My life in 6 Songs: Part I

Having recently read the book by Daniel Levitin, The World in Six Songs, I have been thinking of my own life in terms of the music I have learned throughout it. This thought process got started last weekend when I pulled my dusty mountain banjo out of its case for a jam session at a friend's house. Hadn't played the thing in at least one, maybe two years, and yet, my fingers remembered the few little Appalachian-flavored tunes I learned some 35 years ago. Clumsy and slow, but definitely still accessible from the muscle memory banks, the songs brought forth a flood of memories of the days living in Ohio where I learned them.

I was a young college student, a transplant from New York, studying first Music Therapy and then Cello Performance at Ohio University, ending up, finally, with the Music Education degree that has served me so well this last decade and a half. Athens, the home of OU, sits at the southeast corner of the state, at the edge of the Appalachian Mountains and region. Such a place, I found, was home to a whole new kind of music I had never heard before. Not bluegrass, but something more raw and simple that appealed to me right away and made me want to learn.

There was an Anthropology professor in those days, Art Saxe, who lived with his wife, Susan, on a 40-or-so acre farm at the top of a knobby hill in Millfield, once a coal mining town about 15 miles from Athens. Art had befriended some of the local musicians, some of us students, and also some hippies that lived down the road from him. During the first summer I lived there, we would gather in Art's living room to drink homemade wine and beer and play music together. He knew- it seemed- hundreds of these mountain songs, and sang them with gusto while thumping on a banjo made from the torque converter of -I think- an old Plymouth. I would bring a fiddle along and he patiently taught me what he knew. I learned that I needed steel strings, not the silver wound gut or synthetic that I had been using. I also learned that I needed to flatten my bridge out, the better to play on two strings at once.

I got hooked up with this group of musical friends in the spring when I had cat-sat at a friend's apartment in town over spring break. Her apartment had a window that opened on to a roof where I would play my fiddle in the open air. This was a fiddle that I had borrowed from a boy, an English major, on whom I had a desperate crush. He and I joined together with another boy and  formed a band that played Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Jonathan Prine songs around town. I had started learning a few fiddle tunes by this time and they were always the hit of any gig. But I was still thinking bluegrass and the mountain style hadn't quite sunk in yet.

So here I was on a sunny spring day, playing fiddle on a roof, and a young man appeared in the alley and shouted up to me "Don't go away, I'll be right back!" And back he came with a guitar. He introduced himself -Lucien Geoffrey Matte- and we shared tunes and jammed the rest of the afternoon away. Soon he introduced me to his friend, David Kuhaneck who played clawhammer banjo in the frailing style of Appalachia, and I was hooked. It was through these two new friends that I became a regular at Art Saxe's summer night gatherings.

The night air of summer in Appalachia is like nothing else I have ever experienced anywhere. It is dense with the sound of night insects, the twinkle of fireflies, the buzz of hunting night hawks and the condensation of the day's humidity. Between songs, the space between the musicians filled up with this mix, making a continuous, velvety fabric of sound, smells and fecund too much-ness. Learning the songs here wasn't like learning music in school. The songs kept coming, and I had to grab what I could as they flew by. Consciousness altered with beer and other substances, I felt like a goldfish finding the castle all over again in his little bowl. Every time, every song unremembered until so many songs went by so many times, finally some of them stuck.

Chickens a-crowin' on Sourwood Mountain
Hay, dang dang, diddle aylee dang,
So many pretty girls, I just can't count 'em
Hay dang dang, diddle aylee dang.

Or

Old Molly Hare
What're you doin' there?
Sittin in a corner
Smokin' a cigar.

Or

Oh the cuckoo
She's a pretty bird
She warbles when she flies
She don't ever holler cuckoo
Till the fourth of July

 Sometimes, returning home at daybreak, the mist settling into the hollows in gauzy wisps seemed like a reflection of the sleepy dreams of music in my head.

The next fall, Art was in the hospital for a while, I forget what for, but Susan made him a tape to listen to of all the versions of his favorite song, Ragtime Annie, that he had on various records. That is one song of those many that I learned and learned well, and play to this day, in the version that Art himself taught me. Won second place in the fiddle contest at Julian a few years back with that song.

The Appalachian Mountains are far away and Art is probably long retired and moved to Florida or something by now, but those tunes are in me still, and can still fill me up, just like a hot summer evening on a steamy mountain top.

National Boards?????

