The sky really IS falling. So dance!

(Note: I've done a slight bit of copy editing to this post a day after originally posting it.)

As I sit down to write, there are 23 comments to my first after-the-fact post on the "Classical Music in Jeans" concert, which all appear to be from different people. That's about 14% of the audience of 166--a pretty high percentage, I think.

The overall consensus in the comments seems to be that the informality and participatory atmosphere worked, at least to a point, but that things got a bit out of hand at times. Some people liked the playing so much that they would have liked more silence. (That's nice to hear, of course!)

In speaking with people today, what I've noticed is that the more seriously committed, the more deeply in love with music the student I've talked to, the less they liked the audience-participation aspects of the evening. But with colleagues, at least the ones I've encountered, the more concerned they are with the incredibly shrinking audience for classical music, the more enthusiastic they are about the high attendance and the high energy at the concert. (I haven't spoken yet with the two colleagues who walked out during the concert, though.)

166 people in attendance--that's nearly three times the average School of Music faculty recital attendance of 56.

The comments, the vast majority from students, are very thoughtful, very honest, and much appreciated. They focus for the most part on the experience the writer had at the concert, and of course, that's what I asked for when I emailed the music faculty and students and invited them to comment. Those who didn't like the participatory aspects didn't like them because they love music and wanted to hear it more fully.

The thing that doesn't seem to have come up in many posts so far is the larger context. I don't think many of us, students or faculty, really get that there is a crisis in classical music. It's like global warming and the national debt--things are worse than the present effects seem to indicate. Classical music is a catastrophe not waiting to happen, but one already well under way. And it may be beginning to snowball.

I had dinner with an arts administrator and consultant last year, and we discussed her views on the crises not just in classical music but in dance and drama as well. Classical music, especially orchestras and opera companies, will be the first to go, she predicted. Ten years from now, she predicted, there will be many fewer full-time orchestras unless something drastic happens.

Greg Sandow is writing and writing and writing about this (here and here) and working with everyone he can to get people thinking about what to do about this. (I'm one of the musicians he's impacted.) A lot of us do a lot of hand wringing and/or go into denial (head-in-the-sand, one colleague said to me today).

The music faculty here at DePauw has at times even considered cutting way back on the number of faculty and guest recitals, thinking if we had fewer concerts more people would come to them. I've always opposed this. I don't just love to make music, I need to make music. And if only 50 or 20 or 10 people come to hear me, I don't really care.

But are people not coming to concerts because we have too many of them? I don't think so. I think people don't come because they aren't enthusiastic about classical music, and they think it's going to be boring.

Now the people who do go to concerts already love classical music. But everyone else pretty much thinks it's going to be a boring experience in which basic human responses, including the need to move, must be repressed. Oh, gee, I could watch TV, or play cards, or smoke a joint, or drink a case of beer, or play Ultimate Frisbee, or hang out with friends, or even study . . . or I could go and listen to (what I assume to be) boring music and have to stifle my humanity.

What would you choose?

Most of our music faculty go to few concerts here. (And this is not a situation to unique to our campus.) Even the musicians don't think it's worth the trip.

We had a guest speaker here some years ago who thinks a lot about audience building, including at universities. He told us that if we want lots of people at our concerts, we can't look to the music faculty and students. There is a music fatigue we experience, and no matter how much one loves music, you can only go to so many concerts a week. It's the liberal arts faculty and students, and people from the community, who need to be the audience. That's the audience we need to build.

So my experiment with this concert was not about a new way to experience music for people who already love classical music the way it is. It was about creating an experience for non-musicians in which they could experience classical music in an interactive way. One in which their aliveness would not be deadened, but enhanced. I always hope that an audience will leave a concert more alive than when they came. As this concert approached, I decided I wanted to remove all the fear, all the inhibition, and let whatever wanted to happen happen. How enlivening can we make it for the audience?

Sure, there were times in which the audience participation reminded me of all the carrying on many new college students do: no rules, so let's run wild, let's do it because we can. OK. But really, so what? As the concert went on, there was less and less of that, and I think if we have more events like this a new culture will develop.

This concert was not for the classical music lovers. The concert was for the people who don't go to classical concerts and came because this one was different. Who came because someone invited them.

So I asked my seminar class this morning what the friends they brought thought. "My friend said, 'Oh my god, it was absolutely orgasmic,'" one told us. One guy brought four biology majors who had a great time.

A colleague in the philosophy department who brought his 5-year old son wrote me,

I had a couple of main reactions.

One was that allowing the audience to express itself more ended up giving us more to be entertained by and applaud--namely, each other, what with the dancing and all. Some undergrads have a really delightful innocence and sense of play.

The other was that the informality drastically reduced the interpersonal distance between performer and audience. In the usual stuffy setup, tuxedoed performer(s) silently glide onstage and do their thing while the audience watches. They are separated by physical distance, the difference in height of the stage, the darkness in the house which makes the audience l sort of voyeurs, and the (now) traditional silence. In that setting, I feel less or no personal connection or empathy with the performers, and find that what I mainly expect from them is precision and am disappointed by any lack of it. The whole thing is brittle.

