Professional Development

A little history...

I began this blog over three years ago after losing my day-job. At the time I thought it would be good to record my activities, thoughts, and impressions in a format that resembled a diary – only online and available to friends, family, and anyone who cared enough to read it. As the blog progressed my primary area of focus morphed into an open-ended discussion about my thoughts on music and other random rants of the day. My semi-frequent posts have tended to focus on aspects of contemporary music composition and items of interest that relate to it in the periphery, both historically and in the present.

In retrospect, “Deconstructing-Jim” has also served to function as a personal digital soapbox and electronic therapist in an age where, in the spirit of Reality TV, it’s socially acceptable to spill ones guts online. I’m appreciative of all those who have read my blog posts over the past years and have taken the initiative to contact me, reply online, and find out a little more about my music. In the end there has been value if this blog leads one to consider (or reconsider) aspects of my musical work. Over the duration, it’s been an interesting ride.

My blog posts have included random (and not-so-random) thoughts about the challenges of being a 20th/21st century composer, including some of the more mundane and practical matters of self-sufficiency and self-preservation. It’s a story that often goes untold. Yet, I think it is useful at times to explain to the public what many composers actually do to earn their living, and how they maintain their motivation over the long haul. The game of survival often involves jumping through hoops like a circus dog just to make ends meet and to move on to the next level.

Everyone knows that not all composers have the privilege and support of a university position, or even the sporadic income of royalty checks, and/or major commissions. But there are some - a lucky few - who are in that position. If they are diligent and disciplined in their work, they will be successful - almost by default.

I’m not one of those composers.

For me, the music profession has never been fertile ground for generating income. For better or worse, I have never earned a penny from the trade. I’ve never held a teaching job, taught private students, or received a paid commission. It’s not that I haven’t applied myself, but rather that the music I create has had (for whatever reason) minimal commercial success.

Fortunately I’ve been able to survive into middle age with most of my teeth and all of my fingers by working day-jobs of various sorts. I’ve been employed as a dishwasher, security guard, retail sales clerk, house painter, technical trainer, car salesman, technical instructor, and made a career in IT for a time. Some of my day-jobs have been better than others, but all of them taught me something. I’ve also been fortunate in that my wife works (albeit part-time) and has benefits. As a family we’ve been able strive toward the iconic middle class American dream, even though I have made vigorous efforts on the side to promote my own music and career in whatever way I can.

I have to say that given the challenges, when trying to balance composing music with earning a living, all has gone fairly well. That is, at least up until now.

After the loss of my full-time job and benefits in 2008, my personal financial position has declined. As we all know too well, the economy has taken a precipitous plunge into the abyss of recession. The unemployment rate in the US is officially over 9%, but some say that in reality true unemployment hovers around 20%. Any semblance of financial recovery does not seem imminent, at least not in the next few years. The experts say it may take decades before things return to normal.

Since 2008 I landed some part time and temporary contract work in IT for a period, but that also came to an abrupt end. The latest news is that our family lifeline, my wife’s long-term steady job, may in jeopardy due to corporate reorganization.

The timing could not be worse since the employment outlook is dire. After having no success applying for jobs in IT or in higher education, it became clear that I couldn’t continue to burn through personal savings in the hope that the US economy will turn around anytime soon. I found myself applying for entry level jobs that pay a fraction of what I once earned. Yet, even those jobs are now more difficult to acquire - especially for someone in their late 50’s. At one of many job fairs I heard a story about an open position at Barnes and Noble in downtown Boston that attracted 1,000 applicants. That dire fact is fairly representative of what it’s like in the general job market today, and it’s pretty unsettling to anyone who is unemployed.

Recently my luck improved. I was invited to a job event hosted by a large supermarket chain. I spent the day interviewing with them, and came away with a job offer. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the salary is $10/hour. After some consideration, I accepted the offer and have begun work.

In my new role at the supermarket is working as a bagger. I’ve done jobs of this sort before. I can do it again. Although standing on my feet for eight hours a day will be a challenge, I’d rather work than not, be able to pay my bills, and not fall into debt or spiral in downward path financially. I also have a son who could use our assistance in paying his college tuition. I am grateful for the income.

My emotions about my new day-job are mixed. While it is a relief to finally find something after such a long search for employment, it also is unsettling to know that trying to live on a much lower income stream will be a significant challenge. I’m also perturbed about the current economic impact that has resulted from mistakes made by a number of our country’s political leaders, policy makers, and by the grandiose power grab by greedy corporate executives that initiated the global financial meltdown in the first place.

And yet I realize that I’m in the same sinking boat as many Americans, and better off than a lot of them. But it is disconcerting to realize that what I thought would eventually be my retirement years now seems so much farther away in time. It’s as if my retirement future has disappearing from sight as it slips over a moving horizon in a Las Vegas magic show. Counting the additional years to retirement creates a sinking feeling.

I’ve long accepted the fact that I’ve never been able to compose full-time as a profession. That dose of reality has always been mitigated by the notion that I could use my retirement years in pursuit of that lofty passion. Now, unfortunately, even that goal looks less promising.

The success and survival of the new music trade is more important than the success of any particular individual. For that reason I’m glad that at least some of our nation’s composers are thriving and able to create work in the down economy. At least there are still some resources available to them. There are only a limited number of commissions, university jobs, and prestigious foundations to support and aid their work, and I’ve come to conclude that there is just not enough funding to go around to support a broader spectrum of composers such as myself. The tendency has been to award commissions, grants, and academic accolades to composers who have already demonstrated success – based mostly by the quantity and quality of awards they have already received. My unscientific analysis indicates that: as more awards and distinctions are presented to a composer, the more he/she is inclined to receive them in the future. It’s an interesting relationship. [Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls this the “Survivorship Bias”].

