Musicians should embrace carry-on baggage fees

ByBret Pimentel

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People are outraged over an airline’s announcement that its cheapest fares will no longer cover carry-on baggage. (This isn’t the first time that airlines have charged fees for carry-on bags.)

My experience flying with musical instruments as carry-ons has been stressful at best. This passage from an economics textbook rings true to me:

photo, Bradley Gordon

The battle begins in the gate where air travelers elbow their way to the front of the line to board the aircraft as soon as possible in order to grab an overhead bin. Once on the aircraft, the real fight begins. Some passengers with seats in the rear of the plane toss their bags into the front compartments to be sure they get a spot. People with oversized bags cram them into the narrow bins, pushing the bags, coats, and hats of passengers with correctly sized luggage into the corners. People ask for help from the flight attendants but their pleas are ignored. The flight attendants say they are too short staffed to handle passenger disagreements concerning bags. Losers are left standing with their “homeless” bags. …

Are people just selfish and rude? Most economists say no, they are just responding to the absence of market incentives. The overhead bins are a commons. It’s Dodge City. Nobody “owns” the space in the overhead bins. People can’t trust strangers to act with cooperation or courtesy. The result is “warfare.”

Things could be different. Creating an overhead bin market would bring out the best of people. Here is how. Most of today’s airlines charge people extra to check a bag and offer the overhead bins for “free.” It should be just the reverse.

Nobody likes paying more. But a carry-on fee is a small percentage of an airline ticket. And for most musicians it’s a small price to pay for better access (maybe even guaranteed access!) to the overhead storage. Is it worth the price of a box of reeds or two to know my saxophone will arrive in one piece? Or the price of a pound or two of cane to ensure that my bassoon reaches its destination? I think so.

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    The question of when to permit applause at a classical music performance has already been discussed to death. In summary, some people believe that you should encourage applause only after a complete work is finished, because:

    • It allows the piece to be heard as a unified whole
    • It’s respectful to the musicians and/or audience
    • It’s current accepted concert etiquette
    • The performance might be recorded, streamed, etc. and the applause interferes

    But others believe it’s acceptable to let audiences clap between movements, or even during them, because:

    • Some classical composers would have expected and even encouraged it
    • Holding applause until the end is a relatively recent thing
    • Shaming concertgoers for expressing enthusiasm is rude, paints classical music audiences as elitist, and drives potential new attendees away
    • You’re allowed to clap, chat, sing along, eat/drink, or whatever at lots of other kinds of concerts

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    I could eat dinner at a hamburger joint, or at an innovative Michelin-starred restaurant. These are potentially equally enjoyable and valid dining experiences. At the first place nobody would think it strange if I picked the onions out of my burger, or dipped my fries in some ketchup. At the other restaurant, a waiter might bring me unfamiliar dishes that require some explanation and even instructions in order to experience them as the chef intended.

    If I ask the waiter at the casual burger place for instructions on how to eat, I will probably get a strange look. And if I request some ketchup for my avant-garde cuisine, I’ll probably get the same.

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    Audience members may arrive with differing expectations, and nobody wants to feel awkward or annoyed. Help them out. Trust longtime classical music enthusiasts to be open to experiencing music in a less-rigid atmosphere when given permission, and trust your newcomers to be respectful when you explain your expectations in a non-condescending way.

    I suggest being clear about your preferred modes of audience feedback, and including these expectations in the printed program and announcing them from the stage at each and every performance. Let’s not put the burden on audiences to somehow know the “correct” way to behave. Let’s use our musical taste and expertise to interpret individual performance situations for them, the same way we select and interpret the repertoire.

    [Applause/boos here. Thank you.]

  • Staying motivated for summer practicing

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  • But I can do it in the practice room

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    • It’s possible that your mastery of the music is good, but your stress is above normal. In this case the problem isn’t your practicing per se. Improve your ability to play in front of others with techniques for managing performance anxiety. These might include healthy lifestyle habits (sleep, nutrition, and exercise) or mental exercises (like visualization, affirmations, or mindfulness practice).

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  • Practicing and the two-minute rule

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    David Allen’s well-known book Getting Things Done is always within arm’s reach at my desk. I find its concepts and techniques valuable for managing my time and productivity.

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    • Make and notate an interpretive decision (You can always change your mind later. For now, pick a plan and try it out rather than leaving it up in the air.)
    • Choose and mark a good place to breathe
    • Settle a question or conflict by consulting the full score or accompaniment part
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  • Wind controllers as “practice” woodwinds

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    Can you use a wind controller, like the Akai EWI, the Yamaha WX, or the Roland Aerophone, as a convenient and/or quiet way to practice a “real” woodwind instrument, like the saxophone or the flute?

    No, not really.

    You can practice some very limited aspects of woodwind playing. For example, each of those wind controllers has fingering patterns that resemble (but are not identical to) the fingerings of standard woodwinds. If you are in the very early stages of playing a woodwind instrument and still trying to memorize fingerings, I suppose you could use a wind controller to help you with that specific task, to the extent that the fingerings do match.

    The Akai instruments have saxophone, flute, and oboe modes, plus the more flexible “EWI” mode that is quite saxophone-like, and even a couple of variations of a valved-brass-inspired mode. The Yamaha WX5 has several saxophone modes and a flute mode. The Roland instruments are set up to map fairly directly to saxophone fingerings, even going so far as to include some of the saxophone’s more problematic features like “palm” keys. However, with that exception, none even have all the keys needed to learn proper saxophone, flute, or oboe technique.

    (None of the instruments currently has a clarinet mode, presumably because the real-clarinet phenomenon of overblowing to odd-numbered partials raises some complications for an electronic instrument capable of many octaves of range. And none of the instruments has the physical keys to reasonably approximate bassoon technique.)

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    And, of course, no major wind controller currently provides a realistic approach to tone production. None has a reed that functions as such, and none has a flute-like embouchure hole. There are some superficial similarities like breath pressure being mapped to volume, or a bite-able mouthpiece that allows for something like saxophone-style jaw vibrato (or to the ill-advised reed instrument technique of bending pitch with jaw movement).

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  • Simple and effective cues

    ByBret Pimentel

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One Comment

  1. I think if you have the option to purchase more space than your “allotted” carry-ons you have now, I could get behind this – Event if it was $100 for a 3rd carry on so I can safely get my tenor in the overhead I’d do it.

    Otherwise I always purchase a seat towards the back of the plane so I am one of those first people on and with airlines like AIr Canada, if you go to the gate and explain you are a musician they will let you be one of the first people on.

    I haven’t flown that much, but to say in 20+ flights I’ve never had an issue with getting my horns on I usually travel with Alto, flute, clarinet, pic – so luckily non of the bigger horns which helps a LOT. I usually can’t get all that AND a tenor in the cabin, so I stopped flying with my tenor.

    Reply

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