Klarinet Archive - Posting 000601.txt from 1997/05

From: OLIVER@-----.EDU
Subj: Paris, anyone.
Date: Sat, 24 May 1997 07:21:04 -0400

Against my better judgment I'll divulge the fact that
I'll be working at l'Institut National des Recherches
Agronomiques in Versailles the month of June and living
at La Cite Universitaire in Paris. The last time
I was there I took my clarinet but couldn't find a soul
willing to play duets with a rank amateur. I didn't even get
a response to my note to the student from the U. of Texas living
at La Fondation des Etats Unis and on a clarinet
scholarship for a year. That's what nudged me toward getting
into MUSIC-X via computer in a big way.

When one visits Paris one really ought not to
spend all one's time working 8-5 then playing clarinet in
a dormitory room every evening, but if a single one of you folks
says, "Sure, I'll be in Paris in June, let's play some duets,"
I'll bring my clarinet. Otherwise it will be just
excess baggage. Still, a photo of some itinerant clarinetists
at Trocadero (collection hat on pavement) and the one of
the sole clarinetist at Yosemite would make a nice pair. . .

8-)

For you professionals among us, I don't want you to
be offended by what I write. I know some of you on this
list earn your living playing clarinet, so my whimsy
is bound to rub some of you the wrong way.

Mark Twain once wrote a piece (maybe it was in "Innocents
Abroad") about members of the aristocracy getting summer
jobs driving stage coaches in Hyde Park rather as a lark,
but recoiling from the horrible thought of actually doing
something like that for a living. Playing the clarinet
is for me that lark because I had to make the hard choice
long ago for reasons connected with limited talent
and motivation I would just never be able to cut it with
you professionals. So I beg your indulgence.

Paris DOES beckon, in any case. . .

Oh, yeah, and I'll meet my wife in London where we'll stay
in a self-catering apartment for a week starting around July 1
and then drive to the Cotswolds where we'll stay
a week and then on to Yorkshire for a week, so if there's
a community band that needs a second (or third) clarinet
for a rehearsal sometime in the interval July 1-23, let's
see what we can do. (My wife doesn't know I'm writing
this. Whata mistaka ta maka.)

Oliver