In the Audience

I spent Saturday evening watching my friends The Obscure Dignitaries. I always have so much fun at their shows, and 90% of the time I have no idea what language I'm listening to.  If I were a braver woman, I would get up to dance, chant lyrics, or clap the beat enthusiastically. But I'm a chicken, so I just sit in the back and enjoy everyone else doing all those things. 

Later that night I decided to bake some cookies since some people were going to be coming over the next day. I came home from the concert and made a list of supplies to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and scones. I dashed out to Tom Thumb, bought supplies, and dashed back home. Roy came out to the front yard to 'help' me bring the supplies. After attempting to corral the crazy cat back inside (he preferred to stay out and pick a fight with the neighbor's cat), Roy and I came back in. I threw on In Ear Park to pep me up for an hour of baking. (One of my all-time favorite albums. Hear it here: GROOVESHARK) 

The night began great. Shoved all my drinks in the fridge, unpacked my plastic baggies holding the baking supplies, and danced my booty around the house [thank goodness the new roommate hasn't moved in yet].

I turned the oven on and then walked over to the pile of baking supplies. Then it hits me: I forgot, like, four essential ingredients. 

BUMMER. I was looking so forward to being that great hostess that had homemade goodies ready for the gang. I majorly failed Saturday night. [sorry gang]

So, instead, I wrote down some thoughts about being in an audience since I was in one Saturday night.

1. We musicians have something to say through our music, and it means a lot when you show up to listen. 

That really weighed on me. It's kind of like that CS Lewis quote about not fully experiencing love until you're able to verbally express it to the one you love. I've played with groups that jammed at home for fun. It seemed to unfulfilling to me. What's the point of being musical if you're not being musical to anyone? I did my last show with The Bandettes (now called Velocette) back in July 2011. After setting up and sound checking, I remember thinking, "Yes. This is right." People were going to come here us play the things we had been playing for ourselves for a few weeks. That was good, and that was the way it should be. People needed to come hear the musical things we had to say.

Photo cred: Rich Hughes

2. These performances take so much more time to prepare for them than it does for you to sit and listen to them. 

That's something I really understand as a musician. I wonder if non-performers get that. Those of us in the arts spend so many hours on our craft. One of my favorite bands Eisley is getting ready to go on tour again. They posted online that they started rehearsing two weeks out before their tour begins. I was a little surprised to read that because somehow I thought they were robots and remembered all their songs. Why would they need to practice? Well, why the heck do I need to rehearse with any of the ensembles I ever play in? Sure, it's always with different people and different tunes, but if you want your concert to go well, you kind of need to practice and make sure you know what you're doing.

From Eisley's instagram

3. It's healthy to be an audience member. 

It's good for a little while to not be doing something for yourself or involves stuff in your life. For a little while, you can receive something that someone else has prepared for you. For an hour or two your attention can be on something other than your phone, facebook, or any other social media thing you may belong to. This is good. There's a lot out there telling us how important it is to put our needs first ("If you don't take care of you first, then how can you take care of others??"). I kind of find thinking and taking care of myself kind of exhausting, to be frank. For a little while on Saturday night I didn't have to think about me. I believe that's healthy.

We're all so terribly busy, especially those of us with spouses and children (or pets or plants or sofas or Netflixes). But for a couple hours tonight, I wasn't at home doing my own stuff. I was out hearing what my friends had to give me. It really didn't require me to do much other than show up. Well, I might've had to do more if Rachel's mic cord would've allowed her to make it all the way to the back row where I was sitting. You need to be ready to participate with these dudes...

4. Most of us aren't necessarily just doing this because it's fun or it's our job (though that's usually what we say). We do this because something in our souls calls us to stand in front of you and play. 

Seriously. Well, alright, it may just be me on this one. But go with me here... Why did any of the great composers write? Why do any of our beloved conductors conduct? Why has Paul McCartney been on a stage for over 50 years? I think all of them and others like them felt 'the call,' and weren't able to do anything else with their lives. Sure, you get those who really are just in it for the money, but I don't believe they last all that long. Great music comes from people who are inwardly stirred to be musical. Those are the people you should be listening to - and hear live even! How much richer will your life be if you do?

5. Being in the audience can be great inspiration for things you want to do performance-wise.

All these ideas flooded into my mind for places my quintet could play and stuff I could do on my own for open mic nights. My goodness, it was so effortless! Kind of like you get struck by a genius idea in the shower - you're not even looking for it. Perhaps the environment cleared my mind. Perhaps I was inspired by the people playing in front of me. Whatever it was, I was able to walk away with good ideas for my work (including this post right here). 

So that's it. I encourage you to attend more musical performances. It's good for you.

Sigh. Rest in Peace, would-be baking stuffs.
You will be eaten another day.

And now I bring you a tale from my youngest brother William, who is currently runs a blog on soccer called Everybody Soccer. I first heard this story through a phone call at 3am. It's a fantastic story, even though I wasn't in a state of mind to fully appreciate it the moment I heard it. I give a couple props to Will who thought it was so necessary to tell me about it that he needed to call me in the middle of the night.

