The Pleasures of Organization

As I've written elsewhere, tonight I took six sheets of 20 x 23 inch paper (made by the good Post-it people) and wrote down all my professional obligations (plus a couple of personal goals and side-projects, not strictly professional), along with the date it needs to be complete or an estimation of such a date. This took me up to February, 2015, when my projected song cycle, Loss and Magic, will be premiered at UNH.

Strangely enough, this process gave me an unbelievable amount of comfort. Yes, the list is ridiculously long, and if I can get through what I have, I am going to have to learn to say no more often in the future; but somehow it looks oddly manageable.

Next task--more arduous: break down each obligation into a series of manageable tasks, estimate how long each task will take, and plug these tasks into a weekly or semi-weekly schedule, depending on all the known deadlines. Starting that project tomorrow. Much of this way of thinking owes to my reading Eviatar Zerubavel's The Clockwork Muse, and my memories of those wonderful days when I was working a full-time job and coursework for two doctorates at Eastman. I had every minute scheduled and I was more productive than I've ever been. I recommend The Clockwork Muse to anyone that feels overwhelmed by their ambitions.

On Music Appreciation

I've pretty much given up on the notion of a good textbook for music appreciation. I've looked at them all--indeed, my first experience with music history was with Charles Hoffer's Music Listening Today. But things have changed a lot since I was 10. For one thing, we ignore pop music (not to mention indie, world, and all sorts of other little sub-subgenres) at our peril. Non-music majors simply are not going to drop that music and embrace classical music anymore. Why not lead them to a deeper, richer experience of that non-classical music?

That's my plan, anyway, for this semester's class in appreciation, good old MUSI401 at UNH. Fortunately, this is an honors section, so the students are very motivated and very smart. I think they'll be able to help me find out exactly how best to teach this class. And I'm videotaping every class meeting so they (and I) are going to have a record. I'm also keeping a record of what I did, which I might make available for their use and which, I hope, will serve me when I try to organize this material further.

The Pleasures of Long-Term Practicing

I’m continually amazed at my professional piano-playing colleagues, who are usually so busy that they must maximize the efficiency of their practicing in a way that’s completely beyond my imagination. Much of the time (or so it seems to me), they learn (or re-learn) music in days, at most a few weeks. Since they do this constantly, I suppose their muscle memory (and perhaps also their sight-reading ability) is more finely developed than mine.

Performance, much as I love it, can never occupy so much of my time that I can come close to these virtuosic powerhouses. But while that’s true, I can give myself a luxury that they can’t: I can learn pieces over a longer span of time—can, in a sense, live with the piece, or better, experience playing a particular piece as if it’s like getting to know someone. I first became aware of what that feels like when I began performing Two² with Laurel back in 1993. After a couple of years not doing it, we got into the habit of playing it every year. It changes partially with us, partially with circumstances—for example, in the last couple of years, we tend to play it as the second half of an evening-length program (with Four⁶ as the first half). I think it works pretty well that way, although at some point I'd like to do the two piano parts of Music for _____ as Music for Two. It’s been a while since I listened to that piece, but I seem to remember it would make a good contrast with Two².

Anyway, I found myself thinking about this afternoon when I had a sudden urge to practice some music that I’m playing for Nic Orovich in the spring. So far, the two works definitely on the program are Hindemith’s alt-horn sonata and Leslie Bassett’s trombone sonata. I played the latter many, many years ago while I was still in high school with Hugh Eddy, who I now see is the associate trombonist with the New York City Ballet orchestra (yay, Hugh!); I haven’t played it since. I was surprised today that the piece came back into my fingers after about 90 minutes. But I’m more glad that, now that it has, I have lots of time to spend with it as a piece of music—rather than finding myself fighting to perfect it the week before the performance. The Hindemith is new, but I’ve played so many of his sonatas that I feel as if I’m with an old friend every time I learn a new one.

This kind of practicing is surely a luxury; I can’t help feeling, though, that it gives people the chance to make a particular piece of music a part of their life. That’s something rather different from working full-time as a performing musician.

