That's Not Spit, It's Condensation!
That's Not Spit, It's Condensation!
#23: Barbara Butler
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This episode features an amazing conversation with Barbara Butler, one of the trumpet professors at Rice University. Previously she taught at Northwestern University and the Eastman School of Music before that.
Not much that can be said about this interview other than it's Barbara speaking words of wisdom for almost three hours. I hope you get as much out of it as I have!
Mastering engineer - Brandon Jochum
Hello, everybody, and welcome to that's not spit, it's condensation. I'm Ryan Beach, and today I am very, very happy to be able to bring you a conversation with the one, the only, Barbara Butler. Um, this is a very exciting episode for me to do as I studied with Barbara uh in grad school from 2010 to 2012 at Northwestern University. And um, most of my time there, as it should be, was spent learning how to do the trumpet. And uh, we spent a lot of time with me getting better and learning how to do that. So it's uh a wonderful opportunity for me to be able to speak to her on a more personal level and hopefully uh everybody enjoys it and hearing her perspective. Um, because I know she just has a lot of really incredible insights, not only to the trumpet, but just life in general. So I look forward to being able to learn about that. And uh, so I'd first like to say thank you, Barbara, for joining me or allowing me, we're coming at you actually from her office in Houston. So this is my first road interview. So thank you for allowing me to come to your office and interview you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. It's nice to be here with you.
SPEAKER_02So we'll just get started with talking about where you were born and sort of your early life uh as a young woman and um how you got into trumpet and kind of things that were maybe important to you, or um, but yeah, ultimately how you got into playing the trumpet and then kind of what your educational path took uh when you were younger.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm from Iowa, and anyone who knows my personal email knows that. Uh I did not start on the trumpet, I started on the piano. And uh, according to my mother, I I cried throughout every single practice session because I had it in my head what I wanted to do and I couldn't do it. Then she finally went nuts and uh took me down. I think I was in fourth grade, third grade, I think fourth grade, took me down to the music store and said, please pick something else, pick anything. And I wish I could remember why. I don't remember why, but I picked the cornet. And it was easy for me right away. I don't mean I was a wunderkind, I played huge pieces. I don't mean that. I played beginning things like any beginner, but it was easy. It was easy to make a sound, it was fun for me, and when things are fun, it makes you want to do it more.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would agree, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I after a bit, I switched over to the trumpet. And I one of the first stories I remember on the trumpet was when I was in sixth grade, John Kennedy died. And I was sort of the trumpet player of my little school, which was I think one through six.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so they were going to have a ceremony. It was frightening, actually. I I was very young, and my teachers were crying. Grown-ups were crying. It was it was scary. And um my mother made me sit right in front of the TV and and watch all the whole procession and everything, which I still have in my mind when I play Mahler Five. But um it was a it was a real moment that I remember. But the school decided to have their own ceremony and lower we had a flag up front and to lower the flag to half-mast. And so I was, of course, the one chosen to play taps. And for some reason, my parents couldn't come to that little ceremony. Well, my father was a uh an attorney, he was probably at work, and I don't remember why my mom couldn't be there. But apparently uh one of my neighbors called my mom later in the middle of the day and said, Oh, Barbie did such a beautiful job on taps, and I love it with the introduction. And my mom said, There is no introduction to taps. Oh no. And so what had happened was that I was excited to play this. And it again, it seemed so terribly, terribly important with how it was affecting everyone, and and everyone was frightened and emotional. And I must have been nervous. And it's of course, we always, you know, G G C G C E, right? Yeah, so I started on E. So I was like, oh crap. So I went E C G C G G C and just sold it. Well, I guess, but that's that's my my mother loves that story. That's awesome. Um also uh in in junior high, I had a band director teacher, and he his way of determining seating in the band. I don't think I had an orchestra yet. I did have I have I had a lot of orchestral experience as a young player, which is not true of where everybody grows up. I was very lucky to have that. But his way of seating was how many pages of the Armin book you mastered. So that just my wheelhouse is you know, practicing. So somebody else would come in with two pages and I have 25. You know, so that was that was that was a thing to me. And I was, you know, first in All-State Orchestra. Uh in the summers, uh, I'm from Cedar Falls, Iowa, and there's a university there, University of Northern Iowa. And in the summers, I played first in the college band, even though I was like in high school. Um and the reason was because of who my teacher was. Um my teacher was Dave Kennedy, who was the horn professor at the university. And there was another, there was obviously a trumpet professor there who was uh a well-known person and a very good teacher and wonderful man, so written a great book. But I chose the horn professor, and I chose him because he was a wild card. He was a wild man. He was he wasn't about routine and scales and transposing and all the things I needed that every child needs. But he instead would find out whatever they were doing at the Paris Conservatory every year, and he'd plunk it on my stand at the next lesson and say, do this for next week. So I remember on the Hanegar, which I did in, I don't know, sixth grade or something, I got to, you know, that page and I said, I can't tongue this that fast. He said, That's triple tonguing. So that's how I learned a triple tongue, was because of the Haneger and uh, et cetera, et cetera. So he was he was inspirational to me because he just assumed and expected and challenged me to be like a world-class soloist at in sixth and seventh grade. I also studied, he took me, he drove me up to Minneapolis, Minnesota to take some lessons with Steve Chinette, who was principal trumpet in Minnesota Symphony at that time. Also very inspirational to me. Um, I will just say an aside here for all of you people listening is that when we study with someone and then we outgrow them or move on to the next level. Now I'm at my next teacher because now I'm in this college, and then I'm at my next teacher because I'm at this college, it's very easy to somehow feel you've over outgrown those previous teachers, but um, you really mustn't forget that you wouldn't have gotten where you are every single step except by the help of those teachers. And I people used to ask me many years ago who my teachers were, and I never named Dave Kennedy because he was a he was when I was a kid, sure, and he wasn't really famous, and then he died, and I could never get back to him to tell him. And I would counsel all of you right now to thank the people that got you along the way, even if they aren't famous or current, or if even if you haven't seen them in a long time. So it was Dave Kennedy, and he had me do solo competitions. It was all solos, it was all about solos, and I did so many, and I won so many things. I won a free four-year scholarship to Manhattan School of Music, which I didn't do. I won a four-year scholarship to DePaul. I won billions of concerto competitions, and I won trips to Interloken. And then Interloken became my next big thing that I did.
SPEAKER_02So before we get too much further, one thing about studying with you that I think is what makes you just really a special teacher is the expectation that you're always looking for how something can be better. I mean, I think I I've myself, when I've coached people, when they play, I say, that sounds great, you know, and it does sound great. And it doesn't mean that there aren't things to work on, but you seem to just immediately go to the things to work on and you're so direct because I think the expectation, you just have such a high expectation for what people can achieve, but because you know they can achieve them. Do you feel like this has come from, you know, Dave Kennedy sort of expecting so much of you at a time where, like most people would say to a sixth or seventh grader, just enjoy playing. He was expecting somewhat of basically greatness from you. Do you feel like that's kind of where some of that comes from?
SPEAKER_01I think so. It's partly he his. I do believe anything can be learned. Now, I don't mean I can take somebody who's never played trumpet before and in three weeks they're a principal in Chicago. I don't, of course, I don't mean that, but I do believe anything can be learned. But he did challenge me. I was uncomfortable often because of the challenge. But I got not only used to being challenged, I developed quite a backbone about meeting challenge and not shrinking from challenge. So much so that my default action when pressed is to press back. Sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I watch these guys, these workout videos and things on YouTube. And one of the guys I watch, he has a saying where he says, the best way to grow is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Kind of that idea that, like, and that's where growth happens, right? Like with the uncomfortable, because if we just were comfortable all the time, we would never get any better, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, if you, if you, if you're not challenged, it's easy to be comfortable when nothing is difficult. And the problem is everyone will have adversity. Everyone will have disappointment. And it's a natural part of human life and being having difficulty with things. It's impossible to avoid. It's not a matter of if you will have any challenges or disappointments or adversity. It is a matter of when and how you survive and surmount them. And in our business, it's a constant critiquing. We are critiqued in auditions and competitions and lessons. We've made an art of being criticized in our business. And so disappointment or adversity bec can become like a public shaming. And we need to learn to make it impersonal and business-like, and have a thick skin and make it as a challenge to go to work to figure that out. And by doing so, we are developing a character that we need in this business.
SPEAKER_02I think it's really interesting. This the reason I'm here doing this podcast is because I'm getting ready for the Chicago Symphony Principal Audition. And um I've I've just I just know Barbara is somebody that's gonna say, you can do this, but I'm not gonna let you get away with anything. Same thing with Charlie, that's Charlie Geyer. Um that's why I'm here. And it's interesting because I don't get much feedback or critique when you're in the job. You know, you just kind of do the job, and maybe the conductor will say less or something like that, but you're rarely getting pointed feedback. So it's even, it's like even uncomfortable to play for you yesterday and to have that dynamic again. Where I it's been like years, you know, since someone has been like, okay, like this isn't as musical as it could be, or like these needs, and like, are you even hearing what's going on? You know? And I know you're not being critical for the sake of, you know, trying to, you know, tear me down, obviously, but it's it's very interesting that um, unless you're in that environment often, I feel like we can even lose some of that thick skin. So, how do you recommend people who are like me?
SPEAKER_01The question is who's teaching the teachers?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And who is teaching the top players? Because vocalists have coaches and teachers their entire life until they stop singing, they never stop having coaches and teachers. But we, as soon as we got our degree and we got our job, boom, I'm done. I got and that's good, but that's only the beginning of who you're going to be. Sure, I agree. Getting that job is just like the the the door is opening on the first room of your mansion of your life, your musical life. It's just the first room. And so we do need teachers and mentors. It's not that you have to go take a series of lessons, but like with you, Ryan, I mean, I only hear you once in a while. And I don't critique former students unless they ask for critique, because I don't think of former students as students anymore. I mean, you're my colleagues. I learn, and I can learn from you. I can learn, I can learn from anyone that I hear. I've learned a long time ago that whatever I admire, it mean doesn't, and it's true of you and everyone, whenever you admire something, it doesn't just mean it's good, it means you want it. So when you admire someone's spin or vibrato, it doesn't just mean that's a good one, it means I'd like to have that. If you admire someone's uh portamento slurs or someone's uh articulation or uh someone's ability to extreme volumes, but but hold it together and and like as if it's so easy. That doesn't just mean it's good, it means you want that. So I learned years ago to observe to make note of what I admire. So I don't just find myself admiring. I then think, hold it, I'm admiring that. I should figure out what I'm admiring. And it could be a current student, it could be a former student like you, it could be one of my own colleagues, it could be a cellist, a flutist. I spent some time studying the both the sil the sound and the spin of Mathieu Dufour's uh flute playing when he played with us with the Chicago chamber musicians. He was principal flute in Chicago and now in Berlin. And, you know, I uh the the the way that singers can leave notes and connect their notes. I've studied that all of my life. Um so many things. I mean, it's just Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's interesting, though, because it would take a level of vulnerability with yourself, right? To say, I admire this, I'm lacking in this, like this sort of breaking down of like the ego, you know, and thinking, okay, there's always going to be things for me to learn. And being willing to accept that means that you're not that you're lacking, right? But that it's always building. And like you get further and further in your career, and at some point you want to think, am I ever going to feel like I have something like put together, you know, if you're constantly in that vulner vulnerable space. I don't know if you have any thoughts on like managing that vulnerable space with like confidence of I also have something worth offering.
SPEAKER_01I made a list a few years ago of not all of our successful students. Well, that's a huge list. I and I'm I say that w without like a giant ego about it. It's just a fact. I mean, our students are they're everywhere. But what I did was I didn't make a list of them per se. I made a list of the ones that have gone off to seemingly the most amazing careers, what they had in common, what all of you guys had in common when you were in school. Not what you're like now, what you were like then, that I can think back crystal clear to when people were 18, when we were 21. I can I can remember back to what they, their strengths and their weaknesses and what they were like when I heard them every week in solo class, every week in excerpt class, when I heard them in concerts, how they handled themselves in lessons, everything. I can remember that. And so I made a list of what they had in common, of like 20 things. And perhaps later in a second version uh part of this podcast, I'll read that list to you because I think everybody's interested in that. But one of the things on that list is that people would rather miss than be average. They'd rather take a risk at a fail than be average. And so when you ask me if it's feels vulnerable to admit I'm admiring something, all I see is the potential that if I admire it and I seek it, I I can be better.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So it's just like not even, it doesn't like how you feel almost doesn't even any of the equation. It's just the process with which you see things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And many of our former students, Chris Martin, comes to mind, is a person who is still very much a student of learning. He's not a student of any one person. We all can take lessons from him. He's an incredible player, but he's a student of learning. And I know in discussions with him, we'll discuss our different ideas of something and we see what we can learn and take from each other, that he still takes notes. Um, uh great players still take notes on their on their concerts, on their ideas, on their practicing. They aren't just playing a good warm-up and then going to work and sounding good. They're still trying to get better. Bud was, Hearsles was still trying to get better at the very end.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Even when maybe, okay, he wasn't getting better. He was, you know, just hanging on to what he had, but he wasn't trying to hang on, he was trying to get better. I talked to him shortly before he died, and I saw him. He was sitting in Orchestra Hall on the main floor, and I went up to him. And I always, for me, I didn't continue telling you all my teachers, and I will do that, but for me, he was he's I was such an important person. And my relationship with him was very interesting because it was sort of multi-faceted relationship. I was his student, um, so that he was he would often treat me as a as if he was my mentor, which he of course was. Sure. Sometimes he would treat me as a fellow professional, and we would compare notes on something. And I mean, he was just, he sometimes he was almost like a dad to me. But um when I saw him that last time, I I asked him the question. I always asked him, every time I saw him, throughout all the years, after I was in college and in civic and played extra with CSO and then got my jobs and then teaching here and there and this and playing in other groups. I always asked him, What are you practicing? I always asked him that. And this time when I asked him, What are you practicing? And he was in his 80s, and I did I didn't ask him, Are you practicing? He had just he had retired from CSO, but of course I knew he was practicing. I didn't have to ask him if. I said, What are you practicing? And he said, Arbin, page 125 through 129.
SPEAKER_00And he said, I do it in every variation so that I can go, da da da di da di da, or da da di da di da, or I can go, da da di, da gada, da-da-da-da-da, da da gada, da da gada, da da da da da dae, dae, da, every volume, every every he said could spend forever on those pages, and I've done everything in the technique.
SPEAKER_01He said, then of course, mouthpiece. And, you know, I mean, the point isn't this isn't like a magic answer. The the point is He just was still working to be better.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's we look at him as this I mean, he for what he was, really this like icon, you know, of the orchestral trumpet world, especially. But it's it's kind of cool to to hear that to him, it just boiled down to I'm always I'm just continuing to learn. And if you do that long enough, you might end up in a pretty good spot, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01My main teachers, one one that I had along the way, interestingly enough, when I was getting ready to go to college, and I'll backtrack a minute and tell you about Ander Locken, but when I when I was getting ready to go to college, I thought music was so easy that I should major in something more real. And that music was, I don't know, it was just fun. And I I had been, I had done so many things that were an indication of that this is obviously my life. And yet, my fur my freshman year, I went to St. Olaf College in Mar and um and I uh majored in comparative literature.
SPEAKER_02I did not know that.
