26. Using Energy

Music has always been a matter of Energy to me,

a question of Fuel.

Sentimental people call it Inspiration,

but what they really mean is Fuel.

-Hunter S. Thompson

Energy.
Excuse me for a digression into physics. What IS energy?

Actually "energy" can be defined as a number of different types of energy.

• Kinetic energy of a moving object,
• Potential energy stored by an object's position
• Elastic energy stored by stretching solid objects,
• Chemical energy released when a fuel burns,
• Radiant energy carried by light, and
• Thermal energy due to an object's temperature.

An important bit of knowledge about energy:

• All forms of energy are convertible to other kinds of energy;
• energy can be neither created nor be destroyed;
• it can change from one form to another.

Why all this about energy? Well, it started when I came across a note from the camp last summer that said we should always play with the same amount of energy. It shouldn't matter if we are playing the "1812 Overture" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb." The energy needs to be the same. A soft and gentle passage needs as much energy as the loud ones we trumpets are known to love. A slow, prayerful piece has to come across to the listener with the same amount of fullness as a Sousa march.

I know that on one level that sounds like a dream, something that is almost an oxymoron. How can one have quiet energy or powerful softness? Then I noticed a You Tube video of the Canadian Brass doing their wonderful arrangement of Amazing Grace, a trumpet feature. As I watched the lead trumpet I realized that I couldn't tell by looking whether he was in high or low register. So I turned off the sound and watched. He played with the same ease- and energy- whether he was loud, soft, low, or high. Which is why the piece is so powerful.

Energy is not about pressure or loudness. It is about the underlying power. Reading the list of types of energy shows that there is a lot of energy in an object just sitting there. But if that object is a car, its energy changes significantly when traveling down the road at 80 mph.

Let's take that nice center concert F, our G. When we were just starting to play we couldn't play it loudly or softly with equal presence. When we went too soft- pianissimo, it kind of went flat and lost its sound quality- its energy. When we tried to play it loud- fortissimo- it cracked and splattered. We really hadn't learned how to master energy.

As we have moved through our learning curves on playing we have discovered that we can play pianissimo without losing quality and fortissimo without splattering. This is an essential part of our improvement as musicians. It is a lot of work to get to that point. Every group or band I have ever played in has had that same problem. We have greater difficulty maintaining energy on slow or soft pieces. We have greater trouble holding a note's sound when it's a slow half of whole note in a passage. Or what about coming in on a pianissimo high A or Bb?

Several things come to mind about that. First is what Mr. Baca talked about when he would do a master class or session with us at camp. Perhaps it is best described in this quote from Don Jacoby:

We never blow to the horn.

We blow through the horn.

We never blow up to a note,

we blow out to it.

-Don Jacoby

When I took the lead pipe off my horn and just played through it, I discovered the energy in the note even though there was no note as I was used to hearing. Remember that energy and play with the lead pipe back. Go up the scale and play each note with the same energy.

Which is the second thing about this energy discussion- support. The support of the sound, the note is part of the energy. Look at the list above. The support is the potential energy of the note and the elastic energy of the expanding and contracting diaphragm. It is there with the kinetic energy of the air moving between our lips into the mouthpiece and through the horn.

The reason this works is the third thing I realized- energy is neither created or destroyed. It always is there, it is just transformed. With our music, we are transforming the energy from all these sources into sound energy (not listed above). It's all energy. Therefore, the better or more controlled and utilized our energy is, the better the sound.

Which brings me back to the same old line:

• Practice, practice, practice

But not just playing, being deliberate in our playing. Take time to play those long tones. That was a real revelation for me. When I started doing that in a regular, intentional way, my sound improved almost immediately. I was learning how to control, utilize, the energy more efficiently. I was building support in my lungs, diaphragm, and embouchure so that the sound can be maintained.

In one of the Jazz Academy videos on You Tube, Marcus Printup of Jazz at Lincoln Center, suggests doing a whole series of soft, triple-p, concert Fs as long tones.The result is learning how to maintain energy. It gets us listening to the sound more carefully. We experience what energy feels like as we make the sound.

As always we need to be intentional about what we are doing. Even if you don't have a detailed plan (and I never do, hence I will not say you should, even though I probably should!) have a series of intentionally developed routines that allow for the energy to be channeled into music. We discover our own sources of energy and how to utilize them for the benefit of our playing.

