March 2- April 2019 - A Cohort of Two
Putting our pilot on video was a really brilliant idea. Donations went from a trickle to a slightly larger trickle.
We were ready to launch our second cohort. We booked the large recording studio at Bedrock. Kick-off date was March 2nd (a day shy of the anniversary of my recital with Michael Sushel).
There was no guest mentor that day. I was it. And how was I going to fill three hours on my own? I had no idea.
My recruiting efforts were not that successful. Jayleen, who had worked with June, came back. And the Colburn School had sent me one student, William.
My strongest view on composition and creativity is to do something unexpected. Play your instruments backward. Play them in a way that isn't traditional. Play instruments you don't know.
Bedrock had both a drumset and random instruments hanging on the walls: guitars, basses, violins, mandolins, etc. It became my habit to tell the kids to pick an instrument they didn't play. A student would always put a guitar in my hands because to this day, I still don't play one. (I usually drummed on it.)
I also frequently tell the kids that their music must tell a story featuring a beginning, middle, a go to lunch, and an end. The lunch is do something unexpected. We also implored them to find an emotion. (More on this later.)
I added in a music history review, improvisation with random instruments, and an overview of the program, and that was three hours.
William was Korean, and a super talent. He was having a grand ol' time. But when his mother came to pick him up and saw him banging on the piano (as in dissonant percussion, which many of you know is a staple of mine in composition), that was the end of William in Inception. (He would go on to the LA Phil composition program.)
We were down to a cohort of one.
There was a format we were integrating this go round. We would meet every first and third Saturday of the month live in studio, and the composer(s) would meet us on zoom privately during the 2nd and 4th weeks. (This became really important once the pandemic hit.)
This strategy allowed us to focus individually on the composers' pieces and have more of a group setting for our classes. Also, we could help the students prepare to have the instrumentalist mentors play parts of their pieces so they could hear their melodies on different instruments.
March 16, 2019
It was our first guest mentor of the season... Molina. And while I was really worried that we were booking a three-hour private lesson for Jayleen, Luis Diaz strolled in with his guitar. Phew.
Let me just say before we get there in the story that Luis is the classiest kid I've ever met, and I know I measure how other students behave against Luis' deep character.
Molina again lived up to his great Flamenco playing and guitar technique lesson. But he will tell you that he is not a composer.
We worked on conducting, and honestly, the kids should not be learning conducting from me.
Clinton Johnson returned on April 6th. I told him to go light on the music theory, but he literally walked in with a briefcase full of theory books.
Luis was sick that day, so zoomed in. (A cohort of one-and-a-half?)
At one point, Clinton was improvising on Jayleen's piece while she was playing along. He held up his hand for her to stop. I mean he came up with something brilliant as he continued. Genuinely brilliant. But who was this exercise for?
Miyeko, who now anchored our Board, after the session said, "I need to talk to you." I said, "No you don't."
April 20. 2019
The kids had me again. There was nothing spectacular about this session except that Luis and Jayleen really started improvising with each other.
Luis was a talented kid. He could jump from guitar to drums to keys and back.
We needed this session because we were about to find our way.
One great thing about working at LEAP was they had an amazing xerox machine which could take 11x17 paper and make folded over booklets. I printed these for every class in 2019. In all fairness, I offered to reimburse Grace at the end of this cohort, but she told me to keep the money. I think she viewed it as a way she could additionally support our program.
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