Life Expectancy of Band Music

[trseaman]

With the band I played with in CA, most of our audience was made up of... Well, old folks! There's nothing wrong with that since most of the "old folks" may be from the big band era. But I'm wondering if todays teachers and directors are doing enough to prolong the interest of band music into the the coming decades. Is there still a solid interest among students in schools and do you see todays students leading the way into the future????

Tim

[Carroll]

While I agree that Band Directors and Teachers can do more to promote their music to younger generations, I do not think it all lies there. If you will notice, most of the audiences for orchestral music is also "old people". The same can be said for live theatre, serious dance, art exhibits, etc. These are the people who value the arts, or wish to appear that they do. Young people crave faster moving, more exciting forms of entertainment. Middle are groups are very busy raising these younger generations and making enough money to be able to appreciate artful things when they are older.

I also believe that people (especially artists) of every generation have made these same observations.

[Chuck(G)]

As a society, we are awash in entertainment opportunities today. This is a far cry from the way things were back in the mid-1800s.

As it reflects popular musical taste, band music tends to be at least a decade or two (or ten) out of step. The same could be said for much orchestra music. (Quick! Sing your favorite aria from "The First Emperor").

Before 1900, there were many professional concert bands; Sousa's band being one of them. After WWI, the number has been steadily falling, with no resurrection in sight.

It might be useful to ask what got this whole business of school bands started. Were there any in 1850? When did "band" become part of the curriculum? What was the intent behind having it as part of the curriculum? How does that apply today? Would it be better served through some other approach?

In how many schools, does the band primarily function as something to play at athletic events?

Or, as one middle-school BD told me. "The administration doesn't care what I do as long as the band can play the school fight song."

Perhaps the decline is inevitable.

[tubaguy9]

"The administration doesn't care what I do as long as the band can play the school fight song."

Almost seems like our school administrators at the high school!

[windshieldbug]

This is a question that we used to argue endlessly in composition class; are we molding tomorrow's classical music consumer, or are we driving them away? Since I held the latter view, I was considered persona non-composa.

[windshieldbug]

Does the new music/new composer mold the consumer? I couldn't encourage someone to become a composer if molding the market was their goal.

My bad. Call it "encouraging, inviting, embracing, and thrilling" non-traditional audiences.

But composition is a discipline, just as playing is. You reproduce what the composer has specified (with your own interpretation). But you choose what you will interpret and reproduce. By the same sort of act, composers choose what forms they wish their expression to take.

If this expression requires a Phd to understand fully and connect with, are we not making the creation and enjoyment of musical form such a small segment of the population that it can no longer support itself?

Then what will replace it? lil' Kim? I think not.

My point is that there is negligable classical discipline in place to delight tomorrow's listeners.

And yes, I do think that composers need to consider some of the more "mundane" portions of their craft or face going the way of the dodo. And then you WILL be left with rap. Word!?

[Chuck(G)]

When did western civilization get from the point of making music as a means of entertainment to listening to music? This bears on the current discussion--the symphony orchestra as entertainment is a very recent (within the last 200 years) idea. Same with the concert band.

It wasn't always thus. I'm reminded of the Breugel painting "Hearing:"



I've played in amateur bands, orchestras and ensembles and will (fingers crossed) continue to do so. But I do this not to "perform" but to make music--I don't care if there's an audience or not--and in some respects, I wish there weren't--the pressures of public performance can often get in the way of making music.

Now, we've got music oozing out of the public address systems in airports, supermarkets, as background for movies and television and as a commercial moviation to get us to purchase everything from SUVs to suppositories. People have iPods strapped to their bodies, droning music and when we are put on hold on the phone we're regaled with someone's idea of great music. One wonders why it isn't used in the county jail for inmate control.

There is really not much that the average person can do today to express himself (or herself). Music may be one of the last ways and it should be that the need is not for more music, but for more music-making by the common people.

I find most orchestra and band concerts boring, regardless of the competency of the musicians. After all, what's there for me to do but pay my money and sit there like a dummy and give a standing ovation at the end?

One of the more insane manifestations of passive listening is witness an orchestra playing, say, a Strauss waltz to a bunch of stuffed shirts seated in a hall. This was music that was written and performed for dancing! Even more loony is the orchestra concert that hires professional dancers to waltz on stage. One might as well hire someone to eat for you.

Give me a rock concert with guitars and drums if that's your idea of entertainment.

The point (at long last) is that if the idea of band or orchestra or chorus is to get people to make music for themselves, then I'm all for it. If it's to add to the ocean of noise, forget it--let it die.

[windshieldbug]

"encouraging, inviting, embracing, and thrilling" non-traditional audiences

... may well mean tomorrow's performers, not just audiences!