Last night's informal setup allowed more empathy, making the music more of a shared experience rather than something transmitted from stage to audience. That was pleasant in itself and it heightened my enjoyment of some of the music, especially (dunno why) the sad parts. Sometimes the audience got so noisy it interfered, but I didn't mind much.

Main thing I want to say is this: I really hope last night's format doesn't turn out to be just an isolated incident.

Quite eloquent. Has he not put his finger on why many people don't go to classical concerts?

It's quite similar to this quote from Christopher Small's book Musicking (which I admit I haven't read yet, but is on my list), which I've copied from a post on Alex Ross's blog:

The silence that will greet tonight's performance while it is in progress suggests a different attitude [from the audience behavior of past eras]. Those who wish perfect communion with the composer through the performance can have it, uninterrupted by any noise that may signal the presence of other spectators. On the other hand, while our attention is without doubt active, it is detached; we no longer feel ourselves to be part of the performance but listen to it as it were from the outside. Any noise we might make would not be an element of the performance, as were the sighs and murmurs of the Parisian audience, but an interruption or distraction. I have even known the minute clinks and jingles of a female listener's Charm bracelet to put its wearer's neighbor in a rage. Who we are, then, is spectators rather than participants, and our silence during the performance is a sign of this condition, that we have nothing to contribute but our attention to the spectacle that has been arranged for us. We might go further and say that we are spectators at a spectacle that is not ours, that our relationship with those who are responsible for the production of the spectacle--the composer, the orchestra, the conductor, and those who make the arrangements for tonight's concert—is that of consumers to producers, and our only power is that of consumers in general, to buy or not to buy.

WAKE UP! PEOPLE AREN'T GOING TO CLASSICAL CONCERTS! When was the last well attended solo piano or voice or cello or string quartet recital, for which people actually bought tickets, where you live? My gosh, I can't think of a solo cello recital in Indianapolis that wasn't at a college for over ten years, and that one was Yo-Yo Ma.

I could rant on and on and on, and will some more in a later post. Watching the video of last night's concert, what is absolutely clear to me is that the audience felt part of the performance. And they responded with great enthusiasm.

There's still much to digest. Lots of ideas are being generated in my mind for how to build on this experience. Obviously it's not for everyone, especially those who like things as they are. But there are fewer and fewer of us in that category. Those of us concerned with the future of classical music can't afford the luxury of the status quo.

WHAT CAN WE DO TO MAKE CLASSICAL CONCERTS SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT TO ATTEND? AN EXPERIENCE THAT SEEMS WORTH EXPERIENCING?

That's the question last night's concert was an experiment in answering. It's not better posters and fewer concerts that will bring in larger audiences. It's different sorts of concerts (and they don't have to all be what we did last night, either).

When it comes to the future of classical music, the sky really is falling. The audience is shrinking. Young people aren't coming in to replace the older members as they pass on. It's as simple as that.

And if it takes letting them dance to get new audiences in, let's let them dance. I can't think of anything better to do in a crisis.

The Classical Music in Jeans Concert

Last night was the "classical music in jeans" "informal/interractive musical event," the cello/piano recital of short Romantic pieces in which the audience was invited to clapp between movements, clap during movements, dance/move in front of the stage, and otherwise respond freely. I'd promised my students that if they brought non-music major students with them, I'd wear jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.

We had a big crowd, and the music students had indeed brought a good number of their liberal-arts major friends. And it was very interractive. And the audience was very enthusiastic.

There was indeed a lot of dancing, including some very uninhibited moving by young children. From time to time, the little kids became the focus of attention. As a performer, it was such a different experience--exciting, relaxing, and distracting all at once--that there will be a lot to write about.

For now though, I'm getting the post up quickly so that members of the audience can post comments and observations. So please do!

By the way, if you add a comment, please note if you are a classical musician (student or faculty) or not--especially if you were one of the liberal arts students invited by a music student. Thanks!

Comfort zone? What comfort zone?

As I get ready for tomorrow's alternative classical music event (with everyone encouraged to move and respond audibly and non-traditional times), there is some trepidation. I'm a worrier, so I worry about almost everything, anyway. And this is different enough from anything I've done before that it is definitely out of my confort zone. (Most of what follows below is from an email I sent to Greg Sandow, who is being wonderfully supportive of this experiment,)

Yes, there's a very slight concern about peer disapproval, but that doesn't feel significant (one of the upsides of being an out gay man is being comfortable with the disapproval of traditionalists). I am more worried that some people who are used to classical concerts, who like having the silence while they listen, etc., may be distracted and bothered. That for them, whatever moving, clapping, and other visual or audible expressions may occur will be distracting and take away from the experience. The feeling that some of my long-time local fans (for lack of a better word) may be uncomfortable at this concert is feeding a new (although mild) anxiety.

I'm more worried that nothing unusual will happen! Or that the audience may be too noisy, or the moving, if it does happen, may include young people with nervous energy doing silly stuff that wont be stemming from the music itself but from adolescent silliness.

