We were in Green Bay to see the band The Twistin Tarantulas, my partner, his brother and I.
They are a punk-rockabilly band - their music is right on the boundary between the two. Very fast, very funny. Only one original member was touring with them, the bass player and singer. The other members were quite a bit younger, but killer players, so the music was exciting and accomplished and fun.
The three of us all are guitar owners and guitar players, and we have gone out to see bands and have been collecting records for all of our respective lives. We know lots of musicians, and so we know what they have to do, first to be able to play at that level, and second to live the life. This band is out of Detroit, but had travelled all together in a van to Wisconsin, to play for a couple of hours in this dark bar to this baker's dozen of people.
We know that touring bands make most of their money from merchandise, and this band had just finished recording a new CD, which the bass player-singer promoted from the stage. He said, "We just finished a new album," so see him after the show to pick one up, and support the band. "We worked hard on it. And hard work should be rewarded! So come by after the show and pick up our new CD. Here's a song from it..."
There was a skinny, weedy guy standing next to me, beer in his hand. Sinewy, maybe, is a better description. Not young, not a young guy, maybe 40's, but they had obviously been a tough 40-some years. Jean jacket, maybe. After this speech from the bass player, this guy caught my eye and smiled. He leaned over and said in my ear, which you had to do because the bar was so loud, he said, "Hard work! Hard work for them might be the tips of their fingers get a little sore." He curled his left hand and gestured to the fingertips with one of the fingers from his beer-holding hand.
I was struck because this was so opposite from my beliefs about touring punk-rockabilly musicians. I knew that all three of us were there to bear witness in awe to their might and grandeur, dreaming but knowing that we could never, even if we started today and gave everything to it, never play as well as they were playing, and do what they do. I had been standing there in that shared knowledge and admiration, so this perspective was so opposite, but then looking at the guy, you knew that in fact he did know hard work, and none of us had any grounds to say anything different about it.
My boyfriend said several days later - "I realized at the time, I just had the 'Money For Nothing' conversation."
Sunday, June 28, 2015
The Value of Music is the Experience of the Listener
So my pondering continues. Where is value generated in music? Not just where is the money generated, because we know the answer to that question, sort of, but then also, due to the Music Industry currently undergoing so much change, and threats to its old business model and techniques of sustainability, the answers are probably also too temporary - where the money comes from today is probably not going to be where the money comes from tomorrow.
So I try to go more essential. Where is surplus value generated, that could be skimmed off to sustain the life of the musician?
Three different sources recently tell me that it's the experience of the listener.
One: I'm still making my way through the Audio book of Philip Glass's new autobiography, Words Without Music. When telling of his early career, just out of music school and during a time of modern revolution in many art forms, he quotes a colleague who I'll have to back and see if it was a teacher or friend or inspirational mentor, or possibly a Yogi because he spent quite a bit of time in India at various ashrams studying those traditions, he quotes a colleague who said that the aim of performance is to create transcendent experiences in the audience. The colleague says that's why they were stripping out traditional narrative, and the expected trappings of traditional theater. By removing those familiar things, and presenting experimental live experiences, it create the possibility for a transcendent experience in the audience members. Philip Glass signs on and says that the music and theatrical experiences he composed are designed to do that too.
Two: My guitar teacher and his wife were visiting, and on that visit he talked about a rehearsal that his band recently had inside a dance studio, in front of mirrors. They were working on their use of the stage, in terms of their own movements and their interactions with others in the band, and they had been working with a friend of his wife who has a background in theater and stage management. What he said they picked up is that how you move can help put the song across better for an audience. You can create an experience in the audience just by playing the song, but by then also stepping back so that the featured performer is out in front just at a certain time when their part is important, or by coming up all together instead of moving separately, it reinforces what's going on in the music and more strongly creates the experience in the audience. I had just seen his band, at what turned out to be a show right after this mirror practice, and had in fact obtained the experience that he described, which I reliably get at each of their shows, sometimes not until right before the end of the first set, but every time, I hit those heights where the music is moving me and lifting me up, and I feel like the crowd is one entity, and that we're all in the experience together. Usually they are playing Photograph by Def Leppard when this happens, so I'm sure part of it is my past experience and life-long fandom of the song. But that's definitely why I go see them, and why I love doing it.
