clarinet neglect

Today I practiced my clarinet for the first time since I don't know when. It's hard for me to believe that it was just 8 months ago that I used to play anywhere between 4 to 10 hours a day. Now I can't seem to find 4 spare hours in an entire month.

And there's this tremendous guilt wrapped up in it. Being a clarinetist is something so central to my existence - it's a huge part of my identity. So when I'm unable to play for maybe 3 weeks at a time, it's like I've lost a part of myself; I'm a stranger in my own skin.

I'm willing to bet there are millions of people like me around the world - people who for whatever reason are unable to pursue the interests and passions that resonate with their very soul, whether it be painting, running, gardening, or whatever else.

I'm not going to tolerate anymore clarinet neglect in my life. When I find my next semi-permanent place of residence, I need to find more opportunities to play and perform, because  my   life    apart     from      music       is        just           hollow

poor clarinet. spends all his time locked up in a case. he deserves better.

Baltimore

As I approach  my 4-month anniversary with downtown Baltimore, many people have been asking me about my feelings towards the city... I figure the best way to express my mixed emotions is with a few mixed anecdotes: 

- Zachariah is the man who sells roses and teddy bears at the intersection of North Avenue and Mt. Royal. I see him everyday when I walk to and from work. He always greets me with a big smile and a "Hello! How are you? You know, you remind me of my daughter, she is very smart!" I've never seen him actually sell anything to anyone. It's a shame. He's really nice. 

- The selection of FM stations in Baltimore is worse than in Kenai. But I listen to NPR when I get ready in the morning, like I did when I was in college. Schools here are delayed because of "fog warnings." It wasn't until recently that I learned what in the world that was all about. 

- I've had to say "No, thank you, I don't drink" more times in the past 4-months than I have in my entire life. 

-Why don't the grocery stores keep their shopping carts inside the store? It took me 2 months to train myself to grab a cart before I enter Safeway. 

- I thought I was such a burdened undergrad, always packing around instruments everywhere; but this morning a saw a MICA student in orange tights carrying 3 canvases, a sleeping bag, a bag of laundry, and a backpack. You'd think with their crazy tuition prices, each student would get an alpaca to aid in transportation of personal items and art materials. 

- Women here are really serious about their boots. It's December and it hasn't even snowed; your $200 boots are pointless. It's the female equivalent of wearing sunglasses indoors. 

- I know that when I leave, I'm going to desperately miss my friends at the City Cafe. They're some of the best people I've ever worked with. 

BSO Twitter Chatter

Since I began my internship, I've been religiously monitoring twitter chatter surrounding the Baltimore Symphony. From this, I've identified some of the BSO's Twitter Heavyweights.

#BSO TWITTER CHAMPIONS#

HALL OF FAME

@LeeTMills - Lee Mills

Mr. Mills is the BSO's Peabody Conducting Fellow, so he receives personal instruction from Music Director Marin Alsop and serves as cover conductor for many of the orchestra's concerts. Also, he probably tweets about BSO happenings more than any other person. 

“Who is coming to the #Offthecuff concert tomorrow night at the @BaltSymphony? I hear it's sold-out!”

@clefnotes - Tim Smith

As classical music critic for The Baltimore Sun, Tim Smith is no stranger to the BSO. In his blog Clef Notes & Drama Queens, the Baltimore Symphony is a very common topic. I heard that he thought my write up on the WhoIsJoan? landing page was funny, and for that, I love Tim Smith. 

“Enjoyable delivery of Mozart, Debussy standards last night from Langree, Baltimore Symphony. http://bsun.md/nYyEe4”

@bachtrack - Alison Karlin

Alison and her husband David are the founders of Bach Track, a website which brings together a wide array of information about what's happening in the world of classical music: concerts, recordings, musicians, events, and trends. They take a considerable interest in the BSO and often send writers to review our concerts.

“Marin Alsop revives Honegger's Joan of Arc @BaltSymphony @carnegiehall "A fascinating journey" wrote @ZerbinettasBlog http://www.bachtrack.com/review-honneger-joan-of-arc-alsop-baltimore-symphony”

@ChivalrousNoble - Brian Donnell

Plays trombone and is a fervent supporter of the BSO. He participated in Bolt for the BSO (the orchestra's team of runners in the Baltimore Running Festival) and frequents the Meyerhoff. Donnell tweets about a lot of things, and the BSO is a recurring subject. 

