Back to the Grind

Well, my friends, Christmas is over (sort of). I'm back to work on my studying for my music history predictive exam, which will be on January the 14th (I think). It's a great big test. I counted 280 items that I have to explain and date and name the nationality for (composers, forms, terms, publications, compositions). It's kind of like getting ready to pass the bar. I've just been studying for about 90 minutes, and I got 10 flashcards prepared. I haven't really STUDIED concepts, just gathered some information so I can study it eventually. I have about 85/280 flashcards now. It's slow going. I took about 3 days off for Christmas, but I have to get back to work now!

Scott and I watched "Julie and Julia" again last night. I was inspired. Julia Child inspires me to just keep on working toward my goal of being the best that I can be. I loved Julie's story, as well, reaching out toward people who might have a common interest by way of her little blog. Is anyone out there? I wonder if anyone reads this.

Kevin is home for another week, and everyone (but me) goes back to school in a week. It's kind of a tricky thing to balance my time over the break, because everyone is home on vacation, but this really can't be a vacation for me. I need to keep working toward passing this exam, and I should be practicing, as well. I've been working on learning Granados' "El Pelele." Do you know it? Youtube it. It's a very happy and DIFFICULT piece. I'm working hard, and making a tiny bit of progress at a time - just like Julie and Julia.

Choosing a Piano Teacher

I have to shake my head when the biggest determining factor in choosing a music teacher becomes proximity. I want to say, "OK, I guess we'll talk in 5 or 6 years when you have paid out several thousand dollars to an ineffective teacher and you still can't play." As if I had room for one more student anyway, which I don't.

I almost posted that on FaceBook, and then realized it sounded really pouty. Even so, what they probably mean is that they can't afford me, which is silly, because they are throwing their money away to these neighbor ladies that know NOTHING. Can I express to you how many times I have tried to pick up the pieces when a child has had years of BAD TRAINING? It's impossible to do: like Humpty Dumpty. Let's just say that this phrase has NEVER been uttered by my students: "I took piano lessons for 6 years and I still know nothing." How many times have people said that to me about the neighbor lady they studied with? COUNTLESS. I need to come up with a tactful way of saying that to the parents who call inquiring about lessons.

On a lighter note, I got a 3.9 this semester. I'm pretty proud of myself. I wonder why I couldn't get a 4.0? I did SOOO much homework for that Theory credit, which was one credit hour and cost me my 4.0. Probably 5-10 hours a week. Oh well. I'm going to be happy with a 3.9. That's the highest grade point I've ever earned.

Food for Thought

Benjamin Franklin said, "If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing."

I think blogging, or journaling, or any kind of record keeping persuades a person to live a better life (as this quote implies!). Love it!

This poem in no way reflects my life at the present moment

I love this poem, even though it is irrelevant to me.

The Tulips

by Ricky Ian Gordon

The tulips at that perfect place
crane their necks with liquid grace
like swans who circling, collide
within the lake this vase provides.

They stood like soldiers, stiff, before
as if they had been called to war.
In two days more, when petals fall,
I will entomb them in the hall

with trash; the morning's coffee grinds,
old newspapers, and lemon rinds.
It's bitter that such loveliness
should come to this,
could come to this.

But now their purpleness ignites
the room with incandescent lights.
Their stamens reach their yellow tongues
to lick the air into their lungs
through stems attached to whitish manes.
The pistil stains.

And even though there are no bees
about the room for them to please,
I take them in like honey dew-
and buzzing now,
I think of you...

I think of you who bought me these,
at least,
I wish you had,
as that might ease the ache
of passing hours.
A love is dying, like these flowers.

Where's Apollo When I Need Him?

Well friends, my jury is over. It was kind of a saga.

I tend to have some troubles with my nerves, so I was very careful to plan out my morning and have plenty of time to breathe and feel centered before I performed. I arrived at the music building at about 9:30am. I had an hour to practice, so I played through everything really slowly, being careful to warm up but not wear out. I took my yoga mat with me and did some sun salutations while listening to soothing music. Then I listened through my program while studying my scores. All this while I'm doing my ujay breathing, and imagining myself giving a wonderful performance, loving the music and having great success. I changed into my concert clothes and put on my coat and gloves (I'm always so cold right before I play), put my headphones on with Kathleen Battle's "Azulao" and "So Many Stars" which always give me such a feeling of abundance, and sat quietly in the hallway waiting for my turn to play.

