Love Minus Zero/No Limit

My love affair with this song goes back to early 1993. Steve Wiatt got the Bob Dylan tribute video on Pay-Per-View (remember that?) and lent the VHS tape to my dad (I do believe it’s still in his possession after all these years). And then my dad showed me the clip: Ronnie Wood introduces Eric Clapton, and Clapton proceeds to give one of the most spiritually generous performances of his life.

I had never heard Dylan’s own recording of “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” before - later that spring I would buy my first Dylan CD (remember those?) and fall in love with the pencil-sketch charm of the version on Bringing it All Back Home. But Clapton’s rendition is lovingly, reverently, exaggeratedly Dylan-esque: warm, humming organ, those noodley little walkdowns down from the five chord, and, as ever, liberties taken with the vocal melody, rhythms, and even the lyrics themselves. Bob would be proud - of course he is still alive, anyway, so I could ask him what he thought about it, if I knew how to get in touch with him.

But the guitars! Sounding like nothing Dylan ever recorded. The soaring, beautiful, sweet, bluesy guitars - Clapton on his trusty Strat, G.E. Smith (remember him?) chiming away on a Tele. I had been playing for a few weeks the first time I saw this performance, and it made an impression. Clapton takes two solos, and they are stunning in their immediacy and melodicism. Some gorgeous, soul-lifting bends…he makes it look so easy.

Ironically, the ease with which Clapton built his solos was something I could not relate to at the time, much as I loved the sounds I was hearing. My mind, like my father’s, was designed to distill the colorful richness I was hearing back down to the pencil sketch of Dylan’s original: figure out the chords, memorize the lyrics, and be able to play and sing this thing by heart before sundown. This is the song that taught me to transpose before I knew what that was called, taught me to sing in my own style before I knew what that was. I’ve never let go of it, but I’ve never been able to make it feel like that Clapton version.

A few Christmases ago, my brother Tristan converted that VHS tape into a DVD and presented it to me under the tree. We watched it that morning, and I wept. I sobbed in front of my whole family. It was bittersweet to see that the gorgeous lead guitar playing that had so inspired me was still so far out of reach, and worse, that it was so okay with me. It was like I had promised myself, “I will play guitar,” and then went out and bought a french horn, never even noticing or caring that I had broken that contract. And in a way, I still don’t care.

Today one of my students, a delightful sixteen-year-old, was working on “Love Minus Zero.” To explore arrangement possibilities, I went on YouTube. There, in the suggested search field as I typed in the song title, was “clapton.” Could it be? It was - some Japanese guy posted the clip. We watched and listened - and then I shared it with another student later that day. And then I listened to it on my walk home in the dark (YouTube on the iPhone!).

And something interesting is happening - I’m hearing more. I pointed out to my student that while it sounds as though Clapton is playing continuously, he’s really creating separate phrases that overlap. One comes over in an arc and as it ends another comes underneath, like the currents of water in an ocean wave. I noticed that most of the solos are pentatonic. I realized how little he was playing during the verses - laying out and letting the rhythm parts back up the voice, then filling in with meaty licks between the lines of lyric as though it were a blues tune.

So this thing might actually be within reach: to learn one or both of these solos just for fun and education. Maybe the assumptions I’ve always made about myself with respect to my natural abilities as a musician are ready to be overturned. That will mean a lot for the way I teach, but even more for the way I live.

Regardless, “she knows there’s no success like failure, and that failure’s no success at all.” Deep, man. That either means exactly what I’m talking about, or nothing at all.

Trying on Songs

It’s been awhile - our school is really growing and has required much care and feeding. Now, as the title of this post suggests, I’ve got a gig coming up and I am shifting my focus to my own musicianship.

I’ve had a few different performance opportunities this summer, but they were all very different venues and occasions: a night at Kavarna with The Omnivores, a wedding, a devotional event at the Baha’i Center. But I find myself in the middle of back-to-back Fridays at MetroFresh, so I’m warmed up and I have the energy to try new things next Friday.

