Angela's Horn Studio

I’ve had a couple requests to write about being pregnant and playing the horn (simultaneously), so I thought I’d go ahead and share my experience of it, though it’s important to note that every woman’s experience is different and even every pregnancy is different.  So let this serve as one horn-playing woman’s experience of one particular pregnancy!

First of all, I should say that pregnancy agreed with me on many levels.  Though not every moment of it was pleasant, in general I really enjoyed it.  I loved learning about where the baby was in his stage of development and planning for his arrival.  I thought the changes to the body (not so much the obvious changes, but the little quirky, unexpected changes) were just so crazy and interesting.  Once I was to the stage where you could tell I was pregnant, and especially towards the very end, I thought it was downright hilarious and entertaining to be pregnant just because of the funny comments people would say.  At one point a man on the street (nicely dressed, in a fancy car) said to me, “It’s an Aloysius baby!  Just remember, there was a strange man on the street that said to name that baby Aloysius!”  I’m still scratching my head and laughing about that one!  Also, I went to the gym regularly during my pregnancy and tried to keep up some semblance of my weight-lifting routine.  At one point an elderly man said to me, “Every time I see you in here I think you could go anytime!”  and he asked when my due date was.  He then assured me that I was in good hands if I went into labor in the next hour because he had delivered a baby back when he was in the Peace Corps.  Another woman in the beginning of her 2nd trimester working with a personal trainer for the first time saw me working out and said, “See, I want to be like her when I’m about to pop!”  Thank goodness she didn’t see that I was lifting almost NO weight (and still breathless…).

Strangers would see me in the store and initiate conversation, asking if I was having a boy or girl, saying I looked like I was carrying a boy, saying how much I would love having a boy, asking when I was due, sharing with me their own stories, and wishing me well.  It was heart-warming and sweet to have such spontaneous and kind interactions with people.

As far as being a horn player goes, I perhaps had it easy because of my work situation.  Since I’m a freelancer, there are times that are busy, but there are times that are free, and those busy times tend to come in clumps.  It just so happened that my busy times came in the easiest part of my pregnancy.  I only had a little bit to play during that sick-o, yucky first trimester.  Even during those weeks, I usually wouldn’t actually throw up (though it happened once or twice) — I just felt as if I could at any moment.  There was one instance when I couldn’t make it to a job in New York.  Fortunately, it was a concert for kids at Carnegie that was all readable and my part was very under-the-radar and low-profile, and there was someone who lived a few blocks away to cover for me.  Thank you, Nancy Billman!

I was able to do the rest of my jobs during the first trimester without a problem.  I just had to move slowly and eat bland little snacks all the time – I couldn’t get too hungry or too full.

After about week 16, I stopped feeling sick.  How many times did I hear how great the second trimester was?  So many times!  Many women say they feel better then than their non-pregnant selves.  Not me.  I didn’t feel terrible, but compared to my non-pregnant self, I still had to take things slowly and not demand too much of myself.

Now the good news about playing the horn, especially in an orchestral situation, is that you can usually sit down and you usually have measures of rest.  Unlike being a singer.   Being a volunteer member of the St. Mark’s choir showed me just how lucky I was to play the horn for a living.  For some reason, I couldn’t tolerate, at any point in my pregnancy, the intense Sunday morning schedule at St. Marks, combined with the hot robes (as in temperature – not in appearance!), the amount of standing required over the course of the morning, and the incense.  It did me in almost every time!  That woman looking faint during the Nicene Creed and fleeing the choir stalls during the Prayers of the People?  – that would be Angela.

The major discomforts I had playing the horn while pregnant had to do with a heart rate that would spike up sporadically every so often, breathlessness, and providing a sustained level of energy.  Short spurts – no problem!  But I felt like I had to turn down a couple brass quintet jobs in the third trimester just because I knew that I was not likely to be able to provide that kind of sustained, high-energy output without the risk of keeling over.  But that’s just me – I know other women that have had no problem with it.

