“Fearless Horn Playing and a Bit of Magic” - Sarah Willis interviews Jeff Nelsen live from Indiana in her Horn Hangouts.
Transcript
Auto-generated from the live stream, expect the occasional robot mishearing.
Jeff welcome thank you so much Berlin Indiana and we’ve got Tim sitting in Melbourne who hasn’t been asleep since we talked to um to her last night poor Tim and I just before we start I’ve got a little surprise for you someone’s come to say hi hi there J I just was in the building I heard about this so
I thought I’d come and just say hello and wonder if you survived this summer in bertin nor and everything and everything’s it’s okay oh yeah just barely as you know all get on to the interview but we’ll be in touch and uh hope everything is well with you and look forward to your hair looks great your hair looks great oh thank you yeah not a hair out of place you know hair today gone tomorrow as they say
Stefan Stefan and Jeff hung out um this summer at the well Jeff you didn’t hang out for very long did you because you weren’t there for very long at the Italian brass week with Luca benucci and loads of other short but intensive time right yeah yeah he just wanted to come say hi rehear he been rehearsing all day right yeah yeah do you want anyone to ask him any questions while we got him we’re gonna get him on by himself he he deserves a whole slot to himself so we’re gonna start we’re gonna start with you now okay take care
Jeff and enjoy the interview everybody uh okay bye bye thanks Jeff see you tomorrow thanks for coming so that was a real treat my beloved colleague jeffan yski coming in to say hi to Jeff you guys go a long way back huh yeah yeah he’s awesome are you going to tell the viewers how you doing today uh well sure
I have a little bit of a stomach ache that’s that’s a that’s actually an understatement you feel like crap or I shouldn’t say crap my mother’s watching no especially twice geez um so everyone is watching hello from Rome hello from n oh no Howard’s having trouble in Nashville refresh Howard then you’ll then you should be able to watch um got a lot of people online and people are from
Paris some oh I tell you they’re all over the place your fans awesome um jff your fans too you’re at home right now because you’re not feeling so great I’m sorry but you’re feeling great enough to talk to us yeah um you may you may look like a a teddy bear but I am so fascinated by this
Fearless stuff you’ve been doing I got your newsletter you sent me your newsletter and it’s just for me whenever I do a master class um people always want to know how do we stop being scared on stage and and and we don’t hang on there’s a bit too much light in here I’m sorry about the light you guys it looks a little bit ethereal here oh there we go that’s good keep standing there yakob is here filming again so uh that’s good just stay there till the sun goes down um everybody always wants to know uh how do you deal with nerves on stage now
I haven’t got a good as answer as you do you really seem to have sused it out yeah I’ve tried I mean I’ve tried to figure out some structure uh and put some structure to it so that we can work through it and that hopefully can help us free you know free us up of it to then create and be creative on top of all these techniques and insecurities and the things that get in the way you know so the two first steps for me and when
I lecture I first start by proving to everybody that everybody fears you know and just by telling my stories of fear I mean I came from a place of of huge fears even through high school there was a a hallway in high school that I wouldn’t walk down those were the cool kids you know and what what were you afraid of um
I don’t know it’s pretty illogical not being cool enough not being liked not being funny wanting to be liked you know it’s a control issue yeah maybe it’s a lot of fear is a lack of control right so I want to when I was at college I used to think that you are only liked as as well as you played right yeah you are what you do and it sort of it goes into your life
I think you sort of worry that you’re only going to be as light as as good as you play and if you’re playing bad or you’re having a crisis then you’re not really worth being any being like or not me scared and that starts early when you’re celebrated for doing something and at some point when it doesn’t go well you know when you’re celebrated you start the dangerous thought is that you are what you do you know and that’s that’s not going to aren we what we did no that’s the that’s the mistake because then as soon as we miss a note we’re a bad
Person you know and that’s terrifying too much on the line if if your selfworth is wrapped up in what you’re doing so for me that was one of the great things too I quit horn for three years in high school and after high school so when I came back to it I played really badly but I didn’t feel bad about it so
I learned faster than others because I’d play what I couldn’t play just sat in that room and sounded like crap uh but yeah so I’m I’m sorry Sarah’s mother um yeah and then you know the two things Freud has taught me too you know in in her book uh of thoughts on playing the horn well she says when you put the horn down play something you can play well every time you play
