The peace of predictability we find in our patterns and routines is beneficial, yes. These patterns create a framework for operation that we can easily enter into the moment we wake up and get out of bed. The framework breeds efficiency and a form of productivity sometimes referred to as "getting things done". It's how I pay the bills, clean the house, keep the cat alive, and irrigate my yard.
But these patterns and routines rarely create something extraordinary. They speak only to the status quo. And maybe they produce a really great version of the status quo, maybe even a slightly better version than your friends and neighbors...but that's not why we're here.
Inevitably these systems of efficiency we've created bleed into our art, our passions, and our relationships. We apply them to everything because we think they work. But I'm certain people don't want to listen to the music I create because of the beautiful systematic framework of production I used to birth it. And my wife and kids don't love me because I'm an efficient member of the family.
Give it a try today. Throw a wrench in your system. Challenge yourself to create in a new way. Make something different.
]]>Its intent is neither to encourage nor discourage you in what you do, whatever that may be.
If you're young this may not land. But perhaps read on anyway...
We often think and express ourselves in absolutes. Either we're happy or sad. Stuffed or starving. Hot or cold.
The other evening, as I sat on the sofa with my wife, my foot happened to be positioned just above a floor air vent, out of which blew cold air.
My response?
"I'm freezing."
This is what I said to my wife.
Then I went to put on a long sleeve shirt over the short sleeve shirt I was already wearing. Because I was freezing.
In truth, my foot was a little cold. And the rest of my body was fine. Maybe I could have just moved my foot. Or put on a sock.
No, it seems that wasn't possible. Because I was freezing. After all, it's not possible for your foot to be cold and the rest of your body to be a normal temperature.
Sometimes we see the world this way. All hope is lost or hope is all we have. Sometimes we see our jobs or our professional existence this way. My job is killing me. My job gives me life.
We are monolithic.
I've spoken this way before. Because it's clean. There's nothing messy about it. No grey middle. Nothing to wrestle with. Just all or nothing.
I've been professionally restless lately. These are things we don't like to talk about. At least not publicly. Because if you say you're restless others might think that you hate everything about your professional existence. All or nothing. Very clean.
In truth, it's much messier.
Questioning what you do isn't the same as hating what you do. In fact I think it means the opposite. I think it means that you care enough about what you do that you want to consider it deeply, intentionally, thoroughly.
In truth, my job kills me and gives me life everyday. Yours probably does the same.
I race from moment to moment until my mind's ablaze, buzzing until it's numb. Eventually and inevitably, my mind and body burn to ash. Everyday.
But in the next moment I'm privileged to sit in a great lesson with a student or have an engaging conversation with a colleague. About something that matters. And there is rebirth.
I am a phoenix. And so are you.
I'm not preaching the discipline-specific cliché of "art is messy". Because it's not just art. Engineering is messy, accounting is messy, motherhood is messy.
I'm a professional percussionist yet haven't played my instrument in several weeks. I'm not sure what that means but I'm sure it means something. And I know it's messy.
I'm about to turn 42. There are things I know now that I didn't know at 24. And there are things I don't know yet that I will assuredly know at 64. I am where I am.
The point of all of this, I suppose, is that it's ok to question what you're doing. It's ok to ask if this is what it's supposed to be. If this is enough. If this is too much. And it's ok that the answer to that question will be different at 24 than it is at 42 than it is at 64.
Each time I meet with prospective students I ask them a question I admittedly abhor. "What do you want to do professionally once you finish school?" It's a foolish question to ask someone who is 18. Not because they are incapable of knowing, but because they shouldn't know.
Having lived one quarter of a life, how is it we should know exactly what to do with the remaining three quarters? Before spouses, partners, kids, sickness, triumph, and tragedy...
If there's one thing I would hope that my students take from their time of study with me, it would be this and simply this...
Stay open. Listen to the buzzing in your head. And be ready to change.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He is a professional percussionist who often doesn't touch his instrument for weeks at a time. He is grateful and he is discontent. Todd acknowledges the inherent privilege he has in writing these words.
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Over the past ten years, I’ve been on an endless quest to uncover the ‘hidden’ melodic material contained within the resonance of a drum. This topic has been of continual fascination since my early days as a drummer. Once, for a high school project, I decided to adapt Bach cantatas for four piece drum set. I charted out my arrangements with the intention to capture the melodic shape and harmonic color of the original works. The arrangements were practiced and eventually recorded on a four track which my drum teacher had given me. The pieces were kinda cool but what I remember was that I regarded them as a failure in regards to my original plan. But, perhaps most importantly, it was an immense learning experience. What I learned was that in my approach I was way too ‘literal’ in terms of translating the melodic content from Bach’s original compositions to the instrument of drums. In these experiments, I learned that drums ‘don’t work that way.’ To convey melodic content as a drummer is not about literally playing a melody on drums, i.e., having a massive amount of drums to represent a quantity of pitches; this in effect turns the drums into a type of ‘piano.’ The main idea when it comes to conveying melody and harmony on a drum is to do so through 'suggestion.' This means being able to manipulate tone, timbre, and rhythm in a variety of ways to express the essence of any musical tonality, gesture, and mood.
Further supporting this notion is the amazing legacy of jazz drummers and their contributions to musical evolution. The jazz tradition, in the span of its first fifty years, goes through an unbelievably rapid technical progression that covers core musical trends of the 20th century, everything from pop music to the avant-garde. With that, drumming has played a major role in shaping and reflecting these shifts in musical styles. How would we compare the drum solos in the time of Count Basie to that of 60s free jazz or the angular chromaticism of early Anthony Braxton? The percussion instrument in these cases is the same, typically a four piece drumkit, but the conceptual and technical strategies of the musicians are very different. Not only are rhythm and phrasing treated differently, but the whole sonic outlook of the instrument itself. This is what has been one of my many lifelong questions as a drummer: how do I suggest a world of musical possibilities in just one drum?
My musical life has found me in a very wide variety of disciplines and settings: classical percussionist, pop drummer, punk rocker, jazzer, improvisor, sound artist, tabla player, etc. In each instance, my expressivity as a drummer has developed as my relationship to the instrument has grown. Throughout these various contexts I’ve been discovering what it means for drums to suggest and complement melody and mood. What kicked this quest into high gear was my solo project, Drums and Drones. This project started in 2007 with the aim to thoroughly explore the harmonic content of a drum. The initial inspiration to embark on this journey came from a legendary sound and light installation in NYC, Dream House, by artists La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. From my time volunteering at the Dream House, I grew deeply fascinated by the physiological influence of acoustics and by what it means to 'listen deeply.' I devoutly studied the principles of Just Intonation and conceived of ways to apply this microtonal tuning system to drums and percussion. The first instances of these experiments were the beginnings of the Drums and Drones project.
Drums and Drones has often been described as ‘going inside the sound of a drum.’ What this means is that it isolates and exposes microscopic pieces of sonic information that comprise the overall tone of a drum, and uses them as compositional elements. This is often accompanied by an aspect of ‘meditative listening': that hearing these subtleties is supported by qualities of stillness, openness, and discernment. From the drumming standpoint, I developed a wide range of techniques for ‘finding’ and ‘playing’ the specific resonant tones of drum harmonics. Two avenues developed, both in tandem and in parallel: one acoustic and one electroacoustic. In this article we will focus on the acoustic methods.
Presented in this article are video demonstrations of some of the acoustic methods found in the Drums and Drones project. They are a bit extreme in their mission: they are designed to use the harmonic content of a drum to make music. Whereas most drumming uses compositional devices to suggest melodic contour (i.e., phrasing, dynamics, timbre shifts, etc.) the Drums and Drones style uses the pitches of drums themselves. What appeals to me most in this case is that drums are treated in a way that is typically overlooked: that drums are indeed pitched instruments. Whether or not these techniques apply directly to you the reader-percussionist and your immediate musical needs, I do hope that they serve to enhance your expressive range on the instrument and understanding of the ‘hidden’ capabilities of the instrument itself.
As an important note, an essential component that comes with this type of playing is tuning. I can be fanatical about tuning drumheads. What tuning means in this case is that the drumhead is ‘in tune with itself:’ there is an equal tension across the circumference of the head. It took me a long while of practice to develop the ears and skills to properly tune a drum. It isn’t simple as there are many variables that can be obstacles. In my personal experience, there are three main factors that go into successfully tuning a drum: discerning the difference between the overtones and the fundamental, tuning one head while the making sure the other side is muted, and understanding how the different lugs function interdependently with one another. To go further on tuning would require another blog post or two. Keep in mind that, in the following videos, the pitches that I am deriving from the drums results from the drumhead being in tune with itself.
The material discussed below is largely based on the album Drums and Drones III: Acoustic which was released in June of 2018. During the recording process, after a performance was finished, I would take a moment to video document the specific techniques that were used. This album is available via bandcamp and also as part of the triple album and 144 page book, Drums and Drones: Decade (Chaikin Records), which culminates the first ten years of the Drums and Drones project. All quotes below are excerpts from the book.
This first video clip features a technique that is the compositional basis for an ongoing series in the Drums and Drones catalog entitled “Melody Drum Drone.” As of now there are four recorded versions of this piece which appear across three albums. The video below was shot following the recording of “Melody Drum Drone, v.4” and showcases that piece's simple pitch-set. Referring to the recording, I write:
This lead track demonstrates a method integral to the Drums and Drones project: that of deriving harmonics direct from the drumhead. Inherent in this method, and equally significant to Drums and Drones on a conceptual level, is the notion that from a single entity (i.e. the drumhead) there exists many constituent parts (i.e. the harmonics) … (p.87)
Method for "Melody Drum Drone, v.4" from the album Drums and Drones III: Acoustic by Brian Chase from Brian Chase on Vimeo.
This next clip is taken from the recording session for the second Drums and Drones album, Drums and Drones II: Ataraxia, which took place during an artist residency at Headlands Center for the Arts. In this video, I am again demonstrating a similar method as in the first, though with a more varied pitch-set and with more animated dynamics. There is some electronic enhancement happening via computer software. The software is running very precise eq to gently boost the resonant frequencies of the overtones.
A drumhead is tuned to a single pitch, one frequency, and resonates with rich harmonic detail. From there the overtone series can be uncovered and expressed. The Drums and Drones project deals directly with approaching drums and percussion from the standpoint of Just Intonation. (p. 26)
Drum harmonics with eq amplification from Brian Chase on Vimeo.
This clip was taken following the performance of the piece, “Edges Drum”. The technical intention here was to highlight, through the use of tonal shading and harmonic character, the drum’s ability to play melody and suggest thematic melodic material.
If we were to take an ‘aural snapshot’ of the sound of a drum, and zoom in on that snapshot, we can then pick apart and isolate some of the many individual frequencies that comprise the overall resonance of a drum. (p. 59)
Drum vids edges from Brian Chase on Vimeo.
The style of open harmonic playing comes from that of striking the drum head in different ways to achieve specific variances in harmonic character, and allowing the drum to ring. As a result, the drum produces its version of “chords.” This clip demonstrates the three main striking positions for the piece, “Well Drums.” The drums were tuned to the 3rd and 4th harmonics, an interval similar to a perfect fourth. Since most of the Drums and Drones material deals with sonic subtlety, many of the pieces are built around repetition to allow for the listening process to “open up.” Of this relationship between minimalism and the listener,
…the music is ‘sculpted’ in such a way that it yields a continually shifting perception of a seemingly endless multitude of sides, and, though the piece itself never changes, the relationship of the listener to the artwork is always changing. In addition, the longer a listener sits with the music, the more the process of hearing begins to open to reveal perceptively new sonic elements that were always already there. (p. 81)
Drums vid Well Drums from Brian Chase on Vimeo.
