Less is more (or, Let your fingers do the walking . . . )

I've been in a weird mood the past three months. A wee bit grouchy, feeling a lot of stress, perhaps have been a bit curt, short, or otherwise abrasive with people. Three days before our wedding anniversary (which is the same day as the Feast Day of San Lorenzo and the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico in 1680), the MCAT got some bad news. My life now revolves around three things: taking care of the MCAT until her recovery is complete, taking care of the house/yard and dog, and keeping my head above water in my musicology studies and teaching duties this quarter.

As much as we wanted it to, the world and time did not stand still while we started running the gauntlet through the treatment and recovery. I still had other things to do, such as play a concert with the gang in Seattle. The concert meant that I had to practice and prepare, write program notes AND a pre-concert talk/lecture-demo sort of thing (piece o' cake; "no problem, Mr. Binkley").

I started doing what needed to be done in order to meet my own personal standard for public performance. I was working on fumes, not fuel, emotionally and physically. Yes, I have been working out in earnest since the anniversary, yes, I enjoy practicing and getting ready for a concert, and I love playing concerts. But the MCAT is/was foremost on my mind. As mentioned above, there was a bit of a grouchiness factor to the rehearsals for the concert, and I just did not feel in a compromising, collaborative mood. I had made up my mind on how I wanted things done and I just did it that way and didn't care if there was any resistance.

Speaking of resistance, there is nothing like exchanging a bunch of cheesy movie dialogue with friends to demonstrate the rhetorical principles of Geoffrey de Vinsauf ("How are you going to land on Venus using fractions?"). It took a Taurean attitude and effort to make me realize that resistance, is, in fact, futile in certain circumstances. No matter how resistant I was to my situation, and no matter how much I tried to control my pre-concert environment, things were going to be the way they were going to be and I was not the entity to control them.

I let go. I was just going to play. Lean back, stand up straight, and not force the music or musical issues. It was going to be a standing meditation while playing the flute in a public concert. From the first conscious thought of letting go to the actual release of my illusion of control and authority over the musical situation, there was more music coming out through less effort. I consciously said to myself during the concert, "let go; just play, your body knows what to do, the rest of you is unimportant." It was one of the most relaxing experiences in my life, to stand there and make a conscious decision to do as little as possible, physically. I video taped the concert and watched it about two weeks after the event. The person playing flute looks much taller than the same person in the same concert series a year earlier. The earlier incarnation is very intense, and had to play something that comes in at around 168 for the quarter note. Pretty fast stuff, and watching that video recording you can see the effort being put forth. In the most recent concert there were several passages of intense technical work, but on the video looks (and it felt) as if the player is doing nothing.

I checked my grouchiness at the door, along with a couple of steamer trunks worth of emotional baggage for the concert, and it was pure musical joy. My body was doing as little as physically needed, and a tremendous amount of music was realized, including by the other players. Doing nothing was, apparently, infectious and stimulating to others. Who knew?

Now during my practice when I notice that something is bogging down or that I'm just pushing too hard, I put myself back in the "resistance if futile" attitude and just let the music happen.

Did I mention that the concert was incredibly fun and relaxing at the same time?

Eleven down . . . the week in review

Comments from the week of the 11th annual Baroque Flute and Continuo Player Boot Camp. Photos may be found at the Baroque Performance Clinic blog.

(Names withheld to protect the innocent . . .)

--Had a GREAT WEEK !!! The BC gets better each year. See you next July.

--Thanks, Kim, for a wonderful week. I learned so much, and I hope I'll be able to return again next year. I will send you some photos, once I upload them from my camera.

I have a funny story...it worked out that Kevin and I gave Lisa a ride to her home in southern Oregon (so she wouldn't have to do an overnight on a Greyhound bus) and we stayed the night at her place (instead of a hotel). Well, on the way, we ran out of gas--the heavy traffic out of Seattle/Tacoma area had distracted Kevin enough that he forgot that we needed to get gas. So, Lisa and I were in the back of the van, playing flute duets, when all of a sudden, Kevin hollers, "Oh no! We're running out of gas!" The car conked out on a ramp, and while Kevin took a jug to get gas, Lisa and I set up a music stand along the side of the road and kept on playing! It all resolved itself amazingly within about 20 minutes, because a woman saw Kevin with the jug, picked him up, took him to the gas station a couple of miles away, and brought him back to the car. So, Lisa and I packed up the music, hopped back in the van, and we were back underway once again!

--Hi everyone - It was fun! Thanks SO much to everyone.

Thank you for a great week at the Baroque Boot camp and introduction to baroque flute! Special thanks to Kim for organizing it, and to Janet and Kim for their teaching, and Ronnee for his patience, and all of you for being welcoming to a greenhorn. It was a pleasure to meet all of you and a delight to hear the progress as the week went on. I learned much.