"Support me & the @BaltSymphony in my 1st #5k Run w/ @BoltfortheBSO in the @BaltRunFest Oct. 15 by donating here: http://www.active.com/donate/Bolt2011/BDRun2011

http://www.active.com/donate/B..."

As tempted as I was, I didn't include myself in this list, but I nonetheless encourage you to follow me on twitter @TashinaLyn, because sometimes I can be pretty adorable and others... I could use a swift kick in the shin. 

stepping with confidence

Through years of coaching from my music professors, I've learned to walk on stage with confidence, purpose, and a welcoming smile. With a love for the drama and excitement of live performance, I would always wear a look that said, "I've got something really cool to share with you and I can't wait to see your reaction!"  But lately I've been envying that girl I once was, wishing I had that same confidence in other areas of my life; with my speech, with my opinions, and with the half-dozen guys I have my eye on (except that most are fictional characters). Most especially, I wish I had more confidence when I'm working at the BSO.

For me, confidence comes from knowledge. I was always able to walk on stage with confidence because I knew my music inside and out. But I'm still in the process of learning all the different policies, procedures, and standard practices at BSO's admin office. The perfectionist in me wants to acquire a thorough knowledge of every piece of relevant information before I act, and in this situation that's just not possible. I have to learn as I go and submit to the fact that things aren't always going to turn out the way I want them to.

I'm not sure how I will accomplish it, but I need to make a change in how I conduct myself in the workplace, because I feel that by allowing this passive demeanor to dominate my life, I do myself an injustice.

"What gives you confidence?" 

- Responses from actors & directors at the Toronto Film Festival -

changes

This last week there were some rather unexpected changes in BSO's PR department. A sudden and substantial staffing alteration occurred. I have no interest in discussing the details, but I feel that because these events have had a big impact on me and my internship experience, it is fitting that I share a little bit about the changes on my end:

1) I will now be helping produce publications for BSO, such as Applause and Overture - magazine-style programs that are distributed at BSO concerts at Strathmore and Meyerhoff, respectively.

2) I will be maintaining BSO's online Press Room, which requires basic HTML formatting.

3) For the remainder of this internship, I will be paid a reasonable wage (what!?! crazy, right?)!

4) No more pizza box desk! I am now at the height of luxury:

I'm so spoiled!

a taste of Guerrilla Marketing

Today people walking around the streets of Baltimore are seeing this at their feet:

It's a sidewalk cling bearing an image of Joan of Arc (created by BSO's incredibly talented graphic designer, Elisa, who is also real sweetheart!).

When you go to WhoisJoan.org, you will see proof that sometimes I get to do things which are (a) Fun and (b) Somewhat Significant:

- Who is Joan? Video: Created by the brilliant people at Digital Cave, and I was fortunate enough to be able to accompany them for the filming. I made the "WHO IS JOAN?" signs and even have a cameo appearance in the video (watch closely)!

- Who is Joan? Text: If writing on the "Who is Joan?" landing page sounds oddly familiar, that is because I wrote it! As you will see, I was encouraged to exercise a colloquial, youthful voice; in hopes that our message would resonate with populations that aren't familiar with the BSO. But I never wanted this paragraph to appear first:

I wish they would remove that paragraph because then the first thing people will see when they arrive on the page is the sales pitch, which is going to immediately put them off! It totally ruins the intrigue and mystery we hoped to accomplish! Once they read that, they won't want to read any thing else, and they won't have any reason to! Really, really a poor choice to put that paragraph first. But what do I know? I'm only the intern.

rock your voices

In addition to being a band nerd, I was also a choir geek in high school (although I would never have admitted this in college, because by then I was instrumentalist snob and had to alienate myself from the vocalists and make them aware that their's was the lesser art form). Anyways, my memories of faulty choir risers, ill-fitting robes, and perma-smile show choir performances came rushing back to me this month at the BSO as we sought to engage an audience of a cappella lovers for our Rockapella concert.

Turns out a cappella is really big here, because every university has like 5 a cappella groups for every social circle imaginable, from the Jewish a cappella group Kol Sasson to Legally Sound, whose members are all law students. I have no idea if it has always been this way, or maybe it's gaining popularity become Glee has bestowed this "hot" new image on young vocal groups.

