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WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE ABOUT CLASSICAL MUSIC.
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Srini Kumar, genius sloganeer and counterculturalist, used to sell a bumper sticker that read “Destroy what bores you on sight.” I suggest orchestras heed this advice. Why belabor it? Players are uncomfortable. Audiences are visually bored. Nobody knows what’s going on. Can we all agree to move on? Okay. Enough.
The first quote comes from the Amazon page for a book by Will Roseliep, The Libertine’s Guide to the Classical Music Revolution. 3.99, only for Kindle. It’s also on a page from Will’s website , on which he promotes the book.
The second quote is from the book itself.
As you might guess, I like this book.
More quotes:
Classical music needs a street team. It needs to feel like the fledgling startup. It needs to marry young talent with marketing genius. It needs high visibility and zero pretension. Fuck being “relevant” or “contemporary,” it needs to be the hottest ticket, a scene unto itself, a whole underclass of workers ready for the breakout moment. It requires hard work.
We need smaller orchestras, slimmed-down school curricula, reasonable expectations for audience interest, better financial standing for orchestras, less stuffiness in performance, a revitalized reputation, and [my emphasis] a seat at the table in the pop culture marketplace.
Which is exactly what I mean when — many times — I’ve said that classical music needs to join the contemporary world
Another quote:
Everyone who works on classical radio should be required to listen to Funkmaster Flex. Flex is a DJ on New York’s Hot 97 who breaks young hip hop and R&B talent on his show. Like the best DJs he plays new songs many times in a shift. Sometimes once an hour. Flex talks over songs. He drops in bombs and sound effects. He brings in artists for wild interviews. He loves a good rumor, and isn’t afraid to stir it up on Twitter.
Best of all, Funkmaster Flex is a showman. He’ll play your song but not right away. Maybe he’ll play a verse. Maybe he’ll talk it up for an hour, tease the intro, then put it back on the shelf. It’s magic. People want what he’s got, and he knows it. Most classical stations are commercial free. That means almost unlimited time to say something, anything. And most say nothing at all.
Will is way ahead of me. I talk about a future in which classical music is part of popular culture. But Will goes further. He embodies that future. Except that for him it’s not the future. It’s the present — a present that he lives in, without worrying (at least in any visible way) about how many others do.
His book is a call to shake things up. In fewer than 100 pages, he makes suggestions — caring, sharp, and precise — for classical radio, classical recording, orchestral concerts, and conservatories. He’s a producer for Boston Public Radio, so he knows media. And he’s a cellist, a founding member of the Cambridge [MA] Philharmonic. So he knows music.
The quotes will tell you what the book is like. I won’t bother for now with anyone who thinks it’s outrageous. Let them build classical music’s future their own way. But I’m just a bit concerned that even sympathetic professionals, reading Will, might think that he’s an outsider. That he doesn’t quite know how things really go, inside the biz.
But isn’t that why they should read him? If Will’s ideas don’t seem practical to you (or aren’t focused enough on how you think things really work) then adapt them! We should welcome anyone who tells us to listen to Funkmaster Flex. If there were a classical music show like it, I’d be listening. Of course it wouldn’t offer what we like to think is the sacred classical music experience, listening to masterworks at full unbroken length, in rapt silence. But it wouldn’t be meant to. (And whether — once classical music has been reborn, and takes its proper place in our culture — we really want the purest rapt experience…that’s a question the future will answer. But for now, rapt and Funkmaster Flex can coexist.)
ADDED LATER:
A simple thing I should have said: That the book is an exhilarating read. I may have implied that, or showed you by quoting so much, but still I should have said it.
And I’m getting some pushback on Facebook about Che Guevara on the cover. Not, someone said, a very 2015 statement. I might wonder at that, too, but other things are more important. First, the book! Not to be judged by its cover. And second, neither the commenter nor I know how the cover is playing out in the world. Maybe the image strikes a chord. As a child of the sixties — or more precisely, a young adult of the sixties — I’m surely not the one to judge. My own reaction to Che, formed way back then, and revised since, is more than a little old.
