Clark Brody Memorial

A couple weeks ago, I went to a service in honor of the life of Clark Brody, former principal clarinet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Clark Brody was born on June 9th, 1913 in Lansing, Michigan.  He studied clarinet first at Michigan State University, and then at the Eastman school of music.  Before he played with the CSO, he was in the Air Force Band and concert orchestra during World War II, and he also played with the CBS Symphony Orchestra from 1941-1950.   He was principal clarinet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1951-1978 and played under the baton of  Rafael Kubelik, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, and Sir George Solti.  He also was a clarinet professor at Northwestern University from 1972-1995.  He died at the age of 98 in 2012.

I take piano lessons from Mr. Brody's niece Barbara Rubenstein, so I have had the opportunity to hear a lot of stories about Clark Brody.  It is very interesting to learn about both the personal and professional sides of an individual.  I attended the memorial with Barbara and sat next to her during the service.

The service was a very elegant celebration of Mr. Brody's career.  Many people spoke about Mr. Brody and the impact he had upon them.  I especially enjoyed his son, Robert Brody's, very graceful words about his father.  The younger Mr. Brody described an incident in their life when they were travelling.  They were walking through a park where there were many lepers who were obviously suffering.  One of the sick men had fallen off a bench, and many people were walking past him ignoring him, even though it was obvious that the man was trying to get back onto the bench.  Mr. Brody picked up the man, and put him on the bench, made sure he was okay and wished him a good day, as if it were the most natural and expected thing to do.  John Bruce Yeh also spoke about Mr. Brody and how he was very supportive of the 19 year old John Yeh when he first took up a position with the orchestra.  Mr. Yeh talked about how Clark Brody showed him how to play in an orchestra and guided him through his first few years.

Several people performed at the service.  There was a clarinet ensemble made up of former colleagues, friends and students of Clark Brody, and Charlene Zimmerman performed the 2nd movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with Toni-Marie Montgomery accompanying.  Charlene Zimmerman is the principal clarinet of the Chicago Lyric Opera.  I have never had the privilege of hearing her play before, and I found her quite wonderful.  She played with a sweet, singing line, and it was one of my favorite interpretations of the 2nd movement.  I think I may have to start saving my money for Lyric tickets...

1/3 of the Way There!!!

As of February 16, 2013, I have practiced over 3,333 hours.  That means I am 1/3 of the way to my goal!

Here are some videos that document my progress.

3,000+ Hours, Mozart Clarinet Concerto I. Allegro

9th grade, age 15 (2013)

2,000 Hours, Rossini's Introduction, Theme and Variations

8th grade, age 14 (2012)

1,000+ Hours, Weber Concertino

7th grade, age 13 (2011)

200+ Hours, Finzi's Five Bagatelles III. Carol

5th grade, age 11 (2009)

Anthony McGill and Pacifica String Quartet

Saturday night, I got to see Anthony McGill perform with the Pacifica String Quartet.  Anthony McGill is the principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and he performed "Air and Simple Gifts" by John Williams with Yoyo Ma and Itzak Perlman in Obama's 2008 Inauguration.  The Pacifica String Quartet is one of the finest string quartets peforming today.  They were performing in the Music in the Loft Series.  It was a outstanding peformance!

The concert was at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago.  The performance took place in an extremely intimate setting.  I think it was a luthier, because there cellos of various sizes lined up on a rack on the wall.  The seats were packed extremely close together, and the room packed with people.  It was chamber music in a real chamber!

During the first half of the concert, the Pacifica Quartet played without Anthony McGill.  They performed the Beethoven String Quartet No. 13, Op. 130.  They were phenomenal.  I have never heard a chamber group play so completely together.  It was like they were one instrument, one person.  Simin Ganatra led the group with perfect confidence, and the men followed her perfectly, while 2nd violinist Sibbi Bernardsson, cellist Brandon Vamos, and violist Masumi Per Rostad followed her lead flawlessly.  The performance was smooth, confident and exquisite.  I loved it!

The second half of the concert was the Mozart Clarinet Quintet.  Anthony McGill was awesome!  I really loved the way he communicated with Pacifica.  The members of Pacifica have a clear and obvious connection with each other, which really comes through in their playing.  McGill slipped right into this relationship with an easy confidence.

