 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-26 16:05
The Baltimore Symphony players just agreed to another concessionary contract, the third one in as many years. We would have been making a minimum of 90 K a few years ago before management insisted on opening our agreement after they made several costly mistakes. Now we’re down to about 71 K and the new contract agreement calls for the seasons 2011 –2013 to be 67,600 minus about 3,500 each for health insurance, something we don’t have to pay for before. We also have a hiring freeze and were down to 82 full time players, down from 96 called for in our contract. We fill the vacancies with subs. There are many orchestras with the same size budget as ours that get paid much better then we will, makes you wonder why that is? Management wanted to keep it at 82 and add ten “graduate” students on a two-year rotation at less then half pay with no benefits. We managed to beat that down to only two and we’ll have a say in the quality. We still retain the 96 in theory but it could be years, if ever, to get back to that compliment.
The endowment board threatened us with bankruptcy if we didn’t agree to this agreement even though we have one more year left on our present contract. Our lawyer and committee told us they thought they were very serious so many players were frightened into a settlement.
Naturally it is better to have a job at one third less then not at all. Unfortunately many of the younger players are beginning to take auditions and several will leave in the next few years bringing the quality down over time. Even before the hiring freeze we had a difficult time attracting the quality of player we were looking for. Although we will still be working and playing we will now be the lowest paid major symphony in the USA. We used to be in the middle of the 2nd tier orchestras trying to creep up but now we are on the very bottom, or the top of the third tier depending on how you look at it financially. For me it’s a matter of quality, I’m already well into retire age having been here for 47 years, and going strong. I’m just not ready to give it up yet. With the hiring freeze they won’t replace me now anyway, our second player plays bass clarinet so they would just go with three so don’t start practicing just yet for my job. So I feel for my colleagues that came here for a life time career that have a mortgage and kids ready to go to college but at least they still have a job and live to fight another day, or year or two or three.
As one of my friends said, “they should never let a good recession go to waste”. There are several influential board members that have been trying to bring this great orchestra to its knees for years. They would like a more “manageable” size orchestra, something like 60 players for a 40-week season. That was something like their first proposal. They almost got their way. Hopefully those people will be replaced with public pressure in the next few years and the BSO will be able to grow back into its place in their pier group, even after I retire, assuming I ever do, ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: DougR
Date: 2010-03-26 17:23
Ed, thanks for the insiders view. I'm always perplexed at people (or, in this case, non-profit boards) who seem to think they are entitled to a quality product but don't want to pay for it.
I'm curious about some things: did paid admin staff at the Symphony also take salary cuts? Did the conductor?
Just checked the website--isn't that kind of a large paid staff? Granted, some of them are either unpaid interns or they're laboring for non-profit (read: bottom of the barrel) wages, but what about the bigwigs? Any of them take salary cuts?
EIGHT marketing/pr people on staff, and the PLAYERS have to take cuts? Hmmm. Possibly the marketing/pr isn't working very well...
Also, I'm assuming the board isn't compensated. (PLEASE tell me the board isn't compensated--that would be too much.)
Finally, was the AFM any help to the players in the negotiations?
One of the things I think HAS to happen for nonprofit paid orchestras is to get a lot smarter about judging the efficiency of the nonprofit organizations in generating revenue versus containing costs, because (I assume) boards and nonprofit management will ALWAYS look to salaried employees to sacrifice, rather than streamline their own organizations and get rid of deadwood in the executive offices. That's why I'm wondering about whether the AFM was up on this issue and giving you guys the help you needed in the negotiations.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-03-26 18:23
That certainly is messed up. And the BSO is good enough to hold its own with any orchestra, anywhere.
On the flip side, I've dreamed of an orchestral job (whatever the pay) all my life and will never have one; whereas, having been unemployed from mid-August through mid-November I'm just grateful to have a job at all right now --- even though I don't like the job and hate the commute (3-4 hours a day fighting through heavy trafffic).
There's no justice in the world, that's for sure.
All that aside, the Baltimore Symphony deserves much better.
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Author: William
Date: 2010-03-26 18:44
I wonder if Brett Farve would continue playing if his salary was cut to the 70,000's minus health insurance. My point is that there just doesn't seem to be any discreation in the publics values, espeicially the arts vs sports. Cut the school music program, but don't ever think about cutting the athletic staffing and competative travel schedules. But, that's probably falls into the "that's the way it is, kid" catagory. Cigs, beer, plasma screen with the extra sports channels--but we can't afford a descent clarinet or a few private lessons for our talented child. No wonder all of our orchestras are in financial trouble--the public just does consider their existance a worthwhile priority and that's reflected at the box office.
Congrates on your contract settlement, but sorry to hear of your declining contractual figures.
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Author: USFBassClarinet
Date: 2010-03-26 19:31
@ William,
I have said this elsewhere on here before somewhere, but there is a few areas where music is winning-out some. Volusia county here in Florida cut most JV sports programs and all Freshmen Sophmore sports programs instead of cutting music. This happened last year. I haven't heard much more about cuts here recently though.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-26 22:05
William, they didn't cut our health insurance, but they did want us to pay 1/3 of it in the beginning, we settled for paying about $3,000 because they used to pay our $2400 deductible and now we have to pay that plus $10 week for family coverage. We used to get all that paid for. It was paid for now it's not.
For Dougr's questions, yes the musicians union of Baltimore helped quite a bit. They not only paid for our lawyer, as they've done in the past, but provided their lawyer as well when ours was not available. We can't fault our union, they help as much as they can. Of course we are the main source of their income as well during the year.
Management has taken cuts as well and they have laid off several staff members. I believe our conductor did as well but I don't know the percentages. We have often complained that the staff is too large, it's a wonder what they all do. Our contra bassoon players does a great deal of their web page stuff for them grates because he used to be a computer programer. Good thing they have him to help out. When I came to Baltimore in 63 there were about five staff members total. Granted we have grown greatly from there, 28 weeks to 52 weeks plus lots of other stuff but you have to wonder. What gets us is that there are several other orchestras that have our size budget, or a bit smaller even, and pay their musicians more then we will be getting paid in 2-3 years.
It's all a matter of what the big shots really want and who's willing to go for it, so far we don't seem to have the right people in place. Maryland was listed as the wealthiest state in the union, according to USA today, and we play in two concert halls, one in Baltimore and one in the wealthiest county in America, Montgomery County near Washington DC, you would think the board could raise the necessary funds to run our orchestra as they do in so many other places. Oh well, maybe someday. Never waste a good recession. ESP
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2010-03-26 23:35
Even if the Icelandic Krona wasn't so weak and I take the rate before the first fall in March 2008 this is still about 1/3 more than what players in the Icelandic symphony gets and I can really say the orchestra no worse than most average USA symphony Orchestras.
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2010-03-27 01:29
Ed, this is pretty much scaring every musician around. $70 K is not that much money in the Baltimore, DC area. Trying to put kids through school must be a nightmare. I'm glad your kids are all grown and on their own.
Is the National Symphony having the same troubles?
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2010-03-27 13:53
Ed, thanks for sharing this with us. I'm also interested in reading your answer to Bob's question about the National Symphony.
You mentioned that with the hiring freeze, if you decide to retire you won't be replaced. Many orchestras now employ only three full-time clarinet players. I used to sometimes see major orchestras make use of all four players by having them double-up on parts (two on first and two on second). Did the Baltimore Symphony ever do it, and if so, was if frequently done? Is it ever done any more, or is this practice a relic of the past?
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Author: LarryBocaner ★2017
Date: 2010-03-27 15:21
"Is the National Symphony having the same troubles?"
The current economic crisis has hurt virtually every arts institution in the US.
That said, the NSO is in a better position than most in that it is an arm of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As far as I know, the only give-back the NSO members have been asked for is a hiring freeze for many vacant positions. The Kennedy Center's president, Michael Kaiser, has been a vocal advocate for the maintenance of artistic standards in the face of economic exigencies for arts institutions around the country, and is a hero to most symphony musicians. Washington is blessed to have him!
Although pensions for retired NSO members have not been hit, the severe distress of the AFM pension plan (did they invest with Bernie Madoff?) has impacted the pensions of soon-to-be -retired musicians. I know of several NSO players who have considered delaying their planned retirement because of the reduced proceeds from AFM/EPF pensions.
Larry Bocaner
National Symphony Orchestra (retired)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-27 15:45
Iceland, you need to stop always comparing orchestras in the USA to Iceland, they're two different countries. No one's putting down the Iceland Symphony or saying they don't deserve a higher salary too. We're us and you're you. Iceland has just over three hundred thousand people, Baltimore City alone has twice that much, with the areas the BSO serves on a regular basic it's several million and in the state, the wealthist in the nation, it's over eight million. By the way, the USA has well over three hundred million people so it's time to stop always comparing our two countries when it comes to orchestras.
Bob, I don't believe the National Symphony is in trouble, at least nothing like us. They make a heck of a lot more then we do. There are a few other orchestras in trouble but most of them seem to have boards that appear to be able to deal with it unlike ours. I know the Detroit Symphony is in big trouble too but as of now they get paid over a hundred thousand dollars, as does the National Sym. What amazes us in Baltimore is how many orchestras that we used to be way ahead of us years ago have far supposed us in salary but we've managed to keep our level of playing at a very high standard, perhaps higher then many of them, I said perhaps.
Clarinetguy, we used to double the winds years ago as so many orchestra's did but now really ever double at all. The thing is here in Baltimore we do split orchestra concerts several times a year and several times do two or three different programs in a week. We have a different program for a run out and a pops or youth concert program in the same week several times a year.
We do a lot of varied programs so it helps to have four players, not to mention that we do a lot of big repertoire that calls for all of us but I guess if they had to they could go with three and use a sub. We've been doing that with our flutes since we have an opening in that section for years now. They just always hire subs to fill in and give the principal and second a break once in a while when the programing gets very heavy. Hopefully someday the BSO will go back to the contracted 96 players we used to have under contract. That also gives more musicians full time employment. Wishful thinking maybe. ESP
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-27 16:03
Thanks Larry. The new AFM pension reduction, that is the last drastic one, only effects new money put into the retirement system. Money put in before the first of this year will still earn the same return as it did before. It's now on a ladder system. In other words, money put into the system before the early 2000s earns one amount, then money added in the next few years earns a different amount and so on. I believe there are now four different payouts per dollar contributed and they're all at different rates, the last being very low. That means anyone that has many years left before retiring will receive a much lower payout then someone that's retiring soon and has been contributing for many years already. Something like that, it gets complicated and it's a good thing they have computers to figure it all out. ESP
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2010-03-27 18:53)
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2010-03-27 19:22
I think musicians should be thankful for getting payed at all specially when we have crises and lot of loud voices say that the government should not be paying for symphony orchestra at all and rather use the money for the health care and social service. Over 80% of people here in Iceland don't want the government to pay out artist's salaries which they get for 3 months,6 months,1 year or 2 year each time they are handed out each year.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-27 21:36
Iceland, Most orchestras in the USA get very little money from the federal gov't, if any. Here in Baltimore we do get some from some of the local gov't like the city, some counties and the state but it's a very small part of our total budget. I'd guess about five percent total. So that's not much of an issue over here. The total budget from our federal gov't for all of the arts put together in the USA is less then .00005 percent of the total budget, I'm guessing but probably even less. That would be the National Endowment for the Arts which many Republicans would like to scrap altogether. It's pretty pitiful when one considers how important all the arts are to our civilization. The arts are what makes us a civilized people. Consider the Taliban and someone tell me that the arts in general are not important. As far as being lucky to be paid for performing music, maybe you're right, I certainly consider myself lucky that I make a living playing in an orchestra but i've worked very hard to get my job and I work very hard to keep it. If musicians didn't get paid to perform I think over time the standard of playing in general would go way down around the world. We may be lucky but it doesn't come easy, the competition can be fierce. Think about what baseball players get in this country, and that's playing a game, a game most kids here love to play for fun and they get paid millions. Many of them make as much in one year as we make in a life time. That's just the way it is, and I understand, so should you. ESP
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Author: clarinetjoel
Date: 2010-03-28 04:34
DavidBlumberg wrote:
> If Classical Music had the ability to fill stadiums and make
> millions and millions of dollars per game, we would probably
> get paid more.
>
> Rapperz sure do..... A real shame
>
Tell me about it.
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Author: cjshaitan
Date: 2010-03-28 04:48
I totally agree with david
If you want more money Ed then do what any self respecting professional in the public eye would do go out on all night on drug and sex binges, release a nude calander ( can see the title now " That aint no bell baby this is a bell " or simply go commerical and wear the nike headbands at your next concert.
