Fabiola Wrap-up

The contest and its aftermath have more or less reached their conclusion. After a few weeks of silence, waiting for things fall into place, I'll tell you the story.

It turns out that I was the one with the most judge's points at the end of the two days of finals. Now, I could have lost the contest by playing poorly, and I could have lost it by not distinguishing myself enough from the other candidates and getting muddled in the mix. But I didn't. I was the jury's choice, the people's choice, and even the evening news reported me as the expected winner. But when the awards were announced, I was ranked 4th. The music committee did an after-the-fact evaluation of that scoring algorithm and determined that it produced illegitimate results. Unfortunately, it was too late to do much at that point. Give me the Al Gore Presidential Medal of Honor – I lost it in the counting.

Of Mice and Men -or- It seemed like a good idea at the time:

I'll try to explain the problem with the scoring system as best I understand it.

Objectivity was the buzzword around this competition. There would be no undue influence, there would be no strong-arming in jury discussions, there wouldn't even be jury discussions, there would only be points and averages. To go even further, a special point averaging system was put into play to prevent any judge from influencing the final averages by giving extreme point totals. If a judge gave a grade which differed from the average grade by more than 10 (out of 100) points, their grade was eliminated from the final average. The intention was that this would keep any judge from trying to singlehandedly eliminate a candidate by giving a 0, or singlehandedly promote a candidate by giving a 100. But it did a whole lot more.

Notice some strange side effects. In the Olympics, everybody loses their highest and lowest score. In this system, I might lose only my highest, while my opponent might lose only her lowest. That means even if we have similar averages to begin with, they can be skewed apart by the point system.

Here's how bad it gets. Even if every judge gives candidate A higher points than candidate B, there's no guarantee that A will win. The system can overturn a unanimous jury. Check it out:

Candidate Boo's Scores: 60, 71, 80 (average = 70.33)
Candidate Yay's Scores: 74, 75, 95 (average = 81.33)

Each judge's higher score is boldfaced. Notice that all three judges give better scores to Yay. But since Boo's lowest score is eliminated, and Yay's highest score is eliminated, the final averages are:

Boo: 75.5
Yay: 74.5

Boo, wins in spite of every judge prefering Yay. (For simplicity, the effect is shown for 3 judges. Its also possible with 6 judges, as was the case with the competition)

This is just one example, but it turns out that the skewing follows this pattern in systematic and predictable ways:

Remember that (especially in an international jury) some judges will tend to judge more generously (80 is bad, 100 is good), than others (70 is bad, 90 is good). The most generous judge is likely to have his grades eliminated when he is pleased (high-generous looks extreme, low-generous looks average), while the strictest judge is more likely to have his grades eliminated when he is displeased (low-strict looks extreme, high-strict looks average). THIS MEANS THE BEST PERFORMERS WILL USUALLY HAVE THEIR MOST GENEROUS GRADES ELIMINATED, WHEREAS THE WORST PERFORMERS WILL USUALLY HAVE THEIR MOST STRICT GRADES ELIMINATED. Poor performers get a boost, good performers are handicapped. And the magnitude of those boosts and handicaps can easily overwhelm whatever original differences there were in the averages.

The event unfolds:

I drew lots for playing order with the rest of the candidates on Wednesday, the first day of the competition.

Over the next 2 days, we each got 20 minutes, 3 pieces, to try to prove our way into the finals. Most of us listened together from the terrace of a cafe below. We were all pretty friendly in spite of the stakes.

When the 5 finalists were announced, I was among them.

The finals went for 2 nights. I played some of my best playing on Saturday, the first night of the finals. Nobody could touch me. The second night (Sunday) everybody rallied and I was a bit less on top of my game. I did fine, and some people still thought I was the best, but most said that we were all about even that night.

When the awards ceremony finally began, several influential carillon teachers made their way towards the area where I was standing. I asked one if that was a good sign. He said that it ought to be.

But the final awards ceremony read like a random number generator. At the time, we didn't understand why. We didn't know anything about the scoring system. The crowd fell silent when my name was announced prematurely. I watched the news footage of the event and they showed the applause after the winner was announced. People were clapping, but they didn't look happy.

Over the next two weeks, things gradually surfaced. In the beginning I figured I just screwed myself by not playing at my top level the last night. But a day or two later I found out that the music committee did an analysis of the judges' points, and that by several reasonable and standard scoring systems, I would have been the winner. Most points. Most judges giving me the top ranking. Etc.

There was a question of whether anything could be done. And I wouldn't have been the only one to benefit from a revision of the results. The first place winner was taking a lot of heat and criticism from this contest. A lot of people were saying he didn't belong in the finals, his playing was awful, etc. They were exaggerating out of anger at the results, but it wasn't doing him much good anyways. A legitimate final ranking would've helped him out just as much, perhaps even more than me.

The music committee issued an apology to me, and I told them that they hadn't really done anything wrong – none of us could have seen this coming. In all fairness, the scoring system works when judges have the same standards for grading, and its still being used in many Belgian conservatories.

A couple weeks later I found out that the music committee was planning on publishing an article in every major carillon publication explaining what went wrong and giving the final rankings as they would have been under a normal scoring algorithm. They couldn't risk the bad publicity of a public overturn, but at least the carillon community would know. That was nice to hear. But when the letter came out, there were no rankings listed, and if you were skimming the article, you probably wouldn't even catch that the results indeed had been illegitimate.

I don't know if I would have been satisfied had they published the results as they would've been. Probably more satisfied. A lot of what I wanted was to be able to say without complication, I won this thing. And some of what I wanted was to have the glory that night. To get the trophy, to shake all the hands, to be interviewed on the news, to be able to receive full compliments unmarred by awkward condolences, to be on top of the world that evening.

Still, I can't complain too much. People who were there knew what happened, and reputation is worth more than a trophy.

It was in the midst of the competition that my playing made a big leap forward. And the process showed me that I could do things I wouldn't have expected. I reached a new level in my musicianship simply by giving the performance I did on Saturday and thereby realizing that I could work at that level.

And on some level, while it would have been nice to get the first place prize, there's a certain reality that comes through in this version. I still have room to grow, up to go and I still ought to stick around and figure out how to be able to play all my performances at Saturday's level. The fact that nobody managed to play better than me is in some sense unimportant compared to recognizing where I came out on the scale of my own potential. So the result has some good in it -- not to denigrate my performance – just as a reminder to keep going.

Its also a reminder of the fact that people do get screwed by bad mathematical reasoning working its way into the systems that we use to make group decisions – in bigger and more systematic ways than in this contest. And I might be someone who can help do something about that.

I've moved on at this point. I had figured that after this competition I'd return to some sort of office setting, but I've already gotten two extensions on the carillon adventure – a gig at a renaissance fair in Texas (www.castinbronze.com), and then a Christmas gig on the west coast. So music is going to keep me fully occupied for at least a bit more.

