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In this day and age of digital music – which means that printouts are on very thin, 8.5"x11" paper – we may need to rethink how we handle music. In the past, publishers and librarians did much of this work for us, but nowadays, most of us are on our own.
Just last week, I attended a concert at a semi-outdoor venue. There was a soloist on the concert and he played beautifully. (He shall go unnamed for the purposes of this article, but he has agreed to let me publish it.) There was one problem though. His music kept blowing off of the stand. He had the thing memorized, so didn’t miss a beat, but it was very distracting to the audience and probably to him as well. I wish I could say that this only happens outdoors, but it can even happen indoors if the ventilation system blows on your music stand. What are our options, so that this doesn’t happen to us? In order of priority, here’s what I’d recommend: 1. Memorization is always the best option, but not everyone has that skill. If you can manage it though, do it! 2. Use heavyweight paper. Most “normal” copy paper is 20-24lb. and it’s just too light to stay put. The breeze of someone walking by can even dislodge it from your music stand. You’ll want to go to at least 60lb. paper to insure the music won’t leave your music stand. These are my favorites in 8.5”x11” and 11”x17”. Both are heavier weights, won’t rub through when you erase, are almost opaque when held up to the light, and are heavy enough to withstand a breeze to your music stand. 3. Print double-sided and use a professional music tape to bind the pages together. You should NEVER have individual, single-sided 8.5”x11” pages on your music stand. That is always a recipe for disaster! 4. If you want to go one step further, you can purchase a binding machine that goes along with the above tape allowing you to bind up to 20 pages together. 5. Digital music readers. Some would put this higher on the list, but the bugs haven't been worked out yet. There is a chance the reader could run out of battery, freeze, or lose connection with the pedal page turner. I believe that in the next 20-50 years, this will be the way that most of us look at music, but for now it is one of a myriad of options that we have for reading music in a concert setting. 6. Music Stand clips are often used for fully outdoor concerts, but there’s no reason you can’t use them for indoor concerts as well. 7. One could always tape the music to the stand or to a piece of cardboard. If you do choose this route, make sure to use high quality packing tape, to insure that it doesn’t start to peel off during your performance. Keep in mind that this will trash your music and you’ll need to print out a new set the next time you want to work on the piece. In the end, we are becoming more and more responsible for our own library needs. As someone who owns all of the above products and uses them frequently, I highly recommend that you invest in some of them as well so that you don’t wonder where your music is when you need it most!
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As a Jew, you might wonder why I spend so much time in Church. Sure, I belong to a Temple and enjoy spending time there, especially for the community, but it doesn’t compare with the splendor and glory of some of the great churches around the world – many of which open their doors to the public for events of all varieties. Most recently, I spent a long weekend in Montreal, and was introduced to two Churches. First, Notre-Dame Basilica has a light show that outdoes anything I have ever seen. Using the architecture of the church, the laser light show designers outdid themselves using the space to emulate nature in all its glory. Wind storms, waves, the change of seasons and a lovely sunrise, to name a few.  And second, we visited Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal which has its own 50+ boys choir every Sunday. We sat through the entire Catholic mass – in Latin and French - just to hear those boys sing. Truly angelic.  Last summer, I visited St. Marks Basilica in Venice, Italy, where Giovanni Gabrieli was Organist and Music Director for over 20 years in the early 1600's. All of his antiphonal music is written for that space and it was rather amazing to finally hear antiphonal music in there. (You can learn more about this visit here)  This June, for the second time, I attended Paul Winter’s Summer Solstice concert at St. John The Divine in New York City. It’s a cathedral that can seat over 6,000 people and the acoustic is so perfect that the group doesn’t need amplification to be heard throughout the venue. The organ is used in a way that I have never heard before. It surrounds and grabs you, shaking you furiously until it finally lets go – in all the best ways. I found myself in tears last year during the concert.
