The Good News

In 1960, when I left St. Peter’s Choir School in Philadelphia and entered the local public school…Abraham Lincoln High School, populated by some 5,000 students grades eight through twelve - it was a shock on many levels.  After being with just thirty-nine other boys for several years the presence of girls, for sure, was among the interesting differences.   The sheer number of students was also a source of terror at times.  I’d never been in a building with so many other people!

But, the biggest surprise of all occurred one day during lunch.  I ventured out of the cafeteria down the corridor toward the music wing of the complex.  The school had a separate two-story structure for music classrooms, practice rooms and large rehearsal spaces.  The choirs, bands and orchestras  - yes, there were plural numbers of all of those in many schools during the heyday of Philadelphia public school music education - could make all the “noise” their hearts desired without disturbing any academic classrooms. 

What caught my attention, emanating from one of the classrooms, was the Finale of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 From the New World.  It was not the music that was so intriguing, but the fact that “not a peep” of student noise could be detected.  I was already well aware of the kind of negativity about classical music rampant among my peers in my hometown neighborhood.  Yet these eighth grade students were obviously sitting in total silence!  Had someone bound and gagged them?  Why were they not destroying the classroom or at least hurling paper airplanes at each other and talking?

I sat down on the floor outside the door.  Then appeared Dr. Saul Feinberg, who commented:  “Might you be more comfortable sitting in a chair?”  I took a seat in the back of the classroom as this powerful music that had so moved me before I had even entered Kindergarten poured out of the large wall-mounted speakers.  “This music teacher” I thought to myself “must be some kind of magician!” 

Because I was a member of one of the choirs, I was exempt from taking Dr. Feinberg’s “Perceptive Listening” course as he called it - as opposed to “Music Appreciation.”  During the 1960’s, the school curriculum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania still required that everyone in grades eight and nine have two weekly periods of “General Music.”  (This requirement has long since been excised.) What “General Music” may have consisted of in many schools I do not know, but Saul Feinberg had taken this bull by the horns and turned it into something very special indeed.  Over the many lunch periods I spent auditing Saul’s classes, I observed and absorbed a great deal, and later became one of Saul’s piano students. It is certainly safe to say that I learned everything I know about teaching music listening from him. 

Saul carefully documented his work with anonymous surveys of student opinion.  Over the course of two semesters he would take a group of typical Lincoln High School students with about 95% of them having negative attitudes toward classical music and facilitate a 180-degree positive attitudinal turn around in 70% or more of the class – year after year.  It was nothing short of miraculous!   

Saul Feinberg’s insightful problem-solving methodology informs The Discovery Orchestra’s approach to teaching the music listening skills that help people emotionally connect with classical music.  Saul demonstrated to us what can be done to encourage this kind of intense personal relationship with music though perceptive listening.   It is our passionate mission that through our weekly Discovery Chats on YouTube (http://bit.ly/gJoeJK), American Public Television broadcasts of Discover Beethoven’s 5th© (http://bit.ly/h9pWmQ) and future productions, The Discovery Orchestra® may emulate Saul's success and, as he did over his long career, make a real difference in the lives of many individuals.

Is Classical Music Dying?

A segment of the blogoshere is filled with discussion these days about what’s happening to classical music, often emphasizing the precarious financial condition in which professional classical music organizations currently find themselves.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 2008 Survey reports that attendance at concerts has declined.  This should not surprise us.  Our society has not been training classical music appreciators in any great numbers in the classroom or elsewhere.  The percentage of the US population that might be characterized as “hardcore” classical music devotees is also aging, according to the NEA.  And the recession makes it difficult for those inclined to buy tickets to afford them – this without even touching on the increased competition for our leisure time created by devices such as programmable televisions and PC’s.

We read of the Honolulu Symphony’s Chapter 7 demise, Louisville Orchestra’s Chapter 11 filing and the recent cancellation of the remainder of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s 2010-11 season.  But it must be also noted that other orchestras are somehow riding out this difficult time.  It really depends on where you live.

 

We must be mindful of the economic premise on which all professional classical music performance in the USA is based. It boils down to this…are there enough philanthropically inclined individuals in your town desirous and able to annually contribute the 50%-80% gap between ticket revenue and the actual cost of producing the concerts?  This is a frightening business model even under the best economic conditions.  But in the scenario described above, as a friend recently noted, we have what is perhaps “The Perfect Storm” in which some classical music entities are going down - hopefully not forever.  The larger question is: Can we sustain this model of financing professional classical music concerts into the indefinite future?  The jury is still out.

But as for the music itself and the manner in which it is presented, there is also endless talk about what’s wrong with classical music.  “It’s too old!  It’s too Eurocentric!  It’s not visual enough!  It needs giant screen projections like popular music concerts. Symphony orchestra members should dress down in jeans!”  For two decades, all manner of window-dressing ideas have been suggested and implemented to alter the presentation of professional classical music concerts.  To date, none of these measures appears to have slowed the steady decline in attendance or attracted many newcomers.

I find the argument about the age of a piece of music to be one of most specious.  If you saw a necklace and really liked it, wanted it, and price was not a consideration - would it really matter if it had been crafted in 2011, 1954, 1736 or the year 300 BCE?  It is totally irrelevant when a work of art is created if it speaks to us - and that has much more to do with our "aesthetic conditioning" than the work of art itself.

Is classical music dying?  I’d like to think that were there just one human being left on the planet who was moved by this music, the flame would still flicker.  Thankfully, there are yet many appreciators.  But we must not kid ourselves - most of the US population remains largely uninvolved with this music because they simply don’t know how affected by it they could be!  Are there effective pathways to reach and encourage more individuals to become avid, daily classical music listeners?  And not because we might save symphony orchestras at this time - which sadly may be beyond our grasp  – but for the life-changing effect it will have on the individuals themselves!   This is the quest of The Discovery Orchestra.