Repetitive Use Injuries

This topic has come up several times among my friends lately so here is what I have to say about tendonitis and other injuries that come from doing the same thing over and over.

The most important thing is to Stretch! Take short breaks while practicing to walk around, swing your arms in full circles, do your favorite stretches or just move around and put yourself in a different position for a little while. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but it's one of the best things you can do for yourself, really! If you feel uncomfortable, are in pain or have numbness, get help for whatever hurts and advice on changing how you stand, sit or hold your instrument and make sure you do it right away. NEVER ignore pain or numbness--that’s what leads to permanent injuries. It may take several tries to find the position that lets you play properly without discomfort but don’t give up. Ask for help from others if the first person you speak to can’t help you. The most common time to develop repetitive use injuries is when you are abruptly increasing the amount of time you play such as dress rehearsals for a show or the first year or two of college or graduate school. This is also the time musicians are least willing to cut back on playing just because we have a twinge somewhere. We tend to make things worse by ignoring whatever the issue is "just until this next show is done”. Don’t! Get help right away.

My personal story--In Grad school, I developed some mild discomfort in my shoulder that came and went but never completely stopped nagging me. Even at its worst, it wasn’t that bad but it was fairly constant. It bothered me while doing things other than playing (like driving) and often bothered me while I was trying to go to sleep. I tried stretching for a week or two which helped short term but the discomfort always came back just as bad as before. Sometimes it seemed tender or sore, but mostly it just felt odd. Tingly but not really numb. These are several BIG warning signs that I recognized from other musicians’ stories. They are also EARLY warning signs that are easy to ignore but I knew that would be a big mistake. I immediately tracked down a chiropractor who specializes in repetitive use injuries that people such as sports players, musicians and artists often experience. A sculptor who spends hours pounding chisels and hammers into rock sent me to him. If he can help a sculptor, he knows what he's doing! He uses a technique called active release which is basically a  localized intensive massage combined with manipulating the joint meant to put everything back in working order and reduce inflammation and pain as quickly as possible. He also gives his patients exercises to do at home so that they will eventually NOT need to see him at all and can take care of things on their own (the sign of a good chiropractor). After a few visits, I felt wonderful, that is, normal. Once or twice over the next few months, the issue flared up a little but not as bad as before and I went in for a “quick fix”. As time went on (and I got better at remembering to do the exercises) the exercises made more and more of a difference and made my shoulder feel better faster and faster. Now, if I forget to do the exercises for long enough (more than a month or two), my shoulder may start to bother me again but as soon as I do the exercises, I’m fine. And it takes longer and longer for the issue to return the more I do the exercises.

The moral is, don’t pretend things will get better on their own. The sooner these types of issues are dealt with, the easier they are to get under control. It may not be that bad to start with but waiting will make it worse. Don’t accept “you’ll have to live with it” for an answer!

The Muses Return - Reweaving Tangled Myths

I have been working on a more poetic retelling of the fragments on the over 30 Muses we can name. This is a selection from that work in progress.

Inspiring Water Nymphs

The Earth and the Sky had many children who each brought a new level, a new consciousness to the world. Blurring one into the other: Time and Direction, Cycles and Constellations, Oceans and Light. A rainbow of concepts and abstractions that shimmer and shift with each new idea, a constant blossoming of revelations laid out plain to see in the spiraling fabric of the universe. Piling up over the millennia to create the bedrock of a new mythology.

The first thing Mnemosyne the Titan did after being born was to name everything in creation, past, present and future, so they could be remembered. She brought language into the world by giving us the memory for words, sentences, ideas, melodies, pictures and stories. She knows everything that has ever happened and because of this, she can predict what will happen in the future.

Mnemosyne is the first Muse, the first source of inspiration, the first to create for beauty’s sake. She teaches the secrets of music, poetry and art to anyone willing to learn how to remember, to practice and to create. She knows that there must be a start, a beginning, for anything to be created. She is that beginning but she is also what allows the beginning to be. She is the blank page, the sounding board, the hollow silence of a dreamless sleep. That is why there are two springs in the underworld, one named Mnemosyne or Memory and the other named Lethe or Forgetfulness. And both are hers.

Gaia the wide earth and Ouranos the boundless sky had three daughters who inspired poets and musicians and danced in a ring round their joined horizon. Mneme is named for the memory of all the songs and stories entertainers must know. Melete is practice, meditation, reflection and all the solitary activities needed to learn and remember. Aoede is the song and the performance itself. They leap and play in the waters of fountains and springs that are said to wake the creative impulses of those who will chance wading in. They only whisper indistinct murmurs by day but by night, their voices ring and echo through mist and starlight. They live with Desire, Eros’s mirror, and the Graces and together they chase away cares and sorrows with dance and song. And one, Mneme, looks so much like Mnemosyne that even they no longer know if they are mother and daughter, sisters or reflections on the surface of still water. These three, or was that four?, are the first Gods to be thanked by any singer of any song.

Plusia keeps to herself. There are no tales, no listings for her name. The only clue to be found is in the name of a moth, Plusia, named for the rich gold markings of its wings. Four Muses name her as their mother, though they giggle and change their story about their father. Perhaps he was Ouranus of the primeval sky, like the others, or perhaps he was Zeus wandering down in the dark wealthy worlds of Pluto, looking for something he had lost. These four singers won’t say. Melete sits nearby meditating on all the harmonies and rhythms she will inspire while Aoede’s songs weave about in complex nets of motives and counter-melodies. Thelxinoe brings so much joy, bliss and delight to the hearts of those who encounter her, they forget that she is also a siren of Persephone’s court. And Arche, the beginning, has always been here since before the Chaos that began the universe, the source that causes all things to exist. They alone can safely wake Hypnos from his unending sleep. They know how to lie and how to tell the truth and how to be believed either way.

