Klarinet Archive - Posting 000020.txt from 1997/05

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Music, performance, and marching bands
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 18:16:36 -0400

On Thu, 1 May 1997, Jonathan Gordy wrote:

> Pardon, but doesn't the thing that makes modern music great is that
> everyone buys it,

"Everyone" doesn't buy it.

> and if Elvis did inferior products he would have disappeared, and

The commercial success of Elvis had nothing to do with musical content or
quality. It had everything to do with marketing, promotion, mass culture,
the redistribution of discretionary wealth, etc.

> Which is more than I can say for some of our "standards" in
> the classical world. We don't like them, yet because of their greater
> "musical" value we play them, and notice who is disappearing...

Who is the "we" you are referring to? You say you recognize that they
have "greater musical value," and yet you don't like them. It seems to me
that you are saying a lot more about yourself than about the music. They
are disappearing? Where do you live? In most of the parts of the
civilized Western world which I know about, if Bach for example has
disappeared, his disappearance has gone largely unnoticed.

> but I know that in the pop world there is only more money involved when
> you product has superior quality in the marketplace.

You are contradicting yourself. "Quality" from the standpoint of the
"marketplace" and quality for the standpoint of musical considerations
both exist, but they have relatively little to do with each other.

> As musicians we should be finding ways to pull more than "antique" music

Musical quality is not determined by its placement in history. Josquin
des Pres was a great composer, and so was Claudio Monteverdi, and so were
other composers who were separated from these by several centuries, such
as Charles Ives and Igor Stravinsky, and others who are writing music
today.

Today, we can buy likenesses of Elvis or Jesus on velvet, in
paint-by-numbers style. Does that diminish the value of the paintings of
Michelangelo, or Rembrandt, or Picasso? I don't think so.

> but when "movie" music, perhaps the most recognizable of our art music,

You've got to be kidding. The only time movie music has had any
relationship to art music was when some composers from the field of "art
music" were employed to write film scores.

> John Williams has done more to improve the status of the symphony with a
> few movie scores in the last decade than all the Schubert and Brahms we
> play.

The status of the symphony? What symphony did John Williams write?

> I detest the attitude of the musicans who grumble over the "Pops"
> concerts they do. These concerts are the only bridge to our audience
> that many orchestras provide.

You obviously have not played many of these Pops concerts. If you had,
you would know that the audience for them and the audience for orchestral
music are nearly mutually exclusive. Do you imagine that the audience for
Pops concerts are younger, more "with it" people who soon will be
converted to the standard orchestral repertoire? Nothing could be farther
from the truth. Demographically, the regular audience for pops concerts
tends to be considerably older than that for the regular orchestral
concerts. Most orchestras have come around to a more honest appraisal of
the purposes of pops concerts. They do not serve effectively to increase
the audience for symphonic music, but they do work effectively to make a
profit for the orchestras. It would seem too obvious to have to state
that potential listeners cannot be fooled into liking orchestral music by
exposing them to the symphony orchestra trying to play pop, rock, or who
knows what other styles.

Further, if you had played a lot of pops concerts, you would know why
many musicians have the attitude toward them that they do.

This all calls to mind the philosophical stance of Liberace, who when he
was criticized for playing "schlock" he used to respond with, "I was so
upset I cried all the way to the bank." In other words, he tried to use
his commercial success to try to validate the worth of what he was doing.
What should be realized is that commercial success requires catering to
the largest potential mass audience, which means the lowest common
denominator, and which precludes the introduction of artistic quality as a
primary motivating factor.

Ed Lacy
*****************************************************************
Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
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