The Tempo of You
With Stephen Neely, Dalcroze License
Recorded June 6, 2024
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In this 75-minute collaboration, we will explore the idea of a personal inner tempo and then consider the challenge of “being music” that is at tempos more-than and less-than our authentic selves. How am I to feel the reality of another? With examples from Bach, La Bottine Souriante, and Satie, we will consider the difference between playing the notes of and being the music of another.
It's great to see you all.
Thanks, uh, for coming. Um, and happy. What's today?
Thursday? Yes.
I'm like not grounded at all.
And so, uh, uh, very selfishly, let's just take a minute to
stand and breathe for a moment.
Um, the session's called The Tempo of You.
Um, we might also retitle it the word longing,
which is an active word, not a desire,
but an actual act of becoming longer.
So we're gonna try to think about these two things today a
little bit, um, as we go.
Um, uh, if you put your feet under your shoulders
and your arms, your side, put your head on top of your body,
eyes open or close as you desire.
But would you just breathe for a moment?
And when you notice the gate of the breath,
and as soon as I ask you to notice it, it changes.
So it won't be the breath that you had just before,
but try to find a normalized breath.
Just something that feels comfortable to you.
I'd like you to pay particular attention to.
If you're holding your breath
or attempted to hold your breath
and try to let go of that, your,
maybe we'll say authentic breath or your natural breath
or the breath, that's you, just goes in and out.
It doesn't grip and wait and freak out. Intense.
And, and second guess itself, it just comes in
and then it goes out
and there's a naturalness about it, which is
so much the point of what I'd like to talk about today.
So there's just a naturalness.
So you can think authentic or natural, or organic or native.
Any of those kinds of ideas will kind of work.
So again, just let yourself in and let yourself out.
And I'd like you to be a little bit aware
of the tempo of that breath.
Nothing too strict. It's allowed to change tempo.
And you don't need to know a metronome number at all,
I don't think in terms of any numbers ever.
But you're allowed to just think it's about this fast.
And then you open your eyes
and take a deeper breath now, sort of a whoa,
and then a little stretch up and toes.
Get up there if you can, if your ankles and knees
and whatever will permit get on up.
And then I'd like you to put your left arm
above your head and have your right arm.
Grab your left, uh, uh, what this called wrist.
You can stretch it higher.
And then you can let your heels come down while you
lean to your right.
And if you got a little more lean while exhaling, go for it.
Tend to hurt a little. Don't hurt yourself though,
but a little bit of pressure is fine.
And then relax your breath and go back the toes
and keep right arm up, left hand.
It grabs the right wrist, extend it higher.
And then you're gonna try to keep it ex pulling forward
while it leans over.
So it's still reaching for that far wall.
Reaching, reaching, reaching, exhale,
and maybe lean into it just a little more.
And then if you want the advanced version,
look under your arm at the ceiling.
We're gonna do it all one more time.
Take a good breath, flow it out.
Left arm, left wrist.
The action is an extending like you're
growing, growing, growing, growing.
And you're gonna keep growing
as you reach toward the far wall.
Keep growing and maybe look under your arm up at the seats.
And then try to breathe through it.
Notice how you're tempted to maybe grip
and hold your breath, whatever's gripping
and fighting you right now.
See if you can just let it go even a little bit.
And then back shake.
And then right higher, right wrist, it extends
and grows like a tree still grows, still growing,
still growing, reaching, reaching, reaching.
It's an action, not a pose. Maybe look under your arm.
See this? Let go of whatever's gripping,
Uh, And relax it.
Half little twist,
a little wiggle and whatever you want.
I drove this morning from Pittsburgh,
so I spent the last two and a half hours in the car.
So a little bit early. This is my first boat.
I didn't get to do Don's warmup.
So you all are way ahead of me today.
Turn your neighbor, shake your hand, tell em good morning.
Good morning,
Good morning.
The um, uh, good, can you, um, picture, uh,
I assume maybe most of you were at Don's warmup over there,
and then you thought, oh my goodness,
I have to get to that concert hall.
Where is it? Um, I'm so glad I got Samantha walk here.
I was not gonna find it.
It wasn't anywhere near where I thought it was.
Um, and uh, and so you thought, oh, I'm leaving there.
I have to get to here. I'm gonna go to Stevens class.
Um, uh, what was the pace of that walk?
Can you just go for a little walk on the
stage here at that case?
This is your, I'm getting to, man, Aaron was crook.
I did not walk here that night.
You're not worried about anybody else. This is just you.
This is you being you, you being you.
It's something about you being you
and relax right there.
And you think, my goodness, that's quite a tempo.
Some of you are really cooking.
I'm amazed that actually, that that's how quick you are.
Um, I'm, I'm not often that the, the fastest in the room.
I'm not often that quick.
Even when I think I'm kind of pushing it.
Um, and I can walk, I think at a clip,
but some of you are really moving around, which is
so cool, so interesting.
Um, each of you have a default.
I have to assume that if that's the one you chose, that
that's rather comfortable to me.
Like, I dunno, just like me, it's just what I do.
It's just kind of comfortable to me.
That's, that's, that's how I am. I'm just, I don't know.
I wasn't making a statement.
I wasn't asking anybody to look at me.
It's just kind of, I got where I was going.
That's maybe first example of the tempo of you.
Something you by default will grab a hold of.
It's comfortable. It's something that feels normal.
You're, you're not performing,
you're not doing something other than, it's just,
I don't know, it's just where it is.
Um, it's just where it's, um, let's, uh,
Let's try this, which you, now, you can be at the same tempo
or a completely different tempo.
It really, so doesn't matter if they match.
