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Why Are Classical Music Audiences Old, and Should We Care?

There is a lot of talk these days about the advancing age of classical music audiences. In truth, this conversation has been happening for quite some time. We’ve been hearing about it lately, but we’ve been talking about it for the last thirty years or so.

We thought we’d take a look at this stereotype and address a few pertinent questions: Is it true? (Yes) Why? (Many reasons) Does it matter? (Depends) Is there anything we should do about it? (Absolutely! The same things you should be doing for all of your audiences, regardless of age)

Compassion - A Characteristic of Attractiveness

Why are classical music audiences old?

Classical music has always attracted a more mature audience. Sure, when you look out from the stage you’ll see a handful of children and young adults, but statistically speaking, 42% of classical music concertgoers are 41-60, and 37% are 61 and over. These statistics have led to some panicky discussions about the future of live classical music, the often unspoken subtext being that the audience is literally dying out.

This is hooey, to use a technical term.

Yes, audiences are getting older, but the general population is also getting older. People are living longer and remaining active long past the life expectancy of 50 years ago. This means that people that enjoyed classical music in their 30s and 40s are still attending concerts into their 60s, 70s, and 80s. The longevity of our audience is hardly something to bemoan.

So, the real question is not, why are classical music audiences old, but rather, why don’t more young people attend classical concerts?

Time and taste

Retired people have more time to attend cultural events in general. Young people, say those in their 20s and 30s, are in the midst of building careers and raising families. When they finally get home from work, the idea of heading back out, fighting for parking, and sitting to listen to a concert just seems exhausting. If there are children involved, finding a sitter, or hoping for good behavior during a quiet performance can be overwhelming.

By the time people reach their mid-forties, many have already established their careers and have older children that no longer require sitters. By retirement, the day is wide open. It’s no wonder that these people show up to classical concerts more often.

Of course, younger people do go out. They do attend concerts, just usually not classical performances. Why is that?

The first reason is utterly subjective. As we age, our tastes and priorities change. Who knows why, but classical music seems to become more appealing the older we get. Even Sting, made famous as a young man in the rock band, The Police, has become progressively more interested in classical music. A recent album features a 42-piece orchestra and traditional British tunes.

Perhaps older people have simply had more exposure to classical music. Perhaps loud music and light shows just become less appealing as we age, making this year’s top rock concert easy to skip.

Or, maybe it’s about community. (It is)

Creating experiences and finding a tribe: the surefire way to reach an audience of any age

Attending any live event, classical or otherwise, requires a substantial amount of effort. Why should anyone bother? If it’s all about the music, why not just stay home and listen to recordings?

It isn’t all about the music.

It’s about the experience.

Many of us have shelled out cash to go to a show we weren’t particularly interested in simply because our friends were going. We went for the community, the dancing, the food, the drinks. We went because it offered us what we needed at the time– a tribe to belong to and a way to relax.

When we put classical concerts on a pedestal by demanding that they be all about the music (and our stellar, virtuosic performance) we are overlooking our audience and what they actually need. You are a wonderful performer, that’s a given, but if you want to develop and retain an audience (of any age) you need to become a wonderful programmer as well.

Classical performances of well-loved pieces from the 18th and 19th century given in a quiet recital hall are lovely. They definitely have their place and serve their purpose. But when you consider the needs those concerts fulfill (quiet, calm, enlightenment, and sheer beauty), you can also recognize the audience that is seeking to have those needs fulfilled – namely an older audience.

If you want to attract a younger audience (and no one says you need to), you must figure out how to design a program to meet the needs of those younger people. How can you make the experience most enjoyable?

If you’re looking for an audience in their 20s and 30s consider this:

Book a room in a trendy area or a location near where people work. Look for a venue with an onsite bartender and snacks. Consider doing several short sets that allow the audience plenty of time to grab refreshments and socialize. Choose music by living composers, or favorites from the 20th century. 

Remember, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. If you want a different audience, do something different.

Classical music audiences tend to be loyal. They come back year after year – of course they are aging. That’s to be celebrated!

Spend more time making your audience’s investment in you worth their while by crafting delightful experiences and less time worrying about your audience’s longevity, and you’ll find yourself with a thriving fan base and a long-lived career.

If you would like to hear SPB in discussion with his friends and fellow musicians regarding this topic, head to ClassicJabber.com now.

