Musical July

Earlier this year I was sad that I had not been hired to teach at any Suzuki institutes, as I LOVE teaching in that format.  I get so inspired and grow in my own work.  Jared had been hired for two, plus a chamber music camp out on the penninsula.  But then, we all know what happened after that.  Everything is canceled.

Our current volume of music activities of July has ended up a sort of surprise, then.

First of all, Jared and I put together a 30-minute program of music by Black composers and offered it to any neighbors who were interested, via Buy Nothing.  We played for neighbors in our alley.  We played for neighbors at the park behind our house.  We played in the parking lot of a townhouse community.  Next week we will play it in a neighbor's yard - she is giving it as a birthday gift to her elderly aunt.  We both have enjoyed over the years promoting less common music and this seemed like the right gift to share at the right time.

Then, Jared suddenly had the opportunity to take five weeks of a Dalcroze workshop online with Jeremy Dittus in Colorado, which did not involve the expenses of travel and lodging.  He's just completing week one of that.  In preparation, he did a lot more clean-up on the garage/studio, and we borrowed my brother's nice electric keyboard to put out there.  It has also involved working to shift family bedtimes as the classes start at various earlier hours of the morning than we typically find ourselves working.  Plus we had to shift our summer group class workshop (online this year, of course!) a week earlier.  Lots of rescheduling of summer lessons associated...

Last week was our group class workshop.  We had two groups, which met online for an hour each, daily, doing Dalcroze and ensemble work. We also had a "Share Your Music" Skype call - less formal than a regular recital; many of the students performed pieces they'd learned on their own.  And a few students plus a couple of friends showed up at the park for a flash mob performance (masked and distanced!) for neighbors, which we also shared on Buy Nothing.  As usual, this involved my transcribing music.  For the performance we had French Renaissance polyphony, folk songs from Korea, Japan, and the African-American tradition, some short pieces by composers in Africa, and a transcription I made of Joplin's Rag-Time Dance.  I also made practice videos of all the pieces.  Good stuff, but certainly time-consuming.  The flash mob was so much fun we have scheduled a second one in August - same repertoire.  More about transcriptions in a moment...

I have a student preparing a book 3 recital for his home (in another county which is less affected by Covid).  The recital will be in August, but we have not seen each other in person since March.  I will be accompanying him on piano, so last week I made recordings at mutually agreeable tempi for him to practice with.  I had to find moments where our cabin was quiet so I could record on our living room spinnet.  (There are be a few random - "Mom!" moments in the middle of recordings, but nothing that would impede my student from practicing effectively.)

I also have a student preparing her senior recital for August.  Originally, she had planned for July at her church with a hired pianist, but... So now the recital will be in her yard with me accompanying her on violin (for the Mozart Violin Concerto in Bb) and viola (for a transcription I had made of an unpublished version Joshua Bell performs on one of his CDs of the Massenet Elegie.). I had originally transcribed the Elegie off the recording since no purchase-able version exists.  The CD version was violin and orchestra, and I had used that to create a violin and piano version.  But now, no piano and no pianist, so I have "upgraded" to a violin and viola version....

Jared and I decided that starting this week I would offer some outdoor lessons to interested students.  We have no shade in our yard.  Jared put a tarp from our kitchen annex roof across the walkway to the roof of my studio.  I clipped back some of the overgrowth, leveled a couple of the bricks, and moved the secondary junk pile to the main junk pile.  Also relocated the city bins to the front yard, and swept.  Then I get my chairs and stands and such set up for actual lesson times.  Very nice to see some people in person, even though we're masked.  I think that my teaching got much more efficient and detailed online when I started typing notes for students (copy & paste plus my ability to type faster than write by hand opened some doors for me.) Then I brought that newfound detailed-ness to an actual in-person where I can see and hear better, and I am happy with the density and usefulness of the information I am presenting.  It's up to the students to actually open their cases at home and make use of it...

Normally, when the Suzuki Association of Washington State asks around for teacher to evaluate graduation recordings submitted each June, I ignore the email, but this year I though I would like to get my ears and eyes on what else is going on out there in teaching-land in Washington.  I volunteered to evaluate five recordings.  The five I was sent represented three teachers I know personally, and I actually know two of the students personally, as well.  It was fun to hear their progress and get a sense of each of the teachers' current strengths and blind spots (we all have them!). I learn so much from doing that, and hope I can incorporate what I observed into my own teaching.  That also happened this week.

My next musical project is to make some inquiries to other professionals who have published arrangements and transcriptions of public domain music, since I have created a lot of those over the years and find out how I should pursue publishing and monetizing some of my work.  There are lots of reasons to do it, and this seems like the right time.

Full Circle

A couple of years ago, Rachel Barton Pine was in town to perform the complete solo Bach works on Baroque violin, under the auspices of Seattle Early Music.  When I saw that concert listing, I choked for joy and for price, then happily put down the $60 for a ticket.  (The concert was memorable!)

It turned out that while she was in town, some fellow CIM grads living in the area (I don't know them - I think they were in school after I graduated?) hired her for a high profile masterclass at a fancy place in Bellevue.  I did not send any students to play, as I didn't have anyone at the level they were looking for, and I did not go either, as I didn't want to plunk down another $25 to attend. 
But... my former violin student and babysitter, now neighbor and teaching colleague, Anne, had won a free ticket to the masterclass from the Classical radio station.  And at that masterclass, she heard it announced that Rachel would be giving another free masterclass at a church [in a non-descript lower-middle class neighborhood] in south Seattle [near Renton.]. She texted me about it in the wee hours of the morning, and the next day, she and my Anne and I loaded up and drove over to the location in question.

The masterclass was wonderful, as were the students.  The students, it turned out, study through a non-profit in Renton call Keys to Change Violin Studio, run by a Dr. Quinton Morris.  They were all middle and high school age, and mostly people of color, playing music from French Folk Song, up to Lalo Symphony Espagnole.  And clearly their teacher knows what he is doing.  Very perceptive, kind, and detailed.  Rachel worked with them in such helpful ways, and at the end, she and her young daughter (close in age to my own Anne) performed several violin duet pieces, which were as yet unpublished, from a project Rachel was spearheading called Music by Black Composers.  They had put together a program they were going to be performing all over Chicago for Black History Month that year, and I was impressed with the pieces, and with the performance of the little girl with her mother.  (When she wasn't playing, she was with her nanny coloring in the other room; Anne and another young child joined them when they tired of the masterclass.)

As I was duly impressed with Quinton, whose day job is on the faculty at Seattle University, I took down his contact information.  A year later, last Spring, I invited him to my little living room to give a masterclass for some of my and Anita's students.  It was a wonderful masterclass, as I knew it would be, and my students and I appreciated all the concrete and helpful feedback he gave them.  Also... Quinton mentioned that grew up various places in this very neighborhood, starting on a street just two blocks down the hill from me.

Before that, however, the first volume of the Music by Black Composers series was published, and I ordered it right away, and I began using it in group classes right away.

This Saturday (tomorrow) at 2:00 pm Central, Rachel's daughter, who will be celebrating her 1200th day of consecutive violin practice, is giving a recital of the entire Music by Black Composers Volume One via Facebook Live, with her mother accompanying; and Rachel says, via an online music teachers group of which we are both members, that they are planning to put it up on YouTube for future listening.

(Link to Live recital HERE.)

This coming Wednesday, it is my turn to offer a masterclass for Quinton's students at Keys to Change (via Zoom, of course...).  And our own studio will be playing recitals on Skype this Thursday and next Sunday, on which will be performed two numbers from the Black Composers book.  I can't wait for the second volume!

No Weeds

The other night I pulled out one of my Allison Krauss albums for the kids in lieu of the U2 album they requested, and I realized how much I have missed listening to her the last few years.  In my teenage years in Texas, then in Ohio, and then again in Alabama, I had a room to myself, or at least many hours to myself at home, and I spent time listening to music I really loved.  In between times in New York and now in Washington, I have mostly listened to other people's music, and though there is quite a bit of overlap, I think maybe I have lost a little piece of my soul....

When I was out walking this evening with Laurel in the stroller (on a timer; I had a just-because cake baking in the oven), it suddenly occurred to me that my life motto should be pulchritudinem de micis (my best Latin stab at "beauty from scraps".)  Mind you, I haven't been searching for a life motto.  However, in the Penderwick books that Anne and I love so dearly, all of the family members have a life motto in Latin.  Mr. Penderwick is a botanist, and fluent in Latin - his language of choice when he wishes to mutter to himself in the presence of others.  This motto came to me suddenly as I rounded the bend on my 1.1 mile route and started on the uphill portion, and I could see all the possibilities.

