Work habits

I wish I could say that I have beautifully organised study habits; that I meditate before I begin each working day in earnest, and that obliging birds and well-meaning squirrels help me with my housework, but sadly this is not the case. Except the part about the squirrels. I have always been something of a Last-Minute Moll.  When I was studying at Cambridge, we had far less contact time than at Berklee (three hours of classes per week, tops) and only one or two big essays each week. Despite reading up all week, I would wager that almost without exception, I didn’t put pen to paper until the long after sunset the night before. This wasn't just because I was a rampant procrastinator, I also just preferred to work that way. In the wee hours, a small tub of Coffee Mate and a big dollop of adrenaline were my faithful friends, or so it seemed at the time. I probably thought that writing all night made me ever so grown-up and a transformed me into a Plathian vision of academic rigour. In reality I probably looked like a cross between Gollum and Oscar the Grouch, feverishly mashing at a computer keyboard. 

In terms of my work environment and routines, I do have certain preferences. When it comes to practicing, I’m very motivated, but easily overwhelmed, so breaking down my work into bite-sized tasks is absolutely essential. I am forever tweaking my routine, and am fascinated by what works for me (my metronome, small, fixed goals, stretching, practicing with the lights off, tea) what doesn’t (open-ended swathes of time, large tasks with baggy edges, the vaguest hint of sleepiness, green tea) and why. Both for practice and for academic work I try to keep my room as tidy as possible, just for peace of mind, and the removal of fertile procrastination options. I have lots of plants, and no desk - for no reason at all I prefer to work cross-legged on the floor. I am militant about keeping my computer desktop empty, and the kettle is forever boiling.  

Which to choose...

Early to bed,Early to rise,Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

- from ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack’ by Benjamin Franklin  

On the other hand, far more appealingly:

My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night;But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - It gives a lovely light! 

- ‘First Fig’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I bet you wish you played the piccolo - the physicality of the harp

As I’m a harpist, I have spent a woefully large portion of my life lugging around a 6ft 4, 81-pound beast of wood, metal, and gut. (I heard once that it takes eight sheep to make a harp. I have no idea if it's true but I've telling people, with solemn authority, ever since). 
I could probably measure this time, like TS Eliot’s coffee spoons, in chiropractor bills.  To shift my harp around, I lay it flat in the back of a large car, and this is why my mother wants me to drive a second-hand hearse – ‘SO practical! And you’d never have any trouble with road rage!’ She may well be right, but I don’t think I’d much like people nodding at me, solemnly, wherever I go.  Although I wouldn’t mind the occasional salute… But when I can’t face the thought of finding a parking spot, I push it along in a trolley with pneumatic tires.  I have walked with my harp for up to two hours, through crowded streets, over cobbles and hills – to which my biceps are testament.  If only.  ‘Knots on a piece of string’, as my gym teacher used to say (not letting that one go, it seems).  It’s my poor back that takes the heat.  And my thighs, but the less about them, the better. I can run with it - although perhaps it’s more of an ungainly trot - and hauling it up flights of stairs is par for the course. The only time my trolley has ever broken, I was playing for a wedding at a hotel where the lift also, by happy coincidence, happened to be broken. And it was a women-only reception. And none of them would help me, because they didn't want to risk ruining their outfits. And none of the male concierges were allowed upstairs, for religious reasons. And the concierge team was all male. Long story short, I accidentally forced a groom to help me carry my harp up four flights of stairs, minutes before his wedding - he was too polite to tell me that he was the groom. And much too polite to exclaim profanely when it came to rest - momentarily - on his foot. 

When it comes to actually playing the harp, I'm a big fan of its intimacy. You have to almost wrap yourself around it to play. I like feeling the weight of it just touching my knees. I don’t like getting blisters, but I enjoy the asbestos fingertips that follow. I love resting my head against the soundboard, and when I was at boarding school, I used to curl up for a nap in the practice rooms, nestled in my harp covers. I occasionally yearn for my former life as a viola player - the joys of really digging into a string and the luxury of a small case are never pleasures I’ll underestimate again. But contrary to the assumption of taxi drivers and knowing pedestrians everywhere, I’ve never wished I played the piccolo. 

People often ask me why I started playing the harp (as opposed to the piccolo for example! ho ho ho) and the truest answer is that I’m not sure. I remember desperately wanting to play it as a child, but the whys and wherefores elude me.  It was probably for as crudely aesthetic a reason as my coveting its beauty.  This is a feeling that hasn’t gone away.  Sometimes I think of my harp as an inanimate thing – be it a big, heavy burden or a masterpiece of human craftsmanship.  Sometimes I think of it as a friend, often, a nemesis.  But I don’t think I have ever looked at my harp without marvelling at the fact that I'm allowed to touch it.  What a thing!

Visually, my harp is very striking. I mean it’s basically an ornate wardrobe with strings, or - in its cover - an enormous oven mitt.  It's ebony and gold, with a gold (paint) crown and fleur de lis carvings. After trying so many others, I fell in love with this model when I saw one belonging to a very kind man called David, who works at Holywell Music, a harp shop in London.  He named his harp Margo, after the character on The Good Life, because ‘she thinks she’s a bit posh.’ I just love that.  My harp was made in Chicago, and arrived in a box bigger than my bedroom.  My friends and I pushed each other around in it all afternoon. 
In terms of a more personal connection I wanted to give it a name. That seemed to be a thing that proper musicians did. My first choice was to name it after Harpo Marx, who I love, but Harpo seemed a silly name for a harp, so then I was going to use his real name, but that was Adolph, so I decided against it. Wisely, I reckon.

People (strangers and pals alike) ask me on a surprisingly regular basis if I would come to their bedrooms at night and play to them while they fall asleep. I invariably respond with an awkward chuckle, but I often ponder what it is about the harp that people find so soothing. I like the sound of the harp, sure, but in truth I don’t find it particularly relaxing. For me it often sounds like every ineffectual practice session; every fumbling thumb. That said, when I'm in London I play in a lot of lovely, schmancy hotels (in the tea rooms and bars) and I have reached a point where I can enter an almost meditative state whilst playing. It’s either something to do with the vibrations or the fact that I've recently trained myself to play whilst reading articles on the iPad I keep on my music stand. I couldn't possibly say.   

The musician's body - pain and panic

In Hercules (the 1997 Disney film, not the Greek myth) there are two characters called Pain and Panic. They act as Hades’ sidekicks - assisting him in all his dastardly deeds, with hilarious ineffectuality (or at least, so I thought in 1997).  In the film, Pain and Panic come as a pair.  In real life, it’s the same way - when it comes to the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of anxiety, one is inextricable from the other. 

As a musician, when I experience pain, it makes me panic. Not all pain of course - gnawing headaches or the wild agony of a stubbed toe don’t drive me to distraction. But a glowing lower back, a twinge in the thumb, aching forearms… Immediate anxiety. I’ve had back issues, hyper-mobile joints and tendonitis on-and-off for a long time. I try to live by the wise old adage, ‘when it hurts - stop’, but as a jobbing musician, that’s not always possible. Stress and strain, wear and tear - it happens. I try to avoid carrying my harp up several flights of stairs by myself, but sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.* ‘Lift with your legs, not with your back.’  

But here’s the rub: so often our minds dictate how our body responds. And this is especially true in performance. Tension in the mind is made manifest in the body. Every time. How can you be physically relaxed, poised, focused, spontaneous, or communicative with an anxious mind? With half a lifetime of stage anxiety behind me (more than, probably) I’ve yet to crack that one. 

