The Doctor is In

So yesterday I talked a little bit about interacting with your audience, and how even a little bit of per-performance talking can go a long ways towards building rapport with the people you want to keep around. There are other ways of doing this, as well. Q&A sessions with people who pay a little extra, maybe with a little wine and cheese. Happy Feelings Time, of course of course. A little brainstorming, and I'm sure you can come up with more ways of interacting with the audience. Today, though, I'm going to talk about something else. I'm going to talk about interactivity in concerts.

Boulez may be a bit of dick, but...

There's this composer you may or may not have heard of. His name is Pierre Boulez. When I was tube surfing on the YouTubes, I came across a fascinating video. If I am not mistaken, it was a concert directed specifically at Conservatoire students, but it appeared to be an open concert, as well. At this concert, he was conducting his own music. Boulez is one of those composers whose music is often labelled "difficult" here in America. That is, his music is not just a rabbit, but a Babbitt Rabbit as well. But here was a nearly full hall, including music students, musicians, and lay people, all gathered to hear his music. Granted, this was in France, and European concerts tend to feature more "difficult" music than here in America, but he was doing something I have never seen in America. He was breaking his music down into its musical parts, and discussing how they all fit together into the piece they were about to hear.

It was a phenomenal use of time. Yes, he took about 20 minutes just laying the nuts and bolts out, but by the end of it all, you knew how to listen to his piece. You knew what to expect, how it was put together. You could no longer make the claim that it was all just "random nonsense," because he was so clear, so lucid, you would have to either be totally, or willfully, dense to not get it. I was blown away. Here was a man who knew how to connect with his audience. True, he was using his own music as an example, but it worked. I walked away from that concert respecting Boulez a bit more than I had before.

Yes, but he's a Stinky Cheeseman Frenchy. What about us patriotic Americans?

Well, here in America we have a similar, but far less avant garde, conductor. We have Michael Tilson Thomas. He is director of the San Francisco Symphony, as well as the New World Orchestra. These are great institutions, but what I really want to spotlight is the TV series Keeping Score. In each episode, he discusses a specific work in its historical and musical contexts, as well as how that piece personally relates to the composer who wrote it. If you haven't seen any of these documentaries, they are really wonderful. Thomas is a genial and, just as importantly, knowledgeable host. He not only discusses the music, but plays some of it as well. He's kind of like... Well, he's kind of like a contemporary Bernstein, who used television to similar effect, bringing classical music into the homes of millions across America.

Concluding paragraph

If you want to connect to your audience, talk with them. Discuss the music. Bring it into a place where the audience feels they can relate to it. Or failing that, at least understand it. Break the music apart. Show how it's put together. Like Boulez. But just as importantly, make the music human again. Like Tilson Thomas. Building understanding will get people to respect you. Building humanity will get people to come back for more. You need both, which is tricky... But it's doable. It must be, or we die. In a fire. While being eaten by raptors. Sneaky, sneaky raptors...

The Great Musician Appearing Act

Yesterday, I wrote about community in the classical music world. More specifically, I wrote about the lack of any kind of community between the musicians and the audience. Today, I shall write about the most important aspect of building a community: presence. Presence is a larger concept of which Happy Feelings Time is a part. Basically, it comes down to the question: Do people know who you are?

In the case of, say, the Dallas Symphony, many people in the Dallas area know the Symphony exists. Very much fewer are the people who know the man who conducts it, or who the concert master is. Can you imagine a sports fan not knowing the names of their favorite team's members? No, you can't. Why? Because those people are invested. And just as importantly, a sports team is present in the lives of their fans. It is that level of attachment we must try to build, and to do that, we must be in the public eye as often as possible.

The Advertising Fallacy
Advertising provides presence. That can't be denied. However, it is wrong to assume advertising is the solution to all of our problems. I hear advertising for the Dallas Symphony all the time... on the Classical station. And audience levels are still rather low, excepting large performances of Carmina Burana or Britten's War Requiem.

