When I interviewed Michael Nowak for Moebius over a year ago (the interview that’s been serialized for “Classics in the Cohan” programs this season), we had a brief conversation about moving around, living in one place versus several, etc. I remarked that even after six years, I still felt “new to the area.” Mike replied, “yeah, six years; you’re still new.”
I’ve led a fairly peripatetic life (nine locations), but in thinking about it, I saw that I haven’t always been so keen to move around. For example, in Seattle, I lived in the same apartment for eight years. (I loved that place!) I realized that perhaps I’ve been following Holly Golightly’s advice: when you find a place where you and things go together, buy some furniture and give the cat a name.
Many members of the SLO Symphony must have come to this same realization at some point in the past. So, on the suggestion of Quin Hauss, and as a corollary to Mike’s twenty-fifth anniversary, the blog will feature a series of profiles honoring Symphony members who’ve played with the orchestra for twenty-five years or more. First up: Barbara Blanke and Pat Lamprecht.
Barbara Blanke Barbara’s primary instrument is violin, though she also plays guitar and piano, mostly for children. She joined the Symphony in 1982 after a neighbor brought over the Tribune to show her a two-line advertisement with audition information.
Barbara recalls those days:
“I had lived in SLO for one and 1/2 years and did not know there was a symphony. I had played in the Bay Area for the San Jose Light Opera and various community groups and really missed not having a musical home in SLO.”
Barbara has “so many!” fond memories of her time with the orchestra, and here are just a few: “Michael's audition was so memorable! Since I was a music major and loved conducting, his style and energy was awesome.” She enjoyed being on the Symphony Board for three years as the orchestra representative, and she also loved “assisting with the start up and initial research for Everyday Etudes,” describing the experience as “so much fun to be a part of.” Barbara holds out “hope that there will be classical music lovers in our future.”
Here’s the Everyday Etudes video, in which Barbara is featured:
Barbara describes the Carnegie Hall and Australia tours as “incredible.” On Carnegie Hall: “We played and then embarked on a midnight cruise around the New York skyline. As we circled the Statue of Liberty about thirty of us out on the ‘cold’ bow of the boat simultaneously broke into song, ‘God Bless America.’ This still gives me chills thinking about that night!” On Sydney: “I loved going to the zoo with Mike, Suzette and Julia and other orchestra friends in Australia. Any time to have real-life time with my musician friends on a different level is what life is all about!”
Barbara is optimistic about the future of the Symphony: “We are so lucky to have Sandi and the incredible, incredible staff at the Symphony office. They are what keeps the heart beating and they do it with such a flair!”
She also has some advice on how to keep music alive in our community: “If all musicians commit to give time and/or money and believe in the music that we all love, the symphony will thrive. Build relationships and give anything you can and classical music will be an important part of San Luis Obispo forever!”
The picture posted above is of Barbara and her husband Dan on the day of her doctoral defense.
Pat Lamprecht Pat is a longtime member of the viola section, and she also performs in the alto section of the Vocal Arts Ensemble, directed by her husband Gary.
Pat recalls her early days with the Symphony:
“I joined the symphony viola section in 1972 as a newlywed. Clif Swanson was the director at that time and we performed at the old Cuesta Auditorium. The members of the orchestra were very kind to both Gary and me and made us feel very welcome to this community after we had left the Los Angeles area. I have played with the orchestra most of the years since then, only taking time off to have babies, for the most part.”
Ed Lowman was the orchestra manager during this time, and he called Pat to play viola only after she’d had time to recover from having her twins, Amber and Carey, and later, son Darby.
Pat recalls some fun times commuting: “Ed Harris (who still plays bass in the symphony) and I would carpool to rehearsal from Cayucos in his huge Buick -- top down, lots of chrome and gigantic fins -- what a ride!”
Pat sums up her experience with the SLO Symphony: “It has been great pleasure for me to have had both of my daughters (violin and oboe) and husband (rookie percussion) play in the orchestra with me at various times over the years. I know that our symphony will continue to grow and flourish, even in uncertain economic times. I am thankful for the gift of music I receive each time I am allowed to be a part of our symphony. There is no better seat in the hall than where the violas sit.”
And there’s no better seat onstage than the one next to Pat Lamprecht.
