My apologies for taking longer than I expected with the last part of this article series. I originally wrote the first installment of this series as a two-part article on the challenges facing students as they entered the professional field of music. After writing the second part I realized that this had obviously extended to a three-part series.

But, after seeing the discussion that emerged from these two articles, and reflecting on the topic myself, I began having some difficulty with how to end it. I wanted to take time in this last part to look at some less-discussed issues, but the feedback from the first two parts caused me to rethink what, and how, I wanted to present it.

As such, the below represents what I still believe to be issues facing those who embark on a career in music but which seem to have less awareness raised around them than the previous topics we discussed in parts one and two.

Access to “Knowledge”

This is ironic, considering our world is now more connected than ever before. With the Internet, information of the ages is at our fingertips. We can watch videos of more performances, listen to more recordings, and read more about music than any generation before us.

But one thing we must remember is that information is not the same as knowledge. Although information is powerful, it doesn’t always benefit us as we expect. In no age before ours could someone on their own take so much information about so many different topics such as: “how to play Bach,” “how to start a business,” “how to market yourself,” etc. and yet still do all the wrong things with them. Knowledge and wisdom still come from guidance and experience. That is where the influence of teachers, counselors, colleagues, and coworkers come in.

This is not to slam those who experiment and try new things during the course of their professional lives. Risk is inherent in any venture – musical or otherwise. But the emphasis on independence and self-reliance, along with the tools afforded to people by modern technology, can go too far to the extreme in making people overlook the knowledge of those who have come before us.

In the confusion of information overload, we are in need of mentorship now more than ever before.

Building a “Standard Model” of Music Education

In the original LinkedIn thread, one of the participants stressed the importance of building a “working model of business education for music (and other arts) students” that would train these people to be prepared for a professional life in music.

This platform would:

…incorporate the use of the Internet as the medium for the dispensing of information and as the collection point for statistics and “homework” assignments for participants… making use of as many free Internet resources (YouTube, e-mail, a custom website, etc.) as possible to convey information… Another dimension of the project is to create a residential option for students who want a more intensive experience and a greater opportunity to gain access to mentoring assistance.

The necessity of learning about and being trained for entrepreneurship in practical ways dominates the discussion. In previous articles I have gotten responses of how I perhaps ignored the saliency of entrepreneur-oriented programs in conservatories in music schools. Obviously I am not the only one who has held the opinion that there are opportunities for other organizations to step up. The participant who cited this “platform” has founded an organization that is actively develop such a system, the goal of which would be to establish a standard by which we could prepare our aspiring professional musicians.

While I pointed out that much improvement had been made but that more was needed, I want to take this opportunity to take the other side. There are indeed many great examples of “centers of entrepreneurship” for music students.

But, is it possible to create some sort of “ideal standard”? When it comes to entrepreneurship, many things are based on context. Universal “rules” and “theories” often break down in the face of real-world and changing circumstances. If there is anything “standard” that our music students need to be learning outside of their artistic craft, it is cultivating the ability to be adaptable, resourceful, and versatile to deal with ever-changing circumstances. Some traditional schools are doing a great a job of instilling these qualities in their students.

Rather than constantly seeking alternatives to traditional schooling, it might be better for us to focus on giving students the right balance of such “abstract” qualities along with the practical skills they need.

My hope is that the process can be reduced to paper in such a way that it can be handed to schools and conservatories in the form of a roadmap that produces predictable results if all the steps are followed.

I don’t believe that this can be simplified to a degree of a single document that purports to be a panacea for all cases. I also don’t believe it needs to come from outside of schools and conservatories and “handed” to them… as such a statement seems to me to be somewhat of an insult. Schools and conservatories are absolutely capable of producing something of this necessity.

However, I like the idea of the term roadmap here. As musicians, we are used to scanning a piece of music ahead of time and building a “roadmap” in our heads of how we will go through the piece. We will still encounter unexpected challenges on the way to the end, but we nonetheless have a framework through which we can handle these challenges.

It is the same with navigating the professional challenges of a career in music. It’s not a one-size-fits-all model but rather promoting the development of a framework that people can adapt to fit their own unique situations and goals. Here the LinkedIn participant hits the nail on the head:

…(The results is) the creation of a playbook that would be similar to a franchisee’s handbook for a business like a McDonald’s restaurant or a SubWay sandwich shop. It would contain all the steps to be taken, the order in which to take them, the estimated budget, the number of persons to be involved, their minimum requirements as defined by experience, the time commitment required, the space requirements, the project descriptions for students, the subject matter, a complete instruction outline, a list of references, suggested tuition costs, links to a central website, and the complete source code for the website itself and its related data model…

Not every single one of these things may be present in all cases, but the comprehensiveness of its outlook gives us all a general idea of what we need to be aware of in starting any sort of musical venture.

Equalizing Supply and Demand

Here is the last aspect of this discussion… something that I’ve heard little discussion of, and what I’d like to close this series with. No matter what we do to prepare and equip musicians, there is a fundamental problem which unfortunately will likely scuttle most of our efforts. Supply and demand for music positions are often unequal.

Point-in-case: for a long time (some might argue always) there have been fewer available positions than there have been players looking to fill them, as produced by the various music programs.

Why should we expect that graduates of music programs should find pertinent employment in any greater proportion than do, say, philosophy or history majors?

If there are more people looking to fill jobs than there are jobs, what can be done? Job creation is the answer most come up with to this… and yet there is only so much we can control here. But there is one aspect of this spectrum which we do have control over… and it is not the demand side but the supply side.

