Author: Lolly Lewis

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Community Workshops

Amateur Music Network AT HOME

 


What a crazy time. Even while some segments of our society are able to restore their equilibrium and restart their activities, music is really taking it on the chin. How can we even imagine concerts in a world where people can’t gather? It’s going to be a long time before we get back to normal.

We have to create our own normal, a musical world we can inhabit in the meantime. Hooray for the new tools that allow us to play “together” even though we’re apart. And AMN is not going to stop doing workshops; we just have to do them from a distance. We invite you to join us in a virtual world of music connection.

We still want to connect you with amazing mentors. Our “At Home” series will allow these wonderful artists to welcome you into their worlds. Mentors will still share their passions with you, whether it’s a technique to share and learn, or a conversation about a personal interest that drives a musical life we usually only experience from the stage in performance. And now, with the advantage of online technology, every participant will have the best view in the house. You’ll be able to ask questions and enjoy a flow of information and interaction. It’s not less, it’s different.

We’ve presented two of these workshops so far and we are planning many more. We’re looking forward to some skills-focused sessions with great mentors including Scott Pingel, Evan Price, Nick Platoff, and Sandy Cressman. In June there will be a technical series to help you get up to speed with music recording at home. We’re working on a series of period-instrument workshops. And there will be wonderful conversations with musical luminaries.Take our survey to tell us if there’s a topic you’re particularly interested in exploring! 

We intend to continue offering these workshops as long as we’re forced to stay apart. If they prove valuable enough to stand on their own even when we can return to in-person workshops, they’ll become a permanent part of our AMN offerings.

Amateur Music Network is here for you, and we won’t stop supporting the community in music-making. We continue to look for ways to keep our passion for music alive in a tough time, and hopefully we’ll find them together. So please, as always, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay musical!

Lolly Lewis is a recording producer, amateur singer, and the founder of Amateur Music Network.

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Chamber Music Community Talking about Music

(Take me out to the) music game

photo by Lolly Lewis

They’re renovating the park across from my house. It’s a two-square-block area that includes a playground, a soccer field, and two softball diamonds. I was worried, when they really tore it all out, that they’d use the space for something else, but today it’s almost done and the softball fields, one whole square block, are getting green again. Of course, they don’t seed the field these days; they just roll out huge swaths of lawn. Well, I hope it’s lawn, not plastic, but anyway, from here looking out my window it’s green and it makes me pretty happy. And it reminds me of baseball.

And baseball reminds me of music. No–really. Hear me out.

There was a time, seems like another lifetime now, but I used to be a baseball fan. For several seasons I went to a lot of games, and I have the score books to prove it. 

I love the rhythm of baseball. I love that it simply takes three hours (well, with some pitchers, four), a stretch of time staring at that green expanse of the field that feels like a vacation. Exactly enough time to have the world go away – ahhhhh! – and feel refreshed and ready to dive back into life. And other than your scorebook and pencil, you don’t even have to pack.

I love how the sudden blossoms of action erupt out of nowhere. You take your eyes off the field at your peril. It seems like nothing’s happening, but then, wham! it’s over the fence. And of course, I like a good home run as much as the next guy, as long as the next guy is rooting for my team and it’s my team that hit it. But my favorite thing, by a long stretch, is a double play. There’s something about the way a team moves in the infield, they simply become one thing. They shift together before the pitch, they react together to the hit, partners in this dance, knowing as the ball comes off the bat exactly who will catch, where he’ll throw, where to be and exactly when to be there. Even though, yes they’ve practiced all the permutations a thousand times, still, this time is different, it’s particular, unique. The ball is just the connection between the players, it’s incidental: the infield play is communal, an understanding, a shared breath.

That’s how it’s so much like music. Yes, we all know the notes, and we know what to do, in theory – but when the time comes and you pitch that note, it might be slightly offline and I have to shift without even realizing to catch and pass it on. It’s those instantaneous adjustments that have to happen before you can even know they’re happening, you’re just playing and constantly adjusting to the ball in flight before it even gets hit, you somehow know where it’s going to be and you just be there on time to catch it. 

One time it struck me, watching a string quartet, that they were playing each other’s instruments. Something about the trust between them, and how the musical gestures were passed among them, it really was like the bows were extending across the space between and touching their partners’ strings. Complete mind-sharing. I’ve heard and seen the same thing in jazz, too; it’s the unanimity of impulse and reaction, whether or not every note is written down. 

That’s where the music is: in the rhythm and flow of our minds in complete sync without any possible thought getting in the way. And he’s OUT! Pass me the peanuts and Cracker Jack.

Lolly Lewis is a recording producer, amateur singer, and the founder of Amateur Music Network.

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Orchestra and Symphonic Music Talking about Music

Lonely for music

I miss music.

I miss going to the concert hall. I miss the anticipation, seeing the artists come onstage and get ready to play. I miss the upbeat, the intake of breath, the communal exhalation as the concert begins. I miss immersing into the sound, feeling all the molecules in the air and in my body vibrating together, resonant in rhythm and harmony and in tune with the musical mind of the players and the composer.

I miss the musical journeys, the stories, the surprises and eloquent joys of discovery that unfold along the paths of sound. I miss the humor and passion and anger and longing and love that music can express in such a vivid and physical way.

I am grateful for all the ways that musicians are reaching out to us, playing solos on youtube or facebook, even creating online choruses. We need that in this time of scary isolation.

