Yesterday evening, whilst browsing through Instagram, I was shocked to stumble across this picture of a young female saxophonist which promoted 'Celebrating music in
our schools' month. A seemingly normal picture from a distance, it wasn't until
I clicked onto the photo that I realised the mouthpiece from her instrument was
missing, thus rendering the saxophone impossible to play! Her embouchure alone
suggests that she intends to try and play the saxophone like a brass
instrument. Still recovering from the shock, it wasn't for another few minutes
that I noticed her hands were also the opposite way round to the positions
they're meant to be in (which as any woodwind player will know - it's left hand
on the top of the instrument, right hand on the bottom). Crying with
laughter/disbelief, I naturally shared the image to Facebook where it received
a similar response from my friends.
Wrong side, wrong arm. Naked. (Also, that's a terrible bow hold) |
Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence. As a student at a
music school, I have sat in the common room, on numerous occasions, with a
number of my peers who have taken great pleasure in pointing out actors and
actresses in various television shows, miming playing instruments (which they
clearly have no idea how to play). A great favourite is spotting backwards
violins and flutes which, in all honesty, look extraordinarily uncomfortable to
hold, let alone play. But it seems our small audience aren't the only ones
searching for these ill informed public images. When searching for images to
include in my article, I came across numerous wordpress sites, tumblr accounts
and twitter pages dedicated solely to this topic. I was especially captivated
by a page I found on Pinterest, aptly named "Modelsnot Musicians" by Jennifer Thomas. The author
describes her confusion as to why these companies "don't just hire real
musicians so it looks authentic". Sadly, this is often the case. Instead
of hiring musicians to pose/act for a advertisement campaign or the like, the
company will try and pass off a pretty model as the beautiful/sexy (depending
on the product) man or woman creating music.
Seems backwards Cello is in this Spring |
Probably the most famous example to date of the argument of models vs
musicians, is the 2014 Spring Italia Vogue edition which showed a pretty cellist
on their front cover. This would have been fine apart from the fact that the
cello was backwards. As a musician, seeing such a famous and prominent fashion
magazine making this huge mistake is almost unthinkable. One might argue that
the cello is simply an accessory in the scene as it is a fashion magazine after
all and not The Strad(!) however; I
find the fact that the designers for this scene didn't even check the position
of the cello (let alone look it up before the shoot), kind of offensive. I also
found the fact that there was no media coverage on Vogue's blatant error rather
ridiculous as an uproar came from both professional and amateur musicians alike
on various social media. I have found it confusing that when discussing my
issue with the lack of interest from the media on the problem of false
portrayal of instruments with my non-musical friends, they find even the
thought of complaining about the issue 'stuck up' and inconsequential compared
to everything else going on in the world. Now although I agree that these
issues may not be as important as the news headlines, it's still a distribution
of incorrect information.
In an age where beauty is key and talent comes second, it seems these
issues raised over the portrayal of the Arts in popular culture won't be
disappearing any time soon. Personally however, I'm going to keep wondering why
musicians can't be hired to be photographed doing what they do best.