Blog.
Read about my experiences and thoughts on my life as a musician. Feel free to share your points of view with me at the bottom of this page.
Enjoy!
Entry 3, November 2024
Networking, final rounds, jealousy -
results of public funding for cultural infrastructure
This post might be a bit controversial in the Dutch horn world, but I feel that some things need to be said. Feel free to share your opinions below.
I have been very lucky to have made a lot of progress since studying in Trossingen with Saar Berger. Audition after audition I end up in the final round, which gives me a huge confidence boost and in some cases work opportunities. For example, I played the final round for low horn at the Phion Orchestra. It’s a Dutch orchestra that covers the east of the Netherlands. Mees Vos, ARD competition finalist, is the solo horn there. After a full day of a preliminary round I had to come back for a second day for the main audition. It took until half past four in the afternoon until the final verdict came. I didn’t get the job, but they offered me several programs to play in the following year. So in general the outcome certainly was not bad. Now that I have won a fixed low horn position in Regensburg it has even gotten better.
What bothered me, however, was the fact that I had to play in a preliminary round, whereas other horn players that I know personally, have played together with in orchestras and are around the same age, were allowed to go directly to the main audition and didn’t make it past the first round. One main reason for that, I think, is that I didn’t have a lot of Dutch professional experience, which they had. It’s very remarkable how these horn players get their professional experiences.
If you are a more than reasonably good horn player at most of the Dutch music schools and reliable enough, your teacher wants you to get some experience, or sometimes it’s convenient for them personally. In the Netherlands there is a conflict of interest in my opinion. There are a lot of teachers at conservatoria in the Netherlands that also have an orchestra job. Whenever they need a substitute or auxiliary player in their section, the first ones they ask are their own students, because they know the quality and after a while they can also show that their students are very good, because “look, he played in …. orchestra”. From the very first substitute opportunity the networking starts, because everybody knows who is playing where and the orchestra sections also help each other out. They see that one player appeared with PhilZuid, then the following month they get the opportunity to play with the NNO.
As a student you do all you can to get professional experience, so of course you take every job that’s offered to you. I know I would. Where I studied, in Maastricht, my teachers weren’t able to provide me with the network or orchestral experience in the Netherlands. One of them was/is a full time professor, both in Germany and the Netherlands, and the other plays in a German orchestra with plenty of fixed horn players, who, if necessary, can fill in an auxiliary position.
The result is that the more the other horn players in the Netherlands get recommended to different orchestras, the less they know anyone outside of their horn player pool. Then if you get lucky to be recommended to an orchestra, they would still rather go for the person they know, which is understandable, but completely created out of nothing by the teachers at these Dutch conservatories. And week after week you see posts on social media appear with students playing a fantastic program, and you’re never one of them. It is of course my own jealousy that speaks here and I wouldn’t know how to stop this or even if it should be stopped. But I feel that there are a lot of horn players in the Netherlands that are left unheard. Not because of them, but because of the network of others.
The problem also goes hand in hand with the public funding for orchestras in the Netherlands. The orchestras cannot afford more fixed positions, therefore they need to rely more and more on substitutes whenever there is a bigger program. Students are in a way also a lot cheaper and more flexible to hire for a shorter period of time. The orchestras cannot be blamed for this lack of funding as they are world class, but somehow they still need to prove why they are necessary in the Dutch society.
Yes, one can win an audition, but without the necessary infrastructure to create orchestral experiences and a viable network, you won’t even get invited to participate in the audition.
Entry 2, October 2023
Relying on Equipment -
the mouthpiece quest
During my studies I’ve become quite sceptical about changing every other piece of equipment I use or practice with in order to improve. My main idea was, and in most cases still is, that improvement in sound and technique will come by improving your physical approach to the issue that you would like to tackle. In the past few years, however, I have been trying out different mouthpieces and it has made quite the difference. Although where it might improve a certain quality in sound it might also come with an even more intense physical approach than before, thus needing to improve your technique even more drastically whilst sounding better. This was the case with my new mouthpiece.
In my life until now I have mainly used only 3 mouthpieces, which, as I have come to know now, is quite exceptional. My first mouthpiece basically was the mouthpiece my first horn came with and it was changed quite soon as I grew up more and more. The second mouthpiece, however, I stayed with all the way up until 2017, when I started my bachelor in Maastricht. On that mouthpiece I learned all of the basics that were necessary to improve my physical way of handling a horn. At that point I still wasn’t questioning the piece of equipment that I would come in contact with first when playing.
