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Ivoryman West

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Well, it finally happened. After almost two years of professional wandering, Claire and I have settled down. And when I say finally, I mean that it happened around six months ago. Given my awesome track record of updating this blog, that feels like the appropriate length of time to wait before posting about it.

Seattle, Washington will be our home for the foreseeable future, and I gotta say, it feels great to have a long term address again. Moving every three to five months is a great way to experience living in a lot of different places, but just the act of filling out the staggering list of past residences every time I applied for a new job or short term lease has caused more than one panic attack. [Read more…]

Long Live 2017

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No matter how you slice it, 2016 has been an extraordinarily crappy year. Maybe it’s the work of an angry and vengeful god. Maybe the Mayan calendar was just a few years off and now the end times are upon us for realsies. Or maybe we were just due for a year filled with tragedy, untimely death, and civil unrest.

Either way, I’m calling it. 2016 is dead to me.

via GIPHY

I’m officially beginning 2017 four weeks early. And to kick it off, I’m starting on my new year’s resolution early as well. I usually don’t bother with them, but when you consider how soul crushingly terrible this past year this has been, it can’t hurt to try something new. [Read more…]

Consistently Inconsistent

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Claire and I have been nomads for months now and I realized I haven’t really documented it much on my end. I’ve written a few posts that, thanks to some jerk, have vanished into the void of the internet. Thankfully Claire has done a great job with her blog, but my thoughts and feelings have  mostly gone unrecorded.  

So here’s a brief recap: In Phoenix I managed to get a part time manual labor job. It wasn’t really anything to get excited about, but I was grateful to have something to make me feel useful. The only problem was the hours which could range from a full 40  one week to five or six the next. It’s no one’s fault; it’s just what was available and I was happy to have work. I just didn’t realize how much a lack of routine could throw me off.  

From there we moved to the Denver area. I assumed finding work in my home state of Colorado would be way easier since I know a lot of locals, and it did start off promising. My brother Josh works for a company that makes mobile video games and he was reasonably sure he could get me a contract job as a game tester. That sounds like a perfect job for someone like me, but let me assure you it’s not as fun as it sounds. The sole task of a tester is basically finding bugs (i.e. break the game) and reporting them to someone else to fix.

This would have been the highlight of my day.

Still, I was up for trying something new so dusted off the ol’ resume and drove to Boulder for an interview. Long story short, it didn’t pan out. They only had two open slots and there were two other applicants with actual testing experience. I didn’t mind being passed over so much, but what really frustrated me was the fact that it took the company almost three weeks to tell me that I didn’t get the job. Even Josh only found out a day before I did. In the meantime, I thought it was a lock and hadn’t really looked elsewhere for a job.

Even though I had lost those three weeks, I decided it was a good thing in the end. It would have been a tedious and boring job with a 2+ hour commute every day. Who wants to drive that much? So…I ended up working for Uber.

Yeah...
Yeah…

It really isn’t a bad gig; I got to make my own schedule and explore Denver, a city I’ve been to several times but never as an adult with my own car. Uber can also be a fun kind of social experiment. You never know what sort of wacky characters will climb into your car and strike up a conversation about brain surgery or Mapquest. Fun fact: did you know that’s still a thing? And it’s based in Denver? Neither did I.

On top of that, I felt like I was providing a truly useful service to people. My one complaint was that the work itself was wildly inconsistent. I had a few days where I’d get continuous rides for two or three straight hours, but more often than not I’d end up alone in a parking lot waiting around.

I had one other Denver job prospect playing at a piano bar downtown that I was really excited about, but once again it took a long time for the hiring process to go through and by the time I’d been confirmed as a trainee, Claire found out that a) she couldn’t get an extension for her Colorado contract and b) she got an amazing offer from the hospital at Stanford. Fortunately the manager at the piano bar was understanding and told me to contact him if we end up in Denver again, so at least the bridge remains unburned. 

So it’s been a challenging time for me. I knew it would be, but I think I overestimated how difficult it is to find meaningful work when you’re moving every three months.

I know this all sounds whiny, and I apologize for that. I really don’t have reason to complain. I did actually find work in some less-than-ideal circumstances and I’m grateful to those who took a chance and hired me. It’s all part of what I signed up for and I know I am really, REALLY lucky to be doing it.

And it’s not like I’ve been sitting on the couch griping about my lot in life. I’ve still got a few interesting things going on. For one, I started writing a novel, and for two, I’ve finally gotten over how silly I feel when I say it out loud. I don’t know why I ever felt that way. Maybe I just didn’t want to set up anyone’s expectations. I really don’t know what I’m doing, but at the end of the day, I’m enjoying doing it. 

