The stuff in between

Just back from the Orillia Folk Society - BaDAS/S DIY Music Weekend, a gathering of the clan.

A few new faces each year, several folks I see regularly, but many who I only see at this annual event.  Many song circles, a few workshops (led by DIY participants, hence the moniker), tons of community, and perhaps a tasty adult beverage or two.  A wide variety of tastes, experiences and abilities, from the three full-time pros (Don, Ray Dillard and myself), to music lovers who will take any opportunity to learn something new, to "weekend warriors", to folks who just want to jam and have fun, to a small handful who just want to sit back and listen and soak it all in.

I learned and observed much this weekend.  First of all, that 2011 kicked the crap out of a lot of people -- more accidents, illnesses, deaths, etc., than I've heard reported any other year.  Second, that these people kicked back, and are moving forward in grace and joy.  So -- a toast to the end of 2011 for all of us, and a toast to 2012 swinging us all to the opposite side of the pendulum of life (OK, maybe we should wait until my liver recovers...).

The other great thing about seeing people every year is noticing the good stuff that's changed.  There were three young guys who joined us for the first time last year, and had such a good time hanging out with all us old farts that they actually came back.  :-)  All three of them have been a part of the Mariposa Songwriters Club, a group of young'uns under the mentorship of Aaron Howes, who has obviously been doing a fantastic job with this group.  They've grown so much in the past year (I'm talking musically, they're in their 20s and past the growth-spurt stage!), gained confidence and skills and... tremendous musicality.

Last year, guitarist Chris Thompson already had the technique and the drive and the creativity, but this year, the musicality and confidence had bloomed beautifully.  While still employing the zippy effects and percussive techniques, his new compositions were filled with much more lyricism and harmonic movement than flashy technical tricks.  There's a new maturity there, much more than a year's worth.  Aaron Mangoff, whose voice and songwriting had impressed everyone last year as well, has gained a new poise as well as confidence in his guitar playing.  He and Tyler Knight were venturing much more into trying out lead parts in the jams and song circles -- and did so with such taste and sensitivity, they put some of the older-and-should-know-better folks to shame.  Tyler has completely exploded into and embraced his musicality -- I was blown away by his accompaniments, but also by his songs (last year, he played mostly covers), which dug incredibly deep and pulled out some gorgeous gems.

All three have such a great sense of musicality, sensitivity (same thing, really, I'm just repeating it for those who might forget such notions), respect (ditto) poise and confidence.  They're at an age where it would be easy to get stuck in the testosterone-y it's-all-about-what-I-can-do-to-impress-people mode, but they're so very obviously All About the MUSIC.  They're going to go places, I'm sure.  I love these guys, search them out and you'll love them too!!!

I should also mention that Tyler's creative passions are also in the realm of videographer -- he owns District Media & Design here in Orillia, and has put together some terrific videos for local musicians.  This guy oozes creativity.  :-)  In fact, he put together a five-minute down-and-dirty video of The Brights playing with our friend Ray Dillard "backstage" at DIY: The Brights with Ray Dillard.  Browse around his YouTube site, because there are a number of video projects he's done available there.  Don's going to hire him to do some songs from his upcoming solo album, too.

But back to DIY.

The other people who blew me away were Noreen Sullivan and Mary Bennet (no websites, sorry).  More examples of musicality at its finest!  They're more in the doing-it-for-fun-but-won't-pass-up-a-gig-if-asked category, but their duo work is simply beautiful, and certainly of professional-if-they-felt-like-it quality.  Their voices blend so nicely, and they've worked out some lovely arrangements.  But even when you take them out of their "comfort zone" of working together, the harmonies and accompaniments they ad libbed over people's songs in the circles were just as tasteful and simply-beautifully-perfect.

Another guy to impress me -- well, he'd already impressed me, and I see him on a regular basis, but it was good to be reminded -- was Roy Hickling.  His songwriting just gets better and better.  Yes, he is a friend and a client, but no, he didn't pay me to say this -- and I won't be invoicing him for it, either.  ;-)

What all of these people I mentioned understand and embrace is that music is not the notes -- it's the stuff in between the notes.  Yes, I go on about this ad nauseam, but that's because not everyone is listening yet.  :-)  These people are wonderful examples of how amazing it is when the Music is there, in between all the other stuff.

