Heal Thyself: Part Three

In Part One I touched briefly upon disorders, treatments and an admonition to find another way to heal oneself other than traditional treatment.  In part two I talked a bit about movement of the wrists (dorsiflexion, ulnar deviation, radial deviation, etcetera) and the body in whole.  Here I'd like to talk briefly about why some people will never heal.

If an injury is the result of improper movement or from extensive stretching of the tendons, to the point that they have micro tears and consequent layers of scar tissue, the only way to heal is to cease creating micro tears and break up the existing scar tissue.  Imagine if you cut a three inch circular hole in your favorite sweater then without replacing the missing swatch, simply sew up the hole.  The knot that ensues and the stretching and pulling of the fabric is sort of what happens to your muscles when they are hog-tied by scar tissue.

In order to cease creating micro tears one needs to stop moving and bending incorrectly and stop stretching the tendons to the point where the body needs to create scar tissue.  Coaches and physical therapists prescribe stretching to warm up muscles when really, all they are doing is creating micro tears in the muscles and tendons.  The body's response to this minor damage is to rush blood to the damaged site which makes the body feel warm.  The  body is not technically warming up, it is rushing blood to the site to immobilize the tissue:  Nature's cast.  If coaches really want to warm up the body of their athletes they would make them sit in a sauna and give them a massage.  Just ask Olympic trainers.

In order to break up the scar tissue created by over stretching, you need to, well, stretch.  The solution to this conundrum is actually very easy; allow the body to move naturally in its mid-range of motion.  That is why I am a strong opponent to the use of braces because they inhibit the body from moving in its mid range of motion and also forces the wearer to overcompensate by using other unnatural movements on areas of the body which will only strain new joints and new tissue.  This new misuse and overuse will facilitate a downward spiral of repetitive motion disorders.  I have heard many stories where the inital pain started as a twang in the forearm, then a sharp pain, then numbness of the hand, followed by constant pain in the wrist, then elbow and shoulder pain, back pain follows then it become bilateral. Revisit that old song, "The hip bone's connected to the knee bone."

Most injuries occur because the athlete (or musician) had something not in proper alignment in the first place and over or under compensated with another part of the body which wasn't intended to move that way.  Proper movement promotes healing, plain and simple.  Once the body is trained to move properly, scar tissue will begin to break up, inflammation will go down and symptoms will disappear.  The body will begin to work as efficiently as it was designed while it is slowly freed from the tether of scar and pain.

Have you ever been buried in snow or sand to the point where you couldn't move?  Brute force will not free you from the  mass piled upon you.  However, if you gently move up and down, left and right, forward and backward, you will create little air pockets.  As the pockets increase in all directions, not just one, you will eventually obtain enough space where you can use more and employ larger muscles to displace greater mass and eventually break free (unless you are in a ten foot deep avalanche).  The person with over and misused tendons must start out the same way; free to move effortlessly in every direction and expand from there.   After meeting with my practitioner for the first time, during the following week I experienced painless snapping sensations in my forearms.  That was the scar tissue breaking and releasing my tendons as they began to move as nature intended.  I was no longer overstretching but moving just enough to entice the scar to release its hold on my muscles.  Much like the Chinese finger torture we all experimented with as kids.  The harder you try, the harder it is to get free.

Unfortunately, when there is a glimmer of hope, that is where many people give up on their training and begin moving "normally" again.  At that point, the ailment comes back with a vengeance because they are no longer creating micro tears but tearing the whole mass of scar tissue.  Those are the type of people who never heal, much like a yo-yo dieter.  Many people won't even get that far.  Musicians are the worse.  I had one student who dutifully practiced the exercises that I prescribed to him then he practiced other music he was interested in but, without employing the new movements I was unconditionally demanding of him.  He was using his motor memory which was flawed and ingrained in his muscles and brain from the first day he touched a piano, causing his problems of today.  He was in a downward going from one step forward to two steps back.  There was no hope for him to heal and I dropped him as a student after three lessons.  Another woman wanted to heal NOW!  I told her it would be six months of moving ONLY as I instructed her but that prospect was too difficult.  She opted for the quick fix of surgery.  Two years later, her carpal tunnel syndrome reasserted itself and she had a second surgical procedure.  This time following her surgery her fingers no longer responded the same and she no longer plays the organ in church and still has pain.  A third student with the discipline much like I had did nothing but the exercises I prescribed to him and after a few weeks he was pain free.  He continued working with me and very soon he was playing much better than he did before his injury.  His symptoms were gone and he was able to transpose his new found discipline to other parts of his body where he told me his walking, driving, hiking and skiing drastically improved. 

A friend of mine complained most of his life of knee pain.  His physical therapists dutifully treated his knee pain symptoms.  After over twenty years of icing, exercising and resting his knees he saw a new doctor who told him that his knee problems was in his hips.  Because he had a hip problem he unnaturally over compensated each step which put unnatural and misaligned strain on his knees. With very simple sleuthing, the doctor discovered that his hip problem was caused by an old shoulder injury.  The shoulders and hips work together when we walk.  His right shoulder was frozen in tandem with his right hip which caused stress problems in both knees.  The bulk of the damage was in the hip so he had a hip replacement and the knee pain practically disappeared.

The difficulty in trying to help someone to help themselves is that they need to give 100% of their effort and dedication toward the healing process.  Anything less is unacceptable and doomed for failure.  There can be no deviation from the course.   With the insidious disorder of tendonitis, in the words of Yoda, "There is no try, only do."  There is no option for cheating, no break from dedicated effort, no shortcuts and no going back.  The only way to heal is the hard way - by making movement easy and effortless as the body was designed.  It is really simple.  But, we flawed humans want it now.

Buddha said "Before enlightenment there is chopping wood and carrying water.  After enlightenment, there is chopping wood and carrying water.  The differences are tremendous but not visible."