Public profile = money
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-28 13:08
cishaitan, that's a great idea. I will suggest it to our board members, maybe that way they will be able to compete with the other orchestras in our peer group. You know, give us an advantage over them since just quality ain't cutting it around here. I'm going to have a few beers. Sorry, I don't do drugs, Asprin once in a while maybe. Thanks for the idea, ESP
PS. On a more serious note, none of us ever went into music to get rich. I think it's nice to think though that if you can make it into the big time that you can at least make a decent living. I know, I don't need the lecture about it being a none profit and all that stuff, I understand. As I said, I've done OK for myself, I'm concerned about the profession in general. ESP
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2010-03-28 14:30
It's a raw deal that they are having to give. Probably if it wasn't for the crap economy that we are in, it wouldn't happen. The Baltimore Sym. is a world class group, and way too important to shut down. Possibly/hopefully when the economy is more solid they can adjust these drastic cuts.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2010-03-28 15:54
Ed, the mistake in thinking of orchestra boards and players is: That orchestras compete on the level of quality. Now I don't want to go off on a rant her but, If the Baltimore Symphony played twice as good as it does (whatever that would sound like) it wouldn't really matter in audience count and or funding. So from the perspective of the audience, it's an expensive show that they don't want to see. Lets face it when a broadway show had some of the numbers of a symphony orchestras do in this country, thy close and a new show goes into that space. So the challenge as I see it is to create a show that uses all the resources that most orchestras have available. That has seemed to have eluded most symphony orchestras, the symphony orchestra hasn't adapted to play any American popular music. In all fairness neither have many of the special military bands of which I have a lot of experience. For instance, The US. Army Field Band, realized it needed electric bass, so when they hired a bass player(double bass) this person had to play electric bass, same with percussion, Marimba players had to play drum set. I was amazed that with all the big band and movie music that we did they never added a fifth saxophone, you know Sousa didn't need one why do we. There are other military bands that haven't even gone that far and play very traditional concert band music, but they wear red suits and think the audience enjoys that program as much.
Orchestra players are finally starting to understand what most musicians have been experiencing for years, if you want more money you have to up your game. Since I retired from the Field Band I have spent most of my Musical time playing clarinet concerts where I've been doing a show called "A Night in Paris and Day in the Ukraine" a show where I'm playing french classical clarinet music on the first half and klezmer on the second half. I've done this show a few times over the last few years had large attendance (paying customers). I had to design a show that was interesting to the average person that is scared by classical music. I also play lots of Jewish music with my Band for weddings and Bar Mitvahs, so when ever anyone shows up in town and thinks they can put up a band that "better and cheaper" I have to adapt. It usually takes a few months for the buyers to realize that mostly the new guys are just "cheaper". But still with the Bernie Madeoff fiasco, people just didn't have that extra $70grand for those parties they had in early part of the decade. That has effected my bottom line let me tell you.
There are no orchestras in Baltimore trying to do it cheaper or better, so the orchestra exists without having to compete against other orchestras for the concert going dollar. Recording forget it, people aren't even buying Lady Gaga Cds like they did years ago, so you can't recored your way out of this financial situation. TV? forget that too, Hell the Boston pops isn't even on any more, and if you want to be on TV you have to have an act that is visual. Lets face it, the BSO and any symphony orchestra isn't really a visual thing for TV or even sitting in the concert hall. So the only thing left to do is create a compelling event-show that people will spend $40-50 to see. You can't get tickets to see Wicked on broadway till sometime in summer and the cheapest ticket will still be over $100. And quite frankly those musicians in that pit are every bit the musicians of the BSO. They do 8 performances a week and most likely make less money than a new fiddle player in the BSO. And that hall is always filled. No one on this list ever wants to see any performer make less money than they have been. But the whole classical music scene,orchestras included, have always prided themselves on a sort of "exclusivity" for the club. "We had 300 people audition and no one was qualified for the job." Now we live in a country where now the audience isn't qualified to listen. This whole atitude needs to change or there will be no jobs in performing arts any more.
That just my opinion, I might be wrong.
Tom Puwalski, Leblanc clarinet and Rico artist,Former clarinet soloist with The U.S. Army Field Band, clarinetist with The Atonement, and Author of "The Clarinetists Guide to Klezmer"
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Author: Paul Miller
Date: 2010-03-28 16:17
I guess the question is: does the orchestra have enough money to pay the musicians at the higher rate, maintain the length of the season AND meet its financial/programming goals in the future?
Cuz, thing is, as soon as you can't make payroll, you're done.
Post Edited (2010-03-28 16:29)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2010-03-28 16:52
I think Tom and Paul make some excellent points. I may end up ducking for cover on this, but the fact is that symphonic music is not "our" music. It probably never will have the following of more uniquely American forms of music. The more uniquely American forms also do not require dozens of musicians to perform it, which makes it easier to make money. Musical theatre is somewhat of an exception since between the cast and the orch there are quite a few folks to pay.
Symphonic music is a more integral part of the cultural heritage of Europe. Even there, though, the money that governments put towards the arts comes from high taxes that also have the effect of chilling economic activity and employment, especially for the young.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2010-03-28 18:13
Since our cultural heritage is primarily (but not exclusively) that of Europe I'm failing to see a significant distinction.
So, aside from Jazz, what forms would you define as "our" music?
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2010-03-28 19:16
Good point, Tobin. I didn't intend to suggest that our cultural heritage isn't perhaps primarily European , just that our musical traditions are not particularly derived from European orchestral tradition. I would say that much American music derives from the Scots/Irish/Celtic tradition and from the African American community.
David, as a mom of preteens I can sympathize with your sentiment. Yes, my parents had problems with some of the lyrics I listened to as a kid, but my mom also cleaned house to Three Dog Night and Chicago.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-28 20:06
What's our music besides jazz? To varying degrees: rock, metal, hip hop, rap, blues, country, gospel, funk.
Very few classical scenes originated here, and what classical did come from America is usually directly traceable or integrable into European traditions. That is, if you heard a random classical-scene piece today, you'd probably by default associate it with Europe unless there was a distinctive American twist on it. Likewise, if you heard a random country piece, you'd probably associate it with the U.S. unless it has a distinctive European twist.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: chorusgirl
Date: 2010-03-28 20:24
Tom P. said:
"Now we live in a country where now the audience isn't qualified to listen. This whole atitude needs to change or there will be no jobs in performing arts any more."
I think that Tom has hit the nail on the head. The problem, actually, as I see it, is that the schools have deviated from quality music programs. My parents didn't listen to classical music - I was introduced to it in school, and fell in love with what I was hearing.
I now teach a 5 week general music course to sixth grade students, and we begin each day by listening to a piece from the so-called classical repertoire - "pop" classics. My students LOVE it! They listen to Rossini, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Sousa, Elgar, Puccini ... a real mixed bag, but after discussing the composers (I give them some "juicy" tidbits about their lives) and some background stories of the pieces we listen to, they want more!
A colleague of mine plays with a local small orchestra and he will give away free tickets to students who "earn" it through some game he plays. THEY want to go - and the ones whose parents take them always enjoy it. The ones whose parents WON'T take them are always disappointed.
My point is that we are neglecting to build our audiences. My students would love to go to concerts to see live musicians playing real instruments, especially if afterwards they could interact with musicians directly. In my area at least, I don't see much, if any, of this going on. We are not fostering this love of music in the schools anymore, and have not for several decades. We are now reaping what we have sown, in public education, at least, and seeing it in the real world as well.
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2010-03-28 20:59
David said:
"cRAP is ours........."
While I hate listening to rap or hip hop, I challenge you to try rapping. While I may not call it music, it certainly classifies as an art form in my eyes (no less than a poetry reader at any rate). It's very difficult to do well and if the lyrics of many of our rap artists were less debaucherous, I think you'd have a different attitude toward it entirely.
I also think Tom's observations are interesting and insightful.
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Author: OldClarinetGuy
Date: 2010-03-28 22:20
A ticket to the symphony is pricey. Not more expensive than going to a touring Broadway musical or our professional ballet company, more expensive than local theater and about the same as major touring rock and jazz groups. Our friends are well educated, fairly successful professionals and while I enjoy going to the symphony, since we have lived here not once has anyone suggested we go out to dinner and then go to the symphony but we do go to dinner and to other "arts" events. I think it is an art form not understood with a shrinking audience ,and as the current philanthropists and their trusts who give to orchestras age, I fear the next generation of philanthropic groups and benefactors will not look as favorably on symphonies.
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Author: chorusgirl
Date: 2010-03-29 00:59
OldClarinetGuy -
All the more reason why in our schools we need to be doing more with children to cultivate a love of this type of music.
Parents will spend oodles of money and hours on line to buy movie tickets to a Miley Cyrus event - imagine if they would do the same for symphony tickets! But why won't they? They don't even know that this type of great music exists. Why not? It hasn't been taught.
My sixth grade students can get pretty fired up about listening to excerpts from Carmina Burana - and they would buy tickets to go to a performance of it, now that they know where it comes from and why it was written. They think it's pretty cool stuff. While they might not spend oodles of money or stand on line for hours for tickets, they ARE interested. We need to do more of this.
I try my best to dispel the notion that my students have that "classical" music is the stuff of stuffy old dead guys that no one wants to listen to anymore. They like it and are disappointed when the course ends. Maybe, just maybe, one or two of them will someday want to go hear a live symphony orchestra.
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Author: OldClarinetGuy
Date: 2010-03-29 01:34
Chorusgirl...
or...the parents just don't care for the music..We played a lot of symphony music in our house..my son was a clarinet performance major and my other kids played. Tastes change and this is neither a good or bad thing. As you know, tastes changed over the generations and centuries in the music we now lump together as "classical" music. There is no moral imperative that a parent pass on or introduce symphonic or classical music to the next generation but it would be tragedy if we lost the choice to see and hear these great orchestras.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-29 02:54
Nobody teaches Miley Cyrus in school, but the kids still know about it. While I'm all about the awesomeness of music education, I think it's foolish of us to expect the educational system to do all our footwork for us.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-29 02:55
Everyone that wrote above is correct but that doesn't solve the problem. People don't realize how often they actually listen to "symphonic" music. Maybe not in it's raw form, a Beethoven or Mahler Symphony, but symphony trained and level players, even sometimes an actually symphony orchestra, playing the music for movies and TV programs. I can't speak for other orchestras but here in Baltimore we do a series of Pops concerts, American music, jazz, pops etc. They are usually well attended. We do a series of youth concerts and a wide variety of "classical" music including music of American composers. Most of us realize the problems associated with filling the hall and getting philanthropic funding, I don't think most of us kid ourselves about it but as I said before, it's part of what makes us what we are. All the arts, and that certainly includes symphonies, is what makes us civilized and able to pass onto the future generations what we are today. Bach to Beethoven to Copland to Irving Berlin to John Adams to John Williams etc. We play it all. Music is a living art and in my opinion needs to live and thrive. At least in Baltimore, we are trying to adapt as much as an orchestra can and still be an orchestra. If symphonies die out all together it will be a great loss to the human race but I agree, they might have to change with the times. That's why we play Beethoven and John Williams and as we are doing this summer, even music of Michael Jackson. Let's hope we can keep the symphony alive for at least a couple hundred more years, and more. I'll let you know if we're successful then if I come back as a conductor. ESP
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Author: justme
Date: 2010-03-29 03:00
I agree with David!
As one who listens to many different styles of music and is very picky as to which particular songs that I like from each style, I have to agree that rap is not really music.
I listen to everything from the 20's on up. This includes Dixieland Jazz, big bands, rock, pop, some light jazz,some soul, funk, blues, classic country, some modern country and some classical as well.
Not to mention Irish, Celtic, Klezmer, gospel, Ethnic, etc.
Even though it may or may not be considered an "art form," somebody talking while scratching an LP record is not really singing nor is it music to me, nor will it ever be.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it
Right on David!
Justme
http://woodwindforum.ning.com/
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-29 03:15
Whether rap is music comes down to a discussion of what "music" is, which is one of those pesky questions that generally boils down to everyone having a different opinion and disagreeing to disagree until everyone says "screw it."
I personally don't see why people get so fussy about what is and isn't considered "music," a construct that's as much linguistic as anything else. Trying to come up with a definition for myself that has consistent criteria has proven a maddening exercise in futility, so given any example of sound-that-may-be-listened-to, I forgo even thinking of whether or not it should be given a highly arbitrary label and just listen to the darn thing (or don't).
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2010-03-29 03:48
That's why we play Beethoven and John Williams and as we are doing this summer, even music of Michael Jackson.
Ed I hate to break it with you but the BSO swings like a rusty gate. Michael Jackson? Man that's cool except when you sound like Laurence Welk playing it. Look I don't care what kind of gig you're on and who it's with but you have to be on it with musicians who know how to play the music they're playing. You guys do sound great playing Mahler though.
