Oh Twitter. I woke up this morning to a message from a German performance group called ZEE (Zaboura Eichstaedt Experience) who informed me that they performed with iPhones BEFORE the U of M concert. I felt kind of bad for my mistake, until I saw that they were an “orchestra” of 12. Now, I just have questions:
- Is an ensemble of 12 considered an orchestra? Maybe they were the first “Chamber Orchestra”, which would mean that U of M can keep their title!
- Why do colleges and groups like ZEE insist on using an antique word like “orchestra” to describe such innovative ideas? Is it to make the group seem more credible? I guess that makes sense to an extent, but it reminds me of music schools that have groups with names like “Rock Combo” or “Latin Ensemble”. Do you use those names help keep the riff-raff out of your institutions?
Colleges and “legitimate” musicians: quit being pretentious and come up with names that reflect the spirit of your group! We’re all creative people, so that SHOULDN’T be hard. If the music is good, it won’t matter if you call your group “The Glennhaven Conservatory Festival Portable iTelephone Konsort” or “Band of Geeks”, because people will respect you for what really matters: the quality of the performance…
…and if the music is lousy, don’t desecrate the word “orchestra”. ;-)
Learn more about ZEE at http://www.zeeing.de/home.htm. For a quick peek at a school with great ensemble names, take a look at the Berklee Ensemble Department homepage (and then send them a note asking to remove the word “ensemble” from all the names).
#1 by B. Eichstaedt / ZEE on December 6, 2009 - 7:32 am
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Thanks for this great post. First of all, please forgive me, if not everything I answer is perfect English, I am not a native speaker :-) You came up with a very good question. If you look at our website, you will find the fact, that we do not name it "orchestra" on our site. Usually naming things in a certain "category" is making it more "findable" for people who might be interested in it. Also there is a certain tendency of the media, not the artists!, to name things the "first of its kind", "the tallest of its kind" etc. We just wanted to question that. Also we were not the first ones to perform with iPhones in a group. And Michigan was not the first "orchestra", not even the first big orchestra (I think they are not THAT big also) – as they clearly state on their website. But: how you name things within your own sphere should clearly be different of the categories you use to "sell" it to the world. Who will listen if you say: we have a great thing, we gave it a crazy name – nobody will find out from this name, what "category" it is. … if you act like this, you will lose alot of people on the way… but: lets discuss it :-)
#2 by bryanwegman on December 7, 2009 - 5:46 pm
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Bjoern, thanks for the thoughtfulness of your reply. Your English is fine, and definitely much better than my German ;) I certainly understand the need to market music and art just as one would market any other "product". I know there are people who don't like to think of art this way, but let's face it, if you want to make a living in art, you have to sell SOMETHING. Coming up with catchy, descriptive names is a key component of marketing almost anything!
That being said, my question centered around a gripe I have with most music schools, which is their tendency to value musical preservation over musical innovation. We categorize music not just to make it easier to find, but also to separate "art music" from "popular music". For better or worse, many musically-educated folks take that to mean "good music" vs "bad music". The unwritten rule is that a formal music education somehow means that the educatee will create better music than his/her uneducated counterparts. Even though musician often SAY we don't give preference to other trained musicians, the truth is, we do. Such is the case with the iPhone "orchestra", which wouldn't have garnered NEARLY as much publicity if it weren't called an orchestra.
I find the preservationist attitude especially frustrating in light of the way other departments in universities function. Think about degree programs like psychology, mathematics, science, philosophy, business, medicine, etc. They honor, respect, teach, and learn the history of their discipline, but they spend most of their efforts trying to advance the field through research. In most music schools, they have you choose from a Jazz/Popular course of study or a Classical course of study. Either way, 98% of your coursework will be based around looking back on how things have been done in the past.
I know we have a lot to learn from our musical history, but we got to where we are today because people pushed boundaries. From what I remember in MY music history classes, most of the composers we studied had a pretty serious "F-you" attitude towards the status quo. Yet in music school, those same kind of people are often seen as a problem. You'd think by now we'd respect them a little more than our ancestors respected the same. Thankfully, I was a percussionist in music school, so I was involved in one of the most innovative studios at the school. I'm grateful to see so many percussion programs leading the way in musical innovation at their colleges. However, I would like to see even more from percussionists, and I'd REALLY like to see that same spirit permeate the rest of most college's music programs. This is why I first wrote about the iPhone class at the University of Michigan. I wanted to showcase a school who was willing to try something really new and different.
As I looked at ZEEing and thought more about the whole idea of an "iPhone orchestra", I realized that we still have far to go before we no longer need to use words like orchestra to make new ideas seem legitimate. Sure, it's a nice term to use with the general public to drum up publicity, but the same thing goes on when schools use formal language to name jazz, latin, rock, etc. groups. They're innovating by forming groups in contemporary genres, but they can't quite let go of the security blanket provided by words like, "ensemble".
I'd LOVE to see a well-known music school stand up and break away from this.
Thanks again for your thoughts, Bjoern. I hope you appreciate mine. If anyone else is following this conversation, I'd love to hear from you too!
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#3 by Bryan W on December 28, 2009 - 11:24 am
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Sure! You’re welcome to quote my post. Just please put a link back to singplaysurvive.com. Thanks for stopping by. And you can find me on Twitter @bryanwegman