Mind the Gap: February 2010 Archives

I was working on a video editing project this past week, and after pulling a couple of samples from a Vijay Iyer solo show at The Stone in New York City, I kept replaying the last few seconds of the tape. Something looked...amiss. Still, come on, there was no way a fan would actually come for the set and then stay to steal Vijay's timepiece right off the piano (even though that certainly looked like what the guy was up to). Apparently, sad but true! What is up with the music consumer these days? First they demand free MP3s, then they come back for your jewelry?

Thankfully, Vijay says it was not a valuable item and he is not seeking vengeance, but he posted the clip on YouTube and tweeted out an invite to remix the footage if that's your thing. I think I can hear Keith Morrison's voiceover already...

I had not already heard of the Toronto-based Art of Time Ensemble when I read about them today over on The Collaborative Piano blog, but--this being Mind the Gap--when Chris Foley pointed out that the ensemble "seeks to bring classical and non-classical genres closer together in new and untried ways" I certainly couldn't pass it by. And I got pretty hooked on the video (well, not as hooked as I am on this video. But close!).

I like it. Melodramatically poetic, beautiful camera work, includes Angelina Jolie look-alike with a gun. Engaging! Is this how straight-up art song once fired the imagination of the audience (particularly if you spoke German) back in the day? Now I kind of want to see them take up some lieder just to see what happens, and yet I also grasp why that is a terrible idea.

Awww, damn. One of my favorite composers breaks into major motion pictures, and it's a movie I am quite frankly too terrified to go and see. Ingram Marshall and Shutter Island were not things I expected to see linked when I first saw the trailer for this little tale of horrors--though there is clearly fog--but it doesn't even stop there. The soundtrack also includes music by John Cage, John Adams, Max Richter, Brian Eno, Giacinto Scelsi, Krzysztof Penderecki, György Ligeti, and...it just keeps going. I'm completely intrigued, and now musically freaked in a completely different capacity. Maybe I can take hold of my fear, dig my nails into my husband's forearm, and hit the cineplex to endure this terrifying tour de cliché just to catch how the soundtrack works!?!

Um, no, wait, you go ahead. Think I'll wait for the DVD so I can cling to a blanket in the privacy of my own home.

Two strategies for meeting butts-in-seats goals:

1) Hold it out of reach: NC-17

"could shock an unprepared spectator"

This reeks a bit of the bait and switch, so I can't quite get behind the idea of trying to titillate patrons into purchasing tickets when the final product offers anything but. That said, some of this stuff is pretty raunchy.

[via Proper Discord]

2) Put it in easy reach: Thank You for Being a Friend

On the other side of the coin--or cookie, as the case may be--there's something to be said for melding your social networking strategies with good, old-fashioned, real-life friend making. In my experience, people like to feel that they genuinely belong to a scene and to believe that their presence at an event is important (at the very least) or actually makes the event itself better (at the very best). Your fans don't have to become best friends, but the chance to exchange a few words or contribute personal time/talent to a project can turn a casual attender into an invested fan. All you need is a comfortable opportunity.

Not doomed! Or perhaps only just more doomed than we could ever have thought possible?

Wait, wait: nope, seriously doomed.

Okay, clearly I overplay my hand. But I wanted to point these pieces out. I got a lot out of considering the myriad perspectives proffered, including some of the comments.

Since getting all excited yesterday about my experience at a Baltimore Symphony concert, I've been thinking a bit more about some of the related issues. When does an orchestral performance connect with me? It seems to be happening more and more these days (because, when I thought about it, I remembered what a great time I had visiting the LA Phil in December--What an ensemble! What a program! What a hall!). Am I just getting older, are the orchestras changing, or have I been lucking into great programs matching my tastes and we've been meeting in the middle somewhere? Couple of ideas on why I'm so satisfied of late:

1. It's not a huge investment for me anymore, so the risk is lower and the pressure is off. Granted, $25 is still too steep for a lot of people, but for me and my interests, that fits into my budget a few times a year without hurting too much. I am only willing/able to shell out much more for a very special performance, though I don't discriminate based on what type it is: rock, theater, opera, whatever. This year it was American Buffalo at the Steppenwolf Theatre.

