The Glamourous Life

[Nowherewoman]

On Critics and Criticism

There's an old and very unflattering (and unfair) saying: 'Those who can, do. Those who can't teach.' (and those who can't teach teach gym). I'm not sure of the origin, though I have a sneaking suspicion it was a reaction not so much to pubic school (though Gods know we've all had some crap teachers there) as formal academia, where the noise-to-signal ratio is often rather high.*

There's an equivalent, naturally, in the arts: "Those who can, play (or paint, or what have you); those who can't write." My own field is full of tales of critical idiocy, from the person who didn't bother staying for the full concert and wrote about a piece that had been pulled, last-minute from the program; to the small-town reviewer who lamented the 'late entrance' of part of the brass section to the stage, brilliantly unaware that they'd been playing offstage fanfares for the first 5' of the piece; to my personal experience with a person who, when writing about members of a local orchestra, would interview them and then write basically whateverthehell they felt like, changing quotes around and literally in some cases just making shit up. 

So critics generally get a bad rap, loathed and derided even as many of us hover, waiting for that possibly career-boosting (or -ending) writeup to appear.  Is the mockery justified, though?

I'd like to differentiate between two styles of criticism. There are no terms for them that I'm aware of, so I'll call them 'entertainment' and 'art' criticism. Bad labels, easily confused, but I can't come up with better right now.

'Entertainment' criticism is, if you like, the Reader's Digest version. A lot of these writers are actually quite conscientious within their limitations (both personal and imposed); some have arts experience of some sort, others are assigned to 'go see what's happening at the theater down the street' because they're a warm body and their outlet doesn't have a dedicated criticism staff.  These are often the cheerleaders, the people who, if they see or hear any evil, feel their role in the community is to be as strong a booster for their arts institutions as they can be. So things get smoothed out, rough edges polished, negative impressions get softened.  This is noble, I guess, but it's not, in the real sense 'criticism'.

Others in this class are mechanics- that not being a pejorative, but a descriptive. Here's who played, here's what they played, this part sounded good, this part didn't go so well. It's accurate, it's dry, but it's often devoid of context.

'Art' criticism, or if you prefer 'historical' criticism should be, at its best, an educational process, and requires  surprisingly intense and deep training.  Consider opera, a genre I'm not personally overly fond of, but requires, IMO, some of the hardest work to critique well.  To perform 'art' or 'historical' or 'educational' criticism of opera, you need to know a lot more than just whether the trumpet played a wrong note in bar 650. Some things you MUST be aware of:

-The political situation in the composer's home country. Was the libretto subjected to official censorship? Is there more to the text than the typical soap opera plot, some underlying message?
-At least a passing familiarity with the original language AND major translations. No, many if not most audience members won't know this. But the critic should know how well the translation (and the super/subtitles) hew to the
       original. Was intent lost?  What was changed, or cut? Are the cuts 'original', i.e., sanctioned or made by the composer, or where they done for time, or budgetary constraints, or...?
-Performance style of the period. How well has the composer's supposed intent been realized (always a sticky argument between historical purists and modern interpreters).
-Circumstances around the premiere performance. If the Prima got 6 curtain calls for the opening night, and the current interpreter didn't- why? What's different?
-Some knowledge of stagecraft and costuming.

And of course you need to know the score, have some idea of what constitutes good singing and playing- oh, and having at least a passing acquaintance with dance and movement is a plus, especially if you're reviewing Baroque opera, where dance is an integral part of the stage action.

Of course, both branches have their quacks, their pretenders, and their incompetents, as in any field. But, as much as it galls me to say it, that doesn't invalidate the profession itself.


The same, basically, is true of criticism of nearly any art form (TV criticism aside, in my opinion). Both  Entertainment and Art criticism contain, unavoidably, some element of subjectivity- it's art after all, not a mechanical drawing for a chair. In the case of good criticism, however, that subjectivity rests on a foundation of extensive, if not intimate knowledge.

