When I was a percussionist, way back when, it was basically understood that a solo career - in the mold of violin or piano virtuosi - was more or less out of the question. Not that there weren't any virtuostic percussionists in those days - there most certainly were. What was lacking was repertoire. There were no Brahms marimba concerti nor Beethoven sinfonia concertante for glockenspiel, side drum, and maracas. Just wasn't part of the old culture. The few bits of listenable modern music written for solo percussion were intriguing, but they were in heavy competition with all the bits of listenable modern music written for tuba, saxophone, viola, and english horn. Add this to the stigma of playing (or banging on, as we were often accused of doing) percussion instruments in general, and most of us turned our ambitions elsewhere.
But there was one notable exception: Evelyn Glennie, the Scottish virtuoso percussion soloist. She had a career.
One doesn't have to be too cynical to believe that marketing a percussion soloist requires having a few tricks up your sleeve to really get you off the ground, and Glennie had two.
Number one, she was a chick (and not a bad looking one at that). Number two - and this is the kicker - she was deaf. Deaf? Deaf. As a doornail? Not exactly, but deaf enough that her deafness could be a point of conversation engrossing enough to get you through the intermission without having to discuss how vapid and banal the actual music was.
In case you yourself are engrossed at this time, I can elaborate from the little bit I know about her status: the gal was legally deaf and allegedly was able to play in sync with the orchestras by 'feeling the vibration through the floor with her feet.' Well you can imagine how you'd get a whole intermission's worth of chit-chat out of that one, no?
Interesting. But as someone who was keenly aware of the stigma associated with being a percussionist in general (that one was responsible primarily for making loud, unpleasant noises), I couldn't help but bemoan that our leading celebrity, the de facto spokesperson for our cause, was actually deaf. You never heard of deaf violinists or deaf pianists (though some blind ones perhaps)- presumably because it required some degree of artistic refinement to play these instruments. But a deaf drummer. . . (snicker) it kinda makes sense. I knew I would not last in that world for long.
But recently I got a flashback of my childhood distraughtness (word?) while listening to the headlines about former Serbian fugitive Radovan Karadzic, the mass-murderer turned swami who was recently arrested after 13 years in hiding. Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb president, is alleged to be responsible for the massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys at Srebrenica and has been in hiding since his indictment for the crime in 1995.
That he was able to live out in the open as a practitioner and lecturer on what the press is calling "alternative medicine" is a Glennie-like blow to the integrity of the field. Now, what alternative medicine means in Serbia is anyone's guess, so perhaps we need not be too concerned at the defamation of our already struggling practice (those of us who are engaged in the alternative medicine field). But I can't help but be saddened that he did not pursue the field of orthodox medicine - in which he could have legally continued his killing spree and been highly compensated for it indeed! Or perhaps a quiet accountant or a piano technician- professions of honor and distinction in European society. But no, he joined the ranks of the swindlers and snake oil peddlers, grew an enormous beard that would shame any Chakrapani, Ramakrishnan, or Shivananda, and preached health to the masses. Unbelievable.
Anyway. . .I may be making more of this than there is, and in fact I almost certainly am. But nonetheless I find the parallels and the emerging pattern worthy of further investigation- if for no other reason than to examine my own quirky and eccentric career choices.
Below is a recording. . .
Wait. You won't believe this, but as I went searching for a sound byte recording of Evelyn Glennie's to leave you with, I discovered a link to her website:
Dame Evelyn Glennie: Motivational Speaker, Media Composer, and Jewelery Designer. Perhaps she'll start teaching Reiki soon as well. . .
