Concert Warm-Up - Frank Horvat

What’s the Use of Playing Live Anymore?

I’m presently contemplating whether or not I should do another piano concert tour. Perhaps not such a large scale one like the Green Keys Tour, but still something substantive that would take up a lot of time to organize, rehearse and execute.

While my personal enthusiasm to share my music first-hand remains very strong, I can’t help but hesitate because of the general cultural malaise I’ve observed around live performance lately. As a society, are we moving away from musicians presenting live concerts? It seems like there’s news every other day of a venue, concert presenter or performance group closing up shop. And those that stick it out are struggling financially and fighting like cats and dogs to get bums in the seats. Most musicians I know (including quite prominent ones) can’t come anywhere close to making a subsistent living playing live.

Meanwhile, the ability to attain home entertainment systems with top-notch sound seems pretty within reach for Joe Public these days. And thanks to Spotify, Apple and YouTube, anyone with an internet connection can listen to any piece of music anywhere, anytime.

Is technology gobbling up the live music venue?

Here’s the other issue I have with the live performance discussion…many of you reading this will poo-poo the points I’ve brought up as pessimistic and espouse that live music is the greatest and irreplaceable by technology. I agree with this. Many surveys and studies have been presented lately that substantiate the benefits of live music to individuals and a community. But if everyone thinks live music is so great and so important to the cultural fabric, why are more people not going?!? Are we in a headspace where we like the feeling that it’s there but when it’s time to actually go, we’ll make up an excuse and plop ourselves in front of Netflix instead?

From my personal perspective, this societal transition is really secondary to my internal motivations and feelings. As a musician, I have dedicated my career to the primary goals that making and playing music fulfills my happiness, is a mouthpiece to what I think and feel and provides me with a sense of accomplishment. Any feedback from the world at large is just a bonus. So regardless of the outcome of this debate and how my future plans are shaped because of that, I guess I’ll continue to simply enjoy sharing my music…even if there’s only one person sitting in the audience.

Concert Warm-Up - Frank Horvat

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