Coretta Scott King

I was saddened today to hear of the loss of Coretta Scott King. She was anything but your typical spouse of a revolutionary. In many ways, her intelligence and vision contributed the impetus to Dr. King to have the strength to take the contemporaneously radical actions he did in the 1960s.

I was fortunate to meet Mrs. King twice. The first time was in 1995, in Chicago, where I performed at one of her famed "Freedom Concerts" with an ensemble from the Sherwood Conservatory, and then performed some solo works. I snuck away after playing for 10 minutes to try to meet her and have a conversation. I was successful. She told me that she had studied voice at the New England Conservatory (which I did not previously know), and that the 'visions contained within the highest of music can be a roadmap to understanding the correct moral actions to take." I never forgot that.

The second time was in 2004 at the Academy of Achievement International Achievement Summit, again in Chicago. We were in the Art Institute in Chicago and we were walking through the suits of armor. I overheard her comment to the famed Julie Andrews that it was unfortunate that throughout history people have been forced to protect themselves in such ways. I was taken aback by the coolness and collectedness of her thoughts, especially given what she had been through with Dr. King's assassination. Again I had a chance to talk with her. It turns out she heard me the night before, where I had played piano round-robin style with Andrew Park, Natasha Paremski, and Martin Kasik. I played the Carmen Variations of Horowitz. She reiterated almost the same quote from 1995. It was notable that she still believed in the power of music to guide our actions and clear our thoughts.

I can only hope that people remember the work she carried on after her husband's demise. It is a sad day when we are forced to "protect ourselves" instead of being able to promote the ideals of a just and open society that has educated members who fail to discriminate on the basis of superficial characteristics. Coretta Scott King was a living symbol of that message and will be missed.

Fury at random violence, more at disfunctional 911 system

Today at 5:15 I was walking down Broadway in Oakland to go to my gym. I was in front of Oakland Tech High School and a group of 8 young black men from about ages 14-18 were congregated on the lawn and asked me what time it was. I told them, kept walking and got to an intersection. As I was waiting at the intersection, with no warning, one of the boys elbowed me extremely hard in the back of my skull near the base, knocking me forward and strongly disorienting me. The other boys had also "snuck up" on me. I cursed at them extremely loudly and told them to get away from me. I then stumbled across 6 lanes of traffic to the other side of the street to get away. They did this all in view of many occupied cars, pedestrians, and in front of several businesses. And in broad daylight.

I called 911 at 5:19 pm and the call lasted 44 seconds. No one answered my call. I tried to call Alex Koppel to see if he could reach 911 but hung up as I got sent to voice mail. Then at 5:21 I called 911 again. This time, I got to a menu, where I was forced to listen, then press a selection to get connected. Then I was told over and over again that I should wait on the line in English and Spanish. There was no way for me to get through. During this time the boys were about to cross the street to come after me, at which time traffic blocked them and a man who saw me attacked came to my aid. They then ran off in the other direction. He too had tried to reach 911 after seeing them attack me and couln't get through. After 1 minute and 33 seconds, I hung up.

The man offered me a ride home, but first we went into a nearby business to attempt to determine if others had seen the attack. Then we drove around the area attempting to find the group of boys, as the man said he could identify them. He drove me home (about 12 blocks) and there, in my relatively safer neighborhood, there were two cops. One took down my information but did not fill out a report. He told me he'd call me if he discovered anything, and that he was aware that these "rat packs" of young boys existed.

I am infuriated that anyone would randomly attack anyone else. I was minding my business and even helped them by giving them the time when they asked. They were many and I was one, and snuck up on me and attacked without warning, verbal or otherwise. I have to think that in part the attack was racially motivated. I'm not sure, of course, but there is something wrong with a society that attacks people for random fun. I know that Oakland has one of the worst public school system records in the US. I wonder how education and drop out rates affects crime.

I am more infuriated that I couldn't get through to 911, and even more so that they didn't call back or send any help. I decided tonight that this is going to be one of my causes. While I was not hurt badly enough for this lack of response to really harm me, there must be many who are hurt worse and who don't get the help they need. 911 needs to not require a phone menu (particularly in English), and needs to connect immediately to an operator. If the call disconnects they need to call back, and send help to the location. I'm not 100% sure who is responsible for the operations of 911, but I will be in contact with them, local media, and politicians soon regarding this matter. If it wasn't for the man who helped me I could have been hurt far worse by this group of hooligans.

