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Overview
How does a kid who just wants to play baseball make the transition to creating beautiful music?
Musicians from many different sections of the New York Philharmonic share how they became involved in music as kids and how their careers have progressed since then. They also have some helpful advice, such as
• Break down pieces you're learning into small, reachable goals.
• Play it as beautifully as you can, even if it's just a scale.
• Make up words to go with the melody you're studying to learn it faster.
With exclusive interviews, helpful hints, and a kid-friendly approach, this book is an all-access guide to the world of classical music.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780805097863 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) |
| Publication date: | 03/07/2006 |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 176 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
| Age Range: | 10 - 14 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Meet the Musicians
CARTER BREY
Cello
Age when he started cello: 12 (started violin at 9) Pet he had as a kid: Dog named Randolph Pets he has now: Cats named Ginger and Thomas Favorite books as a kid: Horatio Hornblower books by C. S. Forester Other activities as a kid: Running, sailing, swimming, taking flying lessons Other activities now: Running, sailing, playing with his kids Grew up in: Westchester County, New York Education: Peabody Institute; Yale University Before the Philharmonic: Cleveland Orchestra; freelance soloist Joined New York Philharmonic: 1996 as Principal Cello Music he listens to now when relaxing: Classical, jazz, pop, country
One day when Carter Brey was five years old, he was sick in bed with a bad cold. To cheer him up, his dad put on a new recording he had just bought. Carter's dad loved music. He wasn't a professional musician, but he liked to play the piano, just for fun.
The recording had a piece on it that had been written especially for kids: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by British composer BenjaminBritten. It's a lively piece in which different instruments take turns being the main ones you hear. When it's the violins' turn to shine, they burst in with a fast-paced, rollicking tune. Their dazzling sound whizzes by, zooming up high and then sliding down low. Next come other string instruments: violas, cellos, and basses.
IN THE STRING FAMILY
INSIDE SCOOP: CELLO
GOOD POINTS: "A cello's low, deep sound is easy on the ears. You don't have to worry about neighbors complaining when you practice because it's not very loud—an advantage over the trumpet," says Carter Brey.
BAD POINTS: "A cello's soft sound makes it difficult to be heard in a large hall," he says. "A cello is also big and hard to travel with," adds Hai-Ye Ni, another cellist you'll meet in this book. "I have to buy a ticket for my cello on airplanes. It sits in the seat next to me."
"I completely fell in love with the sound of those string instruments," Carter remembers. He decided he wanted to play a string instrument someday.
However, when he had his first chance to do so, things didn't work out right away. He was nine years old and in fourth grade. That's when kids at his elementary school could choose an instrument to play. He chose violin and joined a class with other beginners. Some beginners do well on violin right from the start. Not Carter. Instead of sounding like the wonderfulviolins on that recording he loved, for a long time he sounded very squeaky and scratchy. He was kind of discouraged. But he didn't give up.
"AN UPHILL BATTLE"
"Violin is hard when you first start," Carter says. It wasn't like his dad's piano. With a piano, anyone can make a pretty good sound just by pressing a key. It's not so easy to make a good sound on a violin or other string instrument. You have to press on the strings with the fingers of one hand in exactly the right way—not too hard and not too soft. With your other hand, you have to hold a stick called a bow and get the hang of sliding it across the strings to make a sound.
"It was an uphill battle for me," says Carter. "I wasn't getting anywhere on that squeaky little thing." He kept at it all through elementary school, but he didn't practice often and didn't make much progress. When he moved on to junior high, he decided it was time for a change. He thought he might make nicer noises on something with a lower sound, such as a cello. So at age twelve, he asked the junior high music teacher if he could switch instruments.
Success at last! "I made a much better sound on the cello," Carter says. "I enjoyed it more than violin." But music still wasn't a big deal to him yet. There were so many other things he liked to do. He ran on the school's track team. He liked to go sailing with his dad and swimming with his friends. He spent a lot of timeexploring in the woods near his house with his dog, Randolph. He and a friend even took flying lessons at a nearby airport.
"I continued with group cello lessons in school, using one of the school's cellos. I played in the school orchestra, just muddling along," he says. "But I didn't practice much. My parents didn't bug me to practice, either. Cello was just a mild interest—until I was fifteen. Then it became a passion."
"COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT MUSIC"
What turned him around? "I discovered how great music for cello could be," he recalls. He was in high school by then. The school's music teacher divided the students into groups and had them play chamber music, pieces that are written for small numbers of players. "The pieces were way too hard for us," Carter says. But he loved the challenge of trying to master such great works.
