Posted by Anthony on December 14, 2000 at 00:33:34:
In Reply to: Re: Is there instrument bias? posted by Aubrey Foard on December 13, 2000 at 01:04:34:
That's sort of the point of a concerto competition in the first place, to be the best musician... whether you're a tubist, a violinist, or play the didjeridoo.
Coincidentally, I found an mp3 on Napster of a high school kid, winner of a concerto competition, just butchering the Vaughan Williams. He wasn't a bad tuba player, definitely the above average high school kid, but wasn't by any means ready for a piece like the Vaughan Williams(it was only the first movement, I believe). In one of Arnold Jacobs lectures he talked about how he never allowed himself to "sound bad" when he was a student at the Curtis Institute... i.e. trying to play things that were too hard for him. Tubists(and all musicians) need to recognize their limitations, and work on their weak points before jumping into the more advanced repetoire... how many people owned copies of Czardas, Carnival of Venice, and "Flight of the Tuba Bee" before they had finished the Rubank Method book?
-Anthony "that was a rhetorical question" Labelle