[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Last weekend was a time of great highs, and a few lows. It’s getting to the time of year when I am tired and drained. Practising is hard in the morning – although it’s light, it’s hard to drag my sorry arse out of bed in the morning. I am tired of fighting within the education system to prove to the people who make decisions how important music education is to children – especially to children who are exposed to trauma. And, just like you, when I’m tired, everything is felt more keenly.

So when I get a review that completely misses the point of what I do in a magazine it makes me sad. It seems that the reviewer totally missed the point about what I was trying to do in my last CD with David. For a start, he called it ‘a mismatched patchwork’. Since it was really just a recording of how I’d present a concert, I know not to invite him to a live concert. When I talk to audience members after concerts, they like the patchwork. In fact, they love it. (Maybe I’m talking to the wrong people?) ‘Questions of style seem beside the point’ he wrote. Hmm… is this a compliment? An insult? I still can’t tell…. He finished by smothering me with condescension and calling the disc ‘a labour of love’. It really is what I expected from the establishment, but a little part of me was hoping I would be wrong. That they would see what I tried to do. But they didn’t. Sigh…

And while I was descending into the murky gloom of a bad review, I was performing at MONA. Which was incredible. I was playing with one of my favourite performers, in an amazing space (a room full of barrels of wine) with beautiful acoustics. And people flocked to see us play. When we weren’t playing, we went for a wander in this amazing place. Full of fabulous art. Full of people wanting to be in this place consuming fabulous art. Musicians playing in all sorts of places. David Walsh wandering around welcoming people. It was one of the most wonderful weekends – and so ‘non-establishment’. I loved it. It was a privilege to be there. And it inspired and nourished me. barrel 3long cellolong way away in barrell room

 

 

 

 

 

Coming home, very tired, on the plane, I realised I like being outside the establishment. I’ve written about this before. Because if people like David Walsh and Brian Ritchie are there, that’s where I’d like to be. With Judith, my artist friend, and David, Vero and Anthony. All of my musician friends who will push boundaries. We’re certainly not going to be rich. But we will remain true to ourselves.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I’ve just come back from a week in a town in NSW. It was a huge week – I had two days to get three groups of children ready for a big performance at the town’s entertainment centre. I was also coming at it from a set of chamber music performances (four concerts in four days), so I was pretty raw. Did it make for better teaching? I’m not sure. It certainly made me very aware of all the things that go on in a classroom that weren’t the actual delivery of the lesson though….

So here, in no particular order, were things I experienced.

I love teaching kids music. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, or if I know them well or not, I love it. I love watching little people experience the joy of the thing that I love the most. I love watching them listen and cotton on to things – a joke in a song, a rhythm they love, a tune that is singable.

It really does matter to me how good a performance is. People will often say to me ‘But don’t worry Rachel. Just the fact they are getting up and having a go… that’s what it’s all about.’ Actually it’s not. Don’t say that to music teachers. It does matter. It actually matters a lot. Kids know if what they’ve done is good or not. And if you demand that they do something really well, 99 times out of 100 they’ll give it to you. Most children will be able to achieve more than we grown-ups think they can.

I went into some really tough schools. I was really working hard – and I’ve been doing this for a long time. And yet the children who are seen as ‘difficult’ in classrooms weren’t. So is this a way to engage kids? Is our education system, geared towards reading and writing, and sitting and learning from books wrong? Do you know, I’m beginning to think it is. Really wrong. It’s fine to do that for privileged kids. Kids who don’t have to deal with trauma on a day-to-day basis. Kids who get enough fibre, and don’t have nits, and who are wormed regularly. But the other ones? It’s not the way forward for them. And yet we keep trying to force them to learn that way. And so what do they do? They cut school. They play up in the classrooms. They are branded difficult. Maybe the system is wrong – not these kids.

I got stared on the street. Really stared at. The last time I got started at like that was in Timor. I know I’m a bit not-normal-looking, but this was like I was from another planet. And I got stared at most of all by older white men with no teeth. Not in a leery way. But like I was an alien. It was exhausting.

The difference between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is getting bigger. And this is not good. This will lead to things like more crime. More hatred.