It's a shame that the latter sort seems to be dying out- arts sections even in major papers are getting smaller and, possibly as a result of simply a wider selection of offerings, fewer column inches are dedicated to any specific performance or show, especially compared to the 1940s-70s. It's easier to find an in-depth and thoughtful critique of a video game on Youtube than it is to find one of a concert in a non-specialist newspaper or magazine.


*Among the bullet points of the 'Strategic Plan' recently adopted- unanimously, no less!- by my Alma Mater is to 'Strengthen our financial position'. Because, you know, that's something that needs to be examined and voted on before anyone thinks about actually doing it.  They also are going to 'optimize physical infrastructure'- though towards what ends, the Plan doesn't specify. Might I suggest not cannabis cultivation? If this is the best that seven distinct faculty task forces can come up with, I suspect they're already smoking plenty.

[Hellion]

This was a great read and something not often discussed within the artistic circle, because criticism truly does seem to be more of a drive-by "spectator sport" than an actual skill in and of itself.

In the case of good criticism, however, that subjectivity rests on a foundation of extensive, if not intimate knowledge.

You hit the nail on the head! Anyone is able to comment on whatever they want to comment about, but having a working knowledge of the subject at hand is absolutely key to constructive criticism, especially for those creatives looking to grow in their field of study.


For instance, scrutinizing from a visual arts background, I'd be a poor critic when it came to the performing arts, because while I enjoy a wide array music/dance/theater (etc...), it wasn't something I extensively studied, and wouldn't be able to list the finer points of "stage acting", or "plucking a violin string the correct way", or whether the ballerina's "posture" was correct. 


I would definitely be more of the "Entertainment" critic in that sense, which I think has its merit from a lay point of view. You either like it or you don't, lol


BUT...does that actually help the performer? Probably not so much as it would from a trained critic who can give real direction, and point things out that make sense (even though the artist may not want to hear it).


While it's easy to simply say that creatives by nature are generally so well-invested in their craft that criticism makes them want to give it all up, thereby pushing away any real constructive guidance...that just isn't the blanket answer. Sure, we artists can be a whiny bunch, but deep down we all want to be better at communicating our message to the world or (at least) our target audience.


However, in my own experience, I believe where the core values of constructive criticism are being lost in this day and age, is within social media, and that is a very cut-throat crowd at the worst of times. Since a lot of people follow all disciplines of artwork on some kind of SM platform, it has become the staple of showcasing your best works to a degree. And while it can be a positive thing, I also feel that by virtue of the fact that there is such an informational overload via social media, so-called "critics" don't hang around long enough to give that constructiveness the artist is really hoping for.


We all do it, scrolling through hundreds of images/sound bites/videos, etc at break-neck speed, but how often do we really stop to take it all in? Then, the artwork simply becomes a distant memory, forgotten in the vast sea of the digital world.


Anyway, hopefully I didn't derail the topic too much with some of my own feedback  XD  But, I totally understand the frustrations/concerns regarding Critics and Criticism.


Lovely topic though!

[Nowherewoman]

Sharing this for two reasons:

1)  The way the young woman in the first clip lights up when she finally gets what Starker is saying, and sees that it works;

2) What he has to say about the 'steps' of improving in music (or sport, or any art...or really anything).

https://youtu.be/1WxtYc_cTTc

[BlueOrange]

He's absolutely right.  And it can be extremely tough, going from 'someone who is the best in the juniors' to 'someone who is the worst in the seniors'.  And, where I can consider myself to be one of the seniors, it's because I have the fundamentals securely in place.

He doesn't emphasize it, but he also acknowledges that a person who gets to the point of being 'the best of the juniors', well, that's fine.  When it comes to my writing on E, I feel pretty firmly that I'm at the bottom of the next step.  Instead of being really good at the limited number of things I used to be able to perceive, I'm painfully aware of my weaknesses at the stuff I used to ignore completely.  It's reassuring to be reminded of how inevitable that is.

