Today, an attempt at enlightenment.

I’ve been around for 38 years now. I have to tell you that of all things that puzzle me in life, this one really stumps me: where do so many people get their deeply-ingrained fear of thinking?

After all, read – or listen to – any of the great philosophers East and West, and in no time you’ll have found a second home for your own thoughts and musings.

No impatience, no sense of futility, no dismissal. Just the “Joy of Thought”, of enriching your awareness, and that strange wonder of being conscious that comes over you once in a while!

enter The Realist…

“No, no, no. Not so!”, says the Realist: “too much thinking will paralyze you!”. Or, “life demands action…”, and “it’s totally horrible and useless to be stuck in your head”, etc.

Now, who could disagree with that?

But, but, but: any admissions to the value of thinking? “Only if it helps you solve real-life problems!”

So is philosophy forever doomed to having to justify itself to Lord Utility? And how did Lord Utility get so much street cred, anyway?

Well, I have my own ideas about this, but I thought I should let Zen philosopher Alan Watts (thanks Vic!) open up the discussion… (Musicians beware: Alan wants you in the front lines of his battle!)

Click here to view the embedded video.

“they made you miss everything…”

Ever try to write down an account of your school years? What about the last biography of a famous person you read? How were their years in school presented in the book?

Details I’ve come across over and over again in people’s accounts of their schooling: perhaps a stimulating course, or an excellent teacher, or worthy “extra-curricular” activities (sports, music, theater, etc.) here and there… But for the most part, for most people:

Years in school = a tremendous waste of time and energy, and way too much tedium and negative social interaction to justify the happy bits!

In other words: if schooling is ever referred to as a positive experience, it’s because it happened to be set in a stimulating and supportive environment that respected the principle of learner autonomy.

Now that doesn’t sound like our public school system, does it? So how are we to account for the life-sucking monster Modern Education has become?

independent thinking: not in the curriculum

“Too many teachers are mediocre!” … ” If we only we didn’t have so many lame-ass, career-obsessed parents!” … “the cuts to public education are relentless!”…

Agreed, there’s room for much improvement in the existing system. But don’t you agree with Alan, that improvements and reform are all for naught if they lead to the same basic outlook in life?

As Watts points out, the very design of our education system is based on a carefully cultivated social mythology of “success”: life as a long, drawn-out “journey” with a beginning (our individual potential), plenty of “obstacles and challenges” along the way (preparation for economic life), and a happy ending (our social and professional success).

Witness the kind of talk we hear in a typical high school graduation ceremony: “preparing our youth for life”, “going out into the adult world”, “the virtues of effort and perseverance”, “through trial and error”, “living up to your full potential”, etc.

But, wait a minute: what are we graduating from, anyway? Doesn’t this lofty language prove that we’re not just graduating from school, but graduating into “adult life“? That our educational system, with its grades and degrees, is some kind of long, drawn out process of ritual initiation? That through schooling and its compartmentalization of knowledge, we are actually being vetted for potential upward mobility in social and professional life?

we are the world, we are the hierarchy

There you have it, there’s a permanent contradiction at the heart our educational system: the official discourse on the primacy of teaching and learning – the “No Child Left Behind” kind of talk so loved by politicians – running up against the credentialing function of educational institutions, a process that relentlessly standardizes our unique learning personalities for career-readiness in public or private corporate hierarchies.

The question remains: if so many of us are aware of the nature of the Juggernaut, then why do we allow this state of affairs to be perpetuated? And what do we have to lose in letting alternative concepts of education flourish, as legally available options open to all parents and children?

Will the year-in, year-out learning of music (instrument, singing, drumming, etc.) make you into… a better person?

OK, OK, it’s a loaded question. And a crowd-pleaser too, the kind of question an M.C. could bark to a packed auditorium just to hear a great big “YES” in return. We’re all “better people” for loving music, aren’t we?

Seem obvious? Well then, try making music a “core” curriculum item in schools, one that’ll stick when your government starts to prioritize military spending and “security” infrastructure over education.

And if you’re daring, make music central to your concept of education.

My hunch is that you’ll have to find better words than “music makes children into better people” to sell your idea, no matter how much we all agree on the universal virtues of music.

character training

So how do you do it? How do you convince people that music is of central importance to education?

I’ll argue that music will forever be relegated to “secondary curriculum” status in education (what is also happening to phys ed these days) until the concept of “character training” is revived in educational philosophy, and given mainstream respectability.

In other words, we have to change our concept of education.

Seems like a radical proposition? Or does “character training” sound a little too much like boot camp, or religious upbringing?

…et la musique

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate how music and character training go hand in hand is to look at a real-world example.

Canada’s National Film Board has produced a fine little gem of a film on this very subject. It’s called …et la musique.

The film, released in French, follows three kids – Alexis, 6 years old, Rachel 9 years old and Anne-Catherine, 11 years old – in their public school learning adventures at école primaire du Sacré-Coeur in Sherbrooke, Québec. And you guessed it: the school’s curriculum focus is music education.

Having seen the film, I’ll try to encapsulate the experience and message it conveys.

First, filmmaker Michel Lam adopts the point of view of children in the school environment as they discover socializing, teachers, educational expectations, group discipline, and school-yard play with new friends. The film is set for the most part in the school’s classrooms, practice rooms, halls and playground.

Nothing especially novel here. But because the film eschews story development and favors “day-in-the-life”, scene to scene transitions, we’re slowly made aware of the real star of the film: the educational setting itself, and the special relationships that emerge between children and teachers.

Pierre Foglia, who reviewed the film for La Presse says it best:

“…On comprend tout de suite que ces enfants-là ne deviendront pas des virtuoses, ce n’est pas l’idée non plus. L’idée, magnifique, et même grandiose, est celle qui est au coeur de tout projet éducatif: apprendre à apprendre. On comprend tout de suite que ces enfants-là seront meilleurs en français, en sciences, en mathématiques, grâce à la musique certes, mais on comprend aussi que cela pourrait être grâce à l’équitation, au tricot, à la littérature… Je dis n’importe quoi exprès pour qu’on m’entende bien: apprendre à apprendre à travers une passion.”

In a nutshell, this film is about “learning to learn“, or becoming passionate about learning by developing a life-long pursuit. Foglia’s statement goes even further: he implies that the success or failure of any educational project should be judged on how well people “learn how to learn”.

All fine and well, but perhaps we’re putting the cart before the horse here: is Lam really making a case for quality education, or the ideals of pedagogy? Or is he simply concerned with making a loving portrait of kids learning music at school, as a tribute to his own experience as a child going to school at Sacré-Coeur?

I’ll let you be the judge of this. I for one, thought the picture of music education that emerged from the film was slightly idealized, almost isolated from other areas of character development. For better and for worse, the film focuses on the interaction between children and their teachers, with our attention shifting between directive vs. supportive approaches to music teaching. Does this setting truly create a “love of learning”? For a few, for many?

Of course, only Sacré-Coeur alumni can answer this question. As for Michel Lam, whatever “case” he might be making with …et la musique, he’s not in the least bit preachy about it, and more than a little bit poetic.

a modest proposal

Returning to our initial question: how do we “upgrade” our concept of education? If subject-based “core” curricula remain the norm in public education, how does one make the case for change?

If you’re having trouble with the idea, perhaps we should look at other institutions that are undergoing major brain-shifts.

For example, health care: we’re hearing more and more about a “whole-person approach” to treating illness and disease these days. Not just from alternative medicine practitioners, but from traditional “authorized” medical institutions, hospitals, universities, etc.

amateurmusicians.net‘s modest proposal? To do the same in education: reexamine our focus on knowledge and skill acquisition in light of this “whole person” paradigm.

If that sounds like New Age talk, it’s not. “Whole person approaches” in practice simply means using multiple models instead of a single authorized body of knowledge to solve problems. In health care the multiple-model approach is called “integrative medicine“.

And perhaps this is where music education – and music teachers in particular – will lead the way into a new revolution of “integrative learning” in education. Because you can’t teach music successfully without understanding your students’ music itch, and how to scratch it.

