I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. – Part One

Well, friends, this is turning out to be a very long one, so here’s part one.  I haven’t written out any of part two or its inevitable successors, but I feel like this gives you plenty to think about in the meantime.  Hopefully discussions resulting from this entry will shape its successor(s).  Oh man!  So much more to say.  This barely scratches the surface.

Classical music has a problem.  In fact, it has a big problem.  I would say that it is dying, but I don’t think that’s correct.  Classical music is already dead.  It’s not being written anymore.  It lives on only through performance; so when I say classical music has a problem, I really mean that the performance of all music directly linked to the classical style has a problem.  This is what is truly dying, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s understand this point and just say that classical music is dying. (Let’s also limit this to this country - mostly.  I don’t really have much insight into what’s going on elsewhere.)  Trust me.  It will be easier this way.  If you are unwilling to accept that classical music is dying, it’s time to wake up; however, I don’t think it is yet time to call in the undertaker.  

I think it’s important to talk about this problem and express any ideas you may have about it.  We need someone with a spark of inspiration and a new idea.  Who knows who that will be?  That person might be you.  I know a lot of people who either have or are in the process of devoting their life to classical music or jazz and it would be foolish of me not to admit that I am in some ways inextricably linked to its fate as well.  So, this is important.  Let’s think this through.  What is the current state of things? What caused this?  What is being done to fix this?  Is there anything we can do?  I don’t pretend to think that I can answer all of these questions or even one of them completely, but I’m going to throw everything I’ve got out there.  Maybe we can make some sense of this.

While I mention it, I think it’s important to get something straight about jazz.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s not stretching the truth to lump jazz into the same category as classical music.  Really, it’s not faring any better than classical music, and it shares many of the same problems.  If you disagree, please show me otherwise.  That would make me very happy.

So, shall we?

If I had to describe the problem with classical music with one word, I would choose stubbornness.  Cluelessness is right up there too, but really, I think stubbornness is the way to go.  I want you to stop right now, follow this link and read this article: 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954004576090321831982948.html

Really, if you are ignoring the link, go back and read the article.  I just stopped writing to re-read it, so you should go read it too.  Good article, right?  There’s some really interesting stuff in it.  Now, what’s the first thing that strikes you?  I made several friends read it in front of me so I could secretly gauge their initial response (yes, I’m occasionally evil).  The most common first response was: “I didn’t know Mahler came to Rochester!”  Even after discussing the article with these friends, my own initial response never came up without me mentioning it.  What got me right away is that in 106 years, it seems that the vast majority of orchestras, both major and smaller city orchestras, have not fundamentally changed the way they program music.  Look how much the face of music, both orchestral and otherwise, has changed in the last 100 years, and ask yourself if this makes any sense at all.  Hasn’t anybody thought of a way to improve on this or at least make it more relevant to our current day lives?  Maybe someone has.  I have not gone through a complete survey of orchestra programming, but in my experience I haven’t seen anything that different from Mahler’s vision.  Maybe the person who had a brilliant idea was shot down in favor of the old traditions?  What an interesting topic for study.  

The important point is that, largely, programming for orchestras has not changed in 106 years.  Guess what?  Neither has the repertoire (largely).  I’m beginning to sense a pattern.  I firmly believe that it’s more an overwhelming send of pride and stubbornness that’s preventing innovation in the orchestral world.  I don’t believe for a second that there haven’t been brilliant musical ideas since 1907.  I do, however, believe that the majority of those running orchestras or conducting orchestras today believe that classical music is somehow more intellectually important and correct than other types of music and thus the well-thought-out traditions governing it should be preserved for the betterment of mankind.  Furthermore, I think the result of this is that many of these orchestral bigwigs believe that the right approach is to wait until the public magically decides that the stuffy old people were right all along and classical music is really the way to go.   I’m building to an analogy, so let’s bring Europe into this very briefly.  This is one of my favorite ensembles:

It’s the Vienna Philharmonic (credit Terry Linke).  Take a good look.  There are men and lots of them.  Not 100% men, but seriously, that’s a lot of men.

Analogy time!  Putting this all together, we have an organization largely dominated by men in important roles, unwilling to change, absolutely sure they know what’s best, secure in its high-mightiness, and holding out until the rest of the world discovers that the old ways are really the way to go.  This in the context of a world that has, arguably, changed more dramatically in the last 125 years than it has during any other period during that last several thousand years.   If you take these last two sentences out of the context of this blog, I bet most people would think I was criticizing the Roman Catholic Church.  I have very strong opinions about this church, but I’m going to try to keep most of that out of this.  I simply want to point out a couple of things.  Many people are losing faith in the Roman Catholic Church (especially in this country), especially young people.  Meanwhile, the church clings to old traditions (like not allowing women to become priests, not allowing priests to marry, and clinging to the idea that celibate old men are experts in natural, human sexual conduct) and people become further alienated.  If that goes too far for some of you I apologize, but I want to state my case as clearly as I can.  Anyway, people are leaving the faith in droves and the result is that churches are closing.  There are less people willing to preach and less people willing to listen.  The church will always go on I’m sure, but if things don’t change, I really think the Roman Catholic Church will become far smaller and far less powerful than it is now.  It’s a new time with new problems and new ideas and people are looking for something that is in tune with these new principles, not something that tells them they really need to go back and re-evaluate everything around them in favor of the old ways.