[Nowherewoman]

How to Get an Orchestra Gig

or

"Who do I have to f*** to get a break in this town???"

...is a question I get a lot. In the first form, not the second, clearly. People are often surprised how much the process has in common with the so-called 'real job' world- and how much it differs. So I thought I'd hit the high points, as they apply to the majority of orchestras.

The Ad:  Just like any other job, an orchestra position needs to be announced, clearly. You'll almost never find them in the Classifieds of your local paper, however (though some music jobs of other sorts will be there, for example, Music Co-Ordinator for the Olympics.) The classifieds in your union paper, a website called Musical Chairs, and the orchestra's own website are some of the most likely spots. Other places might include University bulletin boards, group emails, or even word of mouth.

At the very least, the listing will tell you what the position is (3rd trumpet, principal second violin) and the dates; other details such as pay and season length/service count may be in the ad, or you might get that from the org's website or a later communication.

The List: This is one of the biggest differences between an audition and a job interview. Every orchestra has an established list of 'excerpts' for each instrument- snippets from various pieces you're expected to prepare and play. Almost always there's some solo playing as well, supposedly to show both your techniques and musicality; I've always questioned the utility of it, especially for section positions. Once upon a time, it was the first thing you would play, giving you a chance to test the space and loosen up a bit; nowadays, they often don't even hear it. They still make you waste prep time on it, though.

Usually the lists are fairly standardized, but there can be curveballs. If the orchestra is about to play or has recently played an odd piece, it might turn up on the list; the Boston Symphony, under James Levine, did a lot of XXth and XXIst century music, and so there were several pieces on their list that they had to send out parts for, since they were not publicly available. And then had to send out errata sheets to correct the mistakes in the parts they'd sent.

Also, the bigger the position or orchestra (or the greater the ego of the music director), the longer the list. Principal Bass for Philadelphia is about 3 pages long- and at the end it says 'and other possible excerpts from the standard repertoire.' In other words, be prepared to play absolutely anything.

Unlike a standard interview, there's not real room for spontaneity. The committee is pressed for time, and they're looking for precision and and understanding of style- as well as the psychic ability to know exactly how they want to hear you play specific details- without them telling you.

Oh, and sometimes there's sight reading too. Kind of like 'drop the needle', only you have to play it. Right there and then.

The Résumé Round:  This, nearly everyone is familiar with. You tell them where you went to school, who you studied with, where else you've played, maybe a bit about prizes and special projects. European orchestras tend to want something closer to a c.v., while most American ensembles really prefer you keep it to one page. As with the corporate world, your school or teacher can often open doors that might otherwise remain closed- but you still need to do the work, because...

The First Round(s): Hopefully, you pass the résumé screening, and they invite you to the live audition. Or...not. Depending on your experience level, the level of the orchestra, how many applicants they have, and just generally how pissy they want to be, they might ask for a pre-audition tape...audition...thing. Thankfully, you don't have to record the entire list, just a subset of it. But there's a long line of rules about how to create and submit the recording, to avoid 'cheating'. Anyone who does any sort of YouTube streaming should have a pretty good idea of the kinds of things you can't do for an audition tape.

Your tape was great- or they just decided to invite you, for whatever reason. At last, you're there live!  And here's where things are quite different from the business world.

First of all- for at least the first live round, and often beyond, you are completely isolated from the committee.

That's right- the people who are 'interviewing' you have no idea who you are. Nor do they have access to the resumes of accepted preliminary candidates until later rounds. Your order of appearance is also randomized. Only the personnel manager, who has no say in the deliberations and is there only to facilitate logistics, and/or their assistants/proctors has any idea who you are when you first play. Every person plays the same subset of excerpts in the same order, from behind some sort of screen that hides identity, mode of dress, and gender. The applicants do not speak; if there's any sort of issue, they signal the proctor, who comes to them, and they talk in whispers, only as much as is needed to resolve he problem.