Fellow music teacher colleague and friend, Karen, is thinking about tackling the daunting prospect of  acquiring a National Board Certificate. She has taken the first plunge by attending a four-hour informational meeting. She has gotten me thinking about it too. It's funny how, even though it immediately pops into my head that it is WAY too much work, on top of the way too much work I already have on my plate every week, month and year, a little spark of excitement lights up my brain imagining that I could really slow down and THINK about how and what and why I am doing what I do. Get feedback, develop new ideas toward best practices, and in the end, get some recognition and a raise. It's not an unattractive idea. Especially if there would be a fellow music teacher on the road too.

We (okay, I AM seriously considering this, even though I wouldn't even have dipped a toe in the water if it hadn't been for Karen diving in first) have till July 11 to decide. Meanwhile I am reading everything I can about the process, talking it over with husband and those who have been there and done that.

It takes a certain self-confidence in one's teaching practices even to think about taking this on. The whole point of the project is critical reflection and it's maybe only after this pretty good year that I feel I could stand up to such self-inflicted scrutiny. After 15 years in this district, I could actually hold a mirror up to my classroom and maybe not flinch. It would be okay to look closely and see what I do, and not run screaming from the profession as an abject failure. Maybe it would even be fun. I'm thinking this blog atmosphere might be useful as a tool to help me think out loud, so to speak.

I will think on this some more...any thoughts, friends?

When the Leadership promotes the Arts, amazing things happen

Gayle Bluemel has always looked at her position as the principal of Sierra Madre School as one of facilitating the wonderful work of the inspired and inspiring teachers who work there. Keeping directives from "above" to a minimum, she has always supported and encouraged the teachers, students and parents in this thriving school community to move above and beyond their own and everyone else's expectations. As she finishes her last few days in her distinguished career, this tribute, prepared in secret by hundreds of people, was the perfect gift to a woman whose educational philosophy directly results in the actual ability to pull something like this off. Have a look!

http://sierramadre.patch.com/articles/flash-mob-serenades-retiring-principal?ncid=M255

The End of the Year Already

The time has flown. It seems we just loaded our cars with the instruments from the warehouse to distribute to eager new students, and now we are already collecting them, cleaning them and taking them back. All around, I have to say, it's been a pretty good year.  I know that for the first time in 15 years, I actually feel my own competency, know where I need to develop and improve and have begun to understand why I do what I do and why it matters.

In some ways our music department for the whole district has become more closely knit than ever, and the benefit goes to the kids.We have been trying to have more continuity between schools, keeping track of where kids go when they leave our programs at elementary or middle school. We have tried to connect kids from different schools through the music they can share. We have joined together as a faculty of performers to make the Staff Lounge jazz band.  I personally have watched several of my colleagues teach this year, and, I hope, have learned some new tricks.

My own classes have done well. I feel that the students who stayed with it through the whole year will move on to the next level next year with skills in place to succeed. I still puzzle over the ones who don't make it through the year, and am determined to address this- and maybe solve it- in the coming year.

Update the inventory, nudge some performers through a couple of promotion ceremonies, pack a few boxes (did I tell you we are getting a new room next year? Not much view, but GREAT air conditioning!) turn in the keys, and it's all over, Rover. There is summer school to look forward to, but a week off to hang in the desert with my sister, play Scrabble, swim, talk and talk. All too soon we teachers will be back at the warehouse, carrying armloads of instruments back out to our cars and trucks, wondering when the heat will break, wondering if there will be any stars, wondering what the new year will bring.

Silver! The PAK Orchestra Goes to Festival

So, finally, the big day arrived. The PAK Orchestra from Sierra Madre Middle School was finally going to Forum Music Festival for the first time ever. The big carrot for this event is the afternoon we would get to spend at Knott's Berry Farm after the performance and awards ceremony at Cypress College.

The kids had been looking forward to this trip since Christmas, and had worked hard together to prepare the music we would play. We had six pieces to choose from, and had played all six for the Spring Concert and assemblies at school the week before. Though we had made a good showing of "Jupiter" for the school concerts, I was still nervous about all the things that could go wrong in that piece. Better to play things more within our ability, and do well, than to try for harder music and mess up. The was the advice from the Festival organizers themselves and also from my friend and colleague who had attended this festival many times in the past, and who had heard our school performance. In the end we chose "Glorioso", "Can-Can" and "The Tempest".

We met early in the morning to load the bus, check in last-minute permission slips, and finalize plans with some of the chaperones. Then we were off. The kids were subdued on the trip, just sleepy still, was how I figured. IPods and phones kept everyone busy and tranquil the whole way. When we got to Cypress College we saw the group of yellow buses dropping off students and knew we had arrived. Three of the four schools represented in the morning portion of that day's festivities were from our own Pasadena Unified School District; Eliot Middle School and Blair Secondary School were also there. We had made some efforts throughout the year to connect kids from the various schools in the district, so there were happy reunions among students and teachers alike.

