The Closet Violinist

Her Silent Wood

2012-02-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

Last night, I spent quality time with Jacqueline du Pre. I dipped my feet into her ocean of sound, though it was hardly enough to surmise how deep it went or the abysses tethering the light at the surface. Of course I've heard her monumental Elgar before, but I felt it was too small a slice and chose Dvorak's "Klid" or "Silent Woods" in which to immerse myself.

An extra substance fills up every corner of her playing, as if her heart was so large, it spilled outside herself into the wood grain of her Davydov Stradivarius. I have the feeling some of it is still there, filling in small spaces like a whisper. I moved on to practically everything else of du Pre which is uploaded on youtube, just to drink the nectar of her sound. Few musicians have bridled such intensity and focused it to produce the richness and color she did.

She had me thinking about every facet of my life, not with judgement or appraisal, but with tremendous humanity. If it was Dvorak's aim to preserve a moment of meditation in a silent wood, du Pre invites the listener into private thoughtfulness anchored by her expansive but tender sound.

It is one thing to master an instrument. That will consume, absorb, swallow an entire life. It is another for an artist to lose herself until the instrument is absorbed completely by her . . .

It is so easy to get lost in the forest amidst all the trees. When there are shifts to be managed, bow changes to be manipulated, phrases to be interpreted and fingered octaves to be mastered, one can easily lose the path due to the hurdles. In the pursuit of serving music, what is often sacrificed is individual voice, with its unique flavor, its small foibles, inconsistencies and defining characteristics. Though sharing this kind of individuality makes the performer entirely vulnerable, it's the one thing worth preserving. It is the forest.

This is not to say the effort and sacrifices to serve music are vain (not by a long shot!!!). It is just to say it is exceedingly rare to listen to music like Jacqueline du Pre's which answers every musical requirement without losing any of the significance of a personal voice. It is some of the most heart-felt music I've ever heard.

Listening to du Pre play "Jacqueline's Tears" held me in silent wonder. Jacqueline's last concerts were given just prior to my birth. She didn't perform past the age of 28 due to complications of Multiple Sclerosis, which eventually claimed her life at just 42 years of age.

Jackie's instrument was not the cello, it was her. I would like to know how many years she fought against the symptoms of MS before finally giving up her concert career. How many nights did she walk onstage wondering if her fingers would respond to the rigors of the demanding literature she played? I wonder how much of her music is in all that silence?

Whatever the answer, the question of her inimitable sound remains hanging in the air like a foggy morning mist, surrounding everything it touches, yet untouchable. The remaining silent wood holds her voice.

Some Days, Only Bach Will Do

2012-01-31T08:23:00.000-08:00

Some days, only Bach will do. That was the opening line of a post I wrote long ago when I used to keep a blog on Violinist.com. It's been borrowed in other blog posts since (or, more likely, it's not that original and other people thought the same thing :-) ).

When you're at the bottom, feeling all your threads are being clipped, Bach reminds you of endlessness. It speaks to the power of inventiveness--just around the corner is the new ending, or new beginning. His music drives with intensity and focus, but is never trapped. It is always on the brink of giving way to something unexpected. The curve in the road. The bend in the path. Every wall is a door (okay, so that's Ralph Waldo Emerson . . . ).

I might have a little transcendentalism tucked away in this closet.

Maybe the eternal qualities of Bach are apparent to my ears because it's what I need to hear. Bach's music cannot be contained or quantified. There's more in it than that. Years later, here I am sitting in front of the same computer writing about Bach, but finding something completely new to talk about. Only, I will agree with myself that some days, only Bach will do.

Like today.

I've been contemplating the road ahead, what to do, where to invest my time. I have an opportunity to study with a truly great pedagogue, if I can submit a worthy recording, and if I am humble enough to attend a festival for which I am, admittedly, too old. Most of the time, I brace myself for the inevitable "too old" dillemma by convincing myself there are no limits to beautiful music. I haven't ever heard of someone being arrested because they tried to make beautiful music. Possible public humiliation is part of the deal no matter your age (of course, the middle-aged tend to draw more fire, for some reason).

This can mean only one thing: there is a remaining ego I must shatter with reckless abandon. Deep down, even though I'm capable of inventing for myself Don Quixote-esque delusions of grandeur to overcome most of my hesitations, part of me is still too aware of "reality" to allow myself to go get those windmills (though, I think maybe I was born for that battle). I want to save face, but to make great music, there is no "saving face" because there is no face. Music has a larger scope. It gives without expecting anything in return, requiring absolute focus and the total absence of self-concern.

Musicians are in the business of suspending time and space, reducing every human being to their most mortal self and casting a light towards internal matters. Self-concern makes itself a barrier like the lure of a perfect cadence, as if to say "I will give this much and then the story ends." The truth is, what we need is Bach reminding us there is always more.

When dealing with the souls of human beings, there is eternity to consider. When does the giving end? How much can I do? Where are the boundaries to this communication? What are the limits to which this human being can respond?

These are the unknown questions; the stuff of eternity. When we open ourselves to possibility, agree to fight the battle worth fighting and submit ourselves completely, for better or worse, we create something unquantifiable, undefinable and perhaps something without limits. It happens because we let go of ego long enough to swim in the current of human connectedness.

At least, these are the lectures I give myself after reading hefty helpings of Thoreau and Emerson. Do I believe it?

When I play Bach, I do.

Learning Backwards

2012-01-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

While I contemplate what to do about recording the piece (I am totally worried this could be a terrible disappointment for all the tens of ten people reading this blog), petitioning the muses for technical help trying to understand how to get a decent sound quality from my camcorder, I am trying to leave the January I've spent in the twilight zone behind me and prepare for a recital and some things coming up this summer. Let it be said I am carefully optimistic about expecting any help from the muses after having cursed them in November . . .

Yesterday, besides writing on my blog in snatches, after the Urstudien and Kreutzer, scales and trill exercises (and, can I just say, regarding minor scales in sixths--will that ever go well? ugh.), the bulk of the practice day was spent trying to memorize the Bach Sonata #1. I am happy to report the first and the last movements are in the tank. Saying I was overly-optimistic about memorizing the Fuga yesterday would not be an understatement. Hopefully I will be able to finish that movement today and start on the Siciliano as well. Also, I should get going on finishing memorizing and perfecting the Ballade as well as learning the Faure Sonata #2 and Tzigane.

Of course, if I don't get my vibrato in decent shape, all of it will be like listening to nails on a chalkboard and a complete waste of everyone's time whether it's memorized or not. First things first. What I need is a secretary whose spiritual gift is organization . . .

Which brings me to learning things backwards. I've learned this technique from two pianists I adore. I have a secret reverence for pianists, and I cannot believe I am about to admit this, but I have always regarded the piano a little higher than the violin in terms of difficulty. When I am fortunate enough to work with gifted pianists, their musical opinions and advice has been invaluable. A pianist typically sees the arch of a work with a broader view. I try to study the score with fervor in order to pretend like I'm a musical grown-up (or at least hedge away from "musical infantile") when I work with pianists.

It is with great admiration for and appreciation to my dear pianist friends from whom I've learned this treasured technique, that I share it with anyone else who is interested to know.

Learning a piece from the end to the beginning trains the brain to think forwards. Taking chunks of the piece, starting from the end, i.e. four measures, and then working backwards towards the beginning will emphasize to the brain where the piece is going, rather than where it's just been.

As I've been learning this way, I take phrases of usually three or four measures in length from the end of the piece, learn them and then learn the next set. After learning the next set, I review it with the previous set. After learning the next set, I review it with the previous set and drop the last set. I've been surprised how quickly I'm able to work through a piece this way.

Yesterday, I was memorizing the Bach Sonata #1 movements backwards in the same way--memorize four measures, check it without music two or three times and then move on to the next section. I know there are many more ways of memorizing a piece, but I wanted to try it using this technique. Happily, it worked! The Adagio movement's toughest chords are bulked up in the last eight measures of the piece. The last part of that movement has been my memory weakness. Practicing it carefully from the end seemed to emphasize the weakness and force me to learn the notes. It also forced me to pay attention to the rhythmic structure (which, honestly, was the hardest part about memorizing that movement) because I was having to start in the middle of the piece somewhere without previous rhythmic cues.

Now I need to ask my pianist friends how they polish a piece after it's been basically learned . . . I wouldn't want to get that backwards. ;-)

11/11/11

2011-11-13T16:58:00.000-08:00

Humans are fascinated by numbers, systems, patterns. I would say music is, in large part, a reflection of our need to tidy up the chaotic corners of things we don't understand, or to open Pandora's box releasing more chaos to organize.  For whatever reason, 11/11/11 greeted us with an aura of mysticism.  Even the critics prone to mocking superstitious beliefs must have at least been intrigued by the prospect of the "One" day--almost like the "One" ring . . . though thankfully the One day did not unleash ultimate evil controlled by a gigantic flaming eyeball.

It's funny we're taken in by it, since there is nothing immortal about our numbering or dating systems; never mind there are at least three separate dating systems I can think of which would change the actual day of 11/11/11, we were all approaching 11/11/11 like children in front of our birthday cakes, feeling something magical was bound to happen if we made a wish at the precise moment of 11:11:11 on 11/11/11.

Okay, okay . . . so I made a wish.

At that moment, something else was happening--the opening of the Crystal Bridges American Art Museum. It's like the Louvre in the middle of Arkansas. If it was the Walton family's purpose to give America a beautiful and lasting gift of culture, they have certainly succeeded. I can't think of a better place for it. I have heard Alice Walton felt everyone should have access to great Art. Rather than squirreling away priceless treasures of art for the eyes of only a few, she has given an incredible gift to our nation in building a museum where her acquisitions may be enjoyed by all. The last time America had a patron saint of culture, it was Andrew Carnegie.  Alice Walton could very well be the Carnegie of this generation, and I believe the opening of Crystal Bridges is a landmark event for our nation. A friend who attended the opening ceremony remarked "When you're surrounded by something this beautiful representing the best in our culture, it feels like there is still something to hope for in America. I'm filled with hope for us."

I had planned a "One" recital, but because of the grand opening of Crystal Bridges, it was impossible to find a venue. That's one excuse. The other one is the reason: the supreme moment arrived, and I wasn't ready.

FAILURE.

The Ballade was learned, but not performance ready. The Mark O'Connor Caprice was not memorized. I didn't have time to learn the Siciliano movement of the Bach Sonata #1. About one week before 11/11/11, I was still holding out hopes for a miracle, doing as much as I could to make this happen, but I knew I had to make a decision.

My composition has been finished on three separate occasions. I was in the process of learning what I thought was the final version, but I didn't like the ending. The pacing wasn't right. The climax wasn't right. It got messy and difficult to follow. One week before the "One" day I took my cursor, slid it over the last page and a half (which I had painstakingly written twice before) and erased the measures to rewrite it one last time. The pain associated with that act reminds me of the time I nearly burned my finger off in a head-on collision with the stove.

At that moment, 11/11/11 was representing something more like a giant "reset" button on my life continuum. A new beginning, ironically, on the ending.

When I compose, it is difficult to get anything else accomplished. On the first day after the last page "amputation" I wrote about 11 measures only to lose it all in a freak "kids are home from school and checking the computer" mishap. I wanted to die. I cursed the muses for not having granted me the gift of photographic memory. Despite the wallowing and non-verbal cursing accompanying me as I slopped potatoes onto the dinner plates of my family and threw myself into bed dressed in the same clothes I'd been wearing for three days, praying the embalmer would be able to peel them off after I was discovered dead in the morning, I did not die. The sun came up and I found the computer again. I promised myself not to be such a drama queen, to be sensible and learn the value of the save button.

Two days later, I finished the composition again, coincidentally, on the same day I finished it last year: 11/6. I began learning the ending, which is full of runs, double stops and craziness of all kinds, hoping to have it memorized in time to premiere at least this One piece on the One day. I don't know how my husband survived living with a creature he barely recognized as his wife, who had not taken a proper shower or looked in a mirror for days and days. I can only think he must not have seen me since I was living in the closet that week anyway (I probably blended in with the monster under my daughter's bed).

It was haphazard, last-minute and thrown together, but drawn as I was to the fascination of this One day, I had to participate in the celebration. I went on facebook and invited everyone over to my house for the premiere of "Fantasy on an American Hymn" and dessert. Not one to do anything half-way, I planned baked brie in brioche, salmon on pita crackers, gourmet brownies, sweet breads, sparkling cider, truffles and strawberries. I have this theory about violin concerts: in the end, it's really all about the food (this theory is consistent with marriage too). That is why, in the future, I plan to give an All-Belgian recital; otherwise I would have no excuse to serve Belgian Waffles for dessert, and that would be a true disappointment.

This was me 30 minutes before the concert: hastily shoving brie in the oven, running around the house searching for rosin, clambering in the tall cabinets for pretty platters and begging for help setting up chairs. That last blog entry about pre-concert rituals? Rubbish. Lies.

I think I managed to make enough blunders running through the piece in the last ten minutes before the concert to convince myself I should definitely not be doing this. Cleaning my hardwood floors for the first time in weeks had brought up some kind of incredible allergic reaction and my left eye was swollen shut. I wanted to use that excuse, but instead I spent the remaining minutes slowly hacking my way through the tough spots, reminding myself I had already narrowly escaped death once after cursing my muses and odds were in my favor I would not die mid left-hand pizzicato. People started arriving. Not many people, but people. Good people. Friends.

It was 11/11/11, and I was giving the premiere of my first composition of 111 measures in length, in a recital of One piece, unaccompanied (one player), on the only copy of the ex-Spalding del Gesu Jan Van-Rooyen ever made, as the oldest of eleven living children. If that isn't enough to evoke some magic, I don't know what is.

Of course I wasn't completely happy with the performance . . . I don't know when that will happen, but I think it went well. The music had the impact on my audience I wanted--they understood the story.  I will never forget the experience. If there is One thing I tried to express in my work, it is hope. Three years of my life have been dedicated to this piece and I could not have sacrificed those years for a lesser cause.

Though I was practicing when the Crystal Bridges Art Museum opened its doors, I felt the magic of the day palpably, in making this One day count. Failures and disappointments aside, I believe there is enough beauty to fill a human soul in the daily effort to make One day significant. If 11/11/11 had any enchantment to offer, it's in the reminder that everything has a beginning and that somehow through a few notes strung together those of us in the room were similarly strung together. As much as it speaks of distinctions, art and music unify us as human beings. Art makes us One.  As my friend remarked, that is truly something to hope for.

In the coming days I will perfect the piece, record it and share it with all of you. For now, the premiere has been given and I am grateful to continue working on the "One" recital with optimism that all things with beginnings eventually come to endings.

A Trip Outside the Closet

2011-10-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, a friend asked me to chronicle my "pre-performance" rituals. Every performance is so different, it's difficult to do that. I did want to make an effort, however, and the following blog entry will describe some of my normal routines and things I do when I perform a full-length recital.

It is two hours before the curtain rises. I'm in the hotel feeling grateful I had an hour or two of dead time to fix a few problem spots that arose earlier in the rehearsal with my accompanist, but now it's crunch time and I am hurriedly hoping my hair takes less time than it usually does, and that I will have a revelation about a possible hair-do that stays out of my face and off my strings without recalling my days in fifth grade. Rhinestone bobby-pins litter the countertop, but even when I bought them, I wasn't sure what to do with them. Now that the crucial moment has arrived, I have to make some sense of them and hope for the best. Every year I tell myself I will finally whack this long hair. I might do it right now, but I'm busy with my shoes, wondering if these strappy heels were the best idea. Last summer I discovered I play better in flatter shoes, but these heels are battle-tested. I've played great concerts in them before. I finally had to take them in to a shoe-repair place and have them sew a new loop to hold the back straps together. It should hold for another night. One of these days I'm going to have to break in a new pair . . . a flatter pair.

It took me a while to decide on a dress. A couple of my dresses are painful to look at--the residue of former face-plants. They're relegated to a dark spot towards the back of my closet. Another dress didn't seem to fit the theme. As much as I prayed to find a dress with sleeves I can move in at a price I can afford, I knew it would be another last-minute all-night sewing extravaganza. Looking at myself in the mirror, I'm pleased at least sewing for myself ensures a perfect fit, though I expect in 1:30! (can the time really be going that fast?) hours, we'll see if the sacrifice of my practice time was worth it. I put the dress back in the bag ready for the dressing room.

Now I'm rushing through the rituals, knowing I have to be there at least an hour before I play. I'm wiping down my violin for a quick polish, checking my case for extra strings, my music (This is always a moment of heavy scruples--I believe in memorization. But, another look at the 30 + pages has me thinking twice--do I really know it all?  If I really want to do this memorized, I shoudn't give myself a safety net. My accompanist will kill me if I'm that reckless. Okay, I bring the music, even if I don't plan to use it.), my mute, my chamois (I prefer playing without anything, but the last two weeks of crazy mad practicing has me sporting a large bleeding wound on my collar bone. It was me against the metal of the chinrest and the metal won. Next time I'll use the chamois before and then I'll be good to go for the performance, or remember to use vaseline, which is an even better plan). As I grab my coat and gloves (I am perpetually cold. I am never warm enough. I've got to keep my fingers warm to be ready to play) and head out the door to get in the car.

