UNINTENTIONAL MUSIC : A LESSON IN FOLLOWING
An account of a piano lesson with student Z
by Liz Lupien

I have been consulting with Lane Arye of UNINTENTIONAL MUSIC on the telephone for almost two years, and have found his wise and playful approach to have profound effects on my own music-making and teaching. Here is a story about an experience I had as a piano teacher.

One day last year, with a student recital looming on the horizon, Z came to her lesson saying how bored she was with her recital piece, and how much she disliked it. This was her "favorite" song -
a piece she had chosen herself! In her boredom I saw an opportunity to try something out, so I jumped in.

UNINTENTIONAL MUSIC focuses on the unwanted material that comes up during the creative process - like boredom, performance anxiety, distraction. One of the main tenets of this model is that the solution to the problem is contained within the problem itself. So, instead of trying to "correct" a problem, or overcome, deny, or repress it, the difficulty (like boredom) is accepted and actually magnified. Here's how it worked that day:

After Z told expressed her frustration, I asked her to play her piece for me. She said that the only way she could play it would be "like this" - and she proceeded to parody the song in a sharp and exaggerated staccato fashion. I thought 'wow, I wonder where we will go from here.' But what the attitude I took was to follow, not to lead. So I said, "Great, go ahead."

She played the ntroduction in a somewhat grotesque and disconnected way. It sounded humorous, strange, and even sarcastic. The pedaling was blurry and careless, the tempo went up and down.
It didn't sound like a recital piece at all! And as I noticed all this to myself, I was careful not to reveal any of my judgments to Z, rather, I encouraged her every move. It seems that non-judgmental, enthusiastic acceptance is an essential ground from which to be able to make some
kind of internal change.

I asked Z how the piece felt (not how it "sounded"). She said it felt good, and that she had noticed at home that the more she sways physically when she plays, the better it feels. A gifted dancer,
Z is very kinesthetic. In fact, she said that sometimes when she is swaying she can't even feel her fingers, that they seem to be moving on their own. This was very helpful, because it gave me more to follow.

I asked Z what she likes about the piece. She said that even though there are a lot of minor chords, it is actually a happy song. What an astute and rare observation to come from an eleven-year old girl! She said she really likes the words. Again, I saw an opening.

I asked her to show me the words she likes. We went through the song together and found many examples -- bright colors, like red, blue, green, and other words, too: love, babies, happiness. I remarked how expressive and "positive" I found the song words to be. She thought so too. I asked her what the word " expressive" meant to her.

She answered that it meant either full of lots of emotion, or offering a specific opinion.

Then I asked Z to play the entire piece again, and to let her body sway as much as possible. And not to worry about mistakes, or anything that might not sound " right".

She played it again. It was a whirlwind of unarticulated sound: fast, slow, uneven, blurry, staccato, and predominately loud. Not much in the way of soft. Again I thought to myself, 'I wonder where we will go from here'. And I knew that if I just continued to be open to following what was coming out of her and give her small nudges here and there, something amazing would happen...

Again Z said her playing "felt good". Then she was silent for a moment, and asked, "do you think I should play this song softly?" I said "Yes, perhaps at times, though probably not all the time".

Then Z grabbed a pencil from the music rack and started to write in dynamics all by herself. This is
a girl whom I had never seen notate anything on her music, ever. She went through the entire song, measure by measure, writing in softs, louds, crescendos, decrescendos. I simply watched. And she did this using the lyrics as an inspiration for her dynamic choices.

I asked her to play the piece again with her new dynamics. And, I added, "Don't worry if they don't
all fit: sometimes, I have an idea about how something should sound, and I don't always like it
once I've played it." She laughed at the idea, and played it again. Here was truly an amazing, clearly expressed and heartfelt performance. It was so expressive, and I found it to be really beautiful. I couldn't help but notice that after she played this time, her eyes glowed. I asked her how she liked it. She didn't speak; she nodded. I said that I thought that every single dynamic was just right. Not a single one sounded off. Z agreed. The reason is simple: the dynamics came completely and authentically out of her -- and not her teacher --, and not merely from her head.

At this point, ironing out small technical details -- like pedaling, tempi, articulation -- was an easy
process, and didn't take very long to accomplish. Z left the lesson a "new" person -- what I would call " connected" -- happy with her piece, and ready for the recital. As a footnote, at the recital there was a noticeable response to Z's performance. A number of parents asked me "who was that, anyway?" More than one listener remarked how "expressively" she played.

On one level UNINTENTIONAL MUSIC processes don't sound like much. Yet the approach takes courage, huge openness and a commitment to lack of judgment. Lane Arye suffuses this with a humor, playfulness and love that embrace the student with support. It reminds me of the Rumi poem The Guest House, in which the poet says: "The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet
them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond."

When I am open as a teacher to the process inside of each student, the lesson becomes a lesson for me as well. This lesson with Z gave me a terrific reminder that technique is not the beginning point for music making -- nor is it for musical instruction, practice, or performance. Most people play music or listen to it because it makes them happy. Or it connects them with themselves somehow. The Unintentional Music approach of magnifying a difficulty embraces exactly where people are internally (which is by the way what music seems to do) and, it allows the emotional
landscape to become part of the learning, so we can learn about ourselves through learning about music.

About Liz Lupien:

Guiding others musically has become a natural outgrowth of Liz Lupien's desire to share the gift of
music with the world around her. Liz's process-oriented approach to music has grown out of a
lifetime of performing, teaching and just listening.

Everything about music -- listening to it, learning how to produce it, performing in front of an audience -- evokes a special drama inside each of us. Liz is in love with that drama, and she has found UNINTENTIONAL MUSIC to be an invaluable ally in its exploration.

Liz's current mentors include Lane Arye, Ph.D., Roy Hart voice coach Saule Ryan, and pianist Tadeusz Majewski.

©2004-2005 Lane Arye, Ph.D. All rights reserved.