A community concert series with heart and purpose

In 2022, as we were all coming out of the COVID crisis and craving a return to performing and music-making, the trio I’m fortunate to be in, the Alma Ensemble, sat down and after much discussion breathed life into a dream I’ve had since I was a little girl. “Alma del Core,” our community concert series, is now in its third season and has found its way into the heart of performers and audience alike, garnering the attention and support of the Roanoke Arts Commission and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. In case anyone else has had a similar idea brewing, I’ll note here what this series is all about, some basics about how it works, and some ideas we’ve had for future seasons. I’ll also follow-up with some posts in the weeks to come to address more specifics about funding,  feedback we’ve received from the community and our participants, and some hints we give our participants about what they might consider sharing with the audience before they play.

And as always, I welcome any thoughts or questions in the comments for this post. My hope is that we can all learn from and inspire one another with the goal of ensuring that sharing music with one another and with our community will continue to have an important place in our world. 

First, here is the description of the series on our website:

“Alma Del Core is a chamber music concert series that unites musicians from across our region - students, amateurs, and professionals - who wish to share music they love, both old and new. Our aim is to provide new opportunities for musicians to perform collaboratively and to present the music of historically underrepresented composers. 

This series was founded in keeping with Alma Ensemble's mission to create community through great music. We look forward to spending time exploring all of these new works and greeting new performers as they join us in this collaboration.”

Something that is not stated in this description is that another goal of ours is to create a safe space for all musicians to perform in without feeling like they’re being judged but rather that they have cheerleaders in us, the members of the Alma Ensemble, and in the other participants. We make it clear that we ourselves aren’t perfect so we don’t ever aim for or deliver “perfect” performances. We instead aim to deliver a gift to ourselves through music and to get more and more comfortable performing in public. What’s happened over the years is that the performers also find cheerleaders in our audiences. We have so many that make a point of attending as many concerts as they can because they have grown to love them. That is exactly our point in doing what we do. Our audiences wouldn’t return time and time again if they didn’t see the performances as something nourishing and valuable. Seeing and feeling that enthusiasm in turn feeds each musician that performs. 

Here are some other points that seem worth mentioning:

• We don’t expect anyone to perform by memory. That is up to each performer.
• We ask performers to consider saying just a few words about the music they are performing prior to playing, encouraging them to keep it simple, make it personal, and to not necessarily delve into nerdy, academic points unless that’s something that appeals to them. We feel the audience enjoys an extra glimpse into the music and the performer and also can help the performer feel less alone on stage. It’s a good way to calm nerves (once they can get over any qualms about public speaking) and feel like a part of the community as a whole.
• Whenever we can we pick pieces that combine professionals with students and/or amateurs so that we are performing side by side. When I was young I frequently had opportunities to perform with professionals. It was in those moments I learned much more than I ever learned in lessons. To ride the performance wave with a professional can be a powerful, exhilarating, and dare I say addictive endeavor. And inspiration flows in multiple directions. For a professional, playing with a young musician or with an enthusiastic amateur can be a great reminder of why we do what we do. 
• We keep our performances to one hour in length, with no intermission. Intermissions can pop the magical bubble that is created the moment a performance begins so we try to avoid that.
• We do not stipulate which style of music to perform. We welcome any genre. To us it is all music. 
• We encourage performances of compositions composed by the performers themselves. 
• Our dress rehearsals and sound checks are treated as open rehearsals. We use this time to do our cheerleading bit, sprinkled, if we think it would be helpful and well-received, with constructive feedback. 
• All of our performers are paid. We believe strongly in the importance of doing that so that we are acknowledging that what we do has value. At this point we pay $75 to any student 18 and above, amateur, and professional. For students under the age of 18 we give them a gift card.
• We stress to participants that a value of performing more is to have more than one experience to perform any given piece. We, as a trio and as soloists, use these concerts as a first-go for pieces that are new to us and it gives us the opportunity to explain to younger musicians and amateurs that even professionals can feel uncomfortable time performing something for the first time; that is takes multiple performances to feel like we really know what we’re doing and to hammer out the tricky spots that need more work. It reminds us all that each performance is a step in the journey we have with any given piece. No performance should feel like our only chance to get it right.

Some ideas for the future of our series:

• So far we’ve held our concerts in the same space but I think it would be great for us to take a version of what we do out into the community as well. Giving participants who wish to do so more opportunities to perform the same piece in close succession. And of course it would also expand our reach. 
• I’d also love to invite professionals from outside our community to join us. Perhaps a soloist that comes into town to perform with the symphony or other organization. Tricky scheduling-wise and would require more funding, but I think it would be even more inspiring and empowering for all of our participants. 
• I would love to see others take on something similar to this idea. We truly believe that the future of live performing is in the hands of not only the professionals, but of anyone who is willing to put themselves out there to perform. 

Do you do something similar in your area? Do you have any additional thoughts or ideas? Do you have any interest in trying something similar? 

Let me know in the comments! 

