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2

‘Amateur’ and ‘professional’ musicians

Before the more detailed account of local musical practice I must comment briefly on one key term in this book: ‘amateur musicians’. The word ‘amateur’ is of course widely used and, more or less, understood. But it is also surprisingly elusive, and some discussion of the complexities involved is a necessary preliminary to the later description.

Many different kinds of musicians operate in localities up and down Britain. Some can be described – and would describe themselves – as professionals in that they make their living from music. In Milton Keynes, for example, there was the music professor who commuted daily to his London music college and performed with players outside the area, or the singer-guitarist who belonged to a nationally famous rock band but did not perform locally. There were also the members of bands and ensembles who regarded themselves as locally based but were prepared to travel through the region or beyond to perform for a fee; or again, the musicians who earned only small fees but played on in the hope of more and better bookings or just for the love of music. In addition there were the music teachers who lived and taught locally, thus depending on music for their main livelihood but sometimes also performing from time to time for a fee. There were also local residents for whom musical activity meant just one or two evenings out a week at the local choir or in the local band or orchestra – the kind of activity that people perhaps associate most readily with the term ‘amateur music’. And there were those who in the past had lived from their music – singing in cabaret, for instance, or round the working men’s clubs – or had been ‘professionally trained’, but now just engaged in it for a pleasurable leisure pursuit or the occasional engagement. Among the various musicians, then, some regard music as their only real employment (with varying success in terms of monetary return), some value it as an enjoyable but serious recreation outside work, and some treat it as a part-time occupation for the occasional fee.

Among all these variations, which are the ‘amateur’ musicians and groups on which this study claims to focus? Unfortunately there is no simple answer, nor are the ‘amateur’ always unambiguously separated from the ‘professional’ musicians. The reasons for this as well as the complexities surrounding these at first sight simple concepts need to be explained not just to clarify my own presentation but also because the complex amateur/professional interrelations form one essential element in the work of local musicians. This point is worth stressing because most studies of modern musicians either confine their interest to the more professional practitioners (though often without saying so) or else take the amateur/professional distinction as given and so not worth exploring.¹ In local music, however, the interrelationship and overlap between these two is both highly significant for local practice and also of central interest for the wider functioning of music as it is in fact practised today.

The term ‘professional’ – to start with that one – at first appears unambiguous. A ‘professional’ musician earns his or her living by working full time in some musical role, in contrast to the ‘amateur’, who does it ‘for love’ and whose source of livelihood lies elsewhere. But complications arise as soon as one tries to apply this to actual cases on the ground. Some lie in ambiguities in the concept of ‘earning one’s living’, others in differing interpretations about what is meant by working in ‘music’, and others again – perhaps the most powerful of all – in the emotive overtones of the term ‘professional’ as used by the participants themselves.

Taking music as ‘the main source of livelihood’ does not always provide as clear a dividing line as might be supposed. In the local area, for example, there was the classically trained vocalist who decided not to pursue her fulltime career after the birth of her daughter but picked up the odd local engagement for a moderate fee, often accompanied by a local guitar teacher: professional or amateur? Again, local bands sometimes contained some players in full-time (non-musical) jobs and others whose only regular occupation was their music; yet in giving performances, practising, sharing out the fees and identification with the group, the members were treated exactly alike (except for the inconvenience that those in jobs had to plead illness or take time off work if they travelled to distant bookings). A number of band members regarded their playing as their only employment (perhaps also drawing unemployment or other benefits), but how far they actually made money from it was a moot point: as will emerge later, even if they earned quite substantial fees and spent most of their time on activities related to their music, they could still end up out of pocket and perhaps engaged in musical performance as much for the enjoyment and the status of ‘musician’ it gave them as for money. Some players had part-time jobs (voluntary as well as paid), or made a certain amount in cash or kind through informal transactions such as dress-making, giving lifts or mending a friend’s car in return for comparable favours, all without really affecting the status of their continuing musical activities. Others again worked in fulltime non-musical jobs but still received fees for their playing on such occasions as, for example, providing the instrumental accompaniment for a local Gilbert and Sullivan performance, often on equal terms with more fulltime musicians. In all such cases (typical rather than unusual ones) neither payment nor amount of time provides an unambiguous basis for differentiating ‘professionals’ from ‘amateurs’; the difference is at best only a relative one.

Membership or otherwise of the Musicians’ Union might seem a more easily identifiable criterion of professional status. In the local context, however, this was usually of only minor importance as a marker. According to locally circulated MU literature, membership was open to musicians of all kinds – bands, groups, orchestral musicians, chamber musicians, folk and jazz – and was for ‘everyone … who makes their living, or part of their living, from performing music’: i.e. not just the full-time performers. It therefore covered wide variations in the amount of time spent on, and financial return from, musical activity. In practice union membership among local musicians was unpredictable. Established performers who regularly played in large halls up and down the country (venues that regarded themselves as ‘professional’ or – equally relevant – had agreements with the MU) were quite often members; but otherwise membership seemed to be related as much to chance – having on some past occasion (perhaps only once) played in a place which demanded it or having friends who pressed it – as to the economic significance, number of performances, or artistic quality of most players’ musical activities. Indeed, despite official MU policy, several bands contained both union and non-union players. The MU did attempt a special recruiting drive among Milton Keynes musicians in early 1982, but the overall picture remained very patchy – certainly no yardstick for a clear amateur/professional divide. In general, players took pride in the label ‘musician’, and were mostly not too concerned whether or not this was ‘full time’ or ‘part time’ or validated by union membership.

