I have a new venture!
Hard truth: while I think I'm a very capable flutist and teacher, I am not a strong pianist. I like the piano and wish I could play better, but let's be honest--my often limited practice time must be directed to my flute things. I've often wished I could accompany my students much better than I do. In lessons I often play the piano parts as best I can on my flute. This is somewhat helpful--the student could hear certain moments in the accompaniment that I wanted them to understand. It also had its limits, most notably my brain's ability to read bass clef accurately while sight reading and staying within the range of the flute. My solution is to start creating flute duet versions of standard flute repertoire solos that I often teach to my students. My aim was to keep the beauty of the original piece while making the accompaniment work well within the flute range (and no more transposing bass clef on the fly!) I started off with an arrangement of the Bach E flat major sonata, a piece that I teach often for auditions and as standard repertoire. And yes, I have my next arrangement already in mind! This was a HUGE learning process for me, with many more tweaks to come in future arrangements. I had to update my website, figure out a way to sell the arrangement, make financial arrangements, etc.. I did a lot of reading and research on the business end of this, and still have more to learn. Ironically, my bass clef reading skills improved a lot while I was creating this, as well as my knowledge of using Musescore (knowing the keyboard shortcuts is LIFE!) I also wish I'd had this idea during the summer when I have more time and not at the start of a busy semester of college teaching! I never thought of myself as a composer or arranger before this, but I encourage others to jump in and try it! You will learn so much about the music itself. Taking risks is a part of growing as a musician, as I tell students. It was good to model that myself. I hope you will be interested in giving my arrangements a try! You can find more information on my Shop page or go to Sheet Music Plus to purchase.
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Our local paper had an interview today with a local musician who plays in a band and runs his own recording studio. I'm always interested in hearing about local musicians and happy to know that local music is well supported here. However, one question posed by the interviewer made me clench my fists: "What is your 'real' job?"
The gentleman in the article does hold a job in a non-musical field, but does that make his music and recording studio less worthy? It was difficult to determine the interviewee's emotional response to this question from the brief article. Maybe he enjoys all of his jobs. Maybe he does the non-musical job to pay bills. Maybe he hopes to leave the 'real' job soon in order to focus solely on his band and recording studio. Whatever the situation, he's certainly entitled to make his living without it being trivialized in any way. Below is my email to the reporter: "Thank you for the "In The Spotlight" article in today's LNP newspaper on Gary Conahan. As a musician myself, I am always interested in reading about other local musicians. However, I was dismayed to read the question, "What's your 'real' job?" Using the phrase 'real job' trivializes our work. Being a musician is my real job! It sounds to me that Mr. Conahan, like many musicians I know, wears many hats, as do I. I'm a professional flutist, adjunct professor, private instructor, and I've blogged about collegiate music auditions. Do some of us take on other work that is not musically related? Of course, but doing so doesn't make our music less important or a side job. In the future, could the question be phrased differently so that our musical abilities are not diminished or looked at simply as a minor portion of our lives? Please consider this for the future. Thank you again for covering musicians in Lancaster County. I think we can all agree that we are lucky to live in an area with so many talented musicians." Fellow musicians--please, the next time you are asked that question, politely remind people that this IS a real job! |
I Write too!I write about flute, classical music, college auditions, positive mindset, and music advocacy. Archives
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