I do believe that it is important for someone fill the societal role of “professional composer” since a world with a few good pieces is better than a world without any. Given the state of the U.S. economy, not everyone in the field is worthy of that unique privilege.

My new job as a supermarket bagger is physically demanding. Pushing trains of shopping carts in from the parking lot tires me out. Standing all day is an acquired skill.

I have begun to dream about my job, and an unscripted scene from an imaginary encounter runs through my head. In it, I’m at work bagging groceries for my customers passing through the checkout line. The next customer arrives at Register 8 with a carriage full of items to purchase. I look up and notice that they are a distinguished American composer with university tenure. I smile, and then ask the critical question, “Paper or plastic?”

Thoughts about Novell

There's a little M&A activity to report in the news, and I'm not talking about Music and Art.

Yesterday after the stock market ended its session, a NY-based hedge fund firm called Elliott Associates offered to buy out the software and networking company Novell for an even $2 billion dollars. It was an unsolicited bid (aka hostile takeover).

The hedge fund's modus operandi is to take "an activist approach to investing, frequently amassing significant but minority stakes in distressed or under performing companies and attempting to foment change."

Elliott Associates (and its' parent Elliott International) manage more than $16 billion of capital for large institutional investors and wealthy individuals. They clearly see an opportunity and bargain in Novell.

In after-hours trading Elliott offered to pay $5.75 a share in cash for Novell stock. That's 21 percent higher than Novell’s price at close yesterday. Predictably, there was a upward tick in Novell’s share price: it rose $1.23, or nearly 26 percent, to $5.98 in after-hours trading.

Elliott Associates - an investment firm that specializes in "distressed companies" -currently holds more than eight percent of Novell’s stock. It is offering an additional 1.8 billion to take over the company from stock holders.

Novell’s Board of Directors received a letter from Elliott Associates explaining the rationale for the firm’s bid:

Over the past several years, the company has attempted to diversify away from its legacy division with a series of acquisitions and changes in strategic focus that have largely been unsuccessful. As a result, we believe the company’s stock has meaningfully underperformed all relevant indices and peers. With over 33 years of experience in investing in public and private companies and an extensive track record of successfully structuring and executing acquisitions in the technology space, we believe that Elliott is uniquely situated to deliver maximum value to the company’s stockholders on an expedited basis.

While I do not own any Novell stock personally, I have worked with their products over a period that spans decades, and am quite familiar with the company history. Their corporate HQ is actually nearby in Waltham, MA. I've been to the tech giant's "Brain Share" conference in Salt Lake City numerous times, and know or have worked with scores of folks associated with the company.

I'd be sorry to see Novell bought and cannibalized for it's remaining cash, trademarks, patents, and software inventory (such as SUSE Linux). In this ailing economy, the vultures are having a field day.

There is some truth that Novell has made famous and grandiose mistakes in strategy and marketing over the years, but their technology has for the most part been innovative, ahead of the curve, and rock solid.

I was very hopeful when ex-Sun Microsystems CTO Eric Schmidt took over as Novell's CEO in 1997. Schmidt had a clear understanding of the importance of the Internet and how cloud computing would eventually dominate the industry. At Sun he led its Java development efforts.



I recell being invited to a top-level executive briefing with Eric Schmidt at Novell's office in Wellseley, MA. Schmidt wanted to hear first-hand from Novell's customer base. The international company I worked for at the time (Zurich Scudder Kemper Investments) was a significant corporate client.

The meeting was informative and pleasant. Schmidt had just flown into town on Novell's corporate jet. I recall that he parked his plane at Hansom Field in Bedf0rd, preferring it over Logan International. Schmidt spoke to the small group about Novell's initiatives, listened to our ideas and concerns, and met with us individually. Customers were provided with lunch, and I received a nice leather notebook case and cool ball-point pen with the Novell logo inscribed on it. The future looked rosy.

In 2001 things changed. A local IT consulting company that was heavily invested in Microsoft technology - and who's core business was outsourcing software development - was "acquired" by Novell. It was called Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP), and their offices were in a renovated brick factory building along Memorial Drive in Cambridge across the Charles River from BU. The street talk at the time was that the merger was a good idea, since Novell would benefit from the additional talent of CTP's programming staff. In reality, CTP assumed the upper edge, took over Novell's management team, robbed it of cash, and led the company down a confused and ultimately dire path.

Schmidt left Novell soon after the acquisition of CTP. The rumor was that he found managing the new Novell quite difficult. The remaining senior management of the company was still entrenched in their old business models, and a myriad of complications had been introduced by the merger with CTP. Lingering complications from Novell's prior mergers (such as WordPerfect) contributed to the dysfunction. The magnitude of the organizational turmoil set Novell firmly into a state of classic management gridlock - and for an IT company that is a bad state to be in.

Around this time Google founders Larry Page and Sergy Brin met secretly with Schmidt. They realized that they had a lot in common (such as flying airplanes). The trio hit if off in a way that only geeky software engineers can do, and Schmidt agreed to assist the dynamic duo in transforming Google into a real company. The rest is history.

Novell's loss was Google's gain.

I still have my spiffy black leather Novell executive case and pen. I retain my obscure Novell certifications of CNE and Master CNE. But although Novell's customers still exist, they are much harder to find. I know that from looking at the employment pages.

