Let It Go (A Semitone)

from USA Today

Idina performed

Let It Go

Along with Jimmy Fallon and

The Roots 

A completely different setting 

To the Oscars

Surrounded by musicians

Relaxed

Casual 

Playing classroom instruments

Everyone clearly

Having a total blast 

For whatever reason

The instruments they're playing?

Vocal exhaustion?

(The woman has flown across country

Twice in as many days

Performed at an intensely hyped 

Awards ceremony,

Her collaborators won a bunch of 

Said awards

And she's in tech rehearsals

For a new Broadway show

That's gotta take some sort of toll) 

The arrangement is down

A semitone from the original

And what a difference

A semitone makes! 

Without the microphones

Flying cameras or 

Hollywood elite 

Staring up at her

You can hear the full power of 

Idina's voice

The. Woman. Can. Belt. 

And oh god, it's 

Thrilling

The money note

It's just a D

Idina's got this 

Let the storm rage OOOOOOON.

YES!

Nailed it.

Read about Idina Menzel's performance at the Oscars, and the difficulty of belting, here. 

A Way Back to Then

Remember a time

Before you’d ever even been to Broadway

New York was just a place

Across the ocean

Far away

It may as well have been the moon

And musicals were accessed via cast recordings

Played on CD (and cassette!)

Repeated so often you knew

Every inflection

Pause and intonation

And then you’re sitting in the

Lyric Theatre, London

And Trevor Ashley

Australian performer

Who taught musical theatre at State Music Camp

And performed at Schools Spec

Is performing his Liza show

He is brilliant

The camp and the sass and the deadpan humour

Meet moments of utter sincerity

That make a caricature of Liza

(Though the portrayal is so spot on

It's more real than play) 

Human 

You remember

State Music camp and

Being around other people who

Got it

You performed ‘Over the Moon’ from RENT

(Which you had learnt by heart

By listening to the recording

Over and over til you got it right

Moo)

(And your friend

Gave you your first standing ovation

Lept to his feet when you finished moo-ing)

It was thrilling to sit in chairs around the piano

Holding sheets of music

And singing the songs

You had listened to

And already knew by heart

And all that jazz

And you remember all your teachers

Mrs Harrison and Mrs Ross

Mrs McAndrews

Mrs Stevenson, Miss Lorschy, Mrs Martinotti, Mrs Turner

Mr Harrison, Miss Boyle, Miss Richards (theatre etiquette!), Miss Paris, Miss Simone, Mrs Page, Mrs Stewart, Mr Kelso, Mrs Miltiades, Mrs Miller, Mrs Cull

George, Andrew, Gina, Frank, Kane, Ste, Christine

The ones who believed in you and gave you a chance

And if you could tell your fifteen year old self

You get to do it!

You go to New York

Broadway is real

You study musical theatre in London

You live in a houseful of actors

You learn for real the phrase

“Starving actor”

It’s not just about hunger and being poor

You need to perform and write and play music and tell stories

And when you don’t

You get really depressed

And even though it’s hard

It’s incredible

There is no other life you can lead

The Tony Awards are real

You actually go, twice

Get all dressed up

And sit in the rafters

And watch your childhood heroes

Make their acceptance speeches

You see Idina Menzel in concert (twice)

You see her rehearsing!

You see Marvin Hamlisch conduct the London Symphony Orchestra

In a medley from A Chorus Line

You see Liza in concert

You see Trevor as Liza in concert

And it takes you back to 15 year old you

Who wants nothing more than

This life

And you say

Hold on

You’ll get here

The end. 

Reflections from Tanglewood

You expect,

With a name like 

“Tanglewood”

Chaos and mess

And vines and dark woods

And twisting paths. 

Instead there is 

Total order

Calm

And loveliness. 

Sweeping green lawns

Manicured gardens.

Rows of clipped hedges

Form an organized maze. 

Hidden within are

Tributes to musicians past

(Mostly men) 

A beautiful house

With wooden floorboards

And painted walls

And images of musicians past 

(A mix of men and women) 

In the centre of the sweeping grounds

A giant pavilion

The summer home of the 

Boston Symphony Orchestra

World famous

Top notch

Leader in its field 

Thousands of people surround the structure

They have come with picnic blankets and chairs

And baskets full of food

Wine and cheese and chocolates

Even glasses filled with wild flowers

And you sit in the field

On a warm summers day

And the sky grows dark

With threatening clouds

The bell rings

Once, twice, three times!

The concert is about to begin!

