~ Curious Charlie ~

Dumbo Feather Conversation Series - MSO Muso @ Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Thursday 23rd October

Tonight we went to a 'Muso x Dumbo Feather' Event at Dumbu Feather's Lovely HQs, just a couple blocks away from the tram stop. Unfortunately I was just on time and not as early as I like to be so didn't get a chance to get some pictures outside. The office was beautiful unlikely any I've seen, though all the ones I go to are in the city, with a plant in the corner of each room.

The event was interviews and Q&As with two musicians, Chris Cartlidge who plays viola (it's a violin but bigger and with an additional string), we saw him earlier this week and Ann Blackburn who plays the oboe and makes her own reeds (that's the part you blow into). Disappointed that it wasn't the cute mystery violin guy, who lives in Berlin, but he'll be spending more time in Melbourne next year. :) Not going to post pictures cause that may seem a bit err.. private detective-ish.

I did consider doing transcripts for a moment, but I'm on exams now that projects are over. As I always find interviews interesting even when I only have a vague idea of who the person is (this mainly applies to comic con & co.), especially interested in finding out how they discovered their ~~interest~~ passion in x or y.

Disadvantage of Being Little - The fear that someone will trip over you while you're on the ground taking a picture of cheese on a coffee table. Perhaps I should have told the guy next to me not to take a step back...

Dumbo Feather is a magazine about extraordinary people, and they often hold creative talks with x or y over cheese and drinks. You can see more of their events on facebook, or check out their conversation series here.

This picture could have been better, but at this point it was best not to be where someone else could trip over me. :P So we had a limited time. I love paper straws and at bars now have difficulty finding the plain black plastic straw as I'm so used to the fun stripy ones.

Five Cheeses. Think I can name 3/5.

The Setting. What a lovely window & view! Edited picture as there were people in the way,

so they had to be cropped and put together. That is a piano in the corner, baby grand.

This is a great example of why we do not shoot into the light.

Berry (Editor of Dumbo Feather) - Chris (Violia, MSO) - Ann (Oboe, MSO)

Bursting Out in Song

One of the questions the audience asked was about improv. and if either one of that had a moment where they felt like well improving or bursting out in song (if they were musical theatre people). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R-ZWtiLebQ The answer from both Chris & Ann was no, well Ann said on her own at home rehersing but not when like the trumpet guy in the clip. :P As they are trained to play exactly what's on the page, sticking to the script Chris isn't much of a composure.

Le beau pretends not to like it when I request him to play for me, by responding that he is not a record player, but I know he secretly loves it. Anyone another question was song requests, does that happen? For Anne no, as she doesn't bring her oboe to parties. Chris doesn't get requests because of his style (sticking to the script) and well needs the script to play, with the exception of audition pieces. Though he does have a pianist friend who takes requests.

Auditions

Which leads us to auditions. There's a process of blind auditions where you're behind a curtain so the judges don't see you (no not like X Factor) so they can only judge on your performance. This is because there tended to be more guys than girls in orchestras and eliminating bias meant they it's about 50/50. We were wondering why there's more guys when everyone learns an instrunent at some point, and we think it's baby leave and historicially because almost all the great composes were men - purely because they have more oppoutunities to education.

As well as playing behind a curtain you have to leave your shoes outside so the judges can't hear that you might be wearing heels. Though there are guys' shoes that sound like heels. XD Chris told is us about his adventure of auditioning for 13-ish minutes in Chicago (it takes 20hrs to get there). You'd have to crazy confident to do that and really believe in yourself. It's amazing.

The Journey

This one I always find interesting, as I'm not sure I've found my passion (unless you could organizaing & planning at an OCD level).

For Anne music is her own special thing as her family doesn't play, and she discover her interest through going to church as a child (you'd be how many people discover things other than God in church, especially back home). She has been playing the oboe for 22 years and is 35. So there is hope if you still want to potentially play professionally.

Chris grew up in a musical family and started the piano at the age of 5 and then violin at 6, changing to violin at 14. He started auditioning at 19 and landed his first position at 21. He's now 25.5, Which is pretty amazing. Some people go through life never finding their passion.

After the Q&As there was an opportunity to meet Chris and Anne and there was canollis, which was unfortunately were filled too early on and weren't as fresh as can be.

We did get to meet Chris, he is really really tall! I felt so little beside him. That banner is about 2 meters tall (we set up a lot of these in events). I was really curious if he had ever considered a career in sports science or medicine, was going to ask on Tuesday but I'm a tiny bit shu though that was kinda answered in the interview. No questions suprizingly, as Hector & Le Beau say I have many. Unfortunately we didn't get to meet Anne as she was very popular too, and jas had sensory overload and wanted to leave. It was quite noisy with chatter but no where as loud as Tuesday's dinner.

We have a great time at the event, and if you're 18-35 and haven't signed up for the Mso's Muso club we highly recommend it! This is with the assumption that you love classical music. ~~Even if Mozart makes you sleepy.~~ :P