Hey there Scott. First off, thanks for your response on another thread
concerning historicl standards of pitch. I should have guessed that
your situation involved a renaiscance or barouque chamber group, as i
am familiar with that. I remember also reading out of the Helmholtz
book years ago, I'll have to check it out again now, at your
suggestion.
I'm familiar with the "200 warhorses" syndrome re classical music and,
unfortunately, it's not just the radio, but symphony orchestras in
many cases, as well. Here's why. The boards of directors for both the
classical music radio stations and the symphony are comprised of
people of great wealth who, unfortunately, know little about music.
They "know" that Mozart was the "best" ever, so, guess what era makes
up 80 % of the playlist at WDAV Davidson college (NC) here? Classical
era music is neat, tidy, and orderly, and that is their notion of what
classical music is "supposed" to be like. Play some Charles Ives and
they say, in 'valley-girl' tone, "ewwwwwwwwww, whats thaaaaaaaaaat?".
The other 20% of the playlist are the warhorses from other eras. Bless
their souls, that is 'outre' or 'getting wacky!' for them.
In Atlanta, Joel Levy got run out of town by this crowd. The title of
"musical director/conductor" is slowly becoming merely titular,
regarding the fist part, as these boards are insidiously arrogating
the 'musical direction' part to themselves.
Back to radio. These do-gooders consider that they are doing a civic
duty in sustaining music that otherwise could fall by the wayside and,
unfotunately, that is at least partially true. On the other hand, how
much good are they actually doing for the longterm viability of
classical music when nothing gets played now that would interest a
young person? When i was a teenager, i listened to Deep Purple, Jethro
Tull, Alice Cooper, Fairport Convention, Led Zep, Elton John, Yes, the
good, bad, ugly, cheap, 'progressive', and all points inbetween. There
was no brow high or low enough for me. It was in this spirit that i
would tune in the classical music station on a semi-regular basis.
Though a particular era got more playlist for a couple or three months
at a time, i regularly heard music from all eras then. And this slowly
changing emphasis was great, because it allowed me to "grok" what that
era of music was about. It takes awhile for the 'sensibilities' of a
particular style of music to settle in before you 'understand' it.
What do kids have nowadays?, Well, an appropriate motto for my local
station could easily be; "All Motzart! All The Time!". *heavy sigh,
.........*. How do we expext the venturesome kids of today to listen to
_that_ for any length of time? or want to tune it in again?
When i was a kid, in the 'get-stoned-listen-to-music' sessions at my
house, i'd sometimes put on some classical record (i actually
purchased one or two a year, after buying all that other stuff, and
there was my mom's colletion). Sometimes i'd get an "eww, yuk, what's
thaaat?" reaction. (those are the ones on the boards of directors of
symphony and classical music radio stations now), but other times i'd
get an *interested* "what's that?" reaction. I'd say "it's Bach! ya
gotta hear this!" It might be one movement of a Brandenburg or a
Violin Concerto in E Major, and i'd say, "no! listen! this is 'rock
and roll' in 1705 or 1715! isn't it? listen!".
I'd jump up and down, get all excited, and a few would say "yeah!
you're right! it IS rock and roll! that's neat!", etc. Or, the Toccata
and Fugue in D Minor, and i'd say, "hey! listen! this is like "Inna
Godda Dovina", but a hundred times better!"
For those that enjoyed the experience, they'd look all 'spaced out',
as we used to say, afterwards, and say "no, it's 1,000 times better,
.........". I loved introducing people to these things, and one or two
would ask how i knew about all this. Back then, there was a radio
station i could point them to.
So then, no good news here for classical music, either radio or the
local symphony, but good news elswise re the radio. WNCW from
Isothermal College in Spindale NC spins a polyglot playlist of most
all contemporary music, other than classical.
Bands-you-never-heard-of, to Radiohead, to some bluegrass version of
Prince's "Raspberry Beret" (honest), to
another-band-you-never-heard-of, to Tori Amos, to, .......; it's like
that all week.
But the fun part is weekends, where it's primarily folk, bluegrass,
gospel, old blues, 'traditional', etc. Huge collection of archived
78's. All the Jimmy Rogers you'd ever want. lol
However, what's *really* nice is that they have live bands, in the
studio, broadcasting live! THIS is what radio is about, folks! "Radio
Hour" at it's finest. Interveiw and congenial chat, before, inbetween
songs, and a nice plug for their concerts that week.
I used to be able to hear live broadcasts of symphony concerts in
years past. The sound quality of a live radio broadcast, even with
mediocre gear on both ends, exceeds that of even 'direct to disc' or
Mercury 'living presence' records. My folks lived near Chicago some
years ago. and i got to hear WFMT, one of the best sound quality FM
stations in the country. My Cassette tape recording of a couple of
their live broadcasts resides alongside the aforementioned records as
a 'reference' for me ( I hauled my Tandberg up there on one visit,
just for the purpose).
Oh well, i realize that the instigating question was bogus, but i'll
say that if i had to choose between television or radio, (yeah, i know
it was 'PBS or NPR') my TV would be in the trash bin right now. It's
comming close to that anyway.
Live radio beats even "Austin City Limits" or "Soundstage" any day of
the week.
JF
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