Music and Demography in America
I'm well aware that chamber music concerts in Seattle are not where you'd go to see a representative sample of America's demography. But as with so many things that seem obvious, when I ask myself "Why not?," I have trouble coming up with a satisfying answer.
Last night I was looking at an audience so white and elderly that were you visiting from another planet, you'd guess that everyone in America is white and elderly--unless you were looking at the musicians themselves.
So, big surprise: Only elderly white people like chamber music. That's so obvious it doesn't bear saying, right? Except that it's not. I cannot think of a single reason why it should be this way.
Mendelssohn's Quartet for Piano and Strings in F minor, Op. 2, was on the program. He composed it when he was a child. If I had no previous cultural knowledge of the kinds of music people tend to like, I would have guessed--wrongly--that no human being alive would listen to that and think, "This is music for old, elite people and I can't see why they like it." Nothing about the music itself suggests why it would be pleasing only to the elderly and affluent. All of my instincts would lead me to predict that the appeal of this music would be universal and that anyone, on first exposure to it, would say, "Hey, that is obviously better than Amy Winehouse."
I get it completely why playing golf, say, would be more appealing to wealthy old people than playing basketball. There are obvious biological and economic reasons for that--recreational golf is fairly physically undemanding but it costs a lot to play it. (I've never played golf: It looks immensely boring to me and I can't afford it.)
But the way that only old white people like Mendelssohn just doesn't make sense. Almost everyone likes looking at animals and almost everyone comes to a similar judgment about them: Tigers are great, slugs, not so much. It would be very odd to discover that only old white people liked looking at tigers, wouldn't it?
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Comments:
Re: Music and Demography in America
I love chamber music and used to go to concerts quite frequently with a diverse group of friends but have completely dropped out of the scene with the arrival of the babies. I hope to get back into it when I have more leisure time.
Could that have something to do with it?
But even so, where are the younger folks sans children?
Also, our culture is doomed.
Apr '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
Speaking for the young out there I would say that "Classical Music" probably gets short end of the stick because it has faded from popular culture. Mendelssohn's music is in so many ways different from Modern Music that it seems strange and foreign. Ask yourself how many young people listen to traditional Japanese music? You'd probably get about the same number as listen to Mendelssohn. Is it because traditional Japanese music is bad? No, it's just very different from what we are used to hearing.
There is another thing preventing young people from going to see things like chamber music. The venues, and decorum of the performances are not very much in line with modern concert experience. Personally, I like just sitting down, being quite and letting the band/orchestra play. I don't think I could have convinced the rest of the Rush audience to do that though when I went to see them live at the United Center. And most of that audience was in their 40's and 50's.
Dec '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
Exposure. How many of the people who aren't at the chamber music concerts have ever heard a single note of it?
May '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
My husband and I go to the Philadelphia Opera a few times a year. I'm always surprised and impressed by the number of young people there.
Mar '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
Don't you think that the composition of the audience reflects how chamber music was taught and enjoyed, say, 25-50 years ago? One suspects that at that time middle and upper class people with means, which would make them predominantly white, were the ones taught to play and listen to such music. The parents parents of these young people (today's middle aged audience) were able to afford to have their kids learn to play an instrument and might also take them to chamber music concerts. And unlike, say, popular music, that could be heard over the radio and so perhaps entice some people who hadn't heard it before, radio stations playing chamber music were few and far between.
Nov '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
Random thoughts on this:
There is also no reason not to love poetry, and yet folks don't. My theory is that people are afraid of poetry: They weren't read poetry as children, and so they look at a poem, in which the poet seems to say one thing and mean something else, and they just slooooowly back away. Poetry is a foreign language to which they were never exposed.
I guess you could wander in off the street and enjoy Mendelssohn, but...nobody does. Why not?
1. If you haven't listened to classical music, you don't understand it. (Or at least you don't think that you understand it.) It's written and performed in a foreign language that you don't speak. And what's worse: It is, in the parlance of the young, boring.
