Mary Beth Orr: The Singing Horn, Appalachia and Resilience

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We had just done Songs of the Wayfarer with Grand
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Rapids Symphony with Rune Bergman and this incredible
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Norwegian soloist. And I was like, this would
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sound great with horn. Does this exist? And so
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I looked and boom, there it was. And I was like,
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okay, this has to be the first part of my program.
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This has to be Appalachia into Songs of the Wayfarer
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into Wayfaring Stranger because what better way?
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They're all telling the same story. Hi, you're
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listening to Conversations with Musicians with
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Leah Roseman, which I hope inspires you through
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the personal stories of a fascinating diversity
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of musical guests. Mary Beth Orr is a wonderful,
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award -winning horn player and folk vocal artist.
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Throughout this moving episode, you'll be hearing
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short excerpts from her album, The Singing Horn,
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which celebrates traditional Appalachian songs
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with Mahler and contemporary works composed for
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Mary Beth. through Vox Novus's 15 Minutes of
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Fame project. Marybeth is currently third horn
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of the Grand Rapids Symphony, and she shares
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the best advice I've heard about succeeding at
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orchestral auditions. This is a longer conversation.
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Marybeth experienced a serious accident that
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threatened her life, and then her ability to
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play the horn, and she shares many other difficult
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personal challenges. I was so moved to hear her
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story and wisdom, and I encourage you to come
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back and listen to the end. You can watch the
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video on my YouTube or listen to the podcast,
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and I've also linked the transcript. Have a look
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at the show notes of this episode on my website,
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where you'll find all the links. Hey, Mary Beth,
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thanks so much for joining me here today. It's
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good to be with you, Leah. So you're outside.
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I am, which is really appropriate because...
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Everything I, what I do when I do my solo thing
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is really tied to nature and I'm, you know, I'm
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big into my pollinating plants. So this is kind
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of actually perfect. As we record this, actually,
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I have, we're planting this all native plant
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micro forest in our tiny urban garden today.
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It's quite exciting. That's awesome. I love that.
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I love that so much, actually. I just wanted
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to say I've so enjoyed listening to your album,
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The Singing Horn. It's such a special project.
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And I think I'll just let you summarize a little
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bit in your own words, and then we can let people
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hear a little bit of that first track. So the
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first track, Appalachia by Lydia Bussler, is
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very much horn on a mountaintop. sharing the
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sounds of the holler and the holler is that,
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that valley between, you know, mountain ranges
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and it's definitely where my granny comes from.
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So it was very near and dear to my heart. It
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works its way very seamlessly for me into Wayfaring
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Stranger. Wayfaring Stranger is very much the
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searching, the processing of grief, the processing
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of life. That then leads directly into the classical
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iteration of that by Gustav Mahler, the Songs
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of the Wayfarer. And then that actually finishes
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with O Death, which you can't beat ending with
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a death wail. That's pretty much how the mountain
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folk really put a nice exclamation point on life
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itself. So this whole first few tracks really
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lends itself to be more like a song cycle. I
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wanted to really share the story of a life and
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all of the ups and downs that go with that. And
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also very truly how complementary classical music
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and a classical instrument like the horn. can
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still occupy that folk space and the space of
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music that's really for the people that is more
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of that very visceral, earthy, powerful place.
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That is the music of my family, my granny and
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grandparents, aunts and uncles up from Shelby,
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North Carolina and Lexington, Virginia. The entire
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synthesis of how I came to this was very much
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born from feeling as uncreative as possible in
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the standard orchestral life, especially as a
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freelancer. And I was working a lot with music
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theater and working with students that were workshopping
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so much solo literature, working on authenticity.
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And truth and honesty and performing. And they
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were doing these incredibly exciting things.
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And I'm like, man, I don't even know who I am
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as an artist. And who I am is someone that was
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heavily influenced by Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff.
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I mean, I was very, as a young girl, very obsessed
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with all of the... really biggest, darkest romantic
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composers, you know, for piano and for horn.
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But my real start was hearing my granny singing
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mountain music on her front porch as we literally,
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I mean, this is a very Southern trope, but snapping
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beans on the front porch, you know, we would
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go out to you pick farms all over Charleston,
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South Carolina and, um, come back to the house
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and. sliced tomatoes, you know, canned peaches,
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like snap beans. And she would always be singing.
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I'm going to preface this by my granny couldn't
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sing her way out of a paper bag. However, the
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spirit of what she was singing and there was
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always Dolly Parton playing on the radio. And
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all of my family comes from either the Shenandoah
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Valley or the Blue Ridge Mountains. So Lexington,
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Virginia or Shelby, North Carolina. Grew up listening
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to a lot of Sheila K. Adams. I just love her.
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So anybody that is looking for really traditional,
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I'm talking just music coming from the holler
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in between the mountains in Appalachia or, you
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know, Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina,
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Sheila K. Adams, most of her albums are either
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just straight banjo or just acapella singing.
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So it's about as pure as you're going to get
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in terms of. I mean, for me, ancient storytelling,
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you know, this is stuff that came that, you know,
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we think have roots in America, but they really
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have that Celtic and English background, you
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know, a very strong immigrant background. So,
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I mean, these were both parts of me, really,
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really substantial parts of me. They were parts
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of me that represented both where I came from
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and also where I wanted to go. Um, and when it
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came time for me to, I kind of felt like I needed
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to make a change in how I was doing this music
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career. Um, how is being a professional musician?
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And I realized I needed to figure out who I was
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first and then who I was as an, as an artist
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and synthesizing those parts of myself. I started
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to realize, well, if these things live in me
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so seamlessly. Why can't they live outside of
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me? So seamlessly, right? And they really match
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these things that kept coming back to me is that
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both classical music, I guess, and I hesitate
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to say classical music, I would say orchestral
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literature, orchestral instrumental music really
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has so much of the same inspirations as folk
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music. That music was the music of the people.
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It was really, in a lot of ways, the music of
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the poor, because very few of these composers
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were rolling in it. Most of Mozart's operas were
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premiered in brothels, right? And Beethoven had
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a love affair with pastoral music. mountain music
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specifically, and I preface it by mountain music
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because there's country music, there's blues,
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and there's bluegrass, but this mountain music
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has a longing to it a lot of times that I haven't
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found in some other types of folk music, but
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it's still rooted in storytelling. I know that
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my granny, when someone died, you sang. you were
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having joy, you sang. When you were having trouble
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and suffering, you sang. It's how you coped with
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what was happening and how you celebrated what
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was happening. So I figured if those things were
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super connected, if I found that connection,
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I had to believe that I might have the possibility
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of connecting others that felt fairly opposite
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by telling these stories. Beautiful. And most
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of these, the compositions where you're both
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playing horn and singing, it's not simultaneous.
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So I'm assuming some of these when you perform,
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you actually put the horn down and sing then.
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Yes. All of the, so when I do Appalachian, Wafering
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Stranger, España, and any of the 15 Minutes of
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Fame pieces, those are, yeah, those are horn,
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go right to singing, go back. go back to horn.
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And the 15 minutes of faint pieces were commissioned
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specifically for me to do that, to do that very
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thing. Um, and that was a very, that was really
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fascinating project that I was really excited
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to do, but yeah. And was the original album conceived
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for those compositions? The original album, the
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album was conceived as in, if I'm going to show
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people who I am, if this is the only opportunity
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I have to create something and put it out into
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the world, I want it to be the most full, I want
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it to be the fullest realization of me that it
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can be. And so everything on the album is what
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I would consider, I almost would consider the
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album more of a concept album where it really
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should be experienced from start to finish, but
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going on a journey. I wanted it to be a really
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complete story of a life. The twists, the turns,
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the ups and downs, the, you know, really coming
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full circle in all the things that. make a life
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truly full because i would say definitely my
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life experiences have already been full for the
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short time you know that i've been here and i
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really wanted to honor all of that and and so
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that the album really was this is who i am i
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want to open up every single part of myself and
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share it with you that's really truly what it
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was and the 15 minutes of fame pieces came before
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the idea of doing an album. The 15 Minutes of
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Fame pieces came first, and then Parma Recordings
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approached me after they saw the performance
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that I did in New York for Manhattan Public Broadcasting,
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which was the premiere of those pieces. So I
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guess you could say maybe those 15 Minutes of
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Fame pieces helped facilitate the album. being
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created at all, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And Parma
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submitted this as a... Grammy nomination consideration.
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They did. They did. They did submit it for consideration.
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I was very touched that they put the time and
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the resources into submitting that for me, because
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that's not something I think I would have. That's
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not a world that I have previously been a part
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of and pretty foreign to me. So I don't think
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I would have done that on my own. So after we
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record this conversation, what I'll be doing
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is I'll be editing short clips of some of the
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tracks for people. And of course, the album will
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be linked with your website in the show notes.
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So I encourage people to listen through. It's
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an ambitious more than 70 minutes of music. Can
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we talk about the Mahler? I'm curious to see
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one of your favorite composers as a horn player.
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Oh, 100 percent. I mean, and when I tell people
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that when I when I meet people that have never
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been to an orchestra concert before. I'll say,
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okay, maybe you want to come to a movie soundtrack
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first, right? You have to kind of get your feet
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wet. I was like, but then if you want your life
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changed, come see a Mahler symphony. It will
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take you everywhere. It will take you up and
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down and around all the way through. And so when
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I found, and I actually, we had just done, Runa
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Bergman was conducting us and I'm sad that I
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cannot remember the soloist's name. But before
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some of this happened, it was actually right
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before I was finishing up a master's degree at
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MSU, which is where I was really developing this
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idea of who I was. And I was trying to figure
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out, you know, I was trying to put together my
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master's recital, which I wanted my master's
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recital to be. This is who I am. Right. This
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is. this is my brand as an artist. This is what
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you can expect from me. And I had found Appalachia
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first because I was actually putting together
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a planetarium show and we needed a break. It
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was a horn quartet planetarium show and we needed
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a break in between. So I was going to do something
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recorded that would give us like a tiny chop
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break before finishing on. And I found this piece
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by Lydia Bussler because of Lynn Folk Baird's
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website, horn pieces by female composers. And
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I saw a piece that said Appalachian. I'm like,
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hell yeah, I'm going to check this out. And it
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was amazing. It's like, this is exactly the sound,
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the different sounds you would hear in a holler,
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right? Like it's that valley, that kind of, it's
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not even a full valley. It's just like the sides
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in between a mountain, right? You know, the mountain
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chains. I'm like, this, this is, this is. absolutely
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experiential. This is absolutely pastoral. It's
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fully rooted in nature. I was like, this is amazing.
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And one day I was just in the kitchen and Wayfaring
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Stranger just, you know, I was thinking about,
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I was like, oh, you know, what can I do with
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this? You know, this is, singing is also a part
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of me. I don't know. It's something, it just
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kind of just started to flow. I was just in my
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kitchen cleaning up. heard my cats kind of fighting.
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And I just started singing Wayfaring Stranger.
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And I turned around and my cats were just staring
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at me. Like they'd stop fighting. All the animals
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in my house just stopped, you know, like were
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sitting there staring at me. And I was like,
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oh, okay, this could really work. We had just
00:19:33.509 --> 00:19:37.250
done Songs of the Wayfarer with Grand Rapids
00:19:37.250 --> 00:19:39.450
Symphony with Runa Bergman and this incredible
00:19:39.450 --> 00:19:42.460
Norwegian soloist. And I was like, this is going
00:19:42.460 --> 00:19:44.420
to this would sound great with horn. Does this
00:19:44.420 --> 00:19:48.599
exist? And so I looked and boom, there it was.
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:50.859
I was like, OK, this has to be the first part
00:19:50.859 --> 00:19:53.859
of my program. This has to be Appalachia into
00:19:53.859 --> 00:19:56.940
songs of the Wayfair into Wayfaring Stranger,
00:19:56.980 --> 00:19:59.839
because what better way? They're all telling
00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:02.599
the same story. You know, what better way to
00:20:02.599 --> 00:20:06.460
show people how complimentary folk and classical
00:20:06.460 --> 00:20:09.279
music are than showing how folk has evolved?
00:20:10.710 --> 00:20:15.329
across a century or two you know so songs uh
00:20:15.329 --> 00:20:18.150
so you know Mahler was a shoe -in for me Songs
00:20:18.150 --> 00:20:21.170
of the Wayfair was like oh this this this this
00:20:21.170 --> 00:20:23.589
is this is a song cycle from Appalachia through
00:20:23.589 --> 00:20:26.630
you know through Wayfaring Stranger Songs of
00:20:26.630 --> 00:20:29.089
the Wayfair as like if I do this with staging
00:20:29.089 --> 00:20:34.750
all together with no applause this this is this
00:20:34.750 --> 00:20:37.740
is a full story this is a song cycle This is
00:20:37.740 --> 00:20:40.019
a full classical song cycle. So that's how that
00:20:40.019 --> 00:21:09.700
came about. And Mahler wrote this out of heartbreak,
00:21:09.799 --> 00:21:16.079
these songs. He did. He experienced so, he felt,
00:21:16.140 --> 00:21:19.660
I feel like I really get him because he felt
00:21:19.660 --> 00:21:26.279
so deeply and he was trying so hard continuously
00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:31.859
to thrive at a time, a very tumultuous time where
00:21:31.859 --> 00:21:35.160
the entire world was just surrounded by death
00:21:35.160 --> 00:21:41.599
all around them. world wars, disease, plagues.
00:21:41.700 --> 00:21:47.839
I mean, and he felt all of it to his bones, like
00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:53.259
to his internal organs. And the thing is though,
00:21:53.380 --> 00:21:57.059
even in the despair that he had and the deep
00:21:57.059 --> 00:22:01.859
sadness and the grief with which he wrote songs,
00:22:01.940 --> 00:22:06.430
the way fair and some of his symphonies. There's
00:22:06.430 --> 00:22:09.789
still so much hope in it. There's still this,
00:22:09.809 --> 00:22:13.269
okay, this loss is here, but I'm still here too.
00:22:14.210 --> 00:22:17.970
And there are these other things still here too.