So by all means, choose a different tempo.
If for the next instruction, it feels more comfortable
to do something different than you just did, um,
I'd like you to walk the alphabet.
And so you're just gonna say the alphabet to yourself.
Um, and, and if English isn't your first language,
your alphabet, or like you say any, I don't care, count
to anything, you can count or you can alphabet
or you can whatever.
I'm gonna say A, B,
C, D, C, F.
And I'm just gonna walk and under my breath,
I'm just gonna speak alphabet.
Um, and I, I assume you all are amazing students.
You probably wouldn't have found a way in this room if you
weren't a really good student.
Um, uh, and
so you just watched your professor model behavior
and now you'll be so tempted to want to grab my tempo, um,
because I just showed you what's obviously the right answer.
Um, and instead, I think you to try to forget that.
Be like, screw, I know nothing about me.
And I'd like you to instead close your eyes, take a breath,
and then say the alphabet to yourself.
And then find a compromise
between the one you would speak and the one you would walk.
Um, and then walk and elevator yourself.
We are looking for something that doesn't feel contrived.
It doesn't need to be, it should not be performative.
It just is. It's just you and your alphabet.
There's no baggage here.
Lovely pause there.
Turn to your neighbor. Tell him good morning.
Good morning, good
Morning. You can make eye
contact with somebody
and go ahead and face your neighbor.
Let's see who's in the room quick.
Layla, make it. And again, good morning, neighbor.
The, uh, the, uh, what you're gonna do is, um, let's see.
We can do it a couple ways. Noel.
Yes, Noel
and I gonna link an, um, so you're gonna link an arm
and the trio will do the same.
You're gonna link an arm and other than the trio, everybody,
well first everybody link an arm, everybody link an arm,
face the same way, link an arm.
Good. And other than the trio, um, shoulder in front leads.
Um, so if your shoulder's in front,
you're leading the first little round, um, in the trio,
middle, middle person leads in the trio.
And all we're gonna do, and I'm, you're gonna, oh, good.
I'm gonna lead them for the moment. Actually, Melissa,
I'm gonna let ask you to let go for just a moment.
And I'm gonna give you Noel back.
And, oh, you don't have to walk away.
I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you Noel back in
just a, in just a moment.
And so, what Noel and I are gonna do, I'm leading.
And so my tempo matters 'cause I'm the leader.
We're gonna find my tempo.
Noel's tempo, doesn't matter at all in this moment.
Um, so Noel's just trying to try to find me.
He's going to figure out what is, what am I doing?
All we're gonna do is walk. And you know that in my mind,
I may be thinking the alphabet, but we don't
need to say it out loud at all.
I'm choosing my tempo based on my comfortable alphabet.
And so I think to myself this,
and we're just gonna try to get in step with each other
so we're not walking beside each other.
We're trying to walk together.
And in the first little round, I went to ignore door.
We got a good elbow.
But other than that, I'm not speeding up
or slowing down to help them.
I'm trying to be authentic. Alphabet me.
And he's gonna try to be like, oh, what is that?
That is not what I was doing at all.
That's nothing different than I was doing. Right?
And we're fighting each other a little bit.
Nos doing a nice job of adjusting and trying to find me.
Thank you for that.
Um, I feel seen, um, uh, Melissa and Is back.
You've got a shoulder. Somebody's in front.
Leslie, if you're in Mark with Deborah, um,
tell her good morning though, um, and shoulder.
But go for a walk. Ignore your neighbor.
Now, person who's leading, especially a rehearsed musician,
it's really hard to ignore your
Neighbor. And if you're
a good, and if you're a good teacher,
it's really hard to ignore your neighbor.
But I really want you to just try to be on your path.
And then if you're the follower,
boy, you got some work to do.
You gotta find this person.
Tell hell not you is this person, they're so not you.
Or maybe you just found your soulmate
and you just, you just locked in.
Good. And you may pause.
This is at Carnegie Mellon at my university.
This is how we're choosing freshman
roommates Pair up.
And then once you can find your good tempo,
then you'll know you're gonna be okay.
Could you please switch shoulders, please?
Let's sides.
When I, what I want is just different
leaders, different, yeah.
I want the other person to lead. It really doesn't matter
whose shoulders in front, that's just a
cue to help it be clear.
But like the other person will lead.
Um, sometimes when I teach this type of thing,
I'll make my students switch space,
even though there's no reason, except
that it's kind of silly and playful.
So sometimes well, so go ahead. Switch.
Switch sides of your favor. Go ahead.
If you were on the right now, middle left, switch sides,
you are the point.
Good. And so now you're on the opposite side
and you have the new leader.
Now, new leader, you're influenced by what you saw me do.
And you're influenced by what your neighbor just did.
'cause you're an awesome person who cares about others.
Um, but for the moment, I'd like you to try to forget them.
I'd like you to remember when we stood in the circle
and we were just breathing, and you were just you
and you were allowed to be exactly what you were.
I'd like you to take a breath.
I'd like you to say the alphabet to yourself by your tempo,
which is not influenced by your neighbor ideally.
Um, and then as you're ready, initiate your walk.
And your neighbor's gonna be a little clunky.
They're not gonna be right with you for a little bit.
And you're gonna ignore them. They're gonna find you. Go.
We're just gonna try to settle in for let you walk
for another 20 seconds.
And what I want you to notice, both sides, leader follower
is how it probably didn't just lock in.
And there's a little bit of give
and click, give and take a little.
I had to be a little slower.
Is this leader keeping a steady tempo? I'm not sure.
And they don't have to. They're just doing their alphabet.
Maybe their alphabet steams up and slows down.
