Who owns the orchestra?
May 29th, 2008 • Band Dynamics, Leadership, Music • No comments
Even though orchestras are bigger and more complex organisms than chamber groups or bands, the same questions of ownership apply. Orchestras have formal boards of directors and union contracts, which are supposed to represent the interests of the larger community and the musicians, respectively. This can bring the issues to light in ways that in rock bands tens to be vague.
These questions are all over the place in the debacle taking place in Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus symphony is within a couple of days of closing down altogether. Drew McManus has been covering these sad developments in his blog, which is always instructive and entertaining. I recommend reading all of the posts with “Columbus” in the title for a case study of how music groups can be torn apart. Here is a letter from the orchestra musicians in Cleveland and Cincinnati to the board and management of the Columbus Symphony. It’s a good read. notice how much of the letter makes the point that the whole community hs a stake inthe orchestra.
Who owns the band?
May 27th, 2008 • Band Dynamics, Leadership • No comments
This comes from some recent conversations I’ve had with musicians. The notion of “who owns this?” for bands and chamber groups can be complex. Even with a well-worked-out band agreement it can be complicated. When a music group is young, lots of people support the band from lending a couch to crash on to running the merch table to contributing money and in-kind goods and services. The fans contribute to the band by telling their friends and by … well, being fans. In both the classical world and the pop/rock/etc world, managers invest time on the hope there will be revenues in the future.
It should never be unclear who actually, legally owns the band and the band’s assets (especially publishing rights). But these others need to be considered.
In business they use a horrible word for these others: “stakeholders”. I don’t know why I hate that word, except it’s vague and it sounds like business-school jargon. A business has owners, called shareholders. Stakeholders include people such as the employees, the customers, the community, etc. They mostly don’t have a legal say in how things go, but the business wouldn’t exist without them and they can cause trouble if they’re dealt with too callously. Think of the fanatical customers of Apple or BMW or Harley-Davidson.
When a band or a business has a rabid customer/fan base, this is a good thing, of course. But these people do feel they have a stake in things. Think of all of the times the fans become critical of an artist’s new work. Some of the best artists have needed to anger the stakeholders in order to break new ground. Bob Dylan and Miles Davis are great examples of this. We know the fans felt betrayed — they thought that Dylan or Miles was “theirs”. I wonder what the reactions were from the stakeholders who were close to them.
It’s sometimes important to break the constraints of the stakeholders, but it’s a sign of bad planning if a music group, or a business, gets taken by surprise by this. The fans would like you to make the last record over and over again, and you may need to challenge them. Their trust in you will go a long way. But you can’t abuse it, and there’s always risk involved. They may feel that you are trying to break their hearts.
So what’s the moral of the story? I think it’s this: whenever you ask people to support your group in any way, they will emotionally come to feel the group is “theirs”. This is what made people buy the new CD without hearing it first — back in the day when people bought CDs.
Ignore this at your peril.
How to Work With a Prima Donna
May 25th, 2008 • Band Dynamics, Leadership • No comments
Here’s an article of mine in the February Atlas Plugged.
How To Work With A Prima Donna
Michael Jolkovski, PhD
“Prima Donna” (Italian for Leading lady) and Diva are terms originally used to describe the temperamental and demanding tendencies of Opera stars, the rock stars of the 18th through the early 20th centuries. The music may have changed but these demanding tendencies flourish in every medium and genre.
In my practice, I spend a lot of time with my musician clients discussing the problems of working with Prima Donnas — as well as trying to moderate their own career-killing Prima Donna tendencies Read more »
I’m not at liberty to say
May 25th, 2008 • Band Dynamics, Bloggery, Music • 1 comment
The only thing worse than a blog that goes quiet is a sheepish post by the author while coming back to the blog. So I’ll spare you. I’ve been having some good experiences with my psychology-of-music-groups project, but the good parts have been explicitly or implicitly under a promise of confidentiality. so I have some good tales to tell that I can’t tell.
This, along with being absurdly busy, is pretty much why I haven’t said anything in this space for a long time. I have been thinking a lot about clever ways I can speak in public about what I have been learning, but it’s not easy.
So, there, I’ve broken silence. More to come.
What makes a band gel?
January 11th, 2008 • Band Dynamics • No comments
Not a hair-care preparation — what makes a band develop that unifies je-ne-sais? A new blog by dumbdrummer explores the question. This is highly worthwhile. I don’t have time to say more.
(via Madame Monet)
Sophocles is alive and well and writing for the British tabloids
January 11th, 2008 • Psychoanalysis • 1 comment
As evidenced by this story on twins separated at birth who discovered their familial bond after … marrying
UPDATE: It’s not just in the tabloids.
