{"id":76060,"date":"2022-07-25T10:19:07","date_gmt":"2022-07-25T14:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=76060"},"modified":"2022-07-25T10:19:07","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T14:19:07","slug":"report-variants-variations-returning-music-post-mandate-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2022\/07\/25\/report-variants-variations-returning-music-post-mandate-world\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT | Variants & Variations: Returning To Music In A Post-Mandate World"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image
Image by Christoph Mschrd (CC0C\/Pixabay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ask any two amateur musicians what their risk\/benefit analysis of returning to musical activities versus the risk of getting COVID, and you will get two different answers. It\u2019s not only that each person differs in terms of age, health status, vaccination history, or medical sophistication. It\u2019s that there\u2019s no coherent public policy, just a variety of options, which means there\u2019s no shared reality. In musical terms, it\u2019s as if we\u2019re all improvising off different scores. Dissonance is bound to result.<\/p>\n

But, dissonance also enhances music, and it\u2019s clear that amateur musicians have resolved to accept it. As I\u2019ve eased myself back into the musical landscape, I\u2019ve found plenty of company wherever I went. Thwarted musical amateurs were poised to resume their activities as soon as the protocols were relaxed. The Toronto Summer Music Festival Community Academy, for example, had the largest number of applicants for the chamber music section ever this year, and after a pause of two years, the advanced pianists and vocalists are plentiful enough to run both those programs as well.<\/p>\n

The question isn\u2019t whether people are ready and willing for musical activities, but how they are feeling while pursuing them. It\u2019s not as if the former world has resumed after a long pause. We\u2019re living in a different world, conditioned by COVID\u2019s fluctuating variants, and we\u2019ve all been changed by the last two years. Whatever musical activity we select, we do with the awareness that the risk of COVID comes with it. And, each musical space we enter is modified by COVID precautions, or the reminders of them, such as hand sanitizer dispensers, or obsolete social distancing markers and traffic flow arrows or out of date signs stating that masks are obligatory. Internally, we each have memories of the musical experiences we had before the pandemic, which are activated when we return to the venues we frequented before COVID.<\/p>\n

In May, when I attended an all-Beethoven concert that had been delayed since his sestercentennial in 2020, it was delightful to hear live chamber music. But, a lot of my attention went to looking at masked faces of audience members who I had seen unmasked two years before. At intermission, I was mildly inhibited about greeting an old acquaintance because I wasn\u2019t certain she could hear me clearly enough through my mask, and worried I might make her uncomfortable by coming closer to her to make myself heard. A memory came to mind that I had not had throughout the lockdown, of the last event I attended at the Four Seasons just before the pandemic was declared. The auditorium had been completely packed, nobody was masked, but people had begun inhibiting the impulse to shake hands in greeting, and the nuts and nibbles had been removed from the lounge.<\/p>\n

This slightly disorienting trace of pre-pandemic life has been present in every musical activity I\u2019ve tried since the mandates have been relaxed.<\/p>\n

For example, prior to the pandemic, I usually went to my piano teacher\u2019s studio for a lesson in person. We sat side by side at the keyboard, where he occasionally adjusted my hands or posture. That wasn\u2019t possible in May when I took a real life lesson because we have different COVID comfort zones. He is unvaccinated and doesn\u2019t wear a mask. I am vaccinated, boosted, and willing to mask in close contact or in crowded areas. My teacher agreed to sit at a distance from the piano, but that changes his view of my hands, and eliminates such things as spontaneous keyboard demonstrations. Physically close collaboration at the keyboard is part of the pleasure of a lesson, and I missed the shoulder-to-shoulder camaraderie. Make no mistake, this is a permanent loss, because COVID is not going to be eradicated any time soon.<\/p>\n

The human brain is a prediction machine, using our past experiences to create expectations of our forthcoming events. When our predictions are contradicted by reality, we must adjust. It may happen rapidly, but it is still an adjustment. All of us are still adjusting, and it takes psychic energy.<\/p>\n

Variations: New Beginnings<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Happily, there are new opportunities that contain no echo of the pre-pandemic world. Activities that started online during the pandemic are now becoming robustly real and embodied. One of these was the Midsummer Adult Piano Retreat, which I attended in real life this month. I wrote about the MAPR virtual retreat in July 2020<\/a>, and I returned for the second online retreat in 2021. There\u2019s also been a weekly Zoom meeting for participants to stay in touch, play for each other, and discuss pianistic challenges.<\/p>\n