00:22:18.069 --> 00:22:20.309
So there's this weird, I almost find that there's
00:22:20.309 --> 00:22:26.609
still like a thread of peacefulness, even inside
00:22:26.609 --> 00:22:29.289
all of that for him. One of the things I've thought
00:22:29.289 --> 00:22:31.569
about recently with Mahler, I don't think I realized
00:22:31.569 --> 00:22:33.730
this when I was younger. I mean, he had to, he
00:22:33.730 --> 00:22:35.390
couldn't compose except for the summers because
00:22:35.390 --> 00:22:38.670
he was busy earning a living conducting. So imagine
00:22:38.670 --> 00:22:42.269
if he'd had more freedom to create, like he already
00:22:42.269 --> 00:22:45.950
created so much great stuff. I don't know. Sometimes
00:22:45.950 --> 00:22:50.250
I'm better with a deadline. Yeah. If I have too
00:22:50.250 --> 00:22:54.170
much, COVID is a perfect example of that. But
00:22:54.170 --> 00:22:57.859
if I have too much. I mean, it does take time
00:22:57.859 --> 00:23:00.380
and space to create. Like I haven't created anything
00:23:00.380 --> 00:23:03.319
in a while. I have tidbits of songs in my head
00:23:03.319 --> 00:23:07.380
going a lot that I take voice notes for and I'm
00:23:07.380 --> 00:23:09.740
really dying for a chance to kind of get to get
00:23:09.740 --> 00:23:12.400
to work on them. But it takes that time and the
00:23:12.400 --> 00:23:14.180
kind of space to sit down and just breathe for
00:23:14.180 --> 00:23:16.480
a second before you really kind of get into it.
00:23:16.660 --> 00:23:19.359
But at the same time, a lot of stuff on my album,
00:23:19.640 --> 00:23:23.380
you know, some of the things that I enjoy the
00:23:23.380 --> 00:23:27.230
most on it were written. After my son was born,
00:23:27.390 --> 00:23:32.289
15 minute intervals in between him breastfeeding
00:23:32.289 --> 00:23:36.690
or being content in his jumper. And it was, you
00:23:36.690 --> 00:23:38.230
know, I didn't have very much time to do it.
00:23:38.690 --> 00:23:41.890
It was like, get on it and do it. Sometimes creativity
00:23:41.890 --> 00:23:45.029
happens when you have more structure. And maybe
00:23:45.029 --> 00:23:48.509
that was true for him. Let's talk about Good
00:23:48.509 --> 00:23:51.130
and True, one of the last tracks on this album,
00:23:51.329 --> 00:23:53.410
which you wrote when you're expecting your child.
00:23:54.210 --> 00:24:01.000
Right. And that song came about really struggling
00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:06.779
to have a child. I'd gotten some, I don't know
00:24:06.779 --> 00:24:09.140
if advice is the right word, but I'd gotten some
00:24:09.140 --> 00:24:13.799
comfort from a friend that talked about, you
00:24:13.799 --> 00:24:18.400
know, something she read where there was, it's
00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:20.220
actually, I did some research on it, the Dagara
00:24:20.220 --> 00:24:25.440
tribe in Africa. they, when women wanted to have
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:27.200
a baby, they would go off on their own vision
00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:31.420
quest and they would not come back until they
00:24:31.420 --> 00:24:35.559
heard their baby song. And I thought that was
00:24:35.559 --> 00:24:38.559
just a beautiful idea because you've heard, you
00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:41.380
know, I've heard, you know, over the years, you
00:24:41.380 --> 00:24:43.180
know, Native American, many tribes, the men,
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:45.460
when they want to become men from teenage, you
00:24:45.460 --> 00:24:49.200
know, teenager to man, they will go to do their
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:50.960
own vision quest, that type of thing. But as
00:24:50.960 --> 00:24:53.559
the first time I'd heard, something in reference
00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:56.299
to tribal to women, something that women would
00:24:56.299 --> 00:24:59.960
do for a transition, a major transition in their
00:24:59.960 --> 00:25:04.579
lives. And I was doing a lot of Kundalini yoga
00:25:04.579 --> 00:25:07.900
and meditation and energy work and thought I
00:25:07.900 --> 00:25:10.539
would kind of add this in to, you know, just
00:25:10.539 --> 00:25:16.000
this idea into that. And sure enough, this melody
00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:21.920
came to me. And I would say probably within Two
00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:25.720
days, the song was written. And I would say maybe
00:25:25.720 --> 00:25:28.299
three months after that, we had a successful
00:25:28.299 --> 00:25:33.319
IVF and I got pregnant with my son. And it was
00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:36.759
a beautiful pregnancy. I actually recorded. I
00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:39.819
started recording this album after I was pregnant.
00:25:39.880 --> 00:25:42.440
So the whole pregnancy is me recording this album.
00:25:42.519 --> 00:25:46.299
And then a lot of the editing was, you know,
00:25:46.299 --> 00:25:50.819
editing. like last minute recordings or additions
00:25:50.819 --> 00:25:53.359
to things, layering in on some of the folk arrangements
00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:57.460
that came after he was born. And actually recording
00:25:57.460 --> 00:26:01.140
Good and True, this is really funny. I hadn't
00:26:01.140 --> 00:26:03.500
recorded that one yet prior to him being born
00:26:03.500 --> 00:26:06.720
because I wanted to add some horn parts to it.
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:09.220
And I really wasn't entirely completely still
00:26:09.220 --> 00:26:10.700
sure what I wanted to do with the arrangement.
00:26:11.710 --> 00:26:15.029
And I got approached by a recording engineer
00:26:15.029 --> 00:26:18.250
that had done something for me on a live performance
00:26:18.250 --> 00:26:20.029
and said, hey, I think you'd be a really good
00:26:20.029 --> 00:26:23.049
fit for this documentary I'm shooting about different
00:26:23.049 --> 00:26:26.410
recording styles. Radio, like recording style
00:26:26.410 --> 00:26:30.049
for radio versus acoustic, you know, classical
00:26:30.049 --> 00:26:36.069
sound. Would you be interested? And I said, yes.
00:26:36.369 --> 00:26:38.230
He goes, great. I'm going to send you a form.
00:26:38.309 --> 00:26:39.890
If you can fill that out, it's going to help
00:26:39.890 --> 00:26:42.650
organize who I have for this documentary. Well,
00:26:42.730 --> 00:26:47.410
I happened to go into labor with my son and kind
00:26:47.410 --> 00:26:49.250
of missed that deadline because, you know, I
00:26:49.250 --> 00:26:52.470
was having a baby. And he said, oh, man, that
00:26:52.470 --> 00:26:54.450
goes afterwards. I said, hey, is there still
00:26:54.450 --> 00:26:56.289
any way of getting in on this? And he said, I'm
00:26:56.289 --> 00:26:58.109
technically full right now. But he goes, I guarantee
00:26:58.109 --> 00:27:00.950
somebody is going to cancel. And sure enough,
00:27:00.990 --> 00:27:04.400
somebody canceled. So five weeks. postpartum
00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:08.700
he sent me a message saying hey i've got room
00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:11.240
next week if you can come in and record and so
00:27:11.240 --> 00:27:13.319
be free recording it was free recording for me
00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:15.039
and he was going to do a variety of different
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:18.539
things with it so i had my guitarist friend uh
00:27:18.539 --> 00:27:21.000
greg sheer who's on the who's on the album doing
00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:23.970
all kinds of things i said He was actually doing
00:27:23.970 --> 00:27:25.990
he had a group that was doing something on this
00:27:25.990 --> 00:27:29.470
Renaissance Redux is the name of the documentary
00:27:29.470 --> 00:27:32.049
that I think is still, you know, is still in
00:27:32.049 --> 00:27:33.930
editing process. I think it's taking a while
00:27:33.930 --> 00:27:36.190
for it to come out, but he was doing something,
00:27:36.269 --> 00:27:37.930
too. So he said, yeah, I'll already be there.
00:27:37.990 --> 00:27:42.289
I'll just hang around. So I came with my breast
00:27:42.289 --> 00:27:46.549
pump and like cooler and everything and my and
00:27:46.549 --> 00:27:50.970
my horn. And we just three hours pumped out the
00:27:50.970 --> 00:27:54.309
recording. Wow. And did an interview for it.
00:27:54.430 --> 00:27:57.269
So that was pretty crazy. But yeah, that song,
00:27:57.390 --> 00:27:59.890
I would say I do definitely have a hard time
00:27:59.890 --> 00:28:04.049
doing that song live without crying, but I don't,
00:28:04.069 --> 00:28:06.990
you know, I have to learn to pull back a little
00:28:06.990 --> 00:28:52.529
bit. Yeah. Go to perform. Well, In terms of all
00:28:52.529 --> 00:28:55.329
these short form works, I really love the format,
00:28:55.369 --> 00:28:59.130
actually. But I think, I guess you know, you
00:28:59.130 --> 00:29:01.289
were saying before, even with the Mahler, like
00:29:01.289 --> 00:29:04.009
if there's no applause between the first track,
00:29:04.150 --> 00:29:08.190
but how do we, you know, I find a lot of audiences
00:29:08.190 --> 00:29:10.309
now, they're new audiences to classical music,
00:29:10.390 --> 00:29:13.190
so they tend to clap more. And we just, you know,
00:29:13.210 --> 00:29:15.690
you go with it and it doesn't bother me. But
00:29:15.690 --> 00:29:17.450
some people feel like, oh, they need to learn
00:29:17.450 --> 00:29:19.549
about the, you know, the respect and that you
00:29:19.549 --> 00:29:21.660
don't. between things like if you're playing
00:29:21.660 --> 00:29:24.200
a sequence of very short pieces that are a minute
00:29:24.200 --> 00:29:25.579
long do you think it's better if people hold
00:29:25.579 --> 00:29:27.099
their applause i mean each one should be celebrated
00:29:27.099 --> 00:29:32.900
yeah i i will tend to put something in the program
00:29:32.900 --> 00:29:35.980
saying this is going to be done with staging
00:29:35.980 --> 00:29:39.799
and in a continuous format please sit back and
00:29:39.799 --> 00:29:43.319
enjoy the journey yeah sometimes i'll have somebody
00:29:43.319 --> 00:29:46.720
make that announcement before i start but i also
00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:51.359
add if you are moved to applaud or even say something,
00:29:51.599 --> 00:29:56.539
please do. You know, if you are called and moved
00:29:56.539 --> 00:30:00.119
to do that, please do. I incorporate staging
00:30:00.119 --> 00:30:03.319
and when I can, lighting. That sometimes helps
00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:06.259
people understand that this space is kind of
00:30:06.259 --> 00:30:10.160
being held for something else that's coming.
00:30:10.660 --> 00:30:13.740
And what I really like to do is when I end with,
00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:16.160
oh, death, I like to do a blackout at the end
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:18.319
of that. And then when the lights come up, I'm
00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:24.119
all, yay! Very clearly over now. But yeah, I've
00:30:24.119 --> 00:30:27.119
had a variety and I have a mix. And usually,
00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:31.220
regardless of what people do, I haven't found
00:30:31.220 --> 00:30:33.500
it's changed the experience. And the second half
00:30:33.500 --> 00:30:35.960
of my program is very, hey, y 'all, how you doing?
00:30:36.539 --> 00:30:39.859
And it's very much sharing. talking with the
00:30:39.859 --> 00:30:42.599
audience, it's very much, it's such a deeply
00:30:42.599 --> 00:30:46.220
personal, it gets very relaxed and very personal
00:30:46.220 --> 00:30:51.660
in the second half. So it balances out that,
00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:56.299
the intensity of the first set, I would say.
00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:59.259
So they leave with just a little bit of everything.
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:02.660
It feels, I think probably, I would like to think,
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:06.740
I can't speak for my audience, but it is my intention
00:31:06.740 --> 00:31:10.519
that it feels very full circle. That they leave.
00:31:11.619 --> 00:31:13.859
I think I would describe it. I want people to
00:31:13.859 --> 00:31:16.940
leave with this feeling of, you know, when you've
00:31:16.940 --> 00:31:21.599
had the most well curated and also satisfying
00:31:21.599 --> 00:31:26.539
meal of your life. Where and that could be a
00:31:26.539 --> 00:31:30.680
meal at your grandma's, like the most epic Thanksgiving
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.640
or Christmas dinner, or it could be a five star
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:37.240
restaurant. But whatever feels like from start
00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:40.619
to finish, somebody cared for you so much through
00:31:40.619 --> 00:31:44.839
every single course of that meal. And then, and
00:31:44.839 --> 00:31:48.839
it was not only, it not only tasted good, it
00:31:48.839 --> 00:31:51.039
wasn't just decadent, but it was also really,
00:31:51.099 --> 00:31:55.019
um, sustaining and nourishing so that when you
00:31:55.019 --> 00:31:59.180
leave that meal, you're like, I am so complete
00:31:59.180 --> 00:32:03.000
now and satisfied. It just changes. It can change
00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:06.740
your entire. It can change the lens that you
00:32:06.740 --> 00:32:10.859
view the world in for the rest of your day. That's
00:32:10.859 --> 00:32:13.640
what I want to try to do with music for people.
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:19.319
That is a beautiful analogy. I love that. Well,
00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:23.819
let's talk about some of your arrangements. I
00:32:23.819 --> 00:32:27.200
assume it's related to relationships and friendships.
00:32:27.420 --> 00:32:30.920
I mean, two bass, horn, voice, fiddle, you know,
00:32:30.920 --> 00:32:35.329
these combinations are a bit quirky. Yeah, I
00:32:35.329 --> 00:32:40.609
will say from necessity comes invention, right?
00:32:41.430 --> 00:32:46.849
Structure comes creativity. And originally, some
00:32:46.849 --> 00:32:49.269
of these arrangements came about during actually
00:32:49.269 --> 00:32:52.869
a lot of my I'm going to say COVID made me really
00:32:52.869 --> 00:32:58.769
brave. COVID gave me a ton of courage. I had
00:32:58.769 --> 00:33:01.490
never arranged before, before COVID. I had never.
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:05.519
I'd done some songwriting, dabbled in some songwriting.
