Technological Change and the Humanities Curriculum/part four

III. New Patterns in the Patronage of Music

What color reproduction techniques have done for the devotee of the visual arts, vinyl plastic has done for the music lover. The first new development is the emergence of the so-called bargain labels. Often not perfect in tone, and featuring second run artists and orchestras, these new labels still have the undeniable merit of bringing great music, adequately played, within reach of everyman's budget.

Some of the labels with widest distribution are Varsity, Royale, Allegro, Gramophone, Plymouth, Parade, and Remington. Established companies, in response to this new competition, have produced cheaper labels to the ultimate benefit of the patron. RCA's new Camden label, made by dubbing 78 masters on LP discs, thus brings top flight artists and orchestras under pseudonyms to a larger consumer public. Consult the complete listings in Schwann catalog for developments in a rapidly expanding field. Another new mode of patronage corresponds to the book clubs. First, there is the American Recording Society, made possible by a grant from the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University. It serves to redress the overemphasis of the commercial firms on the three B's by recording "200 Years of American Music."

Its formula of distribution is an occasional brochure explaining its current selection, accompanied by a card to be returned by un-interested subscribers. Its selections are largely 12" LP's, high fidelity records manufactured by RCA's Custom Record Division. A record costs five dollars plus postage, with a free bonus for every two records purchased. This scheme warrants support because of its attempt to create a literate audience for indigenous music. Music Treasures of the World distributes high fidelity 12" LP's for three dollars and postage. Each month the subscriber may decide from program notes whether or not he wishes the cur- rent selection.

Regardless of his decision he receives a helpful essay on "How to Appreciate Music" plus biographies of the composer or composers of the forthcoming recordings. Planned for this series are the most popular of the standard classics. Music Appreciation Records is a new plan sponsored by the Book-of-the Month Club. On one side of a high fidelity record there is a full performance of a great musical work, just as on an ordinary record; on the other side is an illuminating analysis of the music, with the various themes and other main features of the work played separately with running explanatory comment, so that the listener can learn what to listen for in order to appreciate the work fully.

Each month the new selection will be described by Deems Taylor. No specified number of purchases is required of the subscriber. The Standard Record, a 12" LP with performance and analysis, will sell to subscribers only for about four dollars including postage. Since many of the records will be from familiar often recorded works, an Analysis-Only Record on a 10" disc will be available for $2.40 plus postage. This type of imaginative cooperation between teacher-analysts and distributor is a hopeful sign of what may begin to happen when it is finally recognized that business and culture are not necessarily incompatible. A greater range of selections may be had from another mail order plan, The Musical Masterpiece Society.

Basically, its format is the distribution of lists of available recordings accompanied by order blanks. Recently, it has begun a monthly selection plan similar in operation to Music Treasures and Music Appreciation. The size, however, is 10" LP; the price, $1.50 plus postage; the recordings generally lesser known works. The competition of these various plans ultimately benefits the consumer-if he is aware of their existence. It seems the natural role of the humanities faculties to alert their students to the existence of all of these distribution schemes by listening or rental libraries for music, circulating galleries for the art, and honor payment or free rental for the paperbacks.

New technical processes and new methods of distribution-the contribution of business and technology to a maturing American culture-ought to have an impact on the humanities curriculum. And, if we stop to reflect, it is not surprising that a changing technology implies a changing humanities curriculum. The very fact that we have a humanities curriculum at all in mass education is a function of the increased leisure and income that technology has made more generally available. Indeed, mass education itself is a result of the industrial revolution.

Literature, at least reprints of classic selections, could become a staple in mass education only because of cheap paper and presses. As technology masters the problems of reproducing other art forms, it is only natural that the school will include them in the curriculum. It is because of the social results of the same industrial revolution that everyman's parlor, as it were, can become a library-concert hall-art gallery. Not only can the common man afford to spend money on these luxuries, but he also can afford to spend time on them. For the democratization of leisure is a corollary of the democratization of patronage we have been discussing.

