Posted by Rick Denney on September 12, 2000 at 15:54:36:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Seattle posted by Bill on September 12, 2000 at 14:13:10:
Let's not over-romanticize music making. We are all here because we love to make music. Music has an emotional content that is quite apparent even on the surface for most people, and it is an important part of my life.
But do not assume that other professions, even seemingly dry sciences, don't also contain romantic elements. The most profound moments in my life have been at those moments when I shined a light, before anyone else, into the darkness. That creative spark is what reminds us of our Creator, and it knows no profession. It can happen, say, for engineers as well as musicians, if the engineers approach their work with quality.
And just because music making has important emotional content doesn't mean that it isn't subject to the laws of supply and demand. Whether you work around those laws or live within them, they cannot be ignored.
We already work around them in this country. The typical orchestra gets only 40% of its income from ticket sales. Government and charitable giving make up the rest. So more orchestras are provided by the upper classes that we love to hate, and by politicians that we love to hate even more. They may pontificate about how much it costs, and about waste and so on, but they still come across with the bucks, at least most of the time.
250 years ago, the orchestra had to please the king, or it went out of business instantly. Musicians in that day prayed for musical kings, just as they do now.
And I have no problem with generosity, if it is offered. I do have a problem when it is dictated either by government or by the fat cats who run the union. If orchestra musicians really want to bargain from a strong position, then they should make themselves indispensible by building demand for orchestral music. That's why those school programs and the like are so important. But they are not enough. If they were, we would not be facing these terrible situations in orchestras year after year.
Rick "No easy answers--but battle and war is not the solution" Denney