missing the damned point...again...

[acroyear]

On An Overgrown Path: Classical music and the mass market fallacy:

Could it be that when classical music is homogenised for the elusive mass market it loses its essential appeal? Could the mass market fallacy explain why so much classical music today is bland and unappealing? Could it also explain why creativity continues to flourish in genres such as world music and jazz which have shed their mass market pretensions?

By mentioning jazz, and improvisational (world) music, you've definitely invited an apples to oranges comparison.

What makes the other worlds of music different from classical is the that in the other worlds, and this includes rock and pop, the *recording* comes first.

Robert Fripp has even expressed this in discussing (recent) King Crimson releases: the CD is the "score", which is then performed live.

In order to "compete" in this market, the contemporary composer (and the label itself) needs to stop thinking about the score and prioritize getting premiere recordings out the door. Nobody "talks" about a score, because nobody can read a score except those few whose training it is to bring that score into life through performance.

The layman world can't discuss, debate, and enjoy orchestral music so long as it only exists on paper.

The rest of the music world works by 1) artist "writes" the material. 2) artist records the material. 3) artist releases the recording for feedback. 4) artist performs the material.

The classical (especially orchestral) world has this backwards - the performances come first and then...nothing...it may take *years* after a premiere for a work to finally be released, by which time it is forgotten or there's really no momentum to promote it by the artists involved (except maybe the conductor...maybe...) because they've gone on to different things. It is too late to ride that momentum that the rest of the industry rides when that CD is able to get in the hands of the public.

So THAT is (to my mind) what needs to change to rebuild a market for contemporary classical - getting the music released as "music" that people can listen to and enjoy and build up a buzz about, and not just as a piece of paper nobody can read and a rare concert in some obscure town nobody can get to...

Comments

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

No, the main problem is that a good chunk of classical music requires a large number of musicians to perform. You can't just get a "garage orchestra" together and jam with your friends. Nor can you get 20-100 of your musician buddies together and try out some new tunes.

Furthermore, musicians in general are taking a hit from school music programs being cut. I would have never picked up oboe if it hadn't been for the band and orchestra program at my elementary school. Unlike "mainstream" instruments like guitar or even piano, I can't even search craigslist or freecycle for a cheap starter oboe or tuba or bassoon and learn to play on my own. Fewer people learning how to play classical instruments means that fewer people are getting exposed to classical music as a whole. But if I can get a cheap guitar and learn 4 chords, I can be a rock star or at least play in a garage band. Conversely, oboe players need to be hidden out of earshot for at least a few years or until they get a decent instrument and reeds. I can't even pretend to play on Rock Band.

Lastly, contemporary classical can be downright WERID. Get stuck in a John Cage concert and that will put you off of classical music for a long time. There are some great newer composers around but again, a lot of those pieces do not have tunes that you can hum. They play around with time signatures, instrument arrangements or modern twists on classical forms. I think a new piece that my band is playing is absolutely amazing but again, it doesn't have a main tune that I can hum for you.

People also forget that "classical" music was the contemporary "pop" music of its time. Most towns had some form of brass band or "military" band that played weekly concerts year round. If you didn't live near a big city or could afford to hear music in a big concert hall, you could go to the local town hall or city park and hear classical pieces arranged for your local ensemble. Families and friends had a whole variety of parlor music specifically arranged for the average person to play. That was the only way to hear music. Now you don't have to play an instrument or know someone that plays to hear music. You can turn on your computer or the radio or walk into any store and hear it.

I'd also wager that time in another factor. If I want to hear a classical piece, I need to commit to at least 10 minutes. If I want to hear a good symphony or opera, that's 40 mins to several hours of my time. Most pop songs are around 3-4. If I don't like it, another song comes on fairly quickly.

So start getting more people to play instruments and exposed to classical music and I'd wager you'll get more classical music being played.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

we're not talking about music getting played, as such. yes, "weird" has something to do with it - though the same people that might rant about how weird some modern music sounds will have no problem sitting through the very same music when it is used in the film score for, say, Planet of the Apes ('69 original - yes, most of the score is 12-tone writing) or most of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. Having a context in mind to frame the music to does help, even if it isn't necessarily a "story". How else could the Romantic era have gotten it to where it was without Berlioz (and even Beethoven) framing their more complex harmonic progressions by hinting at a non-musical meaning. Mozart's at his most dangerous in his operas.

some of the modern weird does have to do with the strong influence that 60s and 70s academia had on things. there was an attitude about tonal music that "everything that could be done had been done." Even my father is insistent that Beethoven's 9th is "the last symphony".

i had to leave JMU's music program (I wanted to minor) over the clash between learning tonal triadic harmony for 2 years, only to know that I would have to throw it all away because, "nobody actually composes with that anymore". Even today reading criticisms one can tell the relative age of the critic by how he deals with post-atonal music.

at any rate, it doesn't change my opinion that most kids (and hell, most adults) have simply never heard "contemporary" classical music not because of the attention span or the wirdness, but because the means by which that music is delivered to the audience is backwards to the recorded music culture - first the commission, then the score, then a premiere concert or two, then it sits, and *maybe* a few years down the road someone might spot it, read it, analyze it, and decide its worth trying again, and *maybe* that one will get recorded and released. maybe.

