Better Not
Now that classical music organizations are dedicating themselves with renewed vigor to reaching new audiences and engaging existing ones, it is time to get rid of a longstanding rhetorical habit. One of the most common descriptive terms associated with classical music has become a scourge, and a seemingly innocuous point of semantics has profoundly affected the way this music is perceived by outsiders and appreciated by initiates.
The word under indictment is “better,” and I am convinced we would do ourselves a great service by purging this word from our collective vocabulary as it pertains to classical music.
About me
Before I explain why, a few words are in order about my musical background and tastes. I am a conductor, percussionist, and entrepreneur. My company, Symphonic Voyages, is putting on a themed cruise vacation for classical music lovers in January of 2011, and the ideas expressed below are fundamental to the experience SV will provide. I listen to pop music, jazz, and classical music, in chronological order of discovery, and have performed professionally in each of these genres in a wide variety of contexts, along with extended unpaid stints in early music and Ghanaian drumming ensembles.
One might assume from this résumé that I plan to rehash the standard “greatness in all genres” arguments, with references to the Beatles and John Coltrane, in an attack on the “of COURSE classical music is superior” school of thought. But in fact I want no part of this debate. The quality of classical music is not in question, and is not relevant to this discussion. Instead, my interest is in what the word “better” actually communicates.
Let us suppose that classical music could be proven through objective scientific measurement to be greater than the musical creations of all other genres. Even in this scenario, the “fact” of classical music’s superiority is defeated by a more powerful fact of human nature: People do not base their opinions on rational analysis. Instead, facts are used selectively to justify opinions already formed. This is no original insight of mine; Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People repeatedly stresses the futility of attempting to force agreement through argumentation. His first principle of “How To Win People to Your Way of Thinking” is “The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.”
What “better” implies
By telling someone classical music is “better” than the music they currently enjoy, we are criticizing that person’s judgment and putting them in a position of inferiority. This is not the way to reach new audiences. Furthermore, after years of marketing in which this sort of value judgment was made deliberately and explicitly, classical music has become associated with snobbery in the public eye. Emphasizing “better” only confirms the lay listener’s most negative assumptions about our art form – and the people who enjoy it.
The solution lies with a simple but powerful shift of semantics: Instead of saying “better,” say “good.” Or since “good” isn’t terribly high praise, say “great” or “fantastic” or “magnificent” or “badass” or “transcendental” – any positive descriptor that avoids the comparative form. Would you like to hear something fantastic? Of course – who wouldn’t? Notice how what was a veiled attack has become an invitation any reasonable person would gladly accept.
Unfortunately, the “better” issue is not only a problem for potential audiences. It is at the core of classical music culture, and places undue constraints on the ways our current listeners relate to the music and its performers.
How “better” dehumanizes
By viewing history’s great composers and our own virtuoso performers through the lens of “better” and “best,” we push them and the audiences who appreciate their work in opposite directions. The composers are transformed into gods, with performers as their high priests transmitting holy scripture. The audience in turn becomes the great unwashed, passively receiving the divine message of redemption. In each case, a degree of humanity is lost.
This has been especially damaging to contemporary music’s presence in society. The classical music audience is full of accomplished, highly educated men and women who have become completely disenfranchised from their natural aesthetic reactions after years of hearing the unfortunate message that since classical music is ipso facto “better,” if they don’t like what they’re hearing it’s because they don’t know enough. Not wishing to present themselves as under-educated, or to be grouped with the “fools” who didn’t appreciate Beethoven or Brahms in their time (fools, by the way, like Goethe and George Bernard Shaw), they choose to avoid new music altogether. What should be a vibrant cultural conversation is reduced to specialists talking among themselves in a niche within a niche.
I say let’s flatten the hierarchical pyramid we’ve created by emphasizing the humanity of our genius composers. The most popular film ever made about classical music is Amadeus, because it is a portrait of a real person with human flaws and foibles who happened to write sublime music. Let’s have more of our virtuosos reveal themselves candidly as individuals rather than machines of superhuman perfection. (I can think of no better example than Jeremy Denk’s superb blog.) Let’s make each performance of contemporary music a forum for discussion, led by the composer whenever possible, in which listeners from all backgrounds are encouraged to form and express their own opinions. We’ll be doing just that on Symphonic Voyages with composer-in-residence and friend of Adaptistration, Alex Shapiro.
I’d like to conclude with another of Carnegie’s principles, which neatly summarizes the primary theme of his marvelous little book: “Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely. ” There is still much progress to be made on this front, but as purveyors of classical music we are blessed with a truly great product. It simply doesn’t need to be “better.”
Filed Under: Featured • Guest Posts
About the Author: Eric Stassen is the founder and president of 
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Adaptistration is authored by orchestra consultant Drew McManus and since its launch in 2003, the blog has become standard reading for arts administrators and arts administration programs throughout the world.
OK. I LOVE the reference to Dale Carnegie and how Goethe and Shaw got their respective knickers in a twist by forward-looking Beethoven and rearward-looking Brahms.
There is just no pleasing some people!
Seriously, this short piece should be required reading for the entire orchestral community. Unless elitism and snobbery are critical to success in audience development and fund raising we would do well to jettison them.
