A Conversation with Adam Simonsen
Adam Simonsen is a clarinetist and the creator of www.playwithapro.com, an instructional and inspirational resource for musicians worldwide. I knew Adam had played for many years in Denmark, and that he had left his orchestra, but I’d never learned the full story. So, one November day last year, we chatted about his experiences of tinnitus and shoulder pain. Our conversation was long and meandering (the kind I like best), and what follows are the highlights. We covered a variety of issues that many orchestral musicians will face at some point in their careers, but we started by talking about Adam’s shoulder.
Adam Simonsen: Well, my shoulder is hurting as I sit here right now. There is permanent inflammation in the joint. I think it started when I was twenty years old subbing in the Danish Royal Life Guard (http://www.denkongeligelivgarde.com). It’s a full-time professional position, and a good ensemble known for their great precision, but it involves a lot of marching. You march thirty minutes from the soldiers’ quarters to the queen’s castle, and then you wait twenty minutes and march back in ice-cold weather—any kind of weather. And when you’re marching you’re juggling a million different things—marching in time with everyone and playing a trillion notes. There are twenty books of two hundred pieces that you have to learn, all with complicated road maps; and the music is handwritten and hard to read, so it’s very easy to get tense. So, marching was a factor for me, I think, as was a shoulder injury I got working out at the gym. Add to this non-stop playing for ten years—I was one of those who just played constantly. So, I was in pain quite early, and it has just gotten worse. It is deep pain that feels like it is in the joint, and this has gone into the two middle fingers where there’s a kind of semi-numbness, and it’s especially triggered by playing the bass clarinet. A major factor in my leaving was that I was in pain for all fourteen seasons, and with bass clarinet I was in severe pain.
I tried playing with straps, and all kinds of ways, but nothing helped to make it comfortable. Over the years I learned to make small adjustments. I’d had a tendency to hunch forward, and now I try to stay upright. Pulling the shoulder forward is the worst thing you can do, so I have to keep this shoulder back, which then often makes me feel like I lose flexibility. I got a scan and they said they could operate, go in and scrape it out, and then I’d let it rest, and hope that the pain doesn’t come back. I never went through that surgery, and I probably should have. It is much better, though, without playing the bass clarinet.
I’d like to try to come back for many reasons. I miss it. I miss my colleagues. I miss my old friends. Play with a Pro is doing well—better than it’s done, ever, and I work on this project day and night, still. But I do miss my colleagues.
“I compare this kind of practice to watching stars. If you look hard at the star, your eyes get blind to a certain spot in the sky. If you move your eyes slightly to the side of where you are supposed to look, then you can see the star . . .”
But there’s something good about taking a break. It’s good for the brain. You reset the computer. Certain things I struggled with before are not there anymore—aspects of technique, or intonation issues. We’ve been trained to repeat things over and over again and it’s not healthy for learning. I compare this kind of practice to watching stars. If you look hard at one star, your eyes get blind to a certain spot in the sky. If you move your eyes slightly to the side of where you are supposed to look, then you can see the star, but if you’re overly focused on one point, then you can’t see the star. It’s an optical illusion or something probably, but I think it’s a good analogy for what we do in music when we focus so completely on fixing a problem.
And that goes with the way the body reacts to your instrument. The way my body reacted to playing in the orchestra, and to issues I couldn’t fix—it drove me nuts. It has helped me to take a break and to detach from the whole business.
Angela Bilger: It’s a chance to reset. I think we get into these mental grooves that are not helpful. I mean, some of it can be physical too, but it’s all connected.
AS: And my body kept telling me—Stop, Adam. Stop what you are doing. Something there is not balanced.
AB: Yes, I think it’s so interesting to see what happens with time away from the instrument. As someone who was (and maybe still is) a bit addicted to playing, I feel untethered when I’m not playing, but on the other hand there’s an opportunity in coming back to the instrument to start fresh.
Let’s talk about your experience of tinnitus.
AS: I think orchestral musicians are more conscious about protecting their ears now compared to twenty years ago. When I started subbing in orchestras, if you asked for a shield you were a sissy, right? And now it’s just standard.