By the way, I think this is one of the reasons why most practice instructions say to quite before you get tired. If we have lost your energy, the music we are playing won't have as much and we will learn incorrectly. To rest, to take a break and recharge our energy is important. We will get more endurance as we continue, but over doing it on one day and then having to recuperate isn't helpful.

As always, I will add, that this is all
just like the rest of life.

25. Innovate

Without deviation from the norm,

progress is not possible.

― Frank Zappa

As you may have noticed most of these Tuning Slide posts have been summaries of things I have discovered in my "research" of practice and performance, added to some basic common sense and then bundled in a motivational style. I am writing out of discovery mode and trying to learn things myself as well as share some insights with you. I am not pretending to be an expert on any of this. I am a learner on a new journey using this as a way to put into words what I am finding and inviting you on the journey with me.

This week's is a good example of how I am working on figuring out many things about being a trumpet player. Over the past two weeks I talked about the first two of what Clark Terry has called the three essentials of learning to improvise- imitate, assimilate, and innovate. I have said that even without being a jazz improviser, these are essentials to being better musicians and having a more interesting life.

We start by listening- a lot- so that we can imitate what we hear. What better way to learn than to listen to and imitate the great masters? Then we allow what we have heard and worked on to become a part of us- it is assimilated into who we are and into our music.

All that, for me, is the easy part. I can listen, I can work hard at imitating, I can internalize some of the great music I want to play. It is how I have been able to play some of the solos in concert band or my Basin Street Blues solo in big band. It is how I have succeeded at some of the pieces in the quintet where I have a unique part. I can do that!

But this innovation thing? I'm not so sure about that.

So I go back to the Jazz Advice website where they say this about Clark Terry's third essential- innovation.

[It is] creating a fresh and personal approach to the music....[and] is the direct result of hours upon hours of imitation and assimilation. Take a look at the great innovators that this music has already seen. Each one spent countless hours studying harmony, solos, form, tunes, etc. in order to realize their own personal concept.

We all know what that means and how it has played out over the years. We know that Miles had a different style from Chet Baker, even in the "cool jazz" era. We know that Beethoven had a different sound than Brahms. We know that the New York Symphony plays differently from the Chicago Symphony. That, I know, is the result of innovation. Or to put it as bluntly as Frank Zappa- they all deviated from the norm- and music progress occurred.

Innovation, then, in trumpet playing, is finding your own style. Very, very few of us will ever be Miles or Maynard, Baker or Alpert. They all have changed the sound of contemporary music- and in very different ways.

Innovation starts for us in the practice room when we take one of those Arban studies and change the articulation. Maybe we move slurring around or change dynamics differently. What feels good to you? What feels like an expression of your music? Pull out a fake book or one of Abersold's books and just work on different ways of playing the "head." Don't do any improvising yet. Experiment with tone and tempo; emphasize the notes and phrases in ways. Sing it first. Then play it. How might Puttin' on the Ritz sound differently with a different tempo. Here's Herb Alpert doing just that in the official video for the cut. Notice he even does some innovative camera work with one long "follow-shot" as well as at least three cameos himself.

On his most recent album he takes the classic "Take the 'A' Train" in 3/4 time. Innovation.

"Yes, but..." is the thought that comes to my mind. "I've tried it, I respond to myself, and it sounds pretty poor. I don't think fast enough, I don't know enough music theory, on and on...."

Remember the Inner Game? That's good, old Self One sitting there on my shoulder bringing me down.  He won't allow me to even try. For one, it is too much like work and, for another, can take too much time. Yes, so? Do I want this? I know I'm not going to make some big musical revolution happen, but it will be inside me. It will have an impact on the bands and groups I play with as we work together to make music interesting.

I said at the beginning of this post that these are "motivational-style" posts aimed at much at myself as for you. That means I will have to do something about these. I will have to take my own suggestions and try them on some consistent basis. "Yeah, I tried it, but it didn't go well" just can't cut it. There's a Big Band camp coming in June, not to mention the quintet doing some gigs and new pieces for us. If I always play the way I have always played, I will never change and never improve.

Let me know what you have found as ways to innovate your playing and musicality.

Again from the Jazz Advice post:

The steps of imitation, assimilation, and innovation are not limited to “jazz” music. Take any style or concept that resonates with you and incorporate it into your playing through this process. You may like the harmonies of Ravel or the rhythms found in traditional Indian music. Listen to them, figure them out, analyze them, practice them, and finally use them in new and innovative ways in your improvisations.

24. Assimilate - Practice, Practice, Practice

We are what we repeatedly do. 