SPEAKER_01And my teacher, I was principal in the orchestra, uh, played a solo with them. We went on tour to Norway. I was still obviously playing continuously. My teacher was Ron Hasselman with the Minnesota Symphony. And He was a very serious teacher, and our lessons were very serious, even though my major was literature. But at one point he said, What do you really want to do? I was in the middle of my freshman year and I said, I want to play in an orchestra. And he said, Well, what are you doing here? He said, Go to Chicago.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I at that point I did. And um, I've stayed in touch with him. I have re I have thanked him for helping get me to that next spot the way I didn't really get a chance to thank Dave Kennedy. I have thanked Ron.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, even if it was like for a short amount of time.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it didn't matter.
SPEAKER_02If he didn't view you that way, you wouldn't have pushed you towards I wouldn't have gotten to that next spot. That's interesting, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, but my main teachers are um Chikowitz and Hursith. Sure. Of course. And um Vince Chickowitz was they were very different. And um lessons with Chikkowicz, he would not let you play raw incorrectly. So you might play two measures and be stopped. And but that was good because you had to play correctly at the lesson. And if you didn't have all your attudes perfectly prepared and playing them correctly, you never got to the excerpts. And if you didn't get to the excerpts, you didn't get to the duets with him, which were like, ah, Nirvana. So, you know, I learned really quickly that I had to have my attudes perfect so I could get to the excerpts because I wanted to do excerpts and I wanted to play duets with him. But I got in civic, and when you get in civic, at that time you got free weekly lessons. I had free weekly lessons with Bud Hurseth. And of course I was in the sectionals and playing in the orchestra there. But lessons with Hursith were very different. The first time he, first lesson, he said, Let me hear this Charlie A. And I began to play, and I played about two phrases, expecting him to stop me, because Chickowitz would often stop and tinker and make sure everything was, and it became very apparent he wasn't gonna stop me at all. I was gonna play all two pages of like, oh no, I'm not ready. But it was, it was, it was fantastic. He didn't teach a lot, he demonstrated a lot.
SPEAKER_02There was one time so much, you know.
SPEAKER_01So my goodness, there was one, and he did he often didn't bring his horn, but he had his mouthpiece in his pocket. So there's one time that he I had a lesson with him in a tiny little dead closet right under the stage before they redid Orchestra Hall. Tiny, horrible room. And he said, I'll play promenade. So I played Promenade, and he essentially said, That sounds small and dead. I'm sure he didn't say it like right that, but that's what he said.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I said, Well, look at the room we're in. And he said, Yeah, give me your horn. So I handed him my trumpet and he shoved his mouthpiece in and he played, and it sounded like it was in a cathedral. There was like a five-second echo.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And he had, I knew immediately what he'd done. I took me a little while to practice it, but he had learned what his natural spin was, and he had added a complimentary vibrato to that spin and enhanced the end of the note. So it was ringing past when he stopped. Yeah. It was astonishing. Lessons with him were they were the combination of those two was.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I imagine it's like on both sides. It's wonderful. So I have a question. What are your thoughts on the idea that Bud was so compelling and so committed to the music that he was making because he just did his thing because he was principal in Chicago and that's like what he did versus now, where we have so many auditions and like you were saying, so much critique that it's hard to uh, I mean, ultimately you have to find your own voice, of course, but there's so many different ways. It's hard to feel like I'm just gonna put it forth and do. I mean, of course, in a performance in that, but when you're trying to get to that point, um, sometimes I feel like it's hard to feel like you can just go and do the thing you feel most confident about if it doesn't fit kind of what you've talked in about mainstream or something like that. Do you feel like that was of an advantage to Bud and how he created this thing? Because he just didn't have to, besides conductors, quote, impress anybody, and that he just built this thing in his mind of I'm just gonna do the thing I do because it works. And it's possible to do that, but harder now, if that's maybe if that makes sense what I'm asking.
SPEAKER_01Well, to to win the job, I know very much what it takes to win because that's what our students do. And you have to be within mainstream. Um, you can't play extremely exciting but a wacky tempo, or um of uh a personal but unusual vibrato throughout the audition or something like that. You can't just decide to slur where it's usually tongued, or decide to tongue where it's usually slurred, or play your own dynamic that isn't it isn't a relationship to what is on the page necessarily. So I am tired of teaching mainstream. However, I am not naive, and I understand that students want to win jobs and get their life started, and that's what my job is is devoted to helping them do so. To do that, they need to be enough in mainstream that no one will be irritated, there won't be a deal breaker. But as soon as they get the job, I am counseling everybody to do it their way. And in fact, over the years of teaching, my teaching has evolved, just like everyone's playing evolves. My that's my one primary job. And I don't want to teach the same way I taught 20, 30 years ago. I want to be better at it too, just like everyone wants to be better all the time at what they do. And I have decided that my my main pillars of my teaching are, well, musicianship and health. I can't ignore health any more than Chikowitz could. So if someone is playing Tamasi for me and they are not playing the trumpet correctly, there's no way I'm going to flog them through the Tamasi, talking all about the Tamasi. I cannot ignore the health of the trumpet. So, like Chikkowicz, my students will tend to learn to play very healthy so that we can get onto the music, which is what I live for. And what I'm doing in my teaching now is I want both voice and statement. Voice from my students means what is your sound? If you're a businessman and you meet another businessman, when you shake hands and you say, Here's my card. For us, here's my card is our sound. And it must be a sound to die for. And it doesn't have to be the same sound. Just as a small example, three of our students happen to be principal in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. All three of them are beautiful players, and you couldn't find three more different players. Completely different players, different people, very different sounds. So, what I'm looking for when we choose people, people always want to know how do you pick people for your studio? We're choosing someone that is well on their way. Um, no one is perfect. I'm certainly not, but we're choosing people well on their way. Their package is in good shape towards the career they want. But I'm already looking for iconic because I'm trying to teach people to have a voice that is that you can't stop listening to through every round of the audition and for all of their life. People say, Man, I feel something every time I hear that guy's sound, that woman's sound. It's just, it's I feel something. It's amazing. So their sound and the iconicness. So I'm trying to find in every one of my students to dig out their uniqueness, their unique voice. And then I will still have them be within mainstream, but with their unique voice. And that I'm, I've gotten much, much better at that as a teacher. And I tend to pick people like you, who already had a unique voice when you came to me, and who you have a unique voice now. You don't just sound like a good trumpet player playing well. You have a voice that matters, it means everything to me. We don't want in the old days, I could hear a trumpet player on the radio and I knew immediately it was Boston, it was Berlin, it was LA, it was Chicago, it was Cleveland, it was New York. Now a lot of blend. Yeah. I'm sorry about that. I liked it when there were so many different sounds.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sorry, I was just processing everything you just said. It's just, I mean, I've even heard, I mean, I've heard you say that before, of course, because I've known you for a long time, but it just makes me think how are you so is it like almost like an experimenting ground for you then as well? Like with the students, you try this thing out, and if it works a little bit, you try that with another student, and if it works a little bit, you start to hone the process of how to communicate to somebody in the most effective way possible to become their most unique self? Or like how do you get better at that, basically? Well, if you can't do that.
SPEAKER_01We we we uh especially now at Rice, because it's a very small studio here, it's it's difficult for us because we want more players than we are able to take. And um just today, for instance, I spent, I think, 45 minutes on the phone with someone who didn't get in because I didn't want them harmed by that. I didn't want that to be a setback to their life because they didn't get into the studio. But it's it is a small studio, so it's difficult for us. We have a lot of many, many people we hear in very few openings. So at the audition, like I said, I'm listening for I'm listening for voice, I have to submit, admit, I I I always hear sound. So somebody who whose priority has not been to make a beautiful, beautiful sound, their priority maybe is to play a lot of notes and have good technique, but their priority hasn't been a beautiful sound. It would, I probably wouldn't take that person.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I can teach sound, I can teach everything. I can teach somebody could be a non-musician and just be a just a physical athletic trumpet player, and I can turn them into a musician. I absolutely can teach that. But there's some things I'd rather teach than other things. Um so when someone is in the studio and I I do use attudes, I think there are three things we're working on. We're working on fundamentals and um atudes and repertoire. Fundamentals are something that everyone has to do. No one is too good to skip them. I can pick my horn up ice cold out of my case and play the Brandenburg or play Mahler, but I don't do that. I warm up every day and I build my house, like Chico had said, from the ground up, very meticulously. I'm also not 20 years old anymore. And so, I mean, I'm not ancient, but I'm careful. I'm very careful to build my house very carefully every day. And so um I will I will assign my students um a variety of fundamentals and etudes and repertoire so they become, without realizing it, hopefully, addicted to those three aspects of playing. Then when they begin to play, even the most simple kanconi, I can tell immediately if they have a voice. I can tell right away. Everything that we do comes from voice, actually. Because and what do singers have that we don't? They have words.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they're always saying a sentence that has a beginning and it has an arrival word and some important words, and then it has the final period at the end of the sentence, and it has a character, and it's said with a character. Musicianship is there's so many aspects of it. For for playing excerpts, for instance, it's three-sided. Number one is what is the character of that excerpt? That is something mentally you need to know. And then number two is, do you feel it when you play it? And number three is, are you giving it to the audience? Those are three separate things. Do you know what it's about? Do you feel it personally? And are you giving it to someone?
SPEAKER_02So the knowing about it, that could be listening or reading about the piece, kind of getting understanding what the context is. The second one, are you feeling it? How what's the process for that one, right? What is your way that you try to teach how to someone to internalize it? Like maybe they have the conceptual understanding. Well, if you're they can't like they can't like internalize it.
SPEAKER_01Right. That's hard for some people, of course. And we are in is in a sense, we are actors. We are on stage when we play. And so even if you're a shy person and you don't have loud voice, and you're very soft-spoken, and maybe even slightly a monotone when you speak to your friends and kind of shy and modest. And even so, when you're on stage, that's you're an actor or an actress, and you need to have stage makeup on, and you need to exaggerate what you're doing. Any of my students, I have them play a phrase musically, and then I say, now repeat it and exaggerate that. And then they do it a second time, and I say, Now repeat it again, and this time over the top exaggeration. And of those three, which one do you think the audience always prefers?
SPEAKER_02Probably the third one.
SPEAKER_01Always. My lessons with Bud Hurzuth, he used to grab my horn and he would play a phrase for me, and he would exaggerate it ridiculously to make his point. I thought.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but that's how he actually did it. That is actually how he did it. It's hard to it's how I feel the the times I was at Tanglewood and I heard Tom Rolfs playing. I would just sit there and I'd be like, There is no possible way you sound like this in the in the hall. But then you hear him and it's just like the sound that goes forever. And I mean, there's so many players who do this, right? And it's just like that's another example that comes to mind is this this over-exaggeration that I think you kind of have to just trust that that's what it's supposed to be, you know, because it can be hard, I think, to take that step and feel like you're playing in. I mean, I feel like at times I remember that, and times I still forget that, you know. And I have had a job for a while, so I feel like it's this ongoing battle of remembering that we're doing it for people who are not right next to us. And sometimes that can be hard to remember unless you're in the sometimes concerts, right? It becomes easier because you see the people and you're like, oh yeah, that's right. But recreating it without people there can be sometimes, uh, in my opinion, difficult to do.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot of people talk about practicing when you um performing as if you're practicing so that you have all the uh perfection of your practice, and then performing when you practice so you have the reality when you practice. I do have my students always practice what I call the once, which is because we tend to, um, as we were talking earlier, let's say you're practicing the Petrushka Bellarina solo. It's easy to practice that. You play it once and it's not perfect. So then you play it right away a second time, not perfect, maybe even a third time not perfect, but then you think, okay, wait, it's not perfect. So this one place in the middle, I'm missing a note. So then you go to the place in the middle. This is common for all of you guys listening to this. I know, and you and you you practice a little bit in the middle, and then and then maybe maybe you get smart and do it slower in the middle, and then you do it once more, and then you run it again, and then it sounds good. And then you leave it and you go on to the next thing you're doing. But what you did was uh it's like a golfer that hits a billion bad shots, and then they get one good one, and then they go to the clubhouse for a beer. And that is not what a good golfer does. Once they don't repeat the bad ones, and also they don't, there's no such thing as a generic bad. Tiger Woods hits a golf shot that isn't what he wants. He doesn't go, oops, my bad. What's the fix for my bad? There isn't one. But if he but if he goes, oops, that was left, what's the fix for too far left?
SPEAKER_02Too far right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. So we take notice of us when we don't play well. We don't just go, ooh, my bad. We think I undershot that note and I got a burr on that note and I I slowed up during the triplet. Okay, well, those are three exact Christmas presents waiting to be opened. Because the gift is if I address the exact thing that's wrong, I will potentially be perfect at that, and or minimum, I will be better.
SPEAKER_02This is yeah, this is gonna lead right into that question I told you I wanted to ask you, which is just that's how I felt in lessons a lot. It's this thing that I think is you're incredibly good at, is you know, I think people who don't haven't studied with you or have heard like the legend of Barbara Butler, you know, they they think of you as this very like kind of uh strict, kind of like brutal, right? Like it's this thing where she's just gonna break you down, she's gonna tell you all the things you did wrong, she's really intense. Obviously, that is like why that is what you do though, right? When I play for you, you come to me and you have like three pages. I feel like I'm doing pretty good. You come to me with like three pages of things that I could be doing better, and that's why I'm here. That's why, because I would like to improve. I don't want to assume I've got it all figured out. But you have this way of leaving it. Like it does feel kind of like hard to digest in the moment, but where you leave it is in the that exact place is somehow I feel like if I just fix these 10 or 15 or like I was saying yesterday, 150 things that are wrong with my playing, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna be there. I'll I'll be ready, you know. And I just is that something you've always had, or did you learn to cultivate this kind of thing of like right at the end, just being able to uplift a student? And essentially, what I think it is is you just make the student believe in themselves as much as you believe in the student. Yeah. Is this something you've always had, or have you cultivated this over time? Are you even aware that this is something that we when I was in college?
