Critical Thinking In A Critical Time
Continuing with my attempts to find silver linings in this dark period for the arts (and, let's face it, for most every other industry as well,) I'm feeling the need to talk a bit more about the way the media covers downturns and their effect on non-profits. Specifically, I'd like to encourage a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to a lot of what gets written about symphony orchestras, whether online or in print, by people who claim to be experts on the subject.
I'm a big fan of the international affairs columnist and author Fareed Zakaria, partly because he regularly gives me new ways of looking at the world which wouldn't have occurred to me, but also because he's very good at seeing the forest for the trees in big, complicated situations. In his book, The Post-American World, Zakaria spends several early pages laying out all of the horrible, violent things that have occurred in our world since 2000, only to turn around and point out that, compared with most other historical eras, ours is a comparatively peaceful one, with the likelihood of a given person dying from political or terroristic violence at an all-time low. What makes the present seem so much more violent is the way that the 24-hour news channels portray comparatively minor bloodshed as an Armageddon-like event, and the simple fact that, today, we get pictures and descriptions of violent acts almost in real time, and it's nearly impossible to turn away.
A similar effect can be seen in press coverage of the arts whenever the economy dives. The steady stream of budget cuts, layoffs, and salary reductions at American orchestras has some within our industry alarmed, and the journalists who cover us can smell that fear. So articles like this one start to appear, suggesting that orchestras are doomed unless we completely overhaul the business model we've relied on for decades, and dump the idea that musicians should be able to expect year-round employment and/or comfortable salaries. (Of course, the vast majority of musicians enjoy neither year-round employment nor a comfortable salary, but that's a discussion for another day.)
Such articles usually contain a lot of scary but isolated numbers (an orchestra CEO who makes $1 million a year!! a stagehand who makes north of $400K!!! a newly minted orchestra musician right out of school making $130K!!!!) designed to drive home the idea that orchestral finance is completely out of control, thus relieving the author of actually having to prove his thesis with real economic data that applies across the broader industry. (My favorite example of this technique came from notorious doomsayer Norman Lebrecht, who in 1997 penned a terrifying book called Who Killed Classical Music? It was a genius title: before you even opened the book, the author had dispensed entirely with the necessity of proving that classical music was actually dead, and had moved the discussion straight on to the autopsy. The fact that, in the real world, the subject of the autopsy was, in fact, very much alive, went unaddressed.)
We also function as part of the distinct American orchestral economy, in which a small number of "major" orchestras compete (through the salary and benefits offered) for the services of the most elite musicians emerging each year from music schools, in the same way that elite law firms compete for the best law school grads. 99% or more of the students who emerge from college with a music degree will never earn anywhere near the amount of money that the alarmists cite - most won't even wind up with careers as performers at all.
So taken in a broader context, pronouncements of the unsustainability of our business model (and if history is any guide, there will be many more of these in the coming months) are more or less entirely contradicted by the self-evident ability of most orchestras to adapt to changes in our specific economies. The headlines trumpeting layoffs and salary givebacks aren't evidence of the failure of a business model. They're a demonstration of how the model bends without breaking.
Earlier today, I was riding Minneapolis's light rail line, and I overheard a conversation between two businessmen in town for a conference. Neither was from Minnesota, but one of the two had apparently been here a number of times before, and he was attempting to give his friend a general orientation of where things in the Cities can be found. Over the course of five minutes or so, the "expert" managed to impart that Dinkytown is an area of St. Paul, south of Minneapolis, situated fairly close to a well-known neighborhood called Woodbury. He also responded to his friend's question as to what the "Hiawatha Line" might be by stating confidently that it was "some sort of highway."
Now, if you live in California or New York, and your closest connection to Minnesota is that you enjoy listening to A Prairie Home Companion of a Saturday evening, that all sounds perfectly reasonable, and if you'd overheard this conversation, you might even repeat the information to a friend if you were asked about the subject. (After all, who would ever have reason to lie about geography?) But your confidence in what you'd heard from someone who clearly considered himself knowledgeable on the subject wouldn't change the inarguable facts that a) Dinkytown is in Minneapolis; b) St. Paul is east of Minneapolis, not south, c)Dinkytown is a 20-25 minute highway drive (in good traffic) from Woodbury, which is a suburb, not a neighborhood; and d) the Hiawatha Line is the train we were all riding on when I overheard the conversation.
My point? There are a lot of self-styled experts out there. Make them prove to you that they actually know what they're talking about before you assume that they do.
