Tuning Slide 5.29- Experience the Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you,
following you right on up until you die.
— Paul Simon

I have talked before about the impact of music on musicians- or at least on this musician. It has been known to happen in a rehearsal that I get so caught up in allowing the music to flow around and through me that I lose my place. That happens especially in concert band music since there are more than a few times in any concert when the trumpets are resting and other interesting things are happening around the band.

One thought when playing a more famous and familiar piece from some well-known composer is the honor I am having by playing the piece. My part may be as simple as some moving accompaniment line that few will hear separate from the whole or it could be the wondrous melody line played by the whole section. It doesn’t matter- it is still participating in something that has been around for years or centuries and here I am in that same line of musicians privileged to be able to play it.

One particular concert I remember was one where the director chose a complete concert of numbers by George Gershwin. I have been in love with his music since 9th grade when in music appreciation class the teacher played the opening of "American in Paris". From the moment I heard the “traffic noise” and the mood of the crowds in the street, I was hooked. Over the years I have played a number of arrangements of his works. A whole concert with selections was almost more than I could bear.

“I am playing Gershwin,” would go through my mind as we rehearsed. “This is immortal music,” was my next thought. I was in awe and the music flowed. That concert was one of the more enduring memories I have of playing music. To be able to actually be part of making the music was in itself a significant life moment. I probably am still working from the store of endorphins from that one concert alone. It went far beyond just playing music, it was experiencing the music from within.

I love going to concerts as a listener. It can anywhere from bluegrass to blues, Mozart to Mahler. It can be ensembles or wind bands or brass bands. At one concert last week I was being moved by the music and, as I am often led to do, I closed my eyes. My wife thought I was falling asleep and nudged me. I later explained to her that when music like that is at work I will close my eyes so I can shut out the extraneous “noise” and sensory input from vision. I need to allow the music to do what only music an do. I describe it in four words.

• Music Moves.
Music is not static. It doesn’t just sit there. Even when I am practicing and playing long tones, no note ever remains still. I visualize it leaving me as I hold that “whisper G” and heading out the bell. Music is sound, of course, which means it is made up of waves, moving waves. The music is coming at you- or if I’m playing- moving away from me. When it doesn’t seem to move, when it might be blah or nondescript we can often say that the music didn’t “move me.” But most of the time there is, I believe, a sensory but unconscious awareness that music is movement. But it is, I believe, a special movement that our brains are made to pick up as unique and important.

• Music Flows.
What that movement is can be called “flow.” We use that word to describe a state of being that we can experience. We can be “in the flow” as psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi called that special state of being energized and focused resulting in creativity, enhanced learning, peak performance, and life happiness. I believe there is a correlational and causal relationship between music and “flow” because it can often be a flowing movement. Some compositions naturally do not “flow”, or more to the point may actually interrupt flow for good reasons. But even a martial march often gives a flow to the movement forward. As a result of that movement of flow, I often sense that the music is surrounding me, moving past me, circling back and coming toward me again.
This may be why when a band is playing in a “dull” room where the sound is lost and never seems to come back, you lose the sense of flow. The music seems to leave the end of the horn and kind of drop somewhere out there. Sure it is still music and it can, I am sure, have an impact. But in the right place at the right time with the right movement, music is an unstoppable force.

• Music Infuses.
Simply put, this means that music gets inside us, into what I could call our psyche, our soul, our spirit. It is not just something outside of us, it becomes part of us. Even people who may be “tone deaf” or can’t carry a tune in a bucket can still have this happen. When the movement of music connects with the energy within us, they interact in either harmony or discord. Sometimes the music provides the discord, sometimes our lives produce it. But in that interaction, the music as waves become part of the energy of our lives. Some of that may be in the production of the hormone oxytocin- the feel-good hormone- that can help improve our sense of well-being. This is far beyond the limits of what I am talking about, but they are in some ways interconnected.

• Music Transforms.
Finally, through the movement, the flow, the infusing spirit and release of oxytocin, music transforms us. This may be why music is often seen and utilized by protest movements to energize their supporters and by the powers-that-be to combat such movements. The transformation of music as an expression of emotions, desires, anger, or hope is often irresistible. Musicologist Ted Gioia, famous for many great writings on jazz, has a recent book simply called Music that explores this from our primitive pre-historic music to contemporary movements.

I have discovered that when I play music these same things can happen to me. I am never the same when I am doing practicing. I am never the same when I am done playing a concert or another gig. When practicing I am learning to experience the movement and flow, the infusion and transformation in my own life and how to join with it in my playing. When I am rehearsing with a group, I am finding the ways that we as a group can move and flow and together, interacting with each other in some kind of synchronization so we can perform it for others. Finally, when I am performing I am taking what I have learned and experienced in the practice room and rehearsal hall and giving it as a gift from me to the audience.

So, my advice- pay attention whenever you are making music, even if the music is on the radio or coming from your computer speakers. Pay attention and, at times, you will discover that you are part of this amazing transformation that music provides.

Tuning Slide # 5.21- Taking Stock and Making Dots

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
— Steve Jobs

It is that time again- the end of one year and the beginning of another. Like the news shows and just about everywhere else, that means it is time to do your own “Year in Review.” For me, that means looking at what Steve Jobs called “the dots” of my past year. I do that, not to get all nostalgic over what happened last year, but to take a look at what my direction has been and to see if I need to do something about it. We can only see our path of dots looking backward!

A few years ago when doing this I came up with a number of categories of “dots” that I have found to be a good starting point. They were dots of:

• Inspiration
⁃ Listen to other musicians, attend live music concerts and events, read about some of the great musicians and how they got that way.
⁃ What has inspired me in the past year and how have I grown from it?

• Humility
⁃ Humility is several things. It is
⁃ Being teachable
⁃ Being honest about one’s abilities and shortcomings
⁃ It builds on what has inspired me this year and given me some idea of the direction

• Learning and openness to growing
⁃ How did I put humility’s teachableness to work in my music?
⁃ Was I as open to learning as I like to think I am and what did I do to show it?

• Patience
⁃ Did I want to be as good as Doc in two short, easy steps or was I willing to take each step as it comes?
⁃ When I hit a plateau in my playing did I get discouraged and want to be just satisfied with where I was instead of moving on through?

• Discipline and commitment
⁃ Did I take the time to take the steps necessary to keep moving in the right direction?
⁃ How successful was I at improving my skills through regular, intentional practice?

• Volunteering and sharing
⁃ Did I keep it to myself or did I live and share what I have discovered?

• Acceptance
⁃ Acceptance is what comes from living “mindfulness.” Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as:
⁃ awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally… in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.
⁃ When I am short on acceptance (and therefore mindfulness) I find myself unhappy and get upset that the world is not doing what I want the world to do!

At the Shell Lake Trumpet Workshop, the talk of dots from above led to a logical conclusion. Since we can only know from looking back at the direction our dots take us, we need to make sure that as we move ahead we are conscious of the dots we are making:

✓ Therefore make good dots

This is where we would have historically mentioned the old tradition of New Year’s Resolutions. Forget it! We never manage to follow them. Most people who are regulars at a gym or fitness facility, for example, do NOT look forward to January. The gym gets overcrowded for these few weeks with all the fitness "enthusiasts" who have made resolutions. Many of them are gone before the Super Bowl. (I would love to be proven wrong on this some year!)