I’m back from my holiday sojourns to Texas and New York, and notwithstanding travel delays and bad weather (including turbulence on the runway in Dallas), I had a great time. I wish I had a video of my one-year-old niece Audrey saying “Baaa?” (that’s “bottle” in baby-talk) then grabbing an empty beer bottle and putting it in her mouth.
Since I really have no idea what I’m doing with this blogging thing, for Christmas I asked for “The Huffington Post’s Complete Guide to Blogging.” And I got it, from my computer-savvy brother-in-law. I also got some really great Steve Madden shoes. Mmm… shoes.
In keeping with La Ariana’s sage advice on blogging, here’s a short post, not-very-well-written-or-edited, that incorporates visuals.
In Fort Worth, my sister, 5-year-old niece, and I attended a performance of The Nutcracker, along with another 5-year-old and her mother. I hadn’t seen the ballet since I was a child, and I’ve never played it (just the orchestral suite), so I was really jazzed. They used recorded music, which was disappointing, but I got used to the tinny sound after a while.
Maybe it was being surrounded by children, but the performance really took me back to my childhood love of Tchaikovsky. When I was a boy, I would listen to The Nutcracker for hours, lying on my bed, letting my mind fill with the images conjured by the music. Later, I got into the 1812 Overture and Marche Slave, and eventually the symphonies.
At some point, though, I began to turn off Tchaikovsky. I still enjoyed playing his music (the viola parts are very satisfying, and challenging) but I didn’t really enjoy listening to his work, live or recorded. Shortly after joining the SLO Symphony, I had a conversation with Mike Nowak about Tchaikovsky. He’s not a huge fan either – doesn’t program the symphonies – even though Tchaikovsky is a crowd-pleaser. That made me feel a little better.
Now, when I decided to do this blog, I knew I wouldn’t pretend to be a musicologist, but I’ve been reflecting on Tchaikovsky lately and thought I’d share some of these thoughts.
What’s the appeal of Tchaikovsky? The melodies, first of all, are immediately attractive. They’re memorable, too, because they are based on scales and arpeggios, and they get repeated a lot. His work is not cerebral or abstract – it appeals first to the emotions, which, I daresay, is how most people experience music. The emotions evoked are fairly straightforward:
Heroism (1812 Overture) Heartbreak (4th movement of Symphony #6) Joyful exuberance (last movement of the Serenade for Strings)
I think Tchaikovsky would have made a terrific film composer. To this day, as when I was a little boy, his work conjures mental images. Perhaps this is why (in my view) his most successful works are the ballets – his talent found fullest expression when he was composing music with images in mind.
I feel the symphonies and his other “absolute” music suffers in comparison with his ballets, and when compared with other masters of absolute music, like Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms. But maybe this is an apples and oranges issue.
Here’s a little bit of Nutcracker:
I guess for me, Tchaikovsky was a sort of “starter” composer. He paved the way for my later appreciation of guys like Brahms, Mahler, and Shostakovich.
I guess it’s normal to grow in and out of music. After all, in junior high, this was my favorite song:
Best,
DH
P.S. Stay tuned for reviews of Stomp and Spring Awakening, and “C is for Conductors.”
P.S. Why was the violist not allowed to carry his viola on the airplane?
For the promised entry on conductors, I’d like to gather anecdotes from the rest of the orchestra. I’m sure we all have lots of stories– inspirational, humorous, or horror – about conductors. So “C is for Conductors” is forthcoming.
But first, here’s something to brighten your day. C is for Clark, Petula:
Now on to more serious matters...
Anyone working in the arts has encountered...
"The Dreaded Critic."
Criticism can make or break, or it can be dead wrong. Capote’s In Cold Blood became a cultural phenomenon largely because of universal praise in the media. Keats’ early poems were panned; he was crushed, and then he died, yet his stature has grown ever since. All those critics who ran screaming from the first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring couldn’t know that his music would one day accompany animated images of dinosaurs in Fantasia.
Musicians are no strangers to criticism. It starts from day one: no, hold the bow like this… position your arm like that… breathe here, not there… play louder… softer… faster… slower… it’s a treadmill of criticism.
I got on this treadmill early, like a lot of us. Beginning at age 11, I started going to solo and ensemble competitions. I’d play my piece for a judge, then they’d give a rating and a written evaluation of the performance. Over the years I got lots of helpful criticism: “work on speeding up your vibrato,” “your bow technique is weaker than your left hand,” “practice scales and arpeggios,” and “give the piece room to breathe” (at 14, I had no idea what that meant. I’m still not sure I do. But 20-something years later, I still work on vibrato, bow technique, scales and arpeggios).
