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2Strenacikova Maria, PhD (Humanities), teacher at the Faculty of Music Arts at the Academy of Arts in Banska Bystrica, teacher at the Conservatory of Jan Levoslav Bella (Banska Bystrica), Slovakia
Стреначикова Мариа, доктор гуманитарных наук, преподаватель факультета музыкального искусства Академии искусств в Банска-Бистрице, преподаватель Консерватории Яна Левослава Беллы в Банска-Бистрице, Словакия
E-mail: [email protected]
SPECIFIC EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF A PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN'S CAREER AND OCCUPATIONAL CHOICES
Professional musician's career could be understood as a continuous (preferably planned) process that has an impact on the personality development and vice versa — personality development and personality features predetermine the career path. The career of a professional musician could be divided into three main phases, which have their own typical characteristics. In the preparatory phase the occupational choices are the milestones for almost all musicians; the phase of active playing/singing includes career crisis; the extinction phase depends on the actual situation and musician's physiological and mental dispositions. In 2019 we held interviews with 15 professional Slovak and Czech musicians in various geographical areas of Slovakia who studied musical instruments or singing in the field of classical music or musical. Analysis of the material focused on the progress of their careers. It showed that common features of the majority of our respondents' careers were: making occupational choices in the preparatory phase; overcoming a crisis in the phase of active performance; and taking a music teaching job at a certain point of their careers.
Key words: music, occupational choice, career, interpretation, phases, crisis.
ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫЕ И ПСИХОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОЙ КАРЬЕРЫ И ДОЛЖНОСТНОГО РОСТА МУЗЫКАНТА
Карьера профессионального музыканта может рассматриваться как непрерывный (желательно запланированный) процесс, который влияет на развитие личности, в свою очередь — развитие личности и ее особенности предопределяют карьерный путь. Карьеру профессионального музыканта можно разделить на три основных этапа, которые имеют свои особые характеристики. На подготовительном этапе выбор карьеры является ключевым моментом практически для всех музыкантов; этап активного исполнительства включает в себя кризис карьеры, а этап завершения карьеры зависит от конкретных условий работы, а также от физического и психологического состояния музыканта. В течение 2019 года в различных регионах Словакии мы провели интервью с 15 профессиональными словацкими и чешскими музыкантами, которые получили образование в области классической или современной музыки. Анализируя материалы опроса, мы сосредоточились на развитии их карьеры и обнаружили, что общими чертами карьеры большинства наших респондентов были выбор профессии на подготовительном этапе, кризис на этапе активного исполнительства и преподавание музыки на определенном этапе их карьеры.
Ключевые слова: музыка, выбор профессии, карьера, интерпретация, фазы, кризис.
Introduction
The problem of career development raises plenty of questions among professionals in almost all fields, including music. We understand career as relatively fast growth at any field of work/activity and/or successful climbing positions at the employment ladder or rapidly improving financial situation. These frameworks can be applied to musicians only partly. In music profession often only career growth can be estimated and financial awards do not reflect the performance level, abilities and effort of a musician. Also, career phases of a musician often do not correspond to the career phases of managers, teachers, and other vocations described in scientific literature.
