I've recently figured out why the so-called musicians or music teachers here don't go to concerts.
Being a classically-trained pianist, I was exposed to life on stage since I was a little. A year after I started my piano lessons my teachers started to enrol me to school concerts on regular basis, and that means go up on stage and perform for big audience approximately twice a year. In between there were performances for peers which we called studio classes and home concerts. Although I hated it, I tried my best to survive and most of the time I managed quite all right. Later, of course, I found that I didn't hate it that much, but I'm just at my best when I'm behind the stage and if have to be on it, I prefer to share it with at least one other musician. Thus my love for chamber music playing.
Anyway, I found that many music teachers of today, to whom my resentment goes for not being more supportive towards classical music development, have not shared the same experience. Apparently they grew up as musicians in a different time period where their parents and teachers worship all things instant and stage performance is not part of their drill. Their thing is exam. Their aim is getting a piece of paper that states that they have passed a certain grade and so people (hopefully) believe that their abilities go in accordance with the result on paper. Every year they would take exam at higher level, and at a certain point, where there are no more available exams to be taken, they start teaching and stop learning because they've reached the pinnacle. Afterward, they stop performing and going to a performance.
I see now that people who received the same trainings as mine are also people who love live concerts. Maybe because we're used to it, life on stage for us is always interesting. When we're not performing ourselves, we can relate to someone who goes out there and give his/her best shot. But then, for musicians who perform mostly for one person (called examiner) their whole life, a concert would probably be just another day in the music business.
I personally think it's a shame. There's so much one can learn by attending concerts, even if it is a bad one. (Of course, we must limit the intakes of bad concerts in our life.) For musicians, I think it's vital that every once in a while, we go and see and listen to a live performance. There are so many sensations which you couldn't get from recorded performance, no matter how perfect it is, and those will sharpen our senses and imaginations. Great performances can even be very inspiring and life-changing.
But just like everything else, life on stage isn't for everybody, which makes me realize that as a teacher, I have to get my kids to love this kind of life because it's essential for their progress as musicians. Also as human beings, I believe. Their life will be richer, even if they don't choose music as their main profession.
