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Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

Simon and Garfunkel absolutely depends on performance; it doesn't have the same musical content as a Bach fugue.

A somewhat poor, though adequate, performance of a Bach fugue with an instrument that doesn't have great tone will still convey a great deal of Bach's meaning.

A performance by average vocalists of a Simon and Garfunkle tune, backed by some average lounge band will just be a laughable farce.

It can't be saved by the musical content, because that is there in insufficient quantity.

Pop music is all in the nuance and tone that doesn't get notated in sheet music.

The result is that performing a convincing cover of some pop music requires a very high musical standard. Whereas a five-year-old kid can play some passable Bach on the piano that we can enjoy as Bach, just by hitting most of the right notes from the sheet music at mostly the right time.

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I think you've got something there. Bach solved a very difficult musical problem of his time brilliantly... how to transmit rich musical meaning using only a pen and some paper. Simon and Garfunkel had the luxury of using an LP instead and so transmitted in a totally different way. There's just no way you could write down what “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is supposed to sound like on paper beyond the barest (rather uninteresting) form. Medium, message etc.

That said, music practice after Bach did acquire more tricks in the notation to indicate performance. There are more constraints on how to play Chopin or Beethoven, say.

> "Whereas a five-year-old kid can play some passable Bach on the piano that we can enjoy as Bach, just by hitting most of the right notes from the sheet music at mostly the right time."

Sure, you can get pleasure from that, but at the highest level classical music is very much about interpretation. People may think that classical music is about following the notes exactly, but it's not quite true, the way the player interprets a piece is what brings a piece to life (or not), and these subtle touches are not directly transcribed in the sheet music.

Hmmm… would you rather hear your uncle tell his joke repertoire over thanksgiving dinner, or would you rather hear Louis CK at a theatre?

Music isn't just a series of clever notes, strung together. Sure, it's that too, but there's so much more to it than that.

I agree with what you're saying here.

And like pop music, those interpretations come and go. We don't even have access to interpretations that were made prior to the age of recorded music! The Bach or Brahms score is the artistic gem which carries the timeless, enduring value. The interpretation is just a kind of ephemeral, stylistic whipping cream ladled on top. Today you like how Bob plays Paganini; tomorrow Bob is forgotten and Mike is the hot shit in Paganini interpretations.

No no, the performance is very important. A piece that sounds dull and uninteresting from one performer can sound full of life from another performer. Of course it helps if you have better source material, but that can only carry someone so far.

As for forgotten interpreters, before the days of recording I'd agree with you, but now we have recordings of greats from the past that's no longer the case. For example, in the case of classical guitar, people still admire the playing of players that are no longer with us, such as Segovia, and will still play their recordings. Whilst it's good to support new players too, a great performance is a great performance, it doesn't matter how long ago it was performed if it's still possible to listen to it.

This is an excellent point. Funny though how there doesn't seem to be any general awareness of it among the public.

> Whereas a five-year-old kid can play some passable Bach on the piano that we can enjoy as Bach

Then why do people pack concert halls to listen to Joshua Bell instead of listening to their kid cousin playing the violin?

> The result is that performing a convincing cover of some pop music requires a very high musical standard.

The same is absolutely true of classical music. Just because you can recognize what a Bach piece is by hearing the notes doesn't mean it's a good or convincing performance.

> Then why do people pack concert halls to listen to Joshua Bell instead of listening to their kid cousin playing the violin?

Precisely because the raw content of Bach or Brahms, though monumentally important, isn't enough to pack halls.

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