Depending on your eyesight, you may see rather little beauty when looking around my substantial and metaphorical space.  My small home is physically chaotic.  My yard is part junk yard, part jungle, and part barren wasteland.  My wardrobe has its peculiar moments, overshadowed by yoga pants and printed T-shirts.  My music-making is only a little here, a little there.  One can discern tiny clues if one is searching, but many would miss the beauty for the scraps.  That is part of the thing.  I am a keeper, a looker for the overlooked - overlooked music, overlooked people, overlooked weeds, overlooked pieces of cloth....  I am a collector of scraps, seeing their possibilities.  Whether or not I actually create beauty, I imagine it.

As I have been working extensively in the yard and garden in the last week (powered by unexpected spring sunshine), appreciating the bits of tangled life growing there, a line from Paul Fleischman's Weslandia replays in my head: "In this type of garden there are no weeds."  Maybe that should be my life motto instead.  Anyone who knew me well at the age of twelve or so will appreciate my personal connection to this inspired children's story.

Disappointments

There were a couple of big disappointments for me personally in the last two weeks.  A candidate I actually looked forward to voting for dropped out before I had a chance to fill out my ballot.  And the Seattle Young Artist Music Festival was cancelled.  This was the first year I had three students entering in the complete program category, two of whom I started myself, and they have been working hard, and had already been working with a professional accompanist.

...

Someone Near and Dear was hospitalized for a lung issue for nearly two weeks starting January 10th, the same day the first traveler from Wuhan was hospitalized in another Seattle hospital.  Near and Dear found the hospital quite boring and did as much research on the far away corona virus in China as could be done - reading every paper and scientific opinion put out there.  In late January, Near and Dear detailed to me quite a bit of this research, which made it clear to me that we would be experiencing the virus in the US at some point in the next year, and that a large percentage of the world population was expected to get sick (40%-80%) without any intervention.  I was given a lot of statistics on communicability and incubation and fatality rates and the possibility of reinfection, as far as it was known.  When it became clear on March 1st that covid-19 had been silently spreading through Seattle and the first fatalities were happening, I had already been prepared for the idea that Seattle might be the first place in the US to get hit, and that social distance and quarantine might be a real thing.

That weekend we went to Hurricaine Ridge for our one day of winter (and it was glorious!).  Glad we got that in, as last year it was cancelled due to the government shutdown. (Plowing in National Parks was out.).This weekend we went with Jared to Vancouver, B.C., where he was teaching a Dalcroze workshop, and we got to experience some more beach, mountains, and rain forrest (and the hotel pool!)...

Last February we had two weeks of being snowed in and teaching via internet - Snowmaggedon.  This year, looks like we'll have a similar deal, but without snow.

The government in Washington state has taken clear leadership.  All gatherings of more than 250 are banned, and schools in three counties are closed for a minimum of six weeks.  Our business will continue as usual, but with more internet lessons, likely.  I have one student's parent who is being tested for covid-19 as we speak.  That parent has not entered my home in months due to the driver's license of the child, and as a precaution, we have moved that student's lessons online indefinitely.  I hate internet teaching, but I see the wisdom, and frankly, I can't afford not to teach.  Several of my Seattle colleagues have already taken all their teaching online this week, and we are all talking about how to manage group class ideas via technology.  Group class is a real part of our students' tuition, and we owe them something beneficial, as we owe ourselves the income. 

Our weekend recital is cancelled.  We chose to do that preemptively before the state implemented new rules to protect the elderly from a visiting virus; I did not want to unwittingly take germs into a retirement home.   Another retirement home about 10 miles from here has had 20 deaths to date from this virus.  So we are having small recitals in-house, during group classes next week.  Possibly taking the two at home to the park a block away if the weather permits.

Anyway, I don't see anyone around here panicking.  Truly I just see lots of people and organizations taking the lead to protect our vulnerable neighbors.  Near and Dear is one of them.

(It is interesting to be in the middle of all of this, not so long after I finished reading about the cholera outbreak in London of 1854.)

Kids, Books, and More Extra

Not so long ago, the post I wrote after Lazarus' birth resurfaced in some people's email, triggering questions as to whether we'd just had a fourth child.  Honestly, I'm not quite sure how that happened.  I WAS digging around on that post that day trying to download a picture, because that day was mathematically significant.  It was the very day that Lazarus was three years and five months, the precise age that Anne was when Lazarus was born.  I am amazed at how old I thought Anne was at that time, and feel sad that I expected more from her maturity-wise than seems reasonable with Lazarus.  I guess that is the curse of being the eldest.  I am trying to revise my expectations for her in general... 

With three kids, though, I do feel like I've entered this odd "secret" club of "big families."  It seems funny to me, because I grew up in a three-kid family, and I NEVER had the sense of being from a big family.  I heard from so many sources that going from two to three kids was MUCH harder than going from one to two.  So frankly, I set my expectations for that transition *really low* and gave us as much grace and time as we could afford.  In my experience, and maybe because of my expectations, but maybe more because of the particular personalities of who we had, it was a much easier transition on the whole.  Sure, it's trickier to get everyone clothed and fed and out the door or to get everyone in bed, but not THAT much harder.  

However... once Laurel got to be about nine or ten months old, it became a whole different story.  She was no longer a cute, time-consuming doll to her siblings, but a real person who was standing up, walking around, getting into their stuff, talking, taking their things, and having obvious opinions.  That's when three got really hard.  We've made progress since then, but I'm not going to lie - it is overwhelming sometimes.  The complexity of relationships has multiplied, and with it the behavior challenges.

We LOVE getting audio books from the library.  In the last few months we have heard: 

• Twenty-Eight, a book about 28 figures from Black history. Yesterday, the pastor started telling a story about Harriet Tubman in the sermon without mentioning her name, and my eldest leaned over and said, I know who that is!
• The Wind in the Willows - a classic I had never read before
• Winnie the Pooh - another classic I had not read before
• The Great Cake Mystery - for those who have fallen in love with Mma Ramotswe and her Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana, this is a chapter prequel for children
• Little House on the Prairie - a favorite from my childhood which I barely remembered when I heard it again.
• The Penderwicks.  This is a five-book series, and hands-down Anne's favorite books of all time.  We have heard all but the second.  It is inspired by Little Women and references it on so many levels, but is set in more recent Massachusetts - there are recycling bins, bus stations, day care, cell phones, and computers with the internet.
• Because of Anne's love for the Penderwicks, we just started listening to Little Women, which I had never read, and Anne is loving it, too.
• Also, I read to them Sarah Plain and Tall, which dovetails nicely with Little House.
• And I have been slowly reading to Anne the first five of the Betsy-Tacy books, which I had never heard of, but a friend gave the collection to Anne upon hearing of her love for the Penderwicks, as well.  It is tales based on the author's childhood in Victorian-era Duluth.
• We just finished listening to The Great Trouble, a historical novel about the cholera outbreak in London's Soho in 1854.  Dr. John Snow was instrumental in ending the epidemic, as he rightly theorized that cholera was water-born, rather than caused by "bad air".  The story was told from the perspective of a fictional 13-year-old orphan who did odd jobs for the doctor.  Fascinating!
• I read Michelle Obama's memoire, which my dad gave me for my birthday.  So interesting to see how someone else's life unfolds in a way totally different from mine.  Very personal and relatable, though.
• I am reading The Yellow House by Sarah Broom, another memoire given to me by Jared for Christmas.  The author is only a few months older than me and grew up in the poor part of New Orleans.  It is her family history going back generations, her childhood in the Yellow House, Hurricaine Katrina and its destruction of everything she new in New Orleans, and her life after the Water.  Again, fascinating, and particularly so, since we are the same age.

The More Extra of this week:

Nutmeg had a weird knee injury and a trip to the vet on Thursday morning.  Anne has been helping me give her her pain pills.

Wednesday night our 13-year-old water heater conked out, so while I was at the vet, I was fielding calls from Jared about decisions needing to be made regarding that.  Someone replaced it on Thursday in time to get our little house reorganized for group class.

Also on Thursday, between the vet trip to Kent and the hot water heater replacement, I took Anne to Seattle for her bass lesson.  On the way back, we stopped at the retirement home where we had scheduled our studio recital for March 15th to find out the reservation wasn't going to work after all.  Fortunately I found another retirement home the following day who could host us.  I HATE making phone calls for business stuff, but of course it's part of life....

