Nerissa Nields's Blog, page 7

The Day the Music Thrived and Why Music Education

It was one of the great pleasures of my life to see our dream of creating a pan-Northampton Public School concert/celebrations/fundraiser for YesNorthampton.org become a reality last Sunday. On June 9, musical and theatrical groups from Jackson Street, JFK and NHS along with my band, The Nields, came together at First Churches of Northampton to create a neat 90 minute (to the second!) show called The Day The Music Thrived. The amazing Expandable Brass Band did an incredible flash mob lead-up to the event, rocking the sidewalk outside the church with a “Vote Yes” song. Everyone volunteered their time and services. The event went so seamlessly because everyone gave 110%. It was Northampton at its best.


As a mother and musician, I am deeply disturbed by the proposed budget cuts, especially the ones that put the jobs of several music teachers on the chopping block. Before the concert, my outrage was purely theoretical. Though I’d witnessed my kids’ own wonderful music teacher Kim O’Connell in action, I had only heard about the legendary Claire-anne Williams, band and all-around music teacher for JFK, whose award winning Jazz band blew everyone away with a cover of “Birdland” on Sunday. I had only heard tell of the Northamptones, NHS’s signature a cappella group led by the fantastic Beau Flahive. I'd only assumed that the theatre program was fantastic. Now that I have seen these wonderful teachers in action, I feel more strongly than ever the particular potential loss rather than the theoretical. Time to remind ourselves why kids need music in the schools.

1. Music education correlates with better attention and self-control—great for kids with ADHD, Asperger’s, but also great for neurotypical kids–– to foster focus and attention, two attributes which are the bedrock for all other learning.
2. Learning music is akin to learning a language—kids who know music are essentially bilingual and can “converse” with people all over the globe.
3. It’s the one academic discipline that works both the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain equally.
4. Playing an instrument increases fine motor skills.
5. Performing in front of others is a basic executive skill not generally taught.
6. Band and Chorus kids are less likely to do drugs, abuse alcohol, and become teen parents.
7. Kids who take music lessons have better spatial relations abilities
8. Kids who take music lessons have, on average, a 50 point higher SAT score.
9. Kids involved in music are less lonely. Middle school and high school years can be anxiety provoking to say the least. Putting socially anxious kids in a band or chorus where there are definite tasks, roles, goals, alleviates the anxiety and facilitates cohesion, camaraderie—all without drugs or alcohol or inappropriate sexual behavior.
10. It’s what they’ll remember, years from now, when they look back on their school experience.
So I’d ask this: rather than talking about cutting music teachers, why don’t we have more music teachers? My sister Katryna’s kids go to public school in Conway. They have music five days a week. Why shouldn’t we?
Vote YES on June 25 to preserve what we have. And then let’s roll up our sleeves to change what’s wrong systemically in Massachusetts and in the federal government; let’s rethink our whole attitude towards the arts. Let’s give our kids what they need to be the responsible, creative thinkers the 21st Century needs.



And finally--NPR covered our event! Listen: http://www.nepr.net/sites/default/files/arts-funding-noho-spot.WAV

Wild Mountain Thyme

Now that summer really is coming, here's how to play the guitar part for Wild Mountain Thyme.

Theory of Happiness #1

"Play till you feel like resting, then rest till you feel like playing. Never do anything else."-Martha Beck

I started to feel that tell-tale tickle in the back of my throat last Saturday afternoon, en route to the beach. By evening it was a full-blown sore throat; by Monday, I was intimate with the netti pot; Tuesday a cough, and today laryngitis and the beginnings of bronchitis. Up until recently, I told a certain story that went like this: I'd get every cold that came down the pike and into my house on the fingertips and lips of my two young children. I'd spend the duration (usually 2 weeks) berating myself and my immune system. The latter for being so wimpy, and the former for the usual crime: DOING TOO MUCH. (I once had a life coach who, when I complained to her about my chronic state of DOING TOO MUCH and my inability to change anything so that I could do less and be sane, suggested that I did just the right amount, and that I needed to change my attitude about what was too much. I promptly fired her.)

But I have retired from the career of beating myself up. I'm 46 now, and in some eras and cultures, that ripe age was considered elderly. Well, I won't stoop to elder abuse. Besides it's not really verifiably true that A. my usual velocity leads to B. getting run down/susceptible to viruses. Here's a kinder story: my parents both get sick with colds with great frequency, yet they are healthy, vital 70-year-olds who live life at full throttle and pack more into one day than most people pack into a year. (Well, a week.) My four aunts are the same way. Maybe it's just what happens in our particular gene pool. And really, if I can surrender to the reality of a cold and take appropriate action, it's not so bad: I cancel any activity I can cancel, and take to my bed. What's so terrible about that?

