#MusicalMondayMemories #10: Music in churches and In the Water

Recently, I was thinking about how many church keyboardists I’ve worked with over the years. All the way back to J.S. Bach and beyond, church musicians have been composers, improvisers, performers, conductors, and teachers. As supporters of music through the ages, churches are still some of the best places to perform and find creative musicians who think deeply about their place in the world. 

Starting with my piano teacher growing up (who plays chamber music with my mom to this day!), and all the way to my first Christmas Eve gig living in Maine in 2019, music and churches have gone together in my life. I’ve had countless chamber and solo performances in churches, and many concentrated rehearsals. 

Churches are some of the only places that are constructed with acoustics in mind. Plus, they have regular music jobs while even many schools skimp on that. 

Music and the arts in general are often seen as outside daily life, but they are anything but. From ancient tableware and cave paintings, Indian classical music and the pocket violin of royal dancing masters, myths and plays, art has been part of life forever. 

While many artists are very specialized, many are not, exploring widely and sinking in deeply. Some people follow their passions, but a lot of people push them to the side in order to live a more traditional path of savings and retirement. I’ve considered doing this many times, even in the few months, and while it’s impossible to know what the years will bring, I’m very excited to forge ahead as a musician.

There are four specific people who have been big parts of my musical life in college and beyond who happen to fit into the church keyboardist category: Brett Carson, Andrew Jamieson, Jun Kim, and Derek Sup. I’ll return to the others in the future; today I am thinking about In the Water, an album I recorded with Andrew Jamieson’s Trouble Ensemble. 

I started playing with Andrew Jamieson at Mills College, where he was the graduate accompanist during some of my time there. We played the Debussy Sonata, we improvised together, he wrote a chamber opera called Heaven Down Here about the 1978 Jonestown massacre which we premiered at First Congregational Church in Oakland CA in 2014. (Check that out here if you’d like to know more: http://andrewbarnesjamieson.com/heaven-down-here/)

Trouble Ensemble was another chance to see Andrew shine. He is an extremely dedicated musician and composer and puts together large-scale projects that are unlike anything else I’ve come across. I feel lucky to have worked with Andrew and seen his passion be brought to life. 

On his website, Andrew describes Trouble Ensemble as an “avant-gospel band, focused on spirituals and radical liberation.” 

Check out the 1st track of our In the Water album, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round,” here (you can also purchase the album here, and Bandcamp really is the way to go to support artists): https://edgetonerecords.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-water

Oh, and here’s a fun review I found from Jon Neudorf of Sea of Tranquility: 

“Billed as avant-gospel, Trouble Ensemble is a tough nut to crack. Their album In The Water came out in June of this year and to say this is a hard listen is a bit of an understatement. As such this has been difficult review to write partly due to my inexperience with American gospel as well as my slight trepidation toward some forms of avant-garde music. Nevertheless, here it goes.

The disc is divided into three parts beginning with ‘Part I: To Trouble’. The first track “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” begins with acapella vocals backed by unusual dissonant sounds. Disharmonic piano and squelching sax lines further the band’s descent into discord. Narrative spoken word vocals act as a sermon protesting against injustice and slavery. Somber violin and piano serve the pretty “Give Me Jesus” but I found the narration distracting to the music. Elements of chamber music add to the avant-garde approach. The slow gospel of “Steal Away” is both melodic and discordant led by saxophone and piano. The song’s avant latter half demonstrates the band’s use of disharmonic chaos. The haphazard improvisation in “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel” is a little too bizarre for my tastes but the band turns it around with the spry piano work in “Precious Lord”. The rest of the tracks are just as unpredictable as seemingly benign melodies might turn into a cacophony of whacky sounds.

An unusual album to say the least, In The Water will likely be too eclectic for casual gospel fans. My only suggestion is to try before you buy.

An Edgetone Records release.”

https://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=21343

Band photos are always fun, too! Thank you Andrew, Ernest, Rent, Joshua, Tim, Jakob, Jordan, and Marvin for the music and the beautiful memories.

#MusicalMondayMemories #9 The importance of digital use self-awareness for musicians (and everyone)

The importance of digital use self-awareness for musicians (and everyone)

Anyone can be good at anything if it’s not a popularity contest. 

If it’s a popularity contest, mainly the people who care about being popular are going to succeed. At the contest, that is, not necessarily at life.

(The United States has a president who is a Twitter fiend. Get off Twitter, stop name-calling, and do your job, President Trump. Ok, I’m stepping off my soapbox and back to the topic at hand.)

It is evident that monitoring digital use in your learning environment - i.e. every moment - is of the utmost importance with current levels of distraction. I’m thinking today about digital technology and its impact on focus, the importance of deep focus in learning, and how we’re always learning. 

A new violinist friend of mine said recently that it was nice to see me never check my phone, a more “old-school” approach. Mind you, this friend has a couple kids, and I don’t see her checking things either. 

Even as being attached at the hip to devices becomes the norm in waking moments, humans are fighting that. In a bus when everyone is on their phones, I like to people watch like I did from the top of a tree in my front yard as an 8-year-old. What do you do when you’re tired of staring at a screen?