And the sky opens up

Sit in a field during the fall of summer rain

Without an umbrella

Rain on your skin

Grass beneath your body

Sky above your head

The feeling of liberation 

The storm passes by

The sun is warm

And dries your skin

The concert commences

Stravinsky’s “Fireworks” Opus 4

Brings unexpected tears

Yo Yo Ma and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto

The sound is perfect

You can hear the bow scratching across the bridge

It is overwhelming 

The accumulative hours of practise

Of the players of the orchestra

Are astounding to imagine 

Imagine all the players as children

Drilling scales in their living rooms 

You are transported to your own living room

More specifically

The living room of your grandparents

To be more precise

Down the hall, to your 

Grandparents’ bedroom

Far away in Sydney

Twenty years ago 

You would wake up and go into their room

And Abuelo would have 

ABC Classic FM playing full blast on the radio

And you would dance to the music

And make him smile

You never talked about the composers

Or the history of the music

But the notes are as part of your legacy as your own blood

(Music passed down through generations

From your mother teaching ballet

Whilst you sat fetal, and later in a pram

Earlier: Abuela and Abuelo at concerts in Manila

Earlier still: Great-Abuelo fetal in Shanghai

While his father (great-great Abuelo) played violin)

And you, four generations later 

Sitting in a field in Massachusetts

As a counselor in music

The history of notes

Imagine being in the theatre when Stravinsky premiered 

The Rites of Spring

The boos and hisses! 

Now, high art 

The tangled web of family and history and influence 

How we came to be 

Where we are

Is orderly when viewed from a distance

Melodic lines able to be traced

Emphasized

Harmonized with

Made discordant 

And written into

Music

The end. 

And the Music Plays

by Woolley World

Year 5 or year 6

At school we learnt to play the recorder 

I loved learning an instrument

Loved learning to read music

Teaching myself out of a book

The logic of it making sense

The order of dots and lines

A kind of reading that translated into something heard

I wanted to play a “proper” instrument

Aware that the other kids had lessons

And instruments 

Later, year 8. 

Our music teacher took us into a room

Filled with instruments

Choose one 

She said 

I wasn’t drawn to percussion

Or strings 

(My sister had played violin

Popcorn and candy

The learnt sounds of experts

Betraying the difficulty of starting out) 

I could make a noise 

On all the wind instruments

I was worried about the reed instruments

They would require ongoing purchases 

You needed to prepare the reed so it didn’t crack

I felt it was a level of difficulty beyond me

But really

I chose the flute

Because it was the lightest instrument

Back then

I commuted to school

By bus and train

And was worried about schleping my instrument to school

Or being able to practise at home 

I hired the flute for six months 

Or a year

The way time and space merge

Become blurred in memory 

Then I moved schools

And my friend who also played the flute

Recommended her teacher 

And suddenly 

Some fourteen or fifteen years later 

I’m standing with three other flautists

And we’re playing a quartet 

Written by one of the players

And it feels strange 

And lovely

To be part of this

Shared knowledge

Understanding how the dots on the page

Correlate to the placement of fingertips 

To create synchronized sound

Started in another lifetime 

The end.

Voice of the Blood

A stick of incense
Some beautiful music
And quiet meditation

The end.

Es ist ein Ros enstsprung

It's cold
And rainy
And miserable
And you sit on the tube
And wish desperately you could
Apparate to your apartment

And you put your ipod on shuffle
And let the music transport you instead
And a piece you know
But haven't heard for a while
Begins to play
And the voices are soothing
And quieting
And remind you to breathe
And be still

And you feel
Much better
And you make it home
For hot chocolate

The end.

Empire State of Mind

Today I cried watching this video
Then downloaded the song
And with Alicia on repeat
Ran 5km
Despite the snow still on the ground
And recalled that the next adventure
Is just around the corner

The end.

Alanis

I grew up with Alanis 

Jagged Little Pill was one of the first albums I ever owned

And seeing her live

For the first time 

Was exhilirating and touching and strange 

It wasn’t just Present Me

Standing in the middle of the crowd

In this vast venue in London

It was thirteen year old me

Standing in the large school hall

Singing “Hand in my Pocket” 

And my classmates laughing because I couldn’t swear

And because it was so incredibly, painfully, obvious that I would never, ever, flick a cigarette 

I think it was one of the first times I had ever sung solo

And the lady who had asked me to sing was so encouraging

I went home and re-listened to Jagged Little Pill to see what else I could learn 

It was twenty-something year old me

Standing in the practise rooms above the Student Union

And channelling my anger at my ex

So I could sing “You Oughta Know” 

