Here’s something that seemed obvious, once it occurred to
me. But I’d never thought of it before: classical music might be better for the environment than pop, because it (probably) has a lower carbon footprint. Or, more
simply, it seems to use less electricity.
This came to me when I was reading British press comment
last month on the Live Earth event, comprising concerts in many countries,
which were designed to draw attention to global warming. The British press (or
at least the Guardian and the
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Independent, the two papers I read over
there) pointed out the implicit irony, which of course is that pop and rock
performances are amplified, and thus use electricity in mammoth amounts, which
means they themselves contribute (maybe in no small way) to the problem Live
Earth was supposed to do something about.
Compare classical music. It’s largely unamplified. So an
orchestra concert uses less electricity than an arena rock show; a chamber
concert uses less than a band playing in a club; and a violinist, practicing
all day, uses less electricity than someone playing the electric guitar.
But I did qualify this in my first paragraph (“probably,” “seems
to”). Why? Because there are still some calculations to be
done. I can’t do them myself, but I have some idea what they are. Take,
for instance, the contrast between an orchestra concert and an arena rock show.
I’m sure an orchestra concert uses less electricity. But there are many more
orchestra concerts, plus large opera performances, in New York each year than arena
rock shows (and on top of that, the classical halls are often used during the
day for rehearsals). So maybe the carbon footprint starts to even out. I’m sure
that’s true in any city with an orchestra that plays year-round (or close to
that).
And how about travel? Classical
singers, instrumental soloists, and conductors travel constantly. (So do many
classical music artist managers, and administrators.) Jet flights have a huge
carbon footprint. Pop stars don’t travel nearly as much. They go on major
tours, but only (as a rule) for a small part of each year. Many of them, maybe
most, don’t even tour every year.
So the bottom line might be hard to calculate. But here’s
one way that pop music is ahead of classical music on this issue — pop music,
at least, is aware of it, and a few bands buy carbon offsets whenever they
tour. I’ve asked the American Symphony Orchestra League whether any large
American orchestra has ever done that, or thought of doing it, and I’ll be
curious to know what the answer is.


a friend and I were talking about that very subject the other day, as we were attending Solarfest (www.solarfest.org) a music/energy/education festival in Vermont that is completely powered by solar and other alternative energy. two days of good music and workshops, and I believe this year, they were putting power back into the grid. cool.
Carbon offsets are bunk. First of all, even if the offestting effect were real, it would not be possible to offset any significant fraction of the greenhouse gases emmitted in the developed world by planting trees, collecting methane, capping-and-trading, etc. It is “working” in the short term because so few people want to offset their carbon.
More to the point, the market is totally unregulated so the actual benefits of carbon offsets are dubious, to put it mildly.
What happened to the discussion about the merits about pop music as music? That could be interesting.