For some time, schools in the medical field have seen the need to implement enrollment limits to at least try and equalize the number of graduates with the number of available jobs. The question is whether or not conservatories, music schools, and music departments should do the same on a wide scale. Some argue that this could lead to a near-elimination of music education… as there are correspondingly few jobs available. Others argue that a phased implementation of this is necessary to help gradually balance out graduates with opportunities beyond school.

Regardless of your opinion, I would argue that this is a discussion we are not having which is worth having. I’ve seen very few people raise the issue of the ethics in knowingly admitting students into educational programs that – under current circumstances – offer slim chances of a career actually happening. In a way, it seems almost deceptively callous.

Your thoughts?

It’s been a pleasure to be a part of this discussion with everyone who has participated over the last month. I am interested in hearing your ideas and responses on these topics and on the series subject matter overall.

The post What Classical Musicians’ Lack, Part 3 appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

I often wonder if the experience of painting would turn into a relentless grind if I were trying to be a professional painter.  When I paint, there’s no pressure.  It’s not difficult for me to achieve “flow,” that mysterious and wonderful sensation of being in the zone. It’s easy for me to lose track of how much time has passed and how much coffee I’ve put away.  However, when I’m practicing, as soon as I look up from the instrument I’m glued to the clock.  All bets are off as far as that flow stuff goes.

I should mention, though, that CMW’s Fellowship has a brilliant feature: the Practice Retreat.  You choose a week that doesn’t look too pivotal, choose a project that involves spending some quality time with your instrument, and submit a proposal outlining the plan.  If it’s approved, then voilà!  CMW pays for a sub and you have the week off to pretend like you’re back in music school.

One of my projects for the Retreat week included spending time on excerpts for a rapidly approaching audition.  Since this is the first year that I’ve been out of school and in the workforce, my practicing has been subject to an entirely new set of forces and influences.  I was happy to have a window of free-form practice time on Friday to work however and however long I pleased, instead of my normal heavy-on-the-staff-meeting routine.

The first part of the day was perfectly normal.  I warmed up slowly.  I worked on some well-known trouble spots.  A few hours elapsed, and I stood in front of my iPhone and recorded the audition material.  I had successfully completed my routine.  What came next was the surprise.

I sat down to my laptop to take a break, when I realized that I wanted to keep playing.  This was odd.  It wasn’t that the mounting audition pressure was driving my viola back into my arms.  It wasn’t that I felt “out of shape” and hoped a few more scales would fix me.  I just wanted to hang out with my instrument.

In this moment, I wanted to play the viola in the same way I always want to paint.

Don’t get me wrong: I am stunned by the wonderful things that classical music has brought to my life.  I think this career has tremendous peaks to complement its necessary valleys.  But, it is my job.  There are deadlines. There are great projects and not-so-great projects.  There is constant back-of-the-mind practice guilt.  I usually get the job done to the best of my ability, and then take a break from the instrument. (And I should clarify that as often as not, “taking a break” means teaching or going to meetings – anything that isn’t strictly practice time.)

But Friday was different.  When I realized that I wasn’t finished on the viola, I pulled out a copy of the Franck Sonata and I just played.  I let myself enjoy my capacity.  I let my mistakes go.  I lost track of time because I was wrapped up in the act of (re)creation.

Before and after the Practice Retreat, I did and probably will feel too busy to devote time to the kind of playing that doesn’t have a deadline.  But during Retreat week, my job was to take a break from a couple of those deadlines and just be a musician.  It was exciting and freeing to play some viola just for kicks.  I plan to hold onto that feeling, the feeling I get when I paint, so I don’t forget to search for that freedom on the viola as reality resumes.

Community MusicWorks is a community-based music performance and education program that provides free violin, viola, and cello lessons for students who live in the West side neighborhoods of Providence, RI. Its structure, as a storefront residency for professional musicians in an urban neighborhood, has become a new model of successful urban arts education over the past fifteen years. CMW’s Founder and Artistic Director, Sebastian Ruth, was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2010 for his work “forging a new, multifaceted role beyond the concert hall for the twenty-first-century musician.” Community MusicWorks offers four two-year positions to young professional musicians looking to gain a deeper understanding of the CMW model.

The post Practice Retreat (CMW Fellows Series February 2013) appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

Last week I started a discussion on what classical musicians are lacking today as they enter the professional field. As expected, this topic continues to drive the passionate thoughts and ideas of many: I was very pleased to see some of the discussion that we generated. In this second article, we will explore the idea of reinventing classical music… and whether or not that is something that is necessary, or if it is a “manufactured” idea.

Before that, however, I wanted to address some points that were raised in the comments section of the first article. In particular, one was on how today’s musicians are much more qualified than their previous generation counterparts. This is something we’ve discussed before as changing times have forced musicians to adapt and acquire higher-level degrees, become more versatile in the types of music and gigs they can perform, and quite simply increase what they are capable of doing practically. I agree with all of this. Raising the points of a need for business / marketing skills in the first article was not meant as an attack on graduates themselves, but rather simply a presentation of one aspect of the conversation that is dominating many classical music forums online and discussions offline.

Without a doubt, music business programs have improved a great deal since a decade ago when the music entrepreneurship movement was still budding. Yet, there still remains a large gap to bridge between the implementation of such programs and where we need our students to be upon completion of their programs. Some of the top conservatories have developed extensive curriculums aimed at cultivating business, marketing, and entrepreneurship skills. These are not just limited to conservatories: consider Project Jumpstart at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Even the small liberal arts college I attended had a music business degree.

Entrepreneurship in Formal Music Education

The question is how well do these programs actually prepare people for the real world, and what types of career possibilities do they encourage and promote? I do not question whether or not the top-tier programs have produced excellent entrepreneurs, as I personally know some. But for every 1 or 2 professional musician I have considered “well-equipped” for the real world, I know roughly 4-5 who were not able to attain the necessary skills. Part of this can be chalked up to the individuals… but it is not wholly on them.

