How to crave criticism

Loved this podcast. Looking forward to more.

https://www.ted.com/talks/worklife_with_adam_grant_dear_billionaire_i_give_you_a_d_minus?referrer=playlist-worklife_with_adam_grant

Key takeaways:

• Do you want to get better or be perceived as good?
• We need a "challenge network." People we trust to give us honest feedback and push us to get better by telling us the stuff we don't want to hear; This is not our support network, who tell us what we want to hear.
• In order for "radical candor" to be received, at the same time we are challenging the person directly, the person must believe that we care about them personally.
• Feedback is just information.
• How quickly can you go from pain to "where's the lesson?" Pain + Reflection = Progress
• The concept of a "second score" which is for how you handle the feedback. The best way to prove yourself is to show that you are willing to improve yourself.

like a phoenix

So, I'm going to try to revive this thing. I'll try to catch up on some of the things I've been doing recently and perhaps some things I did over the last few years if I can remember!

A nice Tonalization description by Bonnie Hampton

I love this answer by Bonnie Hampton in The Strad. She is responding to the question: What is the most powerful exercise you ever use that brings the quickest, biggest change, in any area of technique?

This might not be called a ‘powerful’ exercise: it is simply a way of playing scales and arpeggios. Attention should be on hands and arms feeling very relaxed, and intonation being clear and true. The weight is in only one finger at a time, with the rest of the hand relaxed. The bow is making good, free contact with the string, producing an open, vibrant tone. Just checking that one is feeling one’s flexibility and hearing the quality of sound brings one’s attention to working ‘with’ the instrument.

The Real Humanities Crisis (Gary Gutting, NY Times)

I've enjoyed/agreed with pretty much everything Mr. Gutting has written in the series "The Stone" in the NY Times.

Pacific Standard: Want Quick, Accurate Thinking? Ask a Musician

From the magazine Pacific Standard:

Want Quick, Accurate Thinking? Ask a Musician

What to say when you're asked to work for free

link

This used to come up for me much more often than it does now, but it is still amazing to me how people find it normal to pay for just about everything other than art.

Why We Like Sad Music (NYT)

Why We Like Sad Music (NY Times Op-Ed)

It boils down to the fact that we are not in fact in trouble. It is more like empathy. I think it's also why some people like roller coasters and scary movies. You know rationally that you are not in danger.

NY Times OpEd: Is Music the Key to Success

hint: the answer is it can be

Although there are many transferable lessons from doing music, the passion/love for music itself comes first. This is needed to unlock the energy to do the work of developing skills. Musical skills open all these further opportunities (collaboration, creativity, etc.). 

Love-->Work-->Skills-->everything else

Article Link Here or read below

Two not to miss

10 Easy Ways To Optimize Your Music Practice

Getting Kids To Practice Music — Without Tears Or Tantrums

Another repost here of two excellent articles (blog posts) from NPR's Deceptive Cadence by Anastasia Tsioulcas. The links are above and the articles are in full below. I do this as a way of sharing, but also as a way of saving things I might want to return to occasionally. By the way, the youtube video included below is from an excellent series of MANY short videos done by David Finckel on various aspects of cello playing, practice, and performance. An excellent resource. Enjoy:

Free and worthwhile!

If you would like to know more about "modern" music but don't know where to start, this free online course could be just the opportunity for you! It is taught by two faculty from The Curtis Institute of Music and starts October 1.

From the Repertoire: Western Music History through Performance

Let the Kid Study Music, Already

I'm not on Linked in, but I did read this excellent short post there after a friend passed it on. Great perspective here by a mom on the value of a music education (in college and beyond). Enjoy.

Let the Kid Study Music, Already!

Two years ago, my eldest children (boy-girl twins) graduated high school. I remember standing in the lobby outside the auditorium after their last high school concert, waiting for them to join my husband and me. I had kept it together pretty well through the concert, letting at most half a dozen tears fall as I thought about all the recitals, lessons, pool parties, science fairs and other growing-up experiences that were now behind us.

On the wall outside the auditorium hung a framed portrait of the senior class. I studied it as I waited for my two performers to emerge.

Here's a kid my son played soccer with, back in third grade. This six-foot-plus beanpole over here used to ride his bike with training wheels down our driveway. Looking at 500 kids about to head off to their destinies, I felt the usual mix of pride, joy and sadness at the end of an era - but mostly pride. A father stood next to me, also surveying the faces of the graduating seniors.

"One of these kids yours?" asked the dad. "Two of them," I said, "this guy up here and this girl, down on the first row." "What are they going to do in college?" he asked. "They're both going to study music," I said. "Oh, no!" exclaimed the dad as he turned and walked away -

"More starving artists!"

How do parents across the country watch their children grow into talented musicians, see the kids' love of and gift for music, beam at countless concerts and marching-band performances, then suddenly balk when the kid says "I want to study music."?

El Sistema in the UK

Julian Lloyd Weber on his involvement with an El Sistema style social program in Great Britten

On fearless performing

Jeff Nelson, Canadian Brass hornist and Indiana University Associate Professor gives ten tips on fearless performing.

Some great advice here, folks.

NY Times: Mozart vs. the Beatles

Another excellent contribution by Garry Gutting in the NY Times philosophy series called The Stone. This one concerns high art vs. low art. Loved it. Link

NY Times article: Why Do I Teach?

NY Times Opinion Piece: Why Do I Teach?

I enjoyed this short piece touching on the purpose of a college education, and a philosophy of teaching. The nut:

"We should judge teaching not by the amount of knowledge it passes on, but by the enduring excitement it generates."