Well, in order to engage this population niche, we at the Baltimore Symphony created an a cappella competition, called Rock Your Voices, in which the winning a cappella ensemble gets to present a pre-concert performance for the Rockapella concert. We invited a cappella groups to submit a YouTube video featuring one of their performances, and now the public can vote for the winning ensemble on BSO's Facebook page.

Actually, you yourself can vote until around noon EST on Tuesday November 8th -> Please do.

Faux Paz - Current front runner in the Rock Your Voices competition as of 11/6

how to find internships

I'm no expert on internships, but I'll share a few resources that I've found helpful; and if any other former or current interns want to share some of their knowledge, comments are always welcome.

1) Your University's Job/Career Center: Whether online or in person, your school is bound to have information on internship opportunities, especially internships which are specific to your location. (For my SUU friends, this would be the Academic and Career Development Center; and you can search for local internships by using Hire a T-Bird in your MySUU portal, and selecting "Full-time/Internships/Part-time" under the "Job Search" Tab, and then specifying "Cedar City" in the "Job Location City" field.) Also, your respective department is bound to have a plethora of materials on internship opportunities in your field.

2) search.twitter.com: A Twitter search is one of my favorite ways to find internships (and jobs). Potential employers will post internship/job openings on Twitter all the time, so just search for whatever it is you're looking for: "broadcasting intern DC" "engineering intern CA" "green international internship" ...

3) InternMatch.com: Very user-friendly site, free of all the advertising clutter that you'll find at a lot of other internship/job search sites. You can specify your searches by location, season, and even paid/unpaid. You can search their listings without an account, but creating an account takes less than a minute (only have to fill in like 4 fields, no e-mail confirmation tomfoolery). As you would expect, the number of results your search yields will very greatly by state; so sadly some of the western states don't have any listings, but other states have hundreds of listings.

4) Create your own internship: Perhaps you're super enthusiastic about a certain organization, but they don't advertise any internships... why not just send them a coverletter/resume, offering your skills and free labor? It would be foolish of them to turn down your offer. Or if they are a smaller operation, you could even just call them up and ask them. I did this 3 summers ago with a non-profit up in Alaska, and they actually granted me temporary, paid position. Things like that give me a glimpse into the life that every intern dreams of: receiving fair, monetary compensation for my skilled labor :)

desk job

I never pictured myself as having a job that would require me to sit behind a desk all day, but I guess no optimistic American youth really wishes that on themselves. Sure, it's preferable to blue-collar manual labor, but occupations that could be called desk jobs have a fair share of negative connotations; and in my opinion, those negative associations are well-founded. We as humans are created to have healthy, rich interaction with our natural surroundings and our peers. Yet everything about the environment of most professional offices in the U.S. seeks to prevent us from connecting in any real way with each other and the world outside our walls, and to at least some extent it's dehumanizing, which is probably why so many are resentful and why entertainment which parodies the white-collar experience - The Office, Dilbert, Parks and Recreation (poking fun at our nation's largest provider of desk jobs, government) - have become so popular.

Anyway, suddenly I'm required to sit at a desk from 9 to 5, when only 6 months ago in college, the longest class I ever had to sit through was 80 minutes long, so I can't help but feel a little restless and confined when I'm at the office. We're all separated in our little partitioned areas; clickity-clacking on our keyboards; exchanging, sharing, creating, and managing information; having complex and extensive dialogue with people hundreds of miles away, yet going hours on end without speaking a word to the person who is no further than an arm's reach.

And so I ask myself, "Can you handle something like this? Can you find contentment in this kind of environment? What kinds of modifications would you need to be able to tolerate this lifestyle, and what employers do you think would be willing to accommodate those modifications?

Some people get a potted plant, or put up pictures of their cats, or set up lamps with soft lighting, or add whatever homey touches they wish to their work space in attempts to regain their humanity, but I'm just not certain of my ability to cope with the typical desk job work environment. It remains to be seen.

Even a veteran white-collar employee like Dilbert does his best to forge some sort of connection  with  his natural surroundings. 

a PR lesson

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's PR department really excels in traditional PR. And for this reason, I wanted to do a little overview of public relations in the traditional sense - using BSO PR as an example - just in case you're still wondering what in the world public relations actually is.

