I’m going to admit something while I’m laying on this pillowy expanse of interweb and not having to look in the eye any of my esteemed colleagues from all corners of the music world: I
\nmyself have argued both sides of every state-of-the-industry debate I
\ncan think of, at one time or another, and I suspect that many others
\nhave done the same. For me, the need to do this arises from how
\nquickly I find myself zooming in and out while looking at “the picture”
\nin front of me– <\/p>\n
-pondering one moment the effectiveness of a single
\npiece on a single program by a single artist; then the ability of that
\nprogram by that artist to grab the attention of an audience in a
\ncertain city;
-then the ability of that program by that artist to grab
\nthe attention of a group of audiences in a group of cities over the
\ncourse of a concert season;
-then how that program by that artist in
\nthat season plays into the live performance career of that artist over
\nseveral seasons, as it is experienced by both people within the
\nindustry and those outside of it;
-then how the live performance career
\nof that artist fits into their career as a whole, including whatever
\nother parts of it are relevant at that time or may be in the future;
\n
-then, for me the most interesting and most daunting vantage point, how
\nthat artist’s career as discussed and planned and worked at all of
\nthese levels interacts with other artists’ careers, audiences,
\nperceptions of music, and the art form itself, which loops me
\ninfuriatingly back to the beginning and the attempts to understand a
\nconcert experience piece by piece. I think that this surveying is done by
\neveryone who is involved in the process of making music happen,
\nalthough the angles may be different. <\/p>\n
From each of these positions, I
\nfeel the push ‘n pull. This artist is fantastic, and therefore must do what feels right and inspires him or her, and all else will fall into place. This artist is fantastic, and must be experienced by more people, and we need to decide how to make that happen.
\nOne thing that stops me from drinking myself to death in this self-made
\nspiral is the fact that there seems to be room for both ends of the
\npush ‘n pull to co-exist at all times for all artists, as long as no
\none is getting caught up in framing it as traditional vs progressive or
\nold vs new, or, more importantly, thinking too narrowly about what this
\nidea of “career” is. This may be more true now than it has been in the
\npast; it feels more true to me now than it did even in the dark ages of
\nthe mid 2000s when I first started pondering such questions. If, as
\nAmanda proposes, we take it as a given here that Artist under
\ndiscussion is indeed fantastic (and Artist definitely is, trust me, I’m
\na manager, which is why I’m talking about Artist as if this were a
\ncontract), then Artist can decide that for a certain period of time,
\nArtist will apply Artistself wholly to playing music that has been
\naround for hundreds of years in formats that are familiar to everyone
\n(recital, concerto, chamber), and Artist will be able to make a career
\nout of this in the sense that there will be some people (concert
\npresenters, record labels) who will pay Artist to do so because some
\nother people (audiences) will pay those people to see and hear it. It
\nmay not be as many people as Artist envisions in wildest Artist-dreams,
\nor maybe it will. It depends on the Artist-dreams. And when the
\nperiod of time governed by this application of Artist’s abilities is
\nup, Artist can decide to do it some more. Or Artist can decide to play
\nthe same music but try to talk more about why and how Artist does
\nso, or to play music that will be written just for Artistself and
\ndoesn’t yet exist, or to play music with someone who has no relation to
\nor experience with the familiar formats in which Artist has recently
\nbeen found, or to write a book about Mozart and give a particular
\nperspective on him, or to start a foundation and raise money for
\naspiring Artists, or any combination of these, or anything else. <\/p>\n
None I’m going to admit something while I’m laying on this pillowy expanse of interweb and not having to look in the eye any of my esteemed colleagues from all corners of the music world: I myself have argued both sides of every state-of-the-industry debate I can think of, at one time or another, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"category-prdebate","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nof these decisions in themselves will guarantee a change in how many
\npeople will experience Artist, for better or worse. Nor will these
\ndecisions make Artist “special” in an abstract sense, because anyone
\ncould be making the same decisions, and many are. To me, the
\nresponsibility that artists have is not to make any particular decision
\nabout their work in this regard, but to make any decision with
\nthe understanding of why they are making it and what will be involved
\nin an attempt by all of us who have a stake to turn that decision into
\naction. And by probably needlessly-stated extension, the
\nresponsibility that we all have, anyone who works with the artist in
\nany way, is to create that action as best we can. Sometimes we will be pushed along
\nby the way the resulting music-making fits into existing systems of
\ndispersion into the world, whether booking dates or planning a season
\nof concerts in a venue or publicizing performances; and other times we
\nwill need to pull the system apart and find the bits that are relevant
\nand helpful. Sometimes both at once. Sometimes on multiple zoom
\nlevels or every level. Sometimes it will not work, or not right away.
\nIt’s not algebra, and though I occasionally want to cut off my limbs to
\nmake things more linear, in the end I’m grateful for that.
\nThe pull to this push about push-‘n-pulls is a lingering feeling that
\neverything is a compromise, or that everything has to be deflated to be
\n“realistic”. I hope we collectively can find a way not to get caught
\nup in this. It may be that we will always feel like things could be
\ngoing better, and that there is more to do. I have never had a day
\nwhen I have not felt so as I lie in bed in a Groundhog Day<\/span>-like sequence, lit by the glow of an improving series of handheld email-checking devices. But the ability to actively and genuinely choose our own music adventure and work towards enacting it, as long as we realize that’s what we’re doing, ensures that “special” does not have to be kidnapped and co-opted into a two-sided argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"