Tom Puwalski, Leblanc clarinet and Rico artist,Former clarinet soloist with The U.S. Army Field Band, clarinetist with The Atonement, and Author of "The Clarinetists Guide to Klezmer"
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-03-29 11:39
Maybe the Nike shoe slogan is the best tactic when introducing classical music to people previously unfamiliar with it: "Just Do It." I've found that if I put music I love on the speakers without even saying anything about it, people (including teenagers) will more often than not react with theme and variations on, "Wow! What's that?!"
One young relative, a houseguest here who heard a few things, then rummaged through my CD collection and couldn't pronounce "Tchaikovsky" because he'd neither heard the name nor seen it in print before, started his own classical music collection immediately, from a dealer at my local flea market. He's gone on to become an avid fan of classical music -- and early 20th century black and white films, too, by the way. I just put one of my favorite old movies on the tube one night. After seeing it, he asked, "Got any more like that one?" Now he's got a whole bunch more like that one in his own collection.
Good entertainment sells itself. Don't bother being defensive about it. Defensiveness only sets up the premise that there's something negative going on that needs a defense. Just do it.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2010-03-29 12:35
Lelia Loban wrote:
>
> One young relative, a houseguest here who heard a few things,
> then rummaged through my CD collection and couldn't pronounce
> "Tchaikovsky" because he'd neither heard the name nor seen it
> in print before, started his own classical music collection
> immediately, from a dealer at my local flea market. He's gone
> on to become an avid fan of classical music -- and early 20th
> century black and white films, too, by the way.
I agree - "Just do it" can let the music, at least the more accessible works, communicate sometimes much better than the road mapping techniques often used in formal music classrooms. If my only exposure to classical music had been in school when I was young, I'm not sure what my attitude as an adult might have been. This begs the question: does the young relative you wrote about now go to classical concerts?
There are many in my circle of friends, acquaintances and even colleagues who listen to classical music on CD at home but rarely go to concerts. Too far away (a 30 minute drive into the city), nowhere to park, too expensive, the seats are uncomfortable (compared to their living room furniture in the middle of their surround systems), etc...
Symphony orchestras can't survive without regular, preferably subscribed, concert-goers in the seats. It's true that ticket sales alone do not pay the salaries of a symphony orchestra, but audience size is important to corporate sponsors and philanthropic foundations.
Karl
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-29 13:36
Tom, you miss the point. When we play pops concerts, rock, jazz, music of Broadway or Michael Jackson or Irving Berlin, we don't just do an entire program by ourselves. We have singers and or dancers that actually specialize in that style of music, often performers that have been on Broadway, recorded or tour doing those types of programs. Many of them well known to the general public. We don't just do a 2 hour program of music of MIchael Jackson for symphony orchestra. When was the last time you came to one of our pops concerts at the Meyerhoff, Strathmore, Origin Ridge or the Pier downtown? We always use soloist that specialize in that style music just like we do when we play a Beethoven Violin Concerto. The real point is of course that we at least try to do what we can to attract people to the symphony so we can broaden our reach. Obviously we, like all arts organizations, need to raise money from other sources no matter how successful we are at filling seats, that's just the nature of our field.
We understand, I understand. ESP
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Author: OldClarinetGuy
Date: 2010-03-29 14:58
We went to one of the pre-concert events a couple of years ago where members of the board talked about tickets sales covering about 30% of the orchestra's cost. Cuts in salaries and a reduction to the pension plan totaled close to a million dollars and ticket sales were up by $400,000 and the threat of being in the red is continuous. It just seems like a dangerous way to live.
........................
We live in a star driven age of entertainment but I don't see orchestras having that as part of their marketing. Our orchestra has 18 different programs a year. I now buy a voucher plan allowing me to pick and choose what I want to see. I know that I pay more attention to the orchestra than my peers and I am pretty much clueless about what is next on the orchestra's agenda. I have to figure it out, which is ok for me because I like to go through the stuff, but there is no face of the orchestra doing the local talk show rounds getting the community excited, constantly promoting and explaining the upcoming shows. The orchestra does a lot in the community. All my kids played in the orchestra program sponsored by the symphony, and not living right in the city it was a huge commitment for our entire family to do this, and many schools are part of a program that has them attending school day concerts and having symphony players come to them. But I think orchestras need THAT PERSON who is out there, accessible and is selling the show and the excitement.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-29 15:04
"There are many in my circle of friends, acquaintances and even colleagues who listen to classical music on CD at home but rarely go to concerts. Too far away (a 30 minute drive into the city), nowhere to park, too expensive, the seats are uncomfortable (compared to their living room furniture in the middle of their surround systems), etc..."
And yet we continue to design concert halls that have no parking and horribly uncomfortable seats and price ourselves out of an audience. A huge classical enthusiast myself, these factors have kept me from multiple concerts.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-29 15:13
I think the real problem with orchestras may be their history. Orchestras did not come about as a result of popular demand, nor as a result of musicians getting together to make a cool ensemble that could make a decent living. They came about at the whim of wealthy patrons, partially because they liked music, but also largely to show off.
Quite simply, they're a luxury item, one that does not come about as a financially sound enterprise to be supported by loyal fans, but as a group that just expects the money to keep magically coming from somewhere, so shaky that, even with 100% sold-out shows, can be in financial ruin.
They're great to have around, but an orchestra, in its historical form, will almost never make it on its own, and since the mechanisms behind an orchestra work as they always have and expect the money to come from where it always has, the orchestras will continue to be bound to the whims and finances of generous rich folk rather than forced to find sound financial footing on their own.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: NBeaty
Date: 2010-03-29 16:07
I'm currently taking a graduate seminar in music composition and have had some interesting conversations with some Ph.D. composition majors.
In their composing, many of them feel that public reception is insignificant in deciding whether or not a work is "good". On the same lines, if the audience doesn't like my playing of a piece then that would mean that I'm not in fact bad, just that the audience didn't like my playing.
One of the composition students asked me if I felt it was important for the audience to get something from the performance (to enjoy it and find it meaningful) for me to want to perform. I replied that if I felt that all that mattered was that I was doing something great, I wouldn't have any need for public performance and would get the same enjoyment playing alone at home.
Audiences want to share in the greatness of music. When they have to pay a large sum of money to go to concerts, they want to share and be witness to art happening in real time where the fact that they are witnessing it makes them a part of it in some way.
Paying 100 dollars (or more) for a concert means a few things. Many people don't want to hear the same Masterworks that they've heard hundreds of times and seen in concert many times as well. Most show up to the symphony late so they can skip the first piece of the concert (a contemporary piece that few understand and even fewer really enjoy).
What are we left with? Visiting soloists and a large community of arts enthusiasts who have disposable income (probably much higher percentage here in Montreal than most other cities in North America).
What else is there to get people to want to spend 100 dollars (almost four 3 course meals at nice restaurants) to come see the symphony?
I went to the Montreal Symphony last week and was able to get two 100+ dollar tickets at student prices because no one was buying them. Me and my friend sat in a Lodge (box) that seats 6, and we had it all to ourselves.
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Author: JamesOrlandoGarcia
Date: 2010-03-29 18:28
I completely understand your perspective and let me personally convey my apologies to hear of the distress it has clearly caused you.
However I do have to take issue with the sense of entitlement I get from your post. Orchestras are not for profit institutions like most businesses. You're orchestra is a a non-profit like a food bank would be. The professional symphonic community should be subject to the will of the market place just like my own job is held accountable to. What your orchestra experienced in my opinion was bubble that was going to pop one way or another. Orchestra management should be held responsible for that. What in their right minds indicated that it was time over the years to expand? Were ticket sales up so much to the point where endowments weren't even necessary anymore?
I also disagree with your take about the concessions meaning that there will be a decline in the performance quality of the orchestra. We have a situation in American orchestras where members can perform without any sort of term limit. If our orchestras had to start over from scratch and hold auditions to fill ever position I doubt that every current member would retain their post. When it comes to it, high trained professionals will still work for $30k than work for nothing at all. Do I wish that consumers would naturally fund the arts industry more by attending concerts? Yes, but it isn't the reality. The only way to survive and even thrive is to accept the current situation and then work to make it better with a clear concise strategy. Perhaps the old playbook should be put to rest and something new put in its place.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-30 00:33
Dear James, you make some good points but I must take exception to your thinking that I feel, or even most of my buddies feel a sense of entitlement. If that was the case we would feel that the gov't should support us, we don't. Perhaps a little more help, to all the arts, not just us, but just a little bit more. What I feel is that we need to reach out as much a possible to the general public for more broad support. That's one reason we in Baltimore do so many "non classical" concerts. And by the way, you can buy a ticket for a whole lot less then the $100 someone else mentioned. We often offer $25 tickets and of course student prices. There are many times the're even less than that., especially if one buys a subscription which a patron can mix and match between different series. Four, six, eight, twelve concerts. We also have a parking garage and two others available within one block walk so that also is not an issue as someone mentioned. Yes, we do need some gov't support, yes we do need some wealthy people that love the symphony to support music in a big way, yes we do need many people to give a little support and yes we do need to fill the hall, which is what we try to do. We bring our music to many parts of the state, performing in two concert halls and several concerts series around the state. As I mentioned above, we do all types and styles of music including youth concerts, back to back and rusty musician concerts. And guess what, we have a 45 million dollar endowment as well. No, we don't feel an entitlement but we do feel that we are an important element to our society and culture that should be kept alive and thrive. If we don't we should shut down every music school in the county right now. And yes, the quality will go down.
We used to have players move up into our orchestra from other pier group orchestras, no more. Because we are trying to keep our quality we have had trouble filling positions in the last few years with players that are acceptable to our players and conductors and many of our younger players are starting to take auditions that they would not have taken two years ago. One thing that makes a great orchestra great is keeping your best players for a life time, not having a swinging door or filling sections with subs as we are doing now. Yes, the quality will go down in a few years if they don't turn it around, without a doubt. I'm not looking for sympathy or a hand out, just understanding. ESP
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2010-03-30 00:51
Ed Palanker wrote:
> Dear James, you make some good points but I must take exception
> to your thinking that I feel, or even most of my buddies feel a
> sense of entitlement.
In a different sense, yes, I think you do feel you have a sense of entitlement vis-a-vis other industries. I live in an area which has been hit hard by a recession, and since we weren't making products people wanted, we had 30% layoffs and 25% pay cuts. Overnight, not over 3 years. Along with retirees seeing their retirement funds being taken over by the government and the health care gone. The health care benefits for white-collar are just about non-existent.
These people are just as highly trained and "practice" just as much as any musician - and we all have 52 week seasons; however, when when skills aren't needed or there isn't enough money to pay us all or the company makes a misstep and the product doesn't sell - we're gone. Sad but true. It's brutal business.
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Author: Ryan25
Date: 2010-03-30 01:17
I think entitlement is an issue as well. Maybe not so much with Ed's post but with the American symphony scene in general. It happens time and again when a musician in a major orchestra auditions for a position in another major orchestra only to try and get a raise with their current orchestra. Two woodwind players in major orchestras come to mind that have done this recently and I am sure there are more.
It's hard to feel sympathetic about the situation when some of the overhead problems orchestras are facing are caused by it's members. I also don't understand why the larger orchestras perform so many concerts if they are having trouble selling out the concerts. Is it management that wants as many concerts as possible to make revenue or are musicians asking for more so their work load and pay increases?
This topic is both fascinating and troubling. It would be a shame if orchestras had to close their doors, but at the same time, the way they are run and the overhead they work under simply does not make sense. The demand just does not seem to be there.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2010-03-30 01:33
Well, to your point, Mark, some people would argue that the people you cite ARE "entitled" to a decent job and ARE "entitled" to make a living wage, and yeah, if I were working at the top of my game in a top-tier orchestra, I suppose I might feel a little entitled, sure. But I don't think that's misplaced--unless you want to argue that "market forces" (whatever one's definition of them is) not only do, but SHOULD, trump everything else, which I personally think is nonsense. Our society splits the difference all the time between letting "market forces" have untrammeled free rein, versus stepping in and saying, for example, "No, we as a society can't afford to leave the arts ENTIRELY subject to market forces or we'd have nothing but professional football and reality TV, so we choose to offer tax breaks for those who make charitable/nonprofit contributions, and fund arts programs directly through the National Endowment," etc. etc. etc.
I've been reading down the posts, including mine, and everyone's looking for and/or proposing some sort of "magic bullet", whether it be more novel programming, making seats cheaper, amping up music programs in schools, chopping administrative staff as well as laying off orchestra personnel, and so on--all worthy ideas, perhaps--but the bottom line is still, if we as a society say we value the arts, then we have to PAY for them. It's that simple. If you think the "market" can take care of that, then tell me how we don't end up with some sort of "American Idol Meets The NY Philharmonic Conducted by Lindsey Lohan" scenario.
