
Strike with the Band: The meritocratic failures of classical music - tintinnabula
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/strike-with-the-band-wagner
======
autarch
I have a masters degree in music composition which I got back in 1997 from the
University of Minnesota. Even then it was clear to me that my future career
paths were quite limited. Most people with composition degrees would fight for
a limited number of teaching spots in music theory and ear training. If you
were lucky enough to get a job (even an adjunct one), you might be able to
teach a few composition students too. But there were far more applicants than
jobs, and of course forget about deciding where you want to live. You have to
take any job you get (if you even get one).

The other path was to move to LA and try to get work writing for film and TV.
But that's also incredibly competitive. You also have to write music
incredibly quickly to succeed, and I was a slow writer.

Fortunately for me, I absolutely hated teaching theory and ear training during
my masters, and I made the decision to not go on to a Ph.D. Even more
fortunately, I got my first computer when I was 5 (its own example of
privilege) and I was able to get first a support job and then soon after a
programming job during the first dot com bubble.

I still love music and I miss composing, but I'm sure I'm happier being
financially stable, having a choice of where to live, and not teaching things
I really don't enjoy.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
We've built a unversity system in the United States for the past few decades
that is not at all serving society's interests.

Unfortunately, unless born to wealth, we all require a supporting job. Jobs
that don't pay the bills are hobbies. Attending university to broaden one's
education is not a sound basis for borrowing money and encouraging students to
do otherwise is shamefully wrong.

~~~
bscphil
Frankly I would put it the other way around. We have a system of work that
doesn't serve society's interests. Created scarcity forces people to do
undesirable labor instead of things that would be genuinely worthwhile.
Universities are already training too many middle managers, even though the
market is demanding more middle managers. There's a difference between what
the market demands and what free people would choose for themselves.

Disclaimer: I work at a university.

~~~
solidsnack9000
Universities do a poor job of training technical workers -- engineers,
programmers, technicians. For every middle manager there are ten workers, who
need technical schools.

One way to see this is in programming. So many people come out of CS programs
with little practical programming ability -- even programs like Stanford. The
kids who learn the most in school are, often enough, people with backgrounds
in computational biology or physics where they have to work on real software
engineering problems -- like maintaining legacy code -- from the first day
that they type code in a text editor. Where is the Embry-Riddle for software
engineering?

------
jancsika
> But classical music can be other things, too: transcendental, lush,
> heartbreakingly emotional.

The thing that makes so-called classical music stand out in a crowd is the
long duration over which musical ideas may be worked out. Even in the 1700s
we're talking multiple hours for something like Don Pedro's/Commandatore's
themes over the course of Mozart's Don Giovanni. And the assumption behind a
CD being able to hold Beethoven's 9th in its entirety is that a modern
audience is able and willing to concentrate on the relationship among related
musical ideas over the course of 70 minutes.

But "transcendental, lush, and heartbreakingly emotional" can only be marketed
_atop_ those long forms if listeners have sufficient leisure time, money, and
attention to devote to it. The modern world doesn't give, say, the average
American much leisure time nor money. And most HN devs here seem busy writing
apps that capture any attention left in the cracks.

That means classical music must compete as one of many sources of
"transcendental, lush, and heartbreakingly emotional" experiences. In that
light its time requirements make it a detriment. So it's no surprise that a
skilled violinist is struggling just to pay off the debt it took to be able to
proficiently perform large-scale classical works.

~~~
barry-cotter
> The modern world doesn't give, say, the average American much leisure time
> nor money.

The average American watches three hours of television a day. The only
countries with higher GDP per capita are city states or comparable to US metro
areas and if you look at the better measure of average individual consumption
the US beats literally everyone despite being most of a continent and 1/20 of
the world’s population. If the average American lacks time and money I
struggle to describe living standards in the UK or Malaysia.

------
WalterBright
> the falseness of the “work hard and you will succeed” ethic washed over me

It isn't about working hard. It's about working smart.

Make a list of things you love. Make another list of things that others will
pay for. The intersection is where to make a career.

~~~
a1369209993
In the limit of a efficient market[0][1], those lists are disjoint.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-
market_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis)

1: And assuming non-contrived values of "what you love"; ie: this obviously
doesn't apply if you love soul-crushing scutwork.

------
lcall
At one point in life I also had the mistaken (and costly) impression that one
should pursue one's dreams: that is a fine idea if the dreams are good _and_
you have a way to make a living and stay solvent and prepare for the future.
But to think it _must_ make a living is to make a demand of the marketplace
that it has no care whether it satisfies for you.