I knew the song well by then

But the lyrics meant more

It was twenty-something year old me 

Walking the Camino

And re-calling that Alanis had done some sort of pilgrimage to India 

And had then released Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie 

And listening to it again 

And as I walked 

“Thank u” resonated

And it changed the entire outlook on my life 

It was teenage me 

Watching Dogma and seeing Alanis play God

(Controversial because in Christianity, God is always a He) 

And realizing for the first time

God could be female 

And then present day me

With all these memories

From time and space almost forgotten 

Standing there surrounded by strangers

And Alanis

As gorgeous and talented as I’d hoped she’d be 

But with a twist

This feminine rock chick with biting lyrics and a fierce sound 

Had stage fright.

She barely looked at the audience for the first two songs

She roamed around the stage

Her amazing hair swishing behind her 

She settled in though

And from the beginning her voice 

Was even more powerful than I thought

Her belt is phenomenal

She didn’t talk between songs

But she would bow to the band members

And call out thank you to the audience

She started out with Woman Down 

A call for an end to misogyny 

And throughout the night played 

guardian, receive, all I really want, you oughta know, hand in my pocket, you learn, head over feet, mary jane, ironic, and uninvited. 

The crowd knew every word

We laughed when she updated the lyrics - 

"It's like meeting the man of your dreams

And meeting his husband". 

But the highlight

Was the acapella hidden track from Jagged Little Pill

It was almost divine it was so moving

Still as raw and gut wrenching as it was eighteen years ago

I’ve never been brave/stupid enough to walk into an ex’s house

And lie in his bed and cry all afternoon

But I have dreamt it 

In the dream I walked through his house 

Smelt his cologne 

And both in sleep and awake 

I have sobbed

And through it all 

Alanis. 

With her own highs and lows and journies and quests

For forgiveness 

For peace 

For love

For life.

The end. 

Thank God, It's Friday

You walk from Westminster to Embankment
Along the Thames River Path
And all the snow has melted
And there are tourists taking photos
And the Eye is spinning.

And you're an hour early for a meeting
So you decide to wander for a bit
And you come across one of those maps that dot central London
And tell you what sites of significance
Are within 5 minutes walking distance
And you see that St. Martin in the Field is nearby
That place you've heard of so often on classical music stations.

And you walk in through a side door
And it's not as big or ornate as you were expecting
But it is lovely.
And down the far end of the church is a striking window
With a curved cross
Designed by an Iranian-born woman
Shirazeh Houshiary.

You sit halfway down the church
And there are people dotted around
A few homeless people sleeping
Sitting upright
Their hoods pulled over their faces
Sitting where it is warm
Curious tourists looking for a quiet refuge
From the busy-ness of London
And you.

And there is a man at a grand piano
He has dark hair, and is balding slightly
He has dark rimmed glasses and a black sweater.
He is playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. 
The acoustic is amazing.
He is rather good
And he is enjoying the acoustic too.
Letting the sound
Really reverberate through the space.

The man sitting three rows in front of you leaves
And you suddenly have a clear view to the pianist
And you feel a bit exposed.
Because until that moment you had almost imagined you were no more than a
Passive spirit observing this place.

And then it is time to go
To your meeting
And you meet a lovely soul
Who inspires you
And lifts your spirits
And an hour flies by
In conversation.
And you walk back along the Thames
And the sun has come out for a moment
And you think
Thank you for bringing me here.

The end.

Days Like These

The sky is blue. And the air is crisp. And the night before you’ve been to see your favourite band, The Cat Empire. And the gig is not one of their most mind-blowing or exhilarating, but they play some of your favourites, like The Car Song and The Darkness and The Chariot. And seeing those Aussie boys all the way over here in London playing their tight tunes and doing what they do best just makes you feel good. And you remember all the gigs you’ve seen them play over the past 8 years and all the friendships and lovers they’ve seen you through and you know at the end of the day, no matter what, despite the glorious cliche of it, you’ll always have the music. And in the morning you head out to East London to meet up with old friends and you walk down Brick Lane. And you smell all the delicious curries. And you spot one of the lead singers from the Cat Empire and it makes you feel a bit hip that he’s here too. And you walk through the record shop and find a shelf full of books and you find one which looks interesting and you discover a lovely chapter on food foraging in London and you get so lost in its words and pages that you’re surprised when your friends are suddenly standing in front of you calling out your name reminding you that you are standing in a record shop in east London. And then you sit on a bench in the sun with a chilli hot chocolate and a dark chocolate truffle. And to your left a family is posing for photographs. And to your right people are eating assorted food stuffs from the street vendors dotted all around. And you make your way west towards central London and stroll around St Paul’s Cathedral and feel oddly moved by the Occupy London people. This tent city outside the church, peacefully protesting the status quo. And you head back home and buy pasta and sauce and garlic bread for dinner and supplies for cookie baking. And the sun sinks deeper into the west and streaks the horizon with a dash of highlighter pink. And you smile at the chill in the air. And know you are living the life enchanted. The end. 

