Classical Convert

iPod Sensibilities and “Improvements” to the Concert Experience

Over at Sounds & Fury, ACD is critical over a somewhat anonymous posting discussing alternatives to the standard concert-going experience. While I am actually somewhat proud of my iPod sensibility (although I’d prefer a more generic mp3-based title, as I cannot stand the cult of Apple) I find myself basically agreeing with ACD.

The author of the original article (which is itself a response to this piece comparing popular and classical pieces) suggests things such as multiple annoyance tiers (of course, this isn;t what the author calls them) for concerts. That is, different rooms in which people can “attend” a concert performance - such as one in which the audience is free to drift in and out and talk amongst themselves, albeit only up to a certain decibel level (god knows how that would be policed).

I’m all up for natural selection of ideas, so someone should give that one a go… but I’m pretty suspicious of it’s potential for success. I suspect it would end up as a bunch of people standing around, not really discussing the piece, and than leaving after a few minutes because the whole experience is kind of uncomfortable.

The next idea discussed is even more bizarre: that there should be an alternative means of attending the concert which consists of sitting alone in a booth with a pair of headphones on and some sort of video screen. There would be controls to pause, rewind, etc. Now… how is this different from just watching a DVD of the performance? In your own home? A much better implementation of this idea would surely be just to provide high-quality video and audio versions over the internet, for a small price. I’d love it if the major orchestras regularly did this.

I think the concert hall listening experience is distinct. You are experiencing the music without any pauses, and perhaps more importantly, without the ability to pause it. You necessarily relinquish your control. No replaying is allowed, you simply have to experience the music as it comes to you. Contrast this to recorded music, in which you can skip sections, or replay movements or fractions of movements as the music moves you to do so. These two approaches are complementary, and trying to shoehorn one into the other seems to be tricky, and probably less than ideal.

What I would much prefer to see is not only the orchestras putting their performances up online, but also making it so that these recorded performances can be discussed and analyzed by the devotees. For example, how about a system in which people can comment along the timeline of the video, meaning that each section can be separately discussed.

Realtime liner notes: More thoughts

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?