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Eloise Ristad
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by
Lorin Hollander, concert pianist
Eloise Ristad deals here with complex problems which torment and cripple
so many of our most creative and talented people, and she does so with
compassion, wisdom, and wit. The problem of stage fright, for instance,
is a suffering of epidemic proportions in our society, and involves modalities
of thought and projections that rob spontaneity and enthusiasm in artistic
performance.
Those interested in creative education have long felt that an entirely
new, holistic and nurturing process of allowing individuals to discover
and express themselves is needed if our educational system is to avoid
the neuroses and creative blocks of the past generation. This book illuminates
through its conversational style the destructive inhibitions, fears, and
guilt experienced by all of us as we fail to break through to creativity.
This story is told to me day after day in conservatories and college campuses
around the world. Indeed I felt at times that she was telling of my own
most petty and debilitating fears.
But what is important, A Soprano on Her Head supplies answers and methods
for overcoming these universal psychological blocks--methods that have
not only been proven in her own studio, but which trace back through history
to the oldest and wisest systems of understanding the integration of mind
and body. The work bears scrutiny both scientifically and holistically.
This is a wonderful book. Read it. You are not alone.
EXCERPT:
Eric Jacobson, a talented high school student who had recently won a national
award in composition, was working on a set of pieces for woodwind quintet
while studying with me. Five of the pieces had almost written themselves,
with Eric coasting on the ego boost from his recent award. Not over-endowed
with patience, he struggled for a couple of weeks trying to manufacture
clever ideas for the last two pieces. He came in discouraged and tired
of his unproductive efforts.
We talked a bit about the qualities of each of the first five pieces he
had already written. One was frantic, one was playful, and so on. Together
we brainstormed a list of adjectives that might stimulate ideas for the
remaining two. It was great fun, but did not spark his composing skills
the following week.
Eric was unwilling to settle for five pieces in the suite and go on to
a new project, so something needed to happen to end the deadlock. This
was near the time that I discovered the value of visualizing in my skiing,
and I had an inspiration. Why limit this to skiing? Why not apply it to
composing?
"Close your eyes," I told Eric. "Put yourself in a concert hall and imagine
that your set of pieces is being performed.
Together we created imaginary details about the musicians in his woodwind
quintet--a freckled bassoonist with red hair, an oversized oboist who
made the oboe look like a toy, an undersized flutist with blond hair piled
on top of her head, a box-shouldered horn player with a lavender tie,
and a fastidious-looking clarinetist. Eric chuckled as he watched his
characters walk onstage and heard them play the pieces he had already
composed.
"Hang on," I said. "The clarinetist is checking his reed and the horn
player is dumping the moisture out of his horn. Okay, they're all set,
ready to start number six. Are you ready?" Number six, of course, was
not yet composed.
Eric listened intently, then opened his eyes and grabbed a pencil. "Unbelievable!
I could really hear them playing it. What a great piece!" He scribbled
down some quick ideas, then went back to his imaginary concert hall to
see if his quintet would produce a finale to his suite. They obliged,
and he grabbed his pencil again.
I was as excited as Eric--perhaps even more so--because the implications
of what had happened were far-reaching. When I visualized a ski turn,
I also felt the turn in my whole body. The term "visualize" is inadequate,
of course, because it implies only seeing, while the sense of actual muscular
impulses was stronger and more important than my visual image. When Eric
visualized his quintet, his imaging again involved more than sight; in
this case the sense of hearing was the key factor. While my image of the
ski turn produced muscular sensations, his image of his quintet produced
auditory sensations. In either case, we could follow the image with action.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction
Meet the Soprano
The Book of Judges
Shall We Dance?
Inner Clowns
"Sure, I Had Lessons"
Someone Bumped the Checkerboard
Journey With a View
None of the Old Words Seem to Work
Meadowlarks, Minds, Muscles, and Music
Drink Your Milk; Don't Drink Your Milk
Maybe I Should Just Keep Bees!
