The DPS Level II workshop in a word: “Workout”. Just one day later, I feel as if I’ve removed a great weight - and like the floating arms in that party trick where you push your arms up against a doorframe, I feel light and agile, ready to work, my senses honed and curious.

 

Whereas the Level I DPS workshop introduces the basic concepts centered around body/mind/heart, the subsequent levels approach three steps in relative isolation. In Level II, we explored perhaps the most strenuous and unpleasant of the three - recognizing and breaking down old habits.

 

The workshop began on a pleasant enough note - we held a house concert for our generous host in Wabash, playing for a few dozen people in a cozy music room, on a wonderful Steinway that I knew well, having had the honor of selecting it in NYC. The participants and myself each went in turn, playing short selections preceded by a little personal introduction. Afterwards, we sat down to a beautiful dinner and conversation.

 

The next morning, things started early and decisively, with a few ground rules that would guide our behavior and interaction for the long weekend: 1) no questions, 2) no use of the verb “Be” in any form, 3) a “headline” must precede any long statements, and 4) whenever the timer sounded, we had to stop wherever we found ourselves and note in our journal our current physical state, the thoughts running in our mind and how we felt.

 

These rules risked distracting us and preventing us from a free-flow of ideas and participation, becoming a challenge that the participants and myself consistently and whole-heartedly threw ourselves into, eventually finding clever and innovative ways to circumvent and adapt. I wanted everyone to consciously experience what it feels like to live by rules (we all do it already without recognizing it as such), so that similar feelings in unrelated areas could become more identifiable.

 

As in the Level I workshop, we also spent considerable time learning a work without using the piano. This time, we had a short piece by Tcherepnin. I was happy to know that some of the participants hadn’t even heard of this composer! In the process, we cut up the score into 6 parts, each participant assuming responsibility for a small part of the work, finding a way to communicate through words the information in their small chunk of music.

Later, we focused on mental imagery, practicing meditation on visualizing a keyboard and the body. This time we enhanced the experience by the use of a cardboard keyboard. If I had the resources, I would have wanted to bring in a Clavinova or a GranTouch, but in the end, the cardboard keyboards turned out to stimulate more imagination - and I got them onto the airplane in my carry-on!

The performance of the Tcherepnin, after 48 hours of mental study, went very well, with a notable increase in the confidence level during both the study and the playing of the piece compared to Level I. This confidence did not reduce the presence of surprises at the end results, however, and led us into a discussion on the role of imagination in creativity and emotional practicing. When comparing one’s imagination to reality, we find that the imagination can run circles around reality in its breadth of possibilities, and yet fail quite miserably in detailing the nuances and layers of reality. We need to understand that if we want to use our imagination in its most productive way.

 

The other activity that occupied us involved my mother’s recipe for Chinese dumplings. Yes, we cooked again, and this time we focused on “reproduction” - I gave them ingredients and a picture and their job included, besides the actual cooking work, figuring out the techniques and timing. The menu consisted of Chinese Dumplings, Vegetarian Fried Rice and Almond Cookies.

 

The first group that I had in a Level II workshop spent close to 5 hours preparing the first meal, mostly involved in preparing the dumpling skins. This latest group finished the job in about 3 hours - very impressive!

 

Our discussion topic focused on Competitions, both specifically in the piano world and as a general concept that people have to deal with. We staged the DPS International Piano Competition in order to have fresh mental and emotional materials to work with, pitting two participants against each other, evaluated and scored by three of their peers, with one participant observing the whole process as an audience member. Before things got out of hand (i.e. before awarding the first prize!), I officially cancelled the event and launched our discussion of the emotional and mental conflicts that competition creates. The basic message: competitions promote an objective analysis of a subjective activity, and conflicts result. We can try to avoid them when possible, and when we can’t, we use our self-observation skills to watch ourselves experiencing those conflicts and learn from what our emotions tell us.

 

A guided tour around the beautiful property of our host, including the newly added greenhouse, and a visit to the Historic Home museum in town rounded out our long weekend. The slight buzz of Spring in the air helped us get through our challenging mental and emotional work. Note to self: try not to schedule Level II workshops during the heart of winter!

 

P.S. I wonder if you noticed that I did not use any questions, did not use the verb “BE” except one single time (on purpose - I wonder if you can find it!), and wrote a headline.