Marketing Modern Music (2)

The second article I linked to last week was "Looking for Listeners Who Love New Music" (New York Times, February 28, 1999), by Greg Sandow, who composes, has taught "Music Criticism," and "Classical Music in an Age of Pop" at the Juilliard School. and has written on classical music for The Wall Street Journal and other publications.

The subheading of Mr. Sandow's article is, "There really is an alternative new music audience, one that's hardly connected to classical music at all."

Sandow suggests that part of the challenge in getting mainstream classical music fans to embrace new classical music is that the product (new classical music) is being marketed to an audience whose stylistic preferences lie elsewhere (18th- and 19th-century music). The problem isn't with the product; the problem is in the way it is marketed.

As an analogy, consider what would happen if someone decided to market "adult contemporary" pop ballad singers (e.g., Céline Dion, Lionel Richie) to fans of death metal, gangsta rap, or screamo, or vice-versa, using the logic that fans of one sub-genre of pop music (e.g., death metal) are bound to like all other pop sub-genres (e.g., adult contemporary). It would seem a strategy unlikely to succeed; just because you like one sub-genre of pop music doesn't mean you necessarily also like all the others. The marketing principle, in a nutshell, is that it makes more sense to target your product to people who would be interested in it than to those who would not.

Sandow:  Let's say you're in business, and you've got a product that your customers love (in the Philharmonic's case, Beethoven and the other classical masters). Now you've produced something much less comforting, and more esoteric. Would you try to sell it to the same people?

Or think of the pop-music world, where it's taken for granted that audiences come in many flavors. There's a mainstream audience, which loves Top 40 ballads, and there's an alternative audience, which prefers darker, edgier, more difficult music, by artists like PJ Harvey and R.E.M. Is there a lesson here for classical music? Is there an alternative classical audience that can be reached in some new way?

The answer, according to Sandow, is a resounding yes. As an example of such an audience, Sandow cites "Bang on a Can," which draws 1,000 people to its annual new-music marathons, and these, said its director of development, Christine Williams, are in their 20's and 30's, attracted in part by aggressive marketing aimed at lovers of downtown dance, jazz, visual art and performance art.

Another example mentioned is Milwaukee's "Present Music:" "You can look down from the stage, and see the earrings and nose rings and different- colored hair," said its director, Kevin Stalheim. "If I were going for mailing lists, I'd go to the art museum and modern dance companies, not the Milwaukee Symphony."

If you want proof that is closer to home of an alternative new-music audience, you need go no further than the biennial Newfoundland Sound Symposium, known around the world as a kind of sonic Mecca for new-music enthusiasts. There is some overlap between its audiences and, say, Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra subscribers, but my hunch, having attended both numerous times, is that the overlap is probably not very large; both have their own devoted followers, and just because you like one doesn't mean you will like the other.

So, does this mean it is impossible to get people who love Beethoven and Brahms to open their hearts to new classical music?

I don't believe so, nor is the article's author suggesting as much. Some mainstream concert presenters seem to have succeeded in doing so, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the San Francisco Symphony, according to Sandow. A lot of new classical music is very much rooted in old classical music, and it isn't unreasonable to think that there can be audiences that enjoy both.

On the other hand, there is also a lot of new classical music that seems to fall outside the comfort zone of many Beethoven/Brahms/et al. lovers, and perhaps it is unreasonable to expect otherwise.

The "elephant in the room" that hasn't been mentioned in this discussion is that a great many orchestras find themselves in crisis: Most are losing money, and are not attracting enough new, younger, patrons to counteract their steadily aging and shrinking audiences. As a result, some have gone bankrupt — in this country, this has happened to the orchestras in Halifax, Hamilton, and Vancouver, although all were subsequently resuscitated — and others teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. The CBC cited financial reasons for shutting down its radio orchestra, although some see it as part of their overall shift away from supporting classical music (which, in the case of CBC Radio 2 has resulted in a drastic reduction of their audience share, as I understand it). Fortunately, the National Broadcast Orchestra of Canada has arisen in its staid without any financial support from the CBC, and as I understand it, part of the NBOC's mandate is to programme contemporary works by Canadian composers. I hope they will thrive as an orchestra.

In an effort to grow their audiences, many orchestras offer "pops" programmes, film music programmes, and programming hybrids wherein rock bands and rap artists perform with a symphony. I would guess that some of these initiatives are financially successful, but I don't know the degree to which they create a new or larger audience for either more mainstream or contemporary classical music. Hopefully they do.