Now ever since he was a little child, Apollo would watch his big sister lead the Muses in song. He found any excuse he could to follow them to their dancing rings and soaked the music in. They even let him play the reed-pipes, a gift of Athena’s, to their singing if he was lucky. Three Muses soon formed a group round him and taught him to play a new instrument, a lyre with strings that sounded sweet from high to low. Their rhymes and meters seemed to rise up out of the earth itself, whispering hints of what was to come, that Apollo the lucky sun child collected and spread to the world. Kephiso took her name from a river full of springs and little dreams. Borysthenis means strength like other old, old names used by Hecate, Aphrodite, Demeter and the Furies. And Apollonis shone like the sun and moon in the sky.

And then there is Polymatheia, the orphan, and her ghosts. Three Muses from Sicyon once, now only Polymatheia remembers her name. She loves “much learning” of all kinds; knowledge for its own sake makes her sing and dance. She haunts theaters and universities with their comedies and tragedies and laughingly calls Dionysus’s wine “light” compared to the intoxication of study and art. Though she would never miss a show of his and thrills in mixing words and notes, like water and honey, till they have become something other, something more, than they once were. And perhaps she is the Muse who kept the mighty flying Pegasus following tamely at her heels. Though that must have been after its hooves had created the four springs of the fountain where, some say, all the Muses were born.

One day Mnemosyne was out singing and naming things she found under the sky. Zeus of the wide stretching sky saw her, and saw her name him. And down to the earth he fell. What exactly they did neither ever would say but for nine days and nights they wandered the hills and pastures, and everyone living heard music coming from the leaves in all the trees.

Then a year or so later Mnemosyne gave birth to her nine daughters. Drunk from birth on song, they emerged into the world free of worries or cares. They were so alike that they had to be named and given symbols to tell one from the other. Though of course they promptly traded their baubles back and forth as if it was all the same to them. All learning was creation to them, all words became poetry in their minds. To walk was to dance and to speak was to sing. At celebrations, no one was more welcome, but between times, Artemis was the only God as mad for music as they. Linking arms, these ten danced all night under the stars, singing like a pack of wolves to the moon.

Antiope the nymph known as “the good mare” and Pierus the king of a spring on a mountain once had seven daughters, lovely as sirens, who sang for their supper. They leapt out into the world and let their voices fly through the sky, singing of rivers and seas, flowers and the moon. Inevitably, they met the nine daughters of Mnemosyne one day and the whole noisy bunch of them had to sing together. Soon the world was brought to a standstill by this full chorus and even the newly born wild Pegasus was caught by the layered sounds. The sky itself went dark with distraction and the springs all held their breath, in wonder. And then, in that silent moment at the end of all music and songs, half of these Muses bowed, sprouted feathers and took wing, traveling out into the myths as seven magpies, or perhaps it was nine different birds, that the Muses love to this day.

Roses and Birds are Linked to the Muses

My later post, The Muse Contest, has more detailed information on the traditional 9 Muses and the 7 Muses of Pieria.

Lemon Balm and Whiskey

Different music comes about in different ways, often in ways I don’t entirely understand. This is the story of how two of my tunes were created.

My Dad died about three years ago. He was a musician, guitar mainly, and the person who first showed me how to get sound out of the flute (although he didn’t really play flute, just knew the basics). After he died, I went outside and played. The tunes were fairly short, slow and moody, not too surprisingly, and so was most of the music I played for a bit after that. A few months later, I took my Dad’s car (which I inherited) to get an oil change. One of the mechanics at the garage is also a musician and was asking me about some of my flutes. Since I was going to play a show later, I had the glass piccolo with me so I pulled it out and played a little for the guys in the garage. For the first time in several months I felt like playing something at least a little less sad. What came out of the picc as a result was the first couple of phrases of “Lament’s Balm.” It took forever for me to figure out this was the piece’s name, and I called it that-garage-tune to myself for more than a year. I liked the tune right off and worked with it right away. Within a week it developed a companion tune that was fairly bouncy, energetic and builds to end on the second highest note the glass picc can play. I quickly named the second tune “I’m Not Dead Yet, Pass the Whiskey Please” which was directly inspired from one of the last poems in my Dad’s journal. The two tunes traveled together for about half a year so very firmly I thought I might not need to name the first tune at all. Then they abruptly split into two independent pieces. I sometimes still play them together but they are no longer permanently joined.

Lemon Balm Blossoms-Lament's Balm

Lemon Balm is supposed to make people feel happy or at least calm. It is certainly delicious enough.

Both of these tunes are fairly typical for me in that they jump around and rearrange themselves a great deal. However, “Lament’s Balm” has a bit more of a solid outline to its melody line even though it shifts wildly within that basic shape. “Pass the Whiskey” has several defined phrases that hold it together and a basic rhythm and build, but resisted being more defined for quite some time. The result is that “Lament’s Balm” was ready to record fairly quickly and “Pass the Whiskey” is only now reaching the stage when I feel ready to record it.

Most of my composing is based on improvisation, not formal composition training. I studied a great deal of music theory but not with the intent of developing composition skills. The theory training seems to have functioned more as a net for when the improvisation loses its grip during its trapeze act (all right so my metaphor needs a little work but you get the idea).

Lemon Balm Sun Tea-Good for a hot day

Inside Out, Back to Front and Upside Down - Dyslexic Thoughts

Some dyslexics have few or no obvious problems reading music. Others never learn to read music at all. I had only minor issues in music in spite of some fairly immovable problems in other areas. But the more I talk with others and read about how dyslexia affects music reading, the more I notice little issues that I have always assumed were normal. So I’ve been collecting and sharing various tips that people have used to make music reading easier.