Excellence, then, is not an act, 

but a habit. 

—Aristotle 

Last week I mentioned Clark Terry’s three important bits of learning to improvise: Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate.These are also important in growing as a musician in any genre, even if we never have to improvise.

I discussed listening as basic to imitating. In our listening we pick up on things that are going on in the music we are listening to. We pay attention to what is going on within the music and even within our own emotions and responses to the music. Imitation, in Clark Terry’s thought, is learning by ear and then absorbing the feel, articulation and time of whatever you are listening to.

Well, in that absorption something else begins to happen- the second of Clark Terry’s bits: Assimilate.

I looked up the general definition of assimilate before digging into what he meant by it. Here is a little from the Free Dictionary online:

Assimilate means:
1. to learn (information, a procedure, etc) and understand it thoroughly
2. to become absorbed, incorporated, or learned and understood
3. to bring or come into harmony; adjust or become adjusted to
4. to become or cause to become similar

To learn and understand thoroughly, in the case of musical listening is not just saying, “Oh, I get the theory behind what is being played!” It goes beyond understanding what is happening. It is hearing the theory applied. It moves from getting the theory to hearing, feeling, catching hold of what the theory sounds, feels, and perhaps even looks like.

Assimilation then moves to allowing what we learn and understand thoroughly to become absorbed and incorporated in what we are doing. Remember, we are imitating Clark Terry, Miles, Coltrane, or Herb Alpert. Imitation is beyond aping or mimicking- it is absorbing the style so it becomes yours. As a result we ourselves can move into harmony, become adjusted to whatever it is we are listening to and imitating. That is an important step that cannot be overlooked, or short changed.

On the Jazz Advice website where they talked about these three things of Clark Terry’s they described some of this step this way:

Assimilation means ingraining these stylistic nuances, harmonic devices, and lines that you’ve transcribed into your musical conception… truly connecting them to your ear and body. This is where the hours of dedication and work come in.

• Get into the practice room and repeat these lines over and over again, hundreds of times, until they are an unconscious part of your musical conception. 
• Take these phrases through all keys, all ranges, and all inversions. 
• Begin slowly and incrementally increase the speed until you can easily play them. 
• Don’t feel satisfied until you can play these lines in your sleep. 

 This is not an easy step to complete.

Yeah- I know.

So what now?

You are what you practice most. 

---Richard Carlson

Well, the basic answer is go and do it. That phrase above, connecting them to your ear and body, is really the goal.  But can I really do that? Do I have the motivation to do what needs to be done to become a better trumpet player? What about those days when that trumpet looks like it weighs a ton and the mouthpiece seems to have all kinds of nails sticking out before I even pick up the horn?

At this stage of the learning, we are working at being similar in our style to whatever we are listening to. So we just have to keep at it. Maybe we are working on a difficult passage in a classical wind band piece. The notes run by too fast. Keep playing it. Build it up in your head. Listen to a recording of it. (Much gratitude to You Tube on this one!) I have been doing that with that first characteristic study from Arban's book. I found a recording by Paul Mayes of it at full speed and listen time after time to it. What are the nuances? I watch his fingering and see if he uses any alternates. I even watch how he moves the trumpet on his lips. It is the whole process of imitating- hearing, feeling, seeing.

Don't overlook singing the music as well. Part of the assimilation is to get it into your head. Sing it. Then sing it again. Get the feel. I can usually sing something closer to the full tempo sooner than I can play it. But they work together.

These tricks work. They help me pay attention to the music and how I feel as I'm playing. But more than that, they also introduce me to a way of playing that I may not have known before. When I try to improvise, for example, I tend to be more melodic, Miles Davis in "Birth of the Cool" or even Al Hirt in "Java." I have not been able to think fast to do some of the bebop licks. But I have been listening to them and even singing some of them.

What I continue to be amazed at is that this is all taking place for me now- 55 years after I first learned the trumpet. It is possible- and exciting- for an old dog to learn new tricks. Some of it is common sense. Some of it is just the old line- practice, practice, practice. What do I want to become as a musician? Well practice that.

And usually all it takes is to pick up the horn and start those long tones and my mind and body begin to come together. It's about the music.

23. Observe and Imitate

Try to find the best teachers,

listen to the finest playing, and

try to emulate that.

Be true to the music.

