Giving Thanks

I'm so very excited about our music (the choral music of John Rutter) for next term...I thought it appropriate to quote Cecil F. Alexander's 1848 poem on this Thanksgiving Eve. Most all choral folks have sung Rutter's arrangement of ALL THINGS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL before...it is a simple thought but one that is needed in our chaotic, frantic, and fast-paced world! Happy Thanksgiving, peeps!

Refrain:All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful:

The Lord God made them all.

Each little flow’r that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colors,

He made their tiny wings.

The purple-headed mountains,

The river running by,

The sunset and the morning

That brightens up the sky.

The cold wind in the winter,

The pleasant summer sun,

The ripe fruits in the garden,

He made them every one.

The tall trees in the greenwood,

The meadows where we play,

The rushes by the water,

To gather every day.

He gave us eyes to see them,

And lips that we might tell

How great is God Almighty,

Who has made all things well.

Harmony

This might be the shortest blog post ever recorded. Here goes . . .

This is the choir.

This is the choir after the best dress rehearsal ever.

Any questions?

Our perfect world

Back to Tharp, folks. Page 135. Here are her ground rules to make, what she calls, "our perfect world". And I quote (her words in italics, mine in plain type:)

Quiet. (Wow, I harp on that in rehearsals, don't I? You are getting ever so much better about listening and keeping extraneous comments to yourself. Not perfect, but better).

No one present who does not belong--no observers (Here I part company with her; I really like it when folks come in to listen. There is a heightened sense of awareness of in the singers...like they are immediately thrust into performance mode. That's a GOOD thing).

All the time in the world. No worry that you will be thrown out or that you will go into overtime. (Would that we had that luxury. I am tied to a 50 minute rehearsal timeframe. It limits me. It limits you. But it is what it is. That's why we go to sectionals and try and find private practice time).

No goal other than to try things. (again, would that we all take risks and plunge ahead, instead of waiting for the person next to us to take the initiative. Kind of like my daughter did when she took a photo of this river and then digitally altered it to look like a watercolor. She experimented; she tried a new technique and it worked!).

No fear of failure; nothing will fail. (Gosh, I like this. It has alway been my goal to create a safe haven in the choral room. Where we lift each other up. Where we never make fun of someone else's weaknesses until we claim to have none of our own.)

No obligations other than to do your best (AMEN!)

We entertain each other; I challenge them, and they challenge me (YES! AMEN AGAIN!)

Each day completes itself. The next day is new. (The missed notes, the missed opportunities in today's rehearsal are gone. The next rehearsal is another day...with new opportunities. A new dawn.) See you Friday!

Finishing touches

So, this is the beginning. Of a piece of pottery, I mean. My ceramics friends call it "throwing a pot". I have never done it, but I am a collector of beautiful pieces. If we were to walk through my house, I can identify the artist and where I found each gem. One piece came from North Carolina; one piece from an artist in Montgomery, several pieces from our own TROY University students. One my husband bought me for Mother's Day from a Birmingham artist. Each piece is unique. Each design is signed by the hands that molded it, conceived it. They are unique but they all represent my affinity for color, for graceful shapes, for provocative design elements. The messy process in the picture is so necessary to reaching the finished product in the next picture.

I wonder whether the artists enjoy the messy beginning part of the creation process or the finishing touches at the end? Maybe it is up to each individual artist.

I, for one, enjoy the finishing touch process. Like the one we embarked on in Friday's rehearsal. The joy of moving past learning notes and rhythms, of memorizing, of "throwing that piece", if you will. That is hard. It is messy. It is time consuming and it can be tedious. And sometimes disheartening.

But, the finishing touches! Molding, painting, sanding, stepping back and listening. Moving one part up ever so slightly; one dynamic level down; making one line fluid, each detail making a difference in the canvas of sound. SO much fun.

When the colors of the music become vivid. And the artist in all of us can smile.

Creative Ambition

Read numbers 8, 9. and 10 of Tharp's creative autobiography (pg. 55-56). I'll print it here for ease:

"What is your creative ambition? To continually improve, so I never think "my time may be over".

What are the obstacles to this ambition? The pettiness of human nature. Mine as well as others.

