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!