August 09 2009
Athletes: someone wins, someone loses.
Lawyers: they lose. you win. Ahem.
Politicians. Manufacturers. Poker players. Same thing.
Many sectors of society and the economy are near or absolute zero-sum games.
And music?
The Pianobabbler, as you know, is a big fan of Glenn Gould, the great, brilliant, one-of-a-kind musician and thinker. (Drop in on glenngould.ca, website of the Glenn Gould Foundation, on whose Executive I sit.)
Gould hated music competitions. Blood sport, he called them. The opposite of art. Detestable. Slam. Bam. Fist ham.
The Pianobabbler is inclined to agree. How can anyone win a music "competition"? What are the comparators? Does Sarah Vaughan outsing Sting? Does Mozart outmatch McCartney? Can Trey top Theloneous?
Fiddle faddle questions. And yet...
We know there are comparators. Sarah does outsing Sting. Trey could never top Monk. We all have musicians we like. And musicians we love. And love, at least for the Pianobabbler, beats out like in any competition.
Here's the Pianobabbler's quandary, however: What are we musicians to do?
Should we worry whether we're as good as the next guy? Do I compare my riffs with hers? Is that bass player as good as I am a pianist? Am I inadequate next to that saxophonist? Should I be angry that the Pianobanger gets more gigs than me?
In essence: ought we, as musicians, to be competitive?
The ideal answer is no. Art for art's sake, and all that. But come on. In reality, we are a competitive species. Often for the better. There's not a true musician who would deny that being surrounded by others of equal or greater talent pushes one's own musicianship higher.
What this means, however, is that within our community, collegiality sometimes gives way to adversarial enmity. And believe me, All About Eve scenarios abound in music.
Solution? Compete non-competitively. Favour the collegial. Avoid the adversarial. And when the Pianobanger gets the gig you wanted, remember there are other gigs he can now not take. After you cuss him out for a reasonable, nay unreasonable, amount of time.
Above all, we have to remember we do music because we love music. A competitive approach corrodes that love.
Except that the Pianobanger sucks, and doesn't deserve the work that comes his way.
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