Too pretentious?

[Aiantas]

It's that accursed London-Scottish accent that nobody can tell where it's from!
By the way from today I'm a freelancer! The company I was working for, Track7 is dissolving I think and a whole bunch of us were made redundant. So, who needs a tuba concert? any takers? Get your fresh tuba concertos here! While they're fresh! Ten to the pound mad'm! Fresh tuba concertos!!!
FC

[Florestan]

Oh fucking hell, mate. I am really sorry to hear that.

We have some new friends on myspace called tuba-licious but I don't know if they'd want to commission a whole concerto. They don't look very rich.

What will you do? I will help with your ad artwork if you like. How about this?

[Aiantas]

I'll hire you as my publicity manager! What a splendid selling point!
"This cant be real music... the composer doesn't even have a beard!"

Things are of course not as bad as all that. May be I'll find time to write my opera at last. I've been slogging away at the Ajax play by Sophocles for a few years now so this could be the chance to get it finished. I still have the folk-rock band and there's a lot of arranging to be done too. I could make a career out of confusing music lovers on the internet with 'Name That Tunes' cropping up all over the place! Btw, I intend to make this a regular thing but I'll rack it down a notch or two so as not to scare everybody off!

Thanks for the care!
FC

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Aiantas

I'll hire you as my publicity manager! What a splendid selling point!
"This cant be real music... the composer doesn't even have a beard!"

Things are of course not as bad as all that. May be I'll find time to write my opera at last. I've been slogging away at the Ajax play by Sophocles for a few years now so this could be the chance to get it finished.

That's the spirit.

I still have the folk-rock band

Why doesn't that surprise me?

and there's a lot of arranging to be done too. I could make a career out of confusing music lovers on the internet with 'Name That Tunes' cropping up all over the place! Btw, I intend to make this a regular thing but I'll rack it down a notch or two so as not to scare everybody off!

Brilliant! I do like the detective aspect of it, though. I think it is good to have some clues built in or released gradually to send people off on a didactic journey. As long as there aren't 23 piano pieces or at least nine different composers that fit the clue!

Thanks for the care!

Think nothing of it. You're one of the brightcecilia family.

[The Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Aiantas

...By the way from today I'm a freelancer! ...

That bites man.
A year ago my company outsourced my job to India so I feel your pain.
chin up and all that, things will work out.

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Aiantas

a whole bunch of us were made redundant

Very sorry to hear that. I hope they're paying you a massive dollop of redundancy money? Presumably the Greeks have some social protection, like Northern Europe, even if it's just a statutory mimimum?

Of slightly less importance...

Originally Posted by Aiantas

Btw, I intend to make this a regular thing but I'll rack it down a notch or two so as not to scare everybody off!

It was 95% OK (that's to say, bloody brilliant). I thought at first the solutions should have been kept until after the closing date, to keep people engaged across the whole field, but it was satisfying seeing the right answers pop up, and people get an immediate reaction. Will the MP3 player make it easier next time? But it would be a shame to abolish the vids...

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Philidor

I thought at first the solutions should have been kept until after the closing date, to keep people engaged across the whole field, but it was satisfying seeing the right answers pop up, and people get an immediate reaction.

I have been thinking about this. The thing is, the wrong answers are what creates the opportunity to learn something new. That process of deduction/elimination is crucial.

It is brilliant and I am humbled by amount of time and effort you've put into it, Aiantas.

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Florestan

It is brilliant and I am humbled by amount of time and effort you've put into it, Aiantas.

Ditto. It also serves to attack my baroque prejudices, gets me thinking about something other than Leclair's use of the 6-4-2 chord. You're subverting my small mindedness damnit sir!

[Florestan]

"Now look here! Next time we have a Gandhi lookalike competition, I expect you to make a damn sight more effort!"

[Despina41]

Originally Posted by Florestan

...I think there is a danger when people try to make classical music "down with the kids" of it just being really embarrassing because it doesn't ring true.

It's not a problem with new music because it is largely being created by young people. But I don't think the way to approach, say, Bach, is to try to make it cool, or pop. It should be possible to present it for what it is - a massively important part of our cultural heritage. Otherwise it loses its integrity and I think that alienates young people. They are not stupid. If something is phoney I think they know.

The motive has to be sound. If someone tries to repackage Bach in the idioms of pop culture then it doesn't look as if they are doing it to spread the word about the composer's greatness.

I didn't mean that the music should be drastically CHANGED in its presentation (however, Swingle Singers Bach is fun). I meant other aspects of presentation such as what the performer is wearing or how they do their hair, audience dress codes, CD covers, etc. Do these aspects alienate people because they're different? I don't think so.

The biggest problem is the way we talk about and REVERE classical music - that was my original point by mentioning art religion. We are so caught up in being preservationists that we forget the best way to preserve is to get fresh followers. Consider how classical music (in the U.S. at least) is stereotyped as the music of eltist snobs. The tuxedos, the silent awe with which you must attend the concerts, the actual amount of money have you to spend to go(!!) probably conspire to scare off young people. And they learn through pop culture to associate this music with unpleasant characters (politically right now, it's a negative to be in the upper class and/or be elitist -- "latte-drinker" is a derogatory term).

I don't think you can successfully present classical music as something to be treated with awe and reverence simple because of some vague notion of its grand cultural value. Kids don't want to listen to cultural artifacts in the same way they would go look at Rembrandts in the museum on a school trip. They want living music that's relevant for them now.

There are inroads! I've played Mahler for people (non-classical fans) and they love it. "It sounds like movie music" "You know why?!" and I explain how German/Austrian refugees came to America and wrote movie music and they are interested.

I try to get people interested based on the music itself. I agree that they aren't stupid. I'm not advocating dumbing things down for them. I'm just for helping them discover what they like about the music without the underlying message "you're stupid if you don't understand this" or "you're culturally deficient if you don't appreciate this." That can turn them off. Some people will find the music because they DO feel obligated to listen to it because "it's great art," but this younger generation is growing up with a lot of cultural relativism in the air, and they won't necessarily buy that old argument anymore.


Perhaps some of you heard about the experiment the Washington Post paper conducted with Joshua Bell playing Bach in the subway last year. He played in jeans and baseball cap at the head of a subway station on a workday at morning rush hour. Not just any music, but the Bach D minor chaconne. Only a few people recognized him or stopped to listen.

Gene Weingarten went on a huge rant about Philistines in America having no appreciation of good music; naturally this is based on the assumption that great art is so great that it should A) stop people getting to work on time and B) speak universally to people even if they have no experience with that form of art. What is the purpose of such an article? If you already like classical music you probably sigh and agree that it's dying. Or if you're a musicologist (Richard Taruskin) you complain that the experiment was set up to fail. If you're neither perhaps you feel guilty about it and pick up a Bach CD. Or perhaps you shake your head at those classical snobs lamenting how no one appeciates great art again.

I hope classical music does become less pretentious in the popular imagination. People now have more chances to just open a youtube video and hear a great performance of a great piece of music. I agree that the education resources need to be there, but what's the best way to learn? from other people. But if they don't want to associate or be associated with us...