For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Chris, eighth blackbird’s administrative director. I’ve been with the group full-time for about 18 months now and am just finally learning up from down in their topsy-turvy world. I know most of you come here to surreptitiously delight in the intimate details of the musicians’ glamorous life on the road and their titillating interactions with new music luminaries, or at least to pick up Australian slang, but I believe there are also enough of you interested in learning more about how to translate the wild genius of something like eighth blackbird into a viable organization to justify my occasional leasing of space here to explore more mundane issues. Be warned though, rather than trained discipline of a classical musician used to sharing space and time with others, I have the manic verbosity of an extrovert forced to work from home alone.
I recently had the privilege of attending a talk by Greg Sandow. Chances are that if you’re here, you’re already familiar with Mr. Sandow, but if you’re not, get ‘ye to Arts Journal and sample a bit of his iconoclastic musings.
Greg was in town to give a talk, sponsored by the Cultural Policy Center, on The Rebirth of Classical Music to students at the University of Chicago . The good folks at Slover-Linett correctly assumed there would be enough arts administrators, like myself, to justify an informal talk and conversation early the same day. Among the attendees were Seth Bousted from Accessible Contemporary Music, Karen Fishman from Music of the Baroque, Kevin Giglinto from the CSO, Steve Robinson from WFMT, Joan Harris and several other important players in Chicago’s classical music scene.
Greg riffed on the state of our field like a jazz musician. He began with the familiar theme, ‘oh why oh why has classical music become so irrelevant’, and improvised in several directions. Naturally, some of his off-the-cuff explorations led to spontaneous insights and provocative questions, while others failed to coalesce into any cohesive narrative. Some of what may have been new or threatening to the established institutions represented was already well-treaded territory for eighth blackbird or ACM. In the end, it was the best kind of talk, the kind that lead to passionate discussions between participants who lingered in the room afterwards for far longer than the event itself lasted.
Greg’s first and primary point was that we need to recognize and address the lack of relevance in classical music. He mentioned that today at dinner parties, the intellectuals and artists all discuss various theatrical productions, dance companies, art exhibits, etc., but they do not discuss classical music. Further, he dismissed the ‘charming myth’ that classical music really matters. If it did, he argued, more people would be engaged. His prime example was a hypothetical educated, cultured young person who can ‘chew on Derrida’, but doesn’t attend the orchestra. However, that person listens to indie-rock in the same way audiences used to listen to classical music: closely and repeatedly.
It so happens, I am that hypothetical person (though I’ll take my aesthetics straight from the tap, i.e. Heidegger, rather than Frenchified). I am not a trained musician or composer, but I LOVE music, of all types, spend a lot of money and time on it, and engage with it on a very intimate level. (Why yes, I am single. How did you guess?) I do not, however, frequent classical music performances, nor do I buy many classical recordings, at least not compared to other genres.
There is an important distinction to make here though. I’m referring here to classical classical music. I do listen to new/contemporary/indie/alt/watchamacalit classical music. I didn’t come to work for eighth blackbird just for bling; I really love what they do. It engages me fully. Through their recordings and performances, I’ll listen to Missy Mazzoli and David Lang right alongside Arcade Fire and The National. Steve Reich’s Double Sextet has as high a play count in my iTunes as any Radiohead track.
To my mind, then, Greg’s points have two different contexts. Can traditional classical music be reborn and find relevance? And can the modern heirs of that tradition find a wider audience? As to the former, I honestly don’t care so much. As long I can still get recordings of Palestrina-through-Mahler and occasionally indulge in the aural magnificence of a symphony orchestra performance, I’m not concerned about relevance. There is a timelessness to the high arts that doesn’t require rebirth. Is anyone worried about the relevance of 15th Century Italian art?
I am, however, deeply concerned about the latter. That is, why do the same people who jump at the chance to see a new play at Steppenwolf, who don’t hesitate to attend an exhibition by an unknown artist at the MCA, who expect there to be a new work on each Hubbard Street Dance Company program, why do these same people not also fill up the Harris Theater for eighth blackbird, Fulcrum Point or MusicNow (at least not without free beer and pizza)?
There is a sense, I believe, that while enjoying new theater only requires you to be human and open, appreciating new music requires training, initiation into the secret meaning of all those farts and squeaks. This to me is the great challenge of new music: how to disabuse wider audiences of the notion that they need to come to a concert with anything other than open ears in order to have an engaging aesthetic experience. I know, as a fact, that those who attend an eighth blackbird concert on a whim or at the behest of a friend, leave converted. What I don’t know yet is how to get new audiences to attend in the first place. I have some ideas, but I’d love even more to hear yours.
As those of you who follow us on Twitter know, Greg called eighth blackbird “the biggest missed opportunity” in the field. He specifically meant that the ensemble should have a bigger audience. He said we shouldn’t depend on the gatekeepers, the people who present and represent us, to find our audience. Rather we should find them ourselves. I trust Greg will tell us more about what he means, and perhaps even offer suggestions. I ask the same of all of you. I’m a firm believer that a rising tide lifts all ships. If we can tap a wider audience for new music, all performers and composers would benefit.
Thanks for listening.
P.S. My favorite moment of the event was when Joan Harris, one Chicago’s most important music patrons, calling Seth Bousted “a 19th century elitist”. Yes, seriously. Both Joan and Seth have earned my respect and affection over the years, and their exchange was the result of a simple misunderstanding. Seth expressed trepidations about achieving too high a level of success, one that could potentially alienate him from his audience. Joan, who doesn’t know Seth, responded as if he meant that his music was intended for a small, discerning audience, a not uncommon attitude amongst more academically minded composers and musicians. Seth was actually just discussing issues of scale. Obviously the man who founded Accessible Contemporary Music isn’t arguing that contemporary music shouldn’t be . . . accessible. Unless he’s aiming for the ultimate irony. In which case, kudos! Of course, Seth’s fears are also unfounded, and as Greg himself said to Seth: “I don’t believe you.” I’ve been to eighth blackbird concerts with over 700 attendees; they were still able to meet and greet all who remained afterwards. And not only are the opportunities for directly engaging audiences outside of the performance multiplying daily, it’s becoming de rigueur to do so.
Comments 43
I’m rather sad to see Greg Sandow being given this sort of attention here. I’ll stipulate the usual sort of boilerplate that everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, but I have been hearing Greg Sandow carry on like this for so long now, I can only come to the conclusion that he is actively wishing for the demise of art music.
The real problem is a failure to define terms. Art music has never been “popular” in the sense that we have come to understand it. Our culture is far too obsessed with statistics concerning consumer consumption and has come to regard such things all to often as if they provided an absolute measure of cultural worth.