SPEAKER_01I spent $10 and bought an old cornet that I used only to throw against the wall in my practice room. So I have come a long way myself in this. Seriously. Um I believe anything can be learned. And I know that if you can't triple tongue as fast as somebody else who just popped out of the womb being able to triple-tongue fast, but that you with your hard work learn to triple-tongue fast enough so that passage sounds great, then when the two of you play back to back, no one in the audience thinks they're better because they had it first.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No one. And I, with all of my students, outside students as well as my own family students, I always have people list their strengths and their weaknesses. And I do a list from one to 20. One, two, three, four, five being the things that you're best at, that you're natural at, 15 through 20 being the ones that you are weaker at, that you're worried about, that they are inconsistent, they're frustrating. And all the thing is, I also ask that student to list their favorite trumpet players in the world that they listen to live or on recordings. And many of them are my friends that I know. And I'll say those people all have a list from one to 20. As do I. And I know they're 20. I'm, I won't, I don't like to say names here. But I uh famous, fame, fill in the blank, famous name, I know they're 20. And I'm certain they know mine. Yeah. But the point is with the great players, their one and their 20 are not very far apart. So that when they're doing their 20, that one excerpt that's a little hard for them, that one passage in the orchestra that's always been challenging, but they're still working at it. It's like a rubric's cube. You don't, you don't think, oh, damn it, and throw it on the ground. You think, you know what, pick it up again. I haven't looked at the green side yet. You know, so when those great players have their 20, they are concentrating very hard to do their skill set right. And the audience thinks they sound great because their 20 is fairly close to their one. I also know that all those of us who have learned how to do this correctly, which means we spend much more time on 15 through 20 than what we already have as our signature, which is one through five, those people have not only lifted their 20, but many times that 20 isn't 20 anymore. Maybe it's 10. So if I if if my colleagues or students hear me play a concert and hopefully they would have some compliments afterwards, and I'm pretty sure that some of the things they might give me as a compliment would make me laugh inside because they are a former 20.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I have spent so much time working on it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, it's interesting when you I've taught some teaching, you know, and um when a student will play for me, um, it sometimes a student right before they play will say, Well, I struggle with this thing. So, like, you know, don't judge me too hard or whatever they're trying to say. And ultimately, that's not even something I consider I consider to be their 20, right? I consider their 20 to be this thing they haven't even they're not even thinking about because as we as I learned with you, you know, it's uh teaching from what I have learned from you is about making my ears as good as your ears, like the teaching. Is trying to put their ears on the student. So I'm thinking, oh, this is my worst thing, but to you that might be like number 12 because you don't hear 13 through 20. Yeah. So yeah, it's just something I remember from lessons very vividly is so much motivation to go work on the things I couldn't do. I remember you you assigned me, I used to drop my jaw when I played low, and so I could play loud, but I had no flexibility going up and down. And you told me to buy the Seneticor low attude book, and then you were like, just play one of the, you know, a couple of these preparatory exercises in the beginning and then play one per day. And I was like, okay. And then I would play the entire book every day. Because I just, I was, you know, so obsessive. I mean, I still am, but in a very different way because it's not as process driven. Now the obsession goes up into like what we talked about in my session is like, okay, now if the trumpet stuff is becoming more okay, then the obsession has to go into like music. How can I make the most music? How can I make the most nuance? Like, how can I get every single thing to be exactly what I want it to be? If that makes sense, that's how I feel. Um, I'm at that place. I feel like now I just have to figure out how to be this musician that like knows everything, essentially. Like a trumpet player that can do everything, but then musician that feels very overwhelming. So it's just, you know, one step at a time.
SPEAKER_01It's a very physical instrument that we play. And because of it, we spend so many years working on the physical aspect of it. And uh the music is sort of there, but we are constantly dealing with the physicalness of playing high to low, loud to soft, tonguing to slurring, descending issues, flexibility. There's no one that has enough flexibility. We all need more, more, more, more, more of that. Um, you know, so music can take sort of a back seat. And the problem is the players, like if I told you here, there's a room over on the left side that has a trumpet player who never misses. It's not necessarily super special, but really they I don't think they've ever missed a note in their life. And then over here is somebody who is the most exciting player you've ever heard. They they're not perfect, though, they miss some notes, but they're the most thrilling player in the world. No one would go over to this one room to hear the guy that doesn't miss. No one, everyone would run over here. So, what we're trying to do, we are aiming for perfect, but we aren't. What we end up being is high percentage. And um, that's fine, that's good. And I was talking with one of my colleagues, remember, I said, who's teaching the teachers? So we talk to each other, sometimes we play for each other, or we'll we'll play with each other and give each other little comments, but mostly it's our own ears. No one can play better than their ears. No one can. So if I say to a student, you're flat on all of the notes after the high note, they do believe me. But if I tape them and then they hear it back and they hear it, it's 10 times better learning than just me saying it.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, putting musicianship into your training from the beginning of the day, you great players, you hear them play a long tone backstage warming up, and you know you're hearing a musician. I have a funny story. Um I was teaching at NOI. I go there regularly, and they put us up in this hotel, and I got there at night, went to sleep, got up in the morning, was ready to go down to breakfast and go to work. And I went and pushed the elevator. I'm standing in the hallway, push the elevator button, and I hear a sound. And it's oboe. And it's someone playing a long tone, and it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. I think, oh my god, what a gorgeous sound. And of course, I circle right back around to myself and think, would anyone think I sounded that beautiful if I was playing a long tone in my room? And meanwhile, the elevator came, oh, doors open, and I'm still listening, doors closed, elevator went away. So, okay, fine, push the button again. The guy keeps playing. Elevator comes, it goes. Pretty soon I just give up and I walk and stand in front of his his um his hotel room. And he didn't want to knock on the door. I mean, the guy could be in his underwear practicing, you know, whatever. But uh, I don't also didn't know who it was. But I just stood outside his door listening to long tones, thinking, A, how smart it is to practice long tones. It is smart. And number two, how he was making each one like its own world of beauty. So a musician sounds musical on everything they do, they don't wait until the Russian flow study or the uh the second movement of Tomasi to sound musical. Right. They sound musical on their Clark Audes, on the Arbin book. They sound musical everything they do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, that's like just like period. I like that. Um I think we should circle back around and pick up at Interlaken, I think.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. I I have some funny stories about that. So uh I won uh one of the many competitions I I took one uh free trip to Interlaken. So you remember I studied with a person, Dave Kennedy, who had me doing all these solos. And he did want me to learn how to transpose and things like that, but I resisted because I just wanted to play solos. So I was, you know, my solo was the jolave, which was like a pretty big deal solo for a little kid. When you go to interlock and you you have an audition.
SPEAKER_02Uh like I don't know, a junior and I just learned the jolave like a couple months ago. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_01So anyway, so I, you know, you you have at this time, it may be different now. This was you know a long time ago at Interlocken, but at that time you came in and you had an audition for all the faculty, and then the audition was you played a solo, and then they had you sight read some orchestral excerpts, and then they placed you. And so the I played the Jolivet, and I could I mean I'd played it, I had it memorized, I'd played it for a billion competitions, and you know, so I could tell they were really impressed. And then they put Chike 4 on the stand. Now, I don't even think that's hard, except it was an F. It was an F. Yeah and I was like, oh, F. I mean, it was ridiculous how ill prepared I was for that compared to how I sounded on the solo. So I I played it and I fumbled around and I just it was horrible. By the time I finished that, there were several passages with Chuck 4, it wasn't just the opening. By the time I finished that, they were like holding their sides and laughing. And I was steam coming out of my ears. I was so upset. So, um, and indeed, I'd I'd never sat anything but first chair in any group ever in my whole life. And I was, and and after that audition, I was placed 17th chair. Oh, so I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. So, but they have something at Interlochen called um challenges. And I again, I don't know if they still do this, but back then, um, it was on, I think it was on a Friday, and you could challenge, they they had a set uh little excerpts that you had to learn, and you ch that was what you were challenged on. And if I wanted, if if somebody wanted challenge up, then they played and the person seated above them played, and if they played better, they better they swapped chairs. So and I still remember and I still have it memorized, it was a little from New World Divorschak. It's in E. It's a little gnarly thing, which I like. Practice the heck out of that. So um the first challenge, um, it was I can't remember it was Leon Rapier or um Robert Grocock. Anyway, so they said, um, who wants to challenge? And I'm like, and shut up. And then like, okay. So I challenged and I moved up, and I'm now I'm chair 16. Who wants to? And I raised my hand again. Fine. So I moved up to chair 15 and 14 and 13, and I'm I'm just charging up the line. And then I get up, and at first the guys at the front top of the section weren't paying any attention to me, but now everybody's like, what? So so now I'm chair two. And he said, anybody else want to? And I raised my hand again, he said, fine. So I played it, and then the guy that was sitting first chair played it, and he said, tie. It's like, oh, darn it. So I had to sit second chair, and then next Friday, who wants to raise my hand again, tie, or maybe he would win, or tie. I could not beat him that whole summer.
SPEAKER_02But that tenacity is like pretty impressive for basically a high.
SPEAKER_01It was also Al Vazuti.
SPEAKER_02Oh he's also pretty good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He's also pretty good.
SPEAKER_02I just I think this is something really interesting about music that um, you know, there's obviously this can be this competitiveness built into it, but there's just like rejection built into what we do. And so we just, you know, we learn if you if you can handle it. Of course, like you said, if you have a backbone and you have thick skin, you learn to handle it. Yeah, you seem to just be, you have experience and exposure to rejection and this, this like, I have to be better to get to this thing. I have to earn it, basically, right? And I think it's something that can carry all the way through life in general that you learn at a very young age, or you can learn. It seems like, yeah, you had already developed so much tenacity for just wanting to succeed and be the best. It's pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_01Everyone has a gut reaction after a disappointment. Um, it can be shock, it can be you're hurt, you can be sad, you can be embarrassed, you can be angry, you can be in denial. No, no, I really was better. But you really have to hold your head up, you have to think, you have to learn, you have to get ideas from that and breathe. Hold your head up again, you know, turn that negative into work and figure out what you can do to be better. And, you know, the thing is, in any disappointment, if I think what could I do to be better, my mind doesn't go nothing. My mind thinks of a whole bunch of things I could do to be better. So perhaps now, because of that disappointment, I'll be getting better and I'll be getting ideas that maybe that not disappointed person won't be getting because they didn't need to get ideas, but I needed to get ideas.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The next summer, I went back two summers. The next summer I was principal the whole summer. And back then, I was actually principal in the top band and in World Youth Orchestra. Now I think you can't be in two groups. Um, and I played a concerto. I mean, but I learned a lot from that first summer. One of the most important things I learned was where I sort of stood on the world stage, because there were trouble players from around the world there too. And and also how much it mattered to me to be to play, how important it was to play music, what I felt about it. How did I feel at concerts? I felt ridiculously alive. Like there's no drug in the world that could be better drug than playing. And the best place to listen to music is from the principal chair, in my opinion. I even when I hear music on the radio, I hear trombones on my left, I hear section on my right, I hear horns in front of me, I hear the strings on my right hand, I hear the cello and the bass. I just hear in perspective from sitting there. It seems such a normal place to me. But um I, you know, though those summers, those summers were were really important for me. Yet, you remember, I still majored in literature, my first funny thing, wasn't it? I it was it was almost like I knew once I went into music, I would just never leave it. And I wanted to just stretch my arms a little bit and still fly a little bit in some other directions before I hunkered down into my groove. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right, this is it. Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_01Other summers, you know, I went to Aspen. It was a funny summer too, because um, when I went to Aspen, I studied with Jerry Schwartz. Now, I at that point was um a Chicago clone. I wanted to be just like all the guys in Chicago, and I wanted to play like them, and I listened to them, and I imitated them, and I was all Chicago, Chicago. And so Jerry Schwartz was very different, very different sound, very different kind of player. It was before he was in New York Philharmonic, he was in the American Brass quintet, and he was a quintet player, and he was incredible technique, agile. Uh he has the recordings out of uh Baroque music with ornaments. You can't even imagine how playing so many ornaments and just amazing technique.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, uh the I remember the first lesson with him was also a shock because he said, you know, I'm not sure I like the way you play. You sound just like Chicago players. And I'm thinking that's exactly that's exactly what I want to sound like. But you know, he what he meant was that there's other things you need in your playing besides full and big and loud and heavy, and you know, and so I was resistant to him for for many lessons, and lessons were really hard. In fact, I mean, with with Chickowitz, you know, he would assign six attudes and I would have them perfect for the next lesson, period. You know, Jerry Schwartz assigned me probably 10. I was like, okay, I went out and I learned 10. I came into the next lesson. He said, Let me hear Bousquet number 14. I said, You gave me number three. And he said, I don't care, I want 14. It's like, well, hold on. So then and they he said, Okay, let me hear Brandt 8. I said, I had Brandt 5. And he said, I want to hear Brandt 8. So I didn't sound very good at the first couple lessons. I found out later this is a typical Vaciano thing. This was very much all about sight reading and transposing. And actually, this was good for me. It took me out of comfort zone. Sure. And by the end of that summer, I greatly admired Jerry Schwartz, and I became a little Jerry Schwartz clone when I went back to Chicago, and I wanted to have all those techniques, and that was very good. Um, then Tanglewood was I did that one summer. Um, and it was interesting too because my lesson um that that year, I mean my first year with Chickowitz, he said, What do you want to do this summer? And I said, I'd like to go to Tanglewood. And I very clearly remember him saying, Oh, don't bother auditioning. They've never taken any Chicago players. So I didn't. I went to Aspen. And then the next year, Chickowitz said, What would you like to do this summer? And I said, You know, I'd really like to go to Tanglewood. And he said, Again, well, they never take anyone from Chicago. Only this time I thought, well, I could be the first. Yeah. So I went, I went to Boston because they didn't have auditions other places at that point. I went to Boston auditioned for Gitala, who is a sweetheart, but I was very like, I'm ready to play for you, you know, and came in and played. And and he was a he was lovely and he liked my playing and accepted me. And I had a great time at Tanglewood. So I think when one of my important things is when somebody tells me I can't do something, I think that's often my very best motivation.
SPEAKER_02Sure. I think very many, very, very, very many successful people would say that same thing. That, you know, like someone tells like a guy who's like at the top of the thing, he'll say, Oh yeah, a way long time ago, I was like, I kind of want to do this. And someone will go, Well, you can't do that, like for this reason or for that reason, and then they'll say the same thing. It's like, why use that as motivation? Whether it's like proving them wrong, or if it's just like, maybe I'll be the first, you know, maybe like the reason why it's not like no one does it is because no one's done it yet. And that's one thing. I mean, I don't know. Hopefully, we'll have time because this is one thing I really want to talk to you about is um just that you've paved the way in a lot of ways, especially. I know you've talked about um in various classes, just like be coming up as a female trumpet player when you did was not the same as it might be now, right? And you were part, you and a few others were part of like paving the way for it being the same, basically, you know. And I know you experienced some difficulties in your career. You don't necessarily have to talk about it, but it's just inspirational to me, and I'm sure to many other people, that you had that tenacity led you to saying, there's no reason I can't do this, and that you also were like have a backbone, and like you said, and thinking it's just because it's hard doesn't mean it can't, it's not possible. And I think you know that kind of attitude can get basically get you anywhere you want to go, whether it's on the trumpet to say, maybe it'll take me a little while to learn how to triple tongue that fast. But I can do it, I can do that, or if it's career related or whatever, I just think it's very inspirational to me in in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_01There are four things needed to make it. One is talent, one is work ethic, one is intelligence of work, and the other is perseverance. And the greatest of these is perseverance. And the person with the greatest willpower that I've ever experienced in my life was Bud Hursith. And to be honest, you asking me about my path, I didn't think I was a girl trumpet player. I was just a trumpet player. I didn't experience I grew up in Iowa. This is a strong place. I come from a my, I mean, my parents weren't really musicians, but my dad had played bugle in like Y Camp, boy, YMCA camp or something. And they just they I didn't even get a flicker of why did you choose that, or that could be hard, or that's different, or now I don't know what they talked about beyond my back. But you know, I I didn't get a flicker of that, and I didn't have any feeling of prejudice or that I was different or weird until I got to Chicago and began freelancing. And the freelancing world in Chicago at that time was um, I don't know, it felt a little cutthroat or competitive or something. And I and I all of a sudden felt well, the problem was I didn't really, I didn't really have role models. My role models were the men. Right. And there were only a couple women trumpet players that were older than I was that I knew of in Chicago, and they did not epitomize what I wanted. One of them had a sort of a chip on her shoulder, and she's like, if I'd be if I'd been a guy, I would have been great. And you know, like guys didn't love to play with her, and I wouldn't have loved it either. Who wants to play with somebody with a big chip on your shoulder? And the other one was so gentle and kind and sweet that if she got hired to play principal trumpet in a gig and then somebody showed up and sitting in her chair, and she's well, I think I'm supposed to play that. And the guy said, No, I'm gonna play it. She would say, Okay. I mean, I like I didn't want to be like either of those people. So I just didn't, I didn't look for for that. I didn't look, gender is not a thing, big thing to me. I mean, I know we have expressions, you know, playing with balls, and you know, so what does that mean? I play with vagina? It's ridiculous. Right, right. It's ridiculous. Yeah, you know, I don't have any gender-specific things hanging on my trumpet. And I never thought that way when I was a little kid. The f I do remember the first comment. I was very smart growing up. And I do remember the first comment that I realized that someone was putting me in an impossible position. And it was a man, conductor, they all were, um, who at one he looked back and saw that I was playing principal. And it was in a guest thing, special event thing. And he sort of frowned. And I think he was surprised that there was a gal playing principal trumpet. And I was nailing the crap out of whatever I was playing. But he looked back and he said, I think that sounds weak. You're playing like a girl. And I remember thinking, What? Yeah. So I just nodded at him, and the next time I played it louder. And then he stopped again. He said, Now it sounds like you're trying to be a man. And I knew right at that moment that that person, that was a no-win with that person, that they had already made a decision. So what's your what's your game plan? I have I have to, in that situation, I knew I had to make the my motivation pure. Because when we love music, and that's why we're all in this business, we don't love it because we're beating someone or winning something. That's not what we feel when we're playing music. We feel joy. We feel it's just, I can't even think of the word. It's the most alive you ever feel in the middle of a concert. It has nothing to do with beating and winning. So I knew that at that moment that I that person was smaller than I was. There was a small person, and that I needed to put music ahead of that, and that I needed to put the phrasing and the sound. And my job as leading the brass and being part of an orchestra and part of the what the music is happening at that moment, that that needed to be put first, regardless of what his face looked like or what he was saying or doing. So, did it make me uncomfortable? Yeah. Did it make me sad? Yeah. Did it make me angry? You bet. But did it change me and make me bitter? No.
