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