greatest in the known universe

A couple of blocks from the Epcor Centre, where the Calgary Philharmonic plays, there is a pizza restaurant called "AAA Great Pizza Company". (The name is "AAA Grate Pizza" on the receipts, but it's "Great" on the sign.) It's just your average hole-in-the-wall pizza joint, with a few solitary people sitting at small cracked tables, eating cheap slices with plastic utensils. But just outside the door, one of those folding placard signs boasts:

WE MAKE ONE OF THE GREATEST PIZZAS IN THIS GALAXY, OR ANY OTHER GALAXY, OR THE KNOWN UNIVERSE....

Then it starts talking about the quality of the dough, the sauce, and the value compared to other pizza options, challenging the reader to make his own comparison, which can only heighten his appreciation for the greatness of the AAA Great Pizza Company's offerings. I didn't memorize the whole sign, but somehow that first line struck me.

I'm not much of a food critic, and actually I didn't even try the pizza, opting instead for a cheesy lasagna in an aluminum dish, with some semi-burnt garlic bread on the side. What struck me more than the food though, was the attitude demonstrated on that sign. I've noticed this kind of chest-thumping bravado at other Italian restaurants - they're always proclaiming themselves "The Famous Original Ray's", for example - and I wonder if it's a part of Italian culture, or just a necessary conceit when you're competing against so many rivals.

In any case, I thought as I munched my respectable if non-universe-shattering lasagna, I sort of like it that the pizza cook at AAA have a certain swagger. If he considers himself the best pizza cook in the universe, he's not going to skimp on the ingredients, or leave it in the oven too long (like the garlic bread), and he's going to make sure when he tosses it up in the air that it doesn't splatter on the wall or the grubby floors.

It reminded me of back before I entered conservatory, and I really thought of myself as a great bass player - I was voted Most Musical in my senior class (along with a violinist, Nelly Kim, who is now playing in the New York City Opera orchestra); I won the state solo competition, and I got to play principal in the All-Northwest orchestra. All this really meant something, before I moved east and realized that I wasn't even the best bass player on my residence hall floor.

Far from it - I had some serious issues to work on. Probably it was a good thing to get that shot of reality, in the long run. In the short run though, it felt like my playing had degenerated. All the things I thought were awesome and amazing, now just sounded hackish and lame, and every lesson brought up something else I couldn't do very well. I think it's a hard adjustment for music students, or any kind of fish moving to a bigger pond. Your self-image is shot, and the confidence that allowed you to rise above yourself, suddenly just pulls you down. I remember hearing another music student say that her best playing had been for college auditions, her senior year in high school - it had all been downhill from there, and she was in her second or third year at this point.

Maybe her self-image had gotten skewed in the opposite direction, which probably isn't that uncommon either. As soon as we rely on comparisons and other people's praise to assess our own worth, we're prone to these kinds of delusional swings of confidence and self-loathing. There may not be any really objective evaluations in the arts, but at least we can find our own values, preferences, and ideals, so we don't have to judge ourselves by a different standard every day.

Or try and measure ourselves against bass players in another galaxy - who can bother worrying about them? At least we know their pizza isn't as great as ours.

think globally, record locally

Recently at the CPO we recorded music for a television production of Nutcracker, to be aired at 8 pm on December 23, on CBC I think. My colleague Jeff did a nice job of chronicling our involvement over three entertaining days. I was right there alongside of him, experiencing both the highs ("We got the top of the harp gliss to sync with the tear drop falling!") and the lows ("Let's try those 300 measures of fff tremolo one more time, there was something ticking in the booth.")

At one point a producer came out to say hello, thank us for our fine work - and then he explained why the music hadn't been licensed from pre-existing recordings, or outsourced to some orchestra in Slovenia. I hadn't realized this, but that is where a lot of film and television scores get recorded, because Eastern European orchestras will work for lower wages. They don't advertise that fact - no movie poster ever boasts "Score recorded in Bucharest!" - but it's a way of cutting some of the costs.

This was the rare case in which a production team really does take pride in using local performers. The dancers, choreographer, and other artistic staff were all based in Alberta; they had insisted that the music should come from Calgary as well. And while most of the music was Tchaikovsky - numbers from Nutcracker as well as bits from the 5th and 6th Symphonies - quite a bit of transitional music was by a local composer, John Estacio, who was on stage with us for the entire session.