As a young violist, I didn’t know that I’d grow up to be a teacher/critic myself (at 14, I wanted to be the next William F. Buckley, Jr. -- this was during my Reagan phase). Teaching in any field involves criticism. It’s your job to praise students when they do something well, but also point out what could be improved. “Constructive criticism” is the goal. Destructive criticism comes more naturally. It’s like the dark side of the Force… easier, instant, more seductive. How many times am I tempted to write on a student essay “Your ideas are simplistic and superficial” but check that impulse and write “this is a good start. Think about how you can complicate the analysis by considering…” When criticizing, I always ask myself, “what would Yoda do?”
Harsh criticism sometimes works, though. A teacher once said to me: “You’re a viola-playing machine.” Ouch. He meant that I was all technique. I took it personally, but afterwards I did work on musicality. On the other hand, it’s frustrating when a teacher never criticizes. A high school teacher peppered my essays with comments like, “wonderful!” and “wish I’d written it myself!” Where do you go with feedback like that? The David-Hennessee-Is-Perfect Ride at Disneyland?
I think a lot about criticism because, technically, I’m a critic myself: a literary critic. My job involves writing hardly-ever-read analyses of hardly-ever-read literary texts. Come to think of it, grading student essays (which I should be doing right now) is a form of criticism. Hmm. What does it mean to be a critic, anyway?
And what is criticism for? Would my students write good papers if they knew they would all get A's? Would I work so hard at teaching if I knew that student evaluations would all be marked “excellent”? Would Britney Spears ever wear underwear if she weren’t constantly stalked by paparazzi? If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, can I still save 30% on auto insurance by switching to Geico?
So what exactly is criticism? According to Dictionary.com...
the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.
2.
the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.
3.
the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc.
4.
a critical comment, article, or essay; critique.
5.
any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc.: historical criticism; literary criticism.
6.
investigation of the text, origin, etc., of literary documents, esp. Biblical ones: textual criticism.
So criticism can involve description, analysis, or judgment. Academic criticism is mostly descriptive/analytical. For example, when writing an article on Dickens’ Great Expectations, I spent not one moment considering how well the book is written. Instead, I analyzed how Pip’s coming-of-age represented and commented on mid-Victorian British debates about the nature of gentlemanliness. If you have a couple of free hours, I’d be happy to hold forth on this topic. Just give me some advance warning -- I’ll need to get my Pip and Estella sock puppets out of storage and make sure my Miss Havisham dress still fits.
The kind of criticism we encounter in the arts involves analyzing and evaluating quality, but it also includes description and context. I love reading theater reviews in The New Yorker. It’s almost as good as going to the play itself. There’s information on the playwright, some background on the play’s performance history, a plot summary, and then the red meat: evaluation of the sets, costumes, and acting. Carnivores, vegetarians, vegans – it doesn’t matter – this is the protein we need. Should we spend our hard-earned money on this thing? Or will we want those three hours of our lives back? Should I switch to Geico and save 30% on auto insurance so I can I afford to take my niece Chloe to see The Little Mermaid on Broadway this Christmas?
A critical article on a classical music concert is different. It’s basically an autopsy: retrospective, not prospective. It’s not done primarily for the purpose of encouraging or warning off potential patrons. What’s it for, then? Raising the profile of the group? Recreating the event for those who weren’t there? Helping concert attendees relive the experience? Giving them another point of view to put next to theirs? Encouraging musicians always to play their best, knowing their performance will be evaluated? Aspiring to be itself a work of artistic merit (as Oscar Wilde suggests in “The Critic as Artist”), before it ends up catching parakeet droppings or disappearing into the internet ether?
I got some early experience confronting these questions. When I was 16, playing in my hometown’s orchestra, the local paper got a new music critic. She was a good writer, but highly critical of our playing, and not used to the politics of a small town. People in the orchestra – and the community – got quite upset with her critical reviews. After all, we were lucky to have a symphony orchestra in an Oklahoma town of 80,000, and no one came to our shows expecting to hear perfection. So she toned the reviews down. By contrast, a few years later, the critic for the newly formed Oklahoma City Philharmonic didn’t pull any punches. His candor, many of us felt, was appropriate, as the orchestra strove to raise performance standards.
