Thermonuclear Re-Energization

“ The sun contains a massive number of hydrogen atoms. Typically, a neutral hydrogen atom contains a positively charged proton and a negatively charged electron that orbits it. When this atom meets one of its fellow hydrogen atoms, their respective outer electrons magnetically repel each other like bodyguards. This prevents any of the protons from meeting each other. But the sun’s core is so hot and so pressurized that atoms whiz around with so much kinetic energy that they overcome the force binding them together and electrons separate from their protons. This means the protons, usually stuck inside the hydrogen atom’s nucleus, can actually touch, and they join together in a process called thermonuclear fusion.

Just like inside a nuclear reactor, atoms inside the sun’s core slam into each other every second. Most often, four hydrogen protons fuse together to create one helium atom. Along the way, a tiny bit of the mass in those four miniscule protons is “lost;” but since the universe conserves matter, it can’t just disappear. Rather, that mass gets converted into a dramatic amount of energy…”

From Popular ScienceWebsite in answer  to the question: “Why doesn’t the sun burn itself out?”

A music teacher asked for help on Facebook around the issue of “teacher burn-out.” Out came the stories of all the teachers who had faced the same dilemma and some of their successes in overcoming it. Here was mine: 

“There are so many reasons for burn-out. Exterior ones like a school that's not supportive and demands too many unnecessary hoops to jump through, colleagues you don't enjoy, unworkable demanding schedule. All of those can be "fixed" by identifying the source and taking the necessary action—new school, advocating for better schedule, etc. 

But then there are the interior ones—the honeymoon is over,  or never happened, or you’re teaching the wrong age, or you’re tired of your way of teaching, or you finally have to admit you were meant for a different vocation. Harder to "fix." 

In reality, it is probably a combination of many of the above and more that weren’t mentioned. But the one you have the most control over is the way you’re actually teaching. If you meet kids where they are, organize your classes around the way kids actually are, how each age tends to think and how they learn best and what they tend to care about, you have a good chance of giving them exactly what they need. 

And then they in turn will give you exactly what you need—the feedback of their excitement, energy, enthusiasm, all of which helps you feel that you’re on the right track and you should keep doing down that path. If you’re teaching well, they’ll also discover that extraordinary musicality and when you make music together—at any age—the music itself will come back to you and give you yet more energy. Like the sun, the protons of your passion and energy and enthusiasm and musicality touch the protons of the children and there is an explosive release of energy that comes back to you both. 

In my case, I work very, very hard to prepare the classes for a fairly demanding schedule—6 to 8 classes a day over an 11-year range (3-year-olds to 8^thgrade). Being 67-years-old and having done this for 44 years at the same school, I should be feeling tired. But I’m not! Whether it’s 3-year-olds skipping back to their place and arriving at their spot exactly on the last note of the cadence, 4^thgraders playing a complex and exuberant clapping play or 8^thgraders knocking out killer blues solos, the music constantly refreshes and energizes me. As does the kids' happiness in making it, their quirky comments, astute insights, impressive support of each other and playful spirit whether they’re 3 or 13. These are kids low on the end of polite “I'll listen quietly and do whatever you say" skills, but high on the end of “Yeehaw!!” It takes a lot of energy to corral and focus their energy, but when it works, it comes back multiplied. In short, energy begets energy, the protons keep slamming into each other and producing renewable vigor and vitality. 

So take a look at what you can do to infuse your classes with child-like play, lightness, humor and joy and see if you feel the diminishing flame of your passion spark back to life. Good luck!”

Dancing with the Day

Finally my cold let go of its stranglehold and took off to bother someone else. Instead of just doing what it takes to survive the moment, now I’m ready to get back into the driver’s seat of my own life. So I wake up and ask two questions:

1.    Hello, Day! What do you have in store for me?

2.    Hello Day! What will I bring to you today?

 The first acknowledges that World has its own momentum and sometimes life is what happens when you’re making other plans. We’re not wholly in control and need to stay open to what the day offers. But that doesn’t mean just waiting around for “whatever.”

And so the second speaks the need to make some plans and grab some control of your destiny. Have an intention and consciously vow to bring something worthy to the hours gifted to you. 