The videos included in this article demonstrate just a few of the main techniques used for the acoustic Drums and Drones compositions. There is a whole other side to the project that is electroacoustic. That is for another post.
Some words in sum:
The Drums and Drones project was developed as a way to explore and bring forth the subtle resonances of a drum. Hearing the drum in its glorious complexity is what made me want to investigate it further. In the ‘sound of a drum’ I heard a whole universe of individual tones. (p.139)
Drums and Drones: Decade is available at www.chaikinrecords.com.
The Wire magazine writes: “an indispensable statement on how drummers hear sound."
Brian Chase is a drummer and composer living in Brooklyn, NY. He is best known as drummer with Grammy nominated rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs yet his music extends further to the community of the NYC experimental scene. For the past ten years an important focus has been his Drums and Drones solo project which in 2018 released a retrospective triple album and book on his Chaikin Records label. Brian has been a visiting professor at Bennington College and a guest presenter at the So Percussion Summer Institute at Princeton University.
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What happens next is perhaps the most important part of your musical existence today. It determines what does and does not get accomplished, what new material gets digested, what chunk of music gets memorized, which technical passage finally reaches mastery, and so on.
But those initial moments just before the practice session commences often end up being the beginning of nothing more than a mindless routine, one you've been doing every day for who knows how many years, and one that doesn't produce the rich results we desire from our practice sessions. You're on a precipice and your decisions in that moment set the tone for what can either be a productive or unproductive slice of your day.
So what determines your agenda for that session? What guarantees productivity?
In Part 1 of this blog series (The Practice Room — Part 1: Planning) we broke down how to set long term goals defined by actionable objectives. We translated those objectives into weekly Assignments and drilled down further to develop a daily practice + work plan. Assuming you've taken the pre-game seriously, the illustration I used at the beginning of this article won't happen to you. You'll have a very clear plan of attack for what to do once you hit the practice room.
But how do we best execute that plan? How do we stay focused and on task during our practice sessions? That's what the implementation stage of practice is all about. Let's take a closer look.
I'll play out a hypothetical practice session to give a concrete example of what this might look like. The beginning, at least in general terms, should be somewhat standard in that we'll first embrace some version of a warm up. Your warm up is necessary—it sets the tone mentally for the session, it gets the blood flowing, and it puts the muscles into motion as you prepare for what will be a more strenuous workout later in the time block. Done correctly, a proper warm up will put your mind and body in the best possible position from which to effectively practice. Done incorrectly (or worse, ignored), you risk injury.
Aim to start your warm up naturally, with mid-range physical motions or airflow. Allow your body and mind to get adjusted to the space you're inhabiting. You are literally "warming up" before engaging in more intense moments of practice. My warm up often lasts no longer than 5-7 minutes. I set a timer on my phone, cycle my way through a handful of mid-range motions (for me, as a percussionist, the motions are stroke-based), and focus on deep breathing/relaxation throughout the timespan. When my timer goes off I put down my sticks or mallets, engage in a brief but thorough routine of arm and hand stretches to further extend my range of motion, and close the chapter on the warm up part of my session. Anything longer than about 10 minutes and you're most likely not "warming up" anymore. You've mindlessly started to practice.
Warm ups are often immediately followed by technique work. In fact, these two activities are smashed together so frequently that many musicians actually don't appropriately differentiate them. And that can be dangerous, as these two portions of practice have different aims. Warm ups get us ready to play. Technique work, on the other hand, comprises intensive, hyper-specific routines focused on areas of our playing that we desire to strengthen. If not properly warmed up, diving directly into technique work puts us in a compromising position that risks causing injury. Technique work is challenging and can be tedious. It can be geared specifically towards the repertoire we're currently building or it can be completely independent. I enjoy a mix of the two. I like pinpointing a handful of technical obstacles that my current repertoire demands and coupling these with technical obstacles that are perhaps larger or more long-term.
Technique work will often segue into the primary thrust of the practice session, be it note learning in an etude, solidifying a new section of a solo, or continued chiseling away at an excerpt. Whatever this portion might be in terms of topic, it must be specific and intentional in terms of its implementation. If, in the planning phase (done prior to walking into the room), you determined the session's work to be focused on learning the A section of a new etude, then pour your time into that. Don't fall into the trap of absentmindedly reading ahead without purpose, or repping a lick you already know over and over, or playing WAY TOO FAST for no apparent reason, or....
Squirrel!!!
The point is, the practice + work plan you set out is your well thought out guide. And your job in the implementation phase of practice is to execute those intentions as efficiently and effectively as possible, without distraction. As you close out your practice session you need to be able to look back and see what you've accomplished. Make your plan and implement it.
The Liquidrum Practice Journal entry below details what this might look like. The 'times' and 'to-do's' are predetermined before the day gets going. If you're rockin' the planning phase of practice then these important aspects are perfectly preset and include exactly the things needing attention that day. As you implement this plan, you record the specific 'material practiced' including your warm up, technique work, and subsequent primary focus. Be alive and responsive to appropriate lengths of time dedicated to each of these activities while doing them. Perhaps one session has a relatively short warm up routine followed by a more extensive technique portion. Maybe another session desperately needs more of the meat and potatoes work on learning music and therefore minimizes the technique portion. You be you. But be so very intentionally.
I know what you might be thinking...this seems so rigid! I'm a musician, not a robot!
I get it. I really do. I'm not advocating locking you up in a practice prison where every day is the same. We're just talking about establishing systems within which you can thrive and being mindful and present in the process. And I'm a huge fan of radically changing things up to keep your practice sessions fresh. Try different approaches, turn things on their heads, throw your 'technique + written music' approach out the window and improvise for a week. But make a plan to do it. AND THEN IMPLEMENT IT. No more wandering into a practice room, mindlessly opening up to the first page of a piece of music you've been practicing for weeks or months, and starting at the top...without thinking.
Make a plan and implement the plan. Whatever the plan may be. Good luck.
*If you would like to grab a copy of the newly-released Liquidrum Practice Journal, visit us here.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion. He's played music all over the place.
]]>In full disclosure, I write this in the midst of launching a new practice journal for musicians. The Liquidrum Practice Journal, to be specific. But I thought it would be nice to piggyback on this recent endeavor and put down some thoughts about practice. You know, how we go about doing it, what we tend to get right, and what we sometimes get wrong.
This is the first of three blog posts, each of which will address a different stage of the practice process. Part 1, this one, is dedicated to the planning stage.
Ok, maybe you're already bored. Practice planning? Really? You're gonna write 1000+ words on how to plan your practice session? Yes. And if the topic is a turnoff it probably means you don't think about it enough or do it very well. So stay with me.
Practice planning comes in all shapes and sizes from short-term, session to session planning to long-term, big project planning, and everything in between. And while we might think we're knocking the planning stage out of the park, most of us are probably just working off of vague ideas that swim around in our heads — nondescript, non-definitive, and therefore non-actionable. In the end, this non-approach produces something that is, well, unproductive. Or at least less productive than it could be.
Let's look at a concrete example or two and see how we might better execute intentional, effective practice planning.
Let's say it's late summer or early fall and you have a long-term goal of winning a spot in a drum corps or summer orchestral festival for the following year. The planning process would go something like this. . .
We start with the big picture, guiding vision or principle. Either one of the aforementioned aspirations would be your long-term goal, in this case. That goal must be followed with specific, measurable, and actionable objectives. These objectives become the action plan for achieving the goal.
_________________
Example #1
Goal: Win a position in the front ensemble of the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps for summer 2019.
Goal set date: September 1, 2018
Objective 1: Thoroughly immerse myself in the history, flavor, and aesthetic trends of the Cavaliers, past and present, by digesting recordings/videos and by connecting with current and former members of the group.
Objective 2: Secure the audition packet and implement an intentional learning regimen for all audition materials.
Objective 3: Perform the material for teachers and friends periodically throughout the practice process and self-record frequently.
Objective 4: Evaluate and assess constantly, especially following mock performances for teachers/friends and after self-recording.
Objective 5: Plan and book travel, well ahead of time, for all necessary camps and audition weekends.
Objective 6: Attend camp(s), win a position.
Goal completion date: January 15, 2019
_________________
Example #2
Goal: Win a position with the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra.
Goal set date: September 1, 2018
Objective 1: Research PMF by thoroughly absorbing all printed information on the website and talking with past attendees.
Objective 2: Secure the audition repertoire list making note of any required excerpts that are unfamiliar.
Objective 3: Create a repertoire/excerpt folder specifically for the PMF audition.
Objective 4: Structure a practice and learning regimen for excerpts that have previously been studied and those that are new, including intentional rep listening sessions.
Objective 5: Perform mock auditions for teachers and friends periodically throughout the preparation process and self-record frequently.
Objective 6: Evaluate and assess constantly.
Objective 7: Plan the audition recording process and execute mock versions of this process weeks in advance of the submission deadline.
Objective 8: Submit a successful audition and win a position.
Goal completion date: March 15, 2019
_________________
For sake of clarity and illustration I've listed more objectives than typical in these examples. Depending on your familiarity with the process, several of these steps may be implied and therefore unnecessary to script out, at least with this level of detail. The point is you come up with clear, actionable objectives that serve to accomplish the goal.
But it obviously doesn't end there. The goal + objective process is just the beginning. It's the broad framework within which you will enact your practice + work regimen. It's time to drill down. We're going from big to small.
Looking at your timeframe and articulated objectives, we need to specify actionable weekly and daily practice plans. Personally, I like to think of the weekly plans as 'Assignments'. Many of these are mid-term plans that will be achievable within a week or two or three.
If we look at our Cavaliers example above, we can build the following Assignment encapsulating a few of the initial objectives.
Week of Sept 3, 2018:
And to keep things even, let's do the same with the PMF example.
Week of Sept 3, 2018:
Again, I'm being intentionally wordy with these illustrations in order to give clarity to the process. You can script this out in shorthand as long as it is clear and comprehensible to you, as I've done in the above image.
The final stage of the planning process is the daily, short-term stuff. This is usually the part of the process that most of us do a decent job at, or at least think about the most. The problem is we are usually doing this without the previous steps of articulating the long and mid-term plans. Now that we have those set, our daily plan can be super specific and super effective.
Take a look at what an initial practice + work day of Cavaliers audition prep might look like. Remember, this is the practice + work plan, scripted out before the day begins. This is not the after-practice documentation of what was done (that will be covered in a later post).
Date: 9/3/18
Times and to-do's:
8:30-9:30AM — Listen to and watch 2017 and 2018 shows
10:30-11AM — Phone convo w/ old teacher
1-1:30PM — Download, print, organize packet
2:30-4PM — General read-thru of packet
And the same for an initial practice day of PMF audition prep:
Date: 9/3/18
Times and to-do's:
10-10:30AM — Read PMF website top to bottom
10:30-11AM — Phone convo w/ past PMF attendee
1-2PM — Print audition list, gather excerpts, build folder
3-6PM — Rep listening incl. multiple recordings followed by initial note learning
The daily practice + work plans will inevitably get more and more specific and detailed as you continue through the process. What is outlined here is a rather general, first-day-of-practice plan of attack.
We've now built an intentional framework within which to practice and work. We've defined long-term goals, articulated specific, actionable objectives, translated these into weekly assignments, and drilled down further to produce a daily practice + work schedule. The structure is solid and the plan is clear.
The next blog post will focus on the second stage of practice which I call implementation. This is the work we actually do in the practice room, the stuff we call, well...practice. See you on the next post.
*If you would like to grab a copy of the newly-released Liquidrum Practice Journal, visit us here.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion.
