The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 038 The Fischoff Experience: The Judges

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

Experience the 2019 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition from the perspective of the judges who listened to the participants.  They talk about their experience at Fischoff, give us insight as to what they're looking for in a group when they're judging, and they'll answer the questions that my listeners sent me before I left!   Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition: https://www.fischoff.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fischoffchambermusic/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFischoff/                 Marc Reese – Trumpet – Winds/Brass Junior Division - https://www.lynn.edu/campus-directory/marc-reese Marc Reese is the Assistant Dean and Brass Department Head for Lynn University's Conservatory of Music and he's well known for his near two-decade tenure in the world-famous Empire Brass Quintet. Toyin Spellman-Diaz – Oboe – Winds/Brass Junior Division - http://www.imaniwinds.com/artist-bios/toyin Toyin Spellman-Diaz has built a reputation as a world-class oboist, both as an orchestral musician, and as a member of the renowned Imani Winds. She is on faculty at Brooklyn College. Jeffrey Zeigler – Cello – Strings/Piano Junior Division - http://www.jzcello.com/ Jeffrey Ziegler was the cellist of the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet for eight seasons and is acclaimed as one the most versatile cellist of our time. He is on the Cello Faculty at Mannes College's New School For Music. Rebecca Fischer – Violin – Strings/Piano Junior Division - http://www.rebeccafischerviolin.com/ Rebecca Fischer was the first-violinist of the Chiara Quartet for eighteen years and is praised for her "beautiful tone and nuanced phrasing." She is currently teaching violin and chamber music at the Mannes School of Music and at the Greenwood Music Camp, and writes about artistry and creativity for publications such as Strings Magazine and the SHAR Music blog.     If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on iTunes!  I truly appreciate your support! Visit www.mindoverfinger.com for information about past and future podcasts, and for more resources on mindful practice.   THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme!  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson. Also a huge thank you to my producer, Bella Kelly!   MIND OVER FINGER: www.mindoverfinger.com https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/   Join the Mind Over Finger Tribe here!  https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfingertribe/    

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger podcast, episode number 38, the third of five shows covering the Fischhoff experience. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now your host, Dr. Rene Paul Gaultier. Hi everyone. I hope you're doing great today. In the last episode, you got to meet the team of incredibly supportive, loving, and dedicated people that are essential in making all of the Fish Off competition magic happen. And that's the coaches, parents, and organizations that

are assisting our competitors, the teams that have their backs. Today, four of the judges are talking to us about their experience at this year's Fish Off competition. They're going to give us some insight as to what they're looking for in a group when they're judging, and they'll answer the questions that you guys sent me before I left. As you heard yesterday in my conversation with Tom Rosenberg, Fish Off brings great care in its jury selection, and I think you'll see how invested they are and how much dedication they show in their duty. First, I sat down with trumpet player mark reese mark is the assistant dean and brass department head for lynn university's conservatory of music and he's well known for his near two decade tenure in the world famous

empire brass quintet here he tells us about his fish off experience so i'm here with mark reese trumpet player and judge here the fish off for the junior division and he is kind enough to sit with me and a lot of you guys have sent in some really amazing questions and we're gonna ask him what he thinks so mark i love the first question that they sent me what's your absolute turn off when you listen to a group i think i'd have to say the biggest thing that turns me off is when the musicians make it about themselves and not about the music and it's very clear to see and to hear. What I found has been so great at Fischhoff is the communication between all the players and the groups. It's amazing. I've never seen it. And so when the players are

communicating to serve the music, that's what I like. So when they're just making it about themselves, it really kind of bothers me. Would you rather hear perfect playing without soul or imperfect playing with soul? Wow, that's a great, great question. I would rather hear imperfect playing with soul it's really about reaching the audience you know it sort of relays back to my first answer which is when you hear someone just make it about themselves and trying to be perfect it's not really enjoyable for the audience that may be enjoyable for themselves in some way but you have to make it about the emotion that you're trying to convey if anyone's going to enjoy listening to your music and not look down at their cell phone while you're playing exactly

right yeah and another question I love from the listeners is if you have two equally strong group at which point does repertoire choice can tip the balance well that's a good one also I think that that rarely happens but as a brass player it's an interesting question because our best piece that was ever written is probably the worst string piece ever written so we have that that's a big challenge with with brass players um if i get into that situation and there's absolutely 100 equal which is doesn't really happen but it's 100 equal i really can't decide i have to be honest and say i don't i would find some other way to figure it out i wouldn't just say because this piece is better um i choose that group i might say because this piece is

harder and maybe that's your original question because a piece might be harder and someone played it as well as someone who played an easier piece equally, I would take into account as a last resort the harder piece just because it's harder. So that person would win because they did something that was more difficult. But usually, you know, players will let their tells be heard, you know, especially at a great competition like Fischhoff where you're playing for 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes. A lot of competitions that I typically judge, the players play for five minutes or eight minutes and it's it's kind of easier to hide in that way but when you come here and you have to play different styles for 20 minutes you know you sort of hear hear what you need to hear as a judge

and you know from the playing aspect what things do you look for in participants in the players that are competing well like we said earlier i listen for someone who can not only play technically well, but can really keep me interested for more than little moments at a time. If someone could go from the beginning of the piece to the end of the piece, and really I'm still paying attention at the end, which I guess is my job as a judge, but as thinking from an audience member perspective, I'm looking for them to make a statement musically, even if I don't agree with it, just be really clear about what they're doing. And aside from the playing, Is there something that visually you would recommend participants do or refrain from doing?

