One of the great things about knowing so many people on the east coast is there is never a shortage of invitations to escape the city for a few days. One of the problems with attending a music conservatory is the extremely limited number of opportunities for actually accepting such invitations. In fact, aside from Christmas and Spring Break, I believe Thanksgiving is the only time all year when I am given more than a single extra consecutive day of vacation.

And so it is that I am currently sitting on a bus which, I’ve just discovered, has wireless Internet, heading down to Baltimore. Most people ask if I’m going home and then are terribly confused because they all believe - correctly, of course - that I live in Colorado. A bus ticket costs less than 10% of a plane ride home, however, and I’ve been promising my friend Nick that I would visit for about four years now. He lives out on the Chesapeake Bay, but I won’t actually be going there because we are going directly from the bus station to his famiy’s house in rural Pennsylvania.

School technically lets out tomorrow, but the situation is more complicated due to the required number of class sessions for the semester. Suffice it to say that I have nothing academic on the morning and was therefore able to leave early. I’ll be back very late on Sunday night, which will
make the next school day rather interesting, but I ought to be able to sleep on the bus.

I hadn’t realized how much I miss open sky, grass, and trees. Manhattan has none of these, though it has its own attractions and is such an utterly different world that I haven’t had any chance yet to be homesick. It will be nice to visit again over Christmas, but I really do already feel completely at home in NYC. I can objectively remember that I once lived somewhere else, but that already seems like the life of another person.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last in the series

Force is an old paradigm, a thing that comes to us as an instinct inherited from our animal ancestors. For all of human history he who possesses the bigger stick, the longer sword, the heavier bomb has always been in ultimate command. This is a barbaric and uncivilized method of interaction; it requires neither truly intelligent thought nor any attempt to understand a situation. Though the theory of deterrence (“yes, you are free to hit me with that rock but be aware that my friend here will drop a tree on your head as you do it”) often proves to be sufficient for purposes of conflict resolution, men who have nothing left to lose are far less likely to be dissuaded by the threat of retaliation alone. Force can drive them underground for a time, but eventually they will bubble up again through the cracks, stronger than ever, like water through sand.
The way to the hearts and minds of men is through loyalty and respect. One could argue that fear – fear of retribution – itself is a form of respect, but, if so, this is regard built on corrupt foundations; true admiration does not cause men to be forever searching for an opportunity to to turn the tables. The effect of forceful intervention is frequently to cause hatred and ignite a simmering resentment. A man on the losing side of a physical confrontation will feel that he has not been treated fairly because there is rarely any form of compromise involved in the resolution.

Force occurs in many facets of life, but the variety which involves organized and intentional violence usually can be divided into two types. In the past force was often used as a tool by countries that were approximately equal in power, but in our modern world of imbalanced power it more commonly appears as something closer to a matchup of David and Goliath. Often these conflicts go back generations, even centuries, and the roles of strong and weak may be reversed on many occasions over time. A cycle like this will continue forever, much as a pendulum in a clock kept always wound, until either the losing side is entirely annihilated or the stronger one realizes the only way to break the oscillation is to offer an olive branch. It is, however, very difficult to erase and entire race or country, and groups in the superior position rarely wish to admit that the solution requires humility on their part. When the positions reverse, which frequently occurs, the newly-superior group usually feels justified in extracting revenge for past injustices. Objectively this is an understandable reaction, but it falls back into the most primitive of systems: that of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
We, as intelligent and rational beings, must attempt to expose the root of these festering conflicts. Instead of forever trying to treat only the symptoms, we should find the original cause and develop a solution for that first. After this, the house of shadows will collapse as both sides discover that the original reason for fighting is not nearly so serious as they had believed. When everyone realizes that hostilities are often caused not by our differences but by the things we have in common, we will have far fewer opportunities to even consider force as an option. This is something that we as a race must do if we ever wish to see beyond the ends of our collective flat feet.

