New Year's Resolutions, Part 2

My last post was devoted to corporate identity, and the ramifications of misidentifiying the responsibilities of corporations as "individual entities." It was also a bit of a rant. I want to take some time now to look at the positive side of that issue. This post also brings the discussion back to the world of art-makers, to their interactions with society and it's agents.

We must remember that all those who engage in creative enterprises face the question of how to determine a metric for valuation that honors both our individual skills and measurable potential impact on society. In fact, the question of valuation is one of the most challenging topics for any industry, and particularly with regard to how we can quantify the non-quantitative. How can we count into the equation the intangible measurements of success, those that lie beyond the bottom-lines of profit maximation and cost reduction?

This is an issue which touches all artists. I recently attended a piano teachers' conference where one panel was addressing the question of valuation, and one member advocated the dramatic raising of teacher fees for those who undervalue their potential earning power. "Stop charging $10 per hour," the speaker admonished, "because it is you who prevent the rest us from maintaining an adequate living. You are devaluing our field."

In many ways this panelist was correct: all-too-often piano teachers seeking to make casual, supplementary income don't bother to address how their earning power could increase. They also often fail to address the aggregate effect of setting the fee ceiling so low. In an ideal world, we could all collectively set our fees up to, say $100 per hour, if we included all the qualititative implications of our teaching. The increase in academic performance that corollates with music study, the predilection towards mathematical success, and the other positive behavioral patterns associated with students who pursue long-term piano study could, hypothetically, be used to support such a tuition hike. And we would all have to do so in tandem, AS a collective.

But what of the places where the current pricing norm is $20 per hour? Who could waltz into that town with the request that patrons pay five times the normal rate for the same service? Obviously, one would have to promise that he or she could offer many times the value to justify that kind of increase. How? For 3 hour-long lessons instead of the typical 30 minute offerings? I don't think so. We'd have to find ways of calculating all those non-quantifiable attributes our teaching offers. We'd have to show how our teaching does more than teach - how it empowers, how it engages, how it stimulates, how it frees. This is the true obstacle for most of us, as it requires a whole new perspective on our achievements. It also calls us to look forward to see the potential future accomplishments of our students.

Of course, there are some corporate models in other industries where "unquantifiable" assets have not only been accounted for, they have been leveraged to create more value for those who cultivate them. Apple, for example, is not (technically) an innovator. It didn't create the first MP3 player, the first SmartPhone, or the first desktop computer. But it DID find ways of making these technologies more accessible, more attractive, and trendy. In the process the engineers at Apple - like other companies, such as Google and Virgin Entertainment - have found ways of revealing the potentially "qualifiable" assets that these technologies possess. You want the iPod because it's fun to use, because using the iPod isn't just functional, it's entertaining, and because it brightens your day. That is why Apple's grip on that market is so powerful, and why it is continually the trend-setting brand in mobile technology. The just-enveiled Mac Tablet (or iPad) is the latest example of their impact.

Now we must find ways of 1) measuring our impact on society through our art-making, and then 2) developing a metric for valuation that fairly compensates us for our work. I don't know many pianists who would rather sell shoes than play or teach, it's just that most don't imagine that a new horizon exists for sustainable earning power AS professional musicians. This must be done on an individual basis, of course, due both to the varied micro-economic settings of artists and their personal levels of training and social attributes.

So here's resolution number two: this year, I promise to task myself on the question of how we can achieve a better benchmark for artistic work, and help others recognize a new and improved vision for their future as professional artists.

New Year's Resolutions, Part 1

I only just got back to Madison on Monday, and it's already been a busy week. With Brown's victory in Mass., Border's teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and the NYTimes.com to start charging uses in 2011 (heard that one before, maybe they won't stick to it this time, either)...I've had plenty of material from which to brew some ideas. The problem has been to get my brain to work.

Political views aside, probably the most staggering news for me has been the Supreme Court's rejection of previously established corporate spending limits (NYTimes.com). This has the potential for re-shaping the way campaigns are run, fought, and won...but more importantly for this discussion is how that decision provokes the notion that corporations should be granted the same privileges of the First Amendment (without restriction) promised to individuals.

Here's the problem, as I see it: while we are taught to treat corporations as individual "entities," separate of their owners, this systemic (and legislative) doctrine was introduced primarily due to the powerful advantage corporations have attained over time. That is, when corporations were first formed, they were typically small enterprises (and to some extent, most still are, I suppose) created to synergize the assets and capital of individuals. Greater power yields greater reward. And, in terms of business, this led developed (and developing) countries to the greatest aggregate wealth ever achieved in the history of the world. Bravo, corporations.

