Drama to be eradicated from Radio 3

[Serial_Apologist]

'Gateway' theory remains a pious hope, in my opinion, with no reference to experience. The real hope is contained in your key line, "when you show people how..."

Getting people's brains working in a new way will make those lightbulbs go on. Repeating the same passive listening without thought will merely harden a glass ceiling.

I've found that once people start deepening an interest and knowledge in complex subjects (such as politics) their desire for more sophisticated music begins to take off, and they leave their "obsession" with pop chart music behind, often with some embarrassment at what they have, in their words, wasted years on.

[smittims]

I too suspect that Radio 3 doesn't know what kind of audience it wants; just that they've been told to get a bigger one at all costs, if possible by still pretending to be 'the home of classical music' however orwellian that trope gets to sound as its definition is stretched to breaking point.

[Master Jacques]

You could play Elton to the end of time and not be able to tackle a Scriabin etude . That is seriously difficult stuff. A better analogy would be a grade 6 Chopin piece. On the listening side I do think the better pop music is a good gateway into classical music . When you show people how the building blocks are the same there is a moment that they get the connection.

'Gateway' theory remains a pious hope, in my opinion, with no reference to experience. The real hope is contained in your key line, "when you show people how..."

Getting people's brains working in a new way will make those lightbulbs go on. Repeating the same passive listening without thought will merely harden a glass ceiling.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Technique is one thing: we start with simple exercises and expand our technique with practice. But listening is quite another: giving children Elton John to listen to won't prime their brains for Scriabin. They need the expert enthusiast to say, "hey, just listen to the fantastic things Scriabin does with this little scrap of melody...." which might enthuse them to the kind of active listening needed, if they're to get something richer out of the music.

You could play Elton to the end of time and not be able to tackle a Scriabin etude . That is seriously difficult stuff. A better analogy would be a grade 6 Chopin piece. On the listening side I do think the better pop music is a good gateway into classical music . When you show people how the building blocks are the same there is a moment that they get the connection.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I would suggest that you don't learn 'excellent sight reading skills' without working hard at it.

Well playing stuff like that doesn’t feel like work. Nor does playing any half decent piece of music even Czerny exercises .

The specially constructed ABRSM sight reading tests* definitely are “hard work” because they don’t make sense as music and are of zero musical interest. And how much of a test are they ? Even the grade eight ones are easier than sight reading a complex jazz chart.

* to ensure you haven’t played them before.

[Master Jacques]

Well I spent years playing Beatles and Elton John songs on the piano and it was a crucial factor in developing excellent sight reading skills.
Just got to work on the technique a bit .

Technique is one thing: we start with simple exercises and expand our technique with practice. But listening is quite another: giving children Elton John to listen to won't prime their brains for Scriabin. They need the expert enthusiast to say, "hey, just listen to the fantastic things Scriabin does with this little scrap of melody...." which might enthuse them to the kind of active listening needed, if they're to get something richer out of the music.

[french frank]

Well I spent years playing Beatles and Elton John songs on the piano and it was a crucial factor in developing excellent sight reading skills.
Just got to work on the technique a bit .

I would suggest that you don't learn 'excellent sight reading skills' without working hard at it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Wise words. They pinpoint the fallacy of the ever-hopeful "tempt them in with sweeties and they might try a full main course" line of argument, which is trotted out with boring predictability. It's more accurate to say, that if you keep feeding them sweeties their teeth will rot.

Well I spent years playing Beatles and Elton John songs on the piano and it was a crucial factor in developing excellent sight reading skills.
Just got to work on the technique a bit .

[Master Jacques]

As a teacher of a subject area that was thought of as 'difficult, I found that the more you demanded of students, the more they gave - not least because they had to, but the point is that they were capable of it if stretched.

Wise words. They pinpoint the fallacy of the ever-hopeful "tempt them in with sweeties and they might try a full main course" line of argument, which is trotted out with boring predictability. It's more accurate to say, that if you keep feeding them sweeties their teeth will rot.

[french frank]

I'm not sure that Radio 3 really knows what kind of audience it wants. It would be nice to think that at least some people who enjoy Breakfast and Essential Classics might be tempted to try the afternoon or evening offerings.

What makes you think they don't listen to the afternoon miscellany? Back c 2000 R3 'hoped' (did they really?) that people who tuned in for the new Late Junction would develop a taste for 'the other treats' [sic] which R3 had to offer.The audience research showed they switched R3 on for Late Junction and then switched over to another station (nowadays it seems to be also Unclassified then over to 6 Music), and grumbled about how the rest of R3 was 'unlistenable'.

