Same Same, But Different - An Ode to Our Changing Harp World

This story was written shortly after attending the 2015 Somerset Harp Festival, where I led workshops and represented the Jazz Harp Foundation. It's a unique perspective on a spectacular annual event that exposes those who play and love the harp to the best and brightest in the lever harp world. The 2016 Somerset Harp Festival takes place in New Jersey from July 21-24!

***** 

It’s very very cold. Huddled with my back against a windowless wall, swathed in almost all the clothing I packed for this journey, I’m waiting. In mere moments I’ll find myself in a deluge where I’m overrun by the curious, or in a desert where I’m isolated and left alone. I have no idea what to expect. Though I’ve gathered my resources, I’m not sure I’ve got what I need, or enough.

Loud and confusing is this large enclosure; paradoxically, passerby are making their way slowly and in a daze. Just a few feet away, almost-chaos breaks out as supplies are yanked from crates and quickly pieced together - is that a quiet-yell of excitement or irritation? We’re surrounded by both very familiar and foreign sounds, a constant din that foretells Something Big is Going Down.

What did I get myself into? Here I am, locked up for the next three days with so many situational unknowns, chronically chilled, incredulous, apprehensive, and hyperaware.

And then, the first of many approaches, hesitant. We look at each other cautiously, eyes wide with hope. “Do you…?” she trails off. I smile encouragingly. “I don’t know exactly what I need right now,” she continues in almost a whisper. “But I know I want something different. Can you help?”

Oh yes I can.

***** 

Outside is hot July summer; inside is winterish under the ceiling vent expelling steady chronic air-conditioned blasts. Before me are two tables piled with flyers, CDs, DVDs, sheet music, and books. To the side are two sets of headphones, my laptop for processing payments / exchanging panicked digital messages, several carefully-laid cables linked to a nearby mixer, a freestanding iPad, and an impressive shiny black 32-string electric harp on tripod-legs. Behind me are boxes of backup supplies, folders of paperwork and hastily-scratched instructions, tee shirts in brown and black, tote bags in bright orange, hidden extra cash, bags of teaching materials for the upcoming workshops I will lead, and the snacks - er, dark chocolate - that given the situation I can’t believe I remembered to bring. 

We’re in the Exhibitor’s Hall at the 2015 Somerset Harp Festival, and I’m overseeing the booth for the Jazz Harp Foundation (JHF). I’m amidst an amalgam of harps - lap, medium and full sized, fashioned from precious multi-wood and indestructible carbon fiber, robust acoustic and sleek electric, bare-unfinished and gloss-shellacked. Milling about are both men and women of all ages - admirers, players, professors, private teachers, composers, therapists, artisan-makers, dealers and manufacturers. Here we witness firsthand just how much, in the past few decades alone, the interest in - and love for! - the harp has exponentially grown.

Somerset attendance increases every year. While the JHF has been a part of Somerset for several of those years, chances are what the JHF offers is still new to many and unlike what most harp players typically see, hear, and play. Launched in 2007 by Brenda Dor-Groot and Sabine Meijers of the Netherlands to “strengthen the position of the harp in jazz”, JHF’s presence at Somerset and its creation of events - the July 2016 Brazilian Jazz Harp Immersion is happening now! - embody their mission of putting “jazz harp on the map, to increase its reputation and quality, link jazz harpists around the globe, and inspire harpists, peer musicians and audiences alike.” 

Sabine Meijers (left) and Brenda Dor-Groot (right)

As the U.S. representative for the JHF, and as a teacher and music coach advocating creativity, I’m at Somerset to also help spread the word that we all have a choice in our harp journey; we’re living in an exciting time when we have more diverse and prolific options and opportunities available to us than ever before.

*****

 
“I’m sorry, Trista,” a favorite rep from the Virginia Harp Center says as she approaches the borrowed DHC electric harp we set up for the free online JHF jazz harp lessons offered via the iPad. “We just sold this instrument plus all its accessories - he’s taking it to a workshop that starts in ten minutes.” She gestures to a gentleman who, with wife at his side, is grinning broadly.

I smile back - his purchase is a perfect example of how, in response to the harp world’s rapid growth and increased interest in all things harp, makers are meeting our needs by producing high-quality harps at a variety of price points. Harp gatherings now feature “harp tastings” where we can literally sit behind the very instrument we just saw online. And these instruments can’t help but entice us to discover and explore new ways to play.

“Show me what’s new and good!” a repeat customer booms as he grabs a pair of headphones. “I bought a lot of jazz harp recordings from you last time, and my friends loved them so much they took them home. They can listen to what I buy today, but now I’m gonna hide the CDs where my friends can’t find them.”

Those outside the harp world are drawn in, allured by its magic. Those of us who live in the harp world see it broadening, changing. Our opportunities are changing. We are changing. The answers to where do I start? how do I continue? are now a whole lot more interesting.

Those answers are in the birth and propagation of programs and offerings designed to help us find our own voice in the growing harp world. Along with the emergence of the JHF, we’ve seen top performers like Deborah Henson-Conant offer a smattering of extensive online courses and grow a community around new ways of playing. New online groups and forums are forming every day to discuss and share both old and new music. Podcast-programs like Harpestry (http://krvs.org/programs/harpestry-krvs#stream/0) and Harp Talk (http://harptalk.podomatic.com) highlight players and cultures around the world, blurring lines between lever and pedal harp music while showcasing similarities and differences among other stringed instruments birthed from divergent lineage in distant eras.

