Silver Adept (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silveradept) wrote2024-12-21 09:54 pm
silveradept) wrote2024-12-21 09:54 pm
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December Days 02024 #21: Community: Musicians
[This Year's December Days Theme is Community, and all the forms that it takes. If you have some suggestions about what communities I'm part of (or that you think I'm part of) that would be worth a look, let me know in the comments.]
As with many of the other times that I talk about artistic and widespread communities, when I say that I'm a part of the community of musicians, I mean it in the very widest sense, the one that includes people who sing where nobody else will hear them, or who have perhaps make a squeak or a honk on a horn, or who made the first halting possible steps toward remix, sound board, fanvid, or a DJ's or MC's tasks.
Music has been a regular part of my life from even the very smallest of ages. One of my parents plays piano at a non-professional level, and there was a good stereo system, with the ability to play all kinds of albums, whether on vinyl, on magnetic tape, or on optical disc, as such technology became more commonplace and inexpensive and hooked into the amplifiers and systems already in place. There was always plenty of singing at ritual services every week, and for the most part, family, extended family, and the rest of the participants in the ritual tended to take to the idea that "make a joyful noise" did not say or mean anything about whether or not the noise itself was in tune. With, perhaps, the exception of the relative who is a priest, and may or may not have had some training about singing the ritual properly. And also occasionally had congregations that were either trained or practiced at singing well. For the most part, however, there was not much formal vocal training or a particular premium placed on good singing. And instrumentalists were usually for very specific occasions, even in the places where the vocalists might have been of a better caliber. (This would be in contrast to at least some of the Protestant services that I have seen and attended, where having a music director, a house band, and the lyrics to the songs projected onto a screen or otherwise easily distributed and found seemed integral to the practice and the ritual. There was equally as much enthusiasm for song, certainly.)
My particular forays into music have been more instrumental than vocal or technological, and some of that musicianship contributes to my QI resume. This may be mostly a consequence of my upbringing, and the fact that the elementary school I was educated in had instrumental music, but no formal choir program. There was still singing, and services, and music, and possibly a little bit of experimentation with a soprano recorder, but I'm not sure at all about that last one. In the same vein as my older sibling, I went in to a testing session to see what kinds of instrumentation I might take to when I was about 10 or 11. I don't remember whether the instruments offered to me were all things for me to try and listen to the sound of, try to make the sound of, or whether the instruments on offer would have been things that were needed or desired to balance what had already been decided on for instruments. I don't even remember what instruments I tried, but eventually, it was suggested to me that I might take up trombone, because I had long arms, and trombone prefers those people who can move the slide to all of the necessary positions to make music with. And as with so many decisions in my life, lacking an opinion or a preference, I went with what was suggested to me. And thus began the long pathway of practicing and playing things over and over again, even when they became boring, because there was nothing else there to practice, and it needed to still go on for long enough. It probably also didn't sound all that great to others, even though there were doors closed to try and make sure that most of the sound stayed in with the person doing the practicing.
Much like other artistic pursuits, seeing progress and the part where you start having skill catch up to taste can be difficult. If your lessons and instructions have been scaffolded well, you're almost always playing pieces that are either trying to teach you new things or exercise your skills in new ways. Because of that, it can feel like it's constant focus on the negatives, the parts that are not quite up to the standard. Rehearsal is, for the most part, about making the best possible piece that you can, to try and smooth out as many of the issues as you can until it is time to perform the piece. There are rarely any rehearsals or run-throughs where the conductor or instructor says, "Good. No notes, let's continue." So even as I got more experienced and expanded the range of things that I could play, I don't think I sounded all that much better than I did before. And it became easy to compare myself to others who had better range, smoother tone, better technique, without necessarily recognizing that they may have had private lessons in addition to their school rehearsals or other things that would make their music-making sound better than mine. Things had to have improved somewhat, though, with each piece rehearsed and played, and I liked the making music part of it, even if I tolerated the rehearsals part of it as the price for getting to make music.
