Jeremey McMillan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I'm just about to turn 17.  I have a friend that thinks I am really lame
>because I chose to buy a CD featuring Beethoven's "Emporer", concerto
>instead of a rap CD.

Peer pressure exists everywhere.  It exists any place where people
communicate with each other and make choices, because there are very many
people who do not feel their own choices are validated unless others make
the same choice.

While this is true of buying stocks, it is not true of music or art.
In fact, the more pressure is generated to conform, the more likely it is
that the people pressuring are unsure of the decision, or have wound their
identities up in the decision, and are unsure of themselves as individuals.

The social world of classical music has its forms of peer pressure, and
most, if not all, of the most acrimonious quarrels in classical music - or
art in general - come down to the same kind of situation you see now with
a mass media CD. There are those who will always want "everyone" to agree
with them, or at least have none dare disagree.

The return that it can offer is this: freedom.  While, as aforementioned,
there are the same insecurities here as elsewhere, the raw material for
really being free is also present in classical music.

Why is this? Because as a pianist you can make any work your own.  The
rap CD is someone elses, you can listen, and follow, or not.  The Chopin,
the Beethoven - the Bartok and Schostakovich - concerti are theirs only in
part, because the performer has the liberty to stamp their individuality on
the performance in a way that is not accessible to the listener who buys a
CD.

Learning how to take the silver and gold they have left you, and striking
a new and valuable coin with it, is the work of artistry and time.  It is
wisest to let the people - whether listeners of popular or classical music
- who are insecure to themselves.  They need the music, and perhaps they
will even decide they need your music - and will buy your recordings and
attend your concerts.

Genre has little or nothing to do with it.

Stirling Newberry