If you are ready to learn more about how to build a profitable, fulfilling career as a performing classical musician, check out Concert University, and the free webinar that outlines 5 strategies for success.

Classic Jabber Podcast Episode 18 “Compassion”

Classic Jabber
May 3, 2019

Some people are more compassionate than others, but we seem to find people who are more compassionate as more attractive than those who are not! Why is that, and how do classical musicians come across in society? Click the link above to hear SPB in conversation with his friends and learn more about this.

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Nurture Your Music and Watch Your Audience

Nurturing brings to mind images of mothers and gardeners – people who feed and care for living things, helping them grow and develop with attention and compassion. And while it’s obvious that a nurturing attitude is attractive in these people, it can be hard to imagine how one would nurture music. Nonetheless, nurturing your music is one of the most important things you can do to ensure that you and your performances make an impact on the world around you.

To nurture means simply to encourage, protect, and cherish something (or someone) as it grows. We’re big proponents of cherishing your audience – without them, you have no career. But how exactly can you nurture that audience or the music they come to hear?

Nurturing - A Characteristic of Attractiveness

Caring for music

Fundamentally, music is a language – a communication tool. In fact, music is the only universal language. Every culture in the world incorporates music in some way, and every human being can experience it. If you can speak, you can sing. If you have a pulse, you have rhythm. Music speaks of emotion, and it steps in when words no longer suffice. It’s extremely valuable, even indispensable, and as such, it deserves care and respect.

However, unlike a plant or a child, which exist regardless of whether anyone notices, music only exists when it is experienced. Yes, music is represented by notes on a page – but that isn’t actually music – that’s merely the instructions for creating music. Music is an experience and to nurture it you must cultivate the experience – give it value, allow it to have reach, impact, and touch lives. This is what we mean by nurturing music.

It’s about attitude

When we nurture something, we care for it beyond and before ourselves. We do what we can to help it thrive for its own sake – not just to serve our needs. Nurturing music is no different.

If you are using music as a way to gain fame or accolades, if every performance you give is really just a way of saying, “Look at me! Aren’t I amazing?” you are not nurturing music. You are nurturing your ego. Most of us have egos that need no nurturing – they are doing just fine on their own.

To nurture music, you must respect it for what it is and what it does. Music is a way of communicating something that cannot be expressed any other way. It’s a conversation with an audience. To nurture your music, you must nurture your audience – create an environment that allows them to experience the conversation and grow from it.

As performing musicians, we diligently practice pieces so that there are no breaks in our audience’s experience of the music – so that the piece can communicate without us getting in the way. We carefully craft performances designed to offer a particular experience. But it’s important to remember that what we are really nurturing is a moment in time. A very special moment, but a finite moment. Once we’ve delivered that moment to the best of our ability we have to let it go and do what it will like a pebble in a pond. It’s time to move on to the next pebble – to creating the next moment.

If you view music as all about you, it’s impossible to craft these moments or let them go. However, if you recognize that music is a language that has been around since the first heartbeat, and will be around long after you are gone, it becomes possible to see that you are but a piece of the puzzle, a little expression of this language of emotions.

And though all people are capable of making music, professional performers are the experts. You’ve been given special stewardship over this gift of language. If you take care of this gift – if you nurture it – you are nurturing the lives of the people listening, and they will grow in both heart and number.

This is part of our series on the characteristics of attractive people. If you would like to hear the live discussion about this characteristic, head on over to ClassicJabber.com now.

If you are ready to learn more about how to build a profitable, fulfilling career as a performing classical musician, check out Concert University, and the free webinar that outlines 5 strategies for success.

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Be Adventurous & Be Attractive

When we think of traits we find attractive in others, some characteristics spring immediately to mind: kindness, reliability, humor.  At first glance, adventurousness might not be an obvious choice.

We tend to think of adventurous as a word to describe mountain climbers, world-travelers, dare-devils. But adventurousness is actually defined as the ability to cope with the new and unknown. In other words, an adventurous person is someone willing to step out and try something new.

Adventurous - A Characteristic of Attractiveness

Steve Jobs and Willie Nelson?

Steve Jobs changed the face of personal computing (and made a tidy fortune) by walking out to the edge of technology. He decided to build a different computer, in a different way, and became a lone journeyman in a new land. Of course, today, millions of people carry around souvenirs of his adventure in their pockets.

