 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Laura
Date: 2001-10-12 15:54
I just finished reading the post about depressed musicians, and I was wondering what the people who do succeed in performing clarinet are like...what is the difference between being able to play like crazy, and actually getting to play for a symphony orchestra like Stanley Drucker or Sabine Meyer or Charles Neidich? is it just chance, a matter of opinion?
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2001-10-12 16:32
Talent
Hard work
Luck
Social skills
Discipline
are all necessary to become a top musician. They are a countless number of musicians who could musically get the symphony job, but don't have the connections or have the bad habit of showing up late to rehearsals or don't have team spirit.
Music is as political as any other field, talk to the rigth people at the right time give a good impression and you are likely to succeed.
Of course you also need to be able to play ;->
-S
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-10-12 22:31
Laura -
I've met a number of major orchestra principal clarinetists over the years - Robert Marcellus, Anthony Gigliotti, Harold Wright, Stanley Drucker, Jack Brymer, Gino Cioffi, Larry Combs, Michelle Zukovsky, Ignatius Genussa, Bernard Portnoy, Reginald Kell, Alexander Williams.
Each of them had a combination of physical vitality, an orderly mind and (except for Cioffi) a very laid-back manner. These go with the territory.
Brymer begins his book with a list of the qualities needed to play in a major symphony, and the first is to be physically robust. You play all day and all night. You have incessant travel. You play when you're sick, when you're tired, and when you're sick and tired of it all.
Brymer says the second most important quality is getting to the rehearsal and performance on time, first time and every time. As Sylvain says, being late even once can destroy your career, no matter how well you play.
Many years ago, I read a great article by Joseph Eger, the top free-lance French horn player in New York City. He was every contractor's first call. However, he said he could never take a vacation. If he did, and a contractor called, and he didn't answer, the #2 player would get the work and would thereafter be #1. It doesn't matter that you're burned out from working 7 days a week for years at a time. If you're called and don't answer the call *right now,* there are lots of people just as good (or almost as good), waiting for a chance to step in.
Finally, when you're in an orchestra, you have to play everything that's put in front of you, like it or not, and even if it's musical garbage. You also have to put up with not-so-good conductors who want to tell you how to play what you've known all your life. Most of the time, you have to submerge yourself in the orchestral texture. You can't be a prima donna, and you have to go with the flow. To do this, you have to take things as they come and roll with the punches.
Being an amateur means you can play only when and what you like. Being a pro means you have to play everything, like it or not, and whether or not you feel like it.
It's still the best life I can imagine, but it takes a special kind of personality to be able to grind it out and still step forward for a solo when the moment comes.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ken
Date: 2001-10-13 20:50
Ken is right as rain once again. I'd add I've found (in my own case and others in the industry I've worked with) that what also makes a great musician in general is one who leads a "full and dynamic" life. The old cliche of the suffering and starving artist rings true in many cases. Sometimes, if you listen closely you can literally hear the joy, sorrow, anger and even bitterness of players' lives no matter what the idiom.
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Author: David dow Sympony NB
Date: 2002-04-26 16:02
I currently play professionally with a symphony as well as freelance a great amount and always enjoy playing no matter what...except with frustrated musicians who belly ache a good deal...I think that being goals oriented with your own style of playing as well as teaching means that you have an ideal one always strives for and also to put maybe some spiritualty and soul into the music is the greatest fun of all...its not all about technique and speed and fast living, more with careful thoughtful playing with total command and comiitment..fame is only for a few and famous clarinet players are very few when you consider what Shania Twain makes to your average player or solist then you realize if its about fame then maybe this isn't the right profession for some....
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