The First Month

    I've been teaching at my job for about a month now and there's been ups and downs all over the place, but I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of things. Here are some things that I think other people that are thinking of teaching music in a public school system might want to know.

1.    I think the one thing I have learned that I cannot recommend more is to always ask the other music teachers in the district first. 

    This rule of thumb pertains to just about any question that you might be able to think of including: 

• What is the curriculum? 
• What do you mean there's no curriculum? 
• What do I do about instrument repairs? 
• What do I do about scheduling performances? 
• What about healthcare? 

    All these questions might seem best answered by specialists in the district, but ten out of ten times, I would bet that the other music teachers in your district have found more effective and efficient ways of accomplishing same things. Let's take the curriculum example first. When I started my job, I wanted to know what my curriculum was going to be before I started teaching (seems sensible right?) so I asked the district and was told that there was no curriculum. What?! That's about the equivalent of a quarter-back trying to call plays from a playbook that doesn't exist. In a panic I contacted my principals to see if there was some sort of curriculum left by my predecessor that they might have gotten a copy of, but was often left with a blank stare and questions like "Does music even need a curriculum?" 

    Don't get me wrong I love my administrators. They've been nothing but supportive of the music programs and welcoming to me as a new teacher. It scares me a bit how little they know about the program though and I just hope that I will be able to talk to them a little more so that they know a little more about what it is I'm doing. 

    Anyways, I'm getting off topic. I finally came to my senses and called one of the other music teachers to try to figure out what I was supposed to teach. 

    Boom. 

    He guided me through everything I needed to know in a single conversation and even offered to talk me through it more over coffee. Bless his soul.

    

    The other teachers are also great at getting around district procedures that just take a while by nature. The second week of teaching, my bass clarinet broke. It wasn't that big of a problem so I took it down to the district office where they take care of it for me without anything coming out of my budget (which is awesome). Unfortunately, that fix ended up taking almost three weeks to get resolved. THREE WEEKS. My poor bass clarinetist had to sit through class for almost three weeks playing bass clarinet parts on a soprano. When I told another music teacher about this, he lent me one of his bass clarinets and taught me a faster way of getting things while still paying nothing out of pocket. The student had his instrument back in two days!! 

    Always ask your fellow music teachers. They will be your biggest allies. 

2.    Students are people, and so are you. 

    I think this will be more relatable to any musician.

    My middle school classes are usually at the end of the day so when my students get to me they are already carrying that day's load of drama that has already happened at school. I don't know if any of you remember from middle school, but the drama game is strong and what's happened that day has a huge impact on your mood and pretty much your entire world. It gets really hard at times to read your students' mood from day to day and it gets even harder to predict how they will act the next day. This is a bit problematic when you're trying to conduct a rehearsal and James won't play anymore because Olivia told Austin that he smells bad, and Austin told Alan, who told James about what Austin said about what Olivia said about him. It gets messy and sometimes you might blame yourself for not being able to change the outcome of the situation. The reality of it all, however, is that everybody has their days and that isn't necessarily a reflection of you or your teaching but rather it is just a part of everybody's lives that you can't do anything about. You can't let it get to you and you can't let it affect your teaching no matter how much you might want to get up and yell at your students about it. 

The first month was nice and crazy, but now this is where the real fun begins! My jazz band is starting up and I'm going to have a bunch of performances coming up including the big parade this coming weekend! If you're in the LA Foothills area come check out the Buckboard Days Parade on October 17th on Colima Street in Rowland Heights and if you can't be there check your local news stations because we're apparently going to get some media coverage! 

Choose your own adventure, classical musician edition

After spending my entire life on an academic track, the openness of life after school has been somewhat overwhelming and so filled with options and decisions that I’ve started feeling like I’m living in one of those “choose your own adventure” books that we all grew up loving so much.  The first question that crept in once I decided not to continue going to school had the most possibilities. What do I actually want to do?  I began to weigh combinations of options: 

a.   get a day job and commit fully to taking auditions
b.   move in with my parents and try out the freelance scene in a city I haven’t lived in since I was 18
c.   work on building a private studio
d.   sell my organs and buy an old Italian bass
e.   realize that the desire to live and explore the music scene outside of the good old USA that had growing for the last several years is no longer ignorable

I went with option “e” and was faced with the next difficult questions. Where do I go? and How do I make that happen?  

