Can Classical and Pop Musicians See Eye to Eye? (Ft. Roomie and Jonas) 

Writing this comment with my ”Calming Classical” playlist playing in the background. Thanks for having us guys, always a pleasure :)

well done to editor-San for actually editing in the music they were talking about 👏👏 shdhchc the patience 😌

You guys should try “Listening ONLY to Classical / Pop music for a week” for your next videos and come back to share your experiences 😎

We need a competition where Brett and Eddie try to write a pop song, and Joel and Jonas try to write a classical piece and see how they get on with their limited knowledge of the genres.

This has potential to be a banger podcast

The collab we didn't expect but we were needing for so long. By far one of the highlights of 2021

In my opinion, the difference between classical music and pop music is sort of like what roomie was saying, he said that pop music connects and classical music does not. However I would put it differently. I would say that pop musicians attempt attempt to connect to an emotion that the listener already feels or relates to, whereas classical music tries to bring the listener to the emotion or idea that the composer wants to express. Pop music reaches OUT and tries to easily relate to listeners, whereas classical music invites the listener IN to try and understand a concept or emotion or idea.

As a consumer of both types of music, I would have to say classical is definitely harder technically. Of course anything can be made very complex and difficult, but if u just take the "average" difficulty and talent, the amount of practice required to make a classical vs. pop piece sound ok is worlds different.

roomie: "you are not only a pop fan, you are also not straight anymore" eddy: **nods from experience** me: **spits out water**

all their camera quality just improved by 40%

Twoset brought classical to me, a 17-year old guitarist and now beginner cellist. Really is true the influence they have.

the more i hear brett and eddy talk about classical music, the more i remember that these 2 guys studied classical music in UNIVERSITY, are professional classical musicians and for sure have taken countless lessons on the theory, history and interpretation of classical music. it's a totally different vibe... damnn

Jonas: “Sounds like you guys just like punishing yourselves essentially.” Yeah that’s basically it

Jonas: *headbangs* does classical music like that even exist? Me literally 6 minutes ago looking exactly like that listening to Saint-Saens Rondo Capriccioso: 👀

As an emerging classical composer, I'd say it is pretty hard to become successful, if only for the fact that it takes years to write a significant piece. After that, there's no guarantee that you'll even get anyone to play it, especially more than once, and especially in the orchestral world (I'm focusing on concert bands and chamber music for this reason). Pop writers can put out a bunch of 3 minute songs a year, and spend the rest of the time doing marketing because they actually have a product to market, and there's a much bigger audience. The audience I have to market to is basically just classical conductors and small ensembles lol

As far as technical expertise, what’s missing here is the producer for pop music. The producer’s skill and time into the piece is extremely significant. There is no pop music without the producer. The production is what they are saying is where the skill in pop music is, and yet overlook that role, because artists are not necessarily producers, most aren’t.

Anyone think Roomie is such a good debater even when you disagree with him at some point. You get his picture of things

Roomie explains everything so eloquently and clearly, I tend to forget he's actually a musical genius lmao

I would listen to a podcast where TwoSet explains a classical piece to the pop guys and the pop guys explain a pop song to TwoSet!

Even my husband who says he doesn’t really “get” classical music, when we saw Nadja Salerno-Sonnenburg play the Shos, said, “I can tell that was ‘art’ because it made me feel terrible.” 😂

Every classical music teacher I've ever met : "It doesn't matter how good your technique is if you can't connect with your audience"

Thanks for having me on guys! From now on I'll only listen to classical music OR WILL I? 👀👀👀

I would love to see this same sort of video but with jazz musicians. I’ve heard Jazz described numerous times as “America’s Classical Music” and think it would be really interesting to see the similarities and differences.