Playing Cage in Missouri

I’m flying back from Missouri State University, where Laurel and I played Two² and (with Barry and Peter) Four⁶. Laurel and I have played this piece almost every year since 1993, and something very unusual happened to me while playing this time around. My usual performance attitude is one of extreme concentration and emotional engagement with the music I’m performing. This time, I would not say I was concentrating as much as I usually do, but neither was I apathetic, going through the motions. And I felt emotions too. The feeling I had, perhaps, comes closest to the feeling I have when I’m practicing or playing for myself—no one around, no one to play to, no reason to be nervous or tense. And I got to thinking about the Zen mindset of nonattachment, of allowing feelings to arise and then depart as quickly; since we’ve played this piece so often, and since we hope to play it at least once a year for the foreseeable future, have these performances become everyday life? It’s very difficult to express exactly what this experience felt like for me, and I’m trying to distance it from some sort of otherworldly experience just as I’m trying to differentiate it from something banal and uninteresting.

And then after the talk I gave today before leaving for the airport, I was talking to Peter and a couple of his MSU colleagues and I told them it occurred to me that when I say something like, “I know something about Zen” or “I know a lot about Zen,” what can that possibly mean?

The Lord of the Rings again

I’ve been reading The Lord of the Rings again—this is probably the fourth time through. (Thanks to Paul Harris for introducing me to the book when I was in high school.) It’s lost none of its narrative power and excitement; in fact, I sometimes have to make myself slow down to savor Tolkien’s detailed descriptions of the landscapes and the poems and bits of historical lore that he adds in. Over the years, I’ve occasionally read other fantasy fiction—very occasionally. Lynn Draper recommended Terry Brooks’s Sword of Shannara and I remember liking it; Vanessa Davis keeps recommending something with a Greek-like name . . . Acropolis? Hellespont? I don’t know if I’ll get to it.

I also don’t think I’d like Brooks if I had the chance to re-read it; his world didn’t stay with me. But Tolkien excels precisely because of the detail of his world, its history, its languages—even if he hadn’t filled out the rest of this history in The Silmarillion and all the other manuscripts that Christopher Tolkien has published as The History of Middle-earth, the tantalizing glimpses of the past that he gives us in The Lord of the Rings is enough to make Tolkien’s world apparent in all its breadth.

And I love the tone of the prose in The Lord of the Rings. In The Hobbit, Tolkien told a tale for children; the narrator’s voice betrays an awkward self-consciousness:

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained – well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

Compare that to this passage, from The Two Towers—Gollum returns to Frodo and Sam and sees them sleeping peacefully together:

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo’s knee – but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

What an amazing passage! Even as Gollum covets the ring, he also loves Frodo and longs for the closeness that Sam and Frodo share. Tragically, the corruption of the Ring has foreclosed the possibility of love to Gollum forever. Still, he’s not simply an evil character; he carries with him the remnants of the being he once was—Smeágol—and the tortured recollections of love and kindness which he cannot experience again. Could a child really sense the full import of such loneliness? I’m very glad that Tolkien seemed not to bother worrying about that.

There are few books I have time to read more than once, but I enjoy making time to re-read The Lord of the Rings. And while I’m glad that I was able to see Peter Jackson’s magnificent filmed adaptation of Tolkien’s novel, I know it can’t begin to compare with the depth, pacing, and profound drama of the original. One day, I’ll detail all of the film’s shortcomings as a way to goad people into reading (or re-reading) the novel for themselves.

Thoughts on the “25 Things about Me”

The “25 Things about Me” Facebook craze, sad to say, seems to have died down, no doubt because some wag-journalists and computer-culture experts have offered their learned opinions on how stupid it is in order to shame people into silence. Again.

Claire Suddath’s withering, mean-spirited critique in Time struck me as typical, but I imagine I could find others more artfully written and more insightful. Among other things, she estimates that 800,000 hours of worktime productivity have been lost as a result of “this recent bout of viral narcissism.” (Well, Mr. Scrooge, I guess it’s time to fire all these layabouts on the job so we can improve the world economy.) And Claire laments that most people wrote only trivial, unfunny lists that were far too personal; I’m sure everyone feels awful about wasting Claire’s valuable time.