This month, when I arrived at the campus of Endicott College, I came face to face with people I\u2019d been relating to in Zoom squares for two years. As we hadn\u2019t been wearing masks on screen, we easily recognized each other, and didn\u2019t have to go through a process of adjustment. We had all pre-tested before arrival, so didn\u2019t need to remain socially distanced or wear masks (though the option was chosen by some). For the most part, it was as if COVID had never happened to any of us. Within minutes of arrival, we fell into an easy social and musical rhythm that lasted the entire retreat.<\/p>\n

Living with a group of enthusiastic fellow-amateurs for a week reminded me that music making can rapidly create a community. Our program ranged from listening to staggering performances by elite professional musicians to playing for each other in a variety of settings, including a studio class, a duet and ensemble playing workshop, and a work-in-progress presentation evening, as well as on a digital piano in the dormitory. We also had a score-swap, putting scores we no longer used on a table and helping ourselves to ones we might tackle in the future. Several of us discovered that we had learned the same pieces from the same score back in the day. I left behind a Henle edition of Dvorak Slavonic Dances<\/em> and came back with a Henle edition of Beethoven Opus 49 1 and 2.<\/p>\n

The compositions we played for each other ranged from the conventional classical canon of Bach, Chopin, and Mozart to Dana Suesse\u2019s jazzy American Nocturne<\/em> and “Dusk”, from African Sketches<\/em> by Nkeiru Okoye. There were \u00e9tudes and tangos, and compositions for four hands, two hands and for the left hand alone. The skill level ranged from adult beginner to virtuosic. We spanned from early middle age to frail elderly, and we came from a variety of educational, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds.<\/p>\n

We each had three lessons with the piano faculty and were coached by a visiting guest artist. Comparing what we learned each day made the normally solitary challenge of practising a sociable one. The common enterprise of trying to master the keyboard, and our sincere support of each other\u2019s progress, is what transformed us into a cohesive unit. In today\u2019s increasingly polarized world, we should not lose sight of the potential of shared music to create feelings of connection.<\/p>\n

Some of the solidarity felt at these programs comes from the participants braving the adversity of stage fright. No matter how friendly and uncompetitive the environment is, nearly everybody gets performance anxiety, which forges a bond, as if we survived being in combat together. It also promotes sincere gratitude towards those who demonstrate their work in progress for the group, so everybody can learn.<\/p>\n

Gratitude was also my feeling for the students who played in the master class I audited at the newly launched Avenue Road Music and Performance Academy in June and July. Each week, I listened to a group of advanced pianists perform for elite concert pianist and pedagogue Michael Berkovsky, and then gleaned the gems of advice he offered each player.<\/p>\n

I took away important ideas about memorization, practice, interpretation, technique and more. Helpful and stimulating as that was, it was even more pleasing to watch these dedicated players refine their performance as they applied Berkovsky\u2019s suggestions. At the celebratory recital that concluded the course, each student played with greater mastery. And even though all I did was pay attention during those classes, I still felt a vicarious sense of accomplishment, as if my heartfelt moral support contributed to their success.<\/p>\n

Because the Avenue Road Music and Performance Academy opened its doors in May, I have no pre-COVID memories of it. Being in a freshly renovated environment, housing pianos donated by generous patrons, including Gordon Lightfoot, feels like a new beginning.<\/p>\n

Even though we do not live in a post-COVID world yet, we need to re-enter the post-lockdown world. Enjoying new musical activities, (while observing precautions that feel safe) is a healthy way of doing that.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/b><\/em><\/h3>\n

Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sign up for the Ludwig van Daily \u2014 classical music and opera in five minutes or less <\/em>HERE<\/em><\/a>.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask any two amateur musicians what it’s like to go back to musical activities post-lockdown, and you will get two different answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":76064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39907,22,4967],"tags":[35697,2304],"yst_prominent_words":[21309,16039,7712,36564,6616,6735,14291,21261,12016],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/07\/Amateur-Musicians-REPORT.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-jMM","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76060"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76065,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76060\/revisions\/76065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76060"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=76060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}