The Return of Opera as Spectacle

On Saturday, April 28th, the Dallas Opera did something truly historic, and not just from an academic or technical perspective. The opera's production of Die Zauberflöte was simulcast for free in Cowboys Stadium (the local sports stadium). Originally the Dallas Opera reserved 7,500 seats in the stadium; by mid-April, the organization had received 33,000 requests and of those requests, about 20,000 people showed up. I did a count of two separate sections, chosen at random: of the adults there, about a third were under thirty. In addition, there were numerous children there, ranging from toddlers to adolescents. When I looked around, the children were on the edge of their seats during most of the performance.

Transplant Rejection Delayed by Classical Music

From a study by Masateru Uchiyama, Xiangyuan Jin, Qi Zhang, Toshihito Hirai, Atsushi Amano, Hisashi Bashuda and Masanori Niimi:

=== Methods ===

Naive CBA mice (H2k) underwent transplantation of a C57BL/6 (B6, H2b) heart and were exposed to one of three types of music--opera (La Traviata), classical (Mozart), and New Age (Enya)--or one of six different single sound frequencies, for 7 days. Additionally, we prepared two groups of CBA recipients with tympanic membrane perforation exposed to opera for 7 days and CBA recipients exposed to opera for 7 days before transplantation (pre-treatment). An adoptive transfer study was performed to determine whether regulatory cells were generated in allograft recipients. Immunohistochemical, cell-proliferation, cytokine, and flow cytometry assessments were also performed.

Breaking News in the World of Opera

In this U.S.A., February is celebrated as Black History Month, and this year, we really have something to celebrate! Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, an English-born composer (not to be confused with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the eighteenth-century poet), wrote an opera titled Thelma that has been lost for a hundred years. The score has been found, and published, and this month the Surrey opera performed the long-lost opera on February 9th-11th. Coleridge-Taylor is known for his Song of Hiawatha, that has regularly been performed, and we can now look forward to other opera companies resurrecting this lost opera! Thelma is cast as a Norse legend, and as in most Romantic works, good triumphs over evil and everyone (except the bad guys) gets a happy ending.

A Man's Reach Must Exceed His Grasp

If I had to put this Shakespearean reference in terms of my business, I would say that my grasp is my local area, my current and former students, and those people with whom I interact on a regular basis. Imagine my surprise when, one Friday a few weeks ago, my telephone rang, and the person on the other end was calling from another country thousands of miles away. It turned out that he had posted a question online about taking up piano as an adult some while back, and I answered in a way that he found encouraging. I found it immensely gratifying (and astonishing) that he took the trouble to track me down and thank me, as I almost never receive feedback.

The Dangers of Denial

As I have reported before, Repetitive Stress Injury (of which Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a part) is one of the two occupational hazards musicians face regularly. Every singer and instrumentalist needs to be aware of the dangers of repetitive stress injury. The onset can be very rapid, and our tendency is to shrug off a sore throat or aching wrists, arms or fingers. However, those aches and pains are warning signs that something is very, very wrong. Denying their importance is career suicide.

Zombie Musicians

I went to a great concert a few weeks ago, and as the conductor was taking his final bow, by a trick of the lighting, he suddenly had the appearance of a zombie. You know, dark eye sockets, greyed-out face . . . and my friend and I laughed it off. But whether it was because Hallowe'en was coming up, or some other reason, the notion of a zombie conductor stayed on my mind. And that led me to thinking about zombie musicians.

It's the Economy, Stupid

With all the unemployment and economic issues in the USA today, I thought I'd chime in with my own two cents' worth of ideas. Not that I don't want to get back to reading research, but the economy has been very much on everyone's mind lately. And one of the biggest economic drivers is, as unlikely as it might seem, the arts. Indeed the arts is what is called an "economic multiplier," that is, for each dollar invested in the arts, you get a multiple of dollars in return. In some cases, the multiplier can be as high as 15% or higher (that is, for every dollar invested, you get fifteen dollars in return).

