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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 09, 2025 05:47 PM |
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Edited by artu at 04:12, 10 Feb 2025.
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Galaad said:
artu said:
The 50 Greatest Pianists of the 20th Century
Greatest classical pianists... Like the link actually says. 
There's actually quite a few I don't know from that list.
Yes, skipped “classical” while typing fast because it was obvious and anyone interested will click and see anyway.
I know like half or maybe 55-60 percent of them, most from the times I downloaded and compared all interpretations of Beethoven sonatas I could find. But of course, my grasp of them is not as deep as the guy who prepared this video.
Unfortunately, Sal didnt make the list since he was born after 1950. 
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted June 01, 2025 09:52 PM |
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted June 01, 2025 10:14 PM |
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My favorite is Fazil Say’s jazzy version. Of this two, I’d normally prefer Lang Lang’s but I already heard many similar versions. Gould mostly sounds weird when it comes to Mozart but this didnt, and it feels new and interesting at the moment.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted June 01, 2025 10:19 PM |
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Gould is a beast. You know, when you don't like some music, you don't play or listen to it. Gould, instead, claimed that Mozart was a bad composer, so to prove that, he learned and recorded all Mozart Sonatas, by heart, which is around 6 hours long. Who else would do that.
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Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
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posted June 02, 2025 01:32 AM |
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Edited by Galaad at 01:33, 02 Jun 2025.
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artu said:
My favorite is Fazil Say’s jazzy version. Of this two, I’d normally prefer Lang Lang’s but I already heard many similar versions. Gould mostly sounds weird when it comes to Mozart but this didnt, and it feels new and interesting at the moment.
Yeah, I was surprised too, I was expecting Gould to go much further out there, as he could. Honestly, Fazil Say is really hard to top, not only in terms of his brilliant arrangement but also in his time. Out of the three, I’d say Lang Lang comes closest to Mozart’s spirit.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted June 02, 2025 09:44 AM |
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Mozart is a genius, when he also played chess, and became unofficial chess (world)* champion.. Mozart played simple chess openings and strategies.. I remember that deaf** taught him.. Mozart was young.. *so long time ago, if the country champion, but Mozart was the strongest player one his time.. **I must go to read chess books again, if I wanted be good-levelled player, it's one demand.. When I know his games..
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted June 02, 2025 10:00 AM |
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It was his sister Ana Maria, not Amadeus.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted June 03, 2025 06:46 PM |
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Yeah if Paul Morphy.. I'm sorry.. Later on I tell who before I read my Chess History book.. A book tells much about famous people who are also played chess..
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 31, 2025 04:20 PM |
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I'm in total awe right now: I got the Double CD + Conceert DVD pack "Perpetual Change" by Jon Anderson (original singer of Yes) & The Band Geeks for Christmas and it's absolutely fantastic. Anderson is 81 now and he was 78 on the tour when that was filmed. His voice (counter tenor) is still as good as it was some 50 years ago (incredible) and the band is absolutely perfect in every respect. Prog Rock doesn't get much better than this.
I recommend checking some songs out on youtube, say, Heart of the Sunrise or Close to the Edge or whatever your favorite Yessong was and is among the 10 tracks on the DVD and featured on youtube.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 01, 2026 04:58 PM |
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When I see something really special, I still buy cd’s like once in 5 years, too.
Not very much into Yes though.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 01, 2026 09:34 PM |
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That's a bit of a pity. I think, Yes - in the incarnation starting with "The Yes Album in 1971" was basically the same thing as Led Zeppelin, just Led Zeppelin's music having different roots (so the music is very different, even when Led Zep tries Prog Rock, as in "No Quarter"); Yes's roots (those of their musicians) were in Classical music (Wakeman and Howe, mainly), while Bruford and Squire got a lot out of Jazz, Anderson (Yes's Robert Plant), also having some love for Folk music.
So you have four brilliant musicians and one singer/texter with an awesome (but aetherival) voice, making some very lengthy, complex "songs" that would be called "progressive rock". I'd say, the signature of "progressive rock" a la Yes is complex and varying meters; Heart of the Sunrise, for example, has 6/8, 4/4 and 9/8 at least, if not more.
Progressive Rock was cited as probably the main reason why Punk was so successful, since it brought rock music back to simpler roots, like 3 chords and 4/4 meter. You can't listen to Yes and others just for foot-stomping - music's to complex.
But there's a time for everything. And a lot of the Yessongs are simply beautiful. For ME (disclaimer: subjective) they are classic/jazz/rock fusion.
