Yeah, no. That’s not how it works. 

The best writing begins with mess.

The messier and wilder you are, the better. The best thing we can do is throw ourselves in, as quickly as possible, and write a lot of mess, as fast as we can.

Okay, yeah, but how? 

If you’re ready to make the leap, here’s five ways to unstuck your writing. 

Recently, people have been asking me this a lot, and I’ll be honest with you, it kind of pisses me off.

My reaction to that question is visceral: defensive, angry, defiant. And a little scared. Because, dammit, I didn’t give up my childhood and every fun thing to be a violinist and have it called into question now. 
 

I’m also aware that my outsized reaction to this question also reveals my own insecurities. Because if someone is asking me if I’m still a violinist, it’s a pretty innocent question, right? I mean, I should be able to say, yes, without needing to prove it.

Lately, I’ve been wondering, why do I feel the need to prove it? And why, just because I’m doing something else in addition to playing the violin, are people so confused?

It seems like it’s difficult to process that I do multiple things. For example, I play the violin (yes, I still do) and yes, I also write.

It’s made me wonder why this seems so difficult to understand?

Do you ever feel like if you aren't doing music with 100% focus, then you aren't a serious musician? Maybe it's not something your friends or colleagues say explicitly, but somehow, you feel it or sense it?

I think it's because classical music - like ballet or ice skating or gymnastics, perhaps -- demands monastic devotion. 

Listen to this episode for why I think something about classical music training might keep us stuck in one identity and makes us afraid to try new things.

Since I received my Fulbright in the creative writing category, I thought it might be helpful for me to share some ideas about how creative writing has helped me and my violin playing:

How Creative Writing Could Make You a Happier Musician

In classical music, we accept nothing less than perfection. We mustn’t miss a shift or play out of tune. This perfectionism made me relentless and hard-working and followed me from The Juilliard School to the M.F.A. classroom. But it also made me deeply afraid to take risks, to grow. I suspect I’m not alone in struggling with toxic perfectionism. If you struggle, too, consider putting your violin away. Not forever, just for a pause.

There’s an idea that I like called “wabi-sabi,” the embracing of flaws in pottery where, instead of throwing away broken pieces, they’re mended with gold lacquer so that the restored object is gilded, made more beautiful. In Korea, we have the idea of “mak” or suddenness. A welcoming of imperfection that’s present in architecture and aesthetics. An affection for the unrehearsed, the unprepared. The surprise of unplanned delight.

Like meditation, writing has provided surprising lessons that have helped me with my violin playing:

1)  Create distance from the inner critic.

Our inner critic is a bully who doesn’t want us to change. Through writing, I’ve learned to grow fond(er) of the “sh**ty first drafts,” a term coined by writer Anne Lamott. Crappy early work is necessary. A willingness to tolerate it without self-loathing makes it possible for me to accept “sh**ty practice days” on my violin, too.

2)  Curiosity NOT judgement.

This is a mantra from the writer and teacher, Megan Stielstra. When I’m too tight in my writing (or violin playing), it’s because I’m trying too hard to be good. Judgement is heavy, mocking the toilet paper stuck to our shoe. Curiosity is lighter, gazing at our mismatched socks wondering, “hmm, how did that happen? Do I want to fix it? Maybe I like it this way?” Curiosity helps us grow in spite of our flaws. Judgement keeps us stuck in our flaws.

3)  Clarify your thoughts.

Everyone’s a writer. If you think, you’re a writer. If you talk, you’re a writer. The legendary pianist and pedagogue Leon Fleisher said that if we can’t articulate what we’re trying to do with words, then our intentions aren’t clear enough in our minds. Writing helps us understand ourselves. The clarity of mind that comes from writing makes you a better problem-solver and musician, not to mention better human, citizen, and advocate.

4)  The importance of “play” and making something of your own.

Writing teaches us to follow our creative impulses. Making my own stuff is like being a kid, playing for play’s sake. I’ll write something that I might throw away or put in a drawer. But it's ​mine,​ something I made for myself. What do ​I​ want? What do ​I​ think? Instead of: Am I doing it ​right?​ What will ​other​ people think? Writing cultivates a creative mindset instead of a corrective mindset

A term I use with my writing students and violin students is “creative courage” or the willingness to:

...be brave and take risks

...make mistakes and fail often

...look foolish

...be awesome

Writing has made me more creatively courageous and a happier violinist. I think you might enjoy writing, too!

Learn more about the stuff we talk about in this episode:

Jennifer Fawcett

Jennifer teaches at Skidmore College and her first novel, The Octagon House, will be published by Atria, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. 

Working Group Theatre, the theatre group that Jenn co-founded.

Imposter Syndrome

The International Theatre Project, the organization that allowed Jenn to travel to Tanzania and Rwanda to teach storytelling and theatre to young students.  

0:59 - Cellist Laura Usiskin on perfectionism and the ways we compare ourselves to others.

2:41 - Pianist and scholar, Mina Yang, gives some advice on being grateful and why you don’t have to do music professionally to find value in it.

3:43 - Violinist, conductor, and scholar, Sean Wang, talks about the importance of being yourself and finding your unique artistic identity.

6:05 - Sarah Carter is a cellist, medical doctor and a former child prodigy herself. Here, she talks about why there’s always enough time to grow and explore.

7:50 - And finally, violist Celia Hatton, on taking up space, speaking up, and fighting systematic bias and racism. 

Thank you to all of my guests and a special "thank you" to YOU, the "Is it Recess Yet?" community. I’m really grateful to you for listening and I look forward to 2021 with more guests and opportunities for us to grow together.

Miki is a core member of the Grammy-nominated ensemble, A Far Cry

The Boston Globe profile on Miki's "Little Criers"concerts for families and children. Find "Little Criers" on A Far Cry's Facebook Page.

Miki and I play in the Solera Quartet together: MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE is from Mendelssohn's String Quartet, Op. 80, from the Solera Quartet's debut album, EVERY MOMENT PRESENT.

Robert Levin, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

Ronda Cole, Director of NVSMS , Violin Teacher, Teacher Trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA)

Ricardo Cyncynates, Assistant Concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra

Ani Kavafian, Professor of Violin, Yale School of Music

Miriam Fried, Professor of Violin, New England Conservatory of Music

Donald Weilerstein, Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies, New England Conservatory of Music

Noa Kageyama, Bulletproof Musician

Noa teaches at the Juilliard School

The Suzuki Method

Noa got a double degree at Oberlin

Don Greene, Ph.d, Performance Mastery Trainer

Seymour Bernstein, pianist and pedagogue

Ethan Hawke and his film about Seymour Bernstein

This is Your Brain on Jazz: Researchers Use MRI to Study Spontaneity, Creativity

Seth Godin

Alexander Technique

Hidden Brain: The Edge Effect

Ivan Galamian, legendary violin teacher of Itzhak Perlman among many others

Louis Persinger, legendary violin teacher of Yehudi Menuhin, among many others

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2:33 - Dean Charles talks about his growing up in the church and how his family migrated from the Jim Crow South. How his family's stories of slavery and survival and faith make up the story of his heritage.

5:12 - When and how Dean Charles was called to the ministry. His background in microbiology, psychology, and sociology. How he became a university chaplain. "Human beings are stranger than microbes."

7:31 - What is a university chaplain? "Helping communities process trauma."

11:05 - What it means to be the first African American chaplain at the University of Chicago. "Chicago is a challenging place to be a black male."

18:18 - How Dean Charles's childhood experiences of the turbulent 1960's led to his scholarly work in religion and violence. "What is the religious response to violence? Can we reform policing?"

26:00 - Protest songs and why music is important during social movements: "One cannot live on rage alone....Defiant joy keeps things moving forward."

27:49 - [Music] presents an image to us of the kind of community that we're striving for. It also names community pain."

28:07 - "We need poets and musicians to help us name our reality." How the arts help us process trauma.

28:54 - "We need artists and musicians now more than ever because there is a certain level of pain and rupture that defies prose."

29:44 - On Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's essay, "The Vocation of the Cantor": "Music has a shattering quality; it allows the soul to have an encounter with reality that is beyond what we have simply by mere cognition."

31:32 - "You can be aware of the barriers to access and to advancement while at the same time being told by the people on the other side of those barriers that they don't exist. It is absolutely crazy-making."

31:47 - Death as the universal experience that allows entry into "intimate settings you wouldn't normally be welcomed into" and how death breaks down barriers.

34:07 - "A bad day if you're poor is much worse than a bad day if you're wealthy."

38:09 - "Oppression Olympics" and how "we act in this country like empathy is the only impetus toward moral action...you don't have to feel what some else feels to do the right thing."

43:25 - "We act in this country like empathy is the only impetus toward moral action. You don't have to feel what someone else feels to do the right thing."

44:43 - "Treat others not only how we want to be treated but treat others the way they want to be treated."

45:19 - "Create a society that makes space for all of us."

48:18 - "When things don't make sense, we still resist because to resist absurdity is to live." What Dean Charles does to counterbalance his own despair in these difficult times.

59: 35 - Dean Charles's advice to his younger self: "Take your experience of the world seriously. It's valuable. It's a gift to you and to those around you."

Kenji Bunch 

3:56 - How Kenji got started in music on violin and piano.

5:32 - How Kenji always had an "abstract notion" that he wanted to compose and how this led to his double major in Viola Performance and Composition at Juilliard.

6:49 - The creative aspect of music and how making his own music was always attached to Kenji's musical consciousness and imagination.

