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[fiona]

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/07/2008073101c.htm

Comments?

The Fiona

[mended_drum]

I thinks she's doing all the right things:  bringing in an income, considering a career change in case academia doesn't pan out, and improving her vita to make it more likely that it will.  The problem, though, is that it sounds almost too perfect, at least by the standards of the people I actually know.  Can one really temp, publish, become certified to teach high school, and conduct several kinds of job search at once?   If she doesn't go insane, she should land on her feet.

[kedves]

In connection with a different article we've been discussing and the feeling of being stuck, I have been thinking about a classical musician I know. 

The person I know searched for an orchestra job, not a teaching job, but the life is similar to the one described by the writer of this article.  (I wouldn't call it unemployed.)  My friend made a cobbled-together living for many years with a combination of teaching work, private lessons, regional orchestra gigs, and special gigs for many years while he auditioned and waited for someone in the world to get a better job or die.  He plays an instrument of which each orchestra needs only one.  When someone gets a job offer, they take it, wherever it is located in the world--and they usually stay there for life.  He got a job, moved self and wife across the world, and has been there since.  They like it, but what if they didn't? 

One of his friends who plays a related instrument makes most of her year's salary playing something like 8 shows a week from Thanksgiving to New Year's in the Radio City Music Hall show, then she collapses.  She chose the path of steady income rather than a high-status orchestra job.

This is a common situation in performing-arts careers.  Several years ago, Nathan Lane was the subject of a New York Times Magazine article in which he talked candidly about the difficulties of starring in a long show ("The Producers")--the physical exhaustion, the repetition.  Readers criticized him for being ungrateful, but it was an interesting article.  In fields as competitive as musical performance, artists can't turn down jobs.   

The social pressures on my friend to give up his dream and "be realistic" were difficult for him up until his big break.  He never got to the point of an X-more-years plan before giving up, but I know a lot of people in similar spots who have done so.  Family and friends often think this sort of life is something the artist will grow out of, as a type of financial and moral irresponsibility or immaturity.  Many people in this situation never get the type of full-time job they want or deserve, not that I'm forecasting anything like this for the writer.  Artists support each other, but the subculture elements might be stronger because there is less support from without.

The performing and visual arts and other small, over-supplied-with-talent  fields in academic life are extreme versions of some of the dynamics we've been talking about.  I used to work in an art school; it was a terrible job, but I loved the place and the faculty and students.  I have tremendous respect for the dedication it takes to commit to the life. 

[voxprincipalis]

Comments?

Don't even get me started.

OK, get me started just a little bit. Here's what makes it difficult for me to sympathize with this author:

I had always thought of music education at the K-12 level as dull and unchallenging, work fit for music majors who couldn't cut it in performance, theory, or musicology.

The idea that music ed is "fit" only for performers who couldn't cut it is really problematic and shows a lack of understanding of the work, the field, and the kind of student who makes a good music educator. This is a big red flag for me for this author, and anyone who let such an attitude be seen at my institution (which serves both performance and music ed majors) would certainly not be hired. Music ed requires a different skill set than performance. These skill sets overlap but are not identical, and the curriculum for music ed programs is often more demanding than that for performance programs. Performance ability is not an indicator of worth. Students who go into music ed usually do so not because they're performance program failures but because they've been so profoundly influenced by their high school orchestra or band director and have had such a positive experience with music that they want to pay it forward and share that with others.

And then she goes on:

I'm learning to swallow my pride and re-evaluate being a schoolteacher.

She doesn't need to swallow her pride, she needs to get rid of it entirely. To swallow your pride is to accept that you have to do something that you think is beneath you. It's the fundamental notion that music ed is something that requires pride-swallowing to do that's the problem. I have no objection to someone saying "it's not the field for me" since not everyone has the requisite skill set for the job (like me, for example), but to describe it as an inferior branch of music study and to say it's something she has to swallow her pride to consider is insulting.

Oh, and then there's this:

Being able to play klezmer again has been wonderfully liberating. It provides a much-needed release some days, and since it is frowned upon by many "straight classical musicians" in my field, it gives me the chance to quietly thumb my nose at them.

Are those the same elitist "straight classical musicians" who think that music ed is a copout field for inadequate performers?