All of this technology (and the companies that created them) appear to be dissipating into the proverbial "cloud."

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The Music Industrial Complex

Believe it or not, music fuels the economy - even in nasty recessions like the one we are currently experiencing.

Generally, I would not consider composers to be on the list of high-wage earners or among those at the top income bracket, but there is a Trickle-down effect from the works that they create. It's a larger economy that you might think. I'd go so far as to coin the term "Music Industrial Complex."

Does this make any sense? How can it be that I have never earned a single penny in a four-decade career of composing, but consider myself to be a tiny cog within the larger economic machinery of a highly profitable global business? Here's an example....

In 2006 I composed a piano piece for the occasion of Milton Babbitt's 90th Birthday. It was titled BoogieWoogie . Although the work has never been performed, a score and mp3 recording of a midi version have been available on my personal webpage for some time. From what I can gather, my piece has become a popular download item - particularly in China where thousands of consumers have found it via the search engine and mp3 music service Baidu. It was downloaded 5,613 times in the month of October. Recently I discovered that my Boogie Woogie is for sale as a Ringtone. I'm not sure what kind of revenue this piece is generating, but I'm glad that someone is enjoying the music and making a profit.

I've blogged before about what musicians and composers earn in the United States...

http://deconstructing-jim.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-musicans-make.html

It's pretty obvious that the revenue-generating side of the business is not on the creative end. Composers are stuck over on the "overhead" side of the accounting ledger. But clearly, someone is making money.

On October 28th, the New York Times published an article about the salaries earned by the stage crew at Carnegie Hall. These are the people who work hard behind the curtains to make sure the concerts go on without a glitch. The are carpenters, electricians, and stagehands. Classical music satirist PDQ Bach has poked fun at these lovable characters, who obsess about their well-defined task of setting up music stands and insuring that the program starts on time. But the job is real, and it turns out to pay pretty well.

The Properties Manager at Carnegie Hall earned $422,599 base pay, with an additional $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation during the 2007-08 season. The building's electrician earned $327,257 base pay, and $76,459 in additional benefits. Not bad at all.

Their salaries are higher than what the average stagehand earns up the street at Avery Fisher and Alice Tully halls at Lincoln Center. According to the NY Times, those stagehands earn $290,000 per year.

The chief executive and artistic director at Carnegie Hall is not concerned about the high salary expense. He believes he is getting value for the dollar. His own salary and benefits were $946,581 for the 2007-08 season.

It's the Trickle-down effect. Composers write the music, and that act ultimately feeds product to the Music Industrial Complex, which intern fuels the general economy. There is a viable and strong market for music. No government bailouts were needed in the music biz. There were people who were quite willing to pay $154 dollars last season for the privilege of sitting in a subsidized seat at Carnegie Hall to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiere William Bolcom's Symphony No. 8 for chorus and orchestra.

Tickle-down is how the economic system works. Living in NY is expensive, and professionals working behind the scenes on stage crews deserve to earn a fair wage. But let's not forget that composers are professionals too. They create the product that musicians rely on. Music inspires the public to open their wallets and fork over excessive amounts of hard earned cash.

The Music Industrial Complex would wither to nothing if composers disappeared from the equation. Therefore, I declare November to be "Hug a Composer" month.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/arts/music/28hands.html

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What musicans make

The United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics published the 2008-09 edition of their Occupational Outlook Handbook. It contains estimated salary data for musicians: singers, instrumentalists, music directors, conductors, composers, and arrangers.

Musicians apparently comprise of a significant portion of the U.S. workforce, holding about 264,000 jobs in 2006. Of these, approximately 35 percent worked part time and almost half, 48 percent, were self-employed.

As we drill down in the data, workers holding the title "Music Director" and "Composer" are classified by the DOE SOC Code 27-2041.

Combined, they accounted for 68,000 employees in the workforce in 2006 (before the current global recession). By the year 2016, this profession is projected to grow by 13%, adding 8,800 band new jobs to the economy.

The Department of Labor website provides some useful information for anyone considering a career as a 27-2041:

Composers create original music such as symphonies, operas, sonatas, radio and television jingles, film scores, and popular songs. They transcribe ideas into musical notation, using harmony, rhythm, melody, and tonal structure. Although most composers and songwriters practice their craft on instruments and transcribe the notes with pen and paper, some use computer software to compose and edit their music.

Median hourly earnings of wage-and-salary musicians and singers were $19.73 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $10.81 and $36.55. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $7.08, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $57.37. Median hourly earnings were $23.37 in performing arts companies and $13.57 in religious organizations. Annual earnings data for musicians and singers were not available because of the wide variation in the number of hours worked by musicians and singers and the short-term nature of many jobs. It is rare for musicians and singers to have guaranteed employment that exceeds 3 to 6 months.

Median annual earnings of salaried music directors and composers were $39,750 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $23,660 and $60,350. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $15,210, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $110,850.

I don't know any composers who earned $110,850 in 2006. That's probably the work of commercial song-smiths and music moguls. I would guess that all of the composers I know are in the bottom bracket - earning less that $15,210 annually in their profession. In my case, I am in the bottom 1 percent of the bottom 10 percent.

Just to put this into perspective, the 2009 official poverty level for the 48 contiguous states (and the District of Columbia) as defined by US Dept. of Health and Human Services is $18,310 for a family of three (the average household size). Below that threshold, you are in deep doo-doo, even with Food Stamps.