What's so great - and what the record taught me - is that you can find musicians who can play even the most complex things, obviously - that's what's done with classic music all the time - but it's difficult to find a comparable voice when the original is very unique. That's true for Robert Plant amd it's true for Jon Anderson as well - the difference is, that Robert Plant gave a miraculous last Led Zeppelin concert age 59 in 2007 and that was that, while Anderson made that tour age 78 (and is still going - they produced a sudio album in 2024, another one will come out thius year and they will tour again, and he's now 81.
If you don't know anything or not much, try Yours is no Disgrace, Heart of the Sunrise and Roundabout and then tell me that's not utterly brilliant.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 03, 2026 07:52 PM |
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Edited by artu at 19:53, 03 Jan 2026.
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Well, here’s the thing, I think without the depth and warmth of the acoustic instruments, the classical tradition simply loses its touch. The drumming also doesnt help since that tradition needs to breathe, it’s all about nuance. (I cant stand metal guys playing Paganini and snow like that for instance.) Same with Fusion (jazz and rock merge), more than often, I dont like the sound itself of that genre and without that swinging feeling, jazz simply turns into technical show off. (So it’s true, “it don’t mean a thing, if it aint got that swing.” Lol.)
I like my Rock raw and rhythm and blues based. Not a caricature of that simplicity as in Punk but for instance, Rolling Stones is an ideal rock band in this regard. They also experiment but they dont lose that touch. Groove comes first. I mean, I do like some of the progressive stuff, Pink Floyd is great but it’s mostly blues based anyway, they just add a Ennio Morricone-like soundtrack feeling to that blues structure. (Shine on You Crazy Diamond is a perfect example of that.) King Crimson is good, a little more jazz oriented in terms of structure, but they still feel like they are making songs, not compositions. When it comes to Yes, it feels like they are composing things only to invent a combination. It sounds cold to me. But it’s been years since I gave it another shot, so I dont know…
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 03, 2026 09:31 PM |
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Err, if I'm not wrong Wagner uses a lot of cymbals, timpanis and drums in his works, so drumming isn't exactly unknown to classical music.
There was a reason why Miles Davis went Electric in 1969 (B... Brew is from early 1970) and why Bob Dylan went electric.
The truth is that electric offers a whole universe of different sounds and ways to express something, and while I've always said that what you like in arts is utterly subjective, what I also said was that it makes no sense to try and come up to make it more than that.
In other words, I accept that it's not your taste - to each their own - but any reasoning I consider as subjective as my own.
My German wiki says about King Crimson that the four 1969-1971 albums incorporate elements of jazz, classical music and psychedelic rock, while the 1972-1874 (which I really like) show influences of Strawinsky, Hardrock, Free jazz and a tendency for long improvisastions.
We could debate Pink Flöyd, but there are are a lot of different versions of that band - they developed a lot and records do sound different depending on which album we talk about.
Anyway. VIRTUOSITY isn't the exclusive domain of classical musicians and classicalk music. Nor the domain of jazz musicians. Keith Emerson, for example, was a great keyboard player who new his classice and went from them to The Nice, which was pure classical rock, to ELP which was going a lot further.
Okay, listen to the first roundabout 4 minutes of Heart of the Suznrise, then tell me you've heard anything like that Bass intro(!). Electric, acoustic, classical, Jazz, Rock, Punk - does the label really matter?
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 03, 2026 11:16 PM |
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Edited by artu at 23:18, 03 Jan 2026.
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Wagner’s use of percussion and similar stuff is different, it’s not a rhythm section in constant sync with the melodic line, it has its own partitions.
Dylan combined folk with early rock, so I got no problem with that. I dislike electric in classical tradition and a certain type of electric style in jazz. So that’s like me saying pepper isnt good in banana rolls and you replying this cheff used it in kebap. It’s semi-subjective, yes, it’s not physics. But for instance, Miles Davis, who was famously proud to reinvent his music six times as he puts it, is mostly remembered today with his works as a side-man during the Bebop Era and as group leader during his Cool Jazz era. That was his prime, not the Fusion stuff. Just like Elvis isnt remembered with his Las Vegas stuff he did in the 70’s. You’re right about Pink Floyd, early Floyd with Barret is a typical psychedelic band, it’s good if you like the 60’s but nothing extraordinary, then you have their prime, Meddle, Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, etc, that is the PF I’m talking about, the stuff they are really remembered for. Then you have The Wall and then you have post-Roger Waters stuff which I’m not very into. I dont dislike it but it’s not the same. As I said, it’s naturally semi-subjective but the test of time is usually not wrong about these things. If somebody makes a list and claims The Cure is the greatest rock band of all time, you wouldnt say it’s all subjective, you’d say the list is bollocks. But me not liking Yes kind of rock very much is mostly about personal taste yes, that’s the way I expressed it anyway. My musician friends adore them, I always thought they were more of a band for people who like to dig into technical achievement.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
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posted January 04, 2026 12:00 AM |
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What do you mean with "rhythm section in constant sync with the melodic line"?
