The Hidden Musicians. Ruth Finnegan

      2

      ‘Amateur’ and ‘professional’ musicians

      Before the more detailed account of local musical practice I must comment briefly on one key term in this book: ‘amateur musicians’. The word ‘amateur’ is of course widely used and, more or less, understood. But it is also surprisingly elusive, and some discussion of the complexities involved is a necessary preliminary to the later description.

      Many different kinds of musicians operate in localities up and down Britain. Some can be described – and would describe themselves – as professionals in that they make their living from music. In Milton Keynes, for example, there was the music professor who commuted daily to his London music college and performed with players outside the area, or the singer-guitarist who belonged to a nationally famous rock band but did not perform locally. There were also the members of bands and ensembles who regarded themselves as locally based but were prepared to travel through the region or beyond to perform for a fee; or again, the musicians who earned only small fees but played on in the hope of more and better bookings or just for the love of music. In addition there were the music teachers who lived and taught locally, thus depending on music for their main livelihood but sometimes also performing from time to time for a fee. There were also local residents for whom musical activity meant just one or two evenings out a week at the local choir or in the local band or orchestra – the kind of activity that people perhaps associate most readily with the term ‘amateur music’. And there were those who in the past had lived from their music – singing in cabaret, for instance, or round the working men’s clubs – or had been ‘professionally trained’, but now just engaged in it for a pleasurable leisure pursuit or the occasional engagement. Among the various musicians, then, some regard music as their only real employment (with varying success in terms of monetary return), some value it as an enjoyable but serious recreation outside work, and some treat it as a part-time occupation for the occasional fee.

      Among all these variations, which are the ‘amateur’ musicians and groups on which this study claims to focus? Unfortunately there is no simple answer, nor are the ‘amateur’ always unambiguously separated from the ‘professional’ musicians. The reasons for this as well as the complexities surrounding these at first sight simple concepts need to be explained not just to clarify my own presentation but also because the complex amateur/professional interrelations form one essential element in the work of local musicians. This point is worth stressing because most studies of modern musicians either confine their interest to the more professional practitioners (though often without saying so) or else take the amateur/professional distinction as given and so not worth exploring.¹ In local music, however, the interrelationship and overlap between these two is both highly significant for local practice and also of central interest for the wider functioning of music as it is in fact practised today.

      The term ‘professional’ – to start with that one – at first appears unambiguous. A ‘professional’ musician earns his or her living by working full time in some musical role, in contrast to the ‘amateur’, who does it ‘for love’ and whose source of livelihood lies elsewhere. But complications arise as soon as one tries to apply this to actual cases on the ground. Some lie in ambiguities in the concept of ‘earning one’s living’, others in differing interpretations about what is meant by working in ‘music’, and others again – perhaps the most powerful 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