Lessons from the Self

Recently, for awhile, something between or within those two ideas, I've been feeling a need to reconnect with something.  Something feels foreign in my body, something feels distant in my spirituality.  Searching for my voice as a teacher, missing one that I had.

This morning I led myself through a Tae Kwon Do work-out.  It's been awhile.  I did kicks I had forgotten about.  Something about turning and jumping in certain ways opens my mind.  Something about determining how many sit-ups, push-ups, kicks, what I need and want to do next, made me check in more deeply with myself.  Where am I?  What is needed here?  To go through the physical hour somehow puts my mind in check in a way I had missed.

It also made me think more deeply about teaching and about the essential need to allow a student to do this.  The student is a whole person.  As someone who as led myself through musical and martial arts practice, my job is not to upload technique into them, but to help them become more self-aware and aware of their surroundings so that they can learn to serve themselves and others. 

Sometimes it is good to be away from something in order to miss it, in order to hear it more clearly when it opens itself again.

Time to Love

To whom does time belong?  When is it my time, when does the time belong to another?  Am I ever freely choosing, even in moments of solitude, even on days of no obligations?  If I serve another with with sincerity, even if I am being paid to do so, am I really serving?  Am I not the owner of the time as well?  

Filling out the time, defining the time, owning it.  It belongs to me, and to you and to everyone.  It is our communal space, which we can fill with love.

Tax Woman

My first visit to an accountant.  The first time I have a feeling that my taxes were done correctly.  I was grateful not only for her help, but also to be in her little upper east side home, apparently lived in for years, perhaps rent controlled, covered and crowded with canvasses from the days when she painted. She does taxes for lots of artists, and in passing mentioned a couple, an actor and a clown, that switched to a schedule A after years of schedule Cs and got audited.

It's another side of accounting.  To have a means to be an artist and a way to connect with many people from different walks of life.  She was very friendly, explained things very well, and now, before February, my taxes are done, my quarterly payments for 2017 organized, and my allowance for retirement funds determined. I'm really grateful to this person for being here in New York, for making a life of this, and helping me and others who have complicated financial lives that we don't understand, make the most of it.  

Waiting for the Bus

Again, in transit.  Or rather, sitting on a bench in the Harlem train station waiting for the MTA bus service to arrive.  Sometimes it's 10 minutes, today it's probably going to be closer to 45.  Luckily I have technology to let me know to stay indoors until it is approaching.

Although, in all honesty, I'm not waiting for a train.  I took one, but I'm waiting for the bus.  There are a lot of people that would like to spend the night in this space, but non-ticket holders are not allowed indoors. As I have the luxury of sitting here, I am aware of all the police officers chasing people outside.    What a world.  What privilege I have.  Showered, clean, white, undisturbed and undisturbing.  Granted, it seems that as long as one isn't loitering or panhandling, they don't have a problem, but it's hard to live several hours in the station unnoticed.  

I should go outside out of principle.  And yet it's cold and I have my cello.  It risks damage.  Do I have more to lose being outside?  What is valuable, what is left to be lost from anyone?   Livelihood, things hard won, our protectionism.

Now that I have been here for 30 minutes and the bus is on the way, I will compromise and leave, waiting outside likely for 10-15 minutes.  What is right?  What have I learned to do and what must I do?  

Orchestra Gig

It's been a long time since I've played in an orchestra, but this week I get to have two rehearsals and a concert for a gig sitting principal in a chamber orchestra.  Ideal type of orchestra situation.  The program is mostly Mozart to celebrate the composer's birthday on Friday, plus a modern piece, composed in the 1950s.  

It was strange yesterday to start preparing the parts.  In the past, I spent so much time reading music, trying to get it really clean and pristine, and these days I just don't do that.  I play much more from memory, or even improvising, and after 15 minutes of orchestral practice, I could feel familiar muscles working again, some with dull pain.  Probably fixing my gaze at a single point and forcing myself to follow the instructions it feeds me is not the most healthy thing for my body, but as musicians we spend so many hours doing just that.  How strange to come back to the practice after spending so much time in Dalcroze and finding creative ways to teach.

But there is something really thrilling about trying to fit in with an ensemble, about being a part of the sound it is creating.  The precision of rhythm, articulation, timing, pitch, and overall awareness are never fully achieved.  It's a chase to try to find them and we do so as we reawaken the breath of a composer, no longer living.  We bring him (her?) alive as we become alive ourselves, together.  

But there are familiar judgments, as well, of oneself, of others.  Am I playing out of tune?  Why isn't it together?  What's going on with the balance?  The blend?  And numerous other frustrations.  These are necessary questions and curiosities that must be a part of playing in an ensemble for it to work.  And for a short period of time, they are great.  But I was reminded of how they can build up, of how repeated issues can cause tension between people, and hierarchies of power can suppress freedom.  Principal players have a different role than section players, as does the conductor, as does the personnel manager, who gets to decide when we can and should have breaks.  It is not a free way to make music, and as much as I really enjoy it, I don't think it is the way I'm meant to spend my life in the medium. 

I love it, though.  I love Mozart's music and I love being a part of its creation and living legacy.  I enjoy the interactions with other players when we can have them.  In some capacity, I want to stay close to the athleticism and passion that orchestral playing can be.  But I'm also happy to have more in my musical world.  