Based on this information, one can assert that in 2006 at least 10% of composers (approximately 6,800) were living below the poverty line. I'd estimate that the numbers could actually be much higher.

Yes Virginia, there are starving composers. Fortunately, my wife works and I've held various day jobs throughout my life.

Some street musicians are also street people. Superstar violinist Joshua Bell conducted a social experiment where he dressed in old clothes and performed out in front of a subway stop for spare change. He was virtually ignored by the passers by. Bell would truly be living out on the street if he didn't have another context to present his music in.

In France, freelance/street musicians receive government subsidies and fringe benefits that any other working person would be entitled to. They can survive.

But in the US not all musicians and their families live in dire straits. Even in the field of "long-hair" classical music, some musicians do very well. Orchestral musicians who make it to the pinnacle of their profession and secure a coveted job with a major American symphony orchestra are top earners.

Here is a list of the starting (minimum) salaries for the major American orchestras as reported recently by the Boston Globe (the salaries are for the past season or the up-coming season):

New York Philharmonic: $129,740 (2009-10)
San Francisco Orchestra: $129,740 (2009-10)
Los Angeles Philharmonic: $129,585 (2008-09)
Boston Symphony Orchestra: $128,180 (2009-10)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra: $127,637 (2009-10)
Philadelphia Orchestra: $124,800 (2009-10)
Cleveland Orchestra: $115,440 (2008-09)

Mind you these are starting salaries - not for long-term veterans who typically earn much more. Often they combine their orchestral job with teaching and various freelance work that substantially supplements their gross income.

I'm not going to bash orchestral musicians for getting paid well. Like doctors and other professionals, they invest a lot in their education, training, and skills. It's not easy work either, and the stress involved with the job often leads to ugly occupational hazards (such as self-medication).

On the other hand, there does seem to be a little salary inequality compared to other musicians in the economic and artistic food chain (e.g. starving composers). These under-valued musicians invest a lot in their education, training, and careers too.

While we could argue that people ultimately get paid what society thinks they should earn, I'm a little surprised that an orchestral musician on average could earn more than a resident in the hospital emergency room, or a commercial airline pilot for that matter. Flubbing a note in a live performance wont result in human tragedy or loss of life. Frankly, some professionals are more essential to the basic operations of an orderly society than others - although I do think that arts plays a vital role.

Perhaps there is something slightly out of kilter when orchestral musicians and lawyers wind up among the highest paid members of society rather than EMTs and airline pilots.

Let them eat cake. Growl.

Link: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos095.htm

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Culture Tzar

Much speculation has filled the airwaves about the need of a United States Culture Tzar. The position is rather common in other countries, such as France, where their Minister of Culture plays a significant role.

Even before Obama took office, many people in the arts were lobbying for this position. Musician, producer, and Obama supporter Quincy Jones had relayed this idea to Obama very early in the election cycle.

Tzar is not a new concept in U.S. government civil service. Functionally, it's been around for a long time. I believe President Reagon was the first to coin the Tzar title when he appointed a some to lead the war against drugs.

The title has subsequently been applied to a wide range of government roles. You would think that the position of Drug Tzar and Culture Tzar would have little in common, but William Bennett (Reagan's Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and Secretary of Education) ended up as President Bush Sr.'s "Drug Czar."

To date more than 31 Tzars have been appointed to the Obama administration. All of them have a direct or dotted line to the President and advise him on pressing matters of the day (such as Technology, Homeland Security, or Science). By some estimates, these Tzars wield six trillion dollars in combined spending authority, and that drives the folks over at Fox News absolutely bonkers.

I just want to make it known that I would be interested in the position of Culture Tzar, should it be offered to me.

I can start right away.

I do have a problem however with the job title. It's not that "Tzar" is a bad title, but we have have seen too much title inflation at the White House. I wouldn't want to be Tzar number 32. It just doesn't have enough prestige. There are too many other little Tzars running around.

I would propose a title that was invented in 1895 by Gilbert and Sullivan and used in their comic operetta "The Mikado." Should Obama hire me, I would want to be known as the Grand Pooh-bah of Arts and Culture. Grand Pooh-bah is more artsy, and does not carry all of the negative baggage associated with the the other Tzars who tend to manage with an iron fist. That's not my management style. I would let artists do whatever they want.

According to Wikipedia, "Pooh-Bah holds numerous exalted offices, including Lord Chief Justice, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the Buckhounds, Lord High Auditor, Groom of the Back Stairs, and Lord High Everything Else." [editorial note, I am not a G.S. fan]

I'm the best Pooh-Bah for the job.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Poobah"

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The "busted" economy

The economy got you down?

Are you busted?

Perhaps the Country and Western singer Aunt Effy "the Butcher's Daughter" can cheer you up...

Links:

http://deconstructing-jim.blogspot.com/2008/07/more-about-aunt-effy-butchers-daughter.html

http://deconstructing-jim.blogspot.com/2008/07/4-songs-by-aunt-effy-aka-mom.html

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Conductorless Orchestras?

I have an idea, albeit a radical one. Perhaps the glorious age of the symphonic conductor is past. We should fire them all.

It's unclear to me what conductors do. It's a mysterious profession. Once the music has been rehearsed and the hard work is done, why is there a public fixation on the bandleader in the penguin suit? Professional musicians can keep time pretty well on their own. The status of the conductor has risen enormously both in prestige and public visibility in recent decades, and it has gotten to a point where you gotta wonder if they earn their outrageous salaries. A few people are beginning to question if the tuxedo-clad jet-set maestros do little more than wave their arms as they mime carefully choreographed and scripted expressions of pathos and passion. Of course a big name will bring in an audience and sell tickets, but do we really need them, or are they simply dead weight?