But this works the other way too! There’s that pesky, inextricable mind-body connection again. The way I hold my body affects the quality of my thoughts. Indubitably. (I love that word! Any excuse..)  The one positive aspect of the physical niggles that I experience is that I’m always mindful of my posture - I don’t slouch, and I tend to walk tall.  Though I’m not graceful at all in real life, when I play, it’s within my reach. The rest of the time, at least my head’s held high (while I’m tripping over my feet). 

*Like when you play for the ladies-only reception of an orthodox muslim wedding, up three flights of stairs, and the male concierge team aren’t allowed upstairs because the women aren’t wearing burqas. And the women won’t help because they don’t want to spoil their beautiful dresses - so rarely seen as they are. And the strap for your harp trolley is broken. I feel like the last two lines of Tennyson’s Ulysses could have been written about harpists faced with just such a dilemma (maybe):

‘Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.’ 

Creativity in Solitude - the briefest of reflections

There is something undeniably romantic about the idea of creativity in solitude - that state of deliberate, sought-out aloneness.* The symbiotic relationship between solitude and creativity has been cited by many of our cultural giants - Ernest Hemingway championed the value of working alone in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1954, Susan Sontag stated that ‘One can never be alone enough to write’, and the Romantic poets certainly couldn’t get enough their own company, so long as they were in wistful gazing distance of a grassy knoll or, like, a tree.  In The Prelude, Wordsworth pays tribute to Isaac Newton: ‘a mind for ever / Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.’  

I’m writing this from the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. As well as being the venue for AMTA’s National Music Therapy Conference, The Galt House is hosting Kentucky Muscle’s Kentucky’s Strongest Man convention. In order to crack on with some work between sessions, I sought out a quiet spot, and my refuge from the merry sound of Boomwhackers has turned out to be Spray Tan Center adjacent.  As it turns out, it’s much trickier to voyage through strange seas of thought when one is sitting in a spray tan thoroughfare. Folks are filing past me, walking like John Wayne. They’re going in pink, and when they come out, they’re practically puce. 

This may seem irrelevant, but I suppose that’s partly the point. I wanted to reflect on our current civilizational anxiety about being alone, but - no, really - that man is purple! I had noble intentions of pondering the way in which modern life presents a curious paradox of connectedness and loneliness. Living, as we do, in a world of constant stimulation and interconnectivity, we are in perpetual ‘communion’ with one another (#constantcontact) but an increased sense of isolation, at both an individual and societal level has been well documented.  How, then, does this impact our creative selves? This may be a question worth dwelling on, but I am too distracted by this human circus to even attempt a cogent exploration.  I can fall asleep in any situation - regardless of my physical position or social situation (there’s one for the CV) but in order to think clearly, I need a bit of peace and quiet. For me, solitude is to creativity what spray tan is to enhanced muscle definition - non-obligatory, but strongly encouraged.  

*and I think it is this intentional aloneness that is crucial - we are very skeptical about entire, or involuntary solitude.  A lone ranger is a cowboy - almost a cultural ideal - whereas a loner is a  potential threat. And this isn’t a new idea - according to Aristotle ‘the man who is isolated who is unable to share in the benefits of political association […] is no part of the polis, and must therefore be a beast or a god.’  In Greek tragedy, exile was seen as a far greater punishment than death. Shakespeare echoes this idea in Romeo & Juliet: ‘Ha, banishment! Be merciful, say ‘death’ / For exile hath more terror in his look, / Much more than death.’ (III.iii) 

A nature walk

One of my roommates had access to a car over Columbus Day weekend, and so we leapt at the opportunity to get out of Boston for a few hours. It occurred to me only as I was writing this that although I have my own car in London, I almost never go on jaunts to the countryside. It’s hard to channel Grace Kelly in An Affair To Remember when you’re driving a Volkswagen minivan I suppose.

Having lived in cities my entire life, I’m not exactly what you would call ‘outdoorsy’. But even as a fully-fledged town mouse, I was surprised to find myself hankering after a few lungfuls of clean air after a few weeks in the Back Bay. Aside from my eagerness to do some leaf-peeping (my new favourite term), I was most looking forward to some respite from the sound pollution in Boston - the road works, the whirring of seemingly omnipresent generators, and the near-constant traffic honking. After some deliberation, we decided to head out to the Stavros Reservation in Essex, MA - a coastal hilltop with some outrageously beautiful views. I could never be unfaithful to an English Autumn, but the colours of New England in the Fall are truly astonishing. (Top prize for original thought goes to me on that one.) We walked up and around the loop trail, did noble battle with some thorny thickets (thickets? I’m not sure I’ve ever used that word in a sentence before) and scrambled down again. Even though it was a beautiful day, and a national holiday, we didn’t see another soul. My favourite bit was the memorial plaque we found nestling in the shade underneath a tree. I’d love to be the kind of person who knew what type of tree it was, but evidently I can barely use the word thicket in the appropriate context. 

It read: 

This land is a memorial to James Niclis Stavros For the enjoyment of all who find renewal of spirit in nature- Mary F. Stavros 

This is probably my third favourite memorial plaque. After these two beauties in Primrose Hill: 

‘Alex RobinsonOn my bench, you must speak French’

‘In memory of Roger BucklesbyWho hated this park,and everyone in it.’ 

Roger Bucklesby aside, I made every effort to exist in the moment - even eschewing my faithful camera-phone. (!) I took the time to feel the slightly damp, almost unnervingly-soft grass underneath my feet;  and take in the green, woody, salty-skin scent of the air. And I really did feel the difference! I felt uncharacteristically calm and centered - somehow cocooned in the biggest space imaginable. Unfortunately my friends and I  didn’t have long to revel in our newly renewed spirits, as we stopped at a seafood shop on our way home, (I regret nothing!) and ended our trip with more fried clam strips than any three humans should ever have ingested.  

A budding harpist

The harp is on the wrong side of her head, which is somewhat vexing, but still...

India, Part 5 - The Road to Anoopshahr

After a week in Delhi, Ellie and I set off for Anoopshahr, a village in Uttar Pradesh, on the banks of the river Ganges.

We were going to stay at Pardada Pardadi Educational Society - a school for girls, and a centre for female empowerment. We were going to the school to observe their music lessons, although it didn’t exactly pan out that way.

We set off at 6am on a Monday morning, and although I was dozy eyed, the streets were already buzzing with fruit vendors, auto-wallahs and folks going about their business before the morning sun really got cracking. This would be at around 7am.

Toto made us a lemon/lime juice for the road - lemon/lime, water and equal parts salt and sugar. As well as being generally refreshing and tasting like a warmish margarita, it’s meant to help with any dehydration and nausea. This didn’t work in Ellie’s case as she got quite travel-sick on the way there. I think it was due to a mixture of the incredibly bumpy roads - a combination of minimum 100mph motorways and higgledy-higgeldy-piggeldy dirt roads - and the sight of a scooter crash and a man, who may or may not have been dead, being carried off the road like livestock. He didn’t have any visible injuries but he was very limp. Apparently this is not an uncommon sight on that particular motorway because there aren’t any crossings, but there are fields on both sides, so you often just see farmers chancing it and trying to zip across. But they can’t zip as fast as cars and lorries going at 100mph… Anyway, Ellie was an unhappy bunny and so we stopped off at a cafe for some dusty bottles of pepsi, which proved to be very curative. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before - due to a heady mix of lingering jet-lag, some pretty impressive mosquito bites, and tremendous moon-heat (that’s a more appealing term I’m trying to coin in place of the more accurate ‘night-sweats’). So I thought I would wink a little during the 4 hour car ride, but I just couldn’t close my eyes because there was so much to see at every moment. Every sight was so new to me, and utterly fascinating in its newness.

