adore the music. As for name dropping to impress, try Sir John Herpes Kerry. My friends the name opens doors!
Its ok.
I played in a rock coverband for a year that you couldn’t have payed me to sit and listen to. But I had so much fun playing in it…
YES. I do not understand why WP love Shakespeare so much. It is tragic to watch exchange students try to understand this bizarre, juggled language. And then WP try to reciprocate by insisting they understand and love haikus.
I’m glad other white people fake it, because that means there are enough concerts for me to enjoy!
Many white people actually enjoy opera, though.
Yes. They are both very, very poor.
Especially the opera! White people LOVVVVVVE to pretend opera is their all-time favorite form of music (and couldn’t name 5 operas.)
Asian people also “like” classical music for some unknown reason (at least Asian-Americans do). Then again they also enjoy shit-needling, so it’s probably about impossible to know what the hell they’re thinking.
Asian and white people have weird tastes. Then again, so do black people, Indian people, Hispanics, Middle Eastern people, North Africans, Native Americans/Eskimos, and Pacific Islanders. I am glad I don’t fall into any of those racial categories.
http://buffalothis.blogspot.com/
It’s because somewhere along the lines, probably in a movie, classical music was linked to having “good taste” and “class.” Both things white people try their best to claim.
Hall Monitor
http://detentionslip.org
Thank you, THANK YOU. I’ve had the Josh Groban conversation and the Andrea Bocelli conversation more times than I can count, usually after telling people that I sing opera.
As for the whole classical music loving imperative, do people think that they must love every rock or pop (or indie!) tune that comes on the scene? Of course not, and classical’s no different. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Handel, Rossini, and Donizetti do it for me, but Stravinsky and Shostakovich, not so much.
As for Philip Glass… I thought we were talking about *classical* music. 😉
Oh, please! The white elite didn’t just decide that classical music was high culture. Some music became ‘classical’ because people started to listen to it and enjoyed it and brought others to hear it … and it had staying power. Give it a chance and I think you’ll agree, much of it is amazing and moving, and not just the preserve of stuck up white people. It always saddens me that I seldom see black people at the symphony, except when someone like Jessye Norman sings. Then the audience is full of black people. Ms. Norman is undeniably a genius as an artist, but if she or another black person isn’t performing, where do all the black people go? Don’t criticize what you won’t even bother to try to understand. That’s all I’m saying.
As an 18 year old white, American, college student, and long-time reader of stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, I am very disapointed with this entry. Not only do I both like, and for that matter, thoroughly enjoy classical music, but I almost exclusively listen to it.
Also, for those who are thinking, “oh, he’s probably a music major at Julliard or something like that,” I am not, I am studying to be a pilot (hence the name).
You mean the Christian church’s that had slavery abolished?
Fuck you, I love classical music.
Plus industrial metal and hardcore techno, but fuck you just the same.
Also, you misspelled Pachelbel, bitch.
I didn’t know Philip Glass and Erik Satie are the new “go to”s for white people and their fake knowledge of classical music. I learned about those two while in a music history class two summers ago. Darn white people, ruin everything…
I guess there’s always others for me to fall back on.
Hey everyone,
I just came across this blog. It’s definitely a cute send-up and has some good, spot-on references. However this seems like it’s only a certain TYPE of white-person stereotype. Personally I think of the mainstream image of white people in the U.S. being more of the Republican, suburban dwelling, church-going, PTA-attending, SUV driving, corporately-employed, socially and culturally incurious football fan, “soccer mom” variety than the caricatures of these precious, liberal little urban-dwelling P.C. yuppies (of which admittedly I am closer to this image myself than the former). It seems the stereotypes we’re sending up here more reflect the type of person who would view this site than what white people in general might appear like to non-whites (whoever that might be). This blog seems to reflect a younger, more educated demographic than your average white dude. Maybe the site should be called, “stuffHIPwhitepeoplelike.com”. 😉
That said, living in a sizable East Coast metropolitan area I can relate to many items on the list. I spent a lot of time myself being frustrated at experiencing the posing, the snobbery, the underlying self-absorption parodied in different posts here though I was embarrassed to find many of the same qualities in myself for several of the entries. All joking aside, I guess it’s good to get these out in the open and laugh about them as long as we understand that we’re really just folks and we really should respect others while not taking ourselves too seriously.
Interesting site and good work! Glad I found it! 🙂
http://jewreans.blogspot.com/
I know this post is meant to be humorous and satirical, but damn, it’s right on the money.
Thanks for the tips. I’m gonna totally use that Eric Satie thing.
Don’t forget to add “attending summer outdoor symphonies and getting hammered on microbrew.”
I think you meant jazz instead of classical. The people who like classical are nerds (and most will admit it). People trying to impress will claim to like jazz. But maybe this has more to do with regional variations. Your species of white people up north seems to be slightly different than the midwestern species in my neck of the woods.
As a white person who like to tick all the right boxes, please (re-)enfranchise the diacritics in Antonín Dvořák’s name!
Thanks!
— A white person who not only enjoys Classical music, but also takes great pleasure in initiating “traumatic conversations” with the musical dilettantes you’ve described here!
I once did #108 while I was in high school. I went to a “chamber music” concert series and one week they were performing pieces by Charles Ives. Before they were about to start the concert, the old lady sitting in front of me, who was doing the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle in pen, muttered “Brace yourself, it’s Ives.” I escaped that experience with a new appreciation for how tedious classical music really could be.
Yes but 99% of people who ever heard those 2 bars heard it as Bruno’s audition piece in Fame.
Is the “rubber bracelet market” an indirect reference to “Stuff White People Like – #18 Awareness”? Or, is it in the book, or perhaps a future article?
My baby likes Classical Music. It calms her Whitey Rican nerves.
(Rubbing my hands together fiendishly…)
All right, HERE GOES:
“People who don’t appreciate classical music are uncultured ignoramuses!”
Tee-hee! LOL!! No, I don’t really mean that. Do I. . . ? 😉
Ouch again! I like Satie!!!! Oh well, I must be white. Shit
This site is pure racism in it’s lowest and purest form…Get a life and stop hatin’ on the white’s…
Classical?? You mean like, Grand Funk Railroad?? Those dudes are totally classic..uhhh,… cal.
Ha ha ha ha – SO TRUE!!!! I especially love the John Williams slam at the end. Love your site.
No pass. Ever. JW is a huge hack.
aww, I’m a classical violinist and this post makes me sad 😦
(and I’ve always kind of (ok REALLY) hated Philip Glass.)
oh well, I guess all the WP attending the symphony to be cool will help pay my bills!
Hey dumbshits…ALL classical music derived from Africa when negroes looked for AND FOUND music to accompany the rythms of their nation…look it up! It was the white man who imported it, cleaned it up repackaged it and sold it off as their own. Another patheitic albeit trite version of this was Paul Simon and Rythm of the Saints.
philip glass is MINIMALIST MUSIC (the popular offshoot of which is techno), not classical music.
Actually, I am a former English teacher. I was being sarcastic. I love Shakespeare. Rent and watch “Scotland, PA” with Mara Tierney. Its a great send-up of Macbeth.
But, I know what you mean. I still hate reading the plays. I used to get that glazed over look when we had to read his stuff in class. I didn’t enjoy it until I started to watch videos and go to live performances. Then again that might be the Stockholm effect (did I get the country right) where you become like your captors. I guess if I hadn’t taken English Ed. as my major, I might still think that those who like Shakespeare are pretenders and status seekers.
As for Haiku, only the funny ones are good.
Oh and I do like classical music, when I am in the mood for it, which is once or twice a year. I just don’t crave it.
What about Jazz? I work in an Upscale Hotel in New York, and the first question I get is “where in the village can I go to listen to Jazz?”
boy,
that is really white.
Oh, my favorite works are those of Stravinsky’s Neoclassical period – they’re so ironic.
hehe – for real, though…..
If you pretend at something long enough, you’ll fool yourselves as well.
You may test this hypothesis in the following way:
Have sex regularly for eight or nine weeks. I guarantee that, eventually, you will enjoy it!
I’m a classical musician in a major American orchestra. Some of what you say is true! Only about 5% of the American public enjoys clam enuf to listen to it daily. And it’s hard to find it taught in public schools anymore. The counter-cultural and technological revolutions of the last 40+ years has really drawn young people away from such “ancient” and acoustic art forms. Consequently most are very ignorant of its details and names. Sometimes I feel I should pull out some sort of LICENSE to enjoy clam!
That said, I’m confident that EVERYONE has some inkling of classical musics POWER to MOVE us emotionally… else you’d never hear it used in commercials… or hear pop/rock songs that borrow from clam!
I and BILLIONS of people around the world LOVE calm AS WELL AS other forms of music! And MOST of them aren’t even white! My whole family grew up with it… and we’re BLACK!
I’m a white classical musician, and believe me, my cred with other white people is through the roof.
and really wrong.
Satie had a piece named “Dehyrated Embryos,” which goes over well with white liberals.
Nothing new here. Lots of people remember “Also sprach Zarathustra” as “the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey” and in the ’50s, the definition of a highbrow was someone who could listen to the overture to “William Tell” withuot thinking about “The Lone Ranger”.
…so what are you still doing here…?
You mean “ignorami.”
God, I didn’t just say that.
Some classical music was written with that effect in mind, notably Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”. I can also recommend Satie’s (no, really!) Gymnopédies for insomnia as well as the simple need for beautiful, soothing music.
You forgot Kronos Quartet.
Actually, community orchestras are getting less and less crappy all the time. They are taking on more and more things like Mahler Symphonies and Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring. In fact, they can sometimes be the place to go for good old-time classical while the major orchestras are trying to outdo each other premiering nuevo pieces where the players bang their heads against a wall et al.
It is an interesting parallel to the development of the Minor League Baseball, which is becoming more and more an attractive alternative to Major League Baseball (ruined, sad to say, by Television Broadcasting). Minor League preserves a lot of the old charm of Baseball.
“Classical music” here refers to a very broad genre with the defining characteristic that both the audience and the concert performers wear tuxedos and bow ties.
Apparently, freom the tone of that comment, this blog has scored a hit!
Don’t respond to trolls… that just gives them encouragement.
Stay home. Portland is for Oregonians. We don’t want you here, and if you arrive we will throw you in the Willamette River. Oh, yeah, there are no whites in Portland. The food is bad, and the last hotel burned to the ground.
Cheers and have a good day.
exactly what I was thinking…that and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra — extremely white [seeing as we’ve so convincingly broken through to the whole ‘anything that doesn’t use a guitar, bass, drums combo is classical music’ truism]
And shot at by the controlling military ruler.
Your wrong, the New World Symphony is one of my favorites.
Here’s another tip: when dropping Satie, mention “Gymnopédies” with a dreamy, faraway look in your eye.
Works every time.
In Portland for years the symphony conductor was black; James Deprist was his name.
Those are #87 and #23, respectively.
Fran, you’re hot: I want you. Please come to me, with me, and all over me.
Don’t let it hit you in the ass on the way out.
You must be from Mississippi.
Spot on.
White people are so full of themselves.
you cant go more than 5 blocks in Portland wihtout stummbing over all of the whtie sites you mention…thier are tonnes of farmers’ markets, local designers, hipster hangouts, single-speed/fixie shops everywhere in Portland. and they are all so earnest.
seattle is a little more spread out. so you might end up in a neighborhood that doesnt seem to ahve it all, but just drive a few blocks to find them.
good luck Per – wiht a name like that , you will be a hit in the NW US. just tell people you ar ein a band.
(all typos and grammer mis-usagery included for your entertainment.)
enjoy the bums and drunks too – Oregon has a bottle-deposit law that lets them make enough to barely survivie by returning empites for change. and also free methadone.
jazz makes me nausuous.
Fran, your sweet.
The report from the 5-percenters
Hey, this is boring, why don’t we skewer what black people like?
Oh wait, that’s everything YOU like.
You really wish you were black, don’t you?
Your thing must be really small.
Classical = NO
Jazz & Funk (Tower of Power) = Yes
So You Want To Be a Banquet Manager
yes, a lot of white people I know have very little interest in Classical music. Go to Juilliard for instance. Only the best of the best musicians go there and yet they lack Caucasians. I will see so many Asians there.
And look at all these white people getting all offended. They will be so upset if others try on a little joke but do not realize what they actually do non white people.
when will they every grow up? lol
what?!
i think it was brilliant! it’s not boring!
oh you.. trying to bash black men
so typical.. oh you~~~~
From listening to Classical music?
http://stuffwhiteparentslike.com
Don’t forget to visit Reed University, when your in Portland, a university can’t get much whiter.
This is way good. Truly like the old days when this blog was only ready by hunfdreds of thousands, not millions.
#109 Pretending to have read “Stuff White People Like” since it began
hahahah, the note at the end was what i was anticipating to see the throughout reading this article.
While white people may be a majority of concert-goers in the world you describe, Asians, especially the Chinese, appear to be taking to Western classical music in astonishing numbers. The large numbers of Asian candidates in classical music competitions bear this out. Where I live, audiences love music by both Williams and Elfman, and movie music gets programmed by orchestras.
Actually, Diddly, there is ablog on stuff black people like. Google it. It’s pretty funny.
I forgot about “Fame!”
Yes but don’t you think that some of them are only pretending to like you, just as they pretend to like classical music?
no shit, sherlock
“When a white person encounters another white person who actually enjoys classical music (exceptionally rare), it is often considered to be one of the most traumatic experiences they can go through”
Not only am I white person who actually enjoys classical music…but also a music student looking to eventually study musicology and history. FEAR ME! ; )
How unfortunate. Grow up.
I went to see the Star Trek music played by the symphony, and also video game music played by the symphony.
Do I get any extra bonus white points?
you get bonus points just for saying “the symphony”.
As a professional classical musician, I get a real kick listening to these people talk out of their asses. I once had a friend that seemed to know a lot about many different things. He considered himself a renaissance man. The I finally heard him talk about Classical music and it was immediately clear to me what his standards were for knowledge of a subject. I now take everything he says with a grain of salt.
These ass talking people fortunately buy concert tickets which is a good thing….except that they create/perpetuate an attitude that scares everyone else off. It a real shame for the music has so much to offer. Without these people I probably wouldn’t have a job but I still despise them. I imagine that their desire to condescend does not end with music or art, but extends to be their prime motivation in life. Very very sad.
The mode of consumption you’ve described, while accurate and fitting, as far as a generalization can be, is missing something crucial. White people do not listen to classical music, they *endure* it. I firmly believe most of them dislike it, especially after the first thirty seconds have elapsed.
/swifty
Don’t forget folk music. Where else can well off white people listen to music made by originally by poor white people. Can I say the soundtrack to “Oh Brother where art thou”. Or NPR folk shows like “Prarie Home Companion. Come to think of it the Coen Brothers and Garrison Keelor are two of the great moment in whiteness.
As for popular music Philip Glass is the art school version of Jimmy Buffet. Oh and Bob Marley. White people love Bob Marley.
Bob Marley! Ha! White people love to wave their arms around and dance to that guy’s music.
“As a professional classical musician”
According to this blog’s author, you must be whiter-than-white. Looking directly at you in the sunlight must be blinding! Only a bleached albino Nord could ever be such a thing! 🙂
/swifty
I work at a theatre (!) at a liberal arts college (!) that has a Frank Gehry building (!) and every summer we have a classical music series of 12 concerts. 99% of these people are white, and I can generally convince them to buy for at least 4 concerts (there’s a 25% discount!).
This summer’s composer was a Russian composer, and this is an actual conversation I had with a white woman:
Her: Do you know any of his music?
me: To be honest, no. But I do know some of the other composers in some of the pieces. Rachmaninoff is great!
Her: Hmm, well, I might as well get tickets to all of them.
You get an extra life if you refer to multiple concertos as “concerti.”
But “Gymnopédies” deserves a dreamy, faraway look. It’s so pretty… *sigh*
haha
I work at a School of Music at an ivy league university, though I have no knowledge of music at all. In my first week on the job, I was shown a concert program. Under the name of a piece of music, where the composer’s name would be, it read “Anon.” I kind of snickered and said to a co-worker, “Oh, is that supposed to be like Madonna? Just the first name for emphasis?” And the woman looked at me in disgust. “That stands for anonymous,” she said.
I’m a terrible white person.
You said “graphic novel”. Bonus white person points for you.
sorry – not too familiar with classical music (sign), but i would like someone to tell me why white people shouldn’t list john williams as a composer? thanks, people!
“clam”? Your whiter than me, brother.
Very true. I read somewhere that Bach was really from Zaire, and I’ve seen pictures where Beethoven has big dreds.
SWPL #109, saying “I read somewhere” and “I’ve seen pictures of” to win arguements.
Word.
Consider changing your screen name to “Exibit A”.
john williams is a very mainstream composer for big budget films, and as such cannot be considered “real” classical music. 🙂
Ouch. I walked right into this one.
Relax folks, it’s just not in a language he understands. I can handle this…
Patrick,
Carburetor Heat — COLD
Propeller — HIGH RPM
Mixture — RICH
Propeller Area — CLEAR
Master Switch — ON
Sense of Humor — ENGAGE
I know you don’t use th dictionary much in ground school, but look up “Satire.
是的
“The first, of course, is Philip Glass. Not only does he have one of the best last names a white person can have…”
This is really funny. Obviously being related to Ira Glass is great for white person capital; that he shares a last name with J. D. Salinger’s Glass Family is icing on the cake (white people love JD…)
Hey, I swear I’m a white person who really does love classical music!
The “note” is pretty funny because while I do love John Williams’ movie work, I would shun anyone who claimed him to be their fave.
“Give it a chance and I think you’ll agree, much of it is amazing and moving”
Na. It sucks. But it is a matter of taste.
well, I dunno, I HATE classical music.
Does that make me a redneck? 🙂
I’d spend that $80 on a tank of gas.
I don’t know where you go to concerts, but the face of classical music is changing to Asian. Student concerts, youth orchestras, private students, competitions, and now working way into the professional orchestras.
I ushered at an Emerson Quartet concert at Stanford, and was amused at the audience, very unique. The audience of seniors was not behaving. Before and at intermission, they were blocking the aisles, talking up a storm. Walkers leaned against the stage. Very amusing…I called them the Emerson Groupies, obviously longtime professors.
Another occasion at Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium, I was awestruck to experience Garrick Ohlsson’s performance of the Beethoven Op 111. Ohlsson was a regular, a favorite with the Stanford audiences. I got lost in the piece, and sensed the whole audience was in entranced. 2000 people gripped by this “elitist” piece of late Beethoven. What a thing to share, monumental, really…but you really couldn’t talk about it.
One measure of the growing international power of Western classical music is this form of music is spreading to the rest of the world, especially China. Except as oddities, other cultures’ classical music does not seem to be spreading. See From Mao to Mozart – Isaac Stern in China (1979), an excellent and touching documentary that captures the tender reintroduction of Western classical music back after the repression of Communist China.
The more recent movie, “Together,” show the passionate journey of a teen violinist in China who moved up through the classical arena.
My mother, who has mid level Alzheimers, is riveted by DVD performances of classical music. I’ve taken many videos of her reacting to all sorts of music, and have posted two of them…One watching the b minor mass on YouTube, and the other watching the huge Proms performance of Mahler’s 8th, conducted by Simon Rattle. She adores Andre Rieu, who has a masterful way of drawing the audience to a high state of appreciation. Who cares if you can discuss it? Not me.
Carol
Umm… Clearly we need to remember John Cage as his work on amazing compositions like 4:33 has shaped the way the post-modern world approaches the full range of artistic sensibility.
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
JK
I do not think that the New World Symphony counts as an early work. YOU LOSE WHITE POINTS. Thus I win!
CD’s like this are WHY people hate classical music. Greatest hits compilations make fine music so boring and one dimensional. Sure there is some great music here, but it so much better when you get beyond these overplayed and trivialized works.
Does this also happen to pianist Awadagin Pratt who comes on stage in traditional African clothes and dreadock hair but pretty much sticks to playing what he refers to as “dead European white guys” music. He doesn’t have to play only that but he loves it and is really good.
This is a good comment. While my preference is for 20th century music with gutsy, rhythmic styles like the Bartok string quartets, I know many great baroque works as well. Get beyond the Pachelbel heard at practically every wedding and Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons which adds ambiance to Sunday brunch on the terrace and discover all the great Baroque works and composers. People who find classical music boring only listen to the “safe” choices in their purchases and concerts they choose to attend.
Whomever wrote this post about classical music is a complete idiot, merely parodying the stereotypical “image” of what classical music is and who it appeals to. I am a classical musician and have a regular roster of students, most of whom are African-American. I can say with utter honesty that, once the image is pushed aside and students are shown what classical music truly is “about,” then they immediately gain more respect, appreciation, and love for this art form. Heck, some even start to listen to it on a regular basis!
The audience for classical music is currently at an all-time high; composers for contemporary music include women and minorities in higher numbers, and are not just “white guys” anymore. Pauline Oliveros, Jeffrey Mumford, Ollie Wilson, Karim Al-Zand, Elaine Radigue, Halim El-Dabh, and Joan Tower are just a few that come to mind.
To Mr./Ms. Blogger: get your head out of the sand!
hahah I wish I had Glass as a last name hahahahah
Carol – you’ve got it all wrong. Performing in a classical orchestra takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and genuine love of classical music. Us white folks like to just show up and sit for a few concerts to feel better about ourselves!
I am currently studying to be a classical musician. If what you said about attendance is at an all time high then why are orchestras folding all over the united states? The answer is that the musicians won’t settle to get paid according to the amount of interest the public puts in them…and they have no sense of humor (proven by your response to this article that clearly is a joke).
Have you noticed how white Jazz Musicians look to Europe for validation? With the exception of Dave Holland there seems to be a need to go into classical music and gain acceptance.
http://stuffgirlslike.wordpress.com
Stuff Hip Urban Bloggers Pretend To Like: Sarcastic put-down humor
Not quite; in fact, not so much at all. While the overwhelming majority of the Classical music audience happens to be white, owing largely to the fact that the repertoire is rooted in the European cultural tradition, few things are “hipper” to young white people than appearing to like or be even remotely well-versed in the Western musical canon. Quite the opposite. In fact, most white people I know take great pains to champion their ignorance of the subject. Young (well-to-do) white people tend not to be versed in historical music – not nearly to the degree they are with, say, literature or painting – and hence lump all music before the Beatles into the category of the haughty and “irrelevant.” Would the ill-informed author of this entry be so quick to dismiss art and literature from the same periods in history? No; people that are attracted to Classical music are attracted to it because they actually like the way it sounds. Nothing would be a greater social faux-pas than admitting this to other white people.
Didn’t classical music and classical music become more of an Asian thing some time in the 1970s? Every Asian kid I knew growing up had at least four years of piano or violin. The only white kids who did were those of Eastern European descent.
^^classical music appreciation and classical music lessons.
That’s why it works.
Sorry, but Philip Glass isn’t a classical composer.
Classical = (1750 – 1820)
Romantic = (1820 – 1910)
Modern = (1910 – present)
I loved the movie Amadeus, even though I know most of it is BS. Bach’s music sustained me through my high school years- it suited my nerdy nature. I went to music school for a semester, and dropped out after realizing that singing opera is torture. I am guilty of wanting to like Measha Brugergosman (sp)- cause she’s black, like me, and is crazy fun and flirtatious during her interviews- one hep kitty!
I haven’t been to a classical concert in years- wish i could find a willing babysitter and an extra hundred dollars to go.
Anyone have kids who watch the tv show Little Einstein? What do you think of it?
Guilty as charged! I listen to classical music at night when I am reading because I find it less distracting than other more modern types of music.
But I would have people believe that I know all about it and listen to it all the time to seem more culturally refined! When I really listen more to crass music like the Crime Mob.
I’m glad that I only saw “I like listening to classical music while I’m [working/relaxing/sleeping]” a few times in the comments. How can anybody say that classical music is less intrusive or distracting than some type of pop music?
Anybody who knows and plays music (well, knows how to read music, not just a person who plays guitar in an awful local band) even a little bit should find it difficult to ignore. Oh, and preparing for a potential backlash: yes, I’m well aware that there are many talented performers in the indie rock/mainstream rock [though it’s rare] realm who know a lot more about music than I ever will.
that was the point of the article……white people really don’t know that though….they really could care less about classical music.
Why view classical music performances as a peril? Instead of wrecking people we meet by exposing their lack of knowledge, we have a fine opportunity to build them up by professing our own ignorance. Let’s ask them what they think. They will be pleased to tell us, and will believe us most excellent companions. Yes, we are manipulating them by using their whiteness, but poor, brittle things that they are, they need our help.
Pachelbel?
You’re an idiot.
#109 Should be stuffthatwhitepeoplelike.com. It’s ironic and self-aware. Come on and do it. We wont think you’re too full of yourselves. Maybe.
#108b. Being trained as classical musicians, then turning rock-Jethro Tull, etc.
#108c. When white people go bad from having to pretend to enjoy classical music-The heavy metal frontman that says in an interview, “My mom forced me to play piano as a kid,”…
I have a friend who really loves classical music. He is the whitest guy I know.
He just moved to Vietnam so I am guessing he brought his classical cd’s and mp3’s with him. The sad thing is, I don’t think he’s pretending. He is quite a strange character. He has almost no money and no current job and he decided to move to Vietnam for no reason. He is writing a blog about his experiences. You should definitely check it out. I promise you will enjoy it:
http://www.garbarrassing.com/Bill.php
First, I love this blog. Great stuff, and pretty much on. Without dissecting this post to death (which everyone else has done rather well with,) I thought I’d try to provoke some of the opera fence sitters to action.
If you want to test-drive opera, you really need to check out the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series simulcasts at your local movie theater!
For about $22/ticket, plus the cost of a bucket of popcorn and a Coke, you can check out some REALLY FANTASTIC opera! This season, they have everything from Puccini’s popular Madama Butterfly to a premiere of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic. Nobody wears furs and fancy jewelry to this affair.
The Met is doing a fabulous job with these broadcasts in attempting to broadening their audience and the audience for opera globally.
http://www.metoperafamily.org//metopera/broadcast/hd_events_next.aspx
By the way, I’m one of those ultra-white music academics who is a bassoonist and theorist, loves opera, worked as a music proofreader for the Bartók family, leader of serious music organizations, can name almost anything on “classical radio” within 2 seconds, and music fanatic. Satie is dreamy, Glass is hypnotically mind-numbing, and Stravinsky is sexy in both a repressive (neo-classical) and primal (Le Sacre) way! Need I go on?
I also love Led Zeppelin, Johnnie Walker, and Jesus.
(Crossing fingers for WP bonus points and street creds!)
oh, fuck you lander’s on conan. fuck you right in your stupid asses.
your friend’s blog sucks dick, and so do you
Ha. So many of your posts describe me and/or my friends perfectly.
I have to respectfully disagree on this one. All legendary composers were (are) white people. Generally speaking, most concert-goers know what they are listening to.
I cannot say the same thing about white hip-hop lovers.
You don’t need a comma after the “and”. You are clearly the wrong kind of white person.
While Stuff White People Like contributes on a massive scale to our invisibilization (really, it’s like the hipster flipside of Sarah Palin), I’m introducing a new blog called Bitter White Folks for Obama to explode this zero-sum game. My family were part of the 41 million who migrated from the Appalachian/Southern region to the Midwestern states in the postwar period: precisely the demographic from which support for Obama (and progressive politics as such) is supposed to be non-existent. But it was the economic policies of Reagan and the Clinton and Bush dynasties that produced such atrocities as the 2,200 square miles of strip-mining in Appalachia that have put thousands out of work, reduced the average income to the level of Mexico and forced migration to the North in search of jobs. So I actually completely agree with Obama’s sentiment: of course Appalachian and Midwestern communities are “bitter” – and it cannot be denied that more than a few have been mislead into believing that these elites somehow hear their voices. With the increasingly patronizing tone of the Republicans however (which Stuff White People Like only solidifies), many are rapidly becoming unconvinced – at least Obama speaks about the situation as it really is: as he put it in that same speech, “you can go into the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical”. For more, check out my blog at http://bitterwhitefolksforobama.blogspot.com
i like Bearded Clam!!
the theme from StarWars rocks!
hi “s”. thank you for the explanation. i remember i listened to his music many, many years ago – a song about a wedding, and i really felt like i was there. i thought it was beautiful. i see i need to expand my education in that area also. have a wonderful weekend. marge
I agree. Nearly every Asian convenience store in my neighborhood has classical music playing.
