'Tips from the Top' - Interview with Algirdas Matonis

Internet masterclass pioneer and Sterling Virtuoso Artist Algirdas Matonis joins me this week for an chat about all things Euphonium.

1. When did you start to play the euphonium?

I started to play the Euphonium at the age of 7.

2. What is a typical day/week like for you?

On my regular non-traveling days I am usually super big on structure and routine. I wake up around 4am and try to leave for University at Carnegie Mellon, before all the student and people and general buzz happens in the morning. 

I put in 1-2 hours of practice covering mainly basics including a good quality warm-up. Then I go and spend 20-30 minutes reading all my emails and spending some time sorting through various paper work. 

Now it’s time to relax for couple hours and go to the gym and train for a while. I find it personally the most relaxing and stress relieving way of spending free time. By the time that is done it is usually about 9.30-10.00am and everyone starts coming to university to practice. 

I much prefer to do my playing in as little of a distracting environment as possible so around that time I  go for a quick nap or if I feel like going on with my day I would grab I coffee and script some upcoming videos, compose music, check social media platforms, reply to people and generally go and sort all non-playing related stuff. 

I would do that up until around 4pm and that is when I would put in another playing session focused more on pieces, picking the most important bits to improve on and trying to memorize the most of the programme that I can. 

That would last anywhere between 1-3 hours depending on how I feel. After that I would follow up with another half an hour focused on checking emails and writing down my playing routine and things I have to do outside of it for the upcoming day. I’ll finish my day with another workout session, go home around 22.00, eat, chill a bit and rest. That’s if I’m not jammed with rehearsals and concerts. Whenever the concert cycles with River City start I make sure I wake up very early to get done with my basics and workout and then plan according to scheduled activities.

3. What has been your most interesting/unusual concert performance?

To be fair I have had a lot of  occasions that went with something unexpected or unplanned happening. One specific occasion that comes to mind was in 2014 where I performed a solo gig with River City Brass. One of the concerts had a really nice filled theater full of people and I was performing Sparke’s Harlequin. Before I came to stage my second valve was messing with me a bit so I was a little concerned. Nonetheless, I oiled the heck out of it so figured it should be fine. I entered the stage and as soon as I opened with this beautiful lyrical melody my valve decides to jam completely making me sound like a moose in agony (just let your imagination go wild a bit on this one and I’m not even exaggerating). 

I remember James Gourlay who conducted the show looking at me and stopping the band. To save the situation he started talking to the audience and making euphonium jokes, which in hindsight was actually quite brilliant of him. Everyone from the band assumed that it was a dry valve so someone handed me in valve oil. At the time in my head I was thinking… Well I’m not going to say what I was thinking but you probably can kind of guess what was happening in my head. I knew that there was something wrong with my euphonium which had nothing to do with oil. 

Anyway, as I was slowly oiling it while James was cracking jokes, I remembered stories about string players pulling their strings during their performances and getting away with using alternative positioning. So I was in my head thinking of alternative finger combinations so I could play the whole nine minute solo without using second valve. Obviously, It would never be possible but that just shows how convinced I was that the valve would jam again. 

Then, suddenly Lance LaDuke who played euphonium in the band at the time came to me and went, “Hey man, do you want to use my euphonium?” I swear a god it felt like somebody took a hundred pound weight from my back. I remembered at that time hearing someone from the band saying, “Don’t take it, you’re not used to playing that euphonium” with the band members being worried that I might be stressed. As soon as I took Lance’s horn I had a similar feeling it seemed like I’ve just played a really nerve-wrecking concert, just realized it’s over and now didn’t want to leave the stage. 

We started playing and I don’t recall having that much fun and being so relaxed in a long time. I was looking at people’s faces and seeing everyone in the audience being a little tense, worried about the way it’s going to go for this ‘young kid’… While in my head all I knew was SHOWTIME!

This experience was one of many interesting situations I’ve had throughout 18 years of playing. However, it was very memorable because I was a bit surprised in a good way in how I reacted under these situations where a lot of people would panic. Even though it’s technically supposed to be one of those bad moments, for some reason it is stuck in my head as something really positive and funny. By the way, the performance was actually recorded and I have it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fkZv7dsjJE

If you looked at the video you will see that I am playing Lance LaDuke's euphonium and there is another euphonium next to the conductor just sitting on the floor. If I find the full concert I will put the whole situation where the valve got jammed so younger guys could possibly learn from it and later react better to unexpected circumstances. That being said, the performance went very well and later I found out that during the flight, one of my euphonium pipes were bent slightly to the point where visually it was barely noticeable. That led to compression that got the valve jammed.

4. What skills/personal attributes are most important to being a successful Euphonium Player?

Without any doubt long-term commitment, being honest with yourself and knowing exactly what you want to do as a euphonium player. Look, there are so many variables to getting good at playing, such as ability to absorb information well, being structured, memorizing thing, being musical, having good sense of rhythm and pitch, luck. That being said, there are couple things that are always in common with top successful players in the world.

