A day in the life of the blogmaiden

It was one of those long and winding days, waking up and on the phone while having a make-shift breakfast.

8 am – I thought there was enough time for my 9 am phone appointment with the policy expert in San Francisco.

Multi-tasking on the computer. iPhone.

Then an alert from my google-calendar — a conference call on sustainability. I had completely forgotten about it.

Headset – landline. Desktop. Brewing Hawaiian coffee. Multi-island conference-call and google doc. I was typing away. I wanted to leave by 10:45 am – but as usual, it got too late to be on time for yoga.

So I made a detour – and then made lunch at my mom’s. She wasn’t there but she left her freshly washed and picked greens on the counter for me. The pot that I thought was soup for the noodles I was making turned out to be freshly cooked sweet red bean dessert. I packed them for later.

I had to cancel my 1:30 pm appointment so I could be ready for the 2 pm. Several colleagues descended upon me at once. It was time for the electric vehicle exchange outside the new science building.

I had to empty my flash drive (or memory stick as they call it elsewhere) for the digital photography class. We had gone on a photo shoot last Saturday on the West Side — in quest of EV in paradise, or at least what it should be.

A voicemail from Kentucky. Who do I know there? I had completely overlooked his e-mail of 1st Feb!

Then I opened an e-mail from the State — an urgent request for me to read some extremely technical and legal document overnight and provide feedback.

By 4:30 pm I was spent.

I stayed another 30 minutes to get things printed for review tonight. Did I really want to do more work?

As I left campus, I reminded myself to always leave before it got dark — otherwise I’d feel resentful of giving my day away.

After dumping my mom’s plastics and newspaper at the recycling corner, I drove through the park and thought how best to spend the remaining sunset hours.

Did I want to read outside? Pick rucola from my little garden? Unpack the package from Boston?

In the end, I succumbed to my bed — completely exhausted from working around the clock these last 4 days.

But there was one more day left of this week.

Can I make it?

I had already prepared the test for my 14 piano students. I’m sure they will do well tomorrow afternoon. And then I’ll go through the Circle of Fifths and tell them about Catalyst String Quartet that will be visiting Maui on 27th February.

Before lunch, I will meet with the half-Dutch, half-Chinese host of the dinner party where I will play and talk about music for Chinese New Year of the Snake. A year ago I had researched the Year of the Dragon and the lyrics from the Song and Tang dynasties and presented a lecture/recital with a Chinese soprano. It was something I wanted to do again but simply too time-challenged this year to do one properly.

Will I have time to practise?

No. I have a 9 am meeting with my procurement officer on invoices, budgets, and travel requests.

At least I managed to swim laps in the outdoor pool and got some vitamin D in the tropical sun. That was my treat.

A Thousand Years for easy piano

How do you teach complete beginners how to play the piano?

Start with a tune they want to play.

So I searched Pandora and Youtube for the most popular movie themes. Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years” is one of those sticky melodies that haunts me like the movie Twilight. Although I’ve yet to see Breaking Dawn, I can see why young people like it so much.

The short cut is to search for the sheet music online. However, it’s in a key too challenging for most beginners. Plus there are too many notes. Too much variety.

So I reduced it from 6/8 time to 3/4 time and transposed into the white key of C.

The result is something quite do-able, particularly with added fingerings. Of course, it’s always possible to simplify this further still. I will assign my students to figure how how it ends.

A Thousand Years for easy piano

Writing to a deadline

“So, how much writing did you get done today?” asked my friend, concerned that I kept putting off the most important task of all.

“I’m just getting started,” I said at 7:30 pm.

“What? What did you do all day?”

“I had 2 loads of laundry to wash, hang, let dry, fold, and put away. I had to clean the bathroom, the fridge, and the floor. I still have to clear the paperwork on my desk.”

I was not complaining or procrastinating. While I was doing the house chores, I was thinking about how and what to write.

I wish there’s a magic wand to make all the words appear. I’ve drafted the outline. I’ve given myself and others a deadline. The raw material is totally here, in my brain, on my computer, in e-mails, and in printed form. All I have to do is copy and paste, write, rewrite, and polish it.

But there is a million other things on my mind. I can’t work in a dirty and messy space. My Brazilian friend admired how her German husband could plant himself anywhere, in the middle of a mess, and work away. She has to clean the entire house before she can begin to think. I am somewhat the same way. While cleaning, I am thinking. I am plotting.

