Music Preference 1 - Brent Hugh's personal and business web pages

The Musician
Introduction
Why Influence Music Preference?
Music Preference 3
Musicians have a natural interest in understanding and influencing the public's preference
for the type of music they play. Classical musicians, for instance, worry about the decline of
audiences for their music. The topic is often addressed at professional meetings and conferences
and the decline of the classical music audience has been much ballyhooed in the popular and
periodical literature, too (Pridinoff, et al., 2000; Lebrecht, 1997; Small 1998). Despite all the
attention given to the purported problem, it turns out that empirical evidence for or against the
decline of the classical audience is difficult to interpret (Repp, 1999; Newberry, 1999); the
classical audience appears to be declining in some sectors and increasing in others.
Regardless of the general rise or decline in audiences, the classical performer has an interest
in creating a preference for classical music in new audiences and increasing the preference for
classical music among those who already enjoy it. Musicians who wish to perform must create
an interest in and a liking for the type of music they play among some audience somewhere or
they will not be performing music for long.
The Music Educator
Music educators may have a different reason than performers for influencing the musical
preference of students. In American society, the highbrow musical taste in previous decades was
elitist, exclusivist, and focused on classical music as performed by the best musicians--in a word,
it was snobbish. In the last two decades or so, the highbrow musical taste has shifted. It is no
longer snobbish, but more eclectic and musically omnivorous (Peterson & Kern, 1996). The new
musical omnivore puts importance on music from a tremendous variety of sources--folk music,