The clarinet has a very different color than the string quartet and it is easy to stick out and overpower them, making the piece more like a clarinet concerto than a chamber piece.  But Anthony McGill achieved a perfect balance with Pacifica. His tone was dark, inviting and yet at the same time playful, very distinctly Mozart.  It was wonderful!  I loved every minute.

After the concert there was a reception.  I wanted to talk to Anthony, and tell him what a wonderful job he did.  He was talking to his parents, and I didn't want to disturb him, but he saw me and called me over and introduced me to his parents.  When his Dad, Demarre McGill, Sr. met me, he said, "You look familiar.  Are you the blogger?"  Mr. McGill, Sr. was very warm and enthusiastic.  It is easy to see why Anthony McGill is such a great guy when you meet his parents.  I talked a little with Anthony and his parents, and they were all so nice!  Plus, it is really cool that Anthony McGill's dad follows my blog!

Amazing Chicago native Chicago Clarinetist and great guy, Anthony McGill!

All in all, it was a wonderful evening, and I am so happy that I had the chance to see and hear such wonderful musicians.

IWWF 2012

Me and Wenzel Fuchs!

Last week, I attended the International Woodwind Festival 2012 - IWWF.  Jonathan Cohler was the Artistic and General Director and Cynthia Doggett was the Festival's Coordinator.  This festival was one of the best weeks of my life.  I met so many amazing clarinetists from Austria, China, Peru, Cuba, Mexico, Canada and all over the United States.

The festival included masterclasses, private lessons, and many performances.  I performed in masterclasses for Wenzel Fuchs, Jonathan Cohler and Jorge Montilla.  I had lessons with Cynthia Doggett, Jorge Montilla, and Yuan Gao.  They were all amazing clarinetists, and working with them increased the level of my playing enormously in a very short time.  The week had so many events to prepare for that I practiced 4-6 hours every day to be ready for all of those lessons and masterclasses.

The people there were all clarinet nerds.  Most of the conversations at the workshop were about clarinet playing, and it was glorious.  Everyone was incredibly nice, and I made a lot of good friends.  The festival was the largest concentration of clarinetists at a higher level than I have ever had the privilege of working with.  Watching the many masterclasses taught me so many things, and also inspired me to work as hard as I can to be as good as I can possibly be on the clarinet.

I feel that this workshop has inspired me, and taught me more things in a single week than anything else I've experienced in my musical pursuits.  The festival was an astonishing success.

International Clarinet Association High School Solo Competition

Today, I found out I made the finals of the ICA High School Solo Competition.  This competition is open to clarinetists who are 18 years old or younger all over the world.  The final round will take place during the first week in August in Lincoln, Nebraska at the ICA's Clarinetfest.

Master Class with Jon Manasse

On Saturday, I played in a wonderful master class taught by Jon Manasse along with four other students:  Ryan Toher, Konrad Pawelek and Miguel Hernandez.  I thought Mr. Manasse was as good of a teacher as he is a performer.

I played second in the program on Weber's Concertino.  I started kind of tense, but after the beginning, I relaxed and played much better.  After I finished, Mr. Manasse asked how old I was.  When I told him 14, he said, "Wow!  I played that piece when I was fourteen."   He had a lot of good things to say about my playing, which made me feel a lot more comfortable -- I was really nervous.  He was an extremely nice and supportive teacher as well as being an informative one.

After that, we worked on tuning.  He first told me that there were 5 states of tuning:  in tune, sharp, flat, I don't know, and I don't care.  He said we could probably rule out "out don't care," and he had me play a tuning note with the piano.  He asked me if I thought I was sharp, flat, in tune, or I don't know.  I thought was out of tune, but I had to admit that I wasn't sure if I was sharp or flat.  Mr. Manasse said, it was good that I knew I wasn't in tune, and he said it was really hard for wind players to tell when they are a little off.  He said string players have an advantage, because they have to tune every time they play, so they have a lot of practice at hearing what it is to be sharp or flat, as they had to make adjustments every time.

