Professional Development? Creative Development? How about just “DEVELOPMENT”?

As in a year ago, I should be working on National Boards submissions for my School Counseling professional development goals.  However, I really don’t want to.  I really don’t.  It’s not that I don’t want to become a better school counselor, I just have a major case of the “want to have funs”.  I’m not sure this is curable.

So, similar to last year’s procrastination methods, I’ve decided to write my first blog post in months.  Many, many months.  Now, I’ve not been that musically focused in months, so it’s understandable I wouldn’t post.  What would it be about???  But, that is starting to change, thankfully.  I’d rather be musically focused in my non-work life than focused on other things (aside from spiritual growth, that is), so this is definitely a step in the right direction.

About a year and a half ago (or more), I stopped taking voice and piano/theory lessons.  Partly because my two teachers had moved out of town, and partly because I needed to focus on Boards.  Well, even though I have to resubmit for Boards, I decided that a life without growing musically is not for me.  I need it to make me feel balanced and strong and excited about life.  Listening just isn’t enough.  Guitar lessons (on hiatus right now) are not enough because although I enjoy them, they don’t drive me creatively and frankly, I’m just bad at guitar!

So, back to voice I went.  My former teacher, Kelly Ash, long ago relocated to NYC, offered to teach me via Skype and I snatched that offer up immediately.  It’s awesome working with someone I already jive with, and who has lots more to teach me due to her progress through grad school and more.  We started off with a goofy goal.  Being obsessed with The Voice, I decided I wanted to prepare a song for a mock audition.  There’s no way I’d actually audition, but I wanted to believe I had a song I prepared well enough to audition.  It’s been a good goal–watching The Voice and listening carefully to the coach feedback, etc.  We’ve worked on a few of songs with this in mind:

Isabella, by Dia Frampton (first runner up during the first season of The Voice)

Hold On, by Sarah McLachlan (really challenging, and sad, but empowering to sing, plus she’s my hero)

Time After Time, by Cyndi Lauper (are there any women who haven’t been able to relate to this at some point in their lives?)

Don’t Cry, by Ann Vriend (I just discovered this Canadian artist and am in love with this extremely difficult to sing song.  It’s given me quite the challenge!)

Kelly and I “meet” twice a month, which keeps it affordable.  And I have something to work on that excites me and requires me to analyze songs a little more than normal.  Once I feel like the Ann Vriend song has been worked through enough, we’re going back to writing.  I’m rusty and out of shape in this category, but ready for the challenge.  I wrote a song for my dad over Christmas (thanks for requiring a homemade gift, Dad!) and it felt great, despite my lack of ability to accompany myself.

Now I’m on a mission to get to Nashville and listen to a whole lot of music.  Or attend a songwriting workshop.  It’s possible I’m being influenced by the current ABC show, Nashville (it’s just so good!).  🙂  But, I’d also be happy heading to a workshop in NY.  Or LA.  Sometime next year–maybe spring.  All I know is it makes me feel good to be thinking about these things, and making non-concrete plans to improve a craft I truly enjoy but need to work hard at to get better.

Despite the best intentions to focus on professional matters, putting creative flow/practice on hiatus sort of defeats the purpose.  That matters just as much, if not more.  I must build time for it, just as I must build time for spiritual study and exercise.  In the end, everything we do to grow and progress cycles around and feeds the other areas of our lives.

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I’ll Sleep In a Week

I’m waiting for iMovie to upload all of my iPhoto video clips so I can do some editing. While I’m at it, how about a blog post about what I’m editing?

For the past 7 months, my mind has been absorbed in National Boards. This is a certification process for teachers, but counselors can submit, too. This is no easy feat, I’ve learned. I’d heard from many a teacher that it’s quite hard, that there’s a 40% passing rate for first tries, and so you should be ready to submit a round two the next year. And I heard from various sources that the counseling cert is even harder than the teacher’s. No one seems to know why. Regardless, all of that info appears to be correct.

While Boards has been on my mind since Aug/Sept., the majority of the heavy work has been done in February and March. It’ll all be in the mail on March 31, the absolute last possible postmark date, but I won’t know if I passed until Dec. I completed one draft this fall, and had 2 more drafts started in Dec/January, but didn’t even start the 4^th draft until Feb. I did lots of filming in Dec/Jan, but didn’t have a video I could use for one entry until March. They tell you to start early. I heard it over and over. I knew I should. I sort of did. But then I just felt so unmotivated. And discouraged. And didn’t totally understand what they were looking for. The edit suggestions I received made me think I had no idea what I was doing.

In fact, that was true, to some extent. It’s really hard to start early when you don’t completely understand what they expect. It wasn’t until the February cohort meeting that my mind really made sense of things. FEBRUARY! That’s not early. Anyway, I feel that my last 2 entries are much stronger than my first two, because I started from a point of understanding expectations. I’m not sure that completing drafts any earlier really would’ve been helpful, after all. However, reading through the 300 pages of instruction (seriously!) probably would’ve been. I ended up reading it piecemeal—and more comprehensively the closer I got to deadline. While the instructions can be confusing, reading them more thoroughly before I started gathering evidence, filming myself, etc., definitely would’ve made the process smoother.

