'The thing that blew my mind first hearing the Strokes was that they were the closest I had heard rock come to classical,' she says. 'Their music is extraordinarily orderly and composed. It's almost

But is Mozart really known for rubato? My cursory knowledge of him, based on an opera or two and my daughters's toy Mozart Cube (an excellent gift to new parents, by the way) is that his rubato ratio is low compared to, say, Puccini.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306806495/002-8012783-3903221?v=glance&n=283155

It's not the greatest book in the world...

What can I say to defend myself that won't make me sound even more over-academic and boring? Nothing.

But serious! Listen to any Mozart quartet or divertimento, even Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. You must agree, at least, that it sounds more like The Strokes than The Beach Boys or The Cars or The Zombies.

Well, yes. Puccini was also composing 100 years after Mozart was. Also, this doesn't mean Mozart never uses rubato (check, for example, "Vedrai carino" from "Don Giovanni" or "Ach, ich fuehl's" from "The Magic Flute"). Mozart was not a rigid metronome the way that someone like Bach was.

Interesting quote. Makes me wonder what she has been smoking.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), June 30th, 2006. (later)

perhaps marijuana ;-)

-- gear (speed.to.roa...), June 30th, 2006. (later)

she should've sighted some super obscure composer, not the most famous one in the world. i doubt she's really classically trained - she's not even good at being pretentious.

All the Slate piece points out is that (a) lots of people are "classically trained," and that (b) "classical trained" does not imply mastery, just study; you can study in that mold and be lousy at it. But I don't know that people are necessarily often saying it that way -- I think usually they're trying to point out that someone's frame of reference is coming from a more classical mold, whether or not there's mastery or virtuosity attached to it.

it's like saying a harvard phd and a semester at a community college is the same thing. those educations may contain some of the same elements and maybe generalizing that someone went to college might even provide some insight - but it's pretty sloppy and often employed deceptively.

Ha, the funny part is that there are plenty of places where someone would say "hey, I have a college education" and mean community college (wasn't that on the Matos stepdad thread?) -- situations where someone's presuming that kind of education to be a rare thing in general. That might be another problem with the way "classically trained" gets used. There's this idea that formal training is a rare thing in rock (which it doesn't actually seem to be, but whatever) -- but when you're talking about Tori Amos or something, I'm not sure there's any context that should lead anyone to be surprised or impressed by training. I can't really think of any style of music right now where people should be surprised to find training.

P.S. Steve, yes, OTM on arrangements -- I've always assumed the thing is that the average brain can pretty easily hold a melody and chord structure and see all that at once, whereas the more complex an arrangement gets, the more you need an actual musical language to codify and symbolize it all in your head. (Maybe there's the odd untutored genius who can hear and conceptualize that kind of thing just as raw information, but most people surely need tools to keep it under control.)

the strokes should do some ken russell "lizstomania" style mozart biopic to really fuck with regina spektor.
this thread is balls

Yes, I am indeed being patronizing and complaining about everyone's attitude, because I think people's attitudes in here are stupid and sucky and bullshit.

-- nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, July 1, 2006 7:48 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

lol i love this fucken post

when nabisco stops bein polite and starts gettin REAL~

is that guy an aspie? who makes numbered lists?

ha nabisco got really mad on this thread!

Apparently this thread inspired Owen P.'s cover of "Hard to Explain" for Stereogum.