Today was a blustery day. The wind whipped me to HPAC at lightning speed and whipped me coming home as I struggled to bike past the walkers. So many things come with the wind. New seasons, fresh air, the sound of leaves, waves on rivers and oceans, the ease of moving, the struggle of moving.
Today I returned to the tree by the river. How many times will I return to this place? It seems to be one of those pillars, one of those tangible spaces or places in life, a physical support of the arching time that passes through and around it. How many places have such an honor, how many people? I can think of many. Returning to America, returning to Japan–returning, returning.
Something has changed from the last time. Something has changed since the first.
Today it was windy, and the sky was beautiful, and the water was filled with excitement.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Shadow Puppets with Kaneko-san
Yesterday I had my lesson with Kaneko-san and we will unfortunately be taking a yasumi next week. I don't know the reason why anymore than my dog understood why our family left sometimes; she could only sit and wait for our return–would knowing change anything?
I will have to wait another two weeks to enjoy his company, to write another essay for him, to explain the geography of America once again, and how things in one place are more expensive than another. Yesterday we touched on rental costs and how apartments are advertised, and countries where the tap water is safe to drink. In my essay I wrote about the origins of the name, "Golden Week," due to our conversation the week before, but I don't know that he understood or connected the topic. Nor do I think that he understood my short paragraph on our Nodame concert. Anime, music students, meta-music making. It's a little more than I can grasp, really.
I also wrote about the upcoming visit of my brother and his girlfriend, and how my brother and I are planning to go to Thailand at the end of the month to dive.
As we got ready to go, I showed him my calendar and started to explain that I would be missing a Sunday at the end of the month because I'm going to Thailand. "Thailand?!" he asked in amazement. Hmmmm, yes. I think he just had a momentary lapse of memory, but I also thought it would be amusing if all along he had thought I was making up these things in my essays. No really, this is my life. The life and times of a cellist playing for an orchestra called "Achee, A, Pea, Shee" travelling to Hokkaido and California, having okonomiyaki dinners, and saying the Japanese food is delicious. What if none of these things were real? What if it were all just a story? My family, friends, experiences, likes and dislikes?
I may as well be a shadow on a wall somewhere in ancient Greece, slowly coming into form through words and understanding. Over the months, over the years, we'll start to see one another. But there is still that final step, perhaps never possible, to actually be able to believe. Really, I'm real. Are you?
I will have to wait another two weeks to enjoy his company, to write another essay for him, to explain the geography of America once again, and how things in one place are more expensive than another. Yesterday we touched on rental costs and how apartments are advertised, and countries where the tap water is safe to drink. In my essay I wrote about the origins of the name, "Golden Week," due to our conversation the week before, but I don't know that he understood or connected the topic. Nor do I think that he understood my short paragraph on our Nodame concert. Anime, music students, meta-music making. It's a little more than I can grasp, really.
I also wrote about the upcoming visit of my brother and his girlfriend, and how my brother and I are planning to go to Thailand at the end of the month to dive.
As we got ready to go, I showed him my calendar and started to explain that I would be missing a Sunday at the end of the month because I'm going to Thailand. "Thailand?!" he asked in amazement. Hmmmm, yes. I think he just had a momentary lapse of memory, but I also thought it would be amusing if all along he had thought I was making up these things in my essays. No really, this is my life. The life and times of a cellist playing for an orchestra called "Achee, A, Pea, Shee" travelling to Hokkaido and California, having okonomiyaki dinners, and saying the Japanese food is delicious. What if none of these things were real? What if it were all just a story? My family, friends, experiences, likes and dislikes?
I may as well be a shadow on a wall somewhere in ancient Greece, slowly coming into form through words and understanding. Over the months, over the years, we'll start to see one another. But there is still that final step, perhaps never possible, to actually be able to believe. Really, I'm real. Are you?
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Last Holiday of Golden Week
It was really beautiful today. I woke up wanting to move and feeling an obligation to practice for this week's upcoming program. Japanese lesson, I thought, then workout at home, practice, study. It's going to be a productive day. But the wheels of a friend's lightweight bike on the pavement, the open sky and the green leaves beckoned me. I could hear that voice inside protesting my plans, whining. On the way home I pulled into an empty children's park and climbed a tree and sat there, taking a moment to appreciate nature and the sunlight through the leaves before abiding my inner adult. As I got home I made a deal with myself: no workout, practice until a certain time, and then the gift of an hour-long open-ended bike ride. Things clicked into gear, a good practice and a blissful ride with a stop along the way to stroll through a park of long-held curiosity, discovering within a community garden.
