Art, Religion and New Life

Pop-pop Doug arrived one step closer yesterday. Thanks to modern technology, my daughter Kerala now knows that there is a girl inside her and she’s starting to kick. Just imagining both sends a thrill up my spine—new life is in the making. Creation is always a miracle to behold and sends us back to the profound mystery of it all. We wake up each morning taking for granted that the sun has risen, the earth has spun and the birds are singing in yet another day and sometimes we need a big drama like this to remind us just how extraordinary it all is.

Certainly one of the most stunning moments of my life was helping bring Kerala into this world almost 31 years ago. She was born at home in the midst of a San Francisco heat wave over a slow two-day labor with midwives, my sister and a fellow teacher at school attending. When she finally emerged, I cut the cord and took her in my trembling hands, so astonished that this lump in the belly was now a living, breathing being. While the midwives attended to my wife, I took her in the other room and whispered an old Buddhist saying in her ear: “In this body, there is birth and death and liberation from birth and death. Be a light unto yourself.” And sure enough, she has been.

The second birth with daughter Talia was no less remarkable, even though four years later already a bit familiar. I imagine that had I had 12 children, I might have been a bit jaded by the 12^th. And this is the deal with the way we’re constructed. As things become familiar, they lose a bit of their magic and glow and we’re vulnerable to them crusting over to mere habit. It is why adults are so much less interesting than children, those little folks for whom everything is still fresh and new, who walk through the world with their sense of wonder intact.

Why do we need a God or gods to justify that the world exists and that creation is at the heart of every day? Wouldn’t it be better to become gods ourselves by co-participating in the act of creation? Besides saving us from the rampage of hatred, small-mindedness, fanatacism, fundamentalism that so many religions have spawned, we would have no place to hide, no figure to do be enlightened for us or die for our sins. We would have to step up and claim our own capacity to create and thus, truly be one of God’s children.

And so enter art. We are most ourselves, most engaged, most happy, when we are creating something. Whether it be improvising jazz, working on a watercolor, writing a poem or shaping a dance routine, creation is what we were made for. And of course that includes cooking a good meal, making a home, inventing a gadget, imagining a new idea.

I suppose art is my religion because it has all the benefits of praise, prayer, worship and the sense of belonging without any of the dogma. It is why the time with those 17 children here in Salzburg was so unforgettable. We probably would have had fun just walking the streets in any case, but to have birthed and brought up the music that we created and shared it with the world brought the whole enterprise to another level.

Last night, Sofia and I led 150 people from 32 countries through children’s games from around the world re-imagined through our way of presenting them and extending them, further creating something from children’s creations. Once again, the laughter, connection and musical power in that room could have solved the energy crisis for at least a week. A parent thanking me for the recent trip asked, “How do you have so much energy?” and all I can think to answer is that devoting myself to the perpetual act of creation is the source that feeds me like an underground spring.

Zen Buddhism takes this a step further and though there is a history of Zen monks doing brush painting or writing haiku, art is sometimes viewed as a cheap imitation or distraction. The most profound act of creation is to sit in zazen meditation and die to your small self, to arise from the cushion and feel the whole world re-born in each breath. Indeed, in the seven-day meditation retreats I used to do, I often felt that sense of wonder restored and my awe for the simplest things—a light breeze passing through the trees, the shimmer of the gravel path, the chipmunk leaping on the rocks—bring the world wholly alive.

So no matter how big or small your personal act of creation is, claim it! Meanwhile, somewhere far away, my little granddaughter is growing and I can only gasp in astonishment that this can be. 

Laugh, Learn and Love

The poet Gary Snyder once wrote something to the effect of “99% of philosophy is people trying to justify the cage they’re trapped in.” To re-phrase that more positively, it seems that we often build our philosophies around our character and particularly way of seeing the world. I often say that the Orff approach to education is less a scientifically proven pedagogy than a style of teaching that fits the way some people naturally think and experience music, children or education.

I said a tearful goodbye to the kids last night after yet another fun-filled dinner and walk through the Salzburg streets and now can devote more attention to my classes here in the summer course. I’ve now taught four of the five groups and each class is filled with the usual laughter, fun and seriously satisfying music-making. Tonight I went to an evening lecture by the wonderful Orff teacher Christine Schonherr on “Orff for Advanced Ages.” We had parallel stories inasmuch as her mother entered an Old Age Home and while visiting her, she found herself attracted to making music and dancing with the folks there. While I mostly play piano and only once brought some Orff Instruments (see my Posting “My Mother Invents Orff Schulwerk”), she was bringing scarves, balloons, homemade kazoos, coconut shells and other fanciful tools from the Orff treasure chest. With photos and video, we watched the faces of the elderly radiate such joy and laughter, such playfulness and comradery, made all the more poignant by their usual sense of being abandoned, cut off from the young, unable to contribute their skills or share their wisdom. Beautiful work indeed and much needed. At the end, Christine said “Laughter and learning are good companions.” Amen to that.