I think the author's angst comes from missing that: 1) Markets outweigh other
financial considerations we wish for. Currently, those don't support as many
musicians as there are people wanting to be professional musicians. As a music
and history lover who got some attention as a youth (also in a small pond), I
eventually realized that programming pays better, if one is persistent to
learn. 2) We can scratch our itches in the form of _hobbies_ or outside
interests, as part of having a balanced life. And in activities with family,
friends, neighbors, and church members. For example, my mother made us
practice the piano (she was just tougher than I was when I tried to quit), and
I am so grateful to my very non-wealthy parents for those sacrifices. We had
good times as a family singing around the piano: we weren't what anyone would
call very good at it, but those are priceless memories to me. (It also taught
us that we can do hard things, if one sticks with it and practices the right
way, like, one hand slowly with many repetitions, then put them together: life
can be similar.) We sang mostly "parlor music", like Stephen Foster melodies
from an old book, etc etc., and kidded each other and had popcorn and told
stories etc. It didn't have to make me a living to add joy to life. Similarly
for our little, amateur, local church choir. Some people learn to jam
together. (Coolness...)

We have to make realistic choices (and avoid debt!), and strive for a balanced
life. I write some things about having a balanced life, and balanced human
growth in good ways, at [http://lukecall.net](http://lukecall.net) .

------
raymondh
For those interested in a more thoughtful take on this subject, I highly
recommend the short book, "Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and
Rewards) of Artmaking" by David Bayles and Arthur Morey.

Favorite quote, "When rich people get together, they talk about art. When
artists get together, they talk about money."

------
tempguy9999
I'm not a musician but this bothers me

"Those who achieve such heights are capable of playing the most complex,
technically difficult music on equally complex instruments that take decades
to master"

Complexity just isn't of value in software and I don't know if it is in music.
One of my favourite pieces is Bach's Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, and that's
extremely simple (ISTM. IANAMusician. YMMV. etc).

The only value to music is a purely subjective one, how do assess merit in
such a situation.

~~~
winchling
Yes. To me it seems that great players find something new and relatively
simple in the music and then find a way to communicate it in performance.

Likewise, the best music is simple in its core. Starting with melody. If I
can't remember the tune, perhaps it was too complex. Apparently it's hard to
compose simple melodies. They're like mathematical theories: much easier to
appreciate than to discover.

And there is a darker side to complexity. Many in the audience will entertain
fantasies about _becoming_ great players themselves and occupying the place of
the soloist now on stage. To them, complex technical feats are glamorous and
worthy of slavish emulation.

~~~
braythwayt
A lot of music appreciation involves an arc of progression. In Jazz, for
example, complex solos sound like random wankery to the person beginning their
journey.

But after you acquire a grounding in the basic forms like blues and rhythm
changes, then suddenly, more complex music stops sounding random. It makes
sense when played with the simpler music as a backdrop.

Then after you’ve listened to that for a while, even more complex music
suddenly makes sense. And so it goes for a while.

Then you listen to a simple piece again, but you hear something in the simple
piece that you literally didn’t notice at first. The complex music has trained
you to notice a certain note or phrasing, and you realize that what you heard
wasn’t simple, it too was complex, but it was complex in a subtle way.

Music is not absolute. It is a conversation between performer and audience
that changes both.

~~~
PorterDuff
"But after you acquire a grounding in the basic forms like ...rhythm changes"

I suppose that anyone who has heard the theme from The Flintstones has already
done that.

------
robbrown451
I can't quite understand why someone would think it made sense to major in
classical music, unless they had family money to support them for the rest of
their lives. Same goes for majoring in oil painting after the arrival of
Photoshop (or for that matter, after the arrival of photography), or majoring
in horsemanship after the invention of the internal combustion engine.

Basically, these are nostalgia careers. There is nothing wrong with loving old
things, but they make sense as a hobby, not as a career you need to make a
living.

I say this as someone who was (for a time) married to someone who "followed
her dream" at the advice of her dad, and majored in operatic singing. Good as
she was, all she was able to get as a job was in an opera chorus, while
teaching music in elementary schools. The opera she was in was eventually
closed, the music program in that school district was canceled, but neither
paid much anyway. Eventually she took on more loans (while I paid rent and
groceries etc) to get a degree in speech pathology.

The economics of this was driven home once when we were together, when we went
to see an opera in San Francisco. There was no amplification, but an actual
orchestra. The ratio of audience members to performers was ridiculously low.
The house was mostly full, but it wasn't that big a house (how big can it
really be with no amplification?).

Meanwhile, the same evening, a young coworker of mine was attending an EDM
show right across the plaza at the Bill Graham center, so we walked over
together. That show was basically a couple guys on stage with laptops.
Apparently not much on stage resembling musical instruments. And the crowd
lined up outside was so enormous it made it hard for me to find my wife and to
get to the opera house.

Some people see that as sad, I guess, and in some ways I can agree. (although
I tend to prefer electronic music more than classical, I don't see the point
of attending a live show if the music is pre-sequenced, that's just weird)

Regardless, this is reality today.

