Chirstmas Concerts

Primarily, I'm a freelance cellist. I play as a substitute or in ad hoc orchestras for specific programs. In this case I just played Messiah by G.F. Handel and Nutcracker by P.I. Tchaikovsky. Both of these works are amazing pieces of music to take part in. Both elevate the musician and the listener to a different realm but in different ways. Nutcracker is simply a charming ballet with almost mesmerizing music that transports one into a world of magical elegance. However, Messiah elevates one to the realm of the sublime. It's message, of course, has much to do with it and is the reason for the composition. The music itself is nearly enough, though, to stir the soul's longing for a better world, giving rise to hope in the message, which the music creates in the most compelling ways.

Lost motivation

Cold. Lifeless. Hopeless. The cello sat in its case looking so beautiful. Soft amber hues. Each grain gliding, slightly curving from shoulder to tail. Bridge standing tall. Silvery strings taut and attentive. Everything about the instrument invites me, begs me to take her out and practice until I can't get anything I do, wrong. The music swirls inside my head. All the years of study and listening. I can name almost any piece, that comes on the radio, within a few notes or if not sure a few seconds worth of listening. If I can't name the piece I go for the composer based on the use of harmony, sonority, instrumentation.

I love music. It invigorates me just to hear the music that I have known since I was a child come singing through the speakers in a public space or store unexpectedly. There is nothing I know better than how better than to play music on a cello. That's what I studied the longest and most diligently for 15 years straight. All those cello lessons from my beginner moments when I was 8 and 9 years old--having to relearn posture on the cello, compared to the violin, was not as easy as I my young mind had imagined.

The struggle was real. Sitting and holding something that was touching the floor at one point didn't allow me to move like I had been able to with the violin. This would be a great disability until my masters degree nearly 15 years later. There seemed to be no way that I could get comfortable and therefore I played with tension throughout my back, arms, and hands. Fortunately, I overcame much of that problem. Now, the problem is quite different. It lies not partially, but completely within my brain, my thoughts as though they were permanent fixtures attached to a building.

Progress in cello had been slow. Progress in career had been even slower. Nothing I did could help me overcome my greatest blockade; my belief that I was incapable. And even after some small victories I struggle to advance my career. Now, it is more to the affect that it seems like too much effort. Finding a suitable audition or rounding up students or practicing with a regular musical partner, it all requires so much moving, organizing, and the most agonizing one of all is the necessity of money to get where I want to go. The efforts are real and enormous--in my head.

Well into my 30's I have little to say for what I have invested and shrink back from diving into new territory, expending the energy to get where I think I'd like to be seems to great a task. The unknowns swirling inside my head ever suggesting that the risks are great and the rewards to small. Perhaps it is better to eke out the living I have always done, dependent on others to get me one student here, wait for the call that will pay me enough to buy a week's worth of groceries (or two if I am lucky).

Scared. It's scary. That's what I have always thought. I don't know how I came to that conclusion. I have always decided before I experienced it that it must be scary. How does that work? How does one think it scary before even going through it? The human experience is so strange. The mind confusedly winds in and out of negative thoughts with the occasional ray of sunlight to keep my going. Unfortunately, the underlying thought pattern has been to defeat any progress before any attempt has been made.

Even now, writing this blog is a defeat. (Practice, post videos, direct traffic to your efforts, send out CV's, let people know you are available for work...)

Auditions Sharpen Skill

Auditions are often viewed by many as a necessary evil to advancing oneself in the performing arts career. They are certainly no walk in the park, otherwise everyone and their mother would be doing them. They were perceived and described to be vital parts of one's career. No problems with that perspective. But they were so often regarded as hard, scary, stringent exercises in one's will to succeed regardless of the reception the one auditioning got from the panel of judges. Again, I don't disagree fully but perhaps they could be perceived slightly differently to benefit more the performer's efforts and career.

Recently I was listening to some motivational CDs. In the middle of one CD the man mentioned a crucial thought to improving one's career. He had been speaking about the necessity for employees to increase their own worth in the eye's of their boss. He said something like this: (paraphrase) Go take interviews as a way to sharpen your skills and continue learning and growing.

As a musician I equated this, of course, to the audition (really an interview but with a different name). Having recently taken an audition myself I began reflecting on my thought that I had improved since the last one. This could be a part in the perspective that I have been missing all along, making auditions a dreaded and fearsome experience for me?