The main idea to keep in mind is to avoid an overload of information. For example, don’t try to hit everything in sight reading all at once. Take it slow, work on short overlapping sections of music (4 notes at a time is not too short), look at the music without your instrument (the think method--yes there really is a use for it) and take breaks to process. Try to step back from the music when you are having trouble and think about what is going on. Is it a problem with learning the music that a music teacher can help with, or do you recognize the dyslexic issue from other situations (and can you use a solution from there)? And don’t hesitate to ask another player or a music teacher for ideas even if they aren’t dyslexic or haven’t (knowingly) taught dyslexics before. Their job is to teach a creative activity. Many of them get good at coming up with creative solutions.

Some of these suggestions have drawbacks in the music world. Knowing about them in advance may make it easier to work around them. I’ve noticed that the people who study dyslexia often dismiss the drawbacks to their strategies or act as if there are none. This is not helpful and can lead to some nasty confrontations, so I say think about possible issues and ways to deal in advance.

A lot of these suggestions work better if you can copy the music. Some music scores are larger than regular pieces of paper. There are often large margins that mean if you place the music just right, all the important parts will get copied. However my dyslexia sometimes keeps me from being able to tell when the top or bottom line of a staff has been cut off. Especially when the original is right there in front of me. I have resorted to asking strangers to tell me if my copy worked or not. They are usually confused, but willing to help. But it may sometimes be necessary to go to a place that will handle the copying for you and check to make sure everything worked. This can get pricey if you have to pay for the copies yourself and have a lot of music. Sometimes if you are playing in a group, they will make some copies for performers, but don’t count on this. They may very well have to pay for their copies, too. If you tell them your situation, they may be willing to make more copies than they normally would. Otherwise, you may have to toss the seat cushions for all the loose change you can find or use another solution. And keep in mind that some music is available online to print off.

1) Enlarge the music. This depends completely on having access to a copy machine that can enlarge.
2) Put matching colors at the beginning and end of lines (such as green at the end of one line and beginning of the next line, then blue, then green, etc.) to help your eye find the next line. DON’T do this on RENTED music or any music a school or other group has given you unless they said the music was yours to keep. The fees for making permanent marks on music can be horrifying. Even using colored pencils is not safe since they do not erase the way regular pencils do. If you can, copy the music THEN use colors on it.

A variation on this is to get little sticky tabs in different colors and attach them to the page at the ends and beginnings of lines. Make sure they are no stickier than post-it notes so you can remove them cleanly. The flapping/shadows of the tags could trigger dyslexic issues for some people though.
Another option is to extend the lines of the staff at the end and beginning of every other line so there are long and short staffs alternating. This is my pick.

3) Darken the middle line of the stave, and the first ledger lines above and below. This could be done with pencil fairly well if you have a steady hand for following lines. Some dyslexics do, some don’t. Using a ruler may help. If you are required to erase all marks in the music before you return it, clean up could be very tedious. The lighter you mark, the easier it will be to erase. Some dyslexics have a difficult time writing lightly but using a softer lead pencil may help. Again, copying the music and then marking is an option.
4) Rewrite the music so that all the stems go the same direction. Be aware that this can take some time whether you write it out by hand or have access to music writing software.
5) Make sure that the music is written in proportional notation (half notes occupy twice as much space as quarter notes) to help reading rhythm. Getting a version printed this way depends on the publisher and printer doing a good job or being able to use music writing software to print your own copy. And not all music writing software does this well at all. You can try, but it may not be possible.
6) Keep similar fingerings in similar passages. Within reason. There are sometimes good reasons for different fingerings. When there is a passage that needs to be fingered differently than the others, mark it.

7) Color the top and bottom line of the staff. Again, DON’T make colored MARKS in music that isn’t yours. Unless you really want to pay a fee to replace it. Copy then mark.

8) Read the music backwards. Yes, really. There are 2 ways of doing this.

One is to read the music backwards, note by note. Going through music backwards makes people process information differently and notice details that we couldn’t see before.

The other way is to work on the last measure first, by itself. Then work on the second to last measure and so on. Both of these are actually great tricks for anyone, dyslexic or not, who is learning new music.

9) Watch your hands. Don’t twist into a bad playing position though! If you can’t see your hands easily while playing, place a mirror where you won’t have to move your eyes much to see what your fingers are up to. The theory is that this closes a loop in the brain between vision, sound and physical actions which helps both with accurate playing and memory. Obviously, you won’t be able to do this in most performances, so use it as a practice technique and practice without the mirror as well so you are used to it.

10) Some people have trouble dealing with tied rhythms. Others have a tough time reading the dotted notes. If one trips you up, try re-writing the music with all the ties in dotted notation or all the dotted notes written as ties. Re-writing music can be time consuming, so this is not always an option.

11) Copy music onto light colored paper like yellow, tan, grey, light blue or lavender. The glare from white paper sometimes makes reading trickier. Pick a color that makes your eyes willing to look at the page.

12) Play by ear. A fair number of dyslexic musicians do much better when they can study music by listening to it, either in addition to or instead of reading it. This involves finding a good recording (that is, a good performance) to listen to while trying to play along and listening over and over. This is how the Suzuki method and lot of Jazz works. If you play by ear while reading music, take time to play without listening after you feel familiar with the piece as well.

13) Use shapes with letter names. For example put a circle around A, a triangle around B and so on. This works best if there are only a few note names you are having trouble with so you don’t have to come up with seven different shapes.
14) When learning new music, look at one part of it at a time. Look for the repeats and overall pattern without worrying about the notes, look at the melody separately from the rhythm, break it down anyway you can. And look at the dynamic and tempo markings on their own too.