My ear's not great to hear what's in tune and what's not (and at some very much later on point in my life, when I couldn't hear a full chord so that it sounded very out of tune, I went and got tested and found out that one of my ears doesn't necessarily hear the full range of possibilities, which may have contributed to that difficulty, not that I knew it then, as I also don't know when that particular hearing issue developed) and even if I have the theoretical on how to adjust, the practical didn't always come through well, because first I had to hear it, and then I had to figure out what needed adjusting. Also less helpful is that my natural singing register is flat to actual pitch, and so if I had pursued a lot of vocal music, other than that one stint in secondary school, I would have had to learn how to pitch myself up until I could replicate the right pitch (And then figure out how to sing with the assortment of Fun Times that my respiratory system has around very common things.) This story is one about persistence and joy in the act, rather than one about innate talent or phenomenal instrumentation, sterling instruction, or any kind of prodigy-ness at music. I don't have any of that, so it's probably good that "professional musician" is one of those things on my QI resume (as I have been paid for making music) rather than my actual chosen profession.
Making music followed me in to secondary school, where I got to make music while marching about in the traditions of the military band, although mostly while playing the pop songs of yesteryear or adaptations of Broadway musicals and movie themes. After marching season was finished, then it was concert season and athletic band season, where the athletic band still played mostly the pop songs of yesteryear, and the concert band plumbed the extensive repertoire of wind band music (and adaptations of various symphonic pieces to wind band). That schedule basically remained the same at university, just with longer rehearsal times scheduled for after the regular class day and a significant number of performances on Saturdays and evenings, depending on whether it was football games or other athletic band situations. (The "student" part of student-athlete sometimes felt like it was being neglected in those years, so it's good to see the changes that have been made more toward name, image, and likeness and acknowledging that the athletes deserve a much greater amount of compensation for what they do.) Doing athletic bands and the like also helped with taking advantage of work-study awards (the parts of a university financial aid package where the student can do a job and the award pays the salary for such work) so that I could continue along with university with some pocket money.
One of the things that I've figured out as time has gone by is that in many ensembles, trombones and other low brass players are in higher demand. Which, to some degree, produces a little anxiety about skill versus necessity. I did have to audition for the marching band, and I got in, but my first year that I was there, there were 37 trombones in formations that asked for 36 at a minimum. If there had been a better group of players, would I have actually made it? I don't know. The marching band was also not composed of the people who were going on to make music a potential career of theirs - there's too much jarring, jostling, and other potential hazards to partake, so it's a lot of students looking for their required creative expression credits, and people who like making music with others a much as it is people who have a high level of playing skill. (Although there were a lot of people in that group who had a high level of playing skill.) Because I was much more about the making music part than in the refining myself with private lessons or other such things to reach the rarefied heights of first chair, I played a lot of third part in those groups, which suited me just fine, even if it could be boring. (Lots of composers like to give their first parts all kinds of complex or technically demanding things, and then think their third parts aren't good for much better than the oom-pah.) Because I didn't (and still don't) have the kind of range that stretches up into the treble clef nor sinks into the depths of the bass clef, it was music that I could play with sections that needed rehearsal, or spots that required stretching myself, without the entire piece being something that I would despair at my lack of playing ability over. I still like playing in ensemble more than anything that might be solo, because I feel more comfortable having others around who can cover for me when I end up imperfect, rather than having all of my shortcomings on display regularly. (Yes, I definitely did all the things that I have done, but there's still a lingering feeling of whether I was really good enough to be part of it, or whether I was there at a time where I was needed and they couldn't afford to be picky about it.)
