Hello MPYO members!,

In a newspaper, the type they now hand out free at traffic lights, I saw an advert for a part time secretary requiring very basic qualifications and; ‘must be able to type 35 words per minute’. I wondered; ‘did they leave out a zero after 3 and the 5?!’ What was more unsettling was the annual pay which offered more in comparison than a rank and file string player in a good provincial orchestra.

Why, you may ask, am I writing about this and not the second subject in the forthcoming first movement of Bizet’s, ‘Symphony in C?’ Because during the course of our extremely focused private studies we can often lose sight of the bigger picture, most of us have been learning an instrument since we were knee high; several hours of practice a day for years and years; agonised over exams, recitals and diplomas, to then face the often odious task of auditioning for a position that may well pay less than the advertised office reception job above.

Have you ever played the board game; ‘A Game of Life’? At the out set you can choose between ‘starting a career’ or ‘going to college’; every time we play it at home the person who goes to college never ‘wins’.

(That’s 211 words in 4 minutes: can I get paid plus, plus?!)

For those that do choose music as a career you will be walking down the ‘road less traveled’ in terms of your domestic and national expectations. Some of you will be confronted with this choice on a daily basis as you toil away over a demanding passage of music whilst in the background you may be required to pursue a career, for example, in medicine or law.

Some of you will be lucky enough to be burning a path towards a scholarship to a major international faculty whilst being surrounded by complete understanding and plenty of support. On the other hand, some of you will be wondering how to make the next camp because you have to work for your family’s business or because you have just been called up for National Service.

This is our unique kaleidoscope and whether your career takes you towards management, I.T., writing jingles or working for a leading symphony orchestra, there is no right or wrong way to progress and success in the music industry. As a starting salary you may well get paid less than someone who can type 35 words a minute but what you have gained in experience thus far in your music career is priceless, unique to you and with you always. It makes you and in turn the society around you, better. This is something a non practitioner in the arts will always have difficulty understanding. Try explaining the feeling you had in the last performance of the Saint-Saëns in ‘30 words or less’; a sensation that communicated raw energy and passion to an audience that wants and now expects more of the same.

We are in a unique position in MPYO in that we have members from all walks of life: students, part time and full time teachers and those in regular employment often outside of music; each and everyone of us coming together to share the experience of playing great music and providing a kaleidoscope of experience in the process.

You won’t get that with a desk job. (Unless you happen to have a cool position with N.A.S.A., Pixar or C.S.I. Klang Valley!)

Being a member of MPYO does not mean we expect you to become a professional musician, but should you choose that path, it will help. As a teenager in my youth orchestra less than a dozen individuals from three orchestras went on to study music and not all of them became performing musicians.

My individual path to music (from Art College rock bands, through to working with some of the greatest orchestras and soloists in the world’s greatest venue’s via study at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music ) is just one example of a route towards a career in music; a single experience that when combined with 105 individual experiences from members of the MPO provides you the perspective and environment that will, I hope, in time provide something unique to the evolution of music in Malaysia. MPYO is indeed based on a foundation of ‘Western art music’, and that heritage is to be respected, but in time, through each of your own experiences you will all help forge new paths for the symphony orchestra that will be inherently Asian and in turn possibly effect positive change on an international scale. A major part of that change will come through sustained understanding of your heritage coupled with the desire and intrigue of the new; but that is a subject for another time.

In the meantime I leave you with two paraphrased passages of advice from teachers past that contain the implied message above in more succinct syntax:

‘Study is something, experience is everything.’

And

‘Success is like a rose or chrysanthemum; each is a beautiful example of Mother Nature achieved through differing rates of growth.’

And finally just for the record I called my mum to see how fast she could type: 70 to 80 words a minute on a mechanical typewriter (back in the previous century of course) and now on the PC she has to wait for the processor to catch up. Needless to say she will not be applying for the above job.

See you soon.

May 2008