Instead, look at your dots from last year and make notes to yourself about which dots were helpful and healthy and which ones didn’t get the energy they needed. Take an inventory of yourself for 2019 and see what direction you are moving as you begin 2020. Then figure out how to do it differently, more efficiently, or more intentionally. This is not a series of “resolutions” but rather action steps toward a goal. It is planning on making good dots.

For me one of those dots that always needs awareness is practice. Yes, I practice every day. Yes, I have a basic routine that keeps me mostly focused. But I can always use tools to keep on track. One thing I found recently that I will use in the new year is seeing practice as a spiral. Dr. Gabriela Mayer of the CIT Cork School of Music in Cork, Ireland describes this spiral in an article called “Reflective Practice.” According to the article:

Visualizing a spiral helps students focus on the following interlinking key areas during practice. The students need to learn to help themselves during their private practice time between lessons. The ‘practice spiral’ is an image describing an ongoing process which starts with clear intention, leading to execution, reflection, calibration and reinforcement.

In other words, practice is not a straight line. It is rather a continual cycle of a number of things that keep us improving. Some sample questions from the article associated with each key area are:

◆ Intention: What would you like to achieve? Define specific task and ways to tackle it. The clearer the intention is defined, the better the practice process will be.
◆ Execution: Practice must involve active listening. Be prepared to evaluate what you just did. What traps did you fall into and how could you be ready sooner in order to avoid them?
◆ Reflection: Following evaluation, articulate what elements you want to consolidate and what you want to change. Allow more space between repetitions. Are you clear about you new objectives and do they represent small enough goals?
◆ Varied Repetition: play again with new objectives
◆ Consolidation: Once a desired execution has been reached, focused repetition forms a vital component in retention. (Link)

Now repeat. The practice spiral provides a basic structure for an effective practice regime.

As I look to the new year it looks like this is an area I can continue to build on. I will see my growth as a spiral of planning to action to reflection to repetition to make it part of my music. One specific will be moving into more intentional areas of improvisation. I have given that a lot of work over the years building a foundation that is now ready to be built upon. Using the above steps I will see what direction I can plan on taking my dots for this year.

I hope your 2019 was a good one for you musically and that 2020 will be even better. Keep moving!

Tuning Slide 5.11- Interview a Musician: Yourself

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.
― Shannon L. Alder

I came across a post a few weeks ago that was aimed at journalists who were to interview musicians. It was a good list of questions to ask in order to write the story you were assigned. As I looked at it I realized that it was also a good list that could be used by the musician to review where they are and what some goals might be. They might not all apply to you or me in particular, but the idea is good.

First, the list of questions from the post:

▪ What drew you to the music industry?
▪ Who are you inspired by?
▪ Please explain your creative process
▪ What’s an average day like for you?
▪ Is there a hidden meaning in any of your music?
▪ Do you collaborate with others? What is that process?
▪ Please discuss how you interact with and respond to fans
▪ What is your favorite part about this line of work? Your least favorite? Why?
▪ Have you ever dealt with performance anxiety?
▪ Tell me about your favorite performance venues
▪ What advice would you have for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps? (Link)

To the list I would add, for personal reflection:

▪ What area(s) need(s) to be worked on?
▪ Where do I hope to be in the next year?

Me? Well, I’m glad you asked. Here are some of the things I discover by using some of these questions to interview myself.

▪ What drew you to music?

⁃ I don’t remember any time when I was not drawn to music. It almost comes naturally. I like most music and love some even more. It might have been the piano in the den or the old 78 rpm vinyl records in my grandpa’s record cabinet. Sheet music of “Show Me the Way to Go Home” and “Yes, We Have No Bananas” was fun. Records of “Tennessee Waltz” and “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania” were almost magnetic. I took piano lessons in the 3rd and 4th grades but was kind of bored. Then came the trumpet in 8th grade- and I haven’t looked back!

▪ Who are you inspired by?

⁃ Today- My mentor and teacher, Bob Baca; Doc Severinsen who is still going strong at 92-years old and Herb Alpert at 82; John Raymond, friend and up and coming trumpet player! Historically- Al Hirt, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, among many.

▪ What’s an average day like for you? (I revise that to What’s My Practice Routine?)

⁃ With very few exceptions, due usually to a way to busy schedule some days, I play the horn every day. Generally, it is in several parts:
⁃ Warm-up time of 30-45 minutes. This usually starts with long tones done mindfully. I have discovered that using my mindfulness training as the foundation of the long tones, I can be far better at centering and locking-in the sounds. It settles me into the music and allows me to hear better. I will talk about this a little more in two weeks. That is usually the first 10 minutes then I move to some form of scales and Arban/Getchell-type exercises done slowly(!) with a sense of flow. After another 10 minutes or so I may work on a few of these with a little more speed and take them up an octave.
⁃ I may then spend time at that time or later on jazz scales and simple improvisation.
⁃ Work on pieces on the playlist for one of the groups I play in. This is usually at a time later in the day and might be anywhere from 20-40 minutes.
⁃ Rehearsing with the groups, usually 3 evenings a week. If not I will work on etudes, Arban exercises, extended jazz improvisation.
⁃ All together on any given day my playing may be from anywhere around 40 minutes minimum to upwards of 2 - 3 hours.

▪ What is your favorite part about this line of work? Your least favorite? Why?

⁃ The favorite is all about the playing. First, it’s the mindfulness/centering that starts my musical day. It focuses me for the day. When I don’t do it in the morning, I feel somewhat disconnected. Second, it’s the sound and the melodies moving through the horn. Third, it’s the opportunity to be part of groups that make music together, which is often a great deal more than the sum of the parts.
⁃ The least favorite is musicians who don’t focus. It can be very difficult to play in a group of any size if those around me aren’t focused. I don’t mean people who haven’t reached a level of ability, yet. Many of these do focus and are working at improving. But whining and not paying attention to what is happening around them is frustrating to those around them! (Not that I’m perfect at that. It is easy to get distracted and unfocused. But I am learning through my mindful playing of long tones that playing music in and of itself can bring that focus.

Let’s bring it to the goals, now. I put all these things together to realize what and who I would like to become, musically.

✓ First, looking at my last section, I probably need to work on some tolerance. Maybe I can start with myself and accept my own shortcomings in a non-judgmental way that allows me to relax about it and toward others.
✓ Second, to improve my practice routine and be a bit more consistent with the mindfulness part. That will continue the “wiring” of my brain in healthy ways to the playing of music. Slowing down and paying better attention to that simple action will help. (Again, I will talk more about this in a post in two weeks.)
✓ Third, in the next year, I want to move my jazz improvisation (and comfort level) beyond the blues or simple jazz changes. I have been moving toward some slightly more complicated changes, thanks to iReal Pro, but I have a ways to go. More consistent and intentional work needs to be done.
✓ Fourth, the flow studies need to be built upon. Slotting into the correct note without all kinds of movement and slipping is one of my current focus points. That, along with the fingering exercises that help that happen, may be the most important technical work I need to work on to move to a new level of musicianship. Altogether, all three of these will improve my “ear” and tone, part of that new level.