Dyslexia can cause very specific issues like being unable to read the number 4 but having no trouble with other numbers. This means that each of us will use different methods of coping. Some of these ideas work for some people but not others, and some may even make things worse for individuals. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it upsets me to have the stems all going the same way but that trick works wonders for others. The key to dealing with dyslexia is to use what works FOR YOU. Don’t do something that doesn’t help just because an “expert” thinks it should work and don’t reject something because it didn’t work for someone else. No two dyslexics are exactly the same.

And remember, some of these ideas may help even if you only use them on SOME of your music. You may find that reading regular music is less overwhelming after using these strategies on your daily exercises and personal music (that you don’t mind marking up). I’m not saying that your dyslexia will go away or any other stupid thing like that. Just that you may be able to teach your brain how to work around some of your issues. Or you may need to use these tricks extensively your whole life. Whatever works!

This is by no means an exhaustive list, just what I've run across so far. Feel free to share other ideas in the comments.

Of The Muses I Sing

 As with all Greek mythology, the details of the Muses’ story are a little changeable.  They seem to have started out as nymphs associated with springs and fountains that bring inspiration. Since the different regions in Greece each had their own inspiring springs, the Muses had different names and numbers in the various myths.
At times, the Muses almost exist without any family and are named for the music they make. There are three Muses named for three different types of instruments (strings, winds and percussion usually). Other times, they are named for vocal, instrumental and dance music. And I once read that one Muse was born from the movement of water, one from the movement of air and one was embodied in the human voice.

Tame(ish) Fountain

When the Muses' parents are Ouranos (the Sky) and Gaia (the Earth) there are usually 1 (Mnemosyne), 3 (Melete, Mneme and Aoede) or 4 (Arche, Thelxinoe, Aoede and Melete) of them.  
Mnemosyne is sometimes called the first Muse and this is the only name that appears as a solitary Muse figure. She is considered the Goddess of memory and language partly because the first thing she did was to name everything in existence so they could be sung about.
Other times, there are three Muse sisters; Melete “practicing/meditation”, Mneme “remembering” and Aoede “singing.” Under these names, they are living versions of how poets and musicians work. This set is also described as the Titan Muses, the older generation. Mnemosyne was at times considered a fourth Muse of this group.
Another group of four Muses descended from either Gaia or a Nymph named Plusia and Ouranos or Zeus use the names Arche (beginning), Thelxinoe (the heart delighting), Aoede (song), and Melete (more practicing).

When their parents are Zeus and Mnemosyne (Goddess of memory, time and prophecy) there are usually 9 sisters. They were all born at once, were addicted to song and had dancing-grounds on mountains and near fountains and wells. Artemis led them in singing hymns and circle dances. At first, Apollo played the aulos, a double-reed instrument, with the Muses but switched to the lyre after Hermes invented it. They were also companions of Dionysus, the other God of music. The Muses traveled wrapped in clouds and their voices could only be heard at night. They lived with the Graces and are the patrons of poets and musicians.

Other traditions make the three Muses the daughters of Apollo. These three are sometimes named after the lowest, middle and highest strings on the lyre or are called Kephiso "of the river Kephiso", Apollonis "daughter of Apollo" and Borysthenis "strength."
And there are Muses whose names we have lost completely. Polymatheia "much learning/knowledge" is the only surviving name from a set of 3 Muses worshiped at Sicyon.

The House of the Muses Today

The number of Muses steadily increases (the 7 Muse daughters of Pierus are Neilo, Tritone, Asopo, Heptapora, Achelois, Tipoplo, and Rhodia; for more on them see The Muse Contest) until nine is the most accepted number. Eventually, a tradition developed of assigning specific forms of poetry, and the music that went with it, to individual Muses. The precise list of who was linked with which art form changes depending on which writer you are reading.


-Kleio “the giver of fame” took charge of history poems. She played horns and trumpets. Two other Muses in this group play brass instruments.

-Euterpe “the giver of joy” played the aulos, directed all instrumental music and was in charge of lyric poetry. Euterpe is called a flute player so often, it is nearly impossible to convince people otherwise and really, I like having a Muse connected to my particular instrument. But the aulos has no relation to the flute. It was a double-reed instrument with no true modern equivalent. I consider her the Muse of woodwind instruments.

-Thaleia “the festive or blooming” led the music of comedy and comic plays.

-Melpomene “the singer” had charge of music for tragedies and elegies and played horn.

-Terpsichore “enjoys dancing” danced and played the lyre. In some lists, she is in charge of choral songs.

-Erato “awakener of desire” inspired erotic poetry, danced and wedding music. In some lists, she is in charge of mimic imitation.

-Polymnia or Polyhymnia “many hymns” sang story-telling songs. Others say she is in charge of religious hymns and/or mimic arts.

-Ourania “heavenly one” studied astronomy and played a drum or a gong to keep time.

-Kalliope “beautiful voice” was awarded epic or heroic songs and played trumpet.

In the myths, the Muses are most often referred to as the musical accompaniment at celebrations and funerals attended by the Gods. Poets generally praised them at the opening and closing of any song, partly in hopes of performing well. There are stories of false Muses (sometimes nine daughters of a king) challenging the Muses either in a song contest or by setting up their own cult. Like most Greek Gods, the Muses do not take the challenge well. When the true Muses sang, the sky, stars, sea and rivers all stood still and a fountain sprang up on Mount Helicon. They then turned the challengers into birds, either magpies or nine different songbirds. Since the Muses themselves were able to turn into birds, this leaves the question of who the true Muses were open for debate. Sometimes one of the Muses is claimed as the mother of the Sirens, another group of singing bird women. The Sirens are also said to have challenged the Muses. The Muses then stripped their feathers from their wings and wore them as crowns. Nearly every singer, musician or poet in mythology is said to be a child of one of the Muses or at least raised and taught by them. And a shocking number of them are punished by the Muses for various offenses. Blinding is one of their favorite punishments, but considering the tradition of blind poets and musicians, one has to wonder...