Tweet

Approaching practicing and performing from a healthier place

Learning music is not like learning facts yet I think so often that's how it's approached. In the practice room, you either get it right or you don't get it right. In my experience, that's not a helpful way to evaluate one's practicing. When I learn a piece of music, when I practice, I'm constantly seeking to improve several things. At the top of my list are:

• Confidence

• Comfort

• Character

• Conviction

Confidence: I want to keep working at feeling more and more confident about the notes, the rhythms, dynamics, stylistic elements, etc... This one is important to work on from the beginning on working on a piece of music.

Comfort: Comfort is also really important. I'm constantly evaluating how it feels to play the music. Am I doing anything physically that's creating accents I don't want? Am I doing things that are making it harder to play what I'm supposed to be playing? Is there a different fingering, bowing, place to take a breath, that would make the passage more comfortable physically and/or make it more easy to play musically? Character: How clear a character or mood do I have in mind for any given part of the music? How descriptive can my adjectives be for what I want to get across? Do I know what instrument I'd like any given spot to sound like? Conviction: This one tends to be more of a focus closer towards performance time and it's a great thing to focus on when doing mental practice. I like to ask myself, "Can I close my eyes away from the instrument and hear exactly how I want the music to go?" If I can successfully do this, I know I'm on the right track! With all of these points, it's important to note that there's never really any end point for any of them. I can always, ALWAYS get better at them all. My goal when I practice and quite frankly when I perform, is to keep improving each of these. If I've improved one or more aspects in a session, I walk away content. If I've improved one or more aspects in a performance, I also walk away content.

To conclude, rarely, if ever, do I not improve some aspect of one of these areas when I practice or perform. Which means I am pretty proud of the work I do. Which means I quite like practicing and performing. It makes me feel good about myself & what I'm capable of. The audience can sense this and I think it makes it much easier for them to relax and enjoy the performance as a result which then feeds my enjoyment of the whole experience.

One positive thing leads to another. I highly recommend it!

Tweet

Rediscovering inspiration with a musical mentor

Music is one of those pursuits that we undertake without necessarily expecting for the journey to end -  that's part of what I love about being a musician. But in spite of all of my noble desires to keep improving it can be so difficult to keep the inspiration alive in our own little bubble. To step back and to objectively hear ourselves, to dream and get into our heads what we're capable of, and to push ourselves farther than we imagined possible takes a certain amount of humility and bravery. I've been fortunate over the years to have had several pianist friends for whom I feel comfortable playing and it's a practice I highly recommend. Sometimes it can be good as creatives to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and to get good and truly nervous playing for others before performing in front of more people. It can  also be a way of proving to ourselves that we are capable of performing under pressure and that we can learn and grow, just as we did as students. 

Over the past few years I was given a chance to do just that. One day, out of the blue, I received a private message on Twitter from a pianist who I had long considered my Bach hero. He had written to ask if I'd like to start chatting about Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier since he was working through them himself in preparation for an upcoming recording. Needless to say I was a bit surprised because of who I am - a professional pianist, yes, but one without any recordings and without a huge name or career. In spite of my initial surprise about it all, I accepted his invitation, we met for an initial chat, and we haven't stopped talking since. 

I will never forget the first time he asked to hear me play something during one of our conversations. Oh my. I can't adequately describe how nervous I was! But I knew this was a really unique opportunity and that it would be foolish to chicken out. Through our short exchanges of musical ideas, I quickly learned, not to my surprise, what an incredible musician, coach, teacher, and mentor he is. Over the months, those mini-exchanges with him through our video chats evolved into me sending videos of my playing to him in return for feedback. He in turn asked thought-provoking questions, challenged me to truly own my performances and interpretation of any given piece, and helped me to hear subtleties in my playing that may or not reflect what I have going on in my head. 

My musical mentor has also been watching my weekly piano sightreading since I began streaming them at the beginning of the pandemic. At the start of it all I found myself a regular bundle of nerves because he regularly passed on comments to me about very specific things I could do better even in that context. I admit that at first I responded with a bit of a short temper. I felt that because I was sightreading I shouldn’t be expected to play in such a finessed way. I believe I even suggested that perhaps he could sit in the hot seat for one episode if he thought what he was asking for was possible. This mini tantrum on my part led to an interesting discussion and me realizing, after cooling down and a bit more processing, that perhaps it was possible after all. And guess what? It is. My show is now even more of a joy to do because I’m loving the constant challenge to up my game musically every time, whether it’s on my show or out in the real world. 

After two years of being gifted this experience, I now feel like a brand new musician: my practicing is different; my performing is different; every aspect of how I hear music is different and more fine-tuned. My confidence has also increased more than I could have ever imagined. As a teacher, I’ve added even more things to my toolbox to listen for when working with students. More importantly, perhaps, I'm inspired again to keep pushing myself to get even better and I feel like I have the ears and heart to do so. 