The solution seems quite simple to me: Programme more of my music! Audiences of all ages, hair colours, and body-piercing preferences love the stuff.

No? Well, that statement was made half in jest, but only half, because I would like to think that the solution lies at least in part in reaching out to audiences that are attracted to newer, often more experimental art by offering programmes targeting these audiences. But I recognize that it's a kind of logical paradox (A.K.A. Catch 22) wherein many who are attracted to the work of living artists think of symphony orchestras as musical art museums exhibiting the work of dead artists, and so programmes aimed at fans of contemporary art might not actually attract them, and may in fact alienate some of the orchestra patrons who prefer their art to be by composers who are mostly European and entirely dead.

One thing I have discovered is that you don't have to be a fan of classical music to enjoy contemporary classical music.  A few years ago, I started posting my music at MacJams.com, an on-line community of thousands of music-makers of all kinds, probably mostly falling within the various sub-genres of pop/rock, but also including other genres such as jazz and classical.  I have read many favorable comments about contemporary classical pieces by people who admit that they don't know or even like much about classical music, which I thought was pretty cool and reinforced my hunch that more people would like this music if they were exposed to it. If you are curious to read some of these comments, have a look at my Dream Dance page, or just go to the site's "classical" category and see what you get.

And so, in agreement with the Sandow article, it has also been my experience that there is an alternative new-music audience, but the challenge for contemporary composers is to find a way to reach them.

On the "hatred" of modern classical music due to the brain's inability to cope...

Last week I posted a link to an article in The Telegraph (UK) entitled, "audiences hate modern classical music because their brains cannot cope."  The subheading of the article states: "Modern classical music is so widely disliked by audiences because the human brain struggles to find patterns it needs to understand the compositions as music."

Note that somewhere between the headline and the sub-heading, modern classical music has gone from being "hated" to "widely disliked." At least things are looking up!

My thoughts on the article:

1. What is meant by "modern classical music?"  Schoenberg (who died in 1951) is cited seven times, and Webern (who died in 1945) once; no other twentieth-century or present-day composers are mentioned.  This suggests no awareness whatsoever of the "modern" classical music scene.  If this article had been written in 1930, it would make sense to cite Schoenberg and Webern as representatives of (only) one stream of modern classical music, but even then it would have been a very narrow cross-section of the composers active at that time, which also included Vaugh Williams, Rachmaninoff, Ives, Holst, Ravel, De Falla, Bartok, Prokofiev, Gershwin, Copland, Khachaturian, and Shostakovich. Equating "modern classical music" with "the music of Schoenberg and Webern" in 2010 is beyond perplexing; it is bizarre.
2. Where is the evidence for audience "hatred" or "wide dislike" of modern classical music? None is given.
   
   Don't get me wrong; I am not living in some alternate universe in which people never express antipathy towards contemporary classical music. Quite the opposite, in fact! I am suggesting that the article in question takes this view as a given, without any attempt to substantiate it.  I have certainly heard people say they don't like contemporary classical music, but I have also heard the same said about medieval music, classical music in general, rap, jazz, rock & roll...  In fact, I think I have at some point heard just about every musical genre maligned, but none of this constitutes evidence for widespread hatred of these genres.
   
   On the other hand, each musical genre has its own and often substantial following, and contemporary classical music is no different. Consider this:
   
   
   • Compact disc recordings of Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs") have, according to Wikipedia, sold more than a million copies.
   • According to an article in the New York Times (to which I posted a link in another blog last week), Nonesuch Records cultivates its own version of [an] alternative audience, and has done wonderfully, sometimes selling more than 100,000 copies of CD's by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Astor Piazzola and the Kronos Quartet, and only slightly less of John Adams.
   • I have witnessed packed houses whooping and hollering their enthusiasm for new classical music numerous times at the Winnipeg New Music Festival.
While none of these things "prove" that modern classical music is overwhelmingly popular, they are among many other indicators suggesting that some of it, at least, has a significant following. Michael Gordon, composer and co-founder of "Bang on a Can," writes: The wonderful guitarist, Mark Stewart, who is a member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, but who also plays in Paul Simon’s band and on the film scores of Elliot Goldenthal, says “I play three kinds of music: popular, semi-popular, and unpopular.” Mark calls my music and the music of Bang on a Can “semi-popular.” [New York Times, 5 March 2007]

"Semi-popular music;" that gives us all something to aspire to!


3. We often speak of audiences as if they were single, monolithic entities, but they are groups of individuals that typically share some traits, but are distinct from one another in other ways. It is problematic to generalize about what audiences like or dislike; if it were simple, every television show, movie, and pop song would be a hit.
   