As a teacher of a subject area that was thought of as 'difficult, I found that the more you demanded of students, the more they gave - not least because they had to, but the point is that they were capable of it if stretched.

[french frank]

I'm not sure that Radio 3 really knows what kind of audience it wants.

A big one.

[LMcD]

The changes to the music output have happened over years, so adjustments happened gradually, although not without grumbling. The April assault was more sudden and dramatic, but in some respects possibly provoked less reaction than might otherwise have been the case because of the desensitisation of preceding years. The dropping of drama - in effect going from something to nothing in one fell swoop - is rather different, and more akin to the attempt to get rid of the BBC Singers. The years of downgrading the music offer is the frog boiling scenario, whereas the the dropping of drama is more akin to killing a lobster.
In the past I did try communicating both negative and also positive views on programmes, but when it got to the stage where there wasn't even an auto-response saying they were too busy to bother replying I gave up, and since the April assault there seems even less point in trying to communicate. I am not the audience wanted, or at which the current R3 is aimed, not least because I can't make use of Sounds.

I'm not sure that Radio 3 really knows what kind of audience it wants. It would be nice to think that at least some people who enjoy Breakfast and Essential Classics might be tempted to try the afternoon or evening offerings. The earliest I'm likely to tune in is 12.00 on Sundays, and 13.00 on Mondays if I like the look of the Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concert, returning at 19.30 if the evening concert appeals. I'm happy to say that there have been three crackers so far this week. Night Tracks and 'Round Midnight are firm favourites. During the evening I record any TV programmes of interest and watch them during the day at times when I used to listen to Radio 3.

[oddoneout]

But it does seem to be what most people, many here indeed, actually want. If there's a complaint about the dropping of 'new and old drama' which not available anywhere else, there are fewer complaining about hours on end of ragbag streams of pop-length 'tracks'.

The changes to the music output have happened over years, so adjustments happened gradually, although not without grumbling. The April assault was more sudden and dramatic, but in some respects possibly provoked less reaction than might otherwise have been the case because of the desensitisation of preceding years. The dropping of drama - in effect going from something to nothing in one fell swoop - is rather different, and more akin to the attempt to get rid of the BBC Singers. The years of downgrading the music offer is the frog boiling scenario, whereas the the dropping of drama is more akin to killing a lobster.
In the past I did try communicating both negative and also positive views on programmes, but when it got to the stage where there wasn't even an auto-response saying they were too busy to bother replying I gave up, and since the April assault there seems even less point in trying to communicate. I am not the audience wanted, or at which the current R3 is aimed, not least because I can't make use of Sounds.

[french frank]

n music it seems acceptable to let it just wash all over you.

But it does seem to be what most people, many here indeed, actually want. If there's a complaint about the dropping of 'new and old drama' which not available anywhere else, there are fewer complaining about hours on end of ragbag streams of pop-length 'tracks'.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Given, in the case of some purists, one might say it depends what you mean by 'classical', I think few would bother to claim there was "less" of it. It's the presentation that's the problem (and not automatically the presenters). Fewer full symphonies played, more bits of symphonies; more presenter-led magazine-type snippets programmes, fewer subject-focused programmes; nominally 'classical' programmes, punctuated with anything someone might call 'music', classical or otherwise; more Classic FM-type warhorses (Overture to Candide, The Lark Ascending, Dvořák Slavonic Dances in one form or another, all played on average twice a month in the last year).

But a major disagreement (and I'd claim to be in a minority here!) is whether Radio 3 should just broadcast the music with little or no critical comment, analysis or discussion programming. Music education isn't just a question of 'Here's a composer/piece of music you haven't heard before and here's one relevant factoid'. Some people will say there's too much chat/speech content. I would say that it depends what is said: chummy presenter chat - No, musicological information - Yes.

Yes you’ve put your finger on a major change. Forty years musical explication and analysis were common. Now they’ve disappeared from Radio 3 except on Record Review . As I’ve said at boring length before in other genres e,g, football , rugby , and natural history (especially Springwatch largely because of fact obsessed Chris Packham ) such detailed analysis is not frowned upon . Uniquely in music , presenter or expert analysis is felt to be distancing, “too difficult” . It’s a long time since I’ve even heard such basic concepts as recapitulation, modulation discussed. In contrast on Springwatch one might encounter terms like separation feeding , niche evolution etc. Those are moderately difficult concepts to understand but in music it seems acceptable to let it just wash all over you.