The award given on a show that has a viewership of less than .1 percent of the world's population.

So, Greg Sandow says the Classical Grammys don’t matter.  Ok, but my retort is that on the whole, the Grammys don’t matter.

Let’s put aside the issue that the Grammys are an awards ceremony for the American Recording Industry, which, on the whole, is a tiny blip on the recording industries in the world.

The 2012 Grammys were viewed by 46 million–a record breaking viewership (note that approximately 82 million watched the event at least in part).

The U.S. population is approximately 313 million, so 46 million viewers is (rounded up to the nearest percent) approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population.  The population of the world is approximately 6.996 billion.  So the viewership of the Grammys is less than .1 percent (.006) of the world’s population.

Less than .1 percent of the worlds population watched the U.S. Grammys.  Sandow states (on his facebook page) ‎”The Grammys don’t resonate — even though forty million people watched? That’s an extraordinary notion.“  Well, at .1 percent viewership, it would be an extraordinary notion to say the Grammys resonate!

Let’s look outside of the American Recording Industry at the Bollywood recording industry.  The Bollywood music awards has approximately 300 million viewers worldwide.  More than 6 times the “record-breaking” viewership of the Grammys (and more than 3 times the partial viewership of 82 million).

The Eurovision Song Contest, often touted as the most watched non-sporting event, has drawn up to 600 million viewers in over 35 countries.  That’s approximately .086 percent of the world’s population, and approximately 9 times the viewership of the 82 million partial viewership of the Grammys (more than 12 times the viewership of the 46 million number).

I think that using the relative lack of relevance that is the viewership of the Grammys to criticize the subset of Classical Grammys as a means to criticize the latter is disingenuous at best.  Even setting aside the fact that Classical music has never been a big recording industry in the American Recording Industry landscape (if the 3% average marketshare is any indication).  Though the fact that classical music leads in online participation (e.g. digital downloads or viewings) by 18% (cf. the next biggest online participation figure for Latin music at 15%) says that the Grammys are irrelevant for anything other than the bare numbers of the American recording industry that matters to, well, the American recording industry.

As quantity of production increases from Q to Q2, the average cost of each unit decreases from C to C1

A recent post by Drew McManus at Adaptistration reminded me of a brief argument I had with Greg Sandow at his blog.  In my previous post I talked about one way to increase performance or earned revenue through Price Discrimination for Orchestra Tickets.  Another way to increase performance revenue as well as lower costs is by changing the scale of the operations.

This is commonly referred to as Economies of Scale, and no, this has nothing to do with reducing pay or cutting back a season to lower costs.  The reduced costs comes about as the result of increased production, thus lowering cost per unit.  As the Investopedia defines it:

The increase in efficiency of production as the number of goods being produced increases. Typically, a company that achieves economies of scale lowers the average cost per unit through increased production since fixed costs are shared over an increased number of goods.

Increasing Performance Revenue

Over at Sandow’s blog, I brought up Economies of Scale, especially through the adoption of newer technologies such as HD casts to increase production of units (i.e. the performance itself), as a way increase production while reducing costs.  In fact, as I mentioned in the comment linked above, Baumol and Bowen also recognized that Orchestras and other Performing Arts Organizations have benefited from a change in the scale of their operations, simply by increasing the number of concerts:

Some orchestras reached what appeared to be a minimum cost level after as few as 90 concerts per year, while others still went on enjoying economies of scale until they had played nearly 150 concerts per year. (Baumol & Bowen 1966, pg. 203)

A simple way to explain this is to take a series of two concerts (Friday-Saturday) that would cost, say, $90,000¹ to produce with the complete rehearsal sequence.  The average cost per concert would be $45,000.  Add another concert to the series (Sunday) and the average cost would fall to $30,000.

Add in 1600 more concerts to the series through an HD cast of the performance in various cities throughout the world and the average cost per “concert” falls to $56.14 (rounded to the nearest cent).  Granted, this is an overly optimistic projection given the number of movie theaters equipped that the Met Opera currently uses for its HD casts and a cost amount that is dwarfed by the Met Opera’s actual cost perproduction.  Given the $11 million in profits it received from the HD casts, however, shows that not only can the new product cover its own costs (Met casts average close to $1 to produce) but can also turn a profit as well.

After having read about the upcoming merger of the three Dayton, Ohio organizations discussed by Drew McManus in the blogpost linked above, I was reminded of Economies of Scale effects discussed by Robert Flanagan in his book, “The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras” (2012).