   I was a church music director for several years, and I remember once being told that "the congregation finds the music too fast" (or perhaps it was "too loud;" I don't actually remember).  How did we learn what the congregation thought, I wondered; was there an exit poll?  Of course not!  In the subsequent conversation I learned that one individual had complained about the music to one of the priests, and the priest, perhaps sharing the same concerns, had reported it to me.
   
   I don't mean to pick on this priest; I suspect we all have overstated a case on occasion. I have had similar conversations with radio producers, concert producers, etc., who have suggested they know what audiences like and dislike, but upon further discussion it often turns out that they are stating personal preferences, often reinforced by a few others telling them they feel the same way.
   
   Conducting a poll is theoretically a more objective method of finding out what people really think, but interpreting the data gathered through a poll can be a tricky business, potentially flawed by the biasses of the polling organization or individual conducting/interpreting the poll.  
   
   In any event, when a person states that audiences "hate modern classical music," they are not usually conveying the results of a poll; they are often expressing their own personal feelings about modern classical music, possibly based on part on what a few others have told them. This does not constitute evidence in support of their statement.
4. The implication that modern classical music is complex, and the music of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven isn't, shows a lack of understanding of both older and newer classical music.  There are works of deep complexity by the great composers of centuries past (e.g., late Beethoven quartets, Thomas Tallis' 40-part motet, "Spem in alium," Bach's "Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue" and "The Musical Offering," Chopin's "Prelude in A Minor"(the tonic is not clear until the last chord of the piece), etc.), and there are works of great simplicity by contemporary composers (e.g., Terry Riley's "In C," The New Simplicity movement, much of the music of Arvo Pärt, etc. ).
5. "Mr. Ball believes that many traditional composers such as Mozart, Bach and Beethoven subconsciously followed strict musical formula to produce music that was easy on the ear by ensuring it contained patterns that could be picked out by the brain."  I am curious to know to which "strict musical formula" (sic) Mr. Ball is referring. This tantalizing statement is not explained, although perhaps it is in Mr. Ball's book.

But enough criticism on my part!  Here are some quotes from the article that make good sense to me:

• Phillip Ball: "The brain is a pattern seeking organ, so it looks for patterns in music to make sense of what we hear."
• David Huron (Ohio State University): "Much of what the brain does is to anticipate the future. Predicting what happens next has obvious survival value, and brains are remarkably adept at anticipating events."
• Timothy Jones (Royal Academy of Music): "Mozart and Bach have similar levels of complexity as Schoenberg, but those complexities are in different musical domains. Their music is very information dense. I would question how much of the familiarity with the music of Mozart and Bach has to do with culturalisation rather than an innate cognitive inability to understand the music of composers like Schoenberg. Certain people can learn to appreciate it."

"Culturalization," a term from anthropology meaning "to be exposed or subjected to the influence of culture," is, I believe, a highly-relevant point. Bach and Beethoven are an acquired taste for many; not everyone loves their music the first time they hear it. Similarly, music of unfamiliar cultures or genres can be confusing or perplexing at first, but, through a process of culturalization, we can grow to appreciate and understand it better. Might not the same be said about Schoenberg's music?

The degree to which this article focusses on Schoenberg's music is both strange and troubling.  Strange, because, as mentioned above, his music is not exactly "modern," in the sense of "being of our time," any more, and troubling, because Schoenberg's music was denounced (and, I believe, banned) by the Nazis for being "degenerate" (as was jazz), and this article seems to be suggesting that it is okay, or at least understandable, to hate Schoenberg's music because its purported complexity makes it impossible for most human brains to comprehend.

I don't buy it. But you probably figured that out by now!

Marketing Contemporary Music (1)

More food for thought: Marketing Contemporary Music (article by Greg Sandow in the New York TImes; click link to view entire article).

The following is taken from the end of Mr. Sandow's article. Please read and leave a comment below, if this topic interests you:

… There really is an alternative new-music audience, one that is hardly connected to classical music at all.

     The beacon for this view of contemporary music would be Bang on a Can, a sharply informal New York group that is presented by Lincoln Center (and might even play thoroughly classical music by Elliott Carter), but does not look, feel, taste or smell like a classical institution, and in fact refuses to think of itself as part of the classical-music world. It draws 1,000 people to its annual new-music marathons, and these, said its director of development, Christine Williams, are in their 20's and 30's, attracted in part by aggressive marketing aimed at lovers of downtown dance, jazz, visual art and performance art.