How about you? Take some time this week to interview yourself and see what needs you can identify- while all the time remembering what it was, and is, that draws you each day to your music!

Tuning Slide: 4.1- Why I Play Music (1)

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

If you play music for the right reasons, the rest of the things will come. The right reason to play music is that you love it. That's why I play music.
— George Benson

Music is- and has been since third grade- one of the centers of my life. Sometime between ages 8 and 9 I started taking piano lessons. I wasn’t particularly good at practicing so after two or three years with the wonderful Miss Palmer my mother thought it would be good to stop. It wasn’t going to happen. She played the piano as did my Dad’s sister, my Aunt Ruth. I enjoyed their music as well as the many old 78 rpm records that they had.

I did learn how to read music in those lessons with Miss Palmer and, from time to time would even pull out a piece of sheet music and play the melody line. Music intrigued me. Playing music intrigued me, but I was more interested in reading than playing music.

In 8th grade, age 13, I decided I wanted to play trumpet. I have no memory of why. I probably saw the trumpets in the high school band marching in a parade and liked it. Maybe I saw Louis Armstrong on TV. Herb Alpert’s first single, The Lonely Bull, was a year from being released and Al Hirt’s Java was three years away. So nothing remains of the first memory- except the trumpet and the never-ending desire to play it- and play it better today than I did yesterday.

As many of you know from previous posts, I have never stopped playing in these soon to be 57 years. There were lean times when playing for Christmas or Easter at church was the extent of my playing, but the horn was always nearby. The last three years since my first Shell Lake Adult Big Band Workshop has been a whole new world of music opening for me. Some of this has been chronicled in the earlier posts in the Tuning Slide. As I get started in the fourth year of the Tuning Slide I sat back and reflected on why I play music. Over the past weeks a number of moments have occurred in various places that have reminded me why I continue to do so. To get Year Four started- here’s the first half of what came to mind.

My Experience of Playing Music (part 1)
✓ Band members smiling in rehearsal as we practiced Holst’s “2nd Suite.”

The two Holst Suites may be the greatest concert wind band pieces ever written- and the 2nd is at the top of the list. We were rehearsing it for a summer concert and I looked up during a long rest in the fourth movement and noticed that almost every musician in the band who was in the middle of a rest was also smiling. I couldn’t believe how my whole body, mind, and soul responded immediately to it when we hit the first notes. Yes, it is that great! Every time.

✓ Carmen Dragon’s “America the Beautiful”

Our director called it perhaps the best concert band arrangement of any time- the Dragon arrangement of America the Beautiful. I have long lost count of how many times I have played this. I have never forgotten the first time. I was a senior in high school and was at our district band festival playing first trumpet (not cornet, since I didn’t own a cornet.) The band arrangement was only three years old at the time and not well-known- like it would become. I was overwhelmed and inspired at that point. I still am today. Even writing this gives me goosebumps.

✓ Remembering my daughter’s solo in “A Copland Tribute” when I’m playing the piece

My daughter played clarinet in Middle and High School. In her senior year the band played the wonderful music of Aaron Copland in the piece, A Copland Tribute. As both her father and as a musician myself I enjoyed that piece when it came to the section known as the Shaker Melody (or Simple Gifts.) It begins with a clarinet solo- which she played beautifully. Every time a band I am in plays that piece- and it has been at least five times in the past 20 years- my mind lights up in joy remembering her.

✓ Falling in love with new pieces

At our spring concert our community band played a new piece by composer Jay Bocook, Down in the River (Hal Leonard.) It is a series of variations on the gospel song, Down in the River to Pray. It was fun to play and I loved the way the theme came in and out from the background. It also happens to be one of my favorite gospel songs. Yes, people are still writing music that can move me!!

Then at the recent July 4th concert I was introduced to another song I had never played before, an arrangement of the hymn God of Our Fathers by Claude Smith written in 1974. I am surprised I have never heard it before and fell in love with it in spite of mangling the trumpet trio in the first three measures during the last rehearsal. (I played it spot on in the concert!) It was a wonderfully challenging and inspiring piece. There will always be new pieces to play for the first time and fall in love with!

✓ Learning Al Hirt’s “Java”

It was my first favorite trumpet song. Released in 1964 it captured my imagination. I bought a transcription in the late 60s and tried to learn it. No luck. I didn’t take the time to really work on it and by then I was heading into my career and let the advancing of my trumpet skills slip. About six or seven years ago I found a transcription online and began working on it again. I can now play most of it and sometimes even up to tempo. It may be 54 years late, but it is why I am still playing music.

✓ “1812 Overture”- as exciting as it was 50 years ago when I first played it

• College band, 1969, in Carnegie Hall. We even used the cannon the football cheerleaders used at games. What a kick!

• Every Fourth of July, just before the Stars and Stripes and the fireworks. It never gets old! It is new every time! That is what music can do!

That’s why I play music!
What’s your reason?

(More next week as we continue into year four of The Tuning Slide.)

Tuning Slide 3.39- The Plateaus of Movement

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

I’ve never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.
— Paul Harvey

It has been a long week with some difficulties in traveling, snow storms, major delays on the highways, and a lot of being tired. I just was unable to get this together before right now. So let me start right off with the myth of the week. I have heard a number of variations of this from all sorts of places and people among trumpet players. For those who are not professional musicians and who have to make time to be a musician while doing other things, this myth can be tempting- and dangerous to one’s growth.

When I stop improving maybe I should just be satisfied with where I’m at.

I did a Google search and found all kinds of reactions and rationalizations about what to do when we reach a point where improvement isn’t happening. Many were “comeback players” who had not played for many years and were getting back into their music. Others were people who had been playing for years yet the excitement has gone. Some were satisfied with there they were and had no desire to get any better. Others were sad or frustrated having hoped to be far better than they had become.

In many of these situations they simply stopped where they were. Some quit playing altogether. They stepped away and turned to other things. Some continued to play but were at a plateau. They never got better, but were content to be what they had been.

Now I don’t want to put any value judgement on any of these responses. We are all different people with different dreams and goals. Sometimes there are physical issues and limitations or injuries and setbacks in life that get in the way. But there was a sense of sadness to many of the things I read. These players had wanted to do so much more but just couldn’t seem to get there.

It is not unusual for any of us to get discouraged, bored, or tired. I have talked about some of the ways of dealing with that:

• Switch up your routine while keeping all the basics.
• Find a teacher who will take you to some new places.
• Find friends to play with.Find a new band or group to join that could
• give you new perspectives.

But that is easier than it sounds when you have been working and doing some of those things and you don’t seem to be getting anywhere new. What I have heard and seen in so many different ways well beyond making music are that there are basically two things that get in the way.

First is expectations. If we have wanted to play like Doc or Maynard and just can’t ever seem to get there, that is a potentially dangerous expectation. You are not Doc, I am not Maynard, nobody else is Miles or Wynton. Expectations like this are comparisons. Very few will ever be able to compare to any of those musicians. But I can still be the best musician I can be.

The second thing that gets in the way and is seriously impacted by expectations is a lack of patience. So often we want the fruits of years of practice without putting in years of practice. Over the years I have often wanted to play guitar. The problem was that Iw as a far better trumpet player than a guitarist. Why? Because I have been playing trumpet a long time and know how to do it. I wanted to be able to pick up the guitar and play it as well as I did the trumpet. It never worked. Impatience. Getting the gold medal without working for it.