Earlier, she had told me how much she had loved the SF School kid’s performance, particularly their natural enthusiam. She told me that she had recently seen the Vienna Boys Choir and though the sounds were well-executed and well-organized, there was no sense of joy. Not a bad complement to be told that your Middle School students rehearsing once a week for a few months put on a more captivating and engaging and joyful show than the Vienna Boys Choir!!

More and more, this is my complaint about so much music education and music performance. It’s so damn serious! And this has a lot to do with the abstractions of specialist culture, treating everything as something apart to be practiced with drudgery and dull discipline in isolated cubicles. Meanwhile, the Wagogo people of Tanzania are singing and playing complex music with such happiness and flawless execution, learning how to make music by making music every day of their lives. Indeed, one of the many gifts of the African diaspora is the whole-body and whole-hearted enjoyment of music-making. (Eddie Izzard has a hilarious Youtube clip showing the contrast between English churchgoers singing hymns and African-Americans singing Gospel. The folks who have been enslaved, beaten, murdered sing so joyfully and the folks who have all the power and money drone so drearily through their hymns. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtw8FtW4D-o )

So yet another round of gratitude that I found a practice and philosophy that suits my character so well, that invites me to laugh each day with my students of any age and enjoy every minute of the music we make because joy is at the center. By learning through laughter, by laughing and learning, we arrive also at love. Laugh, Learn and Love. I’ve been searching for a title for my book on education I hope to complete this Fall—maybe that’s it!

A Triumph!!

For anyone wondering when our kids were finally going to perform after all this build-up, it was today. In the Salzburg Mozarteum, Theater Solitar. On July 10. Appropriately enough, Carl Orff’s birthday. Standing room only in the theater—at 9 am in the morning. Our reputation preceded us and people came with high expectations. And may I say they were exceeded?

From the first slap on the body to the last note on the xylophones, the energy in that room was so charged we could have generated our own electricity. And we did. In fact, I was already so moved by the third piece that when I went to play the triangle for our Brazilian piece, my hand shook so much from the emotions coursing through my body that I couldn’t play my part. It just shook uncontrollably. One of the kids later said I was playing some interesting 32^nd notes, while another was looking at me like “Hello, Doug?! What is going on here?” I did recover, but there were several moments when I was on the side watching the kids with my chest heaving in sobs and sighs. How can I talk about it? You just had to be there.

When the last note died out, the audience leaped to their feet in one motion and 17 kids and four teachers held hands on the stage with thunderous applause vibrating through our bodies. What began as a thought last Summer, a working dream last Fall, a project that began rehearsals in Winter and a coherent concert that took shape slowly over the Spring had now reached its culminating moment and it was every bit as glorious as we all had imagined. More importantly, every moment of the preparation over all those long months was as fun and satisfying as the final realization. As I said to the audience after the concert: 

“My philosophy of music education is to create the kind of musicians you would like to play with as they mature. And the kind of human beings you’d like to hang out with. These kids, many of whom I have known since they were three years old, have been both. It could not have been more of a privilege and pleasure.”

Several comments from the folks in the audience:

• The first few pieces were stunning and then each piece after that, just as good. There was never a moment when the energy sagged or my attention wandered.

• I have never witnessed a concert with children as extraordinary as this—or any concert, for that matter!

• (Sincere look in the eyes and one minute later:) Wow! (and a pause) Wow.

• During _________, I was weeping. (Many different moments for different people)

• The joy! The communication! The natural quality! The dance! The music!!

• And from Frau Liselotte Orff, Carl Orff’s widow (now 80 years old):

“Carl would have loved this.”

There are things in this life that you just have to be there to understand, things that cannot be captured by words, or sound recordings or video. The vibrations in the air are real and palpable and have to be felt viscerally, smelled and tasted. And yet, I try to give a sense of it with words, a parent took a video and it was professionally videotaped, so perhaps those interested can get a taste. But better to invite us to perform for your venue. We’re available for bookings and I say that with my tongue only partly in my cheek.