But live music is different. Musicians respond to the sounds they hear, and react to where the sound is going, not to what they’ve already heard. They are playing the note that’s coming into being, and that sound, as it emerges, blooms into the next sound and the next. They constantly adjust to one another, staying resonant and in tune, sharing creativity at the deepest level. They’re playing the future into being in a constant forward flow. And we lucky listeners are along for the ride.

So, thank you to every musician who’s reaching out through your phone or computer screen to communicate with us. To every presenter and music school who’s finding ways to keep musicians and music students engaged. And until we can all be together again, everyone please stay happy and sane. Someday we’ll be back in the concert hall – maybe not sitting quite so close together, but still – I can’t wait to be in the room where that happens, with you, resonating in that musical air.

Lolly Lewis is a recording producer, amateur singer, and the founder of Amateur Music Network.

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Community Talking about Music

Kathy Angus: singing like a big girl

This is a guest post by Kathy Angus, a retired SFUSD teacher and former arts administrator.  She is currently on the board of AMN and the Chrysalis Foundation.

I recently retired from teaching in the SFUSD public schools. When I first thought about writing a blog post for AMN, I thought I’d focus on the importance of music as a creative force in kids’ lives. For five years, I worked with a music educator from the SF Opera to create (write, compose, stage) a 15-minute opera, based on a social justice topic my 4th and 5th graders had studied all year. The topics ranged from Immigration to civil rights to the environment. It was one of the most transformative experiences some of my students had during their elementary years. But then I realized it transformed me as well, and actually set me up to pursue something I loved, but dreaded sharing, after I retired.

I realized that I am a recently declared amateur musician who grew confidence to participate in community singing groups because of the musical projects and collaborations in my classroom. It’s so much more relaxing to act and sing with 10-year-olds than with adults, where my voice would dry up. Those notes that were so beautiful in the shower stuck somewhere behind my tongue when in the company of others.

I love music down to my toes. I’ve danced since the day I could walk, so I’m one of those people you hate to sit behind at the Symphony because I’m incessantly bobbing my head to the beat, or tapping my knee, or shaking my shoulders — you know what I mean. What it means to me is that music is in my body, and, over the years, I shared my art with audiences in concerts and musicals. The musicals were a mixed bag, however, since the usual instruction was, “It’s ok, you’re a great dancer, but you don’t need to sing.” After a few of those comments, I was too embarrassed to even try to learn. (And, of course, my kids pleading with me not to sing in the car didn’t help.)

Then one year while I was teaching — by then I was into my 60s — the SF Opera Aria program came into my life. We practiced vocalizing through exercises and songs, and then created our own songs, which years later are still stuck in my brain. With a musician coming into my classroom every week all year, and then practicing with the students in between, I found the miracle of repeated practice that gave me the confidence to join a Community Choir, and then another, and then to start taking voice lessons.

I love AMN for their efforts to spread the joy of amateur music making through their workshops and network tools. Someday, I may be ready for Ragnar Bohlin’s brilliant choral workshops, but for now, I’m happy just singing however I can and appreciating the work and practice it takes to improve.

When I worked for Milton Salkind at the Conservatory of Music, he used to frequently stress that “everyone loves to sing.” How right he was! Let’s sing our way through these difficult times and find the joy that lies inside of us.

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AMN mentors Talking about Music Woodwinds

Jerry Simas: home-grown musician

This is a guest post by Jerome Simas, clarinetist with the San Francisco Symphony and a founding AMN board member.

I’ve been a professional musician for so many years now that I’m not even sure I could figure out how long. I grew up in a family that was so passionate about music. Metropolitan Opera broadcasts blaring throughout the house during weekend chores, Boston Pops on PBS, folk singers visiting our house when my sister was a 1970s high school student, marching band practice, and the best-of-all story of family lore of my mom apparently putting me in a laundry basket underneath the piano while she accompanied her amateur singing friends from church and community theater: Fiddler on the Roof, Church hymns, Arthur Fiedler, and La Boheme are all just a big blur in my musical DNA.

My father was an accordionist of some renown in Sacramento and the Bay Area back in the heyday of the post WWII can-do optimism. He played gigs, taught lessons, repaired instruments and kept all seven of us Simas kids fed and clothed…that is until the Beatles hit our shores, and no one wanted to play the accordion anymore. So off he went to other professional pursuits. The clarinet seemed like a natural fit for me…a reed cousin of the accordion. My mom was relatively frugal with expenses, but music lessons were something she could get behind. Sacramento Youth Band, Sacramento Youth Symphony, state honor bands in Fresno, Santa Cruz, and Long Beach…Mom and Dad always made time for these things.

I have three of my dad’s accordions sitting on shelves in the garage. I also have a ukulele that I bought as a fun gift for my partner, Robert. That, too, is sitting forlornly in a corner of the living room gathering dust. Now that I’m home for an undefined period of time and with actual time to practice the clarinet the way I want to and should, I’m finding myself more drawn to these other instruments that remind me of family and days gone by. I don’t even know where to begin, but begin I shall.

During this time of uncertainty, let music be your go-to place. Make music if it means singing your own tunes, producing your creations on your computer, or fumbling your way on a dusty old accordion or ukulele.

I’m blessed to have landed a gig with the San Francisco Symphony with our deep connection to the symphonic greats, world class conductors and soloists, tours (weeps inwardly that we had cancel our last and greatest tour with dear MTT), and playing for our marvelous audiences in San Francisco and beyond. Since my involvement with AMN, I have also been so inspired meeting with and mentoring the Bay Area’s wealth of music makers of all levels. We’ll get through this national crisis. Along the way, the rhythms and melodies of who we are will help to ease the way.