What I have discovered in my life- and have been applying it to my musicianship these past three years is that there are ways of getting through the plateau. There are steps we can take. Here are four of them:

Review- Plateaus happen. They are normal, natural, and essential. They allow our learning to sink in and become a more natural part of who we are and what we do. When they happen or when our human tendency to slow down gets going, spend some time in reviewing. Get out some older pieces you have moved past or exercises that used to be a little bit challenging. Play them. Take them for a few days and include them in your routine. I am often surprised at how much better I can play them today.

Revise- Plateaus mean you have reached a new stage in your growth. Where do you want to go next? It’s time to review your goals and expectations. Make sure you are doing the things that will move you there. Name the joys and wonders of what you have been doing- and where that can take you. I am always surprised when that happens- mostly by how blind I have been to seeing the growth and movement I have been experiencing.

Regroup- Pull it all together. The new band or group, the new attitude that gets you back into optimism, the inner excitement of knowing that there is movement ahead. Go for it.

Relax- Stop letting Self One control your thinking. You enjoy that music. You enjoy the possibilities. Take it easy and go for it.

There are a number of ways, then, of naming this week’s holy truth. Some of them were in the summary of last year’s trumpet workshop:

• Your best trumpet playing hasn’t happened yet
• Your best trumpet playing is only a thought away

The truth is you can always continue to grow as a musician and as a human being. The minute you quit- you’ve lost the edge, the growth. Yes, things get in the way, like the problems and barriers I faced in the past week of travel. Yesterday I didn’t have the energy to write this piece. I didn’t feel like picking up the horn. My plan was to be satisfied with going 360 days in a row of daily routine and/or practice. I was giving up the dream of a solid year five days early.

But in the back of my head I heard “Isn’t that what you were writing about this week? Being satisfied?” So I pulled out the horn and did a variation of my daily routine for about 30 minutes. I could feel myself relaxing, falling into the notes- and the notes flowing into me.

If you are not ready to quit- don’t!

Holy Truth for the week then:

• Plateaus happen- and they are good. They are a place to regroup so we can move on!

Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.
— Jim Rohn

3.32- The Tuning Slide

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as still
As they themselves appear to be,
Innumerable voices fill
With everlasting harmony;
The towering headlands, crowned with mist,
Their feet among the billows, know
That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;
Thy pinions, universal Air,
Ever waving to and fro,
Are delegates of harmony, and bear
Strains that support the Seasons in their round…
-William Wordsworth, On the Power of Sound

One of the joys of our winter stay on the Gulf Coast in Alabama is the ability to practice on the balcony overlooking the beach and water. I put my silent mute in and do my daily routine whenever it is warm and sunny enough, which is at least 75% of my time there. One day recently I finished my 30-40 minutes of playing and then sat and meditated for another 15-20 minutes. The result was the following reflection on both the practice and how music itself pulls us in and we become part of something greater than any one of us could ever be.

The surf is the constant background. It is a rhythm without a pattern, or better yet, a rhythm and pattern combining into breath. Its constancy is a heartbeat, a watery drum keeping all in motion. There are days it is as soft as a baby’s sleeping breath. This is, after all the Gulf of Mexico, not the expansive ocean. Even at fifty yards it can easily be overpowered by my muted horn.

But it is never lost. It is a pianissimo of my inner heartbeat, a drum cadence. It allows, even invites, movement. My long tones follow in order. They fall in sync with the surf. Then I play scales and it becomes a counterpoint. Play the chromatics too fast and I can lose the rhythm, the pattern under it all.

Slow down, the surf calls.
Follow me, the rhythm beckons.

In my time frame the surf is infinite, perpetual. Any time of day or night I can walk out on the balcony and it will be there. When it isn’t, life itself will have come to an end. This surf, formed by the world-wide waters, has been the breeding source of life itself. It shapes and reshapes the shorelines, constantly changing and challenging what even human grandiosity thinks is permanent. It will destroy and remold what we- and it- have built.

Then come the louder days. Gale force winds whip the tops off large swells. Though it is still the Gulf, its power is beyond what we can know. Most such days I am forced back inside, unable to compete in sound or comfort to the surf. In between the extremes, though, after a storm has moved through, shifted the winds, and roiled the surf, I can take the routine back to the balcony. Now the sound and pattern of my playing shifts. I get a little more aggressive, a little more stubborn in my insistence that I be heard, even by me.

I never win, humbling for a trumpet player to admit. Perhaps if I removed the mute my sound would carry a little further but I don’t want to disturb neighbors- or the surf itself. I must be in tune and time with the surf. Chromatics, Clarke #1, have to fall into the proper places, not just the silence but the ebb and flow of sound. The exercise on thirds must find the note solid in the right place of the surf’s rhythm. Amazing how many things it takes to make music. But with time and experience they do fall into an intuitive second nature. Harmony.

At times I realize I am also hearing and seeing other parts merging in this chamber composition. The birds in the tree below, the silent hopping of the sparrows on the edge of the balcony, the gulls laughing, pelicans soaring and diving. Whom am I to intrude, to insist on the importance of my part over theirs? That’s the harmony. I am not here to force my will on that of the world. I must not or the music will be more than dissonant, it will be destructive.

In between exercises and runs I pause. One is to rest as much as one plays, is the old adage. Here, on the balcony, that is a pleasure. As I stop the surf remains. It brings a moment of refreshment before I pick up the horn again. The others instruments continue their own song, unaware that I am listening. The call and chatter of the gulls, Laughing Gulls, in fact, challenging my hubris that I of all creatures can think I can accompany the greater symphony. Or they just do what they are supposed to do simply because their melody is needed to fill out the sound.

I take an extra 15 minutes at the end of the routine to just improvise over different chords, working on my favorite tunes I want to play at jams- Amazing Grace, This Land is Your Land, and Horace Silver’s The Preacher. They are now my contributions to uniqueness, more than just routine, foundation, they are different every time, influenced I am sure by the mood of the Gulf and the melody playing around me.

I am both humbled (kept in my proper place)
And empowered (given the direction to do what I can do)
By these practice times on the balcony.

• Humbled at how little power I truly have;
• Humbled that I am allowed to accompany such beauty;
• Humbled that the surf and sand, birds and beach could care less!

Yet,

• Empowered because I, too, am part of this symphony simply by being here in this moment;
• Empowered to play and seek ongoing harmony with nature’s music;
• Empowered by the inner and outer beats of the Eternal Heart.

Music is a gift of God!

The Tuning Slide: 3.10- Seeing Differently- Lessons from the Eclipse

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

What you see in a total eclipse is entirely different from what you know.
-Annie Dillard

I have often commented here about the need to connect our music and our lives. What we learn in one area can and should make a difference in the other. We have talked about that at Trumpet Workshop a number of times. Most of us are not going to be full-time professional musicians. We are going to be full-time something, however. The skills we use at one can be applied to the others.

