And the Band Plays On

For the majority of military bands, members are technically regular recruits, although they will likely only fulfill their service playing music. This means that most musicians recruited by the military go through basic training and could possibly be called into combat while serving. Although it isn’t common for musicians to be required to fight, this is a reserve of additional troops the military has up its sleeve and could use at any time. Due to meager non-military state funding, many musicians struggle to find steady work, let alone a job with a decent salary, housing, and good benefits. It is unsurprising then that many are willing to take risks associated with recruitment, even if they wouldn’t join up under different circumstances.⁹A few of the highest-level ensembles, like the President’s Own Marine Band, cannot be called into combat. These groups aren’t very different in playing level or salary from the top orchestras in the country, although their primary function is still military propaganda.

As one of the only games in town, military music is set up as an effective marketing and recruiting tool for US imperialism and nationalism at every level. The music itself acts as propaganda to inspire non-musicians to sign up. In addition, the massively funded ensembles promise solid compensation and job security to musicians without many other opportunities. Military officers, government officials, and others in similar positions of power are incentivized to siphon more tax money into military bands, and away from other forms of public arts funding, because they can personally use these bands to solidify and express their own class status. Finally, the military uses large reserves of talented, well-paid musicians to fortify its own facade of legitimacy with the aesthetics of patriotism.

Growing Resistance

There have always been relatively few opportunities for classical musicians to make a consistent amount of money, but recently, things seem to be reaching a breaking point. Throughout the country, musicians and other art workers are fighting for fair compensation and workers’ rights. Since the Great Recession, a number of major orchestras have gone on strike or faced lockouts while fighting cuts to wages, pensions, and other benefits.¹⁰https://thebaffler.com/salvos/strike-with-the-band-wagner The Metropolitan Opera, one of the most well-known classical institutions in the world, didn’t pay any of its workers for almost a year during the pandemic,¹¹https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/arts/music/met-opera-musicians-deal.html hired scabs for a fundraising gala,¹²https://operawire.com/orchestra-members-fire-back-at-metropolitan-operas-decision-to-hire-non-met-musicians-for-virtual-gala/ enacted pay cuts for the chorus and soloists,¹³https://apnews.com/article/business-health-coronavirus-pandemic-entertainment-music-544cb41a43c951410adb50b1af57de76 and locked out the unionized stage employees.¹⁴https://prospect.org/labor/how-the-met-opera-is-squeezing-its-workers/ The Met orchestra musicians are still in talks with management demanding no pay cuts before the end of their contract on July 31.

Across the street from the Met, students at The Juilliard School, a highly selective training ground for musicians, actors and dancers, recently staged a sit-in demanding the administration freeze tuition for one year. The Socialist Penguins, a student group, organized the action in response to the news that tuition would further increase while so many artists are struggling to survive the rapidly shifting landscape post-pandemic.¹⁵https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/juilliard-student-artists-protests-1183239/ This level of student-led organizing and action had previously seemed nearly impossible at the small, competition-driven conservatory. However, after a year of unprecedented political momentum and increasingly difficult conditions for artists, a new wave of struggle is developing.

When unchallenged, the political use of state-coopted aesthetics helps further obfuscate the truly bloody nature of the U.S. military. The Washington Post recently reported that, since 2015 in Afghanistan alone, the military has paid $2 million to civilians and families in casualty payments.¹⁶https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-military-made-2-million-in-civilian-casualties-payments-over-5-years-in-afghanistan/2020/08/17/cd550af0-d025-11ea-af07-1d058ca137ae_story.html This is despite the fact that it is extremely difficult to apply for and receive these payments, and the military is almost certainly responsible for many more deaths than they officially acknowledge. Beyond its longest standing war, when the U.S. has claimed to be “spreading democracy,” it has actually been murdering civilians, directly fighting or funding coups against democratically elected leaders, and committing or supporting genocide in the form of settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing.

Moving forward, it is vital not to discount the political significance of music and its role in making palatable state violence at home and promoting it abroad. Classical music often expresses and reproduces power for capitalist and state institutions, but this is exactly why it is so important to pay attention to the struggles of musicians and other art workers. And musicians themselves need to look at how their labor is being used, and listen for the politics stated or implied in the art they perform.

When classically-trained artists stop acting as tools for capital and the state, and start building power and solidarity with other workers, they can help pull back an ideological curtain and be powerful assets in the struggle towards liberation. Worsening conditions for classical musicians in the U.S. are increasing political motivations to cut through the smoke and mirrors of patriotic aesthetics.