~~~
WalterBright
You can't have a career in automobile racing unless you're rich, either.

~~~
robbrown451
True, but until self-driving vehicles are actually available, there have been
lots of jobs for drivers. And of course mechanics. Horse related jobs are few
and far between though.

In the case of music, though, there were a good number of jobs for musicians
prior to the phonograph, radio amplification, etc, for instance playing piano
at a saloon or the like. Now a single musician can entertain tens of thousands
at a time live, or hundreds of millions with
recorded/broadcast/YouTubed/Spotified music.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Oddly enough, you can actually make a good career as a farrier (working with
horseshoes). There's not a lot of demand for farriers, but there's an even
smaller supply, so they tend to have plenty of work. It's one of those careers
that most people don't even consider or even know exist, so they struggle to
get new apprentices and workers.

It's one of those jobs that won't be automated very soon either, and demand is
steady (there aren't many horses these days, but the numbers aren't going
down).

~~~
robbrown451
Sure, the demand for farriers has stabilized, but it is very low compared to
150 years ago, when farriers and blacksmiths had a lot of overlap and it was a
very common profession.

The difference with music is how many people want to be professional
musicians. So many people love music and discover they have talent, so it is
seen as a desirable profession.

------
dmritard96
I didn't grow up rich or culturally connected in New York. I went to one of
the few universities in the US where you can pursue a dual degree in a
conservatory level music curriculum and a top level engineering program
simultaneously. While I now largely play music recreationally, it was
absolutely my favorite experience in college and I cherish that life
experience.

Her points are mostly sour grapes and throwing shade at the broader
industry/community imho. Does it have diversity(?) - it tends to be very,
white, asian, and jewish. Does it have a diversity problem? Perhaps, but at
the same time, I don't think diversity will some how 'save' classical music.
Ultimately, I think classical music more generally in at least the US is more
diverse, has much broader engagement and diversity and gas more
appreciated/exposure as it pertains to marching bands and football programs.
It's a bit lame admittedly, that music can be so dependent upon sports for
it's relevance but I also think one of the most fundamental issues with
classical music is it's notion of performer/audience. Many people love to play
music as it's a satisfying and communal endeavor, but so much of the classical
world is focused on aspirations of getting paid to play for audiences. I hope
that one day there will be a bit of a mental shift that reconsiders what about
playing in a band or orchestra is so magical and recenters the whole thing on
the participation in making art collectively instead of trying to exist merely
for the pleasure of an audience. I think it would be a welcome realization
that would allow the classical realm to refocus and reengage with society in a
more relevant way.

------
madengr
Depressing read. I don’t know if I should forward this to my 13 YO aspiring
cellist. Of course she wants to major in math, and get a minor in cello
performance, which is fine with me, though I’d rather her major in chemical
engineering.

~~~
wallflower
You should forward it. Also, being able to play an instrument is a priceless
gift. I know a former classmate who worked at a top hedge fund and told me
that the thing that gave him the most joy recently was playing in the band to
support a friend’s labor of love self-produced musical. Just playing in the
band.

------
cjbenedikt
Although very US centric in its views - Europe is a little bit better at least
when it comes to student debt and talent or hard work a more important than
connections - it strikes a chord ( pun intended) with many aspiring musicians.

~~~
nosianu
Anecdata from Nuremberg, living in the vicinity of the "Nuremberg University
of Music" (owned by the state of Bavaria): Here we have lots of Asian students
(from the students I see carrying an instrument and walking to or from the
school it even seems to be a majority, but I only get to see a tiny sample of
those who happen to walk by). That's not meant to counter the blog posts " _a
field so notoriously white and male_ " statement, as I said, just an anecdote.
I like that my local music school seems able to attract so many from so far
away. I have no idea how their job prospects are, probably not _that_ much
better than described here. The number of places in that field is limited
everywhere after all.

