on making mistakes

I came across a quote the other day:

nobody notices your mistakes as much as you do

I think the intended meaning of this quote is simple -- don't be afraid to make mistakes, and don't stress out over them when they do happen. However, I took a different and more trombone-related meaning from it.

When you're practicing, no one can hear your mistakes except you*. So no one can fix those mistakes except you. There's no one to point them out, no one to suggest corrections, no one to stop you mid-phrase and go HEY WHY DID YOU PLAY IT THAT WAY?!

You're it. So maybe the message is not to stress out about mistakes, but another message is not to ignore them either. I'm very guilty of this. I'll flub an articulation or play a rhythm wrong, and think to myself "Oh, I know how it's supposed to be" and keep going. And not fix it. What does this accomplish except giving me reinforcement to make mistakes? 

So -- yes, nobody notices your mistakes as much as you do. That also means that it's up to you to fix them.

*and your angry upstairs neighbors. 

On your children following in your footsteps

So I have recently become two things of which I am not particularly fond: a stage parent and a hockey parent. My perfect daughter (age 8 ½) is performing the part of Molly in the local high school production of Annie starting this weekend, and my youngest (age 5) recently started in developmental hockey, and is doing a skating program over the summer. I’ve spent a lot of time since high school playing in musical pits and a bit less time playing hockey of many varieties, so it’s fun and validating to see my kids having fun doing something I really enjoy. Now, to be fair, the kids’ mom has been doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in regards to the stage performance, which has been grueling and hugely time consuming. But even with the handful of rehearsals I have seen and chauffeured for, I am getting a glimpse of things from the other side.

I’m sure a lot of people have heard stories about crazy hockey dads starting fights over pee wee games and the like. And anybody who’s played a high school musical has run into the mom (usually!) who is rabid about getting her kid the lead whether they deserve it or not. The hockey parent who harasses the coach over playing time, or inserting some esoteric scheme that will highlight their kid. The stage dad who thinks the department should do Miss Liberty because their daughter is perfect for the Countess. (Ok, seriously for just a second- find me this dad. I want to have a talk with him.)

Maybe this should be a post about my transformation, coming to an understanding of their behaviors, maybe becoming a little more tolerant of a different viewpoint on the world, but it isn’t. I haven’t run into any really rabid stage parents here, which is a good thing. I have run into some less than ideal hockey parents, the guys that bang on the glass to tell their five year old to remember what he taught them at stick time, which doesn’t begin to explain why that dad isn’t out on the ice helping mold the rest of the next generation. I’ve seen probably a half dozen kids harassed by parents into crying fits which simply does not make for an auspicious start to activities that demand a certain amount of toughness and a lot of resilience. And if you think you know which one I’m talking about, you probably haven’t done the other.

If anything, the last couple of months have reinforced my stereotypes, and made me more likely to lash out against them by being reasonable and as affable as I am capable of with coaches and directors, and by telling the hockey dads as politely and good naturedly as I can muster to buzz off when they start telling me how I should be putting out the cones. The bottom line for me is that I have enjoyed the heck out of most of the time I’ve spent playing musicals and playing hockey, and now I figure my job is to try to maximize the enjoyment my kids are getting from them by using my experiences help guide them along the way. And I’ll keep an eye on the other parents to try to get some more examples of how not to do things, and maybe, if I’m lucky, a few examples of the right way.

March recap

April means...

March: 24 hours. FAIL.

To be fair, March showed a big improvement over February. I practiced a lot more, and a lot more consistently, than I did before. I developed a plan (and taped it to my calendar -- you can see it in the image at the top) and stuck to it for the most part (although I intend to make a couple of changes for April). I switched up my warm-up and my daily routines, and always tried to keep myself thinking and doing new things. 

In fact, I would have made my 25 hour goal if tragedy hadn't struck on Tuesday the 30th... my beloved cat, Magic, passed away on that day. I buried him on Wednesday, driving 2 hours to my father's house and the family kitty graveyard to do so. It was tough to practice after his passing, because Magic used to sit in the dining room and stare at me and give me commentary as I practiced. But, I'm starting to get back on the ball and into the swing of things, and hope that I can remember his vaguely disapproving meow in future practice sessions.