It’s in the dance between the two where the Day wholly lives. 

So today. Looks like World is offering yet more rain and 50 degree temperatures and hopefully nothing in the way of big or small disasters. Hoping the garage door will open (having trouble with that lately), the car will start, the de-alarming of school goes well and the 26 people signed up for my workshop will arrive. I’ve made detailed plans to bring joy, laughter, connection, communion and good ideas and material to be passed on later to children in the way that I know how—through music. 

In today’s workshop, mostly songs for all ages with intriguing elaborations and extensions. For someone who didn’t grow up in a singing family, school or culture, this is a surprise of sorts. But more and more I’m convinced that my ability to sing with people of all ages and in all places, to get them singing, an ability honed by long years of meticulous effort, is perhaps one of my greatest gifts as a teacher. Maybe even as a person! And for a non-singer, that’s impressive!

Let’s go, Day! Hope it’s as good for you as I suspect it will be for me!

Perfect Fit

Today I taught a piece to 4^thgraders that I first worked out in 1983. Hadn’t really done it since then, but it held up. Then walking through my colleague James’ class, I noticed he was doing a piece he created in his 2^ndyear of teaching back in 1992. Also a winner! And this got me thinking of Picasso’s quote: 

, 

“I don’t develop. I am.”

Meaning there are hundreds of ways in which we can improve as artists, teachers, athletes, etc., but mostly those who achieve something noteworthy had everything ready in place in seed form. The acorn held the blueprint and the first little sprout of the oak was as mighty in its way as the full bloom of the tree. And that particular acorn gifted to them came from another world, from an unfathomable, mysterious place, but real nonetheless.

This is a hard truth to grapple with as a teacher trying to believe in the potential of all children in all subjects. But truth be told, there is no program of development that will turn a pine cone into an oak tree. There is an ecology to the forest of human potential in which its necessary that there be a quota or limit of people who rise to the top. If everyone was a musician, who would ever get work at the club? 

Yet for everyone to be musical, well, that is a worthy and doable goal. For everyone to be handy enough to fix a few things around the house, artistic enough to get pleasure in drawing, eloquent enough to write a poem or two. I believe all people would be refreshed by the opportunity to improve their powers in these ways and the culture would as well. But when it comes down to the fundamental questions like “What calls to me and how do I heed that call?” we have to notice how we fit with numbers or words or tones or images or motions and note how our way is just a cut above our neighbor’s. And if we’re lucky, someone who has been further down the path will notice us and give us special attention, in defiance of the fantasy of being “fair by the clock” that modern thinking would have us do.

When you are fortunate enough to find a perfect fit, as myself and my colleagues James and Sofia have in this strange esoteric world of Orff Schulwerk with its unique combination of skill, there are some other signs that it was all meant to be. If you can stumble out of a plane after 17 hours of travel and teach 40 people for 6 hours the next day, that’s a sign. If you can show up at school with head-pounding and sinuses dripping and still bring some joy to 5-year-olds, why, there’s another. If you can sit down to try to figure out in the midst of 30 unattended things on the list to check off what to choose and what to leave out and how to order them in an upcoming workshop and come up an hour later with a coherent plan for the full day, that’s because this is simply what you know how to do. None of it makes you special or brilliant, but all of it makes you lucky that you found your work Soul Mate and were loyal in spite of his or her poor income, status and fickle love. 

I am sure I am a better teacher in general than I was 44 years ago or even yesterday and a better jazz pianist after all those years trying to work things out. But when I look back at some old work with kids or listen to a crackling cassette tape of my fledgling jazz improvisations, I hear myself pretty much exactly as I am. 

I think the hardest lesson I’ve learned as an adult is to give up on the naïve hope that people really change. When you’ve spent a lifetime arranging your life to support the way you feel safe and invulnerable, you’re not going to give that up and re-consider without some dramatic catastrophe to shake you up. And even then probably not. I even had a few (very fleeting) moments when I thought Trump would wise up in a few areas, but …well, no comment needed. It sounds a bit cynical, but it’s real. 

For me the punch line is for me to invest energy in people in my field who already “are,” or to put it more precisely, are aligned with the way myself and my colleagues work. No judgment—a pine is a pine and that is fine. And oak is an oak and that ain’t no joke. The big mistake is to think that you can get oaks from pine cones and pine trees from acorns. Ain’t gonna happen.