And I'm gonna let you go for another couple seconds.
And I'd like you to see a, you may,
if you believe you don't wanna talk about it.
If you believe you found this person, are you together
or are you still known?
Thanks. And you may pause,
tell you neighbor walking with you.
Somebody.
As chamber musicians,
we care very much if we find the perfect lockstep with our,
with our partner for an alphabet walking game.
Maybe one, there wasn't enough time
or maybe two, we will this.
I mean, we got so much work to do before you, me,
and you would ever actually move, meet together.
It's okay. So maybe you just found an amazing chamber
partner and the two of you were immediately a duet
and it felt absolutely the same.
Or maybe you thought, this is kind of rough,
but head little bit behind.
When we were together for four steps and then we worked.
Or if I was gonna teach this student,
I know there's a million teachers in this room.
I, I know what I would do next
and play like this and do these things.
It's okay if it didn't quite calm down.
It's a short, short little bit together.
What I'm more interested in is that you feel the ahead
behind together,
and that you can sort of figure out,
you know, how is that happening?
Let's try a different version. Um, what I'd like you,
and if you've hung out with me, you, you know,
this little one, um, we, uh, I, I, I'm a,
I assume everybody is a nature lover.
Um, love, love me, a good walk in the woods, um,
and in, uh, in Pennsylvania,
and I assume in Ohio, pretty similar.
Um, there was a wildflower that comes out, right,
just went away, um, called the Illa.
I don't know if you know the terrarium or not,
but it's this very precious little white, extremely fragile
wildflower that only comes out for about four days a year.
Um, and it just, it blooms and it's perfect and so fragile.
And so just careful, like you can't even, like,
you wouldn't, you couldn't even
like touch it, a little spin.
It just fall apart, just break.
It's just this perfect little white flower.
And they come out and they're, they're a little bit grand.
And then four days later they're gone.
And you rather catch it or you don't catch it.
You notice you gotta be there and see it. They didn't.
And they don't just bloom anywhere.
They only bloom in the wild.
I've never known anybody to, uh,
raise trillion in their garden.
I've only ever known them to be in the, in the woods.
And they, um, and you have to know the right paths.
Their trillion here, most paths don't have trillion.
If you know where to go, then you can hope
to go on the right day where you can catch them
and not miss them.
And so it's a special thing.
So I'm on my little,
my little walk on my little nature hike.
Nothing too strenuous in my house.
We're just, we're not, we're not like cling boulders.
We're just going for a nice little walk, going
for a nice little walk and walking
and kind of keeping an eye out.
Maybe today will be a day.
Mother's Day, it kind,
we often do Mother's Day tri on the lens.
And so we're out kind of looking
and you oh, oh, there's one,
but I, I'm not gonna pick it.
I'm just going to notice that it was there.
And then keep on going. And then I think, oh, another oh,
and another, and another.
That's a good day. Good day.
And so noticing the Trillium, it takes my first tempo,
my comfortable flat path walking tempo,
and somehow it extends it.
This makes it a little bit longer.
Right here, here, here and up. So good.
Which is not the same thing as walk, walk, walk.
Completely Different experience.
And it's not the experience I wanna talk about today.
That's a perfectly relevant experience.
You're allowed to do that anytime you want.
Don't let anybody tell you you're not allowed to do that.
Um, but for today's experience
is not really what I'm interested in.
What I'm interested in today is how I can be in my tempo,
my motion, my forward moving gesture,
and it feels very comfortable and authentic to me.
And this is, this feels great.
And then at some point I can have a different one
that I'm still moving forward and still felt real.
And right. That was the right amount
of time to see that cloud.
That's how much time I need. I need this much time.
And after that, I'm ready to look.
Oh, so, and but you, um, tell your neighbor, thank you.
You're on your own for a moment.
And say, I have, I have important things to do.
Go for walk, have to go find the trip, go for a little walk.
You just, and you start at your tempo, not my model
to tempo you.
This is your, I'm in the woods. I have nowhere to be.
I'm just trying to breathe some clean air. That's it.
So you can try to think, what would
that template for you be?
And you just walk in.
And then every so often something catches your eye,
it's gonna extend you the littlest bit.
And then you just run on with it.
Important for this little one is that
the extending doesn't stop you.
There's no arrest. There's no grip.
Instead, it's a lengthening of your leg or of your moment.
I like to think of long legs and short legs.
I think my legs are roughly the same length,
Right?
And then if you'll pause, I'm walking
through my little path in the Pennsylvania woods,
there's often these really lovely dark Greek green canopies,
you know, pretty dense woods with a little path in between.
And then it, it seems quite regularly, I find myself,
I'm on one of these paths and then all
of a sudden the woods open up and I'm in a meadow.
I'm like, where did this even come from?
How's this meadow here in the middle of the woods?
And there's like a whole, like,
there are no trees all of a sudden.
And there's, and a big meadow.
And often the, the ones that I'm picturing have kind
of tall grass with a little path that goes through.
So I was in the woods
and there was a glass trillion back there.
And then, oh goodness, something else.
Look at this size of sun.
And there's like buzzes buzzing
around the different tall grass.
And I'm just kind of walking through my tall grass
and I'm going, and I'm still looking around
and I think, oh,
little they're not gonna hurt me, I think.
But I get, don't get stuck.
And so I've got my sort of normal gate and then here
and there, maybe I've got a slighter one
as I, I gotta move on.
I gotta get away from these space.
This is not my, jeez, get away from that little space.
So would you go for a little walk in the meadow?
The basic tempo is the same you were at
before your base tempo.
But here and there, maybe you have a quicker step.