"Criticism isn’t criticism without some element of judgment and evaluation, even if that’s negative. That’s what separates it from advertising."
An issue that recurs with criticism: who are you to judge me? One hears this question all the time on American Idol (I have a lot of ideas on American Idol – be warned, and be afraid... very afraid). In post-audition interviews, rejected contestants who sing like cats with amoebic dysentery always say things like, “what do the judges know? I’d like to see Simon get up there and sing. @###%$! %%$$##@, ^&%%*!” This is fallacious reasoning (I once knew a drag queen named Fallacious Reasoning... OK, not really). One’s inability to do something doesn’t mean that one can’t judge others doing it. I can’t write or direct films, but I can perceive that Woody Allen is a superior filmmaker to, say, Judd Apatow. Annie Hall vs. The 40-Old-Virgin? Come on.
Recently I came across this article in the Tribune. (click the link below) The orchestra critic for the Cleveland Orchestra lost his job because he was too consistently critical of the Music Director.
As a writer and writing teacher, I pay a lot of attention to the conventions of various genres. I've noticed that reviews of classical music concerts include description and evaluation of the performance, some context on the composer and their times, a few words on the audience’s response, and perhaps some discussion of past or future concerts.
The SLO Tribune’s classical music critic, Jim Cushing, incorporates these elements in his reviews. He also discusses the visuals (like what the soloist wears) that make a live concert such a radically different experience from listening to a CD on one’s stereo at home. What I particularly appreciate about Jim’s reviews is that he draws on his knowledge of Western history and culture to locate our concerts within ongoing conversations about human nature and artistic expression. To me, these ruminations are more worth reading than blow-by-blow accounts of what was technically right or wrong about our performance. But that’s just my perspective. There are no doubt others.
A problem with criticism can creep in when one is asked to criticize someone or something in which one has some degree of personal and emotional investment. Some folks favor absolute honesty, a “cruel-to-be-kind,” “tough love” approach. I’m more of a utilitarian, and most people I know are. To us, one has to weigh the pros and cons of absolute candor. Will any purpose be served? Will anyone be made happier? Will future problems be avoided? Will I save 30% or more on my auto insurance by… AHH! Get thee behind me, gecko!
I’m reminded of a situation with a good friend years ago. He had just gotten a great new apartment. He invited us over to see the place, which he’d spent a fortune decorating. It was like Ikea had thrown up. A soulless, pre-fab nightmare. Two days there and I would have been reaching for a shotgun – not for me – for the furniture. Did he need to know all that? No. So I said, “the furniture is perfectly arranged to manage traffic flow.”
Though not entirely up front, I would call such criticism a deliberate act of kindness. Love, even?
DH P.S. almost forgot the viola joke:
What is the main requirement at the "International Viola Competition?" Hold the viola from memory.
Hello again ―David Hennessee here. I heard that the opening night concert was wonderful. I was heartbroken that I couldn’t play because of illness. Here’s a “shout out” to Karen Loewi-Jones, who heroically filled in for me.
To read Jim Cushing’s review of the concert, click here.
You may have heard that Jim has been named Poet Laureate of San Luis Obispo. (Click here to read about Jim and about Poetry Month.) We’re so lucky to have Jim writing such informed, insightful, and poetic reviews of our concerts. There’s no more appreciative fan of the SLO Symphony.
Bernstein and West Side Story I was going to post this link before the first concert. Here’s Bernstein conducting West Side Story:
And here he is conducting Beethoven’s Overture to “Egmont,” which is on the November 8th concert at the Cohan Center:
During my recent bout with death-flu, I had an idea to do a series for the blog: “playing in the orchestra from A to Z.” (I have no idea what the Z entry will be – Zoroastrians in classical music?) What follows is the first entry. Be warned: it gets moralizing toward the end. Recently I’ve been teaching Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and the Romantic poets, and when you’re steeped in those guys, moralizing happens. So, A is for:
Auditions. A necessary evil for anyone in the performing arts. You practice your music, your monologue, your dance routine, but it comes down to whether or not you perform your best, on the spot, in front of folks there to judge you.
For musicians, auditions start early. In school bands and orchestras, they occur at the beginning of the year, for chairs: a ranking of all the kids playing the same instrument. These auditions place students in the right ensemble or section for their ability. School auditions don’t stop there. Oftentimes, you can “challenge” -- you and the person sitting ahead of you play the same piece for the conductor, or even the whole group. If you win, you move up. If not, you don’t. Challenges can tap into kids’ competitiveness as way to help them excel. For example, my sister JoLynn was a very fine clarinetist in her younger days, in part because she and her rival Denise constantly challenged each other for first chair in their high school band.