Pity Party

"Would you like to attend my Pity Party?" That’s an invitation no one wants to get. 

On my Sunday in Kansas City, the expected blizzard didn’t come and that was a good thing. But the interactive booths at the Jazz Museum weren’t working and that was a pity. I got to the airport on time, but waited an extra three hours because of low clouds in San Francisco. Home by 11:30 pm with the first little sniffle appearing and then 7 hours straight of meetings with my colleagues the next day to get necessary planning done. Back to school the next day to teach and the cold I thought I could skip around grabbed me and sent me down the drippy hallways of sneezes and sniffles and sinus headaches. Woke up today feeling a tad better and then 5 classes at school threw me down again. And apparently, since I couldn’t watch the Warriors on TV in a hotel room, they were trounced by the Celtics. The rain in San Francisco just will not stop and yes, it’s better than a drought, but enough is enough! And I have a 6-hour workshop to teach this Saturday.

Aren’t you glad I didn’t invite you to my Pity Party? 

Thoughts on a Snowless Night

What a pleasure and privilege to yet again teach a one-day workshop to dedicated music teachers from a local Orff Chapter. People who “gave up” a full Saturday to have the chance to affirm themselves, challenge themselves, be soothed by the familiar, by excited by the new. From exuberant and vigorous jazz to tender and quiet expressive movement, from the childlike fun of “Roses are Red” to the adult encounter with complex body percussion, from the social networking with fellow colleagues to the reflective thought of pedagogical principles, I believe most people felt it was a day well spent. One that may echo on in their teaching and in their musicianship and even in their personal and professional lives. Or not. No guarantee, but it has happened. And often. 

I believe the first official Orff Chapter workshop I ever gave was in Los Angeles in Fall of 1984, quickly followed by Chicago. Since then, I’ve toured the U.S. presenting at most (but not all) of the local Orff Chapters. To my recollection, that would include Fairbanks, Anchorage, Honolulu, Seattle, Spokane, Portland, Eugene, Chico, Sacramento, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Orange County, San Bernadino, San Diego, Tuscon, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Reno, Boise, Salt Lake City, Billings, Denver, Pueblo, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Oklahoma (Quartz Mt.), Des Moines, Iowa City, Omaha, Kansas City (Kansas and Missouri) St. Louis, Wyoming, Bloomington, Lexington, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo, Cleveland, Madison, St. Paul, Memphis, Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Asheville, Raleigh, Atlanta, New Orleans, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Washington DC, Baltimore, New Jersey, New York, Rochester, Hartford, Boston, Portland (Maine) and a few more. 

Maybe it looks like I’m bragging here, but besides the challenge of trying to recall something about each of the above, my punchline is simply this—I don’t believe I ever had a bad day at a single one of these places. Yes, the piano and the lighting could have been better (like today) in some places, but the energy and enthusiasm of teachers who choose to be better and keep growing, the volunteer spirit of the grassroots organizers working long hours for no pay, the generosity of schools opening their facilities, is all something worthy of celebration.

And then the perks of getting to taste a bit of local culture. Like the Q39 Barbecue Place my host took me too last night. And the Jazz and Baseball Museum I hope to visit today. If I can get through the snow predicted to begin at 3 am. Still on Singapore time, I’m writing this at 2:30 am and no sign of it yet. But if it falls too fast and furious, I may be spending more time in Kansas City than I planned!

And speaking of Singapore. I was so impressed by the whole complex of teaching colleges devoted to both training teachers and then continuing their training. All bought and paid for by a Ministry of Education committed to cultivating properly our most valuable resources—the children. I was hired to teach because they committed themselves to including jazz in their high school curriculum. Not just funding jazz bands for the kids with the interest in playing saxophone and such, but exposing all students to the wonders and freedoms of this American art form. In Singapore! 

Meanwhile, in the U.S., teachers struggle to get professional development funds to attend workshops like mine and jazz is not a mandatory subject in all schools. To say the least. So rather than wait for a sudden governmental epiphany, Orff folks in the cities mentioned above (and beyond) take time to insure a better music education for hundreds of thousands of children, on their own time and their own dime. And if I have my way, that will include more jazz education at each and every level. 