The first thing was watching the ratio shift from cars and autos (or families of five all jammed onto one scooter - ladies riding side saddle, holding onto nothing and cradling a baby in their arms while flying down the motorway..) to cows, donkeys and carts. But even as the scenes grew more provincial, there was a still strange mixture of old and new ways. I saw a boy riding a rickety cart pulled by a water buffalo, whipping it to go faster, and absolutely dripping with sweat, whilst listening to his iPod.

Most of the buildings had just three walls, so I could see into each house and shop - barber shacks, with men having their faces shaved by teeny tiny boys, and stalls piled to the ceiling with watermelons. Outside almost every building was at least one person dozing on a makeshift bed. While Delhi is full of stray dogs, the villages I saw were more about monkeys, wandering cows and pigs snuffling in the vast piles of rubbish. On the way back we saw a huge cart piled maybe 35/40 feet high with hay, which had toppled over from the excess weight & height, and had been abandoned in the road. Mumraj (the driver from Pardada Pardadi) shrugged and said 'He shouldn’t have been so greedy.'

India, part 4 - Delhis Old and New

We spent our first week in India staying with Toto’s family, who live in a small gated colony in South Delhi. The colony is a peaceful little mass of streets, with big houses and a park in the middle, understandably but amusingly called ‘Central Park’. Central Park was always full of little boys playing cricket, old folks sharing a pot of chai or playing chess, and enormous cows, serenely nibbling the grass.

Toto’s family home is made up of various immediate and extended family members. Because I come from a fairly small clan (I think I have twelve relatives in the world, and that includes two I’ve never met), I am fascinated by big, rambling families, especially when they all live under one roof. The household includes: his mother, Alka, his grandmother, his aunties Moon and Rita, uncle Good-do, cousins Koko and Jojo and his sister Kiki.

Alka, is a government social worker, and all-round mensch. When she was in labour with Toto, Alka had to walk ten miles to the nearest hospital. This was in 1984, just after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and there was mass Anti-Sikh violence in the streets, so she had to hop over all sorts of limbs and dead bodies on her less-than-merry way. And this was just one of many astonishing stories.

Toto’s family on his mother’s side are Brahmins - the highest Hindu caste - but his father was from a Kshatriya family, the Warrior caste (It’s all very Mulan.. she said, well-informedly). When Toto’s parents separated, and after much hand-wringing and bridge-mending, Alka, Toto and Kiki moved back into the family home.

Toto’s maternal Grandmother doesn’t speak much English, and to say that my Hindi has room for improvement would be delusional at best, so our relationship didn’t progress much beyond smiling at each other benignly. In her beautiful saris (mostly lilac or robin’s egg blue), she would sit in the same chair all day, sometimes gossiping and sharing the news of the day with whichever family member happened to pass by. She was positively offended if we ate less than ten chapati in one sitting.

Moon, Toto’s aunt, is the CEO of the TARA Project (Trade Alternative Reform Action) and his other aunt, Rita, has tuberculosis of the spine, so her doctor told her she has to stay in bed for a whole year. When we arrived she was three months in, and suffering from terrible anxiety, so her husband Good-do stayed at home with her almost all the time. When we were talking about it one morning (his eyes bright red from not winking) he said ‘When you think about it long and carefully, then you understand that family comes first.’

The family employs a security guard, a driver, cook, a general servant, and a lady to do their laundry. This was as much out of civic duty - the desire to give jobs to people poorer than themselves - as it was for comfort. Being a Brahmin family, only Hindus were allowed in the kitchen (although apparently Ellie and I would have been allowed, because we are white). The food we had in the house was fairly simple - perfect for our delicate western tummies - and very tasty. Rice with peas and beans for breakfast, with coffee, Coffee Mate and sugar. For lunch and dinner there would be lots of roti (plate after plate, brought in by Prakash (their very smiley servant, who was always listening to his iPod), and Dhal, with pickled lemon rind and mango, or potato curry and mint chutney. Then perhaps some fresh melon for pudding.

The day we arrived was the general election, so India now has a new prime minister - Narendra Modi. Everyone in the family went out to vote so they all had a brown ink stain on their middle finger nail, which is the proof of voting. When they proudly showed it, it looked like they were giving everyone the finger. This was endlessly amusing to me, because I’m so mature and culturally sensitive.

On our second day (having accidentally slept away the first - living each day like it’s my last, as per usual) we went into Old Delhi to see the Red Fort - the huuuuge red sandstone building with an enormous moat which was the home of the Mughal emperors for almost 200 years, and one of the iconic symbols of India. Thank you, sign outside the Red Fort. Although I added the ‘huuuuge’ bit myself, for emphasis. There were tourists there from all over India, but no other white folks, so we were peered at quite a bit. Even in our kurtas and leggings - kindly lent to us by Alka - Ellie and I didn’t blend in.

A pop-up temple outside the Red Fort. Apparently once a temple has been erected, nobody is allowed to take it down, regardless of its location.

We spent much of the day wandering around the markets in Old Delhi. We went to Cannaught Place, Lutyen’s Delhi, Chandni Chowk, Jamamasjid, and Lajpatnagar. I realise that it’s a total cliché to say this, but the assault on the senses is really something I hadn’t experienced before. The streets are alive with the sound of … cars and autos (automated rickshaws) honking. It was just constant. Toto: ‘Some honks are angry, some are saying ‘Get out of the way or I’ll run you down!’, some are simply ‘Hello!’ honks’. My favourites were the Hello! honks. It was incredibly dusty (lots of lovely black snot at the end of the day) and the smells made the Jorvic centre seem positively fragrant. Having said that, the smells weren’t just bad - there was also a lot of heady incense and perfumes from the tiny pop-up temples everywhere, as well as heavily spiced food, carts of fruit piled up in vast quantities - especially melons, papayas, berries and slices of coconut - and stations selling sweet fried dough everywhere. That evening, Ellie said ‘I don’t know why, but my shirt smells like a fig newton that’s been left in the sun too long. That’s the only way I can think to describe it.’ This was eerily accurate.

Sari (not Sari) - that would work better if I had an American accent.

There were more stray dogs than I had ever seen, some wandering around, others just dozing in the streets, and there were people - both workers and beggars (including lots of tiny children) - napping wherever there was shade. For me this definitely fell into the category of things where you can’t look but you can’t look away. The most popular street drink in Delhi is lemons squeezed into water and mixed with heaped spoonfuls of both salt and sugar. Good for dehydration apparently, but as Western Weaklings we couldn’t drink the pump water. Although it is worth noting that these so-called lemons were actually limes! They call lemons limes and limes, lemons! Now I’ve heard everything.

We went to a very well known restaurant called Al-wahar for lunch. Toto told me that although this was one of his favourite spots, his cousins and grandma would never eat there because as it was a muslim restaurant, the would be considered impure. Impure or no, I tucked in. I had the most delicious naan bread there I’ve ever had in my life. Not even Peshawari naan (my top favourite naan, as you probably all know if you’ve been following my naan preferences over the years) just regular naan, guys! The mind boggles.

After lunch we did some more exploring, and I bought some excellent and extremely voluminous pink trousers, and we were home again in time for dinner - roti, dhal, curried potatoes and cauliflower, with sliced watermelon for pudding. It was no regular naan, but still very delicious. I learnt how to use my chapati as a lil scooper for curries and so on. I may or may not have spilt some on my first attempt. And my second and third attempts, but who’s counting?