Wild Spring

The Muses are worshiped at fountains, springs and wells. They teach the arts of healing and prophecy. They know how to lie and reveal the truth. They sing in consort, dance in rounds and whisper into our dreams. They are Goddesses of art, science and knowledge and they remember everything that has ever happened. They inspire creativity of all kinds and they bring forgetfulness of sorrows and cares. The Orphics worshiped the Muses especially and said there were two springs in the underworld that the dead could drink from, the spring of Mnemosyne “memory” and the spring of Lethe “forgetfulness”.

Reflections

Smile on my little song, Ladies of delight. Bring me foresight, sweet melodies, freedom from sorrows and a good memory.

For more info about the Muses, see my other Muse posts.

A Breathing Meditation

Breathing. Short, deep breaths in. Long, slow breaths out. This is how wind players breathe. Faster air exhaling means shorter, less musical phrases. Many students think they don’t have the lung capacity to play long phrases but in reality, what they need is more control. Flute is described as taking the most air to play as a beginner. There is no mouth piece to catch or direct the air, so most students use too much air at first. This means they get dizzy and think they need to “stretch” their lungs. As their embouchures improve and less air escapes, they are able to play longer between breaths and their tone gets better, becomes less “breathy.” A tight embouchure is not what I am talking about here, but a controlled one that directs the air as precisely as possible. It takes time and experience to learn this but the benefits don’t stop at music making.

The attention runners and swimmers give their breath is the same kind needed for wind players. It is about using the breath you have efficiently so that you will not need to stop before you reach the end of the track or score. People with asthma often discover they do in fact have more than enough breath to play wind instruments, but they are using their air too fast. Deep and gentle breaths get you to the end of the piece, while shallow and frantic breaths prevent you from making music.

There are a number of yoga breathing techniques that can help you learn to control your breath. One is to breathe in and slowly fill your lungs from top to bottom all in one breath. Let your upper chest and shoulders fill completely with air, then fill the middle of your lungs and finally let your lower lungs and belly expand. Then exhale in the reverse order, emptying your belly of air, then the middle of your lungs and finally your upper chest. See just how slowly you can do this without getting dizzy. After doing this several times, try filling and emptying your lungs from bottom to top. Learning all the different ways your lungs can fill with air can show you just how much air you truly have and teach you to slow your exhalations down. The technique itself calms you down, which gives you more control over your breath on its own.

Another old flute teacher’s trick is to light a candle and exhale so that the flame bends and dances but does not go out. See just how little breath it takes to make the flame spin and how long you can keep it twisting before you breathe in. Use as small a stream of air as you can, then release a large, loose, uncontrolled gust and experience the difference in the breath, and watch the flame, your breath made visible.

In early spring I like to go outside and breathe in. The smell of hyacinths fills my mouth and lungs and echoes in my senses as I exhale slowly, savoring. Lilacs sneak up on me, like a canonic duet.

 

Later, when the roses and sweet rocket bloom, I reach for the more delicate scent, breathing in gently, controlling how long the rich smells touch my nose. Then breathe out, allowing all the different scents to roll and mix, forming harmonies.

The scent of lemon balm tea makes me breathe so that each rib rises, expands and relaxes until it feels as if my entire midsection is made of air. Control and delight. This is how I think about breathing when playing the flute.

Trivia About Perfect and Relative Pitch

Perfect pitch is the ability to identify a note or key without any other musical reference. Only about 1 in 10,000 people have perfect pitch although that number is higher among musicians. In my classes it was something like 1 in 60-100. It is generally associated with musical skill but it does not seem to be a result of training, at least not exclusively, and turns up in people with little or no musical experience as well as musicians. It does make some aspects of music easier (such as writing down music by ear) but it can get in the way of others (such as when a group plays a piece in a different tuning or key than a person with perfect pitch is used to hearing). Some people speculate that it is inherited and some that it is a result of an early musical environment. It is more common for children raised with tonal languages (languages were the pitch changes have meaning) to have perfect pitch but only if they are raised speaking the language. In "The Singing Neanderthals", Steven Mithen mentions a study that suggests all humans are in fact born with perfect pitch but most of us lose the ability as we age. Also when people sing, they usually sing within a whole-step of the key they originally learned the song, with or without musical training. The suggestion he makes is that perfect pitch actually gets in the way of learning languages (all of them, but less for tonal languages) so most of us become more flexible and switch to using some form of relative pitch with a few hanging onto the perfect pitch ability for some reason.

Relative pitch is not the same thing as perfect pitch but at its most refined levels can seem similar. It is the ability to take one note as a starting point and identify or play other notes accurately related to it. This CAN be learned to varying degrees and is part of the focus of ear training classes. One student in a theory class I assisted with had almost never sung in his life, just played instruments. When he began the class, he had a terrible time sight singing and was in danger of failing the class but he could hear that he wasn’t singing things right. He spent a great deal of time practicing, studying and improving his relative pitch sense. By the end of the year, he was almost at the same level as the top 5 students in terms of accuracy which was the point. People with perfect pitch may have good relative pitch without trying but also may have to struggle to learn relative pitch. A friend of mine from college with perfect pitch said that identifying notes on the slightly out of tune piano used in our ear training class was incredibly difficult and showed him that he needed to develop his relative pitch more.