Fact is, I’ll miss walking with 17 kids through downtown Salzburg playing The Cookie Jar, singing The Rice Krispies song or free-style rapping. Really. And I’ll certainly miss playing music with them. It just could not have been a better eight days—or eight months. And not quite over yet. Tomorrow, we go by train to Traunstein to visit The Carl Orff School and perform part of our program for the kids there. And have them play for us. Then, weather permitting, a swim in the Chiemsee lake and back for our final dinner.

For those curious about the program, I include it below. Meanwhile, with one hand saying goodbye to the kids, the other starts tomorrow morning with a six-day summer course at The Orff Institut, with 120 new teachers from Korea, Japan, Thailand, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus—in fact, 31 countries represented in all. I better plan tomorrow’s class!

THE SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL SALZBURG ORFF ENSEMBLE PRESENTS:

     MALLETS IN MALETAS: A SUITCASE SUITE

Musical Directors: Sofía López-Ibor, James Harding, Doug Goodkin

 

PROGRAM

1. Body Percussion/Freedom—This composition by Doug combines the work of Keith Terry, African-American Steppin’ and South African Gumboot Dancing (the latter choreographed by Jack Lestrada as taught by Janice Evans). Freedom is a South African song.

2. The Butterfly (Ireland)—This 9/8 slip-jig featuring harp and violin.

3. Sto Mi E Milo/ Bucemis (Bulgaria)—A song in 7/8 followed by a dance piece in 15/16, featuring the gaida, a Bulgarian bagpipe. 

4.   Areia/ Sindo Lele (Brazil) A Coco dance-rhythm song about the sea-sand, then a

            cocoa-harvesting song in the Lydian mode. 

       5.  Quitiplas/ Yaayaakole (Venezuela/ Ghana)— Bamboo tube drumming and singing

       followed by a Dagara xylophone (gyil) piece. 

6.  Movement Studies—These movement studies created by the students are

    accompanied by an arrangement of "eel bones," the traditional opening patterns of

    Balinese shadow puppet theater. 

       7.  Vivaldi- A percussion arrangement of the first movement of Vivaldi's Concerto in

    C Major for Mandolin accompanies an original film featuring animated and

    shadow images by the performers. 

8. Kuus Kuus  —This haunting lullaby was composed by the Estonian composer Arvo Part.

9. Sticks/ Jo-Jo—An original stick piece by Sofia followed by a Miles Davis tune, featuring hip-hop dancing and trumpet.

10. Dough-Re-Mi—An obscure Lionel Hampton tune.

11. Soul Sauce—A Dizzy Gillespie Latin-jazz composition made famous by Cal Tjader. 

12. Malambo (Argentina)—We close with this spirited zapateado rhythm from La Pampa in Argentina.

Step Up, Step Down

Shall I make yet another public confession? I’m very aware of my need to articulate things in language, both writing and speaking. When it works well, people often say the same thing: “You have said what I feel, but didn’t have the words for.” When it doesn’t work well, people say (or think), “When the hell are you going to shut-up?!” And sometimes both types of responses are in the same talk. That means if I listen wholly to the latter, I may miss the opportunity to touch someone in the former way. And if I listen wholly to the former, I may indeed take up too much air space.

So today, when James, Sofia and I had 90 minutes to present a portrait of the music program at The San Francisco School and the role of Orff Schulwerk in the community culture, I had 30 minutes to say my piece. I began with a 10-minute introduction to the history of the school, turned it over to James to elaborate on the Middle School Curriculum, complete with musical examples. I had 20 minutes more allotted to finish my thoughts, but our kids had come in and so Sofia suggested that she go next, since her approach was to interview the kids. Her first question was: “Can you imagine the school without the music program?” The kids’ response stunned me. Things like:

• “Without music, it would be a less welcoming place.”

• “The first thing I noticed when I came here at 5 years old was how happy everyone was. And the music was a big part of what made them happy. Or at least allowed them to express it.”

• “We wouldn’t be the same community, because music is the glue that holds us together.”

• “In music class, we have to work with lots of different people and make something up together and that really opens my eyes to kids who I normally wouldn’t hang out with.”

• “None of our celebrations would be the same without music.”

• “Our school is so different from other schools because of the way we learn and use music.”

• “Without the music program, I wouldn’t be sitting here in Salzburg!”

I was furiously scribbling and missed a lot of other gems coming from these 11-14 year old kids, but gems they were. They get it. They don’t just receive what we try to give to them, they understand its value and can articulate it. When Sofia asked them to describe the differences between their three music teachers, I grew visibly nervous. Quite a risk to take in front of 40 or 50 International teachers who already know us through direct workshops or reputation! But the kids described us to a tee—our strengths, our styles, our quirks, our foibles and they did so with great affection.

