Time & Place

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Idealistic tendencies aside, there is a time and place for most styles of music.

Within the last two months, I’ve played two very out-of-place gigs. On both occasions, I definitely felt like a whore in church. One was a couple months ago, and I was performing with a rock-oriented group. However, the gig was as background music for a fundraiser; we were not at all to be the focus. Because of the music’s intensity, the group crossed the threshold from background to foreground on multiple occasions. And recently, this same group performed as part of a concert series that features many accessible rock bands, yet our set was almost exclusively instrumental and featured many long improvisations. The music was good, but the venue was completely wrong and the audience fluctuated as a result.

While both gigs theoretically went well for the band, I considered our performances rather inappropriate. Now, there is a school of thought that encourages performances of any style in any setting, intentional (i.e., pirating the performance) or otherwise (as the two above). While I can often hold that view, I also know that the music should cater to the event in some capacity. Regarding the fundraiser, our performance was completely functional, and in such cases the musicians are no different than the waitstaff. We were simply offering a service, only it’s not what the patrons may have been looking for. In the second case, we simply weren’t performing in a venue that would have been conducive to our building a following or exposing a (mostly) ready and open audience to something new.

This “appropriateness” is yet another one of the many extra-musical considerations a musician must take into account when promoting him/herself.

Music, then marketing

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When trying to promote yourself in music (or any discipline, really), there are always many extra-musical things to consider. I’ve referenced many of these in previous posts: advertising and promotion, booking, finances, image, etc. These are all important. However, what matters most is ultimately the music. This much is obvious. Or is it?

I’ve recently been struggling with such a dilemma firsthand with some colleagues. From the beginning of our collaboration, a significant portion of discussion – at times the majority – has centered around marketing, image, and meaning. This is something I’m generally apathetic about, as I tend to not get wrapped up in the lore and celebrity. It does have its place, though, so I understand the need to discuss it. However, months later, everyone is finally realizing that with all of the “necessary tools” (e.g., business cards, online presence, name, etc.), we often find ourselves lacking one thing: audience. Why? Well, it depends on who you ask. In my opinion, though, it’s because our primary focus has not been on musical, ostensibly our reason for getting together in the first place.

Tangible items will get you only so far before people ultimately base their decision on the following criteria: I either like the music or I don’t. At the end of the day, any reasonable listener will choose the music over image, symbol, or story. Instead of focusing our efforts on promoting the music first via live performances in proper venues (a topic I’ll soon return to) and sending the music to as many people as possible, we decided to build the brand first and the product second. (While being a regular dissenter of this approach, I ultimately went along with it in some fashion and am definitely guilty if for no other reason than association.)

I have seen this happen all too often, and it has resulted in very little each time. The cultivation of any sort of following is based upon the following: a focus on the core product, and time to grow. Without these, you end up with a whole lotta brand and very little product.

Stickiness in Music Appreciation

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Back to Gladwell. Again.

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell asserts that for a concept to tip (i.e., become a trend), it must be sticky: it must effectively attract adopters. Simple enough in theory. In practice, however, it’s quite complex.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been mentally outlining and writing my new Music Appreciation syllabus for the fall semester. Though I’ve taught the subject for six semesters, it was as a T.A. and my syllabus and content adhered to the general outline of my bosses’ syllabi. Now I enjoy the opportunity, as professor, to have full autonomy. (My only constraint is that I coordinate a general curriculum with another professor, who will be teaching separate classes on the same subject.) This is very exciting, as I believe that, if taught correctly, Music Appreciation could serve as a welcome common ground for musicians and non-musicians alike. (This is the subject I want to teach, more than any other.)

More than content, though, my biggest concern lately is: how do I make the subject sticky? What will engage the students to the point where it becomes more than just a required class, but something that’s relevant and they feel invested in? While I still am very much a student of teaching, my consistently positive student reviews keep me from worrying about the mechanics of my teaching. Instead, I focus on stickiness. While I do have a number of possible solutions floating around in my head, I prefer they crystallize more before sharing them here. But the question is important enough, I feel, that it needs to be presented, as it’s something that should be taken into consideration when teaching any subject. What makes it sticky, and how can that be effectively translated to the student?

15,000 hours?