Greg is not wrong to comment on the depressing fact that even Americans who regard themselves as ‘intellectuals’ are woefully ignorant of art music, but he never gets anywhere close to talking about the historical, cultural and economic reasons that have led to this situation. There are some fundamental issues, such as the demise of the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting, that have led to a virtual monopolization of the media to the extent that anything that cannot be construed as ‘popular’ stands little chance of getting before the public at all.
When I was 10 years old, I saw the premiere of Stravinsky’s “The Flood” broadcast live on CBS in prime time. This was in a time when full length plays, even opera, could be seen regularly on network TV in America. There was once a time when broadcasters were given to understand that they had a cultural mission that needed to be fulfilled in order for them to earn their access to the public airwaves. And this was even more important for music when it came to radio — I acquired a huge part of my musical education, especially about new music, from radio in those days.
But Greg Sandow seems never to address these large, essentially infrastructural and profoundly political aspects of where we now find ourselves culturally in America. Instead he just fans the flames of a bonfire he has helped build himself. I am so sick of hearing him preach at us about the ‘irrelevance’ of art music, carrying on like a holy roller who is clearly far more excited by the gruesome destruction of the Apocalypse than by any promise of Heaven.
Fortunately there is 8bb to give the lie to Sandow’s jeremiads! No one can ever come away from any 8bb performance feeling that what they’ve heard and see is not profoundly relevant to their lives. 8bb *is* the antidote to the pseudo-populist negativity of Sandow.
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 1:48 AM ¶Maybe what art music needs is to take a page out of the punk rock/DIY scene handbook. To see art music, one usually has to pay upwards of $15 for a ticket to sit in a big pretty concert hall and put on a tie. Nothing against ties or concert halls, but many people associate both with “boring.” Of course, as the previous commenter said, there’s a lot more to it than that, but if we want to breed a new generation of art music lovers, then we need to bring the music to them. We have to show them that art music is about more than sitting still for two hours in uncomfortable shoes. Why not have basement recitals like the punk rock kids do it? Why not make friends at your local hipster arts space and book your quartet there?
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 7:19 AM ¶Noah, some of the issues your comments raise will actually be addressed in Tim’s next blog post. Basically, it comes down to money. You may be right in that we need to bring the music to the people, but unless those people grow up and are eventually willing to pay $30 a ticket and make sizable donations, the musicians can’t make much of a living.
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 9:01 AM ¶Wow, great conversation happening here! I heartily agree with Noah and Dr. Hartke. I’m tired of this underlying notion that popularity is the same as relevance, and I think that any perceived irrelevance is a result of the WAY classical music is presented, not the music itself. Yes, the media is seriously at fault for this, but so are many classical music presenters and critics. Virgil Thompson and Theodore Adorno spent a lot of energy fighting what they called “The Music Appreciation Racket.” This is the idea that you need an expert to explain great music to you and tell you how to understand it. There is an important balance here. Any great art form has many layers of meaning, many of which are very challenging and require significant experience to understand. Just because lots of people talk about theater at cocktail parties doesn’t mean they necessarily understand it deeply. However, it’s on their radar, so it’s a natural subject of conversation. The problem is that many people simply don’t have classical music on their radar. I believe that great music can be enjoyed with OR without rigorous intellectual understanding. That’s why I’m always so sad when I talk to people who constantly apologize for not knowing very much about classical music. We need to work hard to counteract this whole guilt trip thing that people have going. The point is for everyone to enjoy the music. A deeper understanding can only come after you fall in love with the music – and everyone understands music in different ways. I once saw a Cincinnati Symphony preconcert talk in which an oboist explained that his understanding of the music is actually limited by his direct engagement with it. He mentioned that when he listens to orchestral music, he hears 80% oboe, 10% woodwind section, and 10% orchestra in general. I am a graduate student in composition, and I too find that my technical and intellectual baggage can sometimes limit my listening. The bottom line is that EVERYONE has both unique limitations and unique insights as a listener. I think we should keep three goals in mind as we present classical music:
1. Market very aggressively, and make buying tickets easier. Many classical organizations need to reconsider the appearance, tone, and content of their PR.
2. Produce concerts that create genuinely exciting social situations. Brian Wise recently wrote an insightful article entitled “Do Orchestra Concerts Make Good Dates.” http://www.adaptistration.com/2010/04/21/tafto-2010-contribution-brian-wise/
3. Make programming choices that are more diverse, and will therefore draw several different crowds of people to the same event. For instance, if you program a new percussion concerto alongside a Beethoven Symphony, you have better odds of attracting a diverse audience than you would if the whole program is from one time period or style.
Again, I’m a music student, so I’m young and idealistic. I realize that these goals are both obvious and very difficult to achieve. I think it’s worth a try, though
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 9:04 AM ¶Stephen, always great to hear from you!
First, to be fair, Greg spoke for well over an hour and I just pulled out a few comments that I wanted to discuss further. He did talk about some of the historical reasons for the diminished visibility of art music.
I’m curious, do you think that the lack of exposure is largely responsible? Or was popular media’s eschewing of such broadcasting indicative of the growing irrelevance of the form? I confess I get a little apprehensive when I hear the marketing of classical music treated as medicinal, as something ‘good for you’ that needs to be taken whether you like it or not.
I keep coming back to this realization that music differs from other art forms in that audiences feel they need to understand it in order to appreciate it. To solve that problem, you either educate everyone, or make the music more accessible. For the former, you’d need to justify a massive revolution in education and the arts’ place in it, especially difficult when it is widely considered irrelevant. For the latter, you run into the ossified elitism of established organizations (like Seth Bousted’s!), and you risk criticisms of pandering.
In truth, I still don’t totally buy my own oversimplified dichotomies. Let’s take your own piece, Meanwhile, as an example. eighth blackbird LOVES that piece, and sometimes they’ll talk about it in ways I simply don’t understand. Clearly, there is enough musical richness in there to excite the hell out of very sophisticated musicians. As I said, I’m not a musician. However, I have a good ear and can pay attention. I’ve seen Meanwhile performed live at least a dozen times, and I enjoy it more every time I hear it. To me, that means that high art can be accessible.
Tim keeps telling me I’m the exception to the rule, so this may just be my own narcissism, but I have to believe there are other people out there like me, and they need the exposure. Such exposure, however, in a skeptical, fractured world, needs to be handled in a new way. That to me is the challenge.
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 9:35 AM ¶Kyle, great thoughts!
I was typing my response to Stephen as you posted your comment. Looks like we’re firmly agreed on the imperative to remove any obstacles to audience’s direct engagement with the music.