Just even C major scale one OCT of ascending like ah okay I can play you know and walk away from it that way you’ll have a good life away from the horn and then when you come back to it you won’t be like come here I’ll beat you this time you know it’s not a battle it’s then you can come back to it with a little more optimism and that adds up over days what you’re saying because so many of us
I think probably all of us have had this sort of LoveHate relationship with our horns our horn is our best friend but it can also be our worst enemy um it shouldn’t be should it yeah yeah no and that’s a choice too you know oh like how much control do you want if you want control don’t play horn you know you’re playing the wrong instrument
I say as a joke I joke sometimes say if you want to get all the notes play bassoon but that’s respectfully basso players of the world that’s that’s a dig at my older sister she plays in the Boston Symphony bassoon my one one of my sisters and she married Dave Ohanian you remember that remember Dave was your predecessor in
Canadian Brass right yeah so I got to give her some grief every so often you know she knows all about home players so I guess so right yeah she can take it yeah same with flute my other sister Lisa to anyway I’ll stop and your parents were opera singers if I if I read did my research so you grew up really musically so where did this fear actually opera singers seem to be the most self-confident of of the lot so where did where did actually this um this is not true nope no way okay but they seem so because they look into the performance aspect
More than anybody instrumentalists sit in the orchestra sit in the back of the orchestra and it’s we don’t we’re not used to of being the show visually singers up front I I adjudicated the national competition yes a bassoon player has just said assum player is watching so sorry about that SF were there some swear words on sorry just kidding
I forgot this we can edit that out of the live and wait just to cover that like every instrument like also trumpet is easier than French horn in some ways because the notes are further apart right like they’re an octave their the notes are further apart but because of that they wrote harder music for the trumpet so at our level it evens out in the end so respect to all instruments in case that was unclear you know but soon
I know the things you guys have to do yeah tell me about your parents and opera stars how they they really learn how to present themselves they that’s in the culture of singing because they sing recital and they sing songs and they they stand up front and they yeah they look at it a lot I was adjudicating a na the
Canadian national competition last year and I was adjudicating brass and then singers the brass players came out and one of the brass players kind of came out and looked around the stage and kind of hey like no bow and then emptied the instrument and then went and I was just and I kind of turned to my colleague the singing uh adjudicator and
I was just sorry you know and then the singers came out and it was the curtsy and the big bow the you know the other direction but so it’s just in the culture to connect you know even more but they’re no way they’re as as scared as anyone they just have more techniques to look calm and this is my big thing with
Fearless performance that Fearless performance is not the lack of fear it is the choice that there are things more important than fear so when you’re on stage and you’re scared I I assume you don’t get scared that often these days but we all I mean I tell us the truth every time get scared every single I’m so
Rel to know that yeah yeah that like everybody fears that’s again my the my sister the bassist she said you know my family wants share you know share what what’s the best lesson we gave each other and my one sister said to me that it was the time she said that I was scared on stage that everybody fears it’s so useful to know that what what do we fear what do you fear
I’ll tell you what I fear if you tell me what you fear okay no one’s listening we’re just it’s just the two of us we’ve only got yeah I’m not gonna tell you how many people are online we could go back and forth for hours on the but the good thing is regardless of how many fears we have we only need one solution to it to because fear is the common thing you know but fearing control fearing missing a note fearing thinking people feeling badly fear of loss fear of not winning um you know some people there’s a thing linked to fear of success but
That’s I think because you have to keep succeeding you know what happens if I play my absolute best then you know yeah but fear I’ve heard a really great acronym for fear that it’s um um false evidence appearing real your wife’s on the chat hi honey Hi how are you she said you come a long way baby hey guys
I keep interrupting you but it’s just so fascinating to see all these people you know they they’re really they’re all writing in and um you’ll get to have a look at it later it’s really it’s amazing yeah I can’t see the we get to some questions later I promise you guys but this is just too fascinating for me
I’m not going to let go of it I want you to keep talking about it so the acronym fear sister it’s your sister I’m sorry it’s not Nina it’s Lisa hi Lisa my flip playing sister in England she taught me a lot through again replacing fear and she was out performing everywhere she just I could just I never saw how she could do it and get out there and do it and she just did it and still it’s amazing it’s so that’s to take this all to the very end and maybe work backwards it’s it’s all