Uh, Glenn Branca
And musicians are allowed to spell words like “enuf”? 😉
Well put!
Has anyone here, including the author of the article, actually been to a classical concert? I’m a fan of late 19th and 20th cent. classical. Not much for 18th century. The few concerts I’ve been to here in Chicago, I’ve stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of wealthy retirees who have subscriptions. Even this old group is dumbfounded by the likes of Schoenberg; the comments afterwards are priceless. They don’t teach classical music in school so you get people who only know Copeland and Beethoven if they are interested at all. The only conversation under 70 I have ever had about classical music has been with my barber, who trained in Byelorus as a classical pianist. But like I said, this whole phenomena is because they don’t teach classical music in the schools. Like art, it is almost impossible to have more than a superficial interest. Of course, once you go across the Atlantic, it’s a completely different story–you’d see blue collar young guys listening to Saint-Saens.
I win, my sister sings classical opera in 4 languages. I hate it so much but completely pretend to love it in her and other whiter peoples presents. Even her husband hates it. Although I guess I could easily describe him as being a “whigger”, and his love for all things Disney is quite the cherry on top of that match made in reality tv cake.
Hey have you heard the hottest reggae singer Ava Leigh’s new single called mad about the boy? .It’s available on I Tunes and at HMV.
Do you think black people pretend to like hip hop? I’m just saying maybe not every African-American wants to work for Diddy or throw up Jay-Z’s dynasty sign.
And maybe in a sense of solidarity, Latinos feel they must pose as a fan of Daddy Yankee?
Back on topic, I do think white people like to think they’re fans of classical music, and listening to one of these posers talk about it ranks right up there with speaking to a used car salesperson or art snob about their favorite artwork at The Tate,.
great clip of Carl Rove vs Carl Rove smack down
http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/cc_insider/2008/09/jon-stewart-ann.html
whitepeople love jon stewart….
Classical music is still here after so many years for a reason.
Hip pop crap won’t be remembered in another 100 years for the same fucking reason.
Shameless plug!
Good point, Mojo. When my local symphony performs at the symphony hall, it’s mostly a sea of gray hair, and they do know the stuff.
The exception is when the symphony performs at the local botanic garden. The old folks stay away, and the posers fill up the place. Most of them don’t pay hardly any attention to the music. They’re too busy competing for who can have the most gourmet picnic.
What do Reagan, Clinton and Bush have to do with a funny bit about appearing to enjoy classical music? I suggest posting your diatribe where someone might care!
Oh no, no, no,
if you say you LOVED “This is Halloween” –Marilyn Manson covering Danny Elfman– there will not be one white person who will not think you are the coolest person ever.
ironically, of course.
I think it’s great that this guy is taking these stereotypes that EVERYBODY are aware of and writing it on the web. Every race has stereotypes, good and bad, and I get a great laugh every time I read his posts. People who are offended need to remove the stick out of their ass and get a sense of humor. You guys are GREAT!!
I love that I just read that listening to classical music (Rachmaninov of course!)… hahahaha nice post.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned dead 20th century composers. They’re pretty obscure (denoting white points) and are also some of the best (Hindemith, Shostakovich, Stravinsky). All of the modernism with none of the stigma of being alive.
While Stuff White People Like contributes on a massive scale to our invisibilization (really, it’s like the hipster flipside of Sarah Palin), I’m introducing a new blog called Bitter White Folks for Obama to explode this zero-sum game. My family were part of the 41 million who migrated from the Appalachian/Southern region to the Midwestern states in the postwar period: precisely the demographic from which support for Obama (and progressive politics as such) is supposed to be non-existent. But it was the economic policies of Reagan and the Clinton and Bush dynasties that produced such atrocities as the 2,200 square miles of strip-mining in Appalachia that have put thousands out of work, reduced the average income to the level of Mexico and forced migration to the North in search of jobs. So I actually completely agree with Obama’s sentiment: of course Appalachian and Midwestern communities are “bitter” – and it cannot be denied that more than a few have been mislead into believing that these elites somehow hear their voices. With the increasingly patronizing tone of the Republicans however (which Stuff White People Like only solidifies), many are rapidly becoming unconvinced – at least Obama speaks about the situation as it really is: as he put it in that same speech, “you can go into the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical”. For more, check out my blog at http://bitterwhitefolksforobama.blogspot.com
Oh, also, while Classical music does refer to the late 18th and early 19th century, the term “Classical Music” can be legitimately used to describe any serious art music of the Western Classical idiom from any century even up through living composers, just to clear up any confusion about the “proper” nomenclature.
McCain hates classical music.
Nice Job on Conan. You both were very white-like.
My good friend Dre, the misspellings are part of the joke. Classical music may not be for you. I would think a man of your origins may like something with a jungle beat, king kong music perhaps.
How is poop dog? Any wealthy widows out there in hip hop land?
You describe white people in terms only appropriate to a small segment of rich white people.
Not always…I think it has a lot to do with college educated people. But that doesn’t mean everyone who gets a degree is wealthy. And there is data to show that a good portion of people who buy organic most of the time are African-Americans with incomes around $45,000.
I think the real reason most people go to classical concerts, even when they don’t really like classical music, is that they are in awe of the (mostly) white people who can actually perform it and make a living at it. Not to mention drooling over the (increasinlgy) cute Asian women that play the violin solo.
To be a true white tree hugger in Vancouver you must:
Jog the sea wall around Stanley park, regardless of the rain (normal world citizens may walk)
Climb the Grouse Grind (you can take the gondola back down) but you must wear stylish clothes, if you are female, Lululemon would be accetable, otherwise it should have a MEC label
If you are also white & English, have tea and listen to chamber music and tell the elderly ladies how much you enjoy the interpretation.
Browse through the shops on Granville Island, and don’t forget to have a $5 organic fair-trade lattes, remark how important it is to be organic and only fair trade.
Casually watch all the cute Asian girls.
But he is white, I think! If asked, maybe he can trace the roots of Bluegrass back to classical music, put the people in the Appilachians didn;t have proper instruments so interpreted classical music to the banjo!
There’s only ONE thing that white people like more than Classical Music!!!
White People Love learning Sex Secrets!
http://sexed.wordpress.com/
Come see what everyone is talking about.
I AM IN TOTAL AGREEMENT! YOU ARE SO RIGHT…..
Is it just me or is the Philip Glass score to “Fog of War” the same as his score to “Dracula”? Is it the same music? Is that intentional?
Now that’s what I call a musical jest.
I cringe involuntarily when people mention Pachebel’s Canon. I like it. I just cringe when I hear it mentioned. It’s like a big friendly dog: you can’t hate it but you brace yourself reflexively when it jumps you.
According to the book, I am only 50% white. This is because I like half the things “white people” like and want to slap them silly for the other half.
How come Conservative Republicans are no longer considered “white people”? Not that there is anything wrong with that. They’ve had “real American” to themselves for some time now. Dharma, dudes!
What goes around, comes around.
Turn about is fair play.
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
A taste of their own medicine.
Heard about you on Conan. Congratulations. I enjoy your sense of humor.
I like classical music. But, then I’m a white classical musician. And after reading most of your blog, I guess I’m really, really white. Started smoking herb in the 70s and discovered yoga then too (on PBS — those white people that do watch tv like PBS, btw). Went to conservatory where I was considered a hopeless hick by other classical musicians there because I actually like classical music, thus my entry (through sheer embarrassment) into the new music of the time (punk, new wave, etc. — but really, all could be subsumed under the rubric ‘indie’). I would tell you about my tea collection, but I don’t drink it anymore, bloodsugar issues caused by my years of being vegan make it mostly impossible for me to have caffeine. Maybe some of my former colleagues at the non-profit where I worked — where we raised awareness about many issues, primarily literacy in minority communities — would like it, but burning bridges with former ultra-liberal colleagues is an older white person thing so I can’t gift it to them (white people “gift”).
Anyway I need to wrap it up; someone even whiter can proofread and correct my abundant errors. But one last thing.
Philip Glass? Really? I know you said “smart, but not too smart”, but he’s now almost the epitome of hackneyed. You can, however, bring him up if someone else mentions him, then you can score a couple of points by saying something like “Well, I don’t really care for him all that much, but I enjoyed his work in Mishima.”
It’s hard being white. Even harder being witty, and you Christian are very much both! Keep it up.
LOL
White people don’t like classical music?
That is TOTAL BS
Classical music is STILL the best selling music
worldwide and in Europe and America
A “good portion” of people who buy organic are BLACKS making $45,000?
LOL LMAOROTF!!!
Suuuurrrree
You MUST be a white liberal too “African American”
That term is NOT even accurate…
There are WHITE causcasian people who have been in Africa since thine Romans conquered Egypt
not to mention Arabs and other “non Negroid” peoples
But that is ONE thing White people DEFINITELY like
being”polticially correct” useful idiots
Dude…the banjo is much more difficult to learn and play than just about any “classical” instrument
try it
great blog
Adam,
You must be the one who sent me the “neutering” comment.
Just telling you what I’ve read, that’s all. If you have published data to show otherwise, please share.
I like SOME classical music. I have a collection of all of Beethoven’s symphonies but I only like the 5th and the 9th.
I can’t stand this business of being expected to remember opus numbers and E major and D minor crap. White people have this need to turn enjoyment into WORK. You can’t just enjoy it and chill out. LOL
Sheherezade is good too. Just like what you like and say to hell with the rest. I am no more going to try to like some classical music than I am going to try to like some jazz. But having to get dressed up a pay ridiculous amounts for tickets even to listen to music that you like is ridiculous.
um
In the same vein, what about “having mostly unread copies of the New Yorker / Atlantic Monthly on their coffee tables”?
Usually a good thing to say when people ask you what kind of music you like just say “I like everything except country.” That totally inclusive and highly exclusive at the same time. White people love that, and its very underground.
prettyunderground.blogspot.com
John Williams will never be respectable. Although his name will be the first thing some people think of when asked to name a favorite composer, this is only because he composed for Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Pops concerts are not real classical music concerts. Proof can be found by asking any musician on stage–we all loath them. Anyone who attends them is automatically in the “classical music for people who hate classical music” category. Boo, John Williams.
That would be Reed COLLEGE, thank you very much.
Good points! And I would like to add how much I appreciate how all the symphonies, orchestras, opera companies and ballet troops are self-supporting and don’t require public support. Unlike, say, those elitist rock bands that constantly mooch off the public purse! If it weren’t for the subsidies from tax payers rock music would probably have gone the way of the dodo years ago. Right? *snark*
Have you been to my office? Sounds like one of my moves.
I approved this post and felt up some widows.
I just have to say that this blog has highlighted so many of my frustrations with hyper-educated, “liberal,” holier-than-thou segment of the white population. I have some friends (though less and less) that fit into this category, and I can’t say how many times they’ve tried to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me for not pretending to like classical music, not wanting to play children’s games in when we’re all in our 20s, etc. And I can’t say how many times I’ve been chastised for saying “offensive” things that are usually just telling the truth (i.e., “I don’t really like that painting” instead of the preferred insincere and indirect “I don’t know, what do you think about it?”) Aren’t people allowed to like different kinds of music, different activites, different things?? If I don’t like what you like, does it make me less of a person? Does it really hurt your feelings if I don’t like the same things as you??
Last night I had to listen to an organic farm-working “white” girl, who graduated from a small private liberal arts school that costs around $45,000 a year complain that she was SOOO poooor and didn’t have any money to go to graduate school. A) If you’re so strapped for cash and assuming you really do have student loans to pay off, how can you afford to work on an organic farm? B) I always thought that no one had the money for grad school up front, and that most people just take out more loans anyways…? Either way, she clearly wanted someone to tell her how she was such a true sufferer, and I did my part by not laughing.
The funny thing is, I consider myself to be a white liberal. I honestly believe that our economy is unfair, and that the government should take more steps to prevent the unfair treatment of workers and provide better access to healthcare and education. I don’t understand, however, where “liberals” got the idea that everyone should think the same way and like the same things. It’s supposed to be about tolerance!
Yeah I insert one hamster and relax and listen to some Mozart.
Good post A hole. You’re right the government should provide for you and solve your problems, vote Obama, because you can’t make it on your own, or just find a wealthy old widow like me.
I like Blues, but only when they’re played by other white people. Eric Clapton. Hot Tuna. Jonny Lang.
I also like The Beasty Boys and Rage Against the Machine. They’re kinda like rap, but not really; also they are white. I like Cypris Hill too. They’re black, but they sound like they could be white guys pretending to be black guys. It’s a gray area, so I only listen to them in secret.
I like the Rascals version of almost every song they stole from a black artist, and prefer Dusty Springfield to Aretha Franklin.
I don’t like Jazz, even when it’s played by white people. I do, however, pretend to like it and have a few Miles Davis CDs in my collection. This is just in case some advanced white people come to my house for a dinner party and check out my collection (a required part of the event, as is looking at your hosts library to make sure they have all the right books).
I only really enjoy classical music that is somehow connected to a movie, or if it’s played by Yo Yo Ma. This is mostly because I like to say Yo Yo Ma. I don’t readily admit this, because Yo Yo Ma is considered to be at the John Wiliam’s level by many advanced white people.
Elfman came out with an interesting composition in 2006 called Serenada Schizophrana which played off many of the themes he has developed in his cinema scores, but pushed the composition significantly further.
If you can back up you answer by citing that, you are still White.
If you want to do something “White”, how about staying home and working at getting your INSANE open-borders and pro-immigration government replaced?
Muslims in Sweden? What serious asshole ever thought that was going to work out for your future generations?
I have no idea why Hitler liked wimpy “Swedes”, yet hated Russians.
Bullshit.
people like opera, the costumes, the sets, the music, the singers……
Opera is a great white art form. Come on.
I attended the opening of the opera Amistad, and it was hilarious to see negroes dressed up in tuxes, as if this had anything to do with them, other than some liberals trying to push more anti-white propaganda wherever they can.
Can’t wait for the opera of “Color Purple” to be produced by some anti-white liberal or jew.
Many times the pieces to movies sound better than full concert pieces.
John Barry’s 007-James Bond stuff is KICK ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s bullshit.
You are talking about atonal JEW-INSPIRED crap. Schoenberg, Berg and the rest of these hook-nosed frauds are exactly what Wagner warned everyone about.
Music is NATURAL. Leave it to non-talent Heeb hacks to try and bullshit everyone.
The music equivalent of no-talent drips like Jackson Pollack.
Danny elfman? the guy who scores Desperate Housewives TV show?
please.
whoop-de-doo
that’s called “affrim action”.
As Whites have dropped into the single digits as a percentage worldwide, and are becoming a minority in the USA, the RKOWP are waking up and rejecting the affrim-action scam.
I seldom see black people at the symphony, except when someone like Jessye Norman sings. Then the audience is full of black people.
That my friend is how the RACIST thinks and acts. Blacks hate whites, but they’ll show up for Ms. Norman or only to see jew-inspired “Porgy & Bess”. Go figure.
That is the way the Black racist/elite thinks, sadly
At some point, the white elite in Europe decided that classical music was high culture and had to be listened to to rank among them.
I’m not so sure about that. Much of the original music was developed by the CHURCH in liturgical form.
It figures that clander mocks “classical music” in this thread. Liberals hate religion, yet it is religion that today keeps much of this stuff going.
The most knowledgeable people overall about music are religious people, since they are actually exposed to it, they sing weekly, can be parts of choirs singing advance White forms of music centuries old, etc.
yet they are doing it to “be cool” like some low-IQ liberal idiot follower of idiotic trends (aka the hipster).
The religious musicians do it because they like it and honestly appreciate it, not because it’s trendy.
Some of the liberals that fall-away into following secular jewish-inspired Christian-hating lives should perhaps attend a midnight mass at a large cathedral and see for themselves.
LOL!!!! Someone studies the timpani for 4 years for that one moment they actually get to do something.
Ditto. It sucks.
It won’t stand the test of time, imho.
Shut up Jew.
White people would enjoy our music more if we didn’t have to bump into obnoxious poseurs like you every time we go. You can spot the jewish couples a mile away at these places, why don’t YOU stay in your “condo” and free up the atmosphere for everyone else?
Geesh…..some people don’t that “they” produce any “footprint”.
When clander mocks the poseurs at these events, he’s really taking on the urban jews. Nobody cares about your wife’s jewelry either, jew.
Ditch the cello for a Jackson Flying V, and spice up your life.
Yeah, this dumb-f*ck troll doesn’t seem to understand the Roman Catholic Church’s support of illegal immigration.
What an idiot.
Who cares?
All banal jewish crap.
It shows the true decline of the genre and White people’s level of knowledge and taste that we are even talking about the “Glasses”.
Pathetic.
Wagner must be rolling over in his grave at how pathetic the wrong-kinds-of-whites have become.
The themes of WS are timeless.
what were you born in the 1990’s, educated fully by the talmudvision?
You are an idiot. Pick up a book.
Good career choice!!
Lots of flight attendant pussy and hot hotel action!!
I learned about those two while in a music history class two summers ago.
That’s jew buddy. Wake up and educate yourself instead. Let me guess you also learned alot about civil rights,, post-colonial studies, marxism, and gender studies too!!
Ha ha!!!
Africans didn’t even have the wheel when Europeans arrived.
Paul Simon was a little anti-Wihte jewish cocksucker who only was interested in “South African” music (late-80’s) as a form of propaganda to help overthrow Whites there.
Notice how Mr. Simon isn’t interested in any anti-apartheid music when it comes to Palestinans under the racist yoke of Israel jews? All jews are racist predictable hypocrites.
Plus, how many artists that protested South Africa 20 years ago even have the balls to set foot in that hellhole today? Yeah, go ahead Elton john, play downtown Jo’burg today.
They never cared about “blacks”, they only HATED “Whites”.
Hello????
Business idea!!!
Good point!!
If someone listens to the same symphony every single day, for 2 weeks straight, eventually they will know it, and begin to appreciate it, and start to anticipate parts, etc.
That is probably the best way for the neo-phyte.
I’m sure you could get any job you wanted in an orchestra since you were black. Affirm action probably allows you to sit in a seat that was taken from someone else.
I wish there was no racism, but unfortunately for the racist “diversicrats” in this world that’s all they every think about: race and racial composition.
I swear, that is why NASA cannot get any meaningful science done anymore, they spend more time worrying about the racial composition of the flight crews and the publicity photos, than doing anything productive.
You mean jews. 40% of America’s abortion doctors are jews, however in Israel abortion is not legal.
Sure, Julliard wouldn’t possiobly be run by Leftists and anti-White racists, no sir. Impossible!!
List their top faculty, board of directors, and top donors please.
it should be interesting to see what the White world will look like soon, with no Whites in it!!! Something tells me that non-Whites won’t keep up the standards so well.
Is that why we are talking about Philip Glass? Why the NFL players are all thugs now?
If anti-White racists and leftists think they can keep up White culture, without Whites, then they will learn the hard way that it will fail.
look at South Africa just 15 years later……..for just one example.
see above post
When we displace Whites from the music genre they created this is what it degenerates into:
Chinese playing Elfman.
Pathetic.
Cute!! I like it.
Have you ever seen Fellini’s “Orchestra Rehearsal”, the movie???
Bob Marley was 1/2 British, I believe.
But as with all cases of miscegenation, the half-caste always associates with the lower caste. Same thing with Obama.
does the gehry building leak?
But “Glass”is not a White name, it’s a name of a Semite.
Gee whiz, isn’t that just great?
Whites can’t wait until all the guitar heroes are chinks too!
I guess the 1970’s & 1980’s feminists didn’t have enough White kids or teach them anything about music, even if they did have one.
look at Hillary Clinton: selfish bitch only produced one child for the next generation. Oh well, I guess it’s the hispanic women, who could care less about feminist/one-child mentality that will reap the “benefits” of what all these c*nts have worked for. How ironic.
I’m sure the compositions of “minority” composers will have a better chance of being performed, with affirm action and ingrained anti-White racism the norm in the West nowadays.
Just like how “Amistad” was miraculously made famous, not necessarily on its merit, but it’s “subject matter”.
Whites need to wake up, because anti-white racists and self-hating white dupes are discriminating against whites, and not only in this area. It quite easy to see, the overall push by diversicrats is out in the open, and deliberately stacked against whites.
It’s also rooted in Christian tradition.
Finally. A real White person.
You need to stop pasting this everywhere, man. This is all a joke. Let people joke. Joking about white, upper-middle class people has nothing to do with strip-mining. In fact, if you actually read the sight, i think you’d find that white people are against hurting the environment with things like strip-mining. So this sight kind of promotes your sentiments, buddy! Take a load off, and enjoy a laugh!
I find white peoples’ love of “ethnic/latin” music such as Manu Chao and the like more feigned than classical music. The ethnic/roots music industry is most definetly another industry entirely propped up by middle class white people.
I listen to a great deal of classical music — defining the genre broadly enough to include church music, opera, and band literature as well as the ‘traditional’ Western symphonic and chamber music literature — and make some of it as an amateur. Both of my children play seriously and were admitted to top university/conservatory performance programs, though they ultimately chose not to be professionals against the advice of their teachers. So,we’re invested, as they say.
That said, there is a lot of truth in your point — professional musicians expect their salaries to be commensurate with their educations regardless of the demand relative to the supply.
And it is certainly true that third tier symphony orchestras, and even some second tier symphony orchestras are either folding or in serious financial trouble.
But, having been on the board of a local symphony (one of the few that pretty much breaks even), I can also tell you the cost of the professional non-musical staff — all the do gooders who want to work in the not-for-profit sector but expect wages equivalent to jobs with comparable responsibilities in the private sector — is a large factor. Our our orchestra was close to break even (we only took interest from the endowment, not prinicpal) was that fact that we had no paid staff other than musicians and conductors.
It may not seem like that much, but that half-million to a million a year or more (e.g. an executive director at $150,000 + benefits plus another 8-10 people ranging from $40,000 to $100,000 + benefits, which is typical) is the difference between survival and bankruptcy.
Donors are willing to pay for [i]music[/i], but they get rather shirty about paying for non-musical expenses, even if they’re reasonable.
I like to say “Yo Ma Ma” because it sounds sillier.
SO TRUE. I go to the Berklee College of Music and have a legitimate passion for classical music and I can say that I’ve encountered far too many white people professing to have a love for classical music, when truely it’s a love for one certain sleepytime classical mix cd named “relaxation” or “river sounds” or some crap like that, compiled and sold by barnes and noble; a client gift that never got to the client.
-D.
White People Love the TOP TEN HOT CELEBRITIES. Yup….they sure do.
Ok, first of all. I LOVE CALSSICAL MUSIC!!! Girls love it! Speaking of girls, my friend hates guys hitting on his girlfriend at bars. He wrote about it and his blog is hilarious. Check it out:
http://www.garbarrassing.com (just scroll down a lil and click on blog #16)
or just click here
http://www.garbarrassing.com/Comment/Blogs/0016.php
While all white people will profess to like classical music, attendees at a professional performance (like organized religion) will either be the aged or those with children in tow.
Of course, unlike a worship service, orchestras will also attract a number of young whites (in direct proportion to the number of higher educational opportunities in the geographic area) who are there either for 1) additional course credit OR 2) the need to define themselves as being in rebellion to the accepted music/standards of their peers.
Danny Elfman falls under the “Indie Band” label for liking by white people.
I’m white and I think classical music is boring. The only use for it is to put people to sleep.
DOTHAN, Ala. – Larry Blumberg is looking for a few good Jews to move to his corner of the Bible Belt.
ADVERTISEMENT
Blumberg is chairman of an organization offering Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate to Dothan, an overwhelmingly Christian town of 58,000 that calls itself the Peanut Capital of the World. Get involved at Temple Emanu-El and stay at least five years, the group’s leaders say, and the money doesn’t have to be repaid.
More Jews are living in the South than ever — about 386,000 at last count in 2001, according to Stuart Rockoff, a historian at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss. But young Jews are leaving small places like Dothan in favor of cities like Atlanta and Birmingham, Rockoff said, and dozens of small-town synagogues have closed.
“A lot of the older people have died, and not many of the younger ones have stayed,” said Thelma Nomberg, a member of the Dothan temple who grew up in nearby Ozark, where she was the only Jewish student in public school in the 1940s. “We are dying.”
Being outside the Christian majority was never a problem, Nomberg said, even six decades ago: She won the Miss Ozark beauty pageant at 14 and sometimes attended church with friends after sleep-overs.
Now a widow, Nomberg has watched two of her four adult children leave for Florida as Temple Emanu-El lost nearly half its membership, down to about 50 families. She can only hope the recruitment plan hatched by Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services of Dothan works for her synagogue.
Launched in June, the Blumberg program has put advertisements in Jewish newspapers in Boston, Miami, Providence, R.I., and Washington, and it plans to expand the campaign.
“I think it’s important that we try to find young people that we could use in our religious school, our Sunday school and help in the way of trying to create more of a family-type atmosphere in our temple,” Blumberg said.
Groups offered financial aid for Jews to return to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Jewish organizations around the country offer moving assistance for relocating families. A congregation has loans and other benefits for Jewish families moving into an area near Boston.
“Our program is distinctive because it’s Dothan, but it’s also distinctive because of the type of financial assistance,” said Rob Goldsmith, executive director of Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services, which will screen applicants and administer the grant program.
Trying to lure Jewish families to a quiet Southern town in a state with a reputation for hard-right politics and racial intolerance might be difficult. About 20 Jewish families have sought information about Dothan, though none has made the move.
Rockoff credits Blumberg and the rest of the congregation with fighting to remain in Dothan, where the synagogue has a full-time rabbi and the temple, which is aligned with the reform movement, hasn’t missed having a Friday night service in decades.
“It is a small community, but they have some deep pockets to be able to do this,” said Rockoff. “As a historian it is fascinating to see them trying to buck this trend.”
Dothan lies at the heart of the South’s peanut region, in Alabama’s southeastern corner just minutes from Florida and Georgia. It’s dotted with big fiberglass peanuts painted to resemble characters and people — there’s even an Elvis peanut.
Little things are big here: The city boasts what it calls the world’s smallest city block, a triangular traffic island near the civic center.
But Blumberg’s group is selling prospective Jewish residents on Dothan’s quality of life — its low cost of living, the heritage of its synagogue and its proximity to Florida beaches, about 80 miles away.
The city is the site of the down-home National Peanut Festival each fall, and it has a full schedule of community cultural events. It has two hospitals, a branch of Troy University and is just a short drive from Fort Rucker, the Army’s main helicopter training base.
Downtown is filled with quaint red-brick buildings and colorful murals, and traffic never gets too bad on Ross Clark Circle, the perimeter road.
“We have Friday afternoon rush minute, and that’s about it,” said manufacturing executive Ed Marblestone, 69, who grew up Jewish in Texas but married a Dothan girl and has lived in the town since 1961.
Valerie Barnes grew up in Panama and moved several times before settling 20 years ago in Dothan and becoming active at the synagogue. She’s never experienced any anti-Semitism and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
“The biggest thing Dothan has to offer is that it’s just a very family-oriented community,” said Barnes, who directs a hospital foundation. “Our congregation is very vibrant, and we have a lot of things that we get involved in.”
Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith didn’t know quite what to expect when she moved to Dothan a year ago to lead the congregation at Temple Emanu-El, which was founded in 1929. She came with her husband, who directs the Jewish community services group.
A Connecticut native, the rabbi halfway expected the Alabama of old with wide-open racism and dirt roads.
“The Northeast has a really warped perception of what the South is all about, and I found out it was all wrong,” she said. “The South is a wonderful place to be. The people are warm and friendly. There’s very little traffic. And best of all, there’s no snow.”
___
On the Net:
Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services: http://www.bfjcs.org
Bela Fleck, the greatest banjo player living, has several classical albums.
I bet Jews could get even more money to fucking leave a state, many would be willing to donate!
