Klarinet Archive - Posting 000254.txt from 1996/02

From: Neil Leupold <nleupold@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Preaching/having fun/love hate relationships
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 21:18:30 -0500

Gary Bisaga's comments, below, seemed insightful and informative to me.
He uses a comparison between musicians and athletes to illustrate his
point with respect to Dan's feelings of seriousness about music. Gary
suggests that an athlete is just as serious about his art and craft as a
musician is. I would tend to agree with this. It brings to mind another
very basic similarity between musicians and athletes, which is this: It
has been said many times that the happiest people in the world are A)
Musicians, and B) Athletes. Why? Because they spend their lives and earn
their livelihoods by doing something which they would gladly do for
nothing. Of course, this brings to mind the AFM union issue, and the
public perception that professional musicians are not deserving of a
comparable wage compared to, say, a business manager. I was a business
manager at a multimedia company for three years, doing all of those
important business-like things (personnel management, vendor relations,
contract negotiations, software distribution, field technician), and
believe me, a business mananger contributes absolutely nothing to society
in his professional role. Maybe he uses his money for charitable causes
off the job, but the job itself is for the purpose of promoting the
company and nothing else. The side-effect is that the manager makes
enough money to support himself and/or his family. Is professional music
of a higher purpose, or are we just being lofty elitist buffoons by claiming
that our profession is more than a self-serving mechanism with no more
altruistic or philanthropic integrity than Microsoft?

Neil

On Thu, 8 Feb 1996, Gary Bisaga wrote:

> Dan Leeson writes:
> >Well, I never thought that my off-hand remarks would get to this.
>
> Doesn't everything that gets posted to this list? Actually, I should
> not say "everything," as you noted, Dan. It's really what people feel
> comfortable with talking about. I go along with the other poster who
> said that I don't feel myself qualified to make worthwhile comments on
> professional player X's performance style of a particular piece of
> music. This reticence on my part is, frankly, largely due to Dan's
> rebuke that comments made should deal with specific quantifiable (or
> at least comparable) points. I'm not saying that Dan was wrong in
> making this rebuke; in fact, he has made me think twice about what I
> like or dislike about a particular performance. And for that (as for
> many other things) I am in debt to Dan. After several years of this
> type of thinking, I may consider myself qualified to make comments on
> postings related to clarinet performance or musical styles.
>
> >That doesn't mean that I did not enjoy it when I was doing it. Rather,
> >that the approach was invariably serious. I had been given a great gift
> >by God; i.e., the ability and desire to play serious music and I was not
> >going to allow it to take on the same level in life as a Knicks basketball
> >game. That was fun. Mozart was not fun. It was a hallowed gift from
> >one of God's most favored people to me and the world.
>
> Not wanting to argue theology, I'll not comment on the last sentence.
> But I do want to make the comment that Mozart is serious to you and
> the Knicks are not largely because you are not a Knick! To paraphrase
> Andy Rooney, is there any reason to think that professional musicians
> are, in general, any better at playing music than professional
> basketball players are at playing basketball? I am more than willing
> to grant that a particular musician (say, Dan Leeson) may be much
> better and, more to the point, more serious about honing his God-given
> talents than a particular basketball player. But I think that has
> more to do with the person than with what they're doing. If Dan could
> make 3-pointers and dunk the basketball I have to believe that he
> would still be on the court practicing until midnight every night.
> And, just as you noted, I think professional athletes enjoy what they
> are doing even (perhaps "especially?") when they seriously approach
> their sport. After all, how many professional athletes have you heard
> -- I'm talking about the ones that you know are not just cruising on
> their talent but are seriously striving to perfect their game -- give
> as their reason for retiring "The game just isn't fun anymore."
>
> Oh shoot, did I do it again -- make the reply comment more serious
> than the original statement warranted? If so, my humble apology.
>
> Gary Bisaga
>

   
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