- When you first moved to a new town
and you want to get established
it's very important that people know you're there
and that they know what your abilities are
and what your credentials are.
And you have to get the word out.
You will not get called
if you just sit home,
hoping that through some miraculous way,
somebody's going to know that you're in town there
and they're going to call you.
That is being assertive.
You have to make sure that everybody is aware
that you're in town.
Mostly the players have the same instrument that you play
and related instruments
and contractors.
If there are community orchestras
in the town where you're moving
or semi-professional orchestras
it might be a good idea to put a call into the conductor
because those conductors are probably readily available
and would be happy to know of new players in town.
That is assertive.
Aggressive is after you've let them know
to continually email, call,
and expect that they are going to take the time
to talk to you on the phone every time you call them
to remind them that you're in town.
You're just going to have to hope
that all the cards fall into place
that he's going to have a vacancy
or a cancellation
or a need for your instrument.
And that within a short period of time
you'll hear from him.
If six months goes by
and you haven't heard anything
if a quick little postcard,
or a phone call,
or an email is fine,
but certainly not on a regular basis
because that is just does nothing more
than just turn people off as being too pushy.
Assertive is making sure that everybody knows
that you're in town
and how to reach you.
Email, pager, cell phone,
and that you're interested in working
and you would be happy to come
and play for somebody.
That's another issue.
People call me on the phone and they say
can I come and play for you?
Well, the truth of the matter is
I don't need a flute player to come play for me
or a clarinet player
or a violin to come play for me
to know whether I'm going to hire them or not.
I would rather hear from other players of those instruments
that I trust saying so-and-so is a good player,
you should use them.
I'm not going to know if they're really a good player
or not.
And offering to come play for me
is about the same thing as saying
can we go have lunch
or can we have coffee?
It's not necessary.
The more important thing to do
would be, as we said earlier,
to go take some lessons for the right reasons
with the important person on your instrument in town.