Originally Posted by Mike Halloran
Not unlike how I started. I held down a symphony chair in high school. Audition was easy in 1969: Tell the local Youth Symphony conductor you can play bass.

I had the same director in both Jr. high school (middle school) and high school. Besides teaching us how to play the notes correctly he taught us how to express ourselves. Little things like dragging the beginning of a phrase and then rushing the end to catch up, or the opposite. How to rush the second beat of a Viennese waltz and to use our feelings to determine how much. How to use dynamics to turn those empty notes into saying something. And so many more.

And he taught us how to listen to others doing those things (probably the most important of lessons)

The result for me was never getting anything but "superior" in state solo & ensemble contests, and I sat "first tenor" in the all-state band every year. Besides being first tenor, I was also given the section leader title, so the first alto, who usually gets that title by default, had to listen and use my phrasing, my dynamics and my vibrato.

I can't thank my first teacher enough for showing me how to find the expressive devices that are not and cannot be written into the sheet music.

The nice thing about music, is you can live a long live and still discover more and more.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks