Musicianship

Becoming a professional musician

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person holding white paper

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 might ask yourself:

  • Am I reliably on time to things?
  • Do I always have a pencil? Extra reeds? Whatever else is needed?
  • Do I show up to rehearsals with my parts learned and ready?
  • Am I self-motivating when it comes to practicing?
  • Am I pleasant and cooperative on a gig or in a rehearsal?
  • Am I easy to contact, and prompt about replying?
  • Is my closet stocked with clean, sharp gig apparel?
  • Do I keep my instruments well-maintained?
  • Do I have a sense of what my time and talents are worth, and a firm but polite way of expressing that?
  • Do I meet and exceed my teachers’ expectations?
  • Am I willing to play any part, including the less-prestigious ones? Am I willing to put my best into supporting someone else’s solo moment, even if I think that opportunity should have been mine?
  • Have I recorded myself lately? Did I come away from it with some ideas of what needs improvement?
  • What are the most common issues my teachers or ensemble directors mention about my playing? Am I addressing those in a focused way?
  • Am I responsive to useful criticism, thick-skinned against non-useful criticism, and able to tell the difference?
  • Is there anything about my playing or demeanor that would cause stress to someone who hired me for a gig? Am I currently stressing out my teachers, directors, or fellow students?

Graduation from college doesn’t guarantee you any gigs. Become the person that other musicians want to work with.

Big dynamics

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If you’ve ever been to a theater production, and then gotten to meet any of the actors up close, you might have been shocked by their makeup. You don’t notice it much when they are on stage, but up close it can be pretty extreme. Stage actors need strange-looking makeup because they perform under bright … Read more

Interpretation at small and large scales

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When I ask my students about their interpretation of a piece of music, their answers are often about shaping phrases. The phrases should have some kind of beginning, middle, and end, often expressed in some kind of dynamic shape, like starting softer, growing to a louder peak, then gradually getting softer again. That isn’t wrong, … Read more

Wind controllers as “practice” woodwinds

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Can you use a wind controller, like the Akai EWI, the Yamaha WX, or the Roland Aerophone, as a convenient and/or quiet way to practice a “real” woodwind instrument, like the saxophone or the flute? No, not really. You can practice some very limited aspects of woodwind playing. For example, each of those wind controllers … Read more

Should I tighten the screws on my woodwind instrument?

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For many household items, screws should be tightened if they seem loose. But for woodwind instruments it’s a little more complicated. Woodwind instruments (flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, and saxophones) have many screws on them. They are usually the slotted type, for which you would use a standard (“flat-head”) screwdriver. And some of them need to … Read more

Let audiences applaud at your classical music concerts. Or don’t.

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The question of when to permit applause at a classical music performance has already been discussed to death. In summary, some people believe that you should encourage applause only after a complete work is finished, because: It allows the piece to be heard as a unified whole It’s respectful to the musicians and/or audience It’s … Read more

Interpreting wind articulation markings

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It’s easy to think of articulation markings as being black and white (and not just literally). But sometimes the instructions aren’t completely clear. For example, I think most people would see this marking… …and understand it to mean that the D gets some extra length, perhaps so much that there’s no silence between the D … Read more

Technical limits

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If I try to play too softly, sometimes my notes don’t respond as I would like. If I try to play too loudly, sometimes my tone or intonation suffer. I have similar limitations when it comes to things like finger or tongue speed, tone color or pitch flexibility, and more. The way I deal with … Read more