Practicing Practice ticing ing Prctcng aii PRACTicing pracTICING

As a child I was lucky to have teachers and parents who cared enough to notice my intellectual and personal strengths and weaknesses. I will never forget the short rhymed sentence written in beautiful calligraphy that each of us students received in third grade around Christmas time. Mine read: “Rebecca brings a poem each day and so the spelling words are here to stay”. At the time I was captured often by poetic inspiration while in class and would be asked to recite aloud my new composition. But my spelling was borderline. As the little verse indicates, the challenge for me was and has always been, moving beyond that fire of initial inspiration to the work of editing and refining, systematic and careful work that develops natural abilities to a higher level.

While my love for the stage and my precocious emotional depth made the cello an obvious expression for my creative talent, the fact that progressing on a musical instrument required all those skills and abilities that I lacked in my personality and work must have been the reason that I kept returning for more. The act of practicing shaped and defined my personality and my life, contributing a set of skills that I was not born with. While still sometimes a crucible for my impatience and wandering mind, if once I was martyred by my art, now I feel it stands at the center of my well being. The beautiful focused time slowly earned my love, with a million moments of total emptiness and peace, puzzles and miniscule details unwound and broken down then put together more whole than before. My thoughts slowly changed over time from primarily ones of frustration and overwhelm, to curiosity and gratitude for the endless journey of musicianship. Always in the center of my life has been a still core that holds all the loose ends of my world together. My hands moving over the instrument provide a point of reference, a center of the universe, a backdrop for all scenes, countries, mental and physical states of being, seasons and hours. As a teenager in a large and loud family, I could retreat to my room to discover Bach. In the dizzy aftershock of arriving in Bangkok after days of travel, I savored the feel of the humidity soaked steel strings under my hands. I have played with a fever, a migraine, after discovering my sister in law had breast cancer, after a fight with my husband, a ten mile hike, at a friends funeral, five weddings, for my dying grandfather and numerous babies.

This last year as a full time professor, I learned about short segments of efficient and spot practicing between lessons and meetings, often while exhausted, and with little mental energy. This was one point of reference that told me my life needed to change. Lately I have been discovering the other end of the spectrum; long hours of luxurious musical exploration between expeditions to go strawberry picking, or hiking to waterfalls plunging down verdant mountainsides. Ahhh, New England in the summer! Memorizing my music, each small phrase at a time, I find my ears are listening to details I never noticed before. I carve out a phrase numerous times, repeat a shift, discover a particularly luminous sound, and suddenly another hour has passed. I ambitiously told myself that I would work up to six hours of practicing in order to build up the mental and physical stamina needed to record my album, believing that this would be a tedious struggle to achieve, but I have begun to discover that after enough hours the mind stops wandering all over the map and begins to be totally fascinated by the task at hand. By hour five fifteen minutes passes in a moment. As I have found with regular exercise, the mind and body begin to crave what they are used to, and suddenly any less than 4-6 hours feels strange and unfulfilling.

It is hard to sense how much progress I am making. I am reaching the concrete daily and weekly goals set, but more importantly, I feel the music slipping deeper and deeper into my visceral experience, and it is becoming akin to walking a well-worn path through various landscapes, eyes closed, bare feet. Each day I remove more stones out of the way, cut back branches, shovel the snow. And each day there is a little less to tend to, though there are always those spider webs that reappear between branches. But still, it is hard to tell. I am too busy becoming acquainted with each and every inch of this landscape to really be bothered with the idea of progress.

On the other hand, I do have the daily visitation of a phantom microphone haunting my practice sessions. It helps me to remain honest in my intonation and sound. Next week this will be more than imagination when I pull out my little zoom recorder and get a birds eye view of my pieces. Meanwhile, I will keep moving down this meditative path we call practicing, with a capacity for patience and care that has taken me 20 years of practicing to develop.

About five years ago after a particularly grueling practice session of the Dvorak cello concerto, I found myself walking home through the streets of Boston, enviously imagining the beautiful unselfconscious voice of a songbird, a voice untrained by any external concept of beauty, yet glorious and perfect. As a teenager raised in a beautiful rural area, I turned often to nature for solace, and it was easy to recall the little warbles of joyous self expression, and the clear and simple calls from the tree tops at dawn. Comparing my musicianship to that of a songbird, I imagined how strange it would be if a bird were to practice and perfect as I did, if after each call she would analyze and reflect to herself “hmm, that last pitch was a little sharp, maybe more volume on the trill, perhaps I should phrase towards the lower notes.”

Realizing that a songbird is capable of virtuosity and nuance was the pivotal moment that allowed my deepest musical voice to began to emerge out from under the oppression of my dictatorial brain. My visceral and instinctual expressive nature became the teacher of my body and mind, giving a focus and direction to distract and occupy my thoughts so my soul could find some measure of expressive freedom.

Two days ago, camping on the northern Massachusetts coast near Plum Island, I snuggled up in my sleeping bag ready for a peaceful sleep. Moments after closing my eyes, I was engaged by a strange and magnificent sound; a beautiful bird with an incredibly elaborate and ever changing call. From high chirps, low warbles, to screeches and caws, this bird could do it all. I tried to track the different calls to see if there was a repetition or order, and to figure out what species it was, but I could not make sense of it. It seemed that the range was too large for one single bird. Late May being the height of bird migration on Plum Island, it is a time when avid bird watchers gather with their binoculars to spot migrating herons and nesting piping plovers and killdeer, and hundreds of other species. When I began to notice that the voice systemically repeated each call two to three times, then moved on to the next, I became convinced that some bird call specialist was reviewing the calls for the next day, and drilling the calls with the assistance of a recording. Yet why was it directly overhead? I drifted off to sleep, too tired to answer these questions.

