Welcome back to the per service podcast, we started this podcast as a place to talk about what life as a freelance musician is really like.
In today’s episode, we’re talking with our very own Jessica Wiersma, and Anna Luce who are living life on the road, playing 8 shows a week of the smash hit: Hamilton.
One of the big themes that comes up often in our discussion is the unpredictability of local hires. This is when the tour stops in a city and hires local string players to play instead of the touring string players. This was an aspect that I hadn’t really thought about much, and turns out it has a big impact on the vibe of the show, both musically and interpersonally.
We also discuss some practical advice about working with touring musicians should you have the opportunity to play as a local musician, and how to get into the scene if you’re interested in pursuing touring gigs.
Thanks to http://www.ficksmusic.com
and http://www.fiddlershop.com
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Welcome back to the podcast! What a delight to get back into the podcast season with a blast. We’ve got TWO amazing guests with us today: Drew Alexander Ford, (also known online as “That Viola Kid”) and cellist Roland Gjernes
The O.G. Adagio Strings quartet in the Dining Room. Funny enough, we didn’t play here that often, it was so loud, so sightreading new pieces was what we did sometimes here. Also this was like our first week. We ditched the dinner jackets shortly there after.
This is one of the only pictures I have that shows how small our cabin was. Behind me is a desk, bunkbeds on the right, a closet on the left, behind Ryan is the bathroom. If one person was getting dressed, and the other person had to leave, a well orchestrated series of tetris moves involving closing the closet, moving into the bathroom, closing the bathroom door, opening the cabin door had to happen….in that order.
Me driving the ship…well, not really. But that is the helm.
SCCHNNACCK-TIME! Zoe here always said it the best.
My second quartet in the Bahamas. AmazingTwo Happy Chappies at the Panama Canal. Also it’s hot.
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Today is somewhat of a per service lite version, as I don’t have my usual co-hosts with me today. We hit the perfect storm of scheduling last month, (no, I’m not talking about that polar vortex) We all just got really busy, and being in 3 different time zones didn’t help either. Even after we found a day, we had to scrap it because the internet for me and Anna kept falling out.
So, they will all be back soon. But for today, you’re still in for a treat. I called up my buddy, Paul Nelson, a cellist in Nashville, who besides having recorded for people like U2, Paul McCartney, One republic, and a million other people. Has reinvented himself many times over, from Arranging, producing, contracting, being a clinician, project manager, and more. He’s one of the most driven, creative, and productive people I’ve met.
I know you will find this interesting, because normally on the podcast, we spend a lot of time speaking through the lens as classical musicians, but many of us make a portion of our incomes from commercial work. Also, many of us also supplement our gig income with side hustles or adjacent gigs that utilize a combination of skills. And so it was a treat to sit down with someone who is doing all of these things, and to hear his advice on how to find joy and more money in the process.
Listen to the Podcast Below:
[powerpress]
Links We Mentioned:
Paul’s Big Take-Aways:
-Work on yourself as much as your instrument
-Learn how to network well
-Have pro-gear. You’re going to need them! (Maybe that’s just a music stand at the moment, but for others, maybe that means a better mic, in-ear monitors, etc.)
What do Sarah Chang, Chuckie Cheese’s and Toms all have in common?
They all have distinguished themselves by stacking multiple talents or traits together, and classical musicians can learn something from this practice too. Some talents (in your big mac stack) are beefier than others, cheesier than others, and some might be weird or gross on their own. But stack them all up, and you might just have something so unique the whole world will want to get their hands on. (ok, that metaphor is now over).
Hey, there I’m Michael O’Gieblyn, and this is the Per Service Podcast. We make this show, because being a musician today, doesn’t look like what we thought it was going to look like. We’re still figuring it all out – Year by year, gig to gig, service to service.
And this is our little, judgement free place where we get together and actually talk about the BS sayings, acknowledge our insecurities,laugh about dumb stuff that only other musicians think is funny,encourage each other, and inspire new ways of thinking about being a successful musician.
I think our episode today hits all those points, and I’m really excited to share it with you.
If you’re new to the show, we are four string players:
Anna Luce and Jessica Weirsma are respectively violin 1 and 2 on tour with Hamilton,
Christian Marshall is a violist extraordinaire based in Graz Austria.
I’m Michael O’Gieblyn I’m a violinist (and emergency violist if needed) in Boca Raton, Florida.
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Nathan Cole is first associate concertmaster of the L.A. Philharmonic and host of the podcast Stand Partners for Life. He joins us as we get super nerdy about auditions and even stage two rounds during our recording.
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We are thinking about to extreme sides of all the advice we hear to either take care of yourself, and be content with what you have, or the opposite: to grow, hustle, optimize, crush it, and do more.
Before we get there, just a quick word of thanks to:
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This is the Per Service Podcast- a shamelessly self-help show, thinly veiled behind the guise of the working class classical musician shop talk.
We’re more about Growth than Gofriller,
more self-care than first-chair
more positivity than exclusivity
more resiliency than Salieri
You can learn more about us at: http://orchestraexcerpts.com/about/
And today…… oh boy, do we have a show for you. We are joined by one of the leading peak performance coaches in the world – Dr. Don Greene.
Don’s course opening soon- Performance Mastery Project: Winning on Stage
http://www.winningonstage.com
Special thanks to: Ficks Music Publishing – Get your sheet music here: http://www.ficksmusic.com
As a podcast listener, you can get 10% off your order by using the promo code “PerService” at checkout.
AND
This podcast is also made possible by the support of http://www.fiddlershop.com
Get 5% off your order by using the promo code “PerService” at checkout.
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If you’ve ever been on the internet, or on any social media, you’ve probably seen this fascination we all seem to have for hacking our productivity, you can hack your morning routine, hack your way to inbox zero, an audition hacker, or an all encompassing a life-hacker.
But the question that Christian brought us today is what are we doing with all this supposedly new-found time?
-Are we just filling it with more productivity?
-Are we filling it with beautiful things?
-Or are we just answering more emails
