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Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

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Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#41

Post by analog31 »

visarga wrote: post #33
circlefavshape wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I'm at a classical music concert I feel strongly that I'm part of a culture . Here's music written 300 years ago that we're actively conspiring to conserve. None of it really makes any money - not for the musicians who have spent their lives getting good enough to play it, not for the mostly amateur promoters, not for the taxpayers who probably bear the bulk of the costs of the thing - but we do it anyway. Even…

It's 100-200 years old usually. 300 y.o. falls into the baroque era.

"Classical" means different things, and in this context refers to a broader time span. I'm blessed to live near a university with a great music department, so I actually get to hear music spanning 5 centuries including new stuff. It all involves mostly the same musicians and skill sets. Even the musicians refer to all of it generically as classical.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#42

Post by aurelianito »

tgv wrote: post #14
cryptica wrote: post #9

This seems to me like a job where the output quality of a worker is extremely difficult to measure; it's difficult to tell if one excellent musician is better than another excellent musician. Surely beyond a certain point, it's subjective. People tend to want to think of themselves as being objectively talented and as being deserving of credit; but in certain professions, there is no such thing. Art is rich people's…

Thinking that performance is that subjective is a bit weird to me. I can’t imagine a world in which it eg. not being able to play precisely or fast would be considered better.

The variations in ability of a trained musician are imperceptible to an untrained listener.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#43

Post by 52-6F-62 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #40
52-6F-62 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahhhh, bunk. The beauty of music is that you don't need to be an aficionado to enjoy it. You can enjoy it on a shallow level, or as deeply as you want—tracing every thread in technique and influence and emotion and commentary and so on. That's why it's so [culturally] valuable—it speaks every language at once. It is a lovely thing that it's so much more readily available at that scale than in the past. Just an aside:…

> The beauty of music is that you don't need to be an aficionado to enjoy it. You can enjoy it on a shallow level, or as deeply as you want—tracing every thread in technique and influence and emotion and commentary and so on. Of course, I agree about that wrt. music in general . My cautionary comments about appreciation being both hard and not seriously engaged in, as a matter of fact, by many listeners were specific…

Oh I was writing with regard to orchestral performances AND music in general.

People who show up to listen to an orchestra—it doesn't matter on what level they're enjoying it, it serves to enrich lives regardless and on many planes.

I think your beef might not be with music appreciation, and the modern role of an orchestral performance and more with the commoditization of music. That's more of one of the cancers of marketing (hashtag notallmarketing). That kind of marketing only aims to make everything cheap to supply and as profitable as possible to the 'sticky' middlemen. I would agree with you there.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#44

Post by analog31 »

IndySun wrote: post #26
musingsole wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Art -- as demonstrated by classical orchestras -- really isn't subjective at all. Talk to a professional musician, and it's all technique. Somewhere, deep down there at the bottom of it all, is a squishy place where an artist's passion and poetry is burning bright to fuel everything else...but by the time you get to an orchestral hall, everything you -- specifically as a non-professional musician -- will hear is obje…

So, there's no objective artistic explanation for Selena Gomez; and all orchestral music played in a hall is objectively 'art'?

There are layers of objective and subjective factors. "What is art" is its own beast. How a particular style of interpretation is chosen, is subjective. Once that style is chosen, the performance can be assessed against many objective standards, such as whether they followed their own stylistic choices correctly, etc.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#45

Post by _Anken »

At least in the US, almost all full-time orchestras are union shops with the American Federation of Musicians. The first stop for major issues should not be with management's HR, but with the union local and the union steward for the orchestra. Most of these orchestras also have an Orchestra Committee made up of musicians, and it is this committee's job to help as well. And most of the largest orchestras do have an HR rep.

HR is there to protect management. The union is there to protect employees as a collective. Individual results may vary.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#46

Post by _Anken »

codegrappler wrote: post #18
jfk13 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you think how many of hours of study and rehearsal each of those musicians put into creating the 3 hours you enjoyed, it starts to look even better value.

Having spoken with a few professional orchestra muscicians, this doesn’t appear to be true. They have honed their craft enough that they only need one practice before any given performance.

Yes, but they warm up every day and keep their skills honed. And the reed players spend many hours making reeds. edit: there are also many hours of score study and listening to recordings involved. And there are often 3 or more concert sets of different music to learn each week.

Young musicians and professionals often practice in excess of eight hours per day if/until they win an audition for a group that has enough salary to sustain them.

Most professional orchestras rehearse 3-4 times for what's usually called a "Masterworks" ie the usual subscription concerts. Only something like a pops or light classics concert will be one rehearsal and a show.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#47

Post by _Anken »

anamax wrote: post #37
socksset wrote: post #13

Even worse to me is so many orchestras have to pay the bills with performances of Christmas music or orchestral versions of Motley Crue. Imagine putting in that many hours of practice on the classical masters to end up with a low paying job playing Frosty the Snowman and Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg0X9H6FGU The folks in the uniforms, especially the ones playing instruments, in that video are world class. They're having the time of their professional lives.

Looking happy and dancing around like that is also part of what they are paying for at the gig.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#48

Post by Leherenn »

CHY872 wrote: post #4
j7ake wrote: post #2

I remember listening to a piano concerto + symphony one evening live at a concert hall and thinking how it was possible that this orchestra of 50+ plus a famous soloist makes money on our $100 tickets (best seats). Here we are paying $100 for 50 top notch world class musicians playing for 3 hours. There were maybe 500 people in the concert hall, so at an average ticket price of $50 each musician (split evenly) would…

The financing can be complex, but broadly there are a few things that enable modern American orchestras to survive. 1. Benefactors who give money to the orchestra, rent boxes, etc. 2. Popular (non classical) concerts which have a possibly larger crowd and varied material. Harry Potter with orchestral accompaniment? Tenacious D with orchestral accompaniment? The musicians hate it, it pays the bills. 3. A mostly part t…

Why do musicians hate the "non-classical" concerts?

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#49

Post by bjoli »

I am the principal bassoon player of a moderately large (82 musicians) orchestra. AMA I guess.

With regards to HR, I think finding a HR person that understands how an orchestra works will be prohibitively hard. We have the (assistant) orchestra manager for all immediate personnel questions. When HR gets involved it is usually the regular grinding to make people quit or accept some sort of termination offer.

Re: Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

#50

Post by callalex »

Leherenn wrote: post #48
CHY872 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The financing can be complex, but broadly there are a few things that enable modern American orchestras to survive. 1. Benefactors who give money to the orchestra, rent boxes, etc. 2. Popular (non classical) concerts which have a possibly larger crowd and varied material. Harry Potter with orchestral accompaniment? Tenacious D with orchestral accompaniment? The musicians hate it, it pays the bills. 3. A mostly part t…

Why do musicians hate the "non-classical" concerts?

For the same reason a Michelin chef wouldn’t enjoy being a fry cook at McDonalds. It’s all the tedious parts of the job without the challenge and creativity parts.
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