Music and Introspection

My school's semester doesn't start up until the 30th (yeah, J-Term/Winter Term!), so I have been hanging out at home doing a whole lot of not much at all.

It hasn't all been fun and games, though.  I have been able to help out my former youth choir out with their rehearsals.  Sort of a mini-internship, if you will.


They have a program that they're calling OPERAtunities, wherein the organization commissions an opera to be performed entirely by children and adolescents.  Since it's in Hawaii, the operas can range from focusing on old Hawaiian folktales and issues of Hawaiian import.  I was put in charge of introducing and rehearsing the opera to the group.  Luckily it was pretty sightreadable, and enough of the kids remembered me so that I didn't have to create that sense of rapport with them in this short time.

For a while now I have been reflecting a lot on my intent to continue my education and get a Masters in Conducting.  I've been feeling - uninspired.  I've been thinking that I'd be fine with just getting an office job and just doing music on the side.

This has made me rethink that.

The choir meets only a couple of times a week.  Being a part of even just this rehearsal process has been an amazing experience.  I have rehearsed them twice now, and both times I have gone home wanting to just come back and work.  I have something that they haven't looked at before, that I basically have free reign to... and so little time.

It has reminded me of why I love music.

I love everything about it - even the theory of it (to some extent...).  I love the atmospheres that it can create.  I love, as conductor, the ability to introduce a piece of music and to take the singers through the experience.  I love the feeling when they finally get it, and the piece really starts to jive.

I love the collaboration that comes from choirs, and I'm starting to realize exactly what being a conductor means.

It's not enough to simply know the score and stand in front of a group of people and wave your arms.  In fact, it's really not about you at all.

It's about using every part of your musical self - your technique, your interpretations, your hand gestures - to create a warm, intelligent, musical atmosphere that allows your singers to express themselves to the best of their abilities.  You are there to provide guidance and direction from the chaos.  You are not the emperor - you are the catalyst.

I haven't felt this in a very long time.  To leave from rehearsal wanting only to come back and rehearse some more.  To make sure my singers are healthy and happy and loving every minute of it.

This is why I conduct.

Community and the Self

Ah, finals week.  The magical (or devilish) week that can make or break a person's grade.  I am fortunate enough to have only one of those dreaded things... So what do I do with my time?  Do I finish reading Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale because I was supposed to for class?  Do I look over my notes on Stephen Greenblatt and the critical theories and readings behind good ol' Bill Shakespeare's works?

Chuck Testa.

Instead I've been sitting on my butt and have gone through two full seasons of Community in about three or four days.  I am officially in love.

I have also been doing a lot of thinking.  Or at least, I've been thinking about doing a lot of thinking.  As I've been watching the show, I've noticed that they all focus on each character individually.  One of the things that is NOT present is that feeling of sexual tension (well, at least not that much).  Sure you have Jeff hitting on everything that moves, and sure, you get the Jeff/Britta drama, but the show succeeds in really showcasing the characters as individuals, and having the characters grow.  As individuals.

This idea is something that has been resonating with me for the past semester or so.  I mention in a previous blog post that this semester's been something of a personal one for me.  I really feel like I was able to get down and focus on all that academia has to offer.

However, it's not to say that it's been the smoothest of rides... There have been many a Friday night when it seems like everyone around me is getting intimate - everyone that is, but myself.

This is going to be a weird and disjointed segue (I promise it will make sense in the next paragraph), but throughout my life I have been so focused on putting others' needs ahead of mine.  I have always been that person that says "oh, no problem!" and drops everything to help someone else.  Well, what about my needs?  I am still willing and able to help people out, but I now recognize that there are certain things that I have got to tackle on my own.

This especially rings true in terms of dating (see?  I told you it would pan out).  For a good part of my college career (a.k.a. the past three years), I have been basically pining for a significant other.  Of course, everyone around me has been supportive, and been all like "oh, you will find someone - you deserve it!"

But I don't think I do.  Not right now.