Here's a news clip of the event. You'll hear my name mentioned as the favorite to win (Jonathan Lehrer, whose subtle playing has won the hearts of the crowd), and you'll hear a short snippet of me on the tower. If you look closely when the winner is announed, you can see it all in the expressions of the crowd. A strange mood hung over the room as the crowd cleared out. Almost everybody came over to express their surprise and disappointment. The winner is a nice guy and he certainly didn't ask for these results -- he just showed up and played like the rest of us. So ended the 6th International Fabiola Contest.








While it would be a nice touch on the resume to have the official recognition,

-I, and my playing, have benefited loads from my participation.

-I've established my name on the European continent.

-I got an auxilliary prize for best interpretation of a Flemish work. Not bad for a foreigner.

-Because I got 2 prizes, I ended up taking home almost as much cash as I would've with just 1st place.

-Most importantly, I enjoyed this more than I ever thought I could. The waiting and the preparation were sometimes quite grueling, but overall I found myself very happy during this past week. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to participate in this event. The awards ceremony was an unfortunate ending, but it wasn't the important part.

Many thanks to all who have supported me and been there via phone, skype, or in spirit to help me through this contest.

I hope you've enjoyed following my time out here, and I look forward to seeing you soon!

PS Here's one of my pieces from the finals, recorded from within the tower.

In the Finals

A grueling 2-day preliminary round is over.
14 candidates from 7 countries have been narrowed down to 5 -- from US (1), Japan (1), Belgium (1), and Poland (2).
I am one of them.

Finals this weekend.

Fabiola

A LOT has happened in the last 2 months, but that will have to wait.
In 8 days the contest begins.

Here's what it will look like:

14 candidates have each submitted 9 virtuosic pieces equally divided amongst 3 stylistic categories (baroque-classical, romantic, and modern) , and have received one (the same) required piece early this summer.

Wednesday, September 10th: Lots are drawn for the playing order of the preliminary round
The first set of candidates each play the required piece for the contest, a piece of their choosing, and a piece of the jury's choosing

Thursday, September 11th: The remaining candidates play the required piece for the contest, a piece of their choosing, and a piece of the jury's choosing.


The top 5 candidates are selected to move forward.


Friday, September 12th: Shabbes!

Saturday September 13th: Havdallah. Plus, the finalists each play 3 works selected by the finals jury.
Sunday September 14th: The finalists each play the required piece and 2 additional works selected by the jury. Jury ranks finalists. Award ceremony follows.


Some of these pieces that I'm working hard on will never actually be used in the contest -- for example, I'm preparing 3 modern works, and one of them is my best piece. I'm guaranteed to play one of them and may get to play 2 of them if I make the finals, but I only have a 1/3 chance of playing that favorite. So it goes.

6 hours on the bench today. Another busy day tomorrow. I'm working hard now so I can have some down time right before the competition.

The preliminary round is going to be tough. There are many candidates this year who would've made it into the finals in the last competition. More than 5 of them, notably. So some folks are going to get squeezed out.

The finals are supposed to be the fun rounds, with 2 nights of concerts for a huge audience, potentially including the Queen herself.

8 days and counting.

Thoughts, prayers, and warm wishes will be gratefully accepted :)

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Originally uploaded by jlehrer

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Originally uploaded by jlehrer

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Originally uploaded by jlehrer

Normal

(The following entry was written on July 16th, and is back-posted. Since I'm on the road, the pics for this entry are below)

At the end, that's what it was. Shockingly, beautifully, normal.



The contest receded into the distance as the week unfolded. First a free day, bicycling though countryside to a lake, which we paddled through, sometimes in vibrant sun, sometimes in pouring rain, always in good spirits. Then came days of visiting carillons, squeezing through strange stairs and crevices up ancient towers, having master classes in performance, interpretation of 17th century manuscripts, improvisation, or just taking the bells for a spin. There were 8-10 of us, and we usually broke into 2 groups, which let you pay and watch others play, but also wander the streets below.

There were late nights at the bar, or on couches in the common room, and discussion, sometimes probing deep into serious matters of bells, music, performance, study, development, artistry, and sometimes completely unrelated. Nights of balancing on a thin wobbly bed, days of wandering 16th century cobblestones amidst historic marketplaces, listening to the bells... stroopwafels, bitterballen, tea, and beer galore.

One particular action packed day had us in a tower in a nearby city, at-sight improvising off of old manuscripts; then in Middelburg, receiving master classes from the great Bernard Winsemius; then listening to his concert from the ground; then at a concert of the world's greatest forte-pianist, who played Beethoven on historical instruments. Very Inspiring.



Eventually there came the transition onwards. A day alone with Gideon Bodden in Amsterdam, capped with a satisfying concert I gave on the Munttoren - some of my best playing on that instrument, and perhaps on any instrument in a while. Then a train up north to Groningen for the first couple days of the World Carillon Congress.


Suddenly there were not 10 but several hundred carillonneurs, though mostly older, and many unfamiliar. There was still a good handful of Americans who had come out, and a handful of Europeans who I had met or studied with on this side of the ocean, and suddenly the continents were united, the two schools and two parts of my carillon journey juxtaposed. And there were more bells -- several concerts and lectures each day, with talk of styles and keyboard standards and artistic directions for the community over good food and drink. We took a trip to a nearby botanical garden and brought our own carillon with us -- one of two traveling carillons that were present for the festival. There was something incredibly gratifying about finally taking with me the music that I had for so long had to relocate myself to play, and I greatly enjoyed walking amidst the roses surrounded by the sounds of a tower that never was.



Back on the main square in Groningen, I sat down at the traveling carillon and plugged in -- for at this point the instrument has started to feel like a functional accessory to my body -- and played. The wind blew freely about and bystanders gathered, while others walked by amidst their errands. For the first time I played on the ground, in the open air, for all to see.



Being so entirely surrounded by peers for the past few weeks, I feel as though I have been gradually freed from the metaphorical tower -- the experience of isolation from a world which doesn't really understand or even know about this art which has become such a big part of my life. Now here I was, physically back on the ground with my instrument, the wind at my back, music under my hands, and the rest of the world not hundreds of feet below me, but an arms reach a way. What I did, what I do, became shockingly, beautifully, normal, if only for a bit.


In DC I drove 2 hours to get in front of a practice carillon. That evening, I jumped up between two courses on the terrace of a cafe with some colleagues and ran across the square to play for a few minutes on the second of the traveling carillons, this one the biggest in the world (60 bells, concert pitch). As we ate our food and talked about the direction of the American carillon community, the sounds of bells pealing over thrilling musical back-up tracks, (a sound check for the evening's performance) drifted by. Our walk to the restaurant was also accompanied by the sounds of the first traveling carillon drifting through the market.



