I'm not against fun, but there are times when you simply have to force yourself through untold hours of tedious drudgery before you can get to the interesting part, and there's no way to gamify it.
Yeah, learning shouldn't be torturous if it can be helped. But that also doesn't mean it has to be fun all the time and that if it's not, it's not worth doing or too "elitist."
Agreed. you need to suck at stuff for a long time before you're good at it, and these days many people seem convinced you can gamify your way out of the hard part.
I hope you’re excited that you have a professional musician who holds down a day job here in America on your reading list. I love these kinds of discussions! It would be nice to see them happen on a larger industry scale, but the current culture and reality of work in many genres precludes that.
Even the “truly dedicated” burn out at a high rate if the continue into academia. My background is classical training, many kids who take up the degree don’t understand the reality of it unless they grew up with a musical background or got lessons and guidance before the degree. A lot of ‘em are just band kids who don’t know better or who want the education degree. Out of my masters cohort, only 2 have really continued playing including myself, and the other person isn’t exactly pursuing a performance career as their primary focus.
A huge problem with the devaluation of artistic skill, at least musically speaking, is that American society has largely subsumed the function of art as a means of communication into a commodity product that provides entertainment value, and most people don’t understand how the labor of music has been divided between the abstract conception of art as “The Vision” and the realities of being a working musician at that. All that music theory that has previously frustrated you can feel overwhelming because it’s function as a tool has been reversed, becoming a dictate of how to execute a style instead of the explanation of how a style is expressed (I am glad that NewJazz helped you avoid this pitfall).
But this is the problem - in the working jazz world, there ARE many things set in stone with regards to how it’s instructed. Many young cats are lied to and taught to focus on how to shred over changes because it’s easy to standardize lick vocabulary and harmonic analysis, but more challenging to instruct melody craft and communicative expression through music on a broad level. Some cultures will vibe you out if you treat changes like loose instructions, and you need to be able to know a tune (it’s changes and how to navigate them with intention) to be able to comfortably express yourself and make decisions that fit the vibe of the arrangement or call of the job on a pro level. For the sake of artistic expression, what you say is true that charts should be always be arranged and changed and evolve, but there’s a difference between a “wrong” note if you’re sticking to chord-tone soloing and a “wrong” note when you’re exploring a new way that you intend to communicate over some changes.
The reality of the working musicians in America is that there are no “middle class jobs,” and what you say of the devaluation of skill is true. You grind your gigs and hold down a day job, or you take advantage of a lucky opportunity/audition or a convenient contact and get set up in a stable institutional position or patronage system. Both require the prerequisite skill necessary to be competent on your instrument in your genre(s) (unless production alleviates that for you, which is why the barrier of entry has dropped for what can break through pop culture and streaming services), and there are plenty of people who instrumentalize music/art for the social and cultural trappings you mention instead of for its communicative and expressive power.
And unfortunately, not all day jobs are created equal. Some people get a nice time-to-labor balance, others don’t, and deciding what you focus on or sacrifice in your personal life doesn’t make the prioritizing hobby or professional entrepreneurship, let alone skill development any easier. My prospective analysis for how much easier day job opportunities will become for musicians aren’t hopeful for being balanced to the benefit of a music career, but they are plentiful, and the skills of a musician are quite adaptable to the PMC or otherwise “bullshit job” sector.
Musicians have always survived through these means, and they will always continue to do so as long as the situation of art within our socioeconomic arrangement continues as it does. FWIW, I’d rather live small and know that my musical impact persists in the hearts and minds of those who came in contact with what I have to say, and are willing to pass these memories and sentiments on to others than to burn bright and die off or worry about a legacy I’ll never experience.
I have the sense (hope?) that the direction art/artists are headed is the way of that bus driver. Love that example, I think that something like that is the way to a truly meaningful life for a lot of us.
Yeah, Mo_Diggs and Ross Barkan have recently written about the rise of mesoculture, which is in between micro- and macro-cultures. It's a nice middle-ground between being a nobody lost in the shuffle and an overexposed public figure whom everybody wants to take down. We talk a lot about lost common spaces, and one of the things that have also been lost is the local figure. A lot of people want renown, but I think more of a limited and manageable sort, where they'll feel appreciated in a circle bigger than their immediate family and friends, but not to a huge (and often vindictive) crowd.
