City Community Clarinet Ensemble, Featuring Select University Students

That was the title we grudgingly gave to our University concert band, and though this post isn't about them, it seemed like it was appropriate.  I want to take a minute to rant about community ensembles, what I like about them, and what I don't like.  I think that community ensembles as a whole are really great things, and I've played in a few of varying skill and organization.  There's a few trends I've noticed for things that work, and things that don't.

There's your "elite" community ensembles, which I wasn't originally going to talk about, but I just got the idea to, like, while I was typing that previous paragraph, so I will.  These are the ones that, while not by audition, are meant for small cliques of usually ex-semi-pro players.  Things like quartets, quintets, and to an extent, brass bands fit into this category.  These are usually alright, and the quality of playing is decent, but because most members are current or former semi-pro players, egotism and overprofessionalism is much more abundant in these than in other groups.  But that's not really what I want to focus on.

There's your regular community groups, those that accept everyone, that are made of a mix of young students, university students with nothing better to do, music teachers, semi-pro musicians, on-call or volunteer professionals, and the majority demographic: people with jobs outside of music, who are looking for a way to keep up or dust off the instrument of their youth.  These groups can be wonderful things, but there's a few guidelines that need to be followed to keep it working properly.

First off, there's the music that you actually play.  For a while, I was erroneously under the impression that community bands shouldn't play hard music, until one of my best friends verbally smacked me upside the head, and I realized the error in how I was thinking.  Community groups should strive for a balance, really, of poppy tunes, and "serious" music.  For example, a group that I was in recently played a mix of Leroy Anderson and associates, and rounded it off with Prokofiev.  It was an excellent programme, full of variety, and something for everyone in the audience, and the ensemble.

What is more a problem is the conductor's attitude towards the ensemble, the interaction between members of the ensemble, and the ratio of demographics between the above-mentioned groups of people.  Having played in three different community groups recently, I'll list off what I've noticed works, and what doesn't.

When the conductor picks music, he or she does need to balance, as I said above.  He or she should recognize when a piece of music is quite challenging, and programme it with lighter things to contrast.  Now, don't shy away from hard music, as there's nothing that'll make the returning casual musician happier than to be playing "real" music in a "real" ensemble, so at least one big piece per concert is encouraged.  But, the conductor must realize that he is not the "boss" in an employment sense, but in more of a mentor sense, like... for some reason, the first thing that pops to mind is an AA meeting. XD That's a terrible example.  But hopefully the point is kind of there...?  So the conductor has to be more of a friend.

That brings me to my most important point, as I can kind of clump the last two together.  There has to be a good ensemble dynamic, and everyone there should try to get along.  This, I've noticed, works best among the older crowd, and those who aren't in music full time.  It's those that, as I said, want to dust off or keep up their instrument that get along best with the other members of the ensemble.  That crowd will ideally be the brunt of your ensemble, with a few semi-pros, pros, teachers (who I consider in a different category, not as a prejudice, but just because they have a different role in the overall musical community), and advanced students to round out the sections.  This interactivity I find to be less present in largely student ensembles, as students are more likely to separate off into smaller groups of tighter-knit friends.  Perhaps it's just something that happens when you get older, I wouldn't know.

The community orchestra I'm playing with now, we're doing Brahms 4 for our final concert, and it's a HUGE undertaking.  There are parts of the way it's run that I'm alright with, but parts that I'm not terribly fond of.  I probably won't be playing the next season, but it's the only group still running this far into summer, so I'll take what I can get.

There's a little too much Mahler in your Brahms.

So, we have a fellow who came back to the city last year that plays bass trombone I've had the chance to talk to a few times.  He's been slowly making a name for himself in the music community around here, his forte being conducting wind ensembles.  I'm always iffy about people I haven't heard play, but he seems to have a solid history.  He's the kind of person who, though he tries to be nice, feels like he must be honest with everyone he teaches, and this means when they need to work to pull something together, he tells them that they will legitimately need to work, and I respect that.

