Musical Microtrend

The book, Microtrends by Mark J. Penn (New York: Twelve, Hachette Book Group USA, 2007) offers a fascinating glimpse into “the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes.” The author is best known for identifying a group of women he named, “Soccer Moms” who were critical swing voters in the 1996 presidential election.

The author defines a microtrend as “an intense identity group, that is growing, which has needs and wants unmet by the current crop of companies, marketers, policymakers, and others who would influence society’s behavior.” One microtrend Mark J. Penn identifies is the “Neo-Classicals.” He claims that “classical music is growing in popularity, not shrinking. And in the coming years, we should expect it to grow even more.” He points to the fact that in the 2000-1 season, concert tickets were up 10% from a decade earlier. In one city, even though season subscribers dropped 5%, single ticket sales increased by 46%. Likewise, the total number of classical music performances in the United States in the year 2000 grew 10% from the previous year, and increased 45% from ten years earlier. “Most industries would call that growth.”

The news gets even better: the number of students majoring in music is up by half since 1992; classical music is more popular through the Internet than in stores; half of www.classicalarchives.com subscribers are under 50 years of age; the number of Americans 55 years or older, a staple of classical music enthusiasts, will double in the next 25 years.There are other big encouraging signs and statistics for the future of classical music in this little section in Microtrends (pp. 285-288).

This microtrend is music to our ears!

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Call Me The Seeker

Because of his surname, I recently noticed a book titled, Call Me The Seeker edited by Michael J. Gilmour. He is no known relation to me. It was, however, the subtitle, “Listening to Religion in Popular Music” that caught my attention. The book is a series of sixteen articles divided into three parts: (1) Religious Sources behind Popular Music; (2) Religious Themes in Popular Music; and (3) Religion and Popular Music’s Audiences. In his introduction, Michael Gilmour writes, “…we share the conviction that spirituality is widely represented in popular music. Songwriters engage religions and their texts and explore grand theological questions, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not.” Well said, Mr. Gilmour. But it strikes me that the word “popular” could be substituted with the word, “classical;” the word, “Songwriters” could be substituted with the word, “composers,” and the sentence would be equally true. Michael Gilmour, in addition to editing this book, wrote one of the essays titled, “The Prophet Jeremiah, Aung San Suu Kyi, and U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind: On Listening to Bono’s Jeremiad .” The reference to Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and a leading figure in the current fight for democracy in Myanmar (the former Burma), is particularly poignant today given the recent crackdown in that country. In some circles, the prophet Jeremiah today might be the lesser known of these two! Michael Gilmour argues “…that the relationship of these two clues – the biblical prophet Jeremiah, and this modern-day political “prophet” and social activist – is significant for understanding All That You Can’t Leave Behind.

Music, whether popular or classical, is essentially a spiritual activity and expression. Some songwriters and composers do a better job expressing and communicating their spiritualities than others. Some audiences do a better job hearing and receiving artists’ spiritualities than others. Clearly, Michael J. Gilmour and his colleagues have heard and relate to the spiritual expressions of popular music.

I call them the seekers!

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