Cate culated I’m stuck on a word culminating it culminates on uh my magic line method which is um there’s a magic line between backstage and onstage and every time you enter into any performance situation you cross a magic line and there’s great rules backstage you know that serve us well and then right at the line and then when you cross the line and you’re on stage and tell me your rules um and
I have a two-page sheet maybe I can give you to post on your website and on my website explaining how to do a magic line performance and you do these mag people can sign up for your for your Fearless newsletter can’t they sure yeah that would be great yeah go to my website me.com uh n lsen Jeff
Nelson uh and yeah I’ll put that in the next newsletter I’ll send one out soon great I’m we’re happy to post that as well um and so what are your rules first the goal for why you do it is and I’m always about why first for exercises when you’re doing your routine when you’re doing anything why are you doing it first and it’s so that you learn through experience you’re the only one who who does what you do to yourself to fear no one can make you scared one of my favorite things is um no one can make me feel anything without my consent that’s
A really big one that’s elanar Roosevelt I thought it was my mom but then I learned it was about the same thing um so do you have a mant or something you you sit there and talk to yourself before you got on stage because you play some really fearsome stuff sorry I should say Fearless but actually the stuff you played in
Canadian Brass God really uh oh I didn’t didn’t think about it so I good yeah I just think don’t miss don’t miss don’t miss yeah no right um yeah there’s lots of things but I’ll get back to you I mean it’s so so the rules you were asking about the rules um backstage and you just get into a habit doing a magic line performance takes one minute we do it every morning in routine class everyone takes turns you get up to the line and go through you you’re building your own habits so you empty your horns you don’t
EMP to when you walk out there and then you look at an inspirational sheet that you’ve made for yourself and M has sayings on it like they want you to play well you know imagine thinking that right before you walk out on stage it feels good now when we hear it oh yeah they do you know that’s what they why they bang their hands together you know huh but right before you walk out on stage talk to yourself they want you to play well um make the most music
Don’t Ask tell tell them what you think you are anyway so tell them how much great music is up there and connect to the audience it’s all about when I did my TED Talk which I was ironically very scared during you can watch my mouth Ted X talk it’s absolutely fantastic I think some people have been talking about on the chat as well saying you that they should definitely check that one out
I I was blown away and I just thought how enough did you manage to get a note out of your horn you just you just blow blow through your horn get seek free T call out there I I yeah well I was dealing with a clicker and I had uh things I had to do like that was and all these different and the magic of course you know
Tada how do you do that it’s magic we’ll get on to that in a minute I’m still on the Fearless part right everyone’s watching is going to be like yeah yeah okay so we tell we we say we’re going to we’re going to play well everyone wants you to play well what do we do when we go out on stage our mouth goes dry our heart starts pounding our knees start shaking what do we do then okay well for me specifically to each thing for me my thing is my mouth goes dry as you see in the
Ted to um and uh sorry bite your tongue I’ve done that but my adrenaline was too high and I bit the crap out of my tongue so I I recommend not doing that that’s a quick learn you learn that quickly it only takes once um for me I I take the biggest breath possible if I ever start wondering gee
Jeff is your mouth going dry and then my I sometimes I even cut a phrase off early and just like that because the really fun spiral into hell is trying to take like sneak a breath in so that you don’t make your mouth drier like you start sipping air because that makes your mouth dry but then you play worse and you lose your breath and you’re dead so for me just if you ever wonder if your mouth is dry take the deepest breath possible and you and you will play better for sure because by the time your mouth is dry you’re pretty far down the
Fear path you know and you’re not breathing well already so it there’s a double solution there right you play better because you start breathing again and you make it about your breathing instead you know one of the big lessons I still all of these things you each person has to learn for themsel through the experience of doing these magic line performances you can do them 10 times a day a 100 times a day and be creative we’re out there to be musicians anyway we’re so worried about what people think about us get over that and share and get great music and make the music great
And make it a story and make it about going out to an audience instead and it’s about getting over yourself and write I write it in my music I write little happy faces every four bars my Paganini the first time I did Paganini there were little happy faces every on every other line and in different colors after a while they stopped working most people write a skull and crossbones above the difficult yeah right yeah exactly yeah