We started talking about my plans for the next year (NEXT next year, the 2012 school year, when I'll be hopefully starting a Masters of Music in performance), and how I'm still taking lessons, and playing in as many groups as I can next year (everything I can possibly do to make sure I don't stray from my planned path in the year I won't be a student).  He then gave me a short motivational speech, something that he gives to all people he sees potential in, but something I felt the need to pass on.  It's simple, but it worked for me.

It's quite simply this... don't hold back.  Ever.  For a lot of people, they'll go to a local school because it's easier, not because it's something they want to go to, given the option without consequence.  I did that, but was lucky enough to have gotten a solid education with a great teacher.  But when it comes to my masters, I need to leave town, and leave province.  All he told me was, don't settle for anything less than what you want.  Don't turn away from trying just because there are better people.  Because there will always be better people.  It's not being the best, it's being good enough to get the jobs that require best-like abilities (after all, they can't have the top three trumpet players in the world sitting principal of EVERY orchestra at the same time).  There's no reason to not bother trying.  What's the worst that could happen?  You end up doing what you would have anyways.  There's literally no downside.

This may have been kind of useless to some of you, but for some reason, it really hit me, so I felt I'd share.  If you're unimpressed, here's something that should work, in some form at least. :P

Don't we all love a good origin story!

So, internet, here's a good one (or, at least, I HOPE it ends up being a good one).  This is one of the updates I've been planning since before day one.  Now, folks of the internet, I give you... my origin story! This is about me, playing the trumpet, and the trials and tribulations getting to where I am today (and I'm not done yet, but you'll be getting the updates to the story as they happen).

Nothing interesting really happened BEFORE university, but I'll detail that anyways.  I first got into music via piano lessons, after a Christmas where I was fooling around with my cousin's newly-acquired electric piano, and my dad noticed how much I like it.  I guess, to some degree, it's him that really got me into music, who'da thunk? So I took piano starting at age 7, and three years later, decided to get into the band program at school.  My original choices were trombone and tenor sax, but after playing the trumpet when we got to demo all the instruments, I liked the feel of it better than bone.  I still to this day feel like I picked up the instrument on a whim, and am sometimes stunned to see how much it took over my life.

So, I didn't do much playing outside of school band though my entire elementary and junior high career.  In high school, I dropped concert band entirely, playing only in jazz band and our annual musicals.  Choosing to go into music professionally also feels to me like I chose it at a whim, and there were times when I thought "What if I don't like it" and "what if I'm not good enough?"

I started taking lessons in grade ten, with a jazz trumpeter and composer in the area.  I got the vibe from him, when I mentioned I was auditioning for university, that he didn't think I was ready, but after much self-doubt, I went ahead with it.  And somehow, I got in.

Then, that's when things really started taking off.  I remember my first performance class there, the other freshman trumpet player (we're a small school, having more than one entrant in one year for trumpet was pretty rare) played an arrangement of Ravel's Pavane.  I realized listening to him... I was not good enough.  Not nearly.  That's when I made a vow to myself:  by the end of my fourth year, I would match him.  We would be equals by then.  And, of course, music is subjective, and different people place greater value on different aspects.  But I would like to think that I met my goal.

My professor, who I constantly tell people I owe every penny of my career to that man, noticed early on in our lessons that my mouthpiece was in an odd place.  I can't believe I was even making a sound like that, as when I go back to demonstrate to people how I used to play, I can't break the treble clef.  A normal trumpet embouchure should be half upper lip, half lower lip, and if it's skewed at all, upper is favourable.  I had about a fifth upper lip, and four fifths lower. That's BAD.  Bad to the point that I failed my first-year jury, and knew I wouldn't have what it took to be a performance major, so I went into musicology.

That summer, I decided I had to do something about that.  I worked my ASS off, and by the end of it, had my mouthpiece where I needed it.  As I started the next year, another trumpet student from my high school had started as a freshman, so I decided my first performance had to be to show him how much I had improved.  It wasn't NEARLY perfect, and I still had that rough, untamed sound, but it was at least a 300% improvement from when he had heard me last (which isn't as impressive as it sounds >.>).

It wasn't until the end of my second year, into the start of my third, that me and the other trumpet in my year really started talking.  On the inside, I always wonder if there was a skill threshold I had to pass in his mind for him to consider me worth it, but I try not to think about it too much.  That's something I think about a lot, of the music community as a whole, but will be the topic of later discussion.

