Why are audiences for classical concerts so old? Options

[jod]

I wasn't being negative about the elderly. I was being negative about a group of people who happened to be elderly and because I hold this generation in high esteem I was very disappointed by their lack of manners. I agree that without this group the concert halls would be empty. Anyway, I have grey hairs too....sigh.

This I understand. It can be very upsetting for a mum who likes people of all ages to take her children to a concert and then feel all eyes are on her beloved children just waiting them to fidget of do something wrong.

Mums take their kids to concerts as they want them to enjoy music not to see the worst behaviour in a particular group. I also note MNW and I are both mothers of sons. Boys like Classical music too. It should not be the sole preserve of prim little girls.

My sons get a lot out of music. From other comments MNW has made it sounds like hers do too.

[Chris H]

I don't actually think it's true that in order for one's children to enjoy classical music one has to take them to concerts from an early age. For years my son was more keen on classic rock artists, funk, jazz and soul than classical. It's only recently that he's really got into classical music and seems to have developed his own taste in it. He particularly likes early twentieth century music, wheras I prefer baroque.

Youngest son hates classical music and likes rap and indie bands.

[HelenVJ]

It's worrying to read so many negative and, frankly, age-ist comments here; as though if there is a sea of grey heads in the audience then the performance is a failure. I wonder if I am detecting an undercurrent of thinking that perhaps by scheduling specific avant-garde works, the older audience will be deterred and not offend the sensibilities, or worse, get in the way of, the young. Not likely to work.

Broadcasters and film-makers endlessly strive to attract the younger audience for some reason. Why? surely the advantage of youth is that one can find better things to do!

It is a fact of nature that one's expression appears more gloomy as one ages; it is due to gravity, hence the popularity of face-lifts amongst those with the dosh. I wonder if some of the disapporoving looks ascribed to the senior audience members is simply a relaxed face-in -neutral with no ill-will behind it. (I've been told to 'cheer up - it may never 'appen' more than once when I was perfectly happy.) Rudeness will be encountered in any demographic, unfortunately.

Let's be thankful for the grey pound swelling the coffers at concert halls; so what if they are in receipt of pensioners' rates? Students also enjoy discounts.

We'll all be there one day -get used to it.

Really wish there was a facebook-type 'Like' button sometimes. As it is, you'll just have to put up with (IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) Well said, mel. ( And I'm not exactly in the first flush of youth myself.)

Sorry - not sure what's going on with these quotes

[soccermom]

[
This I understand. It can be very upsetting for a mum who likes people of all ages to take her children to a concert and then feel all eyes are on her beloved children just waiting them to fidget of do something wrong.

There is a series of very good chamber concerts every year held near me - in our local church, which has excellent accoustics. I try to take my children to as many as possible - especially those involving instruments one or both play. They are free for under 25s in FT education, but the vast majority of the audience are over 60 (or possibly 70). We try and get there early so we can get a seat near the front as I want them to be able to see as well as hear (it's always a sell-out and seats are unreserved). The girls take books with them to read while they're waiting. I'm glad to say that I have never had anything but interest and politeness from other nearby audience members who have engaged my children in conversation (before the concert and during the interval, not during it!) asking them if they played any instruments, what music they liked, what they thought of it so far, they were reading etc.

[Mad Tom]

Youngest son hates classical music and likes rap

Interesting that he likes rap. Does he also like any genre of MUSIC ??

[flautando]

The people who now are grey haired, in the audience, are most likely people who have been fans of classical music throughout their lives. When I was watching Led Zeppelin in the 70's there weren't many grey haired folk attending, but now watching Robert Plant we are nearly all grey haired (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[Arundodonuts]

The people who now are grey haired, in the audience, are most likely people who have been fans of classical music throughout their lives. When I was watching Led Zeppelin in the 70's there weren't many grey haired folk attending, but now watching Robert Plant we are nearly all grey haired (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Indeed and as I said earlier, I like many others of my generation were deeply engaged in listening to rock as teenagers so that classical only got a look in much later. It was probably The Nice, ELP, Yes and Frank Zappa who inititiated my interest in classical.

