The New Giants
For the past thirteen years I have been writing almost
monthly articles, and most of those have been published in Pipers magazine, one
of the highly esteemed band magazines in Japan. In these thirteen years, at
once a month, that is close to 150 articles. Lately, it appears to me some of
my articles are saying the same things repeatedly but in different ways. I will
continue writing but I will also try and explore new directions and enter the
new doors I see being opened.
There is a tendency in my generation to reflect on
‘the good old times, the golden days of our time, holding to a great belief in
the merits of the past; that’s hard to do without feeling a little shame. In previous
articles I’ve refeared to what I call the ‘10-year generations of brass players’,
that every 10 years there seems to come a wave of new players. I’ve also used
the metaphor as these new generations appear as students, grand students and
great grand students. I’m proud to be the great grand teacher of many brass players
in this world.
But something new is happening, not only in tuba, not
only in brass instruments but also throughout the musical world. There is a new
kind of musical species emerging who seem to be far more evolved than the icons
that were part of my time. There seems to be a generation of new and far
greater icons; these are ‘The New Giants’.
“Poor is the pupil who does
not surpass his master.” - Leonardo da Vinci. There is an abundance of highly
successful students in the world now who have exponentially surpassed their
teachers, their icons and their examples, which are so abundantly evident in
our lives through the endless references that the Internet offers us. In one
day I heard the Chinese pianist, Yuga Wang, (a friend remarked, “She’s from
another galaxy”), a 3 year old pianist who seems almost ready to concertize.
Within a few minutes I was listening to the 14-year-old French girl, Tina S playing
the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on electric guitar;
beyond belief! The list could go on regarding trumpet, trombone, horn, it’s a
new generation of musical giants; our future in the musical world is assured of
taking us places that we can’t yet imagine.
Just by chance, today
(March 8, 2017) is International Women’s day; this needs to be addressed in the
context of our “New Giants”. Unfortunately, in many places and categories of
our world where the unjustness of sexism still exists, but at least in the
western world, at least to me in my lifetime, I have observed the status of
women in the musical world grow to being proportional and equal. Of course,
there are occasional reports of favoritism, prejudice, sexism, nationalism and
municipalism that appear, however, these stories are absolutely are not limited
to women. Every competition, audition, and job application results in someone
being disappointed and each of these disappointed people have a story, this is
human nature and it’s us, those who hear these stories of prejudice, who must
discriminate there validity.
It was my honor to have
been on the faculty of the Musashino Academy of Music for 10 years of my life.
I took note in the biannual exams that generally 60% of the trumpet players
were women 80% of the horns, 60% of trombones, 90% of euphoniumists and 20% of
tubists were women. A little humor a little sadness: I used to joke that 1 out
of 3 young Japanese girls played the euphonium, very very very few became
professional!
Although Japan has a good
representation of women in classical music, I have seen in Holland, Italy,
Switzerland and United Kingdom, a shockingly large number of Japanese girls
fighting to find a way to not have to return to Japan. It’s true that Japan is
behind the west regarding woman’s equality in the musical world, however, the
“New Giants” are well represented on all the instruments; in fact, many of the
top women brass players today are the examples of state-of-the-art in brass
playing.
It was 75 years ago, while
sitting on my father’s shoulders, when I first heard that incredible sound of
brass instruments coming from a church tower on a crisp winter Sunday morning.
I feel advantaged to have that retrospective, It helps me to have a realistic
vision of what may happen in the future, it was magic then and I hope it is
still magic now and in the future. The men and women of the “New Giants” are
opening doors for us.
Roger Bobo, March 8, 2017,
International Women’s Day
