WESTERLY BAND

Excerpts from an interview with the the LA Times. You can read the full interview here.

Do you still practice your clarinet every day?

At least half an hour. You have to practice every day, even in order to play as badly as I do. Your lip is involved, your embouchure [the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece] — you just can't play effectively if you don't.

Do you need to practice at a certain time or a certain place?

I've practiced many different times in many places when I am out shooting. I have practiced out in the snow. I've come back to my hotel room at 11 o'clock at night out of town when I was making films and put the quilt over my head on the bed so I wouldn't wake anybody up at that hour. I've practiced in churches in Europe when I couldn't find any other spot. In automobiles where I would have the driver find a secluded street. Or I'd get in the car by myself and lock the doors when it was too cold outside.

After 50 years of this, do you feel guilty if you miss a day of practice?

Yes. 　

If there is to be an epitaph written for you as a musician, what should it say?

He was a terrible musician, but he really loved doing it.