A reader emailed me to ask this question (edited):

I was wondering if you could give me some information on what kind of opportunities being a doubler has opened up for you. I am beginning to consider options for graduate school and am looking into multiple woodwinds degrees. Thanks!

I do consider myself to be at the beginning of a hopefully long career, but doubling has already given me some opportunities that I surely wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Doubling isn’t a career that typically leads to fame outside the music business, but within the industry many of the best and best-known doublers are working in Broadway pit orchestras, in the Los Angeles recording studios, or on the road with touring jazz or pop acts.

I haven’t had any of those jobs, nor do I anticipate pursuing any of them at this point. But here are a few things doubling has done for me:

Doubling gigs. These are gigs where I am actually hired to perform on multiple instruments. Most reasonably large cities in the US seem to have at least a few community or school musical theater productions with large enough budgets to pay a professional or semi-pro orchestra, and woodwind doublers are generally in demand (bonus points for double reed players or “low reeds” players). Doubling gigs can also include being hired as a local to play behind a touring show or artist who is passing through town, or being a sort of utility woodwind player for local orchestras, churches, and so forth. Often for me these have been sort of write-your-own-job-description situations, where I’m hired to play one instrument, and later re-hired because I’m able and willing to cover some other parts, too.

Non-doubling gigs. The best way to get gigs is by building a network of musicians who know and trust you. Doing doubling gigs has gotten me access to lots of different musical circles: classical, jazz, rock and pop, folk, and more. I always pass out business cards on a gig, listing the things that I can do. If a local rock band decides they need an oboist on their new track, they probably don’t know the principal oboist of the local symphony, but they do know me.

Private teaching. If you are looking to build a private studio, or to get a job teaching at a music store or private music school, versatility multiplies the number of potential students. To do this well, you will have to really know your stuff on each instrument (how well do you know the beginning method books? good solo competition pieces for high school students? etc.). I’ve had a number of jobs teaching at summer music camps and such. The camps often book me first, and then let me know which instrument I’m teaching once they have made some more phone calls and determined who else is available.

Academia. My main gig now is as a university music professor, at a smallish school where I was hired to handle all of the reed studios (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone). In many similar cases, a single-instrument player is hired, who does their best to teach the other instruments (sometimes very successfully, I should add). But my background on multiple instruments was a major advantage in getting noticed by the search committee. Some of my single-instrument-playing friends from graduate school, who were at least my equals in education and musicianship, weren’t fortunate enough to get hired right out of school. I believe that my doubling ability made me more attractive to potential employers.

General personal and musical enrichment. Not to get too warm and fuzzy, but some of the very real benefits of doubling haven’t been monetary in nature. As an undergraduate saxophone major, I rarely got to play Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart. And the bassoon majors rarely got to play jazz or rock. If you play both, the possibilities start to open up.

If you’re interested in multiple woodwinds degrees, be sure to check out my list of degree programs and my previous blog posts.

Related posts:

1. Reader email: multiple woodwinds degree or single-instrument degree?
2. University/conservatory degree programs in woodwind doubling
3. Brass doubling?

The Colorado Symphony Orchestra, like so many others, is facing a financial crisis that threatens its ability to continue making music. An opinion piece in Sunday’s Denver Post criticizes the Denver Musicians’ Association (AFM Local 20-623) for its unwillingness to budge on certain elements of its agreement with the orchestra.

The issues here are complex, and I hope that the DMA and the CSO will be able to come to a solution that is fair to all involved and that keeps the music alive. But this point in the authors’ list of complaints caught my eye:

Musicians performing on more than one instrument receive “doubling pay.”

I don’t have the full details of the doubling pay currently available to CSO members (though the amount doesn’t appear to be the issue here—it’s the fact that any doubling pay is offered that seems to offend). But a slightly-outdated agreement between the DMA and the Boulder Philharmonic, summarized below, shows a typical doubling pay structure, and it’s a reasonable guess that the CSO’s is identical or very similar:

• 25% bonus for first double
• 10% for each additional double
• B-flat and A clarinets count as one instrument
• Alto and tenor saxophones count as one instrument
• Alto and bass clarinets count as one instrument
• Piccolo, larger flutes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, contrabassoon, soprano saxophone, and saxophones larger than tenor each count as a double, even when used in common combinations (like flute plus piccolo)

Gene Scholtens

One of the awesome things that has happened since I started my list of reed books in musicals is that great people from all over the world have contacted me to contribute to the list. These contacts are always a pleasure for me personally, and they serve to make the list more accurate, complete, and useful for others.

