The orchestra's latest pay offer, the musicians say, was for a 1.5 percent total increase over four years.

Other musicians said the Met's players shouldn't need much help.

Of course, it sounds like something you've heard musicians say before.

A musician said to me recently that it was really hard to write a happy song.

It was the first time in my 12 years here that I felt the board and management could hear what the musicians were saying.

"They can learn from listening to the music," the musician said.

But both musicians said they first started singing in the church as children and knew early that religious music would be their life's work.

But then, as one musician said recently, cable television came.

The musicians could not say what effect its chamber music parties might have.

"I feel so used," said one musician upon leaving the room.