"Duet is Like A Garden" - A Student Reflects on His Experience

This letter was written by a 17-year old student of mine named Erik. He is an unusually thoughtful young man. Anticipating an insightful response, I asked him to reflect on his experience of improvised piano duet. I just received this:

"In duet, the intertwining notes and chords are almost like a garden. It grows, if you nurture it, and eventually it becomes this big full thing before you have to cut it all away or it dies down naturally.

(Here, you can listen to an improvised duet that Erik and I created.)

"Duets display the combined emotional and musical efforts of two people in creative growth. The music can spark something in everybody as long as the ear is open. As the notes and chords grow and come together, they become one sturdy piece of music, filling this invisible canvas like an aural painting. A colorful, musical expression. In that, they're just as essential, if not more so, than what's created with paints and brushes -- we all need our prized music collection anyway, not everyone has a prized art collection.

"Music reminds me of colors, and what I've been thinking of here, I probably would not have thought of if I hadn't been listening this week to the music of the group, YES. I've been studying their layers of music -- listening to lots of progressive rock bands like them. A lot of their songs and pieces tend to sound like these big things, but a lot of the time it isn't as big as the ear perceives...



"I don't think I can describe my emotional expression with music; it just is. I can just let it be, and let it happen. I can't describe how I play anything, I have no idea what I'm doing at the piano, I just go for it and what comes out is what comes out. I don't think I'm alone there. Steve Howe (the guitarist in Yes) can't describe how he composed some songs...

...and Neil Young has a fascination with recording things "in the moment", which I haven't heard him elaborate on, but I imagine it's probably because once the moment's gone, the emotion is gone, and the initial magic of the song is lost as well. And that's what I can relate to, I think.



"The point that I'm getting to is that, unless you know exactly what you're doing with your instrument, you can't over-think it. But who wants to know, or hear someone who knows exactly what they're doing, anyway? If the music is truly expression and art, it all has to spontaneously happen in-the-moment.

"I hope you've had a wonderful week, and I wish the very best,
Erik"

In a Safe Place, the Creative Spirit is Freed

I'm working via SKYPE with students in the Cakike Music Program in Bogota, Colombia.

Over the past six weeks, the students have been sharing with me stories of their lives, of their greatest happiness, playing little songs that they're learning on guitar, piano, xylophone. I'm helping them connect to themselves--to their source of identity, strength and confidence--to that which nothing in their often difficult lives can touch.

For each child, I'm improvising a special piece inspired by his or her life and story. This morning's session with a class of young students exceeded my expectations. Two boys--brothers--entered into a spontaneous duet on xylophones, each taking turns improvising as the other accompanied. They used what they had learned to take a leap and begin to create their own music. The respect they extended to the other made this possible. That respect and care allowed the space for something new to happen. The Cakike teacher, Paola Medina and I were deeply moved to witness this! In that safe place, the spirit inside of us can ignite and come forth in such beautiful ways! This morning was an inspiring example!

More to come...

Inspiration at the Right Moment - Barry Lopez, Writer and Naturalist

A year and a half ago, I gave my first transformational retreat in the Berkshire Hills of Lenox, MA. Together with the participants who'd enrolled for the weekend, we'd explore the power of duet improvisation to awaken our creativity, to hear our unique "voices" as expressed through improvised music, and finally to leave--I hoped--with a new sense of life and its possibilities.

The night before the retreat began, I was nervous as I contemplated the schedule, the myriad practical details, our activities together, my aspiration for the weekend. At 11pm, something compelled me to turn on the TV, which is unusual. There on PBS was the final episode of Bill Moyers' "Journal," a show in which each week he would interview a person of note--an artist, public figure, spiritual leader. I had heard of his guest, author, Barry Lopez, and vaguely recalled that I'd been inspired years earlier by something he'd written. As Lopez began to speak, however, I realized that I had been blessed. Here was EXACTLY the right message, the right person to strengthen and affirm my vision just as the weekend was about to begin.

To give you a sense, this is an excerpt from the interview. He is speaking about writing; but, really he is encouraging us to CREATE. There are real and positive effects that our creative acts can have on another human being:

"And when you can open up (to your creativity) and come out of your own little small tiny place in the world and...you try. And you get something on paper. And you give it to somebody. And you say, "Well, what do you think?" If it really works, they (will) read it and they will say, "I think I'm going to be okay."

Barry Lopez was expressing what compels me to do my work, my reasons for encouraging others to trust in themselves, in that which lies often untapped in each of us--one's own true voice!

It was no wonder that Bill Moyers chose Barry Lopez as the final guest. Moyers said in his introduction to the interview: "So many people have inspired my own work that I had a difficult time making that choice. But i finally decided to ask someone whose curiosity about the world, and pursuit of it, have set the gold standard for all of us whose work it is to explain those things we don't understand"

You can watch the interview in its entirety here on the PBS website:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch3.html