Competition and Creation: Can they Co-exist?

Competition and Creation: Can they Co-exist?

Unlike my tiniest cello friends...

I started playing cello in 5th grade in the Texas public school system. I learned to play the cellofrom a violinist along with 30 other kids who wanted to play a stringed instrument. I wish I had taken private lessons right from the start, because I began learning an instrument in a competitive environment, naturally the cello became a competitive thing. Who was going to winthe coveted position of sitting 1st chair? Who would be the shunned ones and sit last? [There are so many reasons why I don't think this is a good introduction to a musical education. but I digress...]

5th grade through 7th grade, I sat at the front of the pack in my school's top orchestra. I later auditioned and became a member of the Fort Worth Youth Orchestra, and in those orchestras I always sat either 1st or 2nd chair. And I had to work HARD to keep that chair too. And you know? I never felt a real satisfaction from getting to sit in the first stand. I just remember thethreat of embarassment if I left that first stand.

College presented auditions.

I worked my butt off for 4 universities and was chosen for 3, 2 of which I got scholarships. THAT's a good feeling, let me tell you. Working hard and having it pay off. Man it feels good. I still remember running and screeching through the house to find my mom after I opened up thescholarship letters. So fun.

What's not fun is the college level competition. That sucked the life right out of my bones. I became bitter and snobby & I hated that. The same questions asked earlier in school were not as comforting as before. "Who's sitting first?" became "Why aren't you?" which became "Don't you practice?" which became "Why don't you care anymore?" and finally became "Where were you?" I was knocked off my high horse and fell hard.

I obviously saw this as a great problem and so readjusted my context from the orchestral to thefolk/pop/rock scene. I found a renewed craving for creativity. I wasn't just inserting Song A and spitting it out perfectly, I was CREATING Song B and C and D and... I had to work hard at it, but when I did, it turned out really well and felt really good.

So zooming back to today,

I find myself considering re-entering the collegiate and competitive atmosphere for an evenhigher education, and possibly be there for quite a long time... Now that I've experienced thecreation of music I can't go back to just competitively spitting out tunes over and over again.

Having tasted the sweet nectar of creation, I wonder what it will be like to truly be part of thegroup but still feel outside of it. Will I be dubbed the underachiever or black sheep? Will I be harder on myself when I'm not "giving in" to the outside structure of this competition? Or is theoutside competition actually the kindest way to excel and be the best you can be? Can I trust myself to create my own structure and discipline? Or do I surrender to the outside discipline structure?

I know my answers, but I'm curious to hear your own experiences with competition and creation in the world of music...

My Biggest Predicament

My Biggest Predicament

The first cello lesson I taught in Seattle was with a woman in her mid-forties. We'll call her Susan. Susan is a truly petite (4'6,) soft-spoken, mom with a pretty lively daughter. Her profession put her in a pretty consistent context of silence, sensory touch, and listening.

Susan had already been playing cello for a couple years, so had the general technique down. After we warmed up and got comfortable with each other, she played me a couple lines of a solo she had been working on with her previous teacher.

It sounded pretty good. In tune. Correct bowings. Posture straight and somewhat relaxed. I could tell her previous teacher was good at her job.

It was, in the technical sense, perfect. But…

Me: "Susan, Can you play it again for me? There seems to be something missing. Let's see if we can find it together."

Susan: "Sure."

[Played again, almost exactly the same way with the same sound.]

Me: "Wow that was exactly the same. That’s impressive. It's hard to replicate sound like that. But it still sounds like something's missing. Your cello sounds scared of making sound. So let's work on your tone today."

I won't bore you with the details of how to create good tone, that's for another blog post.

What's most important in this story is what happened the following week...

Susan: "I really got a lot out of what we talked about last week. I practiced that tonalization stuff a lot."

Me: "Wonderful! Well, let's start today out by warming up with a C scale while thinking about creating that really good beautiful tone."