I think that stage presence is an enormous part of it. Some judges may say that it isn't, and they're like they're watching The Voice on TV, and they just close their eyes and listen, and it's all about the music. But we can't help but take these visual cues, and so it's really important to think about, for the competitors to think about what they look like on stage, so filming themselves. some people like to just stand still and just really nail what they're doing and that's fine other people like to you know think about their choreography i personally think it's great no matter what you do as long as you own it so if you're gonna have some choreography own it really

go for it don't sort of look like why are they moving around you know it shouldn't look confused it should look absolutely on purpose and absolutely go for it there was a flute group that that did that here in the junior wins and they just the whole show was was choreographed and it was awesome they just really nailed it it was it really added to the show so it was great someone wanted to know if you're trying to um if you have a video round video recording round what is something that could help groups make it through this pre-selection hmm that's like another good question you have good questions from your your audience I think in a tape round, it's also important to really make some music.

You may want to pay a little bit more attention to the technique that you display. So you want to put something that's a little bit maybe more impressive technically as well as something very musical. When you have a competition at this level, sort of everybody's good. Every tape you listen to, it's like it's, I'm old, I keep saying tape, but every video you watch, you know, it's, everyone's good. So it has to be something like, okay, they can play technically, they can play musically, it sounds beautiful. And so as much as you can cram into the beginning of the tape,

because like I say, with an audience, I mean, being honest, you know, again, our job is to listen to the whole recording. But when you hear the first five minutes and it's really not a lot going on, you listen to the rest, hoping something's coming, but you really want to capture the judge's attention right away in the tape so they really are excited to listen to the rest of it. One question someone asked that I thought was very interesting and maybe a bit difficult to answer, or I find it a bit difficult to answer,

is how do you go about establishing a scale or a grading when you start to judge a competition like this? It is extremely difficult to do so. what happens for me is that i i really think about um a group's grade out of 100 points i think a lot of judges do out of 10 points but for me there's so much room between a seven and an eight and a nine i it's a lot easier for me to think 70 to 80 to 90 and i start that way and then basically as i go through my scale becomes what happens as the groups go by so if i give the first group in 80 and then it turns out by the end of the competition they were the best group

no one else gets above an 80 so I sort of start at a certain scale just with what I think it's going to be and then I am very careful to remember that level and sort of scale accordingly because it's impossible from competition to competition to just have 100 points and just say well you get a 97 you're gonna it really depends on all the groups together who played the best so it's sort sort of a sliding scale based on the first few groups. Yes, and the same person was wondering about how do you keep track of this because you have so many contestants here, it's so easy to start, you know, forgetting. Right, well, luckily the fish-off competition is so well run, there are a lot of breaks.

We have three or four groups, and then we have a 15-minute break, and that's the time when we can go back and really make notes about each group. You know, not only a number do I give it, but I also will notate things that were good musically, technically, or not good musically and technically, or, you know, things that were great and things that were not great, so that when I can look back five hours later at the end of the competition, I have really great notes, and my notes are all about the same thing, so I can really compare them. And it's interesting.

It's usually pretty clear who the top few groups are and pretty clear who the bottom few groups are, but in the middle, it becomes very difficult to try to figure that out. and you know for instance we had 14 win groups and I didn't know how many were passing on but it turned out that seven were going to pass on to the semi-finals and so you know the number I picked for seven and for eight is is is harrowing it's like you really have to get it right and I think we did a good job because we the judges basically had sort of the same idea so that's how you know when you hear when you look at the other judges scores and it's not the opposite of yours you know you probably you probably got it right how was your experience judging it's quite

you know for people who have not been to fish off it's you have entire days of listening to music and so many participants how was that experience for you well the experience has been great really it's interesting because you're right they're very very long days but you know as a as a formerly young person myself you know I've listened to a lot of people play wind and brass instruments and it's it's not hard to inspire me but the only thing that makes it okay here is that the level of the playing is unbelievable I mean really I knew it would be high because of the reputation of this of this competition but it really was even surprising how much higher than it was and I thought I'm listening to high school students and they just sound amazing and so it's not hard

to get through the day it's just it's actually the hardest part is when you're not listening isn't that funny i mean you when you're listening it just goes by you're listening they sounds great it's inspiring and then it's like during the hour break for lunch you're like oh when are we going to start again so it's actually kind of the opposite of what you'd think it's it's when we're listening to great players that's easy that's that's that's uh that's not hard and through judging here is there um a few things that strike you in that you could tell my listeners in terms of if they're preparing for competitions things to keep in mind and maybe incorporate in their rehearsal process or their preparation process yeah i think um it's a good

idea to do what we said before about the tape round which is to really pay attention to putting your best foot forward uh early on in your in your performance so people really so a judge really gets interested in listening to more um and also i think it's important to think about um i would say the most important thing would be dynamics i know that's very specific but one thing i do a lot of competition judging and the one thing i rarely hear anywhere is people playing soft now maybe that's because i play trumpet haha but you know even in winds or or any any you know groups that i listen to if you can play really soft really well that's going to stand out because that's something maybe not in the string world they probably play soft all the time but in in the

wind and brass world I think the groups that play soft advance because it's just something that young people don't do great so if you can really focus on figuring out how to play super soft but really well I think that's going to really help you get advanced this is really great advice what are you going to take away from the experience I am going to take away from the experience that I hope they invite me back soon. Because really, it's been, you know, there's been very few places that I that I go where I really am as impressed as I am here. And I'm not just saying that it really is really true. You know, you go places and you get what you expect most of the time. But, you know, there's been a couple places in the last few years where I've gone and

just said, you know, I have to leave my family. I have two little kids, a great wife at home, I leave her having to deal with the kids. And so it's a it's a big deal for me to leave. So it's really needs to be worth it and um this experience has really been worth it for me um it's it's just been uh really beyond what i thought it would be so you know special thanks to everybody who runs that runs the place and invited me because it was just awesome thank you so much mark oh my pleasure then i spoke with oboist toyin spelman diaz toyin has built a reputation as a world-class oboist both as an orchestral musician and as a member of the renowned Imani Winds. She's on faculty at Brooklyn College, and here's what she shared about her experience at Fischhoff,

about judging in general, and about the presence of women in the winds and brass chamber music world. So I'm here with Toyin Spellman-Diaz, and she is one of the judges for the junior category in the winds and brass. And I was told that you were a participant here in Fischhoff years ago. How is it to come back as a judge? It's really weird. It's really weird. And, of course, amazing. Not only was I a participant here, Fischhoff brought my wind quintet, Imani Winds, back several years to do residency activities around.