Will also has a weekly email, called Classical Music Dark Arts. He talks about classical music from his rest-of-the-culture view. Which means he sometimes talks about things that aren’t classical music. And which then teaches a powerful lesson. Many of us think we have to stay firmly on message, and not digress into things that don’t put classical music front and center. But I think Will proves that — at least for many people like him (and me) — the message is stronger if it breathes some outside air.
This is the second of three posts about unusual new classical music books. The first was Sarah Robinson’s how-to guide about classical musicians playing in clubs, which I’ve already blogged about. The third will be Adam Tendler’s 88×50: A Memoir of Sexual Discovery, Modern Music and The United States of America. A book that can’t be pigeonholed, but might — in one of its many facets — be described like this: In our age of classical music entrepreneurship, you can, for real, build a career from something quixotic but newsworthy, like Tendler’s tour of all 50 US states, playing a program of modern American piano music, sometimes for tiny audiences. But to really do it right, you have to bring all of yourself into it, and let your audience know all of yourself. Which is why sexual discovery belongs in the musical part of Tendler’s story…
It’s a wonderful idea, of course, somehow to give classical music “a seat at the table of pop culture.” But, what if pop culture won’t let it sit down? Pop culture is all about capital, and capital is power. It does not care about equal rights for this or that type of product. Profit is the sole definition of success, and classical music doesn’t make a profit. End of story — until somebody builds a different table.
Ken, that’s a radically wrong — just so radically wrong — description of what happens in popular culture. For so many reasons! One of which is that to make a profit you have to do something that’s worth people’s attention, and often that’s something pretty wonderful. Compare, for example, what HBO puts on the air with what PBS does. HBO takes the prize both artistically _and_ commercially.
As for pop music, I can tell you, after working in that field for a number of years, that you couldn’t be more wrong. It offers a landscape of freedom, where people can do what they like, often on their own. And often things find an audience (and a market) that don’t seem commercial at all. If popular culture lets Lou Reed come to the table with a double album of grinding electronic noise, and Josephine Foster can come with a CD of German lieder, sung in German to guitar accompaniment, with overlays of electric guitar noise…well, pretty much anything is possible. The Tchaikovsky Concerto (which did in fact score high on the pop charts when Ven Clibrun recorded it) would be much less of a leap.
Ah. Now I understand that pop culture brought us the genius of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber as a result of people doing as they pleased, and not out of any desire to make money. 🙂 Seriously, I do agree with you that people should be free to do as they wish and to explore (of course), but when that exploration is pegged to the possibility of realizing enormous profits, the result is McDonalds for the vast majority. Quality and creative potential are sacrificed to marketing for the sake of marketing. At least, this is true so far as I can see.
Totally easy — and a completely cheap shot — to cite dumb things (or things you think are dumb) from popular culture. When the whole point is that it’s greatly varied, running all the way from trash to profound art. Just as high culture does. You may think the commercial conditions of popular culture (which I bet you don’t know much about) encourage cheap stuff, but I’d suggest the opposite. The nonprofit conditions of high culture make people (like orchestras or public TV) frightened, both of losing their established audience and of losing their donors and corporate supporters.
Whereas in the commercial world, commercial companies can afford to take a shot with something artistic, new, and unusual, when they think there might be a market for it. The history of pop music in the rock era is a history of big record companies forever running to catch up with where their audience is. Twice since the ’50s they’ve had to restaff, when their existing staff didn’t understand musical trends (like ’60s rock, or indie rock in the ’80s) that had grown up without any commerce behind them.
A long discussion, Ken. Beware of facile answers. And ask yourself how Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bjork, Elvis Costello, Prince, Led Zeppelin, and so many others with high artistry became big-market idols. And remember that there are many tiers of commerce, that you have people who aren’t mass-market doing respectably well. Listen to Aphex Twin and Radiohead (who actually have sold millions of albums), Google Steve Reich’s comments about working with both, and, again, beware easy generalizations.