The film Men in Black played with the notion of an entire self-contained universe that could fit in the palm of one's hand. As I listened to concerts and watched people walking by, and as I reflected on my time this past year and the depths still left to probe, I got the sense of being in an endlessly complex universe within a stunningly small container. The strange thing was, the external diameter made little difference; then and there, there was no feeling of constriction, only that I was swimming in something spacious and deep.



Its utterly remarkable what we do -- climbing towers across the world, gazing at the world from above, clanging metal together in such a way to create music for an entire city to hear; making sounds loved by some, despised, by others, and for many, only noted by some unconscious listener within whilst the rest of the mind is in a flurry. Going down, having a beer, and doing it all again. I know its unusual and somewhat exotic. But the remarkable feeling of that moment on the travelling carillon in the square was not the exoticism, but its juxtaposition with an overall sense that this, even if only for a few weeks, was easy, fun, and quite normal. Beautifully, shockingly, normal.

A long and victorious day

Take 2:

I won second place in the Dutch Guild Competition - That's pretty great! Especially after a good night's sleep. And its good to emerge with more determination, not just complacency.

A long and strange day

The title says it all

I was up at 7 -- bags packed -- left my apartment for 2 months of travel. Arrived in Middelburg and played a contest. My first solo musical contest. Ever.

Broke the carillon. Snapped two separate iron directed-tumblers in half.

Took 2nd place. Woot.

I maintain that the first place guy weakened those tumblers for me.

It was a strange victory. I had huge psych issues in the tower. Mini-blankouts, wandering mind, mistakes I'd never made before. I never really felt in control, and I finished believing that I had bombed... shown some good moments, perhaps, but not a coherent program. I got to listen to a recording. I did much better than I thought. But I think if I had had focus, I would've played better.

What was also strange, was the feeling of an identity crisis of sorts. There was mention of all the candidates losing musicality from time to time amidst all the notes in our virtuosic selections. And there was talk of other people getting good sound color and having impressively soft and intimate playing. In my carillon life I've never been a virtuoso at the expense of musicality, and I think its usually the soft and intimate playing that has given me an edge. But I think I let that slide whilst working on the virtuosic side this past year. I've bought into the contest attitude of powerful and impressive.
On the flip side, -- some judges said they would be impressed by soft and intimate, but Toru, #1, won on the basis of playing something really hard with lots of notes and pulling it off. Do I dare to do the opposite? I think I must.


I still don't have a good grip on how I played. I'm generally dissatisfied with the performance and the experience and generally satisfied with the award given the circumstances. In some ways I feel disoriented -- in terms of what to show next. Perhaps I've been holding too tight to advice and input -- perhaps now begins the phase of returning to my own voice. I look at my music for the Fabiola contest -- very little of it is in my own voice. Its other peoples' styles, other peoples' music. I'm really going to need to search these pieces to find what I can take ownership of in them.

The flip side to all of this musical existentialist floatings is that I am in a vibrant musical community. I just played a contest with over half a dozen great musicians. Who play my instrument! Already I feel the push of new ideas and new directions from listening to their music -- reminders of the sorts of sounds I want to create. And its only just beginning -- we have a week together, of study, performance, travel, socializing, and instruction from some of the finest teachers around.

I'll take the prize. Its a great achievement, and a great sign for how things might fall out this September. But it didn't feel like a winning performance to me. I can do better. I want to get on top of this mindgame stuff. I want to show more of what I do uniquely. I can use loud and fast to frame it, but loud and fast isn't the goal. I can't beat the loud-and-fast specialists at their own game, and I've got my own game that I can play much better.

If your Moroccan Aunt is Coming Round the Mountain, Clap your Hands

The sis and her dude were here for the past few days.


With them two on jet lag and me on sleep dep, we got along just fine. Lots of lounging, wandering and eating of local foods. And sadly, me running errands, practicing, preparing for comps, etc.

Over some frituur with Eddy and Ren, we ended up discussing cross-continental musical differences regarding the song, "If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands". The Belgians use a slightly different melody than the Americans. After some puzzling, my sister figured out that the Belgian IYHAYKICYH was a rhytmically-square version of "She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain".

The next day, I did some practicing on St Rombouts with sis&dude at the bottom tape recording. As a nod to the previous night, I ended the set with a rousing "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain".

What I didn't know is that during my time in the tower, a man had somehow gotten himself onto the roof of the Cathedral and was threatening to jump. The police had roped off the area and a crowd was standing by watching. Ignorant of all that was going on, I kept playing and soundtracked the scene with (for Belgian ears) "If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands".

I don't think the jumper had cause to clap his hands.

Was this an inappropriate tune to play?

As we later learned, She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain also has a Belgian equivalent to the same melody. Only the words are as follows: Ik heb een tante uit marokko en ze komt, hiep hoi -- I have an aunt from Morocco and she's coming.

The man who was threatening to jump? Moroccan.


The jury's still out on this one.



(PS No Moroccans were harmed in the production of the blog post)

June Wrap Up

Its one hour into July out here. I graduated less than a week ago. I just played my debut in the Mechelen summer series, the original carillon summer series that inspired them all. Tomorrow morning my sister arrives from the US, and when she leaves a few days later, so do I -- first to the Netherlands for bell camp, then to Israel, on a US concert tour, and a stopover at NHC. That will carry me deep into August. When I return to Belgium, I'll have a couple of weeks to prepare for the biggest musical competition I've ever contemplated entering, do what I can to get my klavier ready, pack up, and head out.

This feels like the moment of transition. BZH I will be back, but today is the day that I prepare to depart. And though the part of me that likes to be on top of things is bemoaning all these travels whilst my klavier lays undone and my competition repertoire yet unpolished... I think the rest of me is good and ready for a break.

The last blog entry was something of a finish-line snapshot, but I want to go back and take a look at the month leading up to it. A lot happened during that month, I think. Much of it was long hard hours, but there were some adventures to be had in the spaces between... And so I present: June Wrap Up -- a look at the more interesting bits and pieces of this past month.

Kunst in het Groot Begininhof - A great day of rest



I needed a day off. It was shabbes and it was day 1 of Kunst in de Groot Begininhof -- which means, Art in the Groot Begininhof.

Beginin's were like nuns who didn't have to take a vow of poverty, and it was a really popular lifestyle in Belgium back in the day. The Begininhof is where they all lived, something like an enclosed neighborhood within a city, with windy narrow cobblestone streets and pretty buildings. There are no Beginin's left, but their neighborhoods are always the most picturesque parts of town, and I happen to live right in the middle of the Begininhof in Mechelen.

