Have you watched the "Silver Apples of the Moon" link? It's utterly mesmerizing.

As far as snobbery goes, there was a time when avant-garde was regarded by classical patrons as horrible noise. I would regard Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" as avant-garde and it caused a riot the night it debuted in Paris. People were outraged because the music and dance were so obscene and animalistic. It didn't have enough melody, damn it! Nowadays, classical music includes much of the avant-garde. You can buy "Rite of Spring" in any Barnes & Noble with a small classical CD section (because I did).

Now, the snobbery has become internal to the music. Read the comments on the Density 21.5 link: "She's playing too fast" "She's playing too slow" "She's playing too mechanically" "She's not playing mechanically enough" "She's playing with too much passion that the pieces wasn't mean to have" "It's too fluid" "It's not fluid enough."

That's what I've always hated about the classical scene and why I prefer to hang out with the jazz set. I've met more jazz people who can play classical music than I ever have the reverse. Of course, most jazz musicians are classically trained and cut their teeth on classical pieces. I played Bach and Chopin until my fingers literally bled. I love classical music but I don't love the stuck-up scene. Don't get me wrong, a lot of classical music lovers are fine people and I have a lot of friends and contacts among them but I got so sick of some ass telling how I played this passage wrong and that it wasn't in the spirit of the composer and that I spoiled the mood the piece was meant to evoke and blah blah blah. "Well, perhaps then, you could show me how Mozart intended for that passage to to be played" and you find out the asshole doesn't even play an instrument or they play stinking.

At least in jazz, they pride themselves on never playing anything the same way twice. Classical fans fight to the death over the composer's instruction to play the piece "poco moto." They'll go around and around about what constitutes poco moto until a normal person is half-crazy from listening to it.

Folk is a bit more like jazz in that you're free to interpret a piece just about anyway you want to. Someone may not care for it but I don't have to hear "that line should be played andante and that doesn't sound andante to me!" And you don't see 8 yo kids being exploited to make money filling concert halls in the folk scene so that these kids are used up and strung out by the time they hit 21.

There isn't much difference between much of classical music behind the scenes and something from "Tiaras and Toddlers". It's the same thing--a popularity contest for children too young to understand how they are being exploited. I'm surprised, in fact, that no one has made a reality show like that. Call it--"So You Think Your Kid's a Virtuoso". I might even watch it to see the talent. But it ruins kids. Imagine being 9 years old and some grown-up is fawning all over you telling you how he has all your CDs and loves them all more than life itself and the only thing you had to do with those CDs is that they shuttled you in to the studio to record your playing and then shuttled you back out once they were done with you. Your whole life is playing, recording, traveling, playing, recording and traveling. I've known adults who couldn't take it. Imagine being a child on the chitlin circuit. The circuit of snobs--half of whom love you for know fair reason and the other half hates you for no fair reason.