As music entrepreneurship programs are still young, it is not surprising that they have not yet become ubiquitous, or that all programs that exist are not of the highest caliber. Some music schools encounter difficulty implementing their own dedicated business program in larger universities if there are bureaucratic issues that must be dealt with, if they have no faculty with the expertise to properly build such programs, if they do not consider the ROI to be enough to invest, and many other reasons etc etc. One of the problems with my school was that, although we had a music business program, it was mostly isolated from the actual business school, not drawing upon the resources and knowledge that could be found through inter-departmental collaboration. Sure, music business majors were required to take business courses, but the collaboration could have been much stronger to allow for more tailored and relevant content. When I inquired about this, I was given reasons of logistics and red tape that could throw the most seasoned of puzzle experts for a loop.

In some schools these problems may not exist. But in others, with otherwise excellent music programs, they do. I’ve known musicians who have come out from fantastic music programs at Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Houston, University of Michigan, etc who… although receiving an “excellent” music education… still lacked skills that have become essential in today’s world. To some degree this will always be a challenge, as many aspects of entrepreneurship and business must be learned through doing and taking action… through trial and error.

The reinvention of classical music is another major issue that has been raised repeatedly over recent years. If we assume that music schools equip classical musicians adequately to brave today’s professional field, where else can we find something lacking? Many point to the sterility of classical music as the culprit. But is it true?

Reinventing classical music or classical audiences?

When this question emerged on the recent LinkedIn thread, it sparked a “heated debate” among several participants. While not discounting the value of business and marketing skills, some were skeptical that these fantastic practical abilities would do any good if there were only say 100 jobs for 10,000 graduates. The other end of the problem is looking at the state of the concert audience.

That other end is well-known: few jobs exist because orchestra attendance is in worldwide decline. So the question we might better ask is why? Some months ago, there was a very long and fascinating discussion on LinkedIn about this. Many people with significant roles in the “classical” industry offered prescriptions: train children at a young to enjoy “classical” music, it’s a government responsibility to fund orchestras for the betterment of mankind, etc. All arguments I’m sure you’ve all heard before.

I suggested a different solution: repertoire that would draw larger and hopefully younger audiences and efforts by philharmonic organizations, agents, and others to better promote fresh voices in composition and performance.

This comes back to the idea that if customers aren’t interested in a product… the fault is with the product not the customers. This question has spawned almost innumerable answers: innovative programming, pop-concert-like experiences, alternative venues (ala Classical Revolution or Opera on Tap style), etc.

Orchestral music needs to be revitalized. We need to find music, performers, and event promoters that can appeal to larger audiences. Rock and Roll, House, and Dance fill stadiums with 60,000 people. If we want orchestras to live on rather than become the museums they have become, we must find orchestral music that interests larger audiences.

It’s not that the “classics” never sell out, but it no longer seems as if they are enough.

Yet, not everyone agrees with this:

The problem I see with your suggestion is that much of the repertoire you cite — rock-and-roll, “house,” and dance — are not experienced the same way as is traditional orchestral repertoire… Rock concerts are, first and foremost, audience participation events, using the group or artist as a catalyst for getting into the “crowd spirit.” People clap and sing along and shimmy more than they necessarily *listen*. (Notice I specify “rock,” not “pop.” You’d not expect, or want, a mosh pit or a sing-along at a Streisand concert, especially given their rarity.) And dance music, “house” or otherwise, is primarily about — well, dancing!

I can’t imagine that people who study orchestral instruments do so with the intent of just being secondary backup to another *sort* of event. There’s nothing wrong with this sort of thing, if you like it. But I can’t imagine that orchestral players would really be happy doing that sort of thing.

I found this portion of the discussion quite exciting with a rather fresh perspective. In our rush to capitalize upon the mainstream success of other forms of music, we might prematurely “bastardize” classical music. In this perspective, the classical music experience has not become sterile, but rather it is audiences whose ears are closed to the music and, as a result, become very susceptible to the reigning prejudices of classical music. I would assume this to be most applicable to the youth, as the challenge with classical music has been to make it as appealing to the youth as are hip hop, pop, rock, and other forms of “popular” music.

The issue I have with this viewpoint is two-fold. First, the issue of incorporating some of the success story lessons of other forms of music is not about mimicking them (i.e. bringing in mosh pits and sing alongs at classical concerts), but rather continually finding new ways to create an emotional response between the listeners and the music. For many younger listeners, the “ritual” aspect of classical music – the emphasis on silence, the lack of interaction between audience and performers, the restrained (some might say “stiff) atmosphere – can make it difficult for people to have that emotional and relational connection. I think this has become increasingly problematic in the last ten years or so, with the emergence of social networks and the need for much of the current youth generation to seek constant connection, affirmation, and validation via various forms of media consumption. It also explains why we having started seeing many more debates in recent years on issues such as clapping, noise, and other things which challenge “traditional concert etiquette.”

Second, in most other forms of music, new music is as highly celebrated as the “classics” (and sometimes more so). Despite all of the push to promote new music and their composers in the “classical” realm, I would hazard to guess that most people still view it as a fringe element. “New Music Societies” in universities and the community promote “special” concerts and performances that exist in addition to the majority of the performances which present the classics by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. The question of “What’s next?” often seems to get lost.

It seems to me this inarguably makes orchestras into museums and not vital and meaningful to contemporary audiences other than as repositories of history—like museums… I emphasize I am not suggesting orchestras turn themselves into pop music machines. I am suggesting that to solve their problems and stay vital, they must program and promote new composers.

