Dear Musicfriends,
In an hour and fifteen minutes we'll have a concert recital where everyone will play after all they've learned. Then we'll say goodbye. What a wonderful week! There is a lot of mutual joy and gratitude going around.
THE PELVIS CLOCKS IN
My last lesson with the group was the popular "Pelvic Clock" lesson that anyone who has done it remembers. Some found it easy, some uncomfortable. To my delight, people on the floor would occasionally ask questions that I was just about to answer, meaning they were thinking exactly in the direction of the lesson. One woman got very confused about how to make an arc on the floor with her pelvis, and my answers didn't help. Then she made a complete circle and...OH! All the little pieces made sense. That's what I love to see.
A FLUTE MASTER SOLVES MY PIANISTIC MYSTERIES
Liisa was kind enough to give me a piano lesson this morning. She spent nearly 2 hours with me, and most of that time we just talked. She was masterful at suggesting information and then shifting to stories and anecdotes so that what she had told me would have time to sink in. It didn't feel manipulative. She was just aware of me the whole time while I processed, and she made contact where I was. All the while it was just a conversation, very friendly, very nice.
She had some wonderful ideas for me. She says that when she sits on a bench, she thinks of herself as having six legs. Her own, and the four legs of the bench. That was a revelation. It makes it possible for me to connect all the way to the floor and not feel so insecure. Then she suggested I imagine the hammers hitting the strings, so that when I play, my connection with the vibrating air over the piano goes all the way from my fingers through the hammers to the strings.
I improvised for her and felt myself come in and out of connection as I played various chords. It was wonderful. I felt sad and joyous and connected. Sensation where there never has been any. Like a deep, rich AHHHHHH from my soul to the sky. Then she pointed out that when my fingers move more quickly, I lose the connection to the strings. The first note is connected, but the others aren't. There were two huge mysteries to solve with that revelation. Want to know what they were?
While I intended to get help on the Mozart, instead I found myself playing the A-minor Chopin Etude for her, or at least the beginning. This is the one that bedevilled me for the last few years, that I want to play at tempo, that I don't want to have to "lift weights" to become strong enough to play. Sure enough, she quickly observed that I was leading the movement to the right with my right fourth-finger, not with my pinky. I remembered how Alan Fraser had to help me find my pinky last year. She went further and suggested that I lead with the right side of my hand and wrist. No pain. Easy to play.
When we looked at the difference between the thumb and forefinger, versus the three other fingers, she suggested something astounding: that the thumb and forefinger can actually anchor the hand and stabilize it so that the other three fingers are free to move. She suggested bouncing with them, as if they were a pair of legs, into each position, while the other fingers, staying connected to the strings, were spaced away from them and could move up easily. I always thought the addition of the thumb and forefinger in that etude was a mean move on Chopin's part, an increase in the difficulty. In fact, Chopin is showing us the interrelationship between the thumb/forefinger and the other three, and how they can assist one another while doing independent tasks. Brilliant. All of the sudden this etude seems very approachable. Bounce, bounce, bounce.
She talked about the approach she uses to keep her practicing fun and interesting. She says that she seeks to understand the color she could bring to the piece at whatever tempo she's doing it, at that particular moment in the performance's development. She says she won't do "discipline." She must motivate herself with something that's fun and interesting. When she comes to a problem, she stops, goes and "has a coffee" and thinks about how she might approach the problem. If it works when she comes back, great. If it doesn't, she'll decide she's on the wrong track entirely and rethink the problem from a lower level.
So I told her how, despite 25 years playing jazz, and a fascination with bebop, I have been loathe to "discipline" myself to learn the vocabulary. I simply haven't, and for some reason, wouldn't, sit down and drill a million jazz licks. Not for the last 25 years, no matter how frustrated I was at not being able to do them. In fact, I've learned EVERYTHING ELSE. Jazz theory out the wazzoo. Any tune, any key. Chords, voicings. But not this, the one thing I've wanted to know, the thing that got me motivated to learn to play jazz in the first place. We considered what I needed in order to motivate myself to learn.
We discovered that, given that I have had difficulty knowing which direction to take myself in fast runs, what part to lead from, how to ground myself and balance beneath, how to stay connected to each note, that it was no wonder that bebop phrases, which CHANGE DIRECTION QUICKLY, would completely throw me off. If I couldn't conceive of following a movement in a line up or down, there was no way I was going to be able to follow these spirals and circles. If I couldn't understand that this was what I was actually working on, then I'd have no approach to it.
My stubbornness, my laziness, have gotten me to this understanding. Sometimes it's good not to do it just 'cause, even if it takes you twenty-five years to learn how come. A lot of musicians out there are not going to like this! But don't worry. Most of you probably had that motivation internally without realizing it, so you wouldn't have had to wait twenty-five years. It probably wasn't mindless discipline to you, though it might have seemed that way, and though it would have been for me.
So thank you Liisa, and thank you Amy Likar and Meerenai Shim, for a fantastic week. If you want to talk to Amy about these kinds of events, here is her information: www.bodymap.org
Love,
Adam