Cycle 3 and musicians

Well, despite all the mental preparation I was still a little snappy the night before chemo (ask Bart and Remi) about it when I heard them playing football in the street at 23h35!)...The next day, I made peace with Remi and he went with me to sit through the first half of the chemo. At the delightful Rosenheim building, the first vein rejected the needle (after it had been put in for a while) so I had to have another one in the other arm. Still, it was fine. Saw Marco, the guy who was there when I had my first chemo. He told me the great news that almost all of his cancer cells were “dead”. We exchanged stories about our aches and pains, each trying to outdo the other (I think I won)! And then Adam arrived, back from his well-deserved break in South Africa. It was great to have him back to listen to my crazy thoughts and to witness the nurse rip the needle and tape from my arm. Adam flinched as much as I!

After chemo I went to stay at Morse’s flat near Liverpool St. His flatmates, John and Richard are quite nice too but I only go there for Morse (the parrot) (oh dear, I feel some retribution coming my way!). Mind you, John made a delicious beef casserole with broccoli-filled carrot rings (we came up with a French name for them so they would sound more exotique). Kept waking up with hiccoughs which are still here but I’m not going to let them drive me crazy. Instead, I am using them as a scare-technique for passers-by...you walk up to someone who is deep in thought and you just hiccough right next to them. They always jump! Walking to Sainsbury's has never been such fun before! I am also using the hiccoughs to keep my couchsurfers entertained. The nausea is much better tonight so that might be a combination of the different medication or my attitude.

Managed to play some piano today...wish I had some technique left but therein lies another exciting challenge. Speaking about music, I have been inspired by a few budding musicians...Bart teaching himself the Moonlight Sonata, Remi learning the 1st Bach Prelude and composing his own material (both are self-taught on the piano and both have realised that I am NOT a good beginner’s teacher), then there is someone new and very interesting whom I met recently: Joe Robbins.

Some weeks ago, Brandon Prevost (pronounced Preh-voh, NOT prehvusst LOL...make you think of Mrs. Bucket pronounced Bouquet/Boo-kay?), manager of Plush (led by Rory Elliot), asked me to pop in to an open-mic gig at a pub to listen to someone new whom he was managing. I was impressed by Joe’s current skill and future potential. Joe came over on Tuesday and we had a singing-coaching lesson (it was so informal that I hesitate to claim it was a lesson). Joe writes great songs, plays a mean piano and has been described by a few of us as “having potential” or “needing polish”. However, the more I listened to him sing, play and chat about his musical aspirations, I started to ask myself, does Joe really know who is he and what his voice is like or what his song-writing was like? (Strangely, tonight I am finding it hard to express myself fluently). What I was asking myself is this: here we sit, Brandon (his manager), a successful music producer (whose name I forget) who has shown a keen interest in working with Joe, myself and others, all of us with experience and advice, saying this “stuff” to Joe; but I wasn’t hearing what Joe was saying about himself, other than that he wants to learn, that he wants to improve, that he wants to succeed. I asked Joe, "what does your voice sound like? Have you ever sung in front of a mirror? Have you ever taken a good look at yourself in the mirror and looked deep inside? Have you recorded yourself singing?"

I remember when I decided some years ago to practise the ‘cello again in order to give a final recital. Working full time, I would wake up at 04h30 every morning to practise. The Bishop Stortford swimmers used to tap on the music department window around 5am and wave hello. The cleaner would always pop in for an early morning chat and coffee. Apart from patience and slow repetition, my biggest tool in improving my playing was a disc-recorder. This little gadget had a powerful and sensitive microphone which could pick up the slightest change in bow speed, pressure etc. It told me exactly what the audience would be hearing, not what I would like the audience to hear. Notes slightly or very out of tune, scratches, bad phrasing, and much more. These daily recordings told me everything about my playing, about the actual sound I was producing, not the sound I thought or hoped I was producing. Sometimes it was cringe-worthy, other times remarkable.

Back to Joe...Joe spent 3 hours in my loft sitting around the piano, singing, playing and speaking (and eating cake, of course). At one point I asked Joe: "who are you?" As if Joe didn’t have enough to think about, I had to go and throw this question at him . He didn’t quite have an answer (I must admit, I am still a little concerned that I might have given him too much food for thought). However, I believe that this is an important question: in order to succeed at anything, you need to know who you are and also, you need to be able to evaluate how good you are in order to filter all the advice and “wisdom” that people cannot resist throwing at you. This is what I love about coaching (yes, I keep banging on about it). The simple reason is that in coaching, we don’t give advice. So when I was sitting there with my years of musical experience, having worked with amateur and professional musicians, and found myself dispensing advice to Joe, I stopped and thought, hang on, he needs to become an authority on himself. In order for Joe’s performances or songs to mean anything, he needs to become authentiic. Yes, sometimes advice can be good, but the recipient of this advice also needs to know the difference between good advice and bad advice, and also know when to hold up his/her hand and say “stop, this is the path I am taking because it is the right one for me. I know where I am going and I believe in my ability to get there." Joe is talented, humble, super-model material; in every way he is a package album deal, and I have no doubt he will do well in the music business. I suggested that he sing at a Junior or Secondary school in order to get some real feedback. Children are honest, teachers are desperate for someone to come and "do" their assembly for them, and I think he will get a positive response.

Last Friday, we had an impromptu musical event (post dinner) in the loft where Joe sang for us (and Rob danced for us). I will let those of you who are local know next time we do this as it would be good for you to hear him sing and play (not to mention some of us other mere earthlings who have a bash at the piano, under duress, of course).

The hiccoughs have gone thanks to Bart’s prescription of downing a glass of coca-cola. Alternative medicine? If it works...but now they’re back...Thanks Dr. Bart...between Remi's self-taught reiki and Bart's medical advice based on the money he gets from Coca-cola for boosting sales and consumption, I'm not sure which will kill me first!

Thanks once again for reading what has turned out to be a rather long blog. If anyone can post some advice on how others can post comments on the blog, please do as quite a few friends have told me that they cannot publish their comments on the blog.

Always with you,
Le goose

PS...Despite suggesting we shouldn’t give out too much advice, here’s some from me: do not brush your teeth with germolene (an antiseptic cream): the bubble-gum smell does not translate into bubble-gum taste and it will take at least 3 or 4 brushes with proper toothpaste to get the germonele off your teeth and gums! Reminds me of the time my younger brother and I drank dish-washer instead of raspberry cooldrink many many years ago... yuck!