If you listen too closely to most articles on classical music, it’s easy to get the impression that it’s a dying art form. While it may be an aging art form and a community that is struggling to get a handle on its niche in modern times, it’s not quite ready to go the way of the dinosaurs. Much has been made recently of the efforts by symphonic organizations to draw in new listeners. At times, it can seem a little like classical music organizations are lying in wait, hoping to lure hapless passers-by into the concert hall with promises of flashy club-like atmospheres and music that is billed like popular music…but in fact isn’t. It’s hard not to sometimes feel like classical music is wheedling the public to give the music a try, despite what other thoughts the public might have. As it turns out, though, we as a community don’t need to try too hard. Recent news sites and blogs have rung in the new year with a lot of talk about seeking classical music out. It seems that people are standing up and volunteering to give it a try, and that’s a fresh perspective on the listener/audience drought that is more than welcome.
The classic question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it really happen? Similarly: if classical music disappeared, would anyone other than the musicians themselves notice that it was gone?
The answer is a resounding “yes!”
Take, for example, the radio station kerfuffle in Sacramento, California. As of Tuesday, January 17th, California’s Capital Public Radio moved its “Excellence In Jazz” program from the news and jazz station KXJZ (90.9 FM) to its sister classical music station KXPR (88.9 FM). The jazz program will be broadcast Monday through Friday on KXPR from 7 to 11 p.m., and it has been moved to its new slot at the expense of a regular evening broadcast of classical music. Fans of the classical music station have been up in arms about the move, and, honestly, jazz fans aren’t too thrilled either. Classical music fans want their evening broadcast back (it is, after all, the classical station), and jazz fans are irritated to find that the news and jazz station is now all news. The situation seems to put both breeds of music fans in the losing column, but the management of the stations insists that the move is one that reflects the desires of the greater listening audience. “The reason I subscribed to Capital Public Radio is for classical music,” said subscriber Michael Hill-Weld. “I always listen in the evening, particularly since I have a young son that I’m trying to expose to classical music.”
Rich Eytcheson, who is the general manager and president of Capital Public Radio, asserts that the station knows what people want.”We get ratings and we can tell – hour by hour – what people are listening to….And what they are listening to most is news radio,” he said. The present data on weekly audience numbers indicates that there are slightly more than 400,000 listeners for news, around 130,000 for classical, and 60,000 for jazz, Eytcheson said. From a strictly-business point of view, Eytcheson’s strategy seems to make unfortunate sense.
The fact that the numbers seem to reflect the station’s reality seems to not line up with the feedback the stations are getting. The message is simple: listeners want their music back, and they don’t want just anyone’s music. The fans of classical music consider the music to be theirs and to be a huge part of their lives, and they are not taking kindly to their music being relegated to alternative streaming options of the internet. In fact, it would seem that Eytcheson’s move is symptomatic of a mentality about classical music that is increasingly out of touch with the interest level in the general public–a level that is rising, not falling.
For an allegedly dying art form, classical music sure casts a wide net in society, and it’s reeling in a lot of interested newcomers without trying too much. It’s hard to find concrete numbers on these things, but most performers can attest to this with abundant personal experience. Even in high school, when almost all of my friends were goofy high school boys, I was moved by how many of them came to my recitals and listened thoughtfully and were open to being moved by the music. They’re not classical music “types” by any means, but that didn’t stop them from learning to love it and, in some cases, seek it out on their own. All they needed was someone to act as a gateway–to make it personal and accessible and meaningful to their lives.
By and large, this is the case for many newcomers to classical music. They don’t always need slick lobbies-turned-clubs or narrated concerts to get them interested. Sometimes they just have a curiosity about the music, an itch for knowledge that just needs music to be accessible to be satisfied. Take one such blogger on the Huffington Post. Hattie Garlick writes of her 2012 resolution: to get into classical music. She has no special reason; she hasn’t been drawn in by flashing lights or thinly-veiled electronica posing as classical music. She wants to learn about music for the sake of understanding it and for the sake of getting past the idea that this, more than any other art form, is elitist, inaccessible, and not for outsiders. At her local train station, the managements blasts Debussy and other classical recordings to deter juvenile loiterers. If you think that this might be symptomatic of a problematic approach to art, you’re not alone. Garlick writes:
I feel more and more certain that it’s symptomatic of a wider cultural disease.It points to a whole generation who have lost the art of listening. For whom three and a half minutes is the limit of their concentration and who will never be taken on an emotional journey of any complexity through music because of this. And most of all, this worries me because I fear I might be one of them…. And yet, and yet…I’m pretty sure that behind this door that’s closed to me, there’s a world of wonderful, enriching sound out there. And if I could only find the handle, I’d be able, at least, to stand on the threshold and catch my breathe at the panorama in front of me.
In the interest of learning to see the panorama she is so curious about, Garlick has made a set of resolutions about classical music, concentrating on forging an emotional connection with a somewhat foreign art form to her through concert attendance and open-minded listening. While many initiated members of the classical music community grew up listening to this music, just as many didn’t, and those people know that she is bound to be successful in her resolutions. Garlick is hardly the only curious member of the uninitiated public out there, and she’s not the only person who came by this curiosity by the simple virtue of interest. But it seems sometimes that the classical music community is not welcoming them as well as they could be. So much effort is going toward attracting the somewhat uninterested that these curious newcomers often end up not getting a toe into the water after all, and reductions in radio programing is another step in the wrong direction.
It takes courage and an open mind to learn anything new–not all of us are so openly curious or able to admit that we have trouble understanding something. The classical community should be welcoming these brave souls warmly and with open arms, and we should be doing everything possible to make ourselves accessible to curious listeners. Sometimes the right trick is the loud and flashy route, and sometimes the trick is an intimate, personal, non-threatening experience in which the new listener can see, listen, and feel for themselves. Whatever the strategy, it’s time to revise the prevailing assumption from within and without the community that nobody wants us anymore, take down the walls, and meet the fans we didn’t know we had.
No comments yet.