Search Results for: entrepreneurship

The Entrepreneurship of the Creative Moment

Posted on July 30, 2015 by - Columns

Arts entrepreneurship has received a lot of attention in recent years. Programs have popped up at numerous institutions, and the discourse of entrepreneurship is a hot topic in the circles of contemporary music. Building on my first post in this series, I’d like to examine some of the underlying assumptions and root causes of the entrepreneurship phenomena and its larger implications for composers within society.

As a student, I was told it was nearly impossible to make a living just as a composer. One then has a variety of other options: work in the very competitive commercial sphere of film, video, games, and jingles; teach (either privately or institutionally); work some other job, utilizing any number of skills, that then (hopefully) allows you to support your music and vision; or a hodgepodge of the above. All this is well and good, except what happens when composers are not so interested in being arts administrators, not so adept at social media or fundraising, not so easily assimilated in commercial industry? What of the composers who are perhaps not so inclined as performers, whose strengths do not fit the entrepreneur?

This is the ubiquitous scenario that every composer faces. Being a composer of any age today requires a lot of work, dedication, thought and inspiration. A composer also faces a variety of post-composing challenges. Composing on its own is a full-time job. Yet after you complete a piece, you now often have to see to the organization and performance of that piece yourself—finding adequate performers and venues, raising money to support the event, and managing effective promotion. You are told as a student that no one else will do it for you. However, there are some composers that still get large-scale commissions, performances, and credits in movies, so you know somewhere, someplace there are people working as composers and there is money to support them. It’s clear that these are dwindling exceptions to the norm, however, and that there is just not enough money to go around. Therefore, we are obliged to conjure both a cultural and economic space for our art after creating it. This can be compared to an architect who, upon completing delicate plans and specifications, has to build it himself, including footing the bill for materials, labor, and space to implement his vision.

Southern California Federal Music Project, WPA, ca. 1937

Southern California Federal Music Project, WPA, ca. 1937

In the past, composers were often the pet geniuses of wealthy patrons—royalty and titans of industry who took care of them and facilitated their career. An argument could be made that being a composer has never been a “real” job but a way of life—what Robert Henri called the “art spirit.” In fact, Henri wrote that he was interested in art as “a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.” Professor Linda Essig is an outspoken advocate of arts entrepreneurship, and highlights the role of middle class artists, who are neither impoverished nor made wealthy from their art: “[Call] it arts entrepreneurship or call it artist self-management, it is part of the work-life of the artist in the US. It is these artists, the artists in the middle, who can serve the social good, create excellent work, and critique this system in a meaningful way.”

The broader economic realities of the widening wealth gap along with the systematic destruction of the middle class makes Essig’s statement to potential students a confusing mandate. My question to Linda Essig is this: how can artists serve the social good, create excellent work, and critique the system when it is the system which is actively eroding the social good and preventing them from accomplishing excellent work?

The result is not meaningful creative engagement but a scramble for survival—a blurring of vision and base opportunism. Composer Nicholas Chase cites the almighty dollar on his blog:

To paint the reality of this in dollar amounts, the 2012 National Endowment of the Arts report “How Arts Are Funded” revealed that the national budget of arts funding in the United States was $0.47 per-capita—compared to the next lowest per-capita funding of $2.98 in New Zealand. The remaining of English speaking countries surveyed revealed a shocking gap, leaping exponentially to $5.19 per capita in Canada and as high as $17.80 per capita in Wales, UK. However, the bleak picture the figures above give us isn’t merely financial or economic: it reveals the lack of incentive for artists to pursue careers in the arts, and implies the low range of pay administrators will take to foster Culture-Building…You begin to see how the question of issues is not merely mechanical or financial, but becomes a deeply social issue.

I recently had lunch with a friend and her boss, a man in his early sixties. We had a wonderful discussion about science, art, and consciousness. He was very interested in my music. I told him he could listen to my music for free by streaming it online. He insisted that he pay for it, adding that “it would help me if you gave me a price.” This was a surreal situation and I was taken aback, unprepared. I have not developed my website to include iTunes-style purchase and download capabilities, nor have I attained the support of record labels or ensembles that subsidize and distribute recordings. Why have I not developed my website? Mostly because I have been too busy honing my craft and composing. I value the quality and integrity of my work over selling it. I couldn’t argue with this patron who was sincerely interested in my music, but his appreciation was precluded by a deep ethic of transaction—that we must fix a value to a rather subjective non-fixed entity.

Poster for New York City Federal Music Project presentation of free symphony concerts at the Y.M. & Y.W.H.A.

Poster for New York City Federal Music Project presentation of free symphony concerts at the Y.M. & Y.W.H.A.

The ongoing discussions regarding the potentially unstable economics of music might do well to consider the ethic of the commons. Just as the air, land, water, and sunshine that sustains human beings is a common right and owned by everyone, so is the intellectual and creative common of society. Implicit within this paradigm, however, is a communal reciprocal relationship. Artists and musicians would create and offer their music and labor for free “consumption,” but consumers would then pay into a system that supports these artists and encourages more creative innovation and cultural enrichment. Our government could easily create such a system. The WPA Federal Music, Theater, and Writers projects during the Great Depression were a step in the right direction, as they employed thousands of artists, composers, and musicians. These projects were scuttled as the nation’s resources and energies were directed into another enterprise—war—and instead of creating art, people made bombs, and vast corporations were built to destroy cities and then build them again, making lots of money in the process.

Nicholas Chase further argues in a comment on NewMusicBox that “through a kind of social attrition, the perceived low-value of what I do has necessitated that I become an entrepreneur…which means I am playing dual, triple, quadruple roles in my field. I am the composer, often the commissioner, the producer, recently the performer…the issue we are facing today is the effectiveness of that model as it requires more and more and more attention from us as artists. It seems that the idea has become a convenient scapegoat for the handlers of Culture in the greater United States.”

If the fruits of our creative labor—our music, ideas, energies—are not considered valuable in the parameters of our society—if composing and performing music is not a worthy trade for food, shelter, and healthcare—then we must change our values as artists and either conform to the parameters and values of society or we must change the parameters and values of society. We will not solve these fundamental issues by encouraging artists to conform to the external pressures of society. Entrepreneurship, in this case, can be used as a valuable tool to redesign the social relationship of musicians and society—to encourage a complete re-evaluation.

No matter how one slices it, for me these arguments and experiences point to one singular fact: we must alter our consciousness—that is, seek to live out alternative values to what is predominant in our society every day. This could be by collectively refusing to pay the impossible debt imposed upon young creatives, who continually work and create for the benefit of society with no monetary compensation. This could be by organizing more composer groups or empowering the many national and regional groups to engage in political and economic activism, demanding from our government the resources necessary to strengthen communities through artistic vision. This could be done by further developing alternative ways of funding such as BELTA or The Impresario Society, which seek to create new means of supporting artists and converting the wealth of society into meaningful creativity. This could be by posting more and more articles to incite more discussions that penetrate down to the true roots of our frustrations and injustices, rather than just treating their symptoms. This consciousness shift is the first creative moment, the precedent for the revolutionary act. One commenter describes this change of consciousness as an acceptance of truth:

Joseph Campbell during his talks with Bill Moyers was asked about shamans. Moyers wanted to know if shamans still exist and Campbell answered that modern shamans are our artists. During the moment of true creation, a possibility presents itself that can allow a shift or change in consciousness…The more of us that experience that insight, the more the possibility of a shift. A paradigm shift is possible but only when enough of us stop thinking for a moment, to be totally aware and allow Truth to enter…we have then entered the realm of the shaman/artist. This is the creative moment.

When Entrepreneurship and Artistry Conflict

Posted on August 11, 2014 by - Columns

Open for Business
First, I need to thank Alex Shapiro for her response to my first post in this series. It was my hope to spark discussion around this topic, and if the comment section of her post is any indication, that seems to have happened. I debated to what extent I should respond directly to Shapiro, but since I am still laying out my argument, I will touch on only a couple of points directly while covering others more broadly. I really enjoy a good debate, so I will respond to comments as much as I am able.
Following my previous post, “You’re an Artist, Not an Entrepreneur,” I had a number of discussions online and in person about the role of entrepreneurship in new music. Among the different points brought to my attention, two kept cropping up over and over again.

The first was that, despite what I or others might think about the increased focus on entrepreneurship, it’s become a necessity. I talked with Peter Witte, dean of the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance (my alma mater), about this, and he made some important points. “We surveyed our alums, all of them,” he explained.  “Over and again, across the decades, was a refrain: I graduated not knowing how to start my career…. Teaching students, even if just a two [credit hour] elective, about how to start, that seems almost an ethical issue for me.”

I agree. To reiterate, I don’t think that teaching some basic entrepreneurial skills is by itself a bad thing. The issue I see is that some discuss entrepreneurship as though it is the cure-all for the difficulties musicians face financially. Perhaps even more troubling, though, is that in promoting certain business practices there doesn’t seem to be a discussion about how they may conflict with artistic pursuits.

The second point concerns the definition of the word entrepreneur in and of itself. I happily concede that the word at one time specifically meant a music promoter, but most all contemporary definitions directly reference business, and that is the context in which I will be using the word.[1]

I am aware, of course, that meanings change; there are many examples of the word entrepreneur being used in new contexts today, such as “social entrepreneur.” However, if we are to discuss being an “arts entrepreneur” as a way to create your own job or to advance your career, we are using the word in a business-oriented context. Moreover, that is the context that universities seem to be using as they implement entrepreneurial education. A quick survey of institutions[2] shows that many partner with the business department, use a more specific arts management approach, or include concepts in course descriptions such as market analysis, branding, networking, etc.

What I hope to do in this essay is address some of these business practices and elucidate potential conflicts with the arts. At the risk of repeating myself (something I do a fair bit in my performing), I am not saying that any of the following practices are inherently wrong or completely incompatible with the arts. Instead, I want to get us thinking about some of the pitfalls of an entrepreneurial mindset before we rush headlong down that path.

Branding

The concept of branding is ubiquitous. In virtually every organization or project that I have been a part of, someone has brought up the topic of branding. Perhaps that is because, at its core, branding can be an extremely effective tool to communicate quickly and effectively who you are as an artist to those who may not know much about you.
For a quick primer on the process of branding, Entrepreneur magazine has a succinct article, “The Basics of Branding.” As they describe it, the process of branding involves “self-discovery,” something that is a big part of growing as an artist. Moreover, there is nothing particularly wrong with the questions one might need to ask while developing a brand strategy. Here are examples from the article that I have translated a bit for artists:

  1. What is your goal/are core values as an artist?
  2. What is it that you have to offer an audience?
  3. How is it that colleagues and audiences perceive you?
  4. What qualities do you want them to associate with you as an artist?