Closest to home, I have spent quite a bit of time at Old South Church in Copley Square over the past 25 years. I’ve lost count how many times I have performed in that space. Brass concerts with the Old South Brass and the Boston Conservatory Brass Ensemble, as well as chamber and full orchestra concerts with Symphony Nova. Symphony Nova’s office was even at the Church. So, really, it appears that Churches are doing the same thing that Classical music as a whole is doing; adjusting to the changes in the world so that they can continue to survive. By becoming concert halls, in addition to places of worship, they can fill their spaces many more days than just Sunday and entertain an even more diverse audience of every creed and color. It’s a gift that they share with the world and it is always worth the trip. See you there! I was born and raised only 20 miles from Manhattan, so it’s not shocking that I believe it’s a special place, which deserves to be visited as often as possible. On any given visit, one can take in a glut of sights and sounds in whatever sphere of interest they might have. On a recent visit, I spent a full day appreciating, viewing, and listening to artwork. It included the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Opera – all in one day! If you have the time, I highly recommend it. Here’s a sample itinerary that you could use:
10:00am NY Philharmonic open rehearsal. (Alice Tully Hall, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza). These often occur on a Thursday. 12:30pm Walk up Columbus Avenue to the Upper West Side 1:00pm Lunch at Cilantro on the upper West Side (485 Columbus Ave., between West 83rd and 84th Streets). This lively Southwestern cafe dishes generous portions, pairing them with large margaritas. 2:00pm Walk to West 86th St./Columbus Ave. and take the M86-SBS Select Bus Crosstown. Get off at E 84 St/5 Ave. and walk 1 block to the MET museum. 2:30pm Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 5th Ave.) Current exhibits include: “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer”, “Rodin at the Met”, and David Hockney. In addition, I never miss the chance to peek into Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Living Room from the Francis W. Little House”, which is a full-size, furnished living room. #IWantToLiveThere 5:00pm Take the same bus back across the park by walking to E. 86th /5th Ave. and taking the M86-SBS Select Bus Westside, getting off at W 86 St/Broadway. Switch to the #1 subway and take it down to 66th St., Lincoln Center Subway Center. You can grab dinner anywhere along the way. 7:30pm Metropolitan Opera (Metropolitan Opera House, 30 Lincoln Center Plaza) This is only one plan. Some of the other arts events that I love to attend in New York City include:
Get out there, and see what NYC has to offer. You won’t regret it! In my third season with the Hamilton Philharmonic, in Ontario, I was starting to get antsy about finishing my Bachelor’s Degree. I had left Northwestern at the end of my sophomore year to take that job, and had already been out of school for three years. I was concerned that I might never finish, so I applied for one of the first sabbaticals ever issued from the Hamilton Philharmonic, with the intention of finishing my degree. Well, it turned out that the saying is true, “life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans”.
After my sabbatical had been granted, an audition came up for a one-year position with the San Francisco Symphony. I took the audition, and came in second. John Kitzman from the Dallas Symphony won the job, and he started to go about finding a replacement for himself there. When he called to ask if I’d be interested in auditioning, I told him that my original plan was to go back to school, and I wanted to stick with that. In the end, Dallas couldn’t find anyone to replace him, so their conductor wouldn’t release John for the year. Guess who got a call to play Principal Trombone with the San Francisco Symphony for a season? What an amazing experience. Over the years, I chipped away at my degree through summer school, night school, and any way that I could take a class towards my degree. After 8 years, I finally got my Bachelor of Music Degree from Northwestern University. It’s a piece of paper that I’m very proud to own, and one that has allowed me teach at many high-level college, and conservatory institutions. As it turned out, I had to put the instrument in the case mid-career, and my degree was the one thing I could fall back on as I started new work as an educator and administrator. We can never know where our career will lead us, so getting the best education possible is an excellent defense. I’ll pass on this advice, given to me by an older percussion faculty member at a summer camp in 1985: “Finish your degree. You won’t regret it”. Earlier in the year, I had the opportunity to work with a class at the University of Northern Georgia, Gainesville Campus. My friend, Dr. Adam Frey, is the low brass instructor there. It was fun to watch him teach, alternately playing trombone, euphonium and tuba in the lessons, and then showing his conducting chops in the low brass ensemble rehearsal. I was reminded of all the skill sets we truly need to work in this field.
During the class, I asked the students how they would define success - whatever their career path might be. Their plans were diverse - everything from music performance and teaching, to working in unrelated fields like sports management, gymnastics, and videography. Instead of the usual answers a performer might give about the need to practice hours and hours, (which is necessary, but not the only road to success), they suggested some really good ideas for success in any field. No matter what you want to do with your life, we discussed these basic skills you'll need to acquire to be successful: Commitment: Dedication to the training plan. Simply doing something every day to move your career forward, be it practicing, going to concerts, performing, or networking. Discipline: Understanding the purpose of the training session, staying focused on completing it, and modifying it if the goals of said session are not being met. Organizational skills: Sorry, but this is really important. You need to be able to keep track of everything in your life – schedule, responsibilities, assignments and even the simple act of responding to email and texts in a timely fashion. If this is a challenge for you, read David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”. You won’t be the same after reading it. Behavior and Attitude: It’s about the people, stupid. Nobody really cares if you are the best at what you do if you aren’t easy (or even fun!) to work with. Bring your best behavior and attitude to any opportunity that you are offered. Make sure to obey the codes of conduct for your field. Punctuality: Yes, if you are repeatedly late with your projects, or your arrival times, people will stop calling you, no matter how talented you are. It’s that simple. This list seems so basic, but look at your life, and compare yourself to this list. Do you hit all of these targets? What can you do to improve in the areas that challenge you? What I can promise you is this – if you can master all of these skills, not just some of them, you will be a success in your field of choice! It has become clear to me that musicians – like elite athletes – evolve. Just over 50 years ago, in 1954, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. Up until then it was thought to be an impossible barrier. Similarly, long distance runners are currently trying to break the 2-hour barrier for a marathon. At least 10 runners have already broken the 2:05 barrier, with one as quick as 2:02:57, but we aren’t there yet. Mark my words though, we’ll be there soon!
