CBC 78: Steve Rodby interview part 2
This week’s episode continues the interview with jazz bass legend Steve Rodby that we began on episode 58 of the podcast. Rodby has played bass on every Pat Metheny Group record since 1980, co-produced the group’s last five albums and won 10 Grammy Awards with the group. He has toured with jazz greats Joe Henderson and Tony Bennett, and also works regularly as a producer.
This interview was conducted by jazz double bassist Kells Nollenberger. Kells has launched a new podcast called the Jazz Exchange, which can be found at www.jazzexchange.org. This podcast features interviews with and performances from a wide array of jazz artists, and I encourage listeners to check out the great things that Kells is doing over there.
We also feature bass news, listener voicemail and e-mail, and a link of the week. Enjoy!
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May 10th, 2008
Michael Hersch Recital in NYC this Sunday - Great new music for bass
This is a post from National Symphony Orchestra bassist Jeff Weisner. Jeff also teaches bass at The Peabody Institute in Baltimore and co-authors the blog PeabodyDoubleBass. Click here for all of Jeff’s doublebassblog.org posts.
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Some of you may have read a few of the posts in my series here about my new music recital in Baltimore last month. The biggest work on that program was “Caelum Dedecoratum,” a major new work for solo bass by Philadelphia-based composer Michael Hersch. I premiered this piece at the ISB Convention in Oklahoma City last year. I think it’s an incredible addition to our repertoire and I’m happy that I’ve been able to play a role in getting it out into the world. I wanted to let folks know that I’ll be giving the New York premiere if the piece this Sunday at 8:00 pm as part of a concert of works by Mr. Hersch for solo strings. The concert is at Merkin Hall, located near Lincoln Center, and tickets are only $15. Come check out the music of one of the best young composers working today and support new bass music! For more details on the concert, including the full program, details on how to get to Merkin, and to reserve tickets, visit the concert homepage on the Kaufman Center website here.
Thanks all and I hope to see you there.
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May 9th, 2008
Tasty Blog Snacks for 5/9/08
We’ve got a bunch of interesting links for you this Friday! First, we’ll be featuring Pat Metheny bassist Steve Rodby on this week’s Contrabass Conversations episode. This interview, which is conducted by special host Kells Nollenberger (from the Jazz Exchange podcast), was initiated on episode 58 of the podcast.
The Grillo Grape
My blogging colleague and frequent Contrabass Conversations co-host John Grillo recently put out a very fun post about the Grillo Grape. Check it out over on John’s blog at classicalmusicnews.tv.
John has put out quite an interesting amalgamation of posts since starting his blog in 2007. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
- Orchestra Confidential - Symphonic Life from the Inside Out
- Gustavo Dudamel on 60 Minutes
- The Art of the Deficit - Lack of Government Support
- The Art of the Deficit - The Dysfunctional Model of the American Orchestra
- The Musical Universe - Black Hole Hums a Low B Flat
Paul Ramsier’s “Silent Movie” with Andrew Festa
Double bassist Andrew Festa recently wrote in to let me know about a recent performance he did of Paul Ramsier’s “Silent Movie,” an enjoyable piece for the bass that probably doesn’t get played as often as it should. Andrew writes:
Dear Jason,
I recently played a short recital at the ASODB with Dr. Mark Morton. I played Silent Movie by Paul Ramsier. I don’t think this piece is very well known, but I’d really like to make it more well known. Here are videos of the first four movements, I’d really appreciate it if you would post them on your blog!
Here’s the first movement from YouTube:
Check out the entire performance through the links below:
- 1st movement - http://youtube.com/watch?v=q_ThhzMlSiE
- 2nd movement - http://youtube.com/watch?v=AhVTMzGQrfg
- 3rd movement - http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tv7XJrNpeKA
- 4th movement - http://youtube.com/watch?v=M1i_nBVxQMc
Noticing an awful lot of comics on the blog recently?
As readers may have guessed, I decided to purchase a copy of Comic Life with my new MacBook (read about my agonizing blogging with my Acer PC laptop here). Do you think I’m overusing it? 
