Why?

On her blog Chocolate Phoenix, Sariah occasionally posts about being a musician. In Check your Ego, she writes:

The hardest thing about being a musician is learning when to let go. We are taught to play with perfection. Anything less than perfect just will not do. That is why we will spend weeks and weeks learning one piece of music. We will spend an hour in the practice room perfecting one measure. We do not stop until it’s perfect, and we aren’t happy until we can do it perfectly. I don’t know that it’s entirely healthy, but that’s the way it is. So when something happens and you have to just let it go, it’s hard. And whatever little bit of an ego you had is now completely shot.

What she said.

Growing up, if I couldn't master or learn something quickly, I lost interest and moved on. In school, when it came to those subjects I had trouble with--Math and Economics, for example--I took the minimum requirements and then went on to something I was good at. When I didn't understand something, like Economics, I could still manage a C in the class.

Sometimes that meant I wouldn't take chances by following through on something I enjoyed but wasn't particularly good at. In junior high school I belonged to the Art Studio and served as president my last year there. When I got to high school, I didn't take any art classes because I knew I didn't have any "real talent" in art, and I thought I'd get a poor grade, which would pull down my GPA. Of course, looking at some of my surviving artwork from that period, I probably would have done just fine in an art class and might have learned to appreciate and encourage my right brain capabilities a lot earlier in life.

At the beginning of my junior year in high school I went to the band director and expressed an interest in learning to play the flute. He handed me a battered school rental and began giving me lessons. Thirty-four years later, I'm still playing.

Have I mastered it? No.

Will I ever be another Rampal or Galway? No.

Has my closet perfectionist gone away? Of course not. I have to deal with him every day of my life.

Can it be frustrating? Yes.

Do I have to work hard to maintain the level of even middling amateur? Yes.

Does it bring me joy? Yes.

And that, my friends, is why I've never walked away from my flute for very long.

Send Out The Change Of Address Cards!

For the fifth time in the seven-and-a-half years I have worked at the Episcopal Church Center, I am moving. This move comes in the wake of the reconfiguration (a reorganization by any other name...) prompted by the layoffs resulting from the drastic budget cuts of last year's General Convention. I may also have an eighth boss, but the reporting and accountability lines remain unclear. In any case, the move, which will consolidate the reduced staff onto fewer floors of the building, takes place the last weekend of February. The dreaded orange crates should arrive a week or so beforehand so that those of us relocating can pack up our offices.

In addition to consolidating the staff, the new office locations mix us up, separating members of the new (and remarkably old and familiar) program teams (read "departments"). The official reason is that they want to encourage cross-team collaboration. They figure that by sitting us by colleagues on other teams we will be more likely to collaborate with each other on a variety of projects. Of course, many of us already work collaboratively with other departments, and have been for a long time. The other rationale, which was originally told to me in private, is now widely known in the organization. They want to break up former Staff Officer/Program Assistant pairings to wean the former Staff Officers from continuing to rely on their former Assistants for help with administrative tasks. Essentially, that means that I will be the only Lifelong Christian Formation and Vocation Team member on the second floor. The Team Associate (administrative support person) will be on the fifth floor, along with the shared files.

On the positive side, being on the second floor will make me more likely to use the stairs more often. The second floor is two full flights up, because there is an intervening half floor (the Mezzanine) on that side of the building. The rest of my team, and the files, will be three flights up, and the Finance offices will be only one flight up instead of two down. Every bit of going up and down the stairs helps!

Peace,
Jeff

It's A Retreat Center

This year the National Association for Episcopal Christian Education Directors (NAECED) annual conference is being held at the Vallombrosa Center in Menlo Park, California. The former Hopkins estate was purchased by the roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco in 1947 as a retreat house for women. It now hosts a variety of retreats and meetings.

I've been to many retreat centers during my life, and especially during my tenure at the Church Center, including several run by various Roman Catholic organizations from the Jesuits to the Sisters of Mercy. Many started out as homes or estates of the wealthy. Some started out as seminaries or monasteries/convents. The basics include a twin bed, a chair, a table or desk for writing or study, and a place to store clothes. Bathrooms are sometimes in the room and sometimes down the hall.

The rooms here are small. One of my fellow board members commented, "what is it with Catholics and cells?" But they are clean and comfortable. Each has its own heater and bathroom. The thing that caught my attention here? There are electric blankets on the beds. Of course, this is California. For a New Englander 50 degrees isn't cold, especially in the middle of winter.

As with all retreat centers, our rooms do not have televisions or telephones. On the other hand, we do have wireless throughout the Center.

Our host parish is Trinity Episcopal Church, which in good weather would be within walking distance. The NAECED board held our meeting there this afternoon, and will meet there again tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon the parish will open its campus for a variety of activities as the conference begins.

There are 12 board members here, and we are currently sharing the Center with a large group of high school-age girls here on retreat. So far we've had little interaction with them, but tomorrow we will be having breakfast and lunch with them in the dining room.

The rain continues.

Peace,
Jeff

Have Flute, Will Travel

In spite of what I've said before about taking my flute on business trips, I did bring it with me this time. I thought a lot about it, but given that I'm taking a week's vacation after the conference I'm attending, and staying with friends, I figured I might actually have the chance to do some practicing during this trip. We'll see.

