The Resilient Journey of Musician and Educator, Ava Ordman

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Trombone Retreat podcast of the
third coast Trombone Retreat.
Today on the podcast we talk toMichigan State Professor Eva
Ordman.
My name is Sebastian Vera andI'm joined as always by Nick
Schwartz.
Good morning sir, good tomornin, oh, wow.
Oh, we're German today.
That's German, I think.
So I was talking as a Germanperson yesterday actually, and

(00:30):
the only thing I know how to sayin German is Wo ist die
Toiletten or Wo ist die Toilette?
I always mix up the last part,that's where is the toilet?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, I got it I translated for you, thank you,
you German explained me.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Wow.
Well, it's a beautiful morningand this talk was really really
freaking cool.
Eva Ordman has been a professorfor a very long time and she's
about to retire from MichiganState University.
She was Principal Trombone inthe Grand Rapids Symphony when
she was 19 and played there for24 years.

(01:09):
And just like a fascinatinglife.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, I would say the conversation.
We kind of took a left turn andtalked about some certain
things that, while I considervery related to the Trombone,
definitely aren't directlyrelated.
I just thought it wasinteresting conversation, a
little unusual for us, I'd say,in a very good way.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
On the Patreon.
This month we are starting toinvite guest artists to give
Trombone tips, which has beenvery cool.
David Bender is this past monthtalking about soft playing and
getting back into shape for theseason.
We're going to have a lot moreguest tips, so subscribe at our
Patreon at patreoncom slashtrombone retreat.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
And if you like what you're hearing we hope you do
and you're not subscribed,you're missing out.
You don't want to be behind thetimes.
Right when we release a newepisode, you get a little ding
on your phone.
Helps us, helps you, helps theworld.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'm pretty sure it solves the climate crisis.
Yeah, is Darfur still a thing?
Common cold Is Darfur still athing?
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(02:20):
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(02:41):
Stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
You know, if you get that mouthpiece, you can say JSV
is the mouthpiece for me.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Wow, you just saved us thousands in marketing costs
with that amazing slogan.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Please enjoy this interview with Ava Orton.
Please.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
How's my space?
Is it okay, it's so dark?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
How does that say it looks lovely, it looks very
comfortable and professorly inthere.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Would you rather I have that light on or not?

Speaker 1 (03:21):
It doesn't.
Oh, it doesn't matter, you lookfantastic.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Oh yeah, right.
By the way, Almost 70 comingright up.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's amazing.
Brand new knees, I know.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
It is amazing, like how the hell I never thought I'd
make it to 40.
And you know it's weird becauseI cared, but I didn't care as
much and now it's like I justwant to hang on to every moment,
if I can.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
You know it goes so fast when you get it this age.
I love that.
I'm finding that you are ableto like be president and hang on
to moments.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Better.
I mean, covid actually helpedme slow down and go like, wow, I
like my house, I really wantedto get that fireplace.
I've got these mantles in myhouse.
It's a 91 year old house.
Wow, I've got these mantleswith no fireplaces and I thought

(04:15):
they were when I bought thehouse.
But there's no chimney.
And I kept thinking, oh,someday I'm going to do that and
I finally I put a ventless onein because we couldn't figure
out a way to vent it.
But it's just so nice to have afireplace.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Living up there in the winter.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
A bunch of different things, yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
What were your other hobbies during COVID?

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, it started out eating.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
That was one of mine.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Then I had to go on a what do you call it a keto diet
and I lost a lot of weight, tothe point where I had to make
myself eat.
Because I got in that zone andI'd never been there before
because I'm an eater it's like,oh my God, I better eat
something because I'm losingweight too fast.
But yeah, for me this whole itwas about four years ago when I

(05:00):
started having to deal with abad back where I injured my lip.
It all sort of hit me and itwas at the same time my mom was
at the end of her life and I waspicking her up and I've always
had a bad back but it would goaway after a while.
I could sit in a hot tub, Icould go to the chiropractor,

(05:20):
this and never went away.
Then the sciatica came afterdoing mizzat, I mean, it just
was like I felt like I got oldovernight and now I'm just
trying to do everything I can tobe mobile, because my big issue
is my mom's side are all I'llhave osteoarthritis.

(05:40):
My dad's side all that heartattacks.
Supposedly, at this point myheart's okay, but I just had a
knee replaced a few weeks agoand the process you may even
hear it in my voice the nurseswere giving me medication
without food and I haveesophagitis from that.
So they sent me the emergencyroom and then they sent me to

(06:05):
the cardiologist and there werea couple of the people I met
there were incompetent, and Ifound a really good guy in Grand
Rapids and then when I went tosee him with all the information
, he said well, you know, Idon't think I would have sent
you to a cardiologist with theinformation you got from the
emergency room because they dida CAT scan, they're looking for

(06:26):
clots and stuff and it was theesophagitis that sent me.
So it's been a shit show.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
I don't know about you, nick, but all I hear is
just a bunch of excuses.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Trust me, it's trying to do everything I can to.
I got the other knee replaced,so hopefully you might have to
do it.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
You're a rock star.
You're a rock star, are youkidding?

Speaker 3 (06:51):
I just want to have fun.
The last you know whateverquarter of my life or whatever
it is, because it just went byso fast.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
You know, just to make levity of a heavy situation
, I remember when I joined theballet I was the youngest brass
player by 25 years and we werewaiting to go in the pit for
something and all the otherbrass players were standing
around talking about oh yeah, Igot to go in and get this done,
I got to get this tweaked.
Just looked at, and theprincipal Tremonus looked at me

(07:20):
and goes Nick, when you getolder, every conversation turns
into an organ recital.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
That is so true.
When I get with people my age,it's what we talk about, and
then we get drunk, you know, orsomething like that.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Something's never changed.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
I have some gummies or something.
There you go, yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
You can do that in Michigan.
Now, gummy bears is what we'retalking about.
Yeah, horrible, horrible.
I love having colleagues thatare, you know, a decade, two
decades older than me, becausethey're going through exactly
what I'm going to be goingthrough, so it's like there's so
much wisdom around wheneveryou're experiencing something.
I just turned 40, so, likeyou're saying like it goes by

(08:02):
quick, huh.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
I'll tell you I wish somebody.
And you know, I think when Iwas young, you know your parents
always say stand up straightand all that like.
And fortunately I did martialarts and got to see myself and
went oh, I need to work on myposture and it got better just
from doing it for so many years.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
What kind of martial arts?

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Black Wando oh Did it for about 15 years and ended up
teaching children's classes forabout seven before I moved to
Detroit.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
So what level did you get to?

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Second degree black.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Wow, you were serious , my God I didn't start that way
.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
I started just doing it for exercise.
No, I meant like you got to itlike a serious level yeah yeah,
but I mean literally I startedit because I wanted to do
something exercise and I lovedwatching John Paul.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Then damn, john Claude, take people's butts on
TV and it's like, yes, themuscles from Brussels.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Oh, I'd watch.
What was it called?

Speaker 4 (09:02):
Something blood, blood sport Blood sport is such
a good movie.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
The greatest sports sports monsox college.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
I watched it with one of my teachers one night and we
were just like standing up andgetting into it.
You know, I was like I was alot younger then, but I didn't
start it until.
I was in my 40s.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Wow, is that the one that has pushed it to the limit
during?
The Push it to the limit.
Yeah, during the sports montage.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
It's probably in every action.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Oh my.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
God, man, that's so cool though, man, I would be so
intimidated not to be preparedfor a lesson if my teacher had a
double black belt.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Well, I mean, how many years ago was that when I
tried?
When I moved to Detroit to workas a psychologist, I tried to
find a place to continuestudying Taekwondo, and the
grandmaster of my organizationlived in Jackson.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Michigan.
Please call it a dojo.
It is.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Well, I guess it was a dojo, but I mean, we did it at
schools, gymnasiums, you know,I did it at the Michigan
athletic club.
So here's dojo.
There were some people on theeast side of the state that were
teaching and I went to a fewclasses and one was an Ann Arbor
.
It was a schlep and the guywasn't that good he might have
been, but I didn't feel theconnection, and the older I get,

(10:22):
the more important that is forme If I'm going to be involved.
That's why finding the rightdoctor, if I don't feel like I
can talk to somebody I'm not, Igot to look elsewhere, you know,
and so that's what happened.
Then I got into yoga, which wasgreat for my back, and so I
lived in Royal Oak in Detroitarea.

(10:44):
There was a place right by me.
It was wonderful and my backwas much better, and I did that
three days a week and it was atthe Y doing weight training and
stuff, cause that was veryhelpful to me as a trombonist.
Then I get the gig here, youknow, and I'm going to the gym
and I've got a trainer.
I can't find anybody that Ilike to do yoga with.

(11:08):
I tried Tai Chi again, causeI'd done that once and the
person wasn't very good, and soI just it seems like I I didn't
really totally let myself go,but I wasn't.
I wasn't finding the time thatI had when I was primarily just
playing.
I think the teaching gig isdifferent.

(11:29):
It's it's a lot, there's a lotmore time.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Cause what we do, especially when we're performing
, like these things that theseoutside pursuits you're talking
about are so wonderful.
Right, Because when themajority of your career is
sitting in a chair and puttingpressure on your body mentally
and physically, you know youneed to find things that are
doing the opposite.
So yoga, martial arts, that'samazing.

(11:55):
I'm curious, as a full-timeprofessor, how the the physical
toll is.
Is it a lot of sitting andstanding still, kind of thing,
and like what's the most amount?

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well, now I'm sitting all the time because of my back
and my knees and all that.
It's different from when I wasyounger.
When I was younger, I stood allthe time, I had my students
stand all the time and now youknow, I also learned throughout
my life taking auditions andworking with other students that
actually sitting, especiallywhen I worked on excerpts, was

(12:28):
helpful as far as grounding me,and I never sat when I was a kid
.
Every lesson I went to with allmy teachers always stood.
So it was like, should I allowpeople to sit?
Should I sit?
And and it did work for severalof my students so much better
as far as nerves wentInteresting, they definitely

(12:50):
could be more rock solid and andthere is like fatigue also from
standing.
I recorded a CD five years ago.
I stood in all the rehearsalsand then we got there.
I went.
You know what, how am I goingto stand for five hours here?
So I sat, and one thing thathelped me, since I move when I
play, is it made it easier forme not to move so much.

(13:13):
We had the mic in one spot andit was in the long run it was
much more helpful for me.
They've done that.
So I recorded my whole CDsitting down.
I never would have, and Idecided the day of the first
recording.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
You know I have a policy for my own teaching and
it comes from my own time as astudent.
You know, I always stood inlessons and I never thought to
even question standing.
And about my junior college Iwas studying with Don Harwood,
who's you know pretty, pretty,pretty square, I mean, wasn't

(13:49):
the military just that verymatched?
That has personally matchedthat.
And I wouldn't, I guess, Iguess in retrospect I wouldn't
have guessed that this andadvice or this kind of openness
to the situation would have comefrom him.
Because traditionally, likeyou're saying, it's like you
stand in lessons.
And one day he asked me he goeshow do you practice?

