Klarinet Archive - Posting 000438.txt from 2001/08

From: Tski1128@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] I'm new with questions
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 22:11:32 -0400

Ah music education, OK you got me started!! I have the very unique
auditioning graduates of some of the "finest" music schools in the country. I
will tell you that some of the students of what everybody on this list would
consider "Gods on MT. Olympus" didn't fare as well as students from lesser
known programs. I have to say there was this guy with a polish name from some
Florida school whose students consistently kicked butt on our auditions. The
problem I heard on the auditions was command of the absolute basics of
playing. Tone, articulation, and just basic musicianship. I think that the
basic study with a principal player in the orchestra concept my be flawed.
These people tend to be highly specialized players who know a very specific
part of the clarinet literature. How many orchestra jobs out there pay as
much as my retirement from the army? NOT MANY!!! What are the skills needed
to earn money playing the clarinet if you're not the one with "that thing"
the committee wants to hear that day? Will just studying the Excerpts and
recital literature give you the skills to freelance and at least play a gig
if you're called? I don't believe it will. Not many clarinetists that showed
up to an Army Field Band audition could play a written out "jazz" solo for
"When the Saints go Marching in " that was mailed to them weeks before the
audition. How is that player going to be able to do a musical in a decent pit
orchestra? Then there is sight reading, very non existent in most of the
players I heard. So I ask what would be considered a "Balanced" musical
education that would make someone a musician instead of just a clarinetist in
four plus years? Because I firmly believe that a reasonably good undergrad
clarinet performance graduate should at the end of four years be competitive
on any of the military band auditions. I will tell you that most are not. I
also am certain that other clarinetists from other military bands will say
the same thing (if they didn't have to worry about the fact that they're
still in).
So I sit in the music dept. at U of MD. I firmly believe that if I didn't
know what it was I wanted to learn. And if I wasn't already a working
professional in the Balto-Dc area. There isn't anything that I'm being taught
in the undergrad performance program that would really make me more
employable. This isn't the fault of this university over other universities
this is the a problem with Academic approach to that of a commercial approach
to education. I think Curtis uses a very commercial approach to music
education. You get a position in an Orchestra, you study with a great teacher
and you spend your waking moments trying to learn that repertoire as best as
you possible can. That's what you're goal is for going there. That is what
you do. A different concert every week, not 3 concerts a semester. You
basically work like an apprentice musician. That is not the rest how music
schools on the rest of the planet work. There are these stories of people who
never had a private teacher untill college and then went on to win a major
audition. I think that just doesn't happen much any more. Chances are if
Curtis picks the best 18 year old clarinetists it can this person is still
going to be one of the best 4 years later. Problably for 7-8 years if still
in a situation where they can practice and learn. So this rant leads me to
one basic statment. Learn the basics, learn them well. When I auditioned
clarinetists for the army it was never a scene of 15 people showing up for an
audition at that was so close the committee had a hard time picking. It was
usually 15 people 14 of whom really not having basic command of the ax and
one who really did! This made it very easy for the committee. I'd really like
to know if orchestra auditions are like that too.

Sorry for the rant.

Tom Puwalski, author of " The Clarinetists Guide to Learning Klezmer" and
formerly of the Tsar's army band.

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