Prompt Courtesy of Stephen Drury: "So Orpheus and Prometheus walk into a bar..."

and Orpheus says, "man, this place is a hell hole." To which Prometheus replies, "no doubt, but liver die, I'm getting laid tonight. Dude, check out that hot chick in the corner. She is on FIRE!"

"Well, go talk to her, but don't Titan up like you did last time!"

"I didn't Titan up!," Prometheus retorted passionately. "You're such a lyre!"

Orpheus peered over his shoulder at Prometheus with a look of self-assurance and said, "Yeah, well, I'm a guy who Styx to a plan."

"Sure... Now watch this! Hey babe, I'd carry the world on my shoulders for you."

The evening was a Hadeous failure.

Political Hate-Slogans Explained! (At least to myself)

I was on the MetroRapid 754 from USC to Wilshire/Vermont and I was bored, so I automatically started inventing puns. All that came to mind were puns in the style of those hateful political slogans and mockery-names you see around election time ("NObama" and "The Goreinch Who Stole the Election", for example). The few I can remember are, "Between Barack and a hard place", "McPain 2008: ImPalin America", "O-blah-ma", "McCain and Able, 2008", "Go-bomb-a yourself", "Parah Sailin'." These are bad, even just as puns, but as I often feel when a pun pops up in my mind there is a certain satisfaction in the sensation of its creation, and it's likely the people who actually come up with such slogans may just invent them for the sheer pleasure of invention rather than to contribute to the general din of rally noise.

Anyway, as it turns out, a quick internet search shows that all these puns have been previously thought up, except the one about bombs which in truth is actually my worst. It just goes to show that someone out there really spends way too much time examining a candidate's name, teasing its sounds in the mouth a hundred times over and replacing every letter with another until these useless slogans become war-cries for a battle that everyone will have forgotten about within a couple of months. Perhaps I should find another way to entertain myself on the bus.

Day Three in Bulgaria

I'm in Bulgaria to perform a chamber concert hosted by the local radio station Classic FM Sofia. The violinist in our trio, Maxim Eshkenazy, a Bulgarian conductor clearly well-recognized in this city, was the one who set up the concert, and the radio station has billeted myself and the cellist, Diego Miralles, at a very, very fancy hotel near the airport. The hotel apparently won some award for its design, which is very attractive in an elegant modern sort of way, and I have this enormous room all to myself, complete with large bed meant for two, this free internet connection, complimentary mini-bar, and a very high-quality breakfast paid for by the radio station. We aren't expecting to be paid much for the concert, but this hotel, not to mention the personal chauffeur (his name is pronounced "Saidso", which of course gives me way too much fodder for my already stupid puns) provided for us by the radio, will make up for whatever we may have lost in traveling here.

Yesterday we spent the day rehearsing and giving radio interviews. Our rehearsals took place at the school of music, a community school (much like Colburn School or Juilliard pre-college) that is constantly teeming with kids ranging 5 to 18 years old. The school's facilities are very run-down. Like many of the buildings in Sofia, there is a very clear reminiscence of Soviet days. Most buildings appear pre-fabricated, like big concrete blocks, all the wiring and plumbing exposed on the outside, and it doesn't look like anyone has replaced floor tiles or repainted the walls since the 80s. The school of music is a little bit of a mess. There is graffiti and writing all over the walls and one of the bathroom's toilets had been completely blown to bits, something I would only expect to find in one of those infamous inner-city schools in Los Angeles. The pianos we got to use, all Bluethners and Yamahas, were in terrible condition, and the ivories had been played so much for so many years that they resembled the foot-worn staircases of ancient cathedrals. But we made due as best as we could.

The radio interviews (on Classic FM Sofia and Radio France International) were fun, even if a little awkward. Most people here speak a little English, but very few of them speak it well enough to actually converse, so Maxim served as our translator on the radio interviews, something he's not accustomed to doing or seems very interested in continuing. Today we were asked to appear on Bulgarian national television (channel 2, I think) to speak about the concert and our trio with a woman named Rosta Slava, the station's "culture anchor". During the car ride to LAX, Maxim's girlfriend Georgia told me about a tabloid story that claimed Maxim and Rosta Slava had been in a relationship, but she (Rosta Slava) was cheating on Maxim with his cousin. Big gossip in Bulgaria, apparently, but Georgia made a point to clarify that Maxim hadn't denied the story when it first came out. Though Maxim spent the rest of the car ride (and most of this trip so far) doing just that, I'm sure it will have minimal effect.