1. Defining music career in classical music
First, it is important to clarify the term career. In the literature we can find numerous definitions which emphasize different aspects of this phenomenon. For the purpose of our paper we find it important to pinpoint those that accentuate the processual aspect. For illustration, we will examine three definitions. «Career is a long-term process of accepting and
executing professional positions and roles, serving to achieve planned goals that are important in the life and the work of the individual» [10, p. 117] The author views a career as a process of achieving planned goals through professional positions and roles. Since musician's career is not necessarily planned in advance and often it unfolds as a result of accepted opportunities and challenges, in music field it would be more suitable to speak about various «steps» of the career progression. Another view of career was offered by M. Hargasova who distinguishes between «traditional» and «modern» definitions. In the term of tradition, she describes career as a summary of successive situations that create a person's working life; «a summary of the "steps" of the work activity procedure, which includes the period of vocational training, decision-making about career and studies choices, the entire course of work activities from taking up the first job to the retirement» [5, p. 6]. However, she points to the fact, that in the modern world the certainty ofhaving one job / vocation in the course of a whole life is very limited and that a new job requires flexibility, requalification, education and personal development regardless
of age or profession. Moreover, she assumes that sometimes people have to change not only jobs, place of work, but also their professions, perhaps they have to do it several times during their lives. In this sense, she defines career as a «continuous sequence of shorter or longer periods in which we acquire life and work experience, knowledge and skills, look for opportunities, carry out work activities, live in various formal and informal groups and fulfill different social roles in throughout life» [5, p. 8]. Considering the character of musician's profession, we can apply both definitions to it. We do not see them as opposite, but as complementary. Traditionally, classical or jazz musicians have somewhat straightforward career path which almost always includes music activities (only rarely a musician stops performing and starts new career in totally different field — we recorded only one case, when an organ player started a business with jewelry). Moreover, for any career in classical music, a person has to undergo a relatively long professional training. Modern musical careers develop invarious formal and informal social groups, last shorter or longer periods of time, and include various roles taken by a musician. Like other specialists, musicians seek opportunities, gain experience and knowledge, and master their skills. From the above, we consider musician's career as a process of performing various roles and working activities in the field of music, which a person chooses based on given external opportunities and internal individual and personality characteristics, both in the context of an actual personal situation, self-concept and preferred roles.
The scholars differentiate between professional career and occupational career. Both are developmental sequences, but one is dominated by the autonomy of the profession from the institution and the second one is tied to workplace regulations and occupational norms. Thus, a professional career is a broader concept. It can be developed independently of the institution or organization in which the individual works [13, p. 10]. In our study, we focus on professional careers, because a number of musicians are freelancers not employed by any institution, and thus cannot climb the career ladder in the sense of getting higher positions in the organization. We will therefore understand the musician's career as a sequence of evolving experiences gained by performing professional music activities in different environments.
To attribute a «typical career» of a classical musician to one of four basic career types, we have to take into account that it requires much knowledge, various skills and abilities, and the last but not the least, dedication to music. Musician's career is usually long-lasting, and musicians are expected to give excellent performances regardless oftheir age or actual state. If their performance does not reach anticipated standards, they can receive negative critiques which would influence their further music activities — either in positive or, more likely, in negative way, both in the psychological sense at cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels (decreasing self-confidence, increasing fear of failure, lowering aspiration level, appearing of stage fright and performance anxiety, etc.), and in the professional sense (loss of new
opportunities, lowering status, loosing reputation etc.). Nevertheless, the previously gained reputation secures the musician a certain status in the music field, supports the impression of security and certainty in the profession, and motivates a person to dedicate time to self-development in order to keep the high performance standards. According to classification by Larsan, Brossear, Kling and Sweer (2007), we can identify a career in music performance as the expert career type, next to linear, spiral and transitional types [9, p. 10-12].
Considering career as a phenomenon which can be intentionally influenced, we have to take into consideration the pre-career decision making process. In the past, both vocation and career development were «hereditary», meaning that a person usually could not go beyond his/ her social status and family business. Since basic education and experience were received in childhood and at young age in the family, a person learned necessary work skills, work abilities and work competences as an apprentice, later as a journeyman and finally as a master mainly in home environment. Only few people could leave their homes so as to study and start a career in some other field. Similar situation was in music: only children who were supported by their parents and those, whose parents were either musicians (in this case, they often taught their children) or wealthy enough to pay music lessons for their children, had favorable conditions to become musicians. We can find many famous examples in the music history, such as J. S. Bach, W. A. Mozart, A. Vivaldi, L. van Beethoven etc. Still, we can find some exceptions: the father of G. F. Handel was a barber-surgeon, the father of C. Debussy ran a China shop, J. Sibelius grew up in the family of the army doctor, M. Ravel's father was an engineer, etc. Technical revolution gave people more career opportunities. They could not only improve the skills which would enable them to reach a higher status in the community they worked at, but also to move up the career ladder. In this sense, professional musicians are unable to build their careers, since the skills mastery does not guarantee a higher status, and position ladder in music careers is almost impossible to define in general. The reason for this is incomparableness of careers in music (e. g. we cannot state that an orchestra player is at lower or higher ladder step than some other ensemble member, or that the first violinist in a prestigious orchestra has a higher or lower status than a soloist at smaller town orchestra).
