BECOMING A PROFESSIONAL PLAYER
I cannot overemphasize how important it is to make a list of all your excuses for not being able to do something: on your instrument, in your life (You can’t get the sound you want with that bow, you can’t find time to practice, your fingers got cold and you couldn’t play, something loud happened that surprised you and you lost your focus, you’re injured, etc.—whatever you feel makes it so you can’t do something, write it down). Make that list and then at the top of the page cross off the word “excuses” and write “To Do:” YOU MUST STOP MAKING EXCUSES AND START FINDING SOLUTIONS. There is almost nothing that can’t be fixed. You simply cannot ask people to pay you to play your instrument and then tell them all the reasons you can’t do the job. You need a comprehensive list of things everyone is expected to be able to do professionally and you need to tick every box on the list. To give yourself a sense of how important this is choose your favorite conductor, living or dead, and imagine meeting them and having them ask for one of the things on your list of excuses (to do!). Imagine telling them why you can’t do what they’ve asked. Oh. My. Word. You do not want to have to make excuses. The great news is that you don’t have to make excuses if you fix your problems. Tackle them from their foundation: the basics—your warmup!
PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL PLAYING
also known as Robert Vernon’s 5 Pillars
Rhythm
Intonation
Articulation
Long musical line
Great sound
My friend and colleague, Dana Lawson of the LA Philharmonic, studied briefly with Mr. Vernon and suggested that a common auxiliary pillar he demanded was:
.5 Gesture.
The principle of these 5.5 pillars is that you can make musical choices when you interpret something, but we need to agree on fundamental interpretive decisions. If you can play with the 5.5 pillars and you can be available to do all the techniques within each pillar whenever a conductor or colleague asks for them, you are probably a professional-level player. If there is some category you still struggle with, develop it until you are available for that block of technique.
Once you have become the master of your instrument you must allow for that reality and start interacting with your instrument like a professional. You will be able to fix things immediately because you know exactly how. You will be able to release tension while you are playing because you know how. You will be able to focus because you know how.
I remember hearing Raushan Akhmedyarova say very casually that she was prepared for some piece of music. She was at the beginning of her professional career, a few years before she joined the San Francisco Symphony, and I was not. I was SO CURIOUS what that could possibly mean, to be prepared. I had so many questions: how do you know what will happen, how do you know you will not mess up, how do you see the future? But those are student questions. The job of music is to be prepared for the unknown with the known. You do not need to know what will happen, or that you won’t mess up, or see the future. You must be able to manage the situation in real-time. (“Sound spontaneous as a result of meticulous preparation.” -Robert Vernon) One way to think about it is to be flexible and available with the content you are expected to share, and to know what to do when something doesn’t go exactly as planned. Raushan was prepared with the known parts, available for the unknown (spontaneity, a coughing fit in the audience, a passing ambulance, banging on the roof, etc.) to be managed, ignored, or overcome with her many tools.
If you have performed regularly, think about what you do in those performances when something goes wrong and adopt and adapt those tools for your personal playing. When a conductor asks you to do something differently, you don’t go home and practice it differently, you do it right away! When you make a change, you write it down right away so you don’t forget. When your bow isn’t in the right spot for the sound you want, you move it right away. When you play a supporting line, you respond to the music you hear on stage in real time. Embrace this way of thinking in your practicing. Allow it to be how you learn. Don’t slow yourself down.
Another principle of professional playing is that people assume you operate with the 5.5 pillars all the time. For example, it is assumed you are playing in tune. Where do we land, then? I believe the realm of professional playing is all right hand. You need to be able to do all the techniques (long bows without “wah-wah” swells, great spiccato and sautille, consistent articulations over open strings and string crossings, the ability to get the same sound no matter where on the viola your left hand is, etc., all at every dynamic and every speed, at the drop of a hat) and you need to be able to change between all the techniques seamlessly or subito without a hiccup. In performance, rather than thinking about very basic musical offerings (intonation), try to spend as much time as possible considering your sound, which is to say your right hand. See if you can play a whole movement of Bach thinking 98% about your right hand. See if you can augment your personal rainbow of sounds on the viola, see if you can expand your imagination. When you are performing professionally you should be thinking about bow speed, tracking, indiscernible bow changes, ways to support your colleagues and blend in while you add something beautiful to the overall sound. Being prepared, being professional, is about embracing the unknown as an opportunity to consider something even more beautiful than you had imagined before. (“The place you feel the safest is actually the most dangerous, and the place you feel most vulnerable is the safest” -Heidi Castleman)
I find in my professional life that I spend time thinking about how weighty notes are or are not, ways to lengthen the line (even within rests and other disruptions), how extremely fast and slow and varied my bow can be while still making beautiful and clear sounds, listening to the “score” around me on stage and using my colleagues’ musicianship and technical skills to help raise my own! And I spend a lot of time incorporating good posture, physical release, and other wellness projects into my playing.