Not bad at all. In fact, we should all have some sort of artistic vision that we are striving toward. It’s in the implementation that things start to get a bit trickier.

For a brand to be effective, it must be consistent and integrated into every aspect of your “business.” There are good aspects to this, such as having visual consistency on everything the public sees. Other communication becomes more difficult. The voice of your brand might be well suited to your website, but it would also need to be considered in tweets and pictures posted to Instagram.

Moreover, branding applies to products, or in our case, artistic output. My brand might be as a minimalist pianist, but what happens when I start venturing outside those boundaries a bit? That would necessarily diminish my brand value. Yes, I can choose to update or refresh my brand, but I’m not sure I want to do that every time I pull out something new. Art doesn’t always want to fit nicely into a brand message.

There is one other aspect of branding that I find to be a bit frightening, and that is how branding connects with others. Again, to quote the article, “The added value intrinsic to brand equity frequently comes in the form of perceived quality or emotional attachment.” Perceived quality doesn’t sound so bad, but in branding it has nothing to do with actual quality. Effective branding means that even if my artistic output is not better than most of what’s out there, that’s O.K. because you perceive the “R. Andrew Lee” brand as better. Worse is the emotional attachment. I want people to experience an emotional connection to my art, not my brand.

Again, not all branding is evil, and the larger the artistic organization the more important branding becomes. But where branding is designed to draw the attention of a wide audience, art is more intimate. Branding distills all aspects of an organization into a few simple ideas; art is more complex. By all means, use the strategies of branding to get your name out there, but realize that the best practices of branding may not always be suitable for what you want to convey as an artist.

Social Media

I love social media. I’ve been on Facebook since the days when you needed a university email address to sign up, and I’ve been hooked on Twitter ever since my wife convinced me to join. Social media has also been good for my career. I’ve also gotten several gigs (including my NYC premiere) through Twitter, and I even found a co-producer for an album. By most accounts, I’m doing this quite well.

Likewise, social media is one particular area of 21st-century entrepreneurship that seemingly holds great promise. The ease of building your network and promoting yourself (again, all at virtually no cost[3]), means considerably more opportunities to further your career. And success is certainly possible, I can’t deny that, but business practices have perverted our concept of how that should happen.

What is the motivation for a business to become active in social media? To put the question another way, how does a business use a social medium to increase sales? First, there needs to be some enticement for a potential consumer to “follow” or “like,” which may be in the form of discounts/special offers, pithy posts, interesting links, or eye-catching pictures, consistent with brand messaging of course. Typically, a business isn’t interested in connecting with customers in any meaningful way so much as increasing its reach. That in turn raises brand awareness. Yes, it’s valuable to have customers who know about new offerings, and particularly nice to have followers promote those to their network, but at least as important is keeping the business in the forefront of the customer’s mind. That way, when it comes time to make a purchasing decision, the odds increase that they will turn to you.

Sort of dark when you spell it out that way, isn’t it? Let’s put it in an artistic context. Increase followers through incentives/clever posts, post often and consistently within your artistic brand, increase awareness of your work and get people excited to promote what you do, and then enjoy the CD sales when your new album drops.

I’m not going to say that this doesn’t always work; any organization worth its salt has someone overseeing social media. The problem is that I’m not sure that’s the best way for an artist to approach social media.

People connect to other people. Actually, people desperately need to connect with other people. That is how you should use social media. Start following a bunch of people on Twitter[4] and then take an interest in them. Start conversations. Listen to other people’s music. Post about things that are meaningful. Post about trivial and ridiculous things. Just try to be human (and meet these people in real life when the opportunity presents itself). When people connect with you as a human being they become far more likely to take an interest in you as an artist. There are enough people trying to build a network of important people to promote themselves; don’t be that person.

Customers

You don’t want customers. You just don’t. A customer is someone who is willing to purchase something because it has an equal or greater perceived value than the price. That’s a battle being lost by the music industry on all fronts. We can and should do what we can to increase the perceived monetary value of what we do, but that is a difficult fight, especially for someone struggling to build a career.

Instead of customers, you should have supporters. Where a customer makes a value calculation for a product before a purchase, a supporter willingly parts with money to help sustain your work. Obviously this is a big part of running nonprofit organizations, which rely on donors to continue operating, but it can be extended to any transaction.

Instead of selling tickets to a performance, tell people about how selling tickets sustains your ability to keep performing in the first place. Instead of hawking CDs, explain how sales determine whether you can make any albums in the future, which in turn helps make your music available around the world. Don’t sell a product; ask for support.

Plus, the supporter/artist model is far more significant than a producer/consumer model. A consumer typically has no interest in whether a business thrives or collapses; they simply want value for their money.[5] A customer is also someone to be catered to, someone whose needs must bet met by your products/services. A supporter, however, has a vested interest in seeing future success. They are not only loyal but will often work to help you attain success. They also are less concerned with having their needs met and more concerned that you are fulfilling your artistic vision. We should be creating something of value for those who help pay the rent, but treating them like customers is bad for everyone involved.

Paying the Rent

At the end of the day, though, for all this discussion, money is still a necessity. And for all your ability to hustle, there will still be opportunities to play/compose music that isn’t artistically satisfying but that will satisfy creditors. And here is the fundamental disagreement between Alex Shapiro and me. As she writes, “But seriously: no authentic, talented artist—you included, Andrew—is ever going to forget the importance of the quality of the art that they create just because they wish to earn a living from it.” I disagree.

I think the pressures to survive monetarily can be overwhelming and unrelenting. I think that artistic integrity and a paycheck are all too often at odds with one another. I think that there are many, many people who have seriously contemplated walking away from the arts entirely because it was too financially difficult, myself included.

Yes, we have an obligation to give the next generation of artists all the tools we can to help them build their careers, but we also have an obligation to make sure those tools don’t stunt their artistic development. An amazing entrepreneur will earn a living. The same cannot be said of amazing artists, and that’s what scares me.

*


1. Even within a business context there is disagreement about the word. An article from The Economist, “What exactly is an entrepreneur?”, summarizes the problem. The definition Aaron Gervais and I seem to be using aligns with Joseph Schumpeter’s view that true entrepreneurs are innovators. The more common definition being anyone who is self-employed or runs a small business.

2. I based my survey on a market analysis prepared for Clarion University. I also looked at a few other institutions not listed in this document.

3. The issue of cost was one point of contention between Shapiro and me. I know that to be active on social media requires equipment and an internet connection, all of which cost money. That said, these are not costs I had to incur specifically because of social media involvement. I already had the phone and connection, as do the majority of Americans. So the cost exists, but they are general costs most people have already incurred. Digging further a bit, concerning her points on recording costs. 1) Costs of lessons and instruments are costs of being an artist, not specifically of producing a CD. 2) The cost to produce recorded music can be almost zero. A cheap recording will still sound that way, but most people don’t realize how expensive it can be to produce an album. We need to do a better job of educating the public on that. 3) Finally, I had argued that distribution costs were virtually zero. The cost to produce a recording notwithstanding, once I have a digital file I can get that to anywhere in the world (that has an internet connection) through any number of free services. (And for all the talk about Spotify, it seems that YouTube is where teenagers go the most to listen to music.)

4. One mistake I see with social media is trying to be active everywhere and at all times. For an individual or new organization, it makes much more sense to discover what particular service is the best fit. I adapted quickly to the particular etiquette of Twitter, but there are a number of services that still seem foreign to me. Each service has a different etiquette and connects users in different ways, so just like in your art, don’t try to be all things to all people.

5. A common exception would be when a consumer wants to support a local business over a large company. They are willing to pay higher prices for the value they see a local business adding to the community. In that case, I’d argue that they are no longer consumers but instead supporters.

You’re an Artist, Not an Entrepreneur

Posted on August 4, 2014 by - Columns

entrepreneur
On October 2, 2012, the MacArthur Foundation named Claire Chase, CEO and artistic director of the International Contemporary Ensemble, a MacArthur Fellow. It was a half-million dollar[1] stamp on an increasingly prominent buzzword in new music: entrepreneurship.

Where 2011 MacArthur Fellow Francisco Núñez was simply described as a “Choral Conductor & Composer” and 2013 Fellow Jeremy Denk as “Pianist and Writer,” Chase was given the distinction of being an “Arts Entrepreneur.” The foundation recognized her in part for “forging a new model for the commissioning, recording, and live performance of contemporary classical music.” This was the future of music.

Since then, entrepreneurial programs in conservatories have earned a new degree of recognition and legitimacy, while the (increasingly few) schools without such programs seem to be behind the curve. What was once a possible alternative to the increasingly scarce “traditional” jobs for musicians has become the de facto model for conservatory graduates. “Can’t find a job? Make one!” is the new motto.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Let me say up front that a lot of the thinking and skills that are behind an entrepreneurial focus in music education are not all bad. I, after all, helped co-found a record label, have been designing websites since before WYSIWYG editors were the norm, and have made an enviable number of professional contacts through social media. Were I better looking, I might be considered a poster boy for entrepreneurship, or at least Mr. November.

Therein lies the problem. If I have achieved some success in music, it is all too easy to point to these things and say, “Aha! Entrepreneurship wins the day.” Let us not forget, however, that correlation does not equal causation. To describe me as an “arts entrepreneur” (or Chase, for that matter) is bad for everyone.[2] It seems to imply that business savvy is what defines me and ignores the plethora of other skills, artistic and practical, that have brought me to where I am. To focus on entrepreneurship is to get only a small fraction of the picture, which could in the end be leading the next generation of artists down a path toward greater frustration.

Over the course these four essays, I hope to address some of the problems I perceive with this entrepreneurial focus. In the remainder of today’s post, I’ll look at some of the reasons why this trend came into being as well as the empty promises it holds. In my second post, I’ll compare an artistic-oriented career approach to a business-oriented approach in greater detail. Third, I will analyze in detail the ideas Claire Chase presents in her 2013 Convocation Address at Northwestern University; the working title is “Why I Think Claire Chase is Wrong.” Finally, I will conclude on a more personal note, looking at how entrepreneurial skills have helped me over the years while at the same time demonstrating how they were neither necessary nor sufficient to get me to this point in my career.