I started learning to play the violin pretty late in my forties, with private
teachers, both teachers I had thus far women, both educated in Russia
actually. I don't aspire to greatness, but sound basic technique already lets
me get really wonderful sound from a €1000 violin (after two years of renting
a learner's instrument from a violin maker; without bow; selected by myself by
sound/feel only, without looking at the instruments I was given for testing).
It does not have to be the most difficult pieces at all. There are plenty of
simple to medium difficulty melodies that sound _great_. For the violin, even
playing just a few simple notes can sound wonderful - IF you play them right.
You don't have to go for concert-level difficulty to get an interesting
satisfying result. But with the violin, your basic technique makes all the
difference when playing just a single note. Forget about fast-paced changes
and decorations, just master the very basics and even the most simple song
will sound good with this instrument.

The exact same very basic melody sounds completely different between a
beginner and a master. I think this instrument is on the extreme end as far as
the importance of basic skills goes. On a piano or a recorder you vary
individual notes much less, and frequency hardly or not at all. On a violin
_everything_ is a spectrum, frequency, how you hold the bow, pressure on the
bow, speed of the bow, angle of the bow. On the other hand that means that you
can get much out of simple melodies.

Something anyone can start on the side is learning to play the recorder.
Soprano and alto-recorder. It's dirt-cheap - good instruments for $100, and
those really _are_ good enough (and I'm quite picky). There too are plenty of
good pieces available even with skills on the low or medium end.

.

By the way, another commenter mentioned he doesn't understand why that woman
spent so much money on a violin:

> _Also a violin doesn 't have to be wildly expensive: Mine cost $600 and is
> plenty good enough. My understanding is that the violin makers have made
> amazing progress in recent decades and routinely make violins as good as the
> best ever._

Well... you are wrong. While my teacher too says that the €1000 violin I
bought was good, and by now I know it really is and it will be enough for me
for a long time to come, even with all the progress I'm making, I once got to
play a €10,000 violin while visiting a violin maker. The difference wasn't so
much the sound - I actually slightly preferred mine. The difference was that
that violin was much more light-weight (the wood is made much thinner), and
this instrument was _significantly_ better on the edges of play. For example,
very fast changes felt sooo much better even to me.

For "normal" songs maybe one won't notice much difference, but from my one-
time high-end violin experience (as an advanced beginner only), on the high-
end of difficulty the difference is huge.

Note that the bow also costs a lot. You easily spend another $1000 on a good
bow (or even multiples of this) - which one you get is extremely individual.
This again will be much more noticeable on the outer edges of skill and
difficulty level.

~~~
wallflower
Just in case you didn’t see this (article or the accompanying video) a couple
years ago:

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/a-tech-
pioneer...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/a-tech-pioneers-
final-unexpected-act)

------
epx
I studied music from 10 to 12, I left this world for two reasons: one, I was
pragmatic enough to see that it would not make money - best pupils were from
rich families, as the article described. Second: the kind of craziness
musicians display was not 'my' kind. The children-students and even some
teachers were pure envy and jealousness, pretty much like Whiplash movie
displayed them. OTOH I really liked the computer 'crazies' which generally
loved to collaborate and respected each others' talents.

------
victoro0
I don't get what the author is complaining about. That there are too many
aspiring musicians? That there is not enough public demand?

I see the meritocracy working perfectly here, on average the richest students
had the best training and equipment, and as such developed into the best
musicians (and without the injuries mentioned), therefore they have the most
merit to make a career of it.

No one is born knowing how to play a viola, what careers are there where your
training is not reflected in your merit?

~~~
chmod775
> on average the richest students had the best training and equipment, and as
> such developed into the best musicians

That's not a meritocracy.

~~~
d4mi3n
Sure it is, GP is just pointing out that attaining that skill is not a thing
of equal opportunity.

All one is guaranteed in a meritocracy is that the most skilled person
available reaps the benefit. However, a pure meritocracy does not guarantee
who and how those skills are developed.

IIRC this is one of the big criticisms of meritocracy as a form of
governance—a system of skilled individuals is not necessarily a fair one.

~~~
chmod775
In a meritocracy the most talented, hardworking child would have received the
best training and equipment, not the richest one.