A lot of the things I did at university contribute to my QI resume, by virtue of having been in a band that traveled with a football team and other athletic programs that did reasonably well in the years I was there. The marching band also releases albums regularly of the music they play for their halftime shows, so I have also recorded for an album, technically, although in the basketball arena that could hold all of us rather than in any kind of recording studio or other more intimate venue. (Which, in of itself, also means that if you know which album to listen to, you'll not only hear my playing, but my singing with the voices of the rest of the marching band. That said, one of the voice instructors from the music college came by every year to assist us in singing both the fight song and the alma mater properly and give us practice at doing so. And we regularly sung through our parts as part of rehearsals as well, not necessarily with a specific focus on pitch accuracy, so there were more opportunities for making a joyful noise, as it were.) After university, I kept up with doing some amount of playing my instrument, whether as a professional (part of one of the house bands for a local comedy/variety festival) or as a community musician in the local community college ensemble that needed others to accompany the students and make a good-sounding ensemble. Plenty of good music played all around in those situations, even if that meant having to tolerate rehearsals, getting an actual instrument (and then getting another one when the first one was stolen out of my car early on in my stint as a house-owner), and all of those things that are related to the care and maintenance of musicians and their instruments. Sadly, with the presence of SARS-CoV-2, my activities around making instrumental music have mostly dried up. There were a couple of concerts put together by the community college where all of us recorded our own parts and then it was all put together by the instructor/director, but those have faded away, and the community college has transitioned to making the ensemble a class that everyone has to register and/or pay for. I do miss making music in this manner, but for the most part, I have to wait until it's no longer a danger to do so, or find an ensemble that's much more serious about their protocols regarding potential infectious diseases to join.
In the meantime, I get to enjoy a whole lot more music being made and already recorded, through things like Chaos Emergency Doof Broadcast Network, a couple of UK DJs who do a usually-Thursday show with sets of new music and themes like "I Cannot Allow This Factual Inaccuracy To Stand" where they get assistance from the listening audience of what songs to play that fit the theme.cosmolinguist introduced me to it, and even though I rarely get to hear the show live, I've been having a grand time working through the archived shows. It's been a great started-in-lockdowns project to follow along with. There's also ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
onesongaday, which usually lives up to one song a day, and it's almost always something well out of the things I'm used to hearing, and internationally focused. brithistorian has an interest in K-Pop, so I've been getting at least a little bit of exposure there, even if I haven't developed a bias yet. And Dreamwidth itself is also really good for new music, just among my subscriptions. So it's not that I'm suddenly hurting for music by not making it.
I also like the community of musicians getting bigger through the means of production becoming both digitized and democratized. While not everyone has the ability to turn some part of their house into a recording studio, the ability to record your electric instruments, or develop your own taste for mashups and mixing, or even get good microphones and headphones to sing into and listen to, means that everyone has a much greater ability to record and produce themselves or their friends, or to showcase how they see music, how it's coordinated for them, and what kinds of stories and themes they want to show off to others. And with digital distribution systems, those recordings can go places and find fans that wouldn't normally know the first thing about a group from halfway across the world, or someone can tune in to your set list live, or you can give an entire audience your mix tape, instead of having to construct, copy, hope that you get a clean recording from the radio, and then make and remake it painstakingly every time that you want to make another copy, and think about which singular person in your life will appreciate what you've done. (Mixes for one still happen, and I don't feel like the curation of a playlist is somehow lesser than the creation of a mix tape and the physical effort that went into making sure that it was as good as it could be for someone, especially with the tools that we have now to make sure that said mix is as technically perfect as it can be before being transferred to the device of choice for listening.)
There are still major issues involved, especially in streaming royalties and in the cuts that distribution platforms take of sales versus what's distributed to the people who actually made the music. Those issues reflect, to some degree, the way that the studio system also tends to screw over the artist, especially the artist that doesn't become a mega-hit, and the ways that idol systems and group systems also screw over their performers (and intrude pretty heavily on their personal lives and what they're allowed to do publicly because of the need to maintain an image as well). To call it yet another way that capitalism ruins everything feels flippant and not taking seriously the depths of the ways that capitalism has screwed this particular aspect of culture up seriously enough, but we're all living in an era where capitalism has screwed up so many things of life and culture to the nth degree that it may be beyond our ability to create an accurate representation or fully express that feeling and the data behind it. Unless that expression is through art, which somehow manages to encompass the inexplicable and the large and render it in a form that both respects its majesty and manages to bring it down to the level where humans can comprehend it.