In local music, then, the at first sight ‘obvious’ amateur/professional distinction turns out to be a complex continuum with many different possible variations. Indeed, even the same people could be placed at different points along this line in different contexts or different stages of their lives. Some were clearly at one or other end of the continuum, but the grey area in the middle in practice made up a large proportion – perhaps the majority – of local musicians. My initial statement, therefore, that this book is about amateur musicians needs some modification. It would be more accurate to say that it focusses mainly on the amateur rather than professional end of an overlapping and complex spectrum, taking account of the variations along this continuum. This can also be stated more positively, for the ‘problem’ of distinguishing these apparently key terms is not just a matter of terminology. It alerts us to the somewhat startling fact that one of the interesting characteristics of local music organization is precisely the absence of an absolute distinction between ‘the amateur’ and ‘the professional’.²

In this context, then, all the practitioners studied in this volume can be called ‘musicians’, and I have followed local practice in using this term (confusing though this may be at first to those for whom the immediate sense of ‘musician’ is a full-time professional). There is also a sense (more fully explored in chapter 12) in which audiences can be said to take a necessary part in successful musical performances,³ so though ‘audience behaviour’ as such is not the main focus audiences too are treated as in a sense active and skilled participants – even themselves ‘musicians’ of a kind.

Another interesting feature of the ‘amateur’/‘professional’ contrast lies in differing interpretations by the participants themselves. When local musicians use the term ‘professional’ they often refer to evaluative rather than economic aspects: the ‘high standard’ of a player, his or her specialist qualifications, teachers, musical role, or appearance as a regular performer with musicians themselves regarded as ‘professional’. The term is an elusive one, the more so in that someone can be regarded as ‘professional’ in different senses of the term or according to some but not other criteria. I heard one player described as ‘a professional, really, even though he earns his living from something else’ and another as ‘maybe not recognised as professional by the East Midland Arts Association scheme, but he really is, you know’. It is a term readily used to describe others (or oneself) with great conviction and certainty, but in practice rests on underlying and disputed ambiguities.

One specific incident can demonstrate the relativity and conflicts within the ‘amateur’ versus ‘professional’ distinction as locally experienced. This arose from the formation of the high-status Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra. It was started up in 1975 under the auspices of the ‘new city’ Development Corporation and at first included many local music teachers and students. But by 1980 most of these had been eased out. There was heated controversy over whether they should be members and on what grounds, and emotive interchanges in the local press and elsewhere. The conductor on the one side argued that ‘we are looking for an absolute professional standard. If we get a local professional who is equal to an outsider obviously we would prefer him. But we are not in business for semi-professionals. There is plenty of opportunity for them at the Sherwood Sinfonia’ (the leading ‘amateur’ orchestra). In his view and that of the organisers, local teachers were ‘semi-professionals’, in contrast to the full ‘professional’ performers. He was strongly supported by some of his colleagues, as well as by enthusiasts for the high standard of the Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra’s local concerts. Other local musicians, however, especially the teachers and part-time performers, retorted that the early publicity by the orchestra had been seriously misleading when it stated that ‘the proportion of players drawn from the area will increase’ and ‘that it will become almost entirely derived from its own geographical base’: ‘it seems we were good enough to get the orchestra off the ground and then be discarded, to be replaced by London professionals’. Some letters dropped dark hints about personal links (‘why are some local semi-professionals still playing if the orchestra is not intended for them?’ ‘is it a question of “if the face fits” and not the playing standard?’), and there were complaints that the orchestra had virtually become ‘London based’ after the conductor moved to a prestigious music post in a leading London school. The terms ‘professional’, ‘semi-professional’ and ‘amateur’ were flung around with increasing bitterness and the correspondence raged on for two months, turning in part on such questions as when a ‘semi-professional’ is a ‘professional’ and when an ‘amateur’, and relating this among other things to the rate of fees or the conductor’s own status. The orchestra continued, but the underlying issues were never settled to the satisfaction of all the parties and many hurt feelings remained.

