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Live Tweeting the Symphony?

Posted by Soulskill on from the do-not-want dept.

Lasrick writes "Tom Jacobs at Pacific Standard describes desperate attempts to engage with younger audiences on the part of arts organizations who are scrambling to make their productions more interactive. But who really is more engaged: A live-tweeting audience member, or someone staring silently at the stage? Quoting: 'Not surprisingly, many performers and older patrons of the arts hate this idea, which they regard as pandering to the young. But thankfully, the debate over participatory art needn’t devolve into a depressing bout of intergenerational warfare. The controversy raises a number of questions that are hard to answer: Is sustained focus even possible in mass audiences anymore? If not, what have we lost?'"

5 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Key is relevance, not interactivity... by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think the "younger generation" (read: damn kids) necessarily need interactivity. Although they don't watch TV much, they still watch a lot of video. Although they play games, they have an unprecedented tolerance for cutscenes. Just because they tweet all the time does not mean you need to have the tweetstream intertwine with the Now that you present.

    What places like the symphony need are simply content that is more relevant to those they want to attract. It's hard to sell traditional symphonic material to younger crowds, so provide that but also a bit of more contemporary stuff.

    They've already been doing that in a limited way with movie scores. An more advanced form of this is the rock band Guster, who is going around to a few select cities and playing many favorite songs that have been re-cast to work with the full symphony playing. The results are spectacular.

    That way you get younger listeners to understand why you might want to attend a full symphony, and will probably get them to attend more events. But you have to get them interested first.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Key is relevance, not interactivity... by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've heard pretty much all the greatest classical music. It's good, but I've run out, and have had to look elsewhere for new material. Symphony orchestras aren't the place to look. They seem more interested in telling you that you're a dirty rotten pirate for even thinking of recording the music as they play, even when it's over 100 years old. The Meyerson in Dallas is plastered with signs that say recording devices are not allowed. They really seem to fear that if digital recordings leak out, there won't be anything left for them to play. Lame. No young person will have much sympathy for that attitude. I sure don't feel their phantom pains. Indeed, if they are helping to prop up extreme copyright, I'd as soon see them die. I want to know why they don't seek out new stuff. Is it that they're leaning too hard on copyright? Get out of the rut, quit being so boring. Where's some new material? Who composes orchestral music today?

      Soundtracks have some good stuff-- who could not like the theme to Star Wars? Then there are video games. Established music venues were dismissive until fairly recently, but finally they are recognizing that some games actually have good, original music. I think there's a great future in synthesizing everything. The orchestra as it exists presently is obsolete, and an impediment.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    2. Re:Key is relevance, not interactivity... by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Umm...you don't pay Beethoven or Mozart because they have a copyright. You pay the Dallas Symphony for the performance...their work...it's their job to play music.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    3. Re:Key is relevance, not interactivity... by chihowa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Teens rebel against the older generation, rejecting everything they stand for, and that's a normal and natural phase in their development.

      No, it's not. Maybe in your culture it is, but the rest of the world finds it bizarre. Other languages lack the "teen" suffix to the numbers 13-19 so they don't even know what a "teenager" is. Plenty of older children the world round are well-behaved and wish nothing more than to follow in the footsteps of their parents.

      That's not necessarily a bad aspect of our culture. Rejecting the prior generation's solution to problems when you're young and learning to synthesize your solutions with theirs when you're a little older is why our culture is so great at invention and innovation.

      Some cultures have so much respect for their elders' way of doing things that they continue bizarre rituals and have no idea what they were even supposed to accomplish anymore. The more these cultures emphasize tradition and denigrate rebellion, the less technological and scientific progress seem to come from them.

      This obviously doesn't fully explain the differences between our cultures, but there is clearly some value in bucking the system as a teen (especially when it's followed by the "mature" 20's).

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  2. Hey, brats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This isn't a movie. These are real human beings performing in front of you, for you. Have some decency and be there instead of connecting to someone somewhere else. And GTF off my lawn!