How We Got Here

Let us begin our narrative by looking back on the dot-com bubble at the close of the 20th century, when it seemed that anyone with a modicum of technical skill could found a company and become a multimillionaire.[3] Buzzwords like “new economy” became the norm while the promises of connectivity, efficiency, growth, and scale blinded the masses to a fundamental lack of profits. Yet if the boom was all about starting a website to replace a brick-and-mortar company, the bust saw an inc

orporation of internet technology into extant businesses and organizations. The internet was becoming ubiquitous.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until a few years after the boom that some of the most important internet companies and services were launched.[4] (Think Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the iTunes Store, etc.) Here was the promise of the dot-com boom fulfilled. New tools for building connections and creating content were rapidly increasing, while at the same time technology in general was becoming increasingly cheaper. Media as a whole was becoming democratized, and that was not lost on the arts.

And then there was the Great Recession. Millions of jobs were lost in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, and it took a heavy toll on less “essential” sectors of the economy such as the arts. It is little wonder, then, that in the face of staggering levels of long-term unemployment, entrepreneurship would become an increasingly viable option. [5]

This is, without a doubt, a ridiculously brief overview of the last 15+ years, and one that omits more than a few significant world events, but it should offer a glimpse as to how entrepreneurship became so entrenched in our thinking.
An entire generation has come of age during the worst economic crisis in living memory while also witnessing revolutionary technological innovations. It has seemingly never been easier to strike out on one’s own and the motivation to do so is staggeringly high. In our field, this effect is compounded. First, there is the problem of vanishing traditional jobs, such as tenure-track positions[6] and a society that increasingly wants music to be free[7]. Second, other income streams, such as finding gigs and private students, seem perfectly suited for leveraging technology and entrepreneurial skills.

The Promises of Entrepreneurship

The fundamental promise of entrepreneurship, which cannot be separated from the definition of the word, is that you can create your own job. The problem, however, is that while we may constantly strive for artistic innovation, that does not equate to entrepreneurial innovation. The tools, technology, and music itself may change radically, from an economic standpoint this is not new.

For the rest of the world, to be an entrepreneur means to develop a new product/service or to fundamentally improve on an existing product/service in such a way as to disrupt the marketplace. How can we do that in music?

To teach, perform, compose, commission, start ensembles, or start a concert series is nothing new. We are not creating new industries or products, nor are we objectively improving on the past. As Aaron Gervais succinctly put it, “Art is infinitely scalable, communal, inherently subjective, and useless by design. Entrepreneurship is scarcity-based, individualistic, inherently objective, and pragmatic by design.” We are not creating jobs for ourselves so much as finding economic opportunities that have been in existence for at least as long as the so-called “traditional” jobs. Perhaps in lieu of the word “traditional” we should use “stable” instead.

Then there is producing. Another great promise of entrepreneurship in the 21st century is that technology allows everyone to be a content producer while the cost of distribution has been essentially reduced to zero. What is omitted from this glorious promise is that the when anyone can produce and distribute content for free, it becomes difficult to convince anyone to pay for it. Moreover, as the field of competition grows unimaginably huge and the market becomes flooded, the perceived value of music likewise diminishes. To quote Bob Shingleton (On An Overgrown Path), “The problem is obvious – there is too much classical music…. Indisputable data shows that audiences for classical music are shrinking, yet, equally indisputably, the supply of music is increasing exponentially. You do not have to be a so-called industry expert to see that this is a disaster waiting to happen.”
In the end, we talk a good talk about creating one’s own career, but fail to recognize that the marketplace isn’t beholden to us. We remain reliant on big donors and grants to support the arts and yet still think that a spiffy website and self-produced album alone are going to magically turn into a sustainable income. Don’t get me wrong; an injection of business savvy into the arts is not inherently a bad thing. The problem is that, in pursuit of the empty promises of entrepreneurship, we seem to have forgotten who we are.

*

1. The award amount was increased the following year to $625,000.
2. Or as Aaron Gervais argues, calling Chase an entrepreneur is simply inaccurate.
3. Some decent venture capital connections didn’t hurt, either.
4. Other luminaries such as Google and Amazon are survivors of the dot-com bust.
5. There is some contention among economists as to the effect the Great Recession has had on entrepreneurship. The Kauffman Foundation, which tracks “people reporting entry into entrepreneurial activity,” noted that entrepreneurship was at a higher level in 2009 than at any point in the previous fourteen years, with a considerable uptick beginning in 2007. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland notably contested this conclusion, noting that “the Great Recession had a negative impact on U.S. entrepreneurship” and that “the largest effect came from a decline in new business formation.” I’ll let the economists fight that one out.
6. I’m not even going to cite anything here; just google “rise of adjunct faculty.”
7. Aaron Gervais, “No Seriously, There’s No Such Thing as Arts Entrepreneurship.”

***

R. Andrew Lee walking among trees

R. Andrew Lee

R. Andrew Lee has dedicated himself to the performance and recording of new music. He has premiered or released the premiere recording of compositions by many composers whose work lie on the boundaries of minimal music, including Ann Southam, Paul Epstein, Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben, William Susman, Dennis Johnson, Scott Unrein, and Ryan Oldham. Upcoming projects include a recording of previously unreleased piano music by William Duckworth, and the premiere of a work by Scott Unrein meant to last from sunset until sunrise. Lee currently teaches at Regis University in Denver, Colorado, and was most recently Artist-in- Residence at Avila University.

Claire Chase and the Winner-Take-All Economy

Posted on August 18, 2014 by - Columns

Monopoly

Photo by Rich Brooks, via Flickr

In June of 2013, Claire Chase delivered a convocation address to graduates of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. In this speech, she eloquently laid out her case for the exciting possibilities of, as well as the need for, entrepreneurship in music. As she said, “Whether we like it or not, the calling of our generation is not to occupy positions created for us. Our calling is to create positions for ourselves and for one another…. In a word, our calling is to be entrepreneurs.” Anthony Tommasini wrote about the address for the New York Times. “In that convocation speech, which caused a stir on the Internet, and through her work, Ms. Chase, 35, has been making the most positive case I have heard for the new entrepreneurship.” It was also this speech that was the primary impetus for me to write these four essays.

Before diving into her speech a bit, let me first say that I do not begrudge Claire Chase any of her success. She is a phenomenal musician and an astute businesswoman; the more I’ve read about her and learned about the International Contemporary Ensemble, the more impressed I’ve become. I have an enormous amount of respect for Chase. I just don’t share her perspective.
In her convocation address, Chase outlines several points on arts entrepreneurship. If you’ll forgive a long quote:

The capacity that we have today in this room, with the number of people calling themselves composers and musicians in the year 2013, with the technology that can potentially connect us…the capacity that we have to produce our own and one another’s work is staggering. The traditional classical music and arts management structures have dissolved. The traditional record label structures have crumbled. You now don’t need a producer to make a record. You don’t need a promoter to find fans. You don’t need a presenter to present your work. So what happens when the line between the artist and the producer has disappeared altogether? When the artist needs no outside entity to legitimize or stamp approval on her work, but when she can simply give it to the world based on her own impulses. What happens to the work that we will produce? What will it sound like? What will it look like? What of it will withstand the test of time? Well, this is our era. This is your stage. And anything is possible.

The Hope of the Long Tail

It is in this that we again see the hopeful promises of technology. When you can make music much more cheaply than in the past, when you can distribute it around the world for free, then we can all find a fan base to support our art. This thinking represents the “long tail” theory of economics.

In general, this means that relatively few artists and organizations dominate the market while a large number of others jockey over a small percentage of market share. The good news is that because the cost of production and distribution has gotten so low, it is possible for a greater number of goods to become economically viable. Moreover, because technology also allows for considerable connectivity, niche products/producers are able to find niche audiences, and both sides win.

This does happen sometimes, with one example being Erstwhile Records. I’d actually be surprised if many regular NewMusicBox readers were familiar with this imprint. Yet this label, which focuses heavily on electroacoustic improvisation, has been around since 1999 and has released nearly 100 albums. They have managed to build a devoted following to sustain their limited operation despite not being widely known outside a specific audience.

Unfortunately, such stories are not usually the case. Instead, the promises of the long tail are not often met, and if anything, the long tail is only getting shorter and more crowded.[1] Robert H. Frank, professor of economics at Cornell, speculates as to why that may be the case. “One possibility is that today’s tighter schedules have made people more reluctant to sift through the growing avalanche of options confronting them. Many consumers sidestep this unpleasantness by focusing on only the most popular entries.”[2]

He goes on to write that our connectedness enhances our perception of popularity. Alan B. Krueger, professor of economics at Princeton and chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, discusses the popularity problem in the context of the music industry. He cites an interesting experiment in which a control group is given true information about the popularity of certain songs and an experimental group has that data reversed.

In the alternative world that began with the true rankings reversed, the least popular song did surprisingly well, and, in fact, held onto its artificially bestowed top ranking. The most popular song rose in the rankings, so fundamental quality did have some effect. But, overall…the final ranking from the experiment that began with the reversed popularity ordering bore absolutely no relationship to the final ranking from the experiment that began with the true ordering. This demonstrates that the belief that a song is popular has a profound effect on its popularity, even if it wasn’t truly popular to start with.[3]

I would hope, and I think audience demographics bear this out, that those interested in new music or classical music in general tend to be more educated on the subject, but I do not think our community is immune to such psychological effects. When artists become more popular, whether organically or through some notable press, we tend to view them as better even without having heard a note of their music. And when a listener has a nearly unlimited amount of music at his or her fingertips, it takes a real effort to look beyond those at the top.

Winners Take All

An alternative to the long tail theory is the winner-take-all model. While both perspectives acknowledge that the market is dominated by a few, the winner-take-all model suggests that things will only get worse for those on the other end of the graph.
Scalability is an important concept in this line of thinking. Consider the touring career of Paganini. Despite his enormous popularity in Europe, he could only perform for a limited number of people, especially given the speed of travel. But with the rise of recorded music, an artist’s potential reach grew exponentially, allowing those at the top to dominate a much larger share of the overall market.