While I continue to ice and try to get rid of this headache, I am collecting my thoughts about the event and trying to determine how to best respond. I'd appreciate any information you might be able to provide that would assist me in helping to see the 911 system improved and to keep these bands of bored and violent teens off the streets.

Reducing sunburn irritation

I thought you might want to know my home remedy for treating a sunburn.
I put some Noxema on the burn, and it doesn't peel. It heals about 3
times faster this way than when doing nothing at all.

Concern about the ways in which corporations waste our time, energy, and money.

I have always believed that any corporation, with its fiduciary
obligations to shareholders, is going to have to both create or
dissemenate useful products, but will also have to control costs in ways
that are both ethical and unethical.

Many companies start out with the best of intentions in being ethical
about cost cutting, ordering cheaper staples, and reducing overhead,
finding more efficient ways to produce.

However, as shareholders get more and more anxious for earnings growth,
and there are fewer and fewer available technologies created, a lot of
companies go for the path of reducing customer service to the minimum
point as to be legally acceptable.

Today I was hit with three such events from different corporate entities.

First, I was trying to get my Roth IRA linked to my checking account at
Bank of America so that I wouldn't get charged their already exorbitant
$20 monthly fee. Actually, I did request, in writing that such a link be
made, back in April, when I opened the acocunts. However, their customer
service messed up and linked the Roth IRA to the wrong account, and thus
I got charged a service fee. After about 4 hours with customer service
on the phone since Sunday, I finally got the fee reversed. But now,
rather than correcting the mistake in a way that is amenable to me, the
investment services department insists that I go down to my local branch
to fill out a form they faxed there, wasting even more of my time. I
asked them if they could email me a pdf and I could email it back,
signed, as this would take less time, but no! Even though they have
email and this would clearly be the most efficient way to handle this
transaction, they insist on synchronous, rather than asynchronous
methods of doing bureaucracy. These are some of the main reasons I left
England, a charming place with wretched systems designed to suck you
into mediocrity.

Next, I went to get some groceries from Albertson's. Bananas were an
already fairly pricey $.79 per pound. The scale, by the produce section,
was clearly labelled "for estimation only." They should have labelled it
"for consumer exploitation only." My bananas weighed it at a reasonable
1.3 pounds. I get to the checkout, and they were 2.3 pounds! I pointed
this out to the clerk, who made a fake attempt to alert a store manager
to the scale. I was not impressed.

Finally, I've been expecting a replacement hard-drive from Hitachi, who
originally sold me a faulty drive. I got the 250 GB model in the hopes
that I would never have to fumble with CDs and DVDs of data again (or at
least for the near future). After months of ridiculous customer service
inquiries, including packaging requirements that could not be met with
purchased items in the greater San Francisco bay area (believe me, I
tried for 29 days to find the right foam rubber packing material and EDS
bags for shipment), today, DHL attempted to deliver the package. I was
home when they said they came to deliver it. They claim they need a
signature for delivery. Both Hitachi and DHL have my email address - why
couldn't they schedule delivery? Why didn't they actually give me an
option on the form to schedule redelivery? It seems, suspiciously, like
they have a broken system.

All these gripes bring me to my point. It seems that if a large business
can screw you, they will. Customer service used to be better - but
companies grew wise and realized that they could beat you down into
submission by making contacting them and getting resolution for problems
as difficult as possible, but still possible (with ridiculous
persistence and patience). In the case of the grocery store, there have
been many cases of people being overcharged $.10 or $.05 or even $.01,
particularly in large transactions where they will be unlikely to notice
it. I think that legal options need to be as vigilant for these
so-called "mistakes" as for bigger infractions. In the case of the bank,
if I open or close accounts too many times, it will affect my credit
score. I don't think that I should have to self-inflict a credit score
wound to switch to better customer service.
This to me provides a compelling argument that the credit bureaus are in
an alliance with banks, which surely must be some sort of Anti-Trust
violation.