I was awakened at five in the morning to an enormous chorus of birds from every direction, each singing their species specific song, and amongst all of them that versatile and especially loud soloist singing two to three repetition of every single song. Was this a bird after all? But what sort of strange bird? My brain searched for an explanation. I began to imagine this was some way of assisting migration and that the state government was piping the calls through some speaker system, probably attached to the large column of lights leading up to each bathroom. After listening for several minutes to the dozens of different bird calls one transforming into the next, I began to pick out a few familiar calls from specific birds such as the robin, crow and seagull. Then I noticed a car alarm, a cell phone ring, a backing up truck and a cat meow thrown in the mix. Despite the early hour, I found myself laughing out loud, amused and awed at what clearly was a very talented animal.

As I lay in the tent smiling and laughing, I had incredible gratitude for his presence and I felt a profound kinship with that little mockingbird nested in the tree above. I also thought I could learn from his calling out with unabashed virtuosity, with a repertoire and vocal prowess developed over years of being located in one of the most bird-rich areas in the country. I saw a connection between his collage of calls and my own daily routine of virtuosic imitation, my current Folkfire CD project being a mosaic of short “bird calls” from cultures around the world. I even felt a resonance with the mockingbirds lack of belonging to any one group of calls, yet belonging in a way to all of them. As the hub in the center of the wheel of chirps and warbles, his voice unified and centered the cacophony of sound. While looking like a great showman, in truth, the mockingbird gives up the comfort of anonymity and group belonging and is at once both totally alone and individuated while at the same time a great unifying, selfless voice.

On that pivotal evening five years ago the memory of a songbird helped me rediscover my authentic voice. This week the mockingbird taught me to understand what it means to have this voice.

Many of us may have memories of screaming and dancing at rock concerts. Maybe we didn’t even pay much attention to the music, but the evening experience was one of shared fun with friends, and being carried by the power of a large crowd whose energy has been focused and joined together by the music. In classical performances this experience can be present too, albeit in a more inward fashion. Live classical performers equally rely on audience engagement for the show to be a success. While screaming and getting drunk is usually not common, deep emotional engagement and focused meditative listening from the audience is as important as how well the performer plays. Though I have cherished the times that I have reached out and exposing people to classical music who have less appreciation for the art form, for the resolve and confidence it has built in me, the magnified energy of an engaged audience is life changing.

Of course, getting up in front of an audience requires a certain amount of “devil may care” attitude, since the mind games involved in trying to read peoples reactions can start to feed into ones own fears and self doubts. As they say “you can’t win them all!”. On the other hand, I find it ideal when I can feel confident enough to allow a sense of exchange and openness with my listeners, regardless of their reaction.

On a large stage it is rarely possible to gauge an audience response, and when I have tried, I have usually miscalculated. For example, in a second performance of the Saint-Saens cello concerto I found myself agonizing over almost every passage, petrified that I might miss a shift, or have a memory slip and humiliate myself. My focus was laser sharp, but I was so self-judgmental that I completely missed the fact that I had performed almost flawlessly. When the final chord hit, I was prepared to slink off of stage and hide my face in shame. When the roar of applause and immediate standing ovation dragged me back on stage for three bows, I was completely and utterly floored. Listened to the recording several weeks hence, the tears rolled down my face with amazement that even with my critic on my back the whole time, I had performed with incredible passion and accuracy.

In a house concert setting that is more intimate than a large stage it is harder to project my own imagination on the audience. With people practically in my lap, their enjoyment, or lack thereof, is evident on their faces. Most of the time the intimacy of the setting yields to a deeper listening from all those present, and this energy lifts my performance to even higher levels of expression and poignancy. However, this is not always the case. I had two concerts this weekend, with two very different audiences. and experiences.

The first concert on Saturday evening was an experience that I will not soon forget. I could hear sighs and gasps at certain moments of surprise or beauty in the pieces. I watched people close their eyes and practically swoon during the Tango. While I did not overly focus on these responses, they encouraged my own enjoyment of the music, and I felt my musical love blossom into my performance. It really struck me that evening how much music making is an endeavor that requires equal engagement from both the listener and performer, that the audience is as important in their function of bringing meaning and joy to the evening as the performer, as they take the initial joy and energy created by the performer and magnify it. In a sense, they are part of the instrument that vibrates with the music, and the level of their ability to vibrate, respond to the actions of the performer, like an actual physical instrument, can make all the difference in the quality of the experience. After the final number the audience lept to their feet, a final confirmation of my experience.

One day later, I approached my next engagement with renewed vigor and confidence, and performed at an even higher level than the night before, with more accuracy and passion alike. But the energy and vibration found no where to land. It moved around the audience members, vibrated with some, but mostly dissipated without impact or engagement. No matter how much I reached out to the audience, the response was little or nothing. It wasn’t as if they disliked it, but it didn’t resonate with them, it didn’t move them. While I knew this at the moment, I was confident enough to not lose my sense of meaning in the music, and continued with equal force. I was careful not to over play in an attempt to cause some response, but stayed centered in my love for the music. When the program ended a luke-warm applause ended after one bow. The host praised me for my intonation, in an awkward attempt to convince the audience that this was a performer worthy of respect, if nothing else. But he was reaching across a void. In the past I might have felt incompetent, or doubted my own abilities to inspire. I determined instead that this was not my “instrument”. Yet I also cherished the fact that I was playing for ranchers and people who may have never heard a cello live before. I was a strange exotic bird that they examined with fascination, if not passionate engagement, and on some level probably enriched their enjoyment of the music they usually resonate with by contrast.

