Soulflower

Agree.

I think to classical fans its an obscure genre (that only an elite is interested in) but it technically really isnt. It is a very popular genre and style of music.

There is alot that goes into the training of classical musicians and even learning about the music. However, I dont think that means one is more superior just because they are trained in that area. I think there is alot that we all can learn from each other as music listeners, musicians, etc.

Black Francis

i kinda agree it comes with the territory but no they don't

they don't need to be pretentious about it

just because i have more knowledge than you on a certain field it doesn't mean i have to shove it down your throath like an elitist assh*le

and even worst, in this bullsh*t search for originality and supremacy most of these ppl become contrarians so even when you do agree with them it doesn't matter cause they'll pick some minor detaitl to oppose and shove their so called "originality" in there to stand out

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Paul Smeenus

Wow. I'm sorry but that's really really cynical, dude.

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Black Francis

i know but i have seen it happen one too many times not with just classical music but also with literature but ive also seen great musicians who actually humble themselves down when they are really good

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Franco Pepe Kalle

No wonder classical music to many is such a joke.

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Burning Down

Who thinks that? Most people on this forum don't think classical music is a joke. They may not listen to it but they also don't think it's a joke, lol.

GuitarBizarre

While you're not necessarily wrong, I think you're confusing "Pretentious" with "Egotistical" or "Narcissistic".

To be pretentious about your chosen artform is to have, essentially, a delusion that results in justifying that whole artform as being far more important and deep than it actually is.

A great number of metal or jazz players don't have that problem where they claim their own artform to be the ultimate form of music. They're often wildly derisive of other acts within the same genre for no better reason than personal aesthetic judgements, or they'll insist on challenging a perception that puts them into the same group as another act they dislike.

The problem you're describing is simple egotism, where that person feels they, personally, deserver greater spotlight or acclaim than they actually do. That's somewhat different to being simply pretentious.


Regardless, the answer to this entire thread is simple - Institutions provide an education, context, and guidance on the importance of classical music, that is largely shared between all students and institutions as the result of research and analysis. This means they become very quickly aware of the greats and why they were great within that field.

They are however unlikely to be so aware of greats within the comparitively recent time (last 100 years worth) of popular music, and even if they are, they're comparing those recent greats to artists with hundreds of years of acknowledged importance. To many classical musicians, no modern day musician can possibly claim the same importance as a Bach or a Beethoven until they've been dead long enough that, by rights, their music should be long forgotten, yet if they were truly that important their music would last, like Bach's, hundreds of years after death.

Not to mention, the recent canon of popular metal or jazz musicians, or even popular musicians as a whole, is fiercely contested even by devout aficionados of those genres. Nobody can contest Bach as a great composer. It's comparitively easy to contest Metallica as an important rock band, and that means there's simply much less to support anyone who tries to be pretentious about heavy metal music - there's no safety net of hundreds of years of scholarly thinking and analysis, to fall back on to prove the importance of metal in the grand scheme of artistic endeavour.

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Forward To Death

Because the nature of being pretentious is in your education, you've been told a certain way of doing things, so you think you know better, or that your way is more sophisticated. It may or may not actually be pretentious, I personally don't think musicians can be pretentious unless they're like Marilyn Manson and trying to pass themselves off as being an artistic statement in the form of ****ty pop metal, but I think that explains why you would call a classical musician pretentious.

Neapolitan

I have meet fans of each and for some they exist in a bubble where all they listen to is that one genre or type of music and disregard the rest. Out of them some couldn't be bothered while others look down on all other forms of music that is not their own, the latter seems pretentious imo. Whether a particular musician of a genre is the same is up to the individual, it has nothing to do with how much education or whether fans can say something without contention. Maybe on stage a Metal band acts more overtly pretentious because they are putting on a show, and a orchestra might not seem so and they are sitting in tuxedos a, but that doesn't attest to how they act irl. I heard that when Randy Rhoads went to audition for Ozzy he came in with a small practice amp, while every other guitar player came in with Marshall stacks and could play a lick. To me Randy seems so unpretentious at that moment. James Hetfield on the other-hand seems kinda pretentious imho. Like the time he ignore the produce because he was lingering on a chord for too long, and he couldn't handle criticism and was all bent out of shape cause of it. And another thing I like to add, if James Hayfield was J.S. Bach's older brother Hatfield would have sued Bach for copying his manuscripts by candlelight in the middle of the night.

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Forward To Death

You know who I think are pretentious? Opeth.