I don't agree with your "puristic" ideas (keep classical free from electric). In the end it's an inhibition of arts - you must not do this or that, wnen actually you can do everything you want.
I also dislike your use of words like "semi-subjective". You know, that's nonsense. It's like saying your wife is semi-pregnant, or semi-sick - or semi-OBjective. When you dislike electric in this or that it's not SEMI-subjective. You simply dislke it. And I'm also not sure about this "remembered" thing. Hendrix is "remembered" because of a lot of things - writing superior songs isn't one of them which says a lot about the worth of being remembered for something.
Pink Floyd, well. I still say, we can debate them. I like PF -up to a point, like you, but I like Animals the most NOW (not then). That's because Pink Floyd never were progressive (rock), but psychedelic. And they went prog/pop/production (psychedelic) with Dark Side, rock/psychedelic with Wish and Punk/psychedelic with Animals; for me PF isn't progressive rock, it's psychedelic first and foremost.
ANY claim of this or that band being the greatest rock band of all time is as ridiculous as claiming that this or that classical composer was the greateast of all time. Or that this or that painting was the greatest of all time. It doesn't matter which one is named - it's bollocks on principle.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 04, 2026 02:36 AM |
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Edited by artu at 02:41, 04 Jan 2026.
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What do you mean what do I mean? It’s simple. Percussion in Wagner is not riding along the melody, there is a part it enters in, say, like a gong, and then it exits. It has its partition composed in. Where as taking something like the Four Seasons or Flight of The Bumble Bee and playing it with a modern drum set in the back from start to finish is completely different. They are not comparable. Jazz drummers sometimes manage the latter because jazz drumming can conventionally be extremely laid back. Rock beats simply choke it though. It’s like taking throat singing and putting an overdrive in the back.
Yes, you can do everything you want, you can even have throat singers with hairdryers in the background but that would be bad taste. That is what semi-subjective means, to acknowledge that bad tastes exist. Tastes are not binary like pregnancy, they can be more refined, experienced, educated, intuitive, compatible… That doesnt mean there is one ultimate best taste or that people with good tastes will agree on everything and can not have different tendencies but it’s obviously not something subjective in the absolute sense. To claim absolute subjectivity would be so pretentious or shallow. Some things blend in together extremely well, something things blend only okay and some things just dont. You dont need to be a purist to acknowledge that. And it also doesnt mean that you have to categorically deny the possibility of a genius who comes up with such a profound synthesis, things that normally dont blend in together suddenly start to. But rock going classical has almost never been that.
And needless to say, being remembered is not a value on its own but standing the test of time is usually a good indicator of quality. Good stuff can be forgotten because of bad luck, but weak stuff doesnt have the gravity to pull in generations of admiration just by good luck.
Early Pink Floyd is pure psychedelic, in their prime they are both psychedelic and progressive. I mean, even their wiki page defines them as “one of the first British psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments, philosophical lyrics, and elaborate live performances, and became a leading progressive rock band.” The extended compositions are the progressive part.
Even if you think the notion of “greatest rock band of all time” is invalid, you would still not treat the claim that the Beatles or Led Zeppelin is the greatest band, the same as, say, Monkees is the greatest band of all time.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 04, 2026 11:04 AM |
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I disagree with everything you say.
You can play drums any way you want and use them any way you want. There is no law to use them in a specific way. That they are used in sync with other instruments, vocals included, makes sense in a music called "popular" because it makes it more accessible, but there are a lot of different nuances. Take for example "Machine Gun", where the drums are their own "melody".
And "taste" is something that's just the same nonsense than etiquette. Taste is completely subjective and per se there is no good or bad taste. There is only dabbling with things you don't know about, respect or appreciate, but that's called bungling.
You like something or you don't. You don't dislike something, because something in your mind tells you "it's bad taste! Beware!" If something is done badly, it's badly done. It has nothing to do with taste.