One quite funny thing (as in odd, not ha ha, but perhaps a little bit of both) was when Alka knocked over a jug of water on the table - Ellie and I both rushed to get the kitchen roll, but she said 'Nono! We just sweep it onto the floor.’ So we spent a good five minutes just sweeping and sloshing all the water onto the floor. Then Good-do came in, and was quite surprised to find himself paddling around the living room.

A little snickleway in Old Delhi and some v good advice.

India, part 3: Newark to New Delhi

Somewhat strangely for a Londoner’s trip to India, my journey began in Wallingford, Connecticut. Just call me Katya Sandiego. Though Carmen Herman perhaps has a better ring to it..

The night before flying to India (Newark to Heathrow, five blissful/bleary-eyed hours in blighty and then to Delhi) I took the train from Boston to New Haven, to stay with Ellie’s family. I couldn’t really have asked for a better place to start my trip, as it served as a magnificent point of contrast with what was to come.

Both of Ellie’s parents teach at a very prestigious high school called Choate Rosemary Hall, and they live on the school’s laughably beautiful campus. To me, Wallingford felt like a toy town, the likes of which I’d only ever seen on telly. Manicured lawns, shiny cars still fizzy with soap-suds and star spangled banners dangling from every available pole, window, and porch. As Ellie took me on a tour around the campus, she told me that when Choate was trying to raise money for a new concert hall or some such, they held a fundraising gala, and made almost $10 million on the first night. Although this anecdote boggled my tiny mind at the time, the weight of it didn’t really really register until some weeks later, when I’d seen what felt like another world entirely.

On the morning of our flight, we treated ourselves to an all-American, serious-diner breakfast. After eating what must have been the majority of a pig, dwarfing some enormous pancakes, there would be no more meat (for me) for a month. A chilling prospect.

We arrived at the airport a cool four hours early, but spent most of this time laughing at my ridiculous ‘suitcase jacket’ on loan from my mother. Black and sleeveless, with elbow-deep pockets, and made out of some sort of tarpaulin, I’m amazed they’re not more popular. I was traveling with only hand luggage, but had a last minute crisis of confidence about my backpack being overweight (it wasn’t) so I shoved all my books, toiletries and some clothes into the capacious pockets. Say what you like, but I know a thing or two about traveling in style.

About 30 hours later, I arrived - pockets still bulging - at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, just shy of midnight.

Toto - a friend of Ellie’s from Berklee, our extraordinarily generous host in Delhi, and our compadre for the duration of the trip - was there to meet us at the airport. Ellie’s flight got in a few hours before mine, so I was very grateful that they waited for me (thanks guys!) especially as it was a sultry evening. As soon as I stepped outside, I was hit with that first whoomph of heat and the whole trip suddenly became real. Adventures never feel like they’re really happening until that moment when I step off a plane, hop out of a car, or saddle up my horse. (I wish that last bit was true - what a life that would be!) Until that point, I feel always just like I’m just having a weird little rest, with some nice ladies bringing me tiny cups of tomato juice. I’ve had stranger days.

A quick, pre-India-for-a-month breakfast at Rick’s. Thanks Rick!

A Music Therapy Research Trip in India, Part 2: Some Whys and Wherefores.

This is the bit where I unabashedly pillage Ellie’s hard work in putting the vast majority of the project together. I am but the Sancho Panza to her Don Quixote.

Some FAQs about the trip:
What is Music Therapy?
What were you up to?
Why India?
What was the plan?
Do I look like I care? 

What is Music Therapy?

Here I shall refrain from telling you through the medium of song, as is my usual go-to approach. Pal, I wish I was entirely kidding, but I did once write a version of the song Royals using lyric substitution to make it all about the populations with whom Music Therapy can be most effectively used. It was for a thing, I promise. Just imagine my reedy little voice heartily piping up with: ‘You can use it in schoo-ols (schoo-ols!)’ Oh, the humanity.

Putting my amazing life aside — Music Therapy (big M, big T) is the clinical application of music. (This is serious, see?) It’s an evidence-based intervention that uses the benefits of musical structures to reach client goals and objectives. While the healing properties of music have been recognised since antiquity, (Plato this, Confucius that) Music Therapy is now a rapidly burgeoning field endorsed and recommended by medical professionals to help ameliorate specific maladaptive behaviors or conditions. Music Therapy has been successful for many populations - It’s serving lots of populaa-ations / that’s why it’s praaaacticed through the nation! - it is a safe treatment for those who have experienced emotional or physical trauma, a neurologically stimulating treatment for those who have suffered brain injury, and a socially motivating treatment for those with Autism Spectrum Disorder, for example.

How is Music Therapy different from music education?

This didn’t make it into my list of FAQs, but it’s an important Q nonetheless. The key difference between music education (or indeed enjoying music as a listener) and Music Therapy is that the primary aim of MT sessions - pretty cool abbreviation there - is not to improve the client’s musical skills, although this may be a happy by-product, but to bring about changes in specific, maladaptive conditions or behavior patterns. By drawing on the expressive and learning experiences of music, clients can improve their level of physical, psychological and/or socio-emotional functioning through the development of motor, communicative, intellectual, social and/or emotional skill. So not entirely dissimilar from recorder lessons, I suppose.

In a nutshell, it’s the use of music to reach specific, non-music related goals.

For more information, nuts and bolts sort of stuff (as opposed to nutshells) take a peep at:

http://www.bamt.org

or http://www.musictherapy.org

What were you up to?

So Ellie invited me to join her on a trip to and around India, the goal of which was to put together a feasibility study for a proposed initiative to connect student music therapists in the US, with music therapists and other interested parties in India.

Our trip was essentially a reconnaissance mission, to gauge the desire and need for music therapy interventions within different communities in India. Another goal of the trip was to explore the current practices of Music Therapy in India, and their efficacy.

Ellie’s master plan (loyally assisted by yours truly - the Chewbacca to her Han Solo) is to design a sustainable, mutually beneficial program that establishes a collaboration between student music therapists in the US and Indian music therapists and/or interested charities in India. Such a collaborative program would only have been considered if it has support from within the communities themselves. Even the most well-intentioned initiatives would be fruitless without proper information and local input. (For more on that last point, check out this profoundly sensible TED Talk. 

Why India?

Ellie had been to India before - in 2011 she spent three months volunteering for an NGO (Non-Government Organization) in Chennai that provides free educational and therapeutic services for formerly homeless boys, women and girls who had been trafficked. So she was already knew the score, to an extent, and had developed a deep interest in the ancient and modern cultures of India.

Ellie’s personal interest in the subcontinent was definitely a factor, but an equally important motivation to work in India was (and is) the ever-increasing call for change and improvement coming from Indian communities themselves – particularly those communities who have traditionally been marginalized.

This next bit is lifted entirely from Ellie’s funding proposal, with only the merest of tinkerings from me (not that it needed it!)

The role of music in India is as positive as it is ancient. Its healing capacity is acknowledged as inherent within most sociocultural structures in India, so music has been used in India alongside Ayurvedic medicine for centuries as a treatment for many ailments. Now, either in tandem or in conjunction with traditional musical treatments in India, modern applications of clinical music therapy are being implemented to serve different populations across India. Because of India’s longstanding tradition in using music in healing, Music Therapy is likely an extremely effective tool in meeting specific, client-based goals.

What was the plan?

We traveled to three cities – Mumbai, New Delhi, and Chennai – over the course of four weeks. Ellie had created a network of music therapists, institutes, medical professionals, and charitable organizations that we would meet while in each city. (Did I mention how incredibly organised she is? Like a one-woman ant colony, man - but human sized! And obviously less terrifying.)

