jeromemartin.ca

Music, music, music

I spent last weekend in British Columbia playing and recording music with a band that we formed many years ago when we were students at the University of Saskatchewan. During the past several years we've met twice a year to practice and play informal gigs.
This gathering included a recording session at Turtle Recording, White Rock, BC ('BC's Ocean-Front Studio').Turtle believes in quality work using ultramodern and classic equipment. I played a Yamaha grand (with three microphones, skillfully placed); there was also a Hammond B3 and a Fender Rhodes within reach. Keyboard heaven, with the option of recording digitally or on tape.
This was my first – and our first – studio recording session and it was more successful that we imagined it could be. The process was a learning experience, and the product is a CD that we can share and treasure. It's not for sale, but we'll be giving it to friends and relatives.
In the meantime we'll each play it in our cars and on our iPods, listening carefully, perhaps compulsively, to every note we played.
The clarity and the precision of the recording surprised us. We now look forward to doing this again.
On the flight home I talked to a woman who learned to play the flute after her children had gone to college. She loved being able to play the pieces that she wanted to play, and to play with a group of friends. She dared to become a middle-aged novice musician and showed herself and everyone else around her that one can learn music at any stage in life.
Music reaches out to all of us, young and old. Those who accept the challenge of playing and learning will find that it enriches their lives. It may or may not help us to live longer – but I know that it enriches my life and the lives of my fellow musicians.

Learning and Discomfort

I recently participated in a workshop facilitated by Marilyn Herasymowych and Henry Senko of MHA Institute Inc. It dealt with personal growth and group action, but one of the most important areas in which we worked involved action learning and uncertainty.
We were told that if we are going to learn we have to go into areas of uncertainty, areas of discomfort. Action learning involves creating discomfort from comfort, then creating comfort from discomfort. If we stay in our comfortable areas we won't learn anything very significant.
Several months ago I joined a big band, an 18 piece group that plays traditional big band arrangements as well as new, innovative jazz works. I had played piano (keyboards) in small bands ever since college but had not changed my style of playing or my repertoire for many years.
The first few practices were rather terrifying. I was given complex charts to play and had great difficulty following them and keeping up with this band that had played most of these songs for years. I was very uncomfortable, but I worked hard and learned a lot each week. I could have easily given up and resumed my comfortable approach to music: but I realized that what Marilyn and Henry had told me was working. I was now creating comfort from the discomfort because I was learning.
I have learned more about music in a few months of working with this band than I learned in the last twenty years. Five of us have also formed a small jazz group, playing music that we thought we could never play.
Our band leader is now challenging us with new, professional charts. Modern jazz, the newest arrangements. The whole band is now working at making comfort out of discomfort, and we're succeeding. That means that we're learning – and that's why we're there.