The “Aum Guru Chant Vigil” is what I’ve been focusing my energies on the past couple of weeks. It promises to be very uplifting.
But it’s okay if you don’t relate to the word, “Guru”. You can replace that word with whatever deity or entity works for you (“Aum Mother”, “Aum Jesus”, “Aum God”, etc.).
Our hope and intention is to draw on that invisible yet omnipresent power that responds to prayer and to our heart’s call, send healing vibrations to all beings and the entire planet.
Another deeply moving essay by Karl Paulnack; I’m inspired to add my thanks to his…
Thank you, Mr. Fry, Miss Hall, and Mr. Lynch. Thank you, John Bringetto, Doc Patnoe, and Rich Bice. Thank you, Marsha Goodman, Paul Renzi, Lloyd Gowen, and Robin McKee. Thank you all for carrying your music practice and preparing me for a lifetime of carrying mine.
Karl Paulnack
January 27, 2019
I am writing a speech that I have to deliver later this week. I wanted to discuss how third-grade music teachers prepare their students for the rest of their lives, even though they have no idea how they are preparing them, do not know what those lives will look like, can’t imagine their future, and in some cases, wouldn’t want to.
On the night of September 11, 2001, one of the things happening on the west side of Manhattan where I lived was that people were gathering around firehouses, holding candles, bringing flowers, and singing songs of inspiration and support. I remember many people who looked like they might be finance or business people, mostly men, people in suits which were rumpled from an entire day of frantically trying to get home but who were now stuck on the island, guys with briefcases who were used to being in control and calling the shots who looked as though they had been struck by lightening. Some of these men were awkwardly holding hands with the rest of the crowd and we were singing “My Country Tis of thee, sweet land of liberty…..”
I knew the words and music to that song because it was taught to me by my third-grade teacher whose name was Betty Jean Kilgore in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And I remember her teaching us that song because she was standing at an upright piano wearing these high heels that seemed to me as a boy RIDICULOUSLY too high, and managing to stand and operate the damper pedal in this heel, which looked incredibly difficult to me, and I remember thinking in my third grade voice inside my head, “wow, that looks painful! That’s a dedicated woman.” She diligently taught us that song.
Mrs. Kilgore had no idea she was preparing me for 9/11. She had no possible way of even imagining what that would be. The world trade center wasn’t built yet when I was in third grade. She was being faithful to her practice as a musician. There were probably some people in that room who were thinking “why are we learning this dumb song”…. And 30 years later there I was, singing in the wreckage.
And you know when we were holding hands singing around the fire station I didn’t know who the music majors were and who they weren’t; it didn’t matter. I was not musically prepared for 9/11 by Eastman or USC or any of my college teachers and it wasn’t my advanced degrees in music and it didn’t involve Brahms. It was Betty Jean Kilgore on a badly tuned upright piano in dangerous shoes, and it was everyone else’s “Betty Jean Kilgore”, the music teachers of all the others who taught them that song, that allowed us to be together, in a very meaningful and powerful way, when we were speechless.
It wasn’t fancy and it didn’t need a budget and there was no conductor and FEMA didn’t support it. We were able to do it because enough of us had third grade teachers who taught us a song.
You will not be able to prepare your students for the future, because you can’t possibly imagine their future. It could be more beautiful or more wretched than we can fathom. If you carry your musical practice you will prepare your students for their lives. Period. If you carry your practice faithfully, they will have everything they need musically.
I happened to be curious about where Mrs. Kilgore is now, and I googled her. I found an obituary. She passed away 20 days ago. Perhaps the timing isn’t coincidental—fifty years ago she taught me that song, and now she’s helping me prepare for a talk. I guess she’s “teaching remotely” these days.
Twice in a row I had skipped my weekly fast day. A strong resistance had taken hold.
Thank goodness I’m beginning to know and accept myself a little better. After about a week of managing to (mostly) resist the resistance, I realized it was growing instead of diminishing.
So, I picked my day and decided to give in. Yep, I consciously surrendered and went “off program”.
And a couple of interesting things happened.
First, I was able to relax. It was a relief to stop pushing myself.
Then, after a couple of days, I started to notice ways in which I felt different. Small things, like getting a stuffed up nose. Feeling bloated. Still feeling hungry after having eaten. Having difficulty focusing. And I remembered that those things used to be my “normal”, but they aren’t so much any more.
Finally, I remembered that I have a follow-up doctor’s appointment scheduled for later this month — fasting labs, the whole nine yards — and I realized that no way was I going into that appointment while “off program”! Not after over six months of consistency and good results (even if I haven’t been perfect).
So, I picked my day once again — my weekly fast day — and declared myself back “on program”, with a vengeance!
But I needed that little surrender break. I needed the reminder of how much this program is changing me, and now I’m back to doing it because I want to, not because I feel I have to.
Most of today I’ve spent wrestling with the reality that we have a very small apartment and too much stuff.
The problem is that too much of the stuff is “meaningful” in some way.
Where we lived when we got it. Who gave it to us. Who we were and what we were doing at the time. So many memories.
And then there are the things that surely can be put to use. The books I’m really going to read. The photos I can’t get rid of until I’ve looked through them one last time.
When I started my RPP program back at the end of February it was with the expectation that I would go all out for six months before we flew off to visit family in Europe.
After a solid six months, I anticipated being totally okay with taking a break from at least some of my new lifestyle choices. I mean, no way was I going to Switzerland and Italy and not having any pizza or pasta or fondue or (fill in the blank)!
So, today I realized I’ve passed that six month point and there’s no trip to Europe on the horizon. And I think this may be why I’ve been feeling resistance and restlessness with my program.