  

Fortunately for me, I somehow managed to come across a significant other (Kevin, clarinetist) who happened to choose the same option of his own adventure, and we began to tackle the next bunch of questions together. I had traveled a decent amount in the last few years and he had lived abroad for much of his life, so weren’t completely starting from scratch.  And we both had experience teaching in Central and South America already, so we ideally wanted to go somewhere that we could build off of that experience, grow our contacts, and improve our Spanish.  The options for the first question, Where do we go?, changed constantly, but generally consisted of:

a.     win an orchestra job, move there and try it out (I took an audition in Buenos Aires)

b.     use connections in Latin America to help us get set up somewhere south of the border

c.      make new connections in Latin America and find teaching jobs that will support us enough to get set up somewhere new

d.     make use of Kevin’s family home in Thailand where we could live cheaply and try to get set up there short-term while continuing to explore other options

As our childhood selves did often in those “choose your own adventure” books, we tried out an option, realized that they were leading to dead ends for now but could be more fruitful in different circumstances, and we eventually went with option “d” when we found a great deal on flights to Bangkok.   

Answering How do we make this happen? was constantly on my mind as we weighed the options of where we could go, and that split into two more lists of possible adventures to choose.  There was the obvious question of How do I make this financially possible? along with the question that we’re all so familiar with, What do I do about my bass?   The second question was virtually the same no matter where we would end up, so I started working on that fairly early and did my best to imagine the possible outcomes.  

a.     buy a flight case and bring my nearly 200-year-old bass that I love dearly but that doesn’t handle climate changes well

- possible outcome: I get to have my bass, but also face huge airline fees, difficulty moving around, and likely damage to my bass

b.     borrow a bass wherever I go

- possible outcome: don’t have to move a bass but have very little control over what instrument I’m playing (especially difficult because I’m very small and possibly going to areas where there is not a big classical music scene)

c.      get a travel bass or convert the Chinese bass (a “Christopher”) I played in high school to have a removable neck and buy a removable neck flight case

possible outcome: play on a decent student level bass and face some difficulty moving around but less than with a standard flight case

This was an extremely difficult decision, but after weighing costs and risk factors for my instrument, I went with option “c,” which seemed like the lesser of the evils.  For a travel bass, I began contacting instrument companies and asking if they would be willing to sponsor the volunteer work that I’ve been doing with MusAid by lending me a bass or giving me a discount (I hate doing things like that, but you never know what can happen until you ask!) and though most did not respond at all or told me a polite “no way,” Concord Group, the maker of Christopher basses, offered me a great deal on a removable neck flight case and even donated some strings to MusAid in the process.  (Thank you Concord!)

In the meantime, I took my bass to Shanks Strings to have the neck removed (for bass-needs, I put all my trust in Mike Shank, and no he doesn’t know I’m writing this), and while I would never have my nice old bass converted, I'm amazed at easy it is to take apart and put back together, and my little Chinese factory bass actually sounds better than it did before!  

Now that I have been in Thailand for over a week, I already feel that this was the best choice I could have made regarding my bass.  As much as I miss my instrument, I don’t need that bass in order to practice and progress with new repertoire.  And moving through the airport, getting a cab, and putting the bass on the train was much easier and less expensive than traveling with a flight case.  You know the moment when the people at the airline baggage check realize that you want to fly with your case and that you’re coming to their airline and they get a look of horror on their face that says “oh shit, you’re going to make me deal with that?”  That didn’t happen with the smaller case.  At most there were grumpy cab drivers, but no looks of horror or refusals came my way.  And it cost a measly $4.40 to pay to store my bass in the cargo section of a train to get from Bangkok to Chiang Mai once I was already in Thailand! 

As far as making this time productive and financially possible, we’ve been in Chiang Mai for a few days now (Thailand is amazing by the way, but I’ve already been writing too much), and we’re working on figuring that out.  We’re currently:

- applying for jobs teaching English in order to cover our living costs

Wat Pho in Bangkok

- trying to get private students 

- working on putting some performing repertoire together (because clarinet-bass duo is the combo the world has been waiting for!) in hopes that we can start gigging.  

- trying to meet some locals, particularly musicians

- working on personal projects such as arrangements and non-profit work

- practicing

Now that we've chosen our current adventure, we're starting to discover what the outcomes will be.  And though it's still very up in the air, I would rather be trying new things in a new place than remaining stagnant.  So if you have a strong desire to travel or try things out off the beaten path, start looking into your options now!  Even if it isn’t now, you can find a time that’s right and take the plunge.  

I’ll post more soon about life in Chiang Mai!  In the meantime, please share your thoughts and stories (or horror stories) about traveling with a bass.  I know we all have them! 

Chiang Mai

Side note - we flew out of NY, so I got to see Ivy play Heldenleben
with the NY Phil!  That girl's amazing!

