posted
Ugh. I don't like this. The music is not very good folks, I mean really? It's just that she's a very attractive Asian woman playing a violin- and not all that well. I'm a little disgusted. It's very exploitative.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I don't think it's as much her being Asian, a woman, or attractive.
It's fun. It might not be technically excellent, but since when has music needed to be complex or particularly 'good' to be entertaining?
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And yes, Lyr, I think the racial aspect and the fetishistic aspect is a big part of what makes this attractive to people. It's eye candy, it's different, it's striking, it's tasteless. I don't like the music anyway, and the fetishism of the woman and the violin both are adding insult to injury.
This is being presented all in sexy videos for a reason- that's the main attraction. If this was a guy playing violin, or simply an mp3 track of the same music, it would be ho-hum.
Edit: And not to say that I don't think the Destiny video is extremely hot- but it's essentially a foldout in maxim magazine with a soundtrack. She's a model who has a skill. Let's not confuse this with good music, please. There is a very good reason why the first 30 seconds of that video is just different angles of her breasts and abs. I'm a little disgusted.
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posted
Orincoro: On the plus side, at least you watched up to (and possibly including) the third video before you got disgusted. I applaud your tenacity at braving through something so tasteless, if only everyone examined the issues so closely before forming an opinion.
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Mucus, I didn't like it from the get go. I looked at the other vids to see if things got any better. They got worse.
I don't know if you're being sarcastic? You really don't know from my post how much of the music I actually listened to. The answer is that I've now heard it all, and I don't like it. It's revolting.
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A lot of the songs can be listened to, at least in part. I apologize in advance for the vocals by Rachel Caswell, she's not nearly as a good a singer as Sara Caswell is a violinist (I'm particularly annoyed at her trying to imitate the sound of a violin with her voice), but she's not in most pieces.
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posted
Fugu- I'm completely fine with types of music I don't really enjoy. I thought those sample tracks were fine, but I really wonder at how people can be enticed by these Vanessa Mae videos, that are essentially fantasy action videos or magazine layouts with bad music. Turn on the music and click away from the utube video, and tell me how good the music really is.
There is the whole side issue of the kind of music that has been engineered within an inch of its life to sound like a computer vomited it onto a cd. The rhythms are so perfect, and the timbre and sound placement has been so manipulated that I would rather hear it played by computer. Why have people make music at all? This sounds like the product of a 14 year old who is overly impressed with his sound editor.
Edit: And as for the first video, that has not been sound engineered. The music is cheesy pop garbage. I mean really, I'm embarrassed for the orchestra that had to play that. I understand that there is no accounting for taste- that piece is definite proof.
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posted
I've seen near that during Marching Band practice in high school Tom.
Replace tuba with sousaphone, and replace bikini with skimpy tanktop and daisy dukes and there you go.
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You seem somewhat confused; I'm not defending the Youtube videos at all, musically; I don't think its very good music, either. I was merely offering an alternative that was.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
My favorite You Tube violinist is Calligopoulos
Here is an extraordinary recording of Perlman His articulation is phenomenal on this recording. I have to admit to being curious about that hall. All of the solo winds sound fantastic also, so I think Perlman is getting a little help, but this recording is fine evidence supporting that he is the best living violinist.
posted
It's not meant to classical, it's meant to betray every fetish and horrible stereotype that makes Asians', and others people's lives harder in this country. I only get up in arms because I study at a music department which is composed of about 40% Asian women, the majority of whom are hypersensitive about exactly this kind of thing.
There are even local and global hate groups on the Facebook that vilify whites for enjoying this kind of entertainment and fetishizing Asian women. I'm not saying that's ALL this is doing, but this kind of commercial garbage makes me ashamed of our culture, and it makes me life noticeably more complicated. If you think that race relations between whites and Asians in this country are just peachy, I would suggest you go to visit a large music department at a California university sometime- people can be extremely sensitive about this kind of thing.