A pure meritocracy doesn't even guarantee that a child _could_ be wealthy
without having talent. As soon as someone with wealth but _without_ merit is
able to obtain economic goods (such as the highest quality training and
equipment) that are not obtainable by those _with_ merit, whatever system you
have ceases to be a pure meritocracy.

It's not a meritocracy.

~~~
np_tedious
It's eventually meritocratic, but the part that considers solely merit starts
late enough that some have had far more opportunity to develop their talents
than others

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
It's worse than that. The system is actively destructive of talent.

Someone with talent from an average background is going to be "out-merited" by
someone with average talent from a privileged background - because the
privileged person will have the resources to develop their skill, while the
other person won't.

In fact not only will they not have the resources, they'll have extra costs -
in the form of forced time spent working away from music to pay the bills,
college debt, and so on. And of course limited access to physical and social
benefits - good instruments, lessons, practice facilities, and ultimately
choice of college and the resulting class network.

Apart from the obvious financial implications, those distractions will saddle
the victim with a huge extra cognitive load.

A lot of people will be crushed by it, no matter how talented they are.

------
ciconia
> This is the way of arts under capitalism, in a culture where the abandonment
> of government funding results in a void filled only by wealthy donors and
> bloodsucking companies—it’s not altogether different from when composers and
> musicians worked as servants for the aristocracy.

As a former professional classical musician (I kicked the habit when I became
a father,) I'm always amazed at the sense of entitlement expressed by
musicians. As if the state is somehow morally obligated to support their art.

At the end of the day, it's a question of supply and demand. There's a _ton_
of young people that go to music school each year, while on the demand side
there's an ever-diminishing group of snotty white-haired patrons that are
willing to pay to hear a symphony orchestra live.

> Perhaps the most humiliating defeat was dealt to the Detroit Symphony
> Orchestra, which went on strike for six months in 2011, only to concede to
> an almost 25 percent pay cut.

I really don't get why musicians feel primordially entitled to a $100K job no
matter the economic circumstances.

------
missizii
“Sure, I may have been a failure in classical music”

This breaks my heart, and it’s exactly how I felt for 15 years. Being a violin
failure, when I loved violin more than anything, was so painful. But when it
comes to things like playing violin, we have the power to decide for ourselves
what success and failure are. Success might be practicing five hours a week
and mastering four new pieces a year and enjoying the transcendent beauty of
playing violin.

I left the pre-professional violinist track and ended up with an MS in CS. Now
I’m a homeschooling mother teaching her kids to play violin and piano, among
other things.

Our culture is obsessively utilitarian when it comes to music and sports.
Playing music, playing sports is anything but playful, and it is such a shame.

~~~
madhadron
I think it's a question of models (the only classical musicians that are
visible in most families are professionals) and ends (most parents directing
their kids to music are thinking of college admissions and the like).

The idea that it's normal for most people to know how to dance, play an
instrument, sing, and play a pick up game of ball is strangely lost.

------
WalterBright
> This is the way of arts under capitalism, in a culture where the abandonment
> of government funding results in a void filled only by wealthy donors and
> bloodsucking companies.

So if your dream job isn't worth people voluntarily paying for, then you're
entitled to having the government extract the money from them on your behalf?

I don't think so.

Would you like being taxed to pay professional football players who aren't in
the NFL?

------
inflatableDodo
This is pretty accurate. My brother is one of the best classical musicians I
know, but he ditched it for physics for many of the same reasons laid out in
this article.

------
jstewartmobile
This is error. People are starved for novelty and contact with talent.

Rather than try to storm this particular upper-bourgeois shrine to " _dead
shit_ ", fail, then get upset about it, why not make something new, or share
the gift with some place that needs it?

