by natchaitkin | Nov 26, 2014 | Uncategorized
In the rush of preparation for a holiday devoted to being grateful, I’ve been thinking a lot about the great gift of being a musician and getting to share it with others. In the midst of all that, two recent stories of less than salutary behavior in the music world have caught my attention, and I’d like to share them as a reminder that we all need to keep our eye on the ball and not get caught up in less productive efforts.
Most people view classical musicians as pretty well-mannered, especially the string players (the brass section is a whole other story, believe me!). Early childhood educators are also are pretty good about minding their manners. Lately, however, the intersection of these two seemingly polite groups has seemed like a war zone. Two major figures in the beginning education of string players have recently come under fierce attack.
First, Mark O’Connor, the well-known fiddler, has accused Shinichi Suzuki, father of the ubiquitous method that bears his name, of having falsified his credentials and endorsements from well-known musicians of his time. The Suzuki Association of the Americas has fired back, and many teachers have weighed in, mostly to rebuke O’Connor for his rather nasty comments. You can hear an NPR story about this whole thing here.
O’Connor has a method of his own, and is quite up front about his frustration with the Suzuki method’s popularity and its effect on his own market share – reading O’Connor’s posts, it’s nearly impossible not to connect his business ambitions with his attacks on Suzuki.
There are a couple of big problems here – first of all, O’Connor looks really hypocritical for suggesting that Suzuki behaved less than honorably in promoting himself. As a good friend of mine loves to say: “One finger pointing out, three fingers pointing back.”
Secondly, O’Connor’s criticisms of Suzuki’s methods, many of which have merit and are shared by others in the string world (myself included), have been lost in the fuss over O’Connor’s ad hominem attack on someone who can’t defend himself.
Full disclosure: I was not a Suzuki student, but got excellent training in playing chamber music at the School for Strings, a Suzuki school in New York. I am also not a Suzuki teacher, but I use the early books with my beginning and intermediate students – for the most part, they are put together well, and do a good job. I do use other materials to supplement them, though.
I do share some of the popular misgivings about the method itself, the biggest being the note reading weakness of many Suzuki students. I have former Suzuki students who struggle with this and it is a big problem. However, I also have had former Suzuki students who read very well. And this brings us to a critical point.
O’Connor, to his credit, shares an excellent article on his blog by Melissa Tatreau, a violin teacher who hits the nail on the head: with any method, Suzuki or otherwise, IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE TEACHER. As with any subject, there are good and bad teachers, and results vary widely.
If you are interested in the details of all this, read Tatreau’s piece – it’s first rate.
My main point here is that this whole thing is a really bad waste of energy – for those of us working in a field wrongly viewed by far too many people as a luxury, we can’t afford to be seen as petty. If you truly believe that making music is a life-changing and enriching experience, and that everyone should have the chance to do it, as I do, picking fights with dead people is not a good use of your time.
I’ve long respected Mark O’Connor as a great fiddler, and his attempts to broaden the options for teaching string playing should be welcomed by all of us who do it. However, he should not be using ad hominem attacks to promote himself. And I have to say, having not yet explored the O’Connor method, I’m less inclined to at the moment, because of this whole thing – it leaves a sour taste in my mouth (one which I will ease with cranberry sauce tomorrow!).
Next week I will turn to El Sistema, the Venezuelan method of community building through youth string education, which has received tremendous attention in recent years, and has inspired many new programs in countries around the world, but is also currently under attack.
In the meantime, count your blessings, and stay focused on what really matters – good intonation and pumpkin pie. Happy Thanksgiving!
by natchaitkin | Oct 20, 2014 | music philosophy, Uncategorized
My previous post was about the recent musical protest at the St. Louis Symphony performance of the Brahms Requiem. I’ve been thinking about other ways that protest and music intersect a lot since I first heard about that incident – this post will address two very different examples.
There was another concert that same week which got some attention – a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall which included the American premiere of a work by Georg Friedrich Haas.
