Remote Examining, Summer Blogging

For most of the next two months I’ll be examining remotely for The Royal Conservatory’s Certificate Program, all from my home studio. Instead of traveling across North America to examine (which I’ll sorely miss!) I’ll be seeing these same students remotely on Zoom so they can achieve their goals in the same way that they would with in-person exams. You can watch and read more about remote exams on this CTV News report.

At the same time, I’m going to try and keep up my blogging in the next few months, although in a different way. Writing time will be in short supply, so you can expect shorter blog posts with plenty of links. We all need to find a viable way forward from strife the of the last few months, so this summer’s blog posts will focus on creativity, hope, and ways of growing.

On the Agenda

Morning standup meeting with espresso, birds, and our backyard maple tree. Then off to the day’s work.

Radical Uncertainty

In my workshops with music teachers, I now emphasize the presence of uncertainty, and how our strategies, advertising, and studio policies need to be agile enough so that they can embrace a wide variety of outcomes by the fall when the next teaching year begins.

Mark Lilla describes the situation well in his NYT opinion piece::

At some level, people must be thinking that the more they learn about what is predetermined, the more control they will have. This is an illusion. Human beings want to feel that they are on a power walk into the future, when in fact we are always just tapping our canes on the pavement in the fog.

A dose of humility would do us good in the present moment. It might also help reconcile us to the radical uncertainty in which we are always living. Let us retire our prophets and augurs. And let us stop asking health specialists and public officials for confident projections they are in no position to make — and stop being disappointed when the ones we force out of them turn out to be wrong.

We can’t see into the future, but setting up our strategies now will increase our ability to react to how things might change.

(Image by Suliane Ferraz on Unsplash)

Some Thoughts on Stock and Flow

Via Tom Crichlow's post about digital gardens, I recently stumbled upon Robin Sloan’s idea of stock and flow in writing:

/ Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that reminds people you exist.

/ Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what people discover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time.

Flow is the incessant rush of social media posts, likes, and comments, and it’s much too easy to get caught up in it. Stock is the body of work that you invest in over time, that doesn’t deliver that much in the moment, but produces a long tail of views and influence over time (also see the concept of stock and flow in economics).

Robin continues:

Flow is ascendant these days, for obvious reasons—but I think we neglect stock at our peril. I mean that both in terms of the health of an audience and, like, the health of a soul. Flow is a treadmill, and you can’t spend all of your time running on the treadmill. Well, you can. But then one day you’ll get off and look around and go: oh man. I’ve got nothing here.

I’m not saying you should ignore flow! This is no time to hole up and work in isolation, emerging after years with your work in hand. Everybody will go: huh? Who are you? And even if they don’t—even if your exquisite opus is the talk of the tumblrs for two whole days—if you don’t have flow to plug your new fans into, you’re suffering a huge (get ready for it!) opportunity cost. You’ll have to find those fans all over again next time you emerge from your cave.

Like almost everyone, I spend too much time on social media. Although I don’t bare my soul on Facebook the way many people do, I still spend way too much time going over every single like and comment in great detail. It provides a great hit at any time of the day whether positive or negative, and the addictive cycle is especially rewarding at times of great stress, as in the last two months.

But I miss the longer, quieter hours spent crafting blog posts, whether long or short. It seems that blog writing is one of the most fragile activities I engage in, and the times I’m able to get in a solid writing flow are the times that are the most susceptible to being cut out of my schedule by any sort of upheaval or change. Notice the lack of posts in the entire month of April.

A quick look at the top-performing blog posts both here and in the Collaborative Piano Blog shows that it’s not just the most recent posts that perform well, but stuff that I wrote a long time ago that people find useful time and again, such last year’s post on how I use My Music Staff with The Archive to write lesson notes.

On the Collaborative Piano Blog, this month’s most popular articles are ones I would consider to be out of date, but which are still bookmarked, linked, and served up by search engines:

• 10 Things You Need to Know About the 2015 Royal Conservatory Celebration Series and Syllabus (2015)

• 7 Free Faber Piano Adventures Resources (2007) [NB: Not one link on that article still works, which shows you the ephemeral nature of many resource locations on the web.]

