Hi All,
I'm working with another composer to try to come up with a formula that might work best for the length of our contemporary classical music compositions.
We are basing this on what popular music is doing because if we hope to compete with popular music forms, we have to be similar.
I know this is going to be controversial for some, but if composers do not look at areas that could improve our listenership, then contemporary classical music might just disappear altogether, at least on the radio and streaming services.
BBC 3, classical music station has the lowest listenership of any music radio station in the UK. It’s the same for ABC Classic, here in Australia, and I’d guess it’s the same for classical music radio stations and streaming services across the world.
It is very possible that stations like BBC 3 will not exist in the next 10 years. As funding and listenership dry up, governments and private sponsors will not see the worth of investing in something that so few are listening to.
While movement length is just one aspect of trying to make contemporary classical music more popular, it is perhaps the most important one.
For years, all my duos, trios, quartets, sonatas and such, have short movements only. They average out at the same length as Pop and Rap songs, 3.5 to 4.5 minutes. I specifically write them this length because I subscribe to the theory that attention spans are shorter today than they used to be since the internet.
I believe that movements for concertos and symphonies can be much longer, but not the length of most post-classical music movements.
Rap is the most popular form of music today in Western countries. It’s estimated that around 40% of all music aired is Rap. The average Rap song is around 4 minutes.
If people’s attentions spans are adjusted to the length of a Rap or Pop song, why would they think about listening to something that is three times that length and that’s just for one movement?
Having shorter length movements does not mean that people are all of a sudden going to start listening to contemporary classical music, but if the length is right for people, that’s one aspect they might find alluring.
I’d be interested to know what the average length of your movements are and if you think this idea has any merit.
Rob
Replies
Yes, Frank, making "serious" music marketable today is difficult on many levels. We have to contend with streaming service algorithms that favour popular music over other forms simply because they are popular, they push what is being listened to.
Another contention is the average classical music radio station. Radio is still the third most used platform for accessing music, at least in America it is. From my listening experience, all classical music stations mainly play music from the baroque up to the serial period, which began around the mid-1950s.
Only 1% of radio airtime is ascribed to our contemporary music. With such little exposure on what is essentially a free service, few can ever get to hear it, like it, or request it. This is one reason why classical music lovers dislike contemporary music. The other, and perhaps the main reason is what the likes of Boulez and Co did to classical music, atonalism and serialism.
Most people today still think they are going to get assaulted when they hear the words new music. Even though almost all new music is tonal today.
We have to bring classical music lovers back to living music and get new listeners loving what we do. For me, if that means changing my music to reflect certain aspects of popular music, I’ll do it.
Meanwhile, the excellent cutting edge stuff being ignored today will become famous about 50-100 years from now. The composers will be famous, and the music historians will be chronicling them.
"The modern day composer refuses to die"
---Edgar Varese
Meanwhile, the excellent cutting edge stuff being ignored today will become famous about 50-100 years from now. The composers will be famous, and the music historians will be chronicling them.
"The modern day composer refuses to die"
---Edgar Varese
I'm of two minds about this. As somebody once said, people used to laugh at Einstein, yet he turned out to be right. But then people also used to laugh at Bozo the clown. Who's to say whether the stuff being ignored today will end up anywhere 50 years from now? The future is unpredictable.
Yeah, this is really unfortunate. There are some atonal/serial music that's actually really well written and inspiring to listen to, but I think the broth got spoiled by the hype around it that drew in a whole bunch of mediocre atonal composer wannabes and, if one would excuse me, charlatans -- and professors in music faculties who got a bit overzealous about pushing atonality onto hapless undegraduate music students and symphony programs, the result of which is the alienation of loyal classical concert-goers. I still remember in the 90's and early 2000's the word around music-related forums and communities online was that tonality is dead and atonal is the way to go. In more recent years, however, there seems to have been a pushback against this trend, and more and more composers are returning to tonal idioms.
I myself have never really bought into the whole hype surrounding atonality, and especially serialism. Nonetheless, one can sometimes employ it as a useful tool in the compositional toolbox for achieving a certain effect. As an example, I have often considered the possibility of splitting the orchestra in an orchestral work into 2 or 3 independent sections, one of which plays tonally, the other atonally, as a kind of counter-balance against each other, in two parallel sound-planes that complement each other. Kinda like tonal melodies against an atonal backdrop, or vice versa.
"While movement length is just one aspect of trying to make contemporary classical music more popular, it is perhaps the most important one."
I agree that short, self-contained pieces are more likely to find an audience today than long, sprawling ones, and I don't want to object to composers keeping this in mind. But I think the most important factor is not length, but whether the average, non-academic, non-musician coming home after a hard day's work and sitting down with a glass of wine will play the piece for a pleasant experience. If it be asked, "To give pleasure, is that what music is for?" my answer would be, "Yes."
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