Summer in the City

Over a month has passed since my last post.  I can't believe that time is flying so fast!

Amazingly, this is my first summer in NYC since my first six month visit in 2001.  I officially moved here in 2002 and I have been away every summer since.  2003 found me on a cruise ship for 3 months and 2004-2011 I was on the jazz piano/voice faculty at the New York Summer Music Festival.

This NYC summer is a lot different than that first one I spent here in 2001.  That summer was my NYC "experiment", where I came here with a pocketful of cruise ship earnings trying to decide what my next move was.  I took weekly voice lessons with Jackie Presti and bi-weekly piano lessons with Garry Dial - both with proved to be pivotal in my ultimate decision to move here permanently.  I spent the entire summer living my dream immersing myself in the jazz scene in New York City.  I practiced for 6 hours a day, took daily yoga classes at a Hari Krishna temple, and went out to hear live music almost every night, all while living in a cool East Village apartment with my super amazing artist cousin Karin.  It was truly a life changing summer, which resulted in my decision to move here to go to graduate school at the Manhattan School of Music. 

Fast forward to 2012 and my summer couldn't be any different.  I spent my days playing with my lovely son, moseying around in the stroller through Central Park and trying to complete various projects around the apartment.  We spend our weekends at our beach house in Breezy Point, BBQ-ing and spending time with my husband's family.  I only get to practice a few hours a week now - probably less in a week than I used to in a day!  Being with my son has taught me to slow down and enjoy the simpler things like flowers and squirrels and garbage trucks (he loves garbage trucks!).  I am seeing the city in a whole new way and I am for once actually living in the moment, rather than pushing ahead to the next big goal or gig.

My imagination is alive and I am feeling really full of hope and reflection.  Although I can't figure out the logistics quite yet, I am excited about the possibility of another recording, another tour, another great teaching opportunity.  I am also starting to feel like my music has really benefited from what I call my "Mommy hiatus".  I spent more than half of my life engrossed in music and now I am engrossed in just living my life.  Such an incredible change!

So, that's my summer in the city.  So far...

Catching up

As I write this, it is currently 6:30 on Sunday morning and I have already been up for over an hour.  My sweet son is miraculously sleeping through the night now, but still likes to get up at the break of dawn.  This has presented me with the marvelous gift of some time to myself, which I thought I would never get again.  Incredibly, I am starting to get caught up!

As a self employed person, there is no end to the amount of work that there is to do.  Add in being a new mom and a wife to a guy with a demanding job and that amount of work doubles.  I am balancing/juggling so much at once, that I often feel like there will never be an end to my "To Do" list.  This week I managed to break through and I'm actually seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. 

I kept the babysitter for an extra 4 hours on Friday and sorted and filed all of my teaching materials (from 5 different gigs), in addition to cleaning out my studio.  Wow!  Yesterday morning after the 5am feeding, I cleaned out two of our closets and discovered that there is a lot more room in there than we thought.  (Living in NYC = not that much closet space, but that's for another post...)

This morning, I tackled three tasks:  Starting a Twitter account (@brendaestokes), starting a Facebook Band Fan site  http://www.facebook.com/BrendaEarleStokes and signing up for a new e-newsletter provider.  (I have used Constant Contact for years, but it's really expensive!) 

This morning time has become sheer bliss and I enjoy tackling these tasks while drinking my coffee while it's still hot.  At the rate I'm going, I will be through my "To Do" list by the end of June!

Once these tasks are done, I will start the new big project: Editing and publishing my entire catalog of Sacred Voices music.  Check out one of our performances here.  This is something I've been wanting to do for years, but have not had the time and focus to do it.  I suspect that this work will also be taking place in the wee small hours of the morning...

