Professional Relationships in Community Music: What do these look like when they are at their best? - Part 1

Professional relationships are key to the success of any organisation. A quick google of ‘Professional Relationship Quotes’ will yield countless reasons why relationships are important in Business, Education, Mental Health, Networking and any kind of enterprise. The same is true in the arts. But do we talk about them? Do we, as artists and arts management professionals discuss the quality of these relationships? Do we take time to consider how we foster and grow these relationships in such as a way as to nurture all our work force; salaried and freelance?

As a freelance community musician or Music Animateur how I work with people, how I understand them, how I create and hold spaces for people to work is essential to my skill set. This is in the context of the sessions I run, whether this is rehearsing with a community band, writing songs with teenagers, leading music in hospital wards or performing for a pre-school audience.

After developing my career by taking steps into arts management I have become more aware of the quality of relationships I have with the freelancers I manage. I now have experience of working on both sides of this coin. This has raised some questions for me

·       How do I manage these relationships?

·       How to I manage the uncertainty this creates and the implicit or explicit expectations that the freelancers I work with have?

Being the gatekeeper to this work I must be careful and understanding about the stresses this puts on all partners.

 This management role requires me to decide what work is best for the people I work with, which freelancers can complement this and be part of creating the conditions for everyone to thrive. This has become more difficult as our budgets get smaller and we look for more cost savings and to get more from the freelancers, to make sure they are truly adding what we need them so add.

As a freelance worker, as well as a salaried manager, I know how this feels. It is an uncertain and stressful place. It creates anxiety and stress as you constantly feel the need to put on a brave face and not share your difficulties and insecurities. Freelancers are paid to do a certain job for a fixed fee and it is much harder for organisations to find the structure of care to support these freelancers than it is to do the same for salaried staff who have regular catchups with managers, yearly reviews, and clear HR systems protecting their jobs and supporting them. For all parties, the building of relationships take skill, time and effort and this is no easy task. As Tim Ingold says ‘Skill is about going along with things – about responding to things and being responded too. In a word, it is a practice of correspondence’ (Ingold, 162, 2018).

My experience of being a freelance community musician has been one of many ups and downs. There have been some longstanding relationships which have been fruitful artistically and financially, that have allowed me to develop my craft and push the boundaries of what I am capable of. Equally there have been some relationships which were fleeting, difficult or ended without warning. In all these situations there is rarely communication as to why the partner has decided to discontinue working with me.

In my view, the most longstanding and healthy relationships include elements of positive feedback from both sides, with me regularly offering thanks and praise for the quality of the work and receiving similar feedback in return. This is not always the case. For artists (which I include Freelance Community Musicians as) there is an assumption that our art is its own reward, that given the applause and the smiling faces at the end and then the payment going into our bank accounts then that is enough. This is not the case for me, I need to know that my work is appreciated, that it fulfils what the partner hoped for, that they want to work with me again.

I experienced one long running artistic partner, for which I had led a big project for 4 years and represented about 20% of my yearly income at the time. This partner sat me down towards the end of the yearly project and told me they were going ‘in a different direction’. No more feedback was offered as to why this was. It was a difficult situation and one that is rarely replicated in a salaried job.

With these personal experiences in mind the building and maintaining of professional relationships is important in creating positive work environments. To build these relationships takes work and effort on both sides. It also requires understanding, empathy and a willingness to be vulnerable. As humans, the motivation to form and sustain social relationships is one of the most powerful human drives, and for the freelancer who is working in many places, finding the space to develop these connections can be more challenging.

It is also not a subject which is often talked about between salaried staff and freelancers in the arts where most organisations work through this combination of salaried management staff and freelance practitioners. For example, orchestras often have management and administrative staff who create the structure, source the funding through fundraising, work with the concert halls, the travel providers, the agents. These staff will be given artistic direction through a board of directors or trustees or through the work of an artistic director. In many cases part of this work is in the communities the orchestras serve through education and participation work, taking the music out of the concert hall and into schools, community centres, care homes, hospitals, nurseries and more.

This is true of many arts organisations as well as orchestras. And like orchestras the actual art is delivered by a combination of salaried musicians/artists/creators and freelancers. In many cases the entire artistic workforce is freelance. For a concert hall such as Wigmore Hall in London, or Turner Sims in Southampton, almost all the artistic content is provided on a freelance basis. Wigmore Hall does not have ‘in house’, salaried musicians who do the concerts there. It is a concert and education programme full of variety through the booking of a wide variety of freelance artists.

Many orchestras have loose contracts with their players, where the contracted players are always asked first regarding a patch of work and are required to do a certain percentage of what is offered to them. When they say no a freelancer is called to fill the space.

In this world, most of the energy and emphasis is on the creation of work and art and the structures supporting this delivery. Freelancers often fit in as much work as they can which leads to arriving exactly at the call time or shortly before, and leaving soon after the session is finished. They are paid to be there for a certain amount of time, or to deliver a certain piece of work for an agreed fee. The salaried employee has a different emphasis, with more attention being on the support and development of the work and facilitating the freelancer to do the best of the job they can.

Time is rarely taken to bring the freelancers together with salaried staff to build these relationships and facilitate communication and community together. Salaried staff will regularly have meetings between themselves to build these structures, then bring the freelancers in to discuss, develop and deliver the content.

In my view there is a disconnect between these groups and the discussion of these relationships is an area with huge potential benefits.

Part 2 to follow…….