I have a number of regular contributors who contact me periodically with updates, and until recently the record was nearly twenty individual contributions from one much-appreciated person.

That record was shattered when, a few months ago, I started getting emails from Gene Scholtens. The first email was a small correction for one show, but then the floodgates opened. Gene revealed that he has been playing woodwinds in Broadway orchestras for over thirty years, and has been keeping his own very comprehensive log of who plays which doubles on which shows. Gene’s contributions to my list at the time of this writing number a staggering 72.

As it turns out, Gene is not only a talented musician and a prolific record keeper, but also a very nice, humble, and generous guy, and graciously agreed to talk to me on the phone about his career. Here’s what he had to say. [Note: edited for length.]

BP: How many shows have you played?

GS: I’ve been playing on Broadway since roughly 1980. The last count was somewhere in the neighborhood of 90-95 shows.

Wow.

Most of my career, quote-unquote, has been as a sub. I’ve had what they call “my own” show, but most of the time I’ve been subbing. That’s partly because I always had a full-time job at Baruch College. I was in administration in the technical part of the admissions department. I left that two, almost three years ago now. Decided enough is enough. I’m semi-retired, but still playing.

What shows are you playing now?

I’m subbing on Sister Act, Wicked, Anything Goes, and How to Succeed in Business. I’m also part of Chicago, but haven’t done it in a while.

On average, how many shows do you play in a week?

If you counted the whole year, three a week. This week I’m doing eight, last week I did two. Sometimes it’s a whole week of Sister Act, like this week. Sometimes it’s four different shows in a week. It’s always different.

How did you get started on woodwind doubling?

It goes way, way back to when I was a kid. I started on clarinet when I was in fourth grade or something. A year and a half or two years later the school bought a new bassoon. It was a newer, shinier instrument—that was what I wanted to play. They offered it to somebody else, but I talked him into turning it down so they would give it to me.

I’m a bassoonist, mostly. That’s the one I studied in college. Everything else I did study a little bit, but bassoon was a major and everything else was definitely secondary. But I’m pretty good on all or most of them. I don’t like to hear myself play flute much, but they still pay me for it. I call myself a reed five player, because I’m always playing bassoon, baritone sax, and bass clarinet, and rarely have to play any exposed clarinet or flute.

How did you end up where you are today?

Well, I went to college, and graduated with a masters in bassoon in 1972 from the Univeristy of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. And when I graduated I didn’t have any place to go or anything to do. But then I got a call from a friend with a lead on the college job. Basically I got hired over the phone to do the job, and so I moved to New York, the place I wanted to be anyway as a musician. I had a chance to come to New York with a job, and I had the job for thirty, almost forty years. And I started playing in New York. Originally I was mostly a bassoon player, playing in orchestras and chamber groups. Whatever paid at the time. And I always had liked playing shows.

I also liked doubling. I always said the reason I’m a doubler is because I have a very short attention span. I don’t like to play any instrument too long. Plus, it seemed to me there was more work for me as a doubler than as a straight bassoon player.

I was in New York for maybe seven years before I really got going on Broadway. Mostly just I don’t promote myself. I guess I didn’t know how to go about it, so I just kind of sat around. My first big break was on the original production of A Chorus Line. A friend of mine knew the assistant conductor there, and we both went down and sat in the pit for the fun of it, and watched a real Broadway orchestra play. I was introduced to Marvin Roth, the bassoonist. And maybe six months later I got a call from him, and he said, “Gene, I need you on Chorus Line. My sub died.” And I said, “Great!” I played the show for two weeks and decided I liked it, and liked all the guys, and they liked me. And I did a good job, I guess. And all of a sudden people started calling me. And I’ve been doing that for over thirty years.

What’s the worst part of playing on Broadway?

The worst part playing reed 5 is carrying the instruments. Showing up with a baritone saxophone, a bass clarinet, and a bassoon. And flute and piccolo and a clarinet or whatever the show takes. And the stands, too. You play one show or two shows, and you get on the subway with all those horns. It’s not much fun. I tell people I play the show for free—they pay me to carry all this stuff.

You probably get paid cartage, though, right?

