PechaKuchaScranton was organized by Mandy Boyle and held at New Visions Studio & Art Gallery. This fun and informative evening featured a wide variety of speakers including an artist, another artist, a photographer of abandoned places, a postcard collector/librarian,  a Belgium “expert“, and more.

I spoke about the state of Classical Music in the 21^st century, a topic which turned out to be much too broad for the 6 minute 40 second time limit but I did touch on the major points: graying of the audience, accusations of “elitism”, blurring of genre divisions, alt-classical, smaller venues, etc.  Interestingly, presenting in this format had similarities to any piano performance. Preparation was important, but in the end the goal was not to sound too rehearsed, rather to have an improvisatory, off the cuff feeling to your speech. Timing was crucial. With only 20 seconds per slide, it was important to keep the momentum while rounding off each phrase. With a beginning, middle and end, each presentation was like a well polished piece of music, and all ten presentations came together not as a theme and variations, but more like a suite of pieces, each with it’s own mood and style.

The first time I read it, I had so many “aha” moments that I had to stop every five or ten pages and put it down to digest and reflect. The second time through I dogeared pages, and now I have some bits almost committed to memory.

Turning Pro is not a long book. It has plenty of white-space, but every mini-chapter packs a powerful punch. It cuts to the core and is forcing me to face head-on that nagging fear that I’m no more than a dabbler, a dilettante.

Simplifying.

Pressfield says that when we turn pro, everything becomes simple. Since I’ve started my year back on the piano bench I’ve noticed my life has become simpler.

• It’s become almost second nature to say “no” when I’m asked to take responsibilities that at first glance look like they’d ‘look great on a resume’. Surprisingly there have been several offers in the past few months which would have been time-consuming volunteer positions.
• The TV is never on. That’s nothing new really. But I’m surprised that I haven’t logged into my Netflix account to watch a movie in months.
• I’ve streamlined my teaching studio by teaching at home to save on studio rental. I’ve sold my Yamaha baby grand and a Roland keyboard…both went to terrific homes. No advertising involved!
• I wake up earlier every morning, eager to pick up where I left off the night before.
• I think twice before engaging in long phone conversations or saying yes to lunch dates that I really don’t have the time for.

Taking the next step.

There’s a wonderful section in Turning Pro where Rosanne Cash describes one of her dreams and how it affected her art. She woke from the dream “into the life of an artist” and began pushing herself out of her comfort zone by reading, painting, and going deeper into every process involved in her art. Thanks to this book (and to my friend Erica, who’s voice is always in the back of my head hounding me about deliberate practice) I’m determined to get more and more under the surface as I enter the second half of this project.

As Pressfield says:

It seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. In order to achieve “flow,” magic, “the zone,” we start by being common and ordinary and workmanlike. We set our palms against the stones in the garden wall and search, search, search until at last, in the instant when we’re ready to give up, our fingers fasten upon the secret

Valentina is a powerful pianist, technically and musically. Any musician who’s followed her online or has tuned into her marathon practice sessions can’t help but feel inspired and happy to see how her hard work has paid off. Every non-musician friend to whom I’ve introduced her YouTube videos has been in awe even if they’ve never listened to classical music in their life.

But in addition to her pianistic skills, Valentina also has a remarkable ability to connect with her audience. Before she even sat down at the piano, she took the microphone, addressed the crowd and singled out one person to thank – man named Louis who encouraged her when she was at a low point. He urged her to continue posting her YouTube videos, open a MySpace account, and use social media to the fullest – advice that led to about 180 videos and over 50 million hits.

During intermission, there was a pre-recorded video where Valentina answered questions that were sent to her online. One person asked how she chooses her repertoire. She said she only plays pieces she likes. Another wanted to know about her teachers. Her response: “I study with dead people.” Then she spoke about the recordings and videos from the “Golden Age of Piano” and how she draws inspiration for her favorites, Backhaus, Hoffman and Rachmaninoff. She also spoke about how the Internet was a “democratic” tool for people to hear classical music. She engages music lovers from all over the world by writing a description of her YouTube pieces and then answering questions in the comments below. She’s also active on Twitter. She’s friendly!

Valentina Lisitsa is the first classical pianist to build such a huge fanbase much like indie artist, Amanda Palmer did with her Kickstarter, or (another Ukranian pianist) Viktoriya Yermolyeva (vkgoeswild) is doing with her arrangements of metal and pop.