Time will tell if consumers will demand more of their institutions. But,
I believe, that people are complacent, or if not complacent, overwhelmed
with the demands of the modern world to the point where they let these
little things go. It is to our collective long-term peril to do so, and
unless the legal environment supports it and openness to competition
exists in our culture, we too will sink into an awful customer
serviceless demise.

A discovery about kittens that bite.

> For those of you who have a kitten, you may have noticed that when
> they are teething, they enjoy chewing on you. They'll bite mercilessly
> at your ankles, fingers, and sometimes, even your face. I am pleased
> to report that I accidentally found a way to stop the biting. If I
> sing to the kitty without words, in a reasonably high pitch, the
> kitten calms down and purrs. I cannot determine why reacting this way
> would be selectively advantageous to kittens. It could be that they
> have been domesticated long enough that a selective sweep has favored
> kitties that calm down to human singing.
>

How to rescue classical music from a slow, painful decline: thoughts after watching the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition 2005.

Today I finished almost three weeks of watching the Van Cliburn competition. I have long been a critic of competitions, ever since stopping entering them myself in 1998 after about 50 moderate successes. As far as I'm concerned, juries reward the least offensive candidate almost without fail. This year's Cliburn was no exception. Alexander Kobrin of Russia won. Now don't get me wrong, he's a very good pianist. However, he doesn't seem to do much in the way of stirring one's emotions, or carrying you into his world. He is very much like Pollini in his early years, and is a virtuoso literalist. I can't see people getting excited about his playing in 50 years.

The real audience favorite, 19 year-old Joyce Yang, walked away with second. She has incredible charisma, good ensemble skills, and her Prokofiev Second Piano Concerto totally kicked butt (good job Joyce!). In fact, it was the best concerto performance in a competition final I've heard since Nakamatsu won playing Rachmaninov's Third in the 1997 Cliburn. However, it was not quite at the technically refined level of an Argerich, Zimerman, or the late Browning. Also, I think she just needs a little more time for her slow movements to mature. I think these two reasons are probably why the jury didn't give her a Gold Medal too. Time will tell whether she will be talked about as a pianist in 50 years. Probably not unless she takes even more risks than she did in this contest (to her credit, in addition to the rare Prokofiev Concerto #2, she played the French Overture of Bach wonderfully, and the Vine Piano Sonata #1, two works not heard that often!).

This brings me to my point. While there seem to be more and more pianists (40,000 new graduates in piano performance per year by Leon Fleisher's count), there seem to be very few emerging with either the personality or technique or risks of Horowitz, Kissin, Rubenstein, Glenn Gould, or even Argerich. They don't seem to be on the concert stage or in our CD libraries. Do they exist? Probably. Then why don't we see them? Let me hypothesize a few reasons.

1) There are already so many concert pianists from yesteryear, already filling all the series and orchestral events and CD cases, that there are very, very few spots available except for the odd prodigy (Lang Lang and Helen Huang being good examples), the extremely well-connected (Jonathan Biss and Stewart Goodyear had a fair amount of help from Fleisher, their teacher), and mostly the competition medalists.

2) If, as I mentioned before, my theory about competitions selecting the least offensive pianist is correct, then it would make sense that the truly revolutionary musician, the risk taker, the exciting player, the one with new and interesting repertoire, or old rediscovered repertoire will not win. There were a few of these interesting types in the Cliburn, like Soyeon Lee (who I competed against in the 1995 Kingsville Contest, and was impressed with her there too) and Maria Mazo. I hope they push forward.

3) If these "non-offensive" pianists win (and worse, if a connected contested wins because their teacher or teachers' friend is on the jury), and get these performance slots for a few seasons, they usually don't really get reengaged, or they are replaced by new winners. This means that most of the available new slots for pianists don't retain career-long musicians.

4) One of the reasons the audiences are shrinking, and not growing, is that ticket prices are too high for most people.

5) Another reason is that most classical music comes across to an untrained audience as boring, and even more so when non-offensive players are all they hear. A lot of classical music comes across as boring to even the trained audience. It is really true that modern music in pop, rock, and other genres is often catchier than classical music, and sometimes, just as ingenius and artful in its construction. Classical piano is losing out on the popular ranking scale because it is not adapting to the modern music landscape.