RIP Magic: The Cat (1994-2010)

sometimes they're like that

My perfect daughter (age 8) recently drew a picture. This is not unusual, there are very few pieces of paper in the house that she hasn't drawn something on, including things like bills and newspapers I haven't read. This picture, though, was all in shades of blue, a blue house with a blue sidewalk and a little blue girl with medium length blue hair and a blue hobo sack, and was titled (in blue) "leaving forever". Naturally, this caused some concern, so I gathered in the perfect daughter for a talk.

I started by asking her what the picture was, and she hemmed and hawed and avoided, a skill that she has learned from me, and very well. When it became clear that I wasn't going to get an answer, whether because she didn't want to tell, or couldn't tell, we went a different direction. I told her a little bit about how I thought that art, or music, was good for showing things that were hard to say. I said a little bit about how I thought you could tell a lot about how a person was feeling or what they were thinking about by how they played a piece of music, if you paid very close attention. And we talked about how you can learn important things about a person from the pictures they take, what they choose to take pictures of, which pictures they show people, which pictures they keep in little boxes just for themselves.

And then I let her go, told her to go draw more pictures. I'm still not sure who was leaving in that picture or why.

But it brought me back to a question I've been asking myself for a long time, and to an answer. Not a good answer, or a final answer, but an answer. The question is, "Can you tell someone that you love them through playing a whole note?"

And the answer, for now, is, "Not if you don't play one."

Best drive-through window ever!

I'm back in the place where I can't imagine anybody caring about what I have to say. I'm trying really hard to come up with a blog post, but after a couple of weeks that have amounted to being told a lot about what I'm bad at, I just can't conceive of anything to say that's helpful, interesting, witty, or otherwise worth sharing with the three of you.

So how about this. For a while there, I didn't just play trombone for the AWCB, I also sang in the Second Best Choir in Pittsburgh. But back when I was fourteen, my older brother (whom I idolized at the time) made fun of me because my voice cracked while I was doing vocalise, and I didn't sing a note for five years. What can I say, I've always been kind of fragile, especially with people whose opinion I value.

I started again because a young woman whom I very much wanted to impress said something along the lines of "you used to be such a nice singer, and I miss being in choir with you!" And entirely because I wanted to impress her, I started singing again. Which eventually lead me to the SBCP, where I had some of the best musical experiences of my life, met a lot of great people, and actually got some trombone gigs to boot!

I'll admit it, I don't take compliments. At all. Let alone well. Nor give them, although that's a different post entirely. And if somebody said something like that to me right now, I'd probably think they were lying or at best question their motives. I don't think I saw that girl again; she was one of those flighty, once every four months if at all kind of rehearsal goers. But if she hadn't said that, I probably still wouldn't be singing.

But seriously. Somebody standing next to you could probably use a compliment. Not one of those contrived "oh my what nice shoes!" kinds of things, but if they're doing a good job, tell them! It might make more of a difference than you would think!

tVftBR on location!

Lauren here, reporting from the music school at The RLMU (link to a feature done by a local paper about this place, and please note that the "faculty member" talking in that video was, in fact, my trombone professor in my time here).

Sitting here gives me a strange feeling of mixed nostalgia and foreboding. I wanted to go in and see what's new, but the door was locked -- one of the excuses that I used to not practice on the weekends while I was here, but this time it's actually true.

I have been thinking of the grand lessons that music school taught me -- that music is a sign of culture, that teaching is not for the faint of heart, that Bach kills a kitten every time you write parallel fifths, that you do not mess with tuba studio. I did get my music degree while I was here, but only as a formality -- my heart wasn't in it after my second year, when I became disillusioned with the performance lifestyle and realized that I couldn't stand children enough to be an educator. I had the requirements to get the piece of paper, but I have (obviously) pursued other career paths -- through it all, music has always been here with me, even after I realized that it wasn't working out as a career possibility for me.

After all that, I think the most important lesson that this school taught me was:

If you love something, set it free;
if it comes back, it's yours;
if it doesn't, it never was.