*****

The lines between lever and pedal harp, and the type of music played on each, are no longer straight and solid. At best, they are dissolving into dots and dashes and even melting into flexible curlicues that happily intersect at random points throughout harp time and space.

This phenomenon is brought to life in the evening performances at Somerset. There’s Jakez Francois, the President/CEO of Camac Harps, performing on a lever harp his own company made with as much ease and grace as he brings to pedal harp. And Alfredo Rolando-Ortiz, drawing upon his own rich heritage, bringing butterflies to life on a Paraguayan harp before our very eyes. And there’s Edmar Castaneda, playing with such intensity and passion that we can’t help but lean forward and stare while collectively thinking,“OHHHH  $*%#@!!! It CAN be different!”  There’s Deborah Henson-Conant, through an instrument made just for her, giving it her all - as always! - and encouraging us to do the same.

In a workshop I led at Somerset called Songs Without Words, in which we explored composing music that relays a feeling or message without lyrics, participants almost whispered, “I just want to… “ or “How can I get to….” or “I don’t feel I’m creative enough to…” Our discussion gently circled and dipped into our innate ability and desire to create, where and how we find personal meaning, and how our instrument is a portal to our soul in ways we both already know and are as yet undiscovered.

We are all just trying to find our way.

Many harp lovers initially find themselves adapting to and accepting what’s believed to be the right way to play the harp and what makes a good player. This is how we learn - we’re very busy earning our proverbial wings, looking for affirmation and confirmation in an external stamped seal of approval. We may remain here for a short or long while before we ask, what else?

As a pedal harpist who never started on lever harp, who doesn’t subscribe to the idea that the harp world starts with the small lever harp and ends with the gigantic pedal harp, and who doesn’t hold the pedal harp as the pedestal-penultimate, I firmly believe we find our music and just-right instruments - or our instruments find us! - that best meet us where we are, as we are, on our very personal harp journey. There is no one Right Harp, no one Best Player, no Perfect Way.

And by the looks of all things Somerset, I’m in good company.

*****

Back in the Exhibitor’s Hall, an accomplished player leans in close over the JHF table. Like the others, she is barely whispering. “I’m bored with what I am doing. How do I not fall asleep on my classical gigs? How do I start learning / hearing / playing jazz?”

“I’m so tired of Celtic / Irish music!” another woman declares loudly as her stack of new music lands in front of me with a thud. “Haven’t I endured enough suffering in my own life to not have to play yet another tune about someone else’s wayward Daddy and the horrors of the potato famine?!?”

Clearly no one I encounter here at Somerset is denouncing their instrument, its heritage,  anyone who plays in a specific style, nor the way they’ve played themselves for most of their lives. Underneath each swift and offhand comment is this: I’m changing. I’m ready. NOW. 

Listening to and experiencing other harp voices reminds or clarifies for us what we love, where we want to go, who we really are. We’ve been given permission to lean deeper into our ongoing journey toward what resonates more clear and true, what is more uniquely us. There are those that help preserve our past, and those who help shape the future. Traditions are important to uphold and maintain, and boundaries are meant to be pushed and reshaped. 

Same same, but different. 

The development and popularity of entities like Somerset, Camac, the JHF, and our most admired performers are already demonstrating there is more to the harp than we thought or assumed, that this instrument can transport us to worlds that were previously out of reach, that our dreams are actually possible, tangible, and real. 

Everywhere there are tools and resources that help us edge ever closer to the Unknown where our own voice rings powerful and true. Look for us, your Personal Advocates, huddled in the cold, behind the strings, offering a slow smile at your admission that you want more.

Here we are, ready and willing to place in your hands, heart, mind, and soul all that helps you see, touch, feel, hear, and play in ways you haven’t before. Here we are, in this luminous and diverse harp-tuning din, now, together. Welcome.

*****

‘Same Same, But Different’ is a loving reference to a recording title by jazz and world music harper Rudiger Oppermann. Learn more about the Somerset Harp Festival at somersetharpfest.com and the Jazz Harp Foundation at jazzharp.org.

~~~~~~~~~

Another imperfect post, accompanied by:

Paul Simon - Wristband and Werewolf

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Related posts:
Sparks of July
Inviting the Yeti
~~~~~~~~~

Trista Hill is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. Visit her website — tristahill.com — for links to her monthly letter, blog, listening library & compositions, performances, and offerings to further you along your own glorious creative journey.  

My House is For Sale

The "for sale" sign along the tree-lined 40 mph up-and-down route indicates the place where I discovered refuge and quiet, explored and dissected dreams and reality, and both lost and found myself is available for someone else. It will change, transform, and metamorphosize (again) right along with whomever it shelters.

Though I'm closer than ever to moving from here after thirteen years, my current home is not yet for sale. No, it's my very first ever house that is for sale. Up for grabs. Positioned to transfer / lose / create more history.

