Jack's
Confessions of a Multi-Instrumentalist:
Throughout
music history, many famous musicians have played more than one instrument.
Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Hindemith, and many others were outstandingly
proficient on several instruments. Often, they would play one each
of the five families of instrument, strings, woodwinds, brass, keyboards,
and percussion. In our time, it is expected that all woodwind players
in the jazz band and the musical pit orchestras play as many as five different
instruments on a very high professional level of proficiency (flute, piccolo,
4 different saxophones, 4 different clarinets, oboe, and bassoon) although
they are called "doublers" no matter how many instruments they play.
I did not set out to become a multi-instrumentalist. However,
it was my destiny from the beginning. My first role model was
my uncle, who played piano, trombone, trumpet, and others. He also
taught himself to become a world class piano tuner. (See Getting
To Know Jack) From there, through lots of lessons, thousands
of hours of practice, and many hundreds of professional opportunities to
perform in front of large audiences on each instrument I had learned, proficiency
grew and matured. I wouldn't want
it to have happened any other way. The problem comes when encountering
musicians who either resent "doublers" teaching or playing "their" instrument
or people who were trained in European or American Conservatories where
the "one instrument per musician specialist" rule has developed over the
last century. At face value, the specialist on one instrument ideal
would seem to be valid. Study with someone who has devoted his or
her whole life to the study and practice of just one instrument.
The problem with it is the difference between two-dimensional reality and
three-dimensional reality. Real life is multi-dimensional.
Take flute playing and teaching for example:
1.
By definition, 50% of all flute players graduated in the bottom half of
their flute graduating class in college. A "flute specialist" who
only plays one instrument may never have played it that well. A multi-instrumentalist
who plays and practices regularly and who has good aptitude for the instrument
can often easily out perform many of the mono-instrumentalists who were
never that good to begin with, but "play only one instrument."
2. Five years after graduation from college, more than 50%
of music teachers do not regularly practice or play their instrument competitively.
On the flute, that percentage is even higher. My flute teacher at
Fredonia SUNY was in tears the day he told me that out of the thousand
of excellent flute students he had trained at the college to become music
teachers, only a handful were still playing five years later. On
the other hand, many of the clarinet professor's students were still active
and performing professionally. This situation was primarily caused
by the overwhelming number of female flute players who stopped playing
to raise a family. However, they were by definition "flute majors"
but no longer professional, competitive, or setting a good role model for
their students. They may only play one instrument and they may have
played it quite well (in the upper 50%) in college, but they no longer
play that instrument as well as they once did. Their edge, their
"chops," and their performing confidence has deteriorated with disuse.
They would still be classified as a "flute specialist" but really
in name only. Multi-instrumentalists who regularly maintain their
practice and their professional performing on an instrument often can equal
or outperform those mono-instrumentalists who were once quite good but
who have not maintained their proficiencies.
3. Playing more than one instrument often promotes flexibility
to adapt to different mouthpieces, embouchures, playing styles, and teaching
differences. In the 50's, a conservatory trained flute teacher would
not even let students touch a piccolo. The thought at the time
was that that would mess up one's flute playing. Today, that
attitude is laughable. The very act of refocusing the embouchure
from one instrument to the other teaches adaptation, flexibility, and listening
to the result. The end product can be a player who plays better in
tune with a better tonal response throughout the full range of the instrument
and who benefits from the exposure to a variety of experiences.
4. Understanding and experiencing the acoustics, performance
practices, teaching traditions, historical traditions, instrumental sub-cultures,
problem solving methods, and various music styles associated with each
instrument gives the multi-instrumentalist many more teaching tools to
bring to each lesson no matter what the instrument. Each musical
instrument has behind it a subculture of teachers, players, and traditions.
Within that subculture there are schools of playing and teaching which
promote different concepts of learning, performing, and pedagogues.
By my being part of many of these subcultures, I can bring all that I have
learned from each of them to bear in every lesson I teach on the other
instruments. This allows me to have a much wider repertoire of responses
to each teaching problem and each musical interpretation.