I came home and made a grocery list. Skyped and thought about the future. Planned dinner, prepared it, shopped, collected my water bill slip and tallied some finances.
Today's holiday, the last of Golden Week, is Children's Day, a day dedicated to the health and happiness of children. It seems significant that a culture would dedicate a day to looking after children, to investing care and reflection into their well-being. It seems that Japan very much values the resource of its children and what they can bring to the future.
In addition to seeing children as the future, to respecting the people that they are becoming and will be in society, I wonder if we as adults might learn something from them, even if we don't have any children in our lives. As we compile daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and life goals, I wonder what we can learn from reflecting on children. With or without them, what do they signify to us? What can we learn from remembering and observing something of their nature, and what can they teach us as we create and live our grown-up expectations and goals?
This concludes Golden Week; except that because Children's Day fell on a Sunday, tomorrow (Monday) becomes a public holiday as well. It's just the way it is in Japan. I think it makes sense.
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| road along the river; closed to cars on weekends for most of the day |
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| pond in the park |
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| one of the plots in the community garden |
Today's holiday, the last of Golden Week, is Children's Day, a day dedicated to the health and happiness of children. It seems significant that a culture would dedicate a day to looking after children, to investing care and reflection into their well-being. It seems that Japan very much values the resource of its children and what they can bring to the future.
In addition to seeing children as the future, to respecting the people that they are becoming and will be in society, I wonder if we as adults might learn something from them, even if we don't have any children in our lives. As we compile daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and life goals, I wonder what we can learn from reflecting on children. With or without them, what do they signify to us? What can we learn from remembering and observing something of their nature, and what can they teach us as we create and live our grown-up expectations and goals?
This concludes Golden Week; except that because Children's Day fell on a Sunday, tomorrow (Monday) becomes a public holiday as well. It's just the way it is in Japan. I think it makes sense.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
May the 4th Be With You
This is the day in Golden Week that for many years was a holiday simply by virtue of the fact that it lay between two other holidays.
What do you do with a holiday of no significance? So often we have holidays that have a significance that has been assigned to them in the past, but that in practice has long been forgotten. Perhaps it becomes an excuse just to have a holiday. But what to make of a Holiday Holiday? Are we reflecting on the nature of "time off?" Is there an exponential increase to the benefit of holidays by having just one more? What is the value of a holiday, even a singular one of a less "meta" significance? How do we spend "free" time? Does it change the way we spend time when we are not on holiday?
But as it turns out, we need not think about this anymore. Since 2007 this holiday of holidays has been bestowed with additional significance in its own right as Greenery Day. And so today, an invitation to appreciate the beautiful the spring weather and new life that has started to grow around us. The flowers, the newly budding leaves, even the clouds of gnats that serve as an unexpected appetizer on a bike ride home. Nature is everywhere and today is the day to make note of it. How many things come and go? Whether it is nature, or the nature of time itself, it can be good to take a moment to reflect on the things that seem to be with us all the time. One day they are here, and the next perhaps not.
What do you do with a holiday of no significance? So often we have holidays that have a significance that has been assigned to them in the past, but that in practice has long been forgotten. Perhaps it becomes an excuse just to have a holiday. But what to make of a Holiday Holiday? Are we reflecting on the nature of "time off?" Is there an exponential increase to the benefit of holidays by having just one more? What is the value of a holiday, even a singular one of a less "meta" significance? How do we spend "free" time? Does it change the way we spend time when we are not on holiday?
But as it turns out, we need not think about this anymore. Since 2007 this holiday of holidays has been bestowed with additional significance in its own right as Greenery Day. And so today, an invitation to appreciate the beautiful the spring weather and new life that has started to grow around us. The flowers, the newly budding leaves, even the clouds of gnats that serve as an unexpected appetizer on a bike ride home. Nature is everywhere and today is the day to make note of it. How many things come and go? Whether it is nature, or the nature of time itself, it can be good to take a moment to reflect on the things that seem to be with us all the time. One day they are here, and the next perhaps not.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Nodame Contabile
It seems only appropriate that during Golden Week–the week so named for the success of the movie industry–HPAC would perform a concert of music from the manga-inspired anime and live TV series, Nodame Contabile. While I'm not personally privy, I understand that the show follows the lives of two music conservatory students, a romance and comedy of sorts. I was once in music conservatory; it is the stuff of anime dreams.