This place marked the real beginning of my Creative Loner Life. For the most part at both colleges and during my internship I managed to live alone, or to tactfully and successfully manipulate circumstances to that end if the direction and angle at which they were leaning weren't severe enough (as in, horizontal). When I needed to officially leave home, moving to an apartment was completely out of the question. Moving into this place was deliberate and liberating, a choice made from excited trepidation instead of how-will-I-#$%*!?-survive ominousness. A place for which I was entirely responsible as much as a renter can be. A little cabin at the end of a cul-de-sac in an area I had always loved by the river. It was a dream come true for this my-head-needs-space introverted I'm-in-denial-of-how-much-I-dislike-the-Expected-Life girl of 23-ish years. Yes, girl.

The listing says it needs updated and offers no pictures of the inside. This must mean the kitchen is the same white I painted it with the landlord's reluctant permission 18 years ago. That the geometric no-pile carpet in the kitchen remains, that aluminum-bordered single pane windows still look out on the flower beds in which I planted hosta, zinnia, allium, and a variety of annuals. Yep, there are the iris and hosta in the side and front beds, near the steps down which I toddled the harp when I first started gigging with all the do-I-have-the-right professional sincerity I could muster at the time.

It must mean that there are still spray paint marks on the basement floor near the water softener where I experimented with creative entrepreneurial surely-this-will-liberate-me-from-Corproate projects. It must mean that you still can't help but run into the shower door when you use the toilet, that the wood paneling still graces the walls in the oddly long and narrow split-down-the-center living area, that the "guest room" is still the brightest space in all of the house's 792 square feet.

My house of Firsts. It saw me agree to a part-time and then full-time job in human resources at a healthcare hub, and move into payroll and accounts payable for the stability and benefits. A world of money and math and unhappy managers, processors, tele-somethings, smoke-break takers and hall-wanderers in which I managed to not be managed in the most inconspicuous way.

Then it saw me move into another job with bigger payroll and accounting responsibilities where I dismantled and reconstructed databases and oversaw and administered the transfer of millions and billions of dollars while .0000000x% of that eventually, dutifully, and disdainfully appeared in my own paycheck. After office hours (whoops, also during), I explored pretty much non-existent music therapy positions in the area -- oh yes I did interview at a penitentiary, or what do they politically-correctly call them now? -- started my teaching studio as I invited 6 to 60+-year-olds to trudge up the steps and sit at my used spinet and/or console piano, moved unfinished meant-for-your-wedding paintings around the house, collected and loudly listened to obscurely non-classical anthemic classic/progressive rock (music is absolutely why you get a house and not a place with shared walls), and wondered aloud to myself and in my journal about why I didn't feel more hopeful, free, artistic, creative, and happy in a way I craved and thought I'd finally earned.

It was where I trudged around the Mt Air neighborhood at all hours silently asking and not always answering persistent nagging questions (Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??), a place where I both literally and metaphorically bled in the most profound way a female can.

It was a messy horrific boundary-crossing relationship time. I took refuge in a too-big and mostly empty bedroom that shared a wall with the noisy washer and dryer. I filled journals and sometimes spent entire days not moving. Through the diamond-window front door I brought leftover veggie pizza and almost-stale cake or donuts from the office if I hadn't eaten it all in a semi-rage on the way home. I scrupulously managed my checkbook on a white and wood barstool set from Meijer I assembled myself.

I cringed silently as I heard a massive tree falling in the night, wondering if I should run - where??? I heard it creaking, tearing its own and other limbs on its way down, ripping and gripping as gravity won. Is this how I die, I wondered. No. It only decided to clip the edge of the house and fall in neat heavy pieces around every single panel of my new Volvo wagon of three months that on that night I had not bothered to park in the under-the-house garage.

That house is for sale. My landlord, a retired high-baller businessman and relative of Rush Limbaugh who listened to the famed show at high volume in his garage while yelling out his own acerbic commentary, was a curmudgeony man with whom I had nothing in common. He told me I was one of the few that could get him to smile. He watched over and looked out for me, often in ways he had no business doing and every right to do. He built the wraparound deck for me, broke his own no-pet rule by allowing me to take in a won't-see-me-for-years-but-I'll-eat-all-your-ferns cat, and marveled at both my purposeful and willy-nilly perennial (or not) plantlife. I met his dying wife, saw him involuntarily fitfully cry, watched him hobble across the yard after he painstakingly mowed and trimmed and fussed and fumed over what he could control and what he couldn't.

We were a pair. He didn't approve of my few boyfriends and now I know why. He told me I was from "good stock" when he met my mother and handed me a handwritten lease I signed and dated on the spot.

I left that place years later for a guy who not long after, left me. (It's okay - he's married with kids now). I went on to try to re-create Refuge on the great endless rolling landscape of No Guarantees.

I both miss you and don't, 868 Edgecliff (Cedar), 43235. How you held and shaped me, little almost-private crouching hilltop brown box with streaming southern window light and huge tree shadow silence. As with every single life experience, at the time you were exactly what I needed. I wonder, where will we go now?

~~~~~~~~~

Another imperfect post, accompanied by:

Renaissance - Prologue (album)

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Related posts:
Senses Placed
Sense of Place
~~~~~~~~~

Trista Hill is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. Visit her website — tristahill.com — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings. 

Inviting the Yeti

In this blustery, coldest, whitest January in years, people are hunkering down. The young are celebrating school-closings due to blanching subzero temperatures, and the older often call for a 'break" in addition to the one life just recently and unexpectedly handed them.