In the opera, because I was sitting right next to a wall, I never used shields. I sat near the piccolo, and was playing E-flat clarinet a lot, so I just started wearing earplugs all the time. I have a colleague who said wearing earplugs is like putting a blindfold on a soccer player and asking them to play well. You don’t know who to shoot the ball to! I found with earplugs I could hear my own playing and intonation really clearly, but attacks were much more difficult, and adjusting levels—that was almost impossible.
I couldn’t stand the pressure of sound by the end of my time in the opera. It got into my nervous system and I couldn’t take it. There’s something also about sitting in the orchestra pit—it’s like sitting in a box. I enjoy sitting on stage where the sound goes in all directions and you have all this air around you. The hall where I played was a good hall, and it sounded great out in the house, but in the pit, the sound bounced off the walls. And sitting next to the wall was really bad.
Tinnitus can get much better by not being around loud sounds, though I’m still affected by high sounds or things like the ventilator in the kitchen. A well-known specialist I went to told a story about some ship workers, who were working metal with metal hammers, thousands of these hits a day, and there were several who committed suicide because their tinnitus was so severe. (I was not at that stage, thank God.) Many years later, he met some of his patients and asked them how their tinnitus was, and they said they got used to it. Of course, that was not exactly my situation. For me, it was more like a high sensitivity to noise, and when I came home there was a humming. Now there’s some humming but I can totally live with it.
AB: I have a friend here who is a psychologist working primarily with tinnitus patients, and she says that some people get a great deal of relief just putting on a white noise machine.
AS: Yes, definitely. One of my friends who suffered a lot because of his tinnitus got great relief from white noise. There is also a mental component to it, but you can’t say to someone that’s it’s just mental.
AB: Right. It’s the “just” that’s the problem. The thing is, what is mental is also physical. And for me, throughout my own injury and recovery, there’s a fear of pain there that I’ve had to work hard to overcome. Sounds silly to say, but I found this app called Curable and the people who created it talk about this idea that just because pain has a mental or emotional component doesn’t mean it’s just mental, or that it should be discounted. They offer some ways to help frame the pain and/or the fear of pain. For instance, thinking about the question what does this pain mean to me? was revealing, and it served also to take some of the anxiety out of the experience of the pain, and personally helped me not to anticipate it as much.
AS: You’re right. It’s the fear of it. They say, don’t think about the red elephant, but all you can think about is the red elephant. But that’s what anxiety is about, I guess. It’s definitely self-reinforcing.
AB: Is there anything with either the tinnitus or your shoulder that you found particularly helpful?
AS: I think being conscious of body habits. Someone called it the “clarinet shoulder.” Michael Lowenstern made a hilarious video about the different stages of clarinet playing and he shows the clarinet shoulder. We tend to express with our shoulders.
Regarding posture, I’ve seen some incredible players play with the worst posture ever. Some people can just do it. Many orchestral clarinetists sit with their knees anchored together, and when I sit like this, I also feel so comfortable and in control. I remember the recital of a clarinetist who had just gotten a big orchestra job. When he stood during the first half of the recital, it was OK, but when he sat later in the program, you could instantly say yes, now he’s there. His sound just exploded and it had all the spin and the beauty and it was just insane how he sounded. When I sit down, I have my lower back against the chair, and I feel so much more comfortable because I can feel it more.
AB: You can feel the expansion more, and you feel more supported?
AS: Yes, totally. I don’t know why I don’t feel the same way when I stand, but I don’t. It’s just a matter of doing it. When I stand, I feel so much more free, but it feels foreign. When we sit in orchestra for so many years, we get locked up in a certain position.
Another thing I found out is that opera players move much less that orchestra players. At first I thought it was just something we did here in Denmark. They just sit and they don’t move. Then I heard the Met play at Carnegie, and it was the same. I would say that the principal players did more—they were more physical. The spotlight was on them and they felt more free. When you’re in the pit, though, the spotlight isn’t on you and the tendency is that you lock more and more.
AB: You know, I’ve always thought that, with the opera, it’s such long hours and you just have to conserve your physical energy. You find your most efficient and comfortable place and you stay there.
