Laurel Black Music

Ah, summer. For those of us in academia it means time to work for yourself , and that includes feeding the mind literary goodness.  For when you're in the mood for word food, here are some ideas.  Hyperlinks will take you to an excerpt on Google Books, if there is one. About Percussion The Percussionist's Art , by Steven Schick Sticking it Out , by Patti Niemi When the Drummers were Women , by Layne Redmond Drumming at the Edge of Magic , by Mickey Hart and Jay Stevens The Girl in the Back: A Female Drummer's Life with Bowie, Blondie, and the 70's Rock Scene , by Laura Davis-Chanin Keiko Abe: A Virtuosic Life , by Rebecca Kite About Artistry Creativity , by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi Flow , by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi The Artist's Way , by Julia Cameron Walking in this World , by Julia Cameron Finding Water , by Julia Cameron Leonardo's Brain , by Leonard Shlain About the Self Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , by Stephen Covey ...

Have a Project for You Amid everything else going on professionally, academically, and personally, have a passion project that is for you.  It's a project that you can pour your interest, creativity, and energy into when that uneasy feeling strikes.  You know the feeling - the one that says "you're doing a lot of things, and you're active, but we both know that it's not feeding  you." When that voice appears, it's time to dig in to your passion project. It could be performance related, maybe a new piece you want to pursue.   It could be a composition you've been drafting.   It could be reading about a composer you've discovered and want to know more about.   It could be your love of photography, videography, visual art...anything.   Chances are, you already have an idea and just haven't started.   Start. Have a YOU Practice There are certain fields that take an extraordinary amount of dedication t...

Coming across a Facebook conversation about a child who was labeled as so sensitive to criticism that he was assigned to a special class, I found myself inspired to share one of the books nearest and dearest to my heart: The Highly Sensitive Person , by Dr. Elaine Aron, Ph.D. "How to thrive when the world overwhelms you" mmm, yes I found this book years ago, and immediately knew it was for me. Even the cover of this edition suits a sensitive person, with mild contrasts and just enough darkness to make sure you can read what's on the cover. Lovely There's all kinds of info in this book, from a self test, to discussion on therapy options, to discussion on how to be proud of this trait, not ashamed by it. What does it mean to be highly sensitive? An HSP observes before acting, notices more about any situation (artistic, natural, social, etc.) than others, and is therefore more easily overwhelmed than his or her peers. In the Author's Note for her ...

 Woohoo, y'all!! On behalf of the Percussive Arts Society, I am pleased to invite you to participate in the 42 annual Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC® 2017) in Indianapolis, Indiana. This year, PASIC® will take place Wednesday, November 8 through Saturday, November 11 at the Indiana Convention Center. Your Professional Development proposal, “ PercussionMind: The Mental Performance Habits of Today's Top Percussionists...and Where You Fit In ,” has been accepted to be presented at PASIC17! I am beyond excited that a current passion project, PercussionMind, will be revealed this year at PASIC.  If you want a quick summary of what it is, and learn about my collaborator, Mike Cerreto, check out the tab in the menu bar above. :) PercussionMind is inspired by that long thought-journey taken as a young adult as you wonder what, exactly, suits you best in the professional music realm.  Here's a jaunt through my personal story: In early undergrad, ...

One of my most inspiring teachers, actress Carol Mayo Jenkins, would be pleasantly [un]surprised to learn that one of her adages has been confirmed time and time again by science.  I'll never forget the class when she said to us (and I paraphrase):  Feel this. Do you know a body of joy cannot hold despair, and a body of despair cannot hold joy.  She told us to stand tall, arms outstretched, face towards the ceiling; from there, we were to find the emotion of despair. One by one we each collapsed and closed slowly, unable to maintain such an upright, celebratory, and open position. That day was important; it was the day I realized that my kinesthetic awareness could affect how I experience my life. ---    Those of us that identify as artistic, creative types often deal with levels of anxiety and depression, sometimes very mild, sometimes more severe.  We Millennials, Gen X-ers, Baby Boomers, and Boomlets aren't the first to deal with t...

The weather this week in our part of VA has done nothing but create headache, both literally and figuratively.  If you're one of the unlucky millions of people who suffer from chronic migraines, the constant shifts from hot/somewhat dry to blustery, stormy humidity and cooler temps would have you reaching for either Excedrin or exceptional amounts of ibuprofen, as I've been doing these last few days. The world doesn't stop for a migraine, though sometimes our schedules allow us to sneak in a nap that helps dull the pain.  For those of us that make a living playing music, an ill-timed migraine can mean a bad performance or thwarted practice schedule. What Makes a Headache a Migraine? Migraines tend to not be acute, and rather progress through four stages over one to several days: Prodrome, Aura, Headache, and Post-drome.   Mayo Clinic has an entry that explains symptoms, but here's a synopsis. Prodrome - food and stomach weirdness, in what you want...

