Autumnal Beethoven

The train that I'm on, headed south to Washington DC, is traveling through the height of autumn, a preview of the beauty we will be seeing very soon in New York.  How lucky we are to have autumn.  Just as the sun is creeping away the leaves burst into flames, a quieter more noble light, something that echoes the inner fading.  It is very special, perhaps a blessed thing to be connected to this earthly rhythm, to see around me something that I cannot express in words, to share something with the trees, a secret that only we know, and perhaps that all people know, but cannot share with one another.  The trees are our translators.

And also to Beethoven goes this autumnal gratitude.  Especially to late Beethoven.  Just as I cannot express the feeling of autumn to others, so too is Beethoven forever to be in the crystallized deep sadness and solitude of his last years which gave rise to the longing and desperate acceptance of his late works.  I cannot thank him.  If I could, he might not exist as I know him.  We cannot exist other than isolated companions, and he not knowing that I would exist, that all the others who needed him would exist, writing into himself with some faith that we all find something in the trees in fall. 

Staten Island Ferry

I had to take the Staten Island Ferry to get to Staten Island this morning.  When I initially emerged from the the subway at the tip of Manhattan I assumed I could follow to crowds to get to the ferry entrance, but quickly realized they were headed for the Statue of Liberty cruises.  In the coolest way possible I asked some maintenance workers the way, yeah just the free ferry, not the cruise line.  

But of course the ferry was filled with tourists speaking French, German, and British English.  And they had a great idea.  It's beautiful!  An amazing view of the city and the Statue of Liberty and the water rushing beneath the boat, all for free.  And it's timed so that you can get there and then hop on another boat to enjoy the same journey in reverse.  

Unfortunately my iPad camera doesn't really do it justice.  But here is a glimpse of a very bright fall morning on the water.

Full Time Living

This has been such a full and wonderful weekend full of music and meeting new people.  My friend and former quartet-mate came down from Boston to begin a quartet rehearsal process with a group down here.  She is sensitive and full of laughter, unplanned and free to a fault, impervious to morning alarms.  It was good to have her energy for two nights and really wonderful to start playing in a quartet with her again.

We've started rehearsals with Beethoven's Opus 132, a challenging but rewarding piece.  It was rough as we were reading terrible parts and truly reading them, but the group has a fun balance and we covered a lot of ground in the two long rehearsals that we had.  It's interesting to be able to fully express myself in quartet again, after two years of gestures and half-linguistic communications.  It's amusing to rehearse in a quartet that doesn't have a structured tuning protocol, or the score, or preparation for the rehearsal.  This is not necessarily a good thing–it's better to be prepared for the rehearsal!  But it's also lighter as we are all learning together from the beginning, getting to know one another, trusting that we are capable (because this group really is).

I also sang in public for the first time in my adult life, at a fundraiser Cabaret for the Riverside Choral Society.  The choir has a very friendly, supportive social life to it and I was happy to volunteer to sing the work of a woman in the soprano section who composes in her spare time.

Afterwards I joined my visiting friend (who has friends everywhere) at a house party in the upper upper west, where I mingled (or was in close proximity) with lots of composers from the city and elsewhere, a few other musicians, and enjoyed the not-yet-too-cold night air from their roof.

And today, after another rehearsal, I accepted a last minute invitation to concert my friend's chamber group was giving at a Japanese cultural center.  A fundraiser for their concert and educational activities, they had picked several movements of pieces for horn, clarinet, cello, and piano to accompany segments of silent movies.  It was very well rehearsed and timed, there was wine (and Pellegrino!) and various cheeses, crackers, etc, and popcorn for the movies.

The futon is back in place, the house is quiet again, and I'm preparing for another day in the city.  Tomorrow a trip to Staten Island for an appointment and a few substitute lessons (meeting new students!).  It's a busy and full existence and at the end of this week looms an audition in DC that has not been prepared, and has no time to be.  Should I take it out of principle?  Gain something from the experience?  I have until Tuesday to decide.  I understand why New Yorkers don't seem to audition so much.  When would they have time to prepare?  Why would they want to leave?

To a Person in New York

I have looked through the jungle of rails and pillars to the other platform, searched the oncoming faces and those pacing to the sides of me.  I have seen with certainty a corner of you how many times, and yet never the whole thing.  What are the chances that our paths will cross?  What are the chances that we will see one another, that when you are there, my eyes will be up, and yours as well?  

I Teach To....

