Okay, listen up. This is important. The American Music Center (AMC) and American Composers Forum (ACF) have teamed up with Columbia University’s Research Center for Arts and Culture to conduct the first major study of living composers. Since many Sequenza21 readers are, in fact, living and do write music, that means you. The study, they say, aims to gather important data to guide their efforts in better serving and advocating for composers of all styles and backgrounds.
If you are a composer, you can be a part of this important research by filling out the online survey at the link below. Should take about 20 minutes of your time. Says here that your participation will broaden the study’s reach and provide a better understanding of current trends in the field. Hie thee thither (but wait until about 2 pm eastern because that’s when the link goes live. )
Hey Dennis! Yeah it really did kind of creep me out, too. I was expecting a lot more questions about number and location of performances, rehearsal time and adequate preparation for performances, etc… They didn’t even seem to know about Last.FM or other smaller music social sites. The questions about downloading were interesting, but even that was focussed on the perception of harm.
It seemed to be driven by a organization-centric fund-raising mentality and use or non-use of AMC online resources and not one truly curious about the nature of our artistic lives.
If anybody wants a copy of the survey questions, let me know. I didn’t take the survey (or at least filed several blanks) because whatever committee designed it doesn’t spent much time outside the academy. It’s big-education big-media oriented. Maybe that was the point, but it sounds more like one of those grant applications … and it’s also very personal about your money. Be warned ahead of time, because the survey itself doesn’t let you go back.
Dennis
Worked for me…
Trevor Reed to me
Hi Jerry,
Thanks for keeping me updated. We believe that these are very isolated instances, most likely resulting from the following issues:
-Composers who enter the survey after they have already completed it (including those who previously took our pilot survey) aren’t allowed to proceed past the login page.
-The survey has been tested with the most recent versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, but may not be compatible with older versions or other browsers. In most cases, a pop up warning will appear explaining any incompatibility issues.
The survey has already been completed by hundreds of respondents. For composers who are not successful starting the survey, we recommend logging in using a different browser or computer.
Best,
Trevor G. Reed, Research Coordinator
Research Center for Arts and Culture
Teachers College | Columbia University
Just finished it. Took 5 minutes. No problems.
Didn’t work for me either. I’m bagging it.
I’m puzzled. I completed the first page and never could pull up the rest.
I’m surprised that Teachers college is an interested party–I thought their that k-12 education was their line.
This study is more interested in your income than anything else.
We need to decide how best to skew this research! 😉