FURTHER UPDATE: If you were skeptical of this story from the beginning, you seem to have been right.
Back in the saddle 2008
January 1st, 2008 • Bloggery • No comments
Best wishes all around for the new year. I’ve been neglecting the blog along with everything else, but I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve got a bunch of projects I’ll be rolling out in the the new year, all pertaining to the psychodyamics of music groups. Stay tuned.
Listening to the 20th Century
January 1st, 2008 • Music • No comments
I’ve been reading Alex Ross’s wonderful tome The Rest is Noise. A history of 20th Century music, it ties together what was happening musically as the vocabulary of the 20th Century was developed, along with what was happening politically and economically. If you want an antidote to the impression that “serious” composers lived on Mount Olympus somewhere, away from the gritty concerns of commercialism and popularity, you couldn’t do better.
Todays musicians have to find a way to reach an audience and make an income under conditions of uncertainty and flux. The old ways of doing things are breaking down and it’s unclear which of the new ways will endure. As Mr. Byrne might say, “same as it ever was”. This is the way it’s been for musicians since … Haydn? Mozart? Beethoven? This was especially tumultuous in the 20th Century.
Another theme that pervades Ross’s book is the flimsy and artificial boundary between “serious” and “popular” music — and how the real story is more complex and interesting. I know that serious and popular music have been cross-fertilizing since at least the Middle Ages. I didn’t know about the classical training of some leading Harlem Renaissance musicians, or how deeply interested some European musicians were in African-American music.
I thought I knew 20th Century music history fairly well but Ross enriches the connections through his deep appreciation of the music. He is a deft writer, integrating masses of research without becoming ponderous. His voice is remarkably even-handed, and he avoids the temptation to create paper heroes and monsters. His empathy for the plights of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Strauss, and others tempers his judgment for their complicity with Stalin and Hitler. Ross doesn’t let anyone completely off the hook, either … Copland doesn’t look so heroic with his naive dalliance with Communism and his use as a new-Deal propagandist. It comes through that the great powers were interested in the great power of music as a means of controlling the masses. A chilling and cautionary tale.
The music samples linked from his blog are tied to each chapter. they enrigh the reading wonderfully — especiailly for those pieces you know but don’t know you know.
I should probably finish the book before waxing enthusiastic. I’m only up to John Cage right now. but it’s an awesome book.
I feel a bit sad about one thing. This is clearly a classic work, and it will suffer the fate of the classics — it will be assigned reading and students will approach it expecting something dessicated and stuffy. It’s a treat to read this as a brand-new work. And it’s pleasant to imagine future readers biting into it and finding it full of juice, to their surprise and delight. Just like listeners surprised by the life and passion in “classic” music works.
Why am I interested in how record deals work?
December 19th, 2007 • Business • 1 comment
Because they seem better than dealing with insurance companies.
David Byrne tells how it all works
December 19th, 2007 • Business, Creativity, Culture, Music • No comments
In today’s Wired magazine site, David Byrne has written a small textbook on the recorded-music industry that summarizes the major approaches that are available today. The included audio clips of his interviews with innovators of different business models are well worth the time.
He sets out six models of recorded-music distribution, which he calls The Six Possibilities:
Where there was one, now there are six: Six possible music distribution models, ranging from one in which the artist is pretty much hands-off to one where the artist does nearly everything. Not surprisingly, the more involved the artist is, the more he or she can often make per unit sold. The totally DIY model is certainly not for everyone — but that’s the point. Now there’s choice.
- the 360, or equity, deal
- the standard distribution deal
- The license deal
- the profit-sharing deal
- the manufacturing and distribution deal
- the self-distribution model
I have two immediate thoughts about this. One is that everyone is making this up as they go along. Musicians need to think about what they want to accomplish and invent/ tweak/ hack business procedures that move them toward that goal — and this is how it always has been. Another is how similar this is to how it is for other innovators, particularly tech-sector entrepreneurs. Which is why the story is in Wired in the first place.
I recommend this article to anyone trying to sell recorded music. There’s a companion article with a dialogue between Byrne and Thom Yorke. As above, Wired has embedded audio of the longer conversation that adds a great deal. As a commentator noted, Yorke sounds exactly like Nigel Tufnel.
Worldwide Atonality Day
December 15th, 2007 • Culture, Music • No comments
Chart-topping Alex Ross reckons that this December 17 is the hundredth anniversary of atonality. Sez he:
Celebrate as you wish. On that date in 1907, Arnold Schoenberg sketched the song “Ich darf nicht dankend” (”I must not in gratitude [sink down before you]“), music in which conventional tonal harmonies grow exceedingly scarce.
But shouldn’t Alex recognize this as a day of a-tonement?