7:56 - The value of listening to music in "a non-hierarchical way where everything [is] worth our listening attention. Listening to everything with the same ears and treating it with the same respect."

9:22 - "We see a tendency in the classical world of sometimes dismissing the seriousness or value of non-classical or more commercial kinds of music."

9:40 - "Even if it's a pop song with three chords, a lot of people worked really hard on that song and took it very seriously....there's something to learn from that amount of detail that's put into a product."

10:57 - Kenji's "Neo-American" sensibility in his compositions and how he responds to critics."It would seem less authentic to me to write music that sounds like I'm in Vienna in the 1920's or if I only played music from Vienna in the 1820's. That's not the life I'm living and I don't want to be disconnected...I'd rather embrace and draw inspiration from what's going on around me."

12:11 - Why Kenji draws parallels between his compositional style and chefs of the past twenty years who elevate comfort food and respond to multitudinous cuisines present in the culture.

13:01 - "I've never thought of myself as an innovator...[but] simply part of a long tradition...of composer who are influenced by what they are hearing around them."

15:52 - "My mere existence was a creative risk, as a bi-racial Asian kid in the 1970's." How this experience of identity was "awkward" for Kenji but also liberating: "You're already imperfect in the eyes of a lot of people, so the pressure is off."

17:10 - "So much of it is giving ourselves permission to take those risks and to define ourselves, to call ourselves composers or composer-performers, or improvisers.

17:59 - What Kenji is doing to continue to grow and develop during quarantine. "The direction I was heading in as a musician has been accelerated because of this extra time."

19:45 - "I want to be able to connect with people with my music. If there's a barrier to that, I don't want it to be because of me. I just want to be a flexible musician who can find some way to connect with anyone else through music."

20:23 - "I tend to say 'yes' to everything because I want to prove to myself that I can do these things."

22:26 - "I felt like a misfit at Juilliard."

23:13 - "The paradox: there has to be a rigorous standard for the level of [classical] training and it's very hard to put that in place and also leave room for creative expressions and taking risks."

23:45 - "In the last twenty some years, the music world has changed more radically than it ever has, since [Juilliard] has been around."

23:54 - Why "being willing to fail publicly" is the key to becoming a flexible musician. Kenji talks about Citigrass, his bluegrass band of fifteen years. "None of us actually knew how to play bluegrass...at one point we were paid not to play." How failing publicly leads to the acquisition of new musical skills and language: "we couldn't help but improve."

25:45 - "Willingness to suck in public is so important but also counter to our [classical] training. We spend so many long years learning how not to suck in public."

26:57 - Why people assume classical musicians can play everything: "Classical players can play with a facility and virtuosity that's very easily identifiable...and not only [do we assume that] you are a genius and do all these amazing things, you must also somehow be virtuous and noble." The truth is classical musicians are just regular people and "the abilities they've attained have come at the expense of other experiences in theirs lives and it's often a painful thing."

27:62 - How classical training "develops the coordination between your eyes and your fingers" but can also "stunt the connection between your ear and your fingers or your mind and your fingers."

31:31 - Kenji is the Artistic Director of Fear No Music, a new music group and music education organization in Portland, OR. 

34:08 - Why Kenji would tell his younger self to "lighten up, have some fun, don't worry....if you stick to what you really want to do, that's the thing that [you] can contribute to the world that has the most value." Why Kenji wishes the competitiveness of classical music training could be inverted to focusing on what each individual needs to be happy because "when you are comfortable in your own skin and doing something that makes you happy, that's when you can start to contribute and do stuff that's going to help other people." 

Karen Rile

2:05 - Karen's childhood growing up in an "arts friendly" family.

3:53 - Nathalie Hinderas, an African American pianist who faced career challenges due to racism and how Karen's mother, Joanne Rile, became her manager and pivoted towards a career in arts management, championing African American classical musicians.

5:58 - Why Karen found music lessons very stressful and anxiety producing.

6:56 - How Karen grew up surrounded by musicians and learned to revere them and how this led to a lifelong fascination with musicians.

8:00 - How Karen found her literary path.

11:04 - How Karen's children started music lessons despite her reservations.

12:25 - How Suzuki and Montessori pedagogies "collided" for one of Karen's daughters.

13:56 - How "small amounts of deliberate practice yields huge results" for Karen's children.

From the Top

18:16 - How the classical music culture of daily practice informs Karen's creative writing pedagogy: "focusing on technique some of the time (in writing) helps a lot."

20:18 - How creative writing culture can also inform classical music culture and why taking a break can be very necessary and helpful for classical musicians.

22:21 - How classical music gave Karen's children "an incredible work ethic."

22:50 - How Karen learned about homeschooling: "radical unschooling" and the flexibility Karen gained from this experience.

24:16 - Karen's obsession with the lives of musicians and how this informs her writing. Karen's novel, Winter Music, about a child prodigy musician.

27:03 - Karen's experience of Juilliard Pre-College as a parent. "It was more stressful for my daughter."

32:23 - How Karen started her literary magazine, Cleaver, with her daughter. How Cleaver became successful by combining flexibility with diligent practice.

Cleaver Workshops' online writing classes 

38:56 - How classical music training is so consuming, making it difficult to develop other skills. "The professionalism starts so young and there is hardly any time for anything else."

40:47 - "Everyone comes to writing because they've experienced ecstasy as a reader." Why college students and classical musicians seem to have very little time to read for pleasure.

43:03 - "A lot of classical musicians aren't comfortable writing because they haven't been allowed to just lie around and read a book."

43:43 - "Professional and academic writing is unclear and filled with jargon....creative writing helps develop the ability to write clearly and communicate well." Why creative writing and cultivating a writing practice are important.

47:06 - How color theory and psychology college courses continue to influence Karen's like and pedagogy.

Martin Seligman

49:34 - How arts entrepreneurship and day jobs can enable artists to pivot more quickly, especially in the COVID pandemic. Also, the flaws of a culture that wants the arts to be available but doesn't want to pay for it: how this makes it extremely difficult for artists to make a living wage.

1:03:54 - How Karen learned about creative courage from her daughter's experience with a tragedy. "The world keeps changing but you can change with it."

1:10:16 - "One Train May Hide Another," a poem by Kenneth Koch. How unexpected change can bring new opportunities.

1:11:55 - "Be flexible and know that a small amount of work every day yields more than the sum of the work. And one train may hide another....be open because you have no idea what may happen to you."

Byron Au Yong

3:13 - The genesis of "Activist Songbook." The murder of Vincent Chin as impetus for U.S. legislation against hate crimes.

5:12 - "'Activist Songbook' is the third in a trilogy of works where I've been addressing what Americans fear; ways out of oppression; and the central focus of these three works: an Asian male in America who receives media attention."

6:03 - "Launched in 2017, 'Activist Songbook' was directly impacted by the election of Donald Trump and the increasing racism and xenophobia that have always been present in the U.S. but were further unleashed by Trump's method's of rhetoric...'Activist Songbook' is a project to counteract hate and energize movements."

Asian Arts Initiative, an intersectional organizing group, founded in part as a response to the race riots following the Rodney King verdict in 1992. Founding Director, Gayle Isa.

8:20 - Byron talks about his musical (written with Aaron Jafferis), "Stuck Elevator," about Ming Kuang Chen, an undocumented Chinese delivery man in New York City who was stuck in an elevator in the Bronx for 81 hours.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund 

11:14 - Byron talks about his piece, "The Ones," about the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, the largest school mass shooting in the U.S.

19:32 - The need for collective action by marginalized groups in order to be heard. How do we broaden the classical music canon beyond music of dead, white, male, European composers?

21:48 - Byron talks about his song "We Are Leaders," from "Activist Songbook," written from an interview with Wei Chen (Asian Americans United, Civic Engagement Coordinator), who immigrated from China to the U.S. at age 16 and his experiences - alongside those of other Chinese and Vietnamese students - of bullying and violence in American high school.

22:48 - Why drag is important as related to visual representation. "Figuring out alternatives to dominant systems that oppress people."

23:16 - The Japanese American elders who are still protesting because they were incarcerated as children in the Japanese internment camps in the U.S.

23:40 - Jae Rhim Lee's Mushroom Burial Suit, to reimagine the funeral industry. 

24:15 - Why representation matters. Byron talks about his realization that beyond Bruce Lee, he has no other Asian male artists or public figures to emulate. "I should be able to populate a wall with images of Asian male heroes."

26:50 - The damages of justifying music under the label of "comfort, care, and bringing together." "The arts are part of a different economy, a gift economy...capitalism debilitates."

29:52 - "I believe activism happens in so many different ways." The importance of "inner action and small actions, walking down the street."

31:39 - The UceLi Quartet opens the Barcelona Opera house with a concert performed for plants. 

32:05 - "Activism can be reading certain authors." Alice Walker, The Color Purple. Lynn Nottage, Ruined.

33:07 - "There is activism in making the world a little bit nicer."

33:33 - How the immigrant experience fosters both very high expectations and the ability to "make do."

34:18 - "We learn from our experiences, especially the painful ones." Why we can't avoid going through our "shit" and how our "grand plans" become more flexible as we grow older.

35:30 - Why the "solitary artist" is BS and why we can't create in isolation. "Music is made in ensemble. Art is created in community with other people.""Go into the forest with your friends and sing with the trees."

36:48 - Why we have to write our own roles and stories. How classical music separates us from our whole humanity. Why classical music performers need to reclaim their agency.