And remember: You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.
As with many of the other times that I talk about artistic and widespread communities, when I say that I'm a part of the community of musicians, I mean it in the very widest sense, the one that includes people who sing where nobody else will hear them, or who have perhaps make a squeak or a honk on a horn, or who made the first halting possible steps toward remix, sound board, fanvid, or a DJ's or MC's tasks.
Music has been a regular part of my life from even the very smallest of ages. One of my parents plays piano at a non-professional level, and there was a good stereo system, with the ability to play all kinds of albums, whether on vinyl, on magnetic tape, or on optical disc, as such technology became more commonplace and inexpensive and hooked into the amplifiers and systems already in place. There was always plenty of singing at ritual services every week, and for the most part, family, extended family, and the rest of the participants in the ritual tended to take to the idea that "make a joyful noise" did not say or mean anything about whether or not the noise itself was in tune. With, perhaps, the exception of the relative who is a priest, and may or may not have had some training about singing the ritual properly. And also occasionally had congregations that were either trained or practiced at singing well. For the most part, however, there was not much formal vocal training or a particular premium placed on good singing. And instrumentalists were usually for very specific occasions, even in the places where the vocalists might have been of a better caliber. (This would be in contrast to at least some of the Protestant services that I have seen and attended, where having a music director, a house band, and the lyrics to the songs projected onto a screen or otherwise easily distributed and found seemed integral to the practice and the ritual. There was equally as much enthusiasm for song, certainly.)
My particular forays into music have been more instrumental than vocal or technological, and some of that musicianship contributes to my QI resume. This may be mostly a consequence of my upbringing, and the fact that the elementary school I was educated in had instrumental music, but no formal choir program. There was still singing, and services, and music, and possibly a little bit of experimentation with a soprano recorder, but I'm not sure at all about that last one. In the same vein as my older sibling, I went in to a testing session to see what kinds of instrumentation I might take to when I was about 10 or 11. I don't remember whether the instruments offered to me were all things for me to try and listen to the sound of, try to make the sound of, or whether the instruments on offer would have been things that were needed or desired to balance what had already been decided on for instruments. I don't even remember what instruments I tried, but eventually, it was suggested to me that I might take up trombone, because I had long arms, and trombone prefers those people who can move the slide to all of the necessary positions to make music with. And as with so many decisions in my life, lacking an opinion or a preference, I went with what was suggested to me. And thus began the long pathway of practicing and playing things over and over again, even when they became boring, because there was nothing else there to practice, and it needed to still go on for long enough. It probably also didn't sound all that great to others, even though there were doors closed to try and make sure that most of the sound stayed in with the person doing the practicing.
Much like other artistic pursuits, seeing progress and the part where you start having skill catch up to taste can be difficult. If your lessons and instructions have been scaffolded well, you're almost always playing pieces that are either trying to teach you new things or exercise your skills in new ways. Because of that, it can feel like it's constant focus on the negatives, the parts that are not quite up to the standard. Rehearsal is, for the most part, about making the best possible piece that you can, to try and smooth out as many of the issues as you can until it is time to perform the piece. There are rarely any rehearsals or run-throughs where the conductor or instructor says, "Good. No notes, let's continue." So even as I got more experienced and expanded the range of things that I could play, I don't think I sounded all that much better than I did before. And it became easy to compare myself to others who had better range, smoother tone, better technique, without necessarily recognizing that they may have had private lessons in addition to their school rehearsals or other things that would make their music-making sound better than mine. Things had to have improved somewhat, though, with each piece rehearsed and played, and I liked the making music part of it, even if I tolerated the rehearsals part of it as the price for getting to make music.