-Malcolm Kogut.

The Wedding Song

Musical Introductions Game

One of my improvisation teachers used to get on my case about building and crafting an introduction that not only alluded to the song I was about to play, but would grab the attention and interest of the listener.  She told me that the introduction was the most important part of any song.  I concur with her.

I recently decided to digitize all my CD's and save them to a couple of hard drives since the cloud is not longer safe.   In the process I had listened to the introduction to hundreds of songs and was surprised how many of them resonated with me.  I was equally surprised how many introductions started with just the drums, a single chord, or a banal progression of chords with little or nothing to do with the tune.  Sometimes I was able to recognize a song with a single chord based on its volume, timbre, patch, instrument or attack.

I can remember (in the old days) surfing channels on the radio while driving in my car and when I would recognize the opening bar of a song that I liked I would instantly turn up the volume.  It took only a few notes for me to recognize my favorites.  The same is true at concerts.  Sometimes the artist needs only to pluck a single note and the audience goes wild because they instinctively know what that song is.  There is something Pavlovian about this. 
 
There is a scene in a movie (Perks of Being a Wallflower) where two teens are at a dance and they hear the opening phrase of a song that starts with a solo violin.  The band is Dexys Midnight Runners performing "Come on Eileen."  The two kids look at each other and in unison say "They're playing good music."  Then they shout "THE LIVING ROOM ROUTINE!" and they burrow their way to the middle of the dance floor to dance like no one is looking.

I compiled some mp3 files containing only song introductions to use them as ice breakers for an upcoming retreat.  I will be giving points for the name of the song and triple if they can name the group.  I've created six of these videos.  We will either work in teams or individuals. 

Not everybody has as eclectic a taste in music as I do but I am using music from between the fifties and nineties.   Good luck!

-Malcolm Kogut.

Stayin Alive

If you have never heard of Jonathan and Darlene Edwards before then you are in for a treat.  American singer Jo Stafford and her husband, pianist and bandleader Paul Weston decided to create a comedy album back in the fifties and sixties.  They were actually accomplished musicians who feigned being bad.  Weston would play an out of tune piano while Stafford would accompany him by singing in an off-key and high pitched voice.  In 1961 they won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

Please take the time go get to know the real Jo Stafford.  Here is a link to one of her hits:

You Belong To Me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=berL-80EPmg

Three Organists, Six Hands

Another video of three organ guys with six hands and six feet playing "By The Light of the Silvery Moon" in a cramped space.  Why do churches always cram consoles either against walls or in a bird's nest?  Malcolm Kogut, Dr. Bob Hallenbeck, Ed Goodemote.

Three Organists, Six Feet

There isn't enough room on this bench for one organist let alone three at the same time.  Three organists, six feet, six hands: The Blue Danube.

The Smell of Death

When I was about eight years old, my parents turned our 19 room house into a private rest home for elderly women.  My mother named the home after herself: The Fran Kogut Rest Home.  The private rest home business in those days was competitive and insidious.  A lot of people who opened private homes were not always the nicest people and did it for reasons of greed.

My mother grew up taking care of people and in the running of her home, would not turn anyone away regardless of what they could aford to pay.  There were many times the Department of Social Services would call her and beg her to take someone whom they couldn't place anywhere else and my mother would always say yes.  Because of my mother's amenability to help out and not turn anyone away, the DSS was constantly assisting her with additional beds, food, clothing, money, coverage, ambulatory items, expediting paperwork, inspections and being at her beck and call.  I remember once that they asked her to take an additional two ladies but my mom didn't have the beds (and was over her legal limit on how many people she could take) and the next thing we knew, two new hospital beds were delivered.

My Mother wanted her rest home to have a family atmosphere.  The living room and dinning rooms were large and we all shared the same space.  Despite having their own TV's, most of the ladies converged wherever everyone else was.  We had two large outdoor decks and a very pleasant sun room.  The ladies were welcome to help cook and clean and they were free to leave the building provided they were ambulatory and let us know where they were going. 

Mary, for instance, loved taking the dog for a walk or going up into the 200 acre fields behind the house to pick flowers.  Most of the ladies were content remaining in the house and just socializing with one another.  Stacia didn't know where she was and was constantly wanting to go home.  My mother would put her in the car, drive her around the lake, pull into the driveway and tell her that she was home.  Stacia would thank her, go inside and proceed straight to her room. 

Both my sisters subsequently opened their own homes to elderly people.  One sister eventually started a visiting nurse business and had up to 19 employees.  The other sister purchased three houses next to one another and converted those into assisted living space.  Caring for others has always been in my family's DNA.

Growing up with dozens upon dozens of elderly women was like having 15 grandmothers at one time.  Consequently I saw a lot of death.  Working in the church, I saw a lot of death too and had at least one funeral each week.  I also witnessed a lot of these elderly women yearn and pray for sweet, sweet death.  They were in pain, tired or alone.  I sat by the side with many of them as the moment occurred and it was always a beautiful event.  Equally beautiful was telling the family (if they cared) that I was there and it was peaceful.  It was always a comfort to them knowing that their loved one did not die alone.  All this death has taught me not to take anything, any time or anyone for granted.

My mother had a unique gift; she could smell death.  She told me that when a person was dying and their body was shutting down, the  body would give off a distinct odor.  She would often invite me to go into the bedroom of one of our residents and say goodbye or sit with them because she was going to either die that morning, in a few days or within a few hours.  My mother was never wrong and was very accurate. 

Since I've been around death so much, I don't fear it.  That is why I would not hesitate to bungee jump, para-glide or jump out of an airplane.  What's the worse that could happen, I die?  That's inevitable.  I may as well enjoy every ray of sunshine, every drop of rain, every pull and challenge of gravity and, love and serve every leper in my path until that day (but, don't bungee jump with lepers).