THAT is the real death of music in this modern age - a work that only those who were at the premiere ever get to hear. In this digital age of high-fidelity acoustics, there is no reason AT ALL that not every premiere is recorded and released in some form in a manner by which anybody can find it at any time (rather than getting lucky by either being at the hall for it, or accidentally catching it on some radio show, only to never be able to find it again). Music is being forgotten because the people in charge are using 60 year old outdated means of getting it out there. THAT is what needs to change. Even if kids only listen to 4 minutes of it before moving on, AT LEAST THEY'LL HAVE HEARD IT.

they're not even getting that chance the way things are.

(p.s., screw Cage. he's the "Godwin" of the contemporary music world.)

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of composers that write music for the sake or writing music. My band has played some of that. We played music from one guy who puts his music out there for free on the 'net for any group that wants to play it. I'm sure if you searched around, you'd find dozens of composers who are doing this.

But commission or not, it's still hard getting 20-100 musicians of a professional caliber together to play music and they won't do it for free. You can't record a band or orchestra piece in someone's basement either. You really need a professional studio. That's a bunch of money up front to make a recording that may or may not sell enough to make the money back.

I believe that music is recorded at a lot of premieres these days. There's no reason not to. But again, record companies are not going to create CDs or a composer isn't going to shell out the money for licensing, esp. for a major "name" group that's going to insist on getting money every time you play their recording.

When classical music in general isn't being played a lot and orchestras are struggling, it's even harder to get new pieces in. Some are more successful at it than others. I really like Baltimore Symphony's model and think they will prevail in the long run over National Symphony's very traditional model. But there's still a limit to how much "new" stuff an orchestra can play before you start losing your audience. People still want to hear the classics.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

I never said "hit the studio" - quite the opposite: release the premiere is what I was saying. Yes they're recorded, and sometimes played back on some obscure radio show, but after that...

...

...

...nothing.

I actually adored a John Adams piece I heard on a BSO (Alsop) show, recorded at Strathmore and played on SiriusXM, and was therefore quite heartbroken to find I couldn't actually have my own copy to dive into the nuances. If I was taping the show @ home on a cassette deck like the good old days, I'd have it now.

Instead, I only know there's this great John Adams piece that the BSO played that's never been released and I don't even know its f'in' name.

MUSIC CAN NOT SURVIVE LIKE THAT.

Yes, CD's are NOT the way to go for stuff that only has a likely audience of 10,000.

But guess what: 10,000 paying $10 each for the download === $100,000 and that, plus the initial revenue from the concert itself, can pay for the work needed to get the thing out the door.

It really helps when the people doing the recording already know the hall and know the orchestra and everything is already in balance - this is how EMI is able to get a Simon Rattle cd out every 3 months (and offer other concerts for sale direct through their virtual concert hall website), and how Bernstein got so many records out back in the 60s - all of the HARD work was done. any symphony that does its own radio shows already has done all of this (including, say, the BSO at Strathmore).

and once it is out there, composers can actually start to get a "name" outside of academia. under the current model, there's just no way.

please stop taking my examples and ideas to an unnecessary extreme. I never said every orchestra has to do it, and I never said anything about new pieces totally replacing the old.

I'm trying to show how applying the "get the record out" approach can actually work to build an audience for modern music, and even have that music survive at all, in ways that the traditional approach of "score first, and if a record comes out some day, well, who cares" will never achieve.

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

You mean this John Adams piece "Atomic Symphony" available here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Symphony-Guide-Strange-Places/dp/B0029358I0

Or was it his "Fearful Symmetries" also available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Fearful-Symmetries-Chamber-Sym-Songs/dp/B00004YSQW

10,000 downloads for a classical download? Seriously? Popular classical pieces get that, not contemporary ones. And $100,000 would maybe cover costs. Orchestras are barely making ends meet these days and a lot of concerts DON'T cover themselves.

I'd also like to see how many pieces get premiered and never recorded. Do you have numbers on this? Is it really a big problem with contemporary music? Are composers complaining about this?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

no, composers aren't necessarily complaining about this, but then again they've gotten so deprived by the sad state of the music industry that even getting a performance at all is a miracle.

it is the blogosphere of people who appreciate all ages of classical music that are the ones complaining.

