Classical Music and its Slave Orchestras

It was just five years ago that Dr. David Hunter revealed his discovery that Handel repeatedly invested in the Royal African Company, a slave trading company in Britain. A year later, Musicologist Hannah Templeton wrote that some of Leopold Mozart's patrons were likely slavers or heavily invested in plantations in the West Indies. In that …

Diversity, Inclusive Programming, and Music Education (part 3): Assimilation

This is the third of a seven part series about Diversity, Inclusive Programming, and Music Education. Many of the ideas and themes here build on past pieces of this series, so reading them is suggested (for series overview, visit this link. part one: Intro; part 2: Postcolonialism). As this piece follows up on ideas brought …

Essential Tools for the 21st Century Musician: Technology

In my previous post about tools for the 21st Century Musician, I discussed improvisation as probably the most useful tool musicians can be using. In a way, technology is even more indispensable. Unless our voice is our primary or only instrument (and even then there are exceptions), then nearly everything we make music on is …

What is a “full-time musician” anyway?

There was a recent piece on slate.com by composer Andrew Watts titled, What Kind of Stress Do Full-Time Composers Experience? The thing is, and this came up on a recent facebook discussion, the conditions in points number 1. and 4. have nothing to do with being a "full-time composer." Here are the relevant excerpts from …

What’s it like playing with Grammy Award winners?

Sometimes it's good just to reflect on your musical experiences.  I know I've said that in the grand scheme of things the Grammy Awards don't mean much and given what I said in my previous post even a figure some of us might consider to be the elder statesmen of post WWII Anglo-American pop doesn't …

‘Lost Girl’ and a lesson in Music Economics and Ethics

So I've been watching Lost Girl1 which is a Canadian supernatural crime drama that recently premiered on SyFy.  The series follows a Succubus, Bo, as she negotiates her way around the newly discovered (to her) Fae world while she remians unaligned (the Fae are divided between the "Light Fae" and the "Dark Fae" who have …

Diversifying your Performance Skills Portfolio

As I mentioned in a previous post, developing versatility, Dick Weissman says that Developing Versatility is a key factor in pursuing a lifetime career in music.  Another way to put that principle is to Diversify your Performance Skill Portfolio.  Obvious to anyone with some knowledge of economics or finance I'm taking my cue from the …

The Economics of Local Music (part 3): Folk vs Pop vs Art Music

A few days ago I read a fascinating analysis of music from a functional standpoint by Gregory Booth and Terry Kuhn.  The piece, titled "Economic and Transmission Factors as Essential Elements in the Definition of Folk, Art, and Pop Music" (The Music Quarterly, Vol. 74. No. 3, 1990, pp. 411-438), compares and contrasts very general …

The Economics of Local Music (part 2) Audiences: a lesson from blogs

One of my biggest criticisms of using the pop music field as a way to instruct the classical music field in ways of increasing audiences is that, for the most part, there seems to be an overinflated sense of how big an audience a pop musician is actually able to draw.  I've been doing some …

The Economics of Local Music (part 1)

This is such an interesting topic for me if only for the reason that it seems like no one really knows or has studied how the whole field of music in particular regions actually impact their local communities.  One of my biggest criticisms of the whole "Pop Music versus Classical Music" debate revolve specifically around …