That's where I learned about Pachmann.
BTW, not to be elitist or anything but I have a little 'review' of the book on Amazon.

I hope that's not the best example of her "ignorance."

Young people live in a completely different world today than their parents and grandparents. No longer is knowing random information (e.g. sunspots) of utmost importance. An individual's success in the future will no longer be determined by how many classical composers she can name or by her ability to quote classical literature. Success will be determined by her ability to utilize technological resources and multitask--skills that the older generations among us severely lack (despite their ability to describe a fine wine).

I see this today even in my profession (medicine). No longer are the best doctors the ones who can recite Harrison's textbook of medicine. Rather, the best doctors are those who can effectively integrate their knowledge with the vast array of technological resources available to them to come up with the best answers/solutions for their patients.

Now, I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't attempt to help younger generations appreciate the finer things in life, we just have to understand and accept that their approach to life is completely different than ours (I'm only 30 years old and I don't even pretend to understand them).

Just my $.02.

Happy New Year everyone!

If you think comments on classical piano are "bad" you should try reading some of the comments on political issues at YouTube. Truly nasty. But I like it because it shows you how people "really think" uncensored. A rare glimpse into honest thoughts ... which is just as rare. Even if they are crass.

I agree that YouTube comments are pretty much the bottom of the barrel where music criticism is concerned, but I also agree with those who see the large amount of classical music content and its viewers as a good thing.

Oh yeah.. And people are like that in real life too, if not worse. Just don't assume everybody is in this category, because there are always exceptions. I sometimes get classified as one of them before I even speak, mostly because I'm 20 and have blonde hair. @*&$%#&*$%^

What I really wonder about is, who is going to go to concerts in 30-40 years when all the old folks are gone? 90% of the audiences are composed of them.

For many years it has seemed like most of the concert audience was older than me(and I just qualified for half price subway fares in NYC! ). Lately, I seem to see more young people in the audience, many of them Asian.

It does trouble me that many of the free concerts and master classes in NYC at Mannes are poorly attended.

While I don't read You tube comments, I am aware that they are there. I am also aware that a large number of those comments are posted by those who frequently spend a lot of their lives on You tube and on other similar social-electronic websites. Those tend to be the younger, as-yet, uninformed; therefore the preponderance of the comments come from those who are not well-informed.

A more serious phenomenon that such comments reveal, however, is a breakdown in basic language skills, a breakdown that shows an increasing tendency for "net-speak" or "chat-speak" to become the communications norm. Fine-tuning of language and, hence, precision of thought and expression are giving way to ubiquitous expressions that express little more than basic "grunt" reactions because that's the limit of the eloquence of many.

Yes, language is organic and it needs to evolve with time. Sadly, some of the current changes are being effected at the expense of diction and precision. A lack of the ability to express oneself accurately can only lead to misconceptions or, eventually, to a total lack of meaningful communication.

Regards,

Oh, like, Bruce, ur totally, like, right about that stuff u talked about, u know?

I don't mind Youtube comments as long as they don't belittle the pianist in the video. I mean, if he says "song" instead of "piece" then it's okay to say "Oh, in classical music, 'song' refers to music that is sung with the voice and for non vocal works you say 'piece' or whatever specific kind of piece (etude, sonata, etc.) it is."

But if someone says on a Gilels video, "He plays that song the best!" I'll just reply with "He DOES play that piece very well, doesn't he? ;)" or something like that.

Hmm... dunno 'bout that!

C U L8r, bb

Internets: Serious business.

But really, it's the internet; YouTube is filled with 14 year old kids mostly that comment on these videos.

It's really easy to make a YouTube account and post comments.
A lot of them just like to troll on people's videos to make people upset and flood the comment pages with internet fights.

It's the internet though people; on YouTube, you can easily become famous and easily fade into darkness even more quicker. It's not meant for seriousness. It's about as constructive and reliable as Wikipedia. Enjoy the good comments even the "SOunds good, lolz." and ignore the "Yeah, my friend can better than you, lol." comments.

.....and I would say that as per the rest of your post, it never really was, and to the extent that it sort of was, it shouldn't have been.


Although I do happen to like when people also know about stuff like sunspots.


I'm a colleague, and I'd say that the best doctors never were the ones who could recite Harrison's etc. Those were the ones who were at the top of their classes, and probably most of them really were very good, but the rote factual stuff was overrated. BTW.....back in the day I was on committees and task forces that worked toward revising the MCAT and National Board exams to reflect what we might call more enlightened thinking, and I think we had a certain amount of success. From what I can tell, the current MCAT and National Board exams do indeed reflect more of what we would call relevance.

I remember that when I took the MCAT, much of the stuff on the "General Information" section was beyond esoteric, and meant little. I didn't even do well on the classical music questions, because almost all of them were about OPERA! And although I was a huge sports nut, I missed at least one of the sports questions because I didn't know enough about POLO.

P.S. I still have my copiously-annotated copy of Harrison's.


Mine too.

I worry about that.
And......this is a little off the subject, but every now and then when I see something like the following, I feel encouraged.
It's a couple of spiffy college kids just jamming and doing a near-world-class duo performance of a super-hard Alkan etude. You can feel the fun and camaraderie. Could it be that with people like that, classical music and classical musicians might eventually be seen as COOL?



P.S. There's also a youtube video of one of them playing the etude by himself.