But it’s pretty much how I feel when, in polite company, we slide into that “to each his/her own tastes” relativistic chatter, Cheshire cat grins and all. Without the qualifying debate about how people acquire and develop tastes to begin with.

Also thought the music “excellence” wigs out there might appreciate the reminder that audiences care more for emotional relevance than peak performance.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“I WANT MY ROCK STARS DEAD!” Yep, it’s none other than stand-up gadfly Bill Hicks, appearing in Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival in 1991.

Now, uh, what’s Bill doing here? This routine is probably one of the most “shock and awe” comedy segments I’ve ever come across, fully disorienting to any poor soul out on the town for an evening of fun and laffs.

“Shock and Awe“? Perhaps the only thread linking a doctrine of state terrorism to Hicks’ routine is the belief that shock can be therapeutic.

As distinctly American as this philosophy might seem, Hicks’ “shock comedy” act does bear kinship resemblance to the nihilistic absurdist performances of the dadaists, who gave voice to the trauma and desensitization effects of war during the giddy, light-headed post-WWI years in Paris and Berlin.

At least, that’s how I explain the New Kids on the Block/Hitler Youth robot dance Bill does. As fellow comedian Brett Butler put it:

For all the talk about Bill being like Hendrix or Dylan or Jim Morrison or Lenny Bruce, it was Jesus Bill wanted to be. He wanted to save us all. But Bill got freeze-framed in the scene where Jesus went through the Temple and said ‘This is my father’s house, and you’ve turned it into a den of thieves.’ Because that’s what Bill always wanted to do, he wanted to be Christ as his angriest.

So there you have it: Bill Hicks is a Dada Dandy for the Deep South, and a very, very angry Jesus. Your archetypal role model.

I learned about Carlin’s new never-to-be-captured-on-HBO routine in a wonderful interview piece by Jay Dixit for the Psychology Today blog done just nine days before Carlin’s death.

There it is, right at the end of the interview:

Dixit: So the last question is: What are you working on now?

Carlin: I have a piece of material that I’m doing on stage these days. I’m in Las Vegas now. I do weekends here, I do four nights on weekends as part of my year of touring. I go mostly to concert halls and theaters, around 80 or 90 of ‘em a year. But I come down here around three or four. So I’m down here. This piece of material called, “There’s Too Much Fucking Music,” which is my way of looking at how much music there is, I guess. It’s just my way of looking at the world and saying something that people don’t notice and figuring out a new way. And it’s filled with exaggeration and stuff. I’m doing that on stage a little bit. I’m not giving myself any pressure.”

O Irony of ironies for amateurmusicians.net! Carlin’s “new routine” successfully captures a perspective I’ve long been trying to articulate through this blog, in a single sentence:

There’s just too much music goin’ around these days!

on training to be an artist a human

The Dixit interview is valuable for many reasons – not the least being its blessed good timing, days before Carlin’s death. For me though, it especially stands out as an example of the rich results you can get from a well-prepared Q&A, conducted with someone you truly admire.

Kinda like a good Playboy interview, minus the pompous titties.

The essential lessons I got from this Carlin interview:

1. what his working methods were
2. his concept of the comedian
3. how method and mission inform one another

On Carlin’s concept of the comedian: a jester should always aim to be a court jester. A comedian should speak directly to power. A comedian should take risks. Reputation risks are therefore the holy grail of the comedian-cum-social-commentator.

With this in mind, we see that training to be a comedian is not simply a matter of coming up with good jokes. Rather, it’s about cultivating a point of view on the world, life, on absolutely everything, and doing so with courage. Thanks to Carlin therefore, I now understand that comedy is one of the many “genres” of human knowledge, one which leverages the “strategy of surprise” to teach important insights.

My own fave approach to obtaining insight is through cultivating paradox. In case you hadn’t already guessed.

So what did George Carlin do all these years, behind the scenes? He trained himself to be perceptive, as a life-long occupation. Indeed, the Dixit interview reveals that Carlin had a process for training his observational sense, a process he refined (and upgraded) over the course of his 50 years in the field of entertainment.

This attitude seems to me to be the psychological and spiritual key to the committed artist, whether amateur or professional. Without which you spend your life swimming in other people’s soundtracks.

where’s George?

All said and done, we certainly haven’t finished hearing from George Carlin. Therefore let this post be a message-in-a-bottle for all you Carlin fanatics out there: if you should ever come across a recorded version of the above-mentioned routine – text, audio, video – please forward me a copy! Or post it on Youtube!

With Carlin’s wise (and blunt) words, I suspect we’ll once again remember why we created the “off” button, and why we’re so afraid to use it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Person George Carlin

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Back in the 20th century, some clever people in the artistic avant-garde proved that you could “reinvent the wheel” of an artistic tradition by pulling off a few well-publicized stunts, while some important critic provided theoretical exegesis to help the audience swallow the pill.

And if the audience got hot under the collar, the critic could always pull out a protective amulet for his artist-as-gadfly, in the form of a magic word: iconoclast!

Iconoclast! That’s the guy who breaks the rulez!

Art as theology

Sure enough, look long enough into the iconoclast game of Modern Art and you’ll begin to see the man behind the curtain.

To anybody who’s followed the various avant-garde movements in modern art, it becomes clear at some point that the game is rigged, and that the art critic is doing the rigging. After all, if you upset the apple cart on a regular-enough basis, who’s going to help people make sense of what’s going on?

Surely not the artist.

To demonstrate this sweeping assertion, I’ll share with you my all-time favorite Monty Python sketch: John Cage’s 4’33” at Barbican Hall, filmed live on BBC Four. Possibly the loudest, most vivid display of Modern Art Theology known to mankind!

Instructions: just press play. Don’t fast forward. Endure this. Just once, please!

Do it for me.

seriously, though

Perhaps the biggest joke about the avant-garde is that critics have persuaded audiences time and again to take its pranks as formal seriousness.

But just so we can live in interesting times again: shouldn’t we also tell the critics the avant-garde emperor wears no clothes?

Indeed, for 4’33″ to be given a commemorative performance shows that the court jester meant no harm to the king, after all. The most telling moment for me: the audience is coughing between “movements”! The stifled atmosphere of the concert hall at its best!

agent provocateurs can be artists, too

Like a lot of the avant-garde, John Cage is famous for getting into the fight club of Hallowed Tradition to “make a point”. To me, he’s the equivalent of Marcel Duchamp and his urinal: just making sure there’s an air of ironic self-awareness wafting through art and music school lavatories.

That said, Cage seems to me more of an agent provocateur than his chess-playing mentor. At least at a deeper cultural level. Cage went further than Duchamp with the idea of playfulness and improvisation in art.

Further? Cage went fully (Zen) Buddhist. He sought to remove human agency (or “intention”, as he put it) from the creative process altogether. He wanted the universe to compose his compositions, and taught audiences sit around and simply pay attention to… to… to whatever was at hand.

‘Cause human creative tampering just messes things up with motives.

In other words, Cage’s 4’33” may be a famous stunt to some, but I’d argue that his “philosophy of creativity” has had a more enduring impact on contemporary audiences.

By making music into pure form, removing human motive, agency, intention – with his “aleatoric music” and “chance operations” – Cage would pave the way for the stochastic processes of algorithmic and computer-generating music. Thus, in a fundamental way, “processes of music” under Cage can be said to have distanced themselves from the human body.

Music could now aspire to be completely disincarnate.

And how does the body react to this? How long can we play the “interpret the concert-hall silence” game, until the (very repressed) body steps in and makes itself heard?

Cage has a point

Of course, there is a basic point to 4’33”: silence is an intrinsic part of music. Or to use the language of Gestalt psychology: silence is the assumed “ground” to the “figure” of musical awareness.

And my point is that the subliminal message of 4’33” goes even deeper: the concert-hall is more hallowed than a religious temple. It requires total bodily control, and obedience.

Got it. Got it all. Not my religion. So, can we forget Cage’s gambit now? Or at least honor his contributions… in the field of cybernetics?

Person John Cage

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It didn’t take long before I fell into of a frenzy of speculation (this happens when you think too much). I was playing music, now writing about it. But the more I played and wrote, the more it dawned on me I didn’t have a very strong grasp of “music” to begin with!

