Badminton with Words

There are two words being bandied about a great deal in the classical music community these days: entrepreneurship and sustainability. Neither one are new concepts, with bloggers and modern writers tackling the issue for the past few years. Even more importantly, both have been vitally important portions of music from the beginning of time, and are inexorably linked to creative fields.

However, in the last couple years, we've seen a veritable boom in thinking about these two concepts. Part of it comes out from studies, including National Endowment for the Arts surveys on public participation, studies showing what many musicians have anecdotally known for years: that classical music audiences are older than they were. We've also seen a lot of reactionary material on rethinking degrees and recitals. My own alma mater, DePauw University, just got a 15 million dollar gift to revise their curriculum for musicians of the 21st century. With the failing of two major institutions, the general orchestral crisis with striking symphonies, ailing endowments, and reactions that range from conservative programming, to kitsch and pop driven programming, some national (and international) ire, and tons of local support, everyone has appeared to give their two cents on the subject.

Some people are reactionary (myself included), others have been at the fore in the years preceding the current financial issues. Greg Sandow has done a good job showing trends that may lead to understanding where the failings began with his timeline of the crisis. Jon Silpayamanant's blog has shown how some studies and ideas are red herrings, and his bibliographic timelines are great resources in studying 20th century (and sometimes into the 19th century) trends. And, of course, there's Drew McManus and many more that have graced my own blog over the past year. Maybe someone should put together a large repository of links just to people working on the subject? Not me, not today at least.

For my part, I'm done being reactionary at the moment. Time for some "innovation," if you will. But this innovation isn't about tossing my ideas on "how to fix the problem." Instead, it's going to be innovation on thinking about the problem. And by innovation, I mean changing my own stance and thinking creatively, not necessarily coming up with new ideas.

So, as with any good story, a good place to start is at the beginning. In the beginning of this blog, there were two words: entrepreneurship and sustainability. What do these terms mean? First, let's talk about entrepreneurship. What is an entrepreneur? A simple economic definition is "one who starts and runs a business or businesses." But is that really all an entrepreneur is? Other key components listed in various sites are "leadership, initiative, and innovation." From a business standpoint, this could mean someone inventing a new device, or upgrading a past one, and selling it in their own business--highly touted entrepreneurs (and venture capitalists) include Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X; Henry Ford and the auto industry; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in computing; and many more. Entrepreneurs are separate from researchers who may be incredibly innovative, be major leaders, and even have large amounts of initiative by the simple economic situation--a researcher or scientist may not take the step to start their own business.

So, what is an entrepreneur in the arts? The main focus I've seen is on how artists can make a living. This may include innovation, but mostly innovation from an "economic" standpoint--how do we market better, how do we utilize social media, what do we teach students so they can make a living post graduation? There's also a bit of focus on collaboration, mainly with other artists, as a way to create something "sustainable:" the idea that by working together in collectives, we may have a better chance to make enough money to live.

Then there is sustainability. This is a loaded term with at least two separate, equally talked about areas of study; economic sustainability and ecological sustainability. Prior to the current crisis, there was a lot of blogging and talk about sustainability in ethnomusicology groups. Jeff Todd Titon is a name that pops up a lot in modern research of cultural sustainability, which looks at a combination of economic and ecological sustainability of the arts--mainly of folk traditions.

What I see in modern conversations about sustainability is entirely economical; not cultural, not ecological, purely economical. How do we make enough money? What is enough money? Fundraising ideas? For me the biggest tell of the shift in thinking was in the Minnesota Orchestra mission statement:

The Minnesota Orchestral Association inspires, educates and serves our community through internationally recognized performances of exceptional music delivered within a sustainable financial structure.

That's all well and good, but notice it doesn't actually mention orchestral music, and says quite firmly "within a sustainable financial structure."

Now, I'm not knocking either idea. Entrepreneurship and sustainability are both important to music. However, it's important to think about how semantics can prime a situation. When someone says "sustainability" the current in many brains right now means "sustainable financial structure." When we hear about sustainable financial structure, what comes to mind? Well, if you read the news in the US, it's something that's a highly polarized issue that gets tossed into two broad categories: out of control spending by a large government; and not enough spending by the government to help push economic recovery.