I haven’t been writing songs much lately (yeah, I will eventually get back into that, too), so what I’m doing is trying on other people’s songs to see if they fit. You know, it’s exactly like going clothing shopping for me: browse the racks and pick out something that looks like what I would always wear, something that I really hope will fit because it looks like what I need, something that’s too expensive, and something unexpected. A lot of times the thing I picked up just for fun ends up fitting perfectly, while something that looked like a sure thing at the right price just doesn’t work on me. And the gorgeous, expensive thing is, alas, not for today.

Likewise, a song that seems ridiculous (how about a girl singing “I’m a Boy,” or an acoustic version of “Isobel” by Bjork?) ends up working because it challenges my creativity and my assumptions about myself. And I got so tired of the “sure thing” that, for the past ten years or so, I’ve mostly eschewed songs by young, white female artists so that I could find my own voice. And there’s always a song that will be just out of reach, at least until the day that I can perform “Never Going Back Again” flawlessly.

So today I have been working on “Walk on the Ocean,” that Nineties gem from Toad the Wet Sprocket. A nice complicated chord progression covers up the fact that I just stand there and strum the whole time. The recorded key is right in my range, which is a bonus. Pass!

Another one is “What Light” by good ol’ Wilco. The lyrics are simple and direct, and right up my alley. I messed around and stuck the capo down on the second fret instead of the fifth for vocal reasons - now my voice pops out nicely (maybe the musical the equivalent of making alterations to a vintage dress?).

As I played, a new thought occurred to me: I’d like to make up another verse to this song. And I might. That would really make it my own. In the song, Jeff Tweedy sings:

And if the whole world’s singing your songs
And all of your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours is everyone’s from now on.

So I guess he’d be cool with that, huh?

Books

This week, I’ve been going to my studio first thing in the morning, throwing down my bags, taking off my coat, and hopping onto the piano before other obligations can get to me. I got a few new books on Tuesday - stuff written for children from Gurlitt, Koehler, and Bartok. Besides making excellent material for sight-reading, these are pieces I could potentially teach to my students. I had fun reading through some easier music the way one might read through a novel or an interesting newspaper article.

Today, I decided to start with guitar, since I have burned through all my practice time so far this week playing only piano. Instead of playing through written music, I worked on learning some songs by ear. I don’t feel like I got too far with any one thing, but I’ve been away from it for awhile and I have to build up my finger strength again. Because of this, any playing I do is beneficial - but when I don’t have a lot of structure I don’t feel committed to a piece of music, and don’t really achieve mastery.

I feel as though I’ve gone through a long tunnel with piano - it is finally a joy, after years of self-doubt and confusion. I was full of baggage: I didn’t start until late in childhood, I’ve always practiced inconsistently, I was always a crummy sight-reader, and I never really felt like I had a strong foundation. Through sheer determination, I’ve been able to keep coming back to piano and put in the effort necessary to get to a place I can feel good about.

Now I have to do the same thing with guitar - and after years of self-doubt and confusion, I think I’ve finally figured out what to do. I must follow the exact same path I’ve taken with piano: go back to the basics and build up my skills step-by-step, balancing any serious challenges by playing many songs and pieces that are relatively easy. This is the same program I use for my students.

What makes teaching guitar a little trickier than teaching piano is that I have to do a lot more work to find songs that are both at the right level of difficulty for the student and also will suit her taste in music. I have learned a lot from this process, however, and I need to do the same thing for myself. Maybe I’ll go to the music store and find the equivalent of Kabalevsky and Koehler for my level on the guitar, or maybe I’ll just put together a book for myself: lead breaks from Beatles songs, Carter-style picking, and Chuck Berry riffs.

Repertoire:

Silvio Rodriguez - “Ojala”

Radiohead - “High & Dry”

McCartney - “Put it There”

Gurlitt - Opus 187, Nos. 1 - 49

Mozart - Allegro (K. 15a)

Tasty

My appetite for practicing music is exactly like my appetite for food. I get hungry to play, and I’m slightly uncomfortable until I’ve had the opportunity to do so. Things go well for awhile, and then all of a sudden I’m “full” - my brain gets fuzzy and I get distracted, and the music in front of me becomes rather cold and unappetizing. If I keep going after that point, I don’t feel well, so I quit. Then, not too much later, I get a craving for something sweet and I want to go back and play again.