However you feel about it (and my feelings about the quality of the music completely aside for the moment) this gives hateful and mean spirited people a reason to hate other people. I don't know if it's racially motivated, but I do know people who would use it as an excuse to vilify our culture. I could be hypersensitive about that, and I probably am, but I can't help but think there is some exec somewhere going: "an Asian girl with a violin sells!" This is only evidenced and reinforced by the poor quality of the music, which would have the potential to override any of my feelings about this whole thing. Since it's clear to me that the music is not the main purpose of the videos (because the music is awful) I look for another explanation. I hope wish I am wrong about that, but I know it's enough for some to jump to a conclusion about how ALL of American culture is.
Edit to add: If your response is that I should think of how I would feel if this weren't a specifically Asian woman- I would likely feel about the same. It's exploitative and useless eye candy, and it denigrates the woman, and teaches us a crummy lesson about musicianship and artistry. I understand on some level she made a choice to participate in this, but we also make a choice to support it, and I would ask others to choose not to.
posted
While her looks may be a large part of the enjoyment for some of her fans, they aren't for me, and I'm probably not alone in that. I liked her music before I knew what she looked like, mainly because I tend to enjoy classical crossover-type stuff in general. It's just fun.
I like regular classical music as well, but my ear isn't trained well enough to find her playing to be all that bad. I can understand how her imperfections could annoy classical purists, though. If Perlman or Mutter or any other virtuoso should ever decide to record an album in a Vanessa-Mae-esque style, I'd gladly buy it, but until then, I'm happy with her CDs. Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I didn't see any particularly Asian imagery in the videos, just a lot of unnecessary sexiness. And they use that to market nearly all female classical musicians, such as Hilary Hahn.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Nell, the poor quality of the music is not so because of her poor skills as a musician. I don't know how good of a musician she is, because the repertoire she is exhibiting here is horrible. I don't think Perlman or Bell would make a better case for this music, I think it's bad music and that's all there is to it. It's not about me being a purist (because anyone who is a musician is not a real purist- we want to be accessible), it's about this music being god awful. There is the added insult of it sampling Bach and other compositional legends of yore- but that CAN be done tastefully. This example is not tasteful, it's crass.
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I don't care what race she is. I don't care if she wants to exploit her looks. This was the first time I'd ever seen any videos of her...I only have CDs. I still like the music. Too bad if you don't.
Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
I just want to point out that unnecessary sexiness is not the same thing as unpleasant sexiness. Even if she were a slightly more talented player, I would not mind in the least if she remained moderately attractive.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Mph- Yes it is boring. As for the imagery- I've looked and I can't pin anything down. I think I'm having an overall negative reaction to the overdone eyeshadow, lip gloss, belly shirts, flipping of the hair, etc. All that isn't Asian per se- but if you've been subjected to as many indictments of the whole of white America having "yellow fever" as I have, you might have a pavlovian response developed around this sort of thing. I know people, not people I particularly respect, loudly and proudly use things like this as part of a feminist, racist agenda. I am sad that I have been so trained as to react that way. Maybe I shouldn't be so sensitive, and just dismiss the music because it's awful.
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quote:Maybe I shouldn't be so sensitive, and just dismiss the music because it's awful.
I don't think decrying music which others enjoy because you've judged it to be "awful" puts you on better ground.
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quote:Turn on the music and click away from the utube video, and tell me how good the music really is.
Funny, that's how I listened to the Classical Gas clip first - when I click a link in Firefox, it doesn't flip to the tab automatically. It played all the way through before I looked. And I liked it fine.
I don't particularly care if my musical tastes aren't up to anyone else's standard. I like Miller Lite, and I don't care that it's "bad beer."
I like it. That's why I listen to music.
(Or, what MPH just said.)
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Personally I preferred it on the guitar with Eric Clapton, but I still liked it, if anything, when I was watching the video I found her gyrations distracting.
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posted
OK, I've gone and watched all of the videos now except for Devil's Trill, which I cannot get to load.
Yes, the music videos are pointlessly (and IMO, stupidly) sexual, but no moreso than the average music video I recall back from the days when I watched them.
I too found the Classical Gas video distracting. I think I liked it less with the visuals than without.