Thank goodness someone else is driving me because I immediately go into the "hole" and start mentally playing through my concert. I try to visualize each note, each shift. I feel how it feels in my hands, I see where my fingers are going. I should know note names, and I do if I think about it, but when I'm playing, it's more like singing. Can't bother myself with the name of the note, just what it sounds like and where it is. Though, I have been trying to do better by isolating patterns and remembering chord structures as a back-up plan in case I do something stupid and end up playing the wrong finger and have to invent fingerings on the fly (this happens at least once every concert). As I think it through, I look at the music when there's a blank spot. I memorize and try to fill in on the way to the hall.

I ignore my sick stomach. Well . . . kind of. More like, I've gotten used to it. It started yesterday and comes in waves as if I'm in labor. The nervous waves are getting closer and increasing in intensity as I get nearer the venue. Almost like LaMaze, I've learned how to stay above it just a little. I have defenses. I think about my audience. At first it makes me so nervous I want to throw up, but then I direct the thoughts in a deeper way. I think about each of the people who will be in my audience and I imagine all the things they gave up in order to see me play. I get a rush of gratitude which nearly conquers the nerves. That immediately gets me thinking about the music and how much I love it and want to share. When feelings of inadequacy surface, I remind myself no one else in the audience will be prepared to play this concert (even if they could), so I have to do it. And, there it is--my confidence . . . until the next wave.

Right now I don't have time to think about it. I know what to do. I've done this before. I get out of the car and go into the venue. Of most importance, I smile. I smile as I walk past the building coordinator and the music specialist in charge of the event, at the little old ladies who always show up an hour early. I walk around the concert hall. I touch the benches, usually wood, and the seats. I look at the lighting. I plunk a few notes on the piano. I'm still feeling those butterflies in my stomach, but they're just kind-of hanging out right now, not doing much while I start the process of summoning as many light-filled thoughts as I can. I convince myself I love this room. I imagine how much music I will discover here. I touch the walls. I stand on the stage. I take my violin out for a few notes. I don't play my pieces yet. Just a scale, a memorized etude, a fun piece not on the program. After about 30 minutes, I'm feeling comfortable and "at home" in the hall. My fingers are feeling limber, almost too limber. They are thoroughbreds in a stall before the gun goes off.

My accompanist arrives for a sound check. I tune. I tune slowly, carefully, so I don't have to tune when I get on stage (I hate that). If I ever do end up having to tune on stage, I try to make it interesting, play with beautiful alive sound, so the audience knows they're going to get a show. We play through excerpts--a couple of the rough spots.  I fall flat on my face and it's not pretty. I get back up. Bad rehearsal, good performance. I think about what happened and then I remind myself to go through it once again in the green room. By this time people are starting to arrive. It's time for me to clear out, but I try to find at least one or two audience members to talk with and smile at first.  This is the height of unprofessionalism. I'm pretty sure there are NO other performers who ever do this. I don't know why it helps me. All I can say is, unless I make friends with at least a couple of people I don't already know, I can't get the energy I need. I get the lift I need from my audience.

Once I'm in the dressing room, I put on my dress, trying hard not to ruin whatever masterpiece of bobby pins I managed. I take my violin out of the case once more. I'll grab my mute after intermission to place on the stand in case I get an encore which will be "Beau Soir." That piece requires a mute. I check my tuning once more and then I go take care of the rest of any details in the bathroom.

Sometime before leaving the green room, I find a moment to say a prayer. When I'm lucky enough to be playing with Tawna, we pray together.

A last check of make-up and hair and it's ten minutes until the recital. By this time, I'm usually feeling pretty excited. I'm pumping myself up with as many happy thoughts about my audience as I can muster and killing off any negative, selfish, worried emotions with a big stick. I'm imagining myself with a baseball bat, hitting them to the moon, which then sends its moonlight back in return. I have to do this a lot. The nerves are throwing negative thoughts right and left. I keep swiping at them, hoping to hit them out of the ballpark.

My accompanist is waiting for me. We talk, and I listen. She is the master of positive energy. She helps me get my head strait. She reminds me to breath. I do the yoga breathing she taught me to make sure blood is flowing all the way to my fingertips. Inhale 7, hold 7, out 7.   Oxygen. Once the oxygen is flowing, I am fully submerged in the focus of what I'm about to do.  Other people start to fade away, just a blur at the edges of my view. I am trying not to listen to my introduction (which always makes me feel ridiculous . . . they're talking about my training and accomplishments), and I just breathe deeply, with my whole body. It makes me feel tingly and alive. Now I start to think through the first couple measures of the piece, hearing my sound inside my mind, zeroing in on the most beautiful sound I can think of, and I remind myself how excited I will be to see all my friends . . . all those beautiful people in the audience who came to hear my music, and the wave of gratitude saves me for a moment as I walk on stage.

I take a long walk onstage--a grand semi-circle, to denote presence and strength. I plant myself. It's not hard with these spiky heels. I feel my connection to the floor. They call this "grounding". It goes deep, like roots, as if I have become a spruce tree and the violin, with its spruce top, is a branch hanging from me easily, flexibly. I feel charged. There is a silence.

I focus on the feeling of the piece I am about to play and thrust all my energies in pursuit of the story I am about to tell. I put the bow on the string and in that instant, everything happens. It's like a key turned in a Ferarri--the engine purring, filled with life. I feel the vibrations from the strings down to my toes. I hope the audience felt that . . .

Performing is exhilerating even though I am almost never completely happy with my performance.

There have been quite a few times in which I locked in on some specific person in the audience for whom, I had a sense, I was playing. Sometimes the person has sought me out after the concert, enabling me to put it together and know. Other times not. Each performance is organic. It happens as it will, with many variables molding it and shaping it as it goes. To some degree, even though I must keep control of myself, I know I have to give up trying to control the experience. That happens on its own due to my audience, the feeling of the hall, the temperature etc.. All kinds of crazy things happen and I have to be on my toes to make adjustments. It's been said "golf is a game of recovery." So too, performing. I suppose at some point, after I've played the same piece in the same concert 100 times in a row, all this gets very routine, polished and boring.

I'm not there yet. For me, it's still a world of discovery--these trips venturing out of the closet.

Never Change Your Quality

2011-10-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

I will admit to being a sucker for a box of chocolates. I have heard some women are angered by a gift of chocolates because they're trying to lose weight, but I can think of nothing sweeter than your spouse letting you know he doesn't think your figure will be threatened by a 1/2 pound of chocolate.

My name ends in an "ee" for a reason. My grandmother's brother was "Lee" so my parents gave me the double e's as a namesake to him: KimberLee. Uncle Lee owned a candy store famous for their hand-dipped chocolates. Uncle Lee's father (my great-grandfather) was an insurance salesman during the depression, but his hobby was confections. He studied with famous confectionaries and developed many recipes. He was particularly famous for making pretty baskets out of hard candy for weddings during WW2 because sugar rations made it hard for couples to have a cake.

Uncle Lee learned the trade from his Dad and then opened up shop. The shop is now run by my cousin, his son, who continues to sell the only chocolate capable of melting me back to my three-year-old self the minute it touches my tongue. Neither Uncle Lee nor his son have franchised the business, so it has remained a local treasure and tradition.

When, on special occasions, I get a box of these chocolates, I carefully slip off the papery ribbon from one of the corners of the box, lift the lid and then the quilted shiny paper with the company seal affixed to the top covering the chocolates, and look at each of the hand-dipped chocolates with their unique swirls, each one just a little different than the other. I've learned his chocolate shorthand. I know, for instance, that a thick line across the top means it's an orange cream (Mom's favorite), or a swirly circle means it's a Monte Carlo (Dad's favorite). When I bite into the first chocolate, it's like my life collapses in on itself and I am three years old visiting Uncle Lee and watching his candy dippers while sampling a chocolate.

Enjoying a piece of the world that hasn't changed is a rare and precious gift.

My Great-Grandfather's motto was "Never Change Your Quality." Those who followed him are keeping the tradition alive, from the papery ribbon on the box to the carmel center surrounded in cream of a Monte Carlo. Because that tradition is intact, my experience with my beloved namesake chocolate is the same today as it was when I was a little girl.

Sadly, pride of workmanship and quality standards is a little-understood and less-fostered characteristic when stacked against profitability and growth. Most businesses, in a quest to increase profitability and efficiency, make quality concessions. Personally, I feel this cultivates feelings of alienation and stress in the workplace.

The quest to produce "quality" is a human need. Regardless of whatever Neitzche, Derridas and all the other nihilist and/or post-modernist thinkers had to say about binary thought processes and good vs. bad, I will stand solidly on the side of people looking to produce something of quality as a life-perpetuating and life enriching activity any day (and I will happily deconstruct anyone who wants to go the rounds . . . I've read all the Heidegger I care to, and prefer the way he shows up in Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People," frankly).

The current consumer-driven culture is so far removed from quality in its ultimate need for more at whatever cost, it creates a multitude of resulting ill-effects which undermine our ultimate needs encouraging only more dissatisfaction which fuels the fire. We're in a hamster wheel. I guess I've read too much post-modernist thought to coax any belief systems which support the view of anything too far removed. However, I also believe life gets away from you when you're thinking about it. Better to thrust yourself into the middle of the wheel and start running.

My hamster wheel of choice happens to be the quest for "quality." Heifetz' assertion "there is no top" rings brightly in my ears despite any menieres-disease flare-ups. Though I never rest from a constant need to improve my quality, I enjoy many sweet chocolatey moments as I race along. Occasionally I even get the sense I'm getting somewhere and have left the hamster wheel. Whether or not I'm running along and continuing the nonstop cycle no longer impedes me. I am fully engaged in the process of living.

This is what human nature craves. We don't want to just live. We want to know we're totally involved in living. (gosh, that was existentialist . . . )

But, back to chocolate. I find a little salvation in a box of chocolates. The truth is, the company seal affixed to the front of the shiny paper is part of my joy. Being able to touch the papery ribbon and slide it off the corner is as important to my chocolate bliss as the chocolate itself. This attention to detail and continued persistence to bring customers small delights convinces me there is a pathway away from the hamster wheel. Quality is a brand of freedom.

Someday I would like to visit all the places in the world where things are done the way they have been done for centuries--the back alleyways where potters wheels still turn out majolica, Dutch towns where tulips and Gouda cheese crowd the center, Amish country where quilts are still sewn by hand and cabinets display expert dovetailing.

In my own area, every October craftsman from all over the country come to the multitudinous craft fairs scattered over the Ozarks. Usually I'm too busy practicing to go, but this year, I took my friend up on an offer and went. I soaked up every minute. Behind many of the booths sat regular folks involved in this process of freeing themselves.

I particularly recall an older gentleman sitting at his leather-working bench continually pounding out designs, carefully pressing in stains. I watched another gentleman sitting on a stool weaving strips of wood to make beautiful baskets of all kinds. Just to feel the thick but nimbly curved and smooth wood was a luxury to my fingers more potent than any Bath and Body Works potion. He claimed his baskets were built to last. I didn't wonder. They felt heavy to my touch, substantial and well-made.

My favorite was a man and his wife who said they were "mountain people." Both of them were missing many teeth, and certainly looked the part. The gentleman explained his passion for old hand-carved toys, that he researches them and replicates these toys with the hard woods he collects. I didn't have enough money with me to buy the top with a spinning attachment made from cedar, but I purchased another treasure: a wooden puzzle with troughs carved into each piece upon which a marble rolls. The puzzle can be arranged with the troughs in many different shapes in order for the marble to roll on a new track every time the puzzle is re-arranged. He carved it from sassafrass wood. Though I've not seen his mountain home, I feel as if I own part of his world. My puzzle is a gift from the mountain people.

Though it can't always be quantified or even described, quality work elicits emotion. Every time I look at my puzzle, a delicious gratitude gushes out. A human being focused his skills to produce something he was proud of, to share with me. Whether or not I choose to recognize its worth does not diminish the results of the effort. Quality counts even if it's not a tangible factor. It is freedom.

In a nutshell, this is what I love and what I miss when it's lacking in violin playing. To Milstein, Heifetz, Menuhin, Ysaye, Enescu, Kogan, Sherry Kloss, Aaron Rosand and all the others who cared about resonance, colorful vibrato, rhythmic pulse, controlling and using the bow to breathe and create color, managing the instrument to bring out a singing quality voice, perfectly executed shifts and well-played slides of all shapes, kinds and sizes: it mattered. And, thank you for the freedom.

I am not as young as you were. I am not as gifted. I have children and other responsibilities. But, I will "never change your quality" and will struggle on in pursuit of preserving the legacy and handing it down.

I Haven't the Foggiest

2011-10-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have no energy for my usual writing effort. I need to spill my guts someplace where I don't have to clean it up afterwards, so here goes.

I know it's weak, but sometimes I get beat down and I start asking myself "What am I doing?" Really. Most women in my situation are decorating their houses. I barely even know I have a house. I spend most of my time in my closet. They're involving themselves in the community. They're making brownies for their children. They're going on shopping excursions. I could be doing all that, and probably having a productive and joyful life. Why am I doing this? And, what will it even accomplish? What is the point?

I am so tired. I'm in the middle of a dense fog. I can go back and read all my posts about keeping my nose down and continuing to fight, but I won't see them. Maybe I'm defeated. Several sections will be put on the metronome/clicker today, as a matter of course, but I'm losing sight of what I'm doing. The fog is thick. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. If you stop to contemplate what it's about, you lose your view, so here I go again. Someone please pass me a fog light.

Give Said the Little Sling

2011-10-13T07:12:00.000-07:00

It only takes ten pounds of pressure to break a collar bone. This I know because my son returned from the ER the other night sporting a sleek new sling-a-ma-bob to stabilize his newly broken clavicle (sophisticated lingo meaning "collar bone" reserved for impressing the doctors and fans of doctors who may or may not be among us--regrettably, my stats do not keep track of the professional involvements of my readership, nor their favorite breakfast cereal or results of past life regressive therapy.)

In grade school, I was jealous of kids with casts. I dreamed of the day I would don a tiffany blue cast signed with little hearts instead of dots over the i's and vacant sentiments like "stay cool" and "2 Good 2 Be 4 Gotten". Sadly, I didn't break anything until my senior year. It was my right hand and I broke it one month before soloing with the local symphony. The whole thing was a completely anticlimactic experience. No one signed the cast except a kid in Biology furiously trying to find new ways to remember the Krebs cycle. I don't think the teacher really bought "Ketogluterate your Fumerate until you Malate" as a get well wish.

A collar bone is one of those bones orthopedists don't cast, so my son is out of luck. His sling-a-ma-bob won't even accomodate spelling words. On the positive side, if we glued fur to the thing, it may look enough like a ferret or squirrel to interest our dog or win the approval of small-animal-obsessed fifth-grade girls.

While I've been contemplating the best way to achieve a realistic result with fur, and remembering what it was like to write with dotted heart i's knowing deeply within myself I was meant to own a unicorn, I've been thinking about this overlooked subdivision of human anatomy: the collar bone.

My violin has a permanent home balancing on my collar bone. My collar bone is like a sling (albeit not fur-covered, thank heavens) for my violin. For hours every day, my violin rests, balancing on the horizontal bone, its saddle nestling close to my neck and then extending out towards my arm as if it were a branch. Shoulder rests get in the way of the organic relationship, and undermine (if not entirely ignore), the ingenious design of the instrument which took into account human physiology and bone structure. The violin was made with the body in mind. We were supposed to work together, to fit together.

Like our shoulders hanging gracefully from our tree-branch-like bone structure, the violin was meant to balance as an extra branch. A shoulder rest throws the natural balance off-kilter frustrating the original design of the instrument. Like the human body which is in a constant state of flux, always making slight changes, adapting in order to maintain balance, a violinist's balance should be in a constant state of movement. It is an "active balance." It needs to be a free balance in order to respond to every requirement of change. Because the violin is balancing on top of the collar bone, it is free to pivot and move, accommodating small changes, as if there were a joint connecting the instrument and the body. The key issue confronting a violinist when determining posture, is one of balance.

To properly play without a shoulder rest, the violin must balance on the collar bone and in the crook of the left hand. Because I have a fairly tall collar bone, there is quite a gap between my shoulder and the back of the violin. This works in my favor because it allows the back of the violin to produce vibrations. One's shoulder should not "grip" the violin, but remain free to guide one's arm (supporting "active balance").

Among the advantages of using one's collar bone to balance the violin, here are my top three:

1. Playing without a shoulder rest puts the table of the violin at a better angle to grip and retain the bow on the string in order to draw a more resonant sound.

2. Playing without a shoulder rest frees the left shoulder to be part of the process of guiding the arm. In doing so, it also frees the bicep muscle for making better vibrato.

3. Playing without a shoulder rest encourages the entire body to share the responsibility of playing--it requires balance between left and right sides of the body, the bow playing a significant role in keeping the violin balanced as well as the violin playing a significant role in keeping the bow on the string and balanced.

I did warn you these thoughts were brought on by memories of unicorns . . . I might not be fully aware of the hate mail coming my way as a result of breaching decorum on that argument.

So, to clarify, I am a closet violinist. It hardly gives me authority to preach violin doctrine. Should you be one of the shoulder-rest loving violinists, do not feel threatened by a closet violinist. I shame myself on this blog and in daily life well enough to continue being mostly ineffectual.

In honor of collar bones, I shared what I could about how I love mine, what I use it for and how I think about it. Feel free to copy my posture ideas at your own risk, keeping in mind assertions in previous postings about being an unsophisticated listener and giving random embarrassing gifts to famous violin players.

