The classical music cost disease

A paper from William Baumol and William Bowen “On the performing arts: the anatomy of their economic problems” (1965) showed that while productivity improvements have been made in many other fields there cannot be productivity advances in the performing arts (a string quartet still requires the same number of performers today as it did centuries ago). Baumol and Bowen show that since the performing arts could not realize greater efficiencies, their cost rose over the centuries in comparison to other things.

But today the paper seems to be incomplete in that Baumol and Bowen did not expect performing arts output gains outside of live music. Today it is no longer only the process (playing the music live) that the audience pays for. Productivity has come from other developments such as the sale of recorded performances, performing for larger paying audiences and even quality improvements in instrument components. Additionally it may take musicians less time to learn new music by using technology including computerized note recognition and the ability to hear different recorded versions of a piece at a whim. There may be even more room to improve the learning process.

That being said, classical music today is a money-losing endeavor reliant upon donors and sponsors in addition to ticket sales. What had been the popular music of a century or more ago was the favorite musical type of only 30% of the American public back when Lincoln Center was built in the 1960s and the current favorite music of only 3% of the public today. I believe that some of this problem is related to the fact that classical performers today have found limited success in creating new powerful works and in evolving the performance experience itself. Some steps in that direction have been taken by performances such as those put on by Sympho.

Otherwise, the music exists as if in a museum but with pieces that are preserved not necessarily being the best ones available and the method of their current display influenced by the practicalities of the past.

This is one example of the type of problem we work on at Inticiti.

Importance of a story

Part of consulting work is the analysis of data. But typically, the analysis itself is not what is most difficult. The more difficult parts tend to be gaining access to good data and knowing how to interpret the data. From that point, patterns, cause-effect relationships and forecasts are possible. That is also where there is value to the client. So in effect, the value comes from knowing what story the data tell you.

This is very different from starting out with a story or from making up a story.

I was thinking about what is analogous to this in the non-consulting world and I remembered my own experience learning about modern art. Much of the value of a piece of art comes from the depth of the story behind the piece. Let me explain.

One gallery I frequent is Murray Guy in New York. The first time I went to the gallery in 2003 one piece of artwork was almost invisible to me – the piece was a pile of crates. My eyes literally skipped over them and looked elsewhere. But after talking to the gallery owners I learned that those crates were made by Dave Muller, an artist who appreciated the work of Andre Cadere, who in turn was an artist who made painted wooden poles (Barres de Bois) and left them in galleries as a disturbance. Muller, unable to afford to buy one of Cadere’s wooden poles instead made crates that matched them in size, like carrying cases.

Getting access to the data (seeing the crates) and knowing what to do with the data (uncovering the history) led to getting the value (understanding the story).

Artwork, like business data, may be high or low in value to the consumer or client in relation to the story told.

Memory as art

I saw something recently that reminded me of an earlier post (Your Brain Is Not a Closet). A month or so ago I attended a gallery opening at BUIA Gallery in Chelsea of Eve Tremblay’s “Becoming Fahrenheit 451”. Ms. Tremblay actually recited Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from memory (ok, with some starts and stops, but still, what an amazing accomplishment). Like the characters in the novel who memorize books, Ms. Tremblay reminded us of how powerful memory is if we develop it.