00:33:05.779 --> 00:33:08.359
With my degree at MSU, I did a songwriting workshop
00:33:08.359 --> 00:33:11.440
and realized, oh my gosh, I'll actually really
00:33:11.440 --> 00:33:14.319
enjoy this and I could do this. But time is a
00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:17.480
problem, right? Having the time to do that. During
00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:22.160
COVID, our orchestra was doing something called
00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:25.259
From Our Home to Yours. And I was doing this
00:33:25.259 --> 00:33:31.440
full classical thing. you know, when you don't
00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:32.980
have literature written for you, what are you
00:33:32.980 --> 00:33:35.559
going to do? Oh, I guess I'll have to write my
00:33:35.559 --> 00:33:39.660
own, figure out my own. So I took hymns and I
00:33:39.660 --> 00:33:43.339
took songs that were really, that I loved, you
00:33:43.339 --> 00:33:45.440
know, really it's just stuff I love, stuff that,
00:33:45.460 --> 00:33:49.539
you know, had impact for me. And there was, there's
00:33:49.539 --> 00:33:52.819
a couple in the orchestra, Mark Buckner and Jenna
00:33:52.819 --> 00:33:56.579
Buckner, and Mark is playing on the album. He
00:33:56.579 --> 00:33:59.640
plays that gorgeous bass solo at the beginning
00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:37.900
of Wondrous Love. And we decided we were going
00:34:37.900 --> 00:34:39.760
to get together and do a trio and do some things
00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:43.000
together. So they did a couple of duets. She's
00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:49.039
a violinist. And he did a couple of solo things.
00:34:49.380 --> 00:34:51.820
And then we did this kind of, so I kind of curated
00:34:51.820 --> 00:34:56.039
the show pretty much with my friends. And we
00:34:56.039 --> 00:34:58.579
had an amazing time doing it. And we would go
00:34:58.579 --> 00:35:00.699
to people's neighborhoods, people from a neighborhood.
00:35:01.710 --> 00:35:03.670
could get together. And I think it only cost
00:35:03.670 --> 00:35:06.409
maybe three or $400 to bring a small group from
00:35:06.409 --> 00:35:08.309
the symphony out to your neighborhood to perform
00:35:08.309 --> 00:35:13.289
a 45 minute concert. And it was amazing. It was
00:35:13.289 --> 00:35:15.090
a really great way to connect with our, with
00:35:15.090 --> 00:35:18.050
our patrons. And it was the motivation I needed
00:35:18.050 --> 00:35:21.809
to kind of, okay, standing on my own two feet
00:35:21.809 --> 00:35:24.210
about what it is. I like what it is. I want to
00:35:24.210 --> 00:35:27.699
want to perform what I want to say. And so when
00:35:27.699 --> 00:35:30.019
it came time to do the album, I really wanted
00:35:30.019 --> 00:35:33.780
Jenna to play again on it. But she she's like,
00:35:33.860 --> 00:35:39.500
look, I'm really not a folk fiddling violinist.
00:35:40.539 --> 00:35:42.619
I'm really not comfortable doing it. And there
00:35:42.619 --> 00:35:44.480
was another violinist in our orchestra, Susan
00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:49.219
Mora, who is just. I got it. She is just an absolute
00:35:49.219 --> 00:35:51.340
badass. She can play classical literature amazingly
00:35:51.340 --> 00:35:56.780
well. And she can shred. So naturally like no
00:35:56.780 --> 00:35:59.760
other. So Susan was like, hell yeah, I would
00:35:59.760 --> 00:36:03.099
love to do this with you. So we did so many of
00:36:03.099 --> 00:36:06.099
these things to really like in one take. I mean,
00:36:06.119 --> 00:36:08.539
she's just she's just amazing. She's that good.
00:36:23.530 --> 00:36:33.050
On a poisoned thorn. It has roosed dirty and
00:36:33.050 --> 00:36:41.449
torn. Youngins are playing as the black crow
00:36:41.449 --> 00:36:49.730
flies. Mamas are weeping. Um, and with the base,
00:36:49.969 --> 00:36:52.409
you know, we just wanted to beef up the base
00:36:52.409 --> 00:36:56.090
a little bit more. Um, and so Mark just kind
00:36:56.090 --> 00:36:58.610
of came in and once we got into post -production,
00:36:58.769 --> 00:37:00.929
Greg wasn't available. And so you want to just
00:37:00.929 --> 00:37:02.769
beef up some things and then just add a couple
00:37:02.769 --> 00:37:04.349
of things. And Mark's like, Mark's like, yeah,
00:37:04.429 --> 00:37:06.329
I'll come down and do some stuff. Cause I realized
00:37:06.329 --> 00:37:09.769
I wanted to add some stuff on, I wanted to add
00:37:09.769 --> 00:37:13.980
baseline on Appalachia to really set that. very
00:37:13.980 --> 00:37:17.300
mist in the mountains type of atmosphere. So
00:37:17.300 --> 00:37:19.679
Mark came in and was just kind of playing around,
00:37:19.840 --> 00:37:25.019
just adding Mark magic to a bunch of stuff. And
00:37:25.019 --> 00:37:29.679
then Greg obviously did guitar. So for me, the
00:37:29.679 --> 00:37:33.219
violin and the bass was just, I loved how it
00:37:33.219 --> 00:37:35.320
worked. I loved the simplicity of it when we
00:37:35.320 --> 00:37:39.699
did the sidewalk serenades over COVID. And I
00:37:39.699 --> 00:37:44.639
wanted to keep it because I just didn't, I'm
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:48.219
big into if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And
00:37:48.219 --> 00:37:50.300
so I'm like, I just don't need to overcomplicate
00:37:50.300 --> 00:37:53.599
this. Let's keep this. And also too, I mean,
00:37:53.619 --> 00:37:57.280
I think most people that have an education about
00:37:57.280 --> 00:37:59.659
really traditional folk music, especially mountain
00:37:59.659 --> 00:38:02.739
music, people didn't have a ton of different
00:38:02.739 --> 00:38:04.139
instruments. And in fact, they wouldn't have
00:38:04.139 --> 00:38:06.400
had a big upright bass, right? Somebody would
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:09.280
have had a fiddle that came over, a violin that
00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:11.800
came over that they just kept in the family passing
00:38:11.800 --> 00:38:16.559
down. But you would, do take a wash basin, put
00:38:16.559 --> 00:38:21.320
a hole in it with a broomstick and do some sinew,
00:38:21.320 --> 00:38:25.519
some like leather line or twine down through
00:38:25.519 --> 00:38:29.239
there to make a base. So, you know, my relatives,
00:38:29.300 --> 00:38:32.920
kind of what they played on, on the porch, you
00:38:32.920 --> 00:38:35.900
might have a banjo, something like that. But
00:38:35.900 --> 00:38:38.239
even with a banjo, I love working with mandolinist
00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:40.480
and banjo players. I can do these arrangements
00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:43.989
live with pretty, you know, with a really, large
00:38:43.989 --> 00:38:48.030
variety of instrument combinations. But for me
00:38:48.030 --> 00:38:52.550
that the melodic capabilities of the violin,
00:38:52.710 --> 00:38:55.829
the rhythmic capabilities and the sonority of
00:38:55.829 --> 00:38:58.510
the bass, and then adding some horn in there,
00:38:58.630 --> 00:39:01.489
you know, for some things like the horn chorus,
00:39:01.550 --> 00:39:04.710
I love the horn chorus and I'll fly away. It
00:39:04.710 --> 00:39:35.969
was so much fun to do. those for me just seemed
00:39:35.969 --> 00:39:39.750
the truest, most authentic voice for me to use.
00:39:41.289 --> 00:39:46.469
And that is kind of my barometer. If I start
00:39:46.469 --> 00:39:50.210
feeling like I have kind of a rule to myself
00:39:50.210 --> 00:39:52.710
if I'm working on something and if I start questioning
00:39:52.710 --> 00:39:56.989
it too much and if I start wondering what people
00:39:56.989 --> 00:39:59.010
are going to think about it, then I've set it
00:39:59.010 --> 00:40:02.400
down and I walk away. Yeah, because then it's
00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:06.980
not it's not it's not my authenticity anymore.
00:40:08.300 --> 00:40:10.500
It's it's going to be overproduced. It's going
00:40:10.500 --> 00:40:12.900
to be contrived. And I really wanted a little
00:40:12.900 --> 00:40:17.239
bit of that. The simplicity, the live quality,
00:40:17.440 --> 00:40:21.679
like very much not overproduced, like have some
00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:24.000
of the rawness in it, make it not be perfectly
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:27.199
clean. I mean, because that's just not how it
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:30.719
would be on somebody's porch, you know. Actually,
00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:32.539
I wanted to ask you about the vocal technique
00:40:32.539 --> 00:40:35.340
from the region where at the end of phrases,
00:40:35.380 --> 00:40:38.320
it's kind of like a half yodel. Oh, yeah, yeah,
00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:43.380
yeah, yeah. Hi, just a really short break from
00:40:43.380 --> 00:40:47.119
the episode. Please note, I've linked a few episodes
00:40:47.119 --> 00:40:50.300
in the show notes for you with euphonium soloist
00:40:50.300 --> 00:40:53.380
Bente Illevold, trombonist Hilary Sims of the
00:40:53.380 --> 00:40:56.260
American Brass Quintet, songwriter Jean Rowe,
00:40:56.400 --> 00:41:00.269
trombonist Naomi Moon Siegel, Grammy -winning
00:41:00.269 --> 00:41:03.469
composer Carla Petullo, who has overcome major
00:41:03.469 --> 00:41:06.250
personal and health challenges, and the Emmy
00:41:06.250 --> 00:41:09.489
-winning composer and trombonist J. Walter Hawks,
00:41:09.510 --> 00:41:11.949
with his story overcoming a near -death experience,
00:41:12.369 --> 00:41:15.610
and finally, songwriter, violinist, author, and
00:41:15.610 --> 00:41:18.909
disability rights activist Galen Lee, among so
00:41:18.909 --> 00:41:23.429
many episodes since 2021. Sign up for my newsletter,
00:41:23.670 --> 00:41:26.090
where you'll get exclusive information about
00:41:26.090 --> 00:41:28.670
upcoming guests, consider buying me a coffee
00:41:28.670 --> 00:41:31.489
on my Ko -fi page or buying some unique podcast
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merch. You can also review this podcast, share
00:41:35.010 --> 00:41:37.429
it with your friends, and follow on your podcast
00:41:37.429 --> 00:41:41.570
app, YouTube, and social media. All this helps
00:41:41.570 --> 00:41:45.610
spread the word. Thanks. Now, back to my conversation
00:41:45.610 --> 00:41:51.809
with Mary Beth. Yeah, I will tell you, it is
00:41:51.809 --> 00:41:56.099
not, when I do it, it's not... I mean, I'm a
00:41:56.099 --> 00:41:58.659
classical musician, so when I'm working on something
00:41:58.659 --> 00:42:01.559
and how I want to do it for recording, yes, I
00:42:01.559 --> 00:42:04.800
will really make some decisions and be mindful
00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:08.739
and purposeful about it. But these are just things
00:42:08.739 --> 00:42:13.000
I heard my granny do. So in terms of a musicological
00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:15.860
education for me about it, that's not what I
00:42:15.860 --> 00:42:18.679
have. It's just simply I heard what my granny
00:42:18.679 --> 00:42:22.699
did. Those inflections were hers. And so that's,
00:42:22.699 --> 00:42:24.179
that's what I do. You know, it's what I heard
00:42:24.179 --> 00:42:27.880
my aunts doing my, you know, my granny. And so
00:42:27.880 --> 00:42:31.239
that's, that's, it really is that simple. Those
00:42:31.239 --> 00:42:34.199
inflections, it's not a, it's not super on purpose.
00:42:34.219 --> 00:42:37.099
If that, if that makes sense. No, no. I mean,
00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:39.039
I Googled it. I was, I was curious about it.
00:42:39.820 --> 00:42:42.139
I'd be interested in what you Googled about it.
00:42:42.159 --> 00:42:44.960
Cause I've, I have never Googled it. I googled
00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:47.679
up and it came up like, I didn't do a deep dive
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:49.800
because it was like Appalachian Mountain style
00:42:49.800 --> 00:42:53.739
singing, vocal feathering, half yodel. These
00:42:53.739 --> 00:42:56.380
words came up for describing what you were doing.
00:42:56.440 --> 00:42:59.739
But, you know, I didn't go into it too deeply.
00:42:59.880 --> 00:43:02.000
So I was just kind of curious with what I was
00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:05.480
hearing. Yeah. I know that I'm kind of really
00:43:05.480 --> 00:43:10.380
called for the half yodel on the ends of a phrase.
00:43:10.420 --> 00:43:12.179
It's like, it's an exclamation point for me.
00:43:13.670 --> 00:43:18.570
It's, there is the, it's like guttural. It's,
00:43:18.570 --> 00:43:21.849
it's, I think, God, you know, what I love so
00:43:21.849 --> 00:43:25.969
much about doing it is that on horn, I have to
00:43:25.969 --> 00:43:30.289
be so careful. I have to be so, God, it's such
00:43:30.289 --> 00:43:33.929
a beast to play. I mean, sometimes it just, sometimes
00:43:33.929 --> 00:43:37.050
I hate the horn if I'm on it. Sometimes I just
00:43:37.050 --> 00:43:40.219
do, but I love it, but I hate it, you know? I
00:43:40.219 --> 00:43:44.280
am stressed. Sorry to I mean, I probably shouldn't
00:43:44.280 --> 00:43:46.860
be, you know, this be out in public or whatever.
00:43:46.980 --> 00:43:50.320
But if you see me performing live, no, I am stressed
00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:52.719
as hell about the horn side of everything. I
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:56.360
am perched and ready. I am like hardcore focused.
00:43:56.460 --> 00:44:01.280
I am 111. But whatever I'm singing, I'm just
00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:05.639
having so much fun. I have I have zero judgment.
00:44:06.119 --> 00:44:08.059
You know, and actually that's the thing, the
00:44:08.059 --> 00:44:11.460
vocal stuff again on the, on the album, I didn't
00:44:11.460 --> 00:44:14.500
do many retakes of that. I just, I was like,
00:44:14.539 --> 00:44:16.440
yep, I'm good with it. I'm not gonna, I'm not
00:44:16.440 --> 00:44:18.360
gonna micromanage it because it just needed to
00:44:18.360 --> 00:44:22.900
be of the moment in that way. And I love it.
00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:25.059
It's like, it's this great balance to the stress
00:44:25.059 --> 00:44:29.880
that horn brings me to get you to have the release,
00:44:30.119 --> 00:44:33.400
you know, with singing. So I've had quite a few
00:44:33.400 --> 00:44:36.559
brass players on the podcast and I've tried to
00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:38.800
have some women, but I actually haven't had a
00:44:38.800 --> 00:44:40.460
horn player yet. So you're the first French horn
00:44:40.460 --> 00:44:44.219
player. You know, and I'm an orchestral musician,
00:44:44.360 --> 00:44:47.579
so I'm well aware of how hard it is and how stressed
00:44:47.579 --> 00:44:52.300
they are. So not everyone listening will be familiar
00:44:52.300 --> 00:44:56.820
with that. Why do you think it's a smaller mouthpiece?
