“Tasteful” Creativity

Lately after hearing alot of different issues going on in the news I’ve been inspired to write a post about who decides what is “acceptable” art. With the recent photos of Miley Cyrus that have been leaked from the next Vanity Fair issue it is hard for me not to question why art needs to be determined as tasteful or untasteful. Is there a litmus test for this? What does tasteful mean anyway? I’ve realized that if these photos were taken in Europe they would not even be given a second thought. This truly shows me how culture has an effect on art. Even when it comes to music. Everywhere there are regional and cultural footprints in creativity. But, this should have nothing to do with who decides what is acceptable or not. Granted, when people are in the public eye they are definitely put under scrutiny, but should others art (in this case Annie Libovitz) be scrutinized for it. How can we feely freedom in our creativity when it is stifled by having to worry about what is tasteful or not. This is like saying there is a right or wrong way to play music. As we read in “Free Play,” in order to let go of our inhibitions we must not think about whether there is a right or wrong way to play something. I think the same applies to this situation.

Portfolio

The past few days I have been focused on putting together my portfolio for graduation. This has been a little bittersweet for me, but most of all this experience has been one that has allowed me to reflect on my teaching and creativity. Looking back at the many papers that I have written I have realized just how much my philosophy on teaching has evolved. At first I believed that a music teacher is just there to prepare students for performances. Now, through my education, I have realized that this role involves so much more. I will go more into this in the future, but for now I want to concentrate on talking about how my thoughts on the creative process have evolved. When I first came to NYU I had severe performance anxiety. I believe that these symptoms came from wanting to play music “perfectly.” As I began to examine the nature of teaching and learning I have realized that it is not my job to play music “perfectly.” In fact I have come to believe that there is no right or wrong way to listen to or perform music. The “right” way to play music involves creating your own understanding or meaning through the sounds that you make. Knowing this has eased my tensions and I have learned to enjoy the music that I play for what it is.

Music Therapy

Last week’s class using music psychotherapy techniques was very interesting. At first I found it a little hard to let go and truly regress but once I loosened a bit I can actually begin to understand how this process works. I really enjoyed the exercise with matching movement and sound and then making it your own. This is actually something that I would love to try in my band classes. I would first try it exactly as we did it in class. I would actually also like to use this to experiment sounds on the students instruments. I think that this could be a very effective tool, especially in jazz, of learning how to match sounds and then turn them into your own. This could be a great exercise in soloing, etc. I have become quite interested in this now and would love to continue to learn more about it. I also am very fascinated about how music can be used as part of psychotherapy. I always knew that music therapy existed but I have never seen it used as psychotherapy. Then, after thinking about it, I guess we all use music as psychotherapy in a way. We don’t necessary analyze our issues through music and sounds but we use music in different ways. We all listen to different music to match or change different emotions. I do it all the time. I would like to continue to learn more about this and to begin to use it in my classroom.

Videotaping around the village

When we were sent out with a video camera around NYU I found myself in a very interesting situation. Everyday I walk the path that my group did, but this time, I found myself actually looking at my surroundings. Everyday I pass the W.4th St. basketball courts, but I never once stopped to watch. It was actually pretty entertaining to watch the men playing. I also found myself looking for something exciting to video. When I was having trouble finding that “exciting” thing, I realized that everything going on around me was pretty exciting. I realized that watching a chess match in Washington Square Park was just as exciting as anyhting else that could happen. What made me realize this was that I started to think about what was going through the minds of the two players. They were each calculating each others moves and their own moves in their head. They were each creating their plan of attack and reacting to each other. They were trying to guess each others moves. I realized that it isn’t exactly the visual things that make everyday life, like playing chess, exciting but it’s what goes on behind the scenes that keeps things exciting. There is always more than what meets the eye.