Of course, this is probably universally true. Kids are generally much more perceptive, aware and articulate than we give them credit for. Ask them someday how teachers dress or have them imitate our gestures and expressions and you’ll see what I mean. But of course, we don’t often ask them, not only because we’re afraid to see ourselves in their mirror, but also because we think we’re so dang smart and that the bulk of important information flows only from adult to child.

The punch line of this entry, my public confession, is simply this: I will always want to speak in my own style and from the confluence of the way I bring different worlds of thought together. This will probably just get worse as I age. But I do need to remember to invite others to speak the things I want said and this can be as simple as framing the right question. I never did get my promised 20 more minutes in our three-way split, but I didn’t need them because the kids had spoken most of what I would have said— and it was much more powerful and meaningful coming from them. After all, what’s the use of me claiming that music is important in the school if the students themselves don’t agree?!

My promise to myself in any situation is to wait a bit to see if anyone else might speak what needs to be said. If so, I’ll happily lower my hand. If not, I’ll happily say it. But the most important thing is that the things that need to be said at the moment are said. It doesn’t particularly matter who says them.

I did take the last five minutes to put things my own way and starting choking up as I described the profound healing impact of music, telling the story of how we sang ourselves partly through the trauma of 9/11 and equally through the joy of other notable events (the Giant’s World Series win!). After the workshop was over, one of the 14-year old boys came up to me, looked me in the eye and said, “You made me start to cry.”

People, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Dance, Sing and Read

I noticed that yesterday was my 100^th posting. There are 26 followers and the Stats part indicates that the site has had 4,809 visits since its inception in January. I know that compared to Justin Beiber’s billions of hits that’s pretty small potatoes and there’s probably some irony that I would complain that music and dance trump the slow world of print and ideas by an astounding ratio. But still I’m inspired by the act of trying to corral impressions and transform them to expressions via the written word, grateful that there are people still willing to go through the work of converting mere arrangements of letters to the fireworks of imagination. 

Some years back, I wrote a manifesto for my ideal culture titled Dance, Sing and Read. I had been reading a number of books on the history, psychology, anthropology of literate culture and was forming a sense of how every technological shift (and a book certainly qualifies as a technology) brings both gifts and losses. The printed word became a new way to store information across time—we can read the thoughts of Plato and Shakespeare—and across space—the poetry of Basho or Rumi. It extended human memory far beyond the bodies and minds of the elders in the village and expanded human thought and discourse past the edges of a particular tribal lore and custom. The educated literate person can handle multiple perspectives, grow larger and find affirmation from people far away in time and place, understand abstract ideas and build book by book whole philosophies and systems of thought. The rise of mass literacy— really, a recent phenomena of about 100 years amidst hundreds of thousands of years of the human experiment—has contributed enormously to our collective thought and knowledge.

But not without a price. The oral culture’s method of storing, disseminating and passing on knowledge relies on artistic media—poetry, song, dance, storytelling, icon and image, ritual and theater. Each member of a community is valued because they can contribute to the collective knowledge and the elders are particularly honored as the storehouse of local knowledge wedded with wisdom. Whereas the scope of the knowledge is more limited, it is also more connected to the local land and weather and culture and breeds a sense of belonging and meaning. Oral peoples are more likely to be connected to their own bodies and voices, their neighbors, their local landscape and biology, their sense of belonging and cultural identity.

All of this turns out to be directly relevant to the teacher because we all begin life as oral learners. All preschool children are exquisite dancers, expressive storytellers, intuitive singers and chanters. When we initiate them into print, we need them to shut down their bodies so the energy can concentrate in the left hemisphere of the brain to decode those abstract symbols. We hear their voice grow flat and dull as they piece the words together and later, if we put on a play with a script, we shout them to “add expression!” But the preschool child is expression, needs no exhortation to add dynamics or punctuate with the hands or body. It is literacy that, left unchecked, can shut down the body and even the heart, asking for cold calculation and objective handling of ideas free from pesky emotion.

And so, dance, sing and read. In another words, keep the natural propensity the young ones have for dancing and singing growing and developing. And Orff Schulwerk is a fabulous way to do just that.

At the same time that they develop scientific thinking, critical analysis and the capacity to open the heart in a different way through printed poetry, stories, novels, they also need to keep exercising the ancient ways of remembering, storing and transmitting information through the body and voice. If they give their power over to a book or computer, they can’t stay awake driving from Verona singing 100 rounds and reciting poetry.