In New Delhi we stayed with the family of a friend from Berklee - Ksitija ‘Toto’ Rawal who kindly (or foolishly) agreed to be our guide to the city and unofficial interpreter. We planned to meet with The Music Therapy Trust, the Global Music Institute, Action for Autism, and other groups we would connect with once there.

We also decided to stay for six days in Uttar Pradesh, in a rural village called Anoopshahr, to observe music lessons at Pardada Pardadi - a school for girls, and centre for female empowerment. (This panned out slightly differently than we expected, but I’ll come back to that later.)

In Chennai, we arranged to meet with V-Excel (a school that uses music to teach life skills for children with special needs, particularly Autism), the Madras Christian Council of Social Services, Sumathy Sundar MT-BC, and the Sri Ramachandra Medical Center.

Do I look like I care?

Admittedly, no.

A Music Therapy Research Trip in India, part 1: the hatching of a plan

It all started over an ice cream, as so many of the best things do.

After class, before a rehearsal, and in the middle of what was already a very long week, my friend Ellie and I decided to pop into JP Licks for a restorative cone. Black raspberry for me, with chocolate chips bigger than my teeth, and some sort of vegan concoction for her, that I won’t even dignify with a description.

Oh I suppose I shouldn’t mock.. As well as being one of the most poised, compassionate, and almost offensively capable people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, Ellie also buys into such nonsense as mindful consumption, and living by the values you choose for yourself. (As another wise pal would say: ‘Who invited Buzz Killington over here?’) As such, she is a vegan, for ethical and environmental reasons, though while we were in India, she was a mere vegetarian, as she didn’t want to inconvenience our various hosts. And she isn’t even po-faced, if you can believe it. I know - I hardly can either. And yet, during our trip, she rendered me helpless with laughter on pretty much a daily basis. On the other hand (picture me doing my best Topol/Tevye impression - a milkman! Even my impressions aren’t vegan!) vegans are nerds (right? Guys?) so now I don’t know what to think..

Anyway, after a spot of gossip (I would say that we were doing some seriously cerebral chin wagging, but it’s near impossible to engage with the issues of the day when you’re busy noshing on a cone) our conversation turned to the summer ahead, miles and years away though it seemed at the time.

Ellie mentioned that she was going to explore music therapy treatments in India for just over a month. I mentioned that aside from carting my harp around, frantically trying to learn the guitar, and a music therapy work placement at a neuro-disability hospital in Putney, I was going to sit in my pyjamas, eating Pom Bears.

Somehow, this resulted in Ellie inviting me to join her on a trip half way across the world, that would hopefully result in a feasibility study for a proposed initiative to connect student music therapists in the US with music therapists and other interested parties in India.

I’ve had worse yields from an impromptu mid-afternoon ice cream break, I suppose.

In the next installment: some information about Music Therapy (big M, big T), some itinerary-based delights, and a rambling account of our first days in Delhi.

Album covers just don’t get any better than this.

Practice makes the heart grow fonder ... wait....

Pablo Casals died 40 years ago today.



I listened to one of his Bach Cello Suite recordings over breakfast. This is usually my time for reading (likely), Desert Island Discs (likelier) or catching up with How I Met Your Mother (likeliest - loathe though I am to admit it). But today it was Suite No. 3 in C Major, with yoghurt, pineapple slices and milky coffee. The Bourée, my favorite, I listened to twice.

I realise that the Bourée is a fairly rogue preference (there are few things in life as satisfying as the last four bars of of the Prelude from Suite No. 1) but it remains my firm favourite. This is largely because it featured on an archaic computer game that my sister and I used to play together when we were little, and hearing it even now is a nostalgic pang - like the vertiginous lungful of a familiar perfume in the air, as a complete stranger walks past, but way less romantic. (I'm not sure it can get less romantic than Windows 97.) I can’t even remember what that game was called, but it was definitely geeky and great. My sister is actually a fabulous cellist, and hearing her play the Bourée is something of an emotional overload. Pang city.

Sometime during this reverie about my sister, and the joy of Windows 97, iTunes moved onto the Gigue, and so my thoughts shifted back to Pablo Casals, and to one of my very favourite anecdotes, which is this:

When Casals, one of the great cellists of the 20th Century, was in his nineties, he was asked why he it was that he continued to practice the cello for several hours each day. He replied: “Because I’m beginning to notice some improvement.”

I can’t get enough of that story. 

I love it, only because it’s obviously great, but because it speaks to me of two very different truths about practicing, and about being a musician.

That a man who was widely considered to be among the great masters of his instrument would still want to keep practicing in his nineties is certainly heartening. Artistry and the bliss of facility are worth dedicating your life to, and practice is just a happy and productive part of that.

Another interpretation of this quip, however, alludes to the gloomier reality of the practice room. The pinched tendons, blistered fingers and aching self-esteem. The hours that can go by seemingly without improvement. Days, weeks, the best part of a century and still I’m playing scales?! Every passage re-started. The untiring metronome. A fumbling thumb.

I know very few players who haven’t been bowed down at one point or another by the self-flagellating approach to improvement that we learn from the beginning, along with clefs and time signatures.

Happily enough, there is another brilliant Casals story for those moments when it’s all a bit much, and for days when your hands feel like aubergines. This story was used in the recent film A Late Quartet, but the anecdote, as recounted by Christopher Walken’s character, was actually borrowed from Cellist, the autobiography of Gregor Piatigorsky:

'“Mr. Casals.” I was introduced to a little bald man with a pipe. He said that he was pleased to meet young musicians such as Serkin and me. Rudolf Serkin […] had played before my arrival, and Casals now wanted to hear us together. Beethoven’s D-Major Sonata was on the piano. “Why don’t you play it?” asked Casals. Both nervous and barely knowing each other, we gave a poor performance that terminated somewhere in the middle. “Bravo! Bravo! Wonderful!” Casals applauded. Francesco brought the Schumann Cello Concerto, which Casals wanted to hear. I never played worse. Casals asked for Bach. Exasperated, I obliged with a performance matching the Beethoven and Schuman. “Splendid! Magnifique!” said Casals, embracing me. Bewildered, I left the house. I knew how badly I had played, but why did he, the master, have to praise and embrace me? This apparent insincerity pained me more than anything else. The greater was my shame and delight when, a few years later, I met Casals in Paris. We had dinner together and played duets for two cellos, and I played for him until late at night. Spurred by his great warmth, and happy, I confessed what I had thought of his praising me in Berlin. He reacted with sudden anger. He rushed to the cello, “Listen!” He played a phrase from the Beethoven sonata. “Didn’t you play this fingering? Ah, you did! It was novel to me…it was good… and here, didn’t you attack that passage with up-bow, like this?” he demonstrated. He went through Schumann and Bach, always emphasizing all he like that I had done. “And for the rest,” he said passionately, “leave it to the ignorant and stupid who judge by counting only the faults. I can be grateful, and so must you be, for even one note, one wonderful phrase,” I left with the feeling of having been with a great artist and a friend.“‘ 

So today I decided to make like Pablo, shift my Eye-of-Sauron focus away from the flaws, and listen out for the little things that satisfy and inspire.

One wonderful phrase. One note.

Maybe that way I’ll be still be practicing when I’m in my nineties. I’ll be drinking my breakfast through a straw and dancing to the beat of my metronome.

--

My roommate came in as I was writing this at the kitchen table. She was carrying a gigantic pumpkin and a small saw, but I chose to ignore this.

