Leaving Facebook (A Music Post)

I deactivated my Facebook account yesterday after having used it for about 14 years. Yes, I was one of those people who watched The Social Dilemma and was appalled at the evils done by the social media business model. I never quite understood how much my phone tracks about me (EVERYTHING) and how aggressive it markets based on our weaknesses. Because it is run by advertisers even more than its owners (the customer is always right…), people can sway populations with a big enough price tag. Myanmar used it for genocide against the very Rohingya population I lamented in The Story of Our Journey . Much of the violent rhetoric in the past several years only spread because of how social media targets users through high-emotion content. Political extremism and conspiracy theories have completely obliterated the confidence in truth, leading to our near inability to talk to people different than us. I can’t support such a destructive platform.

Some musicians have long felt threatened by the DIY aesthetic that rose out of YouTube. The amateur could become famous while the professional gets lost in the shadows. I believe that threat is healthy for musicians! If we can’t get people interested in our music, then we have to look at either our presentation of media or our music itself. Also, being “famous” has never been that appealing of an aspiration. A musician doesn’t need to get that one big famous video to subsist and thrive, for one-hit wonders on YouTube are not worth as much as the one-hit wonders were in the 90s. True recognition comes from years of experience, great connections, and true fans. The long-term famous YouTubers place their entire career on making videos. They live the life of the entrepreneur and put in more time than most would imagine. They aren’t my competition.

Perhaps social media’s greatest blessing and curse is its redefinition of musical choices based on emotion over genre. I’m still a bit mystified on how artificial intelligence “listens” to music and recommends artists fitting into a certain mood, but it’s actively happening and has been for years. If I listen to “Chill Thursday” or “Workout Fire,” then I’ll get a playlist that we’re told fits the mood (and we’d agree much of the time). The singular aesthetical assumption is that music’s purpose is to generate a mood that resonates with the listener. Younger acts lean into this assumption and genre-bend their work to fit into multiple categories (which is argued to naturally fit into the diverse tastes of the generation). When I write music, I think about the atmosphere or sound world, but that’s a starting point. If mood were the core of music, then it would be a shallow endeavor. Maybe that’s why we now compare music with temperatures; we regard music as important as changing the thermostat from 68 to 72 F.

But, I’ll be blunt: they have done an awful job at mood-mixing concert music idioms. The contemporary classical music is more-or-less okay, but it is mostly post-minimalist. Almost every other classical playlist has branded as Baby Mozart music. I typed in Classical on Amazon Music and received the following playlists: “Deep Sleep Music,” “Instrumental Lullabies,” “Putting the Baby to Bed,” “Bedtime Lullabies,” “Classical for Pets,” “Classical Focus,” “Classical Sleep,” “Relaxing Children’s Classical,” “Relaxing Classical,” “Classical for Meditation,” “Classical Slumber,” “Dream Time,” and, as a relief, “Fun Classical.” Ouch. Obviously the AI doesn’t even try to figure out the mood of classical music. Isn’t this supposed be the same brand of music that brought you the riots at the premiere of The Rite of Spring, the performers who painted their faces white and pretended they were possessed (Liszt, Paganini), the most psychologically disturbing works ever (Berg’s Wozzeck and Lulu), and the thrilling collection of works that has influenced every dramatic film composer from Day 1 (Holst’s The Planets, Strauss’s Salome)? Even live classical musicians have fallen into the traps set up by these “moods.” I can’t say how many times I have fallen asleep during concerts where “nice” musical interpretation supersedes the power within the harmonic structures at play. Oh, how I’d love to hear (post-COVID) something more dramatic at the orchestral stage (preferably a concert by living composers)!

