so here’s what I wanted to say about your “new age” thoughts:

“Sounds like a composition exercise – and I challenge you. Compose a piece using ‘new age’ musical idioms but a western classical compositional technic. Take that ‘new age sound’ and make it intellectually worthwhile. Of course first you have to identify the usable basic new age idioms, which is a challenge in and of itself…perhaps choose a few and make each one an individual movement.

Just a thought, and one I’d be wildly interested in…AND you could have an absolute blast with the movement titles…”

Only problem is that I’m not enough of a fan of new age music to get there… but yes, interesting compositional exercise.

Positive mention of the Flint Hills always gets my attention! Thanks!
So happy it brought me to your site.

Our 22 county Flint Hills Tourism Coalition, Inc. promotes visits to the Kansas Flint Hills – the website is: http://www.kansasflinthills.travel/

Best wishes!
Dr. Bill
Personal Blog: http://flinthillsofkansas.blogspot.com/

Sorry, don’t want to politicize your blog, just couldn’t resist.

Here is my problem as a classical musician and consumer of classical music: I have not found an internet retailer that even compares with the experience of visiting, for example, Joseph-Beth Bookseller’s classical music section, or Tower Records in 1995. If there is a CD that I want, I can certainly get it from Archiv or CD Baby or Amazon, but I have to know exactly what I’m looking for in order to find it. I have to spell the name of the piece correctly (always a challenge in dealing with foreign languages), and I may even have to go to the record label’s website in the end and order the CD through them.

What is lost is the art of browsing. There is a great difference between a site telling me what it thinks I will like (based on what I bought before) and my looking at everything they have to offer. Most classical music sections are sized so that I can start with Alkan and work my way to Zemlinsky in a half-hour or less, skipping through the eighty-seven recordings of the Messiah and the Brandenburg concertos along the way. The occasions when I’m in the store with money to spend, but I don’t know what I want are when I get some of the best music I’ve ever bought–”I wonder what they have by Hindemith today,” “Wow! A Carlos Kleiber recording I don’t have,” “I wonder what a symphony by Joe Jackson sounds like.” If there was ever something specific that I wanted from Tower or Joseph-Beth, I could order it with no less trouble that I can from anywhere else. It is browsing that is the problem.

The internet has corrupted the term “browsing.” Browsing is seeing what’s there by quickly scanning, whether it’s library shelves, the used-record bins or my own collection. It requires that the senses simultaneously comprehend multiple choices, which may or may not be related. In the record store, Bach is right next to Bax, and I could quickly make that leap. On Google or Amazon, I only get results that are related verbally in some way. Not only is there too much information, it often isn’t the right kind. For example, a person searching for information about my music would probably get referenced to the Internet Movie Database because of a movie character with my name.

Should the information be out there? Yes, whole-heartedly. Has the internet improved that way we find that information? Not always.

Video Form: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XCFIfPlrAvE

Written Blog Form:
http://www.speakmediablog.com/2008/09/social-media-keep-up-or-fall-back.html

Jennifer A. Jones
Speak Media Blog

Thanks for taking the time to provide a thoughtful and insightful reply. I have a whole bunch of thought threads runnung through my mind, so let me try to capture them for your consideratio nand see where we end up.

1) Part of the disconnect I have with my friend is where he can’e seem to accept that I dont have to (or want to) know how it’s done. I don’t think that it would lessen my passion to know how it is done…but I can’t see why I need to spend the time and energy on the how. I am in it for the emotional or spiritual impact.

2) Having grown up playing an instrument in an orchestra and brass ensembles, I feel that by immersing my entire focus into my past and how it facilitates the “piece”, that takes all the energy I have. It is interesting to talk to people about the Canadian Brass performance of the Barber Adagio, and not have them have a clue how hard breath control can be. Now I see that as technique, not as the musical plumbing (open sevenths, etc.), and I wonder if someone who focuses on the musical plumbing loses the ability to appreciate the variances in the performance (and performers).

3) Having the availability of music that can be sampled in a Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com has helped to intorduce me to some performers and performances that I would never otherwise have known about – and in the process to see and hear pieces I have known for years in a totally new light. Perhaps the best example of this is my discovery of some Mahler recordings by Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia Orchestra. In each of these recordings, there is separate CD where Zander talks about the music and has the orchestra demonstrate and highlight some of the things he is talking about. He also provides anecdotes that help to put things in context.

Having said that, a lot of what he talks about is the musical plumbing. However, he also talks about things like:

- The repeat in the first movement if Mahler 1. Why was it put there…should it be there.

- The difference between using 2 and 4 cymbal players at various places in Mahler 3.

- Is the Adagietto in Mahler’s 5th a love song or funeral music?

Sorry to ramble like this. The bottom line is that I agree with your point that the availability of music via electronic sampling and delivery provides the opportunity to expand our understanding and enjoyment of music that could never have existed just a few years ago. The real problem (and challenge) is to get a handle on what is available and deciding how to spend your time.

I read your entry and although I did not read the work by Mr. Keen, I agree with the points you made.

I also wonder about how the relationship between musical knowledge and the ability to understand and/or appreciate what you are hearing. For example, my best friend (from High School) and I are Mahlerites, and have had ongoing intense dialogues about his works since 1963.

My friend is more musically knowledgeable than I am, and frequently tries to reference a passage in terms like, “The open sevenths” and “the transition from Key A to Key B” as a source of wonder. While I have a musical background, I could care less about such stuff. I am solely concentrating on the passion and emotional impact of the music and how I react to what I am hearing. I could care less what musical tools are in use – I just know how I feel when I hear it.

So my question is, as the “musical” delivery and performance technology evolves, what does that mean to the average listener (not to the performer).