The career of a musician in modern society could be viewed as a process of development including directed differentiation-integration process and contributing to formation of the personality. The result of such development would be a mature musician with personality traits enabling him/her to be happy, good, wise, active, responsible, stable and active person who can find balance between high aims and work aspirations and particular life conditions. Raising of such a person would depend on a number of factors. First, sufficient talent, musical abilities, personality requirements, satisfactory physiological predisposition etc. are important. Besides these personal prerequisites for success a musician needs social support and special facilities (the availability
of a musical instrument and a place to practice) to be able to practice and perform at a desired level.
At the beginning of the career child's family plays a very important role. If a child feels support in his/her close environment and believes in his/her own musical abilities and talent, the career of a musician becomes an integral part of his/her future role at the «labor market». In this case the first and second occupational choices are not turning points in the original sense, and therefore a working path could be seen straightforward. Such a view would be very misleading though. Music career is far from being simple and predictable, and the occupational choices play an important role in its development.
The abovementioned prerequisites form only the basis for the first phase of the musician's career, the preparatory phase. Successful musicians start to prepare for their careers in early childhood. Quite often children start playing at the age of three or four; they attend classes and practice several hours a day. In this career concept we see no reason to debate the occupational choice as a key moment in the musician's career. The reason for this is, on the one hand, the interest of the child and, on the other hand, the parents'/teacher's ambition. In our own experience, children from a musical environment show faster start of musical development in its early phases. «Morrongiello (1992) observed that musical practice leads to more precise
Table 1. Sample characteristics of the interviewees
perception of melodies, better musical memory, and earlier sensitivity for keys» [4, p. 490]. Awareness of a young child in his/her music abilities and first successes, recognition and admiration of adults motivates a child to practice and consequently leads to further musical development, and thus indirectly to preparation for a musician's career, though without an apparent goal to build it.
2. The sample characteristics
In 2019 we interviewed 15 prominent successful Slovak and Czech musicians in order to analyze careers of musicians with education in classical music or musical. We adjusted our selection criteria to create a wide-spectrum selection with maximum variation in the musicians' professions. The respondents willing to participate in the interviews included singers and instrumentalists of different age playing various instruments (winds, strings, percussion), working as soloists, chamber or orchestra players. 26,6 % of the interviewed musicians focus on classical music, 13,3 % — on musical and 6,7 % — on folk music. The majority of interviewees have multi-genre focus though each of them prefers a certain genre: classical music, folk music, jazz, popular music, chanson, evergreens or musical. Almost half of the interviewees are employed in an institution or a group (either orchestra, school, theatre); others are freelance musicians. Sample characteristics are given in the Table 1.
Characteristics Instrument Category Violin Cello Bass Guitar Dulcimer Accordion Piano Tuba Percussion Singing Partial sum Total
Gender Male ** * * * * ** * * * 11 15
Female * * ** 4
21-30 * * 2
31-40 * * * * * * * 7
Age 41-50 0 15
51-60 * * * 3
61-70 * * 2
71-80 * 1
Classical music * * * * 4
Genre Folk music * 1 15
played Musical ** 2
Multi-genre * * * * * * * * 8
Soloist * * * * * ** 7
Work position Chamber music ensembles member ** * * * * * * * * 10 N/A
Orchestra player * * * * 4
N/A stands for not applicable, since the musicians work at more than one place (for example they are soloists, but
they also participate in chamber music performances as members of various ensembles).