It just occurred to me that two very different approaches could emerge in response to the above. Musicians could either just play their music without any explanation, hence reinforcing the idea that it’s a purely aesthetic experience to be taken on its own terms. Or, they could address audience’s fears and anxieties directly by speaking to them, giving them toeholds into the music, or simply sharing their own feelings and thoughts about it. eighth blackbird does a little of both, but I’ve heard again and again from audiences without musical training how much they appreciate the latter approach.
If you’re interested, I’d love to talk to you further offline about the “appearance, tone, and content” of eighth blackbird’s marketing materials.
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 9:45 AM ¶Hi. I don’t know much in contemporary music, but as we poor youngsters can’t really rely on tv/radio the way some of you did few decades ago, we have to use the big satanic internet :)
And that leads me almost naturally to Eight Blackbird…and Spotify, as a major ressource to discover music/artists (if you live in a country where Spotify is accessible…).
I never heard of Eight Blackbird before starting to use Spotify months ago, when I started to look for contemporary music ensembles among other styles. Needless to say as non-impressive as my knowledge of contemporary/world/experimental/etc musics still is, it still expanded @ an impressive pace since I use that platform.
but then, after some weeks, Eight Blackbird (among others) suddenly vanished from the database ;)
I’m really curious to know how it works if you don’t mind explaining. Are the distributors sending files without prior artists approval ? Is Spotify ripping off artists in terms of royalties, that kind of thing ?
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 12:10 PM ¶Or is the ensemble against streaming as a way to bring music to new audiences ?
Jono, thanks for bringing Spotify to my attention. I had heard of it, but had never looked into it. We don’t actually have anything to do with the various online distributors and streamers of eighth blackbird recordings. That’s the purview of the label (Cedille Records). I’m going to ask an intern to look into all the online distribution points and find out where eighth blackbird can be found. I fully agree that it’s a great way to discover music. I’m a total Pandora junky and have discovered everything from obscure 70s funk to contemporary composers through it.
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 12:34 PM ¶What Stephen Hartke said.
Andrew Patner — Chicago
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 1:04 PM ¶@Chris, fair point about needing young audiences to grow into generous audiences. Going back to the punk/DIY model, I would bet that none of those bands are able to play music for a living, and perhaps they don’t even want to.
However, I think people are willing to pay for things that are relevant and moving to them. Look at how much people are willing to shell out to see pop music stars. Tickets to see Avatar in 3D cost just as much as I paid to see 8bb in Columbus last week. People spend/donate all kinds of money on entertainment/causes that they connect with.
Posted 24 Apr 2010 at 10:15 PM ¶Reading some of these comments just makes me sad, especially yours, Chris, I’m sorry to say.
I’m not talking about culture as “bad tasting medicine” that is to be swallowed merely for our own good. I’m talking about cultural infrastructure, about the means through which art in all its messy manifestations gets out there.
While it’s all very easy and fashionable to say that the Internet has superceded everything and created completely new realities, that’s just a futurist excess of enthusiasm. Do we really want to see the live concert experience entirely replaced by earbuds stuffed into skulls?
And, guys, I’m sorry, but the art music experience is not the same as the pop music experience. Art music is about a one-on-one communication between the creator of the music via the performers to individual members of the audience. (Stravinsky said that he didn’t care about the audience, but that he did care about the individual souls that made up the audience.) Pop music is much more about a group dynamic — and I don’t say this as a criticism but rather as an acknowledgment of a fundamental aesthetic and cultural reality — in which the continuous and active participation of the audience is an intrinsic element of the art form itself.
Now, before you guys start jumping on me about this, let me point out that we have no problem in accepting the convention that audiences keep to themselves and refrain from reciting along or waving lit cigarette lighters when watching stage plays. So why can’t we be at peace with the idea that art music need not aspire to the condition of pop music?
As for the issues of infrastructure that I raised with regard to radio and television, the responses above have sadly shown that you are mostly too young to understand that there have been other modalities for the dissemination of art in the recent past. Like so many Americans, you accept what we have here right now as if it were the only way. That is what our corporate masters would have us believe.
I tried to tell you that there was a time when there were radio stations in America that played new music on a regular basis. There was a time when television networks actively commissioned the composition of new music. I don’t doubt for a moment that there were not high level executives in those networks who hated having to spend programming dollars on projects that would garner fewer viewers than their average game shows, but there was a general understanding that the mere fact that they were being given access to the public airways carried with it an obligation to provide programming that did more culturally than merely cater to their bottom line.
… and can I just pause here for a moment to say that while I may now have 100+ channels available to me from my cable company, it is astonishing how rarely there is anything worthwhile to watch? But when I was a kid in New York, with only seven channels, I saw not only the world premiere of the CBS commission of Stravinsky’s “The Flood”, but also the world premiere via satellite of Britten’s “War Requiem”, and later the premiere of Britten’s TV opera “Owen Wingrave”. And let’s not forget that Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” was, for better or worse, a regular TV staple for well over a decade.
At present there is nothing in our media — either Mainstream-Media or Internet — that fosters anything on a par with these few examples. Don’t you get it? In 1962 CBS could easily set aside money to commission Stravinsky — so why can’t they do it now to commission Steve Reich, for example? Because our culture has been shifted from a democratic one in which we used to strive together for the greater good, to a corporatist one in which all human endeavor is subsumed to the corporate bottom line, and thus we have been brainwashed into accepting box-office as the ultimate measure of artistic worth.
SH
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 2:47 AM ¶Stephen Hartke: first of all, I admire you immensely. To be honest, I’m a little starstruck by the idea that you might actually read what I’m writing here, when I was studying your Symphony #3 in class a few weeks ago, and at the last 8th Blackbird concert I saw, “Meanwhile” was absolutely my favorite thing on the program. I have to take issue with some of the points you raised, however.
In one paragraph, you say:
“While it’s all very easy and fashionable to say that the Internet has superceded everything and created completely new realities, that’s just a futurist excess of enthusiasm. Do we really want to see the live concert experience entirely replaced by earbuds stuffed into skulls?”
And yet, Dr. Hartke, *all* of your discussion of the public consumption of music in your posts centers not on the live concert experience, but on broadcast TV and radio! I could be mistaken, but based on your posts, broadcast media seems to be one of – if not the – most important tool you have used to discover and listen to new music.
TV and radio created new realities and changed the way we expect to discover and experience music, and now the internet is doing the same, but in a way that is necessarily more consumer-active. For the last five years, I have not had a “television” in the traditional sense – my flatscreen TV is hooked into a computer, and I exclusively watch programming through Hulu, Netflix streaming, and other online sources. And I am part of a rapidly growing audience (http://www.newsweek.com/id/226325). I can’t stand being told what to watch and when by a schedule of network or cable garbage. I don’t listen to radio, except for NPR, preferring to source all my music through the internet. If you don’t think this is the way of the future, but only a fad, I can’t help but draw the comparison to those who thought moving pictures were just a flash in the pan. It’s no different to the way you used television growing up.