No, no cartage for a sub. If you’re a regular, they will pay you cartage for a baritone saxophone for the rehearsal period. That’s it. And also if you’re playing two saxophones on a show, sometimes you play baritone and tenor, for instance, you only get paid for one saxophone. The other one is a freebie. It’s a strange thing in the union rules.

What’s the best part of playing on Broadway?

The best part is, at least for a sub, is playing different shows, and having lots of different people to be around. If you have your own show, probably the worst part of the show is boredom—playing the same show over and over and over. Never getting a chance to play anything else. Being around the same people. Everyone knows horror stories about sitting in the middle of two people who hate each other. And the longer the show runs, the more chance there’s going to be some bad blood. In fact, it’s almost like a given, the shows with the great people and the great attitudes and the great music are always the shows that close. The ones that are torture are the ones that last forever. Its not true, but sometimes it seems that way.

How is being a Broadway musician now different from when you started?

The people are much younger now. When I first started it seemed like everybody was older than me, in their fifties or sixties. Now I’m definitely one of the older people.

When I first started it was tough for musicians to take time off. The union has made many, many advances in that. In the contract you’re entitled to take off 50% of the shows if you want to, and send in a sub.

The money is a lot better than it was. The shows are a lot harder in general—there’s a lot more music. It used to be there was a song, then a book scene, then a song, then a book scene. Now a lot of shows have music for 90% of the show, so there’s a lot less downtime than there used to be.

There’s a lot more pressure. When I first started subbing, you would go in and watch a show, sit next to the guy you were subbing for and watch the conductor, and then play that night. You did as well as you could and everyone knew it wouldn’t be perfect. Now they give you a copy of the book to take home and practice for a month. Sometimes, they even give you DVDs of the conductor you can play along with. It makes it a lot easier to play a good show the first time, but the expectations of perfection are much higher.

Are there any characteristics, abilities, or habits that you should cultivate if you want to play on Broadway?

Well, I think the most important thing, and the thing I’m the least good at, is networking. A lot of it is a social thing. You have to be able to make people laugh, tell stories, get along, be a fun guy to go out with. Or girl—It’s not only men.

You have to be disciplined. You’ve got to go in and play eight shows a week, or at least most of them. And you’ve got to play the same thing over and over, the same way every time. You can’t ad lib. You can’t experiment.

You’ve got to know how to follow the conductor. Musicians come from all different directions. Some of us are classically trained, some are not. Some come from jazz or rock. For some of those guys, learning to really follow the conductor well is difficult.

Knowing what you do now, is there anything you would go back and do differently if you could?

I guess I would try to be more self-promoting. Almost every time I’ve said, let me call this guy and say “Hi, are you looking for anybody?” it has paid off. Know the contractor, call him every once in a while, and schmooze.

If I were new in town, I would call the people who are doing the shows, and say, “Can I take a couple lessons from you? I’m new in town, and I’d like to learn about the business. I’d like to hang out and talk to you, and see what suggestions you can make.”

Do you have any favorite woodwind-playing tips?

I’ve started using Legere reeds. Have you seen those?

Yes.

In the last couple of months I’ve started to use them a lot. Makes things a little easier if you’ve got five or six horns to worry about. And within the last couple of years I finally decided it’s smarter to buy bassoon reeds and not to make them. I made my own reeds all these years, and struggled through it. Wasted all that time and money.  I finally found a guy that makes reeds that I can live with, and I’m much happier.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me.

Nice talking with you.

Some of you know that I am a “Mormon“—a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I find that sometimes fellow musicians are curious about my faith and how it connects to my career in music, so I’d like to share a few thoughts.

Music in LDS (Latter-day Saint) theology

Mormons embrace the biblical Old and New Testaments and find in them reason to consider music, both vocal and instrumental, integral to worship:

And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals. (2nd Samuel 6:5, KJV)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16, KJV)

Books of scripture unique to the LDS canon also promote music in worship. The Book of Mormon describes gatherings of the faithful in the ancient Americas:

And their meetings were conducted by the church after the manner of the workings of the Spirit, and by the power of the Holy Ghost; for as the power of the Holy Ghost led them whether to preach, or to exhort, or to pray, or to supplicate, or to sing, even so it was done. (Moroni 6:9, emphasis added)

The Doctrine and Covenants, a collection of revelations from the 19th and 20th centuries, includes divine sanction for music in worship:

And it shall be given thee, also, to make a selection of sacred hymns, as it shall be given thee, which is pleasing unto me, to be had in my church.

