EA reader at ease

In the mood

If you ask Rob McDonough how he feels when he plays clarinet, he will tell you that it depends on the mood of the music. He plays and lets the piece of music move him.

"Sometimes, I think about the era in which the music was created," he says.

McDonough, who serves as senior electrical engineer at Allied Tube & Conduit in Harvey, 111., has played the clarinet for about 25 years, starting in junior high school. He played in the band in high school. Senior year, he joined the orchestra. After enrolling at Indiana's Valparaiso University, he began performing again in a band.

He originally began playing the clarinet because he liked the sound of the instrument, with its wide range of highs and lows. According to McDonough, when he plays low on the clarinet, the tone of the instrument sounds wooden. When he plays high, the tone is much brighter.

"My parents were probably influential loo," McDonough concedes in his explanation of how he started out on the clarinet. "They liked listening to the music of Benny Goodman."

Today, McDonough performs with the University of Chicago Wind Ensemble, which is made up mainly of undergraduates. Graduate students and alumni of the university also play in the band. Some people like McDonough have nothing to do with the university-except play in its wind ensemble. The group performs three times per year;-once in the fall, once in the winter, and once in the spring.

"Most of the music we play is 20th Century music," explains McDonough. "The music is written for bands."

As a musician, McDonough enjoys listening to clarinetist Benny Goodman, the son of immigrants who lived in Chicago's Maxwell St. neighborhood. Goodman would popularize Jazz and Swing. McDonough also enjoys Larry Combs, who joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1974 and has been its principal clarinetist since 1978.

His favorite composers for band music are Gustav Hoist, an English composer with Latvian and Spanish roots who wrote music about one hundred years ago. Hc also likes Ralph Vaughan-Williams, who wrote nine symphonies between 1910 and 1958 as well as numerous other works including chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores.

"I wouldn't consider them influences because I don't write music," says McDonough.

Overall, music offers an outlet for McDonough that enables him to get away from the pressures and humdrum of the daily routine and enrich his mind and spirit.

"Music is an escape," he admits. "You can concentrate on work if you are thinking about music."-JSH

Copyright Barks Publications May 2005
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