Haunted

“We cease to be haunted when we cease to be afraid of making what has been untouchable, real. Especially our understandings of the past; and especially those we wronged or were wronged by; or those we did not help. We become real by forgiving ourselves and we forgive ourselves by changing the foundational pattern, and especially to changing our present behavior to those we have hurt.” –David Whyte Consolations

After praising David Whyte yesterday, I promised a reflection on a chapter in his book and here it is. Let’s start with the idea of haunting. Years back, my colleagues James and Sofia and I visited a plantation. I was fascinated by how they would spin the story of slavery and it definitely was an odd mix. The books they were selling would say things like “Slavery was bad. And here’s the room where the mistress made a list of the day’s chores.” The tour guide mostly focused on a story about the ghosts in the house, a slave who was a mistress to the master, poisoned his wife’s food and then got caught and of course, killed. My colleague Sofia wisely noted that they were focusing on this particular story of haunting to distract us from the real story, about how the whole country was haunted by 400 years of brutality that we never have properly atoned for and thus, the wandering spirits of restless souls can be felt everywhere, from the tourist plantation to the New York City ghetto.

We love to watch all the occult movies about ghosts, are fascinated by it and fail to note the deeper story of the sins our ancestors committed that have been deemed untouchable, unspeakable by mainstream culture. And thus, all we wronged and all we did not help are still waiting for us to speak what needs to be spoken before they can rest in peace. When it comes to things like the genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of West Africans, we can’t forgive ourselves too easily with surface consolations that we didn’t do it and “thank goodness things are so much better now.” We indeed must hear the unspoken stories, feel the grief, look for rituals of reconciliations (The Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in South Africa were a good step in that direction, the apology from the Australian government to the Aborigines another worthy model) and most importantly, “change the foundational pattern, change our present behavior.” The recent epidemic of police slaying of young black men who are then absolved of the crime is a sure sign that such atonement has still not happened and more haunting will continue on to the next generation.

My entry into all of this is my 8^th grade jazz history class, where I enter the stories through the filter of jazz and it’s brutal and triumphant history. I’m thinking about writing a book titled: Stormy Weather: Social Justice, Music Education and American Musicals. Intriguing? My theory is that if every American child were mandated to take a course on the American Musical seen through the eyes of the unspoken not only told, but sung, danced and played, that we could finally claim the full measure of our identity— acknowledge the practiced terrorisms of our government and the consenting silence of our citizens next to all the bravery and courage and beauty of those who spoke out, in words, in actions, in songs, in music, dance, art and more.

I imagine David Whyte was thinking more of our personal haunting than our collective one, but it’s all one piece. Both are necessary to pay attention to. Watching the Warrior’s game yesterday, I was trying to imagine all commercial breaks with vignettes from Howard Zinn’s book telling the captive audience what really went down in our country. Of course, the commercials were the same-old same-old—violent video games, military ads, movies showing San Francisco being destroyed by natural cataclysm, sexy and powerful cars and of course, beer. (Bad beer, I might add.) And so the haunting continues and no end in sight.

My new motto? One ghost at a time.

Praise to the Poet!

If it’s true that the Inuit have some twenty plus words for snow, it’s no surprise why. Living with it day after day for a lifetime would naturally reveal the nuances of snow in a way that makes no sense to the dweller in the desert. They would distinguish between degrees of dryness and wetness, small and large flakes, snow with or without wind, snow on the edge of hail and so on.

So when we try to make sense of our interior landscape, who should we turn to? We need someone tuned to the elusive weather of our feelings, our moods, our sense of self. Someone who makes a habit of attention to both inner and outer worlds and then searches for the language to shed light on it. Without the right words, without naming something or giving it an image or the bridge of a metaphor to help it cross between worlds, we can’t wholly know something. The precise word for a feeling or constellation of feelings allows us the distance to observe it from the safe haven of a room enclosed in language, spares us the possibility of being blown away or drenched or pummeled by it.

Enter the poet. In the hands of the skilled poet, we come not only to recognize ourselves, but are introduced to new shades of meaning and nuances of color. David Whyte is such a poet, one who has not only written a sizable collection of poetry, but has memorized a few hundred poems from many times and places. He lectures, gives readings and workshops worldwide and it his precise attention to language cultivated by a lifetime practice that constantly astonishes me. He is like the Artur Rubinstein or Keith Jarrett of the human psyche, a virtuoso who is in control of such fine subtleties in his perception that careful attention to his words always reveals a new depth and breadth to whatever the subject at hand.