"What are you writing about?”

“Pablo Casals. Sort of."

"Okay… why?"

"He died today-

"WHAT????!!!"

" - forty years ago."

…

"You’re going to put this in aren’t yo-" 

"Oh most definitely.”

A pinch and a punch (or the cruelties of January)

Today is the first day of February - the perfect time to fortify my New Year’s Resolutions. Or perhaps to edit them, as the glowing optimism of December has dimmed somewhat.

I am a big fan of resolve and resolving. If you read my blog about Woody Guthrie’s wonderful New Year’s Rulin’s, then you will already know this. If you didn’t, then read it now - not only for my vanity, but because I think Guthrie's 33 commandments are Mount Sinaian in their sagacity. Yeeah I just made up that word, ‘Sinaian’. A coinage! And so early in the year!

I know it sounds like I may have made up 'sagacity’ too. But I didn’t. I wish I did - what a humdinger of a word.

Sagacity is 'the quality of being sagacious’* – I have just decided that my tip-top February resolution is to be sagacious AT ALL TIMES.

Person A (let’s call him Englebert, just for fun): 'Where’s Katya?'

Person B (Mildred, same reason): 'Oh, she’s just over there, being sagacious, like usual.'

Leaving my soon-to-be perpetual sagaciousness aside, let me tell you why I hate January. That took a negative turn quickly didn’t it? Quick! Look at this kitten falling down!

Despite my unabashed love of resolutions (I love resolutions almost as much as sticky buns, and that is really saying something) and the fact that they should be the very mechanism to bring about positive change, they somehow have a way of infusing January with misery. It seems to me that in January, everyone feels cold, fat and an irrefutable non-piano-virtuoso-linguist-zen-master.

I shan’t pretend that December didn’t see me making overzealous resolutions:
Cutting down on meat - though I am an unrepentant carnivore, this has been a moderate success
Stretching every day before breakfast - obviously an unmitigated failure. It takes a stronger will than mine to resist the siren song of toast & marmite and/or Special K.
Growing fingernails as long as my arms - I don’t think I’ve seen a single friend this month without shrieking “Look! Talons!!” and wiggling my paws at them. That’s not to say I have succeeded, it’s just my new 'cool’ way of saying hello.

But January is too cold, too lean, and too sober (not for me, although there is nothing more sobering than people expatiating on their decision to plump for a lemonade) to try and bring about self-flagellating change.

When you are cold to your bones, you need more fat on them, more brandy, and more lie-ins with a fleecy blanket.

With this is mind, I wanted to share two poems with you - don’t worry, I didn’t write them.

They are actually both in an anthology called 101 Poems To Get You Through The Day (And Night) edited by Daisy Goodwin: a restorative collection, and one of my most treasured books. My Grandma gave me this book eleven birthdays ago, and it has been propped up on the various bookshelves of every bedroom I’ve lived in since then. I think that’s ten.

The first one is called Song on Being Too Lazy to Get Up, by Shao Yung (and translated by Burton Watson). If staying in bed for an extra 15 minutes, give or take, is OK for 11th Century Philosophers, then it is a-OK by me.

Half remembering, yet not remembering, just waked up from a dream;
almost sad, but not sad, a time when I’m feeling lazy,
hug the covers, lie on my side, not wanting to get up yet –
beyond the blinds, falling petals fly by in tangled flurries.

How beautiful is that?

Not rhetorical. The answer is Very. Extremely. Overwhelmingly.

And the second poem is Against Dieting, by Blake Morrison. I love this poem so much I would almost go so far as to hand over my soon-to-be-title of Chief Sage to Blake Morrison. I think it’s an excellent (Gin &) Tonic for one of January’s many cruelties - the world alliance that, for reasons unfathomable to me, got together and decided to make women feel bad about their loveliest squidgy bits.

I decree (as soon-to-be Chief Sage - this is happening, people): take Morrison’s advice, and have a sticky bun. Or at the very least, share one with me.

Please, darling, no more diets.
I’ve read the books on why it’s
good for one’s esteem.
I’ve watched you jogging lanes and pounding treadmills.
I’ve even shed some kilos of my own.
But enough. What are love handles
between friends? For half a stone
it isn’t worth the sweat.
I’ve had it up to here with crispbread.

I doubt the premise, too.
Try to see it from my point of view.
I want not less but more of you.

So now that January is well and truly behind us, I encourage you to make like Woody Guthrie, and come up with some corkers for your February Resolutions.

*I’m sure you already knew that but it never hurts to refresh the old vocabulary. I used to go out with someone who thought that 'Resting on your Laurels’ meant sitting down, and that Laurels was a fancypants (so to speak) word for bottom.

You can bet your laurels I set him straight.

In the Christmas Grotto with an Imperfect Carol

In my last blog, I wrote about the making of a Christmas Grotto. 

Deborah Henson-Conant and I spent Christmas Eve playing carols in said Grotto, and this video was the result. Why, it’s a calypso version of Joy to the World, of course!

Although this was one of our less polished attempts, it was our favourite version, because it goes some way towards encapsulating the fun we had, playing the night away. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Just having fun?

*Gets struck by a lightning-bolt from a God/Zeus/Santa Hybrid*

Oh. I stand corrected.

Nonetheless, we did have fun, and, if that wasn’t enough, there are also certain angles in the video where Deborah’s Santa hat looks exactly like a Mozart-Style wig. Once we realised this, it couldn’t be unseen, and it brings me more mirth (as opposed to myrrh) than I know what to do with.

Merry Christmas One and All!

*Gets struck by a calendar, hurled down from the heavens, by the Spirit of New Year (embodied here as the guy who runs my gym)*

Bah.

Harpy Holidays*

*if you’re wondering ‘does Katya hate herself for writing 'Harpy Holidays?’, then the answer is YES, desperately so, but what can I say? I’m a slave to the beat and a glutton for punishment. Boom Boom.

Now back to business.

—————————————

This year was my first Christmas away from home.

I was spending the holidays with my harp teacher Deborah Henson-Conant, a self-confessed Noel-Nonchalant, and her family were going away, so it would be just the two of us. Not doing Christmas. You may think this statement seems at odds with the picture above, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But I’ll come to that shortly.

In the run up to Chrimbus herself, friends and family became increasingly concerned.

'But Katya!’ they cried (collectively) 'Won’t you be lonely and sad, without family or turkey to warm the cockles of your stocking, and bereft of British Christmas telly?’

I think they all pictured my wizened, grinch-like form, nose pressed against the windows of nearby family homes, with eggnog-laced tears (or perhaps even just nog) freezing on my face as they fell.

(This is how I imagine Rudolph before his great redemption scene - pre-that fateful 'foggy Christmas Eve’ but post-never being allowed to join in any reindeer games.)

Thankfully, it was not so.

What happened instead, was that Christmas itself was blissfully unfestive. I woke up late, and Deborah made us waffles and fancy coffee, different enough from my usual breakfast regimen (Trader Joe’s Multigrain Os - you gotta love those Os - with a milky tea) to feel like a special Christmas treat. For Lunch and Dinner, however, we feasted on Bran Flakes. Well, Raisin Bran Flakes. I do have standards after all. And we spent the day working, walking, thinking and talking. The least Christmassy Christmas ever, but pretty excellent nonetheless.

On Christmas Eve, however, we embraced the holiday wholeheartedly, and on our own terms.

At around 9.30pm, Deborah announced that she wanted to make a Christmas Grotto, and spend the rest of the evening playing carols. I was surprised to say the least - this was a turnaround of Dickensian proportions.