With these people, that's inconceivable! The answer is _always_ public
subsidy. That way, lower-bougies get a fair and equal opportunity to let their
shit roll downhill, and land on the same people who subsidized them--the same
way they see "justice" in getting a bunch of plumbers and mechanics to pay off
their student loans for sociology degrees.

~~~
graycat
Sociology degrees don't have to be so bad: Trying to make the field a science,
especially a heavily statistical science, is a wide open field with some grant
money available. But for both the statistics and the science, have to do good,
original work. E.g., my wife got her Ph.D. in such _mathematical_ sociology
with professors Rossi and Coleman, each a President of the American Sociology
Association: They were trying to be good at both the statistics and science,
but there was plenty of room to do better than they did.

More broadly making some of sociology -- _the scientific study of groups of
people_ \-- a solid science could have important good consequences for major
parts of society plus at times some nice money made in business, especially
advertising and _social_ computing.

Warning: First understand some good science, best of all, physics, especially
mathematical and theoretical physics. Then get one heck of a good background
in probability theory, based on measure theory, and mathematical statistics,
enough to do good original work in mathematical statistics. Then attack
sociology and do VERY WELL formulating new theories to test and inventing NEW
and powerful statistical means to test the theories.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Just like we've made economics into a heavily statistical "science", yet one
half of economists are never in agreement with the other.

Once free human beings and their choices are in the mix, the combinatorics are
astronomical and largely beyond science. Then the whole enterprise degrades to
the cataloging of noise.

edit: This part is even worse:

" _nice money made in business, especially advertising and social computing_ "

So now we're using the recently cataloged noise-envelope to help corporations
extract even more money from the plebes who subsidized the cataloging in the
first place?

~~~
graycat
Just because the economists have been 99 44/100% unsuccessful making their
field a meaningful science does not mean that sociology can't make progress as
a science. I DID outline some of how might try to do that; I DID see what my
wife, Rossi, and Coleman did. I didn't say it would be easy, but I believe it
CAN be done.

One of the best reasons for science is the subsequent applied science, and one
of the best uses for applied science is making money.

------
solidsnack9000
_At work one night, the falseness of the “work hard and you will succeed”
ethic washed over me: the truth was the music world was a two-tiered system,
and I was in the second chair._

Many years ago, I had a discussion about the same issue in the world of dance.
I was reminded that Smith had said "...they are all very poor people who
follow as a trade, what other people pursue as a pastime.".

Classical music, like classical dance, is a positive thing that is being sold
in a way that doesn't really accord with its value. Much of Mozart's work was
commissioned to entertain small audiences at social events the format of which
has more or less disappeared from the world. That's why it was a way to make a
living back then and why it isn't now. The contemporary pre-occupation with
virtuosity and art for art's sake in certain "classical" (really Romantic era)
art forms disguises these arts' social function, and by extension obscures
anyway of charging for them.

Although the author strikes a tone of strident unfairness ("This is the way of
arts under capitalism..."), at no point do they suggest that there is anything
on the other side of the balance sheet -- that musicians provide a certain
amount of value to society and should thus be compensated for it. The closest
they get is to mention putting in a lot of effort and going into a lot of
debt. The tough, late realisation facing these musicians is that most people
have to work for a living; that having some unique skills of a rich kid does
not make you into one.

Performance is a fairly limited way for society to derive value from the arts.
A lot of the value of them is in the effect they have on people as they learn
to work together in the context of a performance, and on their friends and
family as they attend it. For many of the classical arts there are direct
antecedents in folk arts which were as much for the benefit of the performers
as for anyone else. The antecedents are particularly easy to discover for
music and dance. These folk arts bide their time, ready to have their former
positive effect on us, if only we would employ them at a scale and in a
context that is fitting to them.

From The Wealth of Nations:

 _Hunting and fishing, the most important employments of mankind in the rude
state of society, become in its advanced state their most agreeable
amusements, and they pursue for pleasure what they once followed from
necessity. In the advanced state of society, therefore, they are all very poor
people who follow as a trade, what other people pursue as a pastime. Fishermen
have been so since the time of Theocritus. A poacher is every-where a very
poor man in Great Britain. In countries where the rigour of the law suffers no
poachers, the licensed hunter is not in a much better condition. The natural
taste for those employments makes more people follow them than can live
comfortably by them, and the produce of their labour, in proportion to its
quantity, comes always too cheap to market to afford any thing but the most
scanty subsistence to the labourers._

It is noteworthy that quite a few people make a living teaching hunting
marksmanship and tracking techniques, running ballet schools, tuning pianos...