Here's the thing. Advertising is there to let people know you exist. But if your presence in the public sphere doesn't extend beyond that, you cannot expect advertising to do all your work for you. Think of Coca Cola. They advertise. A lot. But they are also everywhere. Coke in McDonald's, Coke in restaurants, Coke at ball parks, Coke at the movies. Everywhere you can go where you can buy drinks, Coke is there. Coke's presence is as much part of that company's success as the advertising reminding people they should drink Coke. Reminding people "Yes, Coke is still here. Keep drinking."

Now, I doubt an orchestra can expect to have the same level of presence as Coca Cola. Unless you can put our Symphonies into liquid form and export that. Somehow, I do not expect such a thing to be palatable. Not only would it be a pulpified meat smoothie, it would also have to be served at such a temperature for the metals of the brass section to be melted. That is far too hot. The strings would make such a temperature a veritable fire hazard.

Playing for the People
The trick is, you have to get yourself out there. Sports teams, for instance. They have a game. They play on a field. How do fans know what's going on? They broadcast it. Why aren't orchestras broadcasting their concerts? Perhaps because of a fear that, should the concert be broadcast, people wouldn't bother to show up. And yet people go to sports games. Why? Because it's always better live. And what about the people who don't go? They're likely the people who wouldn't have gone anyways. But now they're watching, and you're making advertising money off of them.

Broadcasting helps people keep in touch, but orchestras have an advantage over sports teams: we don't need a rival team to play. Much better is to make sure to keep playing in very public areas. Dallas now has Klyde Warren Park, which has a stage, which could be used to the Symphony and Opera's advantage. There are always charitable events which could be played for. Churches are another popular place in Dallas. Bars and pubs. Etc. Etc. The list goes on.

"But how do we fit an entire symphony in these places?" Don't be so dense. You don't need to. You break the symphony into smaller pieces, and make sure the audience knows they are playing on the symphony's behalf. Chamber music shouldn't just be a treat that pops up from time to time. It should be happening as close to always as you can get. And there's no lack of opportunities, either. You just have to make them.

The great part about this is, you get extra advertising space. Fliers can be passed around, email lists can be signed, posters can be hung, shirts can be bought... Oh right, there's that. Hold on.

Merchandising!
Imagine! Dallas Symphony shirts, Symphony hoodies, symphony lunch boxes, Jap van Zweden figurines with judo-chop action, Symphony flame throwers! The sky's the limit!

And now back to our regular paid programming
But more important than the expanded advertising space is the fact that the players in the symphony are seen. They are heard. They are perhaps, occasionally, sniffed a little. People all over the city get the chance to meet the symphony not as a monolithic entity, but as individuals. The audience gets to shake hands with actual people, and the performers get to actually play the solos they always wanted to play. It's win win!

And also, they are still performing, which means lots of Happy Feelings Time after. So much Happy Feelings!

Granted, there are issues with monetizing events and paying performers. Ideally, these events would be as cheap as possible, or even free (gasp! goes the Board of Directors). But it could be done. I'm sure of it.

Now go out and play! Happy Feelings Time everywhere, with everyone! Whee!

The Art of Programming Conclusion: Just Look at Them Bones!

Our intrepid flatulaphonist has made it this far. He has decided whether he is acquiring audience members, or retaining the ones he's got. He has two rubrics in hand: machine guns and sniper rifles; rabbits and turtles. Now it's time to arm the troops for glorious combat in service to the motherland.

Context is everything
First off, the two extremes of the rubrics do not line up exactly with the two goals I have listed. For example, it could be that the machine gun style of programming is better suited to audience acquisition. Perhaps. But that does not mean that is its only use. Similarly, turtle pieces are perhaps better suited to audience retention, but not necessarily. Low risk pieces can also be an audience draw because they're probably pieces the layman has heard or can more easily identify with.

This is part of why programming is so difficult. Everything changes depending on what you're trying to accomplish. And we haven't even considered understanding the strengths of the conductor and the orchestra, yet. But lets ignore that and just think about how programs might be made with audience acquisition in mind. It is highly unlikely anybody has even heard of a flatulaphone, much less thought of attending a flatulaphone recital. We should name our heretofore anonymous flatulaphonist. His name shall be Fred.