As AI continues to brand people towards certain moods, I wonder how that will influence musical taste and exploration. The sudden access to everything is brilliant now, especially with the collective memory of music from the 50s on. But just like in social media, what are the consequences of AI silently driving our decisions? Will we be softly baited (even if over the next several decades) into our comfortable “Autumn Chill” niche and let the vibrant blues, reds, yellows, and greens in popular idioms, like classical music, turn into an unremarkable brown? Who actually stops to listen to a full musical piece anymore? Who actually stops for anything anymore? What caught my attention the most during The Social Dilemma was that the user thinks they are in control because the AI is programmed to hustle us unknowingly into every decision to keep us engaged. I feel like the prophetic call to avoid future tragedies, not only politically and socially but artistically, is to learn how to listen and make active decisions. Radicalism and violence will be abated as people act to serve as mediators, not instigators. Artistic depth, which we do still cherish now, will bring about some of the most fascinating music if we are willing to actively connect with it rather than push it to the back of our minds. Will you search for the most different piece of music you can find, turn off all distractions, and listen to its album (yes, the whole 45 minutes) in its entirety? As John Cage said, “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.” Go for it.

Music Alive: Resources and Curation for a 21st-Century Listener

To continue and answer in part a question from the last post (Baby Mozart), I ask here: If Mozart, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berio, and Boulez are all outdated, then where is the classical art form? What is happening in the 21st century for performers, composers, and most of all, listeners? There is excellent news: the tradition thrives in a way perhaps unheard of in centuries past. Thousands of composers and tens of thousands of performers, all trained to a professional level, play with ensembles around the world, write, produce, and arrange music in both the concert, film/media, and popular scenes, teach, advocate, and spread ideas through sound. The number of composer training programs, competitions, grant opportunities, music-based residencies, and calls for scores that repeat yearly or every few years numbers over 800, and many organizations see music as an avenue to promote messages of social advocacy for good. The sheer amount of opportunities for composers today is promising, but where is the music? Why do orchestras seem completely unaware of what surrounds them? Why do so many orchestras still carry a museum culture?

Perhaps awareness is difficult because it takes time to seek after great music in the riffraff of so many aspiring artists. Certain musicians do rise to the surface though. For example, an orchestra is looking for music with lots of style and excitement—why not commission Valerie Coleman, James Mobberley, or Christian Asplund? Or something thrilling and virtuosic like a piece based on the idea of video games from Andrew Norman or a percussion concerto from Chen Yi? An atmospheric, otherworldly exploration of sound? George Friedrich Haas or Kaija Saariaho would do. Something passionate, deeply personal, and timely? Lansing McLoskey or Alvin Singleton would be marvelous options. Or something simply beautiful and immediate by Hannah Lash or by recent Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Ellen Childs (not all their music fits in this category, but orchestras seem to like the very accessible)? Or Stephen Hartke, Silvio Ferraz, Gabriel Bolaños, Augusta Read Thomas, Dave Rakowski, Amy Williams, David Felder, Panayiotis Kokoras, Mark Applebaum, Louis Karchin, or so many others? These are already accomplished composers who have been fortunate enough to get some big-name performances, so imagine how many younger composers also have something to offer if these were the highlights of the concert with young composers as the openers!

How do orchestras currently program their concerts? Let’s take a look at an unnamed symphony orchestra’s concert season for an example:

1. First, “Beethoven for the Generations” features only Beethoven to celebrate the legend’s 250th birthday. Of course, one concert is not enough to celebrate: this season will feature ALL nine symphonies and much more from him.

2. The next concert is titled “Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.” There are four pieces: Brahms, Mendelssohn, [Vivian Fung], and Beethoven. Oh, there was a piece by a living composer, but our embarrassment of the piece left it out of the concert title and hid it in the middle of a cozy program of pieces heard so much that many in the audience have it memorized.

3. Next, “Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, Ax performs Beethoven.” This begins with Louis Andriessen’s The nine symphonies of Beethoven. Even invoking the name of Beethoven as a living composer doesn’t make the cut for a concert title…

4. “Zukerman plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto,” and Beethoven overshadows Janacek (early 1900s) and even our beloved Mozart.

5. “Beethoven’s Mass in C” has a Haydn and Beethoven sandwich with some James MacMillan (living composer) hidden inside.