SPEAKER_02Are you full of, we'll use the word joy because that's the word you used on every single concert that you play? Or are there times that you are like, man, I can't wait to get home?
SPEAKER_01Um, I'm pretty good at controlling my thoughts. You know how people say you are what you eat? That's not true. You are what you think. Like if you you know, when we listen to concerts, um we shouldn't be listening to to criticize everybody. We shouldn't be listening to other trumpets waiting to criticize them. We should be listening to what's glorious. So um sorry, circle back to what you just asked about.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I I have another thought about what you just said, but I just basically asked, like, do you find yourself? Oh joy.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I control my thoughts. So if I'm sitting in an in a in a concert with a fairly boring trumpet part, if I allow myself to get bored, then I I'm less, I'm I'm so much less of a player. And and I'm not, and I'm all of a sudden my sound isn't as good and my techniques aren't as good. Being a better musician always makes your techniques better. There's no downside of being a better musician. There's not not one technical thing that is worsened or lessened by being a better musician. So if I'm bored and some music is more boring than others, I try to find something else to listen to. I will immediately start studying the violin part. I will um try to make my three notes more of a phrase than they were. Uh I'll try to concentrate on the my releases. I'll, I mean, I have to find something. Yeah. I just have no, I'm not everything is equally, but I'm I pretty and I pretty much stay engaged when I play. And I get nervous like anyone does, and I try to tell myself that I'm very excited. Not I'm not I'm nervous, but I'm excited, which has can have the same physical feeling, hearts beating a little too fast, you know, feel little sweaty palms, or it could be a little mouth, just a little dry or something. But I just tell myself I'm excited because that implies I want to do this. I'm excited because I want to do it. This is what I want to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'm I'm still very much a player. I, you know, I uh the things that I the music of the broke, that group in Chicago that we've played with the very Charlie and I have played with the very since I was in college. Um I still solo with them, played Brandenburg, I played uh the Christmas Oratorio this year. In September, I'm doing B minor Mass, um, Grand Teton Music Festival. We play, we're playing out there since the uh since the 80s, um, recitals, master classes. This year I played principal with Houston Grand Opera as a guest. Um, they needed a guest principal on Electra. That's a huge part. Electra is a gigantic part, and I still can play that. And it was a challenge. It was hard, it was good for me, it was great for me to do that. Joffrey Ballet, I played first trumpet with him in Lincoln Center on their um recent tour to do uh Romeo and Juliet. I still consider myself a player, but um I'm still I'm still trying all the time that I'm playing to be better. And every practice session, I am back at the drawing board, every single one.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I I I find myself, I don't know, maybe you can speak to this a little bit. I find myself in the job, it becomes easy for it to become a job, I think. And so it's day in and day out, and we don't even have as intense of a schedule as a group like Chicago or Boston, New York, these groups that are playing four concerts a week and probably nine, eight, nine service uh weeks and things like that. And um, I think even the daily grind makes it so when you're at the end of the week sitting there for the concerts, it becomes uh, and then like you said, maybe it's a part that doesn't have that much activity. But I guess kind of what you said. I find recently I'm able to say, all right, I get to listen to this concert for free, basically, right? Like I'm not playing that much, so I get to listen to my colleagues. My colleagues sound beautiful. This should be enough. If this isn't enough for me, then I don't know what else you could put possibly put into that.
SPEAKER_01There's all there's always something to listen for. Remember, I was talking about what I admire. So the um a couple years ago at the Grand Teton Music Festival, um, they were doing the Mozart concertante, which has no trumpets. It's a solo for uh bassoon, clarinet, uh, horn, and oboe. And I was sitting out in the audience listening, except I was kind of just playing on my phone, but sort of listening, sort of. But all of a sudden I realized I was admiring something. And all the solos were excellent. It wasn't like one was good and the other, they were all like superior. But I I found myself admiring one particular thing. And um, so I decided to pay attention to see what I admired. And it was difficult because every time that person played, I went right into right brain, just ah, you know, nirvana, you know, and I couldn't analyze it. And then that person would stop playing and other people would play, and I was appreciative of everyone's playing. And I thought, now the next time they play, I'm really going to study it. But as soon as they played, I flipped right into my right brain again. But it took me um all of the rehearsals and one of the concerts before I finally put my fingers on what I was admiring. And it has become an important part of my playing now, which is called which I call phrase lining. I have a lot of silly phrases. I actually have my own full-on language for my and I know you know that because you're in my family. But um outsiders don't always understand what the terms mean or they can sound s silly phrases.
SPEAKER_02Phrase lining is new.
SPEAKER_01I hadn't, I didn't remember you It's basically I listened to this player play, and she when she was playing, it sounded like she never took a breath and there was never a rest. But her part was filled with rests and breaths. It also sounded like she was slurring all the time, except she was tonguing often with beautiful articulation. And it what it was was that she was from the moment she played looking straight down three blocks in front of her and to the right. I mean, she knew right where she was heading the whole time she played, and nothing diverted her from the direction of that. So remember the calling card thing. She had a beautiful sound. Then that beautiful sound never stopped. She had that what I call forever response where the the note trailed off and then the next one started. There wasn't a stop. So it sounded continuous and it kept me. It's like a Shaherazad telling a story that never ends, but however, and then it was continuous with a beautiful sound, and it was continuous like that. It was, I couldn't stop listening to it. And so, is there something to listen to when you're bored with your own part? You bet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. My favorite one of your language, or of in this case, symbols, is the dollar sign. That's my favorite one for anybody who doesn't know the dollar sign is. You would think it'd be like like money, like nice job. You would be wrong. It means you have paid the price for incorrect trumpet playing. It's one of my favorite ones because it seems like it could be a good thing. Yeah. But you'd be mistaken. So um, so I think we left off. There's interlock and there's Tanglewood. So then uh Northwestern, and then you what what was what was your first Northwestern?
SPEAKER_01You know, I I ended up going to finishing school there, although I didn't, you know, I was doing my master's when I got my jobs. I was lucky enough to play extra with um Lyric and with CSO, and I recorded with CSO, I toured with them. This was a dream for me. Um, because um, you know, my heroes were, you know, I got to hear them on a weekly basis. I got to play with them regularly. Um and it's funny, I began taking auditions, and uh well, Phil Smith um was when he when he got in the orchestra. Um, we I ended up playing a lot, and I met Charlie Geyer at this time. The first audition that I won was um principal in Grant Park. And um and that it's a summer orchestra, but that was a fantastic.
SPEAKER_02I feel like telling that story. The story.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the audition story. Yeah, I guess I could tell that story. I I I I love telling stories about fail failures I've had because my students, they just think everybody uh above them is uh perfect and everything was all perfect in their life, and there's no such thing. Um but uh yeah, that was a funny audition. Uh, I felt great playing that audition. Uh and I was well prepared and I felt bold. I felt like I could go for it and take risks. And that's another thing about any great player is that you, when you hear a great player, you love that they go for it, that they take risks when they play. The thing is, that's how that player plays all the time. So it's not actually a risk for that player. That is how they play. And that I had gotten to that point on the excerpts that I heard it in my head before I played it. I'm thinking particularly, I'm remembering Shostakovich's piano. Bum bum da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And I hear it in my head before I play it. I know just what I want to do. And then it's like I'm I'm channeling it. I'm not even playing trumpet. I'm just going into some zen state and it's coming out because I have it so loud in my head. And so this whole audition feels like this for me. There were other good players there, and it got down to two of us. The other player was an excellent player, much older, much more experienced. I was still in college. And Slatkin was running the audition, and um I could tell he was liking my play and no screen, and we're just playing. And then he said, like to do some sight reading. And I said, sure, I'm feeling very confident. And he pulls up some.
SPEAKER_02Anything but Shike 4, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay, I've improved a lot since it. All right, so it's Petrushka, and it's um, I think it's the original version. So the beginning, 5-8-7-8-8-8, you know, and and it's the first part. And even though I knew the solos terribly well from Petrushka, I hadn't played the whole piece yet. And I sort of knew this in my brain, but not really. And put they put it on the stand, and and Slacken is smiling at me, and I'm looking at the music and I'm sort of smiling, but I know I need like 15 private minutes to get this in my brain, and I don't have it. And I'm sort of still smiling, but I'm sort of staring at it, trying to get the rhythms in my bones. At which point he says, Okay, let's do it. And I said, Okay. And I played it not well. And he sort of almost chuckled and he said, I bet you'd like to do that again. And I said, I would. Only I knew it wasn't going to be very different because I hadn't gotten it yet. So I tried harder the next time to play it, but it wasn't great. And this time there was a little quiet. The room sounded very quiet when I finished. And he said, Would you like to play it again? And I said, I would. And I played it again, it still wasn't great. And then he said, Thank you. That's all we need. And I thought, no, I can't even say what I thought. So, uh-huh, fine. So I left. In fact, I left and I walked right out of the building and into my car and walked right back and drove right back to my apartment and like drank a beer. I mean, or several. I just I, you know, it didn't occur to me until much later that night that there were the light was on on my phone machine, back when we had those. And I pushed the button and it was the personnel manager who said, You won the job. Why did you leave? Much later. Oh, I forgot I left out a very important part. So Slatkin said, when he said that last time, he said, he said, Do you want to do it again? I said, Yes, and I said, and I laughed and I said, I'm sorry, I'm having a little metal block right now. And he said, Okay, that's all we need. So that's when I went home. Anyway, so I won the job. Yeah. So later on, much later, when I felt confident, I asked him about that. I said, I was surprised you hired me after I stepped all over Petrushka. And he said, You seemed so poised about it. It didn't seem to phase you, so it didn't phase me. So, okay, so I learned a lesson about that. Um, but that was a that was a great job for me. That was a huge learning experience. And I sold with him. Charlie and I played Vivaldi and some stuff, and it was it was wonderful. And but then most of the auditions were in Canada that year. I mean, there was the CSO audition that Phil won, and I did try for that. I played well, but not great. And Phil won it, and obviously we know now how wonderful a player he was. And it was good that he was in town then for that next little bit because the three of us, um, because I was getting to know Charlie Geyer then at that point, we ended up playing together a lot over the next few years because I kept coming back to Chicago to play Grant Park in the summers. But the auditions at that point were almost all in Canada. And interestingly enough, I tell my students all the time, taking auditions is like learning any new technique. You have to do it to be good at it. So the first audition I took was Toronto, and I advanced, but I didn't get it. I didn't, I I don't think I was, I think I only advanced once. Or maybe I advanced to finals, but I didn't, I didn't get it. But then I no, I advanced once. Then the next one was for principal in Montreal, and I got down to the final three. And that that's when they hired Jim Thompson, and he was a little older and more experienced. He'd already been playing in an orchestra somewhere, maybe Mexico, I think. Um so, but that was cool. I was really close. Final three. And then the next one was Vancouver that I that I won. So for me, it felt like a process of taking those auditions.
SPEAKER_02How far do you remember how far apart they were? They were all within that year.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, they were all within months apart or probably months apart. And um yeah, that was that was very that was that was an interesting time. Also, I I can counsel people because at I remember at the Montreal audition, there were some players that showed up that were older than I was and more experienced than I was, that we all saw each other at that audition. And I looked at them thinking, oh, they're here. And they were more experienced and older. And I'm sure they looked at me and thought, oh, she's here. Yeah, big no competition there, you know. Except it's like a young baseball team, you know. So maybe in a best out of seven, the older, more experienced team will win more of them. But in one game, anything can happen. Anything goes. So we all saw each other at this audition, we all played, none of them advanced. And they went, whoa, she advanced. And I thought, I advanced. And so you really learn that because I was nobody then, I was a dark horse, um, you know, and that's sort of a freedom. You can you go for it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then then then you have the time when you're expected to do well. You know, it's like, okay, you're out of school, got to win a job now. There's that sort of expectation time. And then there's a third level, which is now you're well known. And in fact, the last audition, I I can probably get there through through other I should get there chronologically, but that's a different level when you are somebody known. How is that known person gonna do at this audition? That's a different kind of pressure as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, so um, anyway, so then I I basically went to Vancouver and I played there for five, six years, coming back in the summers to do Grant Park.
SPEAKER_02But um Did you have the was it a full-time group in Vancouver? Oh yeah, not full-time, sorry, full year. Did you have the summers off there that that made it easy?
SPEAKER_01Yes, some of the summers off. So it was very interesting. Charlie Geyer and I have have compared our experiences. He's eight years older than I am, I am, so he had started much before me. So when we were first together, he was more experienced. And but we compared our experiences when we got our jobs, and he, you know, he got into Chicago Symphony, which was everyone was older, very much older, and very established, you know. And I got into Vancouver, which was a young-ish orchestra. We were all like hot shots right out of school. So it wasn't as amazing level as a Chicago, but it was an amazing level that we were all at the same place, all exciting. It was yeah, it was exciting. I mean, they're very different, very different situations.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but that's kind of interesting that it would be it was very interesting. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, so only I only did that for five, six years, and then Charlie and I at that point had become, you know, we wanted to be together. And that was difficult to find. And um, we did actually find a way to do it, but it was it was unusual the way it came about. And that's another thing I should talk to some of the people listening about about aiming for certain things that you end up with something maybe different than you expect. But um, all I ever wanted to do really was playing an orchestra. I never wanted to teach. And you can ask anybody who knew me back in college, and that was the I wasn't a music ed major. I had no interest in music ed. I had no interest in teaching. However, I will tell you that I've been teaching since I was about 13 or 14. I had all the neighbors wanted to study with me. When I was a student at Northwestern, I had like a 35-year-old man who was wanted to take some lessons with me. And I had another older, I this is so funny too. I had another gentleman who asked it to, he had heard me in some concert at with Music of the Broke, and he wanted to take lessons with me. And he was um like an amateur, but he was a very fine player. And lo and behold, last year at the Music of the Broke gala, we performed and then we sat to at dinner, and one of the people on the board sitting next to me, yes, it was that guy. He said, Do you remember I had a lesson with you? I said, What? When? And he said, I said, Oh, you were that guy. How random. How random is that? Wow. I know. So I've so I've always I've always taught, and even when I was really young, and I taught a lot of people who were older than I was, I've always taught, but I didn't value it. I did it to help people, but I didn't want to do that. That wasn't what I wanted to do. But that year year when Charlie and I were trying to get it together, and it was very hard. Any, as as many of you might know, long distance relationships are part of the problem we have. Musicians, you know, we look like regular people, but we're not. We aren't. And um, if you have relationships with people who are non-musicians, good luck with that. And if you find the right one, then that's amazing and wonderful. But good luck with that, because we just aren't really regular people. And people don't understand that we can't just not play on weekends because we don't want to, and we can't just take vacations for weeks without our trumpet.