Accuracy by Volume
We'll start with high variety programs. The idea here, if you will recall, is to present a large and diverse group of smaller pieces with the hope that something sticks. You don't particularly care that individual pieces resonate with the entire audience, just that everybody gets something they can walk away with going "Yeah, that Claire de Lune is such an awesome piece. I had no idea a flatulaphone could be so transparent and beautiful!" You also get the added benefit of discussion as audience members argue over which pieces were more worth their time. "What do you mean you like Claire de Lune?! That piece is such overplayed tripe. And it was in the Twilight movie! How can I possibly take it seriously? No, no, the Moonlight Sonata is where it's at."

You get bonus points if a fistfight starts, or you have to call security. This is in general, but nothing sells tickets faster than a good old fashioned audience riot.

Anyways. There's two directions I see that are valid. One is to take this type of program and fill it with turtles. The much maligned Andre Rieu does this all the time. He plays waltzes, polkas, and other generally popular and/or inoffensive pieces. The end result is a concert which appeals to just about everybody... at some point or another. But it's like cold calling. People don't remember the misses. They remember that part where it seemed like the medium communicated with them personally. That's where it's at.

The other direction I see is to take the opportunity to sneak in some rabbits. Higher risk pieces which may not resonate with many audience members, but you can get away with it because there are other sure hits which will cleanse the palate for those who found the rabbit's antics distasteful. There's probably a limit to what you can push on the audience. And yet consider: if you are specifically targeting newer audience members who are not yet acclimated to classical music culture, they will not know Schoenberg is almost universally maligned. Without previous expectations, they are more likely to listen with open ears. That doesn't mean they'll like it. But it does mean they'll probably give the risky piece a chance simply because "they don't know any better."

I personally like the second direction better because it will open up your programming options in the future. If the audience expects you to introduce pieces they've never heard before, but feel they can trust your taste in selecting them, you'll have a much easier time getting people to come back for more.

The Household Name and the Sniper Rifle
Lets say you want to attract audience members but still want to play big pieces. This is trickier, but not impossible. The best course of action here is probably turtles. If somebody is going to a concert featuring one or two pieces, they don't really want to spend their evening listening to somebody they've never heard of. Heavy hitters like Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, or Shostakovitch are all big draws.

The main issue here is, you can easily stagnate your repertoire if you're focused only on turtles. Over time, you become predictable, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but can lead to disinterest as you aren't presenting anything new and shiny to hold attention. It's all about the contrast. To that end, it's best not to focus entirely on one or two pieces. You might have one big symphony in the program, and then the rest of it is divide up machine gun style to keep things fresh.

A word of caution: it is tempting to view soloists as audience draws. While it's true the virtuosity brought by a concerto generally leads to good audience reaction, you cannot expect any random soloist to attract the attention of new audience members. Soloists draw sales because people can identify with them, because there's a face and a story that is familiar. Rostropovich wasn't world famous just because he was the best cellist of all time. He was also a political mover and shaker, had a personality, had gravitas. Soloists today usually just have a list of awards. That's not a story. That's a resume. If you're trying to attract new people with a soloist, you'll have to do better than that.

The Rabbit in the Rain
It may seem like the rabbit gets the short end of the stick, here. It's difficult. Risk is always difficult. But risk must be taken to keep the art form alive. The best way to turn a risk into not as risky is to make it a regular feature. If people come to expect modern and contemporary pieces, then they will come for that. There are, however, some difficulties. Certain repertoire is so difficult for the audience that it will simply never get performed, even if those pieces are masterworks. Here is where a well designed educatory program can help the most. That's another discussion, though.

Conclusion
Audience attraction will depend greatly upon a balance of pieces they are familiar with and pieces that are new to them. You want pieces that are riskier in your programs because you can't become staid and predictable. That's where the audience retention part comes in. If people always know what to expect, they'll lose interest. At the same time, you can't be doing random things all the time. Familiarity and novelty are your two main tools, within whatever program structure you choose.

