Picky, picky, picky

My daughter is in a community children's choral group and recently, all four choirs in the group presented a concert together. On the program was music composed by their guest conductor, Jim Papoulis.

As usual, there were extra rehearsals. Many, many extra rehearsals. I could tell she was getting exhausted. After one particularly long weekend, however, she said to me, " Mom, I think you're going to really enjoy this concert."

"I always do."

"No, no. This one you will REALLY like. Mr. Papoulis is v-e-r-y picky."

Joy. The child understands the road to excellence is paved with pickiness. AND she can tell good enough is not good enough.

Go, pickiness! My mantra for revision today.

(Just to clarify that I think pickiness per se doesn't necessarily lead to excellence. I am sure you can think of many examples of unnecessary, compulsive pickiness that leads to nothing but hair-pulling.)

(And yes, I did enjoy the concert very much.)

Musicspeak: recurring nightmares

Recurring nightmares: do you have them? Here are some of mine that are music-related:


I am waiting behind the curtain on stage, getting ready to perform to a full house and someone hands me a violin. (I am a pianist.)


I am seated at the piano on stage and suddenly realize I am to perform a Beethoven sonata that I learned 10 years ago and don't remember any more.

During a performance of a Mozart concerto, I suddenly realize I have jumped from the 1st to the 3rd movement.

Wait.That last one actually happened.

(Pause for you to feel the horror of it.)

The good thing, if there was any good about this sad situation, was that I was only a first year conservatory student, and while the recital was a public one, not many people were there. Also, I wasn't accompanied by an orchestra, but by my piano teacher playing the orchestral reduction on another piano. We fixed that problem quickly and I finished the rest of the recital without further problems (I think; I was on automatic gear after that and don't remember anything very well.)

I knew that piece backwards and forwards, maybe even upside down. How could that have happened?

The audience, that's what.


Practicing alone in a practice room, playing to my teacher in his studio, or even playing the piano on a empty stage were significantly different phenomena than performing on stage to an audience.


I was an inexperienced performer and did not know how to handle my heart beating a mile a minute, my hands frozen and sweating at the same time, my thoughts wandering all over the place. It was a miracle, really, that I didn't have more memory lapses.

My mother, if you remember from a previous post, was (and still is) a writer and while talking about this incident, remarked that the main difference between our chosen art forms was this: that a writer did not have to be present when her work was read whereas a musician performed to a live audience.

At the time, still smarting from this humiliating experience, I wished I was a writer, safely cocooned in my private writing world. No falling flat on my face in public, no fumbling with trouble passages for all the world to see, no having my work determined by one incident. I wondered why my mother seemed wistful.

As I grew as a performer, I understood my mother's envy. There is nothing quite like the energy in a room when you have a receptive audience. It is supremely gratifying to give something of yourself and feel the vibes of the audience who accepts it. There are very few things in life that compare to how alive I feel during those moments.

Now that I am spending more time writing than performing, I appreciate the more forgiving nature of writing. I don't have to produce great sentences on the spot. I can spend time with my words, polishing them before I present them to my audience. By the same token, I do miss the immediate feedback from my audience.

I am not sure where I stand in the spectrum of whether art is a form of communication and isn't quite complete until it's received, or it is a form of expression that stands on its own. Some days, playing a piece privately is enough; it is my very private expression, of gratitude, of sorrow, of joy, and I don't need nor want anyone around. Other days, I enjoy playing for people. Some of my writing remains my prayer and will never be seen but I can't wait to see what reaction some other stories will be met with.

Where do you stand? How do you view your art or the art of others? Did Picasso create only for himself? What if Glenn Gould never released his two versions of Goldberg Variations? What if Schumann performed all the songs he wrote the year he got married only for his beloved Clara? Are you curious about all the works of Dostoevsky or King we never get to read?

[Yes, I do realize that writing, in many ways, has become a much more public endeavor. A writer known only by her works is no longer the overwhelming norm. These days, we can, if we choose, to put our work out there for something like immediate feedback by the public. But I am staying clear of this tangent for now.]

Get Thee Behind Me, Oh Gimmicks!

I was at a piano teachers' workshop many years ago, eagerly absorbing the wisdom and advice from a master piano teacher I admired greatly. My notebook was filling fast, my mind was challenged, and my coffee was ignored and cooling in the flask.

