- I think we've learned,
as every young ensemble has learned,
what makes a good quartet
and what you have to sort of put into it
to make sure it's gonna work,
besides the really obvious and most important skills
of being able to play well together and to get along,
we've found that
committing fully to the quartet life
is really the only way to, for us at least,
to really make a career happen.
I think that leads into other conversations
about whether it's possible to have several careers
as a musician at a certain time.
And I think when you think about how much time
and energy it takes to put into an ensemble,
and you see all these other skills,
that we have to bring to it,
it's a really, it's an absolutely full time job.
And so I think maybe one of the most important things
comes from a total commitment to playing string quartets.
There are other quartets,
who have been able to be successful as, you know,
doing some gigging and doing some other things on the side
but generally the quartets
that really are able to go out there
and kind of do it are the ones,
who are really willing to commit to it full time.
So I think that's probably the most important do (laughs),
we're talking about do's and don'ts
about being in a quartet.
And I think, you can elaborate maybe on.
- Sure. - On that
- Yeah, I would agree with that completely.
I think that,
you know,
the do's and don'ts are things
that you learn as you go along
or we can say some do's and don'ts,
I think anyone going out is gonna make mistakes
and that we certainly have made plenty,
and we'll continue to make mistakes,
but we're learning from those.
Some of the things that we've learned,
We shouldn't do, are to for instance
meet someone interesting and not maintain a connection
with them or not be in contact with them.
It's an unbelievably,
I cannot overstate how important personal relationships are.
- Maintaining. - Especially this field.
- Maintaining friendships,
connections. - Yep,
yep, and so everything that we've,
that's happened to us so far,
whether it be concerts or grants or commissions
or everything has been based on personal relationships,
that we've made with people,
and they're just are ever more relationships.
And it's actually really wonderful,
because people are doing it for wonderful reasons.
And you know, the more that you meet people and realize,
how much wonderful work people are doing,
the more excited it is, that you are actually to be a part
of this field, but it does involve a certain amount of work
to just make sure that you're keeping in touch with people
that you're, and that you're not discouraged,
if you meet someone and, you know,
you want a concert and you don't get a concert immediately.
But we had people that we sent materials to early on,
that, you know, that was nearly four years ago now,
and now we're hearing from them that they're,
they'd like to have us on a series, things like that,
because they're getting used to our name.
They're getting used to knowing about us,
and then they're hearing good things.
And suddenly they're interested.
When we sent out the first wave of packets, our first year,
and didn't hear back from anyone,
it was incredibly discouraging because we thought,
you know, what does it take to get this kind of work?
But I think sometimes it's the people are waiting to see
you know,
to see you've developed and waiting to develop
that relationship with you and those things take time.
So that's been really,
that's a very important do is to maintain relationships
and build relationships.
- And to get yourself out there.
- Yeah.