TBJ185: Sylvia Alimena

Sylvia Alimena is a gift to the brass world and the music world in general!

As you will hear, she has an incredibly refreshing outlook on performing, teaching and on life.

The work that she does with Brass of Peace will have a ripple effect on the world for many years to come.

I’m so glad we were finally able to make this interview happen!

You can watch the episode on YouTube below or head over to Pedal Note Media for all of the links to where to find it.

Enjoy!

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On This Episode of The Brass Junkies:

• Sylvia’s incredible 29-year run in the National Symphony Orchestra

• What it was like playing under Rostropovich

• The energy and passion that was captured in the National Symphony Orchestra recordings under Rostropovich

• The one-liners that Slava used to deliver in rehearsals

• A memorable concert of Shostakovich 8 in Orchestra Hall in Chicago where they really went for it

• The National Symphony’s transition from Rostropovich to Slatkin

• What she learned as a conductor from Leonard Slatkin

• Slatkin’s ability to convey everything in rehearsal with his hands rather than his word

• Rostropovich’s ability to motivate every single person in the orchestra and make them feel loved and how she has tried to bring that to all of her conducting engagements

• What she saw coming from the podium that she intentionally tried not to emulate herself as a conductor

• The benefit of an orchestral horn section that isn’t all playing the same brand of horn

• How Sylvia took over Brass of Peace from its founder

• Why it’s never too soon to talk to students about artistry

• Working through a common problem with “Guinea Pig Time”

• Why she stopped teaching for a while and why she felt a calling to come back to it

• Why the key of saying no to things is putting yourself and your health first

• Her need to convey strength and where she thinks that might come from

• What life was like as a female horn player in an orchestra early in her career

• How she has seen kids evolve mentally to be more human towards each other than they were 30+ years ago

• Lance teaching his studio to tango

• “Hold the torch high”

• Sylvia’s job as an educator is to give students the skills to differentiate themselves in college

• The three-step audition process for Brass of Peace and what a typical season looks like

• How COVID has changed whether some kids are looking to go into music for a career

• Fractured Atlas and how they help to support Brass of Peace

• Sylvia visits The Practicing Corner with two really good pieces of advice

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Monday YouTube Fix: Dale Clevenger on Audtion Preparation

What a find this video recent addition to YouTube is!

We recently lost one of the greatest horn players to ever live, former Principal Horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Dale Clevenger.

This video from 1983 is an almost hour-long deep dive into preparing for an audition. He also plays examples throughout.

It is a gift to be able to hear someone at this level talk at such length about something this specific in 1983. Videos like this were not commonplace back then!

Here is his breakdown of topics with the sub-headers used in the video:

1. Tone Quality

• Consistency

• Steadiness

• Beauty

2. Rhythm

• Pulse

• Inner Rhythm

• Tempo

3. Intonation

• Key you are playing in

• Scale degree in that key

• Placement in diatonic intonation

• Tendencies of your instrument

4. Instrumental Technique

• Articulation

• Bowing

• Tonguing

• Breathing

5. Style and Phrasing

• Poetic and dramatic expression

• Personality

• Listener interest

6. Technical Prowess

7. Control

• Extreme dynamics

• Extreme registers

8. Ensemble Technique

• Projection

• Balance

9. Experience

• Knowledge of standard repertoire

10. Requirements of position

• Doubling

• Specialized literature

• Special effects or techniques

11. Interpretive style

• Flexibility

• Tone color

• Vibrato

• Timbre

There’s an awful lot to unpack in this one.

Enjoy!

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The Brass Junkies Episode 181: Kevin Newton of Imani Winds

Since I am the person who books the guests on The Brass Junkies, I always like who we speak to. I wouldn’t book them if I didn’t!

But sometimes we interview someone who leaves me feeling energized and ready to tackle anything. This conversation with the incredible Kevin Newton did exactly that.

This was one where as soon as hung up, Lance and I both were muttering to each other how incredible it was.

Kevin is the horn player for Imani Winds and is a rising star in the music world. His outlook on making music and on life is so refreshing.

You are going to love this one. I promise.

You can watch the episode on YouTube below or head over to Pedal Note Media for all of the links to where to find it.

Enjoy!

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On This Episode of The Brass Junkies:

• Growing up in the small town of South Boston, VA (where the joke is they have a Walmart and a high school)

• The benefit of having your first teacher being your mother

• Long car rides with his mother which comprised of 10% NPR and 90% making him do things like sing the alto part along with the radio

• Going to the movies twice a week as a kid and listening intently to the music and falling in love with the horn (and not even knowing which instrument he was hearing)

• The incredible mentors he has had from the very beginning of his musical journey including his high school band director, Reginald Pervis

• Having only two lessons in his life before college and how that helped him to shape his perspective

• Taking two years off between undergrad and graduate school to take lessons with different people and get some “data”

• His recognition at the beginning of graduate school that he had two years to figure out how to make a career out of this and he got to work