He then asked me to play the beginning of my piece and told me to pay more attention and to adjust if it was out of tune.  Well, he told me that I tended to play a little sharp.  So he gave me some advice about how to work on tuning.  He said to put a tuner on a drone, and tune so you're really sharp.  Learn what it sounds like to be sharp.  Then, tune really flat, so you can be aware of what it sounds like to be really flat.  Then he said to work on different notes, and figure out what notes tend to be sharp or flat under differing conditions.

I liked the idea he had to learn how to recognize whether you are sharp or flat by playing sharp or flat on purpose in an exaggerated way to increase your awareness of your tuning.

Mr. Manasse was a really nice and informative teacher.  It was an amazing master class.  He gave me such good advice, and he did it in a way that made me feel good about my playing.  In fact, the theme of the master class was to remember why you play your instrument, to remember what you like about your playing, instead of taking a negative approach and focusing on what you don't like about your playing.  It's easy to get caught up in trying to perfect everything, and forget how much you love playing music.  I definitely do that sometimes!

Manasse Nakamazing Duo

Last Friday, I heard clarinetist, Jon Manasse, perform with pianist, Jon Nakamatsu at Northeastern University.  It was a breathtaking concert.  Both men are amazing musicians, and Mr. Manasse was really funny and entertaining when he spoke with the audience.

The first piece the duo played was the Brahms clarinet sonata.  This sonata is a gorgeous piece, and they played it beautifully.  Mr. Manasse's tone and expression were exquisite.  I think my favorite movement was the first, because Mr. Manasse conveyed a real sense of melancholy that was very moving.  One part of the performance that I particularly liked was Manasse's movement, which was very expressive.  Both musicians communicated really well, and they both seemed comfortable together.

After they played the Brahms, Mr. Manassee talked a little.  He spoke about the sonata, and he noted that a lot of composers seem to die after they write solo music for the clarinet.  Mozart, Brahms, and Poulenc, all apparently died after composing their famous clarinet pieces.  Mr. Manasse said he used to think that writing solo music for the clarinet must have killed them.  Although, he quickly noted that composing solo clarinet music now extends the lives of composers.

The last piece before intermission was a solo piano work by Chopin.  Mr. Nakamatsu was so technically proficient, but his phrasing and musicality were stunning.  I loved how he kept the sense of musicality even though the fast parts.

After the intermission, Mr. Manasse talked with the audience some more.  He was fun to listen to, and he started calling Mr. Nakamatsu "Nakamazing"  which I thought was pretty funny.  The first piece they played after intermission was Leonard Bernstein's Opus 1, his clarinet sonata.  This music has a few glissandos and I really liked how Mr. Manasse played them.

The last part of the concert was "Four Rags for Two Jons."  This was a really fun piece that Manasse and Nakamatsu performed astoundingly well.  It has a lot of parts which were meant for the audience to laugh at.  In many sections of the piece, the audience snaps with the soloists, and the pianist shouts things and stomps.  The end of the work is especially funny when the piano starts to play the Mozart Clarinet Concerto and the clarinet keeps playing the theme from the piece.

Afterwards, the audience kept calling for ovations, and Mr. Manasse finally went to the microphone and said, "Well, you asked for it!"  He then played an arrangement of "I've Got Rhythm" for clarinet and piano, which I just loved.  It was a great end to an amazing concert.

A Fist Fight at Symphony Center!!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Chicago Symphony Center to watch the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) perform and to take a lesson from John Bruce Yeh, assistant principal clarinet.

The lesson with Mr. Yeh was amazing.  We worked on the sonata for clarinet and piano by Martinu.  The two main things he focused on were finger position and phrasing.

Mr. Yeh started the lesson by having me play a little.  he stopped me right after I got through the most technically difficult part of the piece.  He said that I wasn't sealing the holes of the clarinet properly by first landing on them with the tip of my fingers and then flattening my knuckle to cover the entire hole.  Mr. Yeh told me that I had to make sure that my fingers always stayed curved and right about the holes.  I actually keep my fingers flat and farther away from where they should rest on the clarinet.  If my fingers are not right above the holes and my knuckles aren't bent, then the clarinet will not seal right away when I place my fingers on the keys, making technical sections much harder.  Good advice!

