Don't Worry. Be Happy.

Every few years, someone does a study of orchestra musicians, and comes up with the staggering result that many of us are deeply unhappy. Or if not actually unhappy, at least deeply dissatisfied with our work life. These studies are always duly reported by the arts media with the requisite degree of incredulity (How could people who are getting paid to play great music possibly be unhappy? What is wrong with these people?), and there are usually a few backlash commentaries appended in which unhappy people who get paid to write about great music order those of us who get paid to play it to cheer up and grow a sense of perspective.

I've always been fairly skeptical of these studies, partly because I just haven't met all that many unhappy musicians. Cynical, yes; jaded, sure, but not actually unhappy on the whole. Also, I've noticed that a lot of these studies seem to come out of the UK, which makes sense, because while Great Britain boasts some of the world's finest orchestras, those orchestras are, by and large, notorious for low pay and lousy working conditions, as compared with their peer orchestras in the US, Germany, and Austria.

But if there is a kernel of truth in these studies, it can be found in the conclusion that orchestral musicians can grow to feel stifled by the very nature of orchestral life. As an article I read last week put it, "orchestral musicians are, in a sense, the assembly-line workers of the arts world. Like their counterparts on the factory floor, they're asked to execute the exact same task again and again — a method that may be efficient for producing consumer goods, but hardly one that promotes inspired performances."

Now, I would argue that if we're actually being asked to execute the exact same task in the exact same way again and again, someone in charge [looking meaningfully in the direction of the podium] isn't doing his/her job correctly. But the point is well taken - unlike soloists or chamber musicians, or even freelancers who leap from gig to gig, full-time orchestra players have to get used to a lifetime of following orders, and having little to no say in the nuances of any given performance. We don't get to pick the repertoire we perform, we have very little say in who the conductor or the soloist will be, and while over time, our ensemble might develop a certain group style of playing, we're always subject to the whims of whoever is waving the baton.

There's a reason for this, of course, and it's that, when you have nearly 100 musicians on a single stage, someone has to be in charge. Democracy is simply not a viable option for a symphony orchestra. It's barely a viable option for string quartets, many of which spend endless rehearsal hours bickering over everything from bowings to the proper way to play a trill in Haydn. So I've never much minded trading my voice in the process for the simple pleasure of knowing that the rehearsal isn't going to be derailed by two opinionated violinists butting heads. And if I think the conductor is an idiot, I can blow off that particular head of steam over a post-concert beer, and remind myself that he'll be gone next week. (Unless, of course, he's the music director, which is a whole different problem that, thankfully, I don't have at the moment.)

In the end, I think that these orchestral happiness studies tend to get more attention than they really merit. They're interesting to people largely because they shine a bright light on the fact that the orchestral workplace is, after all, a workplace, subject to the same stresses, personality conflicts, and political gamesmanship as any other office. But unless an orchestra is truly being badly mismanaged (and certainly some are,) the vast majority of the musicians tend to be pretty content with our lot, even if we think there's room for improvement. In other words, it's probably a lot like where you work, except that the last few hours of your work week probably don't include formalwear. Lucky you.