It was with that in mind that I realized that there was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reflect on a total solar eclipse and figure out what I could learn from it. So I did the following:

• Planning
  
  • Check dates, clear calendar, coordinate with family
• Waiting
  
  • In between decision and the event, there will always be waiting. You can’t avoid it so how do you best utilize the time?
• Researching
  
  • Find the path, find a city, find a motel,
• Finalize plans and equipment
  
  • What kind of filters will I need for photography, what might I want to make sure I have ready,
  • What plans can I make for a Plan B?
• Practicing
  
  • Take the cameras out with the filters, get pictures and video, work on how different settings will impact the final product.

Here, then, in a slightly longer than usual post is the result.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It is the day- August 21, 2017. We have come to Kansas City, just on the southern edge of totality. We get up early to get to where we plan to watch the eclipse, Lathrop, a small town in western Missouri where the local Baptist church (among many others) has set up parking. We plan on getting there between the early rush and the later one to give us time to relax and be ready. Here, with later additions, is what I wrote during the next four and a half hours:

• 9:00 E(clipse)-2h 40m Sitting watching the clouds. Heat and humidity in the morning sun. But oh—oh that solid cloud deck! Weather Channel app on my phone says it is cloudy now but should clear. People from Oklahoma, Minnesota, Kansas, Texas, Wisconsin around us. Sixteen cars to a row, maybe 10 rows of cars in a field at the local Baptist Church’s north campus. Cameras on tripods, fancy reflecting telescopes, folding chairs, here and there a tent or canopy. I set up my cameras and take a couple of pictures to show the sky and the full sun.
• 10:00 E-1h 40m Took a walk around the grounds. One of the attendants told me some people wanted to be here early to get a good viewing spot! “I don’t want anything in my way.” “But lady,” he added, “just look up.” “But can we leave when its done?” since some places are having all kinds of other activities. The attendant pulled up the yellow plastic tape they used to mark off the parking area. “Just tear it,” he said as he shook his head in disbelief.
• 10:18 E-1h 20m
  
  Rain and thunder for about ten minutes. Now what? Looks like it could clear to the west.
• 10:41 E-1h Still overcast and sprinkling with thunder. Storms popping up. Will it or won't it? Looking less hopeful. I want to cry.
• 11:09 T(otality)-2h Not looking hopeful. But keeping the feeling of hope alive. This can still happen if only for part of the Eclipse. Washington Post just said it is starting in Oregon. Bring the sunshine with you, please. Should I try to figure out a Plan B or just stick with what I have planned?
• 11:25 E-15m Dare I say that it looks like some possible clearing to the west? I would hate to jinx it. It is still not out of the question?!?! Just don't say it out loud. A field full of eclipse watchers holds our collective breath.
• 11:30 E-10m The rain has stopped!? Sky brightening. Walked over and bought us a lunch. Now we will see if we have anything to see.
• 11:54 E+15m My first chance to see the eclipse.
  
  The clouds clear. I zoom the cameras, take my first pictures, start the video. It is happening.
• 12:45 We’ve had a relatively good run of clear skies. Almost a full hour of variable clouds and sun. I have paid attention to the advice from a photographer I read during my research: “Take your eye away from the viewfinder and watch the eclipse itself. You may never see anything like it again and you would hate to miss it.” I took five short videos totaling about 25 minutes of different points in the eclipse. It is amazing to watch it. I have seen a number of lunar eclipses but this is different. This is the sun being blocked. It is a “crescent sun.” I have also been watching the clouds to the west and southwest. They are the real thing. My heart sinks as I come to realize that they are moving faster than the moon. They will be the eclipse I see.
• 12:52 T-15 Clouds finally move in.
  
  I take my last picture before totality. It will be the last regular picture I take. I hold my camera at ready. I take the filters off both cameras- just in case. We will have to see what we can see here. There is no Plan B.
• 1:09 Totality- and clouds. We watched it get darker and cooler. People were quiet, still, perhaps sharing a moment of sadness or grief along with the amazement. Many of us have traveled to see this and now we won’t. I watched the clouds get darker. It begins to look like a tornado storm, but it is the shadow of the moon crossing the earth, approaching us. It is not like sunset- it moves much faster than that. It gets dark quickly.
• 1:09 - 1:13-
  
  I start the video camera to get shots of the horizon in its odd colors where the clouds have broken. As promised it is a 360 degree sunset in a purplish hue. I start a video pan to catch what I can. Then, just as I was about to turn it off and start packing up, a small break in the clouds. Third contact (the moving of the moon from the sun) has past; totality is over. The darkness on the other side of the clouds has moved southeast. For a moment there is the sliver of the sun. [Looking at the video later I am amazed at watching the darkness move across the clouds, more visible in a speeded up video. I will be putting a video together in the next week of the experience.]
• 1:20
  
  Heading back to our motel in bumper to bumper traffic. Making as much as 12 mph (mostly less) for over half of the trip. It took 2 1/2 hours to make the 40 miles we had done in 45 minutes that morning.

We were home by Thursday and I was coping with sadness and depression. The long-awaited and dreamed of event was over. I was still bummed. I had done all the right things to get ready:

• Planning
• Waiting
• Researching
• Practicing

And it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. It was out of my hands. I did my part to be at the right place at the right time, but that’s as far as I could go. So it goes. Powerless!

On Thursday evening I watched a cloudy sunset and realized how different it was from what I saw on Monday. New reflections began to ease the sadness. I began to explain to others what I saw and heard. Their amazement at what had happened that they didn’t get a chance to see touched me. I began to understand that I did get to see a good deal of the eclipse, my experience of the eclipse.

In other words, by Thursday I had to come to grips with what this event was going to mean for me. I decided, by action and intuition that I had to have my story to tell about the eclipse since I was there. A solar eclipse IS a big deal. But I had two choices:

1) Be a whiner, live in sadness and despair and depression that here was this incredible chance and it passed me by. Poor me! or
2) Reflect on what I DID experience in this rare opportunity. The eclipse did not pass me by. I saw the moon moving across the sun. I was with all those people locked in a common purpose and event. I was right there in the middle of totality as it happened. The world darkened; the temperature dropped; birds returned to their nests; humans stood in awe. It truly was something that felt out of this world.

As asked by the wondrous book and movie, Life of Pi, "which is the better story?" Which story includes hope and belief, wonder and meaning? That’s a no-brainer!

Now, a week later, I am excited by what I have experienced. The more I have talked about it, looked at some of my video, and listened to other people’s experiences, the truth of Annie Dillard’s words at the top of this post sink in. What I saw in this eclipse was different from everything I have ever known, even to the point of not seeing the totality but being impacted by it.

• What happens in an eclipse is this-
  
  • Our normal way of seeing things is blocked.
  • The sun is gone, covered by the moon.

All that we think we know about the world shifts, if only for the few minutes of totality. We are forced to react and respond differently, even if we know what is happening. It is not hard to imagine what people without the scientific and technological resources would think about a total solar eclipse. It can feel like the world is coming to an end.

Here then are my initial thoughts and learnings:

• Do the necessary footwork!
• Be open for the surprises that are there, even when they aren’t what you expected. Which in reality is most of the time.
• Let the moment be real and allow it to soak in to your own psyche.
• Be aware of your story and know that you can choose how you respond to what is happening.
• Choose the better story, the one that will stand the test of time and that you will be telling into the future.
• In the end I was forced by the clouds to take my eye away from the camera and watch the eclipse- and I am better for it.

