Article contents
Beyond the reef: role conflict and the professional musician in Hawaii
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2008
Extract
There have been, since Becker's pioneering work in the field of jazz (Becker 1951), a small handful of empirical studies that have focused on the popular musician in society – most specifically with respect to the conflicts such musicians can feel between what they want to play and what is demanded of them by their audience and the larger commercial market. Becker pointed out the vast differences between the expectations of the audience, those of the employers and those of the performer. In general, the audience expects the musician to play commercially popular tunes in an orthodox manner. The employer, concerned about money, applies financial sanctions to coerce the musician to fulfil audience expectations. The musicians, on the other hand, prefer to play the more individually expressive and esoteric forms of their music – in this case, jazz.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985
References
- 1
- Cited by