For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads. (Doctrine and Covenants 25:12)

If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. (Doctrine and Covenants 136:28)

Music in LDS services

Congregational hymn singing is essential to LDS worship services, and usually accompanied by organ or piano. The English-language LDS hymnal contains over 300 hymns, some of which are borrowed or adapted from Protestant hymnody. There is also a children’s songbook, and material from this book is well-loved by congregations and sometimes used in adult meetings.

LDS congregations have no professional music ministry (nor any professional clergy, nor any other paid positions). Music leadership and service positions within congregations are filled by members who accept assignments from local ecclesiastical leaders. This means that the technical quality of the music (though not the spiritual quality, most Mormons would argue) varies, depending on available talent. While musical ability is generally plentiful in large, well-established congregations in the western US, some resources are available for less-musical congregations, including hymnals with simplified keyboard parts, and even pre-recorded accompaniments.

Services may also include music performed by soloists or small groups. These may be vocal or instrumental, though a Church policy manual warns against the use of instruments with a “prominent” sound, and mentions brass and percussion instruments in particular as being potentially inappropriate. Final decisions on these matters are made by local leaders, and I, for example, have used the soprano saxophone on occasion, after assuring congregation leadership that it can indeed be played sensitively and worshipfully. As a musician, I find LDS congregations to be extremely attentive and appreciative audiences, although I do find the end of a performance to be a little awkward, as applause is considered inappropriate.

Choir music is also used occasionally in worship services. The well-known Mormon Tabernacle Choir is an official Church group, which contributes music to Church-wide conferences and other high-profile Church functions, and which also maintains a schedule of touring and recording both sacred and secular choral music. Local LDS choirs tend to be fairly casual compared to those of other churches that may have professional music ministries; rehearsal schedules are usually very light, regular church clothes are usually worn, and the performance may be nothing more than a well-known hymn, sung from the hymnal with little or no adaptation. However, more involved and ambitious choir programs are welcomed if there is talent and interest within the congregation.

Music in everyday LDS life

A Church-published pamphlet for teenagers gives the following guidelines for selecting music for everyday listening:

Choose carefully the music you listen to. Pay attention to how you feel when you are listening. Don’t listen to music that drives away the Spirit, encourages immorality, glorifies violence, uses foul or offensive language, or promotes Satanism or other evil practices. (For the Strength of Youth, p. 20)

As with many aspects of the LDS faith, the burden falls largely on the individual to interpret this. Some Church members go so far as to limit themselves to music with a sacred message, but most would see this as extreme. (Still, widespread interest among Church members in “safe” music has fed a surprisingly large Mormon music industry, despite some criticisms of the music’s artistic merit.) LDS theology lays claim to all “good” things, whether or not they are sacred in nature:

If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. (Articles of Faith, 13)

So, it’s common for Church members to enjoy a variety of music, though some find it easier to entirely avoid certain genres or artists that more frequently feature sexual, violent, or otherwise offensive content.

Music as a career

There are some well-known LDS names in the music industry. “Empress of Soul” Gladys Knight, for example, is a church member. So are American Idol heartthrob David Archuleta, 1980s pop group The Jets, late punk rocker Arthur “Killer” Kane (who joined the Church after his days with the New York Dolls), and, of course, The Osmonds. My own experience is a bit lower-profile, but I do find that my faith affects aspects of my career.

One significant challenge is Sabbath observance, which in LDS theology includes avoiding working or doing business on Sundays when possible. Some professions require Sunday staffing (for example, there’s a Medevac helicopter pilot in my congregation), and some people may have to accept Sunday work in order to provide for their families. Since I can’t make an honest argument that I’m essential 24/7 personnel, and my Monday-through-Friday university teaching position keeps food on the table, I’ve been turning down Sunday gigs. This has been difficult at times, especially since my location in the Bible Belt means that many of the available gigs are on Sundays at (non-LDS) churches. I also choose to forgo practicing on Sundays, since it’s part of my work.

Alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs, prohibited by the LDS “Word of Wisdom,” are sometimes part of the culture of music-making. Although I have rarely felt serious pressure from fellow musicians to partake, there are some side effects to abstaining. Playing in bars with rock bands in Athens, Georgia during graduate school, payment often came partly in money and partly in free drinks, which of course I turned down, effectively agreeing to less pay than drinking bandmates. I also found that as the evening wore on and the band’s overall blood alcohol rose, the groove often got a little less solid, and the intonation a little less precise. The next day, my bandmates would rave about how great we had sounded, while my 100% sober experience had been a bit different.

