The myth of music education

"classical" music is stale, because it's afraid to put any rockandroll in. afraid to alienate its financial base.
give it another ten or twenty years, and all will be right with the world...

Good point, well made. But is there not a bias towards music already known, so that at least a previous exposure, if not an education, might amplify the enjoyment of a concert?

Sure. And by that standard, everybody needs music educaiton, me included.

I think there might be two issues here. One is whether music education is a good thing, can amplify enjoyment. The other is whether music education can generate an audience for any kind of music, especially classical music. I'm not sure it can. Might even turn people off. And I've been told about a survey in Britain, which showed that young classical musicians didn't like to go to classical concerts, more or less for the same reasons other younger people don't. Obviously, these people have had classical music education. But it didn't make them ant to go to concerts.

reminds me of something I remember Shostakovich saying, something about how a composer should never promote his own works ~ I think the idea being that if the music can't promote itself, then it's not worth forcing it on someone ~ for me, that would include 99% of the atonal classical music written since Schoenberg.

We have a financial base? Can somebody give them my phone number?

Greg,
Very interesting points. I wonder though how much young attention spans can tolerate classical music once you add in all the other trappings that go with the live experience. Yes, a Brahms Symphony is just as long as the Grateful Dead doing "Dark Star" or an electronica set, but in those cases people can walk around if they want to, eat and drink, make comments to their friends and dress as casually as they choose. The etiquette for an orchestra concert, of course, is much more alien and so much as an errant cough can invite nasty stares not only from fellow concertgoers but from the musicians on the stage, who often don't see any need to make the experience more welcoming. It's unfortunate because there are young, curious people out there who would give the music a chance if the classical world would only start to meet them half-way.

Hi, Brian. I think you're onto something very important here -- that attention span depends on what somebody is interested in. If someone likes sitting in an orchestra concert, then they do it, and at least appear to pay attention. (See below!) If someone is more comfortable at a Grateful Dead event (guess I should really use the past tense here), then that's where they hang out, sitting around for jams that would probably drive a classical listener crazy.

And of course you're right that people at a Dead show can get up, move around, go get a drink, smoke some dope, whatever. But maybe this just makes visible something that also goes on at classical concerts. Often when people talk about attention span -- I don't mean you, Brian, but some hardcore classical purists -- they worry that younger people don't have it, and therefore can't listen to classical music. Implicit here, though, is a fascinating assumption, which is that the established classical audience has a true classical-music attention span, and in fact does pay attention from the beginning of a concert to the end.

But is that true? I don't think it is. I think the established classical audience finds itself drifting in and out of the music. But that doesn't make them impatient to get up and go to the bar. They've been socialized to accept the standard behavior of a concert audience, namely to sit there quietly. And in fact they like doing that! They like the atmosphere, and the music, even if we can't say they're listening to every note. In focus groups with long-time orchestra concertgoers, I've found that some -- I'm talking here about people who've been subscribers to a major orchestra for 20 years or more -- can't always tell which instrument is playing. I can't believe they follow every nuance of sonata form. They just let the music wash over them, as non-classical listeners do. But when they drift away, they just keep sitting silently, so we can't tell their minds are elsewhere.

(And I don't mean this as a criticism of them! My own mind has been known to drift away at concerts.)

Greg,
You're right, I think it would be very unusual for almost anyone to attend a classical concert and not find their mind drifting from time to time, whether it's the purists or the blue-haired society types or the uninitiated newcomers. And that's interesting that research shows just that.

Still, I always wondered if maybe Pierre Boulez was onto something in the 1970s when he tried out "rug concerts" at the New York Philharmonic? If you can shake up some of the most sacred rituals of concert-going -- the obsession with silence, the ban against drinking in the hall, the tuxedos, the parade of entrances, bows and curtain calls -- people would feel more a part of something that's fun, and they'd be less likely to squirm in their seats and cough the minute a piece hits a slow point when nothing really happens.

Of course, changes in protocol can never substitute for smart and engaging programming but those sorts of details seem (to me at least) to be one way to make the experience feel more inviting to the general public.

Who knows, maybe Lorin Maazel will shock us all and as a parting gesture re-introduce the rug concert once again.
Brian

You know, I think concert ambience counts more than programming, especially if you're trying to attract that fabled new audience. The medium is the message, as the old McLuhan line goes, and if a concert looks and feels like an intriguing, lively event, even people who don't care about the program might be likely to go to it. /i>

has there ever been a time when classical audiences were primarily younger people? retro is one thing, but most of the music played is OLD.
when new music is programmed, perhaps the orchestra ought to spike their hair, and wear piercings. maybe we need to educate the older listener to accept new music/style, and then the younger audience will start coming to "classical" concerts.

as was mentioned, the whole concert ambience is what attracts some people, and what drives others away.

and Matthew, what little financial base there is...

