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One of the joys of working for a global company is this occasional challenge of melding two fairly similar product lines, developed over many years, into a unified, comprehensible offering. It's the end of my second week as a freelancer on site and the work is turning out to be pretty interesting. For example, I spent much of today flipping through a German catalog (in PDF form), running selective phrases through Google translate to make sure my guesswork was on target.

Two years of high school German was long ago and far away, but enough has stuck with me to bolster my self confidence into thinking I'll be able to sort this stuff out. Of course, now as I describe the spray angle of the nozzles I'm writing about, I wish we could invoke the far more poetic German terminology, Sprühwinkel. And then there's the dovetail connection used on some of the company's self-aligning nozzles - itself an interesting concept - for which the German is also quite lovely: Schwalbenschwanzverbindung. As Herr Ruokonen, my high school German teacher, used to say, "Auf Deutsche, bitte!"

And at this rate, I can hardly wait for Montag.

Reminiscing about music school

To make a long story short, I recently was invited to write 500 words of advice to students about being a professional musician, for which I would earn $5. OK, it's a deal.

I knew it would be hard to boil down that formative experience from the early 1970s into 500 words, but I gave it a shot. Thank heavens for David Foster Wallace, whose lead I followed when my draft text came in at 1,900. Excising about half of the text as footnotes made it a better read, but still long. So what, I thought, and sent it in. The published and shortened version is at http://admitopia.com/music-as-a-career-choice/.

However, in this spirit of this blog, I herewith present my final submitted and footnoted version, otherwise unedited. At least I've preserved the underlying recollections that bubbled to the surface as I put this together. The footnotes got jostled around in copying and pasting from the original "final" Word document, putting them all at the end of the text. Sorry about that, but at least they have been preserved.

TK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  O O O  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Music as a career choice

By Tom Klemens

Do you need a college education to be a professional musician? Perhaps not, but nearly every musician, professional or amateur,  who has impressed me over the years has built upon a foundation of classical training. In many ways, undergoing the discipline of music school is to becoming a professional musician like learning to read and write is to becoming a great author.

Like any college education, studying music is as much about learning how to continue growing and learning as it is about anything else.[1] And because making music is such a participation-based activity, there is no shortcut. No online curriculum will give you the equivalent experience upon which to build. You simply have to put in your time. The key to making that time – and your investment – worthwhile is to embed yourself in a high-quality program and make sure you spend as much time as possible in the presence of high-caliber musicians.

First, find a great teacher

Even though it has been years since I earned money making music, I still consider myself a musician and a great deal of that can be attributed to my trombone teacher, Byron B. McCulloh.[2] In addition to being the bass trombonist with the Pittsburgh Symphony and teaching at Carnegie-Mellon University, BB was a composer, a poet, a photographer, a wine maker, a fearless chef and a restorer of wooden sailing craft, to name only the activities of which I was aware. And as such, he taught by example the value of being a well-rounded person. His pursuit of excellence went way beyond the realm of music, and a lot of that rubbed off on me. The point is: Find yourself someone who can be not only a good teacher, but a mentor as well.[3]

What I learned on my own

Even though most of my professional life has been spent in other fields, the music conservatory experience was a success because at CMU I learned from my own experience as well as from others. Here are a few lessons learned that have served me well over the years.

