All the regular items that fall under the makes-me-happy list apply, of course. But I realized today, after a nearly week-long Christmas hiatus from practicing (geez, I hate it when I don’t practice for a week!) that when I wrote in my daily journal (morning pages in The Artist’s Way speak) and began to dream about how I wanted to create a special performance of the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, I felt totally energized and alive.
The sages say that in order to be happy, a person needs three things: 1. someone to love, 2. something to do and 3. something to look forward to. It is the third item that caused me to feel so soul-poppingly awake. The invitation to play the Rach-Pag Variations, as they are familiarly known, is for October 2007. Slightly more than ten months seems like a long way off but there are other commitments to be met before then and there are new aspects of this performance that really have me all a-twit.
The details of how I go about preparing this performance I hope to share in an on-going diary. The feeling I am relishing today is the sudden laser focus and excitement that the prospect of the performance is giving my life. Now even jogging takes on new meaning: I want to be physically fit. I want to have the release of energy and positive glow about life that jogging seems to give me.
I want to create the most powerful experience for the audience that I possibly can. I want to share the magic of Rachmaninoff’s ballet score that tells the legend of the great violinist Paganini selling his soul to the Devil in order to be able to play better than anyone else. Practicing needs to be the most specific and intensely attended-to that I have ever done. I want to know the sound of every note and to be totally connected with those sounds, each one of which has meaning and place in the score. In addition to the research on the story, the historical context of the legend, Rachmaninoff and ballet will all of which be incorporated into the performance. Therefore, the other parts of my life need to be unfolding in a logical and well-organized manner each day.
Boy, am I lucky. Imagine having the opportunity to play this great piece of music with a fine orchestra.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
The Power of Music to Create Community
Last night my heart soared and I felt completely connected with the capacity audience at Sydenham Street United Church, temporary home for concerts of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra. Why did I have this encompassing and joyous feeling? Because the conductor invited the audience to sing a few Christmas carols.
I love the traditional carols, but that's not the reason the feeling was so powerful. It was because all of us were singing together, creating a community from our shared voices.
When I was a small child during the Second World War, at the movies there was always a short subject, as they were called then, of a few songs. The lyrics were displayed on the screen, and we were invited to sing along and “follow the bouncing ball." At school we sang every day for thirty minutes out of the book called “the Canadian Song Book." How I loved those songs like “Flow Gently Sweet Afton” and looked forward to singing them.
Singing around the campfire on the beach in the summer evenings was traditional. Someone always had a ukulele, and “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” was invariably part of the song list.
Much later I attended a small church in a village in BC, where the temporary minister, who loved the old hymns, would come early to services and sing them, inviting everyone to join him. Attendance more than doubled within a few weeks.
We're fortunate to have many fine choral groups in Kingston. I guess I'll have to join one of them.
I love the traditional carols, but that's not the reason the feeling was so powerful. It was because all of us were singing together, creating a community from our shared voices.
When I was a small child during the Second World War, at the movies there was always a short subject, as they were called then, of a few songs. The lyrics were displayed on the screen, and we were invited to sing along and “follow the bouncing ball." At school we sang every day for thirty minutes out of the book called “the Canadian Song Book." How I loved those songs like “Flow Gently Sweet Afton” and looked forward to singing them.
Singing around the campfire on the beach in the summer evenings was traditional. Someone always had a ukulele, and “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” was invariably part of the song list.
Much later I attended a small church in a village in BC, where the temporary minister, who loved the old hymns, would come early to services and sing them, inviting everyone to join him. Attendance more than doubled within a few weeks.
We're fortunate to have many fine choral groups in Kingston. I guess I'll have to join one of them.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Miracle of Friendship
There is a painting of a wooden barn with a round stone silo. The light is glancing from a place low in the sky. It is probably around 5 pm on a long summer’s day. Looking at this painting by my friend Carrel takes me to the years I spent in Wisconsin and in particular to the farm owned by Carrel and her husband. The painting will be delivered to my house tomorrow and I am going to hang it in the hallway where I will see it every time I enter the house or walk from my bedroom to the kitchen.
I visited Carrel at the farm in Wisconsin last week. She and I played Mozart duets for several hours each day. She is also, like me, a pianist and teacher, and having the opportunity to make music with her after such a long time away was slaking a thirst I was unaware I had. Carrel plays the piano every single day as a way of keeping her increasingly arthritic fingers supple. I was happy and astonished at how fluid the running passages were and how musical her playing continues to be in spite of the physical challenges of being 87.
As we were playing, and indeed all the time we were together, we laughed and laughed. When I told her that nobody makes me laugh the way she does, she said that no one laughs with her the way I do. I felt good.
