2016 Goals: Be Less Robotic

When I failed to cry in response to a touching video in one of our undergrad education classes, Ashley Conway called me an "emotionless cyborg."  (No worries, Ash - I took and continue to take this comment in the jocular manner you intended!)

When asked via the first-day questionnaire what I hoped to learn from my master's conducting class, whereas my compatriots (all instrumental conductors) talked about more clarity, I talked about more expression, calling myself the "ConductingBot 4000."

When I approached a well-respected and widely-loved conductor at District 13 Honor Chorus about coming to work with my kids because she's judged our LGPE a couple of times and I have yet to execute expression in a spiritual to her satisfaction, she gleefully proclaimed that she remembered my kids and that they were "like little robots."  I conceded that this was because I am a robot myself.  (She also said some very nice and complimentary things.)

When having lunch at Jenna's school during a day of pre-concert rehearsing, the meticulous, methodical way I folded a napkin around my biscuit before rewarming it made her laugh.

In my undergraduate conducting class, I was always told I was technically excellent, but needed to work for more expression in my gestures.

In grad school classes taught by my recently-retired advisor, even though years' worth of courses with her had made me more than familiar with her methods, I persisted in being *FURIOUS* with her high-pressure Socratic style of teaching that refused to just TELL ME WHICH OF THESE SEVEN ANSWERS YOU WANT.  PICK A LANE.

Undergrad piano lessons - comfortable with styles calling for steady tempi and clear (especially terraced) dynamics, a crashing disaster at rubato.

Doctoral practicum classes - agreed when our cells were based on harmonic structures, meter changes, key changes...crinkled my nose at my teacher when his cells were based on dynamics or he had several consecutive cells of what I considered "irregular" quantities (odd numbers or even lots of 6's).

I get mad when drivers change lanes at the last minute to make a turn, believing they should have planned ahead better.

I get sanctimonious about punctuality; when that study came out a few months ago claiming that chronically late people are optimists, I thought, "These late people are HAPPY ABOUT IT???  HOW DARE THEY NOT FEEL THE SHAME."

I am a rule-follower, a categorizer, a routine enacter...most of the time.  I hate being asked when something is occurring when the answer is written on a wall calendar in the same room.  If we're on vacation and we decide that we'll leave the house at 11:00 to go down to the beach, I'll be sitting by the door at 10:45.  It doesn't apply to everything though.  I'll straighten the stacks of worksheets in my classroom but drive home in a car that contains spilled french fries from 2003.  I'll walk around in shorts without having shaved my legs and dare anybody to give me crap about it (it does cut down on gym creepers) but feel self-conscious about my frizzy ponytail.  I'll leave an unfinished coffee mug by my bed until new civilizations sprout up in it but get the vapors because there's a gatorade stain on my counter.  It's as if The Great Programmer started coding me for hyper-organization and perfectionism, but got distracted halfway through and finished with slacker dna.

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I was around grades 8 or 9 before I finally realized that always jumping for the right answer and the highest grade was not endearing me to my classmates or impressing them as I had imagined.  And now I have neared age 30 before realizing that my selective rigidity is bovine and ridiculous.  The situations in which my inclinations are beneficial (be seated and ready to go when the faculty meeting begins because professionalism) are far outnumbered by the situations in which they're stupid or detrimental (you can conduct more than one hairpin in this Brahms piece - you're not going to give anybody seasickness.)  So my resolution for 2016 is to lighten. up.  I resolve to watch more conductors who jump and wiggle around their podiums and have the guts to get out of pattern every once and again because they are FEELIN IT.  I resolve to chill the heck out when it comes to getting places on time when there aren't professional or hierarchical stakes...no one is going to die if I walk into the pool party 2 minutes after the appointed start time.  I resolve to give people space to be human and stop policing everyone else when it comes to planning and execution, remembering that I'm human too and occasionally fail to plan.  I resolve to, as I am able to recognize them, scrutinize my self-imposed "life rules" and objectively determine whether they are useful ("Shower regularly") or not ("A cluttered kitchen table means you're a classless hick.")

