Author: EEBaum
Date: 2009-04-12 16:42
I think perhaps a bigger problem in all of this is that many university and conservatory programs tend to treat a performance major as a training program for an eventual orchestral job. It can become less about exploring what makes music music, less about finding one's voice, less about establishing perspective, and less about creating one's own musical opportunities (which is what just about all the non-classical musicians do), and more about achieving utmost precision on a handful of the same solo repertoire as everyone else, plus a bunch of excerpts that are tragically taken out of any hint of musical context.
I know that isn't ALL that goes on at programs, but I think that most of the reputable ones are, to some degree, guilty of it.
This leads to a tragically impotent group of almost-good-enoughs. People who are quite good musicians, but always seem to be one step short of winning the ever-elusive symphony gig. If they were more resourceful, I think a good many of them (more than do now, at least) could innovate themselves some really fantastic, satisfying opportunities. However, most of them were trained with the "someone makes jobs and you audition for them" mentality. Therefore, they much more commonly end up "settling" for unsatisfying gigs, community orchestras that mean well but are below the level the musician is accustomed to, etc., and sooner or later give up on taking orchestral auditions and -- and this is the tragic part -- at this point also resign themselves to not playing as much, or at as high a level.
At this point (and not that there's anything at all wrong with this if it works for you), the actually quite good musician either abandons the instrument entirely, or accepts that they'll be an "amateur" from there on out, which, at some conscious or subconscious level, seems to suddenly close an incredible number of possible doors to musical coolness.
I think that if programs focused more on "here's all the cool things you can do with music" rather than "here's how to pursue a slim chance at an extremely elusive career," we'd have a more vibrant community of good musicians who continue to make good music, without going the "oh well, I guess I'll never make it all the way, so I guess I'll settle" route.
I'm not meaning to disparage those who play simply for the love of playing... that's great! It's just sad to see musicians who are at a very high level, on the edge of possibly doing some really really cool things with music, abandon all the possibilities they probably aren't even aware of, simply because they've been conditioned to consider landing an orchestral gig to be the benchmark of successful musicianship, with anything other than that as an indication of a lack of success.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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