There is historical precedent for doing without a conductor. In the post-revolutionary years beginning in 1922 in the USSR, a renowned conductorless symphony orchestra formed by leading musicians from Moscow thrived for a decade. It was called Persimfans (short for Pervïy Simfonicheskiy Ansambl' bez Dirizhyora or "First Conductorless Symphony Ensemble"). The musicians eschewed the dictatorial baton of a leader in favor of music by committee, and all members of the orchestra were considered equal under their Marxist ideology (Except perhaps for the violists?)

Closer to home, the long-established Grammy Award-winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra of NY seems to do fine without a conductor - even with tricky repertory from the late-Romantic and contemporary periods. A self-governing organization, Orpheus was founded in 1972 by cellist Julian Fifer with the idea that musicians should rotate musical leadership roles for each work. Their innovation has been honored by the organization WorldBlu, Inc. which lists Orpheus among the most "Democratic Workplaces." Orpheus musicians are no stranger to new music either, commissioning works from: Elliott Carter, Jacob Druckman, Mario Davidovsky, Michael Gandolfi, Gunther Schuller, David Rakowski, and Peter Lieberson to name a few.

Other orchestras are following the "conductorless" trend, including the Australian Chamber Orchestra of Sydney and New Century Chamber Orchestra of San Francisco (although it must be said that these groups have prominent artistic directors that play within the orchestra).

There is also the question as to whether some conductors actually have fundamental musical ability. I'm serious! Gilbert Kaplan, the American businessman and self-made millionaire, has conducted the Mahler 2nd Symphony with practically every major symphony orchestra in the world. Yes, he is a Mahler fanatic and very well-healed, but are those all the credentials one needs to become a musical superstar, a maestro extraordinaire? It seems so. Yet, we are beginning to hear a soft and rational voice of protest from the professional music community. I found the following post by fellow blogger David Finlayson very interesting...

http://davidfinlayson.typepad.com/fin_notes/2008/12/some-words-about-gilbert-kaplan.html

(David Finlayson plays trombone for the New York Philharmonic, blogs, and is a photographer).

My recommendation to orchestra's around the world is to exercise good management practices: Cut the fat - Reduce overhead - Streamline operations - Flatten the management hierarchy - Improve efficiency - Balance the budget by cutting Executive compensation - Blah, Blah, Blah.

In short, throw the bums out and get back to your primary mission statement of making music.

Make it a 2009 New Year's resolution.

Cheers!

Links:

http://www.trivia-library.com/b/history-of-the-greatest-conductorless-orchestra.htm

http://www.orpheusnyc.org/

http://www.worldblu.com/scorecard/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Kaplan

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Violins and Shovels

There is a general consensus amongst the majority of leading economists that the Obama Administration’s 2009 economic stimulus package must “go big.” Although the current economic crisis is to some degree brand-new territory, and the dynamics are not fully understood, there are some important lessons that were learned from the Great Depression of the 1930’s - and also from the more recent Japanese recession beginning in 2001. The current economic disaster has caught just about everyone by surprise. It’s world-wide, deeper than a barrel of molasses, and it appears that there is no quick or easy fix. An influx of jobs into the economy is needed immediately to get things rolling and to sidestep hardship, avoid massive dislocation, and avert dire poverty that American’s haven’t seen or experienced for a generation.

But are all public works programs created equal? Obama is still formulating his plan, and he mentioned roads, bridges, sewer systems, schools, mass transit, electrical grids, dams, windmills, and solar panels in a recent radio address. There is already a buzz in the art community that any massive economic stimulus package of that magnitude should also include funding for the arts. On Sunday December 14th, the Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell proposed that Obama should support a wave of new public buildings similar to the WPA building boom of the 1930’s.

I see Shovels on the horizon, but where are the Violins?

During FDR’s New Deal, nearly a half million works of art were created. In addition to the painting, murals and sculpture, there was generous support for music. Countless public performances involving folk music (e.g. Woody Guthrie), classical music, performances of dance, drama, and opera were supported by government funds during this period. Aside from investing in the infrastructure of new roads, bridges, and buildings, the New Deal employed a lot of artists. It gave many of them a food on the table and a career in addition to providing the joy of music to the masses.

To support music, Roosevelt's Depression-era New Deal created the Federal Music Project. It was directed by a former conductor of the Cleveland Symphony - Nikolai Sokoloff – and the program employed approximately 16,000 musicians at its peak. It was divided into sub-divisions which focused on: orchestral and chamber music; choral and opera; concert, military and dance bands; and theater orchestras. There were about 5000 weekly performances country-wide serving millions of people. Admission charges were kept to a minimum.

Roosevelt's New Deal had a component specifically directed to composers. In 1935 the New York City Composers' Forum-Laboratory was created as part of the Music Education Division of the Federal Music Project (FMP), working under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Each Composer Forum event featured one or two composers – such as Arthur Berger, Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Roger Sessions, Elie Siegmeister, Roy Harris, Virgil Thompson, Johanna Beyer, Norman Cazden, Robert McBride, Paul Bowles, or Paul Creston (just to name a few). Over the years I've met a number of these well-known American composers.

Admission to the NYC Composers' Forum-Laboratory concerts was free, and the events would include a question-and-answer session between composers and the audience on a wide-range of topics A stenographer would record the discussions – and these documents survive today and provide a rich source of information about a vital period in American music for researchers, scholars and historians.

