Whoa…this is the 23d year I’ve taught my course on the future of classical music, at Juilliard. Which gives an idea of how long the classical music crisis has been going on. Way back in 1997 there was concern enough about our future to get me invited to teach. And here I still am.
Here’s the course overview, and the week by week class schedule and assignments.
I always start by asking the students to tell me about themselves, and about why the course interests them. In recent years I’ve been hearing a lot about the perceived isolation of=lives i classical music, from the rest of our culture. One student talked this week about classical music being in a “bubble,” a term I’d use myself.
Or, to put it another way, classical music lives in a space of its own, away from the rest of our culture. And I’d say gap ’s bigger than most of us in the field might realize.
I could give examples from clueless pop culture references made by classical music groups when they reach to the outside world.
But why be negative? I’ll be constructive instead. With an example that shows…
What we need to do
My example comes from the widely read Lifehacker blog, which gives life tips — tech, cooking, finance, having fun, so much else — to mostly younger readers. I love it, read it every day.
On January 14, they had a delightful item called “What’s the Loudest Sound in the Universe?” A speculative, largely conceptual piece, of course, since there isn’t any sound in airless space, and so things like black holes and exploding stars, which create huge disturbances, can’t be heard.
But what if they could? What if we could hear the disturbances they make in plasma around them, the way we hear sound when it makes the air around us move?
Here comes the pop music reference
Much fun to think about. And the writer introduced the item this way:
The human tolerance for sound is, on a galactic level, puny. Volcano eruptions, jackhammer-intensive construction work, My Bloody Valentine concerts—these tinnitus-inducing phenomena are barely whispers besides the majestic, roiling bursts and collisions going on in outer space.
My Bloody Valentine concerts! Referring to an Irish-English band famous for its noise, active in the 1980s and ‘90s, revived in 2007. Not exactly pop chart material, but a major force in indie rock, and very influential. The Lifehacker writer — and of course his editors, the people who run the blog — figured readers would get the reference.
So that’s the world classical music lives in. A world where pop music references are common, where pop music of all kinds is part of the current culture. A world where people — at least the millennials, largely, who read Lifehacker — know who My Bloody Valentine is.
But do we know that world? The world the people we hope will be our future audience live in. Can we talk about, refer to, play with things they know and think about?
I’ll leave the answer to you. Adding only that we’d better move into that world, because if we don’t, how will we talk to the people we need to reach?
About My Bloody Valentine, from their Wikipedia entry:
Their music is best known for its merging of dissonant guitar textures with ethereal melody and unorthodox production techniques…
[Guitarist Kevin] Shields’ effects rig, which is composed largely of distortion, graphic equalizers and tone controls, consists of at least 30 effects pedals and is connected to a large number of amplifiers, which are often set to maximum volume to increase sustain.
During live performances, and in particular the closing song “You Made Me Realise”, My Bloody Valentine perform an interlude of noise and excessive feedback, known as “the holocaust”, which would last for half an hour and often reached 130db. \Shields later remarked “it was so loud it was like sensory deprivation. We just liked the fact that we could see a change in the audience at a certain point.”
Singer Bilinda Butcher was put low in the mix, behind the instrumental sounds, because Shields wanted her vocals to sound like an instrument. Sometimes she’d be awakened from sleep to record, making her buried vocals sound dreamy and sleepy.
Butcher wrote the band’s lyrics, sometimes guided by Shields’ demo tapes of his songs. The demos had no words, but Butcher tried, as she said, “to make his sounds into words.”
Hear My Bloody Valentine: This is “Only Shallow,” from their 1991 album Loveless.
Just commenting to get other comment notifications. Nice blog!
As someone “in” the world of classical music I can only see the world from inside the bubble, but I can say the world in the bubble is moving and moving fast. It includes Tyshawn Sorey, Caroline Shaw and the Knights etc, who operate in a vastly exploded space. I am working on a theory that performances can be more than aural experiences; they can be visual too. Concerts can combine art forms, include dance and the visual arts in an explosive kind of experience, something like what goes on in the Armory. Pop concerts are heavy on electronics, lighting, sound enhancements and larger-than-life experience. Serious music can adopt some of that. The lighting at last night’s CMS concert in Alice Tully helped… it placed the musicians in a lighted space surrounded by darkness.