Claire and I have used our free time to explore the great outdoors. One of the great things about being in the west is that there is no shortage of mountains, canyons, and wide open spaces to hike and/or camp in and we’re determined to make some memories in them. I will refer you once again to her blog as it contains our best pictures.

I’m still teaching too! I’ve got new students here in the bay area as well as regular online lessons with a few of my old students from North Carolina. There’s a lot I still miss about NC, but it’s amazing that I can take that small part of it with me. And I can’t stress enough how good it feels to know that I’m still a teacher, nomad or not. 

I guess the lesson I’ve taken from this experience thus far is this: every time, location, and job opportunity are going to fall short of ideal in some way, and some things are bound to be inconsistent regardless of the circumstances. There’s only one thing that can be truly reliable: me. I’ve got to make things happen even when there’s not as much time as I would like. I think I’ll do better in California. But, to quote the wise man: “We’ll see.”

5 Music Lessons I Learned from Classic Video Games

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Video games are a severely misunderstood media. Often written off as an addictive escape-fantasy for lonely nerds at best or demonized as a motivator for violence at worst, gamers frequently and unfairly find themselves in the difficult position of having to justify this hobby as if games are some kind of symptom of psychosis or immaturity. 

On the other hand, casual games are becoming more common and accessible thanks to the prevalence of smartphones and tablets. I would hope that the cliche of the pale, socially-awkward gamer had begun to fade, but it’s still as popular as it ever was. Despite everyone’s grandmother playing Candy Crush or Farmville nowadays, not many people would argue that games serve a higher purpose other than mindless entertainment and fewer still would declare that they can actually teach us anything. [Read more…]

5 Ways to Practice Singing Outside of the Studio

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I remember when a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young me walked out of his first voice lesson at the age of eighteen. All my musical training up until this point had been in piano and everything I knew about singing I learned from the choirs I had sung in. I thought I had at least an idea of what I was doing, but then I started learning about the various bad habits I had already formed and 45 minutes wasn’t even enough to cover them all. [Read more…]

Making Music Fun Again: Love (or at least tolerate) the essentials

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We’re almost through the first month of 2012 and many of us have reached a point where we’re beyond regret making those resolutions and have just pretended that they were never made in the first place. As you can see, my goal of posting more frequently has been less than stellar (though I have moving and running my studio full time to use as an excuse). The only possible silver lining this year is that if the Mayans are right, this will be the last time we have a chance to annually disappointment ourselves.  [Read more…]

For Those About to Parent: We Salute you

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Just like that, it’s autumn again. After an amazing wedding and unforgettable honeymoon, I realized as I reopened the doors of Ivoryman Music this last week that I’ve pretty much lost track of everything that’s happening in the world. Judging by the sulky looks on my students’ faces and the defeated sighs they’ve been heaving, though, I’d say that either school is starting soon or that Angry Birds has been banned in United States.

Please, God, let it be the former.

As students say a wistful goodbye to summer, parents everywhere are openly giving each other high fives in the streets and apparently waltzing through the aisles of office supply stores.

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Actually, I’m not really sure this is the case anymore. Contrary to what this classic commercial would have you believe, parents don’t really seem to have any more of a spring in their steps when fall rolls around. For many of them, the beginning of the school year hardly means they are now able to relax and focus on something other than their children for nine months. Fall is when parenting has to be kicked into high gear.

In many households, at least one parent will assume the roles of chauffeur, event coordinator, and taskmaster just to keep their children’s school-lives running smoothly, and that’s to say nothing of what must be done to sort out their lives at home. For several parents, fall means a great deal more involvement in their kids’ lives, not less.

That is, if those kids are lucky. Legally, a parent’s full responsibility for their child’s education goes no further than enrolling their child in a school. A parent can get by without knowing or caring who teaches their child, what he or she is being taught, or even whether or not he or she is passing with no enforced repercussions. It puzzles me that something as monumentally crucial to a child’s future as education isn’t held to the same kind of legal scrutiny that seems to permeate everything else. If a child were to, say, steal a car, the parent would be held fully responsible. If he makes it to eighth grade without being able to read, though, it’s the system’s fault.

Parents have an incredible potential to enhance-or impair-their child’s learning experience. I echo the belief of thousands of teachers who say that positive parent involvement is the single most effective factor in determining a child’s success in school and, consequently, life. Any teacher worth their salt will also tell you that the most effective learning environment is one in which the teacher and parent form an alliance and are thus able to more thoroughly educate the student both at school and at home.

