DAY FORTY - 18/04/2020
Forty whole days. An entire Lent’s worth of days - only this time, it wasn’t chocolate or wine that I gave up, but nearly everything else. I have set foot outside my apartment five times (once every ten days to buy food and one morning, early on in the lockdown, to go for a run) and even more drastically, I have not been able to work in that time. Having the misfortune of working in both tourism and the arts, my jobs as tour guide and singer have both taken a hard hit, and nobody knows when (or should I say if?) they will get back up and running again.
While tourism may not recover until the end of this year, or even spring of next year, we can probably assume that it will eventually come back to life, and trust with some degree of certainty that Italy will remain a top destination for travel-lovers around the world. Music, however, is a more troubling question: with rumours that concerts will be banned here until at least 31st December, and all festivals and major gigs either cancelled entirely or rescheduled for 2021, it is extremely worrying for artists of all kinds.
According to journalist John Harris, live gigs bring in “up to two-thirds of an act’s turnover, and the summer is often the basis of whole livelihoods”, so these cancellations are potentially catastrophic. He says: “The temporary halt to playing live removes the one dependable way musicians can make money. Royalties from music being played in pubs, clubs and shops are suddenly in jeopardy, and with advertising revenues down, the fees paid to music publishers by broadcasters may be cut.” Every musician I know has already suffered crippling losses from gigs, weddings, festivals and tours being wiped off the calendar this year, and with the exception of crowdfunding initiatives, there is very little help at hand.
To make matters worse, Harris reports that “there are actually suggestions that the participatory aspects of music have been in part responsible for Covid-19’s transmission: witness a senior German virologist’s claim that over the last weeks and months, “wherever there was singing and dancing, the virus spread more rapidly”.” So it’s highly unlikely that any of us will be able to take the stage again, until we have reached the stages of herd immunity, or see a vaccine being made widely available.
Even then, there’s a distinct possibility that many will be hesitant to attend mass-gatherings such as live music events, in the near future. This is a concern for the classical music world in particular, Harris is told by an orchestra conductor, as audiences “tend to be older, and will therefore be anxious about any return to past concert-going habits”. The same conductor notes that, due to the spread of the pandemic, something as pleasurable as singing in a choir has suddenly been reduced to “people in a room where everyone’s breath is repeatedly coming out”.
Composer Mark Simpson also tells of the myriad “profound existential questions” the classical music industry has had to face during this period: “what does it mean to have an online/virtual self versus a real self? Can music and video be combined to create something that is completely new and relevant for our time? What takes the online self beyond the realm of mere self-promotion? Can we work with video artists and web designers to explore the texture of the digital being? What effect will it have on the way we monetise our profession if everything is now expected to be free? Are we so accustomed to the state of being in a late-capitalist society that the notion of silence and stillness is alien to us? What meaning does music have in this world?”
It makes my head hurt just reading them all. In fact, this whole sorry mess has actually made me go off performing all together. When people ask why I’m not joining the Instagram Live brigade, or singing from my balcony along with my neighbours (although even they have given that up now), all I can say is that I simply don’t feel like it. There’s nothing less inspiring than feeling like your passion or job is bottom of the pile, and not being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel for you and your colleagues. For many, of course, playing their instrument is a mental and physical need, so they carry on regardless: hats off to them, I say. But personally, I just can’t muster up the energy or the motivation to sing - normally such a source of joy - when all else feels dark and gloomy.
Amy Taylor, a fellow singer, agrees: “I haven’t felt like doing much music stuff – everything was cancelled, so it’s kind of devastating… I feel like every band’s gonna make an album about being stuck inside, and I don’t really want that”, she says. But she adds that “the lockdown probably will change us a little bit.”
Jazz keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones elaborates on this, referring to his genre: “It’s going to be interesting to see how lockdown affects UK jazz. A lot of music is created for dancefloors – that music is going to change probably. If the lockdown goes on long enough, music will naturally adapt to the setting that people are in. I’m not sure that all of the musical scenes will make it through this time.”
Mat Schulz, the artistic director of Kraków’s Unsound festival, is a little more positive. He tells music journalist Gabriel Szatan that he believes “there’s going to be a huge craving for live music after this… The experience of collectively listening or dancing together – how that need is met will change in ways we can’t yet predict.” But we do need to get creative, he adds: “If ever there was a time to think outside the box, this is it.”
Most of my musician friends, with whom I have discussed this crisis at length, are divided. Some, like myself and Amy Taylor, feel demotivated, uninspired and not at all like making music; others believe that through adversity, creativity will flourish - though we will all need to be extremely resourceful and diversify in order to make this happen.
Whether a musician or not, however, I think all of us would agree that music itself is fundamental at a time like this: whether it’s Rammstein, Rachmaninov or Radiohead, listening to music can make us feel calmer, more positive and even boost our productivity, experts say. So instead of simply putting on a Spotify playlist, perhaps next time we should all consider pledging our support to independent or emerging artists on websites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud; every click helps, and we might just discover something new in the process.
This is a very interesting and thought-provoking article Emma, and I'm now going to spend the next hour following all the links and reading them because it's a subject close to my heart. Where does music go from here?
I was surprised, saddened, concerned to read that you've gone off the idea of performing.... for now. I know, sadly, I've never heard you "in the flesh" - what I've seen, heard and read of you though has given me the idea that you must be pretty special. And I've always had the impression that you must just love being up on stage, and being surrounded by other talented musicians.
So that's in there, in you, and will come out sooner or later.
I'm sure you're in contact with lots of your talented friends who will be encouraging you to stick in there.... Can you not use this opportunity to develop your musical skills and knowledge even more?
My view is that there is always SOOOOO much to learn about music - there's just NEVER enough time to devote to it all. In my case, after 50 years at it I still want to improve my guitar technique - those elusive jazz chords progressions, those funky lead licks that I've never been able to fire out, even a few country slides ; on piano - dig down into and fully understand the genius melodies and harmonies of Cole Porter, Gershwin, Berlin; in the digital domain I'm just getting to grips with Logic Pro on the Mac... Mary-Rose and I have just laid down a passable version of The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, still to be embellished and final mixed (I'll send you a copy for a laugh). There are lots of fantastic online performances to watch too.
Last evening I hosted a virtual Acoustic Night via Zoom - I've been running the real thing at our local sports club for a year now, with regular audiences of around 70 people. Nearly 30 tuned in last night, with nine performers, and they included a friend who has just released an album on Bandcamp which is also on my list to check out today.
I've yet to work out a proper strategy for contributing financially to all this online musical effort, but I will. It's far from being as good as a live concert with all the cool vibes that can bring, but for now we've got to make do.
So thanks again for such a great piece, well researched as always. I may come back to you when I've followed it all up.
Take care,
Nick