The following is from Anthony Tommasini’s review in the New York Times: “Mr. Haas received a warm ovation, though some lusty boos were mixed amid the bravos. In my experience, new pieces are not often booed. I hope Mr. Haas feels that he was doing something right to arouse such a reaction.”
Mr. Tommasini is right – new pieces are not generally booed nowadays. The sign of disapproval most audiences give now is by walking out during a piece, or by not clapping much when it’s over. But music used to provoke all kinds of extreme reactions – the riot at the premiere of The Rite of Spring (depicted in the caricature above) is the most famous example, but there have been many others – some of them are listed here.
At both the St. Louis and Carnegie Hall concerts, the normally passive concert audience was transformed, however briefly, into active participants, something that is so rare nowadays that it made the papers.
Many people feel the concert hall should be a place of refuge, free from (you should excuse the expression) discord. I disagree completely – great art must challenge us in some way. I think the folks who booed at Carnegie Hall were fully engaged with what they heard, and felt compelled to say, forcefully, that they didn’t like it. Good for them – at least they cared.
These are examples of disturbances in the concert hall which made news outside of it – here’s another kind – the controversy surrounding tonight’s Metropolitan Opera premiere of John Adams’s “The Death of Kinghoffer,” an opera set on the Achille Lauro, a cruise ship hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in 1985.
Since the work’s debut, there has been controversy over Adams’s portrayal of the hijackers – many feel that he grants them too much sympathy. Some of the current protestors have vowed to continue “until the set is burned to the ground,” and have called the performers “fascists.” You can read an excellent article in Sunday’s New York Times by Zachary Woolfe about the current debate over Klinghoffer, and the long history of the problem of mixing art and current events.
If you think I’m wading into this debate, you’re out of your mind. Like most people (including many of those either protesting or championing it), I haven’t seen the opera, and my only point in bringing it up is to give a current example of a piece of music being controversial – something that used to be much more common. Some more examples from the opera world: Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Strauss’s Salome, Berg’s Lulu, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (please add your own examples in the comments).
On a lighter note, there was another recent opera-related controversy last week, regarding a production of Carmen in Australia, which was briefly canceled (and then reinstated) over concerns that it glamorized smoking, which seemed to me an odd thing to be agitated about, given all the of the other bad behavior in that opera. But I digress.
The protests in St. Louis and at the Met are very different in tone, purpose and execution from one another, but very similar in one important way – they depend (and draw) on the great power of music.
The protest in St. Louis was designed to relate closely to the performance at which it took place, and was planned to be only disruptive enough to add context to it (whether you think that was appropriate or achieved is another matter). Had the protestors been outside the concert hall, the impact of their efforts would have been far smaller, I’m sure.
The protestors outside the Met, by contrast, are hoping to be as disruptive as possible – their goal is to get the production canceled entirely. What’s notable is how important the protestors feel the symbolic power of the opera is – to produce it, in their view, is to give something they object to far greater significance than it would otherwise have.
The St. Louis and Met protestors (and the Carnegie Hall ones too, for that matter) understand the great power of what happens in a performance, and for that fact alone, at least, I’m glad. However you feel about any of these protests, if you worry about the demise of classical music, the fact that it still means this much to some people keeps me hopeful for the future. I hope you are one of those who care that much – please post your comments!
by natchaitkin | Oct 13, 2014 | Uncategorized
Reading about two recent concerts got me thinking again about the “sanctity” of the concert hall and the role of the audience. In one, the performance was “interrupted” by a musical protest by members of the audience, while in the other, the applause after a premiere was mixed with boos, something the review found noteworthy. Today’s post is about the first one – I’ll look at the second later this week, along with some thoughts about my recent experience performing Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, a piece which is all about disturbances, musical and otherwise.
You may have already heard about the first concert – a performance of the Brahms Requiem by the St. Louis Symphony which featured a surprise protest of the death of Mike Brown, the young man whose death galvanized Ferguson, Missouri and drew national attention in August. As the second half was about to begin, members of the audience began singing the protest song “Which side are you on friend, which side are you on?” and “Justice for Mike Brown is justice for all,” while unfurling banners and tossing pamphlets from the balcony.
