Inspired

I am grateful for the sense of inspiration that comes from a lot of my work these days. It has something to do with there being a good match between my specific gifts and the specific needs and interests of my students.

Today has been the culmination of several lines moving through my life as of late, and that puts me in a particularly gratifying place this evening.

Before Thanksgiving, I was reminded of a truth that one learns to be true by living for a while: We can and do change. I always need that reminder when I stumble. Our efforts over time do change us.

Something I'm learning about being healthy: When challenges appear, try not to let every area of your life slip into crisis mode. If I can keep some practicing or composing going on a nice schedule, or if I keep some exercise regiment or can keep some semblance of discipline in my eating, then I have a better chance at keeping the real issues I'm struggling with in perspective.

Today I had the privilege and blessing of meeting with one student and hearing their story of becoming a pianist. Knowing and telling the stories of how we became musicians is so powerful and grounding.

My ear training students gave me some fine insight into what would make their experience better. Actually, one of their ideas is something I've known or suspected for many years but just wasn't sure about how to bring it about. Now I'm thinking I really need to do it because the students also believe it would help. It will take some work, but there will be more joy and success because of it.

Then I got to teach a lesson on Haydn D Major Concerto. Here are some of the ideas from that lesson.
- Performance is about projection and communication of all that we have discovered and practiced. In that way, it's a lot like public speaking. Talk/play to the person on the last row, and your voice will have enough energy for the whole room.
- The dynamic of piano and orchestra: the piano is a piano but might also be an orchestra, so look out orchestra.
- The importance of communicating clear and convicted pulse when playing with orchestra; the idea of telegraphing the nature and timing of the orchestral entrance by the way you play the preceding beats.
- The need for "hard rhythm" or rhythmic spine, often in the left hand, at moments that might otherwise feel a little indefinite and mushy.
- The value of solfege for understanding the tensions of voice leading - what a tremendous tool for teaching the feeling of music.
- The fact that a score can look and sound simple and clear but can convey such an incredibly rich record of the human experience.
- The spiraling pattern of passages of repeated harmonic or thematic patterns with variation: much like the book of Isaiah in which a message continually develops through commentary.

That lesson was followed by a faculty meeting that concluded with a time of prayer in which we prayed for the various needs of individuals and our institution.

Tonight I'm enjoying our scotch pine Christmas tree that's full musical ornaments. We also have Floyd the Illuminated Christmas Flamingo in the guest bedroom window.

And my son and I had a good talk about what it means to be family tonight.

Thank you everybody for a day that has meant a lot to me.

Freshmen Devotionals

More on music as a family -

Although we may not always feel like it, family members are often the most likely people to "get" us. When things don't work out the way we hoped, when we're irritable, or when we desperately want to be loved, our families (at their best) somehow seem to understand us better than anyone. We may not always feel like that's the case, but when we're far away from them and feeling lonely, we realize it's true.

Sadly, not all families have that sort of connection, but I think it is usually a natural good of being in a family.

Music can provide us a similar connection. Sometimes we encounter musical moods that resonate with our own moods - moods we had previously thought were unique to us. Then we know we are not alone. Others have travelled the same path.

At different times, music can move us from our own conflicted moods to more open and joyful ways of thinking and feeling - just like a good talk with somebody from home.

Freshmen Devotionals

On Mondays, I'm sharing a one-minute devotional thought with my first-year music theory class.

There are at least two themes to be developed in this context over the course of the semester:

creativity

music as a family

Our very first devotional referred to our being made in God's image. My friend Paul Scaringi pointed out to me that, at the point in Genesis at which we learn that we were made in God's image, one of the few things we know about God is that God creates. Perhaps being made in God's image means, in part, that we are creative beings, too.

Today's devotional dealt with one of the obvious things about music as a family. Families are groups of people with which we have meaningful relationships. Music provides us with similar groups of people.

It may be that music draws its practicioners closer together than some other disciplines do. Why might this be? In each piece of music we make together, we experience a life story in miniature: beginning, middle, end, with struggles and a climax, etc. Sharing these compressed and intense life experiences with other musicians can create strong emotional ties between us.

Being in music also gives us a group of people known as the audience. Even though we may not always feel like it, most audience members are on our side. They want to see us succeed and are proud when we do well. That's just the way our biological family members ought to root for us in life, even though not everybody's family always does so.