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May 9th, 2008
Disturbing Trends in Adjunct Faculty Employment
The class glances uneasily at the clock as it slowly ticks:
1:13…..1:14…..1:15….
Suddenly, the professor bursts in, shirt rumpled and tie caught within the jumbled stack of file folders, books, and binders he clasps in his arms.
“Hi class, sorry sorry sorry…um, how’s everybody this Tuesday..er, Wednesday. Sorry, sorry, let me just get things…. set up… uh…. what class is this?”
The Street Sweepers of Academia
A recent article in the Chicago Reader (May 1, 2008 Vol. 37, No. 32) titled And All I Got Was This Lousy PhD jumped off the page as I was perusing the paper recently, and for good reason–this piece by Deanna Issacs confirms many of my frustrations and concerns regarding trends in hiring practices at many universities. I’ve written two articles on this very topic which may interest readers (the former was published in 2007 in Adjunct Nation Magazine, and the latter is part of my upcoming book Road Warrior Without an Expense Account):
- Tainting the Academic Waters With Pay-Per-Student Compensation
- Rats in the Ivory Tower - Perspectives on Adjunct Faculty Positions
Low Pay for University of Chicago faculty
Consider the following statistics for the University of Chicago (the institution of primary focus in the Reader, though it is representative of nationwide trends at institutions of higher learning):
- Average pay for an 11-week course: $1500-$3500 ($136-$318 per week)
- no increase in compensation for the past eight years
- 33% of courses taught by graduate students
- 33% of courses taught temporary, untenured faculty
- 33% of courses taught by tenured faculty
Assuming that a standard university course meets in three hour-long sessions per week, a University of Chicago part-time faculty member would be compensated accordingly:
- $45.33 per class session at $1500 rate
- $106 per class session at $3500 rate
Assuming that most adjunct faculty members for this institution are compensated somewhere between these two compensation benchmarks, the typical University of Chicago part-time faculty member makes somewhere between $50 and $100 per class session.
If one assumes that approximately ten hours of preparation time is required for each week of classes (grading papers, making lessons plans, PowerPoint presentations, office hours), these compensation figures get downright dire:
- $3.49 compensation per hour at $1500 rate
- $8.15 compensation per hour at $3500 rate
I hope those part-time faculty members don’t stop at Starbucks and buy a coffee on their way to class–that would eat up the day’s profits in no time. To darken the situation even further, these faculty members all hold masters degrees and frequently hold PhD degrees, yet they make less than a fry cook at McDonald’s.
And these are the people teaching the next generation of leaders! What exactly are the students funding with those $30,000+ annual tuition bills?
Why People Agree to Teach Courses for $4-8 Per Hour
Why on Earth would anyone with an advanced education agree to work in a situation that pays less than most high school students make at McDonald’s? Well, most of the folks in these faculty positions are searching for a tenure-track position in higher education, and they see these teaching positions as opportunities to work in the field, with the hope of this experience leading to a more stable job in the future.
Though this approach seems logical (I was on this path myself, teaching for five years at a state school and applying for full-time faculty positions during that time), teachers in these positions often find that these positions are dead-end jobs that lead to nothing but similar positions, and the only way they can make any sort of living in this space is to take multiple part-time positions at many different universities.
Welcome to Adjunct Nation.
Adjunct Nation
Even if these part-time faculty members are employed at multiple institutions, shouldn’t they be capable of providing just as high-quality an education as a tenure-track faculty member? After all, they attended the same institutions and got the same advanced degrees as their tenured brethren. In fact, shouldn’t the fact that they don’t have to participate in advising, lengthy faculty meetings, search committees, and all the other bureaucratic baggage of the tenured world allow them to focus on teaching, enabling them to devote even more time to their students?
Unfortunately, the reverse is true. Because they lack benefits, security, and the steady salary of their tenured colleagues, part-time university faculty must find other means to support their income, and they frequently end up taking similar positions at multiple institutions, generating a few thousand dollars at one school and a few thousand at another, trying to weave the disparate schedules together into a patchwork living.
