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Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

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Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#31

Post by TFNA »

lokar wrote: post #25
boothby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today classical music is filled with people who want to pretend to be superior to pop musicians because they keep their repertoire confined to academically acceptable areas. As somebody with classical training and a brother in the industry, it pains me to read this misinformed opinion of yours. Top-tier symphonies world round are doing crossover concerts with pop artists, play pop songs, modern and experimental mus…

> Top-tier symphonies world round are doing crossover concerts with pop artists And they have been for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Group_and_Orchest...

As classic as that collaboration now is, the RPO was not top-tier at the time of it.

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#32

Post by encomiast »

dofm wrote: post #21
encomiast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the first-chair musicians and conductors have side gigs. A principal player (I don't think anyone beyond high school band calls them 'first-chair') in a major symphony orchestra in the United States makes $250k-400k a year. These are extremely competitive jobs and they are paid well. Certainly enough to live on if you wanted to. These people often teach, but not really because they need a "side-gig." If you as…

There are about twenty of these people, though. I said "approximately nobody". At a first approximation, no musician who does it for money makes a living out of it. Classical, pop, rock, whatever. Nobody in music, basically, makes real money. Fifty, maybe a hundred violinists in the entire world do earn a pure living. Perhaps another twenty five of each other instrument. A few international soloists in other instrume…

I understand your point. Music is one of those careers, like professional athlete, that make parents cringe when optimistic children announce an intention to pursue it. Your numbers are off (the base pay of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last time I checked was around $200k) and there ~30 violinists in that orchestra alone. But it's not an order of magnitude.

But just because the numbers are small doesn't mean society does not support them. There just isn't a need for a lot of them. It would be like saying society does not support professional athletes. Clearly it does, but only at the highest level. And at that level, it supports the very well.

> Snark noted, though I have no earthly idea why you felt it necessary

I apologize. I come from this world, have close friends in major orchestras and experience on the world's opera stages. This culture is full of shibboleths: referring to works as "songs", clapping in the wrong place, hell, even pronouncing 'Don Giovanni' the same way you pronounce "Don Draper" lets people know you are not from around here.

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#33

Post by pclmulqdq »

dofm wrote: post #21
encomiast wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the first-chair musicians and conductors have side gigs. A principal player (I don't think anyone beyond high school band calls them 'first-chair') in a major symphony orchestra in the United States makes $250k-400k a year. These are extremely competitive jobs and they are paid well. Certainly enough to live on if you wanted to. These people often teach, but not really because they need a "side-gig." If you as…

There are about twenty of these people, though. I said "approximately nobody". At a first approximation, no musician who does it for money makes a living out of it. Classical, pop, rock, whatever. Nobody in music, basically, makes real money. Fifty, maybe a hundred violinists in the entire world do earn a pure living. Perhaps another twenty five of each other instrument. A few international soloists in other instrume…

Most of the major orchestras have a union and they negotiate salaries in the $100-200k range for everyone. It’s a lot more people than you might think (70-150 people on payroll in each orchestra). There are also a lot of touring soloists in the world compared to what you expect. It’s a very stressful life, but it yields somewhere between $100k and $1M per year, and many of your living expenses are fully paid for on top of that.

There are at least 20 such orchestras in the US alone, not to mention all the orchestras in Europe and Asia. There’s also a very long tail with compensation down to $50k for players.

The US BLS has 35,000 paid musicians listed, with another 10,000 music directors (a lot of church organists are in this category). Median wage of $40/hour, mean of around $52.

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#34

Post by bigstrat2003 »

madrox wrote: post #11

We are largely having a reckoning with whether a discipline is the process or the outcome. Music didn't enter the conservatory so much as the relative interest in various styles have changed over time. I get that the author was implying that by talking about pop music, but what was music doing before Mozart came around? Every field is having this existential crisis right now, from art to math. Especially in art, the…

> Especially in art, the anti-AI hate mostly reduces to arguing that art is the process not the outcome.

It's both. The outcome is bad (boy is it ever bad), and even if it were good I still would rather enjoy art produced by humans.