]]>Part of this research involves exposure to the "it" entrepreneurs in the world today, or at least in the US. If you've been a part of this platform at all you know at least some of the names. Tony Robbins and Gary Vaynerchuk are two standouts, at least with regard to their high-adrenaline take on entrepreneurship. But there are many others. They motivate, they mesmerize, they make millions. And we can't get enough.
Communication is paramount to these folks and catch-all, mantra-like terms have been coined as an effective means of persuading large groups of followers. Two of the more pervasive buzzwords that inhabit this space are hustle and his little brother grind.
Hustle and grind are really great. They wake up at 5AM every morning, they do 700 push ups before getting out of bed, then transition into a very specific 20-minute sesh of transcendental meditation, then fire off 300 emails before 6AM, then SUPER DELIBERATELY spend quality time with their spouses, partners, or kids. . . . all before heading off to work to spin deals, inspire the masses, and generally win at life.
Man, I love #hustle and #grind.
It's hard not to get swept up in this businessy romanticism. I mean, it sounds pretty amazing. And who doesn't want to be amazing?
But several years into this process I'm realizing something rather profound about this lifestyle — it doesn't work for me. Like, at all. Or at least it doesn't work for the creative side of me that craves space, time, and a decidedly anti-hustle orientation to my day.
The world of entrepreneurship loves to talk about morning routines. I just gave a typical example of a #winning morning routine above. But when discussing successful entrepreneurs, here's a morning routine you never hear:
This wouldn't exactly get me a feature article in Inc. magazine. I don't think I could write a book called "Morning Routine of the Gods: Just Let it Happen to You". Because this morning routine is suspiciously absent of hustle and grind.
But yet this routine, or spans of time filled with similarly unremarkable events, is exactly what I need to cultivate ideas, to ponder possibilities, and to ultimately engage something (anything, really) creatively.
I write this near the tail end of a particularly merciless two-month period in which I've felt more like a punching bag than the meandering butterfly I so wish to be. You know the drill of late spring. For me it's been a dangerous concoction of the following: audition day for prospective students, judging a high school competition, faculty search activities, orchestra cycle, masterclass trip to Michigan, judging another competition, hosting a Symposium, another orchestra cycle, (squeeze in my taxes), and more faculty search activities, all with seven student recitals sporadically sprinkled on top (one of which I wasn't even in town for), and oh, by the way, you have a family that is unwillingly being dragged through this muck in the process.
Sigh...
Here's the deal. Every single one of the above-mentioned activities is wonderful on its own. And a year ago when I was looking at my spring 2018 calendar, this perfect storm of creative nullification hadn't yet manifested itself. I had one thing on the calendar — the Symposium I was hosting. But as time ticks on other things are added, and then stacked, and then stacked once more. And the 21st century musician's mind, the one filled with mantras of hustle and grind, says "Yes, yes I can do all those things. I should do all those things. And I can knock them out of the park. Just watch me."
I've come to the realization that there is no greater danger to creative pursuits than what is listed above. There is nothing that kills creativity quite like the Molotov cocktail, or similar versions of it, that I've been mixing for the past six weeks. And the unfortunate thing is that we seldom realize it's happening until we're chest deep within it. By then it's too late. We have a romanticized idea of this insanely busy life and we wear it as a badge of honor. It's used to convey success.
I'm done. At the end of this semester I'm creatively dead. I've put unnecessary and undo stress on my family. And I see so many of the students I work with in the same boat. Barely holding on, the thread dangerously close to breaking, all of us hoping we make it to shore before the ship goes under completely.
But summer is coming and that offers the necessary respite from this insanity, right?
Wrong.
Yes, for many of us working in academia or whose schedules are convergent with the academic year, the summer is a saving grace. A time to breathe and rejuvenate. But inevitably the fall semester comes roaring back and the cycle starts all over again. Rinse and repeat.
This is what abuse looks like. Periods of obvious, undeniable hell followed by periods of normalcy where everything is ok. And most of us are a hopeful bunch so we bask in the glow of this normalcy and justify all the bad we just lived through. But then it starts again. Rinse and repeat.
This is the world we live in as musicians and it isn't healthy. It's stifling, it's harmful, it's too much. And those of us who teach perpetuate the cycle with our students. We manage to be both a victim of our own professional existence while at the same time a culprit, or at the very least an accomplice, in the abuses waged against those studying with us.
And here's the scary thing — we've gotten really good at it. The product we put out as musicians nowadays is oftentimes staggeringly polished and precise. Damn near perfect. But at what cost? And is it worth it? Is it worth leaving your creative spirit tattered, torn, and broken in a ditch by the side of the road?
What we do is art, not war. Let's redefine what it means to live a creative life. It might just mean changing everything.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion.
]]>So why jump into this pool of excellent swimmers?
Well, because I'm going to take a slightly different angle that will hopefully pair well with the aforementioned posts. I'm going to tell you exactly what I (and maybe other percussion profs) am/are thinking as I go through my version of this experience. Just some thoughts from the other side.
Let's start at the beginning.
1) When I receive an exploratory email from a prospective student, here's what goes through my mind. First, please know that your audition started the second you hit 'send'. I'm evaluating you. Where are you from? Who is your teacher? Do I know her or him? Do you capitalize the first letter of the first word of each sentence in your email? What about proper nouns? Are those capitalized too? I'm not trying to be a stick in the mud. I'm just observant and this tells me something about you.
2) If you come for a campus visit and a lesson at some point prior to your audition, here's what I'm thinking. Ok, this person has some moxie. You're playing the game well or at least trying to. Probably getting some good advice from somewhere. I'm hoping you're good and I'm hoping I'm not about to dread the next hour or so while I hear you play. Fingers crossed!
3) When I ask where else you're auditioning, I don't care about the specific schools per se. I'm trying to find out where you are in your thought process and whether it all lines up. Are you orchestrally driven? Does it make you feel better when the word 'Conservatory' is in the name of the institution? Looking for something more general? Do you prefer Big Ten football over the Big XII? Are you drinking the family tree Kool Aid of Bob van Sice or Mike Burritt? Is money a big factor? And so on.
4) When I first meet you on audition day I'm studying you. Are your hands clammy when we have a shake? Are you having trouble putting sentences together? Why are you wearing a tie? (that's gonna cause some trouble later unless it's the 'bow' variety). Are you a refrain of uncomfortable laughter? Huh, huh. Huh, huh. Huh, huh. Get a drink of water and have a banana.
5) When your time comes and you walk into the audition room I'm probably not paying much attention to you. I bet I'm still typing notes about the previous candidate who just left the room. So you should use this time to get set up and get all of the awkwardness out of your system while I'm not tuned in. This will pay off in a couple of minutes when I look up from my computer to find you perfectly prepared, sticks and mallets properly positioned at each station, with a relaxed, confident half-smile on your face.
6) Listen, I'm flattered that you think I know every piece of music ever written for percussion and have everything stored away in my photographic memory. Really, it means the world. But just to be safe you should absolutely have several binders prepared with copies of everything you plan on playing with a table-of-contents-like rep sheet up front. And the binders should be nice and clean and presentable. Just like you.
7) If I tell you to choose your audition order, don't hesitate. Have an order predetermined that you can immediately launch into. Nine times out of ten I like to give you free choice up front, then I'll start determining the order thereafter. But have a preferred top to bottom order nonetheless, just in case you're allowed to have the wheel the whole time.
8) Before you play the first note of your first piece, stop. And breathe. Breathe several times even. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. Deeply. Couple times now. Let there be some silence in the room. Mentally prepare the beginning of the piece. Then step forward and engage. This takes some maturity to do in the moment. That maturity will speak volumes. And you'll sound better.
9) Once you start, let the music flow. This is now recital time, not audition time. Don't play to avoid missing notes. Play to communicate your ideas, show your performance personality, and be alive in the moment. If you trip and stumble, turn it into a graceful tuck and roll that you pop up from as if it were part of your tumbling routine. I'm studying behaviors as much as anything else. This is a dynamic process. Be awake in it.
10) Either during or after your audition, I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to say things like "tell me about your marimba rep" or "what other Delecluse etudes have you played?" or "the interval between your 32" and 29" timps is off — whaddya think. . . is it wide or narrow?" My hope of all hopes is that you are calm, cool, and collected enough to have a healthy conversation in the audition moment. If I'm asking questions then I'm probably intrigued enough to get to know you a tad better. Answer back. Have thoughts. Share them.
10.1) And here's a final thought to chew on. When I'm done hearing auditions, I'm going to go home, most likely put on some casual clothes, maybe some tennies, pull some weeds and not think about percussion auditions or percussionists or percussion at all. I'm going to hang with my family, I'm going to talk about the kids' basketball games, I'm going to think about what to cook for dinner. Is your audition important? Yes. Is it important to me? Yes. But it's one part of your life's fabric. And mine. And life is big. Have some perspective, relax, play your best, then go tell your parents thanks for their support, have a nice lunch and don't think about percussion.
Good luck.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion.
]]>If you're reading this and you took part in the #liquidrumfasthandschallenge I must tell you I couldn't care less how fast your hands are. Or mine. Or anyone's really. That wasn't the point. The point was sort of a social experiment. You know, who would participate and what would they do with this silly challenge?
I kicked things off by creating a superbly boring 8-on-a-hand-ish exercise that was easily digestible. I then challenged my archenemy, Josh Quillen, to play it faster than me. My hands aren't that fast, admittedly, but neither are Josh's so I thought it was a safe way to start.
Josh ended up doing what I imagined he would do. He created. He created something out of the limited bits and pieces of information that I gave him. He turned a mundane 'fast hands challenge' into something quintessentially him, something with meaning, and put his version out into the world. And then he challenged someone else. And so on and so forth.
I watched the challenge spread like a very polite wildfire over the following days. We had close to 50 versions on Instagram and probably 20-25 on Facebook — not exactly viral but plenty of community involvement so I was happy. And the versions were all radically different. Some involved dogs, some mentioned birds, some didn't involve sticks at all, some took place on alternative instruments (keyboards, flower pots, sleigh bells, and cheeks), some were meditations on life, and some defied belief altogether (Mike Burritt's entry, specifically, has accrued almost 21K views on FB since posting — check it out here). And certainly, some were straight up renditions that tested the speed of the hands. Nothing wrong with that.
But I was amazed (and delightedly) how quickly hand speed became somewhat of a side note. What was more interesting was the thought that people put into the effort. People told their stories through their vids. Performance identities emerged and superseded hand speed. It was wonderful. It became meaningful.
I'm recapping all of this because I think it serves as an important illustration to who we are as percussionists and musicians. Your technical skills alone don't (and shouldn't) define you. They are vehicles, nothing more and nothing less. They're a launching pad, not the destination. Sorry, but your hands aren't that interesting.
Note that I didn't say your hands aren't important. The development of your hands (fill in the blank accordingly if you're a non percussionist) is, of course, absolutely critical to your ability to tell your musical story. But your story is the interesting and meaningful part. That's where we get to see the you in your music-making.
I'll end with an anecdote that has nothing to do with music but paints the picture well.
I had surgery in May 2017 to remove a cancerous tumor in my colon. The surgery went well. The doc did a great job. I'm very, very fortunate that we caught things early on and that all is well.
I have some distance now from that event and have been hoping to run into my surgeon at some point soon. Because if I do here's what I wouldn't tell him — I wouldn't tell him thanks for making the incision on my stomach so straight. I wouldn't say thanks for the great staple/stitch job you pulled off when you closed me up me. I wouldn't say thanks for getting me out of the OR in 90 minutes when you said it may take 2 hours. No, I wouldn't say any of those things.
I would say this — I would say thank you for giving me more years with my beautiful wife. I would say thank you for allowing me to see my kids graduate high school and college. I would say thank you for giving me a shot at meeting my grandkids one day.
You see, my surgeon's skills aren't interesting to me. But what those skills enable him to do for me and for others, is the most interesting and meaningful thing I could possibly imagine.