And so we got to know the whole area around South Bend really, really well. At the time, there weren't so many great restaurants, so we would go to Subway for most of our meals, but coming back is really, it's also weird, by the way, because one of the times we came, when we were coming out here, it was right around September 11th in 2001. We were literally supposed to get on a plane and come to South Bend on September 11th. And so we were waking up and getting ready to go to the airport when I was. And then when one of my members called me and said, look at the TV, look what's going on. And so the first plane had crashed into the, you know, people are never going to forget. The people who are alive, we're never going to forget when that happened, the day that that happened. Where we were when we heard. Right, exactly. And so I was on my way to Fish Off. I was on my way to South Bend to work with the Fish Off organization. But beyond that darkness, it's so awesome to be able to eventually, I can't wait to talk to the participants, because what I learned as a participant, a young musician, was invaluable to me as an artist.

and it was super super important to my group because the comments we got were really on the money they the guy the judge who talked to us he wasn't he didn't pussyfoot around anything he just gave it to us straight and then after that we talked really hard Imani Wins talked really hard about the direction we wanted to go in and how we were going to spend the time to get it so that those comments wouldn't be given to us again you want to know what the comments were I would love to yeah okay i can i can remember because it was so important he said uh he said to us you were the most exciting group that we saw but you were also the most um not together group that we saw so that so we worked after that we spent many many many many many many hours

in the practice rooms we would sneak into manis and manhattan school and juilliard which is where we all went to school we were all out of school by then but we snuck into our old schools and we would rehearse hard for many hours so that's fish off was kind of the place where we realized what we needed to do to become the group we thought we wanted to be that's a reflection and growth yeah that's wonderful yeah it was really cool so what what are some things that you would tell to participants or maybe young musicians that want to participate in the future what are some things that they could start doing today okay i'm going to start talking to wind players in particular and it's not necessarily going to fish off but if you're practicing

here's what you need to do you need to get on an exercise ball all right you get on an exercise ball and you sit on it and you lean back and you do a crunch you do that you do that motion of going back and then getting up and then you hold it there then you pick up your instrument and while you're in that crunch position you play a long tone and you feel what it feels like to have it's different for strings right you guys have to have your bow going at a certain rate with a certain amount of depth of power in your stroke we need to keep a certain amount of depth of power in our core in order to get a good sound so you do that and you play some long tones you play a scale you play high notes and low notes and you get used to that feeling of engaging your core when you're

playing and that will be I mean I don't tell that to everybody but that's it's right now I'm excited about that I was just teaching at Manhattan School and there happened to be an exercise ball in the room and so I had all the students I was teaching do a crunch and play their instruments and it was like night and day right away, their playing got much, much better. So that, okay. So that's just basic when playing most of the comments that I've given to, um, the people I've heard today were basically about air and how they needed to blow more or blow with more finesse. So I think that's a very basic thing those are the quarter finalists I talk to so in the semi-finalists the thing that I'm going to say is play with more bravery and you're playing because and not just

one of you not just two of you but every single last one of you have to play with more bravery and you have to do it together and and not only that you have to support each other more like when you're up on that stage and you're in a rest you can't just rest you have to be resting no no no it's not resting you're you're focusing the energy of the rest of the people in your ensemble so that's what i'm going to say to them when i talk to them eventually this is very helpful and you have me trying to think of ways i could um adapt this exercise with the exercise ball for string players there must be something I can yeah I'm sure you can think it's really just that's just a random thing to do like it's all about figuring out ways of knocking yourself out

of your comfort zone and thinking of ways to because sometimes we get stuck in a rut and whatever we're practicing and sometimes you need to do something crazy to get out of it right so So I'm sure whoever's listening and their wind players, their teachers have told them that they need to play with more support. So try something crazy to make yourself play with more support. Try something crazy and then let us know, both Toyin and I. Yes, please. Yeah, let us know. I sent a call to my listeners and my followers and I got some really great questions that I would like to ask you.

Yes, absolutely. One that I love because I think it's very funny is when you're listening to a group, what's your absolute turnoff? Absolute turnoff. I think it's that support thing I was talking about. Like I'm going to tell the semifinalists. Every now and then there's a group that isn't either not supportive of each other or they're sitting in the audience and not being supportive of the people they're listening to. And when you come to a competition, you're coming to learn and you're coming to be a part of this great vibe that the people who are running this are working extremely hard to build. You know, so you can take it and you can run with it and it can bring your elevator playing to a whole nother level.

So I think that's what I would say is the number one thing I would that turns me off. Yeah, I love that answer. And someone wants to know, at what point in your career did you feel qualified to be a judge? I think anybody can be a judge anytime. That's a good question. It is a strange question, but anybody can be a judge at any time. I have a nine-year-old girl, and she certainly has her opinions about stuff. I will tell you right now.

Now, the thing that makes you a better judge than others, we're always being opinionated about things. The way that I try to teach or give a master class when I'm with Imani Wins or doing anything is I try to make sure at the end of it they feel how much energy I'm giving to them and hopefully they'll give it back to me. And that loop, that feedback loop of giving each other positive stuff can really work. I love doing that with a shy student or or a student who might be stuck in their negative headspace, because when you come and you give them positive, it's more than what you say. You know, I'm sure you felt it, too. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's more than what you say. It's when you come with love and intent and specific stuff that they can work on, then if they're amenable to it, if they're ready to hear it, then they can really open up. And that is the bee's knees for me. I love that.

