'Fearless' faculty hornist practices magic, discipline

What were you doing at 5:15 this morning? Hornist and IU Associate Professor of Music Jeff Nelsen was reading his own handwriting on a Post-It note he stuck to the snooze bar of his alarm clock. The question, "How bad do you want it?" stares Nelsen in the face every morning when he thinks about rolling over and going back to sleep.\n"It's all about being smarter than myself," Nelsen said. "And knowing my own tendencies and compensating for them in productive ways."\nKnowing his own tendencies has helped Nelsen lead a productive life. He is best known for his years as a member of the Canadian brass, during which time he performed hundreds of quintet recitals all over the world and was featured with numerous symphony orchestras, according to a press release from IU. Nelsen has also performed in the horn sections of the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra.\nNelsen was backstage at a New York Philharmonic concert when he first considered joining the brass faculty of the IU Jacobs School of Music, while talking to a trombone player he knew from the Seattle Symphony. That trombone player was Peter Ellefson who is also a professor at IU. Ellefson told Nelsen that his name had come up in a discussion at the University because there was an opening for a horn professor. Nelsen was asked if he would be interested, and he was.\nSince last September, Nelsen has brought what was referred to as his "unique teaching style" to IU, according to a press release. Nelsen said he thinks that a musician's training is identical to that of an athlete.\n"We exercise our muscles and learn our craft," Nelsen said. "On this path to excellence the moment we show our craft is usually in a performance situation like an athlete."\nNelsen said the big thing in teaching music is fearlessness, which is what his debut book publication "Fearless Auditioning," which is due for release this year, is about. Nelsen said fearlessness is better than confidence. This concept came about for Nelsen when he was writing an article called "The Confidence Myth."\n"I've never been 100 percent confident, but I can look back on performances and realize I was 100 percent fearless," Nelsen said.\nNelsen was raised on a pig farm in western Canada by his parents who met through opera. Nelsen said this mixture of experience in classical music and learning the work ethic of the farm has served him well.\n"Talent can get you best in high school, but beyond that it's the ratio of work to talent," Nelsen said. "It has to be a lot higher on the side of hard work."\nNelsen is also an enthusiastic magician and incorporated magic into his performance of a solo originally written and performed by Paganini, who was rumored to be in league with the devil in order to perform his great pieces. Nelsen would state that fact and tell the audience that in all his hours in the practice room he never actually made that deal with the devil, but that he might have thought about it once. On the word "once" Nelsen would set off an explosion of smoke and fire from his hand.\nNelsen said magic is another great art that takes discipline and practice and is endlessly creative.\n"When I was single I met girls with it too," Nelsen said. "But I'm married now."\nNelsen recently married his wife, Nina, who is studying opera in Philadelphia.\n"She helps me with my learning and loving," Nelsen said.\nNelsen said he is all about sayings. His favorite saying is "Most people don't aim too high and miss, they aim too low and hit."\n"Keep aiming high and that makes any two- or three-hour class or rehearsal fly by," Nelsen said. "And have fun"