Dichotomy, it's the essence of the human mind. As my playwriting teacher once told me: keep everything to dualistic choices, they're easier for everyone to understand (My edit: mainly in a limited time).

What I'd like to push for is more options and ideas on the subject. My gut reaction is that the conversations about sustainability and entrepreneurship are actually being hampered by the words themselves. We've reached a point where specific meanings of coalesced and we're being split into camps. This is decidedly uncreative, and unbecoming of artists. Really, a field that prides itself on diversity, on proliferating new ideas, we're letting a couple common definitions cloud our judgement? Perhaps it's time to remove the language itself from the equation. So, I'll do my best to avoid those terms, and find terms more specific to the situation.

The second issue I'm seeing, past the semantic, is that of historical context. For many, this crisis is seen as completely unique, something that has never happened before. Have there been no crises in "classical music" before? I can think of several--the move from a patron based system to an independent system (pushed by Beethoven but adopted by many in 19th century Romantic view. And, of course, it's not like patronage actually ended, but the move from a court position to an independent position caused all sorts of interesting battles). Do we forget the troubles and trials of Mozart, who attempted the lifestyle before Beethoven and didn't do such a great job? Or how hard Beethoven fought for his share of the pie? And how, moving into the 20th century, patronage didn't go away, but shifted, from nobles in the 18th century, to orchestras, opera houses, and the state in the 19th century, to academia starting in the late 19th century into the 20th century as support from the state dwindled. This is just one instance where a historical perspective could be very helpful: how did the arts change during these major changes in economic, social, and political change? We see countries moving from monarchies to democracies (or to more heavily structured parliamentary systems), the industrial revolution changing economics on a huge scale (much like the information and electronics age are changing economics, especially rapidly in the rise of digital media and online retailers), and social movements in creating the middle class, the ending of slavery, serfdom, and other forms of indentured servitude, and an increase in freedoms for people through the 20th century. How has art and music transformed during these time periods?

In other words, why are so many people attempting to reinvent the wheel? Why are so many of us (including myself) being reactionary? and even deeper, why are we looking for roots to the problems?

Which is my third issue: we need to identify roots of problems and not just treat symptoms. There are organizations and individuals looking at these problems: Jon Silpayamanant is going in this direction; the NEA published a report on how technology influences arts participation, a study I'm currently working my way through and considering deeply. But many of us (myself again included), haven't always been looking for the root of problems. We've found problems, for instance, the aging audience. However, why is the audience aging? There has been some recent work looking into this, from raising ticket prices to outreach to the distancing from the public. I've posited a few in my posts recently as well.

But now's the time to stop positing and actually investigate and find out why. Time to do studies and see which of these many factors are actually influencing people in specific communities and nation-wide. Before we start leaping into making curriculums (even though I agree we need to create new curriculums in colleges at all levels), we need to identify the root of the problem. Otherwise our changes are nothing more than band-aids tossed on a tumor.

There is a third word bandied about as well: collaboration. It is, also, misused, I think, and in need of some semantic repair. But, at the moment, I think I'll stop and collect my thoughts again--this has been sitting for a few weeks as I worked through my thoughts.

Because it's time we stopped being purely reactionary. There's a time and place for it, but, when we are faced with deep problems, problems of a financial, philosophical (both as far as the place of the arts in society, as well as the roles of various agencies in the arts), political, social, and ecological. Actually, I could sum up by saying let's look at the deep problems of the arts and the world, but that is all at once too broad, too prosaic, and too philosophical.

Instead, let's simply take a breath and act like artists: ask a question, work through that question creatively from many angles, find a deeper, more important question, and come up with several hundred possible ideas to try, then try them, one by one, in various scenarios. Let's step back from the answering phase we seem to be at, and move back to questioning.

Mainly, now that we've identified problems let's ask "What is the root of the problem?"