Having played with a shoulder rest for fifteen years, learning to play without one was a revelation. It freed me. Whether or not more freedom for a person prone to thoughts of unicorns is a good thing may be debatable. :)

As for me, I return to my duties as chief sling-decorator while my son's collar bone heals. Ten pounds of pressure brought the collar bone's significance to light. The duties of holding a little boy's body together now rests with a sling. Like the collar bone to a violin, it supports healing and proper care of his instrument. Thanks to all slings and collar bones for their daily gifts.

Body as Temple

2011-10-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my husband and I were in a little argument over something he had mentioned previously about how much I practice (which is very little, comparatively speaking), and he said "You just took that comment out of context and misconstrued it until it didn't resemble anything I actually said. You're worse than the media!" It was impossible to continue the argument while I was laughing so hard. I dearly love to laugh. It is my greatest weakness.

There is one argument, however, at which we are at an impasse. This is one that makes him laugh. It started a month or so after we were married when I made the mistake of saying "playing the violin is athletic." At that point in our history, he could bench press 245 pounds, regularly did push-ups with me on his back and had about 6% body fat. To him, playing the violin didn't really rate as an "athletic" activity. I think he was trying to encourage me to be more active, and he didn't want me to think violin rated as an activity worthy of cardiovascular exertion.

It wasn't too long after I began running. Ultimately I ran a couple of marathons and won my age division in several local 5K races. I would call myself a "decent" runner. This is why I cannot understand my husband's stubborness in relinquishing his position about violin playing not being an "athletic" activity. Though I can now claim to have participated in an athletic event which at least meets his own athletic involvements, still he continues the good fight. He laughs whenever I bring it up.
I will admit to having learned a few things from running that help me with violin playing. While it is true that playing the violin is not an activity to burn calories or raise the heart rate in the same way aerobic exercise or weight lifting will, there are too many violinists who go wrong because they do not understand the athletic requirements of violin playing.

I lay out my case: If you want to know if playing the violin is an athletic activity, stand up strait and put your left hand in the air as if holding a violin for an hour. If you aren't a violinist or a mother lugging a baby around all day long, you are likely to feel the effects of such an experiment. You will also quickly notice certain positions are more optimal for causing less strain on your body than others. If you're smart, you'll notice how the rest of your body affects your arm, and you will come up with ways to lengthen the time you are able to hold your arm in the air based upon how you are standing.

The list of athletic requirements of violin playing go on and on. Some of them must be acquired, just like running or weight-lifting, over time, with gradual and continual work. I find a good upbow/downbow staccato, for instance, needs maintenance. If I were to stop playing anything with upbow staccato in it for a year, or even a month, I would get rusty, not because I forgot how to do it, but because the muscles which perform that act are no longer conditioned for it. Like running, to play the violin well, you have to play it. The intellectual part is not enough.

On the side of my left palm under my pinky finger is a muscle I use to pick up and put down my fourth finger on the string. It is visibly larger than the same muscle on the other hand. I find other little muscle anomolies such as this one all over my body as a result of playing the violin. The first finger on my right hand is permanently curved to the right. The muscle on the left side of my left forearm is bigger than my right. My right shoulder is slightly more developed in certain places.

And I worked for those muscles! :)

I do believe keeping the body in good physical condition is necessary for long-term success in violin playing. Developing good lungs and low blood pressure is a boon to anyone whose heart-rate begins to rise as a result of performance anxiety, for instance. It's your body making the music, so you should take care of your body.

Something runners learn early on is how to respect their body. They know if they don't feed it right, or expect too much of it too soon, they will pay the price. Often, that price means they won't be able to run for weeks or months. Too much, too soon=injury. For runners, the generally accepted rule of thumb for increasing distance is 10% per week, with weeks of less mileage worked in, in order to give the body the rest it needs to recoup. Runners learn to accept gradual increases of stamina and endurance. This understanding of gradual, step-by-step progress with resting worked into the system has helped keep me injury free.

When I do feel pain as a result of playing, I try to handle it like I do my running. There is a certain amount of pain to be expected when you are asking big things of your body. If you start a new exercise regime, your muscles will ache. You might not even be able to walk for a couple of days. But, it's a different pain than the pain telling you you have torn your achilles tendon, for example. Knowing when to push through pain and when to stop, is an art born out of guessing and experience. I will normally err on the side of caution and give myself a break. I would rather take a week off practicing, re-imagine what I'm doing and let my body increase its stamina on its own terms than risk a big injury.

If you take a big break from the violin and you think you want to start back in with a 5 hour practice session, you are asking for trouble. You might get away with it, but it's not a good long-range, healthy practice plan. Far better to train the way a runner would, with gradual increases in repertoire and endurance requirements.

To increase my stamina, I incorporate scales, trill exercises and etude practice. To me, etudes are the equivalent of doing hill training, stairs or speed work for a runner, and I approach them that way. When I first went through the Kruetzer etudes, I did it by reading through three or four every day until I had read through the entire book. It was a mess, but it gave me a good overview of the requirements and I was able to isolate which skills needed more work so I could go for a more in-depth look at them with a better view later. It also had the effect of increasing my stamina rapidly, because I was reading each exercise from beginning to end without a lot of stops to perfect intonation or fingerings. Since then, I have gone back through the book, studying and perfecting each etude, which I continually work on. Scales can be used to build stamina in the same way.

I have recently been introduced to Carl Flesch's "Urstudien" which I love, and which has also helped me build stamina, particularly with the left hand. The exercises at the bottom of 1C are crazy hard, but have helped me increase finger independence.

I am amazed at what my body will still achieve for me due to my long years of study and practice. Watching my husband try to play an F# on the violin is all the convincing I need. I feel humbled and grateful to be able to produce music through manipulations of my body. Our bodies are remarkable creations . . . to quote Corinthians "know ye not that ye are the temple of God, for the spirit of God dwelleth in you, whose temple ye are?" We should treat them accordingly. All considerations of technique hang carefully on gratitude for life and movement.

If I am to do spiritual work, I must remember to take care of the house of my spirit. It is the conduit through which my spirit flows. In the quest to share the spirit, do not cast the body aside, but keep it well so you will do well.

Time and Scales

2011-10-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

If I had time, I might make a scientific study out of this hypothesis: there are not enough hours in the day. 24 is the allotted time allowance, but I get to the end and I feel there must be at least two or three hours scattered around in little corners, hidden and ungathered. I search for those hours in small increments--a minute underneath the piano bench, a few more minutes stuffed under the stack of papers in the junk drawer and so on it goes. But, it can't be gathered. It is too slippery. It slides out of my hands like mercury.

Each exercise in time gathering only serves to convince me I need to make more time out of the time available. I've been increasingly convinced one of the best uses of the time I have with my violin (which is limited), is scales.

Every time I go to a new teacher, one of the first things they address is scale fingering for three octave scales. I don't think I've ever learned the same scale fingering from any of my teachers. Each one has variations done for certain reasons, to highlight certain advantages or avoid disadvantages. Learning so many different ways to play a scale is actually a really good idea because when a scale occurs in music, it is rarely in the cut and dried fashion we practice. Only occasionally will a run start on the tonic and go for three octaves. Depending on the context of the run, it is not always convenient to start with the finger which corresponds to your particular set of three octave scale fingerings. Having a few in your back pocket makes you more efficient.

Of most importance, I've learned there is no perfect scale fingering. All of them have advantages and disadvantages. For instance, you might like to have a fingering for your scales such as this: 1234 1234 1231234 1231234 / 4321321321 4321 4321 4321 (which works for every scale, major and minor except G). The advantage is obvious--only one scale fingering to memorize. Unfortunately, if you are always starting on a first finger, some of the higher scales (E, F etc.) begin very high on the G string and do not take advantage of more open sonorities and cleanliness lower down the string. This may or may not be a challenge, but it definitely changes the color of the scale. An alternative is to start lower down, or even on the D string. This takes care of the high position issue, but will require more shifting and more memorization of new finger patterns. So, you analyze the situation and make your choice. What is the purpose of your scale practice? What is it for?

Without a clear conception of what you're trying to achieve, it's like trying to open a door with a thousand different keys, without being told which one will open it. (That's me at least 60% of the time . . . ugh . . . working on it).

The moment you start asking yourself these questions, answers will begin to appear. For instance--you may desire more clarity from the run and may experiment to see which scale fingering seems to facilitate clarity.

Because I've studied with such wonderful pedagogues, I would feel remiss if I did not pass along some of their wisdom on the subject of three-octave scales. A few key insights:

* Beginning a scale with the second finger will necessitate changing strings on a half-step, which is grating, and will interrupt the tonal flow of the scale.

* When changing strings on the way up, hold the fourth finger down until after the string has been crossed and the first finger played. This will prevent jerkiness between strings.

*When changing strings on the way down, hold the first finger down until after the string has been crossed and the fourth finger played. This will prevent jerkiness between strings too.

* When shifting down, bring all fingers down at once i.e. shift with the third, second and first finger down in block positioning. It facilitates faster and more accurate shifting. I discovered this a few months ago and it has revolutionized my scales (slide with the third finger, keeping all other fingers in position). Move the whole hand at once on downward shifts.

* When possible, play open strings on the way up, for openness and clarity of sound, but play fourth finger on the way down (this is what Heifetz taught--I am not certain the reason, but if I had to guess, I would say it has to do with the open string being a leading sound--it doesn't sound as polished to use an open string for leading downwards).

* When practicing three octave scales, each tone should be clearly articulated--it's like proper breath control/diction for a singer. The runs in the solos of "The Messiah" are a good example of why it is important to articulate (ever heard a singer who did not articulate clearly on those runs?). The definite up and down movement of the finger on the string is vital to producing a beautiful tone.

* Three octave scales should be practiced in bowing combinations of 1 to a bow (frog to tip), 2 to a bow, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 24. I am still working on it. I find that doing a turn at the beginning and end and repeating the top note helps the bowings on combinations of three and four. Often, I have to count out loud when I play (seven to a bow, for instance), to make sure I'm putting the correct number of notes in the bow. Can you see how this applies? A great deal can be learned from bow distribution. There are all sorts of effects that can be achieved when control over the issue of bow distribution is mastered.

* Teachers are split in opinion as to whether or not to use vibrato when practicing scales. I take the middle ground and say it depends on why you're practicing the scale. Scales are a good way to learn impulse vibrato which continues through notes. Unfortunately, if vibrato is not performed correctly, it can obscure the pitch (which isn't a good thing). Also, vibrato can potentially confuse other issues. Generally I do not practice my scales with vibrato, but I am not averse to it, if it serves a purpose.

I am sad to say I haven't always been sold on scale practice. If I had been, I would be a much better player than I am.

I am a scale convert. Every piece of music I practice looks like scales--because, it is. Once it's in the fingers, the practicing is already accomplished, and accomplished in the most efficient way.

Scales are the ultimate musical codebreaker and practicing them well will cut the effort required to learn a new piece by half (and if I were better at them, maybe even more). With no time to spare, I must use all my minutes wisely. Good scale practice is the best way I can think of to claim the missing minutes and add hours to my day.

Arkansas Light

2011-09-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

Today is one of those beautiful Arkansan days full of sunshine. It pulsates everywhere, living in green and sending its tentacles of light radiating from the wild trees and bushes surrounding my home.

I feel it as if I am the soil, the sun warm on my back, tickling me with living roots stretching themselves to drink its nectar. I talked to my best friend, I went to a master class and my soul is full of wonder again.

The happiness is so contagious, I would like to erase all my wallowing posts (yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that . . . ), except the sunshine reaches out to them too telling me it's all okay. Everything is fine. Everything is part of the living, wild green experience with light and dark, not to be feared, but to be embraced and enjoyed.

Listening to Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas today, I couldn't keep the dance out. It grabbed me like the sunshine, speaking new possibilities and enjoyments to be had. They connected me with my inner dancer, the living musician--the one who doesn't give a hoot in a hollow oak tree what anyone thinks about her steps.

I want to live here forever . . . not to let go of my roots, or forget my place among the trees, but to drink it all in until I am drunken with joy. I will have my fingers in, around and through Ysaye, Paganini and Bach today. This is substantial soil from which to grow a musician when fed by equal parts rain and sun.

I'm off to plant myself in the practice room!

Bob the Pharmicist and Spiritual Awakenings

2011-09-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

"Confidence is the consolation prize for the less gifted" he told me. I'm afraid I wore the "scared violin player way out of my league" t-shirt with blazing neon glow-in-the-dark luster. I wasn't sure if I was ever going to be ready to play for my violin heroes, Ms. Sherry Kloss, Mr. Aaron Rosand and Mr. Joseph Silverstein, and the first person to talk to me during my stay at the symposium proved to be the most important. By day, he's an unassuming retired pharmacist, but Bob is also a gifted violinist. I mentioned worrying about playing for Mr. Rosand the next day because I was sure to be unimpressive. Bob responded to my fears "What, you think Mr. Rosand never heard a violinist before? It's what he does.  He listens to all kinds of violinists all the time, and he'll listen to you just like he listened to them."

What he said meant a great deal, as did his kind words later on, letting me know he believed in me and that I had the ability to make beautiful music. He taught me lessons about responsibility. Responsibility is everything in life, he told me. It is the way we live up to our responsibilities that defines who we are and what we become.

He and Sherry inspired me to want to reach deep.  The first step into the darkness is a recital on 11/11/11. I've entitled it "One". It will feature Bach's first Sonata, Ysaye's third Sonata (because it's the only one with just one movement), Mark O'Connor's first caprice, Paganini's first caprice and the premiere of the first piece I ever wrote. It is all unaccompanied (one soloist), and, as one of those interesting coincidences, I am the oldest of eleven living children.

I felt I should be able to do this. I've done what's been asked of me. Only, it's not enough.

Last night I performed a Jenny Oaks Baker arrangement of a song out of the children's songbook called "My Heavenly Father Loves Me." I worked hard to make certain I had not overlooked any phrasing, that each note was absolutely and completely in tune, and I took many pains to ensure the best musical outcome. The piece was well-conceived and practiced, but even so, rarely do I have a fumble of this magnitude. It was one measure, and I know it was only one measure, but it didn't matter.

I felt so small. So helpless. All the work, the hours, the scales, tenths, harmonic minor thirds seemed like a breath in cold air--only a fleeing mist engulfed by the cold.

Here I am. My lungs heavy, each breath pulling them outwards to be released in a final gravity, laid bare. The other organs protest this mutiny, pleading with my brain to gain control, but it is focused on the red jacket I've left on the seat--must grab the red jacket and exit quickly. The cacophony of this anarchy is broken by a tingling sensation in my fingers, the rogue appendages I want to forget, and the electric current surfaces in a trickle down the side of my face. Walking neatly out of the room with my red jacket in hand, the turmoil which will not be silenced seems an ironic accompaniment.  It wants me to know I owe them. I owe all of them. My heart beating rhythm, my lungs leading phrases, my fingers slaving with callouses. As tears surface, they beat together, asking for reconciliation.  I am still, sitting in the car with my arms wrapped around myself feeling human.

I'm left with one conclusion: there are a lot of violinists who are so much better than I am.

Then I think of Bob: "confidence is the consolation prize of the less-gifted" and his even more prescient counsel about my responsibility to do what I can regardless.

What can I do? I move my arm across metal strings that causes vibrations to enter and exit a wood box. My fingers wobble and depress the strings. My mind's ear struggles to hear a distant music. I hear Nathan Milstein play Bach and feel comforted. Heaven lives in those hands. The Brahms Violin Concerto in Heifetz' hands calls every cell to attention, tingling with living. Sidney Harth's Ballade reaches my soul and calls it forth. My spirit set free, it desires only to sing!

Maybe there is still some youthfulness in me that seeks to believe in a world where playing the violin can remind people they have a soul.  The daily affairs of life can deafen us to the worth and infinite potential of our spirit. It languishes amidst neglect. I believe it is the place, the burden and the responsibility of music to remind us of our spirit and let us gaze on eternal things.

Despite the recognition of my human frailties, and the prospect of only more failure to follow, knowing my responsibility, I cannot turn my face. It is set on eternal things and the potential for even those of us subject to human woes and mistakes to do spiritual work.

What in the World? It's [not really] Captain America!!!

2011-09-21T17:57:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with me!!?! and why don't I keep my mouth shut?!? . . . "lay it all on the line", "no excuses", "supreme moment," blah blah blah blah blah and yadda yadda yadda too. Nice platitutes, but what in the world are these ridiculous descending sixths interspersed with tenths on the fourth page of the Ballade!!!? In like, eighth position too! Here's the thing--nice to talk about, another thing to DO. But there I am today, battling it out note by note. It was so slow-going. I am embarassed to admit how slow.

The other day I found this new button on my design display called "stats." It was a revelation. All this time I've been thinking there are about two people reading this drivel I use to convince myself to keep getting out of bed every day for more big violin work. It turns out, I have a readership! And some of you are located all over the world! Humbling. Thank you readership. :) (Excuse me while I go put on my Sunday dress . . . )

Heh hemmm . . . as I was saying. Ysaye had me in the grip of near despair. I was dangling over a ledge of doom with nothing but blackness underneath waiting to swallow me alive, when, at the last possible second, who should appear but . . . . uh . . . . ummm . . . just a sec . . . I know someone must have appeared . . . let me check my notes . . . is that a C#? . . . ah yes! Sevcik to the rescue! Alas, it was not Captain America, who would have absolutely no ability to help with Ysaye anyway (but, it would be okay with me if Captain America ever decided to show up in my practice session--maybe his sheild would deflect poor intonation).

In this case, Sevick was of little more help than Spiderman in the third movie when he loses his powers. Today I found myself very much alone, unfortunately. It was a dirty fight, just me and those blasted sixths. Even though this amounts to a terrible pun, I don't mind saying I was hanging on by my fingertips for dear life!