So, every year they have this event -- Art in the Big Beginin-hood. They invite international artists, pair them up with begininhof residents, who let the artists transform their homes into a gallery for their art, then everybody comes and walks from house to house, seeing what there is to see. A lot of the beauty of the Begininhof is behind closed doors, in the little courtyards and walled off yards, so it was great to just waltz into people's houses, walk through their gardens and take it all in. The weather was beautiful, the neighborhood was gorgeous, and the art was inspiring. I took some guilty photos, since I needed to share at least some of it with you all. Check out the flickr section to see some of the sights:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59706944@N00/sets/72157605909878861/



Overnight in Brussels, followed by...:
A couple of weeks ago I went to the orientation luncheon for the Belgian students travelling to the US through the organization that placed me in Belgium. This was great to get to hear all of their different projects and get caught up in the excitement (and hassle, can anyone say student visas?) of the beginning of the trip. A friend had a party the night before so I stayed over in Brussels and made a day of it.


Toru and Kasia in Mechelen, Leuven, Gent - plus Shavuot
The day after the Brussels overnight, I got a visit from two other up-and-coming carillonneurs. I took them up the tower in Mechelen, then instead of prudently sleeping for our early wakeup to go to Gent, we wound up at a third up-and-coming carillonneur's graduation party in Leuven. We got home at around 3am, and woke up maybe around 8am to go to Gent. Did I mention I went into this sleep deprived from my klavier work? Did I mention the next night was Shavuot?
We didn't play our best in Gent the next day, but we got to walk around and take a boat tour through the city. Pics on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59706944@N00/sets/72157605905062930/


There was a certain swing-of-extremes to this period -- most of the week I was working day and night and speaking to nobody. Then for a couple days I was doing nothing but travel, and socialness.

Toru and Kasia ended up staying that night rather than heading back to Amersfoort that day, which is lucky, because it was Shavuot and had not found myself anyone to celebrate with. Renaat from downstairs joined us for beer, frites, and "teaching each other things", the first of which was "why are we teaching each other things and what's this whole Shavuot deal?" Toru and Kasia passed out at around 1am. I had had a nap and Renaat stayed up with me until about 3am. I figured I had made it this far and should go for the whole night. The whole night, at this latitude, is only till about 5am or so. So I went out for a long walk. Mechelen gets really quiet and deserted that late. When I went to sleep the world was just waking up, but I got up for real, the sun was about as bright as I've ever seen it here.


Antwerp Fill-in:
Geert was in the US and asked me to fill in for him on the carillon in Antwerp. I called an Antwerp friend on the way and talked her into ditching work for a bit to come up with me. She's on a fellowship as well, so she sold it as her needing to meet with another fellow.

When I got to Antwerp, I found out that there was a big protest over the minimum wage. The entire square below the tower was filled with people chanting and blowing airhorns. They even had a stage and a band playing on the stage. So, I gave a concert for two on the 350-year old historic instrument instrument of Antwerp, and played along with the band during the gaps.



Baroque Chamber Music:

Speaking of concerts, this one was really cool! One of the other students here on the BAEF fellowship is here to study Baroque violin. It took actually going to one of her concerts to get what its all about. Theres this really vivid baroque historical performance chamber music scene going on in Brussels, and they're great! Makes me want to start playing in small ensembles. I saw some great musicians playing lots of instruments that really aren't supposed to be played anymore. Traverso, gamba and harpsichord? Seen it.
Unfortunately I didn't take any video, so you'll have to take my word that it was cool. Another perk, was going out for drinks afterwards and not being "the person who plays the weird instrument that nobody has heard of". Just one of many "people" who do so.


Amersfoort Utrecht Niewegein, Amsterdam, Football shenanigans:
One weekend after the prior carillon adventure, I returned the visit and headed up north to the Netherlands to stay with Toru and Kasia. Toru happens to live across the street from some barnyard animals. I'm still not sure quite why.

I visited the carillon in Niewegein, a trip which involved striking tram workers, and a long cab ride out to the suburbs of Utrecht which started with the usual bargaining over the fare and ended with me being called "A Liar and a Thief" (I've since checked it out with my Dutch friends and bargaining for long cab rides is totally normal, even in the Netherlands. Apparently I just got a crazy cabbie). It was worth the trip though, because the carillon at Niewegein is played by the only other Jewish carillonneur in Europe, or so I'm told. Moshe Lewkowitz. Here he is playing bei mir bist du schoen on the carillon there:



The next day it was off to Utrecht proper, to visit the most famous of the large Hemony carillons in the Dom Tower. It was football season and the Dutch team had just defeated the second of the top two teams in the competition. They lost the next game to the Russians, but before that happened, spirits were high and all carillon players were required to play the Dutch fight song (Hup Holland Hup) under threat of popular mob violence. Here's Arie Abbenes doing his rendition, once again on bells that were around long before my country was even conceived:



Another perk of visiting during the good times of Dutch football was seeing great random displays of spirit, for example -- this boa-rollerblade parade (Not LGBT related at all, though admittedly quite fabulous):



After Utrecht, we stopped off in Amsterdam to visit Gideon (who also gave a rendition of Hup Holland Hup). At that point, over-imbibed and well-underslept, I decided to cancel the next morning's trip to the smaller carillon of Utrecht, and opted for a quiet day of practice at the Dutch school.




Brussels, Laren, Venlo, Mechelen
I began summer touring! This past week, amidst finals and graduation craziness, I've played 4 concerts. They're either right in my neighborhood, or a big 3-hour train journey away. Three hours is FAR in these countries, and I've forgotten how close that is in US terms. But I've gotten to see some nice towns. Venlo in particular, right on the Dutch-German border, was great. Lots of good street music and festivities. Apparently it was just an ordinary Saturday to them, but they had one of the best accordian-clarinet duos I've seen in a while.





Well, that's about it, or at least that's all I can remember. There were lots of other good things I'm sure, but that's what I get for postponing writing all of this down.

And now, you're moment of Zen: If football is the official sport of the Dutch, eating raw fish is the unofficial one. Here's Richard digging into one during a break from the klavier werkdag. I treat my helpers well - raw fish for everyone!

The Graduate

I am now a graduate, with great distinction, of the oldest and most prestigious carillon school in the world. Huzzah!

Some of the adventure leading up: I'd been working VERY hard at my practice carillon - 8hrs per day, with frequent overtime. But even that wasn't enough. In order to actually have something to show for my thesis work on the day of my defense, I needed to call in the reserves. The Saturday before my presentation, I had 4 carillon students come to the workshop to spend half a day helping with the building. Two came back to help the day before my final exam, performance, and thesis defense. Many thanks to those students! One of the students made a movie of the first work day -- you can see that at the bottom.

