Having seen “The Story of the Weeping Camel” and “The Cave of the Yellow Dog”, Byambasuren Davaa’s engrossing and eye-opening docudramas about life as a Mongolian nomad, I was intrigued to hear that “Tulpen”, a movie about a family of Kazakh nomads, directed by Sergei Dvortsevoy, was screening at our local cinema. This 2008 film won many international awards including one at Cannes,  but my main reason for going was my fascination with nomadic life, particularly in Asia.

Boni, Asa’s suitably-named, bone-headed friend zooms across the steppe in an old jeep papered with pin-ups from girly magazines, and dreams of the big city. But Asa, home from a stint in the Russian Navy, wants nothing more than to find a wife and become shepherd of his own flock. He comes to live with his sister, married to a shepherd and with three children, living in a yurt in a near-perpetual sandstorm, many miles from the nearest village. The main plot line of the film centers around Asa’s attempts to win the hand of Tulpan, the only girl of marriageable age in the area.

The Kazakh steppes are the most inhospitable landscape I’ve seen on film– endless parched plains covered with a few inches of scrub here and there, where tornadoes of sand whip up from one moment to the next, and there is no sign of water. Yet families of nomads with flocks of sheep, camels and donkeys live here, eking out a living, creating home in the middle of nowhere.

Although the film never leaves the steppes, whispers of the Western world drift through– magazine pictures of state-of-the-art solar-paneled Japanese houses, a poster of the wedding portrait of Prince Charles and Lady Diana (he’s American, according to Boni), and the Kazakh State Radio broadcasts that his sister’s oldest boy memorizes compulsively. For a while, the only music we hear comes from the one single Boni appears to own, Boney M’s “By the Rivers of Babylon”, which he turns to full volume as he races across the steppe. A more incongruous song is hard to imagine.

Who can blame any of them for desiring a life in the city, as they wrestle camels and donkeys in the blinding storm, and try to save lambs born in some of the worst conditions imaginable? The nomadic life that is documented here is swiftly dying out, as young people stream into the cities, drawn by seductive images and fantasies of an easier life.

Yet, strangely, I came to envy them. The mother cradling her baby between her knees and singing him a lamp-lit lullaby moved me more than any recorded music, because I realized that what she has is so precious. How many of us sing at work or play any more? How many of us are even comfortable with the sound of our own voices?

Her nine-year-old daughter sings constantly also, sings to be seen and heard in a male-dominated world, leans her back against the yurt and sings her defiance into the wind.

Towards the end of the movie, the family dismantle their yurt and stack all their belongings in a cart. When they move on, nothing is left by a swiftly disappearing circle in the sand.

He knows what’s important— the purity, the essence of the music. There’s nothing like not being able to play the piano for forty years to make one appreciate each sound. Each opportunity to create beauty. There’s no excuse, no need for artifice. Each moment has purpose.

Years of absence and silence have refined the desire to create sound. Decades of trying and failing to regain health, prestige, career have bruised and beaten the ego to a pulp. Only the heart of the music remains, as only the soul of man survives.

Now he wants to play Bach, Chopin, Schubert. Why play music that is purely virtuosic? He learned long ago that maximum notes per second are not where it’s at.

“Before, I was just a two-handed piano player,” he says. “What happened to me has expanded my life, my awareness, my humanity.”

Composition VII by Wassily Kandinsky

I’m pleased to announce that the article I wrote for American Music Teacher magazine, originally published in the winter of 2007, is now available on line here . It’s specifically targeted at music teachers who would like to venture into the world of creative improvisation and don’t know where to begin, but would also be useful for anyone who is feeling the urge to create their own music and knows a bit of basic theory.

For me, the key to learning how to improvise was allowing myself to approach the piano playfully, as a small child would, and not to weigh myself down with admonitions or expectations. In other words, to be free to create!

Choir was never like this when I was a child. I always loved singing and developed an affection for a wide variety of repertoire, so choir was an enjoyable experience as long as the teacher wasn’t too boring or bad-tempered. Yet I also remember stony stares from the other children if I sang too heartily or showed too much enthusiasm.

Performances were about rows of uniformed children standing straight, arms at their sides, enunciating clearly and watching the conductor like a hawk. And I loved it-- Christmas carols in the freezing local church (invariably followed by a throat infection), anthems in the university chapel, and choir tours encompassing the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Sacre-Coeur in Paris.

But I’ve never before seen a choir connecting so deeply with music. As an appreciative You Tube viewer so aptly put it,”The sound produced from these kids is so pure and beautiful because it comes straight from their hearts.”

The choir is made up of fifth-graders from PS 22, an elementary school on Staten Island, New York composed of students from many ethnic backgrounds, many of whom come from difficult and deprived backgrounds, but thanks to their inspirational teacher, Mr. Breinberg, they are being enriched for life. And I know that watching and listening to them make music has changed me irrevocably too.

Yes, I’m a professional musician, teacher and coach. I’m also, like you, much more than what I do. I’ve learned the hard way not to be over-identified with my career.

Twelve years ago, an injury which turned into a chronic health condition stopped me in my tracks as a professional concert pianist in London. Deprived of my livelihood, I also swiftly discovered that I felt deprived of my identity, my whole sense of self. Not wanting to face the classic question, “What do you do?” at parties, I stayed home. Well-meaning friends who suggested I use my fluent French and German to find another job couldn’t understand why I was in such a state of shock and grief, unable to take action.

I couldn’t remember not being able to play the piano. I couldn’t remember learning to read music. As far back as I could remember, I had been a pianist, developing discipline through daily practice,  entering competitions and winning cups and medals throughout my childhood, immersing my romantic teenage self in Debussy, Prokofiev and Granados, protecting my hands by avoiding dangerous sports.

