For many of us, this week marks the one-year anniversary of the start of lockdown. Those of us in the piano teaching field who were able to swiftly make the change to online instruction largely weathered the storm with very little interruption. This last year has been the busiest on record for me, and one of the biggest challenges has been to know when to say no with offers of new students and opportunities. But I'm also worried about the state of performing arts, and hope that those whose livelihoods have been temporarily put on hold are able to once again return to the concert hall and make a living from their performing activities. It won't be easy, and there might be many battles ahead.
For the first few months of the pandemic, I buried myself in work, and counted over 100 days without taking a day off. This impacted my physical and mental health, and my blogging from this time slowed down to a crawl. Over the months that followed, I gradually worked out a schedule that allowed for down time and the activities I valued to keep me sane, including time for reading, writing, lots of walking, and cooking healthy food. And I needed to indulge my penchant for starting new projects, including this newsletter.
One of the cool but challenging things about blogging is that some posts practically write themselves, while others take a lot of time, thought, and planning. I'm currently writing a post about the most meaningful books and articles about productivity that I've read, but it won't be ready until next week at the earliest. In the meantime, here are some short posts from the Collaborative Piano Blog this last week:
For the first few months of the pandemic, I buried myself in work, and counted over 100 days without taking a day off. This impacted my physical and mental health, and my blogging from this time slowed down to a crawl. Over the months that followed, I gradually worked out a schedule that allowed for down time and the activities I valued to keep me sane, including time for reading, writing, lots of walking, and cooking healthy food. And I needed to indulge my penchant for starting new projects, including this newsletter.
One of the cool but challenging things about blogging is that some posts practically write themselves, while others take a lot of time, thought, and planning. I'm currently writing a post about the most meaningful books and articles about productivity that I've read, but it won't be ready until next week at the earliest. In the meantime, here are some short posts from the Collaborative Piano Blog this last week:
- Rachel Fuller on the Art of the Collaborative Pianist - One of the shining lights of the collaborative piano field in New Zealand, Rachel Fuller talks with David Moriss on the state of the profession and her challenges in starting a career. Bonus tip: I was genuinely impressed with the layout of RNZ as a news site, whose practical and quiet layout is a far cry from the noise, clutter, and ads of North American and European sources.
- Participate in a Research Study: Preparing Young Musicians for Performance - The well thought-out questions on this research study by Charlene Ryan, Jessica Tsang, and Diana Dumlavwalla are an excellent vehicle for reflection on performance preparation, anxiety, teaching expectations, and how things have changed during the pandemic. Highly recommended for anyone who teaches in the musical field.
I've been blogging since 2005. Part of what I enjoyed about the old blogosphere was the act of blogging as curation. For me, this extends into the art of newsletter writing as well. Every week I include a bunch of cool links to stuff I find relevant, and hope that you will too.
- 7 Questions, 75 Artists, 1 Very Bad Year - If you don't know how bad a year it has been in the performing arts, you've got your head in the sand. But at the same time, it has been a time of rebirth and rethinking, and we might not fully understand the fruit of this fallow time for decades.
- Love It or Hate It: Musicians Come to Terms With Performing for the Camera - The musical world is also a visual one, and here are the stories of performers who have made the switch from the immediacy of in-person performance to online interaction with audiences.
- I Have No Desire to Produce a Performance, Live or Livestreamed, Until the Pandemic is Over. I'll Wait. - Sydnie Mosley in asking the question "What if we rested?", honors the importance of taking time off to focus on our process and resisting the temptation to "pivot to virtual" if it doesn't support your core work.
- The mindful productivity audit: 10 questions to improve your life at work - Balancing your ability to churn out awesome work in a changing environment with the ability to remain whole is elusive for many of us. Anne-Laure Le Cunff invites us to find that balance and improve our well-being in a meaningful way.
- Elderblog Sutra: 12 - a long and thoughtful post by Venkatesh Rao about the changes that have happened in blogging, web development, and the text renaissance in the last 20 years. The cool thing about independent publishing for the web is that your content often has a shelf life of decades - unlike your social media posts from last week.
- With the fast development of online interaction, many have opted for the growing genre of digital gardens. Maggie Appleton walks us through the history of this new-but-not-so-new field in A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden.
- Why we escaped city life and built a home in the woods - a magnificent long read by Mindy Zhang about her flight from NYC, re-evaluating priorities, and setting up meaningful roots with her partner in rural Connecticut.
- How Coronavirus kids see the world - Jason Fried on how the growing eye-reading skills of kids indicate that they might be better off than we think.
I'll end with this quote by Amanda Gorman from the NY Times 7 Questions article that encapsulates where many of us are right now:
I think if I could go back in time and give myself a message, it would be to reiterate that my value as an artist doesn’t come from how much I create. I think that mind-set is yoked to capitalism. Being an artist is about how and why you touch people’s lives, even if it’s one person. Even if that’s yourself, in the process of art-making.
Have a fantastic week! Send me an email if you have a unique story of how the pandemic has affected your work. I'm also always on the lookout for articles on how we're dealing with the fast rate of change - if this is what you write about, feel free to contact me at any time.
- Chris
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This week's painting is Wendy's "New Day", acrylic on canvas (48x40), and if you're interested in owning it, we can ship to just about anywhere. Buyers in the Greater Toronto area and surrounding region can have the painting delivered to your door without charge. Check out more paintings here - each week I'll be featuring another.