# Professional Classical Musicians v.s. Amateur Classical Audiences



## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Hello People,

I am recently been interested in a topic. I started to believe that the people who love Classical Music and listen to it as a hobby is actually a group distinctively different with professional Classical Musicians who work in Classical Music as an occupation. These two groups rarely overlap--maybe just under 10% of the Classical Musicians will be fanatic lovers of Classical Music like those on TC. Also, I've noticed that these two groups of people are also quite different in their musical knowledge, opinions towards many music, ways to interpret music, and so on. So what do you think? I am creating a poll with a scale of 1-5. If you believe these two groups are distinctive and never have common characteristics, then vote 5. If you believe Classical Musicians and hobby listeners have many characteristics in common, vote 1. I will be looking forward to your opinions.

Kevin


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Being a classical listener requires only slightly above average musical knowledge. Being a classical musician requires skill well beyond that of an average musician. First and foremost, one must be able to sight read. The vast majority of pop musicians are illiterate, or at least functionally so. And to be a proficient classical musician requires starting young.....unless one is some kind of genius. Music class was eliminated from most elementary school curricula decades ago. The only reason my niece is a more rounded musician than most kids her age is she attends a charter school. All kids there have to learn a musical instrument at the elementary level.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I would vote 5, but I don't like how the poll is worded. I think they're very different, the main dividing line is that for musicians, music is their job, while for hobbyists, its just a hobby.

I've talked to some classical musicians, or ex-musicians, and one thing is that its hard to earn a living from it. The other is that it eats up your time (studying scores, practicing, rehearsing, performing, recording) and can impact on your social life (you're playing gigs, often at night, when you could be going out).

Hobbyist listeners, of whatever level, don't have these pressures. If their job is unrelated to music, then music can offer a retreat from reality, as hobbies do. They can delve into it, even to an obsessive degree, because it provides respite from their day job.

This isn't to say that there's a strict line which divides musicians from hobbyists. Its obvious that I don't share the same priorities as a hobbyist with others in my group. Maybe a way to see it is that there are people sharing similar characteristics, or archetypes, within in each group.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

I would have voted 5 as well. I think the difference between professional and non-professional really changes one's perspective on Classical Music completely.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

None of the above for me.

I have found that a professional musician listens to a piece of music differently than a non-musician. A musician's ears are not better, they are different. 

I have been in situations where a non-musician will pick up things that I miss.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I don't think about this question nor am I interested in it.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I can't vote - none of those make sense to me. There is indeed a vast gulf between the serious classical listeners and the average orchestral player. Those of us on this site probably love and know more music literature than the average musician can imagine. Many music majors I know spend most of their listening on pop/rock which I find very discouraging. Even skilled, conservatory trained musicians are often illiterate. Conductors - and I know quite a few - are also musically naive. The basic repertoire is what they know and not much else.

When it comes to listening to music the pros too often focus on the technical things: intonation, rhythm, phrasing. The more subjective aspects are unimportant. All that matters is how precise the playing is. 

So is that a 5?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^ The way I see it is that ultimately, musicians will play what they have to. Its true that the majority will mainly focus on the core repertoire, but many musicians also specialise, so they're experts within a certain area of music.

There's a great quote from Andre Previn: "There are a million things in music I know nothing about. I just want to narrow down that figure." I think that's not necessarily him being humble, its more like being realistic.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> ....Conductors - and I know quite a few - are also musically naive. The basic repertoire is what they know and not much else.


Many of them don't even know that...many are virtually clueless regarding how an orchestra should sound, what the possibilities are, or how to get an orchestra to sound a certain way...



> When it comes to listening to music the pros too often focus on the technical things: intonation, rhythm, phrasing. The more subjective aspects are unimportant. All that matters is how precise the playing is.


I have to wonder if the present-day orchestra audition process is responsible for this?? the pre-occupation with precise accuracy??


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I think there's little doubt that most musicians hear music very differently than casual (even passionate) listeners who are not professional musicians. I've experienced some of this change myself simply when I started learning to play guitar. When I started learning guitar I started to pick out a lot of things and nuances in the guitar playing I heard simply from knowing how to play myself and recognizing the similarities. I developed a pretty good intuition about the relative skill level of players, at least in terms of the difficulty of what they were playing, as well as all the techniques being used. This was a pretty radical change to how I used to listen to music before that, which was much more holistic. I've tried to get back in touch with that place where I can listen to music as a more holistic experience rather than one where everything is so differentiated, merely because the two approaches to listening produce very different aesthetics, and some music is better with one rather than the other. 

I'm sure professional musicians probably even have a better ear for hearing certain nuances in music than amateur musicians like myself, but I would stress that I don't think it's an innately better way to listen to music. At the end of the day most of us listen to music for enjoyment and those occasional experiences that are more profound than mere enjoyment, and that can happen regardless of how you listen to music; and there are many instances where the "non-musician" way of listening may be more likely to produce those experiences. Some people seem incapable of turning off their analytical mind when listening to music, and while I don't disparage the act of listening to music analytically I think it's better if that approach comes after our attempts at just experiencing it aesthetically and emotionally first. Stanley Kubrick even once said the same thing about film, comparing it with music: “A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> I don't think about this question nor am I interested in it.


Since I have been a professional musician, performing in several styles including Classical, and an avid Classical music lover, as well as many other genres I can bring some firsthand experience to this question. Most of the musicians I worked with also had relatively large record collections and enjoyed listening to music. Some musicians are incredibly geeky when it comes to certain bands or periods or genres, knowing the history of a band's personnel changes, or the credits in minute detail.