They don’t call it the Information Revolution for nothing. The pop music industry is facing the same issues in this paradigm shift as we art musicians. Large corporations are running scared and desperately trying to find ways to shut down or co-opt the new technology, but we have a window right now where new methods of distribution are opening so rapidly that it’s possible for we proletarian musicians to shove an arm through and get noticed* – your loss if you don’t. The pop music model, as it’s currently being shaped, seems to be that artists earn the bulk of their money playing live, using the internet largely as a promotional tool. It’s not about selling CD’s, which are a rapidly declining dead technology anyway. It’s not about selling mp3′s, when this generation has grown up expecting earbuds-in-skulls music to be free. It’s about using all the tools of this modern-day take on the printing press to drive people to your concerts. Live music definitely fits into the new model. Even big name rock stars earn most of their money through concerts these days.
And surprisingly, that’s not so different from what composers and art musicians have been doing for hundreds of years anyway.
You claim that “Art music has never been “popular” in the sense that we have come to understand it.” I think this is a little revisionist. Only a little over 150 years ago, women were fighting over Liszt’s gloves and fainting in the aisles of his concerts. Regular people without degrees in music could name Beethoven and Wagner when they were alive. Nowadays, the everyman American doesn’t know who Steve Reich is. What happened? Why should we be OK with this?
*As an example, which I hope you don’t think is too braggy of me, I got some major press for one of my pieces (www.gonzalescantata.com) by posting about it in the comments of the Wall Street Journal law blog, which was then picked up on Rachel Maddow’s twitter stream (1.2 million followers), ending in national television appearances and “gonzales cantata” being the number one search on Google for three hours later that night. That last point is the real win for me.
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 10:13 AM ¶Stephen – your words are very much appreciated and impress me as quite relevant, ha.
Chris and 8bb – thank you for the incredible work you’re doing.
And re. relevance – we can talk about it for hours, weeks, months; yes we can hold discussions which last longer than the lectures themselves. Yet my training led me to the philosophy that relevance will always be decided by future generations. We MUST disseminate the music in any way we can. Stravinsky had CBS; some of us only have YouTube on our DIY budgets. None of us – critic, musicologist, composer, administrator, performer, or individual concertgoer – are in a position to assess the greater relevance of our last iPad click or live concert epiphanic moment.
Let’s just keep doing it and getting it out there guys.
Jennifer
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 10:31 AM ¶Kudos to the Cultural Policy Center for sponsoring events like this but it is too bad to see them spending precious funds to bring Mr. Sandow into town. Even more disappointing is to see how many high profile names were in attendance, I hope they saw Sandow’s message (based on what Chris summarized above) as the empty rhetoric it is.
Mr. Sandow has had his run and at one point I think he had some valuable things to say but he grows increasingly out of touch and does far more harm than good. He should stick with his blog and the Cultural Policy Center should spend their money on more useful speakers.
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 12:26 PM ¶What Melissa said. Big time. In the past week I’ve used YouTube to listen to Handel, Puccini, Ives, Andriessen, and La Monte Young (amongst countless others I’m sure). ‘Choice’ is a factor like never before and I’d take it any day over the days of waiting for an opera to come on the television. For that matter, I see the Metropolitan Opera and NY Phil quite often on Ch. 13 (in NYC).
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 2:25 PM ¶If the Fairness Doctrine were to be somehow reinstated do we really think that people would suddenly start abandoning their current wealth of choices online because television might start showing art music again? I’m sorry, but the whole idea is simply ludicrous.
I don’t agree with Sandow 100%, but he is correct is in his insistence that it is OUR responsibility to bring in audiences. We need to reject the idea the audiences “should” come to our concerts and figure out ways to convince them to come. 8BB is doing a damn good job at that, and not by looking to the past for inspiration. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SccqMucTqM – 8BB featured by our evil “corporate masters” at Bloomberg Media.
It really is about presentation. Here in Austin, The Golden Hornet Project http://goldenhornet.org/ has put on concerts involving chamber music, dance, and full orchestra for over ten years. I’ve been to a few that were BYOB, and most involved a sliding scale ‘pay what you can’ system, typically $5-$25. There is an inclusiveness in these concerts that is missing in standard concert music presentations. People applaud when they like, they come and go as they please,(respectfully and quietly, of course) and they all wear comfortable shoes. Virtually no one is in their Sunday Best, and if they are it isn’t because of a perceived requirement for attendance.
Another group that sets a fantastic example is Simple Measures in Seattle. http://www.simplemeasures.org/ I attended three performances in mid-April (full disclosure: they premiered a piece of mine) and was impressed not only by the world class musicianship, but with how the music was presented. The theme of this series of concerts was ‘Air’ and largely concerned avian themes. After the first piece, there was a brief question and answer period. At each concert the audience was timid at first, but quickly warmed to the discussion. After the second piece the musicians talked about their instruments and the pieces they were about to play. My piece ended the first half, and at every concert I would come up and take questions from the audience. By this time any reservations about raising hands were gone and we ran out of time at each performance such that my Q&A extended into the intermission. It’s worth pointing out that these were not ‘classical lite’ pieces. Among the offerings were selections from ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ and the second half of the concert was ’13 Ways’ by Thomas Albert which I imagine we’re all familiar with here :)These were well attended shows, and there were more kids than I’ve seen at a concert-music concert in my life. These kids did not have the ‘why am I being dragged to this’ look of so many kids at similar shows. There were two middle school aged girls sitting in front of me at the first concert and they got really tickled every time a new sound or texture came at them. Every child (and adult)I saw was very much engaged with what they were experiencing and this has everything to do with a little explanation and a little conversation. Not a big pre-concert monologue, but an intra-concert dialogue. The comparison between concert music and theater is a poor one. Even taking into account very involved avant garde works, most plays have a narrative that can be followed, but more importantly they are conveyed primarily through a language that the audience can understand, namely English or German or whatever. This is not a discussion about ‘musical languages’ but about the fact that music is not in English, French, or Russian…it’s in music. And a lot of people get intimidated by that. They needn’t be, but they are nonetheless.
Let them ask a few questions, give them a few guideposts, and they’ll fill the seats at your shows too.
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 2:49 PM ¶Well put, Melissa. I heard your Cantata on the Rachel Maddow show and was thereby introduced to your very fine music. Score one for our new cultural infrastructure.
