response 26 of 65:

Nov 29 18:46 UTC 1997

Now, if you wrote "people that..." you would be sampling new experience
in language, and by becoming familiar with it, you would learn how
much more interesting and resonant it is. So, try some new language
forms, instead of just staying stuck on pop usage.           :)

There is a problem with the venues for classical music. I don't really
like the pressure to conform in clothing and behavior. I also don't see
the necessity for the performers to dress as they do. Isn't it the *music*
that is what it's all about? I don't get dressed up to listen to classical
music at home. The clothing at least male muscicians wear for classical
music looks like it would interfer with playing their instruments. I'm
not the only one that thinks this way, judging my the standards of dress
at chamber performances in Ann Arbor - everything from "student" dress
(though I've never seen them leave their baseball caps on - backwards) to
formal wear (like to musicians). Women musicians at least have a lot more
freedom in dress (as well as they do as part of the audience). Perhaps
if both musicians and audiences dropped these semi-formal to formal standards,
more young people would attend?

response 28 of 65:

Nov 29 19:38 UTC 1997

I don't think it's just classical music concerts, it's "the theater
experience."  The last time I felt seriously underdressed was at a
performance of "Cats."  You'd think we would've moved way beyond
that.  It can't possibly make young music lovers feel welcome, and
has probably put more than a few of them off it forever.  But, as
you say, you can listen to CDs dressed any way you like, so at
least there's that.  And I tried to write "people that," I really
did.  You saw.  It just didn't work for me.  I guess I don't have a 
sense of ownership over the "that."

Re "sense of ownership," it's one of those vogue-terms that started, 
as so many of them do, with management consultants.  It's used to 
describe what a company is supposed to instill in its employees with 
regard to their work so they'll work harder and you can lay people off. 
Most people see through it, alas.  The term has spread, as so many of 
these management vogue-terms do, into the general population, where it 
has the same effect on my nervous system as fingernails screeching 
down a chalkboard, even when used by well-meaning folks like Mary.  
As a right-sizing re-engineer from way back, I could make the case 
that Mary hasn't bought in and therefore isn't empowered to use the 
term.  ;-)

In the context of this item, Mary says she was using it to mean 
"something that relates to you on a personal level."  If I know 
something intimately, it relates to me on a personal level.  But I 
can know any piece of music intimately, even Mozart, so that can't 
be what Mary means.  *I* took it simply to mean "something I feel as 
if I own."  Brahms' Violin Concerto is (literally) public property.  
I "own" it as much as anyone else.  What bothers me is the thought 
that most kids don't realize this, and believe it's "owned" by others,
maybe by those formally dressed swells they see at classical music 
concerts.

One nice thing about any work of art -- I mean the work of art itself,
not its reputation -- is its imperviousness to fads and fashions.  
You can call Mozart dead, white, European, male, old-fashioned, 
over-played, over-recorded, anything you like.  K. 491 will just 
sit there infuriatingly, with not a single note changed, waiting to 
be discovered by people who aren't buying the bullshit.

So, I repeat, (no matter whether, like me, you think it would be a 
good thing, or, like Mary, you don't think it would be a good thing): 
How do we get 17-year-olds hooked on classical music?

response 30 of 65:

Nov 30 01:32 UTC 1997

I know nada what business means by "sense of ownership".
I'm not a business person.  I'm into saving lives. ;-)

It was *my* term for meaning relevance on a person level.
Mahler's Ninth is, for me, an understanding of death.  
Bob Dylan is (was) relevant to me in understanding my disgust
over the Vietam War.  The Bach Suites are an incredible
view of what can happen when you master simplicity.
And at this point in my life I'm finding the concept of 
mastering simplicity intriguing.  I didn't at sixteen.

So, when I say kids needs to have a sense of ownership
before they invest, maybe the content of classical music
isn't yet relevant to their world.  Beats me, I'm too old
to remember sixteen with any accuracy.