Correlation Between Adjunct Faculty and Freelancers
One of the biggest reasons why the plight of the adjunct faculty member interests me (apart from having held one of these positions myself for five years) is how closely their employment resembles that of the freelance musician. Check out my series Road Warrior Without an Expense Account (soon to be a book!) for more of my thoughts and observations on the freelance music business, and see how many parallels you can draw between this lifestyle and that of the adjunct university faculty member.
There are quite a few parallels between the employment situation of the freelance musician and that of the adjunct faculty member, and in the world of music, these two jobs often merge together into a freelancer/adjunct hybrid patchwork.
Common Issues for Freelancers and Adjuncts:
- No job security - even worse for adjuncts–many freelance jobs have tenured positions
- Stagnant pay - usually without annual cost of living increases
- Sporadic employment - feast and famine work cycles
- Juggling part-time positions - multiple positions to make ends meet
Circumstances Where Adjunct Teaching Fits
Though I am highly concerned at the ever-increasing percentage of university faculty positions being held by part-time instructors, I realize that for many people this is the perfect way to do some teaching in the world of higher education. Perhaps a person with a great deal of expertise in a particular field wants to share their experiences and “give something back” to the community. Perhaps a retired professional wants to earn a little extra income and keep themselves involved in their retirement years. Many circumstances exist that are a great match for adjunct jobs, including:
- private enterprise professionals interested in doing some auxiliary teaching
- graduate students looking to earn some extra income and resume-building experience
- qualified professionals looking for part-time work
- retired educators looking to supplement their income and keep active
For far too many individuals, however, adjunct teaching is something that they fell into while looking for a full-time tenure track position, and they quickly become bogged down in the morass of multiple part-time positions.
The Adjunct Rat Race
In order to make ends meet, adjunct faculty members will frequently teach one or two classes at multiple institutions, assembling a few thousand dollars from each of these schools in order to piece together a living (with no benefits, and tenuous job security). Individuals in these multiple positions typically commute between several schools each week, enduring rush hour en route to one institution and fighting for midday parking at another institution. This frantic lifestyle leaves little room for office hours, personal development, or time to develop relationships with other faculty.
These adjunct faculty members may have their name on a door and pasted under a mailbox, but they’re not really an integral part of an institution. They are, by the very nature of their job description, interchangeable and replaceable. Longtime part-time faculty members working at multiple institutions learn that developing loyalty or really investing their heart and soul into developing a program is unlikely to be a wise expenditure of energy, for they can easily be out of a job the next time a tenure track professor is hired or an internal reorganization takes place.
I have many colleagues (and have experienced this myself to an extent) who have put blood, sweat, and tears into that $3.50 and hour job, putting in extra time and really going the extra mile to make their class an exceptional learning experience. These efforts are all too frequently unnoticed by administrators, and even if they are noticed, the result is usually a figurative pat on the back and nothing more.
If working hard in these positions in unrewarded in any way, and if no future path to more secure employment results from doing this low-paying and often frustrating work, the adjunct faculty member frequently adopts the following survival strategy:
I will do exactly what is in my contract… and not anything more. Ever.
Adjuncts Face Difficulty Shaping the Educational Philosophy of an Institution
There’s more to being on faculty at a university than just teaching classes, and adjuncts typically have little or no say in the curriculum, institutional outlook, and philosophy of a program. They are, for the most part, hired guns, sharing offices and mailboxes with hordes of other part-time faculty members, and are frequently seen by tenured faculty as semi-anonymous faces passing through.
When I was working these kinds of jobs, my adjunct faculty identification card never read “faculty.” I was always labeled “staff,” and that’s what I was–part of the “help” rather than part of the core faculty. Though I didn’t want to be a hired gun, I found myself in that role, and over the years I learned that anything extra I volunteered would detract from my own career advancement.
