A response
The following is a response to one persons live journal entry and some other overall typical UMBC bashing. The comments were that performance majors are illiterate and the new music ensemble and music forum are forms of punishment
As a brass player I have often been lumped into the "chowder-head" category. I have accepted this, and those who don't want to take the time to think otherwise, I don't let them see what I have. They are unworthy of it. People who think performance majors are just dumb, uneducated folks are the ones who have not been exposed to their lifestyle for very long and never spent time with them outside of the concert hall. I do a lot of performing in the community with theatre groups and such. I hang out with these people in bars and they are my friends. I don't know many who will discuss 12 tone rows over a couple rounds of budweiser. I personally had other options outside of music. I was accepted to UMBC as a history major. While I was at UMBC, I quit history due to realizing music is what I had to do. I also made sure music wasn't the only thing I learned. I learned from some of the best computer science people at UMBC how to build and repair computers. UMBC may not be the best ran college, but you get out of it what you put in, and making assumptions about performance majors and calling the new music ensemble punishment doesn't sound very open minded to me. I was a member of the new music ensemble and it did burn out on me after awhile, but if anything, I learned how to still do a good performance of a piece I don't really care for, and how to make a weak piece sound better than what it really is. Thats what being a musician is about. Rarely will you get to perform something you really really like, but if you wanna live, you do it and you make it sound like you like the piece.
Music forum at UMBC can definitely be dull, but, BUT, it is under your control. If you find it boring, then shut up and get up on that stage and play. The depressing thing is that the forum audience is the biggest audience you're gonna get as a solo performer at UMBC without stacking the crowd with your parents and your grandma. When I was at UMBC, I pissed off so many people because I played on forum every damn week. You wanna know why? I did it as punishment to others while benefiting myself. If no one was signed up to play by Monday evening, Tuesday morning I signed my name to the list. I would play something I was working on or something so damn out there it would force someone to comment. And by the time I got to my senior recital, I had so much performance time under my belt that I wasn't scared, I was excited to get out there and show off all the work I did. Forum is a tool, use it like one. Strengthen your performance skills, strengthen your public speaking skills, and most importantly, strengthen your listening skills. As I said before, you get out of it what you put in. I used to really hate UMBC when I was there but in my last semester, I sat in a practice room to put in some time on one of the hardest damn pieces I've ever seen and intimidates the hell out of pretty much every other player I let see the score. I came to the realization that I have learned so much and met so many interesting people and that I squandered many tools set before me and I wasted so much time, that I could be such an awesome trumpet player but I'm not and its my fault. Its wasn't having to go to forum at 1 on Wednesdays, it wasn't from playing in pep band, it wasn't from being in the new music ensemble, it wasn't from spending time playing jazz, and it wasn't from some advisor/department chair/theory teacher screwing me over. They didn't screw me, I screwed me. I had the same trumpet teacher I would have had if I went to Peabody and I took that for granted (Wayne, I know ya don't read this, but sorry I didn't work harder for you). I screwed myself by not working through some illnesses, I hurt myself by not going to the library to read more. I hurt myself by not staying after rehearsal to go through the parts I messed up on. I hurt myself by not doing thorough research. You can't see this while you're still there but once you're out, you will see the opportunities you missed. You will think of something you always wanted to do. Mine was Collegium. I always wanted to play in Collegium but I never did. Why? I don't know. You know how awesome it would be if my repertoire list covered the range of early Baroque all the way to a piece written three months ago? I would have 500 years of music under my belt. But I didn't because I was selfish and ignorant and too busy feeling sorry for myself. Familiar whines of "Ugh, I have to work on this