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1) I was no longer able to get the clarity that I
wanted on the Conn between written middle C and written third space C, a clarity
I once felt I had been able to get.
2) I had never been able to produce a sound at a
mezzo-forte dynamic level that I really liked, especially in the middle register.
In short, I liked all the extremes of the horn
(high, low, loud, soft) but not so much the middle ground (middle range,
mezzo-forte volume).
Now I'm talking about myself, not
anyone else, especially because I felt it had changed for me. Maybe it s just me
getting older and that aging having an effect on my playing. I'm forty-eight and
maybe certain parts of my technique are changing for the worse as I get older. I
don't know, but while I had always felt that I had to manipulate pretty heavily
with my embouchure in the middle register to get the sound quality/intensity mix
I wanted (not age specific), I felt I had to go looking for something new to
help my new found weakness because-I didn't seem to be able to beat the problem
in the practice room. I tried.
MOUTHPIECE SWITCH
Now around 1979 1 had switched from a Giardinelli B8
mouthpiece to a Stork custom mouthpiece which John developed from a Ross Taylor
mouthpiece (former 4th horn player, New York Philharmonic, 1st in Cleveland, San
Francisco). The idea was not to copy the mouthpiece, but to start from it and
come up with something new. John made up six versions at a time, all
purposefully a little different, and I would take them down to the hall and play
them for the guys in the brass section. We hit with the nineteenth or twentieth
version, I don't remember which. The amazing thing was that when I played this
particular mouthpiece (the present M1), everyone just said "that's it" after
being rather qualified about all the others. This particular design really got
something different and it was instantly hearable to these guys. So I started
playing it and still do. But back to the Conn.
Because I felt that this lack of clarity in the
middle register was a recent development and therefore was probably me and not
the horn, I tried going back to the B8 mouthpiece. But I felt that to get the
balance of sound quality and intensity that I was looking for, I had to get all
my tension from mouthpiece pressure, from jamming the thing into my mouth, and
almost none from lip tension. So, of course, my flexibility and endurance went
way down, my mouth hurt a lot and the middle register didn't get any better and
about two months into the return to the B8 I crashed. I mean, I felt like I
couldn't play at all. I was having trouble with everything and had to cancel a
concerto outside of New York because I wouldn't have been able to get through it
(Jacob concerto). So I thought "this B8 thing isn't working out for me at this
time" (1992) and went back to the M1. I basically recovered immediately. Two
weeks later I was doing Strauss 2nd in my home town (Elkhart, Indiana) and a
week after that with the Philharmonic. I felt fine and I decided at that moment
that from then on, the horn might change but the mouthpiece would not (I reached
this decision with the help of one of my teachers, William Slocum, with whom I
still consult because he has known my playing for twenty-seven years). But still
I couldn't get clarity in the middle register in a lot of situations. So maybe
it was totally my problem and not the horn's, but I seemed to need some help to
do something about it.
AT BORDEAUX
So I guess from 1992 onward I was looking for a
horn. Now of course of horns but I had never found anything I liked better than
the Conn, so at first I tried to go to the old pre-letter series Conn route.
This just didn't pan out for me. I came to feel pretty quickly that I
preferred the horns that Conn was making in Eastlake, so the last few years I
played one of those, no modifications, and enjoyed myself very much, except for
the above two problems.
In the summer of 1996 Howard Wall (the fourth horn
player of the Philharmonic) and I went to the Bordeaux Festival. It was a great
time and Joseph Horowitz was just the greatest host, making everyone feel
relaxed, special, etc. The hotel was crummy and the shoes I bought in Paris were
too small, but that festival was one of the most pleasant times I've ever had.
The French are tremendous.
And here was Schmid. Now it was a little different
then than now because he actually had maybe six or seven different models to
play that he hadn't already sold, from doubles, descants, triples, gold brass,
yellow brass, etc. Well, Howard and I went into his showroom by ourselves about
our second day there and I started playing all these models and it was clarity,
clarity, clarity with rich, rich, rich, to me. Man, I was so happy. Howard told
me that I sounded best on the yellow brass triple so I thought, okay I'll buy
that. So Schmid comes back and I say I want this one and he says sorry, just
sold that a couple of hours ago. I couldn't believe it."Who?"
"A guy here in Bordeaux."
"Is he married?"
"Yes.