Happy New Year, everyone!

  

Joy

I have been hesitant to write this for the last little while because I feel like I might be taunting karma.  Ok, fine, my religion doesn't subscribe officially to "karma", but let's be real: a great many of us entertain the notion from time to time that there is some sort of cosmic scorekeeping between fair and foul fortune going on and that too great a gain on one side will most certainly invite a compensatory swell from the other.  What goes up must come down, there is nothing new under the sun, etc.  So by speaking my feelings into the world, a little part of me worries that I am going to invite misfortune.  But then the Logic Machine (TM) comes back online and reminds me just how little in control I am of anything ever, and so I should gather roses while I may.

Any more quotes and this blog would be an act of plagiarism.

Anyway, we had a guest speaker at church this last Sunday who talked about how we sometimes deny ourselves the opportunity to pursue the desires of our hearts because of the various boundaries society puts around activities.  I'm too inexperienced, too old, too awkward, too whatever to do this thing I would like to do.  And so I got to thinking about the things I wanted to be able to do.  Like most of you, my goals for my life changed over time.

Age 4: I want to be a cop (because Grandma was one...yes, I am serious) or maybe one of those Fantasia pixies that changes the seasons.  Not sure why I tended to use the word "pixie" instead of the more common "fairy," so I'm going to engage in blogalistic license and claim that it's because of the Scotch/Irish branches of my family.  I'm sure you're shocked to know that neither of those career plans came to fruition.

Age 9: I want to be a singer.  Now, I am one.

Age 13: I might want to be a teacher.  Now, I am one.

Age 14: I might also want to write.  Now, I do, both on the blog and in print.

Age 15: I would like to be a "real" accompanist instead of just playing one or two things at a concert.  Now, I am one.

Age 16: I want to be a chorus teacher, but I would like to perform sometimes too.  Now, I do both.

Age 19: I want to earn a doctorate.  Now, I'm ABD.

Age 20: I want to be in GMEA and do GMEA things.  Now, I am and I do.

Age 22: I want to write or arrange some choral music.  Now, I do.

Age 24: I'd like to have a YouTube channel.  Now, I do.

Age 27: I'd like to be able to run for longer than 90 seconds at a stretch.  Now, I can.

Age 29: I'd like to have more toned muscles.  Still working on that one, but I have more muscle than I used to!

Now, these weren't by any means ALL of the things I thought I'd like to do.  I remember tossing out different ideas, some met with a thoughtful "hm," some with a sardonic, "Ok, sure..." that implied my suggested life choice would not be as glamorous or fun as I thought it was going to be.

Well guess what, friends?  All those things I listed above that I now do?  Are EVERY BIT as fun as I thought they would be.  In fairness, all have taken time and I have some growing-pains-style memories associated with each, but as I approach 30 years old, it feels like the save point of a video game.  I've reached a level of proficiency with all these goals (except the weight training, but it's been less than a year) that fills me with a weird mixture of comfort and excitement.  I'm no longer so overwhelmed by them that they seem insurmountable, but I still have enough learning and growing to do that they're still stimulating.  I don't freeze with fear, but I don't roll my eyes with boredom.  And there are so many things tied into each that I didn't anticipate back when the idea first entered my mind.  I wanted to become a chorus teacher because I love choral music...I couldn't have imagined how hilarious, exciting and fun my kids would be.  I wanted to be an accompanist because I like to play piano...I couldn't have imagined how it would connect me with friends and mentors and expose me to lots of different repertoire, conducting styles and interpretive/emotional elements (which, as anyone who has ever tried to teach me to conduct can tell you, I need SERIOUS help with.)  I wanted to run because I like solitary entertainments and tend to move around when I think anyway...I had no idea how relaxing and empowering it would feel.*

This is an even bigger and fuller life than I ever thought I would have and I am loving every minute.

*Although starting a run still sucks.