Getting the Most out of Orchestra, or: You're Already Sitting There, Right?

Any music student of even a moderate degree of seriousness ends up spending some time in orchestra rehearsals. In fact, usually they end up spending a LOT of time in orchestra rehearsals. There’s lots of very good reasons for this. Many bass players are drawn to orchestra for the artistic pleasure of playing the great orchestral repertoire. Others are “made” to play in orchestra for a variety of reasons: parents or teachers make them, they have orchestra as an assigned course in school, or perhaps they’re even sent off to a music camp or festival where they need to play in orchestra.

Playing in orchestra is at the heart of what bass playing is about for a lot of us, and the orchestral repertoire offers us a chance to play some of the greatest music ever written. I got into music as a career because I wanted to play in orchestras, and that is still true of most of my students. I’m happy to say that I still love playing orchestral music after quite a few years of doing so, and I hope to still be enjoying it 30 years from now!

However, loving orchestral playing and orchestral music is not the same thing as loving every single orchestra rehearsal and concert that I’ve ever been involved in. Despite one’s best efforts, sometimes playing in orchestra can be a total drag. Conductors can be clueless or boring. Repertoire can be uninteresting or just something you’ve played a few times too many recently. Your fellow musicians can be grumpy, clueless or just plain bad at their jobs, or you can simply be distracted by illness, tiredness or life events.

I’ve gotten pretty good over the years at finding ways to make my time playing in orchestras as personally productive as possible. I realized fairly early on that it was asking too much to expect every rehearsal to be an amazing experience. Once I figured that out, I decided to try to find some way to get something worthwhile out of orchestra even if that thing wasn’t always artistic bliss. While I haven’t always been successful, I’ve been pretty good at finding useful things to do while the conductor is droning on at the first violins or the brass are finding new ways to play very very very loud.

During orchestra we can focus on a few areas beyond just playing our part and following the conductor. Four of my favorites are: our own playing, the playing of the orchestra musicians, the conductor, or the music itself.

Our playing: A famous description of armed combat says that it consists of long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. Orchestral bass playing can often match this description pretty well! While there are certain difficult passages that require our full concentration, there are often long stretches of playing that are not technically challenging for most of us. These stretches can feel like a long, boring eternity of half notes in half position, but they can also be a great opportunity for us to practice. This is especially true for students who are working on some element of their technique. Are you working with your teacher to correct some element of your bowhold? Focus on doing it during your orchestra rehearsal! Are your shifts too fast? Coordination not what it could be? Use your orchestra parts as left hand etudes! It’s amazing how much quicker we can make needed changes when we keep our brains on during orchestra rehearsals, correcting technique problems as we play. After all , we may be in orchestra for literally hours a day - often a longer span of time than we actually practice by ourselves...

The playing of fellow musicians: During the long rests, tacets, and whole notes that so often occupy us in orchestra, look around at what your orchestral colleagues are up to. To play well in any orchestra or other ensemble, we have to have some sense of how the other sections of the orchestra work. I always pay close attention to the wind soloists and principal strings in particular. What little motions does the principal oboe make as he/she starts a solo? Maybe you notice that, when the principal viola is absent, that the viola section seems to play more together. What is the assistant principal doing (or the principal not doing) that is helping the ensemble? When the percussion section plays especially well together, are they looking at the conductor, or at each other, or at their music? Orchestras are very complicated machines, and figuring out some of how they work can help us do a better job as orchestral members - and can improve our own ensemble work.

The conductor: They are mysterious creatures indeed, those conductors. It is our responsibility as musicians to follow them and to do what they ask of us, yet sometimes they seem like a hindrance rather than a help. We all need to figure out what makes for a good conductor and what makes for a less-good one. When I’m working with a conductor I like, I try to figure out why I like them. Is it their clear beat? Their expressive gestures? Their cruel, caustic comments about our playing? Their LACK of a clear beat? The funny stories they tell during rehearsal? Even trickier than analyzing why I like them is trying to figure out if their ideas and gestures are actually creating a good performance or not. Sometimes, I’m having an awful time in rehearsal, but then when I just focus on what’s coming out of the band I have to revise my opinion of the conductor upwards! Since the ultimate goal is not just to make the musicians happy, but to create great musical performances, it’s important to figure out not just what makes me feel like I’m making great music, but rather what is making great music for the audience.