• Find your niche. There are a lot of people who hit the right notes and play or sing in tune, but if you’re considering being a professional musician, there’s probably something you do better than most of your peers. Identify that specialty and make the most of it. My wife, for example, is a fantastic accompanist. We’ve both known that for years, but it took a while to realize how unique that skill is. Similarly, a musician friend of ours is a very good vocalist, but her real strength – what sets her totally apart from her peers – is her choral conducting. She’s amazing, and she gets amazing results, but to her it’s second nature. Until someone pointed it out, she never realized how extraordinarily gifted she is in this area.
• Doggedly pursue quality. Do not ever settle for OK. If you realize you are settling for OK, change your major, perhaps to something like business or liberal arts.[4]
• Make music with other fine musicians. Your best gets even better in the presence of other highly skilled musicians. It’s like that snippet of New England wisdom, “A rising tide floats all boats.” Even if your strongest talents are as a soloist, you still have to be able to play well with others, in every sense.[5]
• Plan for other income. For the vast majority of people who make money as musicians, their income doesn’t all come from performing.[6] Many musicians teach music in public or private schools, or teach private lessons. I did both, and over the years my wife has built up a satisfying and lucrative private teaching practice. Others form bands, work in music stores, or take on any number of unrelated jobs to support their after-hours musical activities.[7]
• Take advantage of your environment. If you’ve chosen an urban school like CMU, be sure to take advantage of the cultural opportunities the city offers. While in school in Pittsburgh I spent several seasons ushering at a newly renovated performing arts theater. The pay was minimal, but it allowed me to see countless performances I could not have otherwise afforded.
• Question authority. Yes, you’re being instructed by esteemed faculty members, but they are human, too. Not everything each of them says is absolutely gospel truth. You are supposed to be using your brain while you’re in college to think things through, so spread your wings and ask questions. Develop your own interpretations.[8]
• Try out.[9] For reasons that made sense at the time, I took a pass on auditioning for the United States Marine Band. Several of our classmates landed that terrific, full-time gig, but by not even trying out, I’ll never know if I was good enough. 

What I learned from others

There is also plenty to be learned directly from others, specifically the faculty. Here are a few tidbits that I have found useful.

• One for us, one for them. That great philosophy for putting together a concert program was provided by the CMU director of bands Richard Strange. The idea is to balance every avante garde piece that music students go crazy over with something – perhaps one of the better Sousa marches – that your parents – who are paying the bill and drove hundreds of miles to hear you play – will enjoy.
• Someone has to be in charge and it might as well be you. These words sum up the wisdom of Oleta Benn, the school’s grande dame of music education. Each year she greeted the incoming class by saying she had been “waiting for 26 years on this stool for you people,” then proceeded to instruct them on how to manage being the ones in control.
• Practice. Nobody else can do that for you. Many were the times that BB reminded me he was there to guide my path, not to listen to me practice.[10]
• Become a well-rounded person. Learn to do something besides play your horn.[11] You are capable of many things other than making music. Even though you’ve decided to devote the majority of you time and energy to studying music and practicing and perfecting your art, do some other stuff while you’re in college. It may be a long time before you again get the chance to take a class taught by an expert in pottery, or Greek mythology, or contemporary poetry. Exercise your brain[12], stretch your limits, dig deeper into whatever interests you, and enjoy your college career. 

Tom Klemens taught public school music for four years before enrolling at the University of Pittsburgh to study civil engineering. He worked as a field engineer on a bridge, at a nuclear power plant and on a few other projects before going into journalism, where having found his niche he has spent the last 25 years.

---

[1] The years my classmates and I spent in the music conservatory program at Carnegie-Mellon University were certainly seminal to our becoming the people we are today. But like many of them, I embarked upon my post high school education filled with naïveté, especially about the prospects for sustainable employment. I chose to study music because it came easily to me and I was good at it. Fortunately, a lot of things fell into place along the way and I enjoyed a short but memorable career as a professional musician before moving on. It also provided a solid foundation for my life ever since. [back]

[2] The CMU faculty included a dozen or more members of the Pittsburgh Symphony including BB, the bass trombone player. That in itself was a lesson. BB was a dwarf, just slightly more than four feet tall, which meant that for him to reach the farthest end of the trombone slide required a slide extension. Of course, by the time I became his student, overcoming much of the strife in his life was history. At the Eastman School of Music BB’s major had been composition, but he also studied trombone with Emory Remington, who at that time was the best of the best. At CMU, BB simply continued to practice his craft through his playing, teaching and mentoring. The years we spent together in weekly lessons left me a changed person because, far from being just trombone lessons, they were lessons in living. [back]

[3] My wife, who also majored in music at CMU, was similarly mentored by her organ professor and other faculty. I believe we both were lucky in that regard. [back]

[4] And if you can’t figure out what quality means in making music, that’s another reason to change your major. [back]

[5] Of course, the other thing to think about while you are in music school is that these may be the best musical organizations you will ever be a part of, so enjoy yourself! [back]