The Creative Process in Learning a New Piece of Music

I am planning on having a recital on May 10th in the Village. It has been quite an interesting experience planning for this event. Just last week my teacher gave me the final piece of my program. After reading “Free Play” I find myself learning this music in a different way. I am trying different things. I used to just learn the notes slowly bit by bit building up the tempo and rehearsing runs relentlessly until they were perfect. Now, I find myself just playing music and actually enjoying it. I am not looking at practicing as a chore. I am experimenting with learning the music at different tempos, changing rhythms and dynamics. I am actually finding that this is completely changing the way that I am playing this music. I am actually learning the music faster than any other piece that I have played. It will be interesting to see my progression with this piece of music compared to the rest of my program.

Stalling and Moving in Music

There were many times in my musical career where I felt like I hit a brick wall. There is one that will always stand out in my heal and almost serves as a turning point in how I look at playing music, listening to music and actually anything to do with music. I was preparing all of my pieces for my senior recital at Rutgers. For about two months I was not making any progress. It was extremely frustrating and at one point I was really questioning whether I was headed into the right field. It just seemed like I couldn’t play anything right. During all of this I was also preparing for Grad school auditions. My teacher and I had a conversation about even changing my program and the pieces that I was playing for my auditions. Him telling me this was a big blow to me. I almost stopped playing the saxophone because of that conversation. He also reccomended that I read a book called “Effortless Mastery.” It is because of this book that I was able to move forward with my playing. It taught me to let go of just playing notes on a page and that the notion of “Practice Makes Perfect” is ubsurd. There is no perfect way to play music. It is an expression of emotion at one moment in time and will never sound the same twice. After I read this book, at my next lesson, I had a major turning point and was playing amazingly well. Once I let go of trying to be perfect in my playing I actually started to play extremely well. I had a successful recital and obviously got into grad school.

Making music freely…

The experience of improvising in class with everyone a few weeks ago was very exhilerating experience. It is truly something that I have never experienced before. Even when playing in jazz bands and soloing you are bound by certain chord changes and the overall tone of the song. With this experience you were not bound by anything. It was very interesting to see how, especially in the larger group, how we all reacted to each other and reacted by adding on to our individual motiffs. Also, so many of our musical pieces sounded like they were actually composed and it made me wonder if subconciously we are all somehow bound by making sense of things musically. We have all studied music for a very long time and have been following certain constraints musically for our entire careers. Are these constraints so deeply rooted within us that we cannot break them? Is it truly possible to completely let go and just play? For me, this is something very hard to do. I feel that if I don’t have something in front of me to read or guide me that I have no clue what I’m doing. This experience is something that I am certainly uncomfortable with but I am certainly looking forward to exploring my freely creative side.

My entrance into the world of music…

I guess I began to take an interest in music from a very young age. For as long as I could remember I always enjoyed listening to music with my grandmother. I always looked forward to this time that I got to spend with her and the time began to get longer and longer. Before I knew it, my grandparents were taking me to concerts all over New York with them. Although I was very young, about five, I enjoyed these concerts very much. When I went to see these many different talented artists, I remember seeing the band and thinking how exciting it must be to be apart of a group like that and to have that talent. As time went on I entered school (2 years after my older brother) and began to concentrate on academics. When I was in second grade, my brother, who was in fourth grade, got the opportunity to join the school band. He had already been taking drum lessons since he was six but now he got to play an instrument in a group instead of just lessons. I think this is where I really pushed my parents to let me start playing an instrument, partly because I was jealous of my brother but also because I really wanted to learn. My parents set up piano lessons for me and I continued these lessons for the next two years. When I entered the fourth grade it was my turn to join the school band. I already knew that I wanted to play the saxophone. I had seen it for years on television and going to see shows with my grandparents and I thought it was the coolest looking instrument. From that point almost ever extra-curricular activity that I was involved in had to do with music. I stopped taking piano lessons and began studying the saxophone. I joined the boro-wide band that met on Saturday mornings and I had band in school twice a week. As I got older and moved on into high school I was given the opportunity to join another high schools marching band. It was from this experience that I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in music. There was nothing that I loved more in the world. My parents were completely supportive in this decision and pushed me and helped me through the audition process for college. I got into Rutgers University where I continued to study saxophone and now I’m here waiting to start my career as a music teacher.