This anonymity is for reasons of fairness; of late there have been calls to do away with these protections and adopt a 'whole person' approach in the name of 'diversity'. I'll try to address that some time later, when I feel up to wading hip-deep in socio-racial-economic politics.

Depending on turnout, this first round can take from a few hours to a day or two- one audition I did many years ago saw me holding lot number 120/123. The orchestra had two committees going for the better part of 2 days.

Every five applicants or so, the committee will take a break to discuss and vote on which (if any) candidates to advance to the next round. Usually this happens after every 5 or so players, unless it's a really small pool, in which case they might just run to the end. Either way, you're sitting around waiting and sweating away the pounds.

And then we-: If you pass the first cut, which is often very harsh- congrats!

You get to do it all again. At least once. Maybe twice. No audition is ever less than 2 rounds, and they frequently go to 3. Depending on the orchestra and the number of rounds, you will once again draw lots, and will play behind a screen. Second round excerpts are usually different from those you played in the first round; in the finals, the entire list, plus sight reading, plus in theory your solo piece are all on the menu.

A few orchestras actually have taken to keeping the screen up for all rounds, but most take it down for the last. At the last round, the committee also has access to resumes of the survivors finalists, so they have a better feeling for the people behind the playing.

Here's the kicker: there is no guarantee that the continuing rounds will be the same day, the same week, or even the same month. Small gigs, crunched by time and the expense and availability of useful space, will usually try to finish things up ASAP. Bigger ensembles, pushed in the opposite direction by their own performance schedules and the lack of availability of their jet-setting Music Directors (more on THAT another time, too) may very well ask you to come back in three weeks, two months, whatever.

Mind you, this often isn't the sort of thing you can do by mass transit. People travel across country, even across continents and oceans for many of these auditions. If you're a flute player, it's draining, annoying, and expensive. If you play a large instrument, like bass or harp, it's draining, expensive, annoying, crippling, bankrupting, and demoralizing.  Note that even those ensembles that do defray some of your expenses don't do so unless you make the finals. So you can blow the bank coming back after a good first round performance, fornicate with a water fowl in the semifinals, and be left holding a massive bill (travel, hotel, meals (all plus VAT where applicable), often air freight for large instruments, car rental...) for the pleasure.

Sound like fun yet?

The Aftermath:  But if you make it through all that, now you've got a gig, right?

Welllll...maybe. A lot of orchestras also have trial periods, wherein you go and play a concert set before your employment is confirmed. At least you get paid for it, but you could, potentially, win a major audition, have a very bad trial...and be unemployed at the end of it.  Even if they love you, you're still not tenured for at least  a year...

What do we do with the corpses?: If you fall out in the first round, well, pretty much sucks to be you. Also the second.  If you make it to the finals, however, you can often be placed on the substitute list. So you might still get hired some times anyway. If you're available. If they need you. Often it will also get you automatically accepted for a live audition if and when another opening comes up.  So...yay?

Also, if there was an internal winner for a titled chair position- yes, you have to audition for promotions, too, usually, and there aren't very many of them to go around- the runner up in the finals will usually be offered the job that's just been vacated.

Always, there are some exceptions, change-ups in the flow.  One one side, when I was in college, I got several small jobs simply because I was classmates with someone who was already on the gig. On the flip side, the orchestra for the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular has to re-audition for their jobs every year, something I've always been astounded Local 802 allows. The anonymity safeguards, at least apocryphally, can be cleverly circumvented to give students or favorites of committee members an advantage. In many split decisions, the Music Director wins. And so forth. But mostly, this is how you get a gig. Keeping it is a whole other project.

So. How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, practice, practice.

What do you do when you've got there?  Rinse and repeat.

Glamourous, indeed.

[Nowherewoman]

The Diversity Question

Or:  "Why are orchestras so white?"