None of my teachers ever checked their phones in class. At the beginning of my musical education, some of them didn’t even have cell phones. I’m 26, a prime vantage point to see this shift. 

I’ve had a cell phone since age 14. I also had Myspace and Facebook starting at this age. Now I have Facebook and Instagram, and find that I have to monitor my use viciously or I feel uncomfortable and drawn to look every 5 minutes. When Facebook added the like button in 2009, this was the beginning of the end of social media for me. As soon as every post became a popularity contest, your thoughts were up for grabs for becoming a sensation.

I used to worry about the number of likes. I realized recently that I finally don’t care if I’m not in the in group, the group that is successful, the group that appeals to everyone, that rises to the top of the algorithm. What I care about is making musical worlds of all the music I get to perform, and that takes time and energy. 

My Google phone actually has its own built-in app for focus called Digital Wellbeing, which is kind of amazing. I had to look it up and activate it because it’s still in beta testing. Meaning, when inventing smartphones they didn’t know how insidious they’d become in our lives, how much money companies would make from capitalizing on people’s attention.

In college, I remember turning on SelfControl - another app to block your usage of specific websites for a designated period of time - on my laptop and writing papers. Then, in 2014 when I graduated I got a smartphone. I did not think intentionally about following my same habits of computer usage, but I had to after almost 6 years of feeling out of control. 

Think about that. You can use apps for cutting out distractions. You have to intentionally decide to focus to get to the point where you’re going to look up a way to cut out distractions, and then it will be there. A seek and ye shall find sort of situation. But what if you don’t know anyone who talks about focus? What if you are one of the many people who grow up surrounded by family members who check their phones at every notification?

I’m worried about humanity. I’m even worried about my cat, and he just watches us when we watch a movie. 

If you’re wondering, yes, this pertains to musical memories. I have a distinct memory of seeing someone in an orchestra rehearsal having their phone up on the stand and checking it regularly. I may have even seen Facebook scrolling happening. 

I felt a rise of anger, and decided in that moment that this wasn’t how music-making should be. 

It’s surprisingly difficult to keep digital consumption in check. Digital gluttony always felt wrong deep down, but it wasn’t ingrained in my code of morals until recently.

The desire to check things comes in waves, so it’s hard to feel the addictive nature of the habit. If you start first thing in the morning, like I did for years with my phone right near my bed, getting away from it is that much harder. Narrowing down notifications to only calls and texts and generally keeping my phone on silent seems to be working for me when I think about it regularly, since then I have to choose specifically when I check email and social media. It’s impossible to curb digital consumption if you are always an open book for someone else to fill up. 

Some of us learn analytically how to turn of the part of the brain that watches and constantly critiques. It's definitely been like that for me, reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, even taking a class on anxiety at Kaiser in Oakland. I've been socially anxious much of my life, and I have a bluntness to my speech that I've tempered (slightly) over the years. It’s very hard for me not to say something that I’m feeling emotions about. But when it comes to scrolling on Facebook, I can numb myself with the best of them. 

Here’s a quick tidbit from 2013 of the Town Quartet playing the end of Ginastera’s String Quartet No. 1 movement IV. Allegramente rustico. Jacob (our violist) always said, “play as fast as you dare.” That’s an apt sentiment for music and life. But play as slow as you dare is as well. Take the time you need to learn about your habits and to shift them to what feels good, in music and in life. 

www.facebook.com/classicalrev/videos/10153396236817510/?v=10153396236817510

#MusicalMondayMemories #8: From the back of the second violin section

#MusicalMondayMemories #8: From the back of the second violin section 

I wasn't a prodigy. I didn't have a gorgeous tone and play full concertos at age 5 and go on to have a life of success (or misery - where do those prodigies even go?). I played duets with my teacher, and played my first Messiah at age 7 instead. 

I grew up reading music with my multi-instrumentalist parents and brother, started playing in a community orchestra at the back of the second violin section when my feet still dangled, and at 13 sat in the same place in a professional orchestra that was housed at the university in town. When listening back to recordings of myself, I used to be amazed they wanted me there at all.

A few years into freelance life as a violinist, Town Quartet was playing regular shows at the Starry Plough Pub in Berkeley, CA. We mainly played casual venues for the atmosphere of enjoyment and camaraderie of chamber music, with a few more serious concert series performances here and there. Unknown to me, this time around a fellow violinist, Joseph Gold, was watching and would write a review of us for the Piedmont Post. Here is a tidbit from the review: 

“To show their all-encompassing abilities, they played one of the greatest works in the repertoire, Schubert’s monumental Death and the Maiden. The Town’s interpretation could give any of the big name quartets a run for their money. Once again, Patzner’s cello was divine, as was the viola of Jacob Hansen-Joseph (aka Cassadesus). The violinists, Mia Bella D’Augelli and Corey Mike, take turns at 1st violin. Judging by their performance at the Starry Plough, D’Augelli’s bright tone complements the quartet best when playing 2nd violin.”

