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Xabur1342
Registered User
Posts: 2
(7/29/01 2:21:50 pm)
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jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
I don't know whether a detailed survery has been done of this, or
where it can be found.
I was thinking about the number of
quality well-paying jobs that are available to cellists per year and
the number of people that graduate with performance degrees in cello
every year.
It seems that cellists have basically the
following choices if they want a good stable, long term job, with
health benefits, dental plans, a pension, guaranteed income, leave
of absences for maternal reasons or health reasons,
etc.
Orchestra
Jobs
----------------------
Reading the "Musician" monthly
magazine it looks to me like there are roughly 20 cello openings per
year in mid to high-paying orchestras. These orchestras generally
offer all the advantages I mentioned above.
Soloist
Jobs
------------------
The possiblity of becoming a
soloist that can actually live off the income generated from
performances is
non-existent. Only one cellist every five years
or so goes on to a performing career where they make enough money to
live comfortably.
University Teaching
Jobs
-----------------------------------
Doing a rough
estimate of the landscape in this area I see that there are a
maximum 3 openings per year for new University level teachers of
cello. If you consider that the average University cello teacher
produces 100 students in say 25 years of teaching and only one of
those will replace him or her, we see that the odds of a particular
student doing this are extremely slim.
Graduation
Rate
-----------------------
Again taking a very rough
estimate, it seems that approximately 200 cellists graduate with
performance degrees every year from conservatories/universities
around the US.
Comparision of Graduation Rate and Job
Offerings
------------------------------------------------------------------------
200
Graduates
25 Job Offerings
In other words only one in
eight cellists will actually go on to one of these
jobs.
Other Options
--------------------
Of
course there are other options for cellists.
One is teaching
in public schools, which is a good choice. Except if one is to do
this it is better to get an education degree in music rather than a
performance degree.
Another is private teaching which
generally by itself is not a very stable long term type of
arrangement. Even if one puts everything together, do some private
teaching, some chamber music, some low-income orchestra stuff,
playing weddings; and piece things together, it is not a very
stable, long-term situation.
Besides, teaching is generally done
in the afternoon and evening. Not a very good arrangement if you
will have kins that go to school in the morninga and early
afternoon.
Doing something non-musical like becoming a
customer service rep. for a company. But this option would probably
be better served by a non-musical degree that would allow one to
specialize more, such as a business degree, a computer science
degree, a chemistry degree etc.
Moral Dilemma
I am
sometimes a bit troubled by what I see in the music world. Young,
impressionable, people are told that as long as they practice, and
do their scales everything will be fine. They are enchanted into
spending, in some cases, $100,000 dollars on a music degree that
will create a debt that they will spend years repaying. Young people
are told to spend all their summers with their teachers, never
working in a summer job to build up a resume, spending $2500-3500
per summer to attend lessons and student orchestra rehearsals. Many
young people are under the impression that they will be in huge
demand in the real world. While they are in school they run from
rehearsal to rehearsal, from orchestra performance to orchestra
performance, from chamber music recital to studio recital. Little do
they know that once they are in the real world they may be one of 60
cellists given 10 minutes of play time at some orchestra audition
behind a curtain and prompty told to leave.
Cello teachers
regularly tell their students, "Don't take any more non-music
courses than you need to. Just practice your scales and pieces."
Meanwhile those non-music courses could prove essential in the real
world after conservatory.
Perhaps most questionable of all,
many Universities and Conservatories are not nurturing towards their
students. The teachers are expected to do some performing to boost
their bios. Or the teachers have a thirsty ego and need to feel like
they are performers. In truth, the teachers seem to put on an act of
being real performers. They are sometimes seen performing in the
Smalltown-Never-heard-of-it Festival. Or a concerto performance with
some low-grade community orchestra, just so they can put on their
resume "concertises in North America". Or they leave their regular
students for weeks at a time to teach one or two masterclasses at
So-and-So-Festival. If you look at the listing of teachers at one of
these festivals it can be quite funny. Their bios look more
impressive than that of Yo-Yo Ma, or Rostropovich. Yo-Yo Ma by the
way does 5 times more prestigious concerts in one month than these
teachers do in their entire lives. Yet again their bios are full of
hyperbole, exaggeration. "Performed with the Great-So-and-So
Orchestra under the Great So-and-So". Except they forget to mention
that this was 30 years ago and that it was actually one movement of
a concerto for a young peoples' concert, and they were 18 at the
time. Interestingly we rarely, rarely, ever read about the success
of their students.
Teachers in many conservatories monopolize
most of the performance spaces in the school they teach at so that
students get little if no opportunity to perform for the public. The
rare student concerts are so badly publicised, so "hidden" that in
most cases the public has no clue as to when the students concerts
are, where they are, etc. The very summer festivals that teachers
organize are also monopolized, where all the advertised performances
are done by the pseudo-performer teachers. The young people are told
that they cannot perform for the public and should simply pay their
$2500-3500 fee.
I was a student at two nationally acclaimed
conservatories which I will leave unnamed. In both teachers would
consider their students secondary to their pseudo-great performing
careers. On many occasions a teacher would leave their students for
weeks at a time to play a concert or two at that
Never-heard-of-it-Smalltown community festival.
Young people
are very impressionable. They often think of their teachers as
near-Gods. They cannot even consider that their teachers are only
human and are prone to making mistakes, are susceptible to following
a questionable moral paths. Just like anyone else.