Not many pianos here, so not much practice time for me. As I say this, I can hear Diego practicing in the adjacent room and I'm starting to get antsy about the concert tonight. We're also not sure yet if Classic FM will cover our hotel costs after we play the concert, though I guess we'll find out soon.

The city is surrounded by mountains and is actually situated in a very wide valley. The mountains are beautiful and I can see them from my hotel room, their tops still coated with a little leftover snow. It is rather warm, in the upper 20s and even 30s (Celsius), and a little bit dry. That coupled with the flowering trees and freshly cut grass has been mild torture for my mild allergies, plus everyone smokes, something we Californians don't tend to cope with well.

Bulgaria is an interesting place. The people are very generous and laid back, and perhaps a little bit aloof. To generalize somewhat, the men are usually stocky and clean-cut. I've not seen a single guy with hair much longer than one or two inches. Many of the women look like they're straight out of the OC, and they are usually dressed to kill. That's one obvious Russian influence, among many others. I'm slowly learning little bits of Bulgarian here and there, though whenever I try to use it I either don't speak up enough to be heard or I just sound bad, because no one ever even acknowledges the effort. I've still time to improve.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll try to write again after the concert. I wish this hotel weren't so far away from the city center. There is really nothing to do out here except blog my opinions about a country I've not had much opportunity to explore, but hopefully that will change after the concert is over.

Commencement speech for the Colburn School Graduating Class of 2009

Many thanks to the faculty, staff and administration for inviting me to speak today. I also want to extend to them the very warmest appreciation for all the work they've put into developing this school. Unless you live and work here, it may be hard to understand how that this tight community is a very unique and potentially problematic ecosystem, and since I've been here they have worked tirelessly to fine tune the balances that make this place both a livable and productive environment for us. Many, many thanks to them for their hard work and great accomplishments. They have a difficult job and I don't envy them.

Let me say first that everything I am going to speak about now is meant as words of advice for myself, were I given the opportunity to time shift back four years and meet 18-year-old Ryan. I can't possibly hope to speak on behalf of everyone, and I don't mean to come across as preachy.

Colburn is unique on many levels, but what stands out most to me is that because this community is so small, so intimate and there are so few of us, there is very little feeling of competition between students and therefore more space for us to spread our wings. In addition, I really feel that the emphasis on artistry and musicianship is high, evident especially in the faculty's insistence on a heavy chamber music component. Like I said, don't let me speak on behalf of everyone, but I think all of this allows each person's musical individuality to develop in its own direction. There are many very unique artists at this school.

That being said, our bubble does not isolate us from everything, and it wasn't really until I came here that I had to confront head-on the issue of musical disillusionment as a result of external, non-musical forces. It is because of this I would have offered the following advice to myself:

Throughout our lives, each of us will receive countless accolades and rejections from competitions, orchestra auditions, graduate school applications, or simultaneously the highest praise and sharpest scorn from people who deliver their opinions with a menacingly compelling conviction; but so long as we are able to trust our own artistic intuition and give it the freedom to lead us in whatever direction it seems magnetically drawn, I think it would be very hard for us not to feel satisfied with our work no matter what the superfluous noise has to say. And unfortunately I am starting to realize that there is no such thing as a superfluous noise deficit.

I find that a person's music-making is very revealingly and somewhat disturbingly honest about his attitude towards his art. If I only feel 50% convinced with what I'm playing, whether it's on account of the piece or the interpretation or some other reason, then there is no way a listener can feel any more than 50% convinced of what he or she is hearing. This idea of unconscious communication is something I learned from my mom who is an Anesthesiologist. Because of the nature of her job, she is responsible for interviewing patients about their personal histories, essential information if you are supposed to keep someone unconscious for several hours without harming them. She use to tell me that she knew exactly how the patient felt during the preliminary interview--nervous, secretive, neurotic, honest, concealing, comfortable, etc--because she would realize she had taken on that mood herself.