PRACTICE TIP
SMALL CHUNKS: "Break down a piece you're learning into small goals," says Carter Brey. "For example, decide to learn just one page today. Or take one phrase and see how perfect you can make it today. Then go on to the next page or phrase tomorrow. If you break down a task into small parts like that, it's a much easier burden to bear. You'll make more progress, too."
"There was one piece we played that made me realize I couldn't live without music in my life." That was the beautiful String Quintet in C Major by Austrian composer Franz Schubert. It's written for five instruments: two cellos, two violins, and a viola. After he started learning to play this quintet in school,he bought a recording of it. "It was thrilling to come home and put that record on my little portable record player and hear the incredible sound of that piece. It was a mind-blowing experience. I decided that I was going to become a musician."
That was a big decision for a teenager who hadn't been practicing much, knew little about music, and wasn't even very good on his instrument. "I knew I could do it. Don't ask me how. I just knew."
Through friends, he found a private cello teacher to study with outside of school. He had his first lesson with her right after his sixteenth birthday. "I had to start over from the beginning," he says. "It didn't discourage me. I was ready to make the commitment to getting good on the instrument. She taught me how to practice. She started me on a steady diet of scales and études [technical exercises]. I didn't find it boring. Isaw it was helping. I couldn't wait to get home and work on this stuff."
"YOU STILL CAN"
"People are amazed that I didn't start private cello lessons until I was sixteen," he says. Many musicians (including ones you'll meet in this book) start private lessons when they're much younger. "But sixteen is young enough that if you have a very strong desire to excel, you still can," Carter explains. "With a five-year-old,if the child isn't really interested, private lessons aren't going to have much effect. Yes, I was sixteen, but I was passionate and self-motivated. It was my decision."
He started practicing every day. "I would get up early and practice before school. I practiced during school, too, whenever I had a study hall period," he recalls. After school, he had a job cleaning up at a music store. Then he would come home, do his homework, and practice cello some more. His parents saw how serious he had become and bought him his own instrument.
To make room for all this extra practicing, he stopped his flying lessons. He dropped out of the track team, too. But he kept running on his own for fun, and he kept sailing. Running, sailing, and flying taught him things that wound up helping him with music. "Getting through a difficult cello performance takes concentration and pacing yourself, just like running a marathon," he explains. "Sailing is about balance and making judgments, a combination of art and science. So is flying. So is music."
THE PATH TO THE PHILHARMONIC
When Carter was seventeen, it was time to think about college. He wanted to go to a conservatory, a special school just for music. His parents weren't sure that was wise. They weren't musicians. They didn't know if hewas good enough to make it in the world of music. "When I won a scholarship to go to a major music conservatory, they realized I knew what I was doing," says Carter.
CONCERT WATCH
Next time you're at an orchestra concert, watch what cellists do with the endpin, the metal spike that sticks out of the bottom of a cello. Many cellists stick the endpin into a little cup at the end of a belt-like holder that attaches to the leg of their chair to keep the cello from slipping while they play. Carter Brey does that when performing in private homes or in places with stone floors. But at the Philharmonic's concert hall in New York City, he just jams the endpin right into the stage's wooden floor. "The orchestra managers beg us not to, but we do it anyway," he says. "It's nice to be able to jam the point into the floor and make the tiny adjustments in angle this allows you." However, until you become principal cellist in an orchestra like the Philharmonic, it's probably wise to keep using that belt-like holder.
After studying cello at this conservatory—the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland—he did more cello studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Then he landed a job as a cellist with the Cleveland Orchestra in Ohio. Two years later, he won a prize in an important international cello competition. That gave him the courage to quit the Cleveland job and set out on his own as a soloist, someone who plays as a special guest artist with different orchestras. For fourteen years he was a soloist with some of the most famous orchestras in the world.
He was always traveling to different cities to play in concerts. That was fun at first. But after he married and had kids, he didn't want to be away from his family so much. Luckily, a cello job opened up at the New York Philharmonic. He tried out for it and in 1996 won the job of being the orchestra's principal cello. That means he's the leader of the cello section.
He still plays as a soloist now and then, sometimes with the Philharmonic or with other orchestras. The Philharmonic gives him time off to do this. But for most of the year he is with his wife and kids in New York City, performing with the Philharmonic. "I still practice every day," he says, "and I still love the cello's sound."
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