Lowering Costs

In the section titled, “Reducing the Growth of Expenses” from Chapter 11 “The Economic Future of Symphony Orchestras,” Flanagan discusses forming coalitions of performing arts groups and how this may be a productive and cost-reducing approach.  He states:

There are certainly opportunities for economies of scale. Each arts organization in turn can reduce marketing and fundraising costs, since at least some of the costs currently incurred may be directed at enticing patrons or contributions from other arts or defending against such predation. (Flanagan 2012, pg. 181)

This is interesting, since competition between large arts organizations is, as Flanagan says, “an understudied topic.”  He brings up some of his findings from his controversial (2007/8) report to the Mellon Foundation, “The Economic Environment of American Symphony Orchestras” (aka The Flanagan Report) regarding competition between orchestras and operas within the same geographic region:

An earlier study identified statistically significant evidence of modest competitive effects between orchestras and opera companies for nonperformance income. Private contributions to symphony orchestras were lower in communities with at least one opera company.  After holding the effects of an area’s economic capacity and an orchestra’s development/fundraising expenditures constant, there was evidence that higher development expenditures by an opera company raise support for the opera at the partial expense of the nearby symphony orchestras a year later.  The effect is statistically significant but very small. (Flanagan 2012, pg. 121)

The competitive effects of performing arts organizations is also supported by the RAND study (McCarthy et. al. 2001).  The research brief states that:

The number of nonprofit performing arts organizations increased by over 80 percent between 1982 and 1997, while the number of commercial performing arts organizations increased by over 40 percent (see Figure 1). At the same time, the average real revenues for nonprofit performing groups have declined, suggesting that most of the new nonprofit organizations are small.

Competitive effects may also be affected by the changing racial demographics and an emerging racial demographic gap.  As the median age of the White population of the U.S. shrinks and ages at a faster rate than the median age of the population as a whole the median age of the non-White demographic is actually getting younger while growing.  With more and more immigrants of non-European heritage begin to populate the U.S. there is a corresponding growth in non-European (i.e. orchestras, opera and ballet companies).

Take the recent labor dispute with the Detroit Symphony that many attribute to the economic decline of the city as a manufacturing center while at the same time, having the largest Arab population outside of the Middle East, has the Michigan Arab Orchestra which just switched to a typical seasonal concert series and is continuing to grow. The Bay Area has also seen explosive growth in traditional Chinese Orchestras which matches the region’s ever growing Chinese-American population. Flanagan also briefly discusses the issue of a changing racial demographic gap² and its effect on classical music audiences.

While the possibility of reducing marketing and fundraising costs exists for the merger of the Dayton performing arts organizations that McManus discusses, he also mentions the previous financial disaster of one such merger between Utah Opera and the Utah Symphony. I think, however, the more cautious sharing of resources and staff given by Andrew Taylor (a quote by Michael Kaiser), makes more sense and is closer in line to creating Economies of Scale that Flanagan is suggesting for fundraising if not for marketing.

Flanagan also warns that:

The main resistance to such efforts will come from those who are currently employed performing those tasks for specific arts organizations.  Economies of Scale imply fewer personnel in those functions, and personal concerns may receive more weight than the overall effort to raise support for the arts. (2012, pg. 181)

Both the Dayton Arts Organization merger/coalition and the future of HD casts are things to keep an eye on as they will give us some much needed case studies on how Economies of Scale³ may help large Performing Arts Organizations lessen the income gap⁴.

_____________________

NOTES:

1) For those of you wondering about the specific dollar amount I chose, just google “Kentucky Opera” and you’ll know the reason why.

2) Baumol and Bowen (1966, pg. 75) also noted some anecdotal evidence that ethnic demographic issues seem to affect audiences: “…musical performances are often in trouble in a city without a large German, Italian or Jewish population.  A Jewish holiday can decimate the audience even in a Midwestern city.“

3) While William Baumol is much more well known in the Arts for his pioneering the field of Cultural Economics, his most recent research with economist, Ralph Gomory deals specifically with mathematizing scale economies as part of a sustained and rigorous critique of free trade economics and how nations with retainable industries (industries that reach economy of scale first) may not necessarily be the most low-cost producer in absolute terms. It is by being the incumbent producer–usually by achieving an economy of scale first–that will create the lowest producer against which others cannot hope to compete.  See their book, Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests (2000).

4) Sunil Iyengar’s blog post, “Taking Note: An Economic Study of Symphony Orchestras” reviews and summarizes Flanagan’s book and also touches upon Economies of Scale.

REFERENCES

Baumol, W., W. Bowen (1966) Performing Arts — The Economic Dilemma.  The Twentieth Century Fund
Flanagan, R. (2008) “The Economic Environment of American Symphony Orchestras.” Report to Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Flanagan, R. (2012) The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras. Yale University Press.
McCarthy, K., A. Brooks, J. Lowell, L. Zakaras (2001) “The Performing Arts in a New Era.” RAND report supported by the Pew Charitable Trust.