"In the summer of 2012 I took a tour up the east coast for two weeks to follow the US men’s soccer team. Their third game of four was in Toronto, on June 3rd. I arrived in Toronto on the first of June, a couple days before the game so I could relax after the long train ride from DC. But when I got off the train I had the “I’ve been sitting for too long I need to do something” sort of feeling. It was around seven or eight so I knew the nightlife on a Friday night in a big city surely had something to offer.

After I got settled in my hotel (which was just a converted college dorm) I got online to see if any bands were playing nearby. The only band I knew that I could find was Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate), an American emo revival band, as described by Wikipedia. I wasn’t huge on the band but figured the show would be entertaining so I got my iPhone out and tracked down where they were, only a mile and a half away. Not too shabby and I was looking to walk anyway. I ended up in the area but couldn’t find the concert. The address I entered, which I triple checked, led me to an intersection but I could only hear a jazz band within earshot, which definitely was not the scream-based music I was expecting. After searching around for a bit, I settled on the jazz band, which had about six people watching when I walked in around 10 pm. 

IT WAS THE BEST BAND IN THE WORLD. 

I should state that I’m no musician or a music expert. I was going to see a screamo band after all. But trust me, this was the best band ever. It was a four-piece band with no name. The drummer and bassist had never played with the lead singer and guitarist. They had no song organization. The lead singer would simply call out some simple instructions when starting a song. Typically he would give a foundation to the drummer and yell what key it was to the guitarists. This man was insane. He walked around like Hank Hill’s father, without bending his knees. He would yell some incoherent words into the microphone and “dance” which was more like waddling. He buzzed around on the harmonica. He simultaneously scared me and amazed me. 

The drummer was a late twenties man whose appearance could best be described as “grungy” but he was a wizard with his relatively small kit. Snare, kick, tom, crash and hi-hat. Your standard garage band set up. I vividly remember him inverting his stick and with the head of the stick pressing hard on the cymbal, he spun the cymbal, giving off a loud noise like metal grinding on metal. I tried to recreate this with the next kit I saw and it sounded terrifying. Yet this drummer threw it in each song perfectly. He had a dozen different sounds for each piece. Probably more. It was like he continually got bored of drumming as was looking to play no two notes the same. 

The bass player would be what I would expect the coolest octopus playing a bass guitar would sound like. He was all over the place. The lead singer would occasionally yell “BASS SOLO!!!” which the bassist would obviously not agree with. With a grimace and sigh he would compose an unreal bass solo every time. He was dressed very neat. 

The guitarist had to be at least fifty if not pushing sixty. A dude with a ponytail that looked like he had just gotten off work and his buttoned up shirt was still tucked into his jeans. He stayed more to the back and just played the most fascinating combination of notes on a guitar ever written. He didn’t move a whole lot and you’d forget that he was there for a moment until you thought “Why did I just hear eight men playing one guitar?” 

This went on for two hours, took a small break, and then another two hour set. (A trumpet player showed up for the last two hours and just played whatever he wanted.) All original music with no boundaries. I was so amped I ordered a cup of coffee and I don’t even like coffee. The crowd hit a maximum of twelve people and I was the only one who realized it was the best band ever to play on Earth. 

Afterwards I hung around to talk to the bassist. I asked him about the band and that’s when I found out that he and the drummer had been called less than an hour beforehand to play. For as impressed as I was, the bassist was even more shocked about my story: a Texan in Toronto to see a soccer game who showed up at the wrong show. He was telling everyone. I ended up staying until around four in the morning, where we talked on the patio about jazz (I had nothing to contribute to the discussion) and where a man that was on some serious drugs came up and talked word salad to us for an hour. And then I never talked to any of them ever again."

Willingness

12:07am. I'm home from the Classical Open Mic Night at Buzz Brews. Roy just can't seem to get settled. The Cat is licking himself nearby.

I'm trying to stay on top of things this month. February always seems so brutal. This is my third one since I've come back to Texas, and each has been extremely busy. Last February I worked so much that I got real sick. My poor ears ended up with a "eustachian tube dysfunction." Look it up if you like, but it really just means I had a bunch of fluid in my ear. One evening I was watching Netflix just before bed, and I realized that every pitch I heard [EVERY PITCH, all sounds!] was doubled. Two pitches for the price of one. (Or is it one pitch with the price of two?) Boy, did that freak me out. I figured that was the point I needed to get myself to the doctor. I did, and she told me I had "eustachian tube dysfunction." She also told me my records said I had asthma. (I do not.)

sniff!

Anyway, I've been teaching horn semi-full time for two and a half school years now. What a blessed experience. I love kids and I love horn, and my good friends will tell you I love to talk a lot. Teaching horn lessons is kind of a combination of all three. One of the things I've come to appreciate since taking on horn lessons is the wisdom I walk away with. I learn a lot about people and life from these horn lessons. 