It's a time for streamlining food intake, monetary outflow, objects in the environment. Roadway snow piles, calendar commitments, shoddy didn't-fit compromises.

It might look like paring down, but truthfully most of us are in the throes of managing Our Latest Upheaval. More than likely we felt the swell of its arrival, perhaps even wished for it. We watched the hulking mass on the horizon creep closer, listened to the crazed updates, played it all either up or down to support our other contradicting wish. We purchased snowshoes a long time ago, stocked the pantry with canned goods, stuffed newspaper and rags into the crooked doorframe to thwart icy blue-white drafts.

All buckled in. So prepared. All that's left to do is wait for it to just blow. on. by.

But we forgot about the Yeti.

A quick peek from behind the covers confirms that yes, it's circling the abode, but not from want or need or some other scarcity. It waits, without expectation, to be sighted. It's not going to force itself in. The longer we put off opening our door to it, the more it restless-izes all surrounding persons.

This deliberate separation and tension - it out there, us in here - can go on for years.

The Yeti is about exposure, vulnerability, and facing reality. That's all. Its coexistence with Avoidance can only last so long.

For those that pull their eyes from the screen or the paper or other necessary-for-survival distraction, the Yeti offers a disguised release, a doorway into another dimension. As the day-wake hours fill with our story about what's necessary to get by - Safety. Stability. Quiet. Action. A Plan - the Yeti looms in the shadowy periphery, not doing anything other than lingering. The pressure of its silent power grows exponentially with each passing day.

Its gentle hulking reminder: The more you think you've got it under control, the less you actually do.

We think we can escape the Yeti, though it's never hunting us.

We think the Yeti is a monster, though it's actually a mirror.

After so much denial, when the Yeti is finally invited in - how did that happen?? - all grows very very quiet. Very still. Breathing is limited or stops altogether. It's not necessarily Threat that hangs in the air. Nor Fright.

It's just an astounding realization: Oh, I SEE now.

In front of the Yeti, all is pulled into the light. That inaccuracy you hoped you could gloss over with speed, or excuses, or peripheral noise, is now front and center. The nugget of not-quite-sure is suddenly and thoroughly stage-light illuminated. The carefully hidden is now fish-food fragmented, exposed and floating to the silky surface.

Wow, I was pretty sure I had that perfect.  Thought I had it all figured out. Grip was tight on my Right Thing. Ah, I didn't know, and still don't, after all. Not One Thing. Until now, this one small piece. Until next time, next piece. 

It's out there, the Yeti, waiting. Open the door.

What's your Yeti?

*   *   *
My Yeti right now is a microphone. Silent silver stares at me from across the strings, waiting as I wrestle with my own sounds. Notes are netted, over and over again, bound into a bundle and thrown overboard into the web to fend for itself. A personal bared experiment and truth - like a photograph or a journal page or a CAT scan. There it is. Sink or swim. Now I know. No going back.

~~~~~~~~~

Another imperfect post, accompanied by:

Wax Fang -- The Astronaut Part I (17 mins)

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Popular posts:
Senses Placed
The Thing Behind the Thing
~~~~~~~~~

Trista Hill is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. Visit her website — tristahill.com — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings. 

True Story, Published

This article was published in the "Strange But True Harp Stories" column

of the July/August 2013 issue of Harp Column magazine. Yes, this actually happened!

*****

Someone was supposed to be there at the loading dock -- that’s what the booking agent said -- but after repeatedly punching the intercom unit with no reply, I knew I wouldn’t be entering through these particular Statehouse bowels.

Phoning the booking agent yielded no assistance -- their part was done and over. Left on my own to find a suitable alternate entrance, I reload the harp and back out dangerously fast, speeding through a parking garage gate. Rounding the corner, I spot a wide berth of glass doors through which a very well-dressed group of individuals is marching in. I pull up short, grab my bag, bench, and music stand, and follow them.

We walk up a few set of stairs and file through a small door. But this is a small quiet type of salon, nowhere near the noisy hub-bub where I’m sure I’m supposed to be. Where is the crowd? The snacks? The drinks? The loud voices?  

Minutes later, stomping through the marble hallways in search of where to set up, I miraculously come across the office of the event coordinator, with whom I’d spoken with days prior to finalize tonight’s plans. Empty. My actual gig start time has now passed, and many minutes of my angry marching click-click-clicking down the hallways in my all-black gig uniform, after tripping UP a set of stairs with bench and stand, have yielded absolutely no answers nor direction. I pass several police officers who not once stop to ask me who I am and what I’m doing. Security, anyone? 

Finally, a man informs me that I am to play on the catwalk far above the festivities and there is no electrical outlet in sight. I’m both relieved and annoyed; suddenly it’s obvious that amplification could be really useful here, but the booking agent never specified to bring it, AND I don’t have access to power anyway. There is a good 50-plus feet or more of carpeted and glass-railing expanse on either side of me, and I’m told I have it to myself. There is no way in %&@*! anyone anywhere can hear me, but I play loud and flamboyantly in a final effort to vindicate myself and this experience.