2. If you've never attended a classical concert, you don't know what's going on in there. Will you be dressed appropriately? What are you supposed to *do* during the music? Clap? Just...sit there? How do you evaluate if what you're listening to is any good?
Aug '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
That complaint is a cultural leitmotiv. Just think of Elvis' hips and the waltz' close physical proximity - all scandals at the time. Just that one took place in 1850 and the other in 1960.
Imagine any crowd, other than yours, older. Or, as I look at the Lil Wayne poster on my daughter's wall.
Apr '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.:
Also, our culture is doomed. ยท Jul 28 at 8:47am
I feel conservatives are too pessimistic on the whole culture issue. Cultures change in fact they are always doomed too change, but that is a good thing. Clinging to the past prevents one from innovating and adapting. Not all innovations are necessarily good or desirable, but presumably the system should be self correcting as long as it does not become calcified.
Jun '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
I guess I just have a different experience here in NJ. We attend free concerts in our county parks that include the Metropolitan Opera and Big Bands. Plenty of people from all age groups attend. We brought the babies in strollers way back when.
Living ten miles west of Manhattan, our family is often in the city to experience music & ballet at Lincoln Center and other venues. Again, people from all ages & walks of life attend. My kids have performed at Lincoln Center and Carnegie hall with both their public school jazz ensembles and orchestras. My daughter attended chamber music camp for a few summers when she was in grammar school. Our town provides a fantastic grounding in classical music, both instrumental and chorus.
Classical, jazz, and swing music are embraced by the younger generation here. If kids are exposed to it, they love it. Don't give up hope.
May '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
When I was in college I remember a lecture where everyone in the class was given a drop of some chemical to taste. Some described a salty taste, some a sour taste and some detected no taste at all. Apparently the difference was genetic. I also remember being moved by a poem I was studying and reciting it out loud to my roommate who politely said that he was sure it was a good poem but all he could hear were words that sounded pretty much like all other words. I have tried to enjoy classical music but go to the concerts more to be with friends than to listen to the music. If there aren't words I can't really understand it. I didn't care much for the choice of words in some of Amy Winehouse's songs, but I really liked listening to her.
Edited on July 28, 2011 at 6:30pmNov '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
Entertainment v. Enrichment. The democratization of tastes seems to degrade them; define them down, if you will. For generations (Gen X & Y) who grew up being taught (by Boomers) that (oversimplification alert) white men of European descent were the cause of all the ill in the world, why on Earth would anyone want to give their cultural institutions a fair shake? And for those born in the 90's & 00's, the steady flow of information and constant need to be "connected" (Facebook, Twitter, iPhone, etc.) has reduced their attention spans and made them, in my opinion, more apt to be prematurely judgemental; i.e. it doesn't fit into my world of "cool", so I'm not going to try it, especially if it was created by the "old" culture. They wouldn't take the time to slow down long enough to experience something that might enrich their souls; they're all about surface-level entertainment. Contrast any protestant church's "contemporary" service with "traditional" services to get an idea the chasm between entertainment and enrichment.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Cheers Claire.
Apr '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
There ought to be no mystery as to why chamber/classical music has faded in popularity. In no particular order:
1. Classical music did much to destroy its own popularity by giving in to the anti-music of atonality to such a large degree. By taking music and stripping it of the tonal characteristics that connect with us as listeners, (too many) modern composers engaged in the most arrogant artistic masturbatory ego fondling; they no longer cared if anyone listened, and that is not a good way to gain listeners, as it turns out.
2. Enjoying classical music requires patience and some musical understanding beyond, "man, this beat is sick!" Our culture isn't much for entertainment that requires some virtue development.
3. Popular music is ubiquitous. You cannot escape it. It blares at you from gas station pumps. It has a monopoly on our collective ears.
4. Popular music, to a large extent, celebrates the Dionysian side of human nature, whereas Classical music is largely concerned with the Apollonian. In case you haven't noticed, our culture is very much in tune with the gut, less so with the head. The heart is up for grabs.