Let’s translate that to our musicianship.

The Footwork:
Do the day in and day out work to become the musician (or whatever) you want to become. How many times can I play an opening exercise of long tones or those early Arban’s exercises? One more time than I already have! I will never reach the end. It will always be “one more.” Listen to music; read about it; learn the ins and outs of it.

The Surprises:
I will never know that solo or song or ensemble piece perfectly. I need to be open at each moment for the music itself to tell me what I need to know. That’s where Self Two can begin to take over and allow me to feel, hear, and internalize the music.

The Moment:
Which moment is the most important? The one you are in right now. Is it practicing? Make it good practice. Is it performance preparation? Mindfulness. Being in the moment and letting it happen. I played in a concert last Friday evening. I allowed the music to be present within me. I heard parts of the pieces that I had never heard before since we were outside, in a different venue. Those were the surprises. So was how I felt I was playing. Self Two was definitely as work. What a moment!

Your Story-The Better Story:
This happens after The Moment. This is the reflection on what has happened. Call it debriefing or evaluation, or awareness, this is where you make sense of what has happened and place it into its proper context. It may be that your solo went better than you hoped- or not as good as you wanted. What do you learn from that? Will it stop you from another solo or will you see that it can be different next time?

Take your eye away:
That eye is often Self One ready and willing to criticize us, tell us we can do it better- or that we can never do it right. Take your eye away from the technical and just play. Just do it. Relax and “play” in all the broad meanings of that wonderful word.

Enjoy. If you have done the footwork and practice and research, it will happen.

Lenten Journey- Ash Wednesday- Interrupted By God

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.
God will be constantly crossing our paths and
canceling our plans by
sending us people with claims and petitions.
We may pass them by,
preoccupied with our more important tasks…
When we do that we pass by
the visible sign of the Cross,
raised athwart our path to show us,
not our way,
but God’s way
must be done.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer- Life Together

Bonhoeffer. He has been much in my thoughts over the past few months. He is one of the heroes of the faith that early on had an incredible impact on me. It was 1971. I was at my first ever church camp. I was a counselor, invited by a friend, to help him lead a course on the church and war. The program leader first introduced the camp to Bonhoeffer in one of his morning lectures. Bonhoeffer was a theologian and pastor in Germany in the 1930s and 40s. He died 26 years before in 1945 in the waning days of World War II- imprisoned and executed by Hitler’s SS as the result of his participation in an attempt to assassinate Hitler. He had been a major opponent of the German Lutheran Church’s support of Hitler and the Nazi policies. He was a founding leader of what came to be known as The Confessing Church.

He has become one of the guiding theologians on wrestling with grace and discipleship, the church and our role in the world. The Cost of Discipleship remains a relevant classic; Life Together may be one of the single best theologies of church life; Letters and Papers From Prison shows his ongoing pastoral concerns. A giant of a man.

Over the past two months I have been writing a series of nine posts related to dealing with impressions, reactions, and concerns that have arisen for many people since the election in November. Many have described their reaction as a “Dark Night of the Soul.” I explored the Dark Night as an essential experience to getting closer to union with our Higher Power. It doesn’t matter what political or non-political situation starts the journey through the dark night. I believe many on both sides of the political spectrum have experienced this in many different ways over the past years- not to mention centuries. What is important is opening ourselves to the ways that we may be being led. I am not an active pastor any more. I am writing as a person on a spiritual journey, giving voice to my own concerns and yearnings for peace in my soul and in my land. I speak for no one but myself. (Link to the posts.)

The question comes down to a very simple (though not easy) one for me:

How does one live the spiritual life in the midst of cultural, social, and religious unrest?

The answer for me started in allowing the dark night to open me up to surrender to the ways and will of my Higher Power, whom I call God as revealed in the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Please note: I am writing personally as a Christian. I will talk about “God” and “Jesus Christ as Lord” and the “Holy Spirit” in this series. Lent is a Christian journey with Jesus to His death and resurrection. These, and the Jewish underpinnings of the Christian faith, are who I am. They are the language that speaks to me. But I believe the spiritual journey of the soul knows no denominational or specific faith tradition.

The second question builds on the first:

How does one live in the world when one has journeyed what may be called the mystical path into some form of greater union with God knowing that the ultimate union must wait until after this life?

As I came to the end of the previous series I realized I needed to dig more deeply into those questions. I also realized that Lent is the perfect Christian season to do so! At the same time I came across a post on Facebook by “The Contemplative Monk” who described the journey of Lent:

Lent is the church season we die to ourselves, lament our loss, fast, and pray, to be enabled to live a resurrected incarnational ‘Christ in us’ life. No one lives a resurrected life without dying daily. 

With that in mind here’s what I hope to do in the weeks until Easter.

I will be posting a series called “Interrupted by God” which is a phrase from the quote above. I have found 12-14 of the most commonly noted quotes from Bonhoeffer and will deal with one each Sunday of Lent and each day during Holy Week until Easter. I will be looking for direction on how to live in difficult times or even times when things seem to be going downhill far too quickly.

In so doing I will be seeking words of

• grace and peace, 
• conviction and repentance, 
• atonement and forgiveness. 
• I will be looking for the ways that, as a follower of God, I can seek God’s will and the power to live it.

It begins with today’s quote at the top of this post. Here is what that quote said to me as I begin Lent, 2017.

• We need to be ready to be interrupted by God.

It is way too easy to be busy. In my busyness, which even includes my plans on being spiritual (!), I can easily overlook the presence of God in my life. This is not a new insight. Rather it is one that has been one of those human failings that so many of us have. We can be so busy with what we think is God’s work (or not) that we don’t see the work in front of us.

• God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans

In my experience God does not suddenly grab me by the back of the neck and pull me Godward. Nor does God hit me with a  2x4. At least not very often. God more often just walks in front of me, crossing the path where I had been going, and getting my attention with more subtlety than we may expect.

• Sending us people with claims and petitions.

The subtlety is because God uses other people. For me, in my experience, these people are often those we have so easily “labeled” as the “least, and lonely, and lost.” Nice categories but what happens when the person in my path is not a least, a lost, or a lonely person, at least on the outside? What happens if it is a person with “privilege” fighting her own struggles? What if it is a person I don’t feel comfortable around? There is where this interruption by God becomes meddlesome.

• We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks…

We do have choice, “Free Will!” We can say no. We can continue on our way. “Yes, I see you,” we may say, “but what I’m doing is so important. I have hungry to feed, sick to visit, strangers to welcome.” These are good things, even important things. But sometimes the person right there in my path needs something from me, or perhaps even more likely, is a way for God to get my attention. But I can move on.

• When we do that we pass by the visible sign of the Cross,

There's always - BUT! The visible sign of the cross is what I am ignoring. The visible sign of the cross- the sign of God’s action in Jesus- calls me to live and love as Jesus did. Isn’t that what the inner journey of the dark night was supposed to teach me? But in my free will, forget it. Oh how blind we can be when we choose not to see.

• raised athwart our path to show us, not our way, but God’s way must be done,

Not my will but God’s be done. Amen.

But how then do I bring this into my life? How do I discover God’s way? I must ask myself some questions. Perhaps even each day- and often each day...