One of the benefits from being the composer for a production is the comp tickets! These were from Chicago's Commedia Beauregard's production of "A Klingon Christmas Carol" winter 2011

Drew McManus (of Adaptistration.com)had a fascinating post about Placebo Pricing (also see his follow-up post) that was the subject of a blogpost by Joe Patti (of Butts in The Seats) which might be a technique that could be used by Orchestras to generate more ticket sales.  Lisa Hirsh has been blogging up a storm about some of the issues of ticket pricing from the audience standpoint.

Back in 2004, McManus reported on a new pricing strategy being used by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Nashville Symphony in their tsoundcheck and Sound Check programs.  Simply put, the programs offerred a lower ticket price for folks under 30.  While I’ve not heard much about how the Nashville program has worked (or even if it is still in place), there has been much news and blogging about the young age of the TSO’s audience.  There has even been some wonderful audience testimonies–see this one at McManus’ follow up (again, in 2004) to the above post, and this recent comment at Greg Sandow’s blog.

The lingering question to all this reduced pricing for tickets issue is, as McManus states in his Placebo Pricing post: “In the end, the devil is certainly in the details; not the least of which being what to do about reduced earned income from lower ticket revenue” and as Sandow states in his recent post about the TSO: “Some classical music institutions attract a young audience by lowering ticket prices, but then they need funding to offset the loss from selling tickets at a cheaper price” and even I’ve said as much over at Eric Edberg’s blog: “And in the end, since these tickets are actually cheaper, that means pound for pound it will take more of these tickets to make the difference from a normal subscriber or ticket buyer at standard prices.“

But, I also recognized, as you can see from my comment, that there can be an increase in performance revenue by selling more tickets, even at a reduced price.  Since orchestras generally only fill an average of about 70% their total capacity for regular concerts, filling the hall at a reduced prices could actually increase the amount of revenue.  In fact, by increasing the range and number of ticket options, many orchestras may actually be able to raise revenue.  In economics this is known as Price Discrimination¹.

The investopedia entry for price discrimination sums it up simply enough:

A pricing strategy that charges customers different prices for the same product or service. In pure price discrimination, the seller will charge each customer the maximum price that he or she is willing to pay. In more common forms of price discrimination, the seller places customers in groups based on certain attributes and charges each group a different price.

[P]rice [D]iscrimination for tickets. As Flanagan states (in his new book):

“A study of the pricing of popular music concert tickets in the United States between 1992 and 2005 found that greater ticket price variation could increase concert revenue by as much as 5 percent (Courty and Pagliero 2009). By the metric of ticket price variation, many U.S. orchestras appear to possess unexploited opportunities to increase performance revenues by altering ticket price structures. Consider the range of ticket prices charged by 23 large U.S. orchestras during the 2004-5 concert season. For regular concerts, the highest ticket prices charged by individual orchestras ranged from 3 to 16 times their lowest prices. For pops concerts, the range of high ticket prices was from 2.2 to 14.4 times the price of the cheapest ticket, depending on the orchestra. Orchestras with the most limited ticket price variation have the most to gain from altering their price structures.” (Flanagan 2012)

He gives examples of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra raising revenues by increasing the number of price categories from 13 to 20 (Ravanas 2008) as well as the Boston Symphony Orchestra which, in the early 20th century, used to auction its choicest seats while a “large portion of the symphony hall in Boston [was] kept for music lovers who [could] afford only 25 cents or 50 cents” (Aldritch 1903).
Interestingly, Flanagan also states that diversification of endowment portfolios is advice he suggests would also bring in more non-performance revenue. Baumol Effect aside, it seems like most Orchestras [studied in his book] just aren’t running their organizations at maximum efficiency and generally could do more to bring in performance and non-performance revenue simply by applying a little more diversification of existing revenue sources. The diversification of different kinds of Orchestra concert offerings (e.g. the addition of pops concerts, summer outdoor concerts, children’s concerts, ‘coffee hour’ concerts) is probably the most publicly recognizable way of seeing this kind of economic strategy at play.

Of course, I’ve always felt that diversification of a “performance skills portfolio” is one of the best ways to maximize the ability to get paying gigs for individual artists (or smaller groups) — it’s all pretty standard economic advice.

It will be interesting to see if the price discrimination in tickets that the Toronto Symphony surely must be using in some manner has actually helped to increase ticket revenues.

___________________________
NOTES:

1) See also Andrew Taylor’s blog post about dynamic pricing.

2) Sunil Iyengar’s blog post summary and review of Flanagan’s work.  In particular, the link to the Emerging Practices Seminar 2011 he attended in Chicago which had presentations on dynamic pricing and revenue management.