Jul '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
While classical music used to be more mainstream (some of the best bugs bunny cartoons make great use of Liszt, Beethoven, Wagner, Mozart, etc.), it has always been an acquired taste, even in it's own time. Not unlike jazz, it has it's own language, which requires people to educate themselves before they understand it. Thus the reason that classical music is "elite"; it takes effort to appreciate it.
Music history, theory, and concert etiquette all make it less accessible, while technology makes pop "music" more accessible. The result is insipid music as "artists" tries to reach the lowest common denominator. Consequently, most people are inundated with pop "music" to the exclusion of it's more elevated counterpart.
-E
Apr '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
And I'm a huge fan of popular music, by the way.
Jul '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
"[M]odern composers engaged in the most arrogant artistic masturbatory ego fondling"
Perfect description.
Jun '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
My 14 year old son just left to walk down the hill & crash the clarinet section-leader's summer orientation session for the new musicians. I don't know if it's her new kitten, the prospect of checking out the incoming freshmen girls, or the beautiful clarinet music that is attracting my son. Maybe a combination of all three.
A big part of the reason our town's kids are so wrapped up in music is because the parents work like dogs, side by side with teachers, to give them performance and travel opportunities. Besides playing at Lincoln Center this year (with a cool trumpet solo) he traveled to San Francisco with the choir and Italy with the orchestra. Poor kids are not excluded because the booster club arranges so many fund raising drives and allows ample opportunity for every kid to defray costs by working hard.
Around here, classical music does fit into the kids' world of "cool." And they even love wearing the tuxes and gowns.
Maybe the Seattle folks are so eco-obsessed that they no longer have kids, given their messy envorinmental footprint and all.....Kids aren't green.
Edited on July 28, 2011 at 6:56pmMar '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
A couple years ago I was in Seattle when the Symphony performed Mahler's 8th, and my date and I had a great time. But I did notice that we were among the younger people there.
I think there is an intimidation aspect that goes together with the exposure aspect. That is, if I have classical music playing and a friend overhears it, they might say "Wow, this is really good". But actively seeking one's way through a composer's entire oeuvre to find what one likes is overwhelming to most folks. One needs to get one's bearings and for that, a guide.
Classical music existed alongside folk music for many generations (and was often inspired by it). But it is no insignificant thing that the cultural space occupied by classical music in previous generations tended to be that which was formed by the aristocratic palette and the church. Those who had the money and taste were the ones who employed such composers and commissioned such works.
As the old aristocracy perished and with it its taste, and as church attendance has decayed, there are fewer cultural outlets where classical is seen as important.
Apr '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
Re: Copperfield
I agree with much of this post. However, there has always been a high art/low art spread, with low art being more accessible/basic. This is not to denigrate it. Classical composers have themselves been lovers of much of the folk music of their various times and places. That being said, Copperfield is right on when he (or she) references the democratization effect. Classical music requires elite musicians who devote much of their life to its study and creation. Plenty of jazz and popular musicians are also extremely skilled, but the forms they work in generally do not require the same degree of training. Combined with some of my earlier points, classical music has been fighting a difficult battle for some time.
Jun '10
Re: Music and Demography in America
Peter Halpin: There ought to be no mystery as to why chamber/classical music has faded in popularity. In no particular order:
1. Classical music did much to destroy its own popularity by giving in to the anti-music of atonality to such a large degree. By taking music and stripping it of the tonal characteristics that connect with us as listeners, (too many) modern composers engaged in the most arrogant artistic masturbatory ego fondling; they no longer cared if anyone listened, and that is not a good way to gain listeners, as it turns out.
Yes!
Apr '11
Re: Music and Demography in America
Re: Crow's Nest,
Great comment. Moreover, it used to be the case that the tastes and values of the elite were to be aspired to because they had a certain excellence. That dynamic has completely changed; it is the low virtues (and increasingly, vices) that exert the dominant gravitational pull in our culture.