Maybe I Like My Problems
Clammy Hands and Shaky Knees
"So You Were a Flop!"
"Who Me? Did I Play That?"
Soprano on Her Feet
Afterword
REVIEWS:
"Reading this book, rereading it, trying it out, living with it--these
are musts for every musician."
The American Music Teacher
"Eloise Ristad is a splendid musician and one of the best, and most successful,
teachers I've met. I predict that few will come away from her book unchanged.
Although she is writing specifically abut music, she is really writing
more generally about human beings who are involved in, and excited about,
learning something important to them."
Tony Kallet, Ph.D. psychology, musician, editor of OUTLOOK
"As a professional dancer and singer, it is indeed encouraging to see
these important concepts so clearly and passionately articulated. I was
particularly interested in the universal meaning and cross-disciplinary
application of concepts that are crucial to unlocking and freeing the
creative process--a wonderful guide for all of us, musicians as well as
non-musicians."
Paul Oertel, Nancy Spanier Dance Theatre
"This is a fascinating work. Eloise Ristad discusses the problems of nervousness
and/or nervous energy with a physiological understanding of human behavior
under stress, imaginative and original psychological insight, and just
plain good common sense. The valuable solutions she suggests for the problems
of musical performance can be applied just as readily to the vast gamut
of physical and intellectual actions and reactions any individual is confronted
with in daily living."
Samuel Sanders, Concert Pianist, professor, Juilliard School of Music
"This book turns traditional music teaching on its head. Control by letting
go--excellence by not trying--learning by simple awareness. The principles
are true; their expression lyrical, readable, and helpful."
Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Tennis
"It moves me deeply. I sang through it, I danced through it, I laughed
through it. It is the natural, universal way of growing and learning.
You said it all. It was like a rush of all I have done and felt and wanted
to do with my students--young and old. You have put sense into the years
of my teaching."
Mona Dayton, National Teacher of the Year, 1966, and professor emerita,
Long Island University
"There are many ingenious and useful ideas here for teachers, learners,
or makers of music."
John Holt, author of How Children Fail, How Children Learn, and other
books about learning and education
"Required reading for all my students at the New England Conservatory
of Music."
Charles Schlueter, First Trumpet, Boston Symphony
"Eloise Ristad's alternative teaching methods have given me deep insights
into some of my long-standing playing 'problems' that traditional methods
have failed to touch."
Patricia Zurlo, Bassoonist
"Aside from enjoying
and savoring each chapter, I'm awed and excited by the many ideas in this
book."
Angeline Schmid, Piano and Pedagogy professor at Mansfield State College,
Pennsylvania
"In A Soprano On Her Head, Eloise Ristad displays an extraordinary knowledge
and insight into the myriad problems that beset all performers. With virtuoso
style, she offers practical advice for overcoming those problems--ideas
that are at once profound in their effect, yet often so simple and obvious
that they are overlooked. She illuminates alternative ways of coping that
are truly stunning in their effectiveness, yet entertains us with a humorous,
anecdotal writing style that makes the books difficult to put down."
Endre Balogh, Concert Violinist
"A wonderful book--absolutely infectious. When I wasn't laughing aloud
or dancing, I found myself nodding enthusiastically in agreement with
every page. Astounding things are happening in my studio."
Mary Jane Cope, Lecturer in Piano, U.C. Santa Cruz
"This summer I gladly traveled 2,000 miles to attend one of Eloise's workshops.
Speaking as a Juilliard-trained performer, if her class had been available
to us, it would have been the school's most useful and popular class,
for Eloise works in the 'foxholes' of performance."
Ronald Thompson, Trumpet, Skellig Brass Quartet
"I quickly got caught
up in this book, and felt deeply unhappy that I had not read it a half-century
ago. I was born a little too early, for had I studied with Eloise, I would
not sit down and assault defenseless Johann Sebastian for an hour, but
converse with him. I would not work on those French Suites--jaws clamped
together, deadly afraid of the verdict of those invisible critics hidden
in the woodwork, sneering, I would relax a bit, enjoy it, and no doubt
play better.