Is that Katie with the double D’s?
http://www.diehipster.com
Actually, if the “and” is being used as a coordinating conjunction, then the comma should be used before teh conjunction…I love grammar! God, i am sooo white.
Hey, I actually like Erik Satie! I can play Gymnopedie #1
Haven’t stepped on this one yet. I should ask my partner; he’s more apt to go mouthing off about classical music than I am, probably because he knows a bit more about it.
But…dude, who samples Erik Satie? And in what? I’m thinking about that one silly song that uses something from the Well-Tempered Clavier as the basis…
Whites could live without jews, but jews could never live without Whites. Even today israel has to swindle billions in US Gentile tax dollars.
the jews are the world’s most historical parasite.
says who?
I remember “oingo boingo? and everyone I knew that was White thought they sucked.
Never heard of him
YOU DUMBSHIT. The wrong kinds of White people (aka White liberals) are idiots. They don’t have money, they don’t have power, they have no influence, they follow anti-White ideologies, they are taught to race-mix like morons……
Do you know who runs “liberalism”, and who does HAVE the money to pay for grad schools and PhDs while you suckers fall by the wayside?
My God. Wake up.
you are all suckers of the biggest anti-White racists of all time, the Heebs.
it is they who turned the Humanities into gay, feminist, post-colonial, marxist, etc, etc,
you wrong kinds of whites have been had, you live your own destruction and likely won’t pass on your genes either. Fools. Who can reason with you? I hope someone awakens you people. Enjoy your massive debt and anti-White ideology. Suckers. Fools. TRAITORS.
Liberals are either jews, or shabbat goy.
Whichever they are, you either aren’t White or are definitely the wrong kind of White person.
A liberal is an anti-white White, and their grandchildren, if they ever have them, will curse their stupidty.
I went to a concert last year at the Boston Symphony Hall, sitting next to a [white] optometrist who told me how she and her friends go to the symphony every month.
The conductor made the mistake of telling the audience how long the final piece (Shostakovich Symphony 4) was. As soon as he said that, I saw hundreds of digital watch backlights light up from the rows in front of me.
Of course, when the piece was over, there was a massive standing ovation and whooping and the whole business until WHOOOOOSH everybody scurries out to try to get back to their car before the rush.
http://www.timbuckley.net/articles/newyorktimes_beethoven.shtml
This website describes the stereotypical “upper-middle class” affluent west-coast “liberal-guilt” type white suburbanite. I am a white man, and I have to say I can’t identify with the characterization that has formed on this website. I can say that black people smoke as much marijuana as white people (but affluent white people definitely smoke by far the most potent weed available, I have sampled it). I really can’t believe weed made this guys list but not beer. I think this site has completely neglected the largest element of white people in the USA: Gun loving, truck driving, budweiser guzzling, jack daniels shot taking, marlboro smoking, hot dog eating, dirt bike owning NASCAR fans.
My list of what white people like:
1. Beer
2. Trucks
3. Guns
4. Steak
6. Fishing
7. Hunting
8. Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey
10. Camping
11. Motor boating
12. Motorcycles
13. Made in the USA
14. Television
15. Jesus
16. The Military
I can’t say that list describes me, but it describes more white Americans than this blog does.
Personally, I think listing Danny Elfman as your favorite composer is the single most WHITE thing you can do. Ever.
Nonsense! I am white and I love classical music. However, I do notice that most white people tend to shy away from discussing the musical merits of a piece in detail, especially right after the live performance… If one grows up with art music in house– one can’t fake “love of classical music”
“Classical” is a misleading term, actually, in your context. “Classical” music was written in 1750-1840 (or one can extend it to 1850)… Before that was Baroque, as we know, and right after Romantic.. Maybe you meant to say
“Art music” that will include Mahler, Prokofiev, Debussy as well as Thomas Addes and Rachel Portman…
Yeah, I hear you. He’s describing white, upper middle class liberals as if they represent all whites, just like the black comedians do; that’s just lazy.
This SWF just spent Saturday and Sunday at the opera, and is a fantastically huge nerd for classical music.
Plague and hellfire on the fakers, especially if they’ve never heard “The Lark Ascending”.
Ridiculous.
Funny and well written, but still ridiculous.
First of all, you don’t have to go to a public performance to enjoy “classical” music. However, I will say that anyone who sees a classical concert as primarily a social event is not going for the music.
Secondly, the so-called canon of “great western art” was created almost completely by white men so it is no surprise that the audience is mostly white and affluent.
Thirdly, who are you to say what’s still relevant? I suppose we should ignore all art of the past and focus on the most current cotton-candy-coated fad? No thanks. By the way… serious Classical music is still being written today and I don’t mean film scores.
Fourthly, I do have a massive knowledge of music, not just classical, and I will be happy to discuss details with anyone.
Finally, there are so many stereotypes in this post, i don’t even know where to begin addressing them so my advice is this: don’t rant about something you clearly don’t know much about.
i like classical music: the who, led zepplin, alman brothers
Go away…troll
Emperor’s clothes. Same with art. There’s something there, but there’s a whole lot of folks who pretend to like it, or actually think they like it, to appear sophisticated to themselves and others.
This thing is wrong. You win tons of bonus points for naming Danny Elfman as your favorite composer. Even more if you can list at least 10 cult hits he’s scored.
Lets talk about the Conan O’Brien appearance.
It’s ridiculously hilariously — Have a sense of humour for cryin’ out loud. And get off your high horse, you santimonious blowhard!
What do you know.
clander pretends to know this subject — which he thinks other people pretend to know — as if he really knows squat.
Fucking hilarious.
And THIS is the real satire, for those who pretend to understand and love this blog and the satire it’s supposed to convey.
Funny! I’m a classical musican, have a Master’s Degree in music, am starting an opera career, and support myself off a day job. It drives me crazy when people say they like classical music, but all they can do is hum the beginning of Beethoven’s Fifth or name drop Pachabell’s cannon. They drive me almost as crazy as those who think classical music is boring and irrelevant. I am one of those people that white fakers dread. 😀
I don’t like anyone saying classical music is beyond it’s relevance though. There is a reason people still listen to it, there is a reason it is still being written. *Is currently performing music written by a contemporary classical composer, Mark Alburger*
No one has mentioned Haydn. Very positive and accessible music; the symphonies are mostly under 20 minutes (3 symphonies per CD instead of 1 or 2). The English adored him, so all Anglophile WP’s should love Haydn too.
Since The South has come up I have to relate my airline joke:
Two women find themselves row-mates on a commercial flight. One is from The South and the other is from New England.
The woman from The South smiles sweetly at her new acquaintance and says, “So, where y’all from?”
The woman from New England purses her lips and replies, “I’m from the part of the country where we know not to end our sentences with a preposition.”
The woman from The South thinks for a moment and says, “So, where y’all from, Bitch?”
As soon as Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me is over on Saturday mornings I usually spill my coffee in my rush to turn off the radio before This American Life begins. Ira Glass has the worst radio voice in the universe! And the material!!! Does he do Focus Groups with day care workers, or what???
I may be wrong here but, Amistad wasn’t that a jig thing? Who the fuck would go see that? As soon as I see any of that shit I change the channel or shut if off. I wouldn’t be caught watching that shit, who would.
Porknoy you have got things all wrong. Sen. Obama is a true American leader and is the best hope for the future. By electing Obama we as a nation will makeup for our greatest sin. I love Obama’s plan of raising the cap gains tax to pay for all his great ideas. Liberals will have all the money we need by taking yours. I have never been proud of this nation, and with the election of Barrack H. Obama I will be.
I am John H. Kerry the most useless sack of shit in the history of the senate an I approved this post.
Hot tuna I used to listen to those freaks! Tom Waits and Frank Zappa are the best. Nobody can play like Zappa!
What an idiotic spiel of rubbish.
It started with PETER & the WOLF, then Healy Willan and then whatever ticked my ear – not my social standing.
And John Williams pleases me too ! So there….
Man, this is so true. There’s just something about classical music that is so elitist, so upper class and so white, that it’s ridiculous. Anytime a movie score includes a piece of classical music, I’ll throw in a casual, “I love this piece.” And if I’m around people who I know don’t have a clue about classical music, I’ll even throw out the name of a composer just to sound really pretentious.
http://twowhiteboys.com/2008/
it’s funny because it’s true!
I just cannot understand why in holy hell white suburban teenagers love rap. I suppose they see it as being “exotic” and dangerous. To me, it’s crap that doesn’t deserve to be called music. Give me classical music any day – I’m not ashamed to be white, and I’m not ashamed of my culture, either.
Jorma rocks! Who else can sing a song about shooting people he doesn’t like without getting an “explicite lyrics” warning.
I just realized something else about classical music. Pale, angsty `indie rock` bands love sampling and inserting classical music into their songs. That or adding string arrangements that make their work sound more `classy` and serious. Actually, white people love indie-rock. Is there a post on this site about that yet?
This is so totally wrong. What more people really like is pretending to hate classical music. Nearly everyone either likes classical music or they want to like it but are too lazy to learn anything about it. Pretending to hate something is so much cooler than admitting that you’re lazy.
Hahaha, love the bit about Satie. The first I ever heard of him was Steve Hackett from Genesis (progressive rock- another thing only white people like… white men mostly) doing a disc of Satie pieces a couple years back. But since then, it’s Satie MADNESS, he’s everywhere. It’s crazy, sheer InSatie.
The Satie bit: perfect, and so true.
Ooh, also, white people like to feign knowing about classical music by insisting on pronouncing composers’ names with outrrrrageous accents.
Dvořák is a perfect example. My ex’s mom, Phyllis, total prat, used to love sying his name. VOOOOOOOR JJJJJJAK! VOOOOOORRRRR JJJJJJJJJAAK!
As an instrumental music ed major, I must agree – BOOO, John Williams! You can ALWAYS tell John Williams’ compositions from the first bar of the introduction. I shiver when I hear his music.
I thought this sight was going to be funny, but to me it’s stupid. I get some of it, but coffee #1? come on. My husband is Hispanic and he HAS to have his coffee. When I saw that and looked through the rest of the list, I thought if one had to stereotype I guess a lot of this would match up. I think they should put scooters/mopeds on here. I think a great hang out to find another compilations of lists would be Santa Fe, NM. Also, white people love telling others how to live their lives or how to be a parent. White people love tye-dye.
“Its just music”…. Wow! You have obviously never played a musical instrument, nor have you really appreciated the art form, or have been actively involved in The Arts.
That’s really unfortunate for you. Try to rent a movie without some form of music in it. Music is not “just music”.
Do your boss a favor, and give the tickets to someone who can actually appreciate the amount of work put into just one of these symphony concerts. Perhaps, a music student at a local high school or university.
I like classical music but i cant tell one composer from the other. The only Danny Elfman theme i recognize is Desperate Housewives.
Anyone who wrote the score to Star Wars is aces with me.
Check out new CARTOONS here: http://spinachflame.wordpress.com/
You can’t tell Mozart from Varese or Joplin?
Sure you can. You just don’t know it.
When did this happen?
Devon you should stroll down Mass. Ave to the Boston Pops when I guest conduct for Keith. Performing up on stage is a great way to meet chicks! Of course my fellow Sen. Teddy used to walk into a room with women in it and just say he forgot his pants, it worked for him many times. God Bless Mary Jo left to die in the icy water, but Ted is a hero to the nation.
When one dates a bar whore, he should expect man to hit on the slut.
I play this crap to keep the cows happy. Its a fucking dirty stinking job, so its nice to keep them happy.
oh my god, this is so true.
i think i just sounded unbearably white right there…
whenever my mom drags me to a classical music concert, i wish i could take a book or something because just sitting there watching people play the violin is so boring. and so i do read every single word on the program. twice. before staring at the names of the music that they’re playing and counting the songs until they’re done.
my mom is the epitome of a white person: she thinks she knows everything about other cultures, she has multilingual children (i.e. me and my brother), she put us in the gifted program, she’s taken music history… gosh.
well, that being said, i’m pretty darn white too, but at least i don’t know all the lyrics to “soul’ja boy” and all the dance moves, like my even whiter friend does.
Hilarious. I recall my college years when white folk tried to be all sophisticated and stuff. We’d just entertain their jazz, and then go play soccer or something, kicking back to some Miles Davis.
This blogger must have a PhD in Whiteography. You have white folk sussed. 😀
Well done! This post is the best written yet. Really, the writing is just superb!
Is it better to listen to it on your own time while you’re doing something else?
interesting post
Yeah and both are kosher-approved. Not quite at shabbat goy level, but both are classic goy fronts, and perfect goy front vessels with which to get more anti-white drivel out in the world.
His second point was a good one.
Manu Chao: album “Clandestino” is probably one of his best-known works. Maybe the appeal of “ethnic/latin” music is its exoticness.
This was an interesting post (and reading through all the comments) because
1) I actually know all the (real) composers mentioned in the comments
2) I’ve been to a concert where they performed Danny Elfman’s Serenade Schizophrenia. It was a community orchestra.
2.5) I like film music, I like playing it, listening to concerts of it, and (most) video game music but find it interesting how it draws more people to symphonies
3) I did play through school, through college, and my day job has nothing to do with music but I play in another community orchestra. I know when I get up in front of the audience a lot of them want to be somewhere else.
4) I am not white, and I don’t think anyone finds me that cute when I’m soloing, but I find this blog entertaining (whatever its satiric worth).
I agree with this post. Most young white people will say that they love classical music yet if you look at their I-Pods you will only see classic rock,hip hop, and reggae music.
http://www.culturallycool.com
I have this friend, and I swear to god, every time he listens to classical music, he gets an erection! Unfortunately he now lives in Vietnam :(. He moved to Vietnam with little money and no job and has been blogging about his experiences there. His blog is hilarious and he just added a new post today. Check it out:
http://www.garbarrassing.com/Bill.php
I’m lost. Why exactly is listing Danny Elfman so bad? And why do so many people have such a strong opinion on him? I always thought that, unless you listened to Oingo Boingo when you were a kid or stayed late to see who scored a move, you’d have no idea who Danny Elfman was. Please, someone explain.
The spook Kayne got arrested, I’ll dance to that.
The only classical music I listen to is the “Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky. I fact I fall asleep to it and I just bought the score. If anyone tries to comment on that I frown at them until they go away.
the picture is of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
No John Williams or Danny Elfman… so is Hans Zimmer okay?
No, but you get many, many nerd points, which are far more valuable on the internet.
A gourmet picnic sounds hugely impractical.
Hah! Joke’s on you! I’m an un-hip rural commenter!
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satire
Even MORE if you’ve ever seen the Forbidden Zone!
Paparazzi is fair game. they deserve to be beaten up any chance you get.
There are already several white people out there earning a living making fun of rednecks and white trash (the wrong sort of white people). There are not nearly as many white people making fun of this type of white person. It’s Entrepreneurship 101; find a niche and fill it.
Wow, so you’ve never heard of The Simpsons? How about Spiderman? Batman? Nightmare Before Christmas, Delores Claiborne, Pee-wee Herman, Edward Scissorhands? Any of these ringing a bell?
Dude, survival of the fittest is not about race, it’s about species. A species with a diverse gene pool stands the best chance of survival, and therefore mixing of different races is essential to the continued survival of humans. You go ahead and stick with your own kind, you inbred hick! Good luck dealing with global warming and a thinning atmosphere with your near-transparent skin! Aryans are a dying breed, and if they don’t start mixing now, their genes will soon disappear from the earth!
I like your point about not liking a piece of art. I’ve had several arguments with people about the difference between saying you don’t like something and saying it sucks. Art cannot generally be considered good or bad, it can only be to your taste, or not. If you wish to avoid the glares and upturned noses, try saying, “I don’t know, this piece doesn’t really speak to me.” Or, just ignore the snobbish pricks.
The “poor” graduate student is funny too. You should take her to a shanty town or homeless shelter to give her some perspective. Dave Matthews (how white am I?) told a similar story about being in Africa and saying, “I’m starving!” The room got very quiet, and he realized that word has a completely different meaning to people who are actually starving.
Never underestimate the power of white guilt.
Maybe it’s because pricks like you always treat them that way. Seriously dude, isn’t there some inbred white supremacist blog you could be spamming?
Also, Batman, Spiderman, Edward Scissorhands (you should like that one, everyone in it was white), Nightmare Before Christmas, The Simpsons…
But without opus numbers, people can’t show off their information superiority.
There are people who like classical music just because they really like it. Lots of the wrong sort of white people in the UK are getting into classical music that has good tunes. So, yes, they’re listening to things like the overture to the Marriage of Figaro or Beethoven’s 5th.
Your point about Beethoven should be spelt out – most composers wrote a lot of very unmemorable music. There are hundreds of operas written by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and others that are almost never performed.
I used to have his theme tune to Candyman on my phone. Makes a damn good ringtone, and seeing how no-one else has it, you don’t mistake it for someone else.
“Of course, once you go across the Atlantic, it’s a completely different story–you’d see blue collar young guys listening to Saint-Saens.”
No. You. Don’t.
Go to see a concert at Symphony Hall in Birmingham (UK) or the Royal Albert Hall in London and it is 99% white middle class, and the majority is middle to old aged.
Kids used to get the “this is good for you” teaching of classical music, and most of them hated it and wanted to listen to Springsteen or Madonna.
Liking post-rock, tuneless composers is generally considered as trying too hard in white culture.
If you’re going to see something like John Cage or Harrison Birtwistle, you need to have a huge amount of information to back it up.
Dear god, no.
In White People terms, you’re an absolute traitor. You’ve not just not seen proper classical music, you’ve taken an orchestra out of doing it to see something popular.
(did they play the Super Mario Galaxy music? I love that).
Jazz is basically liked by people who want something that makes them look young and hip, isn’t too loud and isn’t going to get them into a fight.
Oh dude, dudie, Geoff do you like hamsters, I mean well you sound like such a little fruitcake! Are you a T.V.?
Beethoven- 9th symphony
dullard
Great post! I love Erik Satie. Once you listened to most of his significant works once or twice (Embryons Desséchés, Gymnopédies, etc.), you’ll end up shocked at how much of it you vaguely remember hearing once.
Phillip Glass is pretty cool.
And I don’t know anything about Dvorak’s early works. Just his later stuff, like his Symphonies No. 8 & 9.
GodDAMN I am really white.
michael jackson:
http://journalofthieves.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/finding-love-in-neverland/
This post sounds quite stupid: the fact that my preferred classical works are the Fourth Harpsichord Partita by Johann Sebastian Bach & The Third Books of Songs by John Dowland make me becoming black?
Wonderful, it means that I’m smarter and quicker than Michael Jackson!
To change his skin colour, he has suffered more than me, as you can see on the magazines….
A question: if I add also to the list of my most beloved pieces the D Major left-hand Piano Concert by Maurice Ravel, may I became blue-skinned?
You like your hole filled and drilled, right dude. Dude you secret fag.
I would say that you’re thin skinned my douche bag friend.
I would say, you should find a wealthy old widow.
Sir John douche bag Kerry, a loser for times like these.
Awesome post! I loved this:
“Really? Beethoven’s 5th Symphony….that’s your favorite.”
“um, no, I mean…”
“You sure it’s not Pachebel’s Canon?”
“well, ah, I like that, ah, song”
“sigh, of course you do.”
Very funny, but perhaps this description is “White People in America” since when I lived in Germany people actually liked classical music.
Amazing…simply amazing.
Dvorak and Satie are two of my favourite composers. I guess that says it all. 🙂
the ‘white people’ of your mind speak for you and for nobody
else.This is the nature of all minds to see only what can be
seen( one’s own mind)
i wonder what you would really like to say and not what yu assume other’s are saying.
It is certainly not realistic to assume that what is inside your
mind
defines what is outside of it,
except in dreams
Christian,
Why is this site so unbearably and embarassingly true? Upon reading this information, I found myself thinking, “Why do I like this stuff anyway? What is the point?”
And asking myself, “Do I like this said event or thing because I like it, or because I want to brag about it?” Nine times out of ten…okay, maybe eight of ten, its because I want to brag about it.
So–go ahead and give yourself a big white person pat on the back. Because though these white people comments are posted mostly in anger, they know that you are right.
*I’d also like to admit that I have posted this comment as eloquently white as possible.
okay…nine times out of ten.
You are such an original thinker firepig. You sound like a sixth grader who read a few pages of Nietzsche.
What a tool…what a tool.
what is this attack on “white people” for so what if the actually like of kid on to like classical music what is it to you. It’s not hurting anyone if people want to dress up and go and enjoy something, mingle with people of high class and just generaly make them self feel classy and respected whats wrong with that? If it means making his/her self feel better once in while there should be no judgement towards them, we all are guitly of it and in this cruel word we should embrace these moments.
From a Black european.
i love Danny Elfman…
although Mahler is my favorite composer I find that elfman is a really great composer as well as john Williams . These are the composers that are the “court composers ” of the day.
Gee after reading this drivel, I would have never guessed that it was written by a black.
Is it true white people like to eat the yellow snow?
I LOVE John Adams. Blindingly white! And/or black Irish.
what? the guy who writes these blogs is some 24ish old white dude w/ a goatee and fro……………………
very accurate. appearing to like shakespear falls under this category as well.
It does indeed.
I hope your kidding about classical music loosing its relevance.
I started out as one of these white people, but I enjoy listening to classical music so much that it’s pretty much all I listen to at all anymore. It started as a fascination 4 years ago and has now become a full blown addiction – isn’t this how most people become interested in something different?
But, I agree. Shakespeare and graphic novels have to fall into this category as well.
he wasnt referring to the author of the blog, only to the posting immediately before his.
Man, I’m sick of pretending to enjoy classical music. We watch The Nutcracker and my daughter is like, “papa, do you like that music?,” and I’m like, “no, I frigging sick of it.” And jazz, aren’t white people supposed to like jazz? But not like Frank Sinatra jazz, they’re supposed to like John Coltrane jazz.
How can you talk to your daughter like that? What the hell is wrong with you?
I don’t really talk to her like that, you idiot. And as a matter of fact, I like classical music, but more enjoy listening to baroque and romantic periods of this type of music. Modern classical just blows chunks.
I liked Satie before he sold out and went mainstream.
It’s regrettable that there were no references to how you have to call classical songs “pieces.” That’s made me laugh since I first discovered double entendre.
Oh please give me a break. Another thing that is sooooooo WHITE is the canonization of the CHILD. We all (White and Black) grew up with parents who smoked as they held us in one hand and a glass of gin in the other and we are for the most part independent functioning adults. Our children on the hand are protected from EVERYTHING including holding down a job or making their own beds and look at them.
So in revolt I say stuff to my grandkids like, because I said so or because I’ll bust your ass if you don’t.
Next time their here I’ll e-mail so that you can report me to Child Protective Serives. Please
So is not listing John Williams kind of like you can’t say your favorite jazz musician is Kenny G?
Phyllis great post! Wow you hit the nail on the head.
And I think if he were alive today, he’d be composing movie themes.
because the nutcracker is modern classical….
Thanks Serge
Okay I guess this will really brand me, but I love Beethoven’s Fifth, especially on the Fourth of July when they fire the cannon.
Also (I think Tchaikovsky) Lone Ranger (okay William Tell Overture).
And Chopin Polonaise. All superficial I know and I don’t even know who that Satie guy is
Okay Black european?
Is that like Black Irish?
I wanna fuck you all and suck your hard cocks.
Fuck me in my tight ass.
What the hell?
Found this article this AM (via 3quarksdaily). Really enjoyed it. We have a public radio station that has the annoying habit of airing listeners’ endorsements. Around noon, we had an endorsement referring to Satie (LOL) although the background music was orchestral (is that really Satie?) — then the announcer came on to solicit support and the background music was … you guessed it … John Williams.
i don’t get this website. maybe it’s because i’m not white. but is this site for real? are you all racist republican white people who live off their parent’s income and don’t have real careers? is that a “what white people like” that i missed because i don’t know who seriously has time for this stuff
if you are not white, go back 2 afrika you porch monkey. i am asian-american i went back 2 korea because i hate nig nogs and spiks
You’re right- you dont get it. It’s not about color or race, read on. But why diss white people. Did you get called Oprah today ? You should have.
Ummm, this isn’t the gay blog. That is need a cork in my ass.com
Ummm, this isnt the flaming gay blog. You must be looking for cork in my ass.com
Guilty or not guilty, all are welcome to hear my classical music broadcast on Friday mornings, west coast time, 10:00 AM to Noon, on the web at KZYX.org (click “Listen Now”).
The show is called The Wondrous World of Music, and I program in historical progression, with a minimum of talk and maximum of music. It’s a nice kick for me to think some present readers would enjoy it. KZYX&Z is the public radio station for Mendocino County, in Northern California.
Best wishes for good life and good listening,
Gordon Black
With blacks and classical music it’s less a matter of should than of why. Is there something lacking in jazz, blues, hip hop, etc. that blacks have to seek in other music forms?
Beasty (sic) Boys – Upper East Side Jews
Cypress Hill – non-Mexican Hispanics
Rage – formerly straight edge Hispanic singer, black Harvard grad guitarist
But how would you manage to beat off without up skirt shots?
But seriously, blacks imagine a degree of material success entitles them to attack low status whites, like a wife as in the case of O.J., with impunity.
Of course Obama and his wife are immune to such feelings. No racial revenge scenarios playing out in those subtle minds.
Wasn’t your friend Gary Glitter deported from Vietnam?
SMITH-REILLY YOU SLANT EYED FUCK. KOREA IS A RAT HOLE FULL OF MEN WHO LIKE LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS. FUCKING ASIAN PEOPLE COME TO AMERICA AND ATTEMPT TO BE WHITE. GO BACK TO YOUR POOR COUNTRY AND DON’T COME BACK YOU STUPID SHIT. BECAUSE 90% OF BLACKS NEVER BEEN TO AFRICA BECAUSE THEY WERE BORN AND LIVE IN AMERICA(CAN’T GO BACK TO WHERE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN).
as a WHITE violin teacher who teaches in an inner-city mainly African-American school system I find this post a tad galling. I teach the joys of music and riches and enlightenment one can afford of it, regardless of background, not guilt.
I’d leave that to the experts, the Catholic Church.
The one thing white people like more than appearing to enjoy classical music, is learning sex secrets 😉
http://sexed.wordpress.com
Come see what everyone’s talking about!
Haha, wow, I love how the level of discourse in the comments section has risen so much since the site has gained notoriety.
Anyway, just wanted to say you’re frustratingly accurate again. I know little about classical music, like Philip Glass, and my favorite piece is Beethoven’s 9th. But I hate concerts! And I do like Dvorak! And I’ve got like 15 hours of classical in my iTunes!
…shit, I’m just proving your point, aren’t I?
That’s to keep the blacks from loitering.
I certainly am a white person by this sites standards. I’m always saying, “Did you see that Onion headline…” but I have to say, I don’t know a single person among all my “white” friends who pretends to like classical music more than they do. It just seems to me that whoever wrote this doesn’t like classical music, so they don’t think anyone really can either.
Personally, I love classical music and I am not only white, but fishbelly white (I don’t get out in the sun a lot). My dad loved the 20th century Russians (Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev), my mother loved the 19th century Germans (particularly Brahms, though she later developed a positively-odd fixation on Mahler). I think Philip Glass is boring and John Adams is an abomination.
By the way, John Williams was a good conductor of the Boston Pops, and as a film composer, he produced a lot of great, if lesser-known film scores (faux-Mancini for HOW TO STEAL A MILLION, delicate, amusing music for Hitchcock’s FAMILY PLOT, and some very icy, unsettling incidental music for VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, the only element of that film, other than Sharon Tate, that wasn’t a complete embarrassment).
So very, very white.
You’re the typical white person. I expect the humor of this site to go miles above your empty head.
I’m a classical musician, but only because I’m a Republican, which disqualifies me as a white person.
classical music sucks
http://www.culturallycool.com/reggaeindex.html
I am not convinced. I seem to live my life among white people without ever actually becoming one of them, and I have not seen any inclination to attend the symphony, or, for that matter, the opera. Perhaps in your city things are different, but where I come from, only the white people of my grandmother’s generation showed much interest, and I suppose that being of that age automatically disqualifies them as actual white people. Myself, I go when I can afford it, because I like it.