Finally, a word about pacing. You want to start strong and end strong. Stuff in the middle can be whatever, but should still have shape. Programming is a lot like composition. You're taking the audience on a ride with ups, downs, curves, and loops. Slow pieces and fast pieces and middling pieces should all be carefully placed to help keep the audience's interest. Modality is also a big issue, because it lets you create progression through the program. What I'm trying to say is, if you've got a piece in Brown Note Minor, you should save it for the big climax at the end. It'll make for a performance no one will ever forget.

The Art of Programming II: Rabbits and Turtles

Yesterday I talked about programming concerts/recitals. More specifically, I talked about goal setting for your concerts, as well as the machine gun/sniper rifle spectrum of program structure. Today I'm going to talk about cute things. Today, I am going to talk about bunnies and turtles.

Wascawwy Wabbits

Once upon a time, there was a rabbit. He had a lot of friends, but because he was a bit of a dick, he didn't have any particularly close friends. On the other hand, people enjoyed his antics and generally liked having him around for parties. You were never really sure what the rabbit would come up with next. Sometimes, it was glorious fun. Other times, somebody shot their eye out while brandishing a Red Rider BB Gun with a compass in the stock.

Durdle the Turtle

On the other end of the forest lived Durdle the Turtle. He was a fine, upstanding citizen. He paid his taxes on time. He looked both ways when he crossed the street. He was very deliberate with his choices. Sometimes, it would take him weeks to decide what box of cereal to buy at the grocery store. Then he would realize, he was a turtle, and didn't eat cereal. BUT! If he did, he sure well knew which box of cereal he would get. Durdle was not very popular. He did not get invited to the reindeer games, and not just because he was not a reindeer. The friends he did have, however, were very loyal to him, and vice versa.

GET ON WITH IT!
I bring up the Wascawwy Wabbit and Durdle the Turtle to help draw attention to the most basic of economic choices: risk vs reward. The rabbit is always taking risks. Sometimes, it pays off gloriously. Other times, it ends with a trip to the hospital. Durdle the Turtle is never taking risks. Sometimes, this lets him lead a safe and comfortable life. Other times, it leads him to choose a box of cereal he doesn't really need. He's also kind of boring.

So breaking it down to extremes: High risk versus low risk; high reward vs low reward. This makes a box. High risk/High Reward, Low Risk/High Reward, etc. etc. I hope I don't have to spell it all out.

Why talk about this at all? Because certain pieces of music will carry with them a certain amount of risk, and a certain amount of reward for taking that risk. The trick is, figuring out which is which. Occasionally, it is obvious. Schoenberg, bless his heart, is a very high risk proposition in American concert halls. The reward you might get from a concert featuring Schoenberg is a bit iffy, but in America, at least, the reward is likely to be rather low. Beethoven is generally rather low risk. People love Beethoven. It's also rather high reward. People love Beethoven!

In the art of programming, we need to carefully balance our risk. It is not that we can never play Schoenberg. It's just that we need to construct a context in which the risk of programming Schoenberg is mitigated by other factors. And it's not that we should always play Beethoven. While Beethoven is rarely boring, Durdle the Turtle always is. If you're constantly making low risk programs, people will lose interest. This means that we need to take a certain amount of gambles... while carefully balancing those gambles against much less risky programming choices.

The polls don't lie. Except when they do.

The big question is, how do you figure this all out? The most direct method is to just ask people what they like and what they want to hear. This has the advantage that you know exactly what to give the people. It has the disadvantage in that the people don't know what they didn't know they wanted to hear. That is, they will only choose piece based on their existing knowledge. Beethoven and Mozart will come up a lot. Schumann less so. Why? For the simple reason Schumann is less known. It has nothing to do with Schumann being a worse composer, far from it. Whenever I've seen or played Schumann, he has always been spectacularly received. He just doesn't have the same public image, and so won't jump to mind as readily.