Work your hands, build your abilities, geek out about technique — there's nothing wrong with any of that. But be sure to use those things to tell your story. That's where you'll find meaning. And at the end of the day, that's really all that matters.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion.
]]>I fail. A lot. It’s been the only real consistent thing in my life. Just a constant series of trials and errors. Oh lord and sweet baby Jesus I fail a lot.
See? I did it right there.
I said, “Oh lord and sweet baby Jesus I fail a lot.”
I mentioned Jesus, in a joke. Bad idea.
I’m married to a pastor--Stephanie Grace Kershner—(the good Reverend--as she’s known in the parlance of our times)--and SHE knows that I would crawl through glass for her and her idea of how that sweet Baby lived His life. But not everyone else does. Which is where I’m gonna start.
I’m using religion as a starting point, but substitute the following: practice time, Balter-blues, 5-octave marimbas, drum corps, steelbands, percussion quartets, stick-height, marimba-grip or favorite orchestral timpanist, and you’ll find a bunch of folks who will say they know the answer. (Trust me when I say that having a great 4 mallet grip though, whatever that means to you, is most likely NOT a great evolutionary tool for survival, so let’s maybe let that one go and just do the best you can. Hands are weird. Mine are really weird. There are people smarter than me on that subject, so listen to them. I still don’t think Muesser grip is gonna save me in a street fight, but who knows.)
(back to my wife’s profession)
The last thing the Man (baby J) said was “What the?” (or something like that). Point is, he questioned. None of us know, and He, sure as apple pie, didn’t either. Other-wise, I’m quite sure the Bible would have read “and Jesus let out a final wail of glee, “You’re right, I’m wrong. This is preeeeeeetttttty great! See you soon Dad!!!! Weeeeeeeee!!!!!! I love it….You’re plan has worked perfectly!!!!!!!! I underestimated you the whole timmmmmmeeeeee!!!!!!” (cue final breath)
But alas, here we are. No one knows, really. And if they say they do, they don’t. At least that’s been my experience. And my wife would even tell you that she doesn’t know. To be clear, I understand not everyone feels this way.
It’s ok. Some people will still say they know. I’m just not one of those people. At least I’m trying not to be one of those people. I know nothing, John Snow. (spelling incorrect on purpose to drive my wife, and I’m sure Adam Sliwinski, absolutely crazy. They know I know it’s “Jean”. And that Game of Thrones is definitely not set in any specific time period in history, nor is it based on, or ever refers to anything historically appropriate. Yes, they have dragons, so I get it, it’s “Fantasy”. But why don’t they have iPhones? Because it’s set in a specific time period. That’s why. (deafening silence while I wait for Stephanie and Adam’s response to that one… moving on to music…thankfully.))
A few years ago, I had a real bad experience in a concert in Houston, TX. Some former SoSI students were in attendance to hear us play, among other things, a few movements from John Luther Adams’ “Strange and Sacred Noise”. It was the first time I had performed any of the piece in public, and long story short...my music blew off the music stand (after I had made fun of Eric for taping his down). A nice lady grabbed my music out of the wind and put it back on my stand. I attempted to get back on the horse, so to speak. But I was in the wrong spot, and the click track we had made just had crash cymbal sounds with no “letter A!” reminders or anything. So I heard a crash and went to the letter I thought we were on.
It wasn’t the letter we were on. I was way off. And didn’t realize it till the end of the 1st snare movement when I had a pretty tragic solo moment at the end. I just faded out like an idiot. Took a bow, like an idiot, and went into the green room to lick my wounds, like an even bigger idiot.
Listen. I try. This one just got by me. I should have known the piece better than I did. But I didn’t. I should also spend more time calling my mom, but I don’t do that as often as I should either, so lay off.
Why all this “honesty” you ask? It’s not real honesty. There are things you don’t and won’t ever know about me if you don’t know me really well. I’m sure there’s things you keep from others who you don’t know so well, too. And that’s ok. That said, there’s also a lot of other unimportant “truths” in daily life that I was trying to hide from people so that everyone thought a certain thing about me.
Some things just aren’t that important. Right notes? Not that important. Good time? Pretty important, but actually? Not really. Blowing everyone’s minds with a great solo? Not that important. Being someone others can count on in the heat of the battle? Very important.
But none of THAT is more important than calling your mom more, or giving what you can to charity, or trying to complain less (this is hard for me), or giving change to someone who asks for it (this one should be easy. I always have change. Why do I hesitate? Every time I give what I have to someone who asks, I always feel better. Always. And if their day is a little better, and my day is a little better…isn’t that kind of what this is all about? Everyone just trying to make their day a little less bad? I don’t know. I could be wrong.)
Stuff gets by me. I’m only 38, but with each year and with each added career boost or improvement or perceived success, something keeps happening. Stuff keeps getting by me, but there’s another change I think is for the better, but I’m not sure. I’m hitting far fewer homeruns now, but I’m able, on my worst day, pretty much always able to eek out a single or a double. Rarely is it a complete failure. I’m getting better at being at the plate and knowing my weaknesses, and reading the next pitch.
Why do we put Mickey Mantle in the hall of fame for hitting less than 1/3rd of the pitches thrown to him over his lifetime? I’m well aware it’s not really a great comparison, but comparatively speaking, I play more hits on a block of wood during Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood during one of our seasons than Mickey Mantle took in pitches his entire MLB career (9907 career at bats, maximum of 6 pitches per at bat - I know there could be more or less so I just took a good guess) is around 59442 pitches taken in his MLB career. If I play Music for Pieces of Wood 50 times a year in various situations, I hit that block about 1680 times a performance, netting me 84,000 strikes of that block of wood over 50 “at bats” of that piece.
(I’m definitely speculating here, but I don’t think I’m THAT wrong. Someone do the math for me, please…now I’m curious). So maybe I should not get super upset if a few of those 84K were off the mark. Don’t get me wrong. I do my darned-est, every time, to put them all where they need to go. But? Best laid plans….
I started thinking about this when my dad got sick. My mom called me when I was on tour with So Percussion and Matmos in Montreal. We were playing at a club called Le Nacional. I sat on a curb as my mom (crying) told me what ALS was (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and that my dad was going to die, but she found a heads-up penny on the way out of Wal-Mart, so that’s a sign that this might work out.
Sometimes you take anything because you just lost everything, regardless of your perceived privilege in the world. “Ain’t none of us getting out of this alive,” my dad said, when he was diagnosed. He was a humorously profound guy.
I told my mom I loved her, hung up the phone, and played a show. If you’ve never done this, I hope you never have to, but let me tell you that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was watching the strongest person I knew at the time wither away for 3 years, getting another phone call in the Minneapolis airport to tell my dad goodbye, boarding a plane, landing in Helena, MT, and setting up for a residency week and playing a show.
Trust me when I say that playing those shows was the easy part. That was the moment I realized that playing concerts will always be the most insanely easy thing I do in my life. It’s the thing I’ve always done, and it’s the thing that I did when the darkest hours of my life came a-knocking. It’s where the consequences REALLY don’t matter, so I can just do a thing and be in the moment, because there are real genuine problems in the world, and Music for Pieces of Wood is not one of them. That’s easy.
So don’t be scared. Of any of this. None of this matters. Or….maybe it all matters. Someone is right. But like I said, I don’t know. And if someone says they do….
A few rules to think about (again I know nothing, Jon Snow…see I fixed it) with regards to navigating careers and life:
The ability (and more importantly, desire) to genuinely find something you like in someone, even if you think you have nothing in common with that particular person, will make people (and you) smile more often than not.
See? I’m even failing at writing this damn blog. It’s been 13 days since I wrote that crap about Jesus up front and I still think it’s funny, so I kept it. Though I probably shouldn’t have. Someone may have gotten mad, but if they did, I would be happy to chat in person and hopefully, more articulately express my point in person, which is ALWAYS BETTER ANYWAY!!!!!!
Ain Gordon, a writer/director friend of mine, will tell you I HATE editing, and that should be clear to all of you if you’ve actually finished reading this ramble, but I hope my point still sticks.
There are more important things than going back and putting one space after all the periods now instead of two, because THAT’S the new thing I should have to think about. Nope. Not gonna do it.
Arrest me. I love you all, but seriously…not gonna do it. Sorry Todd. Sorry Adam. Sorry Stephanie. Sorry Mr. Gunther (high school English teacher).
Listen. We got this. You got this. But there’s no clear line or strategy. Sometimes there will not be leadership and you’ll have to figure out how to lead, but that won’t be easy either. Mr. Rogers was on point when he quoted his mother in saying: "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
If you’ve ever been to SoSI, you’ve heard this before, and I stand by it:
“If you need help ask for it. And if you’re asked for help, give it.”
It’s pretty simple.
Big hugs, and let me know if I can be of any help.
Josh
Ps. Game of Thrones is clearly set in 9th century England. Ok, glad I got that off my chest. That was hard to keep that in.
Josh Quillen is founding director of New York University Steel Drum Band and the Princeton University Steel Drum Band as well as a member of So Percussion since 2006. He is also co-director of the Bard College Conservatory Percussion Program. Josh also recently performed with Ain Gordon in a production of an original play called “Radicals In Miniature.” So Percussion is the Edward T. Cone Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University.
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TM: You recently won the position of Principal Percussionist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. Who did you call first to share the good news with?
JJ: My Mom was the first person I called, but I forgot that I did not have international calls included in my cell phone plan. So I Facebook messaged her and the rest of my family instead.
TM: You seem to have a really nice blend of creativity and discipline in the practice room, and in particular with how those two things relate to technique work. How do you develop practice routines that remain fresh, balanced, and continually challenge your growth?
JJ: Part of what informs my practice is knowing how I work as a person. I know what keeps me engaged in school, a conversation, a relationship and in listening and studying music. If I find that something that I am doing is becoming boring or stale, I try to find a new way of looking at or approaching it. Not only that, but always having a new goal in mind when one has been achieved is a way to keep you going and interested. As far as balance, it's important to keep in mind that there is a lot to learn away from the instrument, as Jojo Mayer once said. Music is all about expressing feelings, events, life itself and the world. We cannot hope to achieve this level of expression by only living in a practice room. We have to take time for ourselves, not only for rest purposes, but to remain participants in the ever changing world. As we find more things to express, we challenge ourselves to grow in our ability to execute that expression. It's a road of endless growth and experience.
TM: If you had an infinite amount of time, what other craft/skill/hobby would you spend an inordinate amount of hours developing and enjoying outside of music?
JJ: I would totally spend my time either doing yoga and meditating, or listening to a number of audio books a day.
TM: Sports teams and marching bands have stylized uniforms or jerseys that sometimes represent the geography, culture, and/or perhaps corporate sponsors of their organizations. Do you ever see orchestras going in that direction or is the tuxedo here to stay?
JJ: For orchestras like the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic, I think the tradition of the tuxedo or tails is pretty set in stone. However, with the appearance of wind ensembles and smaller orchestras in different areas of the country, depending on their philosophy, we have a unique opportunity to interject and present a new example of the orchestra and even classical music to new and existing audiences. It just takes a collective effort and very frequent exposure.
TM: Which stick or mallet do you end up pulling out of your bag more than any other each day?
JJ: My hands tend to have a mind of their own sometimes. They may feel fine using one stick for three months, and then completely hate the stick for six months. The one I always use is a Freer General Orchestral stick, but I have seven pairs of that one stick. They all have different densities, weights, and rebound responses, so depending on the day, I'll use a particular version of that stick.
TM: Favorite 19th century piece?
JJ: Mahler's 2nd Symphony, hands down. I cry every time.
TM: Favorite 20th century piece?