When I wrote concert reviews, I forced myself to write and publish as soon as the concert was over. The longer I waited, the less compelled I was to write a review at all.

On my first day as magazine editor, my publisher said,”You know what a deadline is? If you don’t make it, you’re dead.” Since then, my life revolved around deadlines and word count.

The latest threat I received was compelling enough for me to meet my first deadline. “I will not talk to you unless you submit that chapter.” Thankfully, it was real enough that I submitted the chapter the day before it was due.

So now, I tell my friends, “Please do not bother me. Do not talk to me. I will not and cannot engage in conversation until I meet my deadline.”

The trouble is, I have set myself a deadline every week. It will be several weeks before I emerge to embrace the world again.

Reasons for attending a concert in Maui

In Maui, where classical concerts are few and far between, the place to meet other classical music aficionados is at such events.

Today, Haydn’s The Creation is being performed at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (MACC). The MACC is to Maui as the Concertgebouw is to Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall to New York.

The soloists, a large choir, and an orchestra were put together specifically for this grand work. It is happening right now —- as I type. Why am I not on stage or in the audience?

For someone as keen on music as I am, I should be at every such event at the MACC or elsewhere on Maui. To find myself writing this blog instead of attending this concert is baffling.

I had toyed with the thought of going there. I was asked to substitute as accompanist for a few sessions but my workload prevented a resounding “yes, I’d love to do it.” I next heard of it when several singers mentioned the performance. Eventually I brought up the subject in conversation.

It would be a simple $25 to secure a seat. I had asked my mother if she wanted to go. She wasn’t sure. Someone else invited me to go with her family. My initial yes changed to a no later in the week. The thought of going with others to an event was very appealing. I could even make a date of it with any number of other “single” music lovers.

Why this vacillation? Why not a definite commitment?

As this is the only concert in town —- the only remotely classical work on the island of Maui for a month, it seems obvious for all who appreciate classical music to attend it.

If I were hungry for classical music, I would go to this one-off event — Sunday 19th August 3:30 pm at the Castle Theatre at the MACC. As the theatre seats 1,200 people, there is little risk of selling out.

There I would meet other musicians, classical music connoisseurs, on stage or in the audience. It would be the world I belong to and the one I have been accustomed to.

There lies the rub.

I am not hungry enough for classical music to give up my Sunday afternoon. Now I am beginning to understand why it is so hard to get people to come to a concert. If it’s not a free concert, one weighs all these other activities that are equally or even more compelling. For me, sitting outside, typing on my iPad keyboard, with a cold glass of homemade iced tea is far more relaxing and worthwhile than sitting indoors among strangers in a cold, air-conditioned hall for 2 hours. How often during the week do I get to sit outside? None.

Paris by Darius Milhaud

The Paris of French composer Darius Milhaud in 1948 is captured in his 4 piano music for 4 pianists. I asked my friend Joe Goldiamond, who has lived in Paris, to write about each of the areas which title the movements of this work. He has always spoken fondly of Paris, a romantic city I was fortunate enough to visit as a 21-year-old backpacker through Europe, on holiday as a graduate student, day trip for a job interview, blind date, conferences & meetings, winter rendezvous with friend from Houston, and the last occasion in Summer 2009. I can’t wait to share his descriptions with the audience on Maui on Saturday 14th July 2012. [The bracketed comments are mine, after our 8th July rehearsal.]

Montmartre

Montmartre sits on a hillside in the northernmost part of the city and has a 2,000 year-old history as an independent village known for its windmills and vineyards.  Annexed by Paris in the late 19^th century, it quickly became home for artists, poets and revolutionaries who were attracted by its tolerant atmosphere, its buoyant nightlife, and by the beauty of its winding, narrow cobblestone streets, often with steep inclines, that may lead suddenly to small squares and fountains and gardens. [You can hear the scales, which I think depict the steps and paths.]

L’ Isle St. Louis      

The Isle St. Louis is a natural island in the River Seine right in the heart of Paris.  Yet, it feels far away and on Sunday mornings, when the island is shrouded in mist that rolls in from the river and the only sound you hear is that of a church bell, you might easily imagine yourself in rural France, 400 years ago.  It was the home of the Polish composer and pianist, Frederic Chopin.  The quays, which embrace the entire island, are legendary as lovers’ promenades. [You can hear the tenuto notes representing the bells of the Notre Dame.]