If you know Death and the Maiden (which I played 1st on that day), you’d know I have some work to do. I didn’t see the review until a couple years later, but I had known for years my tone wasn’t yet all that lush (yet). 

If not for being seen as inadequate in some eyes beyond my own, I may never have learned how to yearn for more from myself. It felt for a long time like I was always the runner up, like when I graduated from high school in 2009 and got a scholarship to go to Interlochen Arts Camp because someone turned it down. Mind you, I was 15 turning 16 and I went. Insert complaints about wearing uniforms and sleep deprivation and lack of wellness support here. 

That’s the strange guilt I always carried around in my head. The little voice of suppression saying, you don’t belong here, you didn’t have enough talent or work hard enough or sound good enough. 

I was a quiet kid and some people automatically assumed I was intelligent based on the fact that I didn’t talk and liked to read. I like to think I was just soaking everything in, biding my time until passions rose inside me and I couldn’t push them down, until I was a little less stiff as a person and as a musician. 

I learned from a young age to listen and fit into a section. I learned to wait before I spoke, and usually didn’t speak in the end. I hesitated, waiting for a conductor. Now, I’m learning to share what I care about, to intentionally push down the part of the brain that self-censors. There is so much research going into this right now, finding the root of creativity, learning how to rewire your own brain and teach yourself to find the flow state. Performance coaches make exorbitant amounts of money. I don’t have the cash for a performance coach, but what do I have at my fingertips? Myself.

What I have learned in 23 years of playing music is, if it scares you, do it. It’s all a magical mixture of happenstance and putting yourself out there, letting yourself be uncomfortable and learning. Now, I hesitate a lot less. My gut doesn’t wrench every time I think about doing something new.

I just got calls for a couple gigs and they would never have happened if I hadn’t played for people and spent 8 weeks preparing for an audition after my first 2 months here of not playing. I didn’t win the audition, but I got on the sub list. A coincidence is that this first set I am going to play with Portland Symphony Orchestra includes Stravinsky’s Firebird, which I only played once before, a portion of which is in a video that went viral because a woman was startled by a very loud part of the piece (read about that here: Firebird Scream www.musicmiabella.com/mmm/musicalmondaymemories-3). 

When I moved to Maine and took 2 months off of playing violin, it was the longest break I’ve ever taken. For July and August 2019, I hardly touched the instrument. No gigs, a couple duets with my mom when my parents came to visit, but that's it.

I didn't know if music was the thing. I didn’t know if I could deal with the stress of being a freelancer again. Running from thing to thing day after day, not knowing if someone would ever call me again if I said no. For Eric and I, our move was a serendipitous combo  of wanting to live lives we built from the ground up and learning from the devastation of family deaths. We felt stagnant in Oakland, and then, a year ago today (MLK Jr Day), we put an offer in on a house, and here we are, living in Standish, ME. 

Back to not knowing if music was meant to be my pursuit. It was really scary to grapple with this. I’ve played violin since the ripe old age of 3. Basically, chamber music was my only regularly-scheduled social interaction for college and the years after. Music was all I did. But was it the most important part of my life? I thought it was, but now I’m not so sure. And now I love every moment of playing. Even scales.

I am working inside my mind to solidify personal goals, and now I can articulate what I value the most in life. Sounds/music/creativity is definitely up there, but family and nature and community are more of the top echelon.

Shoutout to my mom, Barbara, who has been my absolute biggest supporter as a musician. She drove me every week to lessons when I was a kid. We played in the same community orchestra, the Paradise Symphony Orchestra, with whom I played that fateful Messiah at age 7. She often drove 3 hours to just see me do a noon concert in college (5 minutes of playing!), and would even sit not in the front row when I was super scared and didn’t want to think about anything. We finally got to play some chamber concerts together over the past couple years, and I look forward to many more!

Here is a video of Dawn Harms and I playing the Bach Double Concerto in 2016 with Paradise Symphony Orchestra. (My mom is the only wind player, helping hold down the bass line on bassoon, and I see kids in the orchestra which is great.) Dawn plays in the San Francisco Opera orchestra among other intense exploits, and we had the same violin teacher as a kid, Kenneth Skersick. He lived in Paradise, CA, and was in his 80s/90s when I took lessons from him. I have wonderful and calm memories from our lessons. I also remember playing a duet with Dawn as a kid and loving her energy. She is a blast to work with! While on stage for the Bach, I was able to sink into her sound and enjoy her inspiring freedom of motion.

Another part of the homecoming on this stage is that my other teacher from my hometown area, Joel Quivey, is the current PSO concertmaster. He was also a calming force of a teacher, like when he introduced me matter-of-factly to the 4 Brahms symphonies during my last year of high school and had me buy all the first violin parts. I am now finding them very useful recently for audition and performance preparation.

When I later showed this video to Ken’s wife, Marie, on a visit to southern California, she was 102, still walking, and thrilled. The Skersick family was an inspiration and a joy to be around, and while Ken passed away in 2012 and Marie in 2018, their impact on my life - and the cookies I ate in the kitchen after lessons - will last forever.

More memories to come.

Thanks for reading (and listening)!