It was 65 years ago, we had finished our first year in kindergarten and were starting our new school year in the 1st grade, it was 1944, and we were 6. I think about her at least once a year, usually in those momentary thresholds between being asleep and awake, those times when it’s difficult to discriminate between thought and dream.
Nancy Walker and I were not particularly good friends nor were we adversaries. We were seated together in the classroom and for two years shared one of those two child tables with a small shelf under the surface where we could store papers, artwork, pencils, crayons and other small things.
She was taller than the other girls, blond and always had what I remember as a shy quiet smile. She was smart, talented, uncomplicated and in retrospect seemed to be totally trusting. Life was easy for her. Her work was ahead of mine in every respect, spelling, writing, art, arithmetic, she was better at everything, even music; sometimes she would help me with my work.
I think this may have been the first time in my life I had experienced envy, I wished I could have her same ease of dealing with the simple complex of 1st grade encounters; for me everything was hard. And I especially envied the fact that she showed, and I’m sure felt, no sense of superiority; she was just good! I was aware I couldn’t be as good, as nice and as friendly as her and that troubled me.
We stayed seated together well into the 2nd grade. Then something happened, I think I had done something, I can’t remember what, and we were separated. Nancy never wanted to talk to me anymore. I was sad but tried to laugh about it every time I saw her. For the next years, through elementary, junior high school, and high school she remained distant. I will never remember what I did but I wish I hadn’t done it.
I dreamed about Nancy last night. It was a good dream; she was old but still had that shy quiet smile. I tried to explain to her that I was sorry for whatever I had done to cause her to distance herself. She seemed moved and touched my hand and said she couldn’t remember what I had done either but she forgave me. I think she was a wonderful person I wish we could have been good friends.
I resisted waking up for as long as I could this morning.
After searches I have sadly discovered many of my class, the 1938 vintage, have already deceased.
I hope you are well Nancy.
Okayama, Japan, April 19, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Hormones and Cherry Blossoms
The March masterclass tour is finished, the remarkably high level of the students I encountered at all the venues, Lahti Finland, Bolzano Italy, Amsterdam, Detmold Germany, and Zurich were inspirational and I’m going home fresh and invigorated. Now in Lausanne, Switzerland I happily start my countdown for a new school year at the Musashino Academy of Music in Tokyo and the Tokyo spring, a stimulating pink world of hormones and cherry blossoms.
Spring is a formidable time everywhere in the world and its effect on us is perhaps more powerful than most of us realize. We are, whether we like to admit it or not, just one of many beasts on this planet and spring is the time that most species move to continue their life cycles of our species too; it’s the rites of spring for the birds, bees, flowers and trees and even with the politics, economics, technologies and intellectual pursuits; we are still only just another of the many animals on this planet and we are certainly profoundly effected by springs power.
I will get home just in time for a hanami, (viewing of the cherry blossoms). I’ll go with friends and enjoy the sakura (cherry blossoms), enjoy watching the people and I will be aware that hanami is a much larger thing than just a beautiful Japanese tradition. The flowers will be beautiful and the Japanese girls will be beautiful, but it’s also part of the nature of spring, it’s part of the rites of spring. Japan is an amazing place to enjoy this human condition. We are lucky to be able to view the spring both from the standpoint of our basic viscerality and from our more sophisticated human culture.
Wherever you are, however you celebrate your hanami, your rites of spring, I hope you enjoy it; it’s a good life.
Lausanne, Switzerland, April 5, 2009
Spring is a formidable time everywhere in the world and its effect on us is perhaps more powerful than most of us realize. We are, whether we like to admit it or not, just one of many beasts on this planet and spring is the time that most species move to continue their life cycles of our species too; it’s the rites of spring for the birds, bees, flowers and trees and even with the politics, economics, technologies and intellectual pursuits; we are still only just another of the many animals on this planet and we are certainly profoundly effected by springs power.
I will get home just in time for a hanami, (viewing of the cherry blossoms). I’ll go with friends and enjoy the sakura (cherry blossoms), enjoy watching the people and I will be aware that hanami is a much larger thing than just a beautiful Japanese tradition. The flowers will be beautiful and the Japanese girls will be beautiful, but it’s also part of the nature of spring, it’s part of the rites of spring. Japan is an amazing place to enjoy this human condition. We are lucky to be able to view the spring both from the standpoint of our basic viscerality and from our more sophisticated human culture.
