Klarinet Archive - Posting 001055.txt from 1998/12

From: DHmorgan@-----.com
Subj: [kl] The Beatles, Blue Eyes, and Beethoven (was Re: Cynthia's Christmas Concert)
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 23:47:01 -0500

Reviving an old thread--

I was fascinated by the thread about concert behavior.

I know we are all used to thinking that classical music will only and forever
be appreciated by long hairs, but ten years ago who would have guessed that
that Gen X'ers would start going crazy for swing music?

To pump life into the classical concert-going experience, one might take a
page or two out of the history books in terms of music promotion. Remember
how the 'Bobby Soxers" would 'swoon' for Frank Sinatra? Well, they didn't do
that until Sinatra's PR people HIRED a group of girls to do it! Then, women
started imitating the behavior. And remember all of those hysterical,
screaming, crying, girls that greeted the Beatles when they came to America?
None of that existed before the movie Hard Days Night where the girls in the
TV audience (extras in a movie, after all) were INSTRUCTED to behave that way.
Then, when the movie opened, people were HIRED to camp out days in advance of
the premiere in order to generate excitement. Then millions of Americans
imitated that behavior.

What this means is that the classical concert experience can be tranformed if
groups of people were secretely hired to whoop and cheer, and light their
lighters and stomp their feet for an encore. Conductors might occasionally
fall backwards from the podium and let the audeince catch them, too.

I'm only sort of joking!

Don

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