What popular music is often mistaken for classical?

Orchestral movie music in general ends up in this category.

We often get requests to evaluate John Williams.

Maybe we should turn it around and post questions about classical music in the popular music categories.

"Hey! Ever seen a musical called Simon Blackmouth? It's by this real cool dude named Joe Green!"

I've noticed that young people seem to think that anything played on piano that isn't pop sounding or played by an orchestra or sung by a classically trained soprano singing in a foreign language has to be classical. The music might be used in a commercial, in a soundtrack or TV series or video game but to their ears, it's got to be clip from a classical composition because commercials, soundtracks, TV series and video games DO quote "songs" (music) from classical compositions played on piano or orchestra or sung by a trained soprano. These young people aren't familiar with Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" so as to recognize it from an original theme from a movie score, nor are they familiar with the large body of Italian operas so as to recognize Puccini from a recently composed Italian song.

Those of us who answer the majority of questions in this forum are older adults. I'm sure we were all as naive when we were young too. We have more years of listening experience and a wider knowledge of orchestral music, opera, art songs and chamber music than the average teenagers. Many of us have attended music school, have played our instruments professionally, have vast collections of LPs and CDs and have attended hundreds of live concerts, operas and ballets. We are more discerning in our musical tastes and probably have narrowed the range of what we will listen to than the young people who are just starting to explore the world of classical music. So I understand when a young person mistakenly believes that Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway musical "Phantom of the Opera" is an opera or mistakes an "epic" movie theme as something from a large orchestral score. They don't know any better because they are just starting to explore the vast body of music. Some of these young people will learn classical music literature just as we did, but taking their place will be more uninitiated young people asking about some "epic song" that they heard in a commercial or video game.

Define "modern". People have been reworking classical music into different styles as long as there's been classical music. What style are you looking for? Jazz recordings abound. In the surreal world of analog synths, nobody has ever topped Isao Tomita's albums. Plenty of people have tried to apply dance beats to classical music. For the WXPN crowd, there's Richard Stoltzman's "WorldBeat Bach". For Dr. Demento fans, there's "Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics". There's probably an adaptation to suit anybody's taste (except for the purists).

Hey, Birdgirl, nice Q!

On the piano front, just about any Yiruma, Yann Tiersen, Michael Nyman, Lodovico Einaudi (often with instrumental dress), etc. seems to be mistaken as 'classical'

My empirical observation finds there are two gross misconceptions commonly in place in many younger minds which allow for the mistake(s) in the first place.

1.) if it is played on a grand piano / and or uses more plainly standard orchestral instruments, it must be classical. ("I think I know classical music when I hear it!") declaim the wildly uninformed and inexperienced, when confronted with the fact that a live performance by a symphony orchestra with all the attendant conventions of performers in concert dress of Joe Hisaishi's salad of a score for "Howl's moving castle," or some other score from a film or anime or video game, does not constitute classical music in any way.

2.) If the piano music seems to those listeners to have any degree of complexity, seems technically 'complicated,' or has any technical elan (usually speed and most usually some tossed off arpeggios) then that too, must be classical.

The last is the only explanation I can think of why a request for information, sheet music or suggestions for more like or of John Schmidt, pop / new-age composer-pianist, should ever appear in the classical category. (Oddly enough, I don't think I've ever seen a Q in classical about George Winston, the grand-daddy and progenitor of 'new-age' piano music. That must already be known or settled in the minds of the seekers.)

Y/A's less than discriminatory software for placing questions I believe is more at fault than the youngster who does not think to hand-direct those Q's to the proper category: the younger they are the more sadly true it is they readily believe the software "Must be correct," along with believing anything they see in print if it is up and available on line - Wikipedia being a terrific case in point of hit and miss solid information fluctuating on dime at near the speed of an optic fiber light to utterly dubious, specious or wildly incorrect 'facts.'

These youth are no more lazy than we were in our youth, but they are now conditioned to readily accept anything in print in any medium as 'the truth,' which my generation was taught not to do, in the home and in schools, by very frequent repetition of this mantra. "Do not believe everything you see in the press." Now the press is audio (T.V. and Radio) and the print press is Celebrity mags, gossip columns and mags, on line articles and Zines, and far too many are ready to believe any of it, without looking at a second source or investigating further any other resources to check the verity of what they've just found 'in print' someplace. (many of them are in for a huge shock when they have to write their first annotated paper in college, where more and more, No Online Material is allowed or considered 'legitimate.')

Add the social phenomena of the current ethos where young people are early and steadily conditioned that what they feel (vs. what they think or know) is perfectly valid and 'they are good and right,' and that would much account for the range of "Hurt emotions" or "outraged dignity" which we see so often when they are, even as gently as possible, informed they are in fact, crazily off the mark and incorrect.

For those of us who became aware of classical music early in life (the basics of what is classical music used to actually be taught in public schools in the middle school years!) it is difficult to conceive that the first thing someone will ever hear on a grand piano is Yiruma, or that our first exposure to classical symphonic music ~ or a re-worked facsimile thereof ~ would be in very brief segments of a film score.

I think those several phenomena combined are the reason we so much of that which is not remotely classical in the classical category.

Best regards.

This listing of 100+ songs (allegedly) incorporate melodies from classical music --

http://www.allegro.philharmonic.me.uk/

I don't know if they're mistaken for classical music.

Here's are some similar lists --

http://www.magle.dk/music-forums/940-modern-popula...

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-p...

http://www.autenrieths.de/ftp/cover.txt

http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/borrowing/

http://rockclassical.com/

http://musiclassical.net/

http://www.kickassclassical.com/

Who knows, maybe you could throw in some Mantovani in there too.

In general:

• any music that is dominated by piano or acoustic guitar

• film scores

• video game music (especially well-crafted music from Japan)

• Broadway tunes -- as mentioned, Andrew Lloyd Weber gets a lot of play

• music used in Disney animations

• New Age jazz

Examples:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEBkENiEVnA

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttQjm-8OITE

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1JgIg38QBU

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOzMWRSxaw8

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1jzrshB6xo

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wxrB41PMhw

An American In Paris is often called Classical, though I don't call it that.

The fact that Gershwin's original was recorded by New York Philharmonic, does not make it classical.

It is one of my favorites songs.

He is not as well known today, but some of Enoch Lights' work was considered Classical in the late 50', and 60's.

He was a real pioneer in High Quality stereo recordings.

He was a classically trained violinist, and started "Command Records" who were leaders in high quality recordings, back then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Light

I still have several of his original Command recording, including 'Persuasive Percussion"

that I bought new, back in 1960. ( I wasn't even a teen yet?)

Here are some pieces that are usually mistaken for classical:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSY4Yi2ypno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2-1u8xvk54

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT1-Uo5eUJk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so6ExplQlaY