The other major countries in the world seem to support their orchestras much more ably than we do. I wonder how they do that?
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Author: trice035
Date: 2010-03-30 03:30
thEEBaum wrote:
> I have a lot more to say on this matter, and will do so when I
> return from attending a clarinet recital. Please stand by...
>
That is the best news I have heard all day!
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2010-03-30 04:11
Thank you Doug. When I posted this it wasn't my intention for anyone to feel sorry for us musicians who have reached the top, or at least near the top, of their profession. I was simply trying to show you, my fellow clarinetists, what's happening in one of our major orchestra's. So I'm no longer going to comment on what anyone else say's. I'll just let others comment from here on.
My last comment is for Mark who usually brings up his industry when these types of posts are mentioned about any of the arts, and that's his right. So what I want to say is this. Every single American in this county deserves a good job and good compensation if they work hard and honest at what job or profession they do. We are all entitled to that, garbage collectors, truck drivers, lumber jacks, doctors, Ford workers and yes, musicians. In that respect I do believe in entitlement, but I believe we all deserve it, not just musicians. Yes, I think musicians that made it into a professional orchestra deserve a good salary, just like I believe that you in the automobile industry deserve a good salary. If you don't believe that we should support the arts in America than some day you might get what your wish. I know you're not really saying that but to me you often come off like you do. The arts just don't, and will never, support themselves. How would you like to live in a country without them? It's bad enough so many of our citizens don't have health care. At least there's some help coming that way in the future now. ESP
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Author: OldClarinetGuy
Date: 2010-03-30 04:29
The issue of quality of orchestras is an interesting one. The cost of maintaining an orchestra of impeccable quality may be counter productive to the longevity of orchestras. The players, the conductor and other highly trained musicians know the difference, but I doubt that many patrons can tell the difference in the tier 1 or lets say the tier 2 orchestras. One orchestra does not beat the other 16-14 in overtime. Most folks have no measure of how one orchestra stacks up against another. If they go, they go to their local orchestra. So, for whom does the quality need to remain so high that salaries,their associated benefits and pension plans need to remain at a level that bankrupt orchestras.
I live near Milwaukee but closer to Waukesha that also has a professional orchestra. (now calling itself the Wisconsin Philharmonic). The difference in quality would be evident to all. But Waukesha might fit the needs of the listener better. They play at a couple of large churches, they play at a university, the play in a small city center for the arts. they are accessible, the quality is pretty good, the music is varied, the venues are easy to get to, the atmosphere is relaxed. People will "try them out"and come back because they enjoy it, a ticket is around $30 for the best seat in the house and the subscription series is around $125 for 6 programs. They don't break my bank.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-30 08:32
Ok, my mini-festo follows...
First off, I will say that I very very much appreciate the continued existence of orchestras. I think it's spectacular that enough people consider these spectacular relics of times gone past to be cool enough to continue supporting them, despite their mathematical inability, in most cases, to find a stable business model.
--
That said, the orchestra is, essentially, an enormous cover band. Very few orchestras have any music or ability or skill or technique, other than "the clarinetist is quite good," that sets them apart from any other orchestra. There will be slight regional and stylistic differences, and they are often significant enough for me to guess the orchestra on the radio. However, one orchestra playing Beethoven 6 will sound as close to another orchestra playing Beethoven 6 as one Beatles cover band playing Hard Day's Night will sound to another Beatles cover band playing Hard Day's Night. They are, by their very nature, more or less interchangeable. If you swap the L.A. Phil's clarinet section with Boston's, it'll be slightly different, and will take some adjusting, but you'll get on, just like if you swapped one Beatles cover band's Ringo with another's, assuming compatible personalities in all cases.
Orchestras also play old music. Tchaik 5 gets a year older every year, and every year it's another year further removed from current cultural relevance. Which is not to say that you can't find cool stuff that you find relevant in the piece, just that it is more and more "from another era." Look at how dated 80s rock is and add an order of magnitude. The majority of "newer" stuff orchestras play falls into the following categories:
- Music that was written recently but follows from old traditions without being culturally relevant to today
- Music that shamelessly panders, grasping for current cultural relevance and failing to effectively shoehorn it into an older genre
- Music that appeals to "new music" crowds and that more conservative audiences find unlistenable or extremely boring
- Covers of pop tunes that make you wonder why you paid $50 to see a cover rather than the actual band
Very rarely do you see actual new, relevant music written for today's orchestras. It happens, but it's the exception rather than the rule. But that's partially an issue of out-of-touch composers (especially those who are convinced they're some Beethoven character nobody understands), which is another topic.
We've painted ourselves into a horrible corner, where any new music that's culturally relevant is shunned as trite and unworthy of concert halls, and any new music that's sophisticated enough to make it to said concert halls is so esoteric as to not be culturally relevant. I don't know how much we can do about that other than admit we're all screwed in that regard, unless there's a significant shift in concert-hall-culture itself, which seems very unlikely.
--
A bigger problem I see, which ties into this as well, is a stubborn lack of flexibility on the part of classical performers. The vast majority of classically-trained clarinetists will only ever consider the usual venues to performance: orchestral job, studio work, teaching, freelance classical chamber ensembles (for fun), random gigs. While fairly versatile in playing things off a page, classical performers tend to wait for jobs to come to them, or wait for jobs to be announced that they can apply for. Anything else, they're too good for, or meet you with a sort of panicked, slightly disgusted malaise and an uncomfortable utterance of "mnnnnnnnnehhhhhhhh."
In contrast, you don't see rock, jazz, metal, reggae musicians doing this. They're out starting their own groups, playing clubs and cafes often just for free food, cultivating a unique sound, and maybe stinking up the local Guitar Center (I didn't say it's a pretty picture). They're also pounding the payment, self-producing CDs, hawking their music to anyone who'll listen. Find me a clarinetist who's out there doing real relevant experimentation and I'll find you another 50 practicing the Midsummer excerpt until their lips bleed.
--
A few posts above mentioned the issue of performer quality. I call BS on this one, and I call it due to the abysmal state of conducting. The vast majority of conductors are awful, and the good ones tend to be a) just passable enough to not get in the way of the orchestra or b) phoning it in most of the time. Conducting education is in the toilet, as it's too expensive to get conducting students time in front of a decent orchestra, and soon those students become conducting teachers, and over the generations the quality declines. Once in a while you have a good-despite-conditions standout, or you have situations (like La Sistema in Venezuela or extremely cheap labor in Russia) that allow proper experience for aspiring conductors.
Having seen an excellent, passionate master conductor I've had the good fortune to collaborate with take a group of good, though not winning auditions, string players from sounding OK to one of the most convincingly awesome performances of the Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings in just over a week, I'm convinced that a good conductor can take an orchestra made up entirely of the "not good enough" audition rejects and make them sound on par with any top symphony. Likewise, a cruddy conductor can bring down even the best of ensembles.
--
As long as we continue to perpetuate the orchestra as a group that plays old, stodgy music in old, stodgy venues (even the new ones are old and stodgy), we'll restrict ourselves to old, stodgy clientele. I can appreciate the pomp and circumstance of a fancy night out, and think there can be a place in our world for the "high-class" concert experience. The guy with spiky black hair, a studded collar, torn Slayer t-shirt, and buckled boots, or the creepy guy at Wal-Mart with the leopard-print spandex, or the teenage girl with a muffin top and three gallons of makeup and Mardi Gras beads... if we don't have a place where they can come enjoy our music without being snubbed or feeling the total outcast, then we've obliterated a huge swath of possible audience and enthusiast.
--
There are ways to make it work, though, to make it relevant and cool while maintaining the musical integrity. A new group in L.A., Wild Up, is one such example. Chamber orchestra made up of local classically-trained musicians (college graduates and grad students). They had their first concert a couple months ago, in a club-type venue (I had a concert that night, couldn't go, so I don't know too many details) that served beer and wine and did away with the typical concert protocol. Friendly environment, come as you are. Bach, Stravinsky, Adams, Radiohead. Packed house, roars of applause (between movements, even!). Young ensemble, young audience, screaming in appreciation of a Brandenburg Concerto.
What could a more "traditional" orchestra do? Get out in the community, for one thing! And I'm not talking the token community service gestures or school lectures (those are cool too, but tend to perpetuate the "this music is smart music for rich people. come hang out with smart rich people!" vibe) An orchestra tends to have a small army of volunteers hawking season tickets. What if, instead, that time was spent setting up gigs for symphony players at local cafes and bars and parks, with flyers for the upcoming concerts or even someone on hand to sell tickets? You know, present music as something people might enjoy, rather than feel some cultural obligation to support. Not only do you present the music as something friendly and awesome but, if the local symphony DOES come into poor times, everyone at Bob's Coffee down at the street might actually be up in arms to do something about it because they like Rebecca and Nick who play duets there on Thursday evenings.
--
It's the whole attitude of helplessness and of waiting for someone else to make an opportunity for the musician that I think does the biggest disservice to the music and musicians alike. People don't come to your concert? It's the decline of civilization, those uncultured cretins! Orchestra going under? Woe is the world, how did we not see this coming? If people aren't going to your events, get off your butt and get people excited about it! Everyone is so willing to put in another 500 hours in the practice room, but 10 hours downtown exploring the possibilities of your music is apparently too much to ask of people. "Oh, but my job is just to play the music. Someone else is supposed to handle that other stuff" To which I increasingly say, WHAT JOB?
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-30 14:24
There is much to this discussion that I agree with, much to even admire from many perspectives, and yet much that I hope would be considered from a slightly different angle. For the moment, I'd like to take up the notion of classical music and "cultural relevance."
"Cultural relevance" is a phrase usually meant to suggest what expresses what is considered urgent, or important, or congruent with our current society, its standards of judgement, its understanding of morality, its assumptions of the nature of reality, etc. But this is not the only potential meaning. If one believes that our current culture is not perhaps the healthiest, than "cultural relevancy" might mean something else; something even more profound. It could mean anything from protest songs to Passion settings, but one thing it will not mean is something which can be considered "relevant" as guaged solely by economic viability.
The music classical musicians perform is not perhaps economically susatainable as it once was; whether the current troubles of symphony orchestras is a result of a bad economy and they will recorver, or a more permanent problem of cultural disconnect remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: much of our music was created and originally performed in societies with far different standards. For me this is not a reason to consider them culturally irrelevant, but supremely relevant.
For a non-orchestral example, let us clarinetists consider the Fantasy Pieces of Schumann. Few musicians now consider the conditions under which these were written; and I'm not talking about the socio-political conditions, but the personal conditions. Over the course of their marriage, if I remember correctly, Robert and Clara Schumann had eight children. These pieces were written at night, when the home was quiet, by a father of many children who were sleeping upstairs: children Robert had a responsibility for.
The mere mention of that many children to an average American or European of today would garner immediate comment--most of it negative. We simply do not value what they valued, we don't understand nature or life the way they did, and I would wager that most of those who read and/or respond to this comment will never experience the emotions that Schumann did when he wrote those pieces, because they will never experience the context (though perhaps they will write pieces expressing other things: pills and latex--these are after all the subject of many popular, "relevant" "love songs" of today). It's worth pointing out that the Schumanns were not freakish in their family life: the natural result of two people getting married back then, when they really really liked each other, was children.
If you are one who believes that performing such works is culturally irrelevant because it does not express a less natural, less committed age, then perhaps we have no room to dialogue. But perhaps you, like me, realize that such pieces are worth performing because they in many cases re-introduce people to emotions that are more tender, more natural, and even more human than those so often inspired by our current culture of selfishness, impermenance, narcissism and adolescence.
The Schumann pieces are only one tiny example, and I use it because it is common clarinet repertoire--not to preach but to explain. There are a thousand examples from the repertoire beyond this. Mr. Palanker is correct that we will lose something valuable if we lose the symphony orchestra as a part of the community--we will lose the living tradition of expressing what many of us believe to eternally valid, or close to it.
I am one who has suffered from market forces in my own career as well--I used to play professionally (as a young man I didn't reach an orchestra with the pay grade of Baltimore before other life issues took over). I'm not bitter about that; life has been good to me and my family, whatever trials we've had. But I can't subscribe to the notion that the arts really can be evaluated by economic viability.
Another point: the comparison of orchestras to cover bands is a false one, and one which does not fully appreciate the difference between philosophic underpinnings of music in the age of recording technology (where the recording functions as both manuscript and primary performance, intended to be associated with the originators of the music) and the age before (where the score functions as manuscript only, severed from primary performance, and is intended to be played by different ensembles repeatedly). This point in particular has huge ramifications, but I don't have time right now to go into them.