Into my third year, I decided to be ambitious and embark on a serious undertaking: my first private solo recital.  It would be just over an hour of me and me alone, including the Arutunian as my finale, and the third (and "fourth") movement of Hindemith.  Sadly, that was also around the time I hit a slump, and the recital went nowhere NEAR as well as I felt it should have, even now.

Thankfully, the slump ended that summer.  Sometimes I wonder if I only ever improve over summers, plateau during the school year, and then jump up again the next summer.  That year, I did the one thing I wish I had done ages ago: joined our region's youth orchestra.  That experience was the best thing for me I could have imagined.

I had another recital in my fourth year, this one split 50/50 with an amazing friend of mine who plays clarinet.  And this one went pretty awesome, even though we had a MASSIVE logistic scare the day of (I might write about that later, it really inspired me to see so many people coming together to make something work, literally half an hour before a concert, WITH NO VENUE).  I played the Halsey Stevens as the finale (it was my signature piece of that year... I find I have pieces that signify each year, and that was it), and NAILED the ending (there was an arrival note that spoke noticeably late in the recording, but I was proud of myself regardless, considering how the previous year's recital had gone).

And that brings me to now.  I'm still taking lessons, and I'll be auditioning around North America for a grad program, taking Performance this time, as I feel I might just be ready.  I'm still playing in the youth orchestra, as I found out recently, so this is looking like it'll be an awesome year.  We'll just see what it has in store.

You played Hindemith on THAT?! Seriously?

That might be what someone would say to me when I tell them about my Eb trumpet phase.  Yeah, I had a point in my undergrad years when I literally played everything I could on an old Bach Eb I'd borrowed from my prof.  Unlike most other Ebs, it was a long bell, large bore model, and I loved the thing.  It had a large, orchestral sound that most other horns of its size lacked.  Besides the usual concerti (Haydn, Hummel, and Neruda), I also played the Hindemith sonata on it, which most people would be completely perplexed about.  Everything but the first movement sounds fantastic on that instrument, the second is especially nice to listen to.  However, I'd get some very odd looks from others when I pulled out that horn.  I mean, something as GIANT and MANLY as Hindemith requires a GIANT, MANLY Bb horn.

I noticed pretty quickly the three main schools of thought people had regarding instruments.  The first, and first I was exposed to through my professor, is to play the instrument that puts each piece into the most comfortable key to play in.  Although I followed this when I was younger, I soon realized that it's just as much a crutch as a convenience, as I sometimes feel like I'm admitting I was defeated on another horn.  Also, this doesn't take into consideration the sound of the horn.

The second, and my favourite, is to choose your horn due to the quality of sound produced.  This varies from piece to piece, and performer to performer (for example, I prefer playing the Halsey Stevens in C, while my professor plays in Eb-D-Eb, and the other trumpet prof plays entirely in Bb).  This method can be combined with the other, however, as playing the J Haydn (as opposed to M Haydn, which DOES exist) in C, though it would sound nice, gets to be a real chore when the trills kick in, which diminishes the quality of the performance.

Then, there seems to be a train of thought around that is PLAY EVERYTHING IN Bb.  Or PLAY EVERYTHING IN C.  People who devote themselves to a single instrument, and won't hear otherwise.  It's more common in Europe, from what I understand.  Thankfully, I don't know many people who follow this.  What is more common is the inverse, which is to boycott a certain size of horn (I know someone who refuses to play Bbs in any situation that doesn't go lower than concert F3, and even then tries to get away with it).

While I said already I push the second method, it's up to each person to figure out which horns work for them.  It might also be that shorter/longer horns just don't sound as good when they play it that helps make the decision.  Most trumpet players could get away in like with naught but a Bb, C, and Picc, and I know that I'll be living that way most of my grad studies/early career.  I'm actually looking at buying my first Picc soon, so perhaps I'll post about that later on.  But first... well, let's just say that next time, we're REALLY getting into the good stuff.

They call it the bassoon for a reason, folks.