Not intended as a cheap shot. Just an observation. BTW, this whole discussion hinges on how we define “quality.” That, really, should be the fundamental discussion. So, yes, I agree that it is a subject requiring lengthy consideration.
PS – My comments were not meant as any sort of attack. I admire the work you do to bring to our attention new avenues for classical music performance. I just have serious doubts about the current economic system being amenable to classical music.
The conflict between classical music and pop culture is more an issue of ideology than finance. Some evidence will make it much clearer. To start with, a few examples of popular music from the far reaches of the European continent:
youtu.be/EOdU_ZoEp_o
youtu.be/ETU-FEgmvvU
youtu.be/1-SN449pPYg
As with popular songs elsewhere, they are predictable and would be uninteresting to someone accustomed to classical music. However, they are still quite musical, without spastic rhythms, slurred pitches, whiny singing or other torture devices that are so common in more western areas. One might wonder why western musicians have lower quality standards. The other useful examples are from underground musicians in central Europe:
youtu.be/J0N28KJpbqw
youtu.be/TG0ek9zNcUU
youtu.be/G_SIpUzJFAg
Not only has no major record label has ever signed a band in this style, but no relatively large independent label has either. These kinds of bands attract smaller audiences than the musicians above, despite living in much less remote areas. Yet these songs, while also predictable and repetitive, are also without the unmusical effects constantly used in popular music, and this time have strong classical elements. It seems strange that these bands are as extremely unpopular as they are.
Over the past decade, countless forums for musicians have been full of people raving about blues and classic rock (which are probably not as profitable to play right now as rap or bubblegum pop), and complaining about how pop music in America today has somewhat less blues influence than in 1970, or screaming at younger people who think some classic rock bands are slightly overrated. A similar situation applies to classical music articles, many of which are full of gushing comments about jazz. If few people profit heavily from actually playing jazz, I doubt journalists are being paid large amounts to praise it in other articles. These people clearly have another agenda.
I would not generally like to mix art with politics, but it is worth noting that politicians and activists have made observations that fit this situation perfectly, while musicians have failed to do so. Vojislav Seselj, formerly of the Serbian Radical Party, writes in his book about the “American pseudo-culture using the deafening noise of electric instruments to intentionally separate us from our national song”. Anton Brylkov has written for evrazia.org about a “western musical weapon to force out traditional Russian musical culture” that “affects the listener as poison”. Alexander Dugin has accused the west of destroying its own culture and then setting out to destroy others. I have explained elsewhere that “the promotion of mainstream rock and rap towards the general public may just look like a defect of capitalism, but the promotion of jazz and indie rock amongst classical musicians reveals that some Americans really have an agenda of depriving ethnic Europeans, first within the USA and now outside of it, of their own music”. These observations explain in part why the most tolerable mainstream music comes from places like isolated areas of the former Soviet Union, why music in central Europe that actually sounds European is marginalised, the hysterical promotion of blues and jazz amongst musicians long after they have lost much of their popularity, and why classical music is now so poorly supported, especially within the USA.
Interesting, Dymitry. I was on the way to a show in Cincinnati yesterday and have been listening to the radio while on the road lately. I actually came across a station which played an Indian music show from 11 to 2pm and most of the tunes played were old classic Bollywood tunes from the 30s/40s. The Bollywood Music Awards regularly draw an average of 6 or 7 times the viewership of the US Grammy Awards–which really shouldn’t be surprising since India has more than three times the population of the US. What we all consider “Pop” (as a shorthand for “Popular”) is invariably parochial.
What you’re talking about reminds of the the Cultural Imperialism Thesis that was much discussed in academic circles here in the states during the 80s. It’s the idea that US and Western Culture was a colonial enterprise that destroyed local cultures. In that vein the exportation of [Anglo-American] Pop music was destroying local indigenous pop music cultures of other countries. A study led by Deanna Robinson and a team of researchers (recounted in her “Music at the Margins: Popular Music and Global Cultural Diversity”) was done to test how much Anglo-American Pop music was affecting other music cultures.
