Traveling on the Wings of Song

Though I find it deeply disturbing that the left side of our national consciousness is refusing my unshakeable belief that we all belong to each other, nevertheless I persist. Why can an American play in a Balinese gamelan and a Japanese join a bluegrass group? Because we all have that inner gamelan and banjo player inside of us in potential form, alongside the Zen practitioner or Sufi poet or Slovenian basketball player and a thousand more potentials only awaiting the kiss of exposure to a person, place, book, film, recording, culture to awaken it. On that journey, it is worthy work to be aware of historical power imbalances, not as impediments, but as reminders to learn responsibly from our teachers and pay back any unearned privileges. I refuse the ”back to tribe” mentality that insists that you can only explore what your gender/ skin color/ country gave you as a starting point. 

 

And so in the past three days, I’ve been a tour guide with 27 lovely people from 10 different countries and diverse backgrounds traveling through Bavaria, Bolivia, Bali, Bulgaria, the Philippines, Thailand, China, Finland, Ireland, Slovenia, Serbia, Hungary, Ghana, Uganda, flown to each on the sonic vibrations of songs, of xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels, recorders, voices, drums, bells and more. Each culture a shining beacon showing the extraordinary ingenuity of what human beings can do with the same 5, 6 or 7 notes. No one has complained or asked to see my official papers granting me the authority to lead this trip. 

 

If they did, I would simply share my life story and the names of all who generously shared their culture, music and dance with me and often expressed their delight that I would introduce it to children and other music teachers. When there’s a chance to invite them to teach with me or instead of me or there’s an opportunity to help arrange further work for them or pay them further for their work, I believe I’ve always chosen to do so. I’m always clear with the adult music teachers about what is patently obvious—that I’m not a “culture bearer” of each particular music, but I am the messenger who opens the doors first to kids and then to their music teachers and shows them a larger world then they ever imagined previously. While knowing enough about each style that we feel the power and beauty of the music and feel empowered that we can make such music at an elemental level.

 

Tomorrow it’s the Netherlands, Iceland, Azerbhaijan and Renaissance Western Europe. Wish you could join us!

 

 

 

The News In Here and Out There

Some days ago, when some 100 lovely souls gathered in a “Hidden Valley” to begin their work of healing a broken world, an astounding thing happened. A humble functioning adult let go of his personal wishes on behalf of the common good and genuine hope lit up the sky. It was like the finale of a 4^th of July fireworks celebrating the promise of a functioning democracy that was in danger of dying in the hands of a narcissistic psychopath supported by an alarming number of Stepford wives and husbands. And then someone else rose up who is more than a defense against our demise, but actually represents the greatest victory imaginable— a country finally ready to consider that a mixed-race woman is capable of leading us back to an America than never was and yet, can be. 

 

“Never underestimate the stupidity of the American people” has been the voice whispering in my ear for most of my adult life and with good reason. The very fact that an incoherent mean-spirited hate-mongering self-absorbed convicted felon who has already proven himself a disaster as a leader is even allowed to run for the highest office in the land is reason enough to wonder about our national soul. But the right thing happened in 2008, 20012 and 2020 and if we can awaken those astoundingly on the fence (really?), the numbers are on our side. “Our side” is not “we win” and “they lose,” but we all win because the possibility of further healing the deep wounds of racism, of misogyny, of purposeful ignorance, of unchecked greed, of environmental catastrophe, can make it onto the table as we gather to get to the real work ahead of us. The alternative is dystopia come off of the screen and the book’s pages into the very fabric of our lives. Too horrible to contemplate.

 

On the second day of our Orff course, today’s class plans on my mind, I’m aware I’m not doing justice to this theme. But hey, what happens here is my own contribution to personal and collective healing in the way I know best. 

For now, just nine deep bows to Mr. Joseph Biden, a man I’ve come to deeply admire and am now yet more grateful for. And a shout-out to Kamala Harris offering my full support to help turn the tide in her favor. May it be so!!!

  

The Lobster, Butterfly and Starfish

(My short opening talk at the beginning of our SF International Orff Course gathering.)

How do lobsters grow? The young lobster has a hard, rigid shell to protect it. As its soft body grows, the hard shell stays the same. So the lobster reaches a point of noticeable discomfort and finds a safe place to hide. There it sheds its shell and stays hidden until it grows a new one. After a time, the new one is too small for the growing body and it repeats the process—discomfort, retreating, shedding, growing a new shell.

 

So let us learn from the lobster. Feel the discomfort, don’t rush to mask it or ignore it or medicate it or fix it. Instead, find a safe haven to retreat to where you can shed the shell and start to grow the next one that fits your changing self. We hope this will be the place you can do that, in company with caring teachers and trusted friends. This can be the place to slough off the too-small covering, feel safe while the new one develops, away from the jeers and laughter and taunting of the cruel world. 

 

Then the butterfly. A compassionate person comes upon a butterfly struggling to break out of its chrysalis and thinking he’s performed a good Samaritan act, opens the casing to let the butterfly out. In so doing, he robs the butterfly of the struggle needed to gain the proper wing strength to fly and the butterfly cannot fly. We will help each other in all sorts of ways here, but we also have to leave space for each of us to struggle through the hard parts in our own way, with our own grit and determination. And there will be hard parts alongside the great fun and laughter. 

