Thoughts Beyond the Ink is an Art Beyond the Ink blog about the arts, education, and the adventures of two women entrepreneurs.
PROJECT ROLES
Writer
I write posts and create content for the blog, including interviewing artists for features and producing a podcast series.
Designer
I design the web page and layout for each blog, the post thumbnails, and any other graphics used.
Manager
I plan and organize the content that goes out each month, coordinate with artists for features, and share these posts on social media and through the Art Beyond the Ink newsletter.
Blog Post Samples
How Pushing Myself Out of My Comfort Zone Made Me Realize I Was Never Comfortable In the First Place
In my sophomore year of college, I joined The New School’s Krymov Lab – a multidisciplinary theater program run by Dmitry (Dima) Krymov, a well-known Russian theater director and artist. Students from the drama school paired up with music and art students to make a co-created theater piece. Before this experience, I had only participated in theater through musicals and opera pit orchestras. I assumed this program was going to be similar: someone would give me music and I’d play it while the actors performed and the artists made the set, props and costumes. That wasn’t what happened at all. Here is how Dima’s process worked:
In order for him to teach us his way of thinking, he had us create etudes, or micro theater works. The class was split into groups, and we had 20 minutes to create something – anything – based on a word he shared with us at the start. Some of those words were: ant, man, blue, dream. Then, we would perform these etudes for each other and Dima.
I was shocked and stressed when I heard for the first time that we would only have 20 minutes to create something. In the classical music field, we were given our parts in advance with the expectation to arrive at rehearsals with the music learned, listened to, and studied. How were a group of musicians, actors, and artists going to create something in 20 minutes and perform it for everyone? The thought made me very uncomfortable, and I regretted joining the program immediately. After the first etude, my perception quickly changed, with an incredible rush of creativity and imagination and collaboration. The output from each group after just 20 minutes was inspiring. Throughout the program, I acted, danced, posed, played music, and even used my flute as a prop. Never had I done something so out of my comfort zone and which I loved so much.
It seemed strange to me to go back to my classical music classes after that. I couldn’t find that creative spark of collaborating with other artists across disciplines to tell a story. Where were the stories we were telling in my chamber music rehearsal? In my music theory class? In my private lessons?
It was after the Krymov Lab ended that I ached for that creative spark again; now that I had found it, I felt its missing gap. I enrolled in the Master’s in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship dual-degree program soon after to see if I could create this spark myself, through my own project. From there, Emmalie and I developed Art Beyond the Ink, which ignites the spark with every email I send, every workshop I teach, and every piece of music I write stories for. I feel so lucky to have found this source of creative energy and built it for myself. Sophomore-Rebecca would have been confused, uncomfortable, and maybe even scared of the idea of running a musical storytelling organization. But, that’s only because she didn’t realize that she hadn’t found her purpose just yet.
Setting the Trap: Listening for Mouse-Filled Stories
To tell you how we developed the story for Mouse Trap inspired by Katie Jenkin’s flute and piano duo, Constructions, we are going to start at the end – of the music that is. What we usually do for most musical stories is write multiple ideas for the first ten to fifteen seconds of the opening melody; however, for this musical story the ending was possibly more important than the beginning. This exciting, energetic duo ended with what I can only describe as this emoji face: 😑.
A mysterious and tiptoeing dialogue between the flute and piano comes to a close with a short, low chord, leaving the story with either a lasting question mark or a silly punchline of a joke. This ending would greatly impact the beginning of our story because now we know that whatever happens at the start must not be too serious to end on such a flippant finale. We then returned to the opening and made our list of story ideas, keeping the ending at the forefront of our mind.
The flute melody sounded a bit frantic with the high register of both instruments and the accented, staccato articulation. There was also a bit of uncertainty – something had happened, but it wasn’t anything major just yet. Could it be someone who had lost their keys? Their wallet? Their wedding band? Or maybe…our main character saw something in their home that didn’t belong there. A mouse perhaps?
As we kept listening, we held on to the image of a pesky mouse scurrying around the floor of our main character’s kitchen.
The uncertain melody begins to build until a strong piano chord launches the music into a panic with a louder, more aggressive flute melody, which the piano responds to with low, banging chords. The mouse has definitely been spotted, and the main character is terrified!
It would only be fair to share my personal bias in crafting this musical story: I, too like our main character, have an irrational fear of creepy crawlers, especially bugs. After getting home from work one night, I entered my apartment to find a roach on my living room floor. After staring at it crying, I called my husband (then-boyfriend) asking him what I should do. His response was perfectly calm, “Just kill it.” What he didn’t understand was that the thought of touching something (like a shoe, for example) that was simultaneously touching the bug was enough for me to start sobbing again. Then, my doorbell rang – I had ordered food delivery. I ran to the door, while of course keeping an eye on the bug. I was not excited to eat, but rather thrilled that there was another human who could come kill this bug for me. I answered the door, explained the situation, and begged him to come inside my apartment to help me. He reluctantly agreed.
“Where is it?” he asked.
“Right there!” I exclaimed. How could he not see it? It’s huge, I thought.
“This?” he asked incredulously. He bent down, picked it up and showed me not a bug, but a fuzz. Just a dark blue fuzz from the rug that had wandered onto the wood floor. A fuzz.
We tell our students this all of the time: our personal experiences and backgrounds uniquely affect how we hear musical stories. You might hear something completely disconnected from your real life, like imaginary aliens that love to eat purple tofu. Or, a piece of music may put a mirror up to yourself, and the story you hear is your face looking back at you. For Mouse Trap, it’s pretty obvious how this one went…
What do you think happens to the mouse in our story? Listen to the end of the piece again and put in your guesses. Then, go watch the film to see what we heard.
The Magic of the Little Things
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the little everyday to-do’s and mishaps and failures. Emails need to be sent, workshops need to be scheduled, money needs to be raised, curriculum needs to be written (at least, that’s what my day-to-day looks like). While I usually enjoy these little things, I am, of course, prone to the frustration and annoyance that comes with them. That’s why it’s really important to step back from our inboxes, or that Slack channel, or the never-ending Zoom meetings and see that what we are doing has purpose and meaning. Sometimes you have to make yourself do it intentionally. And sometimes, it comes to you without even trying.
This happened to me recently at a musical storytelling workshop. I hadn’t taught in-person in over a year, and I felt invigorated. We showed one of our short films, Unbreakable, during the class to demonstrate how far you can take a musical story. I hadn’t watched the full film in awhile. Standing at the back of the room, I studied the students’ faces as they watched. I found fault with many elements of the film – that transition is bad; why didn’t I add an animation there?; that part of the story should have been clearer.
What did the film look like in their eyes?
Once it finished, we asked for feedback and initial reactions. One student raised her hand and shared how much she connected with the narrative and main character. She described the film insightfully, with the exact meaning we intended. The workshop continued with the students making their own musical stories through stop motion animation. She excitedly presented her work, inspired by the film and what we learned earlier on. What she didn’t realize was that this moment pulled me far away from the classroom we were in, from the unanswered emails sitting in my inbox, and from the tax returns needing to be started (yikes…). I was forced to step back and see that all of those little things are worth every late night and early morning. They all incrementally lead to moments like this – the ones I get to witness and those that I don’t.
As the end of the year quickly approaches, force yourself to step back far away from all the little things that make you scream with frustration. Know that each one is leading you to something magical. Because, after all, you are taking an idea, created by neurological electrical signals firing off in your beautiful brain and making it happen. And that’s simply magical.