What
can be done
---------------------------
Teachers need to
stop writing these extraordinary bios. They need to make some
choices. Are they going to be respected for whether they are
pseudo-great performers or for the kinds of fantastic young cellists
that they regularly produce? I think the ladder is in order. A
teacher should be greatly respected not for their made-up bio but
for their extraordinary dedication to students, their love of
teaching, their guidance, and the careers of their students. Nothing
else. This should be reflected in their biography. There is simply
too much conflict of interest when teachers are fighting for exactly
the same performance venues as the students. And of course guess
which side always wins. Playing a few concerts in small-scale venues
a few times a year is not the mark of a great teacher. The students
they guide produce are. The careers of the students are the most
important factor in judging the greatness of a teacher. The teacher
should not concentrate on their own career, but the career of each
and every one of their students and be greatly respected for
this.
Music conservatories need to be very frank with young
cellists about their prospects upon leaving conservatory.
Non-musical courses, even second non-musical or education degress,
should be required. Admission in pure performance degrees should be
severely cut down in number to fit the reality of the job market for
cellist in the US.
Young cellists need to be told that going
to Summer Festivals for large sums of money may not be the best for
them. Building up a resume with summer jobs can be much more
beneficial. And it can save them many financial headaches when
paying for college.
The myth that cellists will go on to
performance careers, especially as soloist, which is so common among
young people, needs to be put in some perspective. Sure, you may
become a soloist one day, but in the meantime you simply cannot put
all your eggs in one basket, you have to do many things at the same
time. Getting a physics or engineering degree on the side, while
taking cello lessons, and music theory courses, will make you more
confident in the long run, and perhaps even a better
cellist.
Wow, that was a long post.
Xabur
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ahntyme
Registered User
Posts: 2
(7/30/01 9:00:34 am)
Reply
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Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
Xabur-
Well done. A teacher has a responsibility to inform a
student on all the possibilities out there in the workplace.
Unfortunately the name of the game in college is recruiting so profs
often take in students who are underqualified in the first place and
are embarrasingly unready when they graduate. Ego is also involved.
I believe the best lesson a teacher can pass along is to be able to
teach and problem-solve for oneself. Too many teachers ( I think I
had every one of them) are too selfish or too stupid to pass that
info along. Lastly, if you happen to look around you in a room of
professional cellists, it's like looking around a veteran reunion.
Not everybody got there the same way therefore there is no set
formula in surviving this crazy business.
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dennisw
Registered User
Posts: 226
(7/31/01 6:59:48 pm)
Reply
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Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
Excellent posting!!! As you say, this is a topic that is studiously
avoided by nearly everyone in the profession. I think most cellists
are in denial, but there are some professors out there who will
advise their students about the realities of the workplace.
Unfortunately, they are in the minority.
One thing to note
about the 25 orchestra jobs that come up every year. Don't forget
that most, if not all of those will go to the already-experienced
players in the lower-ranked orchestras who will be auditioning along
with the newly-minted 200 graduates. The same could be said wrt the
university/conservatory positions.
And about the teaching
positions: if the teacher doesn't "earn his keep" in recruiting
students, the teaching job isn't going to be there next year. You
need to teach enough students to justify your salary. In colleges
and universities there is quite a bit of overhead that comes out of
that tuition and there is frequently more than 1 teacher on the
cello faculty. They are just as desperate as anyone else in trying
to keep their jobs.
So, just about everyone begins at the
bottom of the food-chain (no matter how "well" you play) and pays
their dues for many years. If you are still game after all that, you
can get a chance to move up.
I have long been an advocate for
using music performance as a minor while going to a co-registered
college or university and getting a major degree in something else.
Music is a wonderful discipline and it will serve the student well
no matter what their pursuits in life.
Oh yes, and about the
"solo" career. Check out the fees paid for soloists when they
perform. It's mostly 1099 income and all your payroll + withholding
taxes and travel expenses have to be subtracted from the fees
charged. You may be underwhelmed by the amounts these people
actually make.
When you realize that the STARTING salary for
a software engineer here in the valley is $95k+/year, you get an
idea of the scaling difference.
Being an "amateur" cellist
just isn't what it used to be. There are lots and lots of REALLY
good amateur players out there.... I hear a lot of huffing and
puffing from full-time orchestra musicians about that, but I
believe, nevertheless, that it is the truth.
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Xabur1342
Registered User
Posts: 6
(8/1/01 5:54:07 pm)
Reply
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music and
laughter
I agree with some of the comments above. Especially those about
teachers who feel intense pressure to recruit young cellists so that
they can hold on to their jobs.
I think sometimes we get caught
up in one perspective. We can only see things in one way. I would
like to write something that perhaps can shed some light on the
current situation in conservatory/university teaching. A fresh way
of looking at things that I believe could be
illuminating.
Imagine for a second a world like
this...
There are several conservatories and universities in
the US that teach comedy. The likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Martin,
Mike Myers, don't teach at these institutions. They are much too
busy being on TV, at major Stand Up venues and are generally making
very good money. Ofcourse once a year Mike Myers will drop in to
give a masterclass at some of the conservatories. Interestingly he
has little to say at these masterclasses. Mostly he speaks about how
you feel about yourself, what your personality is like, integrity.
Talks about his father a lot, like he does on interviews with
Barbara Walters. Most of the conservatory community feel that
apparently its because they are naturals. Anyways, Myers, Martin,
and Seinfeld are generally to busy too give masterclasses, they are
too busy making people laugh.
There are however comedians who
do not appear on TV, or at major Stand Up venues. They cannot make
enough money doing comedy so they subsidize their careers with
students. The faculty of the comedy conservatories is filled with
these great teachers of comedy. Although they are not there much
because they often take time off to go to comedy festivals and teach
masterclasses. Their bios speak for themselves. 'Does comedy all
over North America.' 'Shared the stage with the great Steve Martin.'
'Records his comedy for the Blue Owl, Red Handkerchief, Small Closet
and Sturdy Lamp labels.' Everyone agrees that their biographies are
amazing, even better than that of Steve Martin or Mike
Myers.