(14:09):
Do you practice sitting orstanding?
And I'm in my lesson standingand I go, well, I always
practice sitting.
He goes well, why the hell areyou standing, sit down?
And he's like it's aboutrepetition and recreating your,
you know like, like trying torecreate things over and over
again, you know.
And so it's something I offeredto my students because of that,

(14:32):
because I felt like I neverasked permission but I was given
permission and I thought it wasfor some reason even so simple.
But I was like, yeah, that'show I prefer, I prefer to play,
I prefer to play sitting Ialways have.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
And say I never sat except performing.
You know, in the band ororchestra, even all my practice
sessions I'd always stand andthere is a.
There is some fatigue, even ifyou're young, from just standing
for two hours or three hours asyou practice, you know.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
The challenge for me I mean, I love sitting, but the
challenge for me as a tall I'm6'4" and the if the chair is not
tall enough for me, then I'mlike having to activate like my
lower back muscles to like situp straight, and then that
constraints breathing and it's awhole thing.
So it's like I have to makesure, like the whole I think I

(15:23):
heard it from Albert first whereyou, like you, always want to
make sure your hips are aboveyour knee level and that way you
can like free up all thosemuscles.
If I can do that, it's awesomeand I do.
I do think there's something tothis I don't know if I've ever
said this out loud to anyonethat being closer to the ground,
I feel like it's a differentsonic experience, like you can
hear a little bit differentfeedback, or more feedback from

(15:45):
the sound hitting the floor whenyou're closer to it.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
But the idea of being more grounded.
It sort of makes sense becauseyou've got your feet and your
ass, you know everything is sortof there's a connection there
so that it may free up otherthings.
Whatever it is, I never eventhought about it.
And then I'm sitting, and now Ipractice sitting for obvious

(16:09):
reasons and several concertosthat I've done over the past few
years.
After I hurt my back, I sat andthat was weird and I said, well
, I might have to sit.
And the conductor says Perlmansits, it's true, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
But, like I said, what I led off my statement with
is like there's a stigma aroundit and I remember I've talked
to I don't know probably 50different people about what
would it be like if I gave arecital sitting down and or at
least on a stool or somethinglike that.
And for me it's not just thegrounded like Sebastian was

(16:49):
talking about or that you'retalking about, eva, necessarily,
it's also just like I'm theopposite of you.
I like to try to not move whenI play in something about the
stability of just feeling likeI'm like locked in, like in a
spot, and it just makes me feel,I guess, a circle back, it
makes me feel grounded, but inkind of like a really physical

(17:11):
way.
You know, and I've gottenresults all over the map Mostly
people are like, eh, free to doyou and me, but some people are
just like that's no good Becauseof the visual aspect of it.
Yeah.
And unless you're hurt orsomething's going on, don't do
that.
And I'm just like, but why?
What?
I mean you see a cellist sitand you think enough, you think

(17:32):
nothing of it.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
I mean, I prefer my cellist to stand, personally.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
They could pull their pen and pin out long enough to
play.
They really could, and so whydon't they?
You see, bases sit on stools.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
And I had this had to sit.
I went out shopping for stools,and I ended up buying two
different stools, one that'sjust a black metal stool and the
other has a back on it, butit's high.
It looks like one that maybe isat the breakfast bar in your
kitchen or something, but it wastall enough and it was really

(18:06):
heavy.
That that's what I used, andone of the concerts that I
played on there's a videorecording of it, and it almost
looked like I was standing,because I was the conductor was
short and I was sitting on thishigh stool.
My feet could touch the ground,though, and I felt more secure,
and what on my back, it made itpossible for me to play the

(18:29):
piece.
I don't think I could havestood at that point.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
There's a certain groundedness to Taekwondo too,
right like a certain feeling,your stance, feeling your, your
core.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yep, everything.
Well, I didn't certainly didn'tthink about it in those days,
but it seems like everythingthat I have done and just in
life in general is related, ifyou can find where it is.
And that I'm not saying I don'tthink I did it consciously, but
there was.
I sought something differentfrom my music because I needed

(19:03):
some balance in my life and Ihad already started working out
and lifting weights and found atrainer.
But I was joking with one of mystudents earlier today that
when I went everybody was saying, oh, there's this new club in
Grand Rapids called the MichiganAthletic Club.
It's really great.
It was right at the beginning ofall this clubs.
Now Grant was Grand Rapidsfirst club and I think there

(19:25):
might have been a YMCA there atthe time.
That was like sort of a divewhere only guys went and you
know, there's like a basement orsomething.
So they opened this big cluband no, I don't like the
exercise.
And then finally I went and Isaid, okay, I'm going to get on
a bike for 96 calories and I'mgoing to drink a light beer, and
that's how I started.

(19:46):
There weren't craft beers then.
So that was a good enough beer.
And then it was like, oh, Icould do twice that and have two
beers, and then maybe I'll do alittle more, you know, and
still have a couple of beers.
And then I just got sort of thebug for it and started doing
aerobic stuff.
Then I saw this really sort ofhumongous guy who was started

(20:10):
the weight training programthere and I hooked up with him
as a trainer and then thatstarted a whole another thing
three days a week doing weights,you know, doing aerobic every
day, and then doing martial arts, first just twice a week for
myself, and then adding two moredays to teach.
So it was.
I was at that club every day.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
So this whole philosophy and all these, this
balance, like what did?
What did you take from thesethings that you could apply to
music?

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Well for playing the horn.
It brought.
Both my sides became more equal, because my left side has
always been the side that holdsmy horn and is really solid.
And then this is my loose side,even though I'm stronger on
this side.
But I discovered I evenedeverything out, and that was at

(21:02):
the time when I was doing theherb concerto and stuff like
that and just my life was somuch easier to play and stand
and all that.
You know, it just was really Iwas lucky that I just happened
to say, okay, I'm going to goburn off 96 calories and got the
bug.

(21:23):
And I think I'm sort of thatmight be a part of my
personality that if I doanything I'm going to do it all
the way.
But it also sometimes keeps mefrom doing things because I know
how the commitment's going tobe.
You, can't half-ass it, youcan't just be like, oh, I'm
going to casually start learningthis.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
No, you're either on or off, right.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
I'm a little different now as I've gotten
older.
It's okay to try things and nowthis doesn't work, but yeah, it
was a part of my pathology.
You know Where'd you grow upLockport, Illinois.
It's about 25 miles southwestof Chicago by Joliet I don't
know if that's the Illinoisstate pennies in between

(22:08):
Lockport and Joliet.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
So you've been in Midwest for a majority of your
life.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yep, I left.
Well, I went to Interlochen myjunior and senior in high school
for the summer camp, Got ascholarship to Michigan and I
had already gone on a trip toJapan in high school with Dr
Revelli.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Oh man.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
I've heard lots of stories from kids about him, oh
yeah, and he was a tyrant andmean and I loved it.
Oh yeah, I wanted to please him, I wanted to show him that I
could do what he wanted me to do, and it ended up being a great
experience.
But I had Michigan then in mymind and I wasn't from a family

(22:55):
of musicians.
People didn't.
No one really knew how to guideme.
What'd your parents do?
My father was a grocer and mymother was a nurse before she
started having a bunch of kidsand then she stopped.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
That grocer life, though I mean that's a lot of
hours.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
And he was gone a lot .
He started as a butcher.
His father was in the grocerybusiness.
He went to school at Universityof Illinois, but then he and
his brother both left school andcame back and went in the
business with him.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
You're describing my grandfather right now.
I know my mom's listening andfreaking out because my
grandfather owned a grocerystore, was a butcher his whole
life with his brother.
And he took it over from hisfather and it's just those.
I remember my mom telling meabout the hours they'd put in.
It's way more than people thinkand I actually still have the

(23:47):
his butcher block table that'sbeen there they had in the store
since like the early 1900s wasleft me in the will so I have
that.
It's really cool.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
One of my sisters has the one from our first store.
I think there was mygrandfather's, yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Oh man, so how'd you?

Speaker 3 (24:01):
get the music bug.
Well, there weren't a lot ofthings for girls to do back then
, and I always so you picked thetrombone.
There was nothing, there were nosports.
I didn't know anything aboutthe trombone but I thought it
was.
I always loved uniforms.
I'd watch all the shows on TVand I'd march around my dad's

(24:23):
grocery store like I was in theMarines or something like that.
When I was a kid and we did infourth grade, we had the test
and the band director called myparents and said I scored was I
don't know if it was a top scoreor one of the top scores and
that they should buy me aninstrument.
And at first I instead ofrenting one, and at first it was

(24:46):
like wow, the tuba is reallybig and cool.
And I mean the confusion Ithink I felt as a young girl and
not being able to be in sportsand not having anything that was
fun.
The boys were having fun and Itried to join in, but it just
wasn't going to happen and sothey brought people to school to

(25:08):
play and the trombone lookedgreat.
So my parents said OK, and Iwas eight years old, start
playing a trombone.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I was eight years old Wow.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Wow, sixty-one years, man Longest time.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
That's crazy to think .
By the time you were 16, youhad been playing the trombone
for half of your life, and bythe time it's 17, you'd been
playing it for a majority ofyour life.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
And that's why she had a job when she was 19.
Yes, so I'll do it.
See, I'm less impressed nowthat you had a principal job at
19.
You got like a three-year headstart, you know.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
But you know it was and I don't think it came from a
healthy place.
It came from this sadness thateven the girls I was in the Girl
Scouts and the Girl Scouts wedidn't get to camp the same way
the guys did.
They lay on the ground withtheir sleeping bags, we had
tents and I was like pissed off.
I mean pardon my friends, but Iwas like come on, we can handle

(26:09):
it.
You know, we girls can handleit.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
You wanted rough and tumble, huh.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
Yeah, I just wanted to feel like there weren't so
many.
It just felt like there's somany restrictions on who I was
because I was a girl, Notbecause of anything else about
me.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Were you the only female trombonist, like in your?

Speaker 3 (26:28):
At that point, yes.
Then one of my friends joined,but she joined because it was
all boys, for different reasons.
We had 16 trombones yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Do you think part of you was attracted to that,
though to kind of prove and likeyou said you wanted to hang out
with like the way the boyscamped out.
Like I want to, I can play aninstrument that the boys play,
kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
You know, I didn't think of it at that point.
I just brass appealed to me andit probably was because it was
a more a boy thing, a mascot.
There's no way I was going toplay flute.
It felt like I was would bepigeonholed again because I
shouldn't, because people saidgirls don't play trombone, girls
don't play tuba.
And so when I got the greenlight to do it, you know my

(27:15):
parents didn't know anythingabout music, so they insisted we
take lessons, my siblings andmyself, and it was.
You know I'm grateful for that.
I didn't always have the bestteachers.
I had to sort of find my way tothe best teachers, but it was
very important time for me everyweek to sit with an adult, a
man who I felt cared about.

(27:37):
He cared about me.
I didn't have necessarily thatfeeling in my family because my
mom, we had so many kids, youknow it just wasn't how many.
Well, she had five and sevenyears and then she had one later
.
Wow, it's 12 years later.
It's 12 or 14, I don't know,and where were you?
Second, second Second of a bigfamily.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
So you don't have like the responsibilities like
the oldest one has, but you'restill like one of the Well, that
might be somewhat debatable,because my brother was sick.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
My older brother was sick.
He was borderline student withPaul's, like he was a creamy and
in 1952, he had a lot of youknow, just issues and very smart
and, you know, got throughschool and everything like that.
But at the time he had to go tosee a special doctor on a

(28:29):
regular basis to work on hiscoordination and so forth.
And to be honest with you, Ididn't realize it till much
later is I was jealous of himbecause of all the attention he
got and it sounds sort of weirdto even say that but I was like,
oh my God, he gets to go to DrPerlman's and play with all
those toys.

(28:49):
And once, I think once I got togo and sort of watch and it was
just like, oh man, why am Ihealthy, you know, why can't I
do this?
And it fed into that thing thatgirls aren't as important as
boys, even though it really hadnothing to do with that.
But for me at that age I wasaffected by that a lot and I do

(29:13):
think even to this day probablymy androgyny is somewhat based
on my early life just wanting tobe who I was and not fit these.
You know, my mother kept buyingme pink things and I wouldn't
take them.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Thought about this a lot.
Just because, like, I'm a firmbeliever that, like, no matter
what instrument we play, we playour personality and it's like a
really, it's a great like, Ithink you have an advantage if
your personality fits kind ofthe role in the orchestra of
that personality of instruments.

(29:51):
So, you know, like, thinkingabout the trombone, generally
speaking, it's a pretty likeoutspoken instrument, you know.
And so, like, when you said,when you said like, oh, I
couldn't play the flute, I'mlike you know, knowing you, it's
like no way you could play theflute, you know, like, so your
personality matches, yourpersonality matches the trombone
, I think as a compliment, youknow.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Of course we're trombone players.
But you know, when you say that, I think that my trombone was
my voice and it in so many waysit spoke for me because I
discovered it by practicing.
I got better.
So I wanted to practice a lotso I could beat everybody and at

(30:35):
that time was beating all theboys, you know, and it was a
pathology.
It wasn't the healthiest thingbut it gave me a lot early on.
The first time I went toInterlochen I thought, oh my, I
was scared, I didn't know whatit'd be like there.
And I think that first summer Iwas third and then the second
summer I was first in band andorchestra and I wasn't going to

(30:58):
let anybody beat me that wholesummer and it was.
I'm not, I'm going to do this,I'm going to do this, and so
that drive, I think I'mfortunate.
It was fortunate for me.
And when I see especiallystudents that don't have any of
that, I don't know how they'regoing to get where they want to

(31:19):
go unless they have that littlebit of that cutthroat kind of
feel they don't have to havewhat I had.
But I actually, when I firststarted teaching not necessarily
in Michigan State, because Itaught my whole life I thought
everybody was like me andeverybody would want to practice
and everybody would want to bethe best they could be.
And no way yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Sometimes I feel like chicken little, where I'm just
like going to them.
Like you know, the sky isfalling.
Come on, you got to dosomething about it.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
The same old story is like okay, I guess you don't
want to.
You know, yes, I do Okay.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
So you still competitive, you still feel
competitive.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Well, certainly not like that, and it's been these
last four years because I didhave this injury and I've kept
playing sort of limping along.
Have had some successes, butthe fun of playing has well,
it's not.
It's not there because I haveto think about everything I do
when I play.
I can't pick up my horn withoutwhere's my abuser.

(32:24):
I never had to do that in mylife and it's because I have no
feeling in the left top.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Oh, and that's from the injury.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
Yeah, I mean, I've been working with this guy in
Australia.
What's his name?
Franco DiSerto.
I think I've worked with a lot.
I've talked to everybodyInitially when I told you about
it.
John or Sebastian, what do youwant me to call you?

