Dear Alma, My seat neighbour is a pest
OrchestrasDear Alma,
I am a member of a very good orchestra. The person one stand over just won’t quit bothering me. They make constant comments on the most absurd things, like where my chair is in relation to their chair, if I am playing the right divisi, that my dynamic is incorrect, the list goes on and on. It happens during every single rehearsal. it’s only when I am in rotation close to her, which is about 1/4 of the time.
Nosy Neighbor
Dear Nosy Neighbor,
Well, how truly annoying! Sounds utterly incessant and must make your skin crawl when that person turns your direction. How does she even live with herself? We can thank our lucky stars that we aren’t married to them, or someone like them – that’s one silver lining to hold on to.
In my youth, I had a really wide variety of boyfriends, all of whom were a mix of thrilling and disasters actively or waiting to happen. Boys under the age of 25 can be kind of a waste of space – totally unaware of how they affect others with their dumb ideas and general lack of any kind of social graces, like they were raised by wolves. But also cute and cuddly. And fun. Some were keepers and some were losers. The key for me was to know when to exit the situations, and how to learn from each relationship so I could take the good memories with me, and avoid the bad traits in future liaisons.
Nosy Neighbor, take stock of your situation. Is the pleasure of your job greater than the annoyance? In this case, enjoy the good and block out the bad. Or, in the case that the annoyance outweighs the good, dump that poor sucker! Just like a boyfriend, there are plenty of other jobs out there if you keep your eyes open and have a wide basket of skills.
You and I both know that you can’t change a person. There is no way for you to make that Nosy Neighbor into the Girl Next Door. But, you could meet with your admin and ask that you don’t get rotated next to that person, or at least less often. Or you can simply turn to them and say “do not speak to me again in rehearsals”. That might work. Give her the hand. That’s made up of 5 fingers, by the way.
When I was younger, I tried and tried again to change those disaster boyfriends. Don’t burp in public, let’s eat something besides pizza and beer, try taking a shower more often. But they can’t and wouldn’t change. It would just make both of us miserable. So – either break up with Nosy Neighbor or jump ship. Life is too short.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
I can relate. There is a person in my orchestra who does a very similar thing. The only difference is she’s telling me what everyone else is doing wrong, including things like the Concertmaster’s bow hold is ridiculous, questioning every dynamic change by a conductor or calling the principal Viola a communist for being stern with her section.. plenty of fun being an orchestra musician
Wasn’t there an orchestra in Canada where the standpartners actually put tape on the ground to make sure they each had the right amount of space? I think there was a ruler involved.
I have heard about that as well! Very funny but also tragic.
I think “jump ship” is bad advice. How likely are you to find a position you’re as happy with, in practical terms (distance etc) as well as artistic? Also, “breaking up” with Nosy Neighbour is surely easier (glibly) said than done; though it’s worth asking to be rotated near her less often. (But there may be a large number of others also requesting that, if she’s as annoying as she sounds.)
To my mind, your alternatives are to either say nothing and suffer in silence, or give her a polite but chilly, “Please stop making comments to me; I really don’t want to discuss it” or words to that effect. Just keep repeating this same response over & over & over, EVERY time she unloads on you. When she learns that she’s not getting whatever it is she gets out of behaving this way, she’s likely to give up, from boredom if nothing else.
Do not let her hound you out of a rewarding orchestral position. Those are as precious as gold dust. (So are good orchestras, come to that.) Wishing you luck!
Sorry about the duplicate! I had internet/webpage hassles and it didn’t seem to be posting.
A better alternative is to take on board the criticism, which may well be useful and valid. An orchestral player does not have the right to opt-out of being criticised in rehearsal.
It certainly isn’t easy. Maybe there should be a handbook or meeting outlining appropriate behavior and expectations?
I had a stand partner who thought his Star Trek asides were clever bon mots.
His studied disinterest in the proceedings of the ensemble seemed calculated to present a state of above-it-all-ness on his part. Above me, above the music, above everyone else.
Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned!!
Not a clue.
Ask to sit as her stand partner and be prepared as both she and you eat her own words.
Try the Rodzinski method (except use an unloaded revolver).
Storis like this make new appreciate my orchestra and my extremely nice colleagues even more!
