So you want to be a musician? and Are There Too Many Musicians? These are two questions asked in the introduction by Dr David Cutler author of the soon to be released book The Savvy Musician. With doom and gloom seemingly around every corner for the arts, this book is a like a GPS for musicians to find an alternative route, one that wont just bring a check whilst biding ones time waiting for a “regular job” to appear. No, David goes so far as to suggest that alternatives can help the art form itself become relevant! My neck is sore from all the nodding I was doing whilst reading this, and so I decided to write my first ever book review……..
Aud.Connect
Back to School Special!!!
Next week my class The Audience Connection starts up again and like last year it will be podcast and I will post highlights at Houndbite. This class deals with current affairs in the arts world and so just like last year, I am asking for topic requests. Either send one as a comment on this post or send me an email. I will post highlights from these discussions. Below is a clip from one of last year’s requested topics…..
How about Savvy Music Schools?
The Savvy Musician, a book by Dr. David Cutler comes out in November. There is some publicity being generated about the book’s upcoming release and the potential impact it might have on those musicians seeking careers in non traditional venues. I haven’t read it (advanced copies are available) but an article about it raises some questions for me as to the motives of schools that think that entrepreneurship is the answer for musicians who are not finding work in “traditional” musical settings. The potential problem in music schools creating stand alone entrepreneurship programs, is that it treats it a little like alternative medicine…..i.e not taking it seriously
Summer musings and amusings!
Tagging onto Bill’s random thoughts, some things have been rattling round my head, along with some things I picked up on our trip and online, starting with an intriguing question from a member of the Syracuse Symphony as we were preparing to play a concert in Rome NY…..
Having our Cross-over to Bear: Concert Snapshot – Chris O’Riley
A funny thing happened on the way to the Dakota: a new magazine came across my path. It’s called “Listen – Life With Classical Music.” Actually I don’t know if it’s new but it’s definitely new to me. What caught my eye was an article on Erich Korngold and his travails for having the …… audacity? …… idiocy? ……… intelligence? ……… to write music for Hollywood, and the negative effect this had on his career. Boy does that sound familiar……
Dancing Maestros on the Jumbotron……
In a “review” by Lawrence Johnson, he ranted about the use of the Jumbotrons at the Ravinia festival. OK I can see that there might be some who want the “traditional” experience, but the setting is far from traditional in the concert going sense, accessibility is something that needs to be taken into consideration and he actually has a solution to his problem and doesn’t even realize it…….
Response to Joe: Bursting the Programming Bubble…on the road again!
Joe over on Butts in Seats challenged our blogging community regarding programming and Bill as usual hit a slam dunk. My take is that we place too much faith in programming as being the answer to our woes when the real problems lie in the attitudes and motivations behind the programming. This notion we have to be ahead of the curve, ahead of our time, ahead of the audience might make some in the biz feel good, but it actually can make us less relevant and appear desperate which could end up alienating us from our audiences….
“Hoops, there it is!” – a response to Joe
Our blog-brother Joe (Butts In The Seats) has posted a most interesting question in his last blog and it just screams out for a response. Fortunately I can compress my response down to two words: Michael Jordan.