Work (1)

I'm lucky enough to have secured a part-time contract with my previous employer in the UK to do some promotional and consultancy work, and I have been retained by them as an examiner, which means among other things that I'm off to the UK later in the month - which I'm very excited about! Prior to moving here I had worked in quite demanding full-time jobs for over 10 years, so in a way I was looking forward to taking it easy for a while and letting my wife become the main breadwinner (which she seemed perfectly keen to do, although now I don't think she's so sure.) But I had also hoped to pick up whatever work I could here in Oklahoma City. I'm a musician, principally a composer, but also - to a greater or lesser extent - a teacher, conductor, arranger, organist, writer, examiner, and adjudicator. I was looking forward to having a slightly less frenetic life, and to be able to 'pick and choose' a bit more.

In the UK it never seemed to be too hard to pick up such work. Ever since I was a student, I've supplemented my income by doing various musical bits and pieces. But here, so far, despite keeping an eye out for openings, I've drawn a complete blank, and I've been thinking about the reasons for this. It's not, as might be immediately assumed, because Oklahoma City is some kind of redneck cultural backwater. On the contrary, OKC has several universities with thriving music departments, many public and private schools, a professional symphony orchestra and chorus, a professional ballet company, and, as I discussed in a previous post ('Churches', 23 Sept) an enormous number of large, thriving churches, most of which have equally thriving 'music ministries'. So what are the differences?

I think they are as follows. First, OKC is not that large in terms of population, although it seems larger than it is because it's so spread out ('Space', 10 Sept). And it's not like there are lots of satellite suburbs and towns within easy reach - OKC is pretty isolated geographically, at least by UK standards. For example, the one organist job I did see advertised turned out to be 65 miles away - a bit of a hike for $40 on a Sunday morning. So unlike London, where there is loads of stuff going on, there's just not so much here.

Second, there is no shortage of musicians to take on whatever work is available - the university music departments are full of highly qualified people, and the churches are well supplied with organists and choir directors, most of whom I think come from within their own congregations, so are part of the real church 'family' rather then being employed as outsiders. And those musicians which there are often need to do more than one job to get by: for example, most of the players in the OKCP double up as instrumental professors at one or more of the universities.

Third, there is less of a culture of amateur music-making here - people enjoy and appreciate music, but most of it takes place in universities, schools, churches, and the professional ensembles, rather than in the community. Music is something you go to the Civic Centre Music Hall on a Saturday night to experience, so you can drink in the mystic aura of the great virtuoso pianist who's come from New York, and the wonderful maestro with his baton and flowing tailcoat; you don't get out and do it in your spare time (for one thing, people here don't have so much spare time, as they work such long hours and have so little holiday). So there aren't so many openings for people to run amateur choirs and bands, like the fantastic community band I used to conduct in the UK. There is an Oklahoma City Concert Band, but it's conducted by the Assistant Dean of one of the universities (no less), so that's that.

It's all a bit frustrating. Part of me is enjoying having more free time (I'm writing this blog after all), but it's also difficult to adjust to the reality of not being constantly in demand and feeling useful through a busy work environment. As Jim Hacker found in Yes Prime Minister, there's no shortage of things I could be doing, but relatively few things I have to do; so it's sometimes hard to find the self-discipline to get on and do them.