For various reasons I’m keeping the identity of my musical mentor mysterious. As evidenced by the current show, “The Masked Singer,” it seems folks like a little intrigue and suspense now and then. Consider this my personal (and much more entertaining) version of the show. And if you're interested or curious to learn more about who he is, let me know. I just may let you in on my little secret.

Tweet

Standing on my soapbox on another blog

A few weeks ago on Twitter I shared a story about an interesting conversation I had with a colleague where I teach. The conversation that ensued after I posted that story was a brief but important one that led to the wonderful composer, piano pedagogue, and writer Melanie Spanswick asking if I'd write up a post based on the topic. How could I say no?

The thoughts I wrote about in this blog post, "Flipping Musical Misperceptions on their Heads," are near and dear to my heart in many ways so please do take a read and contribute your own experiences and thoughts if you wish.

Tweet

Being productive and creative while severely stressed

Last week I had one of those days where I felt there were tornado sirens and tornadoes going off in my head. 

It was ceaseless. 

All...day...

Even practicing the piano, which usually works to refocus me, did nothing for me. In fact, trying to practice brought my frustration to an even more unbearable level since that's usually my safe haven. 

By the end of the day I was frustrated and exhausted from trying to accomplish something...anything.

The next morning I work up with my head and heart still in a state. I couldn't endure another day like the previous one so I knew I had to do something different. As I was getting breakfast around I was struck with inspiration in the form of a bag of chocolate chips. Yep, chocolate chips. Not fancy ones. Semi-sweet chocolate chips. (Thank goodness I have a family that feels they are a must-have pantry item!)

I pulled the bag of chocolate chips out, found a small, clear, glass bowl and ceremoniously poured about 25 of them into it. 

Then I grabbed a large post-it note and was struck yet again with a bit of inspiration. I am by nature a list person. I have to-do apps on every device, armfuls of notebooks, and an office supply store-worthy stock of sticky notes so I have to-do lists everywhere but this time a different little voice than I'm used to inside my head clearly said

 "Erica, no to-do list today. What you need is a possibility list."

A POSSIBILITY LIST?!

Yes, a possibility list. That different little voice went on to explain. 

"Maybe the problem with being a busy body and having tons of ideas is that your to-do list will never, ever end. And if you judge the success of your day by whether or not you got through your to-do list you'll only feel like you failed. So write a possibilities list instead and see each one you accomplish as something to celebrate."

My to-do list habit may be fine a lot of the time but perhaps it's not always the ideal motivator. Which is why I decided to listen to that different little voice to try something a bit different and to get myself back on track. There was one more thing the voice kept telling me.

"Put blinders on."

Usually I'm pretty good about focusing on the task at hand. I also tend to be a multi-tasker even though I realize that's not the ideal way to be. But in my previous day's state, the danger of having too many things on my to-do list and of relying on multi-tasking became painfully obvious. So I decided that during this experiment I was going to go through my day one "possibility" at a time. I would pick one and then put blinders on and focus on that one thing until it was done or until I had done a good amount of work on it and felt comfortable setting it aside. When I had successfully worked on a possibility I celebrated with a chocolate chip. One...chocolate...chip. I was quite amazed at how well this worked! By the end of the day I felt that I was back on track and that maybe I could even go back to my to-doist self. Or maybe I should just stick with the possibilities method/chocolate chip/blinders method?

It is rather tasty.

Tweet

My journey down a wonderful rabbit hole - discovering music composed by women

It all started several years ago, in the summer of 2017. I had been asked by a flute player, Sarah Wardle Jones, if I would play piano for a recital she had put together of music composed by women, a particular interest of hers. I of course said yes, not because of the program itself, but simply because I rarely turn down an opportunity to perform. I very quickly realized after saying yes, much to my puzzlement and embarrassment, that I had never, in my entire schooling and career covering 39 years (!) performed anything written by a woman. I couldn't even name on one hand the names of female composers. Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, and Cécile Chaminade. That was it. 

The recital was a joy. It was refreshing to peer into a world I hadn't previously known and Sarah's enthusiasm for the composers (Anna Bon, Cécile Chaminade, Lili Boulanger, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Jennifer Higdon), was inspiring. I found myself feeling like Alice by the end of the experience, standing at the very top of a very deep but thrilling hole that contains a new musical cornucopia of creativity and expression I had yet to discover. 

I jumped in. 

I'm still on my long journey down. 

I'm constantly discovering new wonders along the way. 

At the end of 2018, Sarah and a friend of hers, clarinetist Michelle Smith Johnson, and I put together a fun Halloween concert. I don't believe in that particular performance we performed anything written by a woman, but that project brought the three of us together. Over wine and appetizers one evening we found ourselves chatting about the possibility of forming an ensemble and we all decided that what we wanted was to focus on shining a light on works written by women and commissioning new works. It was shortly thereafter that our trio, at the beginning of 2019, The Alma Ensemble, was born, named in honor of Alma Mahler.