One last point (for now): Our society, as currently constructed, would not be able to produce a St Matthew Passion, a Bruckner 7, or a Vaughan Williams Pilgrim's Progress (we must remember that those pieces were not produced in a vacuum of inspiration, but relied on social conctructs and "relevance" every bit as much as our own musicians' works). Does this mean they are not worth retaining? And if so, what are the ultimate costs of such cultural amnesia?
I hope you don't think I'm just harping on the bad stuff, Alex: There was so much of intelligence in your post, so much I agree with....but I have such limited time and your ideas were so provocative, I had to chime in with what I consider to be important disagreements!
Eric
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The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
Post Edited (2012-08-20 04:03)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2010-03-30 15:29
Eric, WOW
I am blown away by the fact that you actually went with "pills and latex" in your post. I hope that the readers here, even if, as you wrote, "the mere mention of that many children... would garner immediate comment--most of it negative", will at least think about the contrast you point out.
I don't define cultural relevance as trendiness. I guess I take a broader view of culture and history. I have a couple of recent musical experiences that are cause for hope.
Yes, Alex, you can definitely date 80s music by hearing it, but some of it is standing the test of time. I had a conversation with a guitar teacher recently about how the young guitarists gravitate to the music of the 70s and 80s because of the conviction of the guitar playing. Much recorded music today is so sampled, digitized, and mixed that there isn't much for a young musician to grab onto.
Also, we have been using an acappella Latin dismissal at church for the last three Sundays of Lent, and the people love it. It feeds them in a way that all the worship hipness in the world cannot. I am also forming a new music group for our Sunday night Teen Masses, and one lovely young woman who is involved loved the bouncy contemporary Easter song and the contemplative contemporary Christian song we rehearsed first. Then we went to one of the traditional Easter hymns and she said, "cool-I love that song"
The community orch I am in has a wonderful mix of seniors and families with children in the audience because that is our focus. Granted, we are not trying to pay 70 or 90 players, but people are coming and listening.
Barb
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-30 16:22
Barb--
And to think that the first to respond might actually be one who CAN identify with the emotions of the Fantasy-Pieces!
As for the "pills and latex", I hope people aren't too puritanical: art deals with real life, and real life includes such things in our day and age. if we are too squeemish to look at the most fundamental differences between societies, we can't really understand what's going on.
I often reference the song "Two Sleepy People"--an old standard that was recorded by all the old bands--my favorite was a version by Artie Shaw. The lyric is a beautiful irony: a young couple who got married 'cuz they used to stay out so late they wouldn't get any sleep....now they're married and don't get any sleep either (because the baby keeps them awake). It was a hit back then. These days, search the airwaves in vain for such an "old fashioned" sentiment. Culturally irrelevant or a desperate necessity?
Pax Christi,
Eric
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The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: DougR
Date: 2010-03-30 16:41
Alex, your post is interesting, passionate, and emphatic, and a glance at your website tells me you're definitely putting your money where your mouth is, but to me your argument kind of boils down to, "the only way to get a symphony orchestra to survive is to get rid of all that 'symphony orchestra' stuff--the music, the hall, the stuffy musicians who like playing all that dead music--and innovate the programming, bring in outside influences, play in cafes, try harder to bring the music to the people." Which (possibly with the exception of playing in actual cafes for meals) the BSO is already doing a great deal of, if I've read Ed P's recent posts correctly.
Given the BSO for a month (or whatever period), to program as you please, what would you do different?
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Author: reedwizard
Date: 2010-03-30 17:08
I think the fact that people have less children today has less to do with changing values than the realization that the world is overpopulated. I know this is a large factor for many family members and friends. They feel it is irresponsible to bring so many children into a world facing such shortages of natural resources among other issues.
To compare our modern era to Scchumann's era is really is not fair, the average life expectancy during Schumann's lifetime was much lower than it is today. Having many children had to do with many factors, help with the work, high infant mortality rate, high death rate for mothers, the more heirs you had the better situated you were when it comes to succession for wealthier families, and for poorer families children assisted with distribution of the chores especially farming.
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2010-03-30 17:28
Reedwizard,
I am not advocating that we overpopulate the planet, but we have societies and groups that are literally dying from the postmodern views. The Japanese and the Spanish come to mind.
Today's love songs reflect getting things that are not satisfying and yearning for things that are not being found. This issue can indeed be explored by looking at music and writing from the past.
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Author: smoreno
Date: 2010-03-30 18:14
Hi, I just recently performed with BSO for the Corigiliano Circus Maximus, I was the surround band solo clarinet actually. It was one of the most monumental musical experiences of my young career, and will be forever memorable as the first time I performed with a major U.S. orchestra. All of these stories about the paycut came out after the Circus Maximus performance, and its especially sad to for me to hear. With Marin Alsop and the addition of many great players, the BSO has become one of my favorite orchestras to go see. It's so saddening to hear that management can get in the way of such a fine orchestra, and potentially diminish its future quality. I truly do hope that the BSO will somehow continue to stay at its high level of performance that I have gotten used to. I know Marin has such great vision for BSO and I truly hope that her vision can be reached, as the BSO is a fine orchestra.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-30 18:20
reedwizard:
None of this changes the fundamental fact that Schumann's experience of life, his relationships, his family, and his responsibilities were vastly different from most in our own. I think this warrants some consideration when attempting to perform the man's music....and I also think it pertinent to discussions of the emotions expressed.
As for comparisons between eras, I think it's entirely "fair"! How is humanity supposed to learn from the past (good or ill) if we won't compare eras?!
And I'm sure all of those frat boys are lowering their fertility rates out of concern for dwindling resources.... 
Some arguments are just a little silly, don't you think? Especially when the fertility rates are the lowest in the most affluent countries. But this, certainly, is off topic....I'd rather keep the discussion to clarinet and music relevance.
[Note, though, that not only is Schumann's music potentially "culturally irrelevant": so was his family life (by our current values). Does it occur to anyone that the dismissive attitude toward both might be related?]
Eric
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The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-30 18:26
I'm not at all saying to get rid of the concert hall experience. I enjoy getting dressed up to go see Mahler 3 as much as any classical nerd. I'm just saying that we should not be ignorant to the fact that that is very much a niche experience, and that we are in fact trying (well, some are trying... I've heard more than my share of wretched interpretations of old music that people think is good because the notes are in the right places) to find awesome things in old music, much like there is still a following for 80s music.
Classical music is what it is... something old, or that has a lot of oldness infused through it... we should embrace how much coolness can still be found today and made relevant in something old, and how things can grow and expand on the oldness to make them new again. Instead, we're bombarded with phrases like "the best music ever written" (says who? maybe I think that piece is crap!) and "keep classical music alive" (so this music only belongs in a museum and wouldn't stand on its own) and demands that classical music is the only music of any cultural quality ever written. A LOT non-classical-folk I talk to say things like "I really should go to a classical concert." SHOULD? We've marketed ourselves into the same area as exercising and eating healthy... people have been indoctrinated to believe that classical music is something you should do because it's good for you, but it's not as fun as pizza and Nintendo, or a Radiohead concert. For the record, I very much enjoy exercising and eating healthy.
While I'd prefer a greater prevalence of more casual occasions, the atmosphere is immaterial if you don't make your event appealing to potential listeners. However, we almost NEVER present our music as something that someone who knows little about it might go to without being convinced or coerced or nudged in some manner. People have to be "brought" to their first concert like a 5-year-old to the dentist, and they have to be significantly prepped as to the code of behavior. They will likely feel like an idiot if they don't understand the music, and they will be given the icy stare of death if they violate the rules.
I don't know what I'd do with the BSO, as it's an organization ingrained in classical traditions, but I could come up with some things. First, ditch the Michael Jackson, unless it's a legit new piece of music based on MJ tunes, or unless the orchestra is really into his music. Despite my calls for innovative programming, I avoid Pops concerts like the plague. The group should play what it's good at, and unless the players grew up with that music (or, heck, have even HEARD it), it's going to sound awful. And Pops concerts tend to come off as "ok, now we'll play something you actually want to listen to!" (as opposed to?) I'm here for an orchestra, not a second-rate rock concert with violins. If the orchestra can throw down and has the rock chops, then great, but usually a pops concert amounts to "now we're going to play pop melodies in a way that doesn't make the blue-hairs' ears hurt."
I've tried the past half hour to come up with a good response for what I'd do with the programming, and I really don't know. I think it's really more a matter of presentation. Have your concert hall events, because they're fancy and awesome like that, but also play in t-shirts on the street corner. Put out YouTubes. Let your audience, once in a while, enjoy the concert without fear of ostracism. Let them walk out or take a nap if your performance of Bruckner 6 is less interesting than watching paint dry. Break down some of the formality... if the bassoon plays a wicked awesome solo during Scheherazade, make it OK for the clarinetist to give her a thumbs up, and maybe for the audience to nod in appreciation too.
I've been to a handful of Indian (Carnatic) classical concerts, and every last audience member (except me, as I was pretty ignorant to what was going on) was entranced, giving approving nods and murmurs when something went well, and silently tapping along. The performers on stage would nod or shake their head at each other when things went well or poorly. Despite not really knowing what was what, I felt like I was in the presence of an interactive musical experience. One of the most awesome sounds I've ever heard was 200 people uttering barely audible "hmm"s in approval. I didn't know why something had gone well, but I knew WHEN it had.
At one of our concerts, it can be awesome or it can suck royally, and unless you're really educated and in tune to what's going on, everything will look exactly the same, as if we're all passive observers. We even often train ourselves to ignore the audience to get over our obsessive perfectionist performance nerves. Is it any wonder at all that they ignore us right back? I'm not saying that we have to have hooting and hollering after each piccolo solo (though that would be fun for a casual concert), but I think that the sit-down-shut-up-look-forward wall we construct, while good for acoustics and for hearing the quiet bits, can be really harmful to the audience-performer relationship.
I put on a recital last month, and rather than having the standard setup of seats-close-together-in-rows, I arranged them in broken arcs around the stage area (which I moved toward the center of the room), with pillows and rugs on the floor. Afterwards, I got lots of comments about how friendly and welcoming the atmosphere was. I wasn't "showing them music," we were experiencing it together. I've noticed a lot that the less you "make" someone listen to your music, the more inclined they are to listen, and since the listening is voluntary rather than obligatory, people are more engaged by it.
I think we would also go far by acknowledging the possibility that we'll put on a crappy performance, and not pretending that a bad one is a good one. Take the Fantasy Pieces for example. Almost every performance I've heard of them has been painfully dull, and I'm thankful that they are somewhat short. We're so hurting for positive feedback that we pretend it went well, and we get all jittery with our "what if it goes wrong" that any chance of meaningful interpretation is destroyed. Quite frankly, we need more booing, or, at least, permission to boo. Then the applauses are actually meaningful. Standing ovations are included free with Happy Meals these days, a great many of them wholly undeserved... but hey, I've been known to join in. After Bruckner 6, my butt hurts and I'm happy to stand up.
A crappy metal band is relegated to the back of a coffee house and won't get people gathering around it, won't sell any CDs, and might not be allowed back to that coffee house, which will probably make them reexamine how they play. However, we clap for concerts even if they suck, and even the most abysmal performers are invited back time and time again, despite how much they're phoning it in. Try to find a metal band with its own venue! They have to stay at the top of their game or they don't play any more. This is not the case with orchestras. Interest just declines little by little over time, maybe being very politely panned in the local press, until they go under. Whether it's performance quality or some other aspect that does the audiences in (maybe the orchestra has a box office that's hard to deal with, or maybe the metal band has an awful sound engineer), you notice it right away with a rock band (calls of "you suck!"), whereas it's a much slower, subtler decline for an orchestra. Heck, lots of the orchestra's audience has season tickets so they'll be back whether or not they like you.
Admitting that you are providing a musical experience that people may or may not like might be the key here. Not everyone likes classical music, just like not everyone likes death metal. Listen to it more, and you may end up liking it more, but you also might not. Breaking down the barriers to people listening to our music more is a huge step, and one that our "this is important music that should be in an important place under important circumstances" attitude does not lend itself well to.
Another problem is musician burnout. I hear all the time about pro symphony musicians where, after a while, it becomes "just a job." And who can blame them... The 38th time you play Mahler 1 can start to drag. However, if a significant portion of the ensemble feels this, you get very stagnant. Any performance where you don't try something new, different, unusual is a lost opportunity, and is one more nail in the coffin of your organization. If we're trying to convince the general non-classical-going public that this music is something vitally awesome and relevant and important, then can't be bothered to play with conviction and insight and style and passion, then they won't be convinced, and they won't come back, and I will have zero sympathy to your cries for financial help. However you do it... different rep, different atmosphere, different people, different presentation, if you don't yourself believe that the music is fresh, if you yourself are just "playing notes on the page," then all is, for you, lost.
