12 ms·

Orchestral musicians have unusually challenging jobs

62 points by barrabas 5y ago

JoeDaDude 5y ago
IANAM (though I have relatives that are). My experience ion the corporate world is that HR exists to protect the organization, not to help the employees. The notion that orchestras need an HR organization to address musician's issues should be taken with a big grain of salt.
- e40 5y ago
  Why should a musician be different than any other job, without the support of HR. Yes, HR is there to protect the company when there are disputes with employees, but it's also there to help protect employees from other employees.
  - a5aAqU 5y ago
    > it's also there to help protect employees from other employees Not always. The main goal of HR is to protect the company and keep things running when sorting out problems between employees, not fairness.
  - phone8675309 5y ago
    Any organization that refers to the units it manages as 'resources' does not care about them as humans. Human Resources is about limiting damage to the company. Sometimes that overlaps with protecting workers. Most of the time it doesn't.
j7ake 5y ago
I remember listening to a piano concerto + symphony one evening live at a concert hall and thinking how it was possible that this orchestra of 50+ plus a famous soloist makes money on our $100 tickets (best seats). Here we are paying $100 for 50 top notch world class musicians playing for 3 hours. There were maybe 500 people in the concert hall, so at an average ticket price of $50 each musician (split evenly) would have gotten max 500 bucks.
- CHY872 5y ago
  The financing can be complex, but broadly there are a few things that enable modern American orchestras to survive. 1. Benefactors who give money to the orchestra, rent boxes, etc. 2. Popular (non classical) concerts which have a possibly larger crowd and varied material. Harry Potter with orchestral accompaniment? Tenacious D with orchestral accompaniment? The musicians hate it, it pays the bills. 3. A mostly part time staff. Most orchestral musicians will play in many orchestras, teach, etc. They made a loss on your concert. But they knew they would.
  - Leherenn 5y ago
    Why do musicians hate the "non-classical" concerts?
    - callalex 5y ago
      For the same reason a Michelin chef wouldn’t enjoy being a fry cook at McDonalds. It’s all the tedious parts of the job without the challenge and creativity parts.
      - Leherenn 5y ago
        Are the top movie scores really that bad/simple compared to the average classical piece? Clearly, the classical masterpieces are a step or two above, but they don't always play that or it must get boring quickly I assume. To me, if felt more like a Michelin chef having a go at a burger. You wouldn't do that all the time, but it could be a fun distraction once in a while. If anything, it feels like you would need quite a bit of creativity to adapt a piece that was not meant for a classical orchestra.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Not to spoil your day, but if you subtract back out the costs of the venue it might be less than half that.
- circlefavshape 5y ago
cormacrelf 5y ago
Would love to read this but it’s got a redirect/reload loop. At least on an iPhone.
MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
Miserable job. Highly competitive, low pay, limited autonomy. Had a colleague once who switched to IT from being an orchestral musician. Caveat: single data point.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vr46 5y ago
I once saw a FoF playing in the Sydney Symphony and then met them at the bar in the harbour for a messy evening of drinking. They were joined by many colleagues. The conversations I eavesdropped on were quite epic: “No I don’t think it was a mistake to do crystal meth, it was just a mistake to do it in the first day” And other such tidbits which suggested their lives were anything like described in the article. Maybe both situations are possible, but it seemed that tenured orchestral musicians lived a Life of Riley, and good for them.
- nickd2001 5y ago
  A family member who is a professional classical musician told me it seems that excessive drinking, and sometimes substance abuse, is a coping strategy for the high stress of playing on stage, which is very exposed. Doesn't seem very healthy. There are pro orchestras whose members get drunk in the interval so the second half of the concert is not so good, especially if they are away from their normal base, or don't like the conductor.
cryptica 5y ago
This seems to me like a job where the output quality of a worker is extremely difficult to measure; it's difficult to tell if one excellent musician is better than another excellent musician. Surely beyond a certain point, it's subjective. People tend to want to think of themselves as being objectively talented and as being deserving of credit; but in certain professions, there is no such thing. Art is rich people's subjectivity being passed off as objectivity. It can't be easy to base your entire professional self-esteem on the whims and moods of the rich people who fund the industry. In a slightly different world, the definitions of 'good' and 'excellent' would be completely different.
- tgv 5y ago
  Thinking that performance is that subjective is a bit weird to me. I can’t imagine a world in which it eg. not being able to play precisely or fast would be considered better.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    They said "beyond a certain point". I can't imagine a world where being able to play precisely or fast is what distinguishes B.B. King from some shredder on YouTube.