[https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html?chapter_num=...](https://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html?chapter_num=13#book-
reader)

------
scoobyyabbadoo
There are some interesting experiences in this article and it starts strong.
But as it turns into a critique of society it is weird how she criticizes the
unmeritocratic realities of her field while at the same time lauding diversity
hires for the sake of "progressivism"? I think her point about (especially in
pre-modern-internet days) how it was difficult to judge how you should be
efficiently spending your time when you grow up as a big fish in a small pond
is a good one, something myself and many kids I graduated high school with can
understand, though there's no real solution besides earlier and more realistic
educations. I am in her generation and I think we will be raising our kids a
little less idealistically and a little more practically based on the hard
lessons we've learned about where hard work ends and your privileges-from-
birth begin. The society where we pretend that everyone should be able to
equally persue the same opportunities is a problem that ignores the practical
reality this woman and many in our generation learned the hard way. Or not, I
don't think her simultaneous praise for diversimania and progressivism with a
critique of capitalism, while I think the critique is valid, is going to do
anything helpful. As the author mentions, the divisity hires are decorative
flourish demanded by the donor class and are still going to be filled by
privileged people, just privileged people of the correct hue.

------
flaxton
"in a void filled only by wealthy donors and bloodsucking companies" \- spoken
like a true socialist. Like the world “owes” you a living? Produce what people
value, and they will pay you. Very simple. Anything else is oppression of the
worker or by the State.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. These generic
discussions are all the same and we're trying for something more interesting
here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
theelous3
It seems the real blocker here was carpel tunnel and tendonitis, rather than
coming from a poor or non-musical family.

Edit: getting downvoted here with no response, but if you read the article,
the only thing the author can point to in terms of the prospective careers
falling apart are medical issues, followed by a blanket claim that classical
music is run by haughty folks.

Not all unwealthy people learn with bad technique.

~~~
andrewl
Money affects the course a person's life takes after recovery from an illness
or injury.

I have two friends who started at Ivy League universities about forty years
ago. Both got sick and had to leave school. One was from a very poor family,
and was the only person in his family to have even _begun_ college. The other
was the daughter of a Harvard professor. The one from the poor family started
working as he recovered, so he could help support his family, who were
supporting him. The daughter of the Harvard professor convalesced in her
family's big house in Cambridge. The friend from the poor family never
achieved "escape velocity" to get back to college. It was odd that he'd done
it the first time. The friend from Cambridge got better and, as was expected,
returned to Yale with full family support and backing and the understanding
that _of course_ you go to college.

Money and social support make it fairly easy for a person to relaunch after a
crash.

------
graycat
Carpel tunnel and tendonitis? How'd she do that?

My career is in applied math and computing, and now I'm heading for an alpha
test for my startup, but for hobbies I like both classical violin and
mathematical physics.

For violin, for the muscles part, have two hands, one chin, one left shoulder,
and one back. There have long been plenty of pictures of great violinists --
e.g., Heifetz -- that show really clearly what positions of hands, chin, left
shoulder, and back should be. The left shoulder position is made easier by the
long very popular shoulder rests that attach under the violin a little behind
the bridge.

I got through some plenty serious music, e.g., about half of the Bach
_Chaconne_ with no problems with injuries.

I played violin because I like it: I don't have a good singing voice so can
use violin, e.g., with some of Bach's music, to scream out to the heavens the
passion of the human spirit! In this way, violin is great fun!

But it was always totally clear to me that there was no money in classical
music for me and very little for 99.99% of everyone else in music. E.g., I did
clearly understand that all the people who could have a good career as a
classical solo violinist could meet in large SUV -- literally true. E.g.,
there was a report that each year there are in all the world only about 50
solo violin performances with major orchestras.

But also gotta mention, there are not many people, only a small fraction even
in that SUV, who can play the music as well as Heifetz. Each year some young
violinists come on the scene with a big entrance, but too soon it's clear that
for world class performances of the major pieces they need more time in master
classes, a practice room, and most of all thinking about the _artistic
expression_ of the pieces. E.g., the last few bars of the central D-major
section of the Bach _Chaconne_ are the climax of the piece, and that needs to
be brought out clearly to the audience but is rarely done effectively. Net, it
appears that there is some room at the top for solo violinists.

Also a violin doesn't have to be wildly expensive: Mine cost $600 and is
plenty good enough. My understanding is that the violin makers have made
amazing progress in recent decades and routinely make violins as good as the
best ever.

~~~
ta0987
_How 'd she do that?_

How did she manage to not know the things you know? Probably by not being you.

~~~
graycat
I didn't know those things because I was me. Instead I just learned. The
learning was easy, dirt simple -- just look at some long readily available
good pictures. That's what I did; it worked very well for me.

Once at the farm at Christmas, I was upstairs practicing on violin. Soon a
niece about 9 came up to see. I put the violin under her left chin, put the
bow in her right hand, and had her play a note, A on the open A string. She
held the violin just fine -- one instant lesson. The next day her father asked
me "How much is a violin going to cost me?"!!! So, I did a little violin
teaching -- not very difficult.

