I deeply dislike the term classical music. Classic is a word filled with value judgments. When we call something classic, we mean it is a core representative of an esteemed and important time. A classic is not just something old. A classic is foundational to how the world works even today. And that is why I hate classical music as a concept.
Burning the Strawman
Don't get me wrong. Classical music fits all the merit criteria I just named in my strawman conceptualization. It is not just old but encompasses periods of time under which European music underwent a revolution. The music people call classical today represents nuggets of history Europeans can be proud of. For a continent in long-winded geopolitical decline, there is pride in the fact that all classical music was composed by some white dudes who lived in and around Germany. There is no American Wagner. It is ridiculous to imagine the existence of a Chinese Mozart, a Latino Bach, or an African Beethoven.
Classical equals white
Classical music—the remnants of Eurocentric colonial thinking—tells us it is European. What's more, classical music is the last unrefutably fully European thing. All else is kind of brown in its Genesis and thus—until the middle of the last century—accepted as disgusting.
Classical music is also taken as a good thing. Millions of taxpayers' money are spent throughout Europe to teach children the classics. Billions are spent building cathedrals to good old European music (see Elbphilarmonie). In contrast to the empty Christian cathedral, the philharmonics are filled to the rim during the open seasons. Classical music is important, says the European.
Music is important
I am not trying to bash the importance of music. Music is important. I applaud efforts to catalog and enrich our knowledge of ancient music. Music is language and art. It is vital to our experience of life and to our understanding of who we are as a group of mammals floating on a ball of almost fully melted magma in a mostly empty universe. The Voyager space crafts contain mostly music gifts. The Golden Record is composed of a bit of math, a bit of physics, a bit of engineering, and A LOT of music, pictures, and videos. Alien anthropologists would never understand humanity without understanding music.
So no, I do not dislike music, not even European music. The ta ta ta tan of Beethoven's 5th is a common earworm in my head and one I do not especially hate. Ricardo Arjona's Tu Reputación is another song in my earworm playlist, and that one deserves to burn in hell.
Remnant of Racist Propaganda
What I hate is the idea of calling some music classic and not others. Specifically, calling music composed in one continent in one period of time classic while calling music composed and performed in the colonies of said continent at the same time indigenous. I hate this idea because it is an openly racist moniker. I elevate European music to a category no other music tradition can match. What's more, it makes us believe that everyone should value this music above their own. It reeks of colonialist plunder spirit.
And it works. Growing up in Costa Rica, classical music was revered. We call our colonial music folklore and disregard its value in the pantheon of world music. Costa Rica even at one point raised its export taxes to bankroll the building of a "European-like" temple to classical music.
I used to be jealous of my childhood friends who lived close to the National Philharmonic. This institution had youth programs for children to learn classical music for free. Their alumni would often go to study at Julliard, Berklee, and other temples to the European classics. Even today, among the First Violinists of the Berlin Opera lies a Costa Rican who spent his days in these programs.
Were there programs to incentivize learning indigenous or contemporary music? Maybe, but none were seen. Or at least, I was not taught to regard people who played the marimba with the same esteem as I would a piano player. Even contemporary Latin music was seen with derision. And that is the problem with calling something classical; it makes other music sound feeble and unworthy of investment.
Why not call it all indigenous?
My hatred of the word classical led to an idea. What about just saying that all music composed during the period of time Europe had colonies is indigenous music? By this, I mean that we would call all music indigenous, and then we can employ geographic filters to select the continent we care for. So we would have African Indigenous music, Australian Indigenous music (actually, they call it Aboriginal music), Latin Indigenous music, and obviously European Indigenous music.
What I like about this recategorization is that only one music tradition needs to be relabeled. All others were mostly falling within this label already. It is just European music that is now seen as indigenous. Given that only about one-eighth of humans are Europeans, this feels like a simple thing to do. Not that I think it will ever happen.
CODA
A thing I love about music is that a lot of it originates in struggle. Be it Jewish ghettos in Sevilla for flamenco. The Slave south of us for Blues, then Jazz, then Rock n' rool, or marginalized communities in New York and Los Angeles for the creation of Hip Hop. Rich people might call something classic, but culture is not exclusive to the rich.
When I was eight, I went to my first reggaeton concert. It was a concert of El General at the Costa Rican Tennis Club. A friend's dad organized it, which was a very foreign experience for me. I grew up hearing how low-brow reggaeton was. It was not real music like what my parents heard at their time. Pink Floyd and Queen could not be compared with what the Panama people would play.
Speed forward a few decades, and reggaeton is everywhere. From Shakira to Justin Bieber and Madonna, what started as music De La Ghetto in Panama is now the most mainstream contemporary music, at least during the summer. However influential reggaeton might be, it is never to be classical music. It is never to be esteemed or taken seriously. Classical music needs to smell European.
PS: Neon Noir
What I love about being alive today is the existence of people who spend their lives mixing things. People like the PUYA, who masterfully mixed metal music with salsa and merengue, or the Gaga Symphony Orchestra, played reggaeton at least once. See receipts below. Gimmick or not, the future of history is brown.
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