My brain is so full of my students at Harlem.  We had our best day yet and overall things are getting smoother.  But those successes only make me expect more.  Yesterday was swimming, today was quick sand.  It was a half day which is sort of a holiday, and we had to get everyone together for orchestra time (a first).  It will get smoother.  We'll get to know the challenges and the possibilities better and better.

I came home and put on Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 132.  It's hard to think of the most important thing right now, and sometimes the answer is not thinking.  Not to be without thinking, but that the answer isn't there.  I started to think about life as a performer and what that shares and life as a teacher and what that shares.  Why is it important that we have courtesy in our classroom?  Why is it important that there is respect?  Why is it important to listen?

Without these things we cannot share.  I can hear something in a quartet, I can allow the musicians who play it and Beethoven who composed it, to enter in to me and to change me and I carry those with me.  And with teaching it is the same, but for me perhaps the possibilities for traction are even higher.  When there is an exchange of ideas it is possible to learn and grow and pass things along to others.  And then we can become bigger.

There was a rally today for the teachers at the Success Academies and they were all wearing T-shirts that said, "I teach to end inequality."

This seems to be a very sincere goal of this school.  And I believe in its importance.  I think there is a large part of me that teaches for this reason, too.  But I wasn't one of the teachers wearing this shirt.

Why do I teach?

I really believe in the importance of what I'm doing.  It occupies a large part of me right now, larger than any orchestra audition has.  It sort of eats away at me to be better.  I want to open another space of listening, another space of sharing, another space of growing, so that we can all pass something along, to touch others, for years to come.  

Voices

I recalled yesterday, that during my first few months in Japan I thought a great deal about finding a voice in this new home.  It wasn't until I was walking away from observing some wonderful Suzuki lessons that I began to reflect on voice and the many voices I have around me in New York that it occurred to me that I am not feeling this void.  Rather there are many from which to choose, many incredible teachers to observe and from whom to learn, students to steer me, and the strong voices of all the people around me, telling people to move in on the train, saying what they like and don't like very clearly, no offense.  New York is strong and moves along.

But in Japan there wasn't a voice around me that I could hear.  It was such a silent existence, and the voice that was there was of a few fellow expats, trying to make meaning of their place in the sea of Japanese.  But there was also the wordless voice, something very special and as foreign and valuable as anything else surrounding me.  It was a different way of listening.  Listening to the intent, listening to the air, through my skin, and from within myself.  I miss it, and yet the cold has not yet fully set in and I am very grateful for the beautiful wealth of guidance that surrounds me.  I am touched by what is possible to communicate in words and inspired to find the imagination that words can create in their poetic cross-modality, the excitement, the quickening they can fire in the learning process.

What would it be like to have grown without words?  They say that words gives us the concepts and categories that we manipulate to have thoughts.   We might not be able to navigate if we didn't have a "right" or a "left".  Might not be able to differentiate without words for colors or textures or statures or lengths.  And what more can we learn with our creative use of words?  What concepts can we create and more importantly, what concepts can we share with one another?

But still, there is a world without words that has great feeling and meaning and carries an incredible about of importance in our lives as artists and human beings.  It can transcend us beyond the categories and concepts that we have so explicitly created and packaged and exchange with one another, but it somehow needs a voice.  There must be translators, through music, through art, through words, but most certainly through listening to it and from it.

The cold air is exciting this time of year.

Day of Free Sparring

I made an appointment for a doctor's visit this morning, only to arrive and discover that I didn't have the proper health insurance.  I didn't realize that I have Medicaid now and will have HealthFirst (and also Medicaid?) starting November 1st.  It has a been a learning process to get this whole thing set up and has taken a fair amount of time, not to mention the mistake that I made about coverage and the time it took to go to the office to figure it out.  Eye-opening to be in these shoes.

The office itself was quite strange.  The doctor was probably in her eighties, and although this shouldn't be an issue, I realized that for me, for this particular specialty, I was not so comfortable with it.  How would I know that she was up-to-date on the latest medical issues?  I decided to assume perhaps she was, and to just go with it, but the open Dixie cups of urine on the counter by the sink outside the bathroom just didn't breed confidence.  And her rejection of me only pinched that much more for it.  I couldn't help but feel a little low as a Medicaid-only patient in her midst, someone she wouldn't see.  I've never been on Medicaid before.  What a feeling to have the world see you in this way, to have to search for doctors that will accept you, when even the eighty-year-old-open-urine-cup doctor won't.