Now if you'll excuse me, I just had an idea for a black-light concert.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-30 18:51
Alex,
I'm trying to read you right: does your entire concept of music boil down to what is "cool" ("coolness" seems to hold pride of place in your criticism), what "isn't stuffy", what is "new" and what isn't "like, boring"? Is "oldness" a crime or a detriment? What about the sacred, the tender, the subtle, the profound? Wouldn't you think such things might be worthy of presenting in a different manner than death metal? Perhaps the manner they have developed over the centuries? I do. I agree that symphony orchestras have to accept the challenges of the current markets, and they have to continually innovate. But for me, "coolness" is an unworthy goal or yardstick to the most important things in life (great music included).
I don't know how much I can identify with your aesthetics....I can easily sit through Bruckner 6 (people sit through longer movies every week); Mahler 1 will never get old for me, however many times it is performed, and honestly your Schumann comments seem to reinforce what I wrote on the matter. We can't possibly perform them well or even appreciate them without some rethinking of what, perhaps, he is expressing...
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: reedwizard
Date: 2010-03-30 19:03
Eric,
Of course it changes Schumann's perspective, to live in our modern world is a completely different experience than to live in the past. Each has its own set of assets and detriments. However what I took from your post was specifically related to attitudes toward children and the number of children one has and I stand by my original observation they had more children for many different reasons, but it most certainly was not the romantic reason to which I felt you alluded. In fact I would argue that in today's modern world there are more people who have children because they love children rather than for other reasons.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-30 19:28
reedwizard,
Your protest has been duly noted and you won't catch me arguing the point further here!
More importantly, I think we actually agree (at least I hope we do) on what my point was directed towards: Schumann's experience, and whether the expression of those emotions are worth preserving. I wasn't really trying to post on the highly complicated issue of declining Western fertility rates, but on the beauty of Schumann's music--that it wasn't culturally irrelevant but essential.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2010-03-30 20:11
Alex, I had to laugh reading your post. I have seen a standing O given the same concert where a couple of people in just about every row were dozing halfway through the second half. I don't think that "coolness" is the be-all and end-all, but I think you are suggesting that whatever you present, new or old, should be presented in an attractive way, especially if you want to entice the young.
I do not like "young people's" concerts when they are populated by lightly supervised day cares and school groups. For one thing, the parents are not there and it is the parents who need to support kids when they want to play an instrument. I think that groups who can attract a multigenerational audience are much closer to hitting the mark.
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Author: Ryan K
Date: 2010-03-30 20:13
MarlboroughMan, you're posting from your perspective, experiences, interests, etc, and trying to infer that on the general listening and paying public. EEbaums's argument is to the general populous. I will say that I agree with almost everything he said, so I am not unbiased myself.
I think we need more composers to really inovate. Why can't someone take Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", use it as a melodic inspiration to write a Coplandesque style symphony/short piece, and advertise it as new music for the masses? I'd pay to see it, and I'm really financially constrained.
Ryan Karr
Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA
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Author: brycon
Date: 2010-03-30 20:30
Ryan,
By only using the melodies, you are discarding one of the main components of pop music that people like: a dance beat. I would imagine that pop fans and classical music enthusiasts would dislike the final product.
Maybe symphonies should do their patrons' tax returns like the New Jersey Nets?
Man, this thread has taken some weird turns- birth rates, prophylactics, death metal...
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-30 21:26
Ryan,
To be clear: my ideas in this thread concern the concept of "cultural relevance", not marketing, so I'm not inferring anything on the general listening and paying public, but only speaking my own opinions on certain aspects of the cultural question. I think many of Alex's ideas are right on: especially his earlier post concerning the way rock musicians hit the cafe scene, take the risk on producing demos, etc., and his encouraging classical musicians to do the same rather than wonder who is going to take care of them. On this I couldn't agree more! Really there is a tremendous amount that he is posting that makes great sense.
But there are other points I'm not so convinced on, and I think they might relate a bit to the situation we face in the arts today, so I'm probing!
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-31 02:57
It does boil down to "coolness", but not in the sense of popularity. I'm not concerned with the type of cool that has people going to Jonas Brothers concerts or looking good at the beach or killing videogame zombies. I'm concerned with "coolness" as something someone might find interesting or fascinating or relevant or deep or fun or moving or well-executed, or that they just like listening to. But using terms like interesting or fascinating immediately constrict the musical experience to one person's definition of cool, and can potentially close off all sorts of other avenues and audiences. I don't expect classical musicians to behave or be revered as rock stars. However, I do expect them to be very very eager to demonstrate in how very very many different ways the thing that they do is cool to them and could be cool to others. Heck, they've dedicated their LIVES to it!
Maybe the word cool is the problem, and language can make a huge difference in these things. Cool and awesome are, to me, the broadest terms I can use to describe something that has value or merit or appeal. They're the best words I have for the topic. Maybe you would use the word interesting or fascinating or worthwhile. To me, "interesting" has a LOT of potentially negative baggage attached to it, but maybe the case is the same for you and the word "cool."
Old can be cool, not in the strap-some-sunglasses-on-granny sense, but rather in the "wow, I never knew Grandma was in a refugee camp! She has lots of awesome stories!" sense. If we give her the freedom to tell her story, people will listen, but if we insist to everyone that there is a very highly educated woman here who has lots of very important things to say and that it would be in your best interest to take heed of every word she says because you're really missing out on a lesson in history if you miss it, then I'll pass.
It's trickier for us to present things that way, because our whole mechanism has been ingrained toward listing concrete reasons why classical music is good for you and good for society. It seems very hard for our fundraising-style marketing to come to grips with the possibility that orchestral music can be cool because it has lots of awesome things about it, rather than because it will convey some sort of quantifiable benefit. It's like we're RPG characters trying to get a Ticket Stub of +2 Culture so we can go fight the Middle Manager or Urgoth. Let the listener discover the music for themselves, and be at the ready to provide deeper insight, but don't beat them over the head with it.
I enjoy classical music because there is a lot of awesomeness and potential for awesomeness in it. Every concert I go to, I'm hopeful that something awesome will happen, and usually something does. However, there is usually an even bigger potential for awesomeness that goes completely untapped. Sometimes a whole Beethoven symphony will be crap, but there will be a really juicy note on the basses that I'd never heard before, and I'm simultaneously delighted at the note and pissed off at the phoning-it-in orchestra for the rest of the piece. It's the discovery, the exploration, providing something deeper or some awesome tangent or bizarre connection, hearing the first orchestra in 5 years not stretch the 5/8 section, noticing that the piccolo player makes a funny gesture when he plays that distracts the bass clarinetist, looking to see if the man with the epic beard is once again in the second row of the audience, planning on asking the guy in the top hat an interesting question, being on the verge of cheering when the bassoonist nails the solo that the flute stylistically butchered two minutes earlier. But we downplay all of that, and only look at the very narrow range of coolness that is contained in the notes on the page, the textbook-historical significance, the so-called benefit to culture and society. Without a keen eye and ear and experience, you miss out on so much potential, and our way of selling our concerts actually steers people away from the potential coolness by creating so many "you should" and "you shouldn't" and "listen for" and "note the significance of" that we don't realize how much it COULD be. In most organizations, everyone involved, from the board of directors to the conductor to the musicians to the ushers to the snot-nosed high-schooler parking valets are so stuck in the way the system has been and so beat down by the monotony of it and so convinced by the "classical music is dying" rhetoric that they just sit passively by in hopes that people will find it cool, not even realizing that they are, every minute, missing opportunities at creating greatness.
It's really like pulling teeth with people inside the organization to realize that what they do is actually very cool in very many ways, and not just "something we do." It's hard enough getting non-classical-folk to concerts, but it's doable. I drag people along all the time. However, when they get to a concert and everyone there is in "another day at the job" mode, they'll politely say "yeah, I should do this again" and not set foot into the concert hall for another 5 years.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2010-03-31 03:58
Coolness is irrelevant, awesomeness is irrelevant. This is is about musical organizations that people believe need to be funded. If an organization needs funding whose job is it to fund it? We live in a country where a bunch of people feel that others don't need health care. Do you think as a society we can agree what music should listen to? Hell, I can't get my family to agree on a radio station on a family trip.
It's a simple equation great something that people will spend $30-150 a ticket for draw them on a regular basis and you will have a budget to create something interesting. But if you're not filling the hall and you don't have the budget you have to cut your expenses or beg for money or both. 40 years ago you had some manufacturing in the land of the free and the home of the brave, they gave money to arts organizations, they did that to show the American people how benevolent they were, not really to advance the cause of classical music. So either the people who want to hear a musical group foot the bill, or some organization who thinks people "ought" to hear this music pays for it.
Last summer I lost 11 very high paying gigs, due to Bernie Madoff. Clients were walking away from $20k+in catering deposits. Needles to say the small deposits that I had asked for years to hold these dates, was paid but the balance was lost. Is it the government's responsibility to pay those balances? I'm paying musicians. I'm approaching my music in a very professional manner. The government's job is make sure the dishonest idiots don't cause the problems for everyone.
If Baltimore's orchestra is in trouble then Detroit's orchestra is in worse shape. I've heard that they are looking at a 20% pay cut and are probably looking at a lock out next season. And I ask you who is going to bail out the Detroit symphony in Michigan?
Tom Puwalski
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Author: weberfan
Date: 2010-03-31 06:09
Near the top of this thread, Tom Puwalski wrote:
"Now we live in a country where now the audience isn't qualified to listen. This whole atitude needs to change or there will be no jobs in performing arts any more."
Indeed, the audience isn't qualified to listen to classical music, because it's inaccessible. But kids still play in bands, and they buy guitars the way they used to buy band instruments. They play what they hear, and while what they hear is fine, it's also limited and limiting. It has the emotional punch of a tabloid headline, but lacks the complexity of something more intimate and complex. And they don't know it.
So why not Mozart?
If so many young people retain an interest in self-expression through music, why not Schubert or Mendelssohn or Sibelius or Francaix or Mangus Lindberg.
If it's thrilling to sit in a vast arena and be overcome by the roar of a heavy metal band, is it not also thrilling, at a younger age, to sit in a small performance space---not a vast symphony hall---and watch/listen to three or four or six chamber musicians create magic with their instruments. Or listen to a wind ensemble from one of the better military bands.
Playing classical music is thrilling, listening to classical music...to the intricate rhythms and harmonies...is thrilling. That is clearly the case for rap afficionados as well. But again, why not Mozart? Why not Bach, or Vivaldi. Why not go back to the people who gave us the original Western music (I don't mean Gene Autry).
I don't favor, as a rule, the old-fashioned assembly programs in which hundreds of kids crowd a gym or all-purpose theater to hear musicians perform as background noise to the usual shuffling of feet and note-passing and giggling and dozing that goes on in a one-size-fits-all institutional setting.
I imagine something more frequent and more intimate. Small ensembles for a small audience. But up close and personal, so you can hear the clarinetist take a breath or watch some rosin dust fly off a violin bow. Who would pay for this? Who would perform free of charge or for a small fee? No idea. If I ever retire, I'd love to do something like that. But no, I don't have an answer, just a desire to reverse the audience decline to the point where, say, the Baltimore Symphony plays to sold-out houses week after week. (And that's not to say that the BSO or others shouldn't consider some of Alex's advice, as well.)
One Saturday, I had a make-up lesson at the music school that houses my teachers's studio. I got there early, put the clarinet together and started practicing. The door was open and in wandered a little boy, about 4 1/2. His mother was right behind him. The boy stopped, looked and listened. And smiled. I asked him if he knew what instrument I was holding. He did. I let him hold it. Then I played an etude I had been working on. His grin grew larger. He was transfixed.....not by my skill, I can tell you..but by the instrument and the sound and the welcome he got. It was cool, and it wasn't a guitar.
His name was Bradley. How do we hold his attention? By the time he is old enough for a subscription to the symphony, it will be too late to get him to sign up, unless the groundwork has been laid.
He could still have have his garage band, too. But at least he'd know how he got there.
Post Edited (2010-04-01 21:56)
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-31 14:29
Cool and awesome are, to me, the broadest terms I can use to describe something that has value or merit or appeal. They're the best words I have for the topic. Maybe you would use the word interesting or fascinating or worthwhile. To me, "interesting" has a LOT of potentially negative baggage attached to it, but maybe the case is the same for you and the word "cool."