When they called me in to play, I went down onto the stage and announced my pieces and sat on the bench and took a few more cleansing breaths and played my first two pieces ("Down a Country Lane" and "Midsummer Nocturne" by Copland) with finesse and grace. Then came the Chopin F Minor Ballade. I began it with astounding beauty! The opening is a bit tricky, with a crescendo in the right hand simultaneously with a diminuendo in the left hand. I handled it with perfect artistry. I played with unmatched technic and yet with tremendous love and sensitivity. And then, suddenly, I realized that I had skipped seven pages! Horrors! What to do? I could stop and ask permission to start over, when they were already running behind. That would never do. I decided I had just better finish stronger than ever and make the rest of it very convincing, which I did, thundering down the final run and finishing with a bang.

I took my hands off the keyboard and looked up at my teacher who was sitting in the auditorium. He looked at me with an ever so slight smile on his face. I couldn't look away. There I sat, pleading with my eyes for forgiveness, and yet using every ounce of control not to burst into tears or laughter. "Thank you," he said. I stood and walked the flight of 45 stairs out of the door of the auditorium with tremendous dignity. He followed me out into the hallway.

He said, "That was the most seamless cut I've ever heard! Only, you skipped your favorite part!" He had nice things to say about my playing. I'm not sure if the other teachers noticed or not. I guess I handled it the best way I could have. Well, it's over. I can't take it back. In a performance, you don't start over. You finish, which I did. I finished and kept my game face (more or less). If I were a composer or a writer or an artist, I could create a thing and there it would be for the rest of eternity. Music performance is different, because it only exists in time. It's quite a dilemma to become good at it, because it necessitates having an audience to listen to you time after time so you can get used to the nerves. It's been a lot of years since I was in the swing of performing from memory in public. All I can do is try again. But I do have to say, that I have come a long way this semester. I memorized about 500 measures worth of NEW music, and I'm performing from memory in public again. My hands feel good: my technic is coming along. And best of all, I've spent hundreds of hours practicing Chopin and Rachmaninoff. What could be better than that? Maybe next time Apollo will smile on me.

The Gods Have Smiled

I finally did it! I passed my Theory Predictive Exam. I'm sure my friends are all sick of listening to me worry and complain about it, but now I just got word today that I passed. I took it once early this fall, and didn't pass, so I had to take the Theory Review class that taught us everything we were supposed to learn in our entire undergraduate theory experience in just one semester. I knew a lot of it, but the most difficult things felt like I was hearing them for the first time, so it was really a challenge for me. If I didn't pass it, I would have had to go back and start again in Freshman Theory, which would be not fun and very embarrassing. Passing this test was a pre-requisite for registering for everything else, so I feel like the gods have smiled on me.

"Which Gods?" you ask. Apollo, of course! He was the Greek god of music and the arts. Boy, did I enjoy the time I spent in Greece. I'm hoping that he will continue to smile on me and help me to remember everything I learned, so I will not be in the same boat if I every decide to go to graduate school. Isn't this a wonderful image of him? Statues like this one are part of the reason the Greeks were chastised in the New Testament. Maybe I'll go to lunch at my favorite Greek restaurant next week to celebrate finishing my first semester of graduate school.

"I can live two months on a good compliment." - Mark Twain

I received the nicest compliment tonight! I was at my stake choir rehearsal, for which I am the accompanist. I was dreading going, somewhat, because I have SOOO much homework to do, including applying for a scholarship which deadline is fast approaching. One of the ladies said to me, "My dream is to play the piano as well as you. I have not played in 15 years, but because of you I got out my hymnbook and I'm playing again."

WOW!! Isn't that nice? I hope I can always play my best, because you never know who you're going to effect. I just LOVE that she told me this! She could have just admired me from afar, but it REALLY boosts my self-esteem and the knowledge that I'm doing the right thing when someone comes forth and speaks up.