But I realized I was judging her, too.  And perhaps we were both fair to do so.  Maybe she has nothing against me, but for some reason she has to be defensive towards Medicaid patients.  Maybe she was afraid I would desperately beg her and thus her reaction of trying to get me out of her office saying to the receptionist in her Long Island accent, "Just throw away her papers.  If she comes back we'll make more," and walking out of the room.  Maybe I'm a threat to her.  And I have nothing against her really, but I don't want her as my doctor.  So we can go on having our own lives now.

Later in the day I went to the Success Academy to observe a ceramics class.  I'm very curious about how other teachers teach in this school, and it was suggested that I attend another arts class.  And more and more I'm starting to appreciate this hard-lined approach, because I also see how much dedication and care there is in it.  Two of my students were in this class, one of whom is challenging due to a very short attention span.  But this teacher had made a deal with her that she could be her assistant if she got fewer than 5 corrections (for bad behavior) in the week.  And she was a different girl in this class.  She had so much loyalty, so much calm, respect, and relatively more focus.  There is a real commitment to getting students to all be onboard, as one teacher said, "One hundred percent of students, one hundred percent of the time."

In the 45 minutes I was in the class she expected good posture from them all the time, expected them to track whoever was speaking all the time, expected (of course) complete silence, even making them stand more quietly so that their squeaky shoes didn't obscure the voice of one of their classmates.  And I learned the difference between tint, tone, and shade, and how to mix colors to make different skin tones (orange and then gradually white or black) and that if the outcome is too green you can add magenta to fix it.  And for about 10 minutes they all quietly focused on their own work, trying different color mixings, creating their art.  In line, before they left the class, they talked about the challenges and successes they had in their individual time.  One girl spoke of trying to perfectly match the purple in one of the room wall hangings.

They need a lot of disciplining, but there is a lot of learning and experiencing happening, too.  It's so cool to see the relationship of trust being built between teacher and student and to see students seeing the world around them differently.  It's inspiring and I still have a lot to learn from these teachers.  But luckily, the other great thing about this school is that all the teachers seem really supportive.  They give students points to take back to their main classes, they know one another, work together, and seem to be in constant contact about how all students are doing.  Everyone knows everyone.

I'm trying to read more about charter schools and don't know the specific background of this one.  But I can certainly see the appeal in having the teaching environment be so intimate and connected, and to having the teachers be so involved in their students.

And to (almost) end the day, I met with a fellow Tae Kwon Do member for a workout together.  It is the second we have had and like the first, it was great to work out with another person and get feedback and modeling from a strong black belt.  And especially the free sparring.  It's something that cannot be done alone and so an area of training that can atrophy in solo work.  We only did one match, but it was fairly long, and I found myself connecting more to him as I tried to find openings and tried to keep mine closed.  Free sparring can be a very intimate thing.  One gets very close to another as you put yourselves in one another's space and work with anticipations and reactions.  And afterward we sat for a reflection as we always do in our Tae Kwon Do tradition, this time a silent one, being open to whatever came up for us personally.  And I felt the strange and overwhelming feeling of love that seems to come from such an activity as free sparring.  And I thought about my doctor's visit and the world of teaching a little differently.

A Mouse House Isn't Enough

A teacher cannot break something down too much and can never be too creative or inventive in finding ways variation in doing it.  There are so many parts to our complex actions.  Suzuki taught the one point lesson, through different activities and exercises he focused on one point, keeping it interesting and intriguing throughout.  I'd love to find this virtuosity.

Today in Dalcroze we improvised with partners.  One person sang in A-flat Phrygian while the other used four different hand motions to dictate what rhythms they should use.  Our teacher is so creative in this class.  He settled upon this method because everyone was too shy to sing solo in front of everyone, and he played the tonic so that we wouldn't slip into the the foreboding A-flat major which might scare us with right and wrong implied harmonies.  He morphed into this solution and we all participated safely and grew from it.  

Teaching seems a bit like improvising with people.  There are various different parameters--age, experience, personality, environment--and one has to soar with the possibilities, and find counterpoint with the barriers, rather than feel restricted by them.  And so to dance around the tiniest minutia, to find intrigue in the most mundane part of playing and to alter it, to turn it to a new angle, seems to be one of the most important parts of teaching.  Today I realized that I need to find more intrigue in the bow hold.  There is a whole world for me to discover again.

Pajama Day

It was pajama day at Success Academy in Harlem today and no one told me.  But I had stickers and an agenda and today felt better.  I'm increasing my batting average at having good teaching days.  In fact the last three times visitors have come into my class, it has been at dream teaching moments, everyone engaged, everyone getting it.  Thanks guys.  Captain America and Pink Sparkle Stars.

