Comparing Mining and Making Music
>Creativity across Borders< is probably an elegant way of stating one is (as a researcher, blogger or whatever) really open to all the diverse, unspecific, counterintuitive and so on aspects that pop up while researching this super interesting field of making music (and making pharma). However, without actually crossing borders, the title remains an empty shell — so here’s one short entry trying to fill “across borders” with some content:
I live in an region of Germany more or less solely known for its impressive history of mining (in recent years also for several football clubs) for. Mining is still present in the everyday and everyone living here is reminded continuously that mining was once the key for everything in this region. Doing research in this region that focusses creative music processes and relations to copyright fits of course perfectly.
The last couple of days I was reading the widely adopted book “The Rise of the Creative Class” by Richard Florida. From the first pages I was intrigued and distressed by the overwhelming glorification of the members of this alleged new class and especially the representation of work conditions among creatives. One of his key differentiations is the one between the Creative Class and the Service and Worker Class. While those who work as creatives do clever stuff and build their personal individuality while creating masses of interesting and relevant stuff, those who work in service or as workers are more or less unsatisfied work machines without using their brains or individuality at all. Of course Florida is not that deterministic, but the bottom line is, there are lots of shitty jobs around and they are usually done by working or service class members. I totally agree on the “shitty jobs”-argument, however I think it has not too much to do with the simplistic class categorization drawn. At least one of the reasons for this entry is weakening such a clear cut differentiation.
In the end I guess the book was not a bestseller for nothing and played in several ways with what usually creatives have to do: sell their stuff. Yet, something kept me thinking and combined previously not combined (or even uncombineable) information — making music and mining. Florida would call this an effort of synthesis, at least I hope so. When these previously undetected similarities popped up this morning while riding bike through the rain, I thus thought: “Why not!?” Why not compare apples and oranges and discuss the overlaps of making music and mining. To frame my comparison I chose two famous spatial settings connected to making music and mining: the mine and the studio.
Studios are located in basements and mines can be thousands of meters deep under the earth. So usually if you want to enter either the studio or the mine, you have to go belowground, taking the elevator or using steep staircases. Tunnels and corridors down there are very narrow and the ceiling nearly touches your head. Not only in the winters it can be freezing, yet it is especially the difference between the temperature outside and inside that demands adjustment from musical or mineral workers alike. Uncovered bricks made either of stone or loam: the walls down there seldomly produce the clishé feeling of warmth and comfort. A heat insulation is nowhere to be found. Though cold, breathing is difficult. The air is bad, fine dust or cigarette smoke lies like a screen and covers the lungs of musicians and miners.
Working in mines or studios is bad for ones health. Without daylight the border between day and night vanishes, sometimes work is during brightest sunshine, sometimes in the darkest night — miners or musicians never notice the difference. The internal clock loses its connection to reality. Many use alcohol to cope with this bodily influences, often after workhours, sometimes before. Though usually not viewed favourably, some even drink (or do other drugs) during mining or making music, thereby endangering co-workers and the success of the entire enterprise. Thus, the competence in handling the very specific instruments suffers. Guitars, basses, drums or jackhammers, drills and trolleyst need to be applied with knowledge and experience. Both are knwoledge based professions. Without the ability to play ones respective instrument there is no chance to work successfully neither as a miner, nor as a musician.
Specialization is another key term when it comes to work conditions or job descriptions in mines or studios. Thus, roles of actors are differentiated in order to fullfill the tasks at hand. Some are in charge of the actual frontier, the place where the music happens. This is the place of the miner and the musician. Here music is made and stones are mined. Then there are other actors mainly resposible and concerned with the climate inside the studio or the mine. The examiner (or deputy for ventilation) thereby fullfills similar tasks like the typical producer. Both are responsible to keep the climate within more or less stable parameters in order to allow for conditions necessary for successful work. Lastly the technicians are invaluable parts of studios and mines as well.
Musicians and miners alike transpire during work. Everything is wet from sweat, making music and minig is serious physical work. (short excursion: generally the sweaty Rock Star is a symbol of its own. You have to see that the star actually worked in order to feel he has deserved his position of glory and fame. A bit different are female stars — though rockstars might be similar, there sweat is not allowed. The feminine mask need sto be kept complete, you know — interestingly a big difference to pornography, where the feminine mask is often allowed to fall, in a disturbing manner of course, but this is another story).
After a night recording or a night drilling you feel every bone in your body. Describing their work, in the studio or the mine doing the same over and over again is typical. Musicians recording their 27th take of the song, miners drilling the 32nd stone, both close to collapsing. All surrounded by the prevailing uncertainty that actually no one ever knows, if they will find, what you were looking for: GOLD. After a good day’s work the miner looks at his or her trolley, at the sharp and dark stones and says (experienced as she is): “There will be one or two gold bullions within them.” Some feet above, the musician looks at his or her recorded files, listens to some of the tracks and says (experienced as she is): “There will be one or two golden records among them.”
I guess, there is one difference between miners and musicians to be mentioned: while the miner most certainly will not be the owner of the gold she found, the musician with her golden recording will probably profit from her efforts — if she has the copyright to the recording that eventually makes it to the top. To the top, where both the miner and the musician return to at long last using an elevator or staircases. They leave their workplace behind them breath some fresh air and probably feel the golden glimpse of a sunshine.