38:57 - I voice my frustrations with micro aggressions and invisibility in white dominant culture. Also, some stories about online dating and white guys who "prefer" Asian women. *eyeroll*

41:54 - Kristina Wong, performance artist, who, in response to Trump's election, ran for elected office and won in L.A.'s Koreatown. Also, her projects, "Big Bad Chinese Mama" and "Auntie Sewing Squad, " making masks for vulnerable people.

43:35 - Why finding similar ideas in multiple authors is the "connecting thread."

43:51 - Byron's practice of keeping a quote book of autobiographies and biographies of composers. Shostakovich: "just try to reach one person."

44:23 - Ronald Takaki, scholar who worked to rewrite American history to include Asian Americans. "Find gems that connect humanity...keep writing and know that those nuggets connect with other people....there's room for ALL of it."

Byron Au Yong

2:50 - "If you hear a child sing, they're trying to comfort themselves." How music provided solace for Byron and a way to process the multiple Chinese languages of his family plus "the healing powers of music."

4:27 - How Byron's Chinese immigrant parents raised him to be English speaking and his experiences growing up in a multilingual family.

6:23 - Byron's experiences in musical theatre and how his aunt encouraged him to audition for "The King and I." Byron talks about the strict delineation between composition and musical theatre in higher education institutions.

8:32 - Why Byron centers his music and creative work in the larger context of social justice.

9:07 - How Byron was bullied in school, living in a white suburb, and how he instinctively used songs as "a way to shield myself."

10:12 - "Who is like me in the world?" How Byron found his way in college as he navigated the largely white landscape of his composition program.

12:25 - "Writing was my way out." "Being able to write well is a power."

The International Examiner, the oldest and largest nonprofit, pan-Asian Pacific American publication in the Northwest.

16:08 - Gary Fukushima. Byron talks about how he was siloed in music school as a "classical composition" major and how this tracking perhaps limited his access to jazz improvisation. How this led Byron to the avant-garde and experimental music. "We're trapped in Western art music, how do we escape?"

19:34 - "The cracks are made larger but the cracks have always been there." How Byron found his way toward ethnomusicology and musical diversity. "Western classical music is not the only music in the world." The importance of breaking down hierarchies and making them more "horizontal."

23:16 - The importance of lifting up and embracing Black Lives Matter.

23:40 - Byron's project, Activist Songbook, and his work interviewing Asian immigrants, refugees, organizers, and activists.

24:13 - The importance of continuing to "counteract the hate." "People of color are the global majority. White supremacists have to be scared because they don't actually have the numbers."

25:14 - "The last four years have been a disaster." Why young people are yelling and why "they SHOULD yell." The importance of protest.

The Vincent Chin murder.

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

27:29 - "Ultimately, I'm intersectional but there is something about affinity groups."

28:29 - Why we need to figure things out within our own groups and why white people need to figure things out "on their own," without burdening BIPOC to provide that education.

Ron Chew

28:39 - Why storytelling, music, and artifacts are important vehicles for social justice and community building, especially through a community curating process.

29:22 - "Sometimes, a 'learning' feels like a 'robbing' without any reciprocation." On appropriation and the importance of reciprocity.

30:22 - "As hurtful as it may seem, some of our relatives are clueless." How white people are not the only perpetrators of white supremacist thinking.

30:30 - Why love is the agent for change and how it can make difficult conversations with loved ones possible. "It becomes part of your toolkit."

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Augusta Read Thomas

2:40 - Augusta makes a statement about Black Lives Matter and says "it's profoundly urgent that we finally, hopefully, this time, make things better."

3:44 - How Augusta got started in music.

6:40 - How she brings "enormous empathy" for the player when she is writing music.

7:10 - Why "Jazz is the great American music" and her obsessions with Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, etc.

8:21 - "I don't see any reason why the profession of music should be anything but wildly diverse....Music is so much bigger."

11:00 - "I love music!" Augusta talks about collaboration and the range of her output.

Luciano Berio

15:23 - Augusta talks about her opera, Sweet Potato Kicks the Sun, which features the "astonishing" beatboxer, Nicole Paris. "Opera should be able to include all voices."

20:06 - How the large majority of people who make music on the planet don't read music and the importance of "breaking down every wall," "deep collaboration," and the integration of art forms. "Come with your creative courage. Be crazy, let's go!"

24:09 - Why Augusta never encounters "creative blocks.""Every piece I've ever written starts as an improvisation."

26:32 - Why music is Augusta's main source of inspiration and why she also loves poetry. "The reason I write music is to give thanks."

31:59 - Augusta talks about her love of and dedication to teaching.

33:04 - The three things one needs to be an excellent composer.

34:57 - How Augusta started the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition at the University of Chicago as well as her robust volunteerism and citizenship within the music profession.

Tania Leon

39:35 - "I've worked so hard for so long; I've worked as hard as anybody."

41:43 - "I look forward to a time when we can all be together and can make music together." The challenges of the COVID pandemic for musicians, especially for performers.

44:15 - Augusta's advice to young people: "What do you want to do? Be true to yourself. Always be honest. Look for integrity in your own work and your own life. Be generous to others. And work toward extreme excellence."

Blair McMillen

Blair's YouTube channel

2:12 - Blair talks about how he got started, going to Interlochen, and then Oberlin.

4:59 - Blair's struggles with a "debilitating fear of performance" and how he learned to manage this anxiety and stage fright. How beta blockers helped him deal with his "preoccupation with playing perfectly."

Noa Kageyama, The Bulletproof Musician

13:08 - How Blair helps his own students deal with performance anxiety and stage fright.

14:36 - How talking about "uncomfortable things and awkward truths" was "taboo" when Blair was in school. The "hero worship" of teachers in music school who seemed to have "perfect lives." "Students want to know their teachers aren't perfect human beings."

16:30 - How a broad liberal arts education helped Blair discover his interest in music of the 1950's, 60's and 70's and opened the door to contemporary music for him.

Tim Weiss, Oberlin College and Conservatory

21:08 - Blair talks about his years at The Juilliard School, going from a broad range school to a conservatory's narrower focus.

23:44 - Blair and I talk about life after graduating from Juilliard.

26:05 - How the advent of the Internet changed the perception of entrepreneurship and self-promotion in classical music. The need to change the classical music paradigm.

29:08 - How the "old guard" mentality about achieving a career in classical music gives very little agency to the performer.

31:20 - How COVID has affected performers and how the pandemic may push us to be more creative and resilient.

32:42 - Blair's love of learning music that has little or no "performance history" and how this liberated his interest in contemporary music.

34:22 - How music students today are interested in expanding past the idea of classical music as Eurocentric. "A life in music will not be a recital-oriented, soloist-oriented life."

37:07 - How the attitudes towards contemporary music and teaching have changed.

38:02 - The pandemic and the importance of "trying things you're not good at." "It's okay to have doubts and it's okay to try other things for a while....It's okay to be vulnerable."

42:34 - "I so wish that classical music could be more about the process than the product."

45:49 - Why being a part-time, semi-professional musician can be a healthy option. "It's okay to be part-time, it's okay to let it go for a while." "Try not to base your own self-worth on what other people think about you."

47:50 - Why open conversation about the realities of a musician's life is important. "It's okay to not have a clear vision of what your life is going to look like as a musician." "Doubt about the future, for better or worse, is part of the 'crazy life' of a musician."

Sean Wang 

4:00 - Sean's arduous process and emigration from Taiwan to the U.S. How he won a major competition and left Taiwan to study music abroad.

5:39 - How at age 13, Sean took time off from school in order to practice and win the competition.

6:10 - How leaving Taiwan was necessary at that time, in order fro Sean to develop as a musician.

7:45 - "I always knew that I would be a musician one day. It was always what I wanted to do." Sean's love of music and his true desire to be a musician. How classical music was a kind of "bubble" and an escape for Sean, a place where he could be comfortable. "Going abroad was a realization of a dream."

8:52 - Sean remembers how performing expressively was a challenge, partly because of what Sean calls the "cultural pressure" of his upbringing - to be quiet, to listen to adults - and how some of this affected his playing and put him at a disadvantage as he confronted conflicting messages. "I wasn't supposed to express myself."

11:10 - The challenges of "assimilation": "Why are you being snobbish? Why are you disrespecting your trio mates?" How a music coach shamed a 14-year-old Sean for being reserved and quiet. How this music coach failed to understand or feel the need to understand Sean's background as well as his limited English at that time. How the burden of assimilation is placed on immigrants to adjust their behaviors, customs, and personhood for the comfort of the dominant culture. "My quietness was misunderstood and taken almost as an act of defiance."

15:04 - "In this society, one is assessed by how he/she talks and acts....the initial impression is everything, the first 10-20 seconds can form someone's impression, sometimes permanently." Without knowing this because, as Sean puts it: "in Asian societies, things work slightly differently," Sean recounts his struggles with inadvertently making a "not good first impression" and how for the longest time he wondered, "why don't people like me? Why am I so unpopular among my classmates and teachers?"

16:07 - How it was only in his 20's and 30's that Sean began to examine and reflect upon his experiences and how the difference between his Taiwanese culture and American culture was bigger than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

17:03 - The implicit bias that Asians experience in white culture. The myth of meritocracy and how that burdens non-whites with the belief that all things are fair and equal in American and therefore, the deficiencies lie not within the system but within the individual who fails to be "good enough."

18:50 - Sean and I share our experiences with microaggressions and how we experience them on a nearly daily basis.