1. What is interrupting my life right now? Might that be a call from God to move in that direction?
2. How can I learn to more clearly see the “visible signs of the cross” when I am moving through my day?
3. Am I willing to follow the directions of my Higher Power, praying only for God’s will for me and the power to carry it out?

As I write this I realize how big a task is in front of me this Lent.

May I be willing to stop and see the cross-
and the ever present promise of life!

Time for Reflections

It is finally here- the end of 2016. This ranks among the most unusual years of my lifetime. These past 364 days have had some of the strangest events with the most profound impacts on me than most of the past nearly five decades of my adult life. Prior to this year the ones with the most impact would be:

• 1968- The year the world was turned upside down in many ways.
• Marriage (1972) and birth of daughter (1981)- Obvious!
• 1988- The year I got sober and my world was turned rightside up!

Reflecting then on 2016, not even counting the seemingly endless deaths of musicians and cultural icons, it was a year of up, then down, then uncertainty.

First half of year:

• Renewal and settling- the first time our two months in Alabama as snow birds was more than just getting away.
• Photography- lots of time with pictures in Alabama.
• Reconnecting with old friends- Friends from 50 years ago got in touch with us- and we saw them for the first time in 30+ years. 
• Trumpet improvement- I am amazed at what has been happening with my musicality. Don't let anyone tell you old dogs can't learn new tricks.

Mid-year:

• New directions- I began to feel like retirement was falling into place, or as I have calling it, Career Three.
• Publishing and writing expanded- I published a book for the trumpet camp and then another of my Christmas stories. It has pushed my writing to new directions.
• Another old friend connection- Another boyhood friend stopped by to see us! Wonderful times.
• Music continues

Fall:

• Election campaign and growing uncertainty- even this old Political Science major began to get overloaded with the election because I was...
• Absolutely appalled by the campaign. To say this campaign was awful would be to give it too good a review. It may not be the worst in American history- yet- but it was the most awful in my 68 years!
• Maintained Music- the one thing that kept me going!

Post-Election:

• Grief and fear followed by the feeling that I was
• Slogging through quicksand in everything for the last two months leading to great
• Difficulty maintaining focus in all things.
• Christmastime in Bethlehem, PA, back at our spiritual roots and great times with friends gave a bit of positive uplift. It was only temporary, however. Things are just too wobbly, uncertain and downright scary- at best.

General:

• Awareness of aging and its impacts physically and emotionally began to sink in at a couple different times during the past year. It is the inevitable process of aging, but it doesn't have to mean giving up. It means maintaining the soul and the spirit. That I have been able to do thanks to ...
• The wonders of music... my own and that which I have been privileged to see and hear in person. Music is so essential to my life. Amazing! But so was...
• The joy of writing. With more to come in 2017.

As the wise teacher of Ecclesiastes might say, 2016 was just another example of the simple fact that time moves on, things change, and times are what they are. With some of what has happened in 2016 I have no idea why they have happened and what the outcome will be. That's where my uncertainty and fear come in. I have to finally admit that I have no choice but to continue to live within the cycles and seasons, while finding the ways to be proactive and supporting that which is important to me. In 2017, I will look for those opportunities as things continue to move on. With thanks to Ecclesiastes and Pete Seeger then, important words for uncertain times...

The Tuning Slide: 2.17- Looking Both Ways

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Steve Jobs famously once said:

You can only connect the dots looking backward. Just make good dots.

My thought when I heard that was that in order to be successful you need to look both ways, just like we were always told when crossing the street. Here, though the looking is back and ahead. Looking back connects the dots, as Jobs indicated, helping us to see what we did (or didn’t do) to get where we are today. Looking ahead helps us think about where we want to be in the future. Many of us do that at certain times of the year- birthdays, anniversaries. But most of us do it this week between Christmas and New Year. Another year has passed, the year ahead is a so-called “blank slate”.

The subject reminded me of a saying I heard at Shell Lake last summer:

Whenever you go through a door- you will see four more doors appear.

There is a sense in that which says that we are never finished- when we make progress, we can see the progress we need to make. When we make progress, when we are successful or improve at what we are doing, we can see the new possibilities that lie ahead of us. And those possibilities multiply as we go through each door of progress.

Last year, for example, I made it my goal to learn the twelve major scales. I made it very successfully through that door. After that initial success I decided that advance in my skill led me to at least two more opportunities. One was to memorize Clarke #2- a great way to add to my skills at the scales. The other was that I found myself able to improvise on different scales more easily. Each of those doors has now led me to new confidence.

But there was a door I didn’t go through quite as well as I had hoped. I wrote earlier in the year about my “performance anxiety” and that over the years it doesn’t matter how well I know a piece, the move from the practice room to the performance venue never goes as well as I would like it to. I never play in performance as well as (I think) I do in practice. It happened again on Christmas and I found myself starting to slide back into the old thinking. “I’ll never get past it. I’m not as good as I think I am.” But looking back, I managed to say, “Not true!” Looking back and connecting the dots, I saw the Vintage Band Festival in July when I did the solo part of the Canadian Brass version of “Amazing Grace.” No accompaniment, no rhythm, just me starting out and paying. I can do it. I have made it through that door far better than I am willing to accept when I have a glitch. So what’s wrong? What is the next door ahead of me that this has brought me to?

See how it works? Connecting the dots as we look back helps us discover what we need to be doing ahead of us.

Take time this week then to first ask yourself:

• What doors did you go through this past year
• How far have you come?
• What’s new about you this year?
• What doors are now opened that you couldn’t have walked through last year at this time?
• So what?

Looking at progress helps you see what you are still capable of doing. Looking at when we didn’t do as much as we wanted gets us looking at what we can do to change that. There’s an old saying:

Doing what you’ve always done will only get you what you have always gotten.

At that point we often rationalize or make an excuse why we aren’t doing something- “I can’t do that!”

In my examples of movement this year I have decided the next stage of work will be to learn the minor and 7th chords across the 12 keys. I’m still exploring the ways of doing that, but I know it is at the top of the goals for 2017. I have also been working on learning a solo from a recording I admire and enjoy. That is the next of my goals for the beginning of the new year- finish learning that and then adapting it for myself. And third, the performance issue. I realized that most of the time now it has nothing to do with how I’m feeling about myself or my ability; it is about how I focus- or don’t- getting ready for a performance. My third goal is only partially related to my music- it’s about focus and building my inner ability to do so. I have a couple things I want to do in that area and learn how to apply it to my performance.

Goals. That’s the other half of looking both ways. They are today’s dots leading to the ones we haven’t put down yet. That is how we make good dots that connect us from where we have been to what can yet become.

May you all have a Happy New Year- making music, enjoying music, and turning them all into the excitement and hope for you.

The Tuning Slide- Review and Plan for a Happy New Year

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Don't practice quickly and hope it gets better;
practice excellence and hope it gets faster.
--Frank Campos

It is an old and trite idea to take the end of the year as a time to look back and reflect on what has been happening in one's life. But what makes something "old and trite" is that there is truth in it. Most of the time we don't stop to review and see where we have come. Why not take the end of the year as such a time?

Which is where the importance of the journal comes in. Remember a few weeks ago or so when I reminded us of the importance of keeping a journal of our practicing? Seems like busy work. But here is when you will appreciate it- and maybe get back into the habit since if you are like me you have not kept the journal for a few weeks or more.

