Stairway to the Future
Classical musicianship for the 21st-Century only starts with the music. What follows are steps and attitudes some musicians can learn to be teachers of classical to newbies. You’ll find other techniques scattered across the pages of this website.
Step one is to practice, rehearse and perform and find our peak professional. By shooting for perfection, the goal drives us to sustain our potential career. Only when we master a standard, can we later bend or break the standard. Our second step is to make sure each concert really matters, to us, visibly, and to our audience. Imagine each work as a truly spontaneous expression (an improvisation), performed with obvious shape, direction and dramatic climaxes. Remember: music is make believe; a fantasy. Take it over the top!
Then we are ready for step three; recognizing, starting, hosting and growing small opportunities to connect with a wider public, outside the arts bubble. CutTime can guide you to create your own vehicles of artistic, and perhaps financial, satisfaction. Many will involve bridging across specific cultural gaps or connecting two things that were never connected before (or very seldom). It takes a radical attitude of no-matter-what.
Such opportunities often start with a single paid chamber group or solo program, esp. with a unique combination. This could then be repeated voluntarily at some casual venue and extended with new charts. But you must leave the bubble, wearing your passion and excitement to play on your sleeves. Dedication in a silo is not enough anymore. You must learn simple ways to organize, write, recruit, market, adapt, expand and raise funds. We find Microsoft Excel works as a pretty great and inexpensive project organizer.