5. Multi-instrumentalists tend to teach musicianship to the
actual student and many specialists tend to "teach the flute.".
If you see your whole world, your own playing, and your teaching through
to lens of "the trumpet" or "the flute," you will pass on that perspective
to your students. They will then pass that on to their students and
so on. I have exhorted my "kidney" doctor to see me as a whole person
and not just as a kidney. The same should be true for your private
music teacher. You are a whole person, a whole musician, and need
someone who sees you as such. I learned very early on, when my best
private student was arrested for selling drugs, that he was not just my
clarinet-flute-sax student. He was person who needed to be ministered
to in all his facets if my work with him was to be successful. I
promised him I would never again make that mistake with future students.
6. Many multi-instrumentalists have developed their playing
on their various instruments through professional private lessons, years
of practice, professional performing experiences, and very hard work to
achieve a higher level of playing proficiency than many "one instrument
specialists". (See #1-3 above.) Examples of this
have occurred frequently when mono-instrumentalists have challenged
this multi-instrumentalist to "duet duels" and lost. (Examples
available upon request.)
7. The students of this writer and other multi-instrumentalists
frequently achieve first chair status in their school, county and state
select performing groups ahead of the students of mono-instrumentalists,
and go on to be higher ranked college music education and performance majors
as a result. This studio has produced six best (first
chairs) in New York State (by audition) on clarinet, tuba, euphonium (baritone
horn), trumpet, string bass, and saxophone. Best (first chair) in
Suffolk County Long Island has been achieved by students from this studio
on flute, clarinet, saxophone, euphonium, tuba, trumpet, string bass, trombone,
and french horn. First chair status in individual schools
on each instrument above has been achieved more than 1000 times.
In all Long Island Competitions, students from this studio have won
best in category (best all Long Island jazz saxophone) and best overall
of all instruments (Atlantic Wind Symphony concerto contest.) In
each instance of received award or first chair, a student of this
multi-instrumentalist teacher was judged to be better than all of the students
of other mono-instrumentalist teachers sitting behind them or not winning
the award. Sailboat racing has tried for hundreds of years
to devise a rating system that would allow very dissimilar boats to be
handicapped in such a way that they could race together fairly. Some
boats have high masts and large sail areas. Some boats were out and
out racing boats with no cruising facilities inside. Some boats were
small family cruising boats. The solution was developed called PHRF
(Performance Handicap Racing Foundation.) Boats were judged and handicapped
on the basis of their actual racing record instead of how they looked on
paper. It turned out that small family cruisers could go out and
produce a better racing record than boats that were called "racing boats."
By producing the best (trumpet, flute, french horn, clarinet, saxophone,
trombone, tuba, and euphonium) students in the county, in the state, in
Long Island competitions, and in college entrance auditions, the
record has been clearly established for this multi-instrumentalist's teaching
at the top level. The proof is in the results. (Examples available
upon request.)
Being
a multi-instrumentalist has many advantages and some disadvantages.
There is great joy in participating in musical groups sitting in different
sections, playing with very different personalities, and musically filling
different musical functions in the group. All of these experiences
help to contribute to becoming an overall Comprehensive Musician.
This in turn contributes to becoming a better composer, teacher,
and personal performer. However, there are down sides to multi-instrumentalism.
First is the expense and storage room needed to purchase and house all
this gear. Then there are the lessons and thousands of hours of practice
needed to become and stay professional on each instrument.
In addition, there can be the self-serving comments of "Jack of all Trades,
Master of None," etc. made by insecure mono-instrumentalists, especially
if your name is Jack. Ultimately, there is the
fact and truth that a player's reputation is only as good as the performance
on the instrument he or she is playing at that moment.
As I have done seminars at churches and libraries, a friend from my church
would often attend and sit in the back. After I had performed on
several contrasting instruments that evening, he would yell out, "Hey Jack!
How many instruments can you play?" I always yelled back to him,
"Just one at a time."
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