Maybe just one step is all it
takes to get away from the beat.
Maybe you want to Experiment
with one at a time rather than three.
See what it's like to be sort of in your normal gate
and then have just one that's shorter
and then right on to where you
Be My partner.
Good. So we're gonna, now we pause
and we're gonna play the same game as the alphabet game.
Um, but we're gonna do it now, um, with the possibility
that not all these steps are the same length.
Um, so shoulder in front, um, is leading.
We're gonna first just walk and try to find each other.
And so again, it is based on the shoulder in fronts default.
And we're gonna take just a little time.
And it takes, it's amazing how long it takes, honestly.
So if it feels like it's taking a while,
don't think you're bad at this.
It takes so much kind of care to align
with something that isn't you.
It's really hard to not be influenced.
We just talked about this.
The thing that fighting crazy is that when you're on the
outside and you're short, this is such a thing.
And I struggled because I was always on the outside.
We always went counter clock live.
And so every time Casey was turning
and I'm like, oh my God, why am I struggling?
And then I realized I just have to take a bigger step.
Well, it so funny. It's just, yeah, it's good.
But also, and it's relevant actually to
where I'm hoping I have enough time to talk about today.
It's really relevant. So it's good. So
There's So many pitfalls in my teaching.
And one big one is that it is just really hard
to not just keep talking and telling you everything.
So I'm gonna try to be disciplined. Let's just walk.
We're just, we're just gonna walk.
But I wanna make sure that you all understand.
It sounds easy to just walk in step with somebody else.
It's not like, I assume everybody's
been a musician of some sort.
Like of course we all can do our steady beats.
Like we've spent lifetimes doing steady beats.
Like it's not that big deal. It's way harder than than any
of us us usually acknowledges.
So we're just gonna take a breath.
We're gonna give ourself permission
to be a little clunky as long as it takes.
Um, and, uh,
and then we're just gonna try to find the other.
Now still in this initial setup, I get to ignore Jeremy
for the first little bit, which, which is really hard.
Um, it means I have to, I have
to like really focus in on myself
and just be like, no, I think this is what is right.
And so if you caught me right
before we stopped, I had to close my eyes
for a moment as I was walking.
Just be like, pull it in.
I could, I could feel the adjust to me, which everybody,
it's such a hard thing.
So again, we're just gonna try to go for a little walk.
We're gonna try to find each other
And whether we turn right or left.
And eventually, I suppose if there was an advanced version
of this case, which is silly all by itself, we would,
um, we would make sure we were Ty.
Now Jeremy knows we're in the woods.
I'm, I'm on the path.
And every so often I've got a little rill.
Oh my god, I need a moment. I can't just stone over it.
Nice.
It's okay. It's super hard.
Know by little we're fighting each other, you know,
final all would take Jerry maybe about two,
three more minutes and we'd be nailed in.
Um, there's also then, uh,
I think a little greater is the, the,
It'll Take a little more time for us to get
that one together
And we work it out.
So would you, thank you. Thank you.
Would you, um, uh, turn your new neighbor please?
Somebody you were not here with before.
Tell them good morning. I think there's a trio in the room.
Nice.
Yeah. So again, without me talking too much,
there are a bunch of strategies for
how we could make this easier.
Um, and there's no judgment
what you think is easier or harder.
So experiment.
Um, the, uh, the basic what I modeled is enough.
And then you might think,
what I don't want you to go is snap.
There's a be, you know, I don't want you talking about it.
Um, if there's a little bit of leading,
that's perfectly fine.
I think, and I'm sure I was,
I was leading a little at the same time.
I'm not trying to like make eye contact
and conduct my person in, we're both just trying
to catch just the physical version of it.
Why do conductors stand in front
and use visual cues as much as they're using somatic cues?
Right? It's because there's efficiency in there
that I'm taking away from you right now.
Um, if I wanted, I mean, I could all,
I could conduct you all through the trillium and the b
and e be right with me.
It would take us no time at all for me
to conduct you through it.
This is a different kind of note.
Uh, so link up an arm, shoulder in front please. And go.
That's, oh, okay, that's still
middle in a tree of the middle person.
Oh,
person leading.
You really have some permission to
ignore your neighbor's prison, to ignore their tempo.
And then the followers, you're trying
to find your neighbor's tempo before you plate too much.
With, with bees and flowers, you might just want try
to get on the same step with your neighbor.
Let's say we find you
and then you can send a little cord away.
It's occurring to me. This would be a very
nice extra challenge.
It's occurring to me. This would be a really
nice exercise for public therapy.
All sorts of, all sorts of work here.
Good. Switch sides with your neighbor. Switch leaders.
I,
it's the,
Try not to look at the floor, nothing to see down there.
You're communicating through that elbow.
Try to find your name. Good. Let's pause right there.
I'm gonna have you re restart it. Just one second.
With the same leaders. And then redescribe the two roles.
A person who's leading is just trying to be present Just
as we did at the very beginning.
I was breathing, I was grounded. I'm here.
This is comfortable to me, this is just
how I walked from the last building to the new building
or whatever tempo you choose your alphabet tempo.
You're walking in the meadow tempo.
You're getting between
just something that's comfortable for you.
It has to make sense. It's authentic, it's real.
It's not performed. It's not trying to be something else.
It's being you. And then, uh, as you, if,
if you feel you are ready with your partner
to make it a little more advanced,
maybe you find another version of you, which is a, oh,
I'm gonna extend out 'cause I had some reason to be longer.
Or I'm going to rush it in
'cause I have some reason to rush it shorter.
But there, it's all true. It's all actually you.
