 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: MarkS
Date: 2022-07-21 20:59
In a recent thread, some have expressed surprise that a prominent clarinetist did not have good health benefits. I have noticed that many clarinet performance majors at the university where I teach (engineering) do a double major in music education. By doing so, they are eligible for teaching positions in primary and secondary schools that provide benefits such as health insurance.
I am interested to learn how the variations in government benefits around the world impacts career decisions. For example, is it more likely for an aspiring musician to attempt a career in performance if they live in a country that has high quality health benefits provided by the government?
Mark
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Author: donald
Date: 2022-07-21 23:54
Other countries have better health systems (recognizing that it benefits everyone to have a population that has some sense of security) so it's almost irrelevant to career choice.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-07-22 16:38
I think it probably does help that we have free universal healthcare in the UK. We certainly don't generally choose jobs according to whether they offer private health insurance as part of the package.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2022-07-22 17:06
Before we can discuss this intelligently, we have to know what sorts of benefits other industrialized democracies offer their citizens that the US does not. The best book I ever read on the subject (certainly not the ONLY such book available, but the only one I know of) is "Were You Born On the Wrong Continent," in which an American labor lawyer visits Europe and catalogues all the ways other nations provide care and support for their citizens, that the US does not. It's a bit dated (came out in the early 00's I think) but the basic dynamics haven't changed. It's also a bit revolutionary in the sense that it illuminates exactly what the tradeoff between "lower taxes" and "higher quality of life" actually is, in the US and elsewhere.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-07-22 17:41
I would still contend that those who pursue the arts do so for reasons that defy a financial model. However, look only to our history when being a wind player was the path to a really high paying job, the 1930s and 1940s. The pinnacles of that career field made as much as $70,000 dollars a week. And that was when you could buy a steak dinner for a couple of dollars. Back then everyone and his uncle was trying to be a bandleader or a sideman.
Of course, times have changed.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-07-22 20:59
I took on a science career that didn't pay the bills because I had absolutely no idea about the cost of living or the salary involved. I had to bail out in the end because I had health problems and couldn't be fixed on the NHS. I went to a computer job that had good private healthcare, so that possibly contradicts my earlier statement a bit.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2022-07-22 21:17
Paul Aviles wrote:
> However, look only to our
> history when being a wind player was the path to a really high
> paying job, the 1930s and 1940s. The pinnacles of that career
> field made as much as $70,000 dollars a week. ...
> Back then everyone and his uncle was trying to be a bandleader
> or a sideman.
>
> Of course, times have changed.
>
They certainly have, so much that I don't think the economic environment was even comparable to today's. For one thing, there were no contractual "fringe benefits" - for most musicians there were no contracts, just whatever the leader was offering. But teachers didn't get medical coverage or organized pension programs, either, back then. I don't know (it might be interesting to read up on it ) when medical insurance became a given for most Americans, but I think it was sometime early in my lifetime (b. 1947). And, of course, not every musician then or now reaches "the pinnacle" of the performing field. The rest even today can be very disappointed when, at the end of their career, they can't stop working because they have limited health insurance and no pension because they never thought (or couldn't spare the money) to set one up early in their work years. The choice in the U.S. became more stark since the '50s with the advent of union contracts and increasingly strong fringe benefits - principally health insurance and pensions - in the teaching profession at nearly all levels. So it was a substantially different set of choices in the 30s and 40s. And that doesn't take account of the war, which took a lot of potential musicians and other artists off the domestic market and put them in uniform.
> I would still contend that those who pursue the arts do so for reasons that
> defy a financial model.
I'm also not sure you can answer the question asked in the original post by looking at musicians who have become successes as performers as those who "pursue the arts" unless you're including those who choose teaching or music administration or other musical (or artistic) related careers that offer stable employment and benefits. If the choice for a young person just out of school is whether to pursue some kind of art-related career (including teaching, management, etc.) and going into engineering or medicine, I might agree with Paul. But people choose these music-related fields all the time instead of performing careers because of the greater financial security the non-performance fields offer to everyone, not just those who reach the pinnacle.
