Category: Career
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Interview: Stefanie Harger Gardner, clarinetist and #clarequality activist
Dr. Stefanie Harger Gardner teaches clarinet, chamber music, and music theory at Glendale Community College and Ottawa University. Previously she served on the faculty at Northern Arizona University. Gardner has performed with Arizona Opera, the Phoenix Symphony, Red Rocks Chamber Music Festival, Seventh Roadrunner, the Paradise Winds, and the Égide Duo, whose mission is to …
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Q&A: Personal reflections
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in CareerA couple of weeks ago I put out a call for questions, in honor of today being the fifteenth anniversary of this blog. A few of the questions asked about my own career and approaches to various things. I’ll try to answer the best I can. One reader asked about music education and work/life balance. …
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Listing your woodwind doubles
Here is a question I’ve gotten a few times recently: if you’re a woodwind doubler, and need to list your instruments, in what order do you list them? Here are some options.
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Getting gigs on woodwind doubles
How do you get gigs on your woodwind doubles? Here are a few things to consider.
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Becoming a professional musician
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Sometimes when my students get paying engagements for the first time, I joke with them that they are now “professional” musicians. That’s true in a sense, but I think there’s more that goes into being a true professional. If you are a college student aspiring to be a professional musician, here are some things you …
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Don’t work for exposure for brands, either
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in CareerIt’s a common rallying cry among freelance musicians that you shouldn’t play gigs that pay in “exposure.” Exposure doesn’t pay the bills, and playing for free devalues your skills and others’. But there are more ways that musicians become convinced to work for someone else’s bottom line and get nothing back but maybe a little …
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Advice on multiple-woodwinds graduate degrees and teaching careers
I often have university students bring up the idea of graduate school and a university teaching career, and I have previously given general advice about that. Perhaps since my graduate degrees and a teaching career are in multiple woodwinds, my students sometimes wonder if that’s a path they should take. Here are a few thoughts: …
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Wind playing and contagious diseases
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in CareerI’m not a (medical) doctor or disease expert of any kind, but I’ve been thinking a bit about the instruments I play and the risks of catching or spreading disease. (At the time of this writing, Covid-19 is foremost in many people’s minds.) I’m presenting a few thoughts here in hopes that people with real …
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When things get canceled
At the time it seemed like the world was coming to an end. But things worked out. I canceled some things and modified or delayed some others. Some kind prof