Swedish Adventure 1: Saariaho

   I've been in Sweden since Friday and I'm still recovering from jet lag. I screwed the pooch on getting acclimated, was a bit ill over the weekend (something I ate while traveling), and haven't been able to break the funk since. However, today was a day I wasn't going to miss because of my stomach nor my head.

   Kaija Saariaho is the recipient of a Polar Prize this year, and tonight was a concert of her music to kick off the festivities. The concert was an hour long with four pieces, three of which featured cellist Anssi Karttunen. If you're familiar with Saariaho's work, you'll probably recognize that name: most of her cello works are written for Karttunen.

   I was excited for the concert. Bill Brunson had let me know over the weekend it was happening, so I marked it on my mental calendar. I walked the 15 minutes to the tunnelbana (metro, subway, tube), and headed into downtown Stockholm from my suburban abode in Bromma/Sundbyberg. The T is very easy to navigate in Stockholm county, so getting around is cake. The bus system is equally good, and much nicer than any other city I've been in. MUCH nicer. But getting to the konserthuset is easy--T to T-Centralen, walk a couple blocks.

   An hour before the show, I picked up the ticket and a latte. The ticket was acceptably expensive (180 SEK or about $25-28 depending on the exchange). The latte wasn't very good, but I haven't had coffee since I got to Stockholm, so it was worth it. After finishing, I decided to walk the block and ran into Bill and his wife, completely unplanned. I knew he was going, but I wasn't out looking for him.

   Enough about the day to day of Stockholm. Onto the concert.

   I sat down about 10 of, and a crowd started forming quickly to my side. I glanced over and saw Saariaho. So, after she shook many hands, I hopped up and said a quick congrats and hello. Saariaho seemed pretty shy, and there was a crowd, so I wasn't going to draw her into a deep discussion. But, yes, I did "meet" her, though I doubt she'll remember my name (with all the hellos, names, and handshakes occurring).

   The show began with a quick chat with Saariaho about the four pieces. The pieces were Sept papillos for cello, Serenatas for cello, percussion, and piano, Duft for clarinet, and Je sens un deuxieme coeur for viola, cello, and piano. Karttunen played the cello throughout, while members of Norrbotten NEO, Robert Ek (clarinet), Kim Hellgren (viola), Marten Landstrom (piano), and Daniel Saur (percussion) made up the rest of the players.

    Saariaho explained the pieces simply: Sept papillons was written during rehearsal for L'amour de loins, her opera about Jaufre Rudel's possible (fictional?) love of the countess of Tripoli. She described it as her escape from all the drama, craziness, and huge amount of people. Serenatas was written using music that had been kicking around since sketching Sept papillons. They are a series of Serenades that can be played in any order. Duft for solo clarinet is based on music from an orchestral piece about the sense. Duft is German for smell, and it's her musical idea of the linking of smell and sound. Finally Je sens un deuxieme coeur (I feel a second heart) was inspired by Saariaho's second pregnancy, when she started thinking about how there was a second heart beating inside of her, beating very fast and slowing over 9 months. She mentioned polyrhythms as well as the programmatic aspect of the work.

     I won't embark on a piece by piece analysis or discussion. Instead, here are some general remarks about Saariaho's music. First off, three of the pieces had some sort of programmatic aspect. These aspects, if I had not been told about them in the first place, would not have come through in the music at all. In fact, even listening with the "insider information" straight from Saariaho, I did not hear any of the programmatic elements. Nothing in Duft made me think of smell, and nothing in Je sens un deuxieme coeur made me think of feeling two heartbeats during pregnancy. And, while these were impetuses and muses for Saariaho, I do not think I was supposed to hear anything overtly programmatic. Instead of listening for little signs, trying to tease out the program, I felt as though I was supposed to just relax and experience the music. And that is exactly what I did, letting the music wash over me.

    All of Saariaho's music takes a high level of virtuosity, especially the two solo works. Karttunen and Ek did fabulously on their ends, performing at high technical and musical levels. Saariaho's music favors the delicate over the raucous, though she is not afraid to put together a forceful section. However, it was the moments of relaxation that intrigued me the most.