At the end of the set, the same man appears to help me through the maze of elevators and stairs back to my car. A shocked look of realization passes over his face as our conversation slows and we head out the glass doors to my Volvo wagon.

“Did you come in this way, with your stand and bench?”

“Yes!”

“Did you follow a group of people into that door over there?” he points.

“Yes!” 

“I saw you!” He laughs uncomfortably. “You walked in with the Governor!!”

What’s worse -- having unquestioned free reign of the Statehouse, not recognizing my own Governor, or being fantastically late to play for his inaugural ball?

~~~~~~~~~

Another imperfect post, accompanied by:

Polica -- Smug

~~~~~~~~~
Popular posts:
Senses Placed
Dear Creative Work
~~~~~~~~~

Trista Hill is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. Visit her website — tristahill.com — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings. 

Passion and Religion

I don’t subscribe to a certain religion, but as a harpist, I often play for several types of churches, especially around Christmas and Easter. 

I’m a part of the sea of white faces, or the only pale face in a darker-skinned crowd. I play music as it exists on the page, or improvise according to what moves me and others, responding musically in the moment, watching and listening.

These are emotionally charged events as those experiencing the service grapple with meaning and metaphor and guilt. 

That last part isn’t a judgement: Guilt is just... there.

(It’s more painful to deny this simple truth than to accept it).

There is push-pull tension between and around the great need to impart life-changing knowledge and wisdom from the microphoned front, and the deep desire to internalize and truly feel the message from the soft seat in one of multiple rows. 

Behind all of it is the need to share something universal, something that unifies us when we spend a good portion of the rest of our lives investigating and often drowning in divisions.

Often in these services, in varying degrees, is passion. Oh yes, if I’m not relating to the message and how it’s delivered, I can certainly relate to passion. It sets me on fire, ignites embers in my core. 

Watching others be so present and aligned that passion takes over and shines through loud and clear moves even the most stone-set. This taps deep into the universal for me. It compels me to BE from that space, too.

And while at this present moment I don’t have a specific religious conviction that anchors me as I’m wildly pulled by internal or external sources hither and yon, I know this:  Music, movement and nature are my religion. 

They have been and will always be, in sum or in part, what grounds me and gets me finally feeling after it takes too long to recognize when my ever-spinning mind has numbed me out again. I forget this over and over, which of course means I also remember.

Forget. Remember. Forget. Remember. I’m fairly sure it’s why religious holidays exist in the first place.

The crocus finally blooms and the sky speaks. The pain and tightness in my right hip hints loudly at a deeper truth. Reznor and Karen O’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” powers my downtown trip to the church gig.

The sonorous written and musical notes reverberate around the walls surrounding the I-want-to-believers. This is the journey into both the Known and the Unknown -- remind me, but surprise me. 

Move me. Now.

Fire ignited.

~~~~~~~~~

Another imperfect post, accompanied by:

Band of Horses -- Funeral
~~~~~~~~~
Popular posts:
Say Yes to Your YES
The Thing Behind the Thing
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Trista Hill is a professional harpist and fine artist, creativity coach, educator in the arts, and Board-Certified Music Therapist. What her formal degrees in music and art gave her pale in comparsion to the gifts she's experienced in working with creatives just like you. Visit her website — tristahill.com — for links to her blog, performances, and other fantastical creative offerings. 

Breaking Through: Philip Glass and Maybe Minimalism

This week Philip Glass celebrates his 75th birthday.  In a most interesting interview with his second cousin Ira, he explains, "It's not how you find your voice, but how you get rid of the damn thing... "

I first experienced Glass in a college music class that offered an uncreative listening format of brief lectures followed by corresponding music samples.  Sitting through Minimalism, 12-tone theory, and the like had zero appeal to my frazzled spirit.

I had barely survived creating my composition for this module in another class, shutting myself inside a piano practice room for the weekend to get it done.  Now I know the immense value of composing and performing "live" your own piece for each style we studied, an element I embrace and employ in my own teaching / coaching today.  But at the time it was an exercise in insanity -- I had very limited time then to appreciate the assignment as a way to learn the music from the inside out, truly absorb it, through an intensely personalized process.

Fortunately this time, we were able to play a pre-recorded version of our piece instead of perform it live.  My aggravation shone through in the title I selected.  "This is called S.O.S," I told the class simply, enjoying that it could be interpreted whatever way the listener chose.

A classmate who knew my angst slowly smiled and asked what that stood for.  I stared at him, stood a little straighter, and delivered.  "S.O.S. stands for Same Old Shit."  Snickers ran around the room as I pressed "Play" to share the angry solo piano recording I had probably made only 12 to 48 hours before.  That class included written critiques.  My classmate's: "Well, it didn't sound like shit to me."  My professor's: "I hope 'S.O.S.' isn't the way you really feel -- you do good work as I've said before and I've really enjoyed having you in class."

But back to Philip Glass.

Armed with all my baggage and preconceptions, I braced myself for our listening session.  And then, there it was -- loud and clear and jarring, the frenetically perfect musical example of my life as I knew it.

I have no idea how the professor introduced or explained this musical sample -- I could only feel the class recoil at the maddeningly repetitive nature and the sheer volume and never-ending layers that cascaded over us.  "Can you hear when one element is shifting, an instrument, a rhythm, one note in the melody?" he offered.  "NO!" The class screamed.  "What IS this?!? Make it stop!"

And then there I was, maybe wearing yellow, staring hard at the wall, dead silent and solid, mentally pushing everyone and their noise away, Shut Up! Yes I can hear it! FEEL it! Let me listen! Do NOT stop!

I was riveted.
I couldn't wait to get inside it.

listen listen LISTEN don't you hear?!?? - this is life, this pulsating hypnotic incessant NOISE, this pounding pulsing driving insistent forcing of rhythm and melody - this pattern, over and over and over again, sustained tones that do not go away - what bravery to capture the human condition like this, to be with it, over and over and over - how as a listener or performer do you not go deep within it and yourself to find the nuggets, the seeds, the place from where all this expanded and grew?

Yes! Let me IN!

I remember the album cover as pulsing light emanating from a bright white center that both pulled you in and pushed you out.  I can't find that image anywhere now, perhaps I made it up, saw it as it felt.  In my single dorm room I huddled next to the cassette player, closing off everything around me, pushing everything to the side, get and go AWAY, I'm going in.

Overlapping patterns, shifting ever so slightly, in any direction, required my dedicated attention.  Wavering even slightly from an inner focal point rendered it chaos.  Brilliant.  Devastating.

My own life then was exactly like this.  I had created so many layers of existence, and it was a constant fight to not drown -- my journals from then document my mind-bending frustration, isolation, and a strange dependency on the glutinous anchor of schoolwork and a schedule not my own.  Overloaded with credit hours each semester to graduate early with two degrees, in the throes of a full-blown eating disorder, grappling with imploding issues at home, attracting attention from all the wrong places in all the worst ways, I retreated to campus hiding places where I locked myself overnight to hammer out papers and projects, and walked for miles and hours off campus longingly gazing at warm-lit windows of houses where life appeared to be far removed from my daily careening chaos. I had a zillion eyes watching me but none that really saw.

In all the chaos, Glass' music assured, there is a subtle shifting.  The shifting is inevitable -- nothing stays static.  Direction is unknown, but headed somewhere.  Linear doesn't apply, there's no room for it.  Paying attention to what is happening along the way, hyper-aware and sensitive of the pulsing shifts, is the only way through.

That album cover and that music was a musical illustration of hope in a world where I felt I had little to no control.  It was a vivid portrayal of what didn't make sense, and the meta-vision of what did.  In a morass of confusion and overwhelm, choosing one pathway or anchor -- an instrument, a motif, a rhythm -- and following it all the way through, suddenly lifted the veil and revealed a brilliant landscape of incomparable intensity and magnitude that, in a powerfully parental way, demanded focus and reverence.

This is how transformation happens -- to be pulled, by your own volition or not, out of one place and into another, of newness, openness, and expansiveness.  Glass seeks for himself -- and offers to us -- a way "to break out of your own training."  Time and time again I've seen my own students at the harp or piano, all faculties ablaze, hit that white center.  With a little coaching, they usher in small and large transformations and breakthroughs that shape the course of life from that day forward.

The "noise" is begging for you to notice its layers, what lies beneath.  Demand the space and time to grab that glittering end and hold on tight.  You're in for a ride.  Open your eyes.  Get IN this place that is anything but Minimalism -- inside the chaos is immense beauty and light, illuminating both the path you're on and the one you've been searching for.

Happy Birthday, and Thank You, Philip Glass.

What is your transformative "Philip Glass" moment?

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Another imperfect post, accompanied by:

Philip Glass excerpts, all recordings listed on his website

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Popular posts:

Maybe You're  a Harpist All Over the Beastie Boys