After reading almost everything possible on the internet, I screwed up my courage, disassembled the flute and oiled it for the first time. Fortunately it isn't very old and seems not to have suffered from the delay nor my "work" on it.

Now to practice.

Wishing all of you a nice end of summer and productive fall, and if you are ever in LA, please look us up.

--Thanks for the week. It was a nice group of people. I'm practicing every day again now, and what's better is I feel I have a strategy that means I might not have time to practice a lot, but I'm practicing better ( I hope).

Flute for Sale

Hello Everyone,

Here is a fine flute for sale.

• Denner copy by Folkers & Powell, 2001
• 392 and 415 corps de rechange in case provided by F & P
• No foot register
• $1800.00

If you are interested, let me know and I will put you in touch with the seller.

I can verify that this is an excellent instrument. The seller needs $$.

It turns out there IS one (or, eat your crow while it is piping hot)

OK, I apologize to my baroque flute student who has, without fail, always done exactly what I asked. And I would like to order the baked crow, with a raspberry demi glasse, and I'll chase it all down with a shot of Jose Cuervo. How this slipped my mind is no surprise because many things do. But here I will correct the omission and oversight. 

In this post, I whine about people whining about not making progress, and I discuss why they whine. 

What has happened in the case of this particular student? He has made EXCELLENT progress, even after dealing with a serious illness a few years ago (all recovered now, and in great health). I will not be giving him his money back because he has, as I mentioned, made great progress, corrected all of the minor technical issues that I pointed out, continues to improve (he's now "enrolled" in Advanced Nit-Picking), and has used all of his training in public concerts. 

The beauty of practicing diligently is that it frees you to learn other things that can only be taught by leaping out of the frying pan into the fire. 

Last weekend Student Alpha performed a demanding solo that would have crushed a less diligent player with the things that went wrong if they were not corrected on the spot in the heat of the moment. There is a reason they refer to taking lessons in a college curriculum as "applied music." You get to go out and APPLY the techniques in the context of a performance (not unlike doing drills in martial arts or basketball practice). 

Things started out OK in the first movement, then something came unglued but Student Alpha maintained his position and direction and the ensemble found him in a timely manner. In the second movement, things were going smoothly and then, when Student Alpha tried something ultra-musical (read: NEW to the ensemble), things got a wee bit rocky, but then settled down a bit as the end of the movement approached. When it was time to make a significant musical gesture to set up the final cadence, Student Alpha did something we had worked on a few times and that he had seen me do several times: he made a big body gesture while looking directly at the person who needed the most direction. It caused everyone in the ensemble and 95% of the audience, to pay more attention to what was going on and the group was tight as a drum right off the assembly line to the end of the piece. 

The rest of the piece was good, and Student Alpha held the fort when things got wacky (he's significantly more advanced as a performer than his colleagues), and the piece was successful. There was nothing he could do about one player's particularly "creative" intonation. That will be the next item for us to work on. 

Instead of breaking my arm patting myself on the back for his fine performance, I'll break it patting Student Alpha on the back. 

If I eat my crow while it is piping hot, can I have something really good for dessert? 

Indoctrination of the Superannuated Canine ("Largo? We don't need no stinking Largo!"

Last week I played the third concert of my so-called "world tour." Eugene, OR, Seattle, WA, and Lubbock, TX. Being in Lubbock with my friends was rejuvenating, even if I had a cold that disrupted my sleep every night. I had a great time. My only regret is that the MCAT wasn't there with me. And the 21.5 hour return trip home caused by a flight cancelation from a freak snow storm (a snowstorm in West Texas in late March???).  Dharmonia and Coyote Banjo took good care of me, as they always do, and it was, as usual, sad to leave. 

I was in Lubbock with my new colleague, who goes by the moniker El Clavecin Colorado, to play a concert, work with the Texas Tech students, and for me, to enjoy part of my spring break. In our three city tour, ECC and I played one concert twice, and played a few pieces from those programs on the Seattle concert along with a couple of other players. In two pieces I decided to play it safe. Why I did that, I'm not sure. It made for a hair-raising experience. I dialed it down. Took away the intensity, did something I don't usually do, and it made me uncomfortable and the music was not communicated to the listeners in the way I wanted. 

That was in Eugene. In Seattle ECC and I rehearsed the same program while we were preparing the other concert. It all felt very good, easy, and calm. I wondered why I took it easy on those two particular pieces. 

On to Lubbock. Head cold, lots of congestion, fluid in the right ear, starting to cough. Good practice sessions and a good rehearsal in a great room for chamber music. I was not going to play it safe. At times like this you have to step back and ask yourself, "What would Lewis and Clark have done?" Play it safe? Dial it down? They would have been a snack for a grizzly bear if they had done that. Or permanent scullery maids for the bad-ass South Dakota natives.  

No, the music of Quantz and Kirnberger was going to be treated with the respect it deserved. I was going to meet the composer's expectations. In the case of Kirnberger, it was merely settling on a character and proper tempo for one movement. For Quantz, it was a matter of picking up the gauntlet and smacking him upside the head with it. Grave e sostenuto is his slowest tempo described in his Essay On Playing the Flute. Presto in 3/4 meter is his fastest. After you make a few calculations based on the primary source information, you learn that the slow movement comes in at somewhere between 35-40 for the eighth-note. Pretty slow. We managed to take it a wee bit slower, for some reason. The slower tempo allowed for more ad extempore events in the flute part. The Presto comes in at around 168 for the quarter-note. In Eugene I played it safe and took about 160. During our warm up ECC mentioned that I might be rushing in a couple of places but he was OK with that. I didn't think it was possible to speed up when you are at your limit. I may have been wrong. 

So we play the concert, we do not play it safe, we take the Grave e sostenuto at about 30 for the eighth-note, turn the page, and go at something near 176 for the quarter-note. It feels right. No panic, no tension. When I got home three days later I made MCAT listen to it and she said it sounded much clearer and in control than the previous concert, at which she was in attendance. 

[You can hear the 3/4 Presto here.] 

How did I manage to do this? How is it possible for the middle-aged player to keep acquiring skills? Was it all done back in my teenage years when I practiced diligently for a couple of years before letting it go to play basketball in high school and 1 year of college? Was it all implanted in college when I practiced more diligently but still never could get anywhere near 160 on the metronome? Is it that I've just learned how to relax and move only the muscles necessary for the task at hand? Doesn't that constitute learning a new technique? I feel that I did learn a new technique, or at least how to control something I'd been messing around with since age 30. I'm in terrible physical condition right now but for some reason am able to control my breath better than before. What is going on? 

At this point, I don't really care if it was acquiring new techniques or just getting more efficient with the old ones. I learned to do something that had previously escaped me and was able to do it in public. 

There are new performing challenges every day, and my current work as a fledgling musicologist has taken me to a place where playing it safe is not an option, and if you do play it safe, as I learned, you will experience pain. 

When Lewis and Clark were stuck in the Columbia gorge on a rainy November with nothing to eat but pounded fish for many days in a row, what did they do? Quit and die? Dial it down? Play it safe? No. They stayed, worked it out, and met their expectations. 

"This time for sure, Rocky!" (or, Quantzalcoatl comes in off the bench after 13 years)

• "Fish or cut bait."
  
• "Are you a musician or not?"
  
• "How many years has it been since you used your musicology training?"
  
• "You could be doing real research."
  
• "That corporate gig isn't the best use of your time and energy."
  
• "You should finish your degree."
  
• "You could be a better player and researcher if you didn't work in corporate America."
  
• "That day job is killing you."
  
• "Workshop lectures are great but you should be doing it all the time."
• "That straight gig is sucking out all of your qi." 
  

And these were the comments from people who like me. 

So in September the MCAT and I moved our lives south to Oregon. In December I finished my first quarter as a graduate student. A few times I felt that I was too old to try this again. Some days I felt like Kramer in the judo class from "Seinfeld." That image was enough to keep me from getting too cocky. Of course, there is no way that could happen, given the comments above were made by my friends over the past 13 years. The beauty of friends is that they help you walk the line. 

"Why did you take the MUS XYZ class? Couldn't you petition out of it?"

I probably could have petitioned out of it but I want to get as much from Professor ABC's teaching style as possible. In another class, Professor ABC said I would have to take it but probably wouldn't learn much. Well, were it possible for Prof ABC to be wrong, he would have been. I may not have learned anything brand new but I certainly learned to look at things with a different perspective. That is a good thing if you've been looking at and using something particular for, well, the past 20 years. So, technically, I didn't learn anything new but I was reminded of many things and discovered a new way to re-examine things. Don't rest on your laurels, they'll just get wilted and sweaty. And don't forget that knowing what you don't know is a good way to keep learning and exploring. 

During he first quarter of my return I discovered that I actively enjoyed doing what I had been struggling to find time for in the past 15 years, realized that self-motivation is what will separate the wheat from the chaff here, and that somewhere in my past academic life I had acquired good work habits, the discipline necessary to do good research, and remembered most of what I thought was forgotten. 