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#35

Post by dofm »

encomiast wrote: post #32
dofm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are about twenty of these people, though. I said "approximately nobody". At a first approximation, no musician who does it for money makes a living out of it. Classical, pop, rock, whatever. Nobody in music, basically, makes real money. Fifty, maybe a hundred violinists in the entire world do earn a pure living. Perhaps another twenty five of each other instrument. A few international soloists in other instrume…

I understand your point. Music is one of those careers, like professional athlete, that make parents cringe when optimistic children announce an intention to pursue it. Your numbers are off (the base pay of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last time I checked was around $200k) and there ~30 violinists in that orchestra alone. But it's not an order of magnitude. But just because the numbers are small doesn't mean societ…

But society in general does not really support professional athletes in any directed “conservatory” sense, beyond the weird obsession with college sports in the USA.

Corporate sponsorship pays the bigger amounts: that is a side job with its own commitments. Prize money: by definition not available to most.

Directed pay is a tiny fraction of it (stipend level), even at the highest levels.

Athletes have other jobs.

Again: a bad model for mathematicians. None of them are going to be signing merch deals. Most aren’t winning prizes. I am afraid that mathematicians are just going to have to keep doing all the other jobs they already do.

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#36

Post by dofm »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #33
dofm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are about twenty of these people, though. I said "approximately nobody". At a first approximation, no musician who does it for money makes a living out of it. Classical, pop, rock, whatever. Nobody in music, basically, makes real money. Fifty, maybe a hundred violinists in the entire world do earn a pure living. Perhaps another twenty five of each other instrument. A few international soloists in other instrume…

Most of the major orchestras have a union and they negotiate salaries in the $100-200k range for everyone. It’s a lot more people than you might think (70-150 people on payroll in each orchestra). There are also a lot of touring soloists in the world compared to what you expect. It’s a very stressful life, but it yields somewhere between $100k and $1M per year, and many of your living expenses are fully paid for on t…

> The US BLS has 35,000 paid musicians listed, with another 10,000 music directors (a lot of church organists are in this category). Median wage of $40/hour, mean of around $52.

So. Not a living then, for most.

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#37

Post by nadermx »

I haven't done math since college. Now the things I struggled with I was able to grasp. So much so that I was able to prove a conjecture, small one, but nothing in my life I thought I would of, its even getting peer reviewed.

Its drudgery to prove these things. But man it feels cool when you do.

I now have a better understanding of the entire physical mechanics of life around me, to a gravitational sort of understanding.

Simply because I thought I had a conceptual understanding of p vs np. And after weeks I was able to prove myself wrong.

People seem to worry that AI is going to take away everything. But my experience is that I feel more able to create even ideas before I would never imagine.

It feels more like in HG Wells where he's in the far future talking to the AI about his equations and the AI says "oh your talking about time travel, thats impossible"

It feels like that reality is now more likely than any other, anyone can invent anything now and have the math to back it up.

You can speak physics into existance. I'm excited for the future

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#39

Post by jimmydddd »

sdenton4 wrote: post #18
rtpg wrote: post #17

> Classical music has been institutionalized, sent to the conservatory as a relic. A small segment of society has decided the ability to perform it is worth preserving, and devotes a sliver of capital to that end: training young people, and paying a few of the best players in the biggest cities to do it professionally. I had a whole discussion with a German friend whose husband works in opera (this was after Chalomet…

The job stability in classical music is great. It's getting a job in the first place that's a problem. My partner, in an earlier life, was one of the best young flautists in Canada. There were about eight jobs in the entire country for orchestral flautists, and about a year before graduating, a few of them turned over, meaning it would probably be another five years before any more jobs opened up. Good time for a car…

Old joke: What's the difference between a flautist and a flutist? About $50 an hour. :-)

Re: Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?

#40

Post by mitxela »

lokar wrote: post #26
Fordec wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this framing. I know that AI has it's place and in others it doesn't. I recognize I sound like an AI shill in personal conversations, but I'm a very outcome driven person. I simply want multiple, thousands of outcomes even, and those outcomes all coming together is my process/journey, which is different to a developer or musicians process may view their career.

The outcome I want from art is to feel some emotion in common with the artist. Machines don’t have emotion.

People who write prompts can have emotion. If someone is feeling really sad and they say to a computer "draw me a sad thing" and it draws something really sad and they break down crying, and then they show it to you and you also break down crying, that meets your goals, but it probably isn't what you meant.
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