A part of me knows this is the moment when Ramesha and I should be at a cafe in downtown Lugano having caffè macchiato and a brioche. Or enjoying an amazing pizza on the piazza in Assisi. Or eating lunch at Silvio’s and dinner with the Lo Menzo’s.
I know the resistance will pass, but in the meantime I can’t help but be a little sad.
Program for Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time”, first performed at a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germanyon January 15, 1941.
As promised, I’m sharing more by Karl Paulnack.
This was the first of his essays that I read. I found it on a friend-of-a-friend’s Facebook profile and it affected me so profoundly that I knew it wasn’t just an “accidental” find.
He wrote it towards the beginning of the pandemic, as lockdowns were taking hold and the world was turning upside down and inside out.
Even though I didn’t discover it until a year and a half later, it resonated with me as though he had written it yesterday. And it’s given me a deeper perspective on what we’ve been going through during this time.
March 20, 2020
A letter to my faculty, and perhaps to any of you who carry music.
My dear fellow musicians,
This is a fable, a myth, a story about a junior composition major at a conservatory in the 1920’s. Let’s call him “Oliver.” Oliver had a composition teacher who was very wise, because not only was she a great musician and teacher, she was also psychic. She could see things before they happened.
Here’s a piece of the script from that movie:
Oliver: I have the idea for my senior capstone project! It is a great orchestral piece, with organ, and carillon, and a chorus, a magnificent work!
[pause]
Teacher: Actually your senior capstone project will be for only four instruments.
[full stop]
Oliver: Really. Which four?
Teacher: You won’t know until you get to the performance venue.
Oliver: Really. How big is the stage?
Teacher: There won’t be a stage. It’s outdoors.
Oliver: I see. Is there a piano?
Teacher: Yes, but not all the keys work.
Oliver: Really. Which ones don’t work?
Teacher: It changes day by day. You won’t actually know until the performance. Oh, and none of the other instruments will be fully functional either, but we don’t know how yet.
Oliver: I see. This sounds really attractive so far. Anything else I should know?
Teacher: Yes. You will be surrounded by people who are dying, hundreds every day. There won’t be any sense of “fair”, no basic human rights, no privileges, no “normal.” You won’t be able to expect food, for example. You might find it hard to focus. It will be distracting to work.
[full stop]
Oliver: I cannot do my work under those circumstances. It’s impossible for me to create anything worthwhile with those restrictions. I have standards.
Teacher: Actually, it will only be possible for you to create this work under those circumstances. The restrictions are by design.
Oliver: I won’t compromise. Music must be of a certain quality. I can’t and won’t compromise my art. I’m not interested in creating trash.
Teacher: Actually, this piece will be one of the greatest pieces of music ever composed in all of history. It will be revered!
Oliver: HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
Teacher: It’s not possible! That’s why the whole thing works!
This movie, Before the End of Time, is of course the “prequel” to a true story, a story in which young Oliver is played by the actor Olivier Messiaen and the “capstone project” is the Quartet for the End of Time. The “concert hall” is a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz, Germany.
You and I are on the eve of a great battle, an event that will change our world. Unlike Oliver’s teacher, I am not psychic, and I cannot see the future. Like you, however, I am the holder of 50,000 years of shared practice, and there are certain things that are about to happen, and we already know what those are.
What has always been normal, ordinary, will become in many cases impossible. The most ordinary things—picking up frozen peas at Wegmans—have become impossible. When the ordinary becomes impossible, what was previously impossible manifests. Disruption produces transformation. The impossible suddenly becomes practical.
I, like you, have been up many nights this week struggling with the reality that some things we do, we might continue to do, but many will become impossible. The limitations will be significant. Some things I can’t even imagine, yet. I feel like young Oliver might have felt. But because we have 50,000 years of experience at this, there are a few things we can stand on.
If you carry your practice, your practice will carry you. If you hold music, it will hold you. There is no circumstance in which this is not true. It is true at the moment of our birth and the moment of our death, and true at every point in between. It was true ten hours after the buildings fell on 9/11. It was true when Haiti earthquake survivors were found singing in the rubble by first responders who came to dig them out in the hours before dawn. It was true when our students in Boston, knocked out by the blast of a bomb and waking up next to an amputated limb, made a music video 24 hours later to hold their experience. It is true today for Italians in quarantine, dying in record numbers, singing together with their neighbors from their open windows.
Some things we ordinarily do will indeed be impossible. No one expects you to do the impossible, certainly not me. When something you ordinarily do becomes impossible, let it go! But let it go with open arms so that the impossible can find its way in. Like Messiaen, you might suddenly find yourself bringing the impossible to life.
FEMA will not bring music. (I’m not entirely certain what FEMA plans to bring, but I am entirely certain it will not be music.) In all of the circumstances I describe above, music arrived before FEMA did. Within hours. In some cases music held survivors until help arrived, and I have no doubt this will be the case now. In dire cases, music may be the only form of help that arrives.
Carry your practice. That which is ordinary may no longer be possible. That which was previously impossible will become real. You carry 50,000 years of group practice, embedded in you by your teacher and your teachers’ teacher. I am no psychic, but we have done this thing many, many times before, and this will not be our last.
Carry this practice, and this practice will carry you. Help people carry music. There is no question of “If” there will be music in the next 8 weeks. There is only the question of where, how, and by whom.
This was the opening paragraph of an article I saw in the New York Times today:
“Google said on Tuesday that it would delay reopening its offices until Jan. 10. The new date is a postponement from October, which was a postponement from September, which was a postponement from July, which was a postponement from January.”
All those repetitions of “postponement from” seemed almost like a joke to me!
The good news is that after reading that paragraph I don’t feel quite so bad about our music ministry not being back to “normal” yet.
It’s still frustrating, of course. But right now there’s simply no getting around the ever-changing landscape that is our current pandemic reality.
Anyway, all I can say is thank goodness for perspective!