Will Sanders thought it was time to try out something new. At that time he worked very intensely with the Josef Klier company to develop his own line of mouthpieces. I ended up finding a mouthpiece that was very lightweight with quite a shallow cup and it sounded way better then I ever thought was possible, although my physical playing didn’t really change.
Nowadays, six years later in 2023, my new teacher, Saar Berger, was also convinced that there would be this “Brilliant” as he called it in German. I tried quite a few mouthpieces. Finally, we both agreed on one mouthpiece. Not because it was the easiest to play or I was able to play an extended range on it or whatever. No, it was because there was a potential. Off course, it is hard to explain in text, but this specific mouthpiece had a high quality in colour changes in the middle register whilst still sounding quite bright in softer dynamics. Also there is a very nice resonance in the higher register that I certainly did not have on my old mouthpiece.
The thing, however, is that this mouthpiece requires more work from me. The cup is a bit bigger and the bore is also quite a bit wider. Therefore I need to focus the air more, which increases a tiny bit of tension in my lower jaw. After playing for quite some time I really notice the extra effort it takes. But what an unbelievable sound it makes! It is absolutely worth the extra effort and it might make a really big difference when it comes to playing in an audition. So, when it comes to choosing equipment, I have learned that one should look for serious potential instead of instant satisfaction.
Entry 1, August 2023
Outside of a comfort zone –
My ongoing experience in discovering different styles
As a horn player I was confronted with a lot of different styles of music already at quite a young age, because my primary music education was done by a local wind band, Harmonie de Berggalm, Klimmen. They would play genres reaching from Spanish Paso-Dobles to The best of Queen. At that time I didn’t realise how important it was for me in a later stage of life when I decided to study music. At the “Conservatorium Maastricht” where I started my studies there were only two options: classical or jazz. Even the concept of early music didn’t come to my mind at all at this point. I thought that was just part of the classical genre.
During my second bachelor year a professor for composing and arranging from the jazz department, reached out to the classical department, because he was looking for a horn player to play some of his arrangements. Because of my earlier wind band experience I was curious, so I volunteered. At first it was a bit of a culture shock for me.
Already at the first rehearsal I thought it would be nice to be a bit early to get to know the ensemble a bit, but then there were only 5 minutes until the starting time left and I was still the only person in the room. No chairs had been set up, the conductor wasn’t there yet. After a very thorough warm-up, I decided to go outside the room to check if I wasn’t at the wrong location. Then I stumbled upon the conductor, who apparently was also the arranger and composer I mentioned before for the whole project. He assured me I was at the right location. I helped him set up the chairs and music stands for the ensemble. By then it was already about 20 minutes after the starting time of the rehearsal, when the first other musician entered the room. It took about another 20 minutes until the ensemble was complete. The most surprising thing of all of this was that nobody seemed to be in a hurry or had the idea they were late for the rehearsal. Also the conductor acted as if this was just the usual way of having a rehearsal. Then we finally played the first tune “The game is on” and instantly the ensemble was this bursting energetic crowd on a high tempo groove, which took a few bars for me to get used to.
It was such a high contrast and it really showed me that these musicians were mentally prepared for anything and approached all the tunes, which were new to everyone, with a complete open mind. I really loved the experience from this point, because I knew what their capabilities were and I didn’t associate their general behaviour anymore with their musical gifts, which I really tended to do before this point. The whole experience made me adopt a more open mindset, also musically, and also made me even more curious about other styles and disciplines. That’s where the natural horn came along.
By this time I was already a bit more aware about early music and how the history of horn playing developed. My first real experience on natural horn came along with my own exploration. I tried getting used to all the different tonalities and also tried out a few solo concertos from the classical period as well. Meanwhile my main subject was still the modern horn.
One day I finished a practise session on the natural horn before going to my wind quintet rehearsal, on modern horn. So I still had the natural horn with me when I entered the room. The other players were quite curious about the instrument. Strangely enough I hadn’t realized that the piece that we were playing by Danzi was from the classical period. I gave it a try and I was really surprised by the complete different sound in the quintet that was actually way more balanced out than on the modern horn. Of course I still had to get used to a completely different way of tuning in an ensemble, because up until this point I had only played the instrument on my own. Playing together with this instrument was crucial, because it made me much more aware of my harmonic function.
My interest for early music recordings and research spiked and when I felt comfortable enough with the instrument, I was allowed to do a part of my final exam on the natural horn, although the bachelor was for the modern instrument. It’s probably important to keep in mind that I even didn’t play in a period orchestra before this final exam. My general orchestral experience was, however, quite broad, having played in regional symphonic orchestras and afterwards also the national youth orchestra of the Netherlands.