But surely this applies to only recording revenue and the like, yes? Live performances are not nearly as scalable as digital media. Yet when competing to get the attention of presenters, an artist still has to face the dominance of bigger names in the market. When looking for grants to fund entrepreneurial endeavors, new organizations are competing against that same name recognition, and while kickstarting projects has become an increasingly viable option, you still have to convince your donors that your project is just as worthy as the three other big-name projects they’ve helped with in the last few months.
Sam Reising, in a thorough and well-written article for I CARE IF YOU LISTEN Magazine, takes issue with the winner-take-all model. He writes, “Proponents of this theory forget that there is an active aspect in forging a career in the arts. They seem to believe that if you are a great composer or performer, people will come flocking to you with commissions and performance opportunities…. There must be an entrepreneurial middle step.”[4]

I agree, at least in part. I don’t believe that the cream will inevitably rise to the top given current market situations, and obviously there was a point in time when virtually no one knew who Claire Chase was. My contention is that even if the step between becoming good and becoming known is somewhat based on entrepreneurship, we must recognize that the same tools that allowed Chase to succeed are making it increasingly difficult for others.[5]

And it isn’t just entrepreneurship that fills in that middle step.

The New Gatekeepers

The internet is not nearly as democratic as we tend to believe it is. While almost anyone in the world can see what you produce, that doesn’t mean that anyone actually will.
Duncan Watts, a mathematical sociologist and principal researcher at Microsoft Research summarizes the problem:

We may be seeing the replacement of one hierarchy with another hierarchy. We may be seeing the replacement of one set of gatekeepers with another set of gatekeepers…. But we’re certainly not seeing an egalitarian world where everything has the same chance to become known or accessible. [6]

Claire Chase is incorrect when she says that “the artist needs no outside entity to legitimize or stamp approval on her work.” True, an artist needs no permission to produce her own work, but to disseminate that work today absolutely requires help from cultural gatekeepers. A New York Times review is no longer a prerequisite for notability (even if those who can still put quotes from The Grey Lady in the first paragraph of their bio), but there are still important bloggers, reviewers, and even Twitter users who can greatly raise the profile of an artist. Grassroots viral growth, while it exists, is exceedingly rare.

Arts management and music label structures have indeed undergone a seismic shift in the last decade, but their replacements are not necessarily better or more egalitarian. Without the support of the new cultural gatekeepers, to say nothing of the still powerful old-media giants, it remains exceedingly difficult to separate oneself from the background noise.

The Failures

“Popular perception has not caught up with the emerging research,” writes John Wihbey, managing editor of Journalist’s Resource, based at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. “We often judge the Internet based on the relatively few stories of success—where democratization seems to operate—rather than the millions of failures. Viral is the exception, big broadcasts—and lonely voices whistling in the digital hurricane—are the norm.”[7]

I think that Claire Chase has in some ways been blinded by her own success, and the rest of us along with her. It is natural to see the success of entrepreneurial organizations such as the International Contemporary Ensemble and declare them the new path forward. But we know little of the myriad failures that have come in its wake.

Still, we cannot easily erase the realities of our situation. There is a narrow path to success in this model, and even perhaps some room for the long tail, but the more we speak of entrepreneurship as our great hope or even our calling, the more we reinforce a system that benefits only a few. We are subsuming a mindset that places little value in our work and then wondering why no one cares about what we do.

If a touch of entrepreneurship is how we survive our present situation, so be it. But I do not believe entrepreneurship holds great promise for our future.

***


1. Anita Elberse, Blockbusters, 2013, p. 161

2. “Winners Take All, but Can’t We Still Dream?”, New York Times, Feb 22, 2014

3. “Land of Hope and Dreams: Rock and Roll, Economics and Rebuilding the Middle Class.” Remarks prepared for delivery on June 12, 2013.

4. “The Failure of Music Education,” Issue 8, August/September 2014. I regret that I did not have time to read this before my previous post was due. He goes into considerably more detail about the entrepreneurship programs that universities offer than I did and argues strongly for greater adoption of such programs. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a contributing editor for I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, and Reising is on staff at New Music USA.

5. There are other avenues of revenue that help insulate classical musicians from the winner-take-all economy. Private teaching, for example, is not scalable. Even when the possibility of Skype lessons is factored in, one teacher still has a limited number of hours for teaching.

6. John Wihbey, “Rethinking Viral: Why the Digital World is Not as Democratic as We Think.” Pacific Standard, June 9, 2014.

7. Ibid.

Dying From Exposure

Posted on August 26, 2014 by - Columns

Desert walk

You should play for free…you know, for the exposure.
Photo by Maarten van Maanen, via Flickr.

Recently I went to the Traverse City Film Festival, which in addition to showing a wide variety of independent movies, also features musical acts as pre-show entertainment–a nice way to pass the time during those interminable waiting periods before the movie begins. I discovered that many of the musicians were unpaid, or rather, they chose to volunteer their time, depending on how you want to phrase it. I found myself feeling very conflicted about this. On the one hand, the festival is a non-profit organization that depends heavily on volunteers from the community (1600 this year), and it almost certainly wouldn’t function without them. On the other hand, how hard would it have been to at least pay something, anything to each of the festival’s 100 musicians, as a gesture of respect for their time and talent? At an event with so many sponsors and donors, and an audience with a median income of $87,500, it didn’t quite sit right with me, especially considering the fact that founder and president Michael Moore just donated $250,000 to the festival. If each musician was paid $100 (not a huge fee, but not unheard of by any means), the total would represent a mere 4% of that quarter of a million dollars, and that’s not even including the festival’s usual annual budget.

That is not to say I blame any of the individual musicians for making the decision to play for free. Deciding whether or not to do an unpaid gig often involves a complicated calculus of factors, including the nature of the organization running it, the nature of the event, the kind of repertoire, the potential non-monetary benefits of doing it, etc. It’s easy enough to say that we should join a union and agree on standard rates, but unfortunately this one-size-fits-all approach is often out of touch with the reality of musicians’ daily lives, and doesn’t account for the vast diversity and disparity in various musicians’ circumstances. (For evidence of this, look no further than video game and film composer Austin Wintory’s recent difficulties with the American Federation of Musicians.)

It’s also true that these kinds of issues are not unique to music, and happen across the board in the arts (for example, performance artist Marina Abramovic’s questionable uses of unpaid labor). Heck, even musicians have to be goaded into begrudgingly paying other musicians sometimes. (Amanda Palmer is probably the canonical example here, though the recent fiasco with Chicago’s Beethoven Festival is another illustrative scenario.)

But what is not problematic on an individual level can become catastrophic on a larger level, and I worry that we are rapidly ruling out pretty much every scenario that would allow a typical musician to make a living. The logic seems to go something like this:
how musicians get payyyyed (2)
The extrapolated end result of this circular flowchart seems to be a world where there is only room for hobbyists and megastars, and the middle class musician is a thing of the past. Many people would probably be perfectly fine with this, but it sounds like hell on earth to me and most people I know.

How do we then extract ourselves from this seemingly unsustainable situation? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that arts entrepreneurship could be useful here.

There has been plenty of arguing back and forth about the merits of arts entrepreneurship lately, with Aaron Gervais and R. Andrew Lee questioning whether such a thing even truly exists. I think part of this is just semantic anxiety about the word itself, and I too find the word “entrepreneur” and its cousins (branding, marketing, etc.) to be kind of off-putting and skin-crawly and impersonal. But until better terminology comes along, we seem to be stuck with them.

There is also a fear, I think, that if everyone in the arts developed entrepreneurial skills, this would just make the competition for the same resources stiffer, and the net effect for all that extra expended effort would be zero. There are a few reasons why this reasoning is faulty. For one thing, one of the foundations of entrepreneurship in the arts is audience building, especially beyond the confines of the usual audiences. This kind of thing doesn’t just benefit one person or group; it benefits everyone in the field.
To their credit, both Gervais and Lee do acknowledge that all musicians could use some basic business savvy. What they object to is the use of entrepreneurship as a panacea or magic incantation that wishes away real problems and real distinctions. Art is not a commodity in the usual sense, they argue, so applying entrepreneurial skills to the arts is misguided at best, actively damaging at worst. They then suggest some alternatives to entrepreneurship based on personal connection and engaging the most involved parts of your audience, what Lee calls “supporters” and Gervais calls “hardcore fans.”

These are solid suggestions, but I worry that they are not enough. Gervais makes a historical argument by pointing out all the false threats that have been thought to endanger musicians throughout the ages, and it’s true, reports of music’s death have been greatly exaggerated time and time again. And yet Gervais ignores the huge upheavals that have dramatically changed the way musicians make money over the years, from artistic patronage to digital distribution. These things make a difference. Music will certainly survive, but possibly not in its current diversity and quality, and we should care about this.

It’s true that in a free market society, any way to make money off of music is going to be a “hack” of some kind, and isn’t going to represent a 1:1 ratio with that music’s true value, which is subjective anyway. But this isn’t an argument against entrepreneurship — it is an argument for its absolute necessity, at least in a society without abundant public arts funding (like the United States).
In other words, the medium matters. Streaming music services are one kind of entrepreneurial venture that can have a big impact on the livelihoods of musicians. Let’s look at two existing services, Spotify and Bandcamp, and their ability to engage the supporters and hardcore fans that are so important to Lee and Gervais. On the surface, these services are pretty similar on the end user side of things, offering unlimited free streaming to music listeners. Spotify then pays the artist a rate based on the number of plays per month. While these rates are slightly different for free users and paid users of the service, it doesn’t really differentiate between avid and casual listeners for a particular artist. The rate at which Spotify pays out tends to be consistent but small, in fractions-of-a-cent-per-play territory.

Bandcamp, on the other hand, only pays the artist if the listener specifically chooses to purchase and download the album. At first glance this might seem pretty bad — there’s no guarantee you’ll get paid at all! — but in practice it clearly delineates who is emotionally invested enough to actually buy your music. A pay-what-you-want option allows for superfans to pay more if they so desire, not all that different from a charitable donation in effect.

To date, I’ve made over 75 times as much money with Bandcamp versus Spotify. Clearly, one service was made with musicians’ input and interests in mind, and one was not.

This is what I am deeply concerned about when we abdicate our role in arts entrepreneurship. When we let others make these decisions for us, others who may not have our best interests in mind, we leave ourselves open to exploitation. This is why we must continue to advocate and agitate, and not be lulled into accepting the status quo under the false assumption that the status quo cannot and will not change. How music is disseminated and perceived is in fact undergoing dramatic and profound changes right now. While this is terrifying, it also gives us an unprecedented opportunity to shape music’s future, but if and only if we have the will and vision to see it through.