Hunter Valentine

You are in the middle of the forest. And one night three women appear. One holds drum sticks. One holds a guitar. One holds a bass. They form a band called Hunter Valentine. Three women on stage rocking out. It lifts your heart. It pulses in your soul. They are fantastic. You watch your campers dance around you. A group of campers are allowed on stage to dance. One of the youngest campers runs up to you and tells you that being at camp makes her less afraid of being on stage because she feels safe here. I tell her that she should do it all the time. She tells me the people at school will laugh at her. They probably will. Because people at school are horrible. They are afraid of people who follow their bliss and so we are conditioned to be afraid of ourselves. Dear Camper. People will always tease you. People will always be afraid and jealous and ready to knock you down. But someday you will find the strength within yourself to say I CARE NOT WHAT YOU THINK!!! And you will laugh when the girl who bullied you in high school and pushed you into the lake for no reason other than she thought you were tragic “friends” you on Facebook. And people might say "oh, you are just a guidance counselor", but you will know that you make a difference and you love what you do and one day you too will be on stage rocking it out. And you will dance beneath the moon and find kindred spirits and be inspired by powerful women who fill their music with passion and energy and sing love songs about revenge. The end. 

Synchrone

And one day you are walking down the street in Glebe and you see a flyer for a lady named Keyna who teaches piano and flute and you think, that is an excellent name for a musician, and I would like to take flute lessons again. And you call her and it takes you nearly six months to organise a lesson and finally you meet and you discover you have met a kindred spirit. And every week you share music and meditation and it is fun and lovely and inspiring. And she makes you better than you are, and she inspires you to work hard and suddenly you found you have passed your eighth grade flute exam and it makes you happy and proud and gives a great sense of accomplishment. And then you sing her original music and it just makes you so happy. 

And then you discover that she is playing in a new duo called Synchrone and they are playing French music. And you go along to the Flute Tree at Leichardt and for an hour or so on a sunny Sunday afternoon you listen to delightful music that touches your soul and makes you want to move to Paris and drink wine and eat pastries and be surrounded by beautiful people who play beautiful music in pretty little unsung venues. And they do a lovely cover of the theme from "Amelie" which is one of your favourite movies of all time and you smile because music makes you happy. And sharing music makes you happy. 

In the words of Felix Riebl, if only the whole world could be made of people like these, then the news would not be telling me of all that warfare endlessly. The end. 

Indigo Trio

They say there is nothing new under the sun

But change is the only constant

Find new for yourself

Discover a new everyday 

Singing with Indigo Trio was a delight 

To learn new music that no other singer has sung before

To explore new songs

To play with other musicians and discover the new

Make changes

Every morning

Under this sun of ours

That glowing ball of chemistry

Is a new day

Original. New or back to the source from whence it came

All is light

All is song and dance 

To find the new and make it your own

To be unafraid and just go out and do it

To conquer the old sayings 

And make change 

Make bliss

This is delight 

Music

http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/flute.html

Oh the joy of music

To play to sing to listen to watch

To play a freshly serviced flute

It’s like playing a new instrument

It’s fun to hit the high notes and not have to push as hard

It’s so satisfying to play and be so immersed in the music and suddenly a whole hour has passed

Sometimes the notes elude you and jump about the page and make no sense

Other times it’s like, well, music 

And black notes and lines become melodies 

And gloriousness

To connect with Bach

Who lived over two hundred years ago 

Whole lifetimes and continents away

And yet here I am

This girl in Sydney, Australia playing Bach! Playing Chaminade and French Romance melodies and twentieth century abstractions and studies and scales

How incredible that I should be here

In this time and space

Playing music written hundreds of years ago!

Sharing music with children

Spreading musical love across generations

My grandmother and my mother gave it to me 

Remember sitting in the lounge room watching The Pajama Game with Abuela and she knew all the words. She sat there singing,

I’m not at all in love!

And you looked at her in wonder! She knows all the words!!! 

