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One turning point we horn players have in common is we all decided at some point to play and keep playing the French horn. One horn player who put some deep thought into this topic was Philip Farkas, found in the closing pages of The Art of Musicianship. As I noted in an earlier article related to this quotation (presented in the context of a discussion of stagefright), Farkas gave a clear glimpse of his personal motivating philosophy, relating how as a young professional hornist he had often wondered why he was there. Gradually as he explains he had a change of thinking.
Formerly, I had assumed that all the events leading up to my engagement by the Chicago Symphony were completely haphazard–a bit of luck here, a chance encounter there, until I eventually ended up in the Chicago Symphony, as unpredictably as a seashell washes up on a beach. But, with my change in thinking came the realization that perhaps all these apparently haphazard events weren’t haphazard at all. Perhaps, back in high school, when I had had that fight with the gym teacher, and the supervisor had suggested that I could fill my physical education requirement by switching to the marching band, it was not just an aimless suggestion. Was it mere chance that the street-car conductor, after telling me I could no longer bring my beloved tuba on board the street-car because it blocked traffic, pointed to a French horn being carried by another bandsman that I would be allowed to bring “one of them” aboard? … The more I pondered these questions the more convinced I became that it wasn’t all just haphazard–that I wasn’t just a seashell washed up willy-nilly on the Chicago Symphony’s “shore.” So it wasn’t jut a series of unrelated, random events which eventually put me on that stage. It was a series of incredibly interwoven and predestined events which put me there. … I was there because I had been led there by an amazing chain of events, not just mere coincidence, and, because I had been led there, certainly I could do the work assigned to me, and failure was not a part of that plan.
With Farkas on this I agree; God does have his plan and hand on our lives.
Life has many turning points, music being just one area of any of our lives. For me personally, of all the turning points of my life one of the biggest was the birth of my son, who turns 18 today, seen in this photo taken not long ago. While Horn Matters is in an online magazine format, the predecessor sites included personal blog content. The following is from an article of that type (now off the Internet), from when my son turned 15. As I explained then,
Fifteen years ago I was third hornist in the Nashville Symphony. We had finished our run of rehearsals for the Holiday Pops concert and it was looking to be a busy holiday season. And we had a baby on the way, our first! He was not due for a month or so but on a routine visit our doctor put my wife in a wheelchair and ran her over to the adjacent hospital. A few hours and an emergency C-section later we were the parents of a healthy baby boy! But a baby boy with a surprise for us, he had Down Syndrome, a genetic disorder….
I called the Personnel Manager and Principal Horn that night so they would know what was up for me and that I would not be back for a while….
Someday I would love to get him back to Nashville to see our old friends again, James has grown so much. Being a parent has for sure improved my teaching and especially so being the parent of a special needs child. I believe that I am much more clued into how people learn.
Each turning point has new opportunities and new sets of challenges. As we in the United States head toward Thanksgiving it is a great time to reflect on the turning points of life and on the hand that guides us.