There is such a game of power between teachers and students and I enjoy the humor of it, unless I'm losing terribly.  (I know they still have that power over me.  I'm not yet invincible.)  As per their request and good educational practice, everyone in the room has responsibilities, which they more or less maintain.  My time keeper enjoys usurping the class focus by frequently announcing how much time we have left ("Five minutes twenty seconds!"  "Four minutes fifty seconds!"), but then that is also a barometer for me because she is perhaps the most easily distracted.  Maybe time to move on.  And I'm not sure my point keeper was completely diligent and honest in her point logging when I saw the tally at the end of the day.  But I'm not really worried about that (what's an extra temporary tattoo for their focus) and no one seemed to have any problem with what she announced.  But I should be careful, because there are some in the class that I believe care very deeply in their points.  Or do they?  What a farce this seems to be.

And with my increasing batting average comes increasing enjoyment.  One of my beginning students has sung both the blues and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" plucking only open strings for his daily performances.  And pajama day, I hope I get another chance.

Sunday Morning in Lower Manhattan

A morning walk on this Sunday morning to lower Manhattan.  We saw the touching and reflective 9/11 memorial, ventured to Battery Park and through the financial district, and stepped intoTrinity Church between services.  And then we found a small bagel shop with a very long line and knew that would be lunch.  It was the most delicious bagel I've yet had in my life.  Mmmmm, I can still remember the perfect texture of the wheat core and the touch of garlic and poppy and sesame.  And the clear fall light sifting through the skyscrapers, falling on the rivers and bay, dazzlingly in the haunting memorial fountain.  

Chinatown Lessons

I really want some cello students.  And so when a colleague of mine asked me to substitute teach for him this morning in Chinatown, it was a definite yes.

It took an hour to get there because on the weekends there are inevitably route changes to the subway.  I got off the bus and walked through a courthouse district, closed off to cars.  There were some Chinese people practicing Tai Chi in the shadows of the tall buildings and as I rounded the corner and stepped out of the restricted zone into Chinatown, I immediately saw the Florentine music school.  I walked in and got the receptionist's reluctant attention.  "You're early," she said.  I had figured 15 minutes was at the very least polite for a first time.  She escorted me to the room where I would be teaching, a tiny kitchen complete with refrigerator, washing machine, dish washer, microwave, sink, some folding tables, a drum kit, and a piano.

I squeezed in and tried to make sense of the space.  Where would I go?  Where would a student go?  It struck me there was no music stand, but it seemed silly to ask for one.  Where would it go?  This was a used room, an unnurtured space.  Strange to imagine a lesson happening.

But it did.  Three of them, in fact.  And it felt good to stretch those rusty muscles again, good to feel the things that I've been learning in the past few weeks come into use.  And over the course of the three hours that I was in that room, I was also the beneficiary of a college prep Algebra lesson being shouted in a Chinese accent at a class of students on the other side of the thin wall.  "18...  X....WHAT IS X???  YOU SEE Y????"

The teaching conditions were a little less than ideal, the pay a little less that than it should be, too.  And yet I would eagerly return.  It's pretty cool to change the character of such a tiny room, to leave it seeing it differently than it was when I entered.

Learning Teaching Learning

I am surrounded by wonderful teaching models.  There are so many ideas moving around, so much creativity and curiosity.  I hope education is never complete.  I think this is why I'm so drawn to it.  Will we ever conquer all the things it poses: how we learn, the ethics of what is taught, the politics of how education is structured, the interpersonal relationship of teacher and student?

I had the pleasure of watching Pamela Devenport, a master (truly) Suzuki teacher give two very different lessons to two very different students this afternoon.  They learned from her,  I learned from her, and my lesson for my students will be influenced by her as well, and where else will it all go?  Learning from learning, teaching from teaching.  It is such a difficult art and only as I start to step into it with some self-scrutiny am I starting to see the incredible virtuosity of certain teachers.  I am a beginner, and a very fortunate one, indeed.

