The Love Note

It has been two weeks since dress rehearsal for our school musical.  The cast had two days to acclimate themselves to the gym stage at YMS.  Not only did they do that, (with the help of good microphones and excellent staging and choreography) but they worked together, they helped each other, they asked important questions to make it all work better, and they were happy and engaged while doing it.  I was amazed:  these children are so talented, hard-working and care so much about the process of making a successful show.

The opening night was incredible.  Not a note was lost, not a step out of place, and not a dry eye in the house.  The audience was supportive and laughed out loud, as well as responded to all the important parts of the show.  This was not an easy show, by any means, there are a great many moments that reflect mature thinking and experience, and my students just got it!!

And you may ask, what was this show you did?  Yes, well, it was not a show you might be familiar with.  "The Love Note" by Gail Phaneuf is a show about a girl who moves from a small town in Vermont and has to deal with a group of girls who bully her and make her trade lunches every day.  She gets back at them, but in the process she learns the importance of having your own identity, and the ability to fight for herself.  She also gains a friend, who also sees the absurdity of the students actions against her.

For me, the best part of the show is the love note idea.   She gets a love note in her lunch every day from her mother and she is particularly upset to lose these notes when the bullies trade lunches with her.  I remember putting a note in my daughter's lunch every day during high school, and it turns out, she kept those notes, and never threw them away.  This idea was true to life, and I have had many conversations with parents who have done the same thing.  The connection to one's parents at middle and high school is tenuous and the love notes really share how the parents feelings never change, the child just has to get older and spread wings and live life on their own, even sometimes, with bullies.

 
The other wonderful element of the whole process was that the composer, Gail, came with her arranger to visit our students and talk about her playwriting and composition process.  The students asked many intelligent questions, and they learned a great deal.  So did we, as directors and teachers.  I was thrilled with the experience for both the students and for us!  I hope we get a chance to have that experience with a composer again someday.  We also got to meet and talk to the original girl who played in the off Broadway version of the show.  She talked to us about managing a career in the arts, and being able to also have a normal life.  It was a great experience all the way around.  The original Jessie also sang with our Jessie, what a treat that was for us!  I was very emotional about the whole process and especially when they sang with our students.

                                            What an extraordinary experience for us all!

                                           Thank you Gail and your staff for your generosity!

Thank you to my director, Bob and to all the students for a great show!! What will we do next year??

We will let you all know! 

Piano Lab

It has been the first week of several in the piano lab.  The students have taken to it readily, and come during their tlt's (targeted learning times) to practice and move on to the next songs. They are all so excited (and competitive) about it, that they can hardly wait to play for me so they can go on to the following songs.  I wonder sometimes if it is about that, getting to be the first to play with two hands, the first to play chords, the first to go on to another hand position.  It is frustrating, because the idea of making music gets lost with this push to go forward and not stay in one place for too long.

 I get it, I see how culture now is all about finishing something yesterday, and no time taken for concentration, grace, quietude, meditation, and trying to perfect something.  I wish we could go back to the days before laptops and cellphones, when everything worthwhile took longer.  We listened to vinyl, and after those six songs on one side, you had to get up and turn the album over to listen to a few more tunes.  You were thinking about the first side as you set up the next side.  Now you can listen to a song from one artist and then fly through so many random artists one after another.  There can be no consistency or no sense that you are learning the styles of each person.  It lacks ritual, it lacks grounding.  Who are we if not a culture seeking connection?  If you go from song to song, artist to artist, music pattern to rhythm pattern, genre to genre, you miss out on really getting acquainted with the quirks and individuality of one artist or another.

Let's get back to slowing down the pace.  Play a song on the piano over and over again until it is perfect and you have made it yours.  Let's listen to the work of one musician, over and over until you can sing all the words, (as I used to do with Elton John's albums, Joni Mitchell's albums, and Judy Collins' albums).  Let's create memories, rituals, connections that you will have and rely on when times are complicated and overwhelming.  Let's come to the piano lab and make songs better than just played through once.  Let's put our stamp on them, and think about how these songs can define us, relate to us, become our best friends, and comfort us and support us no matter how fast the pace of life is.  Amen.