Wherever you are, however you celebrate your hanami, your rites of spring, I hope you enjoy it; it’s a good life.
Lausanne, Switzerland, April 5, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Happily Humbled--Again and Again
Leonardo Da Vinci said, “It is the duty of the student to surpass his teacher”. Da Vinci was very right, I would add that the greatest pleasure a teacher can have is to experience his students realizing that duty. I’ve seen increasingly more students reach that level recently; it’s a wonderful feeling.
This Da Vinci quote was really not new a new concept to me. In the years between 1956 and 1960 while attending the Eastman School of Music I was boasting once to my old teacher in Los Angeles, Robert Marsteller, that I had a fellow student, a trombonist, in Eastman who was reputed to be a better student than the famous Gordon Pulis, the first trombonist of the New York Philharmonic, was in the 1940s. Mr. Marsteller broke into laughter and said “God help the student who isn’t better than Gordon Pulis was when he was a student”. Robert Marsteller was a man of vision.
I’ve always been quite aware that there were two levels of tuba playing in my life, the one that existed in my mind and the one in my hands, which, with the physical encumberments of breathing, embouchure, tonguing and fingering, regardless of how much I worked, never reached the level of that tuba in my mind. It’s interesting that after I played my last concert in 2001, that tuba perceived in my mind continued to develop quicker and better without those physical encumberments of actually playing.
There was, however, something else happening in the tuba world that was broadening my tuba vision. A new generation of tubists was emerging that was abundantly realizing the words of Da Vinci. Through the last decade I have seen increasingly numerous students ‘surpassing their teachers’ and from my personal vista I have heard students in Asia, North America and Europe even surpassing that perceived tuba that existed only in my musical mind, in fact, much of my lately acquired tuba awareness has come from those students.
Our world of Tubadom is a superb microcosm of the changing world we live in. The growth, the awareness and the excellence seen in our art is truly amazing, but although nothing like it has ever happened before in music history, it’s just an example of what we see in our daily lives. Computer science, cell phones and automobiles are other examples of improvements coming so fast it’s nearly impossible for us to keep up.
There is a vast difference, however, between the progress in technologies and that of our small, isolated and idealistic world of the tuba. The world today needs better computers, better cell phones, and more efficient cars, and we could never go back in time even a few years. But there is another powerful motivation regarding computers, cell phones, cars and the other vast growing necessary products appearing in our world; the better these products become the more money there is to be made.
The development of the tuba is quite different and inspired by a different kind of energy. Our level of performance, the vision of what can be, the teaching, the institutions that promote our instruments and its performance are all primarily inspired by the fact that we love music and we love this instrument. The instrument manufactures are, of course, happy with our idealism and happy to provide us with the equipment we require; we are lucky to have them and our idealism means profit for them.
It’s dangerous to take too much time reflecting on our accomplishments of the past. Even so, it’s quite appropriate to reflect, a little retrospect is good; it can show us a clearer direction to continue this historical success.
Amsterdam, March 25, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Domaine Forget
It’s a habit now, a very good habit. It started in 1954 when I was 15 years old and got on a train in Los Angeles, destination the National Music Camp, Interlochen, Michigan; I returned there for the next three years. Almost every year since that time I’ve been involved in some music camp or some masterclass stage somewhere in the world; the venue changed but the habit remained.
Many of these courses occurred for several years and the attachments grew strong, it was always a little sad when circumstances, usually economics, caused these courses to end. There was the special course in Villa Nova De Castillion near Valencia, Spain, the band camp in Kalavrita, Greece, Musica Riva in Riva del Garda, Italy and the Yamaha Band Camp in Hamamatsu, Japan, all very special occasions, which offered the special atmospheres of the unique localities, renewing old and creating new friendships and most importantly high level learning experiences.
Of all these excellent summer courses there is one that stands out in my mind as being by far the best, that is Domaine Forget Académie de Musique et Dance in Quebec, Canada. Domaine Forget is located among the rolling hills of Saint-Irénée 90 minutes northeast of Québec City on a vast historical property overlooking the St. Lawrence River, an unparalleled setting providing visitors with a cultural experience unmatched anywhere in North America. Le Domaine Forget attracts mostly North American students but every year there are a few students that come from Europe and Asia.
The combination of fine students, very high-level internationally renowned teachers, a highly efficient and low profile administration, an unbelievably beautiful location, and at least of equal importance, it’s fun, it’s big fun. The brass classes this year are from June 1 to 13, however, if circumstances make two weeks impossible, it is possible to come for only one week.