Connections and Tetris

Connections

This week I came to the designated end of a big push to find more students.  On Wednesday we started a class for brand-new beginners.  My goal was to fill it with ten families, but we planned to make it work with just five.  In the end we only came up with two, and I was feeling somewhat defeated over the weekend.  But after the first class, and upon review of what's in the pipeline, I think my work in "advertising" was truly positive.

If you know me, you know I love all my students, and have found ways to connect successfully with a wide variety of profiles, but in replaying comments that Jared and I have made to each other over the years, I realized I heard myself saying that I really want to keep investing in beginners and growing together over the long haul.  I did some research over the summer by connecting with people who have done group starts, as opposed to the one-at-a-time starts I have always done, and I got some great ideas, and frankly, a good feeling about the group dynamic, and the easy out on all sides for those who start in our studio but find that Suzuki lessons with us is not what they were looking for.

Despite various methods of trying to reach out over the years to new students (because there really are people out there who want to play the violin, viola, and cello, and who will mesh well with our particular way of doing things!), nearly all of our students have come down to word-of-mouth connections.  With some great advice on how to "language" things from my dad, I communicated with so many people I have connections with.   Emails, and text messages, and fliers, and in-person communications EVERY day for some weeks.  As a result, not only do we have the two new students, but actually several more who are very interested in starting with us in the next few months, but for  a variety of normal logistical reasons couldn't do this particular class.  It feels very hopeful.  I have also come to realize that despite my introversion, I am definitely someone who is looking to connect with people and connect people to each other.

Now that we are off to a solid start with this class, I feel like I can relax a little bit.  Make some cookies or something...

***

Tetris

Earlier this year I was talking to another parent who lives in a house only a little bigger than our 840 square feet, with as many family members.  She described her home life as constantly shuffling *things* around.  I can't tell you how much that applies in our house, too.  Especially since Jared and I are teaching in this same tiny space.  

Group class days at home (currently Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday), we reorient our dining table and chairs by 90 degrees in our dining room/kitchen annex/utility room, and add our sofa (truly only a love seat) so that we have room in our tiny living room for our class.  This sounds simple, but it involves massive clean-up (see: three kids).  And also, if anyone needs to access the fridge or bulk goods during the hours of rearrange, it involves literally climbing over the table to reach them.  (Let's say Jared wants to put rice in the rice cooker for dinner in between two lessons.  He is standing on top of chairs and the dining table to reach the corner where the rice bin is located, and then climbing back over everything to reach the pot, hidden from view behind a curtain in the so-called kitchen.)

Let's talk about our official *kitchen*.  The so called foot-space, if no cabinet or over doors are open, is about seven feet by three feet, boxed in by a weird pillar in the middle.  Smack in the middle of that small walking space, we have a full-size dishwasher on gimpy wheels (you know that shopping carts which doesn't run smoothly? > Those wheels.), which came with the house.  The dishwasher is at all times blocking a) the silverware drawer and the kids' dishes drawer, b) the sink, c) the oven, and/or d) the cabinet.  It is truly the most difficult small kitchen we have ever had in all our dwelling places.  When I gave my parents their first tour of our house on Skype, I showed them the kitchen, and my dad kept insisting he'd like to see more of it.  But that was it.  He'd seen it all.  I have done less cooking in this house than I have in any place I've ever lived, and I'd like to think it's because Jared likes to cook and would rather I do more kid stuff.  That is likely true, but also, it's because it is such an awful kitchen to work in, I usually want to give up before I start.  In order to do anything in there, one is physically shoving the dishwasher back and forth, climbing over chairs, walking in wide arcs in and out of the kitchen around the pillar, squeezing past the table to access the bulk goods and refrigerator, and becoming totally exasperated.  Jared is a saint (truly a SAINT!) and cooks copious amounts of tasty and nutritious food for all of us, and then washes the dishes.  I honestly don't know how it doesn't drive him insane.  

There is also the laundry.  The clean laundry migrates from the dryer and various precarious hang-drying spots to the sleeper sofa, and then sometimes to the beds or tops of bedroom cabinets before it gets folded and put away, often in a hurry before students arrive. Hurriedly dumped on the bed, that is.  Next to Jared's nice cello in its case, and a pile of books which fell off the adjoining bookshelf, a sleepy cat or two, and hopefully not on Laurel's napping spot.

These are all the most obvious examples of work-flow issues and TETRIS in our house, and I could go on for hours if I wanted to.  There have only been two places I've lived as an adult where I thought my home was tidy and organized, and both of those had a LOT more square footage per person than my truly charming 1940s War house.

Anyway, this is not a complaint.  It's really to preface my excitement about some genuine change coming down the pipeline, which is so close, I can almost... feel it.

My 9'x5' mini-studio attached to the end of the garage is in full use for all of my lessons now, and the larger 13'x20' studio is getting close to usable.  Plus, of course, Jared and his dad added the 12'x12' storage shed last year (which could use some more internal work on my part to get everything stored well).  Right now! > the garage studio is sheet-rocked minus the window and skylight openings and the attic access.  There is still taping and floating, texturing and painting, and eventually flooring and baseboards to go (and probably several things I don't know about).  The new donor upright piano our neighbors passed along needs work before it is ready to lead improvisation in Dalcroze or accompany the string group.  It is playable (although a half-step flat), but we need a professional to work on it - no one has maintained it in at least 20 years....

But as soon as we deem that room suitable for all group classes, I have grand plans for interior  house reorganization, which I know will improve our family flow.  The kitchen will be more functional (although a full remodel/addition would be the true solution to its issues).  I might even consider cooking something more complex than popcorn.  The living room will be friendlier.  The laundry room/dining room/kitchen annex will be a wee bit less crowded.  We will have TWO bedrooms in which to store beds, toys, books, and homeschool stuff, and I will not have *six people stepping on my bed pillow as part of their normal throughway every day*.  This evolution will not be instantaneous.  It will probably take several months from start to finish, but I am excited.  Also, in this house, I am ALWAYS trying to clean out. (Which goes against my nature.  But so does looking at the horrible headache of clutter all the time.) I have no illusions that our space is going to be showing up in House Beautiful, but I have hopes that certain things will be more functional for all family members.  I have been committing Tetris in my mind with all the furniture in anticipation.

Summer Sunsets

The summer sunsets are getting earlier and earlier, which always makes me sad.  The days of June feel so hopeful when it is light at 5:00 in the morning and doesn't get dark until 10:00.  Now autumn is coming, and with it a return to the weekly schedule.  And rain.  And more darkness.  The flowers are winding down.  We aren't starting our fall teaching schedule until the second week of September, although some of the districts around us go back to school in just another week.

This weekend felt refreshing and heavy, both.  I needed a little space and time without events, because I was SO tired.  And all weekend I felt inordinately sad about not taking any of our annual camping trips or going on any of our favorite hikes this summer.

Last year we said a pre-emptive no to all camping trips, with the intention of making time to work on the garage.  Then we did not work on the garage, because we ended up preparing for a concert, which takes daily focus and preparation for weeks and months.  At the end of that summer, we regretted the camping ban, and vowed never to have a no-camping summer again.

This summer I planned at least one camping trip, which was then cancelled due to exhaustion and actual work on the garage.  Then in addition to a remix of the same concert from last summer, we got asked to do a much bigger concert in September.  So that means lots more preparation for weeks and months.  Which I, for one, am behind on, on account of slicing my finger two weeks ago.  It is not completely back to normal and may not be for some time, but I am able to use it at about 90% normalcy now when I am playing.

The upshot of our vow to enjoy summer is, we got to go to the beach for a few hours on July 4, but there was no camping.  We still haven't had a chance to do anything for our anniversary yet, which was a month ago.  I had to back out of going on my brother's birthday hike at Mt. Rainier yesterday due to needing to practice and family logistics.  Also this was the weekend I would have planned to do my annual birthday camping trip at Mowich Lake, which of course, was out of the question, too.  Plus if we want to back up for some added drama, we didn't get to do Jared's annual birthday trip to Hurricane Ridge in January as the government shutdown meant they didn't plow and no one could get up there.

About the birthday this week... I'm feeling sad about that, too.  Turning 29 was really hard on me.  Painfully hard.  39 coming up doesn't seem quite so bad, but I am feeling like it's the end of a good era...  Why are we Westerners so obsessed with numbers?  I always have been, and I always loved math.  There is no escape.

What I want most is to cancel all obligations for the next week (not possible!) and escape to the rugged wilderness of this beautiful state.  I'm paying out the ears to live here for a reason.

