Intelligence Having Fun

Back to the life I was born to live. In a room with teachers eager to learn, sharing the music I love with 50 years of learning how to share it effectively and joyfully. A small group of 11 in this Singapore workshop on teaching the Blues, so enthusiastic in their playing and insightful in their reflections, noticing the details of the magic that emerged. 

 

Alongside the pleasure of playing great music that everyone could do, could hear, could feel and could understand (my 4H club of hand/ heart / head and hearing), I shared some of the historical context. I told them that it will mean something different to them because it is not their history and yet, I found them nodding their heads hearing the story of human beings owned as property and 400 years (and still counting) of unfathomable suffering so white folks could get rich without working, a nonverbal “Word!” to information that Americans find so difficult to hear. From there, they joined in on a powerful improvised field holler and the path was paved to keep walking all the way to the Blues. 

 

Having paid their dues of attending to a difficult history, they were qualified to receive the full weight of the joy the music offers. Especially when invited to improvise their own particular style of expressing themselves musically. Smiles abounded and I shared with them a quote I saw in a window on my Saturday Singapore walk and wander. Attributed to Albert Einstein, it perfectly captures why I love teaching the way I do so much and never want to stop:

 

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

 

Yep! I would have loved to have Einstein in my Orff class! We understand each other.

I ended the day walking the mile and a half from the school to my hotel, stopped at a charming vegetarian restaurant where I ate the other day and tried the pho noodle dish (delicious!). Then stopped in IKEA next to my hotel. Why? I went there last night to buy a bowl for my breakfast cereal and after buying it—for 70 cents U.S.!— I noticed there was a machine dispensing Soy Ice Cream for 30 cents U.S.! I haven’t had ice cream that cheap since Uncle Gaylords in San Francisco in 1975, so I felt morally obligated to get some. But the problem was you first had to get a token and the line for the tokens was 30 people long! In fact, the entire IKEA was like a Black Friday Walmart, packed wall-to-wall with people out shopping on Sunday night. Really?

 

So having forgone the line last night, I thought I’d peek in and there was exactly no one in line. The whole store with just a few people wandering about. I guess Sunday night at IKEA is a thing in Singapore! I got my token and my coin and enjoyed my refreshing treat and topped off the early evening with a long swim in the hotel’s Infinity pool. 

 

The teaching is enough for me to exclaim time and time again, “I love this life!” but when combined with warm weather in January, good cuisine at amazing prices and a daily/nightly swim in a silky-smooth pool, one could get spoiled. Maybe I should write a blog about it, something like “Confessions of a Traveling Music Teacher.” The theme would be the meeting point of creativity, intelligence and fun. I think I’ll look into it. 

(Ha ha!)