Start the Music!

For the first time in 20 years, I'm not playing the piano for the spring semester at school. They are in much more competent hands, those of a true pianist, my good friend, Linda, who has also been accompanying for the past several years.

I've always been more of a vocalist than pianist. If my piano teacher, Mrs. Lighter, were still alive, you could ask her. I was the least talented of the Moore sisters who sat at the piano bench in front of her baby grand piano each week.

(From our 1965 Christmas card, from left to right: Darci, me and Lisa)

I am sure she would be amazed that I lasted this long!

(The piece was called Drifting Moon)

It feels a little discordant to not have that daily appointment at the piano bench, but a shifting schedule at school made it the right decision for me. I may still help marginally with solos for festivals, but Linda will be the accompanist. And that's OK.

But just because I'm not in the classroom every Monday through Friday this semester, it doesn't mean I still don't find overwhelming value in music education in the public schools.

Yesterday, I saw a link via Facebook about a new study from the University of Vermont's College of Medicine about the value of music.  I emailed both Jill and Brent (and didn't hear back from either one, by the way.)

Brent has said more than once:  "Giving me piano lessons was like throwing money down the drain." I've always vehemently disagreed, though I realize he will never accompany a classroom of vocal music students or even sit at a piano and play it for fun.

 

1997 piano recital - Jill and Brent with Mrs. Dorothy Trinkle, their piano teacher.

Every week, I'd drive them to Dorothy Trinkle's rural Preston home for piano lessons. She deserves a medal, by the way, for teaching piano so many years to so many children, including my reluctant pair.  Their music-loving mama also forced them to take private vocal music lessons for several years and to play instruments in the school band.

Was it child abuse? I think not. And the University of Vermont study is backing me up:

James Hudziak and his colleagues analyzed the brain scans of 232 children ages 6 to 18, looking for relationships between cortical thickness and musical training. Previous studies the team had performed revealed that anxiety, depression, attention problems and aggression correspond with changes to cortical thickness. Hudziak and his team sought to discover whether a "positive activity" like musical training could affect the opposite changes in young minds.


"What we found was the more a child trained on an instrument," Hudziak told The Washington Post, “it accelerated cortical organization in attention skill, anxiety management and emotional control."

The study found increased thickness in parts of the brain responsible for executive functioning, which includes working memory, attentional control and organizational skills. In short, music actually helped kids become more well-rounded.

My two turned out OK. They seem to have several of those attributes. Maybe it wasn't child abuse after all.

Broken Chords

 

I'm a musician. No, it wasn't my major at college. I chose journalism after my Dad wisely suggested that being a music teacher was probably not the best career choice for my DNA.

I thank him every so often for that. He was so right. Last month, I completed my 18th year as an accompanist for the Stafford School system, most in middle school choir. Let's face it: The majority of middle school kids would much rather be in gym class than music class. As a middle school music director, I would not have survived my natural bent toward perfectionism and order in the midst of the adolescent hormones.

However, I do love music, so that's why I accompany. I certainly have no illusions that I am the most competent accompanist around. Mrs. Lighter, my childhood piano teacher, would be amazed that I am the one of the three Moore sisters who now gets paid to play the piano.

As I thought about the Lovely Branches Ministries theme for June, "Music for the soul," I remembered a time when my "job" didn't have a thing to do with my time on the piano bench. Instead, it happened in a bathroom after class several years ago. The encounter forever changed how I looked at the time I spent at school.

On that day, I ducked into the bathroom after the bell had rung. A middle school girl was there, washing her hands, but she waited until I came out of the stall and said, "Mrs., I have a question."

"Sure," I told her.

She was standing in front of a full-length mirror, pushing her long hair back and adjusting her clothes.

"What's wrong with me? Is my hair a mess today? Am I wearing the wrong thing? Do I smell?"

"No," I told her. "You look great. I think your hair looks really pretty today. Your outfit is cute."

She stopped me. "No, I really want you to be honest," she said. "Tell me the truth! When I come close to some of the other girls, they look at me and say, 'Oh, __________, get away.' Or they will turn their back, and I can hear them whispering."

I said again, "I am telling the truth. I am being honest. I want you to hear me. Even though it's really hard, you need to realize that sometimes other girls can be mean. I don't know why that is, but it is. So it's not about you. It's about their need to feel better than someone else. If they can put someone down, then maybe, for just a little bit, they can feel better about themselves.

"Try to remember it's not about you, even though it hurts."

I could not get that girl out of my mind. I remembered my daughter's middle school years. They were the absolute toughest for me as a parent (and no doubt for Jill as well). I will never forget how mean they were to one another. For several years, I saved a note that I found one day in Jill's pocket. It was from a girl who was supposed to be her friend. It said something about Jill looking like a pig in her cheerleading outfit.

I don't know why I saved the note. Was it to remind me of the power of words? Was it to remind me to really listen to my kids - whether they shared the hurts of the day vocally or exhibited it with a quiet, sullen mood?

Am I naive enough to think Jill was never mean to another girl? Of course not. I'm sure she had her moments even though my constant soundtrack with both my kids was, "Be the bigger person."