On the day before my exam and defense, the plan was to assemble the thing, get it to the presentation room, and be done by 3pm to leave for a concert I was playing in the Netherlands that evening, 3 hours away. When 3pm came, almost all the parts were ready, but none of the assembly had taken place. I had to board the train north, and one very dedicated guy (the camera clown in the movie below) stayed after I left to do the assembly -- all-in-all, pulling a 10 hour day on a project that wasn't even his. Many MANY thanks to Richard!

I played my concert in the Netherlands, which was a nice break from all the stress, and a nice warm up for getting back into the performing mindset. The trains didn't run late enough to get me back to Belgium, So I slept over in Amersfoort with Toru, a student at the Dutch school. Toru will be giving me a run for my money in the upcoming competitions, but for now he's the guy I drink tea with way too early in the morning.
At 5:55am I was awake, then jogging to the train station, then on a 3hr train ride back to Belgium. Back in Mechelen, I went straight to the workshop and spent the two hours before my thesis defense adjusting and smoothing out the action of the manuals key-by-key. I got about 20 of them done. Enough for a demo. 10 minutes after the scheduled start of my defense I walked through the door carrying half a practice carillon. The results were very positive.
I ran home, charged some recording equipment, burned some CDs of my written thesis to hand in, and climbed the tower to warm up for my final exam concert. I played on less than 6 hours of sleep, and though it wasn't perfect, I think it was quite good and I'm pleased with it as a step forward in learning to perform on high pressure occasions. Here's a clip: The carillon's automatic play mechanism decided to join in for a bit, but if you ignore that, it was probably the best piece of the exam.




Now I crash for a bit. There's still a lot of work to be done -- the second half of the practice carillon; perfecting the first half; preparing for 2 big competitions. But... I get a day off. And if I get my way, I'm not going to do things with as much crazy as this past month has been.

So For now, enjoy this video, made by one of the students at the school, of my practice carillon in the making. We were doing a lot more work than it portrays, but I guess you don't really film too much of the working parts:

May Wrap-Up

Its been a good two months since I last posted, and there's been a good reason: Its crunch time! Yes, the end of the year is approaching and there's still so much left to do, so much left undone that will have to stay undone for now. I've travelled much less than I planned, played much fewer carillons than I intended too, left many pieces unlearned, and yet at the same time, I've been through Ireland, France, Israel, Holland and the former Yugoslavia, the carillons that I HAVE visited have been top notch, I've learned (mostly) over 70 pages of highly virtuosic music which I will be taking to competition and on tour, and perhaps most importantly, I can play a heck of a lot better than when I got here. Hopefully my American colleagues will confirm, but as far as I can tell, I haven't lost my musical soul, I haven't become a stomper or a clone, and I've gained some amazing technical skills that support both expressiveness and impressiveness.

So, here's a birds eye view of the highlights of the past couple of months, and the news of the today:



Amsterdam:
I spent an amazing weekend up in Amsterdam visiting:
a) Sarah Baracks who was on study abroad

b) Gideon Bodden, one of the modern masters of the instrument


The weather was amazing, as was the city and its bells.
Sarah and I did a great shabbes in the park on Friday,then Saturday I met up with Gideon and several other carillon students to climb the historic Oude Kerk church tower smack dab in the middle of the red light district.
I got to meet and hear Toru Takeo, one of my main competitors for the Fabiola contest this fall. He is very good. I also played and we both got good feedback from Gideon. Gideon is very demanding, not in a mean way, but in a very refreshing way -- Musically, platonically, it should sound like this, so make it happen. No excuses. No concern for the limitations of the instrument, the body, or the human mind. Just do it.
After some drinks, we went to the Mint Tower where Kasia got a long (2 hours-ish) lesson on the practice carillon. Eventually I got restless watching the lesson and wandered upwards through the tower, found my way to the roof, and sat up there watching the city go by.

I returned to the practice room in time to see the end of the lesson, and asked Gideon if I could play the carillon. "Of course!"
Mint tower is a small carillon, very light, and missing the top octave (3 octave instead of 4 octave) that I've grown so accustomed to. Not to mention 350 years old, and in a historical tuning system. It may have possibly been one of the most beautiful instruments I've ever played. Like a Stradivarius, you can't beat the old masters. I stayed up there playing much longer than I had intended. Gideon told me to take my time, and that the carry clearly to the ground so I don't need to play loudly. I took about 1/2 hour up there, and according to Gideon, played more delicately than anyone else he's ever heard on that carillon.
We hit the bar again and had a great evening. I was on a huge high from those bells.
A couple weeks ago I got a call to play a concert in Oldenzaal. Eventually I found out it was Gideon who had recommended me for it. Hooray for good impressions!
Sunday was some more park time with Sarah, picnicing, enjoying the city and the weather, and also a visit to the Anne Frank house. Sarah was a great host and I had a lot of fun out there, though I guess to appreciate that you just had to be there.


Though I did many wonderful things there, perhaps the highlight of it all was connecting all of them by bicycling amidst the canals and cars and trams and hundreds of other bicyclists, sometimes carrying several people at once. Its a city that makes you love bicycling.



Croatia and Bosnia:
Last week, three friends from DC converged on the former Yugoslavia and I intended to be the 4th. I booked a flight to Dubrovnik, arriving a day earlier than they were scheduled to get there.

The next day, I got an e-mail. Bosnia is amazing, do you want to come to Sarajevo instead? A day was sufficient for Dubrovnik which, though incredibly beautiful, is a bit too small and tourism-oriented for my comfort. I took a 6 hour bus to Sarajevo, which I grumbled about beforehand, but which ended up being 6 hours of thrilling sights. The terrain out there is stunning. Southern Croatia has a very Mediterranean feel, rocky coastline and islands and clear blue water. Bosnia is much greener and more rugged. I also preferred Bosnia.

Sarajevo was a great. I can't say exactly why or how or what. The weather was stunning, there was a beautiful bustling market area,

absurdly strong coffee, gorgeous Islamic architecture,

(plus Hapsburg architecture, plus Soviet architecture). It felt like a real city where people lived. They didn't mind us being there, but they weren't waiting for us to arrive or structuring their lives around our presence. Plus, a great luxury, old (relatively speaking) friends.
It took a day to get used to being with people again, ie co-planning and communication and all that, but once I did it was quite a treat.
After Sarajevo it was back to Croatia and off to an island (10+ hours on the bus) for some SCUBA diving. The dive center picked me up and informed me that since the hostel I was supposed to stay in was not open yet, I'd be staying in the staff-house. This translated to me having my own personal room with king-sized bed and harbor view for about 10 euros per night. They also pointed me to the 2 best restuarants on the island, and the best gelato place. I met an Australian grandmother on the bus who became my dinner partner for the next 2 days and we tried them all. All of them were incredibly good.