It's not, not you. That's your job.
And your job is just to be there.
And really a very hard command is,
and kind of ignore your name.
That is, and when I say you are,
I don't mean don't lead them, you're allowed to lead them.
But what you're not allowed to do is compromise with them.
In this exercise I'd, I'd like you to not compromise
then the follower, you are all about the compromise.
We acknowledge from the very beginning,
the person who's leading is not you.
This is not authentic. You. This is not your tempo.
This is not the way you would handle yourself.
This is something else. This is other, this is like foreign.
It should feel weird.
It should feel like it should at some level.
It's uncomfortable. Um,
and then as it normalizes for you,
it will slowly become more comfortable.
Um, and so, and we're just looking for that little shift.
So there's two different roles,
two different goals in the room,
same setup as you just were.
Continue. You got 34.
Nice. Would you, uh, turn your neighbor? So
Yeah. So
I've got, um, I think I've got two little,
two little recordings for you without your neighbor.
Um, walk the,
don't look at the floor, the seat down there,
you
a different
And how about one more different beat to walk
up with your new neighbor,
a different level,
twice slow.
Tell your neighbor, tell me you're the best neighbor
Now for those slowest weeks.
Yes, I do. I owe you an apology.
I, I wasn't thinking how the meters change in this and,
and your, like, if you were trying to do it four times
as slow or something, the irregular meter that just little
by little is there and then it's not gonna be.
So I wasn't, that wasn't a touchable, um,
mistake on my part.
Um, but again, I hope that
what I want us thinking about today is this idea
of being in phase and out of phase
and how much it feels very comfortable.
Like this is where I grew up
and how much this requires a stretching
or a changing of myself in order to come into play with it.
How much compromise is necessary
and how do we find that compromise?
Um, so Leslie, yeah, I just noticed when I wasn't the leader
and we got faster and slower, I was
actually canning sometimes.
And it's like, so I realized, oh, I'm behind. Right?
Interesting. Pool. It, it was,
it's always interesting to me.
Again, I, I know a lot of you, I don't know all of you,
but I, I gladly easily assume everybody in here is an
accomplished musician with all sorts of experiences.
You've done all sorts of crazy stuff in your life
and you know, you, you know, things.
Um, and even with what I would gladly
and easily admit is an advanced class,
like this is just the way you're behaving, the way you're,
um, working with the things I'm asking of you.
It's an obviously advanced group of people.
Um, we didn't all just lock into lead the, when I first come
to record, but like we really didn't, it took bars
for the room to lock into something.
Um, and so, so there's that, which is this whole idea of,
well, what is you and then what is the they?
And how would you find the what, what is required of you
to actually find that tempo?
Um, so when I think about whether it's working
with little kids or new students
or working with advanced students, um, this idea
of finding the beat walk the beat.
It's such an easy thing to say and it seems so obvious.
It's actually, I think it's a much more profound, um,
statement than, than we often give it credit for.
Yeah. The thing I really noticed in the partner is what?
It's not just signing the beat.
Like, like ostensibly we're both on the same beat. Yeah.
Or even making the same beat. Yes.
But it's how we ate when we ate,
how we come into it and leave it.
And you can be like in tempo but not completely different.
Absolutely. It's such a great statement.
In fact, it's such a, it's the right thing.
It's exactly what I want you all thinking about
being in time with whoever or whatever.
There's a timed diversion.
Um, so we can think of, in Greek they use the word kronos.
And so Kronos is like the metronome tip.
And so it has a number associated with it.
It's always exactly the same.
Um, and all that matters is
that it ticked at the time it ticked.
And there is really no concern for what happens in between.
In a Kronos attention.
A Kronos attention is now and then not now,
and now and then not now.
And we are not really aware of
what has happening in the in-between.
A kairos attention, um, is all about the felt experience.
It's all about the gesture. It's all about the momentum.
It's all about the inertia.
As you were trying to line up with your neighbor,
it wasn't enough to just know.
Now that's not enough.
It to actually find the ensemble with your neighbor.
What you're actually studying is not how fast is fast
and how slow is slow.
What you're actually studying is what is the sensation
of shifting weight and like how do they shift weight?
Like if I'm really gonna be in, in, in collaboration
with this other, and the other is your neighbor,
but the other is also that recording.
And then maybe in a moment it'll be me at the piano.
But the other is, is something that is not you
and you don't need to know.
In fact, it's quite often not really helpful Exactly.
To know their exact number.
What we really need to do in order to find the intimacy
of music, um, is to figure out what is the gesture
or what is the way that the, the weight, um, shifts.
And so that's so much of the
compromises that we're going on.
Okay, close.
I think I can go through this. Would
you, this is hard
advance this.
Please walk the
very nice,
Would you turn to your you name, tell him good morning.
Morning. Good
Morning. Good. Ending
up together.
Oh, then you should switch these two. Okay,
Great. Thank
you. The, um, did tell good the, uh, the, uh,
what I'd like you to do, um, uh, in my work,
we call this London bridge facing neighbor.
Um, gonna, the trio is a similar bridge to this,
but the duos is exactly this.
So I call it bridge, right?
We're not gonna, but we call this bridge,
we're gonna put one, one foot in front of the other.
Like we're gonna wrestle, like we're gonna get into it.
And then we're gonna lean into our neighbor's hands.
Just, just enough that there's resistance.
And this is a really hard thing
and not everybody has an instinct
for this particular part of it.
It's critical. Like you try to find the resistance,
find the lean, and then the gesture just goes like this.
It goes down and up, down
and up the whole time with some amount of pressure.
Now neither of us are sweating.