Mr. Hartke, I think you’re mistaking pragmatism for ignorance. Would most composers of my generation like to see NBC broadcasting Steve Reich? Or Stephen Hartke? Or Stephen Gorbos?Sure – but this would only be a sensible and relevant thing to wish for if we also were to return to the days of three channels, no cable, no internet, etc., at which point we might as well wish to be back in Vienna circa 1908, or the Court of Esterhazy, or anywhere else that we deem to be The Good Old Days. Perhaps you are suggesting that we advocate for stricter regulation of our media, to fight against monopolies. Again – sure, of course. In the meantime, I’d also like to see our country revamp our food production system, initiate a single payer health system, dismantle our nuclear weapons, and ban corporate contributions to political campaigns, among a thousand other positions that I’d *like* our public sphere to accommodate. I call my congresspeople and sign my petitions and support the political systems that support these positions. And then I go out and do what I can to proactively foster the development of new infrastructure that supports the dissemination of new music.
So, to turn around your condescending question, don’t YOU get it? We’re all in agreement that corporations can’t be trusted to do the right thing, anymore, and that a robust public engagement with sophisticated music (I avoid the term “art” because I so disagree with your art/popular distinction, but am dodging that question for now) needs to be reestablished. Instead of wallowing in the past, wondering why things can’t magically return to the way they were, some of us are trying to use the tools at our disposal to achieve ends that I suspect you support. Compared to such proactive behavior, I’d say that the distinction between Sandow’s “jeremiads” and your stories about television in 1962 is a thin one, indeed.
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 2:49 PM ¶Just to clarify: I quite genuinely agree with much of what Mr. Hartke has to say about the American acceptance of corporatism and the need to reexamine our relationship to cultural infrastructure, and I very much appreciate the introduction of that element/aspect to the conversation. Thanks also to eighth blackbird for “hosting” this conversation!
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 3:20 PM ¶Stephen Hartke’s point/theory that art music reaches to individual members of the audience, and pop music to the audience as a group is something I’m going to have to think about. It feels correct, as if Brahms (or Hartke) is talking to me, while John Darnielle was addressing a crowd. Interesting.
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 3:25 PM ¶Chris, your blog has raised some very interesting issues and deserves to be taken seriously by anyone with an interest in classical music of any genre. The comments are equally interesting.
My first point is that we must not shoot the messenger. Greg has made some statements and it doesn’t matter how long he has been “carrying on like this” (to quote your first comment), are those statements valid? Let’s start with “….today at dinner parties, the intellectuals and artists all discuss various theatrical productions, dance companies, art exhibits, etc., but they do not discuss classical music.” If anything this is a massive understatement. The irrelevance of classical music also shows up in the media and the festivals. How many contemporary authors can you name? Now, how many contemporary composers can you name? And yet most of us spend more of our time listening to music than we do reading books. The facts speak for themselves.
The statement is made that if classical music was relevant, more people would be engaged. Can’t argue with that; it really does state the obvious!
Then the question is asked: “Can traditional classical music be reborn and find relevance?” Chris suggests this is not something he cares about, and that is difficult to disagree with. So far, so good. There is nothing unsustainable to now.
It is the next question that I find interesting: “And can the modern heirs of that tradition find a wider audience?” The concern is expressed: “… why do the same people who jump at the chance to see a new play at Steppenwolf, who don’t hesitate to attend an exhibition by an unknown artist at the MCA, who expect there to be a new work on each Hubbard Street Dance Company program, why do these same people not also fill up the Harris Theater for eighth blackbird, Fulcrum Point or MusicNow?”
In the real business world if people re not interested in your product you need to sit back and ask yourself: “WHY??” Here I think Greg falls into the same trap all contemporary classical fans fall into: he states that we need to “….disabuse wider audiences of the notion that they need to come to a concert with anything other than open ears in order to have an engaging aesthetic experience.” Goodness, people have been trying to interest the public in the “modern” classical music genre for almost a century, and still they stay away in droves. How long will it take the message to sink in? The general public not like this music! The public likes the melodies and harmonies of the “classical classical” composers; they love the drama and emotion of Wagner. The public don’t like atonal, experimental music.
I would like to make two pleas:
1. Stop trying to “educate” the public. If you want to get bums on seats, don’t take your inspiration from Schoenberg and Webern. Take it from Sibelius and Rachmaninoff. If you get it right you won’t need to educate anyone.
2. Accept the fact that contemporary classical music IN ITS PRESENT FORM is a niche market; just don’t be surprised that you can’t fill a concert hall with the promise of such music.
Finally to encapsulate all that is wrong with contemporary classical music I would like to quote from the end of the first comment: “8bb *is* the antidote to the pseudo-populist negativity of Sandow.” How arrogant, how elitist is that? Is it any wonder the public stays away?
This is not my first blog on this matter. My website (www.adfcomposer.com) has links to numerous others!
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 7:45 PM ¶Last Friday night I attended a live
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 8:23 PM ¶concert here in Wellington, New Zealand, with the NZSO under its Music Director Pietari Inkinen, and Hilary Hahn, doing the Sibelius VC and the Tchaik S.6 The hall was absolutely packed (3,000?), everyone had a great time, and I didn’t run into a single person ruminating about how ‘relevant’ (or not) it was.
Look, folks, I was a little over the top, I admit about the way I said what I said, but I’ve been hearing this debate for such a long time now. My main point is that I think those of us who love art music have to stop apologizing for not being ‘popular.’ Popularity is an overvalued commodity, and certainly is never an adequate measure of the ultimate intrinsic worth of whatever.
I will answer Melissa’s point about Liszt by noting that the phenomenon that she’s talking about really only had to do with a portion of the wealthier European public of that time. The problem with talking about the ‘popularity’ of Liszt in the 19th century is compounded by the fact that the writers of that time in reporting this were only interested in their own class and higher, which is to say a true elite. In the 19th century, the vast majority (90+%) of the population was rural and poor, and in the cities only the tiniest percentage had the means to be consumers of art music. In many respects, art music reaches a far wider and more democratized audience now than it ever did in history — and, it is also far better played than it ever has been.
Many of the things I was talking about here are actually rather America-specific. Yes, I am interested in how television has and can disseminate art music and I was citing the specifically American example of how our broadcast networks have been allowed to abandon ‘high culture’ (for want of a better or less provacative phrase). Turn on the TV today in Germany or Sweden and you can see chamber music, opera, symphony programs, hell, sometimes you can even hear some of my music. Easy access to the arts in this way — and by extension through the Internet, of course — is how we build the lifetime habit of dipping into the vast array of options that the arts have to offer. The American model of everything necessarily being for profit and hence engineered to draw in the largest possible audience is not the only available paradigm. And it hasn’t been the only available paradigm even in our recent history. It bears remembering, for example, that Arturo Toscanini’s main gig for which he became so well-known after coming to the US was as music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
My main reason for talking about the role of broadcasting in the past was simply to point out that there have been other mechanisms available in our own past and that the abandonment of some of them in the interests of the corporate bottom line has been detrimental to our culture at large.