"Was she with him when he decided to spend $8,500 on
this horn?"
"No."
Ahh, a ray of light I thought. I mean it seemed
unbelievable to me that I was about to pay about six times what I'd been paying
for a horn, maybe it would seem crazy to her too. I was right there hoping. The
guy and his wife walk in, she goes over to Schmid and says "I'm so
happy" and I walked right out of there.
That was June. I took delivery in November of a
medium yellow brass FBb-high F full triple. Now for this first horn purchase I
wanted to go over and see the whole operation (now I just order through Osmun in
Boston). So I get on the plane and by the time I get there, I've got a cold so
bad I can't hear Schmid when he says hello. Not only that but they have radar on
the autobahn or whatever highway I was on. Bummer. Anyway, we go out to the
workshop and I can't hear anything I'm playing. I feel bad, the horn feels bad,
every different bell I try on it feels bad. I was depressed. All told worth the
flight over there and getting three bells, I was out about $11,000 and I saw no
happiness in that little German town. I got back to New York, couldn't sleep for
two days and didn't go near that horn for two weeks. I was so afraid I had just
tossed that money out the window. I was afraid to play the horn and find out I
really didn't like it.
Now I suppose it shouldn't have come as a big
surprise that except for the guys in the horn section who are very cool and open
and supportive, I wasn't getting much of a good feeling around New York about me
playing something other than a Conn. And I had always been happy as part of the
Conn fraternity. I mean, it felt like family. And it felt like a family that I
was letting down by even thinking of playing another horn even though I bought
the Schmid thinking I was probably only going to use it as a descant.
So
I take it into work and it feels weird, I mean I feel like I can't get any
volume out of the thing. So I go out and buy two decibel meters (which I admit
aren't going to tell you the whole story, but I figured the guy holding them
would tell me the rest). Warren Deck, the Philharmonic tuba player went out into
the twentieth row of Avery Fisher Hall.
THE TEST IN AVERY FISHER HALL
So I sat there and played as loud as I could with what I considered to be a good
sound (this opinion of mine as to what constitutes an acceptable loud sound is,
I realize, entirely subjective on my part and has been questioned by others) on
both horns. Warren, without watching the meter says the Conn was simply the
louder horn.
Then I did it again and this time he watches his meter. It
came out one decibel apart. He was surprised. He said he felt that there was
more strain in the sound of the Conn and it therefore felt/sounded like I was
playing louder on the Conn. I imagine it's like listening to a record where they
turn the horns down but you can tell from the kind of sound they're getting that
they really must have been putting out. For Warren, the Conn had that quality,
that edge. Would a nonbrass player had thought this, someone who doesn't
empathize with the stress in the sound? I don't know. Then I took out the other
meter and played notes of identical volume (according to the meter on the stand
in front of me) back and forth on each horn, but this time not just loud, rather
all different dynamics. It never came out more than a decibel apart between
horns at any given volume level on the meter in the twentieth row of Avery
Fisher.
Okay. You couldn't publish it in a scientific journal but it
quieted my fears. I felt the Schmid put me back in charge of the "razz" quotient
of the sound, that I was maybe going to have a chance to be in control of when
to put brassiness into the sound, not have the horn inflict it on me at some
given dynamic. Now any horn is going to have brassiness and edge show up in the
sound at some point of increasingly loud playing, but for me this unavoidable
nature of the horn comes in much later with a Schmid. It means that if I want to
play something very loud, I can choose whether I want it to be brassy or not. As
Charles Schlueter once told me, it is quite easy to have a lot of intensity,
edge, brassiness in the sound at a loud volume - the challenge is to be able to
play just as loud without much intensity, edge or brassiness. Then you are in
control of how much you want to add or not add.
So I had to get used to
not determining my volume by 'brassiness' or 'edge'. That took about two months.
Meanwhile, something weird happened.
I started enjoying playing this horn
so much that I began not to want to go back to the Conn. In fact I started to
enjoy this horn so much, that I didn't care anymore what anyone thought. Maybe I
shouldn't have cared in the first place, but like I said it was a family thing.
I felt like I was turning my back on the family.