    Sadly, as the concert went on, I started hearing the same motives over and over again. I've always enjoyed Saariaho's music, though I was introduced to it fairly late in the game. I did notice in L'Amour de loin that long passages of time, an hour or so, would sit in nearly the same musical area, even as the action moved around the stage. In the opera, this created an odd sense of stasis along with movement. In an hours worth of chamber music, it didn't create such an intriguing effect. Instead, I was left thinking "What else can Saariaho do?" As passages died down, Saariaho would turn to trills between harmonics. If she wanted to keep energy going but pull back the sound, it'd be harmonic arpeggios. All the material seemed woven into the same large rich tapestry.

    While I love that tapestry--it's colourful yet subtle, harmonically and motivically interesting--it is the one tapestry. When I hear Saariaho break out the most is when she uses electronics. For instance, Lonh, a beautiful piece for voice and electronics (performed beautifully by Dawn Upshaw on a recording available from Naive or Ondine...and streaming on Naxos).



    This piece, to me, is Saariaho at her finest. But her style is so distinct, so incredibly tight and structured, that it seems like her pieces are coalescing into one piece.

     This isn't necessarily a problem. As I said before, if all the pieces are woven into one tapestry, it is a beautiful, subtle, wonderful tapestry. But something happens when you hear four pieces that sound so incredibly close together. The music got less interesting, lines blurred, and I found myself slipping.

     My experience is incredibly personal. I know other people that with such a program would be able to drift more fully into the music, experience the parallels, ride the waves of sound, and be quite happy. Maybe I am still a product of my generation, one that grows impatient with too much of the same. It's why writing a 25 minute drone piece was the hardest thing I've ever done (yes, worse than 2 operas), and why even during my favourite symphonies, I can start getting antsy halfway through a movement.

    That being said, I am excited for the Kungliga Filharmonikerna concert in October with Saariaho's Laterna Magica, Chopin's 2nd Piano Concert, and Schumann's 4th symphony. Funny, I just brought that symphony up in my last post. Heh.

     And I'm still quite happy I went to this concert. I had never gotten a chance to hear Saariaho's music live, and honestly the music didn't disappoint me. I think I disappointed myself. Instead of being able to just relax, and get washed away by the music, my mind instantly started analyzing all the similarities between the pieces. I couldn't even concentrate on the differences, just the similarities. So, now I've identified what I see to be a weakness in myself.

    Because music is about the experience of the moment, not to over think it.

     I listened to Lohn tonight when I got home after eating a giant smorgorsar (accents missing) and drinking an Orangina. In the quiet of my room, I was able to relax more and just let Saariaho's beautifully nuanced music flow over me. Hopefully, this mode of listening can stay with me--attentive, but not to the details, just to the music.

What's going to put me over the top!!!

I found!

I used to say "give me a nice pencil sharpener, and I'll write an unforgettable piece!"

but found the pencil sharpener wasn't enough. So there had to be something else, some other piece of gear holding me back.

So I said "If I only had Logic PRO! No more Express, I need the full version!"

And I got a piece published. But I found myself wanting more. Still didn't have the big win, needed another big festival, huge conference

So I wrote a paper and presented it at EMS12 in Sweden. And I was still left wanting.

Then i figured it out. Even with all these online submissions popping up, I needed a way to market myself better. The website redesign is alright, workable, livable. The scores look as good as ever (now with prices!). but the recordings? They sound pretty good, but the look! The look was way off!

After searching for a couple weeks, I found my answer. Yep, that's right.

All I need now to put me over the edge is a Lightscribe enabled external CD/DVD player. Now I'm finally ready for the big time! Bring on the Pulitzer committee!

Ok, yeah, might be a little soon for that, but, c'mon, it is pretty damn schnazzy. I gave it a hard problem, a really nice picture with all sorts of different contrasts, and some text over top. And it handled it admirably. Some of the best money I've spent in a while.

And there was the even more practical matter that my macbook pro's optical drive has gone out. Might as well upgrade if I'm replacing anyway.

in response to...