We humans don't require much to survive or to be happy. We crave stuff, money, more stuff, Facebook, other peoples' stuff  and a false sense of freedom.  None of that is important.  I challenge everyone to take a sabbatical and live in an ashram for six months and not only discover what you don't need to be happy, but when you leave, to then occupy that new found stillness with things and people who are truly  important.

One of my mother's favorite songs was "Others," as sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford. While ushering her into new life, I softly sang it to her, as she did to me many times while growing up. 

–Malcolm Kogut (and buy a junk car so if you get a scratch on it, you won't care).

How Dry I Am

When I was a kid, I was charged with the task of going door to door to sell trinkets for an upcoming high school band tour.  I stumbled upon an outwardly appearing run-down darkly house which sat back in the shade of the woods.  The garage was on street level and to get to the house you had to ascend a few dozen well healed moss carpeted concrete steps which had re-settled from the countless heave-ho of winter frosts past.  I was hesitant to knock because the people inside would be either very poor or witches looking to eat small children.  I knocked anyway.  A portly and agreeable old woman answered the door.  She was wearing an apron and had a frenzied whorled dust cloud of flour chasing after her.   She looked at me with suspicion as I rattled off my memorized spiel about the salt and pepper shakers I was pawning. 

"Salt and pepper shakers?"  Her face lit up with glee.  At that I was invited in where she ushered me into the deceptively warm and brightly lit living room which I entered with alacrity at the prospect of a sale.  There, proudly displayed in a  huge china cabinet where hundreds of shakers which she had purchased from around the world.   She and her husband used to be circus musicians and at each city they performed, she would buy a set of local shakers.  The shakers ranged in size, shape, material and utility, many signed by the artisans who crafted them.  She commented how there were many more stored in boxes somewhere and she had also given several starter collections to her grandchildren with the hope to inspire one of them to discover the joy of collecting and maybe even instill in one of them the curiosity and hunger for world travel. 

The husband then emerged from a nap and sauntered into the living room to see what the ruckus was about.  He was tall, rail-thin and lithe bodied for his age.   I told them how my grandmother was a cook and nurse for a circus and how my mother traveled with them until she was about the age of ten.  She was raised by a community like none other.  Not because they were clowns, acrobats or animal trainers, but this Hodge-podge of diverse people who were running after or from something were instant family who cared for and watched out one another.  My mother helped with the cooking and medical care and was also used as a plant in the audience by some of the acrobats and clowns.  I was an instant hit with this old couple since we had so much in common.

I feel so bad right now that I can't remember their names.  My grandmother once told me that people suffer two deaths; The first when your physical body dies, and the second when the last person who knew you ceases to utter your name.  I hope there are  great grandchildren somewhere with a treasured collection of salt and pepper shakers who remember and can call this long gone couple by name.

The old man told me he was a piano player, violinist and conductor with the circus and at that, sat down at the piano and with his long lanky fingers ripping off a wonderful treatment of "Alexander's Ragtime Band."  He then invited me to play and I remember hashing out a song from the sixties called "You Send Me."  He immediately retrieved his violin and joined in.  After we finished as if on cue, his wife emerged with cookies and lemonade.  The old man asked me the name of the song we just played and I was amazed that he could just pick it up like that without knowing it.  He explained to me the magic of the I vi ii V7 progression.  I was floored.  None of  my classical teachers ever taught me this seemingly mystical knowledge of musical annealment. 

He then pulled out some old sheet music bearing his name.  He was also a composer, too!  He showed me both the finish product  and the original handwritten copy for one piece.  He told me that whenever he composed something, he would send it to this guy in NYC who would then analyze the work for mistakes and would offer harmonic and melodic suggestions.  He would also highlight every phrase and parse out the melody, scribbling in the white spaces and margins the names of other songs which used the same melodic structure, intervals or rhythm.  The old man opined that there are no new melodies or chord progressions anymore, just different ways to play or mix and match them. 

I never went back to visit this couple.  At the age of fifteen or so, I didn't realize the treasure they really were or the vault of knowledge and experience they possessed which was free for the taking.  What an invaluable resource they could have been for stories, music theory, history, travel, inspiration and above all:  sharing the wonderful gift of life and friendship.  That one day experience taught me things which for a long time, I was unable to share with teachers or peers.  Their lack of this knowledge was okay, I guess.  One does not need to know how an internal combustion engine works in order to drive a car.  Some people are content resigning themselves to ignorance however, today's computers would never have been invented had someone first not wondered about lightning or a light bulb, a wire, a toaster, ones and zeros, or a memory chip.

So, keeping in mind the concept that there are no new melodies anymore, I present you with my rendition of "How Dry I Am."   Listen for the same four notes - which can be found in thousands of songs. 

By the way, out of politeness, the old woman purchased a set of my relatively pedestrian shakers.  With a mild bit of shoving and maneuvering, she proudly ensconced them to the limited real estate of her already crammed shelves.  My contribution to the glorious mélange was no match for the works of colorful art, exquisite material and the other hand crafted denizens of the china cabinet.  She made a naive young boy feel very proud.  Yet another gift that day, for the taking.
m. kogut

Slides On Colden Mountain

The Adirondack Park is a venue of arresting beauty.  With a surfeit of lakes, ponds, streams and  waterfalls, to cliffs, peaks, ledges and boulders, the park's labyrinthine network of trails offer every hiker a wide range of difficulty, challenge and visions of beauty.  In the esoteric parlance of the down hill skier, the hiker can draw a parallel and compare them as green circles, blue squares and black diamonds.  There is another trail, not man-made, which could be delineated as the rare yellow diamond trail:  The slide. 

Slides not only offer a visual scar on a mountain which can make it easily recognizable from a distance, but they also offer an alternative ascent up a mountain for those brave enough to tackle one and determined enough to bushwhack their way to the tumbled resting place of a slide.  Almost cliff-like, many of these trails can be so steep that from a standing position you can reach out in front of you and touch the ground.  Slides offer that rare posture in the repertoire of hiking positions between climbing and scrambling on all fours.  Quite often you can experience a double fall line where gravity is pulling you in two directions at once.

