Building Blocks

Remember those wooden blocks we played with as children?  I loved them.
I loved the limitless number of things I could create with them.  I loved the different shapes, the different colors, the feel of the smooth, painted wood in my hands.  Most of all, I loved the sound they made when, after you built them up too high, they came tumbling to the floor.

I miss those blocks.

After a few blissful months of feasting on almost too much musical work, I now find myself in the inevitable period of famine.  I’m used to this ebb and flow of my artistic life, but I willingly admit, I don’t love the famine bit.  Usually during this period, I start creating whatever is to come next.  Now, though, I find myself staring at the proverbial blank page, and I just can’t seem to get going.   I’m… blocked.

Where Have All the Storytellers Gone?

As today is the anniversary of “the day the music died,” and as the recent winter storm still has most of life’s operations at a standstill, I thought it an appropriate time to jot down what’s been swirling around in my mind for the last few weeks.

I was born in 1967,  amidst a time of great turmoil in our country.  And, since I’m going to be drawing parallels here, I might as well point out the irony that, as I do, I was born after a huge winter storm, rivaling the one we just had.  I don’t remember that storm, or much about the time in which I was born, but I’ve learned, and I’m living now.

Why Imperfection is So Perfect

There are many people in my life who think I’m a perfectionist, which astonishes me.  Granted… I’m anal, to be sure;  I’m highly organized;  I’m a bit of a control freak  in certain situations; my husband says my handwriting could be a font; and I am, as my music director says, a Suzy-Prepares-A-Lot.  But a perfectionist?  I don’t see it.

Perfection is “freedom from fault or defect.”

Where exactly is the fun in that?

Anticipation

One of my favorite interview programs is Inside the Actors Studio, and one of my favorite parts is the mini Proust Questionnaire that host James Lipton gives to all his guests.  The questionnaire asks 10 simple questions.  Among them:  What sound or noise to you love?

I love the sound of an orchestra warming up and tuning right before a performance begins.  I love the way the cacophony — open strings, winds, brass, and percussion all playing random bits of music — suddenly morphs into a single concert “A”.   House lights dim.   A collective holding of breath and then… release.

I especially love it if all this happens while I’m standing back stage waiting… anticipating… enjoying a private adrenaline high.

What’s In a Name?

“What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Really?  I’m not so sure.

Recently, after a mind-boggling amount of searching, I finally found a suitable name for my new solo show.  The show debuts on October 23rd, so I was getting nervous that I hadn’t yet found one.  Now that I have, the whole endeavor feels more solid… more real.  It has a new momentum, and I’m feeling excited about it.  So, maybe that’s what’s in a name: a kind of reality… a kind of life.  

Chaos to Order: Taming the Music Mess

My fellow musicians (and you other folks who collect things), if you’re anything like me you have an enormous collection of sheet music — books, single commercial sheets, downloaded sheets, copies (only legal ones, of course!), fake books, etc.   For many, this is a constant source of chaos and frustration –  the organizing project that never gets done or, if it does, never seems to stay done.

So I thought I’d try to help.  In another life, I was a professional organizer, and I’m here to tell you that taming that music mess is as easy as 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3…