Right now I’m listening to some classical music while I write yet another agency brief at work. I thought i’d listen to some classical to get my creative juices flowing as I write it. Of course, the reverse has happened, and as it always is with me. When any music is playing in the background it soon becomes at the forefront in my brain. So much for Mozart and productivity theory!

I've got Franz Schubert’s Klaviersonate in D playing my ipod. Ask me to identify this tune in 10 mins., and I’ll have no idea. I don’t know what it is, but my memory with classical music is a sieve.

My partner, on the other hand, is able to pinpoint composers, pieces and sometimes the performer in the classical music genre. We can listen to the classical station on the radio, and hear some chap playing a few notes on the piano and suddenly he’ll know exactly whom it is. Insanity.

I also met someone else with similar music savant abilities. It just boggles my mind. From my classical experience over the years, I’ve been able to decipher baroque b/c they use the harpsichord. Great, so after 26 years I can tell if something was in the 1600s, OR in the late 1700s or so. Sweet.

I have enough trouble getting to know music in the last 30 years, let alone music that spanned hundreds of years! There’s got to be something i’m missing out here. Perhaps it’s piano training as a kid. That could be it. Sitting and mapping out the timelines and key players in the music scene at the time. Through learning the instrument of which classical music was based on, coupled with eye-gauging musical history/theory may be then you’d get a sense of “pop stars” of the classics – and that’s what’s probably still being playing on the classical radio. I doubt there’s many “indie classical” DJs out there, but you can never tell with any graveyard shift jockeys.

So who is the Britney of classical? Beethoven? Too tragic and talented; he’s more like Kurt Cobain. Haydn? Too religious, however he was grossly repetitive and long-winded – Creed. No, it’s probably Bach with his 20+ children with a number of wives.

There’s got to be some point of reference to work from. The ominous ambiguity and ooze of sophistication that classical music has still plays over me. One day I’ll crack the code and correlate the music to boy bands, country singers and rock bands!

Take care,
RE

"eat drink and be merry"