Does Classical Music discourage young Musicians?

Over the past month, I finished reading “Class, Control, and Classical Music” by Anna Bull. It’s an ethnography of young musicians in England, participating in youth orchestras and youth choirs. It’s a damning work which doesn’t shy away from the impacts of classical music on young people — for example, students in interviews would detail how they felt humiliated and bullied by their teachers, only to justify and defend this behaviour because they weren’t good enough players. Young musicians create their own cliques, and have an air of being enlightened because of their studies.

I chose the word enlightened very deliberately, because most of what we associate with the institutions of classical music evolved from Enlightenment ideals and were entrenched in Victorian colonialism. For women, in particular, the conservatoire was an acceptable vocation – not working, but still contributing positively to society, and especially through communicating an acceptable idea of femininity. Bull explores arguments that the piano is the perfect refined instrument for Victorian femininity, since the actual object which makes the music is hidden from view of the audience (compared with other instruments, like woodwinds or horns, which could be viewed sexually). Bull expertly explains how these institutions continue to this day.

Anyone who has been to a classical music concert recently knows how old the average demographic is. In my experience, I am often the youngest in attendance, despite the widespread cheap student or under-35 tickets. Bull doesn’t touch on this topic explicitly, but it is easy to draw conclusions between what she argues and lived experience. Classical music prides itself on being a gated club, where you need a certain level of education to understand the musical structures over a long period of time. But if young people are rejecting that education, and classical musicians don’t want to expand their circle, then classical music is doomed to fail.

Is that a problem? I, for one, think classical music is in need of a good shake up. One of the reasons I ended up playing in Balinese gamelan was, to some extent, to reject the norms of classical music composition. Many of the most interesting musical works I hear now are directly inspired by popular forms including film music, which are looked down on by many classical musicians. Yet orchestras are having to turn to accompanying films to make money to support their other concerts. Perhaps a bit less of a holier-than-thou attitude could go a long way to bringing in new audiences, as could more education-focused concerts at a cheap price. Programs which perform a mix of film music and their inspirations could bring in audiences to listen to their favourite pieces, while learning more about where composers drew their inspirations from. This may in-turn increase interest in a variety of other pieces. For example, a program which combined John William’s Star Wars music with Gustav Holst’s The Planets would have a lot of synergy, and may cause further interest in other late Romantic and early twentieth century music. This should also be balanced with modern, new works, particularly from traditionally underrepresented composers.

The problem is, these works are still dependent on a fundamental structure inherent to classical music that promotes particular ways of music making as “better”. The Western Canon (the so-called best pieces of classical music) is dominated by white German men. The composer and conductor exist at the top of a people-hierarchy, which only developed in the nineteenth century. Is it even possible to continue the institution of classical music and do away with these hierarchies? And if not, would it be better if some other musical structure came in and took its place? There are no easy answers.

Current Project Progress

PhD thesis: 35%

Composition Portfolio: 40%

I finished the first draft of my methodology chapter this week! It’s still rough in places, and needs a bit of re-writing, but overall it is coming along nicely. You may notice that compared to last week, I have removed the theatrical work update. I’m just rethinking some things about that, and hope to bring you an update next month. It’s a bit of a critical period – next month I would like to have both the PhD thesis and creative work up over 50%!

Question of the Week

This week’s question is: “Has studying and analysing music so deeply ever made it harder for you to simply enjoy it?”

Definitely! I am envious of friends of mine who can put on music to “tune-out” to while doing other tasks. For me, I find music becomes the thing I focus on, and I certainly can’t just have it in the background (except when driving, which I seem to have decoupled). I first got into serious music study through film music, and once you learn the fundamentals of film music, it is impossible to ever watch a film without picking up on how the music is used. It also leads, for me, to picking apart certain choices the composer and director have made (particularly when I think they are bad choices). Having said that, music is also a subject area where the more you learn helps you to deeply enjoy it. Being able to hear chord progressions and understand why a piece of music makes you feel a certain way is incredibly satisfying. It is also not that hard to learn the fundamentals of music theory — dare I say, no matter which music theory you are studying? I studied western music theory for two years in my undergraduate university degree, but to be honest in one year you can get enough you’ll ever need for a sufficient understanding of most musical ideas for life. Similarly, I learned the fundamentals of Balinese music theory in my Honours year — I’m no expert, but I can get by (and that was without formal training or resources). So I would definitely recommend learning more if you are interested!

Until next month,
Josh