Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How much difference is there..........


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TubeNet BBS ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Dale Phelps on September 29, 2000 at 15:09:40:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How much difference is there.......... posted by FLAMES!!! on September 29, 2000 at 02:20:10:

Wow. I thought I got frenzied sometimes. I am a scientist. It is my profession, and apparently I am good enough that I get paid pretty well for it. Interestingly, most enterprise that I am aware of, you work first...then get paid after the work's done. That's the way it is for me, if I refused to work unless I were paid in advance, I wouldn't eat, plain and simple. (I guess it's a shame this basic aspect of MY life has to be so simple) I also play music, albeit VERY seldom for pay. I love playing, but I also love my job. I think that (unfortunately) this is where many of us who play music and those in the music trade differ. I think it's too bad that more people don't support performing arts - I know I do and many/most of the people I know who are "community players" pay far more in support of the performing arts than we could ever hope to get paid. For some reason we haven't yet learned that it's about the money...I think the guy who's happy with his job though really hits a nerve with remarks about your hall you play in (and his dig by mentioning his income.) Obviously he knew how to strike a nerve. Maybe that nerve needed to be tweaked though, because as a professional if you had unloaded that way on someone at your workplace ("the hall") you'd have a grievance (if management just blew it off) or worse (if they didn't.) At least here you enjoy the thin veil of anonymity. The lack of money in performing arts obviously makes life difficult for the majority of vocational musicians, it certainly sounds like it worries you more more than the living I am paid in my profession distracts me. For me I no longer have to worry about the business aspect of music (although for years I co-managed a sales office for our local pro orchestra while managing our school's symphony orchestra.) So now when I want to play, it is because I want to play, not because "I have to." While I could suggest "who's the whore here?".... I am sympathetic, I really have been on both sides. Not as intimately I am sure as you, but again enough to know that your emotional rant is not unfounded. Please don't begrudge those who are excellent in their professions (other than music) which just happen to compensate well (or "more", or "better.") We have no interest in competing with you in your chosen profession, but I dare say few of us have your type of violent feelings about the Jakes, Bobos, Fletchers, and Decks of the tuba world either (or even the Bertolets, Mendokers, Tilburys, and Chishams of the world.) And as to your challenge to quit work and come compete fairly in your neighborhood, well-would you quit your hall gig to come compete ("fairly") with electrical engineers, physicists, or heart surgeons? Probably not....
When I was in high school (late 60's-early 70's) music teachers said tuba players would be in demand, so I guess a lot of guys decided to chase careers playing tuba. PROBABLY a few more of the good ones kept playing after HS and through college because of that advice, more than even now. Now, had I decided to chase a tuba career and I rigidly stuck to that conviction I'd still be trying to compete with hundreds or thousands of better players, and had I rigidly stuck to trying to make it my livelihood I'd be a LOT skinnier than I am now! Ultimately I am far happier working where I do, obviously I don't complain about my income (even though I do work 50-60 hours a week for it) but I also don't complain about who provides me with my livelihood, who I work with, and (rarely) how/when/if I am to be compensated better. It makes my heart ache me to hear that musicians are out there thinking their lives stink because of someone else, but it also angers me a bit that they'd EVEN consider blaming their stinky attitudes on people like my self. We are patrons, and sympathetic...maybe not pro musicians, but (I hate to say it) we are probably enjoying what we play more. Thank-fully I can chose when I play, and go home to a meal whether I am playing or not.


Follow Ups: