.
. . the music ain’t bad
by
Karl Haas
Many
years ago I gave a recital with commentary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One
of the members of the audience who came up to greet me after the program
was a tall man with a windblown face—obviously a man of the soil. As I
shook hands with him, he said, “Dr. Haas, I listen to your program every
day on my tractor while I’m plowing fields. I don’t always understand what
you’re talking about, but I sure do like the way you say it. And the music
ain’t bad either.”
I’ve
always treasured that meeting because it proved that if audiences weren’t
quite getting what I had to say, they weren’t running away either; and
I was getting through with the music.
I learned
appreciation of great music through my mother, who taught me how to begin
to play the piano, and perhaps more importantly, how to listen to music.
Although I enjoy doing my own performing and have been playing the piano
and conducting for decades, I really get musical kicks in relishing the
performance of others, whether it be my good friends Isaac Stern and James
Galway, whose careers have been long established, or a younger performer,
like my friend Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops.
Most
of all, I love to simply listen to the music, letting it flow over me,
absorbing it as one absorbs the sunlight.
I have
been fortunate that for more than half a century I have been afforded the
opportunity of sharing and communicating my passion, my enthusiasm, and
my deep love for good music through the magic of radio.
Music
is, after all, primarily an audio experience. I’ve always found that music
on tele-vision can be distracting, with the visuals getting in the way
of the essence of the music. With radio, you have the choice of focusing
entirely on the experience or letting it simply become wallpaper. With
many classical music lovers, music as wallpaper is an insult. They want
to throw themselves headlong into the pool of melody.
One
day I received a letter of complaint from a gentleman in Denver who listens
to “Adventures in Good Music” on KVOD while he jogs. His grievance
was that too often when it is time for him to quit jogging, he’s in the
middle of a piece of music and has to go around the block again in order
to hear the complete piece; and if it’s a particularly long piece, he may
have to make two or three complete extra rounds.
Once
great music has affected us, it never leaves us. It becomes a passion.
A music lover may be able to live without certain foods or drink, but not
without fine music. It is this devotion and hunger that makes the classical
music radio audience the best radio listeners in the country.
I am
proud I’ve had a lifetime of sustaining this passion. After all, the music
ain’t bad.
Karl
Haas began his daily “Adventures in Good Music” program on WJR in Detroit
in 1959. National and international syndication through WCLV/Seaway Productions
in Cleveland began in 1970. Haas has won two Peabody Awards; the National
Endowment for the Humanities Award; and, in October 1997, he was inducted
into the Radio Hall of Fame. He has recorded compact discs which have sold
over 45,000 units.
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