Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-08-03 19:12
Well, Bradley, you've pretty well summarized the "reach for the stars" aspiration that is so cliched as to have become plot fodder for movies. And, there's nothing saying that it can't work out for you. You COULD also be capable of running a 3 minute, 50 second mile, bench pressing 800 pounds, and laying six thousand brick in a day's time.
The operative word there is "could". Having belief in your abilities is great, but the world is full of folks who will take advantage of such beliefs until you are left lying in the gutter with an empty pocketbook. John Powers and Barbazon take in thousands of young women into their program every year. Of those, perhaps 1/10 of 1% have 'any' commercial modeling potential, and of that perhaps .001%, only a very precious few move on to greater things. Yet, the girls (and some guys) keep lining up, all with a high opinion of their value.
Powers and Barbazon are more than happy to continue with their line of business because the aspirants spend the money to support themselves. Just as we take private lessons, and seek any kind of performance venue possible, they take the poise lessons, plastic surgery and so forth. Having done head shots for both organizations, I was one of those who benefited from their "largess". Great for me, but it still didn't change the ugly fact that only one in ten thousand or so of them was ever going to be "commercially viable".
And if you're not commercially viable in modeling, what then? Well, most come from environments that have taught them to do something other than stand around and look pretty. And, if they are "pretty enough", even without any skills they have "employment" potential as a trophy spouse (mostly women there, but there is the occasional man as well).
So it helps to have a backup. Lesson #1, and one that anyone in any music field should learn early on.
Lesson #2 is somewhat harder to swallow. You, along with everyone else, has to realize that:
No matter how good you (or the best of the best of the best) may be, there is a very limited call for your talents in the world in which we now live.
Here, I'm not talking of someone who's been in the industry for many years, or who is a student in the here and now; I'm referring to the ugly fact that there are precious few "duty slots" for even the very BEST of the best of the best.
Sabine Meyer is a wonderful clarinet player, few here would dispute that fact for an instant. But, there are not enough places in the world for the Sabine Meyers that are out there, much less the up and coming folks who hope to replace her.
Look at it from a population standpoint:
• Assume 100 symphonic orchestras in the United States, one for each Standard Statistical Census Area of 100,000 population or more. This would include (in 1990, the last time that I ran the figures) such locales as Newark NJ (!), Springfield MO, and so forth. True, not all such locals have a paid group, but there is some overlap with opera, ballet and commercial work that would account for the difference.
• Now, assume four fully paid clarinet positions for each of those "orchestras". This too is a stretch, since not all of them would have four slots, and many of the orchestras that do exist pay only part time wages, if that. (Check International Musician for a month by month synopsis of what you can expect to be earning if you're one of the lucky ones.)
Run the figures and you'll see that there is a ceiling number of some four hundred paid professional "clarinet players" that a nation the size of the United States (295,734,134 souls at the current time, according to the CIA; one wonders how it is that they can make such a precise prediction) is willing to support. And, that support is not going to be a living wage in (guesstimate based upon figures in International Musician) about three-quarters of them. No matter; let's assume that there are a full four hundred "living wage paid professional clarinet player" duty slots out there.
• Now, let's double the number again, this time to take into account all of the "professional level" (i.e., college level) clarinet professors and the like. Rounding up (I'm a generous guy), that gives us a thousand duty slots that budding clarinet players are going to be aspiring to fill.
How many "quality" clarinet players are we going to get a year? Interesting question.
• Let's start by assuming that every state's principal university has a quality music program (most do), and that at least one of the two "state level" schools produces two clarinet prodigies a year. (For our foreign friends, we have both state universities and state "normal" schools (which were formerly tasked with producing teachers but now are equal partners in most ways.) This gives an output of 100 clarinet players every year, fresh faced and ready to start conquering the world.
(Mind you, this is a VERY conservative estimate. I'd peg the high end at something like five per school per year, and something like twenty per state per year (for the large states at least). One program of which I am aware (North Texas State up in Denton) doesn't even fall under this definition, yet Jim Gillespie continues to turn out fine clarinet players up there every year.)
We'll then throw in another fifty or so for private schools (Peabody, Eastman, Berkeley, Northwestern, etc.). This is still on the light side, but all of my clarinet playing friends from Washington University will just have to sit on the sidelines.
Final output of this side of the equation (a very "low ball" total, to be sure) is something in the order of one hundred and fifty new players, each and every year, all ready to go to work. Where do they go?
Answer: not too many places. Let's look at the prospects:
• Studio work in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles? Well, it is pretty well tied up. You can "fit in", but it's a long and arduous process to get "accepted". Many of the next category people also fill some of the available slots in this area.
• Paid symphonic work? We've got those very optimistic 400 slots, which automatically assumes a first, second, Eb/third and bass player for each group. Of those, figure maybe a 5% attrition due to death and retirement each year. That's a whole twenty openings in "true performance"...
(A further look at a couple of those 100,000 population areas may be illustrative. San Diego CA fits the definition of a large city by any stretch of the imagination. Yet their putative four slots have gone down the tubes, as the local art music organization has repeatedly been dissolved. Florida (specifically the central Florida area) has proven incapable of supporting a paid orchestra, even one paid at "for service" rates. San Antonio, second largest city in Texas has lost its four putative slots in recent years. That's a total of twelve clarinet players subtracted from the wildly optimistic 400 that are not (in reality) there.)
• Teaching? Far more openings, to be sure. But, once again, not more than 5% of the total is going to turn over in one year. And, there are a lot of those brass, percussion and string folks out there as well, not to mention voice folks AND music education majors who are all looking at that slice of the pie.
In short, you've got a minimum of 100 highly qualified candidates (and I still think my guesstimate is well on the short side of the actual total) looking to compete for what? Maybe twenty slots in actual performance opening up in a given year, plus maybe three times that in other venues. (And the others will require more than just the bachelor's in performance to fill, remember.)
Training to fill one of a very limited number of potential spots of employment has never been a good idea. We used to have coach makers and other trades that were once in high demand, but are now all but extinct. There may be the market for four or five coach makers left in the United States, but that's all right because the number of new ones being turned out has shrunk to fit that demand.
With "art" music, there is the same greatly diminished demand for the product, but unfortunately few of the aspirants have caught on. So, the $200,000 university education gets spent and they end up working as a secretary at the AAA branch (true story of a fabulous 'cellist of my acquaintance).
When you hear about orchestras packing them in and being able to support themselves without heavy subsidy from government and endowments, that's the time to look for a career in clarinet playing. Until that happens, play clarinet on the side (playing the same music as you would as a pro) and enjoy it as part of a normal life, not one of (dare I say it, private lesson folks?) drudgery.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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