Even in my relatively short span on this earth, I have watched the level of musical ability and expression go through the roof. When I was a kid in the 1970s, orchestral pieces like the Rite of Spring, and the Mahler Symphonies (except for No. 1), were only performed by the highest level professional ensembles. Now, they are performed regularly by youth orchestras all over the world. For trombone players, the Creston Fantasy and Berio’s Sequenza V were only performed by the highest-level graduate students and professionals. Now, it’s not unusual for a freshman in college to play the Creston quite eloquently. If we look back even further, it’s possible to see this evolution starting well over one hundred years ago. Tchaikovsky originally wrote his Violin Concerto for Leopold Auer, but Auer called it unplayable, and declined to give its premiere. It took another three years for the piece to reach the concert hall. A young violinist, Adolf Brodsky, learned the concerto, and persuaded Hans Richter and the Vienna Philharmonic to program it on a concert in December 1881. Auer later admitted that the concerto was merely difficult, not unplayable, and he taught it to his students, including Heifetz, Elman, Zimbalist, and Seidel. Today we’re used to prodigies, and mature superstars alike regularly performing the work, while thinking nothing of its technical challenges. I wonder then, what musicians will achieve even in the next 20 years. I look forward to witnessing this evolution, and seeing what artistic and physical feats we humans are capable of attaining. On a recent trip to New York City, I saw a wonderful exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the drawings and etchings entitled, “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer". I couldn't help but be reminded that artists, as a class, work in very similar ways to prepare to do their work. This includes all types of art - music, dance, visual art, architecture, performance art, and many others. One doesn't simply declare that they are “an artist”, and immediately crank out works that are mature, and meaningful. In this exhibit, you could see Michelangelo’s meticulous process, similar to what we do as musicians. Young musicians, often collaborating with a master in the field, spend hour upon hour in the practice room perfecting our art, learning to shape the instrument into our vision. This can take years. No, really - years! Brass players, for example, often start around age 8, and it takes them 15-20 years to gain the proficiency required to work in the field. Sometimes we’ll work on a phrase over and over again until we get it just the way that we want it to sound. Maybe an articulation is elusive, or there is a pitch issue that we’ve been trying to sort out. Our focus could be tone quality, or dynamics - really anything could take our attention for hours. Visual artists do this as well, often spending hours working out the details before they create the final work. For them, it can take years as well. I remember visiting the Museu Picasso in Barcelona – it displays art by Picasso from his formative years. Much of the work displayed was portraits, which is how he made his living early in his career. It took him years to establish the style that made him famous later in life. Below are some of his famous earlier works - Science and Charity (1897), Man in Beret (1895), and Self-Portrait (1896). They are definitely not a part of his cubist period, which began in 1909. On an oddly related note, the Beatles had been preparing for years when they appeared live on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. They had spent 2 years (August 1960 to December 1962) honing their craft in Hamburg, Germany, and continued to concertize in Europe before coming to the US. But I digress. At the Met exhibit, they showed us Michelangelo's process as he worked it out. Below, for example, he is studying how to draw a torso and an arm for his, "Studies for The Last Judgement". Or his study for Cleopatra (1533-1534) All artists do this repetitive, painstaking work to attain mastery of their medium. I can only speak for myself, but those many hours in the practice room early in my career were some of the happiest, most joyful hours of my life – second only to the hours spent sharing the final artwork with an appreciative audience.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018 As a conductor, your worst fear is that you won't be able to move one or both of your arms. With my upper left arm currently broken in three places, there is definitely some concern about that. Granted, it could become a glorified page-turning device, but that doesn't seem like a very good use of a left arm. Today, I met with a new surgeon and he was confident that without surgery, the arm would heal to 100%. The problem with surgery is that you could get scar tissue that would limit your range of motion, possibly permanently. We took X-Rays today for the third time and the fractures have not moved at all since the initial scans right after the trauma. I'll go back in in three weeks to make sure the fractures haven't moved. If there is no change, the sling comes off, PT begins, and full recovery is only a