Dear Creative Work

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What Do You Believe?

"Do you believe what they say about 2012?" she asked suddenly, in not quite a whisper.  She had just finished playing through a familiar tune on the piano we had learned together only minutes before.

"What do they say?" I ask.  I can halfway sense what's in her head and heart.

"That... it's the end of the world?"

I search her small face -- no trace of fear there, only tiny glittering ghost-wisp question marks.  "Hmm, I've heard of that," I say.  "What do you think?"

"Well, I don't think so.  I saw a movie..." and she describes all the natural disasters the film so vividly paints.  The scenes etched in her memory are poignant and meaningful given what I know she's already endured in her young life.  "But no," she concludes, "I don't think it's the end."

I believe her decision to not believe.

Extra flexibility is required to fully pivot for a good view of all the ways my own beliefs have been challenged, my stories tested, this past year.

Across the sea of retrospect, I spy:  The various literal and figurative dimly lit stages that threw my thoughts and feelings about celebrity and self-worth directly into spotlight glare.  My multicolored-snake-rope thoughts about creativity and relationship and their ability to intertwine without strangling each other.  How much bigger movement, more nourishing fuel, and increasingly voluminous light my aging body, mind and spirit need to thrive.

My re-drawing boundaries when they are again unwittingly crossed and building them out of a different medium or neatly packing them up to take with me when I exit.  Walking the crunchy undulating sandy path of truth alongside heavy discomfort and volatility, and seeing what small air-starved naked creature toddles out from between.

How I've brilliantly re-colored the magnetic energy of money and funneled it both toward and away.  Questioning why I questioned whether I really need a vibrant, beautiful calendar / house in which to hold all my crucial appointments and to birth-chart my life work.

And in what direction my heart pulls hard and how it matters less if that trajectory is logical, practical, and sustainable.  What and where my wild childhood abandon was, when it left, and my semi-shock at it's insistent return.  What is spewed and what is left unsaid.  How continual digging only leaves scars.

What expectations I've dramatically thrown into artificial and pure-true light, and how they've either grown into both high-arching beyond-control jungles or lay dormant in desiccated white picket plots.

I actually celebrate the human capacity to fabricate, in the name of both growth and resistance of, a thoroughly complex and elaborate everyday life around a simple but fully-believed story.

The extent to which we manipulate our surroundings, the lengths we go to convince ourselves and others of our reality, and the way we invent patterns of thought and behavior that support this story scream of our immense and innate creative potential.  

What do we choose to do with what we believe? An amazing amount of time, energy, and power goes into building the world (s)he / you / I live in -- just look at this incredible system, this intricate protective framework all spindly and giant and spread-eagled over the itty buried sleeping treasure whose name, color, texture, and makeup we forgot long ago!

"I don't know how..."
"I can't..."
"It's impossible to..."
"It doesn't work..."
"I've already tried..."
"I could never..."  

Such powerful building blocks, clobbery concrete foundation squares upon which we build a precariously leaning tower that we're incessantly scrambling to prop up.

How rich the deconstruction can be, how powerful to step aside as it topples, how sudden and frantic the manic digging to uncover the small kernel of truth singing out for a bit of warmth and light.

She leaned in a little closer to hear me say, "I believe that you and I have a lot of important and special things to do, and be, in the coming year."  She nods.  I briefly mention my affection for even-numbered years.  "I was born in 2000," she beams.

Later, at the door, I exclaim in my sincerely exuberant way, "I'm SO excited to see you again -- next year!"

"And it's even-numbered," she smiles.

I believe in a Happy Healthy Blooming Unfurling 2012, for you.
And in the words of Maurice Sendak:  "... live your life, live your life, live your life."

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Another imperfect post, accompanied by:
The exploding-bubble Surgeon and the scissor-soaring Cruel (St. Vincent)

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The year's popular posts (wait, do you have one that's not listed below? Post it in the comments!):
Maybe You're  a Harpist All Over the Beastie Boys
Dear Creative Work
Sense of Place
A Night in the Life
What IS Performance?

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Trista's newsletter -- read the current edition here
Get notified of posts to this blog
Coaching Opportunities

Tour Documentaries -- Take 1

**For an entire month this Fall (2011), Deborah Henson-Conant and I threw ourselves into a joint traveling adventure of performances, workshops, and the ongoing development / implementation of fantastical ideas and dreams.**

Imagine...
(actually, you don't have to, since you'll see it all below in the video -- it's only 2.5 minutes long and the end is very important!)

... you're tired and attempting to work after a civilized-for-a-second meal at an Italian restaurant...

... a certain someone is narrating her wandering rambling pre-bath journey around your new-to-you abode, the Victorian Loft Bed and Breakfast (more on this awesome place and its incredible owner, soon)....

Taken with one of our many recording devices -- this is classic TH/DHC on tour, folks.


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Another imperfect post, accompanied by:
Question (Moody Blues)
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Sign-ups:
Trista's newsletter
DHC's site with links to newsletter and blog
Get notified of posts to this blog

Other tour posts (in non-chronological order):
Prepared or Paranoid?
Firsts -- How the Tour Began
Sense of Place

Prepared or Paranoid?

** For an entire month this Fall (2011), Deborah Henson-Conant and I threw ourselves into a joint traveling adventure of performances, workshops, and the ongoing development / implementation of fantastical ideas and dreams. **

It was 41 degrees Fahrenheit when I pulled the harp out of the car today.

This wasn't a surprise -- I was prepared for this outdoor wedding, unlike the other one.  It's why a huge heater was set up on the covered bridge and I had the prized seat right next to it.  And it's why my hands were cloaked in awesome fingerless gloves (thank you Tammy of Red Panty -- yeah, that's what I said!), and why I donned my big black coat over my dress clothes.  It's why the harp was tuned to itself and not to the digital perfection of a formal mechanism.

Prepared vs. panicking.  There is a fine line between being ready to meet head-on whatever might be thrown at you, and having so many "just in case" resources available you're literally drowning in them.