As I am beginning to end my time as a professor in Montana, I have had many more experiences of the latter kind with the majority of the culture here, with a small selection of people who have been more devoted fans than I have ever experienced in the past. Lecturing for non music majors in my music appreciation class, I often have to explain the most basic of musical knowledge. These experiences have strengthened my knowing that this place is not where I belong, that I prefer a home base where my art form is more familiar and understood. Traveling back East, or to the West coast for concerts, the response to my music and person is overwhelmingly positive from the majority of listeners, and more informed, and the contrast is startling.

There is some magical reality that we cannot quite comprehend that determines where and why things work in one place and not another, and with some people and not others. Is it cultural, energetic, psychosomatic? I have been grateful for the strength that my Montana experience has given me in learning to stand alone inside of my passion and sense of who I am and what I do, even if the forces around me work against rather than with my intentions. But true strength is learning to give up a fight that I know I can’t win, and walk away knowing myself more fully in order to make choices that will magnify my success and build my confidence.

My hope is that my move back east will be like my experience when I finally put aside the instrument that I had played since high school. In a way, I did not know what I was capable of, or how much I had been limited, until I had an instrument that could respond to my actions, and even challenged me towards greater technical mastery. Within a few months of acquiring my current cello, my level of playing had increased exponentially.

Numerous times I have been approached by people after a concert who said that they regretted having quit playing this or that instrument. I always respond with the same heartfelt assurance that as a music appreciator and an audience member they are as important as the performer. “You are a professional listener” I always say. And I over and over again express my gratitude for their act of being a witness to the beauty of the music. I could not do what I do without them.

Here is to finding my partners in music making, you appreciative and wonderfully active listeners. I can’t wait to discover what success we are capable of together!

The March sun woke me this Sunday morning early, sparkling off of the snow lined branches. But what got me out of bed was this unwritten blog post. As I sip my fragrant white tea, I muse at the irony of the inner debate that has been going on in my head for almost two weeks. Yes, illness, too much work and fund raising has eaten up my time, but the main reason this post has remained unwritten is that one part of me wants to share this story while another feels maybe I make myself too vulnerable. As you read the content of this post, you will see the irony in this recent debate.

As a classical musician entering ever more fully into my field, I find that incredible strength is required to navigate a market saturated with talent and few customers. But to really be an affective performer I must also have an open heart, so that I can communicate with my audience and express the passion and love that I have for my music. It takes an enormous amount of strength and courage to make myself vulnerable in front of a large crowd. To have the perseverance to self promote and put myself out there, and then share the deepest reaches of my soul through the music in my next moment is quite a balancing act. The challenge then becomes in finding a source of authentic strength that does not harden me, and serves me in both situations.

About 10 years ago, in response to my less hearty sense of self, a teacher told me that to be a musician we have to have “a poets heart with the skin of an elephant”. This concept appealed to me at the time, as I wanted nothing more than to build a beautiful fortress of cello technique around my fragile heart. Like many of my colleagues, my elephant skin translated as technical strength, and a desire to have physical control in order to avoid judgment or criticism of my playing. Our teachers encouraged technical obsession, picking on small imperfections in our playing, sending us through rigorous technical training and multiple hours of practice. They knew the competition outside of the conservatory and wanted to graduate technically strong players that could hold their own.

As I fulfilled the demands of my teachers and gained physical mastery of my instrument, my confidence grew, as did my strength. But underneath all of that prowess, I was becoming increasingly disconnected from my own musical voice.

A very special teacher entered my life at this time. A gentle and loving soul who asked the simple question, “but what do you think?”. When I failed to answer this I was forced to look at all the inner weakness that my outer strength hid. My “poets heart” was not courageous and the “elephant skin” of technique couldn’t protect me from the voices of inadequacy in my head. Like many of my fellow conservatory students, I was like an anorexic when it came to my playing; I could never be beautiful enough and when I looked into the mirror all I saw was ugliness. The prospect of making a mistake was terrifying. One small crack and the whole illusion might shatter and people would see me for the incompetent I really was. I gripped onto perfectionism with an iron hand, it was my only source of strength. But the harder I gripped, the more everything fell apart.

Dvorak concerto was what finally broke me. I practiced that concerto four or more hours per day. I thought that if I could master that piece, I would at last gain that sense of inner confidence that I had been lacking. But instead I injured myself. Hurting now inside and out, I had no choice but to change my way of approaching cello and my life. All my bottled up fear, pain, broken heartedness ruptured into an explosion of self honesty and vulnerability. My goals turned inside out. I aimed for a strong and courageous heart, an “elephant heart”, with a soft and vulnerable technique “a poets skin”. I knew that if I developed an authentic strength that came from the inside, I would be less vulnerable to outside influences, and more durable.

Skip ahead to today, I have gained tremendous strength. Technically I feel that I am the strongest player I ever have been and continue to improve. I enjoy the search for excellence in my practicing, learning to ever more intricately express the colorful array of human emotion through sound. Most days I enjoy many hours alone with my instrument, in a conversation with the composers, pushing my limitations, and training my mind to focus. I find satisfaction in my results and joy in the work.

