of schools and orchestras

I'm back in the scene again. Stage appearance in mid-July. I'm slowly picking up the pieces at home, and at weekly practices. The calluses on my fingers are testiment to that.

The folks there are generally amicable, but I'm still anxious that I may have trouble assimilating into their already established social circles. Had I stayed on after my stint with them in March last year, I would have no such apprehension, for most of them were still new then.

I had lunch with the 'elders' in the orchestra after practice ended and got an update on the current landscape in local school and amateur orchestras. Much was discussed over lunch, from students' level of motivation in school orchestras to politics in China.

The usual lament of the difficulty of roping players into the orchestra was heard. With so many student members graduating from school orchestras, there still is difficulty in recruiting players to play in an amateur set up. Having seen the attendance in the past weeks' practices, there is much evidence for that phenomena. It is no wonder that some of them, including my teacher, who convinced me to help out in the next concert, were glad that I agreed to volunteer in their upcoming performance. I may be playing in a section that will not face dire 'manpower' problems, but more importantly, they would like to establish a new circle of members who would form the core players of the orchestra, as opposed to the students members, who are in flux.

Understandably, we become more busy when we graduate from schools and transit to work or university life. The other reasons offered for the lack of amateur participation were disheartening. Those who took part in orchestras during their student days did so out of compulsion, not interest. Some become sufficiently disillusioned with other aspects, which could be inept administration or uninspiring instructors, to be turned off from the pursuit for life. The competitive shift in the education system today may be blamed too. More than once I've heard or read about schools favoring student groups that produce tangible results usually in the form of achievements in competitions. The ugly flip side is that groups that don't have results to show for get their support cut. Schools have become enterprises that KPIs everything they do. Consequently, students in school orchestras spend most of their time drilling and perfecting the few competition pieces, which leaves little time for anything else.

Also mentioned was one musician school instructor, who asked that the school kids under his charge have to take private lessons from him, if they wished to, and not from any other teachers. One of that school children happened to be my teacher's student. As I've heard from my teacher, that kid seemed quite pressured by the situation.

There was also some of the "youngsters nowadays..." refrain, but it wasn't emphasized, probably because of my presence. Someone observed that while the older (and former) regular members in the orchestra volunteered out of passion and saw it as a certain calling, some younger performers had thoughts of receiving tangible benefits out of their participation.

Even though I didn't have much of a conversation going on my side, I definitely learned a lot more about a segment of the local music scene. Hopefully, I'll start to see more interaction between myself and the others in the next sessions.