Twelve-step programs have helped millions of people, including some of our colleagues. But their constant references to a “higher power” rub some people the wrong way.

As orchestral musicians, we only know one “higher power”: the conductor, who rules every aspect of our musical lives! Here are some slightly rewritten twelve steps toward embracing musical anonymity in the orchestra of your choice.

The Twelve Orchestral Steps

1. Admit you are powerless over your musical decisions and life has become unmanageable.


2. Surrender those decisions to a higher power to reclaim musical sanity.


3. Turn your musical life over to that higher power (the conductor).


4. Make a searching and fearless inventory of your audition self.


5. Admit the nature of your wrongs to yourself and a practice buddy.


6. Be ready to have the conductor remove your defects of character.


7. Actually ask the conductor to humbly remove those defects.


8. Make a list of colleagues you have musically harmed, and seek to make amends.


9. Make direct amends to these colleagues, especially if you must sit near them.


10. Continue taking inventory and promptly admit wrong accidentals.


11. Through meditation and score study, improve conscious contact with the conductor.


12. After your musical awakening, carry this message to other musicians in the orchestra.

Quotes

“If you join an orchestra, you’re just a shareholder, but you’re still receiving dividends.” — Akiko Tarumoto [0:08:47 ]

“Getting a job is truth time.” — Akiko Tarumoto [0:11:12 ]

“There is that hope that joining this group, it’s like there’s a power greater than yourself. There’s power in experience.” — @natesviolin [0:17:57 ]

“It’s okay to be wrong a lot as long you admit it.” — @natesviolin [0:24:20 ]

“You could follow these steps and actually be a great orchestral player.” — @natesviolin [0:27:46 ]

“There’s just no way around the anonymity being an orchestral player, but there are positive things about being in an orchestra nevertheless.” — Akiko Tarumoto [0:27:52 ]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

• Colburn


• Sir Laurence Olivier


• LA Phil


• Chris Still

Transcript

EPISODE 37

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00 ] NC: Hello and welcome back to Stand Partners for Life. This is Orchestra Players Anonymous. I’m Nathan Cole.

[00:00:08 ] AT: We’re supposed to be anonymous.

[00:00:10 ] NC: Oh! I already broke the rule. All right.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:27 ] NC: Well, I have to figure you already know who we are. That’s Akiko Tarumoto over there. Welcome back. If you haven’t seen the website in a little while, head on over to standpartnersforlife.com. We got a bit of a new look and as it befits the new year, 2020 episodes of Stand Partners for Life. There you can make sure you’re subscribed on iTunes, on Google Podcasts, however you get your podcasts.

Today we are talking about the anonymous nature of orchestra playing, and this actually came up recently. I teach the violin orchestral rep class at Colburn now, and I got a really good question just today actually.

[00:01:10 ] AT: What was that question?

[00:01:13 ] NC: That’s for that prompt. They asked, they said, “Well, we have a friend,” who that’s always kind of a tipoff, but they said, “We have a friend who says that he would never play in orchestra because you would lose your artistic identity. You’d become anonymous.”

First of all, I love how you can’t really talk about orchestra. It’s kind of like how kids learn about the birds and the bees on the playground. It’s like playground wisdom.

[00:01:43 ] AT: You can’t talk about –

[00:01:44 ] NC: Well, I just feel like there’s not a constant dialogue about orchestra playing. You have to kind of ask in secret like, “I have a friend who says this is how it works.”

[00:01:53 ] AT: Right. Well, sure. I mean, we all know why that is. It’s like the vast majority of working musicians, working – Not pianists obviously, but that were out there and orchestra is not being soloists or chamber musicians necessarily, right?

[00:02:12 ] NC: When you’re in school, the ideal is not to play in an orchestra.

[00:02:16 ] AT: Right. It’s like a weird version of your expectations and your training or something. You’re supposed to want to do something not anonymous and “better.”

[00:02:27 ] NC: Right. Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about. But I will say the folks in my class at Colburn, I love the attitude and they’re asking because they really want to know. I honestly do believe they have a friend who said this. They asked and I told them when they said, “Is it true that when you join the orchestra you can become anonymous?” I said, “Absolutely.” I mean, if you just join the orchestra and that’s all the playing you do, you will very quickly lose the ability to –

[00:02:59 ] AT: Even if it’s not the only playing you do. It is tough to bust out of that rut.

[00:03:04 ] NC: Yeah. We thought that we would call this episode Orchestra Players Anonymous, and obviously we’re having a little fun with the 12-step programs, AA, and we should say that we’ve had friends and colleagues who have struggled with addiction and found these programs very helpful. So, while not at all demeaning these particular programs. I think we’re drawn to the fact that, that concept, they talk about this higher power and an orchestra that are really going to be one higher power.

[00:03:43 ] AT: Who’s that?

[00:03:44 ] NC: Who’s the higher power?

[00:03:47 ] AT: Prompting you.

[00:03:49 ] NC: You’re really playing along today. Obviously, the conductor who rules our lives in orchestra. Before I took my first job in orchestra, I did have a friend who I’d play a lot of chamber music with and they said, “How can you do this? How can you join an orchestra?” They actually used the word anonymous, and they said, “You’re going to become anonymous. You’re going to lose every part of you that’s you. You’re going to lose all your musical decision making.”

[00:04:16 ] AT: That’s interesting. I never thought about that. Maybe I should have.

[00:04:19 ] NC: You never got the warning?

[00:04:21 ] AT: No. I’m sure it’s because of people I interacted with thought this is probably the best I could do. Probably like, “We’re not going to warn her. We’ll tell her this is really – She can’t really aspire if she’s really lucky.”

[00:04:33 ] NC: It’s best that you remain anonymous.

[00:04:37 ] AT: Yeah. You were going to be lucky to remain anonymous, lady.

[00:04:41 ] NC: I did get that warning and I really – Everything in me cried out against that. I was like, “I will not. You’ll see.” Sometime in that very first season, and this is was in the same Paul Chamber Orchestra. So not even a giant machine, but a chamber orchestra and I still felt, “Who am I? What am I doing? Do I still sound like Nathan when I play or is the transformation complete?”

[00:05:04 ] AT: It’s possible that my style of playing, like it’s always been so bland or something that like maybe people thought that sound belongs in an orchestra.

[00:05:16 ] NC: You mean like how certain people’s voices kind of sound like newscasters?

[00:05:20 ] AT: Yeah, li