I am fasting (for religious reasons) from sunrise to sundown every day until March 20. Although I am abstaining from physical food, the musical food will do very well in the meantime.

Repertoire:

Heller - Etude in A Minor

Grieg - Waltz

“Sinking in the Lonesome Sea” (traditional)

Baby Driver

I played very little piano today, focusing more on guitar. It was a relaxed family day, so it would have been weird if I sat in the living room playing piano for hours. Instead, I played a bit with my brother-in-law, Jesse - we did “And Your Bird Can Sing” with me on rhythm and him on lead, a few Paul Simon tunes, and “Gone For Good” by the Shins. Jesse is a terrific singer and guitarist, so we can do some good harmonies and figure out stuff on the fly.

We listened to “Baby Driver” and “Keep the Customer Satisfied,” two fun shuffles off of Bridge Over Troubled Water, thinking about playing them. We discovered that they are both tuned down a half-step to Eb. I used to wonder how you could tell something like that quickly without exhausting all other options first, but I’m getting better at doing it. I think a lot of that has to do with confidence - I assume that if it’s too hard for me to play, I’m probably not playing it correctly. If my voicings have a bunch of awkward stretches or it’s hard to get a good sound from a certain chord, I’m probably playing it in the wrong place or I’ve made a bad assumption. It’s like doing a crossword puzzle: you might make guesses at the ones you don’t know or leave them blank, and as you work your way around you can make corrections or even have something click that didn’t before, just because you’re seeing it in a new way. I love working out songs by ear.

I dug out some old guitar books of my dad’s and played through them. The were busy, crappy arrangements of public domain stuff like “Greensleeves.” Given that my whole philosophy of learning music revolves around songs, I believe that the quality of one’s learning materials is the most important thing in music instruction - more important than the quality of the instrument, or even the skills of the teacher. So this by-the-numbers Mel Bay stuff was not very useful or satisfying to me - it’s really hard to make those pieces sound good, even if (especially if!) you play them exactly the way they are written.

And then…later on in the evening, driving with Jesse, my sister Ashley the birthday girl, and Jonah (my adorable sixteen-month-old nephew), I found a much more important use for my musical skills than hacking through some hacky guitar methods: I sang the baby to sleep. I was sitting next to him in the back seat as the sun was setting, leaning close and going from vigorous play songs like “Bingo” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” to lullabies hummed gently in his ear. As I watched his eyelids droop, I felt a grace that served to put all of my musical strivings in their proper context. It is all for this kind of joy and love that I play.

Playing is working

So lately I’m just sitting down at the piano and playing. I used to have some pieces I was “working on,” where I would get the metronome out and learn every nuance of the piece with painstaking deliberateness. These days, I’m just getting back to the piano after a couple of months away, so I don’t feel like taking it that seriously. Ironically, I am learning much faster and better than I used to.

This weekend I’m staying with my parents in Maine. It snowed all day, so what else to do but play with my sixteen-month-old nephew and play a little piano? I decided to play from a book my siblings and I used when we were kids, filled with many of the pieces I’m teaching my own students.

Some of these pieces never get old - I could play them every day for the rest of my life and not tire of them. Others I’ve never liked and never will. Today, I most enjoyed playing those pieces which used to look too scary to me to even try, but now flow easily. While this is the result of several years of work, the benefit has mostly become evident only recently.

What I used to do, when things were going well, was pick something really hard to work on. Now, instead, I’m just going to keep playing.

Repertoire:

Khatchaturian - “Ivan Sings”

Kabalevsky - “Slow Waltz” & “A Sad Story”

Tchaikovsky - “Italian Folk Song”

Finding time to practice

Learning to play a musical instrument requires practicing every day, even if sometimes it’s only for a few minutes. For schoolchildren, I recommend sitting down to play right after school, following a snack. This is when a kid is still fresh and able to concentrate. No tears, no stress - done and on to the next thing!