The other thing we worked on was phrasing.  Mr. Yeh wanted me to play like a string player.  This means that all of the different slurs or bow strokes need to be made clear with the tongue.  It also means that I have to make each slur in the Martinu its own phrase.  He also noticed that I was giving the long notes a crescendo, and he didn't like that.  Mr. Yeh said I should crescendo on the moving notes and decrescendo on the long notes.  I've not hear this advice before, so it was really good to hear.

After the lesson, I went to the concert.  It was a night of Brahms with Muti conducting.  First, Pinchas Zukerman played the Violin Concerto in D major and then we heard Brahms Symphony no. 2 in D major.  The concert was really cool!  The CSO played the Brahms 2nd Symphony.  I loved the whole thing, but my favorite part was the last movement.  It really ends on a bang.  The CSO brass and woodwinds are so amazing!  I loved the big brass finish at the end.  And Mr. Williamson, the new principal clarinet, was fantastic.

The best part of the Brahms was the last movement, but the most interesting part of the night happened after the 2nd movement.  The end of the 2nd movement is very quiet and dies down into nothing.  The audience was silent -- no one was even coughing, when suddenly two loud thumps were heard in succession.  Everyone looked around to see what could have made that noise.  I could see a commotion in one of the boxes, but I wasn't sure what was happening.  Muti handled it well and moved gracefully into the 3rd movement after making certain that everything was all right.  I thought maybe someone had had fallen or gotten sick or something.

I found out a couple of days after the concert that what we heard and saw was actually a fight in one of the boxes!  A 30 year old man and a 67 year old man were arguing over seats.  Eventually the younger man lost his temper and started hitting the older man!  The thumping was the sound of the older man falling down, I think.  After the incident, the 30 year old ran away.

Other than the disturbance, it was a wonderful evening.  I hope I will have more lessons with John Bruce Yeh in the future.  He is a great teacher.

Master Class with Bill Buchman, Assistant Principal Bassoon for the CSO

Today I attended and played at a master class at the MYA center taught by Bill Buchman, the Assistant Principal Bassoonist for the CSO.  Mr. Buchman has a physics degree from Brown and a music degree from Yale.  How cool is that?

This was a very informative master class.  He covered some of the most important ideas in wind playing and musicianship in general.  He emphasized making the time signature more obvious and playing technical sections more smoothly.

I started the master class with Rossini's Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet.  I've been working on this piece for many months now.  Mr. Buchman stopped me after the first half of the introduction.  The first thing he talked about was making sure that all of your playing is smooth.  This can be hard on the clarinet, because the resistance is very different between some of the notes.  This is because some notes you play with all of the holes on the clarinet open, and some notes you play with all of the holes closed.  Going between these notes is very difficult, so you need to work to make sure that the notes are smooth.  You do this by pushing the air through the phrase and maintaining a steady flow of air.  When you are playing these difficult intervals, and you are playing quietly, it is even more difficult to keep your sound steady and full.  Mr. Buchman said it seems surprising, but you actually need to use just as much or more air on the quiet notes so they can resonate just as much as the forte sections.  He had me play this section again several times with these ideas in mind, and it made a big difference.

Then Mr. Buchman had me play the Theme.  This section is quicker and more technical than the Introduction. I played it, and after I finished, he had me play the very beginning again.  He asked the other kids in the master class guess what the time signature was, and where the downbeat was.  Only one person could tell, and I think that's because he was looking at the music.  The point Mr. Buchman was making was that I wasn't making it obvious to the audience where the downbeat was.  This is a problem, because it makes you sound disjoint and out of tempo, and it makes it hard for your audience to understand the music.  He said it was really to establish this right at the beginning.  He revisited this idea many times during the master class.

