What I Want My Concerts to Be
This post is a result of working through The Savvy Musician, a great book about making a living in the art music world.
Today I’ve been brainstorming about concerts and recitals, and what my ideal product would look like.
I don’t think that programming, outside of choosing good repertoire, is really that big of a deal. I strive to choose repertoire that’s not overplayed. There’s plenty of recordings of the classics for guitar, and plenty of concerts only feature them. I want something different.
The real thing is in presentation. I want to look like I’m having fun on stage. I want to smile, and give the audience a sense that I’m really enjoying myself. I want this because I do enjoy myself. And I’m tired of going to concerts where the performer looks terrified. So there’s that aspect of presentation: I want to project an abundance of enthusiasm for the guitar combined with quiet confidence and a solid performance.
That other stuff…
My encounters and opinions of the art music world can largely be summarized by having a knowing irreverence for tradition. That is, I’m not terribly interested in the traditional benchmarks of success (competition wins, etc.) nor am I particularly in love with the formality of art music concerts. In short, I think the stuffiness puts an unacceptable distance between the performer and the audience.
Here’s the thing, the stuffiness is not a result of the repertoire. It’s a result of the attitudes of the musicians. I want to avoid that at all costs. If there were some way I could project my irreverence on stage, I would do it. Maybe there’s something to be said for choosing the right concert clothing to project this.
What I want
- Play good, semi-obscure (but likable!) repertoire
- Project my enjoyment on stage
- Project a sense of quiet confidence
- Display my irreverence for the art music world’s stuffy formality
Posted on September 15, 2009 in Art Music, Life, The Savvy Musician
This somehow reminded me of a(nother) story about my old guitar teacher. I guess would sometimes be hired to play music at dinner receptions and the like, and mostly played from a classical repertoire… but he told me sometimes he would get irritated that nobody was paying attention, so he would tune to drop D and just play tritone power chords (D5 and Ab5, I guess) until somebody noticed.