REFERENCES:

• Aldritch, R. (1903) “‘Permanent Orchestra’ Season a Bad One.” New York Times, May 3.
• Courty, P., M. Pagliero (2009) “The Impact of Price Discrimination on Revenue: Evidence from the Concert Industry.” CEPR Discussion Paper no. 7120. London: Centre for Economic Policy Research.
• Flanagan, R. (2012) The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras. Yale University Press.
• Ravanas, . (2008) “Hitting a High Note: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Reverses a Decade of Decline.” International Journal of Arts Management 10 (2): 68-87.

The Wired Cello in the Age of Electronic Encryption

Greg Sandow has been posting a number of blogposts about Branding, but a comment made on his facebook page¹ by Frances-Marie Uitti really get’s it right!

Instead of studying how to brand oneself, why not take the time to find an original voice? Branding will happen all by itself.

As I replied:

thank you so much for saying that Frances-Marie Uitti –coming from one of the most unique voices in new music and the cello world, it means much more! <—so says the cellist dressed as a Klingon, and knows a bit about unique ways of branding…

Worrying about your Brand before you have a unique voice is putting the cart before the horse.  And if a cellist ever had a unique voice, then Frances-Marie Uitti certainly fits the bill.  Ever since I discovered her work back in the mid 90s I frequently did presentations about her and other cellists that are doing interesting work² at the Chello Shed³.

The point here is, if you do want to go the high risk route of singular branding, rather than diversification, then it is absolutely necessary for you to develop a unique voice first.  Whether or not the brand happens by itself is irrelevant without the initial product (i.e. YOU!).

______________________

Notes:

1) Greg Sandow posts his blog to his facebook page, and as can be seen from the link above, this particular post was titled “Empty Branding” and focused on Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic.

2) I presented about Frances-Marie Uitti in at least three pieces at the Chello Shed.

• (1997) “Women of the Avant-Garde6/Avant-Garde Cellists: Maya Beiser, Joan Jeanrenaud, Charlotte Moorman, Frances-Marie Uitti.” January 17
• (1997) “Extended Cello Techniques.” February 25
• (1999) “The Wired Cello in the Age of Electronic Encryption.” August 28

3) The Chello Shed was a presenting and concert venue created by me and Joanna Smoak in 1996. The focus of the presentations, lectures, and performances was new and experimental works done by artists, musicians, and stage performers as well as philosophic and economic aspects of creating and producing art.  Occasionally curated events happened there as well as ‘outsourced’ lectures at the request of people.

The cast of Lost Girl

So I’ve been watching Lost Girl¹ which is a Canadian supernatural crime drama that recently premiered on SyFy.  The series follows a Succubus, Bo, as she negotiates her way around the newly discovered (to her) Fae world while she remians unaligned (the Fae are divided between the “Light Fae” and the “Dark Fae” who have an uneasy peace between them due to the actions of the “Blood King“–yeah, I know, way too much backstory to relate in a blog post–read the links above for more info).

The most recent Canadian episode titled, “Table for Fae,” which aired January 29, 2012 had an interesting scene (well, two, actually) that betrays the reality of a “career in music” (you can read some of the blogs I’ve been posting about this here, and here, and here, and here, and…well, you get the point, right?).  This is a dinner scene with Bo and her Dark Fae boyfriend, Ryan, and Kenzi (Bo’s roommate) and her childhood crush and now current squeeze, Nate (played by Aaron Ashmore, who also plays one of my favorite characters, Steve Jinks²,  in another fun SyFy series, Warehouse 13).  Nate is a musician and was on a concert tour that Kenzi accompanied him on and so is relating a show experience at the ritzy restaurant.

(N = Nate, Kenzi’s boyfriend; K = Kenzi; R = Ryan, Bo’s boyfriend; B = Bo)

N: So by the time that I get back this guy is so drunk…

K: So drunk!

N: That he’s passed out on the stage.

K: Yeah, they had to finish his whole final set with him just lying there.

R: I don’t get it, why didn’t you just call security and have him removed?

K: I don’t know babe, why didn’t we call security?

N: Security, well…uh…there’s actually only 15 people there so… *shrugs*

R: Wait, this…this whole story that you’ve been telling was about a gig for 15 people?

K: Actually for Cedar Rapids on a Tuesday that is like amazing!

R: No, no…I don’t doubt that but how is this possibly worth your time exactly?  I mean how much money could you have possibly made on that?  A hundred bucks, maybe?

B: Ryan…

R: Yeah?

—pause—

N: Fifty Five.

R: Fifty Five…

K: Hey, Richie Rich…it’s not about the money.

B: No, Nate is doing what he loves.

R: Totally!  That’s…that’s great!  I…but…I…I have no doubt that you will be successful at it one day…

B: I think it’s pretty fair to say that Ryan is a little out of touch with the Indie Music scene.

Near the end of the episode, Bo gets into an argument with Ryan about, amongst other things, his setting up a meeting with The Morrígan³,

The Morrígan, Evony Fleurette Marquise

who is the Dark Fae leader as well as a Fae who happens to feed off the artists she manages as a talent agent.  If that isn’t a commentary on the music business, then I don’t know what is.  Here is the argument:

B: Kenzi told me about the Morrígan.

