Is there still such a thing like instrumentalist snobbery around?

[jancivil]

I'm going to extrapolate and abstract this for general discussion.
I think what you have to say about Mr X's experiences in Denmark must be accurate.

aggressive or competitive personalities getting more representation in school

For _ Conservatory of Music, or for Berklee School for that matter, you don't go for this unless you're a competitive personality; because getting in is competitive. Staying in is moreso. There is nothing wrong with this. It does not amount to sociopathy through itself. It's healthy, even.

in the USA, elite schools tend to have many students who's parents could easily afford the school. Having a population of privileged people tends to shape the social environment of a place.

I went to two schools which were in certain ways quite elite. #1, I relied on BEOG, Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, and supplemental grants. And once I left the dorm, my father paid my rent. This he did not like and he wasn't to do it much longer. #2 I had to borrow money from the government for, which was unsustainable, and I worked in the school's library part time at minimum wage (and relied on my girlfriend a lot during these years).
Then I was a temp worker off and on and struggled to have time enough to keep my shit together musically. Finally I became a bike messenger, and this was quite competitive. You got your shit done faster you tended to be rewarded for it. 50% of the ticket, except for SF Messenger where you brought clients to the job, at least one, and it was 70% commission.

Now, note well, the people who have the right instruments for a professional career MAY have come from money, or they were so beautiful on their instrument long enough someone granted them a fantastic instrument.

My experience with people in both places was just as mixed as in every aspect of my life. I met people thru SFCM that enriched my life in the most significant way.

Struggle tends to make the average person demand that everyone else struggles the same way/amount they did. When most people see someone else having some kind of success (or sharing an opinion) without clear indication of having earned it through hard work, well, there's often attitude.

Well, in music school there is no faking it. There are people, I have to suppose from my Music History Professor, who decide on an academic thrust but you have to write your theses in order to get the requisite piece of paper to be there. OTOH in the performance major, back then (world has changed since) you could bring other skills to bear. I dropped out of high school but early and got in to every music school I applied for except University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (not proper music school but they have one) where they wanted me to have a real HS diploma. My guitar professor was 'Associate Professor' status who had some bona fides organizing this and that and being people's faithful assistant and being in the scene for a long time, not because she was some great player.
But full professors have their academic ducks in a row usually. But it depends, I guess.

I have no evidence of frauds from my experience, though.

So what I saw here, and this is not per the OP necessarily, was this old resentment of people who do more. I don't know what their struggle was, but I know what it takes to compete in order to get yourself into place in an environment conducive to the most growth.
I don't think it was easier for anybody unless it was by dint of their natural ability. But I know this about that, that when you do show that kind of talent, there are expectations of you. There is pressure. People are not allowed to be the normal kid if they are placed on the track to that kind of success. Some people cope 'better', or differently than others. Some people who because virtuosi, their parents did not make them do it. What do you think a Steve Vai did to be Steve Vai? Whether or not you appreciate the result. It is a daily struggle. It is a sacrifice.

When I say certain things here, I get this 'You're the most arrogant person I know' and shit like this. Well, you cannot be arrogant and set yourself on a path towards excellence and get anywhere. It is humility; it is the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger Effect case, you know quite where you are vis a vis your surroundings.
False modesty is insincere by definition.

[IncarnateX]

But back to the main topic: I'm wondering if your experiences with the snobbery at the music school you attended had to do with the population, in a self-selection kind of way.

Are there multiple dedicated music schools in the country? If there are few, it might be a case of "this is where everyone goes for that". When there's only one "authority" to go to for music schooling, that's where everyone will go, regardless of their motives and attitudes. As a result, it might be hard to get into the school due to competition (more prospective students than seats).

Well, it was a one of the very few pre-conservatory schools that aims to help students make it to our rhytmical music conservatory or the university. But here is my real take on the competetion. The students attending this schools were in many (but not all) cases unemployed, had mental problems, came from miserable homes, were alchoholics, former drug addicts or actually addicted like myself (THC - Cannabis), had no education, and we even had a student doing jail time while studying. And I think we all somehow knew that we belonged to the lower end of the societal hierarchy; that we all were a bunch of losers by default. Music was the only thing that kept our hopes up, gave us a sense of identity and some skills. Thus, if you are going to raise yourself above the swamp, you have to be better than anyone else living in it and here we go....