While I watch summer winding down and am investing time trying to get my fall schedule organized and recruit more students to fill it up my empty hours, I keep waiting for my summer to start.  The time when I go swimming and climb mountains and watch my kids play at the beach.  I guess that will have to wait for next summer...

Mayhem in Review

Starting from the last week of June:

Week 1: Jared was out of town.  I was alone with three kids for the first time.  Anne had her last day of kindergarten and her first day of summer swimming.  I taught a few lessons and hosted an end-of-year party for Anne's class.  No one died, but there were meltdowns amongst my kids.

Week 2: We had a few days off due to the Fourth.  There was garage-cleaning and planning that happened in addition to teaching and rehearsing.

Week 3: We taught our in-house group class workshop all week, and had an electrical team here to put the line and panel in for our garage conversion.  And also rehearsed with Linda.

Week 4: We taught lessons and my dad came to stay with us and do all the interior electrical work on the garage.  Also, we had five evening rehearsals in Seattle with Linda and Adam.

Week 5: We taught at the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute.  It involved a road trip (not so fun).  It was kind of an easy week there since we had Jared's parents there to do EVERYTHING for us.  They took care of the little kids while we were teaching, took Anne to all her classes, took Anne swimming daily, and cooked dinner for us.  And the campus is so small and everything was clustered right together.

Week 6:  We taught lessons and gave a full-length (sold-out!  :-)) chamber concert with Adam and Linda in Kent.  And painting over the graffiti that showed up on our garage door while we were out of town the previous week.  Also Anne had her first vacation Bible school experience nightly, which she loved.

Week 7: Zombie week.  We taught at Japan Seattle Suzuki Institute, and thankfully this year cut out hours of commuting by staying in the dorm.  But we had piecemeal hour-by-hour childcare that I didn't always have lined up until 45 minutes before it was needed.  Some incredibly generous people helped us out!  Also, the night before it all started, I smashed my middle finger on my left hand.  It bled for several hours, and had to be iced.  I thought of going out to find a doctor on Sunday night, but trying to find something on our insurance while packing for the early morning departure was not awesome, so I used bandaids and paper towels.  Thankfully, my group class pianist at the institute got me some super glue, and by the third day of the institute, my finger was no longer bleeding, and I could start to play a little bit.

Now we have three easy weeks.  Just some summer teaching, in-house rehearsing for our pair of chamber concerts in Bellingham the first week of Bellingham, and working out the fall teaching schedule.  There are some big changes coming to group class (I think?), and thinking about childcare, and recruiting some new students to replace our moving-away and graduating and changing teachers students...  And maybe cleaning out the huge and disgusting pile of boxes left over from last year's move, which are now in an unattractive and somewhat soggy pile under a big, blue, wet tarp in the back yard. 

Words

I have a sudden and possibly short window of opportunity since Anne is at the neighbors', Laurel is asleep in bed, and Jared and Lazarus have just left on a run.  Seize the writing!

Just bits and pieces today, about literature and life, not so much related....

Matthew 5:38-48 in N.T. Wright's translation:
"You heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."  But I say to you: don't use violence to resist evil!  Instead, when someone hits you on the right cheek, turn the other one towards him.  When someone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your cloak, too.  And when someone forces you to go one mile, go a second one with him.  Give to anyone who asks you, and don't refuse someone who wants to borrow from you.
'You heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy."  But I tell you: love your enemies!  Pray for people who persecute you!  That way, you'll be children of your father in heaven!  After all, he makes his sun rise on bad and good alike, and sends rain both on the upright and on the unjust.  Look at it like this: if you love those who love you, do you expect a special reward?  Even tax-collectors do that, don't they?  And if you only greet your own family, what's so special about that?  Even Gentiles do that, don't they?  Well then: you must be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.'

...and some of his commentary...

"The shocking thing about this passage in the Sermon on the Mount is that we are told to watch what our heavenly father is doing and then do the same ourselves.  Here is the puzzle: Israel, the chosen people, are challenged to realize that God doesn't have favourites!  What sense can we make of that?  If they are chosen, doesn't that mean they are God's favourites? 
"The answer to the puzzle is found earlier in the Sermon.  Israel isn't chosen in order to be God's special people while the rest of the world remains in outer darkness.  Israel is chosen to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth.  Israel is chosen so that, through Israel, God can bless all people.  And now Jesus is calling Israel to be the light fo the world at last.  He is opening the way, carving a path through the jungle towards that vocation, urging his followers to come with him on the dangerous road.
"And dangerous it is.  Not only has Israel in Jesus' day got many enemies, pagan nations who have overrun the land and made the people subject to harsh rules and taxes.  There are just as many dangers within, as movements of national resistance spring up, fuelled by anger at the increasing injustice and wickedness.  And, within that again, the divisions within Jewish society are becoming more marked, with a few becoming very rich and the majority being poor, some very poor.
"These were all pressing issues for the people listening to Jesus.  How did his kingdom-message apply to them?  How can it then apply to us today?
"Jesus offers a new sort of justice, a creative, healing, restorative justice.  The old justice found in the Bible was designed to prevent revenge running away with itself.  Better an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth than an escalating feud with each side going one worse than the other.  But Jesus goes one better still.  Better to have no vengeance at all, but rather a creative way forward, reflecting the astonishingly patient love of God himself, who wants Israel to shine his light into the world so that all people will see that he is the one true God, and that his deepest nature is overflowing love.  No other god encourages people to behave in a way like this!
"So Jesus gives three hints of the sort of thing he has in mind.  To be struck on the right cheek, in that world, almost certainly meant being hit with the back of the right hand.  That's not just violence, but an insult: it implies that you're an inferior, perhaps a slave, a child, or (in that world, and sometimes even today) a woman.  What's the answer?  Hitting back only keeps the evil in circulation.  Offering the other cheek implies: hit me again if you like, but now as an equal, not an inferior.
"Or suppose you're in a lawcourt where a powerful enemy is suing you) perhaps for non-payment of some huge debt) and wants the shirt off your back.  You can't win; but you can show him what he's really doing.  Give him your cloak as well; and in a world where most people only worse those two garments, shame him with your impoverished nakedness.  This is that the rich, powerful and careless are doing.  They are reducing the poor to a state of shame.
"The third example clearly reflects the Roman military occupation.  Roman soldiers had the right to force civilians to carry their equipment for one mile.  But the law was quite strict; it forbade them to make someone go more than that. Turn the tables on them, advises Jesus.  Don't fret and fume and plot revenge.  Copy your generous God!  Go a second mile, and astonish the soldier (and perhaps alarm him 0 what if his commanding officer found out?) with the news that there is a different way to be human, a way which doesn't plot revenge, which doesn't join the armed resistance movement (what's what verse 39 means), but which wins God's kind of victory over violence and injustice.
"These examples are only little sketches, like cartoons to give you the idea.  Whatever situation you're in, you need to think it through for yourself.  what would it mean to reflect God's generous love despite the pressure and provocation, despite your own anger and frustration?
"Impossible?  Well, yes, at one level.  But again Jesus' teaching isn't just good advice, it's good news.  Jesus did ti all himself, and opened up the new way of being human so that all who follow him can discover it.  When they mocked him, he didn't respond.  When they challenged him, he told quizzical, sometimes humorous, stories that forced them to think differently.  When they struck him, he took the pain.  When the put the worst bit of Roman equipment on his back - the heavy crosspiece on which he would be killed - he carried out of the city to the place of his own execution.  When they nailed him to the cross, he prayed for them.
"The Sermon on the Mount isn't just about us.  If it was, we might admire it as a fine bit of idealism, but we'd then return to our normal lives.  It's about Jesus himself.  This was the blueprint for his own life.  He asks nothing of his followers that he hasn't faced himself.  And, within his own life, we can already sense a theme that will grow larger and larger until we can't miss it.  If this is the way to show what God is really like, and if this is the pattern that Jesus himself followed exactly, Matthew is inviting us to draw the conclusion: that in Jesus we see the Emmanuel, the God-with-us person.  The Sermon on the Mount isn't just about how to behave.  It's about discovering the living God on the loving, and dying, Jesus, and learning to reflect that love ourselves into the world that needs it so badly."

Some more great children's literature we have been listening to on library CD's:

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
During the Depression, a family in Chicago is split up when they lose their apartment, and the teenaged daughter goes to small-town Illinois to live with her rather colorful, self-supporting, and unaffectionate grandmother.  Her year in such a tiny town where everyone knows everyone's business is quite extraordinary.  The large snake in the attic falling on the nude postmistress posing for the New York artist who is renting a room in Grandma's house is only one of many AMAZING and uproarious scenes.  Story telling at its finest.