Improvisation Can Change the World

Improvisation is one of my favorite ways of performing live. And comparing different styles of improvisation gives some interesting insights to the different approaches the various genres of music use.
Baroque and Classical improvisation is based (these days) on a very strict method of comparing how melody and harmony interact. There are frighteningly thick books on how to improvise correctly in these styles, mostly full of examples that look like simple little ornaments (turns, trills, runs and so on). However where they are placed in the melody and harmony is critical and very quickly turns into something much more complex than just adding ornaments. The way I learned was to go through these books and find examples that supported each and every single note I added to what the composer had written. Every week I would go to my lesson with the page covered in pencil scribbles and my teacher would demand that I support ALL my choices and added notes from one of the 2,000 page books or start over. Then tell me to go add more. Before too long, what I was playing was so different from the original music that other people had to ask what piece I was working on even if they were familiar with it.
Jazz improvisation is also based on leaping off from the melody and/or the harmony but the style of learning is quite different. Students are often told to listen to other players' solos and learn them note by note then try to figure out how those solos relate to the original music. Then compare different solos on the same music and different solos by the same performer. The theory is that after learning enough solos this way, you will begin to be able to create your own in a similar style.
In many ways, Classical works from the outside in by studying exactly where and how to place tiny additions until it builds into something musical. Jazz comes at it from the inside out, learn musical solos until you figure out the patterns and rules that are being used (or broken). One more interesting point is that, back in the day, Classical music was actually studied in a similar fashion to the Jazz approach. J. S. Bach famously transcribed other composers music to learn voice leading. But of course now we have the rules written out, learn them first and worry about making them sound musical later.
In Middle Eastern music (which I freely admit I am less familiar with) improvisation has a different spin. Setting aside the fact that many of the harmonies and scales use micro-tones, there is more of an assumption that the audience will be somewhat musically educated and the performer is expected to make them work to follow their improvisation. This can be interesting when you are familiar with this style but it can also make it difficult for people who haven’t studied this style to get into the music. One form of improvisation from the Eastern style that does intrigue me is to take one note, ornament it more and more then add another note or two and ornament them together. This creates a nice build to the music and often combines well with other improvisation styles.
I find that looking at these and other methods of improvising expands my ability to use them all. I enjoy the way the different styles expand on each other and how they change my view of the musical world they are creating. I may not master every single style I study but I always take new ideas away from them and every new idea changes how I use the styles I am already familiar with and sometimes allows me to use an idea I had trouble understanding before.

Music Myths - The Greeks

Pan is one of the most well known Gods to play the flute or at least a flute family instrument. I’m not even going to try to list the songs named after him or connected to him. “Syrinx” by Debussy is one of the most famous. The story most often told with this piece today is that there was a nymph named, shockingly, Syrinx. Pan, the randy little goat, liked her. A lot. She was less interested in him, but those Greek Gods didn’t really believe in taking no for an answer. So she ran away from him and prayed for help. Just as Pan was catching up with her, she was transformed into a bunch of reeds (the Greeks got a lot of their plants that way). Pan heard the wind making music in the reeds and promptly invented the panpipes or syrinx, an instrument made of reeds of different lengths. Debussy’s “Syrinx” is the song Pan first played, according to the current program notes. Except that wasn’t the original story. “Syrinx” was first written as incidental music for a play about Cupid and Psyche. Psyche was a mortal woman married to Cupid, the son of Venus the Goddess of love. Venus disapproved and separated the pair leaving Psyche pregnant, homeless and very unhappy. Just as she is about to commit suicide, she hears music. She follows it to find Pan who talks her out of killing herself and sends her off to work things out with Venus (a messy process but things work out in the end). That is the moment this piece was written for, when Pan leads Psyche out of despair and sends her to be initiated by Venus. In the Homeric Hymns, Hermes the trickster God plays the panpipes and tells the story of Syrinx and Pan to put a hundred-eyed monster to sleep. Hermes also invented the lyre but gave it to Apollo to make up for stealing the Sun God’s cows (when he was 3 days old).
The aulos is a reed instrument from ancient Greece but it is sometimes mistranslated as flute (for no good reason). It sometimes has one pipe and sometimes has two but always uses double reeds like an oboe. The aulos was considered a wild instrument that inspired uncivilized behavior. It was linked with the worship of Cybele, a rather fierce Goddess the Greeks never felt comfortable with. When Perseus killed Medusa the snake-haired Gorgon, her sisters wailed for her. Athena the Goddess of wisdom was so fascinated by the sound, she invented the aulos to imitate them and taught Apollo to play. One day she saw herself playing in a mirror, and/or Hermes made fun of the way her mouth looked, and she threw the pipes away. Some people argue this shows Athena originally came from outside Greece and was modified by her new culture.
Apollo is the official God of music for the ancient Greeks but he doesn’t invent any instruments in the myths. He gets lessons on instruments or is given them as bribes but does not create any himself. There was once a music competition between Apollo on the lyre, the instrument of civilization, and Marsyas on the aulos, the instrument of barbarians. One version of the myth says Apollo won and Marsyas was punished for presuming to challenge the God. Another says that Marsyas won and was punished for showing up the God. Apollo is the God of harmony, order and structure. He cares about using music for civilization and education. He is in charge of all formal music that follows the rules and is not too stimulating, too sad or too emotional.
This brings us to Dionysus. He is the God of wine but he is also the other God of music. He is in charge of all the instruments too wild for Apollo and all music from countries other than Greece. His music stirs up passion and ecstatic behavior that can’t be controlled. He is in charge of music for grief, for drinking, for relaxing or just for pleasure (arguably the most dangerous music of all according to the Greeks). Dionysus is also in charge of the theater and all the music used to set the mood in plays (the origins of both opera and movie music).
The Muses are a group of Goddesses (sometimes 3, 7 or 9 depending on the myth) in charge of all the arts. They are each associated with different forms of poetry, science, math and music which were all considered related subjects by the Greeks. Euterpe is most often put in charge of the aulos (which is nearly always called a flute when related to her) and instrumental music in general. The Muses were protective of their arts. In some myths, they train up heroes to be wonderful musicians (such as Orpheus). In others, they have competitions with other musicians and tear them apart, win or loose. Artemis the Goddess of the hunt leads the Muses in circle dances and Apollo conducts their choirs.