If you really want to impress white people, mention Eric Whitacre–but make sure to talk about his music through the context of other white people traits. While he is hip/postmodern/self-published/a Juilliard graduate/culturally relevent/a Democrat/&c. (i.e., the ideal White person), he’s actually a lousy musician.
John Adams is actually a fantastic musician, but because he didn’t take a decidedly liberal stance in his opera “The Death of Klinghoffer,” (his portrayal of Nixon in an earlier work may have something to do with this as well) he has lost a severe number of white people points.
Oh wow. I loved the John Williams note at the bottom. Currently, my high school marching band is doing a John Williams themed halftime show, and I literally groaned when I found out. What better way to prove that we’re geeky band nerds than playing geeky nerdy music and thinking it’s “totally awesome”?
I’ll just add all of the ridicule we’ll recieve for it to my list of traumatizing high school memories. That should make up for it.
I think you mean the Sonatine Bureaucratique, based on Clementi’s Sonatina Op. 36, no. 1…
I’m a classically trained musician and can tell you music has become monochromatic, homophonous and predictable. These aren’t negative traits. They are just part of our culture. And it makes classical music seems strange and foreign.
But music aside, the funniest white moment on this page: the Google ads! One for “Losing 9 pounds of stomach fat every 11 days” right next to an ad for purchasing “Mozart Opera Manuscripts”. Now, that is funny.
I’m a classically trained musician and can tell you music has become monochromatic, homophonous and predictable. These aren’t negative traits. They are just part of our culture. And it makes classical music seem strange and foreign.
But music aside, the funniest white moment on this page: the Google ads! One for “Losing 9 pounds of stomach fat every 11 days” right next to an ad for purchasing “Mozart Opera Manuscripts”. Now, that is funny.
The Lone Ranger comment actually comes from the sixties, on (David Frost’s) “The Frost Show”, if I remember correctly.
Incidentally, in said sixties in England, such a comment would have been referred to as “pseud” rather that white.
Man, I spent 3.5 years doing this as part of my LIBERAL ARTS DEGREE in music!!
To listen to free streaming music online, I found some incredible website: http://www.deezer.com/en
It’s incredible! Free, legal, and it has a huuuuuuuge catalogue!
@Jessie
Kid, you’re totally out of your element here. Trust me on this. There’s nothing wrong with John Williams, only that white folk, embarrassed at not being truly “European”, will sneer at you for it out of their own sense of “white guilt”. Listen to all the John Williams you want.
Haha! Oh, Nate…
You’re only playing into exactly what this article is making fun of, but the best part is… you genuinly think you’re not!
I’m white, was a “band-nerd” in high school, and DO know who Eric Whitacre is. I actually own a couple of his albums. I don’t give a damn what is “views” are or if he’s an “ideal white person.” Also, I don’t think you could find another person who’s actually heard his name that agreed with your opinion that he’s a “lousy” musician.
By critiquing a couple of modern musicians who I’m sure you’re hoping no one who reads this will have heard of, you fit the described stereotype like a glove! Nothing wrong with that, just thought I’d point it out.
… or just explains that you’re a white person from the South…
And how many southerners do you know that listens to Classical music?
Aren’t all white people who post here fans of P.D.Q. Bach?
HE ROCKS!
Smart people tell me he’s good. So there… Doo doo head.
It’s a true and quite funny observation; however, it applies only to american whites…In fact, it applies to most colors in America…my fellow americans, opera is not a musical and musical is not an opera…also, The Little Mermaid is not a happy story if you bother yourself to read the original story by Hans Christian Andersen…please…please educate yourselves at least a little…No, wait! I forgot… it’s all good because you are rich…yeah, that’s it… sad, isn’t it?
I’m also finishing my B.A. in music composition, so the fact that these are men whom I study on a day-in/day-out basis as a modern composer is one to consider.
I hope everyone HAS heard of John Adams and Eric Whitacre because they’re two of America’s leading contemporary composers. More people know about them than you care to admit, especially given the popularity and widespread appeal of such pieces as “On the Transmigration of Souls” and “October.” Everyone who was in high school/college music programs in the last eight or so years knows who Eric Whitacre is. Adams happens to be my favorite among American composers, and Whitacre I loathe. Opinions all around.
Ultimately, you’re playing into the stereotype more than I am by saying that people who are actually quite well-known are obscure. Nothing wrong with that, just thought I’d point it out.
Addendum: On second thought, it would aid you immensely to learn to recognize sarcasm.
😉
I’m a music composition major and it’s really funny how many older white people try to impress me with their “knowledge” of classical music. But I disagree with the John Williams assessment. A lot of fake-classical-music-fans do like him… an easy way to separate them from the people who actually listen to classical music is to ask them what they think of him! They usually think they can impress you by going on and on about how genius he is and how the Star Wars music changed their life…
//Kid, you’re totally out of your element here. Trust me on this. There’s nothing wrong with John Williams, only that white folk, embarrassed at not being truly “European”, will sneer at you for it out of their own sense of “white guilt”. Listen to all the John Williams you want.//
You’re out of your element here too, apparently. The reason John Williams is ridiculed here has nothing to do with “white guilt” or preferring “Europeans” (Philip Glass is American too) and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that he copies much of his material from other composers, particularly earlier film composers like Korngold.
You’re out of your element here too, apparently. The reason John Williams is ridiculed here has nothing to do with “white guilt” or preferring “Europeans” (Philip Glass is American too) and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that he copies much of his material from other composers, particularly earlier film composers like Korngold. Not that one should pass up an opportunity to try to look like a know-it-all just because they know nothing about the subject, of course…
This was meant to be a reply to someone else’s comment, please get rid of it.
I am a composer of classical music. And as a former music major, and now current professional musician, I have participated in the conversation posted above about Pachelbel. I, of course, was the one looking down on the other… Now, if you want to know a really GREAT piece, listen to Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 The Resurrection Symphony. That was one of my best concert going experiences EVER! 2nd best was moshing to Skillet…
Oh, and PDQ Bach Rocks!
Did you know that John Williams composes everything in C… How lame… Maybe he should try writing a choral piece in Db major; that key is Awesome!
Our culture is too youth and celebrity obsessed to notice classical music right now, but i truly think this is just a down cycle. And there’s a lot of white people that kinda enjoy classical music. The problem with classical music isn’t the music itself, its the venue. Most of that stuff was never meant for a darkened hall with a captive audience. When restored to its natural settings, the genre comes alive again. Have museums or other institutions pair up with classical music institutions and put on evenings or afternoons that are memorable and all inclusive.
Remember too, that opera actually isn’t dying, unlike other classical music genres, but there’s much excitement around new works, and when the old standards are made more accessible people really do show up for them.
I’m a classical cellist. I’m white. I enjoy classical music.
TAKE THAT.
😀
HaHaHa; because mahler is a jew, so he should make film-music. WaHaHaHa.
No, because most of Europe is racist and nationalistic and does not feel any guilt. Especially Eastern Europe home of many good muscians and composers. Now if you take my home country of the Netherlands then we can talk about white guilt; but that is slowly changing thanks to a growing intellectual conservative movements!
Yes. you. do.
Just not in britain.
Don’t call classical music nerdy. Rock is nerdy!
In Europe you find strong and many people listening to wagner.
The only Jewish composer i actually like, must have died suddenly…! before he was able to compose anything at all.
Why are Jewish composer so shit, and light and why do they lack strong emotions?
Thought you might get a kick out of this:
Just started blogging today, wanted to see a few others out there, found yours. So I’m reading through it, and I come to this post. I had to laugh, because a) I’m white and b) I’m currently listening to classical music. 😛 There’s a whole playlist of it in my iTunes, and I love it. I’m particularly fond of Bach. I’m no music major, but I love classical. And I’m only 22. I suppose I’m breaking a few molds here, and I know there will always be an exception to the rule, but it’s called Classical music for a reason, ya know. 🙂
If I had the money to frequent the opera house or symphony, I would be in heaven.
“The second was moshing to Skillet”
You rock. I have plenty of Mahler and Skillet in my music library – long live the music!
Excuse me but Gustav Mahler was Jewish. And most agree he was one of the greats. He became a Catholic early on, as did so many other Austrian & German Jews: to assimilate into the larger Christian society, an, in his case to land the job of music director of the Hof (Court) Opera, now the Vienna State Opera.
I actually do like classical music (another white person and I recently laughed and laughed that I wanted to play Debussy at my wedding). But thanks for clearing up what the hell is up with people who only listen to boring movie soundtrack music: pretentiousness.
yes! the people who pretend they like coltrane are bad, but man o man, the ones who pretend they like charles mingus. man o man.
Who say that you do not need a comma after the “and”. It’s optional. You are clearly spend more in the beach than n school.
look at you with your fancy punctuation.
what a shame that your weird anti-semitism is the only reply to brant’s funny comment.
the only thing our grandchildren will curse liberals for is not having more damned grandchildren to outvote the palin spawn. sorry, little lev and mishka of the future. polar bears were actually pretty mean creatures anyway. and hey, minnesota’s downright temperate. (just don’t go anywhere near southern california.)
Like any good white person described in the post, I got my classical music education from Warner Bros. cartoons. So when I would make my twice yearly appearance at the symphony, I was like, “Ah, yes, I know this composer. One of his pieces was featured in that cartoon with Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian. Very nice. “
Ugh!…I’ve always hated classical music. My dorm roommate in college was actually a white guy (I’m part Asian) who “adored” classical music and would engage in all of the conversations about how enlightening and “cultured” classical music was and all of that BS. Whenever he would blast his classical music, I would in turn blast another type of white boy music that I actually did like…heavy metal! (now I’m kinda revealing my age)…Yeahh!!
I’ve always loved classical music! I never thought about how white people think about classical music because… honestly, who really cares..? Most of my white friends (I’m Asian) love classical music because they play instruments. I guess it really depends on who the person is.
Very useful information for White People wishing to impress at Dinner Parties… make sure you pronounce Erik Satie “Ereek Suttee”… ever so French and authentic.
Felix Mendelssohn was a Jewish composer. Ever hear of the “Wedding March”?
I personally love Nutcracker & Swan Lake. “Modern classical” like Britten, on the other hand…
As a classical musician, my status with white people hits the heights…they avoid speaking about specifics but they love publicly telling me about how ‘they really want to come to one of my opera shows.’
No kidding. But they really should come to more of my opera performances. And give me lots of money.
Hey, what about Shostakovich? Surely the most popular 20th century composer among white people who don’t actually like much classical music. All pointy and strange, particularly the middle chamber works, and with plenty of social history associated with it.
Nexter, you’re already getting way too obscure for the average white person classic music “afficianado.” Safer to stick with Glass and Satie. Maybe Ravel if you really like Wes Anderson. (See #10.)
I’m quite sure that John Williams worries about how “lame” he is…while sitting poolside at his beachfront mansion having cocktails with Spielberg.
Thanks for applying equal-opportunity discrimination to ALL Americans, immigrant. Now go home to Europe and oppress your own minorities but pretend everything’s OK.
Valkyrie, the intent of the original post was to warn white wannabes not to mention John Williams because he’s not “cool” enough, not because he “copies much of his material from other composers.” So I’m with Dylan on this one.
And what composer doesn’t copy material? Korngold copied from Wagner (as did half the composers following old Richard). Bach and Vivaldi liberally stole from each other… and themselves. J.W. is just following a vaunted classical tradition.
C’mon, we’re not all *that* uptight in the Northeast. Of course, I’m originally from the South, so I got the best of both worlds – childhood with friendly people, avoidance of fake-friendly people as an adult. Score!
No way! It’s all about the Steve Reich. Ultimate whitey cred, because DJ’s love remixing Steve Reich!
I dont appear. I love it with a passion.
*nods* I play violin – working on learning a Bach concerto right now. And I don’t need to bluff about what my favorite pieces are – it’s Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
I actually adore classical music. I have been caught air-violining to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (mainly Winter) and Hungarian Dance No. 5 and 4.
your violin playing must be about grade 5-6 😉
i think to some the classical music thing is parallel to some people who read seemingly hard to understand hi culture titles in public transports. it is all about a reference cultural standard people set for themselves for “other” people to notice. i bet some of them prefer to read harry potter when they’re home by themselves …
the thing is that it doesn’t really count if you actually PLAY an orchestra instrument. i love classical music, but playing the viola since the age of nine has certainly played a part in developing my appreciation for it. Interesting choice on New World Symphony. i’ve played it, but i’d have to say my favorite piece is Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony (No. 8), but only the the first movement. a joy to play and to listen to. and a KILLER english horn solo.
Steve Reich has one of the worst last names a white person can have. Not as bad as Arthur Honegger, though.
Namedropping a few good composers isn’t all that hard for the average white person (indeed, enduring popularity says a lot about the quality of a composer – though the more sentimental and angsty ones, Chopin in particular, can be quite overrated), if you really want to crush a white person’s ego, ask them who his favorite singers, soloists and conductors are – and then explain to them how overrated and harmful that old hack Karajan really was.
there is no english horn part in schubert 8, and the the big oboe solo isn’t until the second movement, which for some reason you don’t like.
John Williams copies more liberally than most other composers do, so the criticism in this case is justified. He even copies from himself – a lot of his scores sound the same something you can’t say about Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, etc.
Fifth grade is a little young for those pieces. I’d set a target age of around 13-14, 8th to 9th grade.
Those two pieces have “HEY MOM AND DAD IM PLAYING REAL MUSIC!!! NO MORE THREE BLIND MICE IN ROUNDS”. written all over them.
Oh, I don’t know…I think my friend Matt Buttf*cker would beg to disagree. 😉
Hahaha; very funny. However – Danny Elfman IS my favourite composer!!!! Film music is the new classical music. *throws a party in honour of Dr Elfman*
I prefer to think there exists no separation between genres of music. I’m a classical musician, but I’ll go home after rehearsal and listen to Senegalese pop music, or Argentinian tango. There’s a time and place for all types of music, but in my opinion western classical music has the power to convey the widest possible range of emotions of any genre I’ve heard. Genres such as metal and pop don’t even come close, although they still are interesting and have musical merit.
And yes, I am very frustrated with the way white people go about talking about music. If my friend referred to Beethoven’s 5th as a “song”, I might gently correct them but I wouldn’t look down on them for the misnomer.
I am 19 and I love classical music more passionately than most older people I have met at the Symphony Center in Nashville.
I have studied and analyzed the scores of many of my favorite works.
Composers include:
Schumann, Robert
Debussy, Claude
Chopin, Frédéric
Rachmaninoff, Sergei
Grieg, Edvard
I’m surprised you limited this entry to classical music when most of my white friends are guilty of doing the same thing with jazz (sorry though if you were just saving that for another entry and I ruined it, haha). They all like Miles Davis just as much as Muse if they’re to be believed.
Could Times New Viking be added to the master list? They’ve apparently moved up to a much bigger label but I think I’m still the only whitey in this city who listens to them
I agree with your assessment of this entry (“Hahaha; very funny”). It never does any good to get serious about what is essentially a joke post. You either get shouted down as being “uptight”, “humorless” or you branded as the example that proves the hypothesis. It’s not inherently fair, these comment systems. I would like to take some issue with your comment, however. Film music is *not* the new classical music. Almost all film music is based on the works of composers from the twentieth century, and mostly composers from 1900 to 1960. In fact, most film music has it’s roots in the works of people like Erich Korngold, Max Steiner and Bernard Hermann. All of these guys were classically trained 20th century composers. John Williams is interesting in the sense that he borrowed liberally from many other great composers such as Stravinsky, Elgar and Holst. The new classical music is *very* different from what you might hear in a movie score. It ranges from the neo-romantic works of Rautavaara to the post minimalist works of Simeon Ten-Holt. I urge you and all the readers of this post to check this stuff out. It’s very rewarding.
Sheesh, fjfj. I suggest that you do some more research before posting. The three most popular American composers are Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and leonard Bernstein. Guess what they have in common. Could it be Judaism?
Did you know that John Williams is a very accomplished composer of serious music? For instance, are you familiar with his violin concerto or the work for violin and orchestra “treesong.” I think that your interpretation of his method (which I doubt is actually true, but it makes sense if it is) is flawed because if you work in the movie music industry you have to churn out very complex scores very quickly. The best way to do this is to write everything in C and let the musicians/arrangers parse it out after the fact. Also, you may be confusing the common practice of writing all orchestral parts as if they were in “C” when in fact many instruments are written in a different key. For instance, the horn is usually notated in F, but in an orchestral score it’s often automatically written in “C” and transposed on-the-fly by the horn player. The trumpet is a B-flat instrument, but is written as if it were in C and transposed by the player. I think you are misinterpreting what Williams is doing.
I wonder if a better #108 would have been “Appearing to understand all the jokes in P.D.Q. bach.” That stuff is way more deep than you might think, and it has nothing to do with your ethnicity.
Interesting, but I have to disagree in one respect with you. While it is entirely true that J.S. Bach copied several concerto themes by Vivaldi, the method in which the material is treated was nothing like Vivaldi. It’s quite easy to spot the Vivaldi quotes, but the intense counterpoint that characterizes the Bach reworkings is *very* different than Vivaldi. Also, I’m not aware of a Vivaldi work that copies Bach. I’m open to correction on this as I would very much like to hear a piece written by Vivaldi that was directly influenced by J.S. Bach. Thanks for this and I hope to hear more about the Bach influenced Vivaldi.
Well, I must admit that I’m schooled on this one. Who is Eric Whitacre and why should I know who he is? Could it be that he is the American response to Thomas Ades? If so I would be very interested in checking it out. If, on the other hand, he’s just the next Daugherty, then count me out. That stuff is just boring post-minimalist wannabe music. I don’t buy it.
Eww. John Adams is an abomination? To what exactly? Do you just not like contemporary music? That’s okay, but let’s not be so absolute about it. Keep in mind that it’s not invalid to have great admiration for Haydn while disliking most of Mozart’s early and middle period music. Perhaps it’s all just shades of greatness. I have to say that I’m uncomfortable saying that certain musical efforts/movements are inherently less valid than others. Context is very important when it comes to music.
Classical music a century past it’s relevance, eh. You MUST* be a pompous whiteboy.
um, what happens if you are one of those white people (I’m half white, so you can take this half seriously, in either direction) who actually knows something about Classical music (and Jazz as another blooger pointed out) and actually likes it, attends it, buys it. I’ll spare you all the composers names. What do you care. So, what happens? Do you simply rise above the mire of whiteness and just become a person or are you just a whiter person? Like ultrawhite. I need to know so I can flaunt the answer to all my friends who; 1) aren’t white, 2) aren’t as white as me 3) don’t listen to Classical music, 4) are so organized they don’t need to make lists and 5) all of the above.
Example of flaunting: “HA, my extensive interest in Classical music is not only keeping a dead industry alive and several people on the payroll, it’s elevated me beyond my color constraints to ‘person’ (or whiter) unlike you, you [enter ancestral or national status here]. Go home and be constrained to another day of [enter ancestral or national tradition here].
HEY!! you blogger Son of BYOBS answer my gawd damned question.
* I heard white people like capitalizing words for emphasis.
Classical music a century past it’s relevance, eh. You MUST* be a pompous whiteboy.
um, what happens if you are one of those white people (I’m half white, so you can take this half seriously, in either direction) who actually knows something about Classical music (and Jazz as another blooger pointed out) and actually likes it, attends it, buys it. I’ll spare you all the composers names. What do you care. So, what happens? Do you simply rise above the mire of whiteness and just become a person or are you just a whiter person? Like ultrawhite. I need to know so I can flaunt the answer to all my friends who; 1) aren’t white, 2) aren’t as white as me 3) don’t listen to Classical music, 4) are so organized they don’t need to make lists and 5) all of the above.
Example of flaunting: “HA, my extensive interest in Classical music is not only keeping a dead industry alive and several people on the payroll, it’s elevated me beyond my color constraints to ‘person’ (or whiter) unlike you, you [enter ancestral or national status here]. Go home and be constrained to another day of [enter ancestral or national tradition here].
HEY!! you blogger Son of BYOBS answer my gawd damned question.
* I heard white people like capitalizing words for emphasis.
The only thing funnier than appearing to appreciate classical music is appearing to appreciate jazz. White people, like me, approach jazz like modern art following the “my five year old could paint/play that” school of thought. Help us please before it’s too late!
I couldn’t agree more. Of course, even funnier are people who have actually tricked themselves into thinking that they genuinely appreciate it.
I did for a while, but then I lost interest. I never read the last book.
You’re half-white?
Barak Obama… Is that you? Are you trying to find out what white people like?
Yeah, that’s about what I expected.
Some classical music isn’t crap.
http://www.annfontanella.com/videos.html
One sign that someone really does appreciate a certain genre of music is selective liking i.e. if that person also dislikes certain subgenres or artists within that genre. Especially of the disliked subgenre/artist is one of the more well-known or prominent ones.
Correct. Who cares whether someone doesn’t know the technicality of syntax. I just refers to them as tunes. Liking something has nothing to do with scientific awareness of it’s underlying technicalities
That’s silly; I do really like classical music. Chopin’s my favorite. I can play a mazurka, a waltz, and a couple etudes. I don’t pretend to know more than I do (which isn’t much); there are certain pieces I know by ear but not by name. That famous aria from Madame Butterfly gives me chills.
I have been a total classical music junkie ever since I heard my mother’s Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Grieg 78’s when I was 3. Unfortunately, I broke a couple of them while trying to put them on the record player. I was a misfit when I was a kid because of this. When you love classical music as I do, nothing else satisfies. And no piece of music satisfies quite like the Bach Chaconne for solo violin. I guess that makes me weird. I don’t enjoy the company of the sort of people who pretend to like classical music. I avoid the people you are most likely to see at places like Borders, Starbucks, and Crate & Barrel. They are the same ones who make their little prodigies start taking music (and everything else) lessons when they are 3 or 4 and start prepping them early to get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or Juilliard so they can brag about them at the next high school reunion.
Brilliant and so true – The defensiveness of many of the posters is proof positive that you got this one dead on. Sure there are plenty of people who do in fact love classical music, but for every real fan there’s twenty people who are there to feel cultured, be seen, or impress a date. I studied classical music in public school and college and it’s definitely it’s own insulated little click that depends on the generosity of people who for the most part wouldn’t know Bizet from Berlioz, and spend most of a performance holding back a nagging cough until the end of the movement.
I couldn’t care less who the composer is, I enjoy all classical music. It has nothing to do with so and so thinking I’m smart. This isn’t a funny piece and I understand satire and irony. I don’t listen to music for others, I listen for myself in my own home.
Danny elfman one of my favorite composers…….He had several classics with Oingo Boingo….then the movie soundtracks …..Bachelor Party, the 1st Batman (1989) with Jack Nicholson….
He almost rivals Erich Korngold, Max Steiner and Bernard Hermann in their output for film music……
Oh, another classical composer….well these guys collaborated to make classical music of a more ‘physical nature’….the Too Live Crew trio with their seminal masterpiece…..Me So Horny…..
LOL…..classical music listeners take themselves WAY TOO SERIOUSLY…..
Let’s face it….not all ‘classical music’ is worth listening to….People tend to forget that classical music was the POP MUSIC of their time….if there were music critics back then as there are today, we’d hear about how Mozart would be the britney spears of that time…..young, reckless….different…….classical music was pop music way back then…
People today try to portray this music as something ‘different’ or ‘better’ than today’s music….it is not….music, like beauty, is in the eye and ear of the beholder….if your tastes are for classical music, good for you….but liking classical music does not make you superior to a person who likes, say, bluegrass or Funk, or mainstream pop…..all of it is the same….M-U-S-I-C….
Louie, I’m not sure you can claim that classical music was the pop music of its day. Classical composers generally aimed at something higher than satisfaction of the masses, and there was in fact actual popular music back then – you know, folk songs, etc. that people sang while working or hanging out. Sometimes the classical and folk overlapped, but they weren’t the same. This is true today – it’s all music, but it’s not the same…which is a *good* thing, don’t you think?
And ol’ W.A. must be spinning in his grave to hear you compare him to Britney Spears, if for no other reasons than 1) he wrote his own stuff and 2) he was actually really talented.
LOL….you are correct on that Mozart-Spears comparison Martha….I would tend to agree with you on that point….
And I tend to agree with you on that all music is NOT the same, which is a good thing….
I guess the point i was trying to make was during the period classical music was the music of that time, it was not called ‘classical’….I would love to know what Mozart, Beethovan (who is my personal favorite…much more ‘hard edged’ than Mozart’s music…in my opinion) and the other great composers called their music. If this music was generally aimed at something higher than satisfaction of the masses, then what was it called….’Sophisticated folk music’?….LOL…..(I’m just guessing)
BTW, now that i’m really thinking about it, I believe that W.A may come back and try and haunt me around Halloween for uttering such sacreligious statements!!!…LOL
This is probably quite true. As a very rusty formerly pretty good violist, (Only the smartest of white people generally know what this is.) I can attest that musicians themselves are very snobby and competitive probably because the puffed up sense of self pays the ego what society doesn’t. There is nothing wrong with people trying to get cultured. Classical music can be very beautiful and for the comments likening it to Britney Spears, sorry, but most of it is actually very complex. Pop music doesn’t take a genius to create, just a barbie girl with a good producer. Real musicians train for years just like olympians, they aren’t plucked out of the Bayou and thrown into the limelight. All people should take advantage of the free concerts when they are available if your community is large enough. Who knows you might actually enjoy it.
nothing like the ole’ Beethoven’s 9th
All of the 4th movement of beethoven’s 9th is the most beautiful piece of music ever created (my opinion of course)…the dramatic beginning…the slowing of the pace…then the slow build up……
And to think, he was completely deaf when he wrote this….
You are correct JRA….there’s nothing like it….
Jessica, you are correct in the total of your statement except for the ‘only the smartest of white people generally know what this is’…..
Fortunately, music is colorblind….I would say that ‘only the smartest of people who claim they love music….’ as a more reasonable replacement for your statement…
And yes, I do take advantage of free concerts when available…and i do enjoy them….
Thanks..
A similar point can be be made regarding bloggers of any color (but universally trolls) who write pseudo-intellectual criticisms, occasionally quite prosaic, of something beyond their understanding.
Duane, i like your style…..throwing out insults in multi-syllable words….clever…..I bet you feel quite proud of yourself…..LOL…
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance,
Then baffle them with bullshit….
LOL..…..classical music listeners take themselves WAY TOO SERIOUSLY…..
“Really? Beethoven’s 5th Symphony….that’s your favorite.”
“um, no, I mean…”
“You sure it’s not Pachebel’s Canon?”
“well, ah, I like that, ah, song”
“sigh, of course you do.”
Oh my god, that’s me, the one sighing I mean.
Nice
Excellent!
That’s great!
you don’t know what you are talking about …
music. Whether you listen to it, or play it (or both) it’s all about having passion for music. What other people think of your music interests is just as irrelevant as what concert goers think of the musician.
There are people, believe it or not, who actually DO like classical music.
Fo realz.
Don’t list Danny Elfman as your favorite composer? You blew it, you don’t know white people at all.
LOL……I could not help myself!!!!
Who can forget his classical piece: “The Theme of the Simpsons”?
haha i love classical music
That’s rich people. I’m white and I listen to rap/rock.
I hate how white people listen to the same generic classical music and think they’re sophisticated. Everyone listened to Beethoven and Wagner a million times.
Yo why you got to be all up in this mofo dissin’ the classical music yo?
Seriously, some people do listen to it.
http://www.kickassclassical.com/
The early works of Dvorak are RARELY performed, because frankly they suck. His cello concerto and his 9th symphony are the warhorses of classical music…
Philip Glass and most minimalists annoy me, though his score to Koyanisqatsi is awesome.
As far the guilt part of it goes I agree. As a professional double bassist, you come across people who are genuinely moved by the music, but for the most part it’s rich trouser stains who know NOTHING about the music, do not actually listen during the shows, and go home feeling guilty. Why the hell go in the first place?
John Williams: I’m ambivalent towards him. His bassoon concerto is a really good piece of music, but his film scores, as has been mentioned, heavily borrow from Holst or directly steal from him.
