Comments for Sticks and Drones

Comment on The Sinking of the Minnesota by James

James — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:34:15 +0000

I have heard many on the political right say that there should be no federal support for the arts (socialism) because that should be the responsibility of the wealthy, job-creating, philanthropic class. Well, where are they? Burnt out, we are told; donor fatigue. It appears that the wealthy class is abdicating its responsibility, despite the fact that their wealth-making institutions were bailed out by we tax-payers, and their golden parachutes kept intact. We are told that taxes cannot be raised on the wealthiest, because that too is a form of socialism (redistribution). Here we are groveling for donations when it is really their stated responsibility. Ludicrous logic. I was on the NEA panel in 1992 to help hand out grants to US orchestras. The top orchestras were getting 350,000$ a year then. If that level of help were continuing today the NEA would be allocating over 500,000$ today. The top orchestras receive a fraction of those 1992 dollars today. The arts in America are doomed if this mind set is not reversed.

Comment on The Death of the Learnéd Musician by Bill Eddins

Bill Eddins — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:35:04 +0000

Thanks for your note. I shall concede your point and let you get back to your regular job flipping burgers.

Comment on How to turn up the quiet…by Alecia Lawyer by James Orleans

James Orleans — Sat, 12 May 2012 05:12:59 +0000

So you have, essentially, removed the children for all but a portion of the concert. This clearly is the only way to assure that there can be enough quiet in the hall for the other listeners. It is too much to hope for these days that adults actually do parent in a concert situation. The likelihood that there will be a distractingly large proportion of little families, like the one you describe at the movie theater, in the concert hall is growing greater and greater. In one morning youth concert I saw parents talking with their children throughout the concert, and others letting their kids make noise and climb around the seats. It seems that fewer and fewer parents are willing to remove their children when it is clear that they should. Add the talking parents and the undisciplined children and you have enough noise to make it disturbing to even the performers. How does a distracting amount of noise in the hall benefit anyone’s listening experience? If I had brought my well-behaved child into such a chaotic concert hall I would have been quite upset. Fortunately, I didn’t pay for a ticket; I only had to play the bass for that concert. Many colleagues and staff didn’t think it was that bad (are we just becoming inured to background noise?), but I was appalled at the din. I would guess that a decidel meter would have recorded a sound level quite shockingly high.

Comment on If it hurts everywhere….your finger is probably broken! by Sean M

Sean M — Sun, 06 May 2012 13:13:01 +0000

Great post! I agree that we need to make Classical Music a larger part of the community in order to survive.
I do find the “two continuous hours of one type of music is more than the ear should take” is a little one sided. Many people go to concerts where they hear similar types of music continually for at least 2 hours, but they seem to make Classical Music an exception.
I think that asking the audience what they want to hear an programming accordingly is great! I also think that it is important to program things that people aren’t as familiar with in order to expand what everyone is exposed to. Everyone is so quick to write off everything that they don’t like or aren’t familiar with that I think it is important for the symphony to become a place where the audience can objectively discover new pieces in an engaging and fun environment (in total agreement with the end of your post!)

Comment on The Death of the Learnéd Musician by Janet

Janet — Sat, 05 May 2012 23:06:58 +0000

I’m tempted to say I’ve lost all respect for you as a musician, as a writer (?), and as a human being because of the wrong accent on “learnéd.” There actually isn’t any accent in English, but if there were, it would be learnèd (easy to ascertain you didn’t study French … okay, I assess, not a particularly learned homo sapien here). Then there is “expecially” and “vey” (that one is probably just a typo, but those lose points, too). Storytelling is one word, not two … shall I go on?

Are you this unobservant with scores, I wonder?

Seriously now, I’m sure you made some excellent points (in fairness, you did, and I agree with most), but having already encountered so many errors in your writing, I truly lost interest, connection, and caring when you judged your example as basically unworthy of breathing. By your logic and judgment, if you’re going to write, learn to write excellently – otherwise, don’t. Ever. I should probably add some form of “How dare you sully the esteemed art of writing by publishing such semi-literate balderdash?” since that’s how you sounded about the inferior, young musician for whom you instantly lost all respect as a musican and as a human being.

How does this feel, by the way? It’s a mirror of the attitude you expressed. Is that really who you mean to be?

If we treat each other this way, there is no point to any of it.