If you’re considering Boards, consider doing Take One first. Pretty sure I would be much less stressed if I’d done that. And find someone to do it with. Thankfully, a colleague is also going through this. While we don’t get together to work, it’s helpful to have someone else to discuss the confusion with, share ideas with, etc. And realize that writing for Boards is nothing like writing for grad school–this is actually harder in many ways, I think partly because there isn’t a weekly class to report to.

And now I’m almost done, minus the assessment in late June. I will have my life back, which will include sleep, movies, sleep, exercise, sleep, making plans for Paris, and hopefully more music. I hope to pass, but I will understand if I don’t. That said, I spent months assuming I would not be one of the 40%, and then got a pep talk that turned my thought around. As a friend pointed out, a pessimist and an optimist will both die. But the lives they live in the meantime make all the difference. Um, good point. 🙂

If I pass Boards and get that WA state bonus (the following year), I will happily commit to a yoga pass. This editing/studying makes for a far too sedentary lifestyle!

On the agenda for next year… singing. I miss it.

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Are You Out There?

Here it is the end of February, and I am just finishing up (tomorrow) the end of a week’s vacation. Vacation from my school job, and vacation from Seattle’s gray, rainy days. In order to have a successful vacation in February I believe one must leave the gray, or spend it with good people. The perfect combination, however, is to do both. And this is what I got to do. Thank you LA, and thank you to all my peeps (family and friends) who live down here and make it that much easier for me to have a happy vacay. I love you, both the city and the (my) people in it!

Happy, float on a cloud, love of LA aside, I thought I’d take a few minutes to discuss my bittersweet feelings about the technological changes/advances that bring music to the world in new and amazing ways. Overall, I love many of these changes. I love that people can have success through YouTube (Justin Bieber and that Friday song girl aside, because seriously, I don’t get that.). I love that home studios allow creative people without the means to hire professionals to create something close to their hearts & release it to the world if they so desire. I love that blogs bring new music to people all over the world, and that teenagers can start nurturing their dreams without waiting to be discovered by some talent agent (not that the discovery hurts!). I love that artists have more control over their music, overall, & should they not get signed (or choose not to sign), they can probably still make it work if they have a strong enough fanbase (or so it seems). And I love that I don’t have to carry CD’s all over the place in order to have a ton of music with me in the car, on the plane, etc.

Here’s what I don’t love. I don’t love that with the CD scene heading out the work that artists put into their covers/designs, etc., largely goes unnoticed. I actually like reading through those, strange as it sounds. Especially as a teenager—I loved knowing what my favorite artists and albums were all about. I don’t love that I no longer have DJ’s I can rely on to bring me music. I know that sounds funny to the younger crowd, but as I grew up in the 80’s/90’s, I actually have a connection to these people.

See Dar Williams’ song, “Are You Out There?” for a little more understanding of what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl-i15ieG7I

I left Seattle for college in Illinois, but everytime I came home I was eager to turn on The Mountain. The Mountain brought me the music I loved—adult contemporary, but with just a smattering of rocky Pearl Jam, some classic rock like Fleetwood Mac, a little Steely Dan (which I actually like), but mostly, it kept me hearing new artists that I completely connected with—Sarah McLachlan, Brandi Carlile, David Gray, Ray LaMontagne, Adele, Mumford & Sons, Norah Jones, India Arie, etc. They had (have) a show called Sunday Brunch that would take it to an even mellower level, and I learned a lot of music that way. And they had New Music Tuesdays where one of my favorite DJ’s, Shawn Stewart, would spend part of the day bringing the listeners new music—either a new artist, a new song, a new album, etc. She gave me little facts and stories that kept me engaged, and I loved that.

And then she got fired. And the station changed. Or rather, the station changed, and then she got fired. First one of the other favorite DJ’s, Marty Riemer, got fired. And the station changed. And then it changed back. And then he got rehired. And then it changed again. And he stayed. But she got fired. What is happening?! And why am I relating this to the change in technology?

I don’t really know if there’s a connection, but I suspect there must be. It seems to me that with the easy access to music everywhere there’s a much lower demand for good radio stations. Although it was my understanding that The Mountain had many loyal followers, the umbrella company (Entercom) chose to go to a new format, where classic rock became the norm and modern music became the rarity. More classic rock? Really? Because we didn’t already have 4 other classic rock stations in the city??? Seriously, how is that a good idea? That aside, I can only assume that this comes out of desperation. Perhaps they think that the only people still listening to radio (satellite aside, that is) are people from the classic rock generation? Don’t get me wrong—I love me some good classic rock. But I had FOUR OTHER STATIONS TO CHOOSE FROM!

The Mountain was different. I bragged about it when I lived in Boston. I missed it when I lived in St. Louis. My friends from other cities would comment on the great radio station when they visited me in Seattle. I looked for something similar every time I visited a new city. When I came back to Seattle I always felt more at home just because no other station made me as happy. And now it’s gone. I feel sad about this. And in that bittersweet way, I am thankful for my iPod, Pandora & YouTube to turn to. But I really miss my DJ’s.

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Just a little update…  made a switch today (or rather, late last night) from Blogger to WordPress.  Most of it imported OK, but the 1st blog post is missing paragraph breaks.  For whatever reason I can’t seem to add them.  I apologize for the weird formatting–hopefully there won’t be any more issues from now on!

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