Both advertising and public relations work to spread the message of an organization. The rudimentary difference is that in advertising, you get to control most all aspects of how your message is broadcast, because you put down a lot of cash for the right to control your message; and in public relations,  you create your messaging and then give it to outside entities in hopes that they will broadcast your message (basically for free) simply because your message is worthy to be heard and people will want to know. For example if the BSO were trying promote a concert, BSO advertising would buy air time with a radio station and broadcast a commercial; BSO PR would convince the radio station that the concert is significant to the public interest and then the radio station would voluntarily cover the concert in the way they see fit. I could go on about message control, credibility, and the nature of news outlets, but we'll leave it at that.

So when it comes to traditional media (newspaper, radio, & television), public relations people must try to capture the interest and favor of journalists, in order to gain free publicity for their organization. On the other hand, journalists must remain cordial with their PR contacts, in order to gain access to information about the organizations the PR contacts represent. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Journalists are the gatekeepers to traditional media, and PR people are the gatekeepers to information.


Day in and day out in BSO's PR department, we are bugging journalists to get them to cover our up coming concerts; but journalists are also calling on us to get them photos, tickets, artist bios, and interviews. And so we try to manage these give-and-take relationships. But then again, most all our relationships (business and otherwise) are defined by how we subconsciously weigh the costs and benefits. It's something we learn in elementary school when Valery asks for one of your Oreo cookies and you think these advanced, future-career-building thoughts, wondering if you grant her your last cookie, will she remember how you sacrificed for her the next time her lunch box has a few squares of her mom's homemade fudge?

before & after

My first week at the BSO I was given a "special project": redecorate the sound room. In the sound room, they film video interviews with guest soloists for Musician's Corner.  Well, at 4pm today, the renovations were completed. The new bar stools we snatched from the front lounge, and BSO's sound guy hooked us up with lapel mic's. The grey carpeted walls and orange sound panels required curtains, which were a little more challenging ($200, 3 trips to Ikea, and lots of man-hours). Many thanks to everyone who helped along the way: Alicia, Larry, Laura, Bertha, Gail, and most especially Ivory!

before

after

coffee zealots

If you were trying to reach the BSO's Marketing/PR department last Thursday morning and everyone seemed to have stepped away from their desk, it's because we had embarked on a pilgrimage to 7-11. We had to take time to celebrate the festival that is National Coffee Day. While some organizations don't grant their employees the freedom to exercise their faith in roasted beans of the Coffea arabica, the BSO sent out notification to all its employees that the day of celebration was upon us, and those who wished to participate in the joyous occasion could partake of the cup at 7-11, where medium-size cups of fresh-brewed, hot coffee were offered at no charge.  So with this common cause, we set out.

Some chose the hazelnut roast, others Colombian. Brazilian bold. French roast. And one fervent follower even savored the taste of blueberry roast coffee. It was one of those experiences that transcends my ability to describe in mere words.

And we each took up a single-serve liquid creamer, and set them in a heap to serve as a sign. In the future, when our children ask us, "What do these creamers mean? we will tell them that the day was long, but the coffee was hot and it was good. And this is to be a memorial to the people of Baltimore forever.

even the trombone player has a 6-pack

I’m not capable of sexy. Not that I’ve ever tried.

I guess I have the Juicy Fruit approach to sex appeal. All the other gum companies use sex to define their image: Dentyne has practice safe breath, and 5 has a sleek design and is all about simulating the senses, and Stride has dancing Matt.  Far from seductive, the pineapple-peach flavor of Juicy Fruit is just cutesy, and it doesn’t try to pretend that it is anything different.

Let me do a little break down my anti-sexy indicators:

1) I carry a backpack around with me everywhere. No, I’m not in college, I just like my backpack.  And don’t casually sport around a lazy, corduroy backpack-purse like somebody who shops at Urban Outfitters.  For whatever reason, I’m always carrying around a bunch of stuff, like a giant turtle shell.

2) The only pajamas I own are oversized t-shirts and gym shorts.

3) The toe that’s next to my big toe is as long as my pinkie finger.

Nuff said.

