Hi! You're the best.
April was a speedy demon of a month! Good heavens!
- Taught a character workshop with some amazing students at Spring Lake Park High. So many thanks to Kevin for having me!
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| Cheesehead, but make it fashion. |
- And then taught an Intro to Musical Improv workshop at the Twin Cities Teen Improv Festival at PiM! So many thanks to William and everyone involved! (Also, hire Emily for you improv piano needs!)
- Teaching for COMPAS at MSS (fashion show!) and at Sunny Hollow Montessori (middle school improv!)
- A couple of Bring Your Kids! and a lovely 3 person Nudge!
- Teaching an awesome 101 for Very Good Improv.
- I've started teaching private beginning guitar, piano, and ukulele at MusicLab; it's taken a bit to get my feet under me. But when it works, it's really lovely. Hats off to my students: they are awesome and doing it!
MAY
You know that sound Lightning McQueen makes? It's a bit of that.
- Finishing up with MSS, Sunny Hollow, and now Mississippi Creative Arts Elementary through COMPAS. Finishing up the 101 with VGI.
- A four Bring Your Kids! month!? We were at Cadenza Music last weekend, will be at the Bryant Lake Bowl and Francis Burger Joint NE this weekend, and round it all off with a visit by the Zucker Family Suite at M Health Fairview. So lucky!
- Nudge has its last show of the season, Monday May 18th!
- I'll be playing music pre-show at Worm Teeth, Melancholics Anonymous' amazing new show, on Friday May 22nd. I love these humans and 'am so excited.
- I'll be telling at story at Fiasco, the latest iteration of Table Salt Production's annual storytelling show, Friday May 15th at the Bryant Lake Bowl! I also love these humans and thanks to Megan K. for awesome story pep talks.
- I'm working own a couple of Fringe shows, including my own. I'm swinging for a solo piece, with the amazing Levi Weinhagen directing me. <3
And then suddenly it's June and suddenly summer, Susan. The LegoTetris bricks are falling into place.
Navel gazing!: it's a funny thing to be teaching music. It's technically what I went to school for... decades ago. I've been giggling over improv and theater exercises for the last 25 years, with music firmly, comfortably, on the side.
I'm grateful to be playing this way, and also... I think there's some old tender stuff I'm squinting through.
Live theater and performance is so much more forgiving than music. I've done shows with folks with masters in theater, and we made the same paycheck. Improv, you can be anything you like, and the metric is how much fun you had, how hard you played pretend. Comedy, you just take swings at, and nobody gets to say whether you get to have a show or not - it's your stuff.
Written music can feel like a crossword puzzle to me: you get it right or you don't. And there will always be someone 'better' than you, a better voice than you, faster fingers than you. (Stories of classical musicians taking beta blockers for auditions, etc.)
It's some real capitalistic shit, and we also know that that's not how all art works. There's certain musical competitive spaces, and most folks don't mess with those.
(And those written pieces can be funsatisfyingbeautiful to play. Like a novel that can only be read out loud.)
Musical improv is one of the most thrilling and satisfying things I've ever done. I love writing my songs. I love when I get to perform them. I'm stupid proud of the number of guitar chords I now know, and will evangelize the ukulele forever.
I stopped playing piano for improv years ago, as you'll get pigeon-holed so quick.
I don't want to lose what I've built, what I put my 10,000 hours into. (Ego, and also, insecurity. I'm super proud of the stuff I've done: I love this shit.)
It's hard, and I feel like it's not supposed to be hard.
Luckily, it's loveliest of low stakes: it's beginning private lessons, and I'll eventually be sending these students to folks with intermediate vibes.
A thing! Anywhoo, don't send me anymore students until the fall. I love the ones I have, and sometimes we play Tom Petty together and laugh at the joy of it. Let's see what happens.
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| Current vibe. |