My confidence is stronger now too. But like my physical skill, this inner strength requires regular maintenance. Every now and then I am struck by a combination of external circumstances that bring my most profound fears to the surface, and require a show of the courage to face them. As well, goals or new challenge in an arena of inexperience, such as my upcoming debut recording project, can be both an opportunity and a challenge. I have had traumas and experiences in my life that have given rise to very nasty and persistent demons. Giving into my them can absolutely devastate me.

Sometimes when the inner strength fails, I am grateful to lean on the years of physical training and technique, until I can rally my courage. My technical excellence can protect me from some very real outside foes in the musical world who might seek to undermine my success out of competition or feeling threatened. Probably even more powerful in such moments of inner doubt, though, is the love and support of those who have believed in me over the years and continue to believe in me. They remind me of my skill and strength, as well as letting me know that even without these things, they will treasure my soul.

But facing down the internal foes is ultimately what gives me the ability to experience great joy and have a sense of strength that holds up under the pressure in performance, and in life. When I am able to surrender to the experience of something greater than myself, and trust the hard work and training of my body, I rest in a sacred and beautiful zone when on stage.

Over the years, as I have allowed my true and vulnerable self to flow through my playing, the response from the audience and my own sense of joy has exponentially increased. I feel blessed to have a career path whose success rests in my ability to navigate this human challenge of learning to choose love over fear. And I get to wear fancy gowns too!

I have been glued to youtube this week watching traditional Romanian folk dances, bandonean performances and Flamenco, Andalusian Cante Jondo singing.

I have always loved folk music, and now that I have the notes under my fingers, I need to start making some stylistic decisions, and learning the musical folk dialects that inform the music on my upcoming CD recording.

But I have to admit I have began to get a little obsessed. After listening to ten versions of one De Falla song, in Spanish, memorizing the lyrics, trying to imitate the words on my cello, then checking out a violin version, then five cello versions, then back to the famous singer, I am utterly confused. My brain starts to run in circles “now what was it she did that sounded so good, heavy on the first note of the 16ths? Or crescendoing into the final one, should I take out the slur, the text makes it seem like these should be more short and emphasized, maybe I need to change the bowing……” Three hours later, I have one measure figured out, and even that measure I am not so sure is completely authentic, or that I will even remember what I had decided after all the options I tried.

What is authentic anyway? I am finding that the Romanians argue as to whether Bartok’s music was based in gypsy themes, or peasant themes, and believe me, they really differentiate between these two groups. In truth, he collected from both populations. But in any given piece, this may affect whether the rhythm should have rubato, in a gypsy fashion, or be more strict, as in a peasant dance. One source I read insisted that the peasants weren’t simple and boring, that they sang with rubato and flair, even in their dances. Well, I suppose it depends on which peasant they listened to, no? When we think country do we think innocent, simple and not complex music, or organic, free flowing and unpredictable like the weather and crops?

Classical musicians have always had to master a diversity of styles. We wouldn’t imagine playing a Mozart Sonata in the same way as a we might play Brahms. But I think the tendency towards “authenticity” has intensified since the early music movement began making claims about how Baroque music should be performed. I will never forget that after a first introduction to historically accurate playing, a professor told me that I could not trust my instincts. I think I know what he meant, but that sounded like a dangerous direction to head it. How can I ever be convincing to my audience if I am not drawing from a deep musical sensibility? If I have to intellectualize my playing so much, aren’t I missing the point. Luckily, I naturally have a varied sense of musical style, and pick up inflections well. While I suck at accents when talking, I was always a good actress, and could take on any character I wanted. The same stands in music, if I internalize the feel and character of a music, the stylistic details tend to fall into place. Well, mostly. And its that “mostly” that had me glued to the computer splitting my brain over the little notes.

Once a diva could play most things in the same lush manner, and all would be well. Now, however, stylistic accuracy is akin to political correctness as a sign of cultural respect and education. I am all for it, and want to go as far from bastardizing some Folk tradition by ignoring the accents, sounds and characteristics of musical style to each particular region. On the other hand, I know that I will never be a “native speaker” . Classical musicians are criticized for always playing the some old “dead white guys music”, but we also get some finger wagging when we pretend to be something we are not, or profit from imitating an ethnic style that is not our own, and do it poorly. As the world gets smaller, our bag of tricks gets bigger.

While it is allot of work, I find the whole process improves my musicality, and is invigorating and challenging. On the other hand, I find it ironic that in order to sound like a peasant out in the field organically belting out tunes that my ancestors sang for centuries, I have to set aside my own natural tendencies. Is this inauthentic authentic playing?

Musical styles from various cultures have always interwoven to create new styles, music is a dynamic art form with both innovation and tradition. While Vaughan Williams weaves folk tunes into a classical piano and cello arrangement, I am bringing all my artistry as another thread to add to the fabric of style. While a great musician mostly gets out of the way of the music and allows it to speak through them, I also believe what we personally bring to the table should matter too, just as an actress might draw on her own life to understand and fill out a character.

So in the name of not becoming a museum piece that merely represents a correct style, or losing my unique expression or voice, I am getting in touch with my inner Andalusian Flamenco Gypsy, Romanian Peasant, Celtic fiddler, downtrodden prostitute in Buenos Aires slums, and Japanese Geisha. Once all those characters arrive, then I can be authentically authentic. And along the way I may get that Tango shrieking slide just right, and my de Falla 16ths might at last have that guttural and powerful throaty cry that sends a chill up my spine, in a good way, every time I hear a Cante Jondo song.