We play it together. I began by playing a little quieter than normal so I could hear her. You see, the previous week she was SO quiet I had to change everything I did. I talked softer & played softer, just so I could hear and communicate with her well.

[Remember this was only my 2nd lesson after a several year hiatus of teaching, and even before then it was just for fun and in highschool. Some might even consider this my 2nd lesson to give ever.]

And a few notes into the C major scale I realized, she was right, something really did stick in our previous lesson. I could really hear her! And it sounded gorgeous! So I increased my own volume to encourage even more "oomph" from her cello. It worked. She sounded almost impossibly awesome.

When we finished the 2-octave scale, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

after playing a C major scale. tears. in. her. eyes.

You guys! The only time I'd ever cried over scales was when trying to play a 4-octave G-flat major scale. (I still cry over that one.)

Okay back to precious Susan with tears in her eyes.

Me: (Praying to God that I wasn't about to get sued for emotional duress...) "Susan, what's going on? Did I do something wrong?"

Susan: (With tears now running down her cheeks and with the most astonishment one could muster...) "No, no. That sound... It’s so big! & It's coming from me!"

Me: (I was now in tears too…) "Yeah! It is! You made that sound! And it did sound beautiful."

I don't remember clearly what was said next, or how the rest of the lesson went. I don’t even remember which song we were working on, but I do remember thinking a couple of things after our lesson concluded.

First I recognized that Susan has gone her whole life being shorter than almost everyone around her. If there's a power play or stress occurring in her life, she hushes up and listens. And here we were sitting eye to eye. We were the same height while sitting. And I was asking her to speak up. It was easy for her to do because 1) she had all the tools to do it, 2) I wasn't asking HER to speak up, I was asking her CELLO to speak up.

I sensed from her tears and how the lesson went after, that that tearful moment was from living her whole life as the one who is shy, quiet, petite, short, and easy-to-please.

The tears were probably from having her secret-dream come true, and being shocked by it because she didn't outright ask for it.

I mean think about it. You've wanted something your whole life, but you've never felt like it was the time or place to ask for it. Maybe you've never even formed the words with your lips. One day, you're just going along with life and BAM! Someone hands it to you.

I would cry too!

Okay. So the second thing I thought was, "wow. I was so NOT ready to receive that kind of response from just playing through scales. The C major scale nonetheless. I hope I said the right thing and did the right thing."

I've had way too many of moments like these with my students. I don't go seeking them, but I am super sensitive when I experience them. Every time it happens I just cross my fingers that I don’t say or do anything wrong.

So all this brings me to my point. What would the world look like if music teachers knew how to handle moments like these? Could they ever feel empowered to support their students during an emotional break-through or rough spot? The teachers I know do what they can, which is to usually respond in fear. I don't think that's the answer. I even know a teacher who has put “No crying” into their Studio’s Policies.

When I was taking private lessons, I had a few awkward tearful moments with my teachers/professors; usually because I was disappointed in myself, or too hard on myself or just flat out stressed out with life. I remember feeling like my tears were this huge taboo. I would hold them back for almost 30 minutes until the urge was too big and strong to hold back or swallow. The awkwardness of my tears feeling unwelcome made me forget why I was crying in the first place.

Emotion can be a really messy thing for folks in a technical profession.

So…

What do we do for the students who have severe low self-esteem? [I encourage them to see that hard work pays off and the work is worthy of their pride.]

What do we say when you can tell their family problems are hurting their progress? [I'm not a therapist, so the only thing I can speak to is their progress. Ask them to focus? Suggest using the instrument to be a release mechanism? Maybe bring it up with the parent? What if they’re an adult and don’t have a parent?]

What do you do when a student is so shy they can hardly think straight? [I either try to make it as fun as possible or just simply play soothing music. Am I free to ask why they’re so tense?]