I loved doing this list. I found out about it because I’d been tagged by my wonderful friend Chris Mandra, a fine composer and artist and an endlessly fascinating raconteur. And so I wrote my list, in part, knowing that it should be interesting (and funny) enough for Chris. After I finished (below), Chris and I had the best conversation we had had in years; that alone was worth the 10 or 15 minutes that it took me to write it.

1. I was fascinated by dinosaurs growing up; I knew the names of all the different ones.
   
2. Once I tried to write a book about the Civil War, but I realized what I knew filled only half a page.
3. I make technology work for me.
4. I love chicken tikka masala; I also love peanut butter.
5. If I had to pick one book that summed up the way I feel about life, it would be The World According to Garp.
6. My (somewhat dubious) gift: making complicated ideas understandable with a few pithy remarks.
7. I transcribed a Scarlatti sonata by ear when I was 14.
8. I often have dreams in installments, like a TV miniseries; I once had a dream with credits.
9. I generally find composers the most interesting people.
10. I sometimes think I should have been a psychologist.
11. I have 25 bow ties; if anyone’s ever stuck on a gift to buy me, I suggest a bow tie.
12. I think that courtesy is probably the most important thing in a civilized society.
13. It’s often foggy outside my house; it makes me imagine I’m on the moors.
14. I think that everything could (and should) be done more artistically.
15. I would like to meet Peter Tork.
16. I watched The Shining 24 times. At least.
17. I find people with OCD charming.
18. I thought the world was going to end before 1998.
19. I believe in reincarnation.
20. I learned most of what I believe about morality from watching Dark Shadows.
21. I think William Schuman wrote the greatest American symphony.
22. I hate humidity.
23. I love the sound of wind.
24. I enjoy eating in restaurants when there are only a few people in them.
25. I’d like to be a cat, but only if someone like me was my owner.

After I posted it, several old friends commented on their favorites—some of them, like David Kase, I haven’t seen in years, might not see again. But for that brief moment, we had a chance to be together again. And it seems to me that whether or not the occasion of bringing people together leads to the exalted or the ridiculous, a little more community is better than none at all.

I heard a computer-culture expert talking about the phenomenon on NPR—can’t remember the name of the show now so I can’t locate it online. This expert made the logical point that older authors indulge their sense of nostalgia and history in their lists, while younger ones—who lack the same amount of life experience—tend toward the spontaneous and, perhaps, idiotic. So what? Let them write another “25 Things” in 5 years, or 10 or 25; taken together, the lists could make for a very poetic form of autobiography.

In Recovery from Television

In July, I moved to a new condo and joined the ranks of homeowners dreaming the American dream. (So far, at least.) In the process, I didn’t transfer my cable TV and was thus without network television (local or otherwise) for about six months. (I got basic cable again about a month ago—more of that later.) I have to say that the experience helped my thinking generally—I read more, listened to (a little more) music, and generally felt my mind was somehow clearer than it had been with the television almost constantly on.

Of course, there are some real drawbacks to a life without any television at all. Lots of people watch TV, of course, and an observation about a favorite show can be a great conversation-starter. TV references abound in my lectures—or they used to—and they can be an effective (if somewhat coarse) method of making unfamiliar ideas or people more accessible. (Seinfeld has worked well for this purpose, but I don’t imagine that will continue much longer.) And I missed the final season of The Shield, one of the few TV shows I thought was actually well made. The problem, of course, was that I didn’t simply watch good television; I watched too much, well, very bad television.

But in January, as the new season of Lost was approaching and I realized it would cost only a few dollars more than I was already spending for my cable internet service, I decided to reactivate basic cable. I deliberately eschewed all the bells and whistles that I’d previously enjoyed: DVR, HD TV, endless channels that I couldn’t watch even if I didn’t have a job. And I wondered if I’d get hooked again.

Well, now it’s almost March and my television-watching is still under control. I watch Lost; sometimes I watch news. But one night I started watching Supernatural and got bored after about 10 minutes, so I decided to read instead. That’s a good development.