Classical music rocks! Really!

Classical music is largely the genre composed by dead white (European) men, true, and has a reputation for being boring and pretentious—so much so that a few years ago some convenience store owners decided to blare it outside their doors to keep out ne’er-do-well teenagers.  I believe that the owners were successful in keeping out the bored adolescents that haunt these places, but I’m guessing they alienated other people, too (some of them "thugs"? eh, gives me uncomfortable feelings about classism...).

For me, baroque music is the hardest to appreciate unless you’ve actually played it before.  Beethoven straddles the line between this older, stodgier classical music and the more dynamic classical music, the kind that elicited polarizing reactions.  I wonder if any of those owners played any of Beethoven’s symphonies; I think those pieces are the easiest to get into for the beginning classical music appreciater.  I’ve recently gotten more into Rachmaninov, who is complex but not obtuse, emotional and passionate but also maintains nuance.  Maybe my favorite composer is Dvorak; in season 2 episode 7 of Glee the theme from the last movement of his “New World” Symphony was played for a few seconds to the slo-mo visual of a sneeze, turning it into an Epic Sneeze.  I’m not a rabid fan of that show any more, but I have to hand it to whoever chose that music to go along with that footage.  I squealed out loud at that part, because I instantly recognized that music and was delighted that thousands of Glee-watchers had also heard it and enjoyed it and have been exposed to some Dvorak.  Again, it’s not much, but I’m grateful for what it was, and I hope that other shows put in bits of classical music.
(could not find clip of the scene on Youtube, sneeze music starts at 0:16)

This genre is still changing and evolving, despite its name.  There are some pretty out-there, intellectual modern classical music symphonies out there—I’ve played a few of them.  Think of the soundtrack for Inception, which had the traditional symphony orchestra but included electric guitar—epic.  Really, how many things are more epic than that, than that movie’s soundtrack?!  I won’t begrudge Trent Reznor’s Oscar win, but Hans Zimmer is an awesome, cutting-edge composer who is building off this supposedly-dull music genre.

Classical music will never die, muahahahaha!