Are you sure you want to do this?

Tags

Cello, Concert Artists Guild, Holland, New York City, Vending machine

West 65th Street, New York City. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My answer has always been “Yes!”  No question.

Shortly after moving to New York, I attended a weekend seminar sponsored by the Concert Artists Guild.  Different speakers took about an hour each.  The seminar provided information for musicians wanting to get there careers to the next level.

One participant, a cellist, had recently finished a degree at Juilliard.  She was wondering what to do next.  Shortly after the seminar, she became the cellist in a well-known string quartet.

My career progressed significantly as well.

The conductor of the New Haven Symphony was one of the speakers. He opened his presentation with the question, “Are you sure you want to do this?” He spoke about performing outside the city.  When the concert is over, you have to enjoy going to the bus station and plugging quarters into the vending machine.  That’s dinner!

He was right then, and still is. Inconvenience is built into the reality of being an artist. Unless your life centers around your residence, and there are very few distractions, you just have to deal.

Possibly due to my Dutch heritage, I’ve become pretty good at finding ways to enjoy the ride.  The Dutch have to cooperate with their neighbors for their own survival, since Holland is, after all, below sea level.  They are also happy about small things, not relying on major events to find something to be happy about. So, when plugging those quarters into that vending machine, it’s fun to make the best choices from the selection available.  When faced with no time to have a sit-down dinner, calling ahead to a restaurant works.  Good food on the bus trumps bad food or late-night dinner.  Ordering delivery on a day off is more fun, even when eating out of “to go” containers, when you can use something other than gourmet plastic utensils.

When you live in New York, you learn very quickly that transportation delays happen all the time.  So you have a choice:  you can feel upset whenever that happens, or you can deal with it and have something along to do.

I love going “somewhere else,” which I rarely had the opportunity to do as a child.  Music has been my ticket to make that happen.  If being inconvenienced is part of the deal, I’ll take it.

What’s the alternative?

“Are you sure you want to do this?”  

What is your answer?

Comments?  Please use this Contact Form, or email me at gretchensaathoff1 [at] gmail.com

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Pothole Insurance!

Tags

distractions, Music, New York City, Ruth Slenczynska, Smith College, snags in performances, teaching

Image via Wikipedia

Is there such a thing?

While living in New York City, I worked in  law firms for awhile (backup jobs).  All employees were provided with a car service home after a certain time at night (I think it was after 8:30, required by Federal law).

One night, en route from Wall St. to the West Side Highway, my driver was winding around the one-way streets as usual.  When he rounded the 4th or 5th corner, we encountered ~ what else? ~ Con Ed!  Their truck, tents, and mountains of miscellaneous stuff took up the whole street, curb to curb (their specialty).

Just as I was about to voice my exasperation, the driver turned to me and said, “You know what they’re doing, don’t you?  They’re installing potholes!  They only come out at night.”

Best laugh I’d had for months, all the way to the Upper West Side.

What about the potholes we all encounter in performances?  Something new and unexpected  happens every time!

During college, memorable snags during performances, juries, and other people’s juries (I collaborated with almost everybody) included:

• playing a solo jury with the piano next to a huge soundproofing panel hung on the adjacent wall
• another solo jury with one juror wearing red, another swinging his foot ~ out of rhythm
• a particularly gifted cellist’s jury ~ she was a freshman, nervous, resulting in her playing a Popper etude and launching, without a break, in the Brahms E minor Cello Sonata.  I wasn’t ready for “no break,” but fortunately the piano’s first entrance is after the cello’s first note.  Whew!  Made it!  Won’t happen again!
  

Some of the highlights in performances after college were:

• trying to ignore a phone (land line) ringing loudly 12 times(!) in the middle of a Beethoven trio performance ~ no answering machine, no human picking up
• freezing in a January orchestra gig at St. John the Divine ~ they said to wear long underwear!  The cathedral is old, enormous, unheated, and windy.
• having sweaty hands in a choral performance at NYU in May, on a hot day with the building’s heat still on ~ my hands slipped (often) for the 1st and only time
• playing a concert on Luboff tour where the piano was on a high platform (i.e. unmovable), 1/2 an auditorium away from the stage
• having sight lines obscured between me and the soloist ~ at a singer’s City Opera audition ~ I was able to read cues from the back of her dress
• due to space limitations in a church concert series, relying on the back of the violinist’s head and the tip of her bow
   

  What can we do?  How can we “deal?”