It isn’t that practicing is more important than homework, or family time, or playtime. It’s because mastering an instrument is part of a daily routine like eating, sleeping, bathing, or exercising. You can’t save it up and do it all in three hours on the weekend, any more than you can brush your teeth for the entire week on Monday morning. Therefore, if you are going to make the commitment to weekly music lessons, there must also be a daily commitment to practice.

Homework is truly overwhelming for many families these days, and I understand the panic that sets in when a deadline is looming, Dad is out of town, and the library is closing in ten minutes. On truly hectic days, practice needn’t be intense - perhaps it will simply consist of running through a few favorite pieces for less than five minutes. Though even small, token practice sessions like these will have a cumulative effect on a student’s musicianship, the student is also learning the meaning of commitment, the power of self-discipline, the value of routine, and the art of time management. These life skills will be even more valuable than the musical skills in the years to come.

Of course, there may be days when it’s not possible nor worth it to add one more thing. Too many of those days, and it becomes necessary to evaluate the big picture - which activities truly add joy and satisfaction to our lives, and which ones are draining our time and energy?

If we are realistic about the level of commitment necessary to succeed at music, we may find that it’s actually not a good time to pursue it. On the other hand, being honest and clear about the time required to practice may move us to make the time. Learning how to do this paves the way for a lifetime of musical achievement and enjoyment.

Pre-recital pep-talk

At Eclectic Music, an important theme is balance - between pop and classical, work and play, structure and creativity. Another thing that music educators must balance is the relationship between process and product. As musicians, we must get lost in the process of learning a certain skill or piece of music - thoughts like “What is this for?” and “Man, it’s taking me so long to learn this!” interfere with our focus. On the other hand, music is meant to be shared, not just experienced alone with one’s instrument - at some point we must gather ourselves to present what we have learned to an audience.

One way to reconcile these seemingly opposing aims is to consider a performance itself as a process: the most important aspect of a recital, especially for young musicians, is the experience of doing it, not “how well” we do. Mistakes are inevitable and should be embraced as part of the process of performing - they are not demerits that bar you from attaining to some realm of perfection where professional musicians appear to live.

For students experiencing some pre-recital jitters, here’s something to consider: professional musicians do not appear make mistakes because they’ve learned to cover them up through years of practice - that is, years of making mistakes in public! We all make mistakes, but the most experienced players get good at hiding them and not showing on their faces that they “messed up.” As a performer, just keep going, keeping your body language relaxed. You can start over if you really get lost.

Sometimes a professional really does do it “perfectly.” However, it’s rare that a performer would do a high-profile appearance (like on national TV) unless she is playing something well within her comfort zone - something she could do in her sleep. For most of our students, performing itself is far out of their comfort zone. They all work so hard leading up to a recital, and it becomes a showcase for how far they’ve come. It’s unrealistic to expect that one can manifest a professional polish on what are essentially brand-new skills. Even if the skills are well-established, performing is its own skill that adds new challenges to the mix - but also new rewards.

Performing is an essential part of a student’s music education, giving meaning and context to the long hours (or half-hours!) of study and practice. We are so proud of all of our performers.

The Metronome Game

Okay, it’s not really a game. But it is a way to make something that could be really boring a bit more interesting and engaging. And it will help you to get to the fun stuff faster.

The Concept
The goal is to switch between chords precisely as required by the music, rather than when your fingers get around to it. What is happening right now is that you are hesitating when moving from chord to chord. We are going to slow the music down to the point at which you no longer will appear to hesitate, because the time between beats will take so long that you can’t help but get to the next chord on time. Then, we will make that gap between the beats smaller, so gradually that it will be almost imperceptible.

For our example, we will imagine that you are working on switching back and forth between G and D, although you can play the game with any other chords.

Step One
Set your metronome to 60 beats per minute. Once you are used to that tempo, play this:

G (click click click click), D (click click click), G (click click click)…

In other words, you will play G on beat one, strumming it only once. You will then spend beats two, three, and four switching as quickly as possible to D, then spend beats two three and four of the next measure switching as quickly as possible back to G, and so on. Remember, you are not playing whole notes – just a quick “brrringgggg!” and then get out of there.

