sounds like now

A certain music-loving community that lived on a certain block in a certain city was thrilled when a pianist moved into an apartment on their street. They were even more excited when the pianist put up a sign in his window that read: “The Nation’s Best Pianist.” The residents of the community enjoyed hearing him practice and felt a strong sense of pride upon reading the reviews of his concerts as his reputation began to grow.

Not too long after “The Nation’s Best Pianist” arrived on the block, another pianist rented an apartment in this music-loving community. After getting settled, he put up a sign in his window that read: “The World’s Best Pianist.” “Wow,” thought the memebers of the community, “We’ve got both the Nation’s and World’s Best Pianist living among us!” The new pianist’s career soared after he moved into his new apartment and he gained more international acclaim than he could have ever dreamed of.

Soon word about this music-loving community and their two famous pianists began to spread. Nobody could possibly move in and be better than their two resident pianists. After all, they were the Nation’s Best and World’s Best Pianists. Then one day another pianist rented an apartment in the music-loving community. The sign in his window read: “Best Pianist on the Block.”

Two weeks ago, a friend of mine, the charismatic flutist Amy Porter, gave me an article she’d just reprinted in her flute club newsletter. The article, written by Derek Mithaug and excerpted from the Juilliard Journal, discusses the two ways in which most musicians approach their careers—they either FAN or CAN.

To FAN means to Find-A-Niche and is generally the easiest approach to consider. Students that FAN are looking for a niche in an established organization like an opera company, symphony orchestra, dance company, teaching position, or some other work like directing, presenting, marketing, or consulting, for example. In other words, the work is there for them, they simply need to learn the craft, distinguish themselves (not an easy task), and fit into the structure, which is already in place.

The other way to approach a career in music is to CAN, or to Create-A-Niche. Students who CAN like to create their own jobs. These students are entrepreneurial in nature and tend to be more independent-minded. To succeed as a CANner, you need to learn to certain skills beyond your craft—skills that will help you find jobs and succeed at them, like writing press releases, making phone calls, follow-up correspondence, fund raising, design, marketing, and so on. Certain musicians—like concert saxophonists, for example—have to follow a CAN model, since there are few established organizations in which to strive to become a permanent member.

Whether a student chooses to FAN or CAN depends on many factors, including ambition, musical ability, street smarts, and job availability. However, I also think that it’s possible to combine aspects from each approach to make a career extremely rich (perhaps not exactly in the financial sense!) and rewarding.

Virtuosity fascinates me. It’s interesting to trace the term through history and see how its meaning and the perception of virtuosity has changed.

Virtuoso is an Italian word, which comes from the Latin, virtus, meaning excellence or worth. As currently used, the word refers to a performer who is especially adroit in the practice of his or her instrument, a musician of extraordinary technical skill. Originally, however, the word had much broader connotations, existing as a term of honor for people who distinguished themselves in an intellectual or artistic field. One could be deemed a virtuoso poet, a virtuoso architect, or a virtuoso scholar, for example. But the epithet was most likely to be applied to an excellent musician. Implicit in the concept of the virtuoso was not only unmatched technical skill, but recognition of a deeper understanding of the art. The term was used notably to indicate those who committed themselves to the theory or to the composition of music.

Some people love virtuosity. Some hate it. Some think it’s an integral component of music and progress and some find it detrimental to music. The whole enterprise can be so contentious. In my opinion, Luciano Berio (1925-2003) had the best view of virtuosity:

The best solo performers of our own time-—modern in intelligence, sensibility, and technique–are those who are capable of acting within a wide historical perspective, and of resolving the tensions getween the creative demands of past and present, emplying their instruments as means of research and expression. Their virtuosity is not confined to manual dexterity nor to philological specialization. Although they may operate at differing levels of understanding, they are able to commit themselves to the only type of virtuosity that is acceptable today, that of sensibility and intelligence.

I’d like to follow up a bit on the discussion from the previous post. The issue that emerged from the comments was one of catering to an audience versus playing (or composing) the music that one believes in. What’s really at the heart of the matter here is finding and defining a personal voice.

I think this is what we’re all searching for. However, when does one start developing a distinctive and unique voice? From the beginning? Only after years and years of study and attempting to re-create other voices? Is it important to “pay your dues” before arriving at a personal sound? Can one be born with it? Is it something that can be developed at all?

I believe that finding a voice is an organic process. You are the sum of your influences. And the way you channel and synthesize all of your experiences and knowledge defines your own unique voice. At least this is how I feel I arrived at my current state. As I learned to play the saxophone, I was often taken by this artist or that artist and tried to emulate their personal style. I found things in each artists’ playing–the way they turned a phrase, their tone, articulation, control of dynamics or timbre–that I attempted to appropriate into my own playing. When I play now, I don’t think about how so-and-so would do something, I think about how I want to do it. But if I hadn’t gone through that process of discovery as a student, I don’t think I could make those kinds of decisions now. The bigger issue for me at this point is not so much how I play, but rather what I play. Choosing what to perform helps define my voice as much as how I perform it.

That being said, I don’t ever compromise my values for an audience. I believe that a high level of artistic integrity goes hand in hand with great musicianship and conviction as a performer (or composer for that matter). Now certainly, I want to perform for people and would never give up an opportunity to do so. Sometimes that means I play at a local Women’s Club or elderhostel or retirement community. In those cases, I might modify my program a little–perhaps taking a bit of an edge off–but in every instance I always bring music that I believe in and wish to communicate to them, no matter how challenging it might be. I’ve found that conviction and passion about a certain music–things I’m able to project in performance–usually trump preconceived notions about what people think they like or don’t like. Who knew that little old ladies could like Michael Gordon, William Bolcom, or Karlheinz Stockhausen?

A few musical aphorisms by E. M. Cioran (1911-1995):

What music appeals to in us it is difficult to know; what we do know is that music reaches a zone so deep that madness itself cannot penetrate there.

A passion for music is in itself an avowal. We know more about a stranger who yields himself up to it than about someone who is deaf to music and whom we see every day.

Musical Offering, Art of the Fugue, Goldberg Variations: I love in music, as in philosophy and in everything, what pains by insistence, by recurrence, by that interminable return which reaches the ultimate depths of being and provokes there a barely endurable delectation.

The first two are from The Trouble with Being Born, the last one from Drawn and Quartered. Both volumes are translated from the French by Richard Howard and published by Arcade.