Thanks, Elias

Elias usually comes into my lesson room around 1:40 to drop off the stools that my young cellists will need and to put away any chairs I haven't already put away.  He's a fast-paced and jovial guy, emitting many small particles or perhaps just bouncing off the ones that come his way in some balance of good heart and hard-won English.  He's a part of my Mondays and today I was even more thankful to him for giving me a large clear plastic garbage for my first semi-nor'easter that I most certainly didn't see coming.

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Closing Credits

My favorite part of Neruda was the soundtrack, so cello friendly.  I had no reason to watch all the credits roll at the end of the film, other than enjoying listening to the simple and beautiful melody continue through the strings, remembering what it was to play in an orchestra, in a section of players.  But memory is only partial.  From a distance, I can remember the sweep and passion of certain moments; they were very real.  But a little closer I imagine my scrutiny, paranoia, and judgment, that always seemed a part of orchestral playing, at least if I felt I was doing my job and paying attention closely.  The detail has to be examined by the doer, not overlooked in a rush of emotion.  Otherwise it might be out of tune, or not together.  And then it is not a beautiful thing.

But how wonderful to sit there in a dark theater, watching credits in an other language, listening to something very beautiful, missing something that I loved more than I knew or would ever be able to know.  There is so much to love, here and now.  How can we let down the barriers of the present to allow it to be?

Mouse is Found!

It seems the mouse went home with one of his biggest fans.  Perhaps he just wanted a change of scenery, a new language to enjoy.  Looking forward to hearing about his adventures when he returns on Tuesday.

Lost Mouse

I've lost the little cloth mouse that helps my students have good Mouse Houses (bow holds).  What will I say to them?  That he has gone away, was homesick, ran away, will be back, will never be back?  Shall I tell them this is a lesson in the transience of presence?  

Eyes of Children

It is amazing to me that I do not remember any of my cello lessons with my incredible first cello teacher.  Except for the time I accidentally drooled in my lesson.  I learned so much from her, but my child's memory doesn't remember the moments in our lesson time.  I remember her standards, I remember her passion and hard-work for keeping the Suzuki program in the schools, but I don't remember working on the pieces, or what she said, or how she said it.  I wish I did, because she was a very good teacher.

It's occurred to me that many of my interactions with students may be washed from them in the end, but not their impression of me.  I remember the aura around my teacher, that she was serious about doing things correctly, that she was unapologetic about her advocacy of the program in the face of funding cuts.  I learned how to hold a bow from her, how to hold a cello, how to put my fingers down, what a key signature was, how to read music (also with some help from my father).

It's amazing how well I learned without remembering learning.  How important that teachers give themselves as whole people, because words will likely be forgotten.  Perhaps the same for all interactions.  Important to self-reflect, to be self-aware, because as forgetful as children may be, they are very aware, even without their own awareness of being so.

Rainy Bus Ride Home

I've just taught lessons near Times Square and am headed home on the bus, my Tuesday night luxury. The bus is really slow and unreliable, but sometimes it feels good to give the time, like waiting for an empty "Don't Walk" light in Japan.  We have more time to give than we think and the bus is a reminder.

Ironically, I'm sitting with my cello and my bags, typing this on a blue tooth keyboard and my iPad, balanced (some would say precariously) on my backpack on my lap.  The bus ride, luxurious as it is, is also a working time for me, when I can get ahead and type up the notes from my lessons so that I don't have to do so at home.  I have the time, but alas, I am using it.  

Time is an interesting thing.  As I became more experienced as a performer, I came to learn that filling out the time was an asset.  No rushing, no hurrying:  You have the time.  Take up the space, own it, breath it, define it.  It is a concept that can be hard to live in a world of instantaneous everything.  My teaching is still rushed.  The more I'm teaching, the more I'm learning to fill out the time, to become fascinated with something, to have faith that it will come.  Words are one thing, living it is another.  

Perhaps this is a way to become an expert at living.  I'll be 33 in a few weeks and realized that I while I'm not without care for my age, I worry about it less and less.  I was the oldest I've ever been at the age of 19.  Youth is so concerned with getting older, but how strange that as I get older I'm not so concerned about it anymore.  If only had known, if only I could know a little better now, as I imagine I will in a few years. 

It's raining and dark outside, and I've lost track of the cross street.  Perhaps it's time to look up for now....

Daily Living

There are basic things that we have to do to live, so basic that it is easy to forget how strange they are.  We have to eat, we have to spend hours every night in a shutdown mode, sleeping.  And because we've done these basic functions everyday from the time we were born, the other things that we acquire as we get older are more noticeable and seem like inconveniences.  Things like taxes, laundry, getting the handyman to unlock the door to the bathroom that somehow snapped shut on its own.

It was the first day off in many many days, not counting the time away with family.  It's rare to have an adult catch-up day, where I practice and stare at a computer trying to figure out how to categorize expenses.  It seems absurd that for other things to function this sort of cleaning needs to happen, but after an bland day of teaching not one student, I can see the value.

But just like sleeping, and eating, in any given second we are living in our skin.  The door won't open, he'll have to get a saw, the carpet cleaning will be twice as much as quoted, that expense should have been divided into two others.  But alive.  Watching another move, moving and breathing so that more can be done.

G. V.

It is exciting when a very new student comes into my room.  Soon to be 4-year-old, daughter of an Italian family, brave little voice singing the cello parts.  What will become of her and us in the coming months, or in the coming years?