Classical Recordings: I'm not dead yet!

I'll admit it, I was the skeptical college professor mentioned by Eric Edberg. After that talk, I also did some googling. Searching the RIAA website, I found their Research and Data site, with total sales and Consumer Profiles. First, the whole recording industry has gone through a cycle in the last ten years. In 1996 $12.5 billion of recordings were sold*. In 2005 $12.3 billion were sold. The high point was in 1999 ($14.6 billion), during the crazy days of Amazon free shipping. The low was in 2003 ($11.9 billion). Classical recording sales has followed the same trend through this time, maintaining a rather constant 3% of market share. In digital sales, however, the Classical genre does much better. As a Guardian article from last spring points out, classical music accounts for 12% of iTunes sales. And 2005 Year-End Statistics for RIAA show that the recording market started in an upward trend after 2003 when download sales started being recorded. But this is sales, not production.

I couldn't find any industry-wide data, but I looked at Deutsche Grammaphon's catalog to tally their number of releases each year. Here it is:
Year # of releases
1982 8
1983 18
1984 29
1985 38
1986 19
1987 75
1988 52
1989 72
1990 56
1991 39
1992 53
1993 72
1994 86
1995 120
1996 90
1997 88
1998 94
1999 109
2000 85
2001 77
2002 116
2003 129
2004 145
2005 235
2006 273

A very steady upward climb, with the normal fluctuations expected from a random walk (so I understand from some Econ colleagues). Granted, the huge increase in 2005 and 2006 include re-releases as DG (and all the other record labels) rush to digitize their back catalog. But even so, there are plenty of new releases in these last two years as well. Finally, I point to a relatively old Wired article on the Long Tail. I think too many of my colleagues and their acquaintances are still thinking in the old brick-n-mortor economic mentality, including the speaker from last night. The new digital economy allows for niche markets to thrive, including the various Classical niches. Independent labels such as Canteloupe have taken off, with great access through Amazon, iTunes, eTunes, etc.

I will agree that the major labels did cut many of their artists during the late 90's, probably most from panic when sales temporarily levelled off in 1997. As Greg Sandow (via Eric) points out, Classical recordings did rely upon subsidies, so cutting high-priced artists would shave some expenses, at least from a knee-jerk middle-manager perspective. But I will have to see conclusive data refuting what I have seen, to convince me that the Classical recording industry has indeed died. So consider this a bleg, repeating what Eric asks for: actual statistics along the lines of: "In 1980, there were X new classical releases; in 1990, Y; in 2000 Z; etc."



*Estimated, based on shipping data.

Once again, REAALLLLYYYY SSSLLLOOOOOWWWWLLLYYY

Doing what theorists' do best, Stephen Davies is taking a simple question and making it all hard and stuff. The question: What is music? One might think they have an easy answer to this, especially if they took a course on aesthetics. But then Davies suggests some musical works:

Imagine a fugue written for a synthesizer. It is typical of the genre with this exception: its lowest note is at 30,000 hertz, above the range of human hearing. Also, consider a piece of about 300 measures in common time. In most respects, the work is ordinary, but the tempo is indicated as 'crotchet = five years.' The opening sixteen-bar theme lasts for more than three centuries; the performance is completed after 6 millennia. In a third case, a work specified for solo piccolo contains a single note, the C at 128 hertz. This tone lies more than two octaves below the instrument's range. Are these pieces musical works?

Related to TTU's memory of another Davies example, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony played at quarter note = 1 year, I give you art imitating philosophy.

We Can't Dance

Dave Munger describes an experiment by Jessica Foxton et al. They proved that not only are tone deaf people (amusics) unable to carry a tune, they are unable to clap one. Read Dave's post to find out why these unfortunate people should never be on Dancing With the Stars.

Conversations about music

Over at Making Light, a wonderful discussion about music is taking place. The participants are all laity as far as I can tell, yet all enthusiasts and remarkably erudite in expressing their impressions. One commenter admits that he just cannot appreciate Ralph Vaughan Williams, and when asked he gives very good reasons*:

Listening to that piece replicates every experience I have ever had with the music of Vaughan Williams - and I assure you, I've tried to listen to it. It seems to me that he endlessly tiptoes around in a formless cloud of sound out of which at any moment an actual melody might emerge, but one never does. I can see no consequence, no meaning to it. It doesn't make any sense to me. I can't say why not. It just doesn't, and all I experience is vague but mounting irritation, frustration and, eventually, resentment.

And after this admission the other commentors do not ridicule him for his lack of appreciation, but share their own loves and hates. When I asked my students how to debate about music, this type of discussion was one possibility I was thinking about.

*Reasons that you may not agree with (I certainly don't, finding Vaughan Williams to be very comprehensible), but ones that can be understood and respected.

Quilisma (kwi-LEEZ-muh)

Virginia Tech has put together a Multimedia Music Dictionary. Besides a brief definition with any appropriate hyperlinked cross-references, each word has a recorded pronunciation, with quite zesty diction. There are musical examples, as long as you have the correct CD, and there are some quizzes (though I haven't found them yet). (via Elaine Fine as I get caught up on my blog reading)

Cats and Dogs, Living Together!

Synesthete.org promises to test you for synaesthesia (via Mind Hacks). It's a good thing Fred is still offline.

A mathematician has taken it upon himself to create music expressing well-known mathematical proofs.

And cookies have just come out of the oven, so I must go!

Perchance to Meme

I'm late on this, because I had taken my bimonthly sabbatical from blogging. I hope it doesn't screw up Scott's results, since I was aware of the experiment about two days ago, but wasn't ready to dust off Blogger yet. The idea is to trace the spread of a meme through the blogosphere. Scott thinks that

...they acquire minor prominence among low-traffic blogs before being picked up by a high-traffic one, from which many more low-traffic blogs snatch them. Contra blog-triumphal models of memetic bootstrapping, I believe most memes are—to borrow a term from Daniel Dennett's rebuttal of punctuated equilibrium—"skyhooked" into prominence by high-traffic blogs.

As I heard about the meme from Chad Orzel (I think), who has a relatively high-traffic site, I would be in the latter stage of low-traffic blogs snatching at his proffered meme.

Please help the experiment along by following the directions:

1. Write a post linking to this one in which you explain the experiment. (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, &c.)
2. Ask your readers to do the same. Beg them. Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply I'm one of them. (Do whatever you have to. If that fails, try whatever it takes.)
3. Ping Technorati.

Who knows, you may help to crash a campus server.