00:44:56.860 --> 00:44:58.840
There's more resistance with all the tubing.
00:44:58.940 --> 00:45:01.340
What's going on there? So I think the physics
00:45:01.340 --> 00:45:08.019
is pretty much 100 % the physics. So the ratio
00:45:08.019 --> 00:45:11.199
of the mouthpiece to the amount of tubing and
00:45:11.199 --> 00:45:13.219
then the size of the tubing and how that tubing
00:45:13.219 --> 00:45:16.360
changes and the fact that we have a four octave
00:45:16.360 --> 00:45:21.409
usable range. We are, I play pieces where I'm
00:45:21.409 --> 00:45:23.130
pretty much called to actually Appalachia pretty
00:45:23.130 --> 00:45:25.949
much uses almost all of that, that four octaves.
00:45:27.050 --> 00:45:32.650
And the way the partials are actually, you know,
00:45:32.650 --> 00:45:34.710
I teach at Hope College and I have a trumpet
00:45:34.710 --> 00:45:36.730
student that's turning, you know, changing over
00:45:36.730 --> 00:45:38.889
to horn. And, you know, we had an introductory
00:45:38.889 --> 00:45:43.289
lesson before the summer and he's like, oh, this
00:45:43.289 --> 00:45:46.510
doesn't, this can go all kinds of different ways
00:45:46.510 --> 00:45:50.260
when you're playing one note. It can bend so
00:45:50.260 --> 00:45:52.400
many different ways. And when you're on other
00:45:52.400 --> 00:45:56.360
brass instruments, they slot. You can play every
00:45:56.360 --> 00:45:58.739
single note with every single different fingering.
00:45:58.880 --> 00:46:01.880
It's incredible. So you have to be really precise.
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:07.280
You have to be incredibly precise and also precise
00:46:07.280 --> 00:46:11.340
where your tongue is, how the air is moving.
00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:13.519
There are so many different moving parts and
00:46:13.519 --> 00:46:17.460
it can just go. I mean, it really is like hitting.
00:46:18.460 --> 00:46:21.099
having to hit three pointers over and over and
00:46:21.099 --> 00:46:23.820
over and over and over again. And especially
00:46:23.820 --> 00:46:26.280
on third horn and orchestra, I call it the sniper
00:46:26.280 --> 00:46:29.619
position. And any third horns out there watching
00:46:29.619 --> 00:46:33.079
this podcast, when it comes out, you know exactly
00:46:33.079 --> 00:46:36.380
what I mean. You are usually called on after
00:46:36.380 --> 00:46:39.840
like a bunch of rest to kind of ping in on a
00:46:39.840 --> 00:46:43.239
high note, on the worst fingering, at the worst
00:46:43.239 --> 00:46:46.579
dynamic, completely out of context, and you just
00:46:46.579 --> 00:46:49.940
have to be there. And you get no bow, no glory,
00:46:50.179 --> 00:46:55.380
nothing from it. Your goal is to not screw up
00:46:55.380 --> 00:46:58.340
and ruin the moment for everybody else and then
00:46:58.340 --> 00:47:00.000
be fine with that in your soul and walk away.
00:47:00.099 --> 00:47:04.280
This is literally all of third horn land. And
00:47:04.280 --> 00:47:07.219
so that, I mean, that's part of what makes it
00:47:07.219 --> 00:47:11.519
really, really challenging. Yes, it takes, it
00:47:11.519 --> 00:47:13.900
does, I would say, probably because of the physics.
00:47:13.980 --> 00:47:19.980
We are air capacity. The amount of air we need
00:47:19.980 --> 00:47:23.800
to use against the resistance is also probably
00:47:23.800 --> 00:47:29.599
a factor. I would say that I think anybody that's
00:47:29.599 --> 00:47:33.500
playing horn, though, I wouldn't agree that it's
00:47:33.500 --> 00:47:36.159
the hardest instrument. People will say that
00:47:36.159 --> 00:47:37.699
all the time. Oh, I hear that's the hardest.
00:47:37.739 --> 00:47:42.880
Like, no, because I think I would need to be
00:47:42.880 --> 00:47:44.760
seriously medicated if I tried to play violin.
00:47:44.840 --> 00:47:47.489
I don't think I can do it. I literally don't
00:47:47.489 --> 00:47:50.789
think I'm built for that instrument. I just don't.
00:47:51.090 --> 00:47:54.329
I think that excellence on any instrument is,
00:47:54.409 --> 00:47:59.130
you know, I think there's, but in terms of brass
00:47:59.130 --> 00:48:01.090
instruments, there's a special difficulty with
00:48:01.090 --> 00:48:02.710
horn. So when I said hardest, I meant in the
00:48:02.710 --> 00:48:04.849
brass world, it has particular difficulties.
00:48:05.110 --> 00:48:08.309
Yeah, it's, I just, I do think it's really the
00:48:08.309 --> 00:48:11.170
ratio of the physics, the, you know, and the
00:48:11.170 --> 00:48:15.820
amount of range we have. The precision required
00:48:15.820 --> 00:48:23.059
to sound just basically good, just to have accuracy,
00:48:23.300 --> 00:48:29.820
basic accuracy, is 100 % the biggest challenge.
00:48:30.119 --> 00:48:35.019
Then outside of that, I think anatomy can make
00:48:35.019 --> 00:48:37.239
a huge difference too, whether your anatomy is
00:48:37.239 --> 00:48:41.829
inclined for it or not. And how about transposition?
00:48:41.849 --> 00:48:45.150
You guys constantly have to be transposing. Uh,
00:48:45.269 --> 00:48:50.650
yes, I would. Opera, Verdi, especially, um, lots
00:48:50.650 --> 00:48:52.610
of transposition and very opera transposition.
00:48:52.670 --> 00:48:56.889
So you figure out tricks for that. Um, I, I don't
00:48:56.889 --> 00:49:01.550
know though. I would say I would have a harder
00:49:01.550 --> 00:49:04.570
time doing different clefs, like having to read
00:49:04.570 --> 00:49:07.289
tender clef. I'm a pianist. So, you know, I've
00:49:07.289 --> 00:49:10.019
been a pianist since I was seven and was a double
00:49:10.019 --> 00:49:13.260
performance major in college. So bass clef and
00:49:13.260 --> 00:49:15.340
treble clef, bam, I'm right there. You add another,
00:49:15.480 --> 00:49:16.940
you add any other clefs in there and I freak
00:49:16.940 --> 00:49:20.380
out. I can't do it. Like I would have to, that
00:49:20.380 --> 00:49:23.280
I'm like, nope, I never learned that. I don't
00:49:23.280 --> 00:49:25.539
think I can start now. So I'm intimidated by
00:49:25.539 --> 00:49:29.079
clefs more than transposition because I think
00:49:29.079 --> 00:49:32.519
when, with horns, where the era of time where
00:49:32.519 --> 00:49:35.960
you have a lot of transposition, it's the type
00:49:35.960 --> 00:49:39.199
of things we're playing. And Dvorak has some
00:49:39.199 --> 00:49:41.099
tricky transpositions because they're a lot more
00:49:41.099 --> 00:49:44.880
chromatic and that gets confusing. But you kind
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:46.860
of start to just once you start doing it, you
00:49:46.860 --> 00:49:48.579
kind of like, oh, this notes that this notes
00:49:48.579 --> 00:49:51.039
that and you're just kind of there's a certain
00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:53.559
structure to how the music's laid out that it
00:49:53.559 --> 00:49:56.019
makes sense, like the one in the five. And so
00:49:56.019 --> 00:49:58.340
harmonically, it kind of lays out within the
00:49:58.340 --> 00:50:01.360
same scale, within the same chord. That's that
00:50:01.360 --> 00:50:07.610
early classical literature and early. into early
00:50:07.610 --> 00:50:09.610
romantic literature. And then once the vault
00:50:09.610 --> 00:50:12.010
horn came about and valves came into play, then
00:50:12.010 --> 00:50:16.769
that went away. So it's not too terrible. It's
00:50:16.769 --> 00:50:19.530
not too terrible. I feel for the trombonists,
00:50:19.530 --> 00:50:22.869
the violas and the bassoons that have to do the
00:50:22.869 --> 00:50:28.769
clefs and stuff. That wigs me out. And in terms
00:50:28.769 --> 00:50:31.349
of women in the brass world, one of your mentors
00:50:31.349 --> 00:50:36.730
was Gail Williams. She was an inspiration for
00:50:36.730 --> 00:50:41.889
me. I never had a chance to study with her. That's
00:50:41.889 --> 00:50:44.090
still a bucket list thing. I just need to call
00:50:44.090 --> 00:50:45.590
her and say, hey, can I come play some things
00:50:45.590 --> 00:50:50.809
for you? I will say just recently had the, just,
00:50:51.969 --> 00:50:54.570
there's no words. I could say amazing privilege,
00:50:54.829 --> 00:50:56.829
beautiful. I could say all kinds of it, but it
00:50:56.829 --> 00:51:00.869
was just transformative to play third to her
00:51:00.869 --> 00:51:09.960
on. Mahler six, uh, this past, I think it was
00:51:09.960 --> 00:51:13.400
late February. It was incredible. She's incredible.
00:51:13.619 --> 00:51:15.519
Actually, there was a beginning of March. Uh,
00:51:15.599 --> 00:51:17.519
she was playing principal. She came in to play
00:51:17.519 --> 00:51:21.719
with Grand Rapids and I just, the things I learned
00:51:21.719 --> 00:51:24.920
from her, just sitting near her playing unisons
00:51:24.920 --> 00:51:28.619
with her. She's for me, I think she's a lesson
00:51:28.619 --> 00:51:33.739
in how, cause we talked about this. She, She
00:51:33.739 --> 00:51:35.440
always said that she wanted to be a singer and
00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:38.039
I was like, but you are because you do this on
00:51:38.039 --> 00:51:41.579
horn. And we just got to sing together and it
00:51:41.579 --> 00:51:45.780
was amazing. And her ability to sing and with
00:51:45.780 --> 00:51:50.019
so much freedom and with so much ease, that was
00:51:50.019 --> 00:51:55.500
transformative for me. Nancy Faco has become
00:51:55.500 --> 00:51:58.659
a dear friend of mine, also a former principal
00:51:58.659 --> 00:52:02.800
horn of Chicago Symphony. Incredibly, incredibly
00:52:02.800 --> 00:52:06.639
strong, incredibly strong woman. Liz Freymuth
00:52:06.639 --> 00:52:10.440
out of Cincinnati. She's now teaching at Rice.
00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:16.420
Julie Lansman, amazing, amazing inspiration.
00:52:16.860 --> 00:52:20.820
I would say what's unfortunate, though, still,
00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:25.900
is that I could list maybe on my two hands the
00:52:25.900 --> 00:52:30.500
female principal horn players that have... been
00:52:30.500 --> 00:52:35.940
in our industry and it's increasing, but I just
00:52:35.940 --> 00:52:39.639
want to say out loud that I would not have the
00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:43.679
privileges that I do now in my career without
00:52:43.679 --> 00:52:47.800
the road that they paved. A hundred percent.
00:52:48.019 --> 00:52:50.980
They've done it with grace. They've done it with
00:52:50.980 --> 00:52:59.119
grit and integrity. So. Yes, that's great. I'll
00:52:59.119 --> 00:53:02.199
be linking some other episodes directly to this
00:53:02.199 --> 00:53:04.300
one in the show notes, including with some of
00:53:04.300 --> 00:53:08.099
the women brass players I've featured, like Bente
00:53:08.099 --> 00:53:10.340
Illivold, euphonium player, and Hilary Sims,
00:53:10.500 --> 00:53:15.559
trombone, and some other people. Yeah. Now, are
00:53:15.559 --> 00:53:17.739
you willing to talk about you had a really serious
00:53:17.739 --> 00:53:21.320
car accident in 2018? Mm -hmm. A hundred percent.
00:53:21.500 --> 00:53:24.840
I have, um, Leah, I have zero boundary, zero
00:53:24.840 --> 00:53:27.820
filter. So you really can ask me a hundred percent
00:53:27.820 --> 00:53:33.480
about anything because I do believe sharing everything
00:53:33.480 --> 00:53:39.059
about us, um, is the thing that even like the
00:53:39.059 --> 00:53:40.960
not glossy things that are on social, you know,
00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:43.119
social media is so glossy, right? So much of
00:53:43.119 --> 00:53:44.960
our world is like showing all the glossy stuff
00:53:44.960 --> 00:53:48.360
and there's quite a lot of my life, not, not
00:53:48.360 --> 00:53:52.280
glossy. And, um, I think we like, I think society
00:53:52.280 --> 00:53:56.099
loves to look at things, you know, through the,
00:53:56.159 --> 00:53:58.699
the movie workout montage, you know, the movie
00:53:58.699 --> 00:54:00.679
makeover montage type of thing. They love to
00:54:00.679 --> 00:54:03.619
see that, but that's not very real. And that
00:54:03.619 --> 00:54:05.719
can be very alienating for people that are struggling.
00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:08.820
So yeah, happy to talk about this, this accident.
00:54:08.960 --> 00:54:11.139
Cause I, it is kind of a miracle that I'm here.
00:54:12.599 --> 00:54:15.400
And it affected, I mean, you almost died. You
00:54:15.400 --> 00:54:17.380
were in a coma, but also your, it's your life
00:54:17.380 --> 00:54:22.750
as a horn player, right? Yes. Yes. So this was
00:54:22.750 --> 00:54:26.289
May 5th, 2018. I was actually on my way to volunteer
00:54:26.289 --> 00:54:28.769
for a veterans equine therapy group. So I was
00:54:28.769 --> 00:54:31.130
going out to a horse farm, beautiful sunny day.
00:54:32.230 --> 00:54:34.210
And I have no memory of waking up that morning,
00:54:34.230 --> 00:54:39.030
by the way. But I was t -boned going through
00:54:39.030 --> 00:54:44.329
a stop sign on a rural country road. I had a
00:54:44.329 --> 00:54:49.400
collapsed lung. um, a broken C6 and C7 vertebra,
00:54:49.480 --> 00:54:51.559
but it was a closed, they call it a closed transverse
00:54:51.559 --> 00:54:54.159
fracture. So it was like a crack inside of the
00:54:54.159 --> 00:54:58.920
bone, um, collapsed lung, lacerated liver, kidney.