I packed differently this time. Since I will be away for 10 days, I borrowed a big suitcase from Mom and put just about everything in it, including my music stand. I took a small rolling carry on to hold my laptop, iPod, Kindle, snack food, and a few other odds and ends. My flute was my "personal item." It made maneuvering through the airports and the plane much easier. I can't imagine what it must be like traveling with something like a cello!!!

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

It was a beautiful morning for the beginning of my trip--sunny and mild. The van shuttle arrived at 6:45, which got me to JFK by 7:45, three hours before my flight. If I'd taken the recommended departure time of 7:20, we'd have run into rush hour traffic, and that would have been cutting it close at the other end. It gave me time for a leisurely breakfast and to get some work done for the conference.

I've been keeping my eye on the weather in California for a couple of days. I wondered about flight delays, but everything said my flight was on time. They began boarding us at 10:15, just as CNN reported 1-2 hour delays at the San Francisco airport. When we should have been leaving the gate, the pilot announced that our departure had been delayed by Air Traffic Control in San Francisco due to the weather. Our "wheels up" time was scheduled for 12:09. We sat at the gate for about 15 minutes before heading out to the runway holding area, just in case we got an earlier clearance. We actually took off at about 12:05.

We arrived an hour and a half late in the rain. We were given the wrong carousel number for collecting our bags. And then a handful of us were missing our checked luggage. Just as I was getting ready to go find the baggage office, I was paged. It turned out that they had put my suitcase on the earlier flight.

My friend Dennis met me at the airport and drove me to my hotel. Once I got checked in we headed out to find something to eat. We also stopped at a CVS, so I could pick up an umbrella because mine is still in my briefcase. On the rocking chair. At home.

Tomorrow it's off to Menlo Park for the NAECED board meeting and final conference prep.

Peace,
Jeff

Who's Been Reading My Blog?

A very small handful of people read this blog with any regularity. That doesn't surprise me, given two rather important factors. First, the topic has a fairly limited audience, and second, I'm still trying to discover the blog's voice. In the meantime, I try to write and post with some regularity.

I also keep in mind that this blog is public. I have another blog that I started writing three years ago. Because of that blog's subject matter, and an incident involving a listserv post, I decided it was better to make it private--readable only by about a dozen or so family members and friends. Some of my work also appears occasionally on my parish's sermon blog, and I do occasionally receive email and comments from folks regarding my sermons.

Yesterday morning, in response to my last Fluting post, I found the following email in my inbox:

Subject: RC Says Hi

Hello, Jeffri.

Your blog entry on Betty Leeson popped up on my Google alert, so I thought I’d say hi. Betty is still around, teaches for the Music Academy and contributes to the college.

Seems like a century ago I was through CT. I take it you are still commuting to Manhattan. Wish you the best.

xxxx

Director of Alumni and Development
Rockford College

One more reminder of just how public the Internet truly is! However, it was nice of him write and give me an update on Betty Leeson, especially after my experience when trying to track down Lise.

So the answer to the question in the title is, I don't really know everyone who reads this blog. StatCounter tells me where people are accessing the blog from, but it doesn't tell me who they are. Some of them I can guess by the where. The only way to really know is when someone leaves a comment or emails me.

And some of you I'll see tomorrow...

Who's Been Writing on My Music?

One of my college friends absolutely could not bring herself to write in or otherwise mark her textbooks. She was raised in a household were marking a book was one of the worst things you could do. I was also raised in a household that held great respect for books, but my family was also one of learners. When I was little, my father was in graduate school, and when I was in high school my mother returned to school to complete her college education. Defacing books was a definite no-no, but marking passages and making notes in your own textbooks was an important study tool.

As a musician, I learned early on to mark my music IN PENCIL as an aid to learning and performing. As I have been pulling out method books and music from my small collection to work on, I find that there are notes and markings in many places. A couple of weeks ago I pulled out the Bach Arioso at the suggestion of the music director at my church. On the top left corner there is a notation that reads "Cindy's Wedding." My friend Cindy got married the summer after my Sophomore year of college. Some of those 30-year-old notes and markings are not in my handwriting. Looking at this music again I remember the session with my Betty Leeson, my flute teacher while I was at Rockford College, where we worked through the piece and marked it for practice and performance in preparation for the wedding.

Throughout my music are notes from all four of my flute teachers, although Dr. Cunningham's are confined to the Rubank Method books used in my high school music program. This evening I turned the page in my book of Berbiguier etudes to work on #8 and saw some notes about how to practice it scribbled across the top. Although I acquired the book of etudes while studying with Lise Mann, the notes were not hers. Neither were they in Betty Leeson's handwriting. At some point during the year or so I studied with Richard Wyton, we must have worked on some of the etudes.

Having those notes on my music is like having those teachers still with me years after I stopped studying with them. I can still hear Lise telling us to watch our tempo on 16th note runs, Betty working with me to improve interpretation, and Richard drilling me on my scales. Their teaching continues to help me as I work through the technical part of playing the flute.

Maybe it's time to add to those notes...