So I set out on a magical mystery quest, with my big question: “what is music”? And where does every magical mystery quest take you, in the end?

Ancient Egypt, of course.

So here I am, in front that sphinx – mysterious old Music. I ask: “Music, what art thou?” (you have to sound Elizabethan or the sphinx won’t even hear you).

Seeing no response, I tickle it under the paw: “Sphinx, why are we humans musical?”

Getting the same mute response, I decide to go to the Google Gods (right under the Cheops Pyramid) and throw my flippin’ keywords into their oracular search sandbox.

The best answer I come up with? This website on “music science” by a fellow named Philip Dorrell. I even wrote a blog post about it.

an itch you just can’t scratch?

All fine and well, but reading Dorrell just leaves me with more questions than answers. I’m a child of the age: I want answers! Right now (pant, pant)!

At some point, I start to get it: every magical mystery search worth its salt must have dead ends and fruitless avenues. Perhaps I have gone about it the wrong way all along.

Perhaps I should have not gone to the sandbox at all, but instead looked at the Sphinx.

the twist, the twist!!

So instead of Google, I go to YouTube (Oy vey, Gilles, YouTube is owned by Google…Hello!)

Lookie here. There’s a cat on the ‘tube, pretty famous, one of the most gifted denizens of the internet: Nora the Cat.

When you look at the Sphinx, what do you see? A giant feline! Nora, my sphinx!

So you’ve watched the video (and the second installment!), and resumed reading once the adrenalin rush of giddy discovery has subsided.

Bet you forgot the question that started it all (I did!)?

Think of Nora. What is Nora’s gift, evident to all? A “musical sense”? The discovery of pitch? An association of pleasure with certain sounds?

Indeed, it’s tempting to take the “behaviorist” route and explain Nora away with the pain-pleasure conditioned-reflex response. But watching her ears perk up as notes resound, I’m not so sure myself.

Nora seems a rather mystical cat. She’s got feel.

of cats and men

To be sure, Nora’s special gift raises more questions than answers, too. About cats. And humans.

Again, perhaps the answers we seek lie “hidden in plain view”. After all, how did the Ancient Egyptians portray the sphinx? A cat with a human head. What does that say about musicians?

‘Nuff said.

This blog figures in my accomplishments list. And though in many ways I don’t really qualify as a true blogger (I don’t post with enough regularity), underneath it all I try to keep a consistent approach.

“And what consistency might that be, Mr. Eclectica”? you ask.

Well, I’d say it’s an underlying ethic. I’m only motivated to research, write and post when I’ve got some insight to share. So this blog is definitely not a news or current events blog.

I’m also motivated by a sense of mission. Which goes like this:

WHEN YOU’RE TIRED OF THE COSTUME PARTY…

What I’m advocating through my writing, at bottom, can be best described as “sensibility training through learning a musical instrument“.

The idea is very simple. I’m reminded of it everytime I watch a YouTube clip of Bill O’Reilly – or any other traumatized (and traumatizing) war-monger.

What does the world need more of? Sensible People (and if that sounds too Brit-snotty to you: Perceptive People).

I start from a premise of basic perceptual awareness:

Q – What happens when your communication environment saturates your senses all day (and night) long?

A – My hunch: you become numb and your senses “close off”. Your receptiveness to new experiences atrophies.

Paradoxically, in this environment you need more and more intense stimulus to even feel alive, and to know who you are. “Culture” is therefore experienced as a closed loop of identity consumption and various forms of media addiction.

That’s what I mean by “the costume party”.

look at me! I’m worth loving, too!

Important to the amateurmusicians.net approach: I offer this concept of “sensibility training” in contrast to the more common motive of “getting the attention I need by putting on a musical act”.

This is not out of some higher-than-thou moral qualm, but because the attention-seeking ethic runs counter to the process of sensibility training to begin with.

It’s basic psychology, really.

Though self-expression is one of the key values of sensibility training, it’s narrow self-expression – or narcissism – that still dominates the airwaves today, a sure sign of our culture’s deep habit of sensory closure.

In contrast: what does it mean to seriously devote time and energy to learning a musical instrument, and a specific repertoire/genre? What is this learning doing for the learner?

open vs. closed

In terms of training, you may be wondering if there’s a distinction to be made between “sensibility” and “sensitivity”.

There is, unequivocally.

“Sensitivity training” refers to workplace initiatives that “help” employees learn the habits of thinking and doublespeak mandated by political correctness, to disallow “out of place” private judgment in a public context.

The habit that is learned at root is self-censorship. Which is what a lot of “sensible people” learn to do at a young age, thanks to “good rearing” and public education.

In opposition to this well-intentioned but insidious dogma, sensibility training is about getting people to gain self-knowledge – and knowledge about the world – by using rich, open and expressive means of communication.

Literally, sensibility training means: training the senses, learning a culture of the senses.

With regards to learning music, this means specifically: the process of painstakingly learning an instrument, and choosing a repertoire. The key skills and attitudes are: active listening and comparative musical analysis.

To obtain good results, a multi-genre and multi-disciplinary approach is key. Why?

As a musician, if you dedicate yourself to only one genre/style, you are reinforcing:

1. a tribal identity
2. a marketing category

As a learner, if you follow only one set of learning methods for each music style, you are reinforcing:

1. a fundamentalist attitude for one method over another
2. dependence over autonomy and self-direction

and before your attention drifts to that girl wearing a tight yellow t-shirt

Needless to say, there is a lot more to say on this topic, and this post should only be seen as a reminder of the basic motive for this blog.

In the final analysis: the discussion that needs to happen is on the significant role that a serious musician can play in today’s world, beyond cultural diversion.

That role to me is, in a nutshell: sensibility training. For both the musician and his/her audience.

I include it here because of the sheer contrast between this delicate performance, and the visual chaos of his heavily-annotated score featured in my previous post.

Beyond that, Gould’s performance here has the same effect on me as some of the melancholy textures in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, with an added vulnerability that is really quite beautiful.

Like a broken-hearted Satie playing the music of Bach on a lonely winter day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Btw, please don’t take the “take 844″ quip in my post title literally. I believe this recording was done in a few takes, but certainly not 844! It’s just my way of saying that Gould had played this piece many times over throughout his life…

That is, if horrible handwriting is an indicator of genius, my brilliance far outshines my shadow.

“Ah but, if this is true, then every doctor must be a genius too”, you say (of course, no self-respecting M.D. would dare write a legible drug prescription. That frisson of potential medical malpractice suits is so addictive!).

Anyways, I got this important clue about my unacknowledged semi-godhood from a display at the new Glenn Gould exhibition at the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa last week.

Here are pics of sheet music samples of the Goldberg Variations on display, covered – no, smeared! – with Gould’s prolix handwritten indications. A Glenn Gould coloring book, so to speak

What’s fascinating to me:

• Not only are the notes themselves unintelligible (or Gould-only-intelligible), but there’s so much scribbling that the music itself is unreadable!
• Lots of numbers and codes. Perhaps details about metre, finger positioning, track number. Dunno.
• Use of red for highlighting information.

Possible interpretations:

1. The note-making process is a key part of how Gould learns the mechanics of a piece (finger-placement, etc.).
2. Score annotation is an essential part of the memorization process (what some music teachers call “cementing”). When viewing a video clip at the Ottawa exhibit, I saw Gould in interaction with a producer, who told him after a take that a note was inaudible in his performance. Gould asked him the measure, and promptly cut in the passage for studio editing. Seems he had a precise visual memory of the score, like an orchestra conductor.
3. Obviously, since the scribbles cover the notes, the sheet music wasn’t used for performance. The music score in this case becomes a preparation document for musical interpretation. Gould really had structure and details all memorized, and used the approach of a conductor when playing music, often conducting himself with his hand, or even his body sway. In other words, his annotations are those of a conductor.

My conclusion? I got confirmation at this exhibit that Gould was truly breaking from of the “read-only” culture of concert appearances and making inroads into the “read-write” culture of studio manipulation, in his life-long pursuit of the philosophy of open-ended composition.

