Psychoacoustically Nonclassical

More and more my generation is starting to find alternative ways of making classical music fit in to contemporary society, a way of making the form of presentation more relatable to our interests and our lifestyle. In Nicholas Cook's Music, a Very Short Introduction he makes an interesting point when he says that "Rock stands for youth, freedom, being true to yourself; in a word, authenticity.  Classical music, by contrast, encodes maturity and, by extension, the demands of responsibility to family and to society" (p3).  Rock n' Roll and popular genres are a symbol of youth, independence and rebellion while Classical Music serves as a symbol of maturity and intellect.  Only through the fusion of these two symbols will classical music become more accessible to a rock n roll generation.
This idea has made me think back on the research I did for my thesis on Le Poisson Rouge, an alternative club venue in New York.  Taking classical music out of the traditional venues and using a space which usually caters to other audiences is a great idea and a necessary step in bridging the gap.  It is important to have these venues and to keep trying to push the boundaries of where and how classical music can be performed.  Aside from LPR, the group founded by Gabriel Prokofiev called Nonclassical is also doing similar work in London.  As they explain on their website:

A new music scene is currently emerging in London… Over the last few years ‘classical club-nights’ have started to become a rare but growing feature in the night-life of London. This has been fuelled by the next generation of classical performers, composers and promoters who are redefining the rules, and breaking out of the constraints of the traditional classical concert hall.



At the forefront of this new movement is NONCLASSICAL. Founded by composer Gabriel Prokofiev in 2003, NONCLASSICAL is a club-night, UK based record label, and possibly a new genre of music (according to Rough Trade records). The club-night is at The Horse & Groom (an old music pub in Shoreditch, East London), and the audience is never the typical white-haired classical crowd, but that young-generation of music lovers who are searching for the latest exciting developments in music. Each month innovative and virtuosic young classical musicians from the UK blow away audiences with their incredible musicianship and new compositions. The success of the night partly stems from the fact that it presents Classical as if it were Rock or Electronic music. Bands play through the pub’s PA, everyone has a pint in their hand and perhaps most importantly there are DJs playing throughout the night. Even the most skeptical visitors to the club can’t help but be stimulated by being so close to the high-quality musicianship presented at NONCLASSICAL.

The problem I saw with the work LPR and Nonclassical are doing was that it is easier for a small chamber ensemble to perform in alternative spaces because it is much simpler to physically play in an unusual venue when you’re not an orchestra of thirty-something musicians with instruments to load looking for a stage large enough to hold you and a room vast enough to contain your sound.  So essentially, the smaller alternative space limits the options of music that can be played there.

Today, on the airplane coming back to Barcelona from London I read an article by Guy Gugliotta in the New York Times called "Sound, the Way the Brain Prefers to Hear it".  The article talks about psychoacoustic research being done at the University of Southern California which, through technology speakers etc. can play auditory tricks on the listener making a small room sound like the Symphony Hall in Boston!  The article continues to talk about how this advanced digital technology could hypothetically be used to better hearing aids and such, but I see another outlet.  Couldn't this technology be used in smaller alternative venues and spaces to create the sensation of being in a massive concert hall?  Couldn't this maybe be another step, a vehicle through which classical music could be transported to different nontraditional venues and spaces to reach a more varied and wider audience?