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!

Naked Twister

Today I'm going to talk about getting hammered and playing awesome party games. Like, this one time, at band camp... Wait, no. I'm going to talk about community. Yes. Yes... This is something that I feel is missing from the classical music scene. Community. You know, groups of people getting together and sharing time with each other and bonding over something that everybody mutually enjoys. Like naked Twister. Or Bach. Granted, the classical music community as it stands would not be my first choice for naked Twister. But that's how you know you have a problem.

...and then my own snoring woke me up
The thing about community is, it's not just some random group of people. It's people who share something. The anime community, for example, shares its love for school girl uniforms. The video game community shares its arguments over whether Shephiroth was the best villain of all time or just the whiny mama's boy everybody should know he is. The important thing here is, people don't just get together at an anime convention, watch some anime, and go home. No. People often fly hundreds of miles and book hotel rooms for a weekend so they can be around other anime lovers and argue with them.

Now, I went to the symphony for a while before I realized it was a boring dull affair that isn't worth the money. Why is it boring and dull? Is it all the old people? Is it the stultifying pretensions? Is it the lack of a decent shot of whisky? Well, yes to all of this in part, but what I'm really concerned about is the following not uncommon scenario:

You drive 30 minutes or more in traffic to get downtown. You pay too much for parking. You hand over the ticket you paid a lot for. You go inside and are shuffled to your seat by well meaning, genial, and otherwise invisible ushers. You sit for 15 minutes waiting for the orchestra to enter. You listen, clap after the first movement because it was awesome and it seems the natural thing to do, then realize everyone else is looking at you like an idiot. The orchestra finishes. You get up, go to your car, and drive 30 minutes to go home.

Alright. That is your suburbanite's typical experience going to the symphony. When you put it in such stark terms, it's no wonder they never go! Heck, I live practically right next door and I never go either, simply because it's not worth my money or my time. If I want to hear the pieces I want to hear, I have the internet. If I want to go to the symphony, I need something more. What do I need? I need a community.

Happy Feelings Time
To me, community means a number of things. But mostly it means people are talking to each other. Drinks are had. Laughter and arguments and occasionally a pillow fight. Maybe some mud wrestling. A trip to the symphony lacks exactly all of these things. Maybe the director says a few words while people fall asleep in their seats. But look how different this is from Beethoven's time.

Beethoven didn't just play for anything. He played for gatherings, parties. Mostly rich people parties, but parties nonetheless. The musicians may have been the main event, but it was still part of a larger social structure. People met Beethoven. They shook his hand! Can you imagine? I can't imagine shaking the hand of a living composer unless I'm in the symphony itself. All of the cool stuff is happening behind closed doors. We never get the chance to meet the musicians, we never get to hear their stories, we never get to connect with anyone on stage. There's no humanity in the symphony.

You know good bands do? They meet with their fans. They shake their hands. Maybe autograph a breast or two. They may not like it, depending on how everything is going, but they do it anyways. Because after the show, it's Happy Feelings Time. That's when everybody is going around talking about how great the show was, how glad they were to pay the ticket price, how that one girl threw her panties at the lead singer and OMG I can't believe she did that. And the band members are there, and they're taking pictures, and it's all a good time. Happy Feelings Time.

Right now, the symphony doesn't have Happy Feelings Time. It has nothing, in fact. You go in, you go out, thank for your money, chumps. That's not what is said, but that is what is implied. No, you have to do better than that. The soloist can't just be met by VIPS, everybody has to have to opportunity to meet them. And probably not just the soloist, either. The conductor, the principle chairs, heck the whole orchestra should go out and have an good time drinking their prune juice or whatever it is they're drinking nowadays. Yeah, it lengthens your night. Yeah, it can be grueling. But that's what great bands do all the time. You're not going to be shown up by Lady Gaga, are you? Because that's what's happening right now.

The Need for Security
Basically, what I'm saying is, we might want to rethink how the symphony experience should look altogether. I think, if we don't need to hire security to make sure things don't get too out of hand, it's not good enough. Of course, I only really think that because hyperbole is fun. I'm only half joking, though. You don't want people to just "go to the symphony." You want people to "experience the symphony." And not just the performance, either. The whole symphony. All of it. We need Happy Feelings Time, and we need some naked Twister all up in here.

First!

EDIT: There used to be a couple links in here. They went to Leroy Anderson's 'Typewriter' recorded by the BBC, Dvorak's 'Silent Woods' performed by Jacquelyn du Pre, and Miyoko Shida balancing a feather on a bunch of sticks. Alas, they are copy written material, which AdSense does not take kindly to. I'm not complaining, it's reasonable, but I wanted to make a note so if you wanted to find this stuff, you can.

I started a blog. It is going to be about music. And teaching. And maybe other random stuff. But mostly music and teaching, because I play music and I teach. Specifically, I play and teach cello, the best of all possible instruments. There are some who will disagree with that on personal grounds. I don't care about them so much. There are some who will disagree on philosophical grounds, because Dr. Pangloss. Those people may have a point. Upon further reflection, however, they are still wrong. Why do I say this? No particular reason.

So music. Classical music blogs are woefully lacking. I don't know this for sure. Maybe they are hiding. It amounts to the same thing. I'm positive this is not such a good thing. There's so much wonderful music to be heard, and I know from personal experience many people want to hear it. But they don't know where to look. Well, look no further. I will discuss classical music here, hopefully in a clear, non-pedantic, non-judgmental manner. Ok. Maybe a little judgmental.

What will I discuss? Mostly composers, classical music culture, and other things that come to mind. Also contemporary musicians/performers/composers, because an art only survives if it is alive, and it is only alive if new compositions are created and performed. Otherwise it's a museum. There is a difference between a museum and a gallery. Mostly money. But partly the artist's age, give or take a few centuries. Granted, both are important, just for different reasons. Right now, classical music is only museum music, or mostly so in the large cultural centers. This must change.

But why? You don't hear anything about the dwindling Grateful Dead audience. It's a catastrophe, really, when you think about it from the Grateful Dead's point of view. They're hemorrhaging audience members faster than a patient losing blood in an episode of House. Do people still watch House? I don't know. I don't. Some of you know what I'm talking about. That's the important thing. Where was I. Right.

Because classical music is better than the Grateful Dead. Deadheads will disagree, but their nickname implies, well... I don't want to judge too much. Everybody has their thing. Go have some fun watching Grateful Dead cover bands. What does it mean, 'Classical music is better.'? It means it has more depth. It has more interesting things hiding under its surface. Its more clever, sometimes too clever by half. It has more variety. Sometimes it has more of everything. Like, sometimes it uses a typewriter.

Not to say it's all better. Classical music also tends to be long. And require focus. And possibly some amount of knowledge to fully appreciate it. Possibly. I'm not 100% convinced of that. Probably. But I go to an Open Mic dedicated almost exclusively to classical music. Almost nobody in the audience is a trained musician. Other than the musicians, who are highly trained. But other than them. Few of them know much about classical music, or music at all other than the Top 40. And yet they love it. And they come back. And they tip.

As it turns out, people like seeing things that are done well. It really doesn't matter what that thing is. It could be somebody balancing twigs on a feather. Or sports. Or anything, really. As long as it's done well, people will like it. But you also have to show it to them. You have to let them know it exists. You have to bring it to them. That is a full article in itself, but really: You cannot expect your audience to come to you. You must go to them. Symphonies are quite poor at making this happen. Maybe that is why symphonies are failing.

Ok. That's enough. Now go listen to music.