Classical Music not Classic Music

    Sometimes when students talk about music I've heard conversations like this:
      A: What kind of music do you like?
      B: I like classic music.
      A: Oh, yes? Who's your favourite composer?
      B: Chopin.

      A: Do you play any musical instruments?
      B: Yes, I play the guitar.
      A: Electric guitar?
      B: No, classic guitar.

    Do you know why I have drawn a line through the word classic?
    It's because in both cases, B should have said classical. So, what's the difference between classic and classical?

    Classical vs. Classic in music

    The type of music we associate with great symphonies and concertos, great operas and great composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt etc. is called CLASSICAL MUSIC.

    As regards guitars, you can buy an electric guitar, acoustic (folk) guitar, bass guitar, or a 12-string guitar. But the type of guitar which we associate with guitarists like Andres Segovia, Narciso Yepes, Kaori Muraji and John Williams or with beautiful pieces like Recuerdos del Alhambra and Romance de Amor (禁じられた遊び), is called the CLASSICAL GUITAR

    However, it is possible to say that some pieces of music from other genres such as pop, rock or jazz are CLASSICS but not classical. Here are some examples of well-known songs which could be called classics:

    • John Lennon's Imagine.
    • Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water.
    • Pete Seeger's Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
    • Irving Berlin's White Christmas.
    • The Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar.

    What is special about these songs? Well, I think there are 2 things we can say about them:

    1. Many people would say they are among the best pop songs ever written.
    2. Thousands of pop songs have been written. Most of them are popular for a short time and then disappear. However, songs like Imagine and Bridge Over Troubled Water were popular 20 years ago, are still popular now and will probably still be popular 50 years from now. In other words, they are popular from one generation to the next.

    CLASSICAL: other cases

    CLASSICAL LITERATURE. In Europe this refers to the literature of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome (e.g. the poems of Ovid, Homer's Iliad). In Japan, classical literature would include works like the Kojiki or Nihon Shoki.

    CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE. This is the architecture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome (e.g. the Colosseum in Rome, the Parthenon in Athens). Modern imitations of Greek and Roman art are called classical style or neo-classical (e.g. The British Museum in London).

    CLASSICAL LANGUAGES. These are ancient languages which people no longer use in everyday communication, but which are still studied by academics. They include Latin, Ancient Greek and Classical Arabic.

    A CLASSICAL EDUCATION. In Britain and North America, this is an education which places a strong emphasis on the literature, history and languages of Ancient Greece and Rome. If someone studies Latin and Greek au university, we can say he or she is a classical scholar or studies classics.

    We also talk about classical ballet and modern ballet BUT traditional jazz and modern jazz.

    CLASSIC / CLASSICS:

    As well as pop songs, classic can be used to talk about very high quality books and films. These are books and films which will (probably) always be famous and never lose their popularity. Here are some examples:

    CLASSIC NOVELS:

    • Tolstoy's War and Peace.
    • Flaubert's Madame Bovary
    • Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

    CLASSICS OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE:

    • J.M Barrie's Peter Pan.
    • Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
    • Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.

    MOVIE CLASSICS:

    • Gone with the Wind (1939).
    • Casablanca (1942).
    • Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960).

    QUESTION
    Will J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books become children's classics?
    Hmm... possibly, but it's too early to say.

    A usage note about CLASSIC

    Classic can be a countable noun:

    • Gone with the Wind is a classic.
    • Gone with the Wind is one of the great classics of the cinema.

    Classic can also be an adjective:

    • Gone with the Wind is one of Hollywood's great classic movies.

    Exercise

    Fill in the blanks in the sentences below. Use classical, classic or classics.

    1. They've decided to build the new city hall in a neo-__________ style.
    2. I've been playing folk guitar for a few years but now I want to study __________ guitar.
    3. Do you think Lord of the Rings could be called a __________?
    4. Natsume Soseki's I am a Cat is one of the great __________ of Japanese literature.
    5. He received a __________ education with a strong emphasis on Latin and Greek.
    6. My uncle studied __________ at Oxford.
    7. I heard your sister teaches __________ ballet.

    Click here to check your answers and read some further comments.

    Click here if you want to try some of my other one-point lessons.

    © Robert E. Jones, 2004