Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

music

“Very Far Away From Anywhere Else” by Ursula K Le Guin

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I ran across this reference to a book by Ursula K Le Guin which was not science fiction or fantasy, and I was curious, so I got it out of the library. I had seen the title around over the years, and I imagined it was something like “Bridge to Terabithia” with people going to imaginary worlds, or maybe a travelogue about very remote wilderness places.

It had a little bit about an imaginary world, but no one goes there. It’s about two socially isolated high school seniors who find each other and become friends. It’s explicitly about being out of step with what’s expected. More indirectly, it’s about being neurodivergent. It’s about taking music seriously, and taking friendship seriously, and the ways relationships can be complicated and ruined by expectations, and maybe repaired again. It’s about despair and dissociation and disconnection and the double bind of loving expectations that don’t apply.

All that in 89 pages! Its location is never named, and while it has geographical elements of Portland OR (Le Guin’s home town), it seems like a smaller city than the Portland I knew.

Recommended!

Available at bookshop.org.

“What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body” by Thomas Mark

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Recommended to me by: Reading What Every Singer Needs to Know about the Body

I bought this book around the time I studied piano for a year in 2015, but never got around to reading it. I got rid of it along with two bike trailer loads of books at Powells before leaving Portland. Now in 2024 I’m learning piano again with renewed interest, so I got the book from inter-library loan and gave it a try.

What Every Singer Needs to Know about the Body is very dense and technical. I read it a few pages at a time. I expected the piano book to be similarly dense. Instead, it is more accessibly written and covers some of the same material as What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body, so I could read it a chapter or two at time.

It was useful to see the general material about balance and alignment in the body again. I’m starting to sense my AO joint that supports the base of my skull, and understand what it might mean to free my neck instead of pulling my head down. I’m still trying to sense the weight-supporting part of my lumbar spine curving up through the center of my body.

This book talks a lot about freeing the arms and integrating their movement with the whole body, since the arms (not just the fingers) play the piano. Most of what we think of as back and chest muscles are really arm muscles, originating on the torso and attaching to the shoulder blade and humerus.

I appreciated the exercise to find balance for the collarbone and shoulder blade position. Pull them up, then slowly allow them to release down until there’s no muscular effort. Pull them down and then slowly release up. Pull them forward and slowly release back. Pull them back and slowly release forward. I want to do that at the beginning of practice sessions. (Described at about 1:15:00 in the video linked below.)

You can think of the forearm and hand having a shallow arch, with the keystone at the wrist. Lead with the head and reach with your whole spine when leaning toward the top or bottom notes of the keyboard.

It also had revelatory material about the piano itself. To play louder, press the keys faster to “throw” the little hammer at the string more strongly. To play softer, press the keys more slowly. I was having trouble figuring out loud and soft, and this explains it. Also, once a key’s descent triggers that hammer throw, continuing to push hard on it will have no effect on the sound. Releasing the key does release the damper to end the sound.

Of all the books I got rid of, this is one I will buy again, because it’s useful to me now, and I’m going to want to come back to the material.

It has material for organists too, which was interesting even though less directly useful to me. I had no idea playing the organ was such an athletic whole-body activity.

Highly recommended for pianists and organists!

I also got rid of the companion video, and I found it again on the Internet Archive! What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body (2 hour video) by Thomas Mark. Also highly recommended. It’s illuminating to see his demonstrations of moving in balance, and some of the ways to be out of balance.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Just Being at the Piano” by Mildred Portney Chase

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Subtitle: Harmony Begins in the Soul, Long Before the First Note Is Played

Recommended to me by: the Little Free Library down the street

A meditative little book on how to learn and teach piano in a kind, body-centered way. Mildred Portney Chase was a musical prodigy, playing piano by ear at age 3 or 4, and went on to be a concert pianist. She writes in detail about how she finds relaxed, sensitive movement in her fingers, hands, and arms to play her best. She fiercely defends the right of young students to improvise and learn at their own pace.

I have only studied a little piano. Some of the book is applicable to singing, and some of it is specific to the piano, which as she says is an instrument that cannot be brought close in to the musician’s body. I passed the book along to a piano player and teacher, and I’ll be curious to hear what she thinks of it.

Recommended if you’re interested in music and musicians, or if you play piano and want to create beautiful tones.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Six Reasons to Travel” by Stuart Gelzer

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Subtitle: an American Singer in Georgia

Recommended to me by: Jen Morris

As an enthusiastic fan of Georgian singing in general and Trio Kavkasia in particular, I was eager to read about the trio’s adventures in the Republic of Georgia as shared by one of its members. These three American men spent time in Georgia both studying the language in the capital city, Tbilisi, and touring the countryside to learn songs from master singers.