Update: The original version of this article mistakenly stated that Michael Moore donated $250,000,000 to the Traverse City Film Festival. This figure has been corrected.

In Response: You’re an Artist AND an Entrepreneur

Posted on August 6, 2014 by - Columns

DobsonHigh-Skypehearsal-TightSqueeze2013-04-30
Since my How to Procrastinate Like a Pro manual tells me that it’s more fun to volley back to R. Andrew Lee’s essay “You’re an Artist, Not an Entrepreneur” rather than do any of the work looming in front of me, I’m responding in what I hope will be read as a good-natured manner.

The dictionary graphic at the head of his post informs that an entrepreneur is “a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.” I’d say these words precisely sum up any artist attempting to create income from their art.

The final sentence of Andrew’s essay states,

The problem is that, in pursuit of the empty promises of entrepreneurship, we seem to have forgotten who we are.

Alex, getting advice from the field.

Alex, getting advice from the field.

Uh-oh, you mean it’s either/or, and no one told me? Thanks to my driver’s license, the label on all those stupid catalogs stuffing my mailbox, and a cheap bathroom mirror I check daily, I have yet to forget who I am (though as age advances, I’m sure that day will be upon me soon). Even the IRS loves to remind me that they know who I am. How thoughtful of them.

But seriously: no authentic, talented artist—you included, Andrew—is ever going to forget the importance of the quality of the art that they create just because they wish to earn a living from it. A fine chef who opens a restaurant wouldn’t be accused of losing focus and creating lesser dishes. Indeed, knowing that the cuisine will be consumed by a paying public might inspire the chef to offer an even more sophisticated menu.

If I have achieved some success in music, it is all too easy to point to these things and say, “Aha! Entrepreneurship wins the day.” Let us not forget, however, that correlation does not equal causation. To describe me as an “arts entrepreneur” (or Chase, for that matter) is bad for everyone.[2] It seems to imply that business savvy is what defines me and ignores the plethora of other skills, artistic and practical, that have brought me to where I am.

I don’t know anyone would who chalk up your, or any able artist’s success merely to business savvy. (Sure, we all occassionally make snide remarks about a few “emperors without clothes,” but that’s to be expected and keeps us entertained.) Talent, and offering something that others want to experience, is the first and most essential part of the equation. Only once an artist has wrangled those ingredients can they attempt to monetize them. Should you, or Ms. Chase, or any other artist also be defined as an arts entrepreneur, that’s simply a nod to your capabilities. The E-Word is not a four-letter profanity, I promise!

We are not creating new industries or products, nor are we objectively improving on the past.

Google Glass, and the uses of wearable tech like MIDI gloves that control artistic outcome, are two of many examples of something new. Another is one of my own many income streams: webhearsals, in which a composer is Skyped into rehearsals and concerts all over the world to coach and speak about her or his music. That’s a new industry, using a new (as of maybe five years ago) product. One could argue that the ability to work with and inspire musicians around the world, in real time, “objectively improves on the past.”

Screenshot from a recent Skypehearsal

Screenshot from a recent Skypehearsal

As Aaron Gervais succinctly put it, “Art is infinitely scalable, communal, inherently subjective, and useless by design…

It makes me particularly sad when a talented musician chooses to think that what he does is not useful. Art is not “useless.” Now, some artists like me may be useless before our first cup of coffee, but at least we can enjoy knowing that our music is being used, in lots of wonderful ways.

If music didn’t serve an important purpose, there wouldn’t be thousands of years worth of the stuff. On a human level, music is exceedingly useful in keeping our collective mental health in check; just ask any teenager who can’t live without their mp3 stream of love and breakup songs, or any adult reliant on the radio to get them through the travails of drive-time rush hour. We rely on art to improve our lives. Humans do, indeed, need music—maybe not as immediately as water, food, and shelter, but then again, all the other things that might be placed into the “useful” category like a grocery cart, a shoe repair shop, and an excellent chocolate mousse recipe, don’t rank high up there with survival, either. And yet, they are considered useful. (Personally, I rank the mousse right up there with survival.)

As Anne Midgette reported in her recent article for The Washington Post, the U.S. government spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on its military bands—which means paying for conductors, instrumentalists, and…composers! I guarantee you that if the government didn’t think music was useful, it would just continue to waste its money on $600 hammers instead (a 1980’s reference) and not on symphonies, fanfares, tone poems, and elegies that make people feel something emotionally.
To continue from the same Gervais quote,

…Entrepreneurship is scarcity-based, individualistic, inherently objective, and pragmatic by design.”

I certainly don’t adhere to the belief that it’s scarcity-based. Like many of my colleagues, I take the opposite approach, and do my best to share whatever information I come across if I think it’ll be helpful to my peers. This only seems to brighten my own career, not threaten it. And, entrepreneurship is not necessarily “pragmatic by design.” In fact, a very keen entrepreneur uses his or her creative mind to a tremendous degree in order to resist thinking pragmatically, and instead, to be able to be visionary and gaze far beyond the practical.

 

Another great promise of entrepreneurship in the 21st century is that technology allows everyone to be a content producer while the cost of distribution has been essentially reduced to zero.

Ooh, gotta be careful here, because this is a misleading statement. Let’s remember that there are many costs associated with creating content that is to be distributed, even if a cat can accomplish the act of slamming his paw on the UPLOAD key. (Um, yup, that’s actually happened to me.) In fact, we all know that it’s the false sense of “hey, music on the net should be free since it’s only in the air and doesn’t cost anything” that’s gotten our art into a pickle.

Whether it’s the undefinable cost of the creative time from the artist’s life, plus the cost of the instruments and computer gear needed to create and post the resulting music, or if it’s the more notable hard costs of all that, plus recording studio time, musician fees, music preparation, and printing services, there are potentially thousands and thousands of dollars worth of costs associated with getting our work out to the public. As I mentioned earlier, hey, just ask the IRS. Even if the artist is merely uploading a well-intoned post-IPA burp into their iPhone, there are still costs: the phone, the cell service, and of course, the beer [beellllch!].

So I would alter the following sentence,

…when anyone can produce and distribute content for free, it becomes difficult to convince anyone to pay for it.

To the even more damaging truth:

Despite how much money we invest in distributing our art to the public, it becomes difficult to convince anyone to pay for it.
And this is where entrepreneurship comes in: when we step outside of our private writing spaces and make ourselves relevant to audiences in any of a hundred different ways, that’s how we build an affinity that will be more successful at encouraging people to pay for what we create.

You’re absolutely right, Andrew: the marketplace isn’t beholden to artists, just as it’s not beholden to anyone else on any other career path. If we seek remuneration for our work (and it’s fine if we don’t), then each of us has to make an effort to reach the hearts and wallets—usually in that order—of those with whom we wish to connect. There’s no need for the doom-and-gloom thinking of “there’s too much classical music.” Like chocolate mousse for those who love dessert, there really can’t be enough of it. Our task is to find and cultivate the supportive gourmands around the world who’d love to try our recipe, if only they knew it existed. Bon appétit!

***

Alex Shapiro
Composer Alex Shapiro aligns note after note with the hope that at least a few of them might actually sound good next to each other. Her persistence at this activity, as well as at non-fiction writing, public speaking, wildlife photography, and the shameless instigation of insufferable puns on Facebook, has led to a happy life. Created from a broad musical palette that defies genre, Alex’s acoustic and electroacoustic works are performed and broadcast daily across the U.S. and internationally. Ms. Shapiro’s pieces are published by Activist Music, and can be found on over twenty commercially released recordings from around the world. She is the Symphonic and Concert writer representative on the ASCAP Board of Directors.

What Are We Afraid Of?

Posted on August 25, 2014 by - Columns

mask

Photo by Joel Cooper, via Flickr.

Here we are at the denouement. I cannot help but feel that my final post in this series on entrepreneurship should offer different fare. I do hope discussion continues on the topic, and I will continue to offer my two cents on occasion, but I can sense that my final aria is nearly here and that the curtain will fall soon. Sitting here, writing this, I feel the need to offer something more personal. I remain, after all, a performer at heart, whether I like it or not.

Speaking of which, I never really introduced myself, did I? I just sort of started arguing at you. Let me try again.
My name is R. Andrew Lee, but you can call me Andy. I’m a pianist who plays a lot of new music, particularly of a minimalist bent, some of which I’ve recorded. I live in Denver, and I’m a proud to say I’m from Kansas City. I’ve been married 9.5 years and have two daughters, ages 5 and almost 3, and one son who is 4 months old. I take my grilling and drinking seriously, and have a penchant for interesting socks.

Veneer and Reality

Now let us take a look at what the professional world sees, or at least what I try to portray.

I teach at Regis University, and before that I was artist-in-residence at Avila University. I’ve performed in Belgium, France, several times in the UK (including London), Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Austin (among many others), and I’m about to add Chicago to that list. I’ve had six albums released to date, with three more already recorded. They have been played on the radio in Australia, Slovenia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, and all over the States. They have been reviewed in nine languages. My recordings have been extraordinarily well received, making “best of” lists in Gramophone, The Wire, Mojo, Time Out New York, and The New Yorker, along with a host of smaller websites/publications. I have my New York Times quotes. I also have press from two of the most prominent classical music critics, Steve Smith and Alex Ross.
That’s not too bad, if I do say so myself. Now let’s take a different look at the above.

My job title at Regis University is associate university minister for liturgical and sacred music. I fall on the staff side of the staff/faculty divide, though I also teach in the music department. My primary job is to prepare music for Sunday and other campus-wide services. My artist-in-residence title was great to have, but it was a half-time gig while I was still working on my doctorate. I supplemented that income with private teaching and high school choir accompaniment. The performances in Belgium and France were part of international conferences (not bad, but also not paying). The UK tour almost broke even (only because I could stay with family) and the Toronto gig lost money (not a big deal because my brother was living there at the time). The performing accounts for a small percentage of my annual income. I’ve made very, very little money from the recordings, despite the press, though I’m glad that sales have at least been sufficient enough to justify more albums (well, at least since album number four.)

The Fear

So why the veneer? The obvious, logical, and justifiable reason is that it is important to put your best face forward professionally. We’re all hustling for gigs, and it doesn’t make sense to do anything but make yourself look as appealing as possible.
But perhaps there is another layer to it. I think we’re afraid.

