Oh my goodness! - I feel like you're always there.
- I'm sorry!
- Wow... (both) Whoa...!! Hey, how's it going? Welcome back to another episode of TwoSet Violin. Today, we have a very special and different episode. Many of you probably have seen these videos where they get a group of people from a certain field, or expertise, and they will see if they all felt the same way on certain topics. And so what we decided to do is to do a classical music version of that. We invited four of our good friends that are all professional musicians, and we wanted to get together to find out, do we all think the same way, - regarding certain topics?
- Oooh... Controversy! My name is Emma Di Marco, I am a saxophonist and a woodwind specialist. I play classical saxophone, not jazz, and I also do a lot of contemporary music, so... Yeah, I do some really, really weird noises on the saxophone. Hey, my name is Tijana Kozarcic. I'm a professional harpist. I'm currently a freelancer, a teacher, and a harp ensemble leader for the Harp Society of Queensland. Hey guys, I'm Alex Raineri. I'm a freelance classical piano player. I am the artistic director of the Brisbane Music Festival. I'm particularly passionate about working with composers and collaborating on new works. Hi guys, my name's Phoebe Russell. I'm a professional double bass player. I play in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. I enjoy teaching, and I'm particularly passionate about playing as a soloist, and... playing repertoire that's not usually played on double bass. Hi, my name is Eddy. I'm a violinist. I've been playing for 20 years. Used to play in an orchestra, and now I just... make videos. Hi, my name is Brett. I play violin. And I used to... play professionally. I don't know what happened. Three, two, one. Oh, wait a second, I see! We all did the same! Oh wait, we do have one, we have one. No, you can't change! - I did not expect that.
- Wow! I'm a sucker for Taylor Swift, okay? - Yeah!
- I like it! It's catchy! - Dude, that was...
- ♪ Shake it off ♪ That was so... I was expecting at least one person to be like, "Nah." - "It's shallow."
- Yeah. I think we're just really cool, down-to-earth... - open-minded people, you know?
- Yeah. Hey, maybe people don't... have this like, idea of classical music. And actually reality is, most of us just enjoy music in general. Anything. Classical music is just one form of it. - That is very true.
- Yes, we really do. Eddy: Yeah. - I listen to pop music.
- Just save my one line. Saving myself. Brett, the question is, what pop music do you listen to? BTS. That's the safest answer. Three, two, one. - Oooh...
- I love it. Here we go. I think it's... good to an extent. For people like me, it makes me practice. What if you get motivated to practice, and then you don't come first place? And now you don't get motivated in the future? But I don't think that's the actual point of competitions. In music, you're not first because you beat everyone else. You're first because you did it really, really, really well. Like, you're competing against this absolute. But do you think that it is absolute, though? Because I feel like in reality, most music competitions, it's quite biased. I see young kids that, you know some of them, it is a good thing. You know, they get that kind of, "I want to practice harder because I want to get first." But for a lot of them, they work their little butts off, and then they go to the competition and they feel like they're not enough because they didn't place. And I don't know if that's the right message to send to younger musicians. Well, it's playing the game, and I think when you enter a competition, you are entering a game. It's, you know, the Olympics for... instrumental playing. And I think the psychological impacts of that aspect of being competitive can be deeply problematic. But, as we've all been saying, it can have positive impacts if you're really clear about... why you're there. Three, two, one. - Ooh!
- Whoa! - I see a...
- I'm seeing a... - I'm seeing a pattern here!
- Yeah! I'm seeing a... An Asian... - Asian...
- Asian situation right now. Definitely my immediate family were on board, but my big extended Italian family, who are all lawyers, and like, high-in-power business people, still are like, "Are you doing the music?" I'm just neutral, because... I don't actually know what they think. - Oh...!
- In case your mom is like, watching.
- Yeah, I feel like it's... Yeah, they're watching! I know in the beginning, my mom wanted me to become a doctor. But I think, be like, continuing practicing. It's like this conflict, she wants to let the kid do what they want. Chase their dreams, so to speak, hoping they'll be a doctor. But my brother has filled that void. Yeah, but see, you have a younger brother - to fill in the void.
- Yeah. My older sister already became a musician. I was meant to be the backup plan, and then I was like, "I want to be a musician too." My dad was actually very supportive, um... But my mom initially was very concerned. She came from a background where economic reality was a genuine concern, and she wanted the best for me, I guess. - Alex is off the chart!
- Yeah... He's way off the chart! My family, they're awesome. I'm really, really lucky to have, um... I mean, not easy, but very smooth journey with... my music. It probably is quite tough from a parent's perspective, if they're not musicians, to even have a concept of what that means. It's annoying 'cause I'm in the front, - I can't see what people are doing.
- Yeah. - We're just judging you.