I'm a big fan of the international affairs columnist and author Fareed Zakaria, partly because he regularly gives me new ways of looking at the world which wouldn't have occurred to me, but also because he's very good at seeing the forest for the trees in big, complicated situations. In his book, The Post-American World, Zakaria spends several early pages laying out all of the horrible, violent things that have occurred in our world since 2000, only to turn around and point out that, compared with most other historical eras, ours is a comparatively peaceful one, with the likelihood of a given person dying from political or terroristic violence at an all-time low. What makes the present seem so much more violent is the way that the 24-hour news channels portray comparatively minor bloodshed as an Armageddon-like event, and the simple fact that, today, we get pictures and descriptions of violent acts almost in real time, and it's nearly impossible to turn away.
A similar effect can be seen in press coverage of the arts whenever the economy dives. The steady stream of budget cuts, layoffs, and salary reductions at American orchestras has some within our industry alarmed, and the journalists who cover us can smell that fear. So articles like this one start to appear, suggesting that orchestras are doomed unless we completely overhaul the business model we've relied on for decades, and dump the idea that musicians should be able to expect year-round employment and/or comfortable salaries. (Of course, the vast majority of musicians enjoy neither year-round employment nor a comfortable salary, but that's a discussion for another day.)
Such articles usually contain a lot of scary but isolated numbers (an orchestra CEO who makes $1 million a year!! a stagehand who makes north of $400K!!! a newly minted orchestra musician right out of school making $130K!!!!) designed to drive home the idea that orchestral finance is completely out of control, thus relieving the author of actually having to prove his thesis with real economic data that applies across the broader industry. (My favorite example of this technique came from notorious doomsayer Norman Lebrecht, who in 1997 penned a terrifying book called Who Killed Classical Music? It was a genius title: before you even opened the book, the author had dispensed entirely with the necessity of proving that classical music was actually dead, and had moved the discussion straight on to the autopsy. The fact that, in the real world, the subject of the autopsy was, in fact, very much alive, went unaddressed.)
--------------------------------------
The headlines trumpeting layoffs and salary givebacks aren't evidence of the failure of a business model. They're a demonstration of how the model bends without breaking.
--------------------------------------
Again, forest for the trees: orchestras, when they're being run correctly, function according to the broader economies they are a part of. Since we're dependent on donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations, we function as a tiny subset of the larger "charitable giving" economy, so what we can spend in a given year (on salaries, benefits, day-to-day expenses, whatever) is directly tied to how much our supporters can afford to give us.--------------------------------------
We also function as part of the distinct American orchestral economy, in which a small number of "major" orchestras compete (through the salary and benefits offered) for the services of the most elite musicians emerging each year from music schools, in the same way that elite law firms compete for the best law school grads. 99% or more of the students who emerge from college with a music degree will never earn anywhere near the amount of money that the alarmists cite - most won't even wind up with careers as performers at all.
So taken in a broader context, pronouncements of the unsustainability of our business model (and if history is any guide, there will be many more of these in the coming months) are more or less entirely contradicted by the self-evident ability of most orchestras to adapt to changes in our specific economies. The headlines trumpeting layoffs and salary givebacks aren't evidence of the failure of a business model. They're a demonstration of how the model bends without breaking.
Earlier today, I was riding Minneapolis's light rail line, and I overheard a conversation between two businessmen in town for a conference. Neither was from Minnesota, but one of the two had apparently been here a number of times before, and he was attempting to give his friend a general orientation of where things in the Cities can be found. Over the course of five minutes or so, the "expert" managed to impart that Dinkytown is an area of St. Paul, south of Minneapolis, situated fairly close to a well-known neighborhood called Woodbury. He also responded to his friend's question as to what the "Hiawatha Line" might be by stating confidently that it was "some sort of highway."
Now, if you live in California or New York, and your closest connection to Minnesota is that you enjoy listening to A Prairie Home Companion of a Saturday evening, that all sounds perfectly reasonable, and if you'd overheard this conversation, you might even repeat the information to a friend if you were asked about the subject. (After all, who would ever have reason to lie about geography?) But your confidence in what you'd heard from someone who clearly considered himself knowledgeable on the subject wouldn't change the inarguable facts that a) Dinkytown is in Minneapolis; b) St. Paul is east of Minneapolis, not south, c)Dinkytown is a 20-25 minute highway drive (in good traffic) from Woodbury, which is a suburb, not a neighborhood; and d) the Hiawatha Line is the train we were all riding on when I overheard the conversation.
My point? There are a lot of self-styled experts out there. Make them prove to you that they actually know what they're talking about before you assume that they do.
Labels: state of the art, the business of music, the media
posted by Sam at
12:29 PM
6 Comments:
The citation of 400k stagehand compensation is a tangential issue of out-of-control unions.
But the crux of the matter, is that when you gather 100 bored-as-hell musicians together, who have spent their lives mastering the *performance craft of auditioning*, you get a product which reflects 100 bored people who are masters at not making mistakes.