I had a lesson with the principal trumpet of our city orchestra a few days ago.  I'll probably talk about that at one point, but for now, I need to let it stew in my mind for a little longer.  I have a few smaller things to get out of the way first, and there might be a rather large impact of that lesson in my future, but enough said about that.

One of the coolest things happened to me in orchestra rehearsal on Friday.  It was the first of two solid days of rehearsal for a Sunday matinee with the festival orchestra, and was made of largely symphony members, with some young artists thrown in for good measure, and to cover up the parts (as our home symphony has less than 40 full-time members).

So, in every ensemble I've been in, I can't help not feeling like a student.  I've done a bit of community orchestra work, where I feel like I'm a mere learner, as is everyone else in the ensemble.  When we did a combined youth orchestra/symphony concert, I couldn't get the thought out of my head that there was still a divide between professionals and students.  A divide that you could just... feel in the room.

Then last Friday happened.  The way the conductor talked, the way the musicians interacted... for once, I felt like I was on par with EVERYONE in the orchestra.  Not on par in terms of skill, but in terms of social status.  It was as if, for once, we were all on the same page.  No musician was superior to another... it was kind of awesome.

So yeah, short post is short, but we'll see.  I have another small rant I might put up to kill time, but there's definitely some substance in the future.   Smell you all later, dudes.

SOOOO many things I want to talk about...

When I started this, I was worried that I would quickly run out of things to say.  Thankfully, festival has put a LOT on my mind, and given me a bunch of different events, encounters, and reflections to talk about here.  I guess I'll start with the easiest/shortest thing to say, and work my way down the list every day or two.

So, our quintet played Ewald in the young artists gala tonight.  This was the third time performing it in three days, and as much as I said otherwise, I wasn't impressed with the first two performances.  Mostly, I wasn't impressed with myself (I have this thing in ensembles where, I'll hear everyone else playing the notes, but I'll be completely unaware of their accuracy and general level of success/failure, so I have a hard time assessing how other people in the ensemble played).  I just really wasn't speaking through the horn like I needed to, and sounded generally feeble.

Then something happened, and I'm not sure what.  I have a theory, but I don't know if it's accurate.  Today was the first rehearsal day for the Concerto Orchestra, which is playing a concert on Sunday (Stravinsky for piano and winds, Beethoven triple, and Rachy 3).  I had a rough start as usual, but once we got into it, I felt like life was slowly flowing back into me.  It was as if being back into an orchestra rejuvenated the motivation that I lost after the youth orchestra season ended.  When I played the concert tonight, I had my old orchestra sound, my old orchestra accuracy.  I completely nailed it.  I DEFINITELY wouldn't call it perfect, but it was my some of my best playing since the end of the last season.

Yet again, this proves it for me.  Proof that I want to be an orchestral trumpet player.  Proof that I HAVE to be an orchestral trumpet player.  That I'm going to stop at nothing until I achieve this goal of mine.  And, with a new drive of motivation, I feel like that goal isn't entirely out of reach.

When life gives you lemons, drill holes into them and make them musical instruments.

I've been playing in a local classical music festival (cue: whaaaaaa?) for the past week or so, and I can tell you, it has NOT been a good week for me.  I've only just started recovering recently to the level that I know I can play, but it sometimes feels like I've already made a bad first impression on the people I've been playing with.  Thankfully, no-one seems to be making that big a deal over the rough start to our rehearsals.  I'm glad to see that, as you get further and further into music, people do grow up after all.  It's not all about the behind-the-back gossip, over-criticism, and inflated egos that plague the university music department.  I'm sure it still happens to some degree, but when ensembles are self-directed and not graded, it seems us young artists just meld better.  Our quintet has been playing together for just over a week, and we already blend better and work as a team more than the university quintet did after an entire year.  It's sad, but refreshing at the same time, to see people who care working together to create something like this.