I have aggressively avoided posting anything that may appear like an advertisement either on my blog or rogerbobo.com so please view this as an invitation, an invitation to a very special two weeks (or one), learning guaranteed, fun guaranteed; you will be very welcome.
For more information go to the Domaine Forget web page.
Riva del Guarda, Italy, March 16, 2009
Many of these courses occurred for several years and the attachments grew strong, it was always a little sad when circumstances, usually economics, caused these courses to end. There was the special course in Villa Nova De Castillion near Valencia, Spain, the band camp in Kalavrita, Greece, Musica Riva in Riva del Garda, Italy and the Yamaha Band Camp in Hamamatsu, Japan, all very special occasions, which offered the special atmospheres of the unique localities, renewing old and creating new friendships and most importantly high level learning experiences.
Of all these excellent summer courses there is one that stands out in my mind as being by far the best, that is Domaine Forget Académie de Musique et Dance in Quebec, Canada. Domaine Forget is located among the rolling hills of Saint-Irénée 90 minutes northeast of Québec City on a vast historical property overlooking the St. Lawrence River, an unparalleled setting providing visitors with a cultural experience unmatched anywhere in North America. Le Domaine Forget attracts mostly North American students but every year there are a few students that come from Europe and Asia.
The combination of fine students, very high-level internationally renowned teachers, a highly efficient and low profile administration, an unbelievably beautiful location, and at least of equal importance, it’s fun, it’s big fun. The brass classes this year are from June 1 to 13, however, if circumstances make two weeks impossible, it is possible to come for only one week.
I have aggressively avoided posting anything that may appear like an advertisement either on my blog or rogerbobo.com so please view this as an invitation, an invitation to a very special two weeks (or one), learning guaranteed, fun guaranteed; you will be very welcome.
For more information go to the Domaine Forget web page.
Riva del Guarda, Italy, March 16, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
"Die Tuba ist Keine Solo Instrument"
“The Tuba is Not a Solo Instrument”
Sometimes I regret that frequently in my life I have missed wonderful opportunities to keep my mouth shut! My mother used to tell me: “Roger, You don’t have to say everything you think”; I’m still working on that! There is, however, one vivid moment in my history when I did keep my mouth shut and I’ve been frustrated about it ever since!
It was the 1976 First International Brass Symposium in Montreux, Switzerland, an amazing event that was organized by Harvey Phillips, which brought together most of the major brass players in the world for one extraordinarily enlightening week. Anyone who has ever been involved in the organization of any International, national or regional symposium knows what a formidable task that can be and can understand what Harvey Phillips did in 1976 was absolutely amazing.
It wasn’t only the logistical challenges of getting the world’s great brass players of all instruments together in the same place at the same time, Harvey’s task was exacerbated by the fact that 1976 was a time of far less international consciousness in brass performance then now. Many of the participants in that symposium who were considered the best in their separate nationalities and comfortably isolated musical environments, I fear naively considered themselves simply the best, not just at home.
On the first night of the symposium I was a part of the opening night recital, a very long concert (many hours), it was one of those marathon concerts we encounter sometimes at symposia with a huge number of soloists. I played the Kraft Encounters ll and as I recall it was not a particularly good performance but most of the people that night had never heard anything like that before (the Kraft Encounters ll is a virtuoso unaccompanied piece with multiphonics and other new techniques) and I suspect many of them had never even heard a tuba as a solo instrument before; it caused a lot of attention.
The next morning was met by many of the symposium participants with greetings, handshakes and congratulations. Finally one rather pompous and arrogant looking man came to me, smiled, put his nose in the air, said “Good Morning” and quickly turned and walked away; it was a small unpleasant and insignificant moment in an otherwise very enjoyable week.
Later I learned this man was the passed tubist in what many people considered, and still consider, the greatest orchestra in the world, and he was reputed at the time of being the premium tuba professor in Europe. Because of that reputation I went to his masterclass later in the day to see what I could learn. I sat in the back row and waited until he finally made his entrance, which had more the atmosphere of a presidential press conference than a tuba masterclass. As he entered, the class led by his student disciples, stood and one of them dutifully lifted the distinguished maesrto’s overcoat from his shoulders, he asked the class to please be seated and we waited in anticipation.
When he finally spoke these were his words: “Good Morning, before we begin the occasion of this masterclass there is one basic thing we must all understand, ‘Die tuba ist keine solo instrument’ (the tuba is not a solo instrument), when we all can agree that the tuba is not a solo instrument we will begin”. I didn’t want to be responsible for holding up the class so I quietly got up and left the room, I was glad I was seated in the back row.