Jonas: "you need to have statistics on this" Roomie: "where's the research you made for this video? what are your team doing??!!" Brett: "where are the statistics? rEaSeArCh??!!" Editor San: "still trapped in basement" :( :( lol (30:41)

roomie: "you are not only a pop fan, you are also not straight anymore" eddy: nods from experience Me: *remembers when Eddy said "I think im turning gay bro" after he sees jimin lmfao

I would like to see this with rock/metal musicians and classical musicians, because I think they have a lot more in common than most people realize

I love the old man Brett moment of Eddy saying "he thinks it's pop music because it's not classical" LMAO. I disagree that most people don't connect with classical music. idk about how others feel, but I love classical music BECAUSE of the feelings it invokes. I'm not a musician or classical music expert, so I don't really pay attention to technique lol. I pay attention to the colors or images that a classical piece paints in my mind. Kind of going off what Eddy said about classical music having so much variety; there are some intensely emotional classical pieces out there. I think it's very reductive to think the only worth in classical music is the artist's technique. Both classical and pop music can resonate deeply with audiences. :)

"Pop music require less practice or talent than classical music" Expecting arguing rants from both camps. Actually gets dissecting, honest and self-critical answers. Love how the comedy and seriousness are very well balanced. Like a good song/piece ;)

Remember folks, Brett is a true pure-bred classical musician!

I loved this video. I like that Eddy and Roomie are on the "moderate" side, and Brett and Jonas are heavily on their respective sides, this brings more points of view of the topics they talk about. I am really impressed with Jonas, he brings some reasonable answers (please don't count the moment he said it's easy to become performers and have a great career, that's some real bs lol). Also, I genuinely appreciate Roomie for congratulating with the goals that Brett and Eddy achieved with their channel, they really are revitalizing and keeping alive Classical Music, making people discover and love it.

The "problem" with classical music is that there is so much and that many pieces generally need to be listened numerous times to appreciate it and that is talking about compositions only. Then there often are hundreds of recordings of a typical piece were both recording quality vary widely and there is also huge varieties in the interpretation of the music. Both these factors can make the difference from epic to garbage. The huge amount of compositions and then different recordings of each composition makes it generally harder to get into classical music for people who know little about the world of classical music nor knows anyone into it. So there is a higher threshold for getting into classical music than with pop I think. If this wasn't the case I think more people would actually both listen to classical music and be able to find music they like in the genre. Then, if you also have a deeper understanding of the theoretical part of music there will be a whole new level of appreciating the music. Much of this is true for pop to some extent as well but pop is served to you "everywhere" so you don't have to look for it and it's (generally) easier to digest even on the first listen. Regarding pop music being "simple" I also think (and this come from one that don't listen all that much to pop music) that pop music today is, to me at least, more about the production than the music and more about show than musicality. I feel that the (over)production in pop music actually many times gets in the way of the music, because some songs can actually be quite good and some musicians are also very talented but that does not come through either because of the production. This in mainly what makes me not listen much to pop music of today. I have no problem with "simple" or repetitive songs really it's more that I like listening to the music and not the production. If I was to make an analogy it's a bit like that audiophiles use music to listen to their equipment but not really to the music. So you have to have a song to build the production around but the song/music isn't playing the lead role, hence it's simple. One could argue that pop songs doesn't even _have_ to be good, as they often are repetitive and repetition legitimizes... Also many pop songs have taken classical compositions and simplified them into pop... (I'll go take cover now :-) As interesting as the discussion is there is really no reason to argue which is "better", though. Anyone can listen so anything they want and as long as no one is trying to impose their taste in music on someone else all is good. That said it would be interesting to see similar videos involving other genres as (progressive) metal or jazz, for example, which, IMO, go more hand in hand with classical music. Of course there might no be as much disagreements there as both can be very complex and the skill needed is more on par. It would be interesting to hear what prejudices both sides have though.

as Adam Neely accurately puts it, "repetition legitimizes". also he would be a great guest for one of these videos

It's funny how pop musicians talk about connecting with an audience (that I agree with) while they think that classical music perfoming is not about connecting and is just about technique. But the connecting part is the whole point of succeeding in classical music - you have to bring something special and unique to your playing so you can evoke the deepest emotions in your audience.

