”I was on this wild metacognitive approach of truly desiring myself to sound the way I aurally envisioned. It was fabulous.”
From the trusted advice of Sydne Sullivan, one of my best friends, closest colleagues, and a truly phenomenal oboist, I have decided to create a blog that ventures through the areas of my life, with an emphasis on the way in which music (primarily clarinet & piano) has influenced and further enriches my quality of life.
Sydne and myself outside of Walt Disney Concert Hall
I don’t intend on posting a lot in this initial post, as my thoughts are already overwhelmingly flooding my mind and I can’t fathom where to begin. I suppose it’s safe to say I expect to talk a lot, throw out a lot of musical ideas, and general questions and thoughts I have on life in general. I also expect myself to share a lot of artistic experiences with everyone, and wish to further venture into this fabulous musical world together.
It’s without a doubt that I’ve undergone tremendous change within the last few years alone. I moved from my comfort zone of Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles on a full scholarship to the Herb Alpert School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts where I’m in residence for my BFA in clarinet performance, studying with William E. Powell. The journey in itself is enough to fill several blog pages, but I think I’ll forgo that story and proceed from where I find myself at the moment.
Music, in every facet has consumed my life in every tremendous, ineffable way. Within the course of the last year, I’ve taken an entirely new approach to music. My first year in California was shaky, to say the least. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have friends or family. I didn’t feel like practicing clarinet all that much, because I didn’t know how to practice. I thought I knew. I thought that repetitively practicing scales and long tones were essential, so I’d do them…for all of about 15 minutes. The rest of the time I spent practicing ridiculously difficult wind ensemble music, various orchestral excerpts, and random parts of solos I had no intent on performing in the near future. To say the least, my practice routine was, well, as my friend Sydne would say, “wildly” unstructured.
I knew something had to change. As horrible as it sounds, the first thing I did was cut out roughly 90% of my unnecessary social engagements. Yes. I stopped going out on the weekends. I also stopped communicating with people who I knew were negative influences. This was huge for me. I had an epiphany of sorts that involved the realization of strong relationships, moreover, unconditional relationships, that greatly involved me trying to harness friendships that provided more to my quality of life than a few laughs here and there with the obscure talk of anything substantial.
The next step in my journey was the discovery, with all credit to my professor, of Robert Spring’s clarinet warm-up video. To capture my initial reaction to this video in the form of a picture would look something like this:
I didn’t know that his technique was within the realm of human possibility. I was instantly jolted into high gear to improve my playing. Here’s the thing…I knew that great players were out there. Hell, I went to see Larry Combs give a Master Class at Northwestern University, but I never really looked into his playing. What I mean: I didn’t look into all the work, the solitude, the diligence…that a stellar tone and technique requires. When listening to great clarinettists, I just thought, “Well…that’s great, he/she is a fantastic clarinet player” and then I moved on.
So with this striking inspiration (that I’ll obviously include the video of at the end of this post) I had a fresh start. I took this video, as well as this new outlook on practicing with a plan, sat down with my clarinet, and didn’t stop playing until 3 hours later (with breaks, of course 
).
The amount of work and progress I got done was extraordinary. I wasn’t playing notes anymore, I wasn’t going through the motions of practicing “for the sake of practicing”, rather, I was becoming an objective listener to my sound. I was on this wild metacognitive approach of truly desiring myself to sound the way I aurally envisioned. It was fabulous.
Since that first practice session, oh, about 6 months ago or so, my playing has dramatically improved and I’m taking what some may say, a much more serious approach to the clarinet. It goes without saying that having my best friend, Sydne, move to San Francisco has also been a tremendous inspiration. Upon graduation with her BFA in Oboe Performance from CalArts, Sydne is now pursuing her Master’s Degree with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Her friendship and motivation mean the world to me, and it’s refreshing to have a colleague in which one can share musical experiences, advice, and anecdotes with. The combination of all these things, has propelled me into a world of music that I continually find myself obsessing over.
As for now, I think that’s plenty, if not an overwhelming blog post to kick this site into gear. I obviously have a lot more to say, especially about this fantastic book I’m reading on stage fright, but I’ll save the suspense to my next post. Here’s to hoping this becomes a great site for clarinettists, musicians, and for everyone to read!
All the best. 