Farther down the rabbit hole, at the beginning of 2020, I was thrilled to be able to finally meet in person Sandra Mogensen, a pianist who had long been a friend of mine on Twitter. She was in the United States to present some recitals and presentations to celebrate and announce the release of her first recordings in a series she's doing called "En pleine lumière" which features all works composed by women. In talking with her during her visit I think we both realized that we shared many of the same frustrations, especially in terms of finding scores for these composers whose voices really need to be heard. When they can be found they are often significantly more expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. Another point we also found ourselves frustrated by is that many anthologies and method books for pianists just beginning their journey don't feature female composers. At that point in our discussion we started trying to figure out what we could do and it dawned on us that both of us had regularly been looking to the online resource, IMSLP to find scores. We decided that perhaps we could both comb through the listings and create a shareable spreadsheet that would list all of the piano pieces composed by women on the site. With IMSLP being a free resource, this would ensure that anyone who had access to a computer could also have access to the music that's there. Sandra agreed to start at "A," I started at "Z" working backwards, and we eventually met in the middle. By the summer we had our spreadsheet roughly put together.  Part I was complete.

Part II of our project started at the end of the summer. We created a YouTube channel, Piano Music, She Wrote, and started posting our own recording of works we've discovered in our IMSLP quest. So far we've faithfully posted 2 every week. We now stand at over 40 videos and have many, many more to go! 

We now find ourselves in Part III. We set ourselves the goal of releasing our spreadsheet publicly once our YouTube channel reached 300 subscribers. Last weekend our goal was achieved! So now, if people want an easy, quick way to discover the piano pieces written by women that have scores on IMSLP available to download for free, folks can head to our Ko-Fi store. We are asking for a minimum donation of $10.00 US to get the url for our spreadsheet. That is to cover the hundreds of hours we've already put into this project and will continue to put into it. This spreadsheet is a living, breathing one. We'll regularly be updating it as new works are added to the score database. We are also donating 10% of every donation back to IMSLP since without them, none of this would have been possible.  

We've had several people mention that purchasing access to the spreadsheet on behalf of others, like piano students or teachers, would make a great virtual stocking stuffer, holiday gift, or graduation gift and we couldn't agree more. To make that possible, when purchasing access, any quantity can be selected. If people have 10 pianists they'd like to send the url to, they can simply select "10" as the quantity and then voilá, they'll be all set. 

Here's our video announcement about our spreadsheet in case you want to learn more: 

And here's a shorter, 2 minute version of the same video if you're short on time:

Sandra and I have many more stages forthcoming so stay tuned! We'd also like to start planning a world tour once this pandemic is all said and done so if anyone wants us to come share what we've learned, both through recitals and presentations, let us know! 

Back to the rabbit hole analogy. I feel like I'm still only a fraction of the way down this hole and I couldn't be more thrilled about that. There is clearly much more to discover. Often I find myself researching one composition and am led to another fantastic one...and then another...and another. It never seems to end. So much music I've never heard, so many composers I've never heard of but should have!  Thankfully there are many others out there who are also on this same journey. I encourage anyone else who's interested to join in the fun and to share what you find. Let's get more of this fantastic music accessible and available to all. I think Für Elise and The Happy Farmer would be happy to step aside for a while. 

Tweet

Accepting and Embracing the Musician That is You

I'm always looking to find the silver lining in every situation and these past few months have been no exception. Spending months at home, sharing a room with my piano, has been mostly a joy and a consolation but it's also played a bit of a number on my psyche. Facing an unknown future, especially in regards to my musical pursuits and career, combined with having a lot of time on my hands to pay attention to what other musicians are doing, has been a mind and ego bending experience. At times I've found it inspiring and motivating but at other times it's made me want to throw my hands up in despair and to shout, "What's the point?!" 

I have a feeling I'm not alone, nor do I think it's something musicians are facing just right now. It's a mind game that we all face at different times, sometimes more frequently than we'd like to admit. It's a human tendency to look around us at others and to compare ourselves and our situations. How do we compare? How do we stack up? Why can't we be more like so-and-so? Will we ever be as good? 

It can be an exhausting, draining, and self-defeating game that we play. 

What can we do to get our attention back to the silver lining in all of this? 

For me the answer begins with realizing that what I am typically doing when evaluating myself is akin to trying to compare apples to oranges. Even restricting my options to considering only apples and oranges is too limiting, in my opinion. All of us put together create the fanciest, most exotic fruit salad you could ever imagine because we all have different natural abilities, skills, talents, preferences, and experiences. 

• perfect pitch
• photographic memory
• ability to play by ear
• ability to sightread/read music notation
• ability to memorize
• ease of understanding music theory and harmony
• size of our hands/other physical qualities that can aid in playing our instrument
• how old we were when we started taking lessons
• growing up in a household with other musicians in the family
• having the resources to have good instruments to play
• growing up in a city, surrounded by musical opportunities or growing up in a more isolate area
• having connections with the right people at the right time
  
  

Some of the items on this list are things that we simply can't control or change and some are things that we can continue to work on and nurture throughout our lives. But the point is there are so many factors that make us who we are as musicians and it's these differences that make it futile really to judge ourselves against any other musician. If you're an apple, don't look to make yourself into an orange. If you're an orange, don't expect yourself to be an apple. No matter how hard you try, you are what you are. 

