Playing the Exzilaphone

 

In the American mythological mythscape in which I was raised, I should be envious of people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and the like. I should be in awe of the President of the United States and the power he wields. For reasons I can’t wholly define but for which I am eternally grateful, I refused that story. Rather than envy the rich and powerful, I feel nothing but pity for them. They and their ilk have big holes in their souls that no amount of money or power will ever fill. Because they’ve chosen the wrong food, they have hungers that will never be satiated no matter how much they eat. Not one of them will ever, ever, get a card like I got today after three weeks sharing my childlike self with children from 5 to 11-years-old. 

 

As promised in the last post, here are some of the testimonies from the kids. Since the handwritten quality is central to their message, I include a photo of one of the four pages. My two favorites? 

 

• I loved playing and learning to play the exzilaphone with you!

 

Most creative spelling ever!

 

• Thank you much! It was things! Not just the music, it was all the moments!

 

Still thinking about “It was things!” But loved that last sentence—not just the music, but all the moments! The music turned out to sound pretty great, but looming even larger was how we learned and the feeling in the room. All the moments. These kids got it! 

Miracle on Rosewell Avenue

It was another one of those miracles that will never make the big time, but in my mind, is much more important than oil lasting longer than usual, an image appearing on a cloak or water turned to wine. I’m talking about working with 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th grade kids at Havergal school for six classes each over three weeks and then performing this morning with seven different groups on a stage with the instruments re-arranged to fit and different than they were used to. With 30 minutes to figure out with the seven groups who goes where and which bars to take off and on and to make sure they have the right mallets. Then of course, the kid who was absent shows up and wonders where to go or who her partner can be. And the other kid who was always in class was now absent. And where the heck is the Bb bar for that soprano xylophone? And where can we put each of the two pianos and the one marimba and the drum set and the Ghana xylophones? Had to figure it all out on the spot with some 120 kids. And the audience starting to enter. Oh, and with seven groups plus transitions, the concert was supposed to be 30 minutes long. Counting transitions and taking those pesky bars off and on. Like I said, a miracle.

 

But we did it! The kids did a great job just attending to the cues from my piano and adjusting in the moment as the music required. Two beginning jazz pieces for 3^rdand 4^th grade, an elemental Orff arrangement of an English rhyme for 3rd, a Ghana xylophone piece for 4^th, and three jazz blues with 5^th— one major, two minor, each in a different key. (Oh, how I longed for the chromatic Orff xylophones I had at The San Francisco School! And publicly announced my vision that Havergal buy some for the future. Maybe watching the kids taking them off and on with all the clatter they made while I was talking might have started that dream in motion!)

 

At the end, they gifted me with a lovely card the kids had made and though I still have two more classes to teach to 2^nd grade and kindergarten (a coda to the grand finale), I had a short post-concert break (after, of course, moving all the instruments back to the music rooms with the kids helping— no road crew for the Orff teacher!), so I sat down to read the little thanks the kids had written. The tears came more than once. 

Of course, not an ounce of motivation for doing this work is to make sure I’m properly thanked, but still we all want to know if our work made some sort of impact and the “if you see something/ hear something/ do something, say something” Golden Rule is inextricably woven into the fabric of any artistic pursuit. Like applause at the end of a jazz solo (and I got some when I played at the jam session at the Rex Jazz Club the other night!), it lets you know that you connected with someone and that indeed is both satisfying and a further motivation to keep going. 

 

What did the kids say? Stay tuned for the next post.  

Smiling for No Reason

I’m noticing something a bit unusual these days. Walking to this school where I’m teaching, walking in the halls, teaching the classes, I’m finding myself smiling for no reason. It’s an inward physical sensation, not an outward “smile for the camera” show, but the sense that if every cell in the body could smile, well, they are. 

Seems like we spend just about every minute of every day trying to reach some equilibrium of diverse energies inside us. If homeostasis is the biological term that describes “the self-regulating process by which biological systems maintain internal stability while adjusting to changing external conditions,” this feels like a “spiritual homeostasis.” Instead of “ensuring essential conditions—such as body temperature, pH, and nutrient levels—stay within a narrow healthy range, preventing death or disease”, these conditions of love, passion and sense of living inside your destiny prevent death to the spirit and take us from dis-ease to ease. Describing it doesn’t do it justice and certainly doesn’t bring us any closer to experiencing it.  Nothing your small ego can dream up can guarantee its presence.  It just “is.” 