The book is well-written and full of engaging details about places and people. At the same time, it took me a long time to finish reading. It is a set of semi-independent essays, and some of the essays have more drinking and violence in them than I’m comfortable reading about. It is a book very much centered on men, with women relegated to the background or referred to disparagingly, like the “kerchiefed biddy” mopping a church. While women do sing in Georgia, there is a whole tradition of men sitting around the table drinking, singing, and eating, while women serve food they spent days preparing.

Toward the end of the book the focus returns to the theory and practice of learning Georgian songs. Stuart Gelzer looks back on a religious ritual he participated in without learning about it beforehand and says, “I actually like to stay a little lost, a little confused. […] I like the flow of apparent chaos, the hilarious unpredictability, the feeling of being a perpetual outsider, the challenge of being clueless.” This cheerful attitude born of luck and privilege gives him access to wonderful musical adventures and a deep knowledge of Georgian singing.

The whole time I wondered when the six reasons to travel would be explained. Looking at the beginning of the book again to write this review, I noticed a poem before the table of contents.

to leave one’s troubles behind one
to earn a living
to acquire learning
to practice good manners
to meet honorable men
for the pleasantness of being liked for oneself
— Freya Stark, A Winter in Arabia

Recommended for anyone interested in the nitty-gritty of traveling and learning songs in Georgia.

Available at bookshop.org.

“freeing the natural voice” by Kristin Linklater

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Subtitle: Imagery and art in the practice of voice and language

Recommended to me by: Nadia Tarnawsky

This book is aimed at actors, but also has useful information for singers, although the one aside about Bulgarian singing does not match what I have learned about that art. And that leads to my summary of the whole book, which is that it is very detailed and knowledgeable within its scope, but does not acknowledge lack of expertise in neighboring realms.

There are many exercises to get in touch with the anatomy of the breath and voice in the whole body, and to release inhibitions that get in the way of free breath and voice.

The only explanation offered for inhibitions is “The young child desperately wanted a cookie and was required to ask in a nice voice, so had to separate voice from emotion.” There is no mention of physical violence, sexual abuse, or neglect that would cause a person to separate voice and emotion.

There is no awareness that reconnection needs to go slowly, with support, and that “resistance” is a clear message to slow down even more. There is one brief mention half-way through the book about working with “light” emotions in the exercises because “dark” emotions might require more support. I wonder how many of the author’s students had overwhelming reactions to these exercises.

Similarly, there is no mention of physical injuries or disabilities that might get in the way of doing these exercises, and no offered accommodations or workarounds.

I appreciate the idea of inviting a sigh of relief, and then observing with the breath and voice do with that. Rather than trying to control the breath and voice, we can allow the body to respond to what we experience and want to express.

The book could benefit from anatomical drawings, since it is based in very specific and detailed anatomy that is only described in text. There are cartoon-like line drawings showing people doing some of the exercises.

Recommended for people interested in the details of embodied voice, with the above caveats.

Available at bookshop.org.

“One Weird Trick” by Liz Jackson Hearns with Patrick Maddigan

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Subtitle: A User’s Guide to Transgender Voice

Recommended to me by: a trans client

“The goal of One Weird Trick is to help you find a voice that is natural and authentic and allows you to move through the world with confidence and ease.” The first thing the book admits is that there is no one trick, weird or otherwise, but instead a lot of understanding, awareness, and practice to change vocal habits. I would love to see this useful book issued under a title that does it justice rather than one that sounds like clickbait.

The book starts with the anatomy of vocal production and breathing. While it’s helpful to understand the anatomy, the level of detail and the small size of the anatomical drawings makes it feel arcane and overwhelming, even for someone who has looked at vocal anatomy before.

The rest of the book is much easier to follow, with a kind, matter-of-fact, thorough approach to changing one’s voice to express one’s desired gender presentation. The author is a singing teacher and relies on basic familiarity with western musical notation and concepts. There are brief explanations in the text.

Changing speaking pitch is covered in depth, as well as other factors that affect perceived gender of a voice: varying pitch or volume for emphasis, resonance and vocal placement, tongue placement for articulation, and body language and emotional expressivity.

There are detailed exercises and tips throughout the book, and then more exercises gathered at the end in “One Weird Workbook.”

If you want to change how you express gender through your voice and body language, this book is a great guide. It compresses a lot of useful material into a short book and has a list of references at the end for further study.

Available at bookshop.org.