In Praise of Pruning...

I was out in our backyard yesterday, doing some trimming and weeding.  Our roses had just finished their first, big round of blooming for this season. They needed to be pruned a bit.

Pruning helps a rose bush grow more beautiful.  Without pruning, the energy needed to grow more blossoms will be wasted on the production of its fruit—the rose hips.  Without pruning, the bush will eventually revert back to its natural state and shoot out ugly, gangly, vine-like branches. Soon enough, the whole thing can become a tangled mess.

So I pruned away.  I thought that I was close to finishing the job after working the clippers for twenty to thirty minutes.  Stepping back to get a different perspective, I noticed several old blooms that I had missed on the backside of the bush.  So, I worked my arms through the thorns, towards the far side of the rosebush, got scraped up a bit, but successfully pruned away the previously overlooked dead blossoms. 

I stepped back again, brushed off my arms and then I moved to my left.  There again were some more old blossoms that I had missed, plus some ugly spider webs and some big, dead, brown leaves that had dropped from the sycamore tree in the schoolyard that’s behind our house.  The dead leaves, the spider webs, the faded blossoms had all been invisible to me—until I had moved to my left.

I sighed, for in the garage my very cool bike—with its Dura-Ace components—was waiting for me to take it out for a ride.

More pruning…

Now I moved to my right—more messy stuff that I had missed, more pruning.

Then it occurred to me—I’m a lot like this rosebush.  I can’t grow without pruning and a change in perspective. I need to be willing to move around whatever I’m working on in order to see what’s incomplete about it. I need to be faithful to the task.  I need to invite the perspective of others into my life, those who can see what I can’t see about myself.  I need to keep working until I hear the words “it is good.”

Also, without a change in my perspective, I can’t help those who have asked me for help in their growth, their pruning.  Perhaps the most important change I can make is to practice the Golden Rule and put myself in the shoes of those that I’m leading, the students I’m teaching, the people I’m serving.  I need—all of us need—to keep working, keep pruning—with love—all the while avoiding the thorns, until we hear the words “it is good.”

Happy springtime!

The Eyes Are the Window To the Soul…

The eyes are the window to the soul…

Perhaps a great saying like this abides in our language and culture because of the truth that it contains—and there is much truth in this one.

My wife Julie and I were watching Grimm on television last night.  It’s a show about Nick Burkhardt, a detective who can see certain, unique people as they really are, that is, supernatural witches, werewolves or wildermann. In the season finale, Nick’s girlfriend Juliette seems to have been changed by the show’s antagonists for some evil purpose.  How do we know?  We know from the look in her eyes. When they suddenly open as she awakens from a coma, they are quite different. Solid brown, animal like, pupils missing, her once lovely eyes tell us now that something is quite wrong with her. She is no longer herself.

Have you ever noticed that there’s an art to looking at someone in the eyes?  Business people will tell you that a deal can be made or broken—depending upon how skilled the presenter is at looking into the client’s eyes.  If the presenter doesn’t make enough eye contact and carefully observe the client’s level of interest, the client may feel slighted, or think perhaps that the presenter is lying.  On the flip side, looking too long into the eyes of another can be disconcerting.  We tend to wonder about the motives of those who look at us in the eyes for too long.

Singers and groups of singers—such as choirs—need to understand the power of eye contact.

In a performance class that I was once coaching, a young woman with a really terrific voice was struggling to connect with the other members of the class as she sang.  She sang with power, conviction and style, and on a recording, her performance would have been stunning.  Yet, at this moment in time, we all felt like something was missing. 

Finally, someone asked her what she was looking at.  She put her head down and answered kind of sheepishly, “The wall.” 

Perplexed, we asked, The wall?  Why are you looking at the wall?  Why not look at us?  She kind of scuffed her feet and answered quietly, “Because I love the wall.”  

The room burst into laughter together with her. We all knew how she felt.  Looking into the eyes of another is one of the most intimate and sometimes difficult things we humans can do.  We would much rather look at the wall.

For choirs, the “wall” is the folder of music held in their hands as they perform. Even though they have looked at that same piece of paper dozens of times during rehearsal and they know its directions for singing well, they still look intently at those directions during the times when they are trying to communicate its truth to those that are listening, that is, the performance.  

We conductors often inadvertently reinforce this wall.  How many times have you heard a conductor say “C’mon people, on measure forty-nine, there’s a rest on beat four, would you please mark it and observe it?  So, when it comes to the performance of measure forty-nine, beat four—where has the choir rehearsed its eyes to look?  On its music of course;  certainly no one wants to experience the wrath of a conductor!