1. IT TAKES TIME!!! No matter how fast learning or talented you are, whatever you like calling it, it’s going to take years before you master any skill, whether it’s specific sports, science, music or whatever. Some people it will take 10 years some it might be 20. You have to be LONG-TERM COMMITTED!!! Nothing happens over night, embrace the journey and enjoy it as much as possible. Don’t let the pace of your progress discourage you or on the contrary, make you over confident. Stick to the daily hard work, consistency and you’ll get good eventually. Very good if you follow this advise!

2. BE HONEST WITH WHERE ARE YOUR ABILITIES AT!!! I have never seen anyone playing an instrument for fifteen years and being terrible at it. However, I’ve seen people who have being regularly playing for most of their life and they have never managed to get themselves to that elite level (whatever the heck is that supposed to mean). As a euphonium player you have to realize that more than likely a lot of your audience is going to be other euphonium players who want to witness a skill set above their own. If you want to go from good to great, at some point of your playing career you will have to take your practice to a whole new level of efficiency and structure. You have to be balanced with no gaps in your skill basket and in order to achieve that, you will have to be HONEST with what are your strengths vs weaknesses are and realize that those gaps. There are some bits of your practice that you may possibly ignore, or let it slide through even though deep in your conscience you knew that it will catch up to you. Once you put your ego down, you will learn that you can listen to and take criticism very easily, without taking it too personal and progressing at immense pace even at the late stages of your playing career.

3. KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR DAMN INSTRUMENT!!! Do you want to teach? Yes? University? High school? Privately? Maybe, you want to be a soloist? Yes? Then what kind of soloist? Classical? Jazz? Pop? Who’s going to be your audience? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS YOU NEED TO ANSWER if you want to become successful. You need skills to get the job. You need time to acquire skills. You need money to maintain yourself to afford to spend time on developing your skills. If you don’t have a job in your playing field, not only will you most likely have to spend time working at a poorly paid coffee shop to maintain yourself but also you will be much less likely to have free time to further pursue your music goals. You will NOT BE the greatest teacher, soloist, military band player in the world all at the same time. But in order to get a music job you will have to be most skilled person from your peers in that specific field. It is CRUCIAL to specialize yourself. Music is a very wide field, including a lot of activities. If you want to teach at university, you will most likely need a higher degree than an undergraduate/bachelor’s degree. Guess what, that means that getting that degree is one of your main focus points. If you want to be a band musician, then you will have to know all band repertoire, know individual parts, know how to subdivide, have great sense of pitch and etc. YOU NEED TO GET A JOB to get good and successful. It sounds like a huge loop but that’s the reality. We’re not pop singers and our options are not as open. That being said, don’t be afraid to think outside the box and have bigger than the world goals. Just make sure to put yourself in position where you actually can strive for something great. Do that by planning and knowing what you want from your instrument.

5. What personal advice would you offer to the average Euphonium player?

Don’t think yourself as an average player! I hate this term in general. Don’t let anyone discourage you just because they can play a higher note or some nonsense like that. Know why you play and what exactly you love in music. Push yourself as hard as you feel like you need to and make sure to NEVER LOSE JOY in playing! Isn’t that the most important thing eventually?

6. What are your favourite Euphonium Solo’s? 

I know it’s not a shocking answer like a lot of peeps would like to hear but I am a huge fan of Philip Sparke’s works. I think he contributed a lot to defining euphonium strengths in music and in my opinion is the best classical euphonium composer. To answer the question, most of my favorite solos would be something like Harlequin or Pantomime. I would struggle to single out one particular solo. However, just wait a little bit and you will soon hear some awesome new stuff that has never been played before that has been written for me.

7. Tell me about your rehearsal schedule?

It’s pretty busy nowadays. Outside the personal practice time I have to rehearse with River City Brass Band, my piano player and my chamber group. Fortunately, at this moment I have an access to rehearsals with piano player whenever I want to, so pretty much every day. I don’t even spend much time practicing solo pieces myself, I just do it with my pianist. The chamber group happens once or two times a week and it’s usually hour or hour and a half worth of playing. The key is to have people who come in prepared and it’s usually just working on details from that point on.

River City  Brass is the big one nowadays. It’s really busy and when rehearsals start I really need to plan my personal practice well in order to deliver. It’s a very taxing group to play at cause of the volume, range and generally the parts that euphoniums have. I try to play as little as I can get away with when the concert series start. My personal practice time really depends on what I’m doing at that particular time. So for you to better understand the amount of rehearsals I have, just google River City Brass and check their concert schedule, than do the math… if you have fifteen concerts a month, then how many rehearsals does that take on top of two hour concerts? Just use your imagination.

8. You have played the Euphonium in many parts of the world, tell me about your experiences with the Euphonium?

Yeah, I’m blessed to have had so many opportunities to play in different places of the world. Most of the experiences were positive! You get to meet new people, see new places and gain playing experience. However, I bet everyone wants to hear some interesting/funny stories regarding travelling and trust me, they DO HAPPEN! OFTEN!

So let’s bring it.