19:28 - What led Sean to his multi-faceted career as a violinist, scholar, and conductor. How the perception of specialism versus generalist has affected his career.

22:22 - How Sean's scholarship in musicology changed his approach to violin playing.

25:20 - "The freedom one gains from knowing more." "Knowing more helps me make better decisions and helps me teach."

30:04 - Sean's challenges in finding a career path after graduation while also balancing his family's needs, leading him to playing country music in Nashville, teaching at various institutions, joining Ars Lyrica Houston, executive directing Bach Society Houston, and now, conducting and teaching at the Longy School of Music of Bard College.

33:50 - Sean talks about times in his career when he became aware of his race. How "Asian musicians are admired for showmanship and not so much musicianship." How people make assumptions about Asian musicians.

39:19 - The "bamboo ceiling" that continues to prevent Asian musicians from rising to positions of executive power. "It seems that in order to get to the same place as white colleagues, an Asian has to work almost twice as hard."

44:40 - How Sean feels the priorities have changed for current students and graduates of music schools today.

47:36 - "At times, it's healthy to not feel all that comfortable."

53:22 - East West Music, a non-profit that Sean founded that commissions new music for Western and Eastern instruments.

54:40 - Sean's "practical advice" to his younger self, about the importance of having an "artistic identity" and the importance of breaking from tradition.

Celia Hatton

2:32 - Celia talks about growing up in a musically and artistically eclectic family and how she got started on the viola.

9:18 - Celia talks about what motivated her to play classical music.

11:55 - Celia talks about what it's been like to be a bi-racial, black woman in classical music and why she started to feel self-conscious about her race in high school and college. Her experiences of invisibility as she rose into the "higher spaces" within classical music.

21:05 - Celia and I talk about how "blind auditions" in orchestra auditions are not actually fair because the final rounds of auditions are not behind a screen, in most cases.

22:26 - Celia and I talk about colorism: "the whole construct is that light is good and dark is bad and anything in between is related to those two ends of the spectrum."

24:09 - We discuss code-switching in different spaces. Sphinx Organization. 

27:06 - We discuss white supremacy and the elevation of white beauty. 

36:19 - Why representation is imperative in connecting with our communities: "Play a piece by a person of color."

38:02 - What Celia would do to increase representation in classical music organizations. "[Classical music] is not a bubble."

40:52 - The problem of "universalism" in classical music and the notion that Western classical music is the "best" music. "We have to expand the canon. We have to go beyond what is comfortable."

45:20 - We discuss "the pursuit of perfection versus creativity" in classical music. "We're trained to seek perfection....I have felt that creativity was secondary. The pursuit of technical brilliance came first and I wish that weren't true." 

48:42 - What Celia would tell her younger self: "She deserves to be in the room. There are forces at play that will make her doubt that and it will be there but you have to stand up. You have to speak up. You have to take up space because you deserve it."

50:26 - We discuss becoming aware of institutional racism and Celia's lifelong feeling that she was "weak" and my lifelong feeling that "I wasn't enough." "I'm not crazy. You're not crazy." 

And subscribe to the mailing list here! 

Dr. Nadine Kelly

1:44 - Growing up the daughter of Haitian immigrants, Nadine's journey to becoming a pathologist and how she decided to leave medicine after being diagnosed with depression and how this led to her second career as YOGI MD, a yoga instructor for mature women.

9:38 - How the pandemic has changed Nadine's business and empowered her mature women to embrace technology.

13:19 - How yoga is a "whole practice" that allows us to let go of judgement and practice self-compassion.

15:56 - How Nadine's taekwondo and yoga practices complement each other.

22:00 - How Nadine applied to Seth Godin's Podcast Fellowship, despite her reservations. What podcasting has done for her platform for education and business. How her podcast prompts a broader view of what individual wellness means, beyond our dress size.

27:51 - The importance of listening to our bodies not just when we are in pain. How we treat ourselves and what we think we "deserve" impacts our lives. "It's up to us to choose us and it's up to you to decide what you need."

32:08 - The benefits of yoga in treating chronic illness. "Learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable." 

33:36 - How Nadine overcomes her creative blocks and cultivates creative courage.

40:59 - Why it's okay to slow down and find balance in the pandemic.

45:19 - Nadine shares some simple approaches to proper posture and breathing.

50:27 - Nadine's advice to her younger self: "Be nicer to yourself. It's so simple but requires so much bravery." 

Shannon Wilkinson

1:41 – Shannon’s circuitous path to becoming a life coach before life coaching was “a thing.” How Shannon always knew she wanted to be her own boss.

5:35 – Social entrepreneurs and why Shannon likes to work with people who dedicate their lives to making their part of the world a better place: parents, teachers, artists, employees.

7:52 – How Shannon transformed from someone who was “allergic to exercise” to climbing 12,000 foot mountains and running marathons…in her 40’s! How coaching and community support can help us transform and evolve.

13:35 – Identity and how we label ourselves.

16:38 – Shannon’s podcast “Getting To Good Enough” about letting go of perfectionism. What is perfectionism and why do we turn to it as a coping mechanism. How perfectionism keeps us from living our lives fully and can keep us stuck. The importance of “play” and hobbies and how Shannon quit so many hobbies because of her perfectionism.

23:22 – When does perfectionism become toxic? What are the early indicators that perfectionism is starting to get in your way?

28:55 – Why calming down our nervous system and “taking a breath” is so crucial to opening up our awareness and improves our ability to problem-solve and think creatively as well as see new options.

33:57 – How taking one simple breath is enough to calm ourselves down. Finding the smallest door in and making things “ridiculously easy.”

37:00 – How Shannon and I met taking the DaVinci Cartooning class and the importance of “play” and cultivating hobbies.

41:30 – Shannon shares the unexpectedly useful lessons and tools she’s gained in the aftermath of head injury.

44:00 – We talk about the toxic “motivational” pressure people are feeling in quarantine and how it’s okay that we’re struggling with productivity. “If you get out of bed most days, you’re winning (quarantine).”

46:16 – Why Shannon would tell her younger self that “it’s all going to be okay. It’s all going to work out in ways that you can’t even imagine.”

48″06 – “I’m looking to help people that want to have that life that they’re maybe even too afraid to dream of.”

48:27 – BONUS: How can producing your own podcast help you in your self-development? PLUS: duck quack bloopers!

Mai Der Vang

1:55 - Mai Der's growing up in the U.S, as the child of Hmong refugees. How Mai Der began writing poetry as a kid.

3:12 - How early encouragement and her 5th grade teacher spurred Mai Der's writing habit and her interest in creative writing and poetry.

4:45 - How Mai Der's writing is influenced by both the Hmong and English languages.

5:47 - Mai Der talks about her book, Afterland, and retelling of the devastation of the Secret War that wreaked havoc on the Hmong people. How Mai Der learned about the Secret War. How the trauma of crisis and war moves us to seek out spirituality and how the Hmong people's shamanism is linked to displacement and the refugee experience of post-geography and exile.

Mai Der's New York Times article about the Secret War. 

9:20 - Mai Der and I talk about the ways immigrant or refugee parents withhold traumatic information from their children and the ways displacement affects one's sense of belonging. "Even if we try to go back, these places are never the same."

10:54 - The ways displacement is profoundly influential for the Hmong people, for whom there is no "bound" land the they can claim as their own. How this "boundlessness" and displacement influences Mai Der's work.

12:42 - Mai Der's thoughts on the connections between the migratory instincts that Hmong people have inhabited and their shamanism and spirituality.

15:12 - Mai Der talks about the horrific Secret War in which Hmong people were used by the U.S. in a proxy war agains the communists in Southeast Asia. Her own despair upon discovering the horror her parents and ancestors endured and escaped. "The U.S was able to fight this war without having to pull their own trigger. They had the Hmong bodies, the Hmong men, to fight the war for them. The aftermath of that was just devastating....Everyone got left behind, to fend for themselves...to face genocide and violence perpetrated by the communists against the Hmongs." How this led to mass exodus for the Hmong people.

20:39 - Upon the 2019 U.S. census, 300,000 Hmongs live in the U.S., mostly in California and Minnesota.

21:36 - What is it like for Mai Der - as a U.S. born child of Hmong refugees living in the U.S. - to live in and amongst the same country and people who perpetrated unspeakable violence against the Hmong people?

23:54 - The burden of excellence and accomplishment that Mai Der has felt as an immigrant. "I have to be twice as good to be given access, to be heard." How this experience is echoed in many immigrant stories.

26:16 - The challenges of being a female, P.O.C. writer and academic in the American literary landscape. The struggles with structures of patriarchy.

27:59 - The overwhelming swell of Hmong women pursuing leadership roles and how Mai Der's parents support and encourage her accomplishments.

29:39 - "You are a unicorn, Mai Der." How Mai Der is part of the growing community of Hmong writers.

31:23 - The Hmong American Writers' Circle, a grass-roots collective of Hmong writers. "It's lonely to be a writer and it's even lonelier to be a Hmong writer."

33:32 - "You cannot wait for spaces to be created for you. You have to go and make them yourself."

34:20 - How Mai Der cultivates her creative courage. Why taking long breaks and going very slowly works for Mai Der. How teaching helps her engage with craft.

36:49 - "It's not about me. It's about invoking something, a higher purpose."

38:52 - Managing success and failure and how they go hand in hand. "Every failure is an opportunity to reground ourselves." "Failure cannot be the reason you stop doing anything."

41:12 - "I just let go of my need to control the outcome."