We're not actually wrestling,
and yet we're also not pulling away.
And so a third of this room will have the instinct
to want to kind of pull away.
Um, and, uh, and it's not what I'm asking him for.
So there's a bit of resistance
and I'm given a sort of a steady need
by neighbor in the middle, which is a whole nother version
of find your neighbor.
It's a whole nother example of, of, of compromise
and trying to find into the Aaron's super good at this.
He's like a London Bridge pro.
Um, so just because he's making it look so easy,
don't feel bad when yours doesn't look so easy.
So, so find your neighbor.
Um, and you're just gonna one foot front,
the other bend knees gonna lean in a little.
And then it's arms the arm,
look here at the arm, look at the arm.
The arm goes like this, it's a rainbow.
It goes down and up, down and up.
And then the hips rotate with me.
Down, up, down, up with even weight.
Can the two of you scoot into this? Sure.
Right, right. And that's exactly right, trio.
For the trio, it is. I I I call it um,
Mary, anything more than two?
Anything more than two we're just gonna down, right?
Quite simple. Good. Um, decide who it's not this one.
So this is one is a different,
it not only the one that I
after, there's nothing wrong with this objection.
You can do all sorts of things with this motion. Any motion.
The motion I want has to have a sense
of heaviness in the bottom.
And we're gonna recoil out and get a little lighter
before it turns the bathroom.
Right here,
here, here.
So it's got that sort of down, up, down, up, which is this.
Look here, it's here. It's in my walk.
It's also here in my conducting. It's the same motion.
Um, and so you're just doing it, uh,
in a more grand scale with your neighbor.
This is like, this is super hard. We're not all gonna win.
It's okay. It's okay
that you feel lost in this next couple minutes.
I, I, I easily I can, I I use this particular piece.
Um, and sometimes, you know,
teach a couple hours just on this one.
There's all so much stuff we can do here.
We're, we're gonna take all together five minutes.
It's not enough to like feel like you get it.
Um, but it's okay. It's not the point of today.
So what I'd like a can be, um,
and what a is gonna do is a is going to try to body the beat
that they're, that they're inhabiting
and you'll like what you did a lot.
And maybe something like, oh, that was so embarrassing.
I can't believe I just made my neighbor get heavy at a
moment that the music wasn't heavy.
I thought it was, but it's not. So it's okay.
So A is gonna lead a show your neighbor how the goes,
show them how it goes.
You think, oh, it goes like
wherever you were trying to step on the floor.
Get that to be the bottom of, the
Bottom of the swing is where your foot
of the foot,
so much good work out there.
Truly advanced work.
You switch places with your data
Good, right?
Um, so you quit places, same game.
New leader, same game, new leader trio.
Somebody's a new leader. Here you go.
Now new leader sets the pace.
The new leader is saying, I think the lead is here.
Follower, not leader is like, okay, let's see what you got.
So as the follower, you're not exerting, uh, effort.
That is, you're not, you're not trying to nudge them toward
what you know is the right answer.
You just need to look at them kindly
and be like, Aw, you're so cute.
So nice. You think that's an answer. That's so
Nice, Nice, nice.
Really is here so much further along than I would too.
I said maybe the next time I wanna teach this piece,
maybe I should start with the whole opening we here today
because it's either, either you are amazing or I'm amazing
and I brought one or the others.
I dunno. It's really lovely work that's going on.
I want you to think about the opening breath work
and the opening walk and the walk in the meadow.
And note how in none of those places did we arrest.
And none of those examples would be holding our
breath or waiting.
And then lurching. It was always a steadiness to it,
which is a, a hallmark of the natural.
So a hallmark of what is organic or what is natural.
What feels good, um, is that I didn't have to hold my breath
and I didn't have to be jerked around and surprised.
Now we compare that to the two versions of lead bridge
where I assume every group had some
amount of lurching about it.
Although really it was quite lovely
what you just did quite lovely.
But I assume that, that all the groups had some amount of,
I wasn't quite the answer I wanted,
I wanted it to be a little bit different.
Um, and now maybe reframe the goal
of the Leonard Rich to be an unknown.
If I would, if you just gave me enough time Neely,
I would figure out what his z authentic gesture.
There's one perfect beautiful gesture
before it turns back around.
If I'm to align with Nathan Millstein playing this,
this fog piece, um, if I'm to find him, there is a gesture.
There's one his, it is there.
And if I would like to know him, if I want to be with him,
not just beside him, if I want to actually be in the music
with him, then I'm gonna have to compromise and stretch
and like literally stretch myself in places to find him.
Um, there is not one sacred interpretation of this piece.
There's certainly not one and there's not one sacred
interpretation of Milsteins recording of this piece.
Even though it seems as the way it's set, the way
that you hear it and
and understand it to be is allowed
to be different for you than it is for me.
Um, I just, because I'm rushing
and I want to try to keep things moving,
I'm gonna now give you an interpretation though
that you can decide if it,
if it makes any sense to you or not.
Line your neighbor. Everybody's leaving.
Now under the, the constitution of the professor though,
pro tip, you have to turn up the volume.
Not everybody knows that.
Try to breathe
One.
So at that level, actually I'm gonna have you do it,
do it one more time without, see if you can tap into that,
to that level.
Go.
I lied. You best
close.
Let's just get I single
question, you know, this piece.
And on the one hand it's so simple, like, you know, little,
little kids plates piece not that big,
big a deal to find these notes.
Um, and yet I find it so challenging.
It's really, really hard for me to play.
Um, and I think it is
because, uh, what I believe is sati
tempo is so much bigger than me.
It's not me. It's so not a steepened kneeling tempo.