Two things were concluded–Anglo-American Pop music just wasn’t as popular as the researchers feared. Many of the musicians in various countries were influenced more by local, regional, and neighboring musical styles than Western Pop music. Since Pop music wasn’t nearly as pervasive as they researchers thought, then the whole Cultural Imperialism Thesis (as it applied to Pop Music and indigenous music cultures) had little force and wasn’t nearly as much of a global problem as feared.
I think we in the States tend to get an overinflated sense of how “universal” and “popular” our pop music is, but it’s always nice to have the perspective of folks views from outside of our countries (or to recognize how small our audience is relative to some global audiences) to put some of these things into perspective.
I get the impression that all these discussions equate “classical music” with large forms–symphonies and operas. But the vast body of classical music is made up of small and accessible works–chamber music. There’s an amazingly vast repository of works for solo instruments, duos, trios, quartets, and quintets (with and without piano). It seems to me that a well-focused, well-planned program of violin sonatas and trios would be a practical and accessible way to bring classical music to a broader public. Who could resist the Faure Sonata for violin and piano in A Major (for just one out of a thousand possible examples)?
What I’m trying to say is that classical music does not have to have a fit in public in order to attract and hold attention.
Hi Bob,
I agree with you — the music can and will sell itself. There is a glut of pieces for us to feast on, too. But I think that only goes for diehards and the newly-curious as far as classical goes.
It’s harder to sell your proposed Faure Sonata for violin & piano in A Major to people who don’t know what a sonata is, who Faure is, or why it matters that the title includes the key of the piece. We can’t be mad at them for not knowing, because classical music (sadly) isn’t taught to non-musicians much anymore. BUT, we do have a great program waiting for them. So how do we sell it?
I’d say, make a 30-second trailer on Youtube. Include good visuals, a climactic point in the piece. And then steer them to where they can see the whole thing, because they’re going to want to see/hear it.
Or, you could put a movement of the sonata on a mixtape you hand off to a non-classical-savvy friend. Let the music work its magic.
People will “get it” right away — not in the sense that they’ll be able to break down all the chord progressions and weird harmonies that Faure uses, but they will understand it at a gut level. And that’s all it takes to get them coming back for more.
BobG, yes, there’s usually a lot of Sampling/Selection bias in these discussions about Classical Music and its decline.
There are tons of things we don’t discuss outside of the SOBs (Symphonies, Operas, Ballets) in these discussions other than chamber music. Here’s a list of organizations I’ve been tracking and collecting data about over the past few years (links for each category included):
Choral Groups (there are puportedly 270,000 active Choruses in the US as of 2010)
21st Century Opera Organizations (I’ve found over 250 US opera groups formed since 2000)
Non-Traditional Orchestras:
Soundpainting/Improvising Orchestras
Film Score Orchestras
Video Game Orchestras
Mobile Phone and Laptop Orchestras
Arabic Orchestras
Traditional Chinese Orchestras
Latin-American Orchestras
Telematic Orchestras
The vast majority of these organizations were formed after 1950–some of the newer types didn’t even exist until the technology or new techniques became available (e.g. Laptop/mobile orchestras and Soundpainting/Conduction). I’ve barely scratched the surface too–for example, also first formed after 1950 were Baroque Orchestras/Ensembles. The first group, Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s “Concentus Musicus Wien” was formed in 1953. By the 70’s Early Music ensembles were a regular thing. And this paralleled the growth of New Music Ensembles and Orchestras (some of which are listed in the links above).
After 1950 the whole Classical Music field splintered into specializations and I think one of the problems with all these discussions is the lack of recognition of the traditional SOBs as being highly specialized ensembles amongst many others rather than simply the default token representations of the field as a whole.