Related to this very much as a far past my prime boxing hobbyist. Everyone wants to do the cool thing. Americans seem to have trouble with the discipline needed for the brutally repetitive nature of practicing fundamentals.
I am reminded of an anecdote I heard about the four levels of accountants:
At the top you have the person who graduated from an Ivy, works at one of the big accounting firms in NYC, and is a rain maker. He works 60-80 hours a week, and his partner handles everything outside of work, but he makes 500k/year.
Next you have the woman who graduated from an Ivy, and works at one of the big accounting firms in NYC. She works 60-80 hours a week, and her partner handles everything outside of work, but she makes 200k/year.
After that is the guy who has a degree in accounting, works a full time job, and plays drums in a band on the weekend. He makes 100k a year.
And then you have the person who has an accounting degree, but spends all of their time focused on their kids, is always asking for some type of parental leave, has been in various companies, and in the end has different priorities. They make 50K a year.
At this point you are probably wondering what I am talking about, but, in the end, like music, accounting is a skill, and you can practice it at various levels of success. But the difference between the first and second is simply who has better rapport/timing/"umph" and the second just... doesn't. But the third also has that degree, and never pushed/was pushed into that absurd level of practice, and is simply happy to live their life. All of which leaves the final level, someone who has the basics of the skill, and uses it, but it really isn't what they want. It is a slog and a burden.
I recently found your 'stack, and am rather enjoying it.
"I sometimes like to ask people whether they’d rather: (1) be successful and celebrated in life, but be quickly forgotten after, or (2) live and die thinking themselves a failure, but be immortalized as a great in their desired field after death."
Excellent title/content synergy here.
It's a similar question that Klosterman posed a while ago, about bands: Would you rather make a living playing music, albeit as a cover band or write your own songs but have to do something else to pay the bills?
I'm inclined to think most artists would SAY the latter but deep down want the former.
Thanks! Yeah, that's a similar analogy. The cover band may not be original, but they'll get the thrill of performing to an appreciative crowd. Hell, maybe they'll even have groupies lol. Meanwhile, the more creative artist is excluded from that lifestyle and there's no guarantee that he or she'll be appreciated after death either.
“If the overcoddled segments of our generation are defined by our fear of trying and failing, there’s nothing worse than trying really really hard and failing. So the path of least investment is the most picturesque one. You’re either born with the Vision or you’re not, and if you don’t instantly get 30 Under 30 recognition for it, you’re doomed.”
But why is this generation so scared of failure? Fear of falling into economic precarity? Fear of perceived competition/ inadequacy showcased by algorithms ? Decreased drive to do anything even remotely difficult due to digital pacifiers? The confidence needed to practice is gone, and its lack creates a negative feedback loop that furthers ability gaps.
I think it's a seemingly contradictory mix of hyper-competition in all aspects of life (including things like dating) but also overly generous amounts of praise. The former instills in everyone a ceaseless need to be the best, but the latter cripples our ability to deal with adversity. So we want to get to the top, but on a fast elevator.
Not to mention that today's economic and social stratification mean that there are a shrinking number of hyper-successful Winners and an awful lot of losers barely getting by.
I think there is a real difference—both in terms of the experience for all those involved, and in terms of how we should evaluate them as outsiders to the process—between working collaboratively with other people who are really good at one particular aspect of production, and sitting in a room by yourself feeding prompts into a machine to make something that looks like garbage.
My problem with AI isn't that "undeserving" people may make art; it's that people who use AI aren't actually making art at all. Art equals artifice, which implies choice, deliberation, perhaps unconscious (made so through long practice to the point of second nature) but real. The ability to explain some aspect of the resulting work with something more sophisticated than "machine said so."
And in real-life examples where some untalented and uncurious (that's the real distinguishing feature) person is given dictatorial control over the production of a work—The Room, say, or that movie Steve Mnuchin's wife made—the results are rarely very good as anything except a look into the mind of the deranged personality that drove their creation. (Which in a way still makes them auteurs.)
I often hear that Learning Needs To Be Fun!
I'm not against fun, but there are times when you simply have to force yourself through untold hours of tedious drudgery before you can get to the interesting part, and there's no way to gamify it.