 

What we can do is notice it when we are graced by its appearance. Feel grateful for its blessing while mildly astonished that it has chosen to visit us. Wonder a bit if we’re worthy but not care about that answer. Here it is and might as well feel it wholly and savor it and keep the space open for its bubbly effervescence. Goodness knows it’s a short-term visitor and there are much darker psychic territories we may be required to visit as our mind and body diminish, our country and culture collapses, our opportunities to keep doing that which we love dry up or disappear. So apologies if I strut it about a bit in this Blog, knowing others may be suffering and not the least bit happy to read about my happiness. But as I said, my job is to notice its presence and feel the full measure of its blessing. 

 

And of course, my life choices have something to do with it. I’ve loved children my whole life and still feel the uplift of their playful spirit and innocent delight. I’ve loved music my whole life and still feel the benevolence of its energies bringing the body and soul into balance. I’ve loved teaching my whole life and never take for granted the rare condition of feeling that inner smile radiate out to the children as they wrestle with the notes that bring their own happiness into focus. I’ve organized my life around these three loves and the World has responded with great generosity. 

 

Of course, it hasn’t all been polka dots and moonbeams and all the struggles, disappointments, failures, betrayals and doubts that are the payments due in any human incarnation have been by my side as well. Which perhaps makes it all the more sweet when I feel that smile come out like the sun emerging after the storm. 

And now here come the 5^th graders to receive its warmth and light.

  

The Real Deal

The fun-fest continues, as the kids I’m teaching here in Toronto and I romp through the forest of notes on the xylophones and dance joyfully around the campfire. As so many try to squeeze teaching into a paint-by-number method or bend it to fit inside some ill-thought-out dogma or outsource it altogether to machines, those who know what the real deal is engage with children in ways that make them smarter, kinder and happier. The statistics reveal depressed and dispirited students beaten down by toxic practices in the name of “education,” but my own experience is that kids are ready to be wholly themselves on their way to better versions of themselves, led to deeper understandings, more controlled expression in diverse media, more profound connections with their own community of psychic energies and those of people around them. How can we reach them in these ways?

 

It's simple. Replace fear with fun, insult with welcome, blind faith with cultivated thought, ugliness with beauty. The only antidote to a child or adult who is shut down because they understandably are trying to protect some tender part of themselves from the brutal attacks of others, is to bring them into a safe and protected and loving circle, where fun is at the forefront and they are not only allowed but invited to discover the beautiful expressive parts of themselves, in company with adults who affirm, welcome, bless and love them. That’s where real healing begins. That’s where the real deal starts.

 

Saying “yes!” to this requires the insight and courage to say “no!” to scripted lessons made by “experts” who know exactly nothing about what that child in front of you right here, right now, needs. And believe me, it ain’t a script. Say “no” to the mindless testing and the cute videos and the AI catastrophe. Be clear that kids don’t need a curriculum or an i-Pad or a sure-fire kid-tested lesson. They need a relationship with an adult prepared to see them and know them and invite them to discover more about themselves that they even knew before. Relationship, not systems. A relationship that by definition is unpredictable, messy, somewhat uncontrollable and not a problem to be fixed, but a dance to be practiced. That’s where the challenge and the joy equally lie. No 26-step system exists that will solve your classroom challenges any more than it will solve your marriage. 

 

So a word to my fellow Orff teachers. Orff Schulwerk began with an intuition blossomed into a vision. It invited—and invites— us to develop our own artistry, feed our own passion for our art and for teaching our art, bring the music wholly into our own body and voice and gesture and facial expression and communicate directly to the children from vibration to vibration. It asks us to become friendly with our own spontaneity, our own responsiveness, our own attention to what’s going on in this moment right before our eyes and ears and with that quirky little person called a child. That’s where the art and science of teaching meet and that’s where the children can begin to feel safe and nurtured and held in the arms of something that is not only about mastery, but is about community feeling, is about beauty, is about the unequalled joy of creation. 

 

I’m concerned that the success of Orff Schulwerk in American schools is coming at a price. We’re starting to march to the school board’s drummer, use all the ugly-non-poetic words trying to prove that we taught something worthwhile, submitting our lesson plans to people who don’t understand them, teaching with the required Smartboard or formula of blah-blah-blah lesson objectives told to children who don’t care to hear it—they just want to play. Orff began as a radical antidote to all of that. Instead of trying to fit in with the bean-counters program, we need to show them how to grow the garden. 