80
3. The first (preparatory) phase of a musicians career and occupational choices
Though our respondents began preparing for their careers at different ages, their formal music education started at the age of six with entering elementary school. Only in two cases it started at the age of nine (for the unavailability of the music school/study department in the region).
Preparatory phase could be divided by two milestones — the first and the second direction choice. The first choice occurs after graduation from primary school and the second one after graduation from secondary school. In both cases the occupational choice should consider child's key personality traits defined by various personality theories, such as extraversion and introversion (Eysenck) or Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (McCrae & Costa). It would be very beneficial if school psychologists helped a child/student to reveal his/her personal strengths and weaknesses concerning music careers (excluding music skills and abilities that should be evaluated by experienced musicians or music teachers). On primary school level, the assessment is only indicative, since child's personality is an object of further changes. Moreover, it would be very inaccurate to make a decision in favor of a particular career, since at the age of 13-14 in most cases the future music performance level could only be roughly assumed. One of the tools to help a child to make a smart choice could be the Holland's hexagon, which divides careers into six groups suitable for six personality types (realistic occupations, investigative occupations, artistic occupation, social occupations, enterprising occupations and conventional occupations) and his Self-Direct Search [2]. The Holland Code RIASEC is a widely available career interest assessment tool that can be applied to pupils at the age of 14. At this age, the Occupations Finder should confirm usually «already chosen» career of a musician. The first career direction choice is usually firm in musicians — the child does not even consider any other careers besides music. A child who loves music, who perceives his/her music activities as successful (based on the feedback from some authoritative people) and who later feels that music satisfies his/her ambition of self-realization, does not usually see himself/herself at nonmusical careers. Some children choose music school not because they feel «music calling», but because they perceive lack of abilities in other academic subjects, such as mathematics, physics, languages, history etc. If achild has no family support in musical activities and music training, (s)he reveals his/her talent later, and often tries to start music studies after graduation from primary school, either at the primary level (at primary music schools) or at the secondary level (in Slovakia represented by a conservatory). 13 % of our respondents started formal music training after finishing primary school at the age of 14 years.
The second occupational choice usually occurs after completing the first phase of music education (at the age of 18-20). A music student chooses between starting work and continuing studies at different universities. His/her decision could be influenced by various parameters, the ma-
jority of which include own self-picture, self-confidence, self-evaluation, self-concept, awareness of personal strengths and dispositions etc. Another critical criterion is the possibility to earn money and the perspective to secure the living standards at a desired level in the future. Usually by this point, a student has already gained some first working experience — either as a part-time employee in a music institution/ensemble or as a freelance musician, or as a music teacher. Young professional musicians can choose to continue studying at the tertiary level, which in Slovakia is represented by universities with an artistic focus. After three years of studies, the students get Bachelor Degree and, after two more years, Master of Arts Degree. Some of them proceed and finish their doctorate studies with the degree of Doctor of Arts.
The length of classical music studies can vary — some pupils start at elementary music schools, some even at earlier age; afterwards some of them graduate from a conservatory after four or six years of studies and then they start to work or keep studying for 3 or 5 years more (when preparing for doctorate, even 8 years) at the university level.
After finishing university studies, a music student makes the third decision about his/her career path. (S)he either wants to stay in the music field, or looks for other employment opportunities. At this point, young musicians find important the existing opportunities to work at desired geographical region, salary, potential to satisfy other nonmusical needs. At this level such aspects of future career as personal skills, self-confidence, interests and values are less important because university graduates are already well aware of their abilities and can realistically assess their own music competence.
4. The second phase of a career in music (active performance), career growth and crisis
After graduation from music schools at secondary or tertiary level, young musicians enter the second phase of their career. Though several authors (e. g. Kollarikova in Kasa-cova [7, p. 45]) describe an adaptation career phase after the preparatory phase, we did not identify any adaptation phase in our respondents. We concluded that while studying music students practice with professional musicians; many of them often work part-time or have occasional incomes from music activities, and thus, have first-hand experience in performance which enables them to realize what they would have to face in real life. Moreover, their idea of a music career is flexible and they are open to different possibilities (they already have some working experience in theaters, orchestras, as accompanists, soloists, members of chamber ensembles, freelancers, later as teachers, etc.), and they are willing to «adjust» their career goals to the actual situation at the labor market.
