aeblog

I have more questions than answers

Clearly there is a difference between classical and 'popular' music. Well, there are tons of differences, but what are the differences that might be key to understanding this lack of energy that I talked about in my last post?
Is classical music too pretentious? Is it too 'smart' for the masses to appreciate? Does it have a distasteful 'holier-than-thou' attitude? Has all the spontaneity been composed out of it? What makes something classical as opposed to something else anyway? What has one piece of music being performed in a concert hall and another in a rock club? I could muse upon these questions for hours and hours. But I won't bore you. Well, maybe I will.

What is it that is so exciting about rock or metal or rap or hip hop etc etc to the younger generations? Well, you can dance to it, you don't have to think about it to let it make you feel good, it has a certain raw power that is seductive...the list surely goes on and on. Are these characteristics vital to attracting a youthful audience? Probably. Do these characteristics lose their appeal on older audiences? Possibly. Is this just a natural and biological progression? When we get older are we compelled to think more and feel less somehow? Is the world reduced to a set of knowable and understandable things such that nothing that lives on emotion alone is any longer valid? I really hope not.
Rock musicians perform their own music typically. And they also don't perform it from a static score. There is a spontaneity and improvisational aspect which is exciting. We like to think that during a rock show ANYTHING can happen. Yeah, the band has planned out some stuff, but you never know! Maybe they'll take a request, or maybe if the audience does X, they will play Y. All you know when you show up is that particular musicians will be taking the stage. Nothing more; nothing less. That leaves a lot up to the imagination and can create a palpable anticipation. So maybe we should get rid of program notes to introduce some mystery? Set lists are cool, but it would be so pathetically lame and pretentious if they were handed out before Blink-182 took the stage, don't you think?
At a rock show I always feel like there is some sort of collective experience involving both the audience and the performers. However, I feel that in classical shows there is this invisible wall between the performers and the audience. There is no spontaneous banter between pieces or the crowd screaming out requests. We are there to sit quietly and watch and listen like it is some souped up television or something. No interaction: We watch. They play. We listen. They play. We clap. It's over. All neat and proper. That's boring.
I got to thinking that perhaps the venues are part of the problem. It is hard to really let yourself loose and feel the music when you are in a gilded concert hall with barely enough room in your seat to sit comfortably and with legions of well behaved and dressed people straining to pay so much attention they forget what music is really supposed to be about. Maybe it would do us all some good to not insist that everyone is absolutely quiet and still while the performance is happening. I thought it would be fun to have the conductor purposefully come out before the lights have dimmed and while the audience is still milling around and start the program. That might startle a few people. Maybe we need to just take ourselves a little less seriously. Maybe we should make it LOUD!

I don't have too many answers here, but I do know for sure that I like music to hit my heart first and my brain second. Popular, classical, whatever. This is why music is so powerful.