After check-in, we entered the hall to hear the first group- the only one NOT from PUSD. This band was from Eliot Middle School in Downey, and right off, we knew we had some competition. They all had matching tee-shirts, and sat up with almost military straightness. They focussed like lasers on their conductor, Ms. Peen, and played with a precision and clarity that was very impressive. I hoped my own students were watching and learning, and not just letting this group's excellence intimidate them.

Next we watched our own PUSD Eliot Middle School, under the very experienced direction of Karen Klages. She has a wall of plaques from this festival, and her students were very comfortable getting up there and showing their best. We heard her band play, and they also sounded great. We cheered them on, counting their members among friends.

Then a staff member came and got us to go to the warmup room. My students sat right down in approximate formation as they do on our stage at home, and got busy warming up. I tuned all the strings (my OCD kicks in over this! I do not trust my string players to tune themselves), and we talked briefly about the Downey group and what they could bring to their own playing from watching them (sitting up straight, watching the conductor, starting and ending REALLY together...this from my own kids, yay) and then it was time.

As we left the warm-up room to go on to the stage, I had to pull a hat off one kid's head (argh!) and another needed to drop his sweatshirt somewhere...okay, right here! The emcee, named George, asked me some questions. What does PAK stand for? (Performing Arts Kids) Have we been to the festival before? (No) How many students in the school? (about 300). The stage crew removed a couple extra chairs and stands, and then there we were- in an unfamiliar auditorium, in front of strangers and JUDGES and under bright lights. George introduced us, we took a collective deep breath, everyone sat up a little straighter and focussed a little closer, and we played.

The first piece lost control slightly as the group started letting their nerves push the tempo, but we kept it mostly together and finished really well. Then they all settled down and Can-Can sounded like a professional orchestra to me. They're only 12, 13 and 14! I basked in their exciting sound. The dynamics were better than we had rehearsed them, articulations more precise, and the sound seemed balanced to me. Our last piece, The Tempest, is, by far, the group's favorite piece of anything they have worked on this year. They did a great job on it, remembering to watch dynamics and listen for balance. And then we were done. A whole 8 minutes of music. We went out and put instruments in cases and then came in to hear  Ms. Klages' string group from Eliot. This is a group I have worked with also on and off through the year, and I was impressed to hear how far they had come since their Christmas concert.

We waited a few more minutes and then the emcee announced our awards. While the Eliot strings had been playing, one of the staff came and asked the name of our timpanist. I wrote it down for him. They gave the awards- Bronze to PUSD Eliot Band and Blair Band, and SILVER to Sierra Madre PAK Orchestra and Eliot Strings, and Gold to Downey Eliot Band. I thought they got it pretty much right, although I think I would have given silver to PUSD Eliot Band as well. There were also awards for various individual and sections in the groups: The flutes from Downey Eliot, the snare drum and first violin from PUSD Eliot, and our own timpanist, all of whom received a special plaque for Outstanding Musicianship.

I would like, in another post- this one has gone long enough- to write about the benefits of preparing for an event like this. It's more than just getting ready for a concert for family and friends. I have always wanted to do it, because I thought it would be a great way to recruit for my group, and would be a good way for me to focus on performance techniques that are easy to gloss over when you perform for your usual support group. But I really didn't foresee the kind of in-depth analysis of their own playing and ability to critique themselves that the kids got into in our final rehearsals. But I will come back to that another day.

Happy as could be, we posed out front for parental photo ops and then packed up our bus to head to Knott's. The kids spread out in all directions with their intrepid chaperons while I sat down for a famous chicken dinner with Ms. Klages, her mom and the parents of my trombone player (who also happen to be Ms. Klages' friends and colleagues) and we mulled over the event. After lunch, I wandered through the park, stopping to look at whatever I wanted to. Later, I spelled some of the chaperons and actually went on some rides, but there was nothing more thrilling to me that day than having the hard work my students and I put in through the year result in the kind of sterling performance they gave that day. I'm still riding high from it! Congratulations, kids! You really earned it!

The Freedom Not To Practice

I have been haunted over the last couple of weeks by this video of these North Korean Kindergartners playing the snot out of these full sized guitars while smiling- if those gap-toothed grimaces can be called smiles- into the camera. It is both creepy and wonderful and has caused me to think a great deal about how we teach music to our children in this country.