Much to my dismay, I have found myself in the unfortunate situation of needing to educate 150 mostly freshman at once in the early morning. As I have gotten more savvy with my power point, visual aids, entertaining quotes and musical selections, asking penetrating questions and requiring attendance, I have begun to feel like I don’t exactly have their rapt attention, but at least fewer of them seem to be falling asleep in class.

This week the equipment wasn’t working, and I stood in front of a bunch of disinterested looking undergrads with nothing but a piano, a white board and my own ability to improvise. With no bell and whistles, I had to rely on my own knowledge of the material and ability to relate on a human level to the students. It was exhilarating and very challenging, but I made it through, and there was a level of intimacy and connection that I had not felt in other classes, though my lecture was a bit disorganized without the aid of my power point notes. Nonetheless. I felt extremely grateful when I saw the tech support people come into our building.

After all, how could I expect the students to have any attention span for something educational when their world is broken into such short segments of flashy information. How different our culture must have been 100 years ago for simple lecturing to work.

Then something struck me with a profound irony; every time I walk before an audience with my instrument I am doing exactly that, expecting 19th century attention and sensibilities out of a 21st century audience. Wouldn’t you rather go see Avatar with 3D glasses? On the other hand if you lived 150 years ago on a small estate and you had nothing but the bird song and each meal to look forward to, wouldn’t the sound of live instruments add tremendous color and life to your days? No wonder our audience is often white haired. They grew up and lived long enough before the current tech explosion that they have the ability to listen. So what happens when the current generation grows old?

Something I have never doubted is my ability to please people’s palettes with my culinary arts. I can almost guarantee many emphatic exclamations of joy during the consumption of my meals, an instantly gratifying feeling of success that the performer in me relishes. I am often drilled about WHERE did I learn to cook and what makes my food so good. I always say the same thing to them, that I use good organic herbs and vegetables, high quality meats, and that is half of the trick. The other is growing up with a parent, in my case my Mom, who knows how to cook.

I have always been accused of being a “food snob” because I prefer my food with the most minimal amount of, or preferably no pesticides, processing, traveling, preservatives, MSG, sugar, GMO’s, etc. .But wouldn’t this make me a food peasant? Simple, as nature intended!

And again, ironically what is considered the most “refined” music, Classical, is the most simple and close to nature: a wood instrument, a score-though the skill required to perform is highly refined. But no light show, no amp, no msg. If high and low class are all mixed up, as it seems, then stop already with accusing me of being a snob because I value quality and skill in what I do, buy and consume! This was true of peasants and royalty alike who valued quality craftsmanship and generations of collected knowledge.

But is Classical music just not modern enough for our current sensibilities? The truth is that you really can’t “update” a cello performance without leaving the genre. The most we get as far as props are sparkly tops, and sexy dresses. One would hope that we could still value and recognize skill and the ability to relate on a human level, no matter how much technology we get accustomed to as a culture. So the question is how do we keep classical music relevant to contemporary society, besides performing works by living composers? I personally believe that we need to transcend the outdated packing and cultural stereotypes associated with the art form, expressing this in how we present, package and program in addition to perform.

Last year I played in a tiny town in Western Massachusetts. The audience of farmers, teachers, administrators, cheese makers and homemakers were practically in my lap. The old man in the front closed his eyes and sighed in rapture several times during my performance. I am sure that he could see the sweat dripping down my arms, feel the intensity of my concentration. Many of those people had never attended a classical concert before. I am not sure they really even thought about what they were attending, their friend and fellow community member with the grand piano had invited them to an afternoon social with music at her house. Once I had them there I steered clear of wall to wall Beethoven, or the typical classical/modern/romantic programming. I played music that shared a common thread or cultural background. Not just a catchy “theme”, but a meaningful narrative that ran through all the works. And I kept the playing under 45 minutes. Before I went on stage the hostess laughed at my high heels, to which I replied “don’t worry, the music is barefoot”. We had a good laugh!

After a standing ovation, and 60 hugs and thanks, I knew I had done something right. I had all the right ingredients.

As for my students, I will be using even more technology today: the Iclicker, which is a device with which they can vote, answer questions and share an opinion all with the click of a little remote thing in their hands. Pretty cool technology, and I am hoping that this will add to the human engagement, keep them connected and intrigued.

So maybe it isn’t unfortunate after all that I am teaching this class. I could not have thought up a more perfect method for educating myself on how to inspire the young generation to recognize and value the beauty in the classical music art form. Most of these students are not the population that would normally make up my typical audience, and hopefully I am about to find out why!

The Poor Poet by Carl Spitzweg

The myth of the starving artist is compelling and romantic. In this culture, we seem to reserve the greatest level of admiration for those creative characters who live in a disheveled apartment in NY, typing away on an old type writer, living on coffee and crackers, and the passion for their art. These are the geniuses of the generation who, unfortunately, often only get discovered after they are dying of syphilis, or have already passed. We mourn at their sad state. We wonder, “why did no one help this poor soul while he was alive?”.

But we often don’t help them and this is why. History has taught us to believe that without that suffering, the artists would not have created such profound work. A larger proportion of musicians, artists, writers and dancers historically have had abusive childhoods, chronic physical illness, mental troubles and abject poverty, persuading us to fear that if things were a little easier for them, we might miss out on something like Beethoven’s Helige Dankegesang, Mozart’s Requiem, or Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

To make matters worse, we artists ourselves unwittingly perpetuate our own misery and the “starving artist myth” by measuring our level of devotion in terms of what we sacrifice for our work.