I think “jump ship” is bad advice. How likely are you to find a position you’re as happy with, in practical terms (distance etc) as well as artistic? Also, “breaking up” with Nosy Neighbour is surely easier said (glibly) than done; though it is worth asking to be rotated near her less often. (But there may be a large number of others requesting the same thing, if she’s as annoying as she sounds.)
To my mind, your alternatives are to either say nothing and suffer in silence, or give her a polite but chilly, “Please stop making comments to me; I really don’t want to discuss it” or words to that effect. Just keep repeating these same words, over & over & over, EVERY time she unloads on you. When she learns that she’s not getting whatever it is she gets out of behaving this way, she’s likely to give up, from boredom if nothing else.
Do *not* let her hound you out of a rewarding orchestral position. Those are as precious as gold dust. (So are good orchestras, come to that.) Wishing you luck!
How about the person who constantly turns around and offers “advice” on how to do the right bow stroke, or that I am coming in too late or a ton of other little things. It’s not even the concertmaster, just a member of the section. I hate it.
If we all quit our jobs over an annoying colleague, the who world would be unemployed. Ignore him, or tell him to knock it off. Quitting only hurts you.
I am more concerned about the attitude the OP manifests in trivialising the importance of dynamics and /divisi/ allocations.
Perhaps, one reason *why* it is a “very good orchestra” is because some of its members take an interest in each other’s playing to the extent of giving feedback on important details that have a bearing on the capacity of the section to make a unified and balanced sound. It might feel irritating to be at the receiving end of criticism from orchestral colleagues, especially if one feels that one is being singled-out unfairly, but it comes with the territory: an orchestral player must cultivate the resilience to cope with and take on board criticism from various sources.
Having said that, if a colleague’s talking is disrupting the smooth and efficient running of the rehearsal, then that is a matter that should be referred to the section principal in the first instance. Orchestral etiquette does impose constraints on who is entitled to speak and when, even if the points being made are valid.
It is not the job of a section player to tell another player how to play his or her part — it’s the job of the principal, and even then there’s a right way to doing this. Singling out any player in an orchestra setting, even coming from a conductor, is usually seen as extremely poor orchestral etiquette. Between players, it actually is an actionable process in which the AFM may get involved. There are instances in which somebody might need occasionally to point out a specific issue to their stand partner, but if so, it needs to be done very tactfully and very sparingly.
The reality is that in most cases, such remarks are made not for musical reasons, but in order to establish a power dynamic. Often the best way to deflate such dynamic is by exposing it for what it is. I once had a colleague who very passive-aggressively asked whether a specific note had been misprinted, which was an indirect way to let me know that I was making a mistake, without openly saying so. That colleague was indeed monitoring my playing and letting me know about it. To which I replied that indeed, I had made a mistake and had misread the part. This ended the entire discussion as my response was least expected, since some people just can’t fathom admitting being wrong, which happens to all of us. Orchestras are not kind places.
People who have never worked in an orchestra setting would be shocked to know how toxic of a work environment orchestras can be. There are manifold reasons for this, but in my opinion the main factor is that orchestras are sometimes unconsciously viewed by musicians as providing a platform for acting out their own unresolved conflicts and frustrations. The path to an orchestra position requires a very high level to begin with, but once in the job, a realization sets in — namely, that this may well be the last position they will ever obtain, especially given the current level of playing in an extremely tight job market. An orchestra position thus often signals the end of many unfulfilled dreams, and the conflict between the desire to be heard as a performer vs. having to blend within an entire contingent of players can be hard to digest. One of the many ways of venting out one’s frustrations is precisely by making an unending flow of witty remarks and criticisms to one’s fellow players, in a last desperate attempt to avoid the harsh reality of being just a cog in an enormous wheel and letting go of unfulfilled aspirations. It can even become a form of harassment, sometimes to the point of bullying (the classic example being putting others down in order to feel better about oneself, albeit in a professional and subtle way) — but most importantly, it is truly delusional in that it assumes that the end result of such remarks will actually make a difference to an audience and will actually be taken seriously by one’s colleagues, who in most cases will simply be annoyed and as a result dread sitting next to the offender.