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Over the past few days I’ve been listing most of my mouthpiece collection for sale. That has caused me to think about each mouthpiece and why I used them and then stopped using them. The overwhelming majority of them only saw about two weeks of use. The special few that saw years of use were always a compromise between different playing characteristics. Of course these playing characteristics only apply to me as people with different lips will experience different things with different mouthpieces. The following is a list of the aspects of a mouthpiece I would consider:
1. Accuracy vs. Intonation 2. Comfort vs. Articulation 3. High Range vs. Low Range 4. Ease of playing vs. depth of sound The list above is just the major points to consider when choosing a mouthpiece. If anyone is interested in seeing the mouthpiece collection I have for sale head over to the mouthpiece section of the hornplayer.net website.
This audio recording is raw (unmastered) audio from my recording project of Friedrich Gumpert’s transcriptions of Mendelssohn and Schubert Lieder
Minnelied Op 34 No 1 by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Transcribed for Horn and Piano by Friedrich Gumpert / Derek J. Wright Performed by Derek J. Wright – Horn and Chia-i Chen – Piano This video is another excerpt from my recording project of Friedrich Gumpert’s transcriptions of Mendelssohn and Schubert Lieder Die Post Op 89 No 13 by Franz Schubert Performed by Derek J. Wright – Horn and Chia-i Chen – Piano
Excerpts from my recording project of Friedrich Gumpert’s transcriptions of Mendelssohn and Schubert Lieder
Lieblingsplätzchen Op 99 No 3 by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Performed by Derek J. Wright – Horn and Chia-i Chen – Piano
Where does the practice of your musical instrument lie on your personal list of priorities? Don’t tell yourself an answer based on where you think it is, or where you consciously placed it on a list of what you want your priorities to be. What activities do you partake in that take precedence to practicing? Homework, a job, a hobby, partying, Facebook, etc.?
If you are someone who wishes to eventually perform for a living practice needs to take precedence over all of the activities I just listed. Many people will state that they want to win some sort of performing job, and they say that they try to practice X amount of hours in a day, but they rarely do. For students at the undergraduate level one of the main obstacles that stand in the way of getting an optimal amount of practice daily is homework. No matter how much homework a student gets they need to make sure that their practice is set to a high priority. I’m not saying you should ignore your homework, but getting your practice done needs to ALWAYS be more important to you. (By the way, I maintained an exceptionally high GPA throughout my college career, so I’m not making excuses for any failures.) Another common obstacle is a job. This one is more difficult to overcome, because the possession of a job is way most of us pay the rent and buy groceries. However, if you are a student who eventually wants to have a playing job you must find someway to get in your optimal amount of practice. If this means that you take out more college loans or downgrade your lifestyle, so be it. Your level of playing depends in large part on the amount of practicing you are able to do. When I say that, I don’t only mean the amount of practicing you do in preparation for an upcoming audition, I also mean the amount of practicing you’ve done since the time you started to take music seriously. This reason is why I have been weary of the option of studying another profession alongside music in my previous posts. A very, very, tiny number of special people are able to study music and another profession concurrently and still have the ability to obtain a job as a professional musician. When you look at your schedule it may seem like you have enough time in a day to do all of your practicing, go to classes, complete lots of homework, and still have an hour to enjoy yourself. However, you should be careful! It is nearly impossible to work for 15 hours straight everyday and one is almost never able to get as much accomplished in a day as they think they can. More importantly, if you choose this route, make sure that your practice is a higher priority than almost all of your other activities. When you sit in front of an audition committee they won’t care if you say, “Well, I had to have a job!”, “My college professors gave me too much homework!”, or “I wanted to have a good social life!” Audition committees only care about one thing; how well do you play? If you want to have a solo or chamber music career, your audiences will also only care about that one thing. Anyone who wants to have a career as a professional musician should keep this fact in mind everyday.
This post is partially in response to two entries written by Bruce Hembd on hornmatters.com. These entries are titled “The Community College Alternative” and “Dreams and Goals; Music Performance and Music Education.” In “The Community College Alternative” Hembd writes about the option of pursuing a Music Education degree at a community college instead of the more expensive route of attending a state university or private conservatory. His post prompted the following comment from me.
Hemd then wrote the post titled “Dreams and Goals; Music Performance and Music Education.” The following excerpt listed under the heading “Dream big, think small” sums up the thesis of his post.
I believe if one decides to pursue the field of music performance they should do so wholeheartedly. However, one should take this decision very seriously and a choice should only be made after a lot of thought and prayer. The field of music performance is extremely competitive and those who spend the most time and energy preparing for it are usually the ones who are the most successful. This statement is one that I make after years of observing my friends and acquaintances who have gone on to obtain successful performing careers. To clarify, I believe getting a degree in music education is a great decision for an aspiring performer, IF being an elementary, junior high, or high school music teacher or band director is something that you may wish to do. However, if this is something you don’t want to do, don’t get a music education degree just as a “back-up.” ‘That last sentence leads me to the main point of this post, the idea of pursuing a “back- up” career. Those I know who pursued back-up careers along with music performance usually ended up in their back-up career and not in music performance. However, that statement could be construed to mean that the odds of becoming a performer are so slim that one should always have a “back-up.” However, I do not believe that this is the case. The idea of becoming a music performer can be a concrete goal, not an abstract idea. However, it will never be a concrete goal if one does not think big. That means taking concrete steps to reach a level where you can obtain a job. The phrase “winning a job” is a misnomer because there is very little luck associated with the process. Once you reach a certain level of playing you can obtain a job. I believe that there is very little point in preparing for a musical career with the idea in the back of your head that it probably won’t happen. I am not saying that going into music performance isn’t hard, and I’m definitely not saying that there isn’t a significant risk in doing so. At your average audition there will be anywhere from 50-100 people present vying for one position. However, if you’ve put in the appropriate amount of work, and you studied and learned from as many sources as you can, and you know that you are truly a great player this fact should not ruin your confidence. Becoming a music performer is a concrete and achievable goal!
“Professionalism” is a word that is thrown around a lot by music educators and others in the music industry. Statements such as “You need to act like a professional”, “He is a true professional”, and “She has no sense of professionalism” are commonly heard and said. However, a definition of professionalism is rarely included or talked about. So what is professionalism?
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary states the definition of professionalism as the following:
It states the meaning of professional as:
It states the definition of profession as:
According to the definitions listed above, to act as a professional, or to exhibit professionalism in the music industry requires the following behaviors and actions: “a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation”
“characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession”
“exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace”
“the following of a profession for gain or livelihood”
“the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person”
Choosing to call yourself a professional is a big deal, and not something to be taken lightly. Displaying professionalism is something that is very important to your career, however, many aspiring musicians don’t realize this fact. Your professionalism is what will determine whether or not you get called back by an organization. It determines whether or not your name is passed around. Everyone should aspire to display a sense of professionalism at all times. |
Derek J. Wright is a professional French horn player in Phoenix, AZ. Click on the links above to learn more about him, his performances, and his teaching. |
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Copyright © 2010 DEREK JUSTIN WRIGHT - All Rights Reserved |
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