I am not a Type A personality. But I am, I remembered, just a wee bit competitive. That may not have been the best thing to resurrect. In the one course I took in the fall that was graded on a total number of points and percentage, I ended up with 98.95% for a final grade. It was likely the highest score in the class but I was miffed at the 1.05% shortcoming.  

When we moved I intended to keep a low profile here and have my life as a performer be based in Seattle and elsewhere. MCAT couldn't understand my Low Profile position. I was able to maintain it for about a month. Then MCAT and I went to a recital and observed what passed for good playing on my instrument. I don't exactly remember what she said to me but it was along the lines of, "are you just going to sit there and let people think that is how it is supposed to sound?" 

Uh . . . no. And so much for the Low Profile approach. 

It has all been so liberating it occasionally feels as if I live in lunar gravity. Stressed out about assignments, readings, papers, presentations, finding time to practice? Go work a day job in hospital administration, then go home and try to find time to practice and spend time with your spouse, child, dog, kitchen, and run a non-profit performing arts organization in your spare time and be at your best when concerts come around. I'll show you stress. This other thing is just go to class, read books and articles, go to the library, walk the dog, practice, and have a lot more quality time with your spouse. Being older must have something to do with it. Yes, it was a 90% pay cut to return to graduate school but so far everything has been enjoyable. And I've been around the block. I know I'm not living in Academic Utopia ("Barney never forgot what he was dealing with"). I can still see the inherent and underlying Dark Side, waiting to bite me on the rear without warning, if I'm not careful. 

But this time I'm wearing Kevlar trews . . . 

Dia de los muertos

All Saints and All Souls Days have passed but our little offrenda is still up. And for the adventure that the MCAT and I have taken on, we can still celebrate the departed (as you know, not all of the departed are dear . . .).


In September I said goodbye to this place, where I had worked for 11 years, in two different areas. It was a good place to work but, ultimately, not the career move I envisioned when I dropped out of this place for the third and final time.

The people I worked with and for at the UWMC were very nice and the attitude of the people I worked with was good and genuine, but the physical environment was wearing me out, physically and emotionally, and the job improvement opportunities were not, as I said, the career move I had in mind for myself. But working in database management and hospital administration did refine and add to a long list of valuable skills I've acquired since leaving graduate school.


The training received at the latter location was good for a few things, and I met some people with whom I've formed long-lasting friendships, but the program absolutely did not prepare anyone for a career as a scholar-performer/classroom teacher. Maybe things are different now, but I doubt it. Only one of my former classmates who managed to receive a Doctor of Music (NOT a DMA) degree from this place has a job as an academic.

So, as we've done every year for the past several years, we've taken the time to celebrate the lives of those departed, mourn the loss of various aspects of our lives, and acknowledged what they have done for us. I've also asknowledged how the people and events have affected me, and what I have learned from them.

And I will visit them all again next year.

Right now the MCAT and I are on an new journey. After wallowing in doubt, angst, frustration, bitterness, and a host of other feelings and states of being for 13 years, MCAT and I had a serious chat. After the chat, which was not a new chat to me, we decided that I should return to graduate school and complete the PhD I started way back when. A couple of friends (Dharmonia, Coyote Banjo, Terminal Degree, among others) have, over the years, and in varying degrees of subtlety (read between the lines), pointed out that I was wasting myself, my time, and my energy working in a field where my heart wasn't. They also added, often in the same "subtle" way, that I should fish or cut bait; that is, decide what I was going to do and then do it. It is a nice to know that people care. Really. It is very special. So, back to the chat: the result is that after a 13 year hiatus, I have returned to graduate school. I am now a PhD Musicology student at the University of Oregon. It is everything I ever imagined a scholarly graduate program to be, in terms of organization, dedication of the faculty to the students, and, with a supporting area in Historical Performance Practices, an expectation that I should retain and continue to improve, my playing skills.


[Yes, I am optimistic about this place and the program but please note that I HAVE been around the block. Several times. Some would say that I own that block. MCAT and I did not dive into this willy-nilly, nor did the department invest in someone who did not seem like a good fit.]


We miss Seattle. The size of the city, the restaurant options, our 1910 house, my regular paycheck with all of its benefits as a state employee, and, obviously, all of our friends. And our dog no doubt misses her dog buddies in the neighborhood and at doggie day care. But no matter where we are, our friends are still our friends, and we don't have time to go dashing about to fancy restaurants (there are a few here in Eugene of the Seattle level of fanciness) like we used to. Besides, after that kitchen remodel in Seattle, I developed a love of cooking and dream of having my own cooking show, The Fugal Gourmet, where music and food are combined into . . . well, don't get me started. And before too long, we hope, the house in Seattle will sell and we'll have a new one here in Oregon.


Watch this space for details.


And now, back to the books!