The problem arrives when these "individual entities" begin to sway that massive power towards policy. This is no surprise; with greater wealth comes greater responsibility, and many such organizations now have much to lose when particular legislation comes to bear. And this is in no way a political statement, as both Conservatives and Liberals alike have fallen into the shadow of corporate agendas. Governments are also prone to such abuses; thus the current American system, which, although sometimes inefficient, does at least exhibit the speed-bumps necessary to slow cartel-building (although I guess anything's possible).

But as of this week, according to the Supreme Court, we are supposed to suddenly accept that corporations (whether comprised of 2 people or 20,000) have the same pattern and degree of influence as individuals. And this is simply not the case. Corporations exist for one reason, to maximize profit. This is not true for human beings, as (for most of us) our financial aspirations are tempered with emotions, needs, and social consciousness. If anything, even the best corporations exhibit a serious lag on that curve because they must grapple with more costs, more overhead, more people, more ideas, more discord - than one individual could possibly mount.

Similarly, individuals need to coalesce to create enough leverage to change policy, while corporations (especially the largest ones) today have more than enough power to provoke and sustain significant policy change. When corporations band together to back one candidate with $50,000,000, who is to say, realistically, that another candidate who stands against that policy (and thus must rely on smaller individual donations) has a fair chance in any election. And with the Supreme Court's backing, who can blame them? After all, those corporations may have hundreds of millions at stake! Most importantly, if and when that first candidate gets elected, we no longer have any legitimate reason to protest when they put a personal agenda - driven by corporate goals rather than public interest - into action.

And this is a great mistake. Quote from the great Peter Drucker,

"Business management must always, in every decision and action, put economic performances first. It can justify its existence and its authority only by the economic results it produces...It has failed if it does not improve, or at least maintain, the wealth-producing capacity of the economic resources entrusted to it. And this, whatever the economic or political structure of ideology of a society, means responsibility for profitability."(1)

Let us never lose sight of that. And so, as my first New Year's Resolution of 2010, I promise NOT to view corporations in the same light as individuals, no matter what the Supreme Court says.

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(1) Drucker, Peter. (1974). "The Dimensions of Management." From Management, Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. New York: Harper Publishing, p. 40.

Happy New Year + Late Jan. Arts Roundup

Just arrived back in Madison after a hectic Holiday break, including the FANTASTIC Inaugural CMS Summit on Music Entrepreneurship! More on that later....for now, I have a list of a few hot events in and around Madison that I don't want you to miss!!

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Emerson String Quartet
Friday, 1/22 8:00pm
Location: Wisconsin Union Theater

Don't miss one of America's greatest string quartets, back in Madison by popular demand!

Check out: http://uniontheater.wisc.edu/season/emerson2.html

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Wisconsin Story Project Presents: Cancer Stories Fundraiser
Saturday, 1/23 7:30pm
Location: Project Lodge

The Wisconsin Story Project will present it's first theatrical project, entitled Cancer Stories, in May 2010 at Overture Center (http://www.wisconsinstory.org/csp.html). Now they need our support! This promises to be a lot of fun and for a very worthy cause. So please try to be there!

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Screening: "Beautiful Losers"
Thursday, 1/28 7:30pm
Location: Memorial Union Play Circle

Here's the word from Alex Wolf, of the Wisconsin Union Film Committee: "In the early 1990's a loose-knit group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront gallery. Rooted in the DIY (do-it-yourself) subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hip hop & graffiti, they made art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Starring a selection of artists who are considered leaders within this culture, "Beautiful Losers" focuses on the telling of personal stories. It speaks to themes of what happens when the outside becomes "in" as it explores the creative ethos connecting these artists and today's youth."

Sounds like fun!

Check out the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyRAHKTy6hI

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Arts Enterprise Presents - Sustainable Creativity Part III: Financial Management for Aspiring Professionals
Monday, 2/01 6:00pm
Location: Room TBA Humanities Bldg (Check TITU)

Could let this one slip through! This interactive workshop will feature UW Credit Union representatives as they help students deal with issues related to planning for life beyond the institution. This FREE event is a CAN'T MISS opportunity for entrepreneurs and soon-to-be self-employed artists to get a head start on setting up a system for sustainable financial success. Topics to be explored include:

•Saving and budgeting plans
•Planning for retirement now
•Understanding your student loan debt
•Using and building credit wisely

Don't miss this exciting, FREE event. We'll provide light refreshments, as well as our trademark door prize raffle. So you have nothing to lose, and hopefully something to gain!

Check out: http://www.artsenterprise.wisc.edu/student.html

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That's it for now! Looking forward to a great 2010, and many more fun events...