Thank you very much for your articulate response. I get your use of cool and awesome now, and these resonate to a degree with me: I'm 38 years old and played jazz gigs and rock gigs as well as pursuing a classical career for a time. For the record, much of what you say sounds an aweful lot like me when I was about 23 years old (I sincerely hope that doesn't come off as condescending...it isn't intended to be, whether you are 23 or 67 or any other age...it's just a fact of my biography that I expressed myself like your posts when I was 23).
We are talking a bit at cross purposes, as your posts are, if I read them correctly, generally concerned with marketing. My responses are really focused on an issue of great importance, yet perhaps mentioned only tangentially in your posts: cultural relevance.
I won't belabour that point, but please know that all of my comments are coming from that direction, rather than offering any solution for the marketing challenges (I'm not a businessman, my degrees are all in music, and I have never worked anywhere but in the arts). My comments here are further framed by this concern: that your solutions often seem ignore some deeper truths about what we call classical music.
That your criteria for art is so heavily reliant upon coolness (in your fullest sense) and awesomeness (likewise in your sense) is not particularly a problem for me. I like cool and awesome things, and I often seek them out in music and elsewhere. But I do not seek for them often in "classical" music, and they are not the real reason I listen to or perform that repertoire. And I fear you are missing things which might be equal to or even superior to coolness. The words I used in another post are the ones I seek the most, and find almost (but only ALMOST) exclusively in the classical repertoire. The words I would use are:
Sacred
Tender
Natural
Reverant
Humble
Noble
Transcendant (though this last one can possibly fit in your definition of "awesome" and I admit to finding quite often in other musics than the Western classical tradition.
I'm willing to allow that these might not be priorities for you, aesthetically or otherwise, but for me they are the most essential. That I can't find them in most other music makes the preservation of the symphony orchestra more imperative, perhaps (but only PERHAPS!). I am concerned by your rhetoric (meant in the non-pejorative sense) that your lack of concern for these qualities influences your opions on how this music is "culturally relevant" or not.
In my opinion, our society has a deficiency of the above qualities. That makes them paradoxically more culturally relevant (necessary is a better word: they are a needed antidote), and yet far less marketable. We lack them because we don't value those things; and because we don't value them, we will lose them. It is not *primarily* the fault of the music or the marketing: for to successfully market what people have already culturally rejected is an exercise in futility (though I'm not sure we've gone that far yet).
So here I do touch upon marketing, and I would give a comparison: champagne and beer. What if champagne sales were so bad, because of the economy or whatever, that the only land producing great vinyards for Champagne had to be sold for urban development.
The folks who could care less, and prefer beer to begin with might start yelling "It's there own fault: they should have put the stuff in aluminum cans and used buxom girls on snow capped moutnains in their commercials!"
Maybe some activist would write in: "The snobs who waste money on that deserve to lose it: don't they know they could give health care to a small family for the amount they waste on champagne?!"
Another might decide to say "It's those stupid glasses....what pretensiousness!"
And then the vinyards would be ground up by the bulldozers and the end result would be simply that the world would have lost a flavor it can never regain. No social progress, no revolution.....just less variety, less effervescnce to the human experience. I think I hear some of these voices in this thread.
I'm not pretending to have a "solution" to the problem: other than to keep playing and keep sharing the things I value with those who care. But I'm pretty sure the other "solutions" I've heard here are suspect, because they don't value what is being lost (and I don't necessarily mean you in this assessment, though if you find yourself there, who am I to stop you? Perhaps you'll understand where some of us are coming from better).
You are a bright and vibrant guy, Alex: thanks for spurring my thoughts on this. And that is all they are...please know that I never enter these discussions to win arguments. No....I do it because its...well...very cool.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-03-31 15:27
Would it upset you if I said that all your other criteria are totally compatible with my definition of cool and awesome? They're not at the top of my awesome spectrum, perhaps, but that doesn't mean they can't be at the top of someone else's, which is what's great about music and which is why I wish I had a term that could describe all this better that cool or awesome.
I totally get what you're saying, and I have no intention of making classical music into box wine. However, I also think it foolish for the champagne industry to whine about the lack of new customers for its $300 bottle. If the champagne company is concerned about its profits, it could continue selling exquisite champagne but also start a line of gourmet specialty beers.
Or, what I'm more suggesting, is that it find a company that makes gourmet beer and is really good at it (I'm the type to start the gourmet beer company) and partner with it, so that people who try the gourmet beer at $4 a bottle, having acquired a taste for fine beverages, might consider a bottle of the good champagne.
What gets me fussy is the situations when a champagne company slaps a $300 label on lousy $25 champagne. Even if it was just $25, the champagne is crap and nowhere near the quality of the $4 beer, but you still pay out the ear for it.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2010-03-31 16:09
You know what I'd actually pay to see (besides opera, the only "classical" music venue I actually pay to see live on a regular basis anymore)?
I listen to stuff from the Teaching Company in my car all the time. Take the music courses - they spend an hour or so going through a movement or an entire piece and show me things I never though of, in a historical continuum. Don't just play the music - in the first half have a good teacher talk to us for a while, explain things, have the orchestra demonstrate, spend the entire first half (or 2/3rds) and in the second half, play the darn thing end to end. Let the audience find out why the "warhorses" are just that - they're good, they're deep, there's a reason the composer did things, and let me listen for it. I'll listen so closely I'll start finding NEW things in the music I never dreamed about.
If you don't do that, all most of the audience hears is the same thing, over and over, just like an mp3 or CD or Pandora or the radio - and all of those are significantly cheaper than a ticket.
If the general public starts attending, corporate sponsors start giving.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2010-03-31 16:23
What an invigorating thread! A lot of good suggestions here for what I'd call "audience development" and outreach, good ideas about making the classical-music experience more accessible to more people. I like Mark's idea--it tracks somewhat with something I've always wanted to try, which is to have actual audience members sitting IN the orchestra--not too many of course, because you still need "unit cohesion," but especially for music students or interested audience members who are able to sit quietly it could be VERY revealing and (I hope) inspiring--anyone who wants to really get up close to an orchestra might really enjoy it.
But let me throw something out here, since I think most of these suggestions pertain more to long-term audience building, while the need to keep orchestras afloat is a lot more immediate and pressing:
You know how some tax forms (I think the IRS forms have this) include a box you can check if you'd like to donate money to wetlands preservation, or toward publicly funded elections?
What if your federal/state/local tax return had a checkbox to donate to state/local/national arts funds? (Even better would be directed donations, where you could designate your donation for "Music" or even for a specific orchestra.)
Personally, I would be delighted to designate part of my refund (fingers crossed) to a national arts funding mechanism, if I knew it were going to help struggling local symphonies.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-31 16:25
Would it upset you if I said that all your other criteria are totally compatible with my definition of cool and awesome?
Of course not, but compatibility is not the same thing as sharing the values (as you point out later). Also, there is a potential contradiction in some of what you argue. You might argue that death metal is awesome or cool. I would point out that much of it is abominable to those who cherish the sacred. Your "cool" might appear to be very encompassing, but in order to be as broad a term as you make it, it must also be shallow, and not probe too deeply for substance (otherwise you too might have to choose between some "awesome" death metal and the Bach St Matthew Passion---and if you refuse to do so, under the blanket of remaining "cool" with it all, I would suggest that you don't understand the material and are therefore unfit to advise anyone as to its meaning or performance....but these are hypotheticals and other conversations).
Eventually, when we really get serious and mature about our convictions, it behooves us to speak precisely, rather than in vague generalities (the difficulties of the art of writing or speaking therefore spill over into arguing for the difficultites of properly maintaining the art of music). And this means making real choices, supporting some things and, as unappealing and uncool as it might feel, opposing others. But I'm going too far here, and to pursue this line of reasoning, we would be spinning off into territory quite tangential to this thread (as though we weren't already). Perhaps it's best for me to leave it here...
As a coda: I agree with David that we should not dumb down music. I think we should also avoid dumbing down language (unless what we are seeking is to be only vaguely happy, shallow, and numb. But that is not the life I want--nor do I think it is the life you want).
Pax,
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-31 16:29
This is a great idea, Mark, and I was lucky enough to study once with a man who has made it a business of his to teach orchestras this very sort of thing. His name is Mitchell Korn, and he runs a business called Artsvision. I'm sure if anyone is interested they can google his name and they'll find some information--it's been years since I talked to Mitchell, but if anyone needs contact info, I'll do my best.
This is certainly one thing orchestras can and ought to make greater use of.
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: reedwizard
Date: 2010-03-31 16:34
I think the moment you have to explain the relevance of something, or teach people to appreciate something, the significance or contribution of that item is already lost on the masses. People do not want to be taught they want to do, to act. They go to events where they feel a connection to one another for whatever reason. They want to be entertained. People have short attention spans, many do not want to put the effort into appreciating or understanding a work that lasts 30 minutes or more.
Comparisons have been drawn between sporting events and their popular appeal. I have been to several sporting events in my life and I can tell you the majority of the people are NOT paying attention to what is going on. They are talking to each other, eating, crowd watching, trying to be seen. In general socializing. They enjoy the tailgating, etc. They can enter and leave at will and not disrupt the action.
Classical music is obviously not entertaining to many people. It has a very select audience and always will. It is not a medium that has mass appeal for many reasons. I love classical music but I recognize that I am part of a very small minority. unfortunately I do not think this will ever change.
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Author: William
Date: 2010-03-31 16:39
Our Beloit/Janesville Symphony Orchestra's conductor always gives an informtive talk about each piece of music on the program and and our audiencies love it. Not too long, full of humour as well as the music's history--just enough for the patrons to feel like they know a little bit about what they are about to hear. It's a very good idea.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-31 16:56
I hope you're wrong that we are too late to change this, reedwiz; what you propose is a bleak vision. It suggests we are now an entirely infantile society. I don't dispute the evidence that we're going that way....you're right to point it out. But I hope it is not too late for our society to realize we have been going down a very dangerous path.
Those of us who have something good to offer (be it a great musical tradition or what have you), even if it isn't valued by society, should never give up--even, perhaps especially, if it is only preserved as a labor of love.
Pax,
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
Post Edited (2010-03-31 17:00)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2010-03-31 17:17
William wrote:
> Our Beloit/Janesville Symphony Orchestra's conductor always
> gives an informtive talk
I don't want an informative talk - I want "a lesson"! Two reasons:
A talk doesn't sell. A lesson, multimedia, live, entertaining, well-known personality (perhaps from the local media) and popular conductor does. I once had the privilege of having attended a semester course taught by Dick Feynman, may he rest in peace. Complicated nuclear physics - but we had non-science majors auditing the course, standing in the back being entertained by him - and they came back as often as possible because he made learning a difficult subject - NOT DIFFICULT but fun. Dick was the one that demonstrated the problem with the O-rings in the Challenger disaster. Got a piece of the material, made it cold, bent it, and it broke. A complicated matter brought to its essentials. Empiricism. Show me.
If in fact people can understand the music, they just might come back - as long as you have "cheap seats". You start with Bach, who knows how far things will go.
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Author: reedwizard
Date: 2010-03-31 17:21
Eric,
Why do you think this is suggestive of an infantile society? It represents reality, what appeals to the masses is more easily accessible than that which is not. On so many levels this is true. Any activity that requires increased concentration and discipline is going to have a limited audience, except for maybe video games. But they offer an escape from reality, a chance to exercise imagination. They are engaging visually as well.
It is not a bleak vision to the masses because they will not miss it. It is bleak for those of us that love it and want to maintain the current status quo. i would never suggest that one stop performing, I perform all the time. My friends and family enjoy hearing me play, but does this cause them to go to hear the BSO or another symphony, or to buy a classical recording. Unfortunately the answer is no. The people we interact with come to hear us, the individual because it is something that we do, they do not go for the love of the music, which is what drives us.
My father who absolutely loved classical music and is responsible for my interest never went to hear an orchestra perform live (unless I was playing) not because he did not love it but it was not for him, he would rather hear recordings.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-31 17:36
Reedwiz,
I'm surprised you seem taken aback by my comment (I thought I was complimenting you and offering encouragement, but who knows).
Here is a brief explanation:
You originally wrote:
I think the moment you have to explain the relevance of something, or teach people to appreciate something, the significance or contribution of that item is already lost on the masses. People do not want to be taught they want to do, to act. (...) They want to be entertained. People have short attention spans, many do not want to put the effort into appreciating or understanding a work that lasts 30 minutes or more.
This might very well be reality, but I do think it's bleak. Not all societies have always been this way. Remember, Shakespeare used to be what "the masses" preferred. Mendelssohn was wildly popular in the 19th century, and opera was also mass entertainment--especially in Italy and France. Some societies, at least some of the time, fed on better artistic food. I would argue that American society once did too: Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Dave Brubeck, once upon a time, had mainstream hit records.
