Extraction Resonance

Music performance is ephemeral. Why on earth do I have value? What does a note weigh and how much for a kilogram of notes?

When I learned of Te Rōpū Kaitito Puoro o Aotearoa—the Composers Association of New Zealand's rate per minute of score I was surprised and comforted. They've got it sorted out—everyone knows the minimum fee.

There are standard rates for roles across different industries in Australia, “award wages.” Despite high penalties for wage theft, exploitation is far too common. In music, people often offer and accept under-minimum call rates. In other industries, people often accept work outside these rules for various reasons.

I often think that any ticket to any performance I give is just above the price of a movie ticket. I love sharing music, and I wish there was no financial cost to coming to my gigs. An artist I know talks of the ritual of everyone going to everyone's shows and “passing the same twenty dollar note around” yet this artist will plan well in advance to spend twenty times that on one concert by a modern pop icon.

History/CV

I studied performance viola in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, freelanced, and studied at the Australian National Academy of Music. Since, I've freelanced, taught, and worked as a barista.

This isn’t a "how-to," only a description of events, no preaching intended. I didn't wake up one day and think, "I must have each of my legs firmly in two very distinct industries." It's interesting to me that impostor syndrome feels the same across both endeavours.

Music took up all of my time for many years. My double life started with my partner training me in their venture at the time. A few hundred coffees and a few thousand bacon-egg rolls later I sought occupations further into "legitimate" specialty coffee. Frequent, consistent pay was nice, but the thing driving me was exploring the technical and artistic wonder of this weird drink. The design of the espresso bar I work in won an award. White benches, wood panelling, considered flow of humans, and a shifting mix of sunlight reflected through skyscrapers. The coffee equipment is state of the art, the coffees are high-scoring single origins and blends, and our roaster has won several awards. The service is human interaction first, no signs, minimal menus, and certainly no online ordering or delivery. My day can be categorised as (in descending order): cleaning, sales (“relationship building”), drink preparation, team building, stock ordering, reporting, sensory development.

I've been used as an example of a "musician with a practice and not a career." I could be concerned about being taken seriously in one avenue. I’m either the violist that does coffee for a day job, or the barista downstairs that does those candlelight concerts of Queen. I'm doing both, despite my doubts. I do my best to sell both: on stage and behind the espresso bar.

How I'm living (right now)

This is not an arrival point. I often feel like I'm still wondering “what will I do when I become an adult?”

Part of my job is forging and maintaining relationships over short form talk while pulling shots and texturing milk. Concision is a skill. I'm not an extrovert, and it's great practice conveying ideas.

“I've been doing “Candlelight Concerts,” yeah, yes, like playing them. We do string quartet covers of, like, Fleetwood Mac or film music. I play viola, the middle one.”

I've recently been tasked with talking to the audience. Some inner-rock-star-wannabe has taken me over. I'll pore over Wikipedia pages and attempt to gain mega-fan insight so I can talk in a way that convinces true fans that I know what we're on about. I've also enjoyed working the crowd, being a hype man. Playing that character and using whatever tools: improvising, story-telling, jokes, puns, constructing song introductions as riddles. I tell myself that it demands their attention and thought, rather than passive listening to facts.

How I've been living

I'm shifting from unsustainable to sustainable. I've made repeated mistakes and I'm aiming towards growth. I have had a lot of support from my family, for which I am forever grateful. I had decades of my childhood enriched by consistent investment: weekly lessons, instruments, fees for extra courses, also the admin tools: computers, printers, headphones, speakers. I took for granted the tools for the administration required to freelance.

Every time I've been paid for music it is made possible by two things:

1. someone saying that we want a human to make sound for us

2. over time, people agreeing "this is worth money"

We owe gratitude to those who have fought for the arts. I have attended several “career” talks where people preach about minimum pay. These rules, personal or collective, are a starting point. I don't think there is any one contract or gig that comes close to valuing your decades of consistent time investment. There's a tension between this and wishing my concerts were free.

I wish this was a rallying cry to disrupt the 40-hour work week, a universal basic income, a social safety net, indigenous liberation, real change.

Clearly, some gigs have bad rates. Others turn out to be more taxing than any good rate would compensate. Sometimes I feel guilt for being paid reasonably and only making a few sounds, rather than many.

I’ve started finding myself saying to potential organisers: I don't need the money, the other reasons are more important to me right now. I do still take payment, in an effort not to undercut other musicians. Exceptions are passion projects; often “profit share” (read: zero dollars). These come around once a year if I’m lucky. There'll be more rehearsal than any other project, and I’ll be talking about it for weeks before and after.

Of course I need money; I have long term plans. Before working in coffee, the rule was: “If I can fit it in, I'll say yes.” Now it's conditional on: people, sacrificing my day job, artistic content, reach, and the feel of the money and logistics. Clarity and discourse around “rates” are important in the industry, but aren't a primary factor in my art practice.

Treatise (to myself)

How to seek authentic, meaningful art and identity and reject the irrelevant and harmful.

1. “I don't play music by long-dead white European men.”

I said this after a multi-failed project: nobody was paid, the music didn't interest me, the standard of playing was limiting, and many personnel were unpleasant. I joined a group of disgruntled musicians in pursuit of payment, which lasted years and eventually failed. This was my last gig before a pandemic, so making bold statements wasn’t as brave as it sounds. I’ve amended this to: “is it really relevant to be playing this music now?”

2. “I play with my friends, and they're great chamber musicians, so what we play is almost irrelevant.”

I quickly caved when some great musicians asked me to play chamber music with them. There’s always talk of money too, small amounts if you’re lucky, some house concert where you get a few colourful notes in a blank envelope. The money covers the transport and the bougie snacks you have in rehearsal breaks. (Great food is part of enjoying life, and by extension, rehearsal.)