The last few weeks of my pregnancy, I didn’t take out-of-town or higher-demand jobs just to be on the safe side.  Who wants to worry about getting to your job in Friday rush-hour holiday traffic, wondering if you’re going to go into labor and be stuck on I-95 or the turnpike?  I was grateful to be asked to do the work, and, honestly, if I’d known I was going to be a week late and not early, I might have gone for it.  But I still think I made the right decision for myself at the time.

I did practice daily right up until my due date.  I had to use the nursing stool I had in the nursery to prop up my right leg (I most often play on-the-leg) in order to be comfortable (by the way, those nursing stools work well for nursing too!), and I could only practice for short periods of time.  I was lucky if I got in my warm up and another short session.  The hardest part was just concentrating and not jumping up to do some of that infamous nesting.  It was a challenge to keep my mind from wandering and wondering about all the unknowns!  And that’s alright, I think.  I just needed some “face time” to maintain my strength so that I wouldn’t be adding an additional month off to my postpartum time off.  I’m not sure how much of a difference it made to have that practice time before Andreas’ birth, but it made me feel like I was doing a little something to care for that part of my life.  The truth is, when I finally picked up the horn four weeks after delivery it felt like a beast in my hands – and a beast I’d never held before!  I can’t imagine it would have felt more familiar after seven or eight weeks off instead of four, but maybe it did help.  Like I said, it made me feel better anyway.  However, postpartum/new-mommy playing is something I’m still smack in the middle of living…. and a different blog post!

One of the things I’ll remember most about playing the horn during pregnancy is sitting on stage wondering what my baby was hearing, feeling him kick around – sometimes so much he’d make my horn bounce off my belly when I was holding it during rests – and wondering, does he like the sound of the flute and clarinet and violins? Or is he just kicking just because he wants me to start playing again?  Or is he happy that I’m NOT playing? Or is he just kicking because he likes to kick?  I’ll never know, but I loved thinking about the world from the perspective of the womb, and feeling him growing and moving around and perhaps responding to what he heard and felt.

Now if I could only brag that he totally digs the horn.  Though he has excellent ears, I’m afraid he’s not yet a fan seeing as how I made him cry the other day with my buzzing on the mouthpiece.  Oh well!  He does like listening to short amounts of very, VERY chill music.  Natalie Merchant and Norah Jones are good bets.  And he’s enjoyed listening to some choral music as well.  In the meantime, I’ll be practicing in a distant room while he sleeps!

As I sit in my comfy rocker in the nursery with our seven-week-old Andreas, I have alot of time to think about what I would like for him in his life.  Of course, we all want our children to be happy and to have their needs not only met, but for them to flourish in every way.  I am no different. I think that more than anything, I want for Andreas to find something in his life – or many things in his life, but at least one thing – that feeds his spirit and nurtures his soul.  I want him to feel not just happy (which is a feeling that can come and go), but an underlying, enduring joy that doesn’t depend on the circumstances of the moment.  I wish for his life to be one that is filled with meaningful relationships and for him to have a feeling of integration into the world around him.  I want for him to have the sense that he can contribute something special, and to have something that fuels his imagination and energy.  I want for him to have a sense of possibility.

I feel like many of the challenges we face in our society are at least in part due to the lack of this kind of soul nourishment and attention to the whole person.  It seems to me that many of our attempts to solve our societal ills end up being band-aids that only succeed in patching up holes and treating one or two outward symptoms rather than getting at the root of what ails us.

Since my move to Philadelphia, I’ve taken interest in a few projects around town that deal with whole people.  These are projects that do attend to some outward, physical needs, but also nurture the inner person and create fertile soil from which many good things can continue to grow.  One of these projects I have followed is what has become the St. James School.

The St. James School is located in the neighborhood of Allegheny West in North Philadelphia.  If you have ever taken the train from New York’s Penn Station to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station via Amtrak, you have an idea of what some parts of North Philadelphia look like.  These neighborhoods are gritty and poverty-stricken.  Life there is most often about survival.

