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]

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).