So here it is world: maybe I won't be able to get it done in time. I might fail. Big time. In grand fashion. Like, tripping over your six inch platform heels in the middle of fashion week "fail." Like stumbling over your shoelaces while in the middle of making steaming hot risotto and spilling it on Chef Ramsay "fail." Like forgetting your decimals while working on Bill Gates' tax return "fail."

In the west this is what is known as: Go big or go home. Extreme violin. Here comes danger girl a.k.a. house mommy bread baking mormon violin player and I'm officially in the market for one Captain America costume . . .

I just hope there's a bungee cord at the end of this fall.

Good Vibrations

2011-09-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

How good it was to play today . . . the Presto is encouraging, and almost learned. The Fuga is coming, not memorized, but nearly in the fingers. I made it through the Adagio on a metronome. I am eeking my way through Paganini and made it through page five of the Ballade. Okay, so most of it is a big mess, but I will take the five pages.

I love my scales. I am honing in on two technical weaknesses using scales as a template. Working my way through arpeggios, three octaves, one octaves, thirds, fourths, sixths, tenths, and fingered octaves of C# Major today, I was simultaneously paying attention to the motion of my left hand, the placement of my left thumb and the tension in my left hand.

Earlier this past weekend, I watched a random youtube video about Chopin's unequal tuning. I don't think I completely understood the depth of intonation until I heard how powerful the overtones of a piano are when tuned in unequal tuning. Those overtones are normally suppressed because of the equal temperament tuning of modern pianos. It doesn't take much to hear the difference when someone plays on a piano tuned unequally, the way Chopin or Beethoven's piano would have been tuned.

As I thought about the concept further, I came to understand the power I have within my fingertips when I am listening carefully enough to bring out the overtones of the violin through intonation. I do believe this is one of the secrets of the art of violin playing. The great players are masters of controlling overtones. They maximize the resonance of the instrument through intonation. Intonation is more than being "in tune." It is activating the soundboard to create the most favorable vibrations which elicit resonance. The beauty of Heifetz' vibrato is within this principle too--he was able to cause fluctuation in the note without destroying the center of the pitch, creating a focused sound. He was able to enhance each note without suppressing resonance. The last word in "good vibration."

The Beach Boys must have been his fans . . .

What's Your Excuse?

2011-09-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks have been swallowed up by a beauty pageant. Ugh. It feels like sacrilege to even utter those words on this blog. As much as I would like to speak to why I hope this space is diametrically in opposition to the essence of beauty pageants, what I would like even more is not to.

When my daughter came home telling me she had entered her school's pageant, I supported her, feeling it would be a good performance opportunity and a chance to hone interviewing skills. The coils of pageant-mom-itis slithered their way slowly, inching their way past basic reason until they strangled me into a sixteen-hour rhinestone sewing vigil, which turned out to be just the "tip of the tiara." The crown underneath was strewn with daily back-and-forth trips to the mall and goodwill stores, nightly sewing marathons until 4 a.m., random ambush interviewing and mini-arguments over talent piece selection.

Girls here in the South take their pageantry seriously. They easily spend $500+ on an evening gown for a competition. Being absolutely and totally unwilling to spend that kind of money on a dress which would otherwise be spent on something worthwhile (like bows, rosin, generators, string trimmers, scuba diving gear, nylon ropes and poetry anthologies), I made the decision to sew the evening gown myself. I remember leaving JoAnn's very happy with the fabric and my idea of what the dress would look like, knowing I would have complete control over all the details of the fit, the shape, the design, the color. I believe this is what is commonly known as hubris, of which I've been endowed an ample supply.

It may have been on my third or fourth attempt with the muslin pattern that the first symptoms of pageant mom mania made their appearance. Frantic that just making a pattern had already eaten up seven hours of my day, you would think my response would have been something like wailing, begging for cash or plunging my sorrows into a sugar-binge. Instead, it stoked the fire of obsession, the spark being determination that regardless of personal sacrifice, my daughter was going to be as beautiful as any of the other daughters on that stage!!!! Endless picking out of seams ensued.

True to form, Southerners like to start 'em young. Each contestant was required to ask a little girl to come up on stage with them during the evening gown competition (knowing when people get restless of the interminable evening gowns, they're happy to oooh and ahhh over cute little girls trying to curtsie on stage). With the scrap fabric, I sewed a matching gown for my youngest daughter to accompany her older sister, which required another sewing rampage. All in all, for at least 10 days strait, I got no more than 4 hours of sleep while working on pageanting from the crack of dawn until, well, the crack of dawn. My usual healthy eating went into the toilet and I think I might have showered twice during my sewing "wake". I became a zombie, which interested my thriller-loving boys (girls in pageants might have far better luck if they were to come on stage looking like a zombie brandishing a chainsaw).

Though I could barely think strait, my mind kept wandering to the recital I have planned, the terrible status of every piece on the program and the fact that most of them are not even halfway learned. It would have been nice for me to maintain some semblance of balance throughout the process in order to gracefully prioritize and give each task its due. Yet, even armed with intelligence about the way I should handle it, I was unable to extract myself from the pull of the pageant tractor beam. There was no end to my excess.

It was worth every minute, every second, every frustration. My daughter was gorgeous. I was so proud of her. She did not win, but she played her violin beautifully. To me, it was a complete and unquestionable victory, only furthering my suspicions about the intellect of the average pageant judge. My normally adamant tomboy youngest daughter loved her dress and decided she likes pageants based upon the gift-bag she received for the price of a curtsie, kiss and wave onstage.

And here I am, post-pageant scrambling to make up for lost time. I thought about giving up and throwing in the towel, but there is a gnawing resolution in me. It's deeper down than quitting. Whatever the task, setbacks are part of the deal. They're always part of the deal. It's a given.

Hanging in the balance is whether or not I use the setbacks as excuses--do I hide behind some big hair and an expensive gown, or am I willing to lay it all on the line?

Sadly, I'll admit to blaming poor performance on all sorts of challenges, from insufficient instruments, to bad rehair jobs, to inadequate practice time and motherhood. Commitment to see a job through without excuse is not one of my strong points, but I believe weak things may become strong. I believe in breaking down old habits and rebuilding. Win or lose, you've got to get on the stage and carry out what you started.

Maybe I won't have a store-bought gown, pageantry experience and modeling lessons, but I hope I will be just like my daughter and get on the stage with a smile nonetheless. She was beautiful.

I will do my best. That is what I will do. For that, there needn't be any excuse. Excuse me while I go work on Ysaye . . .

Hinayi

2011-08-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

This morning I found myself in a frantic search for the music I played while at the Jascha Heifetz Symposium. I finally found it "filed" in my not-so-meticulous filing system on the shelf in between some photocopies of Locatelli and the IMSLP Lekeu Sonata. There was no particular reason to find it, except I remembered I forgot where it was. There, in Ms. Skorodin's handwriting was "THINK", but on the top of my Tor Aulin Concerto was another phrase I had completely forgotten. This, in Ms. Kloss' handwriting, was "Hinayi" or "here I am."

I have put a huge challenge in front of myself. I am preparing to give an unaccompanied recital including the Ballade, the Bach Sonata #1 and the Paganini Caprice #1 among other things. Honestly, I feel inadequate. I am doing everything I can, but in the back of my mind are those doubts I'm not supposed to talk about. I feel alone and worried.

Ms. Kloss put "Hinayi" at the top of my concerto to remind me to assume "presence" when playing. The Tor Aulin is a noble piece with stature and presence. Today, however, those words took on a different meaning.

Reading "Hinayi" amidst my doubts, worries and fears, made me smile. So maybe I'm not alone. Today, Ms. Kloss says, on the top of my music: "here I am" and that's just what I needed to know.

"Hinayi" also turns me outwards. I don't know what all this means--all this moving my arm across a wooden box, but I do believe in the music and that it serves a purpose. What else can I say when the time I am needed arrives but "here I am."

If any other violinists happen along, I have a similar message--here I am. (And, keep going!)

My Glamorous Closet Life

2011-08-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

All of my six followers are either my best friends or family members. My readership is a loyal bunch, driven to peruse the meanderings of my mind out of duty and/or concern for my well-being (Christians seeking to live their religion by looking out for the least, the desperate and confused). Most of them don't even play the violin, so I wonder and worry about their reading experience. Do they gloss through the words strewn all over the page and look for key phrases like "going insane" or "thought I might cut a hole through the wall with a chainsaw" or "hacking up untold amounts of phlegm?" Whatever the motivation, I am truly moved by the lengths my friends will go to keep me on the strait and narrow. Thanks guys.

You have my permission to skip to the end and I promise not to bring this post up in any of our casual conversations to find out if you're really my friend or just a fake follower. The rest is sure to put you to sleep, knock you unconscious or induce a comatose not experienced since High School Chemistry class.

Today I chronicle a day in the dazzling, glamorous life of a closet violinist--how it goes, what I do, how I plead with my fingers to cooperate and how many times I bang my head against the wood floor while I sort out why I'm banging my head against the floor.

My mornings usually go by in a blur: get-up-go-take-dog-jogging-get-kids-lunches-get-kids-off-to-school-get-other-kids-off-to-seminary-go-pick-kids-up-from-seminary-take-them-to-school-take-cold-shower-at-speed-of-light-feed-dog-clean-tornado-left-in-kitchen-by-kids'-breakfast-feed-dog-take-dog-to-bathroom*again!*-see-what-remains-from-breakfast-and-eat-leftovers. When that blows over, I start with warm ups.

Trills: I start with five minutes of trills per finger. I try to even it out, doing trills in all the upper positions on all strings with each finger. So, when I'm working on fourth finger trills, I might start out on the E string in first position and then go up to fifth position and then I might go over to the A in eighth position and then back down into second etc.. The purpose is to strengthen my fingers. As time has gone on and my fingers can handle more, I have noticed all sorts of other uses for this exercise. For one, since it's a very long, slow bow, it's perfect for practicing legato (while strengthening fingers at the same time). For another, I practice finger pressure. I alternate loud and soft, keeping the finger pressure the same (light but definite fingers). I also concentrate on finger articulation and intonation. I have recently added "Urstudien" by Carl Flesch to my stamina regimen.

Scales: This varies. Sometimes I use Hrimaly, choose one exercise and read it all the way through. I consider Sevcik Op. 1 parts 1-4 as part of scale study as well. Today, I warmed up with three octaves scales with the metronome (three to a bow, six to a bow, twelve, twenty-four). Then, I did some one and two octave scales on the G string. Arpeggios, Thirds, Sixths and fingered octaves follow. These are all in a state of varying degrees of mastery. Some of them are not so good (fingered octaves), and others are better. Even though I've been playing the same scales for years, there's always something new to work on.

Etudes: (usually Kreutzer). I have played Rode, Fiorillo, Campagnoli, Gavinies, Dont, but my favorite of all the violin etudes is Kreutzer. I have played the etudes in that book more times than I can count, but I still haven't mastered them. It seems like they always offer a new challenge depending on what I come to the exercise wanting to learn. I am working #23, #9, #1 and #2. You get a gold star if you can tell me what weakness I am trying to isolate. :-)

When I'm done with the warm-up, I start on the pieces I'm learning or reviewing. Since I'm preparing for a recital and most of the material is new, I don't really have review per-se.

Bach--today, as most days, I start with Bach. Sonata #1, Presto movement. I set my metronome at 60 (half speed) and tried to play through the first half perfectly by memory. That includes absolutely dead-on intonation, no squeaks, stray string sounds, crunches, no muddy fingers, perfectly executed bowing, block fingering etc.. It was a battle. I was being very picky with myself and I held myself to "perfect." You would think this might be an easy thing to achieve at half-speed. It took me two hours before I could produce it all the way through perfectly just once. I get SO tempted to quit and move on. I always feel like I'm burning valuable practice time, but I know this is the best way to get the piece in my fingers, so I continue until I can do it correctly beginning to end. OH! Something important: when I'm doing this, quite often I will have a mistake near the beginning (which makes me feel like I want to hurl something heavy and metal across the room--this is where banging my head on the floor comes in). I don't allow myself to quit and start over. I make myself go all the way to the end every time. No matter how big the mistake, I plow through as if nothing happened. Practicing like this is important since performing is often, like golf, a game of recovery.

When I can play it perfectly at half speed, either I increase the tempo or I try to do it twice in a row perfectly. I continue to ratchet up the speed as I am able to play the section or piece through perfectly. It sounds much easier than it is. The best way to learn to play perfectly is by playing perfectly . . .

After that, Paganini would not be denied. I chose a few sections to master. I mostly spent time on the four ascending tenths and the ascending scales in thirds. I also went through it slowly at half speed for the first half. Yesterday was a much bigger Paganini day than today (because I spent so LONG on the blasted Presto). Of course, while I'm working on this, I'm also correcting the small things--I'm noticing finger pressure, bow speed and bow division, posture, bow hold etc.. I'm constantly evaluating and thinking about what I'm doing and coming up with ways to make it better (this is usually where the pleading comes in). When I am working through a section I know, I will also work for phrasing, vibrato, rubato and all the details of making a work musical (unfortunately I didn't have any of that kind of fun today as I am still paying heavy taxes to Lord Metronome).

Finally came the Ballade. I had visions of having the first three pages learned by today, but unfortunately, by the close of the day, I have a rough version of the first two pages. I made myself play through the whole two pages without stopping (I usually only take out my "let's sight-read Ysaye" when I'm desperate to get my kids to do their chores--the punitive value of bad violin playing is still undisputed). Then I went back to the spots needing the most work (*hint* every single one involved a nasty shift). So, it was me on the slides today. While I hate to put a damper on the excitement of slides, I should clarify these are not the Kindergarten variety. They do not make me go "wheeeeee!" I practiced the shift up to the double stop with first finger on the B (preceded by the open G and D) and then the next one with first finger on the D about 50 times each in order to finally get it three times in a row. I don't allow myself to cheat even when I bang my head on the floor or bribe myself with thoughts of chili-pepper infused dark chocolate.

After that I was tired and decided to write on my blog for a while before I seriously need to make sure dinner is in the oven. (I know!? How can dinner compare to Ysaye? . . . I think this is where my husband might chime in "especially your dinners" and then I pretend to get my feelings hurt in order to storm off and buy myself a few more minutes working on one of the ascending scales of thirds in Paganini).

While it's only a partial glimpse into the glamorous closet life I lead, it approximates the high points and gives my six followers an opportunity to critique my practice habits and/or feel even more concerned about the direness of my situation (woman wasting her life away in the practice room, whittling away at dream which adds little value to the world . . . though perhaps slightly more than devoting myself to being the first person to successfully clip my toenails and fingernails at the same time). Day in, day out, I struggle, I fight, I battle, I suffer. Yes, it's a tortured (yet glamorous) existence I lead . . . *sobbing forlornly, using acting skills to exit stage right and disappear into the closet to steal a few more minutes with Paganini*

The Readiness is All

2011-08-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

The Ballade is a BEAST!! *panting* !!!!!!!!!! *deep breath* !!!!!!!! *sigh* !!!!!

It is so far out of the realm of my usual maxim: "hmmm . . . I really underestimated this piece" that I'm seriously contemplating taking out a life insurance policy against the event I should invoke a heart-attack mid double-stop. I'm not sure it will be ready for my recital.

This summer, I read what has become a favorite book--Jascha Heifetz: Through My Eyes by Sherry Kloss. She speaks to the question gnawing at my soul as I work through the Ballade (and pretty much everything else I play): What does "being ready" really mean? She describes the way Mr. Heifetz drove up in his silver Bentley, ascended the stairs, entered the classroom at the end of the hallway, admitted his students to the classroom greeting them with "good morning" and a piercing all-knowing gaze, and finally, when he was ready to begin, asking "Who's ready?"

I was stunned by the question "Who's ready?" In my heart I never felt ready. I became involved in an intellectual struggle to understand what "being ready" meant. When is one ready? How is one ready? Can anything ever be "ready" to present to Jascha Heifetz? Defining the word was to become, for me, a pervasive philosophical question like, "What's life all about?" or "Why do we exist?" The question "When am I ready?" would haunt me for many years. (Kloss 10)

Reading this excerpt is like hearing an echo, except I haven't answered the question. This summer I met Ms. Kloss in person. She smiled as I played Tor Aulin's Concerto no. 3 for her, first complaining I wasn't ready to play it (even though I played it for her anyway). I didn't feel ready. I felt overwhelmed by the piece. Less overwhelmed, however, than I am by this new challenge, which begs the question why, when that experience should have taught me to be more careful about the challenges I take on, do I take on an even greater challenge? I must enjoy failure. That is the only explanation.

Later on in the book she describes an intense moment with Heifetz after being put on the spot and having to play something in class with no time to prepare:

I stood up, unpacked my instrument, and played the "Chopin/Sarasate B-flat Nocturne", which I had read through as a possible piece for class before leaving on tour. After the last note, he said, "Not bad," and began to get up from behind his desk. This usually meant he was planning to make some suggestions for fingering or phrasing, or that he would demonstrate a few notes. Still in the midst of my philosophical struggle, I blurted out, "It's just that I don't know when something is ready." Mr. Heifetz looked at me with his large, probing eyes and responded in a tone of voice that let the whole class know he was perturbed. "Well, Sherry, if you don't know, then perhaps you had better take up another profession. Class dismissed." (Kloss 24)

She speaks about the lesson she learned from this experience, and her eventual decision not to reveal, at least in words, self-doubt, though Mr. Heifetz knew his students well enough to percieve their feelings anyway.