It's open-mindedness, right? Yeah, yeah. Mindfulness and playing, but like power of intent, all that stuff is absolutely true. Is there any time where a player you really liked and wanted to win didn't? Yeah, once I was judging a double-reed competition and there was a fantastic player from another country who was competing and the people he was playing against were wonderful American players and he had a kind of wild, creative, incredibly musical style to what he was doing.

And I really wanted him to win, but none of the other judges voted for him. And so I let it go. I feel bad. I feel bad. I should have fought for him harder, but that's one time I can say that I thought he should have won. But really, usually, the judges, if the people who are running this competition have done their job right, then the judges are going to be the types who choose the right persons. Yes. Yeah. How can someone find a balance between their own interpretation and something that maybe the judges might be looking for? i think again the right judge is open to it's not about into like style of interpretation the

right judge is going to hear an interpretation that is done well and again done across the whole group and it's going to be there they should be accepting in that nobody well it's a little different for string players right because you guys have a much longer stronger tradition of how you play Brahms or Mendelssohn than we do with, say, the Paquito de Rivera wind quintet, you know, which was only written in 95. So I don't know. I think it's different from group to group. But I would say if a judge isn't listening to a really great interpretation and saying that that's totally valid, then they're probably not the best judges. I would love to talk about the experience of judging Fish Off because it's such a, it's a very special, I mean, it's my first time here and I can see how it's such a special event.

And we've talked about you being here as a participant and judging for so many hours, so many visits, it's a little bit like a marathon. Yeah, that's why I'm drinking coffee right now. how what do you take away from this experience of being a judge here um well fish off is a little different from some of the other competitions in that it tries to be the people's competition a lot of competitions are looking for a certain type of elitism that actually is fine and valid too like i'm glad there's a myriad of different types of competitions out there um but this competition is looking to get as many people through the door as possible and i respect that i respect that because they're going to have the opportunity

to talk to we us judges they're going to have the opportunity to hear uh groups that might be much better than them right now but they hear it they take what hopefully they take what they can from the experience they go back they practice their butts off for a year and then they come back next year and they're that much better so um i think that's that's a good takeaway from all this is that you come and uh being a part of fish off in particular you know you're a part of something that's larger than yourself and larger than most other competitions like a bigger concept of inclusivity that i think is amazing oh can i say something else oh which is very interesting there's been a lot I'm watching the string players go by right now and I've seen a lot more women in

the string division than I have in the wind division and that makes me kind of sad it makes me kind of sad I know that a lot of there's a lot of sax quartets who came this year and so most saxophone players are men so there you have it but I feel like coaches and and people who who coach women they need to know that fish off is open to them too and and they need to bring their women here to show that we've got the power and the strength to take on the big stuff too yes there was one trombone player yes we need some more trumpet female player that's right and i mean i've heard some killer women's young women's sax players i've heard them they sound incredible so I know they're out there but yeah and then there was no wind quintet for me to judge this year and

I feel really bad about that because that's my expertise but I mean it's also great for people like you guys are different you string players it's kind of the same you can tell a violist what to do a cellist can tell a violist what to do really easily but a flutist is a little surprised when a bassoonist has something good to tell them so I think I think it's uh really great I can I can talk to saxophonists pretty clearly. And I can tell them things that probably a saxophone teacher or coach wouldn't know to tell them. So I'm excited about that, too. Toyin, I know you had a really long day, so I appreciate you talking with me. If I could ask you one more question, because you were talking earlier about how coming here and getting the

judges from the comments from the judges really helped your group hone in on your ensemble playing and your skills would you please share with us some of those rehearsal techniques that you guys use to really bring your ensemble playing to a higher level okay one of the things we worked on really hard was communication and now don't let me forget there's communication when you're playing and then there's talking to the audience in between pieces so I'll talk about communication with your while you're playing first um we would i i was lucky enough to go to some really great schools and while i was there oberlin and manhattan school they were both wonderful schools and while i was there i had the pleasure of working with some theater people and they have

theater exercises on how to you know get into character or to like build this bravery i'm talking about so when i started with imani wins i brought some of those theater exercises to the ensemble and also at oberlin there's a really great education program and of course when you're working with kids you're working on getting them engaged all the time so we brought some of the education stuff to to the quintet and those things we still practice today so that's one thing and then we do a lot of chords like still instead of playing an a and tuning in that way we play chords and um we have a little chord exercise that we do so that's that's how we that's how we tune these days so back to communicating with an audience the way we built that up and

that's a very very large part of what imani wins does now you play concerts but we really want to communicate with the audience verbally so in addition to the program notes they're reading they get the chance to hear our opinion of the music there's the objective or the historical and then there's the subjective how we found the music how we felt when we first met the composer you know that kind of stuff so we when we first started we played a lot of children's concerts and when you do children's concerts you usually introduce your instruments so that's and you introduce the pieces in a way you have to be so on with little kids I'm sure you've experienced they're the toughest audience they are absolutely the toughest audience so that's how we learn to

talk to adult audiences we we talk to the kids and saw what worked and what didn't and learn to be concise and uh positive with our comments you know you got to keep them quiet and how do you do that in a positive way all this stuff can be applied to playing at carnegie for and playing for the most elite of audiences so we learned it through that and through literally practicing speaking to an audience, like going over our, going over our speaking in rehearsal before the concert. So we did all that right at the beginning. That's very helpful. Toyin, thank you so much for this gift of your time. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. My pleasure. So don't forget to try something crazy and let Toyin and I know about it. I didn't have a chance to sit down on site

with the next two guests, but they were gracious enough to let me harass them at home. I started with a conversation with cellist Jeffrey Ziegler. Jeffrey was the cellist of the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet for eight seasons, and since moving on from Kronos, he's enjoyed a multifaceted career and is acclaimed as one of the most versatile cellists of our time. Jeffrey is on the cello faculty at Manus College's New School for Music, and here's our discussion. Jeffrey Ziegler, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. Jeffrey, you were just the judge at the Fischhoff Competition for the Junior Division of the Strings and Piano.