AS: That’s another point. Yes. We played the Ring Cycle four full times, and it’s seventeen or eighteen hours in a week. Each opera is five or six hours. When I’m through with the first act of a Wagner opera, the symphony orchestra has performed an overture, a piano concerto, a symphony, and everyone is on their way home. I don’t miss that in the slightest. The actual work was so hard on me. Biking home, and almost not being able to bike home—and we live on the fourth floor of a walk-up. I remember getting home and just being so, so tired.
AB: Opera’s brutal on the body—the sedentary hours and not being able to move or walk around. You don’t have a choice. I got a Fitbit several months ago, and it buzzes to remind you every so often to go take a walk. I was in rehearsal and it was buzzing at me, but I couldn’t get up for another half hour. And I thought, what if this were a Wagner opera? Forget about it.
AS: I began to envy people who had normal jobs. I envied their ability just to stand up and move. And in performances, even worse, right?
In Germany, they tend to play in the orchestra maybe fifteen or twenty years max, and then move on to get a professorship—because nobody can stand to play in orchestra that long. You have those legendary players like Stanley Drucker and Bud Herseth who had incredible longevity, but the majority of us don’t last that long. In Germany, though, at least if you have good chops and good skills, you work your way through the repertoire, really get to know it, and then you go to a position where it’s not as physically demanding.
AB: So, can I ask you, was the creation of Play with a Pro linked to your desire to diversify and eventually move on from the orchestra? Or was it something that you wanted to do anyway?
AS: Well, the early onset of pain probably discouraged me quite early. I thought—and this is this something I remember thinking—can I continue to do until I retire? No. That was very clear to me. For as long as I can remember, I was always exhausted after performances and would get headaches. Maybe I’m just not made of the right material to be an orchestral musician. I mean, you live with Dave who is phenomenal and, at least how I see him, he has what it takes, but it’s also super tough on him, right?
AB: He manages it as well as anyone could, but it still takes its toll.
AS: He’s one of those top players who has been in the business for years and he has a natural flare for it, and maybe also the physical set up.
AB: We all come to it with our different physical setups. And some of them are easier to deal with. But people manage with all kinds of funky things. I think of my teacher Jerome Ashby. He had gaps between his front teeth. You talk to anybody who thinks about teeth and brass playing and they would all say that having a gap in your front teeth is not ideal, but that’s just how he was set up and he did it. And it’s exactly what you’re talking about. We all have different proportions in relation to our instruments. The horn might not feel heavy to someone else, but it feels heavy to me, you know, so I have to figure out ways to deal with that.
AS: So yeah, there’s that question, are you made out of the right material. And can you deal with whatever is not ideal in your physicality.
Did you ever do Alexander Technique?
AB: It’s fabulous. I love Alexander Technique.
AS: I took lots of lessons. I’m a strong believer in it and think it can solve pretty much any problem. This thing of how the joints work together . . .
AB: It’s very subtle, but makes a big difference. It’s been good for my state of mind, too. My teacher has been helping me know where to place my attention, because there are helpful places to put your attention, and less helpful places. And, in my case, there are helpful ways to react to discomfort and pain (or fear of discomfort and pain), and less helpful ways.
AS: I think if you want to change those patterns, it’s great, and I think that all music students should be educated about smart use of the body and injury prevention. It’s really important—if you want to be in the business for the rest of your working life, at least.
When I was a student I wanted to learn the whole repertoire. I had a very clear plan of all the many things I wanted to do. It was go, go, go. My girlfriend, an amazing cellist, is much more laid back and she’s still happy about playing and doesn’t have any problems, really. So, do you want to burn out when you’re thirty-five, or do you want to try to have a balanced approach and have a shot at a longer career and longer enjoyment of that career?
AB: I think it’s tricky to know how to approach this with serious students. On the one hand, they need to practice. This is the time to do it. But at the same time, they need to know how to practice smart and find some semblance of balance. The fact is, you need a certain amount of physical time on the instrument, of course, but, like you’re saying, there has to be a lightness about it.