If you were to have walked through the neighborhood some two years ago, as I did, you would have walked past row houses, overgrown lots, more than a few sketchy corners, and then you would have happened upon two areas across the street from one another surrounded by stone walls and enclosed with iron gates.  If you had looked through the gate on one side of the street you would have seen an abandoned, lonely structure that looked like it belonged in 13th century England – a small but ornate Gothic parish church.  Surrounding the church you would have seen tombstone upon tombstone, all overgrown and strewn with branches and leaves.  On the other side of the street you would have found two more buildings – a rectory and the parish hall containing what used to be a school – all abandoned and in complete disrepair.  Inside the building you would have found the former classrooms littered with strewn supplies and the dust thick.

The property could have sat dormant and decaying for much longer, but fortunately, there are people in Philadelphia with inspiration and vision.  Enter Father Sean Mullen, the rector of St. Mark’s Church, an Episcopal congregation in Philadelphia’s Center City. His dream was to establish new life on this abandoned property and establish something that could be a great resource for the strained neighborhood.  It would start with a summer camp, then an after-school program to test the waters, and then a middle school would be opened if all went well.

I got to know the grounds and the rich history of St. James the Less over the next couple of years as I visited it for various reasons as a member of St. Marks. The church itself is tiny but extraordinary (it is one of the earliest examples of gothic-style architecture in the United States) and is on the registry of historic places.  The graveyard is populated by some of the nation’s most notable people:  the businessman John Wanamaker, military officers, congressmen, and the educator Agnes Irwin, just to name a few.

One of my favorite stories is about the design of the church itself.  St. James the Less  applied to its parent church in Cambridge, England for designs and was accidentally sent plans for a church that had been built in England in the year 1220.  The builders here in Philadelphia followed the drawings precisely!

In December, I went to visit the St. James School and left inspired by the work going on there.  With David Kasievich as the director and Laura Hoffman-Dimery as the principal, the school officially opened in the fall with a small class of 5th graders – all recruited from the neighborhood of Allegheny West.  I met every single one of the students. They confidently looked me in the eye and shook my hand and told me their names.  As the visit progressed it was very clear that the students are receiving not only a very fine education and opportunities they would had never have had access to, but an education of the whole child.  Thanks to the vision and tireless efforts of all those involved, their spirits, minds, and imaginations were being nurtured, creating fertile soil from which many good things could continue to grow long after their education was finished at the St. James School.

The students at St. James have music, arts, sports, and spiritual education daily in addition to their academic studies.  They have a garden in the back yard of the school that the students are responsible for – right down to the compost.  They’ve gone on museum trips, rock-wall climbing trips, and to — orchestra concerts!

That leads me to Beth Dzwil, the protagonist of this blog post.  I started my most recent visit to St. James School in the chapel which doubles as her music room.  I saw on the dry-erase board, “You are listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the 2nd movement.  Name all of the instruments you hear.”  This was no watered-down musical education they were getting!  I was so curious to know how Beth came to be at St. James, what her experiences working with the children have been like so far,  and what her hopes and dreams for the music program are.  She graciously agreed to let me pick her brain and the following interview is the result.  Enjoy!

It’s not just any musician/music teacher that ends up in a teaching situation like the one at St. James the Less!  Can you tell me a bit about your path there?

I first started classroom teaching at Chestnut Hill Academy, where I taught violin classes to the third graders there.  I did similar types of violin classes at Springside School and at Germantown Friends School.

In the fall of 2006 I ran into Charley Muir (former head of lower school at Germantown Academy) at a Germantown Academy event.  He told me of the Community Partnership School that Germantown Academy had just opened in partnership with Project Home.  Community Partnership School, like St. James, is a school that strives to provide high quality education to underserved children, but on the Pre Kindergarten through Grade 5 level.  He said that they lacked a music teacher.  The mission of the school was very appealing to me and I immediately volunteered to help out until they found someone.  I taught general music there for about four months.  At the time, I didn’t think I was cut out to teach general music, but in those few months I realized that I did in fact have a lot to offer.  I fell in love with the children of CPS and was very disappointed when they found a teacher!  I vowed to return at some point to start a Suzuki violin program there.  To that end, I would occasionally contact CPS to let them know that I was still interested in doing that.  For various reasons the time was never right for them until early spring of 2009 when my phone call coincided with the departure of their music teacher.  I offered to fill in until the end of the year if I could incorporate a violin program.  They agreed and I set off on a whirlwind mission to acquire twelve violins in less than a month.  A round of emails to students and colleagues brought several donations, and Springside School loaned us the remaining instruments we needed from their collection.  My dream was coming true!