I mean but there’s I mean of course we’ve got to have the technician going too you know I have a little sheet can I show you I think I sent it to you but we can post it I brought I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it but the performers Focus Choice purpose why my Storyteller product what my musician process how my technition
Fearless performance so this is part of your seminar that that you do yeah on this course or it’s a an online course or tell us how we can get hold of this um my website’s going to be very different very soon so I’ll be I’m my first thing that I’m going to build is an online course for it so that
I’ll be sending you guys emails on that if you sign up at my site you can just you’ll keep track of all that and then I’m doing a few seminars one is July or January 4th to 6th here in Bloomington for high school students that are going to be doing College auditions so just on the weekend Friday
Saturday Sunday and then my Fearless performance for musicians seminar is May 29th to June 30r you come here and we take you through making the sheets and I mean you you the wonderful thing about your Ted um your Ted ex uh thing I just loved it at the end when you had your picture of your baby Reese with a little horn and you said
Reese is the most Fearless person you know um and it’s true we’re born like that we’re born Fearless you see you see pictures of babies being thrown into swimming pools and swimming just because they don’t know they have to be scared and stuff like that don’t try this at home um or don’t give your baby a horn but um but it’s really what happens if you you do
I know this from college I learned how to be scared I have this program I still see it I remember it so well I was at College I was trying to play something and there were some people laughing in the front row and I got Shaky Knees and I thought they were laughing at me they may not have been laughing at me they may have been laughing about something totally different but for me that was a really traumatic moment and it sort of taught me that
I could get scared how do you help people to erase these feelings of panic because once they’re in they’re hard to get rid of oh yeah definitely it’s not there’s a massive difference between uh it something being simple and something being easy so I’m trying to simplify it as much as possible and then it’s about how much do you want it how much do you want to make these really hard choices that get easier as you see one 0000 1% improvement with your performer so the
Storyteller this sheet here is no small it’s you know we all look at process and our technician we all want and and but we look at that but a lot of us only want to show how good our technician is we walk out of there and worry about the house and do that you know a lot of my students come in and they want to show me how they’ve improved their technician this week you know so then product it’s very nothing happens without it it’s on the list
I have a one of my favorite saying I got from my mom uh in an email was the last thing I want to do is hurt you but it’s still on my list the last thing I want to do is hurt you but it’s still on my list it’s the last thing so it’s the bottom of the list it’s the least important but it’s on the list nothing happens without process and process is sprinkled throughout but
I think that’s the lamest of the three choices when you’re in performance is to think about how the next best one is product think about the sound you’re making and that’s uh your musician what did Mozart mean when he wrote what he wrote what did what does the simple phrase sound like what do you know all of these things to be much better to be focused on product than process that makes sense when we started we were all processed because we were trying to learn fingerings and all that but we learned our fingerings so we’ve transcended levels of technician and that’s my go
I’m still transcending my technician every time I learn something so that’s a lifelong awesome thing but so is learning what Mozart meant right and all of this the best place to be focused in performance though when I’m just out there singing through my horn and connecting to my colleagues and connecting to an audience is being purpose based being
B thinking about why you’re out there are you out there to not mess up are you out there to winner competition show how high and loud you can play or are you out there to give great music give people a break from their day and I make that decision 100 times a performance sometimes a thousand it’s like it’s just over and over and over again and that’s your
Storyteller tell a story out there and your story it’s all about story so I think that’s a massive simplification of some solutions and then it’s about finding as many ways as possible to get back there whenever we not we want to notice a fearful thought as soon as possible and get on and choose better thoughts as often as possible sometimes sometimes you don’t know sometimes
I’m not thinking about I’m getting nervous that I’m getting nervous and I and I notice the symptoms before it’s happened in my brain do you know what I mean yeah but that’s through experience today yeah but I bet today I I bet the next time you notice fear you’re gonna think something a little different because you heard some of my thoughts so it’s research