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Call him JS, just like the composer, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Well, I've always called you Sebastian, yeah, but
I remember we talked about thisat Third Coast one summer that's
when I think Pete was there andthose guys are there and you
said you should talk to Petebecause he had something similar
and I did, and Dave Murray hadsomething going on, and so I
followed up with the same thingsthat they did.
And then, of course, I spent alot of time talking to Colin

(33:19):
online trying to, and followedsort of his footsteps to a
certain degree and it wasn't thesame.
And I think now, after workingwith this gentleman in Australia
, my lip went numb when I wasplaying a gig the top lip and I

(33:39):
kept playing and I sounded fineand it felt okay, except I
couldn't feel.
This night One of my studentswas playing second.
I just said, hey, aaron, youknow Aaron, right, he was
playing second.
He goes.
I said have you ever had thishappen?
He goes you sound fine, don'tworry about it, maybe it's your
spit valve.
I said so I went, checked itout.
It wasn't.
And then the next, later thatweek, because it was one of

(34:01):
these weeks where this was anextra gig and it was a big band
gig and the part is how allthese ledger lines and I just
got back from doing my recitaltour for my sabbatical and felt
really I felt like I was back,you know, because I'd been
really working hard on playing.

(34:22):
As an older person because mytongue is slowed down I was
really working hard to keepthings going.
And then this started and wealso had this was it a Bernstein
concert?
At the end of the week was apickup band that Teddy Abrams
did.
He'd go around and put thesegroups together and again, a lot
of playing.

(34:42):
In that and I'm sitting next toJustin Emmerich I said the same
thing hey, you know, have youever had the?
Hey, you sound great, don'tworry about it.
So I just kept playing.
And then we also were doing asort of a showcase concert at
Michigan State early the nextweek as part of auditions and I
just that's the first time I satto play and I decided not to do

(35:05):
the solo, just play with thequintet, because I got a really
sharp pain there and I I've hadinjuries before with sharp pains
that overuse stop for a week,play soft for another week, add
a little range and low, addlittle range, little volume, and

(35:26):
four or five weeks I'm back.
Essentially that's how I haddealt with these in the past and
I was upset it had happenedbecause I thought it was a
really good shape.
But I saw all those legendlines and I said, hey, you know,
should we get somebody else toplay lead?
I could play second.
Should I play a small horn?
Nah, my chops are good now.

(35:46):
What about a mouthpiece Puss, Ican do it.
And you know, that's just sortof my old crap from my youth
that came back and said, yeah,you can do it.
You know, you got to do itinstead of I don't have to do
that Sort of set myself up forthat one, and then that one is
still plaguing me.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Do you have any idea what?
What triggered the injury?

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Well, Pete and all these other folks were saying
that they had a micro tear,that's what the diagnosis was.
And it turned out that there'sa guy in Baltimore I talked to
and he believed that's what itwas and I think I did what I
think happened.
Now, hindsight, and havingworked with all these different
people I had when I injuredmyself before, I didn't have

(36:33):
this numb, numbing sensation forseveral days before the injury
came.
It was either nerve damage,according this guy in Australia,
or a dystonia, and in order forme to continue, I just jammed
it into my face and I wasn'taware of it because I couldn't
feel it, and then that causedthe injury.

(36:55):
And then I started dealing withit as if it was the old injury.
And at first, after a few weeks,I had a couple of sessions
because I was working on thisconcerto.
I played one day I just playedlike my old self and I went I am
back.
And then the next day it didn'tfeel as good than the next day.
It was all back to where it wasand that's sort of been the

(37:18):
experience.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Well, you know, as brass players as well as
musicians, we're, we are eliteathletes of very small muscles,
correct, and you see, athletesdo this too.
They have trouble with ahamstring or they have trouble
with their quad and, like youknow, there's scouts at practice

(37:40):
.
Oh, you look great out theretoday.
Yeah, you know, I'm feelinggreat, I'm going to be awesome
on Saturday of all, and thenit's the next day they're out,
you know, and it's like, andit's just, you know, number one.
Yeah, aaron Rodgers, too soon.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
He just didn't want to play the.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Cowboys, oh my God.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
He didn't want to play the Cowboys this weekend.
That's all.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
You know that's been the last four years I've been
dealing with that and, you know,continuing to play, but I don't
know how much longer unlesssomething shifts, because I'm
still playing every day and overCOVID I never took a day off,
really, it was always basics.
You know, trying to find, Iactually at one point moved my
whole embouchure to the rightand I got to the point where I

(38:23):
could play pretty darn good withthat.
I played a couple of orchestraconcerts with it and I thought,
okay, this is okay.
And then, because of all theyears of abuse, I had a lot of
scar tissue inside this lip andit started splitting because of
the shape with the embouchureover here.
And I had acupuncture.

(38:43):
It was a good thing we werewearing masks at the time,
because I mean, I literally hadpurple on my face.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Oh geez.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
And it hurt like hell and I don't think it helped.
It might have helped, but onceI start playing again, it just
popped.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
I mean I was, I remember, still talking to Colin
about this, and just as much asthat was difficult physically,
I just I can't imagine how toughit is mentally just because the
trombone is such a part of youridentity.
It's a part of how you earn aliving, it's a part of how you
express yourself and when thatall of a sudden is gone.
It's like you feel a drop.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, I kept believing and again I think this
all comes from when we'reyounger and how we survive and
thrive that I could fix it.
I don't think I'm going to fixit.
It's just been trying to find away where I could enjoy what
I'm doing and I've had somemoments over the last few years,

(39:44):
but most of the time it'sreally like can I get through
this?
Okay, here, let's go.
All right, that went okay.
Bam, and everybody's oh, yousounded great and I'm like thank
you.
If it didn't feel good, Icouldn't play my whole playing
career.
When I got to the point where Icould really play the horn well

(40:06):
and I love to do concertos andthings like that was to be able
to go out there and play withabandon, just sort of tune into
the music and go for it andtrust that things would work.
And I can't do that now.
There's very little of playingwith abandon.

(40:26):
It's abandon.
It's all like okay, what do yougot to do to get through this?
Okay, we got to go up there,make sure that the ambassure is
set this way, and so forth.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
So I imagine it's not fun.
Imagine, in a way, just havingto analyze so many things has
helped your teaching evenfurther, though.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Absolutely.
I think my students have.
I've been able to get mystudents more, having gone
through this experience Not thatI would, I would change it in a
heartbeat to never have had ithappen, but I'm experiencing.
You know, I've had studentswith ball solver.
I've had that in my life too,and there was nobody even

(41:04):
talking about it in those days.
Musicians, players wouldn'ttalk about it.
It was too.
There's too much shame attachedto it or whatever.
You know, we do that kind ofstuff and I just started blowing
air through the horn and I gotpast it by going to to.
So everything I would do I'dhave a like blow air first and

(41:25):
then tongue it hard, and I got.
I got past it.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah, I had a.
I had a student who was verysimilar.
He won an audition with theVesalva thing and his his
solution was using a K tonguefor the like, the first note
after like a breath, like a likethe first note of an excerpt or
something like that.
He would start with a K andthen, because it first to him,
it just like that would shake itup enough that everything else

(41:49):
would be fine after that.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
It was.
It's a lot of it is mental, ifnot all you know for sure, I
mean for our listeners, Ava thatdon't quite know what that is.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Could you explain kind of what you've seen with
students that have it and thingsthat might have helped?

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Well, when I first heard other people doing it, I
could hear I think I'm a hornplayer.
Earlier in life I heardsomebody having that.
I thought that was weird, whatwas going on.
And it's not until youexperience yourself that you get
a sense of.
Oh, and it was funny because wewere doing Bartolcombe's Chirto

(42:26):
for Orchestra on Grand Rapidsand I was backstage and I was
just going dum-ding,dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, you
know the little solo and I wentbum-bum after playing it.
A couple of times that happenedand I went what the heck?
And it started.
It wasn't an issue in theorchestra and for the most part

(42:48):
when there was a conductor Icould play.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
See.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Just do this, but it went on for a long time.
Wyatt Henderson was playingsecond tribune at the time.
He's in Kansas City now and heone day it was just because I
could play the concert, but I'dtry to warm up and do this stuff
he goes, man.
It's amazing what the mind doesto screw us up, you know.
And so I just kept trying toget past it, and I discovered

(43:14):
one day by just blowing air andthen coming in, the cost.
Sound is a good idea though too.
I had a student with it once,and she would sort of she'd tap
her foot, one, two, three, fourpump, and that helped her get
beyond it.
And there is some woman inChicago now who is working with
people, and a recent student didsome work with her and it

(43:37):
helped him a lot.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
So basically, it's just, you know, you'll see it in
students when they're justtrying to start a note and they,
just when they try to start,there's like a hesitation, like
the yips kind of thing you can'tget the air out.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah, you were asking about what is Valsalva.
I didn't know the name of itfor the longest time.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Sometimes it's better , right, that you don't know,
don't you think?
Sometimes, if you see a studentstruggling and you tell them
that's a thing and it has a name, and you have it, it makes it
worse, right.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Well, I had a few kids.
After one guy had it prettyseverely for a while, got over
it, somebody else came in andsaid I think I said no, you
don't, you do not have it, justplay your horn.
I was like, because it's soeasy to you're right, just the
power of suggestion, or havingone moment where it doesn't.
That's what happened to me.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think it's akin to like you ever say a word like 10
, 15 times in a row and it stopssounding like a word, and then
you're thinking about that wordand it's how do you?
Say it.
It's just like mental loop andmental gymnastics that we play
with, like this simple action ofgoing you know, and anyone I

(44:49):
mean look, I'm sure Ava, youwould agree with this away from
the horn.
You could easily go, that's nota problem, or even maybe create
a buzz that way, but you put thehorn up and it's.
There's something that's likeit opens a file cabinet in your
brain that just like you know,because I had it in late high
school, really college.
So I agree, I know what itfeels like and it's one of those

(45:10):
things that you either knowwhat it feels like and you can
you can try to help people ifyou have students or you don't
know what it feels like and youtry the best as you can as a
teacher to deal with it.
But, like you said about, youknow like your students right
now are benefiting kind of fromyour struggle with your current

(45:33):
issues right now and you'd giveit up in a second, like I would
never want to go through theVesalva thing again, but I do
think it has given me a leg upin teaching it because I went
through it.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Well, I don't know if this happened to you, but it
seems like whenever a studentand I've had a few over the
years starts it, then I get it.
It's like the heck, is this inthe water?
Or something.
So I feel it.
You know it's not, it doesn'ttake over, but I'll have it
happen one day.
I go okay, so, and so isdealing with this.
So I gotta try to tell themwhat my experience is again.

(46:06):
But I do think the easiestthing for people to do to start
is to do just air attacks for awhile, just to breathe, learn
how to get the air moving againand the lips even just engaging.
That seems to have cut the timedown and give at least most of
my students some hope that theycan play a little different way

(46:28):
and then eventually they're ableto front the notes a little bit
stronger, and so forth.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Yeah, I was thinking about this over the summer not
to stay on this issue for toolong, but you know, in the
sports world this is called theYIPS, right?
You see a basketball playerwho's like they're just like an
absolute threat from anywhere onthe court and then they get to
throw a free throw and it's likethey can't, they can't do it.

(46:54):
Yeah, and the catcher can'tthrow it back to the pitcher
yeah, the pitcher can't throw itto first base, you know, and
stuff like that.
You see this stuff in all sortsof golf or trying to try to do
a little chip shot and they justgo like hung up and it's like,
first of all, it's a greatvisual represent, representation
of what we're going through.
It's like this simple thing andthat they've done 100 trillion
times in their life.
But the thing that I always use, that analogy, but the thing I

(47:17):
unpacked from that furtherrecently and just thinking about
it, is like you look at theseplayers, be it whatever sport,
and it's like it's easy to say,oh man, like I'm really
struggling at my instrumentright now, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like in reality, you'restruggling with one aspect of
the instrument.
But it's like you look at likethese could be elite athletes
and they just have trouble withone aspect of doing something.

(47:39):
And it's like you're not goingto say that they're a crappy
golfer or baseball or basketballplayer.
It's like they have thistrouble with this one thing and
it's like they just accentuatetheir skills around that thing
until they figure it out.
And yeah, it's just such afascinating thing, not just the
basalva thing, but you can applyto anything in music.
It's just, it's such a mentalgame.

(48:01):
There's so much, so much goingon.
Well.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
I hadn't thought about the correlation between
athletes and people get spookedand they just can't do it and
it's, you know.
I talk about muscle memory andthat whole sense of you lose
faith and, you know, gettinghope back and that kind of stuff
.
Oh God.

(48:25):
It seems like it's so little,you know, and shouldn't be that
big a deal, but it becomes.
For me and for a lot of mystudents it becomes all the
focus.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
So, eva, zoom in back a little bit, speaking of your
students age Principal Trombone,grand Rapids Symphony for 24
years.
What did you know about being aprofessional at the age of 19?