Then I received notice that Chestnut Hill Academy was terminating their violin program.  This left me with a hole in my schedule that enabled me to accept the music teacher position at CPS.

It was at CPS that I got to know Dave Kasievich.  At that time, Dave was the director of development for CPS.  I was very impressed with Dave, his faith, his boundless energy, his love for the children and his drive to help them overcome their challenges through education.   When he said he was leaving CPS to try to get St. James off the ground, as sad as I was to see him go, I knew he was following his call.  Dave invited me to visit St. James about a year ago.  He gave me a tour of the building and grounds and told me of his dreams for the school.  In the late summer he asked if I would come in to brainstorm a music program with the newly appointed principal, Laura Hoffman Dimery.  I was thrilled to hear how much they valued the arts and that the students would have music four days per week.  It felt very rich to plan a truly comprehensive music program and to know that it was not just OK but desirable for my faith to enter into that program.  I applied and was very excited to be hired for the music teacher position.

How have you balanced being a teacher at St. James with all the other playing that you do and the demands of freelancing?

It is definitely a challenge to “do it all”.  I left CPS when I took on the position at St. James.  Because we currently have only one grade level, I am teaching far fewer classes than I was at CPS.  I still teach violin groups and private lessons at Germantown Friends School, maintain a private violin/viola studio, manage and perform with the Fairmount String Quartet and the Fairmount Chamber Ensemble, and perform with the Elysian Camerata.  I am blessed with good organizational skills.  I do a lot of multi-tasking and have learned to be a very efficient practicer!

Starting a program from the ground level seems like a huge undertaking.  How did you develop a plan for the curriculum this year? 

I love creating something from nothing, so starting a new program is very appealing to me.  I thought about the various elements of music and what I wanted the students to be able to do by the time they graduate in eighth grade and worked backwards from there.  MENC (Music Educators National Conference) and Pennsylvania state standards have been good guidelines.  A number of colleagues – especially Caroline Davidson, Taia Harlos and Debbie Stahl at Germantown Friends School – have been very generous to me with their time and expertise.  I have had to make some major adjustments as some of the students have come to St. James with very little music education.  I’ve had to take some steps backwards and fill in a lot of gaps.

What approach to musical education do you take with the kids?  Is the focus primarily classical music, or do you have a broader focus?  And are they learning to read music?

I believe that everyone can learn to play, sing and read music and that it is not limited to those who are “talented”. One of the biggest challenges may be convincing the students (and adults) of that!

My goal is for our students to have exposure to and an understanding of many kinds of music and to keep an open mind to new sounds.  We have focused primarily on classical music so far, largely in preparation for our visit to the Kimmel Center to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra.  The curriculum materials provided by the orchestra were so valuable in preparing the students.  They were absolutely entranced at the performance and thought it was way too short!  The Fairmount String Quartet came to St. James to perform for the class.  Once again, the students were very engaged with lots and lots of questions.  The select choir from Agnes Irwin also has come to perform for them.  I would love to have a brass quintet and a wind quintet perform for them so that they can see and hear the instruments up close.

One of my dreams is to have an instrumental music program and an instrumental ensemble at St. James.  I have asked each of the students if there is an instrument that they would like to learn how to play. Some want to learn to play more than one instrument.  All in all,  6 want to play violin, 2 viola, 6 drums, 3 piano, 3 flute, 1 guitar and one boy says he wants to play the harp because “it’s just so peaceful. I could play the harp and my brother and sister would go to sleep.”

I am working on finding instruments and teachers.  I can teach violin and viola if we can acquire some instruments, but for the other instruments I need to find musicians who would be willing to donate their time to these students.  The children trust that it will happen and wait patiently.

Many thanks to Beth for taking time to answer my questions and for sharing her experiences and vision with me!

