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