The music: Besides just enjoying the music itself, we also need to learn how the music fits together and “works” if we are going to be able to play it well. Listen to the playing of the orchestra and figure out what you really need to listen to in order to fit in with your colleagues. I often listen in particular for two things: Where the melody part might take some rubato, and what is happening rhythmically in the inner voices. Once I figure out what these parts are doing, I can often cue into one or the other of them to make sure that I don’t lose tempo. There’s too much going on in orchestral music to focus equally on everything, so we need to work out how we can be a help to the ensemble rather than a hindrance. The benefits of this kind of listening can pay off in unexpected ways; if you get called at the last minute for a gig and you know what to listen for in the piece, you can manage to pull off a solid performance even if there’s little or no rehearsal time.

By focusing on all these, perhaps you can turn those hours of orchestra into useful hours of musical work and practice.... Or at least reduce the boredom level when it starts getting unbearable!

Care and Feeding of the Bass Teacher, Chapter 3: Should You and Your Teacher Break Up?

Okay, so you’ve analyzed your teacher type and you’ve studied the owner’s manual. Things are going great with your teacher now, right? Everything’s humming along nicely? What, you say things aren’t perfect with your teacher? You feel some vague dissatisfaction? Or perhaps it’s more than that; perhaps you even feel like your teacher may be failing to help you achieve your goals? Not sure what to do?

If you spend enough time with almost anybody you’re bound to find something that you don’t like about them, and your teacher is no exception. From their hairstyle to their teaching style, parts of your teacher’s personality are virtually assured to annoy you eventually. It can be hard to figure out what things about your teacher are just annoying and what things may indicate bigger problems. Here are a few broad guidelines for assessing your teacher conflicts.

Eeeew!: The first category of teacher annoyances includes anything that is definitely not music-related and not inconvenient to you in any way. This would include odd clothing choices, gross personal habits, weird odors, or bizarre accents. If you are otherwise happy with your teacher, it’s usually wise not to let these kind of things bug you too much, since most of us only see our teacher once a week at most. It’s also a good exercise in kindness and forbearance, as all human beings have some weird quirks that others have to tolerate. You can regale your friends with stories of the one ratty sweater that your teacher wears to every lesson, or the smell of cabbage that permeates their studio. That said, there are indeed some things that might be so gross, or push your buttons so badly, that you can’t concentrate or learn around them, so in extreme cases this might be a deal-breaker for you.

Stuck in Traffic: These annoyances are not music related but are problematic or inconvenient for you. Some teachers are definitely worth spending an hour in traffic each way, or shelling out $125 per lesson, or climbing six flights of stairs, but some just aren’t. We all have limited amounts of time and money and we nee

d to find a teacher that can be a part of our schedule rather than a drag on it (and our budget!). These issues are tough, but you shouldn’t beat yourself up about them; often your teacher will understand and can help you find another good teacher in these circumstances.

Big Jerk: We discussed the Dictator teacher model in part I, and of course dictators as a rule tend to not be that nice overall. but Dictator teachers are often very kind people; they reserve any dictatorial tendencies for musical activities only. This category instead includes teachers who are just plain mean or rude, who say unnecessarily disparaging things about you, who put you down as a person in some way, or who make racist or sexist comments. There may be a few teachers out there whose musical gifts are so great that you will decide to grit your teeth and put up with them, but overall I think it’s wise to not stick around with these sorts if possible. Again, I’m referring mostly to non-musical issues in this category, although musical bullying can be a problem as well.

Goal Disconnect: This is the primary music-related problem that we’ll address, and it’s the most important one. Why are you taking lessons? Are you an amateur looking to have fun and learn some new rep? A beginner starting out on your instrument? A young professional taking auditions and trying to get work? If your teacher is trying to teach you something different than what you want, and they don’t seem to be able to recognize your goals as their goals in your lessons, you may be ready to change teachers and find someone who will give you your money’s worth. Sometimes your goals change; you start to realize that you want to take music more seriously, or the opposite occurs and you decide to make music more of a hobby in your life rather than a passion or a career choice. Many good teachers can make the transition with you to a different lesson style, but some can’t or simply don’t want to.