The other day, our SF Orff Ensemble broke spontaneously into three-part Bulgarian harmony in downtown Salzburg and gave the passing tourists a few moments of pleasure. We put on a lunchtime body percussion show on top of the fortress. Yesterday, they entered the Orff Institute for the first time (a historic moment!) and accidentally met the man who composed one of the songs they sing. We sang for him in the entryway and then he led us down singing through the halls and into the meeting room where the delegates from the 47 International Orff Associations where meeting. After the thunderous applause and clear delight of the music teacher audience subsided, the kids went off on a bike ride, smiling from ear to ear to feel their power to sing and play in a variety of styles at a moment’s notice, the way it connects them together, the way it connects them to an audience. We improvised a piece with our differently pitched bike bells while we rode and later that night, while James, Sofia and I had to be elsewhere, they went to dinner with our parent chaperones and entertained the waiters with another song and Table Rhythms.

Earlier, I was talking with one of the 7^th graders about the film Midnight in Paris and she told me that after the movie, she went to the library and checked out some of F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s books. These kids have been habitually trained to access their imagination through reading, to develop their thought and follow their curiosity about how the world works and this indeed makes them educated and interesting young people. But at the same time, they also have trained their bodies to be expressive, trained their voices to help unlock their hearts, turned their understanding of Vivaldi’s sequences or West African polyrhythms or the 12-bar blues to express another faculty of their soul. They are the leaders in an “oraliterate” culture that combines the gifts of both oral and literate culture.

Back to my 100^th Blog, my little piece of literary heaven. Thank you, dear readers, for lifting this out of the private journal mode and giving me the sensation that these little entries might at the least be mildly entertaining and at the most, contribute to a small community of thought and public discourse. The capacity to comment and make it more dialogue than monologue has yet to be fully exploited (I think my daughter Talia has made the most comments!), but I have a feeling I’m competing with Facebook here, a technology much more friendly to the quick reaction. Nevertheless, I still would welcome any ideas or parallel experiences you might have that were kick-started by these ideas and stories.

Meanwhile, on to today’s rehearsal and the next 100 postings. 

The Salzburg Connection

Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia.

Spain, Italy, Turkey, Greece.

Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic.

Russia, China, England, France.

Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong.

Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand.

Colombia, Brazil, Canada, U.S.

Sounds like one of the rhythmic chants so common in Orff teaching—and it could be. But it is also the names of many of the countries represented here in the meeting of the Orff Forum in Salzburg. These are many—but not all— of the places where the wildflower seed of this inspired pedagogy has been planted and taken root. Some of the leading people in each country are here to share their successes, their challenges, their questions, their solutions.

But for me, the meeting has another dimension. I walked into the room and saw so many old (20 years since I met them) and new friends and acquaintances, many of whom hosted me so graciously when I gave a workshop or course in their country. So instead of abstract countries, I saw:

Nanna, Malo, Soili, Tuuli

Gabriel, Andrea, Fatosh, Katerina

Werner, Uli, Malina, Jarka

Slava, Cao Li, Margaret, Erich,

Sataporn, Hao Su, Paul, May-Tan

Young jeon kim, Ukiko, Biddy, René

Astrid, Mayumi, Cathy, Karen

Colleagues James, Sofia and I left Verona on Sunday night in our tiny rented Fiat car. Somewhere around 1 in the morning, James (the official driver) was getting sleepy. Solution to stay awake? Think of and sing 100 rounds. We did it and then took turns reciting memorized poetry, both of which re-charged us enough to pull safely into Salzburg at 2:30 in the morning. Next morning, up bright and early to begin the first round of meetings, meet the 17 kids from our school at the airport, have an outdoor dinner in the Sternbrau and watch them deal with some 25 hours of plane travel without sleep—ie, continue to hang out and run around. We all forgot about July 4^th and Louis Armstrong’s birthday (mythologically speaking, July 4^th, 1900) and I had no way to wish Chester happy 17^th birthday. Which didn’t matter to him, since he’s my cat.

Next morning, a rehearsal in the Youth Hostel where we’re staying. One month without meeting and they remembered every nuance of our opening body percussion piece. Then off to the Schloss Fortress on top of the hill in downtown Salzburg. We performed spontaneously there for people eating lunch and people seemed mildly interested, but no coins came showering our way. I needed to bike to the next round of Forum meetings while the kids went swimming, both in intermittent downpours. Welcome to Salzburg!

