Artist Dates

I read once in a moderately famous-for-musicians book that it's really important for anyone embarking on a freelance career (which I guess is me, though "stumble" rather than "embark" is more apt) should make artist dates for themselves.  An artist date is an hour or two once a month
where you meet up with someone who inspires you, who gets you feeling jazzed about various projects, or who doesn't care about your projects at all and just wants to listen to Schubert.  And it's important to actually schedule these rather than just expecting or hoping that they'll happen because sometimes the inspiring people are also the busy people.

Dream bus! Note the flames. And the lizard.

Well, I had a lovely artist date tonight with an old friend with whom I used to team up and fight crime.  It was great not only to catch up about what's been new and exciting but to actually have a sounding board for future plans and dreams.  In business talk, by which I mean an article that was photocopied for me once, organizations discuss getting "the right people on the bus".  This friend is most certainly the right people (hell she's usually driving the bus) but she also understands the kind of buses I like to build.  Or order?  Or ride?  I'm losing this metaphor a bit.  Whatever, she just gets what I'm trying to do in the world.

In my job and in my head, I often feel a dichotomy between the Big Plans I make for my future career and my artistic mission and the Really Little progress that gets done when I'm slogging through the daily stuff.  Whether that be practicing my horn just for the sake of practicing (hello audition-less horizon...) or composing a thoughtful email when all I want to do is watch Netflix, it's just hard to fit it all together.  I think musicians are lucky to have a daily job that culminates so beautifully in a meaningful product (e.g. a concert), but there are parts of my life that never seem to culminate.  And maybe they never will culminate. 

But somehow just having to articulate those artistically unfulfilled areas to a friend feels like a small accomplishment, a la "The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one."  And having thought-provoking questions thrown back at you is another small accomplishment, which in fact cancels out the earlier accomplishment.  I guess what I'm saying is, on the slippery sand dune that is PROGRESS (however one defines it), it's reassuring to discover someone else's shoes are filled with sand.  And maybe you're even climbing the same dune?  And you can roll down it together some day, which believe it or not actually makes the sand dune start to hum.  True story.

Been there, sort-of hiked that.

Mozart to the rescue

A few days back my psyche decided I'd had just too many chipper days in a row.  I'm currently living and working on a beautifully remote island surrounded by baby fawns, fragrant forests, and world-class string quartets, and it'd just been too long since I'd whined about how difficult my life is. 

I get to see this most every evening.  Right???

So, of course, while pretending to connect to the outside world via Facebook I decided to get depressed and jealous of two acquaintances of mine who just won major orchestral jobs.  Full disclosure: These were French horn playing acquaintances.  Fuller disclosure: These were jobs that I had unsuccessfully auditioned for.  So the resentment wrapped in utter admiration wasn't totally out of line.  But in any case, I spent the entire afternoon moping about how I'm never going to be permanently employed as a horn player, the classical music world is so tough and competitive, orchestras are such bullies for brutally cutting people during auditions, why oh why did I never pursue that second degree in math, etc.  I also felt, despite the fact that 97% of my friends are classical musicians, that no one would understand my petty malaise on this certain afternoon. (I am in fact incredibly happy for these friends of mine, by the way; they both work super hard and are ridiculously talented and deserving of their success.  Just for the cyber-karma points...)

That evening I had to/got to attend a string quartet concert at a very small church.  This group is quite famous and quite awesome, on top of being just nice, friendly people.  They had this great program of Mozart, Dvorak, and Britten but to be honest, I really wasn't looking forward to going.  I just wanted a break from 24/7 music that goes along with the "working at a music camp" job description. 

However, from the beginning of the concert, I was instantly cheered up.  And by instantly, I do mean from the very first notes of the first piece.  After all, how can you really feel overlooked and jealous when late Mozart is being played for you 10 feet away with energy, conviction, and spot-on intonation?  And how can you really feel like no one understands you when you hear 250 years of music history spanning countries, styles, and personal circumstances, all of which is moving and profound and just so fun?

I have been told after concerts I've performed in that it was "the highlight of so-and-so's" day.  I usually thank the person politely as that sounds like a reception room platitude, but just a few days back, I experienced that kind of highlighting in a way I hadn't before.  I'm almost never "not in the mood" to hear a live performance.  It's part of my job, it's part of my life, and it generally takes almost no provocation for me to be an enthusiastic audience member.  So when I felt that reluctance or hesitation, maybe I was feeling what a lot of non-musicians feel when going to a live classical music performance- worry that they're not going to be "into it", that they're going to have to fake appreciation, that the music won't mean anything to them and they'll feel empty and uneducated.

But I simply couldn't help but be swept up.  And I can say with assuredness that almost everyone in that tiny little church felt the same overwhelming energy.  It was just a fantastic concert, and we all felt grateful to have been there on that cold rainy evening.  (I felt extra grateful cuz I didn't even have to shell out $15.)


So there you go.  Why get depressed about the music "scene" when what I have the privilege to do is so universal and so transcendent?  And by transcendent, I guess I mean distracting.  Live performance distracts us from the annoying pettiness that envelops our daily lives and, in the case of Britten, gives us little bonus tinglies when we listen.  Also, I saw a baby fox on the way home.  So we'll call it even, Friday.