Being raised in a cash strapped family with four siblings, I had the experience of needing to sacrifice the luxuries of life, and I felt the limitations imposed by a lack of money. I watched my friends travel on field trips to Peru, order from the J.Crew catalog, while I wore hand me downs and chipped in with house work and baby-sitting jobs.

I became skilled at making do with less, and in adulthood survived on very little income. The starving artist myth fit me like a glove.

Recently, in a heated debate with some fellow artists about financial needs, I was accused by one of my friends of being selfish and defiling my art by mixing it with financial concerns, that art was bigger than all of this mundane stuff. On some level I certainly agreed with him, and this realization motivated a penetrating self inquiry.

As one living inside of the creative process, and being the one with the gifts, I have always felt that I am, in a sense, an ambassador for the divine. My musical gifts, are just that, a gift, one that I have been given the mandate to share with my fellow humans. My ability to hold my suffering, and therefore the suffering of my companions, in compassion, is a part of that gift. Thus, the calling to make music is one that transcends the ego structures of my personal daily life.

Such a mandate of the soul has no limits. Just as a loving parent will stay up long hours with a sick child, not expecting a reward, so to, an artist will devote a life time of exploring their craft and expression, regardless of financial support. It is a calling and a mission that can bear similarity to a spiritual devotion. And this is the crux of the situation: there is no way to place a financial value on something that we would do no matter what. It is priceless in the sense that it does not operate in the same value system as an exchange of goods and labor does. Because of this, when it comes time to “sell” our work, no price is too high or too low. Because it does not come with a price tag.

Add to this confounding situation the fact that we creative souls are our own worst critics. The natural result of a life long committment to a creative process is a sense that we have never arrived at a finished product. We are also reticent to ask for financial reward for our work, because we feel it could reflect on the value or lack of value of our artistry.

Since artists seem to bear all the trappings of a spiritual disciple, then it is no surprise that we are living out the myth of the martyr, given the predominating religious paradigm in our culture of Christianity.

I reached my crisis point a few years ago, when, after pouring everything that I had, body, soul, money, time, energy, husband, parents, scholarship, loans into cello, I found myself making $8 an hour playing in a symphony and doing the work of a full time professor with a half time adjunct salary of $20,000 per year before taxes. My husband and I were living on the elk meat his father had shot, racking up credit card debt for groceries, and waking up at night to drunken college students fighting in the yard of our small rented apartment.

And I was one of the lucky seven cellists in the entire country who landed an academic teaching job that year.

I barely had time for practicing, and the performing that I was doing was not fulfilling me artistically. I was living the starving artist myth, without the artist part. It became clear that if something didn’t change I would be incapable of giving my music to the world. That, contrary to the myth, “starving” and “artist” are not good companions. And so I had to sacrifice the hardest thing of all, my pride and my beliefs about money and art, and begin fund raising, and asking for appropriate compensation for my work.

With the very survival of my creative life at stake because of finances, I came to the realization that while I could never place a value on my music I could allow the world to support me to survive, to eat, to put a roof over my head, so that I could continue to be a vessel for this beautiful gift of music that moves through me. Breaking all my own rules, and some conventions of society as well, I began to have the courage to ask for the financial compensation and support from the community around me.

Which brings me to another myth in our culture. That of the diva. The radiant and talented artist, embodying the best of humanity, admired, beloved and richly cared for. This image was so beautifully expressed in the sparkling Buddha’s in Thailand, and I know that it was while kneeling in the Temple in Bangkok in May of 2009 that I let go at last of the martyr paradigm, a paradigm that, despite not being a practicing Christian, had a firm hold on my life. I began to see that I could serve my purpose in the world, not through suffering and sacrifice, but through thriving, abundance and joy.

Phra Phuttha Chinnarat

I have a gratitude for my hardships, for the understanding that these experiences have given me. I feel capable of expressing the human emotion that lies beneath the black squiggles on the page. As for financial hardship, by not being raised to expect money easily, I have learned both the value of money, but finally, to not be bound by my financial circumstances. But there are other ways to learn and contribute to the world than through ones suffering, and I while I have no illusions that mt life will ever be a breeze, certainly attachment to suffering as a form of spiritual devotion may help ease the burden some.

At 17 I was one of the chosen few from around the world to attend the Tanglewood Institute for the summer. My father had just lost his job because of the recession, and my family was on the brink of bankruptcy. with my mothers support, I wrote letters to relatives and family friends, played concerts, even put an advertisement in the paper. At the age of 17 I raised $3,000. At Tanglewood I played along side of children of NY Metropolitan Opera players, or wealthy Harvard-bound korean-Americans .I had master classes with Yo Yo Ma, and Neikrug and performed some of the great orchestral repertoire. But the story of how I got to Tanglewood was almost more miraculous than attending the festival.

The same holds true today. To accomplish an endeavor that requires the support of many individuals, I learn that one way that I can show my devotion to music is by accepting that, as a performer, I have only one part to play in the creation of music, even if a crucial one. Art is indeed greater than what I can accomplish alone, and I can serve it best by remembering that, aside from some very meaningful individual creative contributions, I am the vessel, and not the substance in the vessel. To ask for support to build a strong and sturdy vessel for this purpose is neither entitled nor selfish, but rather humbling. Is this not the ultimate and most profound sacrifice, to devote our entire lives to something that we cannot fully possess or own?