Ice Whale by Jean Craighead George
A bowhead whale is born in the Arctic in 1848.  The young boy, Toozak, who sees his birth from his canoe names him Siku.  This novel follows Siku until the last sighting of him in 2048, as well as several generations of Toozaks, whose lives are bound to that whale.  It follows the commercial whaling of the late 1800s which decimates the whale populations, as well as their slow recovery after whaling falls apart.  And it follows the change in Native cultures from subsistence to dependance on Western interventions, as well as the building of the Artic Research Station in Barrow, Alaska.  It ends on a hopeful note, and is full of love.  Love for humans.  Love for animals.  Love for plants.  Love for land- and water-scapes. 

On the Far Side of the Mountain, also by Jean Craighead George
This is the sequel to another book we have not yet listened to.  Two teenagers have left home and are living off the land in the Catskills.  Their wilderness survival skills are awesome, and their careful observations of the land, plants, and animals around them allow them to use what they need while living peaceably with their surroundings.  They have adult friends nearby - a librarian, a university professor who lives in a cabin, a farm owner...  This story follows the confiscation of the boy's endangered falcon by a wildlife ranger, and a pair of long, interrelated treks through the mountains, using special wilderness communication skills.  Just as in Ice Whale, there is a lot of love.  Love for people, animals, plants, and the landscape.  Also, history.

Recently neighbor lent Anne the Ramona Quimby books, and I have read her two of them so far.  I remembered not liking them very well as a child, and now from my adult perspective I can understand why.  Ramona is such a real, wonderful child, with such big feelings, and frankly, most of the grownups around her don't make much effort to understand her and despite their sympathies toward her, pretty much feel that children should be seen and not heard.  She is loved dearly by her family, but her insides are pretty much a mystery to her parents.  I think Anne can really relate to her, and is LOVING reading them.

Also, I am loving the little bit of homeschooling we've been doing.  We have started math, handwriting, and phonics (in addition to cello), and because we started in late June, I feel no pressure to hurry through anything.  So we do one or two or three subjects most days, and if we miss something here or there, it's totally fine.

...Here's a post I put yesterday on facebook, if you're not on there:

Ballance Talent Education

Published by Ruth Marie Ballance · 23 hrs · 

What a group class week! Lots of learning and fun. Plus...our musicians experienced the unfinished studio space, noisy work by a trio of electricians, a visit from a city inspector (who it turns out is a singer in his off-hours and was beyond tickled to be serenaded on the job), and a visit by a service dog who tried very hard not to chase all the tennis balls bouncing around during Dalcroze. Our musicians capped the week by playing an inspiring pop-up concert under the trees at the neighborhood park. Their program:

Chocolate Drops by Will Marion Cook

Sonata IV by Isabella Leonarda

Duchess of Devonshire's Reel, Marianne's Reel, and Just So in the North by Ignatius Sancho

The Boom & Birds at Sunrise by Stanley Fletcher

...and three folk songs: All My Little Ducklings (which they also sang in English and German), Go Tell Aunt Rhody, and Suzuki's 1st Twinkle Variation

A little about the composers on the program:

Will Marion Cook grew up in D.C. and Chattanooga.  A fantastically talented young person, he attended Oberlin Conservatory to study violin at age 15, studied in Berlin for two years, and attended conservatory in New York where he studied composition with Antonin Dvorak.  Much of this was sponsored by Frederick Douglass, who was himself (I did not know this!) a violinist.  Working as a Classical musician, Will faced a lot of discrimination as a Black man, so he ended up turning to popular styles and writing for the theater, where he was more accepted.

Isabella Leonarda, a Baroque composer, lived her whole live in Novara, Italy, where she was quite famous as a musician.  She entered the convent there at the age of 16, and spent the rest of her long life there.  She composed extensively, and also likely taught the younger nuns music lessons.  She wrote an entire set of twelve Sonatas for two violins and violone.  There are recordings and scores available.  They each have several movements which are through-composed.  If you're looking for the female Vivaldi, my fellow violinists, she's the one.  The Sonatas are all up on imslp.

Ignatius Sancho... it is hard to tell his story without wanting to break down and bawl.  He was born on a slave ship off the coast of Africa, which can only mean... His very pregnant mother had just been kidnapped and forced onto a horribly crowded, unsanitary boat and was being shipped overseas to work as a slave.  She somehow managed to give birth with very little or no medical help, and she and the tiny newborn survived the voyage to South America.  As a toddler, Ignatius was again put on a boat and shipped across the ocean to England - with or without his family?  I don't know.  This tiny boy is then sold to a family in England who held him captive, although they did choose to educate him as well.  He was eventually freed.  Due to his force of personality, I can only imagine, he survived all this and was quite prolific in publishing papers on abolition and was the first Black man in England to vote in an election and to have his music published.  The fiddle tunes we played all date from the late 1700s.  By the way, I found his music in the amazing new book Music by Black Composers, Volume 1.  It's got music suitable for Suzuki book 2-4 students, and can be played as duets, or with the piano.  I can't wait for the second volume to come out!

And Stanley Fletcher.  Well, all I have to say to my violin readers is, if you have never watched the Paul Rolland videos, it is more than well worth the $200 to purchase The Teaching of Action in String Playing.  That thing is a gold mine.  Truly life-changing.  Watch it.  And watch it again.  And then some more.

Coming up:

My dad is arriving on Tuesday to do some more electrical work on the garage conversion for us.  This is very exciting!  With the two studios out back totaling something around 358 square feet, our 840 square foot house is going to feel SO MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE.  Next week we also are rehearsing the Brahms C Minor Piano Quartet with Adam for our upcoming August 2nd house concert.  And next weekend is Jared's and my 13th anniversary, which we will celebrate by loading our poor little car to the gills, and dragging the children all the way across the state to the desert to teach at the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute next week.  I am hoping to figure out how to do something slightly more fun, but the logistics of travel and childcare and rehearsing and teaching are a bit daunting...

Education - Part the Next. And Other Projects.

Anne's last day of forest kindergarten is June 24th-ish.  I will be sad for her to be done.  We've been needing to figure out what comes next.  Jared and Anne and I have gone back and forth this year about what that should be.  The plan is now as follows:  We will start homeschooling at the end of June, and see how we like it.  I've been collecting some basic curriculum ideas and keeping-kids-responsible-for-themselves ideas.  We will give it an experimental run during the summer.  If it flat-out doesn't work for our family, Highlands Elementary is a block and a half away, and we'll march right over and register her.

Currently being brainstormed:
A laminated chart with Anne's daily responsibilities, which can be velcro-ed on as they are completed for the day.  Completion of the chart will lead to the possibility of screen time if she wants it.  Exactly what will be on the chart is still undergoing brainstorming.  It will include cello practice, some sort of spiritual component, reading, handwriting, math, some sort of ways of contributing to the household, reading together, and outdoor play.  Still not entirely sure about the details.

While it seems kind of daunting, getting this child out the door to school, getting her home from school, getting her to do her homework, and managing the emotional fall-out of her long, exhausting school day while teaching after-school lessons, seems even more daunting.

Anyway, it's a good time to experiment, as you don't legally have to register for school in Washington until you are 8.  The summer trial run will also give us a little lead time to figure out how to schedule (or NOT schedule) our lessons for the fall....

There are other projects going on around here, too.  The big one is that I have a goal for myself of getting the garage cleared out to the point that we could use it for our group class workshop week July 8-12.  It doesn't have to be remodeled or sheet-rocked or painted or heated or anything by then, but I can at least have it cleaned out, cleaned, and have the rug on the floor.  You may recall that we moved in on a Sunday and started teaching in the house on Monday morning.  In order to make that happen, all the boxes went into the garage, and only the basic furniture went into the house.  Also, there *may or may not* be some pack-rats among us who have done several moves last-minute without cleaning out.  So the quantity of boxes and STUFF in the garage has been somewhat overwhelming.  Two steps in the right direction have happened since November.  One is that Jared and his dad built a shed in the back yard, so I have been moving quite a few things over there and organizing on shelves and such.  That includes all the tools, the camping gear, the yard toys and snow gear, the off-size clothes for the kids, the Christmas decorations, and the furniture temporarily out of use (e.g. toddler bed).  Also, Jared has been putting bookshelves in the house up near the ceiling so we've been unloading boxes and boxes of books without using up our very precious floor space.  I've been cleaning out.  Boxes and boxes of things are going to new homes via Buy Nothing and Goodwill, and empty boxes are going to neighbors moving.  It's getting down to the tough stuff now - construction debris, boxes whose contents have to be sorted through one at a time when my eldest isn't looking.  Hundreds of tiny decisions I don't have the fortitude to make...  But I'm doing it, because I want that space usable!

