The art of diversification - crossover of music styles

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Spring, 1998 by William L. Cahn

There's a new blending of genres in music...or is it old?

This article first appeared in Ensembles Canada newsletter (Vol. 2 Issue 1) and is reprinted with the kind permission of Orchestras Canada and the author. William Cahn is a member of the Nexus percussion ensemble.

We are living in a time of cultural revolution. Classical musicians in India are performing 1,000-year-old compositions using digital-sampling keyboards; tribal musicians in South Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia are embracing musical forms and performing on instruments of North American "pop" music; white "pop" musicians like Paul Simon and chamber ensembles in Europe and North America are programming Brazilian, West African and Indonesian forms and styles; North American symphony orchestras are devoting substantial portions of their seasons to music that in the past was associated with Broadway, New Orleans, Nashville or Las Vegas; "Pop" recording stars like Elvis Costello are including string quartets in their music.

The tearing down of labels and the' increasing "crossover" of styles is one of the most significant trends in music today, and it is evident in all musical forms. However, this merging of musical styles and forms is not new. The process has been continual throughout the history of music.

Seven hundred years ago, European Crusaders returned from their wars in the Middle East with Arabian and Persian musical instruments. These instruments found their way into all genres of European art music. Turkish instruments and sounds were embraced by Mozart and Beethoven. Claude Debussy composed whole-note scales in his music shortly after attending the Paris Exposition at which an Indonesian gamelan orchestra was performing.

The process of assimilation has been ongoing, but the increased speed with which the process is taking place is new. The blurring of genre barriers has been accelerated by the electronic revolution and world-wide instantaneous communications. Easy access to the world's music through television, compact discs and "net-surfing" with computers makes it possible and desirable for listeners to seek more diversity - to sample one thing and then go on to the next. If listeners are less willing to pitch their tent in one place to listen to an entire programme within the confines of a single genre, musicians too are seeking a greater diversity in content.

Fred Miller, (a Bostonian who specializes in change management) says that Baby Boomers have an 'options mentality' in which they demand choices. That's why you're seeing so many short and varied symphony subscription series-the six-pack or sampler strategy that has strengthened ticket sales. According to Miller, the next boundary (for orchestras) to push is: moving form the all-symphonic series to one that would cross arts boundaries, mixing and matching an orchestra performance with a movie, a dance event, maybe even sports. Offer them a six-pack that's not all Coke" [Symphony Magazine, July 1996].

The suggestion is being made that symphony orchestras should embrace marketing approaches that previously have been considered the province of that other music - popular music. Changing economic pressures are driving performing artists and institutions to think more about marketing. The ability to reach the broadest possible audience is increasing in importance, as is the necessity of presenting programmes - or a set of programmes as Miller suggests - that can appeal to a multiplicity of "niche" tastes.

For years, Nexus, the Toronto-based percussion group, has been utilizing this concept. The necessity of merging diverse elements was evident at the very formation of the ensemble in 1971, perhaps as a result of the group's interest in percussion instruments from all over the world - instruments that were constructed to serve music in a wide range of differing cultural contexts. Interest in diverse percussion instruments naturally progressed to an interest in the diversity of performance techniques and musical styles from which those instruments rose.

Nexus learned from experience that a programme containing a diversity of music - for example, West African drumming, minimalist music, 1920s novelty ragtime, free-form improvisation, and serious chamber music - is more likely to have a positive impact on a greater number of listeners than a programme devoted to just one style of music.

It is evident that eclectic programming has been successful before. The intent was certainly to attain the broadest appeal possible in the context of a single live-performance programme - a high priority in any market-driven model.

Nexus has put forward the idea of diversity in its "mini-residencies" as well. The group's 1966 mini-residency in Kitchener, Ontario was hosted by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra. A variety of programmes were presented at the Raffi Armenian Theatre, each targeted towards a distinct group of listeners, but within each programme there was also a diversity of content intended to bring both the familiar and the unfamiliar to each listener's ears: