I’ve always found it much easier to freely communicate when an insight feels certain, when I’m on the “other side” of something. Sharing from hindsight feels like crystal clear water. It just flows. But I’m increasingly interested in the spaces in between, drawn to say more about what it’s like when things are incomplete, in transition, suspended, or unclear.
This liminal space is the territory of a music lesson. Every single one has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning shows the material of the moment, the middle dives into the potential for change. The end may not be tidy with everything fixed, but the new orientation has emerged, and small successes have been shared and witnessed, ready to be reinforced. If we so choose…
Driving home from a day of teaching, I was thinking about how music has always been this thing that provides me with a direction when I’m not sure which way is up. Once a song starts, it's going somewhere. Driving is similar, just having a place to point and go.
Once a student leaves a lesson and they’re on their own for the week, practicing can be choppy and not fluid until it is. That’s part of the process. Even in the in-between, all the problem-solving and focused repetitions lead somewhere. Practicing has an aim. For me, sitting myself down is an act of showing up that settles me, gathers me, and points me toward something that somehow organizes the layers of my thinking. And my being. Sometimes it feels like an understanding older, wiser version of me is pointing my shoulders and my gaze, showing me where to start.
Lately, I feel scattered and distracted before I practice. This month I’ve been so grateful that the music of my friends Matt LaRocca and Michael Chorney has been in my fingers, heart, and ears. I’m playing it in preparation for our August House & Barn Concert. The lyricism is simple and then wildly surprising. The harmonies are wandering and searching. There’s a straightforward two-chord opening with just one extra note that opens up an entire dimension. Unmistakably, there is heart in this music. It's human. There is that unnamable thing that bonds us, or at least makes me feel bonded. It’s reassuring. And it’s also relatably unsettled. Being in this music transforms my scattered state into a feeling of calm.
If something in my life is that potent and meaningful, how could I not share it?
Uncertainty exists in between the notes. Tension lives in the rests. One of my most embarrassing piano lesson memories as a student was in Prague, where I lived and studied at the conservatory. My teacher was singing and conducting the music while I played, expressing the essence of the phrase. I think it was the Chopin Fantasy in F minor. Apparently I pressed on with intensity, blasting straight through a rest like I’d run a stop sign with a cop car at the same intersection. My parents were visiting that day. (I had the blind courage to invite them to my piano lesson to observe?!) He turned to them and said, “She doesn't know that silence is in music!!”
Perhaps because it was too risky.
Slowing down enough to be present. To be still. To be in the pause. My music has evolved as life has unfolded. The lesson from the lesson was bigger than “count the rest.” The lesson that I’m still learning is to be in the space. Savor it.
That lesson is quite present in my mind today, just two weeks before our older daughter Lila leaves for her first year at Tufts. Music doesn’t lie. It doesn’t say, “don’t worry, reality is predictable and safe and here’s how.” It says, “listen. Life is shifting and there’s still a path.” Sometimes the absolute quiet is part of the design. The melody breathes. The rhythm halts. Stay with it long enough that it’s completely inevitable when the next note comes in.