Ruminating on classical music

It occurs to me that part of what makes classical and symphonic music boring to listen to for some people (including myself at times) is that it has a limited palette of timbres. By this I mean there’s a limited amount of types of sounds that can be created by the instruments the music was written for.

At first this might sound absurd. You might be scoffing, “What? That’s absurd!” After all, symphonic music has an entire symphony at its disposal. But I would posit that the average affordable collection of midi sounds one can buy for a computer has a broader collection of timbres; it likely contains a lot of basic symphonic sounds as well as modern keyboard sounds (ala The Rockets!) and even crazy dub step groans. That’s simply a richer aural palette.

I think one could revive interest in classical music if one wrote music in those forms but used newer sounds. Then one would be loved by all, desired by women and elected President of the earth.

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