The Olympian

Although it's not available online, check out the lengthy article by The New Yorker's own editor, David Remnick, in the August 4th issue of the magazine. After spending nine days with the pianist Lang Lang in Beijing, Remnick presents an enlightening portrait of the pianist's rock star reputation and the state of classical music in China.

Sounds of the City

Since my last post, we have moved from Boston to Brooklyn where we have gone back to being an urban/subway riding/tote your own groceries sort of family. Coming back to New York City has been exciting for me (since I was raised here), but there are some realities of raising children in the city that I was either not aware of growing up here or else had forgotten. The constant sound on the streets has been particularly startling to me in our few weeks here. Perhaps it's because we live in a first floor apartment, and I can literally hear the conversations of people passing my windows, the chatter of my doorman on his cellphone, and the forlorn sound of the banjo player who camps out underneath my bedroom window one or two evenings a week. At this moment, I can hear some teenager belting out "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" from an arts day camp nearby. My daughters' favorite sound is that of the Mister Softee truck coming down our street to the school at the end of the block. I can't believe those trucks still play those tinkling bells!

But the street sounds that stand out to me most as a mother are those coming from cars trolling down the avenues or open air restaurant sound systems spilling onto sidewalks. Overwhelmingly, these sounds are dance music: hip hop, rap, techno. Always fast, always upbeat. I've been startled a few times as my girls have spontaneously started wiggling when we've passed a car or store blaring some music with a beat. They dance in line at the frozen yogurt store. They dance to the rap at the dry cleaners. They even started dancing at the elegant Italian trattoria where we ate dinner next to two European-styled older women -- while hip hop played in the background. Last night at dinner, my older daughter started singing "I like to move it move it... I like to move it move it..." Where did she get that??

Apart from the observation that my children -- who never hear or dance to any of these genres at home -- seem to innately understand and enjoy these sounds, I am fascinated by the ubiquity of these genres in our public spaces. Fast, electronic music is clearly the background sound of our everyday lives, and as one who notices which establishments choose which kinds of music, I'm usually amazed by how little thought goes into making the selected music congruous with the desired experience. The Italian trattoria, for instance, was decorated in earthy Tuscan tones with Italian posters lining the walls. Wooden beams were exposed to create a wine cellar feeling and even the plates had an authentically Italian terra cotta look. Clearly much thought had been put into the overall atmosphere and design... except when it came to the music. The default to standard hip hop showed a strange lack of understanding that aural experiences contribute to the impact of design, food, and atmosphere.

The only store I've been in recently that has demonstrated an understanding of this principle is a high-end children's boutique in TriBeCa that specializes in 1930s and 40s designs. The store is decorated to transport the shopper back to this time period: vintage toys, even a vintage front door invite the shopper to be totally immersed in the brand attributes. Thank heavens the sound system was playing standards from the Great American Songbook!

But experiences like this make me wonder what it would be like if the standard electronic background music of our everyday lives were replaced with more "authentic" (that loaded word) sounds? Would my own daughters, exposed to and trained in the acoustic tradition, still start dancing outside of a store if it were playing Rigoletto instead of Rihanna?

I recently had two experiences in which the standard public soundtrack was replaced with music that resonates more with me. On the evening of the Fourth of July, my family was in our car driving home from Connecticut where we had spent the holiday with some friends. As we neared our exit on the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway, the traffic completely stopped. We had hoped to avoid all the traffic from the local fireworks shows, but soon after we stopped the mother of all fireworks shows began: the Macy's show in Lower Manhattan. I suspect our traffic was generated at least in part by people in other cars stopping to watch the show, because from the Brooklyn side of the East River we were perfectly positioned to see the whole thing. As the fireworks started outside our front window, Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto started simultaneously on the radio station we were listening to in our car. So our soundtrack to the biggest fireworks show in the nation was none other than Beethoven and a glorious performance by Maurizio Pollini.

As we flipped radio stations after the concerto was over, I realized that several other popular radio stations had provide their own official soundtracks during the show: a little Billy Joel, Springsteen, and several other good ol' American bands. I thought about what a different experience we had had watching the show to our own soundtrack-- a soundtrack that, for me, truly emphasized the majesty not only of what we were seeing but of what we were celebrating that day. My response to the moment was so much greater because it was accompanied by music that matched the hugeness and glory of what was going on outside.

More recently, I took the girls to a children's opera in a nearby playground -- a 30 minute version of Carmen in which my daughter was very disappointed that they had edited out Carmen's death at the end -- that was amplified to accommodate the outdoor setting. After the performance was over, the sound engineers turned on a soprano aria that I was not familiar with but which blared over the entire playground. As I pushed my daughters on the swings, I looked around at the scores of other children and parents/nannies milling around that park and wondered if they even noticed what was playing. To me, it was exquisite to have a simple act like swinging my kids on a crowded playground accompanied by the heavenly tones of this mellow-tempoed solo aria. The moment was made even more poignant since the middle school kids with us at the swings were laughing about which of them were "fags" and "whores". It reminded me of that moment in The Shawshank Redemption when the duet from Marriage of Figaro gives the prisoners a moment of emotional freedom. I teared up as we started walking home, devastated to leave this playground soundtrack behind and a little shocked that every single person at that park had not completely stopped what they were doing to marvel at the gorgeous music around us.

I'd love to hear more opinions on this topic. What are your responses to music in public spaces? Do you even notice it? Does it ever bother you, disrupt your dinner, drive you out of a store? What do you think would be the general response if public spaces featured a variety of genres? Would there be any response or are we too inured to the whole subject?