Accepting help

I am notorious for not wanting help. I like to do most things for myself and have always been this way. It's not that I need to be in control (is it?). I think I was just programmed early on to be as independent as possible. I really like that about myself, but motherhood has made me need help more than ever before. Take today, for example. I booked the babysitter for a couple of extra hours today so I could get caught up on some work stuff. BUT I planned to feed him myself during that time, giving the sitter some paid time off. Realizing how ridiculous that was, I decided to pretend I wasn't home and let her actually do her job. And, I managed to finish all the score preparation for my gig on June 15 and even practice for nearly 90 minutes.

Asking for help equals taking care of myself and I hope to be able to do more of it. Do you struggle with the same thing?

Their outsides vs my insides

As a new mom, I look to other moms for inspiration. I have a few acquaintances and friends who are moms who are doing amazing things: releasing new albums, touring, etc and I look at them wondering how they can do it all! Most days I have to decide between practicing the piano and taking a shower while the little man naps. How can people release albums?!?
My good friend Amy Cervini has a fantastic 2 year old son and was very kind to remind me that she wasn't exactly musically productive when she had a three month old. I really needed to hear that! I sometimes feel so overwhelmed that I don't know how I'm going to get through the day just taking care of my guy, which causes me to doubt that I'll ever be active in the music scene again! Inside I feel so crazed and have so many doubts and I look at what others are doing and compare myself to them. Not a great thing to do!
Just the other day I was chatting with the mom of one of my students. She has an 8 year old and a 5 year old and told me that she was impressed by how easy I'm making it look. She said she was amazed that I was teaching, doing gigs and that I always look so well put together(!!!!!). I was so flattered by that and it was a great boost to my confidence, especially considering I usually have barf on at least one article of clothing!

It made me chuckle to myself that the other mom was looking at my outsides and comparing them with her insides! I told her that although it might seem effortless for me, I was struggling most of the time. She thanked me for telling her that, as she often felt overwhelmed.

I am learning to be more patient with myself and to be grateful for any time that I have to make music. More than that, I count my blessings every day for my beautiful son and husband, who make me smile every day. I know that many great musical experiences are still in store for me...

Boys don't cry

Another amazing song from my youth...

Great albums of my past...and present

Our little man was up all night last night.  All.  Night.  We didn't know what was wrong with him, but he seems to be doing a lot better now.  In the midst of our middle of the night shenanigans, I was reconnected with some great albums from my childhood.

1.  Raffi "Singable Songs For the Very Young" - We actually went to hear him live and I remember how fantastic he was!  His "I wonder if I'm growing", made me a little weepy last night, especially since our little man is now in the 3-6 month size of clothes - at only 9 weeks!
2.  Anne Murray "Hippo In My Tub" - My mom LOVED Anne Murray, so it was a real home run when she released this children's album.  Her version of "Hi Lili, Hi Lo" still makes me cry.
3.  Ramones "Mania" - "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" is totally badass, and "Rockaway Beach" means so much more to me now that we actually spend summers there.  I thought it was a made up place!

We had quite a nice dance party here last night, my little man and I.  He just didn't want it to end at bedtime...

There are some other faves from childhood that I'm going to look for:
Little Richard - my dad LOVES Little Richard
Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits - my mom LOVED that album.  I still remember the double record album that opened up to a big picture of his face (pre-plastic surgery)
The Smiths "Louder Than Bombs" - that one was all me.  Nothing like British gay angst music, when you're a 14 year old Canadian girl.
The Pretty in Pink Soundtrack - still my favourite movie of all time and one of the best soundtracks EVER.

Well, back to my tired stupor and an attempt to hit the Goldberg Variations before Junior is reactivated.

It's not the end of the world...

It's so funny to me how when I'm in the middle of a bad day, I often feel like every day is going to be like that.  How can I forget so quickly and easily all of the good days I have had?

Yesterday was a lousy day for me trying to get anything done.  The babysitter got sick, so I couldn't go to my teaching gig and I had a fixed idea in my head about how the day was going to look.  Here it was, 8 in the morning and I was already feeling frustrated and overwhelmed!  The little man was wide away and ready to party all day, making it extremely difficult for me to actually sit at the piano and get anything done.  I did 15 minutes of vocal practice, did a load of laundry, put groceries away and made chicken curry.  A pretty remarkable list of tasks accomplished, but not good enough in my mind.  Ah, dreadful perfectionism.

