Music didn't enter the conservatory so much as the relative interest in various styles have changed over time. I get that the author was implying that by talking about pop music, but what was music doing before Mozart came around?
Every field is having this existential crisis right now, from art to math. Especially in art, the anti-AI hate mostly reduces to arguing that art is the process not the outcome.
The need for research-level math isn't changing (if anything, it may accelerate), but how we do it is. The languages, systems, and process I used to write code has changed a lot since I wrote my first line of BASIC in 1994. Mathematicians, I expect, have not encountered nearly the same amount of disruption in academia. I feel for them.
Besides, I don't think you can be driven by thousands of outcomes, by definition, as you can't be in love with thousands of people. Your main motivation must be the thing that unites them. Perhaps you are driven by the process of imagining solutions to problems and/or realizing your ideas.
It's both. The outcome is bad (boy is it ever bad), and even if it were good I still would rather enjoy art produced by humans.
The outcome is also bad though, once you scale past static images. That's why consumers, who otherwise are apathetic at scale, are extremely negative against generative AI. at least where they (perceive to) notice it.
I had a whole discussion with a German friend whose husband works in opera (this was after Chalomet's "opera as a dead art" comments) and their view was mostly that this view of the world does not hold for at least chunks of Europe. To their mind, there is still both active input into this space, support in this space, and there's societal support to some degree or another.
I don't know the realities on the ground, but that annecdote did make me wonder if I simply assumed that the world of classical music wasn't as dire if you leave the States, at least in terms of job stability.
The comparison to popular music is kinda funy too... plenty of pop musicians that don't live off of their music, right? Maybe we're not generating "Taylor Swifts of Oboe"s but I feel like the measure is more about the median (or even the 90th/95th percentile?) when it comes to art, rather than the top of the top.
I think underappreciated in discourse like this is that of course we will still have "mathematicians" - people whose work is mathematics. The job might change, but at the very least someone has to choose where to spend the compute and the dollars, decide what theorems are worth investing in, what definitions matter. Someone still has to serve as the ambassador reminding people at the relevant points to look over at the field for productivity and correctness reasons, presenting fun riddles for entertainment and education, advocating to political bodies for funding.
Metalworking looks a lot different than it used to, but the end of a man with a hammer and leather bellows bashing out a nail didn't end the career of metal working either. The work sure looks a lot different though, and there are many fewer of them.
All that to say, there will be certain jobs that people will want to pay humans to do even if the robots can do those things "better".
Its drudgery to prove these things. But man it feels cool when you do.
I now have a better understanding of the entire physical mechanics of life around me, to a gravitational sort of understanding.
Simply because I thought I had a conceptual understanding of p vs np. And after weeks I was able to prove myself wrong.
People seem to worry that AI is going to take away everything. But my experience is that I feel more able to create even ideas before I would never imagine.
It feels more like in HG Wells where he's in the far future talking to the AI about his equations and the AI says "oh your talking about time travel, thats impossible"
It feels like that reality is now more likely than any other, anyone can invent anything now and have the math to back it up.
You can speak physics into existance. I'm excited for the future
Pure maths has foreshadowed a lot of physics, and a lot of Computer Science. We should probably keep doing it.
Does the current model (of highly-talented academics at Universities mostly arguing with each other) change because of AI? Does it invalidate human effort, or does it allow humans to push the boundaries further? Is there no point in training or paying for mathematicians because AI will take over the whole role?
Or, as we're finding with so many other areas, does AI do its best work when guided by someone who knows the area and subject well?
As predicted, we no longer need mathematicians for math; the math is being both generated and read by models. We're in for some exciting times, when the pace of mathematical advance can run faster than the constraints of human brains.
I'm pretty sure pure mathematics is the part of math which is not about reality.
From what I can tell discussions on what to do about it haven’t really advanced much if at all.
Still the same mix of new jobs will appear, jobs will change and perhaps some talk of UBI.
It really really does. Popular/rock/folk/classical musicians all earn much the same way now: a blend of teaching, occasional performance fees, functions performances like weddings and galas, music-related side-gigs (composition, arrangement and recording for commercial music), and non-music-related side gigs — teaching non-musical things, gardening, painting and decorating, bar work, office temp work, even full time jobs (doctors and lawyers, accountants). I know a couple of classical musicians whose actual money-making music is playing other instruments in funk/rock functions bands.
Even the "best" or most famous musicians, popular or classical, have side gigs. Approximately nobody makes their money only from performing or from recordings; that ended twenty-five or thirty years ago.
Elite soloists, maybe — but that is actually a pretty expensive life to live. I would be surprised if many of them risked a life where they had no other job.
The idea that a "conservatory" system exists that meaningfully supports classical musicians is nonsense almost anywhere in the world, I would think. Even the first-chair musicians and conductors have side gigs.
(ETA: I can't believe this is a workable model for mathematicians, either. Maybe for a couple of dozen the world over. But there is no performance, no regionality, little in the way of public dissemination, little in the way of reflected glory for benefactors. No, the "conservatory" will perhaps be the intelligence agencies, as it was before.)
A principal player (I don't think anyone beyond high school band calls them 'first-chair') in a major symphony orchestra in the United States makes $250k-400k a year. These are extremely competitive jobs and they are paid well. Certainly enough to live on if you wanted to.
These people often teach, but not really because they need a "side-gig." If you ask them, they will likely tell you they feel a certain duty to prepare the next generation, they like teaching, and their rehearsal/performance schedule affords them the time.
I said "approximately nobody".