00:54:59.440 --> 00:55:03.780
I was in a coma for three days. They did not
00:55:03.780 --> 00:55:07.360
know, you know, they didn't know what the outcome
00:55:07.360 --> 00:55:11.840
of that was going to be. And I lost, I bit entirely
00:55:11.840 --> 00:55:15.219
through. This part of my bottom lip, severed
00:55:15.219 --> 00:55:21.000
muscle, everything. And then this tooth is an
00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:23.599
implant that I completely lost that. And we found
00:55:23.599 --> 00:55:25.420
out later this one was cracked. So they decided
00:55:25.420 --> 00:55:28.079
to crown this one just so I wouldn't have to
00:55:28.079 --> 00:55:29.539
go through the whole process and the rest of
00:55:29.539 --> 00:55:32.440
the process again. And as crazy as this sounds,
00:55:32.539 --> 00:55:38.400
I honestly wish rather than my tooth. I'm going
00:55:38.400 --> 00:55:42.440
to stand in my truth on this as crazy as it is,
00:55:42.440 --> 00:55:44.739
and I'm not necessarily proud of it. I would
00:55:44.739 --> 00:55:48.539
have rather lost like my foot. I would rather
00:55:48.539 --> 00:55:53.460
lost my toe. Now I'm like, I'm okay. Now I'm
00:55:53.460 --> 00:55:55.599
happy it was just a tooth. But in that moment,
00:55:55.780 --> 00:55:58.059
I mean, I had just gotten tenure with Grand Rapids.
00:55:58.860 --> 00:56:02.280
The one thing I do remember right before I went
00:56:02.280 --> 00:56:05.659
to sleep the night prior was how much I love
00:56:05.659 --> 00:56:08.969
my life. I was like, I love my life. I'm, I'm
00:56:08.969 --> 00:56:11.489
finally extremely happy and really, really balanced.
00:56:12.289 --> 00:56:18.849
Um, yeah. So that, I mean, that, that took a
00:56:18.849 --> 00:56:23.070
lot out of me, um, because I kind of, I had this,
00:56:23.210 --> 00:56:25.690
I just finished my master's at MSU. I knew exactly
00:56:25.690 --> 00:56:27.329
what I wanted to do as a soloist. I'd booked
00:56:27.329 --> 00:56:30.469
some performances, solo performances, festival,
00:56:30.530 --> 00:56:32.750
and I lost all of that momentum, which was frustrating.
00:56:33.469 --> 00:56:37.190
And I did have to Through that process, through
00:56:37.190 --> 00:56:40.429
the summer, they wanted me to do Invisalign so
00:56:40.429 --> 00:56:46.250
that I could get my teeth back in alignment because
00:56:46.250 --> 00:56:49.369
I had bit down so hard, it shifted everything.
00:56:49.849 --> 00:56:52.230
So I had to do Invisalign during that time before
00:56:52.230 --> 00:56:56.349
they were willing to do the implant. And they
00:56:56.349 --> 00:57:00.730
wanted me not to play for a year. I said, oh.
00:57:02.819 --> 00:57:04.880
No, I'm telling you, I have the most amazing
00:57:04.880 --> 00:57:10.460
dentist. His name is Dr. Ray Rivich. And he,
00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:16.360
Dr. Ray, he was like my mad scientist working
00:57:16.360 --> 00:57:18.820
in his basement. He's like, he's like, okay,
00:57:18.880 --> 00:57:20.900
you need to, he's like, he's a rock star. But
00:57:20.900 --> 00:57:23.900
he said, you've got to realize this is so against
00:57:23.900 --> 00:57:28.760
all standard of care protocol. He said, We are
00:57:28.760 --> 00:57:30.940
so off the beaten path on this. I was like, are
00:57:30.940 --> 00:57:34.280
we Google incognito tab right now? Like so far,
00:57:34.360 --> 00:57:37.639
he's like, yes, ma 'am, we are. But he was willing.
00:57:37.760 --> 00:57:42.860
He was willing. He knew. He knew what this meant
00:57:42.860 --> 00:57:46.239
to me because he I went to him two days after
00:57:46.239 --> 00:57:48.260
I gotten home. I was calling dentists on the
00:57:48.260 --> 00:57:51.139
way home from the hospital. I was people kept
00:57:51.139 --> 00:57:52.860
telling me to rest. All of this stuff is like,
00:57:52.880 --> 00:57:55.079
no, you don't get it. There is no way I can rest
00:57:55.079 --> 00:57:58.559
until I have somebody. that can care for me,
00:57:58.639 --> 00:58:01.159
that knows what to do, that has a plan. Even
00:58:01.159 --> 00:58:03.280
if it's not right away, that's fine. But I need
00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:05.800
someone in control of this. Otherwise, I can't
00:58:05.800 --> 00:58:09.780
rest. And he sat in the lobby, held my hand and
00:58:09.780 --> 00:58:13.059
said, I know exactly what to do. And we've got
00:58:13.059 --> 00:58:16.679
this. And I've got you. I don't want to cry just
00:58:16.679 --> 00:58:21.239
thinking about it. He's the reason why I've been
00:58:21.239 --> 00:58:24.699
able to do all of this. And he fashioned, he
00:58:24.699 --> 00:58:27.219
was willing to fashion a bridge for me that I
00:58:27.219 --> 00:58:29.420
could play on that wouldn't put pressure on that
00:58:29.420 --> 00:58:34.239
implant at all. So I had the accident May 5th
00:58:34.239 --> 00:58:35.980
and I was back playing with the orchestra by
00:58:35.980 --> 00:58:42.659
October 7th. Wow. I kept buzzing. I got a plastic
00:58:42.659 --> 00:58:45.019
surgery to repair the mucus plug that had formed
00:58:45.019 --> 00:58:47.179
around the sutures. All this extra tissue had
00:58:47.179 --> 00:58:49.260
like formed on the inside. It looked like I was
00:58:49.260 --> 00:58:52.559
chewing tobacco, you know. And so I had to get
00:58:52.559 --> 00:58:55.079
that removed. And I did red light class four
00:58:55.079 --> 00:58:58.320
laser therapy that a friend, she's actually a
00:58:58.320 --> 00:59:00.519
dear friend that she was a photographer at my
00:59:00.519 --> 00:59:02.739
wedding and did my headshots, actually, all my
00:59:02.739 --> 00:59:04.559
professional headshots. She's also a horn player,
00:59:04.800 --> 00:59:07.659
very talented, talented woman. Her and her husband
00:59:07.659 --> 00:59:09.920
had opened up. She'd had class four laser therapy
00:59:09.920 --> 00:59:12.599
on her knees after a knee surgery that just went
00:59:12.599 --> 00:59:14.860
terribly. And she said, I think this could help
00:59:14.860 --> 00:59:17.519
you. And it did. It sped up my scar tissue healing
00:59:17.519 --> 00:59:23.679
by two years. within just a few months. And so
00:59:23.679 --> 00:59:28.860
once the surgery happened, we fashioned an implant.
00:59:29.139 --> 00:59:31.159
I'd been buzzing once my lip healed. I'd been
00:59:31.159 --> 00:59:33.820
buzzing. I'd been experimenting and trying to
00:59:33.820 --> 00:59:37.659
keep things together. And if I could say anything
00:59:37.659 --> 00:59:40.159
to anyone, and I've written some blog posts on
00:59:40.159 --> 00:59:44.219
my website about this, some pretty, I would say
00:59:44.219 --> 00:59:46.820
pretty raw things about the trauma element of
00:59:46.820 --> 00:59:50.389
this accident. And just what it was like to wake
00:59:50.389 --> 00:59:52.150
up, what it was like to process some of this.
00:59:52.230 --> 00:59:56.130
I still have to do some things on the technical
00:59:56.130 --> 00:59:58.690
side, like the science and medical side of things.
00:59:59.650 --> 01:00:04.530
But I kept trying to follow. I did a lot of deep
01:00:04.530 --> 01:00:06.250
diving. I had plenty of time, right? So I was
01:00:06.250 --> 01:00:11.389
researching what I should be doing, what I should
01:00:11.389 --> 01:00:13.860
do for my lip. What is the method for coming
01:00:13.860 --> 01:00:15.980
back to playing? I couldn't find very much, if
01:00:15.980 --> 01:00:18.579
I'm honest. I really could not find very much
01:00:18.579 --> 01:00:21.880
that was very relevant to my situation. There
01:00:21.880 --> 01:00:24.900
wasn't a lot out there. But I found some things
01:00:24.900 --> 01:00:27.539
about how to get back in shape after an injury
01:00:27.539 --> 01:00:31.260
or things like that. It wasn't working for me.
01:00:31.420 --> 01:00:34.920
It just didn't click. It didn't feel right. It
01:00:34.920 --> 01:00:41.219
felt like a caged animal, in a way, trying to
01:00:41.219 --> 01:00:45.380
do it. it just wasn't right. And so if anything
01:00:45.380 --> 01:00:50.380
I could share to anyone is that you have, sometimes
01:00:50.380 --> 01:00:54.460
it's okay to chart your own path, even if it's
01:00:54.460 --> 01:00:57.800
not recommended by people around you. Even if
01:00:57.800 --> 01:00:59.679
people think what you're doing is kind of foolish,
01:00:59.940 --> 01:01:03.420
I think you have to trust your own intuition
01:01:03.420 --> 01:01:07.619
about that balance between what deep down inside
01:01:07.619 --> 01:01:12.260
you know you have to do versus A compulsion that
01:01:12.260 --> 01:01:15.239
you're feeding? Because sometimes I think I did
01:01:15.239 --> 01:01:17.960
some stupid stuff that was feeding a compulsion
01:01:17.960 --> 01:01:21.659
as opposed to a healthy choice. But it was still
01:01:21.659 --> 01:01:26.300
all part of it. Right? It was still real, honest,
01:01:26.639 --> 01:01:30.780
ugly, dirty, and miraculous. It was all those
01:01:30.780 --> 01:01:35.400
things. Times that I... Almost threw my horn
01:01:35.400 --> 01:01:37.679
across the room. Times that I definitely threw
01:01:37.679 --> 01:01:39.739
my music across the room. Times that sometimes
01:01:39.739 --> 01:01:41.920
I was so mad because I couldn't get an upper
01:01:41.920 --> 01:01:43.980
register note that I needed that I shoved a mouthpiece
01:01:43.980 --> 01:01:47.219
into my face. That's not what I should be doing.
01:01:47.920 --> 01:01:50.139
Yeah, I probably came back to the orchestra to
01:01:50.139 --> 01:01:54.440
play too early. But the problem with not, if
01:01:54.440 --> 01:01:56.659
had I not come back to the orchestra, I learned.
01:01:57.349 --> 01:02:00.329
So many valuable things that helped my dentist
01:02:00.329 --> 01:02:02.690
adjust what was going on with my teeth based
01:02:02.690 --> 01:02:04.630
off of what I was doing in orchestra that I would
01:02:04.630 --> 01:02:07.469
not have known was a problem just practicing
01:02:07.469 --> 01:02:10.550
at home. Because in an orchestra, it's so different
01:02:10.550 --> 01:02:12.530
than solo, right? Because you were in control
01:02:12.530 --> 01:02:17.849
of nothing. You are now balancing all kinds of
01:02:17.849 --> 01:02:21.090
variables from what the conductor wants, intonation
01:02:21.090 --> 01:02:23.070
that's different than what your tuner had for
01:02:23.070 --> 01:02:28.019
you at home. God bless our orchestras, but I
01:02:28.019 --> 01:02:30.039
mean, this is a living, breathing thing, right?
01:02:31.019 --> 01:02:32.900
Nobody, not the best orchestras in the world
01:02:32.900 --> 01:02:35.159
don't play exactly every single tiny thing at
01:02:35.159 --> 01:02:38.519
A440 all the time. So those adjustments need
01:02:38.519 --> 01:02:40.980
to be made. Tempos are different. Dynamics are
01:02:40.980 --> 01:02:44.239
different. How long you're sitting before you
01:02:44.239 --> 01:02:48.079
play is different each time. So that gave me
01:02:48.079 --> 01:02:51.739
valuable information and I had to make that call
01:02:51.739 --> 01:02:53.840
for me. So it was like balancing my physical
01:02:53.840 --> 01:02:57.150
and mental health. And I don't regret any of
01:02:57.150 --> 01:02:59.869
it. I don't regret any of it. I'm not saying
01:02:59.869 --> 01:03:02.949
you shouldn't follow a method, but I am encouraging
01:03:02.949 --> 01:03:08.369
people to throw the method out if it's not working.
01:03:09.210 --> 01:03:12.409
And it's okay, even if you feel like you're walking
01:03:12.409 --> 01:03:15.590
around blind and you're unsure of everything
01:03:15.590 --> 01:03:20.090
and it's terrifying, it still is okay to go with
01:03:20.090 --> 01:03:25.400
your gut and chart your own path. Because I do
01:03:25.400 --> 01:03:27.500
believe that there's a light at the end of the
01:03:27.500 --> 01:03:48.130
tunnel for that. I was just remembering a couple
01:03:48.130 --> 01:03:50.349
of other guests I've spoken to had near -death
01:03:50.349 --> 01:03:52.449
experiences, including J. Walter Hawks. He's
01:03:52.449 --> 01:03:55.269
a trombonist and composer in New York who fell
01:03:55.269 --> 01:03:59.170
off a cliff in his early 20s and, yeah, almost
01:03:59.170 --> 01:04:01.530
died. And I think the realization that he really
01:04:01.530 --> 01:04:04.809
wanted to be doing music was really strong, like
01:04:04.809 --> 01:04:07.050
after that, that he needed to get back to it
01:04:07.050 --> 01:04:12.949
as well. I would say, yeah. I remember sitting
01:04:12.949 --> 01:04:16.329
looking at a sunset and people would say, I've
01:04:16.329 --> 01:04:19.610
written some things about this, about how the
01:04:19.610 --> 01:04:23.929
well -meaning things people would say that just
01:04:23.929 --> 01:04:27.510
made me want to punch something. And one of them
01:04:27.510 --> 01:04:30.650
was, well, you still, even if you can't play
01:04:30.650 --> 01:04:33.210
horn again, you still have piano and you can
01:04:33.210 --> 01:04:43.590
sing. Now, like that just, the ignorance of that.