Teaching piano, like writing, can be a solitary occupation, despite the fact that the job itself requires at least two people to be present. It's solitary in that a teacher has very few opportunities to discuss and argue and share their aha moments.

I felt that aloneness most acutely when I started my own piano studio after spending three years teaching and apprenticing at a community music school. I missed the camaraderie I'd had with my colleagues who were always ready to talk music or teaching or music and teaching and life. I learned as much from our discussions in the kitchen over ramen noodles (kitchen pedagogy sessions as we affectionately call those times) as I did in formal classes.

Back to this particular workshop. The last event on the program was this teacher- extraordinaire teaching a group of children from the piano preparatory department of the music school that hosted the workshop. He engaged the students on stage and the piano teachers in the audience the entire time, and helped the performers make changes to their pieces that immediately made the music better and the children more confident. I was spellbound and so blown away that I was almost in tears.

"Do you have any questions?" He asked as the students left the stage. Hands shot up. He nodded at one person.

"I was wondering about the cardboard boxes that these students had?" Many other teachers nodded enthusiastically. More questions and comments arose about those boxes, about how they would motivate students to practice (huh?) and where they could be ordered.

Anyone who could read my mind at the time would decide I was a total snob. But I was dismayed and almost crushed by what I was hearing. Here was a brilliant person offering us thoughts that he had distilled over years of teaching, and they were interested in the cardboard box? Sure, the boxes were nifty but how, how, how could anyone possibly be more interested in a gimmick than the real thing? *

That was probably the beginning of my intolerance for gimmicks. And now that radar is being trained on fiction.

It's inevitable, I supposed, that any time a lot of people clamor for attention, somebody will resort to gimmicks. And of course, what qualifies as a gimmick is up for interpretation and depends on execution. I wouldn't be surprised if someone calls my work gimmicky (and stabs me in the gushy bit within my chest in the process.) In other words, I am totally aware of the subjectivity of it all.

Even so, I'd like to know: what do you consider the most intolerable gimmick in fiction?

*The more mellow (and hopefully more humble) me now realize that just because most of the comments were on the box didn't mean that it was the thing that made the most impact on the teachers in attendance. Getting older does have its benefits.

Musicspeak: Bach and Iron Maiden, part IIc

The original post of this series segued from a discussion of one person's definition of art music to whether the definition worked for fiction.

The second post examined the assumptions and provided examples of how labels might be useful.

In the third post, I asked for your responses to different genres.

In this, the last post of the series, I am revisiting the question of whether the definition given by John Steinmetz to art music--art music is the type of music that rewards knowledge, experience, and attention. (again, paraphrase mine)--works for fiction.

I don't think it works as well.

The reason is that the language of music is not something we use regularly. I don't argue with my husband in arias. I don't play the piano to my friends over the phone to invite them over
for dinner. (Hmm, but doesn't that sound like a cool premise for a story?)

But English is something I use all the time. I do argue with my husband in English, and I do invite people to come to dinner by speaking English. People, with the exception of musical geniuses, have a stronger grasp of their primary language than they do the language of music. Therefore it is easier to read books that carry deep messages than it is to comprehend musical compositions that do the same thing.

I've read books that are easy to read that have touched me deeply. I have read many that rewarded me only after many hours of mindful reading. Then there are those books that are easy to read and easy to forget, as well as those that are difficult to read but offer no reward. This is probably true of most readers' experiences.

I will say, however, a large majority of the books that made me work hard have been worth the time and effort.

I suspect that this is the case with me because the "difficult" books that I didn't give up on had something that drew me in, even when I preferred to be lazy and give up on them. With whatever little bit that I'd read, I became aware of something deeper, something worthwhile; and I became convinced that a more engaged reading would allow me discover it. And so I was willing to pay my dues. By reading with a great deal more attention, these experiences became much richer.

Some books don't require much attention at all, and not being a brain scientist (Livia, if you are reading this, I'd love to hear you chime in) I can't say if this type of fast, almost skimming type of reading, in fact, doesn't engage as much of the brain, and therefore can leave only minimal impact.

Now before you start protesting, I want to state here that I am fully aware that some writing is smooth and is easy to read because of the skill and talent of the authors. I am *not* making a stand that says all difficult books are good and all easy books are fluff.

Anyway, I am approaching brain-fatigue point for this discussion. I hope you aren't. But if you are, I'd like to make it up to you by sharing these clips of music.