     In Milwaukee, an enterprising contemporary group, Present Music -- which gets up to 700 people at some of its events and impressively sells more than 200 subscriptions to its six-concert season -- has a similar philosophy. "You can look down from the stage, and see the earrings and nose rings and different- colored hair," said its director, Kevin Stalheim. "If I were going for mailing lists, I'd go to the art museum and modern dance companies, not the Milwaukee Symphony."

     Present Music plays more traditional programs than Bang on a Can, ranging from mildly alternative composers like Henryk Gorecki and Steve Reich to mainstream stalwarts like Joseph Schwantner and Harrison Birtwistle. Why doesn't New York's alternative audience -- the people, for instance, who enjoy going to the Brooklyn Academy of Music -- come to hear similar programs at Carnegie Hall?

     One big part of the answer is presentation. "We did a piece with black light, and we threw Ping-Pong balls around in the audience" Mr. Stalheim said. "We start our season like opening day at the ballpark, and maybe we'll play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' on a theremin. We try to end our concerts with parties." This is not selling out, Mr. Stahlheim insists, because most of the time the group is serious. But it gives his concerts good press and makes them fun.

     Nonesuch Records cultivates its own version of this alternative audience, and has done wonderfully, sometimes selling more than 100,000 copies of CD's by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Astor Piazzola and the Kronos Quartet, and only slightly less of John Adams. This, says Robert Hurwitz, who runs the label, is a market that was already there, one that overlaps with the classical-music audience but is also distinct from it, and which Nonesuch's vice president of marketing, Peter Clancy, described as "people open to the new, different and unusual, who seek out world music, modern and ethnic dance, and performance art." This, perhaps, is a contemporary version of the "intellectual audience" Virgil Thomson identified among classical-music listeners in New York in the 1940's, and the success of Nonesuch suggests that it might be bigger, at least potentially, than anybody thinks.

     Can mainstream classical-music institutions attract these people? The enterprising Albany Symphony has placed composers in elementary and high schools and also presents an alternative new-music ensemble -- the Dogs of Desire -- at local colleges, thus using contemporary music to give the orchestra new roots in its community.

     Mr. Wyjnbergen, of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, thinks he might present new music in "rock clubs, art galleries or an old factory that has been rigged up." He doesn't expect to attract younger people to the orchestra's existing programs, but instead hopes to include them by extending the Philharmonic's reach. He also identifies another "niche audience" for contemporary music, made up of "visual people, architects, painters, photographers and graphic artists." These, he thinks, he can attract by asking 40 of them to create visual impressions of contemporary musical works.

     Mr. Pastreich, too, says he has tapped an alternative crowd when the San Francisco Symphony presents "maverick" composers like Lou Harrison or Meredith Monk. And while he says that 90 percent of his new-music listeners are drawn from his regular audience, he also notes that younger people are now buying tickets, thanks to the informality and commitment of Michael Tilson Thomas.

     Should we be trying to educate the classical music audience, as my colleague so strongly urged? Why talk as if there's something wrong with it, as if it has a disease that needs curing? Instead, let's arouse it, excite it and draw new people to new kinds of artistic musical events. That way, even large institutions might renew themselves and heal the split between contemporary classical music and the rest of the arts.

What do you think?
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If you like Mr. Sandow's writing, please check out some of the many links to his other articles on his home page.

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See my next post, Marketing Contemporary Music (2) for my thoughts on this topic.

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UPDATE: Both links above have been fixed (Jan, 2023).  I also considerably expanded the portion of Mr. Sandow's original article quoted above.

"Audiences Hate Modern Classical Music Because Their Brains Cannot Cope"

According to an article in The Telegraph (UK), "audiences hate modern classical music because their brains cannot cope."

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NB: The above link appears to be accessible only by pay, although the website may allow a certain number of visits before demanding payment, so it's worth trying, If you are asked to pay but do not wish to do so, click this link to my follow-up post on this topic; it should give you a sense of what the Telegraph's article is about:

On the "hatred" of modern classical music due to the brain's inability to cope…

It's a provocative headline and an interesting point of view. Have a look at the article, and, if you feel so moved, please share your thoughts about it in the "comments" area below.   I will post a blog with my views next week.

• Do you agree or disagree with points of view expressed in the article? 
• Do audiences "hate" modern classical music? 
• Who exactly are these "audiences" to which the article refers?   
• Is it generally true that modern classical music is complex (and is therefore hard or even impossible to process for the brain)? 
• If it is true that the brain cannot process highly-complex music, does that mean that we should aim to keep things simple when composing?