Welcome to the Jungle....or How to Avoid Getting Trampled at Target

Hi all,

We are nearing the final weeks of the semester and things are at full-crank again. Looking forward to the much-needed break, but before we depart for the Holiday Break, I couldn't leave without one post about the Post-Thanksgiving consumer craziness that's beginning to brew.

A recent NYTimes article showed that artists are feeling the crunch from our economic situation (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/arts/design/24study.html?emc=eta1). Not only did more than half of all artists across disciplines (5,300 participants took the survey) feel a drop in income from 2008-09, roughly 2/3 of the group indicated that their income fell below $40,000/year. This struck me as I braved the Black Friday deals here in Madison; early-bird specials, one-day-only in-store discounts, and CLEARANCE signs are still swimming in my vision. I don't know about you, but even though we are conditioned to believe this is the best time to buy gifts, it seems like there must be a better way to spend our quickly-diminishing holiday funds. And especially when I don't particularly enjoy the experience of shopping on those days, when normally-pleasant humans become jingle-bell crazen animals.

It's weird though, because the more I bought, the less I felt satisfied with my purchases. Now, I did find what I wanted, at a good price. So it wasn't about being dissapointed in missing the chance to get the gift I had been thinking of. Rather, I felt like I was living inside Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice: the more options I had, the less satisfied I was with the product. Because, as Schwartz points out, one's expectations rise incrementally with each new option, so his key to true happiness is this: keep your expectations low.

But isn't there another way to satisfy my gift-procuring experience? After all, I don't want to get mediocre gifts for my family and friends. So, when I got home I set upon the task ot figuring out whether spending all that time and money was actually worth it? Turns out, for me, buying online from retailers like Amazon.com saved between 10-20% EVEN when compared to the best deals in brick-and-mortar. Now, I'm not the only one who figured this out. I can't be. So that means people must actually like being out during those days, kind of like going to a birthday party in 6th grade. You may not really like the location, but you can't afford to miss it.

Maybe it's worth a little bit of time to see whether shopping is really worth the time at all. Joel Waldfogel's new book Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays (2009) proposes exactly that: spending money on presents for your family and friends just doesn't add enough value to justify the expense, because, due to a number of factors, the recipient feels less than satisfied (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8972.html). Maybe we could find some really innovative ways of adding value through thoughtful and unexpected gifts.

Here are some places to start:

The 29-Day Gift Giving Challenge:http://givingchallenge.ning.com/
The Happiness Project: http://www.happiness-project.com/
The Paradox of Choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM
PriceWatch: http://www.pricewatch.com/
And my favorite book on the subject:

Lewis Hyde's The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World! Find inspiration here: http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Creativity-Artist-Modern-Vintage/dp/0307279502

Only problem is, I'm writing this with a whole pile of presents sitting next to my desk. So I guess I'm outta luck this time....

Thanksgiving to All

On this day I will finally honor a long-held, and too-often-ignored promise of shorter blog posts.

All I have to say is, Thank You for reading, and have a great holiday!

Artful Activism: What Musicians Can Learn from Environmental Filmmakers

A few weeks ago, Madison was lucky to witness the Tales From Planet Earth. It's hard to described what exactly TFPE was, except that one could call it a hybrid film festival/call-to-action for anyone concerned about the environment, society, and politics. Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up...

So, anyways, what I found most amazing about it was the vigor, the excitement, the passion that was present among all those participating (filmmakers, community coordinators, and audience). But more important than that - and I realized this in the midst of the opening night extravaganza featuring a talk by Guggenheim-winning social activist Majora Carter - was the why. That is, why everyone seemed to cared so much...after all, it was just a film festival calling out the problems of our complex society, right? Wrong.

What set it apart from a film festival, and what translated to over 4,600 people turning out for it, was the way it blended, nay synergized, the energy stirred up by films like Academy Nominated-The Cove (2009) and Trouble the Water (2008) into action. How did co-directors Judith Hefland and Gregg Mitton (of UW's Center for Culture, History, and Environment) do this? By coupling action with art.

These four themes provided a roadmap of issues explored by the various films presented on the roster:

•Landscapes of Labor
•Precious Resources
•Strange Weather
•In the Company of Animals

Each track featured cinema that interwove environmental activism with poverty, race relations, immigration, politics, globalization, and economics. This, of course, reflects the interconnected, complex, and complicated relationship all of these issues share. Next, by offering seven community events that matched the themes and their relational complexity (e.g., quasi-think tanks, Community Supported Agriculture fundraisers, and town-hall type interactive panel discussions), audience members were able to instantly channel their interest into action that, when brought home to each participant's local community, could have a lasting impact on Madison, to Wisconsin, to the whole country.