The goal is to be precise and clean, strumming exactly on each downbeat, neither late nor early. Aim to place all of your fingers down at once, and do not strum until all fingers are in place.

How many times do you switch back and forth? That will be different for each person. As you play, rate your comfort level on a scale from one to ten (one being “I am desperately scrambling from chord to chord like a drowning person trying to stay afloat with various small pieces of driftwood” and ten being, “G and D chords alike bow down before the magnificence of my chord switching prowess.” If your score is seven or below, keep working; if your score is eight or nine, stop and move the metronome a notch higher (or two beats-per-minute faster if you’re using a digital metronome). Keep going! Don’t try to get to ten or you will go mad and begin to see visions of animated, human-sized metronomes laughing and jeering at you like something out of a scary out-take from Walt Disney’s Fantasia. You’ve been warned.

Step Two
Continue the process of gradually getting faster until you reach 120 bpm. This may take you more than one session, more than one day, or even more than one week. If it makes you feel better, track your progress in your music journal. Suppose you get to 90 bpm in one day – the next day, try starting at 75 bpm. Say you get to 110 bpm that day; the next day, start around 90. In other words, don’t feel like you have to keep pushing forward all the time. You might find that you’ve got to stay at one tempo for awhile. That’s okay! All the time, you’re training your fingers.

Once you get to 120 bpm, drop back to 60 bpm. Then play this:

G, click, D, click, G, click, D, click….

You may notice that this is exactly the same tempo you were just doing, except that now you are only allowing two clicks per chord. Continue until you can do 120 comfortably. What happens next?

Step Three
If you guessed “one click per chord,” you are right! Go back to 60, and play this:

G D G D G D…

You are now switching a chord every second, which is pretty fast. If you were playing a song that has a tempo of 60 bpm, you would be able to switch from G to D and back again, right in time.

Continue to play and get gradually faster until you reach 120. You are now switching to a new chord every half-second. Congratulations - you have won the game!

By the way…
You won’t have to go through this game with every chord there is. You have now trained yourself to move faster on everything that you play, as long as you know where your fingers are going. If you do decide to do the game with two new chords, you will get through the whole process much more quickly.

On Practice

There’s something about playing music every day.  Showing up every single day to see what you can do.  Why is it so hard? 

Discipline is hard.  We eat every day and sleep every day, but even these biological drives are difficult to regulate.  How much should we eat or sleep?  When?  For something like exercise, or practicing an instrument, or even flossing, there is an internal struggle – sometimes even an external one.  The child who shows up merrily to her piano lesson each week is the same one who was rolling around on the living room floor crying and declaring the piano her mortal enemy.  For me, as a professional, the practice issue gets confused with others.  Irrational fears come out: “What if I practice every day and still suck?”  Priorities and goals seem to bait-and-switch on me: “Why am I playing classical piano when I really need to practice original songs for my gig next week?  Maybe I should just play drums instead.  Or wash the dishes in the sink.” 

After years of struggle, I have come back to what worked for me when I was fifteen: playing songs.  Playing songs, every day.  There’s not much more to it than that (you can keep your scales and arpeggios, Mister). 

Yesterday I had a sick day.  I can’t be still when I’m home sick, so I played.  And played is really the word.  I tweaked a Maybelle Carter-style guitar solo I’d come up with for “Sinking in the Lonesome Sea.”  I worked out an intro for one of my original songs that I forgot about and didn’t play on Sunday.  What a great feeling, to rediscover a song of mine that I lost!  I knew I was working, and working hard, and practicing these parts over and over, but it felt like play because there was no deadline, no other agenda for the day, and no pressure.  It was like being a kid (one with a runny nose, very adept at rhythmic transcription). 

Today I was back at work to infect a number of children and adolescents with my summer cold virus and enthusiasm for music.  There were some nice moments at the K. house, working with a family of five kids who have an honest-to-goodness band.  Brandon had written a melody to which his brothers added a bassline, a drum groove, and a B-section featuring Shaun on alto sax.  It was really exciting to hear it come together – it is the first of many original compositions, I think. 