And now I pass it on to children through teaching

Kids this is music and it is the best thing since sliced bread

Sharing knowledge of melodies and dynamics and inspiring people to dance and sing and act

Today I found myself telling fifty children that performing is the best thing ever

And I meant it

How exciting how thrilling how joyous

The exhausting heartbreaking wonderful thrill of it

Music! As Jonathan Larson wrote:  “food of love, emotion, mathematics, isolation, rhythm, feeling, power, harmony, and heavy competition!!!!”

I’ve done my practise for the day

The girl next door is playing her violin

Houses apart, worlds apart, connected by music

sand art mandala from Lanzarote

Jason Robert Brown

And one day you find yourself in a theatre surrounded by a bunch of avid theatre nerds and you are all there because in time and space you have sat listening to the original cast recordings over and over and some of you have performed in amateur productions of his shows and the music is what gets you. And although it is not a large venue, it is entirely intimate and you can hear his breath and the plosive p’s and b’s and t’s and feel the pressure of his pinky hitting the top notes of the piano. And he excudes so much energy so much passion so much life as he plays and sings the songs you know so well but suddenly tonight they are new because the brain that wrote them is performing them in front of you and you wonder how he can possibly still be sitting with all that energy surely he must be floating surely the way he taps his foot so insistently that the whole auditorium can hear it feel its pulse surely he must need to stand but his back is straight and there he is sitting playing the piano and singing. And he is utterly marvellous. The way the music is driving and full of vigour but the lyrics are melancholy and funny all at once and the whole room is transported to intimate worlds far away in the land of America but still so familiar it could have been your own living room. You have had that conversation. You have had that heart break. You have felt that loneliness. You have shared that laugh. The magic of watching the craft come to life. Feeling like you are there as he writes the notes the chords the lyrics  the song is created in front of you before your eyes inside your very ears. And all there is is a piano a microphone and a man in a spotlight. And it is lovely. It is breath-taking. It is music. The end. 

Part of It All

There is a song in the musical [title of show] called "Part of It All", in which the two leads Hunter and Jeff sing about wanting to be a part of the buzz, excitement, inevitable post-show blues, and life that is show business. And it is lovely when you are in the midst of it, and feeling exactly part of it. When you spend your days singing and dancing and fluting and running to the theatre and from rehearsal to rehearsal and you go to sleep dreaming about inversions and chord progressions and you spend your nights covered in white paint and hair gel and glitter and the thrill buzz excitement of being in front of an audience. And you wake up ready to start all over again. And if that is being part of it all, I love it with every inch of my being. 

19 Lovelies

Just because it is the nineteenth day of the year, and the nineteenth day of the month, here are nineteen things inspiring me at present...

1. My job. I love getting paid to watch a profesh musical every day. It is amazing.
2. Being in a new Australian musical, Wonderland. Working with beautiful, lovely, talented, and awesome people.
3. Seth Rudetsky. Whenever I am down, sad, or lonely, Seth is there with a deconstruction to remind me that someone is as obsessive about musicals as I am. Perhaps even more so.
4. MusicalTalk. Every episode I learn something new. It inspires me to learn more, to get my hands on every musical ever recorded, and to watch everything that comes out.
5. The absolute plethora of musical activity happening in Australia right now. Carnegie 18, Jersey Boys, Wicked, Hairspray, Mary Poppins, Xanadu, Rock of Ages, Doctor Zhivago, Legally Blonde... We are not a cultural wasteland of despair.
6. My beautiful friends. You know who you are. You are amazing.
7. Playing flute and learning new music.
8. Watching people rally together to help each other in the flood crisis.
9. Singing in front of an audience. Singing at home. Singing in rehearsal. Singing lessons.
10. Writing every morning for half an hour.
11. Knowing that I'm moving to London to study musical theatre.
12. Knowing that I'm going back to summer camp in June.
13. Going back to the markets and seeing all my lovely vendors again. Eating beautiful food.
14. Nemo, my regular "The Big Issue" vendor, who always has a smile and a story about the current issue
15. Running weekly morning meditation sessions in Glebe and sharing what I've learnt and knowing that  others are benefiting too
16. Amy Krouse Rosenthal and her 7 things. Always Trust Magic, Beckon the Lovely, Connected, Do, Empty Spaces, Figure it out as you go, Go to it.
17. Researching, writing, and recording episodes for Flusical with Flick.
18. Going to dance class and being surrounded by beautiful, talented people, and being pushed to be better
19. Breathing into the moment and trusting that it will be ok.