Also, I have some newly minted yard plans.  I bought myself a rose bush and some flowers yesterday, and we have a bunch of bricks sitting by to make a new garden space as the former garden box is on its last legs...  Need to finally get sand for the kids' sand box.  And I have had a life-long dream of a laundry line that I'd like to build.  (In all my spare time.  Haha.)

Along with that there are a million more little projects, like hanging hooks for all the bags by the door, doing something about our litter box drama, finishing the baseboards and door frames...  But who's got time for that?

Because there are OTHER things happening, too.  Jared is teaching at a week-long program in Chattanooga.  We both teach for a week at the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute and for a week at the Japan-Seattle Suzuki Institute.  And we have our afore-mentioned week-long in-house group class workshop.

And the concerts...  Jared and I are playing a pair of concerts in Bellingham the first week of September, the first of which is a subset of the second.  Finding time to rehearse with just the two of us is not all that easy, despite the fact we live in the same house and work together.  Additionally, we are playing a house concert in August, half of which is a subset of the same, but also contains a separate piano quartet - the Brahms C Minor, with Adam and Linda, which involves scheduling rehearsals around Adam's in-town dates and Linda's job.  And in June, Jared and I are playing another subset of the same at a retirement home in Auburn.  The complete program for the second September concert is:

Kodaly Duo
Lullaby and Grotesque by Rebecca Clarke
Mozart Duo in Bb Major
Rautavaara Ugrian Dialogue
Limerock and Emily's Reel by Mark O'Connor
Sibelius Nocturne
Louange a l'Eternite de Jesus by Messaien
Something TBA by J.S. Bach

Currently starting the summer lesson-scheduling process...  And the lead-up to our end of year recitals.  And keeping an eyeball or two on recruiting new students to replace those who are graduating, quitting lessons, changing teachers, or moving.

Last summer we did not go camping so that we could work on the garage.  We ended up not working on the garage (due to concert preparations) and not taking any vacation.  That was a mistake all round.  This summer maybe we are planning to be doing both - I'll let you know how that goes.  :-P Packing it in around nursing and diapers and Anne's cello practice and sunscreening and managing the visits with the neighborhood kids and the house cleaning and the meals and the practice and, and, and.

Awash

I am awash in responsibilities.  Other people have many responsibilities, too, so I am not trying to compare myself.  And I am glad for the privileges which attend them, so I am not complaining.  But this is why I say no to a lot of things...

Responsible for taking care of my health: Thanks to Jared's cooking, that part is going fine.  The exercising part is fairly abysmal right now.   The sleeping part is prioritized, so although it could be better (see three children under 6), it's pretty decent.

Responsible for taking care of the house and yard: Jared does most of this stuff, but when there is organizing and sorting and cleaning out and dreaming up better ways of doing things and working with the yard, that's my deal.  Reminder... we are slowly working on a massive fixer-upper project.  It's not just the laudry-dishes-mopping stuff going on here.  I'm behind the times.

Responsible for caring for and educating my children:  That takes up most of my time, and although I'm pretty hands-off, I do love them and want to spend time with them when I'm not doing other things.  And potty-training toddlers and nursing babies are pretty need-intensive.  So also are almost-six-year-olds who were born teenaged.  It is possible that after two hours of practicing a musical instrument yesterday, which could reasonably have taken 20 minutes, I told Jared I wished I was into drinking something stronger than herbal tea.

Responsible for my relationship with God:  Well... Last week I missed my Bible study because I was one day off in knowing what day of the week it was.  This week I was there but had managed not to have done any of the lesson, although I had read the assigned Bible chapters.  I was physically present at church today, but spent at least half the service not in the sanctuary.  We'll just leave it at that.

Responsible for my relationship with my husband: We got to talk a little bit this morning as we were both able to eat breakfast before the kids got up.  That is a rarity. 

Responsible for income to pay the bills: Self-employment is never-ending.  You can't leave the office and go home.  But I like the freedom to choose direction in a way that teaching for the entities I have taught for in the past doesn't afford.  We haven't gotten to the point where the business recruits for itself.  Yet.

Responsible to my students: They pay an arm and a leg for lessons and struggle to do the work at home.  They have my fullest sympathies.  And I want to keep growing and learning as a teacher and improve my work with them.  It's one of the most challenging and rewarding and frustrating things I do regularly.  See also, *parenting. 

I think about whether *if I had the option* it would be easier to be only a stay-at-home-mom.  And all I can think is yes, and no.  Yes, I'd have more time and energy for my kids.  Yes, I'd have more time and energy for the house.  But no, I'd have to do more of the house stuff than I currently do.  And no, I wouldn't have the musical outlet that keeps me/drives me insane.  And I don't even try to imagine my life without kids, because that not what I have ever wanted.  Oh, and being the stay-at-home-mom is not an option anyway.  See *Pay-the-bills.

This list is why I am saying no to a birthday party this weekend.  And a school picnic.  And told our pastor I could not lead a strings group at church despite the fact that I look like the obvious choice.  Many people have NO idea how much responsibility we're awash in here; they can't see all the moving parts.  It probably looks so simple from the outside. 

I have two weeks of laundry to fold.  And several boxes of books to unpack onto the shelves Jared built a week-and-a-half ago.  And work for my students.  And recital prep for next Sunday's shebang at the library on MANY fronts.  See, *Business does not recruit for itself yet.

We are just managing to stay afloat.  And if you showed up here telling Jared he should be shouldering more of the responsibility, we would both roll our eyes at you, because we both know how much he does.  I wouldn't trade lives with anyone else.  I like the good we have going well enough that the bad is worth it.

Growing Pains

There's been so much going on here lately that I don't even know where to start.  And I'm not sure I have the stamina to see the blog post through in terms of writing, but it's been brewing for a while and I have the urge to get it "in print".

The last week and a half we have gotten record breaking snow - something around a foot and a half, which means we have mostly been snowed in during that time.  In the more normal winters we have experienced here, we have had between one and three snows on the ground a year, and each snow was on the order of .1 to three inches at most and lasted a day or two, tops.  This has been dramatically different and reminds me of Rochester, except on hilly terrain without snow plows and salt and snow shovels.  It is kind of wonderful, and we've sort of been on vacation, although we have not been missing lessons, but rather teaching via the many internet video calling services.  There has been lots of sledding and playing with the neighbor kids since everyone has been off from school.

While being snowed in, I sort of got the bee in my bonnet about going for broke on potty training Lazarus.  He's been interested for quite some time, and using the potty occasionally.  He has not worn a diaper since Friday morning.  A couple of days have been accident-free and easy.  A couple of days have involved lots of floor mopping and showers...  I think he's going to do it!

Anne went to her first rock concert last week with Jeffrey and Linda; 2Cellos played here in Kent, and they are her main inspiration when it comes to her own cello playing.  Also she lost her sixth tooth this past evening.  She's been quite precocious on the tooth-offloading, as she is not even six years old yet.

So many little things are coming together.  I skim through lots of information in life, and I don't always retain it very well, but then sometimes I surprise myself when I pull things together and have a great idea or solution or sudden lurch forward.  I realize that some of the things that buzzed by me have been sitting on the back burner waiting for the flavors to meld.  I guess you could call it intuition, but it's more like little seedlings waiting for the right conditions to sprout.

Anne has been wanting to learn how to read.  And also we have to decide about what to do for her for school next year.  Which is a big decision, and it's hard to make up our minds.  There are great things on one path as well as big draw backs.  And great things on another path as well as other big draw backs.  I read a great article on the science of learning to read the other day.  And also Anne pulled a book off the shelf which I haven't looked at in the year it's been sitting there.  It's a book of Montessori activities to do with your child, which Nancy lent us some time ago.  So all of a sudden, I'm intentionally doing little bits of school with Anne in the cracks of every day, as sort of a test run for the next phase of her life.  And reading to her, not just the reading for fun that we do normally, but also discussing the characters' feelings and motives and choices in an educational way.  Or maybe the phonics and patterns of some of the words on the page.  Mostly I've been in the "she'll grow up just fine and learn what she needs to learn" mindset with her like any good self-respecting 1950's mom, but I'm suddenly in the "let's grab onto her interests and grow them intentionally" mindset.