I don't mean for the previous statement to be depressing at all - I simply mean that at this point in my personal development and social surroundings, I would be quite the disaster in a relationship.  I have often heard the following expression: "You'll never share real love until you love yourself." -RENT

Now, as cliche as that might be, it really rings true.  I am simply not in the right space right now.  Being in rural Indiana, struggling to find my social and national identity, attempting to deal with my body issues - all do not bode well for a potential relationship.

Not that I'm depressed about it.  Don't get me wrong.  As much as I'd love a relationship, I know that I really need to hash these issues out first.  Once I get in the space where I can love myself wholly, and not just in parts, will I then be ready.

I have long since recognized that I build my self esteem from my musical talent.  This is perhaps why I was so hurt when I didn't pass my sophomore proficiencies.  Once that blow was dealt, I felt like I really didn't have any defining or positive things to like about myself.

This is not how it should be.

I need to be able to look at myself, and accept - nay, embrace, every aspect of me.  Whether it be negative or positive, perfect or imperfect.  I need to be able to look at myself and see that "Oh, my skin is not as tan as it used to be - and that's OK."

I've been getting a lot better about it, but I still have some moments.

The important thing, however, is that I am continuing to better myself as a person foremost, and as anything else second.

And that's ok.

Stuck

is how I feel.

Oh, hi by the way.  Long time no see.  Guess this thing has just kind of fallen by the wayside.  But let's change that!

Forewarning, this is going to be kind of a stream-of-consciousness type deal.  So yeah.

This semester's almost over, and I just kind of feel stuck.  There are so many things that I want to do, yet don't have the time to do so.  I have lots of work that I am trying to do, on top of grad school apps (please note that I'm not complaining, I'm actually quite proud of myself for handling this much work in such a good way)... And I'm just kind of frustrated by a lot of things.

First, my voice.  I got this cold, bug, sickness, whatever you want to call it the Thursday before last, and it still has little tendrils of sickness that's just kinda hanging around my lungs.  It got to the point that I couldn't say two sentences without hacking up half a lung.  And the thing was, these were DRY coughs... It wasn't even a productive half a lung.

It basically ruined my voice for a week.  And let me tell you - never have I wanted to practice and sing more than when my voice was in a shambles.  It's luckily getting better now, but with juries coming up and a performance where I have to sing loud and high, let's just say my voice better be in shape or I'm gonna cut someone.

I've also kind of been at a loss socially.  Yes, I have been taking more of a 'personal' semester.  And let me say this right off the bad - I ADORE the people that I have been hanging out with on a regular basis.  I'm just kind of frustrated because I see all of these people who I really want to hang out with, or haven't hung out with in a long time and I just don't have the TIME to hang out with them... And it seems like I'm always hanging out with the same people.  That was a lot of "hanging outs" and "hung outs" in a short span of time.  But whatever.  You guys can deal with that.

I'm just worried that my relationships with others are languishing because I'm being complacent... I'm comfortable in my groove, and my actions aren't necessarily indicative that I want to change.  But I really do.

There's just so much I want to do and I feel like there isn't any time left.  I want to become more proficient on my instrument, and provide a kick-ass recital.  I want to do really well in my Shakespeare, Eastern European and American Portraits classes.  I also want to become more active in the Asian-American community at school, and to become more knowledgeable in my own culture, and my own identity.  I want to hang out with people who I haven't seen in a long time, but I also want to keep hanging out with the people I've been seeing for a long time.  I want to get back on the exercise train and try to lose more weight.  I want to do all of these things, and it's becoming a matter of what I want to do most.

I think what I have to do is to simply step back and let things happen the way they will.  I have to tell myself that I still have one semester to do all of these things, and that whatever happens will happen.  I think I feel like I've only really gotten the hang of college in the last year or so, and so I feel like I need to do EVERYTHING ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET.  What I really should be doing is to be thankful for all of the experiences and opportunities that my University has given me, and to make sure that I learn from my endeavors and become a better person because of them.  I'm finally at a place where I can think about these things, and to not dwell on the past or the future.  I just need to keep taking things as they come, and to enjoy everything from beginning to end.  Bill Clinton said in his lecture yesterday that, "Pessimism is a shortcut to disappointment."  I just need to keep this in mind as I traverse through the many paths of life, and know that in the end I will end up successful, no matter what I eventually wind up doing.