It’s not that new composers are THE solution to improving the vitality of orchestras, and thus prospects for incoming job-seekers. There is much else that goes in tandem with this – innovative marketing for orchestras, performers, and composers; creative cross-genre programming; diversified funding sources. But if we agree that concerts are still fundamentally about the music and the relationships it can create, then new composers and new music will always remain at the heart of the issue. To this end, organizations from the famed eighth blackbird to the less-known Brave New Works are playing an invaluable role.

What Do You Think?

What are your thoughts on this? Do you believe that classical music needs to be reinvented? Or do you think audience perspectives need to be reshaped? Or do you believe that fundamental issues lie elsewhere? Whose responsibility is it to achieve the changes necessary to attract fresh new audiences?

At the end of March we’ll conclude this series by looking at a couple remaining and less discussed issues.

The post What Classical Musicians Lack, Part 2 appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

It’s been nearly five months since the Minnesota Orchestra’s lockout began, despite one very special evening in which music director Osmo Vänskä returned to conduct the group. And the orchestra is far from alone, as symphonies across the country in Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Honolulu, Atlanta, and many others have all endured strikes, lockouts, and bankruptcies over the past couple years. Faced with the dual threats of declining audiences and a still-weak economy, classical music has been engaged in an existential crisis and a stare-down with what some believe could be its own finale. Some blame a fear of a change and sluggish ability to adapt, while others have specifically targeted the management of performing groups.

While the root cause(s) remains up for debate, there are some things that are hard facts: including that, in the spring of 2011, the Philadelphia Orchestra became the nation’s first major orchestra to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy. While it survived (unlike some of its peers), it was left with 10 fewer musicians and a 15% pay cut for remaining musicians after more than a year talks and restructuring. It’s no secret that jobs across most industries are scarce, and yet classical musicians (along with artists in general) seem to have taken a proportionally larger brunt of other economic “down-pact.” Last year, the over 10,000 graduates of music schools and conservatories, entered a job market with less than a tenth full-time positions available.

Recently, I came across an interesting thread in a group on LinkedIn that asked questions centered around the lack of employment for conservatory and music school graduates. The participants were attempting to explore the “missing elements” of music education which would hopefully be the key to create a career or a business “when no one wants to hire you.”

Business / Marketing skills

One of the recurring participants responded by saying that “there is a missing element even if people DO want to hire musicians:” that element being practical business / marketing skills.

The argument of necessity for musicians developing such skills is nothing new: we’ve covered similar and related topics many times on String Visions in the past (for example in our interview with Caroline Chéhadé of Duo Philia). Often, musicians are flying by the seat of their pants as they enter the workforce post-graduation. They have little knowledge of issues ranging from taxes and business models to travel policies, budgeting, and how to market themselves. It is, in fact, an issue that plagues artists of many forms beyond musicians (e.g. photographers, graphic designers, painters, etc.) Even something as simply as how to write a resume can sometimes get lost amid the countless hours of practicing, studying theory, performing, and various other musical activities.

The response to this participant was this:

What I perceive as a rigid connection between classical training and a quasi-mandate to seek a career in classical music performance contributes, I believe, to the unemployment of so many students who have been given a form of career tunnel vision.

In other words, the argument here is that music education institutions often promote a career path that is “purely classical,” which limits the imagination of career possibilities. While this point is arguable, a strong case can be made that this “quasi-mandate” plays a somewhat opposing role towards emphasizing the necessity of learning how the world operates. More time is spent on the craft than on learning how to utilize that craft in the real world.

This is a precarious and sensitive subject because the extreme of this is focusing too much on the “business” end to the detriment of musical knowledge and ability, without which no musician can be successful as a performer. But it is precisely that last part which should be focused on: no musicians can be successful as a performer. This statement assumes that all musicians want to be performers, and while many may have a desire, realistically there is a cap on how many people can go out and be full-time performers and earn a solid living wage.

In this, the idea that perspective perpetuated by most music schools limits practical real-world learning has validity.

Community Involvement in Classical Music

The same participant that raised the issue of business and marketing skills also commented that:

I personally and very strongly believe this [referring to the lack of such real-world skills] plays a large role of the lack of public concern, understanding, and funding of the classical arts in our communities as a whole.

While there is often spotlights on the government and large-scale philanthropic efforts, in many areas local banks and corporations have often upheld a good portion of community arts of all forms. These funding efforts generally complement dedicated comprehensive efforts on the part of non-profits working specifically in any given art form. But with the economic crisis, many of these local institutions (like most financial institutions) have become tight with their funds. This is common business sense, but we may not fully realize the impact it has on the arts.

When it became painfully obvious after earning my degree that there was NO music graduate alumni support and that I really wasn’t equipped with any skills for seeking performance opportunities other than playing exceedingly well at a very high level, and I had my baby to raise, a roof to keep over my head, food on the table, and clothes on our backs, I began actively spreading the word that I was accepting private students. I created my own ensemble and listed it in print advertising and in the phone book. (Obviously this wasn’t yesterday.) I joined leads groups. I talked, I listened, I showed up, I tried hard, and I still do. Always promoting, networking, face-timing, social-media-izing, researching, talking, listening, reading…everything to stay relevant.

This illustrates the common reality of the classical musician, hence the need for the critical business, marketing, and legal knowledge essential for what we can call a “comfortable survival.” More than that, it is a way of increasing productivity of the workforce… which in turn boosts the economy… which in turn makes banks and corporations more profitable… which in turn makes them more able to support community arts… and which in turn provides a better environment in which classical musicians who attempt a business of their own creation can thrive.

What Do You Think?