-- Wynton Marsalis

I have been reading Words Without Music, an interesting memoir/autobiography by modern American composer Philip Glass. It is a good insight into the creative process of one remarkable composer and how he developed into the person he has become. Reading it with an openness to seeing creativity develop is worth the time. At one point he is describing his working with sculptor Richard Serra. Glass spent several years working with Serra as a "day-job" to support his composing. He expressed to Serra one day that he would like to learn how to draw to which Serra replied that he could do that by teaching glass how to "see" and then he would be able to draw.

That was an eye-opening insight for Glass. He reports the following thought that flowed from it:

Drawing is about seeing, dancing is about moving, writing (narrative and especially poetry) is about speaking, and music is about hearing. I next realized that music training was absolutely about learning to hear - going completely past everyday listening. p. 223 [emphasis added]

This reminded me of an article about Clark Terry on the Jazz Advice website. Terry's three steps to improvising are:

Imitation, Assimilation, Innovation.

That simple. (Yeah. Right!) They define imitation this way:

Listening. Learning lines by ear. Transcribing solos. Absorbing a player’s feel, articulation, and time.

The same as Glass's insight- learning to hear. Paying attention.

We've all heard someone say (or have said it ourselves) that they just don't "get" or "understand" that music.The first time you hear music from a completely different culture based on scales and rhythm that is "foreign" to us, we scratch our heads in wonder. What that means on some level is that we are not listening or able to listen to the music as it is meant to be heard. Our own brains don't expect it to sound that way.

Learning to hear. Paying attention.

But we can keep working at it.  We can keep listening. We can train ourselves to listen differently. Too often we expect things to be just like they have been before. Or in a way that we are used to. Glass himself faced a great deal of criticism and even hatred for the type of "odd" music he was writing. When he started in the 50s and 60s "modern music" was considered the music of the 1900s- 1920s or so. People came on stage and attempted to stop his concerts! They weren't able to hear- and therefore made a judgement about its quality and even its definition as music.

I would go beyond listening to learn to improvise. I think it is essential to being a musician of any type of music. Hearing what it sounds like; hearing what it feels like. Then picking up our instrument and trying to imitate it. The more we listen, the more we are open to hearing, the greater our musical skill will become and the deeper our understanding of music will go.

What this boils down to is going beyond the music theory and an intellectual understanding. The website Brain Pickings has a post from the 1982 book by author and composer Elliot Schwartz Music: Ways of Listening. The book outlines seven essential skills of learning to listen in this age where, he believes, we have been “dulled by our built-in twentieth-century habit of tuning out.”

The first skill is:

• Develop your sensitivity to music. Try to respond esthetically to all sounds, from the hum of the refrigerator motor or the paddling of oars on a lake, to the tones of a cello or muted trumpet. When we really hear sounds, we may find them all quite expressive, magical and even ‘beautiful.’ On a more complex level, try to relate sounds to each other in patterns: the successive notes in a melody, or the interrelationships between an ice cream truck jingle and nearby children’s games.

It's all about hearing. The other six skills Schwartz explains help us guide our learning and our hearing, going deeper and broader.

• Time is a crucial component of the musical experience. Develop a sense of time as it passes: duration, motion, and the placement of events within a time frame.

• Develop a musical memory. While listening to a piece, try to recall familiar patterns, relating new events to past ones and placing them all within a durational frame.

• If we want to read, write or talk about music, we must acquire a working vocabulary.

• Try to develop musical concentration, especially when listening to lengthy pieces.

• Try to listen objectively and dispassionately. Concentrate upon ‘what’s there,’ and not what you hope or wish would be there.

• Bring experience and knowledge to the listening situation. That includes not only your concentration and growing vocabulary, but information about the music itself: its composer, history and social context. Such knowledge makes the experience of listening that much more enjoyable.

This isn't just about music, of course. The relation to writing, or cooking, or being good at your job can be easily made. From the Brain Pickings post:

Perhaps most interestingly, you can substitute “reading” for “listening” and “writing” for “music,” and the list would be just as valuable and insightful, and just as needed an antidote to the dulling of our modern modes of information consumption.

Go for it. Listen!
Then, really hear.
Then imitate.

21. Be Crazy- Crazy Good!

Those who dance were thought to be insane 

by those who could not hear the music.

I know- I ended last week's post with that same quote. Well, consider it the theme, the phrase that ties last week to this week. It is a segue into what is like a coda to last week. For when I was finished typing it for last week, I could hear the unmistakable voice of camp director, Mr. Baca:

Are you crazy?

and the response, as always

Yeah- crazy good!