Many students played after me:  Julia, Clayton and Marissa played bassoon concertos, Vince played a baroque sonata on his oboe, and Yoon and Steven played the 2nd Weber and the Rossini on clarinet.  And finally Theo, Tamara and Julia played a trio.  Mr. Buchman covered several ideas through the rest of the masterclass.  First, he worked on how to practice a technically difficult articulated section.  He suggested working on the fingering and tonguing separately.  You can do this by slurring the section and slowing it down.  This lets you work on your fingers without having to worry about the tonguing.  He also said it was important to keep your air flowing through the articulations.  You do this by not stopping the air with your tongue, but simply lightly tapping the reed with your tongue to briefly stop the reeds vibrations.  Another point he made was to practice slowly.  He said if you can't play it slowly, then you will sometimes crash and burn when you play it fast.  That happened to me last year at the Walgreens when I was performing the Weber Concertino!  My piano teacher makes this point quite often.  You don't really know a piece until you can play it slow as well as fast.

When Vince played, it was clear to Mr. Buchman that Vince was quite nervous.  He had some advice to help with this nervousness that everybody feels.  He said to acknowledge when you're nervous.  You can use the extra adrenalin pumping through your veins to help you play better.  It all depends on how you think about it.  You can  respond to the nervousness by saying to yourself that you're terrified and you're going to fail.  Or you can see it as an advantage.  You can say to yourself, I'm nervous.  That's good, because I have more energy, and this can help me have an exciting performance..  My concentration will be at a higher level than normal.  However, when you get nervous you see time differently, you will tend to rush.  You need to be aware of this and consciously hold yourself back and play slower than you feel is the tempo you normally play at.  I'm going to try this when I play at the Walgreens next month.

It was a great masterclass, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to attend and play at it.

Chamber Music in the Spring

Wow, it has been a long time since I have blogged!

I've been very busy this spring, especially with chamber music performances and competitions.  I participated in the Discover Chamber Competition and the Rembrandt Chamber Competition with my woodwind quintet, and my trio and my quintet played in three soirees at Ravinia.

I really enjoy playing in my woodwind quintet, Calcetinos Vivos.  They are very nice and very talented musicians.  Here's a picture of us:

Some of the pieces we've played this year are Arnold's Three Shanties, a quintet by Klughardt, and Paquito d'Rivera's Aires Tropicales.

I also play in a piano, clarinet, and viola trio.  We still haven't given our group a name yet.  My brother Ari plays viola, and we play with a 7th grade pianist named Finley.  We have been working on the Schumann Trio and the Bruch Eight Pieces.  This is a really fun group too.  Here is a link to us playing the first movement of the Schumann:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVQC1rObrwE

May is a busy month.  There are of performances for my orchestra and wind symphony and my chamber groups.

IMEA District VII Junior Concert

Last Saturday I attended the District VII Junior IMEA concert. Early in October, my sister Eowyn, who is in 6th grade, and I tried out for IMEA and made it. I didn’t know what chair I made until the concert. When I got to Wauconda High School where the concert was being held, my school band teacher greeted me and told me I made first chair.  I was so excited! I went to the band room and found my chair.  It was crowded with young musicians.  Leah, a clarinetist from my MYA orchestra, was second chair, and Steven who is also in my MYA orchestra was there too.

This is my sister who plays the horn.

After a few minutes our conductor got to the band room. She started us with a fifteen minute warm up. It was very interesting and I learned some things about breathing that I didn’t know.  She demonstrated how to breathe efficiently.  First you breathe out, and then you breathe in, and then you breathe in again a little extra in a slightly different way.  It's hard to describe, but it was very helpful with breath support. We worked on Cenotaph by Jack Stamp, then Shenendoah by Frank Ticheli, and lastly the first three movements of Suite Provencale by Jan Van de Roost.  After that we had a break.

During the break we had lunch. I sat at a table with a bunch of Midwest Young Artist wind players who made IMEA.  Being in MYA is like being a part of a family.  When we go to places outside of MYA, we are really nice to each other, and we hang out, and I like that.  After I finished eating, I went to the band room ten minutes early and played my clarinet. I was having a really fun time. When the conductor got back to the band room we worked on the last movement of Suite Provencale and all of Seventy Six Trombones. The conductor kept telling the clarinets that we were playing too loud a lot, and I agreed with her.

