Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?

Subject: RE: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From: Peter T.
Date: 14 May 00 - 12:56 PM

Good questions, George -- you note that I covered the last issue in my original post. I am interested in active musicians, so singers would count in my books if they belonged to a choir, a choral group, or as part of a band, or sang regularly with their families or friends in a really engaged fashion. This begs all kinds of questions: if you took into account everyone who went to church and sang a hymn every week, then the numbers would go way up. If you added people who do karaoke, they would probably go up again. I am trying to identify people for whom some kind of skill or constant endeavour (however informal it might be) is engaged.

But anyone can add to this any way they like. I was just cutting it that way to suit my fancy. It is hard to find any numbers of any kind!!

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From:
Date: 14 May 00 - 12:40 PM

What about singers? Are they classified as musicians?

What about all the people who make music, both instrumental and vocal, who don't read sheet music?

Subject: RE: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From: paddymac
Date: 14 May 00 - 09:53 AM

I recall a newspaper bit a couple years ago saying the the two most popular hobbies in the US were 1) genealogy, and 2) music. I don't remember just exactly what was included in "music" (i.e.; playing, listening, collecting CDs, etc.)

Subject: RE: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From: JulieF
Date: 14 May 00 - 08:42 AM

The only think that I heard that may be relevant was that the place in the world withthe most musicians per head of populataion was Nashville but the second most was in Lerwick in the Shetland Isles. Just a wee difference.

Julie

Subject: RE: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 May 00 - 11:58 PM

I read in a magazine a few years ago that of the folks who answered a survey, one out of twenty something (maybe 27) who took any kind of musical instruction as kids, still played music as part of their adult lives.

Rick

Subject: RE: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 May 00 - 09:10 PM

Sorry, I should have said of course that Americans could multiply the Can. population by 10 -- 300 million.

I should also have said that I did a little looking around Professional Music Associations, and couldn't find any raw numbers. If my classical friend is roughly right, and with some overlap, and lots more people playing folk or electric guitar, or Hammond organ in the home or whatever -- I wonder if 500,000 is a good number for Canada -- 1 in 60 about. That seems far too high certainly for classical music, but with everyone else added in? I really have no idea. Just guessing.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 May 00 - 08:50 PM

That's a fascinating question, and I hope someone can come up with an answer.

I've just tried checking this site, which is a UK National Statistics data base, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of question they gather statistics about. (The major leisure activity outside the home is given as going to the pub, which I suppose figures. But it doesn't really help.../)

Someone must be doing research on it somewhere - though I doubt you could extrapolate too rereadily from one society to another.

Subject: Query: Musical People - Numbers, Stats?
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 May 00 - 06:52 PM

During a conversation last night I mentioned that I was taking guitar lessons, which started people talking about whether they had ever wanted to play, the usual horror stories, and two people who could still play piano (one was a semi-professional singer). This got me thinking, and I thought it might be interesting to find out what the numbers of "active" musical people would be on a nationwide basis. I start from the premise that most anyone could get involved in music, and also that music education in Canada is being eviscerated in the school system (a tragedy), unlike a country like Finland where everyone learns as much music as they can. Canada has 30 million people, so I guess Brits could double that plus a bit, and Americans double it. I define active musical people as those who do more than listen -- this could include classical musicians, garage band players, anything. I phoned a hobbyist classical musician friend of mine and he said that there were roughly 10-15 professional class orchestras in Canada, which means about 1000 professional class musicians, and 10,000 "feeder or support" musicians (his regional orchestra has trouble finding people). He thinks maybe 100,000 people in Canada can read music enough to follow a symphony score -- this of course does not affect lots of folk musicians who do just fine without reading music.

I know nothing about numbers of non-professionals. We have spots -- like Cape Breton -- where the ratio of active musicians to the general population is higher than elsewhere. But otherwise, who knows?

So, questions:

1)Anyone know, on a nationwide basis, how many people have a reasonable musical education?
2) On a nationwide basis, how many people can pick up an instrument and play a few chords or a melody?
3) How many people have a common experience of playing with others?
4) How many families play music together? 5) and so on. Any other relevant statistics or educated (or half-assed) guesses, welcome.

yours, Peter T.