008: The decline and fall of an orchestra player

Akiko is back to take on what could be a depressing subject: the inevitable erosion of your skills as a violinist when you play in an orchestra. But don’t every violinist’s skills go away eventually, or is there something about being in an orchestra that makes it happen faster?

We got the idea for this episode from listener Helen Smit, who brought my attention to a discussion thread over at violinist.com:

http://www.violinist.com/discussion/thread.cfm?page=1105

As it happened, I had actually read that thread without commenting, and found it very interesting. It all started with a young person wondering if she had a chance to make it as a professional. That’s a pretty common question over at v.com, and this was a more enlightening thread than some of those can be.

A lot of comments warned the original poster against putting too much stock in a pro orchestra career, partly because it’s so competitive, and then because one’s skills are bound to disappear.

So in this episode, we get into whether or not that’s true, and if so, what is it about the orchestra life that contributes to it? And is there anything we can do about it?