  Well, over at the Baltimore Symphony, we’re gearing up for this one-night concert with the King of Salsa—Cuban dance group with a live band.  It’s a girl’s night out, shirtless men, even-the-tombone-player-has-a-6-pack kind of show. I thought that I’d be promoting Mozart and Wagner for my internship, and instead I’ve got the Latino version of Thunder Down Under.

Maybe that isn’t entirely true. Kings of Salsa is also a cultural experience. The choreographer, Roclan Gonzalez Chavez, is one of the best young choreographers in Cuba, and in this production he’s combined contemporary dance -like hip hop- with Cuban classics -like salsa and mambo.  With an all-Cuban cast, the dancers were selected from the nation’s top dance companies. And the 9-piece band includes horns, congas, vocals, and tres, a 3-stringed Cuban guitar that primarily functions as a drum.

Okay… no, I’m not comfortable with the fact that the men and women in this show will be dancing half-naked. But Strauss’ opera Salome has Dance of the Seven Veils. And some of the greatest paintings and sculptures portray the human body in ways that are less than modest. So you can't question the significance and value of art simply because of the performers’ costumes, or lack thereof. 

Kings of Salsa

press release autopsy

Last Wednesday, operations at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra came to a standstill for upwards of 3 hours. I was the first person in the PR office that morning, and after I had boot-up my computer, I came face-to-face with the worst nightmare of Americans born after 1983: No Internet. When the PR & Publications Coordinator came in, her computer was experiencing the same problems. No e-mail. No web. And limited access to shared files. She was unable to e-mail final drafts to the printers, and I couldn't access the hyperlinks on my Google Alerts. So what did we do? We started cleaning our desks. Ever since I got to the BSO, there had been a giant stack of papers on my desk -manila folders, glossy tri-fold publications from seasons long ago, and a ton of copies- which like the cranky cat of a deceased aunt, I had inherited but didn't want to claim. But since my desk is the size of a Monopoly board, and the stack of papers were occupying Park Place through Reading Railroad, I couldn't very well continue to ignore it. The contents were as follows:

1) Approximately 80 sheets of blank printer paper. Since I only have 3 more pieces of paper in the notebook I found on the intern desk, and I don't know if I'm going to be allowed to have another notebook when this one is gone, I decided to hide the blank paper in one of the manila folders. It's kind of like when a dog's owner doesn't come home for a day, so the dog only eats a few bites of the food in his dog bowl, because he can't be sure of when his owner will return. I'm rationing my office supplies, because I don't know if they're going to give me anymore when I run out.

2) Mailers from the 2010-2011 Seasons. I decided to keep these just in case I needed to reference past concerts.

3) A bunch of black & white xerox copies of articles about the BSO from 2010. PR people are always supposed to have these on-hand for when other people say, "What does PR even do?" and start talking smack, then we're like, "Well, just a little bit of full-color, feature coverage in the Washington Post with a circulation of half a million people stuff like that." But these articles are old news, and I wanted to put them in recycling, but the PR Coordinator wouldn't let me. I guess I'm supposed to cremate them or something.

4) Lastly, I stumbled upon a cemetery of edited press releases from past interns. There seemed to be hundreds of them, covered in red ink. Some of them were marred beyond recognition, and stained with the hot, painful tears of a once optimistic young student whose dreams of career and success were massacred with an ink pen and a New York Times Style Guide. Okay, that last part was complete falsehood, but I couldn't resist. Nevertheless, I studied over those drafts as if conducting an autopsy, so that I could avoid making those same mistakes: not bsomusic.org, BSOmusic.org; no comma before 'and' in a list; proofread artists' biographies; and above all, be informative and newsworthy, don't be a salesman.

And then I threw all those press releases of past interns in a communal burial called the recycle bin.  I'm not heartless, I just don't have room for crud like that on my desk. Did I mention that my desk is the size of an airplane tray table?

here's a nifty little jingle to usher you to your untimely death

Did anyone else ever have trouble falling asleep the night before the first day of the new school year?  I would lay awake in my bed and worry about what my classes would be like and who I’d see and what I needed to remember to do.  And then the next day at school, I would be bored out of my mind and trying not to fall asleep because I had tossed & turned until 2a.m the previous night.  Classroom rules, syllabus, and pass out textbooks—that’s all that happens on the first day of school.  But my first day as an intern at the BSO made up for all the mundane first day's in my life. 