And during the days, I dove. Out on the boat in the morning, 2 dives, back in time for lunch. Me, a staff-guide, and an Australian couple. They kept spotting all the cool underwater sea life. On the first dive, the Aussie guy found an Octopus hiding on the sea floor. It took a good minute for me to distinguish him from the rocky sea floor around him and he was perfectly still and impressively camoflauged. Our guide was able to convince him to come out and swim for us. Definitely the coolest creatures down there (besides us). By the last dive, I had gotten used to the idea that I simply don't spot things, but somehow I managed to find 2 hidden octopi in little holes in the rock. Neither came out for us, but one of them looked at me for a while, blinking occasionally (who would've guessed, they've got eyelids).

One week after my arrival, I returned home. My route was a bus to a ferry to an airport shuttle to a plane to a train. Some of them only ran once daily -- missing any of them would've meant being stranded and unable to get home. But I caught everything leading up to the flight, got on the plane, and got to the train station in time to have caught the last train home, if the trains had been running, instead of being on strike that day. An Albanian-Belgian airport employee gave me a lift to Brussels where I crashed on a friend's floor and then woke up early for...

Joint 2-day Jewish - Muslim training on Islamophobia and Antisemitism: This was great. Very cool, thoughtful people, well prepared materials, good and informative. Has helped the way I think about both Islamophobia and Antisemitism.

2 days later: finally make it back to Mechelen and sleep in my own bed. As if a 2-day training after a week on the road wasn't enough, I ended up at a Derrida lecture after the training. It was totally consciousness-altering. I fell asleep.




Thesis:
This is going well right now. Lots to do, little time, but in full gear and most obstacles seem to have been cleared. The hardest part of this is working with my building guy. He does a lot of the building work, but working with him takes a lot of interpersonal / managerial skill, not to mention language abilities. The problem with giving someone directions in a language that they speak fluently and that you barely speak is that you come off as the dumb one and its very easy to wind up in a situation where the native speaker starts to wonder why they're doing the things that this idiot is asking them to do. Poor Dutch has not been my only mistake in the process and I'm learning that I really need to do my homework before our meetings to make this process flow smoothly.
The last 4 times we've met its bounced back and forth between productive and frustrating. I think he has less patience for - and interest in - refining the product and more interest in being finished, fair enough. Every once in a while, he'll grab the wheel and say, "this is what needs to happen and this is how its going to look." Or he'll just go ahead and built it between our meetings. Gotta love the initiative. That said, he doesn't understand the product the way I do, and some of these changes / new systems are simply not correct / not good enough.
4 meetings ago, I described the needs for a specific system and he designed a solution. I looked at it and knew it was overly complicated. He wanted to go ahead to the next step. I didn't know yet how to simplify it. Or how to explain tactfully in Dutch why even though it did the job, and even though I didn't have an alternate solution, we weren't moving forward. That was a frustrating meeting.
3 meetings ago, I figured out how to simplify it and explained it to him. He agreed that the new way was much more effective and would save loads of work. That was a good meeting. I had hoped it would be a turning point, one in which he realized that, in spite of my broken Dutch, I had a good head on my shoulders.
2 meetings ago I walked in hoping it would be different and found that it was not. I had just come back from vacation, my vision of next steps was different from his, and I was too rusty on the project to properly discuss the order of things. He also had skipped some of the things I asked him to do. After reflection, I realized that his vision of progress is building the large components and frameworks first, then adding in the little systems. For a woodworker this makes sense -- build the cabinet first, then the drawers. Thus he's likely to skip little component X but take some initiative and modify big component Y without my approval. My vision of progress is figuring out the little systems that actually produce the sound and making sure they do the job they need to do -- then building the larger framework up around those. But in that moment, all I really knew was that when I told him what needed to come next he got frustrated.

So after that meeting I sat down and did my homework. I mapped out all the components of the design, I wrote up specifications, not just for the next piece we were working on, but for all parts. I learned the dutch I needed to explain all of the systems and why the needed to be the way they were. I prepared to explain why they needed to be built in the order I proscribed, such that any piece whose design is informed by another piece is built after that other piece. I wrote up a dual task list for us which coordinated the work he would do with the work I would do, in order, such that each result feeds into the other person's next task. This plan spanned from today, until the point of finishing. I hoped that the birds eye view of the project would keep him from feeling like we were off track or not moving with direction and intentionality.
Today I explained it all to him. At the end his proposals for next steps matched mine. This was a productive meeting. We'll see what comes of it. I've learned a lot through the process. From now on I'm going to prepare like this for every meeting, not just when things go wrong. I also need to take control readily, be more comfortable saying how things will be, and stop worrying about hurting his feelings by not affirming his ideas. He doesn't seem to mind me making things be the way I want them, as long as I can clearly articulate them. But whenever I'm unclear or hesitant, he takes it as a sign that I'm not in control and that he has to step up and take the wheel.


Performance:
Performance has its ups and downs. Today was an up.
I rocked St Rombouts. Delicate. Sensitive. Compelling. Powerful. Everything seemed to go my way. If I could imagine it, I could play it. I had a trace of Gideon. Platonically, musically, this is how this section should be played, I would decide. And it would come out just that way, practically effortlessly. I found I was able to not only play multiple lines with multiple appendages, but to care for each of those lines as its own little organism, voicing it expressively as its own creature separate from the other lines going on simultaneously. Ultimate multitasking. Somehow I could be aware of every note, even the fast ones buried amidst a sea of sound, somehow there was enough time to think about each of them and exactly how they should sound within the context of the whole and somehow thinking was all it took to get my body to play it that way.
I credit several things -- being exposed to Gideon, listening to a recent concert by a very accomplished carillonneur and realizing that what I had thought of as the instruments limits were really just excuses for sloppiness. Returning to tai chi practice. Starting to study music less at the practice klavier, where your technical limits color your sense of what the music sounds like, and starting to do more study from the score, or at a piano, where you're more free to conceive of the music in its full potential. Realizing that time is running short and if I'm imagining myself playing everything better at the time of the competition, I'd better make better happen now.
Who knows where it came from or whether it will last. For today, soaked in the sweat of an hour and a half of playing in the warm Mechels humidity, I felt as though I had reached an artistic pinnacle. If I played that way at the contest, I wouldn't really care about anyone else or how I measured up. That would be enough for me. I'm mostly fearful of playing below my abilities on that particular day. Like I said, there have been ups and downs.




Concert Carillon:
Tonight I went to a concert for travelling carillon and brass band. Pretty cool stuff. Check out the clip.

Also, for some reason, they had an accordionist do a number. I wasn't expecting much here, but when someone plays the famous aria from the Marriage of Figaro on solo accordion, I take notice. He's even got a little dance.




Looking forward:
Life is going to be an exciting cocktail consisting largely of running around gathering materials, building and supervising the practice carillon project; practicing on St Rombouts and on the schools practice instruments, polishing my huge competition repertoire and learning the last couple of pieces; visiting carillons on the weekends; studying campanology and history for oral exams (first one in 2 days); writing up my thesis work; and all the unpredictable and hopefully good things that happen in between.