6. “Schumman’s ‘Rhenish’ and Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto” is the concert title that excludes Samuel Barber, indisputably one of the most popular American composers ever.

7. “Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony and Midori Plays Dvorak” features the two listed and, oops we forgot Anna Clyne (recent Pulitzer Prize winner).

8. The only mention of a post-1945 composer happens in a celebration of a violinist who played a modern piece by Dutilleux, but wait… “Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Tree of Dreams.” At least the piece title is catchy enough to hide a composer’s name that some wouldn’t recognize (and during the concert, Dutilleux’s piece is sandwiched between the big shots from on average 150 years ago).

To sum up the entire concert season’s promotion: yikes.

One solution for this serious issue is the concept of curation. The word has popped up lately among composers and performers, and it deserves further investigation. To curate is to borrow the model that art museums use to showcase their works. A museum sets expectations for the experience, organizes its art into logical categories, provides historical context, and includes knowledgeable historians and other specialists to answer questions. Each museum has a different standing collection and rotates through visiting exhibits. One could consider the standing exhibit the pieces that museum uniquely owns. Could this not translate into the musical experience? Let’s try a new concert season:

1. It’s Beethoven’s 250th birthday! Let’s celebrate with “Regards to Beethoven by the Great Masters of Today.” We commission three composers (or find composers who have already written pieces about Beethoven, like Louis Andriessen), and have a night of homages to our historic forefather. To give some context, the first piece is by Beethoven, followed by the three new pieces (none of them are too long because we all have shorter attention spans these days…). Oh, and no more Beethoven after this—this concert will sell out because Beethoven is the visiting exhibit.

2. “20/20 Vision: Looking to the Future.” We can start with some Messiaen piece with a religious looking forward or maybe one of the Futurists from the early 1900s, then go with two pieces about social issues of today such as climate change or a more equal society. Could music be relevant to today by speaking on issues that matter today?

3. “America, the Beautiful.” It is shocking to me how little investment our orchestras have in playing music written by composers within our own country. Do we really need to import so much culture that is alien to our own? Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, John Cage (not 4:33 unless they really want to do it), John Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, and Jennifer Higdon are easy choices that orchestras need not dig deep in their libraries to find. But let’s add some lesser-known yet highly influential voices in there. Most of the composers I listed at the top can showcase craftsmanship in the United States.

4. “The Fast and the Furious: Concerto Night.” One night of some of the most aggressive, hardcore, virtuosic pieces with the top soloists. A world premiere would build the hype if both the composer and the soloist had a reputation for it.

5. “Stealing Styles: Jazz, Rock, and Pop in the Orchestra.” We’ll give them some Gershwin and then switch it up with some more contemporary music that incorporates popular idioms into concert music (and there is lots of this nowadays).

6. “Who We Are.” This concert will consciously represent the diversity of contemporary composers who are of top caliber. This is not an affirmative action-type event but a realistic showcase of American musical identity. We have fantastic composers of many backgrounds writing in many styles, and this concert clearly shows the influence. This could even be a goal for a concert series…

7. “Deep Listening.” For the mindfulness people, John Luther Adams’s Become Ocean could launch a concert that focuses on color. And audience members could be encouraged to really relax and make the experience comfortable and meditative (lie on the floor?).

8. “The Grand Finale.” It’s the end of the season! The ballet and the local chorus join the orchestra for a world premiere closer with two or three epic pieces to lead into the work. This concert is intended to be the shot heard ‘round the world. People will know about this concert on the news and then look back to see that the entire concert season was filled with exciting projects with lots of documentation for publicity. As the next season is prepared, people will plan to travel for miles, donors will be caught in the excitement for doing something different, and music will seem like a living art form much more than a rusting, disorganized museum.

