"I don’t even think people distinguish themselves as just one thing anymore, like identifying as just an orchestral player, or just a teacher, or a freelancer. There was a period of specialization, but I think it’s very hard to make a living that way these days if you think that way. I would be terrified if I thought that they only way to make a living was to compete against 400 fantastic horn players for one orchestral job, holy cow. What pressure. When I was playing in Mexico, a lot of the people in that orchestra were post-graduates from the states, and all of the money that they made they would save to fly back to the states and take auditions, and they would always talk about their audition strategies and the mind games. But, what kind of life is that? To think that I have to get myself all psyched out and take a bunch of beta blockers so that I could win an audition so that I can start my life and achieve success? I mean, holy cow, that’s bad."

"You know, success doesn’t make too much sense to me. What I see, success would describe a rich dude who has this big house, big car, big company. That is a successful guy. But that is not too important for me. I prefer achieving goals instead of being successful. I think I have learned is that everything has a technique. Everything. Playing clarinet, dating, running well, swimming, eating, cooking, breathing, the way your mind works, they all have techniques and there is always room to get better. I really believe that life and the whole universe is exactly the same shit. They work the same way. So if the goal is success there must be some technique to being successful, no? Normally with clarinet, and with everything in life, if you practice you get better, so why not practice being successful? If I practice success, I will practice to achieve my goals, whether they are for today or if they are for a long term. Success is a long process, and when you achieve a lot of goals, no matter what they are, I would call that success, no?"

"I failed theory at Eastman because I didn’t go. I almost lost my scholarship over it too, and I didn’t come from money so I would have been leaving Eastman. It was a very stupid thing that I did. But, there were two reasons why I failed. One was that I never wanted to get up and go, which, even if you don’t like it, you have to show up to things, but two is that I’m dyslexic. It was really hard with those Roman numerals. At that time, though it seemed like the worst thing, it was one of the greatest things that happened to me because it showed me what happens when you don’t ask for help. You have to ask for help if you need it. Eventually I learned that my being dyslexic wasn’t such a horrible thing. Now it’s almost cool to have a learning disability, and people are more understanding, but back then there was a major stigma. But the cool thing is is that even though I don’t really read all the letters in words, because I use more of a speed reading technique, music was the first thing that went in right. It was the first thing that I saw correctly, and my brain was like, ‘yeah!!’ Oddly enough I have never had a problem with reading music. The human brain is weird."

"There’s this great quote I learned while acting, from this Russian guy name Konstantin Stanislavski. He said, “only put as much energy into the action as required”. I’ve followed that all throughout music. It’s not about you-it’s about the action, and just perform the action. Let everything else go and let it be what it is. As a composer, I think one of my most wonderful moments was when I was writing some string quartets during my masters degree. I had worked on a couple of movements, and I was really happy with them. I had spent time chiseling away at them and tried to emotionally go deep enough to feel like I was really saying something that mattered. Then I got to this one movement, and I decided that I would just write down the first thing that came to my head and go with it. So, I literally just started writing down and I didn’t censor it at all through those filters, like wondering if it was deep or meaningful, and then after a little bit of tweaking, in a very short amount of time I had an entire movement. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, but it was this sweet and playful little thing and I hardly put in any effort. I simply was just this passive human being that was writing down whatever came to my head, kind of like with talking. I just thought it was amazing, and if I could do that all the time, that would be an awesome life."

"I try and make sure that I never make decisions based on my emotions, because emotions are transitory and they change from day to day. You especially can’t make big decisions, like being a musician, on your emotions. If you’re having a really bad week, or month, it’d be easy to say, ‘forget it, I’m done.’ But, if you have a strong enough ideal of what you want your life to be, then you can make that true. I believe that it’s possible to have the balance of working as a musician, and still maintain artistic integrity. Even if I didn’t know anyone else could achieve that balance, it doesn’t mean I can’t, because I have to find that for myself. I have to believe in it. That’s why it was so powerful for me to continue doing music, because I made the decision based on reason, and not emotions. It’s the exact same thing with marriage. People sometimes think that because the spark is no longer there in a marriage that they have to end it, but no, you made a promise. With the music thing it’s a promise too. It’s not about how you feel, it’s about where your values are and where your ideals are. It’s about what you consider most important, and I consider a lot of things to be more important than my emotions and how I feel. Doing what you love is very different from doing what you feel like"