Before I read this book I presumed I had to play on a piano or perhaps
play the piano. Now I am beginning to see that pianos and other such devices
literally ask to be played with. I wish this book a huge readership."
Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing and The Awakened Eye
"Eloise has written a book which embodies so much of my basic philosophy
of teaching that it is required reading for my piano and pedagogy students.
She inspired me to explore further steps I hadn't considered, and I recommend
it highly at teachers' workshops."
Ruth S. Edwards, Head of Piano, Department of Music, University of New
Mexico
"Eloise's work was a major turning point for me--getting me through the
barrier of fear which was keeping me from having a performing career.
This approach is as valuable to the student as it is to the performing
artist."
Val Underwood, Concert Pianist
"Reading this book was like being in a delicately-designed laboratory
of my own human potential. I found myself expanding my images of my possibilities.
I found both my left and right brain becoming excited. I understood more
about me and felt a new sense of opportunity regarding the body, mind,
feeling, and soul. To think of what I have, made me feel rich. I heard
music. I felt poetry. I expanded my knowledge of my anatomy. I give these
personal reactions because I think that is what this book is all about."
Virginia Satir, author of many books about family therapy and becoming
more human
AUTHOR'S COMMENTS:
The nontraditional
workshops that I lead for musicians usually start with body movement warm-ups
that are designed to encourage spontaneity. The effect is both exhilarating
and exhausting. After one such warm-up all eight of us in that particular
group stretched out on the floor, sensing our bodies, our breath, and
then our voices, until we found the most comfortable tones we could produce.
As we let the tones change and followed the changes with body movement,
Liz, our soprano, ended up on her knees with her head upside down on the
floor.
Effortlessly, and without thinking how--for who could have told her how
to sing on her head--she found all the resonance she had been struggling
for, with the added bonus of incredible dynamic control. The rest of us
had goose bumps and shivers as we listened to her voice fade in and out.
Someone went to the piano and started the Mozart aria that Liz had been
singing earlier, just to see if standing on her head would work as well
for Mozart as it had with random tones. It did, and our goose bumps got
bumpier.
"I love it, I love it! It feels wonderful!" said Liz as she sat up and
let the blood run back where it belonged. . . .
I put my hands on her lower back and asked her simply to be aware of how
my hands felt. I asked her to follow the vibrations of her voice around
the room, to sense the space between the front of her chest and the back
of her spine, to dance the music with her arms as she sang. Each experiment
opened up the sound still more by taking her mind off the conscientiousness
that ordinarily got in her way. "Liz, if you could sing the way you want,
how would you sing? Can you act out what you want, even though the sound
might not be right?" She hesitated for an instant, wondering if she would
get the sound her new voice instructor in California wanted.
But Liz knew what she was after, and something suddenly clicked. "Suddenly"
again. But it was suddenly and I refuse to qualify it this time. She was
thirty-five years old, and she had been behaving like an eighteen-year-old
going to the "singing master," pathetically eager for his approval. With
a new gleam in her eye, she pulled out the famous aria from "Carmen" and
opened it on the piano for her accompanist. Her eyes turned darker, and
we could almost see a costume change as she became Carmen. She was running
a fever that day, and should have been in bed, but she sang right through
the fever and the weakness and her usual stage-fright clutch. She sang
as she wanted to sing, as she longed to sing, as she was meant to sing.
She didn't worry about expectations. She didn't try to sing. She just
sang. No head-standing nonsense today, thank you. I'll take mine standing
up. And striding around the room. And singing from the heart, and who
cares about ribs and diaphragms and resonating chambers and diction! I've
got a voice and I know it and I'm delighted and I can show the whole world.
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