Gustavo Dudamel

So conductors, let’s start with ourselves.  How can we get a choir to connect with us—and then correspondingly with those listening to our performance?  Here’s how: When we stand in front of a group, we must overcome our natural inclination to look down at our music—and—make every effort to always be looking into the choir’s eyes, using the printed music as little as possible. 

Try this: Take a piece of music that you know by heart, close the page, move your stand off to the side and then, as you lead, simply look into the eyes of each individual choir member throughout the entire piece.  Try to “land” your eyes on each individual once for at least three seconds.  Count how many times you look down at where your music stand usually is.  Or better yet, have a trusted member of the choir count for you! It’s not easy, but if you want your choir to have the power of communication that the eyes afford, you must set the example and lead the way.

The eyes are the window to the soul for instrumental groups too.  Take a look here at the life Gustavo Dudamel brings out of the Venezuela Youth Orchestra as he conducts Leonard Bernstein’s Mambo.  Notice Dudamel’s eyes.  They are always challenging his people—yet they are also enjoying the life nurturing, mutual experience he shares with them.

Music is a form of communication, and that communication becomes much deeper and richer when we utilize the windows to the soul, that is, the eyes.  Looking into the eyes of your group is a skill that you too can learn.

I’ll enumerate some more practical ways as to how to accomplish this in my next blog, June 10th.

When He Lifts His Eyes

Choral music passed a milestone this month.  Dr. Gary Bonner is retiring at age 74 from his duties as the Dean of the School of Music at California Baptist University.

Over the decades of his professional career, Dr. Bonner continually experimented with choral conducting in the use non-verbal gesture to create spontaneous, almost improvised performances that were highly engaging for both the singers and the audiences.  His son Judd's DMA dissertation goes into depth in describing Bonner's non-verbal technique along with that of Rodney Eichenberger's—who independently from Bonner also uses non-verbal gesture in his choral conducting.

Somehow, the duty of putting together a faculty good-bye luncheon fell upon my shoulders along with that of my new colleague and friend at CBU, Dr. Steve Betts.

I've found that one of the best ways to mark these kinds of milestones is to write a poem.  I learned this from Pastor Brian Morgan when I served beside him up at Peninsula Bible Church in Cupertino.  Poetry allows one to express one's self in a deep, highly meaningful manner that we Americans seem to be unaware of.  It's appropriate that my first blog post includes a poem, especially for a man who has had such a significant influence upon who I am.

We closed the luncheon with the reading of this poem.  I was fighting back the tears as I read it to him. At least two things happened that afternoon—he felt highly honored—and I felt that I was able to express my feelings for him in an appropriate but powerful way though the unique and neglected art of poetry.

When He Lifts His Eyes

When he lifts his eyes, a journey begins.

He’s wanting to fly to high places

Where both the air and life are crystal clear,

And a fragrant aroma wafts through the air.

On breezes of song he glides, flies and swoops with ease,

His destination is a place so high, nothing less than the Heavenlies.

We are his wings.

And we move, sing and sway with the Spirit’s whispers leading.

This musician’s forward motion beckons, calls and entices us to be heeding,

To fly us onward to heights and places he’s uniquely gifted to see.

And Oh what he sees.

When he’s in the room, he somehow knows that you’re there.

Though throngs may surround you,

There’s no ducking, no hiding, he always sees you

And his expectation is that you will join his song.

For he knows his gift

and to share the joy of his journey

Is for you, what he longs,

To choose life, and to say yes, to simply follow along.

He savors each moment, so aware of how the time flees,

Yet somehow, on these wings of music, we glimpse eternity.

The door to heaven opens just a little with each flight

And we see the truth he envisions as we sing, wing to new heights.

His gifting, his visions, his dreams of what’s possible

Inspire me to press on and grow to be the best me that I can be.

Years of discipline leading to a moment of freedom.

He makes me believe that like him, I am not ordinary,

For none of us are just any old Tad, Doc or Gary,

We are all children of the Heavenly Father, gifted to change the world for the good.

Some of us lead, some of us follow,

For the eyes cannot say to the hand

“I have no need of you,”

But, there are times when the hand must say to the eyes, “Thank you.”

For flights to high places and songs that have been sung,

Today we are grateful to you for leading us in this journey

That’s barely begun.

Glenn Pickett, May 2012