Pretentious music??

Here in Eastern Europe the word pretentious as it applies to music, simply means that it is a kind of music requiring technical prowess. There is nothing positive or negative about it. It just is what it is. This is also the first place I've heard the word without the negative connotation.

For example Stravinky's Rite of Spring is pretentious to a Romanian, as is much of the music composed by Enescu, their most beloved composer. But they also consider the stupidly bloated, intricate and hated Soviet propaganda symphonies of the 60s pretentious as well.
 
Here in Eastern Europe the word pretentious as it applies to music, simply means that it is a kind of music requiring technical prowess. There is nothing positive or negative about it. It just is what it is. This is also the first place I've heard the word without the negative connotation.

For example Stravinky's Rite of Spring is pretentious to a Romanian, as is much of the music composed by Enescu, their most beloved composer. But they also consider the stupidly bloated, intricate and hated Soviet propaganda symphonies of the 60s pretentious as well.

nice and well put. skål!
 
Couldn't you argue that most music is really pretentious and there are only the few who are really great artists? In that sense, the others are just pretending to be artists. :p

... In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with pretense in music.

Here in Eastern Europe the word pretentious as it applies to music, simply means that it is a kind of music requiring technical prowess. There is nothing positive or negative about it. It just is what it is. This is also the first place I've heard the word without the negative connotation.

I think you guys have hit the spot that I've found perplexing. That's it ... why should alleged pretension in music be necessarily a bad thing? At best it's inspired, inspiring, entertaining and can take you off on a fantastic journey.

As I said, I like lots of music that's called pretentious. When I put myself in the artists' shoes I imagine them in a studio, beating the song into shape, which is something all musos who play arranged music do. Why not add an orchestra to make dramatic or showband music sound grandiose if you are lucky enough to be able to access the lushness and power an orchestra can provide?

If artists like to play three chords with distortion and shout crudiities or if they want to go the full monty and create a massive pseudo-orchestral piece, or if they want to adopt a quasi-alien stage look, in a way it's all the same thing - just doing stuff that gives them good feelings.

Henry Cow is my flavour of the month - just bought the box set. The music knocks me out even if some of the lyrics are dramatic with a presumption that we know our Greek mythology (uh, I'm a big fan of the original 1981 Clash of the Titans) - from Beautiful as the Moon:

Careworn and all alone - First days
Charon the unborn - Days erased
Death: Venus unfurled -
The world we lost we found - spoiled
No sun No birds No stars No form

Evened we are fallen all before time
Lief lorn we unlearn all crime
Lives - levelled as lies
A star mourns souls ungraved - ignored
Slow wheels: Mira. Algol. Maia​

It's pretentious and I don't care, especially when I hear the compelling emotion Dagmar puts into it. Nor do I care that they were crazily idealistic Commies (I'm sure they meant well). There's there's Chris Cutler's pretentious-looking drumming that's hugely entertaining to watch and listen to. Bring it on, I say :)
 
in a way it's all the same thing - just doing stuff that gives them good feelings.

Aha! I think I have an answer...

Pretention is when people make music that doesn't really give them good feelings in order that other people might like it! Insincerity! That's pretention.
 
Aha! I think I have an answer...

Pretension is when people make music that doesn't really give them good feelings in order that other people might like it! Insincerity! That's pretension.

Good one. We tend to think of it in that way, don't we? There is a notion of sincerity tied into the question.

Polly, I bet you wouldn't be surprised to find that your question could be construed as gendered. Pretense-female, objectivity - male.

Going back to Stravinsky, he saw music that was overly ornate and orchestrated as female and 'less than.' He even criticized his own teacher, Rimsky- Korsakov for relying too heavily on orchestration. Stravinsky liked the more rugged teutonic masculine writing of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. But it is the heavily orchestrated Firebird ballet that most people remember from Stravinsky.

Zappa actually belongs to the objectivist camp. It is an interesting question to ask; but he saw his avant-garde works as the real deal and songs even as great as Yellow Snow were just stuff he had to do. That may be an extreme but certainly Valley Girl would fall in that commercializing mold.

There was a point with prog where I came about the same realization, it is the pretension that makes it fun. It was the earlier silly Crimson that I always liked more than the later stuff with Wetton. When they start to take themselves too seriously it gets lost.(That was that generation though. They were a very serious bunch.)
 
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although i play it, i always saw jazz as a pretentious form of music....a lot of musicians are too proud to say that they are "jazz musicians"
 
although i play it, i always saw jazz as a pretentious form of music....a lot of musicians are too proud to say that they are "jazz musicians"

Not around these parts.......always think of it as a purely honest expression of music from the heart without the pretense banner attached to it......... just me

Proud to call myself a jazz musician!
 
although i play it, i always saw jazz as a pretentious form of music....a lot of musicians are too proud to say that they are "jazz musicians"
The type of music isn't pretentious, It's musicians that are pretentious!
You can't blame the genre, No Matter What Music Type It Is! It happens in all genres.
 
Not around these parts.......always think of it as a purely honest expression of music from the heart without the pretense banner attached to it......... just me

Proud to call myself a jazz musician!

Yes, I actually did'nt say what I really meant, like always!

I meant jazz listeners who don't actually play it. I don't know why but if you play it, you seem to be humbled by it, but sitting around in jazz clubs sipping wine at 20years old or so....well a lot of those people sem like posers to me. Kind of like teenagers who try and act all chilled because hendrix did it, you know?..but then again, I'm just lumping people in with each other.