So I worried about this girl who I didn't really know. She was a face in the crowd on the risers before I heard the anguish in her voice that day. On the night of the concert, I made it a point to find her and tell her how nice she looked in her dress-up clothes. When I would see her at ballgames, I would stop and visit with her - even after she graduated from middle school and became a high schooler.

You see, I have been that girl. I wasn't the thinnest girl or the prettiest in my class or the girl every guy was clamoring to go out with.

But as I've gotten older, I've realized that most women have felt like that. Even those girls who from the outside looking in have it all - the thin girls with the perfect hair and just the right fashion flair - have that nagging feeling that they just aren't good enough.

It's been kind of a revelation for me as an adult.

But it doesn't change the hurt of a 13-year-old girl peering at herself in the mirror of a bathroom.

So, I hope she heard me - really heard me. If she did, it was worth all the time commuting to town ... practicing at home ... being annoyed at the noise ... the nervous stomach before festivals and concerts.

It was worth every second. If she heard me.

Not long ago, this arrived in my email devotional:

God has a beautiful way 

of bringing good vibrations out of broken chords. 

--Charles Swindoll

Christian pastor, author and educator

And I again thought of that girl. And I thought about myself. And I thought about all of we women who are so quick to be critical of ourselves.

But then I thought about it a little more. By definition, a broken chord is any chord whose notes are not played simultaneously; a chord played with separated notes. A broken chord is the way an accompanist gives each part of a choir its assigned note before we put all the parts together. Each and every part - soprano, alto, tenor and bass - is important for a harmonious chord. Through the brokenness of our lives we can become the strong chord - or cord - that God intended us to be.

2 Corinthians 12:8-10 New International Version (NIV)

⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

It's in His perfect love that we are made whole, even in our weakness and brokenness.

***

Note:  This is an adaptation for my Lovely Branches Ministries post for June. My friend, Suzanne's blog, will have you whistling as you work in  your garden or sit on the porch with a glass of lemonade.

***

I'm also linked today to Michelle DeRusha's Hear It On Sunday, Use It On Monday  and Jennifer Dukes Lee's Tell His Story. Click on the links to read what other bloggers of faith are writing about today. 

Bull in a China Shop

One of Brent's favorite piano solos was called "Bull in a China Shop" by George Anson. Mrs. Trinkle was one smart piano teacher. Brent was a reluctant musician at best. But how could he resist a piano solo that encouraged some calculated banging around on the piano?

A few years ago, Brent told us: "Giving me piano lessons was kind of like throwing money down the drain."

I gave him an unqualified, "No, it wasn't!" And I still believe that, even though he probably hasn't touched a piano since he left the confines of Mrs. Trinkle's piano studio at her Preston farm house. He draws the same conclusion about his few years of mother-imposed voice lessons. (Wasn't I a mean mother, trying to instill a little music appreciation in my children?)

1997 piano recital - Jill and Brent with Mrs. Dorothy Trinkle, their piano teacher.

However, those music lessons probably helped Brent learn his trombone and Jill learn the clarinet in the school band. Research shows that music also helps students comprehend math, which is no small thing when half their genetic pool included a math-challenged mother. ACT scores for high school musicians are typically higher than their peers. 

A 2007 Harris Interactive Poll of working adults indicated that music education impacted five skill areas: ability to work toward common goals, striving for excellence in group settings, disciplined approach to solving problems, creative problem solving and flexibility in work situations.

Harris Interactive Poll, 2007

Sometimes I wonder why I continue accompanying at school. I especially wonder it on days like this one when we are at the Heart of the Plains League middle school music festival, and my nerves kick in. We'll be at the school by 6:30 and on the bus by 6:45 AM for the trip to Burrton. 

This is my 18th year accompanying for Stafford Schools. I don't have nearly as many accompaniments to play this year. But, for this Type A personality perfectionist, I still want to do my very best to accompany the students who've made the commitment to music this year. I certainly would prefer not to have an unintentional reenactment of "Bull in a China Shop."

I love music. That's why I do it. I certainly have no illusions that I am the most competent accompanist around. The paycheck I open each month doesn't come close to covering the gas it takes to drive to town, the interruption to the day or the investment of practice time at home that is never covered by a time sheet. So I look at my time at school as community service and a way to share my love of music with others.

Music isn't really about black notes on a white page. It isn't just about breathing correctly (though it certainly helps). You can know the right fingering to play a "C" or "D" on a trumpet or clarinet and still not truly make music.

True music is found in the crescendos and decrescendos. It's found in the pianissimo and the double forte. It's found in telling the story through song.

It's a story that's told at middle school music festivals ... and at high school regionals ... and in church choir lofts ... and singing in the shower or as you drive down a country road. 

And, even if those middle school musicians some day think that their time practicing for a solo was like throwing time straight down the drain, I hope they'll remember a piano player beside them who cared about them and cared about the music. 

Won't you say a little prayer for our middle school musicians today? (And one for Mr. Westbrook and me would be nice, too. Thanks, friends!)

