Posted by I'm... on May 09, 2003 at 15:10:02:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Orchestra Salaries posted by Rick Denney on May 09, 2003 at 13:28:18:
... not a lawyer (and to my knowledge, neither are you, Rick) but I agree with Jim below. Stating factual, public information in an alphabetical list doesn't constitute copyrightable material. Also, in your posts, the phrase "In my opinion" might serve you well. You say that it isn't anyone else's business what an orchestral player makes outside of his local. Rather than stating it as fact, state it as your opinion. Once again, the numbers I posted are not someone's specific salary. They are the minimum salaries paid by certain organizations to ANYONE in their employ as a musician. As Wade Rackley explained in detail below, there are many many other factors that determine a person's salary, including but not limited to: title chair overscale (I play principal heckelphone, so I automatically make 25% overscale), negotiated overscale (I'm also the best heckelphone player in the country, so I ask for and get another 20%), seniority pay (I'm also an old fart that's played heckelphone in the orchestra for 30 years, so contractually I receive $100 a week more than the new guy in the violin section) recording pay (my orchestra records 10 CD's a year, and per contract, I am paid (a sweet deal here) for all the recording sessions, whether or not the recorded pieces have heckelphone parts), broadcast fees, tour per diems, bonuses (I notice that the Cincinnati Symphony has a 53 week season), etc.
Orchestra services are counted every time you walk in the door to play. A common schedule for a big orchestra will be rehearsal on Tuesday morning, a double (morning and afternoon)on Wednesday, rehearsal Thursday, concerts Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and possibly a carryover concert the following Tuesday night, for a total of eight services. Tubists who don't have to play on every piece on a concert don't have to come to all the rehearsals...if you just play the overture that week, the rehearsal schedule will be posted, and you might only have to show up for one or two rehearsals, while being paid for them all. My violin playing girlfriend gives me a hard time about how much harder violinists work for less money than the tuba player. I tell her that if she misses a note, her stand partner might notice, but if I miss a note, the whole audience notices.
As far as your service ratio goes, most of the orchestras maintain the 7-8 service weeks throughout the season, so for the first week of November, for example, the Jacksonville Symphony works just as hard as the New York Philharmonic. The difference in total services for a year comes in season length (not counting vacation) 42 playing weeks for the NY Phil versus 34 playing weeks for Jacksonville. Players in Jacksonville have more opportunity to seek additional employment during their 15 week layoff, but during the season, most orchestras have equal workloads and equal time to schedule students.
Try to not fly off the handle and always assume the worst. In the "Thief" thread below, you wrote, "...any detective in a real police agency would never accuse someone by name of a crime. They would say something like "we are seeking Mr. So-and-so for questioning concerning several instruments that have been offered for sale..."
As it is written, it looks like a sick joke. It is an impersonation of an officer, to be sure. It is also actionable, meaning that the victim of this attack can sue and collect damages, even if you are a cop, unless you manage to convict him in court."
It wasn't an "actionable" impersonation of an officer after all. As far as copyright and the salaries I posted are concerned, I can find no copyright symbol or notice on ICSOM's "Wage Scales and Conditions" publication. Maybe if you did your fact-finding BEFORE you spout off, you wouldn't have so much backpedaling to do.
Concerned Musician