Professor Pizka and others,
While you continually make this point about some people are not suited
for some things, I feel that you go about it in the wrong fashion. It seems
that your take on the matter is that if someone tries to make it in the world
of horn playing, who does not have an ideal tongue, or lips, etc. then he is
out to "ruin" the profession. Is there idealism in music? Of course.
Idealistically Beethoven would not have become deaf. Yet, almost
every conductor still ends their tenure with an orchestra with his Ninth symphony.
Audiences still love it. If a hornist with thick lips or an imperfect
embouchure can play the music, no matter what Hans Pizka thinks is the definition
of "music," and the audience enjoys it, they will get hired. Even if this
person has to work slightly harder than the posterboy hornist, but can play,
what's to stop him from trying? Biased orchestral hornists who feel that only
their way is right; the same people that will only let their section play a Conn
8D, or an Alexander, or a Paxman. While there is constant dissuasion to not
letting the irregulars try, there seems to be no reasoning for it. There is
reasoning for why they may not make it, whether it is biases or that the person
simply isn't good enough, but there is no reasoning why this person may not
try. While you say that you are not trying to discriminate, in effect, you are.
Keep more of an opened mind, and maybe keep your eyes closed from that
guy with the thick lips playing a Holton really well. While practice may
never make him perfect, he can get just about as close as anyone else.
Michael Scheimer,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
2003 Interlochen Arts Camp Concert Band,
2002, 2003 PMEA Honors Band and 2003 District Orchestra
Founding co-member of Fünf Brass Quintet
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