the worst thing about orchestras

They're the aural mirror image of totalitarianism.

french horns are wonderful and underused

Proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fo2qIKsSj8

Forgot pt. II (video dates from YT's prehistory):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CNMpW8BwCQ

Hell yeah Ligeti really figured out some amazing things abt that instrument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YblCUBsc584

(Skip ahead to 2:55 for the best part)

Fuck yeah, love me some

Hamburgisches Konzert

Used q instead of i for whatever reason. Whatever, it deserves to be INDENTED.

See also Messiaen ‘Appel Insterstellaire’

Or for romantic era total ass kicking, Schumann Konzerstuck for 4 horns and orchestra

*Interstellaire

classically-trained musicians are highly-specialised workers whose daily labour is built on decades of physically and mentally taxing practice, often unpaid for years before they make their first paycheque, and they deserve to be paid accordingly

But doing so doesn't entitle them to anything. You can say the exact same thing about jazz musicians, and that they 'deserve' to be paid accordingly, but they're definitely not.

I know tons of bitter jazz musicians, but I once had dinner with a number of long-tenured symphony orchestra musicians, and I've never since met a group that was so bitter, entitled, and seemingly lacking any affection at all for music or the process of making it. And these are people making six figures and working a few days a week. I mean, I know that if you get a bunch of professional musicians together there will be griping, but this was on another level.

When (as with the Vienna Philharmonic) they are reluctant to appoint women or ethnic minorities into their ranks. They didn't accept women until 1997.

Vienna tho.

they still think lasers are cool

LASERS ARE COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Six-figure salaries are surely not typical for most orchestras??

It is in Chicago/LA/NYC, I think. This was in Milwaukee, which starts lower, but these musicians had been there for decades.

Huh. Nice irk if you can get it, as the old joke goes.

When (as with the Vienna Philharmonic) they are reluctant to appoint women or ethnic minorities into their ranks. They didn't accept women until 1997.

― van dyke parks generator (anagram), Saturday, September 7, 2019 10:57 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

A discrimination lawsuit filed by the bassist and composer Art Davis against the New York Philharmonic in the '70s ultimately led to symphony orchestras instituting blind auditions, at least in the US.

It is in Chicago/LA/NYC, I think. This was in Milwaukee, which starts lower, but these musicians had been there for decades.

bg outed as a member of the Euroimperialist bourgeoisie by association.

Never in doubt tbh.

i go to the gallows with a clean conscience, secure in the knowledge that lol we’re all gonna die

xps: sure, in pounds.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/arts/music/chicago-symphony-orchestra-strike.html

itt: ilx0rs come out swinging against labour unions

I support unions, but it seems like a dinosaur of an institution where the compensation is way out of line with the demand and the money coming in.

Especially considering the almost total lack of institutional support for any other musicians in the U.S.

I'm sure everything is more equal in Canada and the EU

Why do they mostly just play what's written on a piece of paper in front of them? Odds are it's already been played and recorded many times before.

It'd be cool if they sometimes just, y'know, _jammed_ like yr blooz dudes do.

Like, instead of "Ladies and gentlemen, this is J.S. Beetzart's Camry in H minor, opus number Kmart 4337," could they ever be like "Hey this is a funk jam in B, keep it loose and follow me for the changes. I'll solo for eight bars then pass it on via eyebrow cues."

I support unions, but it seems like a dinosaur of an institution where the compensation is way out of line with the demand and the money coming in.

Especially considering the almost total lack of institutional support for any other musicians in the U.S.

Yep, good characterization of the entirety of non-classical music (which mostly lacks any semblance of hierarchical structure that would support collective bargaining, these days at least)

Jordan, what do you think orchestras should be doing with their money instead of wasting it on paying the musicians?

the old lady two seats down crinkling something in her purse for 5 minutes

I think they have too much money given their role in society, and ideally that money would be better distributed, maybe in the form of grants to organizations & individuals that are building more accessible arts-related things in the community

Symphony orchestras aren’t a useful target for your redistributive program ffs

Sort of related idk https://watt.cashmusic.org/writing/institutionalizationofrock

"too much money given their role in society"?

woooow.