[6] Just as it is with major league sports, only a precious few musicians make their entire livelihood as center stage performers, and that’s OK. Performing, or participating, as an avocation actually takes a lot of the pressure off and you may be able to enjoy yourself more. [back]

[7] Charles Ives is a good example. He sold insurance to make money so he could be a composer after hours. You need to plan on alternative income sources, too, because you’re likely rely on them. [back]

[8] Many professors actually like it when you engage them on a rationale basis. I innocently overlooked the last page of the first test in one of my electives – cell biology, if you must know – and asked the professor to adjust my grade accordingly. It was a learning experience because I was not used to challenging authority, but also because he said to wait and see how the rest of the semester went. He was right – I did just fine in the course, and he didn’t have to grant that exception. Win-win. [back]

[9] All modesty aside, I was a pretty good bass trombone player. BB was a great teacher and I learned and I practiced. In my senior year I joined the Pittsburgh Local of the musician’s union and played in pickup bands for a bunch of summer concerts in the park as well as some big touring shows including the Ice Capades (I’m dating myself with that, but you can Google it). But the market was tight and openings for major positions were rare. I passed on the one real opportunity that came up – auditioning for the U.S. Marine Band – and as a result, I’ll never know if I was really good enough. Hence, this admonition: try out! [back]

[10] It’s true, you know, that old joke asking, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Practice, practice, practice! [back]

[11] This idea was explicitly enunciated by Professor John Sandberg who taught “Culture and the Schools,” a class required of everyone pursuing teaching certification at CMU. He was a lifelong professional educator, and delighted in telling the story of how he took a sabbatical one year to learn to make picture frames, saying he wanted to learn to “really do something.” [back]

[12] I had a penchant for taking electives that were far outside those normally selected by music majors. For one memorable philosophy class we spent the semester in a very remote classroom discussing exactly how we knew what was reality. I swear that class later served as a basis for “The Matrix.” [back]

Just being in Belgium

The Coke machine in the Brussels airport
sports one of Belgium's national icons,
the statue of a little boy known
 as Manneken Pis.

Some people travel to see things, perhaps to visit notable places. I travel to be somewhere, to spend time in a place, not just at a place. But I knew it was going to be tough to do that when I left for a five-day trip to Belgium last September, taking with me a ton of notes and an unfinished article manuscript.

The purpose of the trip was to tour the various facilities of our host, LVD, and a number of its customers, as well as to sample the Belgian culture. So it was disappointing to know I would have to spend a lot of time cooped up in a hotel room writing, rather than wandering about the town of Kortrijk (pronounced COT-rick). But I did manage to experience some wonderful things, including the good company of our hosts and my fellow travelers.

Hospitality continuously bubbled up from our LVD hosts, as well as their customers we visited. Belgian people seem to be very civilized, sophisticated and delightful. I think that may be related to the fact that they all study three languages in public school - French, English and Flemish. There are probably many other contributing factors, of course.


Some of the most interesting things in Belgium we seemed to just stumble across. I know some of them were planned, like our visit to the Atomium, but even there we had an unexpected treat.

Brussels was host to the 1958 World's Fair, the first to be held after Word War II. The Atomium is a gigantic molecule-like structure built for the Fair that celebrates the country's iron, steel and nonferrous metals industry. It is every bit as impressive today as it was when it was constructed more than half a century ago. The treat? The day we were there, guys on ropes were giving it a good polish.

Although that excursion was planned, other interesting encounters were really more by chance. For example, there was this really wide roadway - maybe a plaza - in front of the presidential palace. It was paved in Belgian block - no surprise - but what a racket the passing cars and buses made!

We couldn't see any action at the palace, but at one end we came across an interesting, free museum. It featured a permanent exhibition of artifacts from Dr. David Livingstone's exploration of Africa, as well as the London journalist H.M. Stanley's journey to find him. From that endeavor, of course, came the famous line, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

Learning about the background of these two explorers in search of the Nile's source was great, and seeing some of the original journals and equipment was an unexpected pleasure. It took me a while to figure out why this display was at home in the middle of Brussels. But then I remembered that when we were learning world geography there was a far-off African nation called the Belgian Congo, which became independent in 1960 and now is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Of course, the primary reason for our trip was to learn about LVD products and technology, visit several of its nearby customers, and experience the company culture. I had not previously been aware of how technically advanced LVD is, nor that it was the first company to introduce Windows-based operation for press brakes (now a number of years ago, of course).

