Rachelle Jenkins, horn.
Audition Playbook. Creative Consulting. Real Estate.
When you were 18, what were your career aspirations and how much (if at all) did those change by the time you finished university/grad school?
When I was 18, I wanted to be a high school band director. I knew I loved music and wanted a life in music but the only viable career option that I knew existed was to teach band. I hadn’t been playing the horn for very long when I entered college — I was a trombone/euphonium player until I was about 16 or 17 — so I started school GREEN. I had never been to an orchestra concert, couldn’t really play below the staff, had never heard of “excerpts” or “transposition” … truthfully, I was about as green as they come.
But I was at a really great place (UCF) to be thrown into the water safely and learn to swim. I enjoyed studying music but I was already feeling drawn elsewhere. UCF was a big aerospace engineering school and I really loved and excelled in math and science. I seriously considered switching over to engineering many times during my first two years and, looking back, the possibility of losing my scholarship was probably the primary reason I never did.
At some point, I discovered that people actually made careers out of playing in orchestras so I picked up a double major in performance. It’s really amazing to look back at how far I came in those four years. I always felt behind, I always felt like a trombone player holding the horn, and I had serious anxiety about performing. It wasn’t until I went to Aspen for the first time, between my junior and senior years, that I really started to feel like a horn player and think maybe I could actually do this.
Over the course of your entire career to this point — but prior to the pandemic — how have you pivoted or changed career paths and why?
I can’t say I've ever entirely pivoted off the music path — but I’ve definitely kept my arms outside the vehicle.
While at UCF, I worked at Universal Studios as a “skipper” on the JAWS ride. It was so fun (and miserably hot) and sparked an interest in a different kind of performing. By the time I arrived in Los Angeles to attend The Colburn School about six years later, I wanted nothing more than to run off and join a comedy theater or become a comedy writer. I took some intro- and one-off classes at the Second City and Groundlings theatres, but it was really hard to keep up with classes with a freelancer’s unpredictable schedule. I still feel a big “What if?” inside about not pursuing comedy writing even just on the side, but at least, for now, I’ve got my silly memes.
Audition Playbook was the closest thing to a pivot, prior to 2020. Writing a book and getting it out into the world was a big, big project — but so rewarding. Publishing the book led to other pivots within — coaching and leading masterclasses is a big part of my life these days, thanks to AP.
What were you doing at the start of this year (2020), prior to the pandemic?
The week before everything shut down, I played Bruckner 9 with the Montreal Symphony, conducted by Gergiev. (What a way to go out and into the pandemic…) I had a nice little apartment in Montreal and was playing with the orchestra regularly. I really enjoyed everything I was doing then and I never expected things to unravel as they did — but of course, none of us did!
Truthfully, however, I was already very seriously questioning if the sort of “one-track” career of a musician was right for me. Just performing with some teaching sprinkled in — or vice versa — was never going to cut it for me. Audition Playbook had given me both a creative and entrepreneurial outlet but I was craving more — I just didn’t know how. In fact, I often felt cursed by own brain — almost ashamed that I wanted to write comedy, work for NASA, design websites, etc. Why couldn’t I just play the damn horn?
A lot of us go through music school thinking we have to put all of our eggs into this one basket and focus only on improving our skills in the practice room to even remotely have a chance at being successful in this field. That gets deeply ingrained in you and, when you’re like me, it can cause a lot of inner torment. Fortunately, I’ve seen the light. I tell any student who is willing to listen to develop skills and passions outside of music — for enjoyment, for a back-up, to enrich your musical career, or to simply explore what’s out there and what’s possible.
How has the pandemic changed your career path or goals moving forward?
I’ve spent a lot of the last twelve months grappling with this question.
During the first few months of the pandemic, I got rather serious about learning to code. I always wanted to learn and it seemed like the most logical thing I could teach myself while locked up alone inside my apartment.
An interesting thing started to happen around May or June. Musicians who had watched me write, launch, and grow Audition Playbook were reaching out to me, asking for help or advice in launching their pandemic-born projects, so I started a consulting business — Musemap Creative. Suddenly, I wasn’t “just playing the horn” — I was designing websites, doing social media marketing, and helping get books published, podcasts launched, and courses off the ground.
One of the people who came to me for consulting services was a friend from childhood who had a great idea for a real estate side business. We decided to partner up and launched Knight House Network, a real estate referral service for alumni of UCF. As a result, I then got my real estate license, joined a brokerage, and have been since exploring that whole new world as well.
But I really miss “The Before.”
I’m eternally grateful that I had the time and opportunity to set up these new areas of my life and career, but I miss playing in an orchestra. I don’t know what my path is moving forward. In dabbling in each of these pivots this year, I’ve collected a lot of data about myself — I’ve learned which of these paths and areas I really enjoy and which are simply not for me. That’s invaluable information — but I’m still sorting it all out. I do know that the “right” path for me is not a straight line or a single lane. Variety is a necessity for me. My goal is to construct a career path that satisfies both the creative and entrepreneurial sides of me and allows me to teach, coach, and perform as well.
Oh, and make memes.