This first one is an example of how musical groups previously considered unrelated can in fact, share a lot of commonality: (Thanks, John, for sharing this link.)
Vivaldi and At Vance


If you've taken piano lessons, you may have played this piece, but I'll bet you've not heard it performed like this:
CPE Bach's Solfegietto


A classically trained violinist and a metal guitarist exhibiting high levels of technique:
Violinist and metal guitarist

Musicspeak: Bach and Iron Maiden, part IIb

Imagine, if you will, that someone I just met finds out I am a writer and asks, "What do you write?"

Some answers:
"I write fiction."
Reaction:

"I write middle-grade and young adult fiction."
Reaction:

"I write research papers on mid-twentieth century analytical philosophers."
Reaction:

"I write romance."
Reaction:

"I write novels based on the characters from Star Wars and Star Trek: Next Generation."
Reaction:

"I write literary novels and short stories."
Reaction:

"I write about people who routinely experience strong premonitions of disasters before they occur."
Reaction:

How did you react? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but I'd love to have a sampling of what people think in reaction to these answers.

Some labels are benign: "fiction" for example. But some others carry heavier implications.

But here is the thing, just because I am not interested in reading about people who may be able to predict disasters with their psychic or other powers tells me nothing about the quality of the writing. In my old critique group was a writer whose writing I admired. He prefaced one of his new works sheepishly by telling us it was fan fiction. I didn't know what fan fiction meant at the time, and I didn't understand his attitude. In the same way, another member was always apologetic about her book being a romance. But these writers are good, no matter the genre, I enjoyed their stories.

So, back to the question of why use labels. I hope this is one answer: labels and categories help define what we do and help us make decisions. And it may even open the channel for further discussion. Say you like philosophy but don't care much for writing that characterizes Continental philosophy, you'd jump all over yourself to talk to this person about analytical philosophy. I wouldn't, but you may.

So what am I trying to say?

I am trying to say that labels are necessary, not adequate, but necessary, and that the main reason they fall short is the people hold many different kinds of opinions and prejudices, carefully examined or otherwise.

I am also trying to say that even though I focused on art music in my original post, I am not making a statement about its worth compared to other types of music. I focused on it because it is the kind of music that gives me joy, engages me mind and soul, and allows me to feel deeply. It expresses something I can relate to; it expresses something bigger than me; it expresses the emotions and lives of people who lived hundreds of years ago. And one reason I am able to reap such wonderful rewards, besides being given an innate attraction to it, is that I've had the privilege of being exposed to outstanding performances and of studying the music. Would I feel this way about this music had I not been given these gifts? Probably not.

I hope you'll tell me what you think, and come back for the next, and last installment of this exploration.

Musicspeak: Bach and Iron Maiden, Part IIa

My musicspeak post last week provoked a lively conversation that has made me think all week. Some of the reactions seem to indicate that the topic has touched on something more than just the discussion of art music.

Here are the unspoken assumptions that underlie the post:

• that there are different groups of art;
• that it is meaningful to separate those groups.

One assumption not present in my post:

• that some art forms are better than others.

Let me examine these assumptions. The assertion that there are different types of art is not disputed. How we group different types of art is where the disagreement starts. This is when
we look at established labels and exclaim: what do Rembrandt and Kandinsky, or a Vivaldi concerto and the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra have in common?


Here was when I found John Steinmetz's definition helpful. Unfortunately, I left out an important part. And it's this:

Art music requires the listener to pay attention

Experience and knowledge, yes, but paying attention is an even more important aspect.

Let me back up a little and address the question of why it is meaningful to have labels. Why not just say: here is a whole slew of music, enjoy? My take is that there is simply too much available, and without some sort of a classification system, we'd feel lost. Sure labels can lead us astray, but they are a convenient and often helpful way for us to navigate our lives.

And maybe it's not possible for humans not to label. Just think for a moment all the ways we categorize things and people in our lives. These categories are likely inexact or inadequate in some ways, and they can result in all sorts of meaningless and even harmful generalities. But is it really possible that we don't mentally separate foods into healthy/unhealthy, or people as those you trust your children with and those you don't?

