Forest Music

"Know the Structure...Compare the piece to a forest. I first try to see the entire forest...figure out where the forest begins and ends and which kinds of trees are located where...observe the other creatures and landmarks...It becomes difficult to get lost while playing."
---Jasmine Choi

Music as a forest.
Forests have shapes and patterns. Music has form, variation, repetition and contrast.
Forests rise and fall on the landscape they cover. Music's history shapes the groundwork of each new piece. How a piece was played changes as it travels from country to country and person to person.
Forests are made up of many different kinds of trees, vines, herbs and flowers. Meadows, clearings, deer trails, bird's nests and dense thickets may emerge or vanish as we wander. Chords, harmony, other instruments, ornaments, improvisations, modulations and imitation weave throughout music. We never play the music exactly the same twice.
Forests have canopies, various under-layers, brush and floor layers that are linked together in a shifting pattern. Music has countermelodies, themes, motives, counterpoint, ostinatos, bass lines, recurring lines and notes that link to each other in complex tapestries.
The seasons transform the forest year after year. Time reshapes the music with each performance, each rehearsal, each change in musical expression.  We learn new skills, polish old ones and old music becomes new.
Other creatures live within this realm though you may not see them. Audiences (large, small or solitary practice) change our choices in every performance. Our experiences and memories of other performers and teachers (even those we have forgotten) appear and disappear like magic.
The forest is ancient and immediate. Music is ephemeral and inescapable.