...After Christmas our toy situation was awful.  May I remind you that we live in 840 square feet with three children, three cats, and two teachers working from home and students traipsing in most days.  We have slowly unpacked the garage (our dumping grounds the day of the move), not wanting to overburden our small space.  But we have the volume of stuff which is considered normal and appropriate for our grouping of people in our culture.  So... we do have a problem.  In the last few weeks I brought in most of the rest of the shelving which was lying fallow in the garage and placed it strategically in our living room and bedroom.  And also the bedroom was completely rearranged.  So what I want to know is, why in the European tradition have we always slept with our heads to the wall and our feet in the middle of the room?  Due to various factors of bedroom shape and size (with all five of us sharing one bedroom) and the sleeping order of people across the beds to best facilitate a nursing baby and a cuddly toddler, we find ourselves now sleeping with our feet to the wall and our heads in the middle of the room.  I'm pretty happy with the change.  Anyway, the toys all now are sorted and kept with sets together on shelves and baskets in the bedroom and living room (it's not House Beautiful, but it's functional, and far better than the horrible alley of junk which was squeezed between the bunkbed and wall formerly).  And then this lends itself to the kids having some agency in being able to clean up their toys in some meaningful way.  So now before bath time, we have a nightly clean up time.  (I realize this sounds like a no-brainer to many of you, but just go with me here.)  I am heavily involved in this - it's more of a family clean-up time than a kid clean-up time, but we are getting the house mostly put back together before bed.  Of course, my kids are creative, so there are things like massive construction-paper confetti projects and such which may take a couple of days to dissipate, but we are becoming a bit more civilized in a Western sort of way, which our volume of people and Western toy pattern is calling for.

...There is so much going on in my teaching right now.  I had a parent-teacher conference out of the blue a few weeks ago which helped me bring some of my teaching frustrations to the fore, along with some of my students' learning frustrations, all in a very productive way.  I am going through one of those "intuition" the pot is coming to a boil moments.  So many things coming together!   The question I wrote about two summers ago as to why I am a pretty fantastic workshop/masterclass teacher (if I may toot my own horn) but seem to be only mediocre on a weekly basis here in Renton is in there.  And I'm running that question through the databases and comparing it to my teaching in Rochester, which was on the whole pretty high-powered.  But also *not* that different than now.  And there's the statement which Mr. Guy made to me when I was a long-term sub in his freshman harmony/keyboard/sightsinging/eartraining classes back in Cleveland that I didn't have high enough expectations for the students.  That rubbed me the wrong way, because in my mind I expected a LOT from them, and they were not producing.  Someone recently posted a meme I can't exactly remember about not matching the energy of the room you enter but projecting your energy into the room.  That is suddenly speaking to me.  I'm thinking about how to set up systems around my teaching to do the hard work of setting boundaries so I don't have to spend my energy on that and can dive into the creative interpersonal challenges and depth of the musical meaning, and of course all the technique.  I come from a place where I feel like I've spent my whole life being the one trying to keep everyone else on an even keel, and I am generally pretty skilled at that, but that is not working in my teaching.  I've been functioning on the "don't overwhelm the student with information they're not ready for," because I've seen great information presented poorly or at the wrong time go unused at the end of the day.  But now I feel like in many cases I'm withholding information from students, so as not to upset them, that I could really push them to use.

I remember myself as a small piano student whose mother took prodigious notes and practiced with her in remarkable ways.  I was so skilled and completely unaware of my precociousness or the very careful, thorough, and consuming process which got me there.  I also remember myself as the piano student who had graduated from her mother's daily practice help who was basically every teacher's nightmare.  As I have been telling one of my violin students recently, there are three types of students:  those who don't do what the teacher asks, those who do exactly what the teacher asks, and those who take what the teacher asks and run with it.  I spent a lot of time as the first type of student.  My teacher would write detailed notes on EXACTLY what to practice.  And I would put them on the music rack next to my scores.  And I would not read them.  Just bash through a few things and call it a day.  Because, people, the mental effort to practice well is exhausting, and I did not have the desire to tax myself that way.  Even though it would have been so good for me.

But I especially remember myself as the graduate student in violin who was with the teacher I respected and trusted so much, when I was that third type of student.  I showed up to my first lesson of the year in September and played the first movement of Bartok 2 from memory, pretty much at performance level.  If you know about violin repertoire, you know that Bartok 2 is one of the most difficult concerti ever written for the violin.  It tops Tchaikovsky and Brahms and Beethoven.  My amazing teacher, supposing this was an old piece I trotted out by the level at which I played it, asked who all I'd played it for before, and the only person I could list was my roommate.  I prepared for my lessons for him like that.  I suppose I wanted to impress my teacher, but more than that, I didn't want to waste any of my precious lesson time with him, hearing him tell me something I could have figured out on my own.  That passionate-just-turned-22-year-old is the student I always imagine inside my own students.

I feel disappointed when they aren't actively pursuing their best and using all the powers of their imagination to get there.  But I forget it was a lifetime of study and learning experiences before I got to that place.  I come into a lesson and toss the tennis ball to my student and watch them serve.  I match their energy and we play ball on their terms.  When their imagination and sights are set so low, it's a lethargic game.  In some odd way, I expected to receive energy from them.  But it's slow.  It's boring.  And it's not getting much of anywhere.  So I am taking steps to serve the ball hard and fast.  And throw it back again.  While reading the temperature and turning down the heat if I am getting overwhelm signs.  Although I occasionally make grave mistakes, I am for the most part VERY empathetic.

I am stepping up my game about communicating expectations clearly.  Part of it is testing out some new systems for practice assignment delivery.  I don't have the perfect answer yet, but I am honing in on what seems to be broadly effective, and I am contemplating implementing a whole new plan next fall.

Also, I am working harder to have fewer kid distractions while I am teaching.  I teach pretty decently with my kids around, but when I have 100% of my brain available for my students, there are more moments when that "intuition" has a chance to boil over.  Not letting my students gloss over something I don't like (and hope they ultimately won't like either), because I can't muster the bandwidth to figure  out what's bugging me about it, finding ways to address and break it down to create more skill, and open their awareness to more beauty.

Going back to my thoughts about my skill as a workshop teacher coming in well above my skill as a year-round teacher...  Communicating in a masterclass setting feels easier, because it is a high-energy situation to begin with.  The teacher, the parent, the student, and the observers are all looking for a big change in a short period of time, and there is a commitment to do something dramatic.  The long-haul teaching makes it easy to slip into family mode... you know how healthy, loved kids are worst behaved around their parents and best behaved when they are at school or at their friends' home or church.  Well, teachers can be like that, too.  By which, maybe I mean too relaxed.  Like my mode of figuring that Anne will learn what she needs academically over the years.  (And she will, without my help.)

I have been recording a lot of things for students lately.  Video-recording.  And sending them home.  I think focussed and specific recordings are part of my delivery system upgrade.  Back in the old days we would record a whole lesson, and you know, many times that whole lesson wasn't listened to.  Or it was listened to distractedly.  (Except, of course, that passionate, uber-prepared 22-year-old listened to her lesson later that day with headphones on, in the library, her scores and a notebook and a sharpened pencil ready, taking notes on everything the teacher asked for, as well as everything she heard that she herself wanted to improve upon.  And none of my students are that young lady...)  But students need a recording of a specific shifting exercise.  Or a tricky accidental-laden passage in slow motion.  Or a review of the new bow exercises along with an explanation of what skills we are developing in them.

I have fewer students this year.  And an easy-going baby.  So I am able to have enough bandwidth open to actually process some things outside of lessons, not just *commit triage* when they show up.  When I spend time preparing certain things, I can ask for more.

Our December recitals were the biggest-progress-from-one-recital-to-the-next sort of recital.  I got up the nerve this time to ask my students to complete 100 performances (and mark them on a chart!) of their piece before the recital.  Most of them did it.  I'm asking for that again for the March recitals.  I'm realizing that it's not forcing them to do work they don't want to do (although it may be that -- see "Practicing cello with daughter").  It's offering them the opportunity to feel really confident and ease when it comes time to share their music with others.  I am working in my mind to reframe things I associate with "pushing" students to "giving them the opportunities they deserve."  Because 99 out of a 100 will serve the tennis ball just barely over the net.  I have to teach them to put it out of the court.  Because that's how they'll gain the energy to be that 22-year-old who didn't just do what the teacher said, but ran so hard with it the teacher was passed up.