The book is rife with illustrations of ways Mr. Heifetz helped his students become "ready" to embrace the challenge of being a performing artist. Ms. Kloss mentions example after example of being put "on the spot." Having to learn a Paganini Caprice by memory in one day, or the Brahms concerto in a weekend, for instance. I was inspired to follow the legacy, which means putting myself to the test. So far, after four days work on the Ballade (and the other pieces I will be playing), I am battling the "ready" question, feeling myself a poor inheritance for my minutemen progenitors (yes, I'm a blueblood--my ancestors were ready at a moment's notice for that skirmish we had with the British).

Somewhere amidst the dense chromaticism, my fingers performing acrobatics, I become enveloped in

the music-- its haunted and searching sway. It elicits a crisp fog, thick with morning dew outside a graveyard where gravediggers banter over what constitutes a Christian burial, and Fortinbras is on the march. The tokens of life are being catalogued and evaluated . . . even Yorick's skull finds its way into Hamlet's hands, evoking flashes of merriment, now but a shadow amidst the fog. As the mounting apparitions of life descend into cadence, the sun is on the horizon. Nothing will delay its journey or slow its climb. Obscured behind the clouds, yet the earth continues its whirling dance leaving seasons, years, generations, eras in its wake, and Hamlet is in the graveyard protracting the moment of rest beyond the measure's length. Soon he will stand and face his music--the song that accompanies the waltzing earth. My fingers begin to break it forth, but with hesitation. The time is come, and I don't even know if I know the notes! But the dread brother of a king enters unannounced, if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

Ysaye wrote the Ballade in the early post World War I years--the neutral Belgian, from a land where Flander's fields unearthed a tragedy to leave the world forever changed. As the German armies were on the brink of taking all of France, general Joffre of the French army understood the "supreme moment" had arrived. He said "Gentleman, we will fight on the Marne." From Barbara Tuchman's book The Guns of August:

Ordinarily the French language, especially in public pronouncements, requires an effort if it is not to sound splendid, but this time the words were flat, almost tired; the message hard and uncompromising: "Now, as the battle is joined on which the safety of the country depends, everyone must be reminded that this is no longer the time for looking back. Every effort must be made to attack and throw back the enemy. A unit which finds it impossible to advance must, regardless of cost, hold its ground and be killed on the spot rather than fall back. In the present circumstances no failure will be tolerated." That was all; the time for splendor was past. It did not shout "Forward!" or summon men to glory. (Tuchman 434)

History would remember that day as the "Miracle of the Marne."

It was recounted by Kluck (commander of the German army) afterwards: "`that men will let themselves be killed where they stand, that is a well-known thing and counted on in every plan of battle. But that men who have retreated for ten days, sleeping on the ground and half-dead with fatigue, should be able to take up their rifles and attack when the bugle sounds, is a thing upon which we never counted. It was a possibility not studied in our war academy.'"(Tuchman 436)

Beyond the cliche phrase "Do or Die", I have trouble summoning words to describe what I take from that. "Ready" is not the issue. The issue is do or don't. Every day is a gift of possible action. When the supreme moment arrives, the second-guessing must be dispensed with and the inner fighter must arise. No failure will be tolerated.

The Ballade will be accomplished step by step, decision by decision, action by action. Whether I am up to the challenge, or whether I will be ready has nothing to do with the task. If I am to play a piece written in the wake of so much sacrifice, I must concentrate on action. There is no neutral ground. Do or don't. If it's going to the piano a thousand times to check notes, or playing through the run of alternating sixths and fourths in triplet succession slowly with the metronome one hundred times without stumbling, I have to do whatever it takes to prepare myself for the supreme moment. When I step on the stage, the second-guessing and self doubts must be entirely replaced by the will to act. When the bow touches the string, there can be no hesitation.

THINK

2011-08-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

My dog and I run together in the mornings. We're basically past the confusion stage in which we become a tangled mess every few seconds. We moved through the distracted-at-every-turn phase and are now holding steady with dog-seeks-to-attain-freedom-through-strategem. Unable to chase after the armadillos, snakes and deer in our path with me yanking the leash, Tally has realized her four legs are faster than my two, and if she hurries ahead she has enough time to grab the stick/leaf/piece of debris and/or deer excrement in our path before I catch up or tighten the slack. Tally is a four-legged-mouth-grabbing-fiend. The powers of her mouth exceed (or at least match) Oprah's.

It's interesting to see how quickly she's moved from distracted, responsive behavior to well-crafted, intentioned doggy action. I love to look in her big eyes and see her mind working. For a dog, perhaps it's instinctive. For me, intentioned action doesn't come easily.

I cannot count the hours of mindlessness that have added to the brain atrophy begun about the time I gave birth to my first child. Usually this involves household activities such as doing the dishes, laundry, mending (though I highly advise against middle-of-the-night sewing when your brain is dead--I have two prominent scars on my fingers to testify to the perils of mindless sewing).

I wonder when I learned this "going through motions while my brain is unplugged" skill? I'm pretty sure "The Dukes of Hazzard" was involved at some point. While my Dad and brothers laughed along with Boss Hog, acquiring laser focus every time Daisy walked on screen, there was nothing to keep my brain from totally checking out. After that, it was a steep slippery slope towards listening to parental lectures with glazed nodding and getting lost while practicing the same five measures the same way while lying on my floor looking at the flies in the lamp. Limbo. And I'm not talking about the party game variety. I am master of limbo land and have learned through many years of limbo navigation not to travel there while walking, talking or eating pizza.

It's not a bad place, really. The distractions are plentiful. Lotus-eater amenities with all the comforts of not having to be engaged in, well, anything. Brain vacation. Unfortunately, while you're in a fantasized stand-still, everything around you is changing, and you start to slip . . . and then fall. If you want to run and stop getting tangled in a mess every five seconds, eventually you have to stop checking out and USE YOUR BRAIN.

It seems like a concept I should have caught onto right away when Elaine Skorodin (of great violin fame) wrote "THINK" in huge capital letters at the top of every sheet of music I brought with me to the Jascha Heifetz Symposium this summer, but no, my brain was cooking up better adventures. For the performance, it wandered far away from the notes and who knows where it went. My guess is it was thinking "uh oh, here's that part again--watch me screw it up! Ta daaa!!" And then I did. I should feel comforted my brain is so obedient. At least it knows how to be successful.

Time to put it to better uses. "As a man thinketh, so is he" is a long-lost teaching. Though I try to hedge against conspiracy-theory laden fire-alarm worry, it concerns me to notice the trend towards mindlessness. School has become a rote exercise instead of a journey of discovery. Rather than elaborate on what should be alarming to any thinking person, I will confine myself to discussing my own tangled mess.

Though it's not my purpose to acquire Tally's formidable mouth skills, I notice the way she is able to maneuver, to grow and learn through applying her intellect. For my own part, if I want to develop the hands, arms, legs, eyes, ears, etc. I've been given for the richest and deepest purposes, I must guard against the imposing temptation of distraction, focus my intentions and wait for the results to grow. Every practice must be centered around objective analysis and evaluative thinking. I must conquer mindlessness and replace it with self-mastered focus. Ask me in about two days how I'm managing . . .

For the time being, my THINK is centered on the Ysaye Sonata #3 (Ballade) to play in an upcoming recital. I have about two months to learn it. I am prepared, but the word "ambitious" doesn't really capture what I'm asking of myself here. It borders on "what were you thinking?" Believe me, I am truly humbled by the piece. Just to play the notes will require absolute attention and super-human focus. Yesterday I went to the piano about five times to check notes. I never have to check notes. But, Ysaye's work is not easily attained--sixths followed by fourths in triplet succession (some major and some minor sixths) as it ascends a scale (I still need to figure out what mode the scale is in--it's not major on the tonic, that's for sure!). The further I get in dissecting the piece, the easier it gets to decipher what to do about it. Rather than just a rote exercise of hunting and pecking, I have a reasoned idea about the music I'm creating. Ysaye is building tension by ascending the scale with alternating major and minor tonalities. When it breaks free, descending in minor, the release is epic--a release in minor descention. Brilliant. It textures what comes next, which is more alternation of major and minor tonality with extensive use of the incredibly tense ninth chord. (Oh how I love nine chords. I think I was born with a nine chord in my heart).

My fingers are too tense on the double-stop triplets. It's as if I think by plowing my fingers into the fingerboard it will increase my accuracy, when the opposite is true. Today I must think while lowering the fingers, as slowly as possible, so my mind can control my reflexes--that my mind may rule over my reflexes. This is how I will keep out of a tangled mess of notes. It's a tight wire Ysaye asks me to walk. Veer too far one way or the other and his music becomes a garbled disaster. This piece is the ultimate violinistic challenge of orderly, reasoned and intentioned thinking.

Honestly, I don't know if I have it in me. But, I'm also unsure if perhaps this is what I'm meant to do. So commences the journey!

THINK is more powerful than we guess. Intentioned, reasoned action is everything. It determines what we become.

Messy Closet

2011-02-17T11:03:00.000-08:00

A mess has been brewing inside this closet. While I've been silent, the neat stacks of clothes have been overrun with wildly strewn inside-out pants and shirts, months of mail and candy wrappers. Once I realized what was going on in there, it was too late. I was submerged in an avalanche of ephemera.

Putting myself back together came one step at a time. Picking through long-lost articles, rummaging through old socks and throwing out the clutter lead me strait to the bare bones of my closet. Who am I? Who do I want to be? All the pieces were surrounding me, but it was a puzzle to reorder them.

When I was done, I had to laugh at myself. It's not the first time and it won't be the last time I notice my closet becoming a heap of non-directedness. So, it's a never-ending process. One of those "endure to the end" issues.

Near the bottom of the pile, I discovered myself once again and decided it was time to get to work. That was a miracle actually.

The miracle goes something like this: alienated woman playing music that is a dying artform on an outdated instrument tries desperately to figure out why she decided to involve herself in this particular mess. (I mean, there were clothes all over the place, and I personally know the derriere that wore those Aeropostale jeans lying in the corner) It's not like I'm limited to violin. There's a huge world of all sorts of interests in it, and I'm interested in all of it. I like science fiction novels, downhill skiing, calligraphy, history, sales, promotion, marketing, E8 model of the universe, climbing trees, reading poetry, dutch-oven cooking and I'm fairly certain I could be interested in Prada, Rodarte and Lanvin too. So I have to say, as I was calmly looking through all the remnants of who I've fashioned myself to be and I saw this violin laying over there in the corner, I wondered at myself for choosing this particular interest. In fact, I gave myself a good talking to and wondered if this was the moment to chart a new course under the banner "What's the Point?"

Justifications were useless against the assault from the piles of garbage in the closet. Come now--you don't seriously believe you're just going to give up your family life to go drum up a music career? A wadded up paper stuffed behind some shoes, and old note from another violinist, read "you're a mommy, you don't seriously think of yourself as a professional?" Stains on concert dresses, discarded programs all yelling "You're Not Good Enough! Stop Wasting Your Time!" at peak volume. Ceremoniously, I threw out the trash, put the dirty clothes in the hamper, but it wasn't until I reached an old 5k medal that things reached fever pitch. My burning lungs, sick stomach, rubbery legs and elation afterwards are still with me every time I see my medals. This particular medal ended up in the closet to be forgotten and not even missed. Still, I kept it--not as a badge of honor or star on my forhead, but because to be reminded of the nausea and spaghetti legs makes me feel like I really lived. And there was my miracle. I remembered who I am. I am a woman of paradox. I invest myself in a dying artform because it makes me feel ALIVE, and it's bliss. Even if the dying artform is shoved in a corner to be forgotten, when I dust it off and play, I remind people what it feels like to be alive.

When I was finished cleaning, I surveyed what once was my mess. Everything was still there--the mommy, the seamstress, the fashion designer, the runner, the skier, the nerd, the musician, the composer--it's all in there. So, I'm okay with keeping center for a while, knowing why I do what I do, and looking at the components making it work. Happy to have my classical roots, but the music I make from here on out is going to reflect the human being I am--kids, books, the West, God and all. It's going to be music that lives.

This is my closet, my music. Now that I've cleaned up and evaluated the mess, I'm satisfied--even with the mess. It's my piece of the interesting world with endless surprises and never-ending messes. God bless it!

Healing Cocoon

2011-01-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

For whatever reason, most of my spiritual lessons are taught through physical difficulty. It's as if God ran my nerve endings right into my soul where they collide and struggle for balance.  In the middle of this place is where Art lives. Whether my current health predicament arose from struggles in my soul, or whether my soul is getting a wake-up call from my health struggles isn't the vital question to Art. The question that matters is what will I create while I'm here?

The idea of "creating" goes against logic. No one really "creates." Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. We order things. We take parts of matter as it exists and we reorder it.  I'm taking this latest health challenge as a memo from my innards that they need a re-order. I'm only working with the parts I have, but they were a-ok on arrival, and I think they have some life left in them.

The first order of business is a thorough clean.  This isn't my first cleanse or detox, but this is the most dramatic. I'm on the third day of "The Master Cleanse."  Basically, you eat nothing for ten days, supplying yourself with needed nutrients from a mixture of fresh-squeezed lemons, pure maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper.  Lemonade for ten days . . . hmmm . . we'll see how this reorders things. I might be creating more havoc, but when I surveyed my choices, lemonade looked a lot less invasive than surgery, so I'm giving it a whirl.

I cannot describe the discipline it requires to chug-a-lug on a quart of salt-water every morning while my family feasts on eggs and cheerios, nor do I wish to describe the after effects. But, somewhere in this jittery, fatigued, headache-filled fast, I was welcomed into the home of Art. I climbed into a "healing cocoon" and started listening to myself again. Without a good connection between the nerve endings, the soul and God, I go about my creative life re-ordering things in a way that causes disruption. While I'm in the cocoon, I hope to re-establish the connection and get a firm grip on what I should be creating.

Like a caterpillar spinning its silken cocoon, I do not know what will become of me. I believe God gave me a miracle as beautiful as the perfectly timed metamorphosis of a caterpillar. My body is capable of healing itself for as long as I need to be here. I am capable of miracles. How could God create something less than He is? Unfortunately, I am often too deaf to listen and too blind to see. Wrapped up in the daily struggle to cleanse myself has alerted the nerve endings connected to my soul that other cleansing is needed.

I need to let go of the toxins in my mind, the negative feelings about myself and others that erodes my health and happiness.  I need to accept with gratitude each cell working in my behalf, and all the many people in my life who challenge and help me grow. I need to accept my body as a continual cocoon in which the struggle for balance will never be achieved, but through which I learn and accept the process. Like the caterpillar, I don't know what I'll be when I finish (I'm only a co-creator), but I know every breath I take is part of the creation. I am becoming. Just "being" doesn't cut it in this life. Time is involved. Choices are involved. I am a little caterpillar struggling to become, and I put my faith in making choices to follow Jesus Christ who covered the distance I could not manage on my own knowing the place where Art/creation and change lives belongs to Him.

Program Notaphobia

2010-10-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

After I scooped what remained of my skin off the sidewalk of my recent faceplant, I gathered myself together and composed my Fall 2011 recital program. This requires me to do a variety of tasks including writing program notes to submit with recital applications. While in the middle of furious typing, a friend asked me to write some program notes for her son's upcoming recital as well. I think my facebook post that day read something like: "I never ever want a job writing program notes. The adjectives alone are enough to give your brain a tan." I later took the post down realizing my friend might feel guilty she'd asked me to do something akin to poking out my eyeballs. My eyeballs are worth the cathartic agony for her sake, however.

Later I saw this blog post mentioned on another friend's facebook wall and it occurred to me my destined moment in history had now arrived. So, to the tens of ten people who read my blog, I am now posting my own Program Note Manifesto.

Mr. Denk aptly describes the deadly sins of program note writing (all of which my own notes flagrantly demonstrate at a virtuosic level). I found humor and kinship in his dark train of thought (something about program notes being like a chloroform rag) feeling the true culprit is far more insidious than mere historicization or domestication. Yes indeed. The problem, as I see it, is the entire idea of including program notes in the first place.

To set forth my case, I give you exhibit A: concert I blew $25 bucks on. The players and instruments shall remain nameless. The music was well played; however, when announcing a piece by a lesser-known composer, the recitalist admitted the composer was not as inventive, bold or passionate as some of his contemporaries, but felt the music deserved to be played anyway. Though I know the performer was thoughtful, it struck me as comical that a performer would introduce a piece telling me it wasn't as good as other things he could have chosen to play. It left me asking myself this question: Why am I spending $25 to come hear you perform something you believe is second-rate music? Why must what you're playing have a historical justification for being played? How about: I love it. I don't care if anyone else thinks it's the equivalent of mashed potatoes with corn syrup and ketchup on top. I'm playing what I love and you're coming along for the ride.

Okay, okay, this attitude at times leads certain individuals to play memorable melodies by Alban Berg (mathematical musical suicide in twelve-tone motion--yes in loud letters on the internet I fully admit my musical tastes are shallow and uneducated), whom they adore and revere. If any of those folks find their way to my humble blog, they are welcome. I only ask they not stand too close . . . In any case, at least these individuals, impassioned with lusty fervor for tone rows, would be playing the music they want to play and sharing it with joy in honest, sincere, explanationless zeal (regardless of the possible attendant ruptured eardrum lawsuits).

How do these examples shed light on the current program note situation? Simply, program notes are the result of musicians having to explain and prove music in order to share it with the public. Are we so insecure we must appeal to the muses of high art, giving justification and reasoning in order to tame the oracles and pass through the gates of "high music" unscathed?

