As my blog-buddy Drew McManus has mentioned we are going to start an in-depth series on the red line contract proposal from the Minnesota Orchestra. There will be much jaw dropping and gnashing of teeth – contradictory actions I’d like to point out – but hopefully it will be enlightening for all and sundry. I realized, however, that mayhaps I should take a different approach. Namely, how about a translation of what it all means to the layperson, Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Josephine Average? Let’s start there. This blog is aimed at those of you out there who are NOT musicians. Read on.
I have a neighbor who I’ll call Richard… because that’s his name….. who I love like a brother. He’s a very smart guy, played sax in his youth, is a lover and supporter of the arts (especially music), and is a cynical and hilarious all-around good guy. My friend Richard doesn’t get it. As soon as the issues surrounding the current lockout @ the Minnesota Orchestra came to light we had a conversation where he flat out stated he didn’t see what the musicians were whining about since they were already being overpaid for a part-time job.
Richard is not alone in his assessment. I’ve had a lot of conversations along this line. The musicians of the M.O. have the sympathy of their fellow musicians, most artists, and many, many supporters of music. The management of the M.O. has essentially used the “overpaid underworked” argument, and many people without an intimate understanding of music, music training, and musician’s lives will buy directly into that argument. Those people are not going to understand why the various rules in the Master Agreement are there in the first place, and what the impact of changes to those rules might be. So let me try to shed some light on the differences between we musicians and civilians.
CONCENTRATION
I function differently than you do. I’m not saying “better,” I’m saying “differently” (though do we really need another study to tell us that learning an instrument as a child brings life-long benefits? Really???). You cannot do what I do, mentally or physically. To be honest, I could add vice versa to that last sentence, but let’s move on. Example: the summer of 1992….
I had left the University of Southern California because I had learned all I was going to learn there, and I was working as a temp in Hollywood. I landed a longer gig at Paramount Studios working for the Vice-President of something or other. Other than getting on the set of Deep Space 9 before production started, and almost getting run over by Patrick Stewart near the Roddenberry building, it was a forgettable experience. But I freaked that VP right out.
Invariably at 9 AM he would open his door, plop a big stack of things to do on my desk, then go back into his office to BS his way through another day in Hollywood. Come 11 AM he’d open his door to find me studying Brahms. An early conversation went something like this:
VP: “What are you doing?” ME: “Looking at Brahms 2. Great piece.” VP: “What about all the stuff I wanted you to do?” ME: (distractedly) “Oh yeah, here.” (I’d hand everything back to him, fully completed, and go back to Brahms). VP: (perplexed) “It would take my regular secretary all day to do this.” ME: “I know.” (back to Brahms).
Regular secretary, I’m sure, was not a raving incompetent, but she had a different set of mental skills than I. Built into her day was the coffee break, the cigarette break, the call the girlfriends to figure out what trendy bar they were going to hit that night break, etc., etc., etc… all before lunch. VPs stuff will get done but it will get done on her time.
Me, I saw a pile of stuff and would go into music mode. One very frenetic 1 1/2 hours of intensity and…. it’s done. I was studying Brahms for a 1/2 hour before VP guy even opened his door. Now keep in mind that I was able to do this despite having a minimal level of experience working as a temp. The question then is: how?
TRAINING
I am trained differently than you are. Notice that I once again didn’t use the word “better.” The first aspect of my training is that I have to deal with an instrument – the piano. I have been dealing with said instrument since I was six years old. The number of people who I have met who I would say have “mastered” that instrument can quite easily be counted on one hand. Playing an instrument really, really well is extremely difficult. If it wasn’t you would never see those commercials on TV hawking the system which will “have you playing like a pro in just one hour!” Good luck with that.
Because instruments are difficult to play it requires a whole new set of skills to learn how to play. This is a very important point. There’s the physical part of things – I have to convince and train muscles to act in an extremely focused way, a way in which those muscles do NOT want to work. It surprises no one in the music business that string players are prone to need rotator cuff surgery, a procedure most common among Major League pitchers. The wear and tear on these muscles is incredible, day after day, year after year. A very famous pianist once said “I practice 8 hours a day. If I only practice 6 I start to notice. If I only practice 4 the audience starts to notice.” Imagine playing football 8 hours a day. You’ld be dead.