A few years later I went into an attractive little music shop in Salzburg, Austria and asked the very nice old lady, who appeared to be the owner of the shop, if they had any music for tuba and it happened again; “Die tuba ist keine solo instrument, we only have music for solo instruments here”, at which time she opened a drawer of flute music and explained to me that the flute was a solo instrument and the tuba was not. Well, she was a very sweet old lady; I thanked her and quietly left the shop.
The old adage that success is the best revenge seems to be the appropriate philosophy to remember these events but the stories point out in a special way to those who have enjoyed watching the evolution of the tuba through most of the last century, that happily things have changed! It’s moments like this, while writing this article, I think about the women of Afghanistan and the suppression of their equal rights. We can be very proud and satisfied how the tuba has evolved to the status it enjoys today.
Lahti, Finland, March 7, 2009
Sometimes I regret that frequently in my life I have missed wonderful opportunities to keep my mouth shut! My mother used to tell me: “Roger, You don’t have to say everything you think”; I’m still working on that! There is, however, one vivid moment in my history when I did keep my mouth shut and I’ve been frustrated about it ever since!
It was the 1976 First International Brass Symposium in Montreux, Switzerland, an amazing event that was organized by Harvey Phillips, which brought together most of the major brass players in the world for one extraordinarily enlightening week. Anyone who has ever been involved in the organization of any International, national or regional symposium knows what a formidable task that can be and can understand what Harvey Phillips did in 1976 was absolutely amazing.
It wasn’t only the logistical challenges of getting the world’s great brass players of all instruments together in the same place at the same time, Harvey’s task was exacerbated by the fact that 1976 was a time of far less international consciousness in brass performance then now. Many of the participants in that symposium who were considered the best in their separate nationalities and comfortably isolated musical environments, I fear naively considered themselves simply the best, not just at home.
On the first night of the symposium I was a part of the opening night recital, a very long concert (many hours), it was one of those marathon concerts we encounter sometimes at symposia with a huge number of soloists. I played the Kraft Encounters ll and as I recall it was not a particularly good performance but most of the people that night had never heard anything like that before (the Kraft Encounters ll is a virtuoso unaccompanied piece with multiphonics and other new techniques) and I suspect many of them had never even heard a tuba as a solo instrument before; it caused a lot of attention.
The next morning was met by many of the symposium participants with greetings, handshakes and congratulations. Finally one rather pompous and arrogant looking man came to me, smiled, put his nose in the air, said “Good Morning” and quickly turned and walked away; it was a small unpleasant and insignificant moment in an otherwise very enjoyable week.
Later I learned this man was the passed tubist in what many people considered, and still consider, the greatest orchestra in the world, and he was reputed at the time of being the premium tuba professor in Europe. Because of that reputation I went to his masterclass later in the day to see what I could learn. I sat in the back row and waited until he finally made his entrance, which had more the atmosphere of a presidential press conference than a tuba masterclass. As he entered, the class led by his student disciples, stood and one of them dutifully lifted the distinguished maesrto’s overcoat from his shoulders, he asked the class to please be seated and we waited in anticipation.
When he finally spoke these were his words: “Good Morning, before we begin the occasion of this masterclass there is one basic thing we must all understand, ‘Die tuba ist keine solo instrument’ (the tuba is not a solo instrument), when we all can agree that the tuba is not a solo instrument we will begin”. I didn’t want to be responsible for holding up the class so I quietly got up and left the room, I was glad I was seated in the back row.
A few years later I went into an attractive little music shop in Salzburg, Austria and asked the very nice old lady, who appeared to be the owner of the shop, if they had any music for tuba and it happened again; “Die tuba ist keine solo instrument, we only have music for solo instruments here”, at which time she opened a drawer of flute music and explained to me that the flute was a solo instrument and the tuba was not. Well, she was a very sweet old lady; I thanked her and quietly left the shop.
The old adage that success is the best revenge seems to be the appropriate philosophy to remember these events but the stories point out in a special way to those who have enjoyed watching the evolution of the tuba through most of the last century, that happily things have changed! It’s moments like this, while writing this article, I think about the women of Afghanistan and the suppression of their equal rights. We can be very proud and satisfied how the tuba has evolved to the status it enjoys today.
Lahti, Finland, March 7, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)