In the style of cause and effect. I have the impression our professor doesn’t actually give anything but perfect scores on these anyway

A butterfly flaps its wings and somewhere, on the other side of the world, a tornado no longer destroys the barn Farmer Ebert uses to house his cows. The idea that these two events are somehow connected, rather than being isolated occurrences, is the basic concept behind a branch of Chaos Theory more commonly, and quite appropriately, known to those of us without degrees in advanced mathematics as The Butterfly Effect. It is an incredible example of how the smallest thing can almost literally change the direction of the world.

To take the marquee example, imagine that butterfly once again. Imagine it happily fluttering along through a meadow, perhaps in Africa. As it floats past, the slight change in air pressure from its wings knocks a ripe berry from a solitary bush. Now what if this berry had not fallen to the ground and instead remained hidden from the bird flying past a few minutes later? Suppose also that this one berry gives the bird enough energy to fly an extra five minutes, allowing it to travel one tree further along on its summer migration route. Sure, a small enough difference, but perhaps this new tree already contains a full quota of birds – the addition of even one more is enough make it crash to the ground. Suddenly the small effect of a butterfly’s wing has caused something far larger.
But take the theory even further. Once this tree falls, the small spring that bubbles up through the rocks between its roots is no longer protected from the sun. Soon the water heats up and begins to evaporate far more rapidly, creating a small patch of humid air that drifts out over the Atlantic Ocean. Now, probably a hurricane would be forming right about this time anyway, but pretend the addition of more humid air is enough to accelerate the process by at least a couple of minutes. By the time this storm system makes it across the sea and comes ashore in Florida, these few minutes have stretched sufficiently to change the the point of landfall by many miles. Instead of passing quickly over the south end of the state, this hurricane slams directly into the hills further north and loses most of its energy. Now weak and incapable of re-strengthening over the warm gulf of Mexico for a renewed attack on the Texas coast line, it drifts aimlessly westward, slowly dissipating into the atmosphere. The torrential rains and tornadoes that would accompany a hurricane’s remnants as they move inland instead harmlessly expend themselves over the ocean and the cow shed is indeed saved.

Of course, many other elements in the system also contribute to changes of the whole, so no one can truly show that the simple beat of an insect’s wings is enough to alter the fate of earth’s most powerful forces. However, who can prove it isn’t?

Dr. Atomic

I received a call from my friend about an hour and a half before this show was due to start saying that he had an extra ticket. So, after rushing back to my room from the practice center, which ironically is less than five minutes from the opera house so sort of an unfortunate timing, we set out again.
Now, I went into this opera with high expectations. I’d heard good things about it, and the subject matter (the development of the atomic bomb) looked quite interesting. In other words, I had an open mind. However, after sitting through the entire thing, I can say it is probably one of the two or three worst performances for which I have ever paid money to see. The production itself was as good as could be expected (it is the Metropolitan Opera, after all) but the story line was close to incoherent, it’s debatable whether those notes could even be counted as ‘music’, and the words would probably have been more eloquent if someone had just repeatedly opened a dictionary at random and picked whatever happened to be at the top of each page. One of my friends left at the intermission.

I honestly don’t understand modern art. It’s as though all semblance of skill has been replaced with weirdness. John Adams (the composer) has some good pieces – I’ve played several – but this is not one of them. Someone is going to read this and say similar things were written about, for example, The Rite of Spring, but can an objective case really be made that such a piece is actually an IMPROVEMENT on anything written by Chopin or Mozart? It’s as though art in general is engaged in an exponential free fall where the only goal is to be more obnoxiously strange than the next person in line.

