Doublereed Archive - Posting 000016.txt from 2005/08

From: "Ladonna Weeks" <LadonnaWeeks@-----.net>
Subj: [DR-L] The Future of Art Music
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 22:20:28 -0400

Hello,

I've been lurking on this list for a while. With this topic, I had to =
exert
myself to figure out how to post a message. I hope this works.

I am an older adult amateur oboist. I played in junior high and picked =
it up
again when I was about 40. I first played in a community band for a =
number
of years but gave it up to play in a couple of community college =
orchestras.

I had to give up music instruction in junior high due to family =
problems. As
an older teenager, I taught myself to play guitar and became something =
of a
folksinger. This was in the late 60s and early 70s. By about 1972, I had
gone about as far as I could on my own and realized I needed some music
theory instruction so I signed up for the beginner theory class at my =
local
junior college. (It has since become a "community college".) I found =
music
theory fascinating and kept going in it. At one point, they said I had =
to be
a music major to keep going, so I became a music major and was now =
forced to
take music history. I have to say I went into the class with an =
attitude: I
had tried to take a music appreciation class a few years earlier and the
snooty attitude of the instructor put me off so much I ditched the class =
to
sit on the lawn and watch guys playing guitars, hoping to pick up =
pointers,
which I did.

The first week of music history, the teacher played Haydn's Surprise
symphony. When the 3rd movement started, I felt as though I had risen =
from
my body because I was too heavy to hold the exquisite beauty of the =
sound.
To this day, 30+ years ago, I get a lumpt in my throat remembering that
moment. Needless to say, I was hooked and had the classical station on =
24
hours a day (except when I was practicing) to make up for lost time. I =
was
an elderly 22 and all my classmates had been listening to this stuff for
years. I gave up guitar and re-introduced myself to the piano which I =
had
studied for a couple of years, also in junior high.

This autobiography is to illustrate my position as someone with one foot =
in
the "classical" world and one foot in the "real" world. In that =
position, I
see stuff that people with both feet in the respective worlds do not. I =
see
classical musicians who have the attitude that they and their world are
superior to the mundane world and they freely share that attitude with
anybody who will listen. Some of them sound unbelievably snooty. Then I =
talk
to regular people who don't want anything to do with a bunch of snooty
people in tuxedoes with their silly traditions.=20

I have taken a half dozen people to their first symphony concerts and =
all of
them without exception loved it. I even got a couple of people started
loving opera! My first "victim", a dear friend who has since died, =
agreed to
go with me because the symphony was playing Dvoraks's New World =
Symphony,
which she had heard somewhere and loved. Afterward, she asked me why she
liked it so much. I responded "because it's good". She said that that =
was
the ONLY answer I could have given her that would make her go to another
symphony concert. She said it made her feel that that her taste was
sufficient to appreciate this new (to her) art form. She ended up with
season tickets a few years later. She was my best success, but several =
other
people have been changed by their experience.=20

To summarize this point, many classical musicians alienate their =
potential
audiences by their attitudes.

Point number two is in regard to "20th century music". I did complete a =
BA
in music and as a result had exposure (and even had to write some) 20th
century music. From the beginning, I thought most of it was garbage. It =
was
a bunch of academicians trying to impress each other and they didn't =
care in
the least what potential audience members would think of their =
endeavors.
Once again, I find myself straddling a line. I am willing to give new
compositions a listen and I do end up liking some of them. The friend I
mentioned above would always peruse the program to see if there would be
anything harsh and disonant.=20

We live in St. Louis and she started going near the end of Leonard =
Slatkin's
reign. He liked to program contemporary American pieces. They were never
terribly dissonant or atonal, but they were definitely different. I =
could
always persuade her to go giving the argument listed above, but he =
always
programmed those pieces first and a huge number of audience members =
would
refuse to enter the hall until the "modern" piece was over. We had to =
wait
while a couple hundred people were seated before we could continue the
program.

So here is method number two of alienating audiences: make them listen =
to
stuff that sounds ugly and scary and that they can't understand.

In conclusion, I want to say that the classical music community is =
largely
responsible for the dwindling audiences, by their snobbish behavior and
absurdly ugly new compositions for a good part of the previous century. =
I
realize that music is being cut from the schools, but it's our elected
officials doing the cutting and they very likely had experiences like I
described above.

It appears to me that the classical music community has come to its
collective senses and begun making efforts to be accessible to people. =
I'm
seeing more young people at the opera in recent years, but not so much =
at
the symphony. But it's a start. I hope it's not too late.

Ladonna Weeks
ladonnaweeks@-----.net

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