So here are a couple of things I've learned about in terms of becoming a great musician. These things take a certain kind of willingness. 

1. A Willingness to be Wrong

This seems to be a crucial thing in my lessons. It's not that I need or desire to be right. However, I know how to play horn more rightly than my 14 year old students do. The ones who listen to what I say will eventually play rightly too. A lot of my kids are afraid to get stuff wrong though. That's really frustrating for me, for when they fear getting stuff wrong they don't try as hard. I say a lot, "I'm not going to kick you out if you mess up!" I really encourage my kids to totally botch something. When you get it really wrong, you begin to know how to get it right. But when they're not afraid to get it wrong, they sometimes get it really right just by going for it! Magic, huh?

There's also a grown up version of this (though I see it occasionally in the kids I teach). It has to do with being a 'know-it-all.' When one is in the position of 'student,' it is so important to be open to the possibility of being wrong. That's hard, especially in people who have a lot of confidence in what they're doing. I remember going to a brass camp one summer when I was in high school, and Bill Vermeulen was the guest clinician. He was saying something during a master class one day about how difficult Strauss 1 is. Wouldn't you know it, some bonehead horn player decides to get up and play Strauss 1 for him. It was a "I'll show you how awesome I play" kind of move. Didn't throw Bill though. He pointed out every thing that was wrong in the kid's performance, and the kid wasn't happy. 

He didn't want to be wrong. He wanted to show Vermeulen how right he was. Whenever you want to learn from a teacher about anything, be very willing and open to being wrong. After you're corrected, you'll be so very right. 

2. A Willingness to travel down the Boring Road

I had two instances of this one this month.

The first was with one of my junior highers. I asked her how her solo was going. She told me she didn't like it because it was boring. It's actually not boring. It's a great and exciting tune, and it'll get even more exciting for her once she does it with her accompanist. However, at this point, it probably feels a little boring to her. I get that. She has to play the same notes in it over and over again by herself. Boring. 

The second experience happened this week with an older student. I can't specifically remember her horn past (hopefully she'll forgive me for that), but she's essentially playing catch up. I can tell she truly desires to become a better and competent player. I told her that if she wanted to get real good real fast, she needed to become boring and do the same thing every day. Play scales, arpeggios, lip slurs, etc. But she needs to do it every day, and she needs to do it the same way every day. 

I say this to most of my students, and it's something I've just realized for myself this year. A good chunk of a musician's musical experience is kind of boring. Same scales and exercises every day. You reach that boring state when nothing takes you by surprise anymore, and that's when you can become the artist. You can only be an artist when you know where everything is, and the only way to accomplish that is to travel the same boring road every day. (Oh yeah, that's where my C is. Oh right, I always blow my air like that.) The grown up word is consistency. The junior high word is boring. 

If you can be patient and be ok with living in a boring state for awhile, it will pay off greatly. Funny, after playing horn for about 16 years and doing music for over 20 years, I'm only now getting this stuff.

I Love Music

I Love Music. 

I've always loved music. I doubt there's been anything I've loved any more than music. I love listening to it, I love playing it, I love thinking about it, I love talking about it. It's probably the only thing I talk about. I love teaching horn lessons because I get to talk about music. 

One thing I especially I love to do with music is figure out how people have made such GOOD music. This video is currently playing as I type this: 

Now, I'm done trying to convert people to liking my music. I understand everyone has their own taste. You may play this video and not really feel anything special towards it. 

But I really do. 

First of all, I love Bill Callahan. In this video he plays all my favorite songs of his. I get to hear such lovely songs done live by his own hand (and others). However, I also get to see HOW he does it. 

It's remarkable how much time I spend doing this. I just sit and watch. 

I want to KNOW how these people I love do their craft well. One day I may figure it out. 

That's about it for now. Very inconsequential post, but I was so greatly overcome watching this youtube clip. Who are you watching? Who's craft are you trying to figure out?

Oh, and I just want to note, I want to meet Bill Callahan and play on one of his albums one day.

The Desert Song - Week One

Last week was week one of work on The Desert Song - a little operetta Lyric Stage is putting on. I'm so pleased to be performing with this group again! I had a blast doing the musical Nine last November. (I was actually on stage for that one; even did a TINY bit of acting.) Lyric Stage is such an excellent production company. They're one of the best in DFW, in my opinion. 

I'll make this shorter because I'll be off to rehearsal tonight, but I just wanted to post something. I snapped a few photos from last week. 

Jay Dias: one of the best conductors I've ever worked with. He exudes joy and genuine love of music!

From my backyard. We had good weather last week. :)

I'm playing second horn to my good friend Chris who's a real quality player. He always can get me to play louder and better than I normally do. He usually keeps me laughing throughout rehearsal. It's refreshing to play with someone that's so much fun (and good), but I am kind of worried all my giggling is going to get me fired. 

Rehearsals have been a blast, and I'm looking forward to more this week. Performances begin on Thursday night at 8pm. See you there!