The last piece of advice I would offer myself is that patience is essential. During school breaks I return home to Arcata, California, close to the border with Oregon, an area known for its Redwood forests. A couple of years ago I was walking to the university for a lesson with my old teacher and I walked past the stump of a freshly cut Redwood tree. They have a great earthy smell and that sort of alluring red color, and I couldn't resist stopping for a moment to count its many rings. At the center of the stump, the tree's growth appears at its greatest since from that point outward the distance between rings decreases. What I had never realized before is that with every passing year the tree's circumference increases, thus increasing the surface area that same amount growth has to cover. In this same way, at a certain point growth as an artist can seem slow and still like a doldrums, and bumpy (disrupted by forest fires and draughts, so to speak), but the growth is always present. Impatience only seems to yield cheap tricks; important tools in their own right, perhaps, but usually only temporary solutions. Screwdrivers are not meant to drive nails, even if they can, if you know what I mean.

I'd like to conclude by reading a short passage from one of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke's Ten Letters to a Young Poet:

"Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything! "

Thanks again to everyone in this hall for a very interesting and life-changing four years, and the best of luck to all of you, my graduating and ever-ripening friends.

A Boring Post About Piano Technique

Sixteen years of playing the piano, three full years of which were spent at the great Colburn Conservatory, and I never played a Mozart sonata until this semester. Should I feel guilty? Maybe not yet, but I do feel like I have been missing out on something truly beautiful. With the exception of Beethoven, I have avoided Classical-era music for as long as I can remember and have always regarded it as the brusselsprout of Art music repertoire. Mozart seemed pretty, and Haydn occassionally silly, but only when I heard them on the radio or at a concert, perhaps programmed next to some other piece of greater interest to me. My previous teacher had tried encouraging me to play a Mozart sonata during my first year with her, but I managed to procrastinate it off my to-do list and she only ever heard me play the last movement of a Mozart concerto. Years later she would finally hear me play Haydn, but only after two years with Mr. Perry had guilted me into conceding that Classical music might actually be worth studying. Now, finally, I may understand what it is that everyone seems to love about this music, and maybe also why I have been avoiding it.

Much of my dislike for Classical music may have to do with my technique. I am 6’1” and somewhat gangly, and so my arms and fingers are very long. I can comfortably reach the span of eleven notes and I can achieve a big sound without working too hard. But therein lies a problem. My long limbs and fingers are somewhat like heavy rowing oars, and in this case I am trying to use them with the precision needed in fencing. Like a lance, I can make very large gestures and hit objects at high speeds, but when it comes to very fine control on a small scale, I simply do not yet have the coordination. During my first year with Mr. Perry, he acknowkedged the benefits of my large hands, and also told me that I would have to work extra hard to strengthen them. Another observation he continued to make was that I always produce a “thick” sound, even when a “fine salted broth” sort of sound would have been more appropriate. He said this results from pushing into the keys. Weight and strength “dirty” a pianist’s sound, and the resulting microscopic change in the way the hammer strikes the string causes more wild overtones to pour out of the piano like gamma-rays. Every pitch starts to sound like a heavily orchestrated chord, and this sound is very appropriate for Russian romantic piano concertos and much 20th century music (not surprisingly, the two styles I seem to play best), but certainly not for the transparency of Mozart and even Beethoven.

Technique is often referred to as the “anti-Music”, but this recent venture into the world of Classical music has taught me otherwise. Changing my technique to something more Classically appropriate has changed the way I interpret the music itself. Every tiny subtlety changes the emotional impact of the music (in this case, wrong notes start to cross into the realm of somewhat-unforgivable), and so I need to be in a state where I can be aware of these small changes. When the skin itches, you scratch it. This is not because scratching your skin eliminates the itch, but it overloads your nervous system so that your brain can no longer detect the itch in the midst of so much activity. This is the same with playing piano. If I want to be physically aware of the sensation at my fingertips so that I can control exactly how I am touching the keys, then I need to deactivate everything above my wrists and play mostly with my fingers. What often happens, though, is that my arms figure that if they are not needed, they should go stiff, and that is no better than just using them outright. But if I can make it work, this also helps to eliminate the "thickness" that comes from playing from my arm muscles and I am not left physically exhausted by the end of a performance.