Here is another example of why I use labels. When someone asks me what kind of musician I am, I tell them I am a pianist and an orchestral percussionist. In their minds, they know that by percussion, I mean instruments such as these:

this:

and yes, this:

and am likely to perform in a venue like this:

standing around with these fellow percussionists:

They would probably not conjure up this image:

or ask me where I usually gig, which they may if I had just said I was a percussionist. (Nope, can't play the drum set at all. Maybe I'll take lessons one day. But it will have to come after lessons in jazz singing and bass guitar.)

I am sure you already some responses to what I've written so far and I'd love to hear them. And please come back for the continuation of this exploration. Tomorrow, I'd like to invite you to imagine some scenarios with me, to discover the responses you may have to different answers to this question:

"So, what do you write?"

Musicspeak: Real art and popular art*

Commercial. Literary.

Designations of fiction: what do you think of them? What are you reactions to authors Nicholas Sparks and Danielle Steel protesting the labels given to their novels? No, seriously, without the snickering and the eye-rolling?

Publishing professionals talk about the sweet spot where commercial and literary intersect. Authors try to figure out where their work fits. Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner respond to the publicity surround Jonathan Frazen's new book.


This age-old dichotomy between art and popularity rears its head in many art forms. In music, the words "classical" and "pop" seem to do a decent job defining particular types of music. Yet doesn't it seem questionable to put Bach and Debussy in the same lot, and Iron Maiden and Lionel Ritchie in another? And where does jazz go? Straight-ahead jazz, Latin jazz, fusion jazz?

Years ago, I heard a definition of art music that has made me think. It was given by the keynote speaker at a piano pedagogy conference. Speaking to a ballroom full of conservatively dressed piano teachers, this pony-tailed, jean-clad, soft-spoken man described his journey of coming up with a way to think about art music. And this is his conclusion (my paraphrase):

Art music is music that requires knowledge and experience to appreciate.


That works really well for me; even if it may place Iron Maiden next to Bach. And this is not to say music outside this realm has no place. It just means that some music requires work and study to be understood and enjoyed fully.

I am still thinking about whether this definition works as well in fiction. What do you think?

*Please don't shoot me for seemingly denigrating popular art. This is an attempt at speaking with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. See that bulge on my left cheek?

Musicspeak: walking into love

One of my most trying times at the conservatory was the semester we studied 20th Century music. Lectures and tutorials weren't the problem; it was the Weekly Tape. You see, for every period in history we studied, we had to listen to a cassette tape (yes, it was that long ago) containing music from that time. Listening to music as an assignment was usually my favorite part; it was like reading To Kill A Mockingbird for school.

But that was before I was required to listen to 120 minutes of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg, followed by Steve Reich and other avant garde composers every week. (John Cage's 4'33'' was especially uncomfortable. Was I supposed to sit with the earphones in my head, listening to silence for exactly 4'33"? At least White On White doesn't demand its viewer to be still for a specific length of time.)

Did you follow the links? Did you listen to the music? What do you think?

I felt tortured.

But a strange thing happened after I listened to each tape multiple times; some of the music began to make sense. I started to enjoy, and later, love some of what was initially meaningless noise, such as Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale, and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht

This didn't happen to every piece of music. I remained unmoved by some of the compositions, despite acquiring familiarity and knowledge about them. I understood the purpose of their composers, appreciate their ideas, and maybe even admire the results at an intellectual manner, but I never sought out those pieces after that semester.

The many hours spent listening and re-listening to all that music was necessary. To be a musician, I had to know how the story of music has continued in the 20th Century.

Writers read. We do it because that's probably the reason we became writers. We do it because we love it. We do it to learn about other writers.

And we do it because we need to know the traditions on which our art is based.

I have a number of books I feel I need to read but find it difficult / intimidating. This post is primarily a pep-talk to myself, that I should put in the extra effort and time to read these not-super-accessible books.

Falling in love is exhilarating. Within a heart beat we completely embrace the object of our affection. Sometimes the feeling can even turn into something less exciting but longer lasting. Sometimes it doesn't.

Walking into love: taking slow, occasionally painful, steps, isn't as exciting. But it can lead to something deep and stable, something that makes us better writers, richer people.

Do you have books that are on the TBR, but also SI (Somewhat Intimidating) list? Have you had the experience of falling in love with a book that your originally could not get through? I would love to hear your stories.

Musicspeak: our audience

After my first public recital at college, I wrote home to say how disappointed I was. The audience had been small and it seemed almost meaningless to have spent all those hours in the practice room just to perform to a few people.

In her reply to me, my very wise mother said something that has stayed with me till today.

