Saturday, January 22, 2011

The Death of the "Classical"

I don’t mean to invoke Barthes facetiously, but I can’t help but notice that Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Verdi, Puccini, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Debussy are dying.  Perhaps Tchaikovsky will be mummified temporarily in the sequined swaths of Black Swan, but he would be doing no better than the notoriously frozen Walt Disney.  Having attended several of the Met simulcasts and their encores, I felt remarkably out of place, again, a bit like Johnny or Barbara in the cemetery.  Young people, on the whole, have little interest in opera or classical music in general. To invoke the largely irritating Harold Bloom, I wonder if this is the “anxiety of influence”:  a simple case of young people rejecting the music lauded by the generation that came before them.  Many opera companies and orchestras offer special rates to students or people under thirty to attend their productions; this is not only for all of the sentimental ideas about passing the music on to the next generation, but more importantly for the economic viability of the genre(s) when the current devotees die.  Perhaps classical music will die with them.

I come to these morbid musings upon discovering that my local classical music store will be closing at the end of the month.  Of course, they also carry the other genres bearing the horrid sheen of elitism, being jazz, folk, and world music.  Unless a young person is studying music at a post-secondary institution, or by fluke was introduced by a member of an older generation, there would be little reason for them to step into the store.  After all, Don Giovanni wouldn’t hold a candle to Teenage Dream.  Can’t dance to it. 



If this cultural stigma of musics of the past could be lifted, young people might see the compelling parallelisms between the content of classical music (if programmatic or dramatic, which is often the easiest way in for new listeners), and the lives of composers, with issues people are facing today.  One friend I have been introducing to opera claimed “I didn’t know it was just about people trying to get into each others’ pants,” which it so often is.  Music historians cringe at these sorts of mythologies, but those such as Beethoven’s deafness, Chopin’s chronic melancholy, Bach’s strange love of coffee (come on, he would have LIVED at Starbucks… wait Star-Bach’s, Mein Gott!  I just punned parenthetically…), Mozart’s eccentricities, Schumann’s multiple personalities, and Tchaikovsky’s tormented homosexuality, can bring their works alive, and make them resonate with people today. 

Still, when pressed with the choice of buying a classical album or a popular one, I find it difficult to justify spending money on the disc whose composer has been dead for over 100 years. This is complicated by the role of the performer in classical music, which is somewhat beyond the scope of this blog entry.  Although distributors, labels and management take a cut, I like knowing that Sufjan Stevens or Joanna Newsome will actually see some of the money I spend on their music.  I would like to think that this is the real reason that classical music is dying, but in the age of adz, I mean, rampant downloading, insistence that money goes into the pockets of the artists can’t possibly be the real reason why young people shy away from classical music. I suppose, I too, am part of the problem, because this is such a difficult decision to make.  And it occurred to me, that to see a Met broadcast in a movie theatre costs more than to see a live opera at the C.O.C. with the under 30 discount.  Something is rotten in the state of classical music.


Ultimately, the issue cannot be reduced to any one cultural factor.  Young people may be alienated from classical music for a variety of reasons: generational associations, lack of exposure, elitist connotations, or the reluctance to seek out any music not on the MTV or Much countdown.  I’m not sure in which universe Justin Bieber is cooler than badass Beethoven (the guy broke multiple pianos, he was so angry), but baby, baby baby, ohhh, that’s how it goes. 

I can’t really synthesize much here, other than go with what you like.  If you loved Black Swan (again, I’ve been thinking of reviewing it), pick up a CD of Swan Lake.  Even download the highlights off of iTunes.  Look at the ending credits of a movie to see who composed that distinguished string quartet dinner music. Maybe Mozart does make you smarter, so toss on a little night music when you study.  Ironically, I think we’ve reached an age when listening to Monteverdi is more rebellious than listening to Kanye.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Impressions on January 12, 2011

Walking home in dark the lamps through skeletal branches, silhouetted on snow, all turned pink and orange with light pollution, the pink and orange covers up the gray snow of weeks and salt, where the six and seventeen swing by, spilling people into the streets.  But it feels like walking in sand, twisting limbs slipping through the biting night-cold.

Over the hill and far away I see the signs, the lights of food and beauty and medicine and entertainment, where they flow in like Romero's animated remains, where I always want to poke the people sleeping on benches to see if they're alive.

And I make pilgrimages too, here to the shiny place of buying, and I leave feeling satisfied and dirty, dirty and satisfied with the strange ecstasy of release, the ecstasy of acquisition too, arms weighed down with goods, and bads, and sometimes uglies.  Bam! Bam! western showdown's made of money and so much flammable celluloid.