My Adjunct Teaching Survival Strategy
It’s too bad that this is the attitude that must be taken; for me it goes against my personal philosophy of higher eduction. But I’ve had to take this approach in the past. Here’s my thinking:
- I’ve got to pay the bills.
- You (the institution) are paying maybe my gas bill with this job.
- Giving the students they educational experience they deserve would really cost 4-5x what is being offered.
- Volunteering my time to invest in making the program better and adding my personal stamp deprives me of more lucrative employment opportunities.
- Though I want with every ounce of my being to give this high-quality educational experience (that’s why I went into this, after all), out of self-preservation I can only offer my time and energy in proportion to my compensation.
- Therefore, I give my all when I’m there… but I really can’t afford to give anything more.
This may seem cold-hearted. It kind of is cold-hearted, and it’s a big reason why I don’t do these kind of jobs anymore. I love teaching and making a difference, and I want to give everything I’ve got to a position, pouring in my physical, mental, and emotional energy.
I don’t, however, want to do this in a dead-end position (or set of positions) that offers virtually no opportunity for advancement, keeps my wages locked in at fry cook level, and deprives me of other career opportunities.
Why We Need Tenured Faculty
Every time I look at a faculty roster and only see a couple of names with “professor” following them, I get a little suspicious. Schools nationwide are ratcheting up their adjunct faculty numbers at the expense of their full-time positions. When a tenured professor retires, it is far cheaper (and more efficient from a business perspective–not that these institutions should be thinking along these lines!) to replace this tenured professor with a part-time employee. To university department administrators looking to save expenses, having a pool of highly skilled and cheap “temporary labor” is a tantalizing option, but the quality of a program is often destabilized and eroded by the preponderance of adjunct faculty in key teaching roles.
Too Much Responsibility Shifting to Remaining Tenured Faculty
In a school with a very high percentage of adjunct faculty (50% or more), the administrative responsibilities placed upon the remaining tenured faculty members can be overwhelming. Adjuct faculty members really are hired teaching guns, and they have little or no involvement in meetings, advising, and the other administrative tasks associated with running a university. When departments only have a few tenured faculty members, the large amount of responsibility placed upon them to accomplish these administrative tasks makes them as harried and overworked as their adjunct colleagues.
What Tenured Faculty Members Contribute
In institutions with a research orientation, tenure-track faculty members are expected to contribute to the knowledge base, through writing articles and books in the academic arena, or through performing recitals, recording albums, and the like in the performing arena. In addition to contributing to the knowledge base, tenured faculty are expected to shape and guide their institution’s programs and remain relevant in this rapidly changing world.
These “ivory tower” tasks really are important. Like art for art’s sake or music for music’s sake, knowledge is one of our cultural gems that must be nurtured and cultivated. After all, what are the Greeks remembered for? Education is not business, and the more universities move toward a corporate structure, the less likely they are to focus on what really matters: the students.
The “Business Outlook” of a University
I often think about the following questions when considering the university as corporation rather than as educational institution:
- Should universities see themselves as businesses?
- Does this outlook benefit the students or only for the institution?
- Does everything in education have to have a practical bent?
- Do “university corporations” focus too much on the “professional schools” at the expense of liberal arts studies?
- Does the ratio of tenured faculty to adjunct faculty play into a student’s decision to attend a particular institution?
- Should it?
- What will schools look like in 10 years with this move toward more adjunct faculty?
- How about in 20 years?
- Is this preponderance of adjunct faculty positions hurting American education?
- What will happen to all these adjunct faculty members long term (with no health coverage or other benefits)?
Final Thoughts
I’ve been an adjunct faculty member in the past, and I loved teaching my students and building a program. I would love to to this full-time, but I’m no fool, and I see dozens of colleagues running around with doctoral degrees in my specialty and no job to show for it. Though I have had many other opportunities to resume adjunct teaching, I have opted against it, both for practical reasons (I make more money teaching my private students and with 1/10th the hassle!) and for the philosophical reasons outlined above.
What are your thoughts on adjunct teaching? What do you think about the trends in higher education we’ve covered here? Let me know–I’d love to hear your perspectives!