There aren't many other calming moments than the tranquil, blank mental space that accompanies those first few days at the end of the school year.  Suddenly there is so much time , assuming we can stop feeling exhausted. Time can be our friend or our enemy in terms of our practice.  In preparations for TAPS East Coast, which starts this weekend, I find myself examining my thoughts about practice.  Since many of us are now in a limbo stage, somewhere between relaxed and feeling guilty about it, I'm hoping we can bond over these ideas. Playing Cold – Some people warm up, some don’t.  Though some rep doesn’t require it, if we’re coming in from cold weather, just woken up, playing after a multi-week break, or about to run a complicated recital program, we have to warm up.  Cold muscles don’t move as well, which means the work goes elsewhere, like the tendons. Cram Practicing – Sometimes life only gives us 2 weeks to prep a half recital, but if there...

A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are...that is snobbery... Now, the opposite of a snob is your mother. When I sat down to write this post I had originally planned to make a case for the detrimental effects of competitive environments on learning and performance. I've been searching through articles that cite case studies and listening to dozens of interviews by behavioral psychologists. But then I found this TED talk that basically sums up my philosophical questions about judgment and how the very nature of it sorts people into those that are successful and those that are failures.  Perhaps it is not so black and white, or so final, but there is a very tangible feeling of failure when there isn't a full scholarship with the acceptance letter, or an elimination in the competition, or a barricade presented from an audio round before  the actual competition takes place. (Yes, I've experienced all of thes...

Next week on @ percussion we will chat all about competitions.  For episode 6 we invited Liz Galvan and Matt Penland in on the discussion, as they have "successful" competitions under their belts and, naturally, had different experiences. This session is well-timed - we recorded a few weeks ago - as it was right when I was in the midst of trying to figure out how to articulate whirling thoughts about competition, and more specifically, judgment.  We had great thought-provoking discussion, and decided, after an hour of talking, that judging is hard . Posts 1 and 2 of this Judgment series center on why that may be true, especially when our amazing brains work against us, shortcutting to biased pathways and rushed, incomplete opinions.  But what happens to our domain of classical percussion as a result of competition and the difficulties of judgment? From a practical point of view, judgment in music allows us to select the best players for orchestras, scholarships, o...

Just like being labeled "judgmental," I don't want to be called "biased." Biased  is only a few steps away from  prejudiced , at least in my connotative mind.  (And that's a word I'd prefer never appear on this blog again.) But, there is certainly an evolutionary advantage to bias, is there not?  Over the last week I've been thinking about this quite a bit.  Where does bias come from? All of us develop a few of them, so why am I so adverse to the term?  And, if we all develop them, they must come more from functions of the brain than the mind, right?  They are separate animals, are they not: my brain reminds my heart to beat so my mind can ponder important things like where bias comes from. Here's what my mind found. Heuristics Our brains, being the efficient machines they are, develop mental shortcuts, or rules, that we use to form judgments and make decisions.  They are based on frequency of certain decisions and outcomes of the past....

judge  - to form an authoritative opinion | to form an estimate or evaluation about something discerning  - revealing insight and understanding Last year I listened to the final round of a snare drum competition.  With instruction to play "up to 20 minutes" of music, the most artistic player performed one piece with such depth that I had to remind myself I was listening to  solo   snare   drum . After the round I went up to my husband, who was a judge, and said, "well, this is going to be easy."  Alas, she didn't win because the other judges had issue that she only used 12 of her 20 minutes, and they essentially out-voted him. She came in 3rd, and this was a surprise to everyone, including the competitors that placed above her. I learned an important lesson that day - I learned that though we hope to experience the perfectly fair, artistic, and discerning competition, that's not usually what happens.  It's due to nothing more than human n...

Writing in a journal reminds you of your goals and of your learning in life.  It offers a place where you can hold a deliberate, thoughtful conversation with yourself.  - Robin S. Sharma While unpacking the boxes upon boxes upon boxes upon boxes of belongings from our recent move, I stumbled (literally, there's a bruise...) upon a stack of a few of my old journals.  I've kept a journal since early high school, and they have served me well over the years, for all kinds of different reasons.  My selective sentimentality has forced me to take them with me wherever I go: from TN, to MA, to WV, to VA.  They are full of reflections, wishes, ideas, and longings.  What struck me this particular time, reading through them, were the many creative ideas held within the pages of each one.  It was surprising, to see that my 20-year old self had the courage to write down an idea that my 28-year old self found to be laughable - until I realized that that might...

What happens to us when we get in front of people? Why do we sometimes get so much   braver and other times totally choke? I've been thinking about this a lot with the marimba competition coming up next week.  Let me say what we're all thinking: competitions are weird.  The entire reason three people in the audience are there is to judge you. Boom. They're not trying to be mean; they're not trying to imply that what you have to say isn't valid, but there's something that happens in your brain when you know you are being weighed against others.  I'm a firm believer that the intention of the music can carry a performer through. What I mean by that is if the performer is focused on nothing but telling the story or sharing the sound of the piece, nothing can go wrong.  Ok, so not literally  nothing, but if the intention is to share truth, then "nothing" could be wrong, as every note is played, and every word is sung, with a correct and true i...