Like I love it. It's not that I don't like it, I love
and I really love it.
Um, but for me to embody it, it takes so much effort
and it, I still am no good at it.
'cause as I feel myself playing it
and I was like, I'm gonna be even better for the dsa, um,
I still feel myself rushing like the tempo I want it
to be at, which I believe is the tempo
that I believe he wanted it at.
It. Like, it takes so much effort for me to,
to inhabit that space.
Um, uh, what I want to do, what my instinct is,
it's not my cognitive knee, it's my body pain.
The, my body tempo
is just about four or five clicks quicker.
Um, and,
and I, I can get
to about three bars at the tempo that I want.
And then any, I just let my mind notice anything.
It could be notice the weather
or could be notice the next couple notes
or notice, you know, like just notice anything.
And then all of a sudden I'm a little bit quicker than I
was, um, just before.
It takes such for me, it takes such effort.
And I'm not, I don't think I really pulled it off.
I, I think I still am speeding up as I go through.
Um, I'd like you to think now,
and it was said it, you said the,
the momentum versus the, the, the, the timing, right?
The, um, the chiros versus the Kronos.
So there is a Kronos attention.
I could put a and click to it
and I'd be, it would keep me kind of honest.
Um, for sure. But it's not actually the same thing
as inhabiting the body of sat, the feeling of sat.
Like that's so not the same thing at all.
Um, and so what I'm trying to figure out is
where is he in the meadow
and how is it that he's able to inhabit this space?
Was he a big man? Does anything, you know, how is he unable
to inhabit this space and have it feel natural,
have it feel organic, how it feel like he's not waiting.
There's no arrest.
It's not, hey, now I count to 17
before I'm gonna move on 17.
Now, next week. Obviously it's not that there is,
I I picture a giant, when I teach this stuff
with my students, we talk about blue whales and mosquitoes
and I think, you know, a blue whale heartbeat is like
once a minute or something.
You know, like what is a gesture for a blue whale?
Like what would they feel if they were
to play the last game?
Which beat level would they have?
Would they have defaulted to We all,
pretty much the whole room, um, defaulted
to a bead level at least twice as fast
as the one I modeled at the end.
Almost everybody, not you,
you were nailed it right at the beginning.
Um, yeah, maybe
the uh, no in the box is what I mean.
Oh, but that's 'cause it's a viol piece.
I felt like, oh no, I feel no,
but I know so many violinists who are wrestling with
that piece and it, and it never occurs to them
that if they would just find the cycle larger,
if they could just be a little more blue whale
and a little less 20-year-old, that all
of a sudden the piece would like to click.
Um, but to me it doesn't at all click that twice as fast.
Here you have to be more blue whale
to understand what rock was doing.
And I feel the same is happening here.
In order for me to kind of get in the body of SubT,
I have have to be more than me.
I have to lengthen me. I can't just be me.
This is not me on my nature walk. This is not my music.
I have to be something other than me
or I have to en enlarge myself to be a new me as we go.
So I'd like you to try to walk along with me trying to do
what I would like it to be.
We're just gonna walk the big beat in this case.
You all the beats you just watched. Totally, right?
No one was wrong. But now I'm gonna invite you to walk the,
the one, the big beat with me.
Um, and I'd like you to decide for yourself, how
natural is it for you?
Are you able to pull it off? Can you be as big as a giant?
Can you be more blue whale?
Or do you feel in your own performance still kind
of clunky and awkward like me?
Or like, oh, I know when I my first touch,
but that I actually traverse the space
and that I slipped away with all the beauty
that would just make it seem like
of course it would be this,
which is what it's supposed to be.
It's supposed to be of course. Do you actually want us
to walk in a forward line?
Um, I mean,
because it is easy to dance side to side, it's harder.
Well, why don't you
don't take the first step me find a tempo that you
as you know, that, that you think I'm at
and what you think you have an idea of what
to do, then join me.
Keep going just to battle that little bit.
And so we're just trying to think, am I in, am I out?
Am I rushing? And not only, again, I'll just point out
to you these two attentions,
which I don't think everybody talks about.
There's a metronomic kind of attention
that just says it might put attention at the right time.
It has no the metronome, even the analog metronome,
which is the only real
metronome that anybody should ever know.
Digital metronomes downfall society.
The, the, that analog metronome, even the analog metronome
has the actual swinging one has so little way
to inform us or
to make us pay attention to the space between.
And so, um, it's main, maybe if we got rid of the click,
maybe if we got rid of the click
and we just could see it,
I would believe it then I would believe it then.
But that click it just is like now nothingness.
Now nothingness, now nothingness.
And that nothingness is complete opposite of
what I believe is the experience of music
and experience of music.
Um, is the everything in between the actual click moment.
And we'll teach other lessons probably this weekend about
crus fan cruises and all of that business that cruises,
you can't live the cruises.
You can't perform the cruises.
You can't revel in the cruises.
The cruises is gone as quickly as it happens.
It isn't the music. It's a snapshot of an instant in time
that can never be grasped.
Instead, what we live, what we breathe, what we move
through, what we experience is only Anna
and Anna, the drive toward and the drive away from.
And so as we're trying to get into these, we're trying
to notice that I can only be an ensemble with you.
I can only experience intimacy
with you if I can ride the same momentum as you,
which is the tor and away from not just
the instant of the cliff.
Um, and so just trying to get that shift, uh,
in our interpretation and our way of being
and our way of noticing what's happening in the music has
been, it's just a really big deal.
I think. Um, and I'm forever geeky about it.
I can continue teaching this particular class right now if
we just didn't stop for the next couple hours.