My Way or the Highway

It is a simple, established law of nature: you can't fight physics and win. Yet almost without exception, each student who comes in to my studio wants everything to work within their preconceived notions of how playing or singing should work, rather than how it does work. I fight battle after battle with my students, patiently explaining to them why their technical approach does not work to get what they want, and what technical approach will get what they want. In a nutshell, such battles are exhausting!

I often explain my job in many different ways, and compare what I do to various occupations: batting coach, auto mechanic, etc. But most often I think of myself as a cult deprogrammer. Modern society is so full of unconscious biases about art, artists, music, musicians, teachers and students that most of the students who begin lessons have much more to unlearn than they have to actually learn. And these unconscious biases and assumptions are so strong that students would rather fail at music than violate those assumptions and biases. I begin to wonder if, subconsciously, they are throwing up obstacles for themselves just so they will not succeed.

Everybody's Doing It!

My mother used to have a theory (on the order of the Murphy's Law type) that said, "If your child associates with another child, and that child is perfectly well-behaved with the exception of one bad habit, that bad habit is the only thing your child will learn from the other child." After decades of teaching (I have no children of my own to test it out on), I figured out that she is right!

That's a Baby Piece!

If you haven't already seen this darling video, I really recommend taking thirty seconds to watch it, because it will certainly put you in the mood for reading the rest of this post!

I've been teaching many years, and when my students want to take on a piece too difficult for their current skills, they often run into trouble. At that point, I temporarily shelve the difficult piece, and assign a piece focusing on their technical difficulties. However, that sometimes stirs up a lot of rebellion, because it turns out that even six-year-old students are quite capable of determining for themselves the difficulty of a particular piece of music, and at that point, teachers hear, "That's a baby piece! I don't want to do a baby piece!" (Another example might be where a talent show is coming up, and the student simply does not have enough time allotted to them to play that ten-page piece she or he is working on--in that case, a flashy, short piece is a necessity.)

You're No Fun Any More!

It often happens--a child whines for music lessons, and begins, and after a month or two realizes she or he is not going to immediately sit down and master the instrument in a few weeks. Worse, the child is introduced to all kinds of technical skills she or he is expected to master, such as reading music or playing scales or exercises, and then suddenly music is a chore and parents and children are locked in a fight about practicing.

What You Know About Popular Opinion May Be Wrong

For reasons that shall remain undisclosed, I took a lot of online polls in the past few days. In there were some real surprises when I saw the percentages. One of the questions was "Do you play a musical instrument?" I'd like you to think about this question a minute and guess what the answer was. Ready? Over 50% of respondents said that they do play (currently) a musical instrument.

Another question, and one that truly startled me, was how many people had been to (and liked) an opera. More than forty per cent of respondents had been to an opera and enjoyed it! Now, just to put that in perspective, approximately the same percentage of respondents wear watches. And the percentage of respondents who enjoy opera is more than twice the percentage of people who watch soap operas!

The Best-Laid Plans

My plans to post last Saturday were scuppered by some exciting news--after some months of negotiations, I now have a seat on the Board of Directors of the Lewisville Lake Symphony Orchestra in Lewisville, Texas. Why is this so exciting? Many people seek board of directors seats for all kinds of reasons--contacts, prestige, something to add to their resume. I see it as an opportunity for me first, to share my skills with the symphony to make the symphony more successful, and secondly, as a way to shape (with the approval of the other board members) the future of how the symphony interacts with the world.

The Influence of the Arts on the Economy

With the NFL lockout still unsettled, perhaps it's time to look at the second-highest form of public entertainment, in terms of billions of dollars in revenue. That form, which creates $14,500,000,000 in revenue each year in the United States, is the performing arts, which comes in at just under $6,000,000,000 less than professional sports, is no small amount of revenue, and more than the movie industry generates. At a time of economic hardship, this study by the U.S. Economic Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources, finds that Americans support the performing arts with their wallets. So, before you get into the mindset that performing artists are doing those performances as a hobby, remember that this is a multi-billion dollar industry. Suddenly, those piano lessons are starting to look like an investment, even if they had absolutely no other benefits (which they do).

Music Instruction Improves Math Performance

From “An Intelligence View of Music Education,” Arthur Harvey, Leka Nu Hou (Hawaii), February 1997.