SPEAKER_02And we just aren't regular people, just uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01So constant, yeah. So, you know, uh when we were trying to find a way to be together, it we there were many funny or interesting stories about that time that I think most people don't know. But uh Charlie at that point had just left Chicago. Phil had left Chicago to play go play principal in New York, and Charlie wanted to do a similar thing, and he won the position of principal in Houston. So he had moved from he was fourth trumpet in Chicago, then he'd moved up to second when I was now in Vancouver and Grant Park. He was second in Chicago, and then he had he won the position of principal in Houston. So now he's in Houston and I'm in Vancouver. I mean, we're getting farther and farther apart, and still thinking we'd like to have our lives be together, but not having any idea how to do it. It's hard enough with any two musicians, let alone two ambitious trumpet players, play the same instrument. Very difficult. So we actually managed three things that year that that were possibilities. One was that the Vancouver Symphony was interested in maybe bringing Charlie in to be fourth trumpet and personnel manager. Now, Charlie was well qualified for that. He'd been fourth trumpet in Chicago, so he was certainly qualified to be fourth trumpet in Vancouver, and he's good with people, he would have made a fine personnel manager. But I was worried that I would be a big superstar there and come home after playing Mahler Five and feel like high as a kite and excited, and he'd maybe be like, I'm playing fourth, I didn't have very much to do. That did I wasn't sure that would I was worried what either or each of us giving up something to be together, how what would that might do?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's completely.
SPEAKER_01And I was very naive also about about uh, you know, permanent relationships. I didn't even believe they were really possible or even advisable, to be honest. To be honest. Um, so and then the other possibility was Houston, because his new music director in Houston was Sergio Camissiona. Well, he was our regular guest in Vancouver.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so he knew who he was.
SPEAKER_01So he loved my playing, he loved Charlie as his principal trumpet, and he said, I could bring you down to Houston to play co-principal with Charlie. You can both be principal. Well, that was exactly what we both wanted to do. Except I said, Well, what? Hold it. There's no opening though. He said, Well, right, I'll I'll fire someone. Whoa. Right. So we're like, what? No, this is like terrible karma.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Terrible, terrible. Like, who doesn't want to drive the karma bus, right? Everyone wants to drive the Karma bus. So that's really bad. So, and then out of the blue, Eastman School of Music. We don't have no connection with it. We don't know the director, Robert Freeman, Bob Freeman. But he contacts us. They have been searching for a trumpet for a while now. And um, Tom Stevens had said he would take it, and he was very seriously interested in it. But the last minute he decided not to take it. So they don't have someone. Well, they can't, he contacts us. He's a very savvy man. He's still around. He's our friend. He is a, I am grateful to him. I hope he listens to this. He helped create what is known as Butler Geyer. Right. He did. He created this because of what he offered us at Eastman.
SPEAKER_02It's incredible to think about that. It's it's been around for so long now. You know, it's hard to think like in the beginning that someone is like responsible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was Bob Freeman. And what he did was he was, as I said, he was savvy. He contacted, I think he called me, and maybe maybe Charlie was visiting up in Vancouver, but whatever. He he called and he said, We're interested in you guys coming to maybe teach here. And I said, Well, do you have two openings? Because we're two people. And he said, Well, we could, but he said, Why don't you just come check it out? I'll I know you guys are in different countries, so you can come be in the same city. I'll pay you to come in and do a masterclass and a little recital and come check it out. We're like, sure, somebody's paying us to be in the same city. That sounds fun. So we went to check it out and not being very interested in it. Why would I leave my orchestra? I've only been in there a short amount of time. And that's what I'm meant to do. That's where I feel the most at home. That's where I feel home. So, oh, fine, we'll come check it out. So Charlie leaves Houston, I leave Vancouver, we go meet in Eastman. We do a class, we perform together, and we do, we teach. And we are aware that they need us. It feels like they need us. I can't say that strongly enough. I don't mean they were desperate. They weren't desperate. Many people wanted that job. It was an excellent job. But it just felt, I don't know, it felt like they needed us, the two of us. And but we had a long back and forth about that. I said, I'd be giving up my orchestra job. Charlie said, so would I. Oh, well, I guess that's equal sacrifice. So nobody's sacrificing more than the other one. And my biggest question was, what if I don't like it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, how would you and I don't have my job anymore? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the answer that hit me in the head like a thunderbolt was have some confidence in yourself. If you don't like the job, go win another one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's so interesting. That that's like the young you, you know, like just going after it. Like that's really interesting. That that's what would almost like encourage you to then take the job is like, well, I can always just find something else.
SPEAKER_01Otherwise, you're fear-based.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And I I know enough that that's not a way to live your life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we gave up our positions to go there. And we ended up staying there for 18 years. I was worried about leaving the orchestra, and we were thrilled that the Eastman Brass was a very serious group. And in fact, it was so serious. And I was it was important to me. And I asked if we can meet three times a week, two hours at a time, minimum six hours a week. And, you know, I wanted to tour and record, and we did all of that. And it was it was based on the way a string quartet rehearses. That it's it's deep and it's your life. It's not perhaps a little bit for a gig. It's your person, it's your identity. And so we invested in this. And of course, we had Vern Reynolds and John Marcellus and Cherry Beauregard. And Vern Reynolds was the soul of that group. He was he was a huge mentor to me. Huge. I can't overstate that. For 18 years, he was like the Herseth had been for the young me. And that was very important. But I missed the orchestra. So I took a leave of absence at one point and went to play with St. Louis Symphony because Slatkin was the conductor there. And remember, he had hired me in St. Louis and I mean in uh in uh Grant Park, so he knew my playing. That was that was an important time for me that I did that. And then there was the last audition I took. The last audition I took was for principal trumpet in Cleveland. Now I had returned from St. Louis to teach at Eastman, and I honestly didn't know where I was meant to be because I still felt like I was supposed to be playing in an orchestra. Now keep in mind, I play in an orchestra all the time. I mean, I mean, I don't mean every day, but I mean I uh we had been playing at the Grand Teton Music Festival for, you know, since the mid-80s, and uh I played in guest situations with orchestras, played extra with lots of orchestras, and so I was still playing orchestral music a lot, but my primary job wasn't playing in an orchestra, and so I missed it. So I played with St. Louis, but then I went back to Eastman. And now there was an opening for Principal Trumpet in Cleveland. And I'd always thought maybe I should be principal trumpet of a really big orchestra. And so I decided that maybe I could let fate decide this for me, that I would, I would prepare for this the hardest I'd ever prepared for anything in my life. And if it was meant to be, I would have that, and that would be what I was meant to be doing. So I allowed my students at Eastman to know I was auditioning for this. I wasn't secretive. I mean, they didn't, well, it's not like you, you're so Mr. Cher, everybody's hearing you. I mean, I I I was way more private than that. So I didn't do that. But I told them I was auditioning for it. And I kept a, which I still have, and I know it floats around there. It's like a two-hour practice session of it was it was basically of uh there are two streams that you need to win an audition. You need the trumpet playing stream to be the best you've ever been. And if you were good enough to get such and such a job, and now you want a better job, you can't just duplicate being that good. You have to now be better than you were then to get a better job. So I knew I couldn't be the same level I was to get Vancouver. I would need to be better to get a better job, principal in Cleveland. And um, so I practiced this way. Every day I woke up, as I do every day, and I think, when am I practicing today? That is still one of the first thoughts I have of my day, every day of my life. And so then it was all about that audition. So I did, I I had a couple interesting things happen at that audition. One of the interesting things was it was the first time I ever took an audition where there was one of my students at that audition. And that really freaked me out because I don't compete with my students and I never have. But coming back to why I was taking this audition, which is the last audition I took, I know that many of you would relate to this, and that is that you're not sure what you're meant to be doing, and you're not sure where you're meant to be. And so we circle around to the word fate and wondering if we're fated to be in a certain job and in a certain town and with certain people. But if fate is real, I can't believe that God would gift you with your best fate if you sit on your butt in your living room. And so at that point in my life, I wasn't sure if I was meant to be playing in an orchestra. And that was a principal job in a great orchestra. And so I thought that was very worthy of my trying.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01And so I committed to to going to this audition. And it's funny because something I've learned over many, many years is that if you don't commit to trying all the way to anything, then you never really fail. Because you can say, you didn't try all the way.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01You could say I didn't start my preparation until three weeks before that audition. I didn't learn that excerpt until last week. Uh, I didn't tape myself as much as I usually would. I didn't play mocks for people, I didn't blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank. Right. So those people are giving themselves an out or a pass for why they didn't fail if they lose. The only thing is if you don't commit all the way, well, sure you can say you didn't fail because you didn't try all the way, but I don't think you have a chance to succeed. I think the only chance you have to succeed is when you have, like it's a tightrope, and you're trying to go walk across a tightrope and you have removed the safety net and you've put all your eggs in one basket, and you have completely committed to trying as hard as you can, and everyone is observing that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01And then when you fail, because we all take turns failing, they'll see that you fail. But that shouldn't be as important to you as the fact that that full commit is your best chance of success.
SPEAKER_02Ansel said this in his podcast interview that I did with him. I said, you know, what did you do? That the question I always start with is, did you add anything to your preparation, or did you kind of redo things, or how did you structure it, or kind of just what were what are your thoughts? And Ansel basically was like, I just actually tried as hard as I possibly could. You know, it's but it's such an interesting thing. But then I think into my preparation and um I've won jobs, and so and I've tried really hard at some auditions and things like that, but then I ask myself, have I done everything possible that I could have done? And is that why recently is that why I'm not advancing at these auditions? And then this that's what that series really turned things around for me in that thought. Like it's not guaranteeing success, but when you listen to like 14 people who have won a job say, I won this job because I prepared this way, it you start to get this feeling that your preparation matters. It's not just this half hazard, like how seriously you take it and how seriously they took it is probably why they were serious, or sorry, successful. And it really changed that for me in terms of it's not a crapshoot, it's not as much luck. There is some luck involved, but I think where I specifically am all too happy to just say, oh, that's just like how it goes, and to not take own, exactly like you said, to take ownership of like, am I doing everything?
SPEAKER_01I think you you as much as possible, you are making your own luck and you are setting yourself up for success. The the huge, incredible best preparation in your life for everything you want is it not only ensures that you're likely to succeed, but if you don't succeed, then you have the satisfaction of having done that preparation, lifted yourself to a new higher level you never were before, and you'll never go back to that one. The people that don't take professional auditions anymore, I'm including myself, I'm it's a little sad because every if you when you take them seriously and you do them the way you're supposed to, you are permanently better by every one you take. And you don't slide back to that level 16. Now I'm on level 17.
SPEAKER_02That's something. Sorry to I know you're you you have like a plan for where you're headed, but uh Chris Smith said that in his interview. He said he's coming up on, I think it's like 13 years since he won um, I think it's the Montreal job, I can't remember, or 11 years, I think it was, or and something like that. Anyway, he just won that San Diego position, and he said to himself, like, would I have planned it that way, you know? Would I have planned, okay, in 11 years from now, that's when I'm gonna win my next thing. And and and it was like, of course not. But he's like, I'm a better player, I'm a better musician, and I'm just a better person through putting myself through this process that you start to realize kind of how purifying this really kind of rough system can be.
SPEAKER_01It's not a perfect system, but it is our system. And the people that rail against it, well, I didn't have enough warm-up time. They came and got me too soon. I had too much warm-up time. They waited, they came an hour late. The room was cold, the room was hot, I heard noise. All of those people, they they they're not gonna win because uh the other people that did win that day, they dealt with that. They just dealt. And you have to do what it takes to get what you want. Period. End of sentence, and stop comparing yourself to others and what they are or aren't doing. It doesn't matter. It only matters what you need to do. And you might need to practice many, many more repetitions of something to feel ownership of it. Or you might need to practice half speed for much longer to have ownership of it. You might need to uh play for other people's ears more than someone else needs to. Doesn't matter what they nothing, it's all about they. It's what you need to do. Yeah um and an interesting story about this committing all the way is um Tim Kent, who used to be fourth trumpet in Chicago, wrote a book about his time with in Chicago and with Hursith. Um, Bud was his teacher, longtime teacher, and then he ended up playing in the section with his mentor, and how great is that! And he wrote this book called Uh In the Sphere of the Master, I think is the name of it. He talks about his preparation for that winning that job in Chicago. Now he was a fine player, but there were other fine players around. He played his audition. He knew one or two years in advance they were going to have an audition. He knew likely pieces to be on the audition. So for that one or two years, I can't remember, but for that time, he played 250 auditions in preparation. He played in his living room for family and neighbors. Then he played for nursing homes, where he would say to the people there, this is uh, this represents a dance. This is a ballerina dancing. This is a this is in Rome, this is in the catacombs, but outside in the sun. And you're hearing this. He had, you know, pictures, the promenade isn't some guy walking somewhere. It's not a made-up story. It's actually Mazorski. He's actually walking in a gallery in, I think it was 1873 or four, when his actual friend, Victor Hartman, died. And he's actually looking at actual pictures. This isn't a theory, a story. He is walking and looking at these pictures, and his friend Victor Hartman has died at a young age. And so we have all these words over the over that passage that we play when we start the whole symphony, and the most unusual words are Nalmodo Rusiko, which means in the Russian style. And so, what does that mean? You know, more vodka, and you know, so you're you're thinking about what this means and what did he feel? Oh, he's probably felt sad. Does that music sound sad? It doesn't sound sad at all. Right. So I read, and everybody in the world can play that. Not everyone plays it beautifully, but people, that's not difficult to play. So when I was trying to find my iconic way of playing that piece, I read and read and read and read until I found a book about Victor Hartman. And it said that he was beloved by the Russian people, that everything he painted, he did architectural drawings, the Great Gate, he did choreography for ballet for ballets, the uh the chicks, he did uh oil paintings, the rich Jew and the poor Jew. He did many different kinds of art, but everyone said his art was the soul of Mother Russia. And so, what do I think Mazorski felt when he was walking through there? I think he was feeling nationalistic pride as well as the emotion of his friend. And that's how I think I should need to play it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So I don't know, the preparation. So Tim Kent did this, he did 250 concerts of the eight excerpts he was gonna play. And, you know, did he deserve to win that? You bet he did.