10,000 downloads is feasible when:
1) it is the only way to get a piece of work
2) there's support within the music community for downloads

the former is not the case - downloads happen when the cd is released (so that same wait time is there), and often the downloads are revoked when the cd goes "out of print". in any case the very pressing of the cd defeats the point because now you've added overhead costs that downloads don't have.

the latter is not the case because 1) the former is not the case, so the CD remains all anybody talks about, and 2) audiophiles are what they are and constantly rant about mp3 performance (without acknowledging better alternatives like AC3 and FLAC).

what it takes is ranting about the state and proposing alternatives and actually having them be tried, not be shot down before they've been done without noting that the current status-quo is not workable.

and yes, SOME orchestras are having difficulties, and much of that is due to the lack of interest in SOME political parties in supporting the arts through public funding, on this weird assumption by SOME people who speak for those parties that ALL government spending is inherently evil. but you're not one of SOME people. ;-) [seriously, rant for a different time]

but no, not ALL Orchestras are.

yes it will take investment by somebody to get it to work, it will take the entrepreneurial spirit that this company has all but given up on, this idea of actually being the first to do something. but once the *reputation* of the downloads program is built (and the reputation of some composers who can sell enough to support the newer ones that won't sell as much at first), it can start to run itself, particularly when also supported by downloads of established (trans: "dead") composers along the way.

right now, the downloading orchestras are mostly only putting out said "dead" composers, which means the works are competing with CD releases from established (trans: "dead") conductors as well, so of course they're not going to get the same kind of attention yet.

stuff moves in one media when there isn't an alternative but the market (even a small one) still wants the product.

(and the Adams work I think was a local performance of City Noir, which is not on sale yet - so not, not a full "premiere", but certainly a local one for a new piece).

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

People still make classical music?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

people make contemporary music involving chamber instruments and full ensembles, that ends up in the "classical" category for lack of anywhere else to put it.

musically, it has moved so far beyond Beethoven as to be almost incomparable, but there you go.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't understand the distinction. I am the example of all the people who are, for whatever reason, totally un-knowing about the musical genre you are speaking of. If the model doesn't change somehow, I will continue not to know anything about it.

I have 1200 songs on hard disk in my car, and the only stuff in there that even vaguely resembles what I (not you) would call classical music is a chello quartet. The right sort of instrument, but they are playing metallica. I have wondered what someone who understands chello, but has never heard metallica would think of that stuff.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

depends on how much they are involved in the classical scene. most classical players can't stand "crossover" stuff. Metallica is painfully "tonal" - pure 3-chord rock, give or take the guitar solo bridge, rarely even attempting modes beyond major/minor/dorian. yeah, you're not sure what i mean, but suffice to say, contemporary "classical" music is something different entirely.

take http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G34poeKMjrQ for an example.

in the film score world, most hollywood scores are of the "neo-romantic" - they owe most of their sound to the big Wagnerian sounds of the 19th century (John Williams, Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings). Still others experiment with 1960s minimalism (scores by Thomas Newman, like Leminy Snicket).

Those that followed the trend of modern "classical" are the really tough ones, like the original Planet of the Apes (Jerry Goldsmith).

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I tried to listen to your example. With no rythm and no melody, I couldn't get into it. I'll take your word for it that there's something happening there, but I'm not hearing it.

I like stuff that sounds wagnerian. There's a reference I know and like. I do have some movie soundtrack stuff in my collection, at home. Come to think of it, the theme from the good, the bad and the ugly may be in the car.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

Ah, Thomas Newman. Lemony Snicket was my introduction to him and it is still one of my favorite film scores. I like his use of percussion instruments.

[kowari.livejournal.com]

How would you fit in movie music or gaming music in all this?

I clearly see them in the same genre as what you are calling classical music (and I completely understand your points about record sales vs live performances) but have they hit the mark as more popular versions of the same?

They are all about the production first, the performances afterward. People buy the scores from movies they like the music to.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

film scores are the orchestral exception because the recording HAS to exist first, but subsequent performances are unlikely except in very rare cases of BIG successes (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek), and even then those performances are of the "themes" and not the real core of the work. The Doctor Who Proms are a real nice project in the UK of doing what had been done here in the states for years - a kids-oriented show that combines film scores they know with classical works that inspired them (usually including Holst's Planets).

film scores do have the advantage of a ton of money behind them spent by execs who really know they've nothing to lose, even with a bomb. the failure rate of films is built into most studio economics (along with the creative financing that says a 1 billion dollar film hasn't turned a profit yet).

film scores are generally looked down upon in academia, in spite of the fact that it is one of the rare ways for commissions to arrive, and in spite of the reputable composers who did film music (including Copland).

video games are more often than not electronic, even when they sound orchestral.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

But there are concerts across the country where the local symphony is playing the video game music (e.g. Play! which is coming back to Wolf Trap in Summer 2011). While some of the music used (Castlemania) is probably no where near classical style; some might count (e.g. World of Warcraft, Gods of War).

And as the success of movie with live music continues, some of the movie scores will have live performances (not unlike the LotR movies with FULL score being performed live by full symphony, choir & soloists over the last 3 years). I don't know if they will try that with Star Wars or not but they might.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Electronic video game scores converted to orchestra is, just like the rearranged Metallica for Quartet, "Crossover Classical". It gets about as much respect from the classical world as does Bocelli or Boyle (hint: very little).

Orchestra players either hate it outright, appreciate that it brings in an audience and thus money to live on, or like it 'cause it's easy stuff they don't have to think about. More often than not, they'll have sight-read the piece that afternoon. This is also true of cases where orchestras have played with rock bands (Kansas, Yes, Moody Blues). The material is generally downright trivial to them.