So look out piano teachers! Our students are online watching, following, and learning. They’re getting fired up and we teachers have to be ready and willing to loosen the reins. We can encourage them to “study with dead people” on the side, open up that challenging piece, record that pop song arrangement, post a YouTube video and play the music they want to play. Because we all know they’re going to want to be just like that YouTube pianist.

It’s hard to believe that not that long ago I may never have come across this particular prelude. And if I had heard it on a CD or on the radio, it would take at least a week to order it, that is, if I ever got around to it. With Twitter, YouTube, IMSLP and Soundcloud – the musicians’s world has changed in amazing ways.

I remember a conversation I had with Karl Ulrich Schnabel back in the late 80′s about the future of classical music. A friend and I were at his New York apartment for a coaching for our duo-piano team. As we were leaving we started talking about the state of the arts and I remember he was very optimistic. He was convinced that there would be a renewed appreciation for classical music in the early 21st century.

As of today IMSLP has 199,000 scores and 17,000 recordings available for download. There are 266 groups on Soundcloud devoted to classical music, many of which have well over 1000 members. Valentina Lisitsa has over 53,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel where her 192 classical music videos have received 44,064,397 views.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking but it certainly seems like classical music is alive and well and has a new home in the cloud.

(Listen to Week 23: Debussy’s La fille au cheveux de lin)

Red Balloons

Well, it took me a while to get around to reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Sure I’d heard about the morning pages and I knew about the artist’s date, what did I need to read the book for? Well I got the book from the library yesterday and, as I usually do with non-fiction, I opened the book to a random page and started reading. Here’s what I found. It happened to be a bit about perfectionism.

To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement. The perfectionist calls this humility. In reality, it is egotism. It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue.

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough — that we should try again.

No. We should not.

It took a lot of will power this morning not to do “just one more” recording of this Scarlatti Sonata. But I had plans for the day and decided that it was “good enough.” My goal was to finally learn this piece, since I’ve loved it for years. It’s not difficult by any means, but I’m never totally satisfied with the opening ornaments. (I have a similar “fear” of the opening of the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Op 2 No 3 in C major.) But there it is. I did it. It’s the best it is right now. And I’m putting it out there. I’m letting it go.

(And by the way, I’m so happy I finally picked up this book. It showed up at the right time….)

Wabi Sabi Tea Bowls

A SoundCloud friend, Peter Vorländer, (cis minor) introduced me to the concept of Wabi-Sabi the other day. He gave me just enough information to send me searching the web reading everything I could find on this topic. Here is his wonderful explanation….

Short about Wabi-Sabi: its a concept that values imperfection. For example many things become more beautiful when they become older, think of a piece of wood or the patina of a metal tea can. Thats Wabi-Sabi. There is a very compelling story of Ryuki, a famous japanese person. When he was young he decided that he wants to follow the path of learning to master the tea zeremony. He went to an old master and applied. The master told him: “I want to see if you are the right person to learn this. So hear you see my garden, its pretty disordered, please clean it up”. So for the full day young Ryuki was working in the garden and cleaning up everything with perfection, always secretly observed by the old master. At the evening he was finished. Everything was tidy. Ryuki stepped back and looked to the clean garden. But he had the impression, that something is wrong. He went to a cherry blossom tree, shaked it a little and three little cherry blossom leaves fall down on the cleaned path. Thereafter he was pleased. The old master who had observed this knew, that Ryuki will become great master of Wabi Sabi… And actually he became. So this is Wabi-Sabi … three little cherry blossom leaves on a cleaned pathway. Considered as imperfection with a western point of view, considered as highest perfection in Japanese culture of Wabi-Sabi. And I think the same applies for music…we need to strive for Wabi-Sabi, not for cold technical perfection. Once you start viewing the world with the eyes of Wabi-Sabi you will discover beauty almost everywhere … and so much pleasure comes from this!

In addition to getting back to the piano, another of my ongoing goals has been to de-clutter and lead a more Minimalist Lifestyle. As I look around my house and choose what will stay and what will go, I’m drawn to three or four possessions – an old blanket chest I purchased for $35 which was refinished by my father, my cracked majolica plates, a large yellow vase with hand-painted flowers, and a little green paint-splattered work table from my grandfather. These are the  pieces that have followed me from house to house, city to city, over the years. I can’t bring myself to put them out for a yard sale or donate them to charity yet.  These represent Wabi-Sabi to me. Imperfect. Natural. And a little sad.