I got no, no shortage of things
to think about and to say about it.
Um, I'm, uh, almost so do one
and half more things,
something much closer to apo.
Uh, walk anything, one walk.
Uh, and notice anywhere it begins to be letters, YOU
just notice, walk whatever you wanna walk
with me, don't start walking you.
And and when I give you a word, it begins you,
you're just noticing it.
You're like, oh, there's another one of those.
There's another word that begins YU
That's
You, I
Your
Right on.
So the um, so we got a little tuned.
There's so just, if we just take
what we've already done today, there's a part of it
that it's like, oh, what is he doing that is not me?
And so, and hopefully we're aware of that.
And so in order to walk with me, you have
to be a little less you.
Um, unless we're soulmates, you have
to just be like, no, no, no, no.
I'm gonna expand myself
to be a little more something that isn't me.
Otherwise you can't find me. You just, you just can't.
You just won't be with me. Um,
and that's what's expected of every student
that we work with in a eurythmic setting.
That it's kind of the premise be a little less you
to find something more than you.
So that in the end you might be bigger than you.
It's why, it's why I think it's so exhilarating
to be a 5-year-old in a hy is you're like, holy crap,
I've never been this before.
How excited, like I get to be something else.
I I'm more than that.
I'm bigger than, I'm literally larger than I was.
The step I'm taking, the space that I inhabit, the shift
of weight, it's like so different.
Um, and, and with our attention on that,
then the metronome gets to fall away a little bit.
And the gesture, the momentum sharing, um, the extending
of each other, I mean, all of
that now turns into something so much more rich.
Um, and then if we would like to turn these five worlds
to the chamber players or the orchestra musicians
or the opera singers or whatever, or
or really, really enriched community music members,
you know, and wherever it goes, we realize it's all there.
Like we have to have found that
or I can't actually get in the game.
Um, and so that's the first
sort of thing that we're thinking.
It requires a sort of the extending of stuff.
Um, now, um, I'd like you to walk with me,
but I don't want to walk staying pulses.
Um, that's a lovely game.
We've already played that a bunch today.
Um, now I want you to walk, um, in important steps
or steps you'd like or
or moments of the music that just seem interesting to you.
So you can make little patterns if you want.
Um, you can step on heavy words and not light
or light words and not heavy.
Just make it so in essence you're making little
rhythms, um, with it.
But I'd like them to be influenced by the song.
I'm only gonna get to sing the song, jeez. Ready?
And go.
Right? So we've got that. So we can keep on going.
Of course I'm out of time. Turn your new neighbor.
We don't have time to play this game,
but we're able to start the game.
And then you can play the game later.
Tell your neighbors good morning. Um, Lincoln link it on.
We link it on. You can play this game later.
I have a very poor copy of this, of this arrangement.
If you want a very ugly, poor coffee,
I'll give you one at the end of the class if you want.
So you can, I'll just tell you the game.
And then we don't have time to play the game.
So we're gonna try it once if you won't have time.
So, um, if, um, if we say the word you, anything
that begins the word you, you take a step.
And if we say the word, like you turn
and fits your neighborhood, two hands.
So here you are, take a step together, say the word,
you take a step, you now say the word
like and turn all your eggs.
That's the game you win. Good job. Let's do it.
You stepped only on the words that begin, YOU
the
Way you're right.
They're just
Beside you.
Two minutes, nail it over here.
Just, just enough. And if you email me, I'll send you
the reference and I'll send you the text.
You can read it one more thought. It's, it's dense.
The wording is dense and stands for.
So I'll read it to you and then you'll have to take a breath
because actually lemme just send you this.
And it didn't occur to me for the longest time.
I I did not to say I didn't grow up a reader is an
exaggeration, but I, I did.
Um, reading a book on vacation is like not the thing for me.
It's like not vacation for me.
I love the read and I love fiction and I love nonfiction
and I read so much more now, ever life.
Um, but I didn't grow up being like, Ooh, only I can go
to the library, get out 17 more books
and what I can block myself in a closet and reread.
That's like now. Um, uh,
and it took until really just like eight years ago took
to decide that maybe part of the reason that
I don't understand everybody's writing immediately is
because I have yet to discover their gate.
I think reading someone else's work
is exactly the same as trying to understand.
It's totally the same thing.
Or that I think that half the class was,
was suitably lost at the beginning of the bottom
because you had yet to find this gate.
And if you just find a gate, you're like,
oh, it's right there.
Like I get it now
and now a sudden it kind of all opens up and it's enjoyable.
I know how where I fit and,
and it's a compromising means length with them.
And, and I, and I believe it's the same thing in reading.
Um, and so different authors when we say something is dense
or thick or a cha, you know,
I think quite often it's just they have a,
they have an uncharacteristic gate that's bigger than me,
Anglo-Saxon old, which directs the roots
of the earth too long in a sense of to yearn for, relate
to the word meaning to seem to be or to grow.
Hence to reach out, extend towards the word axon.
Like of the other languages,
impersonal in grammatic form person who longing.
It's not I long for, but literally it longs me.
So to experience longing is not to reach for something,
but to actually be changed.
I am leading long, I, I'm leading
long me love whatever it might be.
Once you get something about the differentiate from wanting
or desire, wanting is driven by the will always do.
Long meaning by contrast is something that happens
between us and another thing,
and I know I meant so I'll just stop there.
Um, but I'd like you to think about
when we're asking five year olds
or 50 year olds to sort of find the beat.
What does that mean? And know the difference
between put on the, on the foot at the right time
and actually invite them into a space of lengthening
or longing, longing of self
and realize that super physical, like I gotta get in that.
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