Does that mean you can't work on yourself to make you an even better musician? No! I'm all for regularly challenging and pushing oneself - it can be thrilling, rewarding, and will keep those neurons in your brain healthy and strong. But what I'd say is, please do it within your own skin. You are what you are and that is a gift. 

Embrace it. 

Tweet

Looking to puzzles to learn how to piece together music

Have you ever tried to put a jigsaw puzzle together with the pieces turned upside down? My guess is your answer is something along the lines of, “No, why on Earth would I do that?”

Good response. Why would anyone even think to do that?

Perhaps it’s to make a really important point?

Many musicians, especially young musicians, read music in a way that’s similar to trying to put a puzzle together upside down. It doesn’t matter if they’re sight-reading or if they’ve been working at a piece for weeks, many view the music in a way that in my opinion severely limits the ease at which they can process the music and inhibits their ability to interpret it in a musical way.

Let’s go back to looking at puzzles. If you happen to have a puzzle lying around, pull it out and give my challenge a try. Turn all the pieces over so all the backs of the pieces are what you’re looking at it and see how you fare. What do you have at your disposal to figure out which pieces go together? All you have to go on is whether the piece is an edge piece of an inner piece what type of connectors the pieces have – let’s say they’re usually innies and outies, or female and male. (I won’t go into the details of which are which. If you’re reading this blog I’m pretty sure you can figure it out.) That’s really not a lot to go on so in order to put together the puzzle we end up having to resort to a lot of trial and error. And if you’re not good at finding a method to keep track of what combinations you’ve already tried this process can be very time consuming, uninspiring, frustrating, and downright painful.

Not much fun, right?

All right, so let’s flip those pieces back over and try again.

Ahhhh…now we have more to go on! We’ve got the shapes of the puzzle pieces, the colors and patterns, and knowledge of what the puzzle’s picture as a whole will be. With all these extra clues we get more strategies to use too. You can put the edge together first, using color, pattern, and shape to help; you can focus on trying to find pieces that create specific items in the picture; you can put together pieces that all have a similar graphic pattern or color.

Strategies bring successes…

Success brings a completed puzzle…

A completed puzzle brings a sense of accomplishment…

Now we’re having fun and wanting to do another someday.

How we process notes on a page of music is similar to how we process puzzle pieces. If we see all those notes as individual notes that are differentiated only by specific letter names it’s like looking at those puzzle pieces turned upside down. The end result is that it’s much more difficult to see how the pieces relate to one another and work together to create a larger picture, or part of a picture.

If instead we look for patterns in our music, if we consistently look for interesting clues, we’ll find that music learning is not only easier, but also more musical because those same patterns and clues can naturally lead us into the world of musical interpretation. Each time I look at a puzzle piece, whether it’s an actual puzzle or to a piece of music, I see new clues, new patterns, or new colors. With each new discovery comes a burst of excitement and inspiration. And as pieces start to fit together my understanding of what I’m creating becomes clearer, making me even more motivated to complete the puzzle and to share the bigger picture with others. It’s fun. It’s interesting. It’s creative. It’s one of the many reasons why I love learning music.

Now I have to take a moment to admit that sometimes puzzling can be a struggle, usually because of the puzzle itself. I will never forget the day my dear husband, early in our marriage, brought one home that made me quickly want to embrace gardening instead. It was a puzzle of hundreds, maybe thousands of penguins standing on an iceberg in a snowstorm. It was basically like trying to do one of those upside-down puzzles although at least I did have more than one color to go on – I had two: black and white. If I wasn’t such a stubborn person I would have given up early in the game but instead I decided to approach it like I do music. I tackled it in small chunks of time and started looking for as many clues as I could. I quickly came to realize that the puzzle wasn’t just black and white; it actually had many shades of both of those colors. As soon as I realized that, it became much easier to finish it. That’s not to say it was as fun as other puzzles I’ve done but still, it got done and in and I learned something in the process. That’s what mattered. Thankfully most of the puzzles and music I learn are not penguins standing on icebergs but are instead endlessly exciting and interesting. 

On an ending note, a plug for my favorite puzzle-making company of all time - Liberty Puzzles.

Examples of their whimsy pieces

Made out of thick laser-cut plywood in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, their puzzles are the most exquisite, delightful puzzles you will ever put together. They are also unique in that their piece shapes are not like the ones in your grandmother’s puzzles. In fact with Liberty Puzzles it’s pretty rare to be able to distinguish edge pieces from inner pieces – they are all completely unique. To add to the fun they include what are known as whimsy pieces which are pieces in the shape of something – a person, bird, dragon…it makes putting together these puzzles a different kind of challenge but one that is well worth it!

The most recent Liberty puzzle I completed. So much cool detail! 

With that little infomercial over, (not paid for by the company but out of my deep respect for them) happy puzzling, everyone! Whether it’s a jigsaw puzzle or a musical one, remember to keep looking and use your eyeballs and your brain. The big picture is sure to come together more easily that way!