SPEAKER_02It's cool too, because you could say that's a bit over preparation, you know, but in the end, he got the thing that everybody who showed up wanted, and then he played in the Chicago Symphony, and kind of doesn't matter at that point, right? He did what he, like you said, what he had to do, and that's gonna be different for everybody.
SPEAKER_01So going to Cleveland, I wasn't sure what I was meant to be doing, like a lot of you listening aren't sure. And so I tried my hardest for this. It was a many months preparation, and I kept a record of what I was doing. I saw one of my students, as I just said, at this audition, which was really weird because I I I immediately felt myself wanting to do nothing but help that person. And I said, I need to take care of myself, I'm actually taking this audition. He said, What? You know, so um anyway, I advanced to the finals. It was a slightly funny because I was leaving the stage as if I hadn't, and then somebody came running after me. Wait, you advanced. But it got down to five of us, and I did not win. Mike Sachs won. Mike Sachs is a great player, and that job is Mike's job. Yeah, it suits Mike. He made it his, it's his orchestra. The orchestra fits him, he fits the orchestra. That was, I think it was meant to be. I played well. I was very proud of how I played in my preparation. I had nice comments from John Max and various people on the orchestra committee, but I didn't win it. And after that, I thought about am I doing what I'm meant to be doing? I was teaching at Eastman at that point. Am I meant to be doing that? And then I had a very interesting story. A friend of mine in the Chicago Symphony was talking to me, and we were complaining about our busy schedule. And she was saying, Oh, I have to do this and I don't have time to do this. And I was complaining, oh, and I have all these things. And she said, Well, it's easy for you. You've got the perfect life. And I said, What? What do you mean? You're in the Chicago Symphony. And she said, Yeah, but look at you, you you play orchestra, you play solos all over the world, you play in a fabulous chamber music group, and you have this family, this studio is like a family, and everyone knows you, and you have a good reputation out there, and blah, blah, blah. And I thought, oh my God, she's envying me, and this this whole grass is greener that we all do.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01It's ridiculous. And I felt myself just like have one of those moments in time when time just stops and you have this epiphany. And honestly, I'm not very much a person who deals in past and relives it out of pleasure or wishes I could do it better, do it over and do it better, or worrying about the future. I'm very much now. I mean, I almost bought a watch recently, and the the entire face of the watch just had it just said now. So every time you looked at what time it was, it said it's right now. You know, so at that point, I felt like, you know, maybe I am doing what I'm meant to be doing. And that I felt very not only calm, I didn't feel resigned. I felt proud. Yeah. So that was that was important. Now I have changed jobs twice since then. Um we spent 18 years there at Eastman, and then near the end of that, I had a baby. And that was really different. And it was the most it was the best thing I've ever done in my whole life, and the thing I'm most proud of in my whole life. Um, but it was different. It was hard. A lot of our playing was in Chicago. A lot of the groups we played with were in Chicago. And so, first of all, I took a maternity leave. And for those of you out there who think that teaching is an easy job compared to playing, I want you to know that my maternity leave was playing associate principal trumpet with the Houston Symphony because it was so much easier than teaching at Eastman.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01And one of our students, Jim Wilt, who was uh associate in Houston, had just won fourth in New York, Phil. And he wanted to try it for a year, but Houston was trying to decide if they would allow him to leave. They won didn't want him to leave. And he said, What if I got Butler and Geyer to come in and sub for me in Houston? And they were like, oh, well, that's fine. And so, and I thought, well, I just had a baby, you know, five seconds ago, but you know, this would be cool. And so we did that. So I went down and I played associate for the first half of the year, and then Charlie Geyer played associate for the second half of the year. But at that point, I was as Jory was starting to get older, I was starting to picture what would happen for me to go to Chicago to play all my concerts. So either I would be dragging her out of school every time I played concerts in Chicago, or I would be leaving her with somebody else raising her while I was playing concerts, or I would never play concerts. All those three things sound really bad to me. Yeah. And at that time, um Chickwitz, our Vince Chickwitz, our my teacher and Charlie Gar's teacher, um, he retired. And he um and they came courting. And so we looked at that job very seriously. It's always felt like bad karma to me. The people that are always trying to get something better than what they have. That they're never satisfied. I need something better, better, better. And I felt like I we had a great thing at Eastman. Bob Freeman, the the director there, had said to us, You design whatever you think is the perfect trumpet studio, and I will back you. And that is what we had done.
SPEAKER_02Back sport is amazing, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. And so, but we had to look at this seriously at Northwestern because then we would be in the same town where we played. And so we did end up taking that. And that was a dream job. We're Chicago players. We both went to Northwestern. We're Chicago people. We played with CCM there and several orchestras there. We had tons of friends there. We were Midwesterners. That's where we both grew up in the Midwest. We had Cubs, we had Unos, we had so many things we loved. And we thought we'd stay there until we crowed. And and then after 15 years, the teacher here at Rice University, Shepherd School of Music, it was Marie Spisiale. She was she was getting ready to retire and they came courting. Now, I have to tell you, I still miss Eastman and I still miss Northwestern. I don't have anything bad to say about those places. They were awesome. I'm so proud of those jobs. But at it seemed like a risk to take rice because everything was going so perfectly for us in Chicago.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That seems like bad karma again to try to try to take another forward step on the chessboard. What if you don't need to do that? But the more we looked at it, it was hard to resist. It's a very small studio here at Rice. So it's a it's it's a ridiculous luxury to have two trumpet teachers here. But we had become this sort of franchise or something. So it wasn't, you couldn't hire one of us. We were what we were.
SPEAKER_02Right. You had basically, and certainly through the success that you've experienced, I think you've proven that the franchise works, right? You know, the dynasty of how many this board I'm staring at right here with all of the the people you've had, where where are Butler Geyer students? I mean, you've certainly earned it through. That's one of the things I really uh admire is it's not just like smoke and mirrors. It's like clearly the proof is in the pudding. And so the amount of demand, and well, you guys have earned that through the fact that you've worked so hard. But as we've learned, as I've learned, you know, both, and then Charlie's episode earlier today, just never stopped learning how to do things better, whether it's playing or teaching, how to better serve your students, how to better help them realize their goals. I mean, I I've had a lot of really great teaching in my life, but I'm like in the place. I have a great life, and you're like at least a third to thank for it. And that's like, you know, it's hard to realize, it's hard to put myself in that position of realizing that. I mean, of course, I'm happy to say that, but like that is never something that I or probably anybody else could repay. You know, I have, like I said, this life is incredible, and you've done that for so many people. So it makes so much sense that a school would be like, of course, we would take take the the franchise at that point because it works. And it's yeah, you've just, I don't know, I'm I don't know, I'm rambling at this point, just how appreciative I am.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. You know, it's we don't need to be thanked, um, because the what we do is what gives us it's that's our mission, uh to be honest. That's that's what we do. That's what I do is I help people. I tried to think about what I would do if I didn't do this. If I if I weren't a musician, maybe what would I do? And I don't know. I mean, probably be a horse trainer, maybe a shrink. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Do you feel like you would still be in like geared towards helping people? Do you know what I mean? Like obviously you started in this thing of I'm gonna be a great, you know, principal player or a great player in a great orchestra, and you've, you know, you obviously still do all that stuff, as we've covered, but it seems like helping people is a big part of like who you are. And I wonder if that would have maintained no matter what career path you chose.
SPEAKER_01Well, you you do at some point think about what your legacy is. What did you make any difference at all that you lived on this earth? Now, if you are a parent, and I'm thank God I am, then there's your legacy. But also, my legacy is you. My legacy is you, Ryan. That's what it is. I hope people remember my playing and still can hear recordings, but that's not my legacy. My legacy is you. You know, when Charlie and I started this, I mean it was very interesting because two trumpet players, you would you would imagine how that it might be um competitive.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_01And that's undeniably something that we have had to deal with. But you can't have a relationship or a marriage that lasts a long time if it's destructive. So we have we had to way back at the beginning sort this out. And we weren't really exactly, we're very equal footing now. But at the beginning, I mean, he had started his career much earlier, right? And so I was more of the unknown one. And um, for instance, when we we played together everywhere, I mean, we've done multiple recordings of the two of us, three, three at least. Um, we've soloed all over the world. We soloed in Spain and Japan and China and Italy, and we've just performed together in orchestras in the Grand Tetons and other orchestras we play in chamber music, Eastman Brass and CCM Brass, and uh we with just so many things we've done together. When we first started playing together, we always sounded better when I was playing first. And it wasn't because I was a better first player, it was because he was a better second player. He had been fourth and second in Chicago, and he had really learned how to do that. I had played subsection, but I'd played more principal than second. And so we had discussed this because that wasn't really fair to him that we sounded so good when I was playing first. And so then I had to learn how to play second. And this was a specialty um art that unless you are listening to me now and you play a lot of second and you know what I'm talking about, and you're nodding your head, unless you have done this, you don't realize until you do it how you have to completely 100% devote yourself to doing that to be good at it. It doesn't mean that you can't also play principle, but the people that do both are a bit rare. I agree. Um, and I do both, and Charlie Geyer does both. And we had to make a real pact that we would be, we would both do this and and do this well. And because of this, we have given an award for many, many years at uh for our um solo class at the end of each year for the best second player in the school, the best section player in the school. This is not, we don't choose this, of course, the students vote amongst themselves. And interestingly enough, only one person has won this award three times. And that is something that is someone that we think of as one of the top principal players in the world today. And it's Chris Martin.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And he won it three times, being the best section player, the best second player, because he also devoted himself once sitting in that chair to making the other person sound great. So Charlie and I have had to work out so many weird things. And you can you could think of uh the maybe the the downside of two trumpet players living together. Oh, they're you have to hear each other all day long and they're competing, but there's a lot of upside to it. One thing is that it's very hard to plateau when the other one is still working and not plateauing.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01So that could be either of us at any time feeling a little tired, not sure you want to do a second practice session that night, but you hear the other person playing and and they sound great, and you're thinking, yeah, I should do another session too. Or you hear the other person doing something that you remember I talked about if you admire something. So you hear somebody, oh, that that articulation sounds sweeter than what I do. I I need to work a little more on that articulation. Oh, I haven't done that, practiced that technique in a while. I should brush that one up again. Or oh, the sustained high notes, the way they're sustaining that high note, that would be good for me to check that again, too. Also, if I have a great evening performance that it's just top of the world, he understands how I feel. If I have a disappointment and something didn't go as well as it had in rehearsal, and the concert was okay, but not as good as it I wanted it to be, and I'm really disappointed. I'm not a baby about it, but I I'm personally disappointed he understands.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, someone who's not a musician might not be able to support you in a similar way, not having that empathetic response. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I have a hysterical story about the uh fellow I was dating right before I started hanging out with Charlie. And I'm trying to decide if I want to tell the world this story. I think I will.
SPEAKER_02So um I I the world is like 150 people, by the way.
SPEAKER_01It's okay, but there are 150 people who like to talk to each other.
SPEAKER_02Sure, that's true. We don't know how far this can go.
SPEAKER_01So I I was uh I had just one principal in Grant Park, and I um was in an apartment and I was I had to practice, and the fellow that I was spending time with, um, I said, I have to practice now. And he said, Okay, well, I'll just sit here and read a book. And I said, Well, that that makes me uncomfortable because and he said, I like concerts. And I said, Oh, it's not a concert. It's like fundamentals and long tones and tonguing, and it's not at all going to be a concert. It's just, it's really not at all. And he said, No, that's fine, I'll just read. So he sort of sat off a corner and he was reading. And after a while, I tuned him out and and I got really into my usual practice, and I played probably for an hour and a half until finally I stopped and I said, Okay, I think I'm shot. I think I need to stop now. And he's he smiled at me, closed his book, and he said, You sound great. And I said, Thanks. And then he said, You don't have to do that every day, do you? There it is. And that's what I thought. Oop, there it is. Yeah, like huge dead on the spot. Yeah. So anyway, the fact that Charlie and I had to learn how to live together, how to inspire or compete, but without harming the other person, how to give way and be a good second player to the other, how to lead gracefully with the other, and all of that, that is a large part of why our studio is so successful, because we don't have magic lips, we don't have magic ears, we don't have magic books. We have the same books and the same ears and the same similar background as so many other wonderful teachers out there. But the fact that we uh we have learned how to get along and to support each other and to build each other up and to learn from each other has drifted down into our studio.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when we were in school, you talked very much about how because you guys are a family, our the studio's there for we it was it was very familial. You know, we supported each other. And like you said, when it was when one person was up here, if they had a good day or they had a bad day, we were there to support and uh either be excited for them or to be like, you know, next time it's gonna be all right, you know, be inspired by other players. I mean, being at Northwestern at that time was was I mean, it's like Steve and Stuart, and I wasn't there when Billy was there, he's right after me. Um, Matt Barker, Anthony Ansel. I know. I remember Ansel, I told him the story yesterday. Ansel came in. Ansel Norris is he's gonna be second in Naples for second trumpet in Naples for whomever is listening to this that doesn't know him. Um he came in and his we were talking about this yesterday, his first solo class. He played the Jolave. Yep. And that was my first solo class. I played the Bima, and I was so upset at him. Because I was like, how dare he do that? How dare he come in here and just be like, I'm a freshman, but check this out. Look what I can do, you know. But so yeah, it was a, it was, I feel like, although I know it was a special time. I feel like I was like very fortunate to be in that group of people, um, hearing so much great playing and and and just listening to people, you know, William Cooper. Um, I remember like things he did, like piccolo playing and stuff, was like so nice, you know. And I was just thinking, this guy's not even he's so you know relaxed or you know what I mean? Like he wasn't this like superstar personality, he was just a guy that just played really well. And then when if you like happen to actually pay attention to what he was doing, you're like, oh whoa, like he actually is doing some really incredible things. He's just not overt about it. He's not like listen to how awesome I am. So even guys who maybe weren't hung, like he was hungry for it, but not in the same way I don't think I was hungry for it. Um, still, like everybody was doing it. And so to be have that kind of inspiration around you constantly, I think it's a blessing and a curse because it can also, it can also be like, oh, maybe I'll never get as good as these. But Charlie and I talked about that. Yeah. Maybe I'll never reach that. But if you choose the positive, it can be such a blessing.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's important that uh when I was in school, I don't think the the trumpet studios are necessarily felt as familial. And and I'm I'm still friends with some trumpet players from when I was in school, of course, but not everybody. And I and I think our our guys tend to stay, really stay friends. And it's because we really teach them that if they go to the same audition, if two of our students show up at the same audition, so player one doesn't have to secretly hope that player two screws up. Player one wants to win. Player two wants to win, they don't want their friend to win, they want to win, of course. But but they can't win on the other fellows screwing up. They only win if they bring it. Right. So they don't have to secretly wish their friend plays badly. And this is the crux of competition for me that based on the the enlightenment in Italy when uh they were having in in Florence when they were having a competition for the um the two doors of the baptistery. And um you can see on my door that's behind you in this studio those two etchings. So they had a competition for all the top artists in Italy, which there were so many. I I could just fill in so many names. And all they all competed to to for the commission to build these beautiful huge bronze doors. And the commission, the the competition was everyone had to do one brass panel that depicted the scene from the Bible where Isaac, uh Abraham is supposed to slay his son, Isaac, and and because God told him to, without any seeming reason, God told him to do it, and he's supposed to do it, and he obeys God, and just as he's about to do it, the angel stays his hand and says, No, you don't need to do that. God needed to know that you would do what he told you to do, blah, blah. So that was that was the what they were supposed to depict. And so what happened then is what I want to happen every week in our solo class, and I've wanted this for every year that I've taught. And that is that this first artist did the best they could, and the the public watched them designing this beautiful bronze. And then this other artist, they wanted to bring the best that they've they've ever made, and they designed it and the and the public watched them do it. And at the end of the time, you ended up with all these bronzes, and the public, as well as the judges, would look at this one and they would say, This bronze has the most detail I've ever seen in metal. It's astonishing. We've never seen anything like that in life. And then this other one is evocative. I feel like I'm there at the scene. And this other one actually is describing the words in the Bible down to the T. It's just everything. And what happened was that everyone brought their personal best. So really everyone was a winner because they had brought their personal best. Now, at the end of the day, one was chosen to win. And I challenge you in looking at those that I have on my wall here that you listeners can't hear. They're both best. There's not one good and one that isn't as good. They're both best. So every single week in solo class, one of our guys stands up and plays and they bring their personal best the best they can that day. And everyone goes, wow. And then the next guy doesn't think, I hope I can be as good. They're not concerned anymore with him or her. Now they want to bring their personal best on their piece. And the next one wants so there isn't ever one winner week to week. There are multiple people who brought their personal best that day. And also the other thing that you all need to realize is that there's a lot of music schools in this country, and they all have trumpet teachers, and they're all filled with trumpet students. And those trumpet students are busy playing in band and orchestra and jazz band and new music and uh and Baroque music and uh quintets and everything, and they're busy, busy, busy, and they go home at Thanksgiving and Christmas and they tell their parents it's everything's great and fun, and they're so busy. And then after four years, they now want to get a performing job, if if indeed that's where they're they're aiming, is to get a performing job, they have a nasty reality shock. They go take an audition, and there is a secret higher level they didn't even know existed. What we are trying to do in our studio, as are other fine teachers, I don't separate myself from other fine teachers, I do not, but what we are trying to do is provide that nasty reality shock on a daily basis. So you are surrounded by such high level on a daily basis that when you go to these auditions, our students are not arrogant. They're not at all puffed up or feel they're better, but they do believe that there isn't a higher level. That if they play their best, they will be at the highest level.