The Trap Dike on Mount Colden is one of my favorite trails to hike.  Colden, a middling peak between Marcy and Algonquin is also host to several beautiful-awful landslides.  The newest occurred last year during Hurricane Irene right down my beloved Trap Dike Trail.  Included here on this page are a before and after picture. 

I wrote the following poem back in the nineties when my hiking pal Nancy and I would drive up to the Adirondacks each week to explore the many nooks and crannies of the park.  This poem is about the slide on the Marcy side of Colden ("Tahawus" is the Native American name of the mountain which WE renamed "Marcy" shortly after we took it from them.  The Native American name means "Cloud-Splitter."  More on the Cloud Splitter and the Tear-In-The-Cloud in another post).

Colden Slide

On descent from Tahawus mountain,
peers a streak of quiet healing
pallid cut from rocky fountain
hurling tree and boulder reeling

Seized with visions to inquire
this track of slide, so quick to tear
fears unfettered I now inspired
to know what had existed there

Through twining woods and logs enmeshed
I made my way to see reposed
the granite muscles and mountainous flesh
that Colden’s torrents of stone exposed

The path advanced close to the scar
plunged manifold headlong to base
trees crushed under enormous rocks
the primal forest’s coat defaced

This irresistible and awful force
broke through the woods with foaming path
dashed wildly down a rocky course
its very flesh with pealing wrath

A pebble mashed declivity
with massive logs peeled by decay
thickly scattered skeletons
of gray dead trees from slide affray

Piling at its base a mass
of debris from its crowning seat
filled the eye with awful chaos
rocks from lap now at its feet

This slide, a path that wanted walking
lures on up the failing trail
where once in time, its woodland stalking
left its warning, below, impaled

How humble on this force immortal
lurking in the earth beneath
that eased itself of shrub and soil
and showed to all its iron teeth

This median mount of fallen masses
bends its vassal-knee to none
the only witness to its ravage
were frowning Tahawus and the sun.

Fearful at the time of launching
terrific slides that gash and rush
Still, Colden Mountain on its haunches
waiting, lurking, to ambush

-Malcolm Kogut.

Cocktail Piano

Here are a series of old recordings I found from the mid eighties when I played seven nights a week at the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga, NY (Maybe 1984).  During the horse racing season the place would be packed with race enthusiasts and visitors to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

These recordings were most likely made in the winter months because during the summer I was usually accompanied by a violin player named Gene Usher.  Also, the piano was positioned with my back to a window where there was a heat register beneath me.  There was a constant flow of both hot and cold air and it was impossible to maintain tuning on this studio upright piano which I beleive was a Steinway. 

These recordings were of my standard cocktail-background music-hint of jazz style.  I would sit and play a medley of five or six songs pausing only for requests or to acknowledge polite applause.  Since SPAC was in the back yard of the hotel, I would see many famous people filter in for a drink or dinner.  I once walked out for a break when the two bearded guys from ZZ Top walked in.  They split and I walked right in-between them. 

My most memorable night was when members of the NYC Ballet came in so I played lite works from Schumann, Schubert, Chopin and Beethoven.  A few of the dancers did barre at the bar.

Waltz in F, Who Can I Turn To
http://youtu.be/MiNimBwJ-e4

Always, It May Be
http://youtu.be/bGLk1EUZCr4

My Favorite Things
http://youtu.be/nXvsYsztxpQ

September Song, I'm In the Mood For Love, Stella By Starlight
http://youtu.be/Nazy_PGjOFA

The Plotter Kill Waterfalls

The Plotter Kill Preserve (located in the town of Rotterdam on Route 159) contains 632 acres of rugged hardwood and coniferous forest along the Plotter Kill, a scenic tributary to the Mohawk River. The gorge of the Plotter Kill was cut by melt waters at the close of the ice ages about 10,000 years ago. The ledges give the stream its name: platte (flat) and kill (creek).  There are beautiful slate bottom swimming holes throughout the stretch of the kill, shouldered by networks of cascading falls and drops. 

The Plotter Kill drops 900 feet in its 3.5 mile descent from Rynex Corners to the Mohawk River. There are three spectacular waterfalls: the Upper Falls, Lower Falls and the Rynex Creek Falls at the junction of Rynex Creek and the Plotter Kill. All are magnificent sights in spring high water (or right after a hurricane).  The Upper Falls is 60 feet high, and the others are 40 feet.

The Plotter Kill Preserve is wonderful for nature study. Over 600 species of plants have been found in the area including: trilliums, violets, lilies, ferns and club mosses.  The fields off of the Coplon Road parking area are bursting with wildflower nation.  There is also a large range of insect, bird, mammal and amphibian life which can be seen mostly to those with gentle tread.  Many of the trails lay host to the peripatetic orange newt so watch your step in the summer. 

Some of the local diners and restaurants located near the five corners where you can grab take out or re-energize after a hike are:
Broadway Restaurant and Lunch
Lucia's Two Go
McDonalds
Tops Diner
McLanes Deli Restaurant
Duncan Donuts
Subway
Country Farm
Poppy's Ice Cream

Texting Laws

A man on the street was bent over searching for something on the ground when a passerby approached and asked him what he was doing;
"Looking for my car keys."
the slumped seeker sighed.
"Where did you lose them?"
the passerby piqued.
The hunched over man replied with a dismissive head gesture,
"Across the Street."
"Then why are you looking over here?"
the passerby queried.
The car key seeker said,
"The light is better over here."