Analogically to careers in other professions, one would expect to identify stabilization phase in musician's career. Yet, the situation is quite different: many musicians perform in different ensembles and environments throughout their careers, and even in older age, not all of them decided to remain with previously chosen «job». However, several
(30 %) respondents have a stable position in some ensemble or institution. One of them found a stable position in jazz bands, even though he studied classical music. Still, he has parallel income as a classical music conservatory teacher: ...in my two bands, it works so well that we haven't exchanged for years. With [band name] we have been together for about 18years and with [band name] about 14 or 15 <...> it is so incredible, but it works... Sometimes, musicians fluctuate among various musical genres. The genres popularity evidently evolves over the time. 40 % of respondents fluctuated between classical music, jazz, chanson and evergreens. Based on their responses we assume, that the variability of genres performed is caused by musical development and evolving musical taste and to some degree depends on particular musical specialty (chanson is the subject of interest of singers, piano and accordion players, jazz addresses to piano and double bass players etc.)
A specific phenomenon of a career development is a career growth. It occurs in various professions with specific characteristic features. For example, in teaching profession it is defined as «1. an effort to improve in a given field, 2. an effort to gain benefits through academic titles, 3. an effort to get the working positions — chief worker, dean, vice-dean» [1, p. 13]. Trying to find parallels in music art, we could only apply the first effort to music. However, it would not be objectively measurable either.
Inseparable part of a career development in many fields is a career crisis, during which people consider the possibility of leaving their professions. We tried to register how many musicians have overcome such crisis and how they felt about it.
It turned out that only 73 % of the interviewed musicians experienced a professional crisis during their career. One respondent, who did not experience the career crisis, was thinking about ending his career for financial reasons (however, he did not want to give up the music, just to keep it as a hobby).
...I never thought I'd end up with music <...> sometimes, at the university, I was thinking, whether I would do it to the full or whether I would have music as a hobby, to play sometimes, when there is an opportunity, but that I will make a living with something else. But then the music won, because it is like a drug...
Of the musicians who have gone through the crisis, two did not consider ending their careers at all, and one believed that he didn't want to end up with the music:
...That was when I couldn't play <...> I was at that doctoral studies and I said to myself: «I wouldn't give up this [playing], at least until I finish this [studies]». ...The music crisis certainly was there, but it was never at the stage that I wanted to quit [playing]. ... Well, I had such thoughts [quitting playing], when I couldn't make it <...> How desperate I was, and destroyed mentally, but quit? No <...> never... Two of the interviewed musicians considered terminating their career during the crisis:
...Well, I had such periods already at school <...> then
the same stage was maybe in the popular band that <...> I told myself: «This is enough». So, from time to time, one thinks whether he should not do something else... ...now I am in the second stage that I do not enjoy it [playing], more or less I find it annoying, therefore I cannot enjoy the music anymore, I cannot take it as a hobby <...> I often wonder whether it is worth <...> the stress <...> maybe I would end the music career sometimes... 13 % of our respondents decided to end their career during the crisis, but still continued to perform:
..Yes, I overcame crises that seemed like I will not be able to overcome them.
...At the [university] I had that crisis <...> I really wanted to quit it [music] and to do something completely different <...> Well, it certainly took three years <...> I had stupid concerts <...> My memory was failing, and there were terrible moments on the stage <...> Well <...> then of course <...> gradually, it started somehow breaking into better performances...
Two musicians tried some other professions during the crisis.