01:04:44.199 --> 01:04:47.239
when you have you worked how many years taken
01:04:47.239 --> 01:04:49.440
how many auditions to win a full -time orchestra
01:04:49.440 --> 01:04:51.360
job and you were finally in a place you were
01:04:51.360 --> 01:04:54.519
so happy and the fact that horn as much as sometimes
01:04:54.519 --> 01:04:56.500
like I told you I'm very angry at the horn and
01:04:56.500 --> 01:04:59.639
I'm like why won't you just work for me um and
01:04:59.639 --> 01:05:04.260
how stressful it is it's still it's still one
01:05:04.260 --> 01:05:08.780
of my voices it's still one of my voices and
01:05:08.780 --> 01:05:12.530
to take one of my voices away, that would be
01:05:12.530 --> 01:05:14.590
a serious mourning period. And I just remember
01:05:14.590 --> 01:05:16.489
looking at the sunset being like, this sunset
01:05:16.489 --> 01:05:20.469
is beautiful. I acknowledge this sunset. I also
01:05:20.469 --> 01:05:22.510
don't give a shit about this sunset unless I
01:05:22.510 --> 01:05:26.289
can play my horn again. Yeah. I mean, and that
01:05:26.289 --> 01:05:29.030
time, and that was an interesting time too. Brain
01:05:29.030 --> 01:05:32.489
trauma is a very interesting thing because I
01:05:32.489 --> 01:05:36.309
do have a TBI. traumatic brain injury. And it
01:05:36.309 --> 01:05:39.869
pops up in really, I would say fairly minor ways,
01:05:39.969 --> 01:05:42.269
though I am in an increased risk for dementia
01:05:42.269 --> 01:05:45.030
and my mom passed from Alzheimer's. So it's something
01:05:45.030 --> 01:05:47.929
that I would say is a definite stressor for me.
01:05:48.010 --> 01:05:50.690
I try to take care of and I worry about a good
01:05:50.690 --> 01:05:55.110
bit. But the craziest thing about that time before
01:05:55.110 --> 01:05:57.510
I started playing in the orchestra again, I could
01:05:57.510 --> 01:06:04.929
not feel. I couldn't connect. emotionally, truly
01:06:04.929 --> 01:06:08.769
to anyone around me or anything I was doing.
01:06:08.809 --> 01:06:13.150
I felt like I was a ghost observing my life happen.
01:06:14.190 --> 01:06:16.170
I was definitely not, I definitely didn't want
01:06:16.170 --> 01:06:17.989
to be around large groups of people because that
01:06:17.989 --> 01:06:20.889
level of energy, I couldn't match it in any way.
01:06:21.449 --> 01:06:24.190
And I was always a person before that, that would,
01:06:24.289 --> 01:06:27.909
and you know, I'd be down for the party. Right.
01:06:28.530 --> 01:06:32.079
And I just really couldn't. do that. And even,
01:06:32.159 --> 01:06:35.219
even, I mean, I just really, I didn't even want
01:06:35.219 --> 01:06:37.579
to be around some of my friends very often either,
01:06:37.679 --> 01:06:42.539
because I just didn't have very much to offer,
01:06:42.719 --> 01:06:49.139
you know, reciprocally. And I just couldn't,
01:06:49.139 --> 01:06:51.739
even if I was doing something, I could say, I
01:06:51.739 --> 01:06:55.619
intellectually know I enjoy this, but I never
01:06:55.619 --> 01:06:57.920
actually felt it. It is a really hard thing to
01:06:57.920 --> 01:07:02.269
describe. It's very hard. Even things that food
01:07:02.269 --> 01:07:08.670
I enjoyed, I intellectually acknowledge that
01:07:08.670 --> 01:07:12.590
I physiologically enjoy the taste of this, but
01:07:12.590 --> 01:07:16.590
it brought nothing else. There was no, there
01:07:16.590 --> 01:07:19.690
was no, I don't mean, I really, again, I don't
01:07:19.690 --> 01:07:21.170
have, I really don't have the vocabulary for
01:07:21.170 --> 01:07:23.210
it. That's really the best way I could describe
01:07:23.210 --> 01:07:26.869
it. It kind of relates to grieving though, right?
01:07:26.969 --> 01:07:30.139
Because that. A lot of what you're describing
01:07:30.139 --> 01:07:32.539
and you were grieving the fact that you had this
01:07:32.539 --> 01:07:36.340
accident, that you lost so much. I think that's
01:07:36.340 --> 01:07:38.300
probably a very good point because I'm dealing
01:07:38.300 --> 01:07:40.519
with, and we've talked about this, I'm dealing
01:07:40.519 --> 01:07:44.360
with quite a bit of grief right now. And I have
01:07:44.360 --> 01:07:47.920
actually currently, there's been a lot that's
01:07:47.920 --> 01:07:51.699
happened in my life. Very intense things have
01:07:51.699 --> 01:07:53.679
happened in my life since that accident. It's
01:07:53.679 --> 01:07:56.800
like that accident was like a catalyst for. The
01:07:56.800 --> 01:08:00.440
movie part of Mary Beth's life, I think, is what
01:08:00.440 --> 01:08:05.079
it feels like. And I would say I've almost reached
01:08:05.079 --> 01:08:08.780
a threshold now where I cannot be sad anymore.
01:08:09.559 --> 01:08:13.460
I can't be. And I've talked to some friends about
01:08:13.460 --> 01:08:16.960
this. There's a small part of me that worries
01:08:16.960 --> 01:08:20.880
that it might make me seem callous. But people
01:08:20.880 --> 01:08:24.300
have asked me a lot, how have you... gone through
01:08:24.300 --> 01:08:28.180
what you've gone through and you are still doing
01:08:28.180 --> 01:08:30.000
or able to do all the things that you're doing.
01:08:31.319 --> 01:08:35.020
Because I've had a lot of loss. My sister, we
01:08:35.020 --> 01:08:38.800
talked about, she just passed and I've been planning
01:08:38.800 --> 01:08:41.100
my entire life around caring for her. Since the
01:08:41.100 --> 01:08:43.560
time I was seven, between seven and nine, I realized
01:08:43.560 --> 01:08:44.939
I was going to be the only one to take care of
01:08:44.939 --> 01:08:48.500
everybody in my family. Having my son and losing
01:08:48.500 --> 01:08:52.359
my mom. to alzheimer's when i'd lost her 10 years
01:08:52.359 --> 01:08:54.840
prior to like i'd lost her every day you know
01:08:54.840 --> 01:08:59.800
for 10 years uh shortly after my mom passed we
01:08:59.800 --> 01:09:01.720
like over the next eight month period we lost
01:09:01.720 --> 01:09:04.800
all three of my dogs that you know he raised
01:09:04.800 --> 01:09:09.439
his puppies and then um i just recently suffered
01:09:09.439 --> 01:09:12.460
a pregnancy loss barely a week before my sister
01:09:12.460 --> 01:09:16.359
passed um actually really about four days uh
01:09:17.479 --> 01:09:21.500
And I just I I think this is another level of
01:09:21.500 --> 01:09:25.159
this survival instinct. I am kind of at this
01:09:25.159 --> 01:09:29.220
place now where kind of like I told you, if if
01:09:29.220 --> 01:09:33.460
I put a pause on my life to grieve every time,
01:09:33.560 --> 01:09:36.760
especially recently, every time I've lost someone
01:09:36.760 --> 01:09:39.640
or something, I wouldn't have it. I don't I don't
01:09:39.640 --> 01:09:42.159
think I would have anything in my life. Right.
01:09:42.199 --> 01:09:45.140
I it would almost be more stressful to try to
01:09:45.140 --> 01:09:49.630
build those things back. And I have my ugly cry
01:09:49.630 --> 01:09:53.710
moments for sure. But the day is gorgeous today.
01:09:54.010 --> 01:09:57.170
I have gorgeous plants. I have a beautiful sun
01:09:57.170 --> 01:10:00.829
that needs me. I have I'm playing with Grant
01:10:00.829 --> 01:10:03.609
Park next week. I'm playing a solo show at the
01:10:03.609 --> 01:10:05.630
Ann Arbor Music Fest where I'm going to get to
01:10:05.630 --> 01:10:08.050
be around all kinds of amazing, wonderful artists.
01:10:08.090 --> 01:10:10.449
I've never gotten to perform there before. I
01:10:10.449 --> 01:10:16.090
have songs I want to write. I want to live. I
01:10:16.090 --> 01:10:19.710
cannot be sad anymore. I'm so tired. I'm tired
01:10:19.710 --> 01:10:24.369
of being sad and I'm tired of grief. So there
01:10:24.369 --> 01:10:26.409
is, I feel like I have this pragmatic part of
01:10:26.409 --> 01:10:30.250
myself that will just like shuts it off like
01:10:30.250 --> 01:10:36.810
a valve. Like I cannot do this right now because
01:10:36.810 --> 01:10:40.250
I actually want to try to enjoy something. I
01:10:40.250 --> 01:10:45.630
can't live in this space anymore. And I just
01:10:45.630 --> 01:10:47.729
have to go with that flow. Just like I said about,
01:10:47.850 --> 01:10:51.909
you know, it's okay to not follow a method. It's
01:10:51.909 --> 01:10:54.529
okay to chart your own path. Even if somebody
01:10:54.529 --> 01:10:56.850
says you should or you shouldn't, this is what
01:10:56.850 --> 01:11:00.649
I have to do right now because I do still want
01:11:00.649 --> 01:11:05.270
joy. I do still want joy. And I, I think I have
01:11:05.270 --> 01:11:12.470
a hunger for living and joy that may be other
01:11:12.470 --> 01:11:14.970
people chemically don't have, you know, I don't
01:11:14.970 --> 01:11:19.810
know. I can only speak for myself. And so knowing
01:11:19.810 --> 01:11:22.569
myself in that way, I think it's easier that
01:11:22.569 --> 01:11:24.470
I just accept it, you know, accept that part
01:11:24.470 --> 01:11:44.560
of myself and that the grief will come. Oh, let
01:11:44.560 --> 01:12:00.380
me weep. The willow leaves shall be my... It's
01:12:00.380 --> 01:12:04.359
not linear. No, no, it is very not. I was telling
01:12:04.359 --> 01:12:08.199
somebody the other day, and we could probably
01:12:08.199 --> 01:12:10.960
draw an analogy to performing and art in this
01:12:10.960 --> 01:12:18.100
way, but for me, Grief feels like emotional CrossFit.
01:12:19.640 --> 01:12:22.920
I feel like I'm in an emotional CrossFit world
01:12:22.920 --> 01:12:27.239
championship. Because grief for me doesn't ever
01:12:27.239 --> 01:12:30.640
get lighter. I actually miss my mom more now
01:12:30.640 --> 01:12:33.659
than I did two years ago. And I know I've been
01:12:33.659 --> 01:12:35.699
missing my sister for quite a while because she
01:12:35.699 --> 01:12:39.000
had dementia towards the end. And so I didn't
01:12:39.000 --> 01:12:41.460
get the things with her that... I was hoping
01:12:41.460 --> 01:12:45.380
I would have once she moved to Michigan. But
01:12:45.380 --> 01:12:49.039
it's like this really thick, heavy, wet, hot
01:12:49.039 --> 01:12:51.359
blanket that you're carrying around all the time.
01:12:51.420 --> 01:12:53.680
It's this pack that isn't going to get any lighter.
01:12:54.539 --> 01:12:56.619
It's probably just going to get piled on because
01:12:56.619 --> 01:13:00.840
we're safe from nothing. I used to think maybe
01:13:00.840 --> 01:13:04.359
there's some kind of cosmic order, but I think
01:13:04.359 --> 01:13:06.840
things are still just going to happen and we're
01:13:06.840 --> 01:13:11.350
not necessarily protected from anything. I can't
01:13:11.350 --> 01:13:13.930
say to comfort myself, well, this is probably
01:13:13.930 --> 01:13:15.710
going to be it for a while. So I should be safe
01:13:15.710 --> 01:13:18.369
from losing anybody else or anything or a hardship
01:13:18.369 --> 01:13:21.229
or a suffering. It's like, no, I got to be prepared
01:13:21.229 --> 01:13:23.890
for the suffering to come again tomorrow. And
01:13:23.890 --> 01:13:26.149
I know that sounds really dark, but that's why
01:13:26.149 --> 01:13:30.489
I live today. I still worry about plenty of things.
01:13:31.210 --> 01:13:33.310
I'm a Virgo, man. I like to have my bills paid.
01:13:33.470 --> 01:13:35.869
I like to have things in order and predictable
01:13:35.869 --> 01:13:40.199
to a certain extent. I, when it comes to something
01:13:40.199 --> 01:13:42.819
like grief, I just recognize that I just keep
01:13:42.819 --> 01:13:45.079
doing the weightlifting, keep doing the training,
01:13:45.140 --> 01:13:49.060
and I will be strong enough then to add on to
01:13:49.060 --> 01:13:50.979
the pack because the pack's not going to get
01:13:50.979 --> 01:13:53.199
lighter. The weight's not going to get lighter,
01:13:53.319 --> 01:13:59.439
but I can fortify myself stronger. And so maybe
01:13:59.439 --> 01:14:02.439
the joy that I seek is the fortification. It
01:14:02.439 --> 01:14:05.359
helps balance out the weight, maybe, of the grief.
01:14:06.029 --> 01:14:08.949
But that's beautiful, Mary Beth. I was thinking
01:14:08.949 --> 01:14:11.109
your sister before she had dementia, I mean,
01:14:11.130 --> 01:14:13.489
she lived with disability for her whole life.
01:14:13.550 --> 01:14:16.270
She had cerebral palsy. So maybe she taught you
01:14:16.270 --> 01:14:20.810
something too about that, about overcoming. She
01:14:20.810 --> 01:14:25.449
taught me not to waste time, not to waste anything.
01:14:26.569 --> 01:14:30.930
Partly because I wanted to. I knew I was preparing
01:14:30.930 --> 01:14:33.930
to take care of everybody, right? So there's
01:14:33.930 --> 01:14:39.170
part of it there. But also, too, she had such
01:14:39.170 --> 01:14:42.029
an amazing intellect, genius level IQ. She has
01:14:42.029 --> 01:14:46.609
a master's in theology from Emory University.