• Deciding early on that he wanted to study with David Jolley

• The large portion of his lessons with Jolley that were “career building” and intentionally building the specific skills needed to thrive to get Kevin where he wanted to go

• What it was like getting to audition for Imani Winds after looking up to them as kid

• His mental approach to auditions which involves thinking of it as actually doing the job rather than asking for it

• The belief that you should always look for the good in people that was instilled in him by his family

• His horn quartet, Metropolitan Horn Authority, and their quest to have as much fun as possible and to bring the horn to the world in a new light

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Principal Horn of the Cleveland Orchestra Nathaniel Silberschlag on Being Your Best

The last sentence here from Nathaniel Silberschlag, Principal Horn of the Cleveland Orchestra, from Episode 171 of The Brass Junkies really floored me:

"I honestly just was not that nervous about (his Kennedy Center Opera audition) because I didn't have any high expectations for myself. And I think because of that it lent itself to… taking no prisoners.

And I was like, I'm just going to give this my best shot. I can only be the best me on a given day."

The last 11 words from that quote had a profound impact on me.

I can only be the best me on a given day.

I love it when something so obvious is said so eloquently in a way that I need to hear. All I can do is try to be the best version of me at any given time.

While this point is obvious, the way he puts it is brilliant. His job isn’t to be great. His job is only to be the best he can be today.

None of us is promised linear progress in anything. Not even one of the best horn players in the world like Nathaniel!

There will be plenty of times when something isn’t as good on Thursday as it was on Wednesday, or even a week ago. Rather than getting held up on where we should be (in our minds, of course!), Nathaniel is encouraging us to focus simply on being our best possible version today. And that has nothing to do with last week!

Thanks for the reminder, Nathaniel. This is something I need to be reminded of from time to time!

(The above GIF is from the part of the interview when Nathaniel told us about how he had to tell the Kennedy Center Opera section that he couldn’t go out for a drink after winning the audition because he was 19 and because his father was waiting for him in the car. We were dying.)

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You can watch our entire interview with Nathaniel Silberschlag on YouTube below or find links to all the other places you can find it here.

The Brass Junkies Episode 171: Nathaniel Silberschlag

Between The Brass Junkies and The Entrepreneurial Musician I have done close to 400 interviews and this was one of my favorites.

Nathaniel Silberschlag is a true mensch. His energy and approach to both music and life left me in the kind of good mood that sticks around for a while afterwards. He is a gift.

You can watch the episode on YouTube below or head over to Pedal Note Media for all of the links to where to find it.

Enjoy!

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On This Episode of The Brass Junkies:

• Being the 10th member of his family to go to Juilliard

• The specialized horn he started playing on when he was three years old

• How Julie Landsman told his parents she wasn’t available to teach him as a 12-year-old but gave him one Skype lesson and then was so impressed that she agreed to teach him anytime she came to DC

• How Julie introduced him to Sylvia Alimena who he studied with through high school and was a major influence on his life

• The one thing that each of his four private teachers all focused on

• His use of specific images and colors to get a clear idea of what he’s trying to sound like

• The importance of painting your picture away from the horn through things like singing

• Jen Montone’s Process Cues

• How his approach to sound has informed his teaching

• The specific visualization he uses when performing Mozart concertos

• How the best teachers teach you how to teach yourself (and how to be teachers)

• The value of watching great teachers teach

• The experience and pressure of trying to become a peer to brass legends who you’ve looked up to your entire life

• What it was like to win the Kennedy Center Opera House audition even though he fully didn’t expect to win it at the age of 19

• “I can only be the best me on a given day.”

• How his dad was waiting for him in the car while he kept advancing through the Kennedy Center Opera House audition

• All that he learned from sitting next to Geoffrey Pilkington including how and when to use your Assistant Principal

• His experience of playing Mahler 5 in Carnegie Hall in his first full week as Principal Horn of the Cleveland Orchestra with almost everyone he knew in the audience while being sick

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Inside the Practice Room with Julie Landsman

Want to take your practicing to the next level?

What better way to do that than by learning from the best players in the world exactly what they do day in and day out in the practice room.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Former Principal Horn of the Metropolitan Opera Julie Landsman do a deep dive into the practicing routine that made her a legend.

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Use offer code “julie” to get $10 off for a limited time only!

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Here’s an excerpt from Julie Landsman’s Inside the Practice Room where she discusses how she helped Nathaniel Silberschlag successfully prepare for his audition for Principal Horn of the Cleveland Orchestra:

Topics Julie Covers:

• The two most common problems she sees musicians make in the practice room and how to fix those problems

• Her intense level of self-awareness when practicing 

• How she used mediation in the semis and finals of her successful audition for Principal Horn of the Metropolitan Opera

• How she uses meditation and visualization before practicing, performing and teaching

• The danger of giving yourself technical instruction while performing (and how it kills creativity)

• Her approach to warming up and how she changes it for different situations

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Use offer code “julie” to get $10 off for a limited time only!