After that we tried out the gym that we were going to perform in. We practiced for about thirty minutes in a dress rehearsal. Finally it was time for the concert. The IMEA orchestra and choral came in and found their spots in the gym. We were going first.  It was really fun being first chair. After the band played, the IMEA choral and orchestra performed. They sounded great! It was a really exhausting day but also really fun. I can’t wait until next year when IMEA comes again.

Martin Fröst visits the United States

In a month I am going to New York City to see Martin Frost perform!  I have heard recordings of him and he is amazing.  Martin Fröst is a Swedish clarinet virtuoso who is known around the globe. 

He played violin when he was six but got tired and moved on to sports until he was nine and he started playing clarinet.  I played violin and viola when I was younger, and I got bored and played travel soccer, and then started clarinet when I was 10.  Also, like Martin Fröst I am Scandanavian on my dad's side -- although Norwegian and Danish, not Swedish.

In addition to being a great clarinetist, Martin Fröst is famous for being able to play clarinet while roller skating backwards.  Check it out:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQJF8ed0DL4

When he was fifteen he moved to Stockholm to study clarinet and later he also studied in Hannover.  He plays mostly classical music but he also plays some contemperary music.  I can't wait untill I get to see him, I know he will be amazing.

One really cool thing is that I couldn't get tickets to one of the performances in New York in December.  My mom wrote to Mr. Fröst's publicist to see tickets could be bought elsewhere.  They weren't being sold anywhere else, but Mr. Fröst gave me the tickets they set aside for him.  Now I get to see the performance, and I'm very grateful for this.

New Practice Record and New Pieces

Last week, I made a new practice record.  14 hours and 45 minutes in just 3 days!  That made a total of 18 hours for the week.  I've practiced more in a week, but that was the most I have ever practiced over 3 days. 

Running track in addition to playing soccer caused me to have shin splints and Osgood Slatters, and my legs hurt too much to go to soccer practice or play outside much, so I made good use of the time.

Oh, and I'm working on some new pieces:  The Saint-Saens Sonata, the Danzi Concerto, and the Beethoven clarinet, cello, and piano trio.

A Good February Concert

Yesterday, I had an MYA Concert at Pick-Staiger Theater.  My group played the first movement of Beethoven's First Symphony.  Before the concert, we had a dress rehearsal.  The dress rehearsal didn't go so well.  My orchestra had trouble keeping a stead tempo.  We rushed through the easier parts, and we got lost in the faster parts.  Mr. Pearson stopped conducting sometimes, and just watched us.  The orchestra kept playing without a conductor, while Mr. Pearson just watched us.  It was obvious that we weren't watching him.  I was thinking that the concert was going to be a disaster.

An hour and a half later, it was time for the concert.  I didn't get to hear the first two groups perform because I was backstage.  That's too bad because I heard that the Cadet Orchestra played wonderfully.  Finally, it was our turn to perform.  We did much better than the dress rehearsal, but it wasn't perfect.  It wasn't the best we've ever played, but it wasn't the worse.  I think we can do better next concert.

Sabine Meyer

Recently, I got a copy of Sabine Meyer playing the 3rd Stamitz Concerto.  I really liked it.  When she plays the Stamitz, she sounds so amazing.  I like how cute and chirpy she plays her staccato notes.  Her playing is so smooth, it's like silk.

Sabine Meyer started her career Berlin Philharmonic.  The men in the orchestra resented her because she was a woman, even though the conductor von Karajan thought she was the best.  She played there for a short time, and she had to leave because the orchestra, which was mostly men, voted her out.  After that, she became a full time soloist, and one of the best in the world.  I wonder what the men who voted her out of the Berlin Philharmonic think about her now.

It was unfair that she was voted out, but maybe it was a good experience, because I think she must like being a soloist.  She might have been stuck in the Berlin Philharmonic for all of her life and not realize what a great soloist she could be.

IMEA District 7 Music Festival

On Saturday I went to the IMEA All-District festival. They are the people who put on the solo and ensemble festival and the all-district and all-state band concerts in Illinois. It's for kids who play music in the public schools. Earlier in the year I tried out for it and made it.