~~~
ta0987
You're missing some of your assumptions. Why would she think she needed to
look at pictures of people holding violins and mimic them when she had a
teacher telling her how to play? Why would she think that deviations between
her technique and others' would risk her health rather than being
inconsequential? How would she realize her technique doesn't match these
pictures if she's not looking in a mirror while practicing, or using a camera?
How would she know that she should be checking her form in a mirror/camera in
the first place, especially since she had a teacher watching her play? Etc.

Yes there are _possible_ answers to these questions, but not everyone's
personality and environment will necessarily lead one to them.

~~~
graycat
How? Common sense.

For more, when pains start.

For more, notice other violinists as happen to see them, other students and/or
teachers, on TV, at concerts, etc.

Don't need a camera or mirror.

You seem to be missing the point: I'm trying to indicate a solution, and you
and others are angry enough at me to beat me to a pulp and throw my dead body
to the sharks. Why? Because I gave an answer, a solution, instead of just
dripping empathy without a solution.

The OP is not the first time I've seen violinists suffer from holding the
violin wrong starting at the beginning. The woman in the OP is not nearly the
first. E.g., Zino Francescatti suffered all his career because he held his
violin mostly with just his left hand instead of his chin. And, there's a
SOLUTION to this problem -- look at some good pictures.

Here I may have helped some beginning violin student children of some Hacker
News readers.

I said over and over, look at some good pictures, e.g., if only from old
record jackets, now some Youtube video clips, and lots of people here believe
I am a monster to be thrown to the sharks. Bizarre.

~~~
ta0987
Your original comment started with:

 _Carpel tunnel and tendonitis? How 'd she do that?_

People are not angry because you are proposing a solution, they are angry
because you're implying that only a moron would run into a problem that many
musicians run into. That it's somehow her fault, because if she hadn't been a
moron and looked all those pictures you're talking about then it wouldn't have
happened. You seem to be operating from a worldview where everything that is
obvious to you must be obvious to everyone else. This worldview is incorrect.

And you're not really offering a solution anyway, you're offering a possible
way the problem might have been avoided that didn't actually happen in
reality. A _solution_ would be a way to make sure all musicians avoid the
problem, even ones with teachers that teach them bad technique. Or to somehow
make sure no teacher anywhere teaches bad technique and is capable of picking
it up in their students and correcting it.

You are also assuming that everything you know would be enough to protect you
even if you practiced the many hours you need to get to a professional level,
even though you yourself have never done it. I didn't feel like challenging
this but you should ask yourself why you're so certain something is easy to
avoid if you've never put yourself in the position to face it.

~~~
graycat
The OP explains her pains and suffering.

Lesson for others starting now: For what she suffered, from just holding the
instrument, there is a really simple solution -- look at some pictures and now
some video clips.

That's some progress for others on some of what she suffered.

It's simple progress, part of the first lesson in violin 101, even earlier
than how to tune the instrument -- a violin needs to be tuned again about each
20 minutes of playing.

Sure, the progress is only for the first lesson in violin 101 and not a
single, full path to a career as a violinist. Obvious.

You are reading into my writing assertions I did not make and then beating up
on me for those.

Again, yet again, over again, once again, one more time, just dirt simple and
potentially quite valuable: Beginning violin students need to know how to hold
the instrument. Getting this correct at the beginning is important because, as
in the OP, getting it wrong can hurt the whole effort for life. But getting it
correct is just dirt simple -- look at some good pictures or, now, videos of
some good violinists. Simple. Dirt simple. Potentially valuable for beginning
violin students. Good contribution. NOTHING WRONG.

What IS wrong is your wildly over active imaginations and extrapolations.

I'm not being critical of the author of the OP. You are being critical of me,
throwing me to the sharks, for NOTHING WRONG.

And for "Carpel tunnel and tendonitis" the situation in the OP seems to be
related to problems holding the violin and more generally -- understand that
if something hurts, then don't do that. It's not supposed to hurt.

There was an old newspaper story about why Heifetz retired from giving
concerts. The remark was "Only two things go wrong with a violinist, their bow
arm and their nerves. I can assure you there is nothing wrong with Heifetz's
bow arm." Net, violin just ain't NFL football -- it ain't supposed to hurt,
not even after decades.

