The X-Factor and American Idol

I have been watching a singing competition called X-Factor on television. This is not my kind of music (if indeed it is music at all), but I want to know what people are listening to, and the audience for this show has been estimated at some 12 million people.

The X-Factor supposedly was judge Simon Cowell’s nose-thumbing to the runaway success American Idol. The similarities between the two shows are more remarkable than the differences (Pepsi vs. Coke), and they do not compete against each other, since Idol does not resume until January, 2012. Thousands of youngish men and women, most of them delusional, audition from every part of the country. Each one whose face makes it to television says “This is my dream” and “I want this so much” and “I’ve been singing since I was three years old.” Often they cry and tell something sad about their life.

A few of these thousands are chosen and perform pop songs in front of four judges. Idol has an audience and a band; X-Factor does not, at least not yet, and it uses recorded accompaniments instead of live musicians, though there are grand pianos sitting around for atmosphere.

The top prize in X-Factor is five million dollars and a recording contract. One contestant, filmed on the grounds of a judge’s Malibu estate, said “If I win the five million dollars, I’m going to buy a house like this.” Beachfront Malibu property goes for sums in the forty millions, and this young man is not going to win because he doesn’t fit the image which appeals to the target audience.

Target audiences for recordings are age 14 to 24, for radio 15-30. The 40-year-old African-American with the stunning vocal ornaments may make it into the finals, but she will not win.

To win, here’s what you need: A commercially viable appearance and sound, the right combination of conformity and individuality. True, you should try to sing in tune, but more importantly, you should be cute and confident. People of color rarely win American Idol, nor do homosexuals (Adam should have won.) I have yet to see an Asian contestant, though I may have missed something; I can only stand so much.

Finalists do get some advertising work, and some Idol winners have gone on to have recording careers. I would like to think that the also-rans get royalties, but I’d be willing to bet that they signed away this right when they auditioned.

Idol/X Factor music is generally aimed at an audience older than the pre-teens who launched Spice Girls and Justin Bieber to fame. Some of the music, however, still fits the Wiki definition of Bubblegum, being “ pop music... produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers...” “The songs typically have singalong choruses, seemingly childlike themes and a contrived innocence, occasionally combined with an undercurrent of sexual double entendre. Bubblegum songs are also defined as having a catchy melody, simple chords, simple harmonies, dancy (but not necessarily danceable) beats, repetitive riffs or “hooks”, use of solfege syllables and a vocally-multiplied refrain.”

I wish Coke and Pepsi would set up an education program for all these thousands of people who have been singing since they were three, or else contribute substantially to existing programs. I wish they would send lots of money to Gustavo Dudamel, the young conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who is launching a wonderful music education program similar to the one in which he studied in Venezuela. Gustavo has probably been singing since he was three, he’s cute, he’s smart, and by golly, he can even read music. He makes a base salary of a million and a quarter a year, recording contracts, I don’t know what all. Importantly, he will still be doing his job when nobody remembers American Idol or X-Factor.

Meanwhile, here is some advice for Idol/X-Factor contestants: If Simon mentions phrasing, try to find out what that means. Do not scream. Do not perform your original song, because it isn’t any good and nobody wants to hear it. “Make it your own” does not mean distorting the song beyond all recognition. Songs have composers. Please use the name of the composer rather than that of the performer when you say what you’re singing. If you have religious views, keep them to yourself. This is the Temple of Mammon, after all. Try to keep a vestige of dignity. Sing TO the judges, not AT them.

Natural Music

We believe music came from nature, that the rhythms and melodies we love had their origins in the sounds around and within us. But sometimes the natural world seems to join in rather than initiate our music-making.

Animals who live in a musical house will usually vote one way or the other. More than one cat has taken a liking to Mozart or has left the room when the atonal music began. Old dogs which are becoming hard of hearing sometimes like to sleep under a grand piano, where they can hear the sound, but not too loudly.

Once Charles and I were playing a Shostakovich cello sonata at a senior residence facility. The first movement was whimsical and playful, but the middle movement was as stark and cold as I imagine a Russian winter--or being old-- might sometimes be. As we played, the wind whistled around the edges of the building like a third musician. The audience clearly welcomed the return to cheerfulness in the last movement, and so did we.

Once while I was playing the organ at church, I became aware of a small sound which started up as soon as I began playing and stopped when I stopped. It took a while to realize that the sound was coming from a frog which had parked itself in the doorway near the organ. He sang along for quite a long time.

Today at the Coastside Community Orchestra concert, there seemed to be a strange piccolo part in Schubert's incidental music from Rosamunde. It was a kind of counterpoint, and, for goodness' sake, it was coming from outside the window. It was a songbird who apparently liked Schubert.

The Times Critic's Top Ten

Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the New York Times, published his picks for the top ten composers (excluding living composers) of all times.

1. Bach

2. Beethoven

3. Mozart

4. Schubert

5. Debussy

6. Stravinsky

7. Brahms

8. Verdi

9. Wagner

10. Bartok

But where is Haydn? Handel? Dvorak? I'm afraid the last three--maybe even the last four--wouldn't have made my list.

Some Constellation

“Classical” music, strictly speaking, is music written between 1750, the date of J.S. Bach’s death, and the end of the eighteenth century, when Beethoven walked through the front door of the palace and ushered in the Romantic period of music.

Bue “classical” has become a catch-all term for music which doesn’t easily fall into other categories. People have tried calling it art music, un-popular music, longhair. It’s a bit like the word “germ” for a doctor, who will want to know what kind of germ we are talking about. Or “baby grand” for any horizontal piano measuring five to nine feet from tail to keyboard, each piano having a particular descriptive name, none of them including the word “baby”.

The Classical or Rococo period. Mozart, Haydn, Clementi. Geniuses all, and treated as glorified domestic servants in livery under the fickle patronage of various noblemen. Yet music was their day job. They didn’t have to teach, doctor or sell insurance.

Instead, they invented the symphony (Haydn), produced deathless diamonds of melody which would support generations of musicians and transport their audiences (Mozart), write a music method book which would teach geniuses such as Chopin and Debussy (Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum or Steps to Parnassus).

My Keyboard Literature teacher, Sylvia Jenkins, said that the Classic view of God was that of a divine clock-maker, that God wound up the universe and let it run all on its own. Accordingly, people of the late 18^th Century loved music boxes and clockwork toys. Musicians including Mozart wrote pieces for wind-up players. This concept of God and music was different from that of Bach, who believed that all music came directly from heaven, or from that of Chopin, who believed that music was a purely human creation.

The musicians I call musicians mostly started their job training as children. By the time they were adults, they had logged thousands of hours of practice time, which meant they were probably not good at sports. They can count beats and rests, can play in more than one key, can transpose without electronic assistance. They understand Italian musical terms and know the difference between a da capo and a dal signo.

Most of them have to teach whether or not they are good at it, just to pay their bills. The orchestra players have to play in several orchestras. The singers spend their lives auditioning and looking for an accompanist. The lucky few get studio jobs, shows and casuals (parties, weddings) to keep body and soul together.

And yet being a “classical” musician is a rare privilege and a constant consolation. As my piano duet partner John says, “It is some constellation.”