On Saturday, I my mom woke me up to get ready for IMEA. I was tired, but excited. I went downstairs, ate breakfast, packed my clairenet, and grabbed my music. I got in the car and my mom drove me to the high school where the IMEA All-District festival was taking place. The building was big and confusing with a bunch of different wings. My mom's strategy was to follow the stream of kids dressed in black pants and white shirts. This led us to the orchestra rehearsal room, which was on the exact opposite side of the school from where the band was rehearsing. I did warn her that we were following people with violas and violins. Fortunately, the school's choral director walked us across the school to the band rehearsal room. When we got there my mom left to find my school band director. I unpacked my clarinet and went to the band room.

The band room was basically a plain room with chairs, music stands, and lots of quotations on the wall.  While I waited for the conductor to show up, I got out my music and practiced the Stamitz Concerto. When he arrived he made a speech about how honored he was to direct this band. He told us to introduce ourselves to the people next to us. I was sitting 6th chair between two 8th grade girls. They were very tall, but they were very nice. There weren't very many 6th graders there, but there were several kids from MYA there.

After that rehearsal, we went to the stage where we were going to perform, and had another rehearsal. The second rehearsal was much longer than the first. We practiced Chimes of Liberty and Nettleton on the stage. Then we went back to the rehearsal room, and practiced again before lunch. We mostly worked on the third movement of the Fanfare Ode and Festival. We had already played about two and a half hours and we were only half way done! I practice a lot at home, so I wasn't tired yet.

At lunch I met my brother Ari's friend Raffi. Raffi plays trombone at MYA in the Concert Orchestra. We ate lunch together. Raffi was playing euphonium, not trombone, because he wanted to do something on his euphonium for a change. We were in the lunch room for about forty-five minutes. We had sausage pizza for lunch, and it was great. I spent the last fifteen minutes of the break practicing the Stamitz Concerto some more. While I was practicing the director, Dr. Cunningham, walked up to me and asked me if I was playing the Stamitz Clarinet Concerto. I said, "Yes!" He told me that I was playing it really well.

After the break Dr. Cunningham told us that we had some really talented players here. He said that he had heard some really great solos during the break. When he said that, he was looking at me, which made me feel really proud! We rehearsed for about an hour and forty-five minutes. That made a total four hours and fifteen minutes of rehearsing. I thought it would be more like five hours but I was fine with less.

Finally, it was time to go to the concert. I was very nervous at first, but I felt fine after a few minutes of talking with my friends. Chatting with the others made me feel more confident. After the junior chorus who performed before us went offstage, it was our turn. We came onstage and got ready to perform. The pieces went off with only a few mistakes, which were all almost unnoticable. We went offstage, turned our music in, and I went to meet my mom downstairs. It was an exciting day.  I had a great time!

On Sunday I'll be going to my Midwest Young Artists concert. I'm very excited about it. In the concert my orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra will be playing March to the Scaffold by Berlioz and The Prometheus Overture by Beethoven. My orchestra will be performing at Pick-Staiger at Northwestern. It's too bad that I'm not playing first part or the solo but I'll still have a great time. I can't wait!


Here's a link to the concert page.

The Third Chair Disaster

I just found out on Saturday that I made third chair in my MYA seating audition.  When I looked at the chair seatings, I found the clarinet section, and I looked for my name. It was the third name on the list. I felt sick to my stomach. I cared a lot about this seating audition. I practiced a lot for it. In the month leading up to the audition, I had practiced the selections for hours and hours. The day before the seating audition, I had practiced the audition selections for 3 hours total!

There are 4 chairs in the clarinet section in the Philharmonia Orchestra.  So that makes me second to last, and I have the 2nd part.  The 2nd part is so much easier and less interesting than the 1st part.  I have a 27 measure rest in The Prometheus Overture!

When you try really hard for something, and you don't succeed, it feels terrible.  You feel like you aren't very smart and you're not very good at what you are doing.  It crushes your confidence. 

After I found out my audition placement, I was really upset for around 15 minutes, but then I said to myself:  even though I'm third chair, I can still get the solo when we have an audition for that, because there is a short clarinet solo in March to the Scaffold.  I had also worked hard to learn how to play the solo well.