I visited Carrel at the farm in Wisconsin last week. She and I played Mozart duets for several hours each day. She is also, like me, a pianist and teacher, and having the opportunity to make music with her after such a long time away was slaking a thirst I was unaware I had. Carrel plays the piano every single day as a way of keeping her increasingly arthritic fingers supple. I was happy and astonished at how fluid the running passages were and how musical her playing continues to be in spite of the physical challenges of being 87.
As we were playing, and indeed all the time we were together, we laughed and laughed. When I told her that nobody makes me laugh the way she does, she said that no one laughs with her the way I do. I felt good.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Nuannaarpoq: The taking of extravagant pleasure in being alive
We have access to so many and varied sources of music. The most significant and valuable source for the developing human brain appears to be classical music. More and more articles are appearing about research that shows how the brains of infants are stimulated and enriched by hearing the highly patterned and structured sounds of the great classical composers.
Human beings are hard-wired, scientists now believe, to make music. There’s no culture without some form of music, no matter how primitive it may appear to be. Even as recently as today’s Globe and Mail (Nov. 29, 2006), a segment in the Social Studies column states that when a person hears a rhythm, an immediate and physical response occurs. The music triggers the release of chemicals into the bloodstream that are directly linked to pleasure (quoted from Tom Horan in the The Daily Telegraph).
When I read the Inuktitut word nuannaarpoq in an article by Yann Martel, (Globe and Mail, Nov. 26, 2006), I felt a shiver of recognition, the kind of reaction one has when something is articulated that you didn’t know you felt until you saw it written.
What a magnificent concept this word captures: the taking of extravagant pleasure in being alive. I do feel this way in general often nowadays and find that kind of pleasure in listening to or making music.
Human beings are hard-wired, scientists now believe, to make music. There’s no culture without some form of music, no matter how primitive it may appear to be. Even as recently as today’s Globe and Mail (Nov. 29, 2006), a segment in the Social Studies column states that when a person hears a rhythm, an immediate and physical response occurs. The music triggers the release of chemicals into the bloodstream that are directly linked to pleasure (quoted from Tom Horan in the The Daily Telegraph).
When I read the Inuktitut word nuannaarpoq in an article by Yann Martel, (Globe and Mail, Nov. 26, 2006), I felt a shiver of recognition, the kind of reaction one has when something is articulated that you didn’t know you felt until you saw it written.
What a magnificent concept this word captures: the taking of extravagant pleasure in being alive. I do feel this way in general often nowadays and find that kind of pleasure in listening to or making music.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Music entertains, inspires and educates
Sir John Reith, the first head of the BBC, was asked if he was going to give the people what they wanted. No, he said, something better than that. We will inform, educate and entertain them.
Music does this for us already! Listening to music is a pleasure and is certainly entertaining. With instruction, we learn how to appreciate the magnificent works of our greatest composers. There are so many different kinds of music, each with its geniuses and outstanding pieces. Teachers who present them in informative and interesting ways, with an evident love of music, are blessings to children.
One of my favorite experiences is to listen to Clayton Scott bring opera and ballet to life. The experience is as easy and pleasurable as hearing an exciting story being read for the first time. With a guide such as Clayton, even very young children learn to listen and watch with great discernment to operas and ballet. For adults, the experience is enlightening and enlarging. To discover more about Clayton Scott’s performances, visit her website "http://www.claytonscottmusic.com".
Music does this for us already! Listening to music is a pleasure and is certainly entertaining. With instruction, we learn how to appreciate the magnificent works of our greatest composers. There are so many different kinds of music, each with its geniuses and outstanding pieces. Teachers who present them in informative and interesting ways, with an evident love of music, are blessings to children.
One of my favorite experiences is to listen to Clayton Scott bring opera and ballet to life. The experience is as easy and pleasurable as hearing an exciting story being read for the first time. With a guide such as Clayton, even very young children learn to listen and watch with great discernment to operas and ballet. For adults, the experience is enlightening and enlarging. To discover more about Clayton Scott’s performances, visit her website "http://www.claytonscottmusic.com".
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
My Lifetime Dream of Walking in the Footsteps of Mozart and Beethoven
The excitement, the thrill, the feeling in the core of my being when I stood in the room where Mozart was born, then in the room where Beethoven wrote the heartfelt Heiligenstadt Document, will stay with me forever.
My trip to Salzburg, Vienna and Prague during the summer of 2006 was a pilgrimage of love and respect. The more my life has been filled with the music of these two great masters, the more I have longed to see where they lived and worked, where they created their glorious music that has inspired and sustained millions of people for two hundred and fifty years and gives no sign of waning.
