Hungry?...What feeds you?

So I was judging a choral contest today and heard some good performances and some choirs made me scratch my head. Not in a bad way. Let me explain. I don't mean to boast, but I know a vast amount of Middle School Choral Literature. Almost every choir that performed I knew at least 2 of their 3 pieces or had performed 1 or 2 of the songs. There were only a few groups that I was not really familiar with their music and I scratched my head and said, "They did a good job, but I could not teach that music all day. Does that make the director and kids happy? Does it feed their musical soul?" So it made me think what feeds me?

Personally I have always been the musician that wanted to do music different from everyone else. In High School I never wanted to play or sing the "popular" solos or what everyone else played. I remember being in 10th grade and telling my horn teacher that I wanted to work on lip trills and play something with a cadenza and some notes above the staff. To which he really had to search, but honored my request even though I was young and gave me Haydn's Horn Concerto No. 1, first movement. Needless to say, I expanded my range played a cadenza, and learned to play lip trills, and got a 2nd Division at UIL State Solo and Ensemble Contest, the best I every got as a soloist. This tradition continued in horn by playing 4th horn on Overture to the Magic Flute, 1st Div. at State, and a Fugue from a Hindemith Horn Quartet, also 1st Div. It also continued in college when my voice teacher tried to give me Vaughan Williams songs to sing, to which I said "Everyone else sings them and I don't want to." Her reply was, "Well you have to sing something that's good for your voice." I still have not sung a Vaughan Williams "Songs of Travel" piece, but I do appreciate them now. What she did not understand, but my horn teacher did, and I am realizing is that music that is unexpected and challenging to the ear and the instrument is what feeds me.

This has continued in my life as a teacher and as a music listener. I still choose music for my students that they would not be exposed to outside of my class or the more traditional music that everyone else does for Contest. Their reaction to this is rewarding and feeds my soul. Case in point, Shamorra. She was in my Non Varsity Choir my second year teaching and we sang Handel "Lascia Ch'io Pianga." Everyday she would ask if we were going to sing, "Lah-see-ah Kee-oh Pee-ahn-gah," and I would of course correct her. The start of next year she was not in choir, but came to an open house and stood in her old spot and said, "Mr. Todd I loved that song, what was it 'Lah-see-ah Kee-oh Pee-ahn-gah,' that was my favorite." To which her and her cousin Cecely started singing it how they remembered it. Another memory is of Pretta. I arranged the folk song "Gypsy Rover" for the girls and she would ask every day, the whole year I might add, if we were going to sing it because "That's my jam Mr. Todd." My girls this year have also had similar moments, but I will always remember showing off some choir pieces on my iPod and the amazement of just how many sounds a choir can make and how expressive it
can be. And of course, their comment of "I wish we could listen to his music all the time." Experiences they would never have had by listening to the local hip hop station or MTV.

I digress. Personally, I seek the same things in music I listen to in the car and at home. As I write this I have on the Ballads of Miles Davis. Oddly enough I became a fan not while I was in Jazz band in High School, but from the movie "Runaway Bride." The song "It Never Entered My Mind" is playing when Richard Gere proposes to Julia Roberts in the city. There's many things about that scene that still resonant in my mind, but the music was so fresh and intimate and really captured the spontaneous nature of the scene. Miles mutes the trumpet and the main A theme starts with three repeated notes and then meanders around this same note, starting and stopping, then repeating again after falling into the same repeated notes, but with a little more hesitation. Each time that melody comes back it changes, the third time the repeated notes are bent. It is such a laid back chart and it feels so effortless. But, those notes keep the entire song from feeling predetermined and mapped out, it is unexpected. Even listening to it many times it just feels exciting and unpredictable. I've done a Jazz Unit with my students this last term and we have listened to a broad selection of music over and over again with listening guides. I am usually good about understanding music from a score, but I'm amazed at what my ears discover the third, fourth, or tenth time I listen to the same piece. The discovery of the layers washes away the dirt on my soul.

That's the second thing that feeds my soul...layers and complexity. How I discover something new each time I teach a piece or hear a piece, whether it be on my own or while I'm judging. I feel that society in general is too satisfied with knowing very little and being content with good enough or getting an A or a 1st Division rating. That does not feed me. Example: I've taught two great kid and crowd pleasing pieces (Niska Banja and Yo Le Canto Todo El Dia) that look hard, but in fact are not very hard and found it unsatisfactory. The kids still enjoy them, but not me. One of the most rewarding songs I've every taught that gets me so excited is "Jubilate Deo" by Michael Praetorius. I've never performed it as a singer, but as a director I continue to find deeper layers and more to pull out of the song, and I've done it more than once. When they finally get one thing the onion opens and there is more to be done and more after that. This feeds me. Something so simple which is so rich, fruitful and sustaining.

So, since I try to introduce you to new music here is my recommendation for feeding. More Abigail Washburn. I promise this is the last time I will talk about her, but she has put out two partial albums that I must talk about: Afterquake and Shanghai Restoration Project: Remixes. Buy them and then check out her website. On Afterquake she collected songs and sounds from the Chinese countryside after the earthquake in Sichuan. She has video field recordings and transcripts of the interviews with the singers. It's nice to see how someone can take something like a field recording and make it appealing and marketable to a wide audience. The beats are a little contrived, but her passion and vision has fed my soul. Also, check out "Old Timey Dance Party" on the Remix Album. I happened to teach an English choral arrangement (Kang Ding Flower Song) of this Chinese folk tune to my 6th graders this year and did not really enjoy it, but now that I have heard it in Chinese with a beat under it I love it. I will also be buying the traditional folk melody.

What feeds your soul? Bon appetit!