R: And?

B: And?

R: I was trying to do her boyfriend a favor…you know that Evony makes people’s careers, right?

B: Yeah, until they die.

R: We all have to die sometime!  Nate’s an amateur guitar player.  He plays two-bit coffee houses for fifty-five bucks a week!  Evony could have him selling out Madison Square Garden⁴ in six months.  You don’t think he’d want that?

B: Well that is not your decision to make.

R: It’s not yours either!

—pause—

R: I gave the kid an opportunity.  Who are you to say what’s best for him?

So we have some very typical tropes found from the music (and arts) world in these two excerpts.  The first quote deals with the Starving Artist and Doing It for the Art .  The second excerpt highlights the trope of the exploitation of artists as we expect to see in especially the recording industry.

Obviously, if your goal in life–as it pertains to music-making–isn’t sustainability, then none of this above matters, but the above isn’t too far from the truth (the experience and the pay).  I know–I’ve been there.  In fact, I’ve played for an audience of zero before (unless you counter the barista at the coffee house as an audience member) and for negative money (pay-to-play shows, anybody?).

As I’ve said elsewhere, this is where most musicians are at on the economic totem pole.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand, if you do want to “sell out Madison Square Gardens in six months” then the only road to that is, well, by fictitious Fae Magic.  Sure, there are occasional Superstars that just rise to fame in what seems like an instant, but for everyone of those, there are dozens of Superstars who had to work their tails off.  For every one of the latter superstars, there are hundreds of full time working musicians in Symphonies and Special Events Bands.  For everyone of the latter there are hundreds of Freelancers who might manage to carve out a living, and then there are the many more hundreds that are the rest.

In the end, you have to know the reality of the situation so you can figure out how you can create a realistic vision of what you want to do with music.  In its own way, this episode of Lost Girl highlights the economic prospects of music making while laying bare the fantasy of selling out a stadium concert.

___________________

NOTES:

1. Though I don’t generally watch TV–we didn’t even own one till I received one as a gift from my father who had recently bought a large flatscreen–I have spent the past year or so “catching-up” on a number of Sci-Fi and geek related series mainly due to the fact that being a Klingon musician has brought me into contact with tons of folks who live and breathe these series.  Had to do my research, right?

2. Interestingly, in this episode, Genelle Williams (aka one of the Dark Fae Serket sisters, Hessa) portrays Leena in Warehouse 13.

3. Evony [Fleurette Marquise], The Morrígan, is a Leanan sídhe Fae.  As the Lost Girl Wiki states:

The Leanhaun Shee (fairy mistress) seeks the love of mortals. If they refuse, she must be their slave; if they consent, they are hers, and can only escape by finding another to take their place. The fairy lives on their life, and they waste away. Death is no escape from her. She is the Gaelic muse, for she gives inspiration to those she persecutes. The Gaelic poets die young, for she is restless, and will not let them remain long on earth – this malignant phantom.

3. Madison Square Garden seats roughly 20,000 for concerts.

I like to put all my eggs in one basket. Good thing I have plenty of odd eggs, right?

As I mentioned in a previous post, developing versatility, Dick Weissman says that Developing Versatility is a key factor in pursuing a lifetime career in music.  Another way to put that principle is to Diversify your Performance Skill Portfolio.  Obvious to anyone with some knowledge of economics or finance I’m taking my cue from the idea of Diversification.

Without getting into technical details, think of your performance skills (or really, any skill you have) as an asset which is nothing more than an economic resource.  If you want to get more specific, it is an intangible asset (as opposed to a tangible asset like, say, your instrument).

Having a performance skill, say, being trained to perform classical music, is one asset, or rather a bundle of assets (e.g. the ability to play classical music usually implies the ability to read music, which can translate into performative contexts outside of simply being able to play any particular style of music).  Another performance skill is the ability to improvise.  Another could be the ability to play more than one instrument or, alternatively, in another style on your instrument (or other instruments).  You get the point.

Basically the idea is that the more diverse your performance skills (i.e. assets), then the more opportunities you will have for getting work.  In other words, you’ll get higher returns (e.g. more gigs) with lower risk on any one investment (e.g. time and resources that is put into one developing any one particular performance skill).  What good is it being a highly trained specialist in 14th century lute performance if there are no performing opportunities for lute, right?

And that last point is probably the one issue that needs to be emphasized.  With an investment portfolio, you can’t just invest in anything.  You have to invest in something that is actually out there to be invested in.  That’s just common sense, right?  So having a diversified investment portfolio means having diversified investments in things that actually exist.  You have to know your environment and since the asset of performance is intimately tied to you as a musician, then the region you work in will, to a large extent, determine the environment within which you can find work.  In other words, if there are no symphony orchestras within several hundred miles of where you live, you’re not likely to find work as a symphony musician (unless you move).

