Jennifer

The semester, and this livejournal project, have come to an end.

Was it successful? Probably not the way it was intended. We were asked to measure our success by the number of people who read our livejournals regularly. I had a readership pattern that was more sporatic than regular. I did manage to spark a few conversations in some of my music courses and an occasional exchange between a few business friends, though, which I was proud of.

Did I learn anything? You better believe that I did. I did a ton of career researching that I needed to do and found out so many new ideas about what I can do with my music/business backgrounds that I don't know what to look into first. I learned that maintaining a website regularly is a significant time commitment for me. I also learned that I'm not nearly as interesting when I'm trying to fulfill my mental image of professionalism.

What am I going to do with my new blogging skills? Don't know. I've already been translating some of the things I've worked on into my personal livejournal, which I've been told has made it "funnier, more informative, and less angst filled." Who knows what the future holds?

Overall, this has been a good experience for me and I think I've come out of it with a lot of valuable skills and insights.

During my flute lesson this morning, my professor linked me to the Larry Krantz Flute Pages while we were searching for repertoire for my junior recital next fall. It's a surprisingly useful site to myself and most flautists I've talked to. I thought it tied in to the livejournal project particularly well, since it's updated so regularly that it could almost function like a professional blog.

It's really not that interesting to anyone that isn't a flute player, but it made me take a step back and notice how useful it really is to combine two interests to make oneself even better.

I was wandering through the archives of Harmony, the Symphony Orchestra Institute's journal, and found an article by Seymour and Robert Levine that discusses why job stress is so common and high among professional musicians: a lack of control in the working environment.

While that assessment was interesting and perceptive, I found myself drawn to the rather frighteningly realistic musician's perspective of a typical rehearsal on page 6 (page 18 in the actual journal) of this article. I really do think that everyone who has the slightest contact with musicians should read that description; it really provides some excellent insight into the musician mindset and takes a number of steps towards explaining why musicians behave in some ways.

It's a little disturbing that even as an amature, I can easily relate to the musicians' myth, as the Levines called it. For example, I already have learned that conductors are not to be bothered with any situation short of total emergency. And even then, I must have already exhausted every other possible option for help before I approach the conductor.

I suppose that it could reflect the subordinate/manager relationships in some of the more formal and strict business cultures. A subordinate must allow his or her manager to have complete control in the coordination of efforts. It's an interesting parallel that could be drawn.

In my quest to find make more entries involving business that do creative things with music, I stumbled across Creative Retail Communications' website. This company makes money by providing the background music used in most types of retail operations. It's interesting to study at how different types of music can influence people to behave differently or to set an atmosphere that functions as part of a product. For example, in restaurants, music is frequently played in the background as an inexpensive continuation of a theme, but it a romantic setting with string quartets or an energetic jazz club. A few layers into the webpage under "Business Music," they mention how background music has gone beyond just elevator music and showed a chart of at least twenty genres and their potential audience appeal.

It seems so silly to spend so much time thinking about a detail that will be used only in the background. However, I've noticed that the moment background music becomes the slightest bit inappropriate for a setting, people complain vigorously about it: it's too loud, it's too modern, it's not modern enough, there are too many ads, and so on. It's certain worth a little bit of time and effort!

I discovered Google's News Searching feature this afternoon and I amused myself looking for news that showed businesses using music creatively. Most of my posting has been about orchestral management, so I thought it would make a nice change of pace to feature a business instead of an orchestra.

'Piano Guy's in Tune with History,' from the Portland Tribune discussed how the third-generation owner of the locally operated Classic Pianos used his business and a cultural focus on music to help revive one of the southeast Portland communities. For example, he and a violin salesman jointly purchased an old movie theater and turned it into a performance hall. Also, he purchased a church building that was about to be demolished, moved the entire building across town, and transformed it into recital space for his customers.

How cool is that?

While I was hunting for more orchestral management links, I stumbled across the website for the musicians of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra which hosted a firy response to a slightly misinterpreted blog entry by Jeff Tsai that mentioned that orchestral managers treat musicians as part-time employees. His response also holds an interesting point of view.

Most of the professional musicians I've encountered hold at least two performance-based jobs and/or several teaching jobs in both school and/or individual settings. Based definition, I think the business world would refer to at least one of those roles as a part-time employment. Then again, through their performance careers, musicians can be eligible for union membership and, therefore, union benefits that other part-time-by-definition employees are not eligible for.