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Well, I felt very confident.
I played in the youth orchestraChicago for three years on
orchestra.
You know, in orchestra hall.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
I have a feeling confidence has never been a big
issue with you.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
Oh yeah, there have been a lot of moments of like
self, like, oh my God, what am Idoing?
I'm a fake, all that stuff bigtime.
But I think when I was youngerbefore I had all kinds of
performance anxiety issues trustme, I've been there too was,
like you know.
I went on stage with orchestrahall Chicago and I played

(49:35):
principal my last two yearsthere and we get, I did a lot of
great music and then I go intointerlocking and we did eight
orchestra concerts every summer.
The two summers I was there andI was also in the band.
And then I got to Michigan and Iwas in the orchestra.
And then I got Grand Rapids.
You're a hot job and I justknew that if I knew my part and

(49:57):
I get in there and I would justplay.
And some of it was from thatearly pathology that I'm going
to show him I can do this.
But it turned into my justfeeling confident and joy in
playing the horn.
So the crap that drove me therestarted to dissipate when I

(50:20):
discovered it was really mine,you know, and it took a while to
get there.
So when I got the Grand Rapidsgig, it was at that point, just
becoming.
That was the beginning of itbecoming a full time
professional orchestra and bassdrum bonus was good.
Second guy you know, firstTrump was pretty good and I just
knew that I want to go in thereand just play, leave with my

(50:43):
horn which is what I tell all mystudents whenever they get
called to do a gig or somethingjust play, just play your horn,
because if you're sitting witholder people to some people are
very love having young blood inthere and some are angry or
jealous or whatever it is, whichI've seen a lot of and and

(51:04):
being a girl was also anothercould could be a work against me
if I didn't just go in and playback it up.
Yeah, so I, when I got the GrandRapids, I just was that way.
And when I got to Michigan, Iwas that way.
As you know, I I don't thinkI'm bragging, but my sophomore

(51:26):
year I was practically and theWind Ensemble with grad doctor,
own master students there andpart of my old competitive I'm
better, I'm going to behammering, you know that kind of
stuff.
It just I was not mean.
I was always really pleasant,as a matter of fact, too
pleasant.
Probably my therapists wouldsay that I didn't want anybody

(51:51):
not to like me.
So I would say or do whatever,even if it wasn't right, just so
people wouldn't be mad at me.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
And, but you also really wanted to beat him at the
same time.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
So keep your, keep your friends close and your
enemies close.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
That's a tight rope to walk, yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
Well, my, my, my therapist told me, said you know
, it's fantasy, not everybody'sgoing to like you.
You just got to get used to it.
It's just the way the world is,and you know.
He was right, of course.
And then I discovered that Iwasn't really in in really
honest in relationships withpeople when I operated that way

(52:36):
in it.
It ended up I paid a price forit.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
People please.
Not the stream personally, butwith the people I was with yeah,
Once you started to achieve allthese things, did the because I
mean such a strong motivationwas, you know you clearly loved
music, but you also wanted tolike, prove yourself and be
first Like.
Once you had this position, youwere professional and that
stuff wasn't happening as much.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Right.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Did it?
Did your motivations regardingmusic change?

Speaker 3 (53:08):
I mean, I always love to play, love to play orchestra
and I, but I also love to solo.
So I started moving a littlebit more in that direction.
And then I was in this quartetAmerican classic quartet before
you guys.
This time with the first groupwas Randy Hawes, Don Lucas,
myself and this gal, NancyFawcett, who wasn't serious as

(53:33):
the three of us were, and then Ithink John Meyer came in and
then after that was Jay Evansand then Charlie Vernon became
the bass drum bone.
Last time we we did play aconcert here when I got the job,
but part of that the last timewas itf in Ithaca where we sort
of premiered the castor aid andthe Schneider quartet.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
It's so hard, not easy.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Oh God, was that hard ?
Don's playing high Gs overthere and I'm like why?

Speaker 1 (54:05):
why do we keep playing stuff that saxophonist
wrote for us?
What are we doing?
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
I don't know, but no, he's awesome.
The program was way too long.
Friedman was there.
He comes and goes.
What's wrong with you?
Guys Play like an hour and ahalf.
I said I don't know, I'm justdoing what they tell me, you
know.
But that was so.
That was exciting to have thatoutlet along with the orchestra
gig and then to start to, youknow, learn that Donald Erbkin's

(54:33):
share and get to play it at theAmerican Symphony Orchestra
League Conference.
That was a big break for mebecause I got a lot of
performances from that.
And you know, there wassomething in one of the emails I
got about experiences in yourlife that changed your life.

(54:56):
And Catherine Comey was theconductor.
She conducted the AmericanSymphony and she was conducting
Carnegie Hall and Lynn Harrellwas doing Donald Erb's cello
concerto and she loved it.
I don't think she was familiarwith this music and she goes.
I would love to do more of yourmusic.
What do you have?

(55:16):
And he said this, this, and hehad written a concerto for the
brass Chicago Symphony.
I've got that.
And he said I have a tromboneconcerto and I had been hitting
her up to play with theorchestra to do Creston or
something like that and she justwas, she goes.
I have a trombonist who wouldlove to play your piece, he
would really be great in this.
And Donald Erb started laughing.

(55:38):
She, he said this piece is toophysical, I don't think a woman
could play it.
And Catherine Comey she said thehair stood up in the back of
her said Ava can play this piece.
She gets it.
It was written for Stu Dempster.
So you know it's got a lot ofmultiple phonics, it's got the
didgeridoo imitation in the lastmovement, it's got all kinds of

(56:01):
crazy things in it.
And so she brings this to meand I'm going like I wanted to
do Creston or Tomasi, you know Iwanted to do.
And so I just started trying toplay it, you know, playing
through some licks and stufflike that.
And I even went out and took alesson with Stu Dempster, a four

(56:22):
hour lesson.
That was a major hoot.
We had a ball so.
And he said well, you sort ofget in the grasp of it and stuff
.
So I just sort of kept messingaround with it.
I was at the gym working outand I called since well, we
didn't have cell phones oranything in those days.
So I called my answeringmachine and there was a message.

(56:42):
Did I want to do the herb atOrchestra Hall in Chicago in
four weeks at the AmericanSymphony Orchestra League
Conference and I was likethinking to myself I can't play
it yet.
And I said yes, because it wasone of those things that you
know you got to say yes.
You got to take go for it.

(57:03):
And I was with the guy who wasplaying second trombone.
We were playing racquetball andthe oboe player from the
orchestra and stuff and we justdrank.
We were so excited about it.
Let's get drunk.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
You know, some people might just go practice.
At that moment that was mentalpractice at that point.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
But then I thought, oh my God, I got to do this
thing.
So I started working on it andthere's a lot of screaming and
hollering in it and this was.
It was hot outside and at thatpoint I was between houses
living with a friend and herkids and I'm yelling and
screaming and playing this thingupstairs.
And the cops came to the houseand a little girl answered the

(57:48):
door and the police said well,we heard, we've got reports that
somebody might be having adanger here or something.
They heard some screaming andstuff.
She goes no, that's my friendEva.
She's playing the trombone.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
It's art, you wouldn't get it.
And then he's like girls don'tplay trombone, yeah exactly Now.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
I know you're lying, oh my.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
God and I barely got it together.
Oh yeah, and then I got a calllike a week later saying the
concert was canceled because theorchestra was going on strike
or some kind of crazy thing likethat.
And I was relieved and upset atthe same time.
So I just you know, just acouple of days later I got a

(58:35):
call and they said well, theAmerican Symphony Orchestra
League did not want to start outthe beginning of this event
with an orchestra going under,so they funded it and it was
back on.
And I swear it was just acouple of days before I left to
go to Chicago where I started tofeel like the piece was

(58:56):
becoming mine.
I did practice a lot just toget it in my system?

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Did it fire you up at all to hear the composer say
that about a female playing it?

Speaker 3 (59:07):
At that point it just scared me when.
I first heard it.
But then I got to Chicago andwe're going to do the first
rehearsal.
There's Don Herb standing rightin front of me and his cowboy
boots, and he had a blue jeansand a blue jean jacket on.
I think he had a cowboy hat onand he's just looking at me sort

(59:29):
of like so what kind of thingsdo you play in Grand Rapids?
And I said, well, modern things.
I said, well, we just did thispiece by Schwatner.
We did this.
He says commercial piece ofbullshit.
Okay, I'm feeling reallycomfortable around you and I at
that point thought maybe I'd askhim something about the piece.

(59:49):
And then I said, no, I just gotto go do it, I can't change
anything.
So that first rehearsal andthere's a lot of weird stuff in
there Catherine was a wonderwith modern music.
She knew exactly the things sheneeded to tell the orchestra to
do.
And I don't know what thosepeople thought either here

(01:00:10):
they're bringing this check into play you know she doesn't
even live here or anything likethat, and they wanted to sort of
celebrate women becauseCatherine was conducting and
they didn't do this piece.
And we played straight throughthe piece and the very last note
is like an X as high as you canplay going down.

(01:00:32):
And I discovered, because thewhole last movement, my sort of
personal interpretation of it,because you play in this
didgeridoo and the sound comesand it feels like you're being
overcome in the jungle, and thenthere's this huge cadenza just
do it, you play anything youwant before the very end.
And I discovered that I couldscream louder than I could play
high.

(01:00:52):
So I just put the horn up to mylips, bell up in the air and
scream through the horn and thenas I came down, I moved the
horn down.
It was somewhat theatrical.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
And then the cops came and well the orchestra
loved it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
They went wild.
And Don Herbs walking up likethis and I'm like shit.
And he says I don't know aboutthe scream at the end and the
whole orchestra goes, letterscream, letter scream and he
goes, okay, and I swear, fromthat point on Don and I became

(01:01:29):
great friends, he and his wife.
We played this all over thecountry and his wife would go
with us.
My mom got to know the herbs.
I mean, it was.
It was just really at thebeginning of a special time and
that concert I was downstairsand George Shulte's dressing
room was right there.
He has a picture of the ChicagoBears up on the wall and I

(01:01:53):
wasn't in that space, although Iended up in that space toward
the end.
But I had my practice room andpeople were sending me flowers
and I felt like a fake and allthis stuff like how, what am I
doing here?
And I I had learned how to doself-hypnosis for performance
anxiety a few years before thatand I just focused and I
visualized the whole performancefrom beginning to end.

(01:02:14):
I just went through the wholepiece, including the curtain
calls and all this stuff at theend and I went up and those days
I recall going up a spiralstaircase to the hall and I'm
just walking up the staircasetelling myself I love to play
the trombone and I do that tothis day whenever I.
And I tell my students don'tforget, you love to play the

(01:02:37):
trombone when get so nervous.
And I walked out on stage and Iplayed that piece exactly as I
had visualized it.
It was the most bizarre feelinglike I could go wrong.
And at the end, even the I hadthree, three curtain calls or
something like that, andaudience was on their feet.

(01:02:58):
And here's this weird old piecewe're playing that everybody,
it's really, it's visceral,people's reactions are visceral
to it.
And I walked off stage and I,just like what just happened and
I remembered that in schoolstudying, is that Abraham

(01:03:18):
Maslow's theory of you know food, shelter, clothing, there's
this as you go up and the verytop is called a peak experience.
And because I literally and I,I I'm religious, but I'm not
that religious, you know, andit's I felt like I was just a
medium for this music and it wasjust going through me.

(01:03:41):
It was the most bizarre feelingand from that point on, my goal
was to feel it again and I'vehad a drug.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Exactly Good drug.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
It was a drug, but it was profound because it changed
me in sort of my paradigm, howI thought about things.
And and it was after that timeI started studying with this guy
in not trombonist a guy inVancouver, washington, who was
teaching a course called scienceand the life force and he
worked with people to to helprelieve emotional blocks in

(01:04:17):
their body that kept them fromself-actualization.
And then I was also.
It was sort of around that timeI started therapy with this
psychiatrist in Detroit, drParlovov, because I read his
book and I was so fascinated byit I wanted to meet him.
Well, I met him, all right, andthen I did I don't know how
many years with him, but I toldhim one day he was one of the

(01:04:39):
best trombone teachers I everhad, because I all of that stuff
really changed how I operatedin my, in my, my personal system
and what it what's important,what it's all about.
And then, of course, I've gotmore things that have come from
that, but that experience, andthat was in 1988.

(01:05:00):
And then I played at CarnegieHall.
I think it was 90, it was thesame weekend that Joe was
playing the first time, playinghis a solo with the orchestra.
He was doing a Creston andthere was a write-up in the New
Yorker a week later about howweird is this?
Two trombone concertos in oneweekend, that's crazy.

(01:05:25):
It was crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
That's.
That's beautiful to hear,though I mean, every now and
then, if, if you're blessedenough to have a moment in your
life where just everything worksout the way you wanted it to,
and it's so weird that it does,cause you've never almost
entertained that that it'salmost like wait what, wait it

(01:05:50):
all it all worked out the way itshould and it feels great and I
feel wonderful and it's okay tofeel this way, like there's
nothing better right?