So I keep reminding myself that it's an experiment, that I can draw on all my Zen, meditation, and New-Agey experiences to let go of attachment to any particular result and embrace and include whatever happens, and that I use my workshop-facilitator skills to create the appropriate atmosphere and encourage the kind of involvement I'd like to see. But I know that whatever happens is unlikely to be exactly what I imagine, and the control freak in me is freaking out!

More than anything, though, I think it will be a fun adventure.

My Experiment in an "Alternative" Classical Performance

Well, like just about every classical musician I know (especially those who don't have a full-time gig in New York, where classical music life is much healthier than in many other places), I'm worried about the shrinking and the "graying" of classical audiences. Even at DePauw University where I teach, we see this phenomenon. A fantastic School of Music, a tremendous number of faculty recitals, guest artist events, and wonderful student concerts, yet smaller and smaller audiences. I don't have any numbers to back up my general impression, but it sure seems to me that there has been a declining number of non-music majors and non-music faculty attending concerts over the 18 years I've been teaching here.

Over the last year, I've become quite taken with Greg Sandow's blogs about the future of classical music (links in the right column). Inspired by his Juilliard course "Breaking Barriers: Classical Music in an Age of Pop," I'm teaching a seminar for first-year students at DePauw called "Creativity, Non-Western Music, and the Future of Classical Music."

The students and I have been talking about alternative ways of presenting and performing classical music. What's so off putting to their peers, and often to themselves, is the formality and the atmosphere of fear that pervades the audience, espeically the younger members of the audience. Don't make noise. Don't clap between movements. And whatever you do, don't move.

It just happens I'm giving a faculty recital tomorrow (Wed. 8/30) night, of short Romantic pieces. And so my pianist colleague and I have decided to throw all the rules out the window and invite people to respond however they wish. Quoted below is an email I sent to all the music students. Other versions went to the enitre university faculty and have been posted on the university's intranet classified ad board.

So far, only positive response from colleagues and some excitement from students. Stephanie Gurga, the pianist perfroming with me, and I played part of the program for my seminar class this morning so they could practice moving, clapping, etc. There was a lot of nervouse energy and a bit more chatter than I'd prefer at the concert, but it was also fun to play for people moving and having a good time. One thing I realized is that when the audience is free to move and respond, the focus becomes more on the collective, shared experience and less on the performers and how "well" (in my case) I think I'm playing.

More soon. Meanwhile, here's that email:

Wednesday Aug. 30

7:30 PM Thompson Recital Hall in the PAC

The Romantic Cello: An Informal and Interactive Musical Event

Eric Edberg, cello and Stephanie Gurga, piano

featuring short, entertaining pieces

one hour max

performers in jeans

clap whenever you want

and dance in the aisles if you feel like it

Ever think classical concerts are too formal and have too many intimidating rules? Could one of the reasons classical audiences are growing older and smaller be that the whole stuffy ambience, in which newcomers are shamed if they do something natural like clap between movements or during a movement, be part of the problem? (Did you know that before the 20th century, audiences clapped between movements and even during them, and composers like Mozart encouraged it?)

Stephanie Gurga (a recent SoM grad and brilliant pianist) and I think so. So we're trying an experiment. To make the atmosphere unintimidating, we're going to dress very casually in Wednesday evening's recital. I'm wearing jeans.

And the usual rules of audience deportment are suspended for one night. Clap between movements (well, there's only one multi-movement piece). Clap after a good lick, or shout out an "amen" or a "boo." Dance in the aisles or in front of the stage.

I made a deal with my first-year seminar class (which is looking at the future of classical music): I'll wear jeans and make the concert as fun as possible if they'll bring someone new to classical music to the recital. So I'm making the same invitation to all you music majors. Our future as classical performers is dependent on getting young people to start coming to classical concerts again. Let's see if this helps.

Bring a friend who's not a classical concert-goer, and let them know they don't have to worry about clapping at the wrong time.

Permission

Speaking of LGBT issues, this video doesn't directly mention anything about them, but is perhaps the best thing I've seen on same-sex marriage. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for posting it on his site recently.)



(Sometimes embedded Youtube videos don't load; if you don't see the vido above, try this link.)

More like flying an Israeli flag in a neo-Nazi neighborhood

J.R. and Robin Knight run the Lakeway Hotel Bed and Breakfast in Meade, Kansas. As TV station KBSD reported on July 20, J.R.'s 12-year-old son bought a rainbow flag at a Wizard of Oz Museum. Nobody involved realized that rainbow flags are a nearly universal symbol for LGBTQ pride and support of diversity until the local radio station started making a fuss. The community is not one, evidently, to tolerate even a mistakenly-hoisted symbol of tolerance for non-heterosexuals who think they have the right to lead their own lives. (Plenty of further stories, by the way, on these Google searches: web and news.)

The Knights, however, were not as horrified as their neighbors to learn the flag's more common connotation. So they are standing their ground, keeping the flag up, and receiving all sorts of harrassment, much of it coming, I'm sorry yet not surprised to learn, from self-described Christians, who seem to be overlooking all that stuff about not casting the first stone, loving your neighbor as yourself, etc., etc.