Can’t see the video? Watch it here.
The demonstration was peaceful and over quickly. There was some applause from the audience and some of the performers on stage, as well as some boos. The protestors then left the hall, and the performance continued.
There’s so much to talk about here – I’m not going to discuss the reason the protestors were there, though. Whatever one thinks about Mike Brown, what happened to him and what followed in Ferguson is not really the point here, though it is without question an important topic – for this forum, I’m interested in the protest itself – its form, and its setting.
Much ink has already been spilled about whether the protest was “appropriate” – I think it was. The performance was not underway, so the music wasn’t disturbed. The singing of the protestors was quite good – clearly, they had practiced. And most important, I think – these folks were protesting a death by singing at a performance of a requiem!
“When we discovered that Brahms’ ‘Requiem’ would be on the calendar, for Mike Brown, it was a beautiful connection that seemed fated,” protest organizer Sarah Griesbach told a local TV station. “A requiem is a song for the dead.”
So the protestors knew their audience and the setting, found the right moment and prepared accordingly. They knew just how far they could go, too – had they actually interrupted the performance or confronted anyone directly, I suspect that very few people would have supported their actions.
I wonder about the protestors’ decision to leave the hall after singing – I think they missed a chance to connect with those they were trying to reach. St. Louis Symphony publicist Erika Ebsworth-Goold puts it well: “Brahms’ ‘Requiem’ was a beautiful piece that was written to really console the people who were left behind during a loss,” Ebsworth-Goold told the TV station. “I think if they would’ve stayed, it would have been healing and cathartic for them.”
Maybe the protestors didn’t want to be asked to leave – surely that would have made more of an incident than they wanted, and undercut the message they hoped to send. There may have been some in the audience who thought they should have been ejected, though I’m not sure that would have happened, and surely would have looked pretty bad. Still, part of me wonders what kinds of conversations might have followed the Brahms had they stayed to hear the rest.
The concert hall is seen as a place of refuge by many in the audience – going to a performance is a chance to escape the world’s unpleasant realities. Though I certainly understand the feeling, I’m not sure this always is a good thing. For those of us who play it, great music feels like life and death – if our audience is not engaged on that level, we’re not doing our jobs, and they are missing out. Classical music’s being completely walled off from the world as a whole does no one any favors, in my opinion.
In St. Louis, the protestors may have helped remind the rest of the audience (and the performers) what the point of Brahms’ Requiem is, and what the goal of any performance should be – to connect with people on the deepest level possible.
So what do you think of all this? Were the protestors in St. Louis right to interject a performance of their own? Was Brahms harmed, or enhanced? Did the audience have a right to a protest-free evening, or is the concert hall a place where real life can intrude? I’m not sure there are easy answers to any of these questions, but they’re worth wrestling with! Please post your comments!
by natchaitkin | Sep 29, 2014 | Uncategorized
I recently spent four days at the Arts Midwest Conference in Minneapolis. I got to present Bach and Boombox on a showcase for presenters and agents, and spoke to lots of people about what I’m doing at my booth.
It’s amazing to see the variety of performers that are out trying to put themselves before the public – musicians, actors, comics, jugglers, hypnotists. I met lots of really dedicated performers and nice people.
What I was constantly reminded of is how classical music is part of this larger world of show business, but isn’t really comfortable there. I met several presenters who liked what the classical performers were doing, but didn’t usually book them because they couldn’t sell enough tickets, or because their audience base didn’t like that sort of thing.
I don’t blame them, but it reinforces the need for us as an industry to continue to be more approachable, both on stage and off. To sell my show, to even call it a show, is a huge shift for me, and I know lots of classical performers and audience members who wouldn’t ever use the word “show” to describe what we do. But from the point of view of the presenters I met (and their audience members), we are in competition with all those comics and jugglers for gigs. Like it or not, we are in the entertainment business.