Interviews, auditions in my case, can really be looked upon as exercises in improving skill, adapting to surroundings, finding out how to play better, what to do before hand, how to act while in the room with the judges, etc. Those auditions are meant to make me a better player and person. They aren't there only for me to win, as it were, but to sharpen my ability.

For me, it was a revelation to think of those feared moments in a new way. This paradigm shift has implications well beyond any audition but also to the career itself where we performing artists are seeking to hone our skill every day. The audition is just another tool in the kit.

TSO: October Concert

I just returned from rehearsing and playing with the Traverse Symphony Orchestra. The concert was a great combination of Classical and Romantic Era styles. Although each rehearsal seemed like a battle between the instruments and those controlling them, the end result was quite pleasing. Yes, something was not quite working this time. It was as if half of the orchestra was either not trying or just having a really off weekend with music.

The surprising part about that is not that the rehearsals were extremely slow going, like slogging through the same ideas each time we came to them, but rather than we were playing Beethoven and Mozart (at least two of the pieces)! Straight forward music that  has little if any tempo changes or rubato or anything of the like in it. Just "da da da da, da da da da" or "daaaa da da da da da, daaaa da da da da da" and it was all over the board. Counting seemed like a foreign concept to the orchestra, especially when came to sub division. Rushing through a dotted quarter note followed by five eighth notes is supposed to be only done by youth orchestras.

The Sibelius had it's own set of difficulties. It was like Bach's complex counterpoint. Each group of instruments had their own "melody" to play, and very different for the rest. Or each group of instruments would imitate the previous instrument that entered only a measure before. This happened straight from the beginning all the way to the end practically. It is as if Sibelius studied Bach's Art of the Fugue before writing his Symphony No. 1 and decided that he should do that too. Only his harmonies, sonorities and rhythms would be Romantic in nature.

In the end TSO did a good job, but the lack of counting and the conductor's ever mounting frustration of having to mention it every time we came back to rehearse those things was disturbing. The orchestra really can play well. There must have been something strange in the air this time. Hopefully that's the case. Oh, I almost forgot the soloists. The flute and harp players were great. Mozart wrote a master piece in this concerto for flute and harp. The soloists obviously had rehearsed until they knew every note, phrase, sound, dynamic, rest, nuance and interaction with the orchestra. They were a treat to listen to.

Traverse City

Speaking of traveling, that is exactly what I'm doing this weekend with my cello. Today, in about 30 minutes, I head head with a bag of essentials and my cello. The essentials are clothes for the concert, toiletries, and some food to tide the appetite. (Taking your own food saves a bundle of money and usually keeps the healthy factor higher than eating out.) 

To right is the route that I take every time. It's a fairly straight shot right up to Traverse City from Berrien Springs. Although it's quite far, the time is not bad. After Grand Rapids the traffic thins out enough to allow for real "Free Way" driving. Free to drive consistently at 70 mph and do it in either lane you want for the most part.














The map on the right shows Traverse City but more importantly, the venue of performance. That will take place in Interlochen. Anyone privy on it whereabouts? Small place but really nice to visit there. Well, it's time to start packing the car and drive off to Traverse City.

On the Program

Eggmont Overture by L. van Beethoven

Concerto for Harp and Flute by W. A. Mozart

Symphony No. 1 by Jean Sibelius

Auditions: The Music

For many musicians playing in orchestra is a way of life and a pay check. Getting into an orchestra that pays anything is no easy matter however. There's a lot of preparation and practice that must be done with utmost diligence before one actually sits in the section during concerts and plays. What goes into an audition? What must one prepare, and how?

The first part of auditions begins months before the day of reckoning. You have sent your resume and the personnel manager from the orchestra has given you the repertoire list. It is time to look it over and make sure all the excerpts on the list are in your possession. The list may look something like this:

1. Solo of your choice from any standard concerto. Or.... Either the first movement of Haydn concerto in D major or Dvorak concerto in B minor.
2. Orchestral excerpts
1. (List of 8 to 10 symphonies and the excerpts)
3. Possible sight reading

Which concerto to choose? Romantic, Classic, Modern? Excerpts are funny. They are pulled way out of context and yet they are used to determine one's ability to play the music in an informed and sensitive manner.  

Actually, I think I'm done with this post already. Auditions kinda annoy me so I'll have to get back to this a later time when I have a more level headed take on them.