JJ: This might be cheating, but Hans Zimmer's "To Die For" from The Lion King was the piece that made me want to play classical music. I literally would not be in the position I'm in right now without hearing that. But to stay Kosher, Prokofiev's 5th Symphony.
TM: Favorite 21st century piece?
JJ: Also could be cheating: Jojo Mayer's "Mind Wash" from his album Live in Europe. I literally listen to it every day. It will never get old for me. Again, to stay Kosher, John Williams' score from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a piece I heard for the first time this year, and that's my favorite classical piece so far in this century.
TM: Coffee or tea? Or is caffeine nature's evil?
JJ: I prefer tea. Melissa Tea to be exact. I don't usually need coffee, because of my insane energy level, but I do drink it occasionally.
TM: Beer or wine?
JJ: Wine, keep it classy. However, my favorite beer is Chicago Route 66 Root Beer, non-alcoholic.
TM: If you had to permanently eliminate an instrument (percussion or non-percussion) from the orchestra, which one would it be?
JJ: This is tough. Actually, no it isn't. Hand claps. I wish I could have an orchestra where I would never have to play hand claps in a piece ever again. Give that part to the audience.
TM: We know Berlioz liked opium a little too much. What other composer, based on their percussion writing, do you think tapped into some questionable substance usage?
JJ: Mahler. It's hard for me to believe that he could write such amazing and intense music, especially after the 5th Symphony, just by sitting at a desk and composing sober. If anything, I think he knew how to tap into his own zone that helped him access that state of being without any help from illegal substances, similar to meditative practices these days.
TM: How early do you show up to the hall before a performance?
JJ: I try to get there 2 hours before. Lots to prepare and I don't like rushing.
TM: Pre-concert warm up routine?
JJ: I usually do a short yoga stretch to loosen my body up before I play anything, but especially for concerts. Then I have a specific stick control exercise routine that involves the basic stroke types and Moeller strokes. I usually play that along with a playlist I named "Hype".
TM: Complete this sentence — "A life in the orchestra is _____________."
JJ: "gratifying"
TM: Did you play a perfect Porgy at the Calgary audition?
JJ: Note perfect, yes. Musically perfect, not all the way through. They had us change the character and sound of the excerpts as we played with the orchestra, and though I did execute the changes well, sometimes I didn't fully invest my musicality to the performance. I was still happy with the result, but I wished I had been more resilient and consistent in my musical interpretation.
TM: Consider this scenario — you arrive at a dinner party and there are three groups of people having three different conversations. One group is discussing politics, the next is discussing religion, and the last group is discussion sports. Which group/conversation are you most eager to join?
JJ: I'd love to talk about religion actually. I grew up in a religious family and have a pretty unique experience and viewpoint.
TM: Which would you like to avoid like the plague?
JJ: Sports. I don't really care about them enough to study and actively participate, so I would avoid that crowd instantly.
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Joshua Jones has been playing drums since the age of two. From accompanying church choirs to performing at Carnegie Hall, he has shared his passion for music with many people. Joshua began taking private lessons through the Chicago Symphony's Percussion Scholarship Program at the age of ten, and he continued his education at DePaul University, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently an orchestra fellow with the Pittsburgh Symphony, but will soon begin working in his new role as Principal Percussionist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.
In his spare time Joshua enjoys studying acting and philosophy, watching Japanese anime and trying new foods and restaurants. Currently, he is writing a method book series, as well as teaching private lessons, clinics and masterclasses.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion.
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I write words for a living, not music, but in many ways the gigs are the same. We both obsess over rhythm and cadence. We care immensely about how something will sound. And we strive to connect with people, to move them in even the smallest ways: the tap of a foot, the nod of a head. More than money, this is what most of us work for as artists.
All of that to say, I feel you. But I simply can’t teach you a damned thing about percussion that you don’t already know. So I have no intention of even trying.
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I met Liquidrum founder Todd Meehan somewhere between his first drum kit and his first degree. We started a short-lived band together in high school and rehearsed after school in my parent’s garage. We played shows for fifteen people on a good night, twenty on a great one — and always at seedy nightclubs in even seedier neighborhoods.
We spent Friday and Saturday nights opening for local bands we’ve long forgotten. The sound guy was always a jerk and the PA was always busted. The money was always less than we were promised, or nothing at all.
We were mediocre at best. And I never felt more alive in my life.
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I can tell you a few things that have helped me as a writer, a bedroom musician, and a maker of stuff for fun and profit. In no particular order of importance:
Create unapologetically
I’m writing a book for adults about a talking dik-dik named Richard right now. I’ll spend two years on it, and it’s the least commercially viable thing I could ever work on. A Dik-dik is a tiny African antelope not much larger than a small dog, and Richard is born into an existential crisis: he learns at just a few days old that he will likely live four years tops in the wild, so he’s trying to find his way into captivity. Or at least to Cleveland.
This isn’t highbrow art. But it’s the idea I have right now, and it won’t leave. That usually means it’s time to throw caution to the wind and create without apology. “Do the work as an offering,” Oprah says, “and then whatever happens, happens.”
An example: Silly Putty’s inventors were trying to create a material to replace rubber during a World War II shortage. They failed at that. But they accidentally invented a classic children’s toy that even made it into lunar orbit with the Apollo 8 astronauts.
Resist the urge to judge your art prematurely, or to abandon it altogether. Just welcome what comes, and let it be that simple.
Make some things just for yourself
I’ve started making myself little gifts lately, things I create that I originally intend to send into the world but decide instead just to keep for myself. Last year I started screen printing little sock monkeys into my t-shirt pockets. A few months later, I made myself a ridiculous shirt:
It’s an outlandish spoof on the popular John & Paul & Ringo & George tees that instead celebrates synth-pop legend Vince Clarke’s role in founding Depeche Mode, Yazoo, and Erasure. It meets blank stares wherever I wear it, and I absolutely adore it.
A girl I met at a local art cooperative drew a picture of a different building in her journal every night for a year, just because she decided it would be fun practice. I ran into her one evening at a co-op event, and she was already several beers in, sketching her building for the day so she wouldn’t have to do it when she got home and felt too tired.
For as much art as you will turn out into the world for enjoyment and criticism, hold some back for yourself. Write a song just for you, and hum it in the shower.
Make some things just for friends and family
Same message as above, but with a twist. “I made this for you” is the nicest thing anyone can ever say to someone else. Be forever generous with your talents.
The best picture ever taken of me was actually a silly whiteboard sketch, doodled by a friend in my office:
The whiteboard is long gone, but I took a snapshot of it, and digitized it. It’s exactly how I picture myself, and my friend gave me something more valuable than he could ever know.
Master the art of subtraction
Listening to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” for the trillionth time, I had a revelation: I love this song just as much for what is absent as I do for what it contains. It took me 15 years to learn that lesson in my own work, but now I take it with me everywhere.
I ask myself regularly, “Is there anything I can remove from this (story, poem, song, design)?” French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal said it best in the 1600’s: “I only made this letter longer because I had not the leisure to make it shorter.”
Make thoughtful edits. Challenge your instincts. Look for opportunities to redact. Resist the urge to be playing your instrument all the time, and pause to listen and make space when space may be the answer.
Unless you’re better at addition
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I watched this video of Dan Deacon in the recording studio a few years ago and I’m still in awe. His songs have more layers than an onion. Go big sometimes, or try taking something that is already big even bigger. (See: The crazy player piano they rigged in this video. Just, wow.)
Finally, ask.
At night, when I’ve stopped typing for the day, I occasionally retreat to my backyard studio and write the beginnings and middles of songs, but almost never the ends. I can’t seem to finish songs, only to start them. For years, it destroyed me: What good is a mountain of unfinished ideas?
But that’s such a broken way to look at creativity. Turns out, there are strong finishers in the world, the type of people that are better at building on existing ideas than they are at starting them. Starter, meet finisher. Finisher, starter.
Ask for help. Ask to help. Ask to collaborate. Ask for criticism. Ask someone to coffee. Ask to be loved more deeply. Ask for a hug when you need one, for touch and attention and assurance. Ask for healthy conflict. Ask someone to celebrate with you, or sit with you and cry. Never carry the entire burden — of creativity or of life — entirely on yourself. It’s simply not sustainable.
Remember, all the connections and help you need in this world are all around you. Sometimes they present themselves to you exactly when you need them. Other times, you simply need the courage to find them, and ask.
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Joshua Merritt has written three pages of his first novel, Richard Dik-Dik. He once played a triangle in the first grade. ]]>I’ll touch on three different approaches below.
Varied Practice. I’m borrowing this term and the research behind it from the book, Make it Stick — The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. Allow me to first give my wholehearted endorsement of the book. It’s researched and written by cognitive scientists and dispels many myths about what effective learning looks like.
Now buckle your seatbelts friends because what I’m about to tell you is scary.
Many (dare I say most) musicians I know (myself included) default to what researchers call massed practice. Massed practice is what intuitively feels right to us when trying to master a specific skill. It’s the repeated, focused practice of one specific thing over and over and over. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s what you most likely did in the practice room today. And what you’ll most likely do tomorrow, unfortunately.
Massed practice does yield some immediate results and makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something in the moment. But it doesn’t yield what the authors of Make it Stick call durable learning — that deep learning that indeed, is much more difficult, but also produces “better mastery, longer retention, and more versatility” (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014, p. 47).
Stay with me. I want you take in this next example from Chapter 3 of the book. It’s a real doozy. Brown et al. (2014) offer the following scenario:
A group of eight-year-olds practiced tossing beanbags into buckets in gym class. Half of the kids tossed into a bucket three feet away. The other half mixed it up by tossing into buckets two feet and four feet away. After twelve weeks of this they were all tested on tossing into a three-foot bucket. The kids who did the best by far were those who’d practiced on two- and four-foot buckets but never on three-foot buckets. (p. 46)
Stop. If you just glanced over that example without really paying attention, then go back and read it again.
When I first read this a couple of years ago I just about fell out of my chair. How do you think we, as musicians, would approach the above scenario, were we asked to engage the exercise? Intuitively speaking, if the challenge were to master throwing a beanbag into a bucket three feet away then rest assured my massed practice musician mind would engage in the following manner. "Ok, I'll simply practice throwing the beanbag into the bucket that is three feet away for eight hours every day for the next twelve weeks. Because, ya know, practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect." But it turns out that the path to deep, durable learning is counter-intuitive, much to our collective chagrin.
Let me apply this more specifically to music. Varied practice can look something like this. Whatever you’re working on you should do with all possible stickings, in all dynamic areas, at all tempos, with all phrasing possibilities, while standing on your head, with the lights out, in sub-zero temperatures, etc. You get the point. And all of these approaches should be interleaved during your practice session and not massed. We’re trying to strengthen the whole-ness of a thing by practicing around it, within it, outside it, and inside it. All the ways. My challenge to myself and my students when practicing anything is to think of every possible way that a thing could conceivably be done and get good at all of them. The beauty of this, of course, is that the possibilities are endless.
Here are some real world examples for the percussionists out there.
As an undergrad I remember being encouraged to practice Porgy and Bess ‘swung’ as opposed to straight. I thought it a bit silly at the time, but ok, why not. It was challenging and took a little while to get good at. The spaces between notes felt a lot different (because they were) and that made me look at and approach this very familiar excerpt in very different ways. Varied practice 101. I just didn’t know I was engaging it that way at the time.
Or what about Lt. Kije and Sheherazade? Or maybe you’re working on Delecluse 1 or Bach. Sure, you’re certainly going to develop your signature way of playing it (ie. preferred stickings, phrasings, dynamic nuances, tempos, beating spots on the head or bar, and so on). But when developing it in the practice room don’t just aim at that one specific version over and over and over. Develop your preferred stickings in Lt. Kije, then re-learn it with the exact opposite stickings. Lock in your dynamic regions in Sheherazade mvmt. 3, then blow them open and do something radically different. Push where you’ve decided to pull and pull where you’ve decided to push in your Bach Gigue.