If even one person has enjoyed or understood my performance, I would have succeeded.

The Chinese has a term for such a person: zhiyin. The first character, "zhi" means "know" and the second, "yin "means "music" or "sound." Someone who is a zhiyin, in its literal sense, is someone who knows your voice, your sound, your music.

As a performer, It is not possible to know how a performance affects anyone. I don't know if, in all my years of performing, I have found any zhiyin, but the notion that such a person could exist has definitely given me a much better attitude toward performing.

An elderly gentleman used to frequent the lunch-time recitals of my conservatory. I didn't know him, but he was almost always at my recitals. As part of my psyche-myself-up-to-perform routine, I would imagine him as a zhiyin.

Initially, the thought helped focus my intentions. As the years went on, as I became increasingly frustrated by the seemingly arbitrary judging by the professors based on obstinate ideas about how certain pieces should be performed--Bach should never be played with the damper pedal, there should be no rubato in Mozart, and the only way to achieve the effect Debussy wanted was by using the sostenuto pedal (the one in the middle on a grand piano) and no other way--that I eventually gave up being the compliant and correct student because, first of all, I couldn't keep straight which professor held which opinion, and I really didn't want to perform within such narrow parameters.

So in my last year at the conservatory, when I employed subtle rubato in Mozart or used the damper pedal in Bach, I would direct the performance toward the gentleman, and imagined that he understood what I was trying to do musically.

Maybe a person should only write for herself. But I have to admit that one of the purposes of my writing is to share something of myself with others. Otherwise I would not seek publication and I would not need this blog. I may never reach a large audience with my writing, but the notion that a zhiyin could exist out there, who will "get" my writing, is a strong motivator.

Your rubato is too predictable

The 24-hour classical music public radio station didn't get enough funding and had to move to a weaker signal. I can no longer just turn on the radio anytime and expect Bach or Shostakovich. Which is why the other night when I heard a Beethoven sonata on another public radio station, I was elated.

But only for a few seconds. My musician brain started to take command.

"No, no, no, you're being too stodgy with this passage. It is forte and has sforzandos but you still need to move the phrases forward, not weigh them down with this tempo plus the extra heavy touch."

"Again? Are you sure? You've already played this phrase in this exact manner of rubato in the Exposition, and you think you should do it in the exact same way? Has nothing happened in the Development section? Does the modulation cause no change? How can you treat it as if the music has stayed static?"

"That ending. Exquisite." Sigh in contentment

Critical: yes. Annoying: yes. Able to enjoy the music I love: only at the very end.

That's what devoting years of you life to studying something does; it sharpens your eyes and ears, it favors your critical-thinking, it spoils the easy enjoyment you've had when you first fell in love. But it also provides the delight of those rare and subtle moments when excellence is achieved that you wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't put in all those years in study.

Worth it?

Raiders of the Deer Hunter

A couple of things made me feel so sunny and happy this morning, I could have skipped if I weren't driving at 75 mph down I-25. Why? First I saw the best number plate on minivan: "GO READ." I wanted to pass it and roll down my window to yell something encouraging, but you know, 75 mph and all. And then, the radio station played Michael Buble's Home, followed by Earth, Wind, Fire singing Let's Groove. (Feel free to make fun of my taste in pop music.)

All right, some days It doesn't take much to make me happy. Even hearing the word "aeroplane" in Home provided a pleasant little skip to my heart. Maybe it's because I haven't heard that word since moving to the US where we use the shorter and possibly more efficient "airplane." Or maybe Michael Buble can sing any word and I'd think it was dreamy.

Wait, Buble's voice isn't the point.

The point is that people like unusual combinations of things. A classically trained musician can love Prokofiev and Dvorak as well as R.E.M and E.L.O. (Yes, the offer to make fun still stands.)

A woman can be a nerdy bookworm who cannot stand being too girly-girly, and still once dreamed of being a fashion designer. She can love her very practical Saturn Vue with a Honda Pilot engine, perfect for where she lives, and still wish for a Mazda Miata or a VW GTI manual. She can love depressing movies as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark.

As writers, we strive to avoid cliched characters, but it's not easy to convince our readers that a character can possibly possess all these seemingly incompatible traits and interests. "Wait, but Sienna is a cheerleader type who would never dream of getting her hands dirty by working at the co-op farm!"