UPDATE: A Google search on “Schoenberg” brought up this ad. This proves something, I’m just not sure what.
Welcome Music Connection readers
December 14th, 2007 • Band Dynamics, Music, Uncategorized • 1 comment
My article Leadership, Conflict & Teamwork: Building A Band To Go The Distance is now up on the Music Connection website. I’ve started getting some traffic from the article already.
Look for the special 30th anniversary issue on the newstand. I would be very pleased to hear from you. There is so much more to be said on the topic — this is just scratching the surface.
How will musicians make a living?
December 13th, 2007 • Business, Music • No comments
These are interesting times. The musicians I talk to are all scratching for new ways to make a living. These anxieties filter into their daily lives and I hear about it constantly. So even though I am not remotely a player in the industry, I’ve become interested in the topic. As I wrote a few days ago, 1000 years of history shows this is not a new problem.
I personally believe that creative solutions are out there. One colorful and energetic, if intemperate, commentator is Bob Lefsetz, who delivers unbridled observations in his email letter. His take on the Aspen Live conference of industry muckymucks is posted on Seth Godin’s blog. I’d be interested in hearing what you think.
Oh, yeah, the psychoanalysis
December 12th, 2007 • Psychoanalysis • No comments
I am writing more freely about the music world than the psychoanalytic world. There’s a reason for this. I spend my days doing psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, mostly, and when I have an observation to talk about I need to be enormously careful about sharing it in a way that doesn’t remotely compromise anyone’s privacy. And when I can’t be sure about this, I keep it under my hat. Whereas writing about Radiohead or Stockhausen, I don’t have any confidential relationship there so I can speak as freely as I like.
But psychoanalysis is pertinent to any human expereince, so I’m not that worried about this aspect of the blog being neglected.
The Radiohead pay-what-you-want deal, part 786
December 12th, 2007 • Business, Music • 2 comments
This has been so commented upon, I’ve been afraid there’s nothing to add. The NYTimes has a follow-up piece today.
But I think it boils down to this: Radiohead treats it audience with some trust. It’s so easy to treat them as the enemy. If you treat your audience / fans / customers as the enemy, they will become your enemy.
Listening to Stockhausen
December 10th, 2007 • Music • 2 comments
In the round of online obituaries for the composer, I found this link to a site (thanks, The Standing Room and ANABlog) where you can listen to his Hymnen in its entirety. This is a big paperwork day and I’ve been listening on and off all day.
Never mind whatever you might think about Stockhausen being forbidding, difficult avante-garde classical music for the black-turtleneck crowd — think the Mike Myers SNL bit “Sprockets” —
Just listen to it and you will hear sounds that are echoed all over our music culture, from the Beatles and Freak Out-era Zappa to other purveyors of gorgeous noise such as Sonic Youth and Radiohead, to all of the practitioners of sampling from early Steve Reich to Moby and beyond. This avante-garde vocabulary now conveys spooky atmospherics on film and video game soundtracks. If you’ve been awed by rich guitar feedback or the sound of an orchestra warming up, you can hear and enjoy this work. I’m struck by the warm analog-ness of the electronic sounds — he was using tools such as shortwave radio and ring modulators and manipulated tape.
Another example that all you need to approach “difficult” music is a couple of ears and a curious attitude. And it’s better to listen to music than talk about it.
I didn’t mean to learn about the music business
December 10th, 2007 • Uncategorized • 1 comment
I swear I didn’t. But it’s been a side-effect of my delving further into the world of musicians. Understanding musicians without understanding the economic and social conditions they work in is like understanding fish without knowing about water.
One of the books that deeply affected me back in music school was A Social History of Music by Henry Raynor. It looks to be out of print but there are copies to be snagged on Alibris, Abebooks, Amazon, etc. It’s a history of how musicians made a lving from the Middle Ages to the Beatles.
It was many years ago when I read it, but it helped me understand how musicians have been constantly improvising and renegotiating their arrangements with society. This allows me to take a long view with respect to the current upheaval in the music industry. It informs my sense that musicians who are clever and relentless will find a way to thrive.
Groups within groups
December 8th, 2007 • Band Dynamics, Leadership, Music • No comments
Michael Hovanian, the orchestral bassist & blogger, has a piece on all of the implications of moving the Bassi from one side of the stage to the other. Those of you in small groups will be surprised, and those of you who live in orchestras will want to join the conversation.
I’ve started to privately think of music groups as “simple groups’ and “complex groups”. Simple groups have no hierarchy — they just all meet together and get things done (or not). An orchestra epitomizes a complex group. There are groups nested within groups. There are sections with their own personality and leaders and each stand (pair of players sharing a music stand) is a micro-section with its own etiquette of who turns the page, etc. In my clinical practice I have heard many stories of how stand partners annoy one another to the point of bloodshed over how and when the page is turned.