And kids love drumming. Really love it. Actually, so do I.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It seems I ruffled a few feathers with my last blog post. (I guess that means that there’s people reading what I write – which made me smile!) I don’t write this blog to provoke, you know. Some of you might find that strange to believe – I provoke so much, but this is not one of those times. I write it to reflect, mostly. Sometimes to rant, sometimes to yarn. But a good thing came out of this horribleness. I got a chance to reflect on what I write, and why I write – all good things to do, I think. I talked about this to a few friends, and someone I trust summed it up really succinctly…. He said something like “Well, you’ve written something like you would put in a letter, but it’s where everyone can see it. And then someone has written their reaction to it, and then let you know. And it’s all instantaneous. And it’s just the way things are these days.” Actually, he said it in a much better way than that, but it made me do some more thinking again.

So before I go on, I want to clarify a few things.

  1. What I write here are my opinions. Not facts. Not judgements. Just opinions. And they belong to me.
  2.  I understand that you mightn’t have the same opinions as me.
  3.  Number 2 is ok by me.
  4.  If the world was full of Rachels it would be noisy and exhausting. And there would be too much hair.

There are various things that make me uncomfortable in life, and I will probably write about them. Inequality of education is one of them. I try to do something about this – but that is my choice. It doesn’t make my life any better or worse than others. I do not look for your approval. I will try to challenge you if I think you are wrong, but I do not judge you. If you judge me, that is your problem. Does my choice make you uncomfortable? It isn’t meant to. I am doing what I do in the education system because I love it, and am good at it, and I got that opportunity.

The way artists are undervalued is another thing that makes me uncomfortable. All artists – not just musicians. Sometimes I feel like I live in a subset of the community. Due to the choice I have made to be an artist I have given things up. Lots of money is one of them. ‘Normal’ working hours is another. Job security. Superannuation. Excellent mental health (I do not write that last little sentence lightly.) But I have got lots of other good things from my choice. I meet excellent people. I am creative in my decision making. And I am very happy in what I do. Given my time again, I would choose what I have done again. I do not regret this (well, sometimes when the car rego is due I do….) decision. And I do not look at others and judge them if they are a doctor, or an accountant, or a hairdresser, or a lawyer (maybe that last one. But it depends what sort of lawyer they are….). Really? I don’t really care what you do with your life, as long as you are a decent human being.

I do feel uncomfortable about the ‘excess’ in our communities. Big cars, big houses, lots of unnecessary packaging around vegetables, huge amounts of ‘stuff’. But if you choose to have this, then that is your business. It’s just I don’t. I have come to this discomfort by looking at the people who don’t have this stuff – and this difference is one I don’t like much. But it is not an attack on the people who do have lots of stuff. (I remind you of point one I wrote earlier…)

I am not angry as I write this, and I hope that my words don’t come across that way. I am not sad either, or rueful. I am proud of what I do, and who I am. I do not expect anyone else to be measured by the standards by which I measure myself. And I am too busy measuring me to measure you.

(She gets down from the soap box and goes to eat her breakfast…)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I have been thinking about friendship a bit lately. I’m not going on a middle-aged-person-rant about Facebook friends, and what makes a real friend. That’s all been said before, and really doesn’t interest me at all.

I know that I have some friends because they live close by, and it’s really convenient to see them a lot. Would I still be as friendly with them if we didn’t live so close? Actually, for both of these groups of friends, I hope so. I like them enormously.

I have other friends who I’ve met through my work in schools. I tend to walk into a classroom, and if I like what they do and how they are with the children, then I like them. It doesn’t happen as often as you think. But if I like your teaching then I will back you to the hilt, and call you my friend. Is that odd? Possibly. But it works for me.

And then I have friends who I perform with (with whom I perform – I know. But it sounds pretty stuffy.). Some people who I play with (with whom… oh, forget it.) I don’t have a great connection with. It’ll be a good performance, but not one that really excited me. Would you be able to tell in the audience? I’m not sure… probably, if you were really looking, and knew my playing well. And then there are others that it’s just wonderful. There is risk-taking, and a huge amount of give-and-take, and all sorts of things that happen in the concert that hadn’t been discussed or even tried out in the rehearsal. It’s incredibly exciting as a player to have this happen. And if it happens for most of the night it’s totally exhilarating. (Do you remember what it was like when you met someone that you then had a really passionate love affair with? It’s like that…) And these people I count as my friends too. Good friends. Friends I’d trust with fairly intimate information. And yet I mightn’t hang out with them much, or even see them a lot.

