In another thread we were debating the merits of rock music as an art form... I will show how this clearly can be stated... First, I realize many jazz, classical and even blues purists stick their noses up at rock and consider it an inferior musical form... In reality rock has often reached the heights of masterpiece level art...

Here is my inscrutable insightful opinion, lol:

The plain and simple truth is, what is considered by most the great works of classical music (say anything pre-1960 and back to the days of the great classical composers) and what would be considered the great works of jazz (also most of which is pre 1960 with some coming in the 60's and 70's too) are both limited in sound... This is simply due to the advances in technology... The acoustic sounds of the standard jazz line-up or even the most sophosticated classical symphony (as used by most composers) can't touch the range of sounds created since the huge advances in studio and electronics since the late 1950's... This isn't to take anything away from the masterpieces in both those styles of music... Those styles (along with blues, gospel and regional folk music) set the template for ALL that followed in western music... And many great works of musical art exist in those styles... But for me those styles can only take you so far in music... I need more...

My point is that because of the advances in sound sculpture since the late 1950's and the experiements in those sounds, rock music (and its many offshoots) has been able to create works of music as great as any that came before... I personally love the almost infinite sounds that can be achieved with the solid body electric guitar (thank you Les Paul, Link Wray, Jeff Beck and other trailblazers)... I also like what technology has created in music to the human voice (through various modern studio technique and technology)... When you combine this wide variety of sound (using the guitar and voice) and combine them with a wide variety of other instrumentation, you at times get masterpiece level art... Classical music as it was used by the legedary composers of the genre, didn't have the technology of today (what might have Mahler done with a 128 track studio and all the gadgets to go with it?)... Who knows...

As far as jazz, many artists since the mid 50's have incorporated modern studio craft and other instrumentation to various levels of success (just as rock artists have)... But to deny the best of rock its stature is either ignorance or simple difference in taste. If you like only simplistic organic sound of the standard symphonic orchestra, that is fine... Most people I know who have been properly exposed to both rock and classical have found masterpiece level work in both... Same goes for jazz... I just personally find jazz and classical music too limiting in sound... Why the well known classical masters never incorportated more varitey of percussion I'll never understand.. Some of them (and most post 1800) surely would have had access to them (but that is another topic)... I am amazed how Beethoven was able to write music for instruments that were not even able to play what he wrote (I guess he realized there would be advancements in some of the horn sections he created)...

Anywho, the basics are this... I may love the sound of the cello (which I do), but the sound of the cello can only take you so far (even with alternate tunings)... I mean really, how many instruments are used in a standard orchestra. Only about 20 or so... Oh sure, there are variations here or there, and there are multiple players on many of them, but really you are only getting 20 or so instruments... Thus the sound created by these instruments (without sound alteration) is limited... Listen to perhaps 20 or 30 of your favorite rock songs, just the guitar alone probably sounds different in every song (unless your 20 favorite songs all come from one artist who doesn't vary their approach)... Just on the Beatles album Revolver you will hear more sounds than on most any classical recording... I am not talking about structure, melody, technique, traditional use of harmony, or time signature... I am talking about the ability of electric instruments, voice and studio craft being able to create sounds that were impossible to do so (or were not perfected) prior to 1955ish...

Now, many since the emergence of studio and electronic technology have experimented in all genre, and once again in my opinion the greatest achievements have come in the rock genre... The use of classical insutruments as well as instruments from all over the world and the incorporations of other reginal folk music into rock has given rock music the ability to create a wealth of musical masterpieces...

As far as blues, gospel or simple folk music I think rock (and its offshoots like soul, funk and other forms) have eclipsed everything ever done in those earlier forms... Even creating the pureness of the original human feel those forms first worked in... (but that is just my opinion. I don't have any problem with anyone just loving gospel, blues, bluegrass or whatever... Those forms have helped give rock what it has and many artists in those forms are great. But overall those forms are too limiting for my ears)...

Once again, I am not saying there aren't masterpieces in classical or jazz or other older forms of music, just that the purists of jazz and classical must hear that rock has also created many great pieces of musical art as well...

My personal tastes often lean to rock more than any other form due to the sounds rock music can provide... There are times when I'd rather hear the heaviness of a section of Beethoven's music to that of Zeppelin or Metallica, just as there are times I like the aural landscape created by many obscure psychedelic artists over that of Coltrane...

My whole point is, great music can come in any form... Denying rock's greatness (in its' best works) is simply ignorance or arrogance created by cultural pressures...



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I would imagine most hard core rock fans have no problem with my original post... And feel free to quote from it in any debate you find yourself in down the road when someone says rock music is too limited a form of music...

The truth is, all previous music forms were the ones that were limited because they simply could not create the myriad of sounds made available by modern (post 1955ish) studio and equipment technology...

Rock owes everything to those earlier forms in terms of song craft... Thankfully we have experienced many great artists since the 50's who have taken music to a higher level through the melting pot of sound we call rock...


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This I can agree with

However,


this I feel is nonsense. More important than what sounds are used, is what is played, and even more important: how it is played (including the soul of music which is often hard to grasp). People have always been able to play every note they wanted, at every time they wanted, in every way they wanted (disregarding virtuosity & stuff like that to make my point). How can you call that limited?

Rock music "sounds limiting" in a different way.

Rock musicians cannot (or just don't) write harmonically advanced music. They sometimes try, but it ends up sounding awkward and pathetically two-dimensional.

I was raised on rock music and have no problem with it, but I understand its place in the big picture.