My ear's not great to hear what's in tune and what's not (and at some very much later on point in my life, when I couldn't hear a full chord so that it sounded very out of tune, I went and got tested and found out that one of my ears doesn't necessarily hear the full range of possibilities, which may have contributed to that difficulty, not that I knew it then, as I also don't know when that particular hearing issue developed) and even if I have the theoretical on how to adjust, the practical didn't always come through well, because first I had to hear it, and then I had to figure out what needed adjusting. Also less helpful is that my natural singing register is flat to actual pitch, and so if I had pursued a lot of vocal music, other than that one stint in secondary school, I would have had to learn how to pitch myself up until I could replicate the right pitch (And then figure out how to sing with the assortment of Fun Times that my respiratory system has around very common things.) This story is one about persistence and joy in the act, rather than one about innate talent or phenomenal instrumentation, sterling instruction, or any kind of prodigy-ness at music. I don't have any of that, so it's probably good that "professional musician" is one of those things on my QI resume (as I have been paid for making music) rather than my actual chosen profession.
Making music followed me in to secondary school, where I got to make music while marching about in the traditions of the military band, although mostly while playing the pop songs of yesteryear or adaptations of Broadway musicals and movie themes. After marching season was finished, then it was concert season and athletic band season, where the athletic band still played mostly the pop songs of yesteryear, and the concert band plumbed the extensive repertoire of wind band music (and adaptations of various symphonic pieces to wind band). That schedule basically remained the same at university, just with longer rehearsal times scheduled for after the regular class day and a significant number of performances on Saturdays and evenings, depending on whether it was football games or other athletic band situations. (The "student" part of student-athlete sometimes felt like it was being neglected in those years, so it's good to see the changes that have been made more toward name, image, and likeness and acknowledging that the athletes deserve a much greater amount of compensation for what they do.) Doing athletic bands and the like also helped with taking advantage of work-study awards (the parts of a university financial aid package where the student can do a job and the award pays the salary for such work) so that I could continue along with university with some pocket money.
One of the things that I've figured out as time has gone by is that in many ensembles, trombones and other low brass players are in higher demand. Which, to some degree, produces a little anxiety about skill versus necessity. I did have to audition for the marching band, and I got in, but my first year that I was there, there were 37 trombones in formations that asked for 36 at a minimum. If there had been a better group of players, would I have actually made it? I don't know. The marching band was also not composed of the people who were going on to make music a potential career of theirs - there's too much jarring, jostling, and other potential hazards to partake, so it's a lot of students looking for their required creative expression credits, and people who like making music with others a much as it is people who have a high level of playing skill. (Although there were a lot of people in that group who had a high level of playing skill.) Because I was much more about the making music part than in the refining myself with private lessons or other such things to reach the rarefied heights of first chair, I played a lot of third part in those groups, which suited me just fine, even if it could be boring. (Lots of composers like to give their first parts all kinds of complex or technically demanding things, and then think their third parts aren't good for much better than the oom-pah.) Because I didn't (and still don't) have the kind of range that stretches up into the treble clef nor sinks into the depths of the bass clef, it was music that I could play with sections that needed rehearsal, or spots that required stretching myself, without the entire piece being something that I would despair at my lack of playing ability over. I still like playing in ensemble more than anything that might be solo, because I feel more comfortable having others around who can cover for me when I end up imperfect, rather than having all of my shortcomings on display regularly. (Yes, I definitely did all the things that I have done, but there's still a lingering feeling of whether I was really good enough to be part of it, or whether I was there at a time where I was needed and they couldn't afford to be picky about it.)