Now that I’ve been here for two months, there is definitely a standard schedule developing. Each weekday morning I wake up at 7 (earliest on the floor), check my email, take a shower (as the earliest, I get to use the bathroom while it’s still clean), eat my cereal with yogurt (anyone who hasn’t discovered the joys of Greek yogurt is leading and incomplete life), and put together some sort of lunch (my current favorite is fresh bread with brie and onions). I load my backpack with whatever notebooks and other supplies are needed for that day’s classes and take a bus to school, invariably arriving at least an hour before my first class of the day (which is 10 am except on Wednesdays and Fridays). This way I can score a practice room for an hour and never have to worry about being late due to traffic or an unforeseen event in the dorm. After classes, I walk two blocks to the subway and spend the next four, often five hours at the practice center.
I’ve already joined the ’social circle’ there, which does have benefits when it comes to scheduling rooms with nicer pianos, though the only other undergraduate in the group is a senior and I’ve been mistake for a Masters’ student three times so far just this week. I’m not quite sure when and where the other undergraduates practice – sometimes I wonder if they even actually DO – but I’m finding I prefer to be around older students anyway as they generally tend to be a bit more focused.
After the practice center, I take a different bus and a second train back up to my dorm. One of the few things (other than sleep) that I still do for fun is cook, so I often spend up to an hour on that each evening. Of course it doesn’t always take that long, but there are only a few of us on the floor who get more ambitious than frozen pizza or macaroni and cheese, so at least I don’t often have to fight for the kitchen. My homework is still quite simple and never too challenging, but, as you know, I tend to be quite obsessive about such things so I use far more time than is really necessary for doing it. There is also a certain amount of wasted ’slop’ time caused by living in a dorm, so I never get to bed before midnight. If go back to school for recital in the evening, which happens not infrequently, I often will be up past one finishing things off. This is by choice though, as I easily could keep normal sleeping hours if I wasn’t pushing myself to do so much extra practice. I don’t especially miss Colorado (alright, I hardly even think about it at the moment), but I think this is mostly due to being always busy with something. I have no opportunity to sit in a room and rot, and I’m still actually enjoying the big city. I expect by the time I get to Christmas I’ll be ready for a break.

Another essay, this time comparing two things. Also full marks

Ever since the invention of fire, humans have used heat to cook food. For thousands of years the preferred method of containment while heating for anything that could not be impaled upon a stick was placing it inside a metal vessels; items we now know as pots and pans. These devices can range from a most simplistic metal cavity to a work of art most appropriate for only a professional chef.
Our modern cookware comes in two major varieties: non-stick and not non-stick. Both share the obvious similarities of holding food, transferring heat evenly from a heat source, and being of roughly comparable shapes. Both are generally made of metal, usually have handles, and frequently include matching lids. However, a standard pot or pan is likely to be made from a far greater selection of materials than one with a non-stick coating. A normal piece of cookware is likely to have a base and, for high-end models, side walls made either of copper or aluminum – both highly-conductive metals. Copper is generally considered superior but is usually far more expensive. Unfortunately copper and, too a much lesser extent, aluminum react chemically to various types of food and must usually be coated or treated in some way to prevent the metal from changing the flavor of whatever is being prepared. A favorite way to prevent this from happening is to apply a layer of stainless steel, which is both hard and highly-nonreactive.

A non-stick pot or pan is also typically made of aluminum – which is much cheaper and lighter than copper – but instead of another metal layer it is instead coated with Teflon, a plastic which is well-known for its non-reactive and anti-stick qualities. Teflon is a relatively recent invention, at least compared the the history of cooking, so while non-stick dishes are popular in homes it would be rare to find them in a professional kitchen.

Nonstick and standard cookware each have specific advantages and disadvantages when compared to the other. Non-stick pans are not only very easy to clean, they also are less likely to cause burned food. A regular pot requires significantly more oil to prevent food from fusing to the metal, but in most cases but can be heated to far higher temperatures – something which damages a Teflon coating and invariably hastens the demise of the kitchen piece. While non-stick is doubtless easier to maintain in day-to-day use, it can be TOO non-stick, making fried foods difficult to manage unless a significant amount of extra oil is used. In the end, it is a choice very much open to personal preference and style of food preparation, and many people own examples of both varieties in order to have available which ever is more suited to the current need.