I was particularly struck by this comment in the KBSD story:

Local resident, Keith Klassen says the flag is a slap in the face to the conservative community of Meade. “To me it's just like running up a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood. I can't walk into that establishment with that flag flying because to me that's saying that I support what the flag stands for and I don't," says Klassen.

I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that Mr. Klassen is a "Bible-believeing" Christian, and that his thinking is influenced by the conservative religious/movement which believes that the U.S.A. was founded to be a Christian country and that much of the country's prosperity now and in the future is inextricably linked to the extent to which it institutionalizes and enforces "Biblical morality." Whatever his personal religious views, the idea that those not following the current popular understanding of "traditional" and "Biblical" morality (I say "current" since other moral positions thought not that long ago to be Biblical, regarding issues such as women's rights, slavery, and racial equality, are no longer in fashion among most fundamentalists and Evangelicals) are a threat to the health of society as a whole is a powerful one, shaping the politics of many.

Klassen's "running up a Nazi flag in a Jewish neighborhood" comment really stuck with me. Sure, they are flying a flag which offends the values of many of their neighbors. But other than that, Klassen has it backwards.

What the Knights are doing much more the equivalent of flying an Israeli flag in a neo-Nazi neighborhood.

The rainbow flag symbolizes inclusion, diversity, mutual respect and tolerance, and celebration of different people living together as theirselves. The rainbow flag says lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and otherwise "queer" people have the right to live openly, safely, and free of harrassment. It is a statement about the equality of all people.

Nazis and neo-Nazis, on the otherhand, believe in the superiority of one group of people over the other. The Nazis exterminated millions of people whom they decided were inferior and represented a threat to the "master race." The Nazi flag represents the perpetrators of the Holocaust. The Nazi flag represents facisim and murder and genocide.

Are those harrassing the Knghts acting more like neo-Nazis or Jesus?

Meanwhile, many people around the country are sending messages of support, and even contributions, to the Knights as they experience a loss of local business. That's a great thing about the internet, isn't it? We can find out quickly about incidents of harrassment and do something to help out.

By the way, I am NOT NOT NOT saying that Mr. Klassen or anyone else in Meade is a Nazi. I don't like these "like a Nazi" comparisions anyway; it trivializes the Holocaust. Mel White, of Soulforce, taught me long ago to think the best of those with whom I disagree and to understand that those who campaign against equal rights for LGBTQ people as good people who are well-meaning, afraid, and misinformed. What the folks in Meade need is less condemnation and more interaction with a variety of nice, out LGBTQ folks and learn that we are human, too, and quite often great to hang out with. By not giving in to the fears and prejudices of the people who are their neighbors, the Knights are doing something very important for their community. I'd say bless 'em, but it seems as if they already are.

I Knew I Should Have Gone Into Conducting!

And no wonder so many cellists have (Casals, Rostropovich, Toscanini, etc.).

James Levine made $3.5 million last year, according to this Boston Globe article. Lorin Mazzel almost $2 million, just from the NY Philharmonic. A little guest conducting here and there, and you're talking some real money.

And you don't have to buy an extra airplane seat for a baton, unlike so many professional cellists who buy a ticket for their cellos to insure it arrives at the right place, at the right time, in one piece.

9/11 Conspiracy Theorists and Their Debunkers

I really need to take the TV out of my bedroom. Because I just can't keep myself from doing a bit of channel surfing before going to sleep, and, before you know it, I'm hooked into a Law and Order episode or something on one of the C-SPAN channels.

Last night, it was C-SPAN. Several times this weekend, C-SPAN has broadcast a panel discussion held by "Scholars for 9/11 Truth." The program can be watched by going to the C-SPAN home page and clicking on the link for "Theories About 9/11." The "Scholars" believe that the WTC buildings collapsed as the result of a secret, expertly planned and executed controlled demolition, and that some element of the U.S. government, perhaps a rogue element, was behind this. Other conspiracy theorists believe there was a third plane, that it was actually government planes which collided with the WTC towers and the Pentagon, or that no plane hit the Pentagon at all, etc.

I am not one for conspiracy theories--especially government conspiracy theories. First, our government just isn't competent enough to pull off a conspiracy. And there's the Occam's Razor
principle, commonly understood as the simplest explanation is the best one. In this case, the planes were hijacked, hit the towers, and the resulting fire caused structural elements to fail and the buildings collapsed.

But these guys got to me. They were so passionate and seemed to have their science lined up well. I had heard about these demolition/conspiracy theories before. And I've always been curious about the collapse of the towers. I remember the morning of 9/11 and a student telling me what had just happened (the first plane hitting a tower). I told her not to worry, that these sorts of buildings were designed to withstand being hit by an airliner. And when I watched the towers collapse, I was struck by how similar it looked to videos of planned demolitions of large buildings. And when you think about it, it seems like a miracle in a way that they collapsed to perfectly into their own footprint, and didn't fall to the side and topple other buildings.

So in a late-night fit of curiosity I started Googling away and visited the "Journal of 9/11 Studies," "Prison Planet.com," "911revisited.com" (where you can watch an hour-long video online) and several others, including the paper by Brigham Young physics professor Steven Jones, "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" (Jones is a founding father and the leading intellectual light of the demolition-theory movement.)