And I know that you have a very significant chamber music background. Actually, you were a member of the Corigliano Quartet when you guys won the 1999 Grand Prize, if I'm correct? Yes, that is correct. So how does it feel to be back at Fischhoff as a judge this time? Well, it was actually, it was a really wonderful experience to be back in South Bend and to be back in the fold of Fischhoff. In many ways, it felt like coming full circle. But I will have to say that, you know, it was so long ago that we were in the competition, that the competition was actually held in a different facility.

It was at IU South Bend. Uh, so, um, all of the, uh, uh, excitement and fear and everything I, I experienced in a, in a different part of town. Uh, that being said, um, during my time with the Kronos Quartet, we actually came to the DeBartolo Center a few times to perform. And so, uh, being in that hall, again, it brought back a lot of different memories. Mm hmm. And I've got so many requests from my listeners to ask questions to the judges. One of them being, what do you look for in the chamber music group? What are some of the qualities that you're looking for when you're listening or watching to a group? Well, there's a range of things that I listen for. Of course, musicianship, intonation, ensemble, all of those typical things. I think that in particular for the senior division, one factor that was very important for me was I would ask myself, okay, is this group ready to walk out on the stage of Carnegie Hall or something tomorrow? And can they actually give that level of performance? And I think for both the junior and the senior, I would say that, you know, probably one of the most important factors for me was if the group had some type of identity or a voice, some kind of quality that made them unique. that's a great answer it's like this um right combination of technical skills and musicianship

and artistry absolutely i mean i think that um of course technical skills it's something that we all struggle with every day as musicians and we need to uh get our technique to the highest level of proficiency. Absolutely. Uh, but then for what purpose, right? So the purpose has to be not just to play, uh, Mendelssohn musically, but to play it the way that you, uh, uh, feel interpretively. And so, um, you know, how well that kind of, that comes across, I think is a, you know, it's very important, but it's also the thing that we, uh, have to struggle with for, entire lives. One thing I'm curious about is the difference between judging a chamber music competition versus judging a solo competition. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, that's

actually, that's a great question. Something that actually the judges, when we would kind of chat uh through the course of the the weekend about different ideas uh we were sort of musing on that sort of dichotomy because of course you know the individuality of a solo competition is very clear but it's a lot less clear in the chamber music setting um is it enough that you know if there's one or two people in a particular group who are just off the charts amazing um does that actually carry the entire group? Um, or like what happens if, uh, there are no kind of standout talents in a particular group? Uh, there was, there were a few groups that I remember writing down on my notes that there, uh, they were, uh, the sum was greater than the parts that even though I didn't

actually feel that each of them were like, you know, the, the, the best virtuoso since sliced bred. But they came together in a very compelling way. And I think that's very powerful. So I think that, you know, you can't be a great ensemble unless individually, you know, certain things are working well. So I would just say that right off the bat, that it's not that the individual skills don't matter um however i think that the group the groupness if that if i can use that word is far more um there's kind of more importance uh placed on that quality rather than just the individual uh skills that's the interesting thing about musical competition is you can grade but It's such a subjective thing that it really comes to things that are beyond words and beyond gradient and grading.

It's completely, completely subjective. Actually, I don't think it's happened to the junior division, but when I was speaking to the seniors, senior judges, I can't remember which round it was, but each of them had voted on a different group for first on that particular round. And so it's just amazing how individually we all look for, we all prioritize different things. Yes. And like Tom Rosenberg says so well, sometimes you just need to get a little lucky. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. But, you know, I have to say, for me, philosophically, I do believe in luck. I do believe luck exists. However, I think probably about 85% of the time, just throw a number out there, what we perceive as luck is not luck.

I think that when one is lucky, that's often a result of the talent and hard work that put them in the right spot, right place at the right time. And what are some things that groups could do in their preparation to maybe generate some of that luck? Yeah, I think that because, you know, you don't know what the judges thinking, judges are thinking, you don't know what their preferences are, you know, to be honest, the judges don't even know, you know, I, if you asked me before walking into the room, what I was looking for, I would make something up, but I don't know, you know. So I think that for groups going into any competition is just to, you know, don't be too concerned with what the judges might be thinking. Just stick to your game, you know, prepare at the highest level, just be concert ready, you know, so that, you know, I like to joke around in groups that I play with. You don't know a piece when you can play it perfectly. You know a piece when you can fall apart and get back on, you know, and like really know your parts, your colleagues' part,

backwards and forwards, and so that it becomes just as natural as walking, you know, that you're really, you can be spontaneous in the moment because you trust each other so well, you know. And then I think that, you know, if you go into a competition and you, um, bring your best game, you know, it's hard to know if on that particular day, uh, if it's things are going to go your way, but I, I do believe in the long run, uh, if you do several competitions or if you just kind of look at the span of your entire career, more often than not, you will come out with a positive result. A question that my listeners have that I think is,

as kind of funny is they want to know what your absolute turnoff is when you're listening to a group um hmm well i will say that uh the groups that i heard last weekend were i mean the level was so high and if i do have an absolute turnoff uh nobody did it so i was very uh i was very uh pleased with, with everything that I heard. Uh, I will say though, um, especially in a competition situation, there were certain moments that, um, you did suspect that maybe groups did certain things because they're maybe their coaches had recommended that they do it just to add flair or somehow exaggerate in a certain way for the judges. And I think that, you know, of course, whenever you walk out on stage,

our job is not only to play the music well. I mean, there is some level of theatrical element, you know, in communicating the message to the listener. But when it is overly affected, that tends to be a little like, you know, you don't have to do so much. on site i had so many conversations with groups about repertoire choice not only in terms of choosing the repertoire that they would bring to the competition but also what they chose for the second and third rounds when they were able to choose their own repertoire