  - aurelianito 5y ago
    The variations in ability of a trained musician are imperceptible to an untrained listener.
- jelsisi 5y ago
  Having played the violin for ~16 years and been in many competitions, I'd have to say it's fairly easy to differentiate musicians. There are pieces of music that push the the limit of what your fingers can do, and some interpretations generally win out over others.
  - cryptica 5y ago
    Wouldn't all musicians who are good enough to work for a professional orchestra be able to play all of these difficult pieces without making any mistakes? Being able to play difficult pieces without making a mistake is the objective definition of perfection. Yet among the people who can all play difficult pieces perfectly, not all of them can work for the New York Philharmonic or more high prestige group. What differentiates one player who plays perfectly from another player who also plays perfectly? There must be something else beyond 'not making mistakes'; that thing is subjective, not objective. It's pretty clear if someone hits the wrong note, but who gets to judge that a particular musician held a specific note for 10 milliseconds too long? Or who is to say that some notes were given 'too much emphasis'? I'm sure that there is consensus among the elite musicians about all these subjective judgments, but it doesn't change the fact that it's subjective... The audience might not care at all either way or they might even disagree with the elite musicians' consensus... Who is right in this case? Isn't the customer always right? What does it mean to have a 'trained ear'? Can't the ear be over-trained or mis-trained. If you teach someone how to do something the wrong way (e.g. inefficiently) and they learn how to do it the wrong way perfectly, isn't it still the wrong way?
socksset 5y ago
Even worse to me is so many orchestras have to pay the bills with performances of Christmas music or orchestral versions of Motley Crue. Imagine putting in that many hours of practice on the classical masters to end up with a low paying job playing Frosty the Snowman and Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me".
- j7ake 5y ago
  Probably analogous to mathematics professors who have to teach courses to students to sustain their salaries and research.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Imagine putting in that many hours of practice on the classical masters to end up with a low paying job playing Frosty the Snowman and Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me". The vast majority of work in any given profession is lower tier work like this. The electrician you paid to install a dimmer could be doing much more advanced work but he does what pays the bills.
- anamax 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg0X9H6FGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg0X9H6FGU The folks in the uniforms, especially the ones playing instruments, in that video are world class. They're having the time of their professional lives.
  - _Anken 5y ago
    Looking happy and dancing around like that is also part of what they are paying for at the gig.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > and Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me". And here I am wishing I could play Pour Some Sugar On Me somewhere for free...
emdowling 5y ago
In a former life, I worked as a stage and orchestra manager, including a few contracts with some of Australia's most well-known professional orchestras and opera companies. tl;dr: They work harder, for longer hours, than the vast majority of people in tech. They will spend a full working day in rehearsal, then go home and spend a few hours doing solo practice. They will spend hours of time (often uncompensated) notating scores ahead of the first rehearsal of new work or production. As others have pointed out, the economic model for orchestras and just about any live performance cannot support high salaries. Many musicians will have instruments worth thousands of dollars, so they will have loans against them. Then there is the venue and equipment hire, the transportation costs and the wages for the crew behind the scenes - people to set up the stage and run the show (like me), lighting and sound designers and operators, etc (14+ hour days are not uncommon). It is a very hard way to earn a living, and on top of it all most jobs are contracts measured in weeks or months, not full-time positions. Not only do you have to be unbelievably talented and passionate about it, you also have to possess superhuman resilience to handle the lifestyle. I have nothing but respect to people who do this job for a living.
_Anken 5y ago
At least in the US, almost all full-time orchestras are union shops with the American Federation of Musicians. The first stop for major issues should not be with management's HR, but with the union local and the union steward for the orchestra. Most of these orchestras also have an Orchestra Committee made up of musicians, and it is this committee's job to help as well. And most of the largest orchestras do have an HR rep. HR is there to protect management. The union is there to protect employees as a collective. Individual results may vary.
bjoli 5y ago
I am the principal bassoon player of a moderately large (82 musicians) orchestra. AMA I guess. With regards to HR, I think finding a HR person that understands how an orchestra works will be prohibitively hard. We have the (assistant) orchestra manager for all immediate personnel questions. When HR gets involved it is usually the regular grinding to make people quit or accept some sort of termination offer.