That is what a lot of the laws which congress passes are like.  They are useless feel good legislation which don't really do anything.  They seek solutions to problems and issues but in the wrong place.  It does however make the sponsors of the light-seeking-law look good when it comes time for re-election  but that's about it.  Governor Cuomo (D) of NY recently came under fire from Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long because Cuomo passed a gun law which does nothing to protect people but does further his political career.  A lot of these laws bring in barrels of money via fines and tickets and police departments may even receive grant money for new toys, computers and staff - which is all good for the town coffers.

The city of Troy in NY purchased a computerized gun shot triangulation system to pinpoint the approximate location of where a gun is fired from anywhere in the city.  They discovered that a 911 call does the same.  This system was paid for through grant money and tax payers.  It hasn't deterred crime.  It only taught the criminal that they need to leave the scene faster.  That system is now for sale.  I bet you can buy it from them cheap.

Murder is against the law but people still do it.  Smoking marijuana is against the law but people still do it.  Cheating on taxes is against the law but people still do it.  Eighteen year old adult high school senior students who have sex with their sixteen year old infant high school sweethearts is against the law but these hormone enraged pedophiles still do it.  Drinking and driving is against the law but people still do it.  Texting while driving is against the law but people still do it.  The no-texting law is one such law which I beleive has made society and our roads less safe - because people still do it - only now, less safe. 

A friend asked me to ride with her to the mall because she needed help getting supplies for a birthday party she was hosting.  While driving, she rummaged through her purse and pulled out her cell phone, placed it on her knee, then began typing one letter at a time.  I asked her what she was doing and she said that she was posting a status update on Facebook to let everyone know where she was.  I told her that texting while driving was against the law but she said that she would be careful.  We eventually got there and made it safely home in one piece despite two more texts and the attendant reading of the replies which began filtering in almost immediately.  I thought to myself - what are these people doing reading Facebook?  Why aren't they out living REAL life for themselves?

When I used to text while driving, I would hold my phone up over the steering wheel so that I could see both the road and the phone at the same time.  This was even more safe than using a GPS which was positioned less in my line of vision, or even more safe than looking down to change a radio station.  Texting laws are making our roads less safe because people don't want to risk getting a ticket so, they are texting in their lap rather than texting more safely in sight of the road.

Of course texting while driving is not safe at all and people should employ common sense and respect for other drivers by NOT DOING IT.  I'm not worried about me getting in an accident, I'm more worried about the other driver getting me into an accident.  Surely, any text that is so important that it must be fired off at that particular moment is worth pulling over to do properly and safely.  You don't want your last Facebook update to be "Traffic is horrendous tod . . ." 

Programming the GPS, adjusting the raido, putting on makeup, flossing teeth, eating or even talking to someone in the passenger seat can be equally distracting.  It all really depends on each individual and their multi-tasking skills but even so, if the law isn't doing anything but making the roads more dangerous, what can be done?  Pass more laws?  Increase the prison time for Facebook updaters?  Ban Facebook?  Make it a law that you have to text in front of the steering wheel?

Enter WRGB, channel six;  Each morning during the news they run PSA's about texting and how dangerous it can be.  They list the statistics of how many deaths there have been during the past year because of texting; How many accidents; How many feet you will not be in control of your vehicle should you look down for a moment; How many children were killed because of texting parents; How much it costs the insurance companies which is then passed down to everyone else. 

The greatest public service WRGB has provided is that they have asked viewers to take a "No Texting Pledge" at the WRGB website.  I haven't formally taken the pledge but their ads have awakened me into being a more safe driver.  I bet their announcements, ads and pledge campaign have prevented more accidents than the laws have.  I'm also willing to bet that the law has caused more accidents from people trying not to get caught and ticketed because they are texting more surreptitiously and dangerously in their laps. 

When given the choice between educating people so that they change their habits or, passing a law which many people will try to evade for whatever reason, I am sure that more people would say that education is a more powerful tool.  But then, if not passing feel-good-legislation, what would our elected officials do with their free time?

The Spider’s Web Across The Trail

The worst part about leading a horde of hikers up a woodland trail the first thing in the  morning is that the leader is the one who breaks through the midnight diligence of our eight legged friends.  So, I penned a poem:

The Spider’s Web Across The Trail

The dawn was sketching faint outlines
I observed the sunrise artist as I awoke, supine
The winds to the trees, they whisper “awake”
where the mountain’s children come to life
and a bird with an angelic gift flies by
and conducts a forest symphony as morning breaks

A rough trail leads upward and is lost in the wood
and it steers where I’m destined in all likelihood
As I start my trek upward I feel something cling
and I swiftly break through it
With no sympathy to it
this harp-like spread of spider web string

Further up the mountain slope, once again, tis no surprise
I crash through the gossamer web of a spider, but, I’m many times his size
He must know this path is well traveled by day
he must suffer displeasure for he worked through the night
only losing his trophy with nary a fight
But can brag to his friends of the catch - got away

I break through these webs with hardly a care
while this poor trembling spider just sits there and stares
for the indwelling spider will not run to this fly
I will steel dimly forth on the path that I hike
paying little attention to the threads that I strike
He’ll just wait till I’m gone and go on with his life

To string up web filaments end to end on these trails
is a feat that I know not of what it entails
I stop to observe and become more aware
of the leaves I have trodden or of life’s hurtful scars
and I pity you, spider, wherever you are
‘neath the surface of life, there’s much more lingering there

So, I’ll watch for your dancing o’er the corpse of a fly
and pause if I see you as I walk on by
for you, death’s important, a triumph, a win
in your secret funnel where eyes are excluded
I’ll know that you’re there in your tunnel, secluded
I’ll look at you, wondering from outside, what’s within

-Malcolm Kogut.

Playing with Soul

"Tell me a fact, and I'll learn. Tell me a truth, and I'll believe. But tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever."
- Steve Sabol, President of NFL Films.