6) Any musician can post their music on the internet, and in classical, the number of pieces not available for free download is quickly dwindling. This further reduces the likelihood that these artists will get concerts that pay, because why would you want to pay to see them if you can see and hear them on in the comfort of your home for free?

7) The top pianists charge astronomical amounts of money to teach aspiring pianists, and if they don't charge a lot, very often they are nearly impossible to track down or to get face time with. I had to fight tooth and nail to get the training I did, and that was with a lot of persistence and a sponsor helping me to afford the lessons. I can't imagine trying to get one's foot in the door without incredible backing these days.

So what can be done to rescue classical piano and classical music from its slow and painful demise? I have a few ideas.

1) Aspiring classical musicians need to take risks, transcribe literature, compose in tonal mediums, and record and distribute their efforts widely over the internet. There will always be a certain number of people who will want to engage the best virtuosi and talents for concerts, and there will always be a listener base for good performance that is memorable. Perhaps pianist can put a few of their best recordings on iTunes so they can make a bit of money for their efforts. If you are going to record an old war horse, at least contemplate whether your recording offers anything new or spectacular before flooding the market with the 97th Rachmaninov Sonata in bb minor (1931). These risk-taking performers should negotiate performance contracts at reasonable prices to promote classical music, and the concert halls should offer better deal rates for concert hall rental for charitable promotion of music. I'm aware this will cause some financial constraints, but ultimately at stake is whether live music of good quality will really get heard or not.

2) The teachers (who in turn, become the juries in competitions) need to discourage competitions for their students (even if being on juries nets them a lot of money, and the money for the contestants helps them live a few years longer in this business), and instead of treating their lessons as proprietary, offer video masterclasses to be archived free on the internet. This will allow the pianist of tomorrow to learn as much as they want from the great teachers over the internet, and will ensure that financial constraints do not discourage the talented into submission. If the teacher is worried about their own financial solvency, maybe they should move from New York to somewhere cheaper, or invest widely on the side, or realize that if they really love music and want it to perpetuate, that they need to stop guarding its secrets. I also wish that good teachers and pianists would make their fingerings available at their retirement or death, as this is a huge time-suck for most pianists, and an efficient distribution method for fingerings would push technical prowess forward (I'm comtemplating a digial sheet music format for the piano that would allow real-time fingering choices, etc etc).

3) I know that these two steps will certainly raise the competitive bar for classical musicians. It will make it harder for pianists to stand out and harder for teachers to be judged as good. This is going to happen over time anyways, I'm just suggesting that we speed it up a bit. By speeding up the democratization of classical and classical-related performance, we just might have a chance at not only retaining existing audiences, but gaining new listeners we never thought would be possible. I have always tried to drag a few anti-classical music individuals to my concerts in the hopes of converting them. They have always been surprised, provided I put together an interesting program. Without new listeners, the field will die and the technical standards will diminish over time. Most importantly, without reinventing the classical music concert, and making it more memorable and interesting, and making its format more accessible, with more information, more impressive performances, and more artistic nuance, you won't likely retain today's attention-challenged individuals.

4) People love competitions. The idea of winners captivates. The thrill of victory and agony of defeat extends its wings into music too. But let us not only allow the conservative juries and perveyors of historical monographs determine who we can listen to. Why not create a new type of online competition in aspiring musicians post their recordings, and in-which the jury gets 50% of the vote, and the listeners get 50% of the vote, and anyone can listen at any time to the archived performances. This way we can save some of the need for authenticity (whatever that means) and still get musicians that thrill the audience. I would vote the audience and the jury should not know the name or details or race of the contestant until the contest is over. While this may eliminate the visual component, it will remove nationalist boundaries and implicit stereotypes. While the International E-Competition is a step in the right direction, it doesn't fully embody today's technology.

I want classical music to succeed. That is why I've put a lot of my own "risk-taking" recordings up for free on Download.com and why I've written this plea. We as classical musicians need to organize to make it work to overcome the challenges and technologies of this new century. There is a lot of wonderful music in today's world, but also a lot of wonderful music from long ago that we can bring to all at mercilessly high standards for free over the Internet. We cannot stop stressing the importance of art and music. Van Cliburn gave a wonderful speech today in which he stressed that music and art can give us the faith to believe. He is absolutely right, but right now, classical performance needs a little boost so that it can continue to elicit that faith.