Yeah, learning shouldn't be torturous if it can be helped. But that also doesn't mean it has to be fun all the time and that if it's not, it's not worth doing or too "elitist."
Agreed. you need to suck at stuff for a long time before you're good at it, and these days many people seem convinced you can gamify your way out of the hard part.
I hope you’re excited that you have a professional musician who holds down a day job here in America on your reading list. I love these kinds of discussions! It would be nice to see them happen on a larger industry scale, but the current culture and reality of work in many genres precludes that.
Even the “truly dedicated” burn out at a high rate if the continue into academia. My background is classical training, many kids who take up the degree don’t understand the reality of it unless they grew up with a musical background or got lessons and guidance before the degree. A lot of ‘em are just band kids who don’t know better or who want the education degree. Out of my masters cohort, only 2 have really continued playing including myself, and the other person isn’t exactly pursuing a performance career as their primary focus.
A huge problem with the devaluation of artistic skill, at least musically speaking, is that American society has largely subsumed the function of art as a means of communication into a commodity product that provides entertainment value, and most people don’t understand how the labor of music has been divided between the abstract conception of art as “The Vision” and the realities of being a working musician at that. All that music theory that has previously frustrated you can feel overwhelming because it’s function as a tool has been reversed, becoming a dictate of how to execute a style instead of the explanation of how a style is expressed (I am glad that NewJazz helped you avoid this pitfall).
But this is the problem - in the working jazz world, there ARE many things set in stone with regards to how it’s instructed. Many young cats are lied to and taught to focus on how to shred over changes because it’s easy to standardize lick vocabulary and harmonic analysis, but more challenging to instruct melody craft and communicative expression through music on a broad level. Some cultures will vibe you out if you treat changes like loose instructions, and you need to be able to know a tune (it’s changes and how to navigate them with intention) to be able to comfortably express yourself and make decisions that fit the vibe of the arrangement or call of the job on a pro level. For the sake of artistic expression, what you say is true that charts should be always be arranged and changed and evolve, but there’s a difference between a “wrong” note if you’re sticking to chord-tone soloing and a “wrong” note when you’re exploring a new way that you intend to communicate over some changes.
The reality of the working musicians in America is that there are no “middle class jobs,” and what you say of the devaluation of skill is true. You grind your gigs and hold down a day job, or you take advantage of a lucky opportunity/audition or a convenient contact and get set up in a stable institutional position or patronage system. Both require the prerequisite skill necessary to be competent on your instrument in your genre(s) (unless production alleviates that for you, which is why the barrier of entry has dropped for what can break through pop culture and streaming services), and there are plenty of people who instrumentalize music/art for the social and cultural trappings you mention instead of for its communicative and expressive power.
And unfortunately, not all day jobs are created equal. Some people get a nice time-to-labor balance, others don’t, and deciding what you focus on or sacrifice in your personal life doesn’t make the prioritizing hobby or professional entrepreneurship, let alone skill development any easier. My prospective analysis for how much easier day job opportunities will become for musicians aren’t hopeful for being balanced to the benefit of a music career, but they are plentiful, and the skills of a musician are quite adaptable to the PMC or otherwise “bullshit job” sector.
Musicians have always survived through these means, and they will always continue to do so as long as the situation of art within our socioeconomic arrangement continues as it does. FWIW, I’d rather live small and know that my musical impact persists in the hearts and minds of those who came in contact with what I have to say, and are willing to pass these memories and sentiments on to others than to burn bright and die off or worry about a legacy I’ll never experience.
I have the sense (hope?) that the direction art/artists are headed is the way of that bus driver. Love that example, I think that something like that is the way to a truly meaningful life for a lot of us.
Yeah, Mo_Diggs and Ross Barkan have recently written about the rise of mesoculture, which is in between micro- and macro-cultures. It's a nice middle-ground between being a nobody lost in the shuffle and an overexposed public figure whom everybody wants to take down. We talk a lot about lost common spaces, and one of the things that have also been lost is the local figure. A lot of people want renown, but I think more of a limited and manageable sort, where they'll feel appreciated in a circle bigger than their immediate family and friends, but not to a huge (and often vindictive) crowd.
Wow, yeah, I really relate to that. Can you share links to the articles you're talking about?
https://supculture.substack.com/p/the-mesoculture
https://rosselliotbarkan.com/p/the-three-factions-of-american-culture
You may like the main comment thread I posted here that regards this!