The majority of performing musicians in academe (particularly artist-scholars) go through a period of career adjustments such as this author describes. This is sort of the norm. But then again, the author's attitude is not unusual either, really -- a lot of people come out of music schools with this kind of attitude and don't even realize how problematic it is. Some schools are particularly notorious for it. I will say that at both universities at which I've been employed that offer both performance and music ed programs, not one of my colleagues has thought that music ed is for failed performers or that music ed students were less able in theory or history. And no one in any school where I've taught (or been a student, for that matter, and that includes two major music schools) "frowns upon" klezmer.

OP may be very talented, and I don't wish her any ill. And in her defense, music schools seem to be particularly bad (worse than other fields) at giving their grad students an understanding of how academe works from the professorial side. Our grad students (especially in performance) frequently have no idea what is involved in being a professor besides giving lessons. But if she thinks that her current attitude is the norm on the professorial side of the table in the majority of academe, then I don't see her road to an academic gig getting any easier.

VP

[lenniel]

I know this story very well, and I could not possibly improve on what VP said.  Though I rant on and on, I'll only put forward a few comments. 

While I applaud the article's author for continuing on, finding a gig, blah blah blah, her attitude about teaching is why I left the "modern" world of performance.  Yet, the conservatories still turn out musicians who think that they can just waltz into that job or orchestra without a shred of teaching experience and contempt for teaching in general.  I have spent much of my teaching career working with primary and secondary music education majors, and feel that it takes a special brand of creativity, patience and moxie to be a good teacher in this area. 

There are many opportunities for musicians who are creative, humble and able to do a variety of things, thus the tenor of this article was a wee bit whiny for my taste.  I managed to work as a professional musician most of my life, even when I was working in different fields, and still make a portion of my living teaching lessons, playing and organizing concerts despite being in a more academic track now.

[terpsichore]

Even though I'm in a completely different field, I've been reading Michelle Parker's articles from the beginning, and I keep hoping that her search will be successful and she'll land the type of job she wants. I think she writes movingly and openly about what it's like to follow her dream, against tremendous odds, and about the compromises she has to make to survive. I'd like to hear whether she feels she has gotten good advice and guidance about career options from her professors as she pursued her Ph. D.

[daurousseau]

Hey, good luck. Almost nobody makes a living as a performer. All the best to those who try. If can wangle a teaching job, at any level, and still have the flexibility for serious gigging, why not grab the post? Everybody else has to muddle along taking students.

[inthelab]

The article points out the exact reasons why I advised Little Inthelab #2 not to apply to music conservatory, but rather to a LAC at a uni that has a conservatory so she can minor in music. 

[born2late]

Having just completed my DMA, this is depressing. So many of us musicians make a living out of hundreds of one-time performances, endless strings of lessons, and the occasional royalty if you're lucky. I enjoy adjunct teaching, but I hope to get off that path at some point. Maybe. I hope.

[jonesey]

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/07/2008073101c.htm

Comments?

The Fiona

Yes.  I'm in awe that there is acually a worse area to be in for employment than the Humanities...

[history_grrrl]

I had some trouble feeling sympathy with the author as well. She talks about "having lost my temper for the billionth time with the process of applying for university positions," and twice more refers to feeling angry about her situation. "I'm tired of fighting with academe and performing at poorly run auditions," she says. This sounds like someone with a strong sense of entitlement, a sense that she is owed an academic position -- and not just any position, but a cushy one, "an idyllic life in academe." Her sharp distinction between "university professor" (good) and "schoolteacher" (bad) reflects the attitude that, because she has failed to get what she wants (entirely as a result of unfair treatment by others, apparently), she now will have to "settle for less."

There's nothing wrong with having high expectations, but it seems that the realities of the job market and existing options have yet to sink in. Life is unfair. We don't all get what we think we deserve. But that's not always because the "system" is stacked against us somehow. I agree with vox that this attitude will not serve the author well in interviews.

[fiona]

I wonder if we can get through any First Person article without attacking the author's attitude.

The Fiona

[jonesey]

I wonder if we can get through any First Person article without attacking the author's attitude.

The Fiona

Yes.  In some places that's called "jealousy." 

[voxprincipalis]

I wonder if we can get through any First Person article without attacking the author's attitude.

The Fiona

Hey, I was with you on the Clio thing. ;)

VP

[terpsichore]

I wonder if we can get through any First Person article without attacking the author's attitude.

The Fiona

Apparently not.