3.5.2. Entrepreneurial

Business acumen has become increasingly important in the 21st century, as the profession has become more competitive. Some of the interviewees felt that the competitive environment has inspired some positive consequences in terms of innovation and creativity:

Somehow now people have to be a bit more creative and imaginative about making things happen, which has its advantages. The fact that it forces people to be creative is a really good thing but I think it puts a lot of pressure on people to spend time on filling in funding applications and doing all of those other things rather than having the luxury of just practising their craft. (P6)

This account of the way that this business perspective underpins artistic work further underlines the characterisation of musicians as entrepreneurs. Another interviewee described some of the many such skills she employs to pull together a single performance:

I feel like I have to split my brain so many different ways. I'm the promoter of a group, I do the marketing, I do the design of the concept of the concert, then I need to do the logistics on the day of the concert, and I need to perform. Performing often ends up feeling like it's the last thing that has to be done, and that feels a bit weird. All of these other things need to have happened for the performance to happen. In a way they're more important otherwise you'll never get to the performance, but actually I feel like the performance should be the most important bit but it gets pushed down the pile. (P3)

Since business skills like the ones listed in this participant's account have become essential to success as a chamber musician, higher education institutions must equip their music students with a range of these skills.

#### 3.5.3. Social

An important facet of chamber musicians' work is working with other people. The social dynamics of small groups in any context can be intense, and in the context of collaborative performance, where there are artistic decisions to make and egos to bruise, these dynamics can be fragile indeed (Murnighan and Conlon 1991; King 2006):

There are all sorts of interpersonal skills that come into play: diplomacy, tact, kindness, honesty, reliability, because for working in particularly a small-group situation you need to be a good colleague in all those general senses. [ . . . ] You have to learn as a musician what the difference is between criticising somebody else's musicianship and working together to find an idea of how something might go, and that actually it's not a question of right and wrong or superior and inferior; it's just working together to find an agreed endpoint. (P6)

These interpersonal skills seem to be as important today as they have been for decades, probably centuries.

As well as nurturing existing relationships with co-collaborators, the participants spoke of the importance of networking with other artists to generate new and exciting collaborations:

You need to be good at networking with people—and not just phoning up people on a superficial level, it's like becoming friends with people with similar interests and then looking at how you can collaborate together, because I think that the most interesting partnerships come from genuine relationships with people. (P3)

Interpersonal skills extend beyond the inner workings of the group itself to how well the musicians can connect with audiences and organisers.

You can't just walk on, play the programme, be very formal, say nothing, and walk off and expect the audience to have a wonderful time [ . . . ] I think most societies really appreciate a well-rounded evening's entertainment. They want to hear what you've got to say about music, and you're enhancing their enjoyment. (P4)

This point was made by the more recently established chamber musicians who were interviewed. This indicates that this skill may have become more important to today's audiences and, by extension, the promoters who arrange concerts.

Meanwhile, social media has become a new way of reaching audiences in the 21st century. This presents challenges and opportunities for chamber musicians. One of the more established musicians described some of the pitfalls of social media and self-promotion:

We hate all of the social media, because we're all of a certain age. We weren't raised with that, with the expectation that you self-promote; that you post stuff the whole time. [ . . . ] This is the thing that I know is affecting youngsters now. They go on social media and they see that all their chums: "Why are they in Seville playing with that group? I thought I was being asked to play that and I'm not", and that brings huge questions about worth and inadequacy, and I think it's extremely dangerous this whole business of comparison. (P7)

There is an excellent point here around the effects of social media on musicians' mental health and wellbeing, given the expectation that they should engage with it to some extent professionally, if not personally. Nevertheless, networking and marketing via social media are important tools for the 21st century chamber musician.

#### 3.5.4. Self-Awareness

All of the musicians interviewed spoke of the importance of developing a critical self-awareness as soon as possible around what they are good at, what they enjoy, and what they want to do. Speaking about his higher education teaching experiences, one of the interviewees explained:

I guess what students are trying to do early on and what I'm trying to help them with is to figure out what they want to do and what they're good at doing and what they enjoy playing and all that stuff. (P1)

By cultivating these skills in self-reflection during their studies, musicians are then able to make more informed decisions about their working lives (López-Íñiguez and Bennett 2020). The capacity for reflection continues to be important for professional development. One player spoke of a gradual, hard-won awareness of what brought him the most joy musically:

I was sat there cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the gamelan playing multiphonics and making these huge gongs resonate in the national concert hall and I just thought: "This is it. This is what I want to be doing. I need variety". (P8)

Various researchers have emphasised the importance of teaching students how to engage in self-reflection (e.g., Esslin-Peard 2017), and have come up with innovative ways of facilitating this process (Bennett 2013). Self-awareness through reflection seems to be a vital skill for 21st-century chamber musicians throughout their careers as they make decisions on everything from who to collaborate with and the kinds of performance projects they find most rewarding, to more practical considerations around working patterns and travel commitments.

#### 3.5.5. Resilience

The final skill that 21st-century chamber musicians need is resilience. To navigate their competitive professional environment, particularly in the early years of their careers, chamber musicians need to develop a thick skin and find ways of maintaining their motivation:

You have to have great staying power and be very good at putting up with disappointments when you do auditions and you think you've played really well but you don't get anywhere, and when you meet this age-old conundrum that you don't get offered professional work until you've had experience of playing professionally. Little by little you get those few opportunities and you've got to be very persistent and keep finding ways to not get depressed, and basically have a life support system. (P5)

One way of fostering resilience may be through embedding self-reflection in music curricula. The relationship between resilience and self-reflection, whilst not yet empirically explored in relation to musicians, has begun to be explored among competitive athletes, with studies suggesting that self-reflection and self-insight may result in greater resilience (Cowden and Meyer-Weitz 2016).