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
I drank a lot that night.
As you should, not enough toreally get super drunk or
anything.
But I hadn't had any water andso I got this.
The next day my mom lived stilllived out in Lockport and we
would invite a lot of peopleover cause we had a pool and
stuff to hang out and swim.
And I just got this rash andwas miserable because I was
dehydrated and drank it and I'mlike, okay, well, I had this

(01:06:22):
amazing experience and nowBalance check out, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
So so it sounds like that really spurred your
curiosity in psychology, and Ithink that's something that a
lot of people may not know aboutyou.
And it's super interesting isthat you went on to get your
Master of Arts in CounselingPsychology at Western Michigan
in 1998.
And of course, as anyone thathas taught you know, you feel
like you're a part time.
You know psychiatrist as aprofessor, but you actually are

(01:06:51):
one.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Well, I don't know about that, but that came from
my knowing.
Something wasn't right, youknow, and I read that guy's book
and I wanted to go.
I wasn't in a crisis at thetime, I had gone, you know, I'd
gotten divorced years beforethat, and so I went through
marriage counseling and then Idid some therapy with somebody
and I thought, man, I am reallymessed up and I had no idea I

(01:07:16):
was, you know, it was just sortof like, oh, I'm screwed up, you
know, and I was in a great goodplace at the time and I just
read this guy's book and wentand met him, and you'll
appreciate that I'm sitting infront of this guy first time.
Well, I'm sitting in hiswaiting room and he walks out
and he stops right in front ofme.
He was a short guy but he had alot of power and he just stood

(01:07:40):
right in front of me, looked atme.
He goes.
I stood up and said, dr Barlovov, nice to meet you.
He said how did you know who Iwas?
And I said your picture's onthe back of your book.
He goes oh, sit down.
He goes and I sit down and golike okay, that was weird.
And then I go in and he asks meyou know, why are you here?
And I said oh, you know, I justthink there's more in life that

(01:08:04):
I'm experiencing.
Things aren't, you know, thingsare pretty good, but I just I
read your book and I think thatthere are things that I need to
work on.
And he said I think you justwant to be more of a girl.
And I looked at him and saidwhat I said, what I am a girl,

(01:08:26):
blah, blah, blah.
But you know, I was prettyenthrogenous and so this whole
thing that I've been talkingabout, my pathology from being a
little girl and feeling like Icouldn't do anything and I had
to play the trombone and allthis stuff to sort of prove
myself.
This guy says that to me and Ihad a tattoo.

(01:08:50):
And he says, oh, and you have atattoo.
And I said, yeah, do you likeit?
He says, no, I don't like it.
And I said okay, you know.
And he said why did you get it?
And I said, well, you know, Ijust I don't know why I got it,
I just think it looks sort ofcool.
And he said, yeah, you justwant to look.
I mean, he just said all thesethings really directly to me and

(01:09:12):
I'm like who the heck is thisguy?
And it began my five years withhim.
Unfortunately, it was murderedby one of the patients.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
Yeah, there's a big thing.
It was horrible, horrible time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
What's this guy's name?
Again, I'm sorry to ask, but Dr.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Ruvend Barlovav B-A-R-Dash-L-E-V-A-V.
Why?

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
did you after that initial encounter and this
sounds like an exact like nevermeet your hero situation but why
did you want to keep studyingwith him after he kind of talked
to you that way?

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
Well, do you remember Dr Ravelli?

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Oh, you like the tough guy.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
I wanted to.
You know, maybe I wanted tolike me, that part of my stuff,
but I wanted to sort of wantedto prove to him or I'm not sure
that was it exactly there wassomething about him that I was
attracted to and I thought maybethis guy really can help me.

(01:10:13):
However, some of the things hedid where he made me wear a
dress to all to my sessions andI cried and I was insulted by
him you don't like me because Idon't have a dress, you know
that stuff but it was thehardest thing I've did.
I just felt all the time like Iwas just being raked over the

(01:10:37):
coals.
But they were feelings andthere were certain times when he
would say to me I'd say I feelthis, I feel this, I feel this.
And he'd look at me and he'dsay take your feelings and stick
them up your ass.
Whoa, it's not reality.
What does your head say?
What do your thoughts say?
And the way he did therapy, itwas a certain model that I

(01:10:57):
embraced, ultimately embracedand this whole idea that there
are two relationships in therapywith a therapist, like there
are with a professor and astudent, and in order to do
surgery, which is what he calledpushing those buttons to

(01:11:18):
challenge how you operate.
Is this really how you want tooperate?
Is this authentic or is thisbrought on by some pathology or
some history, somethinghistorical?
And it took me a while until Idid embrace it and then I just
would go in there and say, okay,I'm ready, filet me, go for it.
And then he'd say, oh, youdon't need that, you're doing

(01:11:40):
fine.
I'm like, oh no, come on, cutinto me, do surgery and stuff.
It was a huge transformativetime and it was during that time
that this guy, chuck Kelly, whodid this body work and science
life force course, was alsoworking with him, because Barlow
Bob would work with thethinking stuff and he would work
with the emotional stuff,because some of the people that

(01:12:04):
were getting really healthy intheir head you could tell we're
holding emotions in their body.
So this I didn't have anyhistory in psychology.
I never took a class in my lifeand then it was.
I was so I wanted to know more.
It really drew me in and againmy whole paradigm about destiny

(01:12:28):
and all that stuff changed.
I thought that I waspredisposed to be a certain way
and that was bull.
I could really be in charge ofmoving forward in my life and
what I want to do with my life.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
So he gave you the tools to kind of take more
control of what you may havefelt and perceived about
yourself, in a way, if you hadto boil it down.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Yeah, I'm not sure he gave me the tools, but I mean,
what he did is.
Again, this is how I was itjust I was so fascinated that I
had to know more.
I had to jump in more.
So many times I drove fromDetroit back to Grand Rapids
because I was driving to Westernfor the psych degree and the

(01:13:17):
reason I did that is I wanted tobe in his training program.
He said I had to have at leasta master's degree and a related
film.
So I'm playing in the orchestra, driving down there, driving to
Detroit two to three times aweek, driving to Western a
couple of times a week, and thenI ended up playing in their
quintet for a couple of years atWestern and I don't know how

(01:13:37):
many miles I put on the car.
Those three years.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
That's a long distance for those who don't
know Michigan geography, I meanit's not like insane, but to do
it like on a regular basis tomake that triangle was a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
It was a lot, but again, I can do anything I can
do it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
I swear there's something about it that totally
made me get stuck on the factthat he'd make you wear a dress.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
First it was shoes with heels and I went out and
bought them, and then it was adress.
And this is in a group.
I mean, I had individualtherapy with him, but in a group
with people nine other peoplefrom all walks of life and I

(01:14:25):
fought him.
I did all this stuff, the stuffthat I couldn't do when I was a
child.
You couldn't touch anybody butyou could say anything, and some
of the exercises I do I'd standup and push my hands against
his hands and just say F?
You as loud as I could in hisface until I started to sob.

(01:14:46):
It was like something dislodged.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
It was a very visceral form of psychiatry.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
And so you let your students do that to you.

Speaker 3 (01:14:59):
Well, to a degree.
No, sometimes I do, sometimes Ido.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
You ever have a student?
I mean, I'm guessing I know theanswer.
We have a student just out ofthe blue.
Just say F you.

Speaker 3 (01:15:11):
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Maybe not out of the blue.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
That might be a little, because it's just like
Does that happen to you a lot,Nick?
Well, I'm sure they stay behindmy back.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
Right, yeah, have I ever had a student?
I don't know.
I've had them yell at me forsure.
I'm sure you've had studentsyell at you, at the very least,
ava.

Speaker 3 (01:15:28):
And sometimes I've encouraged them to all right,
let's go more Right yeah, wehave a block here.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Let's do it and get on with it, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
But I would explain that this was an exercise that I
did that helped me a lot andthat does help people If you're
not just doing some weird thingthat they're like freaked out
about.
This is what my therapist didwith me and it really helped me
get beyond this resistance thatyou have right now or that I

(01:15:58):
have.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
I mean before we go down the.
I mean this could be a whole.
Yeah, we've podcasting in andof itself, but one last saw on.
That is sorry.
My dog's barking, kiki, quiethe's trying to express his
feelings.

Speaker 3 (01:16:14):
You're that puppy in here.

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Oh, there he is, oh boy, oh boy, sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
Little dog with a big bark.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Oh, my God.
Oh, he doesn't think he'slittle.
The only thing I could think ofand I'm not sure, but I feel
confident that you might agreewith me on this, ava, and you,
sebastian, as well is that youcould go down that road and feel
this tension between yourselfand a student, or vice versa,
and really let's say us inteacher position say, all right,

(01:16:43):
let's air it out, let's do this, come on, and that could.
I could see a situation wherethat student is just not in the
either the emotional maturity,the psychological maturity to be
able to do that, and it couldfurther deteriorate things.
But I think that it's in somecases it's like I feel like I've

(01:17:07):
gotten to the point withcertain students where I'm just
like we have nothing to lose,let's try this out, you know,
because we're at a block, wehave like a wall between us.

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
I've had that issue with a few students over the
years and it's not fun.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
And I would say of those students, most of them
didn't get it, most of themstill held resentment or things
afterwards.
And I would talk about it withcolleagues or even once I went
to see a former therapist said Igotta just talk this out,
because if you're a therapistyou do what they call

(01:17:46):
supervision on a pretty regularbasis and especially if you're
not a doctor and you're licensed, you have to do it once a month
or something like that I'mfriends with quite a few,
actually, so so you know whatI'm talking about.
Yeah, and just because yourresponse or my response, there's

(01:18:10):
always a little bit oftransference.
You know that who treated melike that or who treated him or
her like that, that we're havingthis stuff going on, it's not
just about me, because Icertainly didn't do anything to
create this hostility or thisresistance.

(01:18:32):
You know it doesn't make anysense to me sometimes, and so
I'll try to sort of figure thatout, and most students are
receptive to trying to figurethings out, not everybody, you
know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
It's really interesting and, as all our
listeners know, I'm aprofessional psychologist so
everything I say is fact onthese kind of matters.
But I've definitely noticedit's always those people and
it's related to the peoplepleasing the people that tend to
be some of the nicest peopleyou've ever known, that are just
always over the top nice andwill do anything for you, or the

(01:19:07):
ones that I find are most proneto having explosions of anger
because they will be bottlingstuff up so much and not
allowing themselves to just havea free flow of expressing their
emotions.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
You got that right and I think early on I was that
person Everybody thought I wasso, even killed.
I wanted everybody to like me.
And then, a couple of times ayear, I would just like explode,
and it was usually in a safeplace, but I would just let it
rip and then everything wouldcome pouring out.
And so maybe now, after yousaid that, you can understand

(01:19:44):
why this psychiatrist worked theway he did with me so that I
lived more normal, like a normalperson.
You know, in reality he'salways say reality rules, it's
up a white wall, look up there,reality rules.
Wow.
And yeah, I miss him Every day.

(01:20:05):
I am grateful for the fact thatI did that for nine years.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Wow, Were you an active patient of his when he
was murdered?
Geez, oh peace.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
I can't imagine I was supposed to be there that day
actually.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
There were a lot of stories about him because his
therapy was not unconventional,it was very unconventional and
most of the people in itbenefited, so much we get sort
of.
I mean, I was hooked on it forsure.
There were people that said itwas cult-like and stuff and
there were people that were inthe offices upstairs because
this was in Southfield Michigan.

(01:20:42):
Yeah.
I don't know what's going ondown there.
I hear everybody saying FU, fuand stuff.
It's like all this stuff itreally is, at least as far as
I'm concerned.
It's who I am and it's it allaffected my trombone playing my
music, leaving and then comingback Because I was ready to.

(01:21:02):
I was playing, I think, thebest in my life.
At that point we just recordedthe Irb Concerto, the Grand
Rapids Symphony.
Richard Stoltzman did theclarinet one and Miriam Freed
did the violin one.
I was honored to be in the sameCD with those guys.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
And you mentioned Lynn Harrell before.
I mean, he's a legend too.

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
Yeah, All right back to Ava Ordman, who is the person
.
I want to talk about.
All right, so started atMichigan State in 2002, and I'm
not a mathematician, so that'sat least five years that you
taught there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
Yeah, this was my 21st year, but I've been told
it's my 22nd, so that'sincredible, and am I?

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
is it public knowledge that is this gonna be
your last year, and are weallowed to say that, yeah, how
do we feel looking back at that?

Speaker 3 (01:21:55):
Hmm, it's been a great ride I've.
When I first got the job, I wasworking at the Guidance Center
in Southgate, michigan, and Iheard it was open.
But I was pretty much committed.
I was teaching at a Tromboneand Oakland University, playing
extra with Detroit and the operathere and things like that.

