Klarinet Archive - Posting 000175.txt from 1995/12

From: "Chan, Jeff" <jeff.chan@-----.COM>
Subj:
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 18:48:41 -0500

Oliver --

My suggestion is to get thee to a chamber music workshop!

I gather from your message that you are in southern California. I don't know
about chamber music societies in your area, but in northern California, there is

a group called the Chamber Musicians of Northern California. They have weekend

workshops where there are many players of all ability levels who would be very
happy to play whatever you want without the critical putdowns.

In addition, in the summer, there are weeklong workshops where the same thing
happens, only for a longer time period. They may be a little farther away
(three that I can think of off hand are at Cal State at Humboldt in Arcata,
Ashland Oregon and Boseman Idaho), but they really are a lot of fun. (I have
been going to Humboldt for over five years now.)

There really is no substitute for playing music with other PEOPLE. The
interactions are 99% of the fun.

Jeff Chan (Amateur Clarinettist at Large)
Jeff.Chan@-----.com

--snip--
>I had pretty much resigned myself to the realization that I would die
>without ever having had the chance to play some beloved pieces for
>clarinet.
--snip--
>"Right," I replied, "and I'm taking
>an hour out each way to drive to USC and to pay for parking and to
>haunt the halls of the Music Department and to put notices up on the
>bulletin boards that an erstwhile professor of chemistry wants to
>play a sextet and then miracle of miracles a group actually gets
>together after about a half-dozen attempts and after it is all over
>I have to face the humiliation of one or another of them saying, 'You
>know, Ollie, you're really not such a bad guy, but your playing
>really isn't quite up to our standards. Tell you what, the next time
>why don't you wait for our call instead of coming to us.'"