HA, you thought this was going to be an entirely depressing post, didn't you?  Well the joke's on you.

The Emotionless Mask - Asian Invasion Pt. 3 (三)

Growing up, I remember this one particular instance at a cub-scout camp:

A younger brother of one of my fellow scouts was also at the camp, and about halfway through the thing, he says to me something like "Jeremy, you're weird.  Your face is either happy or nothing.  There's no in-between."  Now, I'm smartening up the language (do you like that word that I just made up?), but that's basically what he was getting at.

This has been pretty much a 'story-of-my-life' instance, with various people telling me at various ages something similar ("oh, it's hard to tell what you're thinking," or, "are you upset?")

It's really interesting comparing the dynamic of my family with the snapshot dynamics of friends that I stay with during breaks at school.  Since I live in Hawaii but go to school in the mid-west, airfare gets to be a little too expensive to fly back and forth for summer, fall break, Christmas break AND spring break, so I just make do with Christmas and summer.  During the other breaks I find some way of entertaining myself, and that just so happens to be traveling and staying with friends, and it's so interesting to watch.

White people are so expressive!

Not just happy, or neutral, but everything in between - they use their faces so effectively with just the right amount of nuance that I am kind of like "what is happening and why can I not do this?"  It seems like whenever I THINK I'm making a nuanced expression, all I really am doing is just looking kind of introspective and slightly depressed.  The same goes for when I'm singing... As a performer I have to always look engaged in the music - and when I try to do that without outright pasting a huge grin on my face (or so it seems to me) I just look kind of out of it and slightly high...

I guess that's what "self-improvement" is all about, huh?  Anyway, I thought that I was kind of unique in that aspect until I came across "Paper Tigers."  In it, Wesley Yang interviews a bunch of Asian Americans about their experiences.  One of them, a college graduate by the name of Daniel Chu, explains some of the things he encountered once he got to university:

Chu remembers that during his first semester at Williams, his junior adviser would periodically take him aside. Was he feeling all right? Was something the matter?  “I wasn’t totally happy, but I wasn’t depressed.”... But then his new white friends made similar remarks. “They would say, ‘Dan, it’s kind of hard, sometimes, to tell what you’re thinking.’ ”

Chu... speaks in a quiet, unemphatic voice. He doesn’t move his features much. He attributes these traits to the atmosphere in his household. “When you grow up in a Chinese home,” he says, “you don’t talk. You shut up and listen to what your parents tell you to do.”

When he arrived at Williams, Chu slowly became aware of something strange: The white people in the New England wilderness walked around smiling at each other. “When you’re in a place like that, everyone is friendly.”

He made a point to start smiling more. “It was something that I had to actively practice,” he says. “Like, when you have a transaction at a business, you hand over the money—and then you smile.”

While my own upbringing wasn't completely iron-fisted (hehe), aspects of it were.  I was never told to shut up, or that I couldn't talk, but I could never talk over my parents or even really tease them.  At least that part of it was clear.  And doubly so if they were disciplining me.  While they never hit me, they had a way of telling me that they were NOT happy.

I wasn't disciplined that often as a kid, but I was a lot more timid and would bottle things up... so I learned at an early-ish age to hide my emotions - to turn my head down and fix my face into something neutral, and I guess it just kind of stuck with me.

Even now, if I am put in a situation that I am even the slightest bit uncomfortable with, I tend to draw up into a shell, and put up a front... This happened just a few days ago, actually.  I went to a festival in Chicago with a few friends and friends of theirs whom I had never met, and at one point during the night one of them said "So, are you just really chill or are you like, bored?"

That really was kind of a wake-up call, and one lesson that I think I can take with me for awhile to come.  However, once I get something in my head, it's really hard to get it out, and it's something that I will work toward and seems to be helping.  Last night I went out with one of my host's friends to go see Captain America.  And perhaps it was my host's charisma, or simply the fact that there was a lot of common ground, I was able to get out of my shell, and actually bond a bit right off the bat!

It was a good thing.

Why I conduct.

