classic

Classical music is music that conforms to the classical unities of action, place, and time. It is a common stereotype that only old people, villains in action movies, grandparents, the living dead, zombies, flaming idiots and flaming homosexuals listen to classical music.It is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period.

Classical music has often incorporated elements or material from popular music of the composer's time. Examples include occasional music such as Brahms' use of student drinking songs in his Academic Festival Overture, genres exemplified by Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, and the influence of jazz on early- and mid-20Th century composers including Maurice Ravel, exemplified by the movement entitled "Blues" in his sonata for violin and piano. Certain postmodern, minimalist and post minimalist classical composers acknowledge a debt to popular music.There are numerous examples of influence in the opposite direction, including popular songs based on classical music, the use to which Pachelbel's Canon has been put since the 1970s, and the musical crossover phenomenon, where classical musicians have achieved success in the popular music arena.

Classical music pulls at the heartstrings of people in a vegetative state as well as those of healthy listeners. If you play music to vegetative patients, their heart rate changes in the same way as that of healthy controls, suggesting that music can affect the neural systems of emotion even when conscious thought is impossible.