Excellent essay. Did you watch Whiplash?
Related to this very much as a far past my prime boxing hobbyist. Everyone wants to do the cool thing. Americans seem to have trouble with the discipline needed for the brutally repetitive nature of practicing fundamentals.
Yeah, I love Whiplash. Been meaning to rewatch. That dinner table scene where they discuss Charlie Parker is great.
I am reminded of an anecdote I heard about the four levels of accountants:
At the top you have the person who graduated from an Ivy, works at one of the big accounting firms in NYC, and is a rain maker. He works 60-80 hours a week, and his partner handles everything outside of work, but he makes 500k/year.
Next you have the woman who graduated from an Ivy, and works at one of the big accounting firms in NYC. She works 60-80 hours a week, and her partner handles everything outside of work, but she makes 200k/year.
After that is the guy who has a degree in accounting, works a full time job, and plays drums in a band on the weekend. He makes 100k a year.
And then you have the person who has an accounting degree, but spends all of their time focused on their kids, is always asking for some type of parental leave, has been in various companies, and in the end has different priorities. They make 50K a year.
At this point you are probably wondering what I am talking about, but, in the end, like music, accounting is a skill, and you can practice it at various levels of success. But the difference between the first and second is simply who has better rapport/timing/"umph" and the second just... doesn't. But the third also has that degree, and never pushed/was pushed into that absurd level of practice, and is simply happy to live their life. All of which leaves the final level, someone who has the basics of the skill, and uses it, but it really isn't what they want. It is a slog and a burden.
I recently found your 'stack, and am rather enjoying it.
"I sometimes like to ask people whether they’d rather: (1) be successful and celebrated in life, but be quickly forgotten after, or (2) live and die thinking themselves a failure, but be immortalized as a great in their desired field after death."
Excellent title/content synergy here.
It's a similar question that Klosterman posed a while ago, about bands: Would you rather make a living playing music, albeit as a cover band or write your own songs but have to do something else to pay the bills?
I'm inclined to think most artists would SAY the latter but deep down want the former.
Thanks! Yeah, that's a similar analogy. The cover band may not be original, but they'll get the thrill of performing to an appreciative crowd. Hell, maybe they'll even have groupies lol. Meanwhile, the more creative artist is excluded from that lifestyle and there's no guarantee that he or she'll be appreciated after death either.
Love the AI segment...so true.
These people should be loving AI!
“If the overcoddled segments of our generation are defined by our fear of trying and failing, there’s nothing worse than trying really really hard and failing. So the path of least investment is the most picturesque one. You’re either born with the Vision or you’re not, and if you don’t instantly get 30 Under 30 recognition for it, you’re doomed.”
But why is this generation so scared of failure? Fear of falling into economic precarity? Fear of perceived competition/ inadequacy showcased by algorithms ? Decreased drive to do anything even remotely difficult due to digital pacifiers? The confidence needed to practice is gone, and its lack creates a negative feedback loop that furthers ability gaps.
I think it's a seemingly contradictory mix of hyper-competition in all aspects of life (including things like dating) but also overly generous amounts of praise. The former instills in everyone a ceaseless need to be the best, but the latter cripples our ability to deal with adversity. So we want to get to the top, but on a fast elevator.
Not to mention that today's economic and social stratification mean that there are a shrinking number of hyper-successful Winners and an awful lot of losers barely getting by.
I think there is a real difference—both in terms of the experience for all those involved, and in terms of how we should evaluate them as outsiders to the process—between working collaboratively with other people who are really good at one particular aspect of production, and sitting in a room by yourself feeding prompts into a machine to make something that looks like garbage.
My problem with AI isn't that "undeserving" people may make art; it's that people who use AI aren't actually making art at all. Art equals artifice, which implies choice, deliberation, perhaps unconscious (made so through long practice to the point of second nature) but real. The ability to explain some aspect of the resulting work with something more sophisticated than "machine said so."
And in real-life examples where some untalented and uncurious (that's the real distinguishing feature) person is given dictatorial control over the production of a work—The Room, say, or that movie Steve Mnuchin's wife made—the results are rarely very good as anything except a look into the mind of the deranged personality that drove their creation. (Which in a way still makes them auteurs.)