The show is highly popular and I find this wonderful and intriguing. If it is anything like our performance, the musicians become heroes in their own meta-narrative and the music becomes the object of fascination. As the cello section played one of the first themes in the Tannhauser Overture, our names appeared on the screen above us followed by a picture of us in rehearsal from two days before. A clarinet solo and violin duet, among others, received similar treatment. During the Dvorak New World Symphony, excerpts of the score were shown on the screen so as to give the audience a visual reference point for the themes that they could hear.
What is going on here? I'm curious about the popularity of the program and also the design of this concert. Could this be a way to personalize the musicians to the audience through the roles we play in the orchestra and the music we perform? Is it educational? Is it pop culture or elitist? As we explored creative ways to present concerts in America, I wonder how this sort of thing would work with an audience across the ocean. What is it that makes classical music worth listening to? Why do audiences come and is it the same reason for everyone?
The show is highly popular and I find this wonderful and intriguing. If it is anything like our performance, the musicians become heroes in their own meta-narrative and the music becomes the object of fascination. As the cello section played one of the first themes in the Tannhauser Overture, our names appeared on the screen above us followed by a picture of us in rehearsal from two days before. A clarinet solo and violin duet, among others, received similar treatment. During the Dvorak New World Symphony, excerpts of the score were shown on the screen so as to give the audience a visual reference point for the themes that they could hear.
What is going on here? I'm curious about the popularity of the program and also the design of this concert. Could this be a way to personalize the musicians to the audience through the roles we play in the orchestra and the music we perform? Is it educational? Is it pop culture or elitist? As we explored creative ways to present concerts in America, I wonder how this sort of thing would work with an audience across the ocean. What is it that makes classical music worth listening to? Why do audiences come and is it the same reason for everyone?
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Chamber Music Cravings
Whatever the reason–the repertoire, the relationship with other people, the ability to determine one's musical fate, the standards to which one is held–I really crave chamber music. And as a musician I don't think I'm alone. Chamber music is a really beautiful thing and while musicians can do it on their own in small private gatherings, it's really exciting to hear the audience's breath, to hear them listen, to share a unified moment and experience, to wait for something to unfold together in time and sound. And maybe this is why I have this itch to start chamber music wherever I go. It just seems like a really healthy thing for everyone; not least of all myself.
Today, a friend of mine and I went to a small restaurant and bar in Osaka to see if it might be possible to play chamber music there. They recently opened and are trying to create an international vibe. I'm a pretty international person in Japan, and several of my friends are even more international than me, so it seems like it could be a good fit. I'm excited just by the possibility of it. Chamber music is a pretty cool thing. Looking forward to doing more in one way or another.
Today, a friend of mine and I went to a small restaurant and bar in Osaka to see if it might be possible to play chamber music there. They recently opened and are trying to create an international vibe. I'm a pretty international person in Japan, and several of my friends are even more international than me, so it seems like it could be a good fit. I'm excited just by the possibility of it. Chamber music is a pretty cool thing. Looking forward to doing more in one way or another.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Golden Week
This week is Golden Week. I asked Kaneko-san in my last lesson, how one says "Golden Week" in Japanese. He smiled and thought about it and chuckled and then said in his sweet English voice, "I do not know."
And why question a week long holiday at the end of April? No matter that it doesn't exist in America or England (to my knowledge), the fact it has an English name doesn't take away the joy of free time. The week is comprised of the last Emperor's birthday (now Showa Day) (April 29th), Constitution Memorial Day (May 3), "holiday" day (a holiday because there is a rule than any day between two other holidays becomes a holiday- nice rule) (May 4th), and Children's Day (May 5th). The most holiday of holidays are May 3-6 but many businesses take a break for the entirety of the week.
And why the name? Because of the increase in ticket sales at the movie box office. The time wasn't named "golden" because people go home to their loved ones, it's golden because the movie theaters are doing well. But golden time is golden. And this is a week of it.
And why question a week long holiday at the end of April? No matter that it doesn't exist in America or England (to my knowledge), the fact it has an English name doesn't take away the joy of free time. The week is comprised of the last Emperor's birthday (now Showa Day) (April 29th), Constitution Memorial Day (May 3), "holiday" day (a holiday because there is a rule than any day between two other holidays becomes a holiday- nice rule) (May 4th), and Children's Day (May 5th). The most holiday of holidays are May 3-6 but many businesses take a break for the entirety of the week.
And why the name? Because of the increase in ticket sales at the movie box office. The time wasn't named "golden" because people go home to their loved ones, it's golden because the movie theaters are doing well. But golden time is golden. And this is a week of it.
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