This is broken in so many ways. Of course the music listened to by the largest number of people is going to correlate to a more average SAT score. The children that regularly listen to classical are those with parents who either intentionally expose them to it at home (which means that they are likely well-educated) or have them take music lessons (which indicates both a concern for their child's mental development as well as above-average financial status). So music and SAT scores are largely influenced by the same factors: education and money.
Also, as someone who spent over a decade of my childhood playing classical piano, I'd suggest that the vast majority of college-age kids who have Beethoven on their "favorite music" list are smart kids just trying to appear to be even smarter. Notice how no other composers, modern or classical, are listed; Beethoven is to classical music what the Beatles are to classic rock and Jay-Z is to hip hop: a generic name for someone to pull, the Java of composers. If I was listing what instrumental music I do listen to, I'd be putting up names that define the styles I like. Philip Glass? Branford Marsalis? Ludovico Einaudi? Sure. Beethoven? Negative.
The only thing I can possibly attest to is the lyrical / instrumental dichotomy. Sometimes it takes a certain kind of mind to appreciate some instrumental music; you have to be able to sit and analyze it, recognize the patterns / progressions, etc. That's why I could see popular bands like Radiohead, U2, and even RATM to a certain extent, doing better than other groups in their genre.
The problem is that classical music enthusiasts tend to be rarer than rap enthusiasts, and the so-called "classical" music world is much more diverse than the world of rap, seeing as it spans many more centuries. You can be a die-hard classical enthusiast and never have heard of some very prominent composers, because there are so many.
For instance, more people know Philip Glass than Steve Reich, but they're part of the same contemporary classical scene, and that scene contains a ton of people I've never heard of (plus it branches out to the rock minimalists, such as Brian Eno).
Obviously this isn't saying much, since absolutely this chart isn't proving anything, but I doubt it would be easy to find significant statistics for students liking other musicians. For instance, I've got a ton of various musicians and composers listed, but the ones that most likely correlate with other people's lists are the biggies: Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach. Even huge names like Holst and Ravel are less likely to be found in a good listing of profiles.
(Also, in the interest of finding out new stuff: what sorts of things did Marsalis and Einaudi do? What pieces of theirs would you recommend a novice begin with? Personal favorites?)
Aagh, I had a ridiculously thorough reply, which I promptly lost when I closed gedit. The messy, truncated version:
I'm guessing that you play piano (in regards to the "novice" part).
Marsalis is a jazz sax musician; the Marsalis family is probably the closest thing that jazz has to a household name these days. The point I was trying to make with him is that instrumental music training rarely has such a limited scope in terms of genre: in the case of piano, even the most hardcore classical-focused piano teacher would still have their students dabble with Scott Joplin or whatever.
Einaudi does comtemporary classical piano / string arrangements, sometimes with a mix of digital / world type stuff for ambience. "Giorni Dispari" is the first song of his that I heard, probably one of my favorites of his and not particularly hard to play if you can find sheet music: http://tinyurl.com/dnj7t3
I haven't played much lately, as I'm currently a sleep-deprived college student living in an apt. Last two songs I remember working with are Carly Comando's Everyday (you can actually buy the sheet music from her directly on her MySpace page for a few bucks) and Greg Maroney's Castle of Shadows. I've developed a serious bent for modern / minimalist stuff lately. My favorite piece I've ever played is Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor; that song is a beast. It's definitely for the less experienced though, I doubt I'd be able to play it now without taking the time to get my skills back up to where they were.
Maybe. One reason I listen to classical music is that it is nice if you study with it and it drains out the background music. (e.g. I find it less distracting to work with classical music on than with Korn or Papa Roach).
A few people I know is like that - but they would for sure not have a classical music CD in their car.
they would for sure not have a classical music CD in their car.
Point taken, but an aside:
I find listening to classical music in the car to be an exercise in futility. The dynamic range of classical makes it so that you're constantly adjusting the knob so that you can hear then quiet parts, then turning it down when it starts blasting your face off.
For the car, I just prefer the "normal" stuff, which has a much smaller dynamic range and is more conducive to listening over the background noise of a moving car.
Also, as someone who spent over a decade of my childhood playing classical piano, I'd suggest that the vast majority of college-age kids who have Beethoven on their "favorite music" list are smart kids just trying to appear to be even smarter. Notice how no other composers, modern or classical, are listed; Beethoven is to classical music what the Beatles are to classic rock and Jay-Z is to hip hop: a generic name for someone to pull, the Java of composers. If I was listing what instrumental music I do listen to, I'd be putting up names that define the styles I like. Philip Glass? Branford Marsalis? Ludovico Einaudi? Sure. Beethoven? Negative.
The only thing I can possibly attest to is the lyrical / instrumental dichotomy. Sometimes it takes a certain kind of mind to appreciate some instrumental music; you have to be able to sit and analyze it, recognize the patterns / progressions, etc. That's why I could see popular bands like Radiohead, U2, and even RATM to a certain extent, doing better than other groups in their genre.