When they are not at far away comedy festivals the
teachers spend one hour a week with their students. There are
several methods and secrets to great comedy. Great comedy is a very
rational thing, its a science. There is the Smith method which
involves moving the tongue rapidly as you speak. Doing this daily
will eventually lead to really funny performances. There is the Gray
method which emphasises preparing the tongue before giving the punch
line and folding the arms immediately afterwards. It also involves
moving your cheeks up and then slightly left just before you look at
the audience. A most venerated comedy teacher, Mr.Hello swears by a
method of timing his jokes, and attention to the way the jokes are
sequenced. He recommends readying the cheeks in advance and moving
the arms from side to side as you speak. This is sure to make the
jokes come out just right. He has written several books on the
subject and is asked to do masterclasses regularly. For some reason
though Mr.Hello has never taught comedy to a world renowned
comedian.
In the masterclasses the students hide their
personality. Their lips tremble uncontrollably, their face freezes
up. There is sweat pouring down their foreheads and a visible
tension in their neck. They studder under the nervous strain. They
speak for ten minutes. Struggling all time to say the jokes just the
right way, to hit every punchline just right. To move the eyes
correctly when looking at the audience through the tears. Well not
tears really, their feelings are much too hidden away and protected
for them to cry. To move the cheeks and the tongue in just the right
way. A few people smirck, but there is not much laughter. They are
waiting intently for the revealing criticism to come. "You have no
concept of what is funny in these jokes. See, nobody in the audience
is laughing." "Your personality is all off. You do not feel this
comedy they way you should," come the first comments. "Your first
joke... well the third word was just waaaaay too long. And the
fourth word. Oh my. The first word must be made more important than
the second, otherwise its not funny." The comedy teacher continues,
"The fourth word was needs to be said louder to set up the
punchline." The student's face contorts. His lips tremble even more.
He tries the joke again and stutters. He forgets his line. Silence
in the audience. "No, this time the second word was just a bit too
long. And the way you lifted your right cheek. It wasn't done
enough. If you saw the great Smithinsky tell jokes back about eighty
years ago. Now that was funny. Did you know I was a student of
Smithinsky. Nobody tells jokes the way they did back then." The
comedy teacher insists that the student is not folding his tongue
and preparing it adequately. He insists that his lips would stop
trembling if he just practiced his secret jaw holding method.
Finally, he insists that the student is not timing his routine
correctly and that the student go into a practice room and practice
his timing for several hours daily. Each joke seperately, over and
over again. Then surely he will give people the gift of
laughter.
Interestingly, Jerry Seinfeld, Mike Myers, Steve
Martin, never seem to use any of the tongue techniques, and never
spend countless hours working on their timing or hitting the
punchlines in their routines. Somehow their words are just the right
length. The accents fall in all the right places. They are too busy
learning new routines, flying from venue to venue, rehearsing in
group acts, and above all performing for the public, to do countless
hours of practicing. Their impersonations, funny voices, seem to
just be there. They seem to do it naturally. But generally the
conservatory community credits this to their natural talent. Their
routines are indeed timed just fine but noone seems to know
why.
The students at the comedy conservatories never go out
in front of the public. Fortunately the comedy teachers have all the
venues under their control and book them for themselves, or their
colleagues. The comedy students spend years in front of a mirror
doing stand up. They are told by their teachers that surely when
they leave conservatory, when they are about 30, they will be able
to do comedy at the highest level. They are told that who they are,
what kind of life they lead, how happy they are, how confident they
are, has nothing to do with giving people the gift of laughter.
Those things have nothing to do with punchlines, pronunciation,
timing. Personality, character, who needs those things when you are
practicing saying the sentence 'Knock Knock' for hours a day to make
it funny, practicing the folding tongue technique and cheek lift for
several hours a day. The teachers swear to their students that one
day when they get all the angles right they will be able to go in
front of the public and make people roll in the isles. Most students
are a bit disturbed by this but they have unlimited faith in their
teachers. They consider themselves somewhat funny but technically
inferior to their teachers. They never hit punchlines nearly as
well, they find themselves at a loss for words on stage, their faces
seize up, they sweat from embaressment, they sometimes studder, so
they are kept hidden from the public.
A case in point is a
few students at the Great conservatory of comedy, among others there
are the talents James Mozart, Yo-Yo May, and John Bell who the
teachers say are not ready for prime time and so the public has
never heard them. For some reason, and noone in the conservatory
community is certain why this is so, most of the comedy students
never end up making it big despite their endless hours of tongue
technique practice. Many become disilussioned, can't think of
anything to say on stage and become very sad. They think that
everything they say comes out wrong. When they were young it seemed
so easy to make others laugh. Now it seemed impossible to even stop
your lips from trembling, your face from tensing up, your brow from
sweating. Never mind getting the cheek techniques and the Gray
method of joke timing just right.
One of the other great
comedy schools, The University, also has the faculty of Great
Skating. Here the coaches are judged solely on their bios , the
number of skating festivals they have attended, and the medals they
received decades ago. When the Olympics come around it is in fact
the coaches who get out on the ice. The young skaters sit on the
benches, watching in apparent awe. They think, "The coaches are so
much better than us." The young people are said to have potential
but they are considered much too young to skate for the public.
Again only some far off day they be ready. They are not allowed to
go out onto the skating rinks in case somebody sees them make a
mistake and instead practice in miniature round skating rinks 5 feet
by 5 feet. Besides, the skating rinks are all fully scheduled for
the coaches. The students agree with this completely, their knees
shake, their muscles tighten just thinking about going out onto the
rinks and beeing seen by the public. Their one hour a week of
skating instruction in the 5' by 5' rooms has taught them so much
about everything they are doing wrong.. They dream of one day
skating like their coaches. Interestingly, most of the young skaters
also never make it. They feel like they have no future, are
depressed, and have little if any hope. In the skating school this
is kept quiet and the coaches continue to skate at the olympics
while the young skaters sit on the benches.