When I started this blog, I initially had this idea of a web resource for music practice advice.

Providing such a service, I thought, would help remedy a recurrent problem in music education. That is: despite the abundance of educational/mentorship options available to budding musicians today, useful resources on the topic of practice strategies and tactics – whatever the instrument – still seemed to be lacking.

To be sure, many music education publishing companies have published materials on the topic of music practice strategies (Homespun Tapes, Berklee Press, Hal Leonard, and others). And in any given urban area, musicians have access to a wide range of teachers and educational opportunities.

But in my own experience, I found that only a very few teachers have taken the trouble to systematize their tacit teaching knowledge into a set of principles, strategies, tools, etc. On the other hand, many published resources do just this, but they obvious can’t provide the personalized attention that teachers and mentors can, which is often needed for long-term learning projects.

My point: specialized music schools notwithstanding, there didn’t seem to be a real and/or virtual PLACE you could go to which would provide just such “integrated” support. So starting a blog based on giving practice tools, tips and advice would allow me, at the very least, to seek out such resources and organize them for a readership.

Well, that’s not where THIS blog went.

The reason? I realized this approach wasn’t really my strength. Turns out my talents and passions are better manifested in the creative treatment of educational ideas, and the analysis of new culture/communications trends. The “amateur musicians” part is simply the perspective from which I wanted to write and research my topics, the emerging “pro-am” movement.

So my original idea of an online guide for music practice tools and techniques went on ice.

oh when the saints, come marching in…

That said, I’m happy to tell you there’s a new practice tips and techniques aficionado on the block(osphere), and his name is Ben Clapton.

Ben Clapton is here to help you practice your instrument. That’s the name of his blog: Music Practice Tips. His mission:

How often does your teacher tell you to practice more, but doesn’t actually tell you how to approach it?
How many times have you practiced the same thing over and over, only to see it get worse in your lesson?
How many days have you not practiced, not because you don’t want to, but because you don’t feel inspired?
This site is devoted to these issues, giving you a resource that you can come to find inspiration, practice methods, and ways of effective practice and self-learning.

Looking through the articles, I’m impressed with the quality of content Clapton makes available for readers. New concepts and strategies are introduced and explained to help students re-think their approach, and integrate them into their (hopefully) daily practice routine. As well, the often-overlooked “attitudinal issues” – such as setting realistic goals and and practicing for performance-readiness – are given special attention on Music Practice Tips.

And it’s a well-organized blog, with a clear audience in mind. From the title page, a reader can see the latest article briefs (clickable, for full post access), a site mission summary to the right, and categories and popular posts to the left. The categories are well-chosen and relevant, mindful of problems and issues that typically arise from a music practice lifestyle.

how resourceful are your resources?

And more? I notice the curious “Practiceopedia” link in the Music Practice Tips blogroll, and click through, expecting to stumble upon some über-online resource or portal for musicians looking for “best practice”-type learning advice.

The Practiceopedia page reveals just such a resource.

Which brings me to the next point I wanted to make in this review: in a world where blogs and books are fighting it out for our attention, what makes a learning resource truly useful and valuable?

From what I can gather in the video overview, Practiceopedia is indeed one whopper of a resource. In a nutshell, the Practiceopedia value-added approach to learning music combines pedagogical theory with practical advice, into a set of logically organized sections navigable by learners, according to their needs.

Only thing: it is a book. In our case, this means a caveat: Practiceopedia’s greatest strength – from the point of view of its intended readership of young music students – may also be its greatest weakness.

For example, in Practiceopedia learning techniques are, from the user’s point of view, the means of navigating through the volume. As useful as this may be, it generally assumes that learners – and young learners in particular – are rational, purpose-driven, “best practice” seekers looking to optimize their learning process for best results.

In other words, in my view, the instructional design of Practiceopedia serves a somewhat-idealized reader: someone who is reflexive about their learning process, or at least will become so in his or her use the book over time.

In an instructional setting, who are the experienced learners? Music teachers.

So are students using the book as recommended? Is it producing good results? I’m not saying that the assumptions Practiceopedia makes about its readership are wrong, only that as a format it may not “hit the mark” with its intended audience, and rather may end up being a more useful resource for music teachers.

have hacks will travel

Since we are concerned about usefulness to the widest possible category of learners, I’ll contrast this “learning heuristics” approach to the “hacks” approach favored by Clapton on his blog.

Why the “hacks” format? For one, its sheer practical bent seems well suited to the hyper-fragmented attention world of the modern multi-media landscape. Indeed, many successful internet businesses owe their success in part to this format for content: Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Publishing has already reflected on the meaning of the success of his technology Hack Series. And if there’s one blog that is doing well in the blogosphere, it’s Lifehacker.com.

Simply put, the hacks approach is successful in providing focused answers to specific problems. Hacks can be simple, or they can be complex. In terms of advice, good hacks are mindful of the attitude of creative focus that learners have when they set their minds on solving a problem. Always a specific problem, mind you.

book 2.0

So here’s where the Music Practice Tips blog is, in my view, an improvement on book resources like Practiceopedia: beyond providing learners with a useful battery of learning techniques (no small feat!), it provides them with problem-solving tips that are easy to integrate into daily life, and does so in a timely manner.

Bottom line, here’s what Practiceopedia can’t do as a resource that Music Practice Tips can:

1. Practiceopedia is, again, a book. As useful and brilliantly designed as it may be, until it also turns into a blog (preferably with video and audio content), it risks suffering the fate that befalls books these days: Attention Deficit Disorder. Especially in the hands of young learners! That is, it may soon find itself at the bottom of a pile of other useful resources, on that dusty and neglected “serious stuff” desk, next to school homework. If it’s not part of their day-to-day culture…
2. Practiceopedia’s single-volume comprehensiveness also runs the risk of inducing in its users a passive psychology of “having all the bases covered”. In other words: it may ironically end up not being used as often as it should because “it has all the answers”.
3. Unlike on-line resources, Practiceopedia cannot evolve with its audience, nor create a community around the resources it offers. if there are any lessons we should have learned by now with regards to new media: design your information for knowledge capture, conversation… and tribes!

So there you have it. In the final analysis, if Music Practice Tips turns out to be a blog tribute – even extension – of Practiceopedia, then maybe this issue is all for naught and I can simply rest my case: we are getting the best of both worlds. To be sure, many of the concepts and techniques featured in posts on Music Practice Tips seem to be adaptations of concepts originating in Practiceopedia (…and if that’s the case, I’d recommend Mr. Clapton take Practiceopedia out of the Music Practice Tips Blogroll, and get an affiliate marketing deal going with the publishers of the book!).

For the moment, I’ve chosen to look at Music Practice Tips as an experiment in bringing ‘updated’ traditional music pedagogy out of the instructional setting, to the new natural environment of self-directed and passionate learners: the Internet and the blogosphere.

An experiment which I wholeheartedly endorse. Certainly, blogs that start off on the right foot deserve our full attention and support.

Never fear! We’re living in a brave new age of gurus, and there’s a solution-head out there for every spiritual and practical problem that ails’ ya.

Here’s a shortlist of techniques and approaches from trusted authorities in the science of motivational dynamics, hand-picked by yours truly to help you dispel those blues, and set you on the path to peak performance!

Dr. Pavlov’s (Re)Move approach

A classic! Used by all standing armies of the world. And evil geniuses too.

It works like this. First, you deprive yourself of something that you instinctively need. Then you enter into a pact with yourself that you’ll only fulfill that need when you’ve gotten around to accomplishing that important task you’ve been so woefully neglecting.

In our case: practicing our instrument.

Example: deprive yourself of your favorite food. If you’re supremely lazy, deprive yourself of a food you can’t do without, such as water, or coffee. Practice until dehydrated. Then reward yourself with a much-needed beverage.

Repeat until famous.

The official theory: behaviorism, esp. classical conditioning. Some of its fanciest words are: conditioned-reflex response to behavioral stimulus (I’m riffing, here).