The New York City Composers' Forum-Laboratory (located at a Midtown Community Center) was the leader and model for other cities across the nation. For example, in 1935 Henry Cowell’s "Mosaic Quartet" (String Quartet No. 3) was performed by the Modern Art Quartet at the 7th of the WPA Composers' Forum-Laboratory events. The success of the New York City Composers' Forum inspired cities across the country to institute similar programs, including Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.



Under the auspices of the NY Forum, composer Roy Harris presented a lecture series entitled Let's Make Music that was broadcast over WNYC – a radio program that attracted thousands of active listeners. WQXR also aired many of the concerts presented by the Forum. Nationally, 1,500 composers penned 5,500 works under the FMP, and all of these were performed by WPA-sponsored ensembles.








There was a research and educational wing of the FMP too, and they provided classes in rural areas as well as urban neighborhoods. It’s estimated that over 132,000 children and adults in 27 states received musical instruction every week. Federal Music Project workers also pioneered research into music therapy, served as music copyists, arrangers, librarians, and catalogers.





Why not reinstate the WPA Federal Music Project? We have the talent. We need the jobs. It will improve the cultural infrastructure of the nation, rapidly inject much needed stimulus into the economy, and feed the souls of a public hungry for new music.

Links:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,931197,00.html?iid=perma_share

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Briggs & Briggs

I sold vinyl.

For a period in the mid-1980's after the music department at Brandeis kicked me out for loitering, I had to find gainful employment. I ended up in retail sales selling phonograph records in Harvard Square.

A few of my more talented colleagues at Brandeis had been more fortunate. They landed professorships at Princeton, MIT, UC Davis, and Harvard. But for those of us who had to find alternatives, the family-run music store Briggs & Briggs readily accepted a steady stream of aspiring musicians and starving composers with open arms. We were classical music refugees looking for a home and a modest income. Briggs & Briggs offered us a community to live in, and minimum wage.

The Briggs & Briggs Music Store (Established 1890) was at the heart of Harvard Sq. Although it was said that Briggs never existed, the shop was owned and operated by the Humphreys family since 1927. The "old man" (or Mr. B) paced around pretending to be useful, while his sons would run the operation. Fred handled the sheet music and scores at street-level. His brother would manage the audio department downstairs in the basement. Given that the owners did not have any formal knowledge about music, it was up to the employees to run the show...and we did. But the Humprhreys were decent people, and what they lacked in musical knowledge was made up by their personal integrity and commitment.

Briggs & Briggs at 1270 Mass Ave in Cambridge in 1999

For me, the dusty and worn music shop looked like something out of the 1950's or earlier. Tucked away high on a shelf was an antique plaster statue of Nipper, RCA's iconic dog listening to his trademark Victrola ("His Master's Voice").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipper

We also used an antique cash register, and had to calculate the total amount, plus sales tax on each purchase while simultaneously advising another customer on the pros-and-cons of available recordings of the complete Beethoven Sonatas.

The staff was comprised of an amazing collection of characters. There was Ruth - the soon to retire manager of the Record Department - who was functionally already in retirement. She would sit behind the desk with a scowl and flip through tattered and worn index cards - which served as the sole inventory system and product database. I never saw her smile.

Ruth's successor-elect and de facto heir to the Record Department Manager position was John. John was (and is) a modernist poet. A transplant to Boston from Texas, he had gone to university for law but some how ended up as a Bohemian artist, writing poetry and listening to classical music. His wife Anne, a musician and music researcher in the making would often drop by and join in on the excitement. John had an obsession with military history and terminology, and was apt to make analogies and comparisons as such. He thought strategically, but usually acted with benevolence and charm. However on occasion, when a customer got out of line or became obnoxious or unreasonable, John would put on his uniform and flex his military prowess.

One such episode occurred when a Harvard undergraduate returned an expensive multi-record set of an opera. He said that there was surface noise on the vinyl. As manager, John accepted the record back and allowed him to take a fresh shrink-wrapped copy of the set. The next day the student returned again complaining that the new set had the same problem. John politely explained that he would probably find the same issue with any phonograph record, but the student became obnoxious and persisted with his demand to exchange his "defective" records. Finally John exploded in anger and in non-compromising terms informed the student that he was no longer allowed to shop at Briggs & Briggs. He had been banned from the store. The student, having lost his battle, retreated in disgrace.

Many who worked at Briggs & Briggs, such as Ruth, had been there for decades. The Humphreys had grown up working in the shop and been there all of their lives. My short tenure began when Tom Ryan, a violinist, resigned to study early music in Europe with Kuijken. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiswald_Kuijken. (Tom is the elder brother cellist Dan Ryan of Musician's of the Old Post Road).

Briggs & Briggs never advertised, never had sales, and never played music in the shop. It was considered too much of a distraction for the hardcore music aficionados who worked there or frequented as clients. It was a way of avoiding fist-fights over which recording to play. Silence is golden. But word-of-mouth advertising and random street traffic kept the store afloat. I do remember that Richard Dyer once wrote a nice article about the store for the Boston Globe.

For professional musicians, Briggs & Briggs was a consistent and dependable source of artistic nourishment. At some point every musician in town would be obliged to visit the store to purchase sheet music and/or recordings. There weren't very many alternative music outlets in the Boston/Cambridge area at that time. In an era before the Tower Records and HMV superstores came to Boston, Briggs & Briggs offered a solid selection and personal service.

