About the Alligator

For the past month, something reptilian has been nestled atop the homepage at pianonoise.com. I didn't want you to think he was a stock photograph. You need to know what kind of danger I put myself in to bring you this picture.

While the usual method of securing banner photos for pianonoise is to disperse our awesome staff around the world, capturing pianos and organs in the wild--sometimes even in the very act of giving concerts!--we occasionally deviate from this practice to include objects that are not music-making, and are more likely to make you their lunch.* Actually, this is the first time for that last bit.

Back in March, my wife and I spent a week in Florida. It didn't take long for the lack of snow and commutes to make her feel quite zen about the experience:

 The first day, we visited the aquarium, and saw all manner of fish and fowl native to the area, behind glass. The next day we went canoeing in a state park and saw the same creatures all around us. We were in the tank with them this time.




There was plenty of lovely flora and fauna, too, which was originally the point of the picture above, except that, on zooming in to observe her handiwork, my wife discovered a friendly reptile hiding himself among the lilies. This is the source photo for the banner at pianonoise this month, except that I've cropped it so you can more easily see our new buddy.

He'd brought along about five of his friends, too, who could be seen more obviously sunning themselves on both banks of the river. It was mid-afternoon, and none of them seemed interested in going for a swim. We didn't encourage them, and kept paddling. Just smile and keep on going, that's my motto.



(this fellow had gone missing on our return trip. He sends his regrets.)

Now that you are acquainted with my inner Steve Irwin, I'd just like to assure you that this month was an anomaly. Next month I have some man-eating skyscrapers from Pittsburgh to share with you, and in August, the beautiful organ from Heinz Chapel, where I played a concert in May. Of course, while you are gazing upon all of this death-defying photographical legederdemian, you can enjoy the articles, too.
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*I have never heard of anyone being eaten by a piano. I'm not saying it has never happened, just that I've never heard of it. --ed.

Deadlines

Science fiction comedy writer Douglas Adams liked to say "I love deadlines. I love the wooshing noise they make as they go by."

I am not such a fan of the wooshing noise. That may be because Adams was a writer, with an editor whom he could enjoy infuriating, whereas I am a performer who has to face an audience, and while my audience is generally in the low hundreds, not being a pop star who sells out open-air stadiums or anything, still, that is a lot of people to look stupid in front of. So I try not to.

When a deadline comes, it comes. There is no postponing it. In the church musician part of my life that makes a deadline every Sunday, which is pretty often. Concerts, rehearsals, take place at regularly irregular intervals as well. And often there is not really enough time to practice.

One of my conductors liked Leonard Bernstein's quote that in order "to achieve great things, two things are needed. A plan, and not quite enough time." Only I think she left off the word "quite" which is to me rather important.

In any case, I get tired of deadlines and the stress they can cause, particularly if one is not able to plan very far ahead. Usually I try to begin working on pieces for church a few weeks in advance, and a concerts a few months ahead, but this semester there has been a great deal of practicing for the next week only. This was necessitated by an unusual number of external issues that took time away from practice.  So it is with great relief that, now that the spring concert season is over, I can move into a summer with far fewer deadlines.

I've also started to work a little bit ahead once again, which is so invigorating I can't recommend it enough. Of course, tonight I have a voice recital to practically sight-read, but after that....ah. Time to be scholarly. And reflective. And to work fast without really having to work fast. On almost whatever I want! Or to put something away for a few days and then look at it again...and then shelve it. Until, magically, I am ready to play it, not because I am out of time.

I feel I am gloating.  Perhaps it is not me at my most attractive. But can you feel the sympathetic thrill of un-forced labor on something you love to do? I hope you get to experience it also. Enjoy your summer.

Vacation

I'm taking the weekend off.

Don't be alarmed, members of the Chorale, or staff members at church. I'll still be there, doing everything I'm supposed to do. This is one of those "Michael only" vacations--rest that only exists in my mind.

After a September that featured the newly refurbished organ which we welcomed with might and main during several church services, and in which I learned new and challenging music weekly with little lead time (since there was no instrument to practice on during the summer), followed by an October in which I prepared an organ concert in three weeks, an October whose last two weekends featured said concert, followed a week later by my first Marathon--

I need a little time off.

And as luck would have it, it's a light weekend. All I have are the usual four worship services and two choir rehearsals. Also a dress rehearsal and concert. And at the concert I'm not playing any solo literature. I'm filling in for the U.S. Airforce Band doublehandedly at the piano, and the only real challenge there is to fill in the parts that are marked in the choral parts only as long rests with the actual music the orchestra plays, which I accomplished by listening to a DVD from this summer's choral festival in Washington, D.C.

Maybe the definition of "vacation' needs to be explained a little.

I'm a bit tired, there's no getting around that. Mostly from the pressure of learning and playing all that new music over the last several weeks and also the physical training and running of a very long race. And the schedule itself is the schedule--particularly the weekends. It isn't going to let up for a couple of weeks, and when it does it is still the usual four worship services and two choir rehearsals. That's the bare minimum around here. It's enough to require extra sleep, when I can get it. But it doesn't necessarily feature the same kind of responsibility. Most of it is familiar, and fairly easy. And it doesn't come with the stress of a performance, or of having everything on your shoulders.

And that's the margin. Each week I have music to play, places to be, downbeats to make, and thousands of musical decisions to make within a split second. But each week I also submit to the extra challenge of trying to play difficult music on short notice as well as I can. It's that extra work that makes the difference, keeps me from boredom, makes me sharper and better as a musician, gives my congregation and audience the best I can give them rather than just some musical stuff I've got lying around. If, one week, I decided to get by on the bare minimum, it feels like a vacation. 

This week, for the first time in months, I looked at Sunday's deadline to prepare music for church and yawned. I decided not to. So I'm going to improvise the service music. This is a skill I've cultivated for years. A while ago, I read a blog extolling the virtues of improvisation which held out to organists the prospect of really impressing their congregation. I tend to look at it more as a survival skill (besides, I don't tell anybody what I'm doing, usually). It saves practice time, and if you only use it sparingly on Sundays, it feels like you suddenly didn't have to work half as hard during the week as you do normally, and you really get a break.

So that's my secret. Work harder than you have to on a regular basis. Besides honing your skills, which makes things betters for everyone around you, you will find you have more control over when to take a rest. And nobody will know when you are on vacation!

Why I didn't blog today