Today started out very differently. Since the forecast calls for rain, I threw the boo boo in the stroller at 7:45am this morning to get a good walk in before it's impossible to do so.  We both really need to get out of this damn house, and it makes bedtime a lot easier for him later.  After the walk, we both ate breakfast and he crashed until 11:30am.  I practiced for nearly two hours and actually felt the most productive I have in almost a week.  Amazing!  I also made soup during this time.  Double amazing!

What was especially surprising to me, was that after spending a few days really working on my original tune "In September", I actually made a few changes to it.  It surprised me that once I got beyond the surface, I noticed that although I love the vision of the piece, there were actually a few redundant chords.  I had forgotten about this type of subtlety that you can get to when you actually go deeper into the piece.  I am really happy with the way it's coming together and I am almost completely off book with it.  I also discovered a few lovely cluster voices that work beautifully over the middle section.

I hope that I can remember days like today when I am faced with another version of yesterday.

Lowered Expecations

So it turns out that the best laid plans can easily be hi-jacked by a newborn.  I'm sure any new moms out there are laughing out loud at my saying that, but how the Hell was I supposed to know?!!?  My attempts of daily practice were interrupted this weekend by work - I did an actual gig, taught many hours on Saturday and played a church gig Sunday morning - and by baby.  Baby seems to want to eat all the time, which means I can't exactly belly up to the piano and play the Goldberg Variations.  BUT - I did manage about 20 minutes of vocalizing to get my mix to set up in the middle.

My dear friend Lisa is always reminding me of my rampant perfectionism (which I am grateful for), which assists me in being hyper-productive a lot of the time, but also sends me into rather a lather when I can't get everything I want done.  My son is now the #1 most important thing in my life and when he needs me he needs me.  It really is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to devote myself to meeting those needs.  BUT - the thing that can truly drive me nuts is ME.  I can no longer do what I want when I want.  I can no longer just decide on doing something and then forcing it to happen.  And I certainly can't do that when I have a little man who views me as the food source.

If only I could truly live in the now, be 100% grateful for what I have in my life and not expect myself to be able to be a great mom, who can practice 4 hours, run a teaching business, book gigs, win a Grammy and exercise regularly all while managing to put dinner on the table by 6pm.  Now, I would settle for being able to put on clothes that don't have too much spit up on them, while managing to brush my teeth every couple of days.

My goal is still to practice every day and I still would like to do the next show off book, but I realize that I'm going to have to come up with a much more creative way of getting that to happen.  Suggestions?

Listening to old favourites.

I have made progress in my CD project - burning CDs onto my hard drive in the hopes of getting rid of clutter, which has caused me to remember some of my all time favorites:
Hugh Fraser - Pas de Problemes, which boasts a very young Phil Dwyer playing both saxophone and piano.  Hugh himself is a virtuoso trombonist and pianist, making him in good company amongst the Great Canadian Multi-Instrumentalists
Pat Metheny - Bright Size Life  Toronto guitarist Ted Quinlan named this as one of the two most influential albums for him, so I HAD to check it out.
The Great Aretha Franklin - Aretha at age 18, accompanied by herself on piano and Ray Bryant on a few tracks (!!)
 Genesis - Fox Trot (Major thanks to my old friend Derek Lewis for hipping me to vintage Genesis!)

Memorizing tunes

About two years ago, when all my life stuff started happening at once, I booked a gig at the Cornelia Street Cafe.  I decided that for this gig I was going to do all new material - a very lofty goal indeed.  I managed to complete a bunch of half written things, do new arrangements of a couple of tunes, write lyrics to an instrumental piece by Dick Oatts and even compose a few new works.  It was an incredibly fertile time for me and although I was absolutely terrified, it was a thrill to be able to reach my goal and perform all that new music.

