This is a phrase that’s used often by students that wish to go into music as a profession.  What does it mean?  You’ve been playing your clarinet for several years, you play in your school band or orchestra, all county and all state and you love to play.  Maybe you’re even the first chair, or close, and you want to do this all your life because you love it. You may even be the best clarinetist in your county or state, you can already play the Mozart Concerto and Weber Concertino so you’re sure you can make it, after all, someone has to why not you?  Yes, you have to follow your dreams but you need to be realistic too.  (Read my article on Symphony Jobs)  Any student that has music in their blood probably has to give it a try, if they don’t they may regret it the rest of their lives but they have to know what they are getting into, be realistic, and look into the future.

I used to tell my prospective students and their parents that they do need to follow their dreams but be prepared if they can’t make it.  I gave a lecture almost every year to my studio about what it takes to become a professional musician.  You have to be dedicated; you have to be willing to practice 3-4 hours a day every day, even longer when possible.  I told them that there are other students maybe even more advanced than them that are practicing that much each day so they have to catch up and surpass.  I used myself as an example, when in school I arrived at school early so I could get in an hour or more of practice, and that was after riding the NY subway over an hour to get there, I went to school in Manhattan and lived at home in the Bronx.  I’d practice an hour or more during my class breaks and come home and practice an hour or two in the evening.  On weekends, though I took off Saturday night for social life, I practiced 4-5 hours each day on Saturdays and Sundays just about every week of my school life. If you can’t do that, I would tell them, you’re in the wrong business.

Of course I encourage them to learn Eb and bass clarinet to enhance their chances of getting a symphony job but I also encouraged them to learn different styles of music. Jazz, Klezmer, or whatever other style of music they enjoyed and had a talent for.  But I also encouraged them to learn a subject as a minor that they were interested in just in case they needed to fall back on something else.  I encouraged them to consider doing a masters in another subject like business, arts management, music theory, music history, take up instrument repair or something else they would like to learn so they have something to fall back on, especially if they were not at the top of the talent pool. I would not encourage anyone to go into music education if they didn’t like to teach in a classroom setting but tried to encourage them to teach privately to get the experience of studio teaching. You need to be dedicated to teaching to be a good school teacher though many school teachers free lance as well so they get to do both on a limited basic, especially if they play sax too.

I would always ask my students what the most important thing was for a clarinet player to get a playing job.  Most of them said tone but they were wrong.  I told them that tone was very subjective; it was what you did with your tone that mattered most.  Technique is the most important thing because if you can’t play the notes correctly, in tempo, with the correct rhythm, you can’t ever get a job.  Technique is a given, that includes clean fast articulation as well of course.  That’s what takes so much time in the practice room.  Once you can play the notes with the right rhythm then everything else becomes the most important. Intonation, tone, musicianship, you have to have it all but first you have to play the notes because everyone else your competing against is.

All teachers have to be honest, inspiring and encouraging with their students but students have to be honest with themselves too.  In my case, when a Earl Bates, principal clarinet of the St. Louis Symphony at the time when I studied with him one summer at the Aspen Music Festival,  told me at age 18 that I didn’t have what it takes to become a professional clarinetist. It just inspired me to work that much harder. Having been on a path to be a woodwind double I sold my sax and flute and bought a bass and Eb clarinet and doubled my practice time to prove him wrong, it worked in my case but may not in all.  The competition is fierce these days.