This afternoon was the last day of the Christmas holidays, unexpectedly sunny, crisp and breezy. After the departure of some visitors, Robert and I were about to go out for a walk and some tea and cake, when he suddenly pointed to a patch of light on the wall behind me. The reflections from the garden of waving branches and the wrought iron of a clothes post were casting flickering shadows onto the wall in an astonishing fashion, almost like a silent movie. Robert grabbed his iPhone and captured some video. “You could use that for a poem-film, “ I remarked, thinking about the beautiful short videos some friends had made recently.

When we got home from our walk, I began improvising to the footage on the piano, while Robert listened and wrote.  Within twenty minutes we both had something. Remarkably, when Robert read his poem aloud, it was exactly the right length. He recorded it, synchronized it with the video, and then I recorded my part on top onto a different track so that we could experiment with individual volume and colour.

I’m not a recording engineer, but I know what works when I hear it. In this case, I knew we needed to take the ‘edge’ off the sound on both tracks. It took a little whole to find the right effect for the piano part. It wasn’t until Robert added a little reverb that it harmonized with the imagery. It sounded as if it had been recorded many years ago in a dusty, cavernous ballet studio on a slightly tinny upright. Perfect.

We both could hear that Robert’s voice was also cutting through the texture in a way that sounded too immediate, modern and dynamic. When he equalized it, using an effect called RCA Victor 1947, it all came together.

Result: a film-poem in one evening. If only making art could be this easy and graceful every time.

I just blogged about one of my passions– traditional Christmas carols–over at Music Teachers’ Helper , complete with audio excerpts of the best recordings. Enjoy!

Sounds fun, huh? The plot is the usual: boy meets girl, boy and girl go through many trials and tribulations, boy and girl end up getting married. With one major difference. When Deb and Chris walk down the aisle at the end of the musical, they will in fact be legally married. That beautiful singer who played the minister? She’s the real deal.

Deb and Chris are hosting a blog on their journey towards marriage in the run-up to this wild extravaganza, and this week, on the sixth anniversary of our marriage, they asked me to write a guest entry about what marriage means to me.

Vaslav Nijinsky

Last week, I saw an amazing article in the New York Times, describing the creative relationship between an experienced and adventurous choreographer and a young and talented actor with cerebral palsy. Tamar Rogoff, the choreographer, saw the actor, Gregg Mozgala, in a Shakespeare play and immediately knew that she wanted to work with him to create a dance piece. He, understandably, with muscular and neurological challenges, particularly in his legs, had not considered himself a dancer until this point, but was intrigued by her offer and agreed to the challenge.

The miraculous part of this experiment has been the changes they have wrought together in Gregg’s body- more dramatic changes in eight months than he had achieved in twelve years of physical therapy. For example, after walking on his toes his entire life, his heels now touch the ground, allowing him to walk normally. He is now aware of, and using, parts of his body that he had no relationship with before. And, most wonderfully, he is becoming a dancer, creating a piece called “Diagnosis of a Faun”. The first performance takes place on Dec. 3 at La MaMa Annex in the East Village, New York City.

I wrote to Gregg to congratulate him on this incredible achievement, and to ask whether he considered the creation of art to be part of the healing process, to which he replied emphatically, “Yes.” And this “yes” makes me curious about my own healing process. What if I could heal some of the old patterns of tension, contraction and pain, which prevent me from leading an active life and playing my beloved piano? What if I could do this through movement, through a creative process, so that rather than just repeating a series of mindless physical exercises, each movement had a purpose I believed in? It’s an intoxicating idea, one that speaks to me on a deep level. My next step is to contact the choreographer. Wish me luck!

He knows what’s important— the purity, the essence of the music. There’s nothing like not being able to play the piano for forty years to make one appreciate each sound. Each opportunity to create beauty. There’s no excuse, no need for artifice. Each moment has purpose.

Years of absence and silence have refined the desire to create sound. Decades of trying and failing to regain health, prestige, career have bruised and beaten the ego to a pulp. Only the heart of the music remains, as only the soul of man survives.

Now he wants to play Bach, Chopin, Schubert. Why play music that is purely virtuosic? He learned long ago that maximum notes per second are not where it’s at.

“Before, I was just a two-handed piano player,” he says. “What happened to me has expanded my life, my awareness, my humanity.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgyz0XqDEEA

Choir was never like this when I was a child. I always loved singing and developed an affection for a wide variety of repertoire, so choir was an enjoyable experience as long as the teacher wasn’t too boring or bad-tempered. Yet I also remember stony stares from the other children if I sang too heartily or showed too much enthusiasm.

Performances were about rows of uniformed children standing straight, arms at their sides, enunciating clearly and watching the conductor like a hawk. And I loved it– Christmas carols in the freezing local church (invariably followed by a throat infection), anthems in the university chapel, and choir tours encompassing the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Sacre-Coeur in Paris.

But I’ve never before seen a choir connecting so deeply with music. As an appreciative You Tube viewer so aptly put it,”The sound produced from these kids is so pure and beautiful because it comes straight from their hearts.”

The choir is made up of fifth-graders from PS 22, an elementary school on Staten Island, New York composed of students from many ethnic backgrounds, many of whom come from difficult and deprived backgrounds, but thanks to their inspirational teacher, Mr. Breinberg, they are being enriched for life. And I know that watching and listening to them make music has changed me irrevocably too.

