{"id":34458,"date":"2016-02-23T09:39:11","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=34458"},"modified":"2016-02-23T09:39:11","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:39:11","slug":"34458","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/02\/23\/34458\/","title":{"rendered":"ASK THE PROFESSOR | Why Can&#8217;t I Play Nice?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"giphy-embed\" src=\"\/\/giphy.com\/embed\/n60aPuXZLJNiU\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Dear Professor,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I&#8217;ve made it a news years resolution to be a nicer person and so far it&#8217;s been a slog. I&#8217;m a violinist by trade and don&#8217;t suffer fools lightly. I&#8217;ve been described as sweary, but in most cases I&#8217;m just being honest with people. I&#8217;ve also been told I have &#8220;resting bitch-face&#8221; which doesn&#8217;t help the situation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Let&#8217;s shimmy down the rabbit hole. I play in a string quartet and after a few months of playing together, I noticed the other members have started to form a close bond with each other. Me on the other hand, I can&#8217;t seem to relate to any of them on a personal level.\u00a0They now\u00a0socialize\u00a0outside of rehearsals, and I though I&#8217;ve been invited once or twice, I just didn&#8217;t feel like I fit in. They all have kids and talk a lot about little Jimmy&#8217;s trips to the aquarium, and his hilarious fixation with vacuums. I don&#8217;t have kids and am somewhere between being thankful I&#8217;m not part of the soccer mum and dad club, and sad to be left out of it.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>So Professor, would you profess that I continue with my new year\u2019s resolution and learn to lighten up and try to fit in, or settle into my fate as a reclusive resting bitch-faced spinster who secretly hates hearing about your kids. How do you balance personal relationships and professional relationships in a chamber ensemble when everyone seems to be &#8220;besties&#8217;, and you&#8217;re just not into it?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yours truly,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Can&#8217;t Play Nice<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>__<\/p>\n<p>Dear <em>Can\u2019t Play Nice<\/em> (thanks for not signing this, \u2018<em>Resting Bitch-Face\u2019<\/em>),<\/p>\n<p>I think the first thing I\u2019d say is, BE YOURSELF. This is you and your life. If you\u2019re salty, blunt, abrasive, but that\u2019s your natural and honest way of being, then be that way. I don\u2019t think pretense or forced civility will last in the long run. Just realize that this may have career ramifications. A friend of mine shocked a group of students when he told them, \u201cLook, I run a small chamber music series, so I\u2019m paying the bills. If I have a choice between a superlative violinist who\u2019s a pain in the ass to hang out with, or a very good violinist who is a total blast to hang out with \u2013 I\u2019m hiring THAT ONE.\u201d That was a great life lesson for some of these kids to hear.<\/p>\n<p>While one can more easily get away with less sociable behaviour in a large orchestra, chamber ensembles represent a special case, because there\u2019s no hiding \u2013 you\u2019re all doing very intense work in a confined space for a long duration. As long as the performances are going well, one shouldn\u2019t feel any special need to socialize or talk about the same sorts of things as the others. Many people want to start families, while others prefer not to be breeders \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t judge anyone better or worse for that. I\u2019ll tell students that if they\u2019re thinking of forming a chamber ensemble, resist the urge to find people too much like yourself. It\u2019s like some of those internet dating sites, that match you on 100 character traits \u2013 imagine that first date:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHi \u2013 my name\u2019s Terry.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2018Wow \u2013 me too!\u2019<br \/>\n\u201cWhat\u2019s your favourite colour?\u201d<br \/>\n\u2018Blue.\u2019<br \/>\n\u201cWow \u2013 mine too!\u201d<br \/>\n\u2018What\u2019s your favourite food?\u2019<br \/>\n\u201cKumquats.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2018Wow \u2013 me too!\u2019<br \/>\n\u201cWho\u2019s your favourite poet\/artist?\u201d<br \/>\n\u2018William Blake.\u2019<br \/>\n\u201cWow \u2013 me too!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s going to get boring pretty quickly. I think a chamber ensemble benefits from different personalities, different points of view, perspectives, opinions, musical priorities, etc. It\u2019s just a bit awkward if your situation develops into a 3vs1 situation. If it becomes untenable, I\u2019ve just checked online, and you could still form a new group: \u201c<em>The Resting Bitch-Faces<\/em>\u201d!<\/p>\n<p>Got a question for The Professor? Email <a href=\"mailto:AskTheProfessor@musicaltoronto.org\">AskTheProfessor@musicaltoronto.org<\/a>. His advice column will appear here <a href=\"http:\/\/www.musicaltoronto.org\/category\/ask-the-professor\/\">every month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Want more updates on Toronto-centric classical music news and review\u00a0before anyone else finds out? Get our exclusive newsletter\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LudwigVanToronto\/app_100265896690345\">here<\/a><\/span><em>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LudwigVanToronto?fref=ts\">Facebook<\/a><\/span><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>for all the latest.<\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world&#8217;s first classical music advice column. &#8220;Ask The Professor&#8221; appears on Musical Toronto once a month and is a fun and intriguing look into the inner world of classical music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":34465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,5764],"tags":[5765],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/02\/restingbitchface.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s9bakr-34458","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34458"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34467,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34458\/revisions\/34467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34458"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=34458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}