While we’re at it, let’s get rid of all the actors

Oh Jordanpaws

also I would like it if chamber choirs were dissolved and replaced with holograms, money better spent IMO

Mercifully, we've got the free market to weed out useless art forms and ensure that pop remains ever triumphant.

the invisible hand of Phil Spector

scores of aspiring orchestral musicians put themselves through a grueling gauntlet of training and acculturation that instills in them the sense of being abject failures should they fail to attain one of the scarce permanent positions playing for a legit ensemble. many amazingly talented orchestral musicians really, sincerely hate themselves & (secondarily) the system they bought into!

Mercifully, we've got the free market to weed out useless art forms and ensure that pop remains ever triumphant.

― pomenitul

i'm sorry, i just woke up, did you say "free weed"?

worst thing about orchestras is that going to see them somehow always manages to put me to sleep even when they're a good orchestra playing exciting music that i love. what the hell is up with that?

on thursday night i saw Yuja Wang place rachmaninov's piano concerto no. 3 and it was like seeing van halen or something. just outrageous. she had this room of about 4500 people in the palm of her hand. sweepin us up, swoopin us down. if they'd replaced the french horns with bassoons or something it would have been perfect.

PLAY not place

this was it:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0008422

scores of aspiring orchestral musicians put themselves through a grueling gauntlet of training and acculturation that instills in them the sense of being abject failures should they fail to attain one of the scarce permanent positions

lol this is all highly educated career path aspirants now when their fields aren't treated as immediately monetizable (including scientists!)

Why should this one form of (increasingly irrelevant) music get such a disproportionate amount of institutional support though? Especially when most people can't even afford to go see it.

Jazz is considered 'institutionalized' at this point, although I think it's really in an in-between zone. Some big name jazz musicians might get included in the season's programming at a big arts organization, but jazz musicians don't get pensions or health insurance (unless they're professors at a university).

You can get into the symphony here for $30ish, comparable to any other concert, plus you get a seat!

I mean the solution to your complaints is communism, not tearing down the orchestra.

All of the singers from the Met we performed with were over-the-top gracious, relatable, wonderful people, to the point where several of them friended a bunch of us on Facebook and kept in regular touch, making a point to go out and visit with various choristers whenever they were in town on a gig with the BSO or someone else

In summation, singer-songwriters are the worst, opera singers are awesome

It's noticeable but I just accept it as part of the experience. Especially given the average age of most orchestra/classical audiences, and the fact that these concerts are among the most accessible events for the physically disabled, I don't see anything exceptional about it. People on classical music groups get so huffy about this. An otherwise magical concert pianist made a point of emphasizing how disrespectful she found audience coughing when I saw her, which was just wtf. xp re coughing

Yeah the sound of coughing is totally annoying but cynical theories about why it is happening are silly and dumb.

Second-worst thing is the conservatism of p much every orchestra's repertoire, given everything that has been written for the medium.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Monday, September 9, 2019 11:48 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This x1000. If my local orchestra (which is admirably accessible with $20 balcony tix) did some Webern, Schoenberg, or (especially) Penderecki, I'd be overjoyed.

Worst thing: how soloists seem to be expected to visibly and theatrically emote far more than section players.

the hall is all hushed and everything but isn't the agita re coughing partly because of the belief that this is a space where people can be prodded into leaving for the sake of others? so always in the back of someone's mind when they hear a cougher, they can be thinking, DECORUM REQUIRES YOU TO LEAVE, SIR

Exiting from the middle of a row during a concert clearly less disruptive to fellow audience members than coughing

Clapping between movements should be universally encouraged. It seems strange to read about certain movements, at their premiere, in history, making such a huge impression on the audience, that the audience demanded an immediate encore performance. How did this happen? I just don't get it. I think it's a modern affectation and one designed to... man, I wish there was a verb that worked here. The same thing that the Catholic church does. Imbues the doctrine with something confusing and demanding in order to keep the congregation off balance, to suggest that there are people in the room more enlightened and decorous than the proles. It feels like that.

It may amuse the court to note that, via mutual friends, I ended up hanging out all day at a spa with an opera singer who has won a couple Grammys.

(she was incredibly nice and chill, and I was very polite, we had a good time comparing notes about playing & preparing for gigs without actually talking about music)

ooh who was it

Rhymes with Masha Mooke