As far as classical music being the result of white people guilt, I disagree. Like any music, it has value to those who understand or moved by it (IE: find value in it) but it seems to be the product of bygone generations and like classic greek plays, something to study, but not to love…
oh no, beethoven and wagner are great for good reasons! works by these composers are representing a great musical tradition …
When is the stuffwhitepeoplelike blog going to make the list? Isn’t it long overdue?
#108 is well written and right on. anybody interested should check out christopher small’s books. he once wrote something like, “concert halls are places where middle class white people can feel safe together.”
how did such “classical” musical activity drift so far from cultural relevance? why does it continue to exist? what purpose does it serve and what are the implications? what does all of this mean, and why is classical music solely embraced by the academic institutions that govern “empowerment?” that is, empowerment meaning middle class white values still attached to the melting pot metaphor that seems to have expired back in the 80s. it’s 2008! i think #108 makes a lot of sense.
While it may be true that most people listen to classical music because they feel it makes them seem sophisticated, I (and many of those that I know) listen to it for fun. I listen to the classical music internet radio stations available through iTunes. I do this, not to look “high society” but rather because I find it entertaining, and it helps me concentrate on the tasks at hand.
Haha, right on the spot. I guess a love for classical music is mandatory for any wanna-be-sophisticated white person.
Actually I do love my Dvorak, Elgar, Bruck and Bruch from time to time and I got a pretty nice collection of about 80 vinyl-records of 70s contemporary classics (the time where they rolled synths and tapemachines into the hall and probably freaked the hell out of the musicians), but I am also the first to admit that I am *not* knee-deep in this, did not attend alot of concerts and I don’t like Beethoven at all.
Problem is that “classical music” is not *one* style. It may sound pretty much alike because the instruments are generally the same, but there are huge differences between composers and time-eras.
like oh my God, like totally, classical music is sooo awesome. Duuuude!
That one was for you “What White People Like.”
You’re a sick motherfucker, aren’t you?
You don’t think that Stravinsky, Elgar and Holst borrowed/stole from earlier composers? Those three were completely original?
“Good composers borrow; great composers steal” – Igor Stravinsky
Film music is a new form of classical music. That doesn’t mean it has to replace it.
Plus, John Williams studied under Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Franz Waxman.
I’m just saying that film music by the likes of Williams, Elfman, Goldsmith, Tom Newman, etc. is just as original of an art form as 20th century orchestral music by Stravinsky, Bartok and Ives.
🙂
“That my friend is how the RACIST thinks and acts … jew-inspired…”
Man, you’re a class act. No, really.
I’m a music historian and Danny Elfman is one of my favorite composers. Do I lose?
no….YOU WIN!!!…..or at least you got my vote!!….
Not to sound prissy (yes, I know, by saying that, I do sound prissy) but I do like classical music. I think this does apply to most people (I have actually been on that end of the classical music discussion . . . the poor white person, I didn’t know it was so traumatic for them:) ) but classical music continues to exist because there are still those who support it. And frankly, I don’t care if my local symphony only stays in business thanks to middle-class white people who want to “feel safe together” as long as I can still go enjoy a performance. Anywho, love the blog, love the concept. Love classical music.
Some of us are not as poorly educated as you might think. I actually do not listen to bethoveen what so ever I prefer Rachmaninoff, Pucinni, and Verdi. I enjoy classical music quite a bit and attend the opera regularly so do be careful of what you say espicially a statement saying that we all enjoy the same composers.
The Houston Grand Opera was the first company to ever stage the complete Porgy and Bess; I was there when the tour hit the northlands, it blew my mind to bits, an’ so far I still haven’t found large chunks of it.
btw, it’s called “one buttock playing”: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html
This website is really stupid, the person who writes this bullshit is a total idiot!
NEWSFLASH: Some of us, OF OUR OWN FREE WILL, mind you, have been known to listen to classical music in the privacy of our own homes.
By the way, Beethoven’s 5th is one helluva piece of music. As is his 9th. As is Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”. As is Mussorgsky’s “Pictures At An Exhibition”. As is Offenbach’ “Gaite Parisienne”. As is Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsodies”. . . .
One, single “favorite”? Can’t be done.
So no Williams or Elfman… what about Randy Newman? Is he safe as a favorite composer?
I would not call Eric Satie obscure. However, the article is great.
smetna; the moldau
beethoven; 3rd symphony
brahms; 2nd symphony
anything by ravel.
Are you fucking kidding me pal? oh yes, i’m also pretending to like sex.
i’m the guy with the cowbell moving the stack about 2:40 into the following video
What if you actually play–is it still poserish then?
منتديات حلوين
منتديات حلوين
منتدى حلوين
منتدى حلوين
Totally agree! “Classical” =/= “Anything orchestral.”
I’m not a big Baroque fan though because there’s nothing that annoys me quite like the harpsichord. I like a lot of Classical, but I think Romantic might win because the Romantics include Wagner. I could listen to the overture to the first act of “Die Meistersinger” over and over (I’m pretty sure it’s actually in the Top 25 on my iPod)…or Siegfried’s “Funeral March”…
I don’t pretend to be anything like a music expert, but I do take theory and history classes and listen to an awful lot of it, usually tailored to whatever kind of work I’m doing (put Mussorgsky on loop when I was writing a Russian history paper, etc).
Actually, a lot of orchestras do blind auditions, meaning that they literally don’t look at the performers who are auditioning and have no idea what race or gender they are.
you are actually making up stereotypes, and you have lot of visitros on your website. Nice work. Im changin that last “YOu are stupid..” , you are rather good.
All excellent comments, Bill! Nice explanation of how white one-uppery works. Of course not only white people play this game. But we sure love it!
That’s pretty offensive…uh, Portnoy, is it? Hm.
Or lowbrow. Opera can be seen that way too, especially in the classical world, and especially by people who know that it once WAS kind of a lowbrow pursuit.
If you’re going to continue saying hateful things about Jews, it would be nice if you stopped using a Jewish name. Just saying.
I know that’s right because u should always set your goals first. SPEAK THE TRUTH!
Khatia Buniatishvili playing Chopin’s Ballade in F minor. Better than sex, trust me.
then dont come to the website
this one is hillarious, I especially like that quip about the rubber braclet market, which is totally something that white people like.
Hahaha, spot on.
Wow. You’re very stupid.
My problem with Christian Lander’s posts is that, while the titles of a lot of his posts suggest that they are about legitimate objects of ridicule, there is a weird streak of nastiness in them that one wouldn’t suspect from the titles. Consider post #108: “Appearing to enjoy Classical Music” is loaded with satirical possibilities. But, instead, Lander veers into this:
“…classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.”
Huh!?! The classical music that survives today IS GREAT ART; art that has survived the assault of time, while lesser, tackier stuff composed by the contemporaries of, say, Bach, or Beethoven, is largely forgotten. What the heck has “relevance” got to do with Art (with a big “A”) and why should that form a basis for mocking those who only pretend to appreciate this form of art. The reason why I find this detour into “relevance” disturbing, if not borderline nasty, is because the relevance thing is often the foundation of stealth attacks — often by white critics — on a lot of Black artistic work. Time and again, popular Black music, or writing, that has explored non-formulaic themes has been talked down as being “of limited relevance to its main audience” — as if all Black experience originates from the cotton field or the ghetto!
I sometimes wonder if Christian Lander is a crypto-racist. If you look at the posts on SWPL, the people whom Lander designates as “white” — and whose hypocrisies he lampoons — are the confusedly-liberal, mostly harmless, somewhat effete sub-class of whites. The mild hypocrisies of this class pale in significance when compared to the hypocrisies of the Rich White Men, many of whom continue actively, or by acts of omission, to oppress the black man (and the poor or less-educated white man). Will Christian Lander ever grow the balls to lampoon Rich White Men (who, in Lander’s world, are not white!) ?
Returning to the theme of classical music. There’s so much about the classical music industry to lampoon. White folk who go to listen to classical music — and I’m not talking here about listening to the local string quartet that mostly does Marcello and Vivaldi at the local senior center, but about serious gigs — will hand over a couple of hundred bucks at the ticket office in the belief that they are “supporting the arts.” What they are supporting is an industry with 250:1 income disparity. THAT’S where the meat is! But does Lander have the guts to make fun of that. Well… to be fair to him, he has occasionally lampooned white-folk tendencies that possess a serious power-imbalance back-story; see his posts on organic food, non-profits, the Ivy League. But, by deliberately choosing a politically naive definition of “whiteness,” Christian Lander: A) lampoons a group of people who, despite their quaint hypocrisies, mean well; and B) fails to speak the truth to power. That makes him less funny than he could be.
The funny thing is, I do know and love the early works of Antonin Dvorak. Sympohny No 2 FTW!
I would think that it is the real lovers and performers of classical music that would find this most amusing. Aren’t you sick of the posers and pretenders?
And personally, I prefer the American composer Henry Williams over John.
…but I have to disagree with some of the things you’ve said.
First, I don’t really think this site/blog is meant as an instrument for social change. Maybe it could (should?) be, but it’s not. So as far as calling out people that actually deserve it goes, this isn’t really the place.
As far as a narrow definition of white people goes, I agree, it probably should be called “Stuff Upper-Middle Class White People with Some Post-Secondary Education Like”, and I believe Christian said something to that effective in an interview I read (ironically enough, on the Onion AV Club site….). That wouldn’t be the catchiest title for a site though (plus it probably wouldn’t attract as big of an audience).
He also went on to mention that a lot of the posts he makes are about things that he sees in himself (and likely his peers as well). They say to write what you know, and I think that’s what he’s doing.
Sure the subjects of his articles might not deserve the critcisms he delivers, but I think that’s part of what makes it so funny. As far as the people you suggested he target go, don’t you think they’d be more deserving of fist-in-face satire, rather than the tounge-in-cheek humour found here?
When I read the word “relevance” in this article I took it to mean its effect on modern music, not its message. If you look at the styles of music that are popular today, how many of them take any direct influence from classical music ?
I’m not saying classical music isn’t relevant (I personally don’t have a strong opinion about it), but I think that was the point he was trying to make. You may have read a little too much into that setence.
Uh…If you look at the styles of music that are popular today, almost all of them take direct influence from classical music. Duh.
My favorite thing about this particular post is all the comments from people frantically trying to prove they know about classical music. Hilarious.
What does the body of this post have to do with white guilt?
yes
I’m still baffled at the number of people who come to this site and just plain don’t get the joke.
That being said, “Appearing to Enjoy Classical Music” is one of the best entries to date. I can’t even count the number of upper-middle class white liberals who claim to love classical music, despite knowing almost nothing about it, and not really ever listening to it (outside the occasional youtube video or movie trailer). And as much as I enjoy Glass, it’s hard to ignore the fact that he’s the first name-drop every hipster goes to.
I like classical music. I even listen to it in the car when I’m by myself. But I don’t know shit about classical music. I guess that makes me a conflicted white person or perhaps I am just quirky. Which BTW is something that should be added to the list.
White people love quirkiness. Just look how much white people love the movie Napolean Dynamite and Raising Arizona. My boss is super rich and lives in a really nice neighborhood but he thinks it is a “hoot” to put the white trashiest christmas decorations in his front yard every year.
mmmmm quirky
Hee hee! 🙂
Ironically, those of us white people with formal classical-music educations do not pretend to like any classical music except the classical music we sincerely enjoy: Bartok, Debussy, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, and so on. Extremely famous pieces of classical music such as the William Tell Overture will cause us to recoil in pain.
Thank you so much for this post. Utterly superb.
I am a white person, and I’m ‘into’ classical music. (No, really.) So the briliance of this satire wasn’t lost on me.
Or was it?
Sorry, were we talking about Elfman or Williams … ?
FK
Thank you so much for this post. Utterly superb.
I am a white person, and I’m ‘into’ classical music. (No, really.) So the brilliance of this satire wasn’t lost on me.
Or was it?
Sorry, were we talking about Elfman or Williams … ?
FK
I’m a very wide-spread music fan; I listen to almost everything, Alternative Rock, Classic Rock, Brit Pop, Jazz, Fusion, Bossa Nova, Blues, Heavy Metal.
Lately I’ve been getting into classical music; I enjoy Liszt and Berlioz. I’m not familiar with other composers.
Still, I know people who in a conversation will try to impress others with the line “Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is so incredible”.
http://www.poeticmotherlover.com
http://whitewomensuck.blogspot.com/
OK, what do you call a European-descended person who loooooooves classical music? For whom the strains of something by Bach or Schumann or Stravinsky or Lauridsen signals, “Drop everything and listen”?
That can also be posing. I used to do that a lot when I was much younger, and have come to like a lot of what I once conspicuously despised.
“Extremely famous pieces of classical music such as the William Tell Overture will cause us to recoil in pain.”
Why’s that? Because you are then sharing “your” music with those you consider your inferiors?
The “extremely famous” remark is the tip-off. That “popular” = “bad” mentality is a pretty reliable sign of arrant snobbery.
Not becoming of you at all.
Win.
I am composer. This is the best goddamn thing I have ever read. I think I might memorize the first two paragraphs and treat it as my manifesto.
Sometimes, when people ask me what kind of music I write, they seem kind of confused and disappointed when I tell them that although what I do often involves choruses, violins and pianos, a symphony orchestra etc, I hate the term “classical music,” and pretty much all of my composer peers do to. This is because “classical music” has come to refer to a cultural and commercial niche that features the deadest scene there is – literally – you have to be dead to really be part of it. It is probably also the scene in which the audience is the least involved in appreciating the music.
As you might imagine, this is a problem for composers who are alive because we would like for people to listen to our music carefully and maybe if they like it or even if they don’t, be there to observe the goings on.
I am white. I don’t like classical music. I used to pretend I did. Now I just listen half-heartedly when subjected to it. In reality, when I hear classical music it makes me feel like I’m in a Panera.
I just took a humanities class the covered Liszt, so I can pompously inform you that his music is romantic rather than classical.
I actually love classical music. I’m not white.
Unfair, unfair – I’m second generation Czech and therefore love all the works of Dvorak, including the early stuff.
I was also raised on classical music (like, legit music, not Mozart For Baby Einsteins or something), and my family used to spend hours on Sunday afternoons listening Bach’s organ works performed live. I’m thoroughbred white.
Also, just because people bastardize and name drop Satie doesn’t mean he’s on par with Philip Glass.
As a long-time violin player, of 20 years, I enjoy classical music because of the challenge to me as a player. As a member of 4 other bands playing guitar and drums variously, I still enjoy rock, metal etc. for other reasons. But it does not detract from the reason I like classical anyway for many reasons. But I can see the point of this post though – and your related post concerning Jazz, which, although I like 1% of it, has turned some of my friends into utter snobs – thus not getting the point of music at all. I’d never pretend to like music I don’t like, because I’ve got better things to do with my time such as practice or listen to music I do like, classical or otherwise.
That’s really unfortunate for you. Try to rent a movie without some form of music in it. Music is not “just music”.
is it your love of art or your enormous and undisguised ego that drives you on? i mean i’m sure these composers and performers are SO grateful for the knight in verbal armor rushing to their defense and everything, except that it’s not actually necessary and you don’t really care about them except to the extent that they can enhance your perception of yourself.
music is “just” because everything is “just”. any argument made against this, relies on what is probably the most fundamental axiom: “it is true because i believe it to be true.” human condition is some serious bs.
not saying nothing has meaning, just maybe be careful about shoving your own version of it down the throats of others, especially when nobody really cares about you or the things you care about.
i don’t care whether you read this or agree or change or stay the same. i must respond to dishonesty, it is a compulsion.
also i’m totally white! racism is always funny. ALWAYS
Actually, as a classical musician, I have to side with Felicity- I can’t even stand to listen to our local classical music station most of the time. Bland crap or overplayed “hits” do not do justice to the beauty and power of ANY type of soulful, meaningful music….anyway, love this post- it’s hilarious.
Funny, but now that I have a 4 yr old I actually have to buy the Greatest Hits CDs to teach him about classical music!
I think this blog misrepresents white people. It should be rewritten as, “Stuff Rich White People Like”. I am black, and the white people I hang around do NOT listen to Classical music. In fact, my white friends think I’m uppity for doing so. It’s funny because Jazz is becoming the same way. Have you been to a classic Jazz music festival or concert lately? Who mostly attends? Rich, white people with non-whites being the musicians or security. It’s sad, really because Classical music — in its many forms — is really so beautiful. Thankfully, there are organizations working hard to make Classical music, from Jazz to rag time, more accessible to the masses.
Christian, calm down.
“Music is just music” doesn’t have to be taken as the typical and casual, American reaction to important things, but as a way of saying “Music can be enjoyed by all.” Of course, I do understand what you are saying: that different styles of music should be appreciated in different, yet specific, ways. However, enjoying a musical piece and appreciating its intracacies are too quite different things. Frankly, I’d rather have the music more accessible to all and have everyone “enjoy” it, than have it only accessible to a few, who still may really not “appreciate” it.
Roger, this blog refers to the white people you hang out with as, “the wrong kind of white person,” meaning that if white people do not like the things listed in this blog, they are inferior to those that do. This is something that might be a result of rich white people liking these things. Plus this is all comedy anyways, so no change in title is necessary.
umm…I know this is supposed to be funny and all that but to all those Williams/Elfman haters just TRY and watch something they have composed for minus the music (good example – the map room scene from Raiders – the music makes the scene). They aren’t classical composers and anyone who thinks they are is an idiot. But they do amazing work in their field.
If you really were to ask someone for their favorite composer you would have to specify whether you meant classical or not because as someone else said classical really only applies to stuff written by dead guys
This is so unbelievable USA provincial, you folks (that is to say Americans as a whole, regardless of race) are pathetic.
The first thing that is pathetic about you Americans is that you speak of “classical” music and you have no idea what this actually means. You apply it to anything you consider “snop” and so the whole thing becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. By definition “classical” music is what snops listen to, and consequently, only snops listen to “classical” music. Oh, what a surprise.
The next thing that is pathetic about you Americans is that you believe whatever trend you may be observing in the USA is a general trend that applies to mankind. Well, it doesn’t. In Europe and Asia, that which you think of as “classical” music is relevant, alive and well. Just because there may be a loss of popularity in the USA means absolutely nothing in the big picture, you people are taking yourselves far too seriously, in the big picture you matter very little, if anything is irrelevant, it is you folks.
By the way, the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic is the most viewed TV program on the planet every year in which there are no olympic games. More than 1 billion people are watching and enjoying it every year. One would have to be an outstandingly ignorant idiot to believe that all those people are watching this because they have some sort of white-guilt complex. If you do the math (1 billion people = about three times the US population) you will find that most of those watching this are not Americans, consequently, they won’t even know what a white-guilt complex is.
Disclosure: I am caucasian, but not American (thank god) married to a Japanese woman, living in a city with over 300 symphony orchestras, all of which are doing well.
PS: “Classical” music is a shortened version of the German term “Wiener Klassik” (= Viennese classical music) and as such it only applies to music which was mainstream in Vienna, Austria from about the 1750s to about the 1820s. Even if one was to extend the term to other geographic locations, it would still only apply to music written during the classical era (1750s to 1820s), not baroque, not storm and stress, not romanticism, not 20th century. Folks, Americans especially, why don’t you first get an education before you speak out in public?!
Dear Sir (or Madame),
You may be right.
Sincerely yours, HL Mencken
do you really think anyones gonna read more than two words of your gobbelldygook…why do bother…wouldn’t it be more satisfying to just jerk off
Well, git on down, muthas, looky heah at this poop.
The thing that always fascinates me about Black Americana is how they always walk straight slap-bang into any given stereotype that ‘white folks’ set up for them. ‘Natural Rhythm’ is a good one. Watch them boys jive, all eyes-a-poppin’. But watch the white boys laugh too, and take the record producers’ fees.
Of course, this is all ‘satire’ here, I expect. But then you get these stupid statements like, ‘classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.’
So who are these people who think this way? As a poster above pointed out ‘classical’ music is truly music that uses certain harmonic progressions and conventions, and is from a certain era, though people like Prokofiev had fun apeing that style later sometimes and you could still write ‘classical’ music today … it’s done in period film-scores for example. But there’s impressionistic concert-music, atonal, post-impressionistic, etc., etc.. Try telling Quincy Jones classical music is irrelevant. He studied under Nadia Boulanger’s boys. And see what Marsalis says.
I suppose if you brutalise people for long enough, you shouldn’t be surprised if they turn out brutal. Or if they end up overcompensating for the fact they might actually have BECOME brutal. Rap music and hiphop have become loathsome. Of course they’re supposedly an example of ‘relevant’ (ha, ha) black ‘self-expression’ from the streets. Maybe once. Like the fine ad-lib poet-duellers in the Caribbean bars. But now it’s a cynical industry, and it’s unlikely that blacks control it. Exploited once again. Suckers, those Americans. Imagine thinking that ‘pop a cap in your ass’ is relevant to ANYTHING anywhere other than the heart of US Social Darwinist urban darkness.
I’m a white boy, by the way. I feel so depressed when I see how American ‘media’ blacks set the tone and the AWFUL role models for all blacks everywhere, because, frankly, you all ain’t got doodly squat for imagination. You still insist on staying in the ghetto, no matter how much people would genuinely hope you escape it. You mistake the chains for the freedom. You confuse the warped effects of persecution for a genuine means to escape that persecution by being ‘original’.
And try listening to Holst, Bach, DeBussy, Shostakovich, and some of the symphonic film composers like Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Hermann, etc.. They have as much ‘attitude’ and rhythm as you’ll ever want. And then write your own classivcal music. Claim some of the territory for yourself. Take a leaf from Obama.
I believe this is my favorite comment ever.
John Williams IS my favorite composer, closely followed by Jerry Goldsmith and Danny Elfman. Classical or not, they beat all in my book.
Sigh.
C’mon, you are smart enough to realize that this is satire, correct? Good Lord.
I don’t think that they’re trying to show how much they “know” about classical music, per se. I think they’re trying to show that they LEGITIMATELY LOVE classical music. And part of loving a hobby is learning and knowing about it.
Maybe what he means is that people who listen to overly popular pieces and then say they looove classical music are annoying. Which is kinda true, because they are professing a love of something for which they don’t really know much about.
William Tell’s not bad, but c’mon, ANOTHER Pachelbel’s Canon?
It’s like my cousins who say, “American music’s great — especially Britney Spears!” And I’m just like, “Oh, ok. Um. Yeah, she’s ok.”
Too bad the site is written by a Canadian and not an American…
still, it is true that the blog entry describes what appears to be a solely north american situation, in now way applicable to anywhere else but north america, but portrayed in such a way that the reader should think it is global. that’s too bad, too.
I am confused. Should it not be the exact opposite?! If there is only one grain of truth in the notion that one would want to appear to like a certain kind of music because of a white-guilt complex, then that kind of music should be soul, jazz or hiphop, but not classical.
The conclusion in this blog is almost like saying you bought flowers for your mistress because you felt guilty cheating on your wife. If anything, you’d be buying the flowers for your wife (the victim), not for the mistress.
You’ve got it upside down.
Question: What’s a “snop”?
Well, obviously, that’s not the way I read it, but I’m sure there are stations that rely far too heavily on the “old stand-bys”, so your point’s perfectly valid.
ANOTHER Pachelbel’s Canon? Sure, it gets tiresome, but it’s NOTHING WORSE than tiresome. Mere repetition does not transform a great piece of music into a bad piece of music.
Remember when “The Sting” came out, and radio stations suddenly “discovered” Scott Joplin? Well, in fact, they DIDN’T “discover” Scott Joplin; because, if they had, we’d have been treated to other Joplin masterpieces featured in the movie, like “Solace”, “Pineapple Rag”, “Gladiolus Rag” and “The Easy Winners” (my personal favorite). But they by-God “discovered” “The Entertainer”, and one couldn’t avoid being regaled with it within about 15 minutes of turning on the radio (and sometimes every 15 minutes thereafter). Did “The Entertainer” suddenly become bad music as a result of that annoying enthusiasm?
You know the answer to that as well as I do.
What’s amusing is that you’re stereotyping Americans the way that this blog stereotypes whites, only you’re not doing it in the funny way.
And you missed the part where half the comments jumped on the differences between Baroque, Classical, and Romantic–and certainly anything 20th century.
Americans are not less intelligent or less educated than their European counterparts simply by virtue of being Americans. There are stupid Europeans and Asians too; I should know ’cause I’ve met some.
Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess I never liked Pachelbel’s Canon that much in the first place.
aah John vs. Jerry. Two amazing composers who I can never choose between. But I’m glad that not everyone on here hates them.
Mr. McCrum,
As a teacher of inner city youth, I could not agree more. Well said, as you encapsulated many of the frustrations I deal with, especially with the young black men I teach.
On an tangential note, Holst is my favorite, especially his Moorside Suites, Suite #1 Eb, Suite #2 in F.
I’d like to explain something to everyone who has decided to list their favorite composers in an effort to protest the possibility of being thought of as not seriously enjoying classical music. This website is a satire. Its aim is to provoke people with caustic and subversive humor. It is not a serious analysis of the musical appetites of white people or anyone else. In other words you’ve decided to get into a fist fight with a mannequin. Congratulations, white people.
Up yours!
I’m not sure whether your comment was about M.M’s lack of knowlege about musical eras but if it was…Quite obviously this entire discussion is about classical music which in its most colloquial sense implies the music of composers who existed roughly before the 1900’s. To laymen it can even imply musicians who were alive till the 1920’s. Remeber that this only applies if your comment was meant to be disparaging.
Take a joke? Or is that asking too much.
Classical Tunes Every Half-Assed WP Should Know
Most of these have been used in cartoons or commercials since the discovery of TV by WP in the previous century. Others can be found in the hymnals of decadent Protestant sects such as Episcopalianism.
B-dog (aka Beethoven) — Symphonies 5 and 9, maybe 7, moonlight sonata, fur elise
Mozart — Eine kleine nachtmusik, Marriage of Figaro stuff, Rock Me Amadeus
Bach — Jesus Joy of Man’s Desiring (aka ‘wedding song from hell’), 18 and Life
Bizet — stuff from Carmen
Rossini — Largo al factotum, aka “Bugs Bunny makes the singer turn purple” song
Elgar — Pomp and Circumstance, aka the saddest song in a WP’s life, because it means they have to leave school and get a job.
Anything from either Disney Fantasia movie.
National anthems of European countries — a way for WP to combine their love of classical music with their desire to learn a foreign langauge. Bonus WP points for those who point out how similar “God Save The Queen / King” is to “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee” or how “To Anacreon In Heaven” became “The Star-Spangled Banner”.
Duh, Ken I think people get that it’s satire. Your obvious observation just ruins things.
It’s not a “racial” white people guilt. It’s an intellectual guilt. Geez why is always about race with you people?
I guess i lose another one….. love it
Clander is big on white guilt. I love it!
I’m sure you could make that argument. No need to sound like a pompous jackass.
Though based on my own experience of being in bands, being friends with musicians, talking with musicians and reading interviews with many, many bands/artists, the vast majority of those playing popular styles of music don’t list classical composers as their influences.
Do you honestly think the average rock or hip-hop artist is listing Mozart as direct influence on their writing??
Plus, that wasn’t really the point I was trying to make anyways. DUH.
Sorry, brah, but I’m afraid this is total bullshit. In spite of what you might want to believe for the sake of hipster sarcasm, millions of people of all color genuinely enjoy classical, baroque, romantic, 20th century, and all other forms of orchestral concert music that don’t involve lip-syncing, melotrons, whiney, skinny suburbanites screeching about how their 16 year old crush is the most important thing in the world, and three chord vamps on a stratocaster. In fact many feel “classical” is some of the only music worth listening to at all. Yes, they actually own albums and listen to them alone when no one else is watching.
To assert that classical music is being strung along a century beyond its relevance is as ignorant and naive a statement as one could only expect from a balding hipster who was raised on “License to Ill,” has no true passion about anything, and fashions a career out of making ironic, sarcastic observations that only other hipster douschbags would find remotely amusing.
Have you ever even been to the symphony? Give it a try, brah. You might realize that there’s actually more to this lfe than idolizing the “mac guy” from the Apple commercials and listening to the White Stripes.