Now it's two years later and I have performed those same works a few more times.  I had hoped to record that material by now, but besides my personal life becoming the most important thing, I think I fell into a rut/existential crisis.  I lost sight of what I was trying to do and lost some of the passion and joy I had with the process.  Perhaps the joy I was feeling in my actual life was making my music life look kind of disfunctional?

Anyhow, I bring this all up because I am back to work at some of this material again.  I've had 4 gigs as a leader since September, but due in part to my busy-ness and also my pregnancy and the lethargy and forgetfulness, I haven't really learned this material nearly as well as I would like.  I was often reading lyrics and needed the chord changes in order to solo.  This isn't the best way to carry off a performance and for me it wasn't super esteemable to be going onstage in less than at the top of my game.  I almost didn't do the gigs at all, but I was trying to keep a foot in the door and challenge myself to continue making my music, even when I was being pulled in other directions.

I have started taking the steps I need to really know this music.  It is a much different process than it used to be.  A jazz waltz I composed called "In September" has a long form, non rhyming lyrics and complex harmony and I was having a heck of a time keeping everything going in order.  I'm so out of practice in this kind of work that it felt insurmountable.  That is when I have to ask myself what I would say if my student were in this predicament?  I ended up taking the first phrase and working at it for almost 30 minutes, until I had a few different ways to voice the harmonies, had gotten the sound in my ears and had managed to create enough melodic material that I felt I knew it.  That was Friday, and I managed to practice for 90 minutes straight while the baby napped. 

In a bizarre way, I felt like myself again.  I also felt a glimmer of hope that I will be able to make another CD and actually do some shows again.  I started seeing all of the possibilities again.  I have no idea when or how this is going to happen, so I'm going to focus on the task at hand: learning to play my music the best that I can and playing the next two shows completely off book.

The technical drill

In my last year at York University, where I did my undergrad, I spent a year doing an I dependent study on jazz piano pre-1930. I studied with and was mentored by a phenomenal pianist/composer named Bill Westcott. In addition to being an expert on ragtime, stride and boogie woogie, he also got the occasional gig playing as a soloist with orchestras. He showed me how he prepared to do these gigs, explaining how much more chops one needs to play on a 10 foot grand piano versus his own 5 foot.

He had a drill of scales, solid and broken chords, arpeggios, 8ves, three Hanon exercises and a few neat little finger busters that he did in 12 keys.  He told me it took him about an hour and got him into great shape.  He had connections at a couple of churches in Toronto (where I was living) who had 10 foot grands and he would go there, run the drill and work on his piece a few times a week to prepare for whatever concert he was doing.  The way that he had it laid out in such an organized way was such a revelation to me!

Over the course of weeks, months and finally a year, I took Bill's drill and worked on it, often 2 hours a day.  Once I could do all of the exercises in major, then I did harmonic minor, melodic minor, harmonic major and then all of the diatonic modes.  I then did the diatonic minor modes, the whole tone scale and the diminished scale, and added all versions of four note chords.  I then showed Bill what I had done.  He thought it was an amazing idea, and also a little nuts.  The good news was that my chops had never been better.  His little drill that helped get him into shape before a show afforded me the chops that I had never had before.

I was thinking of this lately, as I have been getting back into practicing regularly again after my two year hiatus from regular and structured practice.  While my hands are surprisingly supple considering how little I've been playing/practicing over the last long while, I still want to get back into shape again.  My usual go to is the Goldberg Variations, which I have been hacking through for the last 7 or 8 years, but now I have returned again to Bill Westcott's drill.  It is helping a lot and is giving me a way to measure my progress.  How clean the scales sound, at what point my hand or hands get tired (always the left before the right) and how briskly I can play each exercise.  I hope to be in markedly better shape by my NYC gig on June 1st.  We'll see...