At a first approximation, no musician who does it for money makes a living out of it. Classical, pop, rock, whatever.
Nobody in music, basically, makes real money. Fifty, maybe a hundred violinists in the entire world do earn a pure living. Perhaps another twenty five of each other instrument. A few international soloists in other instruments. But musicians in those jobs are often burning as much money as they are making. (Even Anouskha Shankar has a portfolio career).
This is essentially nobody. Everyone else in classical music is earning just the same way as popular musicians — and society doesn't "support" popular musicians at all! The perception that rock musicians make money touring, for example, is just that: perception. The vast majority of tours either just break even or lose money. Working in music production and staging makes better money than musicians make.
Everyone else, essentially, has another job.
> (I don't think anyone beyond high school band calls them 'first-chair')
Snark noted, though I have no earthly idea why you felt it necessary
There are at least 20 such orchestras in the US alone, not to mention all the orchestras in Europe and Asia. There’s also a very long tail with compensation down to $50k for players.
The US BLS has 35,000 paid musicians listed, with another 10,000 music directors (a lot of church organists are in this category). Median wage of $40/hour, mean of around $52.
So. Not a living then, for most.
Also note that churches, which are a hub for working-class musicians, are exempt from BLS reporting.
But just because the numbers are small doesn't mean society does not support them. There just isn't a need for a lot of them. It would be like saying society does not support professional athletes. Clearly it does, but only at the highest level. And at that level, it supports the very well.
> Snark noted, though I have no earthly idea why you felt it necessary
I apologize. I come from this world, have close friends in major orchestras and experience on the world's opera stages. This culture is full of shibboleths: referring to works as "songs", clapping in the wrong place, hell, even pronouncing 'Don Giovanni' the same way you pronounce "Don Draper" lets people know you are not from around here.
Corporate sponsorship pays the bigger amounts: that is a side job with its own commitments. Prize money: by definition not available to most.
Directed pay is a tiny fraction of it (stipend level), even at the highest levels.
Athletes have other jobs.
Again: a bad model for mathematicians. None of them are going to be signing merch deals. Most aren’t winning prizes. I am afraid that mathematicians are just going to have to keep doing all the other jobs they already do.
Today classical music is filled with people who want to pretend to be superior to pop musicians because they keep their repertoire confined to academically acceptable areas.
And then the LARPers that want to make new music make complete and utter arhythmic and atonal trash that demands humans subdue our own aural feelings of beauty.
You'll find classical musicians who complain about this stuff are usually incompetent musicians who really stretch the definition of artist.
Sorry spent almost a decade of my young life in a somewhat competitive music school environment. Lots of the other kids were upset I played what I wanted to and people liked it.
Actual modern composers in the classical tradition (I.e. people alive today who compose music that is similar in feel to older composers) are well compensated because they're often hired to score films, video games, and other capitalist interests that the supposedly 'real' classical musicians would scoff their noses at.
As somebody with classical training and a brother in the industry, it pains me to read this misinformed opinion of yours. Top-tier symphonies world round are doing crossover concerts with pop artists, play pop songs, modern and experimental music, and regularly feature works by living composers. In my high school orchestra, circa '98, we played stuff like music from Star Wars and West Side Story -- not just the ancients.
Down the foodchain, it gets even weirder. The favorite gig I played involved interpretive dance featuring waterboarding, gallons of fake blood, a live chicken race, and more.
Where you certainly will find a subset of afficionados of any genre who scoff at anything but their extremely narrow definition of "good music," if you take the time to rub elbows with mature classical musicians you'll find many to most of them quite open minded.
Your experience with young artists, finding them to be idealistic and purist, does not extend to the whole field. I know people who only listen to a single narrow genre or decade of pop music. How are they different?
Edit to add:
> And then the LARPers that want to make new music make complete and utter arhythmic and atonal trash that demands humans subdue our own aural feelings of beauty.
Oh, no. No, no no. I've been to a circuit-bent punk show. I recently went to an ambient music festival. I've heard glitch pop. Angine de Poitrine is blowing up because they use a semitonal guitar (though as a bit of a noise snob, I find their use of semitones milquetoast and rather uninspired).
Here you are, narrowly defining music, and excluding what you dislike. But it's not just "classical" living composers doing this.
And they have been for a long time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Group_and_Orchest...
Classical music was somewhat elitist even at the time, coexisting with popular/folk music traditions. The Romantic period definitely saw music and art break away for traditional forms and conservative mores, but it wasn't a free for all.
The people who enjoy classical music today are largely the same people who enjoyed it at the time. Educated and 'enlightened' upper/middle classes, who sought music celebrating their aspirations. Freedom from political oppression and aristocratic control. A world where people could succeed based on talent, hard work, intelligence, and propriety. Where the middle class would have the power to reshape government and social institutions to advance their interests rather than those of the nobility. A personal experience of the religious rather than state ordained. The music pivots to natural, romantic, mystical themes as these people lost faith that industrialization will deliver for them.
Compare modern popular music which deals with universal themes - love, loss, sex, money, partying. You can enjoy pop music and still feel that these themes are not important to you.
People don't fake enjoying classical music to convince you that they're smart and cultured. They just gravitate to music which represents their idea of smart and cultured. The same is true for a lot of art.
Outside church settings, classical music of the Baroque, Classical and early Romantic eras was for the elites, and the masses had their own musics. This only changed gradually over the 19th century.
It's also weird to still be hung up on atonality in the contemporary classical world, when the pop-music world has for decades now had acts like Merzbow that are often farther out into noise.