BTW: I am in Denmark not Germany, though it is right below us.

I think I have to add something to your thoughts about this Jace-BeOS. You should know that elitism in general has completely other conditions in Denmark than in USA. We have something called “Jante-Law”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

Used generally in colloquial speech in the Nordic countries as a sociological term to describe a condescending attitude towards individuality and success, the term refers to a mentality that diminishes individual effort and places all emphasis on the collective, while simultaneously denigrating those who try to stand out as individual achievers.[3]

What is basically means is that if you enter Denmark with that Hip-Hop or eletist look-at-me-am-so-rich-and-famous-and-skilled- attitude, 6 million people are going to turn their back at you before you can say “hi”. In general will some of the behaviors and attitudes you are describing not have any foundation for growth here. If you are good at something and famous, fine, you will get recognized in time but in the meanwhile you better be modest, polite and treat everyone as equal or we will sqeeze you under our deepshit tribalist, clannish and self-sufficient heel. So elitism is more hidden, subtle and implicit, e.g. a constant showing of and comparison of each other’s skills as a way of saying “I am better than you are” and this was definitely the widespread strategy at my school.

[low_low]

Jumping into this thread blind, haven't read the other posts ...

I think there is INSTRUMENT snobbery, is that also instrumentalist snobbery ? I mean it seems like for some people if they had unique 24bit 96khz ambient recordings on perfectly matched Rode microphones of cow's taking a &^%$ on the plains of Mongolia ... then they'd claim those were the ONLY sounds that could ever fit into the track they made, and that everything else falls short. Same with that guitar they found in the sewer in Amsterdam, and the old toy keyboard w/ the missing key they found in a pawn shop in New Orleans.

[low_low]

Now that I've read a few posts, and actually read the OP's opener ..

I think it is all a matter of goals and perspective. Concert instrumentalists, for example, they can get by with being great at essentially BEING instruments. I mean they play someone else's music, they're supposed to look pretty, smile to the sponsors, etc, so they're going to be rewarded for being the best robots they can be ... and I really don't mean that in a derogatory way, but instead to get to the meat of it, that's literally what most of them are paid to be. They're paid to stay in time, to respond to direction from the conductor, penalized for improvisation, etc. That doesn't mean none of them ever compose music or do anything original, but they don't have to do that to play in concerts. So ... yeah, these folks are going to show off playing scales as fast as possible, etc, because that's their world, and they get pats on the back for how well they do that. Concert instrumentalists who CAN'T do that are like guitars with broken strings, or drums that are not tuned, their inability to do those things affects the conductors ability to deliver an experience to the listener. The whole thing is a giant automation, a machine that can't have anything but the finest parts.

Songwriters are going to have their own skills and goals, and obviously an understanding of the language, scrabble skills, rap rhyming, an ability to put visuals into words, etc, is going to be very important. No doubt these folks go on at length about words and what-nots.

Sound designers are going to have their own skills and goals, prizing their favorite microphones, sound making gadgets, technical skills, chat about waveforms, their history doing foley on some indie movie production, crap like that.

Stage musicians are going to have their own skills and goals, obviously appearance is every important so they're going to put a lot of stock in clothing, accessories, stage moves, tossing a guitar over their shoulder, hugging up on the microphone stand, having a stage name and persona, an image, being able to work as a team, travel skills, people skills, the ability to do makeup, and all of the various skills that go into theater and other stage productions.

Composers are going to value skills related to music theory, intervals, tone, sit around talking about instrument timbre, chord progressions, instrument skills that allow them to create music, technical skills with daws (often), reading / writing music, etc. I think the instrument skills of a composer are completely different than those of a concert instrumentalists and stage musicians in general, for example, because composers don't have to get it right the first time, so practice is essentially irrelevant, they can play the same track 1000 times, cutting bits they like together, until they get what they want.

Beat makers are going to value skills related to sampling, getting a track to groove, working with effects, marketing skills, copyright, contracts, people skills to work with producers, technical skills with daws, etc

Producers are going to value skills related to advertising, marketing, creating a brand, contracts with beat makers, vocalists, instrumentalists, copyright, work-for-hire agreements, basic business skills for paperwork, entrepreneurial skills, management skills, and all of the things it takes to actually create a product and make money from it, pay people, etc.