But at that time I was
still caught up in the world I had grown up in which said that playing a triple
is copping out. So I ordered a regular double yellow brass from Schmid and when
it came I played it for about two months during which time I made a recital
record on it. I liked that horn, but I just wasn't having as much fun playing it
as I had the triple, it seemed to work better with the B8 than with the M1, a
switch I had promised myself I would no longer make but did for the record, so a
couple of months later I sold the double and went back to the triple. (Easy sale
Howard, the fourth horn, wanted it and this is still what he plays.)
So
actually I had made two changes, not just one. Yes, I changed from the Conn to
the Schmid but I also went from a double to a triple. All of the above basically
has to do with going from the Conn to the Schmid. But what about the change from
the double to the triple?
But what about the change from the double to the
triple?
My opinion. For me. No application to anyone else.
I was crazy,
crazy, crazy, to play a double for twenty-five years. If I knew what I know now,
I never would have done it.
1) Clarity -Wherever, whenever, no matter
what the range, what the speed, what the volume, what the environment (brass,
percussion, etc.)
I think back on all the times that I wanted the
ultimate crispness and penetration in the middle register and I was trying to do
it on the F horn, then when that didn't work, the Bb horn.
My experience
has been that when the horns are playing a loud passage with the percussion
section, the trombone section and the trumpet section, and our part should be
heard, and especially if we're in the middle or low register, then anyone in the
audience is not going to know whether we're on the "X, Y or Z" horn. We'll
probably be lucky if they hear the part at all. And I think I can come through
in moments like that clearer and less trashy on the high F horn than I can on
the Bb or low F side. Of course I'm sure this depends on the orchestra and on
the hall, but from playing in Avery Fisher and hearing really fine orchestras
with great horn sections play in Avery Fisher, I would say that this is the case
in this hall.
2) Much more control of brassiness. Taking a horn that
already doesn't inflict much brassiness on you, on a Schmid triple of any make,
if I want a lot of edge or brassiness at a low dynamic level, I will use the low
F horn. If I want none, I will use the high F horn, somewhere in between the Bb
side of the horn. This may not be the way it works for all horns or all players,
but this works for me on the Schmid. I mean, some triple horns of other
manufacturers had sounds on the high F side that I couldn't really relate to, so
I would be limited to mainly using the high F side for the upper register, but
for me on the Schmid I can use the high F horn in any range because I can get a
sound that I like and I'm not running into weird intonation that you can get on
some brands of triples. This has been my subjective experience. At this point my
general procedure is to change onto the high F horn at fourth line written D
with thumb, 1, & 3. 1 also tend to use the high F horn from middle written C
down a fourth because after years of playing high horn this is no longer my
strongest range (my teacher, Forest Standley, also Clevenger's, thought I should
be a fourth horn player because I had a strong low register but that is long
since gone). And yes,
3) Accuracy. Man, I was so tired of floating
through the solo of Tchaikovsky 5th and then a few measures later missing some
accompaniment note between third space C and G. Maybe I simply have more of a
problem with accuracy than others, but I was tired of not being able to get
through a concert clean, usually of some soft attack on an accompaniment note. I
remember Clevenger telling me "we're the first generation accurate enough that
we're not sitting on stage worrying about whether we're going to miss something
or not", but I told him right then, "No, not me, I'm worried plenty." (I don't
know if he would remember this conversation, it was 1978 and you see, he is that
accurate, but I never was.)
But now, twenty years later, with the triple,
I finally feel like part of the generation that Clevenger was talking about - I
don't worry about missing stuff, I can just think about what I'm trying to do
musically. On the double I couldn't take that approach. So if for me, that takes
the triple, I think I've got to accept that about myself.
Here endeth the
answer to your first question. At least for now May 10, 1998.
Ooops, one
more thing. On the Conn I feel that most of my manipulation of tone color took
place at the bottom of the slot of the center of the note. This is not the case
with the Schmid, in fact it's counter-productive. Any manipulation I do takes
place smack in the center of the slot. It took a while to get used to this
difference. This is my feeling anyway. Other players may have a totally
different experience.
Why did you have the entire section switch?