Then there’s the matter of imagination. Not only do I have to train those muscles but I have to listen to what is happening. This is another very important point. A good musician is a self-critical musician. It can always sound better, the connection between notes can always be clearer, the dynamics can always be more extreme. Using your imagination to create better music while you’re playing requires both sides of your brain to work overtime and in consort. Right side brain imagines better music; left side brain figures out how to make it so.
Last but not least there’s the matter of information processing. Open up an orchestral score to, say, the Rite of Spring. The amount of sheer information on one page is enough to cause most people to run screaming. 20 woodwind parts, 8 horns, 5 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, strings, and enough percussion to cause tremors along the nearest geological fault line. For every instrument there is information on pitch, duration, dynamics, all in a multiple of clefs, transpositions, and types. Overall you need to understand tempo, orchestra layout, time signature, key signature, etc., etc. Now process all of this information in under a second. Now process all this information and compare it to what you are hearing! Do THAT in that same second. Now adjust. Do this while thinking about what is going to happen two seconds in the future! Make sure your body is conveying the proper information to the orchestra about that as well. Adjust.
That’s what I do as a conductor. Individual musicians in an orchestra do not have quite that amount of information in front of them as they usually just deal with their own part, but they still must be aware of everything that is going on around them, process that information on an ongoing basis and adjust, all while playing an instrument really, really well. Compare that to retyping the VP’s letter to so-and-so. For me that level of information processing is so low I can do that with my reptile brain and still be thinking of the closing Sacrificial Dance of the Rite.
In other words, playing an instrument in a really top notch orchestra takes an ability to concentrate like a laser, all while processing a huge amount of information, all the while adjusting on the smallest and largest of scales. This is physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting. I once asked a colleague in the Met Opera what his worst day was. He mentioned a day when he had a 6 hour rehearsal of Falstaff and later a performance of Götterdammerung (4+ hours if it’s a minute). He told me it took him 3 days to recover and I believe him.
THE PROFESSIONAL
The professional musician is trained to do this, all for your enjoyment. We have to do all of the above and still make music! Music is the most beautiful gift given to mankind. It is that which soothes the savage beast. It is the universal language. It is…… glorious. Yes, unfortunately, everyone can point to someone who sits on stage like they are bored and uninterested. Those people are to be pitied, for they have lost their love and interest in this most beautiful thing.
But folks, when it comes to the rest of us, doing this day in and day out is just hard. Even when highly trained and disciplined the human body/brain cannot keep up this level for more than a few hours a day. The concentration required over two intense rehearsals is enough to fry a person. Funny eough, it is the simplest music which is the hardest. A double rehearsal of Mozart can turn a person into a gibbering idiot.
In order to maximize effort and ensure optimum performance rules have been codified in the agreements between musicians and orchestra managements. This is as much for the musicians protection as it is for that of the public. If you have paid good money to come and be entertained then you would expect the best from those people on stage. If they are exhausted, distracted, and miserable you are not going to hear a good performance, no matter how good those musicians are.
And goodness, the last thing on earth you want to run into afterwards is a pack of surly musicians. They make the Daleks look like a bargain pack of Barbie Dolls.
Bill, if your brain is actually this amazing (and, yes, I’ve been a conductor, too) then you must realize how self-serving and narrow-minded this is. I’ve often compared playing an instrument to performing open-heart surgery, but that is the point, there are many many professions that require as much or more training and with more important stakes. Get over yourself. You work hard, as hard as anyone, that should be argument enough to be paid a skilled labour wage. The. fact that you find a need to formulate this kind of argument is one indication that musicians have a “perception of reality” problem. Pilots don’t wrote blogs like this, Hollywood script writers don’t write blogs like this, and architects don’t write blogs like this. Have you ever wondered about the depth of knowledge of materials, mechanical engineering and acoustics it takes just to conceive of and design the concert hall you perform in? Stop whining and get back to work.
actually, i do. i have worked in acoustics and find it fascinating. but, respectfully, i disagree with your conclusions. My point is that I don’t know anybody who started training as a mechanical engineer or an architect when they were 5 years old. Certainly the basis is there – math, etc., – but the development of the musical being is fundamentally different. Once again, I don’t say “better.” I am not making value judgments here. I am describing the process.