42:12 - How rejection builds resilience.

42:58 - How rejection has changed Mai Der's experience of success and how she now qualifies success. "We have to reframe our thinking of what success is."

44:49 - Mai Der talks about her next book.

45:57 - Mai Der's advice to her younger self: trust your intuition. "Don't be afraid to let go of control and allow yourself to be open to what you don't know. Be okay with not knowing, uncertainty, and doing things that unsettle people. Trust you will fulfill your higher purpose."

Nick Photinos

4:23 - Struggling with productivity and career transformation during the pandemic.

4:38 - Nick talks about the "profound change" his career is taking now as he prepares to leave Eighth Blackbird and how we all identify with our professional personas.

6:00 - The challenges of reinventing oneself during the uncertainty of COVID-19.

8:29 - The genesis of Eighth Blackbird at Oberlin. Tim Weiss.

12:52 - How Nick decided it was time to leave Eighth Blackbird and move onto the next stage of his career.

15:00 - The complexities of interpersonal relationships within small ensembles. How Eighth Blackbird defined their mission and made artistic choices in the beginning.

17:35 - What happens when something we identify with changes?

21:28 - How competitions helped Eighth Blackbird at the start of their career. How uniqueness helped their career and why it can be hard to differentiate yourself if you stay on a very traditional career path.

24:28 - How staying true to what "lit him up" is what gave Nick clarity in his career and artistic goals.

25:38 - Why Eighth Blackbird could only have formed at Oberlin.

27:55 - How Nick got started playing music and the importance of collaboration.

31:45 - How Nick is finding ways to collaborate in his home with his family.

32:38 - Nick's arrangement of Aphex Twin's tune, Avril 14.

33:43 - Nick's work with Dana Fonteneau on how all of the ways musicians are used to measuring themselves is gone and how this time can be best used for musicians to ask themselves "why are we doing this?" In the absence of all the traditional reasons to making music, why should we keep making music?

35:19 - The joy of playing new music because there is no "right" way to play it.

35:47 - Bob Dylan's ability to communicate despite his "horrible voice" and the importance of asking ourselves "what am I saying?" How to be authentic and fresh.

38:43 - How the well worn paths have become too well worn and why it's important to ask yourself "where does this eventually lead?"

40:20 - Nick and I talk about the c0mplexities of the classical music world's obsession with youth. e.g."From the Top."

43:07 - The ways we derive our sense of worthiness from our professional successes and identities and the challenges that come from this over-identification.

44:33 - Why people skills and "soft" skills are the most important for the success and longevity of your ensemble.

47:43 - Memorization and why it's especially important in performing new music and how it can liberate the performers and also increase the audience's understanding and enjoyment of a piece. Michael Torke's Yellow Pages.

53:45 - What Nick is planning for the next stage of his career as a solo artist.

55:17 - Why deadlines are useful for Nick in his creative work and development.

58:29 - How Nick cultivates his creative courage.

1:01:14 - Nick talks about his interest in miniatures and how his first solo album, "Petits Artéfacts," developed from his interest in encores and short pieces.

George Saunders

Lydia Davis

1:04:16 - Why Nick would tell his younger self to focus on the people and things that "lift you up."

1:04:55 - Why "not beating yourself up" is especially important during this time of pandemic and the importance of preserving our mental health during this time.

Alexandra DiPalma 

3:25 - Alex and I talk about coming to terms with competitiveness.

5:45 - Seth Godin and The Podcast Fellowship: how Alex and Seth Godin created this platform to teach people how to start their own podcasts. What you can learn and gain from producing your own podcast.

8:35 - How can podcasting help you push past perfectionism?

10:10 - How Alex began to produce Food 4 Thot and how it was one of the first queer podcasts in the culture.

12:20 - How Alex chooses projects for Domino Sound, her production company.

15:45 - What is the best motivation for personal podcasting?

20:00 - How Alex deals with her productivity (or lack thereof) in the time of COVID-19.

28:45 - Why NOT putting pressure on yourself right now is so important. Prioritizing and protecting our mental health in the time of COVID-19. Morning pages (Julia Cameron).

30:56 - Why teaching is important to Alex and what she learns from teaching.

34:08 -How Alex's career has surprised her and how not having career expectations has helped her.

35:53 - Why the concept of "passion" puts unnecessary pressure on our careers.

37:30 - Alex's collaborative relationship with Seth Godin and how they connected and started The Podcast Fellowship.

41:18 - Why we should all listen to The Cheat Code, the latest from Alex's production company.

42:28 - What Alex would tell her younger self:  pay attention to what interests you and find ways to do more of the things you like to do. 

44:30 - Alex's cat makes an appearance. 

Mike Block

3:37 - How Mike got started growing up in a family of classical musicians.

5:09 - Mike shares his experience of unhappiness in classical music and the creative limitations he felt in that genre.

7:34 - How Mike's conflicted decision to pursue a graduate degree at Juilliard led him to play with bands in New York City.

9:10 - How Mike created the Mike Block String Camp, a place he wished had existed when he was younger. The importance of collaboration and community building.

9:52 - How Mike convinced and welcomed me to go to his camp and how painful and ultimately rewarding that experience was for me. 

12:56 - What can musicians do to face their fears? And how reading music "silos" classical musicians.

14:05 - How the instinct to never sound bad limits our creativity. "To try something new, you have to be bad at it before you can get good at it." 

14:45 - Why Mike believes you have to do things badly in public in order to grow.

15:09 - How learning new musical styles is like learning a new language.

16:29 - Why it's emotionally hard to branch out if you are accomplished in one thing.

16:50 - Mike shares how jealous he was of a 12-year-old musician when he went to his first fiddle camp.

18:09 - How Mike learned that a week-long camp could change his life and that you don't need to get a degree to learn something new.

21:39 - Why you wouldn't assume a hip hop dancer would be able to do ballet but why you might expect a ballet dancer to be able to hip hop: trained versus untrained performers. 

24:33 - Why it's important to fail in public.

27:00 - Why it's important to NOT hide your learning from the public.

28:28 - The number one thing classical musicians can do to start playing in new musical styles. The importance of playing music that you enjoy, even if it's not what you are good at.

31:20 -Why Mike doesn't believe in perfect pitch and how playing by ear improves one's ability to play in non-classical styles.

33:25 - How a classical music training was an "active liability" for Mike until his non-classical skills developed and his classical skills became useful again. 

37:46 - How Mike cultivates his creative courage and continues to take risks.

41:16 - How Mike's unhappiness led him to his creative evolution and why the feeling of discomfort was still better than dissatisfaction.

42:28 - Mike's relationship with the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma.

48:22 - How Mike approaches his teaching at various institutions: Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory, The Juilliard School.

50:59 - Mike talks about his "The Block Strap" and the pros and cons of sitting and standing in performance.

54:28 - Singing and playing an instrument at the same time. "Utility" singing versus "expressive" singing.

55:56 - "You don't have to sound good right away." 

1:00:57 - The importance of teaching.

1:02:10 - Why Mike would tell his younger self to "not wait; if you are interested in something, pursue it now." 

Here's the essay:

When it comes to dating, there are so many new ways to be cruel to one another. Ghosting, catfishing, breadcrumbing.

And then there are all the fun variations. Haunting is when someone who ghosted you keeps lingering on your social media. (Delightful). Zombieing is when your ex suddenly pops up in your life. Fa--ntastic. 

I don’t know what it’s called when your ex just vanishes, though, and has no social media presence at all. My friends say that’s called a blessing. To me, it feels like a hallucination, like he never really existed.

They say it should take about half the amount of time you were actually with the person to get over them. So if you were with someone for say, three months, you should be good to go in about 1.5 months. At least, that’s the lie that Charlotte from Sex in the City tells us so if you like getting your facts from a sanctimonious, overprivileged, fictional white woman, there you have it.

According to that equation, I should’ve gotten over you around August of 2019, give or take, depending on what one considers the actual date of our breakup, which is debatable. (This is called the “slow fade”, according to Urban Dictionary, another highly reliable source).  So seeing as how it’s what, April 3, 2020 today?, clearly Charlotte York is a raving lunatic liar.

Here’s another equation on the internet:  x/2 + j + l + k/2 + r = y. This alphabet soup equation factors in who broke up with whom; if you’re “soft” or have a heart of stone (alas, I’m marshmallow personified); if you were cheated on; if you are dating someone new or if the Whole Foods meat counter man said “I really want to do something else for you, I’m here till 6pm” and after you got over your furious blushing and went back a couple hours later, lipstick on and hair brushed to have him stare are you blankly and say “Oh yeah, I’m starting to remember, single organic chicken breast, right?”; and how often you check his Insta and how many times he likes your Facebook. With this calculus, I should shed this heartbreak somewhere around April 19. So...any day now!
 

I find myself looking at George Clooney and his wife, the impeccable Amal Alamuddin who looks like an emaciated Jackie O. She’s a celebrated international lawyer and human rights champion. She’d make all the Miss Americas cry, basically. Clooney, of course, is the poster child for overrated male mediocrity and was the great white elephant for years, the elusive bachelor, and as I read the list of women who preceded the triumphant Mrs. Clooney - a list of starlets and bombshells, one more spectacular than the next - I couldn’t help but conclude:

They weren’t enough. Likewise, I wasn’t enough. 

It’s way easier to blame oneself. It gives you a sense of control. 