Certainly the classical audience was once younger than it is. I've heard stories from older people, about teens flocking to Lewisohn Stadium (now demolished) in New York, when the NY Philharmonic played there in the summer. And about the Philadelphia Orchestra being a hot date for college kids during World War II.

There's also a 1937 study of American orchestras, which showed the average age of the audience to be around 30, with the predominant occupations students and housewives. This is echoed by the second installment a famous sociologicial study of Muncie, IN in the 1920s ("Middletown" is the name of the first volume, "Middletown in Transition'" is the second), which says that classical concerts attracted high school students (maybe they were assigned to go) and housewives.

Another study of American orchestras, made in the early '60s, showed the average age of the audience to be 38. All this data suggests that the average age has been going up for generations! Recently I heard that the average age of subscribers to one of the largest orchestras in the US was 67.

I have to disagree with paul, who said that music that's any good makes it own case. A good performance is making a case, so there's that right from the start.

I think the case is also made by telling people something about the work. That's why it's a good idea to talk before performances, if you have something to say.

I agree with all of this. I also think the best thing is when the combination of performance and ambience makes such a vivid case for the music that no explanation is necessary.

Greg, you say "So if classical music can't latch on to something in contemporary life, it'll very likely keep on losing listeners, no matter what kind of music education we provide." Insofar as we are talking about new classical music, that's true. However, it doesn't address the dwindling audience for older classical music. For that matter, bebop and Steve Reich, to name two musics that emerged from very specific times and places, will also lose listeners over time, and more rapidly the more that music education is devalued in this country. The classical music "industry" is the one complaining the loudest about the decline of music in the schools, but it is certainly not the only music whose survival depends on a musically educated public. Appreciation of all music...Indian ragas, Aphex Twin, Miles, you name it...is enhanced by more knowledge, and is less satisfying with less knowledge. I guess in 2006 America that makes me some kind of "elitist."

It's interesting that even with that music you keep pointing out can be appreciated without deep practical knowledge (such as playing an instrument), you also continually cite the complexity of that music as a worthy element. Why? Because I think you know deep inside that music that speaks to heart AND mind, to left AND right brain, is the most rewarding to revisit over a lifetime, time and time again.

Regarding attention spans: I do think there has to be some generalized shortening of attention spans in the population at large given the direction we're going with technology, speed, etc. But of course, we're all individuals and as you point out, some electronica, or the Dead, or any number of non-classical musics require long attention spans and do have their young devotees.

And even though many if not most of a classical audience is not following every nuance of structure in a Beethoven sonata, that structure still exists for them to discover, the more time they spend with that language. The relative quiet sitting situation in a classical concert is, in part, consideration for all audience members to give them an equal opportunity to "follow the narrative." As somebody who's made a living playing both Beethoven and Reich, though I know people can love the music on first hearing, I always hope that every person in the audience will be initiated into a journey of knowledge and understanding so that every time they hear a given piece, their experience of it will be enhanced, so their love for it will grow, not fade. That's what is meant by "classic" and it can apply to any kind of music.

Phillip, I think you've beautifully stated some of the reasons why classical music is valuable, and why it's traditionally thought to be valuable. (These are overlapping categories, not entirely identical, but not exluding each other, either.)

But as for complexity, I thought the reason I stressed complexity was as a defensive move. If I didn't stress the complexity of the examples I cited, somebody surely would jump in saying, "Well, sure, people like THAT stuff, but classical music is far more complicated, and therefore requires education.' As it happens, I really love complex music, and fill my own scores full of whimsical layers of complexity. There's no reason, for instance, that the scherzo of my new symphony should start playing backwards in the middle of the trio, so that the repeat of the scherzo, when it comes, is the retrograde of what it originally was. But I love doing things like that, and if it gives the music some kind of added inner strength, then I'm happy for that. The only thing I ask is that nobody think these fine points absolutely have to be heard. It's fine if everybody likes the music without catching on to them.

But I also love lots of music that isn't complex, and really don't care at all -- not at all -- whether music I love has right-brain or left-brain value, or both. In fact, I'd much prefer not to think in these terms. Which is more important, the body or the mind? I don't care, to tell you the truth. I'm only sure that neither can be free if other is repressed.

As for why music stays in circulation, here I'm afraid I disagree with you, Philip. Look at pop music. All sorts of old music still gets listened to, and (complexity, again) it tends more to be the serious music of various eras than the disposable pop stuff. People listen to James Taylor, not to "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes" (or was that just the hook from that song, and not the title?)

And as my wife reported in a NY Times review of a Steve Reich concert, there's a whole new young generation discovering Steve Reich today. I think the reasons why music gets into circulation and stays there (or doesn't, or disappears and then comes back again) are far more fluid than any single theory can explain.