self-reliance

Did you read Emerson in school? You probably remember at least the title of that essay, I'll bet. It's right up there with the Boston Tea Party, the New York Yankees, and Rosie the Riveter in the twentieth-floor penthouse of the American Psyche.

Quick, what action movie am I describing?

The Lone Hero struggles against the odds. He knows he's doing the right thing, but somehow no one Believes In Him. He's got to Go It Alone. The enemy is bigger, stronger, and better equipped. Everyone tells him he's Making a Terrible Mistake. But he Soldiers On, eventually saving the world.

Oh, wait...that's pretty much...all of them.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, both as it pertains to my job and in general. My image of learning to be a musician involves hours upon hours shut up alone in a little room, practicing. My students see it differently. They practice in groups: instead of going into the practice rooms, they sit out in the hallway together, each practicing his/her own music, but all listening to each other with at least half an ear and helping out from time to time. When one person is having rhythmic trouble, the others will clap the beat and be his (thinking of a particular student) metronome. They share music too, and all of them spend at least as much time practicing each other's solos as they do their own. But when the time comes to perform (as in juries, which I'll be hearing today), they're terrified to stand up in front of the room alone.

In American music schools, you find almost the exact opposite. Practicing is private, almost ascetic. You don't open the door. You don't practice in the hallway (if all of the practice rooms are full, you wait). You don't practice with your friends (a practice room with more than one person in it? looks like screwing around instead of working to me!). But when you perform--you're the diva, you're the prima donna, you're the Lone Hero Fighting Against The Odds.

Who's to say which is right? American students have bigger egos, and probably practice more efficiently (based on what I've seen my students do). They're more comfortable with performing as soloists. But Thai students understand the value of cooperation. They Play Well With Others. Chamber music (in which you've got to look at your collaborators more than you look at your music, and play so as to match what you hear from them, even if it seems to contradict what you see on the page) seems to come more easily and naturally to them.

Seeing the way they interact makes me realize just how American I am--I would NEVER have lent my clarinet/mouthpiece/ligature/reeds/music to another student; they do it routinely. I would NEVER have shown up to a lesson with someone else's music.

• "This is not yours. Where is your music?"
• *smile and shrug*
• "Whose book is this?"
• "This Dae. I borrow him."
• "OK, where is yours?"
• "Toon borrow me. Then Moo borrow him."

I write in their music. I write comments that are specific to them; more than once I've had a student come in with someone else's music and try to adhere to someone else's markings.

• "Why are you playing so loud there?"
• *points to music, where I've scribbled something*
• "But this is not your book. Do was playing too softly there, so I told him to play louder. But you don't have that problem, so you don't do it."

This sort of thing still surprises me; I still find it foreign.

But, as usual, I've digressed far, far from what I originally wanted to tell you about Self-Reliance. With all my characteristic wit, grace, and total lack of transition and flow, I'm just going to lay it down now.

Back in July I met Chen Yi. (Loyal readers will remember this, I think.) In the course of our conversation with her and her Thai grad student, we asked Narong (her student) how he likes living in Kansas City (where she teaches). He doesn't have a car, and we expressed surprise that he was able to get around without too much trouble--having lived in Tucson, we understand what a city without good public transport is like. Narong said that he just asks his friends to take him where he needs to go. He said that he was sure we'd do the same in his situation. Then he grinned (he's Thai, and so of course he punctuates every sentence with a grin).

Dr. Chen looked at her star graduate student and said to him, in the mother-henniest, don't-you-know-anything-about-the-worldiest voice I've ever heard, "But they're Americans! They don't ask for help."