These issues have been discussed many times before, but to see such a vibrant discussion on social media is indicative of where some of these conversations are now taking place. In the next part of this article series we’ll take a look at reinventing classical music… but with a twist. Following that we’ll share some other relevants aspects of this discussion which often take a back seat to the issues presented in this first part.

What are your thoughts on the topic? Do you agree or disagree with some of the arguments shared above? What do you think the primary aim of improvements in the classical music world should be?

To close this first part, I leave you with a quote that one of the LinkedIn members said regarding earning a living as a musician:

I like to eat and wear clothes that don’t have holes in them.”

Regardless of what you think of the musical and professional perspectives shared here… most of us agree that the starving artist lifestyle isn’t as romantic as we might have once thought. That alone makes this conversation worth having.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts below!

The post What Classical Musicians’ Lack, Part 1 appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

We know that Santa’s not real because Mommy told us when she was mad at us!

This proclamation came from a smiling eight year old at the end of her cello lesson right before winter break at the end of December. Her brother, sitting on the other side of the room, immediately began to laugh; and their mother, looking a bit sheepish, also began to giggle.

“Yes,” said their Mom, “it’s true.” It was a moment of genuine love and happiness that also reflected basic realities of life: sometimes moms get angry, sometimes children discover secrets.

I remember that when I first visited CMW as a participant in IMPS (the Institute for Musicianship and Public Service), I had two basic impressions of place. First of all, I was awed by the strength of the organization, how smoothly things ran and how connected the faculty was with their students. My second impression was how much everyone at CMW laughed! Meetings, meals, lessons, rehearsals: the weekend was filled with laughter. Now that I have finished my first 3 months in the fellowship program, I am starting to realize that this laughter is more than a side-effect of the CMW experience. It is a core element of the community! I find it not only in my students’ stories, but throughout the organization. It represents and reinforces a level of comfort and friendliness that is shared by all.

CMW is one of the few arts organizations I’ve been a part of that has cultivated this level of joy. That’s why it caught me by surprise when I first visited as an IMPS participant a few years ago. I think it speaks to the essence of our mission here, something that is a basic truth of life: The fun is in the journey – the mistakes, the rehearsing, the learning and growing. We might as well enjoy it and laugh as we move forward!

Holiday Music with CMW

Community MusicWorks is a community-based music performance and education program that provides free violin, viola, and cello lessons for students who live in the West side neighborhoods of Providence, RI. Its structure, as a storefront residency for professional musicians in an urban neighborhood, has become a new model of successful urban arts education over the past fifteen years. CMW’s Founder and Artistic Director, Sebastian Ruth, was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2010 for his work “forging a new, multifaceted role beyond the concert hall for the twenty-first-century musician.” Community MusicWorks offers four two-year positions to young professional musicians looking to gain a deeper understanding of the CMW model.

The post CMW Holiday Laughter (CMW Fellows Series January 2013) appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

“What you do” is only part of what makes your job everything that it is or isn’t. “Who you work with” might be equally important, and I’d be willing to bet that “how your workplace treats you” would round out the top three.

Luckily, CMW is hitting it out of the park on all three counts. This month, I have a lot to celebrate in the “how your workplace treats you” department.

The first event that caught my attention and warmed my heart was my birthday. I turned 25 on November 26th, and have successfully made it since then without a single quarter-life breakdown (only 48 weeks to go)! I think it’s indicative of CMW’s culture that each staff member’s birthday is listed on the All-Staff Google Calendar, the result being that I was treated to surprise birthday texts and e-mails throughout the day. It may sound like a small detail, but the emotional impact of those brief messages was huge. My next birthday surprise arrived a few days later, when we were enjoying Phase 2 Dinner with staff and our roughly high school-age Phase 2 students. At one point during the meal, the entire cafeteria turned to look at our staff table. I panicked. Did we just swear loudly enough that they all heard it? Did I really have that much food on my face? As the students broke into an enthusiastic “Happy Birthday,” I l scanned the room to figure out whose birthday it was. Wait, was it mine? Oh, of course, they were singing to me! How fantastic!

The next morning we switched gears and celebrated the beginning of three months’ maternity leave for Chloe Klein, our beloved Education Director. Senior Resident Musician Sara Stalnaker organized a gorgeous surprise dessert reception, and our new Managing Director Kimberly Young was drafted into holding a fake meeting with Chloe to set her up for the surprise. After at least two false starts, we managed to get our timing right for Chloe to experience that confusing combination of feeling startled and feeling loved that comes with a bellowed surprise party “SURPRISE!”

We had a beautiful party. Sara presented Chloe with a group-knitted wrap (the existence of which reinforces that positive “who you work with” piece of the CMW puzzle – more than half a dozen staff members contributed rows of stitches and our parent rep finished the project’s assembly), and then everyone adjourned upstairs to our weekly staff meeting. To my surprise, I was treated to yet another rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and presented with a birthday candle-adorned petit four. (There would have been an entire cake had we not already gorged on surprise cake only hours before. Honestly, I barely powered through the miniature cake at the time.)

A mere forty-eight hours later, we were in the midst of the final party of the week, a bittersweet farewell brunch for our outgoing Managing Director Heath Marlow. We had teamed up to decorate our office’s third floor, and the potluck’s table was overflowing. I can’t resist bragging about the spread: baked french toast, baked home fries, bagels and smoked salmon, fruit salad, gluten-free chocolate zucchini cake, cheese and tomato-adorned polenta, an Asian slaw, pastries, and more. I couldn’t resist going back for seconds, and even thirds, and somehow we still had piles of leftovers. Liz Cox, our Manager of Communications and Administration, and Chase Spruill, one of our Resident Musicians, put together an incredible video tribute to Heath. It was equal parts artistic, comedic, and poignant. Given that this was CMW, it was exactly as it should be.