"To claim absolute subjectivity would be so pretentious or shallow." You know what pretentious is? That sentence. It's from a very high horse. Everything you say about "taste" ACTUALLY just says that you are more knowledgable about something when you delve into it, investigate it, UNDERSTAND it. But that has nothing to do with TASTE, actually. Being able to tell exactly what makes something "good" (because you can point to what it does where and what that leads to, "good" simply being a different word for "substantial", doesn't mean someone with a taste for less substantial stuff has BAD taste.
There have always been artists who were shunned when they started (or even in their lifetime), their work being belittled by critics. Painters, writers, composers, even rock bands. Say, Black Sabbath. Or Grand Funk Railroad. Listening to them would be considered bad taste by most of the critics, especially the pretentious ones like Lester Bangs.
UNREFINED taste isn't the same as BAD taste, the latter being an utterly subjective label insofar that it's based on the assumption that refinement makes what is subjective objective - which isn't the case or at least not more than a claim.
Taste has no place in a discussion about art.
Standing the test of time - what does that even mean? Our European society has still so much that's based on the Roman Empire, so you might say it stood the test of time - butit's not acknowledged: they killed the first Christians, they had slavery, they conquered everyone. You can't have one without the other. If you acknowledge an artist you have to see the complete thing, not just picking those you like. When you look at, say, Paul McCartney you'll doubtlessly credit him for his Beatles stuff, less so, but still for his Wings stuff but his solo work would be seen critical - but Paul ISN'T just Beatles Paul. You might conclude that the work with John Lennon elevated him - and vice versa. Miles Davis - you have to see the development. You can't just say this part of his work of his is great, but the electrical stuff is an aberration. Not for HIM, it wasn't, so it's bit disrespectful to the artist to disregard part of his work.
Extended compositions are found in progressive music, but are not making music progressive by itself, otherwise Deep Purple would have been "progressive". Black Sabbath as well, mind you. If it would make music progressive, Dark Side wouldn't be a progressive Rock album because there are no extended compositions.
Whether you list Pink Floyd as a prog rock band depends on how you define the genre and I personally don't like the band in there.
Lastly, no, I treat those claims alike, because "greatest X" is meaningless. It doesn't matter which band you claim to be the greatest of all time, the Monkees aren't any more invalid than the Beatles. You can rate artists for solid criteria - say, albums sold, length of time in existance (with or without the original line-up), number of hysteric girls in attendance of concerts, most #1 hits abosnowely or in any given time worldwide, most weeks in the charts, WHATEVER. But "greatest" or "best"? What's that even supposed to mean?
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 04, 2026 02:12 PM |
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Well, it is your habit to disagree with even the most obvious things out of sheer stubbornness, so I am not surprised. Maybe, a few years later, you’ll defend the exact opposite of this absolutism without moving an inch again. 
You keep talking about how you can do whatever you want as if I’m suggesting to prohibit it. You can do whatever you want and some of it wont blend in as well as others together. There is a level of subjectivity to this but it is not absolute. And nobody, including you, treat everybody’s taste the same in reality, no matter what you defend hypothetically. It’s just a de facto truth of life that we respect some tastes more than others
That doesn't mean it is a physical formula or that everyone applies the exact same criterias or has completely identical expectations from art. You make me repeat every obvious thing. Critics can be wrong sometimes, so what? You are able to give those as counter-examples because I am right, not the other way around. You expect me to realize how the critics turned out wrong because you rely on an acknowledgement of how those groups are not bad. Yet, if everything was absolutely subjective, how were we to determine that the critics turned out wrong?
I will not spend my time explaining what “standing the test of time” means to an adult. You are like Jordan Peterson, replying to “do you believe in god” by going “what do you mean by you, or believe, or god?” You atomize the context in order to declarify it and I wont play that game.
Saying their extended compositions made PF progressive rock does not necesssarily mean every group with extended compositions should count as one. They are considered one of the founding fathers of the genre but fine by me if you personally dont prefer to call them that.
Monkees are less significant than the Beatles by any musical, historical, cultural criteria imaginable. You can put your head in the sand about that but I wont be joining you under there.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 04, 2026 05:57 PM |
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You completely fail to put substance into the things you throw around. You talk about "obvious" things like a belkiever of god: Isn't His existance OBVIOUS?
No, it's not. Who said something along the lines, that it's a real talent to write a short trivial melody which a couple of weeks later amillions of people whistle on their way to work (and if remember right, the one who said that also added that he would gladly give his artistic merits for that talent).