few months away. In the meantime, he says to leave the sling on most of the time. Its prime purpose is to warn others not to hit me in the arm. My job is clear: don't fall on the ice, don't get bumped on the T, protect the shoulder while walking on Newbury St, don't pick fights with strangers, and skiing is out of the question until next season. I can do this. The next three months hold some very exciting concerts that I'm pleased will go on as scheduled. Two concerts at school, one with the dance division and one with the brass ensemble, and the final gala performance of our 10th season with Symphony Nova. They will all happen now as planned. Cue happy dance. CT Scan view is from above, looking down on the left shoulder. All three fractures are still attached to the bone and therefore should heal on their own.  Saturday, January 6, 2018 They say bad things happen in threes. Well, I trashed my computer on January 1st when I spilled Diet Coke all over it it and then had a vacation delayed by four days due to the storm on January 4th. This is the third thing and hopefully the last, but it never should have happened. Yes, the day was very cold at -7 degrees, but I was warm enough and skiing well. The runs are wide up at Okemo Mountain leaving plenty of room to carve turns and feel in control. And then I felt something odd. I looked down and one of my skis had come off and I was still upright! But not for long. I took a nosedive like I never have before. It happened so fast that I didn't even put my hands out in front of me. My shoulder took the entire fall. And it wasn't good. I rolled over onto my back, and lay there for a few moments to assess what had happened. Many people stopped quickly and ski patrol was on me within just a few minutes. I knew my shoulder was not good, but at the moment I just needed to get off the mountain. Remember it was freezing cold. I could not have asked for a better ski patrol team. They stabilized me quickly, got me onto a sled, and one of them sat on top of me the whole way down to stabilize my arm. It was probably forty minutes from the time I fell until I was at the rescue lodge. They were able to quickly assess that I had dislocated my left shoulder, and possibly fractured the shoulder the as well. One of the ski patrol members was able to get my arm mostly back into the socket and stabilized me for the trip to the hospital. Thirty minutes later, after a bumpy ambulance ride, we arrived at the Springfield Hospital in VT. I was quickly taken into the x-ray for some of the most painful pictures I have ever had taken, but they did get what they needed and could clearly see that I had a fracture in my left humerus and that it might still be slightly dislocated. The plan going forward is to see my orthopedic surgeon soon to discuss options. I have never had a dislocated shoulder, or a broken bone in my body for that matter, so I am looking forward to learning more about the recovery process. And as a conductor, I'm curious what the short and long-term affects of this type of injury might be. Hopefully it's the third and the last bit of excitement in my life for awhile! Stay tuned for updates.  Consider the following scenario - you've always wanted to experience a particular artist live in concert. You’ve been thinking about it for a long time, so long, in fact, that the artist is now past their prime, and they attract audiences primarily due to name recognition. You finally attend the concert, but it’s not the experience you had imagined. To make sure this doesn't happen, I try to see an artist NOW if they are hot. Classical artists include: Gustavo Dudamel, Augustine Hadelich, Gil Shaham, and yes, Andris Nelsons (don’t miss a chance to hear him live!). Popular artists include: Lady Gaga and Justin Collier (you’ve got to check this guy out!). When I was a kid, I got to see Chicago, and even Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons – both phenomenal.
Over the years, there were some artists that I saw late in their career, and regretted it a little. Barbara Streisand was one of those. I had always loved her voice, but hearing her live in her 70s just wasn't what I remembered. I should have gone to see her live sooner – although, to be fair, she rarely performs live. And then there were the artists I just missed out on completely, like Frank Sinatra, pianist Glenn Gould, and the very short career of cellist Jacqueline du Pré. Oh, to have heard any of them live! I still remember the first time I saw Gustavo Dudamel. It was November 7, 2007, and he was touring the US with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. He wasn't a household name yet, and it was before the job in LA, but I knew he was worth checking out. The energy in Boston’s Symphony Hall was palpable. There wasn't an empty seat in the house and the performance was electrifying. Luckily, we have many years of his talent still to come, but don't wait too long. What if he leaves LA, and goes to Berlin? Luckily, he’ll be in Boston this year on April 25th, and I’ll be there once again. |
AuthorLawrence Isaacson is a conductor and educator based in Boston. Biography >> Archives
July 2018
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