This post is in response to 2 things, a review by my friend Chris Robinson on David Gibson's latest CD (read here) and the resulting discussion on tromboneforum.org, read here

An open letter to Chris Robinson:

You got some names going on that forum man. When Doug Elliott chimes in, you know things got real. Man, i was gonna buy a Doug Elliott mouthpiece...

Anyway, I couldn't agree more. Like i said before, one of my grump points is trombone players attempting to sound like J.J. Johnson. Smooth beyond all smooth, thin and bright tone. part of it is the instrument itself. straight horns tend to be a bit brighter, and it's easy to get a laser tone when trying to play out on them. on my horn, when i play loudly, it has a huge amount of edge to it (actually, mine is too far the opposite direction. anything above about a mf starts getting nasty...a little TOO soon. lol). On straight horns played in the higher registers, it just bets bright and thin to the point of being like a wailing baby. That's one of the biggest problems with the instrument- in a solo situation trying to play over everyone, we'll push it and we've killed 7 people in the crowd with a laser shooting from our horn.

It's one reason i have recently shied away from using my straight horn. i HAVE a jazz straight horn. It sits in the corner, comes out at least once a year, gets cleaned, then put back. I HATE my orchestral horn for various reasons, but one thing i like about it, is i can't get a laser tone out of it. Even in the high registers, it leans towards nasty and gritty. I might keep it around just to play jazz, just because of that nasty quality...and i can pump out mid to mid-low and make it sound like a bass trombones tone when they're really pumping the low stuff.

The best compliment i've gotten on my playing actually happened yesterday. I was just trying to play some high stuff while everyone was chatting, and Stanton Kessler stopped and said "what was that?" and i turned and said "me." his answer "that sounded like a French Horn." that, to me, is a great compliment. It means I was able to, in the high range where on all instruments it can get a little thin, keep a nice full, round, dark tone...the sort of tone that when you push it gets that brassy edge a French Horn has, not a baby killing laser beam.

I also completely agree with Doug Elliott when he says "What "we" are missing is quality, in a lot of ways. I'll probably get flamed for this, but as I see it, trombonists in general have accepted mediocrity as the norm."

couldn't agree more. We're a lazy bunch. Seriously. I am NO exception, either. My practice habits this summer went to 2-3 hours daily to an hour daily to an hour every few days. and that's me concentrating on practicing! i dunno how many trombone friends i've had who would rather get drunk, sit at a piano, and sing Billy Joel than practice trombone. and we've accepted it.

We've got this complex. We'll listen to (for classical) Alessi, Christian Lindberg, Mark Lawrence and say "eh, i'll never play like that. why bother?" We'll hear those classic jazz solos, J.J., Curtis Fuller, Slide Hampton, Jiggs Wigham, and Kai Winding and say "we'll never solo like that, why bother." I'll admit that i don't spend my time learning changes or practicing my soloing like i spend my time learning avant-garde modern trombone solos...and that means it gets little to no time.

It's a double-edged sword. i complain, as a trombone player, that there isn't much good music being written for the trombone. the parts are lame, the solos are few and far between (in classical lit and jazz improv), and no one is even asking if i would like a piece written for me these days...why?

We don't put ourselves out there. I think partly the greats got overshadowed- J.J.'s biggest years of success were in the Bop era, and then into the Time of Miles (as i like to call it...). even though he was playing actively, put out records, and had great press...We all remember Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, we remember Miles and Trane...the giants lived on, and the ogres just got overshadowed (same reason we remember Wagner over Meyerbeer...even though Meyerbeer had much more play time during his lifetime.).

The only answer is to get out there and change the perception. So, yeah, I agree with you in a million ways. And believe, as Doug Elliott inferred, the stigma is our own creation. Somehow, as trombone players, we get lazy. We reach a certain level of proficiency and call it good. we get a gig and call it a day. there are obvious exceptions, Ryan Heinlein and myself are both at least trying to break the mold a bit, i'd say...he's more active than me in the Jazz scene, but i'm trying to do the same type of thing in the classical scene (where the same problems exist...). Maybe our generation will fix it. maybe, maybe not. Who knows, but it is a problem that needs addressed. And, maybe, now that I'm older, i can do my part to break the cycle, rather than perpetuate it.