The truth is that you cannot support your opinion with facts. It is also true that we don't HAVE TO "respect" any taste. Why would you? I mean, if you don't like seafood, for example, why would you respect that certain seafood tastes OBJECTIVELY delicious, when you don't like it? There is no universal yardstiuck that says this art is objectively great (and you wouldn't even know what "great" actually MEANS - what is it supposed to convey.
Now, if you look at my initial post I pointed out that the really awesome thing is, that the singer's voice is still working flawlessly, age 78 (and obviously age 81 as well) The guy sings like he sang 50 years ago, and since it's a very unique voice, I said, it's obviouwssly easier to find the musicians that can play the old Yes stuff (not easy) than to find a singer that sounds like Anderson.
That I personally like stuff from Yes from a certain time period has nothing to do with it, but doing so it's obviously more fun to listen to and watch this.
I fully appreciate that you don't like Yes - what I didn't like was your reasoning: I thought it was ideological (classical sounding stuff is crap on electric instruments); for me that's on the same level than saying "folk music isn't right, when played eletrical". It's also a silly generalization. Like "you cannot make art with trash".
Bottom line is, I fully accept you not like how Yes sounds, but when you give a reasoning that makes it sound like liking Yes was flawed - or bad taste - because playing classical sounding stuff electrical was bad taste, then I have to contest that, because it's just your subjective opinion and not more. It's not semi-objective, or semi-subjective, it's just pretentious nonsense, sorry to have to call it that, but it is so.
Then, again, Beatles vs. Monkees. I'd agree, the Beatles were quite probably (way) more significant for the development of popular Music than the Monkees. However, since the Monkees were, if I'm not wrong the very first band whose members were CASTED, and casted for a TV show with their first 4 albums (the music from the show) reaching #1 spot I'd say that the Monkees have their very own significance in the world of art in general. I wouldn't even want to compare the Beatles and the Monkees. I don't think that there has ever been a commercially more successful show based around musicians or music than theirs.
And as a last note, the critics were wrong because their predictions were wrong. Black Sabbath is considered to be one (quite probably the most important) foundation of music considered "Metal" - which means the band has been SIGNIFICANT. Which the critics didn't, err, realize when they wrote their pieces.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted January 04, 2026 07:29 PM |
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So? Black Sabbath’s importance is not absolutely subjective. Creating a genre, you may get dislike from the older generation or conservatives. How does that disprove good and bad tastes exist.
It’s you who keeps replying to every factual example and reasoning with the fix motto “it’s all subjective,” so, I dont know how you expect me to support facts themselves with facts. Some music is more sophisticated than others, not only in terms of technicality and structure but in terms of maturity. Although harder to measure, some are more genuine than others, some are more creative and idealistic and some are more commercial and formulaistic. The decisions about these are not sorely based on personal preference. How is this for a fact, we all stop listening to children songs at a certain age and children dont start listening to more mature stuff until a certain age. Because the difference in appeal is not as subjective as, say, each individual’s favorite color.
Now just like that, how well two different traditions of music merge into each other (and remember, we are reserving an open mind for an exceptional genius who will shock us with his unique merge) is also not completely subjective. Your reply about the drums in Machine Gun is once again, completely irrelevant because I am not suggesting drums cant be melodic, I am a Gene Krupa lover. I am saying, in the classical tradition, the space between the sounds is crucial and rock beat doesnt fit in with that. And although there is a degree of subjectivity in that value judgement, it’s not the same as saying “I dont like this song because it reminds me of my ex” or “I just cant stand rap music.”
Let’s take your other example, making a very simple yet catchy melody requires real talent and yes, I think it can be harder than composing a mediocre symphony. McCartney has that gift for instance. Imagine I said something like “I dont like McCartney making atonal music, his style of songwriting doesnt fit in well with that genre.” Would that be something absolutely subjective. Of course not. Me not liking it, yes, but the reasoning is not. Hip hop wouldnt go well with Bossa Nova, because the structural differences would clash too much. They are not as (easily) compatible as, say, folk and rock. This is not sorely based on individual preference.
One can like seafood and one can like Indian. But saying one can put ketchup and marshmallows on a smoked salmon because it’s all subjective is not that. And we respect a gurme’s taste more than someone who only eats junks food. One gurme can specialize in street food while the other can specialize in seafood, that is not the point here. And there is “Fusion” also in cuisines but not all of them merge with equal ease too, do they.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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