2. More on connection. I know sometimes the banter is annoying for those in the hall, even if the speaker is charismatic. But how many people are that "in the know" anymore? I'm not sure I've even heard all of Beethoven's symphonies, but I've performed several of them. Point is, the days of Lenny teaching us about all the great rep while we're just kids watching TV are over. Now we're all walking around with crazy-diverse knowledge bases. If information is an important part of making a connection with the piece, let's have it. (I also like reading the wall tags at museums, though I try not to spend more time doing that than actually looking at the art.) Personally, I'd like to see someone with the budget try out little program note movies, on par with those amazing documentary films they make about all the Kennedy Center honorees.

But then I also saw this quote on the Baltimore Sun Food Critic's blog that I can't shake when it comes to my own cultural engagement. She wrote this after receiving an email from a restaurant urging patrons to come out and support their favorite establishments, many of which have been hit by hard economics and heavy snow.

No one loves eating out or sympathizes with the plight of restaurants in a recession more than I do. But it's an odd feeling to feel I ought to go out. After all, most people go out to have a nice evening, not to feel as if they're taking part in a charitable event.

She wants to support the places she loves, much as I want to support music I value in my community. But can that be continually personally fulfilling in the way a good night out is supposed to be and that fosters repeat customers? It may get a small group in the door from time to time, but not much else. And that can't be a satisfying attitude for the performers to confront when they take the stage every night either.

"Welcome! We're so glad you could join us this evening."

Normally this much enthusiasm from a concert hall ticket collector would have hit me as false, but seeing as we had all trekked through several feet of snow to attend this Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert, I (on behalf of my frozen ears) was also a little more excited than usual to now be inside the hall. It was a good feeling to share that with someone else as I defrosted.

Maybe it also hit me so strongly because earlier in the day I had read Proper Discord's analysis of the Philadelphia Orchestra's recent marketing snafu. The post ends with this kill shot: "[T]he problem isn't that people have never been to the symphony. The problem is that they have been to the symphony, and they didn't have a good enough time." Ah, yes indeed. I thought I knew exactly what he meant, but here I was already having a good time just because a few people in the lobby had made me feel welcome and valued in some pretty basic customer service-y ways (the guy at the box office had also been notably congenial).

I don't usually go to orchestra concerts just for my own amusement. Not that I don't enjoy them, but when I happen to go I'm almost always there on some work-related mission. However, since this time I was holding a ticket to see my husband Brian make his debut playing with the BSO (Pictures at an Exhibition was on the program and he was called in for the saxophone solo) my attitude was admittedly a bit tweaked towards personal recreation. In good spirits after that initial greeting, I decided I would do my best to shed everything I thought I knew about going to the symphony and see if Proper Discord's theory held up for me on this particular night with this particular ensemble. I walked through all the lobby spaces where people were gathered for a quick drink or snack before the show. Admittedly nothing too glamorous, but everyone seemed to be enjoying their night out. During the performance, conductor Marin Alsop told a couple stories and cracked just a few well-timed jokes from the podium to keep the 4th wall from creeping up and cutting the crowd off from what the 70-some musicians were creating on stage. That's all just the trappings, of course, but I think being open to and engaged in hearing much of the orchestral repertoire in 2010 hinges on fostering that connection between the mass of performers on stage and the audience members out in the dark of the hall. Without it, the most transcendental musical experience has an uphill fight on its hands. It doesn't always have to be made through banter, but it needs to be made.

Potential hurdles to engagement and good-time having acknowledged, though the musicians were wearing tails, this neither added to nor detracted from my experience in any way. A wardrobe update might not be a bad move, but I see no need for an emergency trip to American Apparel to make them over. In fact, if I hadn't heard that "too stuffy and formal" complaint about orchestras made familiar through so much industry chatter, it wouldn't necessarily have crossed my mind. And when they turned and smiled, giving a nod to the crowd as they received the applause, they swiftly skirted another common point of criticism. And that one is non-negotiable with me. If your presence as a patron at a live concert event is never acknowledged by anyone, not even by the musicians you are listening to and applauding for, it's kind of creepy and you have to wonder why you didn't just stay home and listen to a CD. An orchestra of unsmiling, miserable looking people leaves everyone feeling depressed. This retroactively ruins the good-time having under discussion here.

While waiting for Brian in the lobby after the show, the only thing I could think of to make the space even more comfortable and welcoming to the community (and possibly "attract new audiences" and all that jazz) was if there was a way to open it up to people more regularly beyond the big shows. A cafe with wi-fi, hosted community events, anything that created more reasons to consider going into the building itself and making it a place on more people's regular city circuit.

So, experiment concluded, I had paid my $25 and been to the symphony and in this case I did have a good enough time--so good I'll probably be going again, just for fun.

