Project tempo and the existential void

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here or sent an email update. It turns out that a concert every weekend, seven weeks in a row, in the midst of a full-time teaching semester, is a little too much. (As I’ve said before, it’s not just playing the concert, it’s learning the new Scarlatti sonata and the collaborative music each time, composing the elaborate post-concert web write-up, plus ongoing work of booking, promotion, and grant-seeking.)  That 7-concert run concluded last Sunday, and I’ve been catching up with school, and just without the oomph even to write a short paragraph like this explaining that I don’t have energy to post. 

After a sparse holiday season schedule (only one concert in December) we’re going to aim for two weekends a month in the spring semester, maybe trying to make every other one a two-fer mini-tour when playing farther from home. My life partner (and principal project advisor, videographer, roadie, and driver) thinks even this may be too much, for our relationship if not for the project. While I think it might be fine in a semester with two classes instead of three, or with a Tuesday-Thursday teaching schedule. We’ll see.

To stay on track for my stated 5-year timeline, I need an average tempo of one concert a week. My wife asks, “Why five years? Who cares?” It’s a fair question. Maybe we will adjust it, but I do have some reasons. 

I love this project, but don’t want it to define my musical life indefinitely. And the project is my response to the climate emergency—taking my time and moseying along doesn’t feel very emergent. I feel it’s more newsworthy if more compact: “Guy says he’ll eventually play everywhere in Vermont, probably” doesn’t make as compelling a story (though I concede I may be exaggerating the significance of this particular point). 

Finally, there is this existentialist, life purpose angle. I’m happier when hyper-engaged with something I feel I have to do, even while I realize it’s only me saying I have to do it. It’s built on air, but as long as I’m fully immersed, it feels real and compelling. I do better overcommitted than at loose ends.

Infinite growth on a finite planet

While the Chelsea write-up is fresh in my mind, I wanted to re-broadcast this one bit:

Taylor runs the Free Verse Farm with her husband Misha Johnson, growing most of their own food as well as produce and herbal products they sell at the cooperative Free Verse Farm Shop in Chelsea Village, in what I am told is the longest continually operating storefront in Vermont. (They are also growing a son.) 

I found the somewhat oxymoronic use of “free” in the name of the shop fitting, as the store clearly exists to serve its suppliers and customers more than profit. One encouraging sign for the survival of civilization is that “capitalism” has begun to connote—in mainstream discourse, for the first time in my life—a particular economic and political system, rather than an inevitable state of affairs, a point of patriotism, and an inseparable aspect of the concept of an open society.   

Just outside the frame of the photo here, there was a milk crate full of free loaves of bread set out the evening of our concert.

Focus

There are of course barriers other than self-obsession and judgmentalism to staying focused or giving yourself over to the music. For instance, in my performances I talk a lot between pieces, and sometimes while playing I find myself thinking about what I might say next. This never ends well.

As I mentioned in my Chelsea concert write-up, I was unable to learn anything about how the 1912 Huntington upright came to be there. At one point in the performance, the brand name caught my eye and I said to myself “Huntington. Huh. We live in the town of Huntington!” (This had actually not occurred to me until that moment.) 

My internal dialog continued: “OK, now that you’ve got my attention, do you have any idea what the next note is? Because I have no clue.”

I guess that’s my story about the Chelsea piano.

Chelsea write-up

The Chelsea concert write-up is now posted. It includes several clips, including three of Taylor Katz reciting her poems to my improvised accompaniment. 

I was unable to track down any history of the church’s 1912 Huntington upright grand, so I compensated by composing a fairly extensive photo diary of the Huntington Piano Company.