I’m signing up and if anyone’s groaning and thinking God she’s in the burin philarmonic uh what she talking about I I tell you it doesn’t get any easier it really does get any easier technician and musician level performer any level that’s different everyone yeah it gets worse when you have to pay the rent by playing this instrument yeah well
I’ll throw this out there now if you want do you want to come be guest faculty at my seminar in in may we can email about it anyway we email about it but not online in front of hundreds and hundreds of people um listen I’ve got some questions Jenny yay so I assume she’s someone you know says what was one of your favorite
Fearless performances and why um my we when I joined Canadian Brass um I went from forth horn to Canadian Brass so I went from sitting in the back of the orchestra playing some principal in Vancouver but mainly foror and then the next thing I knew I was standing in front of Canadian Brass uh and we did a concert in
Dallas a concert in with Spokan Symphony and then 30 concerts in Germany at one night like a different night every night third night was in celd the home of German brass so you talk about potential fearful choices standing in front of um creso and all the the German brass guys and all the European brass people and we played and the third
Encore was Barbara zodio and the horn we I the horn stands out front and then the guys all turn and it’s very dramatic and I we were backstage what should we play and they were like oh I don’t know and then one of them said Barb do and I for the first time ever in my life I went no no
I’m on my teeth I can’t like no I I can’t do it and they’re like okay great and they just left and they went back to the stage and I was like No And we came out and I was like like flipping out and they announced it and oh yeah yeah yeah so I walked out front and
I played the first phrase like scared out of my mind and the piece kept going and the five minutes were over and all of a sudden it was over and it was and it went Fant fantastic and it was just an unbelievable baptism do yourself short sorry I keep interrupting I’ve just got so many questions how did you turn it around for yourself that moment in that moment you went out there scared and you thought
I can’t do this how did you turn it around I made it about the beauty of the music yeah good question yeah that I dug into what the the um audience is going to experience and share that with them to them at them whatever works you know but dug really deep about 50 times every other bar you know and just stay
I’ve had so many concerts I’ve had to I’ve wanted to run off stage bethen 9 was my first performance with my first gig winnter Symphony back in 9 it I know that one exactly yeah but the great music you know far comes if you can get over the fact that you’re just just a little fourth horn player but to to realize that you’re playing
Amazing horn writing that had never been written like that before then it’s such a privilege to play that but it’s it’s a tough one to get over on four and most and most people my other thing is most people in the audience take it over the fears most people in the audience are there for the last movement but they also a lot of people in the in the audience hasn’t heard that movement before they only heard the last movement so it’s like wow the third thing is they’re having a really nice sleep during it nice very good totally even the third player probably is
Def bet says anyone who says they don’t get nervous uh and when they play when they pay in public is either lying an idiot or both says Mason Jones I totally agree with that it’s very true um what was your favorite let’s see we’re doing quite a good recovery from a fi what would you how do we let’s get off the fear how do we balance the horn to the other instruments in the in a brass quintet that’s a good question just play louder than them just play louder just play louder yeah at all times it’s tiring yeah um
Marty hman another uh dear friend and uh a former member of both Empire and Canadian Brass uh he explained it as waiting in the weeds so you can because sometimes you’re principal low brass sometimes you’re third trumpet waiting in the weeds waiting in the weeds for the moments find pick your moments for the horn to come out front and whail on those moments and bring it out he really did sorry waiting in the wings in the or the weeds like a duck hunter like you’re waiting you’re you’re hi waiting for for your shot
I think that’s what that means yeah no absolutely okay Wings I’m not sure yeah um but yeah balance it’s it’s listen to the I mean it’s it’s there are no secondary there there are no non-important voices in chamber music You Are all uh massively important and you are all leading you sometimes may be a leading third voice that’s third important but it’s all solo voices no one else is playing those notes and everything has to be there um breathe well what
Gail was saying yester yesterday about breathing and everything was just awesome yeah I I feel I play in the Brin Phil brass Ensemble there’s only one horn there’s 12 of us and there’s one horn and the guys say to me we can’t hear you but your nice decoration it’s like thanks guys and I’ve often thought I’ve often thought it would be better to turn around and play
