The list of former teachers of mine who were far kinder and patient with me than I deserved is surely staggering. One of the more significant (to be fair, there are certainly many) is Robert Billups. Actually, Dr. Robert Billups, but I recall he had an aversion to such monikers - yet another important lesson he taught me. I knew Bob while at the University of Arizona in the mid-1990s. He was one of my conducting professors (the other was Gregg Hanson - whom along with Bob, rank as tow of the most musically pure people I have ever known.)
Anyway, Bob was the director of the U of A orchestras, briefly, till he had to take an eventually permanent leave of absence due to some medical issues. I was lucky enough to be one of his TAs for a bit of time, and he really opened up a whole new perspective of music to me. But of all the lessons I learned with him the one I still hold dearest is also the one that was the most subtle. In fact, I don't ever remember actually talking about it with him in any of our countless conversations. And yet, as I look back, I cannot help but always come to it. The lesson was simply this: Joy.
Bob always struck me as pretty scholarly. Like Gregg, he always seemed very musically wise and always, always a least one step ahead of me - usually several. But over time I have come to have a far different image in my head when I think of Bob: the joyous, beaming smile. Particularly when conducting.
It took me years of growing up to feel like I had even a cursory understanding of it, and even now I am not certain that I am there yet. Bob literally radiated joy when he was on the podium. It was simply undeniable, and, I now realize, strikingly infectious. No matter the quality of the sound created, it seemed impossible to leave one of Bob's rehearsals feeling bad. You just could not do it. The joy was too palpable.
On the other hand, I recall several times, after running a rehearsal myself, symphony members coming up to me and asking if I could not do more of the conducting as they felt Bob's was at times so hard to follow. I'm embarrassed to admit that at the time I was very flattered by this, and it served to boost my ego in ways I certainly did not and still do not deserve. But more to the point, a while ago I realized that the problem was really not Bob's conducting, it was that the symphony members who would speak to me were looking for the wrong things from him, and worse, they actually missed a priceless opportunity.
But we seem to be overwhelmed with the need to have fun. It is not remotely the same thing. If there is only one thing I would like my students to learn it is that joy and fun are not the same thing. As I have said, music is about joy.
"Joy" – noun: the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.
"Fun" – noun: something that provides mirth or amusement.
Fun is far too fleeting. Plus, eventually, no matter how "gifted" you are, the fun is going to stop and you're going to have to do some real work to musically evolve. I firmly believe this is the point were so many people stop playing music. I hear it all the time. "Well, ya' know, I just kinda lost interest." Give me a break! No you didn't. I simply don't believe that. What I think happened is that you lost your sense of the pure joy music can give you. Remember the feeling you got from music when you were the age of my two year old son, Gray? That's the pure joy of music. I hope Gray is able to retain it. In any case, I also believe it's because it's just so much simpler to focus on having fun; but again, once it feels like work - and if there is no joy to counter that - well, of course you lose interest. Who wouldn't?
I know it sounds harsh - which is not my intent - but I am so convinced of this theory of "Musical Joy," that I feel it self-evidently universal. Historically, so many of us view Beethoven as an ultimate musical genius - a label he certainly deserves; but we also know he struggled - he worked, hard - to write his music at times. (By the way, I know the easy path here would be to simply point out the subtext of his 9th symphony - the "Ode to Joy" - but I am not going to take the easy path on this one.) Even if one wanted to blame that struggle on his going deaf, the fact is it required a nearly inhuman work-ethic to accomplish all he did. We know from his own letters and journals that he struggled. Constantly battling his own diminishing sense of self as his illness (check out a fantastic book called "Beethoven's Hair" for the details) took more and more control. Certainly not fun.
No. I personally believe what really kept him going was that he managed to retain that pure sense of musical joy that first captured him when he started his musical journey as a young child. I for one have never bought into the accounts that claimed Beethoven to be arrogant. I believe is was simply certain. Not of himself, of his music. Somewhere inside he always retained the joy. My proof? Listen to his music. Or better yet, play it yourself. Either way the joy is there. Even when the context is dark, as it often was with Beethoven, there is still joy.
And so I come back to the seemingly simple lesson I got from Robert Billups about joy and fun. It has nothing to do with musical style or genre. In fact, it is not exclusive to music. It applies to anything we do in life. What Bob was able to do, I am certain I could work for the rest of my life every day, and still not quite have it right. He was joyous on the podium. Always. Every time. Sure his technique was imperfect. So what? I now know real music has little if anything to do with technique. Real music is about joy. Perfect, pure joy. It was miraculous to watch him. Joyous.
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