Saturday, November 26, 2011

Music and Memory, Part 25: Every Gig Counts

On the last day of classes at the end of the fall semester a few years ago, at the large urban university where I taught a writing class for music majors, I picked up several dozen doughnuts and a couple of gallons of coffee at Dunkin Donuts before getting on the subway to go teach.  I had a lot of jazz players in my class that term, and, when they fell upon the treats like a horde of locusts as soon as I'd set them out, I reminded them half-jokingly that it was probably more than they usually made on a gig. The truth is that it's harder to make a living as a jazz musician in New York than it is even as a classical musician.  As in the classical world, there's a glut of players and a dearth of jobs, but the prevalence of brunch spots and tony cocktail parties depresses wages for jazz players to a degree that few opera singers ever experience, owing to the virtual non-existence of comparable gigs in the opera field. So opera singers have desk jobs, and legendary jazz players take home two hundred bucks on a club date, while their lesser-known colleagues compete with Manhattan School of Music students for the $25-or-so-per-man that a brunch gig pays.

Still, in the classical world, you could always tell which of your colleagues was going to be an unusually good, and possibly even a successful, artist by the way she comported herself when even on the crappiest of gigs. The soprano singing a concert of opera arias in the church basement with a pickup orchestra of her friends from conservatory conducted by her boyfriend, who nonetheless wore her most beautiful diva gown, got her hair done, held her head high, and smiled dazzlingly at the audience at her entrances and exits, was the one who was going places. She treated herself, her motley audience, and the very essence of the singing profession, insofar as it was visible in that church-basement gig, with the respect commanded by the Western classical music tradition as one of the most beautiful possible reflections of God's divine nature and His desire that His creatures should live life more abundantly.

Even if it weren't for their gig at the Carlyle Hotel and Joe Nocera's rave in the New York Times, this couple is going places. Nocera's essay is certainly unusual for an op-ed piece, the sort of thing that is generally attributable to a slow news day, a personal connection to the subjects, or some combination thereof. Still, good on them. I don't know them or their playing, but they must be excellent. And their work history is very much like that of thousands of other musicians in New York, with the exception of their eventual, hard-won success.

3 comments:

ex-new yorker said...

I had a neighbor a few years younger than I was who could be heard belting out various pop songs from her early teens or even earlier ("Don't Cry Out Loud" was a favorite, and later some Celine Dion song I can't remember). Of course envy was an issue for me, although I didn't really like her voice. She apparently wanted to be on Broadway, but when she didn't get a music/theater scholarship she decided to study business instead in college. I suppose that doesn't mean she gave up her aspirations entirely, but I don't remember hearing her sing anymore. I don't know; maybe if you can't get a scholarship in those areas you shouldn't invest anything more in that difficult dream to pursue? Says the person who undoubtedly wouldn't have earned a music or theater scholarship at college entry time yet wishes she'd realized she wasn't really starting *that* late in voice as a 20-year-old...

Pentimento said...

Getting a music scholarship isn't necessarily proof of ability, just as not getting one isn't proof of the inverse. Most music scholarships go to fill in needed orchestra chairs, or to tenors.

As far as pursuing a career, though, what my teacher A.B. said still rings true to me: If you don't feel like you can't live without singing, then don't pursue a career. It's too full of heartbreak, no matter one's level of ability.

ex-new yorker said...

Well, she probably didn't feel that way if she decided to study business instead while still so young, and while it seems to be factually impossible for me to live without singing, performing publicly was obviously a different story. Today's cantor at church had a lovely voice and seemed to execute most things quite well technically. It made me a little wistful, but mostly I was able just to appreciate it. I guess there have to be some people who were made to be the especially appreciative listeners and not the performers.