Definitely the classical music world is changing! The big institutions maybe more slowly, but they’re changing. And definitely making a concert an experience, rather than just music, helps. That doesn’t necessarily mean lighting and electronics. Might just mean the musicians smiling at the audience, saying hello, talking. And playing with real communication, which is rarer (in my view) than it should be.
I talk about these changes in my Juilliard course. What I specifically blogged about, though, is — though related — a different thing. It’s about how we relate to the world outside classical music. And here I might note that you called classical music “serious music,” presumably in contrast to pop. An old usage, once very common, now less so. If the term “serious music” is to be reserved for classical, then we’re making quite a statement about other genres. Jazz isn’t serious? My nephew, a deeply committed jazz musician, wouldn’t be happy to hear that. And of course any number of jazz musicians, including very famous names, wouldn’t be happy either.
Not to mention endless numbers of people in pop. The people in My Bloody Valentine would be surprised to learn they’re not serious. Whether they think of themselves as artists I don’t know, since “arts” and “artist” are loaded terms, thanks to the way the high arts community uses them to privilege some kinds of work over others. There are endless numbers of people in pop music who’ve done what any reasonable person would call art — Kate Bush, Björk, David Bowie, David Byrne, Public Enemy, Beyoncë, Prince, etc., etc., etc. Bob Dylan, who even won the Nobel Prize. Obvious names. I’d like to see this acknowledged in the classical music world, along with the evident (to me) fact that so-called pop music is so most people just plain music, and permeates our society. We live in its world.
Hope I’m not beating a dead horse in assailing you with this! I just think it’s a point that can’t be made enough right now.
Two thoughts: I’ve been happier using the phrase “written music,” most often to say this music is “set up in ways that can’t possibly be improvised.” I call it an “early recording technology.”
“Might just mean the musicians smiling at the audience, saying hello, talking. And playing with real communication, which is rarer (in my view) than it should be.”
I’d say putting audience near the CENTER of concerts has been “antithetical” to the current tradition: the ART must be the central focus, and that maximizes its potential impact for all. Let’s call it European-style. An “American-style clam” will be audience-centric and is an appropriately foreign paradigm for the industry. And yet it could quickly start paying for itself.
Consider this. Classical music (clam) institutions desperately want new audiences (veteran audiences, not so much) and yet it’s unwilling to allow individuals to enjoy the music IN THEIR OWN WAYS. In what concert hall back row can you (“legally”) hum, conduct, grunt in sympathy, gasp in amazement, giggle, have any audible reaction, whisper to your friend, focus your child verbally, and yes, even use a cellphone, while watching a great performance? Some halls, I’m sure. But I’d guess hardly any majors have a section for new audiences, much less a DANCE FLOOR. While it would be expensive to take out any seats, concert halls need a carpeted space in the back for people who hear better on their feet and/or with a drink in their hand. We’re not making spaces for new audiences (except SF Soundbox). Yes, veterans and musicians will complain until it starts bringing in new faces and dollars.
And as for the charge “these people are not learning to listen,” I point out that people hear, see and learn differently today; from the background as well as foreground. The most important thing for me is to get them in the room, consuming music on their own terms, let them decide whether to focus and we’ll suggest ways everyone can go deeper by literally MEDITATING on music. But make a space for “movers.” Let’s be “new-audience-friendly.”
Complementary, naturally, is to make enough of this music work in clubs and around pop culture. I’ve done enough of it to believe in its inevitability.
Powerful, vivid, original thoughts as always. Imagine a concert space with a dance floor! I’m there. And who’s to say dancing would only be for rhythmic pieces? Why not movement (by the audience) to profound, slow music? Thanks so much, Rick!