Very well said! Those people also have the urge to show the world that they know something, so they need to post constantly in any newsgroup that they belong. When people misstated something, they must be the first one who corrects. Those who know are quiet! There is a chinese proverb, a half full can sounds noisy, the full one does not make any noise.

Now I do not trust what people post in this newsgroup, I listen to their playing first, then I can believe what he or she said.

Like Mark Cannon, he really knows what he is talking about, his playing talks loudly about his ability. He is not an internet pianist. He did a lot of posting within a few months of joinging this group. But his postings are great to help others.

In my experience the comment pages on youtube at piano videos are really not that bad... especially when compared to more popular video subjects.
There's still a large part of comments expressing appreciation for the music. Sometimes there are even interesting and informative comments, or imaginative descriptions of the emotion or atmosphere of a certain piece.
Yes, there are also rude posters, flamers and spammers, even at piano videos, but you know.. it's the internet.. you have to deal with it and learn to ignore it.

I agree. The ones I have trouble with are the rude nasty comments made just to be... rude and nasty. Someone has taken the time to post their or someone else's playing and some little bastard who could probably care less about music comes on and rips the person up. It's the fact they can hide behind an alias that gives them this courage.

You have discovered the art of internet "trolling" and "e-thugging" I presume.

Any decently smart person would ignore these neanderthals and listen to the majority of the comments (which are usually positive and constructive). We seem to ignore the 99% of good comments but we are so bothered by the 1% that's bad for some reason.

You have to wonder what kind of lives these type of people have. I mean - why do that? Is life that bad you have to sit by a computer and tear apart others just for sport?

I saw one comment the other day which seemed to sum it up. It was 'What's this sh*t doing here? Kids don't like this sh*t. Get it off. Where's Beyonce, Miley Cyrus? That's what we want to see. Not this sh*t'

I feel compelled to go back to what started this thread:



cardguy: I can't come up with a single reason why you'd think these are the best and the brightest.

Because they're listening to classical music on youtube??

I thought I was nuts for reading that incredible book around 50 times, or at least it has seemed that way. I think I can quote large amounts of it for memory. Truly a landmark work belonging in the collection of every member here.

IMO Arthur Loesser's book 'Men, Women & Pianos' is also required reading, though it takes a very different approach than Schonberg. And at times, Loesser has a sense of humour which can all of a sudden creep up at the most unexpected moments. Delicious stuff.

Dude, I thought you guys were talking about Arnold Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony or Fundamentals of Musical Composition. I was thinking... 50 times? 200 times?

A little research later, and I get it: you're talking about Harold Schonberg's Great Pianists. Which I've seen, but don't really know anything about. Thanks for the recommendation!

-Jason

(p.s. Mark: This is off-topic, but since you don't PM I'll put it here: I noticed on Amazon your review of Nabokov's Pale Fire. A masterpiece, you call it. Are you familiar with the hilarious and bizarre allusion of the novel's title?)

LOL Jason, you are funny. (BTW, I always enjoy your intelligent contributions here.)

Yeah, at uni I studied a fair amount of Schoenberg (Moses and Aaron for starters), but it never really communicated to me as I suppose it should have. As a mathematician I could see where it would appeal to you. I did, however, make a fairly decent analysis of the violin concerto (but could I have the Elgar instead? -which I have extensively analyzed) and once in piano class I was called upon to sightread the opening of the piano concerto- I was picked on without warning! I think I managed okay... my classmates were a bit impressed, but I've always had a modest talent for sight-reading. De rigueur for a church musician. Cheers...

My copy (which I've read many times) was a gift from a singer I was accompanying, more years ago than I care to number. Lovely voice - alas, she died far too young.

Not to continue an off-topic discussion that ended a while ago, but after reading about Pachmann in The Great Pianists (many times...), I got curious enough to see if he really did gloat during his performances. Sure enough, for those that haven't heard it.

Thanks guys for book recommendation. In just a few clicks I have ordered in from my local library, it was checked in!! Also grabbed the Horror-wits biography by same author. Can't wait to get into some great holiday reading, Yay!

That's a sad story currawong - it must be a special book for you.

Call it elitism if you must, but, presenting opinion factually, correctly and intelligently, is anything, BUT. It is NOT elitist, to use proper terminology. The "song" used as an example by the OP, is NOT a song at all, and were you to "friendly and enthusiastically" mention to Frederic Chopin, that his "song" (said etude) was a brilliant work, I have no doubt that he would dismiss you as easily as I'm sure he was able to tear through Op. 10 No. 1. With the vast wealth of information available these days to anyone with an IQ, there is, absolutely, no reason for the abundant ignorance that runs so rampant (surprisingly so) around, seemingly, every corner. There is NO better place, that I can think of, to witness blatant ignorance, in action, at it's finest, than the comments sections provided on YouTube. Some of the things I've read there (and I've sworn I don't know how many times that I'll never scroll down that far again) absolutely amaze me. The cultural demise at hand, is, quite simply, the result of impatience, lack of respect, and laziness.

I get irritated when I watch something on youtube and in the comments about a song (non-classical) by my favorite artist there are just tons of comments full of "facts" about them which I know aren't true, and anyone who took the effort to google it would know.

I also find it annoying that on youtube so many people think that "f---y--" is a valid arguement and that it actually proves a point.

I always think this video is funny.

Just watched! thanks phlebas.

Altho i played this moonlight song when i was like 13 for my exam and I put more emotion in it but yeh ur pretty good =) "not as good as the original" -?%#*&#@!