Posted by Rick Denney on June 22, 2000 at 13:17:23:
In Reply to: Re: how long will band music survive? posted by D. Seebaugh on June 22, 2000 at 08:53:22:
This is a great topic that gets at one of the basic controversies I've run across in years of playing in community bands.
Some town bands play music they imagine the audience wants to hear--mostly easy transcriptions of show tunes and old popular songs. The audience usually includes a few nostalgic seniors and the friends and families of the musicians. These bands are often (but not always) stagnant and attract only a core of musicians, seemingly mostly for social reasons. In some towns, of course, such a group may be large. When really good musicians join the group, they often become bored in time and wander on to other groups. Often, the justification for playing easy popular music is that the audiences are not ready for the more challenging stuff. In many cases, I believe that this is a cop out--either the director, the controlling musicians (and there are always controlling musicians), or both don't want to tackle the hard stuff.
Other town bands push the envelope by playing literature that is both challenging for the musicians, and for the audience. Most of the musicians in the group must practice to learn the music. These groups repeatedly set before them challenges that demand just a bit more than the group can comfortably provide. Musicians who don't want to practice are not comfortable in these groups, unless they are really good and don't need to practice. Groups of this sort tend to attract the best amateur musicians in the area, and the music can really be dynamic. But it won't be perfect. And the audience will probably be no larger than with the other kind of group, though it may have a different constituency and it may attract critical review.
Of course, real groups lie anywhere along a continuum represented by these extremes, and the same group may even wander back and forth between them. In every amateur group I've been in, without exception, there has been debate between factions of the former type and factions of the latter. And the arguments always seem to be based on what the audience wants.
I say audience, schmaudience. I don't care what they want.
Now that I have your attention, let me explain.
Volunteer groups exist because the activity of the group provides a valuable experience for the members. If the experience is not valuable, participation will drop. If the experience is positive, the group will grow. So, it is quite possible to have a dynamic, challenging, and fun concert band with little or no audience. As long as the members are willing to pay their own way, I see no problem with this arrangement. As soon as the group's leaders get delusions, however, and want to court corporate or governmental sponsorship, they run into that audience thing. And the needs of the volunteers take a lower priority than the "needs" of the audience. This is the death-knell for a volunteer group.
(Note that this argument does not work for professional groups that exist for entirely different reasons.)
Another fact of amateur groups is that they will never play the music as professionals would. In these debates, one always hears the statement, "I would rather play Symphony of Sit-Coms really well than the Giannini Variations and Fugue poorly." Balderdash--That's a false choice. When a group plays a piece like Symphony of Sit-Coms, they are not challenged to make it their best performance. They don't have the professionalism of, well, professionals to carry them through the boredom. So, Symphony of Sit-Coms ends up being played at about 90% of what it ought to be. If the Giannini is on the program, however, the musicians are challenged by that music. They take it home and woodshed the parts. They discuss it over beer after rehearsal. They think about it. They buy recordings and listen to them. In the end, they might not play it better than 90% of what it ought to be, but that 90% represents their very best effort, and they all grew as musicians attaining that level. And, as a listener, I'd sure rather have 90% of something good than 90% of dreck.
When I listen to professional groups, like, say, the Dallas Wind Symphony, their playing is always wonderful. When they play good music (like the Ron Nelson stuff on one of their recordings), it is a great listening experience. When they play dreck (and there is a little bit mixed into every concert "because that's what the audience wants," it sounds like the background music to which you refer. Bad music played well is still bad music.
So, band music will survive as long as bands provide a place for their musicians to challenge themselves and grow as musicians. They need not care about the audience. And there will be musicians who want to be in such bands as long as schools have music programs that allow musical students an outlet for their talent. High-school bands seem better to me than they once were (my niece's band is far better than the band I played in, for example), so the source of adult musicians who seek an outlet for their talent, with or without an audience, seems in no jeopardy.
Rick "And the debate rages on..." Denney