 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2004-05-09 10:02
I have 2 questions for you.
1. How old were you when you decided that you wanted to make a living from music?
2. Why did you want to do this?
I think I was about 10 years old, the first reference I made to the subject (that I can remember) is in an essay, where I wrote "When I grow up I want to be a composer and a music teacher". But I think that the idea of being a professional musician (player and composer and teacher) had appealed to me before then.
I made the decision to try and make a living out out music because I enjoy it more than anything else I do. Who wouldn't want to make money from having fun?:)(yes, I know it involves hard work, but it is worth it)
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2004-05-09 13:36
I wanted to be a professional since a few weeks into playing the clarinet - I must have been about 12.
Things have changed - I'm halfway through my music degree and the realities of the profession, to me, leave much to be desired.
Realist? Lazy? Unwillingness? Don't want it bad enough?
Probably. But I guess that's how you seperate 'wanting' from 'being'.
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2004-05-09 14:28
I was 19 years old at the University of Michigan in a pre-med. program, and probably on my way to Vietnam as a medic.
William D. Revelli conducted the symphonic wind ensemble (the band), but the orchestral program seemed to be for me, so I transferred to Juilliard. The NYC music scene was great, and I've been here ever since. I've played the clarinet professionally for over 35 years, and it's been a ball making music for a living.
Good luck to all who go for it!
Happy Mother's Day!
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-05-10 14:59
Actually, I knew John when he was in high school, and he was a darn good player then. He may have started in pre-med, but the clarinet was his first love.
John - I'm sure you would have been good doctor, but there are plenty of them, and very few clarinetists who've done what you've done.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2004-05-10 18:34
Amazingly enough I had a strong desire to do a Doctorate in Philosophy but ended up in Music and finished with a degree in Performance under Harold Wright at what was then the Boston Conservatory....I also had a desire to do a degree in French literature and received a sizable grant from the Canadian government to do a year in France studying french literature...alas life goes on.
As for the clarinet It has always been a passion and I am lucky to be able to say I am in decent orchestra and freelance a great deal as a result of my desire to play...
David Dow
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-05-10 19:28
Actually, I "turned professional" when I was 16. My uncle (a professional musician) asked me to accompany him to one of his gigs at a hotel in the Catskill mountains (New York). I brought my saxophone and clarinet, played a bunch of standards for an hour and was paid $20.
I was hooked for life.
btw - That was just after the dinosaurs became extict and $20 was really worth $20 ..GBK
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-05-10 20:01
Funny, my first "professional" gig was also at around age 16, playing shows three nights a week at a local dinner theatre, also for $20 a night (which was big money for me back then). What's ironic (and depressing) is that now, thirty years later, playing the same shows around town will get you the same $20 a night, plus or minus a few --- no increase for inflation, which I'm sure has been many hundreds of percent in the interim! One more piece of evidence that live musical performance has declined precipitously in popularity over the last few decades.
Think about that before you embark upon a performance career.....
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Author: wjk
Date: 2004-05-10 20:46
Keep in mind that you might work in another profession and still be a "professional" musician---You can get paying gigs and teach, for example. There is always a way to incorporate music into your life. (even if it is not your primary source of income).
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2004-05-11 13:49
Hey Ken:
Thanks for the kind words; we both may have made good "anything else's," but got hooked on the clarinet early and have done quite well with it.
My suggestion is, whatever the age is, stick with your dreams, but be careful what you dream for...it might come true!
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: William
Date: 2004-05-11 16:18
Even though I always liked music--learned to sing at 4 0r 5 and went to lots of band concerts with my parents--my early ambition was to be a doctor, all through gradeschool. I started the clarinet in 4th grade, but didn't really do much with it until my freshman year in high school where I went to a district music festival and got a first rating on a class C solo. The next fall, we took a "field trip" to Madison (WI-USA) to see the Benny Goodman Story currently in the theators. After that movie, I started taking lessons in Madison and, back home, joined the local adult band and a neighboring city band that paid 50 cents a concert. My band director suggested that I skip the class B solo/ensemble level and gave my the class A clarinet solo Weber Concertino--which I went from District to State with and got a 1st Division rating (from no other than Hymie Voxman, "the man" that wrote the book I was taking private lessons from). I think that it was shortly after that when I switched career goals from medicine to music and joined both the musicians union and an adult band in Madison that paid all of $8.00 MPTF a concert --and from that decision I have never looked back. (FYI--my half hour lessons from Madisons top clarinet teacher cost $2.00 and I studied with him for the rest of high school)
In retrospect, udging from my skills with a reed knife, I am not sure that a medical career would have been in the best interests of my patients anyhow. However, if someone might have invented a "Brain Wizard" (ala B Armatos' REED WIZARD), I might have been able to make at least eight brains out of every room of ten patient think with good cogitaive and balanced facility. Sadly, (or fortunately), I will never know--but the life of professional teaching and playing has been very good for me, as well as my patients (opps) audience. I have no regrets--except for the "big bucks" I might have earned for balancing all those brains.................
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-05-11 17:59
Hi,
I played my first professional, paid gig on tenor sax working Saturday nights the Eagles Club in Port Clinton, OH; I was 15 at the time and had two years of HS Dance Band and one summer at Interlochen under my belt at the time. I played with the same band, the Four Kings of Swing, for about 3 years (how's that for a name).
I knew music would be my career (I wanted to be a professional pilot but that came much later in my life) but also figured out from the guys I met at Interlochen like Larry Combs that my vocation would be music education. I did not see myself spending hour after hour practicing which is what it would take to become a symphonic musician.
What followed was 16 years of HS music teaching (I always played regularly - gigs, shows, whatever paid). After my HS days, I pursued the professional pilot/flight instructor idea but soon became a college professor who "launched" a full academic aviation program at a large mid-Western university. A doctorate was soon completed followed by 24 years of college teaching at three large universities - tenure at all three plus full-professor at the last two. However, I always was involved in musical performance either with gigs or as a member of a wind symphony .
I've just semi-retired for the third time and plan to start playing more gigs and possibly carrying a few woodwind students. I still do a great deal of consulting and special projects with three different universities and then there is my golf game to occupy my extra time.
HRL
PS Got to run and practice for a rehearal tonight!
Post Edited (2004-05-11 20:28)
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