Caveat: if this method doesn’t work, and you start to feel like a demoralized rat stuck in a cage, at least you can take comfort in the fact that you’ve become very good at manipulating yourself.

Dr. Loyola’s Seven Lively Virtues approach

Speaking of instincts, doesn’t your repudiation of discipline have everything to do with succumbing to your base instincts?

No cure for that, mate: biology is destiny! you say.

Don’t be so rash. Ever heard of righteous self-denial, or leavened grace? What about celibacy? Or HLCHFPI?

Following the percept of Papal Infallibility, Dr. Loyola and his Society of Jesus (otherwise known as the Jesuits) offers a rigorous program for combating what top Catholic theologians call the Seven Deadly Sins.

In Latin, the acronym for the sins (that keep you from practicing) is SALIGLIA, which stands for Superbia (pride/vanity), Avaritia (greed/avarice), Luxuria (lust), Invidia (envy/jealousy), Gula (gluttony), Ira (wrath/anger) and Acedia (sloth).

The countervailing virtues actively promoted by the Jesuits are summarized by the acronym HLCHFPI, which stands for (don’t ask me what these mean in English, ok?): Humilitas, Liberalitas, Castitas, Humanitas, Frenum, Patientia, Industria.

So there you have it. From the orthodox Catholic standpoint, it all comes down to SALIGLIA vs. HLCHFPI. And guess which of the two is easier to pronounce?

Caveat: Though it’s easy to associate the Jesuits with a life a discipline and self-denial, they’re pretty sensitive about being mixed up with Opus Dei. Be careful!

Dr. Spock’s Baby Whispers approach

Dr. Benjamin Spock, that is. Not Mr. Spock.

In stark contrast to the Jesuits’ disciplinary outlook, the highly influential (and controversial) methods of Dr. Spock have long promoted the view that a more “permissive” and “attentive” approach to childrearing, may paradoxically yield more self-directed and self-confident adult personalities.

So it goes for music skill acquisition. Assuming your music learning project is in its infancy, what seems the best approach to take?

Follow the precepts of Dr. Spock. Lavish your maternal instincts onto your instrument. Be constantly attentive to its every need. When it cries, pick it up. Also: reward it with gleeful applause for the simplest of accomplishments. Finally, truly learn to listen to your instrument, and don’t assume that a lack of sound is an absence of potential musicality!

And please, don’t let it sleep in its’ case: cuddle with your instrument in bed at night. Make sure your partner is supportive: it’s a little person’s future that’s at stake!

Caveat: be careful not to confuse Dr. Spock with Dr. Phil. That guy’s a Dr. Spock impostor sent by the Jesuits to get America back down on its knees!

Dr. Doppelgänger’s Outsource It! approach

Just another way of saying that you can program your digital avatar to do all the practicing for you in Second Life.

Or: let every musician who’s ever recorded a worthy note or track provide you with the musical materials to mix with you machine-generated beats.

If you’re a DJ.

Better yet, you can follow Tim Ferriss’ advice and outsource your practice routine for $5.00 a week, while you sip strawberry daiquiris on some beach in Thailand.

Dr. Freud’s Nimble Fingers approach

In this approach, everything little thing you do in life, every object you use, every innocuous preference you express toward someone or something, is but a thinly veiled substitute for projections of your sex and death drives.

Death drive!?! Well, that’s the part I don’t really understand with Freud.

But sex drive? Man, if we had to distill the lessons from a century of advertising into a single formula, it surely would be this! Take it from Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew and the inventor of PR, who taught women to equate smoking with freedom, without them being aware of it, thanks to the magic of sublimated sexual desire in advertising.

On the music front: doesn’t this “projection of your sex drive” business clarify your choice of instrument, and the reason why you love/hate to practice it?

Why is it strange to think of drummers practicing their kits? What are pianists really doing, going up and down that keyboard? And what about the harp, its peculiar shape, and the delicate plucking technique of its finest practitioners? Tuning? Ergonomics?

Wind instruments? Don’t get me started…

So there you have it: why do all those lead guitarists play their axe so fast? Why did Toscanini buck around on his grand stand, with that white stick flailing about? Why did Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire, and Pete Townshend smash his at the end of every concert?

According to Herr Dr. Freud, practicing your instrument is a sublimated form of masturbating.

You got it! Go nuts!

Andrew is founder of the Community Guitar Program, as well as being the director and coordinator of Django In June, the only annual music camp in North America dedicated to the pursuit of gypsy jazz musicianship. For a more complete bio, click here.

[audio:AndrewInJune-QT.mp3]

The interview was recorded on Saturday July 15th, in Northampton, circa 2pm. As it is close to 50 minutes in duration, here is a time-line of the main discussion points, should you wish to jump to specific parts of the interview:

0:15- intro + Django In June ’07
3:00- Django In June challenges
4:00- who came to Django In June ’07
8:15- Community Guitar – intro
9:00- origins of Community Guitar
11:30- the CG vision: music as a shared experience
12:25- why focus on the guitar?
14:25- basic principles of the group instruction model for instrumentalists

• step 1 – instructor as matchmaker
• step 2 – focus on repertoire that’s good for jamming
• step 3 – learn the skills required for a group playing context

17:00- CG: startup challenges
20:30- what musical styles work best for the CG format?
21:50- vocal repertoire?
24:15- assessing instrument skill levels
25:30- skill level 1: technique + theory + repertoire
26:50- skill level 2: technique + theory + repertoire
29:40- skill level 3: technique + theory + repertoire
31:05- gypsy jazz suited for CG curriculum?
31:50- academic model vs. recreational program
35:10- a new concept of leisure
37:55- the future of CG
39:25- new options for guitar teachers
40:10- scaling CG
41:00- demand for CG
42:55- how the CG guitar model fits with existing institutions

If you think you’d like to start a Community Guitar Program in your hometown (link) – or pilot a Community Guitar Program from your music store – or if you’re simply curious and would like more information, you can contact Andrew here.

Thanks again Andrew, for your time, and for this amazing experience! See you next year at Django In June!

Why Northampton? What’s so special about the place?

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were allegedly spawned there.
• One of my all-time favorite movies – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – was filmed (in part) in Northampton.
• According to Wikipedia, some of the more illustrious members of the community were signers of the Declaration of Independence (though haven’t found out who, yet).
• Perhaps a repayment of karmic debt for the witch trials hosted all over New England way back when in the 18th century, the town is also home to Smith College, one of the leading liberal arts colleges for women in the United States (where I’ll be lodging for the duration of my stay, in a residence).
• There’s an Easthampton that’s southwest of Northampton, and a Southampton that’s further south of Easthampton.
• Sci-fi writer Kurt Vonnegut stayed in “Paradise City” (Northampton’s nickname) for a while.
• And much, much more…

My reason for going is, of course, musically-related. I’m going to Northampton to attend the Django In June music camp, a one-of-a-kind week-long gypsy jazz music seminar! From the DIJ homepage:

Django in June is really two events in one. For the general public, we’ll host concerts on both Friday and Saturday nights at the lovely Helen Hills Hills Chapel. These shows offer the opportunity to enjoy world-class Gypsy jazz artists in a live, intimate setting — without the additional expense and bother of a flight to Europe! If you already know which concert(s) you would like to attend and you just need tickets … You are also invited to a dinner showcase on Wednesday evening featuring our own Swing Caravan at the Sierra Grille in downtown Northampton.

For musicians, (including players of guitar, violin, mandolin, accordion and bass), we offer a variety of opportunities to learn and share. This year, for the first time, musicians will have the option of attending Django Camp — the first such music camp in the US devoted entirely to Gypsy jazz — which will run from Tuesday evening through Sunday noon. For those who would rather just drop in on the weekend for jamming, a la carte clinics and performances as we’ve done in the past, that will still be an option and we’d love to see you.

Though there will be many gypsy jazz luminaries present at the camp, I’m especially thrilled to know I’ll be able to meet Andrew Lawrence, the organizer and coordinator of the event. He’s the brains, heart and soul behind the Community Guitar Program in Northampton and environs.