After all, does one take friends who love Chinese food to a Thai restaurant and claim they are doing so because Thai cuisine is “better”? This is a judgment that one must come to on his or her own.
Thanks, Chris! And I’m glad you made a food analogy, since I think there are numerous parallels between food and music appreciation. For example, if you’re trying to convince your friend of the merits of Thai cuisine, you can spend as much time as you like discussing the chef’s iconic status, the superb quality of the ingredients, how the dish perfectly balances contrasting flavors, how street food has been ingeniously transformed into high culinary art — and none of it means a thing if they don’t like how it tastes.
Well said, Eric!
Great piece – lots of food for thought! Not sure if this thread is getting attention from Eric still, but wanted to offer another word/framework in our vocabulary that we should reconsider: art.
Even if we stop saying ‘better’, when we talk about what we do as art, aren’t we still invoking a very real hierarchy? In my mind at least, this hierarchy places our pursuit at the top of a path, and valuable to society on that merit, with mere ‘entertaining’ some steps below.
This is not to say that trying to do or say something sincere, or profound or heartfelt with the sounds we make is wrong. Lots of musicians see their work in that way. But they probably don’t use words like ‘transcendental’ much, even if they hope their fans do!
Unlike us, when talking about their work publicly the default setting for many musicians is to talk about ‘my music’ rather than ‘my art’. That seems the better attitude to me.
Eric’s piece is terrific, in part because he dares to say something that many other artists are loathe to admit, lest the dreamy, obscuring scrim be yanked up: everyone, artist or not, puts their pants on one leg at a time (ok, at least, if they’re standing up). The longstanding tradition of honoring those whose creative muses scream a tad louder than others is at once lovely, and potentially stultifying.
I’m not the Alex who commented above, but she or he brings up an interesting point about how loaded they feel the very word “art” is. I don’t quite agree; after all, it is simply a description of that which we create. But I certainly observe the occasional twinge [read: severe, uncontrollable tic] in colleagues when raising the point that one can create very good art and also be an entertainer at the same time. In fact, if we create art in order to communicate, then it stands to reason we’d like to hold our audience’s attention and, well, entertain them. As in, rivet them. Inspire them. Take them on a journey to some place inside of themselves that without our art, they might not have visited.
The term “entertainment” is viewed by some as a low-class, low-art, base level pursuit. But as a composer with very high personal aesthetic ideals, I’m proud to strive for the goal of also being an entertainer, in the best and most expansive sense of the word. I can put my pants on one leg at a time in the most artistic and entertaining manner, should anyone ever happen to ask. And hey, if you book yourself onto Eric’s terrific Symphonic Voyages cruise this January, you might even get to watch, at poolside!
“What should be a vibrant cultural conversation is reduced to specialists talking among themselves in a niche within a niche.”
Thank you, Eric, for bringing out one of the ugly truths about classical music, and contemporary classical, specifically. Reaching the audience does not mean that the composer compromises his or her music. I recently had a multimedia oratorio “Creation” performed. The music was quite complicated and by no means “dumbed down,” yet the audience (and the college performers) truly appreciated the work. Why? Because it spoke to them. Amidst dissonances, mixed poly rhythms, and mixed languages, they understood the work. It was created for them.
I think that the classical music camp is divided: those that want to reach out to new audiences, those that want to keep to classical music traditions, and those in-between. Orchestras perform video game music, collaborations between pop and classical musicians abound, composers write for the i-Phone, and classical concerts include 3D animation and multimedia.
I could continue, but I think I would be repeating what you have already stated.
Thank you again,
Sabrina Peña Young
Composer
Much thanks to the Alexes for your positive feedback, and for continuing the discussion!
I think “art” by definition includes any object or experience produced by consciously creative effort. The problem is that even utilitarian objects like paper clips at one point had creative thought applied to them. So we end up with a culturally accepted “I know it when I see it” definition of art — perhaps things that have exclusively, or primarily, an aesthetic function? But what about architecture? — from there, it’s a slippery slope to capital “A” Art, at which point we’re right back again at the “better” issue.
Thanks also to Sabrina — your comment wasn’t yet posted when I wrote this morning’s reply, but I like what you’re saying and I’m glad you’re in on the conversation.
Thanx Eric for beautifully articulating how easily we turn new audiences off!
I’m in the progressive, new audience camp and ocassionally find a chance to invite my colleagues to lay down the erudite words and talk about themselves and composers as fallible human beings to new audiences. I learned that most newbies don’t distinguish between high and low art. Taken a step further, I believe that many newbies view a certain RAWNESS, even mistakes, as a sign of AUTHENTICITY! Visual cues also go a long way to helping audiences connect. We do it in chamber music, why not orchestras? Let’s be WARM!
Anyway, I’ve got an analogy for us that might help newbies take that ride.
Roughly, if pop music is like a fast powerboat, classical music is like a sailboat. The ride in a powerboat is short, exhilarating, loud, and driven by a mechanical, driving propeller (drums).
Whereas the sailboat ride alternates moods: sometimes quiet, sometimes stormy, it uses natural physics (acoustic) to seek adventure. We can’t sail directly upwind, we have to struggle manually and this sometimes leads to cathartis. The analogy is helped by the perceived anachronism of both sailing and classical music.
I hope this proves useful.