Etc ...

They can all be proud sometimes.

Music schools are full of concert instrumentalists and future teachers who intend to teach people to play in front of a crowd, so it would be normal, I would think, for them to not pay much attention to someone who didn't fit in with what they were doing. No different than if you went to a trade show where 100 producers were showing their wares with models walking around in flashy clothes, etc, and you were "just" a concert pianist, or if you were walking around in a rock venue with 10 live bands dressing up for their performances and you were "just" a beat maker. Beat makers have definitely been guilty of being a little snobbish when there's someone around who is "just" a vocalist.

[Jace-BeOS]

Well, it was a one of the very few pre-conservatory schools that aims to help students make it to our rhytmical music conservatory or the university. But here is my real take on the competetion. The students attending this schools were in many (but not all) cases unemployed, had mental problems, came from miserable homes, were alchoholics, former drug addicts or actually addicted like myself (THC - Cannabis), had no education, and we even had a student doing jail time while studying. And I think we all somehow knew that we belonged to the lower end of the societal hierarchy; that we all were a bunch of losers by default. Music was the only thing that kept our hopes up, gave us a sense of identity and some skills. Thus, if you are going to raise yourself above the swamp, you have to be better than anyone else living in it and here we go....

Huh, that's interesting. Is there a rehabilitation system that helps get people into schools?

BTW: I am in Denmark not Germany, though it is right below us.

Oops. Sorry about that. I thought I had read Germany.

[IncarnateX]

Huh, that's interesting. Is there a rehabilitation system that helps get people into schools?

At that time, yes, but not today. The school was run privately but they coorporated with our municipalities, who on their side send unemployed, uneducated or other way miserable musical talents to their school on the municipality’s expense. Of course you had to show up for an interview and demonstration at the school to be accepted. I was on welfare at that time, and the municipality actually paid my fees for all three years. Unfortunately such options are long gone today. The school also had a good deal of “normal students”, whose fees were paid by themselves or their parents. I showed up with my Korg DW6000, played a little, and spoke a lot about electronic music, which they thought sounded exciting and different enough to let me in though I certainly was no excellent player as stated in the OP.

[Jace-BeOS]

I can't afford (and don't have room for) a real piano (my preferred instrument), and I don't have the dexterity (or money) for the stringed instruments I most enjoy listening to. I don't want to damage my fingers the requisite amount to be a proper guitar player.

So you would rather make excuses than make music?

Why the harshness?

I'm already making music now. If we actually had an electricity apocalypse, music wouldn't be a luxury I could afford in any way. I should've just stated that and not gone into detail.

Space can be made, if you prioritize it. And people give pianos away for free all the time on Craigslist.

In my area? How about transportation and placing of said piano? Who will be tuning it for me (I've looked at the rates because I considered taking an unwanted piano - It's not a thing I would ever be able to justify prioritizing over food, mortgage, or pet care).

And spinet pianos are quite small. In our apocalyptic scenario, it's not like you would need a computer desk anymore.

That's true, ha ha

Hell, these guys live in a bus and still found room for a piano. This person lives in a van and has a piano in it (that he supposedly picked up for free).

I already hate the lack of space to move around in while living in my row house. There's no way that comparing my preferences to people living in busses and vans makes any sense. It's like nationalists in my country excusing our bad culture by saying "so leave! The USA is better than [far worse places]!!" (rather than comparing to other, more similar nations). Irrelevant comparison.

Dexterity can be trained, and money can be earned.

You know nothing of my situation. Money can't be earned in mine. I'm on disability. Things are stopping me from working. It's not like I don't want to earn an income (but thanks for the added shame). Plus, the support system in the USA is sabotaged; it punishes people for trying to start working again. It's far less risky to subsist on assistance than to risk losing assistance due to an uncertain job that pays less than the assistance.

Protecting my mortgage is paramount because becoming homeless would make my life orders of magnitude worse than it already is.

In my area, living-wage jobs, especially jobs for my skill set, aren't plentiful or even at all common. If our electricity apocalypse happened, those jobs wouldn't exist at all, anywhere.

I could go on, but the point isn't to defend myself against you, just to point out what you yourself admitted at the end of your critique of my priorities...