Keep up the awesomeness.
Only a douchebag would spell douchebag “douschbag”. Pull your head out of your ass. It’s a joke.
I’m a First Nation Canadian. I am enjoying this site. I think I have been gone from my ‘rez’ far too long…that I have caught the white and not sure how to get rid of it. Will antibiotics clear it up?
As a 20 year old classical musician, with hundreds of 20 year old friends of all different racial backgrounds who are also classical musicians, I know that this entry is complete bullshit. Classical music has by no means “used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.” My life is filled with people who care more about classical music than anything else, spend up to 6 hours a day practicing, go though countless concerts, audiences, and rejections, and accept that they will never make any money because they believe music is still a powerful vehicle for social change and can still resonate with people. Yes, appreciation for classical music is not always genuine, but that doesn’t make the music itself rotten.
This entry embodies all that is truly ignorant about this blog. We get it, a lot of white people are sheep-like and hypocritical. This blog never acknowledges that there can be something valuable buried beneath the hypocrisy and mixed motives. All this amounts to is bickery. So stop pretending like you are somehow above hypocrisy and do something that is actually going to help inter-racial relations.
Stop polarizing racial identity. Nobody benefits from it.
I also wanted to add, I KNOW this is satire, but i also know that good satire uses exaggerated situations to jar social consciousness and PROVE A POINT. Your stuff is jarring, but it rarely makes a point worth understanding.
Amen.
Hmmm….how about if you can’t take a joke, don’t take the time to read the list. You are wasting your time making pointless arguements and getting worked up over a silly website that is intended for humor. I love this stuff!
WAIT…. white ppl like being offended… maybe that is why you are wasting your time!
I love white people. I keep them around because they are entertaining. I love poking fun at their whiteness and they have no idea that I’m even doing it.
What would I do without white people. *sigh*
As a classical musician, one of the funniest and most painful related conversations I have heard was when I witnessed the following debate during my university years:
1: Oh, I know that piece… Pachelbel Canon! Mozart wrote it!
2: No, dude, you’re so wrong. How could you be so stupid? BACH wrote it.
1: No, I’m positive it was Mozart.
[etc. etc.]
Me:
Seriously.
As a classical musician, one of the funniest and most painful related conversations I have heard was when I witnessed the following debate during my university years:
1: Oh, I know that piece… Pachelbel Canon! Mozart wrote it!
2: No, dude, you’re so wrong. How could you be so stupid? BACH wrote it.
1: No, I’m positive it was Mozart.
[etc. etc.]
Me: *pained sigh*
Seriously.
I love this blog so very much.
Making whiteness visible = best thing ever.
Glass is a jew name, not a White name.
jews are white.
Every single thing I read on this blog cracks me up!! Like as in laugh out loud multiple times.
Good stuff!
Finally, someone who gets that this stuff is supposed to be funny! Some of the other posters take it a little toooo serious.
Got one word…. Fruity
I have a PhD in musicology. Thus I am qualified, I feel, to tell Katie to get the fuck over herself.
One word: Richard Wagner- that real music. Composers have to be German.
LOL, common guys you all know this is true.
My dad is not a composer but his grandfather was so he was brought up listening to classical music. He told me a story once of an Italian composer that came and at the end of his performance he told the audience to sing a something, I forgot the name, but supposedly its a very common Italian song and nobody knew what he was talking about.
Its good that we have snobs though, it helps fuel the art world.
Pachelbel wrote Pachelbel’s Canon.
That’s why it’s called “Pachelbel’s Canon” — because he wrote it.
i’ve said that exact phrase about beehtoven’s 5th and Pachabells’ cannon in D
well done sir
Wagner is only good if you subtract the horrid singing. I mean, seriously, you’re sitting there listening to the music and then these people start singing… it’s very disconcerting…
Mozart on the other hand is awesome.
Too many notes!!
Ballet and Opera. The ultimate snobby white art forms lol
I’m so white I’m see-thru.
And I love Danny Elfman.
Oingo Boingo and Nightmare Before Christmas are both amazing projects.
😛
I happen to know “Portnoy”, the maudlin complainant, and am privy to the fact that he is a self-loathing Jew. He will never admit to being one to anyone; not even to himself. The previous condition notwithstanding, I know (and more importantly, HE knows) that he is a sad, little man; and I do mean “little” in every sense of the word.
Thank you.
only on weekdays.
I once had someone ask me when the cannons come in during a performance of Pachebel’s Canon.
LOL! my boyfriend loves phillip glass! this one is my favorite hands down.
I actually listen to classical music at home, especially when I’m studying. No one around to recognize it? I see the joke, and I think that a lot of people do things to appear “intelligent”, but honestly classical music can be enjoyed.
Opera is for people who hate music.
is Jewish, not white.
This. Is. Amazing!
I am white (haha) and a classical musician, and I always wonder when I go to concerts how many people are there because they feel like they should go xD
Screw your classical music shit. I’ll listen to REAL white man’s music – Muse and Regina Spektor.
I officially love you Andy. I’m in school, and want to get a doctorate in musicology… and I LOVE this article. Anyway, you just made my day.
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I only to non-vocal “classical” music in private and only my closest friends knows about my interest. I find classical conserts to be socially uncomfortable and never attend them (my favourite composer of the moment will not be featured anyway…). When someone asks what sort of music i enjoy i namedrop Nick Drake, i actually have two of his albums —which i never listen to(!). I guess any serious fan of Nick Drake would expose my claimed interest as lies.
Pardon my english, not my native language.
“All aficionados of Wagner shall be shot peremptorily, without trial, and without leave of appeal.” ~ “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”
😀
It must be tough being a closet fruit.
Uh..if you think Danny Elfman writes classical music… Good luck brother, good luck.
Enjoyed? It can be lived dude. Is there an implication that there is possibly a better form of music anywhere? What’s better? Indie rock? lol. It’s all about being born after 1980 and having absolutely no perspective on quality art in any medium. This lsit makes my asshole pucker.
I really do like Antonio Vivaldi.
As far as Scott Joplin goes, you can even mention that a white person stole from his opera “Treemonisha” and turned it into a racist minstrel song.
…you’ll want to be careful with this though, because the white person was Jewish.
thank goodness someone supplied the correction.
Worried that my comment sounds racist, I’ve come back to specify that the white person in question is Irving Berlin, and musicologists disagree about whether it was outright stealing. It was quite common in the turn-of-the-century music industry to copy successful tunes.
…unfortunately this argument splits along colour lines.
wait! is “colour lines” p.c.?
“I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven, and likewise their disciples and apostles; – I believe in the Holy Spirit and the truth of the one, indivisible Art; – I believe that this Art proceeds from God, and lives within the hearts of all illumined men; – I believe that he who once has bathed in the sublime delights of this high Art, is consecrate to Her for ever, and never can deny Her; – I believe that through Art all men are saved.”
Hi – I love this site! I’m a classical musician so of course I love it, but I know the pretenders are out there. It’s okay, the arts needs all the support we can get!
Clander, you may want to write that Satie was a LATE 19th century to early twentieth century composer. In any case, if you really want to impress someone, just say your favorite composer is Bach, and mention St. Matthew Passion or Mass in b minor. If you’re really going for the gold, just mention you only like hearing groups like Tafelmusik perform Bach or any early music for that matter 😉
John Williams is my favourite composer…
I play it while walking about the house in my dressing gown pretending to be Palpatine.
my jew isn’t white – he’s an arab.
I love classical music, but when it’s time to jam some old Slayer, the ‘stop’ button immediately mutes that bank of violas.
hey, i love regina spektor! don’t make me hate myself even more…
Thats a very stupid statement for anyone to make.
That happens to be the actual pronounciation so if you say “dvoraak”, you make a fool out of yourself if people know what you’re talking about.
It’s kinda like saying “chopin” when its “shopan”
On yahoo answers, a person asked about Pachelbel’s Canon, but she called it “pachelbel canon”. It’s quite shameful that most people need names to remeber famous pieces. Opus numbers just seem to hard to remeber for some reason.
I’m a white southerner and hardly a yuppie who actually LOVES classical music with a passion, but I agree entirely, yuppies pretend to like classical music. It seems to me what they “like” is either simplistic works of minimalist composers such as Glass, or flowery, light music you can have as “background music” like Mozart.
I like music that makes me feel something, mostly modern composers such as Shostakovich, Mahler, Sibelius, Tubin, Pettersson, Vaughan Williams, Simpson, etc. Most of all I love discovering unknown composers of the 20th century like Frankel, Vermeulen, Saeverud, etc.
I would rather buy some CDs than go to a concert, and the stuff performed at concerts is the same old warhorses we have heard a million times, so why go at all?
Opera I cannot stand, non-vocal for me please. Film music isn’t classical music, its instrumental perhaps, but most of that stuff is bullshit too.
As I have grown older I have gotten better at detecting quality. Gotta admit however, I don’t enjoy the early music of Dvorak much either…
uh, you seem to NOT REMEMBER how to spell…..
it is not REMEBER,
it is spelled REMEMBER.
People who criticize others about spelling should at least be able to spell themselves.
First of all he isn’t criticizing her spelling. A spelling mistake doesn’t include leaving out ” ‘s ” nor does a typo.
Secondly it’s obviously just a typo on his part so missing a letter doesn’t mean that he can’t spell.
Besides your comment is stupid as you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.
get a life and stop trying to find mistakes in other’s comments
The latter is the environment that most orchestral music was performed in for centuries.
learn to spell simple words and i would not need to find mistakes in other’s comments…
ya nosey beeeotch.
This is exactly the reason I am going to Sydney Symphony, and love the opera house even though I’ve only actually been in in 3 or 4 times.
too funny, I hardly know anything about classical music, but i like to pretend I do, I even sometimes like to point out that Beethoven is not classical because he is from the romantic movement.
I think as a white person i sometimes feel that I have no culture, and I need to go out and get some. Ta sydney festival for providing free opera.
listen dumbass, if the word is spelled wrong, it is spelled wrong. How can a correction of a misspelled word be stupid?
STFU and mind your business.
Why not list John Williams and Danny Elfman as favorite composers?? I don’t get it!
oh, okay, because they’re not classical. k.
beethoven is classical, actually. he fathered the romantic era, but he’s still definitely classical. his early, classical works are still widely performed (e.g. Op. 18 quartets).
just fyi. in case you ever try that one on a music student.
i applaud your enthusiam, but
the aural and experiential difference between the berlin philharmonic live and the berlin philharmonic compressed to an mp3 file is like the difference between watching a movie about people having sex and actually having sex. as an audience member, you’re an active participant in the moment that is being created.
if you don’t like mozart, i’m not sure you should be ragging on what other people like, either, as mozart is widely considered one of the most ingenious and divinely inspired in the history of organized sound.
mahler died nine years before women could vote in america– i wouldn’t exactly call him “modern.” musical rhetoric, like everything else in the world, has changed quite a bit since WWII. i don’t know about warhorses, but i do see a high horse . . . .
because they’re too mainstream
I’m a white person who loves classical music and rarely listens to anything else, and I found this hilarious! I run into so many dumbasses who pretend to know something about classical music and I love revealing them for the poseurs they are. I especially hate it when people refer to a purely instrumental piece, such as a Chopin nocturne or a movement from a Beethoven symphony, as a “song”. But even worse than that is when people say they like classical music because they find it “soothing”, as though classical music were just a slightly more respectable form of elevator muzak. Really? Is The Rite of Spring soothing? Is the final movement of Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique soothing? Is Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit soothing? Fucktards.
What I like best about going to a classical music concert: Everybody sits still and listens. Nobody starts a fight. Nobody thinks yelling “Hey, Beer Man!” would be funny. People dress up. People act like adults. Hot asian chicks everywhere. Baroque music.
Well I’m white and like classical and freely admit to knowing squat about it. I have KWAX out of Eugene, OR on my presets and listen when the mood strikes, or when a White Stripes song comes on the radio. It can be annoying though when you hear a piece you like and can not wait ten minutes in the car to find out who you are hearing. So I’ll remain a casual listener and struggle to remember those long Russian names when I go to the library.
I do not listen to it to be “soothed” because I prefer the bigger Orchestral sound. I would like to learn more about it though. My elementary school music teacher had a real talent for making it a chore to listen to. So anything I may have picked up decades ago has been repressed or forgotten.
Since moving to Oregon, I do miss the occasional concert at Philly’s Academy. My parents say that the new venue is really nice.
Luckily western classical music is no longer just some white people’s choice. It’s practised, played and listened to in China, Japan etc by millions. Never before have so many human beings enjoyed our musical masters.
The classical community is a little weird… I’m a horn player and I witness this first hand all the time. Musicians seem to revel in struggling, (don’t ask me why) and as soon as someone makes it commercially or financially, they are seen as having sold out, unless they stick totally and entirely to their classical roots and don’t play around in the pop genre.
John Williams is the ultimate example of that; Regardless of the fact that he’s probably had to work his rear off to get to where he is, struggling musicians feel a twinge of pride in pointing out how he’s using pop styles and how he’s ripping off Brahms.
List them as your favorite composers if you want, but there will be plenty of musicians and classical music lovers who will debate endlessly with you about how they’re too mainstream and have sold out.
I think that’s bull. Congratulations to them for making successes of themselves by making something beautiful in a highly competitive work place.
Obviously you have a higher knowledge of music than others but some people merely don’t know the pure definition of a “song”. Instead of insulting them perhaps you can just enlighten them with your knowledge.
this is funny, all these comments are people trying to show how much they know about classical music. “i really do like it because bla bla bla… listen to blutarch ninth crescendo bla bla bla….” funny stuff. if you really like it, and are not trying to impress people with it, then why do you tell everyone that? think about it
well thats okay because CDs dont come in mp3 🙂
The only high horse is yours fyi
+1
… in order to impress another white person, don’t forget that you should have very strong opinions towards applause between movements. It is also very useful if you could dream up a few comments about the arrangements of a piece, or be able to comment whether the A has been too sharp or too flat 😀
aw i was like this, faking liking classical music for the recognition…and then i realized i actually liked it a lot…i don’t really listen to much else now, even though i’m no expert
Right, and why would it always be a bad thing to try something out of snobbery? I’m listening to Janacek right now, something I would have got neither head nor tail off a few years ago.
you should produce your own CD: “loud. violent, un-soothing classical music to torment the soul.” put rite of spring, symphonie fantastique, la valse, a few mahler symphonies, and a little shostakovich, all that good stuff. now try to get people to buy it.
So, why don’t some of you guys that “know your stuff” turn us on to some of the lesser known works. Give us a list of must haves, so we can quit pretending.
I love Penderecki’s 5th Symphony, so that oughta give you an idea of where i’m at.
This website is great…
Here’s another hilarious website you should take a look at: http://www.somethingyoushouldread.com
You might try Kodaly’s work for cello (sorry can’t think of anything more obscure at the moment)
I only like classical music in the car or on the train when I want to relax. It’s beautiful and I do have some favored composers, but I wouldn’t know how to ID one tune from the next. I listen because I like how it sounds, not to appear as an “intellectual”. Lord knows I would not be able to stay awake in an actual concert. It’s not how I enjoy classical.
Same deal with art. I don’t try to come off as some highly educated socialite who knows everything by name or can analyze a piece using terms described in a college level humanities class. I simply talk about a piece in terms of if I like it or not, and perhaps try to see what the artist sees. I guess that’s why people like to talk to me about pieces. They don’t feel under the spotlight to sound “correct” Just speak from the heart.
blutarch ninth crescendo – gold
Only someone who knows nothing about music would equate “classical music” with “relaxing.”
I don’t see why being knowledgable about a subject should make you love it less, nor why liking something (or not) could not be deepened by trying to listen (look) with discrimination. Of course the appreciation of art should not be not a shtick for looking good, I agree with you on that count, but the dilemma you sketch is simply false: having knowledge is not at odds with r e a l l y liking something — there is a big difference between making the “right” comment on a work of art or a musical performance and showing appreciation and insight. How can you claim to like certain composers if you apparently cannot tell their “tunes” apart? That’s like saying you like so-and-so but have no idea what colour their hair is.
Quite so.
Ah, there goes it.
🙂
It takes more than ethnicity to like classical music. i think I’m stating the obvious but whatever.
You can say Danny Elfman is ok as long as you also mention that he was in the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 80s and that he was the former boyfriend of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon.
The unintended irony of all of this is that Beethoven’s Fifth IS awesome.
Yes, I know, none of us can listen to the first few notes without giggling, but from start to finish there’s not a wasted or imperfect note in that symphony.
Stay away from those poseurs who know just enough to know that the 1812 Overture, Strauss waltzes, and Pachelbel’s are cheesy, but not enough to realize that Beethoven’s fifth is brilliant despite the opening being overplayed to the point of farce.
(In my humble opinion, the 9th is the overblown one, with tons of fat on it. The greatest ones are the 5th and the 7th.)
Not sure how white this makes me.
There are alot of people who know nothing about music. That doesn’t mean that they can’t enjoy it. But in response “D-Jam” haha, chances are if they take the time to learn about the music it’s probably because they love it even more. I wont call someone stupid for not liking a certain piece that I like or even a certain era but when you have someone that listens to all rap or country, and when they listen to classical music they are repulsed by it almost by virtue, I think those people are dead to rights idiots. I also think people are stupid if they think it’s just pretty music superficially. It’s not! It is basically a stream of consciousness in it’s purest form. They say you can’t get closer to diagramming the human consciousness than through classical music. It’s o.k. to be ignorant about it but don’t try and sound smart or even comment on how relaxing it is.
B.t.w. I don’t know if this is a joke or what but I was not amused. Music is my entire life. Literally, my only reason for living.
IN THIS THREAD, two groups of idiots who brag about “knowing” Classical music.
One group knows nothing about it, but is only aware of certain composers so that they can see themselves as some sort of supreme being in comparison to those who listen to rap or country.
The other group studies classical music and acts as if they eat and breath the stuff. In reality, they really don’t know shit and don’t listen to the music for it’s true purpose. Typical pompous assholes who live their lives only to be better than everyone that surrounds them.
Anyone who’s not a narrow-minded COW can tell you that classical music is…well, music.
They also can tell you that music has different effects on everybody. It can be relaxing, inspiring, what have you.
Saying classical music has only one certain effect that can only be detected by “true fans” are retarded and should keep their mouths shut. You’re not music lovers, you’re elitist fucks.
Yep. John Williams. He is my favorite classical composer, along with Scarlatti.
But then this is that 80’s nerd part of me that grew up on ET, Star Wars, and space opera in general.
One thing not listed on this forum is African carvings. Isn’t it a MUST that a White person should have an African carving above their fireplace mantle?
Except that mine actually looks like ET. I kid you not. It comes from Cameroon, and I bought it PRECISELY BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE ET.
Beethoven’s Fifth and Pachelbel’s Canon LOL! Or you know, anything on this list…
http://www.kickassclassical.com/classical-music-popular-famous-best-top-100-list.html
oeerhhh- i lurvvvv classic music, spesully lisnin on my dumfuk mble. this is looong tunes lol!i lurvvvvv steve jobes an wat hes done 4 music:) an al tehehe
hi to all 38pages of white classic misiks blogers lol
What the fuck are you talking about?
Oh don’t trouble yourself. But you see, the key to classical music is it’s facility to modulate from one tonal center to the next…
oh, and the combination of your name and the concept of f%c*&^g makes me sick buddy
Someone’s probably said this already, but Erik Satie was an early-mid 20th century composer, not a late 19th century composer. He moved in a lot of the same circles as Stravinsky, Les Six and Picasso in the late ’10s/early ’20s. In fact, Picasso did the scenery for his ballet Parade, premiered in 1917 by the Ballets Russes.
On another hand, I would disagree with the John Williams comment. White people who pretend to but don’t really listen to classical music love John Williams (and Danny Elfman, for that matter). As a music composition major, I’ve found it’s a pretty tell-tale sign when someone trying to engage me on music is just feigning interest. (It’s generally only really advanced white people who are aware of his lack of popularity within the classical community, and they’re still easy to tell apart from true classical music connoisseurs because they hate him too much. Most of the classical musicians I know are resentful of his popularity but as far as his actual music are either indifferent or appreciate it as a guilty pleasure.)
who in there right mind listen to johnny williams; he steals (borrows) music from Holst, stravinsky, wagner, etc….he is a thief and appeals to the lowest common white denominator–that is why he was so “successful” in a dump like taxachusetts, with the boston pips.
My god how racist can you be. I am white and truly do like classical music, i don’t conform to liking it to appear intelligent. Also “Yet all of these pale in comparison to classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.” what the biggest load of rubbish i’ve ever heard. Classical music doesn’t continue to exist because of white guilt it exists because it’s music is beautifull and emtional. I think you need to look up a word called stereotyping it may help you to realise how many errors you have made in thos article alone.
My god how racist can you be. I am white and truly do like classical music, i don’t conform to liking it to appear intelligent. Also “Yet all of these pale in comparison to classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.” what the biggest load of rubbish i’ve ever heard. Classical music doesn’t continue to exist because of white guilt it exists because it’s music is beautifull and emtional. I think you need to look up a word called stereotyping it may help you to realise how many errors you have made in this article alone.
LOL
this is funny because my parents used to always listen to classical music and it wasn’t until i was in my early teens that i recovered
Wow! Case closed. You sir, have affirmed the authors comments. hahahaha! too funny.
man fuck those Boston Pips…
You do realize the point of this website is to stereotype white people right? Take a joke!
Do you think other people really care that you are white and love classical music?? Appreciation of music is a personal thing full stop! You must be one of those always right idiots and I imagine your family must be taking shit from you everyday. Why don’t you get over it and make it real.
Welcome to our world you bum ;-D
First of all this isn’t a serious website its for fun. Second of all the blogger is white.
I WANT A MILLION DOLLARS!!! Can one million RICH WHITE PEOPLE send me one dollar apiece, puh-lease????
I don’t want money from any Asians, or Blacks or Hispanics. You guys NEED your money. I only want one dollar apiece from RICH WHITE PEOPLE, who only WASTE their money on things like classical music concert tickets and CDs.
Waste it on me instead. Thanks so much! (First person who comments “You ARE a waste.” is a rotten egg. You thought it. I know you did. Stop lying. See? I knew it.)
http://thepighasacurlytail.wordpress.com/million-dollar-fund/
Me too — although if a white dude wastes money on me I will most definitely spend some of that money on classical music, buying a bicycle, donating to NGOs, taking a year off, run a music education program for gifted children and fund a free classical music concert to promote world peace ….
Freedomhaters.org has another really hilarious parody of Stuff White People Like.
Their entrees include, Madame Curie, Blackface, and The Music of Easter Island. I highly recommend checking it out here:
http://www.freedomhaters.org/content/yet-another-salute-stuff-white-people
hhahahahahaha pachabel’s canon…..
*snort*
question: where does P.D.Q. Bach fall in this? Is liking him wayyy too white or not white enough? It’s sort of like hating your parents, another favorite white people past-time.
and howard shore
baby beethoven is a crime against nature.
what are you doing here? no one wants to talk to you.
and say it in a french accent
(zheem-no-pay-dee). triple points
oh wow.
oh my god my conductor did that. and “celli” and i think even “vibrati”. your comment has made my day.
listing john williams as a favorite classical composer is like listing journey as a favorite band
Thanks for traumatizing all the rest of us white people! At least you didn’t spout facts at us like Valkyrie9, who has scarred many of us for life now. I don’t even feel like attending the summer’s second concert anymore.
All it takes is one white idiot to ruin it for the rest of us white folk. You must be the wrong type of white person we’ve been warned about.
Thanks! Thanks ALOT!
I’m white and openly admit that I know nothing about classical music, music theory, anything about music, really. I just find some classical music to be really moving, interesting, or peaceful and so take pleasure in occasionally going to hear it performed, or when in the right mood popping in a cd of classical music that I’ve found that I like. It’s not impossible for a white person to listen to classical music and not be a pretentious douchebag, which many commenters seem to believe. I listen to classical music like everyone else listens to various genres of music: I play/listen to some when I’m in the mood for it.
way too white; that is the answer to your question.
Why no John Williams?
too mainstream.
Well. This is stupid.
Well said! I feel the same way. Thank you!
Idiots.
The author of this blog needs therapy .
I love classical music, except for a couple of favorites couldn’t tell who composed what, but do love listening to it sometimes, peaceful. x
hehe this is so true
whenever I go to classical performances, they are always filled with two kinds of white people:
1. hipsters that are perfectly described in this website
2. old couples who seem to have tons of disposable income
i’ve even caught a few of them nodding off
very amusing
its kind of depressing how true this is.
name-dropping should be the next entry on the list
? I enjoy his music a lot. Why is he any less authoritative a composer?
My boyfriend enjoys it, and often shocks the people who climb into his cab by having the radio always tuned to the classical station. This seems to especially surprise the drunks stumbling out of parties and they can’t even think to pretend that they like it.
White people certainly do not like Carlos Mencia, and Abraham Lincoln calls him out on it…
http://lincolnsaysuncool.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/lincoln-says-uncool-carlos-mencia/
Is this why my girlfriend wants me to take her to the opera and ballet all the time as well? I write for http://StuffRichPeopleLove.com and know that these cultural events are key to befriending the wealthy as well. I guess they are also white people but only a small subset of them!
As an opera singer and devotee of classical music myself, I am one of the stereotypical belligerent fans that will call out people that know nothing about classical music.
Consider it in my white person nature.
no, you should promote your own site in here.
no, you shouldn’t promote your own site in here.
You are like one of those people in my class, not wasting a single moment to promote how good and special you are. You’re born knowing everything? Good on you!
coming from someone who has zero understanding of the arts himself… nice.
god,
Where the hell have you been. i have been looking all over for you and no find. Then all of a sudden you pop up on the internet. Come save my ass. If all you do is waste your time in front of computer; you have time to save me. Praise the lord.
I suppose the lifetime of training required to become a concert pianist is all in vain when I could just dance around in oversized clothes and clutch my genitals while screaming obscenities.
Indeed, classical music is a total waste of time and talent for a generation devoid of subtlety and inspiration.
White people love their own culture, the music from the very own homeland of Europe, and it’s not the “god-awful unearthly & cheap” electronic syntheizers. To appear in an orchestra or symphony concert makes you “intelligent, up-scale and sophisicated” despite you might go numb after a few seconds. Classical music is from the mind of geniuses who either are deaf, mentally ill or jesters to royality. +
God was too busy running the natural order of things, and will not get involved in anything political, religious, economic or personal. “He’s” polite not to be controversial, though it can be a female for all I care. The current god-of-the-day is white, but female…and Morgan Freeman is taking a break. Sarah Palin almighty, the god/dess-of-the-month. (J/K yall) +
No, get on craigslist or the local newspaper web site, your business is their business…and don’t come in here no more will ya? Chas, Spamalot is that way, spam spam SPAM! +
We need Axl Rose bach (er…back) in here to perform his best song ever made “November rain”. This clip has him on the piano, his band and the orchestra presence. The height of rock music in 1991 before Kurt Cobain and Nirvana came to save it from going too upscale. +
New memo: He’s mocking people that APPEAR to like classical music, not the beautiful genre, nor european history or heritage around it.
Reading comprehension seems to fail on all of you, pseudo-intellectual cynics.
Free range chicken is a Chinese thing. We like to have boiler pot chickens in general. These are chickens grown in a factory, never moving, and sit in their own poo. As a result, there are acid burns on the lower legs and feet so we cut the feet off (hence grocery stores with footless chicken as this would give away the acid evidence). In chinese markets, they only sell chicken with feet (that have been free run), because of this and also because they eat chicken feet, which taste like skin if the animal has had no exercise. This blog sucks.
