What do you think makes music classical? How did your love affair with classical begin and grow? What difference does one-themed music (Baroque) make versus two-themed (Classical)? How can something your neighbor already loves become a metaphor for this music: baseball, dating, a recipe, barbecue? Compare and contrast then with appreciation for all.
Please note we encourage you to borrow phrases and analogies used in this website with occasional credit. CutTime® is spreading the seeds for real change in the classical arts. These seeds are for music lovers to water and tend.
Playing for knowledgeable, well-heeled audiences may be enough to keep some large ensembles healthy. But when we need new audience, why ignore everyone else? Expressions of those “not enough like us” won’t understand classical— or that it’s not my job to educate everyone— prevent us from even trying to find the words (eg. movie, sexy, meditation, sport) to explain key concepts (like extension, texture, internalize, tension and release) that might unlock classical for the masses. The challenges to and limitations of symphony orchestra culture are already well documented and here.
Conversely, we may feel like it’s bragging to extol those benefits, if we could list them all. We are clearly not in the habit of selling tickets, much less selling the dis-inclined on an experience of what may be their first classical concert. In fact, when people say polite things, put us on a pedestal or say nothing at all about classical, we often choose not to get into it. It’s too awkward. Or perhaps it feels like inviting someone to church, without knowing their religious preferences. The 78% believe classical music is not really for or about them. Add they’d be half right.