One of the subjects she dealt with that struck me with great force was the difference between pain and suffering. The interpretation she chose to differentiate between those words was powerful. She described pain as being for example, an unwelcome event, an injury, a disappointment, and so on. And suffering is what we then do inside ourselves in response to that event.

For example, say we have an audition for a part in an opera that we really want. If we don’t get the part, the moment of finding that out may cause pain. Intense, unwelcome pain. But if the moment after that we start to say, “Why didn’t I get the part? Did they like that other soprano/tenor/baritone better? Maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was. Maybe I’m never going to get a part. I should have practiced harder. Maybe I should be with a different teacher. If only the accompanist hadn’t played that wrong chord just before my entry. That really put me off! Maybe it was what I was wearing. Maybe I’m too old/overweight/the wrong color/ethnicity/sexuality…”, this is where the suffering can begin. And it has the potential to persevere for a loooong time.

Of course it’s understandable that one might experience thoughts like these. And then the emotions have a tendency to follow those thoughts. It’s tempting to immediately blame oneself or others. However, when we begin to become aware of thought patterns like these, then we have a better chance of taking a different road.

What other roads are there? It can certainly seem strange initially to begin to explore other options.

“You mean I’m not supposed to mind or be upset? Am I supposed to be made of steel? Give me a break! Anyone would be upset!”

Well, it’s your choice. But here are some other options.

The Nurturing Option
“I’m feeling extremely disappointed. I really wanted that job. Well, I think I’ll take some time out to be gentle with myself for the rest of the day. I’ll ask myself what would feel nurturing. Hmm… a warm bath… a great book… a funny video…. a good chat on the phone with X.”
(N.B. Beware of wanting to numb out– sudden longings for large amounts of alcohol/chocolate cake/TV/shopping may block out the painful feelings temporarily, but they’ll just come back in the morning.)

The Observational Learning Option
“Well, I don’t understand why I didn’t get the job. Hmmm…I think it’s worth looking at what I did to prepare… maybe get some feedback from the panel/accompanist. You know, if I’m honest, I didn’t really know that aria as well as I thought. And actually it’s difficult for the pianist to sight read, so maybe I’ll take my regular accompanist along next time.”

The Underlying Intent Observation
“You know , it makes me wonder why I’m actually doing this? What’s my intention? Well, I want to be successful. Why? So people will like me? What’s the experience I’m actually looking for? Hmmm… self-expression. Well, how else could I find opportunities to express myself? Oh, there’s that dance class/stand-up comedy class/street festival/jam session I was thinking about doing…
(Yes, I know that opera is the thing that you love most, but you might be freer in the next audition if you are feeling creatively fresh and juiced up!).

In my experience, there is a good chance that if you try one or more of these options, your pain may still be there, but hopefully your suffering will decrease. It may take great perseverance, as our habitual reactions can be hard to eradicate, but change is certainly possible. Bon courage!

“There is no doubt that the process of facing one?s self is hugely difficult, especially if, like many artists, you have been hurt badly or are very sensitive. I would wager that most people will never do it because of the enormous effort required and pain of the task. It is an odyssey.”

I agree with Michelle. Ten years ago, I was obliged to give up my career as a successful professional pianist owing to an ongoing health challenge, and it has certainly been an odyssey, trying to come to terms with the loss of my ability to play the piano for more than 20-30 minutes. Many friends simply saw it as an opportunity to change career, and were not aware of the huge impact on my whole sense of identity. Playing the piano was not simply something I did as a career. It was part of the very substance of who I was– or so I thought. Disentangling the threads of vocation, personality, and sense of self took much hard work and courage over many years. And skilled assistance.

Michelle was lucky enough to find a good therapist. I also worked with one for a number of years and still have my prized mentors whom I can turn to. Sometimes therapy is definitely the best choice.

However, many of the ongoing themes in Michelle’s life are ones which every music student faces. For example: How do I deal with constant competition, rejection, anxiety, jealousy? Negative self-talk when I’m performing? I’m feeling so stressed out that I’m not sleeping…. I’m not even sure I want to be a professional musician any more. Or, I have a great career, but somehow I feel numb, disenchanted, disillusioned…I’m not sure what my goals are any more.

When I was coaching and advising students at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, often these issues were so present and all-consuming that they were interfering with practice, auditions, exams, professional successes. Yet, many of the students didn’t feel comfortable, for a variety of reasons, with approaching and confiding in their principal study teachers.

I became so concerned about these students, and so inspired to pass on the principles I had been discovering in personal development work that I decided to take a Masters in Psychology. I felt that I needed coaching and counseling skills in addition to my musical ones, in order to truly be able to serve these sensitive and gifted people.

These days, my focus in my life coaching practice is to first of all provide a listening ear, a safe, non-judgmental place for musicians to be able to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences, and secondly a box of tools to assist clients in getting in touch with their deepest values, clarifying their goals, daring to dream, and developing new practices, thought patterns and behaviors which move them where they want to go. It is truly possible to change limiting beliefs, eliminate negative mind chatter, become more self-accepting.

So I’ve moved from being in a state of shock and grief over my ‘lost career’ to a place of experiencing a new and fulfilling one. And Michelle, by her own account, is happier and more focused and motivated than ever and well on her way to a successful career. Thanks, Michelle for inspiring us all!