Takin' It One Concerto At A Time...
Back when I worked as an editor at ArtsJournal.com, my boss and I used to have occasional friendly debates over whether sports analogies used in the service of explaining parts of the arts world were a) a useful tool, or b) a plague on literate humanity. I'll grant that such analogies are way overused in all areas, but sports are so omnipresent in our society, for better or worse, that a writer or speaker attempting to acquaint an unfamiliar audience with, say, the culture of orchestras, can at least assume that a sports analogy will not go over the heads of most of those on the receiving end.
For some reason, a lot of musicians I've known have been extremely attached to the idea that what we do onstage is heavily relatable to what professional athletes do. And in truth, there are some distinct similarities: the relationship between a music director and his/her musicians is much like the relationship of a head coach to his players, and when the partnership goes south in either situation, it tends to be both ugly and public. On another front, just as a football team tends to be only as good as the worst players on its offensive line, orchestras are full of unsung and virtually anonymous players without whom whole performances would collapse.
But of course, the analogy breaks down after a point. The glaring difference between the Minnesota Orchestra and the Minnesota Wild is that we don't have an opposing team on stage with us, doing everything they can to stop us from performing Beethoven's 7th. (Insert your own viola-section-as-opposition joke here.) Additionally, we don't do our jobs with anywhere near the constant media glare that athletes do - the vast bulk of the press coverage we receive is positive, and reporters who really dig for the seamy underbelly of the business (and yes, there is one) are few and far between.
Still, I love the analogies, myself, and lately I've found myself compiling a list of my favorite quotes from athletes real and fictional, and wondering how they would translate into my professional world, were the media ever to start forcing us to hold post-concert press conferences...
Original quote: "My game is like the Pythagorean Theorem! There is no answer for it! (pause while he thinks this over...) Well, okay, there is an answer for it. But by the time you figure it out, I've got 20 points and ten boards." -Shaquille O'Neal
Orchestral version: Our trumpet section is like the Second Viennese School! There is no solution to it! (pause...) Well, all right, there might be, but by the time you work out the tone clusters and retrograde inversions, we've played the scherzo and started in on our post-concert beers.
Original: "You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt, you need a curveball!" -Crash Davis, fictional catcher portrayed by Kevin Costner in the greatest baseball movie ever made
Orchestral: You don't need a $5000 tux and a Grammy award, you need to learn to play in rhythm!
Original: "American football is just Rugby after a visit from a Health and Safety inspector." -Anonymous
Orchestral: Mahler is just Brahms after a good working-over by six bipolar musicologists and an alcoholic philosopher.
Original: "A coach's main job is to reawaken a spirit in which the players can blend together effortlessly." -Phil Jackson
Orchestral: A conductor's job is reawaken a spirit in which the players can blend together without ever realizing that they're following orders.
Original: "Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging." -Duke Snider
Orchestral: Play hard, in case the notes on your page turn out to be the important ones.
Original: "You got to be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too." -Roy Campanella
Orchestral: Maturity's important if you're gonna make your living in an orchestra. But you'd better not forget what it felt like when you were 16 and slammed your way through a Mahler symphony for the first time.
Original: "The harder I practice, the luckier I get." -Gary Player
Orchestral: The harder I practice, the luckier I get.
For some reason, a lot of musicians I've known have been extremely attached to the idea that what we do onstage is heavily relatable to what professional athletes do. And in truth, there are some distinct similarities: the relationship between a music director and his/her musicians is much like the relationship of a head coach to his players, and when the partnership goes south in either situation, it tends to be both ugly and public. On another front, just as a football team tends to be only as good as the worst players on its offensive line, orchestras are full of unsung and virtually anonymous players without whom whole performances would collapse.
But of course, the analogy breaks down after a point. The glaring difference between the Minnesota Orchestra and the Minnesota Wild is that we don't have an opposing team on stage with us, doing everything they can to stop us from performing Beethoven's 7th. (Insert your own viola-section-as-opposition joke here.) Additionally, we don't do our jobs with anywhere near the constant media glare that athletes do - the vast bulk of the press coverage we receive is positive, and reporters who really dig for the seamy underbelly of the business (and yes, there is one) are few and far between.
Still, I love the analogies, myself, and lately I've found myself compiling a list of my favorite quotes from athletes real and fictional, and wondering how they would translate into my professional world, were the media ever to start forcing us to hold post-concert press conferences...
Original quote: "My game is like the Pythagorean Theorem! There is no answer for it! (pause while he thinks this over...) Well, okay, there is an answer for it. But by the time you figure it out, I've got 20 points and ten boards." -Shaquille O'Neal
Orchestral version: Our trumpet section is like the Second Viennese School! There is no solution to it! (pause...) Well, all right, there might be, but by the time you work out the tone clusters and retrograde inversions, we've played the scherzo and started in on our post-concert beers.
Original: "You don't need a quadraphonic Blaupunkt, you need a curveball!" -Crash Davis, fictional catcher portrayed by Kevin Costner in the greatest baseball movie ever made
Orchestral: You don't need a $5000 tux and a Grammy award, you need to learn to play in rhythm!
Original: "American football is just Rugby after a visit from a Health and Safety inspector." -Anonymous
Orchestral: Mahler is just Brahms after a good working-over by six bipolar musicologists and an alcoholic philosopher.
Original: "A coach's main job is to reawaken a spirit in which the players can blend together effortlessly." -Phil Jackson
Orchestral: A conductor's job is reawaken a spirit in which the players can blend together without ever realizing that they're following orders.
Original: "Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging." -Duke Snider
Orchestral: Play hard, in case the notes on your page turn out to be the important ones.
Original: "You got to be a man to play baseball for a living, but you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too." -Roy Campanella
Orchestral: Maturity's important if you're gonna make your living in an orchestra. But you'd better not forget what it felt like when you were 16 and slammed your way through a Mahler symphony for the first time.
Original: "The harder I practice, the luckier I get." -Gary Player
Orchestral: The harder I practice, the luckier I get.
Labels: musical dorkery, sports
posted by Sam at
8:59 AM
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