Now, imagine what could happen if we (as artists) could channel that same passion we have into community action. Even if we could tap into 25, 50, 100 people in our community to get together and (instead of just sitting there listening to us sweat-it-out on stage) work collaboratively, it would become something more than just a concert. That way, we could all make a huge difference (in a localized sense) towards promoting a better/stronger/healthier __________(and yes, here feel free to fill-in-the-blank on the issue of your choice). Couple that with the connectivity Twitter, Facebook, and the iPhone offers...and we're talking something big!

Where do we start? That's the question, isn't it! Well, all I can think of as a starting point is Bill Ivey's notion of cultivating an "expressive life." He proposes that just as so many in society had equated tangible (financial) wealth as a sole measure of success for much of the 20th century, we must now look towards the art around us (and our ability to synthesize it into our lives) as a new addition to that rubric. I think this goes two-ways. In other words, artists need not only search for meaning in art, but a meaning through art. As he writes in the introduction to his must-read book Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights (2008), "...by failing to link our expressive life to America's public purpose, we have placed our nation's heart and soul at risk" (p. xviii).

Well said, Mr. Ivey, and let's be the first to take up the cause and turn our artistic abilities into activism.

So, what do you want to do?
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To learn more about Tales From Planet Earth, check out: http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/tales/speakers.html

Musicians' Wellness Day 2.0

I'm recovering from the UW-MTNA's second annual Musicians' Wellness Day, held at UW-Madison and featuring interactive sessions on Feldenkrais, Yoga, and Laban Movement. I'm excited to say that this year we again had a healthy (oops, sorry) turnout and a really enjoyable day of exercises that can't help but make you want to stay fit, both in body and mind.

As musicians, and probably artists in a more general sense can empathize here as well, we all-to-often neglect our bodies in favor of long hours in the practice room. Of course, we HAVE to practice, but shouldn't the two go hand-in-hand? I'm particularly interested in the notion that we need to put our physical wellbeing in the forefront of our life, just as we promote the idea that honoring the music we make as the top priority in our artistic pursuits, because if we are NOT physically healthy we simply won't have all of our creative tools at our disposal.

So what can we do about it? I mean, we can foster this sort of experience through events like Wellness Day (if we are lucky enough to have a group of musicians and artists who are interested enough to put such an event on), but the challenge lies in transferring a fun one-day event into a steady commitment to nurturing a healthy lifestyle.

One problem is the proliferation of misinformation about 'exercise' - everywhere you look are ads touting the next 'easy' way to get ripped or lose 100 lbs. without giving up your cheese curds. We obviously haven't learned our lesson, first revealed decades ago that, yes, staying healthy requires effort, smart eating, and lots of exercise (gasp!).

I learned this lesson from being a competitive swimmer for 10 years, competing year-round at state, regional, and national competitions. Many of my peers went on to swim at the collegiate level, and two even made it to Olympic Trials. Now, I was never that caliber of an athlete, but I can say that the harsh, exhausting, and ultimately addictive nature of intensive sports training (for me, at least) directly paralleled my musical study. In fact, I often thought they complemented each other. As my coach's favorite T-shirt used to remind us: "Ignore your health, and it will go away." I think somewhere along the line we all forgot that one doesn't necessarily have to separate sports from art - they both demand a commitment from our bodies and minds alike, and they both require an holistic and consistent maintenance of our overall well-being.

Maybe I'm being disingenuous. In fact, it's probably more likely that we artists just don't think we have the time to commit to working out, Yoga, or some other supposedly therapeutic hobby. Plus, there's that rumor that we can burn up to 300 calories an hour practicing our instrument. So who needs 'exercise' anyways?

After Wellness Day I'm reminded of the hard-to-believe revelation that we can actually incorporate exercise into our practice sessions. At the very least, we can begin to harness a greater personal awareness of our physical habits we use in our arts training. I'm starting to think maybe it's time to get our feet under us so we can start moving in a healthier direction; in our lives as well as in the practice room. As yesterday proved, for the second year in a row, it's not as hard as it sounds, and, when you can find a few others interested in getting healthy, all of a sudden "working out" can become a lot more relevant to our musical experience. And, it's just a heck of a lot of fun.


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To read more about the complex notions of eating "healthy" and "exercising" as they relate to our relationship with society, check out these resources:


1) Pollan, Michael. (2007). The Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Books. ISBN: 0143038583
2) Green, Barry. (1986). The Inner Game of Music. Doublday Press. ISBN: 0385231261
3) Finally, this is a great Blog: http://a2create.blogspot.com/