 

If I had any advice for today’s and future Orff teachers, I’d say “Stay on the edge.” And walk your administrator there to show him or her the view. When we are teaching the way Orff and his descendants proposed, there’s not a single new education-du-jour approach that we’re not already doing—and often much better. Trust that. Art does not thrive in the bland safe middle of normal, the brightly lit shopping mall or sterile classroom with linoleum floors. It seeks out the edge, be it explosive and passionate or tender and intimate. Think the Bible, Shakespeare, Opera. Think Mozart’s Requiem, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit, a Gospel church, a dulcimer on an Appalachian front porch, the shimmering sounds of the gamelan on a moonlit verandah in Bali. That’s where we should take the children.

 

And on my way to today’s class, that’s exactly where I intend to go. 

Whatever Happened to "My Bad!"?

 

I really try not to use this venue to vent and make readers suffer through my whiny complaints, no matter how justified they may be. But sometimes you just gotta make it public. Feel free to drop out here, but if you persevere, I’ll do my best to take it out of the personal and frame it in a way that you can relate to it. I hope we all might leave committed to paying more attention to what feels like a growing cultural problem. Here’s the story: 

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote to the organizers of Flower Piano in San Francisco to suggest my jazz band could play at that event again, as we had two years ago. I was a bit shocked to get a letter back suggesting I should never play there again because last time I went five minutes over. The amount of shame and guilt I felt for that, even though people thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the show and it seemed like the next group could go five minutes over if as well— heck, we’re out making music on a sunny day in the park. What’s the hurry? But I get that it must have felt disrespectful and was willing to accept my blacklist consequence (which for another reason, they backed off from and I think I will be playing there again). 

 

Why am I telling this story? Because I was asked to be accountable for my transgression and pay some kind of price, from heartfelt apology to giving up that venue. And yet. Everywhere around me are incompetent people not doing their jobs or competent people having a bad day and from what I can tell, there’s no consequence or accountability whatsoever. For example, the printing of my new book. 

The printing company I’ve used for the ten Pentatonic Press books I published did great work. Not a single complaint. But last year, they were bought up by another company and the transition has NOT been smooth. In fact, an absolute nightmare. In preparing my new book for them, they promised one printing date, then postponed it. The first date was reasonable and perfect for some opportunities to sell them, so it was a great disappointment when they failed to honor their original “gentleman’s agreement.” 

 

So I asked for a special printing of 50 books that could be sold at two occasions perfect for selling— a local Conference I was presenting in and the Canadian National Conference in Halifax. They did print the books— but then forgot to mail them! So now I had 50 books that missed their opportunity to be sold. I had one more opportunity to sell them at a workshop in Toronto and they mailed 25 of the above to Halifax!! Then had to re-send from Halifax to Toronto and miraculously, the books arrived one day before that workshop. (And they charged me for the extra shipping).

 

Now I had other deadlines coming up, so just checked in to see if the 750 books I originally ordered would be ready by the end of the week as they promised. Here's what my contact there wrote to me:

 

Doug, 

 

I think this job is the disaster of all disasters! Apparently, this job has been sitting in “proof out” since early April when Jamison left and the new person took over, so it isn't even printed yet.  It was completely overlooked. Since the original estimated ship date was today 5/11, and you want this delivered to the warehouse before you leave for Europe, I have asked this to be escalated to a manager for expedited printing.

 

Are you feeling me here? Do any of these people feel accountable to me? Offer me profuse apologies, discounts on the printing, some kind of well-deserved compensation for their mistakes which I suffer from. Is anybody acknowledging “My bad! Sorry!” I think you can guess the answer. 

 

The same holds true for schools that take six weeks to pay me, with me having to constantly remind them. If I’m one day late paying my VISA bill, I get slapped with a late charge, but it doesn’t seem to go in the other direction. Perhaps this has always been so, but am I wrong in feeling that it seems to be happening more and more, with less and less accountability and apology? If this were a two-way venue, you could all chime in, but meanwhile, I’ll just imagine your answer. “I think you’re right! I am noticing that!”

 Having named it, let's change it! Please? 

The New Ten Commandments

I have a folder on my computer called “Talks/ Interviews/ Articles” and often (like yesterday), while looking for one thing, another catches my eye. Usually something I have forgotten I wrote. So here’s what I found yesterday, my new Ten Commandments that I wrote in 2024. (Perhaps I should title them “Ten Suggestions” or “ Ten Things to Consider.”) “Commandments” is so—well, Old Testament.  Note that one is in bold to celebrate today’s holiday. Note also that the Psycho-in-Chief has broken every single one of the old Ten Commandments and likewise, fails miserably with my revised list. 