Montparnasse

Montparnasse became the heart of Paris’s artistic and intellectual life after the first decade of the 20^th century.  Located deep on the Left Bank, the area is a broad plain gathered around the boulevard Montparnasse, which today, as much as yesterday, blends bookstores and nightlife, cafés and crepe restaurants.  The stroller will still find legendary cafés, such as Le Dome and La Rotonde, where painters, sculptors, writers and philosophers from across the globe gathered to mold thoughts and debate ideas. [This piece is full of conversations, ideas, and thoughts criss-crossing each other. The biggest movement by far.]

Les Bateaux-Mouches

The Bateaux-Mouches are long, slender boats that have carried visitors on tours through the heart of Paris since the end of the 19^th century.  The visitor experiences a leisurely adventure and gentle breeze as his boat glides past Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Museum and the Tuileries Gardens and under historic bridges.  He may also sense what the waters of the Seine have always meant to Paris, as its main artery, and some would say, its soul. [In 12/8 time, you feel the sway of the boat on the water, nice and relaxed!]

Longchamp

The Longchamp Racecourse is located along the banks of the Seine in a wooded area in western Paris.  From the time of Napoleon III and across La Belle Epoque into the early 20^th century, it was the kind of place that you went to in a top hat, if you were a man, and carrying a parasol, if you were not.  Even the thoroughbred horses had an understated elegance, along with power, in the masterly paintings of Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. [This is a fugue, which means chase. You can literally hear the parts can't wait to imitate each other, more like chasing each other!]

La Tour Eiffel

The Eiffel Tower is the tallest structure in France, the most visited monument in the world, and the universal symbol of Paris.  If the islands in the River Seine are the city’s heart, and the river its soul, then the Eiffel Tower is the city’s intelligence.  Constructed of iron lattice, like Parisian balconies, it was considered an impossible feat until it was done.  It was completed in 1889, in time for the World’s Fair, which was held to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution, an event we commemorate this evening. [As the last movement, this is grand and triumphant, rising high like the tower itself! Lots of octaves!]

Piano synergy: music for many hands on many pianos

In preparation for my next concert in mid-July on Maui, I decided to check out performances of the selected works on the Internet. The interpretations are much faster, crisper, and cleaner. It’s really hard to play fast, crisp, and clean —– that is, with many pianists on many different pianos.

Darius Milhaud’s Paris: Suite for 4 pianos spans different arrondissemont of Paris. I try to remember the Paris I know but I only remember Montmartre, L’ile Saint-Louis, and the Eiffel Tower from the 6 movements. I could not find a video clip of this fantastic work against the different scenes of Paris though the 2 on Youtube are sufficiently interesting. This piece is by far the most demanding of our entire 1.5 hour program.

Next, I looked for Gerald Busby’s Four! a statement for 4 pianos. Instead, I found Plucked — 15 hands on one piano. It’s a most remarkable and funny piece. If you have time to watch it, do enjoy the performance art.

Another 4 piano 8 hand piece is Wallace DePue’s 16 Pawns. It’s a short and fast one page work. No videos on the Internet. No background description. Perhaps we can get our own recording at the concert.

We will be playing two multi-hand pieces by Robert Pollock, founder and artistic director of Ebb & Flow Arts, the non-profit organization that is putting together this concert of Sunday 14th July 2012. The titles reveal just how many pianists and pianos. Five for Four. Three for Six. Answer: Five pianists on 4 pianos. Three pianos for Six hands.

I finally get to play a work of Morton Feldman, a composer I have heard much about but never studied. His “Piece for 4 Pianos” is interesting in that all pianists have the same score. It’s up to each pianist to decide when to play each note. Everything is soft. The result? a kind of rippling, echoey effect. Watch the meditative result below.

John Cage’s “Music for Piano” is another aleatory piece (one which the composer instructs the performer to decide on duration or other aspects of the composition). We each chose two consecutive pages from the album. It’s prepared piano at its best, though it would take about 30 minutes to prepare. We each have a bag of black rubber and white felt objects to insert between the strings of the piano for those notes we need to mute. The result? Texture that we’d otherwise not hear. Again, we decide when and how long to play each note. Last time we had agreed on the piece to last 7 minutes, but some of us were too fast and others too slow. It does take some practice to get 4 pianists to end at the same time.