I took time over the past few days to watch Marcel Theroux‘s documentary “In Search of Wabi-Sabi” and I’ve learned that Wabi-Sabi can be summed up in three sentences. Nothing is perfect. Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished.

Perhaps this “Go Play Project” has a touch of “Wabi-Sabi.” After all, the performances are not perfect, the recording process is as simple and as natural as it can get, and the pieces are all WIP’s (works in progress). They will never be complete as long as I find more to listen to and more subtleties to refine.

Could it also be that the pieces themselves summon the spirit of Wabi-Sabi and that is what makes a piece like Chopin’s Nocturne in c# minor speak to so many – musicians and non-musicians alike? The Rachmaninoff Etude Op 33 no 2 is a piece I’ve worked on only in the winter. Does that particular piece evoke  sense of the impending “death” that comes in winter? Are we drawn to certain composers and pieces in the same way we’re drawn to certain comfort foods, pieces of furniture and art, and nature settings?

An Illustrated Life

The other day I was browsing through An Illustrated Life – drawing inspiration from the private sketchbooks of artists, illustrators and designers, by Danny Gregory. it’s the type of book that when you flip through the pages, I can guarantee you’ll want to run out and get a sketchbook and a set of pens and start doodling and sketching.

It got me thinking. Why should visual artists have all the fun? Why don’t classical musicians seem to want to pull back the curtain and show the world what inspires them and all the hard work that leads up to the final polished performance. What would be the musical equivalent of the artist’s sketchbook? The musician’s doodlings? The pianist’s process?

Well, I think I found it…. on Twitter. I’m lucky to have found some of the most creative and friendly musicians on Twitter. A tweet about a piece of music sends me right to IMSLP to download the score. Another tweet about a concert and I’m off to read reviews and find clips on YouTube. And a tweet about a productive practice session sends me right to the piano bench.

Here are just a few of the pianists on Twitter who have inspired me to take the leap and start my own musical sketchbook of pieces that are still a bit raw, the collection I call my “Go Play Project.”

Erica Sipes (@ericasipes) has recently been blogging and posting a video diary of her preparation of Beethoven’s 3rd piano concerto for an upcoming concerto competition. Her careful methodical practice has convinced me to pull in the reigns and take the time to check fingering and details and practice slowly in a way that no piano teacher or coach ever seemed to be able to do.

Jocelyn Swigger (@jocelynswigger) is keeping an audio practice diary as she learns ALL the Chopin Etudes, an goal many pianists probably have, but how many of us ever follow through? Hats off to Jocelyn and thank you for sharing the invaluable details of your practice.

The most popular pianist on YouTube, Valentina Lisitsa (@ValLisitsa) pulled back the curtain last summer when she live streamed her daily 14-hour practice sessions. Now if that wasn’t enough to inspire you to go running to the piano I don’t know what would.

And as far as tweets go, I find that James Rhodes (@JRhodesPianist) shares his love of piano with his Twitter followers in the most authentic and genuine way. In my opinion, his twitter feed comes very close to being the musical equivalent of an artist’s sketchbook.  How can any pianist not want to move away from his or her computer screen and head for the nearest piano after reading tweets like this and this and this?

Take a listen to this week’s addition to my “sketchbook” – Chopin’s Fantasy Impromptu, Op. 66.

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old friends

Last night I recorded Chopin’s Nocturne in c# minor Op 27 No 1, the seventh piece in my “Go Play Project.” This particular Nocturne has always been one of my favorites. I find the opening strange and mysterious. And I love how out of the stormy middle section comes a ray of sunshine before returning to the opening theme.

As I mentioned, I’m choosing only my favorite short pieces for this project, and this Nocturne was high on the list…even though it’s been decades since I’ve played it.Yes…decades. I actually used this piece as part of my college audition program.

I found it interesting that:

1. After only a few hours of practice, the piece was still in my fingers after all 30+ years, including the same stumbling spots.
2. I vividly remember the room I performed in and what I was thinking while I was playing the L.H. octave section at my Oberlin audition in 1973. (there I said it… that many years ago!)
3. I’m able to hear much longer lines and inner voices now and even though the piece remains an enigma, I’m confident that I can deliver a more mature performance given a little more time to prepare…

Lesson learned:

Never discourage a young student from learning a difficult piece. It will be with them forever to grow and mature. When they return to it later in life, it will be like picking up a conversation with an old friend.

