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Article Excerpt
The symphony orchestra is arguably the most significant artistic organization in Western cultures today. Initially established in the mid-nineteenth century, symphony orchestras have provided steady employment for thousands of musicians for over 170 years. In addition, they have brought international recognition and civic pride to many cities, have rejuvenated dilapidated downtowns and have churned billions in capital funds through local economies. For most of their existence, orchestras have been rewarded for their valuable artistic and community services with generous support from audiences and wealthy patrons (Scholz, 2001). The professional symphony orchestra might properly be considered to be a team, with members performing skilled and specialized roles, in a tightly coordinated manner. It is perhaps the only team in modern-day economic climates that continues to provide lifelong employment; the careers of musicians in first-rate symphony orchestras have been reported to be more enduring and pleasant than most other professional careers (Smith, 1988).
Yet, compared with other occupational groups and professional organizations, little is known about symphony players. The overall consensus is that they are hard working, ambitious, self-absorbed, introspective and introverted creative individuals. Accordingly, Kemp (1996) demonstrated that they exhibit high levels of motivation and persistence, depth of emotionality (being in contact with one's creativity), a heightened degree of emotionality (utilization of a wider range of feelings), self-confidence, inventiveness, individuality, enthusiasm and independence. Kemp summarizes two decades of research indicating that in comparison to the general public, symphony players are emotionally open (imaginative and intuitive), less bound by conventional beliefs and restraints, prefer complexity (ambiguity and a multidimensional outlook) and are characteristically exhibitionistic (able to transmit emotions at will and to thrill others). Further, orchestra musicians must be able to dare the risk of success or failure, and possess the courage to tolerate lack of appreciation on the part of judges. Finally, they are regarded as possessing a high degree of work satisfaction, and their passion for vocation is enhanced by the sensory pleasure in exercise of superior skills and capacities (Kivimaki & Jokinen, 1994).
The general public often view symphony players as individuals with strong inner-driven working careers who are self-selected, and enjoying what many audiences romanticize as a glamorous life with opportunities for self-expression and self-actualization (Sternbach, 1995). Ironically, even the musicians themselves who embark on a performance career expect to live out a rich and creative life. However, such promises almost always fall short, and these myths are never fulfilled as imagined. Foremost, musicians are trained for solo playing, and hence, orchestral work is often perceived as a disappointment (Sternbach, 1993b). Orchestra musicians often view themselves as artists who are paid only for what others want to buy, subsequently leading a high percentage to regard their playing as more of a 'job' than the fulfilment of their 'passion' (Atik, 1992). They convey sentiments which reflect the 'classic dilemma' of creative individuals; that is, either seek public rewards that legitimize their work or pursue their own artistic growth (Smith & Murphy, 1984). In fact, an orchestral contract may be considered to be the ultimate trade off for debased artistic standards; a rank-and-file position can represent a subordination of virtuoso assertiveness and the repression of individual personality in the service of collective musical achievement. Second, it often comes as a shock to the musicians themselves that achievement of their career goal is at the expense of their own personal health. That is, players quickly learn that there is a connection between music performance and physical/psychological well-being. While most people (including naive and amateur musicians) view music making as having many benefits including relaxation and the development of leisure-time activity, music performance expertise on the professional level involves autonomic and proprioceptive systems, which require an exceptionally high (almost superhuman) degree of training and skill, as well as the blending of emotion-intelligence, response-control, and empathy-command (Dunsby, 2002). Furthermore, concerting makes painstaking demands on mental/cognitive abilities (involving attention, concentration and memory) as well as on emotional requirements. It is unfortunate that players entering an orchestral career have not always been prepared for the costs of their chosen occupation.
Orchestral life-style
Symphony players have a favoured status in the eyes of many people, especially since they are involved in the creative arts, and are paid for doing something that has preoccupied their life from early childhood, which they presumably enjoy. Indeed, the careers of symphony orchestra players begin with musical training in the early years of their life, which eventually leads to a highly disciplined acquisition of instrumental skill throughout the teenage years. Thereafter, the focal point of their formal training occurs in a tertiary educational environment known as the music college. However, the curriculum of music academies is not calculated to give a rounded education, but rather to create polished musicians. This means that while music colleges do prime students for a performance career by developing aural competencies and highly refined motor expertise, they provide minimal opportunity to advance general knowledge and other interests. Therefore, one could assume that although the conservatory culture successfully serves to initiate musicians into their professional guild and vocation, at the same time, it functions to alienate them from other more accepted social and occupational structures, preventing these student musicians-to-be from being anything else but a performing musician (albeit that many settle for a life of studio teaching rather than for a career involving the concert stage).
The above situation raises questions about the eventual contentment of symphony players towards their well-chosen (or perhaps by default, their only possible) profession. In an early study on the subject, Westby (1960) claimed that musicians' strong commitments to the values of art and their chosen profession were often undermined by unhappy experiences centring on unmet demands for material, status rewards and instability of occupational position. Based on 70 single-session interviews carried out over one winter season, Westby concluded that the gap between orchestral musicians' social position as dependent craftspeople versus their idealized serf-image as gifted and highly skilled artists, led to problems of reconciliation between social and aesthetic expectations and the realities of occupational life. More than 20 years later, Smith and Murphy (1984) surveyed six American Symphony Orchestra League (ASOL) symphony orchestras, focusing on their perceived criteria of career success. The study highlighted several raisons d'etre for musicians to be in an orchestra:
* Orchestral contracts are prestigious and provide a setting for playing that has the potential of rewarding a player in musical ways (related to musical values, the continued development of instrument skills and knowledge of the repertoire).
* Orchestral positions can allow the development of a private life around musical activities (such as developing a second career in music teaching, or becoming an occasional chamber-group player, soloist, or even recording artist).
* Orchestra work offers musicians some prospect of a secure stable career, in a job market that is otherwise fraught with risks, and performing with some orchestras can even be lucrative.
Smith and Murphy note that success in one respect was often reported to compete with success in another. For example, success at the top of the profession was often dwarfed by being deprived of the rewards of its practice. So much was the embitterment of this occurrence that many players reported having given up prestige and potential income associated with a 'first-class' orchestra by accepting positions with a subordinate organization because the latter provided more interesting musical work. Smith and Murphy reckoned that 'if we are to believe the musicians themselves, [the orchestra] is a setting in which the successful development of a career is too often a matter of sorting through and accommodating to various contradictions and trade-offs among these rewards' (p. 150). This, they claim, is what makes symphony players so interesting both as a phenomenon and as a field of study--the way in which the potential rewards along with the various musical frustrations are mixed into a setting referred to as orchestral life-style.
Another study which examined orchestral life-style was carried out by Steptoe (1989) who surveyed two British organizations: the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra. In his questionnaire study, Steptoe asked 65 players to list features of their job that contributed to either pleasure or stress. Among the sources of occupational pleasure were variety of the job, travelling, performing to audiences, social life in the musical world and social status as an artist. Among the sources of occupational stress were monotony of rehearsals, uncertainty about schedule, irregular hours, travelling, separation from family, competition and back-stabbing among colleagues and poor financial reward. Yet, most other investigations (e.g. Parasurman & Nachman, 1987; Parasurman & Purohit, 2000; Steptoe, 2001; Sternbach, 1993a, 1993b, 1995) have focused primarily on the stressful components of orchestral life-styles. Collectively, the...
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