62 points by barrabas 5y ago

IANAM (though I have relatives that are). My experience ion the corporate world is that HR exists to protect the organization, not to help the employees. The notion that orchestras need an HR organization to address musician's issues should be taken with a big grain of salt.

e40 5y ago
Why should a musician be different than any other job, without the support of HR. Yes, HR is there to protect the company when there are disputes with employees, but it's also there to help protect employees from other employees.
- a5aAqU 5y ago
  > it's also there to help protect employees from other employees Not always. The main goal of HR is to protect the company and keep things running when sorting out problems between employees, not fairness.
- phone8675309 5y ago
  Any organization that refers to the units it manages as 'resources' does not care about them as humans. Human Resources is about limiting damage to the company. Sometimes that overlaps with protecting workers. Most of the time it doesn't.

j7ake 5y ago

I remember listening to a piano concerto + symphony one evening live at a concert hall and thinking how it was possible that this orchestra of 50+ plus a famous soloist makes money on our $100 tickets (best seats). Here we are paying $100 for 50 top notch world class musicians playing for 3 hours. There were maybe 500 people in the concert hall, so at an average ticket price of $50 each musician (split evenly) would have gotten max 500 bucks.

CHY872 5y ago
The financing can be complex, but broadly there are a few things that enable modern American orchestras to survive. 1. Benefactors who give money to the orchestra, rent boxes, etc. 2. Popular (non classical) concerts which have a possibly larger crowd and varied material. Harry Potter with orchestral accompaniment? Tenacious D with orchestral accompaniment? The musicians hate it, it pays the bills. 3. A mostly part time staff. Most orchestral musicians will play in many orchestras, teach, etc. They made a loss on your concert. But they knew they would.
- Leherenn 5y ago
  Why do musicians hate the "non-classical" concerts?
  - callalex 5y ago
    For the same reason a Michelin chef wouldn’t enjoy being a fry cook at McDonalds. It’s all the tedious parts of the job without the challenge and creativity parts.
    - Leherenn 5y ago
      Are the top movie scores really that bad/simple compared to the average classical piece? Clearly, the classical masterpieces are a step or two above, but they don't always play that or it must get boring quickly I assume. To me, if felt more like a Michelin chef having a go at a burger. You wouldn't do that all the time, but it could be a fun distraction once in a while. If anything, it feels like you would need quite a bit of creativity to adapt a piece that was not meant for a classical orchestra.
jacquesm 5y ago
Not to spoil your day, but if you subtract back out the costs of the venue it might be less than half that.
circlefavshape 5y ago

cormacrelf 5y ago

Would love to read this but it’s got a redirect/reload loop. At least on an iPhone.

MrBuddyCasino 5y ago

Miserable job. Highly competitive, low pay, limited autonomy. Had a colleague once who switched to IT from being an orchestral musician. Caveat: single data point.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

vr46 5y ago

I once saw a FoF playing in the Sydney Symphony and then met them at the bar in the harbour for a messy evening of drinking. They were joined by many colleagues. The conversations I eavesdropped on were quite epic: “No I don’t think it was a mistake to do crystal meth, it was just a mistake to do it in the first day” And other such tidbits which suggested their lives were anything like described in the article. Maybe both situations are possible, but it seemed that tenured orchestral musicians lived a Life of Riley, and good for them.

nickd2001 5y ago
A family member who is a professional classical musician told me it seems that excessive drinking, and sometimes substance abuse, is a coping strategy for the high stress of playing on stage, which is very exposed. Doesn't seem very healthy. There are pro orchestras whose members get drunk in the interval so the second half of the concert is not so good, especially if they are away from their normal base, or don't like the conductor.

cryptica 5y ago

This seems to me like a job where the output quality of a worker is extremely difficult to measure; it's difficult to tell if one excellent musician is better than another excellent musician. Surely beyond a certain point, it's subjective. People tend to want to think of themselves as being objectively talented and as being deserving of credit; but in certain professions, there is no such thing. Art is rich people's subjectivity being passed off as objectivity. It can't be easy to base your entire professional self-esteem on the whims and moods of the rich people who fund the industry. In a slightly different world, the definitions of 'good' and 'excellent' would be completely different.