It was a wonderful week at CMW. Every organization and business necessarily builds its unique culture as it grows and develops, and that culture informs the mission’s execution just as essentially as does the mission itself. CMW has an exceptional culture. You can tell by how great the parties are.

Community MusicWorks is a community-based music performance and education program that provides free violin, viola, and cello lessons for students who live in the West side neighborhoods of Providence, RI. Its structure, as a storefront residency for professional musicians in an urban neighborhood, has become a new model of successful urban arts education over the past fifteen years. CMW’s Founder and Artistic Director, Sebastian Ruth, was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2010 for his work “forging a new, multifaceted role beyond the concert hall for the twenty-first-century musician.” Community MusicWorks offers four two-year positions to young professional musicians looking to gain a deeper understanding of the CMW model.

The post How the Workplace Treats You (CMW Fellows Series December 2012) appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

In the first article of this series I introduced ArtistWorks to you. At the end I posited the question of how can we take the next step towards a democratization of classical music, equalizing opportunity and access to students.

That was precisely my question going into the ArtistWorks roundtable. For CEO David Butler, it is one of his most commonly-heard questions. And for him, ArtistWorks is the answer.

ArtistWorks – Why is it Different?

From Mr. Butler:

The concept of ArtistWorks is taking a very accomplished musician in their field – someone who’s achieved something of a high order – and providing access to that person on a more widespread scale, rather than to just a select few. With the ArtistWorks method, we shoot an entire curriculum that represents that musician’s “musical legacy,” everything they’ve learned to that point, centered around around core fundamentals… in order to teach and and improve ability to perform better in auditions and other practical situations.

The students can move through these lessons in a linear format, and they can also show their improvement via video exchange to an instructor. The instructor can then make comments and respond with his or her own video. The video exchange is posted online for everybody to see.

First of all, we want to remind you that ArtistWorks is a paid service. Like paying for a lesson, this is something that musicians can choose to utilize for the benefit and advancement of their musical pursuits and career.

Second, ArtistWorks should not be viewed as something seeking to replace traditional lesson formats in any way. As Mr. Butler himself said:

The ideal situation is that you can meet the teacher in person, they are available at the same time you are, they accept you to take a lesson with them, and you both get a face-to-face in person lesson where they can work with you.

But, of course, that isn’t the reality for everyone. ArtistWorks seeks to use technology to provide options and access for the many times when we have that “less-than-ideal” reality.

ArtistWorks – What are the Benefits?

From my point of view, ArtistWorks offers several benefits:

• Flexibility: applies for both teachers and students; lessons can fit in into different and conflicting schedules
• Access: video lessons are posted on the website for subscribers to see and the content stays up there so students and teachers can go back to review it at a later point
• Efficiency: since video content is public, teachers can reach many more people than typically possible in a one-on-one lesson format
• Detailed: instructors claim they are able to drill down much more than is typically possible in the one-hour in-person lesson format (more on this below)
• Cost-Effective: from the student’s point of view, a subscription rate of $20-30 per month is decent given the range of access to material online and when comparing to a typical hourly lesson rate

ArtistWorks – Are the Benefits Real?

Obviously they think so, but I was serious when I pressed for a more thorough explanation, as online education movements remain somewhat controversial in the minds of the masses as an alternative or even supplement to “real-life” education.

Flexibility and access are fairly obvious to understand. Having the resource available online 24/7 allows teachers and students to come together in a share educational forum irrespective of geographical or temporal constraints… as well as opening up the knowledge and expertise of some of the top musicians to those who may not also be the top students, and thus who may not have otherwise had an opportunity to study with an instructor of that caliber. Also, as noted, the monthly rate is cost-effective and a good value considering the price-to-resource.

The other two benefits are a little more elusive, and for some perhaps contestable. The argument for efficiency is the ability for one instructor to reach more people while keeping to a “one-on-one” type of format, since the video content is tailored not just in answer to a specific person but also to a specific challenge or type of challenge in a piece. One member of the roundtable had this to say:

They [teachers] don’t have to say the same thing over and over, but rather record that response once. That response is then made available to many people online reaching an entire community of musicians: those who are experiencing similar difficulties and encountering similar questions in their playing. The result is a leveraging of technology to make it possible for an individual teacher to reach hundreds of people at the same time.

Detail was another area that I was very suspicious of at first. The teachers on the live broadcast claimed that they were actually able to go into greater specific detail through these video exchanges than they were in normal lessons. The idea is that there is a huge value to students when you are only discussing a small part of the music; not a whole movement or even a section but a single phrase. Teachers felt that they could get much more detailed and delve into more complex aspects of the music. Ironically, in-person lessons tend to be a little more rushed since there is usually a need to get through the whole movement of a piece in an hour.

Of course, many counterarguments can immediately come to mind. After all, if you are only discussing a very small fragment of a piece, the student never gets direction on the overall work. There is much more that is left unsaid. And since different musicians can often struggle differently with the same challenges, video responses that are tailored to one person or group of people may not be as effective for others.

But, these counterarguments are lessened when you consider that the primary purpose of ArtistWorks is not replace the in-person lesson format but to complement it, as well as to offer access to educational resources that these students would not otherwise have. Imagine a student of the french horn in Oregon who would love to study with someone from Carnegie Melon. Reality would in most cases prevent that student from doing so (financial obstacles, distance gap, scheduling conflicts, skill level). However, through the ArtistWorks model, that person would have access to William Caballero.

We could hypothesize all day about these benefits, but it is most convincing to hear the words of a student who has experienced this firsthand. During the live broadcast we heard from a student at the Curtis Institute who was also a graduate of the ArtistWorks program and one of its beta testers.