Purge vs. pile.  I won't say what was which & when during the tour, I'll just lay out the facts.  The van was stuffed with possibility -- interpret that as you like.  We lost many items in it, and gleefully and repeatedly "found" others.  We unexpectedly "gifted" items in random places.  When we sold out of product *twice* at the same show, raking in more $$ than ever thought possible, high-speed high-heeled black boot sprinting after intermission yielded quickly-replenished stock.  When a venue's sound system wound up being unable to handle a Camac 32-string "DHC" electric harp accompanied by looping and distortion pedals, we had a thoroughly road-tested Fishman "Loudbox" amplifier and Fishman SA220 (Solo Professional system) we could set up in minutes that more than fit the bill.

We had bags of food supplies, including dozens of containers in which to store what we didn't throw out (fermenting bananas and apples, anyone?).  We left one back seat in the van for napping, but never had time nor the space to use it that way; instead, it became the home of the SKB.  At the beginning of the tour, we were overwhelmed.  By the end of the tour, we had a system and a process.  We had both mess and perfection.

That isn't to say we didn't occasionally slide into terror over what was (not) happening.  Why do each of our fifty thousand maps tell us to go a completely different way? Why are all the doors we so crucially need to pass through right now hopelessly locked? Where is the pre-prepared promised food when we're famished? Why, when tired and halfway hungry at the foot of the mountains, the very last peach yogurt we saved tastes "like a blanket"?

Sometimes, you have no choice to go in trusting you will have exactly what you need, at exactly the right time.  You find the apple knife.  You locate the third hand-held recorder and there's room on it for another brief but imperative documentary.  You are stuck on the floor and Trista both gets it on video AND helps you up.

Sometimes, the "Do Not Enter" is exactly the place you must go.

You go in cold.  You come out warmed by knowing, hey, that was a temporary hell, but it all worked out.  Again.

Other tour posts (in non-chronological order):
Firsts -- How the Tour Began
Sense of Place

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When will I write here again? Click HERE and you'll know

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Another imperfect post, this time accompanied by:
Vampire Weekend's "Giving Up the Gun"

Maybe You're a Harpist All Over the Beastie Boys

Maybe you're a vagabond social media master politico.

Maybe you're a chain smoker who sets other feet firmly on the healthiest life path they've ever been.

Maybe you're a vegan who loves the smell of a good barbecue.

Maybe you're a hip hop gangsta master gardener.

Maybe you wear the finest silk with dimestore fishnet.

Maybe you're a millionaire at the pub donning habitual humility.

Maybe you love both the softspoken waif and the violent musclebound.

Bill Withers, when asked by Tavis Smiley how he holds the note so long in the song Lovely Day, responded: "Did you watch the Olympics when this tall guy from Jamaica…(Usain Bolt)... came flying out of there. And what we thought was the world’s record was gone, man. He obliterated that stuff. And do you know why he did that? He was just running, man, because he could. That was him. So that was just me."

Maybe it's taken you 50 years. Or 5.

DON'T STOP.

Listening to: HotSauce Committee PartTwo -- Say It -- Too Many Rappers -- The Lisa Lisa

Your sprout and its dirt

Windowsills are perfect for seedlings. This one was given to me by Sunday school kids just a few weeks back, and several days ago it bravely broke ground.

It's a mystery plant at the moment, but looks suspiciously like it belongs to the morning glory family. No matter what it is, it will have a solid home here, either inside with the harp and cat and piano, or outside in the rambling expanse of the haphazard yard.

The crystal was given to me to my brother many many years ago, and its home has been the kitchen windowsill of every house I've lived in. It keeps me company when I am lost in thought, experimenting with food.

Checking this sprout daily reminded me of what others have talked about regarding change and beginnings: “When you plant a new seed in the soil, the first thing that comes up is not the new shoot. The first thing that comes up is a little dirt.”

That dirt! These is a critical moment. All the Stuff, the obstacles, the excuses, the reasons, the stories -- all are unearthed. You either keep reaching for the light -- growth! -- or revert back underground from where you are emerging.

What seed gives up on itself?!

Take care of yourself during this precious time, whether you're starting music lessons as an adult, changing your lifestyle and/or health habits, preparing for a big performance, examining your relationships, planning a wedding, searching for a new career, getting through school.

Nurture, listen, protect, check in.

The reward is going to be gorgeous, fulfilling, miraculous, and every single day -- absolutely, beautifully, and ironically -- new in its own unique way.

Harp + the Outdoors, Part 1 -- What Works

Outdoor wedding season is here, though wedding season started, for me, back in January. Here's what it looks like when the weather is right! Doesn't it look warm and luscious outside?

The wedding took place at the Darby House, one of my favorite places to play in central Ohio -- more photos here.

The fantastic Ely Brothers are responsible for the harp photo, and the officiant for this wedding, Damian King, shared it with me through a post on his elegant blog. Damian's blog is not only packed with very helpful information for those planning a wedding, but also serves as an inspiring source about relationships and beauty.

Is that my real arm or a fantastic camera angle? Honestly, experimenting with how to be in the best shape for this work is an adventure.

Strength, balance, and stamina are necessary to transport all the necessary tools of the trade, AND, when the body naturally knows what real support feels like, the better the playing and attention to detail while keeping an eye on all the beautiful people and what they are (not) doing.

In addition to weddings these next few weekends, I'm also playing some public events -- Market District Kingsdale (upstairs cafe) in Upper Arlington, and Krysty Designs Fine Jewelry in Powell (outside, weather permitting!) -- see my News / Calendar page for times and directions. I would love to meet you there! And you can see firsthand if I'm maintaining composure -- er, posture.

Here is what an outdoor wedding looks like when the weather is not great. Threat of rain and 51 degrees, folks -- nuh-uh.

The harp is affected by temperature and humidity, to be short and sweet; they influence the harp's ability to stay in tune and how the music is executed.

It is why special weather clauses in contracts exist, and why some harpists elect to never play outdoors. But with clear communication prior to the wedding or other special event, contracts that summarize that information -- including backup plans and other what-to-do-if's -- actually make for very happy clients.

What must be in place for you to do your best work?