Personal Tribute Page
Personal Tribute Page
Except for my father, no one else had a more profound influence on my musical career than Matty Shiner. From our earliest association he was both mentor and friend. At no time did he ever treat me in any way but with the greatest kindness. The years I spent at Duquesne as his student and as a member of the brass ensemble are cherished memories. I am forever indebted to him for his wise counsel and superb instruction. He is not only an outstanding musician, he is also a gentleman. I have been, and will always be, proud to say I was a student of Matty Shiner.
~ Robert Matchett ~
~ undergraduate degree, 1962 ~
~ graduate degree, 1966 ~
Life/Music Lessons I Learned From Matty Shiner
These are �Matty phrases� that I remember from my high school and college days. As I reflect back on these, they have more meaning now. I wish I had understood them better then as I do now.
�When you�re on time, you�re late� � When preparing for an appointment, leave early to avoid unforeseen circumstances. Be ready to begin at the agreed upon meeting time.
�Your pencil is your best friend� � Always carry something with which to record information.
�Break it down� - Break down the hard parts and go over & over them until you can perform them effortlessly. This can apply to music, a presentation or your understanding of a concept.
�Listen!� � Listen intently, compare your performance with those around you and make adjustments. In building and maintaining business or personal relationships, this is the key to effective communication.
�Burning Desire� - If you do not have this level of passion for the things you do in life, you will be ordinary.
�You people will accept anything� � Do not be tolerant of anything but the best from yourself and others.
�If you can spit you can play� � Some days you�re not going to feel 100% and you still must find it within yourself to perform at a high level. Don�t give up or make excuses.
�After the concert you can walk out the front door with your head up and not need to sneak out the back door�. � Always do your very best so you can be proud of your accomplishments instead of ashamed.
I still try to live the values that were instilled in me by Matty Shiner and my own father because their values were the same and neither one would settle for less.
As I reflect on my brief but impactful relationship with Matty Shiner, I thank God for the opportunity to have known and learn from him. I remember he addressed the Trombone Choir during a rehearsal in 1979. He said something to the effect that when he passes away, he will take over the brass choir in Heaven and when we pass away and get there, we had better be ready for rehearsal�because there will be rehearsal!
~ Matt Welch ~
1979 ~ Trombone ~ Duquesne University
Mr. Shiner was my inspiration and my mentor. I may not have always had the best lessons, but I strived to make him proud of me and I think I succeeded. In these past few weeks people have told me how highly he talked of me. He would never tell me how well he thought I played, but I think he knew what I was capable of playing. He called me the Thursday evening before he passed away, and wished me the best of luck, and as always he gave me his final advice. The next morning I had my audition at Duquesne University. I feel I did my best and he would have been proud of my audition. He was always there for me, knowing what I needed to practice and perfect. He always gave me the option to have two lessons a week, anyone that would pass up an opportunity like that would be foolish. Even though he has passed away, he will always be a part of my future lessons and performances. He would always tell me two things after every lesson that I will never forget. He said "You only get what you put into it," and "I don't want you to be one of those dime a dozen euphonium players, I want you to be the best, because you can do it" He would also tell me how he and his brother Eddie, would get up first thing in the morning to practice for several hours. He also told me when he had his wisdom teeth removed, that he played a show at the Stanley Theatre that same evening. He had no anesthesia to numb his mouth, so when he would empty his spit valve it was all blood. That is the Matty Shiner I am going to remember, the one that never gave up, and would do anything no matter what the circumstances. His perseverence led to perfection. Mr. Shiner, I will always remember everything you taught me from the music lessons to the life lessons. You will be with me forever, and I will never forget you...
~ Nicholas Deutsch ~
~ Euphonium ~
1~21~2003
I took trumpet from Ed Shiner.. I remember Bob Schmalz,
Bill Tole .. Paul Hubinon and Tom Koneski ..Ed and Matty
were great teachers .. I remember brass class with Matty
and still have my notebook we had to make ..
They will be missed...