Basically, the Community Guitar Program is a new type of educational offering to musicians in any local setting, using a group-learning instructional model developed by Andrew over a period of many years. The history page on the CGP site describes the genesis of his instructional model, and details the challenges and opportunities specific to the group learning format for musicians. During my stay in Northampton, I’ll see if Andrew’s got time for a recorded Q&A session, enough that I can distill into an amateurmusicians.net podcast upon my return to Montreal.

So there you have it. I’m pretty much all set to go. Depending on how loaded the schedule will be, I’ll try to keep a log of my Django In June experience as it happens. Otherwise, you’ll get the full summary when I’m back.

Until then… Viva le Django!

Alas, before Santa Fritz can grab the first gift, your mom stands up, and blurts out to all ears: “Wait, wait! Before we open any gifts… Billy, why don’t you get your violin and play us a few Christmas songs? Wouldn’t that be lovely, everyone?”

pack o’ nerves with a bow in hand

Egad!! What did she just say? Alas, before you can raise any objection, the clamor to hear you summon the Yuletide muse overtakes the room. Every family event needs its music, right? Looks like it’s time to enter the ring and deliver the goods. No way out of this one!

Yes, this truly happened to me, on more than one occasion (different family, only passing resemblance to the characters above). And how well did I play those Xmas carols, prithee?

Here’s a video of truly bad kids’ violin playing, a tad worse than my own chops back in those days. I dare you to listen to it until the end.

Click here to view the embedded video.

know thine audience?

Back to my story. So the impromptu gig is over, everyone’s now fully gaga over the presents. As you pack your instrument, you think to yourself, in ultimate Christmas sag: “now every Uncle Tom, Dick and Jerry knows I play the violin. And badly, at that. Yeah, Merry Christmas, mom.”

OK, why this story? Here’s what I’m getting at.

You know your family. And they know you. A recipe for artistic triumph?

Today’s top internet marketing gurus emphatically insist that you gotta get to know your market/audience, that “your audience/client is your friend”. Driving this new reality is that we live in a brave new age of transparency, they say, and the trend is only going to deepen in every sphere of life.

Yet have we fully understood what we mean by such assertions? You wanna get to know all these people, warts and all?

First off, are we talking about individuals, or groups? We all know what difference it makes when you’re getting to know people one-on-one versus the round-table approach. How this relates to my point is that the communication tools which allow us to deepen our knowledge of our customers/audience today are both one-to-one and many-to-many, in terms of relationship potential and process. Blogs and wikis are two such examples.

And so in this new, more relationship-intensive marketplace, exactly what kinds of relationships are we looking at? In other words, in terms of my story, are you sure you want to bring everyone into the family?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I love/hate you all!

Professional musicians will attest to this experience, which can be more extreme from their point of view. How many times have you heard a pro say they’d much prefer playing to strangers than to a room full of family members?

After all, as the story goes: “these people know me! if my performance bombs, can I then truly carry the family torch in public?” In other words, in front of your folks a performance is always more than just a performance: there are unspoken expectations to meet, and reputations to carry beyond one’s own. Indeed, I’d argue that in the very nature of your performance and style the family must be able to somehow recognize the image it has of itself.

Indeed, an audience of strangers can provide a professional performer with two routes of escape from such pressures. If the audience doesn’t like it, they can simply bookmark their experience with a quick and dirty label: “it sucked”, or, “waste of time and money”, etc. Beyond faring worse in one’s career if this trend continues, there’s no weighty corporate responsibility to carry for the performer. And if the audience does like it, stranger-ness in itself is worth its own weight in mystique gold. An artist can capitalize upon this mystique effect, esp. in the creation of his/her public image and persona.

At the extreme of anonymity, there’s busking and street performance, particularly in urban areas of high pedestrian density. Here, you’re playing pretty much exclusively to strangers, whether passers-by or temporarily attentive throngs.

Not only does this remove the pressure to play to bolster family pride or to prove your stuff to friends, but at times it even removes the pressure of… having an audience at all. I myself have busked in such situations, in Vancouver, Canada, in Paris, France and London, England. I can tell you that after a while, the experience is pretty much like: “if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear it fall, is there really a tree?”

Therefore, I must inevitably conclude that any musical endeavor, no matter how private, at the very least implies an audience. You can’t remove performance from music.

so you play an instrument?

You know what they say about success: preparation meeting, uh, opportunity. Surely this saying should apply not just to those of us who aim for the stars, but to anyone clockin’ in the hours on their fave musical instrument, week in, week out, “just for the hell of it”.

Seriously. Unless you intend to keep your music passion and leisure activities an official state secret, someone’s bound to ask you someday to play for them. So what kind of preparation do you have up your sleeve for those moments opportunity knocks on your bedroom door?

It’s strange indeed how many amateur musicians don’t think of their learning progress in terms of performance-readiness. Think about it, when you say “amateur musician”, what come to mind? Probably one of two things: someone practicing an instrument at home, in cosy anonymity, and someone playing for family and a group of friends, again in a home setting.

Indeed, probably the most familiar image of amateur musicians in our cultural history is that of youth playing for the family in the living room or parlour. In fact, here’s a pic of me, at age 14, one year after I had formally quit my violin lessons. Apparently the family still craved more “shaky bow” experiences, despite my despondent retirement from dedicated music practice.

Strangers and Acquaintances! Introducing…

In the final analysis, you’re more nervous in front of your peers because it’s the family/tribe reputation that’s at stake. Though reputation is always an issue with playing in public, playing in front of family can be more emotionally distressing because of all that baggage that comes with family pride (or shame!). Not to mention that notoriously elephantine family memory, always ready to make you relive old embarrassments, 60 years down the road.

In terms of performance-readiness, deciding which style of amateur musicianship to go for might then also depend on your “standing” (i.e. the quality of your relationships) in your circles of allegiance, family, friends, etc. In a nutshell: how savvy you are with the high-stakes game of tribal politics.

So my guideline for “knowing my audience” is: whether you’re doing market research, or simply playing in the kitchen, take the “I like you, you like me” principle with a grain of salt. Rather, as Dame Evelyn Glennie puts it, focus on “making a difference” – to both the people you know and don’t know.

Listen, friend. Don’t even think about “getting tased”.

Rather, consider this quote by classical guitarist Julian Bream insightful, on his choice for a Life in Music:

As we settle, a little anxiously, into the 21st Century, it appears to me that we have become obsessed with speed and various forms of electronically induced communication.

The performance of serious music on the other hand pursues its own natural rhythm as its articulation unfolds organically in physical time. It was this natural and deeply expressive feature that drew me inexorably toward music as a young man, to become eventually the raison d’être of my life’s work.

En français:

Au fur et à  mesure que nous entrons, non sans quelque inquiétude, dans le XXIe siècle, il me semble que nous sommes obsédés par la vitesse et par diverses formes de communication induites par l’électronique.

Mais l’exécution de musique sérieuse suit son propre rhythme naturel et son articulation s’épanouit organiquement dans le temps physique. C’est cette caractéristique naturelle et profondément expressive qui m’a attiré de manière inexorable vers la musique dans ma jeunesse et qui est finalement devenue la raison d’être de l’oeuvre de ma vie.

Pretty basic, but works for me. The quote was gleaned from the booklet accompanying the DVD: Julian Bream, My Life In Music, which is produced and distributed by Music on Earth.

Paradoxically, as electronic communications speed up information to the point of pure pattern (pace McLuhan), doesn’t information overload actually slow down human communication? Communication requires that we make meaning out of what we perceive: this takes more time when you’re swimming in speeded-up info, no?

So it would seem that getting back to our senses is the ultimate art form, and ‘serious musicians’ – to use Bream’s expression – make this process their daily sacrament.

So… Ready to raise your fist and chant in favor of a worker’s paradise on earth? Or will a simple drunken picnic in the midst of a sun-baked crowd do for you?

Whatever the case, someone’s bound to break out a tune at some point during the festivities. To remind you that it’s always easier to love humanity in the abstract, here’s The Internationale, as performed by Barbara Scott and The Socialists. (Note that you can’t record your own version for sale and distribution, unless you clear the rights: the song is copyrighted under France’s copyright law until 2017).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Spring Fever Unites the World

May Day! Party time to some, distress signal to others, the mention of May Day celebrations evokes images of popular festivities, where a powerful mix of revelry and populist uprising have caused concern for authorities the world over, ever since the Papacy turned its jaundiced eye on the (spring-)fevered mob in heat.