Video exchange is something new in classical music. It takes the essence of a lesson – you play and you get a response – and puts in a format that is more flexible. It’s technology-driven, but what’s important is how students and teacher navigate education through technology.

…

For myself I’ve really enjoyed the dialogue that occurs when it comes to developing technique. The section focused on excerpts is also an amazing resource for students.

…

[In terms of what you need for video exchanges] you need a good microphone and a decent webcam setup. Most of these exchanges are on the shorter end. Videos from students tend to be 2-2.5 minutes, and you get about 5 minutes back from the instructor. It’s basically the same as a lesson, but broken up into segments.

Another advantage for students is that they are comfortable in their surroundings. They can record it a few times if they want to so they can get a good representation of what to send out. Feedback is then more precise. It also encourages more self-evaluation, more listening to yourself. Students will record themselves and listen back and hear the things that a coach points out on their own.

Finally, everything can go at your own pace.

Studying at your own pace can be a weakness as well, because some students may require more external pushing than others. But at the same time, encouraging that independence and self-reliance is critical for a musician at a high level.

While it’s easy to point out faults in the ArtistWorks method, on the whole the process seems well thought out and put together. Definitely, it holds great value as a supplemental teaching and learning resource. It falters somewhat as a sole primary means of music education, but we have to remember that its purpose is not to displace traditional in-person lessons.

And yet, what does the emergence of this model say about the future of classical music education? Isn’t it logical to assume that as technology improves, models like this will become more widespread and perhaps more viable as the primary means to teach and learn music? Is that kind of future desirable?

I’ll leave you with those thoughts. In the next part of this series we will explore this and other related questions more, with some guest contributions!

The post The Future of Classical Music Education? Part 2 appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

The week of November 6th-12th was CMW’s annual Bach festival. This year the festival consisted of two formal concerts, an all-night marathon of Bach’s music and contemporary music he inspired, as well as countless “pop-up” performances all over Providence. For Annalisa and I this meant that over the course of four days we performed at:

1. the home of a former CMW Board member,
2. a local, 93 year old family-owned hardware store,
3. for CMW students at Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts,
4. a library,
5. a church,
6. an art museum!

In addition to these performances, much of our day time hours were devoted to rehearsing Bach concertos and cantatas for our more “official” performances.

Yes, we are exhausted! Yet I can say it was well worth the effort! While in school, I was always working on Bach’s music, but as one of many projects. This past week, for the first time, I focused completely on it: listening to my friends and colleagues perform, playing continuo for the famous Bach double violin concerto, and practicing the first cello suite.

The thing that impresses me about Bach’s music is that it is a never-ending journey. This music constantly challenges you to hear something new. If you listen just a little closer, a little more carefully, you will discover a whole new meaning to a piece that you have known for years. Pablo Casals knew this, and that is why it took him almost a life time to feel comfortable performing the cello suites. Sebastian Ruth, CMW’s artistic director and founder, echoed this sentiment in an e-mail he sent out inviting friends of CMW to come hear his performance of Chaconne. He wrote, “This has been a 21-year+ project for me in loving and learning this piece, and I am still only scratching the surface.”

I think the lesson that Bach teaches us — the importance of listening closer and working hard to hear what the instruments say — extends into every aspect of my work with Community MusicWorks and my life. With students, board members, potential donors, friends and colleagues, taking the time to listen, consider and truly understand their point of view goes much farther than speaking louder and emphatically trying to convince them of MY perspective. For years and years my teachers told me to listen: “follow my directions”, “listen to recordings” ect., and I have passively engaged these activities. Only now am I realizing that I missed their point. Instead of focusing on the individual, the focus must be on the whole, the overall goal. This seems to me to extend way beyond successfully performing music; it seems possible that the solution for many of our society’s contemporary problems lie in the cultivation of this value taught by Bach, the skill of deep and careful listening.

Community MusicWorks is a community-based music performance and education program that provides free violin, viola, and cello lessons for students who live in the West side neighborhoods of Providence, RI. Its structure, as a storefront residency for professional musicians in an urban neighborhood, has become a new model of successful urban arts education over the past fifteen years. CMW’s Founder and Artistic Director, Sebastian Ruth, was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2010 for his work “forging a new, multifaceted role beyond the concert hall for the twenty-first-century musician.” Community MusicWorks offers four two-year positions to young professional musicians looking to gain a deeper understanding of the CMW model.

The post CMW Annual Bach Festival (CMW Fellows Series November 2012) appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

Starting today, music students from around the world are able to take classical music lessons one-on-one online with world-renowned artists at the first-ever online campus for classical music lessons. The ArtistWorks Classical Music Campus features online music schools in four core orchestral instruments that include flute, trumpet, clarinet, and French horn, with violin following later in the Fall. Also included in the Classical Campus are current ArtistWorks classical piano and classical guitar schools.

Instructors at the ArtistWorks Classical Campus include Jeffrey Khaner (Principal Flutist, Philadelphia Orchestra, Curtis Institute); David Bilger (Principal Trumpet, Philadelphia Orchestra, Curtis Institute, University of Georgia, Temple University); Ricardo Morales (Principal Clarinetist, Philadelphia Orchestra, Curtis Institute, Juilliard, Temple University); Bill Caballero (Principal French Horn, Pittsburgh Orchestra, Carnegie Mellon University School of Music); Nathan Cole (First Associate Concertmaster, Los Angeles Philharmonic); as well as guitarist Jason Vieaux (Curtis Institute, Cleveland Institute of Music) and pianist Christie Peery (Peabody Institute).

The Classical Music Campus teaching artists are all principal performers within their respective orchestras and in addition, most are music instructors at various ultra exclusive classical music schools including Juilliard, Curtis Institute and the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music. Previously, direct access to these prestigious teaching artists was reserved for only the most elite students in the world.

