There was a moment when I made the transition in my life from person-who’s-passionate-about-music to professional musician. It sits in a picture frame in my mind, the moment of realization.
I lived, then, just north of Pt. Reyes Station, California – in an old duck-hunting cabin on Tomales Bay. And by ‘on’ I mean that the house was on pilings, the water sloshed under it and the back porch was a dock (see photo). The bay-side of the house wafted, so my piano was on the land-side, in the tiny, dark wood-paneled livingroom
My back-porch pier on Tomales Bay
I was writing a musical. A two-person musical about a birdman and the ultimate housewife – and their competition over a golden cage.
I’d written a lot of songs, a lot of music for the “Palace Players” community plays – but this was different. This was an operetta, a real musical – over an hour of music and story with intricately woven songs – songs that told the story, specific piano accompaniments.
I could invent it. I could play it and sing it all. But I didn’t know how to write it down.
There was a moment…
When the scope of the piece became clear. It was bigger than anything I’d created before and it mattered that I could remember it all.
And I didn’t know how to write it down.
I stopped and sat at the piano – just sat there thinking: “So … you’re going to … what? Memorize this, and then become the living repository of it, and every time someone wants to perform it, you’re going to go there and teach it to them note for note? Because, face it … you are illiterate.”
I could not see a way forward without going back.
And so I did.
I went back to school. I enrolled at the local Junior College – College of Marin, which had a rigorous music program – one of the great strokes of luck in my life. Slowly, I learned to read and write music.
And in the band closet, in a huge trunk – I discovered there was a harp.
Why I started playing it is another story, but at some point I thought: this instrument could help me go where I want to go. Circuitous route, yes. Ill-conceived, maybe.
But that’s how I became a musician. I went from College of Marin to U.C. Berkeley, and paid for college (which was embarrassingly inexpensive then) playing the harp. And as my final project, I finished the musical and produced it.
The harp became my career and that musical is still one of the things I most love that I’ve ever created. I still dream of producing it again. It was the pivot from the life I left towards the life I followed, and it holds both my lives inside it.
And sometimes I need, very deeply, to go back to the life I left.
I’m doing just that very soon, traveling with my electric harp to Pt. Reyes where I’ll perform once again in the place where I first became a musician.
I’m performing Sat. Jun. 22nd, 2013 at the Pt. Reyes Dance Palace – where I gave my first-ever solo concert nearly 4 decades ago.
And Wed. June 26 at the Museum of Making Music (MOMM) in Carlsbad, CA (near San Diego).
wow, yes. finding a passion and sticking to it, and wading in with both feet if you have to.
I admire you so.
I will, indeed! I’ve started working on the musical again just recently!
Hmmmmm…. I just played in Missouri not long ago Jeff … I am QUITE sure I did! And I’d LOVE to come back!
Thanks Erica! I’m sure you heard that story from me. There’s truth in all the stories. The one I tell in concert isn’t literally true but an attempt to get the feeling of all the misunderstandings and false starts that led me to the harp, but inside a very short story. The real story is more complicated and harder to tell!
Deborah. Thank you for your passionate testimonial about the need to be literate. Your simple telling of sitting at the piano realizing that you were musically illiterate is extraordinarily powerful. In dance, we have the same problem, relying on the visual recording enhanced “oral history” method to transmit choreographic work and class material. The Language of Dance Center is working to raise dancers’ consciousness that there is a dance based dance notation, Motif Notation (that develops into Labanotation) to record and transmit dance ideas.
Wow Susan – how fascinating! I’ll have to look at that notation some day – somehow I think it would hugely expand my mind!
It’s GREAT to hear this story in its entirety. I was in your music classes with you at College of Marin and was amazed at just how far you were driving in each day to be in music theory at 8AM sharp. You were so focused and committed. AND, I will never forget the day you stopped me in the hall and asked me to come into the practice room, where you showed me the pedal harp you had just started playing and gave me a demo of what a pedal harp was and how it worked. I was mesmerized to watch you practice for a half hour….and that was the inspiration for becoming a harp player myself years later. To see where you have gone with that musical spark after that day when you “discovered there was a harp” in the band closet, is truly amazing. I SO look forward to the Point Reyes concert!
That was such an incredible music program, wasn’t it Ken? I’m still in touch with several of the teachers. What an amazing resource that school was. The music department rivaled Berkeley (where I transferred), the teaching was amazing. I look forward to seeing you again in Pt. Reyes … and now that you’ve got me thinking about the school, I really should try to write about some of those classes and teachers and what we learned.
I’m ever so happy for all the moments that lead up to your musical career. You certainly inspire me and I have learned so very, very much through your classes. Keep it going.
I too remember you (and Emery) from those COM days. Hope to make your concert on Saturday. Love seeing all you’ve done.
xxooo
Oh, Deni! It was so great to see you – and I forgot that you knew Emery. I hope we can spend a little more time together next time and I hope I get out that way again waaaaaay sooner! It was so, so, SO wonderful – like a dream (a good one). I’m so happy you were part of it!