<intro>
Picture the last crowded place you saw… and how many young people were wearing
headphones. Mp3 players are everywhere with most people flashing those white iPod earbuds.
It might be fashionable. It might be anti-social. But either way, iPods have become a staple
accessory. Intern Edition's Tristan Kraft wanted to know what these people were listening to and
if there was any classical to be found.
There's this stigma floating around that classical music is for old people. Who's to say that
iPods aren't filled with classical.
I went to the University of Maryland to ask what was playing. The answers might not be
surprising.
<Coldplay - Speed of Sound>
<I just pulled it out, I was probably going to put on Coldplay or something. - I was listening to U2 Reggae - CKY Brand New - 311 - Indian Music...>
<Sukhwinder Singh, Sapna Awasthi, featuring Panjabi MC - Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint>
I'm actually listening to Reggaeton - Foo Fighters - REM - Counting Crows - Panic at the Disco Nick Drake - Korean Pop.......>
Ok, so no one was listening to classical at that moment. But there were some less hip
surprises tucked away in those digital libraries.
<yea i have like 700 songs...classical songs - I have Lang Lang - I have a lot of music from the
romantic period, a lot of Shostakovich, Claude Debussy...I'm a big fan of Debussy.>
So yes. Young people at least have classical music on hand. Especially the big names:
<I have some Mozart and stuff like that - some songs by Mozart - I have some Beethoven, some
Mozart - Mozart and Beethoven - Little bit of Beethoven, little bit of Mozart - I do, it's a disco
version. What is it? Beethoveen's Fifth symphony>
<Walter Murphy & the Big Apple Band - A Fifth of Beethoven>
iPods are changing the way people listen to classical music. No one needs to be thrifty about
what to put on a playlist because everything fits. Even that obscure stuff like Schoenberg or
Webern or Elliot Carter.
<Arnold Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht, for string sextet, Op. 4>
<Currently I have Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht. Which is 'Transfigured Night.'>
Nick Kendall, concert violinist, graduate of the Curtis Institute, and 26 years old.
<One of my favorite things to listen to is the Faure Requiem which is unbelievably beautiful. A
good pair of head phones, you could walk around a city feeling totally uplifted. >
<Gabriel Faure - Requiem Op. 48, Sanctus>
Classical Record labels are also pretty excited about mp3 technology. Especially the huge
volume of storage, which makes room for classical.
<you put whatever could potentially be interesting on them and sometimes you're surprised at
what you choose… and that's where I feel that there's a real big upside for classical.>
Denise McGovern, New Media manager at Universal Music, Classical Group
<there's less of a risk to pull it down into your player and I think there's a lot of misconception that
young people don't like classical music and are afraid by it and think that it's quite old and stodgy.
I really feel like that's quite the opposite.>
<W. A. Mozart - Marriage of Figaro, Overture>
And the only thing that really sounds stodgy is the term "classical." Classical music is just a
name for a genre. iPods merge all genres.
<Not as a record person but as a person, person. I love to listen to my player on shuffle.>
<Walter Murphy & the Big Apple Band - A Fifth of Beethoven>
And that's what's going on - a big shuffle. What people listen to is still the same, but how they
listen is changing. People can take risks beyond that one CD. There's a capacity for all CD's that whole shelf - shuffled together.
So who cares what people are listening to? What's important is the music people don't have,
but still have room for. For Intern Edition, I'm Tristan Kraft