Amateur Music Network founder and director Lolly Lewis talked via Zoom with Cambrian Symphony founder and director Scott Krijnen about Mahler and the need to keep playing and listening to music. “We have to find ways to continue being creative,” Lolly told Scott.
Category: Talking about Music
This is a guest post by Nancy Friedman, an AMN volunteer.
We hope you’ve registered for our October 10 online conversation about “the musician’s toolbox” with
the accomplished and delightful Rufus Olivier Jr. A consummate musician and educator, Rufus is
principal bassoonist with the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet, and a former member of
the San Francisco Symphony. We chatted with him on a warm September afternoon while he was taking
a break from a nonmusical activity: painting his house in Sonoma County, California.
What is “the musician’s toolbox,” and how can amateur musicians use it?
I came up with the idea of the musician’s toolbox when I had to give a talk to some high school kids. I printed up some signs and brought them in a little Craftsman toolbox—that’s right, a literal toolbox. On each piece of paper was something a musician needs to practice to get better: long tones, scales, arpeggios, etudes, and so on.
What’s an example of one of these tools?
Long tones are one of the most important tools, especially for a wind player. They get you in touch with your instrument—you’re breathing through it, and it becomes an extension of you. It may seem like a boring exercise, but it may the most useful and important one. After a while it almost becomes a meditation.
When was the last time you performed for an audience?
Opening night of the ballet’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” was Friday, March 6. It was also closing night—after the performance there was an announcement that the city of San Francisco was shutting down because of the pandemic. The following Tuesday they let us back into the Opera House, and we made a video for ticketholders. It’s really good! I really enjoyed being able to listen to the orchestra without my brain constantly on what I’m doing. [Watch a one-minute excerpt from the recording.]
How have you spent your time since the shutdown?
I’ve been performing since I was 15, and I’ve been with the ballet and opera for 43 years, so the shutdown has been like a long weekend off. I painted my house, fixed my lawnmower, got my motorcycle working. I’ve also continued teaching—one of my Stanford students did her whole graduate recital online, with her family members accompanying her. It was great!
I’ve also made a ton of videos. I get up in the morning, practice, and make a video. [Watch Rufus Olivier Jr.’s video for Music in May, a festival in Santa Cruz that was canceled because of the pandemic.]
How is online teaching working out for you?
It’s definitely getting better. Zoom is getting better! I was even able to play a duet with one of my students on Zoom
This is a guest post by Nancy Friedman, an AMN volunteer, who writes:
“I’ve known Ken Smith as a friend and a photographer for many years, and I’ve enjoyed his Instagram posts and music videos. When I learned that he’d posted a listing on the AMN website, I saw an opportunity to learn more about his musical life and to share our converstion with the AMN community.”
Your listing says you’re a singer-songwriter and rhythm guitar and fingerstyle player. What led to these interests? Did you grow up in a musical family?
My father was in the US Air Force, so we traveled around a lot. My family wasn’t musical, but there was music in the house—mostly Big Band records and country-western radio.
When I was in fourth grade, in Hutchinson, Kansas, students had the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. I thought it would be cool to play drums, but my mother said no. I ended up with a clarinet, but I hated the taste of those reeds! I switched to French horn, but carrying it back and forth to school was too much for me, so I gave up.
By the time I was in high school we were living on the air force base in Newfoundland, Canada. Some guys I knew had formed a band, which sounded like fun. I bought a $13 guitar from the Sears catalog and taught myself to play some chords. But the guys needed a bass player, so I went back to the Sears catalog, bought a bass guitar, and told the guys they’d have to teach me how to play it. We got good enough to play Saturday nights at the teen club on the base. The four of us made $55 a gig. So I guess I was a professional musician for a while!
Are you mostly self-taught? Have you taken any formal lessons?
In high school, we taught each other. It was like the famous story about the Beatles traveling across Liverpool to learn the B7 chord. Wow, a new chord!