But then there was another disaster!  When we were rehearsing March to the Scaffold with Mr. Pearson, and we got to the solo part, all of the clarinets played it.  Then Mr. Pearson said that the solo was supposed to be played only by the first chair clarinet.  But it wasn't even a part of the seating audition!

Before the chair seating results, I was feeling great about practicing everyday.  I practiced a lot, and I practiced eagerly.  But after getting third chair, I didn't really want to practice at all.  I didn't practice on Saturday, and I only got to practicing on Sunday at 10:00 at night.

I found this web page that helped me think about the situation in a different way.

The article talks about 3 different ways to deal with failing at something you have worked hard for.

1.  Some people give up, blame other people, and blame circumstances for failing.  Don't do this.

2.  Some people keep doing the same thing over and over again with more determination without changing their strategy.  You can do this, but I wouldn't advise it.

3.  Some people change their strategy and try again.  If they fail again, they change their strategy again and try again.  They do this until they succeed.  This is the best idea.

Today and last night I changed my strategy and tried again.  I assumed that the problem with my practicing wasn't that I didn't practice enough, but that I didn't practice deliberately enough.  So last night and today, I practiced my scales and my technical exercises for a long time very very carefully.  I payed attention to my tone and the connections between the notes.  When I played some solos for fun after this type of practice, I played them better than I usually do.  Maybe this strategy will work and I won't make 3rd chair again. 

Maybe it won't.  If it doesn't, I'll change my strategy and try again.

A Day at MYA

Tomorrow I'm going to MYA.  MYA stands for Midwest Young Artists.  It is a youth orchestra program that meets in Highwood, IL.  I play in the Philharmonia Orchestra which is the middle level orchestra in the program.  I love MYA for five main reasons:

1.  Mr. Pearson is really cool.  He is my orchestra conductor.

2.  The music there is challenging, but fun, and I love playing orchestra music.  This concert, we are playing the Beethoven Prometheus Overture, at least I think we are.  And I'm sure we are playing March to the Scaffold by Berlioz.  March to the Scaffold has a cool clarinet solo, which I want to try out for.

3.  I like the competition for chair seating.  Every concert we have a seating audition to determine ranking in each section.  It's okay if you don't do well, because there is always the next seating audition to work for if you don't like where you're placed.

4.  I like the music theory program, especially this year, because Mr. Kupfer is back from Europe.  Mr. Kupfer always makes you do what's hard for you.  For example, I am bad at remembering my flat scales, and so Mr. Kupfer always makes me work on that during my theory class each week.

5.  The kids are really nice.  I have made lots of friends there.

Every week, I look forward to going to MYA.  Sometimes I have conflicts because I play travel soccer.  Tomorrow, I have to miss a game to go to rehearsal because I've already missed two rehearsals, and if I miss 3 rehearsals, I can't play in the concert at the end of the month.  I don't want to quit soccer, but I prefer rehearsals to soccer games.  And that's saying a lot, because I love soccer.

Here's a link to MYA's website.

Deliberate Practice

I found a website today.  It talked about practice, but not quantity like I said in my earlier post, but quality of practice. 

Here is the website:  http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/becoming-an-expert-deliberate-practice-part-2.html

This was relevant today to my clarinet lesson which I had in Evanston today.  My teacher's name is Dileep Gangolli.  He's a good teacher.  He's very nice, but he is very deliberate and painstaking during my lessons.  This is a good thing, because it helps me learn to be a better clarinetist.

Today we worked on E minor scales and etudes and Fergeson's Four Short Pieces.  He was unhappy with my tone.  He said my technical work was great, but my tone really needed some work.  I think he was right, but I still sulked for a few hours.  This week, I think I need to work more on listening to the sound of the music I play and improving on my tone and the quality of my sound and the connections between the notes.  Dileep said that the way to do this is to slow down and play them over and over again before moving the tempo up.  This called deliberate practice, which is what the website that I posted above is about.

Today, I only practiced clarinet for one hour, because I was tired.  I also practiced piano for 35 minutes.  The problem with one hour practices, though, is that if you play for one hour a day, five days a week, it will take 40 years to get those 10,000 hours in.  In forty years, I'll be 52 years old!  I want to get there LONG before then...at least 20 years before then.  Probably sooner than that.