  The pianist Ruth Slenczynska, in an event at SIU, talked about the way she practices during the two weeks preceding a concert.  She intentionally creates uncomfortable conditions for herself!  One day she’ll practice in bad light, the next in a cold room, then with the bench at an uncomfortable height, etc.

  Pianist Peggy Lazarus, who lives near Boston, prepares her students for performances by making noise during their lessons.

  As she said in a recent email:

  “we practice with distractions…..my students play and I bang on drums, wail like a baby and blow a train whistle!   Usually we all end up laughing…”

  Great idea!

  During college, my fellow music building inhabitants and I would go into each others’ practice rooms to make noise, take the music away, and dance around.

  One more situation comes to mind.  On occasion a concert venue will be highly reverberant.  If a performer arrives just before the concert to warm up at the hall, that can change everything.

  Do you practice with slower tempi from time to time?  Playing slower in reverberant halls will sound clearer to the audience.  Unless the reverberation is out of control, that is.

  Putting more distance between the piano and another instrument can result in a separation of sounds, which ensures more clarity.

  Producing shorter sounds makes a difference in live rooms.  As a pianist, I also use less pedal (more in a dry acoustic).

  Sometimes it’s difficult to hear yourself and other performers on stage.  You have to do the best you can.  Just try to play like you rehearsed.  And watch your collaborators like a hawk!  You’ll be relying on sight cues rather than sound.

  I wouldn’t want my students to feel jumpy due to anticipated distractions when they go into a performance.  But making them aware of how important it is to focus and to expect things to happen can be very helpful.  Think of all the cell phones out there.

  Learning the music in a variety of ways is good insurance.  That way, when distractions happen, the performer can say the names of the notes, say the fingerings, focus on the chord structure, etc.  Silently, of course.

  In the midst of an oratorio performance last year at Smith College, a small dog found his way onto the stage via an open door.  The soprano soloist nonchalantly picked him up and handed him to an orchestra member.  (I don’t remember what happened after that.)

  The conductor said he had been expecting a cell phone to ring, but a dog?  And he didn’t miss a thing.  The singer scored attention in the review for her dog catching skills in addition to her expressive singing.

  Stuff happens.

  With that said, being able to “deal” comes with experience.  I wanted to write about it in the event that someone else might navigate a little easier.
  

  Do you prepare yourself and your students for the unusual things that happen?  How do you go about that?

  What have you encountered in performances?  What were the results?

  Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below!

  And be sure to check out the book sale!  Special prices on “Goal-oriented Practice” are effective through midnight on Thursday, November 18!  Both the E-book and print versions are available at bargain discount rates.  Don’t miss out!

  

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One more about NY

Tags

Add new tag, Bus, New York City, Times Square

Image by Del Amitri via Flickr

I’m home, but my head is in NY.  So ~ this is the final post of this particular travelogue (probably).

Changing trains in Times Square:

A man with a wonderfully resonant voice repeating “JE-sus Loves you!”  Half a second after someone looks in his direction, his buddy hits them with a brochure.

Timing:  perfect.  Performance:  definitely a 10.  Occupational possibilities:  preacher, singer, actor, orator.

(This description would be much better with audio.)

Fashionista baby girl, lying in stroller.  All you could see was her face.  Everything else was pink, trimmed in black lace.  Stunning.

Cab ride from GCT to 120th & Claremont:

TV on seat back in front of me, a new experience.  The New Yawk Co-AW-fee commercial was especially impressive.  In addition, ads were introduced by fake news reporters.  Since I’m not up on my New Yawk television news reporters these days, it looked like a real newscast at first.

Tourists would watch it ~ can’t tell the difference!

Bus, north of NYC:

We passed Grace Church St. in Rye, where my brother used to live.

Saturday blog:

Be sure to come back!  Poll results from last week’s “A Tale of Two Violinists” will be posted, as well as a brand new topic.

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