Like any artist, he has his signature phrases that could almost become cliché— “initiate the needed conversation,” “ move toward the beckoning horizon,” “pay fierce attention.” But he lives them and means them and elaborates on them in ever-changing contexts so that they remain fresh and useful. In his new book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, he helps take a new look at what we take for granted and see them from a new, often surprising perspective. It’s not easy to claim that “anger is the deepest form of compassion,” “denial is an ever-present and even splendid thing” and “despair is a haven with its own temporary form of beauty” and get away with it! But if you stick with him, his turning things on their head reveals the often unseen side and in so doing, helps us see the large picture of their necessary presence in our life. Armed with new vision and precise language, we can work with it all rather than by worked by it.

In my case, the two chapters on “Disappointment” and “Forgiveness” illuminated these twin themes of my past eight years in a way that no friend offering advice or consolation could. That’s the magic of the poet. They arrive at some universal understanding that speaks to your particular situation as if they knew it intimately. And then they give you the image or thought or phrase that allows you to see it all in a larger context. And after all, that’s the only healing really possible— to get above it all to see its place in the ever-rolling drama of your life, and thus, ultimately to welcome it, to be grateful for it, no matter how much pain it caused you at an earlier time.

Inspired by his reading on the word “Haunted,” I was granted a new perspective about my work in jazz education. See next entry. Meanwhile, thanks to David Whyte and all the poets who have offered constant “solace and nourishment” by revealing the underlying meanings of our shared experience.

Piano Orff

Someone wrote to me recently asking if Orff training would be useful for his piano students.

Well, that little spark lit my fire! This could become my crusade when I “retire” and clear my plate of all my other unfinished books, projects, workshop themes. There are a finite number of general music teachers in the world, but an abundance of piano teachers, many of whom are making their student suffer through the same old narrow idea of music as pushing down the right keys with curved fingers while successfully translating black dots on paper. Most are just mindlessly passing down the same-old same-old that so many of us suffered through. Not that it was all bad and after serving time for two or three years, our just reward was Bach’s Minuet in G and the possibility in later life that we could sight-read through the old pieces and get some pleasure and comfort from piano playing.

But mostly, it is so much less than it could be. I’m imagining an Orff course just for piano teachers that would open the windows and doors, even break down the walls to let some fresh breeze into the room and refresh those struggling students. If anyone is in a Piano Teacher’s Association and wants to hire me for a demonstration workshop, I’m putting the call out here! Here was my answer to the e-mail inquiry as a teaser:

“Thank you for your inquiry. As a pianist and Orff-Schulwerk teacher, I personally think they're a great fit! But it takes a bit of reflection and imagination to figure out how. Consider these points:

• The first connection is the obvious parallel between the keyboard-like layout of the Orff xylophones and the piano. Anything kids play on the xylophone they can adapt to piano—and vice-versa.

•Most piano lessons are about learning to read notation and play pieces. The Orff emphasis on improvisation and elemental composition brings the musical experience far beyond simply reading scores or duplicating other's works. It insists on a clear understanding how the notes go together, tested anew in each improvisation. Piano lessons are in sore need of some time spent like this, exploring the possibilities of the piano like a playground rather than a mathematical problem to be solved with curved fingers.

• Music is song even when it’s not and in all my years of piano lessons, my teacher never once had me sing. Students need to get in the habit of singing everything they play and figuring out how to play what they sing. The first helps them feel the phrasing, the sense of breath in the phrases, the accents and such and often solves the problem of rushing. The second is great ear-training and can help liberate them from the tyranny of the printed page.  

• As Dalcroze discovered in the late 1800’s, it doesn't hurt them to get off the bench and dance a phrase, walk the beat, feel the weights of the different beats in each meter through movement. Orff succeeded Dalcroze as a music educator hoping to get music back on track from the specialist mentality of the West to its original integrated whole.

• Play, sing and dance is the Trinity of Orff Pedagogy and most piano lessons are play only. And play in the narrow sense, not with a sense of being playful. No babies need be thrown out with the bathwater of uninspired piano teaching. Kids can still learn to read notes and curve their fingers and play ye ole Minuet in G or Fur Elise. But not only will they do so more musically once the music is fully embodied and sung inside and out, but they will be so happy to improvise, compose, experiment, romp freely in the playground of possibility with 88 bars to climb on. And don’t forget a little blues and such.

In short, Orff training is not aimed at piano teachers, but it’s a bullseye in the hands of the teacher who understands how to adapt it. So come on board!”

