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Photo by Devin Courtright/The Advocate
Above: MHCC Orchestra member Joseph Watrous practices the viola with the string quartet in the MHCC Orchestra room.
Student finds solace in MHCC Orchestra, string quartet
The Advocate
MHCC student Joseph Watrous will perform in front of fifth-graders at Ventura Park Elementary School Thursday, with two MHCC students and instructor Marshall Tuttle in the “String Quartet.”
Watrous said Tuesday he wants to offer the musical “exposure that needs to be offered to young children,” informing them that music “is a viable option for furthering their own personal development.”
”It’s an option because I was able to pay for a lot of schooling, playing for the orchestra,” said Watrous. “It was really beneficial.”
In addition to playing viola for the String Quartet, Watrous, an education major, is a part of the Orchestra Band at MHCC, directed by Tuttle, and plays the viola and violin.
“I’m on to bigger things: Now I play in the string quartet with Dr. Tuttle, working on Beethoven’s “Late String Quartets” and (performing at) weddings,” said Watrous. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Watrous first met Tuttle while taking a music fundamentals class in the summer of 2004. At the time he was playing guitar and bass and prior to taking the class, he had no formal music training and never played a string instrument or listened to classical music.
“That’s when I was forced to deal with my internal, musical, issues because I really had to figure out how to write scales, how to read clefs, how to count (music), and how to actually perform,” said Watrous. “I kind of just ended up going in the music major program and that was a lot of fun.”
“Essentially he (Tuttle) completely changed my life, all for the good and thankfully he’s here doing his thing,” says Watrous.
“The more I took a theory class with him, the more I thought, ‘Wow, I need to be around this guy more,” he said.
“He knows what he’s talking about and so I asked him ‘what can I do in orchestra? Maybe I can play bass?’ and he said, ‘We don’t need any bass players.
You’re going to have to play viola.’ And that’s how I started playing viola.”
Asked how he felt about changing instruments, Watrous said, “I was definitely apprehensive to an extent because the viola doesn’t have a high profile in the orchestra; it’s in the middle,” said Watrous. “It has a very important role but not a lot of people appreciate that role because it’s right in the middle (of the violin and cello in tonal rage); just filling in.”
“The first piece he put in front of me in the orchestra — never even looked at the viola music before — was Beethoven’s 9th Symphony,” said Watrous.
Watrous says the viola “just grew on me. It took a while to get the clef down because it’s a different clef (from most clefs). It just takes a little time to get that through the hair and I had to get over myself.”
“I had to actually deal with the ego and that’s what Dr. Tuttle helped me extinguish, the sense of musical ‘big headedness’ and big ego,” said Watrous.
Asked if he would teach music, Watrous said, “Maybe I’ll end up adding some music stuff later on but I’m being a little selfish with music at this point. I don’t really want to teach music just yet. I still need to fulfill my own interest with music.”
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