Becoming an ARTIST

Many of you cried with me when I posted about all of my piano music getting ruined. Thank you for your compassion. I even had a high school friend send me music she had been holding onto since high school. Bless her – really. Such a blessing.

But I’m happy to report some good news on that front. I didn’t actually throw away all of that music; I set it aside to refer to as I reordered. And I pulled out the spoiled copy the other day of the one book I had replaced, trying to find the fingering I had written into one song.

And lo and behold, it was readable! The pages opened. Stiff and yucky, but still somewhat useable. So I checked some other music – apparently, being out of the box and sitting in my somewhat dry house improved their condition somewhat. There are several pieces in there that are at least still salvageable enough for me to play from for a while.

Among those is the book containing the first song I ever played for an offertory at the church I grew up in – a “Love of Jesus” medley. I was in junior high when I played it, and I remember one of the youth leaders, Julie Compton (whom I adored) sitting with me to work on it.

And I remember she annoyed the crap out of me that day.

Because I thought I played this song really well, gosh darn it! And she kept picking it apart! “Slow this part down more – stretch it out. Pick up the pace a little bit here. Don’t worry so hard about getting every note in that chord – hit the ones that matter. Or another idea . . . roll the chord – then it’s easy to hit every note and sounds cool, too.” I still have handwritten notes in the music from her instruction: Roll . . . slow . . . wait . . .

She drove me completely nuts. I SO regretted accepting her offer of help. But time gives us perspective – I realize now what a blessing she was that day. She was instrumental in my evolution from a pianist to an artist. By the time I actually played that piece in our Sunday evening worship service, I realized that music was about more than hitting the correct notes in the correct rhythm at the correct tempo and correct volume. Art is not just about correctness.

As I played through that medley again this week and remembered Julie annoying me, I also realized that I teach my drama students in a similar way as how she taught me to play piano. I’m not sure if that’s good or not – I don’t usually feel qualified to call myself a “drama teacher” because in reality, I don’t have a bloody clue how to teach someone how to act. Nobody ever really taught me how to act. I watched other people, took direction from good directors, and did it. Because I’m a relatively good teacher in general, I feel like I can get the basic skills across to my kids: project, stay open to the audience, slow down, enunciate, enter here, exit here . . .

But when I have students who have moved beyond the basic skills and are ready to become artists, I feel inadequate to the task. That’s when I become a Julie Compton sometimes. I’ll tell them, “Slow down here – like, a LOT. Look at that spot and pause, like you’re remembering . . . then stretch – out – that – line – word – by – word . . . then speedupagain and turn to her when you finish the line.” I mean, yeah – sometimes I get that specific. Which I realize is probably a terrible way to direct, but the thing is, it usually works. They don’t end up doing exactly what I want, but they at least get the feel in their body of what I’m talking about.

Even better, actors who have done this with me before usually end up able to apply what I taught them there to their next scene or their next role. Just like every offertory piece I did after that Love of Jesus medley was more musical than anything I played before it. They figure out that acting is more than saying the correct words at the correct time with the correct blocking. They start to become artists.

When we studied the Renaissance in homeschool, we learned that artists during that time trained by copying the paintings of the masters, stroke for stroke. So, this mimicry technique is not new to me. It’s old school. It gave us Michelangelo and Da Vinci.

So, I’m not going to apologize for it. And maybe I should find Julie and thank her for it.