East and West

I just returned from a fun “Boys Weekend” with two music teachers colleagues— Rick Layton and Paul Cribari— I’ve taught with for decades. Now they’re both “retired” from the summer course we’ve taught at together, so we’ve made a special effort to keep our connection. That was time well spent!

I first met Rick Layton in Denton, Texas in 1986, our first time teaching an Orff Course together. Our mutual mentor, Avon Gillespie, told me that there was a promising young man from the East Coast that he wanted me to work with and told Rick there was a promising young man from the West Coast that he should work with. So Avon brought us together, the West Coast guy and the East Coast guy meeting in the middle of the country.

In the Venn diagram that became our decades long friendship and teaching together, we shared some common ground. He began working at an independent school in Annapolis, Maryland called the Key School in 1979 with a vibrant Orff program in which the kids had music four or five times per week. I began working at a progressive school in San Francisco in 1975, also with a vibrant Orff program in which the kids had music twice a week and Singing Time every day. He stayed there for 42 years before retiring in 2021, I stayed at my school for 45 years before retiring in 2020. His school groups performed several times at Orff Conferences, as did mine. We both taught together at what became the SF Orff International Summer Course, he starting in 1987 and ending in 2018, me starting in 1991 and continuing still. We both were “on the circuit” giving workshops in Orff Chapters through the country throughout this time. We both are hard workers, dedicated teachers and love to laugh. 

Avon felt our similarities, but also deeply appreciated the contrasts. The Key School’s program was started by an Orff teacher named Brigitte Warner who created a thorough rigorous curriculum based almost exclusively on the music of “the Volumes”, the source material of music for children composed by Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman. I started the San Francisco School program and based on my interest in World Music, Jazz, body percussion, ritual and ceremony. The more traditional East Coast and the more experimental West Coast both mirrored and shaped our proclivities. Rick got his doctorate in Music Theory and still teaches theory at The University of Maryland. I never got a teacher’s certificate, Masters or Doctorate and studied independently Bulgarian bagpipe, Balinese gamelan, Philippine kulintang, Brazilian samba, Ghana xylophone, jazz piano and more in summer camps, verandas, kitchens and church basements.

Paul came to Key School at a young teacher and Rick recognized something in him the way Avon had recognized something in Rick. I had the same dynamic with James Harding and in the mystery of the way things develop, Rick was James’ Level II and III teacher and both Paul and Rick have co-taught with James in the SF Summer Course. Paul and Rick share a fondness for cars, bourbon, quick-witted repartee faster than I can keep up and music theory. They co-wrote a book on the Orff style of composition together and are now working on a second volume. Paul worked at Key for many years before relocating to Denver, his home state. He left teaching kids to become an arts coordinator for an extensive school district and so now he and Rick share the “retired from teaching kids directly” experience. While I continue (happily) on. 

Back to the Venn diagram. Amidst the commonalities, there’s so much we don’t share. Every year I’ve given a lecture at the summer course looking at the Orff approach from multiple angles, connecting it to neuroscience, mythology, psychology, jazz, trauma and healing, orality and literacy, ritual and ceremony, social justice, etc. That’s the afternoon that Paul and Rick look at each other and say, “Off to the bar!!” while I’m speaking. Neither are outdoors hike-in-the-woods-type, performing musicians, are not especially interested in world music and culture or writing. They have good values, but are not especially active in the social justice realm. 

But friends are not the people who think exactly the same and do the same and like exactly the same thing. We’ve always had deep respect (I think!) for each other’s ways and love the way we laugh together. The conversations this weekend were light and frothy but also sometimes serious and meaningful and we had fun driving in Paul’s GTO with the top down, playing Topgolf and cornhole, re-telling the stories of so many years together while still making new memories. And we’re not afraid to hug goodbye and sincerely tell each other how we love each other.

And we do. Looking forward to next year!