[Dixielandjazz] Sex, Music & Over Population (of musicians, that is)

[Ric Giorgi]

Dear Steve, thanks for posting this. 

I quite firmly believe that "coulda, shoulda and woulda - didn't" and
there's no point crying over spilt milk BUT... there is another way of
looking at this "too many musicians, not enough jobs" situation. 

As far as the classical music business goes, the funders, granters,
institutions and managers and yes the musicians also, have created the hole
they're in and they may well be able to get out of it without radically
scaling back the music-education faculties product. Goodness knows there
aren't enough really good music teachers out there. And, as a truly great
OKOM trumpet player and singer, Dr. Bob Gibbs used to put it to his students
at Potsdam, 'If you go into performance, your first question after
graduating is "Where can I borrow the money to get to my first audition? If
you go into music education, your first question is "What colour would I
like my new car to be?" All this aside, my point is....

CDs, streaming internet, radio, DVDs and any other form of recordings of
music performances ARE NOT MUSIC. They are recordings of music but they're
not music. Music is something that happens when live performers interpret,
recreate or create music for live audiences. If there were a way for us to
get our society to buy into that argument, there wouldn't be enough
musicians for all the performing opportunities that would be created. 

This is not to denigrate the work of all those who collect, make listenable
and distribute YKOM. It is invaluable work and the results are a treasure
for all of us. But the product is not music, it's a "still-life" recording
of some musicians making music. In many ways it's like the still-life
painting that is infinitely beautiful and a joy to look at, but that
still-life is not the flower or fruit or whatever that it represents.  

Would the reaction of the 60 plus kids at the live venue you described the
other day on the list have been the same if a DJ had plopped a CD of the
same performance into a CD player? I doubt it. It's important to emphasize
this point to live audiences. Often, they don't get it for a long time. It
took me a while to get it when one of my bass teachers, Tom Monahan, kept
making the point. I have no doubt that some folks on this list will argue
with my point of view and that's great because as one of your great American
writers put it once "Where all think alike, no one thinks very much".

Cheers, 
Ric Giorgi