Three: This video, posted on the Facebook page of a college classmate who has continued performing ever since, as a dancer, and also as part of this band. Just look at the people in the crowd. Right there, that is the value of music performance, plain as day.
So I try to go more essential. Where is surplus value generated, that could be skimmed off to sustain the life of the musician?
Three different sources recently tell me that it's the experience of the listener.
One: I'm still making my way through the Audio book of Philip Glass's new autobiography, Words Without Music. When telling of his early career, just out of music school and during a time of modern revolution in many art forms, he quotes a colleague who I'll have to back and see if it was a teacher or friend or inspirational mentor, or possibly a Yogi because he spent quite a bit of time in India at various ashrams studying those traditions, he quotes a colleague who said that the aim of performance is to create transcendent experiences in the audience. The colleague says that's why they were stripping out traditional narrative, and the expected trappings of traditional theater. By removing those familiar things, and presenting experimental live experiences, it create the possibility for a transcendent experience in the audience members. Philip Glass signs on and says that the music and theatrical experiences he composed are designed to do that too.
Two: My guitar teacher and his wife were visiting, and on that visit he talked about a rehearsal that his band recently had inside a dance studio, in front of mirrors. They were working on their use of the stage, in terms of their own movements and their interactions with others in the band, and they had been working with a friend of his wife who has a background in theater and stage management. What he said they picked up is that how you move can help put the song across better for an audience. You can create an experience in the audience just by playing the song, but by then also stepping back so that the featured performer is out in front just at a certain time when their part is important, or by coming up all together instead of moving separately, it reinforces what's going on in the music and more strongly creates the experience in the audience. I had just seen his band, at what turned out to be a show right after this mirror practice, and had in fact obtained the experience that he described, which I reliably get at each of their shows, sometimes not until right before the end of the first set, but every time, I hit those heights where the music is moving me and lifting me up, and I feel like the crowd is one entity, and that we're all in the experience together. Usually they are playing Photograph by Def Leppard when this happens, so I'm sure part of it is my past experience and life-long fandom of the song. But that's definitely why I go see them, and why I love doing it.
Three: This video, posted on the Facebook page of a college classmate who has continued performing ever since, as a dancer, and also as part of this band. Just look at the people in the crowd. Right there, that is the value of music performance, plain as day.
AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH-Jeffrey Family Reunion 06202015
Posted by Kyle Primous and K Street on Thursday, June 25, 2015
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
The Music Business
One thing I've been able to stand back and observe about myself, with the wisdom of age and perspective, is that in stressy work situations, those that inspire frustration and anger, but even more so those that could be construed as some kind of personal failure, I have a reflexive "flight" response.
Usually, that desire to just walk out and go do a different job is fixated on some particular alternative that has presented itself to my imagination. The most recent time this happened, there happened to be a position posted at my local music store for a Music Education Manager.
My guitar teacher talked me down from actually walking out of my current day job, so I never did formally apply for the Music Education Manager position, but it has haunted me in fantasy ever since, and is still my go-to Happy Place imaginary alternative work position, on days of high stress (before this it was to be the new owner of a shop that sells bird houses and birdseed, at which I had noticed a "Business for Sale" sign, but that has been sold to new owners so that path is, for now, closed to me).
Then, recently, an actual professional Music Education professional of my acquaintance posted a Facebook link to an article online that injoined Music Educators to stop trying to rationalize the value of music education by linking it to work-related transferable skills that the students could gain. This was a wrong and dangerous path, the article argued. Music has intrinsic value. It is around us all the time, and it is of intrinsic value to learn more about it.
And then, just this morning, a college classmate posted a Facebook link to an article that made basically an identical argument, but this time about Liberal Arts education generally. Stop trying to argue that a Liberal Arts degree has value primarily for the job skills that graduates can bring to the workforce. Liberal Arts have intrinsic value. They are important in themselves.
This subject matter has been top of mind in my State recently, as our right-wing, non-University educated Governor continues to slash budgets not just for childhood education but for the reknowned state university system, and news spread among my peers like wildfire a few weeks ago when he "accidentally" struck out the "search for truth" part of the Univeristy's Mission, and replaced it with "training the future workforce".
Those of us who have and have provided for others Liberal Arts education, and those Music Educators of my acquaintance, both feel very strongly that education is different from trade school, that it has intrinsic value beyond the workplace skills it may indirectly provide, and that a developed society should provide it to its citizens.