We will now break from our usually scheduled Asian programming to bring you this:

Just kidding.



I feel like whenever I tell people that I want to go into conducting that the first thing that pops into their head is "why?"  That, or "ok, weirdo."  I feel that it is doubly so at my school, where we do not have a conducting major, and many of my vocalist friends and colleagues seem to think that choir is a chore, and only go because it is required.

I would like to offer this explanation (not that any of you care - I'm just writing this down so that I can come back to it later).

This summer has been a wonderful experience.  Since, as I pointed out earlier (hooray redundancies!), my school does not offer a conducting major aside from music education, I try to do all I can to fill up and load up on classes (hurrdurr I'll load YOU up...).  I have been very busy with workshops and internships and what have you, and it didn't really strike me until tonight - as I was conducting along to bad Youtube recordings and some good ones - of this fact.

Music flows through me.


Quite literally.  When I am up on the podium and I start conducting, I am the happiest man on the planet.  It flows through me like blood through my veins.  It reminds me that music is all about COLLABORATION, and that together, we are all creating something as special and as magical as when it was first composed.


I conduct out of love.


The same goes when I am a singer in a choir.  When we all know our music, and can connect to the conductor, I can almost see the music flowing from his fingertips and infusing me with the ability to give all I can to make the performance as wonderful as possible.  It is like the conductor is the catalyst with which the music flows through.



I felt this at our concert two weeks ago.

This feeling is something that I don't quite get out of solo singing.  Yes, it is a wonderful thing to bond with your accompanist, and exploring the nuances of the music and the text, feeling the give-and-take in the music is something that I adore - but it just doesn't FEEL the same.  And while it does give me a sense of accomplishment, the feeling is NOTHING compared to the joy of completing a concert that you designed and rehearsed and worked and worked... And this was all last semester, BEFORE I got really in tune with myself!


This is something that I will strive to accomplish with any group that I have the privilege of conducting and directing.


This is my dream.

So am I a Duck or a Wheel? (Asian Invasion Pt. 2 (二))

“'The loudest duck gets shot' is a Chinese proverb. 'The nail that sticks out gets hammered down' is a Japanese one. Its Western correlative: 'The squeaky wheel gets the grease.'” -Wesley Yang, "Paper Tigers"

I've noticed many things different between what I'll call the Western School of Parenting vs. the Eastern School.  Most notably the difference between U.S. parents and East-Asian ones.

Some people may be aware of the meme called the High Expectations Asian Father:

Less famous is the "Tiger Mom:"

It is a stereotype (remember, they ARE based on fact), that the children of Asian parents are to always get A's in their schoolwork, play either the violin or piano, and have almost no social life.  This is true amongst a few of my Asian friends, although not so much in my own personal experience.

On the flip side, though my parents have occasionally tried to do some tiger mom-ing and Asian father-ing, they have stayed pretty Western in their styles.  When I was a junior in high school I was choosing between majoring in music and majoring in psychology.  My parents, very practical and looking out for my long-term future (as most parents, not only Asians, do), told me to consider going into psychology for the job stability.  However, instead of pressuring and forcing me to do so, they supported me when I decided to go into music.

Though they were never very "Asian" in their parenting styles, there is one thing that I got from them that is decidedly not-Western: The idea of keeping ones head down, and leading by example rather than making a fuss.  Whenever there was a problem, instead of telling somebody about it or confronting the issue, I would bottle it up inside and store it away - which is quite opposite of my Western friends' upbringing.

I am quite good at compartmentalizing.

In the "Paper Tigers" article, Wesley Yang writes, " “White people have this instinct that is really important: to give off the impression that they’re only going to do the really important work. You’re a quarterback. It’s a kind of arrogance that Asians are trained not to have."

Going to school in the midwest was quick to teach me this - as a result I have gotten much better (I think) about talking of myself - althought I still share a sense that if I try to "talk myself up," that I will come across as arrogant or dumb - I am in the mindset of the nail that is about to be hammered down, to blend with everyone else.  Ironically, everyone (almost) in the midwest is in the mindset of the squeaky wheel!

