GORDON'S PAGE 2
The first downhill run started when I made the desicion to leave my position with the Tasmanian Symphony to return to Western Australia as 2nd Flute & Piccolo in the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, a position I auditioned for even though I was not unhappy in Tasmania & was appointed. Jim Gleeson the principal flute wished me well & commented that it was unusual to play alongside another musician for six & a half years without one altercation which I thought was a great compliment. In that time I would have regarded myself as placid & easy to get on with, also never let conducters upset me. All this was to change in the following year. It all began in the last week before moving to Western Australia with my family. We had been preparing for our departure with lots of enthusiasm when on the fatal morning of hearing our six weeks old baby crying for a while, I went to him a little later & found him face down in the cot, blue & not breathing. Without going into anymore details it shattered us both, in fact I doubt if my wife has ever gotten over it. I have put it from my mind but strangely enough if I think of that moment when I found him I still start crying even after more than thirty years. So we sadly made our way to W.A. a week later with our four year old daughter Simone & I started my work with the orchestra a bit later. All went well with the orchestra for three months until I was diagnosed with a skin cancer on my lip which a plastic surgeon.suggested I take two weeks off & he would operate on my lip which he said was straight forward, Geeee,was that an understatement. When I recovered from the anaesthetic, found that he had cut my lower lip from corner to corner, taken a piece out of the middle where the cancer thing had been, pulled skin from inside the lip & sewn it up with about twenty odd stitches. When my friends from the orchestra first saw me they were horrified at what they saw it looked like. They never said anything at the time but later said there first thought was I would be lucky to ever play again. Well, so much for taking two weeks off work, it was two months before I made it back into the orchestra & I really struggled to blow properly with a reasonable sound. The reason being that I lost the sense of feeling in my lip & didn't know where the flute was resting also where the surgeon had taken the piece out of the middle I now had a bit of a lump which made high notes very difficult. I lasted a few more months but lost the plot entirely with bad behaviour & ultimately ended up in hospital mainly with personal problems for a few days & had to leave the orchestra. My friends in the orchestra especially Owen Fisenden the first flute were very very supportive but I knew deep down my career was finished at least for the near future. I got out of that hospital bed & decided to start a new life so went to the Gold Coast in Queensland & bought a toy shop. This gave me time to sort out my flute playing, so a new adventure started which would ultimately bring me back into music.
While enjoying the business of buying & selling toys I continued to try & practice the flute. At the same time decided to get better on the Clarinet so spent a couple of hours a day building up the embouchure. Ocassionally was invited to give a concert which was to small audiences playing Sax Clarinet & flute pieces which went reasonably well except I remember vividly making a couple of outstanding squeaks on the Clarinet. My playing gradually came under control on the flute & I also helped out with the local youth orchestra which was being formed at that time under Frank Shieblick, After about a year I regained the feeling in my lips again & things looked a bit more promising with my flute playing steadily getting better. All this searching for a new embouchure gave me a vast insight on the "Mechanism of the flute embouchure & its relationaship with the diaphragm" I was then offered a job playing in a show band at the Miami hotel seven nights a week which lasted about a year. My efforts were mainly on Tenor Sax with the odd dabble on Clarinet & Flute. We had fun but finally the hotel decided that they weren't making enough money out of it so we got the sack. Well, such is life for the hotel musician. After about two & a half years of diligent flute practice I was invited to fill in as second flute with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra for a while & when the permanent position became available was ulimately appointed the position. Will continue a bit later about how I made it after that as a principal flute.----------------
"Here we go writing again at the beginning of 2005 "
I played with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra for about three years which helped greatly in getting my Flute playing & enthusiasm to practice going again. My three years with the orchestra was very much a rebuilding phase, I could still zoom around the flute without any problems but I wasn't happy with my ability to play long diminuendo's in the upper register with quality. My flute companions in that time were Patricia Byrne (principal) & Jeannette (now) Manricks 3rd f;ute & piccolo.We all got on very well & they were very supportive & sympathetic to my efforts to improve my playing again as I had decided to have remedial surgery on my bottom lip. Over the three year period I had three operations to try & reduce the lump by a plastic surgery who decided that he could take a little at a time so as not to maybe wreck my career entirely. After each operation life became easier in flute playing & the lump in the middle of my lip got smaller. This was the beginning of me getting a much greater understanding of what was involved in the blowing mechanism of the flute which led me to being a better teacher & able to guide students with embouchure problems. I also played tenor sax in a big band led by Allan Brown (trombone in the QSO), this was great fun which involved lots of well paid gigs & included some really good jazz players.