So today, we’re gonna get deep — well, sorta.
Making music is hard, and no matter how much passion you have, you often need to work with other people. That’s why we’re here, of course — to build connections.
However, when one of our administrators found the following on Craigslist today, it seemed to serve as a reminder of why it’s good to be different from the rest of the musical world:
I find this gem of modern musical mission both hilarious and sad. It’s probably safe to guess that substances of some sort were a catalyst for this particular rant — it’s hard to tell who the writer is talking to, what the point is, or even what some of the sentences mean. Perhaps it was transcribed via (tech-in-progress) voice recognition and posted as-is. Perhaps there are second-language difficulties involved. Most likely, at least two of these factors, and/or possibly others, had their impact.
It’s (hopefully) needless to say that we, the Listers, hold ourselves to a higher standard than this, both in the way we communicate with one another and in the way we choose projects and take our work seriously. The reason this website exists is so that trained, experienced classical performers don’t have to rely entirely on mainstream tools in order to find one another and get matched with projects on their own level. But the List is also intended to provide more than a mere haven from the chaos that abounds in the world. We hope to encourage all of you to create something that matters. The post above, ineffective as it is likely to be, does express a sincere and laudable desire to build something and to work with someone else — it’s part of this search for community. But we hope that our little community will continue the search for excellence and meaning (the other “substance”), as well, rather than just connections, fame and marketable labels.
My commentary here is not intended as just a superior rant about staying above the fray, and I’ve tried to weed out any arrogance. (Down, Ego! Down!) This is, rather, an attempt to express the gratitude that we all get to work together, because without collaboration, art really doesn’t have a point. Let’s hear it for the ongoing search for partners in artmaking, and thankfulness for the technology that lets us build forums where we can talk to one another. Is there a less clichéed way to say, “Together, we can make a difference”? Probably — but you get the idea.