Over the course of the two weeks I journeyed in the company of my dear friends and colleagues, Rosemarie and Jean Blanc. We were excited to visit the Mozart Haus, where Amadeus entered the world. In that ancient house there were ceramic stoves the size of an old-fashioned wood stove, only prettier and decorated with flowery designs. There were no openings in the part of the stove that was in the room. In a corridor meant for the servants, each of the stoves had a doorway for removing the wood ash and stoking with fresh wood for burning. Unlike North American fireplaces or woodstoves, no dirty ashes could enter the living rooms to soil the pretty silk clothing so loved in Mozart’s time.
We saw the tiny violin that Mozart played when he was four years old as well as the piano that travelled with Mozart on his journeys. We stood in the gorgeous yellow room in Schonbrunn castle where the little Mozart climbed into the lap of the Empress Maria-Theresa, covered her face with kisses, and told her that he would marry her when he grew up. Fickle woman, when Mozart was grown and in need of a secure post, she wrote a letter trashing him to the prospective employer, saying that he wasn’t so wonderful and besides, he had a large and hungry family!
I sat in the cathedral where Mozart was baptized and heard the massive organ that he played occasionally. The sound filled the huge space and resonated in every cell of my body.
The Vienna opera house, which performs a different opera each day of the week, ten months a year, is vast and gorgeous yet somehow welcoming and people-friendly. The luxury of the building enhances one’s sense of how wonderful it is to be human, to know, to see, to hear the magnificence that our fellows are capable of creating and sharing. Sitting in the Emperor’s box, at the end of the comprehensive and informative tour, I suddenly knew just how I was meant to live! I love to imagine what it must have been like to sit in those luxurious, perfectly-placed seats, hearing Mozart’s glorious operas and watching him conduct in the pit!
In Heiligenstadt, now a suburb of Vienna, we visited the two medium-sized rooms in a pretty but not luxurious house where Beethoven wrote the document, now known as the Heilgenstadt Testament, in which he speaks for the first time about his hearing affliction to his brother Carl. We have had such a distorted picture or Beethoven as being uncouth, uncultured and socially unacceptable when in fact he was tortured by not being able to hear and afraid of being ostracized because he was deaf. It was terrible for him to be in society, incapable of hearing what was being said and equally incapable of telling anyone why. To hear him express his longing to be loved and accepted is anguishing. To stand in the rooms where he wrote this agonizing confession made me feel conscious of the deep expression of emotions that lives in every note of every piece of music he composed.
My feelings of awe and privilege have caused me to listen with greater joy and keenness to experience more fully the progression of every sound, knowing that each time I hear a piece again, I have the possibility of resonating more deeply with the power and beauty of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s music.
My trip to Salzburg, Vienna and Prague during the summer of 2006 was a pilgrimage of love and respect. The more my life has been filled with the music of these two great masters, the more I have longed to see where they lived and worked, where they created their glorious music that has inspired and sustained millions of people for two hundred and fifty years and gives no sign of waning.
Over the course of the two weeks I journeyed in the company of my dear friends and colleagues, Rosemarie and Jean Blanc. We were excited to visit the Mozart Haus, where Amadeus entered the world. In that ancient house there were ceramic stoves the size of an old-fashioned wood stove, only prettier and decorated with flowery designs. There were no openings in the part of the stove that was in the room. In a corridor meant for the servants, each of the stoves had a doorway for removing the wood ash and stoking with fresh wood for burning. Unlike North American fireplaces or woodstoves, no dirty ashes could enter the living rooms to soil the pretty silk clothing so loved in Mozart’s time.
We saw the tiny violin that Mozart played when he was four years old as well as the piano that travelled with Mozart on his journeys. We stood in the gorgeous yellow room in Schonbrunn castle where the little Mozart climbed into the lap of the Empress Maria-Theresa, covered her face with kisses, and told her that he would marry her when he grew up. Fickle woman, when Mozart was grown and in need of a secure post, she wrote a letter trashing him to the prospective employer, saying that he wasn’t so wonderful and besides, he had a large and hungry family!
I sat in the cathedral where Mozart was baptized and heard the massive organ that he played occasionally. The sound filled the huge space and resonated in every cell of my body.
The Vienna opera house, which performs a different opera each day of the week, ten months a year, is vast and gorgeous yet somehow welcoming and people-friendly. The luxury of the building enhances one’s sense of how wonderful it is to be human, to know, to see, to hear the magnificence that our fellows are capable of creating and sharing. Sitting in the Emperor’s box, at the end of the comprehensive and informative tour, I suddenly knew just how I was meant to live! I love to imagine what it must have been like to sit in those luxurious, perfectly-placed seats, hearing Mozart’s glorious operas and watching him conduct in the pit!