Music and my relationship with God

It is my personal belief that I have been divinely blessed with a great love for music, and perhaps even some degree of talent for it. I believe that if I develop what talent I have been given, and use it for the benefit of others, that I will be further blessed and my talent will grow.

I also believe in the message of this passage from the Book of Mormon:

But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul. (2 Nephi 32:9)

Although the “performance” discussed here can refer to any act of faith, the fact that literal, public performance is part of my daily life gives this verse special relevance to me. When I allow my faith to permeate my music-making, it blesses my life and brings me closer to God.

A couple of blog posts related to airline travel with musical instruments have caught my eye so far this week:

Saxophonist Greg Vail had a bad experience checking his horn. Yes, he did check it—sent it to be stowed in the airplane’s cargo hold rather than carrying it on himself. But it wasn’t the baggage handlers who caused a problem. It was security inspectors who opened the strong custom flight case, damaged the key clamps, broke some reeds, and couldn’t get everything packed up properly again.

I know I need to carry this case because they have done this before, but the real question is why?? I feel like these goofballs would riffle thru my medicine cabinet given the chance just because they are noisy and idiots, but I digress.

Matthew Amster-Burton, a Mint.com blogger (and not, to my knowledge, a musician), opined that fees for carry-on bags are a good idea. Nobody wants to pay extra fees, but I have to admit it might be worth it to me to guarantee a spot in the overhead bins for my instruments.

When I wheel my suitcase onto a plane, I’ve learned to take the first overhead spot I see that is anywhere near my seat. The last thing I want is to be holding the bag when the announcement goes out that the overhead bins are full and we’re going to have to check any remaining bags if you want this flight to leave today. In other words, price controls—for example, offering discounted or free items or services—cause shortages.
…
Economically speaking, this is nuts. The right way to allocate overhead bin space is the same way we allocate most things: put a price on it.

Check out my previous posts on airline travel with musical instruments, and travel safe.

The American Federation of Musicians, the world’s largest organization promoting the interests of professional musicians, has put its support behind the U.S. Senate’s version of the FAA Reauthorization Bill (S.1451). This bill seeks to overhaul many aspects of air travel, and the official summary includes this text:

(Sec. 713)

Requires an air carrier to permit an air passenger to carry a violin, guitar, or other musical instrument on a passenger aircraft without charge if it can be stowed safely in a suitable baggage compartment in the aircraft or under a passenger seat. Sets forth requirements for the carriage of musical instruments as checked baggage or as occupants of a purchased seat.

The AFM is calling for “all musicians” to sign a petition in support of including the relevant text from the Senate version in the final version of the bill. You can sign the petition at the AFM’s website.

The AFM famously struck an agreement with TSA several years ago, ensuring that musical instruments be allowed to pass through airport security. This was widely misinterpreted by musicians to mean that airlines would be required to allow instruments as carry-on; unfortunately this was not the case. This legislation specifically addresses musicians’ need to keep their delicate and valuable instruments in their own care on board the airplane.

Your to-do list:

1. Sign the petition (you don’t have to be an AFM member).
2. Read some of my previous articles for a better explanation of the problem, including the notorious AFM/TSA agreement.
3. Get general information about the bill at OpenCongress.org, or, if you’re feeling saucy, dive right into the full text of the bill.
4. Drum up support for this legislation by posting about it on your own blog, Facebook page, etc. If you like, you can use my handy “share” buttons (to the left) to point people right here via email, Twitter or Facebook (or other social media outlets via AddThis).

Happy flying!

I hear every so often that I should support local businesses and mom-and-pop shops, and I have to admit that this sounds vaguely like a responsible and virtuous thing to do. But here’s why I don’t—and can’t.

