Not much is going right for music in the Midlands.
This is an advertisement running on the buses.
It shows an old man playing music too loud because he is deaf.
Just the image the orchestra want to avoid.
But even the National Express West Midlands has got a negative perception.
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Don’t get me wrong: I am really concerned about the direction things are headed in with Emma in charge. But it’s not right to blame the orchestra for bus adverts which have literally nothing to do with us.
A campaign seems to be developing on Slipped Disc and in the press implying that we can’t do anything right. We are still the same group of musicians, Kazuki is an inspiration and we shouldn’t be defined by our management. It is a difficult time and we need people’s support. Please come to a concert rather than always criticising us!
Indeed. Around 90% of the commentary on the CBSO’s recent season launch (including much on this site) has come from people who weren’t present and in many cases appear never to have set foot in Birmingham. One national publication described a concert at “Birmingham City Hall”. Another described signs at Symphony Hall that were entirely a figment of their imagination. True, the current CBSO CEO is not particularly good at communication. So much of this could have been avoided with better PR. But the music is telling a very different story, and you’d hope that people would let that do the talking.
Of course, this isn’t wholly new: there’s been a concerted effort from some parts of the national media to put the CBSO “back in its box” since the early Rattle era. The fact that the CBSO has (for the fifth decade in a row) a dynamic, popular and inspiring MD who’s already drawing attention from Berlin and the US “Big Five” is a hard pill to swallow in London, where many of the major orchestras currently have conductors who are known quantities or safe-pairs-of-hands – and where they couldn’t even give Rattle adequate working conditions.
Meanwhile this whole non-story is largely a vortex of Chinese whispers – an inverted pyramid of piffle, to coin a phrase – and this is the feeblest example yet (National Express isn’t even a Birmingham-based company). Unfortunately it will be swallowed whole by many of the commenters on this site, who rarely read past the headline and as you’ll be well aware, are often far from being the sharpest knives in the drawer (see below for evidence).
This is the last straw. How dare the new CEO put these adverts around Birmingham. Regulars at the Symphony Hall may not be in the 1st flush of youth but many of us have been buying tickets since before she was born. We aren’t all deaf and how dare she say we are too old and no longer welcome? It’s not right she needs to go or be pushed. Has she got permission to use this gentleman’s photograph in such an embarrassing way?
Edna, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick! This is nothing to do with the CBSO – it comes from the local Birmingham bus company.
This isn’t the CBSO
Edna. That’s a bit embarrassing.
What is so negative about growing old? New people are achieving the sunlit uplands of retirement every single day.
The CBSO management seems to have forgotten in its drive to recruit younger supporters that, like buses, there will be more of us along in a minute…
Oh, and that older people aren’t some monolithic block… we’re all different!
It’s a phenomenon that seems to be on the rise on the buses in Birmingham – people listening to music using the speaker on their mobile rather than using earbuds or headphones. Is it a problem elsewhere? I suspect so.
I’m slightly annoyed that National Express West Midlands (the company that has a virtual monopoly of bus travel in Birmingham) has chosen an old gentleman as the face of classical music, though I guess it gets the point across well! I’m glad they recognise it as a problem.
In my more mischievous moods I’m tempted to carry a punchy Bluetooth speaker and counter the assault with a few bars of Beethoven’s Fifth, or a choice excerpt from Elektra! 🙂
„Old white men are the problem“ reminds of Monty Python‘s hilarious film „The life of Brian“…
„What have the Romans ever done for us?“
„medicine… irrigation…
health… roads… cheese…education…
baths…?“
„Well, apart from medicine, irrigation,
health, roads, cheese and education,
baths and the Circus Maximus,
what have the Romans ever done for us?“
This ad has been on West Midland buses for a while, and I agree it riffs off negative stereotypes which are prevalent.
It would be better to campaign for people driving cars not to inflict their ludicrously loud booma music on other drivers. I don’t force them to listen to Bach and Handel through my closed windows!
Oh that’s priceless, reinforcing the gray haired old man trope, as if some people don’t have enough reasons already for staying away.
Who devised this? Some 19 year old clown in an advertising agency?
Who says he is deaf?
No one!
Ironic that McDonald’s and train stations in the north now play classical music over their public speakers specifically with a view to providing calm. National Express should try it, instead of taking the… Mickey.
Isn’t “banging” in American slang, also a deplorable, pornographic verb? Such a poor choice of words, besides the despicable imagery used to convey -if it can be called that- the message.
Bonking is the British equivalent. That said, if it were going the direction you are heading, it would say “Banging to Classical” in the US, or “Bonking to Classical” in the UK. A British cousin of mine had a pocket dog which could not stop humping all inanimate objects, she eventually and appropriately changed it’s name to Bonkers.
To “bang on about” is British slang for talking about something repeatedly or tediously, similar to “harping on about”.
it has nothing to do with the American “banging”.
Huh? “We’re onboard together”. Looks like a request from the bus line to not play music so loud that others can hear. Boomboxes are history but leakage from headphones is damned annoying.
Where does the orchestra fit in to this?
The CBSO already supports the trams which pass Symphony Hall.
Not much is going right in the midlands? How about the CBSO sounding better than ever and their wonderful Music Director, Yamada? What a terrible sweeping statement, Norman. Such a shame.
I agree – it’s exciting times for the CBSO, and next season’s programme looks excellent.
This week, as well as hearing Ben Goldscheider and the Martinu Quartet in Leamington, I enjoyed the CBSO’s own principal clarinetist Oliver Janes in a lunchtime recital at the University of Birmingham and saw Welsh National Opera’s very funny and entertaining Così and their astounding Death in Venice at the Birmingham Hippodrome.
So lots of things going very well in the Midlands!
Hearing WNO in Birmingham will not go on for much longer if ACE gets its way!
This advertisement has absolutely nothing to do with the CBSO and everything to do with idiots playing the sounds from their mobile phones so loudly that they ruin the journey for everyone else.
Pensioners playing classical music loudly on their smart phones is a constant problem.
And then there’s the graffiti ….
This ad is one of five featuring different age, sex and culture. It has been run for over 3 years, so why have you picked up on it now?
Did doesn’t say he’s deaf, it’s a campaign to ask anyone not to play their music so load. Not only have some people got the wrong end of the stick, they haven’t even go the right stick.