Not my Style: Like any two people, sometimes you and your teacher are just really not that compatible. Most of this topic is covered in Chapter One; you need to figure out whether your teacher type is the best one for you. One additional wrinkle of this can play out in a purely musical way. No matter how objective your teacher tries to be in their work with you, they themselves have certain musical preferences that can affect how they teach you. If you love Bottesini and your teacher hates it, you may have to be more proactive to get your teacher excited about working on Bottesini with you. This is seldom a huge problem since we need to be able to play in a wide variety of musical styles and it’s impossible to find a teacher who likes them all. In fact, it is often good to have a teacher with different musical tastes than you so that they can expose you to new stuff. Still, it can occasionally be problematic depending on the intensity of your teacher’s preferences (or yours!).

So, how do we deal with these conflicts? The same three basic ways that we deal with any relationship conflict:

- Talk about it with the other person,

- Just put up with it,

- Or end the relationship.

The most important question to ask yourself before you decide which of these goal to pursue takes us back to the “Goal Disconnect” issues I mentioned before. Are you getting what you want and/or need from your teacher? Are you seeing improvement in your playing? Are you enjoying your musical life? If so, you should probably try to put up with as many annoyances from your teacher as you can stand. If you aren’t sure, then maybe you should discuss your concerns with your teacher. If you are pretty sure that things are not progressing well for you, then perhaps you should consider switching teachers.

If you do decide to consider other teachers, make sure that you know what the consequences could be! If your teacher is the only good teacher in your town, consider how far you may have to travel to find another. If your teacher is a well-connected and influential musical figure in your town, then consider what consequences might befall you if they don’t take your decision well for some reason. If you are in college and want to switch studios within your school, consider what your fellow students might think and be prepared to provide a clear explanation of your decision. Please note that I said “could;” often teachers are more than willing to help students move on if the relationship isn’t working. In many cases the teacher turns out to be feeling the same way as the student! No one likes being in a relationship that isn’t working.

This will probably be the final chapter of this little series. I hope it’s given folks a few insights into obtaining a teacher and keeping it happy!

Peabody '09-'10: Catching Up Report

OK, so as always with my blogging goals, I have failed utterly.... In this case I’ve dropped the ball on my efforts to create a weekly report on what’s going on at school. Life events intervened and kept me from keeping up with my pledge. So, in time-honored fashion, I’m gonna play catch-up by doing a catchall midterm report now and then try to get back on the horse next week with regular updates.

Things are certainly busy these days at school. Lots of things instrument-related are happening. We’ve had visits from two top bass makers this month - first came Chris Threlkeld-Weigand, followed soon after by Kai Arvi. They each brought instruments for our students to try out. We have several folks here who are currently on the hunt for a new bass, and it’s wonderful that these excellent luthiers are able to make time in their schedules to drop by school and bring their instruments right to us. I certainly recommend that anyone looking for a top-quality modern bass check these two makers out.

Another exciting bass-related event here at Peabody happened last week with the delivery of our new school bass. About a year and a half ago, a generous donor offered to give the school an old instrument for our use. The bass was in need of a total restoration to be physically sound and playable. Tom Wolf, an excellent bass maker and restorer, agreed to take on the job. Tom was a recent prize winner at the ISB convention for one of his bass and is a fantastic luthier and repairperson. Besides his excellent work on basses, he is also a world-renowned maker of harpsichords and fortepianos. He did a complete restoration of the bass, fit it with a new extension, and drilled a Laborie-style angled endpin hole into the bass. It finally arrived at school on Thursday and it sounds fantastic! We’re so grateful to the donor and the the school for helping make this possible; having an instrument of this quality available for students that can’t currently afford one is a huge benefit for our program. Here’s a photo of current Peabody graduate student Minh Duc Tranh with the bass. He’ll be using it for the upcoming Nashville Symphony bass audition.