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May 8th, 2008
The end for Xbass.org?
I got this sad note from my double bass blogging colleague Riccardo Valsecchi. It sounds like Xbass.org (which recently launched a new video project called Xbass.tv) is reevaluating the viability of their project and may be ceasing operations in the near future.
Riccardo writes:
Dear double bass players and lovers,
My name is Riccardo Valsecchi and I’m the Head Editor of Xbass.org and Xbass.tv.
I’m writing this email for announcing sadly that the next issue of Xbass.org could be the last.
Even if we have seen in the last year growing up the number of visits from 4.000 to more than 25.000, the economic investments on our project is been not enough for paying either the domain of the site, not talking about the structure and the works that we have made for making it in the best way, that personally takes myself busy more than 10 hours per days everyday of the week. When we have started to work on it, it was clear that the magazine should be costless believing in the possibility of advertisings and in the conscience of every utents that had found our contents interesting and useful.
It wasn’t so, and it has no sense to continue with an experience, even if one of the best in my life, without economic entries…It’s clear that our intention is to save the idea and to continue with the project but now we have a limited period…: we will appreciate a lot if someone of you that thinks Xbass.org and Xbass.tv interesting and useful could give what he things right to give … 1 symbolic $ can make more you can think…
Otherwise, I’d like personally to say thanks to everyone that has visited our pages and has made our project richer and richer …
Best Regards,
Valsecchi Riccardo
This is a great site with a lot of excellent value–I certainly hope that they are able to continue operating.
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May 7th, 2008
Story Time 4 - Annoying Conductors 101
Here’s the latest episode of Story Time with Contrabass Conversations. These stories recount some of the funny, sad, poignant, and painful moments in the life of a freelance road warrior. Find the text version of this story here, and check out Contrabass Conversations for more weekly double bass content.
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May 7th, 2008
In search of the perfect bow
Most string players own several different bows during the course of their playing career, usually starting on a fiberglass or inexpensive wooden bow in early years of study and upgrading many times on the journey toward professional-level playing. Like strings, rosin, and other key pieces of gear, bows are a very personal and subjective item, and many string players spend their entire lives in search of the perfect bow.
Early Student Bows
String players generally start of a fiberglass, cheap carbon fiber, or brazilwood bow as part of a rental package or school instrument set-up. While this kind of stick may be adequate for the very early stages of development (particularly if one starts as a young Suzuki student), upgrading to a higher-quality bow in middle school or high school is one of the surest ways to increase the playability of a student’s gear.
Early student bows are likely to have the following characteristics:
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cheaply constructed - either fiberglass or brazilwood
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poorly balanced - too heavy, too light, inconsistent weight distribution
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poor camber in the stick - straight and unwieldy sticks are par for the course with many brands of student bow
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overall stiffness - difficult to use for more advanced bow strokes
While these kinds of bows are adequate for the early stages of a string player’s development (and may be the best kind of bows for Suzuki or early elementary playing, where instruments and bows are getting banged around on a daily basis), once a student starts taking private lessons and attains a moderate degree of proficiency, these cheap bows should be a number upgrade priority.
Moving to a Better Stick
When a student begins their search for a higher quality bow, there are several factors to consider that will help to narrow their search:
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Budget - How much can a student reasonably spend on a bow? Some students (and their parents) balk at spending even $300 on a bow, while others have no qualms about spending $1500 or more on a first bow upgrade.
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Carbon Fibre or Wood? - I generally recommend that students looking for a bow under $1000 invest in a carbon fibre bow. One can get a carbon fiber bow that is very well-balanced and that responds quickly for around $800, and I have seen some models priced as low as $400 that work very well as an upgrade bow. While many students like the idea of owning a wood bow, unless the player gets lucky and finds something that handles exceptionally well, I usually recommend that students looking to spend less than $1000 seriously consider a carbon fiber bow.