Martha Beck, whom I love, and who trained me to be a life coach, says, "Play till you feel like resting, then rest till you feel like playing. Never do anything else." It's such simple, brilliant advice. It should be noted that she uses the word "play" as someone else might use "work"––but only if one's work is the work one choses to do, the kind of work that makes one jump out of bed in the morning just because one can't wait to get to it. I am fortunate to have such work. I am always eager to get to it, even when I am sick.

It occurs to me that rather than get all mad at myself for "letting myself get sick" through my misbehaving ways of overdoing, of over working/overplaying, I should just relax and seize these little viral tornados as opportunities for rest. And that just as "play" and "rest" in her equation are clearly equal partners, so "well" and "sick" could be in my own personal lexicon. Nerissa gets sick sometimes and has to go low. Big deal. I think I am ready to let the shame that seems to go with the illness go. The shame, when I shine the light on it, seems to be a kind of Icarus shame: I was sailing too high, and the sun melted my feathers. How dare I?

So when the tickle arrived last Saturday, I just laughed, checked my watch and nodded. Yup. About due for a rest. Bring it on.

Rehearsing for The Day the Music Thrived

Beautiful banner created by Alison Wood.

Tonight we met in Conway to rehearse for Sunday's concert. Here is a portion of a video of us practicing "Georgia O."


Once again, details of the show:
Sunday June 9
First Churches of Northampton
corner of Main and Center Streets
3-4:30pm

The Day the Music Thrived

Nerissa, Emma and Sophie on Bill Newman's radio show WHMP to promote The Day the Music Thrived

This concert is happening.

THE DAY THE MUSIC THRIVED

TO SHOWCASE ART, MUSIC, THEATER & SONG TALENTS FROM NORTHAMPTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

SUNDAY, JUNE 9 ~ 3:00-4:30 PM ~ FIRST CHURCHES, NORTHAMPTON


On March 20, nearly 200 Northampton High School students left classes and marched to downtown Northampton to protest proposed budget cuts to arts and elective courses set to take effect in September. The energy was positive, the message was clear: arts are a vital part of the Northampton public school education and cuts to the programs will negatively impact many students.

On Sunday, June 9, students from Northampton’s public elementary, middle and high schools, alongside NPS staff and faculty and parent performers, will “Sing Out!” to showcase the wealth of music, art, and theater talents at the schools, at “The Day The Music Thrived” concert and celebration. This all-ages, family friendly event at The First Churches on Main Street, from 3:00-4:30 pm, will feature performances by The Nields full band, the JFK Jazz Band, The Northamptones, NHS cast of “Alice In Wonderland,” Jackson Street Staff Ukulele Band, and an Kids & Parents all-sing of “If You Want to Sing.” Families are welcome to come early at 1:45 for the Warm-Up Jam with the Expandable Brass Band, just bring an instrument and join the fun. The event will also remind people to vote Yes on the Override, to reverse the cuts that would affect arts and other staffing and services across the Northampton Public Schools. Suggested family donation is $10-$20 at the door. For more information, visit www.YesNorthampton.org.

Event listing:

THE DAY THE MUSIC THRIVED
A celebration of art, music, theater and song in the Northampton Public Schools.
Vote YES ON THE OVERRIDE to preserve it all!
Sunday, June 9
3 – 4:30 pm
The First Churches (129 Main St., Northampton, MA)
Performances by:
The Nields – full band!
JFK Jazz Band
The Northamptones
NHS cast of “Alice In Wonderland”
Jackson Street Staff Ukulele Band
Kids & Parents all-sing “If You Want to Sing”
and more!
1:45 Warm up family jam with The Expandable Brass Band – bring your instrument!
All Ages ~ Families Welcome
$10-$20 suggested donation
Proceeds to benefit Yes! Northampton’s campaign in support of the June 25 Override. A yes vote on the Override ballot will keep art, music, theater, song, and so much more strong in the Northampton Public Schools, and will preserve city services across Northampton.
www.yesnorthampton.org

Uncle Henry

On June 1st I got this crazy Idea that I should blog every day for the month. Why? Because it's the second month of my Happiness Project, and my theme is Lean In. Because I'm going to re-release How to Be an Adult as an ebook later this month. And because the last time I blogged daily (March 2009) I felt alive and connected to both my writing and my audience in a way that made me feel vital.

Why not? Because now it's June 3 and I'm only now getting to the task at hand. It's June, which I now know is tantamount to December for public school families, who don't get out of school till the end of the month (if they're lucky.) I am tired of apologizing for how busy I am. I don't want to be compulsive about good things anymore. My birthday gift to myself is to accept myself with a generous dash of humor. It's much sexier to say "I will blog every day" than to say "I will try to blog a lot." But I just turned 46, and sustainability is the new sexy.