As this dispute illustrates, the problematics of the terms ‘amateur’, ‘professional’ and ‘semi-professional’ are not just of academic interest but can enter into the perceptions and actions of those involved in local music. The label ‘professional’ is used – and not only in this case – as an apparently objective, but in practice tendentious, description to suggest social status and local affiliation rather than just financial, or even purely musical, evaluation. From one viewpoint, it connotes high-standard or serious performance as against ‘mere amateur playing’, and from another, outsiders coming in from elsewhere to take prestige or fees from local players, or entertainers who try to charge more than those paying them would like. Thus the emotional claim – or accusation – of being either ‘amateur’ or ‘professional’ can become a political statement rather than an indicator of economic status.

This adds yet a further dimension of ambiguity to the difficulty of isolating the ‘amateur’ side of music-making. If one pays attention to local perceptions, then it is difficult to be more definite than saying once again that this study focusses on the amateur end of the continuum – for that there was some such continuum, however elusive, was generally accepted locally. Even this vague statement, however, does have some meaning, for it thereby excludes any detailed description of the explicitly ‘professional’ Wavendon Allmusic Plan (WAP) run by John Dankworth and Cleo Laine, the Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, or BMK-MKDC Promotions, which organised large-scale concerts by professional orchestras and other outside performers. But it also has to be accepted that there were many ambiguities between the ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ spheres and it is impossible, therefore, to keep them entirely distinct.

These overlaps and interactions between the (relatively) ‘amateur’ and (relatively) ‘professional’ are also of interest in themselves. For the world of professional music in Britain, with its famous orchestras, opera centres, and pool of high-status performers, is often pictured as an autonomous and separate one. Yet when one looks more closely, it quickly becomes obvious not only that – as just indicated – there are degrees of ‘professionalism’, but also that professional music feeds directly on local amateur activities and would be impossible to sustain without them.

Thus, whatever may be the case in other countries, in Britain in the 1980s the budding professional musician regularly gets started through local nonprofessional opportunities. This is particularly noticeable in classical music when it is based on encouragement through schools, churches, friends and parents, as well as on the system of local teachers and national music examinations. One important stage for many is to try out their wings in local amateur groups – a school bassoonist, for instance, playing in a scratch orchestra to accompany a local operatic performance, or an aspiring violinist acting as leader or soloist for local youth orchestras before going off to music college. This apprenticeship in performing skills is an essential preparation for the would-be full-time musician. Every year a handful of young players go on from their localities to further professional training in music, a reservoir of already partly trained talent brought up through the local amateur organisations.

A similar interaction is also involved in the next stage of a young professional’s career. A musician’s home area is often his or her first resource for recruiting the first pupils or trying out public performance. This is where the musician is already known and has the necessary contacts. In Milton Keynes, for example, students away at music college tried to keep some pupils at home and to appear as soloists with local amateur groups or at local music events. If they are fortunate, they gradually build up their contacts more widely (making prominent use in their publicity of sympathetic reviews from local newspapers) and start practising farther afield.

Even beyond these personal career stages, the general interaction between amateur and professional worlds is very perceptible at the local level. Amateur groups like to put on grand performances from time to time with soloists who appear for a fee (how large the fee and how well-known the artist depending partly on the available money, though personal links on the soloist’s side also sometimes play a part). This is particularly common in choirs, who often need solo singers to appear with them or instrumentalists to supplement local players accompanying their big concerts, but local orchestras too like to stage some concerts with outside soloists. Local music societies too engage performers – both individuals and small ensembles – to appear at local concerts for their members, selecting their chosen artists in part from the brochures or letters with which secretaries of local music groups are deluged. This continuing interdependence is essential to both sides: to the individual artists on the one side who, whether just starting out on their careers or already established professional players, have the opportunity to perform for a fee before an audience; and to the local groups on the other, who both want the prestige and need the services of experts to assist them in performing admired works in the classical canon.

This interdependence of performers at different points along the amateur/professional continuum is particularly strong in the classical music world, where the accepted repertoire includes many works based on solo–group interaction. But it also comes out, if in rather different forms, in other types of music. Local brass, folk, and country and western bands form both the training ground and the reservoir from which the players and bands who eventually ‘make it’ in terms of fame and finance are ultimately recruited. This is particularly important for rock players, who typically learn ‘on the job’ by becoming members of local groups, sometimes with practically no previous musical experience at all but developing their skills through local practising and performing. The largely ‘amateur’ activities at the local level – the ‘hidden’ practice of local music described in this book – provide the essential background for the more ‘professional’ musical world.

The local situation, then, is a complex one. Rather than the presence of any absolute divide between ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ there are instead a large number of people and groups who, from at least some viewpoints and in some situations, can be – and are, both by themselves and in this book – described as ‘musicians’. And this is despite their having a whole range of different economic, occupational, social and musical characteristics in other respects. Though this book concentrates mainly on the amateur end of this multi-faceted continuum, in view of the many overlaps and interrelationships the spheres cannot be totally separated: the concept of ‘amateur’ music is a relative, partly arbitrary, and sometimes disputed label rather than a settled division. In this context the difficulty of making any absolute divide is more than just a problem of presentation; it also tells us something about the characteristics of contemporary English music-making and forms the background to the people and music described in this book.