As a person who thought classical music was boring before. I feel like the reason why most people think classical music is "calming", "chill" or even "boring" is that they aren't really aware that there's more pieces other than canon in d, river flows in you, spring (u know all those calming pieces). Because before i honestly didn't even know that Holst's planets suit existed, or Mozart's symphonies even and many more (like there's literally thousands of pieces that I still don't know). And honestly one of the joys in listening to classical music is actually discovering more incredible pieces, more repertoire. Edit: I just placed river flows in you there since a lot of people assume that it’s classical music and i thought it’s counted as contemporary classical music lmao.

I feel music is music and is all beautiful. You can love hearing “None but the lonely heart” of Tchaikovsky or “Bohemian Rhapsody “ of Queen…Identify with a song from Imagine Dragons like “Believer” or a musical song like “This is the moment” from Jekyll and Hyde. I love hearing you play the violin and also hearing Peter Hollens sing covers … I think no music is better but is in the “ear” of the beholder lol… depends on your mood.

I think that it's really interesting how both classical and pop both 'limit' themselves in different ways, like in classical, you limit yourself by needing to be perfect, no incorrect notes, no amps, and in pop, it's by being minimalistic, creating a clever puzzle from simple pieces.

Jonas: "anyone can be a world-class violinist.." I WISH THO IF IT WAS THAT EASY 😭

Roomie and Eddy simping over Jimin is the content I needed!!😭😂

Jonas and roomie need to listen to Habanera from Carmen as part of the weekly recommendations. Roomie because he said he didn't really like the operatic stuff and Habanera is one of the most recognizable but also tolerable operatic pieces; Jonas because he said he's never heard anything he could "just groove to".

You have to love that Roomie used Mariah and Freddy as examples, one famous for using her voice like an instrument and the other one being one of the best Rock artists ever.

Now all we need is a collab with Daniel Thrasher and my life is complete :’)

ngl as a person who enjoys both classical music and pop music, every single topic is rly interesting. This is why you guys said grab popcorn. (I didn't tho)

Film music IS simply contemporary classical music. It's a continuation of the tradition of scores commissioned for plays and ballets

"Classical music is calming". The first LP I bought as a boy was The Planets, and I bought it after hearing the first movement: Mars, the Bringer of War. If you can stay calm while listening to that, you should enlist. You'll stay as cool as a cucumber on any battlefield.

Jonas: *does it make you feel better than us?* Jonas really woke up and chose violence

"anyone can become a world class violinist" me practicing my a** off trying to make Bruch concerto sound a little bit like what the actual world class violinist Hilary Hahn made it sound like: come again???

Sometimes the conversation falls on this misunderstanding that classical music only value is to "play it technically well". Taking away the fact that classical music were made also to connect to, based on, wars, life, death writings, religión, feelings, etc, etc, just as pop if you like, but beyond words, -literally- without any lyrics to sing on a lot of the pieces from the genre, and the amount of time and talent to make some was insane, like or even more than the value they are giving to the "writing of pop songs", which as being said a few times on this video is one of the appeals of pop music... like classic music didn't have that appeal (wrong). Also I don't think that is more complicated to produce a meaningful pop song than a classical meaningful piece, if you are considering producing pop now, with all the gadgets to make it easier, to how every instrument by it self in classic music could affect the overall feeling of it. Both have the same boxes to check, but I mean, nowadays gadget does make things easier and happen, even without a real talented singer, just hanging on the producing. To me it's all about the fact that ppl be judging classical for it's technically, even with such big meaningful backgrounds in the pieces, but be ok with a pop song with equally meaningful lyrics not having great or even good live performance most of the time, because is driven by other factors as trends, fame, stereotypes, fashion.. things that has nothing to do with music in fact. I mean I like pop music, both genres have different spots to fill. But this thing of saying that classical music is boring or out of style maybe comes with the fact that in this times, the exposure to fast, catchy, trendy, easy to listen content has contributed to our brains having a hard time to conect with something far more complex and if you want, equally meaningful in expressing feeling or thoughs, like classical music just because it won't take you 5 seconds to digest.