Is it ok if David Foster is my favorite composer…it isn’t? Crap! Hans Zimmer? Damn! I write for http://StuffRichPeopleLove.com and will add ballet and opera to the list of stuff they love. Rich people are the one’s that will call out white people on who their favorite composer is just to make them look stupid. Damn rich people 😉
“Yet all of these pale in comparison to classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.”
really? you think classical music is existing beyond its relevance? is that why there are millions of students studying the art of classical music in conservatories and music schools around the world?
this may surprise you, but classical music has the ability to surpass the talents of people with guitars and nasal voices. and, go figure, it can sound better too! why don’t you try listening to a Mahler symphony and see if that changes your mind. but who am i kidding? you’re so narrow minded it probably won’t.
so maybe you should do some more research before you post another idiotic blog. oh, and spellchecking famous composer’s names, like Pachelbel, for instance, wouldn’t hurt either.
#101: Being offended
i hate when dumb ass white refer to a french horn, THERE IS NO SUCH THING, it is correctly called the horn. Period. “FRENCH” is an american misnomer.
The horns, trumpets, and trombones had some wonderful parts in Mahler’s 3rd symphony.
The 1st and 3rd hornists in Mahler’s 5th symphony 3 mvt. was wonderful.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people take this hilarious blog seriously, and without a hint of irony.
relax, who give a f–k? except for dumb whites?? horn, porn, schmorn, nobody goes to concerts anymore except for orientals, and corporate white types that need to pretend that they are worldly–even though they are greedy scum of the earth
i like to drink cat urine!
Hello everybody, I am the asshole using enigmas name to type ignorant nonsense. I know I am a dumbass, but I can’t help myself. If you happen to see enigmas name talking garbage, just disregard it. I am a dumbass, needle dick bitch with no life using other peoples name in vain. I apologize to all.
no, i really do love classical music. what i hate are trumpets. i love strings – the violin is THE best instrument.
I agree. There have been instances where the sound of a violin has brought tears to my eyes…it’s just absolutely beautiful.
i play the butt trumppette.
Is that what you mean by a ‘piss up’
the horn brings tears to my ears,
OMG SAME HERE!!!
FRENCH HORN PWNS!!!!!!
Check our site out, all of the games are awesome!
i like to drink cat urine too!!!
Yeah, the viruses I got from your stupid game site were “awesome” as well.
I love HORNS!!! Does not matter, horn 1,3 or horns 2 +4, love them all. the horns.
You darkies are just jealous that you can’t aquire a taste for Beethoven.
Just read another riotous parody of Stuff White People Like at FreedomHaters.org.
Their SWL entries include: Sickle Cell Anemia, A Thesaurus, and the IFC sketch group The Whitest Kids U Know. Had me in stitches!
I recommend checking it here:
http://www.freedomhaters.org/content/once-again-yet-another-salute-stuff-white-people
What I love about Eugene is that mostly white people live there.
Which means that they can condemn others for being “racially intolerant” without having to actually be around minorities themselves.
I was much more tolerant of Blacks when I lived there.
Or I should say Black, there was one one black teacher at my school. But boy could she sing. She sang a mighty fine “don’t you make my brown eyes blue” at the talent show.
Oh, and we did have a Mexican Art teacher.
Sounds racist I know, but oh, it’s all true. Eugene was a great White town to grow up in. We only had one “ethnic” person in our class. He was half Hawaiian (and half white).
You could go and see some ethnic people “if you looked hard” around the University area.
Perhaps things are different there now. It was a while ago.
I find it laughable that a lot of people who claim to like classical music also tend to profess a hatred of pop music. A lot of them seem to forget that most “classical” music was the pop of the time.
Horn is the greatest instrument every created. Period, end of story.
hahahaha I love Erik Satie
So true. So very, very true.
i love das horner. das horner.
Is this America you’re talking about? I agree when you talk about ignorant Americans but statistics show that ALL Americans are pretty ignorant. I think you avoided counting yourself so there’s a reminder for you.
I love Satie…beautiful music and many of his piano pieces are very easy to play
I tried to pick up a white girl once by discussing classical music.
Turns out she was one of the three white people in the world who actually have expertise on the subject.
I love Danny Elfman >.>
Like I said…consider it in my white person nature. 🙂
Music is an intensely emotional gift. Some are gifted to produce it, some are gifted to sing it and some are gifted to hear, understand and experience music. I have watched my son shed tears when a particular collection of notes are played in succession and nearly all of these experiences are associated with classical music pieces. In my opinion, the earlier a child is exposed to classical music the more they will come to appreciate it in time. Oh, and my favorites? Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Korsakov, Sibelius, Liszt, Haydn, Dvoák and many more.
Haha, me too…
Oh, gosh! I love philip glass, own a pea coat, and my mom is eating hummus right now
Big fan, love this site!
Another great site to check out is http://www.SomethingYouShouldRead.com
Is it naive to reference jon brion’s work for eternal sunshine of the spotless mind?
… But I love John Williams! I saw “Star Wars in Concert”, and actually enjoyed it!
I fricking hate Beethoven, and Classical music is hit or miss. (Kinda like Jazz) Baroque music kicks ass, especially Bach.
His last name is Rimsky-Korsakov, actually
I say Tchaikovsky and get blank stares. It makes me sad.
but…why…Who doesn’t like Danny Elfman?? LMAO. I know some composer names, but don’t listen to classical generally. Some is ok, most is boring for me. How about the rock-classical mashups? lol….white people love those too 😉
Classical music is often enjoyed by white people why they partake in illicit drugs but need a place to “relax” from their “mind-blowing” trip.
I’m one of the rare ones who really, really does like classical music, and prefers it to Indie Rock, or whatever else I’m supposed to like.
And I wouldn’t recommend saying that Philip Glass is your favourite composer. Doing so will show you to be a shallow, unthinking individual with poor taste. No truly intelligent person will ask so crass a question as “who’s your favourite composer” anyway, so if you are asked that, it’s probably safe to spoof. If you absolutely must name a favourite, say Bach. Universally respected (or feared, by those who don’t like his music). But first gain a passing familiarity with some of his works.
If you do name a modern composer, a general rule of thumb is to express a preference for their earlier work if they’re still alive, and for their later work if they’re dead. Although there are exceptions to this rule, such as Stockhausen.
A composer who the “white people” described here really like is a guy called Karl Jenkins. He writes the blandest orchestral music, spiced up with some ethnic-flavoured African drums or vocals, and combines it into one homogenous aural sludge. People frickin’ LOVE this guy, and his music is appallingly bad. But it ticks enough boxes: token appearance of cultural diversity, sounds a little like classical music (and you get to dress up and go to a concert hall to hear it) except with harmonic progressions and melodic ideas which would easily fit into any cheesy pop song or hack film score.
Except my late fiance’, who was a violist/violinist/violin and viola teacher, and had actually played lots of operas as a member of the orchestra–nothing faux in that kind of music geekery. But I think only bona fide musicians like himself (and serious amateurs) can really pull that stuff off.
Yes, but the musicians are poorer. 🙂
I am curious as to why you don’t like John Williams…his use of musical motifs (which have an official name, that I can’t remember at this moment) drew from Wagner. This note brought to you by my late fiance’, who taught me most of what I know about classical music.
Music major, I presume? 🙂
String quartet music is actually my favorite. I like being able to hear individual instruments, and I LOVE stringed instruments.
That’s only because they don’t know better. I didn’t know til I dated a musician, who clued me in to the fact that there were eras and subgenres to classical music. I’d been aware that there was a period called the Baroque, but all the rest of it was news to me.
More people ought to take Music History and Music Apprec, imho.
there is nothing wrong with stating John Williams as your favorite composer, he’s the best. (especially of film composers) no one has written as many gorgeous melodies, no one orchestrates as well, he’s the man. Also Bach is boring as shit. and Mozart/Haydn were fags.
Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Chopin, Dvorak, Mahler, Schoenberg(early works), Elgar
Spot on! This is so predictable: I have exactly two CDs lying on top of my computer right now: Glass and Satie. Damn.
At the risk of sounding stereotypically white, I AM VERY OFFENDED BY THIS POST! How dare you say that it’s only guilt that preserves interest in classical music, and HOW DARE YOU insinuate that classical music has been irrelevant for a century! It is wonderful, living, breathing, invigorating music when performed correctly. It’s not just dusty, boring old crap. Ironically, some of the oldest classical music, composed in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, can have a striking relevance and modernity compared with more recent classical music. You should really check that stuff out. Try Monteverdi and Cavalli. They are far from tired and crusty composers, even though they died over a century before Beethoven and Mozart were born. I think there are misconceptions about what classical music actualy sounds like, especially the vastly different genres WITHIN the field of classical music. You need to be more informed. And society as a whole needs to be more informed. Sheesh!
Love it!
I’d also suggest taking a look at http://www.SomethingYouShouldRead.com
There’s nothing technically wrong with John Williams, except that he scored the music for many films for Stephen Spielberg. Scores which tend to be very bombastic and way overplayed. That formula, as tired as it is, has made both Williams and Spielberg a lot of money.
Also, except for the movie he made about the Holocaust, white people don’t much admit to liking Spielberg. He’s not made many bad films, but his films are too well known, have made too much money and aren’t considered important. White people can be quite hypocritical films snobs.
I think of A Clockwork Orange when I hear the 5th Symphony. When I hear Blue Danube Waltz, I think of Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey. Sad, I know.
Whoa dude, slow down. I think you got sand in your virginia. Look, I love classical music, but I think you got REALLY OFFENDED FOR NO RELEVANT REASON when you could have been proud of the fact that you are one of the few people that can appreciate the nuances and passion in all forms of pre-industrial european music, rather than just pretending that you like it to look smart. I think your problem is that you listen to too much German music and you’re getting pissed off too easily. Try Chopin’s etudes instead. It’ll chill you out like weed. Wow
isn’t that the Star Wars guy. Yeah, that doesn’t count. You need some Beethoven in your life, or Puccini. But no big orchestral stuff – that’s why you’re so limited (star wars geek). Try Moonlight Sonata or Bel de Di.
That’s a sad thing. A person that doesn’t like Jazz or Classical but likes Baroque is in trouble. Please, take the time to get outside and take a walk, smell the flowers, do a little bit of running, get your blood moving, eat a steak and get laid, have a beer and listen to some Billie Holliday. No need to thank me.
Did you say “rimjob Kosakov?” seriously, get laid
Very good point. Now forget it and go get some lovin
I’m never visiting that website because you’ve shamelessly whored it out all over this blog.
My interest in classical started with Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart, then back in time to the Baroque, then even further back to the Renaissance, and then way forward to the Romantic Composers. To this day I can’t stand Medieval or post-Romantic music.
Then who the fuck are you talking to? Even children know what The Nutcracker is.
Translation: you fail at attempting to sound cultured and intelligent.
how about: neverclickingonyourlink.foff
if there was a like button i would like your coment some poeple are just souting out to get run over by a bus,or struck by an anyoed diety or killed by a mad ass guy who reads this and has developed anger management isues as a result “whitney mcwhiteness”
I mean beano soz witney O.o
I wish you were right in what you write in this article. I wish the white people masses went to concerts. I wish white people bought contemporary music. I wish white people aspired for education throught quality music.
But you’re wrong.
1. I go to classical concerts regulary, and I tend to see the same faces every time. Most of them are classical music freaks; music students, radio hosts, music journalists, record shop owners, etc. I wish more people came for the sake of showing off. That would at least increase the demands which in turn would push the prices down.
2. Classical music is much more popular in countries like Japan and China than “white” countries these days.
3. Contemporary music (like Philip Glass) doesn’t sell. As a contemporary composer you’re lucky if you sell 500 records. Most composers these days survive with help from rich friends or government fundings.
1. Funny story about a kid who lived in my boyfriend’s hall freshman year. He was that average English-major-poetry-writing-fedora-wearing-twenty-somethings. Always BLASTED classical music, so loud that everyone in the hall could hear it…then he would leave. It was the weirdest, most annoying attempt at validation I have ever witnessed, and it didn’t help him that every time he was actually IN his room he was watching Buffy.
2. Pretentious moment: I love Angelo Badalamenti, but I’ve never really listened to his music outside of a Lynch film/show, so I can’t tell if I like his music or the way his music and the image blends.
3. Jesus CHRSIT I’m white.
I LOVE classical music! I don’t just appear to enjoy it I really genuinely love it as a preferred genre! When you know the story behind the people who create these wonderful pieces it makes a whole difference! My Music Appreciation Teacher at West Georgia made it come alive for me. He’s one of those white folks who really do like classical music and can tell when someone is puttin up a front. He’s also classically train in opera and piano. Back in high school I used to only listen to it to go to sleep at night, now it’s almost all I listen to. I just love it. It still makes me sleepy when I listen to it at night (that can be a problem when I’m working) but during the day, I’m wide awake and all ears. It’s literally all I have on my ipod. The white in me has fully emerged. and omg when you’re in an arena with great accoustics you can’t help but take in the rich sound! I know it’s not for everyone, people like what they like, but at least visit a concert hall once just to experience what it’s like. You’ll start to gain a sensitive ear and begin hearin and connecting and linkin the melodies popular contemporary songs to one another!
btw the part about the white person and pachabel’s Canon in D Major is hilarious! “uh yeah, that song” that alone outed them! their are not songs, as they don’t have words to them, just pieces or compositions lol.
hahahaha
Bach is NOT boring man, have you listened to the bradenburg concertos? you might be referring to air on the g string the because it’s popular and too “clean” sounding, or cello suite because it sounds too librianish (I’m aware that’s not a word) they’re still good tho, to me any way. I don’t think haydn’s or mozart’s music is “fluffy” they’re just clean and precise.
I’m curious as to what you think of Purcell (more baroque than classical) brahms, strauss, or tchaikovsky(another name people like to throw around when they don’t really listen to instrumental music, as classical is just a period in this brand of music.) I still like him tho, he actually was gay.
Chopin is actually depressing as is debussey, well most of this list “Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Stravinsky, Chopin, Dvorak, Mahler, Schoenberg(early works), Elgar” are depressing but they’re still good. You sound as though romantic and Impression eras are more you speed. I like those periods too, but I have absolutely no qualms about baroque or Classical periods either. I can find someone I love in just about all of them.
I’m gonna throw my sense of humor out the window and just say that, to me, this article is incredibly offensive. The comment on the connection between race and a musical form, though evident, is a racial stereotype that is constantly balked. Blacks love, study, compose and perform classical music. Whites listen only to motown and rap. Blacks pioneered Jazz as an art form in America; now it’s mostly white guys that continue on the tradition.
I think a lot of popular music is shit. I think a lot of it is great. I feel the same about classical music. I don’t ask myself, am I listening to this because I am white. I listen to what I like.
And for the record, John Williams is one of my favorite composers. He’s one of the most brilliant musicians living today. If you don’t like his choice of musical convention, well too bad, you’re missing out.
You obviously didn’t get the article. It’s not bad to enjoy John Williams, it’s extremely obvious that you have a small amount of understanding for Classical Music if you mention his work in a discussion about Classical Music. Your post COULD be VERY ironic (another white person word)
funny story: my spanish teacher (muy blanca) plays classical music for us on her radio thing while we take tests because “classical music stimulates brain waves.” it’s the same lol-i’m-into-classical-music-look-at-me-i’m-so-cultured stuff each time.
beethoven’s fifth
pachebel’s canon
toreador’s song
swan lake
russian dance from nutracker
waltz of the flowers
clair de lune
some bach minuets
the same songs. over. and. over. again.
My grandmother’s a piano teacher so I do in fact enjoy classical music and I have been to Tanglewood for the festival once or twice but I doubt its limited to just white people and that they all just pretend to love it. Have you ever seen Music of the Heart? I will admit my favorite is the musical from the Nutcracker : D
Guilty :O
Dude, that was John Williams…
So obviously written by a white person who actually like classical music. It is funny, but not true. I know of course many non-whites who like classical music, and many with various skin colors who don’t just because they don’t know what to listen to. Classical music is more relevant every day, when we realize that all good stuff have been written already. The stuffy attitude is something that all real music lovers hate. And Beethoven the 5th is a great piece of art.
Glass doesn’t sell?!?! What are you talking about? I think every white person I know owns a copy of koyaanisqatsi, and half of those people own glassworks.
LOL at the John Williams bit at the bottom. My high school music teacher is obsessed with him.
This article is wrong on so many levels. I wish the humor were purely sarcastic. Maybe some will laugh, but this article just perpetuates way too many stereotypes to be funny to anyone who takes delusions of cultural divides seriously.
Firstly, it’s absolutely wrong to assert that no one besides white people are involved in classical music. Just as it’s wrong to think that all white people ARE involved in classical music. Do you WANT there to be cultural division in this area? Because I assure you that your mainstream perception of who is involved in classical music is just that, a mainstream fallacy. How dare you discount the contributions of people of every other race to the composition and performance of this art form!
Also, if you actually exposed yourself to classical music beyond historic cliches, you would know that “classical music” is actually a modern music, quite relevant, and with sensibilities which relate to those of contemporary listeners. And your comments such as those concerning Philip Glass only flaunt your ignorance.
Humor is good. But humor should never be used to divide people, or perpetuate a perception of a divided culture that is simply false. This article is very disappointing for any music-lover of any race.
The African American contemporary composer, William Grant Still, and his gorgeous second symphony.
I love how on EVERY SINGLE ONE of these articles, some fool posts a rant on how ‘this is racist’ or ‘this is not true!’. Its not talking about all white people, only self-professed trendy indie hipster-types who wear ironic t-shirts and listen to Of Montreal. Get with the program people!
Hilarious blog, my only criticism is that it’s not updated often enough! 😀
I could listen to classical music all day. I would just turn it on, fall asleep in the first three minutes, and just listen in astute comfort endlessly. I believe I gained my love of classical music from my aunt, who sadly, died while taking a bath and listening to classical music. She probably gained her love for it directly from her father, my great uncle, who was an engineer on the Pacific Express liner that ran all the way up the west coast. He was one of a dying breed. He lived until the age of 53, where he was listening to classical music on a run past the scenic Redwoods in California, fell asleep and accidentally took a pass too quickly, plunging the train over a gorge. While these accidents may seem tragic they will never take away my belief that classical music is soothing to the soul.
This reply is more boring than any classical piece i ever listened to in my life.
And while I’m writing this I’m listening to The Matthaus Passion. It’s awesome.
I was going to restructure my joke to appeal to your comic sensibilities but I wasn’t quite sure how to post line drawings of poop and vaginas. Can I just say ‘poop’ and ‘vaginas’ or do you still need pictures?
Oh yeah, I forgot to add, the Germans run the two words together: Matthauspassion, otherwise they would place a “Die” (German for “the”) in front of the two words. If you had any confidence you could have gone with ‘the Passion of St. Matthew’, but I guess you felt a desperate need to prove the point of this blog post. You are obviously the smartest person in the room. Hehehehehe.
you’re still not funny, just now you’re also vulgar.
And just an FYI – I am German.
in most places it appears as Die Matthäus-Passion- two words. The rules on whether to unify descriptives in german is fluid when the descriptive is a proper name.
You see, it’s not enough to have Wikipedia in your bookmarks.
wow…Chrisgiraffe: epic white person fail
LoL EXACTLY what I was thinking… well, maybe not those exact words, but along the same lines nevertheless. Hang it up, Chrisgiraffe, this kinda of writing/attempt at humor just isn’t for you.
“You see, it’s not enough to have Wikipedia in your bookmarks.” hahaha as he read this, he probably left clicked and deleted it.
Speaking of exotic sounding ethnic music by intellectual whities, this is from the Balkans (i.e. Serbia, Croatia and anywhere in between) and the music reminds me more of Turkish or Middle Eastern rhythms than western European from the time when the Ottoman empire ruled the Balkans.
You know, you’re right. When you play in the mud you’re bound to get muddy and so I am for stooping so low to point out the obvious: people willing to validate every bit of satire this blog ridicules. Rather than add anything meaningful or even entertaining to the discourse the new American can only criticise.
“That sucks.”
“That’s awesome.”
“I listen to obscure Bach pieces you’ve probably never heard of.”
Who gives a crap about your opinions or tastes? Taste and opinion have nothing to do with creativity. Hell, five year olds like obscure classical pieces. but you’re somehow special because you can name works by heart, wow! So can people in psych wards and gifted autistics. There was one who could recite the entire Encyclopedia Britannica by heart.
Just because you like Bach doesn’t mean you’ve ever written anything nearly as meaningful or anything at all. Just because you drive a nice car doesn’t mean you can design or build one. In fact, the only thing you seemed to have produced is a bit of a jerk off attempt to make an anonymous stranger try and feel less than you. Yeah, I’m sure people LOVE to have you over at parties. Hehehehehe.
“Thanks for the invite. By the way, this house is decent but mine is much better. It’s directly inspired by F.L. Wright. In fact my father used to jack off Wright during an unpaid internship. Let me tell you all about it over that cheap wine you have on hand.”
You can call my attempt at humor crap if you like, but my crap is better than a million of your unimaginative, worthless criticisms any day. As for vulgarity, your lack of creativity and pseudo-intellectualism masquerading as upper class is about as vulgar as I’ve come across. You could give lessons in vulgarity at the local community college and I’m certain you’d win asshole of the year award every time.
Very, very good.
Here’s another laugh: http://www.SomethingYouShouldRead.com
tool
Not as awesome as Johannes Passion.
Modern German writes the name of this (and other) Passion(s) as one word. The title actually doesn’t require an article, similar to the English useage “Messiah” not “The Messiah”. If you refer to a Passion, for example “I don’t like St. John’s Passion” the article “die” is required: ich mag die Johannespassion nicht”.
My god, racial stereotyping? On this site?
Where will it end.
I always list John Williams and Danny Elfman as my favorite composer.
Mr. Blog writer, you can go to hell, I am a white person and actually love classical music, and am a skilled classical violinist. It is still almost exclusively THE kind of music I listen to. And I have never had people talk to me pretending to like classical. In fact I got made fun of in grade school for liking classical. Classical music is very unpopular among white kids, even really rich white kids. I’m 20 now, do I just have to wait another 15 years before people around me start pretending to like classical? Nah. It probably will never happen.
Oh, and I HATE most contemporary music. Even the few contemporary pieces I like don’t even begin to measure up to the works of the great romantic and classical era composers!
your entries are amusing, I just hope you aren’t serious most of the time.
Excellent write up, opinion.
Now back to my djembe playing!
I listen to classical music all the time all other music sucks but not as bad as RAP.
RAP should be outlawed and all rappers shot…
the comment about Glass being the best last name for a white person …. very very very funny!!! I love this blog (found it via “From Rus with Love” / Mayer Rus LA Times)
omg I love John Williams haha. I’m not white
I find it funny that op fans have to repeat commonly-held myths like “Most ‘classical’ music was the pop of the time” in order to justify their tastes to people who disagree with them. It’s sad, actually.
“statistics show that ALL Americans are pretty ignorant.”
Evidently you don’t understand what statistics actually are.
mishamesh. Im a Borat here. music I find it …is nice. that made by the gypsy lady. wonderful. yea? I like lady signing. must buy her. be my 10th wife. must take in beating.
Borat here. again. it has a has a has a beat. it not be made by the jew producer. jew music is scary. ha ya, ha ya…not great gloruous Kazakh music. what? Yugoslav? it is made by jews. they made the 9/11. Saudis. the Jew are semites.
Hey great glorous American. Borat about to go. we play those songs we like in wedding ceremony. get the pet bear to play polka accordion. have my 6th wife take her vows by her macho man. fat plump hairy lady. beautiful. but I shall desire pamela anderson. bride capture we must. bye now.
This makes me sad, in a way. I really like the music of Satie, and I had no idea he was SWPL. I can’t name any movie which featured his music, so I guess that’s a good thing…
what??? john williams and danny elfman are both absolutely boss. love them.
but my favourite is debussy. (i know, i know, could i get any more white?)
YES!!!! FRENCH HORN!!!! 🙂 (Yes, I know a year late, but it is necessary.)
Satie can be heard accompanying the closing credits of “MY DINNER WITH ANDRE”.
This is absolutely golden.
Classical is actually superior to modern commercial “music” because classical has greater organization, more diverse scales, specialists in their respective instruments, and greater dynamics.
Keep telling yourself that buddy.
Haha, I’m a classical flutist, and I see a lot of this stuff all the time. I can also say that rich white people who have no connection to classical music whatsoever love to donate large sums of money to classical music because it makes them feel cultured.
Silly white people. I can’t complain, though. They provide my paycheck.
If you love music, then you’ll like all sorts of music including classical.
When I was 19, I liked the typical music a 19-year-old would like. Then i saw an Olympic figure skating competition. When I saw how the winning pair skated to a classical piece-almost as if the song was custom made for them-I developed an appreciation for the music. Lots of passion, drama, feeling and even eroticism. I consider Bach’s ‘Air on a G-string’ one of the most erotic pieces ever written.
“I consider Bach’s ‘Air on a G-string’ one of the most erotic pieces ever written.”
Well I consider JohnnyVan one of the biggest squares ever to come on this site
Sorry JohnnyVan, you were the biggest square. But after reading further into comments, my boy Jaymthegenius takes the cake
o lawdy “Air on a G-string” erotic… I get it
To understand and enjoy classical music you’ve got to have an IQ over 75. Orchestral music will last until the end of time, long after people have grown bored with the cheap commercial crap we have today. Canon in D is a great piece but so are Sibelius’s symphonies and works by bach, mozart, Purcell, Beethoven and many others (verdi,Stravinsky,Handel,Hayden…………………..)
I actually enjoy classical music… Although many others do not.
THINGS REPUBLICANS HATE: No. 39 Grey Poupon
http://thethingsrepublicanshate.com/?p=373
we enjoy the horns and contra bassoons, then we sip wine (socially acceptable alchohol addiction) and talk through our teeth about organics, ivy leagues, and how can dance
As a violinist who actually knows something about classical music… one of my favorite things to do when I run into these people is to use words like counterpoint, baroque, pentatonic, sub-mediant, and mixolydian… then just watch them pretend to know what I’m talking about.
can I get a shout out to the contra bassoons!
honk honk
I pretty much love Danny Elfman, so this is hard on me. I even have his Seronada Schizophrenia CD. 😦 Maybe I’m just too white…
awww…. I’m just a regular bassoon. 😦
My dad’s white and LOVES classical music, and my mother is Afro-Latina. I HATE classical music, and I truly feel my skin crawl whenever hearing it in my father’s office, the dentist, doctor, or elevator. But going to the symphony I find much more enjoyable, as it provides you with the real experience– surround sound and all…. especially when stoned.
I happen to think Dvorak’s “Evening Songs” (on the tail end of “early”–1876) and pieces of his earlier operas, like “Vanda,” are actually pretty good. “The Evening Songs” are admittedly simple (Dvořák himself admitted as much), but when you’ve got interpreters like Beno Blachut and Josef Palenicek performing them, it doesn’t much matter 🙂 But I came to Dvořák *after* Smetana, and am perhaps the only “classical” (odiously general term) fan ever to do so. C’est la vie.
I like alternative rock (think Styx and Rush) because I grew up with ’em, but I’ve been friendly with Romantic-era music since I was sixteen. I’m a white person, and–*gasp!*–I enjoy it.
I don’t like jazz (I freely admit to “not getting it”), but I really like blues, and even ragtime’s a little fun. There is no accounting for taste.
if you like this blog, check out http://justsomepetpeeves.wordpress.com!!
Why not John Williams?
Only a cultureless ape would disrespect classical music. Classical music is the most technically difficult music to write and play. It sounds awesome and quite inspiring. The longevity of classical music is due to its shear awesomeness.
everything that you write describes my ex-boyfriend to a t, and well, honestly, me a little, too. love love love you. white people like to repeat things…. eyes on the prize eyes on the prize.
philip glass. god, he was obsessed with him. and koyanesqoutsqie. i hope i butchered the name of that fucking movie.
Fuck i hate all of this.
except that you can’t even pick the right word.
it’s SHEER not SHEAR.
dumbass.
who don’t love classical music? European classical music is the most advanced music in all human’s history.
I will continue to listen to classical music until the end of times. I personally hate contemporary music (both commercial, popular music and modern “art music” (the only composers still alive that you hear about (movie composers excluded) compose contemptible atonal music). Modern compositions will not survive the test of time, while Bach and Beethoven will be remembered for their compositions when the current music trends since long have been forgotten.
Atonal music is not contemptible. You just don’t understand it.