...back to our
world.
Saying impressive things at a masterclass or doing a one
hour lesson once a week is easy. Enchanting a young person with
words and seemingly brilliant criticism is easy. Making them feel
inferior to you, even uncosciously, is easy. There are hundreds of
cello teachers around the world who can do this. But very few are
able to dedicate years of their life, forget their performing
ambitions, and devote themselves entirely to teaching. Teachers like
Yoheved Kaplinsky, Dorothy Delay, Zakhar Bron are very rare and in
fact there aren't many in the world. I think it is unethical for a
teacher to both pursue a performing career and try to teach young
performers at the same time. Some of the best teachers in the world,
that get the best results with students, speak unimpressively in
master classes. But they know that the key to a students success is
support, inspiration, reassurance, praise, guidance, and plenty of
performance opportunities for the young person to discover his or
her ability and personality. If Yoheved Kaplinsky, Dorothy Delay,
Zakhar Bron and other such teachers met their students once a week
for an hour, took no responsibility for the careers of their
students; made no personal, emotional, commitment to their students;
mostly pointed out what the students were doing wrong, and had
performing ambitions of their own that took away all public
performances from their students, they wouldn't produce a single
world renowned musician.
Sadly this is the way most
Conservatory/University teachers behave these days.
Xabur
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harriclay
Registered User
Posts: 13
(8/3/01 12:11:40 pm)
Reply
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Re: music and
laughter
Great thread. There is such a disconnect between what students are
usually told and what any sensible person can see is the reality. A
pet peeve of mine is when people say, "If you really love music and
playing the cello, you will keep trying even if you're poor, even if
you only play for yourself in your living room." That may be okay
when you're 20, but begins to seem like lunacy at 40.
If you
seek help from general career advisors, you find that they simply do
not understand how you can have advanced degrees from prestigious
institutions but can't find a job. They will ask, "Have you
considered teaching?"
I could go on, but you all have covered
it well.
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zambocello
Registered User
Posts: 706
(8/6/01 1:39:51 am)
Reply
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Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
Interesting thread, with thought provoking observations and
analogies. But, I don't entirely agree.
Private music study
is more of an apprenticeship than a course of study. For many it is
understnadably difficult to succesfully apprentice with someone who
cannot show on the higest level the example of what is to be
learned. I agree that there are marquis-name performer/teachers who
sacrifice their teaching for their performing, but having a
performance career helps establish the teacher's leadership in the
teacher/apprentice context.
I'm not sure that fewer music
majors is a desired goal. (Can the world really have too many
artists?) Neither is distracting music majors with double majors.
It's difficult enough to pursue music with full concentration. I
know very few professional performers who did not concentrate
exclusively on music (albeit with general education courses as part
of the music study program.) If I had double majored, even with
music education as the other major, I'm quite sure I would not have
been prepared for a career as a professional player at my desired
level. Certainly, it is much easier for a frustrated performer to
broaden their education for professional opportunities than for a
frustrated teacher/doctor/blacksmith/what-have-you to develop
undercultivated professional performing skills.
Students
should know the realities of the music job market, but those with
talent, interest, and energy should not be discouraged from
concentrating on music because of the "odds." The value of succesful
music study is not to be measured by position gained, and the
purpose of music schools and conservatories never has been
equivelent to vocational schools such as auto mechanic training
institutes or electrical engineering schools.
Accumulating
200 new grads per year for 20 or so positions per year. Frankly, I
never thought about the odds being that good! How much worse the
odds are for athletes, but we don't -- and shouldn't -- discourage
athletes from concentrating on their disciplines and dreams. And
speaking of odds, I once read that music majors have the highest
acceptance rate into medical schools! Go
figure......
Respectfully,
Zambo
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harriclay
Registered User
Posts: 14
(8/6/01 8:56:13 am)
Reply
|
Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
It's easy to be idealistic about it for other people when you
yourself have been able to find a job. I think what the original
poster was trying to say is that the schools and teachers do NOT
give students a realistic picture of what's out there (for the most
part), probably because if they did, they would have far fewer
students. Art is all very well, but people have to eat, pay the
rent, and have health insurance, or they won't be doing their art
for very long.
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 Steve
Drake
Registered
User
Posts: 406
(8/6/01 1:38:55
pm)
Reply
Community Supporter
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Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
I agree, this is an excellent thread.
My mother is a
composer, and whenever she gets interviewed, once it gets past her
work, she always advocates having the major music schools having an
orchestral career track student moratorium for 20 years, as the job
field has become so saturated. This is an idealistic goal, as the
music schools are businesses on their own, and don't want to go out
of business.
I've always asked music instruction
institutions to please add a basics course on financial basics for
music professionals. We're taught how to play, but not taught how to
survive within the narrow confines of the money we'll make
realistically.
So Dennisw, you're a professional? And you're
the one advocating not learning the higher positions, as they sound
squeaky? Where do you teach?
I can address the last
paragragh of your post - here in Nashville we have tons of great
freelance players, many of whom are as good or better then the ones
in the Nashville Symphony. I have no problem with this, being a
symphony player. We also have a ton of what you might call amatuer
players, many of which would be able to fill a pro's slot if called
for. And most of these can play scales and arpeggios beyond the
Dennisw squeaky point!
My MP3's
My Cello
Homepage |
dennisw
Registered User
Posts: 228
(8/6/01 2:31:52 pm)
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Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
I like your mother's idea, but I fear that it won't
happen.
What might be good, though is a disclaimer that every
conservatory is required to publish to all incoming freshmen. They
should be forced to publish job statistics and opportunities for
grads. They should be forced to make certain that they inform each
and every student of their potential for getting a job after
graduation.