Yes, it’s hard. You’ll feel bad. It takes a lot longer. And you’ll probably want to go back to your right-hand-lead, quarter note = 110, the-dynamic-is-this-and-only-this version and “just do it the way I’m going to do it in the audition or performance”. And if all you’re after is surface-level, quick learning of a hyper-specific thing, then knock yourself out. But all you’re doing is learning a passage or a piece. You’re not really learning the whole-ness of what it means to play your instrument.
Here, again, from Brown et al. (2014):
The basic idea is that varied practice—like tossing your beanbags into baskets at mixed distances—improves your ability to transfer learning from one situation and apply it successfully to another. You develop a broader understanding of the relationships between different conditions and the movements required to succeed in them; you discern context better and develop a more flexible “movement vocabulary”—different movements for different situations. (p. 51)
It’s as if they wrote this for musicians, right? Varied practice “improves your ability to transfer learning from one situation and apply it successfully to another” (Brown et al. 2014, p. 51). You’re not just learning pieces, excerpts, or études anymore, you’re actually learning all the possible ways to play your instrument. You’re learning to “develop a broader understanding of the relationships between different conditions and the movements required to succeed in them” (Brown et al. 2014, p. 51). And while the beanbag example is focused on practicing and learning motor skills, the very same processes yield the same positive cognitive learning results. In fact, that’s mostly what the book is about.
Improvise. Freeze — if you just had the thought “I don’t play jazz. I’ll skip this point and head on down to the end of the post,” please don’t. Wake up. Improvisation isn’t specific to jazz.
You/me/we/all of us need to spend time with our instrument without music on the stand in front of us. In fact, get rid of the music stand altogether. It’s a temptation. You’ll casually rest a sheet of exercises up there and before you know it you’re staring fixedly at them, unable to tear your gaze away.
We have a need for direction when we practice and this direction most often comes in the form of written material. Many times, this material determines your practice session for you instead of you making those decisions. Don’t get me wrong. We need written exercises, études, pieces, etc. They can be effective tools. But they can also become a crutch, inhibiting the full development of our musicianship. We default to them. They own us. And our development is at the mercy of the ink on the page.
The purpose of this post is not to teach the fundamentals of improvisation. It’s simply to say you need to do it and you need to do it every single practice session.
Fearful? Don’t know where to start?
Relax and try this. After a solid warm up and before you start in on learning whatever étude or piece you’re working on, set the music stand aside and simply play. Engage the idea of that word play. Have fun. Keep it light. Keep it easy. Choose a simple rhythmic and/or melodic motive and musically chew on it awhile. See where it takes you. Don’t be self-conscious. Don’t worry about what your colleagues and friends standing outside your practice room door are thinking about you. Live through you instrument for awhile, without outside direction or mandate. Just you and your instrument.
“I think that’s goofy and I feel weird doing it and all I want to do is play my piece,” you might say. . .
Ok, I’ll meet you in the middle. Try this. Improvise in the style of the piece you’re playing. Working on some Bach, a little Delecluse, Xenakis, that Despacito arrangement you’re so excited about? Excellent. Put the written music aside and improvise within the style of that piece BUT WITHOUT PLAYING THE PIECE.
“But I have the piece memorized so I can’t really put it aside,” you object. . .
Yes you can. You just have to do so mentally. It’s hard. Every fiber in your brain and body will want to just play the piece. But don’t. Play something like it instead. Use the harmonic structure and rhythmic vocabulary from your Bach Allemande to play something similar. Use the tempo and joyous rhythmic vitality of the opening of Xenakis’s Rebonds B to play something similarly joyous and groovy. Play down your lovely lead sheet from your Despacito arrangement but then improvise over the form for a good, long while.
Again, let me say, this is challenging stuff. But to quote my good friends from Make it Stick, “Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful” (Brown et al. 2014, p. 3).
Contextualize. I speak a little Spanish. Just enough to get me into trouble. Kind of like many of you young marimba players out there. You play some marimba, but really just enough to get yourselves into trouble. Let’s put a pin in this and I’ll come back to it in a sec.
To wrap this admittedly lengthy blog post up I’d like to encourage you to contextualize your music-making as much as possible. And really all I mean by that is to perform and perform a lot.
An interesting thing happens every time we perform. We mess up. Things don’t go as planned. We don’t play up to our full ability or potential. And that’s usually because the variables of performance (or of an audition), as much as we try to anticipate them and condition ourselves for them ahead of time, can’t be fully controlled in the moment of live performance.
So what are we left with in those moments — when your memory fails you, when your mind becomes distracted? It’s really quite simple. You’ve either only prepared to play your piece in the exact way you plan to play it OR you’ve acquired a deeper, more durable (and therefore, more flexible) knowledge of what it means to play your instrument. If it’s the latter, then your memory slip or your distracted mind is nothing more than a blip on the radar of an otherwise exhilarating performance. If it’s the former, then all bets are off.
I’ll leave you with an anecdote and an analogy.
The anecdote is a personal one. The Meehan/ Perkins Duo was playing a concert at Georgia State University in Atlanta many moons ago. Doug and I decided to open our show with Nagoya Marimbas by Steve Reich. This was to be my first performance of Nagoya (Doug, on the other hand, had played it for years). I was somewhat nervous to have my first go at the piece and the jitters were hitting me pretty hard as the top of the show approached. But hey man, I’m a pro, so we strutted ourselves out on stage, took a quick bow, and turned to face our instruments. And it was in that moment that I forgot all of the notes that Steve Reich wrote. Really. All of them.
And I did a strange thing. I slowly walked toward the marimba and started touching the bars, as if wanting the marimba to communicate to me, saying “hey, dummy, start on this note and then go to that other one.” But the marimba wasn’t having it. I touched a lot of bars and none of them ever said, “pick me, pick me, I'm the one!”
So I mentally closed my eyes, leaned on all the hours of varied practice I had put in, successfully retrieved the correct rhythm of the beginning of the piece (at least I had that), and took the plunge. And for the first 10-15 seconds I improvised my way through the muck until I emerged, on the rails, with the correct note pattern in the correct order. Doug, my stalwart companion, just watched quizzically until I had righted the ship and then we were off to tackle the rest of the piece.
And guess what. It was fine. I contextualized my training and practice into performance. I worked through an issue. And because I know how to play the marimba (and clearly NOT Nagoya Marimbas), the rest of the performance came off without a hitch.
And finally, the analogy.
Back to my Spanish speaking. I’ve had enough years of study that I can pronounce the Spanish language fairly well. I can read it fairly well. Give me the written language and I can recite it in a way that native speakers might think, “oh, the gringo knows what he’s doing.” But take me off script and my fairly competent rendering of the language goes out the window. This has manifested itself time and time again during trips to Europe and Mexico and even throughout my state of Texas. I ask a perfectly phrased and nuanced question in Spanish to someone but what they respond with causes me to more or less black out and immediately default to incomprehensible hand gestures.
Why? Because I’ve practiced the pronunciation and delivery of very specific words and very specific phrases over and over and over. But I haven’t contextualized any of them. I haven’t improvised with any of them. The words and phrases might sound good on the surface, but they are devoid of meaning.
I’ve learned the piece, but not the instrument. I know just enough to get myself into trouble.
Brown et al. (2014) write, “Mastery requires both the possession of ready knowledge and the conceptual understanding of how to use it.” Too many of us are in the business of acquiring and possessing ready knowledge but lack the conceptual understanding of how to use it. In the end, we’re not seeing the forest for the trees.
Learn your instrument, not just pieces.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion.
]]>Believe me, my shortcomings in this area aren’t for lack of effort. I get the recipe. I study the directions. I prep the materials, making sure everything is ready to go so that I can grab and use at the appropriate time. I take a monumental breath and then jump in.
For me, executing the recipe (otherwise known as ‘cooking’ to normal people) is many times a full contact, sweaty sport. It ends up taking twice as long as the directions indicate, the kitchen is left an absolute disaster, and if anyone tries to talk to me during the process I become agitated, confused, and entirely ineffective.
You’d think I was performing open heart surgery, not just cooking fish tacos.
In the end, I present the meal — a perfectly well-intended, imperfectly executed mass of food objects that somewhat visually resemble the target recipe I saw online. And I wait, trembling internally, as my wife lifts the first forkful of food to her mouth, convinced that I’ve either used not nearly enough salt (almost always) or that the ‘doneness’ of the protein is highly suspect, and on and on and on.
Following the meal, I clean the dishes (this I CAN do well), hanging my head in varying degrees of defeat, pondering where I went wrong and frustrated with the process. I followed the recipe, the directions, I did what I was supposed to do. So why am I responsible for another domestic food outing gone wrong?
I am no cook.
Now rewind about 25 years. I’m a sophomore percussionist in my high school band program. I’ve got a little bit of talent and in the early stages of doing what we all do as musicians — I’m building my repertoire. In Texas, this would happen in a few predetermined ways. The first was via a collection of études we prepared every year for the All-State audition process. And the other, where we had a smidge more freedom, was the Texas State Solo and Ensemble Competition.
So I would get the piece (or pieces) and start preparing. If it was the All-State process, these were prescribed, so there was no choosing. If it was the solo competition, I was often drawn to pieces that someone older than me had previously played, that I thought were cool (or, more importantly, would make me look cool), and that nine times out of ten were too hard for me.
And sure, I suppose I would sometimes look through the piece, get a vague sense of the required ingredients, maybe have a listen to a recording or someone else playing it, and then embark on my own journey of learning. But if I’m being really honest, most of the time I probably just put the music on the stand, gave a look to measure number one, put my head down, and started cooking, er, playing.
There were mountains of things I never realized during that process. I never realized whether I had fully developed that particular technique needed to execute that particularly challenging passage in the cadential moment of that particular phrase. I never realized that trills and ornaments actually have a ‘way’ or ‘ways’ that you can/should interpret them according the style and historical time period in which a piece of music was written. I never realized that dynamics might be relative to one another, that forte isn’t a universal mandate to blow someone’s face off. I never realized that my teachers’ urgings to ‘be more musical’ should amount to more than just an arbitrary riding of the volume knob, an up and down sea sickness-inducing musical gesture that I’m certain was my calling card for ‘musicality’ as a teenager.
You see what I’m saying?
I didn’t realize the sauté pan wasn’t at the perfect temperature for the particular food I was sautéing. I didn’t realize that marinating times actually matter (1 hour does not equal 4 hours). I didn’t realize (and maybe still don’t) the supreme beauty of a perfectly salted and seasoned dish. And dammit, I definitely didn’t realize that the timing of putting the garlic in the pan is so unbelievably crucial and yet, to this day, I still burn the garlic. Every. Single. Time.
You see, everything I do in the kitchen is done in a vacuum, completely devoid of context, with no knowledge of a bigger picture. I’ve never practiced sautéing onions and garlic for the sake of learning how to perfectly sauté onions and garlic. I’ve never practiced making a roux, over and over and over, because what the hell is a roux and why do I need to know how to make one?!?
And yes, that was me in the practice room too. I was operating without the slightest awareness of the larger context I was hoping to inhabit. What was I trying to get better at? What exactly was the bigger picture? I had no clue. I wanted to be able to burn a piece at the suggested tempo (or faster, probably) and make All-State or make a ‘1’ at the solo competition.
And I carried this approach with me into my undergraduate percussion studies. I was learning pieces, not learning my instrument. And those are two decidedly different things.