I think the OP's answer is clear enough in the U.S.. I think the interesting answers will come from other places.
Karl
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-07-22 23:19
Just a clarification though I agree that today's "literal" answer will come from elsewhere.
My point was more that musicians (and others in the arts) play and sing because they feel compelled to do so......no matter what. I don't think any musician decides that that is the best way to make a living.
However
There can be certain circumstances (though rare) where those chasing an "easier" pot of gold might find themselves in the arts. Lest we forget Artie Shaw was a saxophonist, but switched to clarinet because of the success of Benny Goodman.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-07-23 16:25
I partly ended up in plant science because I was so specialised as a person that there didn't seem to be anything else that I *could* do. Do you think that that might be the same with some musicians?
I saw an interview with Steven Isserlis where he said he was like that and I wasn't sure whether he was joking. He says it at 1:37 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtkRbpRvkrg&t=199s.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-07-23 19:31
That's an interesting tack. There is a lot of common sense to the notion that we just continue to do what we know. On the other hand, there is a radio show here called "From the Top," featuring youth of all ages through high school who are all certifiable musical prodigies. After an amazing performance there is a brief interview afterwards in which most of them speak of a future as a doctor or some other highly functional career. I must admit that I cringe at every one of those.
however
Steven Isserlis also says this:
"If the career becomes more important than the music, then your soul becomes empty."
spoken like a true artist
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2022-07-23 20:08
And thank you for posting this wonderful interview! I never even heard of Steven Isserlis before, but I will certainly seek out his recordings now (which I'm sure will both please and horrify him).
............Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-07-23 20:08
Stephen Isserlis is a millionaire with a talent for writing books as well as playing the cello. His children's books make an enchanting introduction to classical music
and his latest book, a companion to the cello suites of Bach, may be on its way
to achieving classic status of its own. Clarinetists interested in doing Bach justice might want to invest in a (very reasonably priced) copy. If Isserlis is overspecialized, we should all be so lucky to be similarly constrained.
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-07-23 22:42
I really like Steven Isserlis and his books too. He's so lovely and self-efacing, and just like a normal everyday person, in spite of being so talented. I enjoyed his children's books on the composers too, and also found them rather a nice parenting guide, for parents of musical children. I didn't know that he had done so well financially. I think that is a very good thing.
I think it's quite common for very talented people to be in their career because they were born very specialised. In Cambridge, where I live now, there are a lot of people who are classed as being on the Autistic Spectrum, and who are incredibly talented as one particular thing. The schools need to be very careful to help those people to advance their talents to the high level that they are able to achieve, without allowing the disabilities that come with their ASD condition from preventing their access to education. It's really quite a complicated business.
I'm not really sure if that also applies in music. I don't know many musicians except through this board.
I loved it when I read an interview with a professional clarinetist recently and he said he'd had to decide as a teenager whether to be a professional musician or a professional football player. That's a nice dilemma to have.
Post Edited (2022-07-23 22:43)
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2022-07-23 23:56
SunnyDaze wrote:
"...The schools need to be very careful to help those people to advance their talents to the high level that they are able to achieve..."
What's the point of education, if not this? I suggest that the world has changed to some degree, yet most of our educational institutions are still trying to form children into specifically-shaped cogs to fit into specifically-shaped holes, to play specifically-shaped roles. I'm not sure that works too well going forward. I think your suggestion is closer to the answer, and is my hope for children of all abilities.
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-07-24 13:38
Hi Fuzzy,
Yes I think that is absolutely right. Things are tricky at the moment because funding for schools is very low and the understanding of specific needs is quite advanced. Getting the low budget to stretch to the very complex needs is tricky I think.
Thinking a bit more about this overnight, I think that maybe this is more of an issue with composers than performers in the musical world. Would you think that's right?
When I read Steven Isserlis's book about the lives of the great composers it was clear that some of them would have been diagnosed as having special educational needs if they had been in the school system now.
Mozart in particular seemed to fit a childhood ASD diagnosis very closely indeed. Beethoven definitely had some funny stuff going on in later life that was to do with not understanding or accommodating social rules. Schumann seemed to have some really complex issues, but I have no idea what the formal diagnosis would be if he was looked at by a medic these days.