I also played in Sacrament Meeting today. I played a Crawford Gates arrangement of "We Gather Together." I was SOOO nervous, and was really fighting the nerves as my hands were shaking, but I got a lot of nice compliments on that performance, too. When I finished, Brother Browne who was speaking after me, looked right at me and said with a big smile and all sincerity, "Sister Love! I wish you could have seen the peaceful looks on the faces of the people as they listened to your beautiful music." To see the look on his face was like eating cake. He had enjoyed my playing so much, and it means the world to me when people have an emotional response to my music.

Choosing Repertoire

Well, friends, I haven't kept track of my practice hours, and sadly, they have dwindled as I have finished memorizing my jury pieces. But now it's time to start working toward getting ready for the next semester, so I'll be prepared for lessons come January. I'm trying to decide what I should learn next.

I need to learn a sonata, and I've been stewing about which one to learn. A sonata is a major multi-movement work, usually 10-20 minutes long. It's a big commitment to learn one, because it takes a long time to learn one and you'd better like it because you are going to spend 6-18 months getting it ready.

My graduate recital is supposed to be one hour long and include works from three historical periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Impressionistic, Contemporary).

Here are my concerns:

1. I want to like the music.
2. I want the average Joe in the audience to be able to "get" the music.
3. I want the music to be of such a level of difficulty that it is appropriate for competitions/doctoral auditions (for instance, I don't think I could in good conscience put "Claire de Lune" on my program, as beautiful as it is).

In spite of all of this, there are some wonderful pieces of music that I really want to learn that I'm not sure whether they satisfy concern #3. I hope someday I can earn a doctoral degree. However, what if I don't? What if my hand gets caught in a meat grinder and I never play again? What if I get hit by a bus and am paralyzed from the neck down? What if my hands get blown off in a hunting accident? I want this program to be music that I've ALWAYS wanted to learn, and may never have another chance at. This puts me in a position where I may have to compromise on #3. I feel like I'm slightly at odds with my teacher over this.

Here's what I have so far:

Chopin Ballade #4 in f minor (11:30) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_PBTGfhWD8 followed by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLyumz2jMZY
Copland Down a Country Lane (2:06) and Midsummer Nocturne (2:00)(not on my list of favorites, but learned out of necessity to satisfy jury requirements), and
Barber's Excursion #3 to complete the little American set(3:23): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-6LdUTX8xg
Granados El Pelele (4:13): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghQxWLvRz7s (probably my next project to learn)

Here's what I WANT to learn:

Beethoven Sonata Op. 2 No. 3
Allegro (10:31) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf0olqfc9V0 (I love this recording!)
Adagio (8:39) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euDNSrT2Z8M&feature=related
Scherzo (2:54) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWGqND-nZTw&feature=related
Allegro (5:18) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qb5f1fTKdw&feature=related (inhuman clarity on this recording!)

That leaves 10 more minutes, so I'll learn more Spanish music to finish it. My teacher has extensive experience with the piano music of Spain, having worked with the legendary Alecia de Larrocha. It only makes sense to capitalize on this experience and learn from his area of expertise.

The only trouble is, after I've learned all of this, it's really terrible programming. You can't really begin a program with a 30 minute sonata, and the Ballade really should be last. SO I guess I'll chalk it up to practicality and do it anyway.

What are YOUR favorite sonatas?

It's been a good practice day!

How many hours have I practice today? I'm not sure. It's really hard to keep track when you do it all piecemeal. But tonight I sat down after dinner to play through everything one last time. I'm about halfway memorized on Chopin's 4th Ballade, and about 3/4 memorized on Rachmaninoff's 4th piano concerto. For the third piece for my jury, I'm preparing "Midsummer's Nocturne" by Copland. I was thrilled when I finished practicing and my husband chimed, "You sound great!" He almost never compliments my playing, so I felt that was a real compliment. And I will say, I'm sounding great.