1. It costs too much. Prices are inevitably higher in local stores. I understand that so-called “full-service” establishments have overhead, but so do I. If they can justify charging higher prices, it seems fair that I can justify shopping around.
2. They don’t stock what I need. Other than a few scattered specialty shops, local music stores stock what they can sell in volume, and that’s inexpensive instruments and accessories for the beginning band market. I live in a small town, but even in the fairly large cities where I have lived, I have, more frequently than not, been unable to get what I like. A few months ago I made a two-and-a-half hour drive to go saxophone shopping with a student at a large music store in a large city. The store was large enough to have a saxophone specialist on staff. The store regularly stocks one brand of (arguably) professional-quality saxophone (and it’s not Selmer, Yamaha, Yanagisawa, or Keilwerth), and had exactly two major-brand instruments available, used. We also contacted a small saxophone specialty shop that was a little farther away, one that actually has “saxophone” in the store’s name. They had zero pro-line horns in stock.
3. As far as I can tell, the “superior customer service” factor is largely a myth. I think most woodwind players have experienced the frustration of going into a music store and being “helped” by the heavy-metal guitarist behind the counter. And even in specialty shops, I’ve rarely found a salesperson who can answer serious questions with much more than regurgitated advertising copy or a personal opinion. And, while I don’t doubt that specialty retailers are passionate about what they do, it’s important to keep in mind that they are businesspeople and subject to motivations other than getting you the best possible product for the smallest possible price.

I do not begrudge brick-and-mortar proprietors their profit margins, or salespeople their commissions (or their jobs). And on a neighborly level I hate to see a local shop go out of business. But the loss is a pretty abstract one for me—not much more relevant than the closing of a big-’n’-tall clothier (I’m neither big nor tall).

Since starting college as a music major, I have made almost all my music-related purchases from warehouse stores, by catalog and phone in the past, and now exclusively via the internet. The behemoth mail-order establishments stock nearly every product I use, charge the lowest prices anywhere, and often provide just as much product information on their websites as I could get in a local shop, plus customer reviews.

One of my favorite online retailers offers a virtually perennial free shipping promotion on orders over a certain, relatively small dollar amount. Since I’m usually in need of reeds in a half-dozen sizes, I don’t have any trouble qualifying.

I’ve tried in the past to offer brick-and-mortar stores the opportunity to match prices with the mail-order giants. This usually proves to be a hassle and often seems a little cruel, asking a small business owner to reduce their razor-thin profit margins to those of a volume dealer. A few have been willing, but most have responded with excuses about overhead. The excuses, presumably, are valid ones. But if they can’t budge on their price requirements, then why must I?

It’s sort of true that in a “real” store I can actually hold the product in my hands before I buy, but even this is a pretty slim advantage. Music stores that cater to intermediate-level students or professionals understand the need for musicians to try out things like mouthpieces before committing, but beginning-band stores or guitar-and-drums shops are less likely to allow this. The major online retailers all offer good trial and return policies, usually allowing you to obtain a number of mouthpieces, barrels, bocals, instruments, etc. for a small deposit, and return the ones you don’t want. If you end up purchasing one or more, most sellers will waive restocking/sterilization fees. The relatively minimal hassle and expense of return-shipping unwanted merchandise have, in my experience, virtually always resulted in a better product and a lower cost than purchasing at a store.

I’ve occasionally heard people extol the post-purchase service and support available from brick-and-mortar stores. This means repair service, which is another thing that I often find unsatisfactory unless I deal with a specialist, usually in a distant location. Many stores offer extended service contracts on purchased instruments, which, make no mistake, are designed to maximize the seller’s bottom line, not yours.

As a side note, I do think that there is one in-person shopping situation that can rival the benefits of online purchases, and that is conferences. A couple of years ago I bought a new oboe at the IDRS conference. I had a blast trying literally over a hundred oboes offered for sale by the vendors in attendance. Because the vendors were packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the exhibit hall, most were offering special “conference pricing” to stay competitive. Some had repair specialists on hand to tweak instruments to potential customers’ preferences. I was also surrounded by conference attendees, many of them professional oboists, most if not all of them happy to offer opinions. When I picked out “the one,” the vendor refused to let me pay for it, instead recommending that I take it home for an extended trial period, and then return it or make the inter-state purchase via credit card, avoiding the local sales tax at the conference location.

If you are lucky enough to be near a great music store with excellent service and knowledgeable staff, then you have my envy. If they offer prices competitive with the warehouse dealers, then enjoy it while you can, because they will soon be a Starbucks (sigh).

