super-sized billboard

How do you feel about Big Macs?




This morning as I was driving on the highway I was bombarded by a two-story tall McDonald's chicken sandwich. It popped up out of nowhere, gleaming greasily on a billboard to my right. Scary, right? Even scarier were the words accompanying it. Next to the tomato, in crispy clean white letters, was in the incredulous plea "Please do not eat the billboard."

Eat the billboard? You've got to be kidding me, I thought. It's 9:00 am! I wouldn't even come close to eating a billboard meal from McDonald's, much less a real one.

Besides making me lose my morning appetite, the billboard chicken also got me thinking about advertising, and advertising audiences. If I, like so many other health-nut Californians, are turned off by the idea of McDonald's, exactly which people are turned on by their ads? What was the billboard's target audience?

A. Regular fast-food eaters
B. Occasional fast-food eaters
C. Those who don't eat fast food but want to
D. New vegetarians who are regretting their decision
E. All of the above

The answer, obviously, is E.

McDonald's is a multi-billion dollar franchise because their target audience is 95% of the population. This sounds exaggerated, but really, who doesn't appreciate a hamburger now and then?

This realization was a real downer, an Un-Happy Meal. It just didn't seem fair that the majority of America is willing to eat at McDonald's but not to listen to classical music. Classical music has the same target audience, same methods of advertising and a much healthier product than the fast-food chain, yet people continue to drive by.

Why is it so easy for McDonald's to advertise and sell their malnutritious products when classical music - an object much more worthy of our attention - is going out of business?

the paper solution

To return to a question previously posed in my blog (see here), is classical music dying?

Classical music performers, experts and fans tackle this doozy of a question on a daily basis. They wonder how many people will show for the next Long Beach Symphony concert, or if classical music will ever again equate to the fame of Michael Jackson.

After they wonder, they speculate.

"No... classical music is definitely NOT dying. First of all, its an inanimate object. Second of all, its just too imperative an art form for our society to forget." Or, "I'm sorry, honey, but I have some bad news. Our favorite genre of music is dead, extinct, run over by the Jonas Brother's limo."

After they speculate, they usually call it a night.

(Zzz...)

Except for me. Rather than pouring a late night cocktail and toasting to "better times," when I deduced classical music was lagging behind in the polls I sat down at my laptop and wrote a paper about it! I could not sleep knowing that classical music may or may not die off. The genre is too important to music history and too important to me. So I came up with a solution.

Be on the lookout for a link to my research paper, "Modest Mouse Meets Modest Mussorgsky." Don't worry, it's quite lengthy. You won't miss it.

social bookmarking soulmate

Let me introduce you to my soulmate. That is, my long-lost, web2.0-loving, internet-surfing, classicial-music-blogging, Diigo-using soulmate. Her/his name is Philharmania.

I know what you’re thinking.
“Gosh, she doesn’t even know her soulmate’s gender??”
But let me reassure you, our social bookmarking relationship goes beyond the meager social construct you call gender. This is internet love.

Unsurprisingly, Philharmania primarily bookmarks topics about music. Their top five tags read (from top to bottom) as such:

1. "review" (as in music reviews)
2. "classical"
3. "jpc" (an acronym for "Jazz Pop Classical," a German music sharing website)
4. "musicweb"
5. "music"

Philharmania is undoubtedly, unabashedly a music nerd.

As a social bookmarker, though, Philharmania is losing their touch. They have not bookmarked a single Mozart fan club site since March 2007, and of their 747 public bookmarks hardly any of them have comments. Apparently, Philharmania had a lot to listen to but not much to say.

It's a shame the classical music bookmarking army has lost Philharmania from their ranks. When s/he was active s/he served well, bookmarking several times a week. Perhaps one day Philharmania will be rescued from a deserted island, where s/he lived for the past two years without internet, hiding from pop music terrorists, and all will be at peace in the bookmarking world once more.

For now, though, we must find solace in their dated, but not out-dated, tags. I came across an excellent website among Philharmania's bookmarks called Andante. Subtitled "everything classical," the site offers the classical music affectionado a discussion forum, online articles, book reviews, cd reviews, concert reviews, and even streaming music.

Also one of Philharmania's fabulous finds is a website called Essentials of Music. A wonderful "how-to" for classical music beginners, the site contains historical information about music periods, biographical information of famous composers and a classical music glossary of over 200 terms, musical examples included.

While some of Philharmania's bookmarks are location specific (Philharmania is a UK native) and cannot be accessed by American browsers, the majority of their bookmarks are both accessible and useful. While these tags do not usually link to scholarly articles or important pieces of classical music literature, if you're looking for file-sharing sites, a classical music chat forum or a NY Times article about David Lynch, Philharmania knows where to take you.

lit review

In response to classical music's widespread decline in popularity, we have witnessed a frenzied upheaval of advertising techniques among American classical music organizations. The Boston Pops Orchestra elongated their summer program, the Los Angeles Philharmonic created a kid-friendly version of the Ring Cycle and the Dallas Symphony now regularly invites rock groups to perform alongside their orchestra. Although exciting (and expensive), these attempts have failed to procur the desired effect, a revival of our culture's love for classical music. Because mere advertising and media manipulation doesn't seem to get the job done, we need to work harder to discover the root of people's music preferences so we may then change them.

The majority of research done on people's music preferences attributes musical taste to individual characteristics such as geography, socioeconomic status, race and level of education. For example, George Carney's book, The Sounds of People and Places, tracks the origin of various music genres to cities across America. Carney then attributes people's preference of unique genres such as country or blues to their geographic location. Similarly, author Karl Schuessler associates people's diverse music preferences with their socio-economic history. In his book Musical Taste and Socio-Economic Background, Schuessler concludes that those raised in high-income households tend to prefer "high art" music such as classical more than those raised in low-income families.

In addition to books and dissertations, a large amount of research on this subject are smaller published works such as surveys, articles and university studies. Craig and Irene Peery of BYU published an article in the Journal of Research in Music Education about the effect exposure to classical music as a young child has on future music preferences. In the same journal, author David Boyle published an article titled "Factors Influencing Pop Music Preferences of Young Persons," in which he accounts for societal and parental influences in a child's musical taste.

Encompassing all of these forms of research are published works such as Applications of Research in Music Behavior edited by Clifford Madsen and Carol Prickett that compile works from multiple researchers in this field. This particular book includes elementary studies on music's effect on childrens' behavior, models for teachers and parents to follow while giving music instruction, as well as studies on complex subjects such as pitch and tempo preferences in popular music.

Despite the presence of this research, it has yet to be recognized by current leaders of classical music organizations. Rather than acknowledge the complexity of people's music preferences, they assume that with the right amount of advertising people will easily be convinced to listen to classical music. It is apparent, however, that it takes more than a reduction in ticket prices to attract someone's attention to a classical concert. We must take individual preferences and sociological influences into account if we truly want to restore classical music's reputation. We will have to accept that people's music preferences are beyond our control, and instead manipulate classical music so that it will fall within their realm of listening.

a short survey

I created a survey to collect data for a research paper and I would absolutely love to receive your electronic response.

The survey is about you and your music preferences. It has 10 (ten) questions. Assuming you know what kind of music you enjoy, it will take you around 47 seconds to complete.

Simply click on the link below, answer 10 questions and you will receive a complimentary frozen giraffe!

Please take my survey!