I have a new practice strategy that some of you might want to try. Because of the studies that I've read stating the value of mental practice, and that mental practice is almost more helpful than actual physical practice, I've decided to include it in my practice strategy in a more deliberate way. Some of you know that I practice my music in small sections (1/2 a measure to 4 measures, depending on the difficulty of the music). Usually I try to play each section 10 times perfectly before I move on to the next section. With memorization, this is very helpful for me. So I decided to take lucky 3 and lucky 7 and do mental practice on the 3rd and 7th time through a section. I don't always remember to, but when I do, I think it's helpful. It gives my hands a chance to rest, and gives me more focus for all the other times. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

Magnum Opus

Yesterday in my Music Research class, the question was posed, "Why do research?" Some of the class members seemed to ask, "Why, indeed?" I'm interested in doing research, but also in doing many other creative musical projects. Why? Because there's so much that needs to be done, and if I have an idea of something that "someone" should do, that probably means that I should be the one to do it! Such as a subject that should be explored, or a book that should be written, or a workshop that would be valuable, or an album that should be recorded, or a piece that should be arranged. Why would we want to take the time to do these things? So you don't go along living a meaningless life! Not that teaching lessons and playing concerts isn't meaningful, but because we can do MORE that is even more lasting. We can contribute to how people think about music and how music is taught. So where does one start? In the words of the old Mormon song, "Go and do something today!" What will your Magnum Opus be? I have some ideas of several projects I'd like to complete at some point. It has been suggested that you write a hypothetical obituary, and use that for a starting point on formulating some long term goals. What do you want to be remembered for doing? It takes a lifetime to accomplish your lifework, so we'd better get busy! Meanwhile, I'm going to graduate with honors from this master's program.

Musical Self-Indulgence

It was recently suggested that I am guilty of "musical self-indulgence". What in the world do you think that means? I'm just guessing, but I think it might have to do with the frequency of my use of rubato and agogic accents. What do you think would characterize a performance containing musical self-indulgence?

A Full Day Yesterday

Yesterday after practicing for 3 hours I did two papers for Pedagogy. For the first paper, I had to observe a first year student and describe some of the teaching technics I saw. I observed my long-time friend Juli Draney and she was fantastic! The second paper was an outline of a first lesson with a new student. My observations of Juli were so helpful that I ripped of a lot of her ideas for my first lesson outline. I was really impressed with the way Juli teaches technic. I was quite surprised to hear her lesson with a couple of students (siblings) who were on lesson 3 and they had yet to crack open their method books. I don't think I could teach that way, but it appears that she gives a tremendously thorough foundation in technic in those 3 weeks. I wish I could send all my students to her for technic, and then have them back and teach them the rest myself! I got an A on both of my papers!

Now, I get to go to church and come back and do my reading for Music Research which will prepare me to go do an Oral History interview tomorrow morning. Oh yeah, and 5 more pages of Theory! And practicing. Always practicing. Life is good. Maybe my Pedagogy grade will balance out my Theory grade.

Practicing

Have you heard the theory that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something? I wonder how many hours I have practiced the piano. I'm pretty sure I've put in 10,000 hours in my life so far, but I think I'll start really keeping track of the hours that I practice. It would be fun to know how many hours of practice I spent in this graduate degree. Yesterday I put in 4 hours. This morning I spent 3 hours. There will be more before the day is out. Wouldn't it be cool if there were an application I could put on this blog that would count the hours I practiced? It never seems to be enough, but if I could look at my accumulated hours and see that I had put in 30,000 hours so far, perhaps I could feel like I had done enough.

This Theory Class Will Be the Death of Me

I spent 5 hours working on my theory class last night. I got it half way finished, and still have about 5 more handwritten pages of part-writing to finish. This is for two credit hours. Wouldn't you say that is excessive? In the meanwhile, I still need to come up with 3-5 hours a day to practice the piano. I need a nap. I got an A- on my last assignment. I don't know what grades the other students are getting. It's difficult. Remember my first post where I lamented not having passed the predictive exam? THIS is why.

Enough of the whining already! Don't you just love youtube? Youtube is the best. I love watching piano videos. It has changed my whole perspective as a musician, student and teacher. I love youtube!