(01:22:17):
But I was working 60, 70 hoursa week.
I was always in the car andthere's in that area there's
traffic.
Yep.
So Phil Cinder called me thelast week and he just said to me
he said I know you've beendoing other things in your life
and you might not even beinterested, or I just wanted you

(01:22:40):
to know about this and I justalways thought you'd be a great
colleague.
That's all he said to me and Isaid well, thanks, I'll think
about it.
And then I went what the heck?
And I just threw a bunch ofrecordings together, because in
those days it was obviouslydifferent.
You had to have CDs and you hadto send all this stuff.
Now you just put it all on thecomputer and I sent all my stuff

(01:23:04):
in and a few weeks later I gota call as one of eight finalists
and I was like shit, I gottaget a recital together if I make
it that far.
So you know I was working atthe clinic 50 hours a week and
then doing all this extra work.
So I started working on arecital just in case, because to

(01:23:25):
me nothing's lost to theuniverse.
That's another thing.
Barlow Bob used to always saynothing's lost to the universe.
You put the energy into it,even if you don't get it.
You've moved in that directionand I sort of lived by that and
I try to help my students withthat as well.
But then I was down to three ofus and I went in and did my

(01:23:47):
thing and didn't hear for awhile.
And then the dean calls me andI know Jim Forger.
He and I went to schooltogether I think he was a senior
when I was a freshman saxophoneplayer and so I've known him
most of my life and we've talkedother times before I even got
the gig there and he calledwhile I was working at the

(01:24:07):
clinic and I said, oh, is thismy?
Thank you very much, it wasnice to have you come play for
us.
Actually, I'd like to hire youand I was like what?
And I was very excited becauseI hadn't even I started to try
to think about what it would belike having left Grand Rapids,
come over here, bought a house,settled in a new area and doing

(01:24:30):
a new thing, and I just gotmoved in the position of what
was it?
What did they call me?
Well, I was head of the program, the adolescent substance abuse
program.
I moved into that spot startingfrom part time.
I still didn't pay a lot, but Iwas moved into a more of a.
Well, I'm still doing therapy,but I was in a higher position,

(01:24:53):
so I started the process ofgetting over there and stuff.
And when I went to meet with theDean, you can come in as an
assistant professor or anassociate professor and this is
what this pays.
This is what this could pay.
If you come in as an assistantprofessor, you have seven years
to learn the field.
Come in as an associate, it'dbe three years or something like

(01:25:17):
that.
And I looked at him and I saidyou know, I'll know in three
years if this is where I wannabe and I think you'll know if
you want me.
So let's just go with that.
And that's what we did.
And it was very short, just afew months.
Where I was, I knew that'swhere I wanted to be.
It was Surprising to me and thestudio at that time.

(01:25:38):
Yeah, they hadn't had afull-time teacher there for a
couple of years and so itdefinitely Needed to be sort of
looked at an overhaul.
And I helped a few students outwho shouldn't be in there and
then the other ones hustledBecause they wanted to stay in
the studio and some of them havebeen very successful.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
What advice would you give to someone on how how you
built your studio?

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
How to build a studio .
Yeah, how you went aboutbuilding the identity of your
program and the strength of yourstudents one thing is I'm a
straight shooter and I wouldn'thave been before dr Barlow off,
but I'm beyond people all likingme.
It's about being honest andauthentic with them and I think

(01:26:25):
once my students knew that Icared about them and that's a.
That's another weird thing.
My students get it now, but itwas something that I sort of
learned as a therapist in orderto be a really good therapist,
you have to love your patientsand I believe, in order to be a
really good teacher, I have tolove my students, even the ones

(01:26:47):
that might not be that easy tolove, but it's a.
It's a different way toapproach a relationship, and
several of these students wholeft and did other things when
they heard I'm retiring, theywant to come to the retirement
concert.
They're all excited aboutcoming and and and I always

(01:27:07):
worry about you know, those thatwent this way or that way and
building a studio.
The hardest thing is moneyNowadays, because everybody
wants money and I always kepttrying to Sort of Well, but I
don't give this person that much.
I give this person a little bitand I got to the point where to

(01:27:29):
really get your best studio andyour best students, you have to
go for the best students andthe ones that really want to
come will come, and I always dotry to correct if somebody comes
and works their tail off andthey're on a very small
scholarship or Not any, I I dotry to find ways to reward them
and and my students know me asnot being very complimentary

(01:27:55):
Because I always focus on whatwe need to fix- right and.
I tell them that and so, likewe'll be in studio class and
somebody You'll do something,who very seldom gets a pad on
the back from Ordman, and I'llsay, alright, listen up, guys, a
Compliment is coming andthey're like, oh my god, it's

(01:28:17):
like bite.
I just sort of setting up thatclimate of I care about you, no
matter what, and I've got acouple right now that are
struggling and Some of the hard,hard, the kids that don't want
to do that won't do anything.
I said you know, do you want tostudy with the TA?

(01:28:38):
No, I want to study with you.
I said, no, you don't.
You don't do anything I ask youto do, or at least try, you
know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
And I mean what you said was really interesting
about Loving your students.
That's not easy, because thatreally set you up for you know,
disappointment if it doesn'twork out.
Like how do you allow yourselfto be that vulnerable?

Speaker 3 (01:29:05):
It's happened to where I have felt Betrayed,
because when you love someone,you open your heart and and and
and you also Say things thatneed to be said.
If you're really honest and Iwould say that the majority of

(01:29:27):
my miss, my students, havewelcomed that even the painful
stuff Not me so much but knowingthat it had to be things would
need to be said and need to bedone.
The ones that Can't get there Istill feel compassion for them
because I know, maybe know a bitof their struggles or that they

(01:29:48):
are struggling.
I've tried to get.
I you can't tell people to gointo therapy, but I always talk
about.
I was one of the best things Iever did for myself and I have
many students that have soughttherapy and it's helped them.
Because I can't be thetherapist and they may.
We may have a few moments wherewe go in that direction and I

(01:30:08):
say you know, I'm your Traumaprofessor and I care about you
and I want you to be healthierand happier and all these things
, but it won't work Because Ican't I'm not, I can't be your
therapist, you know and theyknow that.
And it's better because youhave to figure out how
boundaries are.

(01:30:28):
You have to figure outboundaries no matter what, and
that's why I all my studentscall me professor Ordman, not
Eva.
When I first got the gig it wassort of like, you know, I just
wanted to be Eva, but mytherapist it was always dr
Barlow up.

(01:30:49):
We couldn't call it revan,although toward the end I did at
some points, but it's set upSome kind of distinction that
makes it a little bit easierwhen you are, when you have to
do the hard stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
And it sounds like your way of showing love might
not be like the most obvious toa student when it's when you're
coming down like so direct withthem, but in fact that is your
way of showing love, becausethat's like the fastest way to
effectiveness, I imagine youknow, when I first started
changing from the people pleaserto Trying to be more authentic

(01:31:25):
and honest and all that stuff, Iwas clumsy with it and I'd have
to, like, force the words outand they might even have sounded
harsh.

Speaker 3 (01:31:37):
And I remember when that was happening that I'd say
to the students I'm havingtrouble doing this, I'm not, I
haven't Lived this way before.
I'm wanting to tell you whatyou, what you have to hear, as
opposed to what you want to hear, and the only way reason I can
do that to you is because it wasdone to me and it helped me so

(01:31:58):
much.
And so if I start from thatposture, which is reality, and
Again, most come around not all,but most do and I hope, I hope
for them that they can continuein their own lives in a similar
kind of way.
It doesn't have to be exactlythe same way, but just know that
not ever is gonna love you andI was gonna like you.

(01:32:20):
But be honest with people you.

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
You've mentioned that you know reality is the most
important thing, right?
Well, let's be honest,especially when it comes to Such
a critical world like the musicworld, where we're taking
auditions, where it's you know,or it not to let's leave
auditions out, not out of it,but only part of the equation.

(01:32:45):
Auditions there is the simpleas a lesson.
There could be a concert, areview and a paper over you know
, a big risotto you put on ifyou, if you become a
professional.
Look, we live amongst criticismwhen we live amongst failure.
Like reality doesn't have to benice, you know, and the the the

(01:33:05):
sooner you can Accept that kind.
It's kind of in line with yousaying look, not everyone's
gonna like you and it's likesomething.
That's why it's hard to say itsometimes too.
Just because it's realitydoesn't mean it's easy to say or
easy to hear, especially ifyou're not used to doing that,
right?

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):
Well, that's what my therapist did to me and many,
you know, even wearing the dress, that kind of stuff.
Just I could have quit at anymoment, I could have walked out
the door, but there wassomething.
I Think it was because I knewhe loved me.

Speaker 2 (01:33:38):
Wow, what so?
Who?
That's amazing.
How much that I mean it'sobvious.
To how much it has it Opened upa whole new chapter in your
life.
I don't want to say it changed.
Well, it did change the courseyour life.
For my, whom I kidding mean mylife.
You, you went back to school andyou and you started a whole new
career and then you startedanother career as a professor.

(01:34:00):
So this, this really did affectevery corner of your life,
especially the musical portionof your life, especially with
you, eva, that you've it's soclear that it's such an integral
part of not only your, yourteaching, but your core.
You know, the core of who youare.

Speaker 3 (01:34:20):
Well, you know how it can be bridged, I think, to how
I sort of simplify when I'm atnow and what's to come is.
I do believe now that the mostimportant thing in life is
relationships with people, andit's not something I knew or

(01:34:43):
thought about early on, it'sjust do the job.
This is my friend, that's notmy friend.
I'm gonna hang out, good partyand go to home, sleep, get up,
do everything good.
It's just like who?
How can I connect with anotherhuman being?
The shared human experience is,even when it's painful and loss

(01:35:05):
.
We talked a little earlierabout Irv Wagner, and I mean,
when I heard that this morningand we didn't, I Never I didn't
see him that much.
I didn't do that much with him.
I saw him a few times but wasalways such loving exchange with
this man.
And last Friday I sent amessage to a couple of Younger

(01:35:32):
professors and just asking ifthey had this.
One piece by Alan Chase waswritten, I don't know, 60s or
something like that.
And Now I talked to NatalieManish.
She said I don't even know thepieces, so it's good piece, a
good piece.
So I thought, okay, who are the?
Who are?
That generation might know this, you know.
And so Irv I think it was IrvLarry Zalkin, john Whitaker and

(01:35:55):
Tony Baker.
Those are the four people Ijust sent an email to do you
guys, I know this music isn't apile somewhere in my office.
I've done it before, but Ican't find it.
I want to send it out.
Tony sends me the parts Rightaway and he didn't have the
score.
And Irv says Let me check, I'llcheck for you on Monday.
And John did to.
They both did so.

(01:36:16):
I looked for my piles again,couldn't find.
I said I'd really appreciate ifsomebody has a score.
He said this was Monday thisweek, said I'm still looking for
it.
Ava.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Oh wow, and you know he was not in a great place.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
Yeah, he was.
He's been not well for a littlebit here.

Speaker 3 (01:36:35):
Well, and I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
Yeah, well, I.
The only reason I knew it issomeone one of his old students
on Facebook shared a story itwas like a local story in
Oklahoma Talking about you knowthis professor at the University
and now you know that he's sickbut he's still like playing the
trombone and like stillteaching and all this stuff and
he his students just lost theirprofessor.

Speaker 3 (01:36:59):
He was teaching.

Speaker 2 (01:37:01):
I know, I know, yeah, man.

Speaker 3 (01:37:04):
It's just such a a very sad day, and the the number
one thing about Irv is he was akind man, a gentleman through
and through, and Every time Imet him I just felt like we'd
embrace, hug each other, youknow, even though we weren't

(01:37:24):
close and didn't have a regularrelationship.
Again, it's that, thoserelationships and how they feel,
I mean I just felt immense losstoday.
After this exchange on Facebookon Monday, and then he's gone.
No, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
Well, raise a glass tonight, right yeah, exactly,
we're gonna have a drink fordrink for Irv tonight, so I
think we should move to therapid fire section.
So, eva, we always close withjust a few short questions.
Short questions, short answer,first thing that comes to your
head, kind of thing.
And Again, thanks so much forhanging out with us.

(01:38:01):
It's it's been really, reallyawesome talking to you and and
it's just incredible the thecareer you've had and you have
to be so proud looking back atyour tenure at Michigan State
and the students that that Adoreyou, that many have come to the
trombone retreat.
So first one we always startwith what advice would you give
to your 18 year old self?

Speaker 3 (01:38:21):
Hmm well, after everything, I told you already
it would be to To reassuremyself that I'm okay, that I'm
good enough, that I don't haveto prove everything, that I
don't have to run through life.
I can.
I can enjoy things more and andeven though it's an 18 year old

(01:38:48):
, you got to work really hard toget where you want to go.
There was a part of me that itwas too overt.
You know, I didn't take thetime.
I mean, I'm not married now,it's married once, but those
kinds of things.
It's like why, you know, whydid all those things to slow
down?
Don't run through life.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
Beautiful, favorite Michigan beer.

