Klarinet Archive - Posting 000217.txt from 1999/02

From: "Rob Breen" <robert.v.breen@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Sadie Delaney (was Women and Orchestras)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 14:06:00 -0500

Roger Shilcock wrote:

>It's uplifting to know about Sadie Delany. However, noone should *have* to
>be a hero(ine). Why should people from "minority" backgrounds have to be
>several times as competent as those from "majority" backgrounds to achieve
>things?

I took a somewhat different message away from my reading of the Sadie
Delany
posting. Rather seeing a story about people from a *minority* background
having to over-achieve to make it in a *majority* world, I saw a story
about the
remarkable capacity of the human spirit simply to achieve. The obvious
obstacles that the Delany family had to overcome speak to me, not as
evidence of required extra effort, but rather of the quality of that effort
in the
first place.

What has this to do with the clarinet? In my never ending reach for ever
greater refinement in my skills, I can get really bogged down and tempted
to settle for a little less. What the heck, I keep getting calls to play,
must I
not be doing something right? Why bust my chops so hard? Then I read a
story like the Delany's and that little voice in my other ear just won't be
still. It keeps insisting that I have it in me to do just a little bit
better
than I did yesterday, to try just a little bit harder. If these other
folks can
overcome obstacles far greater than I have ever known then I have no
excuse whatsoever.

Regards,
Rob

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