In the last week, I’ve seen two concerts with extraordinary musicians up close. One was in a living room in a nearby home with Henry Kramer playing a grand piano that was generously donated to the music center, and the other in the studios of Vermont Public with Claire Wells, violin, playing with Pualina Lim on piano with the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival. Both spaces were small and intimate. The proximity put me in touch with not only the incredible virtuosity, but also the power of the performances and the embodiment of these musicians.
When we learn to get out of our own way, playing music can become a fully athletic experience in which the whole self produces the sound through elaborate micro-coordination. When our learning takes place in an environment that never asks us to abandon ourselves in the first place, our expression can be nurtured and developed all along. The expression I’m talking about feels like joy. Not because doubt, negative self-talk, and criticism have disappeared, but because for a moment, they aren’t in charge. It’s a flowing, channeling experience without the blocks of holding ourselves back while we try to move forward.
Skill development plays a huge role in expression becoming freely available for a musician. High-quality teaching involves noticing where a person is already naturally wired for success and skillfully building on those innate strengths, while providing scaffolding for additional skill sets to grow and take root. The balance of enhancing natural strengths and building in the less obvious areas gives structure that stabilizes and sustains talent.
I remember a student who was so naturally capable of picking out a tune on the piano. Note after note, his ear found the pattern easily. Using that as a leading edge, we gradually focused on other areas like counting and coordination of the playing apparatus. After years of working on it, he’s able to play a compelling and energy-filled piece with command, and he can hear what he’s producing to his own satisfaction.
Talent is potential. Training and support are what lead to the kind of ecstatic and electric performances that we’re all drawn to. A community with an organization dedicated to cultivating talent, not just polishing where it already exists, can become a hotbed for exhilarating performance—and not just that. When an organization focuses on respecting, encouraging, and even noticing talent in the first place, lives can change entirely.
Less skillful teaching sometimes has a flattening effect. And I say this from decades of teaching, having learned through experimentation what unlocks potential and what dampens it. When a teacher approaches a studio with a standardized, me-first approach, in other words, “I know what works and I’m going to make sure all my students do the same thing in the same order,” the spark of individual learning and autonomy gets squashed. When the teacher has an eye for difference, noticing with neutral awareness what lights someone up, what kind of questions they’re asking, and what physicality comes naturally, the process of guiding them toward their full expression becomes an adventure that is unique in every single case.
I believe this process is similar in parenting. And in both cases, the ability to be objective is essential. It’s also the most difficult thing! Because it requires us to set our assumptions aside, and even to set our own experiences aside. My early flickers of talent that were noticed by the adults in my life were specific to me, and their noticing led to my journey into music training that started like a fast train at a very young age. However, my particular ways of accessing music and approaching it in those early years were different from how other kids show their talent. Sometimes it’s an ability to remember a tune, sometimes it’s a rhythmic drive, sometimes it’s sheer coordination, and sometimes it’s being in love with the sounds and the combination of tones.
One quality that I believe to be present in kids, when teachers or parents truly occupy a supporting role, is curiosity. It’s an essential quality for growth. And it’s often the first one to go when the instruction or guidance becomes heavy-handed, overly involved, or overly filled with set expectations.
And this part really moves me. When an adult student comes into my studio, I feel that our work involves gradually accessing that very same childlike curiosity that is inherent but often heavily buried. It’s there. But it has been challenged and discouraged over and over.
We need support, encouragement and modeling. But the qualities and principles of the person in that modeling role really matter. They can lead us forward, or hinder our flourishing.
Here are some of the questions I’m asking from inside MCMC: How do we create and maintain a culture that is centered on the healthy development of individuals around the practice of music making over time? How do we instill values of respect, empathy, self-compassion, and humility? What impact can a music organization have on its community and the environments that students eventually enter carrying their musical experiences with them?
For me, the power of music-making has always been a north star. Not just the soothing, gentle, or relaxing part of music. The power. Because musicians have always looked to me like people occupying their full presence while, at the same time, letting something move through them that clearly animates their spirit and sharing it with everyone around them.
In these concerts I just attended, I realized that the musicians were not giving anything to me in the sense that they made me feel a certain way. Because we actually don’t have the ability to change people. What I observed instead was the gift of their own fully embodied expression and aliveness, which reminded me that I have that in me too.
We can’t make someone own their power. And we can’t take it from someone else. But we can remind each other of our power and potential. And when I say power, I mean the kind that is love.
Music has always been about us. Music is what we are, and it reminds us of what is possible when we learn to overcome our limitations and develop meta skills, skills that layer together to create disproportionate results. Inspiration is not magic. It’s carefully crafted care and attention.
Music lets us take the risk of caring so much. The risk of showing other people how much we care. When we watch a musician absorbed in their own performance, we see someone who has dared to care out loud.
-Sadie