The end of multitasking

I am a notorious multitasker. I am one of those people who is always doing two or more things at once - I always have multiple programs open on my computer and am frequently bouncing back and forth from email to email. I do my vocal exercises while I'm cooking or doing the dishes or worse, when I bouncing back and forth from email to email. I used to feel quite on top of things whilst in the middle of one of these fits, but now I find it frustrating.

While once celebrated, the art of multitasking has garnered a lot of criticism lately. Apparently it actually cuts back on productivity rather than increasing it. My issue with it is that I feel perpetually distracted and never feel the satisfaction of focusing on and consequently completing a task. As someone who is trying her darnedest to stay "in the moment", multitasking is the worst possible way to try and do this.

Instead, I have been experimenting with giving 100% of my attention to one task at a time. My son took a short nap this morning and I used that opportunity to play through and edit an arrangement of "Everything I love", which I found extremely enjoyable. I got to my teaching gig in Brooklyn 40 minutes before my day started and I spent time working on soloing at different tempos for "Everything". I got to vocalize for 10 minutes this morning, and rather than straighten up or fold some laundry, I decided to just focus on my vocal anatomy and enjoy the time to myself.

I miss the days when I had what now feels like unlimited time to practice. The funny thing is, I never felt like that there was enough time then either! As a new mom who is trying to balance work with the household duties, I have the least amount of time I've ever had. Perhaps by living in the moment I will be able to make each moment count.

Setting Goals

What I love so far about this online journal, is the fact that I can make statements that I am putting out the world, since this blog is technically for everyone's eyes.  (Unlike my written journal, which no one is allowed to see!)

I have some goals that I would like to work towards, and I feel that putting them on this blog is like putting them out into the universe.  So far, here is what is on my mind.  (In random order)

1.  Put together set lists for my NYC show on June 1st and my Toronto show on June 15th
2.  Have all selections memorized in time for the gigs.  (This is a big deal for me.  I was reading a lot of the music/lyrics on the gigs I did from September until February.  Some combination of not having enough time to prepare and not being able to remember anything, also known as "pregnancy brain".
3.  Practice piano and voice every day, even if it's just for a few minutes.
4.  Get caught up with my listening.  I have missed out on a lot of new CDs in the last few years, and I'd like to finally check some of this stuff out.  Stacey Kent, Gretchen Parlato, Dan Tepfer's Goldberg Variations, Peter Eldridge's Mad Heaven, etc.
5.  I'd like to get rid of my hard copy CDs once and for all.  This requires burning many of them into my CD hard drive, so I can pack the jewel boxes away and clear out some more room in my living space.

I'm sure more will be added to this list, but for the time being this is where I'm at.

All the time in the world

I have always been a pretty regimented person.  Well, since I went to university.  (In high school I was a terrible practicer, but a dedicated rehearsal-attender.) I have generally maintained a 4+ per day practice habit, which dissolved about two years ago when my life changed so dramatically.  On some levels, I think I was really burnt out from so many years of banging away and working so hard.  I focused my attention for a while on learning how to be a good choral conductor, planning a wedding, getting my house in order, etc.

Now that I have a newborn at home, my concept of time has totally changed.  What used to take a certain period of time now has to be compressed to happen while the little man sleeps, or it doesn't happen at all.  Keeping the house together, making sure there is food in the fridge, managing an almost frightening pile of laundry are huge time sucks in addition to being on call all day and all night for anything that my son might need. 

However, what I'm finding is fascinating is my ability to get a lot more done in a much shorter period of time.  I guess this is proof of the adaptability of humans?  As soon as he goes down for a nap, I can sit for a short burst of practicing and I find a focus that wasn't there before.  I have also learned to edit things down to the absolutely most important and effective activities.  Necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps?

Ch-ch-ch-changes

In the last twenty four months, my life has moved forward more than in the prior 5 years.  I got engaged, moved three times, got married, got pregnant, started two new teaching gigs and had a baby.  Most days I can't believe how lucky I am to have gotten to where I have gotten and to be living the life I'm living.  Actually, I feel that every day.

