Top-Down, or Bottom-Up?

Yesterday was the first day of the CoOPERAtive program now in its ninth(!) year at Westminster Choir College. No matter how long I have been away from this iconic campus, it always feels like I've never left. I did my MM here from 03-05 and then worked here until '07, then left for work in San Francisco and Philadelphia. 

The things that this place has given me are astonishing - a true sense of purpose as a collaborative pianist, countless lessons in life and music (actually, in that order), and a sense of urgency that repertoire and languages must be learned and polished immediately.

The program is divided into two categories of students: Fellows and Young Artists. Fellows, in general, are graduate students or beyond (early professional or pre-professional). Young Artists tend to be finishing undergraduate or about to finish (or having just finished).

I feel so grateful that I get to work here again this summer.

I had terrific sessions yesterday with the students. In one of the sessions, the student and I were working on an excerpt from Barber's "Hermit Songs." We were working on how the verses start differently (sometimes Barber uses retrograde-inversion to differentiate the vocal line starts of each verse). Then I realized that the student maybe wasn't thinking about the overall structure of the piece ... 

So ...

We laid the piece of music on the floor and analyzed its sections. 

First, we just spent time picking the large sections. (I would say that no matter how large the piece is, anything from a Chopin Mazurka or a Sondheim tune to a Mahler symphony movement, divide the piece into two or three large sections. Not eighteen or nine or eleven).

Here is a photo of "top-down" - from Arkansas:

 



Next, we chose further subdivisions per section (so, within a section, we chose two or three divisions per that section). Every piece will be different. In this particular Barber piece, the sections and sub-sections are delineated clearly by piano interludes, verse changes, or key changes). 



We don't necessarily have to start practicing at the beginning of a (concerto, song, piece, movement). Much better to eat the frog, one bite at a time, and not necessarily start with the head. It's also easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed with any over-abundance of something in a piece: lots of text, tricky rhythms, or tons of black notes. 

Here is a "bottom-up" photo from New Mexico:

 

I had a major revelation about myself at Eastman while taking Theory 402 with Dr. Headlam. He introduced us to the big-picture concept of "top-down" or "bottom-up." He explained that learners had a default, but we could train the other side. I discovered that I was definitely a "bottom-up" learner, seeing details (but not necessarily getting them all). I would get so overwhelmed with the details that big-picture ideas, including big-picture scope of a piece, would be missing entirely (and some of the details would be missing too, so therefore, the audience wasn't getting much). 

Now, as a result of this teacher and his work with us, and the doctorate in general, I'm a "top-down" thinker. Understanding the largest confines of something allows you to break it down, and then break it down again (again, again) , until you can actually really get some work done. 

I was delighted to have this time with this student yesterday. I feel that it helped, and I learned something in the process about her, about how she looks at a score and will then go forth and prepare a performance.

Ice Cream on Route 66

We took a lovely road out of Eureka Springs, AR into Oklahoma. I was amazed by the openness, scenery, and tranquility of this part of the country. 

As we were preparing to leave Oklahoma (this was on a Saturday), I was saying to Zheng, 

"We should really get an oil change and get the car looked at. We will be driving through some remote country, and we should make sure everything is in working order." 

And sure enough, we pulled up to a car place that took walk-ins. Minutes later, our car was getting an oil change and we were getting good wifi and free popcorn. 

(God provides things in very mysterious ways!)

Tulsa was the next stop. My dad had shared a memory from his teenage years with his family when they traveled out west:

"We stopped for ice cream every day at 3." 

One of my few regrets was that this rule was not introduced at the beginning of the road trip. It is also a reminder that I have a hard time resisting ice cream with "peanut butter" as a main ingredient.

PHOTO: Braum’s stop, somewhere in Oklahoma … 

 

Local Flavor

One of the many things that Zheng and I share is a desire to get to the heart of a place. This is tied very closely to three things. If you ask yourself, how do people spend their:

1). Time
2). Money
3). Appetite (food)

you will have a very accurate read on what is popular in a given area. 

Albuquerque, NM

1). Time: Hiking the Sandias, going to the Rio Grande park, shopping (there are a significant amount of furniture stores in ABQ), coffee shops, watching Breaking Bad 
2). Money: Native American or summer-styled clothing, Mexican influenced cookware and decoration
3). Appetite: Mexican food, great food in general, good barbecue

During our drive, we tried very much to get a sense of the “local flavor” of any given state, city, town, etc. 

Here were some observations from a Chinese (now permanent US resident!) man, who has lived in the United States for six years:

1). Lower gas prices mean worse houses (and cars).
2). Walmart is everywhere.
3). People dress very poorly (clothes don’t flatter them, clothes don’t match, aren’t kept in good repair, little taste) and often the clothes don’t fit properly.
4). Pennsylvania had the worst roads of the eleven states. 
5). Also, the longest and most boring drive (and also most harrowing due to very narrow roads) was the PA Turnpike Northeast Extension.
6). If you enter a state through a Native American reservation, you will not see any labeling or signage.
7). Americans really love drive-in food. (He meant drive-through windows).
8). Americans love to go to church!
9). Fast food is cheap.