My very favourite compliment -- and self-conscious, oh-please-don't-let-me-cry-now moment -- of the weekend was when Mary H. and Peter K. were talking with Ray about the workshop he was going to give on musical tension and release.  Mary's eyes shone and she said "oh, that's what Alyssa's so natural at!"  Peter jumped in and started talking about how it's so nice to play with me or just to listen to me accompanying others, because I know where to place the notes and when to stay out of the way.  And then I turned red and tried not to cry as they waxed poetic over my sensitivity.  Sure it's nice to get compliments about my technical proficiency, and be reminded I don't suck, but... THOSE are the types of compliments I ADORE.  The ones that have nothing to do with the number of notes I play, but how I play them.  Because the Music is not the notes.  The Music is the heart in between the notes.  The Music is what makes Mary's eyes light up, what touches Peter, what makes complete strangers go away from a concert and feel they've been part of something.

And this is what I saw, heard and felt in all the people who made an impression on me this weekend.  The stuff between the notes.  The heart, the soul, the spirit, the Music.  Notes can be learned.  Music has to be nurtured.  And once you can let go of the notes and put in the spirit, you'll be touching people you don't even know of, and you will make them feel they've been part of something.  Whether you pursue it professionally or simply for the sheer joy of it, you will be A Musician.

All-in-all, a great musical weekend.  Do check out everyone's websites I mentioned -- and search around for those without links, because other people have posted videos and bios of them.  These people are Musicians.

The birth of a note

I gave an improvisation workshop last weekend to a group of budding young singer-songwriters.  My main focus with them was on listening -- the most important part of any musical endeavour, in my opinion -- and we did many exercises that got them to open up their ears.  Of course, as I warned them, this was just an introduction -- "listening" does get more complex as you go on.  And eventually stops involving your ears... yes really.  :-)

This, combined with some discussions we had at the same week's Amity Trio rehearsal, has had me pondering about all the aspects of listening the past few days.

For many of us, the idea of keeping in time begins with us playing along to a metronome -- that clicking annoyance of sometimes painful rhythmic accuracy.  It's a good start.  It shows us where we're tempted to rush or slow down, where our sense of rhythm is completely off, where we're losing the "heartbeat".

However, if we were to listen to a metronomically-accurate performance of anything, it would be as exciting as watching paint dry.  Part of the tension and release of music comes from playing with the push and pull of the tempo -- making your audience wait, or surprising them by jumping in.

If you're playing solo or singing a cappella, you have total freedom in this endeavour (within the boundaries of taste and reason!).  As soon as you add an accompanist or ensemble member, however, there's a whole new layer of complexity -- how do you communicate the when and where of this push and pull?

If you're just listening with your ears, then you'll always be lagging behind a bit, reacting to what you've already heard a split second earlier.  You can't just react, or the whole piece will drag to a crawl as everyone lags behind.  You need to anticipate what the others are going to do.  Which is easy if the others are playing metronomically, but more complex if they're playing musically (which we all hope they're doing, or it's gonna be a lllooonnnnnnggggg performance!).

This is when music teachers and coaches around the world introduce the idea of eye contact -- at the beginning and ending of phrases, and whenever possible in between.  If your head is buried in your music, there's no way you can communicate with your musical partners.  If your toe is tapping the beat, you are not paying attention to your musical partners, you're attempting to take over as conductor and only paying attention to your own rhythm.  (Which might be OK if you're a soloist with accompaniment, but you still need to pay attention and communicate this rhythm to your accompanist and not the floor.)  Of course, as with our trio, there is often a great deal of verbal discussion behind the scenes, but when reading through something for the first time, or once you've decided on how you wish to play a phrase, then a nod, a breath, or a raised eyebrow is all it takes to ensure you begin a piece or a phrase or a note together.

As I discovered when playing next to a rather lazy and incompetent principal cellist who kept relying on me to keep track of our entrances, those visual cues aren't necessarily accurate.  ;-)

It doesn't have to be a resentful stand partner who is trying to "out" you and your sneaky ways by moving her head a bar too early (and then shrug and itch her nose like she almost had a sneeze, or carefully examine her bow-hair...).  But, as my former ensemble coach, the late Ken Perkins of the Orford String Quartet, taught me: what people INTEND to do is not always what they ACTUALLY do.  You have to pay attention to what they're actually doing, not just go with their best intentions.  Don't ignore their intentions, but do be aware of what's going on with the rest of their body.  For instance, they may be wanting to produce a sound at time point A, but their bow is too high off the string to get there on time, so you adjust to match the reality, not the intention.

