Good...better...best

Today’s rehearsal was good.
Adequate.
There were glimmers of possibilities. But remember~ You need to find your satisfaction in the music and not in your social interactions. If you do so, you will find that the rehearsal becomes (ultimately, with practice) THE place to have a blast!

Good.
Adequate.
But not great.
You are capable of much more.

It is my job to push you there. To pull you there. To allow you to step on my back to reach it. To get a “leg up”. But, I cannot get you all the way there. That is your job. All 32 of you.

Let me dispense with CREATIVE HABIT for one blog entry and chat with you about one of my learning experiences.

I was getting my Masters in Music and was taking an intensive (and I do mean INTENSIVE) one-on-one advanced conducting class with Dr. Martha Wurtz, one of the chamber ensemble directors at Wright State University. I was conducting one of Samuel Barber’s REINCARNATIONS titled “The Coolin’” (vocal/choral majors, if you don’t know this piece, look here http://uabchoirs.blogspot.com/2006/12/looking-ahead-coolin.html
for a listening example of it). The first part of the lyric is “Come with me, under my coat, and we will drink our fill of the milk of the white goat or wine if it be thy will. And we will talk until talk is a trouble too, out on the side of the hill(and so on).

Anyway, this piece looked easy…at least I thought so when I gave the preparatory beat. HA!!! Do you know that for the next hour, she never let me get past the first line? 20 minutes alone on the first measure? Was her goal to torture me? No, it was to think deeply about the wedding of music and lyrics. To reflect it (once understood…she told me I had OBVIOUSLY never REALLY been in love or else I wouldn’t conduct it like that!) in my conducting gestures. I sweated bullets that day. But I left understanding the piece. And feeling like I had “miles to go…”

Martha was a perfectionist. She demanded excellence. She demanded respect of the music. She demanded full attention. It was exhausting being her student. But, I count her one of the most important influences on my life. She was the one who introduced me to Jerry Bruner. She is among a small handful who nurtured my appreciation for good literature. She made me ask good questions. She made me think. The regalia I wear in every graduation ceremony was hers. She gave it to me when she knew that her moments on this earth were slipping away.

To this day, I cherish her demands.

I can only hope I live up to her example.

Dr. O