Out one side of our mouths, classical musicians extol music as the transcendental language which breaks down cultural boundaries while out the other, we're frantically relying on language to explain the music and give it meaning outside itself. At best, musicians invest themselves in the personal story surrounding the musical work and try to share their own journey. More often than not, however, program notes offer politically-correct, bland-as-paper-soup jargon aimed at filling landfills with verbosity.

This is not to mention the irony of audience members who immediately reach for their iPhone to download whatever information they're dying to know about the composer because they'd rather eat shark liver for the rest of their lives than be caught reading an actual piece of paper. Maybe it's time to put program notes into a mass database from which any concert-goer/music trivia hobbyist can retrieve the notes online at any time. I'm fairly certain a team of musicologists could oversee the program note propaganda/politically-correct historicization department with bureaucratic zest.

Unfortunately, program notes have become an expected tradition. Without them, concert-goers may experience withdrawal symptoms. The following groups are at highest risk:

1. People seeking to win the Double Jeopardy speed round

2. People who know entirely too much about music already whose secret dream is to debate the program note writer

3. People who want something to critically analyze with their friends after the concert (I humbly ask those people not stand too close either . . . )

4. People valiantly fighting to stay awake and desperately searching to look like they're doing something valuable rather than fumbling around in their purse for another cough-drop (85% of concert-goers--not a scientific study).

My vision for the future is musicians who are willing to stand up to the bluster of history and ignite a Romantic Revival--Music given from the heart requires no explanation.

Of course I'm shallow and uneducated (and probably a redneck to boot), but I don't like to go to concerts that give me the feeling I'm going to be given a quiz at the end. Maybe a few people look forward to random knowlege testing though--I did know some over-eager kids in High School. Okay, I was one of them, but I don't know too many people who want to part with $25 because they can't wait to sit in a straitjacket worrying about when they're supposed to clap and whether or not they can dissect the program notes. I've never heard a kid say: "But MOM! It'll be just like SCHOOL! All the guys are going. If I miss the quiz afterwards, I'll never be able to show my face again." If classical musicians are going to complain about the audiences they attract, they might want to look at what they're doing to continually attract the same demographic (hint: program notes).

Eventually, we'll need to lure folks who recognize "You just killed the invisible swordsman! You were supposed to shoot up. We both shot up!" and just want a night away from the kids involving nothing remotely related to Yo Gabba Gabba. Maybe we should give out Beethoven bobbleheads at concerts instead of program notes. (okay, so that's not a good idea either, but for the record, I would like a Beethoven bobblehead).

Perhaps all this is just crazy talk--ramblings from the village idiot prompted by some "Program Notaphobia" disease accompanied by a general malaise about having to write this prosaic, limp documentation when I give a recital. It lights up my life like eating Cornflakes, and that's just not how I feel about music at all. My interaction with music is so much more organic. Sometimes I have no good intellectual reason or justifiable explanation behind why I choose to do what I do. I am wild with fire and reckless abandon in my soul (hmmm . . . maybe if the program notes don't pan out I'll try romance novels ;-) heh heh).

My final words on music (yes, I catch the irony): I go to concerts because great music makes me feel like I've climbed out of my skin and left mortality behind. I listen to music because the conviction of the performer wraps me in a cocoon from which I emerge a more beautiful creature. It heals me. It makes me laugh. I leave the concert loving the world. It makes me feel great. Dispense with the justifications, the explanations and play me a tune to get my foot tapping and a melody to keep me singing!

Gutsy Girl

2010-10-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

I come by my running urge legitimately. My Dad was a state track champ in High School. All my best memories of Dad are wrapped in, around and through black tar and painted white lines.

We used to climb through a hole in the fence of the High School track on summer nights. Dad had his stopwatch ready. I remember the miles I would run--one at 7 minutes, push it harder to 6 and then all out to break 6. As I rounded each curve, Dad would call out my lap split. A few times, things got very painful and that's when Dad would start yelling "Come On Kim." "You're Almost There." "You Can Do It." "Stretch Your Legs." "Kick It In."

After one particularly heroic effort, he said I was a "Gutsy Girl." I think I spent three or four more years in track just because I wanted to deserve to hear him call me a gutsy girl. I pushed through lungs on fire and limp legs to hear him yell from the stands "Come On! Go! Go! GO!" Everything else was a blur, but Dad's voice was like the red cape of a Matador steering a raging bull into the finish line.

There are days I'm desperate to believe the gutsy girl is still running. Like today. The truth is, I'm a thirty-something housewife with four children who is learning the Paganini Caprices. Sometimes I have to fight for each note. I have to watch myself and check my intonation an octave down. I get tired. I have to stretch. There isn't a better way around this. Paganini requires a direct approach. You cannot imagine away the notes on the page. Each one must be recognized and answered. Unfortunately, there is no other way to grasp this level of awareness and freedom on the instrument. Mastery doesn't come cheap or easy. For my efforts, I'm given moments of panoramic vision, but those moments eventually give way to present realities. The Caprices are not yet learned. I have miles to travel before I sleep, and promises to keep.

No one is here to show me how. No one cares whether I do or whether I don't. No one thinks I should or even thinks I'm capable. I will be made fun of. I have faced well-intentioned violinists who criticize and even take offense that I deem myself worthy. "This is too hard for you." The very worst of the critics and naysayers is usually staring at me in the mirror. I've paid my dues, but it doesn't matter. It's Paganini and it's not for thirty-something housewives raising four children.

In no other industry is there more prejudice based upon age than in classical music. They're looking for Mozart. Every year he gets younger and younger. Any soloist's biography will read as follows: "soloed with ______ Symphony at 9 years of age" or "showed prodigious talent at the tender age of 6" or "was awarded the _______ prize at 14 years of age." Like the flags of victory flanking the bullfighter's arena, the legacy of youth flutters brightly above the teeming masses. I don't have any flags. I am the bull.

All I know is the red cape. My Dad's beckoning voice is now accompanied by the strains of musical yearnings--what I want to give, what I want to say, how I want to soar. If Paganini is part of the price, then so be it. I can't afford to listen to anything outside the red cape. My voice is at stake. I don't believe music is about age. I believe it's about beauty and I believe it is granted with sacrifice and hard work. Against the overwhelming pressure of "NO" I've found a deeper YES inside. It is the red cape of my father, yelling "Gutsy Girl" while I charge ahead.

Those days on the track seem so close. I feel the slight bounce of the track surface and the cold burn in my lungs--the memory folds back, mixing itself among every challenging experience in my life, giving me a short burst of insight. For my Dad, it was never about the running. It was about helping me find the courage to do difficult things. Everything else is a blur, but I can still hear his voice. It is my deeper YES.

Some of you are rounding the curve and need to hear "Go, Go, GO!" You are looking for your deeper YES and the courage to do difficult things. I hope you do. I hope you forget the arena and charge ahead boldly. Fail a little, succeed a little, but keep going and kick it in!

The Ibanez and the Nightingale

2010-08-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

My husband is coming home in two hours to whisk me off to our new adventure in the South. It feels like when I was three, waiting by the front window for the Blue Monte Carlo to drive up signaling Dad was home from work. He would take out the Ibanez twelve-string my Mom bought him as a wedding gift while I sat in front of him listening to Beatles, John Denver, the Kingston Trio and "Give Said the Little Stream." I learned music at my father's knee. At night, Mom sang to me. Actually, Mom sang all the time. "Oh Sweet Mystery" was a favorite theme to come trailing from the kitchen with the smell of spaghetti. Between the strings of the Ibanez and my mother's soaring soprano voice, I think that's why my musical ear hears a violin. I'm remembering both of them together.

Wherever my family lands, I'll take the many beauties of Minnesota right along with me. The bitter cold and blazing white skies in winter, the bonfires on the frozen lake, the trees (the trees!!) Lola's Lakehouse, the buzz of Orchestra Hall and the smell of a big storm about to erupt will all become part of my music. How I'll miss it, but how I'm looking forward to the joys and beauties due South of us. I'm about to go over the edge on a roller coaster named "free fall." Wheeeee!!!!

Wedding of the Decade--Girl and Violin

2010-08-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

My husband is in Arkansas, the wedding is over. I made it back in one piece after driving from Minnesota to Idaho and Idaho to Minnesota by myself (yes, I felt like an Amazon Princess General, by the way). The wedding was gorgeous. I totally enjoyed my sister's tropical wedding and was shocked the asiatic lillies and mokara orchids survived the night (unfortunately, I had to be more brutal with them than I normally like). My limbs are sore, beaten raw with painting, sewing, arranging, decorating, driving. My soul took the worst of it. It's in a silent state of atrophy brought on by little to no time for violin.

For some people, having many activities and interests makes for a well-balanced, productive, happy life. I wish I were one of them. I'm still making peace with my inner mono-maniac pining for the violin, tormented by almost every other activity asserting its assumed "hierarchy" in my life (except the kiddos--they'll always win). Would it be okay if everyone except them just left me alone? Could I exit stage left and go live in my closet for a while?

Maybe tomorrow. Today my calloused hands and tired eyes remind me of the beautiful America I saw while driving across Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Idaho. I've changed my mind. I don't need to travel to a foreign country anymore. I love this country. America takes my breath away. Find me a little corner in the northeastern part of Montana, give me a stream, a tree and some dirt mixed with pine needles--wrap me in it and on a clear night let me swim in the stars. When I come down I'll be a Maple tree destined to become a violin that will sing her heart out about America, about the stars, about pine needles, painted deserts, caves, lava and Yellowstone.

For now, I'm home by myself with no husband to protest so I just finished watching two of the most estrogen-filled chic flicks I could get my hands on. I passed over my favorite movie (which combines both true love and English poetry--sure to evoke comatose for any self-respecting male) and went for the lighter, absolutely implausible, totally predictable fare. Something about a boy and a girl finally falling in love after hating each other the entire movie. Why does this entertain me?

It's the girl version of a quest. The conquesting female finds her power in overcoming hatred to win adoration. This is not a new concept. It's music--dissonance and resolution. As I watch in the darkness, surrounded by the promise of stars out my window, comforted by the predictability of a well-constructed handsome stranger, I am sure even my true love (my violin) can't be far around the corner.

Though I know dissonance of ever-increasing measure will ensue the moment I get my fingers around "La Capricieuse" or the fingered octaves in "Wedding Day," by the end of the day, we'll be in love again, and we'll ride up to the stars of northeastern Montana happily ever after. Because, whether you believe it or not, my girly blog about the violin is only part autobiography, part column, part thriller, part mystery, part adventure. The overarching story is a romance.

While my sister rode off with prince charming, I drove through the sparse regions of America to be reunited with my true love. Tomorrow I'll have Bach back in my life again and the wedding in Idaho will be like the problematic boyfriend who doesn't belong--the fuel for the fire of true love. I now pronounce myself a girl and her violin!

Queen of the World

2010-07-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

I LOVE this instrument! I was a woman on a mission today. I took the bull by the horns and I claimed my three hours of practice time and it ROCKED! I got the rest of my wedding shopping done, I got everything ready for the music club reception tomorrow and I helped my son get ready for scout camp. I'M QUEEN OF THE WORLD!

I'm finding those fingered octaves in "Wedding Day" are not, in fact, impossible. Risky, maybe. I have vowed not to sleep until they are conquered tonight. My family will have to deal with the heavy practice mute, put towels underneath their doors and cotton in their ears because Mom is working on fingered octaves. And that's all I have to say about that.

I'm playing violin for love. Even if no one wants to hear it.

Mosquito Sunrise

2010-07-06T00:08:00.001-07:00

Life is certainly full of its twists and turns. My most recent was more like a Porsche cornering around a 98 degree turn on a high mountain pass. My husband is no longer jobless but the job he took is eleven hours south of here where everything is bigger and covered in bbq sauce.

In order to feel confident that we can sell our house for a $100,000 loss, we repainted, ripped out old counters and replaced them with granite, put in a new tile backsplash (let me just say #($@&$* about non-sanded grout), sanded and restained our deck, sewed and hung five new window treatments and finished decorating the place until it looks as close to a magazine article as our finances and two weeks will allow. This is not my first time around the house-selling block. Still, the house has been on the market a week and we haven't had a single phone call. Not panicking yet, but looking forward to the wedding job I have coming up in Idaho so I don't have to continue to live in this immaculate state of unliving.

I don't really want to talk about how I feel about this move, so I won't.

What I'm thinking about instead is skin. On my legs, I'm sporting the vestiges of a visitation from Minnesota's state bird: mosquito bites. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. I'm amazed at my skin's rapidity in dealing with the offending toxins, rerouting them and then patching everything up as good as new. I do have some areas on my skin that will never completely heal--the barbed wire incident scar on my leg that officially ruined my every hope of walking down a catwalk (that and my lack of grace and total inability to pivot or comprehend how one effectively prances without bouncing), and the two-inch scar across my forehead caused by a hard fall onto a toilet at age five. The toilet tragedy scar actually still hurts on occasion. As I age, I see interesting things happening to my skin, but overall it's holding up pretty well. It keeps my innards . . . in.

Quite a few idioms in the English language revolve around skin "skin and bone" "beauty is only skin deep" "jump out of your skin" "save your own skin" "make your skin crawl" "gets under your skin" "no skin off your teeth" and "have a thick skin" are only a few. The one I have been pondering is "having a thick skin."

I've been told you won't make it in the violin world without developing a "thick skin." It's an edict and a condemnation. On one hand I understand what is being required of me as I stand in front of a room full of peers being singled out and dismantled. I try to respond "Yes, well I'll try harder, I'm not perfect" and tell myself I must not crack. I coach myself through variations on "holding it together." At the same time, truly, I'm about to dissolve. Knowing how far away from "holding it together" I am, I slouch away in a puddled mess kicking myself for not having a "thicker skin."

Observing my most recent trophies of thin skin (mosquito bites), I've decided to flush "thick skin" down the toilet and embrace the skin I'm in. (Let me just say that having been annointed at age five with the Harry Potter toilet scar, I'm a qualified, if not gifted, flusher).

Here goes: I'M FRAGILE! Yes, I DO CARE. When you say mean/honest/constructively critical things to me about my hours and hours of work, guess what: IT HURTS! Am I too sensitive? Probably. My skin isn't tough enough to fend off the mosquitos with their razor-sharp pointy stingers, but it's tough enough to heal.

On top of a move and a deadline to finish my never-ending composition that has me stuck on the last page, I've had some nasty critical garbage flung my way (not the private teacher) from more than one source. It lead to a minor breakdown from which I'm healing. It hurts, but not as much as not playing would. I'll play in this closet until all my fingers fall off.

When all was said and done, I sifted through the pile of criticism and took out what I thought was valuable. There wasn't a lot. In fact, most of it was up for debate.

I take issue with that "thick skin" garbage. I wholeheartedly reject the notion that if one is critically dismembered one should take it as a compliment because it means one has ascended to the rank of being able to "handle it." This is not the pedagogy I believe in. There are other ways.

My way is the thin-skinned road. It means I suffer a great deal. On the other hand, with so little protecting me from my audience, I am left vulnerable, and that's just the way I want it. I can't do with my music what I most want while shielding myself behind "I don't care."

I do care. My struggle lies in caring about the right things, flushing out the toxins, patching the open wounds and remembering what I started out to achieve. As the light of the sunrise touches the dew, bringing promise of a new day, it rouses the sleeping mosquitos. My skin may suffer the effects of a mosquito sunrise, but it knows how to heal.

May you each similarly know your own worth and share it despite the mosquitos that occasionally take a bite.

No Rose Petals for Rocky

2010-04-29T05:42:00.001-07:00

Two days post lesson--feeling the blow. Wow. I had no idea how badly I play. I thought I was hard on myself, but my own level of picky doesn't even rate. There will be no Saint Saens no.3 for me. I think I'm back to Handel Sonatas. If I can even handle that . . .

I need to channel Rocky Balboa. I'm down, but I'm not out. I must rouse the fighter in me to lift my face off the mat. It's time to get to work. I barely know how to begin, but I suppose cracking open the case is a good first step. If I do eventually conquer, let it be stated here and now that I definitely paid my dues, and for me, the road was not lined with rose petals.

My Pie in the Sky

2010-04-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

I have a little list of things I want to do before I die. I thought I would write a few of them on my blog today, even though I feel slightly superstitious that by voicing them, they're bound to be thwarted with difficulty and eventual failure. I think everyone has a piece of pie in the sky reserved for them. Here's a bit of mine:

1. Visit a foreign country.
2. Go to the Proms.
3. See the Northern Lights.
4. Record an Album.
5. Finish My Composition.
6. This list changes practially every week, but at the moment, some pieces I want to learn: Chausson Poeme, Korngold Violin Concerto and Sonata, Zapateado and Caprice Basque, Elgar Violin Concerto, the rest of Ysaye 4, all the Bach S&P, Grieg Sonata #2, Ravel Sonata, A La Valse, Tor Aulin Violin Concerto, Lekeu Sonata, Faure Sonata #2 and the Paganini Caprices.
7. Write a Book.
8. Learn how to control my vibrato in performance.
9. Get through an entire recital without a glitch.
10. Do something really outrageous (as opposed to embarrassing, which is an every day occurrence)
11. Collaborate with a guitarist or learn to play the guitar myself.
12. Play either the Ravel Sonata for Cello and Violin or the Brahms Double with a Cellist.
13. Visit the Met.
14. See the opera Turandot.
15. Since meeting Joshua Bell was, shall we say, an anticlimactic adventure, I no longer care to meet famous musicians, but if I could have a casual conversation with any of them it would be Andre Previn.
16. Take a lesson with Aaron Rosand.
17. Have another lesson with Adam Han-Gorski and live to tell the tale (that will happen this coming Tuesday--we shall see if I endured it long enough to fulfill the rest of these ambitions).
18. Play the Ravel String Quartet.
19. Use the violin as a means to break people's hearts in half--rip them open, leave them shattered and uplifted at the same time.
20. Do whatever I can to see that the other people who cross my path complete the items on their lists before I seek to complete anything on mine.