These cues are getting into the much more subtle.

But think about it: a note doesn't begin when the sound begins.  Watch a string player, and you'll see all the subtle preparations the left hand has to go through to prepare the note, and the right arm has to go through to prepare the bow to make the string sound.  Watch a wind player or a singer take a preparatory breath.  Watch the pianist or percussionist lift their hands or mallets to prepare to strike.  There are at least a couple of seconds before the sound occurs when you can see the preparation for that inevitable sound.  Much like a diver jumping on the end of the diving board, you've committed well in advance -- and if you break that commitment after you've made it, you're going to have a painful belly flop!  :-)

Let's stick with the diver for a moment -- even before that final, no-stopping-me-now springboard bounce, there's the run or walk to the edge.  Before that takes place, there's the moment of focus and concentration.

It's the same with the first note of a piece.  Or of a phrase.  Before you can make that final "bounce", you've had to decide what you want to do after it starts!  You need to have the sound in your head, the tempo, etc.

Yes, this can all be communicated through eye and body language, through the physical preparations, but...

The next level of listening involves neither the ears nor the eyes.

Ken made our university ensemble rehearse with our eyes closed.  Very scary, and counter to all that had been drilled into us about ensemble playing up until then.  But once we were able to stop our nervous giggling... wow.  (The Orford String Quartet would do this regularly, going one step further by recording their rehearsal, and playing it back at half-speed to see if there were any even slightly ragged entrances!)

Victor Wooten calls it "listening with fox ears".  You're not just listening with your ears, you're listening with your gut and your soul.  Your intuition, your hidden psychic... your Music.

Our eyes and ears and bodies can sometimes lie to us.  Our eyes and ears and bodies make mistakes on a regular basis.  Our Music does not.

When you can tap in to the Music and ignore your eyes and ears and body, you realize that the notes begin long before you're even conscious of them.  They may never even "begin" at all, but be there constantly, waiting for you to invite them to come out and play.

On those rare occasions when all the members of an ensemble are tapped in to the Music, it's a blissful thing.  Music High.

Which, quizzically, requires that you have built up control of your eyes, ears and body and technique... and then totally let it go.

All that advanced preparation, all the training, all the planning.  And then run... bounce... dive... YIPPEEE!!!

When will I be good enough?

One of my favourite questions from students is "when will I be good enough to not have to practise any more?"

There are two equally valid and truthful answers to this question:

1. You're already good enough, and
2. Never.

Neither answer, on its own, is honest or fair.  I always give both answers, weighting them depending on where I feel the student is at the moment.

One example I use is Yo Yo Ma's two recordings of the Bach cello suites.  The first was recorded when he was quite young.  Is it good enough?  Darn tootin', it's good enough.  It's fantastic.  But... a few decades later, with all he had learned in the meantime, he realized he had something more to say, and re-recorded the suites.  If you A-B the two recordings, they're completely different.  And yes, there's quite a good argument that the newer one is better -- although that, of course, depends on the listener's perspective and tastes.  But even if you're with me on the second recording being an improvement... does that make the first not good enough?  Absolutely not.  Cellists around the world would probably give their eye teeth to be that good.

But age and maturity, along with the wrinkles and responsibilities, does give us all both a broader perspective and a deeper perspective -- on life, on music, on pretty much everything.

When we start to learn music, to play an instrument, to use our voice, to play with others, our focus tends to be more in the "not making mistakes" department.  Our most pressing goal is to not screw up.  So we practise.  (Eventually, we learn that it's not actually possible to NEVER screw up, and also learn how to practise getting out of mistakes gracefully!)  And we get ourselves to a point when we're reasonably confident that we can make it through a performance or jam session or whatever we're trying to do without falling hopelessly on our face.

We get to that point, and realize that we want more out of music than simply not falling on our face.  We can manage to not fall on our face in many different circumstances (at least most of the time), but there's something more than that which draws us to the music.