Finally, we are preparing for our second visit from Artist in Residence Hal Robinson this Sunday. This time around, there will be no public events scheduled so that Hal and the students can stay focused and maximize their time together. The theme of this visit is bowstrokes; Hal will be demonstrating the various types of bowstrokes that he uses and then working with the students in three groups on their own bowstroke work. Hal’s first visit had a “get-acquainted” quality as he met and heard the students for the first time. In this class I feel like everyone’s going to really focus and get down to work absorbing all the information and examples that Hal can dish out on this critical topic.

First analog contact between Jason and I captured on audio...

I had the pleasure of finally speaking live on the phone with bass blogging overlord and PBDB aficionado Jason Heath this week, and he went and made a lovely Contrabass Conversations episode out of it! It was a lot of fun, and I think I did a pretty good job of fulfilling my two primary goals in this interview:

- Don't say anything so outrageously stupid that it gets me fired, arrested or beat up; and

- Speak SLOWLY ENOUGH that people could understand at least a third of what I was saying. (I'm a notorious fast talker, and I spent the whole interview concentrating on slow talkin'.)

Thanks a always to Jason for having me on and for his continued support of PBDB!

Care and Feeding of the Bass Teacher, Chapter 2: Common problems and solutions

Regardless of which teacher type you have acquired, now you have to figure out what to do with it. Teachers have lots of complicated features, and often we just throw our hands up in the air, press the start button, and hope that they work. This is unfortunate, because we can get a lot more out of them by understanding some basic principles. By far the most important of these is what I refer to as the “ownership” rule. It goes like this:

Don’t forget who works for whom.

Your teacher works for you. You bought them in order to get something out of them - better bass playing and musicianship. But in a tricky twist that muddies the whole thing up, it often seems like you are working for your teacher! They assign you things to practice, make comments and suggestions, and often give you various sorts of grades on those same things. On a lesson to lesson basis, it does certainly feel like it’s your job to please your teacher. But on a long-term basis, it’s your teacher’s job to please YOU - that’s why you went out and bought them in the first place, right? This brings us to rule number two:

Know what you want!

Your new teacher has many interesting features, but psychic powers are not currently included on any teacher model. No matter how penetrating and cruel your teachers’ eyes are, they cannot actually penetrate the depths of your soul and discern your deepest musical longings. To fully access the abilities your teacher does in fact possess, you need to find a way to let them know what you want. This isn’t always easy because we aren’t always sure what we want, but even if you give your teacher some vague hints it’s a big improvement over a blank stare. If you hear some music that you particularly like or dislike, let your teacher know. If you have a favorite bass player clip on YouTube and you can’t figure out how the heck they play all those artificial harmonic double stop thirty-second notes, show it to your teacher and see what they say. If you suddenly have a strong feeling about what you might want to do with your musical life - be a professional, be an amateur, never play the thing again, sing sing sing - tell your teacher! If you make your teacher guess what you’re feeling and thinking about music, you make their life harder and often end up paying for teaching that wasn’t really what you wanted in the first place.

The final suggestion to getting the most out of your teacher works on two levels:

Allow a break-in period before you return it.

If, after initial contacts and tryouts, you make the move to obtain a teacher, give it a little time to break in before you think about returning it. Like a new car or cast iron skillet, a new teacher needs some time to tune its systems to you and figure out how you work. Let it have some time to get to know you and figure you out.

That’s the easy part of this third instruction. The tough part of it is that you need a break in period as well. Trust and sincerely try what your new teacher is suggesting! Sometimes, when a new teacher suggests something to us that is difficult or just different from what we’re used to, we decide that it means that the teacher isn’t right for us. Remember: you got a teacher because you want them to help you grow and improve, not to just listen to you play and reaffirm what you already know. Often making changes takes time and we all need to give our teacher a “trust period” so that we can honestly evaluate if their ideas are helping us or not.

In the final part of this series, we’ll take a look at the trickiest question of all: whether it’s time to turn in your teacher for another.