Now I'll bugger out of the discussion as I'm not making
much progress toward answering your (much asked) question. ;-)

response 32 of 65:

Nov 30 12:04 UTC 1997

The conductor wears a conductor's tux.  The orchestra wears
non-matching black dress with white accents, little if any jewelry,
plain shoes, and always all black below the waist.  The audience
tends to moderately dress-up.  Men wear suits or turtlenecks and
sport jackets.  Women dress for a business office or better.
Little kids are often the best dressed of the lot.  Students tend
to come in jeans but there aren't a lot of them.  There will
be a few who come really dressed to dazzle and a few who
look like they wore what they had on all day while working
around the house.

There is a slightly higher dress code standard for classical
concerts at either the Museum of Art or Kerrytown Concert Hall,
evening weekend concerts.

response 34 of 65:

Dec 1 12:05 UTC 1997

Idle question: what would happen if you showed up at a rock
concert in a buiness suit?  "Business casual"?  Full highschool
nerd regalia?  Does anyone imagine the dress code at rock concerts
(which I realize varies with the type of music) is any less rigid
than that at a classical music concert?  What's off-putting about the
dress code at classical music concerts isn't that it's there, but that 
it looks so much like your parents, or worse, like that annoying
brother of your mom's and his snobby wife.  It's not really a 
code, of course.  Anybody can get in.  We're just talking about
whether what you see when you get there makes you want to come back
again.

response 36 of 65:

Dec 2 02:49 UTC 1997

speaking for myself, I like to dress up  for concerts and suchlik, but if I
choose not to, I don;t feel like I'm particullarly out of place... It's like
"I'm the way I am, and if you don't like it, too bad...." Nobody says anything
anyway...

response 38 of 65:

Dec 2 03:33 UTC 1997

Somehow I've always had the feeling the musicians were dressing
up for *us*.  It's as if they're our servants.  There may be some
historic truth in that.  Anyway, all the more reason not to do it.

response 40 of 65:

Dec 2 22:27 UTC 1997

Being an ameture concert musician myself, I can tell you that the reason we
dress up for formal concerts is that it renders a sense of formalism and
respect and attention to the music that is due.  If you dress sloppily, you'll
play sloppily.  Of course, if you *can't* play period, dressing you up won't
help your music!  :-)  This is a similar argument as to why many companies
require their [male] employees to wear ties at work, which I don't care for
but I do.  You can reject this idea or not.

response 42 of 65:

Dec 3 12:01 UTC 1997

I guess most of us agree formal dress is unnecessary.  How the
audience and the musicians dress probably isn't the only reason
classical music is in eclipse, maybe not even the main reason.
(The Stark Naked Philharmonic might be a big hit, though.)  

Imagine a performance of the Brahm's Violin Concerto at which the
hall is filled with people in their 20s and 30s who burst into
screams and other noisy kinds of approval when the soloist and 
conductor appear, who applaud and cheer between movements, who
weep openly during the emotional parts, who hold up cigarette
lighters during the slow movement, and who deliver a deafening
ovation at the end and won't stop until the performers encore
the entire last movement.  I believe that could happen.

response 44 of 65:

Dec 3 16:40 UTC 1997

I think we were arriving at the opinion that formal dress is an
impediment, not a main reason. So, who has the ear of the AA
Symphony, and wants to suggest to them they give a concert like
Michael envisages?

response 46 of 65:

Dec 4 01:40 UTC 1997

Also, they would burst into cheers at the long-awaited violin
entrance in the first movement, and cheer at other peak moments.
Plus, they would sometimes clap in rhythm to the music and sing 
along with the familiar parts.  The orchestra, conductor and 
soloist would just have to get over it.  I imagine the concerts
would have to be held in Cobo Arena or the SIlverdome, or maybe
Pine Knob in the summer.

response 48 of 65:

Dec 4 06:45 UTC 1997

The annual Halloween Concert in Hill Auditorium has an informality and,
even though it is *just* the UM symphony, they always have a full house.
And they play good classical music, albeit the "sinister". No one 
is in formal clothes - many are in costume! Is there something unfitting
about this? If so, what?