~ Dick Bennett ~
~ Trumpet ~
~ 1959-63 ~
3~19~2003
In reading Matt Welch's tribute to Matty, I can only echo all that he said and back it up with a true to life account. I guess I was a freshman or sophomore and in the Brass Ensemble. One Sunday afternoon during rehearsal,I thought I was "sick in the bed" with the flu back in the dorm. As I lay there peacefully, the phone rang and you can guess who was on the other end. "Laarz!!...", the voice rang out. "Yes Mr. Shiner", I replied. "Where are you?" Matty asked. "I'm sick Mr. Shiner and in the bed", I responded. "Can you spit?", he inquired. (I had not yet heard this question before. So, I attempted to really spit.) "Yes, Mr. Shiner I can spit.", I feebly replied. ....You all know how the rest of the story goes. Thanks Matty and Eddy and the rest of you fellow brass guys and girls for helping me to be who God called me to be.
Bill Laarz ("The Rebel")
Trumpet
1979
6~1~2003
Mr. Ed Shiner's music still rings in my head 30 years after playing.
Thanks for pushing the "Mokes and Pokes" in all of us.
John Widmaier,
Woodwinds
Central Catholic High School, 1974
6~3~2003
Eddie Shiner was my trumpet teacher for 3 1/2 years while I attended Duquesne. Besides Mr. Shiner's tremendous musical ability and teaching talent, he had a zest and love for life I have never seen before or since. Mr. Shiner's greatest joy was bragging, and rightly so, on his students and how well they were doing; Paul Hubinon, Robert Rutledge, Tom Koneski, etc. I'll never forget one particular lesson when I was playing an exercise for him and he stopped me and said; "Bob, the light in this office drives me crazy, it's humming three different pitches, C, E, and F natural. I wish they'd fix it." My jaw dropped and I went to the piano he had in his office and checked the pitches of the light. He was right. Mr. Shiner was a phenomenal talent. I never saw him when he wasn't working on arrangements for his Central Catholic High School band, the Duquesne Brass Ensemble, or some other group. I think the most excited I ever saw him get was when he made an arrangement of Laurel and Hardy's theme song. He worked out all the harmonies from memory and orchestrated the parts beautifully. But what got him really excited was his Central Catholic marching band playing this theme when the referees were stepping off a penalty during a football game. His love for his students and sheer musical genius is what I'll always remember in Mr. Shiner. He honored me by allowing me to work with him teaching several trumpet students at Central Catholic and by helping him with the summer marching band camp he held at St. Vincent's College. Your love and spirit will live in each of the students you touched, Mr. Shiner. We are all truly blessed in having known you.
Bob Guyker, Trumpet
1970, Duquesne U.
~June 15, 2003~
Matty Shiner and Me - an early Matty Shiner student experience
I met Matty Shiner as a 9th grader transferring into Wilmerding HS. I had played the tuba for about 2 1/2 years and was essentially self-taught; that meant that I didn't know more than about 2 or 3 scales, had no real skills, but could play "tunes" out of an old trumpet book or by ear. Joe Krisick, the band director, was not pleased and said if I wanted to play in the band, I had to take lessons from Mr. Shiner. I didn't know what a "lesson" was and met some resistance at home when I reported that it would also cost some money each week. But, I wanted to play in the band and that seemed the only way, so I pestered my parents for the money.
When I met Matty, in late September of 1952, he seemed to be a pretty tough taskmaster. I had only played what I "liked" up to that point and ignored anything I didn't understand or like. I was pretty undisciplined. So having to play stuff I didn't like was somewhat intimidating. But Matty was more persistent than me and kept after me. I began to slowly learn basic music notation in addition to how to actually play the tuba. After football season was over and concert band started, I was given an actual Tuba to play in the concert band. Matty brought in a "solo" and said I had to learn it for the "contests". I had no idea what contests he was talking about, but under his direction, started working on that solo.
As part of learning the solo, Matty made me learn to double and triple tongue. Gradually, without my realizing it very much, Matty had me doing things I didn't know I could do on the tuba and even things I hadn't realized existed. Then, I had to learn to play with a piano accompanist, which I though was pretty neat. That's mostly because she really was pretty. As the contests came along, I managed to do well in the county and regional contests and ended up getting a top rating at the State Finals of the Pennsylvania Music and Forensic Contest.