[Mad Tom]

The people who now are grey haired, in the audience, are most likely people who have been fans of classical music throughout their lives. When I was watching Led Zeppelin in the 70's there weren't many grey haired folk attending, but now watching Robert Plant we are nearly all grey haired (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Indeed and as I said earlier, I like many others of my generation were deeply engaged in listening to rock as teenagers so that classical only got a look in much later. It was probably The Nice, ELP, Yes and Frank Zappa who inititiated my interest in classical.

I get the connections with Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Pictures at an Exhibition" but where is the classical connection in Frank Zappa and Yes (who I remember more for their incomprehensible lyrics)??

Genuinely curious (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[Arundodonuts]

I get the connections with Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Pictures at an Exhibition" but where is the classical connection in Frank Zappa and Yes (who I remember more for their incomprehensible lyrics)??

Genuinely curious (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

It's really down the the style and standard of the compositions. They are "structured" in a way that sets them apart from your run of the mill rock.

Yes, for example, definitely use theme1, theme2, development, recapitualtion, coda. Not that I knew it when I first listened to them. I just thought it was cool. Oh there is Rick Wakeman's reworking of part of Brahms' 4th symphony too.

Zappa - well where to start. Structure, use of instruments and there are nods towards classical composers. FZ was a great fan (and definitely influenced by) Stravinsky and Varese. "The Torture Never Stops" certainly owes a great deal to Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle. "Yo Mama" is a full scale orchestral piece (but played by rock group) - including a brilliant cadenza. No surprise to me that one of his pieces "King Kong" has had a proms outing or that after his death Radio 3 was suddenly full of closet Zappa fans wanting to acclaim his brilliance. He was really getting into his stride writing orchestral and chamber works too. A terrible loss that he died so young. Especially as I never got to see the bu88er live (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

Oh and back to The Nice - "Knife Edge" is Janacek's Sinfonietta and they also did "Karelia".

There were others too. Pink Floyd, particularly "Echoes" and "Atom Heart Mother". My mum reckoned Genesis sounded like Beethoven (well a bit of it did).

[Chris H]

I was very keen on Genesis when I was a teenager - my dad, who liked Beethoven, rather liked them too (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[MNW]

I was at the Barbican tonight - boy is that place ugly - and I would say the average age was 35. Lots of 14-16 year olds and the majority were around 30-45.

[anacrusis]

We lived in a concert hall building when my kids were very tiny, so took them along to hear music there from the beginning - at first maybe just tiptoeing past the open hall door when rehearsals were going on, with babe in arms until the first signs of restlessness, later on choosing short informal concerts or ones with dancing or other distractions in, later still half an evening concert.....

...the older one improvises on keyboards, drums a bit, likes listening to all sorts, the younger listens to radio 1 out of choice, sings and plays chords on the guitar now. Neither would chum us to concerts now, though the older has done us some recordings when I've been playing, for purposes of getting feedback. It's simply the wrong phase of life for them, and may remain the wrong sort of music, who knows? Alternatively they may come back to it later, on their own terms.


So kids don't go all that often because many parents are worried about them getting restless and disturbing the other audience members. My two were amazingly quiet and well behaved, but I knew not to overstretch their patience - I've sometimes had friends of theirs along too and found crowd control to be much more of an issue, so it does vary depending on the child. Students may go if they have a particular interest in music, and of course they get discounts. Many young adults are financially overstretched, and have to consider carefully how to allocate their budgets - we'd not have gone to concerts had we not been living where we did, but often got free tickets to events there as compensation for the annoyance of having to lock up after hours and put up with people coming back on Sundays to retrieve forgotten umbrellas.

Later on of course, after student years and the first chunk of working life, a wave of sprogs may well come along, and where it does, parents again begin to feel they can't go to concerts, because babysitters are expensive, and because they're tired from childcare/work/housework - again it's a time one tends not to go so much. And when freedom from those commitments arrives, and maybe the budget is a little healthier for a year or two once the kids flee the nest....why, that's when the silver streaks begin to show on our heads....

