Further to my earlier post on the “Convert a Philistine” project, I decided to hold a classical music night at my house on Friday night to introduce some friends to classical music. I won’t go into all the details of what I did, but here are my findings so far, I think:
1. If you hassle them enough and don’t make it too hard, people will try almost anything once.
2. Wine and cheese is a good drawcard.
3. Even to people approaching with fresh ears, 20th century classical music can be less fun to listen to than Romantic music. (I think this needs to be explored further, but that was the outcome of the previous night.)
4. Taking people in-depth into the music is a good thing
5. Getting people lost along the way is not
6. My projector has rubbish contrast
So coming out of this, I want to refine the process to head off potential places where people get lost trying to get in to classical music. I want to make the listening experience as rich as possible, but not at the expense of some people feeling left behind and not clever enough to keep up with the music.
It’s something to aim for anyway. I’ll come back with more definite stuff when I feel like I’ve cracked things a little bit better.
More soon, hopefully.