 

Now the starfish. A woman was walking down a beach filled with stranded starfish that had been washed up on the shore. Without water, she knew they would shrivel and die, so she began throwing them one by one back in the water. A man came from the other direction and asked her what she was doing and she explained the situation. “But don’t you know that there’s probably over a thousand stranded starfish on this beach? What you’re doing can’t possibly make any difference.”

 

She reached down, picked up a starfish, threw it in the sea and said, “It made a difference to that one.”

 

The lobster, the butterfly and the starfish.  Good reminders for us all.

12

12 hours on the clock, 12 months in the year, 12 eggs in a dozen, 12 notes in an octave, 12 people on the jury, the 12 Days of Christmas, the 12 Apostles, 12 Knights of the Round Table, 12 Greek Gods and Goddesses of Mt. Olympus, the 12 Tribes of Israel, 12 Gates to the City, 12 signs of the Western Zodiac,  12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac, 12 bars in the blues— apparently 12 is a powerful number. So high expectations for the 12^thyear of the San Francisco International Orff Course at Hidden Valley Seminars, a place we moved to in 2012! 

 

It’s the 41^st year of this course started by Avon Gillespie at Santa Catalina School in Monterey, moved to the University of Santa Cruz, moved to Mills College, moved to The San Francisco School and finally moved to Carmel Valley. It’s my 34^th year teaching in the course, 28^th year directing it. In 12 hours, 100 people from over 12 countries will gather in a circle to investigate who they are, who they've been, who they yet will become and who will we all be together. 

So much for the numbers. And now, let the wild rumpus start!!

The Pain of Graduation

Music teachers who graduated last year from our Orff training course are so sad. All they had to look forward to this summer was going to the beach. 

 

PS In contrast to the last post, some organized activities are both memorable and life-changing!

Out and Nothing.

Yesterday’s Men’s Group theme was summer childhoods and all of them shared two essential themes. The first was that delicious anticipation of freedom stretching out before you for the next two and a half months, that sense of release when that last school bell rang at 3:00. Freedom to do nothing, to follow your own whims and fancy away from the rigid school schedules and over-organized activities. And the second was to do so out in nature, to get out of the house and explore the vacant lots in the neighborhood or the park or the little creek that ran through the town or the fields or forests or beach at some family summer retreat. Freedom and nature— a delightful combination that all eight of us without exception had growing up in the 40’s and 50’s and early 60’s when parenting was not yet a verb and the dangers that awaited outside of the house were small and manageable and part of the excitement rather than a cause for parents to lock their doors. 

 

It's easy to wax rhapsodic, join some nostalgic cult of “Make American childhood free-range again!”, but there is great truth in its value and great sadness that so many kids growing up now might never know this. When they reminisce in their 70’s and 80’s with their peers, it will all be about sharing what video games they played or what summer sports leagues they joined. And all because of the grand failure of our culture to only wish that we be “strong, safe and rich” (the three pathetic dreams of the current RNC Convention) rather than vulnerable, adventurous and wealthy in spirit. Yes, there are things my kids had and that my wife and I and school gave them that were an improvement over my childhood, there are marvelous organized activities like my daughter's Summer Camp in Golden Gate Park (that includes a lot of letting the kids alone to explore), but I believe that my two daughters will speak of their annual trip to Lake Michigan where they spent unsupervised time out on the beach or walking through the woods to the back lake. A gift re-gifted each summer with the grandchildren as well. 

 

May I recommend that everyone read a book by Robert Paul Smith whose title says it all? “Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing.” 

Accept All Invitations

A fellow musician texted me yesterday about a jam session at a café in San Francisco last night and invited me to come and sit in. I was all set for a relaxed, cozy night at home and it would have been easy to decline. But why not check it out? It was a short drive from my house and it would be good for me to throw myself into the jazz jam ring, especially after having had three really inspiring days playing my piano alone in my house. 

 

So I went. And there were two students from Brazil who are about to be in my Level III Orff training class in company with a Level III graduate from last year. A delightful surprise! I joined them at the table, listened to some high quality music in this most pleasant café, got up onto stage when my friend invited me and made it through Bye Bye Blackbird without too much embarrassment (nor too much inspiration, that I blamed on the electronic keyboard that wasn’t giving me the sound back that I like). But nobody got hurt and it was fun to get to know my soon-to-be students a bit more. 

 

Had I stayed home, none of that would have happened and that also would have been fine. But I’m glad I did it and was proud that at an age when I could be sheltering down and doing what’s comfortable and easy, I still have the energy and gumption to get out and try new things. It’s the same attitude I have about invitations to teach Orff courses and workshops— accept them all while they come. Well, some discrimination is in order, following the Golden Rule of “the work, the people/place, the money”— you need two out of three to make it worth your while. But so far I’ve never wished I had stayed home. 

 

What’s going on tonight?