By: erin

erin — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 00:35:04 +0000

Would you mind sharing the reading list for your book group? I’m interested in those topics but they are also waaay outside my field and I’m not sure where to start.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 27 May 2016 04:33:31 +0000

Wait, he quit academia??

By: Leander

Leander — Fri, 20 May 2016 16:46:03 +0000

I’ve been subbing out at UO in Eugene for the past two weeks, one of a long list of people coming to teach lessons and studio class for my friend who is on sabbatical this term. I know these kids have been getting tons of advice from these various horn players on “how to make it” as a musician and how to sell a concert and create a marketable project and how to win a job by doing exactly the right thing….. which is all very important. But I figured that I could lend a different perspective. I asked them to think of their musical practice as something spiritual, something psychological, something worthy regardless of whether it could make them money. Like prayer or meditation or being a monk or whatever. Not necessarily profitable, but still GOOD. A few of them talked to me afterward about how much they appreciated me saying that.
Yesterday, I read them excerpts of this article on musicians who experience disability (which, let’s face it, will be most of us, at some point!) https://van-us.atavist.com/broken-musician
There’s some great lines about commodification of people, capitalism, “bankability.” There are not many suggestions for solutions in the article. But IMO one of them has got to be us respecting our art as worthy regardless of the capitalist reward system.

Fight the power.

Comments on: STRANGE NOISES

By: erin

By: Alex

By: Leander