There is an interesting article in yesterday's NY
Times education section on the subject of offering classes to
performance majors in "business", "finance", and "self-promotion".
It would be a little nasty to say "too little, too late", so I'm not
going to dump on Juillard & others for what is a pretty feeble
attempt to address a major problem wrt performance majors and their
future careers in music.
However, I will say that the
realities of becoming a working musician and what you need to do to
survive are pretty self-evident. Coursework in how to balance a
checkbook, construct a resume, or schmooze with agents, conductors
etal. isn't really going to help much. But, then again, practicing
until your fingers fall off isn't going to help much
either.
Maybe you should get together with other cellists in
the Nashville area, maybe the amateurs, and form a cello quartet
that specializes in playing music scored beyond the end of the
fingerboard. You could call yourselves the "squeeky quartet" and do
comedy spots at the grand ol' opry...
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dennisw
Registered User
Posts: 229
(8/6/01 4:10:58 pm)
Reply
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Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
No, student athletes are not discouraged from attempting to become
professional athletes. What DOES happen, though, is the coaches, the
teachers, the school administrators, and the school guidance/career
counselers ALL tell the athletes over and over and over and over
again: "Get an education, so you have something to fall back
on".
It can be anything from business administration to
botany, but anyone who doesn't at least inform and constantly remind
each student athlete of the need to concentrate on a non-athletic
career, will likely find themselves without a job.
The time a
football player spends trying to become a tight-end for the Green
Bay Packers is no less demanding than a violinist who wants to play
in a professional orchestra. Yet, athletes always have an academic
major. In fact, now there are requirements for athletes to maintain
a certain GPA before the become eligible to play. This has been a
controversial topic among school admins who want top-notch athletes
to help promote their school & bring in endowment money, yet at
the same time are criticized for short-changing those same students
by breezing them through advanced basket-weaving courses just so
they can play ball.
In fact, it's good that this issue is
publicized as much as it is. I'm sure that student athletes don't
want to hear about career counselling any more than a student at
Eastman, Curtis, New England, Oberlin, or Juillard does. But, for
their own good, they should be required to take academic courses AND
graduate with a degree AND keep their gpa's up in order to study
music.
And as for not having enough "time" to do both. I say
"baloney". If athletes can do it, so can musicians.
It's time
for the music profession to wise up. It is UNETHICAL to treat
student musicians like their athletic counterparts who get no career
guidance so that there is a profession waiting for them when they
get out of school. I think it should be a requirement.
No,
there can never be enough artists. I agree. Just as there can never
be enough athletes. The artists should also be accountants,
teachers, engineers, doctors, lawyers etal. as well.
The
business of a conservatory should be to send highly trained
musicians out into the world. That doesn't mean the musicians have
to play music in order to make a living in order to be a "good"
musician. This bit about how you have to practice, practice,
practice 12 hours a day or you'll never make it has got to go. We're
in the 21st century, folks.
|
Steve
Drake
Registered
User
Posts: 408
(8/6/01 10:01:11
pm)
Reply
Community Supporter
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Thanks for your
insulting reply.
And you didn't answer my question - what's your status with the
cello?
My MP3's
My Cello
Homepage |
dennisw
Registered User
Posts: 230
(8/7/01 4:02:28 pm)
Reply
|
Re: Thanks for
your insulting reply.
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...
|
Xabur1342
Registered User
Posts: 17
(8/7/01 7:37:09 pm)
Reply
|
jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
I don't know what squeaky anything has anything to do with this
topic.
I would like to mention something about this topic and
maybe explain myself a bit. I agree with harriclay. Its easy to say
"be idealistic, devote your life to cello". I also agree with one of
the previous posts about how we all need to eat, to sleep soundly,
to have health insurance, to pay a mortgage. Its easy to say to
someone coming out of high school who is completely naive and has no
clue about the music world, "Just practice and everything will be
fine." But I believe that economics are part of a bigger picture and
one of the major sources of difficulties for musicians. Let me
explain. This may also shed some light on my post comparing
athletics and comedy to music.
One of the things which
troubles me in the conservatory world is the approach taken in music
instruction. We live in an age where reason and science are very
prominent. In scientific areas of study reason is king. There is a
constant emphasis on reason, logic, objectivism. In mathematics,
physics, chemistry, biology, computer science there is an incredibly
strong sense that human feelings, emotions, beliefs, can only get in
the way of sound science. Scientists, mathematicians, are actually
taught to seperate their emotional side from their professional
endeavours as far as possible. In my experience I have seen this.
There is nothing wrong with it. It is simply that these disciplines
demand this type of approach and human error can easily creep into
any scientific experiment.
Music is taught at
Universities/Conservatories these days which are close in proximity
to scientific institutions and I believe that the university culture
of these institutions has had a negative impact on the perspective
and thinking of conservatory teachers. In many conservatories
mastering the cello is seen as a purely rational process of problem
solving, analysis, and rational thought.
The truth however is
that music is somewhere between athletics, acting, stand up comedy,
and science. In the athletic world it is well understood that
psychology plays an overpowering role in athletic performance. It
has an effect on co-ordination, relaxation, energy, body condition,
performance, endurance, reflexes and so on. Sports psychology is a
well developed and utilized field. In the comedy world it is clear
that becoming a great comedian is not simply a rational process.
Comedy like music is full of ambiguity, mood, psychology. Every
great comedian understands that how they feel, what they are like,
who they are, is going to have a decise impact on how they tell
their jokes, whether they actually make anyone laugh. In the world
of drama actors know that the truly best way to become a great actor
is to take on many roles, in movies, in the theatre. They know that
this is the way one grows in one's acting ability.