The problem, I think, is that we tend to sort people into categories almost as soon as we meet them. And unfortunately, this sorting ends up coloring every new bit of information we get subsequently. If the first time you meet me, I am working at the co-op farm wearing running clothes and then I fixed you a healthy, non-fat, all-vegetable lunch, I may have trouble
convincing you that I am as sedentary as they come and I love butter. Yet, people do and often come in unusual combinations of flavors, and if it's so difficult to accept a multi-dimensioned person in real life, how much harder it is to create them in our stories.

Have you found characters you've read recently whose traits don't seem to jive? And if you're a writer, how do you overcome this problem?

Give me embarrassment any time!

Recently someone told me I was brave.

That took me completely by surprise. I've long resigned to the fact that I'm chicken about many things. When I read of courageous acts in books, I'm always filled with admiration and longing. I tell myself I need to overcome at least some of my fears, and have, in fact, taken a few baby-steps toward this goal.

But I know I am far from being brave. Which is why that statement gave me pause. After mulling over it, I realized that the reason I did that supposedly-brave thing is that I prefer embarrassment over regret.

I've sabotaged my own successes many times out of fear. Those events have gnawed at me over the years, giving me pangs of regret. I know how to deal with them more effectively now, but the intensity of these pangs haven't subsided.

In contrast to that, there have been times when I've subdued my fear enough to do something brave. Some of those times have resulted in embarrassing moments, a couple of them spectacularly so, like when I had a full-on brain freeze on my very first piano competition and couldn't continue beyond the first page of my Chopin Ballade and so I just stood up to bow--bow!!!--as the audience clapped politely to signal their relief I was about to leave the stage.

But the effects of the embarrassment, unlike those of regret, die off. Apparently, Time does heal, the pain of embarrassment at least.

This is a timely reminder, as I am sending off another round of submissions. I've received a few encouraging responses, but the rejections are coming in as well. But I know now that I can live better with having tried without succeeding, than not trying at all.

I wish you courage.

What do your scales look like?

When I was in college, my roommate, a wonderful violinist who'd chosen med school, commented that she was surprised I didn't practice scales every day.

Scales are important, they train our fingers to play passages that appear over and over again in repertoire, they are great warm ups, and most important of all, they teach our arms and bodies how to move across the keyboard. So why wasn't I practicing my scales every day, even though as a music major, I was putting in anything from 4 to 10 hours a day?

Because I had already spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours devoted to this one technique in my earlier years of playing the instrument. The scales had already been ingrained in my mind, my ears, my muscles. Till today. I have forgotten most of what I've learned in geography or physics or anthropology but tell me to play a F# major scale and I won't even hesitate. These babies have drilled themselves into the nucleus of every cell.

Also, laziness. (Hey, I was in college, I was allowed to be a slacker every once in a while.)

When I started teaching, I had to decide which school of thought I subscribed to when it came to teaching scales. One school says pianists need to have as many of the standard figuration of piano playing--scales, arpeggios, chords, Alberti Bass, trills, etc--in their fingers so that when they encounter them in real repertoire, they won't need to struggle but can instead focus on the musical elements.

The second school of thought considers the hours practicing scales wasted because students should spend time on real music, instead of just the technical aspect. Students will learn scales soon enough when they start playing Mozart Sonatas.

I chose #1 although I tried as best as I could to relate particular technical exercises to real music so that the younger students, especially, could see the point of these exercises.

My question is, now that I'm a writer, what is the equivalent of practicing scales? Free writing? Journaling? Writing sentences and labeling parts: subject, verb, object?

So, my fellow writers, do you practice scales everyday? If so, what do your scales look like?

Ugly Pots, part deaux

Yesterday when I was improvising on the hymns I'll be playing this Sunday, I realized I had overlooked something in my post on ugly pots. In that post, I compared the process of learning a new piece of music to that of writing and concluded that the fundamental difference between these two processes makes what works in the writing world--writing a lot to learn how to write better--not very helpful in the music-learning world.

But.

I neglected one important element: learning a piece of music that's already written isn't really comparable to writing something that doesn't exist yet. The better comparison would be to compare composing to writing.

I came to this realization as I was trying out different ways to improvise the hymns. Hymns are difficult for me because I came to improvising in the simpler pop styles where knowing the basic chords and having a rhythm/groove is 90% of it, while hymns require more sophistication.