First of all, not everyone on the section plays a Schmid. It stands as follows
(May 10, 1998):
|
Asst 1st |
William Kuyper |
Schmid standard double |
|
Assoc. 1st |
Jerome Ashby |
Schmid triple and Conn 8D |
|
1st |
Philip Myers |
Schmid triple |
|
2nd |
Allen Spanjer |
Conn 8D |
|
3rd |
Eric Ralske |
Schmid triple |
|
4th |
Howard Wall |
Schmid standard double |
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Not one person in this section would say that I
asked them to change. First of all, this is 1998. A member of a symphony
orchestra is usually hired by the conductor. Fortunately for everyone, including
(in my opinion) the first horn, any new member for the orchestra comes owing no
one but the conductor for their having been hired. So no one else in the horn
section owes me anything that would allow me to dictate to them. They won their
job. On their own. Without me or anyone else but the conductor.
That
said, we have been extremely fortunate in the brass section of the New York
Philharmonic. At least since 1980, when I joined the orchestra, in every single
of hiring, that conductor has shared the view of the majority of the brass
committee as to whom should be hired in the brass section. For this we are all
grateful to Zubin Mehta and to Kurt Masur.
But not only have these
conductors been good to the brass section, they have been good to the horn
section. For one example, both have expressed, in front of the orchestra, that
they would rather have the horn section try for something extraordinary and
miss, than be consistent. Who could ask for more support than this? Not all horn
players are lucky enough to have conductors that truly think this way. I tell
you that in seventeen years in New York, we have been very lucky.
Therefore, if I had walked in one day and said to the section "The Schmid is the
right horn for me and therefore it is right for you" I think they either would
have laughed at me or killed me. First, remember that for me the change from the
Conn to the Schmid took on at least four stages:
1) two months,
a) no
more manipulation at the bottom of the slot.
2) six months,
a) integration of air flow as it relates to intensity (too
big a discussion to deal with in this article),
b) valve change speed as
relates to different goals of slurring.
3) 1 year,
a) learning the basic fingerings of the triple horn (do you
know how weird it is to think about fingerings for the first time in twenty-five
years?)
4) 2 years,
a) further understanding of fingerings, especially
in alternate fluidity situations.
So it's taken me two years to get it
together (sometime I play part of a piece and actually don't think about
fingerings), then how in the world was I supposed to come into the section of
the New York Philharmonic and tell them what they should do? IMPOSSIBLE! and
wrong.
In my opinion, you are better off sifting in a section of six
individuals that are happy with their own personal choices than a section of
people that are unhappy with some choice, not theirs, that has been stuffed down
their throat. I think many horn players might say this, I don't know. This has
been my experience. I love the guys in this section and as friends. I don't want
them doing anything they don't want to do.
It makes me think of something
I read a couple of years ago. I can't remember who the writer was, but he said
"It never occurs to me that anyone should agree with what 1 am thinking now,
because I don't agree with most of what I was thinking a couple of years ago."
All that said, there is one other aspect that might somewhat influence any
situation. To a certain degree, nobody in the section wants to be the champ when
it comes to missing. When one of the high horn players changes from a descant to
a triple, it perhaps puts a certain amount of pressure on the other high horn
players in the section (asst. 1st, assoc. 1st, 1st, 3rd) because as a triple
horn or descant player, you're simply not going to miss as much. To a certain
degree, they are still walking a tightrope that you're no longer on.
So
let me say it very directly:
1.) I DID NOT AND HAVE NOT TOLD ANYONE IN THE SECTION THAT THEY MUST CHANGE
WHAT THEY ARE PLAYING. I KNOW IN EACH CASE WHY THOSE WHO CHANGED DID BECAUSE WE
ARE FRIENDS AND WE TALK, BUT THEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.
2.) THE MUSIC DIRECTOR HAD NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS SUBJECT. HE IN NO WAY WAS
NEGATIVE TOWARD THE CONN AND NEVER SUGGESTED TO ME THAT I OR WE CHANGE ANYTHING.
3.) NO HORN PLAYER THAT PLAYS EXTRA OR SUBSTITUTE WITH US HAS BEEN TOLD THAT
THEY SHOULD PLAY OR BUY A SCHMID, NOT BY ME OR ANYONE ELSE IN THE SECTION. WE
DON'T THINK LIKE THAT, WE DON'T WORK LIKE THAT.
