I told a student today, look, if you are going to play this piece, you have got to go all the way, give it your all, no holds barred…if you do not want to do this, dont bother!
Ok, maybe its a bit fanatical, but come on, I continued, if the composer wrote something this beautiful, dont you want to honor his brilliance with yours…
I dont take this attitude with all students, but when someone comes along with the ability, talent, heart, mind, etc, I encourage them to BE IN IT, BE IT, BE!
Its difficult to get a student to understand how to make their heart sing through the instrument. I mean, its really challenging to express deep, meaningful moods through the fingertips. Maybe its my age, but lately, I just want to hear beauty in the music, all the time, and nothing else! I do not have a lot of tolerance for people who just play fast, or loud, or without a certain amount of sensitivity and thought put into it. I dont care if you are 4 or 85…WHAT DOES THIS MUSIC SAY TO YOU…WHAT DOES IT TOUCH INSIDE OF YOU…DO YOU KNOW…It only takes a moment of awareness to discover how you are affected…If you cannot answer any of these questions, maybe ask yourself again, over and over, until you find an answer…if you get no answer, maybe this isnt the music for you. Wow, I am in a mood, arent I…I have no question mark on my computer…thats why I keep leaving them out.
I dont know if it is all the yoga I have been doing over the past years, or the meditation, or the clean eating..or just my destiny, but let me tell you, sounds affect me more deeply than ever, or maybe even more accurately, it is my awareness of the way sound affects me that is much greater than ever. An example…yesterday a college student I teach was playing JUST the left hand chords of a Schumann piece, only a few notes, and I started tearing in my eyes, and my heart…my God, what beauty, what color. Who would think of this but Robert Schumann. I asked myself how I had let so much time pass without listening or playing Schumann. There is just so much beautiful music out there, it hurts!
I had an incredible realization at a workshop I did last year, about my relationship to-with music. It completely surprised me, it blew me away, actually. We were immersed in a meditation that was accompanied by beautiful, classical piano music. Keep in mind that at this point in the workshop I had been silent for a few days, meditating for hours at a time…and so, while I was listening to the music during this exercise, I noticed deep pain in my heart, it was tearing at me. It was uncomfortable, and I wanted to squirm, or start crying, or scream…but I didnt, I just sat there…because as we learn in meditation, instead of expressing a feeling, we can just watch it, and follow it, to its edges, to where it expands and grows exponentially, to where we can really feel the nature of it, get around inside of it and explore the multidimensionalities. I was able to get inside of the dissonances and the consonances in the music, I noticed how deeply they were affecting my insides, I could literally feel the sounds moving around and with my tissue. I quickly transcended the pain, as I let myself breathe through it, and this facilitated a spreading of the musical vibrations throughout my brain, and body, and consciousness. It was quite pleasant. I discovered the music was all over me, and inside of me.
But aha, this was not my most profound realization, in fact, my most surprising discovery was, that as a kid, and all throughout college, undergrad, and grad, music actually hurt me, or shall I say, I let it hurt me, because I think I was only feeling it at that very superficial layer of awareness, the level of pain and tenderness I described earlier when I was first listening during the meditation. I never let myself truly feel anything deeper because I thought that all the beauty was just on the outside layers where I was emotionally stimulated…I didnt let it ring throughout me, I didnt give it the time and space to flow…it was exhausting for me. Everytime I played Rachmaninoff, I had to go rest for hours afterward…Chopin, forget it…Beethoven just about killed me!
Now, after much experienced hardship as a musician and performer, my relationship with music looks and feels much different, and I will tell you how and why…it is because of my learned ability to stay with the sounds, to be still, and go inside, to resource layers upon layers of vibrational experience, to be curious about where the music wants to take me…to let it take me. I have to trust it knows me, and I know it. It takes just a moment, to really be with it, to let it in, beyond the superficial layers…I say, it is about giving your breath to it, and letting IT breathe, noticing how you affect the music and how it affects you.
And this is what I would like my students to learn from me…to learn how to deeply listen, to themselves, to the music, to the connection between the two…It doesnt really matter what medium we choose to listen in, it just matters that we listen…We are in a relationship with music, just as we are in a relationship with anyone, or anything else. It requires a lot of patience, some deep listening, and space to breathe.
Goodnight,
See you tomorrow
XO
Meg
Just talked to JR and she was “overwhelmed” by today’s blog. She wrote a long response but it did not take. I told JR to input an email address to make it work. JR will try again!!!