What are you talking about, white people love John Wiliams! Think about how many movies white people love that he wrote the music for. Me and my fellow caucasoids have had a’many convo about the brilliance of John Williams.
Classical music should be something everyone gets to listen to and enjoy. Its frickin’ magical come on.
European classical music IS the most advanced music, alongside the classical musics of several other world cultures. “Classical” music, be it Indian, Chinese, or Western European requires it’s practitioners to devote years of their lives to technical study just to play/sing the compositions in the appropriate style. Jazz requires this too. These art forms are not necessarily”relevant” to our culture today, but they certainly can be appreciated for their complexity by just about anyone. And BTW art music in the 18th/19th century was still “art” music, mainly paid for and patronized by the wealthy and educated. Folk/pop music existed back then too…
That’s horrible. They shouldn’t have to know what you’re talking about. It is perfectly acceptable to enjoy classical music and spout the names of composers, pieces, etc. without being able to write a harmonic analysis!! People hadn’t even coined the terms for the harmonic progressions Beethoven created when he began to use his “new” harmonies. Just because you can’t label an augmented sixth functioning as a secondary dominant for an enharmonic modulation doesn’t mean you can’t hear an unexpected key change and think it sounds amazing. I don’t know jack about impressionist painting techniques, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a genuine, valid reaction to the works. If people thought they had to be educated on all the freakin’ church modes to enjoy classical music, we’d NEVER have an audience!
I am one of the few white people who legitimately enjoy classical music, and I have definitely come across people who have no idea what they’re talking about.
Me: Oh, so you like classical music?
Pompous White Person (PWP): Oh yes of course I do! I listen to it in the car on the way home from my favorite tea bar in the Mission.
Me: Oh really? What radio station?
PWP: Uhh… you know… that one… the one all the classical music junkies like myself listen to.
I think this is funny. I love classical music but not an in-depth student of it. In an nutshell for those who just like the sound of music from a symphony concert hall, that music just breaks down into three major types (not counting some atonal, twentieth century stuff): 1. Church music (you know, a lot of Handel and Bach stuff, plus a Mozart Requiem or some such), 2. Party/Parlor Music (Handel’s water and fireworks music, e.g. plus all those waltzes from Strauss et al, Chopin’s piano pieces, e.g) and finally 3. War and Sex…just about anything written by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and ALL opera). Personally, I like the War and Sex stuff best. For the person I come across who thinks classical music is too stuffy, I say, hey, it’s a lot about the third category. Why do you think most symphony movements are roughly 7 to 10 minutes long?
omg. you people are hilarious…
this is the “stuff white people like” website. it’s not an editorial in the NY times.
Symphony movements are not usually 7-10 minutes long, especially in the “War and Sex” category.
-anyways,
As an avid classical musician, I see tons of people falling asleep in performances. Whose fault is it? The musicians.
THIS MUSIC IS RELEVANT TO OUR TIMES, but people don’t play it that way. Tradition takes precedence over personal communication and feeling, which is the problem.
I play in professional orchestras, travel the world, and earn my living playing music. I have studied at top schools on both sides of the Atlantic, won competitions, and yet I also fall asleep in almost ALL classical performances I go to.
Oh my gosh, yeppers.
I bet you thought that Pachebel’s Cannon was ‘Classical’ music too, huh?
This is an awesome post, and for the most part, I believe it to be true. However, there is nothing wrong with preferring modern classical composers to the commonly known and commonly performed composers of all classical periods. What is silly, as you pointed out, is being unable to support your enjoyment with a little knowledge or at least a somewhat cogent response to basic questioning.
Here is a question that stumps a great many wannabe classical music enthusiasts:
“Who composed ‘Ave Maria?'”
If someone says “Schubert,” or gives you a weird look or lacks a confident response, then that person obviously doesn’t know a basic fact about non-secular classical music. The Ave Maria text (along with pretty much every Catholic text) has been set by MANY composers. Schubert’s setting, the one known and loved by the wannabe classical music enthusiast, is simply the one commonly played at weddings.
Let this be a lesson to you who would attempt to keep such an image. Say you prefer Josquin’s setting of Ave Maria.
josquin blows
what else do you do mate?
this is hilarious
Asians have adopted european classical and ran with it. Go see a modern orchestra, a university music dept, or a music instrument trade show specializing in classical instruments, you will see a lot of asians, wearing western style suits or otherwise dressed very formally. They can actually play the music, and know a lot about the history. Just kind of an interesting phenomenon.
Most white kids who take up an instrument would rather just play “back in black” on guitar. Or if they do take up a “classical ” instrument like trumpet or sax, it will more likely be used to play in a white ska band, or for more intellectual types, the jazz ensemble at the local community college.
I listen to classical on my alone time all the time. It relaxes me. I don’t need anyone knowing this. But I do want people to know that this isn’t true at all with most people. 🙂
That’s funny, because you just posted on a frequently visited public web page about your habit of listening to classical music. Are you sure you don’t feel the need to tell others about this?
Your a pathetic moron, classical music is ten times as sophiticated as modern pop music. You really don’t know what your talking about and I have no respect for you small insignificant brain.
It may apear to be true but thats becuase classical music was always men’t for a few % of people.
THIS IS THE HIGHLY EDUCATED OPINION OF A CLASSICAL MUSICIAN who cant take how simple and plain RRRREEEEEEEETTTTTTAAAAAARRRRRRDDDDDDDEEEEEEEDDDDDD MODERN MUSIC IS, JUST LISTEIN TO IT !!!!!!
Just say ‘Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos’ and you cannot go wrong (every educated white person should know them). At the moment, I’m listening to Cecilia Bartoli’s ‘Sacrificum’. Some may find the artwork distasteful, but I think that as a concept album on the castrati of Italy, it’s brilliant. Gruesome but brilliant.
Speaking of small insignificant brains, could you have more spelling errors? Nothing about your post would imply any degree of being highly educated you stupid imbecile.
I listen to classical music at home, but I think you’re wrong about white people needing to tell people they listen to it. Most people I know that like it are usually embarassed and try to hide the fact that they do…and I would never pay 80 bucks for a ticket when I can just listen from Youtube.
But you just told a bunch of white people that you listen to classical music.
I said “most people I know,” not me.
srsly, there are so many classical music wannabe likers here.
i didn’t even know that existed, omg what a hypocrisy.
WHY? WHY? if you don’t like it, don’t pretend you do, it just makes you more idiot and false.
Truly, it is enshrined in condescending behavior my people love so dearly. I guilted myself into studying classical music for around a decade only to graduate from a classical conservatory realising I hate the stuff. O well. I got in bed with many asian women in the process, so I guess its well worth it. Mention any sort of knowledge about classical music to asian women and you suddenly find yourself in bed with them. Thanks classical music!
Jeez people…don’t take offense to swpl…its completely sarcastic. That being said, I have scared some people off by mentioning that Corelli is my favorite classical composer. haha
The problem is I am really into clasical music, it’s my favorite kind. I do love the early works of Antonin Dvorak and would never list Pachelbel’s Canon as my favorite “song.” but unfortunately, my favorite composer is… Philip Glass. And I’m white.
John Williams just rips off holst all the time, but I still like him. He’s awesome.
LOL I saw this blog on http://www.DanielDickey.com (The MTV VJ) and must admit it’s just as funny!!!
Ripped off Tan Dun too.
Really? Josquin’s Ave Maria? WHere do you hear that played? I mean, which people that enjoy classical music but haven’t studied it formally are going to be familiar with it? If an afficionado said that to me I wouldn’t believe them. More plausible is Bach-Busoni or Caccini…those you hear all the time, and citing them still proves the point that Schubert’s Ave Maria isn’t the one and only Ave Maria…
“only to graduate from a classical conservatory realising I hate the stuff”
Which makes it quite obvious that your taste in music is worthless.
White people, well all people, also enjoy http://www.NakedHipster.com. Mainly because the girls are hot and don’t have clothes on. Usually those two things go well together. You know, the hotness and the nakedness.
I realize that this is satire, but it is obvious that this writer has no understanding of what those who consume classical music see in it. Those who don’t see anything in it — of any race — don’t touch it. There is a grey area of folks who enjoy it, but don’t know what they like or what to look for, and that class cuts across racial lines. This class of folks being described here may have existed among the wealthy 30 or 40 years ago, but they are gone now, replaced by their kids who don’t care. Honestly, classical music would be better off if we had them back; in any event, you are being unfair altogether, particularly in regard to classical music’s relevance. We’ll see how relevant you feel 50 Cent is when you are lying in the hospital bed for three weeks banged up in auto injuries in an accident you got into because you couldn’t turn that crap down.
I like to believe I would go to a classical music concert but I never get around to it.
I recommend you go to a well designed concert hall, it is a truly amazing experience, no youtube compression and all that.
Please respond to this I don’t understand why my replies are being stacked together, not following the comments I was replying on. Taken out of context they don’t make any sense. Can you shed some light on this?
Thanks, oh and I’ve been to Orchestra Hall in my neck of the woods (Downtown Minneapolis MN) and it’s pretty incredible. I think a lot of people listening to digitized music don’t realize it’s compressed. It needs to breathe. I’ve set my recording for vinyl transfers to the lowest compression and highest res and just store everything in a seperate drive so as to not slow down my computer.
Pavarotti’s performance of Ave Maria is not bad either. That was my mother’s favorite. She was Italian. She cried every time she heard it. It was played at her funeral.
Why should we never list Danny Elfman as our favorite composer?
If you have to ask, it’s already too late.
johnny williams is a fraud. rips off howard hanson, holst, dvorak–writes/steals music/themes from others and then sells it to the american sheeple/masses/
Haha I believe being offended is another thing that white people like.
I looked up clander in the dictionary and it said: see asshole!
If it wasn’t for movies scores and the occasionaly ditty on TV, i wouldn’t listen to classical at all. I’m into #41
But Danny Elfman did the Simpsons themesong. That’s got to count for something.
I’m in tears from laughter.
If you really still think no one likes classical music look on Youtube, you’ll find lots of lovers of really finely crafted music of out this world calibre. Good music moves me more than anything and is my main reason for living.
Exceptional rarity reporting for duty!
Who cares what anyone likes or dislikes. Everyone is entitled to have their own personal tastes, whether it be music, fashion, or a tv show. It should be painfully clear that this site is more than nothing but a forum setup to divide and conquer, but what is being conquered here?
@Billy
…Right. That’s why John Williams is considered the father of Modern Movie Soundtrack, because he stole from people that were not around to know what a movie was, people who wrote only for Church Masses…
Besides, every Soundtrack has an identical partner somewhere, it is all about the context though. Check out the Narnia soundtrack compared to The Kingdom of Heaven Track… They sound almost identical
That said, Hans Zimmer all the way!
“classical music…has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.”
ummm excuse me???? not relevant???? I am a violinist, classically trained, and I play and enjoy classical music. I take offense to that comment.
A bit sensitive are we? The post is a joke, if you can’t take it you might like to visit another site.
The only thing that offends me that this joke has a painful amount of truth, at least here in america. Every trip to the opera, or concert hall makes me loathe to describe myself as a music lover. Hipsters are more sincere and less elitist about their tastes than the average season ticket holder. Their attitude frightens any new potential audience away. They treat it like it’s some social elixir that will make them a better person. It’s not medicine, it’s music, and some of it is among the greatest of all time. Furthermore, John Williams is a masterpiece factory, and Phillip Glass is only of any real interest to those who want to know what Mozart would sound like if he had autism
Rachel, Aaron, see #101…
On a scale of 1 to 10, rate your ability on the violin. How much money did you make last year playing violin? Now, on a scale of 1 to 10, rate your ability as a salesperson. Do you see where this is going? Unfortunately, that’s relevance. I am also classically trained. Classical music in the US is dominated by symphonies kept afloat by rich donors and supplied with music written by composers who make most of their money perpetuating the myth of classical music at universities. For better or worse, we have become a philosophy department. I blame the composers in the 40’s that decided “fuck the common man, so hard.”
These articles are so funny… I actually do love classical music –grew up in a very musical household and am a classical/jazz musician — but it’s not my favorite genre (that’d be pop-rock). I haven’t actually met people who pretend to know more about classical music than they actually do, so I guess I’m lucky that way. The people I have met are sincerely there just to enjoy beautiful music in a nice acoustic environment you can’t get from a stereo… and if they don’t know much about it they are fine admitting it. There is no greater musical experience than to hear great classical music played live (with NO speakers) in a wonderful concert hall!! If people go to concerts more for the snob value than for the actual music, what a waste of time and money!
Some of us actually like and know a lot about classical music. It has nothing to do with guilt or snobbery, but it might have something to do with early exposure, although that is not necessary in every case. Some works are universal. I defy anyone to listen to Bach’s Sinfonia from BWV29 and not get chills, cry, and drool. It’s like crack cocaine to me.
I listened to it, and it didnt do anything to me. you are in the smallest of minorities. even that you remember the bmv number makes me lol at you.
I am a classical music disc jockey, and music appreciation teacher. Pasty, and white, as you can believe, I have season tickets to the Symphony. Saturday afternoons at the opera we chew bubble gum and Boo the tenor. Opera has better story lines than Gray’s Anatomy–the tv show, not the textbook. There is nothing irrelevant about classical music try playing it sometime–on an instrument,not the CD Player.
White people need Music; Classical and Renaissance, and Rocco, and Romantic to have their souls spoken to. And if you want something to scare the Hell out of you try Wagner, or Ligetti !!!! White people are hoping that coloured people will like it too. Come on out some night!!
This one hurt my feelings. I love classical music more than anything else.
It is still relevant today and it always will be relevant because it communicates so beautifully the seemingly infinite range of emotions that is the human condition. The only thing that truly restores my faith in humanity is music.
It is still relevant.
It will always be relevant.
Classical music is for all people.
It isn’t just white people who need music. The entire world needs music.
Please try to remember when you were younger and decided to devote your life to music. Did you have these views even back then? I doubt it. I’ll bet you were head-over-heels in love with the music you were playing. I know they don’t tell us in school how hard it is out there. I know it’s far from a perfect world, but please remember that you are helping to preserve some of the most beautiful works ever created.
I actually think Mozart did have autism. Didn’t he? But yes I agree with your larger point that Philip Glass is poopy
lol erik satie’s probably one of the worst composers to bring up as poser defence
“i like gymnopedie no. 1” is one of the quickest outings you’re going to get in these situations
I work for a symphony and find this hy-sterical!
I found this funny and sent it to my mom who is a music buff of all kinds – and yes classical! As I write this the radio is set to Wisconsin Public radio and classical music plays all day!
Nobody, I mean absolutely NOBODY ever said only white people need music. Good God what is WRONG with you Hannah?
It cracks me up how many people in their comments get their hackles up as though there wasn’t a great deal of truth in the humor – no one likes to see themselves taken as a joke – and of course, they’re missing the joke. Hipsters, oldsters, every kind of poser – in my 45 years as a professional classical musician, I more often than not regret my audiences, for their ability to leap out of their chairs at the most mediocre performances. But worse – classical musicians themselves – almost uniformly clueless about anything but “high culture”, gardening, upper management and new kitchenware. Oh, and their new music director’s sex life. I’m a curmudgeon clinging to the great classics because I still breathe the damn stuff but you can’t blame people if they find their balm in other sounds, other joys. To pretend that things have become so adulterated as to be meaningless is…pretty funny.
WTF?
Chrisgiraffe – let’s form a club and beat these phonies over the head with it. These folks are fundmentalists – like the religious versions, no sense of humor in their DNA. Ostentatious to the point of no return. I appreciate your cadence – you must be one of the tiny minority who actually feels something for all music and doesn’t just use it as wallpaper for your ego.
Vanitas.
pretending to like?i’ve always loved it…but it is an acquired taste…usually arising from being forced to play an instrument as a child…you go one of two ways about the music;you either end up hating it forever or eventually it grows on you once you gain a larger perspective on musical theory and gain some insight into the lives of the people who wrote the music.it’s still very relevant today and serves as inspiration for many musicians of all vernaculars.
ragtime is actually fun though
I just finished Stuff White People Like and it was mis-titled. It should be called Stuff Liberal People Like. e.g., “white people don’t like republicans.” and I suppose blacks do?
And, conversely, curious that”white people like guns” isn’t on the list, considering how snow-white the NRA is.
Anyway, I zeroed in on this classical music post because I knew that Chris would be speaking from ignorance as his post reveals. Not only is it unfunny, but speaking as someone who loves classical music and speaks of it often to white friends who are not into it, they don’t seem the least apologetic about the fact. Moreover, if appearances were so important, they’d be attending (and nodding off) at classical concerts, but as attendance figures show, they’re not attending in any significant numbers, and from my own observation, those who are attending are totally absorbed in the music, certainly moreso than the clubgoers for whom the band of the night is just background noise.
Classical music was the Pop Music of the 1700s. That’s a fact. But nowadays, people have many styles to choose from. As a society, we tend to choose the easy road, that is undeniable. The result is today, the mediocrity is everywhere.
“Yet all of these pale in comparison to classical music, which has used white guilt to exist for over a century beyond its relevance.”
Beyond its relevance?. Everything you listen to today, is extracted from classical music. It is a very simplified and mundane version. I’m sorry that you can’t recognize that you are listening to the same harmonic progression over and over again with lyrics that are pretty stupid to be honest.
Having said that, I have to admit that white people seem to have taken ownership over Classical Music and that’s a shame, because they are usually stuck up snobs. And it is a shame because most composers were poor, so it had nothing to do with economic status, they wrote the music out of love and for the sake of art. Too many people hate the music before even giving it a try. There are so many periods, styles within classical music, that I’m sure anyone would find something they like.
I agree with everything you said here other than the stuck up snobs comment. Also, this whole thing is funnier than true, I live in NY and see a lot of non-white enjoying classical music.
You should know that Philip Glass actually falls under the same category as John Williams/Danny Elfman! Pop music with instruments used in the classical era.
No. He falls under minimalism.
You’re a fucking dumb cunt
You, sir, are complete moron. I happen to really enjoy classical music. Not all of it, of course. I prefer Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Dvorak. Hell, even John Williams composes some really remarkable pieces. But, to say that white people, ALL white people, pretend to enjoy classical is just about the most asinine statement I’ve heard in quite some time. It’s clear you have no taste for it, and that’s fine. But, why assume others don’t as well? You’re clearly a very limited, and ignorant, person. Fuck you.
Wow, seeing a lot of people getting upset. Guess we can add satire to the list of stuff cranky white people don’t like.
will, just because some white people don’t find this post as hilarious as you apparently do, doesn’t mean they’re cranks who don’t like satire. It’s just that this isnt satire, which, by definition, rests on a premise,* and if the premise doesn’t hold up, as the commenters here argue, then neither does the satire. The stuff-white-people-like guy hits the nail on the head often, but this time he’s wide of the mark, projecting his own failure to appreciate a wonderful art form onto his fellow caucasians, wallowing in (trading on) his his gift for snarkiness because he’s too narrow-minded or lazy to learn to appreciate the cerebral/ sensual/spiritual/powerfully emotional experience that classical music can be.
*satire: the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2. a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
3. a literary genre comprising such compositions.
How about the classical guitar?
Almost every one likes listening to it.
The composition is not copyrighted but the performance is. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I actually am a classical violinist, and have been for almost 12 years. I have to say, this is fairly accurate, except not only do they pay for tickets, most likely the people that still go to a Symphony concert are donors.
Stopped reading at “past its relevance.”
This article is bull. I started going to classical music concerts because the music teacher insisted we go. I expected to be bored to death, but after I went about three times, it started to get to me. That was when I was 13, 51 years ago. Since then I’ve gone to countless symphony performances, operas, and ballets, and enjoyed them all immensely. Opera eg is the olympics of singing – everything else sounds pedestrian to me now.
One more comment – I can’t stomach violin concertos. LOL
Hello fellow readers! Personally as a non-White, I appreciate and I enjoy Classical music, though being a Classical listening beginner 🙂
Classical music imo is quite complex comparing to mainstream musicians, particularly Lil Wayne, LMFAO, etc.
It is a refreshing change, enchanting the commercially dreaded and weary individuals constantly bombarded with bleary brand-new (although not bright imo) beats 😛 😀
Lol dont take this blog so seriously..there are elements of truth to it which is what makes it so hilarious, but of course it doesnt apply to those of us well versed in classical music. humor was the main goal not accuracy…lol
Yaaaaa – it’s all a big joke. If someone posted a similar “funny” article entitled “Stuff Black People Like”, the PC Police would be screaming “racism”.
Not if it was written by a black person. You know the author is white, right?
White uncle toms exist – duhhhh, who woulda thunk it.
Violin concertos are too long. If you want some virtuosity on an instrument without suffering from your ADD kicking in, try a concerto for a brass instrument.
The problem most people seem to face when it comes to classical music is the misperception that it’s for rich white folk that don’t know what to do with their money. To anybody that hasn’t sat down and listened to a Mahler symphony, try it and get back to me. There is so much more going on in that piece of music that was written 100 years ago than there is in pretty much any piece of music that is popular today.
Here’s another sarcastic negative view of white people depicting all white people as insecure, snobby, ignorant people. I’m not wasting any more time on this site. I like classical music. I’m interested in it. I haven’t had any formal education in it- so why would I pretend to be all knowing of it? It so happens that “I thnk” that before 1900 or so classical music and regional foik music were the mainstays of any culture. I’d say that means there is a real history of classical music- something that does take a long time to be knowledgeable of and there’s no harm in being curious and wanting to learn it! BYE.
It constantly amazes me about this site how many people do not seem to understand THIS IS A HUMOROUS ARTICLE! It is a funny website satiring white liberal people. Are people really this dumb? This guy would have a million bucks if there someone gave him a dollar for every offended comment on here.
This is about right from my experience. I don’t particularly like classical music but I’ve been given a few tickets to symphonies and ballets and went because I thought it was a “cultured” thing to do. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it either and I’ve gotten over the “guilt” of not really being into it. Besides, I think my hearing is too damaged to really hear the nuances everyone talks about. Too me it’s just kinda noise.
This was funny..but I guess I am one of those white people who really enjoys classical music. It’s my favorite music. But, since when is it cool to act like you enjoy classical music? I was always under the impression that admitting you like classical makes you seem like a dork or nerd. Maybe I was wrong.
Oh, and if you ask most people who their favorite classical composer is, they will always say Beethoven (or sometimes, Mozart). It’s true, everyone likes 5th symphony or Moonlight Sonata..because it’s popular, and they aren’t too familiar with other songs xD
Back in the day, Nonesuch records made it cool to like classical music. The industry seems to be nothing these days to promote it. A shame, really.
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Yeah… This blog has nothing to do with me as a white person. I enjoy the things I’m “not supposed to” and I don’t enjoy the things “I’m supposed to”. This is the pinnacle of that which I DO enjoy, be it an operatic piece (Carmen, Lakme, Ave Maria) or a symphonic (Symphony 40 (Mozart), Beethoven’s 5th and 9th, In The Hall Of The Mountain King (Greig), Symphony 2 (Schubert)), or a classic piano piece, (Etude Op. 10 No. 3, Prelude Suffocation, Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 by Chopin, Impromptu Op. 90 No. 2 & 4 by Schubert, Piano Concerto No. 1 by Grieg). Yeah… I actually enjoy classical music. And hey, guess what? I don’t go around preaching that I do. However, I will defend myself when someone (albeit generalizing) says I don’t….
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I feel like for asians to be accepted into western societies they play classical music. Hence the many asians who attend concerts, play instruments, and are knowledgeable about classical music history.
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sometimes i feel like the only person who legitimately enjoys classical music =( Anything from the romantic era… Tchaikovsky, Liszt, whatever… but no worries, I’m not gonna put someone down for tryin to be interested in classical (fuck those pretentious snobs who do) i’ll gladly talk about it with anyone who gives a shit!
Peace
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The following is “MY” personal take on music since many others feel free to “voice”. I’m now 52. I’m white and happy with my race; though I do feel quite separated at times because of my unique appreciation of antiquated, yet “real” music. Since the early 1980’s I’ve regularly listened to Mozart & Bach. Most every day I listen to Mozart piano concertos and have several versions of all of them. I very much enjoy the fortepiano and historical instrument recordings. The melodies from these master works play in my mind almost constantly. I abhor much modern music since I feel that anti-musicianship makes it a reachable occupation for non-musical persons these days. For example, to me, rap is not to be confused with music since its simply brash chants with a repetitive mind numbing beat. In regards to modern vocal style I feel it’s nothing more than a shouting match of young persons. I’m not attempting to generalize since there are some new and modern true-talents which range from vocal to instrumental; from pop to hard-rock genres.
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A very interesting read. I always felt that classical and jazz music shared many timbres and psychoacoustics to the trained ear. What do you think? Here is a link to my music: http://www.frankholdermusic.com/
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If this article is meant to be funny, it severely misses the mark. And what exactly has “pretending” to like classical music got to do with white guilt? Surely if you are the type of pathetic soul who suffers from “white guilt”, then you’d pretend to like all types of black music?
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I like classical music, I like Rock, I like all sorts of music, I generally can’t tell you who wrote what. This applies to classical or anything else. I do not like going to concerts especially classical music. I like to listen to it in my car or around the house. I like it coming out of speakers from across the room, not ear buds jammed in my ears. I like music because I like it, not because it is popular, modern, or because I am white. I also do not listen to or do things to be “ironic” whatever that means.
Oh and John Williams is one of my favorite composers, Classical music started out as the “sound track” for plays, and other things so film score composers are just modern day classical music composers.
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I am white as f***… and started with Mahler because I’ve heard white people are supposed to love Mahler.
I actually love Mahler’s music and a lot more. And fancy I know a bit or two about it after ten years.
When I first started going to the Symphony I was very careful to enjoy every piece even when I did not.
Now I admit freely that I love, love, love Mahler’s symphonies, Brahms’s solo piano works (but please no Brahms symphonies for me), and most of Philip Glass (granted, I tend to listen to Glass mostly after smoking a lot of certain federally restricted but locally legalized plant). I also admit that I tried and failed at understanding what Steven Stucky is about. I’d genuinely like to meet a genuine Steven Stucky fan, I suspect they might be rarer than Comodo Dragons. But hey, New York Philharmonic plays Steven Stucky, so, as a Very, Very White Person, I gotta hide and pretend I also enjoy, admire, and understand whatever he calls music 🙂
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Terrible generalizations about one of the greatest art forms to ever exist. Take it from a young man deeply invested in the ‘subculture’, entirely out of love.
I only go to classical presentation if they are free , provide a wet bar and a buffet that my girl friend can steal food from to eat over the next three days . I try to avoid valet parking because the last time someone parked my car they scuffed my rims which I have not finished paying for yet . I won’t go back to the city symphony because , they ejected me for repeatedly dropping the F-bomb while on the phone with my child’s mother . As a matter of fact I probably won’t go back until they recognize the important influence which black Americans made to such undeserving white , cracker ass music pirates like Haydn , Clementi and Mozart . And , some racist , honkey , southern inbred redneck must have written this article because , Beethoven is NOT a classical artist . He is from the romantic era (you , illiterate ungrateful cracker) . Shooooot !
I am googling this topic because I don’t understand why people do this. What makes me curious is when I met my friend, she said she only liked classical music but when I was in her car she played pop music 24/7. I don’t care what she listens to bu it was the inconsistency that I didn’t understand. It seems to be a form of name dropping. A way to market yourself.
Hilarious! As a professor of classical music, a classical pianist, and conductor, I thank you!
Sadly, there was a time (and it was not that long ago) where most white people actually DID have a keen understanding and appreciation of classical music and the opera. Why? it was taught in school, encouraged by parents, and could be heard in a myriad of media and venues. Then, something terrible happened called the 1960’s. I don’t have to tell you what happened next. This lead eventually to MTV around 1980 and all hope of having a society with at least a modicum of taste or musical discernment was destroyed forever. Those of us left have to keep in hiding, meet in caves and deep forests, or abandoned buildings to hear, or discuss the glorious creations of musical genius.
Thanks, again.
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ur jus a judgmental asshole
As A Captain I often fake like listening to this garbage. It is important that I like important, see a white thing in itself. It is the only choice for a guy like me. now lets talk fingering a real art
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