Anyone interested in being involved with or donating to the St. James School should contact Beth directly or David Kasievich, the director of the school.  You can find their contact info on the St. James School website.  The school relies entirely upon donations and support from individuals and various organizations in order to function, so generosity is key.

While you are at the St. James site, be sure to go to the “News” page.  You’ll find videos of some of the students’ performances as well as other articles about the great things going on at the school!

Here is some information about an upcoming fundraising event:

Friday, April 13, 2012 • 6:30-10pm – ECHOES CALL TO CARE 2012: Proceeds support both Trinity Children’s Centre in Uganda as well as the St. James School.  Echoes Foundation will honor St. James School visionaries Dr. Audrey Evans and The Reverend Sean Mullen.  The Desmond Hotel, Malvern, PA.  For more information, visit www.echoesfoundation.org

Further reading:

www.stjamesphila.org

www.saintmarksphiladelphia.org

www.nativitymiguelschools.org

I am a person who likes to be prepared.  I usually don’t approach preparation with a sense of anxiety – I take joy in it!  As long as I can remember, back to my earliest school days, I loved going home in the evening and getting ready for the next day.  And this wasn’t limited to homework – it meant even choosing and laying out my outfit for the next day.  I admit, I probably came across as a goody two-shoes, but I didn’t mean to be that way.  What I did was not for the sake of being better than others or gaining adult approval (though I didn’t mind approval) – I just took pleasure in organization and preparation.  Weird little kid, I know!

The trend continues to this day  (though I’ve loosened up a bit on picking out my clothes for the following day.)  The biggest thing I’ve had the opportunity to prepare for recently is motherhood, and throughout my pregnancy I approached it the way I’ve approached every other event, big and small, in my life – with pleasure and with vigor in my preparation.  I knew in concept that one could never be really prepared for motherhood, but I did all I could to make sure I had done whatever things could possibly be done.  I educated myself on childbirth and breastfeeding, the nursery was in place well ahead of time, and I set up a support system for myself and found resources like new mom groups and learned where to find the information and help I would need.

Then the big day came four weeks ago.  From the start of labor, to my unexpected Cesarean delivery, and through to this very day has been a blur and a whirlwind!  I knew beforehand that I would be in control of nothing really, but knowing it and experiencing it are two very different things.  I have been riding a wave (sometimes on top, sometimes in the turbulent middle) of something much larger than myself, experiencing the deepest love, as well as unexpected fears and anxieties.

My preparation was certainly not in vain – I’ve needed everything that I put in place for myself and then some, but it has reminded me that most often, no matter how much you prepare for an event, you can never be fully prepared for anything in life.  There are simply too many variables and there are always unexpected twists.  We must trust that we’ll be able to ride the waves and not be afraid to ask others to help us ride those waves.  There’s that word again – a recurring theme with me! Trust… trust… trust….

Someone asked me yesterday if I felt like a different person now that I’ve had a baby.  I had no idea how to answer!  After thinking about it a little bit, I decided that I feel very much like me, but like a “me” that must become very comfortable with the shortcomings of preparation and prepare in a different way for my days: by taking some deep breaths, remembering to trust, pay close attention, and take the minutes with all of their surprises as they come.

I’m so pleased to share with my readers (finally after so many days!) the arrival of our healthy and hearty baby – Andreas Edward Bilger, born on January 12, 2012.  He was 8 lbs. 1oz. and 20 inches long.  These photos were taken of him when he was three days old!

Every day feels new and very full.  We’re loving getting to know our little guy!

If you are a subscriber to my blog, you might have noticed the infrequency of my posts recently.  There is a reason!   Since my blog is entitled “Angela’s Horn Studio” I feel compelled to write about things related to the horn, but the truth is, the horn has just not been on the top of my mind recently.  My thoughts and heart have been, for the majority of my time these days, shall we say, preoccupied while I await the arrival of our little baby boy.  I continue to play each day because I feel I can (on most days – with lots of breaks and a stool to prop my foot upon!), and because it provides rhythm and normalcy to my days – like brushing my teeth or eating breakfast.  I like the way I feel when I have practiced, so I do, and I would like to think that I still manage to be present and engaged while I have the horn in my hands.  But there is a big distraction!  So perhaps it is OK to stretch the “Angela’s Horn Studio” concept to include non-horn things that I think about while in my practice room – or in close proximity to my practice room. 🙂