Obviously some performers will move to where the work is.  Symphony musicians being a case in point.  If an audition is won, then more than likely the musician will move to the area where the orchestra is based.  But for the most part, musicians will attempt to find work where they happen to be settled (even if it was a musical job that brought them to the area in the first place).

And unless you’re very fortunate and happen to already be the ‘go to’ musician with any type of regularity for one particular specialty that you have the monopoly over in your region, then Diversifying your Performance Skills Portfolio is a much safer bet and will yield a much higher average Return On Investment (aka ROI).

As the saying goes, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!”

_________________

Related Link:

David Cutler’s blog post, Building Your Portfolio Career Part 2: The 21 Income Models, at The Savvy Musician blog.

Sarah Lutman’s blog post, Can you teach resourcefulness?.

Last night of the Proms

In Chapter Five, “The Search for Symphony Audiences,” of Robert Flanagan’s book, The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras, the author discusses several reasons for audience decline (as well as the statistics demonstrating this decline).  He does note, since this is what the NEA data tells us, that decline has happened for virtually all types of live events (which I often point out here and in other discussions about the decline) so whatever conclusions we can draw about the supposedly “more popular” types of live entertainment and the way they get marketed and draw audiences isn’t going to necessarily be of much help if it doesn’t allow those other events keep audiences.

After stating that “virtually all varieties of music have declined in public favor since 1992 (NEA 2009)” Flanagan makes a connection that many of you folks who are regular readers of this blog have already heard me say:

This trend is easier to report than to explain.  The trend does coincide with the increasing demographic heterogeneity of the U.S. population, particularly in the cities that typically support orchestras.  In the words of one observer: “The ethnic groups that do not trace their roots to Europe will increasingly affect the definition of national cultural values.  The traditional value system associated with classical music concerts is not universal, but derived from a European cultural heritage.  The style of concert performances may not appeal to members of ethnic groups” (Kolb 2001, p. 20).  The distinctly smaller proportion of ethnic minorities attending classical music concerts in the United States is consistent with this view.  There is a certain irony in this development, since earlier generations of immigrants stimulated the formation of early U.S. orchestras in the 19th century.

Interestingly, Flanagan doesn’t say anything about the rising racial demographic gap here in the U.S.–which could surely have only made his case stronger.  If the median age of the population of whites in the U.S. is rising at a greater rate than the median age of the population of the U.S. as a whole it might be interesting to see how much a percentage of classical music audience decline correlates with the growing percentage of the population that is non-white.

Not that getting that younger and non-white population is going to ‘save the orchestra’ as is well known, even if orchestra fill their halls every time, the operating budgets would still need to be filled with contributed income (either private or public).

Within this next week I think I’ll be reviewing each and every chapter in Flanagan’s book.  As I just finished reading it yesterday afternoon I’ve been mulling over it for some time now.  Almost nothing in the book is surprising to me (or to anyone that has kept up with Orchestral economics), but the book doesn’t signal the death knell of Orchestras (or Opera or Ballet) either.

It’s a relatively unbiased view of the economic situation with plenty of data to back it up.  And a very easy read with concise descriptions and explanations (and excellent summaries at the end of every chapter).  It reminded me more of a series of technical articles yo would find in any peer reviewed journal in the sciences which is perfectly understandable as Flanagan is an academic economist.  What I find remarkable is the accessibility of the text–it is well worth the read.  Likely, it should be required reading for anyone going into the orchestra field in administration, management or even to serve on boards or as symphony musicians!

Lola Astanova

Bryan Townsend, in a post about Uzbek pianist Lola Astanova, made some comments about a review of the pianist by Zachary Woolfe in the NYT.  I’m going to quote an extended excerpt of the piece as it relates to some interesting studies about how visual stimuli can affect how we hear things (ironically, the studies came to light after Yuja Wang’s recent ‘scandalous’ attire at a concert from last year).

Though Ms. Astanova has secure technique, the most memorable part of her recital was her physical performance. She likes to throw back her arms at the end of sections, as if she were doing an arduous pectoral workout, and she finishes most pieces in one of two ways: with her hands cupping her face or her upper body tossed back, ecstatic and spent. As she finished Chopin’s “Ocean” Étude (Op. 25, No. 12) on Thursday, she gasped loudly.

Many pianists have succeeded with an arsenal of broad gestures, though Ms. Astanova’s are more exaggerated than most. She seems to be trying to evoke the grandiose, generous spirit of 19th-century pianism, with its heart-on-sleeve emotionalism and aching soulfulness, its valorization of feeling over cool precision.