Tweet

A gathering of musical minds!

I get a lot of interesting emails thanks to this blog. Most of them are not ones I end up responding to. Fortunately a few months ago I got one that did very much interest me. It was a request from the website www.sheetmusicnow.com to contribute a tip about musical success for an infographic they were wanting to put together for their website and social media accounts. Of course coming up with just one was painful so I ended up sending them a handful to choose from. (Honestly I don't know why I like Twitter so much since I obviously have a difficult time editing my brain.)

They sent me the final result today and I couldn't be more honored. I hope you enjoy these nuggets of wisdom from these other musicians, some of whom I know but most are new for me to discover too. Click here to see it.

And if you're curious about the other tips I sent them that they didn't use, here they are...

• Constantly check in to see who you are as a person and as an artist. What you find is what you should share, in the music you perform, with your colleagues, with your audience. Also be open and eager to learning about your colleagues and their music. It is through people and connections that you’ll find success and happiness.

• You will excel as a human and as a musician if you learn the art of giving yourself objective, constructive feedback on a regular basis. Constantly check the language you use with yourself with the goal to use the same language on yourself that you’d use with someone else.

Tweet

From the kitchen to the stage: the importance of trusting oneself

Today I realized that great cooks and musicians have something in a common - they have learned to let go and to trust their senses.  They have learned that interpreting great dishes or musical compositions goes beyond technique and mere re-creation into a realm that incorporates their own experiences, whims, and moods,  blending them seamlessly with where their audiences are, even if their audiences don't even know themselves where they are or where they want to be taken.

These ideas have been floating around in my head for a while now but they seem to have all collided while I was watching a movie from a few years back called "Today's Special."  It's a fun, romantic, heart-warming foodie movie about a young sous-chef that has worked for years in a restaurant in New York City.  When a promotion doesn't come his way and he confronts the executive chef for an explanation, he receives an honest but painful evaluation - he doesn't have the passion, vision, daring, and creativity that it takes to be the soul behind a restaurant.

This news comes as a blow of course, and launches Samir, the main character, into a fairly predictable journey of introspection.  He ends up reluctantly helping out his father in the family's Indian restaurant that has been struggling to survive.  Having abandoned Indian cooking since he was a boy, Samir does everything to keep the restaurant alive except plan and prepare the dishes himself - he hires a taxi driver he had serendipitously met instead.  This taxi driver, Akbar, is a big of a magical character.  During the resurrection of the restaurant, he teaches Samir some very important lessons about cooking which I also want to translate for musicians for the remainder of this blog post.  In one scene Akbar turns the kitchen over to Samir, encouraging him to try his own hand at combining traditional Indian spices in order to create a "perfect" masala.  Samir looked bewildered and disturbed since there were no measuring implements or recipes anywhere in sight.  With Akbar's encouragement and repeated philosophy that one just needs to use one's head, heart, and stomach, Samir gives it a try - a dash of this, a gentle pouring of that, and so on.  In the end, is it "right?"  Akbar doesn't seem to savor the results but he approaches the moment as any good teacher should.  He admits that it doesn't seem quite right while at the same time affirming that what Samir has done was good anyway.  The lesson was not about "right" or "perfect," it was about letting go, listening, smelling, feeling, and creating.

I am convinced that even beginning students should be given plenty of opportunities to let go and to experience music making and learning in a way that involves more of their senses.  I believe that we teach musicians to rely too much on reading every note on the page, note-by-note-by-note.  We don't teach how to read music as a language.  Similarly we teach students to read every indication on the page and to follow them without necessarily knowing why they are there.  As a result, students don't feel that they have the tools they need to make music on their own.  If someone handed them a piece of music without any fingering, pedal marks, bowings, etc...my guess it they would feel just as bewildered and disturbed as Samir was in the movie without recipes or measuring implements.

As I have mentioned on my blog and on my Facebook page, I don't consider myself a teacher even though I spend most of my waking moments thinking about the process or learning.  At the moment I have one adult student who I consider my guinea pig for all of my philosophies and strange notions and oddly enough, at her lesson this morning, long before I watched this movie, we had a series of very similar moments to the movie scene I described above.  In the past few weeks at our lessons I have increased the amount of times I intentionally pull the music away from my student and ask her to narrate to me what's going on the music and what her understanding of the music means to her.  Today we did even more of that.  I had her re-create several passages to the best of her ability based on her narrative, without the music anywhere in sight.  She kept asking to see the music but for the most part I kept saying, "Say what you know and we'll go from there."  I certainly didn't expect "perfection" but what I did want to encourage was thoughtfulness and complete engagement and she accomplished what I was after brilliantly.   This type of work terrified, and probably really annoyed her, but as the music has gotten more and more complicated and she has still managed to work out how to accomplish what I'm asking for, she has gotten more and more confident.  She has also started making more decision of her own regarding musicality, pedaling, and the like because she understands the tools and the techniques.  For me it is thrilling to see how much she can process with just a little help and guidance from me and it leaves me speechless when I see how surprised she is by her own ability to comprehend music as a language after only one year of lessons.  She does not need to keep looking at all those notes and scribbles on the page.  She can see it as a language and use her head, heart, and not necessarily her stomach, but her ears to guide her music-making.  At today's lesson she had several moments where she seemed genuinely shocked by how easy it was to play the music by letting go and thinking of the music as a language.   But this takes trust and I believe we need to practice trusting ourselves at our instruments.

