“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skilful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” - William A. Foster
Maybe, it is that hard. According to the quote above, you need:
1. High intention
2. Sincere effort
3. Intelligent direction
4. Skilful execution
and the most difficult of all: wisdom. You need it to produce quality. You have to be wise to make a choice out of many alternatives. But what I don't understand is, sometimes there are not so many alternatives, there are, in fact, only two. Are you going to do things badly, or well? Piece of cake.
I went to a concert last night. A well-known string quartet from France were invited to perform in Bandung's most popular cultural centre, and it was a free-entrance show, something I've never done with professional musicians since I started my career in concert organising. I came home pissed, because of how everything was executed.
First of all, the concert was late. The organiser seemed to wait for more people before they let us in, then there were a little introduction about the artists and the whole project. It was a little dry. By the end of this opening they forgot to tell people to turn off their cellphones nor store their camera, and as it turned out, flash lights were everywhere during the concert. Very annoying. Some guys with tele lenses (suspect: journalists) flick their camera again and again and were walking around inside the auditorium to get a good angle.
Second of all, we as audience were left in the dark when we found that there was nothing about the night's program nor the artists. The concert manager told us we would listen to Schubert, Debussy and Smetana, but he didn't even mention the details. When the quartet played the Debussy, my friend asked me whether it was really Debussy because the music did start sounding like Debussy, but in the middle it started to sound very Czech-ish.
Third of all, the audience, who apparently were classical concert rookies, kept on clapping after movements. I started to fidget in my seat. Until the first-half, no one from the organiser was saying anything about it. Then during intermission I approached one of the centre staff and asked her if she could tell the audience that the normal arrangement for classical music concert is to clap after all the movements are done. It's a part of educating the society, I think, and if they want to do it for the next few years, they should care about such things. But no one came to announce anything after the break (not even to issue a warning to people with flashes), and then someone told us to clap so the artists would go back to the stage. So they came back, but alas! Poor first violinist, he was in the middle of a meal when he arrived on stage because his cheek was bulging with what seems to be food. Not cool!
As far as the quartet themselves, the only thing I can say is that some groups have name and fame which precede their quality. It's just too bad. I was anticipating this concert with all my heart, I really, really miss a fabulous concert, and this group has quite something in Europe (they won prizes, for God sake!), and they have existed for quite some time, but they all played like a bunch of talented, but lazy school kids. It didn't touch any corner of my soul.
Overall, it was a good waste of a what should be a good project. There's was no enthusiasm in the room last night, and as organiser, I know that a huge responsibility of the job to inject energy to a show. Because I feel it myself. Whenever I'm thrilled about a concert, my artists always reciprocate the same amount of energy back and they are able to project the same thing to the audience to ensure a success. In contrary, when I'm not happy about something, when I'm distracted or when I think the artists suck, usually I'll have an awful evening. But back to quality, I just can't understand why some people simply don't want to make an effort to achieve a conducive situation where everyone can be happy and can get the best out of it. Printing a programme wouldn't cost so much, and it certainly would teach something to the audience. They'll have better things to do than clicking their Goddamn camera all night long. And it certainly didn't take an hour to teach the audience to hold their hands until a piece is finished thoroughly. It's called classical concert education and if you really care about what you do and whom you're serving, you should take time to do this. And never assume that people come with this kind of knowledge. It's not Europe, and classical music is not at home here. The frustrating thing for me is that none of these things are difficult, but you have to want to do it. That's what Foster called as high intention.
But in the end I must agree with Aristotle when he said that "quality is not an act, it's a habit." I happen to know that the people who organise the concert last night were not used to it. Stupid of me to expect them to perform better, when mediocre is their middle name. After all, if you ask a fish to climb a tree, people will tell you that you're the monkey.