The mentality of such a label is also an interesting point, especially considering the angry response the original reference sparked. As a society, should we really view musicians as part-time employees when most professionals hold at least a Master's degree?

I'm curious to see how my business cohorts view this topic. Personally, in my time at Weatherhead, I've frequently encountered both students and professors that have been surprisingly supportive of my dual degrees and have praised me for my ability to combine two personal interests. Then again, I've also met numerous business-school affliates that look down on me for wasting my time with music and music collegues that accuse me of letting the business people poison my brain.

What do you think?

One article in the culture section of the Daily Yomiuri, Orchestra fiddles with contract system, talks about how The Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra is the first orchestra in Japan to offer performance-evaluation contracts for its orchestra members.

Typically, orchestra members receive fixed-period contracts that place them on a fixed payroll for a period of time. When the time period ends, the contract is renegotiated if the orchestra would like to keep the instrumentalist.

The addition of a performance-based contract would create quite a few interesting changes in the different frames of the orchestra. I would guess that the political environment would become significantly more important and perhaps a little more hostile. I can also envision an effect on the structural frame depending on which job takes charge of evaluating performance and whether or not the person in that job did a similar function previous. I'm sure there would be a some change to the cultural frame as well, although I don't really know enough about the cultural aspects of a professional orchestra to say for certain.

As I was looking for information on the recent labor negotiations in the "Big Five" orchestras, I stumbled across a blog by Drew McManus entitled Adaptistration. On his main page, he has a great analysis of the major stakeholders in an orchestra that I thought was really intriguing, since that's what my management course spent the afternoon discussing.

The host site of his blog also contains links to other fine arts management blogs and websites that could be interesting for management folks with assorted extraneous interests.

I had a chance to watch Brassed Off! last night, a film that was based on the mining industry's pit closure program and also features the fictional city's award-winning brass band.

It was amazing to see how the various conflicts played out in the framework of the band. Even as the mine is on the verge of closure, they still find it in themselves to show up for rehearsals and to spend money they don't have for new instruments or for transportation to contests. When they return from winning their semi-final competition to discover that the mine has closed, they still manage to pull together to win finals.

Salon Magazine published an article that knocks the film for being overstated, but it does a much better job of explaining some of the more detailed business to music relationships than I have.

Professor Piderit (managementprof) emailed me a link to a blog entry by Bill Harris on music and the development of good organizations.

I love finding articles like this one on the Symphony Orchestra Institute. Even though I know that there are other people (professionals, students, bystanders, whoever) out there with similar interests, it's nice to have a reminder that they've accomplished plenty of amazing feats. It's inspiring to think that maybe, someday in the great beyond, everything that I tentitively hope to accomplish can really be done.

Continuing with yesterday's theme, I found a website with links to eight articles on music in marketing research. There isn't anything earth shattering in there, but they're worth reading through to get an idea of what music can accomplish in advertising.

Have a read and let me know what you think!

My Introductory Marketing professor spent this afternoon discussing some of the research she does that involves advertising and music. The statistic she gave me is that ninty-nine percent of advertisement involves music in some way, from radio jingles to background music to quoted lyrics to celebrity endorsements. Ninty-nine percent!

Just to give you an idea of how powerful music recognition is:

1. Can you name the first song on this list? Most people know it as "The De Beers Diamond Song" but it's actually titled "Palladio," and composed by Karl Jenkins.

2. Can you hum the main theme from Star Wars? Of all film scores, the Star Wars soundtrack is one of, if not the most, widely recognized.


Advertising is such a huge part of business, it's no wonder that music and business go hand in hand!

As I was surfing around the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) website, I came across an article for young musicians reminding them that music is an art, but it must be treated like a business in order to make money.

It was a little short but it was a nice link for the importance of business in music.

I find it interesting that both my music and business professors remind their students of the need to add others to support their products, although the techniques in each discipline are very different.

Several of my music professors recommend learning as much as possible about education strategies since those in musical careers will be forever educating the public about why their roles are important. After all, why would anyone support the arts if nobody understands why they exist?

Meanwhile, my business professors plan entire courses around the art of persuasion. Students need to learn to convince their future managers of budgets and actions, or they'll need to convert consumers to a particular product.