Hate to break it to you, but Pierre Schaeffer (the first person to use backwards recordings in a piece of music), Pierre Henry, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen were the ones who experimented in the electronic medium first. Might want to look up Iannis Xenakis and Edgard Varèse while you're at it. I believe Stockhausen makes an appearance on Sgt. Pepper's!

Rock musicians are just given credit for it. Must be nice.

I didn't intend my list to be all inclusive. Sorry to hear that it was all news to you.

What you say about technology is true, in a way. Kind of sad that rock musicians consistently do so little with so many resources.

People avoid Classical and Jazz because it's too demanding to listen to.

Judging artistic merit based on timbral variety alone is very shallow. Also convenient for people who don't want to take the time to study music (oh, how people would make fun of you!).

Rock is a unique form of music. There's a lot of interesting things that have been done with it. I'm just annoyed when people try to discard everything outside of that particular genre.

Now all of a sudden you start with this "all forms of music are great"


Completely different from your tone earlier. Already trying to backpedal?

Rock music still has not surpassed the harmonic and structural complexities of the most basic forms of "Classical" music. This isn't even remotely debatable.

I'm culturally pressured to deny rock music's greatness? It's practically forced down my throat by society 24-7.


This really makes no sense. Sound effects are the cherries on top of the cake. Where's the cake? You can't merely record a three chord ditty with modern equipment and assume that, no matter what, it will be as brilliant as Mahler's Ninth.

By the way, rock scholar, "elitist" is just a magic word used to demoralize someone who has something to say that you don't like. Why not commie? Fascist?

Remember, you claimed that all forms of music are inferior to rock n' roll (and only because of the GEAR used to make the sounds!). So who's really elitist? Isn't all this technology really just a crutch for most people anyway?

Anyway, I listen to as much rock music as anyone else does. I'm no purist in any sense of the word! I probably listen to a lot of rock music that's a little too intense for an old chap stuck in the 60s.

The mind opens and closes a little too fast for some.

i wonder how many rock musicians would be able to answer the question 'what is music?' with something that doesn't define song.

but a more pertinent question is.... just what rock pieces compare with the timeless classics? stairway? a day in the life? time? smells like teen spirit? my sharona? or how about whip it!?

i'm not going to be foolish enough to try to deny the cultural significance of rock music BUT the vast majority of what we consider popular rock music was created for one purpose. the term 'music' is simply stuck to the business.

...actually the real reason why most people start playing rock music is to get laid.

It is beyond ludicrous to even, for a moment, take this seriously. I do not dispute your knowledge of rock music, and never will, although I have cautioned in the recent and not so recent past against a bias towards what is commonly referred to as "classic rock." But this is beyond reasonable, and really beyond opinion here. The simple fact is that rock music has not at all explored music in the level of depth that many other forms have. Jazz music, and classical music are just two of these forms. I won't go so far as to say that rock is a "dumbed down" form of music; that pushes the hyperbole in the opposite direction.

On the way in today, I was listening to the Bill Evans trio Complete Village Vanguard recordings. Piano, bass, drums, 3 of the better artists you may find in the early 60's jazz period. Now Evans is hardly a mathematician, but I defy you, right now, to come up with anything the Beatles or Pink Floyd did that could match that in complexity.

And how about John Coltrane, who many guitarists could match "note for note?" Do you want to actually compare what he did on the tenor to anything Jimi Hendrix did? Page? Townshend? Yngwie, with some tab, could certainly handle a solo, but what would that prove? That man is what he is, and I am certainly more premissive of his style than most here, but he can't even handle a blues solo. Transposing the solos from "My Favorite Things" to guitar would prove absolutely nothing. Coltrane preferred a quartet setting much of his later years, does that make Plays 33% better than Waltz For Debby?

I have no problems with anyone syaing they like rock better, or hip-hop better, or radio-pop better, than other forms of music. And yes, rock can be, and often is, great. But to say that other forms of music are limited because they don't employ synthesizers or electric guitars is really, really inaccurate. Most defintely you need to familiarize yourself with more jazz before you could come to a conclusion. I am not as well-versed in classical music outside of the Baroque period and a few Beethoven symphonies - this is a glaring weakness in my case - but there can be absolutely no question that the level of detail in the arrangements for an entire orchestra of ANY size by any of the great composers, even without great studio production we have today, far eclipses anything rock has thrown our way.

Some things should be obvious, instead of merely true.

every note, yes perhaps, but electronic music for example has not always been doable. with new technology comes new possibilities.
as i understood it, you were saying that bach would have been able to sound like apex twin if he wanted, for example?

or maybe you werent..

Intense conversation... just wanted to add my thoughts.

If by "good" you mean, creating musical art at the highest caliber of human aptitude... I don't think so.

I agree with that statement.


But, if by "good" you mean, enjoyable -- of course


I don't think that anyone is denying that there have been great rock pieces written... I think the ones on the classical side of the fence just think that there are either more masterpieces, or the masterpieces have more depth in the classical genre.


In the past, musicians may have given up a genre they loved for a genre that would make them money. But nowadays, many of the emerging artists have grown up listening to rock. It is only normal for their influences to be what they listened to. The "they play rock because they want money" statement is less true today than a few decades ago.

There have indeed been rock artists who have created music that rivals the classics. I think of Brian Wilson during his "SMiLE" period in the mid 60s, some items from the Beatles' later work, and Yes and a few other progressive rock groups. I think of some of Jimmy Webb's work as a very sophisticated songwriter of the rock era. But by and large, rock artists have chosen not to create works that even come close to the standards of classical music.

Sure, rock can be that good...but the vast majority of it isn't.