The other day I saw another headline for an article bemoaning the collapse of the classical music audience. I think of this "crisis" and I wonder why we're squandering our opportunities to generate a new audience that could appreciate (and I shudder to use this term) Western Art Music as music as it loves its Western Popular Music? It should be obvious by now that changing the programming, the whole accessible concert thing, isn't working, so what to do?
What we really need to do is change the stigma around classical music. If the association people have with classical music is the moneyed elite, dressed in their Sunday best, going to see dead European's music, than it will be progressively harder to recruit a new audience. This seems obvious, right? But then why is that classical music what the general public is fed as the only classical music? Why do high schools (those that haven't cut the arts) fail to mention Cage, Ligeti, Reich, Messiaen or Lang in any depth and favor teaching the history of Rock'N'Roll after touching a little on Bach and (likely pre-1950) Jazz? Is it the assumption that kids want to learn about what they already know, or is it that the teachers are just as ignorant (or even hostile) towards contemporary music as the average symphony fan? Why do so many collegiate music departments give contemporary music the arms length treatment? True, colleges are also the bastions of new music outside of the major cities, but walk into any large music department across the country and while there will undoubtly be a few students carrying the new music banner, but I'd bet the vast majority of the students have tastes that stop progressing with Mahler.
And what does giving new music equal footing to Mozart and Bach have to do with building an audience? There is currently a generation of composers and performers, painters, writers, and dancers who are early in their professional lives and creating wonderful works of art, but of whom not a soul outside the insular art community knows. But if you're an average kid in the 10th grade, listening to the newest things on the radio, what will strike your curiosity more? A school project about Beethoven's 5th or a school project about a composer who grew up listening to hip hop, who may still listen to top 40 radio, who lets this popular culture inform his music. I can just picture a group of kids sitting in their music class, scratching their heads at the notion that there are people out there who listened to Eminem, Blink 182 and or N'Sync in High School who write classical music! What a shock this must come as! Let alone that indie artists like Dan Deacon and Glenn Kotche compose classical music, or that Sufjan Stevens writes songs that borrow directly from the Downtowners, or, for the kids who already consider themselves artsy, that members of The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth worked with classical composers La Monte Young and Glenn Branca, respectively.
So, is the knowledge that classical music is still living, still breathing, still evolving and interesting, enough to get an un-interested populous interested? Probably not, but then what? People need to create, people need to meet artists, artists of all sorts. I was turned off the visual arts in general for years because of my drastic inability to draw, but I was never exposed to any abstract art, never told that using collage to create an abstract image was a legitimate use of art class, but maybe if I had been exposed the visual arts in the same way I talk about music I would have developed and enduring interest. By bringing creative people into our schools (and beyond to community centers, retirement homes, adult education classes, etc.) to guide folks in their own artistic journeys with open minds, then we can begin to cultivate a sustaining audience.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Obligatory Cage post
It seems like John Cage is inescapable these days. There are two new books, Kyle Gann's on 4'33" and Kenneth Silverman's massive biography, both of which I found fascinating. There was Alex Ross's piece in the New Yorker and countless blog posts, so I feel it's a duty to write one myself. . .
I had a little realization recently, something that I'm sure isn't unique to me, but that changed how I look at everything cage did from the late 1940's on. In writing his increasingly aleatoric pieces, and notably 4'33" Cage didn't turn ambient sounds into music, he issued a challenge to the way we listen.
It seems simple, but think about it this way: Two like-minded, musical people could be sitting listening to traffic, listening avidly and actively, and still one could hear pleasant sounds and one could still just hear traffic. Music effects each of us differently, when I listen to Beethoven I hear something different, and am effected differently, than someone listening to the same record with me. What Cage did, in essence, was give us permission to listen to traffic and hear something beautiful (or not).
I've spent most of the last ten years scoffing at people who hear new music and dismiss it, but at the same time I listen to most Top 40 radio and dismiss it, doubting it's qualifications as music. It all comes down to the individual, and all we can do is keep our ears open. Some people will still hear Water Walk as noise no matter how hard they try to appreciate the sounds, and I will still hear Katy Perry and Taio Cruz as noise, no matter how open my ears. And I think that as long as my ears are trying and my mind is open Cage would be OK with that.
I had a little realization recently, something that I'm sure isn't unique to me, but that changed how I look at everything cage did from the late 1940's on. In writing his increasingly aleatoric pieces, and notably 4'33" Cage didn't turn ambient sounds into music, he issued a challenge to the way we listen.