For young students (depending on their skill level, they may have skipped the sightreading step all together) this means practicing in small sections slowly, hands separately, section by section, and finally adding the crowning touch… the dynamics.

For advanced pianists this time for “getting down to business” may include working out fancy fingerings, analyzing chord progressions, slow practice for a beautiful tone, and untangling inner voices. Some add another layer of mental work by memorizing a piece as they learn it. These are all important steps and no stone should be left unturned when preparing a piece for performance.

However, for the purposes of this project, I’m determined to cut to the chase. This means learning pieces quickly and getting them up to speed before going back and polishing up all the details. Sort of like taking a chainsaw to a big piece of stone to reveal the music rather than building it up bit by bit. In other words, I’m trying not to be too precious about everything.

Part of my inspiration for approaching music this way came from my daughter’s art class where she learned “gesture drawing.” She’d come home with her huge drawing pad filled with pages and pages of what looked like scribbles. But each one was a figure – twisting, twirling and turning. One of her favorite class exercises was following other classmates around the room, drawing them in motion.

We use gestures in piano when we find the sweep of the phrase, choreograph leaps and arpeggios and gauge our arm weight for sudden dynamic and articulation changes. I think there is a feeling of spontaneity that comes when we learn a piece quickly this way, without stopping to read every single note the first time through. Is it possible that this feeling is communicated to the audience in a slightly different way than when we perform a piece we’ve built from the ground up note by note and measure by measure?

The Brahms Intermezzo Op 119 No 3 is a piece I’ve always loved but never “worked on.” This week I was determined to get it in shape to post quickly. It is still a work in progress and I’m still whittling away to get to the finished product but now instead of a chainsaw, hopefully I’ll be using a chisel.

Image via Wikipedia

Stuart Brown, author of Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul has spent a career studying play and how even just getting a little play in our lives can make us more productive and happier in everything we do.

One example of this is Laurel, the CEO of a successful commercial real estate company. During her late twenties, Laurel married and had two children, all while establishing her business. Her relationship with her husband was close and compatible, and she adored her four- and ten- year- olds. She saw herself as blessed and fortunate.

Her days hummed like a turbocharged engine. Up at five, she usually ran four or five miles on odd days and swam and lifted weights on even days. She didn’t work weekends and usually had enough steam left for “quality time” with her supportive husband and kids, church, and her closest friends.

She felt that she had a healthy mix of play and work, but when she passed forty she began to dread her schedule. She didn’t yet feel a need to quit any of her commitments or ease off, but slowly she realized that though she had fun with her husband and kids and a sense of enthusiasm about her work, she was missing . . . joy.

So Laurel set about finding where it had gone. She remembered back to her earliest joyful memories and realized they centered on horses. As she reconstructed her own play history, she realized that horses had grabbed her from the first time she saw one. As a toddler she loved bouncing on her hobbyhorse. One of her fondest memories was befriending a local backyard horse and secretly riding it at age seven. She would entice the horse to the fence with carrots and coax it to allow her to climb up and ride bareback, completely unbeknownst to the owner or her parents. As dangerous as it was for a seven-year-old to ride this way, it gave Laurel a sense of her own power. Later she started hanging around stables, becoming an accomplished horsewoman and as a young adult competing as a professional rider. She eventually burned out on horse shows and settled into marriage and business.

Yet she now realized she longed “just to ride.”

Laurel decided to make this happen. She found a horse to lease and began to ride again. The feelings of joy and exhilaration came back the first time she climbed onto the horse. Now she makes the time to go riding once a week.

What surprises her most since she incorporated the pure play of riding back into her life is how complete and whole she now feels in all other areas of her life. The bloom of “irrational bliss” she experiences in the care of her horse, from riding it regularly, and even occasionally riding again in small local shows, has spilled over into her family and work lives. The little chores of daily living don’t seem so difficult anymore. (read more)

As a piano teacher, I can’t help but ask myself if my students are viewing piano as their “varsity sport”, rigid and competitive, or if in fact I’m laying the groundwork for them to incorporate piano into their lives for the sheer joy of “playing”?

Oh, by the way…my recording this week for the “Go Play Project” is Chopin’s Waltz Op 64 No 1. Listen here. It will only take a “minute!”

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