Short attention spans, an inability to make an effort to learn something new (where the learning is part of the enjoyment), a desire to be merely entertained (and not also insome way expanded intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually) are not "just the way things are, always have been, and always will be" for "the masses": they are symptoms of a society that is gradually becoming more infantile. (I'd add "in my opinion" to every phrase, if that makes folks feel better: but I'm working under the assumption that everyone knows its my opinion already or I wouldn't have written it)
reedwiz: I'm trying to agree with you! Cheers!
Pax,
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: reedwizard
Date: 2010-03-31 19:14
Eric,
I did not take it as an argument, only an intellectual discussion. As for Shakespeare, and lets set aside the argument that he actually wrote everything that is attributed to him, theatre did not have to compete with motion pictures, just as Mendelssohn did not have to compete with amplified instruments. Times change, tastes change and they were the only game in town so to speak in terms of the medium in which they were presented.
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-03-31 19:26
*sigh*
Now you're just nitpicking my post--if I clarify one thing, you nitpick another, and leave the substance unaddressed. There are several ways to respond to your most recent post, regarding Tudor England and 19th century music performance, but they really don't pertain to the discussion. Not much I can do when that happens.
No hard feelings, but I'll remember to ignore the bait next time.
Pax,
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
Post Edited (2010-03-31 19:37)
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-03-31 19:56
> Then there's the question of should we dumb down Classical Music to
> appeal to the masses.
If "the masses" need "dumbed down" stuff to be happy, then maybe "the masses" are the wrong people to pay for our elitist (vs "dumbed down") pastime and cutting tax-fed funds would appear logical. (doesn't matter who the main suppliers of the tax pot are - as long as it comes from the "public" war chest it's the wrong source).
Now, I don't think one needs to "dumb down" anything to appeal the masses. Maybe it's a question of make it more accessible for everyone? Look at museums; what ghastly dusty places they have been in the past and what big efforts they have done (had to...) to make science/past/art/whatever more accessible to the casual consumer.
I very much welcome the idea of an "informative introduction", a lesson if you want, to what's being performed later. Not every one will consult a thick book about say Egmont before attending a concert, but would probably listen with interest to what the maestro has to say about it.
Did anyone say "we must dumb down our software to appeal to the masses"? Maybe they did, but what was done was to make the software more accessible to non-nerds. Just because they wanted to enlarge their audience. Else we'd probably still shove cursors about an 80x25 size black screen with green letters.
At my first concert I was intimidated by the audience, the venue, the attire, the stiffness (I'd have preferred a punk band over tuxedoed elderly men), and for the most time it was boring, not because the music per se was boring, but because I was uninitiated. I felt left out, lost.
Only when I started to dive into these notes myself it dawned on me what's to discover there, but I think I'm lucky because I play in a band and someone slapped a wad of notes on my stand and said "play that".
Now what about my kids, my friends? They haven't got that kind of access I have. But upon listening to some YouTube stuff (thanks heavens it exists) my daughters said "hey that's actually pretty cool what that Beethoven character has written". Didn't need dumbing down, just a loose handle to pull at, a stretched-out hand.
As long as we don't integrate classical music into our everyday culture (and I don't mean pizza commercials) as much as we do with Jazz and Pop, our kids will always be late bloomers in that regard. And then it might be too late indeed. And integrating happens via building ramps and bridges, not by lowering the stage level.
Same could be said about books vs television...
--
Ben
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2010-03-31 20:12
Just to clarify - (don't) dumb down the pieces performed, not the the way it's presented.
I don't think that constant pops concerts are the answer.
I'm all for lectures with the conductor interacting with the audience as it's a better show!
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2010-03-31 20:14)
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2010-03-31 20:39
Here's something to think about. Our government pays for the military bands to travel all over the place, playing concerts all over the world. Why can't the government pay orchestras a few bucks to travel and play concerts. These concerts can have a few gifted military members play a few concerts with the professional symphonies, at the concerts, the conductor announces these gifted musicians who are talented enough to play with a professional orchestra.
Some of you may think these military band members are not good enough for a professional orchestra. The gifted ones are. Actually take a look at WW2, alot of those actual major orchesta musicians played in the military bands.
With that information, perhaps useless, maybe these board members of the symphony orchestras will consider sponsoring one or 2 military musicians with the government backing and advertisement for recruitment.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-04-01 00:20
I wouldn't say we're an infantile society. I would say, though, that marketing and focus groups have things down to a grotesque science, one that picks only the absolutely most immediately profitable things to promote, and that I find horrific and inexcusable. There is huge discontent with the lack of radio stations that play anything of quality in Los Angeles, save KUSC and, until they canned all their announcers, KCSN. We lost all our country stations, then lost a classical station (KMZT) that went to country to pick up the slack. There aren't even any stations that play good new rock since Indy 103.1 became Cientotres Uno, El Gato! Lots of people are really pissed off about it, but the vast majority of radio stations are owned by uber-corporations who have determined that another station with All the Single Ladies is more profitable than promoting up-and-coming bands, usually because they have a hand in the pot or have been paid off.
That sucks royally, and is inexcusable, and is largely the result of a lot of backroom deals and payoffs and attempts to maximize profits at the expense of quality.
People will embrace good music, but far fewer people will go *out of their way* to embrace good music, and could use a friendly nudge. That's what I'm getting at with my unwieldy posts. There are lots of ways to like, appreciate, or otherwise find cool classical music. Different people might latch onto it in different ways. Someone may come into the music because they like the funkiness of a 5/8 section or the way The Planets sounds like film music, and as they dive deeper come to have a respect of sacred, tender, and noble aspects.
If you don't want people to come in on any avenue other than the ones you prefer to attribute to classical music, that's fine, but I'll have little sympathy when your orchestra goes under because you insist that all listeners come at it with a quiet, composed, intellectual, spiritual angle the first time they encounter it.
I'm all with David. There's no need to dumb down anything. But if we want to increase audiences, I think it's critical for us to broaden the avenues in which people might enjoy our not-dumbed-down music.
Pre-show lessons are great, if they're good pre-show lessons. Pre-show lessons are awful if they're lousy. Some are engaging and give great insight and deeper enjoyment, but just as many put you to sleep before Bruckner even had a chance at doing the same.
There is already classical music that appeals to the masses. Tis called film scores. Which, often, is actual classical repertoire just with a different presentation. And when someone buys a copy of the soundtrack, they've unknowingly bought a classical CD.
As for death metal, the subject matter gets a bad rap, largely due to media and misconceptions. First off, there are multiple genres generally lumped together, some of which tend to focus on aspects of death and decay from various angles... philosophical, societal, even sterile biological, with no religious nor anti-religious undertones, commenting on the decay of relationships and institutions and such. And even black metal, which came to the scene later and does often have pagan undertones (often akin to Rite of Spring), will have subject matter that is on par with Danse Macabre or Night on Bald Mountain. The same source material of the Ring Cycle is also found in some black metal. But death and black and doom metal are loud and screamy and the bands do tend to wear scary costumes, so we find them less acceptable than their classical counterparts. And yeah, I'm not claiming it's a rosy picture and that nobody in the metal world does significant anti-sacred stuff... just that those acts and pieces shouldn't be projected on a whole swath of genres. Check out some Meshuggah lyrics, for example: http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/meshuggah/contradictionscollapse.html
Edit: fixed link
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
Post Edited (2010-04-01 00:52)
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-04-01 00:52
Thinking further on whether society has become more infantile. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. Maybe we're headed down a path to Idiocracy, or maybe the Penn & Teller episode on The Good Ol' Days has it right and we only remember the good things about the path.
I think that whether or not things are worse now is immaterial. What matters is how we approach the issue, assuming for now that we agree that a greater appreciation for classical music would enrich our culture. We can either bemoan the woes of society and the uncivilized, uneducated, unclean masses until we're blue in the face, OR we can look for ways to spark people's interest, which may indeed mean that some people do not enter classical music from what many of us consider a "proper" angle.
Plenty of people are doing just fine at maintaining the purity of the orchestra on high, and I think it's important that some people do that (though in my opinion too many of us do that). I direct my efforts toward engaging and enriching the middle ground, trying to open doors for people who might have a very passing interest. And, yes, sometimes I might do it through the use of fart jokes and sudden unsolicited outbursts of disco. I think there's enough room in the world for all of us.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: MarlboroughMan
Date: 2010-04-01 21:07
Well said, Alex. I think we've reached a point of considerable agreement. What matters most is not where we find ourselves, how good or bad we think the situation, but what positive steps we intend to take from here.
You seem to have a tremendous amount of enthusiasm: count me as one who hopes your talent and ability matches that enthusiasm and you are able to succeed in bringing about a positive artistic acheivement.
It takes all kinds to make a world, and this one is the best we've got. Now where was that reed case of mine...time to get back to work...
Eric
******************************
The Jazz Clarinet
http://thejazzclarinet.blogspot.com/
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2010-04-01 22:59
I have read through a bit of this thread and I really think that there are a few things that have to be mentioned. I will try to be as PC as possible in this...
The main problem of why classical music is having a hard time in the US is a fundamental problem of the education system. There is a dab of recorder classes and some music appreciation classes in Elementary School, but after that, there is virtually no required arts or music classes in the American Education System. In most (probably closer to "all") school programs, arts and music classes are invariably ELECTIVE courses. I, for example, had my last art appreciation class in 6th grade (only a half year course!), then went from 7th through 12th grades without any art classes at all. And although, I took band every year, the people NOT in the band class took NO MUSIC classes at all.
How can one expect the general public to have any interest in classical music or arts when they are not even exposed to its existence?
Although the classical arts are based on European traditions, there is similarly no education in understanding of "American" music like gospel or jazz or blues, so it is clearly not an issue of nationalism, either.
I really can't understand why this is.
I personally think that the arts economy in the US would benefit if music/arts appreciation classes were a required part of the curriculum for ALL students and the music/arts production classes were extra-curricular, just like the baseball team. It would provide ALL students with a basic exposure to the arts that they currently do not have at all.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2010-04-02 06:25
In my humble opinion, skygardener, the source of that is very simple: our K-12 school system is a disastrous fustercluck that is broken beyond repair at every level. Lack of decent music education is just one of many, many horrible aspects of a system that seems designed to make students learn very little and to crush their curiosity and enthusiasm (I'd be happy to provide examples, but this thread is long enough already). Any positive results seem to be despite the system, rather than because of it. We should scrap it and start from scratch.
I agree that lack of music in schools (which would in a perfect world touch on everything from classical to jazz to rock to metal to reggae to musical of non-Western traditions to avant garde contemporary) does a huge disservice to our culture at large, at every level.
The fact that I couldn't name all four Beatles halfway into my undergrad will always be a mark of shame.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2010-04-02 07:57
"The fact that I couldn't name all four Beatles halfway into my undergrad will always be a mark of shame."
There were FOUR!?!?!?
[Sorry, couldn't resist.]
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-04-02 13:18
>>Lack of decent music education is just one of many, many horrible aspects of a system that seems designed to make students learn very little and to crush their curiosity and enthusiasm ....>>
All's not lost everywhere. Here in Falls Church, Virginia, we're facing a sudden, severe budget deficit. One of the first things the City Council thought about chopping was the music instruction program in the city's schools. Citizens let the Council know, triple forte, that we'd rather see a tax increase and/or cuts elsewhere in the budget. The music programs got restored.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: clarinetist04
Date: 2010-04-02 13:56
Northern Virginia is very much an exception -- with I would estimate, 10 of the countries top high school bands and orchestras not to mention the number 1 high school in the nation in TJHSST (which by the way has quite a good orchestra). That's where I grew up not that long ago and it always had a vibrant music scene.
I went to college in Pittsburgh and now work in Akron, OH and can say that the "classical" music tradition is lacking if not worrisome in both areas, locales that can even boast of two of the top orchestras in the country surprisingly. And there you have it: two areas that have poor music education systems with orchestras that are at the top of their game that are having attendance and financial issues to the point of strikes and layoffs.
---By the way, the 100th post!---
Post Edited (2010-04-02 13:57)
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-04-02 17:16
"Vibrant music scene" in Northern Virginia? I don't think so. Only one classical music station on the radio (and they are terrible); fewer and fewer opportunities to play (for free or for pay); audience attendance weak at most of the classical concerts I've been privileged to play; and very little apparent interest in the music amongst all the youths I've met (I have three daughters so I see what they and their friends are listening to).
If the rest of the US is even worse than here, then we are truly in deep, deep trouble.
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Author: OldClarinetGuy
Date: 2010-04-02 21:24
The Milwaukee Symphony extended De Waart's contract through the 2016
at about $400,000 to $500,000 per year to conduct 12 of the 18 programs per year.
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The Clarinet Pages
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