my listeners were also wondering about that when if you have two equally strong groups when this repertoire becomes a determining factor so i want to touch on that subject a little bit do you feel like repertoire choice can make or break um a group if you have two groups in front of you with similar levels of playing yes actually i do think it's a determining factor but not in the way that the participants were probably wondering i don't think that um i mean unless it's really difficult to judge like oh this group played a really hard piece and this one played a super easy piece. Honestly, I don't think it's fair to the group who played the super easy piece because they're not putting themselves in a situation to shine, you know. So that's a pretty

extreme situation, I think. But in my opinion, it does play a major factor because going back to your initial question about you know a group's voice or identity i think that you have to um you know in a competition the same as life know yourself know um what kind of repertoire uh brings out the best in your playing and uh what your strengths are what your weaknesses are of course we're always trying to strengthen our weaknesses but if you're just you know your group just handles the virtuosic uh repertoire extremely well then i think that you know it it only helps you to choose that kind of repertoire just to make sure that you're putting your best foot forward or if your group is just you know so soulful and and profound then yeah absolutely play the slow

movement of of that beethoven quartet just so that you can really uh share that side of your musicianship with the listener. I think that it becomes a determining factor when groups maybe choose repertoire that doesn't, you know, maximize their artistry on stage. And so that's what I would say. I mean, if you have an affinity for playing Shostakovich, play Shostakovich, like you know show your best foot you mentioned preparing at the highest level as someone who's been playing chamber music for so many years um what are some rehearsal techniques that that you like and that maybe the listeners could try today or maybe in their future preparations for competitions um well i think that for this type of competition uh especially for the string quartets

although you know piano trios are not immune to this you know paying attention to uh intonation uh quality of sound because um it's first of all if you if you work on intonation and sound and uh group sound that it'll just raise the level of the group you know tremendously um but also I think that in learning to listen, uh, internally in this way, um, is actually the most direct path to a group, um, discovering their group sound and therefore their identity as an ensemble. So, uh, there's almost no end, uh, to how much one can work in this way. And, uh, um, and it can be very tedious but I think that it's it's kind of like you know it's a great way for a group to begin the day because it opens up your listening it makes you feel connected with the people

in your who are sitting next to you and so I highly recommend more and more intonation work and do you do this with maybe playing slow passages or scales or chord work yeah i do but i i also think that uh there's a lot that can be learned uh when you do this in fast passages actually you know one of the things that i've always marveled at in the world of intonation is that because when i was a student i always believed the intonation was like truth like somehow if you get it perfect then you are you know golden but um i've learned over the years that intonation is actually i mean that is true however intonation is largely connected to perception and so there's um depending on the balance depending on the

the color, you know, of the voices, between the voices, registers, or speed. I mean, this is the thing that I think is fascinating. If you were to take a very fast passage and tune it, you would adjust the intonation a certain way, which probably in the long run would not be the best idea because when you play it fast you will hear it differently you know you'll want to hear the leading tones higher you'll want to hear the major thirds higher uh even though in slow work um you need to play like lower thirds in order to make the uh the interval ring um so then you know this am i actually contradicting myself no absolutely not because i think that in learning in the work that you do in learning how to listen in this way, in the given moment when you're in the heat

of battle playing with each other, it will force you to listen at a level that will actually make the group sound in tune. And I always tell my students that if you're listening on that level, nobody in the audience is listening in this way. So even though you're listening at this very high level and you hear all the flaws and you hear so much is out of tune, the audience won't hear it that way. They'll just actually hear how good the intonation is because you're listening more carefully than the audience. One more thing I love is that the groups that don't advance to the semifinals in the junior division do get to play for you guys in a masterclass setting, which I had a chance to watch for a little bit. And I wanted your take on that. Well,

I thought it was really wonderful to be able to see the groups in a different setting, to hear them and to meet with them. It was, of course, there was a little bit of disappointment because they had just received the news that they weren't moving on to the next round. But you know, it did give, by having the opportunity to listen to them in a more relaxed setting, it actually gave me the opportunity to kind of address some of the things that I heard the day before, which, you know, For example, I found that the groups, more often than not, played better that day rather than the day before. And I think that a lot of that is probably attributed to the fact that they weren't in this high-pressured competition setting and they were very nervous. And so it was actually

really nice to be able to address that with them to kind of reinforce the fact that actually the feeling that they had the next day when they weren't as stressed out and they were more in their comfort zone, that's actually the feeling that the judges would like to hear in a competition setting. Of course, it's easier said than done, but it was really a pleasure to be able to work with them on that. It was also very nice to meet them because, of course, the judging is completely impartial. We don't know who's in the groups. We don't know what the groups are you know three people walk out on stage and we're like oh it's a piano trio you know so we have no idea who they are or their names they're just a number in our in our papers so

it was really nice to be able to you know find out more like who they are where they're from and what they want to do it's such a great point what you say about feeling at the competition like you would be performing in the concert setting? I've heard it from so many groups. I've had the chance to talk to groups that won the competition previously. And I spoke with Will Pyle from the Aruna Quartet. And one thing that comes back from groups that have experience with competition is how much they really try to have fun on stage during the competition. Yeah, it's so valuable to understand that because you know it's not an olympic event you know we're not trying to see who can kick the ball the furthest wait that's not an olympic event but you know what i mean

throw the javelin the furthest um you know we're more interested in in uh how a group makes music how they interact with each other uh their level of artistry and you know if they're concert level like are they actually a group that has the identity to make an impact in the world and that's a different mindset than who can run the fastest who can play the fastest or you know something like that yeah how they make us feel yeah jeffrey ziegler thank you so much for your time and for this awesome insight thank you very much for having me lastly i spoke with violinist Rebecca Fisher. Rebecca was the first violinist of the Chiara Quartet for 18 years until the group's final season in 2018, and she is praised for her beautiful tone and nuanced phrasing. She's

currently teaching violin and chamber music at the Manus School of Music and at the Greenwood Music Camp, and she writes about artistry and creativity for publications such as Strings Magazine and the Char Music Blog. Rebecca Fisher, thank you so much for sitting with me today. Absolutely. It's my pleasure to be here. Rebecca, you have a history with the Fish Off competition because your group, the Chiara String Quartet, won the 2002 Senior Division Gold Medal. Yes. Yes. It was a wonderful experience. And how does it feel to be back as a judge at the competition? Well, I mean, you know, the Fischhoff competition for us was overwhelmingly positive.