2014 I am flying from Europe to USA. American people might take this for granted but for peeps who come from Europe, unless you have a lot of multi-continent travel experience, there is a huge chance you don’t even imagine the difference when it comes to travel and customs procedures. If you don’t follow me on social media you might not know that I am a huge fitness junky. I’m really picky with what I eat, so in order to avoid eating junk food on a long flight, I packed up a sandwich with grilled chicken breast and some salad. An hour before you land to USA you have to fill in a customs paper where you indicate where are you flying and what are you bringing. One of the boxes had, “Are you bringing any meats to USA”. This obviously applies for larger amounts than just sandwich. Me being a “funny” dude, I decided to put a tick on “Yes”. Guess what?... BAD IDEA!!!... As soon as I handed the paper at the passport control the guy was like, “Mhmmm, Mr. Matonis… So you say you’re bringing meats? Please step over that red line!” I tried explaining that it was just a sandwich but when they brought the police dogs I realized that nobody liked European jokes there. :D Fortunately, no drugs were found, however, my sandwich was taken away… To deal with my sorrow I might have visited fast food place a couple of times. Anyway, sounds like a funny story but it almost got me missing my flight. Point to take away, learn about the place you’re going to and do a little bit of research on NOT TO DO things! 

9. You run some superb masterclasses on the internet, what equipment do you use and how long does it take to record one episode, how do you decide the content ? tell me a little about your process?

First of all, thanks for nice words! Yeah, I do run I YouTube channel and other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well. I do free tutorial videos as well as other playing stuff. The whole idea is to do more than just educational videos so there are some vlogs included as well. This is to show people what’s the lifestyle of musician like. 

I think we often avoid showing our personalities and just base our public appearances on our playing, which I guess is fair enough, just not the approach I take. I believe there is so much good stuff to showcase when it comes to brass musicians outside our playing, so why not allow people to get to know you as a person and attract more brass music fans to our community. Educational stuff is a huge part of my videos though, just to give back to brass community by sharing my knowledge with younger guys. If you want to find more about it you can find all videos and updates on

youtube/matonizz

facebook/matonizz

twitter @matonizz

In terms of equipment for videos it’s pretty straight forward, I use a DSLR camera, Lavier microphone, tripod, lights and screens. If I want multi angles obviously more if things mentioned prior. Editing is the thing that takes quite a bit of time, especially when I started. It used to take me around 8 hours of work on one video. This is including recording process. 

Now I kind of found the structure I like and i have got a bit more efficient with it so it’s much quicker. The topics for instructional videos come from people asking, since I get quite a lot of inquiries via social media. So if you have any issues you would like me to cover on video just post a comment on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible. 

Obviously, It’s trickier to fully help people on specific issues in comparison to private lesson but I found videos to be a great way of helping a larger group of people all at once. The reason why I do it for free is that when I was a kid and I decided to become a musician I did not have a mentor, teacher or anyone who could show me how to play or what to do. All I had was Arban book and internet, so I would spend hours a day searching for euphonium or any other brass videos on YouTube and try to learn from them. 

10 years ago there weren’t that many of them so whenever something new would come out I would be super excited. There are so many young guys and girls even today who don’t have an access to sheet music, good teachers. I was the same… Always texting, asking and trying to meet people who lived in those environments. Now when I think of it, I was probably a bit annoying to some other players but all I wanted was to have a chance to play and get better. That’s why I try to get back to everyone and answer questions. Even if it’s not as useful as one-on-one lesson in person. Hopefully it gives some valuable information as well as shows that someone cares, that way motivating everyone to keep on working hard and pursuing music careers.

10. Who would you say is the one euphonium player who has influence you the most?

Definitely Steven Mead. Since the moment I figured out  who he was I decided to do everything in my power to become his student and that was not the easiest thing to do in the world where we come from. However, I managed to become his pupil at RNCM for my undergraduate studies and I think I’ve learned a lot from him. Our approaches are quite different and we had some interesting moments to say at least. But I have a lot of respect for him and I am not even sure if I would have pursued music if wasn’t because of Steve. 

11. What are your 3 top tips for ambitious younger player?

1. Be patient! You don’t get good over night! That being said, try to progress as quick as possible, just don’t get discouraged if it’s not going at the pace you would like to. It never does. It takes time, so just enjoy the journey!

2. Don’t forget why you decided to become musician at first place! It’s easy to loose the joy when you’re so occupied on getting better. Yes, skills are crucial! Just don’t forget to have fun as well! 

3. Think ahead! To get good you need to play, to play you need to have time, to have free time to play you need to be in a place where you don’t need to work at Starbucks to maintain yourself. Look, most of the time you’ll end up having to do something on the side before you end up full-time working as a musician/teacher. You just want to minimize that. Plan exactly what you want to do with music and be VERY SPECIFIC when it comes to acquiring skills needed for that job. Once you have a job in your field not only you’re making money but you are doing something which keeps you improving and something that you like.

I would like to pass my thanks onto Algirdas for showing us a view into his life as a professional euphonium player. I have had the pleasure of knowing Algirdas for a number of years now and would like to wish him the best for the future.