In Heiligenstadt, now a suburb of Vienna, we visited the two medium-sized rooms in a pretty but not luxurious house where Beethoven wrote the document, now known as the Heilgenstadt Testament, in which he speaks for the first time about his hearing affliction to his brother Carl. We have had such a distorted picture or Beethoven as being uncouth, uncultured and socially unacceptable when in fact he was tortured by not being able to hear and afraid of being ostracized because he was deaf. It was terrible for him to be in society, incapable of hearing what was being said and equally incapable of telling anyone why. To hear him express his longing to be loved and accepted is anguishing. To stand in the rooms where he wrote this agonizing confession made me feel conscious of the deep expression of emotions that lives in every note of every piece of music he composed.
My feelings of awe and privilege have caused me to listen with greater joy and keenness to experience more fully the progression of every sound, knowing that each time I hear a piece again, I have the possibility of resonating more deeply with the power and beauty of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s music.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Are you excited about using the Metronome yet?
In addition to using the metronome to create real, measurable momentum while sight-reading, try it for really making a huge, wonderful difference to reviewing old repertoire!
Most of us hate reviewing. It always feels to me like ripping apart an old garment and remaking it, instead of having the excitement of cutting out a new dress and seeing a lovely, sexy gown take shape. Part of the challenge is wanting to go back to the old, once well-learned piece and play it as nimbly as when we last performed it. Sadly, this doesn't usually happen. We have let it go too long, and our fingers and memory aren't fluent enough to play it well. Tryring to force it to sound like the performance brings frustration and a feeling of needing to relearn the entire thing – and who wants to do that? Once my son, then almost a karate black-belt, did a vigorous work-out after a long hiatus. It took his muscles days to recover from the shock.
So, why not give yourself a break and ease your way back in? Treat it almost like a piece that you're going to sight-read. Put on the metronome at a very easy tempo, far below your performance speed, and give your fingers a chance to re-acquaint themselves with the piece. I was really excited to see that in a day or two, my fingers remembered the pieces very well, without strain or effort.
I hope you will give this a try and let me know how you make out. Happy music making!
Most of us hate reviewing. It always feels to me like ripping apart an old garment and remaking it, instead of having the excitement of cutting out a new dress and seeing a lovely, sexy gown take shape. Part of the challenge is wanting to go back to the old, once well-learned piece and play it as nimbly as when we last performed it. Sadly, this doesn't usually happen. We have let it go too long, and our fingers and memory aren't fluent enough to play it well. Tryring to force it to sound like the performance brings frustration and a feeling of needing to relearn the entire thing – and who wants to do that? Once my son, then almost a karate black-belt, did a vigorous work-out after a long hiatus. It took his muscles days to recover from the shock.
So, why not give yourself a break and ease your way back in? Treat it almost like a piece that you're going to sight-read. Put on the metronome at a very easy tempo, far below your performance speed, and give your fingers a chance to re-acquaint themselves with the piece. I was really excited to see that in a day or two, my fingers remembered the pieces very well, without strain or effort.
I hope you will give this a try and let me know how you make out. Happy music making!
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Want to be a GREAT sightreader?
In the past few days I have had the most incredible epiphany regarding sightreading. I used to feel as though I was the worst sight-reader in the entire world and, you know what, I really was! If anyone so much as mentioned the word "sight-read," my mind went immediately into "tilt" and even if I could have played the thing, the fact that they said "sight-read" was enough to fry my brain-cells.
My first break-through came some years ago when I heard about "reading every note accurately" (as opposed to reading fast and grabbing what you could).
I then thought it was OK to read fairly comfortably, counting out loud, and permitting the tempo to go faster or slower, depending on how complicated the music was.
Now, the really great break-through!! Read REALLY slowly, counting out loud, WITH THE METRONOME! Somehow, if you really do go slowly enough, you have time and space to see in advance what you need to see next, and, here is the real kicker, it really sounds just like the piece is supposed to sound (even if rather slow).
I feel so empowered by these experiences!! I feel as if I want to read every piece of music ever written and I can't wait to read something new every day. As an added bonus, I feel as though I have half learned every one of the pieces I have read since this breakthrough. I hope you have as much fun with it as I did.
My first break-through came some years ago when I heard about "reading every note accurately" (as opposed to reading fast and grabbing what you could).
I then thought it was OK to read fairly comfortably, counting out loud, and permitting the tempo to go faster or slower, depending on how complicated the music was.
Now, the really great break-through!! Read REALLY slowly, counting out loud, WITH THE METRONOME! Somehow, if you really do go slowly enough, you have time and space to see in advance what you need to see next, and, here is the real kicker, it really sounds just like the piece is supposed to sound (even if rather slow).
I feel so empowered by these experiences!! I feel as if I want to read every piece of music ever written and I can't wait to read something new every day. As an added bonus, I feel as though I have half learned every one of the pieces I have read since this breakthrough. I hope you have as much fun with it as I did.
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