(That video is not us)

Tomorrow, we're doing an outreach concert at an elementary school near where I live.  We'll be playing the second movement of Victor Ewald's first brass quintet.  It's a drop-dead gorgeous piece of music, and I'm so thrilled that we'll get to share it with the kids.  The short lick the trumpets have at 2:52, as well as the 1st trumpet line at 2:58 (me!) are my favourite parts to play, by far.  We're going to be teaching the kids about the two types of classical music: love songs, and pirate songs (credit for this concept goes to the tuba professor in our area, who teaches at... three different universities, I believe?).  Except "love" is apparently an uncomfortable word for elementary school kids, so we'll be talking instead about cupcake music and pirate music.  I really think they'll go for the idea, as anything involving pirates is awesome.  As a bonus, when we introduce ourselves, the other trumpet and I are going to play the opening lick from the Vivaldi duet, to show the kids what trumpets sound like.

(Again, that is CLEARLY not us)

I played in a masterclass with our city's symphonies' principal trumpet last week.  I was on the fence between Arutunian and the third movement of Hindemith, and ended up choosing Arty because I was only able to give the accompanist music two days in advance, and we only had half an hour to rehearse.  It ended up being a mistake, sadly.  Yes, I'm a freak that finds Hindemith easier than Arutunian, but I ended up getting tongue-tied and generally not sounding good.  I didn't really learn to tongue properly until the end of my first, and into second, year at university, and even then, I sometimes wonder if I actually do the "K" syllable right, as every day it's seemingly random as to whether I'll be good at it or not.  Luckily, I have a lesson with him this Saturday, so I'll break out something that I'm better at, in hopes of getting more musical, detail- and refinement-oriented advice, as opposed to "you need to fix this."  Don't worry, I'll fix it, but there's no point in making someone tell me the same thing twice if I can help it.  There's my project for the summer, I guess.  Make myself sound as good as physically possible... but hey, what else is new?

Hello there, wonderful world of the internet!

This (currently rather unattractive) place is my domain, my own little corner of the interwebz in which I post my thoughts and experiences.  As you've no doubt gathered, I'm a trumpet player, and actually just got my Bachelor's degree in music, like, last week.  I'd been thinking of starting a blog for a while, and decided that I'd do it once I graduated, which means I'm late already.  Hopefully that doesn't become a trend.

Now, you're probably wondering to yourself, "Self, is this guy worth paying attention to at all, or should I go back to captioning pictures of cats with atrocious grammar?"  And with my recent graduation having happened, I figured I'd give my quick two cents worth on just that, whether I (or any musician) is worth listening to, and about a musician's self-worth in general.

You see, there's this nasty thing I've noticed in the music world, and in my instrument, it's especially apparent (no, it's not how everyone thinks you're an asshole, but that might be the topic of a later post).  As a musician, it seems that you have to be both the most awesome person in the world, and just an average Joe on the side of the road, at the same time.  As in, when confronted with a challenge, then you cannot back down.  When something comes up, you've just gotta be like "I got this" and get it.  If someone asks you "can you play this," the ONLY accepted answer is "hellz yeah."

At the same time, if you're like "Oh dude, I can play the Halsey Stevens Sonata from memory, check this out," then you're automatically branded the official label of "douchebag" (that's a technical term, which in layman's terms means the average trumpet player).  You have to be the most humble person in the room, but at the same time, you have to be the best player in the room.  It's a delicate balance, for sure.  And, as you, my seemingly-still-reading reader will soon find out, should you continue the currently implied trend of reading what it is I say, there's a lot of mannerisms like this that are both essential, and endlessly mocked, about trumpet players.

So, this didn't go QUITE the way I originally intended, but hey, that's the music business, so I guess it might as well be reflected here.  I'm not entirely sure where I want to go with this blog right now.  I'll be chronicling my stories in the world of music (anonymously, of course), my successes and failures, and my general opinion on the scene in both my local city and the national/international (read: North American) music scene.  I might also offer a few educational tips, comments on my opinions of big-name players, and general interest things about music.  A few posts will even be non-music, likely, but I'll keep those to a minimum.

I expect to post about once a week, but I might actually put a few more up for the next week or two, just because I'm involved in a music festival going on in the city, and there are some really interesting things I want to rant about.  So, anyways, those of you that actually care (i.e. anyone who has read this far), feel free to post a comment about what you'd like to see in the future.  This is your Friendly Neighbourhood Trumpet Player, signing off.