One of the best things, though, about having something like the horn in my life – having something that has been a constant and big endeavor in my life – is that it has helped me to learn about myself and my tendencies.  We all have themes that play themselves through our lives again and again depending on our wiring and personalities.  One of my recurring themes has been finding the balance of control and surrender.  There comes a point in various endeavors playing the horn when you have done all you can in your preparation and “control” phase, and the time comes to let go and allow instinct to take control.

So here I am!  Fully prepared and ready.  And coaxing myself (once again) into relaxing and trusting my body to do what it knows how to do and reminding my inner controller that it can’t do a darn thing but to let go and wait.  I have been told that this time would be a great time to practice NOT being in control – because I’m not going to have much control over many circumstances in the coming weeks, months and years.  So for now, I practice, I go to the gym, I go for long walks with my husband, I look at all the cute little boy clothes that are lined up and ready to go, and I fill out the family tree in the baby book.  I go to movies (The Muppet Movie was seriously fun), and I’m getting in some great reading (books that are not even about babies!).

Another thing that crosses my mind while I’m waiting is all of the potential in this moment.  This really brings the term “pregnant pause” home to me!  Just like the silences between phrases in music, and just like a dramatic, perfectly timed pause in a speech or sermon to give the listener time to absorb and anticipate, I am on the brink, residing in that very pregnant pause at the moment.

So just in case you were wondering, “What’s up with Angela and her ‘studio’?  She’s awfully silent these days!”  I am at home or on a walk (waiting), or maybe at the movies (waiting), or maybe out to dinner (waiting), and perhaps even practicing (waiting), and in general, doing my best to surrender to each and every moment.

Bottom line: there is a little someone in control and it is NOT ME!

Happy New Year to all of you!

It’s that time of year!! Just in case you haven’t finished your shopping yet, here are a few gift ideas for the musically-oriented in your life.

For The Youngest Among Us:

I have very fond childhood memories of listening over and over and OVER again to a few beloved records.  They’re sold as CDs now, of course, but you know what I mean.  Some of my favorite classical music children’s records are Tubby the Tuba, Peter and the Wolf, and Fantasia (this one is a DVD).  You have multiple choices for each of them.

A horn-shaped kazoo: these are so much fun.  Especially when you give it a name like Corzoo and write silly stories about it.  Great for kids to experiment using their voices.

For Those Just Starting the Horn:

Cleaning Set: There are various cleaning kits out there, often geared towards the brand of horn used.  The key elements of a cleaning set in my opinion are a snake, mouthpiece brush, valve oil, slide grease, cloth.  You could even put your own together if you can’t find one that has the exact elements you’d like.  If your cleaning kit doesn’t come with a booklet, you could print this page out to include with your kit:

A tuner or metronome, or combination of the two:  I think the Korg TM-40 is a fantastic tool to have.  It is a combination tuner/metronome and is a decent price.  For someone more advanced who needs more volume and more features in a metronome, I like the Tama Rhythm Watch.  It’s not as pricey as a Dr. Beat, but has all the features I have ever needed.  Although, the Dr. Beat does have this fun option of a voice yelling the beats at you, which has provided more than a few laughs in chamber music rehearsals, I must admit.  “One! Two! One! Two!”

For the advancing horn player:

Philip Farkas, The Art of French Horn Playing – Every horn player should have this!

Membership for the International Horn Society – With membership, your horn-playing loved one will receive The Horn Call, a publication of the society, that is stock full of great resources and information.  This is one of the best places to find out about horn workshops, camps, competitions, and scholarships.

For the College Musician/ Young Professional:

Play with a Pro Gift Certificate:  this stunning site is an invaluable resource for everyone, but an especially appropriate gift for an advanced student and those looking to get started soon in their careers.  The horn player featured is Radovan Vlatkovic, a musician of impeccable taste.  You won’t want to miss what he has to say!  It’s a great gift for those of other instruments as well.  (Full disclosure: my husband is one of the featured trumpet players). 🙂  Everything about this project masterminded by Adam Simonsen – from the substance of the interviews and masterclasses to the cinematography and production value –  is of the highest quality!

