More than forty years ago I took the entrance exam for the Sweelinck Conservatory, the current Amsterdam University of the Arts. What did I expect from the course? In addition to piano lessons – I studied with Jan Wijn – an instrumental minor, music theory, solfège and music history, I also expected anatomy and posture-and-movement theory. As a seventeen-year-old it was already crystal clear to me that knowledge and well developed (emotional) awareness of the human body would be necessary to learn to play the piano as a professional. But alas. Nothing at all was offered in that vein. Many students therefore developed – even then – physical complaints. I myself also developed rsi (repetitive strain injury) in my fourth year of study, which meant that I could not play for six months. Thanks to an extra year of study I was still able to obtain the Performing Musician (master) diploma.
To prevent a recurrence, I started to delve into the causes of my rsi. These could be traced back to (emotional) stress. Stress that was largely related to the training itself. Because, what happens at a conservatory? Young, sensitive people are trained to fit into a mold and then perform. The ideal image of a certain performance must be approached as closely as possible. This striving for impersonal perfection is at the expense of the personal artistic development of the student: (s)he does not learn to relate to the music (s)he is working on, and does not learn to express his or her deepest emotions. That produces a great deal of intangible stress and is disastrous for body, mind and soul. No wonder, then, all those physical – and psychological – complaints.
Already during my training, and later at competitions and in my years as a concert pianist, I was annoyed by this enforced lack of freedom in interpretation. It has to do with the music industry: the standard is a well-selling product, and anything that deviates from that is not considered interesting. Conservatories and competitions do their utmost to meet this (unspoken) standard: after all, young musicians must have the greatest possible chance of work? That they are being made slaves of the music industry in the process is not recognized or is simply blindly accepted. There you have it, the vicious circle.
It is high time that this circle is broken, in various ways. Firstly, much more money needs to go to the conservatories. A huge round of cutbacks started already in my time, which meant that the instrumental minor subject was cut short for me and my classmates. A few years later, even the duration of the main subject lessons(!) was reduced to such an extent that you could no longer really call it professional training. This constant cutting back has to stop. With a larger budget, subjects such as anatomy and posture and movement can finally become a normal part of the curriculum. Moreover, the training can then last five or six years again, which is really necessary for obtaining a responsible development.
Secondly, much more attention should be paid to the guidance of the artistic development of the students. So that they feel comfortable in body and mind, and develop self-confidence that is not only based on being able to play or sing faster, louder and more perfectly, but also on understanding and relating to the music personally.
Thirdly, the entire field should think about what classical music actually means today. On the one hand, in this internet age, the professional opportunities are much greater and more diverse than before. On the other hand, the halls are emptying: apparently people are less and less interested. My gut feeling is that this is not only because young people don’t know classical music anymore, but also because the performances have become too predictable, too boring (with the exception of a few special ones). My plea is therefore: let us, for heaven’s sake, give free rein to personal freedom of interpretation once more, let us dare to play or sing with emotion – even if not perfectly – and let us dare to touch the audience emotionally again. In this way, the (young) musician will have a healthier professional experience and the audience will automatically grow again.
16 February 2018
Marijke van Duin, Amsterdam
This article was originally written in Dutch and published in the Dutch newspaper Trouw, see https://www.trouw.nl/cultuur/jonge-musici-worden-tot-slaaf-van-de-muziekindustrie-gemaakt-geef-ze-de-ruimte~a2cf8003