Odd. And yet true for me. I’m not sure about other performers, but for me it’s true. Maybe that’s why there’s a lot of infidelity in the music profession. Or maybe we’re all just fickle and untrustworthy, who knows?!

Does this happen in other professions? Probably. I don’t know any trapeze performers I can ask, or duo rock climbers, or synchronised swimmers (probably best that way too…). But there’s something about bearing your soul with another person and them loving what they see (well, hear), and responding to it and making what you have given them even better that leads to a pretty strong bond. I like these people a lot that this happens with.

I also try and perform with them a lot….[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]When you are growing up you are often told by your parents (or whoever is looking after you) to ‘be an individual’, or ‘not to worry about what others think’, or to ‘march to the beat of your own drum’. (As a musician, I find this phrase strange. No-one wants to work with a muso – in particular a drummer – who just plays whenever they want.) I heard Alexei Sayle interviewed on the radio last week, when I was driving to a concert, and he was talking about the fact that he never really fitted in. He didn’t really ever know how to. And it got me thinking…

So as a kid, we are encouraged to be free, to be different. But as an adult, we are encouraged to fit in. To not rock the boat – with our opinions, or life-style choices, what we wear or even how we do our hair. When does this all change? Did I miss this class?

I don’t really fit in, you know. If you know me, this probably comes as not-much-of-a-surprise. I joke about ‘being normal’, but I know that I’m not really. I’m not hugely radical with most things – but I am aware that I’m a bit left of centre. Most of the time I’m fine with that – but sometimes it gets a bit lonely.

I didn’t come at my performing career the ‘right’ way. I was a late bloomer, as a cellist – probably due to laziness and excessive beer drinking which caused me to get a bit lost in my late teenage years. Also I was actively discouraged to be a musician by many of my teachers at school, and it took me a number of years to have the courage to do what I really wanted to do… So I didn’t go to the ‘right’ summer camps, or study at the ‘right’ post-graduate places. I loved the different path I took – it exposed me to some amazing musicians, teachers, mentors and concert venues – but it was a struggle most of the time, and completely unremunerative. (Yes – I know that’s not a word. And my spellchecker agrees with me.)

I don’t do the ‘normal’ sort of teaching (sitting with cello students in a small room teaching one-on-one). Some of my string-playing colleagues have commented on this. Some of my amateur-musician-friends have also commented on this. And the reason that I don’t do this is that I don’t want to. I don’t think it’ll benefit my cello playing that much (as I’ve been told it will). I love the sort of teaching that I do. It’s mad, and energetic, and exhausting, and it inspires me, and keeps my feet flat on the floor, and my head wondering about why I love music so much. I love the kids I see, and the programs I run.

My hair isn’t ‘normal’. My mother pesters me about this. I love my hair. I love that I look like a cross between a crazy-lady and a homeless person. I love that I don’t have to brush it, or wash it, or straighten it. I love that in the era of hair straightening and smoothness, my hair is a mop/ nest/ mass of tangles. It suits who I am, and who I want to present to the world. Funny that the person who taught me to be individual wants to change this part of me.

And the biggest thing of all? I have chosen not to have children. This seems to have threatened an awful lot of people. I have lost friendships over this. I have drifted away from others because my friends got consumed with parenting. I love kids – but I don’t want them. I never have. I don’t understand this ‘wanting’ to have children. I ‘want’ ice-cream, or a glass of wine. But not a child. And this seems to threaten people. Most of my closest friends are the generation older than me. I have a few others – women who haven’t let this get in the way of relating to each other. The number of times I’ve been told ‘I’ll regret not having children’ or been told ‘tick-tock, tick-tock’ (yes – I kid you not) is astounding.

I am not hoping to be normal. I don’t want to be. I like that I’m different. And I know that a lot of people admire that about me. I’ve been told by some people I’m inspirational – although I wouldn’t go that far. But sometimes I wish that I could be satisfied with talking about Instagram, or reality TV. I wish I could be more polite and less quick to blurt out things that people often find a bit confronting (who knew so many people were offended by the term ‘box gap’?). Times that I’m tired, or drained and don’t have the courage to stand up and face the world on my own terms.

But most of the time I don’t. I’m proud of who I have become, and what I do.

Where’s that drum?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]