[Aquarelle]

A lot of complicated theories have been put forward but it seems to me to be fairly simple. One issue is money. Teenagers won't want to spend money on something they know nothing about. The second reason (which follows on from the first) is education. The reason why large numbers of teenagers have no idea what fun "serious" music can be is because the state of musical education is rigor mortis in very very many so called places of education. The third is that pop musicians and the sets they use are lively and colourful and fun to look at. Classical orchestras, are by comparison, black and boring to watch and in many cases do not exploit a repertoire which would attract the young. I am not suggesting they all want to hear modern or avant garde stuff. There are plenty of attractive and accessible works in the repertoire which neither dumb down nor intellectualise up the programme.

Young people brought up in musical homes are a different kettle of fish and if they reject classical music will at least know what they are rejecting and the door to that music will remain open to them in later life. Those brought up in homes where no classical music is ever heard and who go to schools with some dreadful weekly apology for a class music lesson will never has this door opened.

When I played a bit of a Red Priest CD to a class of 6 to 8 year olds they asked for it again and again. When I played Ravel's Piano concerto for the Left Hand to my teenage pupils on Armistice day and told them the story behind it they were fascinated. When I played an extract of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra to a pupil studying concerto form she was mind blown - as was I years ago when I heard it for the first time. Last week two of my piano pupils arrived and explained that for once they had had a "real" music lesson and they had listened to "this piece that gets louder and louder." They could not remember what it was. I suggested Ravel's Bol?ro and they said that was it.

I have recently started introducing a "listening" time into my instrumental lessons. it is hard to find the few minute necessary but very worthwhile. So perhaps it is also part of our job to introduce pupils to the repertoire - give them a taste and make them hungry.

[barry-clari]

I have recently started introducing a "listening" time into my instrumental lessons. it is hard to find the few minute necessary but very worthwhile. So perhaps it is also part of our job to introduce pupils to the repertoire - give them a taste and make them hungry.

That's the one : I do this regularly with my pupils. And not just with classical either, but with jazz, world music and others : in fact pretty much anything that isn't of the Justin Bieber/JLS/Rihanna sort of ilk. And it's essential to start this early on...

[gedall40]

I started listening to classical orchestral music (it all started with Ride of the Valkyries!) when I was sixteen. My first live concert followed a couple of years later and I was extremely impressed with not just the music, but the sound of the music - live concerts were my only opportunity back in the 50s to listen in Hi-Fi which nowadays is quite easy to obtain in the home. But unlike Aquarelle I was blown away by the appearance of the orchestra and how smart they all looked. Their harmonised appearance has always for me added to the feeling of unison in the playing. I loved the whole experience, visually, sonically and emotionally. I was not taken to concerts by my parents, in fact it was I who started taking them with me.

I don't think the cost of a concert then was for me any cheaper than it is for young people today. LP records were expensive for me whereas today's technology has made recorded music appear very cheap in comparison with live concerts. Young people will always have their priorities on how they spend their limited resources and the fact is that today few place classical concerts high on their list when they can download the latest recording on their iPlayer for peanuts (or less if they are prepared to bend the law a bit!) But then they have to pay a lot more for their car insurance, their drinks and their accommodation than I did so there is bound to be less to spend on "luxuries" like concerts.

I also blame Classic FM (and more lately some Radio 3 programmes) for the way they continually play short bits of classical music. Have a look at the latest Classic FM compilation and see how many extracts there are on the disc as opposed to complete works. The thought of sitting still and listening to over an hour and three quarters of music, consisting of maybe just three works, probably puts off many youngsters who are used to being fed lots of different music in short bits so that (a) they can dip in and out of the radio whenever they feel like it and (b) so that in the case of Classic FM the broadcaster can get the required numbers of irritating adverts in.

So that leaves the concert going to those who can afford it, those who have learned to love all kinds of classical music, those who want to go to be entertained with music they already know and with music they have never heard before, those who still believe that the sound of a live orchestra can never be reproduced in the home, those who want to enjoy the experience of making the effort to go and listen to famous performers and orchestras, those who want to hear the entirety of a composer's work not just the slow movement, and those who want to enjoy the whole experience of the occasion from the tuning up to the smart visual appearance of the musicians. Sadly not too many of today's younger people fit this description, but I hope they do as they get older so that they can take my place when I can no longer go.