 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2020-08-07 18:00
John Hopkins University, which the Peabody Conservatory is part of, just anounced they would be doing online classes only, I used to teach at Peabody. This is happening all over the country of course not just Peabody. When I was a muic student private lessons, close and personal, chamber music coaching and large ensemble playing was a major part of my education as a clarinet student. Attending profesional concerts were also a major part of my education. I felt the same way as a faculty member. The BSO, and all the professional classial music organizations are on hold as well. Most orchestras have cancelled their fall season, a few cancelled their entire season. Hopkins is lowering their tuition by a whopping ten percent from over $28,500 a semester. My advise to any student enrolled in any music school this coming year, at least semester, that is not on a full scholarship, is to postpone their music education for a year. Any thoughts on the subject?
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2020-08-07 18:01)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-08-07 20:45
Realistically it is not practical to do remote lessons (I know we have web lessons and all, but...) so that seems the most logical approach.
And of course the absence of student ensembles and student ensemble concerts (a huge part of the learning curve).
Or it may be a year (or two.....we'll see) where potential musicians mostly find themselves pursuing career option "B."
................Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-07 21:05
Ed Palanker wrote:
> JMy advise to any student
> enrolled in any music school this coming year, at least
> semester, that is not on a full scholarship, is to postpone
> their music education for a year. Any thoughts on the subject?
>
I don't know what the non-applied (lessons and performance ensembles) curriculum includes at a conservatory. When I did my undergrad and graduate studies at Temple, which had a "College", not a "conservatory" of Music, we were required to take a great many academic and music history/lit/theory credits for our degrees. If that's the case at a specific school, a student might try to load up on those classes online and just postpone the applied music credits until in-person activity is possible.
If that isn't practical, I agree with Ed that studying applied music under the current circumstances is probably pointless.
Karl
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Author: Ken Lagace
Date: 2020-08-07 21:15
This virus is clever, adapting to everything scientists throw at it.
Remember? We will be back to normal in two months -
We will be back to normal by October -
We will be back to normal the first of the year!
Students may be getting an education for their future this way. Some musicians, I have noticed, cannot adapt to this way easily. A great flutist and a few others I know do not like playing alone. They need the close physical space to feel the music, and play with others around for their best performances.
It is all sad, but real and those who adapt will survive, Mother Nature's way.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2020-08-07 21:42
It's just an incredibly frustrating set of circumstances, which highlights some glaring inadequacies with the American ethos, fed and state governments, education funding, health care, and so on.
For students entering into college this year, a gap year might be alluring; I've heard from more than a few rising college freshman who are pursuing this option. But over the last decade or so, many schools started relying on tuition payments to cover a larger percentage of their operating costs. If many students decide not to attend school because of Covid, then, it could be catastrophic to those schools not blessed with massive endowments. (This problem, of course, becomes all the more troubling if a vaccine doesn't materialize in the near future.)
But in some respects, it seems as though the pandemic is accelerating trends that were already present in the orchestra and higher education worlds. In education, for instance, the past decade has seen a noticeable shift away from the standard "conservatory" system of priorities--playing in orchestra, attending orchestra concerts, etc.--and a move toward technology, entrepreneurship, grant-writing, and contemporary or alternative chamber ensembles. For students and schools who find value in these things, the (hopefully!) temporary move to an online education might not be all bad.
Yeah, so my thoughts are the situation stinks and to stop from going crazy, I need to go stick my head and the sand and occupy my mind with the clarinet! Stay safe!
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-07 21:47
Apart from playing alone, which I think any musician needs to be able to do because you can't (or shouldn't) do your practicing either in rehearsals or lessons, I think meaningful virtual rehearsals and performances are not possible, and online lessons are too limiting for a serious student-teacher process to work.
I know, players are teaching online over Skype and Zoom everywhere, but I think it's especially limiting for a college or conservatory student who has serious professional aspirations.
Karl
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Author: Neckstrap
Date: 2020-08-08 00:41
Hi everyone!
I am an incoming freshman clarinetist to The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). Unlike other conservatories who are going completely online (Julliard, Curtis, Colburn, etc.) SFCM is only moving academic classes online to make room for COVID-safe small ensembles, master classes, and in-person private lessons (which will be in the large concert halls and classrooms). To make up for the lack of large ensemble experience, SFCM is planning on extending the school year to do a large ensemble concert series early next summer (hopefully COVID will be over by then). Anyways, I thought I would share this news to shed light that what many conservatories are doing is not the only way through this pandemic.