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Buy from Local Shop or Have Bows Sent Out? - I like supporting local instrument businesses. After all, when one’s bass is in need of an emergency repair, how much help will a retailer located four states away be? I firmly believe in helping give local luthiers and instrument shops business, and I will recommend them over national outfits in any circumstances. When looking for a bow, however, one may simply exhaust the local possibilities without finding something that really “clicks”, and in this case I recommend that students contact a regional shop (for the double bass, Kolstein, Robertsons, and the Cincinnati Bass Cellar are three good retailers with a lot of credibility) and have them send out a few bows for a trial.
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Buying a bow privately - Finding a local player who is selling a stick may be the best way to find a good bow. Keep your ears open and ask around—it’s quite likely that a bassist in the area has a good bow that they are trying to sell!
The Best Method for Trying Out Bows
Whether trying out bows from a local shop, national dealer, or private individual, there are some things that every student can do to ensure that they give these sticks a fair and logical trial. After all, bows are a very subjective thing, and one may fall in love with a bow and buy it impulsively, only to realize a few weeks later that it’s not really that well-balanced…. maybe a little too heavy… maybe that gold wrapping and fancy inlay disguise the fact that it is somewhat lacking in actual playing quality…
Don’t let this happen to you! The following tips will help to ensure that you are well-informed and have fairly tested your options before buying:
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Always have your teacher try the bow….always! - I’ve had a few (not many, thankfully) students come in with a brand new bow to a lesson. I widen my eyes in surprise, then in silent horror as I start to play. Students really shouldn’t buy a stick without having their teacher try it out! Emotion plays a big part in selecting a stick, and a student may “fall in love” with a bow that really doesn’t work for them. Also, they may notice that the bow they are trying out is an improvement and just by it because it feels better. What they often don’t realize (without the guidance of a teacher) is that a little more thorough hunting could have yielded a bow at the same price that works significantly better.
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Realize that this process may take time - This bit of advice also applies to instrument purchases! Though a student may be anxious to get a new bow immediately, they really should take the time and do their homework, try out a lot of sticks and really live with them for a week or so before making any decisions. And if nothing that really satisfies during this search, don’t just buy the least unappealing option! Try out merchandise from another outlet, ask around and see what’s available, and bide your time—the bow for you is out there. Just be patient.
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Never try out only one bow - When looking for a car, few folks simply into a dealership, test drive a car, and purchase it without doing any research into mileage, safety features, consumer reviews, or the like. If people are reluctant to simply buy the first car that crosses their path, why should buying a bow e any different? And bows are much less standard than cars—even more reason to try many models before making a decision.
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Try out bows from different shops - While you may very well get lucky and find a real gem of a stick from the first shop you try, realize that the quality of merchandise and pricing varies dramatically from shop to shop. I’ve played bows priced at $4500 that I would pay $1000 for, and vice-versa! Even if your budget is in the sub-$1000 category, there is still a wide discrepancy in stick quality out there, and many shops tend to get their less expensive bows from only a few makers, so a different shop is likely to yield bows from different makers.
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Don’t buy bows from eBay unless you really know what you’re doing - I buy my fair share of merchandise off of eBay, but I usually tense up when a student tells me that they’ve found the “perfect bow” online. It’s one thing if you’re a professional and are making an informed purchase, but students looking for a solid stick that works with their laying style really should try out many bows for an extended period of time before making a purchase.
There are circumstances where using eBay makes a lot of sense for bow purchases. If you’re looking for really cheap student bows you’re likely to find quite a few out there, though I’d rather give that business to a local retailer and help keep my area shops in business. Also, if you’re looking to buy or sell a quality professional bow and you know what you’re doing, eBay can be a dynamite way to find a good stick. I’d highly recommend that students looking for an upgrade stick steer clear of eBay without the help of an informed teacher.
Should you have a bow made for you?
I tend to shy away from having instruments or bows custom made for me. I’ve found that I often love one particular bow or instrument, only to be sorely disappointed in another model from that very same maker. Even if the maker makes it clear that I don’t have to buy this particular new bow or instrument, I still prefer to try out several different pre-existing instruments from several makers when making purchase decisions.
Sti