Today, I did some more Googling around. I wanted to find some sort of intelligent response to the demolition theories (which were sounding rather convincing but also left me uneasy, since there didn't appear to be endorsement by civil engineers). There can be a problem sometimes that mainstream people simply dismiss without answer what appears to be a fringe group, and so that group develops more and more members and legitimacy. (Much of the success of the Religious Right has been a result of moderates and liberals not taking seriosuly the potential power of what they perceive as, well, nut cases like Pat Robertson.)

But in this case there is some good answering information to be found. The Wkipedia article on the "Collapse of the World Trade Center" gives what appears to be a good (if poorly documented in its text) overview, and, more importantly, some excellent links.

I found the Journal of Debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories quite helpful. Like the Jornal of 9/11 Studies, which it has been set up to answer, it is not a real journal as much as a group of like-minded people "peer reviewing" their own papers. The debunkers are quite upfront about this, and it's part of their point: how easy it is to set up a website and call it a journal. Debunking's first issue contains a point-by-point analysis and refutation of the main claims made by the adherents of the controlled-detonation theorists. Both sites refer readers to the October 2005 report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which found no evidence for detonations and concluded that the combination of the fires not just from the jet fuel but of the contents of the floors hit by the planes and design elements of the buildings led to the collapse.

The conspiracy/detonation folks seem well-intentioned, passionate, and full of righteous indignation at a government coverup. (Some are clearly on enormous ego trips and relishing a quasi-messainic, prophetic role.) They look at the extensive video evidence, their own scientific and quasi-scientific analyses, and the simplest explanation, the Occam's Razor, is, to them, that the buildings fell as the result of controlled detonations.

Having read summaries of the NIST report and the "debunking" articles, the Razor seems to me to slice in the other direction. It's true, though, tha Jones's paper and his his very long PDF reply to critics raises a lot of questions, especially regarding what he says is evidence of thermite, a substance used in detonations. I have not yet read the final NIST report, so I don't know if it discusses this thermite hypothesis, or otherwise explains the phenomena from which Jones has developed his argument.

Part of my point in writing about this here is to make the point to all who may visit (thanks to Technocrati and similar blog search engines) is that it is important to read as much material on BOTH SIDES of a controversey as possible, to evaluate the credentials and scholarship of speakers and authors, and also the reliability of the sources each side relies on. Are you reading junk science, pseudo-science, or selective use of out-of-context evidence? Or is it reliable, well-referenced, and well-supported by mainstream scientists?

And what are the other (possible) agendas? Self-aggrandizement, a need for attention, compensation for low self-esteem by recreating one's self as a prophet, selling website memberships, making money from books and videos? All these can be powerful factors in shaping one's views and actions.

I just a cello player. I'm not competent to judge the scientific arguments--and very few others are, either. I find it hard to believe that there's been a massive conspiracy and coverup that has lasted 5 years, one involving not just many levels and branches of government, but the news media as well. As I said above, there's the competence issue. And the keeping people quiet issue.

Nearly 5 years later, it's still still nearly impossible to accept what happened that day. A secret demolition of the buildings is nearly impossible to believe--but so is the idea that the crash of a single jetliner on the upper folors of each of the twin towers could cause them to collapse so quickly and perfectly, and that consequent fires alone could cause the WTC Buliding 7 to collapse just as perfectly without having been struck by an airplane.

Whatever happened, it was a tragedy.

That's OK, You Don't Need to Come to Class

The NY Times is reporting that (gasp) athletes at Auburn University have been getting great grades without having to go to class.

One of the university’s prominent football players was being honored as a scholar athlete for his work as a sociology major. Professor Gundlach, the director of the Auburn sociology department, had never had the player in class. He asked two other full-time sociology professors about the player, and they could not recall having taught him, either.

So Professor Gundlach looked at the player’s academic files, which led him to the discovery that many Auburn athletes were receiving high grades from the same professor for sociology and criminology courses that required no attendance and little work.

. . .

The availability of better grades for some athletes who did not attend class did not surprise professors who said Auburn sometimes emphasizes athletics at any cost. In December 2003, the university was placed on probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools partly because of concerns about whether trustees had too much involvement in the athletic department.

. . .

Professor Gundlach took the case to John Heilman, a university administrator who would soon become Auburn’s provost. He included paperwork showing that Professor Petee taught more than 250 students individually during the 2004-5 academic year. He also provided Mr. Heilman with examples of how prominent athletes had cut academic corners.

“It was at that point that I figured the corruption runs the full gantlet of the administration,” Professor Gundlach said. “We were getting sociology majors graduating without taking sociology classes. I’m a director of a program putting out people who I know more than likely don’t deserve a degree.”

It reads like something from Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. I've been oblivious to this sort of thing, since I'm not a sports fan. There was a similar scandal at the University of Georgia around the time I had a temporary position there in 1985. (Oh my! That's over 20 years ago. Some of the students I taught then could have kids going to college soon. I really am middle-aged. No! No!)