I am deeply concerned about the increasing monopolization of our airwaves by a tiny handful of media conglomerates, and, if we’re not careful the same thing could happen to the Internet. As our previous President once observed with frightening candor, “Money sometimes trumps peace.” And, by extension, money usually trumps just about everything else if we let it.
I don’t think that these are elitist positions and certainly not in any way against the DIY efforts of composers getting their work out by whatever means possible. I use the term ‘art music’ for want of a better phrase since ‘classical music’ is just as inadequate if not moreso. I do find it curious, though, that while people don’t seem to have much problem in accepting that there is a significant difference in artistic quality between Robert Ludlum, say, and Philip Roth, they get all bent out of shape about the idea that what I’m calling ‘art music’ might be the musical equivalent of Philip Roth. That is not to say that Ludlum’s work might not be every bit as enjoyable to read for many reasons, but in the end I think Roth emerges as the superior artist.
And, Andrew, when I said that I considered 8bb the antidote to what I felt is Sandow’s negativism, I meant that the overwhelmingly inclusive and positive attitude that they manifest in their performances and programming shows that they have hit upon a singularly powerful, non-didactic way to reach audiences. They focus on the music itself and work from the basic assumption that all their programming deals with works that want nothing more than to communicate directly with the audience. This is not an arrogant stance — but telling us that we ought to turn back to Sibelius and Rachmaninoff as compositional models (as much as I love the former and have no need for the latter) is not a little prescriptive, perhaps even a tad arrogant.
Finally, Chris, I don’t think I was ‘schooling’ you. I don’t even think that we disagree all that much. I’m afraid that Greg Sandow gets under my skin and I wonder who died and made him God when it comes to the issue of the ‘relevance’ of art music in our culture. I think that he has specifically American blinders on and that he fails to take on board important lessons that can be garnered from other countries and from our own cultural history. I think all too often we in art music form a circular firing squad when we lament so much our not being able to go platinum. To me Sandow is the captain of that squad.
Posted 25 Apr 2010 at 10:15 PM ¶Not to hijack this into an Art vs. Pop discussion, but I have to take issue with the literature (Ludlum/Roth) analogy. Despite the obvious – that there are plenty of no-frills pop songs that are just as musically complex as many ‘art songs’ (even if they tend to fall way short of the depth of a Brahms symphony or a Bach cantata) – the comparison ignores a crucial facet of pop music: the production.
I worry that many folks from the classical world judge all music based on the notes, rhythms, counterpoint, etc. – essentially what the score would look like, which is why the literature comparison is so often made. Indeed if one were to take most pop music, be it The Beatles or Lady Gaga, the notes and rhythms laid out onto a score would look pretty simple. But that is only a fraction of where the care and work come into play. The producers behind the scenes meticulously shaping the audio work with just as much care and skill as ‘art music’ composers. No one would have heard of The Beatles if it weren’t for Sir George Martin. Behind every pop artist today is a producer (or producers), many of whom’s artistry is astounding, even if they tend to be ignored by the classical music establishment.
Whereas composers write crescendos they automate faders; whereas composers build sonic textures with instruments they create them. The crucial decisions about mic-placement, compression levels, synth patches, reverb, mixing, stereo panning, and hundreds of other facets are *musical* decisions. And whereas a great pop album might sound like a collection of loosely-related songs to the untrained ear, it is truly a unbelievably complex symphony of audio sounds, usually with hundreds or thousands of hours put in by the producers and engineers.
The relative simplicity of the notes and rhythms in pop music, in comparison to classical music, is no more a sign of its inferiority than the relative simplicity of the production in classical music recordings.
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 8:35 AM ¶@MattMarks: If you want to argue that putting together a 38-minute pop record is more complex than stitching together 4 orchestral concerts into an 80-minute symphonic recording, that’s an argument I’m happy to have. You’ve made records; you know that classical producers make all kinds of decisions in post-production, and don’t just leave the raw audio on display in the final product. But this shouldn’t be an us-vs-them thing: They both present unique challenges. Which take goes in? How much reverb do you put in to prop up the basses? How high should the dynamic ceiling be? Can you find another take where their violas are more in tune, but the brass still come in together? Not even to get started on proper mic placement for getting 100+ musicians captured accurately. That classical producer has nearly as much control over that crescendo as the conductor did.Pop producers make all kinds of decisions, and so do classical producers. They’re both recognized for their skill, so why claim a spurious primacy for the pop crowd?
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 10:00 AM ¶Matt — Nowhere in this discussion have I made any assertion that pop music is inferior in any way to art music. My comparison invoking Roth and Ludlum was simply to point out that we recognize some sort of fundamental difference between the two and just because Ludlum outsells Roth by orders of magnitude doesn’t make us necessarily run around with our hair on fire saying that the artistic values which Roth’s work embodies are doomed. This all began as a discussion of Greg Sandow’s riffing on art music becoming irrelevant — and my feeling is that his approach to the question is profoundly unhelpful, essentially granting license to dismiss art music altogether. I don’t understand why we can’t simply celebrate the differences between the many forms of musical creation without worrying about the relative popularity of these forms. It is my understanding that Country & Western is actually more popular in the US than Rock in terms of the total number of listeners. Sales statistics show that Classical CDs outsell Jazz by a few scant percentage points. Overall sales of Rap CDs have plummeted in recent years, but no-one is rushing to say that Rap is becoming irrelevant.
Perhaps I could offer a completely different notion: no music, in the sense of notes, melodies, harmonies, and rhythms, can be judged as being relevant or irrelevant. The power of music resides in the way that it plays on the non-verbal parts of our brains. In the case of texted music, I suppose that there is the possibility of considering the relevance of the text to the audience for which the music was created, but I don’t think that is what Sandow was talking about. The main issue with any form of art is whether it speaks to you or not, and does it really matter all that much if your opinion is shared by a million people or by nobody? Yes, art music should use all the technological and other means to get the music out in front of as wide a public as possible, but I think that all the breast-beating, the lamentations about irrelevancy, are just counterproductive. 8bb shows time and again that commitment to the highest production values and the exercise of well-honed taste and aesthetic judgement can lead audiences to embrace even very challenging new music. 8bb never apologizes for what they do, never whines — they just flat out play their best and let the audience decide.
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 10:25 AM ¶Too bad I have to get back to the glamorous work of categorizing transactions from six different eighth blackbird credit cards. Otherwise, I’d enjoy responding in detail to each of the above comments.
Thank you all for the insights and for participating in the discussion. I understand that this is well-tread territory for many of you. For me, however, this is the first time I’ve engaged in this debate outside of a theoretical context, when the perspectives are rooted in real world experiences and have applicable consequences.