I wish some of my afternoon students could have seen what the K. family accomplished this morning.  Practice doesn’t seem like practice when you can enjoy the fruits so regularly and so immediately. 

Mia did really well today – I was so proud of her.  She’s been my student for nearly four years, which is almost half of her life since she just turned eight!  I always enjoy spending time with her.  She is working on a version of Guaraldi’s “Linus & Lucy” which is way above her level, but she keeps blowing my mind with her willingness to read the music carefully, count out loud, break things down into small sections, and, most importantly, keep going, always with a positive attitude.  Unfortunately, she has no motivation to play the piano when she’s at home.  She’d rather be, well, playing. 

I guess until “practicing” means “playing” in the same way that one says, “playing outside” or “playing baseball”, there’s no point in forcing the issue.  I suppose it’s my job to help them all get to that place of devotion and love, and I have a hunch that it’s by example. 

Finally

I had one of my best gigs ever last night. I had a really good time, and I think it showed.

I spent the early part of the day doing some practicing – as opposed to playing. It was not a joyful act. I thought I had changed, but there I was on gig day falling back into the same old patterns. I felt pressured to do better than I had in the past, to succeed, to push myself, to perform new songs, to impress; I ended up feeling inadequate and bored.

I decided to take a break and go play in the yard. I noticed a few mulberry trees a little over a foot high around the south side of the house, growing fast and distinguishing themselves from the rest of the weeds. I decided to transplant them along the back fence, where someday they might help to cover up the view of the apartment building behind my house and provide a little more privacy.

As I worked, my mind continued to sing the songs I had been working on. Sometimes the singing in my mind spilled out of my mouth. I had a pleasant time in the ninety-five-degree heat – that’s what singing is for.

I went back inside and puttered around the house. I thought about why I signed up to play at Limerick Junction on a Sunday evening, for free, in the first place. I guess because as a musician, it’s my job to play music for people – whether I want to or not, sometimes. In the past, I’ve always been glad I did it – I meet new people, I get out of my comfort zone, I stay in the game, I try out new songs.

I came back to an idea that’s worked for me in the past: instead of thinking I had to come up with some amazing, epic set, I should just sing a bunch of songs. Songs I happen to feel like singing tonight. Songs I like, some of which I wrote. No pressure, no epic statement: simply transmitting the joy of making music.

So that’s what I did. I went upstairs to the guitar and played this time – refreshing my memory on a few things and tweaking others. And then I got ready to go, and went, and just got up there and did it.

And while I was onstage, I remembered another reason I perform: because the audience makes me able to do things I didn’t know I could do, or didn’t know I would do. I surprise myself. It’s an exciting collaboration.

Feeling at the top of my game, I decided last night that I would wake up early this morning to play. I did it, and I think I’m going to do it again tomorrow. I memorized a Schumann piece, reviewed some Scarlatti, and learned the intro to “Martha My Dear.”

There’s a freshness and ease to my musicanship lately which is showing up in my playing, practicing, performing, and teaching: I am inhabiting the world of songs. It doesn’t matter what instrument it’s on or what era it’s from or whether I wrote it or not – whatever song I am working on, I want to get wrapped up in it. It may seem an insignificant concept, but it took me eight years to get to this point. And this is where I’m going to live from now on.

Why

“…music, sung or played, is spiritual food for soul and heart. The musician’s art is among those arts worthy of the highest praise, and it moveth the hearts of all who grieve.” -’Abdu’l-Baha

Mission statement

“The art of music is divine and effective. It is the food of the soul and spirit. Through the power and charm of music the spirit of man is uplifted. It has wonderful sway and effect in the hearts of children, for their hearts are pure and melodies have great influence in them. The latent talents with which the hearts of these children are endowed will find expression through the medium of music. Therefore, you must exert yourselves to make them proficient; teach them to sing with excellence and effect. It is incumbent upon each child to know something of music, for without knowledge of this art the melodies of instrument and voice cannot be rightly enjoyed. Likewise, it is necessary that the schools teach it in order that the souls and hearts of the pupils may become vivified and exhilarated and their lives be brightened with enjoyment. ” – ‘Abdu’l-Baha