piece", "Ugh, this sight singing project is hard, its stupid that its a one credit class, it should be three" fail to really say what is going on. You feel sorry for yourself. You want the work to go away instead of stepping up to the bar and getting your shit done. Are the inadequate practice facilities the reason why you don't practice or is it because you just don't feel like it? The truth is that music can't be done because you love it. Loving it is all fine and dandy, but you need to be married to it. You need to wake up every damn day and do it whether you feel like it or not. You will hate your instrument, you will love your instrument, but no matter what, you are in a relationship with it and you can't just quit on it for one day because you don't feel like it, or a theory teacher gave you two assignments instead of one, or forum was longer than a half hour, making you not have time to get lunch at the Commons. My married friends will understand what I mean when you say that you sometimes hate your spouse and sometimes you are madly in love with them. Its EXACTLY the same with music. You can't just divorce your spouse due to them forgetting to put the toilet seat down, just like you can't quit music for a day because a performance went bad or someone is "screwing" you. You must fight through it and do music every day no matter what. Whether you agree with me or not, I don't really care. This is how I feel and why the music department sometimes seems so "cruel". Suck it up or stop payment on your tuition check, and sit at a subway stop trying to get tips for playing Unchained Melody on your oboe. You never retire from music. Its the only career path you can't retire from. Sure you can stop performing but music is still with you. Just like a spouse, its with you until you're dead. And if you want to reply to this, remember I'm an alumnus now of the department, and I was in the department when it was still a damn VPA degree and a faculty member from the dance department was the head of Music at UMBC. Also you could skid through by being in an ensemble specifically just for your instrument and be the only one in it. So please feel free to reply, just remember, that department was a pile of crap and evolved into what it is now thanks to Linda Dusman. You may think shes a bitch sometimes, but shes just trying to make the department legit, and make your degree worth something. I didn't see eye to eye with her but shes done more for that department than anyone else has. I welcome your opinion on this subject, but not your whines. I had to do the same crap as you. For the "illiterate" Performance majors out there, I will highlight what I said above.
1. You get out what you put in.
2. The music department at UMBC has improved dramatically.
3. Put up or shut up.
4. I feel your pain.
5. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
6. You can play songs by the Righteous Brothers on double reeded instruments.
7. I graduated from UMBC.
8. No one is screwing you (No one has a personal vendetta against you).
9. I'm a chowder-head.
And I'm spent, good night.
As a brass player I have often been lumped into the "chowder-head" category. I have accepted this, and those who don't want to take the time to think otherwise, I don't let them see what I have. They are unworthy of it. People who think performance majors are just dumb, uneducated folks are the ones who have not been exposed to their lifestyle for very long and never spent time with them outside of the concert hall. I do a lot of performing in the community with theatre groups and such. I hang out with these people in bars and they are my friends. I don't know many who will discuss 12 tone rows over a couple rounds of budweiser. I personally had other options outside of music. I was accepted to UMBC as a history major. While I was at UMBC, I quit history due to realizing music is what I had to do. I also made sure music wasn't the only thing I learned. I learned from some of the best computer science people at UMBC how to build and repair computers. UMBC may not be the best ran college, but you get out of it what you put in, and making assumptions about performance majors and calling the new music ensemble punishment doesn't sound very open minded to me. I was a member of the new music ensemble and it did burn out on me after awhile, but if anything, I learned how to still do a good performance of a piece I don't really care for, and how to make a weak piece sound better than what it really is. Thats what being a musician is about. Rarely will you get to perform something you really really like, but if you wanna live, you do it and you make it sound like you like the piece.
