When it rains it pours

In the past two weeks I have gotten two calls to play dance classes from the company in town I would love to work for full time. Unfortunately I have had gigs which conflicted with said classes and had to turn them down. I hate turning down anything thats an opportunity to make more money, especially when its a fun gig that gets turned down. One one hand I guess its really fortunate that i have the chance to turn anything down, and the gig that I'm doing is actually pretty ok. Its just that this irrational fear that if i turn down too many chances with an ensemble eventually they will stop calling... I hope that doesn't happen.

The other thing about it that bugs me is that the first half of this month I was pretty barren in terms of work and now its full throttle. If only the planets would align and the schedules would line up i could live like a king, albeit a very poor king, but a king none the less..

I contacted the personnel manager of the orchestra I mentioned auditioning for last post. Turns out there are NO live auditions for percussion, while this makes the whole thing a lot less stressful its a little annoying because I was looking forward to getting into these high pressure situations again. In addition i need to find a decent video camera and hope they do not mind it being filmed in my practice space. Lack of a good venue to practice and play in is probably the biggest thing I regret with being out of school. Even if I'm very content with the studio I rent to practice, something tells me recording timpani on a video camera in a 100 square foot room with brick walls will not really bring across the best in my playing...Maybe I should have taken up flute.

Listening wise, Schumanns Kinderszenen Op. 15 popped up on my Ipod today while on the subway. This is some hip hip music. Kinderszenen is Schumans reflections on childhood as an adult. I haven't spend a serious amount of time with Schumans piano music I was blown away, this is so fresh, playful. I think you could put lyrics on top of any of these and have a hit today! Im almost postive pop players like Ben Folds or Joe Jackson must take some serious inspiration from the work. Vladimir Horowitz was on my Ipod and I found a video on YouTube, so Enjoy!

Auditions

Ill be honest, My experiences auditioning haven't exactly been the high points of my career. Which is bizarre, because I totally get off learning the excerpts, the pieces they come from, the schools of though etc, Its my bread and butter, I love it. But when it comes time to lay it out for a panel, nerves take over, and any chops i have worked up mostly go out the window. Its ususaly the first piece that ends up the worst, Especially a Marimba solo, things are also exceptionally worse if its Bach.. usually after a awful solo things start to come back into play and I can actually thing about things other than how much the panel hate me, or what is the name of that Ten Years After song that was on the radio on the drive in. Weird, but thats where my mind flies when I play for these things


I haven't played an audition in about a year, Prior to that I did four over the course of a month. The first two auditions I played ok, but made some really dumb mistakes, just general nerves, but on the whole there was some good stuff in there. The second I bombed, like as bad an audition as you could play, I mean, its just as well I walked into the thing and after hit the first note my pants fell down.. It was the worst audition you could have. In the last audition I was happy with my playing but nothing came of it, I played well, no brutal gaffs, but maybe they were looking for something else. I will probably write about each of these in separate blogs, especially the pant falling down one. Its a good story..

Needless to say, this experience was a total blow to my confidence and made me seriously doubt my ability to play or audition at all. In reflecting on my preparation for the auditions I found some serious holes in my practice session which I have since fixed (hopefully). Even in practicing now, which is 90% orchestral related I really haven't had the courage to seriously consider auditioning for something.

Last night I came across a pretty good opportunity to throw my hat in the ring. There is an audition about three weeks away, I can make it to the venue to do it in person, and the list is very open ended. You choose the solo and the excerpts etc and it only costs 30 dollars to take. No big financial loss there.

When i came across it last night i had this bizarre feeling of dread come over me. I actually hated the thought of doing another audition, how sad is that. I then quickly realized that if i want to give this a go i need to get over those bad auditions and get as many more out of the way. I need to start thinking about how i feel taking them and my preparation in the weeks leading up to them. I mean, I've heard it took Alan Abel 30 auditions to land his first job, so i can take some comfort in that (whether thats true or not) Regardless, this blog may work as a preparation journal for this sort of thing as well. I hope thats ok.


