Day 063: My first Viennese horn lesson
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
63 — My first Viennese horn lesson
04-October-1971
(Mon.)
TRANSCRIPT
Had my first horn lesson today. A lot different than
back home. You go into the room and wait while the
student has his lesson—you listen. Then it eventually
is your turn. And others listen to you. Sort of
scary. Good and bad points. Can be similar, in
analogy, to that of a factory (assembly line). I, so
far on first impressions, don’t like it as much
because this arrangement too easily puts the emphasis
on just technique—[it] would probably be hard to have
a nice, music-type, discussion. We’ll see what
happens.
My own progess—somewhat better today. I am, so far,
one of the worse, but if I can overcome my problems,
then I think that I can place fairly well. My lesson,
is going to be extremely rough. So’s the exam.
REFLECTIONS
What's a photo of the Capital in Washington D.C.
doing here? Well, in 2007, I'm in Washington for two
days. And, there were no pictures of my horn lessons.
These photos were taken with my iPhone camera, just 2
megapixels. I did a bit of cropping in iPhoto,
especially on this photo above. Cropping
zooms
in but also
makes the picture grainy (called noise in the digital
world).
A
horn lesson. At
Montclair State, back in the U.S., I would have a
private horn lesson in a music studio. You had one
lesson a week, you would go into your teacher’s room,
sit down and play, and have your lesson. Notice that
I said “sit.” Notice that I said “private.”
First
Viennese horn lesson. I have my
first horn lesson with Professor Frederick Gabler.
How cow, I am surprised. What is different about my
first horn lesson in Vienna? Several things. (1) It
is not private, (2) you play standing up, and (3)
it’s not private (I like saying things twice, for
emphasis)—people are listening to you play, you are
listening to others play.
I didn’t like it this first time. I suspect that I
didn’t like other students hearing me make mistakes.
Perhaps I wasn’t that bad, but I was not as good as
the others. I made some mistakes.
European
lessons? Was this
the European style? I suspect that this was the
“conservatory” approach to playing. Now that I look
back, I think it is not a bad idea. It does put a lot
of extra pressure on the student having the lesson,
but if the student gets used to playing in front of
others, then that
is a good thing.
My horn exam is coming up soon, now that’s making me
nervous. Moral—life is nervous. Don’t worry so much,
just do your best. Again, easier as you get older,
harder when you’re younger.
John
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