The Logic Off Topic list

> Kool Musick wrote:

 > The first time I went to school in the UK, little nipper that I was and
> having freshly arrived 'from the colonies', my school-teacher -- also
> presumably an intelligent person -- said to me 'Ooooh, you DO speak English
> very well', and she then proceeded to seriously ask me if I had learned my
> 'beautiful English' 'on the plane, on the way over'. I ignored the question
> and presumed that one day I would meet an intelligent Brit.

Well, no arguments from me on that one (except on the all-embracing use of
'Brit', as we are a diverse collection of peoples within some small islands)
I won't apologise for my fellow countrymen/women as that's not my job, but I
spent more than 20 years living in a hugely diverse environment in South
London, with a fantastically wide selection of friends, neighbours and
colleagues from all over the planet and what you encountered was a pretty
sad, atavistic, backwoods outlook.  When I arrived in London from the
Northeast of England I did meet odd people who had never ventured more than
50 miles out of London, but then I also came from an area where people were
proud of never leaving! No meeting of minds there even on different
varieties of Englishness back in the 70s; but not the whole story by any
means.

I feel that the English (and here I consciously exclude the Scots as being
in many ways more internationally oriented in their culture; can't speak for
the Welsh, though Welsh nationalists have some interesting perspectives)
have made a little progress in the area of dealing with other cultures,
particuarly as a result of travel within Europe, settling of immigrant
communities in the UK and so on. It's a fact that many US citizens don't
have passports and never travel outside their own borders, so this will make
a difference. And no, I don't claim that the sheer fact of travelling abroad
will clear all prejudices and ignorance away, as our English football
hooligans will give the lie to that. What I do believe is true is that the
English are (slowly) developing a better sense of their place in the world
as a small, perhaps vulnerable nation amongst other small, perhaps
vulnerable nations, which should help us eventually ditch the last traces of
'imperial' attitudes.

>> As for sociology and the relevance of class to music business success, ...
>> ... for me what counts is personal skill, attitude and motivation,
> 
>> It is inevitable in
>> the music business that you go for the people that you know, as so much
>> relies on personal relationships.
> ... and ... just who would those people be, most likely?
> 
>> The people who have the technical and
>> personal skills _and_ bother to get to know the right people
> ... and ... who would those 'right people' be, most likely?
> 
>> _and_ manage to
>> get the strokes of luck make it,
> ... and ... just who would those people be, most likely?

>> and you can't apply the same procedures as
>> if you were hiring clerical staff for a government department.

> Totally and 100% agreed. And you'll get absolutely no quarrel from anyone
> at all about that.
> 
> But then again ... when you want to hire clerical staff, who would those
> people be, most likely?
> Presumably, they'd be a bunch of people who have the relevant technical and
> personal skills and who have _bothered_ to get to know the right people for
> that kind of a job ... and ... who would those people be, most likely?
> 
> ... and ... when you're looking for some new band members, who would those
> people be, most likely?
> Chances are that they'd not be the kinds of people who've spent their time
> developing skills to work in a clerical department, and chances are they're
> not from backgrounds where working in a governmental clerical department
> was regarded as a right-on life's ambition.

My apologies - I was obviously less than clear here, so let me attempt to
elucidate further. I confess to being baffled by someone bringing
sociological findings into the equation and I just thought it was wildly
irrelevant to anyone finding any degree of success in the music business.

Let's face it, if you want to get into a band, hook up with some dance music
producers, get a job in a studio, get your band's tracks to a DJ or an A & R
man you'll have to get out there and meet some people -call it networking,
chllin' with the right dudes, touting your arse about, whatever you like -
and have some good stuff to talk about and build a reputation on. My point
about the clerical thing was that this is how the right connections happen
and that people can't treat getting into a band or getting a band to a label
as if they were applying for a job with the Department of Social Security
and expect some illusory 'fair treatment' or 'equal opportunities', though
I've heard more than one unsuccessful muso grumble about this. You have to
do it for yourself and not wait for some magic helping hand from mummy and
daddy, the government or anyone else. You have to work on your professional
skills and technique and then you have to work on the technique of selling
yourself, which implies working on self-image and confidence. If you
consciously or unconsciously assign importance to class differences when
you're trying to get on you aren't helping yourself but tripping yourself
up. This isn't necessarily a matter of working-class musicians being daunted
by the establishment - Peter Gabriel apparently spent years being
embarrassed about not fitting in with some image of working class
right-onness he'd burdened himself with, before discarding it as he realised
it didn't matter one bit that he had come from a wealthy background.

Serious, committed musicians, in my experience, are more likely than other
sections of society to be open-minded and are usually keen to talk music to
anyone at the drop of a hat, whoever they are. I've known an awful lot of
diverse collaborations. One that instantly comes to mind is a pianist I
know, often doing very straight classical recitals but occasionally dabbling
in jazz, ever so public school posh, who got involved in a live drum &
bass/jazz venture with some very 'street' DJ type people - they were all
very pleased to be working with each other.

Tony Thompson