Backwards you know just to have a bance but in a quintet it’s it’s easier to balance it out you just have to play louder um yeah I was kidding but it does it does does make sense as well and you can sit on stage stage right put your bell out that way yeah do you did you stood you didn’t sit you stood for a lot of it but when we excuse me when we played
Takata and Fugue we’d sit and you’re burping online that’s not allowed could be wor it couldn’t be worse you poor thing we’re just happy you’re still online and you haven’t left us um whose idea with the sneakers by the way I always wanted to know that on in Canadian Brass everybody always wore sneakers whose idea was that the story comes from
I I don’t know whose idea it was but that they would do the ballet tribute to the ballet in the second half and they wore these sneakers and they were putting them on one day and they were like jeez these are really really comfortable oh they had the capiso dance shoes or I don’t know how to say it but umio
I think I don’t know we got people watching I’m sure they’ll tell us um but they would wear the wear the shoes and people thought they were sneakers so they were like yeah why don’t you know and they were like they’re so comfortable why don’t we just wear them all the time so that’s I think when they started doing that same with just a closer walk uh how that ended up being the first piece and we started from the start from the back of the hall was that they played it as an encore one night and then the next night they were like geez why
Can’t we just pick up where we were last night you know and start you know start with that and they were like why don’t we like it’s just these little moments of openness creativity not stuck in the systems that are there but to be Innovative and creative and cre there was no Canadian Brass before Canadian Brass you know it’s just create go for what you want dream huge
I played with them but when they when they were here in Berlin they did that Vagner album do you remember yeah yeah and I was just a little thing had just arrived in Berlin and Fergus said to me oh we need another horn come along and I was like because it was like all the principles of all of the
Berlin philonic and and Canadian Brass and Dave ohen was sitting there um in the midst of these unbelievable people I was going to say egos but that wouldn’t quite be fair but I remember gar was gear ciper playing that there were a whole lot of people just playing as loud as they possibly can I didn’t hear Dave for two days
I didn’t hear him I thought you know we were playing all this Ride of the Valkyries and everything and and he was the only one that had chops left after two days he was the only one and he came out and he played the most amazing solos in the smaller stuff and I remember sitting there I was like 22 and
I thought that’s how to do it he’s just thought it was just so clever he really he was a real professional he knew when to let the others take the load and and then he came out and had all the beautiful stuff so yeah um listen we’re getting why sneakers we answered that didn’t we we answered that one
Cindy hi Cindy we’re in um why sneakers because they’re comfortable and because they look cool right um what are your aims for the future Jeff asks Richard H well I’m pretty excited about create like creating some online materials and an online course for fress performance I think and going to finish the book and make it an audio course so really to get the message out there to you guys so you can have it at home and have it make sense and then
I’m going to probably interview a bunch of people on how they do it I’ll interview you Sarah and find out how you replace your fears and you know there your fear is not getting the best of you if you’re playing what’s what’s your band called [Music] again yeah yeah so yeah uh any tips on memorizing ask Chris
Brigham who was here in Berlin recently any hi Chris any tips on memorizing because you memorize all your stuff yeah with can you rest sure yeah lots of it um well I did a lot of memorizing on planes and for me it was about listening to the recording over and over and over again have it on in the background so you get to a point where you sing along and you first have your part there
I think that’s a major difference between brass players and singers for memorizing is that we have to have the right button down we you know we’re not just playing by ear we have to have the button down and then learn which buttons to have down you know like just memorize I memorize the finger rings a lot of times uh as lame as that might be to uh some other approaches and then when you try it and you do your first few performances by memory
Circle the places you messed up and only memorize those put all your resources all your sorry don’t forget the smile yeah exactly yeah but don’t waste time playing the whole thing 20 times over because you’re wasting time memorizing things that you already have memorized just circle what you messed up and focus on that yeah one of my colleagues was just memorizing the glear and he was swearing in the horn room is he said it’s awful the to memorize the glar was just uh changes key every few seconds right exactly oh yeah so
Jeff Oscar asks what was your most memorable performance you have one I would find that a hard one to answer yeah there’s so many you know there lots of um coin coincidentally the one of the most powerful ones was uh we did a concert right after 911 in America and our Encore was bar zodio and it became one of the soundtracks for support of the you know carrying the musical weight of that type of event and uh we asked the audience not to clap after so we finished it and then the lights went out and we walked off stage uh in uh we walked off