In accepting support of a larger community, I am relinquishing the martyred artist myth, as well as releasing my iron grip of possessiveness on music. I am accepting that it takes a community to raise a child, and to bring beautiful music into this world. I am happy with the role that I get to play, though. Being the communicator for something so magnificent and complex requires hours of hard practice. But in the midst of the surrender and passion of performance I get to transcend the narrow confines of my own life, and for a moment, sparkle and shimmer with a certain diva light.

“I am told that when grapevines were first cultivated in California the vineyard masters used to try the experiment of importing plants from France or Italy and setting them in their own soil. The result was that the grapes acquired a peculiar individual flavor, so strong was the influence of the soil in which they were planted. I think I need hardly draw the moral of this, namely, that if the roots of your art are firmly planted in your own soil and that soil has anything individual to give you, you may still gain the whole world and not lose your own soul.”

Ralph Vaughan Williams

I am not sure why it is that certain composers have the ability to reach so deeply into our hearts, or why they feel more compatible with our intrinsic musicality, but Vaughan Williams holds that place for me. The last time I performed the Six Studies in English Folk Song, my pianist, one who almost never doles out compliments, turned to me in a rehearsal and with wide eyes remarked that this piece matched my voice closely and beautifully.

As a doctoral student, when I began to dig into the lives and backgrounds of our composers, I discovered that Vaughan Williams and I had a lot in common. An earthy yet dreamy pastoral coloring in his music reflects his love for Folk music. He was also a late bloomer, and carried a hefty dose of self-doubt about his musical abilities. I suppose it also helps that a significant portion of my ancestors come from the British Isles.

But not everyone likes Vaughan Williams. People seem to fall strongly in favor for or against his music, which is ironic, considering the fairly delicate and sweet nature of his style. My Mom, for one, can’t stand the Lark Ascending, she feels as if he wanders around too much and never gets anywhere. I suppose that is exactly what I love about it.

As I am practicing for my CD and revisiting the Six Studies, I am struck by how incredibly challenging it is to play with the warm and simple beauty that the piece demands. The pure and transparent song texture leaves no possibility to cover up intonation mistakes with wild vibrato, and the sound needs a richness that can never indulge in romantic lushness.

I think it is easy to overlook this type of work as simplistic and easy, both to compose and perform, but it is just the opposite. Maintaining the purity and innocence of folk character, yet projecting subtle uniqueness inside of that character is what makes this music so profound and powerful.

Every now and then I have one of those days when I feel like my world is crumbling around me, and nothing makes any sense. That is when my husband puts on Vaughan Williams, specifically the recording of St Martin-in-the-Fields playing Dives and Lazurus. As a teenager, when I had boy trouble, I would call my friends, but I also used to lie on my bed and weep to the strains of The Lark Ascending.

It is such an honor to have the opportunity to perform and record this work. It is comforting to know that no matter how lonely and frightening my journey may be, there will always be the gentle voice of Vaughan Williams to call me back home.

A mentor of mine recently helped me to navigate some nasty academic politics by explaining to me that musicians are very tribal. It took some thought to understand what he said, but then it dawned on me. People build fierce loyalties and band together in the face of an extreme threat to their survival. Unlike early hominids who ganged up on large game, the enemies we face are those of intimidation, jealousy, even slander from people who sense our presence as a threat to their place of superiority, or a threat to their survival. In a field that brings success only to those whose skill is given a seal of approval by someone who has been deemed an expert, we can become neurotically focused on what others think, and belonging to a tribe that will bring us honor, but more importantly protection.

I don’t think that it is a stretch to guess that the deep seated fear in most musicians is that of public humiliation and excommunication from the tribe. Much effort is spent in determining who has the right to make these distinctions, and gaining their approval. We ask ourselves “when am I a member of this tribe safely? when will I ever be free of the threat of someone calling me out as incompetent, or a fake?”If fear is the underlying motivation for mastery and practicing, the answer to these questions must be never. And there is the rub. We are a tribe that values excellence and so these checks on each other serve a positive purpose of maintaining a legacy of high skill that we have been given the task of carrying forward to the next generation. Excruciating initiation rites, such as auditions and doctoral exams, select for persistence and strength of character.

I recently decided I was done with this. I decided that it was between myself and the composer, and that after 26 years of lessons, a doctorate, a position at a University, and an inner artistic conviction that was tired of being ignored, it was time to be my own boss. I trusted myself to have enough integrity that fear no longer needed to be my motivator, and that I was strong enough to stand behind what I did 100% and take responsibility for my faults. The results were amazing. I felt liberated and impassioned. My music flowed out of me in a more powerful way than ever before. People were moved to tears. Nothing mattered to me except communicating with my audience with the most intention, articulateness and passion that I was capable of. I performed my first solo concerto with an orchestra, and felt as if I had found my way home.

Now the stakes are higher. I am planning to release my first CD, to put myself out there more, but I am not sure what will happen with the fear of the rest of the tribe and their leaders. Will my playing be overlooked because I am not the sole chosen protege of some great cellistic tribal legacy? For sure my lineage is great-leading back to amazing pedagogues and players like Aldo Perisot, Neikrug, Feuermann, Klengal, Magg and Casals. But I messed up on the whole master/apprentice deal. First if all because I am a woman. Secondly because I moved through teachers after a few years, and gathered a bouquet of techniques, rather than belonging solidly to one lineage that I could build a firm allegiance to. Not to mention the lack of a major concerto competition win. I don’t hold a position in a major symphony, my parents weren’t famous musicians, and I am not particularly young for a performing artist. So who the hell is this girl anyway, and why should we listen to her? I just don’t look like most of the cellists out there who are making it. A creative entrepreneur-yes. But where is my tribe?