So, like the industrious little elves that we are, we set to work.

I strapped on my headlamp (sure, I have a headlamp, and what of it?) and went forraging in the basement for decorations. Mining for JOY.

When I returned, triumphantly wielding a box of twinkly lights and baubles, we peered around, and realised that our Grotto-Making ambitions would need to be somewhat reined in (ho ho ho) due to the noticeable absence of a tree.

But this didn’t hold us back for long.

'What could be more tree-like than a harp?!'

'Almost nothing, Deborah.’ I replied, Igor to her Festive Dr. Frankenstein.

Behold, the first stage of Operation Grottify (oh, that sounds less jolly than I thought it would. But I will not be discouraged!):

In the background here, you can see a little scene that if you squint a bit, could almost pass for a nativity.

In fact, it is a tiny orchestra made up of chess pieces, cardboard bits, and plastic animals. Deborah made it when she was planning a show with a symphony orchestra and wanted to be able to choreograph the show, in miniature (The show was called Invention and Alchemy - and went on to be nominated for a Grammy, which makes this funny little diorama all the more wonderful). The woodwind are turkeys (this is almost getting too appropriate), the brass are plastic pigs, the strings are an array of chess pieces, the harp, a giraffe the conductor is an Elephant. Deborah herself, as the orchestral soloist at the front, is a Stegosaurus. Standard.

Behold, a manger orchestra!

I defy you not to love this little guy:

If this doesn’t say 'Happy Birthday, Jesus!’ I don’t know WHAT does.

11-11-11

Deborah made this poster for me, just in case I forget who I am. 

Soon the duet will become a trio

This is the third, and final instalment of my blog triumvirate. The first was about a man in Lederhosen. The second was largely about my deeply uncool, but unabashed love of The Sound of Music. Now, as we reach Blog III, Return of the Killer Blog, it’s about my first concert in Arlington.

September 25th was, for me, a day of many firsts.

It was my first concert in Arlington, at the magnificent Regent Theatre.

It was my first time performing a duet with Deborah Henson-Conant, my longtime harp-hero-turned-teacher (cf. The Ten Coin Method!)

It was my first time performing with a strap-on electric harp. You can see in the top picture below, that I appear to be buckling under the weight somewhat (either that, or the stage was very windy), but then, in photo #2, I’ve readjusted, and we’re having a great time.

It was also my first time playing an impromptu trio with Deborah Henson-Conant and an International Whistling Champion (I’ll come back to this.

AND it was the first time I saw a man juggle three garden chairs on stage.

There he is: one, two, three…

And UP THEY GO!




Isn’t that fun! Perhaps not so much for you, because you weren’t there, but as your man on the scene, I can report that it was, in fact, very fun indeed.

Now for a bit of backstory.
The Harp
Two days before the concert:

‘One of the fun things about having a harp named after you’ Deborah tells me, as we wade into what appears to be a BIG box full of bubble wrap, 'is that you get free stuff.’

To me, free stuff means a complimentary mint, perhaps a drink on the house, a promotional biro, an ice cream at Nandos that time I found plastic in my pudding (what a day!)

But Deborah’s 'free stuff’ is a harp, sent over from France. A DHC Blue Light, in a VERY handsome bronze finish.

'Let’s play a blues duet!’ Deborah says, excitedly, hoisting her harp around her waist and gesturing for me to do the same with this sparkling new toy. 'We can do it in the concert on Sunday!’ (today is Friday)

I have now been learning the blues for the best part of a week, so getting up on stage to play a duet with one of the world’s best harpists, in a style with which I am barely competent, on a harp that sways when I move, and swings away when I move my hands towards it, should be noooo problem.

We would practise it once, and decide on the form (who would solo when and so on) in the dressing room before we went on. Nooo problem at all.

Deborah is a big believer in learning by doing, and I’m really coming around to it. I think this is how she gets so much done, this fearlessness. Or rather, her way of harnessing fear into output - straw into creative gold. (Actually, we were talking about Rumplestiltskin just the other day over lunch - Deborah feels him to be a much maligned character, and put forward his case excellently and with the dazzling originality of thought that I have come to accept as typical - but this is a story for another day) Having always been a disciple of the 'Learn by WATCHING CAREFULLY AND NOT INTERRUPTING’ school, I found it a daunting concept at first. To put it mildly. To put it less mildly, I was fucking TERRIFIED.

So, over the next couple of days, I did a LOT of doing.

Two days later, I am a lever harp pro. Well, perhaps 'pro’ is exaggeration. I can, however, after MUCH practice, get the harness on:

kneel down, clip it on the side, HOIK harp over the shoulder, stand up, careful, caaareful, clip it on the bottom, clippedy-clip, and tadaa! Girl, you are WEARING that harp.

(You can’t tell, but I just had to mime putting on an air harp to write out those instructions. Worth it though, right?)

Next step: moving.

On the day of the concert, I had a chilling realisation. Deborah would be doing a couple of solo numbers, then I would join her onstage for our duet. This would mean my entrance would have to be speedy, sprightly and IN FRONT OF PEOPLE.

It is harder than you might imagine to shimmy onstage with the effortless grace of a musical gazelle when you have a harp strapped between your legs.

Deborah makes it look utterly effortless - she can stride, she can dance, she could probably join a conga line if the mood so took her. But she generously reminded me that it has taken years of practice, as I was very much at the waddling stage.

So much of music is making the things we spend hours, days and YEARS working at, seem easy. (This is a thought I come back to every day and will, I’m sure, return to in a future blog.)

But I didn’t have years! I had approximately three hours.

No matter! I decided that if I took big enough steps (not figuratively, we’re talking lunges) I might just be able to make my Boston debut without looking like a I was walking with a balloon wedged between my thighs.

That’s all one can ever ask of a debut, really isn’t it??

Well, it turns out that you can also ask to be joined onstage by an international whistling champion (a.k.a. my ultimate dream come true) 

Whistle While You Work

I have always considered whistling to be my only real talent. People always laugh at me when I say that, but I don’t think the harp, or anything else I do counts as a real talent because I never sat down at the harp and was like 'HEY I can PLAY!' Not so. I have to work hard at it all the time, not only to improve but also just to stay in good fettle. Whistling, however, has always been fun and EASY. And I’m not bad either! It’s not a liveable on-able skill, sure (being a professional whistler would be my ultimate dream career, but sadly I don’t think there’s much call for it. Unless I become a whistling plumber), but it’s enough to amuse myself and my friends. Also, I have discovered that whistling opera favourites and accompanying myself on the harp is the BEST way to make tips on a gig. Not so long ago, I got £40 just for one rendition of O Mio Babbino Caro. I think it was for the novelty, as opposed to the raw whistling magic, as my current opera-whistling status is Bel Can'to, but I’m not complaining.

Back to the concert.

So there we were, bluesing away, when Deborah suddenly says

'Hey Katya! Take a whistling solo!'

My eyes were like saucers, but I managed to lift my jaw off the floor in just enough time to purse my lips into a premium whistling position. It turns out it’s impossible to transcribe the sound of whistling into roman characters, so I can’t really give you anything about how it went, all I can tell you is that it was FUN.

THEN Deborah remembered that there just happened to be an international whistling champion in the audience (talk about getting upstaged) In the time it took us to get through an eight-bar chorus, he was up onstage and ready to go. And boy did he go! He went low, he went high, he raised that fourth like nobody’s business.

And I got to practise my walking bass!

I wish my real walking had been as successful. At the end, as I went to lunge offstage, I realised my harp was still plugged in and came hurtling back. Nuts. Unplug. Lunge away, with both harp and tail very much between my legs.