I didn't care much for most of the pieces, and I especially was bugged whenever she whispered, like in Destiny and the end of Red Hot.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I don't particularly care if my musical tastes aren't up to anyone else's standard. I like Miller Lite, and I don't care that it's "bad beer."
The lit crit student inside of me is screaming at you about Emanuel Kant.
That's a weird dichotomy to me. I really think that you saying "I don't care that it's 'bad beer'" is actually you making the case that it isn't all that bad. It seems that a lot of the time people use this sort of argument- one that claims not to actually argue in favor of the things they like- but it actually does. Saying you like it is also saying, in a sense, that it is good, because people like good things.
I think you can go ahead and make the argument that it is good for something, and not cut me off at the knees by saying my argument, that it is BAD, is irrelevant. It isn't. You think it's good, and I don't- we don't agree. This argument, whenever I see it presented (not often, but sometimes) is really telling me that my judgement is poor, or that I am wrong, without actually offering any kind of evidence or advancing any point in favor of the thing we're talking about. This is a condescension, in that I am being told I am incapable of understanding the reasons why this music is good- it's akin to me telling you that you'll have to trust me on why this music is awful, because my taste is better than yours- which I didn't say. This is just you saying that YOUR taste is better than mine. It also posits the position that I am an elitist and unreachable for any kind of dialog, because my tastes (with a roll of the eyes) are "too refined." Taste, contrary to popular opinion, is accountable and should be accounted for. It's one of the most interesting things about music, and it's the thing that alienates academicians and classicists from other people. In my opinion, and it is only my inexperienced opinion as a student, non-academics take a MUCH harder line when it comes to accepting different attitudes and insights into music and aesthetics. Often "open minds" aren't so open.
I really don't think that this kind of statement advances any kind of useful dialogue because it's inherently dishonest- it hinders communication and shuts me out of the equation.
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quote:You think it's good, and I don't- we don't agree.
He, nor I, never said it was good. He said that he liked it.
quote:This is just you saying that YOUR taste is better than mine.
Not at all. It's saying that it's different.
You are putting a lot of words into Dagonee's mouth which he never said.
quote:I really don't think that this kind of statement advances any kind of useful dialogue because it's inherently dishonest- it hinders communication and shuts me out of the equation.
I think you've done that far more than Dagonee has. You are the one that has said that it is bad, awful music, implying that anybody who likes it has bad, awful taste. Despite your protestations, Dagonee has not said nor implied anything about your taste in music except that it's different than his.
posted
My point, which you ignored, was to show that a statement like that dismisses any attempt at defending a position or understanding anything about the other side of the argument.
You can take a page out of many a poster's book and snip out of context qoutlets from my post to make me look like an ogre- but that's pretty lame. "You think it's good, and I don't- we don't agree" came at the end of a reasoning sequence I was trying to demonstrate. You destroyed all that, and so you really didn't quote me- and you really didn't understand what I was trying to say. That may be my fault, but the out of context quote is your fault. Please don't do that, I really really don't like it when people do that. It's got to be the most frustrating thing about this forum for me.
Everything in your post depends on a misreading of mine, so I don't know what to say. You've reinforced the point I was trying to make by demonstrating how obtuse people can be in arguments like this.
Edit: And yes I am constructing a string of inferences based on what Dag wrote, and that's a risky thing. You can take it with a grain of salt, but please take it in its context. I am not in Dag's mind, I am describing his thought as it appears to me, and that is the most I can hope to do. I'm not putting words in his mouth. Don't confuse the two things.
For the record: I am positing that a statement about the quality of a piece of music, or a recording, is usually a matter subject for debate. My opinions, and I think all opinions, carry with them the implication that others should agree- that my taste or my reasoning or my insight is of value to others, and not just myself. These points are arguable always, but I would rather argue them than say: "There is no accounting for taste." There is accounting for taste, but most people are too apathetic to actually account for it. There could be many interesting things that Dag might have to say as to why this music did something for him, but he assumed, or at least implied in his post that there was no value in sharing that insight- because I wouldn't understand it, or because I wouldn't make the effort to listen. To me, that's unfair to my effort, whenever I take to the time, to argue my position on a piece of music. Being a student of musicology as I am, this kind of statement is also something I never hear from people who have anything interesting to say on music- because they know better than to offer such a lame rejoinder.
quote:Taste, contrary to popular opinion, is accountable and should be accounted for. It's one of the most interesting things about music, and it's the thing that alienates academicians and classicists from other people.