I'm just speaking from experience, i know a guitarist who wanted to hit every club for the jazz fest, i said " but you don't like jazz"....."yes i do!!"...."name me one jazz song or play me one jazz chord on you're guitar"...."haha no"

I really hate pretentious posers...even more than wiggers, they is cool!

then again a lot of music requires you to act pretentious when you are talking about it! You can't exactly say "that was a slammin' E sharp" when talking about Beethoven's moonlight sonata now can you? haha, imagine if people spoke like that about orchesteral music!
 
The type of music isn't pretentious, It's musicians that are pretentious!
You can't blame the genre, No Matter What Music Type It Is! It happens in all genres.

Well experience has taught me in one corner you have the "talkers" {really pretentious folks at times}..and in the other corner the actual players {getting about just playing the music honestly from the heart without pretense}.

No genre is exempt from this observation i've noted in life Bob agreed....
 
Yes, I actually did'nt say what I really meant, like always!

I meant jazz listeners who don't actually play it. I don't know why but if you play it, you seem to be humbled by it, but sitting around in jazz clubs sipping wine at 20years old or so....well a lot of those people sem like posers to me. Kind of like teenagers who try and act all chilled because hendrix did it, you know?..but then again, I'm just lumping people in with each other.

I'm just speaking from experience, i know a guitarist who wanted to hit every club for the jazz fest, i said " but you don't like jazz"....."yes i do!!"...."name me one jazz song or play me one jazz chord on you're guitar"...."haha no"

I really hate pretentious posers...even more than wiggers, they is cool!

Fully understood now on your POV and in full aggreement........
 
Yes, I actually did'nt say what I really meant, like always!

I meant jazz listeners who don't actually play it. I don't know why but if you play it, you seem to be humbled by it, but sitting around in jazz clubs sipping wine at 20years old or so....well a lot of those people sem like posers to me. Kind of like teenagers who try and act all chilled because hendrix did it, you know?..but then again, I'm just lumping people in with each other.

I'm just speaking from experience, i know a guitarist who wanted to hit every club for the jazz fest, i said " but you don't like jazz"....."yes i do!!"...."name me one jazz song or play me one jazz chord on you're guitar"...."haha no"

I really hate pretentious posers...even more than wiggers, they is cool!

then again a lot of music requires you to act pretentious when you are talking about it! You can't exactly say "that was a slammin' E sharp" when talking about Beethoven's moonlight sonata now can you?
The man who introduced me to jazz never played a musical instrument of any kind! He simply loved jazz! He would sit in his recliner almost every night and listen while he read. He was a brilliant engineer who worked in the aviation industry. He was my best friends father. He understood the music and he explained many things about it to me.
 
The man who introduced me to jazz never played a musical instrument of any kind! He simply loved jazz! He would sit in his recliner almost every night and listen while he read. He was a brilliant engineer who worked in the aviation industry. He was my best friends father. He understood the music and he explained many things about it to me.

That's clearly not the kind of "listener" Bosphorus was referring to Bob. Know folks like that myself who don't play but have offered some good insights on music.

He was covering the social standing {status symbol} types that are all over the music with what they have to say about it to gain the one up over others but really don't dig the sounds in real life they're on about one bit. Now THAT's pretentious human behavior.....
 
That's clearly not the kind of "listener" Bosphorus was referring to Bob. Know folks like that myself who don't play but have offered some good insights on music.

He was covering the social standing types that are all over the music with what they have to say about it to gain the one up over others but really don't dig the sounds in real life they're on about one bit. Now THAT's pretentious human behavior.....
I was just making a point that all listeners aren't pretentious. This man truly understood and knew what he was talking about. He never said anything that wasn't a fact. He never criticized, He just gave insight! He would travel to New Orleans frequently with his job. He saw many of the greats play many times. He was a true gracious fan of the music. He just didn't play!
 
I was just making a point that all listeners aren't pretentious. This man truly understood and knew what he was talking about. He never said anything that wasn't a fact. He never criticized, He just gave insight! He would travel to New Orleans frequently with his job. He saw many of the greats play many times. He was a true gracious fan of the music. He just didn't play!

Sounds great! Like I say know many of those folks I meet each year a festival concerts and such from across the country and who come up from the other side of the border. Really focused critical listeners {non-players} who know and truly ENJOY the music in question.

The ones that irk me are the ones that go to concerts and talk the whole time and never really listen or hear a single note played and then go on to tell their friends that they saw the "right" folks to try and get the one up on the social ladder over them. Prententious?.... oh yes.
 
The one thing that I have learned about jazz Stan is this. People either like it or they don't.
There is no such thing as a casual jazz listener.
I made the mistake of trying to share my love of jazz with both friends and musicians that don't get it.
They try to listen, then the get that glazed over look in their eye. Kind of like a husband on a shopping trip with his wife LOL! He his totally lost! A fish out of water!
 
The one thing that I have learned about jazz Stan is this. People either like it or they don't.
There is no such thing as a casual jazz listener.
I made the mistake of trying to share my love of jazz with both friends and musicians that don't get it.
They try to listen, then the get that glazed over look in their eye. Kind of like a husband on a shopping trip with his wife LOL! He his totally lost! A fish out of water!

It can happen in any form of music Bob...like people nodding off at a symphony concert but later proclaiming at a high brow cocktail party of the music in question {actually unheard at the time} being a life changing experience :}

Humans are a funny lot.....
 
It can happen in any form of music Bob...like people nodding off at a symphony concert but later proclaiming at a high brow cocktail party of the music in question {actually unheard at the time} being a life changing experience :}

Humans are a funny lot.....
I just watched a man on TV win $1000 because he wound an entire roll of bathroom tissue around his body without tearing it from the roll!
I'm totally bored! The world is a stupid place! If there was a great jazz concert on, no one would be watching it! It is like an episode of the Simpsons!
 
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