Stage in darkness and it was UN and that silence was really really powerful really that’s still hits me sorry I am listening we’re just running out of battery here so um we’re just uh we’re just rearranging sorry guys modern technology okay got it just did a con concert a few weeks ago in a theater in Nashville Indiana uh and and it was the goal was to have it a little bit more commercial so a bit more fun more fun music and uh uh
I played with four of my students so we did some quintets and stuff and that was now that’s one of my most powerful performances was is to perform with my students and you know really share in that creation and how great they did and I want to come and meet them I’m G to come and meet them they want to meet you yeah
I want to come meet them Jeff Lewis has asked this a couple of times so I’m just going to ask you Jeff should we adapt our playing according to members of the jury of a competition or just play your way our way your way my way I don’t quite understand that question maybe you do um well you just have to play how you are it doesn’t matter who’s in the who’s in the jury right yeah
I would agree to that and I think that you figure out what your way is but there’s they’re making decisions so you got to listen to some recordings you know don’t go off into a Hut and learn your way we learn our way through what Society thinks and says is good and hirable and winning of competition so there is a c
There are rules but within that there’s so much freedom to and I I will I demand of myself to trust every jury and every audition panel that they will pick the best player I was the only I was I either won I that was the finalist for both Chicago and La fourth in LA and second in assistant in
Chicago I was the the last finalist that wasn’t hired but uh I had a horn that didn’t suit you know what they play in LA it was a Lewis um but it but Excellence is Excellence you know and good Rhythm and all that all those kinds of things quick story on the Chicago audition everyone was telling me you know oh you don’t want to audition there they know who they want and they want someone from
Chicago and they want and I was just kind of like okay uhhuh are you finished I got to go practice are you done you know that’s why you’re not doing it I’m gonna be an idiot and go for it you know and in the semi-finals it was me and eight people from Chicago so either they were right the they wanted someone from
Chicago or I was the only idiot that went for it enough to you know to get it and that just changed my planing forever how much work I did for that audition and lessons with jaale and all those things so go for your dreams huge I’m a pig farmer from Alberta Canada and I but I didn’t let my you know where
I was in life affect where I wanted to go funny Gail grew up on a farm she said dairy farm you grew up on a pig farm I’m a vegetarian so I’m a bit worried I don’t really want to ask what you did with the pigs I’m sure you patted them and fed them nicely and put them out to graze right and they died natural yeah and then we yeah they all died of old days and then you ate them
I don’t want to know um Jeff Jeff who are your horn Heroes asks Nick Nick Kenny apart from yeah I was gonna say no joke you yes you’re amazing anyone should we do a poll on the on the text of how many people have you as one of their Heroes oh absolutely not let in are you telling me
I’m I’m lying no this one of the steps this is good this reminds me of some other FR things is to let compliments in you know instead of not like to put like oh to just say okay great I’m glad that you think so you know because that’s my opinion you can anyway we’ll talk about that will priv
I’m glad you think so thank you very much for the compliment um Jenny yeah you just WR Sarah is my hero so thank you very much my mother has written something too she said oh my mother said I spent my holidays on a on a dairy farm so I can join the Big Horn Farmers thanks Mom y the thing about farming for me is that
I grew up on the farm but my parents opera singers both older sisters one on Flute one on bassoon so music was in the house and then we had the work ethic on the farm so those were the two things that combined to make all three of us successful musicians I think when we grew up can I tell a quick story yes tell a quick story and this is this is how also how my dad lives on um uh so
I had a student and he came in and he played stra one and it was okay you know he got the notes and it was great and I was like okay yeah that’s good uh do you know Deep Thoughts with Jack Handy this guy that does these funny things for Saturday Saturday Night Live one of my favorites is one of my favorites is
I told him this at the time this is Mike Lombardi one of my students he won’t mind me telling you who it was um and it uh the saying is uh I think the parrot or I think the crow thinks of the parrot oh sure you can talk but listen to yourself so he was getting all the notes but why why make me sit through this you know whatever and so
I told him this story and it was that I was on the farm and I had a pipe wrench and I was trying to fix the watering system the system that got water to all the pigs was broken so I had a pipe wrench and I was trying to fix the pipe and pushing and it was stuck and ah