A lot of the things I did at university contribute to my QI resume, by virtue of having been in a band that traveled with a football team and other athletic programs that did reasonably well in the years I was there. The marching band also releases albums regularly of the music they play for their halftime shows, so I have also recorded for an album, technically, although in the basketball arena that could hold all of us rather than in any kind of recording studio or other more intimate venue. (Which, in of itself, also means that if you know which album to listen to, you'll not only hear my playing, but my singing with the voices of the rest of the marching band. That said, one of the voice instructors from the music college came by every year to assist us in singing both the fight song and the alma mater properly and give us practice at doing so. And we regularly sung through our parts as part of rehearsals as well, not necessarily with a specific focus on pitch accuracy, so there were more opportunities for making a joyful noise, as it were.) After university, I kept up with doing some amount of playing my instrument, whether as a professional (part of one of the house bands for a local comedy/variety festival) or as a community musician in the local community college ensemble that needed others to accompany the students and make a good-sounding ensemble. Plenty of good music played all around in those situations, even if that meant having to tolerate rehearsals, getting an actual instrument (and then getting another one when the first one was stolen out of my car early on in my stint as a house-owner), and all of those things that are related to the care and maintenance of musicians and their instruments. Sadly, with the presence of SARS-CoV-2, my activities around making instrumental music have mostly dried up. There were a couple of concerts put together by the community college where all of us recorded our own parts and then it was all put together by the instructor/director, but those have faded away, and the community college has transitioned to making the ensemble a class that everyone has to register and/or pay for. I do miss making music in this manner, but for the most part, I have to wait until it's no longer a danger to do so, or find an ensemble that's much more serious about their protocols regarding potential infectious diseases to join.
In the meantime, I get to enjoy a whole lot more music being made and already recorded, through things like Chaos Emergency Doof Broadcast Network, a couple of UK DJs who do a usually-Thursday show with sets of new music and themes like "I Cannot Allow This Factual Inaccuracy To Stand" where they get assistance from the listening audience of what songs to play that fit the theme.
cosmolinguist introduced me to it, and even though I rarely get to hear the show live, I've been having a grand time working through the archived shows. It's been a great started-in-lockdowns project to follow along with. There's also onesongaday, which usually lives up to one song a day, and it's almost always something well out of the things I'm used to hearing, and internationally focused. brithistorian has an interest in K-Pop, so I've been getting at least a little bit of exposure there, even if I haven't developed a bias yet. And Dreamwidth itself is also really good for new music, just among my subscriptions. So it's not that I'm suddenly hurting for music by not making it.I also like the community of musicians getting bigger through the means of production becoming both digitized and democratized. While not everyone has the ability to turn some part of their house into a recording studio, the ability to record your electric instruments, or develop your own taste for mashups and mixing, or even get good microphones and headphones to sing into and listen to, means that everyone has a much greater ability to record and produce themselves or their friends, or to showcase how they see music, how it's coordinated for them, and what kinds of stories and themes they want to show off to others. And with digital distribution systems, those recordings can go places and find fans that wouldn't normally know the first thing about a group from halfway across the world, or someone can tune in to your set list live, or you can give an entire audience your mix tape, instead of having to construct, copy, hope that you get a clean recording from the radio, and then make and remake it painstakingly every time that you want to make another copy, and think about which singular person in your life will appreciate what you've done. (Mixes for one still happen, and I don't feel like the curation of a playlist is somehow lesser than the creation of a mix tape and the physical effort that went into making sure that it was as good as it could be for someone, especially with the tools that we have now to make sure that said mix is as technically perfect as it can be before being transferred to the device of choice for listening.)
There are still major issues involved, especially in streaming royalties and in the cuts that distribution platforms take of sales versus what's distributed to the people who actually made the music. Those issues reflect, to some degree, the way that the studio system also tends to screw over the artist, especially the artist that doesn't become a mega-hit, and the ways that idol systems and group systems also screw over their performers (and intrude pretty heavily on their personal lives and what they're allowed to do publicly because of the need to maintain an image as well). To call it yet another way that capitalism ruins everything feels flippant and not taking seriously the depths of the ways that capitalism has screwed this particular aspect of culture up seriously enough, but we're all living in an era where capitalism has screwed up so many things of life and culture to the nth degree that it may be beyond our ability to create an accurate representation or fully express that feeling and the data behind it. Unless that expression is through art, which somehow manages to encompass the inexplicable and the large and render it in a form that both respects its majesty and manages to bring it down to the level where humans can comprehend it.
And remember: You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.