I wonder why one discipline uses education and one uses persuasion? Is one more effective than the other in each situation or it is simply the nature of each industry?

"Practice every day that you eat" is a common adage among musicians that makes me cringe every time I hear it. Talk about a not-so-subtle reminder that developing skill takes discipline.

From a musician's standpoint, it's important to establish early that excellence is best achieved by careful rehearsing and attention to small detail. While it's possible to perform adequately without investing time and energy in the practice room, it's difficult for me to see how such an artist would achieve much past an average level in the long run.

Similarly, I can't imagine that a trained businessperson would, for example, introduce a new product or service without researching the market or give a presentation without running through it a few times. True enough, some people are able to pull it off, but I can't understand how anyone who does so hopes to have his or her work turn out above average.

It intrigues me that I've never heard such a phrase repeated in my business courses when the basic philosophy behind it would be so useful. We do case studies of spectacular failures that could have been prevented if only a manager or two would have do a little more research or been a little more familiar with a critical area. Is it that discipline is simply expected or is that business people aren't looking for discipline?

I was amused by a reference to musicianship while I reading Reframing Organizations by Bolman and Deal for one of my management courses last night. The pair describe the confusion multiple frames and realities produce as "a cacophonous jumble, like a group of musicians each playing from a different score" (305).

Of course, this wasn't the first reference to music that I've noticed in this textbook. I believe they also talked about music when discussing the theatrics of the political frame in business.

I've often thought the old phrase "strong but wrong" that was lovingly passed through rehearsals in middle school is a great business metaphor. "Strong but wrong" means that a player who is unsure of the correct way to perform his or her part has made a conscious decision to play something, incorrect or otherwise, instead of remaining silent. A mistake can be corrected while nothing can be learned from not taking action.

Can anyone else come up with more music-related metaphors for business?

Extremely Profound Conclusion: There are great "life lessons" to be learned from music and musicians.

Most of my musician friends roll their eyes when I describe my business-oriented collegues. Nothing but controlling, ruthless jerks, they say. I find myself sighing and I attempt to explain.

Business is about appearances: in other to play the audience, business folk often feel a need to be in control. The same sensations can be felt when one encounters an orchestra member that tends to give stylistic suggestions in rehearsal: it's annoying, but it can be overlooked since it's for the good of the ensemble.

And musicians should understand the tendency towards ruthlessness as well as any other highly competitive professional group does. After all, there's a general pyramid-like structure to both careers. The people at the bottom tend to do what it takes to reach the top.

Extremely Profound Conclusion: Business people do some things for similar reasons that musicians do them.

Most people think of music as a school child's activity. Worse, they often refer to professional musicians as snobby elitists.

Both accounts need explaining. First, the view of music that ends once a high school diploma is reached. The study of music takes time and energy. Average musicians that once filled middle school bands find themselves with hundreds of new possibilities for their free time once they enter college. Once students chose to specialize in a field of study, they are often discouraged from pursuing studies outside the view of their departments.

Finally, of the few students that do take the time to pursue interest in music, only a handful of them will be in situations where secondary music education for non-music major students is available, leading to the view that musicians are closed group that cannot be penetrated by outsiders. Nearly all music schools train their students to perform in orchestral settings. Since only the best students will be placed in the handful of available positions, music schools have little incentive to teach others. The progression from student to orchestra member often goes under the radar of the average person, so it is little wonder that musicians are viewed as members of some impenetrable clique.

Extremely Profound Conclusion: Musicians are people that have spent years learning a specialized trade, similar in many ways to the time and energy expended to become a doctor or lawyer.

As the semester begins, I started out with a vague idea about comparing unspoken leadership and authority among performers in music ensembles to unspoken heirarchies in small businesses or even large business.

Doesn't that sound like the topic of a boring dissertation that collects dust in the back of the library?

I think so too. Therefore, I'm going to broaden my horizons to simply drawing Extremely Profound Conclusions (TM) about relationships I see between the two mains areas of my mixed-matched life: music and business.

Right now, the plan for the next month is to do some blog maintenance (re-write my information, re-group some of the original postings from my MGMT 250 class, and re-do the whole blog with a prettier color scheme) and to get some meaty posts up before I start making an effort to attract readers to an empty blog.

There's nothing worse than getting excited about something interesting and discovering that it doesn't exist yet!