This is exactly the problem facing classical music.  The traditional approach may be fine for the faithful, but it’s not going to work for a more mainstream audience.  If things don’t change, the audience will not come.  I am one of the faithful.  Personally, I love classical music as it is.  It’s pretty pitch perfect for me (see what I did there?), but I am not a mainstream person.  At the same time, I know it is downright suicide to defend classical music as it stands.  If I want it to go on, I need to encourage it to change, and I need to help it to change.  I’m reminded of the title of a musical about the nature of relationships that I’ve never even seen, but it’s a perfect expression of how I feel towards classical music:

“I love you, you’re perfect, now change.”

To be continued…

Oh yeah, it appears that I have a blog.

This seems as good a time as any to remind myself that I intend to write in my blog about once a week.  That hasn't really happened so far, but that's really no surprise to me.  As I have mentioned, I am an amateur band director.  This basically means I have no time for anything, especially what I am actually supposed to be doing.

Sometimes, sacrifices must be made.

This time around, I find myself spending time planning some rather silly pep band events that just happen to coincide with spring break.

Aspiring Amateur Band Director Life Lesson #1:  Band directors do not get breaks.

More on this stuff later.

In the meantime, I have a post brewing that will sort of be the culmination of a lot of thought and consideration.  I hope to have it up by the end of the week, but who am I kidding? 

When it does eventually appear, it’s going to be about the state of classical music.  Full disclosure:  I’m going to bring religion into our relationship, friends.  I know it’s a bit premature, and we probably should leave a discussion of religion and politics out of it until we get to know each other a little better, but the analogy is too good to leave out, and I trust that you all can handle it.

Honestly, if you can find even a bit of humor in this:

you will probably understand.  Also, can you guess which religion classical music is like?  I just gave you a big hint!

Until then, my friends, watch your conductors occasionally.  They are only trying to help.

Let’s start from the beginning

I have always been blessed with great teachers.  I can say this going as far back as I can remember and as far forward as today.  This, of course, is not limited to the standard grade school teachers and college professors.  I would be remiss if I didn’t include my parents, friends, relatives, conductors, and advisors.  The way I see things, if you can’t learn something from everyone around you, you’re doing it wrong.  That’s not to say that everyone is a great teacher, but I can say that many people who have touched my life, several of whom I consider to be great and true friends, have been truly outstanding teachers and mentors.

You take all those great teachers, add the myriad of stuff I’ve learned from all those other people I’ve encountered, and pile on the ever growing list of things I’ve managed to teach myself despite my best efforts and what you are left with is quintessentially me.  As me, I think that’s pretty cool.  I firmly believe that I am, almost exclusively, a product of where I have been guided rather than where I have been pushed or forced or where, through some divine miracle, I was meant to be in the first place.  Whether it was me or someone else who was doing the guiding is largely dependent on what specific piece of my life you are considering, but I certainly would not have any chance of guiding myself if not for those great teachers I keep mentioning.

Out of all this I have developed an incredible respect and love for mentors and teachers.  I know now that I will not be satisfied for the rest of my life unless I can in some significant way return the favor bestowed on me by mentoring and teaching others myself.  This did not become entirely clear to me until about three years ago, but I must have had some inkling of this, four full years before that, when I decided it would be a cool idea to start a pep band.  I also had no clue that acting on that idea would irrevocably change everything.

There I was, a sophomore in college, majoring in optics, pretending that a double major in music was possible with an engineering workload, no conducting experience with any ensemble – just a little bit of basic instruction for field conducting marching bands, and I decide to start a pep band at a major, albeit relatively small, university.  Luckily, I had a roommate who was at least as crazy as I was and just as motivated to start a band.  After four months of organization and planning and a whole lot of really crazy luck, I was musical director of a pep band, and I had no clue whatsoever what I was doing.  We played at some basketball games and it became clear that the band members didn’t particularly know what they were doing either.  There were only 11 of us at the start and we were the picture perfect definition of a motley crew.  We were very spirited, but as a band we left something to be desired.  Nevertheless, it was a start.

Flash forward seven years.  Some things haven’t changed.  Pep band is still a motley crew for sure, and I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing sometimes; but we are strong, organized, much larger, even more spirited, and we sound absolutely incredible when we are on top of our game.  Beyond that, I’m an assistant conductor of the university wind symphony.  I never did finish that pesky music degree, and I never took a formal conducting class or lesson, but I did manage a Bachelor of Science degree and am now plugging away at a PhD in optics.  What else happened in those seven years?  Suffice to say, a whole lot of good, a whole lot of bad, and a whole lot of learning.

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that if not for those great teachers I had before college, I would never have had the courage to start the pep band.  If not for those mentors, teachers, and friends that came after, I would not have had the courage to keep going.

And for that I am eternally grateful.