That's when the fun begins.

That's why the first answer to the "when will I be good enough" question is so very important.  Because music really has very little to do with getting the notes right, and a student who is terrorized into thinking they're wrong all the time is never going to get to the fun stuff.  And the fun stuff is REALLY FREAKING FUN!!!

I often get students after they've already started with someone who's initiated them into terror.  It's a long haul bringing them back from that.  But last year, I was lucky enough to get an absolute beginner who really wanted to play cello (i.e., this wasn't her mother forcing her to do something).  I still remember the big, ecstatic grin on her face as she plucked the strings and said "listen to that!!!"  I seriously had to force myself to not burst into tears in her first lesson, lest I scare her off.

And yes, of course I still have to make sure she's holding the bow properly and not squeezing too hard and reading the notes correctly and blahdeblahdeblah... but we can also have fun with the music side.  And sure, she's an early teen, so when I tell her to make something up off the top of her head, she still balks and waits for further instruction, but... she is getting better at letting things flow.  I do keep having to remind her she's good enough.  But I don't have to tell her to practise or work hard, because she's paying attention to the sounds she's making, asking for help when it's not a sound she wants to make, and experimenting in the privacy of her room with different ideas -- sometimes coming to a lesson saying "I think I'm doing this, how can I fix it?"

I still try hard not to burst into tears.  :-)

A former student used to come to his lesson, look terribly guilty, and then "confess" that he had used his allotted daily practise time to work out songs he'd heard on the radio.  He always thought I'd be mad, because he wasn't "really practising."  Once again, I had to try hard not to burst into tears... I'd ask him to play it for me, he'd look sheepish, then play it, his head bobbing to the rhythms of the invisible drum kit. After seeing me do some of my singer-songwriter stuff with the foot percussion, he begged his mom for his own, and surprised me one day with his own composition -- he played it for the Kiwanis competition later that year and was rewarded not just with a high mark, but exuberant comments from the adjudicator.  This reaction made him want to keep going, to improve, to learn, to refine, to get better.

There's a common progression when formally learning to play music.  First, we want to make sure we play the right notes.  We get to that level, and then we want to make sure we're starting those notes at the correct time.  We get to that level, then realize we need to finish them at the right time, too.  Then we work on the articulation, then what we do in the middle, then how those notes fit together into a figure, then how they fit into the phrase, then how the phrases fit together into the whole piece...  It never really ends.

Take the Beethoven trio I was mentioning yesterday.  We performed it already in January, we'd worked on it until we thought it was performance-ready, and then we performed it.  By the audience reaction, we performed it quite well, thank you very much.  But we didn't sit back and think "OK, we're done".  We've spent the last several months trying to find more "meaning", subtle nuances, fix sections we thought could be more coherent, found different ways to express and bring out certain phrases.  And we're so much happier with how we're playing it now, we're very excited to present it in a couple of weeks -- and kind of hoping there will be people there who heard the previous version and will appreciate the difference.  But even if there are no repeat listeners, we're thrilled with the new interpretation.

If we play it again somewhere next year or in a few years, we'll probably change it again.  Because if we didn't have something new to say, there really wouldn't be much point in saying it.

I have been a part of -- and left, disappointedly -- several ensembles who got to "good enough" and stayed there.  No curiosity, no desire for self-improvement or ensemble-inprovement, they just wanted to get the job done and get out of there.

Honestly, if you're that bored of the music, if it's just a job, you should really not be a musician.  I'd say the same thing to someone in any other job -- if it doesn't excite you, get the hell out and find what will.  Because if you love what you do, you won't wait for the boss to tell you to get better at it (and then resent your boss for saying so), you'll be self-motivated to look for ways to improve.  Not because you were bad at your job, but because you want to be even better.

Between my "Big Ethyl" incident at the beginning of this year and Don's cancer and recovery now, life has given me a more-than-subtle nudge to figure out what's important and what to let go.  Part of the weeding-out process has been a question of "what do I have time for?"  (The answer, of course, is I haven't had time for most of this, but somehow expected myself to be able to bend the space-time continuum in order to accomplish six full-time jobs at the same time!)  But in the last couple of months, it's also started to come down to: what am I passionate about doing?  There are a few things I never was particularly passionate about, but did them out of guilt or obligation or misplaced loyalty or whatever other silly motivations there are to do things that completely bore you.  There are others I started off doing quite passionately, but realized in a number of recent "ah-ha!" moments that I just don't give a crap about any more -- which means it's definitely time (or past time) to hand these things on to someone who WILL be passionate about them, for everyone's benefit.