Ms. Astanova does indeed love to make a big sound, even at the expense of some murkiness of tone. But her taste for drama and her extreme physical abandon end up emphasizing that there isn’t a great deal of emotion in her playing.

I had commented on Bryan’s post as I recalled having a discussion at Eric Edberg’s blog that sounded eerily similar if only because I was quoting specific sections about studies done on listening and the kinds of biases that happen when visual stimuli begins to interfere with aural stimuli.

Yuja Wang playing with the LA Phil in her 'scandalous' dress

Given the criticisms by Woolfe above, here is a section I quoted about a study regarding “appropriate dress”:

In a recent article in Psychology of Music published in April 2010 ( http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/2/159 ) Noola Griffiths found that female performers were judged to be most appropriately dressed when wearing traditional concert ‘dress’, and least appropriately dressed when wearing a nightclubbing dress, particularly when playing classical music. Jeans and a top was more appropriately rated when playing jazz or folk. However, Griffiths also found that the performances were rated as less musical when the performers were wearing inappropriate dress. Griffiths concludes that “performers that excel musically may find their physical nature devalued” (p. 174) and “women wishing to project a body-focused image should note that this may have a detrimental effect on perceptions of their musical ability”

And even more remarkable was this study that was conducted with both sets of performers “play-syncing” to the exact same recording–with significantly differing evaluations of the skill level of the performer depending on how much ‘emotive’ movement was involved:

The participants viewed videos featuring four student musicians at the keyboard. Specifically, they watched two renditions of Chopin’s Waltz in A-Flat Major, and two performances of a capriccio by Brahms.

Unbeknownst to them, the soundtracks for the videos were recorded by the same pianist. He was seen in one of the four videos; for the other three, the on-screen performer was actually a body double.

For both the Chopin and Brahms works, one of the “performers” was male, the other female. After watching both renditions, participants rated what they heard using five-point scales to judge the players on such elements as confidence, precision, drama, virtuosity and expressivity.

Despite the fact the soundtracks were identical, “Nearly all participants identified differences between the pairs of video recordings,” the researchers report. Duplicating the results of the 1990 study, the “performances” by the male pianists were perceived as more precise, while the female pianist’s “performance” of Chopin was judged as more dramatic.

How could people with finely honed listening skills be fooled into thinking they were hearing different interpretations?

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture/visual-cues-impact-judgment-of-piano-performances-35579/

Obviously, looking good doesn’t make you play worse.  But it can give the impression that you might not be playing as well as someone less concerned with looking good.  And if you’re attempting to secure gigs, this might be something to take into account since in the end, it’s the audience that decides what to value rather than the performer.

"Rise of the Creative Class"

I was recalling a comment I made at Eric Edberg’s blog regarding Richard Florida’s book, The Rise of the Creative Class (a Christmas Gift from 2010), that I’d finished reading some time ago.  What brought up the memory of the comment was the drive back home from a meeting I had earlier today with some members of the Persian community about hosting a big Norooz event in Louisville (possibly featuring a wonderful musician from Turkmenistan, Gasan Mamedov, who will happen to be in the states in early March).

While driving back from Saffron’s Persian restaurant in Louisville, I was noticing the bike lanes–both in Louisville as well as in the city I currently reside across the river, New Albany–and how empty they seemed.  Not just now, as obviously it’s winter and not particularly conducive to riding–but in general.  I don’t remember ever seeing anyone in the biking lanes (on this side of the river) and can count on one hand the number of bikes on the other side of the river.

The bike lanes reminded me of the controversy over creating and publicly funding such amenities to draw in what Florida calls the “Creative Class”–the so-called economic saviors and inheritors of the former working/manufacturing class.  Knowledge and ideas are the new industries and will be a part of an information revolution in a way that factories heralded the industrial revolution.

So, Richard Florida, bike trails, and with all the talk about entrepreneurial spirit rising in classical music I said this about Florida’s book almost a year ago:

I’m just about done with the book, but have since come across a number of critiques of it–mainly relating to Florida’s claim that there is high economic activity associated with high levels of creativity. Unfortunately it looks like Florida may have been analyzing the tail end of the dot com boom as many of the cities and regions that rank high on his scale of centers of creative activity just happen to be places where many of the tech-geek culture flourished (and eventually busted).

Then I mentioned a comment from Joe at Butts in Seats:

The only bit of sunshine was a story about Portland, OR which discussed that people keep moving to Portland even though there aren’t enough jobs. What keeps drawing them there? The overall culture and atmosphere of the city, including a mention of the music scene. I knew I had heard this sentiment before so I did a Google search before sitting down to write and sure enough, I found stories from 2010, 2009 and even earlier where people talked about the lack of jobs, the cool vibe and the music scene. You can find plenty of blog entries on the subject as well. I was pleased to continually hear a story where the arts were mentioned as an attractive element of a city.