My academic side naturally enjoys the dialectic for its own sake, but as eighth blackbird’s administrative director, I’m primarily interested in how all of this relates to their ability to succeed, however they define that for themselves.
Stephen: I said you ‘schooled’ me as a playful way to admit my own ignorance of aspects of the historical place of classical music in American culture. I’ve learned a lot from many of the comments above. Through dialogue such as this, I become more familiar with previous and existing models, their utility and their limitations.
Ultimately, I want to transcend those models and create new and better ones for the next generation, and I believe eighth blackbird is uniquely poised to take on such a challenge. I take it from the very generous feedback about the ensemble that many of you agree. I also believe the entire community benefits when any of us can expand our audience.
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 10:45 AM ¶For a change, the next thread should be one on the relevance of Greg Sandow… That will be a very short one!
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 12:08 PM ¶The Classical music tradition died in its sleep in 1945 after being on life support for the first half of the 20th century, but the music will live on and will continue to be relevant in the way that Shakespeare’s works continue to teach us things about ourselves after all these years.
To say that music being written today is Classical implies one of two things about the composer: either they are too burdened by the past or narcissistically hoping to be preserved in the future. In either case are they irrelevant to the Zeitgeist of Now.
If we instead talk about “Art music”, then we should include groups like Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, The Knife, Sigur Rós, The Antlers, TV on the Radio, Sufjan Stevens, Animal Collective, and so on. By including those groups, Art music lives on, thrives, and is totally relevant.
But, if we dichotomize music by tradition, it’s a different story: Classical music is a written tradition, folk/pop primarily aural. In the last 50 years, the aural tradition has surged in popularity and relevance as recording technology got invented and improved upon. If you care about being relevant today, you can’t ignore the aural tradition; people like Reich and Muhly understand this and borrow from the aural tradition; much of 8bb’s repertoire seems to do the same.
One last thought: perhaps the *music* itself is relevant; perhaps it is just the concert experience that is irrelevant—so 19th century. (Le) Poisson Rouge seems relevant; the Harris doesn’t; Symphony Center just *isn’t*. Perhaps eighth blackbird should set up a residency at Schuba’s or the Empty Bottle in Chicago. Better yet, the Hideout. I saw Different Trains at the Bottle once, and it was fairly well attended and appreciated. [Insert “financially viable” discussion here.]
And since everyone else is doing it, I should mention that I’m a totally narcissistic soon-to-be famous composer who only writes relevant music: http://soundcloud.com/evankuchar
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 12:26 PM ¶@Marc The clear distinction between classical and pop production aspects is that all of the work in a classical recording goes towards serving the score. There are creative engineering decisions being made, but they’re basically as creative as the interpretations being made by the musicians (not that engineers aren’t musicians..).
In contemporary pop recordings, the ‘score’ is the DAW (or analog set-up if you’re still into that..). The production plays a much more creative role than in classical records. That is where textures are created, synth parts added, beats constructed. For many artists, myself included, most of the composition work is done after the recording process. This is hardly true of classical recordings.
I have nothing but the utmost respect for classical producers and engineers, but the comparison is a bit like the orchestral player vs the jazz improviser. I have respect for each, but the jazz player is clearly doing the more creative work. It’s not about superiority, but there’s no need for false equivalence.
I agree that this should not be an us-vs-them thing though. I consider myself to be of both worlds, pop and classical. Increasingly these worlds are melding and it’s lovely to behold.
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 3:18 PM ¶So it’s all settled:
1 — The Cultural Policy Center should have invited Stephen Hartke to speak. And they still should.
2 — No point wagging the GS dog anymore: What’s true isn’t new, what’s new isn’t true.
3 — We need a regime for new music where ALL members of ALL ensembles are issued credit cards and have an administrator to categorize their transactions.
4 — We need to replace all references to Robert Ludlum (1927-2001) with references to Charles Ludlam (1943-1987) and his Manifesto for a Ridiculous Theater (and I’m not joking):
Manifesto:
Ridiculous Theater,
Scourge of Human Folly
by Charles Ludlam
Aim: To get beyond nihilism by revaluing combat.
Axioms to a theater for ridicule:
1. You are a living mockery of your own ideals. If not, you have set your ideals too low.
2. The things one takes seriously are one’s weaknesses.
3. Just as many people who claim belief in God disprove it with their every act, so too there are those whose every deed, though they say there is no God, is an act of faith.
4. Evolution is a conscious process.
5. Bathos is that which is intended to be sorrowful but because of the extremity of its expression becomes comic. Pathos is that which is meant to be comic but because of the extremity of its expression becomes sorrowful. Some things which seem to be opposites are actually different degrees of the same thing.
6. The comic hero thrives on his vices. The tragic hero is destroyed by his virtue. Moral paradox is the crux of drama.
7. The theater is a humble materialist enterprise which seeks to produce riches of the imagination, not the other way around. The theater is an event not an object. Theater workers need not blush and conceal their desperate struggle to pay the landlords their rents. Theater without the stink of art.
Instructions for use:
This is farce not Sunday school. Illustrate hedonistic calculus. Test out a dangerous idea, a theme that threatens to destroy one’s whole value system. Treat the material in a madly farcical manner without losing the seriousness of the theme. Show how paradoxes arrest the mind. Scare yourself a bit along the way.
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 10:22 PM ¶I agree with everything Andrew Patner has posted here with the exception of point #1.
SH
Posted 26 Apr 2010 at 11:31 PM ¶Patner point #3 please. And I’m also with 27. Daniel.
Posted 27 Apr 2010 at 12:21 AM ¶S. Hartke: My main point is that I think those of us who love art music have to stop apologizing for not being ‘popular.’ Popularity is an overvalued commodity, and certainly is never an adequate measure of the ultimate intrinsic worth of whatever.
This I can get behind. Popularity IS an overvalued commodity, and while popularity may be one indication of something’s worth, alone, it is meaningless. When you look back on high school, in retrospect, who was the cool kid? The most popular kid or the nerd in the back of the class who loved photography, say?
I think if you have something meaningful, unique, interesting to say, that you’ll have an audience. The PR campaigns/Twitter fests/hype machines make me sort of queasy when paired with what I consider to be genuine attempts are artistry (take a deep breath). Everyone is trying too hard to be popular and not hard enough on their art. I think a lot of the hype we put out there on the internetz is to convince others (and ourselves too!) of our cultural relevance.
Take a look at many of the marketing campaigns of major symphony orchestras and you’ll see the tragic results of their efforts.
Posted 27 Apr 2010 at 7:48 AM ¶I’m with 32. Jennifer in that 27. Andrew is right on the money. I believe the best way to approach Mr. Sandow’s ideas is to ignore them.