SPEAKER_02That's very interesting. I I was thinking about while you were talking about that, I was thinking about playing for you now, like now, the last couple of days, and I was just thinking, you know, uh the what I was telling you about, I listened to somebody and I think that sounds good. You know what I mean? I I I not that I have a lesser standard, but maybe I'm not as nitpicky or something. And then I realized, of course, that's why I've come to play for you and Charlie, because you guys are very nitpicky. But that's very interesting too, because that's essentially, yeah, what it feels like is you're not saying, and it and it's hard. I was saying uh earlier, it's hard sometimes to um separate this, but you're not saying this isn't good, you're saying this is how it could be better. And you're also saying there are good things, like there's a lot of really good things, and so even it's just crazy to me sometimes, even in the midst of you saying this is good, it could be better, when you hear it could be better, it can still feel like bad. You know what I mean? It's it's very it's it's very interesting, but you're right now thinking back to, of course, you're right because you said it because it's your teaching, but yeah, thinking back to to school. That's it was just constantly, there was always always something, no matter how good you thought you got it. But I never felt like it wasn't good enough. There could just be more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's just it's sometimes hard for me listening to all of you. And I and I I recognize it with you, Ryan, but also many other people. I remember one time um teaching Ethan Bensdorf at a lesson, and and as people are getting ready to take um professional auditions and go for real things, I often stop sitting beside them and go sit out in front of them so I can get a real audience perspective. And I was out in front of Ethan and he was playing, and I went right into right brain dream state. He was sounding so beautiful. And I and I and he finished playing, and I I knew I wanted, and I did tell him how beautiful he sounded. I I love his playing, and I I listen, I I wanted to just say that's just beautiful, but I he was paying me to see if I could help him be better. Right. And so that's hard when I'm just falling into right brain because that means you guys are doing it all right. And that's what, and you should be able to hear me just say, wow. And and I do when something is like, I'll just say, Well, that's great. I don't have nothing else to say about that one. I'll just say that. But I'm still trying to find things. And we talked about how you help students believe in themselves. Yeah. And I I think it's very micro for me. It's it I listen to someone play a phrase and and and I can't say that you can't win on that. It's just not good. It's not good enough. But it's a specific to me. It's it's otherwise, it's like a my bad. There's no fix for my bad. So I'll say, you know, you always slow up on the pickup notes. And then when you finally arrive at the important note, it doesn't zing enough. It's there, but it doesn't zing. Okay, those are specific things. And implied is you fix those things, it can now be maybe the best I've ever heard of. It will zing, yeah. And I do believe in them 100%. So I I I'm helping strengthen them to believe in themselves because I believe in them.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think one one way one way I think you're helped by that is this board, I think. You know, it's a cool thing to be able to do, but um when you say something, I'll just tell you how I felt when I was at school. Basically, when you would say you're like you're ready, or if I played something and I would say, What do you think that they're gonna think if I play it like that? And you would just look at me and you go, I think they're gonna love you. I think they're gonna love your playing. Uh I would just say to myself, Okay. Like she's had so much success in her career in placing people in exactly what I would like to do. That it gave me this huge level of confidence of just feeling like Barbara says I'm ready, I'm good to go, you know? So now that I'm not exposed to that, that's clearly why I come back. It's not even for you to tell me that I'm ready, but just to make sure I'm constantly being as nitpicky as possible. How do you recommend for people to have that kind of confidence when they don't have someone like you who know who's had some amount of success that you can not guarantee success, but you can say, I've had students who are successful, this is what they're doing. When they leave that environment, how can they, like me, how can I find that level of confidence without you telling me it's there?
SPEAKER_01I think no one can play better than their ears. And while it is true that people will come from across oceans to take a lesson with me, and I'm very humbled and proud and honored to work with them, and I feel a lot of responsibility because it it's costing them a lot of money to do that, and I must help them.
SPEAKER_02Does that feel like a lot of pressure?
SPEAKER_01It does.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But that's okay because I that's what I do. But the thing is, they're I'm a good trumpet player, but they're not coming from my lips. They're coming from my ears. So, your question without some mentor listening to you on a somewhat regular basis, how can you know if you're sounding right and believe that you're sounding right to have that belief in yourself before you go play in public or do important recitals or play auditions or or something or competitions? Um, I think it's based on your ears. So I think those of you who are continuing to work on your ears are going to continue to get better. Some of my students I know listen all the time. And you know the reason I know it is because they come into lessons and we're talking about one particular passage and they say, Let me show you what the guy in Berlin sounded like versus when Phil Smith played it, versus when uh an old one of Hersith, and they clearly have not only listened, they've compared. And that means their their ears have gotten better. And if their ears get better, then their playing will always follow. And so if you I mean, I always ask people, who do you listen to the most? And they have a laundry list of famous players, and then I say, Nope, that's not who you listen to the most. How many hours do you practice per day? Yeah, yourself. Yeah, you keep you hear yourself more than any other trumpet player. So you just keep circling around hearing yourself and sounding like yourself. So if you want to enlarge your basket of abilities, then you need to add to it and you need to do that by your ears.
SPEAKER_02Do you feel it's a uh a situation where you have to listen as much as you play, then so that you're not hearing you're hearing something else?
SPEAKER_01No, that would be hard. Like if I practiced three hours a day and I wanted to sound more like uh more like Phil Smith, then I would have to listen to Phil Smith more than three hours a day. Well, so that's hard to do. So, but if I listen to Phil Smith on a regular basis and um I pick out some special particular phrases or recordings that just do it for me with his sound. And and if I listen very fairly regularly, if I tell my students, listen when you get up in the morning, listen when you're walking over to school, listen before you go to bed, but most importantly, listen right before you practice, then take your earbuds out and you practice. And as soon as you take a rest, which you should do if you have a brain in your head, when you're taking a rest and you put your trumpet down, put your those earbuds right back in. It's like Phil's sitting right next to you and he's playing, and then he's saying, Okay, now you do it. That's exactly what it's like. You just heard him, and now it's he's looking at you saying, Now you. And and then you play it, and you're going to be likely to imitate what you just heard. So it's key when you listen and that you do listen.
SPEAKER_02Do you think you ever reach a point where you think to yourself, or do you think you can reach a point where you ever think to yourself, I the way I sound is right, that I don't need to listen to Phil Smith on a regular basis anymore, that what I do is right?
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a hard question for me because I at the end of the day with myself, I am I'm fairly self-critical. So I I and I'm also hesitant to to settle. So I don't think that I'm ever as good as I want to be. I don't think that. There are certain things that I do when I play that I know can that are special, and and I and I know that, and I've been told that, but I do know that from my own ears too. But in general, no, I don't feel satisfied.
SPEAKER_02So do you think improving what you do is adding those special things from other players and those inspirations, or do you think it's spending more time honing both, both, both.
SPEAKER_01So I I may I maybe don't listen to as many recordings as a lot of my students do. Um, but every single time I do, I get an idea from it. Every single time. For instance, one of my students just last year brought in an old tape of Bud Hursith playing Promenade. I think it was on the stage of Orchestra Hall at somebody's lesson or something, and it was a very old tape and degraded, so it was like even a half step down or something. And and he was just demonstrating it. Astonishing. Astonishing. The buoyancy of the eighth notes, ba da dum, ba hi, dum, ba, the buoyancy of those is unparalleled. And he had a full sustain on the note. It wasn't like a Sforzano dung dung, it wasn't like a bell tone, full sustain until it butted up against the next note. But during the sustain, he had spin in his sound, like a little spin and vibrato in it. But it didn't go day, day. It was da through the entire note. And there was a little like a ping on the front. Three separate elements that are hard to do simultaneously that he did seemingly without effort.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01Unbelievable. And so that had a great effect on me for several weeks. Just I miss hearing him. I used to hear him all the time. Yeah. And so that was good. So of course it makes a difference when you hear people. And remember the four things needed to make it talent, work ethic, intelligence of work, and perseverance. And always the greatest of these is perseverance. But the one that I mentioned before that, the intelligence of work, that is why I think so many of our students win jobs so young, that they don't just practice, they do DNA-tailored practicing to suit their own weaknesses and to achieve those micro things that are needed to finish that phrase so that it is exactly the way they want it to sound, and that they are confident in their plan so that they don't have to hope to get lucky and hope to hope. They don't have to hope. They just stick to their plan. And uh, you know, that intelligence of work is everything to me. I use skeleton practicing more than I can, I can, if it's like the biggest thing for me and for my my students. So you you know, you take some complicated phrase and you boil it down to something simple that you're glissing, or you're slurring, or you're doing it slower, or you're half speed, or you're an octave lower, or you're only doing the first four notes, or you're taking out the multiple tonguing, or until you have something, you're aiming at a big goal and it's imperfect. Now a student just keeps doing it over and over again, full speed, trying to get it right, trying to get it right, trying to get it right. A pro immediately goes, skeletons it down. You take off the clothes and the skin and the muscles, and you get down to the bones of instead of a big goal, you've made it. Now it's not the whole movement, it's the first phrase. Now it's not the first phrase, it's the first four notes. Now it's the first two notes, but they're slurred. But at some point you get it down to such a small goal that you are perfect, and you feel instantly calm. And then we repeat perfect. We never repeat mistakes, we repeat perfect. It's like Tiger Woods hits a bad shot and and and then he hits a bunch of shots and he finally gets a good one. He doesn't go get a beer. He then tries to repeat 100 in a row of the good shot. And that from the book, The Talent Code, which you should all read, that means the in the intentional aspect of your uh mental focus when you're repeating something that way will wrap myelin around that neural pathway, which means that neural pathway isn't a broken footpath, but is an eight-lane highway of likely to get that one tomorrow in your audition. Sure. And so it's micro things that I think that I'm good at with my students.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's that's kind of what we've talked about the last couple of days. I mean, there's certainly some tweaking to be done, I feel, in the way that I've prepared for this particular audition, but I do feel whether or not I nail every single excerpt, I feel right before I start it, I know. Like I know what I'm trying to do. And there's obviously, like you said, there's always tweaking to be done. And what I feel like now I need to do is exactly what you I was just talking to Kathleen on the way, uh, my wife, Kathleen. I have to say who people are, so there's not insider information on this. I was talking to her on the phone and I was saying, you know, when I listen back to these recordings that I'm making with you, I mean, you've given me help, but when I do it on my own, um, I have to then now I can't just listen for time and pitch. Or if I just listen for time and pitch, I'm gonna have really good time and I'm gonna have really good pitch, which is not inherently a bad thing, but that's where we're at right now, right? I have good time and good pitch. But now I have exactly what you said about the ears, I have to like elevate what I'm listening for in terms of like music and phrasing and and and things like that. And so, you know, I just think that's an interesting thing because I kind of came to that same conclusion that you just said, thinking to myself, okay, that's gonna be now the most important part. Like I've done this other preparation, and so if I trust that I have a good time and I trust I have good pitch, I can listen for those things, but I have to be more keen on making sure the presentation is musical and special because ultimately that's why we put those details into place so that I think so we're free to do the music.
SPEAKER_01I remember learn learning one of the first pieces I learned really, really on my own was um post-run solo from Mahler Third. And my favorite recording for that was the old New York Phil with Johnny Ware. And he's playing it, I believe, on a D trumpet with a hat. Um, some of these stories are old, and I'm not sure of my facts, but pretty sure. Well, I just every time I heard that, I went right into right brain dream state, just very hard to analyze it because I just was just deliriously happy listening to it. But I listened to it over and over and over until I thought I had sort of the gist of what, and then I tried to imitate it when I played, but I still thought I didn't have it. So then I had to record myself, and then I had to play his recording, my recording, his recording, my recording until I realized the intangibles that he was doing with the vibrato and the spin and the interior dynamics, that it wasn't just he was adding dynamics that aren't on the page, that were just that were musical, they were sequences. They were, they were, they were a phrase direction. It was it was lingering. It it was the sweetness of the of the portamento style in that solo versus the hunt calls, the hunt hunting calls. And then da dee di-da-da. There's it's it's all under one umbrella of the same sound and the same beauty, but those are a little bit different styles in there. And anyway, so I had to study that with my ears the same way you're talking and compare it, compare me to him.
SPEAKER_02Interesting. Yeah. So that might be a really good. I mean, obviously, taking that, then that's what I should do. I should hear my recording and then say, if I if I either know that I'm not phrasing the way I want to, and if I'm unsure, then just back and forth with. Yeah, that's thank you. That's a great idea. I'm gonna incorporate that into this phase of my preparation. So, um, okay. You mentioned, we talked about this yesterday, so I want to make sure we have a chance to mention this. You mentioned briefly that you were on sub uh maternity leave after Jory was born in Houston. And I we were we had talked a little bit about this yesterday, and I would love for you to touch on just like the the challenges then of being a mother and having as much of a career as you've had, and just what that means. And sometimes it can, from what I've understood, because this is not clearly something that I would personally understand, that sometimes, you know, being a mother can mean putting your career on hold, or having a career can mean putting motherhood on hold. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are in that realm and how you've managed to be able to balance both of them and be successful with both things.
