Music Should Not Be A Profession
That’s a radical statement, but I wanted your attention. Rather, I mean this: “Imagine a world with no professional musicians.” Far be it for me, a professional composer and educator to wish a ban on my livelihood. If I had a split personality between my roles of those two, this is the educator talking. I mean it only to start a lively conversation by taking an extreme, if hypothetical, position.
It’s not that I don’t love listening to really amazing music on a great speaker system, recorded extremely well, and distributed commercially for the profit of those who made it. It’s just that again and again, through my work teaching teachers about music, I meet people who think that because they don’t play music anywhere near a concert hall level, they shouldn’t play music at all. Maybe they used to play clarinet in band, and now since there’s not much of a band in their suburban neighborhood, they don’t play music at all. Or maybe they wish to play piano for the first time, but since they’re busy and progress is slow, they don’t get their desired satisfaction soon enough to stay motivated. On some level, they believe that the slick, glossy, highly technical way to make music that they hear all the time through recordings is the only way to make music. That’s a meme that has crept into our culture over the last hundred years, and it has almost completely taken down the idea of making music as an enjoyable pastime.
Think about it: a hundred years ago, as one NPR commentator put it, your home entertainment system was a piano and a daughter. You PLAYED music if you wanted to listen to it. You sang. You stroked a washboard. You did what it took to bring music to your ears. Maybe you played a tune on the piano, and yes, maybe you stank at it. But you did it because it was the ONLY way to get music.
Sure, maybe you went to the occasional concert, or even a casual live music event. But those were rare, and musicians were more likely than not to be employed elsewise in the community. One thing’s for sure: your environment was not saturated, and I mean SATURATED, with recordings of professionals capturing music in pristine, unfettered conditions. Music was not wallpaper.
Fast forward a hundred years and we have professionally recorded and produced music coming out of every public electrical circuit everywhere. Many of us can’t even bear to drive to the supermarket unaccompanied by one kind of soundtrack or another. And anytime and every time you hear music, it is in a clean, archivable version. There are no mistakes. You never hear recordings of someone fumbling along or doing their best at the living room piano.
So, you think that’s how music IS. It’s not a grainy, sometimes messy, often simple form of expression. And when you sit down to play your favorite melody on an instrument you are just learning, it just doesn’t compare. Not only that, but the voices inside your head are not only telling you that “you’ll never be any good,” but they are also echoing the sentiment that so much professional music supports: you SHOULD be good. Music should be played really well or not at all. So, it’s just a short few steps over to the stereo to play the “good” version of your favorite song.
But music by it's nature has tons of mistakes and missteps. There is nothing intrinsic to music which necessitates perfection of every tone. If you listen, really listen, to what you are playing, it truly is perfect, regardless of any “errors”. To say otherwise would be to say that the pebbles and sand on a beach are less beautiful because they are not as perfectly organized by those held together by cement on a paved parking lot. It's in your nature to make music however it comes out.
I’ll finish with this: the nail in the coffin of the general public enjoying music MAKING has been the hit show American Idol, which reduces singing from something anyone (yes, anyone) can do and enjoy, to the high-stakes venture of a few. More on that another time.
And as far as proposing solutions to this condition: RUN, don't walk, to your nearest sound making object (I don't care if it's a vintage jazz guitar or a dirty pot in the sink); pick it up; make a sound; then make another one, and another, until you and your music are flowing.
It’s not that I don’t love listening to really amazing music on a great speaker system, recorded extremely well, and distributed commercially for the profit of those who made it. It’s just that again and again, through my work teaching teachers about music, I meet people who think that because they don’t play music anywhere near a concert hall level, they shouldn’t play music at all. Maybe they used to play clarinet in band, and now since there’s not much of a band in their suburban neighborhood, they don’t play music at all. Or maybe they wish to play piano for the first time, but since they’re busy and progress is slow, they don’t get their desired satisfaction soon enough to stay motivated. On some level, they believe that the slick, glossy, highly technical way to make music that they hear all the time through recordings is the only way to make music. That’s a meme that has crept into our culture over the last hundred years, and it has almost completely taken down the idea of making music as an enjoyable pastime.
Think about it: a hundred years ago, as one NPR commentator put it, your home entertainment system was a piano and a daughter. You PLAYED music if you wanted to listen to it. You sang. You stroked a washboard. You did what it took to bring music to your ears. Maybe you played a tune on the piano, and yes, maybe you stank at it. But you did it because it was the ONLY way to get music.
Sure, maybe you went to the occasional concert, or even a casual live music event. But those were rare, and musicians were more likely than not to be employed elsewise in the community. One thing’s for sure: your environment was not saturated, and I mean SATURATED, with recordings of professionals capturing music in pristine, unfettered conditions. Music was not wallpaper.
Fast forward a hundred years and we have professionally recorded and produced music coming out of every public electrical circuit everywhere. Many of us can’t even bear to drive to the supermarket unaccompanied by one kind of soundtrack or another. And anytime and every time you hear music, it is in a clean, archivable version. There are no mistakes. You never hear recordings of someone fumbling along or doing their best at the living room piano.
So, you think that’s how music IS. It’s not a grainy, sometimes messy, often simple form of expression. And when you sit down to play your favorite melody on an instrument you are just learning, it just doesn’t compare. Not only that, but the voices inside your head are not only telling you that “you’ll never be any good,” but they are also echoing the sentiment that so much professional music supports: you SHOULD be good. Music should be played really well or not at all. So, it’s just a short few steps over to the stereo to play the “good” version of your favorite song.
But music by it's nature has tons of mistakes and missteps. There is nothing intrinsic to music which necessitates perfection of every tone. If you listen, really listen, to what you are playing, it truly is perfect, regardless of any “errors”. To say otherwise would be to say that the pebbles and sand on a beach are less beautiful because they are not as perfectly organized by those held together by cement on a paved parking lot. It's in your nature to make music however it comes out.
I’ll finish with this: the nail in the coffin of the general public enjoying music MAKING has been the hit show American Idol, which reduces singing from something anyone (yes, anyone) can do and enjoy, to the high-stakes venture of a few. More on that another time.
And as far as proposing solutions to this condition: RUN, don't walk, to your nearest sound making object (I don't care if it's a vintage jazz guitar or a dirty pot in the sink); pick it up; make a sound; then make another one, and another, until you and your music are flowing.
posted by Hans Indigo Spencer at
12:29 AM
0 Comments