This one problem we don't have at private liberal-arts colleges like DePauw, where I teach. We are in a division (III? IV? XXIX?) where we don't give athletic scholarships and the football players and even the cello students can read and write.

The violists, well, I'm not sure about them. (Ouch! Just kidding.)

Diet Coke and Menthos

Wow! I see millions of science projects this fall featuring these two items!



More here.

Misaddressed email

I own a domain name that is very similar to that of a community music school in England. I registered the name some years ago for a project that never took off, but I can't bring myself to cancel it.

So every once in a while I get an email message intended for someone at the school. I just correct the address and forward it on. (My little bit of volunteer work for a school I've never seen!).

Today's email brought this misaddressed message (I've changed the names):

Hi Tim,

Trust the cheque got to you! Have booked/diarized Edward and Ron for drum lessons, commencing Wednesday mornings :

Edward 7.25 – 7.55 a.m. (students need to be seated in homeroom 8.30 a.m.)

Ron 7.55 – 8.25 a.m.

Unless otherwise told, the boys will be outside your drum lesson room (high school building) at 7.20 a.m. on Wednesday 30th August, 2006.

Please would you confirm by return email that this is okay!

Have a wonderful summer break!!

I love drumming (hand drumming, in my case). But giving drum lessons at 7:30 AM? I'd need a good summer break, too!

Old and New Concert Marketing

I'm fascinated by this review of this recent chamber orchestra concert on Manhattan's Lower East Side. From what I can tell from the review, it's an example of young professional classical musicians being innovative, bringing in a different kind of audience in a different kind of setting. Of particular interest is Bernard Holland's (the reviewer) empasis on the quality of the playing, and also his interesting observation about the physicial circumstances of classical concerts.

As Greg Sandow keeps writing about on his book-in-progress blog as well as his general blog, the future of classical music lies at least in part in creating new performance circumstances.

As far as old performing circumstances go, I was saddened to receive a letter yesterday from the Inidianapolis Symphony offering me 20% off for tickets for next weekends season-ending subscription concert. Obviously, ticket sales aren't going well.

Ironically, I'm planning to go anyway. The soloist is the up-and-coming cellist Alban Gerhardt, whom I want to hear. (And, wow, one of the review quotes says he "oozes" passion. Never seen passion "ooze" before--certainly don't want to miss that!)

The letter focuses on Gerhardt. It was sent to my home address, meaning it's from a database of past ticket buyers, not one of cello teachers (unless they bought the American String Teacher Association mailing list for this area). I did buy 5 or 6 tickets to a Lynn Harrell concert with the ISO last fall, and took some students. That may be why I got the letter--it's the first such letter I've received.

I was planning to see if I could get a comp ticket from a friend in the ISO. But as I know from running my own little chamber music series, every dollar helps. So I may buy a ticket!

It's been a great season for cello soloists with the ISO, by the way. The opening concert featured Arkady Orlovsky, the orchestra's wonderful principal cellists, playing Bloch's Schelomo. Then in early December came Lynn Harrell playing the Dvorak concerto. And now Gerhart.

And, unfortunately, plenty of seats available for all three. Now, that's nice if you need to get a ticket at the last minute, and it's nice to get 20% off anything. But it doesn't suggest things are going all that well with the ISO in terms of getting people to come to the concerts.

Cello Videos on Youtube and Elsewhere

I love watching cello videos! And I'm not the only one. Some of the great folks at the ICS have been putting clips of both commercially produced videos and their own performances up on www.youtube.com.

Most of them can be found in the ICS youtube group at www.youtube.com/group/ICS.

Some of my favorites include Leonard Rose and Glen Gould playing Beethoven, and Casals playing Bach and his arrangement of the "Song of the Birds."

And someone posted this link to the videos and MP3s at Daniel Mueller-Schott's site. Fabulous playing, including the entire Haydn C Major concerto. Another incredible young cellist of whom I was previously unaware.

Whew! Some time to write again.

Well, I took about a month off from blogging, didn't I?

There was the end of school crush, which coincided with the start of the summer concert series I organize and play on. Organzing the series, doing fund raising, writing press releases, desiging posters and programs, etc., is both time and energy consuming--especially at the start of the season.

The support for the series here in Greencastle, Indiana, which has a population of only eight or nine thousand people, has been wonderful. This is the series' second year. The number of contributers has more than doubled. We've been able to go from six to seven concerts, double the amount of the small honoraria we pay the performers, give a bit of gas money to those who come from Indianapolis and Bloomington (each about an hour away), etc.

Now that the start-up phase is done, I have some time to write. Most of the writing the last couple weeks has taken place in the Internet Cello Society web forums; Mike L nudged me in a thread to start blogging again.

There are many great things about getting the concert series going. One unexpected one for me is that I'm developing a new set of skills, ones that I think add a new dimension to my teaching, as well as to my personal/professional life.

I'll be back soon.

It's the end-of-semester crush. The status report on my Faculty Fellowship project was due this past Wednesday, so I was in overdrive working on the draft of my book (in progress on my other blog, see the links at left), writing a number of sections I have yet to post.