I couldn’t do it my dad walked up and he’s 6'6 this big man he looks down and I was just like H I can’t and he was like okay let’s go eat I’m you know let’s go eat I was like well what about the pigs he says they’ll die come on I’m hungry let’s go eat and I was like
I grabbed the pipe runch and I went like that and I got it and I looked up all proudly and he just kind of went uhhuh you know and walked off like yeah you know so the next week Mike Lombardi comes into his lesson and he plays I like blew my mind was just like unbel wow I just sat back mouth open wow what happened to you like oh my
God that’s it that’s it you’re telling a story now amazing and he said come here and I walked over and I looked on his part to the Str one and above the top he had written save the [Music] pigs I’m GNA write that on the top of my be of nine part yeah right yeah how much like get it done get in there there’s things more important than our fears and insecurities and we each have to create those and find them for ourselves it’s so inspiring talking to you
I I have to stop at some point because poor old Tim is sitting in Melbourne my wonderful wonderful Web Master and it’s 2 to2 and he’s been up since 5 this morning to see to to deal with Gail’s uh hang so I’m gonna have to let him go quite soon um but before we can I just something about more important than sleep
Tim there things that’s true is doing Tim is doing amazing things for the horn world really because Tim Tim and I are setting this up together Tim designed the website he’s designed this whole live streaming thing um I’ve got yakob here in Berlin helping me he’s been holding a camera for 40 40 minutes like this as well poor guy um so there’s a great team and uh
I’m really hoping that the people online are enjoying this because we wna we can repeat we can get other people on we can this is just I just love all this modern technology and um before you go I want to ask about the magic not the Magic in Horn playing there’s magic in Horn playay of course there’s magic everywhere what about your magic aha well you you showed us
I showed you the how do you do that magic I had one too can I come right back I forgot it’s in the other room come right back let me just see let me see oh Lisa Lisa I do apologize for thinking you were Nina I do apologize it’s quite nerve-wracking doing all this so uh so I will never mix you two up again um
Jenny thank you so much for doing this Sarah and and Jeff thanks well we’ll get him back you I would really like to know from all of you um who you’d like me to get on because um it it seems that the home players of this world is are just fantastic and everyone I’ve asked up to now we’re hoping to get
Barry tuckwell on very soon um and so let me know who else we can uh who else we can get on in front of the camera Jeff’s coming back cuz just got so much to talk to him about hey Jeff you’re back show us and I’m going to be doing online things as well so uh you’re going to see you know
I can interview Sarah on one of my things as well and this but such an amazing Community we have the horn Community we got a this is amazing way for us to all get together so thank you Sarah from all of us amazing that you’re doing this bringing us thank Tim especially you and your team yeah um right so see got little cute little card trick okay got a card trick all right jakob’s got to see this too all right
I’ll keep these on screen the whole time yeah so Sarah there’s four jacks in this pile yeah okay out of the four jacks there’s two red ones and there’s two black ones right yeah so this is totally up to up to you do you want to keep the red ones or the black ones I want to keep the red on cuz
I’m a girl all right excellent so we’ll get rid of the spade and we’ll get rid of the club okay so in here we have the Jack of Hearts and the jack of diamonds right yeah will you pick um out of those two and trust me that they’re in there now um out of those two pick which one you want to keep and we’ll get rid of the last hey get back focus um
I’m focusing which one should I pick now right that’s kind of up to you so either the diamond or the heart which one do you want to keep and we turn that one upside down so I I’ll pick the diamond you keep the diamond get rid of the heart I’m always up for a diamond ready there goes the heart now we’ll see if we can turn the diamond upside down is this going to work
I have to somehow how you do that you did it you picked it the magic thing is also just hold your plus to the end that that’s from a different color deck and we didn’t even have to bring the other three yay it’s kind of hard to do in front of the camera and all that stuff that’s quite impressive how did you know
I was GNA pick you knew you knew that I like diamonds I can only put it down to that ston told me so let’s see what our okay here we go we’ve got oh I’ve got a lot of people a lot of people online with all sorts of suggestions but I um so uh we got people wanting to come in and use this room so
I’m gonna have to say goodbye and goodbye to all you guys online uh thank you so much for joining us Jeff you are just a star and you are a magician not only uh with your cards but on the horn and um thank you for joining us and we’ll get you back on very very soon okay pleas thank you everybody see you soon [Music] bye
Horn Hangouts are created by Sarah Willis of the Berlin Philharmonic. Brassbanned is a proud long-time collaborator and streaming partner.