Walking the factory floor and visiting its Center for Technology and Education gave us a thorough introduction to the very impressive LVD product line. However, the most memorable individual image from that exposure is the pink wall. The explanation: the designer knew that making it so starkly different from the machinery in the hall, which frequently changes, would actually make it less of a visual distraction for visitors. It's true.

Satisfied customers

Tuesday, on a whirlwind tour, we visited four companies in the countryside surrounding Brussels. My article about one, the metal service center Metalen Verhoestraete in Roeselare, Belgium, appeared in the March 2014 issue of Modern Metals.

Dirk Debruyne, technical director,
Metalen Verhoestrate, Roeselare, Belgium. (www.verhoestraete.be)

Dirk Debruyne, our gracious host, was quite a memorable fellow and full of wonderful stories and commentary. He has been building and expanding the company's value-added approach to supplying metals for more than 35 years. There may be 200 active jobs on the floor on any given day, and he seems to know the details about all of them.

Our second stop was at Waak, a state-affiliated manufacturing facility for metal assembly that provides meaningful employment for a large number of disabled workers. As Waak considered how to use LVD equipment, not displacing those workers was a primary concern. The company installed a new laser cutter with a material handling tower that cuts parts overnight so they are ready for unloading in the morning. Automating the supply of parts in this way removed what previously had been a bottleneck in the operation, but without adversely affecting the workforce.

Reloading the LVD tower with steel sheet at
 Waak (www.waak.be). The laser cutter is to the left.

After lunch we visited Venduro, a small family-owned shop manufacturing high-end stainless steel kitchen fixtures such as range hoods, fans, lighting and so on. Their customers are the companies who build residential kitchens, as well as some commercial work.

The facility was new - perhaps a year old? - as was much of the machinery. They use an LVD Orion laser cutter to facilitate custom cutting, which makes up a lot of their business. But it was also interesting to see some of the really old pieces of equipment the company had brought along to the new facility. Obviously purpose-built and just right for their operation.

The fabrication areas were staffed almost entirely by men, and shipping by women. But even if no one had been working at the time, one could have guessed that by the calendars on the walls.

Edge treatment at Venduro (www.venduro.be).

Similar to the Waak approach, Venduro runs an LVD Orion laser cutter overnight to produce repeatable parts.

Bend by bend, starting from a flat sheet.

A range hood, ready to pack and ship.

Venduro's shipping area.

The final customer visit of the day began about 4:30 when we arrived at Alinco. The workforce had all departed for the day, but the owner walked us through the facility which, unlike the other three, was not set up for high production. Rather, the company specializes in one-off products, often very challenging to construct, and short runs of fairly specialized items.

As the owner described it, about 25 to 30 percent of the company's work is done "at no price." In other words, the client wants something very specific which Alinco produces on a time-and-materials basis. That kind of arrangement relies on a high level of trust, of course, but it also means the company doesn't have to cover all the possible contingencies in its bid. It made me think of Sesame Street, where they may have called this type of arrangement cooperation.

Alinco's owner explains that they stock a huge variety
of materials to quickly accommodate special orders,
a capability for which they are well known. (www.alinco.be/en/)

Alinco specializes in producing one-of-a-kind items like
this piece of specialty lab equipment. Pricey, but perfect.

An evening in Gent

One of the big reasons for a trip such as this is simply to get together in person. Photos and commentary convey a lot of the information we gathered reasonably well, but there's something very special about real face time. But of course, you have to have something to do, so one evening we went to Gent for dinner. There we had a guided walking tour punctuated by stops at five or so restaurants. A lovely town, a lovely evening, and a journey not to be forgotten.

Gathering for a liquid appetizer.

Our guide for the walking tour and dinner in Gent.

The canal, before dark and after.

A portion of the gang.

And with that, I'll just say I hope I get back to Belgium some day. Five days is the briefest of introductions to a wonderful destination filled with charm, culture and surprises.

P.S. - A few more photos of the trip are available on my Flikr album.