Recently one of my most talented student won the concerto competition at the University. I watched how her reputation among her peers changed over night, and suddenly she was a somebody.
She was the same strong player that she was before, but now there was PROOF, because the judges said so. Suddenly there was a possibility that wasn’t there before of people recognizing her unique talent. Do I need some seal of approval by a critic or famous cellist, or are my credentials and skills enough?

If I do need that seal of approval, how do I get it when it isn’t what I really care about? The truth is that there is no going back for me. All that truly matters to me now is that I believe in what I am doing and that people enjoy hearing me play-and honoring the composer’s intentions, of course.

I feel like that tribal member that wanders off into the forest alone to listen to the sounds of the birds. I used to belong to a tribe, but beauty and conversation with the universe rather than power took me away.

It didn’t used to be this way. I used to do everything right, I used to do everything my teachers said, I used to internalize all the judgment that came my way, (easy when you carry allot of shame), and never listened to my own deep artistic convictions. But this way ran out of steam. I got to the end, I had massive amounts of technique, I got a Doctorate of Musical Arts, was one of the top in my class, I got a university job. And then…..meaningless, empty, who am I? I was really lost.

I landed in another village. The wilds of Montana. I never truly belonged here, but the people are loving and kind, and treat everyone very equally, regardless of talent. It has been, for the most part, a safe haven for me to find my voice. I quickly earned respect and community support.

But I can’t stop thinking about that first tribe, the one I sought to please. Not to please them anymore, but to belong. To find that middle ground. I am wondering, where is that village I walked away from, and can I find my way back? Should I find my way back?

If I walked back there singing, would they welcome me? Or see me as a musician gone feral, and keep their distance? I know that I am the same either way, and my soul is at last healthy and alive, but tribal membership is important for physical survival, and the Montana tribe is not my true family, though certain friends will be mine for life.

Perhaps the more important question I should be asking myself is WHO is my tribe? Maybe they are a network of people not belonging to one legacy or geographic location, and I will recognize them when they close their eyes, listen to my music, smile, and then welcome me into their village. This is not the simple and concrete membership that quells a musician’s fears. But I will take this risk with the freedom that comes with it.

The forest is beautifully luminous and still. And I will never give it up again.

Take no prisoner

Words and music, two of my favorite mediums of expression both enter our experience less directly than an image. Since first impressions can bias a person strongly, I am fully aware that the choice I make for a CD cover could have a major impact on how people listen to my music, think about my artistry, or even whether or not to buy my CD.  Before looking at my options I would like to digress for a moment.

As an Oberlin student in my early twenties my friend Natalie had an assignment for her photography class that led to several hours of us having a fun time, her shooting away and me posing with my cello. The results of her work was a series of compelling images, as well as some images that I have hidden in a very secret place so that no ne will ever find them! Natalie’s class mates critiqued her work. Her artistry was overlooked, because the students were distracted by the fact that the body of her subject was conventionally thin and beautiful, and obsessed with a man made object, a cello. Later, I thought I would try this out in my women studies class and used one of my favorite photos on a paper about image analysis. Interestingly, and very telling, the image received the same criticism from my professor as it had from Natalie’s classmates. In both instances, my beauty had me victimized and not worthy of artistic assessment. You have to love Oberlin!
(Actually I DID love Oberlin, but there were some interesting moments).  At the time I insisted that the image was empowering, showing that a woman could be both beautiful and skilled. Today, when I look at the photograph, I see an embryonic  character to my posture, that aptly reflects my barely budding musicianship. With eyes closed, wrapped around the cello, there is also a sense that this instrument is a lifeline,  a somewhat narcissistic reflection of my beauty that kept me intact. Also very true.

Skip ahead to 2010. As an artist, I no longer confuse my public image with my identity, yet crave enough authenticity in what I present that my integrity remains intact. It becomes a question rather of which aspect of my creativity and self will I reflect at any given moment, a choice that I have to make in each piece that I play, and even in each section of each piece. As a musical actress I can relate to each character, but  also do not mistake any as being solely me.

So here we are with my dilemma. As a debut album I would love to give an impression of coming out of my shell, a powerful musician ready for any success that may come her way. From this perspective the sitting down image with hair blowing does the job well. From a playful creative perspective, and in keeping with the Dance aspect of the title of the Cd, I like the movement and grace of the image with the cello apart from my body. But let’s face it, I look a little dorky, and silly. Finally, the third image, a coy sort of look, a touch of red, an almost gypsy-like mystique…this one has my attention. So the tie really is between the first and third image.

Perhaps it is my Oberlin education, but I can’t help but wonder: is the first image too masculine, too much of a woman who has become hardened and tough to get ahead? Or is her masculinity a sign of empowerment, that she has gone beyond the bounds of her upbringing and can embrace all aspects of herself? The second image is more indirect, and thus more conventionally feminine. Am I hiding my true power here? Am I pulling my punches? Or is the subtlety of this image speaking to the uniquely feminine type of power that women wield, embracing the delicacy of our tenacity and gentle strength? The whole gender issue aside, what about simply considering the theme of the CD. Wouldn’t the image with the scarf reflect a more folk or ethnic type character.

In a nutshell, which is the more important event here, the theme of the CD, or this being my debut? Does empowered diva self, or artistically authentic character win the day?

The image that I choose could be worth a thousand dollars.