Half of
becoming a great cellist is rational and half is psychological. The
tragedy is that the psychological aspects of becoming a great
musician are largely ignored in conservatories and even in the real
world. In conservatory, instead of being given opportunities to
perform for the public young talented musicians are constantly
criticised for years at a time. Their playing is analyzed,
objectified, cut apart into little bits for inspection. Every single
thing they do is cricised often to no end. As a result they loose
their natural ability to play the cello. They cannot open up
emotionally at the instrument. They cannot overcome fears. They
cannot hit shifts, make the right sound, play double stops in tune
despite the fact that they practice for many hours a day. If you
just look at one of these players you see in their hands that
something is wrong in their mind. They are tense, they look
laboured, their faces are tense. Their faces are strained. Their
manner full of internal conflict mixed with anxiety. They look
uncomfortable, unsure of themselves.
Over the past 12 years
or I have observed very carefully the process of young people
becoming great musicians. I have done this at summer festivals, at
the conservatories I attended. I have seen some of a few, there
indeed are only a few, truly great teachers of the world in action.
Teachers that produce world renowned musicians. I have thought about
things which may be in common between young people who go on to
great performing careers. What I have observed is that many missed
shifts, played out of tune, made mistakes, some more than others
etc. Instead of being criticized for it they were supported by their
teachers, given opportunities to outgrow their difficulties through
chances to perform for people. What they did have in common by far
and above anything else is certain personality traits. They all had
something in their personality that gave away that they were great
musicians before they even sat down at the cello. They all had a
certain confidence, sense of piece, organization, mental strength.
They were all somehow different. The way they spoke, behaved. There
was a certain self assurance, purposefulness there. I don't mean
that they were necessarily nice people. But they seemed to have
their lives in order. Again I don't necessarily mean that they
practiced more. I knew of other young musicians who practiced
countless hours, seemed talented, but somehow emotionally lost. They
were disorganized in some way, feeling out of control. They were
agonized by the criticism they received from their teachers. And
indeed what I observed of their personality I could later see in
their playing.
I have actually seen two terrific young cellists
with solid technique losing their ability to hit shifts, make a rich
moving sound, after going to a conservatory teacher and being
incessantly criticized for a number of years. It is one of the
saddest things I have seen.
Zambocello, this is where I
disagree with you about what you call an "appreniceship" that young
cellists have with their teachers. The necessity of the teacher to
perform. I think it is unethical for a anyone to be a performer and
a teacher of cello at the same time. It implies that the teacher is
a "master" of the cello and the student is inferior at the cello.
While in reality it is the student who should be the "master" of the
instrument while the teacher is the "master" of teaching. When some
of the greatest instrument teachers in the world get a phone call
from a conductor about a performance with orchestra they answer "I
have a talented young celllists for you to play the concert." They
know that plenty of performance opportunities, personal growth,
boosting of confidence, emotional development, faith in the ability
of the student, all lead to great things for the young cellist. They
know that a cellist sitting in a small room practicing without goals
will eventually hit a brick wall. The moment a teacher receives a
phone call from a conductor for a performance with orchestra and
says "I will play the concert." They have crossed an ethical line.
They are in competition for exactly the same performance venues as
their students. They are stifling the progress and development of
the young cellists they teach.
No athletic coach in this
world is both an athlete and a coach. Coaching is a great art that
requires too devotion and total dedication. It requires a certain
amount of knowledge of the sport but does not require the coach to
be a great athlete at all times themselves. Likewise in the
classical music world, at some point in their life a cellist must
say, I am not a performer anymore, now I devote my life to making
young cellists into great performers. Now every performance
opportunity will be given to the young cellists that I teach. Now it
will my aim in life to have my students become better than me at the
cello. This is where the love of teaching and the love of one's
students comes in. It can be extremely rewarding to see a young
person grow into a great musician under one's care.
It is very
important to note that all great musicians became masters at the
latest in their mid twenties. Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Joshua Bell,
Sarah Chang, Lynn Harrell, Krystian Zimmerman etc. etc. etc.
A
teacher must be a master of teaching, a master of creating and
guiding masters of the instrument.
Finally coming back to
economics. Music and cello playing is half reason and half
psychology. If you feel anxiety over whether you will be able to
have health insurance, pay your mortgage, or eat next month, you are
not in a state of mind to go on stage and play the cello on a world
class level or bare your soul to the world.
Xabur
|
Steve
Drake
Registered
User
Posts: 413
(8/7/01 8:59:35
pm)
Reply
Community Supporter
|
So?
Hey, it's not a hard question. Are you a cello player, and at what
level are you at? Teacher, professional, amateur, what?
What's with the glass house thing? You know who I am.
Can't you at least tell us a little about you? I've been posting
here openly with my real name for around 8 years (no problems yet).
You've blown in here recently, and posted some fantastic stuff, most
of which is highly credible, and some of which is just plain wierd.
Anonomity is ok, but give us some idea of where you're coming from.
My MP3's
My Cello
Homepage |
Nicholas
Anderson
Registered
User
Posts: 101
(8/8/01 1:34:48
am)
Reply
|
Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
I think what Zambo said here is extremely perceptive,
well-informed, insightful, articulate, balanced, compassionate, and
dignified. Really exceptionally relevant and
well-expressed.
In a consistent vein, (though perhaps in a
more abstract frame of reference), I'm reminded of a couple of
poetic expressions and a very eloquent quote, which I'll share to
emphasize the perspective. (Especially when confronted with
cynicism, bitterness and resignation.) This won't change any minds,
but is for the "choir," so to speak. I don't know who wrote these
two items; first, this:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams
die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold
fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren
field
Frozen with snow.
__________
Next, a metaphor
that gives "dreaming" a pragmatic dimension:
I bargained with
Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged
at evening,
When I counted my scanty store.
For Life is a
just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have
set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a
menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had
asked of Life,
Life would have willingly
paid.