• Two Tenors Talk About Jackie Evancho, Amira Willighagen, and the Child Singer Pheonomenon (2014) [NB: And there’s still a steady flow of very strongly felt comments on that post, both positive and negative]

• Degree and Diploma Programs in Collaborative Piano (2005)

• The Definitive Guide to Building and Maintaining a Repertoire List (2010)

Of the most-viewed Collaborative Piano Blog articles, only some of them were intended to become longstanding resources. The others were written on the spur of the moment.

We’re not entirely in control regarding which of our previous work becomes the most viewed or influential. But having a stock body of work and a place for others to find it can increase our ability to reach people for years after we create something.

(Image by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash)

Quote of the Day

You don’t put yourself online only because you have something to say—you can put yourself online to find something to say. The Internet can be more than just a resting place to publish your finished ideas—it can also be an incubator for ideas that aren’t fully formed, a birthing center for developing work that you haven’t started yet.

A lot of artists worry that being online will cause them to make less work, but I’ve found that having a presence online is a kick in the pants. Most websites and blogs are set up to show posts in reverse-chronological order—the latest post is the first post that visitors see, so you’re only as good as your last post. This keeps you on your toes, keeps you thinking about what you can post next. Having a container can inspire us to fill it. Whenever I’ve become lost over the years, I just look at my website and ask myself, “What can I fill this with?”

From Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

I Have an Idea

These four simple words regularly pop out of the mouths of people in phone calls, meetings, coffee gatherings, and late-night Facebook Messenger chats.

I have an idea.

These four words signal that the person who said them has not only thought of something, but that they have plans, are willing to share them, talk through them, and have made the first steps forward towards making an idea a reality.

I have an idea.

If you’re the one saying these words, you’ve taken the time to find a new way to approach a situation, solve a problem, find a new market, or discover something completely new. You’ve also put enough trust in those around you to broach the subject, throw out an idea, seek input, and start a discussion.

I have an idea.

If you’re the one to whom these words are directed, listen carefully. Someone has put their trust in you and has gone out on a limb in order to share their ideas with you. They have just started the process of collaboration and need some valuable input based on your own experience and ideas. They might even have an answer to a question that has been nagging at you for a very long time.

But the person putting out the idea has also taken a risk. The danger of someone putting themselves out on a limb in this way is their idea might be dismissed for not being financially viable, a little too over-the-top, not cognizant of present realities, or not appropriate to the situation. They might get the impression that their ideas weren’t even viable in the first place.

But the process of putting out an idea is critical to moving forward projects, careers, and the entire profession. We need a steady stream of new ideas. Even if they’re a little too ambitious, they can lead to other new ideas, to partnerships, collaborations, and eventual solutions.

Over the last few months, the words “I have an idea” have been spoken to me a larger number of times than usual. This is good news indeed that I might be a person who has them too, am surrounded by exceptional individuals, and who trusts and is trusted enough to be able to understand and talk about them. Thank you for sharing your visions and crazy dreams with me.

For those of you who have said these words to friends, colleagues, or potential colleagues, keep up the great work. Keep on thinking up new ways of doing things, and take a chance to share it with others. Keep on looking for people worthy of sharing your vision with, and who have the ability to understand you. From these discussions there will arise a future of new possibilities.

(Image courtesy of Sean Patrick Murphy on Unsplash)

Robbie, a Short Sci-Fi Film by Neil Harvey

My name is Robbie. I am from a planet called Earth. It is part of a four-billion-year-old solar system.

What if a robot was given consciousness, the ability to form relationships and run simulations, and went into space? That’s the premise of Robbie, a short sci-fi film by Neil Harvey from the always-fascinating (and binge-watchable) DUST channel on YouTube. My mind was blown at 1:35 and it kept getting better (and more emotionally engaging) until the very end.

Bring Kleenex.

Two Mountains

Los Cuernos in Evening Light by Walter Sawka

David Brooks’s The Moral Peril of Meritocracy frames the world in terms of two mountains. The first mountain is that of professional accomplishment and success. The second mountain is more elusive and is often reached through suffering, adversity, or through dedication to a cause:

If the first mountain is about building up the ego and defining the self, the second is about shedding the ego and dissolving the self. If the first mountain is about acquisition, the second mountain is about contribution.

On the first mountain, personal freedom is celebrated — keeping your options open, absence of restraint. But the perfectly free life is the unattached and unremembered life. Freedom is not an ocean you want to swim in; it is a river you want to cross so that you can plant yourself on the other side.

