For A Renewal of a Non-Professional Music Culture

It is obvious, that today's professional music scene has reached a state of stagnation. There are zillions of professional musicians, bands, orchestras and choirs trying to survive in the music business. Surviving means: earning money. And because, they have nothing else to earn their money with, they are forced to orientate on the free market. The taste of the majority of the music consumers and concertgoers determines the repertoire. And the taste of the majority is influenced by the media, like radio and TV and the great record companies.

If you look at the radio program of today, it's obvious, that the broadcasting stations prefer easy consumable music, like Pop, Smooth Jazz and "Light Classical Music". The necessity to reach a big audience causes a tremendous conservatism in the playlists of the broadcasting stations. They are only interested in having a big audience for their commercials, they are not interested in creating an audience for contemporary and innovative music, which mostly isn't so catchy, like the stuff, we have listened to a lot of times.

And in the concert-halls of today, we face the same phenomenon. They rather play Beethoven's 9th Symphony or Mozart's "Magic Flute" ad nauseam, than trying something new and taking the risk to have only a relatively small audience.

On the other hand the stars of the business earn astronomical amounts of money with doing mostly the same repertoire (i.e. German Violinist Anne Sophie Mutter gets an amount of € 50.000+ for one concert!). And the trend has not come to an end...

So our music culture goes round in circles, without giving new talents and progressive music a chance. So, how can we change the situation? Who can try to renew the music culture?

In my opinion, the huge number of non-professional artists plays a more and more important role in contemporary music. They are doing music "just for fun" and not for commercial purposes. This fact gives them a great freedom to perform music, which is cold-shouldered by the professional music business. And not seldom the non-professional musicians are making music on a high artistic level and with a bigger enthusiasm than the Professionals, who are only doing "Business as Usual". The "Amateurs" are the medium of a more contemporary and innovative music-scene. They nowadays are playing the role of the public communities, which shut down one orchestra after the other, because there is no money left! The Amateurs maintain an active music life, which is as important as eating and drinking; without an active music-scene a polity is drying up!

So this little comment is to encourage all music amateurs to perform music in public. We really have a hand in reviving the contemporary music culture!