Majoring In Music

[OneTon]

Am I the only one who sees the problem? Two problems, really.

[...]

So, please do spell out for me how my choices and those of countless professional musician colleagues of mine all over the US and the world are problematic.

I don't think you were being attacked here; the more-or-less facile point being made is that the musicians you "know and work with" by definition don't represent the unemployed...

A lot of good stuff could be sifted out of this thread. One problem is that there is a lot more chaff than there is grain. We are better off attacking processes than we are people. I apologize in advance if it looks like I am attacking individuals. The fact is that this interaction pointed to many of the problems encountered in social media in general, and on-line forums like this in particular. The professor may not have intentionally been attacked. But his personal experience was thrown under the bus. Personal experience may have the most potential value in the context of social dialogue. I was in a training session in 1997 dubbed "Total Quality" where three groups of ten randomly selected company employees were given a fairly technical task to accomplish. None of the members were subject matter experts. The result of the training was that by mining the personal experience of each member on a team, a more robust solution could be achieved, effectively reducing the slope of the learning curve.

Yet personal experience gets de-valued over and over. One such way is the use of numbers that sound good but are not facts. The number "100" USA trombone graduates per year and the corresponding rhetorical question, "Are there 100 pay-the-rent-money openings for trombone players every year," set us down the path. Both numbers came out of thin air but the former was made to sound even better by characterizing the number as "conservatively estimate(d)." There was a link provided to substantiate the claim, called "The Julliard Effect . . " It mapped to a NY Times link that required a subscription. What followed next was a quotation of the professor's post and the question, "Am I the only who sees the problem? Two problems, really." When queried to supply the two unspecified problems, the poster never replied. The closest any response got was when another poster replied, ". . . the more or less facile point is that the musicians you "know and work with" by definition don't represent the unemployed."

So how can we improve our dialogue:

1) Let's not make up numbers out of thin air.
2) If we want to make a reference, we should include the author, publication, and date. Add the link if it can be accessed.
3) Spell out what is being said. If we make an error, let's own it and clarify it.
4) Let's avoid the use of hyperbole. People who decide to make a living other than as a professional musician go on to often successful careers in IT, business, or something else. They are not automatically destined to chronic unemployment.
5) Let's not use words for which we do not know the definition, or have two conflicting definitions.
6) Let's consider being more respectful of personal experience, training, and education that differs from our own.

The saddest thing of all here is that the professor is a subject matter expert. He is on the faculty at two known institutions, and holds professional chairs in three active orchestras. We would benefit more by mining his experience with appropriate questions. Some enlightenment came out of this thread. But it could have been much better.