23:40 that was probs my favorite statement. I avidly listen to both genres so i am not being biased. but yeah its impressive how pop producers can use so little natural sound and arrange it into something catchy and relatable each time (btw I am not considering rap/rock and roll as pop music here). Likewise, its also impressive how classical music can use so many instruments and make them all sound like they're working towards a certain goal and cause the audience to be overwhelmed in the best way possible.

I don’t think they can see eye to eye Brett is 8cm shorter than Eddy and Joel n Jonas would be of different heights too

34:26 totally agree with Roomie. What TwoSet is doing is amazing. They may not be the best violinists, but they're bringing new life to the classical world/community, connecting to people and making it so much fun and interesting even for non-musicians to want to try it out. Cheers to Brett and Eddy, and here to support you! 👍

I really really love this group together, the entire video was so insightful and it's great to hear them discussing their different views on music together. I hope they either make more videos together or start a podcast! That would be so cool!

This is so cool. I really enjoy watching this to get into the connection and difference between classical musicians and pop musicians.

On the talent and practice debate, I'd say on these regards Pop is like science, being moslty about studying and experimenting, Whereas Classical is more akin to sports, where you must hone yourself to the limit

Eddy always sees brett eye to eye Like look at his stares

Everytime, TwoSet records a RU-vid video, they are “practicing” connecting. In that way, they are making classical music more POPular. ♥️

I found two set violin through roomie and i have learned so much about classical music since February. I look forward to seeing the videos. Great job guys. Nice to see roomie too miss him alot.

I did not know that this collab is the only thing I need to be mentally stable😩🤚

This was a such a balanced and respectful debate! Kudos to Brett/Eddy and Roomie/Jonas - these conversations help to build bridges so that everyone can appreciate music of all genres (even if you may objectively prefer one over the other) :)

I think Jonas is actually a pop music elitist. very rare kind

Ever have like 10 seconds in a pop song that blows your mind, but the rest of is it meh or you don't like it, and you wish it was just that 10 seconds on repeat? I'm just saying I prefer the catchiness and repetitiveness sometimes I'm really glad for it when I find a song like that It's like eating a meal with the finest ingredients prepared very simply, where you appreciate the quality of the ingredients Like a baguette that's just water, flour and salt It's just so good So simple and for it, SO GOOD Of course complex can be wonderful - a curry w layers of spices is out of this world Both are good

To Editor san, Thank you so much for all the editing and well-chosen BGM, I felt that you were actively participating in the discussion by means of music. Hope you stay warm and healthy in the basement. :)

I’m convinced every genre contains at least one “gateway song” that can attract a new listener. I look for those works when trying to grow as a musician.

yes i love 2 of my fave chanels collabing and then even having such a good discussion, it's so interesting hearing you talk about all of this~

The time listening to this 36 min conversation / debates flew by like nothing. As a person who finds myself literally between these both music worlds, I loved the video concept, topics and different perspectives. Thank you, TwoSet, for always creating AMAZING content. It was also great to see Joel and Jonas after a while!

I love Roomie's "AGH" laugh

Brett's attitude towards pop music is sooooo relatable that I even feel comforted somehow 😂😂

As a visual artist, the comparison is like how it clearly takes more “talent” and skill effort to make photorealistic illustrations but you’ll always get more likes and “connect with people” with some 10-minutes meme.

Thank you for the subtitles😍! This video is gold - love it!

Roomie: once you see jimin, you are not straight anymore Eddy: nods The jimin effect is very real.

The thing I love about classical music is when you listen to a piece you can create the story yourself but with a pop song you are only experiencing the story that the artist is singing. I really love the flexibility on emotions you feel when listening to classical music and the complexity of it.

This is another excellent vid - great discussion. I appreciate pop more now. The point about culture and connecting is totally legit

This was such a fantastic conversation. I never thought that the creativity of pop is in it’s simplicity.

Every time someone says that classical music is calming the sheer panic and fear of Shostakovich's 8th quartet starts playing in my head :D

We stan friends supporting friends! Seriously, Roomie excitedly praising them at the end there was great. As were all the resulting air fist bumps.

