In May I had occasion to attend two music festivals of very different kinds. One was a country music event titled HoustonFest held in Galax, VA. The other was Greensboro, NC’s 29th Annual Carolina Blues Festival. I went to the former largely for family reasons. The blues festival was one I’ve been wanting to take in for a long time. The back-to-back juxtaposition of two such focused celebrations inevitably led to a number of comparisons and an observation or two.
Both were well run. Both featured performers who were excellent in their genre along with others who were very good, and the performers all understood that their job was to entertain, to connect with their audience. A roaring good time was had by all at each one, and–no coincidence–in each case attendees were very familiar with the forms, styles, performers, and songs they were hearing. The enthusiastic responses to the occasional invitation to sing along bore proof of that.
I am more personally comfortable with the blues, yet I noted that many of the themes and subjects were strikingly similar in each. The blues grew out of a need to chronicle relationships in the black, rural deep South and evolved to feature urban relationships and sensibilities–broken hearts, class conflicts, requited and unrequited love. The same themes populate both traditional and contemporary “country-western” music.
The obvious takeaway is that both art forms are of the people. They reflect experiences that often resonate with the people who support them; tell stories with which they identify. They are of vernacular, indigenous traditions and while both can exhibit moments of silliness and mindless fun, they also have many examples of deeply significant human insight. In short, they can be both reflective and visceral art forms.
Of the two, the straightforward blues tradition has a somewhat more limited following, although rhythm and blues and its offspring rock and roll (yes, grossly oversimplified, but OK for this purpose) are clearly commercial successes. But it is the “of the people” aspect that caught my attention.
The themes of all great art have universal application. However, when the modes of expressing those themes is foreign to those we seek to reach, the path to success is substantially more difficult. The fact that we love those modes does not mean that others must or, and here I am moving into controversial territory, that others should. Arts programming, as well as marketing, needs to be realistic about what’s possible and what should even be attempted. Let me pause at this point to preempt responses reflecting contempt on those who appreciate country music or the blues but do not respond to the arts we hold dear. There is great depth to be found in both of those musical genres, and vernacular expressions by definition speak directly to those who share the culture from which they spring.
If we have to educate people within an inch of their lives to get them to the point where they can appreciate something we present, is that the best way to be spending their (and our) time? There are already artistic expressions available to them that can more readily feed their souls. I don’t mean write them off. I am rather saying we should understand the sources of the disconnect and think through ways to provide meaningful experiences to people whose backgrounds make our genres difficult for them to appreciate.
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For what it’s worth, Engaging Matters is taking next week off. Happy 4th of July!
Engage!
Doug
Doug, since you’re talking about music, I’ll pipe in that these are close to the questions I’ve been working to answer. Like most answers, they raise more questions or will be easily dismissed by denial, but I’m putting these answers to the test.
Q. How “universal” can classical music really be?
A. It’s a paradox. Classical music cannot speak to those outside the arts bubble, except where it already does. Several movies, commercials, 4th of July and Messiah concerts and Classical Revolution events seem to prove that given the right music, context and circumstances, almost everyone has appreciated this music inspired by classical ideas.
Q. How do we move those outside the arts bubble to cross the gap to attend at least one classical concert?
A. We build a stable bridge using people and music that connect between foundations on each side of the gap to form the middle. By crossing over ourselves to first appreciate the vernacular (because we already do anyway), we build trust that we appreciate these values too. We introduce ourselves and answer burning but unspoken questions about how the arts work, how we own them too, and what they have done for us personally.
Then we produce small music events in their community. This program must be somewhat familiar, compelling, amplified, hosted, humorous, enthusiastic and use effective analogies, dancers, spoken word and perhaps a synced video. Compelling new music would be accessible, shaped, folksy/dancy (ie. using elements of popular urban formats) and use conventional classical forms (sonata, theme and variations, etc.). Part of that bridge program has to be “crossover”: vernacular music OF the people we are meeting, PLUS has to involve and validate actual musicians OF that community.
It is right to ask the question; is it worth sustaining an effort to bring a trickle of disparate communities to our chief services. It will be expensive in the short and medium term. But the cost in the long term may be greater if we don’t get the hang of starting the trickle that might grow into a major cultural leak. People are curious to try everything. There’s a time to sing and dance along, and then a time to sit in a spirit of meditation and let music take us on an adventure. Who doesn’t like a good movie?