I never had to worry about challenges. Growing up in Oklahoma, I was the only violist in the school orchestra whose playing didn’t peel paint off walls. In high school we lost our cellist, so I had to learn the cello. You can’t challenge in a section of one. Since this time I’ve had enormous respect for cellists. For me, playing the cello was like wrestling an alligator.
In Oklahoma, statewide, it was a different story with auditions, and I quickly got drawn in to their competitiveness. There was, as in many states, an “All-State Orchestra.” High school students from around the state auditioned in November, and those who made the cut got to travel to Oklahoma City in January, stay in a hotel, and spend the week rehearsing for a concert. The first year I auditioned for “All-State,” I practiced my fingers to the bone. Everyone was surprised when I got second chair (in a section of fourteen violists), “beating out” a bunch of older kids. I’ll admit I was proud of myself. I hadn’t expected to do so well. Most of the proficient string players were from Tulsa or the Oklahoma City area – not out-of-the way places like Lawton – and they all knew each other. People kept calling me a “dark horse” (I thought they were referring to my tan).
I was in for a major let-down. In January we had to re-audition, and I was demoted from second to fourth chair. Two whole chairs! This demotion happened for a couple of reasons. First, we were playing two movements of Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis.” I hadn’t heard, so I worked on all four movements, wasting a lot of time woodshedding weird chromatic scales. Second, right after I played the second audition, the older violists descended upon me, turning a dank hallway in a three-star Oklahoma City hotel into a viola-feeding frenzy. Those hot-shot 17-and-18-year olds could smell blood. They demanded that I relate what the judges thought of my playing. Shy, naïve, just-wanting-to-be-liked, 15-year-old-me confessed, “well, they said the Copland should be more staccato, and the Rossini a little faster, and…” Armed with this advice, they knew what the judges were looking for, and I lost my chair. Oh the agony!
I got my adolescent revenge, and at the time, it was sweet. The next two years, I was first-chair violist in the All-State Orchestra. I reveled in my status as the best teenage violist in the great state of Oklahoma (in retrospect, I realize this is an honor on par with being the best pig farmer on the Upper East Side.)
My adolescent narcissism was further stoked when I won a statewide string competition. The best part: I beat out my dreaded rival, a lean-and-hungry violist named Matt. He knew he was better than me. I knew I was better than him. We were always seated on the first stand of the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra and the All-State Orchestra, and our rivalry turned every rehearsal into a combat zone.
I suppose I had a right to be proud of winning this contest -- I did practice a lot, and there was a cash prize that helped pay for college – but largely I was thrilled to have finally defeated the dreaded Matt. I felt like Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star. Poetic justice was served on me for my hubris, though. I had won by playing the first movement of the Stamitz Concerto, a flashy little 7-minute bonbon. For the recital featuring the winners, my teacher felt that I should push myself and perform Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. The whole thing, from memory. All 30 minutes of it. It came at the end of a recital featuring the other winners, all six of them. Now, Schubert’s great, but his idea of development is to play the same exact thing in a different key, and then repeat it in a few more keys. I pulled it off, but afterwards the weary audience’s compliments included: “that sure was a lot of notes!” “how did you memorize such a long piece?” “you look so handsome in your tux!” and “is it a long drive back to Lawton?”
In college, I learned that auditions are about more than expressing adolescent narcissism. When you’re auditioning for a paying gig, the pressure is ramped up, and it’s all about details. In auditions for professional orchestras, there may be hundreds of people competing for one spot. How can the judges make the tough calls? These are musicians who’ve been trained at the best music schools, and they’re all highly qualified, brilliant players. It’s a real shame that they can’t all find work and instead some have to find part-time day jobs or even change careers. I had a friend in Seattle, a very fine violinist, who trained at the North Carolina School of Performing Arts and the Brooklyn Conservatory. She tried to “make it” in New York for several years, but eventually gave up, moved to Seattle, and became a landscaper and later an ultrasound technician. One silver lining to this situation: the competition for limited jobs is making regional orchestras better than ever. (Click here to read an article from the New Yorker that describes this trend.)