Catching Points

Yesterday they were great, and today, chaotic.  I think my scholars are as pecuniary and fearful as the rest of the adult population and my job is to award points and corrections and stick to it.  I'm disappointed in my ability to do this consistently.  So I'll keep asking myself if I can do a better job.  Can I put more of my focus on the points and corrections distribution?  100% of the students 100% of the time.  This is what the art teacher advised me today.  Everyone is so supportive.  They know it takes time, that it's difficult.  But that doesn't mean I don't want to have it solved now.  It's a quick fix once I get myself on board.  And yesterday was great.  They were expecting their punishments and I didn't dole them out because they didn't need them.  It was a mistake.  So many thoughts about what I'm going to do with the content of the class and really I think it is far more simple, just lay down the law.  But it is so hard to do that.  To really be fair, to ignore someone if they are talking out of turn, to call them on it, and punish them.  I have to trust that they can be trained.  That's the goal for Thursday.  And better bow holds and the left hand on the cello and better rhythm reading.....

I joined the Riverside Choral Society because I had missed singing for the past ten years.  And it is wonderful to be singing again and it is wonderful to be in this group of people that are very nice and talented amateur musicians.  But we do have to go over things a lot and I miss the rigor of orchestra.  I miss the engagement of sitting next to a really great stand partner.  I miss the trombones.  Yes, that's right.  There are so many colors, so many nuances and capabilities.  I'm surprised how much I miss it and I can feel the atrophy of it every time I'm singing in this group.  For some reason it invokes the desire for more.  And maybe for that reason it is something I need to be doing, to at least be reminded of the importance of making music with others, that it not silently crawl out of existence.

But there is a frustration here.  I wonder if longing is actually connected with lacking or missing.  I remember longing so much in high school.  For what?  Or maybe it was for all the things that have come into me.  I long much less now and somehow feel less sincere.

I had a moment today where I wished to be blind.  It was a feeling, a desire to lose my eyes and ability to see.  Hard to know what to make of it.  Maybe I wish to see the beauty of the front hallway of our apartment again, the way the elevator door closes.  It can be hard to note all the beautiful things once experiences.  How to keep seeing.  

Rainy Mornings, Diner Booths

A chilly, wet, autumn morning through the streets of New York.  Coming out of the subway and feeling the wind whip the mist along the pavement, up the buildings, a warm smell of something, from a bakery, a food cart.  On a street somewhere some one is walking.   Maybe it is someone I know, someone I've loved, or will love one day.  I'm looking at all the faces and searching, and not looking at any of the faces and feeling.  This time of year is a departure.  The sun is leaving us, the warmth is leaving us.  We never think of the arrival of the dark, the arrival of the cold.  

So many departures come to mind on a morning like this.  How many departures does one have in life?  

I've been reading Nurtured by Love the classic Suzuki text I've read at least twice before.  But this is the first time I've read it since having been in Japan.  It takes me back a little.  I understand Suzuki, his way of life and way seeing the world in differently than I did before.  To Westerners, he is a magical person.  He is indeed, but his thoughts about pedagogy are certainly the product of the classic approach to Japanese education and culture.  It takes me back.  I read a few lines of Japanese this morning for the first time in months.  There is an irreplaceable feeling there.  It's a hidden alcove inside of me that can never be closed, even if it gets shriveled and shoved under all the pertinent parts of living now and living to come.  I've been opened in yet another way.  How many ways can one be opened?  How many times can one love?

With the cold, we've started a diner search.  An hour spent in a booth, across from a solitary woman reading a book, a well-lipsticked and laid back waitress with a light evening, a decent cup of hot chocolate, and some horrendous cherry pie.  One diner down, and so many more to discover in the upcoming cold that approaches this city.  

New Yorkers

As I left the school today, wondering if I'd gotten any closer to figuring out the classroom management needed for these students, it started to rain.  And then next to me came the voice, "Ah another fellow musician."  A woman dressed in black, carrying a bassoon on her back.  "It rains on us all," I said.  And here was an immediate friend, originally from Israel, speaking in a candid, comfortable and straightforward manner.  She could not have been more New York.  We chatted during our train ride to the same stop and she got my email address.

And on the way back home a stranger paid for my train ticket when my card didn't read and I got stuck in the turn style with my cello.  I could have backed up, but he was too fast.

People are so open and closed with the strangers around them.  They ignore them or interact with them, but not much in between.  It is so liberating to be in this city after Japan, where emotions were so covered, but still understood.  There need be little deciphering here.  The pace is fast enough that there isn't really time for it.  Any offense gets off a few stops later, walks on.  People are too involved in their own lives to be concerned for others.  And so kindness actually feels more sincere, more open.  Like the woman who spontaneously opened up to me, or the guy who paid for my fair.  They have nothing to expect in exchange.  Just people being nice and open.  No strings attached.  Another side of human nature.