Why is classical advertised as relaxing?

grindy · 12-28-2015, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chopinisawesome

On the website for Classical MPR, I saw an advertisement trying to encourage people to support "another year of relaxing music". There are all sorts of albums of classical music that say "Relaxing Classical for Sleeping","Music for Studying", "Calm Piano Sleep Music ", etc. Maybe there aren't even that many advertisements, but the few advertisements that are there do have an effect. If that's what the supporters of classical music advertise it as, wouldn't someone assume that they must be right, and that relaxing is all it is.

Just look up "relaxing classical" on Google, iTunes, Spotify, Youtube, Amazon, etc. There will be all sorts of those albums.

Those are people selling a product, not supporters or fans.
They sell this product as a kind of functional music. They do this because a lot of classical music works really, really well that way.
It just does, no matter how it's advertised.

To see beyond this deceptively bland, relaxing facade, people would have to pay close attention to the details of the music. Much closer than with most pop/rock etc., since those usually have a simpler, immediately catchier compositional structure and therefore require less attention to appreciate.
Wait, didn't someone already say all that somewhere in this thread?

Quote:

Originally Posted by grindy

Because it works well as relaxing background music.
Sure it's kind of a waste to listen to it that way, but most people aren't all that interested in the finer details of a composition, no matter what genre.
No reason to get upset about that.