Last night I brought a non-musician friend along to a wind quintet concert. As I sat listening to the creative harmonies and tonal colors, the weaving melodic lines, I couldn't help but wonder: What does this mean (if anything) to my friend?
Did they have any idea what was going on? Was it a string of pretty, albeit meaningless, sounds, or did were they able to connect to anything they heard?
This certainly isn't meant to imply that persons who may not have extensive exposure to classical - or should I say non-popular - music are ignorant, but I wondered how relate-able classical music is to the average layperson.
How can we classical or formally-trained musicians show others that classical music isn't a stodgy thing? The innocent comment of my friend has been bugging me: "I know I'm not cultured about this stuff but..."
I don't like that people feel that they have to be 'cultured', 'intelligent enough', and 'classy' enough to enjoy classical music. I like the work that Classical Revolution (classicalrevolution.org) has been doing to bring the classical into the vernacular.
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