The English Composition class is currently going through a series of short, 1-2 page essays. This one was in a ‘descriptive style’ and received full marks

On the wall opposite the building’s only elevator hangs a set of five lithographs. In size only their heights vary, but all are taller than they are wide and arranged so that the bottom of the frames is an always constant distance from the floor. The walls behind them are a faded shade of white; the lighting cast by the utilitarian overhead fluorescents, never intended to flatter artwork, is more than partially obstructed by the old and many-times-repainted air ducts. Each member of the set is bordered by a simple white oak frame, less than an inch wide, designed to contain but neither diminish nor enhance. Within the frames are flat expanses of blank white paper, on the top of which are attached sheets of thick white card with edges all carefully torn – not cut – into perfect rectangles.

The designs placed on each are rendered in solid, vibrant colors – red, purple, green, black, blue – alternating with the blankness of the card behind. All are, horizontally, in perfect symmetry although only one is symmetrical in the vertical direction. Each image is abstract and dominated by straight, geometric lines – in fact, only two of the five pieces even contain curved elements. The initial impression is of random shapes, but a closer inspection reveals vaguely-recalled scenes from life: the arches of an ancient roman aqueduct; the doors of a bus; a primitive hut; an ornate front doorway. Only one appears to be entirely abstract, and it is the only member of the set which contains no color other than black. Perhaps the artist intended to evoke an oriental design, or was simply enjoying the pattern created by interlocking angles.

It’s literally impossible to walk down the street here for longer than 30 seconds without hearing SOMEONE say something about the political process. This photo was a taken outside our dorm building, which was used as a polling place, at around 8:15 a.m. and shows about one tenth of the line.

Voting Line at the YWHA

Piano Ensemble - Ms. Meng

Ms. Meng is one of the most eccentric people I have ever met. Every time I think I have some sort of handle on her personality, a new facet comes along and I have to reevaluate. At Mannes she is in charge of this class, piano sight-reading (something from which I am exempt by exam), some piano lessons for non-piano majors, and first year ear training. At the Curtis Institute she is also a professor of ear training, and she loves to drop names of all the famous and fabulous students she has instructed while there.

Anyway, onward to the class. In theory this is the second-year class which comes after piano sight-reading. However, a significant percentage of undergraduates manage to test directly into it which, from all accounts, is far superior for mental health reasons than spending a year in the previous course. The work itself is piano duets (of which there is a surprisingly large repertoire,) either in the four hand or two piano variety. Currently my partner and I are working on Debussy Six Épigraphes Antiques, which is a set of short impressionistic pieces. Nothing in them is technically too difficult, but they require large amounts of time in rehearsal to sort out voicing and ensemble issues. They are also almost entirely written in pianissimo or below, which is quite challenging given the general state of the pianos at this school. Fortunately my partner is both a fabulous pianist and a good friend, so we have a lot of fun practicing and work particularly well as a duet pair. I’m not terribly excited about the requirement of switching partners at the end of the semester.

A recent essay on which I received an A

I don’t think anyone can walk past the man on the street corner – the one dressed in rags and holding a hand-written cardboard sign – without feeling at least slightly guilty. We look the other way, pretending not to see him, trying to justify our coldness by telling ourselves he wouldn’t be there unless he wished it so, that there are places he could go for help. But I believe we all wonder, at least occasionally, what twist of fate has allowed us to be the ones walking along, well-fed and warm, while he’s begging for spare change. Why should we be so absorbed in our own personal affairs when such people are starving in the gutters around the world? How do the paths we’ve chosen for ourselves help bring peace to the human race, or is it not even our place to be concerned about such things?

Of course many people do devote their lives to the betterment of humanity through direct service, such as digging wells in Africa or building new schools in the mountains of Tibet. But what of everyone else – the majority of us who live our lives with little thought for anything beyond which restaurant to visit for lunch or what new pair of shoes would best match the new clothes we recently bought? I can speak for only myself, but the debate over whether I have made a responsible and virtuous decision in devoting my future to art, and more specifically music, is frequently on my mind. Without doubt it is a path which brings purpose to my own life, and enjoyment to many of those immediately around me, but can I justify putting my personal satisfaction above the well-being of others?