Last month I read Barbara Kingsolver's latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which was where I first heard of this term 'locavore'. It's a person who tries to consume only what is grown locally. So things like avocados, bananas, and olive oil, which are so common in our stores we might think they're local, are off the table. I'm not going to be that strict, but it's definitely altered my approach to shopping and eating. I won't bother looking at asparagus, since it's long out of season here, and a couple weeks ago I canned a huge box of tomatoes, thinking I'll save them for the winter when fresh tomatoes are a distant memory.

I wonder though, if any locavores will ever get as particular about their music as they are with their food. There certainly is a huge difference between live and recorded music - probably as big as the difference between fresh and canned spinach. And it seems important (to me anyway) to support a community of local artists and musicians, as well as farmers and food artisans. Ideally this would include local composers, conductors, instrument makers...

Of course, as this producer talked about these great local ideals, I began to feel a bit like that Ecuadoran banana in the supermarket. I've only lived here in Calgary a few weeks; and I've never played in this particular Nutcracker production; and I'd be hard pressed to name a single Albertan composer (besides John Estacio!). There's a case to be made for the occasional importthough, I think - no chocolate or coffee grows in Calgary, after all. And you can't have a Nutcracker without a few imported nuts.

practicing complexity

Polyface Farm is built on the efficiencies that come from mimicking relationships found in nature, and layering one farm enterprise over another on the same base of land. In effect, Joel [Salatin, Polyface Farm's owner] is farming in time as well as in space - in four dimensions rather than three. He calls this intricate layering "stacking" and points out that "it is exactly the model God used in building nature." The idea is not to slavishly imitate nature, but to model a natural ecosystem in all its diversity and interdependence, one where all the species "fully express their physiological distinctiveness." He takes advantage of each species' natural proclivities in a way that not only benefits that animal but other species as well. So instead of treating the chicken as a simple egg or protein machine, Polyface honors - and exploits - "the innate distinctive desires of a chicken," which include pecking in the grass and cleaning up after herbivores. The chickens get to do, and eat, what they evolved to do and eat, and in the process the farmer and his cattle both profit. What is the opposite of zero-sum? I'm not sure, but this is it.

- The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, p. 215

Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma has been a life-changing experience for me, and not only in terms of rethinking my eating habits. The passage I've quoted above is from a chapter called "The Animals: Practicing Complexity", concerning an incredible and sustainable farm in Virginia, Polyface Farm. Simply calling Polyface "sustainable" actually doesn't do it justice - farmer Joel Salatin (who recently began his own blog) has improved his land markedly through his innovative farming methods.

"Innovative" might also be misleading here, since the real innovator here is nature itself. It's gotten me thinking about how to better practice complexity in my own life. Natural systems always tend towards complexity, diversity, layering - as Pollan frequently writes, you can't change one thing without affecting every thing. While I'm not quite sure what the "innate distinctive desires" of a bass player would be, I'm pretty sure what they would not include - endless repetition, lack of stimulation, boredom. It would mean treating oneself as a thoughtful, artistic entity, not a sound-producing machine.

Of course, in the course of orchestral rehearsals we're not always so lucky. It is no small task to treat 80-100 musicians as complex and distinctive individuals, and so many conductors run their rehearsals as the equivalent of the CAFO, the confined animal feeding operations which Salatin rightly deplores. Other more sophisticated rehearsal technicians are able to draw out musicians' minds as well as their sounds, with predictably superior results.

On our own practice time, we owe it to ourselves and our art to not behave like an animal in a CAFO, forcibly ingesting excerpts and etudes. The challenge is to create variety and indulge some of our 'natural proclivities,' while still operating a structured, productive practice session. I think this can be done, and can be much more efficient than the repeat-ad-nauseam approach to practice - it just takes a good deal more thought and experimentation.

I'm sure these issues come up in any field, and that the "innate distinctive desires" of a web designer or flight attendant demand equal consideration and respect. I recall reading about the new models of car manufacturing created by Toyota and other Japanese companies in the 1980's, and how they increased workers' productivity and job satisfaction by shifting through multiple tasks, rather than the assembly-line mentality of Ford and GM. We have to realize that in life and work, as in farming, simpler does not always mean better, or more efficient.