Early on, Matty had me play for his brother Eddie. It was mostly Eddie who had Matty increase the pressure on me to practice and play harder and harder stuff like the double and triple tonguing. Eddie, at the time, also had the Catholic School Bands in McKeesport and I soon learned what a "ringer" was. I became a regular ringer in Eddie's Catholic Junior High School Band and several other places they sent me. Without realizing it, I was becoming more disciplined and having fun - in spite of the pressure to play with more and more precision. Matty and the band director sent me to the county, district and state bands as well, so I began to enjoy the travel.
Those were pretty good years. During my sophomore year I didn't practice as much as Matty wanted and failed to get to the State Final Contest. That was a drastic lesson, which I took to heart. So I tried to better follow Matty's practice advice. At one point, the mill where my Father worked went on strike and there was no money for lessons. I told Matty that I had to stop taking lessons until the strike was over and my folks caught up on their bills. He wouldn't let me stop and gave me lessons for free for about six weeks. I never forgot that either, though with the pressure at the time, I had been looking forward to no lessons for a while. It didn't happen and my lessons just continued..
Toward the end of my junior year in HS, having hoped to become an electrical engineer some day, I began to realize that my folks couldn't afford to send me to college. I almost gave up on the idea of going to college. Talking to Matty, he said I could probably get a scholarship in Music. He was teaching at Duquesne and Eddie was teaching at Carnegie Tech (what CMU was called then). He had me audition at both places and I was offered a scholarship at both places. But Carnegie Tech required that one get a BA during the first 4 years and then go another year to get a BS in Music Ed. I began to talk myself into becoming a HS Band Director and the program at Duquesne would get me there quicker. Besides, Matty taught there. I wanted to keep taking lessons from Matty.
So, in 1956 I became the first tuba player to ever attend Duquesne on scholarship. I had to pay for that scholarship in a way. The first thing was the regular jabs from some of the faculty over wasting a scholarship on a tuba player. The other was the soon to be frequent performances of the Duquesne University Brass Ensemble. Duquesne got paid for them in the form of honoraria by schools, PTAs, etc and by time I completed 4 years at DU, I figured that I had approximately doubled my scholarship to the school, considering only my "share" of the honoraria. With the heavy rehearsal and performance schedule, I was beginning to "wear out" and was having less "fun" playing in the brass ensemble.
Duquesne was a "blast" though. With people like Jim Drake, Bill Tole, Danny Poupard, Vince Prudente, John Thompson and many others, I felt I was in pretty good company. Long before I started at Duquesne, Matty had already formed the Duquesne University Trombone Quartet. A couple years before I began school, John Berry began to play with the Quartet using new arrangements by Eddie. So the quartet began to be called the Duquesne University Trombone Quartet Plus Tuba. I thought I was going to play in that group, but Matty said that John had seniority. John was a good tuba player and an even better string bass player - a very good all around musician. John was a senior, so I had to wait a year.
During my second and third year at Duquesne, a number of changes occurred. We had new arrivals, including Tommy Koneski and Delmas Dowden on trumpet, Calvin Holden on Baritone/Euphonium and Dave Ward (?) on French Horn and several others. Also, Eddie Shiner began to teach at Duquesne, mostly because of Tommy Koneski I thought at the time. So there was no longer a Trombone Quartet Plus Tuba. The trombone quartet continued, minus the tuba, and a small Brass Ensemble was formed, the first one ever at Duquesne. For two years, as I recall, it was a septet that consisted of 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, one Euphonium, one French horn and myself on Tuba. Those two years were the most work I had ever seen. We had hours long rehearsals, especially on Sundays. My Mother never could understand why, even on Easter Sunday, I had to leave before noon for a 12:30 rehearsal that went on until about 6:30. That was every Sunday. There were also several shorter rehearsals during the week.