By and large, the consensus on May Day these days is that there are two types of May Day celebrations, one seasonal or “pagan”, the other political. Historically, of course, the pagan celebrations came first. From wikipedia:

May Day is a cross-quarter day, associated with the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls exactly half of a year from November 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and neopagan festivals such as Samhain. May Day marks the end of the uncomfortable winter half of the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations, regardless of the locally prevalent political or religious establishment.

As Europe became Christianized, the pagan holidays lost their religious character and either morphed into popular secular celebrations, as with May Day, or were given new Christian interpretations while retaining many traditional pagan features, as with Christmas, Easter, and All Saint’s Day. Beginning in the 20th century, many neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival once more.

Bearing no apparent relation to these pagan traditions is the more recent political makeover of May Day – emerging in the late 19th century – as a day to promote the the proletarian revolutionary faith, and as an official state holiday for collectivist regimes. Even today, one may witness in the political celebrations of May Day all manner of righteous causes, slogans, songs in favor of collectivist dictatorship (or, “worker’s rights”, to put it nicely).

Of course, I mention that there is no apparent connection between the pagan/religious versions of May Day and the socialist version. But, as with most popular traditional and religious celebrations – Christmas, Easter, Passover, Ramadan, Summer Solstice – whenever we dig a little deeper on origins, we often witness a protracted struggle over appropriate religious parentage. While there is no official connection between the pagan May Day and socialist May Day, recent research on the roots of socialism seems to indicate that there may exist a trans-historical connection between the two.

As always, the proof is in the pudding. Countries which officially celebrate May Day are usually current or former socialist regimes, or have a strong socialist tradition in their political culture, past or present. In the current socialist regimes, the din of the May Day political trumpets tend to distract from the religious themes implicit in the revolutionary faith. In the former socialist regimes, Marxist political rhetoric now must compete for attention with the revival of neo-pagan festivities.

So if you happen to be geo-located in a collectivist principality, no luck for you. Fist-rising and chanting is your only option. If, however, you are in more loosey-goosey regimes that tolerate all manner of hangovers, then you’re in luck: you can choose your (non-) party allegiance, and (not) get drunk appropriately thereafter.

Pole Vaulting Is More Fun

Hope my bias has been fairly clear so far. My Public Service Announcement to you on this May Day: must you get drunk, get drunk on the stuff of nature. If you truly do take the rhetoric of socialism at face value, then go ahead: raise your fist and sing The Internationale. But if stirring internationalist hymns chill your bones – as they do with me – try a traditional maypole party, good with family and friends. As Linus from Peanuts (or Jean- Paul Sartre) put it, “I love humanity! It’s people I can’t stand!”

So bust out your likable self, and break out the jam!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Recently pondering on the movers and shakers of my life, I’ve been left wondering how many other wannabe violin virtuosos Vivaldi must has spawned.

And, conversely, how many misguided career choices. We’ve all heard of people who were compelled in childhood to take up an instrument for the wrong reasons, usually because of parental vanity, or even sibling rivalry, where ambition and competitiveness motivate a “future music star”.

Resulting usually in excellence matched with soullessness. American Idol material.

So the question is: if you’re following a star, to which galaxy does it belong? Your parents’? The music industry’s? Your own? Since we’re here to consider the “right reasons” to take up a life in music, let’s have look at what star just might be worth following to begin with.

on getting the sacred fire

If I’m not mistaken, in any youngster’s life, the intense desire to learn an instrument usually starts with a “sacred fire” type incident. I’ve had mine, you’ve no doubt had yours. A lot of musicians I know remember the exact moment when they decided: “That’s it! I must learn to do this (or else live a life of quiet desperation)”!

“To do this“, referring to a sacred mission of learning an instrument – a most enviable skill – and playing that amazing music.

My point: as a rule, this intense yearning starts with the performance of a specific piece of music. Beyond the anecdotal, it’s the meaning of that moment of “vocational calling” that interests me, in terms of its core educational value. And for lack of a better term, I will refer to the impact of this decisive experience on a young musician as a “Musical Archetype”.

all the things you are, and destined to become

What is a “Musical Archetype”? In other spheres of culture, the same phenomenon is known as Great Art, Great Literature, or even “Great Lives”, in the sense of having an inspiring biography.

In educational terms, your archetypal piece – or set of pieces – will set up the emotional and imaginative ground rules for your long-term musical goals.

You may have guessed: my inspiration is somewhat Jungian. In the vein of Jungian Archetypes, the concept of “Musical Archetype” expresses – as a rule – how key musical experiences can expand one’s sense of self beyond the narrow practical view of the everyday self, into a more profound and timeless, experience of life – imaginative, trans-historical, cultural, even tragic or heroic.

In social terms, this “expanded sense of self” can be understood as the total musical career of a successful individual. Indeed, the most successful musicians are completely identified with their Musical Archetype, as for example, Glenn Gould with Bach’s Golberg Variations: one and the same.

the golden rule

In this way, the emotional and imaginative “ground rules” laid down by a Musical Archetype are the “golden rule” of my music pedagogy.

Stated simply: if you had only one piece to learn on your instrument, which one would it be? Or: what piece of music must you learn to play – and on which instrument – before reaching your deathbed?

Second, having mastered it, where and to whom must you perform it?

And with this overarching goal in mind, how will you focus on all the technical issues that arise as you learn to play your instrument? Who will you seek out as a mentor, to help you on your way to reaching your musical goals? What kinds of support will you need to successfully pursue this lifestyle?

and there’s a twist…

The concept of “Musical Archetype” is perhaps a new way of restating that classic question of a musician’s core mission and aspirations in life. Amateur or professional. In fact, whether you’ve had your own “sacred fire” moment or not, what matters the most is that you should have a Musical Archetype to guide your purpose, as a constantly evolving musician.

But here’s where the concept of “Musical Archetype” ups the ante: if, for whatever reason, you don’t manage to become a musician and carry on your musical mission, you nevertheless have made a major discovery about yourself by experiencing this great piece of music, your Musical Archetype.

hear for your self

Now for a couple examples from my life. In my case, it seems the archetypal pieces themselves have varied with the instrument. In the two example I’d like to share, both pieces are considered magisterial in their spheres (hmm, what does that tell you about me … whatever the case, both pieces do tell great stories).

For the violin: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Here’s a performance of the Four Seasons by superstar Nigel Kennedy – worth seeing for the camerawork, too! (Click on the Youtube logo at the bottom right hand of the video to open the clip in a separate window and gain access to the other parts of this performance)

Click here to view the embedded video.

For the guitar: Bach’s Chaconne. By Japanese classical guitar whiz Kaori Muraji. (Click on the Youtube logo at the bottom right hand of the video to open the clip in a separate window and gain access to the second part of this performance)

Click here to view the embedded video.

why Vivaldi made me do it

In summary: a Musical Archetype is a piece of music which encapsulates the full flowering of the genre you feel closely identified with as a musician, the complete realization of a vision or vocation for music as a way of life.

As a “personal golden rule”, a Musical Archetype is the unique vision of life that a great performance of a great piece of music expresses, better than you ever could by any other means, and which deeply resonates with you, guiding personal self-transformation.

My learning formula, in a nuthshell: which piece of music, which performance and which performer best express – as Martin Luther King put it – the content of your character, whether as a child or as an adult (preferably both!)?

When you find your Musical Archetype, you will have your true emotional and spiritual reason for taking up music.

Regardless, whatever hurts your soul, thanks to artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, it’s goodbye (Swedish) Ombudsman, hello (Finnish) “Valituskuoro”.

Valituskuoro – literally “Complaints Choir” in Finnish – is a figure of speech that describes humanity’s tendency to complain en masse (or, in gaggles, packs, herds… pick your favorite species). Originally meant an ironic statement on this nasty habit we have of complaining endlessly, the Kalleinens’ genius was simply to take the Valituskuoro notion quite literally.

