I'm currently on the side of a free way helping a broken dow bus.  Oh, never mind.  We're picking up four hitch hikers.  Don't worry dad, they're very nicely dressed old ladies.  Actually, I can't claim credit for this act of mercy, our bus driver is responsible.  We're traveling to New York, NY.  I always said that I'd "hoped to go there some day."  Life's amazing.

There I'll be meeting a friend from Flagstaff who is visiting her children.  They dance for the New York Theater Ballet and we're going to catch their performance tonight and return to Boston Sunday night.

I'm sad that it's been such a long time since I've posted anything, but when I think about trying to sum-up the past two weeks, I feel like I'm being asked to give a quick paraphrase of the dictionary.  I suppose that's because the past two weeks, like the dictionary has not been a story, but rather a journey.  Every day there are times I find myself doing something I thought I would never have the opportunity or the ability to do.  For instance, 

• after much work I was able to play a written jazz piece properly,  
• I eat in a cafeteria, and stay up late talking because I want to, 
• I'm learning to hang out just for fun,

 

• I understand tensions, know the inversions, can play my scales well, and can comfortably convert them to relative, parallel, or pentatonic minor,  
• I'm surrounded by people who can immediately relate with me when I mention practicing,
• I can cross the street on a red light,
• I'm more comfortable telling people my opinion,
• I'm learning to "comp" (read chord symbols and improvise or accompany)

Every day I meet so many new people, all so very different.  They are all so amazing and unique, it's made me respect people more.  If you were to browse the population of our school it would seem, for the most part, quite average.  As I've gotten to know people however, I've been amazed at the stories each person has to tell and the colorful spectrum of personalities they create!  I can't do them justice here, but I'll try.

Maru (Above to the left) is from the Canary Islands in Spain and she plays the piano.  She might be mistaken for an (almost) 5 foot tooth pick until you hear her strong, accented voice.  She's 23 and has a degree in Civil Engineering.  She's now studying Film Scoring.  With all the music training I've had, I tested out of 3 Core Music Credits.  She tested out of 13 with English as her second language!

Kikima is 1/2 Nigerian but spent most of her life in the States.  She has pink, white and blond rostas and is one of the most sincere people I know.  She's never had any music training, but can compose and play by ear in any style.  

Leah is a classy/flashy, upfront, 23 year old, African American from NY who spent 2 years studying Bassoon at Juilliard and is now studying voice at Berklee.  

Sam plays violin and viola.  She is from Massachusetts and plays celtic and folk music.  Durring the summer and fall semesters she took a break from Berklee and toured with a group of musicians playing concerts around the country to thank the sponsors of PBS.    ?  

I could go on and on.  There's more kinds of people here than I've ever imagined, and perhaps the coolest thing, is that most all of them spend at least a chunk of their day kindling inspiration; doing what they've decided they're here to do.  

Speaking of friends, I made one outside of Berklee when I went to that Old South Church.  Her name is Betty and she is in her eighties.  During the knitting group last week she mentioned that she had bought a baby grand and never learned how to play it.  We decided that I would give her piano lessons and she would give me knitting lessons.  She attended Berkley in CA and is a retired Dr. who never married.  She now lives with her sister on Beacon St.

From her apartment you can see the Charles River, and any cars or other such items that MIT students put on the roof of their auditorium during the last Phrat  party.  We had our first "lessons" on Thursday, but although I was there for 2 hours,  I only knitted a half a row, and we never touched the piano.  We hope to do it again some time this week.  

My classes are wonderful.  My teachers, while some of them could teach differently in my opinion, are very well educated, want to see us succeed, and are willing to do anything they can to help us get there.  The culmination of my classes is my practice time.  The teachers willing acknowledge that the true learning happens out side the class room when the knowledge is applied, and it really does.  It will take some time but I am in the process of believing in the value of practice time as a truly worth while thing.  

 

(This Angel of music stands outside my Writing Skills class which takes place in a room Berklee rents from a church behind the school.)

My favorite quotes from teachers so far include:

(loud, with a heavy boston accent) "I just aint that kinda' cat!" and "We are musicians.  We're moody, we hear the world different, we're hard to understand, but we're still the highest life-form on the planet." (Not sure I agree, but everything's so convincing with an accent!)

Whelp, I've done it again.  I write so much I hesitate to tell people I have a blog for fear they'll drown in the flood of words!  Anyways, thank you for reading!   

Lesson of the week:  "Pull" spelt backwards says "Push."