This will be the first part in a short series examining the future of classical music education and how technology is playing a role in the evolution of modern and alternative educational formats.

This series is not an official sponsorship of ArtistWorks. Ovation Press is in no way affiliated with ArtistWorks and will not be compensated for anyone who decides to sign-up for the services they provide after reading these articles on String Visions. Though ArtistWorks will be a major focus during this series, its selection as such does not constitute an endorsement. It was chosen to serve as an example and illustrate a unique and (so far) successful model of online music education.

When I first read about ArtistWorks, the idea was certainly intriguing to me. I wanted to know more about ArtistWorks. When they announced that they would be doing a live roundtable I made it a point to be available for at least a portion of it. Ironically, they were plagued with some technical issues at the beginning, but for the most part everything ran quite smoothly.

Initially I was quite skeptical of such a service, but after listening to several of the speakers I was surprised by how persuaded I had become.

The core of ArtistWorks revolves around several key points:

• The best teachers and instructors usually are not available to very many people
• As a result, they are somewhat limited in terms of how many students they can reach on an individual basis
• Consequently, many students are unable to benefit from the expertise and knowledge of these teachers
• Thus, ArtistWorks’ mission becomes to harness technology to fill this void, providing regular and affordable access for these students to these teachers

ArtistWorks CEO David Butler, himself a technology professional who previously worked at AOL, asked a very poignant question: “where do you see technology impacting classical music?”

The first thing that comes to mind for most people is YouTube. Sure enough, one of the roundtable participants touched on this very issue:

Everybody I teach is on YouTube. They come to me and say “I saw this or that on the site; do you recommend that fingering or that tempo.” This phenomenon is here to stay. The access is great, and there is a lot of quantity.

But what about quality? Exactly Who is posting these videos? The challenge is to help students realize that just because something is up there on the web, doesn’t mean it’s something you should emulate.

As a music teacher, you’ve no doubt encountered this already. Someone comes to a lesson and plays something a certain way… and when you ask them if & where they saw someone do that, they say “on YouTube.”

In more recent times we’ve seen the combination of YouTube and Google in the latter’s social network Google+, which has created breakout artists such as Daria Musk. Orchestras, small ensembles, non-profits, and even individual artists have attempted to use this and other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to generate online buzz, traffic, and exposure to classical music.

Another (perhaps more practical) example that comes to mind is web conferencing technology such as Skype, which enables teacher and student to have a lesson across great distances. This has become increasingly popular in recent years. Our very own co-founder Hans Jensen has taught several regular students this way.

Yet, this wondrous technology is not without significant drawbacks. Virtual lessons are completely at the mercy of the technology limitations: slow Internet connection, bad audio quality, etc. Professional-grade setups for web conferencing can easily reach into the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars, putting this availability beyond the reach of most people… especially starving artists.

We often talk about the Internet as a force that democratizes, that equalizes opportunity and access. However, access to online music education, beyond watching and emulating videos (which many question as “education”) still seems to be lagging beyond the incredible technology available to us today.

How do we take the next step?

In subsequent articles we will explore more about ArtistWorks and what has been successful in it as a program. From there we will explore what that could mean for the future of online music education.

The post The Future of Classical Music Education? Part 1 appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.

CDZA takes contemporary pop music and transforms it into some of the hallmark classical compositions, creating a very a fun way for these young students to access and remember. Often times they do this by setting the lyrics of these pop songs against the melodies and instrumentation of classical works.

In one of their recent videos, CDZA writes:

How do you teach the classics to students today? How do you get students thinking critically about how Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach are relevant to music today? These composers provide the building blocks of modern music, and are necessary knowledge to a well-rounded musical education, but how do you get students to pay attention to these long-deceased classical music masters?

CDZA presents an innovative way to connect with students and teach them the classics.

Granted, many of these “musical renditions” sound a little silly when you listen to them, and some people might view this as a disservice to the classical tradition. However, at the very least, engaging students in this way exposes classical music to them in a manner that they find enjoyable. They are more open to not only receiving this music, but internalizing it.

Whether what they are internalizing though is really beneficial for them to the degree that a traditional approach to young music education is remains to be seen. Still, this method does get kids more excited about classical music, and with an increased awareness and exposure, they are more likely to be able to build off and up as they grow older.

You can learn more about CDZA by visiting their YouTube channel.

More stories from the classical music world:

• The centennial celebration of John Cage and his music continues. Next month will see the latest offering in the sfSoundSeries concert programs of contemporary and experimental music, featuring Dutch composer and performer Jaap Blonk who will give his interpretation of Cage’s “Aria.”
• An Australian pianist, Michael Kieran Harvey, recently mounted an assault on Australian music organisations, claiming that Australian audiences still regard Australian musicians and ensembles as inferior. Among those he targeted were symphony orchestras, opera companies, broadcasters, and competitions.
• Knowing that “making it in the music business is tough, especially in the classical music business,” pianist Min Kwon gave a benefit concert yesterday where all proceeds from the concert would go to the Center for Musical Excellence (CME), a non-profit organization.
• Meanwhile, classical music receives a “new push” in the Napa Valley, with a quartet of performing arts leaders launching a community-wide fund drive to underwrite the costs of planned symphony, opera, choral and solo artist performances.
• In the latest update to our friends at Classical Revolution, members of the revolution join ranks alongside members of the Cleveland Orchestra at one of the city’s hottest spots for musical acts alongside good food and drink: the Happy Dog.

The post What Classical Kids are Up To: Monday’s Bow (October 29) appeared first on String Visions | from Ovation Press.