So no more writing about or mentioning Sandow – please!
Posted 27 Apr 2010 at 8:18 AM ¶I might recommend this excellent article by Richard Taruskin about the relationship of classical music to the larger culture that appeared in the New Republic a few years ago.
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/books-the-musical-mystique
Ostensibly it’s a article about three books attempting to connect classical music with a wider audience (or explain the lack thereof), but it’s littered with keen historical facts.
Also, I have to say, cheers to everyone on this thread. I recently attended a lecture with Greg Sandow. I must say, he’s well meaning, but his practical advice ranged from the completely obvious (create a facebook group) to the ludicrious/impossible/unethical (start a guerilla marketing campaign). I’m glad to hear from other voices on this topic.
Posted 27 Apr 2010 at 8:52 AM ¶@SharronStover Yes, the head-in-the-sand approach to dissenting ideas has done wonders for classical music.
Posted 27 Apr 2010 at 10:43 AM ¶Matt.36: No one is sticking their heads in the sand. What some of us are suggesting here is that, if this topic is of any importance at all, we’d be better off paying attention to reliable sources, such as Taruskin or, for that matter, to what REAL, active musicians and composers have to say, thus ignoring the silly and egocentrical truisms and pontifications of a self-appointed guru. Has anyone listened to Sandow’s “music” (he claims to be a professional composer)? If he had anything to say musically, and possessed the chops to make it happen in a convincing way, he wouldn’t be so worried about the relevance of classical music.
Posted 29 Apr 2010 at 8:05 AM ¶I’d like to respond to the general notion of ‘if you play it, they will come’, and in particular to James Hirschfeld’s comments: “I think if you have something meaningful, unique, interesting to say, that you’ll have an audience . . Everyone is trying too hard to be popular and not hard enough on their art.”
While I understand this perspective, particularly when it is an reaction to an overemphasis on marketing, I’d caution against the very real possibility of slipping into a disregard for the audience or complacency regarding the extraordinarily competitive world of professional performing arts.
For example, none of the birds has commented on this blog. It’s not that they don’t care, they are all reading and discussion the comments, it’s simply that they don’t have time. I’m on the road with them right now and seeing firsthand how much work they put in. Between traveling, loading in setting up, rehearsing, tech, performance, meet & greet, etc., a 12-16 hour day isn’t unusual.
In a very real sense, they are doing what James and other suggest; they’re just focusing on their art. They play music they love. What it’s called, how relevant it is, their popularity, etc., is secondary. No doubt their relentless focus on mastering their craft has been essential to their success.
On the other hand, I am paid to think about these things. So is our publicist, marketing consultant, graphic designer, booking agent, etc. Our Board thinks about these things, and pays us for the privilege. We all collectively think, talk and worry about these issues. We have to if these six musicians we all adore can be let free to just focus on their music, and still pay their rent.
eighth blackbird performed Rinde Eckert and Steve Mackey’s Slide at the Harris Theater in Chicago recently. We had a very small audience and lost money. We didn’t have a small audience because eighth blackbird didn’t have something “meaningful, unique, interesting to say”; we had a small audience because I didn’t market the show well.
The more I focus on eighth blackbird’s popularity, the more their audience grows, the more money they make, the more they can concentrate on creating great art. This is not a new formula.
I don’t think James is suggesting that artists work without any regard as to how their art reaches an audience. I’m confident he is rather cautioning against paying too much attention to it at the expense of the art itself. I am just likewise cautioning artists against taking for granted the tremendous amount of work it takes to make an audience aware that the art is out there. An independent artist needs to know who their audience is, what they want, who else their competing with for an audience’s time and money, how to market, etc. If such an artist is lucky and can grow, then they can eventually pay someone else to do all of that.
I just realized: arts administrators are really matchmakers. Call me Yenta.
Posted 29 Apr 2010 at 12:34 PM ¶Chris — That’s pretty brave to say why you think “Slide” sold so poorly. Refreshing to see such honesty and openness as yours — and throughout this whole set of exchanges as well. Thank you.
Posted 29 Apr 2010 at 3:45 PM ¶Perhaps all debate about the demise or wondrous rebirth of art music, definitions of same, self-recrimination of marketing efforts, plans to hold concerts in new or unusual places, efforts to dress up, dumb down, increase market share, or up one’s status on the playlists of imaginary educated people who discuss theater but not art/classical/contemporary/other music…should be abandoned..because haven’t these things been debated and attempted enough yet? (if no, then repeat from beginning until happy or sad)
Perhaps the issue is with the compositions themselves. Our original writer (who probably no longer ever wishes to write anything ever again, but I hope I’m incorrect) wrote: “There is a sense, I believe, that while enjoying new theater only requires you to be human and open, appreciating new music requires training, initiation into the secret meaning of all those farts and squeaks.”
Exactly…but not because of the sense of required initiation, but let’s highlight the last three words: “Farts and Squeaks” (blog/band name, anybody?)
Not every composer is great, though they should strive daily to be. Not every work they produce is a masterpiece, though they should yearn for it to be so. Maybe everybody should do the best they can, at composing, performing, marketing, etc…and just relax about the meta-issues of the State Of Art Music As We Know It, And Our Impending Doom Or Victory.
“Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.”
Posted 05 May 2010 at 2:26 PM ¶I’ve thought of an appropriate designation for a discussion like this: zombie topic. Everyone says it’s dead, but it’s still up and running. And trying to eat your brain.
Thanks all.
Posted 28 Jun 2010 at 11:46 AM ¶Chris,
Thank you for the fantastic discussion and for your refreshing honesty. I am a big fan of 8bb and Steve Mackey but when I saw Slide last summer at Ojai last summer I was bored out of my mind. I don’t expect you to agree but I don’t think the problem is your marketing skills but that in this case there is a lack of something “meaningful, unique, interesting to say.” The 8bb recital at Stanford next spring is the first opportunity to see the group that I will pass up.
I am looking forward to the next 8bb project whatever it is!
Posted 10 Aug 2010 at 12:05 AM ¶Chris, I hope you’re paying attention to the enormous amount of blow back against Mr. Sandow and his ideas after his entirely unjustified attack against Heather Mac Donald. The outpouring of people finally willing to stand up and push back against this bully by saying that he is wearing no clothes is refreshing.
The comments in Ms. Mac Donald’s articles sums up the surge of anti-Sandow Declinism can be found here: http://www.city-journal.org/comments/index.php?story=6427
Add to that some very insightful words from Drew McManus and a number of additional comments here: http://www.adaptistration.com/2010/08/13/an-ugly-war-of-words/
Posted 16 Aug 2010 at 12:17 AM ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 3
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