The Care and Feeding of the Bass Teacher, Chapter 1: Identify your Teacher Type

Congratulations, you are the owner of an official authorized bass teacher! This may be your first real bass teacher. You may have owned several teachers before and are just now acquiring a new model. Or perhaps you have owned this teacher for awhile and are simply checking the owner’s manual out for the first time to make sure you’re getting the most from your teacher. Or maybe you’re borrowing someone else’s teacher for a couple of lessons. No matter what, you can be sure that you will have hours of fun and learning with your new teacher - if you follow some key guidelines. In this manual, we’ll be looking at several teacher models and addressing key features that you can access to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your teacher.

In this first chapter, we’ll describe some of the basic teacher models that you will encounter out there so that you can make sure you have accurately identified your teacher type. This is important because trying to access certain features is more challenging on certain models, and can even be dangerous if not attempted carefully!

Before we begin, we should note that there are many hybrid models out there, which combine the features of several of the basic models; you may have to calibrate your methods to account for your particular model’s complexities.

The Dictator: This model was very common years ago, and was actually considered the finest model available at the time; its popularity has declined in recent years, but it can still be found and remains popular among certain groups. The Dictator interprets its teaching mission in a very direct way: It is there to give you knowledge, and you are there to receive it. Period. It often has a standard, preset program that it offers to one and all with little variety. This can often be a solid program - after all, much about playing bass hasn’t changed for decades, if not centuries. The big plus of the Dictator model is that it requires you to trust it in order to get the most out of it. This can feel uncomfortable at first, but getting out of our comfort zone and committing to trying something different is often the first step to real growth. The minuses of the Dictator are also clear: If their program doesn’t work for you, you can waste a lot of time and energy trying to play in a way that can be harmful to our progress. Also, if you learn best when you feel that you can ask lots of questions and explore your own path, the Dictator may put a stop to that without considering whether it’s a good idea. Overall: we recommend initial caution with the Dictator until you are sure it will be effective.

The Buddy: This model was introduced for customers unhappy with the Dictator, and enjoyed a groundswell of popularity soon after. The Buddy wants to be, well, your buddy; they want to hear about your life, hang out with you, meet your friends, and be your partner in learning. This can be great for people who have problems with authority figures, as well as for folks who love to explore their own ideas of how to play. The Buddy can help you test and develop

your own distinctive way of playing. However, if you haven’t developed your core technique very well, the Buddy can be problematic, as many students need more structure in their technical work than the Buddy can provide. However, if you have a lot of your technique together, and you have a well-developed sense of how you want to play, the informal style of the Buddy can help unleash your creative juices and help you grow as a musician! Overall: Lots of fun, but look past the fun to make sure that you are really on track to achieve your musical goals.

The Guru: This model combines elements of the Dictator and the Buddy. Like the Dictator, it insists on a high level of trust and commitment to its playing concepts and program; like the Buddy, it wants to know about your life beyond the lesson studio. It fuses these two concepts into a holistic learning approach that looks at how to improve you playing and musicianship in the context of your whole life. Gurus can be hugely helpful for many students who feel “stuck” and need a change of pace. Often looking at our playing as part of the big picture of who we are is just what we need for a breakthrough. The Guru won’t just order you to obey like the Dictator, but it will ask for a real commitment from you, so be prepared to consider things like taking yoga, going to therapy, changing basic elements of how you play, or just having lots of soul-searching conversations. Like all gurus, the Guru can attract a certain personality type for the wrong reasons; they are being told something they don’t want to hear (but know is true) by their current teacher model and are just looking for one who might tell them something else. Some students seek out a Guru hoping for lots of improvement in their playing when all they really need to do is practice! Overall: Often an outstanding teacher, but don’t use it to escape reality.

The Impresario: This model not only teaches you bass, but offers free bonus career counseling services. The Impresario will train you to be a performer, encouraging you to play lots of competitions and auditions. It’s a great coach, helping you figure out how to put together good performances and present yourself effectively - all important skills. The risk of the Impresario is that it will neglect your long-term development to focus on the short-term gains of performing. Students of Impresarios sometimes work for months on solos that are far beyond their abilities, damaging their technical work in the process. An important skill with Impresarios is learning to say “No” to them and insisting that you do the work you need to develop your playing. Overall: Can be great, but needs careful maintenance.

