Author: mrn
Date: 2008-11-04 03:43
Except for the why and when of leaving the pro-musician track, your story sounds a lot like mine, reprise.
I was a hot shot music guy in high school. I made Texas All-State band as a freshman, was the first chair in my HS band all 4 years (we were 5A Honor Band my senior year and the top three chairs had all been All-State players), and I had played a lot of advanced stuff from Weber to Poulenc to Copland. So I was all set to major in music and become a pro symphony guy, and, like you, had lots of encouragement from a lot of people.
But, I changed my mind about majoring in music part-way through my senior year of high school. The idea of taking out a bunch of student loans to major in something where even finding what I considered to be a decent job was going to be an uphill exercise in probability made majoring in music lose a lot of the appeal. Plus I also had a knack for science and math, so it made sense to major in something technical, where at least I'd know I could get a job.
Maybe if I had actually auditioned somewhere, I might have gotten some scholarship money and if I had, I might have gone the music route (or double-majored or something), but at age 17 I had gotten kind of cynical and I was VERY naive about the music world, college, and everything else, including myself, so I sort of gave up on it before even giving myself a chance. My teacher thought I should audition for Curtis, but I blew her off because I'd never heard of the place and it was further than I wanted to travel to go to school. That's teenage logic for you. Nowadays, I'd say, "OK. You think I'm good enough for this, so I'll give it a try. It may be a long shot, but so is getting an orchestra job and at least with THIS long shot, I'm not already saddled with loans to pay back, so I have nothing to lose!" But I hadn't grown up enough to be able to think like that, so I not only did not audition for Curtis, I didn't audition anywhere!
Instead, I majored in engineering at a university with no music school, and I did well there, so I really can't complain. However, it still sometimes bothers me a little that I never got to see how far I could have gotten had I continued with music as a serious endeavor in college.
Anyway, so I was a volunteer church musician for a while in college and grad school, and then when I went to law school I joined a community band. Now this was a very different experience for me because I had been used to playing in an ultra-competitive band in the most competitive area of the most band-competitive state in the country, and this community band didn't even have an audition requirement. But it still reminded me of how much fun it was to play in an instrumental ensemble (which I hadn't done in some time), and although the group didn't play at the same level I was used to and didn't play the same level of challenging repertoire, it was still a lot of fun just to get to be a part of it. Some of the people in the group were professionals, actually, and could play at a much higher level than the group as a whole. I think they enjoyed it for the same reason I did, though--playing *my* part to *my* satisfaction and just being part of the group was more satisfying to me than what level the group as a whole was playing at. And sometimes being a "big fish" in a little community pond has its advantages. I got to play that cool solo from "Blue Shades" with the community band, for instance.
After I graduated law school, I didn't do much in the way of music for about seven years and what I did (primarily as a volunteer church musician) didn't involve much clarinet playing. What I realized, though, was that I really missed both playing in an ensemble and playing challenging music--I missed the challenge of it! So at about the end of last year I decided to start playing my clarinet on a regular basis again, pulling out old solos and etudes and such. This time, though, I auditioned and landed a spot in a semi-professional regional symphony orchestra (i.e., part volunteers, part paid professionals). We play a lot of the same stuff the big orchestras play (although not necessarily to their level of polish, of course), but perhaps more importantly, there is a real atmosphere of professionalism in the ensemble. It's a grown-up group that plays grown-up music--music that's actually worth taking home to practice! And I love it!
If you're not satisfied where you are, you may just need to find the right ensemble to play with. Of course, they're not always that easy to find--or to find an opening in. For me, it helped to be able to play in a real symphony orchestra (even as a volunteer musician) as opposed to just a community band (especially one without an audition requirement).
The other thing I realized (that I really kind of wish I had realized sooner) was that even the pros usually have a day job. Mine just doesn't happen to involve music. I noticed that the concertmaster of one orchestra around here (a 100% paid professional orchestra, mind you) just happens to be lawyer (like me). Somebody mentioned in one thread on this BBoard that there's a TV weatherman somewhere who's on the oboe sub list for a major symphony orchestra. So if you've got a Master's in clarinet performance and you're up to it, for crying out loud, just give it a shot and audition somewhere! You have nothing to lose! You don't have to have to give up a life in music just because you've followed other career plans.
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