Dear Friends,
It sounds perverse, but it's true: Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing
Poorly.
Think about it: If nobody could or should play horn except those people
who can do all the transpositions, sight-read all parts in any key & any
clef, & play accompaniments on piano, then lots of folks who can play in
tune with reasonable facility, who regularly play musically with pleasing,
characteristic sound, who can woodshed tricky passages up to
performance-quality, who can play stopped, who can double- & triple-tongue
cleanly, who can play high, low, & mid-range, who pay attention to
dynamics, who are experienced & dependable ensemble players, etc. -- in
short, amateurs like me who can do many of the facets of horn playing well,
some poorly, & others not at all -- well, if folks like us had to be able
to do everything the professionals do or otherwise not play, then we would
have to hang up our horns. That's not right or necessary, is it?
So while it is true that good horn players should be able to do all those
things & do everything well, it does not necessarily follow that players
who can't shouldn't even attempt to play. Better we should do as much as
we can as well as we can, while striving for improvement so long as we are
able, than that we should give up even trying.
In truth, lots of us amateur hacks play over our heads, performing at times
way over our actual level of ability. Then again, we mostly know what we
can do at a quality performance level & what we cannot do, & so we stick to
what is possible, while striving to expand the range of what is possible,
continuing our efforts to get better & become able to do more, play harder
tunes, sound better, learn more, become more like you.
In short, we get the best equipment we can & we practice & we improve if we
can. From the way we sound when you hear us play, you might not even know
right off how fundamentally incomplete we are as hornists. Sure, pretty
soon you would catch on. But if you were honest, you would also have to
say, "Hey, who are those guys? They sound pretty good."
Does anybody agree with this outlook?
Surely I am not the only amateur on the list (even if I am close to the
rankest).
-- Alan Cole, rank amateur
McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Basic facility at the piano ought to be required of every musician, in my
opinion. It is a requirement at every conservatory and every university
music department I know. Typically some majors, e.g., conductors and
composers, are required to have a higher level, but all instrumentalists
should be able to negotiate a simple folk song and accompaniment in all
twelve keys at the keyboard.
--
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