I digress. So as I tried one rhythm and discard it as too flippant, and tried the next (too rock), and the next (too monotonous), and go through the same processes with melodic patterns, accompaniment figures, I realize I'm playing a lot of things I don't want to do again, at least in these hymns. I can't worry about the physicality of those "wrong" decisions because trying out all these options is the only way I can get to what works.

And maybe that's why improvising scares me silly. Its very nature demands unpredictability.

Learning a new piece of music: take time, go slow. Writing and composing: keep doing lots to learn. Improvising: I'll have to trust that my muscles and my mind and the predetermined ideas will work together.

Ugly pots, awful sentences

A little while ago, over at the Tollbooth blog, Sarah Sullivan related the story about two groups of pottery students. One group was told their work would be judged solely on quantity, and the other group, quality. The result surprised me: the "quantity" group produced the higher quality work. When I read the same story again, this time on my friend, Cheryl's blog, I reacted again to the results.

My surprise has to do with my experiences as a musician. For most of my childhood, my approach to piano playing was sloppy. I got by with as little practice as I could get away with. At around fourteen, attending a music camp and going to a different teacher turned my mild interest in music into full-blown love. I became a piano fiend and gobbled up music. Beethoven, Debussy, Schubert: anything my teacher put in front of me, I learned, quickly.

That period was my equivalent of "work judged on quantity alone" in the pottery story.

When I got into conservatory, my professor was impressed with my big repertoire but appalled (he was, and is, a true gentleman and never showed it) by my lack of finesse and detail. Under his tutelage, I revisited pieces I had "learned" earlier so that I could improve on phrasing and voicing and fingering and articulation etc.

To my dismay, I discovered that my fingers and arms knew those pieces in a certain way and changing it was very difficult. In my earlier haste to learn new music, fueled by eagerness and passion, I had overlooked details, ploughed over important sections, and smothered all nuances. Even with determination and hours and hours of re-practicing, I wasn't always successful in changing old habits.

I gained a much deeper respect for the process of learning a new piece.

In twenty years of teaching, I've seen the same thing in my students. Those who took time to analyze their pieces, work out fingerings, and began learning at slower tempos mastered their music more quickly and securely. Those who wanted to get to the finished product quickly found themselves addled with stubborn mistakes that would surface, even months after they'd been eradicated, at auditions, recitals, competitions and other stressful situations.

Quality from the start: that has been my belief. Haste in "finishing" a piece: a guarantee of unpredictability.

And that's why the pottery story surprised me.

Obviously there are a number of other factors besides the contrast of quality vs. quantity. For example, the pottery students' interest in quality. That is why during the process of producing their many ugly pots, they learned how to make beautiful ones.

The thought I concluded from this story and my own experiences is this: thank goodness writing does not have a physical-memory component. In music, my muscles become conditioned when I learn something new. Reconditioning it takes a lot of time and effort. In writing, I can type a thousand bad sentences and the physicality of it won't hamper me from writing good ones.

I'll take time when I learn new music (gearing up forChristmas is when I get to learn lots and lots of new music for the church choir) but I'll be writing lots of words to get the ugly pots out of the way.

The process

Since stepping in as the choir accompanist at my church, I've been offered another accompanist job: at a local charter school with a strong music program. The first concert is presented by 7th and 8th graders and their selections are musically advanced and require some practice on my part.

In the process of learning yet more new music, I've been reminded just how messy the process can be. All the unpredictable mistakes, the funny things that happen when my eye-hand co-ordination gets wacky, and the passages that suddenly don't work when I play them at different speeds. Over the years, I've accepted these as part and parcel of playing the piano. I get frustrated occasionally, but never to the point where I start losing faith. I need to transfer the same attitude to my writing, and not become discouraged when my writing refuses to gel or fit the vision I have for it. I need to remember that it's a process, a journey, in which mistakes and unexpected happenings should be embraced and learned from.

Writing is kinda like life that way. (Okay, obvious and cliche, but I need to hear it every once in a while.)

Poetry Friday

I missed last week's Poetry Friday Roundup but I'm back with a poem that combines my three passions: music, words, and education.

Undivided attention
By Taylor Mali

A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers,
tied up with canvas straps - like classical music's
birthday gift to the insane -
is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.

The rest of the poem is here.
And here is Taylor Mali's website.

Head on over to Author Amok for the Roundup.