• Do your research ahead of time. We made phone calls to several music stores in the region, and found out what instruments were available to try. We both familiarized ourselves with the various bells and whistles (so to speak) of the different models, and had some idea of the differences between the instruments the stores had in stock. This became important as we were evaluating a saxophone that seemed to be almost the right fit for the student—luckily we knew that model came from the factory with two different necks. We asked for the other neck, and sure enough, the horn turned out to be a winner.
• Bring a trusted set of ears. If you are a student, try begging or bribing your teacher to go shopping with you (they want you to have the best instrument you can afford!). Remember that what you hear when you play the horn is different from what a listener hears. When I picked out an oboe a few years ago, I found two specimens of the same model that seemed equally good to me. My oboe teacher listened to me play both, and immediately picked out “the one.” He could hear something out front that was escaping me back behind the reed.
• Put the instrument through its paces. How does it respond, feel, sound, and tune at fortissimo? At pianissimo? High notes? Low notes? Articulated notes? Check the pitch, stability, response, and tone of every single note, including alternate fingerings. Use your own familiar mouthpiece(s) and reeds. Spend a significant amount of time playing a new horn before you even think about buying it. My student and I each played some of our current classical repertoire and some jazz stuff before making a judgment on the instruments.
• Prioritize realistically. Remember that your tone will be a little different on an unfamiliar instrument, but that your individual sound will come through more as you gain comfort with the instrument. Intonation, however, is built into the horn for good. Get an instrument that will let you play in tune without unnecessary gymnastics.
• Don’t forget the old reliable. Bring your old instrument along for periodic reality checks, even if you know it has significant shortcomings. I was impressed enough with one of the instruments I tried yesterday that I briefly considered what would have been a rash and probably unwise purchase. I put the mouthpiece back on my own alto and realized that I am better off with what I’ve got.

Happy shopping!

If you could go back to 1999 and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

I enjoyed the responses, including one from clarinetist Marion Harrington.

Although I was (*ahem*) not invited to participate, I’ve been thinking about the last ten years of my life and what brought me to where I am now. Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten a number of emails from musicians who are about the age I was ten years ago, who are interested in pursuing graduate school in multiple woodwinds, and so I’ve been in advice-giving mode already.

Since I missed posting at the end of 2009 anyway, I figure I can go ahead and change the format a little, as I think I’ve got more than one piece of advice for 2000 me.

Most of the “Dear 1999″ bloggers are pursuing careers as performers, which I consider to be an important part of what I do, but my newly-begun main gig is as a university music professor. I am fortunate to be doing pretty much exactly what I love and what I’ve been aiming for for the past ten years, although sometimes it was hard to tell if I was headed in the right direction.

So here’s my advice, 2000 Bret:

• So. You’re a saxophone performance major. How many paying classical saxophone gigs do you think you will get in the next ten years? Awfully close to zero. If you keep working on your jazz chops, you’ll get a few more. If you can learn to play decent flute and clarinet, you’ll double your employability; add piccolo, and you’ll double it again. And if you can play the double reeds with confidence, you’ll never wonder if you’re getting hired for the gig—you’ll only wonder which horns you need to bring.
• Speaking of gigs, you’re young, energetic, and inexperienced enough that you can justify taking just about any gig that comes along. Do it. Weddings, parties, Oktoberfests—if they call, you play. Same thing goes for teaching gigs.
• As you add to your arsenal of doubles, don’t forget to be a beginner at them. Some of your teachers, knowing that you are accomplished on other instruments, will feel uncomfortable assigning you beginner-level etudes and such, and you may feel that you don’t need them, either. You are wrong. Insist on building a solid foundation on each instrument.
• Intonation is really, really, really important. Don’t stop working on your tone and technique, but, if you have to scale those back just a little to work on pitch, it will be worth it.
• Realize that, when the time comes to apply for that first faculty position, you will be up against a lot of competition that is at least as qualified and talented as you. Chops and a strong CV are important, but you also have to be the kind of guy that the other faculty want to work with. The people on the hiring committees are your potential future colleagues.
• Oh, and one more thing. You know how you’ve always been able to eat whatever you want without gaining a pound? Enjoy it while you can.

Best regards,

2010 Bret

Excerpt from Fisher Tull, Sarabande and Gigue

I heard some very fine playing during the auditions, but many of the students were fooled by the “senza vib.,” with some going so far as to use fairly extreme vibrato at the beginning of the note.

As my blog readers already know, of course, senza vibrato means without vibrato.

I think it’s a fairly common mistake for musicians at, say, an undergraduate collegiate level to either ignore or guess at the foreign words in a musical score. But the consequences can be, well, comical.

As musicians we all have to be little bit multilingual. I recommend this inexpensive, portable, and excellent source to my students and to all of you:

One of my fine colleagues offered some similar advice on her flute studio blog.