by Marty Schlenker, Amateur Hornist
Dear Fellow Ambitious Amateurs,
I was surprised and flattered when Mike Harcrow asked me to consider writing a column for Horn and More. As I introduce myself and my circumstances, I hope you will find things in common and be inspired in your own playing. This column, to be called Ambitious Amateurs, will be as informative as I can make it, but there will be a steady theme of “fighting to make time for horn in a busy life.” You’ll see that I’m early into an experiment, and the column is part of it.
How I got here: I was six years old when Star Wars hit theaters. It was, of course, a revelation. My parents indulged me (in the pre-VCR days) by taking me many times to the theater. When fourth grade came around, I was determined: I wanted to play the horn because of Star Wars, although I’d never actually seen a horn up close. [Aside: I was in my 30s before I played anything from Star Wars with an ensemble. I’ve played the Binary Sunset leitmotif exactly once in concert.]
I loved being in the school band but knew that I wasn’t “music major material.” Even as a non-major, I had very fortunate experiences in college, the pinnacle of my musical immersion. There were orchestras, wind bands, and various chamber groups during the school year; and for three summers, I marched in the Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps, an experience that profoundly improved me as a human being and as a musician.
I consider myself mostly self-taught to date but will credit teachers and recount some “a-ha moments” in future columns. My post-college playing will be familiar to many of you: community bands, church services, and various horn and brass ensemble configurations. The latter were the most enjoyable but the most fleeting. I rehearsed and practiced as time allowed, working it in around a career and raising three kids with my wonderful wife, who, by the way, is the ‘pro’ in the family, having earned a degree in piano and voice and who plays the trombone for kicks. Lucky me!
But I think what prompted Mike to suggest that I write a column was this: even though I don’t expect to regain the state of musical immersion that I had in college, I haven’t given up on the idea that my most accomplished days as a horn player still lie ahead. What will follow in this column are dispatches from my journey, still largely unmapped, to reach as close to music-major-like proficiency as I can as a 52-year-old guy whose homestead (Cumberland County, PA) and new office (Los Angeles) are three time zones apart.
The DFW area, where I spent about 25 years before moving to Pennsylvania last Christmas, is a terrific place to be a horn player. Not only are there are community bands everywhere, but the DFW area is also home to the remarkable Houghton family. I’ve taken my instruments to Houghton Horns for care the entire time I lived in Texas. Like clockwork, as I was dropping it off or picking it up, or ogling their vast inventory, there would be a high school kid in a lesson with Karen in the studio. 10 times out of 10, that kid could outplay high-school-me…and 8 out of 10 could outplay right-now-me. Wow. Seriously, wow. What proficient teaching.
Somewhere along the line, I started to muse to Dennis every time I saw him that someday life was going to get simpler, and I was going to get back into lessons and really figure out what to do with this thing. Life got simpler in some ways and less in others, but when I told Dennis I was moving to Pennsylvania, he instantly thought of his old pal Mike Harcrow and suggested that I give him a call. It took me a few months to get organized, but I did make that call, and what’s happened since will be the subject of some of the columns to come.
If any part of your life as a horn player sounds like this, let me know who you are and what has worked and what has not, and you will be subject of the column. If this column remains just about one person, it’s going to become boring very fast. Now let’s go practice!