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):
Oh, hardest question you've asked yet, sebastian.

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):
It's like your favorite child, all right.
Well, I am a big fan ofEllison's brewery.
Ellison's and what the heck isthe name of that beer.
They have such strange names.
Oh, it's a hazy double dry hopIPA that's got a little citrus
in it.
It's not called a new Englandstyle, I would say Ellison's.

(01:39:41):
I loved her beer.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
See, you guys are spoiled up there with the amount
of breweries you have.
But it makes sense, because howelse are you gonna get through
those winters?

Speaker 2 (01:39:50):
You know, or those summers or falls, or spring.

Speaker 3 (01:39:54):
The reality is I think you probably know this,
nick it's not as cold as it usedto be here we don't have as
many blizzards or big storms.
We have a couple a year, but Ithink I had to Blow my driveway
out only three times last year.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
So, eva, like many of our guests, you're doing
absolutely terribly in the rapidfire.

Speaker 2 (01:40:13):
Oh sorry but, it's only terrible in the rapid
section of it, that's all theanswers are wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:40:23):
The answers are wonderful, best advice you've
ever received.

Speaker 3 (01:40:27):
Stick your feelings up your ass.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
There's a billboard that the entire world can see
and you can write anything youwant on it.
What are you gonna write on it?

Speaker 3 (01:40:42):
it would be something like you know, wake up, or
Because I am really worriedabout our world and I don't want
to get into that, but I'mreally worried about it, and so
it might be something like wakeup or slow down, something like
that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:01):
Okay, Do you have any regrets?

Speaker 3 (01:41:07):
God, I've thought about this Because I could say I
don't really have any regrets,even though there are things
I've done that I, you know, wishI hadn't done.
I Think I think the biggestregret I have is that I it seems
like I waited too long toFigure out how I operated.

(01:41:29):
You know, I Just stayed in thatrut, for it got me a lot of
things in life, for sure.
But I just Somebody said to mewell, what do you do after you
play Carnegie Hall?
And I said, oh, that's just thebeginning.
You know, like that you've gotwhen I because I did that herb

(01:41:50):
there and it's like Okay, I keptthinking like, well, what's the
next thing I do, what's thenext thing I do?
And that really is not a way tolive.
So I wish early on that I couldhave just Stopped the Smother
Roses a little bit.
Yeah, I guess that's, I knowthat's to be pleased to be
cliche cliche, but it's reallyjust a yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:42:14):
From my perspective, I see you as someone that's like
so brave and was activelyseeking something out that did,
and you didn't have to, becausethere's so many people that live
their whole lives without Evertrying to understand how, how
they are and unlock themselves,so I think you're incredible.
Honestly, hearing your story,it's a it's a tough question.
Before Nick asks his lastquestion, which I'm very excited

(01:42:36):
to hear your answer.
Is there is there, I'm sure youcan.
Is there anything that wehaven't touched on that you'd
like to say in closing?

Speaker 3 (01:42:45):
Well, I I'd like to thank you, gentlemen, for
starting this wonderful retreatthat you have on Lake Michigan,
because I have seen so manyyoung people Grow from just a
week with that kind of just sortof laid-back but intense

(01:43:10):
experience and, yes, I've hadseveral students there because
of how close we are and all that, but I've never heard anything
negative about their time thereand it's wonderful that there's
a place where people can go andget great tutelage and great
butt kicking and leave feelingagain the love, the love of

(01:43:33):
Trombone and music and people,and in a beautiful setting.
And you guys definitely put aton into it and to have this,
these podcasts be a part of that.
It's you do.
You're doing great work for theTrombone world and just for
people.

(01:43:54):
Well thank you, that's veryappreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:57):
It's.
It's definitely a labor of loveand it has paid off tenfold and
we appreciate you Exposing yourstudents to us being around,
you know they love it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:08):
They love it, you know, they keep coming back.

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
Oh, I know we can't shake them away.
My question is what do youthink students need to do, need
to do more of that they aren'tdoing enough of?

Speaker 3 (01:44:23):
Okay, I'll try not to say be too heavy-winded about
this, but it's something I thinkabout a lot.
I know we have to be Drillsergeants, as teachers and as
students any, we all do.
We have to have a regiment, wehave to constantly be doing

(01:44:44):
everything we can to, like anathlete, learn how to play the
instrument, the physicality ofit, how to how, everything just
becoming consistent and rocksolid.
But I truly believe there are alot of players out there today
that that's where they end, theywould be, and there's some

(01:45:06):
great players.
I would call them like tromboneathletes or trombone jocks, and
a lot of them have jobs andthey're they can wow you with
their playing.
But I have in a lot of theyounger generation.
I don't hear a lot of artistryin performance and I have a
really great student right nowwho has really mastered how to

(01:45:32):
play the instrument and and he'sgonna be with me this year and
I think I don't know if he'llstay or not but he really knows
how to play the horn.
But I said, why don't we thisyear try to find your, your
voice, find your, your music,because I do think at an
audition, if you got the otherstuff down and you also have

(01:45:55):
this.
That's what a committee, a goodcommittee, will look for.
There've been a lot of problemswith committees.

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
For sure, Trust me you know that too.

Speaker 3 (01:46:04):
They don't play like me.
I don't want them, they don'tthis stuff.
But to some, to just learn howto To be, to find your voice and
be an artist and sing on theinstrument you know it's.
I think I started from thatplace and then just drilled the
crap out of myself because Iwanted to play better.

(01:46:24):
But if you can get into thatzone, you're gonna love playing
the horn a whole lot more.
So find your voice and seekartistry, as opposed to just
seeking the athletic part ofplaying the horn.
Ava Ordman, thank you so much.
That was wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:46:42):
I got to know you even better, which I've always
wanted to do.
Please come visit us more atthe retreat.
I think this year we have tospend some time drinking beer
and really talking.
I would really like that and Ithink I'm gonna be able to do
that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
I think I'm gonna have to spend some time drinking
beer and really talking.
It sounds good to me.

Speaker 1 (01:46:59):
And I heard a hot tub mentioned.
I'm always a fan of those.
I've been thinking aboutgetting one.
Should I buy one, I feel?

Speaker 2 (01:47:06):
like I think you should just turn your living
room into a giant hot tub.

Speaker 3 (01:47:10):
Whoa.
Now I'll tell you.
As with what I'm dealing withnow, with this pain and stuff,
I'm like maybe I should I walkin tub.
They're so ugly, but wouldn'tit be great to go into my
bathroom?
It's, you know, in a 91 yearold house.
I've got this really coolbathroom.
I put a white tub in there.
But or get one of these $2,000or $3,000 massage chairs.

(01:47:31):
I tried one the other day thatwas really stupid, oh my gosh.
It was awesome.
Really you never know.
Hot tub in a massage chair.

Speaker 1 (01:47:41):
Oh my gosh, it's all you need.

Speaker 3 (01:47:43):
And a little can of some good beer.

Speaker 1 (01:47:46):
Can of some good beer sounds delightful.

Speaker 3 (01:47:48):
It does awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):
No, well, you take care and you, I hope you, you
feel better.
Thank you, you, healing, vibesworking on it and I I hope you
guys have a great fall season,wherever you are.

Speaker 3 (01:48:02):
Thank you, I do appreciate it and uh, I'll see
you in the summer, if not before.
Yes, take care.
You know there's a job openingat Michigan State Wait which one
.

Speaker 1 (01:48:15):
There's gonna be.
There's gonna be a lot ofpeople going for that,
guaranteed.
I might know if you very, verylucky, you're gonna have to do
that president thing where youwrite a letter and like leave it
on, the Right person comes.

Speaker 3 (01:48:28):
I would do that.
I would do that.

Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
And all the letter says is fuck your feelings.

Speaker 3 (01:48:35):
Stick them off, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:46):
Well, sebastian, I think, uh, Ava Ordman might be a
cat, because she's led verymany lives.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
Whoa, I see what you did there.
That's like an analogy for forcats living nine lives, but she
did evade death.
But wow, what a profile for fora teacher with.
With you know, we always feellike we're part-time armchair
Psychologist with this jobsometimes, but she actually did
the work and really studied.
She is a psychologist.

Speaker 2 (01:49:13):
Yeah, you know.
I would say that she's aprofessional basketball player
with good fundamentals who hasstopped dribbling because she
pivoted.

Speaker 1 (01:49:26):
You're just hammering with these metaphors this
morning.
We got to record it this hour,every time, yeah we're hitting
the sweet spot today.

Speaker 2 (01:49:36):
No, I mean, look, like I said in the interview,
I've always been interested bypsychology, philosophy, but in
this I mean that doesn'tnecessarily apply to this
specific interview but the factthat she is a psychologist and
had this profound relationshipwith a very well, it seems kind
of controversial.

Speaker 1 (01:49:56):
Yeah, I can't sound it.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:49:59):
Yeah, I want to read more about him.
I want to read one of his books.
I looked up he has a couple ofbooks out there I'm not exactly
sure which one Ava read thatkind of opened her mind to him
to make her seek him out and godown the road of psychology
herself.
But you know, obviously, as youjust heard, we definitely go
down that road for a littlewhile talking about it.

(01:50:20):
But you know it's so related towhat we do, especially when you
start teaching.
Psychology is so important whenit comes to practicing and
teaching and performing and allthis stuff.
It's so intermingled with whatwe do.
So I don't think it was toomuch of a pit.

Speaker 1 (01:50:37):
I mean, 99% of my advice is just rub some dirt on
it.
Stuff your sorry isn't a sack.
That's all you need to reallysay, right?

Speaker 2 (01:50:46):
I so want to say stuff your sorry is in a sack to
a to a.
Stuff.
Your sorry is in a sack.
I think the generation now isprobably never even heard that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:55):
Like how would one go about that?
All right, getting back ontopic, my whole goal is to
derail every serious thing yousay today.

Speaker 2 (01:51:06):
That's OK, you can do that.
One thing that stuck to me isshe is a force, a personal force
and a playing force.
She's a very you play yourpersonality.
I truly believe that and shedefinitely does, and I mean that
is a compliment.
I hope that comes across thatway.
But yeah, just a veryfascinating person to be around,
direct, very direct, direct,drive human being, and just very

(01:51:31):
fascinating to talk to, and Ithink that comes across in this
interview very well.

Speaker 1 (01:51:37):
Sometimes direct people can can throw people off
if you're, but once you likeunderstand that's how that
person communicates, it actuallycan be wonderful.
And once you realize it's notpersonal and they're not trying
to offend you and you get itover yourself, you're just like,
oh well, we can make like a lotof progress quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:51:54):
Yeah, and at the end of the day, with with her in
particular, she, she's verysweet.
I find her to be a very warmperson.
So that definitely, thatdefinitely adds to her whole
picture, is that she, whilebeing very direct, she's very
warm.

Speaker 1 (01:52:10):
We actually, when you had to run right after the
interview, we talked for wetalked, we all talked for a
while.
But like her and I hung out forlike a little while afterwards
too and she's just giving mereally great advice, talking
about teaching and being aprofessor and relationships with
students, and just I'm a fan.

Speaker 2 (01:52:29):
Yeah, it's going to be.
It's going to be interesting tosee who kind of takes over the
job the rain job yeah, it's abig job.
It's a big school of music,yeah, so I'm very curious about
what happens there.
I also wish her the best ofluck in her retirement and it
sounds like she's not going tobe bored.
Yeah, she's a person of manyinterests.

(01:52:51):
I want to talk about something.
Oh, yeah, something hit megoing on in my life.
Some people might have seen meshare on Instagram or Facebook
that my orchestra in New YorkCity Valley Orchestra is going
through very difficultnegotiations right now.

(01:53:12):
We're not alone in that.
I mean Philadelphia, sanFrancisco, looks like some other
big orchestras coming up aregoing to be facing some very
difficult times.
And so last night just forreference for those listening it
was September 19th.
Was that?
Last night, september 19th, wehad our opening night, and it's

(01:53:35):
kind of twofold.
The opening night is always abig deal, no matter where you
play, but this is the 75thanniversary of the company, so
they had this whole thingplanned where, after we finished
the program, we played in myopinion, kind of a stupid choice
of music.
We played pomp and circumstancein all living alumni of the
company came out.

(01:53:56):
Oh, that's super cool.
So, I mean, you know, some wererecent and I remember them, I
remember performing while theywere in the company, dancing,
and some were, I mean,octogenarians and you know, had
to come out there.
And walkers, you know, I wasjust thinking, you know, when I
had a chance to look up a stage,because pomp and circumstance
is pretty busy part.
But these people now, you know,of course, when you get old,

(01:54:19):
you lose your motor skills tovarious degrees, and these
people who were really eliteathletes and artists, now with
walkers or wheelchairs and youknow, none of us are that was
the first thing that came acrossmy mind in that moment was none
of us are built to last forever.
So, enjoy today.