Takeaways from a recent audition

I was lucky to have had a moment of decisiveness (they are usually rare) when I was 17 to break away from the traditional path of letting standardized tests decide my fate. In Hong Kong, where I was born and raised, everything's a competition - from squeezing on the subway after seeing 5 trains packed like sardines pass by during rush hour daily, to trying to be a well-rounded student who earns all A's or 5* (~top 2%) in public examinations aside from being great at sports, music, public speaking, etc. Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for my upbringing - it taught me to be hardworking, resilient and disciplined, but I was ready for a change - to a place where I can decide what, why, and how to learn.

Fast forward to today, after 3 degrees and a professional studies certificate, I finally get to be a ‘real’ adult. I have to say that it is a very freeing, scary, but mostly great feeling. At the moment, I am getting ready for my move to Geneva, where I will start my first full time job ever with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Actually, this job came as a little surprise to me. As most orchestral musicians know, taking orchestral auditions is very... thrilling, because you never know what will happen - some people get a job within their first few tries, and some don't for a very long time even if they are at a similar playing level. Audition outcome has to do with things that are outside of our control, for example, who and how many candidates you are competing against, who is on the audition committee, how your instrument reacts to the climate of the city, whether your bass arrive in one piece after traveling in the air, your health condition... etc. What we can control, however, is to make sure we have the right intention and goals when entering and preparing for an audition. For me personally, I had a very unconventional preparation for this specific audition that took place in June. In fact, I almost cancelled due to various undesirable factors. The complete repertoire list was not announced until exactly 1 month before the audition so I felt underprepared (I would usually have the list at least 2 months prior to the audition date). When the list was announced, I was preparing for final juries, exams, while playing all the gigs I could so that I could continue to feed myself and that cute little one-bedroom apartment I shared with a roommate. Also, I turned down a significant amount of work that conflicted with the audition dates. Finally, I was on tour in China for 2 weeks right before the audition, where I did not have access to an instrument outside of rehearsals/ performances, and when I did get my hands on a bass, it was, to put it nicely, far from ideal. I also could not afford to fly with my own instrument all this way and had to rent one in Geneva two days prior to the audition. Despite all the cons, I did realize that there won’t be too many times when the travel cost to a far away audition could be coincidentally covered by a music festival that I was playing at afterwards, so I decided to stick to the plan, and break out of the American audition circuit.

Now, I want to share what I’ve learned from this strange but positive experience.

Embrace uncertainty and imperfect situations - routines are powerful. How we live and how we play our instruments is essentially a series of habits we have formed over time, but we can also grow a lot outside of our routine or comfort zones. Instead of focusing on the negative factors, we can get creative with how to make the best out of a situation. When I have prepared for auditions in the past, I practiced about 4-5 hours a day every day for 3 months in pretty much the same space (why would you want to move the bass around when you don’t have to…), played about 6 mock auditions before the actual audition, and had weekly lessons. But this time, I was lucky if I could get an hour completely focused practice time in every other day. That forced me to do everything in a hyper-efficient manner. I had no luxury of playing through my favorite etudes slowly and no time for scales and arpeggios. I would have an hour between rehearsals/performances when I was in China for this practice diet: 10 minute intervals/ double stops (to learn the notes on the instrument), then 5 to 10 minutes to go over one or two of most tricky and demanding spots in the concertos (making sure my muscles are still strong and that my fingers wouldn’t freeze during show time), the rest would be 15-20 minute each excerpts, with detailed work on only 1 spot, where I would play it all the different ways I could imagine, which metronome clicks on different beats, etc. Most of these practice sessions had no run-throughs at all. They would also be in places with bad lighting/ some noise/ strange acoustic/ other musicians sitting closely next to you, which brings me to the next point.

The importance of doing mock auditions in strange places - I have always struggled with performance anxiety. I get the shakes, the frozen fingers, the dry mouth, the memory slips. If you can find your focus to perform in a dark hole underground with fire-spitting and super judgemental dragons around you, chances are you will be able to kill it on a regular stage. So I make myself embrace performing in these situations (I replaced the dragons with people who I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of). It absolutely made a difference when I had to warm up in the same room as the other finalist in the last round at this audition. (WHAT? I know. Don’t ask me why. I guess it happens!)

The importance of mental practice - I think I do almost half of my practicing away from my instrument. For every new piece I learn, I read it first (with a metronome usually) and learn the rhythms and write down possibilities for fingering and such. I’m not an expert and there are many different ways to learn (write some comments if you’d like to share!) but I find this makes everything much more manageable, and I can see an organized map when I see the music when I do this first. Mental practice can also freshen pieces that I have been playing for years and want to keep improving. It gives me a chance to not fall into my usual routine and create ways to reimagine music and phrasing differently.

