Classical Music (Pro) vs. [Insert Genre of Music Here]

I would like to start off this semi final round by saying that I am wowed by Pro's example video of vigilantism and heroism and I found it powerful. I did not expect classical music to be quite so epic. For this round, I will do a quote by quote rebuttal. "I want to address something that I believe to be an issue with the way my opponent determines which genre is better. Although he addresses many aspects of the music, there is one that he keeps returning to: the story. The problem here is that it doesn't really focus on the quality of the music itself, rather it focuses on the quality of the stories associated with the music." I disagree to this statement. The music embodies the stories. It carries it within its every vibration and resonance. Story is embedded in film music. That is what film music is intended to do. So yes, how well a music can connect to story is very much a quality of the music itself. It shows how potent and symbolic the music is. We judge books by how well the words inside can tell stories. We judge art for how symbolic and deeply layered with story it can be. Granted, not every book and not every art has a story to tell. Just like classical music, they are not necessarily concentrated on story. My argument mainly is that film music's strong point is that it can tell stories much better than classical music. It can embody stories better than classical music. On the other hand, classical music's strength is in how beautiful it sounds and how well it is musically composed. Like my opponent has said, film music has attributes of classical music. In a broader sense, it actually is classical music. Film music does not only have strong musical composition, it also embodies symbolic story remarkably well. When compared, film music is that much more potent, that much more powerful and meaningful than classical music as a genre. "When I listen to the example from Lincoln my opponent used in the previous argument to counter my example of a Copland piece about Lincoln, I don't hear as much that's musically interesting. It follows one common theme, stays in one key, keeps one main tempo, and ultimately contradicts my opponent's claim that film score "grows and expands in different ways" (Round 1) in comparison to classical music. " That is the entire point of the piece. It is selective to a specific scene and selectively symbolic. Just because the film music from Lincoln wasn't musically varied, doesn't negate that film music as a whole does not expand or grow when compared to classical music. There are other examples (like the film music in Interstellar) to show that film music is expanding not just more than classical music but also from classical music. It feeds on it, learns from it and improves. If that was not the case then Jasper Hope from my previous article would not have said film music should be treated just as seriously as classical music. "The Copland piece is one where you can tell someone it's about Abraham Lincoln even without the quotes and, through the music, they can be shown his emotional variance and surmise much about what kind of a person he was. I challenge my opponent to find a film score that achieves this." I do not think that is true. It is subjective that my opponent can tell that the piece is about Lincoln. A hypothetical situation where someone who does not now the title or the composer of the piece might not know what the piece is about. They may take a guess but without knowing the title, it is difficult to know that it is about lincoln until at least the speech at the end of the piece. I did not mean to say that William's piece from the movie Lincoln will be able to let people know it's about Lincoln without telling people that is. I only meant to compare the William's piece and Copland's piece and I suggested that William's piece was more 'intone' or imbued Lincoln's story better or more significantly than Copland's piece which required you to know facts about the president beforehand. In the case of William's piece, all you would need to do is to see the movie for the full effect whereas Copland's piece does not give a guideline to how much of President Lincoln you would need to know to understand the impact and significance of the piece of music. Just like if a child were to listen to the piece and he or she would not be so interested or engaged in it because they would not know enough about President Lincoln to appreciate the piece. Therefore as for the challenge, I can only provide one of William's piece yet again. "This is mostly because classical has many, many different variants to it, while film score has but a few. One of these main types is the type shown in Batman. Classical has certain periods of music where there are certain common attributes, but this one has a huge amount of common, nearly overused attributes. Pounding bass drum, strings zipping out the melody, first lower and then higher, the brass section in the very bottom of it all, etc. etc. It doesn't take too long to see these common attributes and slap a new piece together." Again, the music is selective to certain scenes. They aren't composed for variety, rather to fit them into specific scenes with a certain mood such as anger, anguish or fear, tension. I do not see how does undermines film music's musical complexity. "The Interstellar soundtrack does seem divergent from this, but I don't see how my opponent's point of making it more "religious" and using a church organ somehow makes it less based in classical music, a genre that has a very prolific history with both religion and church organs. The fact that Zimmer used both of these factors in Interstellar only sort of backtracks to my original point of them being similar." My opponent seems to be making an almost flawed argument here. My opponent first argues that film music does not vary a lot compared with classical music. Then my opponent admits that Interstellar's soundtrack is varied and diverse but that this just means film music is similar to classical, which would actually mean film music is as varied as classical, contradicting what my opponent is saying. "I would also like to point out again that classical music has a uniquely translatable factor to it, so much so that many of those who want to be good at any music genre, such as (and perhaps especially) film score start out in it. There was a study that I mentioned in Round 1 that spoke of it's influence in modern, non-classical music, which is partially due to this. I bring this up mostly to go back to the point that classical music is so hugely influential, and to point out the fact that film music has not yet reached the influence, variance or skill of classical music." I do not agree with this. While I can agree that classical music influences contemporary music, to say that film music has not reached the skill or variance of classical music is contradictory to the quote I gave by Jesper Hope about film music composers being as good or as significant as classical music composers and also why they have their last names most notably known such as "Zimmer", "Djawdi" or "William". In closing, I would like to say or at least imagine that music has evolved in the coming ages. What is contemporary now will be classical in the future. This, my opponent admits is true. Hence, contradicts my opponent saying it does not reach to the standard of classical music.