tgv 5y ago
Thinking that performance is that subjective is a bit weird to me. I can’t imagine a world in which it eg. not being able to play precisely or fast would be considered better.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  They said "beyond a certain point". I can't imagine a world where being able to play precisely or fast is what distinguishes B.B. King from some shredder on YouTube.
- aurelianito 5y ago
  The variations in ability of a trained musician are imperceptible to an untrained listener.
jelsisi 5y ago
Having played the violin for ~16 years and been in many competitions, I'd have to say it's fairly easy to differentiate musicians. There are pieces of music that push the the limit of what your fingers can do, and some interpretations generally win out over others.
- cryptica 5y ago
  Wouldn't all musicians who are good enough to work for a professional orchestra be able to play all of these difficult pieces without making any mistakes? Being able to play difficult pieces without making a mistake is the objective definition of perfection. Yet among the people who can all play difficult pieces perfectly, not all of them can work for the New York Philharmonic or more high prestige group. What differentiates one player who plays perfectly from another player who also plays perfectly? There must be something else beyond 'not making mistakes'; that thing is subjective, not objective. It's pretty clear if someone hits the wrong note, but who gets to judge that a particular musician held a specific note for 10 milliseconds too long? Or who is to say that some notes were given 'too much emphasis'? I'm sure that there is consensus among the elite musicians about all these subjective judgments, but it doesn't change the fact that it's subjective... The audience might not care at all either way or they might even disagree with the elite musicians' consensus... Who is right in this case? Isn't the customer always right? What does it mean to have a 'trained ear'? Can't the ear be over-trained or mis-trained. If you teach someone how to do something the wrong way (e.g. inefficiently) and they learn how to do it the wrong way perfectly, isn't it still the wrong way?

socksset 5y ago

Even worse to me is so many orchestras have to pay the bills with performances of Christmas music or orchestral versions of Motley Crue. Imagine putting in that many hours of practice on the classical masters to end up with a low paying job playing Frosty the Snowman and Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me".

j7ake 5y ago
Probably analogous to mathematics professors who have to teach courses to students to sustain their salaries and research.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>Imagine putting in that many hours of practice on the classical masters to end up with a low paying job playing Frosty the Snowman and Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me". The vast majority of work in any given profession is lower tier work like this. The electrician you paid to install a dimmer could be doing much more advanced work but he does what pays the bills.
anamax 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg0X9H6FGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrg0X9H6FGU The folks in the uniforms, especially the ones playing instruments, in that video are world class. They're having the time of their professional lives.
- _Anken 5y ago
  Looking happy and dancing around like that is also part of what they are paying for at the gig.
commandlinefan 5y ago
> and Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar On Me". And here I am wishing I could play Pour Some Sugar On Me somewhere for free...

emdowling 5y ago

In a former life, I worked as a stage and orchestra manager, including a few contracts with some of Australia's most well-known professional orchestras and opera companies. tl;dr: They work harder, for longer hours, than the vast majority of people in tech. They will spend a full working day in rehearsal, then go home and spend a few hours doing solo practice. They will spend hours of time (often uncompensated) notating scores ahead of the first rehearsal of new work or production. As others have pointed out, the economic model for orchestras and just about any live performance cannot support high salaries. Many musicians will have instruments worth thousands of dollars, so they will have loans against them. Then there is the venue and equipment hire, the transportation costs and the wages for the crew behind the scenes - people to set up the stage and run the show (like me), lighting and sound designers and operators, etc (14+ hour days are not uncommon). It is a very hard way to earn a living, and on top of it all most jobs are contracts measured in weeks or months, not full-time positions. Not only do you have to be unbelievably talented and passionate about it, you also have to possess superhuman resilience to handle the lifestyle. I have nothing but respect to people who do this job for a living.

_Anken 5y ago

At least in the US, almost all full-time orchestras are union shops with the American Federation of Musicians. The first stop for major issues should not be with management's HR, but with the union local and the union steward for the orchestra. Most of these orchestras also have an Orchestra Committee made up of musicians, and it is this committee's job to help as well. And most of the largest orchestras do have an HR rep. HR is there to protect management. The union is there to protect employees as a collective. Individual results may vary.

bjoli 5y ago

I am the principal bassoon player of a moderately large (82 musicians) orchestra. AMA I guess. With regards to HR, I think finding a HR person that understands how an orchestra works will be prohibitively hard. We have the (assistant) orchestra manager for all immediate personnel questions. When HR gets involved it is usually the regular grinding to make people quit or accept some sort of termination offer.