I was:

Too short Too tall

Too fat Too thin

Too needy Too aloof

Too giving Too witholding

Too easy-going Too difficult

Too loud Too quiet

Too slutty Too prudish

Too low-maintanence Too high-maintanence

Too introverted Too social

Too funny Too dull

Too intimidating Too timid

Too independent Too co-dependent

Too much.

And also somehow...Not Enough.
 

It’s easier than leaving open space for the truth which is:

I don’t know why you left me. I don’t know why you did it the way you did, on the sidewalk, holding my hand as we crossed the street to your apartment, when you suddenly told me, standing in the rain, that you didn’t want me anymore. I don’t know why you broke up with me in a text. I don’t know why you suddenly stopped loving me when we’d made so many plans, dreaming of a life together full of adventures and a cozy home and a future that I’d just started to trust. Let’s just tell everyone we’re getting married, you’d once said. 

We fell in love during the polar vortex, in January 2019. The polar vortex is ever present, a sort of parachute covering the North Pole and every so often, parts of it break off, floating down the continents, pockets of frigid temperature that cause frostbite in less than five minutes.

Ambiguous Loss is a loss that occurs without closure or clear understanding. The uncertainty complicates the grieving process because a person is left searching for answers. She’s left behind, time traveling in her mind with the irrational belief that, through the sheer force of her will, she may find a wormhole that will allow her to slip into an alternative universe where you remain, waiting for her. As the memories of us threaten to fade, I gather them up like ripe peaches from the ground, greedily dropping them into my apron, already heavy with rotting fruit, juices leaking and straining the thin fabric as I stagger under their weight. 
 

“I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore,” I say. 

“I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore,” you say.

We kissed for the first time curled up on your couch. I knelt on the cushions and I almost fell. “Are you okay?” you said, pulling me closer and “yes,” I said, not wanting to admit that my limbs had gone limp from swooning.

Laura Usiskin

Check out the Bayberry String Quartet's ONE-PAGE "QUICK GUIDE" TO REHEARSING REMOTELY!

2:25 - Laura talks about how she got started with her first cello teacher, the legendary pedagogue, Gilda Barston.

4:02 - Laura talks about her early issues with confidence and how she compared herself to other players. Laura's cello teachers in college: Fred Sherry, and Aldo Parisot.

6:30 - Why Laura studied neuroscience for her undergraduate degree.

7:14 - How Laura's quartet, the Bayberry String Quartet, got started.

10:02 - The Bayberry's community-minded mission of "a quartet in every home" and how that informs their work.

12:37 - The ways chamber music creates connection for musicians and audiences alike.

14:05 - The Coronavirus pandemic and its affect on the performing arts, institutional teaching, and, in particular, the teaching of chamber music and collaborative work.

15:52 - Laura talks about how and why the Bayberry String Quartet began their experiments with virtual rehearsing. Laura shares some tips for how to get started.

Bandlab (Free! The app that the Bayberry's use)

Acapella ($ - An app for video recording and stitching together remote performances)

18:51 - Laura's first realizations why virtual rehearsing can be better than live rehearsing. "I felt like I was doing things I couldn't do in person."

20:00 - How virtual rehearsing enhances and accelerates score study.

21:25 - "Bandlabbing": how virtual rehearsing doesn't replace in person rehearsal and performance but is also an incredibly useful tool to augment the rehearsal experience.

21:56 - Some of the limitations of virtual rehearsing.

23:48 - How the Bayberrys' are responding to the needs of musicians in the era of Coronavirus by generously sharing tips, tools, and transparency of their process.

25:48 - Laura talks about the Bayberrys' one-page guide to getting your own virtual rehearsing practice started. "Virtual rehearsing can't replace in person rehearsing but it's been so much more helpful that I thought it could be."

27:53 - Why commenting while "bandlabbing" is an integral part of virtual rehearsing.

30:40 - More tips on how to rehearse musical nuances remotely and the challenges of deepening the rehearsal process when we have to remain physically apart.

32:22 - "Some [virtual rehearsing] is even better than rehearsing in person."

32:46 - The parallels between virtual teaching and virtual rehearsing.

34:04 - Shout out to Miki Cloud, IIRY's first guest :), and my colleague in the Solera Quartet.

34:25 - The importance of weekly/regular video chats to complement the virtual rehearsals and to promote communication and bonding in your ensemble.

36:45 - The Bayberrys' goals to perform and rehearse entire sections and movements virtually.

37:32 - The surprising challenges of virtual "playthroughs" and how they make you a better player. The bravery and vulnerability required to record yourself and share works-in-progress.

38:35 - Are there certain repertoires that lend themselves to virtual rehearsing more than others?

41:00 - How does the Bayberry String Quartet decide who "leads" rehearsal in virtual space? Laura shares some of her quartet's strategies and the challenges of organizing digital space.

43:43 - The ways virtual rehearsing can be "gamelike" and how it introduces an element of "play" into the rehearsals and learning process.

44:56 - What is the role of chamber music instructors in this new frontier of virtual rehearsing?

45:29 - Laura's suggestions for how instructors can guide and support student learning in virtual rehearsing and performance.

48:11 - Laura's thoughts on how virtual rehearsing can be fun, helpful, and rewarding to all students: professionals, pre-professionals, and amateurs.

49:39 - How virtual rehearsing allows for a "tangibility" of performance. How students and performers can have a stronger sense of ownership through virtual rehearsing.

51:36 - Laura shares some tips for navigating the technological pitfalls as you begin "Bandlabbing."

53:45 - Laura talks about the Montgomery Music Project, an El Sistema program she founded and ran in Montgomery, AL.

56:50 - Laura shares how running the Montgomery Music Project taught her many arts administrative skills.

58-10 - Laura talks about her debut album, "Reimagining Bach" and how she asked her filmmaker friends from college, Sarah Adina Smith and Jonako Donley, to make these three stunning music videos of her playing Bach, Patrick Greene, and Peter Susser.

1:01:28 - Laura's series, "Chamber Music at AEIVA," that presents concerts that connect visual art and music.

1:03:54 - What Laura would tell her younger self about being enough: "just because it's not perfect doesn't mean there isn't quality in it."

1:05:26 - How the pandemic causes us to reevaluate external markers of success and progress and how many classical musicians are struggling with losing their will to practice.

3:34 - What Sarah's classical music training taught her and the skills that serve her in positive ways, every day.

7:35 - How classical music in the way that Sarah experienced it is creative but in a very narrow way. She shares her experience of trying to improvise on the cello for the first time. "The thought of improvising was so terrifying to me that I burst into tears."

8:50 -Sarah and I talk about why our current creative experiments have to be away from music. "In order for me to explore creativity, it has to have nothing to do with the cello at this moment in my life."

9:23 - Why the "expertise" we have in classical music makes it so difficult to experiment within music. The importance of cultivating creative courage by lowering the stakes.

10:02 - Sarah talks about what she's learned through her writing practice about the barriers of perfectionism.

10:55 - Her "obsession" with putting herself in uncomfortable situations to grow her creativity.

12:13 - Sarah and I bond over our experiences around improvising and the existential crisis of not knowing how to do it.

13:11 - Mike Block String Camp and how hard and ultimately rewarding that was for me.

14:11 - How the training Sarah and I received did not ask us what we thought, what we felt, and what we wanted to make.

14:55 - The rigid, black and white definitions of success in classical music and how these are antithetical to creativity.

15:16 - The classical music culture's seeming resistance to discussions around vulnerability, burnout, mental health issues, self-loathing, loneliness. The tribalism and fixed beliefs of the classical music culture. Sarah's depression and how it was centered around her experiences of joylessness and burnout.

18:32 - The complicated assumptions that committing to a classical musician's life means you must love it unconditionally.

19:51 - The misconceptions people have about why a highly skilled classical musician would leave a seemingly effortless and blissful career.

21:30 - Sarah's relationship to music now and how for a long time, she couldn't listen to classical music.

25:15 - The complicated expectations of utter devotion to our instruments and the lifestyle of a successful classical musician, as well.

26:11 - How doing things that may seem to divert our attention from our instruments can allow us to perform better by allowing us to see ourselves as separate from our performing personas.

27:50 - "The primal, deeply imbedded feeling that perfection equaled worthiness is the biggest struggle of my life." Evolving beyond the debilitating fear of imperfection.

29:34 - "What if I had done other things?" Sarah's realization in college that all she'd ever done was play the cello.

30:14 - Letting go of the "vice grip" of having to be a classical musician and how this allowed Sarah room to intentionally choose her creative path.

31:33 - Sarah shares the gifts of living in a small town.

33:39 - Sarah and I talk about the crisis of "time" that we both felt as prodigies with an "expiration date" and I share my feelings of terror when I turned twenty and felt "over the hill."

36:11 - Sarah mentions her dogs! :)

8:37 - How Sarah became serious about the cello as small child and how she was carried along by the enthusiasm and pressure from adults.

10:23 - Sarah shares how her feelings of worthiness were tied to her ability to perform "perfectly."

11:30 - "The tragedy of perfection" and the high stakes of performance. How missing a shift or playing out of tune made Sarah feel that "all was lost."

14:04 - How our ability to perform well or poorly gets conflated with one's sense of self. "If I play badly, it means I'm a bad person."

15:08 - The paralyzing effects of perfectionism. How perfectionism blocks creativity and artistry.

16:28 - How the deep depression that Sarah experienced at the peak of her musical career instigated a soul-searching and the beginning of her career shift towards medicine. How she realized that she was separate from the cello and that she was more than her abilities on the cello.

