Attention spans

Brian Wise, the producer of the Soundcheck show on WNYC in New York, brought up a worthwhile point in a comment to my music education rant. He notes that classical music -- or maybe more specifically classical concert etiquette -- requires people to sit in one place when they listen, while at a Grateful Dead concert, even if the jams were as long as a Haydn symphony, people could get up and walk around.

That's true. But when I read it, a little light bulb went off in my mind. That classical audience -- are they really paying attention? I don't believe it. I think their minds are drifting all over the place, not because there's anything wrong with them, but because they're human. My own mind has been known to drift at concerts. But the people in the classical audience -- unlike people at a Grateful Dead concert -- have been socialized to keep on sitting still when their minds wander. And they like that. They like being at the concert. They like the atmosphere, the civilized air of it all, the sound and power of the music (even if their minds drift away from it). Think of the scene outside the music tent in Aspen. Inside there's a concert, with an audience sitting quietly. Outside, people sit on the grass, with friends, lovers, family, dogs; they eat; they sip wine; most notably, they read. Of course they like the music; if it weren't for the music, they wouldn't be there. But many of them (maybe most) are clearly not listening in any focused way.

One last piece of evidence. I've been in focus groups with people from the orchestral audience, some of them subscribers for many years. And some of them say they can't even recognize which instrument is playing! Do we think they're following the tasty subtleties of sonata form? Not a chance. Many of them, as far as I can see, just let the music wash over them. Let's remember this, next time someone starts blaming younger people for not having attention spans long enough to let them listen to classical music. It's not your long attention span that keeps you interested. It's your love for the sound of the music, and the mood of the concert.