What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition? I often think of myself as water flowing into a rock. The water eventually finds its way out the other side, but in between it seeks out every hole and channel in the rock. It keeps trickling forward, gathering force until it bursts out on the other side as a raging torrent. That's my career experience. I don't have steps or ladders. I don't improve in steps. I'm the water slapping into the rocks. i gather force and then...explode."

I do think that I share the same creative ambition. I am never satisfied with my work product. I am always trying to improve...to push myself to excel (often to the detriment of my health and well-being, I think). In that way, I am also the single biggest obstacle to realizing this ambition. When I take my eyes off the music and its interpretation and put it on myself, my own ego, my expectations of my singers, circumstances, what others may think of me...I am easily derailed from the objective of excellence. The singular focus of "music first".

The water analogy is a poetic one. The creative experience is fluid, ever changing, dynamic, and powerful. Let's all try and enjoy the ride for the rest of the semester!

Practice. . .Part Deux

The Sistine Chapel...a fitting picture to place at another discussion of the role of PRACTICE in the life of a vocalist. Many of you are thinking "solitary" practice when you read this. But there is the kind of practice that goes on during your own session, the kind that happens (along with GREAT vocal instruction at TROY) in your lesson, and the kind that we do corporately as an ensemble.

Let's pick up with Ms. Tharp on page 167:

"Practice without purpose, however, is nothing more than an exercise. Too many people practice what they're already good at and neglect the skills that need more work. It's pleasant to repeat the things we do well, while it's frustrating to deal with repeated failure. . .the golfer Davis Love III was taught by his father to think of practice as a huge circle, like a clock. You work on a skill until you master it, and then you move on to the next one. When you've mastered that, you move on to the next, and the next, and the next, and eventually you'll come full circle to the task that you began with, which will now need remedial work because of all the time you've spent on other things."

Back to the Sistine Chapel. What does it represent to you? Painstaking detail? Patience? Hard work? Raw talent? Perseverance? Adoration for the artform? Dedication to the church? Sheer beauty? How about all of the above?

Those of you that will be choral directors one day will understand this complex, delicate circular balancing act. Still learning notes in one piece...others that are mostly done but lack finesse, others that are on the cusp of readiness. Balancing them all reminds me of preparing a large meal. Getting everything done at the same time and at the right time is tough.

So is this.

I'm convinced that Choral music making is not for wimps.

The Art of Practice

This next post is actually going to come in two parts. I'm going to quote Tharp and then put the transfers to music in parentheses.

"All dancers [singers] lead the same life; the lowliest corps members and the megastar still have to go to the same class at 10:00 [MWF11:00, 12, 2] to stay in shape... Soloists sepnd hours at their instruments before they rehearse with the orchestra [other choir members]. These habits don't disappear when you become recognized, honored, rich, famous, and otherwise validated [or upon graduation]. In fact, though everyone is free to practice as much as they want, it's the most acclaimed and skilled people who work the hardest to maintain those skills...the great ones never take fundamentals for granted. You may wonder which came first: the skill or the hard work. But that's a moot point. The Zen Master cleans his own studio. So should you." (The Creative Habit, page 166)

If you are like me, the action of practice is SO much harder than the act of performance. I remember as a kid hating the ritual of practice. My mom used to set an eggtimer to enforce the 30-minute rule. I'm not sure which rule I hated more...the 30 minute rule or the "you-will-play-every-piece-three-times-rule." (I think the latter, since you could speed everything presto and voila! You're done! - HA!)

I wish I would have practiced more. The only time I can remember being REALLY diligent about practice occurred during the 6 months leading up to my senior recital. You guys get off fairly easy. My recital was close to two hours long...memorized. For crying out loud, the Schubert piano sonata in A Major was longer than some of your recitals!

Anyway, I remember going down into the cellar of the ancient Andrew Carnegie library building (where some of our music department was housed) in sunny, warm weather and emerging 6 hours later to snow and ice! Such a lovely 2 mile trudge THAT was back to the dorm. A 40 degree drop and I was oblivious. Well, save for the occasional soccer game that we played in the hallway of the practice facility.

You get my point. Solitary practice is no fun but so necessary. The birds at the top of this post are so lucky. Their song comes naturally!

Next time, the purpose of practice.