I've held off on posting about this topic for quite a while because it's so fraught. Anything one says runs the risk of coming across at best as challenging and at worst as tone-deaf or confrontational. But it's an important topic, and with DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) now a major topic at companies, universities and yes, orchestras, it's timely.  It's also a complex subject, so I'm going to spread it out over several posts, so I can make my thoughts as clear as possible.

So first, some background:

All the reflections in this series come from my personal experience as a performer and educator which, while extensive (40+ years), is certainly neither universal nor omniscient. I may draw incorrect conclusions; there may be facts I'm simply ignorant of.

I'm also speaking almost exclusively about the Classical music scene here- I have insufficient knowledge to address other genres, which have their own cultures and issues.

Have racism and sexism been a part of the music business in the past?  Oh, hells yes. Probably everyone has read about non-white musicians not being allowed to enter a club they were playing through the front door, even headliners, or not being allowed to eat at a restaurant or stay at a hotel that they were entertaining at.

That has less to do with the music business than the hospitality industry at the time (and the general culture), though, so here are a few more: Jerry Lee Lewis setting fire to his piano at the end of a set, and telling Chuck Berry "Follow that, n-".  A female horn player tells of winning a job with a major American orchestra in the 70s- when the screen came down, and the committee saw she was a woman, some of her new 'colleagues' stood up and turned their backs on her. The Music Director of one of the most famous orchestras in Europe had to threaten to cancel the organization's recording and film contracts in order to force them  to hire their first woman, and that was more a reflection of the MD's artistic prerogative than any social statement (the player resigned a year later, and things got uglier; long story, not for here).  If you see an American Federation of Musicians union local that has a hyphenated Local number? It reflects the merger of a white and 'colored' Local in the jurisdiction some time in the past.

Yup. the union was segregated, which makes the whole 'Fraternity and Solidarity' thing ring a little hollow (this may be true of other unions, as well, I'm not sure). So it has definitely been an issue.

Are there still racists and sexists in the orchestra business? Assuredly, though I can say I've never been consciously aware of meeting one, certainly in the last few decades (I don't include management in this, only performers.) In my experience, professional musicians have become at least as accepting of other races, genders, and sexualities as any other field, and more than many.  Many Church musicians, especially, seem to be gay, for whatever reason, and they tend to face far more maltreatment at the hands of their employers than their colleagues. Their sexuality is taken for granted by other musicians almost to the point of being 'orientationist' in itself- an organist is often assumed to be gay simply because of where they work

Haters gonna hate, though, and it's not the sort of thing one talks about too openly, these days, outside of closed circles of the like-minded. So I'm sure they're there, Neanderthalic members of the 'purist' Old Guard. YMMV.

Do issues of sexism and especially racism still perfuse the hiring process in Classical  music?

Welllll...that's where things get a little more fuzzy.

[Nowherewoman]

The Diversity Question, Pt. II

Statisticians love their ratios. The one most germane here is: "If X group is Y per cent of the population, they should also be represented roughly Y percent in every field."  I think this raw mathematics tends to oversimplifiy, if not out and out ignore, some broader sociological variables, but let it stand.

How are we doin' in Orchestraland?

Honestly, pretty crap. As of 2020, Hispanics and Latin-Americans were about 18.7% of the population, while African Americans were about 12.1%. In the orchestra field, however, they made up 2.5 and 1.8%, respectively.

Clear signs of systemic racism, right? Wellll...that argument doesn't address the overwhelming success of Asian musicians, another traditionally marginalized community, who at only 4% of the population made up about 7% of orchestral musicians nationwide, and as high as 20% in some ensembles. We'll talk in very theoretical terms about what might drive that huge gap later on.  The numbers for non-Asian, non-Caucasians are grim, no denying. We have a problem- we're not arguing about that. And it needs to be addressed if not on ethical grounds, than in terms of simple survival of the industry. As demographics shift, the Classical music world must adjust to remain viable.