[LoyalTubist]

My old junior college dropped its band program in 2005 and no longer offers a music major. The music department and campus television station (actually, a major PBS outlet in the Los Angeles area) have always shared the same building.

The problem was that the funding for the PBS TV station was lagging. There was talk of offering the outlet for sale. Then, in about May 2005, it was announced there was a new funding source for the TV station, to look for big changes in July. That funding source proved to be the music department.

When a similar problem happened with another PBS station in the L.A. area, the college district sold the TV station and retained the music department.

It's all about priorities.

[lgb&dtuba]

I find most orchestra and band concerts boring, regardless of the competency of the musicians. After all, what's there for me to do but pay my money and sit there like a dummy and give a standing ovation at the end?

Agreed. And yet many musicians think that is the purpose of an audience - and their due.

One of the more insane manifestations of passive listening is witness an orchestra playing, say, a Strauss waltz to a bunch of stuffed shirts seated in a hall. This was music that was written and performed for dancing! Even more loony is the orchestra concert that hires professional dancers to waltz on stage. One might as well hire someone to eat for you.

In my area there are quite a few contra dances. And quite a few musicians who provide live music for these dances. For pay. You aren't going to see dances with full orchestras playing Strauss, though. Who could afford that?

You'll see many bluegrass groups around, too. If you want to see families and friends making music informally together you'll have to look for bluegrass, Irish, old time or other more ethnic music. What you won't see are very many amateur brass bands, orchestras, etc. outside of community bands. I think the biggest reason for that is that getting together a half dozen people to do some "pickin' and grinnin'" in your living room is a lot easier than finding a hall and getting together 30-40 musicians for an informal music session. Once upon a time chamber music filled that niche, and to a very limited degree may still.

I play in a financially self supporting band, but having a place to practice is an issue. Every few years we lose a venue and have to scramble to find another free one. Finding a place that will allow 15-30 musicians to show up weekly and empty their spit valves isn't always easy.

I don't think orchestral music was ever produced by anything other than orchestras having some kind of external monitary support or patronage. Without opera I'm not sure that there ever would have been professional orchestra as such. (And don't get me started on why an opera has to be sung in a language you can't speak or understand to be "legitimate".)

Same thing with "big bands". They were also mainly commercial in nature.

From what I've seen, making music is alive and well. You just have to look for it somewhere away from the orchestral scene.

Jim Wagner

[Chuck(G)]

Agreed. And yet many musicians think that is the purpose of an audience - and their due.

I've long thought that the public interest in orchestral music could be invigorated if the venue's rules of audience decorum (i.e. how you have to behave before you're thrown out on your hindquarters) could be brought into line with other performing arts, such as football, baseball or hockey. Vendors selling ice-cold beer and brats would also be welcome.

Think of it--the first horn cracks a note and gets booed. The basses miss their entry and get pelted with peanuts. The conductor who confuses the orchestra by conducting a 4/4 section in 3 is rewarded by a shout of "T'row da bum out!"

Shades of P.D.Q. Bach--wouldn't it be glorious?

I don't buy the argument that musicians are a sensitive lot who spend inordinate amounts of time pruning their reeds or rosining their bows, so they're due special treatment and undeserved ovations. Many professional athletes spend great hunks of their time getting into condition, often at the peril of their health. Name ten violinists who have undergone the rigors of doping or illicit steroid use.

[windshieldbug]

Name ten violinists who have undergone the rigors of doping or illicit steroid use

Now that you mention it, doping is exactly how I would describe some of the viola sections I've worked with. And fatheaded conductors. Now if that isn't evidence of steroids, I don't know what is...

"Welcome to our broadcast! Today we have the New York Mills Philharmonic playing against the Swedish conductor Heilege Dankgesang. It's a lovely day for a concert, not a cloud in the ceiling... "

[lgb&dtuba]

Don't you know you're not supposed to ruffle any feathers, even if it is true?

Thankfully, your statement is less relevant to the tuba community than it is to others.

Doc

Moi?

Jim Wagner

[tubatooter1940]

Finding a place that will allow 15-30 musicians to show up weekly and empty their spit valves isn't always easy.



Jim Wagner

You must mean water keys to alleviate condensation.

At cajun-zydeco concerts (even outside), a dance floor is assembled in front of the stage and pretty ladies circulate through the crowd encouraging people to step out and be shown how to do the cajun dances.

[lgb&dtuba]

At cajun-zydeco concerts (even outside), a dance floor is assembled in front of the stage and pretty ladies circulate through the crowd encouraging people to step out and be shown how to do the cajun dances.

Same type of thing we do. Nothing better than the crowd jumping and the band pumping.

Let the good times roll