- Author
- Luke Muehlhauser
- Published
- Undated
- Kind
- Personal blog post, a curated listening guide with links
- Original
- lukemuehlhauser.com/how-to-fall-in-love-with-modern-classical-music-4/
- Subject
- Consonance and tuning
- Themes
- Taste and judgment, Getting good
What it is
Luke Muehlhauser wrote this guide and calls the author a fan, not an expert. It aims to help newcomers find modern classical music they might enjoy.
What it says
- The author defines modern classical as descended from 20th century classical composers, not pop.
- The post denies the music is unpopular for being harder than much rock.
- A ten-track quiz asks readers to tell rock from modern classical. The author expects chance results.
- The author suspects magazine neglect, costly concerts and few guides explain it; guides could help.
- Film scores are offered first, as more accessible because listeners know the sound.
- Minimalism, postminimalism and genre-blurring works are also offered as relatively accessible routes.
- The post calls Boulez, Carter and Stockhausen inaccessible to most listeners. It quotes Babbitt defending that.
What evidence it gives
The post offers personal anecdote, an informal listening game and many linked recordings. It quotes a music history textbook and Milton Babbitt. It gives no survey or data.
Interests and limits
This is one fan's taste and not a study. The explanation for the music's unpopularity is labeled a suspicion. The recommendations were not tested on other listeners, and the guide is undated.
Connections
These links are this wiki's own reading, not claims the sources make.
- Developing Taste. Kowalski says taste grows from exposure and from explaining why things work. Muehlhauser's guide turns exposure into a route, from film scores toward harder music. Could anyone write that route for reading code?