Since I talked previously in some detail about the hiring process, I thought I'd use this entry to look at where bias, conscious or otherwise*, might insert itself. I don't believe that this is the major reason behind the quoted statistics, but I can't say it doesn't exist, either, and a lot of people-hours are being devoted to trying to sort it out.

1: Resumes. It's quite possible for a name or a place of origin on a job app to give a hiring committee at least a hint as to both ethnicity and gender.  Fortunately, this issue is relatively easily addressed, and a number of ensembles are already working towards it. Resumes are redacted by a person separate from the audition committee(s), removing telltale data. Issues can arise, of course, if the Personnel Manager, say, is also the Principal player of a section that is auditioning, but this is a logistical issue: either an assistant handles the redaction, or the PM recuses themself.

2: The audition process itself.  Sooner or later,  the screen has to come down. Either for the final round, which is fairly common, or in some cases after a winner has been selected. Even then, as mentioned before, there can be bias issues, and in many cases the Music Director wants to actually see the mannerisms and experience the personality of a potential hire for themselves. This is understandable, and ethically neutral in itself, but can lead to issues such as a, MD I know of who wanted to 'cast the orchestra', which meant essentially hiring as many young, female, and preferably Asian p[layers as possible, regardless. Scumpuppies. They're not just in Hollywood any more!

These issues are more difficult to address, though certain Federal laws and Union regulations come into play to curb some of the worst excesses. Unfortunately, if you're the victim of this sort of behavior, it can be  Pyrrhic victory- do you really want to take a job where you've forced your employers to accept you?

There's also a movement afoot to eliminate screens entirely, and hire based on the 'whole person.' While I understand the reasoning behind it, I disagree. If you're coming from a position of assuming a racist hiring system, removing one of the protections against that behavior is a huge mistake, IMO. And to my mind, hiring because 'x' is every bit as bad, if less morally bankrupt than not hiring because of that criterion. It can also lead to a sense, if not a reality, of quotas and tokenism.

tl:dr:  If the system is racist, this change will not fix anything; if it is not, it's  not needed, and may make things actually lean more towards being exclusionary.

3: Probation: This is a tough one. The skills required to win a blind audition are, perhaps unsurprisingly, not entirely the same as those required to actually perform well on the gig. Sure, the ear and hand training remain key. But auditioning requires preparing a fairly circumscribed list of material to a very high level, often over weeks or months, and staying frosty during the process. The job requires preparing constantly changing material over and over, responding quickly to changes in both verbal and non-verbal directions and, most different form the audition, interpersonal skills.

To address this, most orchestras have either a trial period, a probationary period, or most often both, for groups over a certain size. This is probably the most wide-open place for issues to occur. A good player is a good player, even if you are shocked to see they are X,Y, or Z when they come out from behind the screen. A great deal of on-the-job performance, however, is subjective. Do they crowd their stand partner? Turn pages too soon or too late? Are they too standoffish?  To friendly?  Does their laugh annoy people?  If a section leader, are they late with their bowings, or sloppy? Do they cue too much, or not enough? Address the section too often, or ignore them?  the list of possible pitfalls is endless, and any of them can be an excuse, if one is looking for one to insert their own biases into the decision making process.

I don't have an answer for this. Eliminating some sort of trial is not viable, I don't think. But the handling of it needs to be as water-tight and gameproof as possible.

I want to stress two things: While I do not believe that the business as a whole is actively seeking to keep out people of color, I also don't deny the certainty that there are some people in it who hold those attitudes- witness the Casting Director, above.

In the next installment, I'll talk about issues outside the confines of the orchestras themselves, and often outside their control, that may play a part in under-representation, as well as some internal issues that are driving the problem as well.



*The only overt systemic bias I personally know of even on anecdotal grounds involves big-name ensembles with associations with major music schools. In this case, it's to keep the work 'in the family', giving positions to students of current members, rather than being racially based (admission to those schools themselves is another topic). Supposedly, candidates are told in their lessons to deliberately play excerpts in specifically idiosyncratic ways, so they can be identified even from behind the screen.