It would be an irony of the most embarrassing kind if our purported enemies-the businessmen and scientists-could momentarily outstrip us in the effectiveness of their contribution to America's cultural maturity. But they have solved with amazing vigor the gargantuan problem of developing a mass supply of great art; perhaps it is one of our most important responsibilities at present to advertise for them and develop a mass consumer base for their newly created supply. In other words, it may be that one of our major roles as humanists in the immediate future is that of introducing our students to their new roles as patrons of the arts. To do that job competently, we must first know intimately the nature and scope of the mass reproduction revolution which has been merely outlined in the foregoing pages.

Finally, if this conscious cooperation with wholesome developments in the reproduction and distribution of the great art of the past is a legitimate goal of the humanities teacher, then an even greater responsibility is as yet almost totally unformulated. For technological change has not only changed the leisure and patronage patterns for classics. It has also created new art forms which are perhaps more crucial in their control over public taste than any of the great art forms and products of previous ages. Radio, TV, the movies, mass journalism, industrial design-the so-called popular arts-are the humanities, so to speak, of mass society.

Everyman is already their patron, albeit he is a rather untutored and disorganized one. If technological change affects humans-and it so obviously does, then it affects the humanities, or the expression of humanness. If we have a responsibility to help the common man become an intelligent patron of the classics, it seems we have an even more critical responsibility-that of making him a more intelligent patron of the popular arts. For it is a sad but accurate observation that in spite of the humanist's persistent ignoring of popular culture, it is only the humanist who has the special knowledge to develop and disseminate standards in the popular arts.

Technological change, then, not only changes the ways by which the classics are patronized, it also creates new art forms and patterns for patronizing them. How we can help our students fill their multiple roles as patrons of both the classics and the emergent technological arts is the question confronting the humanist in contemporary America. We could make the school a clearing house for the proven excellence of the classics and a seminar for developing and disseminating standards for the popular arts. To choose only the former is to run the risk of being submerged by vulgarity; to choose only the latter is to foolishly cut oneself off from the richest human experience.

A SELECTIVE LIST OF SOURCES FOR INEXPENSIVE REPRODUCTIONS
I. LITERATURE See Good Reading (November, 1954), p. 207 for comprehensive list of paperbound publishers and addresses. See "Mass Market" section of Publisher's Weekly for lists of new titles. Book Clubs. American History Publication Society, 11 E. 36th Street, New York 16. Book Find Club, 215 Fourth Avenue, New York 3. Book of the Month Club, 345 Hudson Street, New York 14. History Book Club, 45 W. 57th Street, New York 19. Readers' Subscription, 35 W. 53rd Street, New York 19. Seven Arts Book Society, 215 Fourth Avenue, New York 3.

II. ART Art Treasures of the World, 100 Sixth Avenue, New York 13. Associated American Artists Galleries, 711 Fifth Avenue, New York 22. Contemporary Arts, 31-S Stanhope Street, Boston 16, Mass. "Design Portfolio," Art News, 654 Madison Avenue, New York 21. Marboro Book Shops, 222 Fourth Avenue, New York 3. Metropolitan Miniatures, 345 Hudson Street, New York 14. Museum Pieces, 114 E. 32nd Street, New York 16. Sculpture Reproductions, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue at 82nd, New York 28. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Design Quarterly.

III. MUSIC Schwann LP Catalog, 131 Clarendon Street, Boston, 16, Mass. Aaron Copland, What to Listen For in Music (Mentor, $.35). Howard Taubman, How to Build a Record Library (Hanover House, $1.50). Record Clubs. American Recording Society, 100 Sixth Avenue, New York 13. Music Appreciation Records, 345 Hudson Street, New York 14. Musical Masterpiece Society, 250 W. 57th Street, New York 19. Music Treasures of the World, 100 Sixth Avenue, New York 13. 443