So, having done an MBA as well, following my Liberal Arts degree (and two more graduate degrees in between, in a fiercely impractical subject matter), and also having been wondering how I could flee my current day job but still live in the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed, lately what's been on my mind is, where does the value derive, for Music Education (and by extension music itself, the existence of it and the listening to it as an audience member but also the opportunity to learn about it and make it oneself)?
What are the economics, here, and how can they be played into a decent replacement salary for me?
The other input to these musings is the new book by composer Philip Glass. The section of the book that has stayed with me was his description of his music education, which he received in France on a Fulbright scholarship. The intense, difficult, grueling training that he describes was essential for him to become a composer, because composition requires a breadth of musical expertise. And he needed to be pretty darned good to be able to go beyond any composer who had lived before in history, and to extend the form in revolutionary ways, as he did (as he has). He describes what he was trying to bring to the audience of his pieces (transcendence, basically). He states what he thinks music is for (to learn to listen), in contrast with other art forms (dance is to learn to move, writing is to learn to speak, painting is to learn to see, I can't remember what else).
But, is that enough? To devote a whole, whole human life to? To delve in and learn and learn and practice and practice, to suffer and be punished and humiliated and struggle and think and analyze and practice and remold yourself into a musician, into a music creator, into a music revolutionary who expressed something essential about our epoch in a way that no one else every quite did - is it worth it?
Usually, that desire to just walk out and go do a different job is fixated on some particular alternative that has presented itself to my imagination. The most recent time this happened, there happened to be a position posted at my local music store for a Music Education Manager.
My guitar teacher talked me down from actually walking out of my current day job, so I never did formally apply for the Music Education Manager position, but it has haunted me in fantasy ever since, and is still my go-to Happy Place imaginary alternative work position, on days of high stress (before this it was to be the new owner of a shop that sells bird houses and birdseed, at which I had noticed a "Business for Sale" sign, but that has been sold to new owners so that path is, for now, closed to me).
Then, recently, an actual professional Music Education professional of my acquaintance posted a Facebook link to an article online that injoined Music Educators to stop trying to rationalize the value of music education by linking it to work-related transferable skills that the students could gain. This was a wrong and dangerous path, the article argued. Music has intrinsic value. It is around us all the time, and it is of intrinsic value to learn more about it.
And then, just this morning, a college classmate posted a Facebook link to an article that made basically an identical argument, but this time about Liberal Arts education generally. Stop trying to argue that a Liberal Arts degree has value primarily for the job skills that graduates can bring to the workforce. Liberal Arts have intrinsic value. They are important in themselves.
This subject matter has been top of mind in my State recently, as our right-wing, non-University educated Governor continues to slash budgets not just for childhood education but for the reknowned state university system, and news spread among my peers like wildfire a few weeks ago when he "accidentally" struck out the "search for truth" part of the Univeristy's Mission, and replaced it with "training the future workforce".
Those of us who have and have provided for others Liberal Arts education, and those Music Educators of my acquaintance, both feel very strongly that education is different from trade school, that it has intrinsic value beyond the workplace skills it may indirectly provide, and that a developed society should provide it to its citizens.
So, having done an MBA as well, following my Liberal Arts degree (and two more graduate degrees in between, in a fiercely impractical subject matter), and also having been wondering how I could flee my current day job but still live in the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed, lately what's been on my mind is, where does the value derive, for Music Education (and by extension music itself, the existence of it and the listening to it as an audience member but also the opportunity to learn about it and make it oneself)?
What are the economics, here, and how can they be played into a decent replacement salary for me?
The other input to these musings is the new book by composer Philip Glass. The section of the book that has stayed with me was his description of his music education, which he received in France on a Fulbright scholarship. The intense, difficult, grueling training that he describes was essential for him to become a composer, because composition requires a breadth of musical expertise. And he needed to be pretty darned good to be able to go beyond any composer who had lived before in history, and to extend the form in revolutionary ways, as he did (as he has). He describes what he was trying to bring to the audience of his pieces (transcendence, basically). He states what he thinks music is for (to learn to listen), in contrast with other art forms (dance is to learn to move, writing is to learn to speak, painting is to learn to see, I can't remember what else).
But, is that enough? To devote a whole, whole human life to? To delve in and learn and learn and practice and practice, to suffer and be punished and humiliated and struggle and think and analyze and practice and remold yourself into a musician, into a music creator, into a music revolutionary who expressed something essential about our epoch in a way that no one else every quite did - is it worth it?