The Orchestral Audition Repertoire for Horn: Complete and Unabridged, compiled by David Thompson:  If the horn player in your life is super serious and ready to start taking orchestral auditions, this gift will come in very handy!

The Orchestra Musician’s CD-ROM Library:  This is a CD alternative to Thompson’s collection, for those who prefer everything to be digitized.  It is a very complete collection.  Great resource!

EZseatU: If your music lover/horn player lives in the Philadelphia area, check out this great option for college-age students.  Students pay $25 and get unlimited concerts throughout the season.

For Any Music Lover:

A subscription to the BBC Music Magazine:  This is a perfect gift for absolutely anyone who is a lover of music.  I subscribed to this magazine as a college student, and it provided me a fantastic education about what was happening worldwide in classical music.  Also, it comes with a CD each month – a great way to expand your listening library and get to know some things that you might not have necessarily picked up on your own.

This is obviously just a small slice of potential gift ideas, but a good place to start.  Also consider a gift subscription to whatever orchestra, chamber music series, or opera company that is close by the person you are buying for.  There’s nothing like the gift of live music!

Sending you warmest wishes for a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year full of good times with family and friends!

I have a very bad memory in some ways, especially for details of novels or movies and (embarrassingly) concerts I have played.  I can remember the emotional content, and remember how I felt reading a book, seeing a movie, playing or hearing a concert, but it’s rare for me to remember the intricacies of a plot, or the details of a program.

So it is all the more surprising that I remember one of my first horn auditions very clearly.  I was in seventh grade auditioning for Junior High All-District Band.  All the kids auditioning were in one warm-up room together – the enormous band room of an equally enormous public school.  Looking back on it, I cannot even imagine the cacophony!   I had my gigantic hard case – that I could barely carry and that always bruised my legs – containing my beat-up single F horn from our little school.  My heart still beats a little faster when I remember the intimidation I felt looking around at all these kids who seemed to me to have done this before.  They looked like they knew what they were doing – they were worldly and experienced in my mind.  And they all knew each other, it seemed, or at least knew someone. I didn’t know anybody. Then one very together-looking girl with long, blond hair confidently opened her horn case to reveal a shiny silver double horn.  “That’s it,” I thought, wanting to cry.  I thought for sure her horn was a sign of how out of my league I was, or thought I was. “What am I doing here?”  I was certain I detected amused glances at my dented, rust-spotted horn that looked like it had been through a couple lifetimes of abuse and maybe a bomb blast or two.  I think I might have even said something to either my mom or my dad – whoever was with me.  I think it was my dad.  Something to the effect of “Look at her horn.  She’s obviously better than I am!”  I remember being told not to worry about it – that it was just a horn and to concentrate on doing my best.

To make a long story short, it didn’t matter much that my horn was beat-up.  It turned out to be a fine first audition, and I was at the top of the pack when the results came out.  The lesson of the night stuck with me: don’t take anything as a sign for good or bad – just do your own thing and do your best.  And it doesn’t matter so much what horn you have.

If you’ve read many of my posts, you might have noticed that I haven’t spent much time focusing on what happens outside of us and in response to us as we learn and grow.  But after my last post, I got a comment from Linda Grace, a fantastic rolfer (and blogger!) here in Philadelphia that I have gone to see (if you ever need body work done and you live within striking distance – I highly recommend going to her).  And she asked for my thoughts about that very thing.

She writes:

“I’d also like to hear your ideas of what the signs and symbols from outside of oneself (i.e. loving it, working hard, prevailing over discouragement are one’s own felt signs).  What are the signs and symbols which can say, “we could make a go of this music!”  
I have this idea that these signs can show up at any of the stages, but the emerging adult can have some signs available that show possibility….  In other words, what part do you think the rest of the world’s opinions play in the emerging adult becoming a successful musician of any of those stripes you speak of?”

