This is part of some research into the direction of music education, the mysteries of its funding and the associated role of community music-making. Contact me to contribute your opinion.
A
constant complaint from music societies and promoters alike is the
problem of audience numbers. I'm not well-enough informed to know if
audience numbers in the classical music field are dwindling in general
but I have some experience with certain aspects of it. It's a multi-fold
subject and can't be considered as a whole to arrive at any useful
conclusions. For example, classical music encompasses a whole range of
genres, from early music and Baroque, to early 20th-century and
contemporary, each genre with overlapping, but different audiences.
There
are also different types of division to be recognised. For example, the
division between those who know about music, who are versed in its
esoteric jargon of cadences, codas, sonata forms and suspensions, and
those who love listening to and playing music, know what they love, but
don't know why and don't understand the jargon. Narrowing this gap would
be a big help.
Age is a factor. At one end of the spectrum, the
traditional classical program audiences, particularly for chamber music
and music festivals, are aging and conservative in their taste. At the
other end, the youthful end, potential audiences find it difficult to
find a way in, discover only institutionalised pomposity and lack of visceral
pleasure in concert going. It's the conservatism that is the barrier.
Informality may be a key here to combating this.
I'm
generalising, but whichever aspect of this problem you consider, the
solution seems to lead back to music education and the relationship of
grass-roots music making to this. The heart
of music education is in our schools and colleges, but it should also be
considered further afield. Music societies, for example, have a role to
play in not only presenting music but, through education - presenting workshop programs, say - encouraging
new members and involving audiences in the process of making music.
This
has come into focus because of severe funding pressures on music
education in schools, where everyone seems to recognise the benefits of
learning about and participating in music but places too low a monetary
value on it. Consequently, there is a void in music education opening up that can be filled by music societies of all kinds.
In terms of the practicalities of how to increase
audience numbers, well, imagine concerts that are not based on 'them and
us', not based on audiences down here and musicians up there, but which aim to make
connections between the them and the us. We need a new word to describe
the audience plus musicians symbiosis: the living together of two
dissimilar organisms. The musience?
Here's a potted portrait of a modern composer, compared with the moody creature who used to sit down with a quill pen and scratch inky marks on some parchment paper, balanced precariously on the top of a piano or harpsichord (the parchment not the composer). This new being uses a digital audio work station, patches and loops, samples and special effects, ready loaded into his mixing desk. Then, on stage, in front of a shouting, jumping audience, he starts with a bass line and synthesised drums. After that the remixes flow of prerecorded music. This is where the composition factor kicks in, for our composer can now be as creative as he can or wants, mixing in, mixing out. The audience love it and will groove along for hours. The place is jumping and our composer is having a great time, too. Oh, yep, and don't forget the syncronised light show, the laser beams and disco lights, the backdrop film that turns the whole set into a spaceship or a volcano, a journey through mountains or a trip to the bottom of the sea. That's a face of contemporary composition, a skilful scribbling with sound.
There are other ways of expressing appreciation in public than by slapping your hands together but I can't think of a better one. It is the obvious thing to do at the end of a performance or speech. Is it as simple as that? Is it worth a second thought? Humans must have the clapping instinct for babies do it spontaneously to express delight. Clapping, however, is not always a sign of appreciation. Slow hand claps express impatience and it is possible to clap ironically, too: yeah, yeah, you think you are so great... Clapping is expressive: the louder and the longer, the more is the sign of approval. Clapping at classical music concerts has become a sign of sophistication: clap in the wrong place or at the wrong time and you are surely an ignoramous. At the end of an unfamiliar piece when no-one is quite sure if it has finished, the ensuing second or two's silence contains slight universal embarrassment for no-one wants to make a fool of themselves by clapping out of place, yet everyone wants to show appreciation. It would be so much more embarrassing if no-one clapped at all. As leader of my orchestra, I sometimes walk in to take a bow before a concert starts. At my approach, a single preordained clapper starts clapping. Instinctively, the rest of the audience can't help it; they join in with the ritual. Where does it come from? No-one knows. The ancient Romans had a set ritual of applause for public performances, expressing
degrees of approval: snapping the finger and thumb, clapping with the
flat or hollow palm, waving the flap of the toga. Wiki says, that a claque
(French for 'clapping') was an organised body of professional
applauders in French theatres and opera houses who were paid by the
performers to create the illusion of an increased level of approval by
the audience.
In Christianity, customs of the theatre were adopted by the churches and in the 4th and 5th centuries applause of the
rhetoric of popular preachers had become an established custom. Applause
in church eventually fell out of fashion, however, and partly through the
influence of the quasi-religious atmosphere of the performances of Richard Wagner's operas at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus the reverential spirit that inspired this soon extended back to the theatre and the concert hall.
That reverence in the concert hall has a stifling effect and may be a reason why audiences for classical music are harder and harder to come by; may be a reason why the young, i.e., those lacking reverence, are unsupportive. My contention is, remove the sense of reverence for the performer and the relationship between audience and performer intensifies. They can each then play their respective roles with more freedom and enjoyment. Ergo, audience numbers increase. Perhaps get the audience clapping over with at the beginning of an event and then forget it. Heckle and clap as an individual any time you feel like it, though. And show appreciation by coming again. Diminishing the sense of reverence won't diminish respect for a great performance. I don't hear clapping for my wise words. Is that because you have a sandwich in one hand?
I have been playing in a trio at one or two local homes for the
elderly and disabled, learning a lot from this, particularly in gaining
performance experience. To be able to play for an entirely uncritical
audience removes a lot of the pressure that creates nerves and enables
focusing on playing and communicating. Conversely, however, when you
perform it is essential to feel that an audience is responding and in a
classical environment this usually means that they sit quietly while you
play, then applaud, at least politely, when you finish. For the trio
neither of these necessarily applies and that can be disconcerting.
In these circumstances, you learn that even to evoke a small response
from a person suffering from dementia can be an indication of the effect
that music has. Quite literally it has the ability to take a fractured
personality and make it whole again. Listeners with quite advanced
stages of mental degeneration can become animated, self aware and can
remember the music we are playing that they may have heard many years
before. We've played sessions that we call 'Memory Music' to great
effect.
This experience, amongst others, was why a couple of years ago I set off
on a musical expedition to find out more about the way classical music
is appreciated. This has changed over the years, particularly in recent
times, coinciding with discoveries about how the brain responds to
music. This project became a bit of an obsession and has resulted in a
book, Ramblings About Music and the Mind, or, simply, About Music. It's an exploration of the borders between the art and science of music.
I'd like your help with the next stage: if you think you might be
interested in the content, which ranges free and wide from music and
Pythagoras in Ancient Greece to the contemporary music technologies of
today, there is a synopsis at www.billanderton.uk.
There is also a short questionnaire with the synopsis which will
provide me with some valuable feedback. I'd be grateful if you can take a
few minutes to have your say and email this to me.