Which leads me to the title of the movie and one of my favorite things about it.  As many restaurants do, the Indian restaurant in the movie has a sign that hangs in the window to list the daily special.  One day when Samir comes to work he sees that Akbar has listed this instead of an actual dish...

Trust me

Exactly.  Trust me - trust you.  It takes courage but trust me, there is incredible growth and creativity that comes from letting go and trusting all your senses - not just your eyeballs.  Speak the language of music, not just notes.  It's worth it.

Trust me.

You will hear more, feel more, love more...and so will your audience.

Trust me.

Tweet

Creativity Discovered: The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra's choreographed "Holberg Suite"

It's been 4 years since I last posted a "Creativity Discovered" post.  That's not to say that nothing creative has happened during this time - quite the opposite really!  But recently I came across a series of YouTube videos that has made me realize that I should get back to posting about some of the inspiring performances I've been hearing about and seeing.

© laufer - Fotolia.com

To kick off this series again, I want to share the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra's partially choreographed performance of Edvard Grieg's Holberg Suite, Op. 40.  Written in 1884, the composer based the 5 movements on 18th century dance forms.  I think it can be tempting as musicians to perform these older dances in a somewhat restrained fashion which might befit some dances but when we consider that many of them originated from folk dances it makes me wonder if we could stand to loosen up and to treat the music in a more carefree way.

That's what the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra did with their performance.  Their choice of clothing, their approach to the music and each other, along with the choreography, work together to give me the impression that I'm at a country fair, sitting on a fence to take in or even join in the festivities.  I just love it!  And I have a sneaking suspicion the musicians enjoyed it too.  That is evident from their body language and the expressions on their faces throughout.

But enough of me jabbering on about them, here they are.  My favorite, in case you're interested or if you only have a little time to watch, is the last movement, the Rigaudon.  If nothing else, watch that one!   And if you want a link to my playlist of all of them, click here.

Enjoy!

And if anyone knows of any other inspiring, creative performances I should watch, please do let me know by leaving a comment.

Praeludium



Sarabande



Gavotte



Air



Rigaudon





Tweet

Impressions from the stage: University of Maryland's choreographed production of "Appalachian Spring"

About a month ago I saw a post on a young friend's Facebook page about participating in an event at the University of Maryland that immediately grabbed my attention.  A violinist and a dancer attending the school, Lillian Cannon, performed in a memorized, conductor-less, and here's the clincher, choreographed version of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring.  After reading the brief but ecstatic post on Cannon's page as well as Anne Midgette's wonderful article for the Washington Post  I was eager to see it for myself.  Only a few weeks after the performance the YouTube video was up and I watched, moved the entire time by the intimacy of the rendition but also by the incredible bravery of the students who challenged themselves in so many ways in order to present something unique and powerful.

If you haven't yet watched it, here it is.  I would recommend watching it before reading the rest of this post.




I was so excited to know someone who had participated I decided that I wanted to find out more from her about what the experience was like for the students.  Lillian graciously accepted my request to answer some questions so that we could all soak in the experience and perhaps gain courage and ideas from this project.  Many thanks to her for taking the time to answer so thoughtfully.

ES:  Were you at the University’s first performance like this where they performed a choreographed version of Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun?” or had you watched it prior to working on “Appalachian Spring?”   If you did, what were your thoughts, reservations, reactions? 

LC: UMSO performed the choreographed Debussy the year before I was there so I never saw the live performance but I watched the video on YouTube before beginning Appalachian Spring. I thought it was beautifully done and they sounded very good but (maybe because I’m biased) but I thought Appalachian Spring was at a whole other level than the Debussy. I think we took many more risks because the Debussy was such a success and both James Ross and Liz Lerman thought our orchestra was capable of doing so. Appalachian Spring was also almost twice as long as Debussy which was a project all on its own.

ES: What was the process for getting involved with this particular production?  Was it required participation or did you audition, sign up, etc.?  If you had a choice about whether or not to be involved, why did you choose to be a part of it? 
 

LC:  If you watch the video of Appalachian Spring, you will probably notice that it is not a full orchestra performing it. Our orchestra was split up for this past semester, with half of us working on Appalachian Spring and the other half working with opera students to perform “Die Fledermaus “. We came back together as a whole to perform the second half of the spring concert. Back in August at the beginning of the school year, we got our orchestra audition music, and with that, we got a survey sheet that asked if we would be willing to participate in a Copland music/movement collaboration and we could either put our interest in for the project or decline. I chose to put my interest in for it because it was something I have never done before and it was extremely out of my playing comfort zone.