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Poem: Mixing Suchness
Mixing Suchness
It's late evening and the room is dark
We pull up our chairs and sit close,
my arm through your arm,
like we were in a theater or at the show
Watching the sound waves as they pass would be too distracting
so we turn off the lights
and look together into the glassy black
You have taken days, but the mix is good
balanced left and right
shimmering without hiss
balanced low and high
and the warm human voices come up like a blanket underneath
A ghost of blue light tries to get our attention
as alerts and warnings always do
but we stay with the sound
We are still and listen
The first one ends in bird song
The second one ends with the cymbals' decay and dying away
It's late evening and the room is dark
We pull up our chairs and sit close,
my arm through your arm,
like we were in a theater or at the show
Watching the sound waves as they pass would be too distracting
so we turn off the lights
and look together into the glassy black
You have taken days, but the mix is good
balanced left and right
shimmering without hiss
balanced low and high
and the warm human voices come up like a blanket underneath
A ghost of blue light tries to get our attention
as alerts and warnings always do
but we stay with the sound
We are still and listen
The first one ends in bird song
The second one ends with the cymbals' decay and dying away
Monday, June 8, 2015
Musical Imagination and the License Number of that Car...
I don't know if I'm a composer, my guitar teacher recently had me writing songs and a couple of them got finished and turned into actual, whole compositions, but I do have little tunes that run through my head, often.
I've been trying to record them, using the voice recorder on my phone, but that's not what they sound like in my head. Sometimes they have a sense of full orchestration. They are usually little melodies, but sometimes when I try to sing them into the phone, I can't figure out how to get from one note to the later one. It feels quite distinct in my head, but the details sometimes don't come out right on the recording.
If I listen more carefully, sometimes I can get it. I am definitely just listening, not making any conscious decisions, so I know that, so far, composition does not come from any intentional part of my brain.
I was thinking the other day, thought, that the little tunes seem to have a specific tonality, but when I attend, I can't tell what instrument it could be. The sensation of the interior song seems quite specific, but the tones are made by no specific instrument or voice.
How can this be? Well, pretty easily. Imagination, I know from grad school, is often indistinct on details, even though it seems quite whole. I remember very well a Professor of mine in a grad school seminar on either John Locke or the Philosophy of Mind, because I took both from him, he made the point by having us imagine a car, really try to see it, imagine it in detail, get a vivid mental picture, and then he asked us, what's the license plate number? Of course, none of us had an answer. But our imaginary cars didn't have an empty space where the license plate would go; they weren't blurred out like you see on reality television; they were just indistinct, indeterminate.
So the tonality of the little tunes in my head. I know they're coming from some kind of creative musical engine inside my brain, and they seem so specific and complete, but when I try to whistle or sing them into the phone, the indeterminate details become evident. They are like compositions from a dream.
I've been trying to record them, using the voice recorder on my phone, but that's not what they sound like in my head. Sometimes they have a sense of full orchestration. They are usually little melodies, but sometimes when I try to sing them into the phone, I can't figure out how to get from one note to the later one. It feels quite distinct in my head, but the details sometimes don't come out right on the recording.
If I listen more carefully, sometimes I can get it. I am definitely just listening, not making any conscious decisions, so I know that, so far, composition does not come from any intentional part of my brain.
I was thinking the other day, thought, that the little tunes seem to have a specific tonality, but when I attend, I can't tell what instrument it could be. The sensation of the interior song seems quite specific, but the tones are made by no specific instrument or voice.
How can this be? Well, pretty easily. Imagination, I know from grad school, is often indistinct on details, even though it seems quite whole. I remember very well a Professor of mine in a grad school seminar on either John Locke or the Philosophy of Mind, because I took both from him, he made the point by having us imagine a car, really try to see it, imagine it in detail, get a vivid mental picture, and then he asked us, what's the license plate number? Of course, none of us had an answer. But our imaginary cars didn't have an empty space where the license plate would go; they weren't blurred out like you see on reality television; they were just indistinct, indeterminate.
So the tonality of the little tunes in my head. I know they're coming from some kind of creative musical engine inside my brain, and they seem so specific and complete, but when I try to whistle or sing them into the phone, the indeterminate details become evident. They are like compositions from a dream.
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