21:14 - How the very strong pull for her to do something that was"100% her decision" led to her journey to medical school. The realization that she'd been living a life that was someone else's dream.

23:45 - I share how my career felt like a "freight train" that I'd gotten on and couldn't get off of because the stakes felt too high to leave.

25:11 - The importance of taking a fully independent step away from the "freight train." The importance of doing something for oneself.

26:49 - The "classical music machine" and how it overwhelms talented young people and their families. The weight of responsibility felt by young performers.

28:25 - The experiences of young performers in technically demanding endeavors (i.e. classical music, golf, gymnastics, ice skating, etc.) and the intersections of exceptional young performers and the Asian diaspora. (See: IIRY 7 - Dr. Mina Yang).

31:30 - How the narrowness and perfection and worry and the very rigid idea of what a successful life in classical music could look like steered Sarah towards medicine, where she could be on the "front lines of humanity." The challenges of going into medicine as a second career.

34:00 - How medical school was also a very regimented path, like classical music. Her doubts about medicine and whether she'd made a good decision.

35:10 - How she let go of exceptionalism and perfectionism in medicine because medicine is "too messy." How she had to accept that she was in medicine not because she was aiming for perfect but because this is really what she wanted to do.

35:52 - How going to medical school was hard and the challenges of pivoting from a performing arts career into the sciences.

36:18 - The realization that she'd jumped from one machine (classical music) to another machine (medicine).

36:40 - Going through an early mid-life crisis in her twenties. (See: IIRY 3 - Dr. Jeanne Bamberger "Growing up Prodigies: The Mid-Life Crisis")

38:50 - Sarah's slow pivot towards medicine. The pushback she felt from the "close-knit" and "challenging" community of classical music and the pain of losing friends and community. How people were upset by her leaving music and how she lost friends.

41:52 - How the "grayness and unpredictability of humanity" is what keeps Sarah motivated in medicine. How a loss of control has freed her from the psychological hangups that she developed from growing up as a classical music prodigy.

44:29 - How medical training taught Sarah to be less perfectionistic and to embrace vulnerability.

46:59 - Why it's hard to leave a career in classical music behind: "If my depression had been 10% less severe, I would not have switched careers." The guilt and shame of leaving classical music behind in part because of all the resources, family sacrifices, and investment of time and money and energy.

48:09 - The bias against leaving a career in classical music, even if you are miserable and struggling and how this creates challenges for people who to want to change careers. How changing careers can feel "not okay" and "radical."

49:37 - Re-exploring what creativity looks like and how classical music is not that creative.

50:32 - How a career change broadened Sarah's perspectives on creativity and on her own identity.

Learn more about the stuff we talk about in this episode here:

Assaff Weisman

3:54 - How the right teacher can change everything and why he credits his life as a musician to his early teacher, Seth Kimmelman.

6:07 - Seth Kimmelman's tragic passing from AIDS.

7:59 - Assaff's identity as an Israeli and an American.

10:15 - How Israeli Chamber Project started.

15:53 - The main learning points and challenges of starting your own organization.

18:20 - How our training at Juilliard at the time we received it did not teach us to think entrepreneurially.

19:34 - The secret to ICP's longevity.

24:40 - The importance of making peace with being in sales and how musicians are really salespeople. Chamber Music America (CMA).

28:35 - Why artists resist the concept of "selling."

30:50 - Approaching sales as a way to help and connect with people.

32:53 - The skills that classical musicians acquire through training that are useful for entrepreneurship.

35:06 - "The most important skill is connecting with people." Why connecting is the most valuable skill.

36:46 - Seth Godin and Real Skills.

38:00 - Seymour Bernstein (Seymour: An introduction). Continuing Education at Juilliard. Performance anxiety and vulnerability.

43:59 - How Assaff's career is different from what he thought it would be.

49:39 - Assaff's advice to his younger self: say "yes" to everything to combat rigidity of the mind.

From LUNCH BOX by Tricia Park
 

Once when I was in fourth grade, Tally McMasters came up to me and asked:

“Are you Chinese?”

 I was waiting for my turn at double dutch. “No,” I said, eyeing the line. 

“Are you Japanese?” she asked, peering at me intently.        

“No,” I said, again. The line was getting shorter. I glanced at her face and saw confusion. She’d run out of options.

Tally jammed her hands against her hips.“Well, then….Are you Norwegian?”

I was one of two Asian kids at Sacred Heart Elementary School. Sally Wu was Chinese. Everyone knew what that was. Everyone liked chop suey and sweet and sour pork. And everyone liked that joke: ‘my mother is Chinese, my father is Japanese and I’m in-between.” Pulling the corners of their round blue eyes up, then down, then one of each, making a diagonal slant across their faces.

My mother made me beautiful lunches then, packed in a Hello Kitty doshirak box. A puffy heap of white rice, surrounded by tiny mounds of side dishes that glistened like jewels. Glossy anchovies, candied in soy sauce and sugar, freckled with toasted sesame seeds; crisp bean sprouts with vibrant, yellow heads; grassy watercress, steamed bright green; a perfect stack of roasted seaweed, shiny with sesame oil and sprinkled with salt; a juicy Asian pear, cut into precise quarters.

“What’s that?” Suzy Lawson stood, pointing.

“It’s my lunch,” I said, covering it with my right arm, like I’d covered my math test earlier.

“It looks weird,” she said. Suzy was mean and popular and never talked to me. Everyone was either afraid of her or envied her or some combination of both. Lacy Stevens and Jennifer Lewis dressed just like her in Guess jeans with zippered ankles and they wore glittery, jelly bracelets but they weren’t as pretty. You always knew that Suzy was the best girl.

“Hey, guys.” Suzy’s voice got loud and the din of the lunchroom stopped to listen. “Look at the new girl’s weird lunch.” 

The scraping of chairs against linoleum and the squeaking of sneakers as a crowd gathered around my table in the corner.

“Ew, look, you can see their eyes! Disgusting! What are those things, worms? Look, they have yellow heads! Seaweed? Oh, ew, seaweed feels like alien slime on your legs! Oh my god, the smell. C’mere, smell this!”

Fingers poked and prodded at my lunch, over my protecting arms. The tiny, perfect compartments were extracted as they crowded in, spilling and grabbing. I tried to get away but the table was surrounded, the laughing and jeering continuing until nothing was left. The rice was smashed onto the table, anchovies dumped on the floor, seaweed scattered like a deck of cards. Through a blur of tears, I packed up the doshirak, the small, geometric containers empty now. One of my Twin Stars chopsticks was missing.

Over the weekend, I asked my mother to pack me SpaghettiO’s and Oreo cookies for my school lunch. Puzzled, she asked, “don’t you like your bahp? I saw your doshirak was empty.” I pulled away from her stroking hand on my hair. 

“No,” I said, a new note of irritation in my voice. “I hate it. I want a normal lunch.”

I’d never spoken to my mother that way. On Monday morning, I opened my book bag at the bottom of the stairs. My SpaghettiO's were in a plaid Thermos and a stack of six Oreos was nestled in Saran Wrap. There was also, hidden under a napkin, a small container of anchovies. I crumpled the plain brown bag closed, slung my bag on my back and walked to the bus stop.

Learn more about the stuff in this episode:

Tricia Park

Hello Kitty

Little Twin Stars

Margaret Cho

"What are micro aggressions?" Dr. Derald Wing Sue explains how unintentional but insidious bias can be the most harmful.

"What kind of Asian are you?" A hilarious take on being a perpetual foreigner.

Dominic Cheli, pianist

César Franck Violin Sonata

MusicIC, "Where Music and Literature Meet"

Learn more about the stuff we talk about in this episode here:

Rebecca Fischer

4:10 - The complexities of growing up in a musical household and striving to find one's own voice and individuality

6:17 - How the Chiara String Quartet got its start.

8:49 - Advice to young string quartets and the importance of building community.

12:19 - The joys of making a life as a chamber musician and making sure everyone in the group feels equally seen and heard.

15:40 - Scrum and the emotional labor it takes to address the musical work in a string quartet.

18:39 - The Chiaras' path towards playing string quartets from memory and the "wild transformation" this brought to the group.

21:43 - The "wonderful risk of not knowing what is going to happen on stage" and losing the barrier between performer and audience.

24:30 - My (the Solera Quartet's) memory experiment and asking Becca for her advice on safety planning for memorized performances and how to build performance practice.

27:03 - How memorization increases connection within an ensemble and how trust and caring for each other increases vulnerability and musical intimacy on stage.

28:44 - How vulnerability is antithetical to a classical musician's training. The problem of classical music training and its corrective nature with an overemphasis on noticing what is wrong rather than what is right.

30:10 - The extraordinary lack of self-consciousness in the folk music recordings of Bela Bartok. The many extra steps that most classical musicians need to make to lose self-consciousness and the struggle to find a balance.

32:09 - The delicate challenge of ending and disbanding a long-standing ensemble. Moving onto the next chapter in one's career and seeing where creativity can take you.

37:51 - Becca's other creative projects including Afield and her creative life with her husband, Anthony Hawley. Also, her work as a singing violinist.

42:11 - What are the things we need to cultivate "creative courage"? Also, the crisis of perfection in classical music and the avoidance of vulnerability.

46:13 - The lessons Becca has learned from the visual art world. The power of a daily creative practice and the joys of making things from scratch without judgement.

47:59 - How bearing witness to other examples of creative living can be liberating and important for classical musicians. The need for the permission to create and "make something" just for the sake of making it.