Similarly, in 1960, when Willie Nelson, quite possibly the best-known country songwriter of the last century, arrived in Nashville, he struggled to have his songs recorded. The country music establishment considered his work too off-beat and artsy to be commercially successful. Even Patsy Cline was less than enthusiastic about recording one of Nelson’s songs, Crazy. Of course, that song would go on to become a country standard recorded by dozens of artists, and ironically, held up today as an example of “true country” by people bemoaning the new direction of the genre.

There is NO BOX!

Both Jobs and Nelson pushed the limits of what was considered expected at the time. Some would say they were “thinking outside the box.” That cliché might be the most aggravating and misinformed use of language in popular culture. Why?

Because – to think outside the box assumes the existence of a box, and there is NO BOX.

If there is a box, what is it? Where is it? Who put it there?

Perhaps by box, they simply mean tradition. In other words, the way things have always been done by the people who have always done them. In which case, of course, that “box” is something we should all aim to avoid.

Cultivating a Spirit of Adventure

You aren’t Steve Jobs or Willie Nelson. So how can you, as a performing classical musician, be more adventurous?

Seek opportunities for spontaneity. These can be small – stop at a different grocery store, drive down a strange road just to see where it goes – anything you haven’t planned to do or thought too much about counts. Spontaneity sets you up to recognize possibilities in unlikely places.

Try new things, both in your personal and professional life. Experiment with a new piece of repertoire. Set up a performance room differently, or abandon the stage entirely and walk through the audience (if possible) while playing.

Not everything will be a success. You may try something new only to discover that the traditional way does, in fact, work better. At least now you know. And you’ll find something else surprising: people love to watch others take risks. Humans love to root for the underdog. If you allow yourself to take small risks and be vulnerable, especially if those around you know that you are pushing your limits, you’ll generate all kinds of enthusiasm, compassion and connection.

And when your adventures do lead to success? Well, you’ll be surrounded by an audience who feels genuinely excited to say that they were there at the beginning.

This is part of our series on the characteristics of attractive people. If you would like to hear the live discussion about this characteristic, head on over to ClassicJabber.com now.

If you are ready to learn more about how to build a profitable, fulfilling career as a performing classical musician, check out Concert University, and the free webinar that outlines 5 strategies for success.

Classic Jabber Podcast Episode 16 “Nurturing”

Classic Jabber
April 5, 2019

Some people are more nurturing than others, but we seem to find people who are more nurturing as more attractive than those who are not! Why is that, and how do classical musicians come across in society? Click the link above to hear SPB in conversation with his friends and learn more about this.

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Want to Win Friends and Influence People? Get Resourceful.

For many, the word resourceful brings images of Depression Era women making clothing out of flour sacks, but resourcefulness has less to do with frugality than it does with creativity. However, it’s important to remember (though few of us do) that resourcefulness is also based on time.

Resourcefulness - A Characteristic of Attractiveness

Resourcefulness and Decisiveness

Resourcefulness is closely related to decisiveness – another attractive characteristic that we covered in a recent blog post. To be resourceful, we look at what is available to us and make a quick decision about how best to use those things to solve the problem at hand.

Identifying our resources can require a fair amount of creativity. It’s easy to look around and take stock of what you have (a stack of flour sacks in the Depression-era example), but it can take more doing to think of what might be available based on what you have (a friendship with the local baker).

Resourcefulness and Relationships

Relationships (Human Resources) are vital to any successful business, but they are particularly valuable resources for performing musicians. We are in the business of providing experiences, and there is no experience without experiencers. Our entire careers are predicated on being in relationship with other musicians and our audience.

Does this mean we should exploit those relationships – use them as resources to get what we want? Yes. And no.

You never want to take advantage of anyone – that’s a sure way to lose the relationship and the resources that go along with it. However, it’s critical to remember that nothing happens without an initial action, and that initial action almost always requires you giving something (time, money, ideas, direction, etc.) to someone else in return for what you need. Your human resources are the people you can offer something to in order to get that ball rolling. 

Practice Makes Progress

So how do we get fast at finding creative solutions? Practice. Resourcefulness is based on behavior, and like all behavior, it can be learned.

Brainstorm the resources currently available to you, as well as those that might be available based on what you already have, or who you already know. Practice putting those pieces together in creative ways to discover new possibilities for meeting a current challenge.

If you do this often enough, making those connections will become second nature, and you just may become someone else’s most valuable human resource. People love problem solvers.

