The painting is about the only bright thing around here. We have snow on snow and cold on cold. Bill is in Atlanta at the Ritz and my mother and my in-laws are in Arizona basking. It's just me here with 8-12 inches of snow expected today. Yesterday I found myself holding back the tears more than a couple times. My dad's birthday is tomorrow, he would have been 74. I was going over choir music and some old Schirmer a cappella arrangment took me right back to Faith Lutheran Church in Eldridge, Iowa and there I was, five years old, on the red sanctuary carpet coloring with crayons while my dad waved his arms in front of the singers. Diction, diction, diction. . . fast forward to high school and Mandy and I sitting in the alto section, this time at Park View Lutheran, and I could hear his voice like he was in the room. And the flat sopranos.
My studio mom Mary Fox's dad passed away. It doesn't matter if he was 97 he's still your daddy. And your grandpa.
Easy to be blue. There's been so much snow the kids have missed lessons and colds and flus and it seems like nobody is playing all that well or practicing enough. Including me, I made a recording of my piece and thought it really was awful. (I have descriptive language for that but I held back. . . since Calvin helps me proof read.)
Easy to be blue. Harder to look for the one good thing. What did I like about my playing? Well? I've wanted to play the Brahms Intermezzo for about twenty years and I finally got it memorized. That's a good thing. Now I've had the paradigm shift to feeling critical about the shaping of the lines and the phrasing. How quickly we raise our bars and then kick ourselves for not making it. If I was Rado Lupu I'd be playing the Brahms at Orchestra Hall. Alas it's just me. But maybe I can bring out the voices just a little better. Move the tempo just a little more. Oh wait, that's two things.
Dr. Suzuki asks us again and again to pick one thing. One focus.
Edmund Sprunger suggests we find one thing that's working and repeat it.
The older I get the more I lean on this. It's just plain true. We can only really work on one thing at a time. We have to look for the one small good thing.
My Brahms has a good tone. There, I found one thing I like.
It's the same with the four year olds. One thing at a time. Feet first. . . body will follow. It's the same with the high school kids--you don't have to tell them everything you know in every lesson. Give 'em too much and the tears will flow. I did it again this week. . . was it my words or the piece. . .or the barometric pressure? You never know what's going on with these precious kids.
One small good thing. Yesterday a four year old smoothed his hand over his other hand to gently round it--the first sign of awareness of keeping a gentle hand. Hallelujah. Baby steps.
A local teacher Paul Wirth gave us a lecture on performance practice and his hand-out said, "Think the first phrase. Yes! I can do that! The rest will unfold like a flower."
That's a little like finding the one good thing--one phrase at a time.
Get up and get your coffee. The day will unfold. Get really good coffee.
Spring is coming.
Calvin and I heard the birds at the crack of dawn sitting at the piano. We both looked at each other and smiled. Joy. One small good thing and eventually, spring will unfold like a flower. A really beautiful flower. Life too unfolds. One small good thing at a time.
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