Thoughts for a Revised Topic...

Ok, since my first shot at selecting a topic was much too broad focused, here's my thoughts for a newer and narrower topic. A study of the comparison between the importance in Berlin of classical vocal music vs that of contemporary vocal music. This would probably focus primarily around current opera productions in Berlin with a comparison to performances of trendier songs and pop musicians.

Of course there will probably be significant differences in the target audiences of these two musical genres, but I would focus on other aspects of their popularities. I could research aspects such as: how much money from Berlin audiences goes into these genres annually, the quantity of performances put on in each genre, how frequently the respective venues are packed and how far ahead of time they become so, I could take small surveys on how many of what types of performances an average Berliner attends in a month or a year, and OF COURSE I would gain much insight from my attending performances of each.

Also I could use US culture to compare how far in what direction Berlin society resides on a hypothetical spectrum ranging from classical vocal music to pop vocal music. I'm assuming they have a higher value for vocal music, but I'm interested to see if there increased values are scewed more towards pop or if have equally elevated values for classics.