In the comment section of my last post (and a hearty kudos to the NewMusicBox readership for bucking the “Don’t read the comments!” rule), I was directed to a post by Kevin Obsatz titled “The Business of Art.” In this post, Obstaz articulates what I would contend is a nearly ubiquitous fear that is rarely discussed. After arguing that the “unquestioned orthodoxy” of our society is that everything is a business, he writes the following:

There’s a moral imperative [in a capitalist system] to succeed or give up, and succeeding means growing—bigger audience, more profits, bigger budgets. To keep making art that isn’t successful by a conventional definition is an affront to a capitalist ideology—unless it can be recategorized as a hobby, a consumer activity. …And, in my experience, that is truly terrifying to artists: if I stop pursuing my work as a business, does that mean I’m a hobbyist prosumer dilettante, and therefore not serious? That is death or exile, banishment, existential crisis.

Let me boil down my “reality” bio to a sentence and see how it strikes you. I am a church musician who performs and records recent classical music on the side.

Do you still take me seriously?

The thing is, when I was nearing the end of my doctoral program, I had three on-campus interviews. One for the job I currently hold and two for tenure-track positions in cities that I knew I would feel motivated to leave as soon as humanly possible. I have a great job that is rewarding, in an amazing part of the country, that also allows me to afford a mortgage, payments on a minivan, and music lessons for my oldest child. But my primary job is to prepare music for liturgies, and that has raised eyebrows and elicited pity from more than a few people. As a result, I don’t talk about my job that much in certain circles.

There are innumerable articles about how to define success for yourself in the arts, but doing that means being able and willing to go against how everyone else views success. We seem to be exceptionally good at judging a work of art on its own merits, but when it comes to judging artists, we too easily adopt a different set of criteria. If you can make a living as an artist, you must be good, and if you can’t…let’s just say you’re better off in the eyes of many if you struggle financially trying to make it work rather than doing it “on the side.” Never mind that a day job might actually mean having more time for your art.

Entrepreneurship

I’m a moderate in most respects. I don’t have trouble seeing the perspective of those on both sides of an issue and often find more grey than black and white. Yet sometimes being a moderate means wanting to balance the discussion, and that is a bit of what I’ve been trying to do here. I’m not saying that these essays are some devil’s advocate intellectual exercises; I stand by the points I’ve made. Rather, in the face of such grand optimism about music entrepreneurship (or at least its pervasiveness), my nature seeks a middle ground.

We should be teaching the next generation of musicians how to promote the great art they will produce. I do not question that. What I worry is that we are selling something with a pretty, new face without looking beneath the façade.

We are promoting technologies that inspire creativity while at the same time drowning it out. We are embracing a path for success that allows few to be successful. We are trying to help artists promote their work but also reinforcing the mindset that to be a legitimate artist, one must successfully monetize his or her art.

My position is not one of a wholesale rejection of entrepreneurship in music. I only urge caution and perspective as we work to find a path in these uncertain times and suggest that we not forget the value of ars gratia artis.

The Catalyst-Conductor: Conductors as Musical Leaders for the 21st Century

Posted on August 8, 2019 by - Articles, Columns, NewMusicBox

Photo credit: Steve Phillip

Our society has become increasingly characterized by its “gig economies”—short-term work, often defined by the worker herself. Recent studies have predicted the gig economy will represent 43% of the workforce by 2020, and the number will only rise. With the gig economy comes any number of difficulties, as modern workers are often compelled to be entrepreneurs, self-starters, self-motivators, and creators.

Conductors are no different. Indeed, they are well-positioned to take advantage of this new economic order, and many are already doing so, with outstanding results.

In addition to their traditional duties within established institutions, an increasing number of conductors run independent organizations, launch musical and civic initiatives, serve as catalysts for the development of new work, and use their positions to cross disciplinary boundaries. In bypassing institutional gatekeepers, these conductors have brought relevance, vitality, and an expanding number of previously unrepresented voices into the field. Indeed, the dynamic new “catalyst-conductor” could help bring the revitalization that the classical music industry so desperately seeks.

Conductors as musical leaders

The traditional role of the conductor was sharply delineated. A conductor would join a well-established institution, choose repertoire, maintain a musical vision, and lead other musicians in performance. Secondary expectations included some direct interaction with donors and audience, and marginal involvement in certain fundraising and marketing campaigns. The traditional Maestro arrived to rehearsal or performance with all logistics in place, all administrative details carried out, and focused solely on the interpretation of the repertoire he was to perform. Most of his time outside of rehearsal was devoted to score study. In his youth, the Maestro was likely an instrumentalist or composer. He attended a graduate study program and eventually found himself an apprenticeship with a more established conductor, under whom he served as an assistant before moving to an ensemble of his own.

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Many of my colleagues have thrived by following this focused route—studying standard repertory at a graduate program, attending a couple of prestigious festivals, serving as an assistant for a major professional orchestra, and then, following years of apprenticeship, winning a music directorship at an institution of their own. Some of these individuals now make great impact and bring creative programming to their newly found communities.

But while this path has become progressively more rare, other routes have emerged. In my early career, I embarked on a very different journey—one that has wholly shaped my music making today. Following college and graduate work, I was not apprenticed to a major musical institution. I never found an apprentice-based assistantship particularly attractive, but many traditional opportunities also simply did not exist for me. I was 23 years old, in Boston, surrounded by other young people, and wanting to create art. So that is what we did. I spent the first decade of my career running a new music ensemble and several small opera companies, in a cobbled-together career that involved conducting everything—from the largest standard works to tiny chamber music pieces of niche repertoire, from youth orchestras to professional choruses and community opera organizations. I performed with every small-budget musical collective around, while occasionally assisting at more established institutions. In my early years I never said “no” to a gig—if they wanted to see La serva padrona in a local ashram, I would conduct the opera barefoot to audiences who were sitting on the floor and sipping chai. If they asked me to put together a full-scale production of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades in a university dining hall, there I was, moving solid oak tables onto a Harvard lawn. I was fortunate to be in a vibrant city, surrounded by other artists of the highest caliber, learning by doing.

For me, this entrepreneurial, gig-economy approach was the perfect way to hone my craft and launch a career. At the small-budget organizations I led, I was involved not only in the musical and programming activities but also oversaw marketing, fundraising, production, and other areas. I learned about all aspects of administration, moved percussion instruments, built opera sets, recruited board members, folded solicitation letters, and created budgetary spreadsheets. It was an insanely packed life that was only possible to sustain for a limited period. Throughout most of my 20s, my peak score study hours were 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., after the rehearsals and meetings were complete, emails were answered, and I could have a solid chunk of time without interruption.

Most of my teachers and mentors scolded my failure to specialize and discouraged my involvement in running organizations, launching initiatives, and collaborating with people outside of my field. They saw this as a waste of time that deterred from the development of a niche skillset. But what those teachers failed to grasp was the intrinsic value of a multi-disciplinary approach to life. My chamber music experience now informs my approach to even the most large-scale symphonic and operatic works. My administrative and production experience has shaped both my leadership style and my artistic ideas, giving me a more holistic view of my work.

And I am hardly alone. At the time, I was unaware of the countless other conductors following the same multi-faceted, entrepreneurial path. This new norm is one we should embrace and encourage, as it contains potential solutions to some of the issues facing classical music today.

Lidiya Yankovskaya in the pit

Lidiya Yankovskaya in the pit
IMAGE: Kathy Wittman

Development of the Catalyst-Conductor

The change in the conductor’s role has not been sudden—it has developed gradually over the last few decades. The first developments stemmed from conductors’ more traditional responsibility of seeking and promoting the work of the composers of their time. In the middle of the 20th century, as the contemporary music movement largely moved out of mainstream concert settings, this role became more vital than ever before and the catalyst-conductor emerged. In my mind, the definitive originator for this change was Pierre Boulez. As a composer-conductor, Boulez had a personal stake in recognizing and supporting contemporary work. As an exceptional musician and tireless advocate, he used his position to move the field forward, founding as many as five large-scale institutions of the highest level, four of which continue to thrive today. Those organizations—IRCAM, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Cité de la Musique, and the Lucerne Festival Academy—have served as central development and training grounds for European music. I find especially impressive Boulez’s founding of these organizations after he was well into an international conducting career. Even amid an incredibly full agenda as conductor and composer, Boulez took responsibility for opening doors to his contemporaries and creating opportunities for the most innovative music making of his time. His tireless dedication to music, above all else—both in terms of his contributions to the field and his own fastidious artistry—should serve as a model for all in our industry. If the music wasn’t being performed in a traditional institution, he created his own space.

Boulez demonstrated that a conductor could use his position, broad musical expertise, and management experience to serve as an influencer and founder of necessary and critical initiatives. Countless conductors and composer-conductors have since launched exciting new music organizations of various bents (some American examples include Tania León/Composers Now, Brad Lubman/Ensemble Signal, Alan Pierson/Alarm Will Sound, Gil Rose/BMOP, and David Bloom/Contemporaneous). In Britain, a group of conductors used the same method to promote Early and Baroque repertoire, founding the influential Historically Informed Performance, or HIP, movement (John Eliot Gardiner, Andrew Parrott, Christopher Hogwood, and others).

In more recent years, an increasing number of conductors have used a similar approach in mobilizing civic change. Large institutions play a critical role in preserving tradition and providing the building blocks necessary for high-level, large-scale performance. As the public faces of these institutions, conductors are well-positioned to serve as advocates, both within our field and for non-musical causes. However, the traditional organizations we represent rely on support from foundations and individuals representing a broad political and civic spectrum, so there is always a fear that, if a “political” or “social justice” position is taken, someone will feel alienated. Indeed, as an organizational leader, I recognize many limitations on what I can advocate within the confines of an existing institution without the risk of hurting our relationship with long-standing patrons and supporters. However, those same supporters, while wishing the institution to remain on neutral ground, generally have no issue with the conductor having separate projects that support a specific social agenda.

The most recognized example of a conductor-activist initiative is Daniel Barenboim’s long-standing work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, founded in 1999. The orchestra brings together Israeli musicians with Palestinian and other Arab musicians in an attempt to unite individuals torn by a deep political and ideological divide. The Chicago Sinfonietta, founded by Paul Freeman, has worked to address the lack of diversity within the orchestral world. There are also conductors like Kristo Kondakçi (whose work includes a chorus for homeless women) and Joseph Conyers (Philadelphia’s Project 440 and All City Youth Orchestra), who have dedicated the majority of their musical efforts to social causes. These individuals have used positions at big-name institutions to form outside projects that affect civic change. The institutions provide them with the necessary stamp of quality and legitimacy. But by working outside the institutions—and seeking music making in new venues, for new communities—these conductors are able to make a tremendous impact on society.