It's not like you have to learn on a Stradivarius.

Such an expense would never be a consideration. I already have an "eBay violin"; my sister gave it to me when she figured she'd no longer use it. This is why I know just how very not-for-me learning violin is. Not only is there the crazy blind fingering, but the bow control issues haven't changed at all with any practice (nor via observations of online instructional material). Might just be too floppy a bow in general but I've no teacher to consult about it (yes I've adjusted the tension various times per online info).

I'm not talking entirely out of my butt here.

And you gotta start somewhere; if you had started yesterday, you'd already be more dexterous and skilled than you are right now.

Incredibly oversimplified. One day accomplishes nothing (actually, it accomplishes discovery of just how horribly awkward a violin is for an absolute beginner).

I started already, a year ago. I spent a few days just trying to learn how to manipulate the bow. I got nowhere, so I quit frustrating myself. Seemed a better option than driving myself mad struggling, without even a little bit of actual practical guidance. My whole life situation is about having no control over my existence. There's no way it's healthy for me to introduce more things to make the feeling of impotence worse. It's a conscious choice, after weighing the pros and cons (and my priorities would be much more heavily weighted on mere survival in the apocalypse scenario).

That's not to say I won't give it a go again some other time when my general frustration level is a bit lower (typically sky high; right now I'm listening to a perpetually yapping dog, heavy machinery, and backup beepers; they've been present all last month and will continue to be present this month).

This guy has cerebral palsy,[/url] and didn't let his lack of dexterity stop him from pursuing his passion for music. Nor did this guy with Parkinson's.

Seriously? You're trying to shame me by trotting out people with other disabilities, just because a few extraordinary people have overcome said issues to play difficult instruments (did they start learning while those disabilities existed)? This is how you think motivation works? Irrelevant comparison. Everyone is different. Also, read up on the survivorship bias.

And they're just callouses. I'd hardly call that lasting damage.

Not lasting? My writer's callous is permanent. It hasn't shrunken at all despite barely ever holding any kind of stylus in decades. Killing electricity means I'd be back to that pain, too, without computers for word processing.

I take it you are a guitar player and your callouses are inconsequential to you? That's fine for you. It's not fine for me. I have seriously sensitive fingers (and my girlfriends like them that way); a single session of playing for a few bits of a song is rather painful, so that's the most I do. The pain is no motivator. More importantly:

Sometimes we have to make sacrifices and compromises to make space in our lives for the things we really want to pursue.

Well, that's exactly the point. I think my wording said that I didn't want to be a guitarist enough to accept calloused fingers. If I didn't make that clear, then my bad. So: It's a conscious choice. I wasn't complaining. I was pointing out what my disposition is... and at that, it was in the context of a hypothetical apocalypse of electrical supply failure.

But whatever, I know nothing about you beyond what you've posted, so I shouldn't make assumptions.

Yet, you made a whole bunch anyway. Next time, lead with this and cut out the character assassination and shaming.

[Jace-BeOS]

if the power goes down permanently , you'll have a few more urgent issues
to deal with than how you'll make music ...

So true. I imagine I'd end up dead, since I'm not the type to survive the behavior of selfish jerks and unfettered psychopaths. I'm not hankering for an apocalypse to unleash my inner sociopath, like so many people seem to be (based on their love of zombie apocalypse fiction).

[Jace-BeOS]

I think I have to add something to your thoughts about this Jace-BeOS. You should know that elitism in general has completely other conditions in Denmark than in USA. We have something called “Jante-Law”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
[...]

Thanks for that bit of interesting cultural info. So it might be that the arrogance is oppressed socially in many contexts, but such people as are want to be elitist jerks will find ways of exercising it differently in different environments.

I wish my country had a bit of culture that pushed people toward a social focus, rather than an obsession with individualism.

[Jace-BeOS]

Huh, that's interesting. Is there a rehabilitation system that helps get people into schools?

At that time, yes, but not today. The school was run privately but they coorporated with our municipalities, who on their side send unemployed, uneducated or other way miserable musical talents to their school on the municipality’s expense. Of course you had to show up for an interview and demonstration at the school to be accepted. I was on welfare at that time, and the municipality actually paid my fees for all three years. Unfortunately such options are long gone today. The school also had a good deal of “normal students”, whose fees were paid by themselves or their parents. I showed up with my Korg DW6000, played a little, and spoke a lot about electronic music, which they thought sounded exciting and different enough to let me in though I certainly was no excellent player as stated in the OP.

