Hierarchy of weeds

Being at this damn place for a week and not writing anything leaves a lot to be said, but maybe I can just distill out the good parts. Last week was busy... I spent many hours each day observing and taking part in a whole range of different activities. I got my fill of rehearsals and coachings. I saw a lot of young people playing new music and old men playing old music. As I continue to use these opportunities to find answers and inspiration, I suppose it's worth noting the few things that got to me the most. First, I got to sit in on a few rehearsals with a pianist named Anton Kuerti. At age 71 he is doing the final laps of a long successful career in music. He is one of those few lucky people who has managed to maintain a deep connection and involvement with music while continuously concertizing, recording, and teaching since age 11. As I sat next to him in rehearsal and turned his pages, I had a glimpse into the mind of someone who understands and communicates at least the classical part of the language of music with extraordinary depth and care. Looking at a sheet of music for him must be like looking at page of text written in a language whose content, etymology, dialects, and origin languages you all know intimately. It is a fluency quite beyond my comprehension. If I was one less prone to laziness and indifference it might've been one of those life-changing moments. Even still, it was incredibly powerful.

Second, and nicely correlated, I experienced an unexpectedly moving experience of my own while listening to a rehearsal of Varese's Ionisation. I had been following along with the score in hand when seemingly out of nowhere I felt during the first few opening phrases a meaningful communication, one coherent thought followed by a contrasting one, which somehow touched me. Perhaps after having sat in on a lot of percussion rehearsals by that point, my ears were beginning to get in touch with the language of percussion music. However, I never expected the depth with which this piece, written for almost completely unpitched percussion instruments, suddenly spoke to me. It made me think, no one has to tell you how to understand a language as long as you decide to listen to it as much and as hard as you can. It also made me think how awesome it must be for conductors and musicians to continually discover new meaning in anything they study. I think it also helped that Ionisation is apparently one of the masterworks of the percussion repertoire. That of course begs the question: what is a "masterwork," because I think I started to get to the answer right then and there.

Thus I think all of this sitting and listening and observing has given me several important insights. The amount that I have immersed myself in everything musical and artistic that has been going on here at Banff for the past few weeks, the fact that I have already been at least nominally involved in music for the past 18 years, and the fact that I still find it very exciting and moving indicates to me that if I were to choose a language that I had to speak for the rest of my life it would be music. Everyone who pursues music must already intuitively know this about themselves, but I, as I am wont to do, had to think my way to this conclusion. Furthermore, it now seems clear that much of my lack of true passion for music is due to my lack of fluency. The fact that I went through music school without ever really listening to much other music than what I was working on and what I had to learn for classes might be understandable but is pretty tragic. Newly armed, however, with the confidence that it is very unlikely I will ever get bored by music, the plan seems to me to be that in addition to healing my body and coming to accept and appreciate who I am, I should listen as hard as I can to as much music as possible. It is fortunate that since the confidence I have in my beliefs is always based on so-called evidence, Banff has furnished me plenty of reasons to feel that I am on the right track. Whatever that means. Lord knows none of this answers the question of how I'm going to make a living. But self-actualization always comes before finding a job right?

Gotta have all the pieces

Being in the Banff bubble for the last few days has helped me realize at least one important thing so far. As I mentioned, I have known for a few months now at least that part of my healing process, perhaps the most important part, will be dealing with pain and suffering in my brain. Recently I have come to think, with the help of my friends, that this mental healing mostly involves gradually coming to accept and love myself. Today I see that that process involves at least two parts: on the one hand, I must work to live a fulfilling life, and on the other, I must work to understand and appreciate who I was and what I did in the past. Both parts are difficult. The aforementioned bubble has helped me do the former while completely avoiding the latter. So what I realized this evening is that I cannot forget either part.

I had a talk yesterday with the director of the program, Barry Shiffman, who encouraged me to spend my time at Banff experiencing and absorbing as much as possible. It was nice to see he thought I still had much to gain while being here despite not playing at all. To that end, I am working to fill up my schedule with as many observational or therapeutic activities as possible. I'm trying to take notes everywhere I go, and I've already learned a lot in just two days. There are many people I still need to talk to from other programs that are running simultaneously here at Banff. I went swimming again today for the first time in about five days. We had a scheduled power outage as well in both the music building and the residence hall which made me realize I have no idea whether meat sitting in a nonfunctioning fridge for nine hours is something to worry about or not. So of course I did worry about it and ended up storing it outside on my balcony in a tub full of ice for nearly the whole day. Barry couldn't tell me whether my half pound of turkey would have been okay or not had I left it in the fridge but he did assure me that bears haven't learned how to use grappling hooks yet. We had the first master class today led by Don Wielerstien(sp?). His inability to hear one of the student's names as Rosie instead of Rhody made me a little uneasy. But he's one of the best violin teachers and quartet performers in the world and his coaching of my group yesterday was awesome. He dealt a lot with the physicality of playing an instrument which was exactly the kind of thing I needed to hear. That evening I talked with a few dancers that are part of another residency who sounded totally badass and I really look forward to seeing their rehearsals, performances, and talking with them about their experiences with their bodies. Maybe I can have some hands-on experience with their bodies as well. Sarah, I'm totally joking.

Looking forward to tomorrow while looking back into the past.

a new day

I first created this blog mostly to record my progress in violin. Since that has come to a standstill as I wait for my arms to heal, and because my injury has made me realize I was focusing on many of the wrong things, I'd like to spend some time now writing about my progress and experiences in life in a more general way. I should have acknowledged to myself a long time ago, given my clear lack of balance physically as well as mentally, that the path I was on, if you can call it that, was pretty flawed. But as usual, I ignored the DANGER: PRECIPITOUS FALL AHEAD signs and so my body has forced me to come around the hard way. I'm trying to listen to it now.

I'm not sure yet how attending a chamber music program in Canada fits into my general goal of recovering and finding balance. I'm hoping that the vacation-like atmosphere and the breathtaking scenery will give me a chance to relax and find some peace and inspiration. I also believe that being on the outside of this program will allow me to get some perspective on what my life would be like if I had never gotten injured. Perhaps I will find answers to questions like is this something I could do for my whole life? Is this me? Do I really connect with all this? Sometimes when you play a role for so long you forget what's you and what isn't. The hard part will start tomorrow, when everyone begins working and I am left to my own devices. Today I could still pretend.

Here's to believing in the good side of difficult times.
I am, after all, at a resort.