I grew up with the privilege of having two highly involved parents who were willing to bend over backwards to insure that my siblings and I would have both the physical and emotional support we needed as well as a swift (metaphorical) kick in the rear when it proved necessary. I owe a lot to the fact that they too believed in the power of education and not only provided for it, but instilled a love of learning in me that I cherish to this day. And just look how I turned out:

This has all got me thinking about the ways we’ve tried and failed to turn education around in this country. Even though I’ve always considered myself a staunch advocate of public school teachers and believe that something obviously needs to be done about the way they are treated and viewed by society, I’m still wondering why no one has considered incentivizing parents to do a better job of parenting as far as school is concerned.

Admittedly, there are a lot of logistics that would need to be worked out, like how to specifically implement programs, who would be eligible, how much would it cost, etc., but there has to be some way to motivate even a small percentage of parents to take a more active role in their students education. Tax credits for the families of students who make the honor roll or scholarships for students who win first place in the state science fair…I don’t have all the answers, I’m just saying it can’t be too hard.

I think there’s a really good chance something like this could be measurably effective. We’re already testing the bejeezus out of students and blaming teachers for either poor results if scores are low or “teaching to the test” if students do well. Instead of putting the entire burden of results on the teacher, why not give parents a little stake in what’s happening? Teachers could send students home with review materials and offer a $500 tax break to the parents of the top 10% of test-takers in the school. The numbers in that figure are just an example and might not work in the real world, but I’d be willing to bet we’d see higher scores in a school where such an arrangement was made.

This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. If nothing else, it’s considerably less crazy and more constitutional than requiring people to obtain a parenting license before procreating (another of my ideas) or, as a friend of mine suggested, offering tax incentives to people who voluntarily remove themselves from the gene pool altogether.

There may be a number of reasons this could never work—or maybe I’m on to something here. Seriously, tell me why this is a bad idea. There could be something (or several things) I’ve overlooked here. We’ve reached a point, though, where we can’t keep trying the same thing and hoping it will work. We need some fresh ideas. The solutions to all—all of our nation’s seemingly endless problems ultimately lie in drastically improving our education system. Speaking of problems, if you think we’re overwhelmed by them now, just wait and see what happens if we keep on with “business as usual” in our schools.

 

IM: Quarterly Report

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It’s now the fourth month that Ivoryman Music has been open and I’m happy to announce to the masses that we (the royal “we”) are still alive and kicking. Thriving even. Things have been getting busy to the point where I’ve neglected my blogging yet again, so I thought I’d send a quick update out to those of you who assumed I just disappeared after letting all the money, power, and fame I’ve acquired go to my head. [Read more…]

Piano Lessons Cary

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Well, it’s happened again. Another couple of months has slipped away without any updates, musings, odd stories or lame jokes. No new music, the less said about video game reviews the better, and the practice log is just…just sad.

I know you think you can see where this is going. Another apologetic sympathy piece, right? Didn’t I just write one of these? One of my more recent posts did include a lot of talk about rededicating myself to this poor, neglected project as well as some shameless pandering and a plea for understanding from my readership. You may feel quite let down by these shenanigans, but I assure you, today’s entry has a much bolder purpose…unblushing self-promotion.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the grand opening of the Ivoryman Music Studio! As of March 1st, I will officially begin teaching from my very own location in downtown Cary, NC and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

This is (hopefully) a one-time kind of post for me, but it’s vital for me to start getting the word out so I have to really sell out for the moment. Sorry everybody. I promise to put up something worth reading very soon. In the meantime, please check out my new Facebook page, write me a review, or just tell your friends.

Expect to hear more over the next week as opening day approaches. And thanks for making it all possible.

The Search for Mariozart

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Of all the music that I teach to young kids, I usually rely on a surprisingly small handful of pieces to pass on to them. Standards like The Pink Panther, Linus and Lucy, and Let it Be are in my go-to folder. Lately, though, the tides have shifted to a far nerdier realm of music that I am more than happy to explore with my students; the music of classic video games. Last year, I transcribed a simplified version of the Super Mario Theme to add to my folder and I’ve found it’s now the one I’m most frequently copying.

I toyed with the idea of transcribing the full score of the first Mario game but abandoned that goal after I read this article. Someone has already beaten me to it, and quite frankly, I’m relieved. Transcription is a lot of tedious work. Joseph Karam, a pianist who is apparently either unemployed or independently wealthy, spent several months completing this task. Note by note, he etched out eighteen different musical themes complete with optimized fingering. You can even listen to each piece as a MIDI file on his website, and it’s undoubtedly legit. [Read more…]