stale dogma

in kyle gann’s continuing description of the uptown/downtown aesthetic differences in new york i realize that these circumstances defined my early career as a musician and more recently as a composer. he sets the groundwork of what choices a young composer in training at a university must face.

There is a kind of student who begins to sense this early on. The classical music world, she realizes, is like a series of prefab molds, ready for your music to grow into. There’s the orchestra mold, the string quartet mold, the string trio mold - and now there’s what’s called the “Pierrot ensemble” mold: violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and piano, sometimes “Pierrot plus percussion.” In the glacial movement of classical music, this constitutes progress, that the entire 20th century managed to add one new mold to the list of standardized ensembles. Of course you can express some individuality within these molds - but ultimately, the medium is the message, and unless you have a strong talent for subliminal subversion, your orchestra music, or string quartet music, is still going to sound “classical,” with a European tinge. What’s more, when you write for orchestra, you are going to hand over your music to a powerful organization that cares little about your needs or artistic vision, and you are going to give up considerable control over your own art.

performers also face similar limitations on their creativity and expression. we grow up in high school, college ensembles, and chamber groups performing a wide variety of material to prepare us for the real world. unfortunately for a professional trombonist, the ensembles and opportunities that currently exist are musicially limiting at best. growing up in the shadow of the big band of combo jazz was very exciting in the 1980’s but now has stagnated. orchestral playing is limited by a repertoire that is not growing and is focused on performing for a shrinking audience each season. commercial music on the trombone is also limited by a kitschy style of playing that is defined by musical expression through farting noises.

i first felt something was very amiss when i moved to california in 1989. i had already come to the conclusion that playing in the orchestra was not for me. my experiences were mostly colored by observing other successful trombonists and my teachers who fostered a cult like devotion to knowing the latest equipment, trends, and appointments in the orchestra world. listening to them talk and prepare the same few excerpts seemed like they were limiting the trombone to a character actor status instead of practicing an instrument that is capable of a wide range of expression. many of my lessons on classical repertoire were consumed not with musical expression, but strategies and discussion of the various “schools and sounds” in the trombone world. if i were to have that career, i realized that i would spend much of my time imitating the popular sound that the current crop of conductors and music directors wanted to hear. this did not seem like a useful or interesting path to follow. shortly after i started my first real professional job playing at disneyland, i realized that performing popular music also had its drawbacks. like in the classical world, the commercial music that is played is based on what the paying public wants to hear. or more specifically what we think they want to hear. i have had many well meaning music supervisors limit the repertoire to what they think the public wants while quickly admitting their musical tastes are broader. i quickly found that at disneyland the options for performing music were extremely limited. i was only 21 and realize now that i was truly a hayseed from kansas, expecting the best and having my dreams crushed when confronted with the reality of the bottom line.

every year i run into excellent college musicians who are similarly dismayed by their future prospects as professional musicians. the music that they will be paid to perform seems to have no connection to the world and artistic culture they live in. what if the 100 year old vaudeville tradition was still the only way we could see comedy? obviously the comedy format has changed with the times but we are still stuck with the musical “traditions”. the orchestra has not cornered the market in being an obsolete ensemble. i also feel that wynton marsalis’s lincoln center jazz orchestra is also a new example of the jazz tradition being stuck in the past. because of the private support (money) these institutions have and the minimal market pressures they face, there is little reason to for them to grow artistically. am i saying that these groups should survive solely based on ticket sales? not really, but i am suggesting since they serve the elite of the community and not the general public they will not be agents of change. maybe somebody will break through, and the marketplace will follow. i hope that a new paradigm of music ensemble is spread so that musicians have more options and creativity in their careers. i feel that terry riley, steve reich, and philip glass started the ball rolling and many others have been pushing forward not accepting this stale dogma. kyle gann states this best.

But one should still recognize that classical music culture is a sharply defined culture, with centuries of accreted conventions that very few people in that world want changed. Some composers find the structures and conventions of that world just fine, and they grow into them uncomplaining. Others, however, find them oppressive and impossible and totally out of line with their personal imaginations. That does not mean they are lesser artists. To some of us, minority viewpoint though it may be, it means that they are the original, the sincere, the more honest artists, because from the beginning they did not compromise.

i am fortunate to have found my place in music and culture. it’s a wonderful challenge to be a participate in a battle of ideas.

update:

robert gable at aworks points out that comedian jay mohr went through similar circumstances when he was at saturday night live. why else would he leave such a great gig. i haven't read his book (except for the amazon 3-page excerpts) and felt the same way when while working at disney. this should be a great performing job; great money, steady hours, lots of contacts. but it turned into a nightmare pretty quickly.

other note:

the blogger backend is sucking today.... maybe its time to move to typepad. if you transfered to something better please let me know of your experiences and any advice.