I went back and looked at my journal from right after trumpet camp last summer. At camp we were given ideas on a regular practice routine. In addition I was given the idea to do the Arban's exercises from page 13 - 22 and 25-28. These are good, basic exercises that have been proven to be so fundamental it might be valuable to practice them on a regular basis.

So starting in mid-August I did that. For six weeks or so I made sure that I went through those on a regular basis. Now anyone who has played trumpet for more than a few months knows how to play these. There's nothing particularly difficult in them. For years I mostly ignored them since, well, I can play that.

But could I play them well? Could I play them at speed? Did I take the time to play them slowly enough to develop excellence? Often I would practice it quickly so I could say, "Did that. What's next?" Over these last five months I have discovered that there is an amazing depth in those exercises. They start easy; some are more difficult than others; they introduce us to key signatures and chord structures.

Last week, aware of reflection time for this week, I went back to page 13 and started playing through them. I hadn't done them all in about 2 months. I had worked on other things and had continued to notice my progression as a trumpet player. What would these sound like now?

I started with a medium tempo and found they fell into place smoothly. They moved along and felt right. Can I play them as the upper suggested tempo? Surprise. Yes, I can, at least many of them. I looked at my notes in the journal (minimal though they are) and saw that it took me a lot longer to play them in August and September because I a) couldn't play to tempo and b) missed a lot of notes.

I can talk about other reflections, but this is a good introduction to it. What I discovered was

• if I hadn't kept a journal I would have had to rely on imperfect memory for comparison
• if I hadn't taken time for reflection I wouldn't have been as aware of my progress
• if I hadn't slowed down when first working on these back in August I wouldn't have gone beyond "just good enough"

The natural question then is "So what? What do I do with this?" As I was working through these sections of Arban's with a little better insight I discovered the ones that were still causing me difficulty. I was reminded that there are always (!!) the basics that need to be worked on. It may be "easy" to breeze through and play some of these. But there is always the opportunity to strengthen the foundation.

That brought me to the result of review and reflection- planning. I have already talked about goal-setting, etc. but that will often return as a theme. In short, for this particular review, I came up with a specific plan to refine my daily routine. I have taken the sections between pages 13 and 36, some of the very basics, and divided them into three sections. At first I will play through each section every third day. I will be going through each section twice each week for the next 3-5 weeks. My goal- reinforce these basics and add a bit of "excellence" beyond "good enough." This will take about 10 - 15 minutes of each day's routine.

With all that aside, the biggest reflection for me is what has occurred in my trumpet playing since June when I attended the Big Band Camp at Shell Lake. The quintet I am part of then had a "peak experience" at the Vintage Band Mini Fest in Northfield, MN. I then headed back to Shell Lake for trumpet camp where my whole view of my trumpet playing took a huge positive jump. I have continued to play in two Big Bands, two concert bands and the quintet and have practiced 8 out of 10 days.

I am humbled and amazed at what has happened. I am grateful to all who helped, encouraged, challenged, instructed and allowed me to play along with you this past year.

There is more to come.

Happy New Year to all!

Calendar of Saints: St. Luke

Twice a week I post a quote from saints from the Episcopal Calendar of Saints that week. They are to be meditative and mindful, playful and thought inducing. I hope they are helpful in your spiritual journeys.

Luke the Evangelist
October 18

Only one post this week from the Calendar of Saints. Today is the feast day for St. Luke the Evangelist. What we know about Luke comes from the New Testament. He was a physician (Col 4:14), a companion of Paul on some of his missionary journeys (Acts 16:10ff; 20:5ff; 27-28). Material found in his Gospel and not elsewhere includes much of the account of Our Lord's birth and infancy and boyhood, some of the most moving parables, such as that of the Good Samaritan and that of the Prodigal Son, and three of the sayings of Christ on the Cross: "Father, forgive them," "Thou shalt be with me in Paradise," and "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

In Luke's account of the Gospel, we find an emphasis on the human love of Christ, on His compassion for sinners and for suffering and unhappy persons, for outcasts such as the Samaritans, tax collectors, lepers, shepherds (not a respected profession), and for the poor. The role of women in Christ's ministry is more emphasized in Luke than in the other Gospel writings.

I chose a quote for this week from the end of Luke's Gospel as the disciples on the road to Emmaus reflect on what happened when they met Jesus on the road. It is a text worthy of much reflection in our daily lives.

-Link

Twelve Days ~ Day 7 ~ Reflection

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Day 7: 31 December: Reflection

New Year's Eve

One Week Completed

Hey, this semi-retirement gig is feeling good so far. Not that I didn't expect it to, of course. Several interesting things have happened. Again, not unexpected, but still interesting.

First, the sense of freedom I have felt. Not that I felt "unfree" working. No, not at all. But there is always a sense of being on someone else's clock. Which is natural. But the sense of making choices based on what one wants to do or needs to do at any given moment is a nice change. Even in the old days when, as a pastor, my schedule was quite flexible most of the time. But there was always the knowledge that certain things like sermons, confirmation class, visits to the sick, board meetings had to get done on time. There was a pattern that I set, sort of, but that was answerable to others. Not a bad thing, but the sense of a schedule built on more freedom with no one really to answer to for the time is different. As a retired friend wrote me: Now it's your own 18-hour work day.

Second, getting into flow. I am looking on like a "job" and not vacation, although that is only intellectual so far. It does feel kind of more like vacation, but I have been trying to maintain a daily flow that includes getting up before the alarm, working out daily, having a list or schedule. Overall allowing it to happen on a more natural flow.

Third, I feel less hurried. I am not working toward the end of the day knowing that I have to get to bed so I get up at an early hour, or whatever. The sense of time is more flow, as I said, than clock-based.

And fourth, there is that odd sense of loss and mortality. Retirement does mean the end of career. It also means the simple fact of getting older. But so far, at least, I don't feel useless and put out to pasture.

Sidenote: Looked up the etymology of "retire" on the Online Etymology Dictionary. It looks like it comes from

Middle French retirer "to withdraw (something)," from re- "back" (see re-) + Old French tirer "to draw" (see tirade). Related: Retired; retiring.

Meaning "to withdraw" to some place, especially for the sake of privacy, is recorded from 1530s; sense of "leave an occupation" first attested 1640s (implied in retirement). Meaning "to leave company and go to bed" is from 1660s. Transitive sense is from 1540s, originally "withdraw, lead back" (troops, etc.); meaning "to remove from active service" is from 1680s. Baseball sense of "to put out" is recorded from 1874.

The Season of Flowers Past

It is autumn in my northern world. The trees are nearly bare; the flowers fading into memory. But one of my naturalist teachers through remarkable writing reminds me that all is connected, even at these times. I think back to the summer and a flower I may have accidentally hurt or even picked to take a closer look. The flowers of the summer are gone. The flowers of the spring are storing life in a deep, dark sleep. The flowers of autumn are ready to add their molecules to the compost.

All in all, it is a time for regrouping and looking ahead.

But we must be careful. All is connected. All things are one, the stuff of stars and the dust of eons past.

One could not pluck a flower without troubling a star.
Loren Eiseley