Transposition on Key-less Flutes

I was talking with a friend about his new key-less flute and he was lamenting that he would have to find songs in the same key as the flute to play. So I told him about a trick that works great (for some people) to play a song in a different key that I learned from my dad, a jazz guitarist.
Say your flute is in C but the piece you want to play is in A flat major. First think about the scale the flute plays in terms of number; C-1, D-2, E-3 and so on. Then number the notes in the piece by were they fall in the A flat major scale; A flat-1, B flat-2, C-3 and so on. Then match the numbers up. Works for minor scales too. Our imagined flute in C major would be able to play in A minor easiest so; A-1, B-2, C-3. If the piece is in E minor; E-1, F#-2, G-3 and off you go.
Some people have trouble thinking in terms of numbers but some people find that in terms of music, its less like MATH and easier than remembering to play up a 5th or down a 3rd. And if it works, use it!

The Dyslexic Musician

I am dyslexic. Except that I may not be. The label of dyslexia still covers an incredibly wide range of issues and I suspect a number of learning disabilities are still lumped in together. Some experts acknowledge that not all dyslexics have the exact same issues but others have trouble with that concept. In my case, some of the descriptions for dyslexia are very accurate and others might as well be talking about my cat rather than me. My school actively rejected the idea that I was dyslexic for nearly 3 years because (a direct quote here) "she can't be dyslexic; she's not a behavior problem." (Dyslexia does not CAUSE behavior problems but the frustration dyslexics feel, and the way they are often treated, can.) In fact, no one realized I had a learning disability until I was being tested for the gifted program. But I stopped worrying about what the exact word for me should be a long time ago. Most people are familiar with the term dyslexia even if they don’t understand it and I have been officially labeled as dyslexic at least once so it is convenient to use.
Why am I talking about this in a music blog? Well, one of the issues of dyslexia is reading symbols and being able to apply the correct meaning to them. Music notation is not exempt but it is also not quite the same as reading language. My biggest difficulty is that I can’t look at a word and see the letters that make it up without moving very slowly and deliberately from one letter to the next but if I read the word by how it is shaped I have little or no problem. In music, there aren’t nicely separated words to lump together but at the same time, the graph that the notes are laid out on helps keep the notes from mixing themselves up as badly as letters in words. I was THRILLED to realize that the letter names on the musical staff never move! They are always in the same spot vertically even when they aren’t in the same order going from left to right, something that just doesn’t happen when reading words. Another thing that seems to make a difference is that the musical notation has a very direct connection to physical actions (fingerings). It didn’t matter if I remembered the letter name of the note, all I had to do was let my fingers match up with the note I was looking at. It has been shown that a number of dyslexics can read or spell better if some kind of movement is linked to reading. Using the sign language alphabet was my saving grace on spelling tests! Still, reading one note at a time can be a very slow process for me. But there is an upside. Once I’ve played through the music a few times, I don’t have to work so hard to know what note I’m looking at partly because I have a loose memory of the piece, melody or phrase as a whole. The result is that my sight reading is only so-so but I improve by leaps and bounds each time I go through the music. My favorite kinds of auditions are when everyone is given the music and an hour or so to go over it before we play. I really shine on those.
I learned to read fairly slowly but as time passed, I eventually became not only fluent but a speed-reader (possibly a result of reading entire words rather than letters). Music was a similar experience. The more music I learned, both scores and memorized scales, the less difficulty the notes on the page gave me although I do still label the notes with ledger lines fairly frequently. There was surprisingly little that I had to do to work with my dyslexia in music but I have found that simply understanding some of what was going on in my twisted brain reduced a great deal of the strain and stress which in and of itself reduces how difficult it is to read for some dyslexics. And sometimes I could use tricks that worked on other areas in music as well.
Because of the odd mash of issues mixed in with dyslexia, it is unlikely that other dyslexic musicians will all have exactly the same experiences as me. Some learn by ear stunningly well, some never notice issues reading music at all, some have trouble when jumping down to the next line of music, some have difficulty combining the written instructions (crescendo or a tempo for example) with the musical notation until they are more familiar with the music and so on. I have talked with musicians with no learning issues who found the dyslexic tricks interesting and helpful to hear about for their own practice. Really what I hope you’ll take away from this is there is no one way to approach the world. If you see things differently, work with it. Find the advantages as well as the difficulties. Find new ways of tackling issues and try to notice things that are easier for you.

How I Didn't Learn to Compose

I never wanted to be a composer. I ornamented tunes and slowly learned to improvise but just never had any desire to write music or even to attempt to replay tunes I came up with. Sometimes I experimented with recording my improvisation which did eventually help me remember snippets but it still didn’t seem I was writing music. Certainly I don’t feel the music rattling in my head the way poems do, demanding to be written before I can sleep at night. Music simply flows out my hands through the flute and into the air with no particular effort and no request that I keep going till they are done. Poems clack and bang about insisting I work them out before they let me go. So it didn’t seem as if there was any reason for me to be a composer. Even if the tunes I could recreate were slowly increasing. And the variety of improvisation was expanding and becoming more interesting to me. By the time I started playing the Ren Fest, I was beginning to suspect that there was more going on than I had guessed. Spending entire weekends working on my music has done amazing things to my composing. Nothing else ever caused me to actually write music the way the regular focus on my own improvisation did. All the theory classes, music writing exercises, jazz and Baroque improvisation turned out to be just prep work. After one or two years, recording a CD seemed natural. There was so much music pouring out of me that it was nearly impossible not to recognize and develop some but it still seemed a long way from composing. By the time the second CD came along I knew I was going to have to admit to composing music fairly soon. Where I am going with this creation or it with me, I still don’t really know but I do know that the music spins round my head now, not quite the way poems do but just as inescapably. And unlike poetry, there is no demand, no insistence that I do anything about it. The music doesn’t stop (or rather settle quietly) just because a tune has been worked out. Harmonies, melodies, variations, dances and laments overlapping and separating, sometimes one at a time and at others dozens competing for an audience. All exist with me or without. But oh, I am so glad they have come to live in my head.