__________
And finally, these words from Helen
Keller, who knew something about overcoming
obstacles:
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not
exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience
it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright
exposure. Life is either a daring adventure - or
NOTHING."
__________
With that I stand; and damn the
torpedoes!
-Nick
|
zambocello
Registered User
Posts: 708
(8/8/01 3:08:16 am)
Reply
|
Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
Xabur (and others), I'm impressed with much of what you say, but
still not swayed to agreement, perhaps because of my own
experience.
At all three schools I attended there were weekly
music department recitals, sometimes divided up by instrument,
providing ample performance opportunities for anyone interested. I
must have played 4-5 times a semester. Plus, as a shameless self
promoter and avid chamber music player I played on numerous fellow
students' recitals. These weren't opportunities just for me. They
were opportunities to be had by anyone with
gumption.
Additionally, there were weekly masterclasses, for
me a more stressful performance setting (100% of the listeners were
cellists!) than the weekly recitals.
One of the great and
perhaps unique qualities of my undergraduate teacher was that,
realizing his students were going to make a living teaching and/or
playing in orchestras, he made sure we all knew the pedagogical
repertoire (Breval, Klengel, Romberg, Squire, et al) and our
orchestral excerpts.
My teachers did pass some concert
opportunities on to me, but I sincerely believe I learned more from
going to my teachers' concerts than I did from playing my own.
My teachers had valuable instruction and example for me
BECAUSE of their back ground as busy performers. They would not have
been as well qualified if they had not had their concert careers as
background for teaching.
When I suggest that it is
unreasonable to expect music performance majors to double major, I
don't mean they should concentrate only on music forever, regardless
of the results. By the time someone finishes their MM degree they
should have an idea of how and where they might fit into the music
world, regardless of how communicative or realistic their private
teacher is. If things aren't working they way the student might
wish, make a change! My point is that it's easier for a frustrated
music major to take up business than for a business major to take up
music.
And by the way, I was just as idealistic (or more so,
obviously!) when I was supporting a family of 3 on $9,000 a year in
the Shreveport Symphony.
I've observed many students who
advanced impressively to a certain level but, faced with the need to
continue their development, busted rather than progressed. I don't
mean to sound like a tough guy, because I'm not, but I've always
regarded this as part of the natural selection of the business.
Students studying avocationally shouldn't be pushed to the busting
point, but for those who are pursuing careers in music, being able
to perform and progress under duress is simply a vital job skill.
And -- I don't have to play high on the cello to sound
squeaky!
Cheers!
Zambo
|
Xabur1342
Registered User
Posts: 18
(8/8/01 11:15:41 am)
Reply
|
jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
In one of the previous posts, by Nicholas Anderson, there is talk
of people feeling "resignation, cynicism" etc.
Let me be clear
about my viewpoint. I am not a cynic. I am not bitter. I do not feel
resigned at all. At the same time I look at the cello world and I
think that changes could be made for the better. It is not easy to
see things in another way. But indeed there are very few instrument
teachers out there that produce true masters of the
instrument.
We all have different experiences in our
undergraduate studies but perhaps I could share something with you.
Zambocello, you are lucky to have been in the environment you were
in.
A few years ago I competed in one of the top
international cello competitions in the world. With a jury of some
of the best known cellists in the world. There were about 50
cellists from every corner of the globe. The question is how did
they play?
I must tell you that they did not play well. In fact
they played very poorly. People were playing out of tune, missing
shifts, making mistakes. They played in a very closed way musically
speaking. They looked frightened. They looked like they had some
kind of conflict internally. They were physically akward and tense.
Mentally, they did not look good on stage. There was very little
confidence there. At each round when people were nocked out of the
competition they went to the jury to get comments. You could see in
their eyes a need for some kind of complement, some kind of
blessing. Any kind of reassurance, "please tell I am doing something
right". Is it wrong for these young musicians to want some kind of
positive feedback? Some kind of mental boost? No. It is perfectly
natural. We all need that sometimes. And if you get very little at
conservatory, because you are so "inferior" to the "master" you are
studying with, you will eventually start to feel pretty miserable.
Instead the jury gave them endless rational criticism. They left as
agonized by rational criticism as they came.
The jury was treated
like royalty. Everything was paid for, they lived in a four star
hotel, they were tended to by a number of waiters during the
competition. Everyone behaved around them like they were Gods. What
a wonderful psychological boost for them. Imagine an Olympics where
the coaches are treated like royalty and the athletes not even
having food provided. The actual competitors were treated pretty
shabbily during the entire competition. Unlike for the jury, they
would not give the competitors free drinks. There was no food for
the competitors. They had to organize and pay for everything
themselves at the competition. They were treated with only a bare
minimum of respect by the administration. Gives you some kind of
idea of the attitude taken to young musicians compared to the
"masters". Well Mozart and Joshua Bell were young once
too.
So the question is how many of these cellists actually
had everything together mentally and physically. How many were in
control? How many felt confident, reassured? Very few. Maybe four
people out of 50. Now these cellists are suppose to represent the
cream de la creme of the cello world. I must tell you that going to
this competition was very sad. I myself did not make it to the final
but that is not really what troubled me at the competition. What
troubled me was seeing all these young people looking confused and
disheartened at the cello. Their cello playing out of their control.
I really felt for them. This is when many things started to come
into focus for me. You always read in Strad magazine about these
cello competitions and you think, well young people are having
problems mastering their instruments at my conservatory but at these
competitions, certainly everyone is amazing. Well let me tell you,
the people at these competitions are human. They play the way I
mentioned. There is definitely a problem in the way that cello is
taught these days. Mentally these young people aren't in the right
place.
Very few teachers in the music world understand that
unless you take care of the psychological side of cello playing you
will never produce great musicians.
Is it really that
difficult to comprehend that how you live, who you are, how you
feel, is intimitely connected to how you play the cello?