My Van-Gogh--Little Girls on a Bus

2010-04-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

Today I didn't practice. I did pick up the violin long enough to get through some Kreutzer, a review of La Capricieuse. Funny how the upbow staccato that used to be murderous to perform now comes fairly easily--both on the string and off. I guess it really is a technique you can learn. No one should ever think they can't learn to do this. I've proven it can be learned. I'm an older person with limited talent. It's taken four years of steady improvement (well, I did say I'm a turtle), but I've learned it to a satisfactory level. Both Heifetz and Albert Spalding admitted the same. I remember being floored when I read an interview in which Heifetz said he had to work hard to obtain his perfect upbow staccato. Albert Spalding had a great staccato when he was young but lost it and had to regain it as an adult. I digress.

The topic at hand is my beautiful children. I don't speak of them or my husband often on this blog. Here is where I chronicle my musical adventures--except today, in the brightest most saturated color, like a Van Gogh painting so charged with vibration it sings, the two overlapped, producing a new vision of my musical life.

It was on a field trip with my four-year-old, sitting on a school bus reliving memories of elementary school with every jolt (school buses are never equipped with proper shock absorbtion), and it was while making hobo dinners for my husband and son for an overnight scout campout, and it happened too when sitting with my two younger children in the movies. It was as if all the colors of my life increased to a level of such vibrance, they filled a canvas spilling out into the artwork I've been creating all along and never knew I'd captured. There it was in flashes of light while playing "talk Monkey talk" over and over again with four-year-olds on a bus--pulsating with vital energy, resonating in the steady bump of the tires over potholes.

I'm ashamed to admit there are times I get my priorities backwards. In this quest towards being a "fabulous" violin player, I forget something Nathan Milstein alluded to when he mentioned thinking about how silly violin playing can seem--a man moving his arm back and forth on a box. Of course it's much deeper than that, but then again, it's not.

For a moment today everything stood still until the colors blurred themselves enough to become hazy once again, leaving an impression now faded. While it is still in me to remember the impression I must write it. Today I knew what was important in my life. Family. Compared to them the violin doesn't even rank. They are my musical adventure and greater still, my life's adventure.

Sometimes going to the movies is a far more exigent musical act than practicing Sevcik. Traveling on a school bus with four-year-olds is always the place to find the most vibrant art and the best music. If Albert Spalding could appear in the flesh and play for me the Barber violin concerto, I wouldn't choose hearing his music over hearing my four-year-old sing "Edelweiss" or my fourteen-year-old say "Night Mom."

"Mom" is a pretty incredible word.

Viewing things so brilliantly displayed elicits self-examination--have I forgotten this? Somewhere did I lose the vision while I was painting the picture? Have I neglected the greater joys? Do I let each of these miracles in my life know they are my life? Honestly, I don't know if I can aquit myself of not doing enough. I have failed on too many occasions. Knowing my failings causes exquisite agony, some guilt, some suffering.

If music has taught me anything, it is that there is hope. Start from where you are and begin again.

Whatever else happened, or didn't happen in my musical life today, I think I've finally made peace with the "lost" ten years when I wasn't playing. They weren't lost at all! Those were the years I made my greatest music and that tune is still being played. It is the one immortal melody that rules my earth and my heaven.

Ready To Be Fabulous

2010-04-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today I learned "Piece En Forme De Habanera" by Ravel. That's right. In one day. I'll need to stick a metronome on it tomorrow, but I was pretty pleased that I could learn it so easily. I guess all this time in the closet hasn't been for nothing.

Whatever mistakes I've made up to now I bless. It was upon their ashes I ascended to the temple of possibilities and embraced the dawn . . . with fire in my soul ready to burn up the next offerings on the altar of progress!

I feel strong and powerful. I faced down apathy, laziness, distraction, self-doubt and time constraints and said NO way! I'm still fighting. I'm still the same old hyper, spastic girl I ever was and I'm going out of this world like a Supernova.

If anyone can't handle it--tough. I'm through apologizing, explaining, excusing. It all comes down to this: Permission to be fabulous, to be excellent, to be better than ever is hereby granted by the powers vested in me as head blogger!

Sevcik, take me away!

Squashed Little Ant

2010-04-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you get flattened by the cars on your way across the street. Looked long and hard in the mirror today. Listened to a few things I'm not happy with at all. Realized what is necessary to take the next step. I got very honest with myself and today I feel more like an ant.

You take what you can get, you go back into your closet and regroup.

Sometimes I wish I knew the reason for things. I wish I were not an ant. I wish I were a cloud. I wish I could look down from the heavens and see things from a larger perspective . . . but then I might not notice the little ants.

Tortoise

2010-03-31T17:02:00.000-07:00

Today, in our balmy 70 degree weather, as I was driving home from picking my daughter up at preschool, I watched a turtle crossing the road. At first it was difficult to see him, but as I got closer, sure enough, it was a turtle about the size of a baseball mit. Unlike the times I slam on my brakes when encountering wildlife in the middle of the road, I didn't have to slow down. I wasn't worried about hitting an object that's barely moving. I watched him ever so slowly putting one foot in front of the other, sliding across the pavement with his little nose down headed for the other side of the road.

I was pretty impressed with this turtle. Behind him, he was leaving a lovely pond (I assume it was his home), embarking on a new voyage, turning his shell on everything he'd known and loved. The other side of the road held only cement sidewalks, bicycles and children who like to make turtles the object of their adventures. Still, the turtle was crossing the road fearlessly, bound for whatever unknown adventures awaited him.

I think this turtle and I are related. I'm a turtle. I'm old. I took a long time getting to the spot I'm at with my violin. But, I'm improving little by little. I am certain that turtle has now, many hours later, finished crossing the street and has made it to whatever destination he set out to find today. I am just as sure that I will eventually reach my destination. I don't really know what that is, but it doesn't stop me from putting one foot in front of the other anyway.

Sometimes you go just to get going, for the joy of moving your legs. Today I started work on Saint Saens Concerto no. 3. I learned the first page. Not memorized, but it's one page. If I can continue to learn one page every day, the learning will add up. I also worked on a Rode Caprice. I've played through them all two or three times, but just as a read-through without much focus on perfecting them. This time, I'm leaving no stone unturned. Though I only perfected seven or eight measures today, I know I was thinking about all the right things--working to have EVERY note in tune. Eight measures doesn't seem like a lot, but it was as much as I could handle with the perfect intonation and bow division goals I have.

I suppose I could be frustrated that I'm not crossing the street any faster than I am, but it wouldn't be as fun as enjoying the thrill of crossing an uncertain road slowly listening to the cars whiz by. The other side of the road is there even if I can't see it, and it's worth the journey even if I don't know what I'll find when I get there. I'm a turtle. I've got my head down low and I'm watching the pavement.

Okay, But REALLY, How Are You Doing?

2010-03-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

I try to keep a stiff upper lip even though most people who know me well enough will tell you I'm somewhat fragile. One thing about aging and going through several difficult personal struggles--it gives you some callous in those tender areas.

My family has been enjoying a trip down unemployment highway since January. The company was good enough to let us enjoy our Christmas before letting us know. So far, most of the people involved have found employment.

I have every reason to have confidence in my husband. We're optimistic and energized by the opportunity to discover something new. He's been interviewing, and hopes to soon secure a job.

This stuff just takes time and today I was having a day in which the worries start to creep in. I could not take my mind off the "what if's." I'm a born entrepreneur and when I worry, my mind always creates new ideas for obtaining wealth. These ideas are rarely lucrative, but today I couldn't shut off the idea valve.

That's usually kind-of entertaining, but in this case, it just made me feel sick to my stomach remembering the last time I went through this and started a business. Tomorrow, rather than practicing or composing like I'd like, I'll be working on a big drapery job. I think I will be lucky to be earning $12 an hour on this one. But, it's money. I can't stand still. Things have to be churning. My legs have to keep moving. I'm sure I won't make it as a senior citizen and I sincerely hope I die young for everyone's sake.

For now, I'm smoothing my dress, putting my hair in place, pinching my cheeks and coming out with a big smile. Underneath it churns all the normal human stuff. Here's me hoping I learn to manage the peaks and valleys of life with more patience, serenity and faith.

Birthday Girl

2010-03-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

Another birthday come and gone. I find myself with less anticipation replaced with, not trepidation (ha!), but a deep pool of reflection. Time to wade in deep water, gaze in the mirror. I can't complain, the years have been good to me.

In the coming year, I hope I'm able to keep up with my family along with making some good musical progress. Finish my *#@)*$! piece, learn some Albert Spalding pieces, record??? learn at least one fiery difficult piece and maybe a concerto, make significant strides towards vibrato perfection.

I spent today at Nickelodian Universe in The Mall of America, being the lab rat in my children's torture game called "take Mom on all the scary rides and see how she does." I did fine. Ha! I saw NO other Moms on the Airbender, the Rock Bottom Plunge or the Fairly Odd Parents roller coaster, although I did feel I was in the right place when standing in line looking at the "farily ODD parents" sign. Rock Bottom Plunge feels a bit like being in a bad car accident with a great seatbelt, or maybe like being in a blender without blades. I'm happy to report I sustained no damage, have no headaches and otherwise thwarted my children's plans to age me another five years in one day.

Sitting in front of my composition, I'm starting to miss that roller coaster. I've been listening to several unaccompanied compositions to get some inspiration. I am embarassed that what I've written so far, which I found a little taxing and difficult to play the other day for my composition teacher, is actually TAME compared to some of the stuff I've been listening to. There's an amazing violin universe out there. I'm at the bottom of the pile. Oh well. At least I'm in the pile, gasping for air, thinking I'm ready for that shake-up now. Hope my seatbelt is fastened. It could be an exciting year.

Supernova

2010-03-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

When I decide to stuff things into my life, I do it in grand fashion. AHHHHH!!! How am I going to survive the next two weeks? I've never actually had a caffeinated beverage, but I am seriously considering the option. I cannot imagine what that would do to me. I operate on such high voltage as it is, with caffeine in my system I could become a supernova. That is a worrisome thought. Okay, caffeine is out.

Perhaps I could clone myself? Hire an actress who plays the violin and looks like me? Scrap my stuffed up life and head to Fiji in a hang-glider? Fake sick? Amnesia? Pretend I fell in a hole and broke my arm? Fall in hole and break my arm? Rent a halo cast? Have a nervous breakdown while singing hits of the 70's? Watch hours of Lawrence Welk reruns in order to induce a Catatonic stupor? Join a colony of bears in hibernation? Take up a new career as a bus driver, steal the bus and head up to Canada? Jail would definitely change things up a bit . . . Stop writing on my blog and get to work? Naaaa . . .

Dark Day

2010-03-02T08:49:00.001-08:00

I try to keep my blog personal but distant and include things I think will inspire and uplift anyone who happens my way (which seems to be two people). Even though my blog is black (to mimic the metaphorical darkness of my closet violinist profile), I like my posts as light-filled as possible.

Though the skies outside my window are filled with sunshine, I feel dark inside. I am not a robot. I'm a human being and today it's raining inside. God is nowhere to be found.

I'll probably waste some quality time in front of this screen and then go make bread for someone until He shows up again.

Lesson with Heifetz' Student

2010-02-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

There are advantages to being an adult, having had many life experiences and growing somewhat callous. It's helpful in that moment when you're being carefully dismantled piece by piece to know you have scar tissue holding you together. Afterwards, when your mind has stopped spinning, you can survey the impact and begin rebuilding.

I should have been prepared for it. Of course Heifetz' student would have laser focus, hack right through the shell and get strait to the gory center. He's not going to waste time picking and pecking when he can deliver one accurate blow to bring you to your knees. Though I came prepared to play the Bach Sonata no. 1, the first movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and the Novacek Perpetuum and Mobile, by the time I'd gotten through with an opening scale, I wasn't sure I was prepared to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for Mr. Han-Gorski.

In my younger years, his total displeasure, absolute shock and horror at my inadequacies would have leveled me like a Tsunami, leaving a wake of wet sludge down my cheeks. But, my scar tissue managed the blows, held me together and kept me listening and eager. At one point, he thought perhaps he'd made me emotional, but I corrected him. "I'm not emotional, I'm motivated."

I'm actually flattered he felt I was worthy of this level of criticism. When the comments center around microtones and oscillation changes between notes etc., already you know the teacher isn't messing around--in fact, he's giving you his art. This is why I stood poised, carefully listening regardless of the criticism accompanying the insight. His comments centered around teaching me a new technique for that "alive" quality in the tone--impulse vibrato which is not only produced through oscillation (which I already do), but carefully measured up and down pressure and release on the string. He gave me exercises to match with perfect bow distribution and told me I ought to know exactly where the oscillation of my vibrato begins and ends in order to perfectly, rhythmically time every nuance. He was concerned that I learn how to properly shape and control my vibrato. I thought I was already picky with myself, but this introduced a whole new level of what is possible to measure and calculate on the violin. He let me gaze into a higher standard of the art, into the mind of Heifetz, his teacher. Humbling.

The goal of learning the Bach Sonatas this year just went up in smoke. It won't be Bach S&P or American programs or anything else substantial. I just got sent back to square one. I'm starting over again. I have a major overhaul of the left thumb position, a new vibrato technique I've never seen before, bow division and rhythmic questions to solve, fingering and color concerns as well as interminable trill exercises to deal with.

I will deal with it all. I've got time and patience to devote towards art. Whether I ever arrive has ceased to be the point. I refuse to quit, so I might as well just get going.

Lessons from Running

2010-02-22T08:28:00.000-08:00

Running is my favorite way to gain strength and perspective--it's a pathway towards communicating with my spiritual self. An act like running at a seven minute mile clip requires you to get past your brain immediately. Your brain does not want you to run like that. To run like that, your inner will must claim sovereignty over your brain. Running is wrenched from the deep.

As I was running and thinking about my big project (an American Program) I began to worry about how it might be recieved--who am I to take on such an ambitious idea? who will even know it exists? it might not be worth it . . . maybe everyone will say I play like an amateur--too much crunch, too little crunch, the vibrato is not wide enough and ten million other things people can find to say. Only, at the moment that thought crossed my mind I was running; and when I'm running, my inner self is hooked up like a megaphone to my brain, and it was shouting:

Never let other people's capacity to recieve shut down your capacity to give.

Pretty straitforward. My brain is overtrained, but my heart knows just what to do.

Inspiration!

2010-02-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

I spent the night with Billings, Copland, Cowell and Sacred Harp Singers. The juices are flowing again, inspiration has returned. It's good to be reminded of where you come from and who you are. Let the music be that! I'm writing again.

Good Luck To My Best Friend

2010-02-18T09:47:00.001-08:00

Today my best friend plays the Rachmaninov Piano concerto no. 4 in a concerto competition. I am so inspired by and proud of her. Have you ever heard the Rachmaninov fourth piano concerto before? You should. If you're very fortunate, you may hear it played by Tawna Love. Her lyricism is unmatched, she's a dazzling performer and I wish I could crash the audition just to hear her play.

Things I Want To Do Before I Go Deaf--The Joshua Bell Story

2010-02-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

I am certain there is a webster's worthy etymology for the word blog, but for me, the word is so closely related to blob, glob and glop, it reminds me of what I normally make for dinner. Eat up readers! Whoever you are.

At some point I will most likely have to relate the sad story of my Joshua Bell meeting. I could call it my "Joshua Bell" story, but it's really more my story with Joshua Bell in it. If you got Joshua Bell's side of the story, it probably wouldn't even rate on his memory scale. Why would he remember some random girl embarassing herself? That event for him is probably similar to waking up in the morning, brushing teeth or tweezing eyebrows.

For me, however, there's a story full of drama with scope worthy of at least one scene in a soap opera, stage play or reality segment.

Long ago, I gave up the violin. I didn't play for a good ten years. I ran. I ran a lot. I still run, but not as much. During those runs in the height of my running, I began to have some symptoms. It started with a week's worth of dizziness. It was like living in a fog. I couldn't concentrate, I felt light-headed and disconnected from everything around me. They gave me antibiotics. After a week of profound dizziness and falling down all over my house, not being able to stand and walk straight, I began a long descent out of dizziness. It took two months before I finally rid myself of the constant spinning. When that was over, what was left were attacks.

During an attack, I get such profound vertigo I can't stand up. I go deaf. I feel nauseated. I get pressure in my ears and then a shower sound. It took a while to get a diagnosis, but when I did, it wasn't what I wanted to hear--menieres disease. Later, I would discover that menieres disease affects everyone differently. For some, it is a minor nuisance resulting in total hearing and balance loss late in life. For others, it is such an awful nightmare it traps them in a world of spinning nausea and deafness. For everyone, it means the affected ears are dying (both hearing and balance) and there is no cure.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I've been on quite a health journey over this and I am grateful for the insight it's given me. I would say I've had a miraculous recovery which I continually work on. As of a few years ago, half of my balance and a third of my hearing in my left ear are gone. I haven't had the right checked, though there are symptoms in that ear as well. Practicing violin, oddly enough, has been a major factor in my recovery. I've learned to play through my attacks without falling over. I've learned how to listen differently even when I'm totally deaf in my left ear. I'm able to feel intonation in a different way, using my other senses. It helps that my fingers are well trained soldiers, having spent quality time in scale and etude books. At this point, I've gotten so good at working through my attacks, no one would know I was having one unless they directly addressed me when my back was turned.