"holding up all this falling"

While coaching a clarinetist's Mozart Concerto in a master class the other evening, Michael Tilson Thomas brought up a Rilke poem, which I think was this one:

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up, as if orchards were dying high in space. Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no." And tonight the heavy earth is falling away from all other stars in the loneliness. We're all falling. This hand here is falling. And look at the other one. It's in them all. And yet there is Someone, whose hands infinitely calm, holding up all this falling. Rainer Maria Rilke

He made the point that every leaf falls in its own individual way - even though they all might be saying "no", it is a slightly different no in each case. And so he challenged the clarinetist to explore different ways of executing the graceful falling gesture of the first phrase, and to find one suited to his own personality and his conception of the piece. He quickly came up with something that was very different than what MTT had sung - but delightful nonetheless.

It was an interesting exchange, and a reminder of how idiosyncratic the performing arts can be. I often find myself trying to make things "right", meaning in tune and in time, among other things. I think much less often about how to make things "right" in mood, in gesture, or in psychological terms - even though all these are aspects we respond to immediately. It's why that poem speaks to us in such a beautiful way.

This also reminded me of a passage from Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in an essay called "Nothing Special":

Of course, whatever we do is the expression of our true nature, but without this [Zen] practice it is difficult to realize. It is our human nature to be active and the nature of every existence. As long as we are alive, we are always doing something. But as long as you think, "I am doing this," or "I have to do this," or "I must attain something special," you are actually not doing anything. When you give up, when you no longer want something, or when you do not try to do anything special, then you do something. When there is no gaining idea in what you do, then you do something. In zazen what you are doing is not for the sake of anything. You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice.

I think it's wonderful to think that just by acting in a mindful, unaffected way, one can manifest one's true nature - something entirely unique to oneself. And of course it is true that just as no two voices sound alike, no two hands fall quite the same way, and no two musicians sound the same. This is the magic of musical performance - while we may have our standards, and follow standard practices and forms, no live performance needs to sound standard.

It's worth reminding ourselves of this, I think, in a world where too many things have lost any taste of individuality. Just yesterday I was reading Eric Schlosser's essay "Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good", which appeared originally in the Atlantic Monthly. In answering his title's question, Schlosser penetrates the secrets of the "flavor industry" and reveals that a great deal of the flavors we crave and consume daily are synthesized by a few little-known chemical companies; not only that, but these companies all seem to be located along one stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. They work to insure that every french fry tastes pretty much the same as any other - as does every box of cereal, cup of yogurt, or can of soda. Lest you think I've strayed too far from the subject, here's a bit from the article:

One flavorist compared his work to composing music. A well-made flavor compound will have a "top note" that is often followed by a "dry-down" and a "leveling-off," with different chemicals responsible for each stage. The taste of a food can be radically altered by minute changes in the flavoring combination. "A little odor goes a long way," one flavorist told me.

They may be sophisticated artists in flavor manipulation, but reading this article was a bit like finding I had been living (or at least eating) in the Matrix, a world entirely manufactured and designed to deceive my sensory perceptions. It's a bit disconcerting but well worth reading - an excerpt is available online, and Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation may cover some of the same ground.

Many might argue that we live in a musical matrix as well - and one of the prime culprits they would point to is Muzak. I have a slightly more positive view of the company though, after reading another recent article, "The Soundtrack of Your Life" by David Owen. This appeared in the April 10th New Yorker, and it explains the company's development from a producer of aural narcotics to a much more sophisticated use of music in "audio branding." They're still piping in music that might not even catch your attention - but it's being used to communicate a definite mood, concept, or even physical activity.

I suppose all this audio branding seems a bit nefarious and evil, at least until you are aware of what's being done. Once I realized how they do it, I was almost grateful to these clever people who design these ingenious sound messages. I guess the differences between the chemical companies' "flavorists" and Muzak's "creative managers" may not be all that great; but I would much rather unknowingly consume a Beatle's song than a ground-up insect. Given the choice, of course.

Thanks for reading!