[Fmpro] Opera

[Ted Peterson]

Baseball fair? What fantasy land do you inhabit? Baseball is kill or  
be killed. It's win or lose. It's pitchers who throw at batter's  
heads and other body parts. It's intimidation and threats of ass  
beatings. There's lots of fighting both on the field and off.  
Managers are greedy bastards and players are in it for themselves.  
It's brutal. Compared to baseball, anything with music is a walk in  
the park and I know both worlds. There are plenty of stories about  
conductor's and orchestras but it's rare where it leads to a fight.  
In the baseball world, fights are common. When I played, if I had a  
bad outing as a pitcher, I had to fight someone and I was just a kid  
playing with guys ten years older than me. Some of the players were  
illiterate and mean. This meanness translated into the bigs and guys  
like Zimmer and Belinski would fight at the drop of a hat. There were  
others too. In baseball you try to take out a player with a spike or  
collision. It's a tough game and fairness is the complaint of the  
loser. But the music business isn't fair also. It's base on style and  
the public whim. There's nothing fair about that. Popularity is  
fleeting except for the few. It's hard to get recognized but harder  
to stay current. It's much easier to be a cubicle dweller for some  
company. That's fairness.

Ted Peterson

On Mar 1, 2008, at 4:53 PM, <bipcress at comcast.net> wrote:

> Louis, I think you're seriously overreacting to Marinho's story,  
> which I
> understood to be about not letting the orchestra get ahead of you,
> especially if you happen to be young and still without cache. To  
> put things
> in perspective I heard a wonderful anecdotal story of Bernard Herrmann
> throwing his shoe at a player and nailing him in the head with it.  
> Compared
> to this I would say Marinho is a saint. / All this reminds me of an  
> incident
> when I was in grad school studying painting at the Yale School of  
> Fine Art.
> We had a few hot-shit instructors floating around, including Julian  
> Schnabel
> and Mel Bochner. One day I was walking past a female student's  
> studio and I
> heard her crying. I stopped, and observed the door to her studio  
> open and
> Bochner preparing to exit. Half way out the door he turned and said  
> "Oh
> stop, you don't have to cry about it." Then he seemed to peer  
> intently back
> into her studio, looking around, and then he added "On second  
> thought, go
> ahead and cry. If I made those paintings I'd be crying too." When I  
> teach I
> always inform my students that art is not fair. Fair is for  
> baseball and
> children sharing a sandbox, but the arts are brutal in that the  
> only thing
> that matters is quality. A work of art, or a performance of a work, is
> either fine or inferior. Marinho being firm that a musician's  
> performance is
> lacking is professionally essential. - JohnB
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Louis King" <lking1 at nyc.rr.com>
> To: <fmpro at nxport.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008 3:50 PM
> Subject: Re: [Fmpro] Opera
>
>
>> WOW LOL ...... so you felt the best way you could lead an orchestra
>> was to embarrass someone ...
>>
>> I've conducted maybe 1500 or more  recording sessions with 60 piece
>> groups to big bands to quartets and I don't think I've ever had the
>> need to create a great performance by demeaning anyone in the group.
>>
>>
>> On Mar 1, 2008, at 3:29 PM, Marinho Nobre wrote:
>>
>>> if I record in NYC sometime will you come conduct for me Marinho?
>>> It will be my pleasure... In NYC or anywhere else. Have batoon,
>>> will travel...
>>>
>>> Musicians are what make conducting a tricky thing. On my very few
>>> first
>>> ventures, I had to deal with all sorts of cracks from wise ass
>>> Juilliard
>>> students. One thing I have learned that overcomes all problems is
>>> called
>>> respect.  Once I started cracking back at them and made them
>>> understand
>>> that they had to work hard and take me seriously or else, evrything
>>> started sounding
>>> a lot better. At some point I was banned from conducting on
>>> composition classes
>>> after I made a French Horn girl walk out of the class in tears. She
>>> made the same mistake
>>> 3 times. I interrupted the class and asked her. What's your name
>>> dear ? She told me her
>>> name and asked me why I wanted to know. I then mentioned that I
>>> wanted to make
>>> sure that I would never ever ever hire her for any of my work. I
>>> was suspended for 3 weeks,
>>> enough time for the word to go around, and next time I showed up it
>>> was a breeze man.
>>> I never had to say a word. They all read my eyes and gave their
>>> very best.
>>> I will be going to Prague later this year, lets see how they do...
>>>
>>>
>>> Marinho Nobre
>>> Music for Motion Picture
>>> score at marinhonobre.com
>>> Voice 347-424-4985  Fax - (718) 210-3151
>>> http://www.marinhonobre.com
>>> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1971862/
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> The Film Music Pro List is sponsored by Film Music Magazine -
>>> http://www.filmmusicmag.com
>>>
>>> Best of FMPRO: http://www.fmproquotes.com - Quotes site  by Billy
>>> Hale Music
>>>
>>> To edit your list options or unsubscribe, visit:
>>> http://nxport.com/mailman/listinfo/fmpro
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Film Music Pro List is sponsored by Film Music Magazine -
>> http://www.filmmusicmag.com
>>
>> Best of FMPRO: http://www.fmproquotes.com - Quotes site  by Billy  
>> Hale
>> Music
>>
>> To edit your list options or unsubscribe, visit:
>> http://nxport.com/mailman/listinfo/fmpro
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The Film Music Pro List is sponsored by Film Music Magazine -   
> http://www.filmmusicmag.com
>
> Best of FMPRO: http://www.fmproquotes.com - Quotes site  by Billy  
> Hale Music
>
> To edit your list options or unsubscribe, visit:
> http://nxport.com/mailman/listinfo/fmpro