One of the best meals we had was in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The restaurant was called “Local Flavor Cafe” and has remarkable food. When my friend B.C. came to visit Arkansas four years ago (and also would join me on a very interesting road trip!), we had a meal there. When we re-met (and my husband and his fiancée met each other), we still talked about that meal! It seemed to be an obvious choice that Zheng and I would eat there during our trip. 

When Zheng and I were in Kentucky, he insisted on eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. Despite the fact that it is a chain, I agreed. We were ordering and he asked the cooks, “What is the most local flavor?” They didn’t understand him, so we went with the “original” chicken.

We chose a route that maybe meandered, and maybe was a little out of the way at times. But we saw a lot of America, as our friend John says, “that many Americans have not seen!”

PHOTOS: Local Flavor Cafe, Arkansas

Art by Accident

If you google “Art by Accident,” you might come up with an article discussing a Kafka short story (“The Hunger Artist”), and then listing Tim Burton, George Lucas, and Robert Plant. I don’t think that you can put Franz Kafka in the same class with these three men … 

But I have given serious thought to “artistic things created by accident.” Such as a work of art, which gets altered or damaged in some way, and then it is because of its flaw that it becomes famous. 

For example, think of the crack in Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell. It might be the only bell that is famous because of its non-function.

Two things cropped up in Eureka Springs which brought this idea to mind. We luckily stayed there two days - so after the day of the longest drive, we stayed put. (One of the many things on the trip that we did right). 

When we were having an espresso break in Eureka Springs, we sat at a table which was decorated in mosaic. Not just any mosaic - mosaic that was made from broken pieces of pottery and China! It was fascinating to see the different colors, textures, and origins of the dishes. It is a good idea for a future project! 

The other photo was one that Zheng took of a biker bar, leaving Eureka Springs’ downtown to return to our hotel. I love the photo … clearly not the right aperture or shutter speed, but it's fantastic!

 

Zheng of the Ozarks

The halfway point to our travels was Eureka Springs, AR. It’s a little out of the way, in that you’d really have to search to find this place. But I knew it would be right up Zheng’s alley, and so we went there. It’s also not particularly expensive, if you plan it right (one hotel night was $49.99, for example) so it fit our budget pretty well. 

The Ozarks are the closest thing that America has to the Swiss Alps. That is, if the Swiss Alps had motorcycles.

I spent two summers (’09 and ’10) as a vocal coach at Opera in the Ozarks. I did pay a quick visit back to “campus,” held at a place outside of the town called “Inspiration Point." Many things have changed since I was last there (new Executive and Artistic Director).

Time and hindsight has proven my two summers, especially the first one, very fruitful. The first summer was the one that helped me discern whether to start a doctorate and “what was I supposed to do with my life.” Long walks on a nearby hill, and lengths of time drinking coffee on the “slab” helped solidify what would be an eventual plunge into the Eastman DMA program. This summer was two summers before I would really have a life-changing spiritual experience in Hungary, but now, I see my time in Arkansas as a prelude to some long rambles through Europe (summers of 2011 and 2012).

Zheng was fascinated by the Old Western feel, the shopping, the individuality of the place, and restaurants, and of course, finding Jesus. The “Christ of the Ozarks” statue is, of many things, unforgettable. 

PHOTOS: From Eureka Springs and Inspiration Point. 

Automatic Shot!

Anyone who has spent any amount of time with my darling husband knows the significance and humor behind:

“Wait - let’s get a picture together. Automatic shot!”

He has mastered the art of the “hold out the camera in front of you and take a picture” [a.k.a. selfie] and my favorite … 

- the “set up the camera on a remote ‘pedestal,’ set the ten-second automatic timer, and RUN towards the group or couple shot! 

These have resulted in a few funny moments. Recently, in Eureka Springs, AR, we did a lot of “automatic shots.” These resulted in some funny photos, and hilarious ten-second slices of Zheng running, like a mad man, to get in the photo.

PHOTOS: from “automatic shot!"

The beginning of a road trip

Well, greetings from Dr. And Mr! 

We have lived through a difficult move and are now headed to upstate New York, for the shortest of visits. We head to Buffalo tomorrow for the final stages of Zheng's immigration. Our interview is the last step into his getting a green card. The process has been arduous, time-consuming, and expensive.

So we will be happy to have this behind us. After that, we head to Albuquerque! With some visits along the way. 

I will catch-up with graduation and moving posts, but I figured I should post regularly on the trip. I know that if I get caught up on what I "didn't" write, nothing will happen. ("The perfect is the enemy of the good," Voltaire wrote long ago. I definitely agree!). 

We will share our adventures, and playlists, photos and tales. 

On the road, 

K and Z