For most of my adult life, I have been driven rather obsessively towards my music and my career.  I literally lived and breathed for the music of Oscar Peterson, my rigorous practice schedule, keeping my touring life together and my website updated.  I spent most of my time surrounded my musicians, thinking about music, working on music.  Nights spent with my laptop on my sweaty lap madly following up with club owners trying to hustle gigs, promote the ones I had and sort out what music I was going to play and musicians I was going to play with.  It was non stop.  This brings us to 2009.

In addition to that, I was trying to continue making a living in the madly expensive New York City.  I had made the choice to stop the revolving door of roommates and was keeping my two bedroom apartment in West Harlem to myself.  In addition, I was in the utterly outrageous process of applying for my Green Card; a process which required a massive amount of time, organization and money.  I was working.  A LOT.  I had a large stable of students whom I was teaching -  in my home and theirs - seven days a week.  I was running a program at the Ronald McDonald House.  I was running the Kids In the Balcony program for the New York Pops Orchestra.  I was music director at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Jersey.  I was in the process of releasing my CD "Songs For  A New Day" and touring with it.  I was sidemaning for Diva Jazz Orchestra and Wycliffe Gordon.  Etc....  I was BUSY.  Then came the end of 2009, when I met Gerard.

I met Gerard right at the point where I was feeling that my work life was everything and my personal life was nothing.  This kind of no-balance living seems to plague a lot of my music friends.  Who has time for a life when you're trying to make music, right?  I was getting ready to phase out my Sunday work, just in time to start spending time with the new man in my life.  Five months later, we were engaged.  Three months after that he had to move out to Rockaway while in between jobs and I chose to move with him.  I liquidated a lot of my work, explored work as a classical conductor and gave myself a chance to enjoy my personal life for a while.

I have taken what I consider to be a long hiatus from my life as a Jazzgrrrl.  I have devoted the last two years to the study of classical voice, taking lessons with the amazing Hilda Harris, singing a few stints with some of the semi-pro classical ensembles in town and conducting the Rutgers University Queens Chorale.  I let go of my daily practice routine to devote time to creating a home with Gerard - organizing, buying, letting go of, decorating and more organizing.  I have focused my energy on my teaching studio and becoming a better voice and piano teacher.  I went through an exhausting pregnancy and prepared our home for our new baby while finishing a few personal projects that I had been meaning to do forever. 

I have been living in the moment and allowing myself to take a break from my jazz habit.  I haven't really been listening to jazz.  I haven't been going out to hear it.  I haven't really hung out with many of my jazz friends.  I haven't taken any jazz lessons.  I haven't been practicing much - just enough to get through the few gigs I booked, just to keep me in it.  I lost a lot of that intense drive that I had for so many years, which was replaced with the thorough enjoyment of making a lovely home for my husband and now my child.  It was a scary thing to walk away from my life's work, especially when I wasn't sure if I would want to come back again.

Now my son is 8 weeks old, and I am starting to feel my passion for jazz/music in general growing again.  I have started to catch up on my listening - checking out recordings by Gretchen Parlato, Kate McGarry, Kurt Elling, etc. which I have missed in the last few years.  I am starting to get ideas about projects that I would like to start and especially projects that I would like to finish.  I have started practicing again (during baby's naps) and have a voice lesson scheduled for next week to dust off the cobwebs on my vocal instrument.  I have booked two gigs - one in NYC on June 1st and one in Toronto (my old home) on June 15th.  I am already thinking about those gigs and am feeling really excited to make music again. 

I have decided to revisit this blog in an effort to map for myself (and anyone out there who might be interested) the reboost to my work as a JazzGrrrl.  I am a daily journal writer, but that mostly deals with my personal thoughts and frequently turns into a list of things I need to do around the house.  This blog format (I hope) will help me to stay geared towards jazz and music related topics.  I would like to write about what I'm practicing, listening to, gigs I've gone to hear, articles I've read and various other not-too-personal things.  I am interested to see where this whole thing goes...