How Small The Worlds

I'm going to risk a few generalizing statements today. Playing with people studying at another jazz school than I last week, and talking about plans for the (professional) future, I realized once again how strongly jazz musicians are influenced by their upbringing, meaning their educational environment. I guess it's human to orientate yourself, wherever you are, to the leading ideas.
In my jazz school there is a rather international vibe. A lot of the teachers have studied in Berklee, or Graz, and we have many masterclasses by jazz stars such as Mark Turner, Eric Harland, or Esperanza Spalding. The best students talk about their plans to study abroad after the bachelor's degree. There is idealism in every corner. People are talking about getting better, about bands, and cd projects, and getting reassured by the teachers who have led very interesting lifes. Discussions about money, about the future and about a job are very rare.
In the other jazz school, the leading subject seems to be different - I've found a more down-to-earth approach. Of course people talk about getting better and their cd projects, too. But a lot of the people put an end to their jazz studies after the bachelor. One statement that I've heard more than once is that with a master's degree in performance you don't have a profession, and with a master's in composition you'll just end up writing for carnival groups (called Guggenmusik in Switzerland). If you want to be a teacher, you will study pedagogy, but if not, you'd better try to find a job that guarantees some financial stability and practice your instrument on your own. I have never heard statements like these in my jazz school.
There are a lot of other differences. For example, a subject I will elaborate on a later date, in the city I live in there is a large jazz scene. Newcomers can play in lots of restaurants or small bars, gig that are neither paid well nor attended by many people, but still, there is often more than one jazz concert a night.  In the city I study in there are much fewer jazz locations, jazz concerts concentrate in one bar, open from wednesday to saturday.

I'm often astonished how quickly a rather self-orientated, self-sufficient subscene can build itself, and how quickly you find yourself believing that in there, you'll find the truth - not knowing that just a hundred kilometres away, there is a very similar subscene holding on to a totally different set of truths.
I guess I'm in a good position - studying there and living here!

Prisoner Of Her Passion

I saw an interview in a magazine today, with a ballet dancer from New York. Beyond doubt, a a) dancer who lives in b) New York must be the coolest person in the world! Yet she said:
   "I wouldn't want for my children to become dancers. It's too hard. Every day, you have to face yourself  in  the mirror; you can't concentrate on what is good, only on what's bad, the mistakes. And perfection won't ever be achieved.
I love dancing, and I hate it. I suppose I love it more than I hate it, or else I would have stopped dancing until now."

Hello sister! (even if being a ballet dancer is in my opinion much harder than being a jazz  student!) The piano is my passion, yet there is sometimes such a thin line between, let's just say, happiness and anger. People often tell me how great it is that I can pursue my passion, and I wholeheartedly agree! But (as it is with any other occupation) there are very mixed emotions involved.

I love and hate it basically for the same reason. I love that a part of my life will never be over or finished, there will always be music to listen to, people to find out about, and technique to be learnt. And with a constant anger underneath I also hate it: there will always be this striving, always people who play better, write better, and I hate that it won't ever be over, ever. And I hate that I dedicate myself to a "nothingness", and I love that I chose a discipline to dig deep into. And I hate the very practical aspect about it: if you don't practise, you lose your abilities very quickly, you snooze you lose, and I love the feeling of achievement after practising, and I hate to do something useless, and I love the freedom it gives me.

I don't mean to lament. It comes with the deal. But it's great to know that other people have thoughts like that. This is how Inna, the ballet dancer from New York, concluded the interview:

  "I don't know what comes after death, but there has to be something. I just hope I won't have to dance any more!"

I'm A Pool To Want You

Browsing through the master library of my realbooks (containing the best known tunes used in jazz music), I found this cutest of all typing errors. He's actually a fool to want her in the song. But wouldn't a pool who wants something make a really nice children's book?
Two encounters I made in the past few days, which I'd like to describe because they're kind of stereotypical.
The first one: on an office break, somebody shyly brought up the subject of jazz, because of me of course. She said: so you play jazz? There aren't lots of people interested in that, are there?
How nicely put! I added that in fact, there weren't many, and let out my typical self-irony-ridden-speech, which brought the others to say: no, actually, I don't dislike jazz, I really like it, as a background for parties!
Which, if a jazz musician is really honest, isn't the best professional perspective, but it's nice to know people like it...
And the second situation: on a party, after someone introduced me as a jazz pianist, a woman came to me and avidly asked me about my studies, my practising and my perspectives, and was really interested. She, as an amateur classical cellist, said she thought it must be incredibly hard to improvise like that, and couldn't imagine what kind of pillars one had to hold on to, what to consider, and how to listen to each other.
Which made me feel warm and fuzzy. My career's interesting!

Often I can't believe why I really hold on to this, why I practise so much for so few people interested, how much work is necessary for the kind of career I'm expecting. But on the other hand, not many people know it, or like it, and not many people can study music like that, which makes it interesting. An aspect I kind of like... So I guess I really am a "Pool" to want to do this jazz stuff. But a least a special one?

the hairdrier gang

As I mentioned, I went to a performance for a master of arts in music and new media performance this week. What these people do is at least as crazy as what we jazz students do! 

