Accompanist Problems

Man, one of the things that makes the UVIC school of music so unique has turned against me this week. This is kind of a long story for a short problem, but stick with me.

Anyways, the music program at UVIC is different than any other program in Canada. This is because they are on the island, so people basically let them do what they want. When the university was starting up the program, they decided to base it upon the Eastman School of Music model. Eastman, in Rochester, NY, is arguably one of the best music school in North America. So, some of the things going on in their program are seen at UVIC, and it makes it stand out from my experience at the U of L.

One such difference is the masterclass procedures. Instead of having the entire winds and percussion group as a masterclass, the UVIC schedule has broken down the masterclasses to the individual instruments. So every week, I get to have a masterclass with just the trombones (with Ian McDougall, of all people!). On top of that, UVIC also has an Integrated Performance Seminar. IPS is basically the same as the U of L masterclasses, but involving a mix of all instruments, with a different professor each week.

The bigger, and more important difference (and one of the main reasons I came here instead of somewhere else), is the chamber music component. Eastman and UVIC both require a small ensemble requirement to their degree programs, on top of the large ensemble requirements. This means that everyone gets the opportunity to perform in a chamber music setting. For instance, I play in a brass quintet, and I also am a Teaching Assistant/Coach for a trombone quartet, so I play 5 hours a week in chamber music in those forms. On top of that, our trumpet professor, Lou Ranger, also runs a brass choir every week, and he picks something out of his huge library, and we get together and play it. It is always a changing instrumentation, so it has varying personnel, but it is always interesting to get a larger group together for that.

By this point, you're wondering what the hell this has to do with my accompanist problems. Well, for a pianist to get their small chamber music requirements, they are assigned to accompany the performance majors in the school. Every pianist must do this, or risk a failing grade. At first, I thought this was a great idea, since I paid for an accompanist for everything I did at the U of L. So, I get the name of my accompanist and set out to start with her around the beginning of November. I email, but get no response. I leave notes for her, but to no avail. Finally, Gene corners her in once of her classes, and tells her she needs to respond. She says, leave the music in my mailbox on campus, and I'll look at it. So, before I leave to come home for Christmas, I leave my concerto and go on my merry way.

Now, January has rolled around, I still I have not heard, so I start the email tag again. At the same time, I also learn that my accompanist is also assigned to another trombonist, who is also having problems finding her, and he has a recital at the beginning of February! Stress is building, but he finally corners her personally, and sets up some rehearsal time. However, I'm still having problems, so I give him a note with my info and schedule on it, and tell him that she should be read the riot act, and informed that she must get in contact with me. Lo and behold, I finally get an email back, saying it's nice to hear from me, and that she would like to see the music. SEE THE MUSIC??? I left it in your mailbox over a month ago! She also says she doesn't want to play anything too hard, since she has auditions coming up, so she'll decide on whether she can accompany me or not when she sees the music. Well, I was not too impressed to say the least, so I asked if she had even picked up the music I left for her, and found out that she had not received it. Sigh. So, I make another copy, and put it in the mailbox again, and hope to God she picks it up this time.

I get another email the next day. I've got your music, she says, but I hope you're not playing the whole thing. I can only play the first and second movements, not the whole thing. By this time I'm pissed, so I don't even bother to respond. I mean, I know there is lots of stuff to work on, but maybe some time management would be in order, or maybe some organization skills. Anyways, I've decided that being screwed by someone who doesn't really want to do the work is not going to be the highlight of my performance this semester, so I'm going to hire someone here at UVIC. Hopefully the same person that Gene uses to accompany him. At this point, this girl could fail for all I care. Good luck on that audition, you won't be graduating.

I hate being screwed over.

On another note, my brass quintet needs a name. We're kind of stuck, and need some input. Has to be clever, fairly professional in nature, but can be slightly inappropriate (i.e. Kick in the Brass). We're working with "Quintessence" or "Quintessential Brass", but any other ideas would be great.

Home, Hair and Horns

Well, I'm officially 13 days away from heading home for a visit. I can't stress enough that I really want to go home for a while. Not that I don't like what I'm doing here. I, in fact, love going to school at UVIC, and I've picked up quite a few new tricks that I hope to one day employ with my own students, and I'm in the best musical shape of my life. However, being older than everyone around me kinda separates me from the rest of the music school, and being new doesn't help either. I get along great with people, but the end of the day comes, and I head home and start over again. It has become a very repetitive routine. It has become a very repetitive routine. It has become a... well... anyways, I do the same thing every day. So it'll be a nice time to not only get to go home and see Megan (whom I miss very much), but to break up this schedule of mine a bit.

I also can't wait to get a haircut. Seriously. I had my hair cut in Victoria once, and that is never happening again, I swear. It was back in September, I think, and I wasn't going back to Lethbridge until November, so I went and found a place near my apartment that wasn't a "Supercuts" or something. Then I went in and told the lady I wanted about an inch and a half cut off, and the sides clippered, and so forth. Turns out, she thought that I wanted only an inch and a half of hair on my head. This made me look like I had just started growing my hair back after I shaved my head! It was terrible. It wasn't until about December that my hair was able to be cut the way it normally is. So, because of this incident, I am not getting my hair cut in Victoria, but back in Lethbridge when I visit. This serves two purposes. The first is that I have to visit more often, or run the risk of looking like an uncaged yeti. The second is that I actually have a good hair cut, done by someone who has a reasonable understanding of the english language, and does what I ask them to do.

Who'd have thought that hair was so complicated?

I've started to frustrate a few people in the group that I'm playing with right now, I think. I've got a row of saxophones in front of me, and I'm drawing glares, much like I did with the viola player from last semester. (Long story with that one... Take one Wagner Overture, add a fff bass trombone/tuba section, put a 1st/2nd year viola player in front of my bell = viola player who squirms in his seat, desparately trying to put in earplugs at the right moment.) Anyways, in terms of volume, this current `bone section isn't as present as they could be in various passages, so I'm not backing down, and making them play up to my dynamic. Not that I'm always right on things like that, but I'm pretty sure I'm right, so we're playing louder. Anyways, now I've got a row of saxes staring at me, especially in some marches. Have people not figured out that trombones are there to be loud? I mean, I can play quiet when I need to... that's when no one is staring at me, right? Just playing what's on the page! I even get people looking into practice room windows when I am practicing. Am I too loud in the room too? Just odd, that's what I think.

I've been working on an Eric Ewazen piece for the concerto competition here in Victoria. I've almost got the whole thing down, except for a few passages. But that's coming along very well, as far as I can tell. Gene's been great to work with. He is very much like Ken, but different as well. It is hard to describe, but I've gained quite a few tools for teaching myself, which I can also use in the future. Anyways, Eric Ewazen.com has a clip of the piece I'm working on right now. I'm hoping to get a string quintet together to perform the work, but we'll see what happens with that. For now, I'll keep trying to back my assigned accompanist into a corner so that we can rehearse at least once this year...

Also, visit The Peterson Project and watch this video. I get a kick out of all of Steve's trombone videos, sometimes they can be accurate (sometimes not...). Would I be too much of a geek to say that he uses the same mouthpiece as I do?