Especially in Kansas City! New Orleans, may have been the birthplace of jazz up through the 20’s, but no question that its teenage years in the 30’s were in Kansas City! (And the adult years in New York.) The three great jazz saxophonists of that time—Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Ben Webster, all came from there, as did the next prophet of the emerging jazz styles, Charlie Parker. Count Basie (a New Jersey-born fellow) cut his teeth here and the bands of Bennie Moten, Jay McShann heated up the city on even the coldest of nights. The great pianist Mary Lou Williams, bassist Walter Page, drummer Jo Jones and so many more joined the party and the future of the music in the visionary Pat Metheny had its roots here as well. 

These some random thoughts at 3 a.m. on a still snowless night in Kansas City. May the snow plows come out as needed and all planes take off on time!

Special Powers

Miracles come in many sizes and shapes. I’m ready to claim a minor one here, as follows.

If I could get them on TV, I’d believe I’d watch just about every Golden State Warriors basketball game. I just like watching basketball and the old cliché of “poetry in motion” holds true when I watch these fine fellows play. Luckily, I can’t get them on my TV and thus, have saved myself some precious time. 

But I often have had the good fortune of flicking on a hotel TV and there they are! And there goes my evening, happily so. And I would say just about every single time, some 10 times this season, I tune in somewhere around the beginning of the third quarter and they are behind by some 10 to 15 points. And get ready (Twilight Zone music here) for the miraculous. 

Just about every single time, the moment I tune in, they go on a 13-spree mostly led (no surprise) by Steph Curry. And then go on to win the game. Yesterday, it was undecided up until the last 1.7 seconds and then they won by 3 against the 76’ers. For this to happen a few times would be an uncanny coincidence, but I swear this has happened most every single one of the 10 times I’ve watched! Behind in the 3^rdquarter, victory at the end.

I don’t want to claim too much, but I can’t help but feel that me tuning in is somehow responsible. Some latent special powers I have are announcing themselves. Warriors, are you listening? Perhaps you should purchase a new TV plan for me? Or get me more workshops that lands me in hotels? Of course, you’re good, but we all could use help, yes? 

Just sayin’. 

Go Warriors!

It Could Always Be Worse

The first day of March has me fulfilling the Blog title, winging to Kansas City for an Orff workshop. After battling a mysterious sore neck last week, woke up to a mysterious sore hip and still feeling the echoes of jet lag. Compared to sunny summery Singapore, San Francisco is overcast, cold and rainy. Between rain and schedule, didn’t get to ride my bike all week, my eating habits have devolved to inhaling copious amounts that make the needle rise on the bathroom scale, my e-mails-to-be-answered keep multiplying like stud rabbits and it seems I’ve mysterious arrived an hour early in Kansas City and my driver is still at school. Oh, TSA confiscated my toothpaste, claiming it was too big.

But it all could be so much worse. Like the Jewish folk-tale that I’ve done two or three times with the kids. The father in the family is complaining about the crowded conditions and noise and chaos in his small house with the wife and four noisy kids. He goes to the Rabbi who suggests he bring the cat who lives outside into the house. Doesn’t make sense to him, but hey, Rabbi knows best, so he does. The cat jumps up on counters knocking things over, yowls, makes messes. Back to the Rabbi and now a suggestion to bring a dog into the house. The dog chases the cat, barks loudly, jumps up on the couch shedding hairs. Back to the Rabbi. Three more times and in comes the goat, the sheep, the cow. Finally, the man has the gumption to tell the Rabbi that his advice is terrible. The Rabbi suggests taking all the animals out of the house and the house is restored to its former state. Only now, mysteriously, it seems so quiet and peaceful and spacious. And then the punch line: “Remember, no matter how bad things get, they could always be worse!”

We would all do well to remember. We could have a President who succeeded in his wishes to be above the law, to take away term limits, to muzzle the free press. But those necessary institutions have stood strong and I’m counting the days until he goes down. Kansas City is much colder than San Francisco, so why complain about 50 degree days? And they do sell toothpaste here. Much to be grateful for.

My ride about to arrive. On we go.