But, I digress. Back to Mr. Bell.

When I was first diagnosed, I made a list of "Things I Want to Hear Before I Go Deaf." One of the items on my list was "to hear Joshua Bell Play." I wrote to his assistant asking for a recommendation. At the time I was living in Idaho where Mr. Bell rarely plays. I figured I would be traveling no matter where I decided to see him play, so I wrote to his assistant and asked for a recommendation--which would be "the" concert of the year? She responded and said I ought to attend the live taping of the Tchaikovsky Concerto with Michael Tilson Thomas in Berlin. At the time, my sister was living in Zurich. I planned to attend the concert and visit my sister too. I was working out details, when I started waking up nauseated for an entirely different reason--pregnancy. And that's how that dream went down the drain.

I continued to practice, working on my other dream--to play "The Lark Ascending." It wasn't easy. When I started, I battled neuropathy. Five to ten minutes a stretch was as much as I could handle. Gradually, just like running, I worked into more endurance and technique. I can't complain. A year later I was preparing for a full-length recital.

Then we moved. Joshua Bell often performs where I live now. I soon found myself in a position to finally fulfill one of the things on my list of "things I want to do before I go deaf." I purchased tickets for my daughter and I to attend (she is also a violinist) and we happily looked forward to hearing a concert. I had heard that Mr. Bell graciously signs CD's and gives autographs after his concerts. I emailed his assistant about it and she confirmed that he does.

And then it happened . . . as it always does. I had an idea. My ideas are like a personal social avalanche, hurricane, tornado--they rarely follow a logical path and frequently spin out of control. I read on Violinist.com that Joshua Bell had recently fathered a son. I love babies. I have four of them myself. I also happen to be an experienced seamstress capable of sewing great baby gifts.

This part was logical: make Joshua Bell a baby blanket/violin blanket--matching blankets for both his "babies." I wanted to give him something to remind him of his baby when he was away and thought maybe a violin blanket would remind him of the matching blanket for his son. Anyway, I thought it was a unique idea and something he might enjoy. I found some exceedingly soft white fabric which I embroidered an art-deco violin on the front of with black soutache braid (I drew the violin shape and transferred it onto the front with a tailor's pen). Then I backed it with some lovely black and white silk. I made the blanket with a mitered flange sewn out of a silk sheet-music print (how cute is that!?). I made a violin blanket to match and folded it up ready to take with me.

A couple of hours before the event I realized how silly I would feel walking around the Ordway Center carrying a baby blanket and I had another (perish the thought) great idea. I sewed a gift bag out of the scraps. It looked enough like a purse that it completed my outfit and would double as a good gift bag.

The concert was great. Devil's Trill, the Debussy Sonata, Prokofiev Sonata and one other--was it Schumann? I think so. Very precise, excellent playing from both Mr. Denk and Mr. Bell. Overall it was enlightening too. There is such a difference, in my mind, between the great violinists I've heard live, which includes Joseph Silverstein, Pinkas Zukerman, Midori, Joshua Bell, Vadim Repin and Itzhak Perlman. Sometimes I wonder how much all the conditions of the concert--the hall, the orchestra, the piece, the audience has to do with what I'm hearing.

When the concert ended, my daughter and I beheld the monumental line in front of Mr. Bell and I completely lost my nerve. All of a sudden I felt very sheepish about handing him a handmade gift. I was frantically cooking up scenarios of ways to ditch the gift, leave it near him, go home etc.. Ditching the gift near him was out--I envisioned bomb squads surrounding the evil black object. While I was getting ready to head for the hills, my daughter was forceful enough to demand "get in that line Mom, and give Joshua Bell your stupid gift."

Which, obediently, I did.

When I arrived in front of Joshua Bell all speech pattern was completely lost to me, having regressed to my two-year-old self (It's just a theory, but that may have been due to allowing my twelve-year-old to order me around). I didn't know what to say, so I just handed him the purse and said "baby gift." I think I might have smiled. He thanked me politely. Being horrified that now was the moment he might actually open it in front of all these waiting people, I begged him "No, not now. Wait until later." He reached inside and said "it's soft." And then I quickly reassured him he would like it.

He kind-of hurried me nervously through the line after that, politely thanking me for the gift, signing my Kreisler CD and moving on to the next person in line.

It didn't dawn on me until later how that might have appeared to him. Picture it: lady shows up in line, hands him a purse with something soft in it that he can't open until he's alone--something that he'll like .

Awkward.

I was dying--inevitable consequence of my own social avalanche. The weight was crushing and I was welcoming a quick suffocation.

Thinking he most likely didn't even open the purse--who would? I wrote a note to his assistant explaining the gift was well-intentioned and that I hoped I hadn't caused Mr. Bell any anxiety. A week later I got a note in which she happily related that he had opened the gift and taken it over to show a few friends and given it to his son.

I was so relieved. I don't think I'll likely see him again because I am a firm believer in Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well. The End.

Climb On

2010-02-05T06:05:00.000-08:00

I finally got the courage to watch the video of my performance with the KSO yesterday. It was revealing. My husband can't stand to talk with me about it. It's torture for him because I'm so hyper-critical. I'm warning you early that you are about to read the hyper-critical musings of a tortured violinist. You may want to skip to the next blog.

I see higher climbs to reach. I missed a shift. A note or two too sharp. Blown octaves (surprising--I didn't miss the fingered octaves, but I missed some octaves I never do). Some missed effects.

I did have the right feeling which was, I think, transmitted to my audience. As I am often reminded--people go to concerts because of how it makes them feel inside. Forget that and you've lost all the music, no matter how many right notes you play.

On the flip side, I JUST WANT TO PLAY ONE PERFECT PERFORMANCE. Is that too much to ask? I have never been so prepared to play any piece in my life. Why couldn't I manage a perfect performance? This is very distressing--will I ever get there?

This feels like the end of a marathon. You've run 23 miles of mostly solitary focus but the last three miles are met by the cheering masses. They say things like "It's only two more miles! You can do it!" While appreciated, what you're thinking is something like "Yeah, two miles on top of 24, and I'm not sure I can make it another step. Every step feels like two miles" and even though logically you know you'll eventually get to the end, your larger brain is telling you the end will never arrive. I suppose training and experience will have made a difference--my second marathon certainly wasn't as tough as the first.

At the moment, I'm running my first violin marathon. Maybe I'm close, but every step feels like forever. I'm desperate, I'm breathing hard, I'm not sure I'm going to make it and I'm battling the larger brain telling me I'll never get there. I'm striving to simply feel the way a climber does when she says to her belayer "Climbing" and she hears the reassuring words "Climb On."

Short and Sweet

2010-02-03T19:35:00.000-08:00

Today was somewhat profitable. I didn't get to the Beethoven yet, but I'm still studying the score anyway, trying to get a flavor for the architecture of that work. I reviewed Mendelssohn--just the first four pages of the first movement. That's a bigger job than I thought it would be. Rusty is not even approximating it. I only briefly reviewed the first three lines of the Nocturne. A little time with Bach (of course), and the bulk of the rest went to Novacek.

The Novacek is an awesome piece--firey and effervescent at the same time. The big word: INTONATION. Ugh. I noticed early on that I was allowing myself to get away with slightly imperfect pitches because the notes are coming at you so quickly. Then I had to get tough with myself and slow it down to snail pace until every note was accounted for and in place. Not easy. It took forever. But now I'm a page and a half in at a slow clip (I can go faster, but I haven't earned faster yet). If I use my brain and keep it slow, it ought to come together nicely in short order.

Whatever it takes.

Northern Lights

2010-01-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

One of the most difficult aspects of being without a teacher is deciding what comes next. I am grateful for the training I recieved from Geoffrey Trabichoff who helped me understand that I am ultimately responsible for every sound that comes from my violin, and that it is the duty of the artist to find beauty in whatever is placed before her. The artist must see art before she can make art. His teaching continues to influence the way I think about what I'm doing and always will.

When I've been unsure what to do next, I've also found tremendous help in the form of the generosity of others. I am so grateful and am indebtted to the many violinists whose playing, suggestions and encouragement have lit my path when things seem darkest. Whatever points of light are present in my music belongs to those who passed their light to me. Even so, it can be a challenge to keep going with the blind hope you're heading in the right direction.

I think this is why I relate so well to the music of Bach, and perhaps why most of us do. Bach's music gives us a glimpse of eternity. It wakes our inward parts and reminds us of the possibilities within us. Sometimes it just gives us the courage to keep going and have faith the dissonances will eventually resolve, and that the resolution will be infinitely more satisfying because of its careful development.

In my case, the resolution came last weekend with the fulfillment of one of my life's ambitions. It was the dream which spurred me to take the music scholarship I was awarded and major in violin performance. Until that moment, I hadn't seriously considered professional involvement in music. At that point I remember trying to find a reason to actually follow through and sign up for music classes. For me, the possibility of learning one piece was enough justification to convince me to do it. That piece? "The Lark Ascending." I didn't stay in music long enough to ever learn it in college. Not until ten years later did I get it out, decide it was time to make good on a promise to myself and claim it for my own. Now that I've performed it with an orchestra, I find myself back at the beginning--now what?

I have plenty of ideas. I think I know where I'm going eventually, but the map is unclear. This is where a teacher can provide the needed light. But, with a husband out of a job at the moment, that will not be a reality. Therefore, taking my cue from Bach, I will take the dissonances as merely development and look forward with faith to an ultimate resolution.

Enough tinkering around with this and that. Time to get to work.

I live in the North, but not far enough to have ever seen the Northern lights. I hope that's where my lights are leading me--to the great rendezvous of lights in the Northern skies. If each composition I learn is a changing, growing blossom of color and light, it's a fitting place for the natural world to mirror what is happening in my musical one.

My best to my readers on their own journeys. Should you need some light, you're welcome to whatever I can summon from my Northern home.

Excruciating

2009-09-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have heard when composers are inspired, their music comes flowing out like a river. Maybe those are the good composers. I've definitely been hit by the muse, but it's not so easy translating. Sometimes I know I need a progression, but the exactness of every rest and every perfectly placed note is more than my little brain can handle at times. It makes the process excruciating. I have maybe fifteen measures so far. The most difficult transition from the exposition to the introduction of the theme lays before me like the wide open frontier that faced the pioneers. Fitting, since the piece is a setting of their most beloved hymn.

When I'm able to call to mind the moaning oxen, the panting horses, the clinking of harnesses, the wall of dust, the women balancing a baby on one hip and reigns in the other--when I can wrap my mind around their stories--waking up in the morning to find a child dead from exposure, the daily losses, the heavy silence of their hearts crying out to God in faith, I know I've hit on the very notes I want. Translating all the feeling into music is the excruciating journey before me--to tell their story and to do it in a way that transcends the dead to move the living--is too big for me.

I suppose it is best to follow in their footsteps, putting one foot in front of the other, one transition, one note at a time.

Whatever that amounts to, my aim when I started this journey was to connect the living to the dead, affirming the essential tie we have to them--the hearts of the children returning to their fathers through the eternal and binding relationships of family.

How could that duty be anything but excruciating? I know I have the beginning right. It's the transition and development which loom before me in darkness with only a little hope to light the way. The great balancing of light and dark to bring forth a three dimensional composition--it's like playing polyphonic passages in Bach which requires the balance and appointment of each voice. I have employed a silence for one transition (taking my cue from Beethoven), but the next leads right into the theme and needs to flow like a river. I wish it would . . .

Closet Violinist Rides Again

2009-08-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

How do you know when something has gone from being a hobby you're passionate about to a full-blown obsession? I ride that line like a stagecoach whipping around the corner of a high mountain pass. I'm a western girl at heart. I've never owned a horse. My Dad was an accountant. But, when the rain mixes with tumbleweeds, I can smell it. When the thunder ricochets off the towering mountains and the edge of town fades into unsettled brown nothingness, I know I'm home.

With all the ups and downs in the housing market, one trend among buyers and builders is constant--people like their closet space. In the days when my parents were young, a master bedroom equipped with separate spaces for both occupants was considered a luxury. That was before the days of the sprawling walk-in closet which mimics the American suburban landscapes surrounding the population most closely associated with words like "housing crisis" and "bubble burst."

My closet, for instance, is a healthy 64 square feet. 64 square feet of space to store, to move, to catalog, to pray, to think, to hide. I often wonder if our closet spaces expanded because we owned more stuff, or because we had more to conceal from ourselves. If the shoes, blouses, trousers, ties, belts, socks and dresses become an extension of the inner self, I wonder if they also distort our perception? Do we begin to believe when we slide on a pair of designer jeans that they make us better in some way? At some level, do we think we're not complete human beings without them? An entire industry relies on the fact that we do. We walk into our closet spaces filled with the things we buy in order to hide from ourselves. Like Gatsby with his unending shirts, we expand our closet spaces because we've lost ourselves.

In my closet, I'm looking for myself somewhere. 64 square feet is manageable space for my secrets, my hopes, my passions, my worries. On my shelves among the clothes hangs what is left of the aspirations and limitless dreaming of my youth. Hidden within hat boxes lay the same old fears I rarely open. This is where I practice my violin--the siren call of my lost voice.

In my closet, I do the thing no one asks. I do the thing no one knows or understands. I do the thing that tests my stamina and courage. I play. I play lonely. I play for my begging fingers. I make music where I can--in my closet.

Out west we say "character" is what you make of yourself when no one is looking. It's lonely, it's tough. I'm in my own "western territory" when I'm in my closet. I fall. I cry. I pray. Then I cowboy up and get back on the horse to ride another day.

Lonely in the Closet With Four Kids

2009-08-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

Funny how the more you believe one truth about yourself, the more its polar opposite begins to manifest itself. The longer I keep practicing "in the closet," the more I realize how desperately I'm actually trying NOT to be in the closet. I'm not out giving recitals all the time. I don't teach. I don't play with any groups. I don't even have a teacher. I just practice four hours a day. I think that fits the description of a closet violinist. At the same time, I'm constantly trying to engage myself in the music world. I go to concerts, I write on violinist.com, I blog . . . these activities seem incongruent with the "closet violinist" lifestyle--if you're really trying to keep it under wraps, why are you writing about it on blogger for the whole world to read? :-)

I must be lonely. I find a great deal of joy in playing for playing's sake alone, but I'm a social creature. I need a place to air my ideas, share my journey. Blogger seems to be a good place. No one forces anyone to read this stuff. It's nice to air my thoughts outside of myself--to speak. The violin is an expressive instrument; actually, the MOST expressive instrument. So, being a violinist in the closet is probably the greatest paradox of all--someone who uses an expressive instrument NOT to express.

My problem has been that in my loneliness, I've tried to reach out to others with a similar interest level in order to legitimize myself. That fails. The only legitimacy that counts is the legitimacy I give myself every minute I spend fighting through mind numbing Sevcik exercises. I give myself permission to play the minute my bow touches the string.

Sometimes that moment is amazing. Thrilling even. My muscles are alive, ready to produce. At the moment, I'm struggling to build technique. Arduous. One Rode Caprice, One Sevcik out of each of the Four Parts (op.1), Bach Unaccompanied, first two Pag Caprices, the Strauss Concerto and Chausson Poeme along with review if I have time. Most of the time, I'm wasted by the time I get to the Poeme.

If I get that far. Every minute I spend with my instrument is numbered. I have four other people in my life (children) who claim my attention before this hobby. Except for a few rare exceptions, I don't know what it would be like to get through an entire exercise without someone needing Mom. They've been trained not to interrupt. They do anyway. They know about practicing. They do it themselves. It's just that, when you're a child, you need your Mom and usually immediately. I'm so happy to be their Mom, and believe (like all Moms do) my kids are pretty incredible people. I'm honored to have them in my home.

Being a Mom and having a passion is dicey territory. I've managed it by choosing what I do with my time. Fortunately, practicing is easier to fit in and around the duties of motherhood than playing with an orchestra or teaching. I've chosen to keep it up with practice because my children's lives demand it.

I fight with myself constantly for balance. It's so easy to give in and get sucked down the "Bach Black Hole" for instance (all of a sudden you've spent three hours playing Bach and you don't know where the time went . . . ever had that happen?). It's difficult not to get out of sorts when the door flies open in the middle of the big riff at the end of Praeludium and Allegro and you hear "mom. Mom! MOM!!!" or when you're trying to get through just until the end of the second section of the first Paganini Caprice right before the rest while your daughter is yelling at you, tugging at your leg and kicking you. In my mind I'm thinking--not yet, please! Just wait sixty two seconds . . . but, they need you NOW. It's the inattention they can't deal with. They can't wait. It's an affront to their basic childhood belief that the world revolves around them. I'm a Mom and this is what I signed up for--it's not what I realized I signed up for, but then again I didn't realize how deeply I could love another human being when I signed up for this either.

I understand why I'm lonely in the closet. How many people straddle musical obsession and four children? More than once I've been snubbed because of a false assumption that anyone who has four children can't also be serious about music--or at least not one who didn't do something substantial with it before they had the children. I normally get looks of bewilderment. I'm bewildered myself. But, here I am. I exist.

My closet is a world of paradox.