If you love what you do, you're good at it AND you want to be even better.

If you're taking cello lessons because your mother wants you to, neither one of us is going to have much fun.  If you're taking cello lessons because you want to play music, we're both going to have a lot of fun.  Like that one student on her first day, happily plucking the strings and listening in awe to the sound, you are already good enough.  Like that same student a year and a half later, bringing me pieces she wants to learn but doesn't know how to reach some of the notes yet, you will never stop practising and learning, because being good enough will never be good enough for you.

Which kind of sounds like a negative thing on the surface, but... it's actually the really fun part.

There's a reason why it's called "playing" the cello, not "working" the cello.

As I tell my students all the time -- go find a video of Yo Yo Ma performing.  Even if you don't know the first thing about all the mechanics and technical things his body has to do to make that cello sound, the one thing ANYONE will notice is that he's smiling, often laughing, having a musical conversation with his fellow performers, with the audience, with his instrument.  He is PLAYING the cello.  He's not worried about getting the notes right (granted, he's had several decades to work on the notes, but even so...), he's not worried about whether he'll screw up (and if you follow his career, it's not because he's remained stagnant in a safe place -- he's constantly pushing his own boundaries and putting himself in unfamiliar musical genres and situations), he's PLAYING.  It's a joy to watch and a joy to listen to.

Even Yo Yo Ma practises, kiddies.  Because he knows he will never be good enough.  But he knows that's a good thing.  And as we all know, his version of "not good enough" is pretty darned fantabulous!

So is yours.  :-)

Using the right tools

In talking about life and emotional fitness, I talk a lot about having the right tools in your toolbox, and knowing how and when to use them.

It was in my Amity Trio rehearsal yesterday that I discovered it's a good thing to remember with many things in life.  You see, we were rehearsing Beethoven's "Archduke" trio, which I've played many times before.  But December 4 (our "Gift of Music" series concert at St. Luke's in Creemore) will be my first time performing it on Lady Jo, my beautiful new-to-me-but-275-years-old cello.

After over two decades struggling with my "old clunker" of a cello, fighting to simply get the notes to sound, I've finally got an instrument that responds to everything I ask her to do.  It is heavenly.

Of course, after two decades with the clunker, it's often difficult to remember I don't have to try so hard.  I still see a passage coming that used to give me difficulty, and can feel my body tense up and try to will the instrument into submission.  I have to remind myself the very same things I tell my students -- if you fight the instrument, the instrument will fight you.  Coax it, don't force it.  (One of the reasons I love teaching -- often a student will hold up the mirror and make me see something that has slipped in to my own playing.)

And so, the fingerings that were awkward but necessary on the old cello can now be switched to something more elegant and, dare I say, musically-inspired on Lady Jo.  I don't have to saw away to get the g-string to speak on the upper positions, I can just tickle the notes out (yes, that does sound dirty... you're welcome).

Of course, I can no longer blame a bad instrument and allow my left hand to get lazy on those blistering runs any more -- the strings WILL speak if I do my job properly.

When you have a musical partner like Lady Jo, you don't have to spend so much of your energy putting up a fight, you don't have to compromise musicality for reliability, you don't have to worry if she'll do her part, you just have to worry about doing your own.

I imagine it's like being the female half of a skating pair -- you do your job much better when you don't have to worry your partner is going to drop you on your head.  :-)

What's that about art imitating life?  Or life imitating art?

I spent so much of my life with no tools or bad tools.  What a relief it is to finally be in a place where I don't have to try so damned hard.  Life just works as it should.  Music just works as it should.  I am able to put more into the world, because I'm not spending so much energy fighting it any more.

My cello students are used to my endless "don't conform your body to the cello, get the cello to conform to your body" and "if you ask it politely it will sound better than if you beat it into submission" and "don't try to play like me, play like yourself" comments.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm teaching them cello so much as teaching them life.

Either way, I hope they get it more quickly than I did.