What I have learned in playing more classical music is that often the most beautiful moments are less exclamations than allusions. These moments can be a small wink, a slight of hand, or a brief seductive smile, and in every case they add a tremendous depth because they appear quietly and infrequently in the midst of such simplicity. This perspective could actually be extremely useful in any other music, which is probably why, consciously or unconsciously, so many teachers of any instrument like to start their students off with a large helping of classical repertoire. I am a little disappointed not to have realized this until now, but I am at least comforted to know that I honestly love and appreciate Classical music, rather than hating it for being that "thing" my piano teachers made me play.

Reflections on an Old Video

Watching this video, I am most interested in how my concept of musical intensity has changed since this 2005 performance. At the time, keeping in stride with what should be expected from a young man of seventeen, I must have seen musical intensity as measured in volume of energy--more, less, louder, softer, faster, slower. My tempi fluctuate constantly and every entrance of every new musical character is illuminated with a limelight ever more brilliant and dramatic than the last. This upward climb eventually peaks and even though I’m left with few musical options, I keep pushing, and the sound begins to splash wildly like an irritated sea monster. Even so, there is enough of a conviction and enthusiasm for my own ideas that while listening to it now, the performance still works for me. I cannot remember why the beginning is missing, though I seem to remember my mother complaining about how the camera would not start recording.

I have since started to work on musical intensity as a very subtle magic, and it can be created by doing very little. One example is the last movement of Chopin’s 3rd piano sonata, a very volatile rondo that is often played too fast. Following a very symphonic introduction, a constant rumble of eighth notes continues almost without interruption to the very end of the piece. Chopin marks agitato, but this is the sort of agitation that comes from a deep feeling of suspense. The rhythm must be held steady-as-she-goes, or the performance risks capsizing in what can seem like a sea of noise. Excitement is more exciting than near-death, which is only scary; it’s no fun riding on a roller coaster that has been known to kill its passengers. If the rhythm is held, the intensity is not so much in the performance as in the audience’s perception. The best horror films, for example, rely more on the audience’s imagination than on raw gore. Most new horror films rely on an orgy of computer graphics animation to shock their audiences, and so the suspense is not in “what will happen next?” as much as “how much longer do I have to watch this?”. This sort of self-flagellation only makes sense as a religious mandate, but even then...

Nightmares about nightmares

I don't have nightmares very often, and when I do they always feel like the classic estranged relative who arrives to collect a free dinner. Nightmares are always disturbing, but this one in particular took me in a rather hard way, mostly for the train of thought it inspired upon waking.

The worst part of a nightmare is the "bad trip" element. The body's warning systems buzz the mind awake, yet somehow the nightmare's undeniable presence is more comforting than to sit empty and alone in a place that no longer seems safe. Unfortunately, this dream preys on every possible discomfort in the room: the nightmare takes place at my grandparents' house, where I happen to be sleeping; and the "evil being" is an ailing grandfather clock a room and a hallway behind me, which moments after I wake chimes a quarter past five. It seems that clocks are my mind's current and only concern, and they are suddenly multiplying all around me.

The dream itself is very straight forward: this grandfather clock simply puts everyone in a bad mood, in particular the cat who can't decide whether she more enjoys cussing or making gashes in our faces. The insults are most frightening because somehow I know the cat's words are being channeled from the clock. In retrospect, the clock must have a very witty sense of humor because the cat's favorite insult is "you sons of bitches".

Maybe nightmares are diagnostic tests of our imagination, specifically the parts that can invent fear. Most people have had enough social training to know what is "nice" and what is not, but a normal person has probably also caused harm to someone else at least once, perhaps intentionally or by accident, out of spite or in misunderstanding. As I lie awake and frightened, it seems so clear to me that every single person has the power to be unbelievably cruel, and nightmares are a taste of our own bad medicine. This taste is far too familiar to me to have been experienced only in my sleep, and a sweeping self-doubt plagues me for the rest of the day.