Finding Common Sound: The Case for Cross-Genre Collaboration

When you grow up in a family of classical musicians, you don’t get to hear a lot of pop music. After all, why would any self-respecting musician parent put on the latest Nickelback album when they could instead expose their children to Itzhak Perlman’s acclaimed recording of the Sibelius concerto? Such was the case in my family–with my mother teaching between 40-50 violin students each week in her upstairs studio, I became very well acquainted with “Preludium and Allegro” and the Vitali “Chaconne,” but not quite as familiar with the Backstreet Boys. In fact, the only time I actually asked for a recording of “popular” music was when I turned thirteen and decided it was high time for me to upgrade my social status from “dork” to “cool.” My parents bought me a Beatles album (after all, they did grow up in the 60s), but once I realized that a) this didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t climb the rope in gym class, and b) I’d much rather listen to Dvorak than “Eleanor Rigby,” the disc (which admittedly contained some very decent artistic material), was given a permanent home on the dusty top shelf of my closet.

Ten years later, in addition to chuckling at the astonishing naivety of my thirteen-year-old self, I find it quite interesting that I considered the act of listening to popular music to be a requisite “cool” behavior. I suppose it must have made perfect sense to me at the time–nearly everybody I knew listened to music, but you would never catch the superjocks jamming away to Beethoven’s Fifth in the back of the cafeteria. There’s no question why this is the case: the average American teenager knows little about classical music, and even if they did, there’s hardly any chance that they would actually be able to relate to it. Popular music tends to be extraordinarily explicit in its subject matter, while classical music is typically quite implicit. Who’s going to try and make sense of Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis  (written shortly before his wedding to Clara) when you can get the cliffnotes version in Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend”?  Modern-day culture is characterized by instant satisfaction–we can make gourmet meals in two minutes and communicate with our friends across the world in two seconds–and so we have applied this standard to music as well.

This idea of “instant music” might cause Wagner to roll over in his grave, but it’s really no surprise that we’ve reached this stage of artistic evolution. Music has always been, and always will be, a collective expression of popular culture, and so it is only natural that today’s music should reflect our culture’s current conception of the ideal. Popular artists are subjected to the same obsessive scrutiny as movie stars, politicians, and the latest unfortunate individuals to be exploited in a nationally-covered court case. Their wardrobe choices dictate the latest fashions, their personal lives are splayed across the covers of the tabloids, and their performances occur in cavernous arenas, filled to the capacity with raucously screaming fans. Considering this surreal lifestyle, I’m actually very grateful that classical musicians are not popular. Imagine if all teenage girls selected their prom dresses based on what Hilary Hahn wore in her last performance with the Chicago Symphony, the National Enquirer reported that Yo-Yo Ma had “allegedly” missed his octaves in rehearsal, or a fan stormed the stage at an Emerson Quartet concert? It would be akin to living in a very strange episode of “The Twilight Zone.”  Our musical world is largely and rightly separate from the popular musical world, and regardless of how our culture’s artistic tastes progress, I think we can be fairly certain that no classical soloists will have to worry about being stalked by the paparazzi.

But, as different as our respective lifestyles may be, we still have one very significant commonality with these idols of pop culture: our identity as musicians. Aaron Rosand and Usher might be on polar opposite ends of the musical spectrum, but they both write “musician” under the “Type of Employment” section on their tax returns. Yet, popular musicians and classical musicians almost never interact with each other, and I think that’s a real loss. Imagine the artistic possibilities that might result from some “cross-pollination” between the two genres–popular music’s cultural relevance combined with classical music’s deep artistic heritage. This type of collaboration has occurred, of course, but not nearly to the extent that it could, and it’s because we’re generally somewhat ignorant of each other. I’m the first to admit that I rarely listen to popular music, and I recognize that it might do me some good to put it on a bit more often. At the same time, I doubt Justin Bieber has ever listened to the Dvorak concerto (and if he did, he would probably never admit it). It all stems from the historic tension between our respective artistic heritages–classical music was the art of the aristocracy, whereas popular music has its roots in lower social classes. This is definitely not a case of class warfare, of course; it’s just that we’re so used to being separated that the idea of increased collaborations seems strange and unnatural. But the key word here is “seems”–for when it comes down to it, even when performing in an unfamiliar genre, we’re still playing music. We’re still performing some combination of the twelve notes that constitute a chromatic scale, expressing the same emotions, and reaching the same audience–even if that audience is jumping up and down at the front of the stage.

Of course, there are some classical musicians who are opposed to such an idea–if the lines between classical and popular become sufficiently blurred, then what will become of the cherished classical canon? Such a concern is certainly warranted, but, in my opinion, unrealistic. We’re not going to stop listening to Brahms because it’s nineteenth-century music, just in the same way that we haven’t stopped reading Shakespeare because it’s written in old English. If a musical work possesses deep artistic value, it will survive whatever cultural revolutions come to pass, because genuine artistry is something that any human being can relate to, in any time period. The integration of popular music is not a last-ditch lifeline for classical music; rather, it is an unexplored terrain through which it can and should pass. For in the end, the most important potential of cross-genre collaboration is for the expansion of the greater musical community. We musicians occupy such a unique niche in culture, and we shouldn’t let a difference in genre be a permanent divide between us. Rather, we should take pride in our common aim, and work together, serving culture in the way that only we can serve.