Marc Chagall stained glass windows at the Art Institute of Chicago

Play the music, not the instrument.

~Author Unknown

 

How Can I Keep From Singing?

 

Goosebumps on top of goosebumps: That's what happens when you combine 234 hand-picked singers, an array of challenging music and a visionary director. Throw in a cello, clarinet, violins and drums. Mix well. And you will definitely be "stirred."

I went to the Kansas Music Educators' Association All-State Choir concert last Saturday at Century II in Wichita. My niece, Madison, was singing in her third and final concert with the high school KMEA honor choir. (She was one of 19 singers who had qualified for the choir during all three years of eligibility.)

On Saturday, I'd helped with set up, serving and clean up for a funeral dinner at church, and I sang at the 11 o'clock funeral. I sang at a 2 PM funeral at another church. There were 14 inches of snow on the ground, and we were expecting more. It would have been easy to just stay home. I'm so glad I didn't. 

I wish every middle school music student could have seen that concert. (For that matter, I wish every high school student could hear it, too. Middle school is just on my mind because that's the age group I work with as an accompanist, something I've been doing for the past 18 years.)

Yes, "my" students could hear it through a recording, though no recordings of the concert are allowed during the event itself. (And people must have adhered to the rules. There weren't postings to youtube.) I'm sure the professional recording will be wonderful. But there was just something about being there that I don't think can be duplicated. You could see the singers were engaged. They were watching the director. They had their mouths open. They were making music.

Stained glass at the Youthville Chapel, Newton, KS

The clinician was Edith Copley, professor of music and director of choral studies at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Among the seven selections she chose for the honor choir was "How Can I Keep From Singing?"

Copley directs many honor choirs and often uses that song because of its message for young musicians, and really, for all of us:

One of my messages to the students this week is this: Sing for life. After you graduate from high school, sing at college. After college, sing in your church choir or a community choir - no matter your profession. Singing is good for you physically, and it's good for your soul.

Edith A. Copley, Conductor/Clinician, Kansas Music Educators' Association All-State Choir 

Music is good for even more. A program note stated:

The College Entrance Examination Board found that students in music appreciation scored 63 points higher on verbal and 44 points higher on math than students with no arts participation among college-bound seniors.

Profile of SAT program test takers, Princeton, N.J.:

The College Entrance Examination Board

Dwayne Dunn, chair of the KMEA All-State Choir, added that ACT scores are also impacted by music participation:

The national average ACT score is 21.
Kansas' average ACT score is 22.
The average ACT for the 234 students who participated in the all-state choir this year was 27.26.

The 8-part harmonies in one of the songs were spectacular. But the unison when all 234 voices were on the same note? After 18 hours of rehearsals (plus lots of nose-to-the-grindstone time at home before the singers ever arrived in Wichita), it literally brought tears to my eyes. (My kids are rolling their eyes right now. And that's OK.)

Marc Chagall stained glass windows at the Art Institute of Chicago

How Can I Keep From Singing? (From a Quaker hymn) ... How indeed?

My life goes on in endless song
Above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear its music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

Stained glass at Trinity United Methodist Church, Hutchinson, KS

Tickling the Ivories

(I wanted to bring this dala horse in downtown Lindsborg home!
It's my kind of horse of course!)

I am running a marathon today. Unfortunately, I won't be burning many calories as I race from one piano bench to another down a hallway at Central Christian Schools in Hutchinson.

But the "race" couldn't be for a better cause. The Heart of the Plains league middle school music festival gives students a chance to make music.

We celebrate grand feats on the gridiron or the basketball court. But too often, we don't find the same fervor for the arts.

My mind is cluttered with key signatures and dynamic markings that drift through my consciousness as surely as "visions of sugarplums" danced through the heads of Clement Clark Moore's central characters.

Why have I done this for 16 years now? The answer is in the music. I hope I share my love for the music and give the students a tip or two that will make a solo more than black notes on a white page.

Yesterday, my friend and a former band instructor at Stafford Middle/High School shared a link on his Facebook status that demonstrates this very message. Both Tony and Kelly Ballard are among the teachers for whom I've accompanied through the years. It couldn't have been better timing to see this vivid demonstration of what musicality truly means.



I'm playing 30 different accompaniments today - mostly vocal and instrumental solos, a couple of ensembles and two choir numbers. We've been practicing since January. I hope I've done just a little bit to help the kids realize it's more than just singing or playing the right notes.

For me, it's way more than that. Some of these students have a lot of God-given ability. Some are not as blessed, but they work so hard and want it so badly.

So, even though the music has center stage today, it becomes a lot more to me. My time on the piano bench is more about being a cheerleader, an encourager, a person who cares for an uncertain adolescent (and isn't their parent or their teacher, but someone who chooses to be there.)

So, if you wouldn't mind, say a prayer for the kids today. Pray that they will overcome the nerves and just remember the music.

Music is what feelings sound like. ~Author Unknown

(And, while you're at it, say a prayer for Mr. Gill and me, too!)