Archives for July 2011

Colin Holter posed a question in his post this morning on NewMusicBox that I’d like to consider here as well:

We can agree that it is thought that the patrons of classical music in the United States are old and getting older. That’s the conventional wisdom. So let me ask you this: Have you ever read a piece of serious writing on the attitudes of the elderly toward classical music? If, as is often assumed, the over-70 crowd exerts a powerful influence over the institutions that deliver classical music to us, shouldn’t a concerned musicologist work some tightly focused ethnography on them?

Considering all the marketing hours and conference panels that performing arts organizations seem to devote to stalking the younger non/rare/sometimes-attender, the lack of any session or article or study in my memory focused on this exact topic left my mouth hanging open. Has anyone actually investigated this or looked into how to attract more people in the 65+ demographic? We know they’re out there and living longer lives. What do they value about the experience and what would encourage more of them to participate in it?

These are not perfect questions, I realize, but the fact that no one seems to be asking them much at all makes me curious. In what other market would we try and sell an experience to a rarely interested buyer while simultaneously overlooking those demographics that have demonstrated a high affinity for it? Good lord, if the concert halls became known as the hot spot in town for the in-bed-by-ten set, we probably couldn’t keep the ironically attending youngsters out of the lobby anyway. Two birds!

When I brought this up to my friend and colleague Jim Holt, he pointed me towards this video and suggested (using his best David Letterman impression) that “a version of that video, but with 80+ year olds, would be like a license to print money.”

I think he just might be on to something there.

I was a late convert to the e-reader. Yet once I got going,  its 24/7 ready-access to the world of literature at the click of a button made me an easy candidate for seduction.

Lately, however, I have been getting lost in the Amazon Kindle Store, the victim of too many choices shelved on a flat virtual table with no personal “you’re going to love this one!” identification system yet worked out for myself. (I have never been a kindred spirit of the NYTimes bestseller list readers, and my interests are often too flaky to benefit much from those “if you like” suggestions.) Sure, I have a Goodreads account and also download samples of interesting books when those handy lists of recommended reading come along on my favorite websites, but somehow it’s not quite the same as wandering along book shelves and checking out what your local store employees are excited about this month. Maybe, you know, even having a conversation with a fellow shopper.

This came to a head recently for two reasons. On Saturday afternoon, I was cooking and listening to The Signal on WYPR. Towards the end of the program, Benn Ray of Atomic Books (the awesome book shop just down the road from me) was on as a guest to suggest some summer reading picks, including Donald Ray Pollock’s new novel The Devil All the Time (out today!). His interest in this writer was aurally evident and for me, a child of Ohio and a fan of the television show Justified, it seemed like a can’t-fail selection. Later, as I reclined on my sofa inhaling Pollock’s book of short stories in preparation while enjoying my home air conditioning, I felt bad that I hadn’t braved the heat and walked down the block to support my local bookstore (though they would have probably looked at me like a crazy person if I had handed over my Kindle and said “fill ‘er up!”). Still, I miss this simple community sharing and began to wonder if there was any practical way a bookstore of the future could provide all of the services of a bookstore–the highlights, the readings, the experience behind the product, if you will–minus the physical book, and still make enough money to survive. And if not now, would something like this find its “audience” at some point in the future?

Then, in a more abstract way, the need for the “real, live person with experience” also resonated when a colleague passed me this article yesterday morning covering the value (and values) of the developing digital media marketplace. The line that caught him was that “the food industry doesn’t have to compete with people getting food for free, nor does the gasoline industry. But with digital media, you’ve got people there who have the option of whether they’ll even pay.” Of course, you can get your food for more or less free as well, but foraging and dumpster diving is a lot more distasteful to most people than web searching, and gardening a lot more time consuming. However, like the changes we have seen when it comes to food choices for those with the resources to access them, perhaps a similar search will lead to a resurgence in valuing high quality over cheap, anonymous quantity. When it comes to music, I can almost see this road running parallel to the food trends and taking us back to a place where live music in the home once again becomes a prized skill and a sought-after experience.

Think I’m drawing false comparisons or is there a “there” somewhere in all of this?

There will be some actual content from me later in the week, but meanwhile I’ll let Jan Swafford write the new music jokes and handle the analysis. Plus! Something beautiful I just saw on the internet:

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My patience level doesn’t often allow me to get terribly engaged in online video of much length. That said, this fun little production piece, designed to showcase a bit of video editing software, didn’t lose me for even a second. For those trying to enjoy the holiday weekend without an excess of online distraction, I still think it’s worth the time investment. And for those hiding from a family picnic in an upstairs bedroom, it’s entertaining enough to watch twice! Be sure not to miss the extra scene after the credits. Some moments of the plotline stereotyping work better than others, but the “hipster flirting” @ 5:30 is so pitch perfect it could carry the entire video if it had to. Gha! They even hit the soundtrack dead center.

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Plus, it’s tightly edited, free to watch, and (if what I’ve been reading is true) better than what’s on screen at the cineplex right now. Why go see a summer blockbuster when you could make your own this holiday weekend?