Voilà, this is the setting before the perfomance. Before it started, my friend hung a small block of ice in the middle, and changed the light to blacklight. She had connected all the hairdriers to a mixing desk.
So, after a few words from her teacher, it began.
It was almost completely dark, except for all the teeth and white clothing which, due to the blacklight, put an extraterrestrial glow to the room.
Slowly, the hairdriers began to blow, like an orchestra - first only one, then two, then some together, sometimes all of them, sometimes only a few. You couldn't see stands or cables, only their heads. It looked unbelievable. Somehow, they started to look like creatures! Each of it had its own sound. At some point, the ice started to melt from the heat, and little neon green drops fell on the small table and were blown around, creating moving pictures. Out of many speakers hanging on the walls came sounds that swelled up to a climax, which together with the sound and the smell of the army of hairdriers, the melted ice, the neon colors and crazy white teeth of the people standing around, had an amazing effect, connecting almost all of the five senses.
I have never seen anything like it.
And I have no idea how someone could possibly grade this, or what thoughts and preparations led to it, all I know is that my friend is a wizard in audio engineering - and that apparently she did really good and the teachers were enthusiastic!

I really wonder what kind of career she will find. She's a dear friend of mine, and we have found it a relief to talk to each other about the similar problems or questions we encounter (or in her case encountered!) during art studies in the broadest sense. And I think we both have two sides: the one who is realistic and pragmatic, and the other who can go completely overboard, losing track of time and common sense when working with music.

"some jazzy philosophics"

For today, just some philosophical thoughts about jazz (one of my favorite pastimes!)
if you take all of mankind, and separate the people who have once in their life heard jazz from the people who haven't ever, and take from the first group the ones who actually like jazz, and again, divide the remaining group into the ones who really do like jazz in all its glory and the ones who only like ragtime and dixie (which by the way I have absolutely nothing against), there are maybe two people left in the entire world, and one of them probably is a jazz student and dreams of a concert career.

and if this takes place in the states, it's still kind of plausible, because well, it all started out there. but what now and again strikes me as extremely funny (I mentioned it before, but I will again!) is that there are so many people studying it in switzerland - the land of cuckoo clocks and yodeling. There are six jazz schools in our sweet little land! In each of these schools you'll find 50-100 students (I'll do a little research for next time!), so there's a whole lot of young people who'll learn to play Someday my prince will come. Kind of a jazz army, really, who plays at weddings, funerals, birthdays - always at your service for a good time! if it's not too loud, 'cause please, we're eating here, and could you maybe play something with a melody?

And who sometimes even lands the occasional gig, in a nice jazz club, with a bunch of nice people! really a great thing to happen.

I'll keep posting about the swiss jazz scene and the everyday life as a jazz student, but any questions or inputs are welcome!

the living absurdity of the swiss girl studying jazz music

so, being a jazz student basically involves behaving as a storm in a waterglass (as swiss people would say), watching a little herd of other waterglasses happily prancing about - while nobody on the whole entire planet would ever give a rat's ass about the teensiest bit of it all - it being a storm in a waterglass.

why? who fricken listens to jazz anyway, except for the poor watermstormglassians and their even poorer waterstormglassianteachers?
and all we do is try to stir it up so we can attempt to create something special to put on a cd to which nobody in their right mind will ever listen to, or come to listen to in concert (there's not much hope for escape with an audience consisting of mum, auntie trudy and a stranger in a tent-like-t-shirt dancin' himself to the stars).

to me personally, the funniest bit of it all is the following: i'm swiss!! it's just hilarious. would i be cool, like from brooklyn, i could say, yeaah, you know, i'm from brooklyn or whatever, it's my national heritage, and anyway, i'm from brooklyn, so everything i do is cutting edge, and i like to play in rotten places, 'cause if gives me something to do you know, and all the cool cats are here anyway.

i admittedly have loads of clichés about the us of a, but let's return the favour: think of your typical swiss person. see a mountain there, a nice little blue lake, and two cows, an older man with a twinkle in his eyes, holding a cuckoo clock in one hand and a fondue pot in the other? or even better: think of your typical swiss girl: does she have braided hair and the happiest smile one person could ever have shown to this ugly world?
and now, brace yourself: imagine this heidi-figue PLAYING THE JAZZ PIANO!!! what a disrupture of such a lovely sight!

man.
(for all the concerned: of course over the past few years i've come to love jazz music, and most of the time find myself enjoying it deeply, all the while not being sure about needing a degree for that. and: i'm not a spoiled brat, i'm working hard and always earned my money for myself. of that i'm proud.)

It's just SO MUCH FUN to stop and think of the slight absurdity of the life i'm leading at the moment! so much fun. and sometimes not so much. but hey: i'll always have my music (pffhaaahaaahaaa)