Learning by Example

This afternoon I laid down for a good long nap - we're talking 3 hours. Bliss! I needed it. I have found that even though I'm not getting less hours of sleep at night, the hours of focused concentration during the day make me more tired as the week progresses. By Sunday, I need my nap more than ever.

Anyhow, my dear sweet daughters spent that three hours doing who knows what. I woke up and decided to take advantage of a lazy afternoon and do some piano practicing before supper. So I sat down at the piano and five minutes hadn't gone by before my dear sweet daughter came in and wanted to practice her guitar. Now, unlike my piano, her guitar is very portable, but of course, she likes to sit on the special chair in my piano room to do her practicing. She asks "How long are you going to be?" I tell her, "About 30 minutes." I'm thinking, Come on now, I need to practice! Take your guitar upstairs! But I know she won't. She likes the special chair. So she quietly sets up her music stand and gets her guitar and sits on the chair, prepared to wait the 30 minutes till I'm through. So I just quit and let her practice. She was being so patiently and well behaved.

She wants to give a recital. She has made a list of the pieces she knows, and is attempting to narrow down her list to find just the right grouping for a nice recital. I'm paying good money for her lessons, so I think it's great that she wants to practice. I'm proud that she's setting goals and that she wants to practice, but it's kind of funny that she only thinks to do it when I'M sitting down at the piano.

It's a great lesson in setting an example for your children. They want to be like us, whether we want them to or not. My son is off to college this year to study music education, as much as I encouraged him to study his math and become an engineer. Sinichi Suzuki really had something when he recommended that the mother learn the instrument along with the student. If I want my kids to practice, the surefire way to get them to NEED to practice is for me to sit down at my instrument and wish for some uninterrupted time.

Satisfaction of a Job Well Done

I'm a rather recent fan of Dave Ramsey's money management radio show. Today he was talking with a veteran. The man had been injured in Afghanistan and was retired from the military. He was wondering whether he could exist on his social security and military money, or whether he should re-enter the work force. Of course, his wife wanted him to go back to work. Dave Ramsey acknowleged that not being a veteran, he didn't know much about how it feels to come home from an experience like that, but that he imagined that there was tremendous satisfaction and pride that come from doing a job well that mattered very much. His advice was to find something to do that mattered, and do it well so he could continue to have that feeling of satisfaction that comes from looking back over a day's work and a job well done. He said that this feeling would bless his relationships and his spirituality as well as his finances.

How does this apply to being a piano hero, you ask?

Well, all my life I've had to work hard. From a very early age (we're talking 4th grade) I had to earn money to pay for everything I owned: clothes, shoes, glasses, girls camp, hairspray, you name it, I paid for it. I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I feel resentment and self-pity that I wasn't born to parents who could provide better for me. But on the other hand, I proud that I did pretty well for myself, being such a little girl with such big demands. Now I'm an adult, with a husband who makes a good income, and he'd probably prefer that I was happy to stay home and clean house and bake cookies. But I think my childhood of hard work got me accustomed to the feeling of satisfaction of a job well done when I did something hard. Maybe that's the reason I feel the need to do these big projects all the time. Perhaps I crave that feeling of satisfaction. I've always wondered why I schedule myself so heavily, putting so many demands on myself, when I could just stay home and paint my toenails. It does feel good to meet a challenge. Perhaps some day I could develop that feeling of satisfaction that comes from cleaning house. I'm still waiting.

"...and God saw that it was good."

I've been thinking about God and the creation of the earth. God created the earth and all the beautiful plants and animals, and finally Adam and Eve. "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." (Genesis 1:31)

To me, this is a lesson in gratitude and self acceptance. God didn't say, "Well, personally I think it's great, but I don't want to say so and make my other god-friends think I think so much of myself." I think we are sometimes afraid to be happy with our progress. It's simply not the fashion to accept oneself. But God himself gives us a model: if we achieve our goals, it's OK to look upon it and say, "Look what I did! I finished what I set out to do! Rejoice with me!"

It seems that when I look around at my music friends who are struggling to create beauty, all we can see is our warts. Nowhere in Genesis does God say, "I accidentally created mosquitoes and pimples, so it's all for naught." He looked at the whole and saw that it was very good. I'm going to try to be like him: in music, in my family, in my housework, in my diet and exercise, and in my marriage. I'm going to try to look for the good of the whole and accept my best efforts as good.

