An answer to a question

"So, I suppose you don't have much time for modern music, given that you're classically trained..."

How often do I get that question?  It usually comes in sequence after the one about who one's favorite composers are.  Whenever it is trained on me, I always feel like this question is the equivalent of reaching for the trip-switch to the trap door.  Depending on who asks it, there is a right and a wrong answer which may well frame the rest of your interactions with that person.

It's true.  I don't have a lot of time for a lot of the confectionery one might find on the average 14-year-old's iPod -- hopefully that's no more than a sign of being a well-adjusted early-thirtysomething.  I think I've outgrown the obsessions that drove my musical taste over half a lifetime ago (well, most of them).  I still remember a program long-displaced from ABC FM -- The Listening Room -- with no small degree of affection.  TLR used to feature a variety of things, ranging from radio plays to seriously quirky stuff involving instruments mating, all at about 8.30pm in the middle of the week.  It was carefully presented, with the aim of leaving the listener alone to make his or her own judgment, and formed a good foil to the usual programing.  That's why I find Julian Day's tendency to loquaciousness about "contemporary sound" so incredibly insufferable.  It's a pity no-one's invented a way to listen to the radio without having to tolerate the irritating ramblings of aficionados who do little other than get in the way.

By way of a parenthesis -- a couple of years ago I was listening to the ABC when one of Herbert Howells's early orchestral pieces came up.  The presenter intimated that it had been written for the visit of the Prince of Wales (later George V) to the Royal College of Music, and then went on to opine that the RSCM seemed a strange place for a prince to visit (so many threads to pick up there, but not now!).  Strange indeed -- the Prince was only the President of the College, a position currently held by the present Prince of Wales.  George V's notorious philistinism aside, being regaled with such uninformed rubbish seems to be the lot of the unwary listener on ABC FM.  Presenters are allowed to be unaware of the twisted lines of influence in the London music scene, but the old tale about it being better to remain silent and be thought a fool seems to have passed by some of the present crop of presenters.  But I digress.

Still, one ends up with that question.  It's as if eclecticism in one's musical taste has to be validated by something that connects to the aural world of the average person with their iPod.  One could have the most baroquely transgressive tastes in painting, sculpture and whatnot, but it's possible to ignore these in a way that's generally impossible for music.  So, for the sake of answering the question that came up in about four conversations today, here's a poke at an answer.

You'll have to visit youtube to hear this.  My introduction to Coldplay came via teaching this song to a youth choir for a concert.  I have gone on to explore a little more of their oeuvre, which has some interesting twists and turns.  What I enjoy is the way they play with genre: there's a lot going on under the surface which could take up a lot of time were I to turn to popular musicology (yes, there's a strand of the discipline dedicated to the study of pop music).  There's something decidedly Romantic about Coldplay.

The mark of the quality of a song such as Viva la Vida is that one can listen to it a few times without being bored to tears by the sheer repetitiveness of the ordeal (and believe me, there's plenty of fairyfloss in organ music -- just look at my wedding music page for a quick sample).  Every line in Viva has some sort of historical or mythological reference, and the video clip linked above seems to take place in Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps.

So the answer to the question is that "classical training" really doesn't have much to do with preferring one style or genre over another.  I suppose the major contribution is that it makes you a little more discerning and critical in your choice of chart music.  That's quite different from being prejudiced against it.