The Wind Up There

Lining Up for Flight

Cleared for Take-off

Run!!!

The majority of my flights were on the first 3 days, right before the previous blog entry. After that, the weather was less permissive. I got 2 more flights in -- and while #6 was more frustrating than exhilerating, #7 was a great one and even had some mild thermal activity that kept me up a couple minutes longer than usual. After #7 Peter was ready to let me play in more active air, but I'll have to wait for next time.
The weather blocked our flights, but we were still lucky. The weather was beautiful and though the wind was too strong at the take-off, things were sunny and breezy on the ground. I got to take it easy amidst beautiful countryside and no responsibilities, and had the opportunity to...

do some reading:


Go for a hike:


Sit around the barbeque:



Soak up some glider theory:



And of course, enjoy the local sights:




At the last minute, fighting phone troubles, weak wireless signals, and a carillonneur who only spoke French, I even managed to get in a carillon field trip that became one of the highlights of this vacation.

The drive to Chambery was spectacular. We took a rough mountainside road, barely wide enough to let 2 cars pass, overlooking a huge lake with mountains on the other side. My camera was in the trunk so you're just going to have to imagine it.


The Chambery carillon was equally spectacular. I knew it was 70 bells (a lot) but I hadn't realized that that it would be 70 brand new Paccard bells (my favorite) going down to a low G in concert pitch, or that it would use ultralight carbon-fiber transmission rods giving incredibly precise control, with a hefty, smooth action... or that it would be set amidst beautiful scenery with a glass-paneled chamber allowing views of the bells and the mountains, or that we would have an incredibly kind and generous host who took a great deal of pride in his operation and was more than happy to bring up a dozen hanggliders for a visit, even at the last minute.




Playing this carillon was a total joy. Each bell was richly colored and happily did whatever I told it to. I serenaded my glider buddies and got to experience the privilege of a carillon field-trip through their eyes, as though it were my first time too.

When we went to the roof, our instructor Peter said he was going to stay inside for fear of the heights. "Aren't you the guy who's teaching me to run off of mountains?" I asked. "You've never actually seen me fly," he responded.


Chambery passed, as did the final flight, and when the clouds were moving a bit too fast on Sunday morning, we packed up and drove home. The first part of the ride was sunny, and it might only be chance, but I swear that the first flakes hit right as we crossed the Luxembourg border. Pretty soon we were driving at 10mph in icy conditions, at first because of traffic, then simply because there wasn't enough traction to do more than that. It didn't last forever, but the message was clear enough: Welcome Back North.


It wasn't the easiest shift. From mountainside living in the sun to a flat, aging Belgian city; from vacation mode, with less to do and more going on, to home mode, with less going on and much more to do; from campfires to the school lunch table; from wishing I could understand more of the Dutch fireside conversation about energy policy, to wishing I didn't understand the school's lunchtime Dutch conversation, which seemed only to amount to a chuckling disdain and self-contentment of being better than all those other political, national, and linguistic entities out there. From speaking to shopkeepers in my ever-growing comfort with the French language, to stumbling over words with my rusty commerce-Flemish, knowing with every accidental utterance in French, I was outing myself as 'one of them'.
I've had two comforts in my couple days of being back. The first, was the arrival of my Amazon package from the US, containing, amongst other books, "The Art of Practicing" by Madeline Bluser. It seems to be the book that I've been waiting for, a book whose content I've been grasping at, trying to construct from bits and pieces here and there; a book about the discipline of music as understood through frameworks of meditation, body-work, movement, and spirituality, a book explaining how to bring these tools to bear on a daily basis leading to performance. Or so I hope.
The second comfort was frites and assorted frituur, which seem to have made up for the lack of quality cheese and baked goods.

But of course, things pick up and get back into the swing. I've got some projects to work on in performance and in design, and between that and submitting concert programs for this summer, things have, at least for today, seemed filled with good and exciting work.

I've gotten some more pictures in from the flying, so here's a slideshow I made out of a rapid-fire set of photos of my final take-off. Sorry for all the bouncing, I don't quite know how to control that in Picasa:

And here is an overly romanticized (in the best way, of course) movie starring one of the more advanced guys I flew with. Definitely worth checking out. Given the choice between flying again and watching this movie again, I'd choose flying, but it would be a bittersweet choice. Maybe I could get some headphones with the soundtrack for my next flight?

The Air Up There

I got the message right after playing the Wednesday afternoon concert: We leave tomorrow morning, 9:30 sharp.

The ride to Savoie took about 12 hours with the hanggliders on the roof. We left in the morning and arrived after dark. After last week's weather, I was prepared for 10 days of sitting around in the cabin. But the weather forecast was flyable so we set our alarms and planned to be at the landing field for pre-flight briefing at 8.

6.30AM: Peter and I wake up frozen in our un-insulated cabin. There was frost on the ground outside our window and condensate on our breath. Peter threw on all 4 stove burners and started fanning the heat into the room. Slowly over the next hour we brought ourselves back to comfort.

8AM: We rendez-vous with the rest of our party at the landing field. One instructor, one assistant-instructor, one very experienced student, 2 mid-level students, one 2nd timer, and one fool who was doing this for the first time. We got our flight plan, learned the terminology that Peter would use over the radio, the names of the different corners of the landing field, the protocol for shedding altitude over the landing field, etc. We got back in our cars and started the drive up the mountain. I had both the eagerness to make sure I got to fly, and the nervousness of my first mountain flight. Was I actually going to be soaring a couple thousand feet above ground in a few hours? I had proved myself on the training hill, but it had been 10 days since I had touched a glider and I wasn’t going to get a practice run.

Peter had explained during the drive down why we chose this site: "Its the safest place I know. The takeoff is a gradual slope. First grass. Then bushes. Then trees. Plenty of time to turn back. Plenty of barriers that you can only clear if you have enough lift to fly over them.” So while I was nervous, I felt good about the circumstances.
The drive up the mountain was 20 minutes long, through winding narrow roads, first passing through the picturesque hillside village of Chindrieux, old stone walls and houses with flowers growing out of them, then up through forest and rising snow levels.

We got to the take-off site, which was entirely covered in snow.

He kicked at the icy snow by the start of the runway and stood there for a minute or two, deep in thought. Finally he looked at me. "There is another place you can take off from, but its impressive. We will go and you will tell me if you want to take off from there." Peter's English has a few idiosyncrasies that I've gotten to know over the course of my training. When he says impressive, he means scary as all hell.

The trompe-plein is a wooden platform, about 30 feet long. The first 15 feet are flat. The rest of it slopes down at a 40 degree angle and ends abruptly over the rustic countryside half a mile below us. Its as though someone had tried to build a wide wooden slide down a 2000ft mountain, but had given up after the first few segments.