How do you respond when a student brings up their love life in the lesson? [Again, I'm not their therapist, so I don't feel comfortable giving advice. Instead I funnel that emotion, be it happiness or sadness, into the songs. But could I do something better and more helpful?]

Learning an instrument from scratch at any age speaks to the WHOLE person, but I'm only trained to speak to the PART of that person... Do you see my predicament?

Yeah. Me too.

Dear Students of Mine,

Dear Students of Mine,

Oh, the dialog!

Oh, the dialog!

"Whateva! Whateva, I do what I want!" - Cartman, Southpark

That's the beautiful part of being self-employed. I can do "whateva" I want. I'm able to barter services for other services, such as cello lessons for guitar lessons. Tara Ward is both my new student and my new teacher.

It's a good exercise to begin again from scratch with an instrument. The feelings that were so strong when I started the cello are a little closer in my memory than they used to be. "What the heck are my fingers trying to do here?!" or "Why won't they just do what I want them to do?!"

It's the same feelings, except the things I've learned and taught my students have become a routine internal dialog. The negative self-talk I had in high school during practice sessions has become the same dialog I have with my cello students in class/lessons. This is such a good thing. & boy, do I not miss that kind of self-talk...

• Black or White Thinking (You’re either perfect or a total failure!)
• Catastrophic Thinking (Exaggerating the significance of one single event!)
• Pessimistic Thinking (Seeing only the negatives and assuming the worst!)
• Self-fulfilling Prophecy
• Should Statements (Being ruled by a rigid set of rules!)
• “It’s-not-my-fault” Thinking (Shifting responsibility for your behaviors!)
• Mind Reading (Assuming people are thinking the worst about you!)
• Discounting (Can’t accept positive feedback!)
• Comparing (Always comparing self to others!)

The funny thing is that after just re-reading that list (thank you random pdf from UCLA via google), my first thought was, "Boy is that a lot of exclamation points." But it's true that's exactly how a practice session feels when you've got a negative self-dialog. It's awful.

My honest to God belief is that is the only reason why someone would begin to hate practicing. I can think of a few relationships I've had with folks who have an external negative dialog. They are no fun to be around. Your relationship with your practice sessions can be just as toxic as any other relationship.

Fortunately the only way to learn something is to teach it - in this case, for me, it's the negative self-talk. There's no way that I would make the same presumptuous accusations towards my own students! Heaven's to Betsy! That'd be a terrible experience for both of us. Unbeknownst to me, I've been practicing the correct self-dialog with my students.

So as I'm trying to teach my clumsy right-hand fingers a wee bit more autonomy through finger picking on the guitar, I'm discovering both the familiar feelings of drowning in unfamiliarity and also the bright new voice in the dialog of practicing. I want to remind myself of the most important facets of learning an instrument and a very important facet of living - effective and encouraging self-dialog. I only hope that my students can get a glimpse of how to better treat themselves through practicing and through their lessons.

Story

Story

This year has been a season of "Story."  I've sought to define it for myself, ask what contributes to it, and brought this concept to the table in my relationships. I've even pursued inserting it into my profession of music more often than it already does. Songs, especially pop songs, have story. They are written out of tension, sorrow, love, anger resulting from a story.  As a musician who doesn't write songs from scratch very often, interpreting someone else's story is my main prerogative when I'm on stage.

Before I teach a student a new song, we usually discuss this concept of "story." You see, an audience wants to hear a good story through your song. They love it. Especially if you set it up for them to hear the story well.  "Which story are you going to tell with the song 'Long, Long Ago?,'" I say, "Will you interpret the ascending line as an ascending volume? tension? clarity? or will you interpret the ascending melody line as somber, sorrowful, or sweet? What picture are you painting for the ears that hear your song?" 

So I ask, what stories have impacted your life in this season? How will you tell that story to others? What pictures are you painting for the ears that hear your song?

I can't wait to read Donald Miller's new book: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I hear its pretty good one to read if you're into "story..."