In things I've read from others about Matty, no one mentions that he used to smoke. Matty would show up at school with the longest cigarette holder/filter I'd ever seen. Being very self disciplined, he would quit smoking for Lent. Then, on Easter Sunday, Matty would again show up with his cigarette holder. He never smoked during a lesson, in a studio or classroom or during any rehearsal. But he would show up with his cigarette and, especially at the end of a long rehearsal, he would light up again. Even with a bad habit like smoking, which he stopped altogether not long after I left Duquesne, Matty was a gentleman and looked dapper with that long cigarette holder.
Another thing I've not seen from others was Matty's sense of humor and especially his practical jokes. Matty would go through elaborate schemes with others to play a practical joke on one of his students. Eddie may have been an even bigger practical joker, from what I heard. The only time I ever saw Matty somewhat worried around me was when Matty played a particularly embarrassing joke on me. I wouldn't talk to Matty or go to a lesson for two weeks. He finally came down to the infamous "pad" on Vickeroy Street and apologized to me for the practical joke. I resumed showing up for lessons, but it took a long time to forgive and forget, even though I had a lot of respect for Matty.
There were some funny things that occurred, even without Matty's help as it turned out. Danny Poupard was an excellent trombonist. In fact, technically, he was probably more skilled than any other trombonist at Duquesne. He was also very relaxed and not prone to worry about anything. For one jury, in the old school recital room, Danny was scheduled to play first, right after lunch. But when it came time to play, Danny was nowhere to be found. His trombone was on the grand piano that was in the corner of the room, but no Danny. Matty was having a fit and had all of us out looking in the practice rooms, classrooms and even Albert's for Danny. It wasn't like Danny to not show up.
Finally, someone happened to walk over to that grand piano in the corner of the room and noticed a knee sticking up. There was Danny on the piano bench, sound asleep for the previous hour. Matty woke him up and asked Danny if he was okay and if he wanted some time to warm up since his piece went up pretty high at the beginning. Danny said no, picked up his horn, and without a thought, started his piece. Within the first few notes he was able to nail a high D and did the entire piece perfectly. If I hadn't been there, I'd have thought Matty had pulled off another practical joke. Matty never got angry with Danny. As soon as Danny had been found, Matty reverted to his typical concern about his student. I should mention that, like all of us, Danny had a cast iron lip. He could do lip trills on a trombone faster than anyone I've ever heard; as fast as Tommy Koneski could on trumpet. Matty gave us all cast iron chops with his long and demanding practice and rehearsal routines.
The final thing I've not seen from others, except in a brief way, was Matty's decorum. In spite of his early smoking habit and sometimes participating in practical jokes, Matty was always proper. He always dressed in a suit, taking off his jacket and sometimes loosening his tie only for those long sweaty Sunday rehearsals in late spring and early fall. He also was very mannerly to everyone in both speech and behavior. Even when he had pulled off a practical joke on someone, he would simply smile or chuckle a little and then quickly go back to serious work. He was a gentleman always, in speech, dress and behavior.
During my senior year, the Brass Ensemble really began to increase in size. We had had more new arrivals, including Paul Hubinon on trumpet, Henry Sokolowski on French horn, Roger Ryan (grad assistant) on Percussion and several others whose names now escape me. We were fielding an ensemble with 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 Euphonium, 3 French Horns, 1 Tuba and 1 or 2 Percussion, depending on what we were playing. For a few things, the ensemble was even bigger. That's when Eddie wrote a number of large ensemble arrangements such as the arrangement for the Fanfare for the Common Man. We were not simply a Brass Ensemble. We had become a brass choir.
When I graduated from Duquesne, I expected to simply get a job teaching and move on, although I was interested in going on to graduate school. I was draft eligible and that seemed to make finding a job more difficult. Then Roger Ryan decided to leave Duquesne. Dr. Keenan talked to Matty and offered me the graduate assistantship. I accepted and ended up staying at Duquesne for one more year. I no longer took lessons from Matty, but there were still those many hours long rehearsals which had the elements of striving for perfection that were a large part of the lessons. I was glad, in a way though, at not having to prepare another recital.