So I come home to old wood, old books (poems, chiefly lyric) coffee AND tea, to unload all of my treasures, conquests, beauties, finds and bargains. Tell myself next time no I said no I won't no, and know that it's a lie, burning to take in just a bit more.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Some thoughts concerning the gendering of the iPod

In the words of Sacha Baron Cohen as his beloved and controversial character Borat, "I get iPod, he only get iPod mini, everybody know it's for girls!" For some reason this quote stuck with me: I remember laughing at it when first viewing the film, mostly because I knew that it was true.  But why was iPod mini, and now its contemporary equivalent, the nano, "for girls"? And what does it mean that these iPods are for girls, and that the "Classic" is not?  Perhaps I am over-thinking things, dear readers (both of you...) but this is what poindexter does, and this is what poindexter will continue to do.

Apple has released iPod minis, nanos, and most recently shuffles (although they are a slightly different case, being associated with athletics), in a variety of colours to appeal to girls and women. These devices hold less music than the Classic, which was originally released in pristine, Apple-Futuristic-Kubrickian-White, and later the basic black.  I am instantly reminded of the advent of many other technologies,  and their marketing to women:  telephones, typewriters, kitchen appliances, cars, and pdas...

Why is colour is feminized, since it does not interfere with the functionality of the device?  Although I can't deny that there was (and still is) a demand for such candy-coloured gizmos, I wonder why they are marketed to women, and why the more utilitarian, drab items are marketed to men.

Not to condense hundreds of years of history, but beginning essentially in the 18th century  "women's work" was infantilized, and devalued.  Women of the burgeoning middle class would learn how to embroider, paint, sing, and play clavichord or piano, so that they could entertain their husbands, and other men who visited their homes. Society regarded their function as primarily decorative; with amateur artistic ability, and a strong sense of fashion, they would make man's time at home more comfortable.


These ideas about women, work, and culture persisted through the 19th century, and into the 20th and arguably 21st. A change seemed possible when women went to work in during the world wars, but when the men returned home for good, women were expected to return to the home, and the 50s era of hyper-domesticity ensued.  Inevitably, when companies launched technologies marketed towards women, they emphasized ease of use, and style over function. For example, it is with the introduction of automatic transmission (driving is so easy that even a woman can do it!)  that cars become bright colours, with chrome and fins- the stereotype of 50s excess.  Of course, post-war  prosperity played some part here, but women's engagement with cars as consumers is largely responsible for this shift in design. Although some change was achieved with the women's rights movement of the 70s, the idea that women are irrational and childish (with regards to consumption) has largely persisted, both in the realms of technology and culture. Taking an example from the musical sphere: who listens to that god-awful-top-whatever-radio-station-that plays-the-hits-from-every-genre-and-decade and believes they are "cool" in doing so?  Housewives.  Mothers. Grandmothers, even.  At least, this is what we are lead to believe.


Returning to the iPod.  Women's engagement with music through iPod adheres to this model of infantalization.  In other words, technologies marketed towards women are made to seem like toys, pretty and easy to use, so that they have less worth than those serious devices marketed towards men.  It follows naturally that the iPods associated with female listeners hold less music than those associated with men. According to this line of thinking, women do not need iPod Classics because they know less about music.  They want the greatest hits.  They want singles, not albums. In the grand old age of vinyl, they wanted 45s, not LPs.  Men obviously know more about music than women do, inherently, they have better taste, larger libraries, and they're more likely to talk about music seriously with their peers. They follow pitchfork (whether they admit it or not), and you might hear them discussing the meta-narratives of dejection in the music of the National. Maybe I'm making too many generalizations here.  But I ask of you, humble reader, to consider the audiophile in your life (heaven forbid you have one.)  This person is near obsessive-compulsive, prefers analog to digital, talks about tradition, ingenuity, authenticity, grit and realism. This person may possess an iPod, if so, they will bemoan the compression of mp3s, but tolerate for the sake of portability. This person likely owns the iPod with the most gig available at any given time.  Sound familiar?  This archetypical audiophile is male, and essentially identical to John Cusack's character in High Fidelity.

So, where does this all leave us?  I am not accusing Apple of sexism, or oppression, or anything like that. There is nothing inherently feminine or masculine about pink or black iPods: these preferences are merely a reflection of social conditioning over hundreds of years.  Don't go pawn your nano or your mini or your blackberry pearl or your smith-corona: next time, question whether it's the colour or the content that attracts you when purchasing a device.

And as for me?  Of course I have a sixth-generation "Classic," with a skin of Kandinsky's Composition VII.  Because Kandinsky painted music, and it seemed fitting.


(Can you tell that I just learned to embed pictures? The adventures continue!)