Then I think you might have a good case here for a lot of the bad attitude population to be explained by a case of self-selection. A lot of people who struggled in life, many who made poor decisions (I'm not saying their life situations made for great options), etc. Whenever I encounter a room full of people who've struggled with mere survival, and the law, their social skills are usually a bit less than desired. There's bound to be a large proportion of the school population who are less developed in social skills in such a situation (at least at that time; it would be interesting to compare it today). Then you also have to consider the cases of elitism that may come from some of the school population being there because they're convinced of their own value.

I'm sure it was frustrating and unpleasant, but I find it interesting on a sociological level. Any chance you'll be going back into a music education program in the future and be able to compare then to today?

[vurt]

if the power goes down permanently , you'll have a few more urgent issues
to deal with than how you'll make music ...

So true. I imagine I'd end up dead, since I'm not the type to survive the behavior of selfish jerks and unfettered psychopaths. I'm not hankering for an apocalypse to unleash my inner sociopath, like so many people seem to be (based on their love of zombie apocalypse fiction).

hell yeah! lock and load mother of funkers!!

[sjm]

Geographically, maybe. Politically and culturally, not so.

Both tsarist Russia and the ottoman empire were major European powers for a long time. The ottoman empire was in fact referred to as the sick man of Europe shortly before it went poof.

And before that, modern turkey was part of the ere for a very long time (the Roman empire lasted much longer there, and is surely the basis of "western" civilisation).

This isn't by any chance about religion is it, because I suspect it is.

If politics and culture are the yardstick of being part of a continent, then surely most of Finland and the basque countries should be excluded from Europe, amongst others. And Israel, the US and Australia should probably be included. But that was the origin of the initial complaint...

[Hink]

Plus, the support system in the USA is sabotaged; it punishes people for trying to start working again. It's far less risky to subsist on assistance than to risk losing assistance due to an uncertain job that pays less than the assistance.

we're getting way off topic, but I just want to respond that if you're on ssdi this is not the case. There is the work ticket program which allows you to work five years with no limit on what you can make, you can work part time forever as long as you stay beneath the limit. If you use the work ticket program and you go off ssdi because your time ran out your benefits can be automatically restarted for a period of time after that which I think is 3 years but I'm not sure about the time length. Other assistance programs vary by state, but then I dont consider social security an assistance program so I cant comment on those, but if you are on ssdi (not sure about ssi) there is a safety net to protect from losing your benefits.

You see everything that happened with my moving to Maine was based on a multi income family, then Denise died. Denise and me were "common law" for 20 years (long story why), she had a ring but we still had to wait (we would have been married by now), so I didn't just lose the love of my life (I hate talking like this because it sounds so cold, but it's a fact). I have been trying to find something part time here but I have been disabled since early this century and most places hiring part time do all their hiring by online applications. One look at how long I have been out of work and they just pass me over and there's not a lot of part time work around here. I have a vet rep helping me at a Maine state employment place (same people that got my son Ash his awesome job/career). I think that is horrible, I got jobs by hitting the bricks, meeting people, selling myself and this is impersonal I hate it. Hopefully something good happens soon, I get by but just barely.

[IncarnateX]

Any chance you'll be going back into a music education program in the future and be able to compare then to today?

Nope. I am a full time employed associate professor in psychology and special needs education and can only concentrate on music in my sparetime. Though the thought is interesting.

[fluffy_little_something]

I think I have to add something to your thoughts about this Jace-BeOS. You should know that elitism in general has completely other conditions in Denmark than in USA. We have something called “Jante-Law”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
[...]

Thanks for that bit of interesting cultural info. So it might be that the arrogance is oppressed socially in many contexts, but such people as are want to be elitist jerks will find ways of exercising it differently in different environments.

I wish my country had a bit of culture that pushed people toward a social focus, rather than an obsession with individualism.

Sounds more like self-victimization and self-pity of the elite to me.
I know that from Germany, whenever someone there speaks out in favor of more social justice, the elite complains about social envy.