AS: There’s just been the world championship of chess. I don’t know if you’re into chess, but there are two players, a Norwegian and an American, with the highest ratings in history. They played twelve games and there was a draw. Nobody won the games. It was so tight because they are at such a high level no one can win anymore. Finally, at the end of twelve games when they were all even, the rules were changed and they had much less time to make a move. Then it was back to what chess is about—the intuition. I think it’s a little bit the same in our business now. I think we have reached that limit, like in chess. How many incredible clarinetists and amazing trumpet players are there? And all you have to do is look on YouTube and there’s a nine-year-old who can play Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. I can’t even get impressed with it anymore. We practice and practice and then we get tinnitus and dystonia and this and that. Why are we in this business anyway? It has become sport. Music has nothing to do with sport, but we’ve come to view it that way.
AB: You know what I also think is being pushed to the limit is the volume. I feel like, at least on this side of the Atlantic, the burn in the sound and the muscularity is what we so often go for, and sometimes it goes way over the edge. Those moments don’t become special anymore when you go there all the time. Some of it, obviously, is a little bit of testosterone. Also, the advancements that have been made in instruments allow us to do this. But, even though the instruments can take it, is it healthy for us to be using our physicality to go to (and sustain) that upper limit as much as we do? It’s bad for the ears and, very often, bad for the chops.
AS: That’s very true. If you put someone who doesn’t know about the orchestral world in front of an orchestra and the orchestra turns up the volume, they can’t understand that anyone can work under such conditions. It’s like a slap in the face for three or four hours a day.
AB: But then, the other part of the volume issue is that, as an audience member, it’s exciting to hear that, you know? It’s impactful. I do feel like it gets diluted if it happens all the time, but I admit that it’s exciting to feel that impact in the audience. And perhaps in our world we feel the need to compete with all the other noise and to provide that excitement.
AS: I think you have a very good point. I have these speakers here that I am using to edit. When I went to the store there were all kinds of loudspeakers, and while I was trying them all out, they told me that people prefer the biggest, juiciest sound possible. And that’s what people want in headphones as well. They like loud sound all the time. And you get that at the movie theater too.
AB: Yeah, you can feel it.
AS: Funny enough, my dad many years ago was offered a job to run a business making hearing aids. And he said, nah, that wasn’t for him. But since the time when he turned the job down, the business has grown like crazy because everyone gets hearing problems because everyone is wearing earphones all the time. There’s noise everywhere. We want to move to the countryside to hear a bit of wind in the trees and have some peace. I just want to move to the forest!
AB: Do you have any parting words of wisdom or general advice for anyone who might be going through an injury or experiencing chronic discomfort.
AS: I think, if I could have done anything differently, it would have been to pull back, take a break, and take it seriously. Take the time it takes to get it fixed. I should have gone to a specialist immediately, and if I needed to be out for six months, I should have taken six months.
Also, when you’re in your student years and you practice a lot, you should exercise—but smartly. Not pumping iron. Do smart exercises like yoga, and swimming. Take Alexander Technique lessons. Don’t put super heavy pressure on your joints. Think. Be smart. You should be flexible. This Norwegian chess player Magnus Carlsen, who is the biggest genius you can imagine, works out every day, because he sits there in front of the chess game. He works out as much as he plays chess. Chess is not only a matter of sitting, right? The exercise is also good for your mind. So, work out smartly and make it part of your routine, like brushing your teeth. Nobody questions whether you’re going to brush your teeth. Brush your teeth. If you don’t, you’ll get problems with your teeth! It should be the same for exercising.
Also, I’ve been following the trumpet player Kristian Steenstrup—his teaching has influenced so many musicians—and he says this: get the right patterns in your practice and into your daily routines. Don’t collect all the wrong ones because then it takes twice as much time to get rid of them and incorporate new routines. Get it right from the start. And get good teachers!
For fourteen seasons Adam Simonsen was a member of The Royal Danish Orchestra, the world’s oldest orchestra, before he decided to go all in on democratizing the way people learn how to play an instrument. Using the online platform he created, www.playwithapro.com, anyone can learn music—at all levels—with guidance from professional, passionate, and experienced teachers. Adam is passionate about music and about communication between people. “I was so fortunate to have had great teachers all through my life. I don’t take that for granted, and that’s what drives me now—making new ways for more people to learn and share the love of music, guided by great musicians,” Adam says.