Here’s how I found out my approach was off. I was looking into grad programs and taking some lessons around the country. In one of my initial run-ins with Bob van Sice at Yale I played a rather challenging marimba piece that he had commissioned several years prior. I played it specifically because he had commissioned it and I wanted to impress him. So I practiced it a bunch, I followed the recipe, and I presented it to him. And just as I can see the disappointment on my wife’s face as she chews on a piece of food I’ve prepared for her, I swear I saw this same look on Bob’s face after I played for him.
Now, I’m not sure of his exact response, but the memory of the quote and gist of his message was this:
“Todd, it’s surprising how well you’re playing that piece considering you have no idea how to play the marimba.”
Dayum.
But he was right.
I ended up studying with Bob for several years thereafter. Perhaps he fancied me a charity case or his heart was softened by the fact that the both of us grew up in Texas. Whatever the reason, he took me under his wing and we journeyed together through what was for me, some truly transformative learning.
Bob’s message was clear. Learn how to play the instrument, don’t just learn a bunch of pieces.
“Can you stand behind a marimba at a dinner party for an hour and entertain a room full of people?” he might ask.
And in my head, I starting calculating the timings of my solo marimba repertoire. Well, let’s see, I could start off with Time for Marimba, that’s sub-10 minutes, then maybe I could play a little Bach. . . but I only know that 90-second Gigue, alright, better believe I’ll be repeating BOTH the A section and the B section, then maybe I could do some chorales, because those take a lot of time and I can maybe play them slower than normal, and ooooh, I’ll finish off with that new piece my composer friend is writing me, but again, I think that’s only 6 minutes long. So let’s see, add that all together, carry the 1, and hmmmm, shoot, it looks like I only have about 24 minutes of solo marimba repertoire I could piece together for that hypothetical dinner party Bob wants me to play.
Oh Miyagi Sensei, how I missed the point! (And what sort of dinner party was this anyway, that I thought Time for Marimba would be an appropriate musical selection for the guests?)
Bob was trying to Miyagi me into understanding something greater about the musical universe I was pathetically trying to inhabit and I was nothing but an immature Daniel-san. He was all “paint the fence, sand the floor” and I was all “when on God’s green earth are you actually going to teach me how to play Velocities???”
In the end, he didn’t teach me how to play Velocities, but he did teach me the beauty of context, the value of a good roux, and what a perfectly seasoned dish can taste like. He taught me how to play my instrument, and not just a list of pieces.
Is your instrument an extension of who you are as a musician? A vehicle for saying exactly what you want to say, when you want to say it? Is it in the service of your musical voice? Or is it an adversary you’re attempting to conquer in performance? Is it a recipe list that you try to piece together time and time again every time you step on stage. Unfortunately, too many times it seems it’s the latter.
In a follow-up blog I will lay out several ways in which we can approach learning our instrument, understanding context, and keeping things under control in the kitchen.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion.
]]>I grew up in the northwest suburbs of Houston, which at the time was an odd mix of untampered-with country and impending development. On weekend evenings, my circle of friends and I would pack into a car, hop on US 290 heading for the city, and land at various venues, clubs, or bars in H-town.
I don’t remember my first show nor do I remember the specifics of how the occasion materialized. But it probably surfaced in the following way, between classes, in the hallways of Cy-Fair High School:
“Hey Todd, there’s a show this weekend. Wanna go?”
“Sure, where?”
“In the city.”
“OK.”
And we were off. A simple invitation that would alter my life in so many unforeseeable ways for years to come. It was an unexpected music education and it was fast and furious. In a matter of two to three years I consumed a ridiculous amount of live music.
Here’s a smattering of some of the highlights, from 1993 to 1995:
There were others, too, like the Chieftains, Tom Petty, and the Eagles, all of whom I didn’t consider sufficiently ‘cool’ at the time, but clearly were well worth me seeing.
And in between these higher profile shows we’d feed off of Houston’s formidable local band scene, hitting venues like Fitzgerald’s, the Vatican (later the Abyss), and Goat’s Head Soup a couple of times a month to see our friends and contemporaries cut their own teeth. Sometimes there were road trips to Austin because, well, Emo’s was there and we had to go to Emo’s.
Two things ran concurrent with this rabid live music consumption:
First, I played in bands myself. Drummer for Milkbone, Ivy Lee, and later whatever squirrel tribe would become in Austin. And singer for the Statesman. We infiltrated these same clubs that our idols were playing and even ended up as opening acts for a couple of regional touring outfits. We built audiences, cultivated a sound, made CDs and shirts, sold CDs and shirts, and learned the biz, all while we were in high school.
But I was also in high school band. And at the time I was pretty sure one had nothing to do with the other. In one setting I was perched on my throne atop a stage in a hazy, smelly club; and in the other I was playing at high school football games, pep rallies, competitions, and the like.
One was cool, and the other was school.
It was a whirlwind of musical activity and I couldn’t have possibly realized the long-term benefits as it was happening. At the time, it was a blur of dingy venues that smelled of beer, smoke, and sweat. We’d leave each night, our clothes soaked, but our spirits high. I can only imagine what my mom thought doing my laundry…
“My son must be a beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking, hard-living, lost youth who hangs out on Washington Ave. and the Heights* every weekend. What have I done?”
(*Washington Ave. and the Heights were quite different in those days, as older Houstonians know.)
But these were hugely formative experiences. The sights, the smells, the music. . . ahh the music. And the physicality of it all—bodies jammed into small venues, violent, circling, churning mosh pits (are mosh pits a thing anymore?), stage diving, body surfing—all of these swimming together into what was, for me, a magical experience.
And my friends and I were riding the wave with our own musical desires. Here’s the thing about the bands I was in—we practiced a lot. Like a lot a lot. Sure, this was our social scene but it was also very much music education. We practiced every day. My drum set lived in the back of my mom’s old, wood-paneled, 1980’s Chevy Celebrity station wagon. The same wagon that we all piled into to go to Lollapalooza. The same wagon whose radio only worked by jamming a pen into the tape deck (how I figured that trick out, I have no idea). The same wagon that I proudly drove to high school every day, adorned with my favorite Fugazi sticker, my drum set forever in tow, a vehicle perfectly ironic and useful and in a way, emblematic of our crew and the scene we inhabited.
My God, I was a working musician at 17 years old in one of the country’s largest cities! And so were my friends! This isn’t self-congratulatory. . . this is self-realization. This is an epiphany. This is OMG, how was I so unbelievably lucky to be in these specific places at these specific times. These lessons, these experiences MEANT something. And have ever since. And still do. To me. Now. As a full-time, professional, classical musician. To this day.
We were just band kids. Like, yes, that type of band kid. We were suburban Houston drumline/marching band/solo and ensemble band kids. But we would moonlight as something else, something quite different. And that ‘something’ was as valuable to me as seven years of public school band programs and three professional music degrees.
So, here’s my reflective, 20+ years later admonition. Get out. Go to shows. Go see something. Maybe you’re a drum corps junkie. Maybe you’re more refined than I was and already lounging on the lawn at Tanglewood or watching the New York Phil’s “Concerts in the Park”. Or maybe you’re like me, or like I was, in Houston in the 1990's.
Whoever you are and whatever you do, do it as if it’s your lifeblood. You’ll learn a great deal along the way.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006 and was a founding member of So Percussion. ]]>I was finishing my sophomore year of undergraduate percussion study at the University of Texas at Austin and I had finally fully bought into the idea that I'd pursue music as a career. Things started to click that year and what it meant to be a music major (and therefore what it meant to pursue music professionally) settled into something that finally made a bit of sense. There was a feeling of excitement and anticipation going into the summer of '97.
Now this was 20 years ago and the idea of summer music study was primarily limited to orchestral festivals. The orchestra bug bit me pretty good my sophomore year. Oddly enough this happened during the rehearsal process of a piece by Joan Tower called "Silver Ladders", a work I haven't seen programmed since but one that made a big impression on me. By the end of the year I was ripe for a healthy summer orchestral experience to fan the flame.
I found that nearby, by complete luck, at the International Festival-Institute at Round Top in Round Top, TX. This was before there were any 'official' percussion faculty at the festival. The organizers tapped three students—me, my UT buddy Andy Beaudoin, and Oberlin percussionist Greg Akagi—to join pros Drew Lang and Tyler Mack in the orchestra's percussion section. I spent two incredible weeks playing with other musicians that all wanted to be there for all the same reasons. It was wonderful and it felt decidedly different from school.
I only stayed two weeks because I had already committed to work at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan. So off I went to serve as counselor and cabin leader to middle and high school kids in the Manistee National Forest. There was a festival band and orchestra that the counselors and faculty played in together and that kept me moving in the direction I had previously charted. My mission was pretty straightforward: gain more ensemble experience, play with a bunch of different musicians, cultivate whatever this newfound desire was.
What I didn't expect from my Blue Lake experience was the ample personal practice time every afternoon. I had hours, literally hours, to dedicate to getting better—working my hands over and learning new rep, every single day. My counselor-mate, John Bisesi (now member of the "President's Own" United States Marine Band), and I played for each other, encouraged each other, and taunted each other through a couple of weeks of very intentional practice. For me it was a game changer.
Looking back at the summer of '97 I can now clearly see why it was so important. While the Round Top Festival is what still makes an appearance on my CV, it was my time at Blue Lake that actually made me a better player.
Why?
Because I practiced. I practiced intentionally. I practiced with a hunger for getting better. I practiced with time and space to think. I practiced away from my 'normal' school life and without the distractions that sometimes come from our habitualized ritual of the academic-year routine.
I became a different player during the summer of 1997. While I had more 'prestigious' summer activities to come—the following two summers I spent in Sapporo, Japan at the Pacific Music Festival—the summer after my sophomore year was by far the most productive.
Your summer is for growth. Whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whatever your plans may be, don't waste the opportunity. Whether you're marching with a corps, attending an orchestral/chamber music festival, or camping out in your parents' basement (read Rob Knopper's lovely blog post about that), progress awaits.
Happy practicing.
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What I love and find absolutely fascinating about Keith's story is how unwilling he was to quit pursuing his goal of winning an orchestra job. To be clear, Keith doesn't expend energy or airtime talking exhaustively about his "struggles". He simply mentions them as the stepping stones they were:
"I didn't get into grad school for two years. . . and then I got into all of them."
"I didn't advance beyond prelims in the professional auditions I took. . . I then I won a principal position."
Everyone — and I mean E V E R Y O N E — hits some bumps along the way. The more we share our stories, the more we'll carry a healthy perspective of what failure and success might look like into our personal journeys.
Enjoy our latest video release, "Interview with Keith Williams, Part 2"
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During the first rehearsal I met my now-new-friend Keith Williams, who serves as the Principal Percussionist with the FWSO. Keith was awesome and made the week a lot of fun for me.
As someone who spent a tad bit of time in the orchestral audition scene earlier in my career, I've always been fascinated by the inner workings of these processes and wanted to pick Keith's brain a little bit.
"How did you win your job?"
"How did you prepare for this audition in particular?"
"Did you miss notes in the audition?"
"What did it feel like when they announced that you had won?"
And so on. . .
So I twisted Keith's arm, begged him for an interview, and we sat down after our final run out performance at the end of the week, somewhere in Southlake, TX in front of a man-made pond with the hiss of a fountain in the background.
Check out Part 1 of our interview to hear Keith talk about his preparation for the FWSO audition, his practice and prep routines, the specific flow of the audition rounds, and how he ultimately won his gig.
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An article has been making the rounds recently, a response to which can be read here. The backlash was swift and fierce, with luminaries such as the composer John Adams quickly entering the fray.
It was about curriculum changes in Harvard’s undergraduate program that would allow for non-classical musicianship in the music major. It tackles the larger question of multiculturalism in university music departments. Should these departments consist of multiple integrated centers of different musical traditions, or a continued core of European music history and theory with other music entering on the periphery (i.e. as specialized electives and “ethno” musicology)?
