An observation about "Modern" classical music.

Lousyreeds1..."That" music was an acknowledgement that the term "modern" is not quite correct. Sorry if you didn't get that.

My original posting simply reported a fact, delayed audience response, which anyone at a live performance can verify, and which suggests to me that the audience was disconnected from the music.

It seems to me that one can validly comment on a genre of music, not just specific pieces. You yourself referred to "Gregorian chant, very mainstream", without citing "Genuit puerpera regem". Many people feel that Rap is not music, and they don't feel obligated to cite specific examples. (Whoops...now I will have the rappers mad at me).

So everyone go listen to what they like. Just, don't take the attitude that because they disagree with you they must be ignorant or stupid.

I agree with eldartford. No offense to those that like that style, but like "modern art" it is lost on me and will stay lost. It's not music to me. I'm not into sound effects. - I've listed one of the works above - you know what music I mean. The other styles of modern classical music are enjoyable however. Minimalism, serialism (I think).

As far as how it makes me feel. It's disturbing sounding. If I wanted that effect I'd put on modern heavy metal.

Eldartford, the ingenious subtlety of your prose was lost on me. My apologies. I hope I was the only one.

Your "delayed audience response" theory was explained away by a number of posters.

Those who would claim that rap is not music without citing an example and providing a thorough explanation should not be trusted.

Robm: it's fine to dislike the use of atonality, but you should understand what that means. Neither Bach nor Beethoven ever wrote atonally. There's a difference between atonality and plain old dissonance, and I think you're confusing them. Serialism, which you say you enjoy, is by definition atonal. Which piece did you listen to that was mentioned above?

I hope I haven't given the impression that I think any of this is "stupid". That was not my intention, and I apologize if that's how it came across. However, there has been a lot of false information passed around (atonality, etc). That's ignorant. Not stupid, not indicative of a lack of knowledge.

Lousyreeds1...Serious question...Do you feel that there are any criteria which separate "sound" from "music"? For example: how about a collage of random sound snippets, which is how some of your (___?) music sounds to me. If this is "music" could not the same be said of an assembly of sounds created by technical difficulties of a recording playback system? How do you distinguish music from sound?

To be fair I ought to offer my own answer to the question.
I have summarized my view by "I like music if I can hum it". Going further, it is "music" if it makes me *want* to hum it. Indeed, sometimes a catchy tune gets going around in your head, and you can't stop humming it! "Music" triggers a special reaction in the mind whereas "sound" is merely heard. Your mind is different from mine, so what is "music" to you may be "sound" to me. Note that my definition does not consider whether the sound has been deliberately composed by someone.

"I like music if I can hum it" - This narrows your musical choices.
Take a sonata form; you ear the theme exposition, maybe the re-exposition, skip the development (the biggest part of the composition), and click on the play at the end to ear the theme recapitulation. By this I assume that almost all the music from the Romantic Period, wich subverted and by this broadened the classical forms, like the sonata form, is not your cup of tea. Composers like Brahms, Bruckner, Schumann, Wagner, Mahler, etc, are out of your list?. And what about Beethoven ?! Not the melody type of composer for one to hum. Dam you Beethoven for beying a lousy melodist.

Music is not just melody. Melody is just a part of the music. Ok, for you the most important, but by going this way you are just hearing a small part of the musical composition.
IMHO you must try to broad your horizons, to ear the musical compositon in all of its facets, as a whole.

PS- Dont try to hum Stravinsky "Rite of Spring" cause you will get hiccups.