- Yeah. For professionals? People that, I guess, see themselves as musicians. Divided answer. Yeah! I read this thing once and it was like, "Why are you paying, like, a hundred dollars an hour for a string quartet at a wedding?" Or whatever the rate was, it's like, "Why are you paying that big amount?" And it's like, "Because you're not paying for that hour at a wedding, you're paying for the ten years of study that they did." "And the rehearsals that they did leading up to that, and everything else." We spend years and years training. I think most of us probably started as young kids. Most of us probably practiced several hours a day, all the way through high school. We can't expect to be taken seriously, and we can't expect for people to understand why music is so important and share our music with everyone, if we don't value ourselves enough to ask for proper payment. - Whoa. I think I'm just gonna go back here.
- No no no... - Brett, I want to hear your thoughts.
- I was sold. The reason why I was like, very hesitant on moving right... Because I had, like you said, early stages, so I was thinking of most situations. When they're young, they can just do it, just for fun. And just start getting people to know them, within the community. But also, I agree with all those points. That's why I wanted to move there. I guess playing for free as, you know, university students, it kind of comes more to networking. You will do one or two free things while you're a student. It's kinda like a gateway. Like, now I pretty much refuse all... unpaid gigs. Unless it's really something that I know that I wanna do. As musicians, we need to know when to say no, and also learn when the odd situations are that the exposure is worth it. I feel like it's a tool, - and it's up to us to make good choices.
- Yeah. During our first tour... - OHH!!
- There was an agent that approached us. And he tried to sell us on this whole idea that he would manage the tour, but we would get like, basically nothing from it. "You guys are artists anyway, you do it for the art. If you wanted money, you wouldn't be doing music anyway, right?" Yeah, that... - That was... Yeah.
- I'm so sick of that, it's very pathetic. I'm like, "Look, I wanna eat, too." - Yeah!
- Like, sorry. Agree or disagree. Three, two, one. Whoa! Alright, I wanna hear from Alex. - Yeah, let's...
- How do you do it?! Teach me! I'm in the middle. So I do get nervous sometimes, but it's very based on context for me. Like, if I'm on my own onstage, you're the one person in control of the entire product. I get, I definitely get nervous sometimes, but I feel like I've been playing piano a long time, I think I can do it, like... - Yeah.
- It's fine. I'm a bass player, so when a solo happens, it's very rare. - And there's often like,
- Yeah. a very long build-up for a two-bar solo or something, so maybe. As a kid, I was fine. And then it started growing, growing, and then I went to university, and in the final year of my bachelor degree, it just like, hit. And I had this concerto opportunity with the Conservatorium Wind Orchestra, and thankfully I was wearing a long dress, because I walked out onstage, and my knees were like, going like this. Like, not even kidding. And it just hit me. When you're getting shaky bow, and your legato's like, becoming ricochet... It's no longer just like, "I'm nervous," it's like, - "Oh crap everyone knows I'm nervous."
- Yeah. "How embarrassing." - Yeah.
- Mm.
- And that always got to me psychologically. It got really bad in uni, actually. Every music student played the same repertoire. I just remember I was like, shaking throughout the entire... Second movement, it was like, - slow.
- I was playing for you! I remember that. That's what I mean! Point... point proved. I feel like there's a trigger. Like for me, that area backstage, where you're just looking through the window, and you can see the piece before happening, and you're about to play a concerto. Even though I love playing... - Yeah.
- I'm like, sitting there like, so nervous. Hopefully people watching this, they should feel better about [it], knowing that everyone does get nervous. - Except for Alex.
- Yeah. - Except for Alex!
- Yeah!
- I'm in the middle! Three, two, one. For me it's obvious. I wouldn't have met Brett if it wasn't through... - Yeah.
- music, and math tutoring.
- Aww...!! - Well, there's math tutoring as well.
- We wouldn't be where we are. Maths tutoring brought us together as well! There are some people in my life that I'm close with because of music, but I don't think it was necessarily music - that made it the thing that I bonded with them.
- Yeah. I was undecided about music for a long time, so... I went to like a natural sciences grammar school, so I have a lot of friends from there. Like, some best friends. And I never found that it was like... a divide between us. Like, with the grammar school friends that, "Oh, they didn't get music" or they didn't... It's just something you work hard on. All right. We can all love each other. Three, two, one. Are you serious?! I need some... need some support here. Help. Help! Yeah, I lived in Germany for six years. And there, there's so much money being given to the arts. They even have an arts tax. They have some of the highest-caliber performance art in the world. In every way. I thought it worked really well, so. As a musician, I want to go - to that side so bad.
- Yeah. My answer on neutral is not so much I don't agree, I think it's more like... I don't feel like I'm in the position to understand how the economy works and how a nation should best allocate its resources. But, I agree as a musician and for the sake of the art, it makes absolute sense - to be on this side.
- Yeah. I'm only here 'cause it's... I've been in it, - and what it's done for me.