It's so cool seeing the classical guys play nice with the pop guys and vice-versa. Loved the insight from both sides

I loved this video, it was almost podcast style and I felt like you guys felt open minded and free to express your opinions without judgement. nice to see Joel and Jonas talking about music in this way too, really awesome. hope you guys do another video like this again :)

they really aren’t helping the idea of musicians being nerds with all their glasses

The only way you could make this better is to get a metal musician in here. Those guys are very vocal about their pop opinions lol.

It would be awesome to see you guys have a similar talk with a jazz musician. This format of a video is great !

As a person who listens to many genres, this was a very interesting conversation. I find happiness in different songs depending on the situation so it was nice to hear about the intent behind both classical and pop :)

Brett "saying it's pleasant and tolerable" is MORE OR LESS THE SAME as Roomie saying "I put it in the background".

“pop music is repetitive” - in my opinion, both pop and classical, diverse types of pieces have been produced, not only nowadays but since forever. it’s just that those ‘repetitive’ music gets the spotlight, because it meets the consumers’ needs. it sounds familiar, it follows the popular style, hence majority of people listening to it, making it to the ‘charts’.

That was one heck of a long video but watching it was totally worth it!! I love u guys

That was a nice - civilized discussion you guys had. And I hope more young people will go to classical concerts when possible again. Btw. can't wait for your December online concert :-)

"I feel like Bret is one of the rare people living today who doesn't know who dojo cat is" Me: Come again? Who the hell is that?

Make a top 10 classical music pieces to Jam/Mosh to, and then have Joel's team Tier it

Such a great discussion. I’m a jazz musician who started in punk. I love pop music and classical so I see both sides, all sides. Great video and very classy. There’s no petty low blows just a great discord.

As for a 2set violin and a k-pop huge fan this video is now one of my top. Their thoughts was really interesting and understandable.

Twoset: "classical music has such a wide variety unlike pop music" Joel: *eyes glows red* so you have chosen death

I can see Roomie as a pop music professor. He has such passion for it.

I love how this fun channel grew where you got to carry and idea of new gen should know this because its awesome but also got to meet people you really respect and build a name just because of passion for your music and because you guys are genuinely funny. It seemed to me that all of you on the video held back just out of basic courtesy but still very enjoyable. I wish there was a second round of this debate. I think it would be nice to have a bigger representation of each genre - like Jonas and Roomie mentioned pop music is not about the artist alone in which case I think classical is harder but it would be interesting to hear what music producers, or cover band members or very famous classical musicians have to say.

I love this so much ! ! ! I hope that you do a part two cause your conversations were very interesting

Eddy: “I love listening to classic music since there’s such a huge variety; then you look at pop music-“ Roomie: Jonas: **wide eyes and stares into camera lens intimidatingly**

As a person who enjoys both pop and classical music, this discussion was so fascinating and nice... I hope they do more of these

This turned out far more interesting than I had anticipated! Also very cool!

27:10 classical music *does* connect to people.. just not with words or lyrics. (spare opera). there is so much emotion and message in a lot of classical music and it requires a lot of practice to really make it feel right. a lot of people brush classical off because of stereotypes and the need to fit in, so they don't really see that side of it that much. also with his point that pop artists need a life people can connect to.. UMM... shostakovich ?!! need i say more? classical composers have had some of the worst experiences lol

Jonas: where's the classical music that makes you go *intense dancing* Shostakovich: allow me to introduce myself

Damn this episode has more sparks than olympic games. I love it

When they were discussing repetitive pop music I started trying to find examples of classical music that is repetitive (Ravel's Bolero) and of pop music that isn't repetitive (Orbison's "In Dreams". )

9:38 i think pop has the ability just as classical does to deeply touch and grab a person right where there at. if a piece moves me to tears, then it's worth my time.i recently purchased a violin, my first, which is in my left hand along with the bow while i type with my right. this is actually the only money i've spent on music in a long time, but at least now i get to PRACTICE and make my song of praise. i've wanted a violin my whole life, but couldn't really get it together to buy one, plus i lacked confidence. things are different now, thank the Maker.