In graduate school, without the lessons, there was a good deal less contact between Matty and me. But, without realizing it, perhaps for many years afterward, Matty continued to be a very strong influence on me in many ways. In fact, in ways that I'm sure he never imagined. When I left Duquesne, it was because I was being subjected to the US Army draft and did not want to go into the Army. I joined the Air Force and for a time, played in the Headquarters Command Band at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC. I had a chance to go to Officer Training School and the Air Force Band Director advised me to take the opportunity to become an officer. At first, I became a supply officer. The discipline instilled in me by Matty, allowed me to finish the training at the top of my class, in spite of most of the other students having more suitable degrees, such as in Business Administration.
I was assigned to a pilot training base as a supply officer and soon became interested in the flight program. I applied and was accepted and a year later entered US Air Force Pilot Training. Again, Matty came to the rescue, without even knowing it. The pilot training program was an intense experience, for which I was more than prepared by those perfectionist lessons and rehearsals from Matty. One of my flight instructor's comments praised my "attention to detail", a trait long instilled once again, by Matty. I went on to complete pilot training and served as a pilot for 5 years on active duty and another 16 years in the reserves. I'm pretty certain Matty never understood how key a role he had played in making me a successful pilot and in many ways, saving my life in flying through the discipline and attention to detail he had taught.
After leaving active duty in the Air Force, and having gotten married and had children, I needed work. I was no longer much interested in becoming a high school band director since I had found out I could learn to do other things. I had taken a rudimentary course in computer programming while in the service, so I applied for a job as a computer programmer at several places. At one of those, I was asked what my music degree had to do with programming. After describing the lessons I'd had, the courses I'd taken in such things as composition and orchestration and others, and especially the disciplines learned from Matty, such as transposition and many other cerebral skills, I was offered a job. Some of those other courses may have helped me somewhat in being a successful programmer and later a manager. But the greatest influence came from Matty.
Years later, in 1987 after retiring from the Air Force Reserves, I picked up an old tuba and, recalling my years of taking and giving lessons, taught myself to play once again. I wasn't certain it was possible after a 25-year break. But with Matty there, unknowingly, each evening as I gave myself another lesson, I gradually regained some facility on the horn. After getting a better horn, I stopped in to see Matty on a number of occasions for an impromptu real lesson and advice. Within less than a year, I was teaching once again as low brass instructor at Seton Hill College near where I lived and playing in their wind ensemble. After filling in a couple times as a substitute with the Keystone Brass Quintet, I became the regular Tuba player with them for about a dozen years before health problems caused me to stop playing.
I last saw Matty as I recall, last fall (fall of 2002) before leaving for some winter travel. I've talked more about me and less about Matty than I intended. But that is because, to a large extent, my life and what I've been able to do with it is one of Matty's legacies. After all, I am a student of Matty Shiner. He, in some ways even more than my own parents, made me who I am. For that, I am grateful and I will miss you, Mr. Shiner.
~Chuck Galbach~
I was very blessed to play percussion under Matty while an undergraduate at Duquesne University. Matty was one of the hardest teachers I had the pleasure to learn under ! He considered percussion a very important component of both the brass ensemble and trombone choir. I was fortunate to play tympani in the brass ensemble and drum set in the trombone choir. I sweated out many a percussion section rehearsals on a Sunday afternoon where we would go through all of our pieces minus the rest of the brass ensemble. I wondered why we would do this. Later on, I realized how Matty wanted perfection in his performances, including the percussion. God bless this wonderful teacher, mentor and father figure.
~Michael Sciomacco~
~1980 - Percussion~
1~20~2004
Matty was my idol, teacher, friend and role model. As a boy, I would go the Stanley theater and sit in the first row just to see and hear him play. He told me later that he wondered who this kid was that bore holes in his every move. As his student, I was to learn and love him dearly. When I taught at Wilmerding High School, Eddie was my real friend and advisor. He came to teach the kids at the school and we were very close. When God gave us the Shiners, he changed all of our lives. I truly loved both of them and am saddened by their passing.
~Sammy Nestico~
~1950 - Trombone~