Be able to create a space free of worries for your practice - Do you make to-do lists in your head when you practice? Do you feel crippled by your worries when you are trying to accomplish artistic goals? This happens to me all the time, and it’s not just when I’m practicing - it happens when I’m supposed to be having a good time with friends, or enjoying a movie, etc. I had to learn to come up with ways to help myself quickly get back on track and regain focus so that I can make every moment count. I would share my experiments in this area but couldn’t have said it better than Dr. Noa Kageyama, creator of The Bulletproof Musician. Check out this piece: http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/worry-too-much-take-back-control-of-your-thoughts-by-batching-your-worries/

Thank you for stopping by to read this - I’d love to hear about you, our awesome new readers! Feel free to chime in or request what you’d like to read about!

Taking a road less traveled by

So here I stand. I graduated from my Master's degree program, and I'm not dead, or crushed by my inner troubled-artist spirit, or living under a bridge playing a washtub bass to pay for my alcoholism (yet). I'm at that critical point in my life where I have to do something - not only for financial security, but because I'm a musician, and I'm in the position now to do what I want to with my art without the restrictions and responsibilities of a music institution. And that can be scary; being any sort of artist has never in human history been an occupation that someone gets into because "it's a secure job" or "it will make you serious money", and the classical music scene is in a rut right now. Concert attendances are dwindling, record sales are almost impossible, and auditions for paying orchestras are few and far between. In addition, it's hard to get out of the structured school schedule that I've been in for the past 19 or so years, let alone these past two years in graduate school.

So, yes, I'm scared (I'm soaking my keyboard in tears as I write this, actually), but that's no reason to quit. Personally, I believe that this is the best time in the world to be a musician. Say what you want about the state of classical music these days - we have so many fellow musicians in our networks to work with, access to megatons of music online (in print and audio), and the ability to go virtually anywhere on the planet, thanks to advances in modern technology and social media. In addition, music has evolved quite a bit in the past century, and it keeps evolving as we continue into this next century. We have a lot to work with, and there are plenty of opportunities to start our own projects, collaborate with our peers, and pave our own way to success outside of the establishments of the standard symphony orchestra, opera company, etc. Letting go of the "practice until you get the job" mantra opens up a creative mind to many new possibilities, and turns that mantra into "practice until I can do what I've been dreaming of doing."

This is what I'm trying to do with my life now. It's the end of September, and I haven't exactly had a great running start when it comes to my personal endeavors, but I'm in motion! At the moment, I'm currently starting a major project with some friends and colleagues of mine: a conductorless chamber orchestra in New Haven, with friends from surrounding areas involved as well. Our mission is to put on an exciting and dynamic concert experience with expert musicians, and to deconstruct the myth that our art is only for the elite and the bourgeoisie. To do that, our current plan is to partner up with local New Haven schools and put on concerts in lower-income areas. While this is an exciting idea, we're not sure how to handle the business side of things just yet - we need to do some serious research about finding donors, marketing, scheduling with venues, etc. These are all things I'll be talking about as the blog goes on, because they're all important tools when it comes to being an artist and businessperson.

So that's all well and good, but that's not keeping me financially stable at the moment. I'm working part-time as an intern at Yale's Collection of Musical Instruments (a lovely place to work and well worth a visit, if you're in the area) and gigging around with my jazz quartet as much as possible. If there's any word of advice I can give about looking for gigs, it's to keep an open mind. For example, in addition to a few jazz gigs, I recently tagged along with some friends and played a show at MagClassic, a small videogame convention in Alexandria, VA (the larger event, MagFest, will take place in February). We performed arrangements of well-known tunes from classic videogames that the audience would know, arrangements by my colleagues and one that I made myself (from a game called Gunstar Heroes - if you have a Sega Genesis and some free time, check it out), and the people loved it. As a matter of fact, the audience doubled in size by the time our show was over! I had never been more proud to be a big nerd.

That brings me to one more point - follow your interests and capitalize on your strengths. In addition to playing bass, I also write and arrange music, which has a potential to lead to bigger and better projects. Making arrangements of pieces for a specific ensemble forces you to work within the limits of what you have, which has all sorts of creative possibilities. Writing music enables you to create your own limitations, or none at all, which also has tons of creative potential. Both of these could be lucrative to a self-made music career, but there are so many other avenues that one can go on that would be beneficial to a music career: management (administration), teaching, engineering, acting, film, therapy, I can go on. There's always a chance that your other interest(s) will pay off - I'm finally starting to get paid for arranging/transcription work - so go with what you got!

I wish I could be more insightful but, to be honest, I haven't really done enough yet. There are plans in motion, but there will be more to come. I'll be posting periodically, with whatever news I have and whatever advice I can offer!