After the show, I asked Eric how he learnt to whistle so well, and how he practises.

'Well, I guess it’s because I never stop. My wife says the only time I’m not whistling is when I’m asleep!’

She quickly cut in:

'Honey, don’t believe a word of it! He whistles in his sleep too.’ 

The Concert


So all of this came about because The Regent Theatre was celebrating its 95th Anniversary. To mark the occasion, the theatre’s director, Leland Stein, decided to put on a variety show as a callback to the venue’s vaudeville origins.


There was singing, there was dancing, there was juggling, jiggling, bluegrass and electric harp(s).


The final group of the night was a twelve-voice, multi-instrument extravaganza called the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra. They played songs by Queen, The Who, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, all with serious gusto.



The Regent soon after it opened in 1916 

The Result

In my previous blog, I was trying to decide whether to go and see The Lion King 3D or The Sound of Music Singalong. Or, more specifically, which would be sadder to go to on my lonesome. Although the general consensus has been that it is more pathetic to go solo to a singalong (thanks guys), I have decided to kiss my pride goodbye and go for it anyway.

Not only because I know I’ll have a great time, but because The Sound of Music Singalong is taking place at the very theatre I have been telling you about. DOUBLE BONUS! And would it not be churlish of me not to support this fine institution, this stalwart champion of the arts? It would! It would! She cries, lacing up her dirndl, pre-emptively. The wonderful people at The Regent put on FUN shows at good prices. They won’t let you take in your own food (no siree bob) but they will show you an excellent time. So I’m going. Best get cracking on my yodeling.

TWO FUN THINGS:

I’m meeting up with Eric tomorrow for a whistling lesson and jam session. I’m unbearably excited.

and Sal, who runs the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra has asked me to play in a show with them next week!

So, if you take a look at their videos, you will see that this story may well end in ME wearing leather shorts.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen…

I just hope no one gapes at me on the subway.

On Lederhosen and Being Lonely (or not)

So to bring you up to speed, in case you’ve just started reading, and think this is a blog about German fashion and its impact on the Emo sensibility, I can’t emphasise enough how much it isn’t that.

It is in fact a blog about moving to Boston, and learning to play jazz on the harp. In disguise.

This is the second part of a blog trilogy. A triblogy, if you will. I wouldn’t blame you if you won’t. Scroll down for the first bloglet, this blogette will be about the moving bit, and the next blogino will be about the jazz harp bit. Phew!

I’m here in Boston, and I pretty much don’t know anybody here. Let’s see.

• I know my teacher Deborah Henson-Conant, who I am living with, and her husband Jonathan, who is very kind, and bought me apples yesterday (Thanks Jonathan!)
• And I know a very nice family, who took me to the cinema last week to see Moneyball - my first American cinema AND baseball experience all in one! (American audiences, in turns out, are MUCH more responsive, emotive and audible in a cinema situation - a trait that I personally find very endearing. In other news, I drank a root beer the size of my head.)

Now that I’m taking classes at Berklee, I’m also meeting all kinds of interesting and talented people there, the fun times and good conversation flow and so on and so forth BUT there are two events coming up, for which it is my belief that new friends, no matter how jazz-competent, just won’t cut the mustard. 

• Activity #1 THE LION KING 3D has just come out in the cinema 
• Activity #2 At The Regent, my local theatre, they are hosting a SOUND OF MUSIC SINGALONG. 

Today I had to make an important decision. I am currently spending a hefty chunk of every day on my own. Before I left, I thought this might prove to be a problem. I have a rich inner life, sure, but up until now, I’ve always been happiest in good company. However, it’s actually surprisingly jolly. I spend most of the day practising, and its BLISS being able to play for as long or as little as I like, have a little amble, then get back in the game. My ten coins are veritably ZIPPING around. And when I need a little break, I have found places that keep me happy and focused: the pond by my house, that is almost absurdly serene; the wonderful bookshop/café near Berklee where you can get a coffee as big as a head-sized root beer, or better yet, bubble tea with ginger ice cream, and eggs of many styles. They also have the best and most thoughtful book selection I have ever come across; there’s a bench in Davis Square (half an hour away by bicycle, which, for me is child’s play now), underneath a particularly handsome tree, where you can always have a brilliant view of consistently excellent buskers. In fact, much more so than London (and I never thought I’d say this), Boston really is alive with music all the time. More often than not, the air is thick with the slapped hum of a double bass, or the purr of some distant saxophone. On a more jarring note, there’s an ice-cream van parked outside my window every day at four (Arlington is that kind of town) and his song is very syrupy INDEED.

This brings me back to my pathetic quandary re: The Sound of Music Singalong.

I LOVE The Sound of Music. I love Liesl, I love Friedrich, Marta, the whole gang. Well, not the whole gang, actually. Rolf can take a hike. But his role is valuable in terms of the film’s valuable social realism, so carry on. Likewise, Maria’s haircut.

I especially love Captain Von Trapp. Is there a more handsome man than the young Christopher Plummer? I think not. The scene where he and Maria are dancing in the garden (is it a Ländler? I’m going to say it’s a Ländler - do correct me if I’ve got my Austrian folk dances mixed up. AGAIN.) and he straightens his gloves and says ‘Back off Kurt, this is a man’s game’ (I paraphrase) - swoon city.

I’m not ashamed to tell you that The Lonely Goatherd is on my iTunes Top 25 Most Played (cruelly appropriate, given the title of this blog). It’s the modulation on 'Oh Happy are they’. (around 2:34). Gets me every time. FYI, I didn’t even have to look that up. Is that impressive? I just don’t know anymore.

Find me a montage in the history of cinema better than the Von Trapp children learning to sing! Not even ROCKY can compete with the juggling oranges, the new clothes, the carriage zipping around Salzburg, and the frolicking, oh! the frolicking. It’s a bit weird when the children start walking towards Julie Andrews on their knees, bobbing up and down like happy little clowns, but I’ll forgive them anything! I can even forgive Charmian Carr for releasing not one, but TWO autobiographies with the word 'Liesl’ in the title.

AND The Sound of Music taught me solfege! Moveable do-a-deer is an INVALUABLE learning tool. And I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

Where was I? Oh right! Not having any friends! (it’s circumstantial, yeah?)

It is one thing to ask in a local Italian take-away place if they do small pizzas, and to be told, with a withering stare, they only do family size, but you’re really admitting something to yourself by going to both the singalong AND The Lion King 3D, as a lone wolf.

And I COULD try and drag and unsuspecting new friend, BUT would I rather have to look cool, laid back, and do ironic dancing throughout 'How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?’ or would I rather let my hair down and get seriously stuck in to the weird cuckoo song, complete with all the ridiculous bobbing? I think we all know it’s the latter. And, frankly, I’m not sure any of my fledgling friendships could take the heat.

I sought the counsel of my dear friend Keith. He kindly suggested that a solo singalong would be sadder because I’d have nobody to sing with , and I’d have to find a singing buddy, so I should cut my losses. Not exactly the Judgement of Solomon… (But if it had been, I would have said CUT LIESL AND RAFIKI IN HALF, AND FORM ONE SUPER FILM WE CAN ALL SHARE! You keep Kurt and Nala, I’ll take Zazu and Cousin Max!)

I know what you’re thinking - If only I’d made friends with Mr. Lederhosen! Hindsight. 20/20. You know the score.

Coming soon: MY DECISION (worthy of capitalisation? YES! … MAYBE) and the great concert that prompted it!