I think it comes down to the difference between having freedom and not having freedom. I have shared this video with many of my students, at least one of whom went immediately to her violin and practiced. The conversation I have had with them goes something like this: You do have the right not to practice. You have the freedom to do something else with your time. Facebook, video games, soccer, watch TV, whatever. These children probably do not have that freedom. Since they were very small, someone has probably been making them practice- a lot. These children can probably also dance, sing, recite poetry, multiply 3-digit numbers in their heads and tell you many interesting facts about the life of Dear Leader. This is because their parents must have amazing children to keep up with all the other parents who are having amazing children, because they are expected to do so. And being amazing doesn't necessarily mean cute, or fullfilled or even happy.

Anyone who has seen any of the patriotic displays of North Korean dancing with flags and colored lights can imagine that these five guitar players are not particularly unique in a country where keeping up with the Joneses means pushing your child to excel to the brink of abuse. But do these children look unhappy? Are they proud of their accomplishment? Does that accomplishment have any context in a nation of overachievers? Does that accomplishment come with any compensatory reward such as cash or parental prestige? A better house, perhaps, or a car?

Music is truly a universal language, and while I can understand WHAT these kids are doing, I'm not sure I understand HOW they have done it. What kinds of carrots and sticks are used to push what is developmentally possible into the realm of actually possible? I wonder about all the kids who started playing guitar in the same class with these five. Did they drop out because their parents decided they could be superstars at something else? Or is there a whole army of these almost-toddlers with flying fingers? Maybe children are examined at birth and found to have particularly long and agile fingers and are channeled into the study of guitar without any regard to what the parents want.

The secrecy of the North Koreans only makes me wonder more. If this video had come from Japan or China, you could be sure that there would be someone hawking a method for teaching that would get the same results. But this video is just out there. Not much explanation, not much context. But one thing is sure. I can get more out of my own students. Just by seeing this video I have raised the bar of my own expectations of what my students can do. They do have the freedom not to practice. But I am going to remind them from time to time to revisit this performance and contemplate their own potential. Maybe they will practice more. Maybe at least they will have fewer excuses for not doing so.

Shuffle, Step, Shuffle, Ball Change

This is the mantra I keep saying to myself as I undertake to master at least ONE step of the tap routine we are doing in my Tappercize class. Over and over again, on my springy board in the living room which I bought just for this purpose, I try to get my feet to match up with what my mouth is saying. Not so easy. Shuffles require that you finish with a foot in the air, uncommitted to the next thing, ready to shift weight, or not. Slowly, I isolate the messages between foot and brain, and try to build up to doing two in a row, however slowly. Somewhere between the brain and the foot, a wire crosses and I am saying "shuffle", but actually "ball changing".

This wire crossing seems to multiply as I try to string the steps together, mutant DNA in my helix of instruction. I stop. Try one. Try one starting on the other foot. Try doing two in a row. Got it. Now try to keep it going. Wires cross again. This puzzles me. Why can't I tell my feet what to do? I am SAYING it out loud, for pity's sake! I back up and try one. Try one on the other foot. String two together. Try to keep it going. Say it out loud. Eventually, I manage to get maybe 4 to 6 in a row. The instructions repeat in my head, getting, finally, correctly, to my feet. Whee! I'm flying! Oops. As soon as I think ABOUT what I'm doing, instead of staying in the mantra, I goof up.

This goofing up when stepping outside my brain is something that has plagued me as a musician all my life. But that's not why I am writing today. I am thinking of my music students. As part of their instruction, I have them say out loud, and in tempo what they are doing. Reading note names, singing finger numbers, saying tahn and shh for quarter notes and rests as they clap a rhythm, or moving their bows vertically in the air as we practice a bowing rhythm are all things we do regularly in my classes. It is my belief that these activities develop an inner mantra for my students that keeps them, or gets them focused on pushing the music along and not getting stuck unable to string two or more notes together. And I think it does help. But as I have been observing my own wires crossing between brain and action, I can see my own students in my mind's eye having the same problem. As bows are going up and down in the air, I can see a couple kids completely backward-even as they are saying "down bow" they are pushing their bows up. Usually if I make smiling eye contact, they realize immediately what they are doing and turn around. Sometimes a student will CLAP on a rest when he should be putting palms out and saying Shh. But if we keep trying, and reminding them to look and focus, eventually they get it.

Once again, my own learning reminds me of how my students learn, and how they can cross wires just like I can. My job is to help them untangle the mess till they can fly too.