Below is one interpretation of John Cage’s “Music for Piano”

Sadly there is not enough music for many pianos. Ebb & Flow Arts commissioned composer Thomas Osborne to write one for us. The mp3 version of his “Canyons” for four pianos is very powerful. I will try playing it today.

Luckily there is plenty of fun pieces for two pianos and even two pianists on one piano. As 14th July is Bastille Day, we decided to choose works of French composers. Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite; Faure’s Dolly Suite; and Debussy’s Petite Suite.

I am so glad to be able to participate this time. Last year my multi-hands on one piano work “Three on One“ was performed in the Battle of the Pianists concert in Maui while I was in Utrecht. Ironically, rehearsing these multi-hand, multi-piano works with other pianists just makes me miss sightreading chamber music with string and wind players even more!

Free concert – no reservation required. Get there early — last year was standing room only!

PIANO SYNERGY FREE CONCERT

Sunday 14 July 2012

7:30 pm

Maui Music Conservatory
Queen Ka’ahumanu Mall (upstairs) 
Kahului, Maui, Hawaii

Pianists (alphabetical order): Lotus Dancer, Anne Ku, Peiling Lin, Ruth Murata, Robert Pollock, Beatrice Scorby

Ebb and Flow Arts North South East West Festival of New Music

Pachelbel Canon in C

Johann Pachelbel’s most famous work is his Canon in D. George Winston played his version of it in the key of C. Why not? C is 2 sharps easier than D major.

Is it possible to decompose it further? Simplify it so that even beginners can have fun with it?

I recall a post-concert spontaneous “jam session” in Houston, Texas where Robert on his guitar and I on the piano played the chords of Pachelbel and the host improvised on his flute. It was such fun that I wanted to do it again.

A canon, by definition, is a piece of music where one voice repeats the part of another, throughout the whole piece. Pachelbel’s Canon is often subtitled with “basso ostinato” — a repetitive bass. Once you know the bass line and the sequence of chords, you can repeat it over and over again.

Pachelbel's Canon arranged for solo and group playing by Anne Ku

In the above score, notice there are 4 parts. Four different players can play in sequence. The first begins. The second joins at the beginning when the first reaches rehearsal mark A. Similarly the third player joins at the beginning when the first reaches rehearsal mark B and the second reaches rehearsal mark A.  And so on.

Of course there is more development than these 16 bars, but at least beginners can play this.

I googled “Pachelbel Canon and C” and discovered that others have arranged simple versions for solo piano in the key of C. And there are plenty of free sheet music on the Internet such as this one.

Valentine’s Day Concert

Last summer, a soprano told me about some modern love songs she wanted to sing for Valentine’s Day. While we never managed to get together to try them out, the conversation got me thinking about doing my own concert on Valentine’s Day.

As a young teenager, I lived on Barbara Cartland historical romance novels and Harlequin romances. In reading books on the psychology of love, I tried to form a taxonomy of the different kinds of love and the various stages of love. Ultimately I looked forward to experiencing love as I journeyed to adulthood.

I learned over the years that one has to experience it to be able to express it. I play Chopin’s nocturnes and Brahms’ intermezzi differently now than as a young college student. Similarly what I had read in theory so many decades ago has now been put into practice though not intentionally.

We now know a lot more about the brain and its chemistry when it comes to experiencing romantic love. Music comes to life when put into context. The shared experience of listening to a particular love song becomes symbolic of that relationship. As I search through my collection of love songs for Valentine’s Day, I travel down a memory lane of music I love.

The elderly audience on Tuesday 14th February 2012 have their own memories. I cannot possibly evoke significant moments without knowing the love songs of their life stories.

After a Saturday afternoon of trying out different pieces from my collection in Maui (the rest is in the Netherlands), I’ve narrowed it down to the following list. Next, I need to order them according to mood and story line. The classical works and love arias from opera will set the mood. Towards the end, I will ask the audience to join in singing the more popular songs.

Salut D’amour op. 12: Elgar
Canon in D: Pachelbel (George Winston arrangement)
Thais Meditation**: Massenet
Omio Babbino Caro (Gianni Schicchi): Puccini
E Incevan le stelle (Tosca): Puccini
Annie’s Song**: John Denver
Song Bird**: Christine McVie
I Left My Heart in San Francisco: Douglas Cross & George Cory
Besame Mucho: Consuelo Velazquez & Sunny Skylar
Can You Feel the Love Tonight: Elton John
The Moon Represents My Heart (Chinese)**
Sukiyaki: Rokusuki Ei and Hachidai Nakamura
Can’t Help Falling in Love: George David Weiss, Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore
What a Wonderful World : George David Weiss, Bob Thiele
What a Wonderful World** Iz version
Let It Be: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Aloha Means I Love You**: Robert L. Lukens, John Avery Noble

BREAKING NEWS:
After putting this program together, I learned of the sudden death of Whitney Houston the same evening. As a tribute to her, I will include “I Will Always Love You” and “The Greatest Love of All.” This means removing a few pieces to ensure the concert lasts no longer than 1 hour — thus the asterisk ** marked here.