SAD Carnaval

Carnaval in Brazil or in Trinidad or in New Orleans is probably one of the most joyful

holidays the world knows. Two or three days and nights of high-energy music, non-stop dancing, colorful (and revealing!) costumes— hard to top that! Naturally, San Francisco, that fun-loving city, wanted in the act, so in 1979 the first SF Carnaval was held in February in Precita Park, mostly due to the efforts of a dancer named Adela Chu. In 1980, it was in Dolores Park (I think I was there!) and finally shifted over to a parade in the Mission.

With no religious history in San Francisco connecting the holiday with Lent, with the Feast before the Fast, San Franciscans just went for the Feast part. And when it was clear that the weather is better late May and June than in February, no one objected to lifting it away from the days before Ash Wednesday/ six weeks before Easter usual timing.

Hmm. Weather better? Not in these last six weeks, when every morning begins grey and sometimes continues into the afternoon and the evening. Some people are ready to go into therapy for SAD—Seasonal Affective Disorder. Like me! I biked through the misty fog down to the Mission to watch Carnaval, hoping for a spot of sun, but alas! Not a single beam of light penetrated the grey. However, the dancers held up well, didn’t seem sad. Even in their skimpy costumes, they radiated the sunny joy that one would hope from Carnaval. Weird to have people in heavy jackets watching, but as the old rhyme goes:

Whether the weather be hot

Or whether the weather be cold.

We’ll whether the weather

Whatever the weather

Whether we like it or not!

 Hoping the sun will be out for our own school Samba Contest on June 6^th. If you missed the citywide parade, check this one out! Kids dancing their own choreographed dances in small groups while 6^th graders play the drums and bells. A San Francisco School tradition!

Minus the skimpy costumes.

A Day in the Life

I woke up this morning and thought about my day and a second thought piggybacked on to it all, more or less: “Hmm. Not many people will have a day anything like mine.” Not that it’s anything special or amazing, but there is a certain satisfaction to the fact that it’s a day that I wholly created by all my life choices and fits me perfectly. In a world of work easily explainable as “Doctor, lawyer, farmer, IT worker,” no high school guidance counselor has a place for this in their book. In my job as music teacher at the SF School, here’s what I did today:

8:15: Taught 30 6^th graders the basic rhythms and calls and responses to samba in preparation for our end-of-the-year Samba Contest. We played, sang and danced a bit.

9:00: First ever guitar and ukulele class with 8^th grade, teaching them the chord changes to an old jazz standard.

9:45: The same with the other 8^th grade group, this time with chord diagrams on the board.

10:45: 25 four and five-year olds, the 4’s watching the 5’s perform a casual version of The Billy Goats Gruff, complete with goat bells I bought in Spain, bass xylophones (the trip-trap part), bass drums and cymbal (the troll part), Orff metallophones in pentatonic scales with recorder (peacefully eating grass). Then we sang Side by Side accompanied three different ways—ukulele, guitar and piano— and they had to name their favorite. A new song for the young ones, by the end of the third time, they mostly had it.

11:30: As above, with 25 kids from the other preschool class.

12:45: The Talent Show at Singing Time. 3^rd graders playing on piano and singing Heart and Soul while three others did gymnastic routines. 2^nd grade vocal solo of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (beautiful!), another 2^nd grader playing Fur Elise on piano, yet another The Yellow Submarine on guitar. And so on. Then kids auditioning for the next week’s Talent Show with capoeira, break dancing, spoons playing, banjo, jokes, saxophone and more.

1:30: Whole 4^th grade (20 kids) square dancing with me playing banjo.

2:15: Alum visits and I make her sing My Funny Valentine with me on piano (she’s a fabulous singer and majoring in musical theater in college).

3:30: Rodgers and Hart, Gershwin, Bach, Mozart with my 90-year-old friends at the Jewish home.

That was my day. Samba, fairy tales, square dance, jazz songs, drums, ukelele, guitar, banjo, recorder, piano with folks from 4 to 94 years old.

There’s two more weeks of school left and somehow I thought it would be a good idea to squeeze in some neglected school traditions into the last 9 days. The Talent Show, the Cookie Jar Contest, the Frozen Logger Contest, the Samba Contest, the Mudpie Song Ritual (unless you're an SFS alum, I'm imagining you're thinking "Huh?"),  the 4^th grade field trip to the Jewish Home. Really, I am out of my mind, but hey, why not? The kids are on fire, practicing like crazy for the Talent Show and soon to practice in groups for the Samba Contest and sharpening up their Cookie Jar skills and on and on.

I can only be grateful that they pay me for all of this. The Beatles would have had a hard time capturing it in a song, but my whole life is a song and most importantly, it’s my  song, the one I was meant to sing. One can only be grateful.