One element which worked well in Rochester is that all my teaching was in the same room.  I was not constantly changing environments and spaces and having to carry everything with me.  It's gotten easier this year with only one commute, but I still don't have that magical whiteboard in *my studio*.  That's the board on which I wrote down the students' names who had practiced what I considered an acceptable amount for forward progress during the week, and included their total practice time for the week.  And which triggered one little girl to ask her friend why her name was never on the board.  And then it was every week thereafter.  And that little girl made some incredible progress.  You should have seen her bow arm when she was in book 5.  I'm working on how I can combine my weekly practice assignments, and video clips, and lesson reporting, and that sort of friendly peer pressure into one technology for next year.

Recording Project

While Anne was at school Friday, and Jared and Lazarus were out on their run, Laurel and I went out back to my tiny studio and recorded several tracks for my students:

• a fiddle tune and a student composition for my Tuesday group class
• three student compositions, a fiddle tune, and a jazz tune for my Thursday group class
• a practice version of the Bach Double 1st movement for a student
• the Kuhlau Waltz for which there is no violin recording available
• a cadenza for the 2nd movement of the Mozart Bb Concerto for which there is no violin recording available

And then I had a few minutes left and I was inspired to record the Bach D Minor Allemande just for fun.  It has barely been practiced lately, but it's been in my repertoire for around 21 or 22 years...  It actually turned out ok, although the pulse had a bit of trouble getting off the ground with the flow at the opening.  

Anyway, for your amusement, I'm sharing the Allemande and the cadenza for the Mozart...

Holding onto a Night

Some moments in life are worth the inconvenience of a lifetime, because they will be remembered for a lifetime.  Such was yesterday night in Bellingham.

It is hard to put into words the complete insanity of the endeavor.  There were emails and emails and texts back and forth in the days just before, while we were in Texas, to make arrangements for six people to spend the night in Bellingham in two different location, two separate childcare events with two different caregivers, and the locations for the kids to play, which included considerations for two separate dogs.  We mapped addresses of the two different homes where we were to be put up, the rehearsal location, the concert venue...  There were flights returning to Seattle in the tired, dark, discombobulated wee hours from another time zone.  Some of them involved the responsibilities of packing for and traveling with small children who don't like being cooped up in tiny aircraft seats any more than their more stoic elders do.  Some of them involved an unexpected lock-out of a car and house for the night and missing a day of work.  There was cat care arranged in two homes for yet another night away.  There was attempted practice and rehearsal and milk pumping for the baby.  There was the chaos of laundry and unpacking in a very small space from the first trip.  There was the packing up and coordinating of two cars to transport the six people, the cello, and all the needed luggage, including sleeping bags, and a big box of toys for one of the aforementioned childcare events.  There was a drive north in the dark which involved a detour for gasoline and snacks, in which the various actors missed each other in the parking lot.  There was the late-night drop off of Linda with our mother's cousin in a downtown condo building, and then the late-night arrival of the Ballances at the home of a former student family with a view overlooking the extensive, misty lake and mountains rising up out of it.  And in the morning after the power went out and eventually came back on there was the renegotiating of the first childcare venue, the pick-up of Linda from the cousin and drop-off of the kids with the toy box and diapers and pumped milk, and the drive to the rehearsal studio.  And the return drive to the cousin's home for music left behind. 

And then we sat down in a remodeled garage with Adam in town from Cleveland.  Our organizer had lent us her little studio, painted a cheerful yellow and with sparkling Christmas lights strung up.  The weather was storming dramatically outside, but we worked our way through the entire Brahms G Minor Piano Quartet in the course of a few hours, and all the inconvenience was already worth it.  What wonderful music!  And we each heard new things in it we hadn't grasped back in August.  That is the thing about some of the great works - you discover new things every time you go back to them.  It was a little oasis in time.

And then off we rushed into the storm, careening around the stunningly beautiful (though rainy and grey) city of Bellingham full of well-kept old homes, views of the whitecaps breaking in the oceans, and mountains all around, with GPS looking for some coffee, and then back to rescue Cousin from the kids.  They all had a lovely time, and created some art projects and ate snacks, in addition to playing with the things we brought.  And... they wore out the dog.

We loaded up our two cars and drove back to the home of my student family so that we could eat something mid-afternoon, Jared could take Lazarus out for a sopping nap run in the storm, I could nurse the two little kids, and we could practice and get dressed.  I never made it to the practice part on account of the other things, but no matter - at least the rehearsal had been a good warm up.  Then there was the arrival of introduction to a new babysitter - instructions, getting the kids acquainted, food put out, diapers found...  And off we darted rather at the last minute into the storm in the dark to another address north of town.

Then time stopped.  I wanted to hold onto these few hours forever.  We parked and walked into the doors of an old, one-room school, turned home.  We found ourselves in a little antechamber with windows and cozy seating, and a rack to hang up our coats.  After peeling off our wet things we stepped through the French doors into a long, tall room with a plentitude of soaring windows, framing the gusting, pouring black outside.  The wide, white, wooden trim and wainscoting spoke of a well-cared-for space built a century before.  The wooden floor, impressed with age and use, was topped with sturdy and beautifully patterned rugs.  The walls were painted a sophisticated, dusky yellow, and long, graceful light fixtures hung from the high, white ceiling.  Those over the black grand piano were lit, along with myriad white votive candles scattered about on window sills, and decorative candles arranged invitingly on tables.  More soft light came from the string of white wrapped around the lanky, soaring spruce, brought in for Christmas, and sparsely hung with clear, glass harp ornaments.  In addition to welcoming and comfortable sofas and chairs, the room was furnished with beautifully-kept antique tables, desks, and chests about the perimeter.  Four harps stood about the room, and a double bass was laid unobtrusively on its side behind the piano.  Thirty or so people were seated about the room on the chairs and sofas; some children lounged on pillows on the floor, and just before the concert began, our hostess stoked a roaring, crackling fire in the enormous, water-smoothed stone fire place near the center of the room.  The atmosphere was magical, and the company there to enjoy an evening of Brahms was easily transported to a realm of joy.  In addition to our piece, another beautiful violist presented the Eb Major Sonata with Adam.  Enjoy we all did, performers and listeners alike.  No photo or video could possibly capture the atmosphere of the evening.

After the concert was done and the conversations were released to their natural conclusions and the beautifully spread table was picked over of its fruits and sweets and cheeses, we loaded our car, headed back to the student family home, said goodbyes, stuffed children into their carseats, loaded a shocking amount of luggage back into our cars, and lumbered through the dark and stormy night back to Renton where we went through the unpleasantries of transferring crying and tired children to their beds and hauling the luggage inside to another pile of chaos before collapsing into bed. 

It was insane.  And we'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Having heard from other members of my online Suzuki teacher group that parent-teacher conferences were a "game-changer" in their studios, Jared and I decided to hesitantly dip our toes in.  I wasn't sure what to do or how I'd feel about it, so to keep it as low-key as possible, I offered phone conferences to parents as an *option* during two days of our Thanksgiving week break.  I had parents of about eight students take me up on it, and frankly I wasn't super sure of how to run these calls, other than I hoped they would be both positive and constructive. 

BUT.

But. The Monday morning of that week I was signed up for a parent-teacher conference with the two lovely, young teachers from Anne's forest kindergarten.  Laurel and I went and sat in a booth at a little cafe in a grocery store near the park with Teacher Sarah and Teacher Aly.  They talked me through all the strengths they see in Anne at school and her quirks, and I thanked them for all their work.  They also gave me a folder with a write-up of what all they told me as well as several pages she had drawn and dictated stories for.  It was so fun, and I appreciate those teachers and the forest school more than I can tell you.

So I was warmed up!  I typed up some bullet points for my appointed students.  I talked with each parent about 25 minutes.  It was a very pleasant conversation in each case where I told the parents all the things I could see their kids doing well.  The purpose and value of the things they were currently working on.  The things coming up soon in their study. 

For a couple of the parents I had some specific questions I wanted to ask.  One child, I had the sense we needed to be a bit more goal-oriented than process-oriented; that was basically just a hunch in the back of my mind, and that parent actually brought up a question specifically related to goals, so we figured out a plan to help her child with that.  Another parent has two students working on the same repertoire, and I can see a bunch of potential problems coming down the pipe with that, so we got a chance to talk about how she could see the kids best working around it.

With a couple of the parents I shared this brain storm from a lesson about what is progress:

I wanted to encourage them to see all the ways their student truly is progressing.

The whole process was really positive and easily conversational, friendly; and once again I was surprised that some very obvious positives (to me!) were not obvious to others.  So glad we got to make that personal connection.

I plan to offer this once or twice a year, perhaps optional or perhaps mandatory, for the entire future going forward.  I think it really will be a game-changer.