I really felt for them all then I was reading the book tbh. They seemed to have such a hard time.
(I should mention that I also have a level 1 ASD diagnosis, while I'm saying all this.)
Jen
Post Edited (2022-07-24 13:59)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-07-25 01:42
FWIW: I find society increasingly hostile to all sorts of differences in spite of all the attention differences get. I believe this is because society at large is becoming more impersonal and less rooted the local community.
When you see someone as a unique person first, it makes sense that they will be unique. All those personal quirks, gifts, and failings are just a part of who they are.
When you see someone as just another stranger, they are more or less interchangeable. All that human "weirdness" becomes "bad" because it's an obstacle to treating them interchangeably.
As a result perfectly normal people are pathologized. That doesn't mean that things we commonly identify as special needs or disabilities aren't real, but they don't always have to be viewed as negative. For example, being an idiot at administration or math doesn't make you "wrong". I get treated horribly because I can't drive, but that's a dumb thing to judge somebody for. Different people need different roles to fill. Denying them the chance to fill those roles is a problem for both the individual and society. Rigid expectations are also a problem.
- Matthew Simington
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2022-07-25 04:19
Some pretty extraordinary people in the midst of our car dominated society either have never learned to drive or did and chose not to. Arranger/composer Quincy Jones was a passenger in a terrifying wreck while still in high school and just decided he would be successful and prosperous without ever getting behind the steering wheel for the rest of his life. Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (like Quincy) managed to live in Los Angeles and not drive, which in itself is a major accomplishment. Isaac Asimov didn't learn to drive till moving to Boston, but he had an aversion to flying, even though he wrote stories about space flights to other galaxies. Albert Einstein is only one of several theoretical physicists who reportedly didn't drive, and castle-dwelling fiction writer J.K. Rowling also spurns the wheel. Conversely, Pete Fountain was frequently seen driving his band to gigs in his Mercedes minivan, and also was a collector of antique cars, I believe. Premiere violinist Jascha Heifetz insisted, for environmental reasons, in the oil and gas gushing days of the 1960s, on driving an all electric car--one of the very few in existence back then. People do come many varieties, and each to his own.
Post Edited (2022-07-26 00:20)
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Author: SunnyDaze
Date: 2022-07-25 20:08
Hi Matt,
I know just what you mean. I grew up in a very small interconnected community, where everyone was understood just to be themselves. I now live in a much bigger place where people hardly know each other, and there is much more of a tendency to pigeonhole and even reject people.
I kind of suspect that non-driving may become much more accepted as the reality of climate change bites. I can't drive either at the moment, but it's done wonders for my carbon footprint. It's done no end of good for my cycling muscles too.
Nice to know that there are so many non-drivers seabreeze. That's very encouraging.
Sorry for derailing the thread a bit btw. I know we're meant to be talking about performing musicians and I hardly know any of those at all in real life. They may all be fabulous at everything! :-)
Jen
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2022-07-25 23:33
Jen, It was exactly my experience of living in small towns vs. major metros that prompted my comment.
Mark, I was conscious about posting "off-topic". I'm sure that healthcare does figure into it, but I think there are much larger considerations that are on most students minds, especially since most are more or less healthy, and more or less covered while they are young. Not many of them have much experience being sick. For example, much more present to my mind would be concern about the future of music in general, or what kind of lifestyle and social status it would afford. I WAS sick in college, and I never thought about health care in relation to a music career.
I suspect that the availability of jobs is more affected by government healthcare, than are students decisions. In part more jobs may be possible because employers don't have the added expense. Also, European governments seem to do a much better job of supporting the arts, and as a result I expect there are more jobs available. For example, they have state funded instrument building schools and apprenticeships. Also they mostly have their college paid for, so they don't have immense loans, which opens more doors. Still, the actual availability of access to care, and the quality of care is not the same thing as being covered. So, there is a tradeoff.
- Matthew Simington
Post Edited (2022-07-26 05:36)
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