If you have ever written or performed a piece of music that someone has said something unkind about or if you have ever said something unkind about a piece, well, I guess this is pretty much for all of us.

[via BoingBoing]

Jay-Z and the voice of Rihanna opened Super Bowl XLIV with a remix of "Run This Town" featuring The Rutgers Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kynan Johns (read up on that here). The tweet lines immediately lit up with reviews of "dope" and "sick."

So seriously, kind of America's truest orchestral music in 2010 if we're going to get all genre merged and democratic about it, right? All the way down to the high drama, fireworks spectacle, and pulse-manipulating production values...you know, orchestra music. Enjoy it or hate it, in light of that big, scary, plummeting audience graph, it's worth being conversant about, me thinks.

Well, we survived Snowpocalypse 2010 here in Charm City, and maybe the most striking thing about the weekend--aside from the 26" of snow, at least--is how silent it's been compared to our normal urban life. I mean that in the most literal acoustic sense. No traffic except for the snow plows, no going out aside from short trips to admire the views or excavate the car. In those bursts of activity, though, the scrape of the shovel or the drip of the melting ice actually seems amped up to 11.

We talk a lot around here about the insane weight of all the information we're digitally consuming these days, but even a short break from the sensory assault we usually function under seems to have recharge something fundamental in my ears. Maybe "normal" is also "too much" in a way that it would pay to be more frequently mindful of independent of Mother Nature's urgings.

Empty ear candy or the resonant soundtrack of our lives (even if some tunes make us want to claw mercilessly at our ears)?

I'm thinking about this because even the classic rock that meant the most to my dad, say, I still have rattling around in my brain tied firmly to his life experiences (or my imagined/absorbed versions of them). In many cases, music holds all the history of my life and strongly shapes the way I experience the world. And talk about blurred genre boundaries and autobiographical organization of records.

A question with your Wednesday morning coffee: Share or just give it a minute's personal reflection, but what sounds, profound or not, illustrate the arc of your life?

Despite the many adventures, sonic and otherwise, offered by the Grammy's on Sunday night, I think it was specifically a reference to the performance by "Italian opera star" Andrea Bocelli that truly had my hand smacking my forehead. It wasn't just that "classical music" was hidden away from the prime time audience (which, if you check out the numbers, would be somewhat hard to argue with), but that the field was actually being painted over with something else entirely while everyone was looking.

On Monday morning reflection, it seemed like the intonation disasters and unfortunate genre collisions were obvious to fans of all persuasions. But it drove home an issue that seems to be much on the minds of performing arts administrators across the land as they consider the numerous studies released of late covering the health of the field: what are we really talking about when we talk about "the arts and culture" in America? Opera performances and symphony orchestra concerts? Does jazz, which is, after all, "America's classical music," count, or is there not enough gold leaf in those venues? The NEA tacked on "Latin, Spanish, or salsa music" to their arts participation study in 2008. The Americans for the Arts National Arts Index included figures for "Attendance at Live Popular Music" but the majority of the report seemed squarely focused on the more traditional non-profit institutions and the constituencies they serve. Perhaps most tellingly, when the Fine Arts Fund in Cincinnati conducted their research, they found that the survey participants ("average Cincinnatians") did not define "the arts" or "culture" in the same way that the field's insiders used these same terms. "Arts could be things like roller-skating, if you do it that way," said a 49-year-old man. Interpretive roller derby, anyone?

So as we motivate our way every day towards a more "democratic" creative culture, lowering the hurdle to participation through slick software and communications technology, will we need to shift our definitions and lose the death grip we have long held on the European derived "high arts" or do we need to clamp down even harder or risk being washed away in the muddle? Can we shake ourselves awake and figure out how we want to connect with our communities before we slip further from American consciousness? Reviewing these arts reports and considering the Grammy performances, I can see why a little rain cloud might feel like it's hovering over American culture at the moment, but on reflection I considered all the art being created that also didn't see the light of day on CBS that night, and suggest that it's not quite a Rome Before the Fall scenario. Maybe, actually, we can look at the Grammy train wreck as an indication that the Billboard charters are the ones on that path, and with some planning, perhaps we can capture new ears desperate for something better.

Related: The mom sitting across the aisle from me on this Amtrak train is telling her friend all about how heartwarming it was to see that "creepy weird girl" perform with Elton, so you know, there's also that. Watch out, Michael Buble. She's coming for you!