In the midst of all this economic turbulence, good news is always welcome. Today I was listening to the news on my way to work and I heard that the Columbus Symphony Orchestra’s management and union musicians have reached an agreement that will keep them going.

For most of this year, the CSO has been disbanded due to a lack of funds. There was talk of pay cuts for the musicians, they went on strike, a bunch of the management dudes were laid off because they had no actual work to do, the summer concert series was canceled, yadda yadda yadda.

There was later another proposal put out on the table that would cut out several of the musicians and so they rejected it. Now they have reached an agreement which preserves all of the positions of the full-time musicians, though they are receiving a pay cut of about $90 per week and their pay will be further reduced next year. Their season has also been reduced by at least 12 concerts, if memory serves (and it usually doesn’t.)

This is pleasant news. Hooray for the arts, right? That’s not why I’m writing this post. I’m writing this post because I heard a quote from one of the musicians that made me a little mad.

He said: “Symphony musicians operate at stress levels that air-traffic controllers deal with.”

The musicians that were guests of this particular program clarified this statement, saying that they are under immense pressure while performing in public because they only get one shot at a musical piece and if they make a mistake, they can’t take it back. That makes sense. I can see that being stressful… but I think it takes some pretty hardcore self-importance to draw a comparison between a musical performance and the direction of flight traffic.

In fact, I’d have trouble rating that stress above almost anything. Making a mistake while playing music only hurts the pride and perhaps the reputation of that particular musician. If an air-traffic controller makes a mistake, people will probably die. If I make a mistake at my job, it can potentially damage school records. If Pasty makes a mistake at his job, every mobile device on the planet would be eaten alive by evil viruses. If Sullivan made a mistake at his job we’d have a radioactive zombie epidemic to deal with.

Some of those may have been exaggerations. I don’t mean to say that professional musicians have the least important job in the world, just that this dude (Stephen Secan) needs to chill. Screwing up your oboe solo isn’t going to send anybody to their fiery death. And if you’re really getting yourself that worked up about every performance, then maybe you should think about making a career change.