Unlike something such as dentistry – where, even if not actually helping to prevent an armed conflict or distributing food to those in need, one is at least providing a direct and useful service to other people – the benefits of music are not things that can be so easily defined. By what right should I, simply because I was born into relative wealth and comfort, use all the resources available to me in pursuit of such a selfish goal? For the cost of a year in music school, I could save hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people from starvation. I think about this every time I, dressed in clean clothes and holding a bag full of groceries, try to avert my eyes from the woman digging through a subway station garbage can in search of discarded fare cards. Of course there are many who have a far larger capacity for help and do nothing, but there are also many more who have far less and accomplish more. It is almost as though we forget there is an outside world filled with those less fortunate than ourselves unless we encounter it every day, or, worse, we simply discount it as someone else’s problem. I don’t believe sane people – those who are not starving or otherwise desperate – would actively reach out and take food away from a child in order to feed themselves, but is it really so different if we passively fail to give that child anything at all? I know I try to justify my inaction through the excuse that I’m a student, that I’m investing in my future so that I may more effectively be of service in the future, but this simply brings back the question of whether music can truly be a tool for reaching out to those in need.

In many ways art, including music, is essentially nothing more than a personal vanity; we artists are at the same time both the most selfless and selfish examples of humanity. Musicians spend their entire lives searching for an elusive goal of perfection, expending amounts time and money that, while small compared to the world of business, are still huge when viewed next to the resources available to the majority of our race. Some do it in hope of finding fame and fortune, but others are simply seeking their own satisfaction. Still, it is just that: PERSONAL satisfaction. I doubt that most people, while going about their daily lives, pause any more frequently than I do to consider the plight of those less fortunate than themselves. But at least they, if this ever does occur, won’t be forced to recognize that they have consciously spent their lives in pursuit of a goal which cannot possibly have a direct influence on improving the world in a provable and physical way.

The only quantifiable benefit of pursuing a musical career is the opportunity to pass along this drive for perfection. While the highly-honed skills of a professional musician may well be incomprehensible, almost to the point of alchemy, for an average listener from the street, nearly anyone can still recognize and appreciate the existence of something exceptional. Few people have the perseverance – perhaps even mild insanity – necessary to realize a career in the performing arts, but I am told over and over by those in older generations how music had a profound effect on their early lives. They tell me my own experiences bring this back to mind and they hope I will one day have the same memories. This is the excuse I give myself for the wastefulness of my own education; the belief that any encounter with something or someone truly good at what they do, no matter what that may be, is an experience from which we can all learn. It doesn’t matter if the person I observe is a bus driver and does nothing more exceptional than a good job of announcing the the next cross street – she is still teaching me a valuable lesson, if I can stop long enough to learn it.

Although it is obviously true that more culturally-developed nations and regions are less likely to have mass starvation, or be involved in a destructive regional war, it’s far more unclear whether art and the artists who create it are a cause or effect of this stability. A certain amount of calm is necessary before any kind of artistic development can occur – it’s difficult to pursue music when one is struggling every day just to survive – but I believe that, much like a growing garden where each new plant contributes more than it takes out, the arts can truly help the greater good of humanity if they once get a foothold. In fact, the most positive direct influence most musicians will probably ever have is through inspiring others and helping to advance the intellectual abilities of their fellow humans.

Perhaps this is the real purpose of music; to make people aware of what can be achieved with hard work and show that something more than the mundane of everyday life is possible. I will probably never be able to say I have all the answers, but I know music has made my life meaningful and shaped me into a better, more complete person. If I can somehow share this knowledge with others, then I will not consider the time and money spent in its discovery as solely a search for personal gain.