And so coming back to it feels, you know, like coming home in a sense. We actually competed in the competition twice. The first time was in 2001 when we came. It was our first year playing together as a string quartet. And we were still figuring out our sounds, our sense of intonation as a group. and although we played you know somewhat well i don't think it was necessarily our best playing so we made it through uh the first round and not to the finals and we had that experience which was actually extremely helpful of speaking to the judges after after our competition experience and

that really helped to focus us to come back the following year and we knew a little bit more what to expect that second time around. But both of the experiences at the competition were quite positive and wonderful learning experiences for us. That's something I've heard from other groups that were participating this year, and then they were returning from previous experiences, is how much they had retained from their experience and were bringing back with them this time around. Yeah, I think that getting a sense of what to expect from a competition, especially, you know, this kind of a competition is a chamber music competition. A lot of particularly students are more used to a solo competitive environment. And this has a more collaborative aspect, which changes the nature of the competition in general. and speaking of that one of the question i get from my listeners is um they wonder what judges

look for in chamber music group when you guys sit down to listen to some groups what are some qualities that you guys are trying to find in the groups that are in front of you absolutely i mean i think you know this collaborative aspects that i mentioned before um you know we're obviously interested as judges in hearing a high quality of playing you know technically musically just you know if the if the instrumentalists by themselves can play their instruments well but we're really looking for a collaborative spirit and a real feeling of team you know up on stage and we all know because all the judges are chamber musicians as well what it feels like to go on stage with people you respect and with whom you've had some really important conversations about the

music. And you've come to these places of agreement and excitement with the music that you're playing. And we can really feel that from the audience. And so we're looking for a real team effort on stage, not just excellence in performance on your individual instruments. Another question some listeners had was that aside from the playing aspect, What are some things that you might look for visually in the participants? Well, I mean, it's hard to say that, you know, if a group stares each other down, that that's going to give them higher marks necessarily. But we do, you know, we do like to see, you know, some healthy visual communication between members of the group. there's an ease on stage that we can perceive. If people, you know, feel they seem comfortable

on stage with each other in terms of their emotions, in terms of their, you know, their energy on stage, let's say that two members, if two members are really leading the group, and the other two are just sitting back, that doesn't seem like, you know, so much equal participation from each member of the group so we're looking for kind of equal buy-in um visually and physically from from everyone it doesn't mean that that everyone has to be jumping on stage but that that that the members are really equally involved um yes plus if it looks too staged and we can also feel that and it's exactly exactly yeah it's a there's a fine line right because we want to, we want groups, um, to be giving very much, like I said, together energetically,

but also I think a turnoff for judges, um, can be when groups come, come on stage and they're moving so much physically, or they're trying so hard, uh, to, you know, impress people with their, um, physicality that can also be difficult to watch. Um, but again, it's not so much about watching it's about the music that that the um musicians are making yes absolutely one question i was really curious to ask you specifically is about memorization because i know that the chiara string quartet performed a lot by memory and you guys performed a lot of very difficult music by memory and yes it's i i mean i did not watch all of their groups this year, but to my knowledge, the string and piano categories did not perform by memory, but I saw

several groups in the winds and brass, especially saxophone quartets performing by memory. And I was absolutely fascinated by this fact. And I wanted to hear about memorization from you. I'm curious about how, you know, if you could speak to some sort of process to, first of all, memorize individual parts, our individual parts, but as well, like how do you go about to memorize as a group? Sure. I mean, you know, we, we did get to, uh, as strings and piano, we did get to hear one group, uh, who memorized one of their pieces and it was a stunning performance of, uh, um, Hinistera movement of the Hinistera quartet in the junior division. Um, but yes, overwhelmingly the memorized performances this year were, were done by, uh, the, you know, in the, in the wins

category. And the thing is, you know, memorizing music as a group is a really special and different kind of process than memorizing on one's own. I think that, you know, with my group, we spent quite a bit of time memorizing things on our own. So we'd spend a lot of time with our own parts and with a score, because that was really essential. Because, you know, we could play our parts beautifully from memory by ourselves, but then we sit down and go, wait, you have that there? I can't take time when I want you know that kind of thing so just getting a sense of each other's parts before we even come into rehearsal we would have we would give each other assignments for rehearsals so we'd say we're going to memorize let's say this half page tomorrow in rehearsal

so that we would have a kind of schedule so that we would know exactly what to prepare so that we would be prepared for each rehearsal and this was very important obviously you know there's a certain amount of like rote memorization where you just do a lot of repetitive work where you just get a sense of the sound of the music of the way that it feels of just getting comfortable with how things are and just repeating them but then there's a lot of um structural work that we did so we would put for example let's say we have a three minute piece that is in like aba form right or like a rondo form a b a c a d a form we would compare you know all of those a sections to one another or we would get a sense of how these sections are similar or different so that we could

catch all of these tiny differences and maybe label them or categorize them or put colors to them or come up with some fun ways to sort of learn about those differences in the music and And then, of course, so that we can just play them alongside each other and get to know the differences, because in a lot of ways, it's it's the small differences in music that make things interesting, obviously, to the listeners and to us as players. But it also helps us to hold on to things when we're in a performance so that we don't go sort of down the there. There could be five potential ways we could go with a certain chord and we end up going track C as opposed to track B and getting a sense of what that is. We did a lot of score study as a group and a lot of sort of inventive ways of memorizing. We did a lot of singing together, even some motion as a group to get things sort of in our bodies as a group. because the thing is, memorization is not just knowing intellectually what the notes and rhythms