This is not an issue which Marketing, Operations, Development, or Education can solve.
Oh wait, I know, orchestras should just program more Gershwin and John Williams. You know, reach the masses. And they can wear dinner jackets instead of tails. You know, loosen up a bit.
But the crux of the matter, is that when you gather 100 bored-as-hell musicians together... you get a product which reflects 100 bored people who are masters at not making mistakes.
Actually, that's not the crux of the matter at all (even if I were inclined to grant your ridiculous premise, which isn't based on any professional orchestra I've ever heard or been a part of,) since we're talking finances and business models, not artistic integrity. But by all means, continue to base your view of symphony orchestras on caricature if it makes you happy.
Hey Sam- Well written~! alarmists tend to run amok during times of trial, which this undoubtedly is. I think that as long as the artistic medium in discussion continues to be culturally relevant, then it will remain indefinitely, in some form or another.
And now the real reason I'm writing: perhaps a catty observation, but one I've made with relish nonetheless, would be that many of the critics who prophecy the doom of classical music are in fact failed classical musicians themselves. The food critic, Anton Ego, from Pixar's "Ratatouille," does want to pop into my head when I read such proclamations of a moribund art-form.
Keep up the great work.
Matt
I'm currently doing research on this very issue, and while i appreciate your insight into the business model and its attributes, I wonder if we shouldn't be concerned about the gross neglect of simple supply-and-demand that our conservatories (and, by proxy, our orchestras) have fostered. Don't get me wrong, i go to one of these schools--but still, it seems to me that if the model is to be sustainable, it should react more flexibly to the market. Granted, I am speaking from a place where there are too many orchestras per capita, but still... (thanks for your article!)
-michael
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
FCM's second comment was removed by our administrators because of profanity, but I wanted to repost the bulk of what he had to say, with the offending language removed. His edited comment appears below...I'm sorry if my post was taken personally. The sarcasm about Gershwin was not directed towards you or your esteemed colleagues, but towards our industry as a whole. (And I'm sorry if anybody reading loves Gershwin, but...well...nevermind, I won't even address that softpedalling towards "mass appeal")
Artistic integrity IS central, germane, and relevant to a discussion of the business model. How could it not be? It's the *Raison d'Etre* of business model that supports it! This supposed 'firewall' between 'talent' and 'administration' is a plague upon us.
100 bored-as-hell musicians might be a crass way to put it, but let me ask, when is the last time you were able to take an artistic chance on stage? I mean, a chance that put your artistic capital at DIRECT risk? A situation, where say, you developed a personal artistic statement/product/interpretation that varied from 100 years of precedent, but which you believed in, and which you believed shed light on a facet of the work you were dealing with. Only one person on stage can do that, practically speaking.
Symphonic music has a particular divinity that can't be achieved without the synergistic euphony of 100 highly talented instrumentalists. But like anything, it can be overdone. The individualistic sacrifice required to achieve this artistic product forces musicians to play it safe AS ARTISTS. That small amount of Safety is stored in the body, like mercury, and becomes a narcotic in the doses that the American symphony orchestra administers.
It's why orchestras are unionized and string quartets are not. (For the record, I believe that in concept, unions are very necessary, and a symptom, not cause, of deeper conflicts)
How about this:
Wouldn't you rather be part of a healthy ecosystem of solo playing, chamber playing, orchestral playing, and teaching? (yes, operas, cantatas, and more) Wouldn't you rather see your salary go towards these diversified activities? (That's an honest question, not rhetorical.)
Why don't orchestras give their musicians "20 Percent Time" like we see at Google? Yes, it's a silly question given the current status quo. But I think it illustrates the vast chasm between the notion of individualism, cherished and forever embedded in American myth, lore, and practice, and the clashing of that notion with the internal culture of our symphonies.
BTW, nobody likes to see a chicken little screaming his little head off about how "classical music is dying." No need to kick that fossilized, equestrian corpse. But let me say this, the real chicken little, should have been screaming during our recent "Gilded Decades" of finance and the generation of enormous private wealth (i.e., did philanthropy increase correspondingly?) Because now, ALL non-profits may be looking at riding it on down the "Gelded Decade."
To Recap:
I love music. I love symphonies. I love musicians. I love chocolate. I think the way our system incorporates these things, ultimately, [descriptive but profane expression of negativity removed.]PS, @ Mauskapf:
A Harvard composer (unnamed) once described the american conservatory system as a ponzi scheme. When you consider that the culture fosters the widespread idea of education as a "backup" or "safety net" (can we just call it bastard stepchild?) to performance, the description becomes quite unfortunately apt.
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