Berklee today

JAN 2013

Berklee today is the official alumni publication of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a forum for contemporary music and musicians.

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Attitude or Altitude? By Dr. Richard Niles '75 Flawed attitudes can keep musical careers from lifting off I recently read an article by Bill Anschell of All About Jazz that is ironically titled Careers in Jazz (www. allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=33754#. UHcoGBg79NM). It managed the trick of being an unflinching assessment of a sacred cow and very funny. His point is that a career in jazz is a passport to penury. This is not news, but what interested me was his analysis of why "at best, 1 percent" of jazz musicians make a living. He says it is "simple economics: People who want to play jazz outnumber those who enjoy or even tolerate it, let alone pay to hear it." After many years of writing music and producing records for artists in a variety of styles, I've come to a different conclusion. I believe that any music (or art) made by an expert communicator has an excellent chance for public acceptance. The history of the arts bears out this truth. What can stop any musician from being successful is having an outlook based on deeply held misperceptions. Below I offer a few examples of dubious attitudes I have encountered through the years. Holding any of them can lead to failure. A survey of attitudes "I want to play my own music which is high art. People will love it because it is artistically valid." "Art" is highly subjective. Even the work of history's greats—from Shakespeare to Beethoven—has been challenged before it received widespread acceptance. On October 9, 1886, Tchaikovsky wrote in his diary, "I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as genius." It is utterly illogical to prematurely assume that your opinion of art (yours or anyone else's) is certifiable fact. Moreover, even if you are right, why should that ensure its success? "I don't care what the public thinks. They don't understand what I'm doing." This elitist attitude is one of the quickest paths to starvation. It's been said that no one ever lost money by under-estimating the intelligence of the public. But "the public" are the individuals whom you want to reach into their dusty jeans and pull out their hard-earned dollars to pay you to make music. Don't underestimate them, your success depends on winning them over. 22 Berklee today "I'm not an 'entertainer': I'm a serious artist." Let's face it, you are an entertainer. People listen to music to be transported to a different world, away from the cares of life. Nonmusicians pay you to entertain them. The type of music may vary with individual taste from Aaron Copeland to Eminem, but there's no difference between Anne-Sophie Mutter elegantly bowing a Stradivarius and a buck-and-wing man tap dancing in a minstrel show; it's still about entertainment. "Don't ask me what style my music is. My music is 'beyond category'. I won't limit myself to a particular style." The nonmusicians who love music have generally made up their minds about the kinds of music they enjoy. They use labels like pop, rock, and jazz to guide their purchases. If they use them, so should you. If you can't define what you are as an artist, don't expect the listener to do that job for you. Many artists want to show versatility. That is a good quality for a studio musician, but for an artist it can be a death sentence. The public wants an artist with a strong, identifiable, unique personality. Listeners put on a recording because it gives them a particular feeling. They don't want a variety of disparate feelings. All of this requires that musicians go beyond study and practice and develop their concept. An artist needs to ask, "What is special about me, and how may I best develop and manifest that quality?" Johnny Mercer had it right: "Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and don't mess with Mr. In-Between." Analyzing successful artists throughout the history of music is instructive. Understand what their unique contribution was and examine their methodologies. Then you can apply those methodologies to your work. "We have recorded our top songs with top musicians in top studios with top microphones and top engineers. So therefore we will be successful." Not necessarily. If the music isn't right, spending lots of money will not ensure success. None of those "top" elements matters unless you as the artist have something valid and relevant to say. More important, it is only your opinion that all of the above are "top." They may not be.

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