They time limited it to 23 years or the establishment of world peace, whichever came first, so it's available on streaming services now, though sadly not as a result of world peace.
Perhaps this is the reason for taking it down: they want to concentrate on a more commonly accepted-as-art part of the careers and not have the other content distract from that for now? If so then perhaps once they've moved far enough forward in the new direction, that it stands on its own to their satisfaction, the old content will start to be republished for nostalgia points.
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[1] I'm not meaning to denigrate it, despite how that sentence may sound. It entertained many including sometimes me, so the content very much has value, but I don't generally consider commentary to be art.
In what way is this excluded from being art? These are overlapping categories.
I do get your point. However, this might be incidental to the art they want to produce rather than central to their project.
All this puffed up pomposity around opera or classical we currently deal with is much different than in the "hey-days".
If you went to a nice restaurant and I came over and started talking loudly with spit flying into your dish or took some food from your plate it would ruin your enjoyment. When we're trying to hear the subtleties of interpretation from the performers, the faintest sound detracts from that.
I think most people can accept that talking in a cinema or using your phone is pretty anti social so I don't know why classical music gets such a bad rap for being pretentious when it has a conduct. The only thing that drives me crazy is people always seem to cough when the music slows down and gets quiet. Please do the exact opposite. Don't spoil those tranquil serene moments with your coughing. Cough when the percussion and the tubas are storming and no one will hear.
That said, I'm all for bawdy music experiences - I once saw a tiny production of Le Docteur Miracle in a bar in London which was extremely fun (by Popup Opera UK) and if you go to Sarastro's by Covent Garden you'll get some fun rowdy opera hits sung at you while you dine. Plenty of outdoor picnic concerts are similarly laid back
As to clapping: As late as the late 1800s, it was okay to clap during the loud parts of the song. Baroque music also often has long cadenzas that end in a big trill, which was a signal for the crowd to go wild. I agree about getting less strict about this, and historically things were less strict. At the same time, I recently saw a performance of Tchaikovsky 6 where the audience started clapping between the last two movements (a triumphal march followed by a tragic final movement), and a large part of the energy of the piece was lost from the audience doing this. I think this rule mostly comes from the audience not understanding when not to clap.
Also, lots of classical music is done in environments that aren't concert halls and these are much looser about the etiquette. A concert hall is a nice place to go, and many people go on dates at concert halls, and a lot of the vibe for the audience comes from the fact that people dress up for the occasion.
The modern era seems to have taken the previous distribution of engagement and hollowed out the middle. People now either don’t care much, or they care a LOT. Applies to music, art, cooking, and so many hobbies.
Nobody needs a slightly-talented pianist for family sing-alongs (or: anyone who can sing halfway on-key, for that matter, because who's singing around other people in a typical house unless it's to Disney songs on the TV?) around Christmastime or that old guy who knows some folk & sing-along pop songs tolerably well to bring his guitar to the pub or whatever. We have Spotify. Fuck, the church bells anywhere that doesn't already have a set from 50+ years ago are just speakers playing recordings now.
The only remaining value unless you are very good and also put in a lot of time to sell, is personal, and that's not enough for a lot of folks who, in decades and centuries past, would have been hobbyist musicians. The social value started declining in the early 20th century and took a nose-dive in the last half of it. The generations who even remember their grandparents clinging to those habits, and their parents half-assedly attempting to keep it up out of nostalgia but then not really doing it because nobody wanted that anymore and forgetting how to play, are now old.
That's where the middle went.
* 10% professional or aspiring professional singers (who are young)
* 20% music educators in their 20's and 30's
* 30% people in their 20's and 30's who are very musically-inclined and studied music a lot as children
* 40% older people who sing as more of a hobby
When I mostly played chamber music, the crowd was also very young and enthusiastic. 21st century composers actually seem to have a better audience than 20th century composers did.
Music in general seems to be fragmenting into many subcultures of very interested people, with the exception of pop music and ironically parts of the classical/opera crowd that see it as a status symbol.
There's a YouTube channel, "Wings of Pegasus" that does a lot of breakdowns of recordings, isolating voices and instruments and analyzing what kind of processing has been done on them.
They had a video a few months ago [1] looking at two performances from the 2024 Glastonbury Festival. One from an '80s artist (Cyndi Lauper) and one from a current artist (Dua Lipa).