Bypassing the Gatekeepers

A major positive outcome of increased entrepreneurship among conductors has been the opportunity for those who may otherwise have been overlooked to gain recognition. While I eventually found musical opportunities in more established organizations, my early career was largely defined by my work in a never-ending array of smaller, dynamic organizations, which I was able to develop and grow. And again, I am hardly alone. For some conductors, when opportunities did not materialize, starting their own ensembles served as the ideal career launching pad. Sarah Caldwell raised money, directed, conducted, and produced countless performances with the Opera Company of Boston, at a time when women were almost entirely missing not only from the podium, but also from the orchestra and the administration. Marin Alsop credits much of her success to a decision early on to start her own ensemble, an experience that allowed her to gain the skills she needed to succeed. Nicole Paiement established her place in the opera field with San Francisco’s Opera Parallèle and Eve Queler with the Opera Orchestra of New York. Alondra de la Parra is another example, founding the Orchestra of the Americas, which served both to showcase overlooked Latin American repertoire and to hone and prove her abilities before she had other opportunities to do so.

Without an established authority’s stamp of approval, it is not possible to convince others to follow unless they truly believe in your work. A conductor who is unprepared, unmusical, uninspiring, rude, or unreliable will never be able to get away with these faults without a larger-looming prestige figure or institution behind them. Likewise, audiences will not tolerate anything short of a stellar product when the emblem of a major accrediting body is not on the performance. Early-career conductors who run their own organizations are forced to prove their excellence by making great art that earns respect of its own accord. They can then bring the enormous experience gained from this challenge to their positions at major institutions, further impacting the field in a positive direction.

By forming their own ensembles and bypassing the gatekeepers of the classical music world, conductors like Caldwell, Alsop, and Paiement put large cracks into some very thick glass ceilings. Other conductors have made strides in areas of equity and diversity by overseeing educational initiatives. Michael Tilson Thomas’s New World Symphony partners with the Sphinx Organization to train a diverse body of emerging professionals, Marin Alsop’s OrchKids gives high-level training opportunities to kids from the poorest neighborhoods of Baltimore, and her Taki Concordia Fellowship supports emerging women conductors. In each of these situations, major conductors have used their position and expertise to create independent organizations with the purpose of filling a void.

The Future of Conductorial Entrepreneurship

Contemporary culture is built on entrepreneurship. Start-ups have defined and reshaped our social, business, and creative models. However, the structures inherent within the classical music industry have often left our field trailing behind, scrambling to keep up with the intense pace of modern cultural change. In order for classical music to thrive and move forward, we must find more ways to encourage and support individuals who are taking the difficult path of forming, running, organizing, and creating performance groups for a new era. If fully supported and embraced, conductorial entrepreneurship can be a solid pathway to increased diversity and stronger artistic leadership within classical music.

Although traditional conductor-specialists have an important place and will continue to flourish, conductor-entrepreneurs can spearhead the next wave of classical music. As mobilizers and catalysts for change, conductors from diverse backgrounds—spanning cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender boundaries—can have an opportunity to make an impact on our field, even when initially halted by gate-keeping institutions. Those who embark on this path can foster creativity and collaboration, open doors that may otherwise remain closed, increase the number of voices represented, and ultimately move classical music toward a more viable future.

How to Succeed in the New Music Business (You Will Need to Try)

Posted on March 3, 2010 by - Articles, In Print

The Savvy Musician
  • READ an excerpt from chapter 1 of The Savvy Musician: Building a Career, Earning a Living, & Making a Difference (made available here as a .pdf)Reprinted from The Savvy Musician: Building a Career, Earning a Living, & Making a Difference by David Cutler. Copyright © by David Cutler and published by Helius Press. Used by permission of the author.
  • BUY the book.
    ***
    Based on both anecdotal evidence and the recent spate of published research on the subject, we are all well acquainted with the idea that the American public’s engagement with the nation’s traditional performing arts outlets is on the wane. However, we also know that plenty of talented and passionate composers and musicians continue to pursue advanced degrees at universities and conservatories across the country. How will they build careers to support their artistry in the coming decades?

    It’s clear it’s going to take a lot more than upping time spent in the practice room, but the standard guidebooks to “success in the music business” don’t often look at the issues facing those seeking to take their graduate degrees and make a name for themselves in genres like new music and jazz. In The Savvy Musician: Building a Career, Earning a Living, & Making a Difference, composer and pianist David Cutler collects strategies and success stories from 165 composers and musicians working in these musical arenas and sprinkles them throughout this slickly designed A-to-Z guide covering everything from building up a career to planning for retirement.

    Cutler and I chatted about what musicians need beyond straight-up musical chops to succeed in 2010. You can read an excerpt from the book here and get your own (autographed!) copy here. And, as you might expect from a venture of this nature, there is also a companion website/blog to be found here.—MS

    *
    Molly Sheridan: You’re a jazz and classical composer and pianist, but you’re also an educator teaching at Duquesne University, where your work includes serving as the Coordinator of Music Entrepreneurship Studies. Sounds like the perfect gig to lead to a book of this nature. Did you determine that this kind of “nuts and bolts” career builder tome of information was needed based on your work with students in that capacity?

    David Cutler
    Author David Cutler

    David Cutler: Actually, it happened the opposite way. I was hired to teach composition and musicianship, which put me in close contact with many students. While most were growing into outstanding musicians, few developed the kinds of philosophical and practical skills necessary for success as a professional (opportunity creation, branding, marketing, building audiences, networking, raising capital, business aptitudes, etc). It’s as if they were learning that high levels of talent and artistic accomplishment alone would somehow lead to a viable and fulfilling career. In reality, this is far from true.

    Having experienced a comparable culture in my own education, and witnessing similar phenomena elsewhere, I felt compelled to address these largely absent themes. It just seemed like the ethical thing to do. I initially began discussing these topics with students in one-on-one meetings, and then in class presentations. Eventually it grew into The Savvy Musician, which was written to help cultivate a more holistic breed of artist, offering the greatest chance of personal/professional success.

    My role as Coordinator of Music Entrepreneurship Studies, as well as involvement in many activities I never could have dreamed up, presented themselves as a result of my interest in this area. Which brings up an important point. Following your heart and doing something a little different than everyone else can open all kinds of unexpected doors.

    MS: One thing that really caught my eye about this book is that it addresses jazz and new music composers directly. Rather than adapt advice geared towards illuminating “Ten Ways to Make Your Rock Band Famous,” readers can instead access information about publishing concert works in today’s market environment and hear stories from composers like Jennifer Higdon and Stacy Garrop. Do their challenges differ significantly from artists working in other genres?

    DC: There are many books in print about the “music business.” Most have little or nothing to do with the kind of work done by my students, teachers, friends, colleagues, and yours truly. Several focus exclusively on legal issues for the recording industry, or tactics for becoming a mega-star rock band. One text asks whether or not you must be able to read music in order to “make it”—surely a fascinating inquiry for some, but (with a doctorate in music) it’s not my question! Another publication actually has a short summary about becoming a concert music composer, concluding that there’s no possible way to make a living through this path. Perfect…

    On one level, the process behind selling any product/service is similar, be it a computer, breakfast food, video game, rock band, chamber ensemble CD, or music lesson: Satisfy a need, fill a gap, market like crazy, and connect with your audience.

    But each industry also has unique considerations. Earning a living as a jazz or concert music composer is not the same as working with a rock band (though I hope our work becomes just as popular!). We have different constituents, skill sets, functions, and opportunities. There are also common myths that need to be debunked, such as “jazz/concert music composers have just three career options: 1) film scoring, 2) college teaching, and 3) lawn care.”

    The Savvy Musician includes case studies of musicians with a similar background to many of your readers, illustrating a vast array of possibilities while sharing often innovative success strategies. And being a composer myself, I know exactly the kinds of challenges my colleagues are facing. No need for analogies. Let’s look at what successful jazz and classical musicians actually do.

    MS: You’ve built a companion website for The Savvy Musician, where you continue to push at issues from the book and gather feedback. How has this added to the traditional experience of publishing a how-to, career-help book?

    DC: Some kinds of content are better presented in a book, while others are more effective through the Internet. A website provides unlimited space, the opportunity to update regularly, and a forum to continue the exploration interactively.

    The tag line for SavvyMusician.com is “Home Base for Music Careers & Entrepreneurship,” and I hope you find it to be just that. In addition to book information, the site hosts:

    • Blog. Expands on themes related to the book, exploring categories such as mindset, career, marketing, money, and education.
    • A Resource Center. Over 1000 links to valuable sites: funding sources, summer camps, magazines, music blogs, free resources, and more. Access is free!
    • Videos. Issue Videos showcase inspirational and informative talks by leaders both in and outside the music world. Music Videos feature creations by savvy musicians that are high quality AND unusual, innovative, humorous, or otherwise “purple.”
    • An opportunity to interact. Visitors are encouraged to leave blog comments, submit questions, and offer suggestions.

    MS: Speaking of videos, I love the Zoe Keating clip posted on your blog in which she de-romanticizes quitting your day job to become a professional touring musician. And we’ve all been reading the studies from the NEA and others about the decline in audience participation in live classical and jazz music performance. But that kind of news doesn’t seem to be stopping people from pursuing these careers, often including expensive postgraduate educations. After interviewing all the artists you include anecdotally in your book, do you sense a more positive future for musicians than these studies might indicate, or are many of us just destined for careers at Wal-Mart?

    DC: Great and important question! In the book’s introduction, I ask if there are too many professional musicians entering the workforce. The unfortunate reality is, yes, too many people are competing for “traditional opportunities.” In these oversaturated work environments, there simply aren’t enough positions to accommodate all qualified applicants.

    But for savvy musicians, there is unprecedented potential. For the first time, it’s possible for even an independent artist to compete against major corporations on equal footing, thanks to the Internet. And in our current era, the arts and the creative capital offered by artists is more valuable than it has been in a long time.

    However, for musicians to benefit optimally from these conditions, four attributes are necessary. It doesn’t matter how many diplomas hang from your wall if all areas aren’t present to some degree.