Suddenly, from one day to the next (February 28th to March 1st, 1997), I was deprived of the priceless resources of musical expression and communication, the pleasure of using my many years of experience to coach and accompany opera singers at the piano, and the reputation I had assiduously built as a skilled, rock-solid performer.

And so began a journey: to discover who I am beyond what I do for a living or even as a vocation, and to value myself regardless of what I do or don’t do. To find new means of expressing myself creatively. To develop new ways of working with other professional musicians and with my students. To learn and grow beyond my preconceptions. To share what I’ve learned through many years of personal growth and evolution.

Today, I’m teaching piano, I’m a professional life coach for musicians (following a Masters degree in Psychology) and I’m working on a memoir of my experiences. I am particularly interested in working with musicians through the challenges of stress, injury, disillusionment and lack of direction that are so frequently encountered along the road. I’m also fascinated to encounter those who have experienced great challenges in their lives and to learn more about how they overcame them.

I miss the piano, but I don’t miss who I was back then. And I wouldn’t sacrifice what I’ve learned for anything.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell

Growing up as a musician, whenever I heard about men and women undertaking courageous humanitarian projects in developing countries, I always experienced a twinge of guilt. Surely that would be a much more worthwhile activity than simply playing music. What was I doing sitting in my ivory tower practicing the piano when people were starving?

Over the years the feeling subsided. I reasoned that sharing my music was nourishing people, I was contributing by sharing my love of music with children and adults in concerts and by teaching, and besides, what kind of practical skills did I have that could possibly help people in a life and death situation?

So I was excited and moved when I recently heard about a remarkable musical and humanitarian project undertaken by my friend and colleague John Zeretzke. He encountered a group of extraordinary men known as Knightsbridge International– modern-day knights and adventurers whose mission is to relieve suffering in places in the world where most charitable institutions are afraid to go. There’s a fantastic movie about these men, Beyond the Call, made in 2006.

John is a renowned composer and a versatile and mesmerizing performer who regularly conducts workshops with groups of young people throughout Southern California. I’ve been fortunate enough to observe some of his workshops in Ojai, where we both live and work. Once, I watched him show a class of sixth graders how to make simple bamboo flutes, decorate them and learn how to play them in a few short sessions, and was delighted to see how focused and thrilled the children were (sixth graders!) throughout the process. I’ve also heard him perform with one of the world music groups that he runs– a virtuosic group of players of traditional instruments from the Middle East named the Salaam Ensemble. It was one of the most exciting evenings I’ve experienced for years.

John recently told me that he was proposing to join Knightsbridge International on one of their missions. He would ask a group of local school children to make flutes, each child making one to keep and one for a child in a war zone. The children would then write letters and send photos of themselves to the recipients. The project would be called Flutes Across the World.

Here’s an excerpt from the website:
FLUTES ACROSS THE WORLD will actively bring to each student a deeper understanding of world cultures and children in need by teaching them geography, different cultural traditions, history, language arts, visual arts and music.  All educational curriculum (standards-based) is created by John Zeretzke and is tailored to meet the needs of every school and educational setting.   Students here in America will  foster a continuing desire to learn about other people who are different than themselves, and in turn, the children who receive their ‘friendship flute’ who live in remote parts of the world will learn about music and culture from the USA.   Most of all, American students will gain compassion for the plight of others while experiencing the gift of positive service to the world by helping others who are less fortunate.

A couple of days ago, I bumped into John in the supermarket and learned that he had just returned from a troubled part of the Philippines and had indeed accomplished his mission. Local children had relished making and sending the flutes (supported by the Ojai Festival outreach program, BRAVO!), and the Filipino children on the other side of the world were totally thrilled to receive the flutes and to send photos and letters back. You can read about it and see photos here. In the process, John was awarded the highest medal of honor by the White Helmets of the United Nations, and has received many offers of sponsorship to repeat the project in different parts of the globe. He told me that his classroom was surrounded by about 60 members of the Philippine Army, US Marines and Special Forces, and that by the end of the workshop, even some of the most seasoned soldiers were moved to tears.

As John says in his blog: “Everyone here is so supportive of our work here with the children.  Right down to the hardcore Marine and soldier. I have the odd feeling that a shift is taking place.  Call me hopeful, delusional or a bit off, but I could swear we are starting to learn a valuable lesson about when to use force and when to use hearts to create a peaceful existence on this planet of ours.  It feels like a wonderful shift. ”

Needless to say, all of my rationalizing has been blown to pieces. I salute John as he prepares for his next mission, and only wish I could be going with him. Food for thought….

These qualities reminded me of a wonderful interview I read yesterday in the current edition of “American Music Teacher” magazine with the performance psychology consultant, Bill Moore.

Moore distinguishes with the utmost clarity between the skills we performers need in practice, and those we need in performance. The basic gist is that during practice we need:

1) the ability to self-monitor correctness
2) the ability to give self-instruction
3) the ability to analyze cause and effect with regard to mistakes.

So far, so obvious.

However, he then claims that in performance these particular skills are more of a handicap than an asset and instead we need:

1) courage (to overcome internal and external negative forces such as self-doubt)
2) trust (to let go of conscious correctness)
3) acceptance (the ability to see things as they are without judging them as right or wrong).

As soon as I read this (and I strongly recommend the entire article, written by Jane Magrath), I agreed wholeheartedly. Yet I felt simultaneously astounded that no one had ever given me this information so clearly before! Of course, easier said than done, and Moore goes into a lot more detail about useful ways to practice those performance skills frequently before you hit the stage. I’m very grateful for his wisdom and intend to put his ideas into practice immediately!

It’s evident that those performers who manage to let go of their critical rehearsal habits and move into courage, trust and acceptance are those who thrive, not only in performance, but in their lives as a whole. And no one has demonstrated that to me better than Monsieur Petit.