Thursday, May 19, 2005
Audience Cross-Pollination
As an offshoot of Everette's question about whether or not audiences like new music, I'd like to frame the issue in a different way. One of the many music related survey's I'd like to see conducted relates to how much of different people's concertgoing is to what kinds of concerts. I like new music and I like old music, but I can only go so so many concerts in a given time period -- as a result I have to pick and choose, and I'll pick a new music concert far more often than I'll pick an old music concert. There are probably plenty of people like me, and also probably plenty of people who like new music and old music but are far more likely to attend an old music concert than a new music concert. And there are people who only like one and not the other (I won't name names, but I've met both kinds). If we asked people what their usual ratio of old music concerts to new music concerts is, I suspect that far more people lean heavily to one side or the other than straddle the fence. (I also suspect that the population of people who attend mostly old-music concerts is both substantially larger and substantially older on average than the population of people who seek out new music concerts.) If I'm right about this, then Everette's questions are moot, since we actually have two distinct audience populations with two distinct sets of characteristics. Audiences who focus on old music might well hear new music and enjoy it, but since it's not their primary interest they could still prefer it not be programmed. And since there are so many more people interested primarily in old music than in new music, basic finance dictates that many musicians and ensembles will cater to the old music crowd regardless of their interest in new music. And the answer to "Why do so many performers or ensembles refuse to program new music?" is that they play in old-music focused ensembles. If my model is correct, an ensemble or musician is better off focusing heavily on one or the other because the population that is interested equally in both is the smallest population of all.
I am, of course, painting with a very broad brush, and engaging in wild speculation here -- which is exactly why I'd love to see some professional polling group put together a really smart set of probing questions and run the poll. If anybody knows of existing polling along these lines, I'd be very curious to see it.
posted by Galen H. Brown
1:17 AM
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