As I mentioned, I got a taste of the competitiveness of professional auditions in college. In the late 1980s, the Oklahoma Symphony disbanded, and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic was reformed in its wake. To replace the string players who’d moved way, they hired college students from the area. A freshman at the University of Oklahoma, I auditioned for a spot on the sixth stand of the OKC Phil. I lost it to an older OU student, Kelli, because the conductor felt that my high e-flat was a little too flat (I still got to play as an “extra/substitute.” When you’re 18, you take what you can get.) A few years later, I lost another audition to Kelli, for a spot on the OKC Phil’s fifth stand, because the judges felt her ricochet bowing was a little bouncier than mine. Kelli and I were always good friends. She could do some things better than I, and vice versa – but at the auditions, we were competitors, and it came down to what we did at that moment and the finest of points.
I’ve done a few more auditions since then. Unlike when I was younger, for these auditions I didn’t think about “winning” or “beating out” anyone. I just wanted to play my best. I knew I was competing against my own limitations. Consequently, these experiences felt a lot… cleaner, somehow. Practicing for them felt like trying to get as close as possible to my viola. I did wonder, though, where was that devil-may-care, egotistical, competitive, hot-shot violist I was at 15? Maybe he’s still alive and well in some parallel universe where it’s still 1986, and I hope he’s happy. Maybe living on the West Coast for 14 years has mellowed me, because these days, for me, music isn’t about winning, “challenging ,” or “beating out” others, or showing off (unless you’re a professional soloist – a lot of them have Hummer-sized egos, and they need to).
One great thing about the SLO Symphony is its lack of competiveness, politicking, rivalry, or hierarchy. The strings rotate seating; principal players don’t boss around section players; anyone can ask Michael a question, and he leads with encouragement and humor, not with the intimidation and condescension that too many conductors employ.
In a way, I’m glad that I was more competitive and egotistical when I was younger, as I’m sure that motivated me to practice harder. But these days, I feel differently about playing music. For example, recently I performed Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Margaret Berrio, Jan Carpenter, Clif Swanson, and Ina Davenport. We’ve done the Trout many times now, and it’s started to “gel.” When performing with these guys, I felt as if I wasn’t playing music, but being played by the music. Time stood still. The only reality was Schubert’s music and the people I was playing it with. I observed our playing, feeling a sort of purposeful, fulfilling, peaceful-but-exciting joy. It’s a hard feeling to describe. I think Wordsworth describes it in “Tintern Abbey,” where he writes about...
...that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,-- Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.
Maybe I’ve read too much Romantic poetry lately, but I often feel something like this when playing the viola, alone or with others. I imagine I’m not the only one. As Wordsworth would say, these feelings, are, for me, “abundant recompense” for my younger, egotistical, competitive ideas about performance.
But then, in the real world – a place quite different from David Hennessee’s thousand-points-of-light imagination – there are competitive auditions, and you have to perform well, or else. When you’re a kid, if you blow an audition, you still have friends, school, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Clearasil, and dating. Auditions are just a part of the game, and if you lose one, you can always challenge.
Growing up, we learn that life is not a game, and the audition itself is the challenge. We all face on-the-spot pressures – auditions -- musicians and non-musicians alike. Job interviews and performance reviews, presentations to the board, sales pitches to prospective clients, paying taxes, or just a family waiting to be fed dinner. The best advice I’ve heard on facing pressures like these comes from Frances McDormand’s character in Almost Famous: “be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” Recently, I heard this advice echoed when visiting with principal French hornist Jane Swanson. She related Jennifer Dodson’s teacher’s advice on stage fright: “Just shut up and blow.”
Auditions – in whatever form – can be intimidating, but we can take away their power if we just “shut up and blow” – if we just do something. Something is better than nothing. It negates nothingness, despair and fear. It plugs us into the vast network of something-ness all around us, what Wordsworth calls the “mighty sum of things forever speaking.” And maybe our efforts add to that sum.
Perhaps that competitive, narcissistic 15-year-old boy trying to win auditions, get first prize in competitions and beat out others -- perhaps he added to that sum. If we’d had Facebook and MySpace back then, he probably would have been online, “friending” people. Instead he was befriending the forever-wooden Pinocchio who would someday help him become a real boy.
Well, that’s enough knock-off Wordsworthian moralizing. Here’s a viola joke: what’s the difference between a viola and a vacuum cleaner? You can tune a vacuum cleaner.
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