It all got started during a winter day walk of Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in Helsinki. Perhaps it was due to the coldness of the day that they ended up discussing the possibility of transforming the huge energy people put into complaining into something else. Perhaps not directly into heat – but into something powerful anyway.

In the Finnish vocabulary there is an expression “Valituskuoro”. It means “Complaints Choir” and it is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen thought: “Wouldn’t it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organize a real Complaints Choir!”

As complaining is a universal phenomenon the project could be organized in any city around the world. Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen offered the concept to different events where they were invited as artists – but it was only after Springhill Institute in Birmingham got excited about the idea that the First Complaints Choir became a reality.

As of late January 2007, six choirs have made their acte de présence on behalf of the project, from six different cities: Birmingham, Helsinki, Hamburg, St-Petersburg, Poikkilaakso, and Bodø. Though I like all of them on the basis of the unique voices and local colors heard in each choir, I’ve selected the Hamburg Choir here for your listening pleasure, simply because I find the tune so catchy (if not downright uplifting at times).

Click here to view the embedded video.

So beyond the harmonized complaining, what’s the Zeitgeist we’re hearing?

Recall that the Cluetrain people insist that the internet – and blogging especially – have brought about a sea change in culture by putting the individual human voice back at the center of communications processes. So in a sense, what blogging does to mass media, Complaints Choirs can also do… to civic life.

I’ve come to this conclusion simply by listening to the choirs on the complaintschoir.org site. Indeed, the real pleasure for me has been in listening to all the choirs. The original idea has already obtained unique derivatives. Watch this clip, the world’s first children’s Complaints Choir, put together by a teacher who participated in the original Helsinki Complaints Choir.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Regnum Vox Populi

On the issue of voice – in its ethical, aesthetic and political ramifications – here are the most salient innovations I see with the Complaints Choir project:

• The voices we hear are real, not merely archetypal. the music is grounded in the lives of real people, a major step away from the nostalgia industry of choral music masterpieces.

• The underlying emotional denominator is, of course: human misery. From the pettiest to the most soul-destroying instances. But in sharp contrast to the lowest-common denominator approach of the pop music industry, we hear in the choirs a variety of ordinary voices, in all their color and individuality. This project truly respects individual members, by ensuring each voice is heard. Beyond this, the choral pieces are a collaborative creation, given that much of their content is generated from public input.

• The complaints are as much local, personal, as they are global in scope and commentary. It’s that colorful gamut of issues, heard through this singing, that empower and energize both the singers and their audience.

• The Complaints Choir project is an attempt to bring music into daily experience, making it relevant, spiritually useful. The overall message I get from listening to each different choir is: you are not alone.

Indeed, the success of the project clearly proves that misery loves company .

In this way, the complaining choir project has shed some light into my own attitudes about complaining. Put in the context of a group song, complaining appears to be many things, not just the whining wheedle of the quietly desperate, living their misery out in isolation. Rather we find here a chockful of insight, small-mindedness, fatigue, expressions of injustice, powerlessness, etc. from the individual voices heard through the multitude, both in solo and unison.

In conclusion, perhaps it’s the voice of the complainant – that whine – which has until now made complaining so much worth complaining about. It seems that the choir approach, therefore, can be quite effective in culling the voice of human experience by literally taking the whine out of complaining.

So whether you prefer to whistle in unison with brethren wage-slaves, or simply hum along to the tune of urban malaise, I’ll submit that the Complaints Choir phenomenon is for all of us every(wo)men. For the same reason the blues is still with us today: it’s an important record of human experience, putting the (suffering) human voice back on center stage, simply so it can be better heard.

Yes, the Ombudsman is out of work. I’m sure he’ll get a swell government severance package, anyways. Next stop for today’s politically disillusioned new citizen… politicopia.

Aching Back? Sitting Up Straight Could Be The Culprit

Science Daily Researchers are using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to show that sitting in an upright position places unnecessary strain on your back, leading to potentially chronic pain problems if you spend long hours sitting. The study, conducted at Woodend Hospital in Aberdeen, Scotland, was presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

OK, so now my ears are peeled: what will be the reaction of music teachers to this news?

If you’re like me, you’ve probably had some experience with music teachers. You may have come across at some point a teacher (or two), who can only be described as a “correct posture nazi”.

In my case, unhappily, it was my first music teacher, a catholic nun. As a ten year-old learning the violin, I found the orthodox stance for the instrument highly straining on neck and arms. My teacher, unsympathetic to my growing and adaption pains, used stark methods to ensure I maintained the “correct position” at all times. She would tape any fingers straying from the bow back onto the bow, and violently pull out my elbow anytime she saw me slouch an inch.

The whole process of practicing and lessons became full of dread and tension. As a result of my teachers well-intended but tyrannical methods, I had quit playing the violin within three years.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Happily, times have changed, and teachers of this ilk are now a dying minority. Due to the spate of career-destroying injuries in the music world, postural issues have become a focal point of recent medical attention in performing arts medicine. With the addition of the Alexander technique, the Feldenkrais method and Yoga to conventional musical training, it is now common practice to match the appropriate battery of techniques to the unique physique and instrument choice of each musician.

And so with this research find on back posture, it’s looking like nail-on-the-coffin time for the Old Guard of traditional music pedagogy. No longer will generations of mere mortals have to endure watching slouching musical geniuses performing miracles on their instruments, all the while keeping a ruler-straight back for hours under the spell of the metronome on the practice front.

We’re all going to be virtuosos now, and play by our own rules

Of course, I expect there will be the nay-sayers to the research, who will insist on a single correct posture for playing a musical instrument. To these I will relate the following advice:

Get off the dogma, bud. To each his own scientists.

Which brings us to the issue of…

The Politics of Research

Now, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a good mudslinging science battle. You know how it goes: key findings in a given domain completely contradict one another. And so opposing research gangs start to get vicious, as in: “your researchers are corrupted with money, ours are pure and disinterested”. And mudslingers are especially sanctimonious if their funding originates from the public trough, instead of corporate deep pockets.

I came across a fun example of this while on a research gig for a TV documentary on urban legends.

It’s about exposure to sunshine and the risks of skin cancer. Common wisdom would have it that prolonged exposure to sunlight without adequate skin protection will increase one’s risk in developing a malignant skin cancer. While doing research for the doc, I stumbled on newspaper headlines claiming the contrary: that insufficient exposure to “raw sunlight” would increase one’s risk of developing many types of cancers.

You can imagine the confusion such findings create, considering the sound advice that’s been drilled into our heads from chilhood onwards, on the necessity of putting on sun cream when we’re out enjoying the sun.

But I was intrigued by the polemics that followed in the wake of these articles. In letters to the editor, indignant MD’s who would accuse the reseachers of being highly irresponsible, and of not-so-subtly promoting a corporate agenda (of course, many of those same MD’s uncritically push pills on a regular basis). The researchers’ response, published in the days that followed, was to point out that the cosmetics industry had played a large part in determining the findings on the harms of exposure to the sun.

So the whole affair became a war between the Vitamin Trust (Vitamin D is the answer) and the Cosmetics Trust (sunscreen is the answer). Hilarious.

As this was a documentary series on urban legends, my role was to uncover research and claims that “bordered on the folkloric”. But from this controversy, I quickly saw the flip side of the coin: the very premise of the series could serve as a powerful way to dismiss new controversial findings, and reify the status quo.

Result: no shortage of MD’s now who acknowledge the existence of the new findings, but continue recommending the use of sunscreen and of Vitamin D pills – both supplied by the pharmaceutical trust – as preventative measures against various cancers.

In other words, seems like “common sense preventative approaches to cancer” may have benefited from a series of well-funded, highly successful PR campaigns for their dissemination.

Sigh. I can’t help but think: why can’t the lab-coats just get off their horse and confess to the world that scientific knowledge isn’t truth, but method. On this ground we’d always be able to discuss the stuff of knowledge, and agree on the best course of research for desired outcomes.

Alas, every age has its brand of idolatry. Ours is “unimpeachable facts”.