01:14:49.229 --> 01:14:52.310
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a special mentor
01:14:52.310 --> 01:14:54.729
of hers because he was there getting cancer treatments
01:14:54.729 --> 01:14:57.810
at the time that she was at Emory. And they had
01:14:57.810 --> 01:15:02.699
a very special relationship. And she would have
01:15:02.699 --> 01:15:04.420
been an athlete. She would have used her body
01:15:04.420 --> 01:15:08.140
in all kinds of ways, right? She worked her mind
01:15:08.140 --> 01:15:10.279
the way she couldn't, you know, she wasn't able
01:15:10.279 --> 01:15:14.199
to work her body. And I did not have a conventional
01:15:14.199 --> 01:15:19.359
childhood. I did not get to do what I wanted
01:15:19.359 --> 01:15:23.920
to do just whenever I wanted to do it. Which
01:15:23.920 --> 01:15:25.680
is, I think, is a good thing. The world did not
01:15:25.680 --> 01:15:28.649
revolve around me. And that's a good thing. I
01:15:28.649 --> 01:15:31.270
don't think we should feel like the world revolves
01:15:31.270 --> 01:15:35.670
around us. Though I had a great childhood, felt
01:15:35.670 --> 01:15:39.789
very loved and special by my parents. But we
01:15:39.789 --> 01:15:41.890
were a team, right? So there was always this
01:15:41.890 --> 01:15:43.729
emphasis on we take care of each other. It's
01:15:43.729 --> 01:15:47.789
a team. Also being really creative, learning
01:15:47.789 --> 01:15:50.289
how to play games together as kids when she's
01:15:50.289 --> 01:15:52.909
a full quadriplegic. So we learned how to put
01:15:52.909 --> 01:15:54.869
that was the encyclopedia generation, everybody.
01:15:55.149 --> 01:15:57.409
So we put two encyclopedias together and I put
01:15:57.409 --> 01:16:00.390
Uno cards in there so that she could point to
01:16:00.390 --> 01:16:02.090
the Uno card that she was going to play. But
01:16:02.090 --> 01:16:06.289
I couldn't see them. You know, I mean, we we
01:16:06.289 --> 01:16:11.770
got into, you know. We found ways to get into
01:16:11.770 --> 01:16:16.449
trouble together in unconventional ways as kids,
01:16:16.729 --> 01:16:23.909
right? And she taught me to be a defender and
01:16:23.909 --> 01:16:26.050
a warrior for those that could not fight for
01:16:26.050 --> 01:16:31.470
themselves. And she taught me not to waste a
01:16:31.470 --> 01:16:33.890
moment, not to waste time, not to waste my body,
01:16:33.949 --> 01:16:36.510
waste nothing because we're promised nothing.
01:16:36.890 --> 01:16:45.250
So if you have it, use it. Be creative. Be unafraid
01:16:45.250 --> 01:16:47.670
of everyone and everything that's different.
01:16:48.250 --> 01:16:55.050
Be unafraid. Be really with people that are different
01:16:55.050 --> 01:17:00.409
than you. Because a disabled population is a
01:17:00.409 --> 01:17:05.109
complicated way. I want to find a way, an equitable
01:17:05.109 --> 01:17:08.939
way to say this without alienating people. If
01:17:08.939 --> 01:17:12.640
I want to be my truest self, I will just bluntly
01:17:12.640 --> 01:17:17.300
say most of the world does not want to understand
01:17:17.300 --> 01:17:23.340
what it's like to be disabled or not to be able
01:17:23.340 --> 01:17:27.020
-bodied. Handicapable is a word that's used sometimes,
01:17:27.119 --> 01:17:32.960
but to not have the equitable use of your body
01:17:32.960 --> 01:17:38.670
the way others do and to need to depend on All
01:17:38.670 --> 01:17:42.010
kinds of accommodations in order to have to be
01:17:42.010 --> 01:17:44.529
able to participate in society. That's an uncomfortable
01:17:44.529 --> 01:17:47.829
thing for many people and people I have found
01:17:47.829 --> 01:17:52.670
in general as as a. Not 100 percent, but in a
01:17:52.670 --> 01:17:54.729
majority percent don't want to be uncomfortable.
01:17:55.649 --> 01:17:59.770
And so she taught me take the chance to be uncomfortable
01:17:59.770 --> 01:18:06.369
to discover someone amazing. And so. I think
01:18:06.369 --> 01:18:10.970
because of that, I have a very, very, very broad
01:18:10.970 --> 01:18:15.930
collection of amazing humans that probably would
01:18:15.930 --> 01:18:19.810
not necessarily get along together. You know,
01:18:19.810 --> 01:18:23.210
a variety of different types of humans because
01:18:23.210 --> 01:18:27.449
she taught me to see past what I see so I could
01:18:27.449 --> 01:18:30.029
see through to the human underneath. Maybe that's
01:18:30.029 --> 01:18:36.979
why I want to tell human stories. unlikely ways
01:18:36.979 --> 01:18:41.439
or unexpected ways. I never actually, thank you
01:18:41.439 --> 01:18:43.659
for that because I never actually put that together
01:18:43.659 --> 01:18:46.140
before. I don't think I ever thought about it
01:18:46.140 --> 01:18:50.020
that way before and taught you. Ask that question.
01:18:52.460 --> 01:18:56.359
Well, I interviewed Galen Lee, the disability
01:18:56.359 --> 01:18:59.159
rights advocate and musician and author a couple
01:18:59.159 --> 01:19:00.979
of times for this podcast. And we talked about
01:19:00.979 --> 01:19:03.300
her recent memoir. It wasn't meant to be perfect.
01:19:05.039 --> 01:19:10.279
Thinking a lot about the stuff recently. That's
01:19:10.279 --> 01:19:14.520
a great title too. That's a great title. Well,
01:19:14.520 --> 01:19:17.340
she was born with the imperfecta, the disease
01:19:17.340 --> 01:19:20.399
where your bones are brittle. So when she was
01:19:20.399 --> 01:19:23.500
born, all her, she had so many broken bones and
01:19:23.500 --> 01:19:24.800
they didn't even know what was wrong with her,
01:19:24.859 --> 01:19:28.180
the doctors. Anyway, that's a whole other thing,
01:19:28.180 --> 01:19:32.899
but yeah. Well. If we could go back a little
01:19:32.899 --> 01:19:35.180
bit to your younger self, Mary Beth. So you went
01:19:35.180 --> 01:19:37.119
to this very special high school, right? The
01:19:37.119 --> 01:19:39.460
Governor's School? So that was just a summer
01:19:39.460 --> 01:19:42.060
program. Somebody else was asking me about this
01:19:42.060 --> 01:19:44.920
recently, and I find it really humorous that
01:19:44.920 --> 01:19:49.460
where I grew up in Charleston, probably a year
01:19:49.460 --> 01:19:51.720
after I graduated high school, they started the
01:19:51.720 --> 01:19:53.960
North Charleston School for the Performing Arts.
01:19:54.560 --> 01:19:57.319
It's a magnet school, right? People were like,
01:19:57.359 --> 01:20:01.880
ah, damn. And same thing with Governor's School.
01:20:01.960 --> 01:20:06.060
So that was a summer program. So that was like
01:20:06.060 --> 01:20:09.180
a full on two and a half month program that really
01:20:09.180 --> 01:20:11.060
gave you the goal was to give you pretty much
01:20:11.060 --> 01:20:13.800
a bachelor's, a bachelor's of music performance
01:20:13.800 --> 01:20:16.760
education, pretty much everything you could possibly
01:20:16.760 --> 01:20:19.619
get in that time. Very coveted place. And I actually
01:20:19.619 --> 01:20:21.340
went there for piano. I did not go for horn.
01:20:23.360 --> 01:20:25.420
Once upon a time, I wanted to be a concert pianist,
01:20:25.420 --> 01:20:27.100
and then I realized I hadn't been setting technique
01:20:27.100 --> 01:20:29.600
from the time I was three, so I was pretty much
01:20:29.600 --> 01:20:32.260
out of the possibility for me. I also realized
01:20:32.260 --> 01:20:35.399
I wasn't very special on piano, and that was
01:20:35.399 --> 01:20:37.439
probably not going to be the right path for me.
01:20:38.619 --> 01:20:41.899
But yeah, the year after I graduated, they opened
01:20:41.899 --> 01:20:45.039
up the year -round school, so I missed up on
01:20:45.039 --> 01:20:47.880
that chance. I am a public school child, so the
01:20:47.880 --> 01:20:50.399
Governor's School for the Arts was just a summer
01:20:50.399 --> 01:20:53.199
program that I did. But it was amazing. It was
01:20:53.199 --> 01:20:57.060
absolutely amazing place. I was just curious,
01:20:57.180 --> 01:20:59.619
you know, you freelanced quite a bit before your
01:20:59.619 --> 01:21:03.359
job with Grand Rapids. So if you had like audition
01:21:03.359 --> 01:21:05.939
or career advice from a horn playing perspective
01:21:05.939 --> 01:21:10.619
or just as a woman, just as a person. As a human,
01:21:10.819 --> 01:21:15.569
the thing that I think I can. That I think I
01:21:15.569 --> 01:21:17.369
can have to offer because I used to think I really
01:21:17.369 --> 01:21:19.729
didn't have much to offer because I didn't I
01:21:19.729 --> 01:21:21.489
wasn't very successful at full time orchestral
01:21:21.489 --> 01:21:24.430
auditions. But someone said to me, well, that's
01:21:24.430 --> 01:21:27.289
the reason why you should talk about what changed
01:21:27.289 --> 01:21:31.409
things for you to win Grand Rapids. Because I
01:21:31.409 --> 01:21:33.649
did struggle for a long time as a freelancer,
01:21:33.689 --> 01:21:35.670
I was incredibly successful. I could do the job.
01:21:35.689 --> 01:21:38.350
I knew I could do the job. But something wasn't
01:21:38.350 --> 01:21:41.250
connecting when I went to audition. Now, for
01:21:41.250 --> 01:21:43.449
a while, I was a low horn specialist. And so.
01:21:44.199 --> 01:21:46.479
I very much did not take high horn auditions.
01:21:46.479 --> 01:21:49.279
I just kind of really stayed with low horn because
01:21:49.279 --> 01:21:50.979
that seemed to be where I was most successful.
01:21:52.380 --> 01:21:57.239
And it wasn't until I started branching out to
01:21:57.239 --> 01:22:02.439
do solo work, solo competitions. And this idea
01:22:02.439 --> 01:22:05.520
of, you know, I need to kind of change my direction
01:22:05.520 --> 01:22:07.739
and my focus rather than trying to win an orchestral
01:22:07.739 --> 01:22:11.300
audition. I need to be focusing on who I am as
01:22:11.300 --> 01:22:17.300
a musician, what I want to say, and standing
01:22:17.300 --> 01:22:20.119
on my own two feet artistically and musically.
01:22:20.199 --> 01:22:23.659
And that may be success for me. What is it that
01:22:23.659 --> 01:22:25.239
I really want? Is it to play in an orchestra
01:22:25.239 --> 01:22:28.899
or is it to play amazing music with amazing musicians
01:22:28.899 --> 01:22:31.199
at the top of their field? There may be other
01:22:31.199 --> 01:22:33.060
ways to do that other than playing in an orchestra.
01:22:33.939 --> 01:22:38.560
And I think the thing that held me back so much
01:22:38.560 --> 01:22:40.819
prior to that point is that I was such a pleaser.
01:22:40.859 --> 01:22:43.439
I was still in that educational space of trying
01:22:43.439 --> 01:22:48.760
to do everything that any person I'd ever played
01:22:48.760 --> 01:22:54.989
for wanted me to do. That is not realistic. But
01:22:54.989 --> 01:22:56.890
I was still in that education mind instead of
01:22:56.890 --> 01:22:59.050
making my, I thought maybe I could hack the system
01:22:59.050 --> 01:23:01.350
by even listening to other people's audition
01:23:01.350 --> 01:23:03.069
recordings. Okay, well, I'll play it like that,
01:23:03.130 --> 01:23:07.210
right? It's like I was trying to hack and cheat
01:23:07.210 --> 01:23:10.090
on a process that really required me to do the
01:23:10.090 --> 01:23:11.909
work of figuring out, but how do I want it to
01:23:11.909 --> 01:23:15.930
sound? What do I want it to be? What makes, how
01:23:15.930 --> 01:23:18.829
can I play this that makes, that accentuates
01:23:18.829 --> 01:23:22.750
what I do well, right? Because we all do things.
01:23:23.560 --> 01:23:25.060
you know, maybe a little bit differently. We
01:23:25.060 --> 01:23:28.340
have different strengths. And so what should,
01:23:28.380 --> 01:23:31.020
how should I be playing something to accentuate
01:23:31.020 --> 01:23:35.960
what it is I already do well? And then when I
01:23:35.960 --> 01:23:39.579
started doing solo things, I didn't have anybody
01:23:39.579 --> 01:23:41.720
else really to listen to. I'm like, who am I
01:23:41.720 --> 01:23:45.199
going to, I'm not trying to win a job here. I'm
01:23:45.199 --> 01:23:46.779
just taking, doing this competition. I'm just
01:23:46.779 --> 01:23:49.199
doing this recital. I get to do whatever the
01:23:49.199 --> 01:23:52.949
hell I want. That was really fun. And I started
01:23:52.949 --> 01:23:55.550
to have a really good time with that. I wasn't
01:23:55.550 --> 01:23:57.350
really into horn solo stuff in college because
01:23:57.350 --> 01:23:59.149
I was a pianist, right? Piano solo literature
01:23:59.149 --> 01:24:01.909
is way better. I love piano solo literature.
01:24:02.090 --> 01:24:03.430
I was like, there's nothing on horn. The piano
01:24:03.430 --> 01:24:07.029
still sounds better, right? But as I grew up
01:24:07.029 --> 01:24:09.689
a little bit and realizing that horn was one
01:24:09.689 --> 01:24:12.850
of my voices and that I could say something as
01:24:12.850 --> 01:24:15.010
a soloist that had impact that was different,
01:24:15.109 --> 01:24:17.210
that started to change things. And I remember
01:24:17.210 --> 01:24:21.449
having... taking an audition for Dallas Symphony,
01:24:21.550 --> 01:24:26.609
I believe. And I was assistant music directing
01:24:26.609 --> 01:24:28.590
for the musical at Central Michigan University.
