A bit of a mixture - linking the digital and real

We are in the part of the year where orchestra’s and opera houses programmes for the next year are nearly all published and also in the midst of the various awards for classical music. Does it all make sense in this digital age? With blogs, twitter, spotify, the Berlin Phil’s digital concert hall and the likes, everything seems to becoming closer to the performer. But is this actually doing the opposite. By giving everything to the audience from within their own home and brining them so close to the performer, in such a personal fashion, does it negate the need to go to the concert hall. Or does it do the opposite? Does it create a yearning for the adrenaline of the concert hall, that tactile excitement it gives when sitting amongst a mass of people experiencing live music?

So many questions and I don’t think we will see real proof of either outcome for another five years, when people will have found more ways of creating ‘access’ to classical music. I certainly believe that the most important thing with increasing audience’s and bringing new generations to classical music is getting young people to a concert for the first time. This is where I think new music can really maximise on new audiences. Live, new music can be heart pumping and adrenaline creating. It is this excitement that is going to bring people in, in the initial stages of their appreciation of music.

What needs to happen is a bridge between the digital and the real: the computer and the concert hall. I don’t think that the Berlin Phil’s digital concert hall helps that problem. It does create a yearning for the real, but only once the real has been experienced.

Most things are now established they just need a bridge. The best way? Firstly, outreach which most orchestras in the UK seem to achieving impressively on the budgets they have. Secondly, filling empty concert halls with students and a real cooperation between orchestras and education, not just by outreach programmes, but by planning programmes with input from the education system. It’s being done in some places, but its success lies in making the concert hall and the orchestra’s friendly, by making them the friend of the community rather than dumming them down. The orchestra’s have to really become part of the fabric of the community. It’s harder to achieve in London but the Hallé seems to be leading the way. It’s getting the young to enthuse the younger. We’re getting there. Now let’s shout it from the roof tops and tell others rather than keep it to ourselves.

I haven’t answered my initial question, maybe for another time, but they seem to follow in the footsteps of ‘popular music’. They reward the hard work done and publicise some of the important hidden work of the real troopers in the business. Some rewards are obviously better to get than others and some are driven heavily by the recording industry. They add a bit of glam but perhaps they could do more. Could they be linked into the whole structure? We have all these separate pods of great goings on but if they could be linked maybe we would not only have something world class but really world leading.

GCSE MUSIC

An article in this months BBC Music magazine about the simple nature of obtaining a GCSE in music without being able to read music has caused discussion of the exam and the broader problem of the teaching of music in our schools.

Reportedly students can now achieve an A in music without being able to read a single note. It comes as no surprise as over recent years A level music has come more and more into disrepute. The situation has become so problematic that the likes of Oxbridge are considering whether an A level in music should be a stipulation tin applying to study music at an undergraduate level. However, it is true also to say that Music as a subject has changed hugely in the way it is studied as a subject at the highest level. No longer do composers learn their trade during a seven year apprenticeship with a senior composer. Nor does fugue or counterpoint play a critical part in a degree from Cambridge. Recently Oxford appointed a professor in music science and music as therapy and as a rehabilitative aid is becoming more accepted in the medical world. Thus should the qualification move with the times?

It is true to say that the qualification needs to adapt, and ensure it is not stuck in the dark ages. Yet it must keep the foundations of what it is trying to advance at the forefront of its teaching. As the cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber said, it is "like trying to study a language without learning the alphabet". The concept of teaching English at GCSE level without the students being able to read would be unthinkable.

Today in the world 'classical' music, accessibility to all are such buzz words that the exam boards seem worried to stretch the students by demanding from them what they should. Although not a theorist at heart and also being one who passed grade 5 theory just (getting the pass mark - all be it at the age of 9) it seems that theoretical knowledge is crucial to an understanding of music and a progression in the subject. It may be difficult to teach or 'boring' to learn yet no one would suggest not teaching times tables or spelling. By enabling people to understand theory not only does it allow them to study a major section of Western culture but opens the door to this 'exclusive' world of classical music, that so many politicians are convinced exists due to those who promote it. As Damon Albarn, the front-man of Gorrliaz and Blur said, "If you don't learn to read music, then there's a whole tradition that becomes very exclusive and shouldn't be."

It is important to be inclusive, and in a world where classical music has an aging population one needs to encourage followers, but not at the risk of loosing what is at the subject's heart. Maybe it is time for a separate GCSE to be developed; 'music appreciation' where one only has to listen and describe one's reaction on tape, therefore stopping the need of having ti be able to write to take the qualification.