A Beautiful Poem

Here's something from Mary Oliver:

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
Keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

—from "Messenger" in Thirst (2006)

Theory

I got an A I got an A I got an A I got an A!

I always feel like I barely understand what's expected of us in this class, and I got an A on my 2nd assignment! When the teacher handed me my assignment, I'm afraid my reaction was not very dignified. It was something between relief and rejoicing and happy tears. I'm sure my 22-year old classmates think I'm an old bat. But I got an A!

On Music

by Walter Savage Landor:

Many love music but for music's sake,
Many because her touches can awake
Thoughts that repose within the breast half-dead,
And rise to follow where she loves to lead.
What various feelings come from days gone by!
What tears from far-off sources dim the eye!
Few, when light fingers with sweet voices play
And melodies swell, pause, and melt away,
Mind how at every touch, at every tone,
A spark of life hath glistened and hath gone.

What do you think this poem means? It is in the front of a book called "Rise to Follow" by Albert Spalding, a violinist from the early 20th century. I kind of like it, and it's growing on me, but I prefer actual rhyming in poetry, and this poem contains two visual rhymes, which I like less. Well, here I go off to my Theory Review class. I enjoy my classmates quite a bit. The rest... well, here I go.

Advancing Confidently in the Direction of my Dreams

Last night Scott and I went to see "Julie & Julia", a film that tells the story of a girl who decides to cook her way through Julia Child's French cookbook and then writes about it on her blog. It tells the story of how Julia Child came in her midlife (well into her 40's) to decide out of boredom to learn to cook, and eventually write a cookbook. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie!

I came away renewed in my confidence that I can do great things. Years ago I read Irving Stone's "Lust for Life", a book about Vincent van Gogh, who didn't begin to practice art until well into his adult life. I was stunned to learn that van Gogh had several other careers before devoting himself to his art. It seems that there is a notion that if you haven't mastered a thing by the time you are 20 years, that it is too late for you do succeed. "Julie & Julia" reinforced my confidence that I have a lifetime ahead of me to progress in any area, but particularly in my music. Here's my favorite quote (of late!):

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." - Thoreau

School Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow is my big day. I have my first piano lesson, a piano pedagogy class, and Introduction to Music Research, then a theory class on Wednesday. I've been working up Chopin's 4th Ballade to play for my lesson. I've decided to work up a doctoral audition for my senior recital. I need to choose some Bach. Any ideas, anyone? It has to include a fugue.

Today I bought my parking permit, to the tune of $265!! Can you believe what it costs just to park your car? I got set up with my student ID card, as well, so now I can get student pricing on tickets everywhere. Woohoo!

Tomorrow's the Big Day

I'm going back to school! I have decided to start a blog to document this exciting journey. Tomorrow I will be taking my Theory Predictive Exam in order to determine whether I'll have to take a bunch of theory classes. I've been studying for 2 weeks, and school still doesn't even start till next week! I'm practicing, too, to get ready for my piano lessons that also start next week.

Do you like the name of my blog? Memoires of a Piano Hero? My friend said I'd do fine on the test, because I am "Awesomeness Personified". Wow. What a nice compliment! Also, I found a facebook "flair" that said "Piano Hero" instead of "Guitar Hero" (like the video game). Although, rather than to be a hero at a game where you PRETEND to do something, I want to be your ACTUAL piano hero, as I am playing the piano in actuality! Something I have found from my efforts in exercise and fitness is that if you want to achieve something, you have to act as if you are already in that place. For instance, if you want to have a runner's body, you have to do some running, and go to bed at night (still working on that one), and eat in such a way that it will support your exercise. At any rate, I want to be a piano hero. So what do you think I should do, besides practicing endlessly, to become a piano hero? I'd love to hear your ideas. For sure, going to bed earlier (to facilitate 5a.m. practicing) would help. I was on the Julliard website, and they say they want their students thinking IN music, not just ABOUT music. I hope the next two years will transform me into something heroic! I'm terrified and excited, all at once. Wish me luck!