My initial reaction was: what’s the big deal? It occurred to me that these issues have been actively churning in the percussion community for at least the past forty years. To be a percussion major at many music schools in North America is not only to embrace, but even to expect core training that branches beyond classical music. It didn’t seem that this realignment had diminished enthusiasm among percussionists for studying classical music. If anything, it had grown.
Music history and theory curricula are not my field, and there are many shades of grey separating the needs of different programs. The changes at Harvard seem to reflect a diverse student body in a global university (without a professional undergraduate music major), which might not fit the needs of a conservatory that specializes in classical music. But the possible de-stabilization of European classical music as the norm in an institution as iconic as Harvard touched a nerve that reaches beyond mundane curricular issues.
And so I’d like to add my perspective to this discussion…
Everything is going to be ok.
Among my group of close friends who hold Percussion Performance degrees, I can count deep backgrounds in: Trinidadian Steel Drums, Balinese Gamelan, various African drumming and melodic percussion traditions, North Indian Tabla, Japanese Taiko, South American hand percussion, Appalachian Hammered Dulcimer, American Jazz, and much more. When we flock together, either at the Percussion Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) or seminars like our Sō Percussion Summer Institute or the Nief-Norf Summer Festival, one of our favorite things to do is compare notes on how these individual interests inform an overall perspective on what it means to be a percussionist. We learn from each other constantly.
Each percussionist’s mix of experiences and interests defines their unique musicianship. Within my group Sō Percussion, Josh Quillen has brought two decades of experience with steel drums into our shifting instrumentation, gradually integrating this voice into newly commissioned and original pieces. Josh’s musical life has run on two parallel tracks, where the traditions of steel drums and western classical percussion developed in his life alongside each other. Throughout, he has constantly questioned what they do and do not have to say to each other, while still respecting what makes each distinct.
Notice that I do not describe this journey as that of primarily studying classical music and then dabbling in steel drums through taking a course or some lessons. The way Josh plays steel drums is deeply rooted in the way Trinidadians play, and he is acknowledged as a master player and teacher within their ongoing musical culture. This is possible because – first in high school and then at the University of Akron, and finally in Trinidad itself – steel drum band was an integral and co-equal line of his percussion study.
Our repertoire is richer for it. Steve Mackey combined Josh’s steel drum playing with the influence of composers like Harry Partch to invent new “microtonal” pans for his quartet It Is Time, where two lead pans with the same layout are tuned a quarter-tone apart. This allows the performer to fluidly perform passages with a scale of 24-notes without fundamentally altering his feel for the instrument. Only a player with Josh’s deep knowledge of the possibilities of this instrument could advise a composer on how to make this work.
My own path was both conventional and unusual. I decided to double down on my interest in European classical music, treating it as my particular specialization. Having grown up taking piano lessons and singing in my mom’s choirs in addition to learning percussion, I felt most at home studying those traditions. I applied to Yale’s DMA program precisely because it focused almost exclusively on classical music (a reason why only a handful of percussionists have completed it). I was frequently advised against only studying classical music. My lack of a “world” specialty was considered a drawback for a possible future in the academic job market.
I integrated that experience into the broader mixture of my field. I often talk and write about how concepts from classical music history inform what we as percussionists do today. Learning about Isorhythmic Motets from Craig Wright at Yale seismically changed my previously held assumptions that all the mathematical fun in music was recent. When writing about Steve Reich’s music, my exposure to Perotin and Stravinsky are essential.
I try very hard not to treat this perspective as the cultural default against which others should be measured. It simply reflects my own passion and perspective, and I believe I can project enthusiasm for it without adopting a colonial attitude. If I did, my colleagues would smack it down hard. By and large, the culture of percussion simply doesn’t tolerate this kind of prejudice anymore.
Very few musicians are opposed on its face to including global perspectives in music training. What’s at stake in these discussions is whether western music retains a central, default, primary function in music instruction as a matter of curricular mandate, or whether we could view the musical universe through different lenses. It may feel as though we have something to lose, as an entire lifetime can be devoted to studying even one tiny corner of the vast thousand years of music we call “western.”
I don’t think this will happen. I have too much faith in Beethoven, in Bach, and in Josquin to think that they’ll fall by the wayside if we allow undergraduates – especially those in a non-specialized undergraduate concentration - to spend a bit more time learning what other cultures or contemporary non-classical music have to offer. As a percussionist, I’ve had every opportunity to cast classical music aside in order to play music that gives me more to do, but I can’t. I want to explore how written scores affect performance; I want to struggle through a Bach fugue; I still marvel at Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium. Nothing could dilute this magic for me. I will keep dusting those pieces off and making students deal with them, and I hope this enthusiasm will influence the future.
POSTSCRIPT: I’d like to acknowledge some of the many musical groups and organizations which aren’t exclusively percussion-based that share this ethos and have influenced my thoughts, such as Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can, Roomful of Teeth, Silk Road Project, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot else.
Adam Sliwinski has built a dynamic career of creative collaboration as percussionist, pianist, conductor, teacher, and writer. He specializes in bringing composers, performers, and other artists together to create exciting new work. A member of the ensemble So Percussion (proclaimed as “brilliant” and “consistently impressive” by the New York Times) since 2002, Adam has performed at venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, The Bonnaroo Festival, Disney Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic, and everything in between. So Percussion has also toured extensively around the world, including multiple featured performances at the Barbican Centre in London, and tours to France, Germany, The Netherlands, South America, Australia, and Russia.
Adam has been praised as a soloist by the New York Times for his “shapely, thoughtfully nuanced account” of David Lang’s marimba piece String of Pearls. He has performed as a percussionist many times with the International Contemporary Ensemble, founded by classmates from Oberlin. Though he trained primarily as a percussionist, Adam’s first major solo album, released on New Amsterdam records in 2015, is a collection of etudes called Nostalgic Synchronic for the Prepared Digital Piano, an invention of Princeton colleague Dan Trueman. In recent years, Adam’s collaborations have grown to include conducting. He has conducted over a dozen world premieres with the International Contemporary Ensemble, including residencies at Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. In 2014, ECM Records released the live recording of the premiere of Vijay Iyer’s Radhe Radhe with Adam conducting.
Adam writes about music on his blog. He has also contributed a series of articles to newmusicbox.org, and the Cambridge Companion to Percussion from Cambridge University press features his chapter “Lost and Found: Percussion Chamber Music and the Modern Age.”
Adam is co-director of the So Percussion Summer Institute, an annual intensive course on the campus of Princeton University for college-aged percussionists. He is also co-director of the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and has taught percussion both in masterclass and privately at more than 80 conservatories and universities in the USA and internationally. Along with his colleagues in So Percussion, Adam is Edward T. Cone performer-in-residence at Princeton University. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts and his Masters degrees at Yale with marimba soloist Robert van Sice, and his Bachelors at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Michael Rosen.
Check out Adam’s blog about music.
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To say that I’ve been around the musical block a couple of times might be a tad too self-congratulatory. Certainly, there are people who have toured more, recorded more, taught more, and commissioned more. But by 2014 I had done enough of those things to take pause and look around my life for a spell. And I noticed the gears in my brain spinning in a slightly different way.
Let me offer more personal context than you might need or want. Several years prior to 2014 I lost about 25 lbs without trying. I weighed 165 lbs and then, several months later, I weighed 140 lbs. Poof! One day you’re the size of a grown man and the next you’re occupying the body of your 8th grade self.
“Are you a runner?”, people would ask.
Nope.
I’ve chuckled it off ever since as coffee and stress. The truth is it was around that time that my wife and I had our second kid. Kids are the best. My kids are the best. But kids are a lot of work. Life changes around you and if you’re a sensitive observer (i.e., introvert), as I consider myself to be, maybe you change with it at some point. I changed and I didn’t/couldn’t anticipate the change. It just happened.
This affects professional life, aspirations, and projects—all of it really. I think those who care about their professional output sometimes worry about that type of change. What if I can’t practice 3-4 hours a day anymore? What if I get cobwebs in my mind? What if I get tendinitis? All of those things have happened to me, by the way.
In my 20’s I wanted to be better than everyone. Really, I felt that way. (<— What does that even mean?) Looking back I’m embarrassed at my younger self. Of course that sentiment was couched in the pursuit of artistic excellence but still, really?
Somewhere in my 30’s I stopped caring as much. Stopped caring what new piece was being written for someone else and not me. Stopped caring that my old man hands hurt sometimes. Stopped caring if I would ever be a card-holding member of the marimba club.
I’m 40 now and I’ll get to the point. I’ve changed. We change. And I’m only aware of that change in semi-retrospect. I say “semi” because sure, there are times that I feel aware of the change even when it’s happening. But mostly it’s in looking back. I never thought I would change. Never thought my artistic aspirations would be much different than they were when I was 26. It’s impossible to anticipate what’s to come. But things do change.
So that brings me to now. That brings me to Liquidrum. It started with a book idea and one that my 26-year old self would have surely scoffed at. An accessories book? Wha? Yeah, I don’t know. But it felt right so I pursued it. And here’s the thing—it was actually really fun, really rewarding, really challenging in ways that learning difficult Japanese marimba music can’t ever be. Or Bach. Or Scheherazade.
The book was a process and one that took years to write. Not because it’s 1000 pages long but because I have a full-time job and it’s hard to make time for other projects. But I kept making time here and there and kept chipping away. And as I did things started to happen.
First, I thought “wouldn’t it be nice if whatever I was doing could be bigger than a book? Maybe it could involve other activities like performance, teaching, commentary, etc. Maybe it could be an umbrella idea. Maybe it could be a company."
Now I’m no biz wiz but last I checked most companies, organizations, and big ideas have names. So I grabbed one. Grabbed it straight from my brain one day as I sat somewhere quietly or mowed my lawn or picked weeds. I don’t really remember the moment but at some point, the name “Liquidrum” came to me.
And if you have a name then you can certainly have a social media presence. So that soon followed. And then there were the videos. Now here’s the thing, you can ask anyone who the least tech-savvy and sophisticated person they know in the music biz is and they just might point to me. My duo partner of many years, Doug Perkins, can certainly attest to that.
So it perhaps came as a surprise when I started releasing videos.
“Todd found the power button on the camera?”
“Todd knows what editing software is?”
“Todd plugged something into something else???”
Admittedly I didn't know how to do these things. But I figured them out.
The vids came out of left field. I had no intention of making videos, no desire, nothing. They just happened. And there again I found myself peering into a changing reality. I mean, it’s all an artistic process, albeit of a different kind. But still, it's as if they just happened.
Because the vids were released under the Liquidrum umbrella and because some people liked them, a modest following formed. Nothing major. But loyal enough and interested enough I suppose. And that’s when the idea became more developed, more refined. I had to think a little harder about what I was doing and as I did, more ideas bubbled to the surface.
Liquidrum, in its own way, developed under my feet into an idea, a brand, a percussion hub that will hopefully add to the landscape of the larger percussion and music community. It didn’t start as a business plan, didn’t start as a massive new project, didn’t really start as anything other than a thought. And that thought led to another and then to another.
So I’m planning on following the trail of thoughts down the path to see where they might lead. And I’m happily anticipating forks in the road, switchbacks, re-dos, missed opportunities, and things I can’t even imagine. It seems art isn’t always linear, even when mixed with business.
Todd Meehan is the founder of Liquidrum. He currently serves as the Associate Professor of Percussion and Division Director of Instrumental Studies at the Baylor University School of Music. Todd was a founding member of So Percussion and has performed as one half of the Meehan/ Perkins Duo since 2006.
]]>Stevens Technique—The Set Up from Liquidrum on Vimeo.
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