Music Video Lesson: What Makes Great Music "Great"?

Robert Estrom here, LivingPianos.com, asking the loaded question, what makes music great? There is so much to this that we could talk about the inventiveness and the melody, rhythm, orchestration.

There's countless aspects of music that together somehow makes things great. And you know what's really interesting? You take a composer like Mozart.

Now, when Mozart was alive, what other great composers were around? Well, Haydn was around, Beethoven a little bit later, and Schubert a little bit later.

Were those the only composers? No, of course there were hundreds of composers. But what is it about Mozart and Beethoven? What is it about these great composers? What makes music great? And even in the 20th and 21st centuries, what is it that separates the Beatles from hundreds of other bands that were composing or producing similar music, just like Mozart had many contemporaries, whether it was Hummel or Salieri or countless others? And somehow you listen to their music and if you analyze it, you can't really say what's so different about their music from their contemporaries.

Same thing with the Beatles. There are lots and lots of bands.

And I'm going to give you in a nutshell what I think separates like Brahms from countless other romantic period composers, as well as the Beatles and Beethoven.

And that is that every single composition is a unique statement.

Beethoven wrote 32 piano sonatas. There are no two that are really alike.

They're all unique compositions.

Take a look at the Beatles. You may love the Beatles. They might not be your favorite band. But you've got to admit that every single album was different from every other album. And every song in every album was different from every other song on every album.

This is a really hard thing to achieve. Typically in pop music, for example, you might have a one hit wonder. Somebody hits a great song and the rest of the album not so great. Or less common.

There's one great album and that's the end of it. And you never hear from the band again. But the Beatles kept coming up with great albums. And they're not the only band, by the way. I'm just using them as the quintessential band of all time that just kept churning out great music.

Look at Brahms' four symphonies. And they are completely unique musical statements, every one of them. Now you might say that Mozart is more similar in his works than other composers or Haydn. But each one has its own character, its own motifs, and its own structure. And breaking the rules, the rules of form, slightly altered here and there, keeping the interest.

So that's really what separates great music is the fact that the originality from composition to composition is just astounding in the people who are really remembered over generations and over centuries. I'm interested in your opinion of this. And if you think there are other aspects of great music that deserve to be mentioned, do it here in the comments at livingpianos.com and YouTube. Again, Robert Estrin here for you. Thanks again for being with me.

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