As usual, the rules for this kind of endeavor are: process over product, progress over perfection.

As I turn 46, I am at a beach in Gloucester, MA, watching my children wade into frigid water on a sultry day--a surprise late-spring heat wave that is all too common these days. I am a beach curmudgeon, and this outing is a complete surprise to me too.

About my birthday. I have to treat myself like a princess on my birthday, for better or for worse. I try to construct the perfect day for myself: I feed myself raspberries for breakfast, I get a facial or massage, I go to my favorite restaurant for dinner; I throw a party––all this to avoid the inevitable birthday blues. But this year I got asked to sing at a friend's wedding in Boston. No problem, I thought. I'd have the party June 1. But when I broached the subject with Tom, he said, "No way are we throwing a party Saturday night and then skipping town Sunday morning. I hate leaving the house a mess to clean up later." So I sulked and pouted, then I did my Daily Mental Hygiene (DMH) and my turnarounds and came to the conclusion that he was right, and that, as usual, I can't really know what's best for me. Especially if given a choice to do more rather than less. Besides, when I let go of my great ideas about what should happen and let God/The Universe/Serendipity take over, cool things happen, as in: I end up happy at the beach. Here's how we got here:

Tuesday morning Jay asked, apropos of nothing, "Mama, where's Uncle Henry?"
Uncle Henry is my great-uncle, the last of the generation. We last saw him at Thanksgiving, 2010. So I said, "How do you know about Uncle Henry? You haven't seen him since you were two."
"You talk about him. Well, where is he?"
"Concord."
"Is he dead?"
"No!"
"How old is he?"
"I think he's 88," I said, doing the math. He was ten years younger than my grandfather.
"Wow! That's old. We should visit him."

Thursday I called my parents to find out that they'd be coming up this Saturday for Uncle Henry's funeral. He'd died Tuesday morning, they told me.

So we had a party Friday night, left a mess to clean up later, jumped in the car, met my family at the church and bid goodbye to my wonderful Uncle Henry, a cello-playing, music-loving lawyer, US Naval officer in WWII, father of Henner and Nancy, grandfather of Peter and David. During the service, Henner played a recording of one of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites: #6––Prelude. We all sat and listened, wordless, tearful. Later, at the committal, we watched as a young female navy cadet played taps. She and another female cadet respectfully folded the flag that blanketed his coffin and gave it to Nancy. I was struck by the power of the visual, the silence, the deep respect.

We hung out with my amazing family, each one of whom I wanted to talk with for hours. What a perfect birthday gift to be able to see them for this mini-reunion at the last minute.

And then we went to the beach. My curmudgeonliness melted in the sun. I even ventured into the early June waters. I lay on my back in my little beach lean-to and read. We made new friends at the Blue Shutters Inn, a gem of a place where I felt the desire to host a writing retreat.

The next morning I learned "The Wedding Song" by Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul & Mary, and at 12:30 I sang it for my friends as they lit the unity candle at their wedding. We came home Sunday evening, exhausted, to a messy house. But today it's clean.

Uncle Henry was quiet, focused, kind, with a smile that lit up a room. On our way home from the beach, we listened to the cello suite again, and I tried to think what he would think. How did my son know he'd died? Did he visit us, as the dead sometimes do as they are leaving the earth? Why us? Why not us?

Reach, Grasp, Happiness Project and My Labyrinth

I want to build a labyrinth.

This is possibly the weirdest result of reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, a book which (in case you’ve been living on Mars for the past four years) champions happiness as a goal and exhorts its readers to make their own Happiness Projects by thinking about their lives in terms of what feels good, what feels bad and what feels right.

Like the author, who was a classmate of mine, I don’t want to change much about my life. I’m pretty happy. I don’t want to move to a new city, I don’t want to switch careers, I love my husband and children. I just want to be more present to it all, to appreciate my life more fully, to be honest about who I really am and what I really like. One of Ms. Rubin’s Personal Commandments is to “Be Gretchen,” and she argues that the road to happiness is in finding what’s truly happy-making for yourself, and not worry whether or not it might impress others. Though I'd like to think of myself as "Easy People," the truth is I'm a major striver. I know for myself that what makes me happy is to feel that I am reaching a little beyond my grasp, and maybe possibly getting close.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?-Robert Browning

And so I particularly love Gretchen’s nod to Ben Franklin, he of the famous Virtue Charts. Setting about to perfect himself, he drew these up and gave himself check marks at the end of every day. He never achieved perfection, but he said by reaching, he became a better and happier man from the attempt.