Is this too idealistic? To further support this vision, people need to know what they are getting into. The advertising hits YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere with up-to-date advertising. Bite-size musical excerpts float around everywhere with cliffhangers. Members of the orchestra are the ones being interviewed in promotional materials (not the conductor every time) and speak about how exciting it is to be part of something different and bold. Photos of the composers pop up on all visuals, showing the selection of contemporary composers that the listeners will hear. Marketing connects with different demographics than the 70+ by considering popular topics (orchestras so missed a great opportunity several years ago with the zombie craze, for example! We have so much music about the undead and the macabre!!). At concerts, members of the orchestra stand in the concert lobby afterwards to meet the guests and talk about the music experience (again, in addition to the conductor). The pre-concert experience has video footage playing while people get into their seats that shows the promotions that got them there in more depth: interviews with performers, composers, the conductor, etc. (starting a half hour before showtime). The videos are setting the stage for the concert experience, just like a movie theater prepares its viewers by getting them immersed in cinema before the movie begins. People outside the door are trained musicologists and theorists who answer questions about the concert program, with visible identification such as a name badge or even a visitors information booth. And right after intermission, the conductor gets podium time to welcome everyone to the concert, ask how far people have traveled to the concert, and to set the mood for the last piece with some artful prose (not a lecture). Music presented in such a natural context, without apologies before genuinely valuable new art, would change the atmosphere of orchestra life.

In an age that prizes the new, orchestras would have something to offer. Listeners, performers, donors, academics, and composers would all thrive off the energy of this new concert experience. There is no catch; this is all reasonable. The technology is easy, the resources are waiting, and, most importantly, an eager audience can be reached that would genuinely love this concert experience. Yes, not every piece would be loved by the audience. But with so much context and preparation, they will at least appreciate the vision of the artist. Nevertheless, chances are that as orchestras redefine the concert experience, listeners will redefine theirs. They will broaden their idea of what music is. It is more than notes on a page or structures in major and minor. It is the fingerprint of one human experience, the embodiment of a time, place, and culture, the study of sound in time, the expression of humanity, the vision of something more, the dream of something that was or could have been. It is a deep connection to the spiritual and subconscious, sometimes seeking in sound the deepest of mental and emotional states. It is vulnerability and severity at times, and though uncomfortable at first, the most beautiful experience can be had in sailing in the imaginations of the artists who live the same digital-age life as the listener and share or differ in the perspectives and problems of the current age. Music of this caliber has worth, more than any previous age’s artwork can. Let museum orchestras handle the 19th-century Germans. Bold orchestras will accept a true challenge to upgrade to the 21st century listening experience.

The Language Metaphor

Common for both musicians and perhaps the public-at-large is to remark that music is the universal language. If that is the case, then it communicates poorly! An effective language conveys specific meaning that both parties understand while music plays with emotional/spiritual feelings that in only the rarest instances are shared by all listeners and performers (and composers). Of course, language may be fashioned to focus on its linguistic and musical nature as in poetry, which is a fascinating art in that it conveys literal and additional meanings, but music seems hard-pressed to cross its boundaries (tone poems often miserably attempt to do so). When John Cage said, "I have nothing to say, and I'm saying it," I do not believe that he was trying to blot out the fact that music engages others but that music very rarely (if ever) can say something, something the composer grappled with throughout his long career.

The metaphor does work, however, in some cases. While communication is not as precise as language, feelings come in a way that may exceed language's ability. But the musical information, like in language, is comprehended to the extent that certain patterns are followed. To understand something, I will need pauses to capture everything. I may need context, including an ear attuned to different dialects. I need a way to structure the information I receive. I need patterns. Many composers use small combinations of pitches, rhythms, or other ear-catching devices to create their own "language." Mostly fitting under the term "motif," a small bit of musical information can be comprehended and then expanded on throughout a piece. Popular music may use melodies that hook a listener in, but even more prevalent for comprehension is the underlying groove, which becomes the structural foundation upon which the rest of the music is built. Other music (lots of other music) may defy both of these methods. But just like in language, comprehensibility comes from there being certain principles that guide the listener from the beginning to the end (without being boring because we all have experienced conversations where our interest wanes...). Of course, some music seeks to border incomprehensibility, but the majority of pieces throughout all genres and all time seek to give us a comprehensible message, even if we can't decide on what it is.