A rainy day grumble

This year has been a really hard year in so many ways, for so many people. I don’t want this post to bring everyone down just as we’re starting to head out of lockdown, but I think this needs to be said so people are aware.

The arts industry has been one of the hardest hit industries with theatres and venues closing, no concerts, no gigs, no performances. Many artists have taken a huge financial hit falling between lines so they aren’t furloughed or able to receive government pay outs. Add into that mix the fact that due to us leaving the EU, visas now have to be bought to travel overseas in Europe AND to add insult to injury, that godawful poster that made itself viral suggesting that ballet dancer, Fatima, should retrain in cyber, all that in one calendar year - phew!

I’ve grumbled a lot about this during this year and, with two of my three children in or going into the performing arts industry, there’s a lot of grumbling in our family!

Last week I saw yet another advert for a local choir who were asking for a ‘volunteer conductor and pianist’ to help them with their rehearsals. Now I don’t really know the fine details of this choir but I suspect the members pay a fee to be a part of the choir, so why are they asking for the leader of this group to not get paid?

There are two sides to this as I know there is the argument that there are willing volunteers who are happy to give up their time and I understand that, we should all give time to charitable causes, but this is NOT a charity. They are asking for someone with professional or semi-professional skills who has, let’s be honest, trained in their art for more years than your GP or dentist or your dog’s vet. They probably started this training quite young and have paid out for lessons, probably have many performance qualifications, maybe a diploma, a degree, a master’s degree, a PhD even and years of experience!

So my argument is this: you would not go to your vet and not pay, you would not expect your child’s teacher not to get paid, you wouldn’t go on holiday and expect your pilot to fly you there for free, therefore why are we silently devaluing music to this effect? Organisations that take membership should be including in the cost of paying their pianist and conductor. People who play instruments should not be undervaluing their skill and training and accepting these positions. People are more than happy to pay out ridiculous amounts of money for clothes, cars, phones, holidays, because these things give them pleasure. Therefore if a choir or a band gives them pleasure, they should be willing to cover the costs of all the overheads and that includes paying the conductor or pianist to feed themselves and, more importantly, not send out the message that these roles are not worthy of this.

If we can encourage people to take the arts more seriously, pay for your musicians at the rate that is fair, then we are sending out a signal that we value this, and let’s be honest, who hasn’t missed theatre, gigs, concerts, performance opportunities during lockdown? If we can show that we value these things, perhaps we can get more benefactors to help provide lessons, instruments or courses for youngsters who wouldn’t normally be able to afford them, perhaps we can get some government support that goes to the right places, perhaps we can create a really culturally rich society wherein the poster of Fatima would never have even got to the design board because it wouldn’t even have been dreamed up as being an appropriate message. Think of that!

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Switching allegiance!