Teens Rate the Pleasures of Playing

According to a new study, 83% of teen-agers currently playing musical instruments, and two-thirds of those who don’t, believe instrumental music should be part of the regular school curriculum.

For the junior high school years, that would seem to be particularly critical, for although 79% of those who play an instrument learned between the ages of 6 and 11, the majority of those who stopped playing did so between 12 and 14.

Funded by the National Assn. of Music Merchants, the American Music Conference survey examined the learning experience and attitudes towards music of 12- to 19-year olds divided into three categories: those who currently play an instrument, those who used to play an instrument and those who never learned.

A majority of those who stopped playing said they wished that they had kept it up, and a majority of those who never learned to play an instrument wish that they had. Strong majorities agreed with the statement “Learning to play an instrument is something you’ll always be glad you did,” including 58% of those who never learned an instrument.

Demographically, the most typical current player is female, age 12-13, living in a household of four to five members. Not surprising, perhaps, 65% of the current players come from families with incomes of $35,000 or higher.

Sixty-three percent of those who continue to play an instrument say that their motivation to play is internal, while for 56% of the former players the motivation came from a teacher or parent.

Overall music industry retail sales in 1988 were flat, at $3.7 billion. Sales of band and orchestra instruments, fretted instruments, sheet music and various paraphernalia were up, with keyboard instruments other than electric pianos mostly down. Although the export of U.S. instruments grew 30% to a record $215 million, thanks largely to the decline of the dollar versus foreign currencies, this still remains an area of trade deficit with $847 million worth of imports.

PODIUM MOVES: Robert Shaw has been named principal guest conductor of the San Diego Symphony. The 73-year-old conductor, who bears the titles of music director emeritus and conductor laureate with the Atlanta Symphony, was music director of the San Diego orchestra from 1953-57. . . . Jorge Mester has signed a new contract with the Pasadena Symphony that should keep him with the orchestra until spring, 1993. This season, Mester’s sixth as music director of the orchestra, begins on Oct. 28 with 18-year-old violinist Anne Akiko Meyers making a homecoming appearance with the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No. 5.

ON THE RADIO: Public radio station KUSC will carry the Texaco/Metropolitan Opera broadcasts in 1989-90, following the demise of KFAC--which broadcast the live-performance series for years--as a classical-music station. This 50th season of Texaco sponsorship of the broadcasts begins Dec. 2, with the traditional Met marathon, featuring highlights from past live Met broadcasts, as well as interviews with Met artists of the past and present. Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten” will be heard, live, Dec. 9. The radio season ends April 21, with Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung”; in all, there will be 21 broadcasts this season . . . In the meantime, the call letters KFAC, which disappeared from local radio on Sept. 20, have been reassigned, by permission of the Federal Communications Commission, to former FM station KSCA in Santa Barbara. KSCA is an affiliate of KUSC.

SLAVIC DO-SI-DO: The National Folk Ballet of Yugoslavia will perform at UC Irvine Nov. 16 and at Ambassador Auditorium Nov. 18, replacing the Doina Romanian Folk Ballet. The entire U.S. Doina tour has been canceled.

CONCERT DEBUTS: The Frankfurter Kantorei, which won first prize in the 1986 International Choir Festival, makes its U.S. debut tonight. The 70-voice ensemble sings the “St. John” Passion for the Los Angeles Bach Festival at the First Congregational Church, accompanied by the local Festival Orchestra. . . . Bulgarian conductor Ivan Spassov makes his U.S. debut Saturday with the Garden Grove Symphony as part of a conductor exchange program sponsored by Armand Hammer. The 54-year-old music director of the Pazardjik Symphony brings a program of Bulgarian music new to this country, including his own Cello Concerto.