Growing up and looking at future grad-schools and jobs have taught me that I really need to start learning to talk about myself.  I've always been content to be in the background - to be kind of a fly on the wall of the conversation - but I'm starting to realize that in this economy/job market, people are not looking for flies... They are looking for someone who will get things done no matter the situation - they are looking for confidence in a sea of humility.

And I'm working on it. 

The Asian Invasion Pt. 1 (一)

This has been a topic that has been long in my mind.  I've been struggling with the right words to write, but have been helped greatly by NYMagazine's article "Paper Tigers" http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/ as well as Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Because I have so many things and topic that I'm thinking about, I think I'm gonna split it up into multiple blog entries and call it a series (of potentially unfortunate events).

So yeah.  Asians.  I don't think I became fully aware of what it meant to be an Asian-American until I came to school in the midwest.  Not that I have encountered any racism, I've actually been very fortunate to find myself a wonderful group of friends and a very friendly atmosphere/environment.

However, when I was growing up in Hawaii, I didn't really notice much of anything - partly because I am by nature pretty oblivious, but mostly because, quite frankly, Asians run rampant there.

I don't consider myself to have a particularly Asian upbringing - both of my parents are quite well-assimilated into American culture, and as such have not fallen into what Amy Chua calls the "Tiger Mother" style of parenting; the type that Family Guy loves making fun of:

In fact, from Ms. Chua's account, as well as accounts from certain friends of mine, this really isn't much of an exaggeration.  But more on that later.

I think that it was because of this upbringing that in high school a majority of my friends were Caucasian.  On the flip side, I think that it's hilarious that in college, where white people are the majority, I am seeking out the friendships of the Asian Americans.  I don't really have an insightful post for that, I simply wanted to make the situation more funny.

Actually though it is an accurate representation of the way I was brought up - a weird amalgamation of Asian and American values and mores, with none really being more superior to the other.


Hm... My mind is especially wander-y today.  I think I'll go grab some lunch and then come back perhaps.  Or maybe not.  At any rate, stay tuned - more to come from this banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside)!

Twitter as Educational Tool?

I was stumbling around Facebook late one night (ok, tonight... and it's currently 4:00 AM...) when I came across this article:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/06/08/twitter.school/

The headline reads: "Twitter Finds a Place in the Classroom."

The article basically follows a middle-school teacher who, instead of shunning the use of technology, allows his students to be on the internet, "as long as they're using Twitter."  As he lectures in class, he poses questions to the students.  Now, whereas before only a select group of students would consistenly speak up, he now finds that he is getting a more well-balanced response from the class via Twitter.

This article really got me thinking... Although I'm so much of a social media whore nowadays (I've got Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Youtube AS WELL AS three emails) that any article related to this kind of medium will get me "thinking."

ANYWAY, I got this off of a friend who at first shot down the idea outright, speaking of getting the children AWAY from their "extreme dependency on technology."  However as soon as I read this article I thought to myself, "huh..."

Sure, on one hand the internet can be a very sketchy place, and many people will argue that it has no place in the classroom, BUT:

WHAT IF we were to create an environment on the internet, a sort of safe haven forum that allows everyone to participate in an intelligent manner?  What if we then took this idea of a "safe zone" and applied it to people who are just coming to realize the internet's potential?

By starting in middle school, we would be able to "get them" while they are still young, and uncolored by the distractions that are facebook and youtube and what have you.  This would teach the students that the internet is more than just a cheap dick joke or meme-source; it's a place of discussion and intelligence.

Also, as stated at the beginning of the post, the teacher in question noticed that he got a wider base of response from his class, not just the kids that always tend to "dominate classroom discussions."  The slight anonymity that the internet (and in this case, Twitter) has given his class allows a lot of his shyer students the opportunity to speak where they may not have felt comfortable before.

And maybe, just maybe, by reaching out to the students in this way, we can see a change in how the internet is run, where facebook and intelligent conversation can run side-by-side.

Now, I realize that this is EXTREMELY and utterly optimistic and idealistic, but I think that by starting young, and by fostering an environment that is both safe and intelligent, these children might be able to change the way the internet is perceived (at least by a lot of America, at any rate).