When
I went to undergrad I always practiced. I never really took care of
myself. I spent years thinking about missed shifts, an out of tune
double-stop her or there. A phrase that didn't come out a certain
way. In lessons I was criticized at no end. Other students of
various instruments underwent similar experiences with most of the
teachers. Only later once I graduated, once I saw what happened to
some other students, once I participated in this competition and
others, did I start to see that taking care of yourself
psychologically, growing as a human being, is at the very heart of
overcoming technical and musical challenges. Only then things slowly
started gel in my cello playing. I can see a direct correlation
between how I am doing mentally and how I play.
In undergrad for
four years I was basically told that cello playing is simply about
rational problem solving and that anything else is irrelevant to
playing the cello. How much sleep you get at night, whether you are
happy or at least true to yourself, whether you feel confident,
whether you feel valued. These were considered unimportant. The
truth however is that if you treat cello and playing music as simply
a rational endeavour you will eventually hit a brick
wall.
The more you play the cello the more your hands become
like your eyes, your face, your cheeks. They are more and more
influenced by who you are and how you feel.
I am not
cynical. I am hopeful. I think the way music is taught in
conservatory needs to change.
We often wonder why classical music
is not as popular as it could be. Perhaps it is because we surround
young musicians with methods, doctrines, rational problem solving,
ignore their state of mind, and keep them from reaching their full
potential.
Xabur
|
dennisw
Registered User
Posts: 231
(8/8/01 5:07:14 pm)
Reply
|
Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
So, how would you feel right now if you were STILL in the
Shreveport orchestra making $9,000 per year w/3 children???
Oh yeah, and one more thing. You'd be stuck. Finding another
profession and getting good at it AND dealing with age
discrimination after the age of 35 is not easy to do. Any profession
takes time, effort, and dedication, just as music does. The old rule
of thumb on Broadway is that you give it a try in showbiz until the
age of 30 then fish or cut bait.
Sure, you can always get out
and do something else. In Tennis, you retire by 30, football &
basketball players who are still healthy can make it to 35 or so,
Cal Ripken, the rarity in baseball is 40 (or so).
We get to
hear stories about Courier, Graf, Becker, and McEnroe retiring &
taking it easy, but the 99.9% of other tennis players have to get a
job, just like everyone else. This l'aissez faire attitude extolling
"go do something else" is a simple one to have, but it doesn't
address the problem of career development and personal development
for our young adults. I find it to be a bit short-sighted as
well.
However, as a practical matter, it would be much
SMARTER for the industry itself to acknowledge the problem and
cross-register their performance majors with local colleges and
universities. That way, at least the students would be getting
something for their money. I argue that more students would take the
conservatory gamble in that case. We would get more musicians, not
fewer The risk now is that a tuition of $20K or so per year doesn't
really buy you anything except a lot of grief after you graduate and
can't even make 1 year's tuition back in salary.
That's a
sucker's game, plain and simple. And, it's much worse now than it
was when you went to school. More and more potential students are
going to think twice about enrolling at an exclusive music
school.
I am sure schools like Juillard are well aware of the
problem. I'm also sure, that schools like Juillard aren't going to
do anything about it until they get desperate. Their current
attempts, as I've said before, are feeble at best. I hope, at the
very least, they are making music majors aware of the economics of
making a living playing music. Students really need to know what
they are getting into in no uncertain terms. They also need to know
that camping out in your practice room isn't necessarily going to
help. The one big difference between sports and the performing arts
is that in sports there is always a winner and a loser, in the
performing arts, there are only opinions.
|
dennisw
Registered User
Posts: 233
(8/8/01 5:27:24 pm)
Reply
|
Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
Noble sentiment and at the same time very naive....
|
zambocello
Registered User
Posts: 711
(8/8/01 8:30:45 pm)
Reply
|
Well Dennis,
since you asked
If I was still in the Shreveport Symphony it would be because I
wanted to be there.
As for me, frustrated with the
Shreveport Symphony and frustrated with my audition experiences, I
quit the Symphony in anticipation of going to either Chicago or Salt
Lake City to free lance and study instrument making and repair.
Keeping options open, however, I took the San Antonio Symphony's
cello audition and won. I moved to S.A. and kept with playing cellos
rather than making them. If I hadn't won the audition, though, I
would probably now be selling 5 or 6 cellos a year at $30k each and
doing some repairs. (BTW, instrument makers are artists.)
No
one is "stuck" except those who choose to be stuck. There are always
choices.
I'm still at a loss to understand how the fact that
the music business is highly competitive means there is something
wrong with the conservatory/university system of training. Indeed,
doesn't the current number of fine young artists show that the
schools are achieving what they set out to do? Also, the fact that
there are performer-teachers who don't have their students interests
as a top priority doesn't mean that performing and teaching should
be mutually exclusive areas of endeavor. The anecdotal problems
noted in this thread don't demonstrate a systemic problem to
me.
Of the scores of music students I have known, I can't
remember anyone who went into it thinking they were going to make a
fine living. Not that they were blissfully unaware. "Everyone" knows
that there is a low likelihood of a financially rewarding career as
a performing musician. Music students study music because of their
love for music, not anticipation of financial riches. Obviously, I'm
not as pessimistic as some about the prospects for someone in their
late 20s -- or any age -- changing career goals. Frankly, it's the
inaction driven by that pessimism that makes one
"stuck."
Respectfully,
Zambo
|
Laura
Wichers
Moderator
Posts: 1089
(8/8/01 9:19:17 pm)
Reply
|
Re: jobs in the
cello world vs. number of performance grads.
I know there are at least two very highly trained cellists on this
board who do things besides music to earn the majority of their
incomes. If you guys don't want to post on the board, I'd love to
hear your opinions through email.
Laura
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