 

1.    Thou shalt respect and embrace all gods as the sacred parts of yourself and others.

2.    Thou shalt make images in an attempt to express that which is beyond imagination.

3.    Knowing that any name is too small for the ineffable, thou shalt relax about using it playfully or angrily. 

4.    Treat every day as a Sabbath Day, leaving moments of rest and feeling the sacred in each day of the week. 

5.   Honor your father and mother and thank them for doing the best they could, while refusing to carry on any of their hurtful and harmful ideas and practices.

6.    Thou shalt not kill and thou shalt oppose the NRA’s shameless production and selling of murderous assault weapons and all calls to war. 

7.    Thou shalt not commit adultery and if you do, thou shalt not pay off lovers with non-disclosure agreements and face the consequences of your action. 

8.    Thou shalt not steal, especially in the forms of corporate capitalism and Wall Street unchecked greed. 

9.    Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor and hold accountable any President who has told 20,000 documented lies without consequence.

10.                  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, husband, house, yard, car or vacations and learn to be content with your lot and deal with your FOMO. 

Wanuskewin

… was the title of the concert by the Amadeus Choir of Great Toronto that I attended last night. It is a Cree word that translates to “seeking peace of mind”and its message is timely.  I think we can all agree that our soul indeed yearns for a respite from the ongoing catastrophe. But it is not to be had with drugs, distraction or denial.  It is a path through chaos demanding our greatest reserve of courage and determination and needing others by our side. Its voice is not simply conversation or news analysis, but is best expressed through the arts— dancing, poetry, painting and yes, choral singing. 

This was a groundbreaking concert that brought together three indigenous composers from the Cree people in present-day British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba. Most of the compositions had to do with the natural elements of earth, water, wind and fire. As one of the composers, Sherryl Sewepagaham described it, her piece is not about the wind, but came from sitting with the wind and feeling its voice speak through her. It renewed her determination for her voice to be the voice of the voices no one hears anymore or listens to. 

 

Chris Dirksen followed the Homage to Wind with her own seven-part piece about Water, featuring her cello alongside violin, piano, flute, French horn, drum set and the 100 voice choir.

 

Another composer, Andrew Balfour, suggested to the audience that we were not listening to a concert, but participating in a sound ceremony. I like that! It’s a good two words to describe what I aim for in my Orff classes and workshops. We were there not to be entertained and simply applaud, but to bear witness to what’s going down and what’s rising up. He wrote an exquisite piece about trees, as well as adapted a Johannes Ockeghem canon and Purcell piece. 

 

It felt like a historic event to have these three representing their ancestry and their contemporary music, which clearly fuses their Western upbringing with indigenous elements. And that’s all anyone would want to do and deserves to do. Be granted the right to define themselves instead of having others define them. Andrew shared that he had been stolen from his family to be “re-educated” at a church-run and sanctioned Indian Residential School (IRS)— at 6 months old. This was a common practice in the 20^th century, a purposeful program of cultural genocide that continued until the last IRS was closed—in 1996! As described in a government Website about the subject:

 

 ” While the treatment of children varied across the different IRSs, they frequently experienced harsh and denigrating conditions In addition to physical, emotional and sexual abuse and neglect, children were stripped of their identities, made to feel ashamed of themselves and their culture, and denied the use of their language, beliefs, and ways of being.”

 

So while Canada seems like paradise compared to its southern neighbor, it too, has a lot to answer for. Its national anthem was first just in English and then later there was a French version translated thus:

 

O Canada!
Land of our ancestors
Glorious deeds circle your brow
For your arm knows how to wield the sword
Your arm knows how to carry the cross;
Your history is an epic
Of brilliant deeds
And your valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights.

 

Hmm. I think to First Nations people, the arms wielding the sword killed their people and culture and all the time carrying the cross representing Jesus' message of "brotherly love." That's pretty far from an “epic of brilliant deeds” and hardly protected the “home and rights” of the diverse indigenous populations. Apparently, to attempt some political correctness, there are translations now in Cree, Inuktitu, Ojibwe and Mi’kmaq, but I can’t imagine any of these people’s singing the words above in any language.

 

By contrast, last night’s event was an authentic step towards healing and reconciliation and I found it moving, musically and otherwise. Andrew was particular eloquent when he talked with us and reminded us that the choir were not functioning as allies, but as genuine brothers and sisters. 

 

It reminded me of a passage from To Kill a Mockingbird, when as a child, Scout’s older brother Gem is trying to classify people into different groups and Scout finally says: 

 

 “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”

And Gem replies: 

 

"That’s what I thought, too, when I was your age. If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?"

 

Why indeed. Well, that’s a matter for another post. But meanwhile, last night, we were all just folks mutually bearing witness to truth and beauty and I believe that helped give us all a moment when we felt peace of mind.