- Yeah. I had an opportunity. I think it could help others. I'm not sure that it would be the miraculous... change that, I guess a lot of musicians that I hear say, "We need more money," are expecting would happen. For me, the issue actually relates to our previous conversation about competitions in Australia, finding particularly project-based funding is a competition. Which is a bit of a sad way to look at it, but like we all have so much to share, and it's... you know, the shame is that there's not an environment economically where we can all be supported to do everything that we want to do in the scale that we want to do it. I keep going back to my home country, so we have a free music school for kids. I went, as I said, to a music high school, which is again, completely free. And here it's kind of, left more to the parents, even if they recognize the importance of it, what if they're not in a position to pay it? Well, the arts should be... - supported by the government.
- Yeah. And like, enable someone, you know, you can choose whether you want to, or don't want to play an instrument. But have that choice. Beethoven, Mozart. Three, two, one. I'll just say it straight up, I'm neutral only 'cause I have no opinion on it. Yeah, I don't know enough about... contemporary. So I'm very curious to hear... what you guys have to say about this. For me, it's twofold. The first is I'm a saxophone player, like, my instrument wasn't invented when... Bach was composing, - so there is no...
- That's true. ...Bach for saxophone, you know? Not all the music is doing amazing things, but a lot of it is. And you don't find the gems until you sift through all the, the crazy concerts and, and do the wild things and experiment. And if we don't stop experimenting, are we still artists? I play piano, so I have the opposite problem. Like, I have... all of the music. But was it for fortepiano? - Or for harpsichord?
- Shush. I love playing the canon of classical music. I think it's amazing, it has gone through, - it was talked about, a sifting process.
- Yeah. We only have good music that is old. - There was a lot more at the time.
- Yes. But other people were doing the sifting process. You will play a majority of classical contemporary music that is not... as awesome as the Beethoven symphony that you've played it next to. Alright, last question. Three, two, one, go. Oh my goodness. - I feel like you're always there.
- I'm sorry!
- Wow... (both) Whoa...!! I've gotta hear this! All of my friends have been in this community, and it actually can be a bit isolating sometimes, socially. So, when you kind of like... are engaging with people who are not musicians, it can feel like a super eyeroll to talk about what you do, when actually that should be really easy for us. Learning a craft... Not necessarily music, but dedicating so much of your life in a skill... teaches a person so much and builds character. I see people that haven't done that, when they were young, or didn't have the opportunity, these people tend to find it hard to stick through to a long project. I mean, I'm speaking very much in generalities, of course, and you don't have to get that through music, but it is... - A benefit I have...
- Yeah. ...experienced through music. - Dude, this entire video we're like...
- Yeah!
- ...of just, moving around. I don't know, man! I'm so square. I love that my whole life is music. You know? Like, I've thought about getting hobbies. But like, you know like, it's... That's my hobby. That's my entire life. That's... I'm married to a musician. I'm surrounded by musicians. I work in music. Like... I think music, in a lot of ways, creates this beautiful little bubble for us, and these beautiful opportunities and long-term friendships, and... And things, like there's so many benefits. But yeah, as you started to talk about the isolating effect, it made me think like... - Yeah. There's... Yeah! Like,
- A magnet.
- Yeah. There's friendships that, like from school, that I've haven't been able to maintain very well because our lives have drifted apart, 'cause I got into that music bubble. When does it become... kind of... - Suffocating.
- Yeah. Like, the only thing that you're doing. As I said, so I was torn between music and like, a whole bunch of other things for a long, long time. But you need to actually sit down, learn it completely by heart, and like, you know, - attempt to do it, perfectly.
- Yeah yeah yeah... Yeah. At times, I felt that music was more limiting - than enriching.
- Mmm! So I didn't actually probably... When I was younger, devote enough time to it. I'll never forget, when I was in a QYS tour, I was 15, and my homestay... person was a violinist in the orchestra. I don't know how legit the advice was, pertaining to that thing, but it always stuck to me 'cause I thought it was interesting. You know, she said... "Technically you're great, you can play the notes." "You just need to live life more." "Because you need to mature, experience life, and..." "How do you express through music, if you don't know what to express?" (both) Yeah. And I thought it was interesting, 'cause if you're only locked up in a practice room, what are you really sharing? I really struggled with the idea of having to mature as a person in order to bring interpretational dimensions to your playing. I mean... What it means, then, is that you're always at work, regardless of whether you're... playing your instrument or not, and if you're the kind of person that thrives, and always be hard-working and like, never stop. Which, I think, I... Sometimes that works for me, and other times I really have to commit to... - Yeah.
- R&R, in a way that I think a lot of people don't. - Rest and relaxation.
- Exactly! Exactly. No, I just don't know the term, I know what relaxing means! Not R&R. All right, thank you guys so much for watching. Of course, we have to thank all of the musicians here. These are friends that we met while we studied music, so it's great to have all these perspectives. Subscribe to our YouTube channel if you want more, comment below. And we'll see you guys next time. (all) Go practice!
