[Trombone-l] Cleveland Orch Trombone Article in newspaper

[Paul Kemp]

	As many of you know, I am no longer in the orchestral scene, and
quite frankly, I don't miss it ONE BIT. What Jeff said about the
orchestral system being seriously flawed is very true. It is quite
possible for any player to have a bad day at an audition and be
incredibly well qualified for an orchestral job. Anyone can have a bad
day. Even on the job, you can have days where nothing seems to come out
right. That's all a major part of the human element. Sometimes it has to
do with how much maintenance time you have available. Other times you
can be in really great shape and it just doesn't happen. In an orchestra
such as the Cleveland Orchestra, it might not be as noticeable to even
the most sophisticated listener, but every musician that is worth their
salt is so much harder on him/herself than anyone else would be.
	One thing that an audition doesn't measure accurately is just
how repeatable someone is. Let's face it: no one plays ANYTHING EXACTLY
the same way twice, but this idea of being consistent is really what
separates the men from the boys. Just because they might do well one day
in an audition setting doesn't mean that a person will function well
within an orchestra.  
	Another thing that I've noticed is that many players go along
with the status quo just in order to get a job and the idea of being an
individual is almost completely lost.
	I've even seen players that really get tired of playing the same
old way and they go to great lengths in order to change what they don't
like, and as they improve, the people around them really get scared, and
the green eyed monster of jealousy rears its ugly head because their own
playing hasn't shown any real improvement in quite a long time. I've
seen people that will blackball someone because they don't play a
certain brand of instrument. 
	Formal education has become the criteria as to whether or not
someone can really play, yet there are tons of people that audition for
orchestras that have spent several hundred thousand dollars on their
education that cannot get past the first round in an orchestra that pays
20K a year. Something is REALLY seriously wrong with that. I've even
seen a young man, 24 years old that has been placed on a college faculty
as an adjunct professor whose playing mechanics were seriously flawed.
He is a very nice guy, but the problem lies in the fact that no one
would ever tell him that he just wasn't very good and that he needed to
get with someone that could really set him on the straight and narrow
path. I couldn't help but think that this person is going to perpetuate
more of this mediocre crap that is so prevalent in our society.   
	I'm not sure if there's a solution, but going back to a system
where a person's performance is based on a high standard would be a
great start. This is not only true of music, but all disciplines. Let's
stop the lying and get very honest. For instance, I remember one time
when I took a pool lesson from a guy who owns a 6 table pool room. He
had me set the cue ball on the spot, and an object ball exactly between
the spot and the nearest corner pocket. The idea was to make the object
in that pocket hitting the cue ball very hard and making the cue ball
stop dead. I hit 50 of them, and got 3 of them to stop dead. He said to
me, "Well, that's 6%. That's not very repeatable, is it?"  

Paul Kemp           
	
	 

-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at maillists.samford.edu
[mailto:trombone-l-bounces at maillists.samford.edu] On Behalf Of Jeff
Albert
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 10:56 PM
To: Robert Holland
Cc: Trb. List
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Cleveland Orch Trombone Article in newspaper

On 5/24/07, Robert Holland <publisher at briarmusic.com> wrote:
>
> The Cleveland Orchestra isn't alone in failing to select a
> winner after an audition, but it is a notable offender. It is a true
> rarity, IMO, when an audition is held and no qualified candidate(s)
> emerges, and the apparent waste of everyone's time, effort, and money
> on both sides of the screen is an egregious insult.
>
> I can't guess what the errant motivation behind such shenanigans must
> be, but the notion fostered by the news report that putting off
> selecting a winner of an audition somehow burnishes an orchestra's
> reputation because a certain chair is so critical is utter nonsense.



If they (Cleveland) do something that defies all understanding by the
rest
of the orchestral community, it shows that they  (Cleveland) have a
depth of
understanding that the rest of us lack.

On a simpler level, if they hired someone the first time, it might have
let
on that there are easily 15-20 or maybe even 50-75 people in US alone
that
could do a fine job as their principal trombonist.  That realization
that
the special job isn't as special as they'd like us to believe is bad for
their ego.

Last year there was an audition in Florida (Jacksonville maybe?) for a
principal job, and no one was hired.  I know a few of the auditionees,
having sat in a sections with them when I subbed here in the LPO in New
Orleans.  Really fine players and nice people.  People I would love to
sit
next to every day.  I don't even know if one of them was the best player
there, but I do know that either of them would have done a wonderful job
on
the gig.  Something is wrong with the system.

The LPO just had principal oboe auditions.  The woman that is tenured as
the
second oboist has played principal 5 out of the last 12 seasons dues to
various illness and leaves.  She has done a marvelous job, but she
didn't
win the audition, so they couldn't give her the job, even though
everyone
knows that she plays great and gets along well with the conductors and
other
wind principals.  Something is wrong with the system.

Jeff


-- 
www.jeffalbert.com

www.scratchmybrain.com
_______________________________________________
Trombone-l mailing list
Trombone-l at maillists.samford.edu
http://maillists.samford.edu/mailman/listinfo/trombone-l