Why Feral?

My father once said he was an indigent farmer and I was one of the indigents he was raising. How right that joke was. I grew up in the forest. With goats, chickens, coyotes, wild raspberries, weeds, overgrown creeks and deep still ponds. My parents did very little to change the forest, preferring to let nature decide how things should grow and letting us kids run loose in the growing wilderness. As a result, I feel out of place in towns and cities. There is just so little wildlife there, so little green plant growth. I don't navigate very well without tree trunks surrounding me and find street signs an oddly awkward way of marking trails. In many ways, I feel like a feral creature; one who comes from a domesticated species but now lives wild.
When I went off to study music, I studied Classical. It is actually difficult to get training on the flute that isn't Classical but I would have gone that route anyway because I love the music. Yet, Classical training is, in a sense, the domesticated form of the modern musician. The teaching program is well worked out and fairly similar for each person. Classical musicians are not encouraged to go out and play on street corners for random strangers. Instead, they are trained to perform indoors and only to play Classical music, not folk. Even Jazz is somewhat suspect by some teachers.
Now I love playing in concert halls for audiences who also love Classical music. But I also love playing Celtic music, Middle Eastern music and as many different musical ideas as I can. And I especially love improvising - the magic of creating music on the spot is wilder, freer, more feral than anything else I have run across.

Program Notes or What I'm on about in my albums

Digital downloads available in all the usual locations.

Link to buy CDs of Amaltheia... 

Amaltheia's Lullaby-program notes-
In Greek Mythology, Amaltheia is a nymph or a goat who raised Zeus the God of thunder. Pan, half God half Goat, is the God of the wilderness. There are many different stories of Pan’s birth and antics. As the son of Amaltheia’s goat, Pan was raised in a cave with Zeus. Another story says Pan and Arcas were the twin sons of Zeus and Callisto a nymph who was changed into a bear. In yet another story, Pan helped Zeus after his sinews were stolen by the guardian of the sacred oracle at Delphi. Pan often plays a panpipe or a syrinx that can put anyone to sleep. A Labyrinth is a maze with only one path in and out. The version often seen in Crete, where Zeus and Pan were said to have been raised, has seven corridors.
The four notes F G C and E-flat are a call to Pan according to some. All the pieces on this album relate to these notes.

1 Cave Lullaby---alto flute

2 Bear Dance-Cub Steps---flute

3 Bear Dance-Tempo Challenge---flute

4 Transposing Delphi-Lament and Lure---alto flute

5 Transposing Delphi-Mirror Dreams---alto flute

6 Beggars Pan---glass piccolo

7 Labyrinth-1^st Loop-Lulling---flute

8 Labyrinth-2^nd Loop-Memory Game---flute

9 Labyrinth-3^rd Loop-In the Garden---flute

10 Labyrinth-4^th Loop-In and Out---flute

11 Labyrinth-5^th Loop-Weaving---flute

12 Labyrinth-6^th Loop-Turn About---flute

13 Labyrinth-7^th Loop-Rainstorm---flute

14 Rain and Flood Lullaby---flute

 

 

 

Link to buy CDs of Waking...

Waking the Devas-program notes-
A while ago, a friend of mine was telling me about her new garden. It was in the country across the road from a forest. It made her happy just seeing it. It overflowed with life as if little spirits were peeping out around the tomatoes, morning glories and grass. Even the bugs that ate plants down to the ground had a magic to them although that didn’t make them less of a nuisance. The garden became a nursery for nature devas, a safe place for them to gain strength as they step, roll and rush out into the world. This got me thinking about waking the devas, fairies, nature spirits in the world around us. Drawing them into the cracks in our lives and letting them run wild. Messy sometimes but more than worth it for all the joy they bring.

1 Lament’s Balm---glass piccolo in C recorded in a forest clearing

2 Rain Dare---glass picc during a rainstorm with a few cows

3 Thaw Longing (Sun in January)---flute as a wind front built up

4 Wind and Rain (Waking Lullaby)---glass picc in a garden during a break in the rain

5 Flood Drops---flute on a sunny winter day in a greenhouse

6 Drawing Out---glass flute in G on a windy sunny day in a greenhouse

7 Fireflies-Here and There---flute at early night on the edge of the woods with crickets

8 (Enter Chorus) How Hummingbird Sees Time---baroque flute on an afternoon in a forest clearing as the cicadas warmed up

9 (Fireflies) Spying on Starfall---flute at night on a lane in the woods with crickets

10 Chorus in the Elm---baroque flute on an afternoon in a forest clearing with cicadas

11 Fireflies-World’s Rim---flute at night on the edge of the woods with crickets

12 Perseids-Night’s Overflow---flute, rattle at midnight on a lane in the woods

13 Cicada Antiphony---baroque flute on a summer afternoon in a forest clearing

14 Perseids-Some May Yet Sleep---flute on a lane in the woods under meteors

15 Lament’s Balm/Lemon Balm II---flute at night on a wooded lane

16 The Fairies’ Hounds---flute. The hounds in question scrambled across a tile floor (click, clack go the claws) but refrained from howling till the recording was done.

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Link to buy physical CDs.