This is part of our series on the characteristics of attractive people. If you would like to hear the live discussion about this characteristic, head on over to ClassicJabber.com now.

If you are ready to learn more about how to build a profitable, fulfilling career as a performing classical musician, check out Concert University, and the free webinar that outlines 5 strategies for success.

Your charity has lots of costs.

Creative Pinellas
April 30, 2019

I wrote a response to an age-old question that most people are too nervous to ask outright…

Click the link above to find out what that question is and what to do about it.

FYI: It includes Formula 1 racing and plumbing, too!

Classic Jabber Podcast Episode 15 “Adventurous”

Classic Jabber
April 5, 2019

Some of us seek adventure while others seek repetition, but we seem to find people who are more adventurous as more attractive than those who are not! Why is that, and how do classical musicians come across in society? Click the link above to hear SPB in conversation with his friends and learn more about this.

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Do or Do Not, But Decide

There’s no doubt about it – we live in a world that values decisiveness. Just consider the words we use to describe indecisive people: wishy-washy, iffy, waffling. These do not paint a pretty picture, my friends.

What’s so great about being decisive, and why can it be so hard to just make up our minds?

Decisivines - A Characteristic of Attractiveness

Decisive People Are Dynamic

We admire perfection, but we are impressed by improvement.

As an example, think of the musicians you’ve known from school or the beginning of your career. We all know someone who has always been a star player. She was great ten years ago, and she’s equally great today. No surprise.

On the other hand, there’s the player you haven’t heard in a while that is suddenly so much better than the last time. In fact, he seems to get better every time you hear him perform. He’s constantly improving, and we are all constantly impressed.

That kind of improvement doesn’t come from practice alone. Constant improvement comes from making decisions and moving forward, course-correcting when necessary (which requires making another decision) and moving forward again. There is no improvement without movement, and there’s no movement until you decide to move.

Decisive People Share the Burden

We typically think of leaders as the decision makers. However, a good leader not only allows others to make decisions but actively encourages them to do so. After all, leaders should be in the business of helping others grow and lead.

Being the sole decision maker in a group is exhausting. Regardless of whether the group is trying to figure out where to go for lunch, or which venue to book, making the final call (especially without adequate input from everyone else) can feel like a burden. There is responsibility inherent in decision making. When people take turns shouldering that responsibility, it reduces the load – and we all like to work with people who lighten our load.

Why Deciding is Difficult

Typically, people struggle to make a decision for one of two reasons:

1. They don’t know where they are going.

In an ideal world, we’d measure the possible outcome of any decision against our overarching goal. Theoretically, this should be easy. No matter how many options there are, you simply choose the most effective: Choice #4 has the highest chance of getting me closest to my goal – dilemma solved.

Unfortunately, choosing the goal itself can feel overwhelming. We live in a world of near-endless possibilities – it’s a paralyzing embarrassment of riches. What’s the best choice? What should we do?

Answer: Do SOMETHING. Even if it turns out to be the wrong thing. Which brings us to the other reason people avoid decisions:

2. They are scared to be wrong

“A good decision now is better than the best decision later.”
-General Patton  

Being decisive doesn’t mean you have to cling unwaveringly to the decisions that you make. Often, people put off making a choice until they “have all the facts.” Classical musicians in particular often fall prey to this kind of perfectionism. We can get bogged down in research and never move forward for fear we may take the wrong step. We may spend so much energy trying to find the perfect venue to reach out to that we never book a performance.

You will NEVER have ALL the facts. Not every situation is ideal, and almost every situation comes with unknown quantities. So what do we do?

We weigh the information we do have and make a choice. If different information comes along later, we can simply make a different choice. There is no need to feel guilty or ashamed about changing your mind.

But what about all the time we’ve wasted?

It is better to spend time learning lessons on a wrong path than it is to waste time standing at the crossroads going nowhere and learning nothing for fear of making a mistake. Time waits for no man, and refusing to decide becomes a decision in and of itself – a decision based on fear – and fear is rarely a good guide. So take control. Be brave, be inspiring, and decide.

This is part of our series on the characteristics of attractive people. If you would like to hear the live discussion about this characteristic, head on over to ClassicJabber.com now.

If you are ready to learn more about how to build a profitable, fulfilling career as a performing classical musician, check out Concert University, and the free webinar that outlines 5 strategies for success.