The art vs. entertainment debate is an old one. But it’s worth remembering that classical music (along with serious theater) used to be presented as part of variety shows, along with all those other kinds of acts that I saw at Arts Midwest.
In a previous post, I mentioned a great book about about how classical music (and other art forms) got separated from more “popular” styles – “Highbrow/Lowbrow – The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America” by Lawrence Levine. 150 years ago, the line between art and entertainment was much blurrier, and I think we need to go back to that time a little.
What do you think? How can classical music be part of the larger “entertainment” world without compromising what makes it great? Please post your comments here!
by natchaitkin | Aug 14, 2014 | Uncategorized
Recently, a radio station in Calgary announced plans to broadcast what they called “twice the music,” which meant edited, significantly shorter versions of pop songs (around 2 minutes), enabling them to play more tunes per hour. You can listen to the NPR story about this here.
As many were quick to point out, this isn’t twice the music, it’s half! Reaction has been largely hostile to the idea, thank goodness. When the NPR host suggested that musicians might not like having their work chopped up, the station’s representative pointed out that for decades, the length of the average pop song has been limited by the 45 (or even 78) rpm records they were originally distributed on, and that this limitation forced musicians to edit their songs for length even as they wrote them.
He’s right, but musicians know that limitation up front! I object, as I suspect many do, to the cuts being made by someone other than the person who wrote the song, and for reasons that have nothing to do with music! Also, as someone who wants to bring new listeners to concert pieces that are often far longer than the average pop song, this certainly doesn’t help!
The representative of the radio station also suggested that people listening on their iPods routinely click from song to song without finishing them – I have certainly seen this in action. The station, he went on, was trying to stay connected to these kinds of listeners. My question to him is, why stop at 2 minute versions of a song? Why not 1 minute, or 30 seconds? Where does it stop?
A good pop song usually includes an introduction, at least two verses, two (or more) shots at the chorus, and (if you’re lucky) a bridge, and three or four minutes doesn’t seem like too much to ask of people to give to a song. On the other hand, many great Beatles songs are 2:30 or less. “Blackbird” clocks in at 2:18, “Eleanor Rigby” at 2:08. Even “We Can Work It Out,” with not one but two passes through one of the greatest bridges of all time, is 2:15.
So, here’s today’s question – what is your favorite really short piece of music? Could be a pop song, or a movement by Anton Webern that might only last 30 seconds! I’ve started a playlist on Spotify of pieces that take care of business quickly (unfortunately, the Beatles songs I mentioned aren’t on there). The playlist is collaborative – please add your favorites! What I find interesting is that the classical pieces I thought of are shorter than the pop songs – the opposite of what I expected! Please share your thoughts and comments!
by natchaitkin | Jul 7, 2014 | Uncategorized
The other night, I stopped at my local UDF, a chain of convenience stores and gas stations. As I walked out, I heard a Beethoven violin sonata coming from the speakers hanging by the front door. They play classical music to keep people from loitering outside, because, really, who could stand to listen to that? I’ve run into this in other places (you may have, too – please post them in the comments!).
Apparently, this practice has a scientific basis – an article in the Toledo Blade explains the effectiveness of “audio aversion.”
Here’s a helpful explanation from a Columbus, Ohio resident: “There’s something about baroque music that macho wannabe-gangster types hate. At the very least, it has a calming effect.”
Wonderful.
If you had any questions about our art’s need for a re-branding, this should convince you! First of all, to rebut this idea that classical music is “relaxing” – I offer you a playlist of the LEAST calm concert pieces I could think of, including a very famous work by Vivaldi, who is often mistakenly put in that “relaxing” bin.
Now, to the UDF issue – here’s what I propose. If you live near one (or another place that does this sort of thing), go get yourself a milkshake and stand outside listening. Let’s turn this thing on its head and stick around for the music, instead of being chased away by it. Or bring the music on the playlist and play it in your car with the windows down to offer an antidote to all that “relaxation.” Who knows, maybe we can get UDF to include Bartok and Stravinsky in their rotation, or at least persuade some customers to give classical music a second thought. Thoughts? Please post your comments!