I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy, and sane!
~Nicholas
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2020-08-08 02:20
Thanks for the info, Neckstrap. I think I would decline to attend this year if the program did not do what San Fransisco is doing. All online and no live ensembles is not what you sign up for.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-08 02:25
That works for five players. The Philadelphia Orchestra is doing a video concert (without an audience) using 25 masked string players spread out over the Mann Center (an outdoor summer venue) stage. My orchestra is also doing an outdoor video with 20 string players next month. But, since wind players can't wear masks and absent any evidence that blowing into (through) wind instruments doesn't result in some extra spread of respiratory moisture, I'm not sure you could distance wind players enough to make people feel safe. So maybe the music schools will have strings only until at least January?
Of course, if you bring in an audience, you introduce even more problems, including restrictions on the size of gatherings that are in place in some states (e.g. PA and NJ, probably NY). In PA it's 250 outdoors (OK until maybe late September or very early October) and 25 indoors.
Karl
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2020-08-08 11:24
We don’t have the right to take music away from kids. When your kid stands up for the first time, they’re going to fall. When they fall in love, they’re going to be heartbroken. They’re going to break legs, get chickenpox, make mistakes, get sick, and some of them are going to die young.
I’m not sure what the point of trying to keep people “safe” is if they don’t have a life to live. IMO they simply didn’t think things through. They could have addressed the immediate problems with targeted solutions. Instead they told everybody to hide, and then killed off their jobs and took rest of their life. It’s a virus, it’s not going to magically disappear. The damage to our life and culture, not to mention our individual psyches and families, is inestimable. Good things do come of it - I can actually practice now that I’m not working, but IDK what I’m going to do when I can’t pay rent. I would feel robbed if I were a freshman. We don’t have the right. “Virtual” music is not a substitute for the real thing.
I have epilepsy, but I don’t hide all day long. I go swimming in the ocean because to me it’s worth doing. Fortunately it’s possible for me, some things aren’t. I’m scared every time I get on my bicycle, but I do it. It’s worth doing. I go to the store, have a seizure, get up, and get on with it. I might have been a musician if I didn’t have a stupid brain tumor. I can’t change that, but living in fear is not acceptable. People will either realize this or they won’t. We can live prudently and rationally, but we have to live. You don’t have any choice.
My dad had 5(?) open heart surgeries over his whole life, and was sick from the time he was a kid, but he got marred, saw his children grow up, traveled the whole country, saw the sun rising on the Rocky mountains and setting on the Pacific, had a career, programmed a satellite, made friends everywhere he worked, and lived a full life because it was worth it. He didn’t live to be 100, but he did live. He made a life for his family. We have to decide what life we want because it’s going to go on no matter what. We can go on all miserable and lonely, and without music, or we can suck it up and accept the consequences of living a full life.
If you want some perspective read the introduction to the Decameron.
- Matthew Simington
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2020-08-08 16:54
When I taught at Peabody I used to encourage my students to do a minor in another subject of interest at Hopkins, at least take some cources, which they were allowed to do since they were part of the University. I did the same when I taught at Towson University to my perfomance majors. I was always very opened about how difficult it was to make a living as a professional musician for most graduates. This is a great time for performance career oriented students to take advantage of pursuing a second interest. Practice hard, try to take lessons be it via the internet and pursue another interest for a year. Hopefully next year things will at least open up and they will be better prepared for a way to make a living in performance or a music related career and have something that interests them to fall back on if it doesn't work out.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2020-08-08 17:35
They’re going to break legs, get chickenpox, make mistakes, get sick, and some of them are going to die young.
---------------------------------------
Wait until you have your own children and see if you feel the same way.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2020-08-08 18:43
Matt74 wrote:
> We don’t have the right to take music away from kids. When
> your kid stands up for the first time, they’re going to fall.
> When they fall in love, they’re going to be heartbroken.
> They’re going to break legs, get chickenpox, make mistakes,
> get sick, and some of them are going to die young.