In our fantasy, our students would be fascinated by the details of the Schloss architecture and history and indeed, they were mildly interested in both. But of course, the highlight was the Funicular ride up and down and the promise of the swimming pool. As I said in some recent blogs, kids have their priorities straight.

After dinner, we went to the Marionette Show, which most commonly shows The Magic Flute. But tonight was The Sound of Music and the production was entertaining, intriguing, funny and at times, mesmerizing—“How did they do that?” Marionettes have the advantage of kicking up their heels during a number and continuing to hover and fly through the air, a skill the puppeteers took advantage of many times. We got a quick backstage tour and demonstration after the show and it indeed was impressive to watch the effect of a simple (yet, oh so complex— a three-year training) manipulation of strings. Inside the Orff Institute at our Forum meetings, we’re discussing how creativity and imagination are bread and water to the human spirit, while outside the room, people are devoting huge portions of their time to pulling strings to give 90 minutes of exercise to our pleasure and fancy. In the various meetings. there is always a sigh of discouragement about how little understanding and support the official world of Universities and media and politicians give to our endeavors to release and train the imaginations of children. And yet, we continue to do our work any which way we can and children all around the world are refreshed.

Like our 17 kids. Not only do they get the pleasure of learning, creating, playing and performing some great music and dance, but they get to go to Salzburg to do it!

Tinker Tailor

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich man, Poor man, Beggarman, Thief!”

This rhyme is on the first page of Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman’s groundbreaking book Music for Children (the first of five Volumes) and suddenly seems more prophetic than a mere collection of words that promote beat awareness. Since I already wrote about one of the rhyme’s extensions—“Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief”—I wondered if the beginning of the rhyme would hold up and sure enough, it kind of does.

Take Tinker. The Orff teacher is often not only tinkering around on the xylophones, but also putting in new nails and laying rubber tubing. As Tailor, we stitch together the different parts of a lesson without letting the seams show. We also mend the torn cloth of art’s full costume, joining playing, singing and dancing, integrating with other arts and subjects, tailoring the full Technicolor dream-coat. We Soldier our mallets high to defend the boundaries of music education and are prepared to play high F’s on the sopranino recorder to tumble down the walls of Jericho’s Dept. of Testing. We sail off to the horizon, always looking beyond the safe and comfortable into the uncharted waters of possibility. We are Rich in our soul-life, doubly blessed with the legacy of music and the constant surprise and delight of children’s curious and quirky minds. We are Poor by the outer standards of career prestige in this culture and yes, sometimes need to Beg to save our jobs—or at least raise enough money at the bake sale. As for Thieves, we freely admit it, we shamelessly steal any new idea or practice that enlarges the imagination. The coda of Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, discussed in the earlier blog, completes the 12 faces of our profession— and I’m sure I could think of 12 more.

I’m back at work, in Verona, Italy, teaching a morning class on “Structures for Improvisation” and an afternoon one on “Brain Rules: Teaching to the Way We Actually Learn.” I’m teaching part in English, part in Spanish, much through the body and gesture and some with a translator. So we might add Neuroscientist, Psychologist, Linguist, Dancer, Actor and more to that list and not be far off the mark. Oh, and Musician.

It is as much a pleasure as it has always been and if I let myself ease down into that swamp of doubt we all have below the surface, my two biggest fears are arriving at the moment when I don’t feel the same pleasure anymore in this work. Or worse yet, my students don’t feel any pleasure in attending my workshops or classes and my name slowly slips off the invitation lists. That day may come and the law of natural selection suggests that it will certainly ease off in the next ten or fifteen years, both to make way for the young folks coming up and to listen to the inevitable changes in body and mind that await me. But when I see jazz pianists Dave Brubeck and Marion McPartland still getting gigs in their 90’s and marvel at my Zen teacher still teaching at 104 years old, I feel heartened that it’s not necessarily inevitable. So if anyone wants to make be feel confident here, book me for a workshop in 2041 and I’ll make sure I save the date.

Meanwhile, I’m back in the double pleasure of putting in a good day’s work and having a taste of tourism. Instead of going back to my hotel overlooking a parking lot and flicking through the cooking channels on Cable TV, I go into Verona, eat rucola pizza on the piazza, go see The Barber of Seville outdoors at La Arena and pay my visit to Juliet, alas! too late for the traditional breast-rub out of reach behind the closed gates. But the night is a perfect temperature, the streets alive with people, the gelaterias remarkable. The heart and soul of Italy is alive and well. Jimmy Stewart had it right—it’s a wonderful life.