Not quite. The belief that taste should be accounted for -- by some objective standard -- is what causes academicians to alienate themselves from other people. It's clearly wrong.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
This was your first post on this thread, Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Ugh. I don't like this. The music is not very good folks, I mean really? It's just that she's a very attractive Asian woman playing a violin- and not all that well. I'm a little disgusted. It's very exploitative.
I responded to a very specific part of your post, a challenge, if you will, to prove that we would like it even without seeing the attractive Asian woman in a short dress:
quote:Turn on the music and click away from the utube video, and tell me how good the music really is.
You felt it was OK to make an aesthetic pronouncement without justifying it. You've now declared it "unfair" that I did the same thing.
The entirety of your response to me is based on principles you are unwilling to apply to yourself AND on an understanding of my intent that is almost completely uninformed.
I responded to one particular assertion you made and then supported with your challenge: that those who like it only do so because of the hawt Asian chick.
Why I like Classical Gas is immaterial to this, except to the extent that your assertion as to that "why" was wrong in at least one instance.
You started this thread assigning motives to other people, you then assigned them directly to me, and finally, you got pissy at me for daring to do what you did at the very beginning of this thread: making an aesthetic judgment without defending it.
In no way, shape, or form did I dismiss any attempt at defending your position. I don't care what you think about my tastes, at least with respect to beer and music, because I use both only for my own enjoyment. That's not dismissing you; that's announcing a very simple fact.
(I'll only mention the irony of complaining about MPH pulling one of your quotes out of context when he did so in response to you doing the same thing to me.)
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: Everything in your post depends on a misreading of mine, so I don't know what to say. You've reinforced the point I was trying to make by demonstrating how obtuse people can be in arguments like this.
If I misunderstood your post, it was an honest misunderstanding. As I re-read your post, it still looks like you're accusing Dagonee of doing something he hasn't done, but which is very close to what you yourself are doing.
quote:My opinions, and I think all opinions, carry with them the implication that others should agree- that my taste or my reasoning or my insight is of value to others, and not just myself.
I disagree. Notice that Dag nor I made claims, as you did, about the quality of the music. We said we enjoyed it. I personally think there's nothing wrong with not enjoying music that I enjoy.
On the other hand, I do think, despite the fact that I do it myself all the time, that there is something distateful in thinking that your tastes are superior to those of other people.
quote:There could be many interesting things that Dag might have to say as to why this music did something for him, but he assumed, or at least implied in his post that there was no value in sharing that insight- because I wouldn't understand it, or because I wouldn't make the effort to listen.
This only makes sense if Dagonee agrees with your assumption that taste should be accounted for.
quote:Taste, contrary to popular opinion, is accountable and should be accounted for.
I disagree. Also, you are aware that most people disagree with you on this, and yet you keep assigning motives and inferences to Dagonee as though he shares your assumptions.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I have literally ALL of her albums and recordings (buying all the albums of a given artist at the same time is something I do rather often). I have 78 of her songs on my Winamp rotation.
She has several others great ones than those listed, including her renditions of Cotton Eye Joe, Flight of the Bumblebee, Zorba, etc...
I love her music, and haven't seen much of her live or on stage. But, yes, the times I've seen her perform she has been somewhat of a fireball.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
And here I listen to classical music to soothe my nerves and make my surroundings serene. Who would have thought we could have heated arguments about classical composers.
Now where is my Rachmaninov cd? Ah yes here it is! mmmmmm Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Ya know that Perlman fella coulda made somethin' of himself if he'da learned young from a master like PapaJohnCreach insteada bein' ruined by classical trainin'. Admittedly his choice of music sucks, but he's still pretty much ruined as far as fiddlin'.
posted
I liked the music (I mean, it's not great or anything, but it's ok) before I saw any videos of the performer.
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