In the late 1990s I started taking individual and group classes in jazz guitar and lead guitar at the Blue Bear School of Music in Fort Mason. My teachers there included Jim Peterson; Joe Cunningham, a great guitarist and quiltmaker;
and the late Johnny Nitro of the San Francisco band Johnny Nitro & the Doorslammers. More recently, I’ve twice traveled to Portland, Oregon, to take workshops from the fingerstyle blues guitarist Mary Flower—a wonderful musician and generous teacher. Mary introduced me to the music of Duke Robillard, Albanie Falletta, Guy Davis, and other terrific blues guitarists.
When did you start writing your own songs? What inspires you?
I started writing lyrics in 1974 or 1975, when my first marriage was breaking up. But it took me more than 40 years to put them to music. I learned by listening to songs I liked and studying their structure. I have a limited vocal range—maybe an octave at most—so I pick keys I can sing in.
In 2017, we were displaced for 10 days by the fires here in Santa Rosa. During that time I started writing about the experience, and what came out was “Firefighter in the Smoke.” For the lyrics, I wrote down every word I associated with fires and firefighting, and then started putting them into couplets.
I earned a living for many years as a corporate photographer and videographer, so it was only natural that I’d start making music videos—my own songs, like “Raven Blues,” and traditional songs, like the Irish folk tune “Drill You Drillers,” which was inspired by the soil-sampling crew in my Santa Rosa community!
Tell us about the guitars you’ve built and restored.
I’ve made five guitars from scratch and repaired about 35. I’m self-taught in that area, too—I watched a bunch of online videos. My first guitar was made from Adirondack spruce, mahogany, and, for the neck, pau ferro. I made another guitar from Tennessee sweet gum, Engelmann spruce, walnut, and rosewood. I don’t do inlays—it’s too persnickety.
And then there are all the guitars I’ve repaired and kept. In the room I’m sitting in right now there are 31 guitars.
I haven’t yet made the perfect guitar, and I don’t think I ever will. But that doesn’t keep me from being obsessed.
Raven Blues by Ken Smith from Ken Smith on Vimeo.
This is a guest post by Nancy Friedman, an AMN volunteer.
We were thrilled when Garrett Fischbach posted his teaching services to our online Listings. Not only does Garrett have 25 years’ experience with three of the most prestigious orchestras in the United States, but he also has a true passion for teaching adult amateurs. Furloughed along with the entire Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus since March 31, he spoke to us from his home in New York about his teaching and performing philosophy.
What can students expect from your lessons?
I teach enthusiastic intermediate and advanced violin and viola students of all ages who want to improve their skills, either to perform with friends or community orchestras or simply to get more pleasure out of playing.
As the song goes, “If you become a teacher/By your pupils you’ll be taught.” What is something you’ve learned from a student?
I recently went through old files and came across a folder of essays written by my undergraduate Violin Performance students at Mannes School of Music [in New York] in 2010. I had asked the students to write a paragraph or two about their short- and long-term career goals, and one student wrote these very inspiring words: “The other possibility that I have been contemplating is to just live simply, and have the violin and music in general, as a gift to be cherished, rather than an obligation to be mastered.” A decade on, I couldn’t help wonder what this person was up to. I looked him up, and it turns out he has been doing exactly what he said in that sentence he wrote. He is in fact still playing the violin, but very much on his own terms in his own original way, while making a living doing a variety of other fascinating things. His example gives me much inspiration during these uncertain times.
We love the idea of music as “a gift to be cherished.” Can you tell us more?
In the MET Orchestra, we are of course always listening to great singers—both on and off the stage. The English mezzo Dame Janet Baker once gave an interview in which she said something about this idea of “gift.” She acknowledges that she is “gifted,” and says a friend told her that this gift “is hers to enjoy.” We are not all quite as gifted as Janet Baker, but even amateurs have a gift, and that is the love for the music they play. (Listen to the interview with Janet Baker.)
What is a common challenge amateur musicians face?
A lot of the time amateurs don’t realize just how much they can do. All they need is a little bit of prompting from someone who has the keys and opens the door to a lot of technical challenges that they thought were beyond their reach and also a lot of ways of thinking about the music. That’s what professionals can share with amateurs.
Learn more about Garrett Fischbach’s teaching services on our Listings page.
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.