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Like many others, I’ve been fascinated with Malcolm Gladwell‘s 10,000 Hour Rule since first learning of it late last year during his interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. Lately, I’ve been reading his works and thinking a lot of this rule, and how credible it really is.

However, I do have one possible challenge. Most musicians who achieve their 10,000 hours and become accomplished do so in a single, though often broad, style. However, what about those musicians who want to focus on differing styles? It’s true that many concepts can be translated from one style to another, yet there are many idiosyncratic facets to each. Does that mean that a musician who wants to become successful in more than one style needs to up the ante, more so than his/her peers? As a working saxophonist, this seems the case. Is 15,000 the new 10,000?

Definitely something to chew on. Oh, and if you haven’t read any of Gladwell’s works, I highly suggest you seek them out.

Musicology

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In rehearsal with The Elevator Conspiracy a few months ago, we were mulling over one of our songs’ lyrics. Our singer at the time wanted to change them, but another member who helped to co-write the lyrics didn’t want them altered. The reason for maintaining the text was that by preserving the narrative, which was about a romantic connection, we would preserve the entire piece’s integrity, as the instrumental solos represented the release of the tension that built up throughout the story. By changing the text, we would therefore make the solos nonsensical in relation to the rest of the piece. Without thinking about it, I immediately broke out laughing, as did the rest of the group (save the defender of this argument), as all of this was news to us (who all helped to develop the song from its original fragment). My response, which was mostly met with agreement, was, “I think the solos make perfect musical sense where they are, regardless of lyrical content. It just sounds right.”

I was very thankful for this episode (despite the argument that followed), as it provided me with a perfect anecdote for my frustrations with Musicology. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I completed most of a musicology degree, but decided not to finish for a variety of reasons. While I was doing well in my coursework and diligently studying/researching, I gradually became less and less invested in the project (which, at its, core, I still very much champion). And, having eventually become at odds with my advisor and department, I decided it would be best to walk away and wash my hands of it (as opposed to picking another topic and starting from scratch), as my thesis was becoming something I wouldn’t be interested in reading, let along writing, and nothing I’d attach my name to to shop around for publication or doctoral work. That being said, I still have a deep appreciation for the field in general, and am pursuing my interests independently (for now), separate from academia.

My main musicological interests are American popular music, jazz since the 1960s, music and politics, and Wagner. Specifically, my primary topic of interest (and my thesis topic) is the Dave Matthews Band, and its unique place in contemporary popular culture as a commercial juggernaut as well as simultaneously being one of the most successful jam bands since The Grateful Dead. (This is a topic I’ve devoted a lot of time to already, and it will definitely be popping up again at some point.) “Popular Musicology,” as it’s now known, deals with popular music and is still pretty much in its infancy, dealing primarily with “the originals” (e.g., The Beatles, Pink Floyd) or highly controversial subjects such as Madonna. Because it’s not yet fully accepted by the musicology community at large, popular musicology often incorporates other disciplines to help prop it up. (This is because most musicologists, along with many popular musicologists to an extent, find the technical aspects of popular music far simpler than classical music, and therefore unable to focus primarily on the music. I take GREAT issue with this.)

Though I find incorporations of diverse disciplines healthy, it must be done in moderation. I read a number of works that decided to take a Marxist look at rock music, and some of the findings just gave me a headache from the constant rolling of my eyes. Rarely did I happen upon musical discourse. Instead, authors would often discuss everything but the music in an effort to make sense of it. For instance (briefly), are The Rolling Stones really an expression of capitalist control because their songs express false working-class sentiments? Or, could it be that their modest roots, along with their love of American blues and rhythm and blues have shaped their musical career more than any later success could? Going back to my original anecdote, I tend to think that musicology, more often than not, is averse to Ockham’s Razor. (“New Musicologists” Robert Walser and Susan McClary grapple this concept well in their article “Start Making Sense!: Musicology Wrestles With Rock,” from On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word [Frith and Good, 1990].)

TOOL, one of my top five all-time favorites, hit the nail on the head with their lyrics from “Lateralus”: “Over-thinking [and] over-analyzing separates the body from the mind.” In this case, reading too much into music intellectually can actually dilute the music itself.