“I want to do it,” said Ilsa, one of the intermediate students. I held my tongue, hoping that the next half hour of building-up the gliders would give me the chance to build-up some courage as well.

I built-up my glider in a haze of fear, adrenaline, and stupidity, and made Stephan, the assistant instructor, inspect it with all his might. Peter’s words echoed in my head “Its an incredibly safe takeoff, but its impressive”. Impressive is the understatement of the year. I said a shema.

The glider is a flying machine. It wants to fly. You run off a something like the trompeplein with a glider and a headwind and it should fly. All my theory told me this. And all my animal instincts told me that to run off a ramp into nothingness was sheer madness. I would only have once chance to do this right. I was betting that I could hold 80 pounds of wind-catching metal and fabric steady and run full-speed, without tripping or tipping, off the scariest ledge I’d ever seen. No practice runs, no do-overs. One straight run with full stakes.

I thought that watching Ilsa’s take off would reassure me, but it just did the opposite. One moment she was standing there, another moment hurtling into steepness, and within seconds she was a football field away from us, hanging free with emptiness on every side. I said another shema.

My turn came. I stood with my toes at the end of the flat segment. Before I could run I’d have to lean forward and start to fall, giving the glider some momentum so that it would stay with me. Once I did that there was no turning back and anything I did to fight gravity would only endanger me. Speed is safety. Speed is safety. Speed is safety. The wind stabilized. Stephan gave me the go-ahead. “When you feel ready, you can start running.” And friends, I ran.

I don’t remember anything between the start of my run and the moment, a few seconds later, when my glider stabilized in the air. But on that day, when I took my run into nothingness, the somethingness I found afterwards was completely different from what I expected. After all that adrenaline and all that buildup, I was just hanging peacefully. The air was so calm and stable that I felt as though I were simply attached to a giant crane that was slowly lowering me to my destination. Was I really flying? My glider tends to nose-up and stall, and because the ground was falling away from me rapidly I had the feeling that I was in a never-ending stall. Up and down are not entirely clear at first. I pulled in and tried to keep the nose down, and keep a steady course for all I was worth. My hands nearly froze onto the metal bars of the glider frame, but I wasn’t about to let go. Peter stayed with me on radio contact the whole time, even if just to say, “well, there’s not really much to say, you’re doing fine”. I landed alive and surprised at how ordinary I felt, having just run off of a cliff.

The most surreal part of the day was yet to come. We packed up our gliders. We left the landing field. And we drove to the supermarket. In less than an hour I went from hanging free 2000 feet above ground to standing in an aisle of canned goods choosing between brands of tuna. Life goes on?

For the past few days its been a dependable routine: we wake up, get warm, eat, hit the landing field, and then drive up to the take-off. If the wind looks good (and it always has), we haul the gliders from the cars, assemble them (I’ve gotten down to 25 minutes for assembly, 35-40 to be ready for take-off), suit up, and take-off. There are pre-flight inspections, and if you’ve made any mistakes, you owe the instructor a bottle of wine. I’d gladly buy my life for the price of a bottle, but so far, no problems. At the landing field, we disassemble, load the cars, go back to the campground, and eat lunch, which always seems to involve fresh bread, cheeses, and wine. I seem to have taken the attitude of “eat well today because who knows about tomorrow.” In the afternoon we repeat the flying process, and then at night we repeat the eating process.

Its been 2 days and 5 flights since that first run into nothingness. Renzo, the 2^nd-timer who wasn’t up to the trompe-plein spent some time salting and shoveling the original takeoff while we were at the supermarket. So the rest of my takeoffs have been a bit less dramatic than that first day (the second and third take-offs were still pretty adrenalized).

I’ve been improving loads over the past few days. On my first flight, I basically just survived. On my second flight, I leveled-off my 180-turns at the landing field, which had been too extreme. On my third flight I learned to use the foot-bar (a small rod that hangs down from your harness -- you can rest the soles of your feet on it so that you can lie horizontally instead of hanging with your legs dangling in the air – it involves some extra maneuvers to get into it mid-air, and to get out of it before landing, not to mention the psychological factor of doing a running take-off with it banging against your heels). On the fourth flight I worked on my steering sensitivity, reacting quicker and using less force. Peter let me have control for most of it. On my fifth flight, I had some turbulence from thermals (rising pockets of air) and was able to steer into them and gain a bit of altitude on my way to the landing field. Thermals are invisible, but you know they’re there because all of a sudden one wingtip rises throws you into a turn. Thermals push you away, but if you fight the turn early and get the glider level, you can slip into them and get an upward boost (at least this is what I’ve found). Feels almost like a game. In more advanced stages you actually learn to do circles inside of them and ride them high into the sky.

I think flight #4 was my favorite. It was yesterday evening, a bit before sunset. By the time we had our gliders built, the wind had shifted to a gentle tailwind.

Wind follows the contours of the slope. If the wind comes from behind you on a downward slope, it flows down at the angle of the hill. Because the glider flies at a 15 degree downward angle relative to the air, its physically impossible to do a running take-off in a tailwind. You’d have to be able to run at an angle 15 degrees steeper than the ground you’re standing on.

Stephan was betting that with the setting sun the tailwind would only grow stronger. I expected we would be disassembling and driving downhill, but Peter radioed up that because I was underweight for my glider, I could try to take-off if we got a moment of feeble headwind. I took my position on the runway and waited some more, watching the 4 wind-flags scattered throughout the take-off area, all of which were doing different things. Finally they harmonized for a minute, all pointing with the laziest little inkling uphill. Stephan said go, I ran, and all of a sudden I was in the air. Once you’re in the air, it doesn’t matter whether there’s a head or tailwind. You’re flying either way, and in the warmth of the setting sun, I felt as though I had just escaped from the glum disappointment on the take-off hill into complete and utter freedom. No adrenalized buildup. No fear. Just a hopeful wait, a moment’s run, and the air rushing by me. Peter radioed up that I was on my own until the landing field. “You can do smart things, stupid things, I won’t say anything.” I took a few extra turns to get a nice view of the lake and mountains in the evening light. The air was calm enough that I could look down and really feel the bird’s-eye view over the land below. The more you can do that, the more you feel like you’re really flying.

Well, I think I’m hooked. It took a bit of time to get over the fact that you don’t quite feel like superman, zooming around in any direction you choose. But once you’re past that, the little joys of flight seem to grow steadily.

Tonight is the first evening without flying. The wind has picked up and the weather seems to be changing. Peter’s guess is no flying tomorrow. His hope is for flights the day after. But after 5 back-to-back flights, I’m almost happy to have a little break to relax, soak it all in, and condense my experiences here. Hopefully the weather will have me back in the air before long.