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Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Posted on Thursday, August 18th, 2011
Tags: Appreciation, Awareness, Coaching, Discovery, Generosity, Listening, Music, Perception, Purpose, Relationship, Transition
Categories: Awareness, Balance, Change, Coaching, Discovery, Listening, Music, Perception, Relationship
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 A couple of years ago, someone gave me a copy of Victor Wooten’s then new book, The Music Lesson. It went to the top of the stack of “to be read” books and slowly made its way down to the stack’s midsection, lost in clutter of more recent acquisitions. One of the ways that I get to books that likely won’t require my highlighting and annotation is to acquire them in the audio book format. Recently I was pleased to find The Music Lesson on an MP3 disc, narrated by Victor.
Expecting that most of you will not recognize Victor’s name or work, he is one of the most sought after bass playing, session musicians in Nashville. The youngest of five brothers, all of whom are well known on the Nashville music scene, Victor rose to prominence as one of the founding members of the Grammy award-winning group, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. This link drops you into a taste of Victor’s musical genius -Victor\’s Amazing Grace. Keep Reading »
Posted on Thursday, July 21st, 2011
Tags: Appreciation, Awareness, Change, Curiosity, Discovery, Generosity, Meditation, Perception, Relationship, Transition
Categories: Awareness, Change, Discovery, Fear, Generosity, Meditation, Music, Perception, Relationship
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 In mid-March, I traveled to Burbank, California to speak at the Third Annual Conference of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California. The Coalition is a statewide partnership of regional and statewide health organizations, State agencies, and dedicated individuals working to promote high-quality, compassionate end-of-life care for all Californians. It was my first appearance before a body consisting largely of healthcare professionals. I didn’t really know what to expect in the way of a reception. After all, I was a land-use lawyer with a seven-year track record as a hospice volunteer, addressing some of the most compassionate and dedicated caregivers in the State. What could I meaningfully contribute to their day? This question so perplexed me that, as I mounted the podium, I still had neither notes nor even a mental outline of what I would say. I simply opened my mouth and began to speak from the heart about what it meant to me to work with the dying, to expand my heart to entirely new dimensions, to reside in personally unprecedented empathy and compassion and to attempt to carry that “way of being” back to my work-a-day world as an attorney, husband, father, colleague and friend. Whatever I said must have connected. I left the stage with a round of hearty applause and thereafter sold every copy of #DEATH tweet, Book 02 – 140 Perspectives on Being a Supportive Witness to the End of Life, which had been raced to the printer and shipped to me overnight, in a small run, for the event. I also had the opportunity to sit at an “authors’ table” to chat with conference attendees while autographing my book!
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Posted on Monday, February 21st, 2011
Tags: Awareness, Curiosity, Discovery, Music, Perception
Categories: Awareness, Curiosity, Discovery, Music, Perception
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 Dmitri Tymoczko ( tim-OSS-ko) is a Princeton University music theorist and composer. His father, Thomas, was a well-known philosopher of mathematics at Smith College. His sister, Juliana, is a mathematician, specializing in algebraic geometry at the University of Iowa. Thus, it may come as no surprise that Dmitri discovered the fundamental geometric shape of musical chord structures. But, the way all this came about is illustrative of the values that we continue to explore – awareness, curiosity and discovery.
Dmitri entered Harvard to study music, but was frustrated by the then popular emphasis on atonal structures. He switched to philosophy, studying it as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He then enrolled in music graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. He became interested in the mathematics of music because he wanted his compositions to sound better. Keep Reading »
 One of my clients was kind enough to send me a “compilation” of songs that constituted her current life perspective. She accompanied the CD with a explanation of why she had chosen each song and how it was representative of her narrative. As the compilation arrived unexpectedly, I put it aside until the weekend, when I generally have more time for listening.
I didn’t fully realize the precious gift that had been bestowed upon me, until during my usual Saturday pilgrimage south to visit my father, I had an opportunity to listen to the songs. First, I just plain loved the music. Some tunes were entirely new to me (my client is considerably younger), and I had never heard of several of the artists. Some songs were new arrangements of material from the late 60’s and early 70’s, made fresh and new by a succeeding generation. And, because this compilation was intended as a communication, I paid careful attention to the lyrics, which, in many instances, were stunningly compassionate and open hearted.
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 One of the things that happens to you when your life is “out of balance,” is that the things you love to do undergo a type of compression in order to fit them into your unprioritized stack of daily duties. In the course of that compression, the joy of the activity often is stripped away or, worse yet, subordinated to a third party standard of performance to which you never intended to subscribe. A case in point for me is music. All the way through college, I played music because I loved it. I spent 15 years getting to be a “passable” trumpet player. Somewhere in there, I began playing guitar, which became my preferred instrument. I had instructors, I had peers from whom I learned and I just “figured stuff out.”Â
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In our hospice training, we are taught to meet the resident, for whom we are caring, right where they are, at that very moment. Whatever thoughts you may have had about the resident’s condition from the prior week – their mood, their emotions, their physical state – likely will have changed in the ensuing week, day, or hour.Â
The end of life is a period of accelerated change. It can confound the resident as well as the caregiver. By seeing the resident where he/she is at the moment, you serve the current need. You do so without comparing it to the past or without concern for the uncertain future.
When I first decided to bring my ukulele to the hospice ward at Laguna Honda Hospital, I didn’t know if anyone would be interested in my playing or singing. I describe myself as “mediocre amateur” but I can get my way through all sorts of blues, folk, country and jazz standards.Â
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Posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010
Categories: Awareness, Body/Mind, Change, Coaching, Curiosity, Discovery, Fear, Forgiveness, Generosity, Happiness, Listening, Love, Meditation, Music, Perception, Poetry, Purpose, Relationship, Spaciousness, Transition
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Here, I will be initiating conversations that matter to you – about overcoming your fears, about getting “unstuck” from a life dilemma; about coping with change; about finding and offering forgiveness; about finding your purpose in life or establishing a balanced life or creating a community of support to help you keep on track. We will explore new paradigms for measuring “success” and new means of expressing leadership. We will discuss helpful books and articles, inspiring music and transformational poetry. You also will hear from my friends and colleagues in the coaching and human potential fields. But, I need your help.
One of the wonders of blogging is that it is not a one-way communication. I want to hear back from you. What is it that would best help you now? What resource is missing from your life? Is there something that a rich conversation can open up for you, a loved one or a friend? We will have that conversation, in which all are invited to join. I can’t believe that I have waited this long to get started.
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