Realtime liner notes: More thoughts
December 2nd, 2007 Posted in classical music, liner notes, mp3
A couple of days ago Matthew Hodge added a comment to this post about my automated liner note fantasies which I think elucidates several important points, so I’m gonna give it a post all to itself right here:
At the risk of offending ACD (and I know there are many people who hold strong opinions about all this), I think the Concert Companion still is a fantastic concept and (if done properly), I believe would totally open the world of classical music to new people.
I know this because a couple of years ago (long before I knew about the Companion or anything like that), I tried an experiment where I invited round to my home half a dozen friends who knew nothing about classical music but were willing to have a listen.
I handed out sheets that explained the music and broke it down in sonata form, themes, etc. with descriptions matched to particular times on the CDs we were going to listen to. I wasn’t sure what to expect the first time, but to my amazement, I watched as this bunch of novices not only grasped the form of the music, but were absolutely riveted listening to an entire overture, Mozart violin concerto and Beethoven symphony. Half an hour long pieces, and they followed the whole thing!
Let me tell you, it is the most exhilarating thing in the world to see someone’s eyes open to music.
I think the biggest problem that we face in reproducing this in the concert hall is not the technology but:
a) Existing audiences (who’ve been fortunate enough to learn music, etc.) get very particular about what goes on in concerts and usually aren’t keen for new things. (e.g. “What’s those flashing lights on in the concert hall? Highly distracting.”) Granted, these people would have killed off surtitles as well, and in my opinion, they’re the greatest thing to happen in opera for years.
b) You can only explain so much music while it’s on the go. Really, you need about half an hour beforehand to explain to people the big picture of musical structure (sonata form, movements, etc.). Ideally, this would be perfect for a pre-concert talk. But how many good pre-concert speakers are there nowadays? Not many.
c) Far more serious, there is a severe shortage of writers who can explain music to the layperson in an interesting way, so even if you had a running commentary, would it make the music exciting or just boring. (For examples of how to make music exciting, I suggest reading George Groves’ “Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies” or David Hurwitz’ “The Mahler Symphonies: An Owner’s Manual”.) If those guys (well, George has been dead for 100 years) wrote for the Concert Companion, it would probably still be running today.
I think he’s bang on. Discovering the previously (to me) hidden structures of classical pieces completely knocked my uninitiated little socks off when I first discovered it, and I’m pretty sure a lot of other people would feel the same way. However, it’s also clear that there are a bunch of problems doing it in the concert hall: experienced people are likely going to get pissed off by the blinking whatevers, and for inexperienced people it’s probably going to go by too fast. I think the answer is the internet. Something like keeping score, but with many more pieces and more options. I think if one of the online classical music suppliers put something like this together, executed well, it could be very profitable for them. Do you hear me DG? Naxos?
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Bernstein pioneered this sort of thing on TV long ago, of course, but (in the US at least), the TV industry deep-sixed this kind of thing soon afterward, because it wasn’t commercially profitable (even on “public” TV, which also has to make a “profit” in its own sense, or at least cover its expenses including its staff and executive salaries, and is really TV for the rich Philistine types who contribute most of the bucks to their fund-raisers). It’s good that this Keeping Score series is being offered on some PBS stations, but how many?
The internet is obviously the big opportunity now for classical music education, as you say. Real-time, on-site education during concerts might be possible to a certain extent; there have always been those stalwarts reading along in their scores in the dim light. But a well-designed web site should be able to give a newbie the opportunity to hear a piece and at the same time learn how it is put together, in the privacy of her or his home, so that no one else’s experience of the music will be disturbed. And said newbie can repeat the lesson as many times as needed.
December 4th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Jon:
Absolutely. I pretty much universally hate American TV. I think on of the most important aspects of the realtime liner notes thing is that it should be something which you can do at your own pace, replaying and repeating as required.
December 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
[...] Convert has more thoughts on how realtime liner notes could work….Living Linernotes. (That suggestion’s on the house, Ben) Hopefully this [...]