To read my response, click here and look in the comment section.  It contains my most concrete and practical thoughts about the subject.  However, I thought that her question deserved a thorough fleshing out in a new post because it’s really an important question. After all, it’s impossible to live in a vacuum!   Whether we like it or not, the people around us do respond to us and do have opinions about what we do.  The outside world most definitely plays a role in the shaping of our lives and careers. Although I think it’s rare for one outside event, or one person’s opinion to ultimately make or break us (and I know this is not what Linda was referring to), I DO believe that we absolutely need people and other sources of input from outside of ourselves to guide us, give us ideas, give us encouragement, and to help us to see more clearly.  We all need teachers, mentors, and good, honest friends. Our lives and various paths are formed usually, not out of sheer force of our will regardless of what anyone else says, thinks or does, but more often by a very complex web of influences and feedback.  Some influences we seek out, and some come to us whether we want them or not.

When I think of the major influences from outside sources in my own life, they fall into a few categories: input and guidance from teachers; official rulings from juries, judges and committees; suggestions or opinions from various trusted mentors; feedback and support from colleagues; and the loving presence and help that my close friends and family provide.   All of it was (and continues to be) very, very important to me.  I can clearly see and feel in my own life those “threshold” time periods when I have been a little stuck.  There was something I couldn’t get past until someone or something intervened (usually in a very quiet and offhanded way) from outside my own limited perspective and allowed me to see the way ahead of me – what it was I had to do next and how to do it.  Or someone sparked an idea, and all I had to do was change my approach or my thinking about something, and I was on my way again.

The kicker, of course, is that we have to be open to suggestion, be willing to put ourselves out there and expose ourselves – or else we never get the feedback.  Not only that, there is the “negative review.”  We must listen to those as well, see if there’s something we can take from it that will help us along our way, and forget the rest – which is often easier said than done.

Speaking of forgetting, I have been following a project of David Brooks, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times.  This project is called The Life Reports.  He asked for those over 70 years of age to write in and evaluate their lives – what they thought they did well, what they are most disappointed about, etc.  He has been posting one essay a day on his blog, and in his own column has been commenting on trends he sees from the thousands of essays he’s received.

One of the many interesting points he made in his latest column was that those who were happiest in their lives were “strategic self-deceivers.”  Here it is in context:

Beware rumination. There were many long, detailed essays by people who are experts at self-examination. They could finely calibrate each passing emotion. But these people often did not lead the happiest or most fulfilling lives. It’s not only that they were driven to introspection by bad events. Through self-obsession, they seemed to reinforce the very emotions, thoughts and habits they were trying to escape.

Many of the most impressive people, on the other hand, were strategic self-deceivers. When something bad was done to them, they forgot it, forgave it or were grateful for it. When it comes to self-narratives, honesty may not be the best policy.

Hmmm, so maybe my bad memory isn’t the worst thing in the world after all!

I’m not at all suggesting suppression of things that need attention, or that we shouldn’t take a good, hard look at ourselves and examine what we see from time to time.  I think that is important.  However, a bad memory – or selective memory – can help in certain circumstances!  That could go for any of the things that we might be tempted to take as signs and symbols that aren’t helpful to our cause – just like nightmares.  My mother always told me there was no need to remember bad dreams – the brain just needed to work through and metabolize something, and that it was more than OK to let go of them and not examine them or take them as signs.  “It’s healthy to forget bad dreams!” she said.

Also, something we take as a sign of our future promise can be just as dangerous as something we might take for a sign that “I’m just not cut out for this” if it makes us to feel like we can rest on our laurels.

The main thing is to keep growing, keep looking forward, and to continue exploring and finding freshness and new perspectives whenever and wherever we can.  The wonderful thing is that we need each other in order to grow, and that is one of the things that makes life so full and so interesting.

So, I’d say that, for me, my biggest outward sign that I am on the right path is that the people around me keep giving me food for thought (whether they know it or not!), keep talking with me about ideas or strategies, and keep inspiring me to try new things.

What in your life has served as a positive sign to you that you were on the right path?  Or the opposite – that it was time to do something different?  I’d be curious to know!