Quite often while talking
to horn players around the country I'm asked questions about changes that have
taken place in New York and elsewhere. Quite often there seems to be an
assumption that some kind of power play has taken place, somebody told somebody
else what they must do. Other player's experiences may be quite different from
mine, but in my twenty-seven years playing for money I've rarely seen it. Four
of those years was as third horn. Saw it once there. Previn in Pittsburgh wanted
us to change to a different brand of horn. I left for Minnesota before it
happened but it didn't happen, at least not for long. When I heard a concert of
the Pittsburgh Orchestra two years later, no one was playing those horns, at
least from what I could make out from the audience. I've always wanted to know
what happened there but I've never had a chance to find out. I think the
orchestra still owns those horns that nobody is using.
MOUTHPIECES
John Stork has been kind enough to
attribute part of the development of the M1 mouthpiece to me but in fact it was
he and part of the brass section of the New York Philharmonic (whoever was
available to listen that day) that actually found what was right for the New
York Philharmonic and Avery Fisher Hall. It has been right for me for eight
years now. In fact I am extremely grateful to John because I think in a way he
saved my career. I will explain.
1) On the B8 and the Conn I was crashing
about three times every two years from 1982 onward. By crashing I mean that I
had no response from written G below middle C to fifth line F. I mean so bad
that I as first horn of the New York Philharmonic I remember (well) spending the
intermission in a stall crying about what I had just done on the first half of
the concert (that was the only place to cry in private) to canceling a concerto
performance that ended up costing me $4,000 in lost fees and expenses. Nothing
noble here, I didn't have a choice, believe me. I couldn't have played it.
2) Since 1989 1 have played the M1 exclusively with two exceptions: 1992 & 1996.
Both times that I have gone back to the B8 I have enjoyed a certain brief period
of bliss and then came trouble. I have promised myself that I will not go back
to it again. This is not to say that I am committing to the M1 or the Schmid for
the rest of my life. They are what work for me today. When they cease to give me
what I want I will change. With my present setup, I anticipate I will still have
slumps but I don't think they will be as frequent, as long or as severe. (I want
to be optimistic about this.)
FINAL COMMENTS
1) When one valve was
invented, the hand horn players thought that playing a valved horn was wrong.
When two valves came in, the one valve and hand horn players thought that it was
wrong.
When three valves came in, many thought that this was a total
sellout. (Even today I can read on the computer horn list that one should use
the (low) F horn as much as possible. Well, I think if anyone feels that way and
can do it, why not, but I can't bring it off )
When the descant or triple
horn came in, I thought, the only people using those descants are people that
are afraid of missing. Maybe so, but if that is the bottom line, then I'm one of
those scared people. But now for the first time in my career I can play the
first movement of Beethoven's Ninth without cringing at the lack of clarity I'm
getting or I can play those repeated B's on the second page of Beethoven's
Seventh (this Beethoven was such a troublemaker for me) loudly and clearly
without trash. This kind of result makes me very happy.
2) My horn and my
mouthpiece work for me. Both John Stork and Engelbert Schmid have been great to
work with.
3) 1 think that in the New York Philharmonic brass section
that we have been extremely fortunate in our hirings. You never can really be
quite sure how someone is going to work out in an orchestra just because they've
won an audition. We've been very fortunate.
4) As long as you're not
hurting anyone else, every person has the right to pursue what is going to make
them happy, including me. Hopefully if you are part of a section you realize
that part of your life is a mutual experience, that you must go through it
together and that edicts don't really make much sense, whether coming from the
1st or the 4th, or anybody in between. Everyone must be willing to compromise.
Clint "Dirty Harry" Eastwood: "Hey punk, you've gotta ask yourself, do you feel
lucky?"
Phil Myers: "Yes. Real lucky. I still can't believe it."
All this aside, we still took the time to get Phil's answers to the really
important questions. Like...
His favorite:
Book:
Travel, books, computer "how to" books
Food: Cinnamon-raisin bagel
Piece of Music: Impossible
for classical. For all else- "Long Train Running"., Doobie Brothers.
Pastime: Computers, tennis, snorkel, scuba
Conductor: Active: Sinopoli, Gergiev (they hear colors and phrases)
Recording: Rossini Overtures, and Mozart Divertimento #2. K1 31, Cleveland
Orchestra, George Szell.
Performing artist: Active- Midori
Sport: Tennis, golf and scuba
Favorite quote: "I am
that I am".
Favorite movie: I probably watched War Games more than any other
movie in my life.
What is the hardest thing about your job? Remembering
that I'm the one causing the problems.
What is the best thing about your
job? Playing with this horn section.
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