Lauper's live performance was the kind you'd expect from an '80s act. What the audience heard was what she was singing live and what the musicians on stage were playing.
During Lipa's performance most of the time what they audience was hearing was Lipa's vocals from the studio recording. She was singing live but most of the time they had her microphone turned way down in the mix. They'd only turn it up and the recording down for a few passages. Same with the musicians. There was a drummer on stage but mostly to accompany the studio recording.
The thing is Lipa's fans are OK with that. They aren't there to hear what she sounds like live. The extras they get at a live show over just listening to the recording are the experience of the crowd and watching the dancing and light show.
Contrast to the '80s and '90s where one of the points of going to a concert was that the bands tried different things with their songs. They didn't just play note for note and beat for beat the studio version. Live versions might have more solos, or a different solo, or different instrumentation, or variations on the lyrics (or even new verses). The live performances were different enough that people would buy live albums even though they had every song from the live album on studio albums they already owned.
It's an interesting change, and I'm not sure why it happened. I speculate that it may be due to the increased sophistication of the processing that can be done in a studio. If every tiny imperfection gets processed away in the studio so that all people are hearing is 100% on pitch with 100% perfect timing maybe the imperfections of a true live performance would sound bad to them?
Also, the dancing that happens at modern pop concerts is so difficult and lively that nobody would be able to sing well, much less at full power, while doing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHtnxluMXMw
(Not a post I’d ever expected to make on HNs)
Also, they are starting something called TwoSetAcademy.com. I don't know if they have given details but if you go there the heading says "WANT TO BE THE NEXT LINGLING?" and the subheading says "Professors Yang and Chen are waiting for you...", and it asks if you play violin/viola, do not but want to learn, or neither.
If you say yes it then starts asking for more on that like your level. If you say you want to it asks what other instruments you play if any. If you say neither it asks if you would be interested in learning other classical music topics.
A lot of music channels end up running some sort of teaching platform. Violinist Ray Chen for example has something called "Tonic". I've not really looked into it but it seems to be some kind of virtual practice room where you and other people using it can encourage each other and give each other feedback.
Brandon Acker, whose channel is mostly serious classical guitar and older string instruments (lute, theorbo, oud) with a few fun side things has Classical Guitar Pro which has video classes and you can post videos of your progress to a private Facebook group for Acker to comment on. He also has Arpeggiato.com which is described as an online music school for "everything that goes pluck", which has a bunch of teachers giving online private lessons. They've got teachers for classical guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lute, theorbo, early plucked instruments, ukulele, mandolin, bass, oud, flamenco guitar, baroque guitar, and voice. They also have masterclasses and workshops directed by Acker.
It's similar for YouTubers in the non-classical world. For instance Samurai Guitarist has the Samurai Guitar Dojo where he offers his Samurai Guitar Theory courses. Charles Cornell has Better Piano.
Sounds like there's more to the story.
PS. I had just watched James Ehnes Chaconne on youtube . It was beautiful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjYQlmpS69k
And this, my friends, is why we download local copies.
I miss the old setup but at the same time I can't wait to see what's next.
Seems like they are rebranding!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAzKFALPuF_EPe-AEI0WFFw/com...
It sure looks like they are just moving to a different platform, one that doesn't want their stuff on YouTube for free.
> Teaching is probably the safer career long-term.
There are some interesting details on that in this video [1] from YouTuber Samurai Guitarist. The video is on the various ways one might make money as a guitarist (but much of it is not specific to guitar) and how effective they may be.
Covered are local gigging, mid level touring guitarist, top level touring guitarist, busking, cruise ship musician, studio musician, private lesson teacher, university teacher, endorsement deals, and content creator.
I agree with others that this seems like an attempt to pivot to “music as a higher art”, e.g. the rumored Two Set Academy, like a Tonebase competitor. Which is an absolute shame, because I think they did wonders to challenge that status quo and make classical music fun.
[1] Shameless, but if anyone is curious about an adult hobbyist learning classical guitar, I’m livestreaming almost daily: https://youtube.com/jcpractices
It's an odd way to see a shop leaving my app!
(I never watched a video though, as I had 40 hours of practice to do every day)