Just for the joy of it

I LOVE this idea from Scotland. What fun! :-)

Just proves to me that the shared joy of making music is not necessarily affected by the individual success of making music. How completely counter-cultural, in this, our "up by the rugged-individualist bootstraps" country. You don't have to be a professional musician to access the heart of the music. You don't even have to be good.

Now, before you freak out on me, I'm not suggesting that it's OK not to practice, not to really apply yourself. Improving your technique and respecting the music and your fellow musicians are critical groundwork; it is, at least, our job as musicians not to stand in the way of the music. But in the moment where the magic happens, something fleeting is at work that isn't about technique. It's about honesty and abandon and the aspirational delight of locating yourself in beauty...and locating beauty in yourself.

You just have to be willing, and a little bit brave.

Fantastic.

I also heard something inspiring this week. It's the story of Jeff Bauer, a local guy who saw a need on the other side of the world and tried to meet it through visual art. He started a foundation for kids who have survived the madness in Darfur, teaching them to make art as a step toward healing and growing back into their lives. Stop by and visit his website to find out more about (and support) The Beautiful Project.

Now, could we please fund arts education programs? I mean the ones in the public schools and the ones that spring up in communities. My choir is doing a benefit for one of the latter this Saturday. Y'all come, if you're in Minneapolis...and if you're not, it's still possible to support the program through their website. Let's provide opportunities for the next generation to find their way into colorful, musicky joy, huh? Or at least to help them access their inner beauty when there isn't much beauty around them.

Peace, friends--

Music, healing and community

So...I'm sitting in the doctor's office, leafing through a magazine, and I come upon an article about Operation Happy Note. This is a group of people who send musical instruments to deployed US troops as a morale builder. One soldier mused that people who formerly would go off by themselves with their iPods were now sitting around together, playing and singing and laughing. What a lovely thing.

Music has a way of forming connective tissue between us. I see and experience it several times a week, and it's one of the best things I know of. Making music is one of very few human activities that's simultaneously mental, physical, spiritual, emotional and social. A group of people making music works together with both intention and spontaneity. They are working on something beautiful, lifted out of themselves, swept into a spirit of play like preschoolers with a Crayola 64-pack and some really big paper. The best perk of my job as a conductor is to witness that joy and creative absorption on their faces (even Lutherans become expressive when they're singing!). No wonder conductors live long lives--we get to live in the center of positive, generative energy.

Feeling badly? Go sing something, and do it as if no one was listening. Don't worry about being gorgeous and perfect; just DO it. You'll feel better. :-) Better yet, join a choir or a band or an orchestra. PLAY, and make it possible for others to do the same. We'll all be better for it.