are. It's also getting sort of unique and very human and emotional experiences built up with a piece of music so that you can feel it on an emotional level each time you play it. You say you guys did a lot of score study as a group. What do you mean by that? What does that look like? Well, I mean, let's say that we're in rehearsal and we have our music to the side and we might have our scores on the floor. We might spend some time, you know, we'd say, okay, let's take a little break. We've already repeated this eight times and it seems like we're having some similar memory lapses in these 20 measures. Let's all look at the score for a second and talk about it for 10 minutes let's see what we notice what are some things that are unusual

about this chord or that chord or the dynamics that the composer made in this particular area and this section looks a little similar to the section 40 measures later what are some differences in there and just sort of doing basic like detective sleuthing work as musicians trying to get a sense of what the composer what he or she meant in this area or why he or she would have used a pianissimo in this section and a mezzo piano in another and how this could evoke different emotional characters and if we sort of make sense of the music kind of from the inside out it's almost a process of like recomposition in a sense like we figure out our own way of interpreting the music then then only then can we memorize it if that makes sense well i can imagine

what that kind of work does to a performance and the way we perform a work but I'd love to hear what you feel it brings to a performance to know a work to such depth sure yeah I mean I think I think that well certainly the reason that my quartet ended up doing this memory work was because when we were listening to a recording of pieces that we made that we felt really proud of initially we felt like there was something missing like there was an element of performance that we weren't quite getting that didn't feel completely our own um and we felt like uh if we memorized it we would be able to be a little bit more spontaneous you know because all of the work that we had done with the score study and with knowing each other's parts was sort of all this

intellectual intellectualizing the music that if we could just sort of get all that work done then we could focus more on the emotional character and being able to change suddenly if our cellist wanted to take a lot of time at the top of you know an emotional climax moment we would be able to go with him you know that kind of thing so I feel like it made our performances more spontaneous and more fresh in the moment because we had sort of taken care of a lot of that analytical work that sometimes looking at the music forces us to get into that side of our brain, you know, whether we like it or not, this sort of eliminated that aspect. So it's almost like we eliminated one of the senses. And so that gave more attention to the other senses.

You know, so I think for us, it was a, it was a little bit more special and a little more fresh. each time we we played we had an audience member once say to us that um when they heard some performances of ours from memory although sometimes we called it by heart because it really felt like that um that yeah it was like here it is all of us very vulnerable on stage that they said it was like a 3d listening experience wow wow because it was much more um active um and engaging and suddenly the audience notices more because they don't have the music in the way they're just they're more able to you know see us as people get a sense of what we're thinking and feeling it makes us more vulnerable on stage but that's sort of a risk that we have to take in order for

more um musical connection if that makes sense yes absolutely that's a topic that's very fascinating for me because that's kind of a key element in the work that I've done in my research during my doctorate and the system I use with my students I you know using memorization as really a way to further your understanding and your mastery of of works and as we were just talking briefly before you I know that you write and that your writings are published in publications such as string magazine and maybe the char blog so and you were mentioning that you are currently writing a book so that's something that i know i will be on the lookout for and i hope the list please let me know when it comes out and i'll share it with the listeners absolutely yes thank

you so much just one more question before i let you go what are some tips that you could give to young musicians that are thinking of preparing for a competition like fish off what do you recommend that they do? Sure. Well, I think that, you know, in preparing for any kind of competition, it's really important to get mentally ready for what it's going to feel like in the weeks prior to the competition. And then also getting a sense of what you want, the goals you want from this experience. You know, I think that people who do the best in competitions have a really good sense of their trajectory throughout like, you know, obviously the months leading up to the competition but very specifically the two and three weeks beforehand you know performances

that their mock performances they do for their friends and family performances that are going to get them a little bit nervous so they know what it feels like to go out on stage and have to just perform their best um and you know getting enough sleep things like that but also very very much articulating as i said um just a few moments ago the goals you know so for example you know if the only goal is winning. That's a justifying goal, but I think more specifically, it'd be helpful to know what kind of music making you want to do on stage together, and what each person feels would be a really satisfying experience, because sometimes winning a competition is not entirely up to you. It has to do with the makeup of the jury and the other performers, and that

you don't have control over, but you do have control over, you know, the vibrancy that you want to have on stage and how you want to feel like a team on stage together and how you, you know, encourage each other throughout the process. So I think making very tangible goals is really important. Something I talk to all of my students who are preparing for competitions and how to get into a mindset also that is joyful um because we we can feel you know from the from the jury seat we can feel when people are just so excited to come on stage and perform and you know there are nerves always associated with competitive environments and with performance but i think it is possible to be ready such that even if there are nerves involved um you know competitors can

have experience turning these nerves into you know excitement and joy and kind of saying you know maybe expecting those nerves and saying all right this is going to happen but i've already had a performance the week beforehand and i was able to transform those nerves into positive excitement maybe my vibrato was a little faster than normal but you know what that's something that enhances the performance and kind of turning things uh that energy to uh your advantage and that just takes experience and goal making and expectations. Rebecca Fisher, thank you so much for this gift of your time and all of this wonderful wisdom. Oh, absolutely. It's wonderful to speak with you. And it is such an honor to be judging the fish off competition and to hear all of the really,

really top notch and extraordinary and very giving music making that that all the participants have been doing at Fish Off. And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed those conversations with Mark Reese, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, Jeffrey Ziegler, and Rebecca Fisher. Tomorrow, I speak with Will Pyle, saxophone player with the grand prize winner of the 46th edition of the Fish Off competition, the Aruna Saxophone Quartet. He tells us all about how they prepared for Fish Off and what it's been like for them. That's an episode you don't want to miss. As always, I'd love it if you got in touch with me to share your thoughts about fish off or about competitions in general. And please share this episode with whomever you think might benefit from or find value in it. You can

find me at mindoverfinger.com and on both Facebook and Instagram by searching for Mind Over Finger. Thank you.