One of the most difficult questions someone once asked me was about what I planned to do in the future to further improve or educate myself musically.  I knew the answer existed but I could not then delineate it.  A second difficult question was "How do I learn to play with soul?"

About ten years ago a convergence of events and opportunities presented themselves to me.  I was musically stuck and I thought I achieved all I could achieve.  I was energized for growth but seemed to lack the tools, colleagues and inspiration thereof.  I started looking for a new job.  I was also working for a cleric who was not a very good human being on so many levels.  When we were converting the rectory basement to a youth meeting room the contractor found decaying asbestos hanging from the pipes and he wouldn't take the job.  A new contractor was found for the job and he surprisingly didn't find any asbestos.  Hmmph.  Then when we purchased a building to expand our parking lot, there was asbestos found in the basement and the bid to remove the asbestos and demolish the structure was $80,000.  The bid from a second contractor who didn't find any asbestos was only $30,000.  Praise Jesus the church didn't incur any additional expense for apocryphal asbestos removal and, in sixty years when our children develop lung cancer, well, there will probably be a cure.  Praise Jesus again. So, who is the greater monster; someone who is, for instance on the sex offender registry for urinating in public (that pervert) or a cleric who discernibly hurt no one?  To think major industrial companies got away with these activities for decades.

I was at the height of my then musical skill yet at the lowest in inspiration, I continued working and going through the motions but still did not sense growth.  I didn't know why.  I still did my job to the best of my abilities and even have a letter from the Bishop's office stating that I had the best music program in the whole diocese.  Something was still missing.  It was then when I gave up my pursuit of music that I began to grow.  I had another "cease and desist" about five years later, another about a year after that and I am ascending the precipice of one right now.  The less I did in search of soul through discipline and structure, the more I found it.  I played the Broadway Tour production of "Les Miserables" and there was an inspirational line sung by the unholy trio of Jean Valjean the convict, Fantine the prostitute and the lying Bishop: "To love another person is to see the face of God." 

When you go to college and immerse yourself in books, lectures and study, you come out with knowledge, inspiration, drive, energy and maybe even technique.  Much of that is rooted in academia and, it is good.

I then started volunteering answering two suicide hotlines. I would spend hours listening to a caller's struggle with drug abuse, addiction, homelessness, joblessness, arrest, domestic and sexual abuse.  Many of my callers were feeling lost, alone, forsaken, abandoned or ostracized.  I quickly realized that these were normal, ordinary people all of us would encounter on the streets, in our homes, in our churches, our neighborhoods or in the stores on an everyday basis.  When a caller was reticent to allow me to steer them into their pain, I could keep them on the line and safe from harming themselves by talking about music, hiking, religion or travel; Anything we had in common.  It was easy for me to let go of all that pain and stress when I hung up.  I would also go home and practice the piano, go to a rehearsal, or study the Gospel readings for Sunday.  I would sometimes talk about the pain in the world to my music friends, church friends or hiking buddies while on a trail.  It was my form of debriefing and, I would play the piano with the life of others on my mind.

While keeping vigil at a homeless shelter for men, I would sometimes talk to the guys late at night and discover that many of them were once professionals, family men and dreamers.  Some of these peripatetics were running from a past, a future, a crime or just wandering hoping for a break.  Interestingly, many of them were very spiritual. We would talk of hiking, travel, music, religion, carpentry or plumbing.  One once sat at the piano and ripped off some ragtime.  Another 20 year old sat in a corner with his guitar, composing a tune.  I would then go to my church the next morning to prepare for my weekly recital where I would spend the day alone in the church with music - pondering the many wonderful stories I just heard and shared.

I taught GED classes for about two years.  Many of the students were in their early 20's and dropped out of school because of drugs, gangs, arrest, to be providers to their baby's momma, or they had unstable family lives and were kicked out of their homes.  Most all of them were very smart - such as the drug dealers and gang members and not only in the street sense.  Their math skills surpassed mine, especially in the metric system (how drugs are measured).  The women who gave birth in their teens had a tenacity, ferociousness, courage and work ethic which could only have been borne out of being thrust into adulthood at an early age, like gold tested in fire.  There is an earthy difference between one of those moms as opposed to someone who went to college, started a career, then planned and prepared to have a baby and start a family.  A common denominator for all these people was the copiousness of music.  It was sinuously networked throughout their life from listening, jamming on a stoop, in a car, in an alley or dancing in the street.  They could recite thousands of lyrics because it was how they communicated and communed.

I recently "purchased" through a donation to PBS  the complete five disc set of the Ed Sullivan Show and three discs containing footage from the original Woodstock concert.  The musicians were young kids, uneducated in music theory, harmony and technique. However, they were musicians with talent and confidence most of us could only dream of achieving in a lifetime.  Why is that?  Because music was the fabric of their lives.  They ate it, drank it and slept it (and smoked it).  Music was part of their social landscape. They made music on stoops, in fields, in cars, living rooms, basements, garages, jail cells and to escape their parents.  Then one day someone would say "Let's start a band" and the rest is history.  Music wasn't their goal in life, it was the inspiration thereof.  They didn't have time to study it because they were living it.  Their teachers were not professors in a classroom, but practitioners who were doing it. Music then became a tool to educate others about the evils of legislation, war, poverty, persecution, prejudice, dumping of pollutants (like asbestos) . . . every struggle in life which created, BTW, good music.  They suffered oppression, suppression and arrest, then they sang about it.  A great example would be Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant."

The early African slaves sang in the field to pass time, to keep time, to remember stories from time long ago, to pray for salvation and to surreptitiously speak in code right under the noses of their white masters.  Early Jews and Christians sang songs around campfires to remember history, impart lessons and share stories of the wonderful deeds of God such as the parting of the Reed Sea and saving the oppressed, the story of Adam and Eve and original sin, The Christmas Story and the death of the Holy Innocents, Noah and the great flood which eradicated evil from the earth, etcetera. 

