[Note: This post has been updated (2) as of 4:01 PM Eastern on 24 Apr. See below.]
Not to stir this particularly contentious pot again, but this is so spot-on an epitome of the epicenter of what I called the "pernicious new cultural paradigm" of the iPod Generation that I can't resist linking to it. Here's the money quote:
[E]ven though I enjoy performing classical music as a vocalist and chorus member, I can't say that I thoroughly enjoy classical symphony concerts as an audience member. Unless I am very familiar with the work being performed, I experience what feels like long periods of detachment until something in the music really grabs me. Often, this means detachment through an entire movement of a symphony!
If it is like this for me, as a somewhat "educated" classical audience, I find it hard to imagine how it might be experienced by the average potential audience member that we're trying to cultivate. It's one thing to experience classical music as a background experience while other things are going on, such as at home, in the workplace, or in a bookstore. It's another thing entirely to face an orchestra and listen attentively for 90 minutes or more. I can't honestly say that I usually enjoy the classical concert experience as fully as a movie or highly engaging (lots of patter) pops concert. [emphasis mine]
No further comment necessary or called for.
Update (10:38 AM Eastern on 24 Apr): In response to the above, Brian Sacawa of Sounds Like Now writes in part:
Footnote: I thought a lot about composing an insightful riposte to this example of an attitude that isn't winning classical music any new supporters opinion [i.e., the above post], but decided against it because rather than make people feel small for expressing their opinions, I think it's important to listen to what everyone has to say — even if you don't happen to agree with them.
I would just like to point out to Mr. Sacawa that if he was concerned about making me feel small, he needn't have concerned himself, and it of course wasn't my intention to make anyone feel small, either. It was my intention to set in relief a paradigmatic example of the "pernicious new cultural paradigm," as I called it, that is the iPod Generation to make perfectly clear to all those well-intentioned Pollyannas with their ultimately and inevitably effete warm and fuzzy notions of how to go about building a new core audience for classical music what it is they're actually up against as they seem deaf and blind both to the nature and depth of the problem. It's a delightful gesture, certainly, to take a non-concertgoing friend to a classical music concert to attempt to win a new supporter for classical music. But even if repeated on a large scale it's but a gesture only, and has about as much chance of building a new core audience for classical music as would giving a non-oyster-eater an introduction to raw oysters in the hope of making a raw-oyster-eater out of him, and thereby, if repeated on a large enough scale, build a new consumer base for this subtle and complex gastronomic delicacy.
More often than not, pointing out the truth of anything is a less than pleasant affair, but still a necessary one if the truth wants and needs to be known.
Update 2 (4:01 PM Eastern on 24 Apr): Brian Sacawa responds to our last (scroll down to the updates). Writes Mr. Sacawa in part:
ACD holds that "if you fail to get 'em very young, you mostly don't get 'em at all." [...] My question is, [W]hat does that mean for "most" people who were not exposed to classical music at a young age? Are they simply lost causes, who've been hopelessly corrupted by the ills of society? Should we just round them up and ship them off to an island where they won't pass on their "iPod Generation" genes to any offspring so that we can (finally) begin to cultivate an appropriately cultured society?
I must say that Mr. Sacawa has an astonishingly good idea there, but, alas, an impractical one. I do think, however, that for the most part — Mr. Sacawa's experience of his own late-coming to an appreciation of classical music notwithstanding — we simply have to pretty much write off such people in terms of building a new core audience for classical music. The odds, even in the very best of circumstances, are monstrously against achieving any meaningful measure of success with them. Just how monstrously against may be inferred from the inescapable fact that only a tiny proportion of even those properly exposed to classical music as children develop a real love for it of the sort that lasts a lifetime, which love is the sole common denominator of classical music's core audience.
Life's a bitch.
On The Road To Prohibition
The iPod People — Or, Village Of The Damned 2006
[Note: This post has been updated (2) as of 4:01 PM Eastern on 24 Apr. See below.]
Not to stir this particularly contentious pot again, but this is so spot-on an epitome of the epicenter of what I called the "pernicious new cultural paradigm" of the iPod Generation that I can't resist linking to it. Here's the money quote:
No further comment necessary or called for.
Update (10:38 AM Eastern on 24 Apr): In response to the above, Brian Sacawa of Sounds Like Now writes in part:
I would just like to point out to Mr. Sacawa that if he was concerned about making me feel small, he needn't have concerned himself, and it of course wasn't my intention to make anyone feel small, either. It was my intention to set in relief a paradigmatic example of the "pernicious new cultural paradigm," as I called it, that is the iPod Generation to make perfectly clear to all those well-intentioned Pollyannas with their ultimately and inevitably effete warm and fuzzy notions of how to go about building a new core audience for classical music what it is they're actually up against as they seem deaf and blind both to the nature and depth of the problem. It's a delightful gesture, certainly, to take a non-concertgoing friend to a classical music concert to attempt to win a new supporter for classical music. But even if repeated on a large scale it's but a gesture only, and has about as much chance of building a new core audience for classical music as would giving a non-oyster-eater an introduction to raw oysters in the hope of making a raw-oyster-eater out of him, and thereby, if repeated on a large enough scale, build a new consumer base for this subtle and complex gastronomic delicacy.
More often than not, pointing out the truth of anything is a less than pleasant affair, but still a necessary one if the truth wants and needs to be known.
Update 2 (4:01 PM Eastern on 24 Apr): Brian Sacawa responds to our last (scroll down to the updates). Writes Mr. Sacawa in part:
I must say that Mr. Sacawa has an astonishingly good idea there, but, alas, an impractical one. I do think, however, that for the most part — Mr. Sacawa's experience of his own late-coming to an appreciation of classical music notwithstanding — we simply have to pretty much write off such people in terms of building a new core audience for classical music. The odds, even in the very best of circumstances, are monstrously against achieving any meaningful measure of success with them. Just how monstrously against may be inferred from the inescapable fact that only a tiny proportion of even those properly exposed to classical music as children develop a real love for it of the sort that lasts a lifetime, which love is the sole common denominator of classical music's core audience.
Life's a bitch.
Posted by A.C. Douglas on 22 April 2006 | Permalink