Musical Network

One of my homework assignments this week was to map out my social network within my program in school. And since I am a violinist and most people in my program work within the communications field, I thought this assignment was going to be really hard and humiliating for me. I thought I didn't make many contacts throughout my years in the program and expected to sit in front of a blank page and wonder which name I could write in my non-existent network.

But to my surprise, I was wrong. I sat down in front of a page and the names just kept pouring out. One after another, I remembered people I worked with on various group projects, people I sat next to throughout a semester and people with whom I went out for a drink on different occasions.

The page filled up quickly and when I typed the map on a power point slide I ran out of space and had to use different sizing and spacing tricks in order to fit at least some of my network's nodes on the slide.

Then I realized how easy it is to network and how natural it is for people to create ties with each other. Without a consious effort, it seems I have created a network of connections in my program in school. This makes me wonder how big my network is in the music world. I've been playing the violin since I was seven years old, and for many years all the people I met were only musicians.

The classical music world is relatively small. And even though the network is spread out across many continents, it's easy for musicians to meet each other because they travel often and perform in different countries. Almost in every concert I play I meet someone who performed with another musician with whom I've worked. Recently, thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, it's easier to keep in touch with the different musicians I work with, even if they live on a different continent.

I think that if I tried to map out my music network it would be very large and extremely complicated, something resembling a Bach fugue. So I think I'm I am going to try.