I remember some of the notable musicians would stop by to acquire a new recording or just to chat. The late Patricia Zander, a pianist who accompanied the young up-and-coming cellist from Harvard named Yo-Yo. Conductor Ben Zander would drop in too, and he would usually create a stir. I remember that he was very forceful in his request to put a large poster for his forthcoming concert prominently in the window. John held his ground against it, although Zander exerted the force of a tornado. http://www.benjaminzander.com/



Another time, after helping a customer find some Renaissance choral music, I took his credit card. It read "Nelson Goodman." I looked up and inquired "are you the Nelson Goodman - the philosopher?" He looked surprised, but replied "yes." When I told him that I had just finished reading his book Languages of Art and was very impressed with it, he came back and replied "that makes two of you - you and my wife." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Goodman

I remember other "visitors" such as composer/conductor "Olie" Knussen, British musicologist Arnold Whittall, and Dutch pianist/accompanist Tan Crone (who studied at NEC).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Knussen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tan_Crone

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Arnold%20Whittall

Apparently, in the 1930's Duke Ellington had dropped into the store and played a few numbers on the piano.

Celebs would drop in as well. I remember chatting about leftist politics with Abby Rockefeller as she picked up some folk recordings prior to her visit to Cuba. One night Joan Kennedy (Ted's Ex) and her boyfriend walked in just seconds before the 6 PM closing time. Joan is an amateur pianist and classical music advocate. She autographed my coffee-stained napkin from Au Bon Pain before leaving, and to this day I still have it.

John stayed ahead of the curve by reading Gramophone cover-to-cover every month, and ordering all of the new releases as soon as they were available. This gave us a slight edge over our main competitor - the Harvard Coop - which was larger but less efficient and not as personal. The Coop did have a dynamite expert in vocal music - mezzo soprano Pamela Dellal - who trumped our expertise in operatic music quite decisively. http://home.earthlink.net/~dellalsansom/pdbio.htm But, Briggs & Briggs had a penchant for recordings of the more esoteric and obscure forms of expression: avant garde contemporary music, early music, world music, and anything off-beat and bizarre.

Often customers would come into the store looking for the most obscure and unobtainable items. John prided himself on going the extra mile to obtain these recordings on special order. But customers would often listen to WGBH's Robert J., who had a habit of playing and specifically recommending selections from CDs that were out-of-print, not distributed to stores (i.e. Musical Heritage Society), or just not available in America. For this reason Robert J. was the "bane of our existence." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Lurtsema

Everyone had their own personal clientele. I remember a blind man who would come and consult with exclusively with John about recordings of classical piano music. He would listen exclusively to Haydn, Mozart, and perhaps SOME Beethoven. That was about it. John tried to get him to broaden his scope of listening, but ultimately the customer couldn't escape the comfort zone of that particular period of music. (I guess that if you are going to be limited to one stylistic period, that is not a terrible place to be stuck in).

My "clients" included Boston-area composers. I remember selling a truck-load of modern music records to a then emerging composer Susan Blaustein, including the complete Alban Berg set on DG.

Sales people from the record distributors would drop by periodically, or call in for their orders. I remember visits from Dennis Miller - composer, organizer of Boston ISCM, and presently a media artist and music professor at Northeastern University. http://www.music.neu.edu/Faculty/Miller/Dennis_Miller.html

John would skillfully negotiate our purchases in such as way as to maximize the number of "promos" we would receive. In lieu of a decent salary, we would be fed a constant stream of new releases as demos, and my formative record collection of today was built largely with this perk. But even with this fringe benefit, we would often spend a sizable chunk of our meager weekly salary on additional records or scores, which the Humphreys would kindly provide to employees at cost.

For for lunch hour I would often step out the door and head over to the Yenching Chinese restaurant nearby for the bargain MSG lunch special. It's still there today. In nice weather I'd sit outdoors at Au Bon Pain, and watch activity around the Chess Master. Surprisingly, after all these years and changes in Harvard Square, the Yenching restaurant and the Chess Master (Mr. Murray Turnbull) are still around.

Turnbull has been sitting there since 1982, rain or shine, hot or cold. He keeps a "super-soaker" water gun by his side to ward off pigeons that aim for him or his chess board. The hat he wears is functional.


http://www.cynical-c.com/?p=8155

Sometimes for lunch I'd go just next door to Bartley's for a burger and fries. http://www.mrbartley.com/ While the prices have gone up over the decades, the atmosphere and great taste remain. My favorite item was a burger on their menu with lettuce, tomato, onion, and Russian dressing.

Working at Briggs & Briggs was convenient too. I was essentially homeless, but fortunately for the duration I could sublet the rent-controlled apartment of composer Ezra Sims a few doors down the street at 1168 Mass Ave while he was out to the country on a fellowship. It was only a 2 minute walk to work. Alternatively I would house sit for wealthy people in Cambridge who needed a caretaker.

Sometimes it was hard to tell where the world of Harvard Square street performers ended and the sanctuary of the music store began (although there was a subway-like turnstyle that marked the boundary into and out of the record department). I recall that one regular customer, Mark DeVoto (now Professor of Music emeritus at Tufts University), grabbed a portable electronic keyboard and began banging out a vigorous blues. http://www.tufts.edu/~mdevoto/Biography.htm Everyone in the store, staff and customers alike, were greatly entertained.

