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Originally Posted by atsonicpark
Interesting, I'm not too big of a fan either but I didn't know if I just wasn't trying hard enough.
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I know a lot of people don't like this line of thinking, but part of the thing with classical music is that it's not necessarily a visceral, primal pleasure but more often 'academic' (in a loose sense). It took me
ages to get the hang of R Strauss on an emotional level, but I was sat there for a while going 'but it's clearly very good'. I think with classical music - and a lot of 'art' music in general - it's kind of ok to not feel like something is 'beautiful' but to admire the construction, playing and so on in a cerebral sense.
I don't think this means that you need to have formal training in music theory (I certainly don't have that), and classical music isn't meant to be a museum piece, but a little bit of standing back from the visceral thrills of rock music is important.
On that note, something like Xenakis appeals to a lot of people on this board because, on the surface, it seems very similar to a lot of white noise-type stuff. I've been writing something with a mate recently about how Xenakis' most important contribution to music doesn't really occur in the sound produced (which would require astonishing hearing to seriously differentiate between a 'good' and a 'bad' recording, in terms of his tone-cloud stuff) but is mostly about the abstract, theoretical
ideas of his composition. But yeah, I think Xenakis is doing something far too complex to be appreciated purely as the 'surface noise' (although, obviously, it's fine to appreciate it like that).