The Tuesday after Labor Day, I woke up 2 hours before my departure time. Put on my favorite outfit—gray trousers, lightweight purple blouse, and 3 ½ inch black wedges—and straightened every inch of my long brown hair (oh vanity!).  I grabbed my AP Style book and strutted over to the Meyerhoff.  It’s a 20 minute walk from my house, and it was pouring down rain.  Even though I had an umbrella, I got soaked.  And when I finally arrived (with a frizz-ball hairdo, soaked pants and soggy shoes), I couldn’t even get through the front door.  It was locked.  Thankfully another employee moseyed on over, and he let me in.  I gave him my thanks and climbed the stairs to the 2^nd floor.  Only, the door to the 2^nd floor was locked as well.  Once again, I waited until another staff member of the BSO could help me get to my office.

When I stepped into the PR suite and exchanged greetings with the PR & publications Coordinator, the fire alarm went off.  There were flashing lights and then a voice comes over the intercom, “We have been alerted of an emergency in the building. Please exit immediately.”  And then starts playing a pleasant little orchestral interlude.  So while the flames ravenously eat away at your flesh and you can hear bloodcurdling screams coming from your neighboring cubicle, here’s a little ditty from the BSO’s greatest hits to usher you to your untimely death.  Honestly, I like idea—of a fire alarm that doubles as Performance Today; I’m not so fond of being consumed alive in a violent inferno.  Anyway, the fire alarm was on the fritz and it went off about 20 more times that day.

I spent the first 3 hours organizing press clippings.  It wouldn’t have taken me so long, but the March 2010 through June 2010 book is really messed up.  And that’s when I got my first assignment from the Public Relations Manager: Pitch the James Lee concert to the Baltimore Times.    

!!!!!!

PR people pitch stories to journalists, in hopes that journalists will write articles about the organization that the PR people represent.  When I was interviewing for this internship, I was warned that pitching was going to be a big part of this internship; and sure enough I was assigned a pitch on the first day.  And yeah, I was pretty nervous.  I typed out a little script for myself.  I played it through in my head several times. Then I picked up the phone and dialed the number for the editor of the Baltimore Times:

Busy Signal.

I dialed again.

Busy.

Again.

Busy.

Wrote a Press Release for BSO’s OrchKids.

Dialed again.

Busy.

Transferred schedules from Word to Excel.

Dialed again.

Busy.

Again and again.

Busy.

Finally I sulk over to the PR manager’s office and tell her that I can’t get my call through.  She dials, and gets through on the first try. Yeah sure.  She pitches the story as natural as can be, like their best friends and they’re meeting up for coffee on Wednesday.  My script can’t do that!

So there. My first exciting first day: I looked like a wreck, I got locked out in the rain, I got locked out in a stairwell, the fire alarm went off 3 to 4 times an hour, and my supervisor doubts my ability to operate a telephone.

BSO Fire Alarm

my place in the PR suite

If you step into the Meyerhoff Hall at Cathedral & Biddle, grab the elevator and select the 2^nd floor, offer the aging elevator words of encouragement as it gradually creeps its way up the shaft, enter the rounding hallway through the maroon door, pass the wall plastered in florescent post-it notes, and pay a visit to the public relations suite, right there—inches from the door—there is my desk.  My desk at the offices of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It’s not much. The desk itself is the size of a chessboard.  And I’m quite certain that the orange-upholstered chair is twice as old as me. But I’m hoping that this humble desk will usher me into the next phase of my career—that through this internship I will come a little closer to a paying job.

I went to office of the BSO for the first time this last Thursday.  There are 2 people in the public relations department, and 8 people total under the umbrella of Marketing/Public Relations. I was introduced to just about everyone, and did my best not to appear as awkward as I felt.  Thinking back on it, I wish that I had at least mentioned to these people how much I admire their work (sentiments that are of the utmost sincerity).  But there were a lot of thoughts going through my head; big, oppressive thoughts.

If I remember correctly, I only met one guy, all the rest were women. Successful, beautiful, confident, gainfully employed women. I couldn’t stop thinking, “How did they get to where they are?  How am I going to get what they have?  How am I going to get from unpaid intern to a full-time employee somewhere? How long’s it going to take?  Am I going to be happy when I get there? Is this really what I want?”

Heck yes, I want my hideous chair and pizza box table.

My Chair.