My problem is, my reach exceeds my grasp in every aspect of my life, and instead of smiling and enjoying the Grasp, I frown and squint and focus on what’s just out of reach. Here’s what’s just out of reach:
My idea of where I should be in my career.
My idea of what my waistline should look like (“A waist is a terrible thing to mind.”)
My idea of how uncluttered my house should be
My idea of how all my friendships should be (much more correspondence, much more time for hanging out)
My idea of how happy I should be making everyone
My idea of how big my royalty check should be
My idea of how often I should be blogging
My idea of how beautiful and well-kept my gardens should be
My idea of how rigorous my yoga practice should be
And on and on and on.

But back to the labyrinth.

We have a generous lot for our small city—a little over half an acre. There’s a corner in the back that our catty-corner neighbor wants to buy, and in truth, we ought to sell it to him. We’ve let it go to brambles, whereas he would adopt it gratefully into his yard, a yard that seems to have a bite taken out of it—that bite being our unruly corner. But we said no because...our reach exceeds our grasp. And we can’t stand the idea of letting part of our plot go. (This attitude contributes to the stacks on stacks of unread books in our attic, the piles of paper, the storage boxes of unused clothes, the crates of LPs in our attic, basement and barn. But that’s for another post.)

Anyway, this corner of our lot, brambly though it is, has a certain charm. It’s wedged at the nexus of our two neighbors’ properties (perfect for spying), it’s a bit sunny, and there are two gorgeous cherry trees breaking into the clouds. Last year, we had some tree work done, and the fellers left the remains of the trees as neatly stacked logs, stumps cut down to stool size, and a giant pile of wood chips. I saw these raw materials and got an idea. I’d build a labyrinth with them. My writers could come to this back corner, walk the labyrinth with their muses, and end up in an Adirondack chair under one of the cherry trees where they could sit and write.

Then I realized how much hauling of wood was involved and I decided to farm out the project. I priced it with a couple of landscapers. One suggested pea gravel. One suggested a backhoe. One suggested I plant wild mountain thyme, which of course I thought was a great idea, until she priced it. Plus there’d be weeding. It was all too much. I turned my back on that untamed corner of the lot and went inside to do my inside things: write songs, play guitar, write my books and blog posts, tend to my family.

I’m working, as you know, on doing less, on striving to be that Easy Person (or Easier, anyway). It’s killing me, but I really am doing less. To wit: Jay and I rode bikes to Elle’s pick up, and instead of spending the rest of the afternoon at the Y, we hung out at the playground where I made a new friend. Then we bike-ambled home through the park, doing an extra loop or two, breathing in the flowering trees. Ah, but a woman should bike with her kids and smell the flowers, or what’s a May for? We got home, and for once I didn’t have everything written out in a little chart to follow. So I took my bike back to the barn and ventured around the corner to appraise the dreaded brambles. I noticed a stack of old pallets that had once served as a makeshift wall for our gigantic compost heap. I was seized with a desire to build, the way my kids descend on a pile of Legos. I dragged them one at a time over to the brambles and lay them down, making a rough bridge. But there were rusty nails in the crates, and so I pulled them up, using them as a fence to give the area some definition. I propped them up with the logs and the tree stumps.


Then I attacked the woodchips with a kid-sized snow shovel. Shovelful by shovelful, I shook them out, lining the path with a seemingly never-ending supply of bricks I found scattered around the property, and the limbs of the felled trees. I varied the path with some leftover slate from our new mudroom floor, and some leftover tiles from our kitchen walls, and soon there was a walkway around the Adirondack chair, a rough circular pattern, hardly a labyrinth at all; more like a moat around the island of chair.


“Process not product” is my motto of late, and the labyrinth is hardly a thing of beauty (not to mention, as I did mention, not a labyrinth). What interested me was the feeling in me the hauling aroused. I felt like a kid, breathlessly pacing our property for bricks and sticks and logs and stumps, for rocks and slate and woodchips. I felt overtaken with a frenzy of creation, the desire—who knew it could be so strong?—of making order out of chaos. And when I took a break to sit in that chair in the center and admire my handiwork, I felt like Alexander the Great surveying my vast empire. And just for a second or two, I was there in full appreciation of my grasp.
This is the sweet spot, isn’t it? This is why I run writing workshops where writers work on first draft material. I am obsessed with that creative spark, as I am obsessed with the raw materials that go into those first drafts. The irony is not lost on me that my great creation (labyrinth) would not have been possible had we not been such pathetic cluttery slobs who had left all sorts of debris around the property. In a way, my fervor contributed to a great clutter clearing: there is nary an extra brick or stone anywhere save in the northeast corner of our lot now. But had there been no mess, there would be no work of art. As artists, of course, we need both the mess AND the inclination to order it.