I'm off to a Music for People weekend. Some time for creative insanity. I also hope to catch Sunday afternoon's Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center concert on the way back for the last week of classes.

I'll be back, but it may be a week or two!

Flying with a cello

Why I always buy a seat for my cello: Airline played instrumental role in orchestral woes. (Thanks to BA at Cello Chat.) And why I drive if I can.

Another good cello video site

A wonderful find: the Las Vegas Philharmonic has streaming videos of master classes with various emminent soloists, including cellists Brinton Smith, Zuill Bailey, and Nathaniel Rosen. What a great thing online video is!

Thanks to Brinton for posting the link in the Internet Cello Society Cello Chat forum.

You Don't Have to Give Up the Violin to Be a Lawyer

I haven't read all of Blair Tindall's book Mozart in the Jungle yet, but I have read parts of it in bookstores (sorry, Blair, I've been spending all my money on books on improvisations and cello repairs). Along with sharing stories of her youthful overindulgence in drugs and sex, she explores the crisis in professional classical-music performance. Her site quotes The New Yorker as writing, "Tindall’s central complaint—that the classical-music world has created a crisis by training too many musicians and supporting a culture of exorbitant pay for a few fortunate stars—is difficult to refute."

Her website has some interesting links, including this one, in which a would-be college violin professor is considering the "Nuclear Option" as he puts it, chucking it all and going to law school.

His poignant article is an example of just the sort of thing every aspiring classical musician should be aware of.

Since 1999 when I left graduate school, I've had two one-year posts and two adjunct jobs, but a tenure-track position has eluded me.

The market for string teachers in academe has all but collapsed. This year the number of violin positions has barely exceeded single digits. Eliminate vacancies at small religious colleges or at high-profile conservatories, and the number of positions for which I'm suited falls to near zero.

The market in symphony orchestras hasn't been much better, and if positions in low-paying or unattainable major orchestras are eliminated, the possibilities shrink like a tuxedo accidentally left in the dryer on high.

I've kept playing for years with little to show for it, convinced that the big score was just around the bend. Maybe just one more audition, one more hiring season.

Even if I were to be offered a tenure-track position at a music department, I would face some moral dilemmas about doing the job. I know that I would be under pressure to recruit string students to fill my studio and the school symphony, thus ensuring my own position. But how could I do that knowing the abysmal state of the job market?

There are too many music schools and departments, and too many string players being trained as it is. Could I live with myself by pandering to the dreams of young and blissfully unaware musicians?

But his article is also written from the all-or-nothing perspective that fails to give proper respect to amateur and part-time professional music making--the subject I've been writing about recently. I hope this guy goes on to law school, develops a good practice, and discovers that through it all he can continue to make and share music. And realize that he has not failed as a musician just because he doesn't have a tenured position or a full-time orchestra job.

My former brother-in-law is a lawyer and a fine clarinetist who plays in an excellent community orchestra in the LA orchestra. My former father-in-law is a is unethical. Training musicians while being honest about the job market, and encouraging them to think about dual careers, is both ethical and appropriate.

I read once that 70% of college graduates end up working in a profession different than what they majored in in college. Those of us who teach at liberal arts colleges know that undergraduate education is about general education and personal development; it's not necessarily about job training.

Make music because you love it. If you don't end up making a lot of money making music, make some money doing something else. But don't stop making music!

Don't Worry, Be Happy: Make Music, Make a Living, Make a Difference

In the College Cellists forum at the Internet Cello Society, a new poster supplied this link to a story from the LA Times on the current professional prospects for graduating performance majors, commenting, "Which is one of the reasons why I'm double majoring. I like to have options available." Here's why:

In the 1980-81 season, according to one study, more than 1,100 members of the American Federation of Musicians competed for 47 full-time positions. Now, an estimated 2,700 music performance majors graduate from American centers of higher learning every year. The usual number of jobs available: 160 or fewer.

And, of course, many people in the classical music biz think that this trend will just continue: even more grads, even fewer jobs. Now this doesn't mean the end of the world is arriving. But it does need to be taken into account. Unfortunately, not all music schools and music teachers are open and honest about the situation. Again, from the LA Times article:

"We have too many outstanding music colleges turning out too many graduates for whom there will be no work in music," says maverick British critic Norman Lebrecht.

"It's close to false trading. You take the kids into schools, fire them up with the idea of making careers, knowing from the outset there will not be opportunities for most of them. Very few conservatories are giving students any kind of alternative programs or a sense of the reality ahead for them."

About twenty years ago I read that Josef Gingold said that standards of playing had risen so much that he had students playing on a level that thirty years before would have brought international solo careers; now, they were delighted to win a second violin position in an midrange orchestra.

I was reminded of this last night, when I heard three extraordinary graduate-student cellists perform at the Violoncello Society of New York. Each one of them was absolutely spectacular. Extraordinary virtuoso techniques, with left hands that seemed as if they could go anywhere on the cello, almost by magic. Each was musical, expressive, thoughtful, and interesting to hear. It was both thrilling and upsetting. Thrilling for the obvious reasons: it was a spectacular concert. Upsetting because I know what a tough time they--and the others around the country who play on the same high level--may have making a living playing the cello.