(01:54:39):
But it was a cool event, butunfortunately, our management is
just being so draconian intheir approach with negotiations
and we're still so far, we'restill so far below our actual
wages of 2019.
And then you couple in recordinflation and our buying power

(01:55:02):
is just, I mean, we're hurting,you know.
And so we had a rally beforethe performance and I would bet
there was probably 200 peoplethere Awesome, more, probably
more to support us and withhanding out leaflets with
information on why we're we.

(01:55:23):
I've gotten a lot of messagesfrom some of you and from my
friends and colleagues aroundthe country and world about if
we're on strike right now, andI'll clarify by saying this we
took what's called a strikeauthorization vote.
So if you don't play in a unionorchestra and aren't a member
of a CBA collective bargainingagreement that's the contract

(01:55:46):
you can't just go on strike.
You have to take a vote fromthe membership to authorize, and
then that is basically abargaining tool that now our
negotiation committee has sayinghey, if you don't start playing
, nice, we, we can go on.
It's like a step yeah, so we'renot on strike, we've authorized
the ability to go on strike andso it's good that we're not on

(01:56:10):
strike.
But I just wish it weren't thisway.
And the reason I bring this up,obviously, is something going
on in my life and it's stressful.
My friends and colleagues arereally hurting and scared.
You know it's it's.
You know it's our livelihood.
It's very difficult and but atthe same time it makes you

(01:56:33):
really angry because you knowother people probably don't know
this the New York City Balletis the most financially secure
organization in Lincoln Centeror performing organization.

Speaker 1 (01:56:44):
Yeah, that's what I always thought.

Speaker 2 (01:56:47):
So the ballet just people love the ballet and show
it in donations and one thingthat management is refusing to
do, which is actually unlawfulwhen it comes to negotiations,
there's, there's sets of rulesof like, just like.

(01:57:09):
I mean it's ironic, but it'sactually true.
There's rules of war, right.
There's rules of negotiations,of engagement.
There's, yes, there's, there'sdecorum, and if you break that,
there's actually it's.
These have been spelled out atthe at the highest level in this
country, at the governmentlevel, of how you have to engage

(01:57:34):
in negotiation in a fair way.
So when we say that whenever youread about negotiations not
being in good faith or being notfair, it's not just a feeling,
it's actually like a legal like.
They are not negotiating ingood faith, it's a legalese term
.
That's not just like oh, I feelthey're doing this wrong.

(01:57:54):
That means, as some point theybroke the protocol and they're
actually acting in a legal way.
The ramifications for thatdepends on the situation, how
egregious it is and how anarbitrator would punish the
party that is stepping out ofline.
But this is happening to us.
They are being unlawful andnegotiating, like I said earlier

(01:58:18):
, in draconian fashion, which isnot how you are supposed to
negotiate between management anda labor union.
And what makes it sofrustrating is it's so obvious
that this is just an anti labor,anti union movement from our
management that they want to payus less just because they want
to pay us less.
And I say this because ourlisteners, most of most of you,

(01:58:43):
are aspiring musicians and orworking musicians get a
job or working musicians andunfortunately, you'll probably
be in a situation sometime inyour life where this happens to
you in an organization you're in, be it an educational
institution, where it'sunionized, or in a performing
institution, and it's reallynasty and it's just.

(01:59:08):
It really sucks to have toconstantly try to validate why
you deserve to live acomfortable life.
We're not asking to be maderich.
No one goes into music tobecome rich not classical music
anyway and I just don't think.

(01:59:33):
I don't think it's unfair toask to be paid what we were
making in 2019, which isactually less than what we made
if we make dollar to dollar thesame, because the dollar is not
worth what it was in 2020.
It's worth far less.
So that's what's just sittingheavy on me, unfortunately.

(01:59:53):
I'm sorry, man.
Yeah, we did a couple of things.
We did that rally and then,oddly enough, all's fair in love
and war and we found out thatin our contract there's actually
not anything about our uniform,about what we have to wear on
the job, and so you can changewhat you wear for performances

(02:00:21):
by a vote of the orchestra.
So we had shirts made up on theback said pay the orchestra and
big, bold letters, and wechanged our uniform to wear
those in performance, which didnot make our management happy.
But you know what, like, atsome point, if they're going to
act nasty at some point, youhave to stop being nice to get

(02:00:44):
what's.

Speaker 1 (02:00:45):
What's what you deserve you can get really weird
with that too, With the dresscode.

Speaker 2 (02:00:50):
I know and I told our orchestra committee.
I feel like we're not going farenough because they were black
with white lettering, so it'sclose enough to pit black.
I'm like man, why aren't wewearing like construction worker
vests and just that they havebig writing on it and just
getting way out there and we've?
There's lots of things.
I don't want to disclose toomuch about what we're thinking

(02:01:13):
about doing next, but we havesome things that are getting
progressively and progressivelymore I don't know disruptive, I
suppose.

Speaker 1 (02:01:23):
Well, if I may ask, like you mentioned and of course
, don't share anything that youcan or shouldn't share, but,
like you said, the balletviolated something draconian
Like what specifically was that?

Speaker 2 (02:01:37):
The most recent one was they, they an offer they had
on the table, they they movedaround numbers in a certain way
that actually a new offer camein that actually made it a worse
offer than before.
And you can't do that innegotiations.
You can't like, if things aregoing poorly, to say say, well,

(02:02:01):
I can make it worse for youright now, worse than it already
is.
Yeah, and that's essentiallywhat they're doing.
So that's being grieved by theorchestra with the National
Labor Labor Relations Board, andthere's some other things too
that I don't have enough exactdetails on.
So I can't, I don't want tospeak.

Speaker 1 (02:02:22):
But basically I mean because you guys took a big cut
during the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (02:02:25):
We took a 15 percent.
Well, we went.
We went 15 months without beingpaid, yes, and then we we had a
15 percent pay cut coming outof the pandemic and they want to
pay you less than what you weremaking before the pandemic.
Yeah.
So right now it was 15 percent,and then we clawed back to 9
percent below where we were in2019.
And what, what?

(02:02:46):
Where the offer stands on thetable now, we'd be at 6 percent
less.
So they want to give us 3percent more right now, but that
still puts us 6 percent.
Gotcha, yeah, it's.
It's bad, and you know this isthe thing.
It sucks to stand up and fightand possibly think about
striking, because then you loseall income.
But at some point, if you takea deal that's bad enough, you'll

(02:03:12):
never fully recover and get toa place where you were.
It'll take you decades to getback where you were.
So at some point you just haveto say enough is enough and you
know, draw a line in the sandand say this is, you're pushing
us too far.
Especially, the entire uppermanagement of the ballet was
restored to pre pandemic wagesin the summer of twenty one.

(02:03:36):
So it's only the unionsespecially when it's us, the
stagehands, the dancers oh, thedancers too yeah, the dancers
are the worst paid union in thein the company.

Speaker 1 (02:03:49):
That's.
That's one of the hardestcareers I can, and yeah, that's
a whole other conversation.
It's crazy.
And they're thrivingfinancially, or at least, yes,
they're thriving.

Speaker 2 (02:04:00):
So, it's like OK, yeah, Well yeah, it's, it's
frustrating, but it's a it's anasty truth of being a musician
is that you have to constantlyfight to validate your existence

(02:04:21):
and there's always going to bea portion of the general public
that thinks you're overpaid.
Oh yeah, regardless of whereyou are.
I remember I was playing downin Jacksonville Symphony and
they had just come from a hugelockout and something in the
paper like an op ed thing,because they had released what

(02:04:41):
management was proposing and itwas something they were getting
paid like 40 grand a year and itwas like proposed that they get
paid like 35 grand a year and Imean, that's, it's hardly
livable, you know.
And in the paper it was an oped and someone wrote in saying
getting paid thirty fivethousand dollars to play an

(02:05:03):
instrument is absurd.
Like how can you expect to getpaid for a hobby?
Yeah, and that's that's whatI'm talking about is like people
see it as a hobby.

Speaker 1 (02:05:12):
Yeah, you see that argument every time and the fact
that newspapers published.
That is just so uneducated.
I mean we could go into how theamount that the economy is
spurned by the arts every yearand how every local business
around, and and yeah, you cantalk about the amount of hours
and how it's a full time job andit's not just the amount of
time you spend there.

(02:05:32):
But I mean, at the end of theday, it's like that's a waste of
time trying to argue with thosepeople sometimes.

Speaker 2 (02:05:39):
It's just screaming into the void.
You know, and so it's.
You know.
I'd say this is a precautionarytale or a cautionary tale,
excuse me that you know if youfind yourself in this situation
in the future.
Dear listener, it's difficult,but you have to try to kind of

(02:06:03):
Separate it in your brain.
It's like there's only so muchyou can do.
You can't, you can't just sitaround and worry all day.
You have to live your life and,you know, do what you can do
when the time comes, whenthere's time for action.
But the rest of the time youjust got to, you have to move on
.
You have to move forward withyour life.
Not move on, but move forward.

Speaker 1 (02:06:21):
Yeah, I mean we talk about how.
I mean we talk about orchestrallife a lot, but there's a lot
of professional worlds involvingplaying music for a living and
at the end of the day, you getsome position that you've been
chasing your whole life and youthink it's a misconception that
everything is is easy and likeyou're super valued and

(02:06:43):
everyone's excited about you allthe time.
It's like you're a cog in themachine.
Sometimes, once you get aposition like that and you have
to separate your identity fromthat position and it's so easy
to get wrapped up in it.
But your worth is not tied intowhether you know what position
you have or how much someonevalues you, how much they pay
you, because it can go away andit really sucks in these

(02:07:06):
situations.
But that's why you know it'sjust incredible what musicians
can do together.
I've seen it time and time andtime again the power that
musicians have once they reallyare on the same page and work
together, because it's what wedo every day.
So we're already ready for it.

Speaker 2 (02:07:24):
Yeah, we're creative people.
So well, kind of with that inmind, I wanted to pivot to a
more positive.
I just wanted to ask you whatyou're looking forward to in the
upcoming future, near future ormaybe a little bit down the
road.

Speaker 1 (02:07:43):
Well, I'm excited about the mouthpiece coming soon
to outnornscom.
It's been a nice little because, honestly, my summer didn't
feel like a summer in a lot ofways because I was grateful for
the work.
But, you know, we had ourfestival and then we had the
International Trombone Festivaland then I helped run a festival

(02:08:06):
of trombones in Texas, whichwas right afterwards, and got to
play with Cleveland Orchestra afew times it was really cool
Pittsburgh Symphony.
But I was working, you know,and it's good.
Summer is hard, as we all know,to work so.
But I had one little vacationat the very end.
But just being at home for thelast couple of weeks has been
really nice and trying to catchup on things, get organized with
the podcast.

(02:08:26):
We have a lot of people bookedcoming up that we're excited
about.
I will not tell you who.
Stay tuned Football, football,football football, tackle
football.

Speaker 2 (02:08:38):
I'm two and I won my league and I'm number one in my
league right now.

Speaker 1 (02:08:42):
Okay, so Nick Schwartz is now doing fantasy
football for the first time andmy heart is a flutter.
He's so into it.
No, life's good.
Honestly, I feel I always feellike a little like heaviness,
like when the summer's endingand work starting because of the
cyclical nature of life kind ofstarts reminding you of things
and I'm thinking about thingsgetting colder and darker sooner

(02:09:05):
and you know it just remindsyou you got to be present and
you got to be active and doingthe things that you know make
you feel good.
It's easy to get caught up init, but I know I'm.
I know that when I'm proactiveand just try to make things
happen in my life, usually goodthings happen Very good, very
good Uplifting.

(02:09:29):
If you enjoyed the podcast, tella friend and subscribe
everywhere you download yourpodcasts.
Also, please consider being apatron at patreoncom slash
trombone retreat and alsoleaving us a rating and review
on iTunes and Spotify, as ithelps us out quite a bit.
Special thank you tohowtonhorns at howtonhornscom
for being a seasoned sponsor.
Follow us at trombone retreaton all the social medias and our

(02:09:53):
website trombone retreatcom,where you can also join our
mailing list on Instagram.
Follow Nick at base trombone444and myself at JS dot vera.

Speaker 2 (02:10:03):
When life hands you a basket of potatoes, do you say
potatoes or potatoes?

Speaker 1 (02:10:10):
Potatoes Stuff your potatoes in a sack along with
your saris.

Speaker 2 (02:10:17):
Call your great grandma.

Speaker 1 (02:10:19):
Wow, if your great grandma is still alive.
That'd be nice.
Ask her about times of your.

Speaker 2 (02:10:26):
Then peel up those potatoes, put them in a pot,
make yourself a nice soup andretreat yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:10:35):
Always ends up with.
The pattern is if you'refeeling something, pick up
something, call a distantrelative and then make some sort
of food and then retreat.
That's usually how it goes.

Speaker 2 (02:10:51):
Hey, you know, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
No, you're not welcome in.

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