01:24:29.329 --> 01:24:31.369
And they were really upset that I needed to be
01:24:31.369 --> 01:24:33.989
gone for a couple of rehearsals when they hadn't
01:24:33.989 --> 01:24:36.250
really given me an organized rehearsal schedule
01:24:36.250 --> 01:24:39.869
prior to anything starting anyway. And I was
01:24:39.869 --> 01:24:44.310
just hustling so, so much doing 18 hour days,
01:24:44.529 --> 01:24:47.439
nine months out of the year. I was like, this
01:24:47.439 --> 01:24:50.399
is not, and as a collaborative pianist, there
01:24:50.399 --> 01:24:52.340
was nowhere else for me to go. There was no,
01:24:52.500 --> 01:24:55.300
this was not really going to change this life
01:24:55.300 --> 01:24:57.659
and what I was doing. And it was very clearly
01:24:57.659 --> 01:25:00.960
sabotaging because I played horror. I mean, I
01:25:00.960 --> 01:25:03.800
flew in the morning of the audition, took a train
01:25:03.800 --> 01:25:08.640
from, you know, the airport to try to get, you
01:25:08.640 --> 01:25:11.520
know, try to get to the hall to make this. There
01:25:11.520 --> 01:25:13.619
was not a snowball's chance in hell this was
01:25:13.619 --> 01:25:16.289
going to go well, right? Split in too many different
01:25:16.289 --> 01:25:19.109
directions. So I kind of realized I needed to
01:25:19.109 --> 01:25:20.970
give a sign to the universe that I'm making a
01:25:20.970 --> 01:25:24.829
big change, that I am opening myself up to where
01:25:24.829 --> 01:25:27.109
it is, to the thing that needs to come to me
01:25:27.109 --> 01:25:30.289
now. Right. And so I talked to Corbin Wagner
01:25:30.289 --> 01:25:33.590
at Michigan State University and he and I played
01:25:33.590 --> 01:25:35.409
together in Detroit because I subbed there. I
01:25:35.409 --> 01:25:37.970
played there, I think, almost every concert for
01:25:37.970 --> 01:25:40.970
about four years and played next to him quite
01:25:40.970 --> 01:25:43.850
a lot. And I said, hey, I'm thinking about the
01:25:43.850 --> 01:25:46.029
University Distinguished Fellowship at MSU. I
01:25:46.029 --> 01:25:47.970
need to make a change. I want to really focus
01:25:47.970 --> 01:25:52.890
more on horn. And I really, I really think we
01:25:52.890 --> 01:25:54.930
could work well together. And he said, hell yeah,
01:25:54.970 --> 01:25:58.270
let's do this. I started, I had a couple of lessons
01:25:58.270 --> 01:26:02.090
with him and he was amazing about saying, don't,
01:26:02.090 --> 01:26:05.449
he didn't say play it like this. He said, what
01:26:05.449 --> 01:26:10.079
are you going for? And I would tell him and he
01:26:10.079 --> 01:26:11.260
said, well, that's not what I was getting. I'm
01:26:11.260 --> 01:26:13.199
getting more this. Try something else. He would
01:26:13.199 --> 01:26:16.260
not tell me what to do, which was perfect for
01:26:16.260 --> 01:26:18.420
what I needed at that time. And he could pick
01:26:18.420 --> 01:26:20.420
out if something color wise was inconsistent
01:26:20.420 --> 01:26:23.920
and then he could actually explain physiologically
01:26:23.920 --> 01:26:28.239
how to change color. First time I'd had somebody
01:26:28.239 --> 01:26:30.199
ever really is it's mouth spaces, manipulating
01:26:30.199 --> 01:26:32.180
mouth space. And then it got me thinking about,
01:26:32.180 --> 01:26:36.170
you know, how vocalists. manipulate mouth space
01:26:36.170 --> 01:26:38.750
for upper register, right? Certain vowels don't
01:26:38.750 --> 01:26:42.350
phonate. And so it just got me thinking about
01:26:42.350 --> 01:26:45.649
horn in a very different way. And then after
01:26:45.649 --> 01:26:49.289
maybe about, I started manipulating that mouth
01:26:49.289 --> 01:26:51.289
space and all of a sudden I'm getting this high
01:26:51.289 --> 01:26:54.130
register that feels pretty damn easy. Doing all
01:26:54.130 --> 01:26:55.909
the solo literature that requires high register
01:26:55.909 --> 01:26:58.890
and it feels pretty, pretty good. And then I,
01:26:58.989 --> 01:27:02.250
you know, Within a one -month span of time, I
01:27:02.250 --> 01:27:04.149
took the audition, got the University Distinguished
01:27:04.149 --> 01:27:06.770
Fellowship. I was in the finals for Chicago Lyric,
01:27:06.869 --> 01:27:11.869
and then I won Grand Rapids. Wonderful. And I
01:27:11.869 --> 01:27:14.229
will tell you, the audition for Grand Rapids,
01:27:14.229 --> 01:27:17.989
I went in there with the intention of playing
01:27:17.989 --> 01:27:20.510
a recital. That's how I looked at doing the audition.
01:27:21.170 --> 01:27:23.390
I prepared the audition that way, where every
01:27:23.390 --> 01:27:26.989
excerpt, I determined something that I loved
01:27:26.989 --> 01:27:30.800
about it. I had to access that emotional space
01:27:30.800 --> 01:27:35.079
for me, that love. I had to access that and feel
01:27:35.079 --> 01:27:37.100
like I was sharing something with the panel behind
01:27:37.100 --> 01:27:40.859
the screen because the difference between performing
01:27:40.859 --> 01:27:44.039
and sharing is very different. So if I felt like
01:27:44.039 --> 01:27:47.020
I was in a place of joy of like, oh my gosh,
01:27:47.079 --> 01:27:49.039
I love this excerpt. I can't wait to play this
01:27:49.039 --> 01:27:51.380
for them. I can't wait to play this moment for
01:27:51.380 --> 01:27:54.159
them. And, you know, it was a lot of rounds.
01:27:54.300 --> 01:27:56.680
I mean, I think there were like four, four full
01:27:56.680 --> 01:28:00.439
rounds on the day of semifinals and finals. And
01:28:00.439 --> 01:28:03.220
I just stayed in that place of I had a mantra.
01:28:03.260 --> 01:28:07.619
I used focus, precision, warmth, because I wanted
01:28:07.619 --> 01:28:09.659
warmth of my soul, my heart. And when I was playing
01:28:09.659 --> 01:28:12.100
warmth of my sound, I wanted precision and being
01:28:12.100 --> 01:28:14.260
mindful about what I was doing and staying in
01:28:14.260 --> 01:28:16.979
the present and focus, staying focused and like
01:28:16.979 --> 01:28:21.569
just stay with. with the line in the melody in
01:28:21.569 --> 01:28:24.590
the moment singing the line and so a mix of all
01:28:24.590 --> 01:28:27.590
these mental things with finally having the courage
01:28:27.590 --> 01:28:29.670
to stand on my own two feet do the emotional
01:28:29.670 --> 01:28:33.029
and mental work to be like no I want it to sound
01:28:33.029 --> 01:28:36.409
this way this is how I love this to sound and
01:28:36.409 --> 01:28:39.529
then treating the performance as treating the
01:28:39.529 --> 01:28:42.489
audition as a recital that I'm sharing with somebody
01:28:42.489 --> 01:28:45.829
as opposed to around where I could fall to my
01:28:45.829 --> 01:28:47.750
death at any moment which is how auditions feel
01:28:48.910 --> 01:28:50.630
Those are, I think, those are the big things
01:28:50.630 --> 01:28:53.090
that changed. I couldn't shortchange the work
01:28:53.090 --> 01:28:57.510
anymore, the real deep work. Because that's not,
01:28:57.529 --> 01:28:59.529
that is, that was not what worked for me. Like
01:28:59.529 --> 01:29:01.109
copying other people was not what worked for
01:29:01.109 --> 01:29:03.609
me. It might work for other people. I can't,
01:29:03.609 --> 01:29:05.489
I can't speak for anybody else. But for me, it
01:29:05.489 --> 01:29:08.029
did not. That's so great. And, you know, I have
01:29:08.029 --> 01:29:11.130
listened to so many auditions on being on panels
01:29:11.130 --> 01:29:14.409
for so many years. the rare person who can achieve
01:29:14.409 --> 01:29:17.250
that. We so appreciate it. So some of, I think
01:29:17.250 --> 01:29:18.890
it's the best advice I've ever heard actually
01:29:18.890 --> 01:29:21.210
from anyone about playing orchestral auditions.
01:29:21.250 --> 01:29:25.710
So thank you for that. Yeah. I mean, I, I, it
01:29:25.710 --> 01:29:31.010
only takes one. It only takes one, but I mean,
01:29:31.029 --> 01:29:34.970
I auditioned for over a decade before I won my
01:29:34.970 --> 01:29:38.170
position, but I remember Jerry Folsom. I studied
01:29:38.170 --> 01:29:41.050
with him at Aspen my first summer out there in
01:29:41.050 --> 01:29:46.539
2000. And he said to me, look, the path to an
01:29:46.539 --> 01:29:49.680
orchestra job is littered with the rotting dead
01:29:49.680 --> 01:29:54.380
corpses of musicians, of talented musicians.
01:29:54.520 --> 01:29:57.979
Like, they aren't, he said, but not for the hardworking
01:29:57.979 --> 01:30:01.739
ones. He said, it's a game of numbers. If you
01:30:01.739 --> 01:30:05.739
stay with it and you really want it, you can
01:30:05.739 --> 01:30:13.939
have it. But you have to stay. But I relied on
01:30:13.939 --> 01:30:15.119
that because there are plenty of times I could
01:30:15.119 --> 01:30:17.039
have been like, man, it hasn't happened in 10
01:30:17.039 --> 01:30:20.979
years. You know, it's not going to happen. But
01:30:20.979 --> 01:30:24.819
I think the combination of the fortitude and
01:30:24.819 --> 01:30:27.439
the grit to stay with it with the realization
01:30:27.439 --> 01:30:30.399
from my mentor at CMU, the head of the music
01:30:30.399 --> 01:30:32.119
theater department, she was the one that was
01:30:32.119 --> 01:30:36.960
kind of the inspiration for moving past. what
01:30:36.960 --> 01:30:40.239
others expected from me and finding my own path.
01:30:40.420 --> 01:30:44.739
Annette Thornton is her name. She was huge in
01:30:44.739 --> 01:30:49.359
nurturing my creativity and also nurturing me
01:30:49.359 --> 01:30:53.819
to embrace all the things that make me who I
01:30:53.819 --> 01:30:58.439
am. And until I did that, the singing, the playing
01:30:58.439 --> 01:31:02.579
horn, and being a pianist, creating, arranging,
01:31:03.689 --> 01:31:06.489
the orchestra job wasn't going to happen. And
01:31:06.489 --> 01:31:09.729
what's funny, and it's a shame that my undergrad
01:31:09.729 --> 01:31:14.210
music education, it was at a time in the late
01:31:14.210 --> 01:31:16.989
nineties where I think the conventional method
01:31:16.989 --> 01:31:18.930
of winning an orchestra job was find this one
01:31:18.930 --> 01:31:22.189
thing to focus on, put your all into it. Don't
01:31:22.189 --> 01:31:27.210
stray from this path. Right. And I'm, I'm sad
01:31:27.210 --> 01:31:29.989
that I didn't have, they didn't really know what
01:31:29.989 --> 01:31:31.909
to do with me if I'm honest. And I get that.
01:31:31.909 --> 01:31:36.439
And like, I'm weird. I'm okay with it. They didn't
01:31:36.439 --> 01:31:38.399
really know what to do with me. But I am sad
01:31:38.399 --> 01:31:41.960
that I didn't have more encouragement to embrace
01:31:41.960 --> 01:31:45.939
all the things that made me unique. And that,
01:31:45.979 --> 01:31:48.020
I mean, I wonder, we talked about Mahler, had
01:31:48.020 --> 01:31:51.079
he had more time to compose outside of, you know,
01:31:51.079 --> 01:31:52.699
having to earn that living, what else could he
01:31:52.699 --> 01:31:55.500
have created? I wonder what else could I have
01:31:55.500 --> 01:31:59.560
been doing had someone said, no, let's stay with
01:31:59.560 --> 01:32:02.800
this. How can we put, like, pushed me to stay?
01:32:03.529 --> 01:32:08.590
to really push me to do the work of discovering
01:32:08.590 --> 01:32:12.090
and, and learning who I was as an artist and
01:32:12.090 --> 01:32:14.470
creating who I was as an artist and authentic
01:32:14.470 --> 01:32:19.210
artist when I was younger. But I mean, they didn't
01:32:19.210 --> 01:32:20.970
know they were doing, you know, everybody was
01:32:20.970 --> 01:32:24.960
doing what, you know, the method. right going
01:32:24.960 --> 01:32:28.020
circling back to methods don't work for me apparently
01:32:28.020 --> 01:32:30.600
um that you know this is this is what you do
01:32:30.600 --> 01:32:33.420
this is an accredited music education this is
01:32:33.420 --> 01:32:38.260
this is what you do focus on one thing and be
01:32:38.260 --> 01:32:39.800
great at that and then you'll be happy forever
01:32:39.800 --> 01:32:45.640
and ever amen yeah unfortunately no well certainly
01:32:45.640 --> 01:32:47.800
some of my motivations for doing this podcast
01:32:47.800 --> 01:32:50.369
are to show the world that there's such a a depth
01:32:50.369 --> 01:32:52.350
and a breadth is what I meant to say, you know,
01:32:52.350 --> 01:32:54.789
it's not because I was shown like a tiny box
01:32:54.789 --> 01:32:57.850
that I managed to fit into, but I wish I'd had
01:32:57.850 --> 01:33:00.609
different kinds of mentorship. So thank you for
01:33:00.609 --> 01:33:05.310
that. So, so thanks so much for this today. Thank
01:33:05.310 --> 01:33:07.750
you so much, Leah. I, I've been looking forward
01:33:07.750 --> 01:33:09.949
to talking with you for a very long time. I really
01:33:09.949 --> 01:33:13.770
love what you do, sharing the stories of artists
01:33:13.770 --> 01:33:16.489
in every kind of discipline. I think it's special
01:33:16.489 --> 01:33:41.979
and important. Thank you. All the links are in
01:33:41.979 --> 01:33:44.539
the show notes. The podcast theme music was written
01:33:44.539 --> 01:33:46.659
by Nick Cold. Have a wonderful week.