Transferrable skills: from music to ?

This time four years ago, in the historic city of Utrecht, Netherlands, I was contemplating “how am I to do it.”

The task of recruiting musicians to study my music and perform (or rather, premiere) it for the first time and only once — without compensation — was a daunting one.

It would have been easiest to have just one performer play my music. And that performer could be me. After all, I know my own music. I wouldn’t need to find other musicians, convince them to rehearse, and take the risk of playing music that’s never been performed or heard before. And to play it just once?  After all that studying?

Next easiest would be to write music for a duo or a limited number of players. Why did I challenge myself with producing a half-hour-long opera with a sizable ensemble, choir, and soloists? There had to be separate rehearsals with the choir. This was not the path of least resistance.

Where could I find these musicians? Ask their teachers? Approach them one at a time?

How would I get musicians to do it? I asked other composition students. How did they do it? Nobody had written a chamber opera with so many performers before. Orchestra yes. But not opera.

Conductor Henk Alkema greets first violinist and soloists, June 2008. Photo: Fokke van der Meer

What I learned from those months from February to June 2008 was how to produce a concert with no budget. What was involved? It was a collaborative effort.

• recruiting musicians
• scheduling rehearsals
• getting the musicians to arrive on time
• getting the musicians to show up
• getting the musicians to commit
• organizing the music (making the part scores)
• changing and editing the music
• preparing the programming notes
• preparing the slides for the overhead projector
• setting put the stage
• getting the event photographed and recorded
• doing the publicity
• getting help (stage manager, stagehands, usher)
• ordering flowers to thank the musicians and selecting wine to thank the conductors
• arranging post-concert refreshments for the audience
• arranging dinner for the musicians
• getting sponsors to pay for printing programs (PDF) and posters and the rest
• getting the posters and programs printed

Thinking back, these skills are transferrable, for now I am managing an expanding team of volunteers. I am not paying them. They are not paying me. But we all work to the same goal.

The audience at the final exam concert of 2 June 2008. Photo: Fokke v.d. Meer

Piano orchestra

What do you do with 22 students in a classroom of just 15 electric pianos (2 of which do not sound) and one portable synthesizer for 3 hours?

1. Let them take turns at the piano, one at a time. Give a lecture to the rest of the class. Swap.
2. Put two students on each keyboard and have them play duets.
3. Put two students on each keyboard and conduct them like an orchestra.

When I googled “piano orchestra” I found a variety of piano concertos and questions about the role of piano in the orchestra.

Truth is, it is rare to see so many pianos in one room, unless they are all for sale, in which case you can’t play on them as you wish.

On day one, I asked my students to play just the black keys. I split them into several section. One section played successive quarter notes. Another joined with half notes. The third joined with whole notes. I then improvised on high treble.

My father used to play Chinese songs just on black keys. Pentatonic music (using just the 5 notes of the 5 black keys) blend well in any order in any octave.

Now is my chance to deconstruct my favourite works, be they classical concertos or pop songs. Assign the parts to the various pianists. This way, everyone gets to play. Doubling up is fine. The string section does it all the time.

What I want to get across is simple:

1. Most students of piano learn to play solo piano works. They advance to become soloists.
2. Some learn to accompany choir or other instruments or voice.
3. Others move on to become organists.
4. Whether you’re an accompanist or organist, you serve the choir or congregation. You’re not equal.
5. But when you play in an orchestra, ensemble, or chamber music group, it’s totally different.
6. String players know this. Wind players, too. Brass players. Singers in choirs.
7. But pianists in a piano orchestra? That’s nearly unheard of.

It’s hard to find pianos you can play in one place. It’s hard to move pianos into one place. It’s hard to find pieces written for many pianos.

But ah! such joy to play together! The full polyphonic sound of a piano orchestra!

[Note: this is my first blog post on an iPad!}