3. “I play viola when it's important.”

Important is some special mix of relevancy, social impact, comment, or communication. It is incredible to me that people devote parts of their lives to creating new music. It's a privilege to play a part in this.

4. Value my time

Reorganising my coffee work is a high bar to pass. Calculating the hourly rate for a project is often more illuminating than not. Often it works out below minimum wage. Factoring in multiple meals a day, extra travel time, sound checks, awkward amounts of time in between different rehearsals or concerts can really add up. If I’m ruminating on these logistics, it becomes a clear sign that I'm not interested in the artistic content.

I’m practising valuing my own time. A refreshing perspective is imagining myself in one of my customers’ shoes. I like to think they are either aware or unaware of the curatorship of their non-working time. Being social and maintaining connections with people in my life is a priority. For my alone time, what are my choices around consuming film, TV, books? What are other hobbies? How much time is enough to devote to chores, etc.? It's possible, however fruitless, to view all of this from the frame of “artist.”

5. What am I giving up by agreeing to play in an orchestra?

It feels vain to factor “my voice” in considering projects I play in. Orchestral playing has been some of the best times of my life. Now I can’t help but feel unsatisfied as one of sixteen rank-and-file.

Interlude

— Decide your career not by some lofty ideal of “being a rocket surgeon” but asking yourself: what do you want to get up and do every day?

— Keep doing what you're doing, and that will attract opportunities for you to keep doing more.

Can you be an "artist" and have a "job"?

Composers have, in hushed tones, confided in me “I'm studying law” [i.e. I have betrayed the ideal, I've sold out and I don't want anyone to know].

I recall witnessing an interaction between a hugely successful performing musician and a similarly esteemed visual artist. The performer pressed the artist trying to ask what they did with their days. “I have a day job which does not reflect who I am as an artist.”

Why is full-time-practitioner-status such a marker of success?

I am reminded of a time of autoethnographic research. Praxis, practise, practice, study of the self, informing the research, the process is the art, the study of the process is the art, and all of the process is part of, informs, and shapes the whole “art practice.” I've had a senior academic gleefully reject this as a valid avenue of research.

What inner- and inter-spaces are we denying?

Full-time artists still do admin. Supporting work can include: writing grants, entertaining donors, administration, teaching, a paid job, further responsibilities.

How different is my life from a freelance musician that teaches several days a week?

Art that I perceive as music can be reduced to the description of its technical components, and so I mistakenly think that means it is demystified. Art that falls outside this is magical, mystical, and/or disruptive. I look at a visual art object and attempt to imagine parallel experiences from experiencing music. Perhaps the categories of “visual art” and “music” are no longer fit for purpose.  I'm not good at mystery or obfuscation. Conveying experiences and information is difficult and I'll try my best. Every milligram of coffee grounds, precise tasting notes, minutes of rehearsal, planned rest time, tolerance of trying customers, bottles of barista oat, almond, and soy milks.

input output variables

What I don't do

I don't really write funding applications. I'm in awe of those who create. Whether it is ideas from the void, alignments between art and funding objectives, or a life out of a long series of funding opportunities. Why do I see myself as so separate from these heroes? It's an indulgence to leave creating to creators and just be a conduit through which art passes. When I describe myself as “not creative,” “just a viola technician,” “a conduit through which art passes,” people are confused or annoyed. It feels at best indulgent, or at worst lazy, to consider myself as not a creative agent. It's fair to say I am more often a participant in an idea rather than an instigator. 

Applying

I do apply for opportunities, ongoing work, music work, festivals, camps. I have had a range of success and failure. On balance, mostly failure. I feel like I've applied for fewer opportunities than my peers and colleagues. Maybe most artists feel this; perhaps modern social media increases this feeling. Any opportunity I've been offered has been a combination of a great fit and a high level of investment from me.

Double Life (Double Espresso)

A fine art academic declared “art is disruptive.” The generous reading of this shares my favourite parts of coffee service.

“You always have an answer”—an over-caffeinated incumbent CEO of a large law firm who didn’t want coffee, tea, tisane, or food, but rather a food-like drink. I can draw parallels between this problem solving and the music I’ve been doing. Making the best of bad arrangements of pop songs, playing chamber opera, and being asked for various levels of improvisation.

Both pursuits have an endless quality to them—one can always brew a better cup, develop a more refined palate; one can always play with more resonance and nuance, and develop better aural skills.

I'm compliant: I can play any articulation you'd like, and brew the most delicate tropical fruit coffee or food-safe paint-stripper. Instead of worrying about which career or what direction I “should” go in, I focus on what I can improve on in both fields: clarity, conveying sensations, and guiding people through what their experiences can be.

Community feel

The most valuable resource I have is community. I'm a beneficiary, lucky to have a seat at the table, and am responsible for shaping it with my input. I add my time, money, and power. Amplify voices that need it. Be moved, take action. Be anti-racist, anti-sexist. Committed to doing the work within myself.

One of the crimes of “classical” music is a lack of honest communication. Speak to the era, the actual history, and your current time and land. Why this music, here, now?

A note on endings

I don't like spoilers, but I love endings. I try to think about projects like Marie Kondo—if it is time, let it go. It could be an institution wrapping up, an ensemble disbanding, a performer declining gigs they've done before to make way for others, a composer moving on from a style, someone leaving a job.

Education for education’s sake is tantamount. The Aotearoa tertiary music sector has experienced a public and brutal restructure. This will continue, probably. Employment law and the status quo are at odds with a thriving arts scene which supports artists through change. Paradigm shift seems to be the best way to address the inequity between permanent positions and freelance precarity.

Minimum fees aren't comforting to me anymore. Nobody really has it sorted out.