>
I think "take music away from kids" is an overstatement. Temporizing for a year isn't a permanent withdrawal of music training. And the consequences of contracting this particular illness are potentially far more serious than the passing inconvenience of a broken limb or chickenpox (so long as those of us who actually *had* chickenpox have since been vaccinated against shingles). So, I think you're overstating the consequences of prevention and understating the possible risks of exposure.
Acute Respiratory Distress (ARD) syndrome has killed even very young children apparently as a direct consequence of COVID-19 infection, and young adults of college age are as susceptible to the virus as older adults. Most childhood deaths are caused by other than communicable diseases, at least in the "1st world" nations. Cancers and congenitally defective organs or genetics, while tragic, aren't contagious. If an outbreak of virus occurs in a specific region, like a college campus, it tends to spread out of control very quickly, affecting large groups, not just individuals. And the anecdotal reports of COVID-19 victims' recoveries suggests that there are serious long-term residual effects that may (the evidence won't be in for years) affect their health for the rest of their lives.
> I’m not sure what the point of trying to keep people
> “safe” is if they don’t have a life to live.
The limitations will last as long as the virus remains a pandemic-level threat. Medical interventions will at some point help to limit either the spread or the severity of the disease (or both) so the risks become less potentially catastrophic. This is not a permanent change in global lifestyle. People, including young college students, will eventually resume their lives, with luck and the help of medical science sooner than later.
> They could have
> addressed the immediate problems with targeted solutions.
Such as, specifically?
> Instead they told everybody to hide, and then killed off their
> jobs and took rest of their life.
Again, temporarily. For those business and service providers who were permanently put out of business by the closures, the shut-down has been catastrophic. Many people's workplaces simply shifted to their homes if they were able to do their work online. But once the epidemic has been brought under control by the medical folks in the labs and people can again move freely, new opportunities to thrive will, hopefully, present themselves. This is not an extinction.
> It’s a virus, it’s not
> going to magically disappear.
But sooner or later it will be chased or at least limited to a manageable illness. The prediction of a magical disappearance has basically only a single source. Overcoming the virus in finite time is a realistic hope.
> “Virtual” music is not a substitute for the real thing.
I think we can all agree on this. Neither music nor teaching will need to be done at a distance forever. Give science some time to work.
> I have epilepsy, but I don’t hide all day long. I go
> swimming in the ocean because to me it’s worth doing.
> Fortunately it’s possible for me, some things aren’t.
> I’m scared every time I get on my bicycle, but I do it.
> It’s worth doing. I go to the store, have a seizure, get up,
> and get on with it. I might have been a musician if I didn’t
> have a stupid brain tumor. I can’t change that, but living
> in fear is not acceptable. People will either realize this or
> they won’t. We can live prudently and rationally, but we
> have to live. You don’t have any choice.
Neither epilepsy nor brain tumors are, as far as we know, contagious. I don't think there's any real equivalence. And the risks you take are that something will happen *you,* which are absolutely valid for you to make. The risks of bearding an epidemic are that individual choices (like yours) can catastrophically affect others as well.
My 2 cents.
Karl
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Author: brycon
Date: 2020-08-08 20:08
Quote:
Wait until you have your own children and see if you feel the same way.
Not to mention the conservatory faculty and staff, many of whom, from my experience, are within the at-risk age group. And I've seen anecdotal reports about possible long-term lung complications, which would be a horrible thing for any professional wind player or singer to suffer.
Quote:
> “Virtual” music is not a substitute for the real thing.
I think we can all agree on this. Neither music nor teaching will need to be done at a distance forever. Give science some time to work.
I think that online teaching is a lot like vegetarian cuisine insofar as the best vegetarian recipes are the ones that don't attempt to fool you into thinking you're eating meat. Ratatouille: delicious; vegan carnitas tacos: pass.
Trying to replicate online the traditional music-school experience isn't going to work well. It's the vegan carnitas of education. But online education has its own advantages. In an online summer course in which I taught, for example, we were able to bring in top players from around the country to give masterclasses. This sort of access just isn't possible in a traditional educational situation (unless you're studying in NYC, perhaps). Moreover, I was able to do things like screen-share a score to Mozart and do some basic voice-leading analysis, pointing things out by writing into a PDF on my ipad, as students followed along. Again, this sort of thing would be much more difficult to do in person.