51:01 - The richness of a career as a result of cultivating interpersonal depth with colleagues, students, and community.

53:19 - Becca's advice to her younger self: the importance of having fun, sleep, going to parties, and valuable friendships. "Never take for granted your creative impulses and act on them sooner."

54:40 -Becca on her book of personal essays related to music, childhood, memory, travel, and "gifts for daughters."

Learn more about the stuff we talk about in this episode here:

Mina Yang

Mina’s article that became a chapter in her book: East Meets West in the Concert Hall: Asians and Classical Music in the Century of Imperialism, Post-Colonialism, and Multiculturalism. 
5:41 – How did Western Classical Music become so prevalent in East Asia? 
7:00 – How piano manufacturing in Japan mirrored the rise of the middle class in Europe and how the piano became a symbol of Western gentility, domesticity, and was equated with femininity. 
7:35 – How learning Western Classical Music was a way into Western modernity and parity with the West as a way to exhibit middle class status. 
9:27 – Anecdotal evidence of why there are so many young, Asian, female violinists in classical music. 
12:55 – The stereotype of the “model minority” that East Asians experience in conservatories and the discomfort with the idea of racism again Asians.
13:43 – How Asians are perceived as “robotic” and “lacking soul” plus the blatantly racist attitudes against Asians in classical music. How Asians in the US are considered both the model minority and an invisible minority and how racism against Asians is not perceived as problematic as racism against other P.O.C.
14:32 – The slippery nature of the implicit bias against East Asians within classical music and the dominant culture; “yes, you are part of [the culture] but then you’re really not part of it.” The experiences of “secondary whiteness.”
15:12 – How the emphasis of the myth of the “universal” nature of Western classical music discourages conversations around race and politics. 
16:51 – How do we create spaces for difficult conversations around racism again Asians in classical music? 
19:34 – How Western classical music was considered a symbol of Western middle – upper class status and how East Asians emulated this as a vital part of attempts at assimilation. 
24:11 – How Asians’ participation in classical music reinforces the stereotype of the “model minority”. 
24:43 – Far East Movement and how they hid their Asianness and perhaps felt the need to do so to achieve success in popular music. 
26:22 – The stereotyping of “Asian bodies” in pop music, Psy, BTS, and Kpop. 
27:50 – Yuja Wang and countering the fetishization of Asian women in classical music. The surge of Asians in classical music and how this has the potential to uproot the idealization of Western classical music as “sacred” and exclusive. 
30:59 – Finding the balance between tradition and individualism in classical music. How not really being accepted can free you up to be innovative. Why you can’t just practice and expect a career to magically manifest. 
32:13 – The tension of leaving behind something that you’ve dedicated so much of your life to. 
33:15 – How there’s no “playbook” anymore for classical musicians. 
34:21 – How do we create community and support as we seek to pivot from a classical musician’s life or training? 
34:54 – How classical music training does not support being improvisational and flexible both in music and in life and how it perhaps does musicians a disservice. 
36:40 – Why we should let go of the “conservatory mindset.” 
37:14 – How classical music is just part of the musical landscape and is capable of cultural exchange. See Silk Road Ensemble. 
37:58 – Why sometimes I’m pissed off by my training but also why classical music training prepares us for diverse paths to career success. 
40:43 – Why playing in a professional orchestra can be less fulfilling than one might think. 
42:16 – Why there is nothing like a classical music training to teach discipline and work ethic and why classical musicians have all the skills needed to be successful in any number of career paths. Also, why the myth of “sunken costs” can get us stuck. 
43:53 – Making space for everything: community, beauty, and balance.

Learn more about the stuff we talk about!

Morgane Michael: https://smallactbigimpact.com/tag/morgane-michael/

Kindsight 101: https://smallactbigimpact.com/our-podcast/

Pixar: https://www.pixar.com

Brene Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

Carol Dweck: https://www.mindsetonline.com

Kristin Neff: https://self-compassion.org

Learn more about Jeanne Bamberger!

Prof. Jeanne Bamberger researches musical development and learning: http://web.mit.edu/jbamb/www/bio.html

Prof. Bamberger studied with Artur Schnabel: http://schnabelmusicfoundation.com/artists/artur-schnabel/
And Roger Sessions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Sessions

Prof. Bamberger is a founding member of the company, Tuneblocks, an innovative group of musicians and computer software designers whose mission is to build computer-based and hands-on products that will help you develop your creative intuitions while having fun with music: http://www.tuneblocks.com/whoarewe.jsp

A list of her recent books: The Mind behind the Musical Ear (Harvard University Press, 1995), Developing Musical Intuitions: A Project-based Introduction to Making and Understanding Music (Oxford University Press, 2000), Discovering the Musical Mind: A view of Creativity as Learning (Oxford University Press, 2013) and The Art of Listening.

Learn more about the stuff we talk about!

Seth Godin: https://seths.blog

Dax Shepard: https://armchairexpertpod.com

Noa's interview with David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra: https://bulletproofmusician.com/david-kim-on-letting-go-and-being-yourself/

The Simpsons: http://www.simpsonsworld.com

Ira Glass: https://transom.org/2004/ira-glass/

Itzhak Perlman, violinist: http://www.itzhakperlman.com

Pinchas Zukerman, violinist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinchas_Zukerman

Brad Stevens, professional basketball coach: https://youtu.be/nIbL3N8OU-E

Learn more about the stuff we talk about!

Noa's awesome blog: https://bulletproofmusician.com

Noa teaches at the Juilliard School: https://www.juilliard.edu/music/faculty/kageyama-noa

The Suzuki Method: https://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki-method/

Noa got a double degree at Oberlin: https://www.oberlin.edu

Don Greene, Ph.d, Performance Mastery Trainer : http://dongreene.com/live/

Seymour Bernstein, pianist and pedagogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhtIcP6AdHo

Ethan Hawke and his film about Seymour Bernstein: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/12/ethan-hawke-seymour-bernstein-documentary-interview

This is Your Brain on Jazz: Researchers Use MRI to Study Spontaneity, Creativity: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/this_is_your_brain_on_jazz_researchers_use_mri_to_study_spontaneity_creativity

Seth Godin: https://seths.blog

Alexander Technique: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Technique

Hidden Brain: The Edge Effect, https://www.npr.org/2018/07/02/625426015/the-edge-effect

Ivan Galamian, legendary violin teacher of Itzhak Perlman among many others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Galamian

Louis Persinger, legendary violin teacher of Yehudi Menuhin, among many others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Persinger

Learn more about the stuff we talk about!

MUSIC IN THIS EPISODE is from Mendelssohn's String Quartet, Op. 80, from the Solera Quartet's debut album, EVERY MOMENT PRESENT (featuring Miki on first violin): https://open.spotify.com/album/1PLFnRJl78gChw3O6eQIEe?si=n3doDFc_RA2g1RzvFDHaAg

Miki: http://www.soleraquartet.com/miki-sophia-cloud/

Miki is a core member of the Grammy-nominated ensemble, A Far Cry : http://afarcry.org

Miki and I play in a quartet together: http://www.soleraquartet.com/the-soleras/

Robert Levin, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Levin

Ronda Cole, Director of NVSMS , Violin Teacher, Teacher Trainer for the Suzuki Association of the Americas (SAA): https://www.suzukiviolinschool.com/our-faculty.html

Ricardo Cyncynates, Assistant Concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra: https://www.ricardocyncynates.com/biography

Ani Kavafian, Professor of Violin, Yale School of Music: https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/about/artists/strings/ani-kavafian/

Miriam Fried, Professor of Violin, New England Conservatory of Music: https://necmusic.edu/faculty/miriam-fried

Donald Weilerstein, Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies, New England Conservatory of Music: https://necmusic.edu/faculty/donald-weilerstein

Maybe you started down a path, early in your life, and you thought you were following your bliss. But then found yourself wondering...“is this it?”

I started my career at age 13 when I made my orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Since then, I’ve travelled the world performing with countless orchestras and with some of the world’s greatest classical musicians.

I wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world. But, the thing about performing professionally at such a young age is that you have to give up a lot of things. You spend a lot of time in the practice room, alone. You travel, alone. You spend less time with your peers and more time with adults. You grow up fast and learn to carry the weight of the expectations of others, making them a priority over your own needs.

And you miss all the normal parts of childhood. Parts that are important. Like playing with your friends at recess.

Creativity doesn't happen in a vacuum.
I started to feel stuck and uncreative. And I started to wonder, what happened to the kid who used to played hopscotch and swung on the monkey bars? The kid who was free and creative, who dared to dream big and hope? The kid who had an individual voice and didn’t worry about what other people thought of her, even when she skinned her knees from falling off her bike for the umpteenth time?

You can’t shut out the world if you hope to stay fresh and innovate and think of new ideas. We need to follow our follies and interests in all areas of the world. We need to explore and grow and ask questions.

We need to play.
Maybe you always wanted to make pottery. Or learn how to speak Finnish. Or make your own furniture.

I can’t promise that I will do any of those things here. But I can promise that I will share my trials and errors as I learn to get unstuck and rediscover my own sense of play by exploring different areas of creativity. I’ll share tips, strategies and resources that have worked (as well as things that haven’t).

You’ll also get an insider’s look at what the classical music world is like. I’ll share with you my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned from being a part of an intensely competitive and insular community. As well as the pitfalls and benefits of finding success in that world at an early age.

So, let’s go! I think I hear the recess bell ☺.