ES:  How many months were spent preparing for this event?   What was the process like for putting it together?   How much of the choreography was given to you?  Did the orchestra members have a say in what you did? 

LC: We started rehearsals almost right after we got back from winter break, so probably the first week of February. The first rehearsals were definitely the hardest because we were looking at the music for the first time and it was just all very overwhelming for everyone I think. I think what helped a lot was having a chamber group of 13 people (4 violins, 2 violas, 2 celli, 1 double bass, a flute, clarinet, bassoon, and pianist) who were basically the leaders of this project. They met for extra rehearsals every week and began learning and memorizing the music before the rest of us did (in the video, they are the first and last players to play). This group helped guide the rest of us and kind of grounded the whole process I think. I know one of the biggest problems we had as a group (that the chamber group definitely helped with), was the amount of times we had to switch time signatures in that piece. Switching meters conductor-less was not easy to say the least. It forced us all to listen and feel the music much more than simply memorizing it. Most of the choreography was a collaboration of the idea Liz Lerman and our conductor, James Ross had envisioned, with the some of the ideas from the orchestra members thrown in. I think a lot of our ideas though, were more geared towards restrictions that we had with some of the movements and also having to play our instruments. A lot of the original ideas for this piece were modified so that we could also still play while doing them. 

ES: I am so impressed that this was done all by memory.  Were you given guidance as to how to go about memorizing such a large work?  Did you feel that having the choreography helped or hindered with the process of memorizing?

LC: At the first rehearsal we all had together, Professor Ross gave us all a little guide on tips for memorizing such a big work. It included things such as turning in a circle while you had your music in front of you, closing your eyes at more familiar sections, etc. At every rehearsal, we also had a huge projector up with the score so that we could get out of our own parts more and look at the score for guidance (I personally don’t think the projected score helped much though). We basically memorized the entire piece in sections, starting with the easier ones such as “Simple Gifts”. We would kind of start by memorizing one section, learning the section before or after it, then trying to put the two together until we had the whole thing memorized. I think at first, the choreography hindered the process of memorizing the piece, because we were so focused on learning that particular choreography, that we couldn’t remember the notes. Once we started getting real chunks of things choreographed and pieced together is when it began aiding the memorization process.

ES: Since you also had the choreography to deal with in this performance did you find performing a different experience than a typical orchestra or solo performance?   If so, how was it different?

LC: This performance was so beyond any other orchestra or solo playing experience. We were trying to tell a story with this piece and it not only had to come through in our music, but also our movement. It became so much more breathtaking to me when we all got out of our heads and committed to getting our story across to an audience. Ms. Lerman and Professor Ross wanted a lot of our emotion to come from the inside, so I think what made this piece so amazing is the fact that the audience wasn’t seeing the same emotions and the same story from every person performing. We were all performing from an emotion that was personal to us.

ES: Since you have had a lot of experience dancing yourself, do you think that helped you in this situation? 

LC:  Definitely. Memorizing choreography is something I’ve been doing my whole life so that part came so easily to me. It gave me more time to work on memorizing the music (which was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be). I think a lot of people struggled because memorizing a large chunk of choreography in a short amount of time is something they’ve never had to do before, let alone play music at the same time.

ES:  What was the dynamic of the orchestra as a whole as a result of being a part of such a unique performance?  Do you think you were more eager to promote others to come to the event?  Why or why not?

LC:  I think at first we were all really apprehensive about the whole thing, and I know none of us thought this was actually all going to come together (we were still having these doubts in April). At the same time, I think we were able to connect much more as an orchestra because we were forced to interact with every person on stage, whether they played the same instrument as you or not. You couldn’t rely on the rest of your section for guidance or to help you out on a section that maybe you weren’t as comfortable with because chances are, you were not standing around any of them for the majority of the performance. It took me a long time to really feel like this was going to be a worthwhile performance for people to see, but when it finally came together, I was so excited to be able to share it with an audience because I knew it was going to be beautiful.

ES:  What did you enjoy most about the experience?

LC:  My favorite part of the whole thing was seeing the audience at the very end when we were all laying our instruments down at the front of the stage as our “final offering”. I had always thought that was such a neat idea but I had no idea it was going to make such an impact on people. Seeing people moved to tears is really a powerful moment.

ES:  What did you not like as much or what did you struggle with, if anything?

LC:  Like I said before, I really did not enjoy the first month or so of rehearsals. We didn’t have it memorized enough to start learning solid choreography so there wasn’t much we could really do in terms of bringing this piece to life. I think it was pretty disorganized for a while because we were all trying to figure out how we were going to pull the entire thing off.

ES:  Would you do an event like this again?  Why or why not?

LC:  I would do it again in a heartbeat. It turned out to be such a neat experience and being able to pull off a performance like that is unforgettable. I think we were all able to connect with the music on a much deeper level and play together as a group better than we ever have.

Tweet