The basis is indeed there — and yes, you do start in many cases thinking of yourself in those terms and moving in that direction in a very rigorous sense at an extremely young age. I have to agree with the above poster — there are few professions that start with quite the monastic devotion that music involves, but they ARE there. Absolutely. If you don’t know anyone who started their path in the hard sciences at the age of 5, you simply don’t know any scientists. I don’t know what “I’ve worked in acoustics” even means. You are not part of the scientific community, and you do not know the ways in which we/they begin that journey at an equally young age, to the point of being able to whip through any officeworker’s daily agenda in about 45 minutes.
I’ve found a similar dismissal of anyone who isn’t in their chosen avocation from scientists. “I’m not saying I’m better than they are, just different,” is a tell for someone who is indeed saying exactly that.
When I say that I have studied acoustics I have done exactly that. I have studied the math, I have worked with acousticians, and I have been a part of acoustical studies. Because it is directly related to music I take a very strong interest in it. That’s what it means.
Second of all, your argument does not hold up. Again today there was yet another study telling us what every other study has already shown – musician’s brains are different. Being different is not better, it is different. I freely admit that I do not have the skill set for, say Sociology, Biology, Metaphysics, or a host of other career paths. I do not dismiss them, so please do not put words in my mouth. I know all the words you used, I know what they mean, and if I had meant to say that I would have used those words. I am very sure that if you think hard you can come up with a couple examples of a “profession that start(s) with quite the monastic devotion that music involves.” I am equally sure that you cannot come up with one that combines the physical, the language skills, the imagination, and the concentration that makes music unique in this regard. If you can, please enlighten me.
I think thats bit of a strange comparison….If I miss something when i’m shredding its a “oops, I screwed up need more practice” moment,Sure I can and probably would get embarrassed if it was a performance but life goes on. If my heart surgeon missed something when I was getting my quad 4 years ago then it wouldnt be a “oops, my bad moment”.. And life would not go on…Literally if not figuratively. I probably wouldn’t be writing this. Can’t see a valid comparison between the two at the end.Ma
Bill, interesting to read, surprised you did not mention something that conductor’s need a Ph.D in; “People Management”. Almost as important as being able to read that score.
Jim G.
oh god, jim, let’s not get into the whole psychological aspect. that’s a whole ‘nother series.
once again, missing my point. i’m not saying “better,” i’m saying “different.”
Bii,
Reading your “cri de couer” really resonated with me. As Aussies say, “Been there, done that”. As I haven’t gigged in years, so I guess I’m not a musician. I’m a composer whose day job is as a school band teacher.
With regards to the MSO pay scale, I can only wish I made as much. A running joke among composers is that the major symphonies should ax a couple fiddle players (they wouldn’t be missed much) and with the money savede, they could hire 10 composers! If you want to see overly educated and underpaidfolk, just look at thecompostion community.
Bill,
While you wrote this for non-musicians, I have to tell you this really resonated with me as a musician. After a six-hour day it’s easy to look at my spouse, my friends–the people around me with ‘normal’ jobs–and feel like a slacker. A Beethoven rehearsal the other night wore me out, and the ‘why’ is all there in your paragraph on information processing. Thanks for the timely reminder of what I was doing up there; I think I can cut myself a little slack now!
The job of professional musician is incredibly different from a lot of other jobs, and not well understood. Just as no one sees the hours a magician puts into practicing, our audiences don’t see the mental taxation and grueling physicality that go into our graceful, effortlessness performances.
It’s important that people who intend to judge the value of our work (and that seems like almost everyone these days….) understand what the job really entails. When the public starts opining that Hollywood script writers and architects are overpaid and under worked, well it’ll be time for them to educate the public on their job description too.
I think the problem that necessitates this blog article is that the general public think that playing music is just some sort of fun hobby. No one but a musician understands the emotional and physical exhaustion that occurs. No one ever questions how much pilots and surgeons get paid because people’s lives are at stake when they are at work. Our training is just as difficult and intense, but there’s no life or death involved when one of us makes a mistake.