Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-04-10 22:22
This is a follow up to my former thread on Symphony jobs in the USA.
When I was a freshman in college I attended the Aspen Music Festival and the clarinet teacher, Earl Bates, principal in St. Louis at the time, told me I didn’t have what it takes to become a professional clarinetist. At the time I wanted to be a doubler, I played sax, flute and oboe too. When I came home I decided I wanted to become an orchestra player because I fell in love with classical music while in Aspen so I sold my doubling horns and bought a bass and Eb clarinet. Because of what Bates told me I got inspired instead of discouraged and doubled my practice time, by the time I was a junior, now studying with Leon Russianoff, I was practicing 28 hours a week and taking every opportunity that came along to perform in any orchestra I could, the Bronx Symphony, the National Orchestral Ass, The City Symphony, The Village Symphony, I even played occasionally with the Doctors Symphony and the NY Mandolin Symphony, playing clarinet of course, two paid gigs.
A student of mine at Peabody, by the way I’m retiring next year, a few years ago wrote on a teacher evaluation that I would have more students playing in orchestras if I didn’t tell them they weren’t good enough. That was not entirely true, she didn’t understand what I was saying. Every year at my first studio class I gave the same lecture. I told my students that if they don’t practice 3-4 hours a day they probably won’t be good enough to compete with those students from Curtis, Juilliard and other schools that in many cases are already more advanced then some of them and are still practicing that much and more. I used my former student Ricardo Morales as an example, who when he studied with me summers he was already more advanced then most students much older then him and he still practiced constantly. I told them that if you’re not as good as your competition you could not win a job. She missed the point of what I was saying. I also told them that technique is the most important thing to achieve and simply takes hours of practice. If you can’t play the notes in Daphnis and Chloe, Mid Summers Night Dream, The Firebird Suite etc. you can’t win a job. Once you have the technique then everything else becomes the most important things, tone, intonation, rhythm, musicianship etc. I consider articulation as technique. I stress that they have to have it all because so many others they are auditioning against will. Then it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time and hoping what you have to offer is what they’re looking for.
The number of players trying out for the same job is mind-boggling. Well over a hundred applicants for each job, in many cases double that number, and only half dozen-orchestra jobs opened each year, more of less. So, as I try to explain to them, I’m not trying to discourage them from going after their dream, I just try to be honest about what it takes and what chance they have of achieving it. I made it because I wanted it so bad that I worked my butt off to achieve it. I learned all the major excerpts for clarinet, bass clarinet and Eb clarinet and had to copy most of those parts myself because there were no bass and Eb excerpt books, except the Strauss book, or photo copying machines back when. I was driven to prove Earl Bates wrong so I made the sacrifices and it paid off. I could not imagine doing anything else with my life. I think that’s what all college teachers should tell their students, be honest but also encourage and try to motivate them. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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