I'm sure there are some very smart people who are figuring out even better things to do online. I'm hoping conservatories embrace these things and give their students a great experience during this troubling time.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2020-08-08 22:56
Quote:
"Wait until you have your own children and see if you feel the same way."
I'm not sure who you meant that for. I have four and now five young grandkids. I'm happy their parents are putting their safety and health first. Fortunetly they all live in districts that are smart enough not to risk the students, teachers, staff, bus drivers lives. Sure it's best for kids to go to school but this won't last forever.
As far as the Quote. "We don’t have the right to take music away from kids."
Postponing an Applied college music education for one year for safety reasons and getting your money's worth is not taking music away from anyone but so many school districts K-12 have been doing that for many years now to save money.
Karl, as far as conservatory curriculum goes, every one is different. There are many subjects required besides lessons and ensembles. And it's true a college student can get ahead on some of those over the internet but would you want to pay your full tuition to take a few "classroom" courses? If schools would allow a student to pay a part time fee for being a part time student that would make sense. If not they can find out if any course work is transferable from a school they can get the credit from.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2020-08-08 23:37
I'm not sure who you meant that for.
--------------------------------------------
Not for you, Ed.
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2020-08-09 08:12
Obviously, I didn’t say that because I thought it would be popular...and not because I wanted to make anyone upset.
I want to clarify a misunderstanding. I made an error in giving myself as an example. It obscured the point. I meant to say that everyone is at risk everyday from a million things, but we mostly ignore them, because we have to. In some ways we are even a threat to others, but we are less aware of that. The virus has made one of these threats more apparent.
I don’t fault anyone for making the personal choices they do at present. If you want to stay home you can. However, I believe that it is not wrong to try to live a normal life. There are serious consequences to both.
Attempting to avoid the virus has become an absolute good, to which all others must be subjected. We even prevent aging, sick, and dying family members who DO NOT have the virus from seeing one another. That is heartless and cruel. There are very serious consequences to our current course, many of which may be more lasting and more serious than the virus itself. We see these things happening to people we know.
We can all have different opinions about what should be done and when, but in my opinion it is fear, not reflection, driving the current state of things. I believe it is wrong to deny young people the opportunity to go to school (if they choose) and to play music together (if they choose).
If we were collectively in a better state of mind perhaps we could find together a positive course of action, something like Ed proposes, but we have to recognize that the outcome will be different. A year or two when you are 18 is very different than when you are over 40.
- Matthew Simington
Post Edited (2020-08-09 08:13)
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2020-08-09 16:49
Matt what you say has a lot of merit but my orignal post was only meant about music students attending college as an applied music major and not having the oppertunity to do what a student has to do as a music major but still having to pay the outrageous tuition a school like Hopkins - Peabody charges. "My advise to any student enrolled in any music school this coming year, at least semester, that is not on a full scholarship, is to postpone their music education for a year."
As far as missing a year as an 18 your old, many students don't even begin college until their 19 and some enter at 17. They can still continue studying and practicing the way they've been doing since the virus closed things down and take some courses as I suggested. I totally agree that it best for ALL students to be able to attend ALL schools safety.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: DougR
Date: 2020-08-10 23:08
FWIW I understand Juilliard is doing everything online for the Fall semester, concentrating on academic subjects rather than performance. They're going to wait to see what happens between now and the end of the semester as far as making plans for Spring.
It's frustrating how little is known as to droplet spread and circulation. I was watching a Double-Reed Society-sponsored discussion on YT with music school profs, doctor/performers and medical researchers; the experiments and the search for data sound fascinating, but at this point the results are incomplete. (Trans.: no one knows anything yet.)
So much so, that it could be a tragic mistake to force in-person learning, with mortal stakes for students, faculty and family.
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Author: antaresclar
Date: 2020-08-11 01:49
This is a difficult time for certain. Here are the guidelines that the conservatory/university where I teach have put into place. They are quite exhaustive and a lot of work went into them: https://www.su.edu/conservatory/covid-19/ Just click on each section to read.
This will be tough, but I do think that an immense amount of learning can take place online. Charles Neidich has been doing weekly 1.5+ hour long classes on facebook since this nightmare began. I have learned much from him and appreciated his generosity in doing these classes.... and I was his student!
GZ
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