Orchestra viola-ing

I've been rehearsing for a few upcoming performances in a section of 8 violas, which is a lot of fun. It's nice to be a ringer sometimes and sit at the back.

A few things hit me whenever I play in a section or with a symphony orchestra. I'm well aware that job satisfaction has long since been low for orchestral players, and much higher for chamber players, and I see evidence of it everywhere. I don't even know where to begin. All the people I've met in this particular gig are perfectly nice, but I don't see a lot of laugh lines. There are certain tendencies among orchestral musicians, and while I hate to generalize, I think that it's valid to say that there's a certain amount of artistic freedom/control that one loses in that setting, particularly for section string players. We become filler, somehow. So we seek to express ourselves in other ways, and when various aspects of the our musical realm become compromised, we rebel.

Things often appear to bother orchestral musicians with tenure that wouldn't bother a freelancer, who might resist rocking the boat, quite so much. Like missing 10 seconds of one's break to continue a musical phrase to its completion. And that sort of thing. The forest disappears for the trees and tiny issues can become Himalayan in dimension.

People in the middle of the section will turn around, insistent that they make sure that the stand behind them received the message that there should be a line over the quarter note G in measure 57. Or that there be a natural marked over the 14th 16th note in measure 32, even if no one played it incorrectly to begin with. And so on. It's almost like micromanagement becomes a way of life because how else do we get to speak out? Musicians naturally perform; we long to prove ourselves and to show the world what we can do, or something along those lines. At any rate, we perform; we are trained to perform. It's hard to feel that you're doing that that when there are 7 or more people sitting around you, playing the same notes at the same dynamic as you.

The beautiful thing about being in a quartet is that you can pretty well always voice your opinions. And you get to control pretty much all of what you're doing; obviously the rest of the group has input but your musical lines, your sound, your instrument are ultimately your own.

I'm trying to be diplomatic here. When I was younger it seemed to me that the ultimate would be to win a job in an orchestra and stay there forever, and now that idea's entirely lost its appeal. But that has nothing to do with music or the hierarchy of musicians, if there is such a thing; it's simply personal preference. I have a high regard for orchestral musicians and I don't want to come off in any sort of snotty way, or to fail to convey how much enjoyment I derive from playing orchestral works. All I know is that I hope that I never cease to enjoy what I'm doing or get caught up in the trivial details, and that seems common among orchestral players. As I've mentioned before, there's a lot of complaining about the gig, the conductor, the pay, the concert hall, the other musicians, etc.

Just to provide examples of the strange and high-strung manifestations of not-quite-happiness that I've witnessed over the years in orchestral settings:

I've been barked at in orchestras for the following: my case was too big and it bothered the extremely ornery oboist, who made me put it backstage (this was during a rehearsal). She was afraid that it might eventually touch something belonging to her. She told me that I should buy a smaller case. Funnily enough, I eventually did. Not sure if she had anything to do with it. I'm now back to a monster case.

A stand partner once slapped my hand because she felt that I was going to turn the page prematurely.

Another stand partner, in a section which I was leading, erased all my bowings in front of my eyes in the Marriage of Figaro Overture, and said, "I've been playing it my way for forty years and that's how I'm going to play it now."

I've had my section ask me to move more, to cue every note, to stop moving, to not be so tall, you name it. I've been lectured by stand partners on my playing volume, articulation, aforementioned page turning skills. I was once told by a woman in an amateur orchestra that I would never be able to make a living as a musician, since, as she put it, she couldn't.

I was told, after playing an audition and "tying" for the job (meaning that only one of the two of us would ultimately get it but we both still had to sit through a month-long trial first, just to make sure our ulcers were well-developed), that the only issue with the audition was that my sound wasn't big enough and they wanted someone who could "cover up" the lesser players in the section. That was disheartening a) because I never thought I'd have a job that consisted of playing so loudly that I would entirely swallow up some poor soul's sound, and b) because that wasn't what I thought I was auditioning for.

And I'm not entirely sure why all these things have happened or why I find them so amusing still. And maybe they're not typical occurences, but I rather think they are. And I think that musicians forget why they're musicians with far too much frequency.

To quote a cute little 90-pound model on television the other day, "Find a job you love doing and you'll never work a day in your life." I think that's always been my mantra---I just didn't know it.