...I worked as a messenger, then I delivered pizza on the scooter in the winter in [city name] <...> I was doing all sorts of horrible jobs, driving drunkards home... I started doing harder manual jobs, like in the warehouse... ...I worked in the store with electric supplies, in a match factory, for some time I was considering a taxi driver's job, I was trained to be a caregiver in a stationary for disabled, and even I cleaned the sport halls. But miraculously, I always returned to my muse...
5. The third phase of a musician's career — extinction phase
After the longest phase of active performance, which might take as long as 60 years, the last career phase — professional extinction phase (burn-out) appears. B. Kasacova defines it as «a period of professional extinction or conservatism characterized as a pre-retirement period as well» [7, p.56]. On the one hand, we were unable to identify extinction phase in our respondents over the age of 50, but on the other hand, reluctance, fatigue and apathy have already appeared in some musicians in the young adulthood (31 years old musician). One respondent terminated his career due to health problems when he was about 48 years old.
Donald E. Super describes in his life-space, life-span approach the deceleration phase at the age 65 and the phase of work leaving at the age of 70 and above [5, p. 23]. In his model, the stage of decline links to decelerating, retirement planning, and finally retirement living, and is associated with reducing working hours in late adulthood and increasing proportion of time dedicated to roles involving volunteering, leisure or family [12].
In our sample, we could not verify suggested age limits for career extinction or career fading, since our respondents were in the phase of active playing (even though one of them was 72) and none of them has terminated his/her career in music due to his/her age. It should also be noted that the majority of our respondents did not experience
the extinction phase, even though nearly 40 % of them were over the age of 50 when career termination is expected. According to German authors Gembris and Heye, the turning point appears at the age between 40 and 50. «During this period, musicians feel they leave their youth behind and join the older age group. This is also the time when they feel they have left behind their period of peak musical performance and are now on a downward slope. The majority of musicians notice that their performance is declining due to a range of age-related factors that can be divided into four categories: physical problems, cognitive problems, sensory organ problems and psychological problems» [3, p. 371]. In our sample, all respondents at this age, except one, did not mention any signs pointing to the problems described. One orchestral player had to give up trumpet playing (but not his musical career) for musculoskeletal problems. He said that the cause of his problems was lack of recovery:
...I should have been more careful not to destroy myself. I can't blame anyone <...> Actually, I lacked the recovery. With the time passing, I can evaluate it. That this will be the biggest, the most likely cause of it [playing the instrument] not working...
All of our respondents were still performing, even though their age ranged from 31 to 72. The oldest one decided to adapt to the listeners' demands and shift to the «listen-er-friendly» performances in classical music. Although senior musicians are not rare on the world stages (Martha Argerich, Sviatoslav Richter, Vladimir Horowitz, Pablo Casals and many others), in Slovakia this trend cannot be considered as a norm.
Since examined musician's career development does not correspond to the career phases of other professions, we have tried to compare careers of musicians representing different musical genres. It turned out that classical and jazz musicians do not demonstrate the same career phases. Differences have already been noted at the beginning of their careers. For example peer recognition is not at all important for classical musicians while for jazz musicians recognition of colleagues is associated with the beginning of their careers: «The typical trajectory entails a successful introduction of a musician into a field, followed by increasing recognition among peers at jam sessions, stream of engagements and recognition among critics» [6, p. 187].
In the context of the musician's career development and its course we have to accentuate that it is closely related to self-development. The career itself is influenced by it, and vice versa, self-development is determined by the career. B. Kosova describes self-development as «a complex of relationships to oneself that includes the cognitive, evaluative, transformative and communicative relationships» [8, p. 54]. Further, on cognitive level, she points to self-awareness and self-cognition, on the self-esteem level to self-evaluation, self-reflection, self-respect and self-confidence, on the self-transformation level to self-motivation, self-control, self-governing, self-improvement, self-education, and on the communication level to self-expression [8, 55-56].
It is worth mentioning that we have recorded inadequate self-perception and career-perception in two musicians. Both
of them perform well in public, they are successful soloists performing both at home and abroad, but in privacy they have many doubts about themselves and their abilities. They described their careers as follows:
...right after school, I shot up myself very [obscenity] high, I stayed there for a long time, stagnating, because there was nowhere to go <...> and now, my career declines, I would say so...