My most favorite church service of the entire year is the Easter Vigil Mass, starting with the magnificent Exultet extolling the power of God, all sung by firelight.  Then there are several more stories accompanied by songs again, all by firelight.  Done properly and in its entirety, this service could take up to four hours.  Most churches cut it down to one and a half to two.  Praise Jesus - but not for four hours.  WWJD.

At this stage in my life I don't need to study music as I did in my youth.  Despite continuing to do so because there is much I want to do but can't, I found that there are other things which can improve my "soul."   The music is already in me and around me, under rocks and in the wood. I need to work at being a conduit between instrument, God and people.  A trinity within the thin-spaces.  It is not enough to study music, to make music or to share music.  Music is an expression of life and that is where its growth lies: in the pain, struggle, joy, excitement and transformation of one another.  For, out of what we live and we believe, our lives become the music that we weave.

Memorizing Music

Not a single one of my teachers ever bothered to force, admonish or even suggest that I memorize my music.  Surely I would be a better musician today had they inculcated that discipline into me at an early age.  I am not the apotheosis of technical perfection even now but I do believe that the aggregate of my life experiences have made me aware of some elusive elemental thing on how to memorize music and be a better musician.  It is really quite simple and totally up to you to discern the ingredients of the glorious melange I will offer up.  At worse, you may not learn anything or you may not even bother to take the time to grow and apply what I have to share; At the most, it will be clear from a glance that you will be entering a new realm of magnificent and challenge with an astonishing new range of awareness for your music.

First, let's start by discussing a few of the benefits to memorizing music, the greatest being that it will reduce nervousness.  If you know what you are doing, there is significantly less chance for performance errors.  Any of us can tell the story of the three bears with little hesitation because we know the story so well.  Even if we never told it before, we could improvise the story and touch upon all the key points.  We could even loop back around if we miss an important fact.  Music is the same.  If we were to deliver a speech in front of a crowd of people and we didn't know very much about our topic, we may stumble and stutter a lot, but, if it is a topic we are passionate about and have familiarized ourselves with, chances are we will be successful at getting our point across.  No matter how good our technique is, if we don't intimately know the score we are weaving to the listening ear, our tone will belie the the perception that we know what we are doing because it is easy to hear nervousness in someones tone or their lack of articulation.

When our notes are committed to memory, it frees us to be aware of the dynamics of the room or the listeners.  I have often found myself playing out a transparent charade of pretending I was taking no notice of the room because I was feigning to be absorbed in the music.  In truth, I was running on motor memory and had no idea what I was doing and I was hoping not to hit any bumps in the road.

If you are playing a hymn for a church service where a congregation is singing, you are more in tune with what they are doing and how what you are doing affects them if you know the hymn well.  You are more apt to be creative with registration, dynamics, embellishment, re-harmonization, controlling the tempo, breathing and controlling the ritard of the congregation.  We know when this happens, likewise, we know when it doesn't.  As an organist I am better able to execute registration changes on the fly and with confidence when I know my score from memory.

Being unencumbered by the page frees you in technical ways, too.  It frees the eyes to watch the hands so you can better execute fast passages, leaps or grabbing stops.  When you are arriving upon a fiesta of notes or a  patently impassible passage and you are besieged with nerves, a staccato of thoughts or worse - total thoughtlessness, you may be sitting there consciously hoping not to interrupt the luck of rote memory.  Having a score properly memorized will eliminate most of those barriers.

There are many different methods of memorization which people employ.  None are better than others and some of us are better at one method more than another but, combined, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.  Here are mine:

1) Repetition, automatic pilot, rote, muscle memory.  I consider this method a shortcut to disaster, an unrivaled opportunity for making a fool of self.  Consider tying your shoe; You don't have to think about under, over, through; you just do it and can even carry on a conversation at the same time.  Any time you have played a piece over a hundred times to the point where you can just play it from "memory" is convenient.  You may think you know the piece but when you get nervous or if you slip up, it is often impossible to recover especially if it sends a nascent wave of panic through our thought process, dooming the rest of the performance.  Too many things can distract our minds which will mess up what the muscle memory of the hands are doing.  It can even be a simple miss-fingering of a passage.  Most often it is our own mind getting in the way and we will be judged by a brace of listeners that our musicianship is lacking or called into question when all along it was muscle memory derailed enough to open the door to increasing thought.

2)  Memorizing away from the keyboard.  This is the first thing I do with all scores, new and old.  First I analyze the structural features of the music, taking note of modulations and chord progressions.  I focus on difficult passages and landmarks of the piece. I try to hear it in my mind's ear before I play it with my hands.

3)  Having a good ear.  Not simply playing by ear, but knowing  intervals.  Knowing what a fifth sounds like and its relation to other pitches, knowing how common arpeggios sound - intimately.  Having a few years of solfege study can help tremendously.  I know that "Blue Moon" starts on the 5th and my ear tells me the next pitch is a 3rd.  Back up to the 5th, a drop down to the 4th, then 5 6 5 5 4 5, etcetera.  In classical music, say you are studying a fugue and memorizing it away from the keyboard, you know that the theme may start on a third, then when the second voice comes in, it starts a fifth higher in a new key on the third, then the third voice comes in a fourth above that on the third. You don't necessarily have to memorize every single note, but if your ear hears it and your solfege skills can tell you what the pitch is, you will know where to go or be able to pick up the piece at any point in the score.