Does this mean they shouldn't have studied as hard as they have? Does this mean all the gifted young people in love with music shouldn't pursue it?

Of course not. The need to be a musician and to make music on a high level is just that, a need. It doesn't go away. If it's there, it's there, and failing to nurture it doesn't cause it to wither away and die, just to grow angry and poisonous. I met an 89-year-old lady in a nursing home who was still deeply angry that her father wouldn't allow her to study the violin as a child. She never learned to play. Literally on her deathbed, she was still bitter about this.

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's this: if you're a musician, you're a musician. You can't escape it, even if you want to. God or "the universe" or "life" gives each of us gifts, gifts that are meant to be used and shared. You don't get to say to wherever the gift and the need to express it come from, "Sorry, I don't want this one. Take it back."

In college and conservatory music programs, we tend to be overly focused on succeeding in the professional music world as it is today, and to look at it in a win/lose way: get an orchestra job, or make a full-time living playing and teaching, and you've won. That doesn't happen, you lost.

There's another way to look at it: What happens in music school is preparing yourself to use music to make a difference in the world. What if we measured "success" not by what job we get, but by sharing music with others, in the ways and in the places that make a difference?

You can't "lose" if that's how you define being a musician. You can't "lose" in life if you realize your true purpose is making the world a better place, and you use your gifts to do that. If you are a musician and you do something else to make a living, if you make some other contribution, too, guess what? You didn't lose. You're not a failure. You're making the world a better place.

And that's not so bad.

"Chamber music as it was meant to be . . ."

Well, I'm certainly not the only one taken with Anthony Tommasini's excellent Sunday NY Times story on Condoleezza Rice's piano playing, particularly her regular chamber-music gatherings with string quartet of lawyers.

Important point: the joy of making music.

She is not the only secretary of state to pursue amateur music-making. Thomas Jefferson, the first to hold the office, was an excellent violinist who played chamber music, especially Baroque trio sonatas, throughout his political career. But back then, playing music at home was commonplace.

Not so today, in the era of recording technology, when you can hear almost any piece from the entire history of music by switching on an iPod. The trade-off is that so few people know the personal joy of making music.

I've been trying to nudge Greg Sandow to embrace more fully that one key to ensuring a healthy future of classical music, including his focus, professional classical music performances, is the promotion of amateur music-making. Tommasini's article captures vividly the power and value of playing chamber music in private. "It was wonderful to hear chamber music as it was meant to be: played by friends for their own enjoyment, in the confines of a living room, which makes the sound seem enveloping."

Everyone I know who is a professional "classical" musician or a music educator, save those with their heads stuck in the sand, is mortified by the shrinking audiences for professional classical music concerts, and the simultaneous rise in the number of extremely well-trained professional-caliber players emerging from conservatories and university music programs.

It's a truism that in every problem lies an opportunity. And the one of the opportunities today is for conservatories and colleges, and their faculties, to promote more actively the idea that it is a great thing to develop professional-level musical skills and do something else for a living.

Unfortunately, we tend to define success only as professional success.

I've known people who were passionate about music but then, like Ms. Rice, had this sort of experience:

At 17, she attended the prestigious summer school at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado and came to believe that though she was a very good pianist, she was "not great," she said. "That was the really the revelation," she added. "And it wasn't just that experience. You start noticing prodigies, and you realize that I'm never going to play that way." There is "just some intangible" in music, she said. Whatever it was, she said she felt she didn't have it. She decided to major in international relations instead, focusing on the Soviet Union.

Rice came back to music, and it now serves an important role in her life. People often ask her, Ms. Rice said that day, whether playing chamber music is relaxing.

"It's not exactly relaxing if you are struggling to play Brahms," she explained. "But it is transporting. When you're playing there is only room for Brahms or Shostakovich. It's the time I'm most away from myself, and I treasure it."

She treasures it. How many people do I know, though, who discovering that they for one reason or another weren't going to "make it" as a professional musician gave up on music and themselves? I knew a man who was so dissapointed and bitter that he didn't make a success as a concert pianist that he couldn't bear to attend classical concerts.

We in music education need to do a better job of promoting life-long music making (and participation in other creative activities) for everyone. We need to educate our students that to be a well-trained classical musician who is also an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, a stay-at-home parent, or a Secretary of State is not to be a "failure" as a musician.

Much of my education took place in conservatories where the "success = being a full-time professional musician" was the only paradigm. In fact, many string students even felt that to have a career in a professional orchestra, rather than as a soloist or chamber player, was to be a failure. I was as caught up in this mindset as anyone.

When I started teaching, some part of me resented teaching people without professional aspirations, and even the healthier and more generous sides of me had trouble relating to their point of view. Now, though, I am genuinely enthusiastic about helping young people develop the skills to enjoy a lifetime of making music while they also study other subjects and prepare for other careers.

Playing classical music is too great an experience to leave to the professionals alone. And it's great to see the Times, Tommasini, and the Secretary of State remind us of this.