Not sure what to say about that I Googled the phrase "crazy good" and ended up at the online Urban Dictionary where I found:

a. Awesome, amazing, cool, stunning, super cool

Knowing the humility for which we trumpet players are so well known (?), that made sense. Hey- this is about being "crazy good." Awesome, amazing, etc. It is beyond just plain good. Man, it's crazy good!

But that's not what the quote is about. It's more than being especially good, talented or stunning. And sure enough, right after that first definition was another:

b. The feelings following an enlightenment; typically in creative work (elevation of work of art, idea, ability, level of happiness), where one is playing with and extending further. As the paradigm has shifted, others may express the genuine feeling you have actually gone crazy, however the opposite could be true and the path to awesomeness is being cemented.

Wow. Now that I have had happen. A moment of enlightenment, that old "Aha!" moment, leads down a path that you had never thought you would be following. The idea or ability or level of happiness is beyond what we have thought to be "normal." And that can feel like crazy!

Isn't that what musicians are looking to do- go beyond the "normal," find the new idea, the new experience, even in the song you have played hundreds or more times?  You finish playing that exercise in Clarke or the Etude in Concone and you find yourself sitting in silence. Something has just happened. You can't explain it, but you know it is real. People may look at those hours of practicing studies from the 19th Century and look at you and say,

What? Are you crazy?

and you smile and say,

Yeah- Crazy  good!

Or you are sick and tired of that piece your band plays every gig. There isn't even a place of solos or improvising. Sure, the group plays it well. You should after how many times you have played it. But then there's that moment when the audience stands and applauds and you realize you have just played it in a way that you never remember before. Sure, same notes, same rhythms. But the groove? The expression? The tightness of the group? You smile to yourself and say,

Yeah- Crazy good.

Or there's that memory of that place on the west facing lookout at the park. There's room for maybe 20 or 30 people- and the place is full. It is almost sunset on a perfect day. People are chatting and discussing everything from the weather to politics to how to keep the kids quiet long enough for you to see the sun set.

You didn't need to worry. As the sun sinks into t he western horizon and the colors begin to grow and deepen, the crowd speaks more softly. Even the children are entranced by this every day event as daylight lessens and shadows lengthen. You realize that the whole group is now silent. Adults and children in awe of one of the most common events on the planet. In awe as if there has never been one like it- and never will be again.

Try to explain that to someone who may not be able to get it, who doesn't hear the music of the sun or the birds in the forest behind you. Try to describe what it means to one of those overly logical-types who want answers.

What? Are you crazy or something?

Yeah- crazy good!

The past few weeks I have written about the language of music and the ability to speak it, live it, understand it, play it. It is a wordless language that makes no sense to someone who has never experienced it. It is tough enough for most of us on those days when the lip won't stay on the right note, the brain forgets how to play a "G major" scale, and you run out of breath half-way through every phrase.

But we keep coming back because we know the language and we know it works. Not every time, not every day, but when it happens, we are transformed.

So, I will end by again quoting Mr. Baca:

Let's get crazy!
Crazy good!

20. Sing, Play, and Dance

Everything in the universe has a rhythm,

everything dances.

― Maya Angelou

Last week I wrote about Joshua MacCluer and a post he wrote titled "10 Principles for Learning Music for Beginning and Amateur Musicians." Just to put this week into context, here are the first five:

1) Start with the “Why?”
2) The goal is to learn to speak music, not to learn how to play an instrument.
3) At the beginning, there are no mistakes or rules.
4) All hail the groove! Find and feel the groove before you play.
5) Don’t worry about the notes! Make it feel right!

Where does he take this list? Let's follow him...
(Note: that the italicized text is from MacCluer's post. The others are my thoughts.)

6) Listening is at least as important as playing.

• We must develop the ability to listen to others and play at the same time. We must also learn what to listen to at what time. ...For example, one technique is listen to a song several times, each time listening to a different instrument or element of the music. First listen to the bass line. Then the groove. Then the feeling. Then the drums, the woodwinds, the keyboard, the violins, then the dynamics. The choices are unlimited. The most important step at the beginning is developing the ability to move our ears away from our own playing to other players or elements of the music.

I will have more to say about this one in a later post. Music is meant to be heard, just like language. It is communication. What have others had to "say" in their music? Listen to it. What does Arban's 1st Characteristic Study sound like when it is played well? You will find it on You Tube. Sometimes if you are having trouble finding a groove- find a performance and listen for it. Then find it in your playing.

7) Don’t practice, jam!