    1. musical skills
    2. communication skills
    3. business skills
    4. an entrepreneurial mindset

    So here’s my answer: There are not too many professional musicians. There are, however, too many of the wrong kind of musician, and not nearly enough well-rounded and innovative thinkers taking full advantage of the current circumstances facing our communities.

    From the book:

    ATTENTION: We Need Leaders!!!

    The music world is in need of creative artists who understand current realities and are brave enough to experiment with new solutions. There are opportunities waiting to be discovered by performers who bring great music to new settings, educators who instill its transcendent and spiritual values to students, and administrators who foster new audiences while insisting that artistic integrity remain high. There is a shortage of music leaders unveiling new models for success, and artist-citizens leading the crusade to keep meaningful musical experiences vibrant.

    Incidentally, it was delightful to hear many of The Savvy Musician interviewees declare that this is a great time to be a musician. I couldn’t agree more. At least if you’re savvy.

    MS: Say I’m already pretty savvy. What are a couple of questions I might ask myself if I’m wondering if this book would be a good resource to help me reach my music goals?

    DC: The Savvy Musician is not just a primer on basic business skills. It is a treatise exploring ways for high-quality musicians to—as individuals and a community—get more work, attract new audiences, improve financial standing, increase impact, and leave lasting legacies. Whether hoping to augment income, stand out from a competitive field, add variety to activities, or erect an empire, this comprehensive resource delivers the tools and entrepreneurial mindset necessary for increased success.

    I guarantee this book will fill you with ideas and strategies. I’m savvy too, but learned a ton through working on this project and talking with some of the most creative musical voices today.

Buyer Beware: Education Debt

Posted on June 3, 2013 by - Articles, Commentary

Debt word cloud
Every spring, music schools across the country celebrate commencement. There are processions and ceremonies, brunches and barbecues. Young, talented students have performed recitals of demanding repertoire, gained valuable ensemble experience, and passed through the gauntlet of theory, ear training, and music history. Commencement speakers advise graduates to be bold, creative, and persistent as they begin their careers. During this time, few commencement speakers will breathe a word about what will happen in precisely six months’ time, when the first student loan bill arrives on graduates’ doorsteps. That particular milestone will occur without fanfare, but represents a life-changing reality of its own.

Educational debt, which recently reached a total of one trillion dollars, is an acknowledged crisis in the United States. In the context of our struggling economy–which tanked just after my own graduation in 2007–the situation is even more dire. For the average American college graduate, making loan payments is not as easy as she thought it would be. Many of the good-paying jobs that she planned on have evaporated.

And what about musicians? Did any of us plan on good-paying jobs in the first place? As American orchestras struggle financially, competition for these jobs gets fiercer and pay gets lower. Academic positions are equally competitive and often require a doctorate–which means more education and often more debt.

Enter the biggest music career buzzword of our generation: entrepreneurship. Books like Beyond Talent and The Savvy Musician acknowledge that “traditional” employment for musicians is disappearing and that an innovative approach is essential. Several top music schools–including Eastman, the Manhattan School, Yale, and the New England Conservatory–now have Centers for Music Entrepreneurship. Students receive guidance on forging careers outside academia and the orchestra. They are warned about the difficulty of the formal job market. They are encouraged to develop multiple income streams, create their own opportunities, found ensembles, and create a strong online presence. In my own experience, this approach can absolutely bear fruit. We can create interesting and rewarding musical careers, even without the auspices of a “real job.”

But financial freedom–or at least a shred of financial flexibility–is an essential prerequisite for entrepreneurship. For many young musicians confronting high loan payments, financial flexibility is decades away. And when they were eighteen years old and committing to taking on a financial burden that they could not have fully understood, most of their adult mentors did not let them know that their educational loans would change their lives.

There’s a reason that our parents, teachers, and even our Deans of Students may not fully understand the way that our debts could cripple us. It’s because the cost of a college degree, according to Bloomberg, has increased more than 1,000 percent in the past thirty years. My own parents worked their way through degrees in vocal performance at Boston University in the 1980s. Today, a year at BU costs more than $53,000–more than most twentysomething musicians expect to earn in a year. Cognitively, our parents and mentors can hardly keep up with the way things have changed. “Student debt is good debt,” they might have told us. But they probably weren’t imagining a $60,000 higher education bill at 6.8% interest. They weren’t imagining a burden that would make a career in music untenable.

Given this gap, who is equipped to advise current music students about the realities of student debt in 2013? I’d argue that it’s the twentysomething musicians currently paying off their loans. So I reached out to my peers to see who might be willing to talk about the way their student debt has shaped their lives and careers. I was moved by their clear-sightedness; I was grateful for their candor. Several themes emerged in their responses, and I believe these are the words that young artists–and the adults surrounding them–need to hear before signing on the dotted line.

Loan payments change your financial reality. Depending on your loan total, the payment can be as high as your health insurance premium, your car payment, or your rent. Here are some numbers from musicians I interviewed:
– a cellist whose monthly payment is more than $700 on his $100,000 debt
– a woodwind player from Northwestern who pays $550 a month on her $46,000 debt
– a flutist who went to a state school and pays $350 a month on a $28,000 debt
– a pianist from DePaul who pays $450 a month on an $80,000 debt
– a brass player paying $380 a month on a $68,000 debt

Higher debt means less freedom to practice, grow, and choose rewarding work. “My monthly loan payment scares me into taking every single job I’m offered,” said one Chicago freelance musician. “During certain busy times of year, I can’t prepare nearly as well for each performance as I wish I could. In general, I am not able to be as selective nor as productive as I’d like to be as an artist, because paying off my debts feels so urgent and burdensome.”
Krista Lucas, a local bassoonist, said that “in order to pay student loans–not to mention rent, bills, and food–a ‘day job’ is all but impossible to avoid. Working 40 hours a week pays the bills, but it also cuts down drastically on free time to practice and improve.”

Higher debt often means working long hours outside music. “I have had to move into a different field as my primary source of income,” said composer Sarah Ritch, who co-founded Anaphora Ensemble and helps run the Beethoven Festival. “I now work in technology, and have gone back to school to give me the tools to flourish in that field.” Matthew McGuire, a music educator in Massachusetts, agreed. “I’m considering leaving my [music teaching] job to pursue a career that will pay better. I’ve stopped taking gigs so that I can work higher paying part-time jobs, and turned down all music composing/arranging opportunities that do not pay well, even if it is something that I would enjoy doing.”
Horn player Joseph Kosowski’s debt from DePaul made a freelance music career seem simply impossible. “It’s made me feel as though pursuing a career in line with my degree is too risky,” he said. “I feel the need to have a ‘real job’ with a steady income in order to meet the loan payments, and that freelancing, the occasional small orchestra gig, scrounging up students, and the like would be too much of a burden.”

It’s hard for young adults to give up “dreams” and prestige when choosing their educational price tag.
“This whole situation,” said Krista Lucas, “is made worse by the fact that music students are pressured to attend expensive conservatories with ‘prestigious’ programs and pedigrees.”

“I could have stayed closer to home and gotten my schooling paid for,” said flutist Alexis del Palazzo, “but that would have meant giving up on a lot of the dreams I had. At 18, I wasn’t willing to compromise.”

Matt McGuire remembers a similar feeling when he chose to attend his dream school, the Berklee School of Music. “I was told of the dangers of putting myself in debt,” said McGuire, “but it was difficult for me to make those choices as an 18-year-old with my heart set on the school I wanted to attend.”

Other musicians noted that they intentionally gave up prestige when choosing a more affordable path. “I went to schools that would give me money so that I wouldn’t have debt,” said Chicago cellist Alyson Berger. “I have no big name schools on my resume. I could’ve gone into debt to get the cred on my bio–maybe I should have–but I chose not to.”

Start-up costs for a music career are high. Young professional musicians are expected to fly themselves to orchestra auditions, own expensive instruments, attend prestigious but low-paying professional training programs like the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and, of course, put in the most important unpaid work hours of all: personal practice time. But when bills start to pile up, those career-building moves come into conflict with financial responsibility.

“What I was unprepared for was exactly how hard it is to get started as a musician,” said cellist and teacher Natalie Hall. “It’s not like you just walk into a full-time job right out of school.”

“The reality of paying off my student loan debt never really occurred to me when I was 18, 19, 20 years old,” said another Chicago musician. “But it definitely sunk in and created tension and stress for me by age 22, when it became clear that there weren’t $80K orchestral jobs just waiting for all my fellow graduates and me.”

There’s a lot of shame and secrecy surrounding debt–and that often means we aren’t talking about it. Our culture places a high premium on financial privacy–talking about money is often considered inappropriate–but this means that indebted musicians don’t talk about one of the most important stressors in their lives. Respondents described “a heavy burden hanging over” them, “constantly scrambling to stay ahead,” and unrelenting stress.

“I find it embarrassing to be so successful on the outside, yet to have such a big burden hanging over my head,” one respondent said. “I don’t want to share those worries with anyone else.”

“I feel dependent on others in a way that makes me feel ashamed, depressed, and anxious in my so-called adult life, partly because my debt looms over me all the time,” said another.

So how can young musicians avoid life-changing debt? Of all the questions I asked, this one seemed to inspire the greatest candor from my interviewees.

Cap your total debt amount. “Do not put yourself into incredible amounts of debt,” advised Matt McGuire. “Regardless of where you go to school, you will get out of it what you put in. Work ethic, dedication, personal sacrifice, passion, and study are just as valuable at a state university music program as they are at an expensive private music program. A great work ethic can overcome many challenges as long as you’re patient. But it may not be able to overcome a six-figure student loan debt if you choose to pursue a career in the arts.”

Take some time off before grad school… or skip it entirely. “The feasibility of making a life in music is different for each of us,” said oboist Andrew Nogal, “but I think I’d urge musicians in general to keep their years of formal schooling to an absolute minimum. There’s an expectation that a musician will immediately pursue a masters degree after finishing their bachelors, but that track can be a shortcut to massive amounts of debt. I think musicians need some time away from the safe academic environment in order to evaluate what being a musician really means to them and estimate what it will take, emotionally and financially, for them to keep doing it at a high level.”

Know that you can’t pay your way to building a strong network. “The learning doesn’t only happen in the classroom,” Joe Kosowski noted. “It happens in the outside rehearsals, gigs, jazz clubs, symphony halls, after concert parties, summer institutes, and all the other places you spend time with the people you meet because you are in music school. If you can manage to get those same experiences and playing opportunities without incurring the exorbitant debt, do it.”