4) Understanding chord progressions and sequences of chords.  We all know the most common progression in standard repertoire is the I vi ii V.  There are thousands of songs which have that progression (such as Blue Moon or Heart and Soul). In most music, ii usually leads to a V7 and V7 usually leads to a I.  In classical music it is much the same but  sometimes the ii V sequence ascends or descends in whole steps or maybe a V7 may not even head home to a I.  Maybe we will land on a I but the composer, Bach for instance, will turn that I into a V7 or a i, starting an episode in a whole new key.  Paying attention to the landmarks as I mentioned before is important here.  Some composers will throw in a diminished chord out of nowhere while other times the composer will add a few bars of modulation to set up the next sequence.  It is important to know where these surprises and deviations are and what they follow.  The same thing with difficult passages.  If you don't know where you are coming from, you could miss where you are going.  There was a leap in a Chopin piece which I consistently missed.  The reason was because I was so concerned about hitting that leap, I threw away the scale and arpeggio which lead up to it.  By the time I reached for the leap, I had no momentum or control of the notes nor even my hand.  Consider a high diver.  The most important part of his dive is the set up.  He finds the proper position on the board and he executes a few jumps in place to gain both momentum and to establish his balance so that he has power and alignment, then he makes his leap.

5) Part of number 2 and 3 is to memorize the intervals and how the melody is built over the chords.  You don't have to memorize the entire piece note for note.  Having a good grasp up upper and lower neighbors, passing tones, scales, patterns and arpeggios will allow your ear to be able to hear what is going on and translate your vision to the notes on the keyboard or a page in your mind's eye. It is truly liberating when you can envision the sheet music and read from it in your head.  This is not the same as having a photographic memory.  It is a combination of ear, sight, motor, analysis and knowledge;  all coming together.

Even by utilizing all the aforementioned techniques, a performer may still experience memory slips but they will be better equipped to handle the situation and recover.   I was playing a Bach Toccata once where every two bars the music repeated the same phrase but in a new key because the one chord  either became a V7 or a ii or i.  I got lost and subsequently trapped in sequence after sequence of wandering aimlessly with the same pattern.  Luckily I knew what the beginning notes of each section was and when I got back to a one chord I picked up the theme and continued.  Most of the people in the audience didn't know that I was jumping all over the score but a few organists commented that they knew that that was not how the piece was written.  To my credit, they didn't know what was wrong because I was seamless in my wandering around the keyboard.  Everything sounded like it was woven together and what I intended.

Additionally, once I have a good grasp of a piece, I may fool around with it.  I will play certain sequences in different keys, throw in arpeggios and scales, re-harmonize it, jazz it up, throw in some blues; In other words, make it mine.   After that, I will make a lead sheet version of the music.   I can reduce five or six pages of music down to a single sheet.  I will then learn the piece bar by bar and use the original score for reference only.  I learned Widor's Fifth Toccata off of a lead sheet.  The chord progression is very simple and predictable and the pedal line is easy to remember.  I simply wrote in the first note of every beat and the accompanying chords.  Since the right hand arpeggios are based upon the chord, I didn't need to write them out.  Attached is an example of what I wrote up.

The other beautiful aspect of employing all these methods of memorization is that the piece can become your own and you may be less apt to play it the same way twice.  You can recover from flubs, play with more expression or musicality and probably most important of all, not sound like everyone else.  After all, how excited do we get when we hear somebody do something different to a piece that we've heard exactly the same a hundred times before.

Storytelling

My mother, of Cherokee descent, was a great storyteller.  Although she didn't employ the use of character voices, she instinctively knew when to go into head voice, chest voice or rumble from the diaphragm. She was an artist at knowing when to pause, rush, or look left then right.  Storytelling is becoming a lost art form.  Today, the purpose of a campfire is for making smores or burning stuff up so we don't have to carry it out.  We don't gather around it to tell tall tales, to remember our history, our culture or heritage.  Most of us don't even realize that many of our greatest bible stories were passed down from generation to generation beside the warmth of a campfire.  Here is a "true" Adirondack story my mother told me which I turned into a poem. 

Tall Tale of a Shelter Seeker

With setting sun, the shadows claim
and black bats dart and tumble
the mountain campers seek the flame
lest specters claim the humble

With reckless breath the zephyr flings
the frisky spark up with the smoke
‘neath leafy arch, near flames that wink
legends are often spoke....

A wandering scout, off course was blown
as the lengthening shadows grew
he wandered round in woods unknown
aware that night ensued

A tempest crashed out her mighty chords
the scout, determined, remained staid
with the faithful compass trail, bereft
he sought for sheltering, vaulted cave

Wandering in the wildest most
impenetrable forest
where axe or saw had never rung
in tune with nature’s chorus

A crag sprung forth above a lair
whose shadowy claim held shelter
he lit a torch to enter there
to leave the untamed welter

He saw a gun against the wall
beneath some writing there
with illumined torch he read the scrawl
“Today I shot my very first bea...”

-Malcolm Kogut.

Contrast Bath

For sufferers of sprained ankles, forearm or wrist tendonitis, I suggest trying to ameliorate your symptoms with a contrast bath.  If you don't have a double sink in your kitchen, you can use buckets.

Fill one side of your kitchen sink with HOT water.  Make it as hot as you can tolerate because it will cool down fast.  Usually the temperature out of the hot tap is fine depending on the temperature settings you have on your hot water boiler.  Then fill the other side with ice cold water.  Dumping a bowl of ice cubes in the cold side will work nicely. 

Soak your arms for one minute in one side, then plunge your arms into the other side for one minute.  Do this going back and forth about seven times in each basin.  Initially the hot or cold may seem unbearable but you will get used to it quickly. 

The hot water will promote circulation in your arms and the cold will reduce inflammation.   This is not a cure but may help in the recovery process or at least alleviate some of the discomfort you may have. 

Circulation is important for healing because the increased blood flow helps to rebuild damaged tissue and will also carry away toxins and damaged cells.

Remember, inflammation is nature's cast.  It is your body's way of warning you not to use the injured body part until it can heal.   Eliminating the discomfort doesn't resolve the problem.  Don't fix symptoms.

I also suggest that you consider washing dishes by hand rather than using a dish washer.  The warm soapy water is beneficial and can be a relaxing therapy session for sore hands.