The Factory: This model was designed for mass production of bass students, and boy does it deliver. The Factory has huge numbers of students, and often has to organize giant group lessons and day-long recitals just to fit ‘em all in. The actual teaching style of the Factory can vary, but this model has one major potential flaw: all those students can mean that not much time or attention is paid to your individual needs and goals. This is not always an issue with this model, and some Factory teachers are among the finest around. But students need to make sure that this model is able to give them the time and attention they need. Overall: Often good teachers, but make sure they know your first name.

The Drudge: This model is the one to avoid if possible. They can teach in a variety of ways, and some of them can even be fairly good at it, but they share one big problem: They don’t seem to have been programmed to like music very much! A teacher who thinks music is a chore (or worse, a job) can’t teach you the most important part of being a musician - to have fun and enjoy yourself! A teacher like that will only produce bitter, unhappy musicians, and we already have enough of those, thanks. Overall: Run away.

Now that you've identified your teacher type, we'll move on in the next chapter to specific methods you can use to train up and instruct your bass teacher. Before you know it, they'll be teaching you twice as much stuff for the same price!

Peabody '09-'10: Weeks Three and Four

Whew! We definitely win the prize for Hardest Working Bass Program in the Biz for the last 7-10 days of frenetic activity. It's been quite a show - hard to know where to begin.

That's not true actually - it's pretty easy to know where to begin. Hal Robinson's first visit to Peabody in his new capacity as Artist in Residence was a complete and total success. He brought so much to his day here that no one of us was able to keep up with him; I was definitely more tired than he was by the end of the day... As planned, he first gave us a fantastic talk on his core approaches to both sitting and standing with the bass, demonstrated the advantages and disadvantages of each, and also covered some of the key features of how he set up his instruments for maximum effectiveness and efficiency. I found this part of the day the most satisfying. It's pretty rare that you get to hear someone like Hal hold forth at length on how they do what they do!

The afternoon of group lessons seemed pretty successful for most students. Over the next few weeks we will be looking at this format and working on how to make it more effective for everyone. One of the key issues is whether folks get more out of having a small block of one-on-one time with Hal every time he visits, or whether they would get more out of a longer block of time to work with him, even if it means not working with him every time he visits. We also need to experiment with having students of similar ability levels working together, versus having a more diverse group working with Hal.

The final master class in Griswold Hall was a big hit - we had over 50 people in attendance from outside the bass department. Everybody played fantastically well, and Hal brought great insights as usual.

This first class had a "get acquainted" quality to it; now that everyone has met and played for Hal, in future classes and lessons we can move into more in-depth work and build on our great start from last Sunday.

But wait: there's more! Hal's day was only part one of a 60-hour marathon of bass activities. On Monday, we had our usual orchestral rep class on Mozart's 35th Symphony. This was the first class taught by our new rep class faculty member, Ira Gold. Ira is a colleague of mine in the National Symphony, and is a great player and talented young teacher. He's bringing great insights to rep class, many of which come from his studies at Rice University and Boston University; others come from his own explorations of playing and teaching. He maintains his own private studio and also is on the faculty at Catholic University in Washington. We're glad he's on board and we'll probably see him here at PBDB in the near future.

Bassapalooza '09 concluded with another young rising star of the bass: Ranaan Meyer of the group Time for Three. Ranaan is a truly unique figure in the bass world right now - a graduate of Curtis, trained in all the traditions of classical playing, as well as being an accomplished jazz musician, he has begun a career with TF3 dedicated to bringing together all of these musical styles into one seamless whole, along with some bluegrass, country and rock for good measure. It turns out that he also gives a good bass masterclass, as Peabody bass students and I discovered! He helped all of us to refocus our work on the essentials: having fun and making great music all the time, especially when it's tempting to settle for less. We thank him and look forward to seeing him again in the near future....

Well, that's it, folks; just another week of great stuff here at Peab. I'm already tired but I need to get some coffee and get back to work - we've got solo classes, recitals, and more Hal coming up all too soon!