My Musical Career – Part Four – From High School to College

In my last blog post, I left off at the point where I was at the stage of my education where I needed to apply for and to be accepted into college. By this time, it was pretty clear that I was cut out for some sort of musical career. And it was to be towards an institution of higher learning which had as its main focus music, to which I would be applying. My marks in high school were not of the best as I was a bit of a day dreamer (today, in our more politically correct world it is called attention deficit). If I liked a subject, I usually did well; if I did not, I not only did poorly, but rejected it utterly – consigning it to the seventh circle of hell -a la Dante’s Inferno. (This is something I have learned to overcome, but not without a struggle.)
So, here I was -a self taught percussion student – with experience only on timpani and snare drum and without any mallet experience or any private lessons of any sort – and I wanted to apply to a music school? It would require a major miracle to make this happen, and with the help of the Good Lord and some very fine people, it did. Here’s how we did it.

The Miracle

First off, I had actually written a short suite for percussion ensemble – tin cans, slide whistle, snare drum, bass drum, etc. and had actually performed the middle movement at a talent show at Yorktown High School in my junior year. I still had the manuscript, which I planned to show the audition committees at whatever institution of higher learning to which I would be applying. Second – I felt the lack of proper instruction and I high-tailed it over to my former and director who had moved over with the complete faculty to the new Mildred Strang Middle School now located directly across from the high school. I discussed the problem with him and we worked out a program in which I would concentrate on my strong points – timpani and snare drum. I started going over to the middle school once a week or more for brush-up lessons on snare drum timpani. He assigned me a couple of snare drum etudes to work on as well as a couple of timpani etudes and the opening of American Salute. I practiced these assiduously, going back for criticism each week.
Third – the academic side of things. This was the area that would need the greatest amount of divine intervention. I was most fortunate in having a good guidance counselor in Mr. Charles Beers, who was determined to see me get accepted into college. He interviewed all of my teachers, including my math teacher at the time, Bernard Kane. This was my worst subject and I thought that Mr.Kane disliked me because of my poor grades. It turned out that he knew me better than I knew myself at the time. He apparently gave me a glowing recommendation to Mr. Beers, who included it in his file.
Fourth – great parental support as well as guidance. It was decided after conferring with Mr. Beers and my parents that I had the best chances with only two schools – the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut, and the Manhattan School of Music. An audition was arranged at Hartt School, to which my dad drove me in early January 1970. Dad was great at making small talk and keeping me relatively calm and was a steady presence at my side that day, for which I will always be grateful. I auditioned for the Percussion Instructor, the great Alexander Lepak. He was most cordial and took a look at my percussion piece. I as in the stdio for at least forty-five minutes, which I took for a good sign. My dad and discussed this very point during the trip back home. However, a few days later, I received a politely worded rejection letter. That option was closed.
So on to Plan B – Manhattan School of Music.

Plan B- The Manhattan School of Music

It was most fortunate that I applied to the Manhattan School of Music at the same time I had applied to the Hartt School. I was duly invited to come down to the city for auditions and testing, which would take place over a to-day period in March of 1970. My parents arranged for me to stay with our good friends Joe and Bernice Vrablic, who were like an uncle and aunt to the Simco clan. I will always be grateful to them for the caring they showed me during this audition period. I presented myself at the Manhattan School of Music at 120 Claremont Avenue in the upper West Side of Manhattan on a rainy March morning in 1970. I got myself registered in, and then went straight to Room 610 – or more correctly, to the hallway outside of Room 610, awaiting my turn to audition.
The audition was conducted by three gentlemen whose acquaintance I was to make on more or less a permanent basis later that year. The head of the percussion department, Paul Price was about forty-nine at the time. He was known as the father of the college percussion ensemble movement in the USA, and had performed as a member of Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra. James Preiss (I shall refer to him as Jim in the future, as that is how all of us came to know and love him)was a twenty-eight year old from Minnesota who had just finished graduate studies and was now on the faculty. Morris Lang had just turned forty. He was assistant timpanist of the New York Philharmonic and a member of its percussion section. The could not have been more polite. I was very nervous, but somehow I got through the ordeal still standing on m own two feet. I still get weak-kneed for a moment at auditions!
The next day was given over to tests in sight-singing, dictation and theory. I must admit that I was overwhelmed by this, having had very little formal musical training. However, I used the breaks to get to know the layout of the school, especially its fine music library. Each teat was about an hour in length, with a break in between sessions.
Then the ordeal was over, and it was back home to await the verdict, which didn’t arrive until the end of May. I had been accepted, tough with deficiencies in theory and dictation – which was no surprise! I was overjoyed. I got the news from my sister, who was working in Yorktown as a bank teller. She had come home for an early lunch and in getting the mail saw the envelope from Manhattan School of Music. She opened it up – I really didn’t mind if she did as she was on the side of the angels – and forsook her lunch and drove it over to the high school. I remember I was sweating out another miserable math class with a substitute teacher, when my sister asked permission to speak with me. I remember going out into the hall and her handing me the letter and saying “You made it!”(The high school office staff knew her well and let her in as she was a recent alumni – Class of 1968. Those were more innocent days.) I was so happy, the rest of the day went by in a blur. The miracle had occurred, and it was one that changed and enriched my lie a thousand-fold. Needless to say, I could hardly wait for graduation and preparing for college. More about that later.