...It has never been any career. It was always such a starting something, choking, smoking <...> some fire for a while, then just a smoke again, then it was out for a while, then it just smoked again. Well, you know, I don't really consider this to be a relevant career I have... Many musicians who give the impression of stable, happy and successful performers on the stage, in real life are very sensitive people, who might fight several (and at times very serious) negative feelings and emotional states. Their careers are not so straightforward and simple as they are frequently described in bulletins or showed in TV interviews. After all, musicians are exceptional people, who have devoted their lives to music so that it could reach the audience and bring cultural values to as many people as possible.
Conclusion
It is evident that the career of professional musicians is so diverse and non-straightforward that it is impossible to strictly determine its phases that would suit all musicians. The only phases we have found (or can expect to occur) in all classical musicians' careers are: the preparatory phase (studies), the phase of active performance (associated with growth, reaching the peak and decrease), and the phase ofcareer extinction. Also, we detected frequent transition to pedagogical career.
Moreover, we could not define musician's career phases by the age or years of practice. Obviously, musician's career requires professional training, which typically starts at the early age. After graduating from primary school, future musicians go through the first vocational choice, which is normally firm. After four or six years, they pass the second vocational choice, which is predominantly influenced by self-concept, self-confidence, self-picture and perception of one's own strengths and weaknesses. At this point a musician decides whether (s)he wants to keep studying music or to start working. If studies are prioritized, (s)he encounters the third vocational choice after graduation from the university (in 3-8 years). This third decision making about music vocation is based largely on actual opportunities provided by the society and the music environment (such as salary, job vacancy, accessible music institutions and ensembles etc.).
After the first phase, we recorded the phase of active playing, for which career growth and crisis are most typical. It is impossible to speak about musician's career promotion/ ladder climbing, if (s)he does not work in an institution, since neither career levels nor career positions are available for professional freelance musicians. More research would be needed to find criteria to decide which career periods are career peaks. Indicators of musician's career
growth could be e. g. music job in a major institution, post of the head of the instrumental section in the orchestra, reaching the position of a soloist, the prominence of orchestras, performers and conductors with whom the musician performs, or the importance of the events in which (s)he participates. However, these indicators are not comparable to each other.
The final phase of musician's career is the extinction phase. It is questionable at what age one should expect its beginning, because we interviewed a musician at the age of 72 who was still at the phase of active playing, but atthe same time, we recorded signs of career fading in the 31 year old respondent.
After a thorough analysis of the information about careers the musicians shared with us, we found two features common to all the respondents' careers:
1) all of them took up teaching job at some point of their lives,
2) all of them passed through the preparatory phase
and the phase of active performance (with the perspective of a career fading/extinction).
Other common career characteristics for some, but not all music professionals are:
1) overcoming the music crisis (73 %),
2) considering quitting or wanting to terminate a music career (53 %),
3) adding other genres (such as jazz, chanson, musical etc.) to the classical music (40 %),
4) playing on ships during a certain period of life (33 %).
We are convinced that it would be beneficial to pay more attention to musician's career development and its psychological and pedagogical aspects, since it is very specific phenomenon. Its better understanding could help to optimize music training, to prevent inaccurate vocational choices, to eliminate career crisis and burn-out syndrome in musicians, and perhaps to prolong the phase of active playing and to increase the quality of life of aging musicians.
References
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Information about the author
Maria Strenacikova
E-mail: [email protected]
Public Educational Institution of Higher Education «Academy of Arts in Banska Bystrica»
974 01, Banska Bystrica, Ul. J. Kollara, 22, Slovakia
Информация об авторе
Мариа Стреначикова E-mail: [email protected]
Государственное образовательное учреждение высшего образования «Академия художеств в Банска-Бистрице» 974 01, Словакия, Банска-Бистрица, ул. Й. Коллара, 22