Another method is less direct. You take opportunities to program lesser known works and judge the audience reaction. Was the applause polite or enthusiastic? Did the standing ovation seem obligatory or spontaneous? Was the audience falling asleep in their popcorn, or were they carefully paying attention throughout? Things like that. It takes careful observation from several perspectives. How did the orchestra feel they were received? How about the CEO in the audience? What about the ushers? What did everybody see and feel? That's how you tell what the audience felt. You have to watch closely and compare notes, because everybody has a different perspective, and it's only when you take them all together that you get a clear picture.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Alright. We're getting some focus here. We've got our goals. We've got our gun spectrum. We've got our rabbits and turtles. Now what is out poor befuddled flatulaphonist to do next? How do we start bringing this information together? Join me next time for the exciting conclusion to The Art of Programming: Building your Rabbit and Turtle Army! Time to crush our enemies, drive them before us, and hear the lamentations of their women!

The Art of Programming Part I. Machine Guns and Sniper Rifles.

Last Friday's article sparked some discussion. I am pleased with this. Most pleased indeed. *strokes hairless cat*

There a lot of good points made, and I wanted to incorporate some to create a more nuanced art of programming, as well as address one comment in particular. For those who are not classical music aficionados, 'programming' is the word we use for "selecting pieces for a concert." Usually the discussion ends there. "Did you select pieces for your flatulaphone recital? Yes? Done." More discerning people will ask something like, "Did you select pieces in more than one key? No, every piece is in 'The Brown Note' minor. Please change the program, for the love of..." Very rarely will someone enter the world asking the truly pertinent question. "What the heck is a flatulaphone?"

Clearly, we're missing something in our discussion of programming. But before I elaborate, I wanted to rebut (he heh... but...) a comment made by one of my friends. Perhaps rebut (pfpfpfff....) is not the right word. But (OMG) anyways. The comment is paraphrased as such: "The reason programming is not discussed more often is because it is such a personal issue." The implication seeming to be either, 1. It's so personal there's no use talking about it at all (which I do not think was the intent of the comment) or 2. It's so personal it is very difficult to make generalizations about the art, and so people just avoid it rather than deal with it.

I think the second point is actually the more relevant issue. The first one is easily dismissed: music and interpretation are, after all, highly personal arts, yet we talk about them all the time. They are arts we are much more comfortable discussing, though, and given the human tendency to avoid looking like an idiot at all costs, well... We'd rather maintain silence than remove all doubt. Nevertheless! If we're going to make progress at all, somebody is going to have to look dumb, and it might as well be me. So here I go!

Goal Setting

In my experience, I have never really heard this come up in the realm of classical music. It is likely because goal setting is more what those stuck up business people do. Well, guess what, people... Music is a business. Get over it. To get better, to compete, we have to realize what we are aiming for. And no, "being a financially solvent institution" does not count as a goal. That is called "a given."

As far as I can tell, there are two goals which are necessary. The first is audience acquisition, the second is audience retention. Which goal you are concerned with will change how you approach your programming.

Machine Guns vs. Sniper Rifles

There are also two extremes with which we can approach organizing a program. On one end, we have the classical kitchen buffet. You have a concert filled with pieces by different composers from different time periods, and it's all over the place. The advantages this type of organization can give you is you're much more likely to hit something somebody likes. It won't be everybody at the same time, but in general, it's hard to miss. Accuracy by volume, as it were.

The other extreme is to have a single work fill up the entire concert. Something like a Mahler symphony. The advantage here is the audience knows what they are getting and they are almost certainly going to be blown away by the awesomeness of the awesome music they want to hear. BOOM! Headshot!

Disadvantages of the Machine Gun approach are: not as much power, not as much accuracy, much more difficult to organize into a meaningful whole. Disadvantages of the Sniper Rifle include: a (potentially) more narrow target, often asks a great deal of the audience.

To my knowledge, there are a handful of large works that operate well under both methods. This hat-trick category include pieces like Britten's War Requiem, or Orff's Carmina Burana. They are large works which take up an entire concert, but are divided into a series of smaller chunks which provide the variety of the first method. It is not surprising that pieces such as these tend to fill up seats really well. The DSO was nearly sold out for Carmina Burana recently, and WAS sold out for Britten' War Requiem.


Ok, so a basic ground work has been laid. We have some goals. We have a metric to judge program structure. We have a flatulaphone. Now what is our flatulaphonist to do? You'll have to wait and find out! Join me next time when I discuss types of music you might want to program!