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Phil Snedecor is author of Lyrical Etudes for Trumpet (vol. 1 and 2) and Low Etudes for Tuba. He’s on faculty at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT and is the leader of the Washington Symphonic Brass.

JN: Phil, thanks for being on the podcast. Get us up to speed with what’s going on in your world.

PS: Pretty insane as usual. Finishing up the semester at the Hartt School. Lots of recitals going on. I’m also playing a lot and arranging some things for the ITG conference where I’m a featured performer, so lots going on.

JN: We were talking before starting this podcast recording about how stage fright is a problem for lots of people, and not so much for others. Where do you fit into that spectrum?

PS: What I said was that it doesn’t seem to be a problem. It’s just that people deal with their nerves differently. The main thing people need to realize is that everyone is nervous. And I don’t know if I can say this on your podcast, but when I was at Tanglewood as a student, Leonard Bernstein was there and one of his mantras was, “If you’re not nervous, you’re an a-hole.” What he meant by that is if you’re not nervous, you don’t have nervous energy, you don’t care to go out there and do your very best. Bernstein turned his nervous energy into positive music making.

He was kind of a nervous guy. Years ago, when Aaron Copland had his 70thbirthday, the student orchestra was playing Copland’s Outdoor Overtureand his 3rd Symphony with Bernstein conducting. Of course Copland was in the audience. I was actually backstage standing next to Bernstein during the Overture because I didn’t play in it, and he wasn’t conducting. So Bernstein is backstage and was a ball of energy and I realized it was nervous energy. He’s about to go out and conduct for one of his heroes. He didn’t need to be nervous, but he had this energy that if nothing else was a heightened energy.

I realized, this man is nervous. And of course, he’s saying all week, if you’re not nervous you’re an a-hole. So I realized it’s okay to be nervous so let’s just turn it into something positive. It was a wonderful learning experience just to see him there backstage.

JN: That’s kind of a recurring theme I’ve heard in the short history of this podcast. Everyone is nervous, it’s just a matter of whether you’ll use that nervous energy for your betterment or your detriment. When you get right down to it, this podcast is about taking that energy that comes from being nervous to make you a better performer.

So switching gears, let’s talk about what you consider to be one of your worst performance moments.

PS: There are so many stories like that. I never play what I think is a perfect performance. My first experience of what you describe as a “bad” performance moment was in junior high school for a regional band audition. I had practiced my tail off for it, I was ready. I walked into it, played the prepared piece, played my scales and did great. Then they said, now for the sight reading. Up to this point, I had never thought about sight reading, no one told me there was sight reading on the audition. I was totally caught with my pants down. It was awful.

In the end, I didn’t even get into the band because the sight reading was so deplorable. From the first note, you could tell I was nervous. What got me was I wasn’t prepared. A lesson I took from that was be prepared for everything. Ask the right questions, even if your teacher doesn’t tell you the right things. Find things out on your own.

Later in my life, this time as a member of the Dallas Brass, I was having chop issues. Just out of Eastman and I was going back and forth between being a star trumpet wise and a complete imbecile. One of the things that I believe makes me a great teacher is that I’ve been through just about every wrong thing you can do on the trumpet.