the masked man wrote:I think a principal difference between music and ballet is that the former is essentially inescapable. You turn on the radio, and music's right there; you go to the store or bar, background music is playing; any film has a musical soundtrack.
I see where the masked man is coming from, but I know that for myself, the everywhere-ness of music doesn't have all that much effect on me. That is to say, the radio doesn't influence me all that much in terms of what I like and what I like to listen to. However, the fact that music collections in libraries are far larger than collections of dance videos or DVDs has made a big effect on how much music and how little dance I know.
Music seems to be (but I emphasize ``seems'' here) one of the most portable activities, but sometimes I wonder whether this is simply just an illusion (for example, playing the piano)...
...or maybe it really is portable. Note as well that reading (seriously) is something that people generally do not grow out of, and it's hard to imagine a more portable activity.
cheepniz wrote:Music, after all, is a listener's game; ballet, on the other hand, requires feet of steel and a dedication above and beyond. That is a kind of passion much harder to maintain than the relatively simple act of listening to music.
Still, the thing that I'm thinking about is that these people who danced seriously at one time, simply have very little contact with even thinking about dance or watching dance on a weekly basis anymore. It's an odd thing to consider that a passionate interest could evaporate that abruptly. That's the part I don't understand.
pete wrote:Regarding the ballet analogy. Would I be wrong to suggest that ballet is a slightly limited art form, while music has endless potential.
That's hard to say. I know what I like, and I know my areas of expertise and ignorance. I don't particularly know ballet well at all, but that's just me. I would be willing to suggest that it is one of the major art forms, just one that I don't know all that much about.
Guy E wrote:It’s not uncommon for people in the arts to lose interest when their careers wane. I did some consulting work with a dance company for several years and most of the management and fund raising people had once been dancers. The problem is, a dance career only lasts for so long – retirement comes at an early age. These people had to move onto something else and parlayed their knowledge of the art/business into a mainstream career. They were still interested in Dance and would go to performances, but there was also a lot of cynicism about the egos and BS of the dancers and the dance companies themselves, so they were jaded in a way
Interesting. I talked recently to a professional conductor, and he mentioned that orchestral players were fairly cynical often as well...the attitude of ``Well, it's a job, and I'm being paid whatever to sit in this chair for three hours, but at three hours time, I'm off.''
In context of the way that professional activities can dull one's interest in an art, it really is amazing how jazz players, particularly from the 1940s, would play their regular slow-minded gig, and then, first chance available, go to Minton's and play and play and play as much as they could, only a lot faster and with much stranger chords. That's actually the one thing that I pick up from anecdotes about jazz musicians. The entire lifestyle might have its problems (drug addiction, poverty), but in general the musicians still seem to be in thrall to the music. I don't know whether one can claim the same thing for classical musicians.
The Right Summary Profile wrote:There's been the argument htat Classical Music has declined over the last century or so, but where do the film composers figure into that equation, for instance?
Classical music audiences have declined over the last century. Orchestras are now no longer profitable, and capitalism is increasingly more focused on efficiency. This is how it happens that major orchestras have no record label. Hard to imagine unless you figure out the profit margins.
Mr. Jim wrote:Dance -- whether one participates or just likes to watch -- is still a pretty marginal artform. The "support" one has for one's addiction to dance is not as extensive.
I understand the argument. I would still counter that until somewhat recently (read BCB), my interest in music has been a mostly quite solitary activity. True, there is actually some support available, but it has been for me almost a non-social activity.
It's for this reason that my guitar-playing is so heavily influenced by Richard Thompson. The idea being that, well, you're going to have to play the rhythm and the bassline, and the melody on top. Better learn to do that by yourself. It's a challenge, forced by circumstances, but it's yielded some interesting results. It hasn't been easy and not necessarily fun always, but it does lead you to places.
Hotsie wrote:My Grandpa played sax until well into his 80's and only stopped when his bandmates started dying off and Alzheimers hit him.
Sorry to hear that. One thing that comes to mind though is that if one were to have Alzheimer's or some other similar disease, it would seem that the best activity or art form to carry with you would be in fact music. What I mean is that music sets almost no threshold as to what one need
understand about how the music is put together in order to be able to enjoy it. This makes it very different from math, of course, but also different from reading.
One comment related to this. What I just said has some rather astonishing consequences in this sense. When I was 13, I certainly read certain books (Ray Bradbury, let's say), saw art (da Vinci was a favorite), and listened to music (Bach).
Of these, the one experience that stands out as being something that I can still sort of relate to is listening to music. What do I mean by that? I think the way that I listen to Bach now is roughly comparable to the way I listened to it then. That is to say, the things that excited me about Bach are similar to the things that excite me now.
However, it's hard to see or even know the reader I was when I read at age 13. The way I read (and especially the way I write) is so radically different that while there is some connection, the level of immaturity then stands out as a real embarrassment.
I don't feel that way at all about the way I listened to music when I was 13. That seems in a very fundamental sense to have been on a similar level of maturity that I have now, not that I knew as much, but in that the things that I liked have similar resonances as they do now.