Then said that Portland happens to rank very high on Florida’s metric as a city high in all the things that purportedly make a city or region a high ranking economic powerhouse.  Too bad Portland is the place where young people go to retire (I thought the comment about Seattle and Portland being two of America’s whitest cities was humorous, too).

Point is, the “Bohemian index” which is one of the metrics that purportedly helps to rank cities higher on the economic scale just doesn’t seem to work.  Sure, maybe Portland is just an outlier, or maybe, just maybe, there’s more to economic prosperity than just a high proportion of the population being members of the Creative Class.

Edward Glaesser, who gives a favorable review of Florida’s book and work, seems to agree that the Bohemian index is a poor litmus test for generating economic prosperity (cf. Jim Russell’s post comparing Pittsburgh and Portland–the former is the city where Florida had been based and which he used as a starting point for his work).  He even used data, supplied and used by Florida and Kevin Stolarnick in their work, to run his own regressions on population growth.  By eliminating the Creativity index but including four other measures used by Florida, Glaesser finds the first three to correlate with a schooling effect.  And by eliminating the two outliers of Las Vegas and Sarasota from the “Bohemian index” (which I think he rightly believes shouldn’t be considered havens of Bohemianism–Portland is that, right?) then the schooling effect becomes significant and the Bohemianism becomes irrelevant.  His conclusion:

[M]ayors are better served by focusing on the basic commodities desired by those with skills, than by thinking that there is a quick fix involved in creating a funky, hip, Bohemian downtown.

Sadly, I think far too many folks who believe that classical music needs a facelift are adopting a ‘quick fix’ that involves creating a funky, hip, Bohemian image.

Steven Malanga is much less charitable in his assessment of Florida’s work:

Yet since 1993, cities that score the best on Florida’s analysis have actually grown no faster than the overall U.S. jobs economy, increasing their employment base by only slightly more than 17 percent. Florida’s indexes, in fact, are such poor predictors of economic performance that his top cities haven’t even outperformed his bottom ones. Led by big percentage gains in Las Vegas (the fastest-growing local economy in the nation) as well as in Oklahoma City and Memphis, Florida’s ten least creative cities turn out to be jobs powerhouses, adding more than 19 percent to their job totals since 1993—faster growth even than the national economy.

If Portland is the model for the funky, hip, and Bohemian world that is supposed to draw creative types, and if creative types, being highly concentrated in an area will allow some bleed-over of creative energy into industries and businesses then it seems that that model for creating sustainability and/or economic prosperity is relatively flawed.

But I guess if you want to talk “about the lack of jobs, the cool vibe and the music scene” then maybe Portland’s the place to go?  Just make sure you do it as a youngster so you can retire there too!

with Crystal Gayle after she opened for us in Lancaster, PA at the American Music Theatre (September 18, 2008)

In Chapter 13 of Dick Weissman’s book, Making a Living in Your Local Music Market, has a short section called “Musical Literacy” that is a wonderfully different take on what many of us normally define by the concept.  In the first of two short paragraphs he says:

A friend of mine named Bruce Ronkin, who teaches at Northeastern University, has developed a re-definition of the term “musical literacy.”  He defines it as an awareness and understanding of all musical styles, instead of concentrating on technical aspects of music.  I think this is a very useful concept, because it places emphasis on the student and teacher being open to many musical styles.  The truth is that most of us are fixated on specific musical styles and techniques, and many of us don’t listen to a variety of musical styles.

He continues in the second (and last paragraph):

Bruce’s notion also re-focuses the notion of literacy, removing it from the sheer ability to read and write music notation.  It isn’t that these are not useful skills, it is rather that they don’t necessarily define musicality.  Many rock and country music players, and some jazz musicians are extremely musical and have developed advanced technical skills on their instruments.  Such musicians should be encouraged to read music, but this encouragement is best presented as the development of additional tools, rather than presented in a condescending way.  Many teachers would also benefit from a more open attitude toward a variety of musical styles.  Invariably when I hear someone say that they don’t like a specific form of music, like country music, I have found that they, in fact, have listened to very little of that music.  They are not aware that country swing, country rock, and bluegrass, for example, are distinctly different musical styles.

That last sentence is interesting, particularly because of the persistence of the trope “I like everything except rap and country” which usually tells me that not only has the person uttering the trope probably never really listened to much rap or country, but probably has next to no knowledge about the thousands of musical styles outside of mainstream Euro-American pop music styles.

While I was touring with Ray Price, I probably got to hear more country music in those three short years than I’d ever had the opportunity to hear in my life.  While I never particularly used the above trope, I certainly didn’t go out of my way to listen to Country music or any of its subgenres.

I probably have a much healthier appreciation for the various genres, while also having had the wonderful opportunity of playing in venues (and with artists) that I would never have played had I stuck to the classical music track.