My terminology has limited value — because even a small group can be a complex group. The Beatles had the subgroups of John/Paul which provided much of the songwriting and tension, and then George was his own songwriting team, and then Ringo. (Then when you add in all of the relationships with George Martin, Brian Epstein, Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney, etc. you have a great mess of wheels within wheels). Simple groups are rare, and all groups larger than a duo will have members who are closer or more in conflict than others.
We have two categories: complex groups vs. groups which appear simple, which just means we don’t understand them yet — so we really have one category. When I meet a group, one of the first things I try to figure out is where these subgroupings are. One of my principles is that these subgroupings are really toxic when it’s taboo to talk about them, but they can be fine if they’re above-board, and if people can speak up if they feel something unfair is going on.
This is where orchestras have an advantage, because the subgroupings are official. But people can also feel there’s a suffocating bureaucracy, and they can suspect there are hidden alliances and favoritism, and there’s always the question of who’s sleeping with whom.
Which illustrates another of my principles: There’s no free lunch.
Sandow on making a living
December 6th, 2007 • Business, Music • No comments
Greg sandow is a wonderful writer about the professional classical music world. His post from today is even more important for rock/pop musicians to read than for classical musicians. Read the comments as well.
Here is the point that I would develop if I had more than a couple of minutes today: making a living in music has required constant inventiveness, with a few exceptions. There have been more or less stable arrangements throughout history, but these have always been uneasy compromises. I’m thinking of Franz Josef Haydn working as a servant of Prince Esterhazy, and Kapellmeister J.S. Bach always kvetching to his employers at Thomaskirche for more money and more musicians. Or today, the arrangements where musicians find university residencies or faculty appointments. But mostly they have to invent ways to make money.
This article on the Rolling Stones from Fortune magazine is a few years old, but is informative about the business workings of a band that epitomizes financial success. I found it informative on many fronts, but I found it especially enlightening to read about how they neede to invent a way to make a living by touring in the mid-60’s. And how they had to re-invent it all over again. Seems like it’s worked out for them.
It can be liberating to know there’s no lost golden age when musicians could just follow a formula. It’s a constant process of invention.
Why are they murdering singers in Mexico?
December 5th, 2007 • Culture, Music • 1 comment
This is a disturbing development. This is the account from BBC news.
Sergio Gomez, of the K-Paz de la Sierra band, was seized after a concert in the western state of Michoacan on Sunday. The motive for the attack is unclear but Michoacan has been the scene of gruesome drug-related violence. Several musicians have been killed over the year, including performers of the popular “narcocorrido” music whose lyrics centre on drug-trafficking. …Gomez was killed hours after another singer, Zayda Pena, was killed in the border city of Matamoros in Tamaulipas state. Pena, 28, was shot by an unknown assailant in hospital where she was recovering from a previous gunshot wound. The motive behind her murder is also unknown. Several of the murders of musicians over the past year are believed to be tied to organised crime and drug-trafficking.
It seems implied that the murders are because the singers are critical of drug traffickers, but it’s possible they have affiliations with rival organizations, or maybe they simply present high-profile “soft targets” for these groups to demonstrate their murderousness and so intimidate others.
This is a grisly demonstration that issues of culture have a serious impact. Somenone has decided it’s important to go after the singers, maybe for the same reasons they go after the judges and prosecutors. I’m afraid in the US, cultural issues are classed as “entertainment”, trivial distractions from the real issues. And we don’t murder our singers. We just let them die from lack of health insurance.
The news item is a bit off the beaten path from what I usually commont on: psychoanalysis and organizations, especially music organizations, but there’s a connection: Musicians and performing groups are important to our culture, not just as entertainment or star-worship. Bands aren’t really taken seriously as organizations the way, for example, the board of Hewlett-Packard is taken seriously. This is why they’re left to fend for themselves while corporate boards employ armies of consultants and executive coaches helping them play nice with one another. And there are significant failures to play nice.
UPDATE: I haven’t had time to look much, but it seems this story has been picked up by some more major outlets. From a quick glance I was able to glean that rival organizations would adopt a particular song or singer as theirs, and use the music as sound-track for video of gang members committing mayhem. Singers would seemingly have no part of this, but they’d become targets of rival organizations who would target the singer as though they were killing the rival’s mascot. A horrific and nightmarish recognition of the power of music.
Singers in Mexico therefore must live in terror that they will become popular among gang members — what do they do about this? Look for a great flowering of musical forms that don’t appeal to gang members. Or the hollowing-out of Mexican musical styles as musicians flee physically and stylistically.
