Klarinet Archive - Posting 000612.txt from 2000/11

From: Gary Truesdail <gir@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Beginners/Enthusiasts Welcome?
Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 17:55:41 -0500

Sounds like you are serious. If you really are, and you are aware of what you
are in for, practice wise, and the time commitment it will take, I recommend you
wait 6-12 months to make your purchase of the up grade instrument. At that time
if you still feel serious about the matter don't buy anything but a top of the
line instrument because a lower grade instrument will be have to be replaced in
another year or 3 or 5. Once you have decided that being more than an casual
amateur player is what you want get the best you can afford even if you have to
save $$$ longer to be able to afford it. I am sorry to reveal this to you, {that
is why this message is sent to you and not to the list, you can ask others later
to see if anyone backs me up} but once you become "GOOD" you are no longer a
clarinet player, or even a clarinetist. At that point you will have accomplished
just the opposite of your intended goal. You will have become just a lowly
technician. A master technician, yes, but just an expert an operating the
clarinet. You can, however, become a famous clarinetist only under the
following conditions:
1. You can boast of being on the payroll of a known major musical group,
preferably a group that plays often enough to be able to pay you enough that you
do not have to take a second job.
2. You can boast of being on the payroll of an educational institution that
actually produces musicians that can apply to themselves #1 listed above.
3. You can boast of being on the payroll of a musical group that travels in
order to be where the next gig is and does it often enough that you can pay your
bills and put food in the stomachs of your family members and occasionally allows
you to visit them so you can be there when you little baby shows you he/she can
say "Mom, we want to get married". The life of a road musician passes much
faster than that of a normal and sane person.
4. You can boast of being provided transportation, lodging, meals while spending
3-10 days every 2 months in a recording studio in Los Angeles, Marin County,
Redding, Atlanta, New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, London, or Orem, Utah, or some of
the off-shore exotic places most of us have never heard of. :You can then tell
your friends you played the clarinet parts in the TV cartoons their kids watch or
in the latest movie that is going around.
5. You can mention, while engaged in conversations with others who are
discussing what they do for a living and what they are paid, that some of your
royalty checks are for a smaller amount that the price of the stamp it takes to
mail it to you.
6. You can tell others about all the famous headliners or players you worked for
or with.
7. And my personal favorite: (it has happened only a few times, but it is true)
After a performance an unknown person, male or/and female comes up to you,
obviously in the grip of an emotional moment, asks, with tears rolling down their
cheeks, "How did you do this to me", and then you have a tear with them and say
"I don't know, but I understand" and give them a sincere hug because you both
needed a release. (sometimes Mahler or Poulanc can do that to you)
8 Or, the most important of all, someone, young, middle aged, old, it doesn't
matter, says "That was beautiful, would you mind teaching me how to play and
sound like you do".

You feel good inside, and try to keep your perspective on reality, and try not to
forget, you are nothing more than an expert at the manipulation of a piece of
wood and metal, and that you will be doing it for only a while. You hope, for
your own feeling of worthiness, that when you are gone that you have made a
positive difference in the lives of those around you and that they will remember
and occasionally thank you for what you have given them, that which is carried
within them and, in their own way, is passed on to the younger ones in perpetum.

What we do in the presence of others is to create in them the emotion, love,
sorrow, understanding.....the feelings of humankind. The feelings which we all
have or will have, and a sense that we are all connected through these feelings.

When you have learned that music is simply a medium through which we recreate or
communicate feelings then you understand the importance of using the best
technical tool you can get into your hands. The more the tool can do for you the
more divorced you can become from the physical aspects of operating that tool and
thereby be able to apply more of your inner self to the recreation or
communication of human feelings and understanding. Music which has no feeling to
offer a listener has worth only to the composer or those that play it.

StephanieDavis99@-----.com wrote:

> Mr. Benoit's opinion notwithstanding, I have been thrilled to see all of the
> questions and discussions here in the few days I've been lurking.
>
> I'm a clarinet enthusiast who has recently decided to "make it legal" and, at
> the ripe old age of 40, learn to play the instrument myself. I'm in a bit of
> a financial bind at the moment, but yesterday a friend sold me her plastic
> Vito 7212 student clarinet (a steal at $30; it's only a few years old),
> which a repairman friend is refurbishing for me even as we speak. That is OK
> for a start, but in a few months when I can better afford it I would like to
> step up to a brand new wooden intermediate instrument; probably a Normandy 4
> or Noblet 40. Whatever I get will definitely be a Leblanc instrument.
>
> I hope beginners such as myself are welcome here to learn and to ask a
> question or two. If not, just let me know and I will settle into lurkdom,
> soaking up the knowledge and enjoying the conversation of the more
> accomplished clarinetists.
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Stephanie Davis
> Soon-to-be clarinetist :)
>
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