Lately I have been listing to a lot of Stravinsky, Boulez with Cleveland, Rite of Spring (from 1969 or 70 i think..) and a recording of Les Noces I picked up this summer with Daniel Reuss conducting musikFabrik and the RIAS chamber choir. It sounds great,


The soprano on the recording is Carolyn Sampson and she dosent make me want to stab my eyes like who ever is singing on the Bernstein recording (the only other version of this that I have)


and if you want to see the piece with its original choreography here is the Royal Ballet... Enjoy!!

Dance classes for the next few weeks

With Monday beging a holiday in Ontario and a couple of other provinces, work this week will actually start on Tuesday. Ill be spending most of my time at a pretty swank catholic arts high school near the "yonge and sheppard" intersection in Toronto.
Dance classes often confuse people who ask what I'm up to in Toronto. For the record no spandex is worn by me at any point of the dance class, even though i do very much enjoy a friends rendition of me playing a dance class above.

Dance classes mostly consist of an accompanist, who improvises over a set of predetermined rhythmic changes which were figured out a long time ago by the creators of their respective techniques. So far I have encountered two types of techniques on which these classes are based Graham, Originated by Martha Graham and Limon which was created by Jose Limon.

Both classes run in a similar fashion, floor work, which involved the dancers sitting or lying on the floor, standing exercises, and exercises which involved traveling across the floor


Limon classes in my experence are significantly easier to play, There are rarely any excersises which involve vast memorization of time or tempo changes. there are no real complex meters involved, just sit and have fun

Graham classes require a bit more home work, many of the teachers do not take a break in between each exercise, which means you need to be on your toes and know how their particular class works, some exercises switch tempos and time signatures halfway through which for me can be a little stressful. For the dancers, everything is done in a contraction, which to me sounds painful, so i guess i don't actually have it too bad.

Graham also worked with Aaron Copeland to produce the gret Appalachian Spring, She was also a collaborator with John Cage, via his partner Merc Cunningham who was a dancer. I'm almost certain that it was through Cage that congas became the standard instrument which is used for accompanying. She also frequently used the music of Varese in her dances, which in my mind, is pretty rad.


Thankfully Iv been able to sit in regularly to watch some of the accompanists at the more professional schools and am now able to hang in with some of the more difficult classes. Last week I played for an instructor who was actually in Martha Grahams company, which was just a
fantastic experience,

This line of work is how i pay most of my bills in Toronto right now, the work is steady, it pays well, it gives you a chance to improvise every day, and the instructors have a tremendous respect for what you do. What more could you ask for. I encourage any percussionist in a university program to get their hand drum chops way up and improvise regularly. Its the key to being able to hang in with these classes not to mention just totally healthy to your musical self!!


I found a few videos on you tube of Peter Saleh, a percussionist in i believe New Jersery who does similar work, Enjoy ! He's Fantastic!

Post 1

Hey Folks, Decided to start a blog to share some of my experiences being a percussionist outside of the school system and trying to make a living from it. The 6 months that I've been out here on my own have so far been very rewarding and thankfully put a lot of fears that I had leaving the comfort of a school environment to bed. Ive had some totally rewarding gigs thus far, some gigs which are just fun and pay regular bills (dance classes anyone?) and some which were total stinkers, (a Schubert three gig where i got paid yet never played a note as a result of no drums ever arriving for me). Ill post more about what is going on as it happens and maybe talk more about past gigs if i really feel the need.

I may also talk about music from time to time. things i find on youtube, new stuff i get into, concerts I see etcetera...

Ill leave this with a great John Cage clip i stumbled upon last night, Him telling the story every music student learns when they take the five minuets alloted each year to cover the life and teachings of Cage in their music history course...

I take any I get to hear Cage actually speak and communicate his ideas. so if anyone else has some to share please pass them along!


ok, im out

PS. I will try to keep the blog some what clean...and not riddled with typos..but no promises