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Quotes from Julie Landsman’s Inside the Practice Room:

• “Practicing a lot doesn't mean you're getting the work done. Practicing efficiently with clear goals and what you're working on and how you're doing it? Go for it. That's just smart. Be smart!”

• “Constantly beating up the music and repetition and hitting that wall of frustration… it doesn't help me. I think it's not a creative process. I think it's a self-defeating process.”

• “Let's go back to the word efficient. I'm killing two birds with one stone. I'm doing my Snakes (exercises) because they're good for register breaks and I'm practicing tonguing because my tongue needs exercise and I'm practicing double tonguing. So I'm going through all my register break exercises and my articulation exercises just in a very methodical manner. I love that efficiency. I love getting a lot done without wasting a ton of time.”

Also Available from Hitz Academy:

Jeff Nelsen of Canadian Brass

Don’t miss this deep dive by Jeff Nelsen of Canadian Brass into his daily practicing routine!

Take me inside Jeff’s practice room!

Inside the Practice Room with Jeff Nelsen

It’s not every day that one of the world’s best brass players gives you such a complete look into the daily process that made them what they are today.

Join Jeff Nelsen of Canadian Brass as he invites us inside of his practice room!

Jeff covered a lot of ground!

• His ideal number of practice sessions in a day

• How he religiously times his sessions and why it makes him more focused

• The magic of unemotional critique

• The “Three Phases” of preparation for a performance as he has laid out in his Fearless Performance program

• Why “forced urgency” is important at the beginning of the preparation process

Purchase long-term access to this workshop for only $29!

“Inside the Practice Room with Jeff Nelsen was absolutely fantastic! The step-by-step tips he shared on how to practice and prepare for a performance completely changed the way I teach my middle school students how to practice. We all have our own practice journals now (myself included!) Thanks to his tips, my students feel more confident in identifying their successes and are having a more positive experience in the practice room.”

— Kathryn Williams

The Brass Junkies Episode 160: Nicole Cash

This was a really special episode. I had the privilege of attending Northwestern University with Nicole Cash. We overlapped by three years. She was one of the best players in the deepest studio in the entire school of music. We then played for a summer together in the National Repertory Orchestra. Again, she was a superstar there.

She ended up all the way in the San Francisco Symphony which surprised no one who knew her.

Her career was then tragically cut short by focal distonia. It was a huge loss for the horn world and the musical world at large.

Nicole was so generous in this interview. She was honest and open and vulnerable and she is amazing. I left this conversation with a serious dose of perspective and very appreciative of having my health.

You can watch the episode on YouTube below or head over to Pedal Note Media for all of the links.

The best interviews change the audience and change the interviewers. This was one of those.

Thank you, Nicole. It was an honor to play with you.

The Brass Junkies 104: Joe Lovinsky

Listen via

iTunes
Spotify
Soundcloud
Stitcher 

I think my good friend Joe Lovinsky has had the most fascinating life of any guest we’ve interviewed for The Brass Junkies. And that’s really saying something!

He has been homeless, a sniper in the Marines, a member of the Pershing’s Own Army Band, a cage fighter… It sounds like I’m making this up but it’s all true! Seriously, you need to listen to this one.

You can check out the complete show notes including all links mentioned during TBJ104 over at Pedal Note Media.

Denise Tryon on the four elements to look for when teaching someone

#BrassQuote of the Week:

"There are 4 elements I look at when I am teaching someone (including myself): physical set-up, technique, music making and mental attitude. Don’t leave any one of those behind. You will only be as good as your weakest link!"

—Denise Tryon#horn pic.twitter.com/UVo2mHJidu

— The Brass Junkies (@pray4jens) September 3, 2018

I love this!

1. Physical set-up: I tend to lean towards the mess with a student's physical set-up as little as possible side of things but (and this is a big but!) sometimes it is necessary and solves many problems at once. Efficiency is the key to playing any instrument well and a proper physical set-up is essential to that.

2. Technique: You can't tell a great musical story without being able to do all of the technical stuff well (as well as in any combination.) Technique is not hard to teach or to learn. Or I should say it's not complicated to learn. The only hard part is having the discipline to do it. Having a technique like Denise primarily involves a lot of work over a prolonged period of time. How bad do want it?

3. Music making: That's the only reason I ever play the tuba. All of that work to get a good physical set-up and the decades of learning good technique only serve one purpose: to tell a great musical story.

4. Mental attitude: Attitude is one of those rare things in life that we can actually control. Again, playing the horn like Denise is a very long journey. Some moments, days, even weeks, it can quite hard to keep a positive attitude. Progress is not linear (it never is!) and that can be discouraging if we choose to focus on any one data point along that journey to draw conclusions about our worth as a musician. A great teacher gives a student tools to be able to keep a positive mental attitude, even when that student doesn't feel like it is justified.

And of course she is right about your weakest link. Leave any one of these four behind and you will be held back from realizing your true potential.

Thanks for the awesome quote, Denise!