Want people to listen to your music?

Over the weekend, I went to the Whispering Solo Piano concert near San Diego. The primary reason I went was to meet the musicians that are associated with that genre (New Age). I am in a very similar genre and they play my music on Whisperings and similar radio stations.

I want to talk about New Age music for a bit because there is an awful lot to learn there. I know that many of you don’t like it and I think in some cases, its detractors have good points. The main knock of course is that New Age is dumbed down music. If you were going to describe the genre as a whole, you might call it classical music lite. It often has a Romantic period feel but with a narrow dynamic range (normally on the quiet side). It also often has limited harmonic interest, limited development and requires limited technical skills.

There is a perception that anyone can play New Age. They see it sort of like soccer. You can put a 3-year-old on the field and he can play soccer. Not well, but he can play. Likewise, you hear beginning pianists playing New Age music all the time. Many people think that because a beginner can play New Age, New Age is amateurish.

Consequently, most professional classical and jazz musicians hate it. They think it is a sham.

Now I am not going to dismiss those opinions. Like I said, I understand them to some extent. But there is another perspective to this that many miss and that is this: people connect with that music. As I always do, I watched the audience and noted demographics last night. The audience for this concert was very diverse across age groups and nationalities and they absolutely love that music.

Here is something else you should know. I know the show featured the top end of the genre, but the musicians I met out here are not sham pianists. They have strong classical and jazz backgrounds and their New Age music is well developed and quite sophisticated. And if you take away the audience and just sit them at the piano as we did at a dinner, they play jazz and classical wonderfully. They are versatile; they improvise on the spot.

One pianist in particular told me about his jazz background. He still plays jazz but focuses on New Age for two reasons. First, he can actually make a living in New Age. Second, he talked about the fact that he often heard from fans who talked about their emotional connection to his New Age music. He said he never heard that sentiment about his jazz music.

I asked him if he respected the genre because it required him to simplify his music. He said he struggled with it but saw it as his responsibility to raise the bar. I think many of them see that as their responsibility and I think they succeed.

There is an old saying in professional music: it is better to play 3 chords in front of 1000 people than 1000 chords in front of 3 people. I have probably given you that quote before on this blog because the underlying philosophy of all this is something that governs my music. If I was going to summarize that philosophy in a sentence, I would say it like this: 

You don’t become a better musician by making your music more complex but rather by connecting with people better.

This is absolutely the opposite of how many of us musicians think. We think the secret is in playing more technically demanding music or ultra-developed music. That might be true if your goal is to impress other musicians but is not true if you want to reach the masses.

I know many extraordinary professional musicians who are unknown and bitter because the world doesn’t appreciate their technical skills. I could not help contrasting those people to the friendly, happy and successful musicians I met last night. One group understands what makes music work and the other does not. Let that be a lesson to all of us.