Accidents, Obstacles and Opportunities

The Lives of Musicians

Abstract

In this paper I discuss two issues: the nature of live music performance and the shape of live music careers. In both cases my concern is with how musicians make choices. My argument is that such choices are not made freely but should be understood, rather, as a response to constraints and opportunities. In the first part of the essay I suggest that the interest and pleasure of a live concert lies not just in what we hear but equally in what we see: performing gestures which signify musical decision making. I consider how musicians indicate different kinds of motivation: entertainment, self-expression, formal discipline, attentive listening, the exploration of feeling. And I discuss the social and material constraints involved in the choice of musical instruments and performing colleagues. In the second part of the paper I focus on musical careers and critique analytic and common sense attempts to confine music-makers to specific genres. I argue that musical careers are essentially accidental and fluid, the result of particular local conditions and opportunities. It is from this perspective that I describe musicians as ordinary. Music-making must be understood in terms of everyday life and the musical role of such institutions as families, churches, education, the military and holidays. What makes musicians extraordinary is not who they are but what they do and how they use their opportunities. We should admire successful musicians not for their integrity but for their opportunism, a term that needs rescuing from its negative overtones.