Change is inevitable. A new technology was on the horizon. A thin silvery disk arrived one day, and mystified us all. It was called the Compact Disk or "CD" for short. Everyone looked at it with awe, and a degree of scepticism. How could this new media ever catch on? For one thing, it was so expensive, and so little music was available on it. It was also hard to display in the store with its awkward packaging, and the liner notes were so small that you needed a magnifying glass to read them. Yet the LP had replaced 78's. Perhaps the CD would eventually replace the LP. The sound quality was reported to be superior, and listeners wouldn't have to deal with annoying pops, scratches, and skips inherent with vinyl records. Another big selling point was that CDs don't need to be flipped over or changed as frequently as records. Our future as vinyl salesmen was about to change - forever.

John, who was ultimately promoted to Manager, was an early adapter of the CD, and for a time successfully rode the wave of new product releases in the digital format. After Christmas I left my position at the store to pursue other things, and was replaced in the record department by yet another Brandeis composer (Stephen Clarke?) with a penchant for Expressionism (he later set some of John's poems to music). Stephen had an artistic flair, and made beautiful custom signs for the record and CD bins. Eventually John left the store when his wife Anne got a teaching job in Chicago and transitioned the Record Department Manager role over to Steve (who is now at Barnes and Noble at the The Harvard Coop).

Briggs & Briggs was forced to leave the Mass. Ave. location across the street from Harvard in 1999. The landlord raised the rent beyond reason. It is now an Adidas sports store. The Humphreys downsized and relocated for a time into a storefront up the road in Porter Square. But this didn't last for long, and Fred Humphreys was forced close the store for good in the year 2000. All that remains is the memory.

You can read more about the demise of Briggs & Briggs, in the Harvard Crimson... http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=100483

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To IT or not to IT, that is the question

This morning I electronically submitted my claim for a second week of unemployment benefits. The State requires that I apply for at least three jobs each week.

On Friday I looked at Monster and quickly found a listing for a Novell Engineer at a company conveniently located near me in Cambridge. The listing was from a large IT recruiter, and the company was not specified. I sent off my IT resume by email.

Minutes later the phone rang. It was the recruiter responding to my email. It had just come in on his blackberry, which he was reading as he sped down I95/Rt128. He was very impressed with my resume and wanted to know if I was available immediately. His client, a major biotech company needed a high-level eDirectory engineer with experience ASAP. Apparently this is a skill that has become rather obscure in the Microsoft-oriented age, and people with this knowledge are getting very difficult to find.

As I spoke with the recruiter I came to realize that his client was a large biotech company that begins with a B. "B" is a huge international company with about 1200 employees in Cambridge alone and close to a billion dollars in annual sales per year.

It so happens that I am indirectly familiar with their IT infrastructure and services based on Novell's eDirectory, since my good friend and IT mentor Lou worked there and essentially built it. It's amazing technology.

I had long technical conversations with Lou about what he had implemented at B, and it was very impressive. Lou went to the biotech before their merger - first as a Novell Consulting Services contractor, but then as their Novell guru on staff. He was at the company for many years, and to this day I still run into personnel from their IT department at conferences who worked with him. But, because of politics and what he considered a lack of clear strategic direction and support from IT department, Lou left for another senior position somewhere else.

I had inquired with Lou about his view on employment opportunities at B, since they are one of the few large Novell shops in the area. Lou strongly recommend against it, saying that the internal politics were brutal and that the demands placed upon IT staff is simply outrageous. B runs their entire Directory Services off of two clustered fault-tolerant Intel-based servers. Lou was the guy responsible for maintaining it, and if something ever happened, the company would stop dead in its' tracks (biotech is a highly regulated industry, so getting anything done can be very bureaucratic and full of red-tape). His cellphone could (and usually did) ring at any time of the day or night, and he was expected to fix what ever technical problem arose pronto. In one of my last conversations with Lou before he died earlier this year, he said "don't go to 'B' if you want to have a life."

I've been in that role before as a Vice President of Information Systems at Scudder. It's not a fun existence. People who live in that high-stress environment die from heart attacks before their time - like Lou who passed away just a week or two after retiring.

I'm not ruling out anything. I clearly need a job. But it is with serious trepidation that I put my toes back into the water of IT Operations. It's not a fun occupation when the going gets rough. Heads roll, people yell, and the cell phone never stops ringing.

There may be more sane positions in IT that I could potentially be happy in. I interviewed at Harvard for a Senior Project Manager position in their Server Operations Data Center. Unfortunately I didn't make it to the final round, but I felt confident that I could do the job, and do it well.

I may follow through with the IT recruiter who called me about the bio tech, but I'm very wary about putting myself in that kind of position again.
Been there, done that.

Look for a post about my late friend and former colleague Lou. He was a genius.

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In-between

I have never officially been unemployed before. Yesterday I drove to the Massachusetts Division of Unemployment Assistance in Everett to submit my claim. It is now being considered and processed.

My former employer – a “for profit” educational corporation – decided that my position required a PhD in Computer Science. Myself and several others in MA have had to move on because of the redefinition of our positions. I’m not bitter about it, but after nearly eight years on that job I now have to answer the question “What do I want to be when I grow up?” I’ve seen the 2008 edition of “What Color is Your Parachute?” but this blog is really about my philosophy of life during this time of personal transition. I will be talking out loud about personal events past and present. The phrase “in-between” is apt since it accurately reflects my point in mid-life, where the past meets an uncertain future. I’m in the middle of a wonderful journey. While some of the following postings will be about my search for employment, the majority will be thoughts of the day, and flashbacks of the past.

It’s hot and humid in Boston in July, and this weather contributes to the delirium.

Welcome to “Deconstructing Jim.” The adventure has begun…