• Jamming is the way to learn any language.... [T]he way to learn any language is to listen, imitate, and jam.... we don’t recite speeches, we have improvised conversations. Every conversation we have with other people is an improvisation! Jamming in music is playing improvised music with other people, trying things out and learning to play with others in a way that works.... Learn to listen, reach and find new things, feel the groove together and talk about the same thing musically, in an improvised and relaxed setting.

One of the interesting things I experienced last summer at the big band and trumpet camps was practicing with another musician. One of us would play the exercise, then the other would. It accomplished a couple of things, First it helped each of us hear the piece or exercise from the other side of the horn. We pick up nuances and phrases that way. Second, it keeps us from rushing through our practice. We pay better attention. It is only a small step from that to "jamming" together.

8) Play with other music as much as possible, even when practicing. Always keep a musical context when playing.

• If there is no one to jam with you today, it’s best to find some music to play along with. Even if you are playing your scales, having a groove to play with is very helpful. Playing with recordings or drum tracks or loops is much better than playing alone.  It is also super fun and very educational to play along with recordings by great musicians of your favorite songs. Make it feel right when you play along with pros on the recording, and it will feel right when you play with people in real life.

This goes back to the listening- and moves it further. Sure, you may do this when trying to transcribe a song, but what about just to play along with Miles Davis or the Canadian Brass? I have learned many wind band and quintet pieces that way over the years. I can feel their groove and find my place in it. And, as MacCluer says above- it really is "super fun."

9) Sing!

• The ideas we want to express [in our music] live inside of us, waiting to be expressed in the real world. However, the connection between our inner world and the outer world must be developed. The best way to do this is through singing. It removes our technical limitations and allows us to find our inner voice and ideas much more easily. Singing should be a daily practice for all musicians.... Once we know what we are hearing or trying to play, it is much easier to produce that in real life.

I don't do it as often as I should, but singing a piece should probably be a standard of playing new or difficult pieces. Someone said at camp last summer that if you have already sung the piece, you are no longer sight-reading. Amazingly- it works. Sometimes I will sing the exercise before playing it a second time. Again, that slows me down (resting as much as playing!) and helps me get the groove a little more firmly established in my head.

10) Learn to move with the music.

• Along with finding our voice another primary goal of music is to feel and live in the groove. The groove does not live in our heads but in our bodies. Therefore, dancing and playing drums is also very helpful. If we dance and feel the music in our bodies or maybe with a small percussion instrument, we will truly be in the flow of the musical experience and the music will flow easily and happily through us....Dancing gets the music in our whole body, and makes for much closer connection with the musical energy. So dance! It’s fun and feels great. If you’re embarrassed, do it in private, and dance your way through the music you want to play. The rhythm and groove you get from that will make the instrumental playing much easier.

Dance. Move. Let the music express itself in your body language. At a recent concert one of my friends commented on the musicians on stage. They had no energy. As you watched them you almost expected them to fall asleep mid-note. Now, there are professionals and top-notch musicians who may not move much in their performance. (Bob Dylan comes to mind, but then his musical and verbal language is so rich, he lives the movement!) So moving when practicing (or singing or listening) does make sense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That groove thing keeps coming back, doesn't it? Well, after writing last week's post on these 10 principles, I was doing my daily practice. After I got warmed up, etc. I pulled out one of the Concone Lyrical Studies, #7 to be exact. I have had this problem that these "lyrical" studies have not felt all that lyrical. They are a collection of notes, one after the other, on the page. In language terms, they are words strung together in a foreign language that I haven't been able to understand. I have also found it more difficult to give slow, lyrical pieces the emotion they deserve.

Well, earlier last week I had found a You Tube recording of #7 and listened to it. It was okay, but it didn't move me. So I did what MacCluer has talked about. I sang it, then started to play it listening and feeling for the "groove." Surprise, surprise. There really is a groove in Concone #7! The next thing I knew I was playing in that groove.

I liked it enough to play it again. I found myself moving with the music as I played it. I can't say I was dancing, but the music sure was.

This is why, at age 67, I am still a student and still learning. There is always something new in the next piece, in the middle of the old Arban's or Concone, or waiting in an unexpected phrase on the next page, around the corner of tomorrow, or even as I take a moment to pay attention to the groove of my own life and the music I make. I call this blog series reflections on life and music. If it works in the practice room, it will work in all our relationships.

• Sing.
• Play.
• Dance.

And one of my favorite all time quotes:

Those who dance were thought to be insane 

by those who could not hear the music.