The dog ate it

I know some people who structure their lives in a way that they do a little of everything everyday. I've tried to be that structured: setting aside specific amounts of time a day on chores/writing/social life/gardening etc. But it's no use. I am the type who needs to focus on one or at most two major tasks at a time. Sure, the kids still have to be fed and taught and read to and cuddled with, meals have to appear at set times, and the underwear drawers stocked, but if I am preparing submissions and learning some 80 pages of new music for the church choir, then keeping up the blog is going to fall by the wayside.

So, I'm doing my third round of querying and submissions, trying to make sure I follow guidelines to the tee. On top of that, our church choir accompanist is plagued with unexplained pain and I'm stepping in. I've been accompanying choirs on and off for many years and I still find it one of the most unpredictable pianist jobs. The accompaniment parts are often not pianistic, there are frequent key changes, the tempos are not consistent and I'm at the mercy of the choir director.

But I digress. Back to the point: the reason I haven't posted more than a week is that I've been slaving over a different keyboard and obsessing over my queries and synopses and first 10/20/50 pages of my novel. Things are more or less back to a steady state and I will be posting a number of thoughts that have been swirling around in my head this past week. I hope you'll stay tuned.

Soaring

Whee!

This is a picture of my daughter taken a couple of weeks ago at a local carnival/community fair. This was one of those bungee-trampoline deals. I didn't try it but my children said they felt as if they had been flying.

Those soaring moments, those wonderful, unexpected times when something delights us to the core!

I get those every once in a while, when one of my children willingly and without being told, shows compassion and generosity; when another child overcomes his fear of joining a new class.

I got them when I was a musician, when a concert or a piece or even one portion of piece went so exceedingly well or when I could feel a connection with the audience.

Occasionally, these moments are extraneous to the actual task: when my critique group likes my work, or when an agent responds to a query with "I'm intrigued, send me the full." And they definitely lift my spirits, but those moments that come from the task itself--when a revision of a tangled passage finally works, or when I realize where the story must go--those are the moments that make me truly soar.

I wish I could manufacture these moments and reward myself with them all the time. The thing is, though, they are out of my control. Just because I teach my children to be compassionate and not to be fearful doesn't mean they will do it. Just because I practice hours and hours a day doesn't mean the concert will go smoothly. Just because I write and re-write doesn't mean that the result will be good. As much of a control freak I am, I realize that soaring moments (and everything that truly matters, I suspect) are totally and completely out of my control.

But if I don't encourage my child and take him back to a class that terrifies him, if I don't practice, if I don't rewrite, then there is no chance for any soaring moments to take place.

That's the good news. Our toil and labor (my tribute to labor, one day late) can lead us to success. So my fellow writers (and anyone in pursuit of worthwhile goals), here's a wish and an encouragement to you: may you soar!

A follow up

A question arose from my last post about what plumbing has to do with piano. Nothing, really. I was merely trying to provide examples of which "new technology" I vote for or against. Modern plumbing I cannot live without, but I choose my faithful acoustic piano over the newest electronic ones. I realize the piano as it stands today, has gone through many evolution processes, and at every step, purists have protested, and some of the things that have been lost in these processes are true losses.

For example, I remember hearing Schubert and Mozart played on period keyboards and suddenly understood them so much better. But those very same instruments kept getting broken by Beethoven. For him and Brahms and Liszt and Rachmaninoff, the stronger frames and metals that could hold more tension were definitely necessary.

Back to electronic pianos. I don't hate them. In fact I owned one (in addition to my acoustic grand) when I taught piano. It was a great tool. What I do not accept is the notion that electronic pianos would take the place of acoustics.

In my previous profession, this notion is being challenged constantly. At every conference, manufacturers would roll out new models -- and I would try them all, and proponents would argue passionately, and compose or perform on them . The arguments and compositions that made sense were those that examined the new instruments on their own merits instead of trying to make them "the same, except much better."

So what was I talking about? Oh yeah, books. Hand made books made me wonder about the future of books. I am aware that changes are happening, and I am open to how these changes may work. Maybe I will have to modify the way I read; instead of curling up in bed with a book in my hand, I will be bringing an e-reader loaded with all of my favorite books in my purse everywhere I go. Maybe I will free up space in my house after I get rid of all the bookshelves. Maybe my eyesight will get even worse by reading e-books. Who knows? I just hope I always get to read books, in whatever form, that contain great ideas and touch my heart and make me think and change my life.