SPEAKER_01I think the phrase that everyone says is having it all. Can you have it all? And of course, I'm I'm pretty stubborn and I was aggressive about what I want, and I was determined that I would have it all, but you can't really do it. Um, I mean, when Jory was born, I uh I had a C section, and three weeks later I had a huge solo I had to play. I still had to wrap my entire midsection from the surgery surgery. I mean, whoever prepared me for that? I mean, and whatever, you know, I can't imagine a guy going through that unless they had maybe hernia surgery and they had to wrap, you know, something. But we would have taken time up. Yes. Well, yeah, and and okay, and I just wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to play the Brandenburg the same day that I gave birth. I wanted to do that. I didn't. I mean, it didn't, there wasn't a place for me to do that. And um I did play play concert up, I think maybe a week ahead when I I was just huge, and you know, it felt very there was nowhere to breathe. Yeah. I mean, there's no room for your lungs or your bladder or anything when you're, you know, literally you can only take a breath that lasts for like two notes. It's unbelievable. Yeah. But um, so okay, so now I have a baby, and um um I I want to do everything. Uh, and it's very difficult. I certainly felt like I was trying to do what I wanted to do by having it all, and I was trying to be a role model to show that to other people that they could do it all. Though I'm not always sure that that's a great role model because it is sort of impossible. Something is gonna give. In my case, a lot of it was just me and my health. I mean, my uh I didn't sleep. I mean, I uh fast forward, but when Jory was growing up, I I had a stay-at-home mom. And I mean, she was college educated, could have had any job, but she chose to stay at home with her three kids. And I benefited from that. That she was just always there, this great stability for me. And I wanted to be that for Jory. So when she was in school, this is a little older, but when she was in school, I did all of my teaching. I got up in the morning with her and I made breakfast, and I drove her to school, and then I raced off to Northwestern and I taught until 2:30, and then I was await waiting in my car when she came out of school, and then we spent the afternoon together, and then we spent dinner, made dinner and helped her with her you know, homework and her practicing, and then she went to bed, and then I practiced from 10 to midnight for years, because that was the only way I could give her what a stay-at-home mom would do, as long as I didn't mind losing my sleep to do that. So that was one thing. Um, a a young baby, I mean, I played a 20 concert tour of Japan with the Eastman Wind Ensemble. Charlie and I soloed with that group for 20 concerts, a lot of it on buses, with a nursing two-year-old. And um, I had to learn to say no. Um, there was a time that Bud Hursith had his heart surgery, and uh they asked if I could come in and play some of the principal trumpet at Ravinia. And I I did say yes to that, but then they had a tour of Japan, and um Mark Reidenauer would have been playing a lot of the principal. I would have been playing the other principal and playing other parts in the section, and and of course I wanted to do that, uh, but I couldn't. Um Charlie ended up, Geyer ended up going, but I as a mother I couldn't do that. It was the mother has more job, more responsibility for at least initially. And so I had to say no to something I would never in my life have said no to.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I thought about whether I was going to resent that I had to say no. Would I resent my daughter that I had to say, would I resent myself that I made that choice? Would I resent Charlie Geyer that he got to go because I couldn't go? Well, who that's like drinking poison and thinking it'll fix something. I mean, resentment is a poison. So I didn't have any. I learned I could say no, and nothing happened. I used to have my students stand in front of the mirror and practice saying, I'm sorry, I'd love to, but I can't, because it's so hard for us to say no to anything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the fear of thinking if I say no, it's gonna start this downward spiral of never getting called for anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I turned down so many solo appearances, masterclass appearances, jobs in Europe, thing, things I over the 18 years when she was growing up until she went to college, I turned down so many things. I suppose I started getting fewer offers, but I I didn't care.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was doing what I wanted. I had I had decided what I wanted. What I wanted was to do all the playing I could at the highest level I could. And what I couldn't do, just bye-bye and say no to that and feel really good about the mother that I was and the daughter I had, and to feel good about the playing that I was able that I could do that worked into my life. So I think it's very hard. And for any women out there who are listening to me, and and I know that guys don't get it, some do, but not very many. Um, you know, it's you're just going to have to be on board for many years of working harder than other people do if you're going to try to juggle everything. And the other thing is, some one person asked me right after I had had a baby. Uh, they would never ask a father this, of course, but somebody came up to me and said, Are you still going to be like playing a lot and doing your music? Is music still matter to you? It was so offensive, this question, because I can't imagine them asking a father this. However, instead of being offended, I actually thought about it. And I realized I had a crystal clear answer for them. And that is that my trumpet playing and my ability to play and my desire to be a good player and my desire to help people and to be a great teacher. This has always been terribly important to me. And when I had a baby, it didn't drop in importance one iota. But a baby is twice as important on top of it. Yeah, right. And that's the reality.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I was reading that that uh framed uh picture there up there. There's a corkboard, and it says, I don't have my glasses on, but whatever women do, they must do twice as much.
SPEAKER_01Twice. Oh yeah. Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
SPEAKER_02That was especially given our conversation. I thought that was pretty appropriate. But um, yeah, it's something I've become acutely aware of. Uh having, you know, a family now and listening to Kathleen just talk about the struggles that it is, and and um, you know, that it's just not a choice, you know, like you have to do this thing, and then you you with with the you know your children, and then everything fits around that. And then yeah, you just you're just like what matters, and you figure it out, you put it in there, it's just yeah, so much harder because for you, because there's yeah, it's just some of us early on, early on, from what I understand, it's just that brutal brutality of like you're physically giving of yourself, and there's like you said, the no sleep, but you're the one that's doing the nursing and the priorities shift, but the your music isn't less than it was, it's just that there's something critical that's that's yeah, that's above it.
SPEAKER_01So it's it's just how devoted you're going to be to getting through those hard times when there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything you need to do. I mean, when I played with Houston when when Jory was zero, I just had a baby, and I came down to play associate principal with Houston. There I remember one time that I went on stage to play, and when I and I was a it was a really great, it was an exciting concert. I felt so great on I, you know how you feel when you finish a concert. And I walked off stage and I saw someone standing there holding a baby, and it took me a second to register it was my baby because I was not a super young mother. And so, you know, I'd spent a lot of my life not having a baby. And so I went right into my old brain when I was playing, and then I came off stage and I saw a baby, and it took me a second to register that. Oh, it's mine, and you know, the the happiness, that flood of happiness that when you feel when you when you, you know, but gradually that takes over and becomes the new reality, and that's how it is.
SPEAKER_02Of course, of course.
SPEAKER_01And you know, a really funny thing I have to tell you. I've been teaching a long time, right? With Charlie and I've been teaching a long time at Eastman, at Northwestern, and now at Rice. I had a student at Eastman, Peter Bellino.
SPEAKER_02Hey, Anthony. Anthony's dad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then years later, Anthony. I taught his son.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now, how unbelievable is that? So I want to tell Anthony if he's listening. If you're going to have a kid, you better get on it right away if you want me to teach him or her.
SPEAKER_02He is having a kid. Because I'm not. Did you know that? What? He's having a child. Are you serious? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I wonder if I'll get to teach that one.
SPEAKER_02That's really funny. Yeah. It's really funny. Uh, I was gonna ask how you feel your artistic um contributions were affected by having a child. Like, you know, like the level of emotion. I feel like the pool of emotion goes way deeper when you have that thing that's there. And I wonder if that affected, you know, what you were able to give, what you were able to feel in terms of music, or did some music mean more to you, that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_01I feel like I should have a good answer for this one. But to be honest, I think I I think I've always been very deeply invested in emotions when I play. Yeah, yeah. Or or when I play well, that's what I'm doing. And so do I have more feelings and more emotions uh of now that I am a mother, of course. And when I draw upon emotions, when when I when I am demonstrating Mahler Five, I I don't just play the trumpet. I unfortunately I'm old enough now that I have lost some people, and so that I can think of that. And it takes me one second to think of that, and I know exactly what I feel about playing a death march. And so I have many emotions about Jory, about our daughter, that I can call upon at any point, um, whether it's playfulness or it's love or it's uh argumentative, uh, you know, uh conversational. I mean, I have many things that I that I could draw upon. So I I suppose the answer is yes, but I don't think I was devoid of it and then suddenly I was filled.
SPEAKER_02I still don't mean that, just um because I imagine you were not devoid, you know. I I just I just like wonder what that what what people think about.
SPEAKER_01It's more like at the end of the day, no matter how I have played, I'm good. Yeah, I'm coming home to somebody wonderful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that's a really cool feeling to have, I think. So all right. I'm gonna let's see how long we've been going.
SPEAKER_01All right, we can close.
SPEAKER_02Do we have more? Is there more that's a good thing?
SPEAKER_01Well, you asked me about no, that's the one I was still thinking.
SPEAKER_02A lot of times when I wrap this up, I try to ask this kind of stock question. Although Charlie and I went long enough, I didn't have time to ask him. Um I guess the way I usually present this, and we talked about this already, but the way I usually present this is it's easy to find articles and people can be down on this idea that classical music is no longer relevant to our culture and our society, that we their music itself is relevant, but things like popular music or like rap, RB, you know, that those kinds of things are more culturally relevant because partially because they can be culturally relevant. They can speak on issues and topics that we're dealing with now, and that music, these things were written in a different country, you know, hundreds of years ago. Um, I don't think they're irrelevant. I think they're very relevant, but I always like to ask, especially um, you know, accomplished, very caring musicians, why they think that what they do and what we do is r should be and is relevant to the to the culture that we live in now, currently.
SPEAKER_01When I listen to Bach or Brahms, Shostakovich, I guess Mahler, but uh you know, when you listen to this and you feel something, it's not different than well, there's a new Avengers movie out right now, which I have not seen. Um but I'm told that there's many that it's happy and sad and many, many feelings. The thing is that it's the music that is creating those feelings. When you watch any scenes from, and let's talk about John Williams, okay. So you can say he's a classical composer. He is, but he writes for movies and he has has learned from, borrowed from, and been inspired by Bartok, Mahler, et cetera, et cetera, of course.
SPEAKER_02And Devorjak being one of the obvious ones with Jobs.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, exactly. So so using John Williams as as a classical composer, but it could be any of the ones I just mentioned, you put his music to a movie and you see a scene in the in the movie, and then you take the music away and you see the same scene, you'll see someone dying, or you'll see someone saving someone else, but you do not feel the feelings you feel until you put the music in. This means the music is creating the feelings inside us. And uh these are primal emotions. And this is uh right now a very divisive time in our country and of course in the world, has been always, but what do we share? If we don't share the same backgrounds, we don't share the same education, we don't share the same skin color, we don't share the same gender, what do we share? The one thing we share, we share emotions. All humans, throughout all of time, have felt joy and sadness and anger and and pain and grief and loss and fear, and music unlocks this when we hear music, all those feelings, those primal feelings, those emotions that come, they're unlocked inside of us. And we have this in common with the other people listening to that concert or listening to the music at that movie theater. They're feeling it too. So it doesn't matter if we're like them, we are sharing this primal emotion and this primal feeling. And music is allowing us the access to these feelings, and it's freeing up these feelings. And those feelings are the one thing we share with all humanity. We do share that. And y I could be at a movie theater irritated with somebody crunching their popcorn bag and turning on their phone and during the movie and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But after the the the death scene, when there's you know it's it's you feel those feelings, and and then there's a rebirth, and you realize that it's it's going to someone is going to come to terms with this and they can make peace with this, and you feel this, and the person next to you feels this. And it doesn't mean they're your best friend. It just means you have felt something together. And I think very connecting to it. I think it is how we share our humanity is the most obvious thing is music. Because of the feelings that it allows to come out.
SPEAKER_02Do you think all art does that or music specifically?
SPEAKER_01I think music more than anything else. More than anything else. Hmm.
SPEAKER_02Because all art is supposed to be created in a way to make you feel some sort of.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and it does. It does. When I see dance, I when I look at a certain paintings, I I'm instantly triggered to feel things. I feel myself being opened up to feel things when I when I see art. I so of course uh I guess they all do it.
SPEAKER_02How do you feel music is is different in that way?
SPEAKER_01That's a good question.
SPEAKER_02That's uh I ask the tough questions.
SPEAKER_01I think sound is more primal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think things like sound and and rhythm, especially when you feel some sort of rhythm, it becomes a part of you.
SPEAKER_01Well, they say that that rhythm speaks to the feet and melody speaks to the heart, and harmony speaks to the soul.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I believe that, and that's why I miss Brahms more than any other composer. Because when you're playing Brahms, you're in the soul of the piece. You don't have a ton of melodies, but you're in the harmony, and you are shifting the harmony, and you are enlarging the phone.
SPEAKER_02So rhythmic, too. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good analogy. I mean, you've thought about this, obviously, but I've never thought about it that way. Our I interviewed our music director, and I asked him, not this question. I asked him, How do you think um orchestra can serve the community with which it's in? Or like what is its role in serving the community? And he he had a really great answer for it, but one aspect of the answer is he was talking about um music in general, and he used film music and used John Williams as an example. He said he was at a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and John Williams, I think, was conducting the LA Phil, and Steven Spielberg came out and said, you know, John Williams this, John Williams that, he's awesome, yada, yada, yada. And then he said, I actually want you guys to see how important John Williams is to my career. And they played the third Indiana Indiana Jones movie, the beginning of it, where it's young Indiana Jones played by River Phoenix, and they're on this train scene, and it's an intense, you know, it's an intense scene or whatever. They played it without the music. And Carlos said it was like this weird, awkward B movie, you know, like it was like, what are we watching? This looks so awkward. And it was, he said they used at least like a seven-minute clip. So they just kind of sat there in this awkward, like, when's it gonna end? And then they played the whole, and then Steven was like, Okay, now let's play it with the music. And all of a sudden it was Indiana Jones. Like, yeah, like you're saying, and you don't even because the score is there. I I did a podcast on the Harry Potter music as well. And when you pull the music away from it, the reason I did it was to kind of show what the themes are, what they represent. So then when you hear it, but it even enhanced my playing of the piece to see how he uses it and that like this flying car chase thing without the music sounds ridiculous, but it's like so intense with it. And I I just I I couldn't agree more with that idea that yeah, I love how you said that. That it connects you to this person, you're feeling the same thing, even if you would fundamentally disagree on a whole lot of things. You can agree on what you felt that the music made you feel.
SPEAKER_01We are the luckiest people in the world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, Professor Butler. I can't thank you enough for um letting me talk to you. Um, I know you say you don't do this very often, so I feel very honored that you allowed me to speak to you. And um uh I feel it's always good to get to know more sides of a person. I've learned that a lot from this podcast. Viewing people one-dimensionally as what they do is often not the totality, or it never is the totality of who they are. And so getting to see all sides of a person helps you understand them and understanding where they came from and how that could affect just gives you, I think, compassion and the ability to feel for someone and understand them. And so, um, not that that this was any of that serious, but I appreciate the opportunity to get you know, to get to know you kind of on that level. So thank you so much for letting me interview you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm proud of you, Ryan. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Um, if you need to get in touch with Professor Butler or Barbara, as I'm allowed to call her now, um her email and and phone number and stuff is on the uh website for Rice. Yes. So you can find her there. That's the easiest way I know how to do it. And um, if you need to get in touch with me, I have a website, that's not spit.com. You can find my social media links there. And um if you are enjoy this episode, uh it would be great if you could go on iTunes. Uh get five-star review. If you feel like it was that great, leave a review. Um, if you feel like doing that, like a word review as well. And um, that would help me out a lot. So I'd appreciate if you could do that. I'd like to thank Brandon Yokum, my mastering engineer, for making these episodes sound so great. And again, I would just like to thank you, the listener, for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and we'll see you next time.