A good friend I went to collage and gigged with, who later became a fairly well known saxophonist, arranger/composer, and record producer, had a huge library of Miles Davis bootlegs, long before the Columbia "metal" boxes came out. In fact, he was a co-producer for several of those sets and brought his encyclopedia knowledge of the sessions to the table.

I also knew a number of orchestral musicians who also were avid music fans, and most often fans of other genres outside of their expertise, i.e. Classical music.

So, I think the OP's premise is limited at best, reductive, and in general flawed.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I don't mean to denigrate anyone, but in some cases I feel there's a gulf, not between professional musicians and non-professional listeners, but between A, 'people who are able to play an instrument (usually a keyboard) and read music' (ie. have 'mental awareness' and 'physical feel' of how various intervals sound) and B, 'people who are (apparently) not able to'.
(I said that "I do think there's a certain correlation between "being able to play an instrument (usually a keyboard) and able to read score" and "having the insight to understand what's written on the score in relation to historical facts" (although there are exceptions)." [post2174739])
I'm slightly disappointed when discussing with people belonging in Category B; we never seem to fully understand each other; for example, when I talk to them about how harmonic styles such as this relate to Mozart's: 



 (I think what comes after this passage, ie. at 9:30, is also expressive, btw). Maybe they (People B) also hear it, but they just don't admit it? I can't know for sure. 
-'If I "like" it, then it's gold, if I don't, then it's trash, period'
-'If it's popular, then it's gold, if it isn't, then it's trash, period'
I understand that music is subjective, but I wish we moved away from this sort of mindset. I can write an endless list of my favorite fruits and colors and whatnot in the Community Forum, but that would tell only about me, but nothing about the fruits and colors themselves.

Also, I agree with Heck148 and mbhaub that conductors can get things wrong. 
Anyone who conducts this way (



) and not this way (



) obviously doesn't know what was meant by Mozart with the expressive gesture. (ie. the historical context and the musical influences & traditions 



). In this, Gardiner and Harnoncourt are simply being obsessed, deluded HIPpies.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Heck148 said:


> I have to wonder if the present-day orchestra audition process is responsible for this?? the pre-occupation with precise accuracy??


That and no-mistakes-allowed recording. We've become so accustomed to flawless performances on record that we expect the same in a live concert. Of course a lot of people are unaware of the re-takes, edits and patching that goes into almost any commercial recording. That's one nice thing about "live recordings" - you get warts and all...which can be really annoying, too.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> That and no-mistakes-allowed recording. We've become so accustomed to flawless performances on record that we expect the same in a live concert. Of course a lot of people are unaware of the re-takes, edits and patching that goes into almost any commercial recording. That's one nice thing about "live recordings" - you get warts and all...which can be really annoying, too.


Most live recordings are composites from a concert series...which is ok - I think one performance will be selected as the best, then any errors, cracked notes, poor entrances can be dubbed in from the other performances...

In the past - "live recordings" were one shot deals - what got played that night is what you get...certainly the Furtwangler, Toscanini, Reiner, Munch era live recordings are from one source...it's amazing how few goofs there are on those older recordings...lots of passion, expression, swinging for the fences - at both ends of the dynamic spectrum...


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Heck148 said:


> Most live recordings are composites from a concert series...which is ok - I think one performance will be selected as the best, then any errors, cracked notes, poor entrances can be dubbed in from the other performances...
> 
> In the past - "live recordings" were one shot deals - what got played that night is what you get...certainly the Furtwangler, Toscanini, Reiner, Munch era live recordings are from one source...it's amazing how few goofs there are on those older recordings...lots of passion, expression, swinging for the fences - at both ends of the dynamic spectrum...


Glenn Gould famously spliced together 2 flawless performances. He mainly liked the activity of "rocking the reels," marking the tape, cutting it apart, and splicing it back together.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

As both a professional musician and audience member, I'd say this depends a lot. In my experience, it also depends on what's being played in the concert, who the performers are (different performers will attract different audiences), and what sort of programme is in question, among other factors. For instance, there's certain contemporary music concerts that will attract literally all of the composers in the city I live in, and then following the concert, this particular crowd will go out for drinks afterwards. Certain performers will also attract specific crowds. If there's more standard classical repertoire on the programme, that also attracts a particular crowd.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

I'll go a step further with the poll and say composers are also quite different to performers who obviously have to specialise in their repertoire in order to become proficient. Composers are more likely to flit across many more genres on the hunt for music, technique and inspiration and as a result be more well-versed and possibly more receptive to, a wider range of music from all periods, instrumentation and styles.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

This is also quite true Mike. However, that does also vary on the performer – and on the instrument! For instance, I know some pianists who have a much more narrow outlook, and prefer to focus on a certain time period with regards to repertoire and what they listen to. I know other pianists who specialize in contemporary music and have a much wider outlook. There's certain instruments that force people to become quite flexible, such as percussion, where there isn't a huge amount of repertoire from past eras, and composers ask them to utilize all sorts of extended techniques and incorporate theatrical elements into their playing.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Orchestral instrumentalists actually are exposed to, and perform quite a variety of music - mainly because of the widespread presentation of "Pops" concerts....these will often include music from different disciplines - jazz, Broadway, rock, folk, film scores, ethnic, etc, etc....as an orchestra musician, it is required that you be familiar and conversant in all of these styles...

Any busy gigger is going to play lots of these concerts....most orchestras in the 2nd, 3rd or lower ranks have regular, or frequent "Pops" concerts presented yearly....and now, many of the top-level orchestras are initiating them as well...


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