The Labour of Music
May 10 2009

They walk on stage. They play. They make beautiful music. Everyone has fun. They walk off. The crowd cheers on and on.

The lights. The glamour. The music!

Not so quick. The Pianobabbler never ceases to be surprised by how superficially people judge the musician's life.

For every minute on stage, there are hours of practice, travel, toil and trouble. Music, in many ways, and for most, is the least part of a music career.

Take that one night on stage. There were scores of phone calls to book and negotiate the gig. Then band availability nailed down. Rehearsals planned. And carried out. Songs picked. Scores arranged. Instruments moved. Sound checked. Getting to the gig. Setting up. Dressing. Media. Have CDs to sell... a million million details. Weeks of work. 2 hours of music.

An especial- pun alert -sore point for the Pianobabbler, is the physical nature of music. It is- pun alert part deux- manual labour.

The hand is a robust, yet delicate and complex limb. Musicians put stress after stress on their hands, year after year. For many, the injuries come, as night follows day. Tendonitis. Carpal. Picasso shoulders. Knackered cervical spines. Blown lips.

I met a 33 year-old French horn player earlier this year. I showed her a stretch. You stand at a 90 degree angle to a wall. extend your arm, and press your hand into the wall. Fabulous stretch. She couldn't. She couldn't straighten arm enough to do it. Her elbow was locked in a V shape. Couldn't get her hand to the wall. 33 years old.

The stories abound. There are musicians' medical clinics, just as there are ones for athletes. That's what musicians are in many respects. Athletes.

Between the weight of the non-musical tasks and the physical stress a life in music entails, lies the sea of gratification in which each musician sails. It flows directly into the audiences, who remain oblivious to the challenges undergone and overcome to make it there.

And that's OK. Audiences don't need to know just how hard it is to make a living in music, and how highly the body is taxed. The musicians keep this all to themselves.

The audiences only need to know the one point of focus to which the successful musician dedicates himself or herself: the pleasure and joy of making music.

The truest musicians will transmit that joy to the audience. They will make the obstacles, physical and other, disappear. Musician, magician, illusionist.

At the end of day, that's what we are. Illusionists. We make people feel there are trees and water in concrete deserts, and that the misery they were carrying has vanished.

So, perhaps the Pianobabbler should stop being amazed that people know little about the music life. He should instead be grateful that they don't know more. It might shatter their illusions, and taint the music for good.

Let the band walk on, and play their songs. Let the audience cheer. Let the glamour reign. Glamour- from the Scots for magic spell.

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