Music forum at UMBC can definitely be dull, but, BUT, it is under your control. If you find it boring, then shut up and get up on that stage and play. The depressing thing is that the forum audience is the biggest audience you're gonna get as a solo performer at UMBC without stacking the crowd with your parents and your grandma. When I was at UMBC, I pissed off so many people because I played on forum every damn week. You wanna know why? I did it as punishment to others while benefiting myself. If no one was signed up to play by Monday evening, Tuesday morning I signed my name to the list. I would play something I was working on or something so damn out there it would force someone to comment. And by the time I got to my senior recital, I had so much performance time under my belt that I wasn't scared, I was excited to get out there and show off all the work I did. Forum is a tool, use it like one. Strengthen your performance skills, strengthen your public speaking skills, and most importantly, strengthen your listening skills. As I said before, you get out of it what you put in. I used to really hate UMBC when I was there but in my last semester, I sat in a practice room to put in some time on one of the hardest damn pieces I've ever seen and intimidates the hell out of pretty much every other player I let see the score. I came to the realization that I have learned so much and met so many interesting people and that I squandered many tools set before me and I wasted so much time, that I could be such an awesome trumpet player but I'm not and its my fault. Its wasn't having to go to forum at 1 on Wednesdays, it wasn't from playing in pep band, it wasn't from being in the new music ensemble, it wasn't from spending time playing jazz, and it wasn't from some advisor/department chair/theory teacher screwing me over. They didn't screw me, I screwed me. I had the same trumpet teacher I would have had if I went to Peabody and I took that for granted (Wayne, I know ya don't read this, but sorry I didn't work harder for you). I screwed myself by not working through some illnesses, I hurt myself by not going to the library to read more. I hurt myself by not staying after rehearsal to go through the parts I messed up on. I hurt myself by not doing thorough research. You can't see this while you're still there but once you're out, you will see the opportunities you missed. You will think of something you always wanted to do. Mine was Collegium. I always wanted to play in Collegium but I never did. Why? I don't know. You know how awesome it would be if my repertoire list covered the range of early Baroque all the way to a piece written three months ago? I would have 500 years of music under my belt. But I didn't because I was selfish and ignorant and too busy feeling sorry for myself. Familiar whines of "Ugh, I have to work on this piece", "Ugh, this sight singing project is hard, its stupid that its a one credit class, it should be three" fail to really say what is going on. You feel sorry for yourself. You want the work to go away instead of stepping up to the bar and getting your shit done. Are the inadequate practice facilities the reason why you don't practice or is it because you just don't feel like it? The truth is that music can't be done because you love it. Loving it is all fine and dandy, but you need to be married to it. You need to wake up every damn day and do it whether you feel like it or not. You will hate your instrument, you will love your instrument, but no matter what, you are in a relationship with it and you can't just quit on it for one day because you don't feel like it, or a theory teacher gave you two assignments instead of one, or forum was longer than a half hour, making you not have time to get lunch at the Commons. My married friends will understand what I mean when you say that you sometimes hate your spouse and sometimes you are madly in love with them. Its EXACTLY the same with music. You can't just divorce your spouse due to them forgetting to put the toilet seat down, just like you can't quit music for a day because a performance went bad or someone is "screwing" you. You must fight through it and do music every day no matter what. Whether you agree with me or not, I don't really care. This is how I feel and why the music department sometimes seems so "cruel". Suck it up or stop payment on your tuition check, and sit at a subway stop trying to get tips for playing Unchained Melody on your oboe. You never retire from music. Its the only career path you can't retire from. Sure you can stop performing but music is still with you. Just like a spouse, its with you until you're dead. And if you want to reply to this, remember I'm an alumnus now of the department, and I was in the department when it was still a damn VPA degree and a faculty member from the dance department was the head of Music at UMBC. Also you could skid through by being in an ensemble specifically just for your instrument and be the only one in it. So please feel free to reply, just remember, that department was a pile of crap and evolved into what it is now thanks to Linda Dusman. You may think shes a bitch sometimes, but shes just trying to make the department legit, and make your degree worth something. I didn't see eye to eye with her but shes done more for that department than anyone else has. I welcome your opinion on this subject, but not your whines. I had to do the same crap as you. For the "illiterate" Performance majors out there, I will highlight what I said above.
1. You get out what you put in.
2. The music department at UMBC has improved dramatically.
3. Put up or shut up.
4. I feel your pain.
5. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
6. You can play songs by the Righteous Brothers on double reeded instruments.
7. I graduated from UMBC.
8. No one is screwing you (No one has a personal vendetta against you).
9. I'm a chowder-head.
And I'm spent, good night.