It seems simple, but think about it this way: Two like-minded, musical people could be sitting listening to traffic, listening avidly and actively, and still one could hear pleasant sounds and one could still just hear traffic. Music effects each of us differently, when I listen to Beethoven I hear something different, and am effected differently, than someone listening to the same record with me. What Cage did, in essence, was give us permission to listen to traffic and hear something beautiful (or not).
I've spent most of the last ten years scoffing at people who hear new music and dismiss it, but at the same time I listen to most Top 40 radio and dismiss it, doubting it's qualifications as music. It all comes down to the individual, and all we can do is keep our ears open. Some people will still hear Water Walk as noise no matter how hard they try to appreciate the sounds, and I will still hear Katy Perry and Taio Cruz as noise, no matter how open my ears. And I think that as long as my ears are trying and my mind is open Cage would be OK with that.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Still in books
I may be relatively new in Boston as a musician, but there seems to be one glaring difference between the new music scene in Boston and that in New York, something holding Boston back from the constant, rapid growth of the larger city slightly to the south. Academia.
I don't meant that the music played in Boston is entirely of an academic nature. The uptown-downtown labels don't hold much sway as they once did (though most music I've seen programed in Boston seems to avoid traditionally downtown music, and there is much academically minded tonal music) and the disparate representation modernist music once had in academia is no longer universal. The stunted growth comes from a purely logistical place.
Since moving up here I've attended a number of concerts at the various halls in the various schools, museums and churches. Concerts given by groups very old and very new, with programming from the very staid to the very experimental, but always in a hall. Playing in a hall (and most "halls" are shrouded in academia) subjects you to several things, notably curatorial programming and price.
It's very difficult to start a group and get programmed in a large hall at a large, notable/museum/church, and it's very difficult to be a new group and pay those rental fees. In essence there isn't an infrastructure to support expansion.
In New York there are a number of venues with the express goal of promoting interesting or experimental music. Le Poussin Rouge, the Tank, Issue Project Room, The Cell, Roulette, Dozens of galleries and various lofts/living spaces/warehouses, etc.
Obviously Boston has interesting places to see live music, though not the plethora NYC has. The problem is in attitude. The vibe at most of the concerts I've seen in Boston gives the impression that contemporary music is still something exalted, something that belongs exclusively in the concert halls, and the programming reflects this.
It's difficult to convince the average curious concert goer to attend a concert of stuffy music in a stuffy concert hall. It's easy to convince a curious listener to wander into the same club he may have seen some interesting rock or jazz or hip hop the night before to see a concert of interesting contemporary music. This is the environment we need in Boston to foster a scene where new groups can emerge, the scene can grow, and people can take chances and experiment.
note: I realize there are a few places like this in Boston. There is the charming Lilypad in Inman Sq. and the ART's club/theater Oberon has some concerts, but looking at areas arts calendars still puts nearly every concert in a hall, shrouded in Academia.
I don't meant that the music played in Boston is entirely of an academic nature. The uptown-downtown labels don't hold much sway as they once did (though most music I've seen programed in Boston seems to avoid traditionally downtown music, and there is much academically minded tonal music) and the disparate representation modernist music once had in academia is no longer universal. The stunted growth comes from a purely logistical place.
Since moving up here I've attended a number of concerts at the various halls in the various schools, museums and churches. Concerts given by groups very old and very new, with programming from the very staid to the very experimental, but always in a hall. Playing in a hall (and most "halls" are shrouded in academia) subjects you to several things, notably curatorial programming and price.
It's very difficult to start a group and get programmed in a large hall at a large, notable/museum/church, and it's very difficult to be a new group and pay those rental fees. In essence there isn't an infrastructure to support expansion.
In New York there are a number of venues with the express goal of promoting interesting or experimental music. Le Poussin Rouge, the Tank, Issue Project Room, The Cell, Roulette, Dozens of galleries and various lofts/living spaces/warehouses, etc.
Obviously Boston has interesting places to see live music, though not the plethora NYC has. The problem is in attitude. The vibe at most of the concerts I've seen in Boston gives the impression that contemporary music is still something exalted, something that belongs exclusively in the concert halls, and the programming reflects this.
It's difficult to convince the average curious concert goer to attend a concert of stuffy music in a stuffy concert hall. It's easy to convince a curious listener to wander into the same club he may have seen some interesting rock or jazz or hip hop the night before to see a concert of interesting contemporary music. This is the environment we need in Boston to foster a scene where new groups can emerge, the scene can grow, and people can take chances and experiment.
note: I realize there are a few places like this in Boston. There is the charming Lilypad in Inman Sq. and the ART's club/theater Oberon has some concerts, but looking at areas arts calendars still puts nearly every concert in a hall, shrouded in Academia.
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