So the person on the second mountain is making commitments. People who have made a commitment to a town, a person, an institution or a cause have cast their lot and burned the bridges behind them. They have made a promise without expecting a return. They are all in.

On why the second mountain is important:

We don’t treat one another well. And the truth is that 60 years of a hyper-individualistic first-mountain culture have weakened the bonds between people. They’ve dissolved the shared moral cultures that used to restrain capitalism and the meritocracy.

Over the past few decades the individual, the self, has been at the center. The second-mountain people are leading us toward a culture that puts relationships at the center. They ask us to measure our lives by the quality of our attachments, to see that life is a qualitative endeavor, not a quantitative one. They ask us to see others at their full depths, and not just as a stereotype, and to have the courage to lead with vulnerability. These second-mountain people are leading us into a new culture. Culture change happens when a small group of people find a better way to live and the rest of us copy them. These second-mountain people have found it.

What does your second mountain look like?

What I Learned Over the Last Two Weeks

This is a place I always go to when I’m in the western Conception Bay area. The weather in the first week of April was warmer than when I came here in mid-June two years ago.

Once in a while you encounter a period of time where everything snaps into clarity, and where the most important issues and questions all of a sudden seem to make more sense. A few days ago I got back from a two-week trip on the road examining at the Kiwanis Music Festival in Carbonear and examining for The Royal Conservatory’s Certificate Program in Winnipeg. In both these places, I had the chance to observe musical communities at their finest.

The stage at the Carbonear Regional Community Centre.

The trip started with a full week adjudicating in Carbonear, a small town up the Conception Bay coastline northwest of St. John’s, Newfoundland. What I found intriguing was how a small town of less than 5000 people can support a festival with a full week of piano and voice classes. What intrigued me about this trip were the words of those who had previously adjudicated in Carbonear, and how it had transformed their outlook on music education. So I left with an eagerness to discover something that several of my colleagues had already learned while working there.

The first thing I noticed was how well-run the festival was. Adjudicating a full festival is no small feat, and the web of rules, scholarships, and qualification requirements can be difficult to navigate at the best of times. However, the day-to-day logistics were handled with a level of detail that allowed me to concentrate on the music and how I could help each performer, given the limited time available in performing classes throughout the day.

The view from my motel room in Carbonear. The weather tended to be quite variable, and I experienced three seasons in one week.

But as the week developed, I also noticed a number of other things. Music in Newfoundland holds a central a place in the life of families, noticeable by the sheer love and engagement of so many musicians and the large number of relatives that came out to support the performers, many of whom learned multiple instruments.

The performers were highly supportive of each other, even in competitive classes. After performing, I would notice that many of them high-fived and fist-bumped each other. Sadly, there are only a few awards available for each class, many of which are quite sizeable. But after announcing the results, I was pleasantly astonished to notice that those who didn’t win genuinely congratulated those who did.

This was a tough shot to make, and I had to time the shot with the rise and fall of the waves so as not to have my iPhone swept out to sea.

There are also strong ties between those working in the arts community with the business community at large. This is a relationship that in many places is largely not known or understood, but when you see it in action, you can see a community working together with strong cohesion, and with the best interests of everyone. In Carbonear, there was a strong understanding in the business community that arts activities are an integral part of the area’s economic activity, can strengthen ties within it, and bring people into the area. The large number of people learning instruments also created a strong demand for teachers in the area. My hope is that as current teachers in the area age and eventually retire, younger teachers will move to the community in order to continue the local musical traditions.

The trip continued with a short examining stint in Winnipeg, where I had a chance to catch up with some of my dearest friends as well as meet new ones. Tempering my admiration of the high standard of playing was a realization of the very real issues facing educators in that city, especially regarding the mental health of young people.

A well-deserved drink at Winnipeg airport at the end of the trip.

I like to thank people for the impact that they have in the world, and in the case of the last two weeks, the list of people I personally thanked, either in person or on social media, went well into the dozens. But I wanted to thank everyone once more who makes such an impact on their community in Carbonear, St. John’s, and Winnipeg. You know who you are, and I just wanted you all to know that your dedication to the arts community and young people whose lives you impact, either as educators, parents, or volunteers, really matters. You’re doing great work, and the example that you’ve shown will inform the work I do for a very long time.