Report of a dream

So I’m in a event and I’m asked to play at the end. It has all of my family watching. I accept, happy to be a part of it. In the schedule, oriented to the classic period, has a Mozart’s sonata to clarinet and piano, but I’d play without a clarinetist. Ok.

Near the playing time and desperately look my music score and can’t find. Ok. I notice the organizers of the event that I’ll have to play something else. Ok until this point. I taught: “It would be a great opportunity to try two pieces that I’m studying for piano solo.” Next to the time to play, the audience return to their seats, I see a lot of piano players in position between the crowd and I hear a sound of piano. Hallucinated scales and octaves. Ok.

There were two upright piano, one boudoir grand piano and several electronic keyboards.

I’m called to play, they introduce me as Raisa Richter. I enter, greet and see the keyboard that they made available for me to play. I look to the lady and ask if I could play in some of the piano and she said the I couldn’t anymore, because the are already closed and the order is that no one could use the pianos. Ok.

I went in the direction of the keyboard. Surprise: it was a computer keyboard, with some keys that had the musical notes written. I was astonished. The audience waiting. I asked where the sharp was, tried to understand the keyboard’s logic. Failed.

I ask if they had another keyboard with piano keys (black and white) and they answered they had. Great. Audience waiting. I went to the keyboard. When I saw, the keyboard looked like a space machine. Ten thousand buttons and where it was the piano’s keyboard? Hided in a way that you could touch the keys, but couldn’t see your hands. I get surprised. Mentalized: blind people play piano, pretend you can’t see, guide yourself through the sound. Audience waiting and watching.

I grope the keyboard, felt the B note that would introduce the music. Ok. Tried and could do two compasses and then gave up. I saw it wouldn’t be possible. My visual memory had betrayed me. Looked around me, saw the three available pianos closed, asked again to the lady if I could use them, she one more time, following rigorously the orders, said I couldn’t. I said finally the unfortunately it wouldn’t be possible for me to perform. The looked to the production staff and did that “no” expression with he face and “end” with her hands.

I looked to the audience, interrogation faces. The event was finalized. I felt a deep sadness. I felt the audience needed an explanation. I spoke.

I spoke of the most didactic way and even so, all left without understand what had happened and I stayed with the feeling of uselessness. Failed.

I went back tom y family, all with interrogation faces. I asked if they could hear my speech, they said yes.

The feeling of guilt took over me, the audience did not understand was has happened and my speech didn’t help.

I felt coward to not accepting to play in the dark. 

...

We have Art

We have and audience needy of Art

We have the internal calling of making Art

We know the importance of Art

However

We have bureaucratic problems

We have ego problems

We have the appreciation of what should be despised

Anguish

The anguish of the artist who knows the importance of their calling, but see their self useless, despised, with hands tied.

Rio de Janeiro, 20th of April 2017.

Gestation Crisis

On September 27, 2018 I finally could memorize the whole Kabalewski’s Sonata for Piano n. 3 (the three movements) and taught I was ready for the fase two in the preparation of a piece of music, which is to play to an audience. However, I was wrong. I had my weekly piano lesson and, trying to play to the memory that was on the top of my head I made many mistakes, not just notes, but the whole conception of the piece.

I started this piece study on January 11th, 2018, therefore eight months and a half working on a piece that lasts seventeen minutes and STILL isn’t ready.

This piece had a plus! It was so difficult to understand the Russian mentality (Kabalewski was a Russian composer from 20th century), that the musical score study wasn’t being enough. What did I do? I asked for help to the other artistic expressions and, with the study of the Sonata, I started reading the Dostoevsky's book Crime and Punishment. Today, ending the book and the Sonata, my imagination goes far: I see the Raskólnikov’s axe impact on the end of the 1st Movement, I see the dreamy Sonia in the main theme also of the 1st Movement. I see Marmeladóv drunk screaming and crying at the same time on the 2nd Movement. And the 3rd? The madness of the funeral lunch that Katerina made to her dead husband... Just to quote a few, because both materials are very rich.

One thing is a fact: the more you drink from other artistic expressions, the more complete you become as an artist.

The study of a artwork, therefore, is a work of creation, like a gestation. It’s being conceived inside the musician. The musical writing is just a manual the guides the gestation and, most of the time, isn’t enough. To cover it’s needs, the musician should lie on the others artistic expressions.

After a troublesome gestation, it is up to the musician bring the creation to the world.

I suppose I still am in the twentieth week...

Fearless of suffering

We live in times when we don’t have time to do anything, including to feel. We do not give ourselves the luxury of suffer. We make ourselves perfect, without any mistakes: a fortress. In these days to suffer is a sign of weakness. We buy the idea that we need to banish it from our lives, like if it was possible to “eliminate” a feeling.

Society doesn’t want feelings, in fact they abominate the ones who feel. “Don’t feel, otherwise you won’t fit”, society screams, because it’s afraid of the ones who feel to much and shows it moving them away deeply.

A majority of cowards with no edge to assume their feelings and fight for them was set up. No one wants to get hurt and that’s why they tense their feelings putting them in boxes, selecting just what they wanna feel... As if they were “selectable”.

It’s much more important the views, comments and messages on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp than the pleading eyes of the ones who beg for affection. Nobody wants to get out of the narcissistic world of social media to engage profoundly with someone. Doing that is to make room for suffering: “Maybe it won’t work out” or “Is she (or he) the right person?” or “Why live in the insecurity of the unknown?”. “Of course, social media gives us so much possibilities of new lovers.... Why stay in just one place and battle for someone?”

Everyone does want a calm life. There are few of the braves.

Phill's Recital

I am very happy and proud to spread the recital’s video of my student Philippe Amadei. It happened in November 2016, when Philippe was nine years old and already taking lessons with me for two years.

In this recital, the set list was:

Calypso Cat (Phillip Keveren)
Two – Four – Six - Eight (Bill Boyd)

Suíte das Cinco Notas (Lorenzo Fernandez)
I – Despertar
II – Teimosia
IV – Roda
V – Pastoral
VII- Valsinha
VIII – Caminho da Escola

Vôo com o vento (Phillipe Amadei)

The first two songs are from the Piano Lessons Book 4, american method of Hal Leonard. After we had the Suíte das Cinco Notas, of the Brazilian composer Lorenzo Fernandez, and ended with a Philippe’s own unique composition.

Congratulations to Phil!

The Artists

Artists are the bravest and most motivated kind of people above Earth. They deal with far more rejection in a single year then most of the people in their whole life. Everyday, artists face up with the financial challenge to live an alternative lifestyle, with the disrespect of the ones who think they should get a “serious job” and their own fear to never have work again. Everyday, they have to ignore the possibility that the vision that they have about their lives is just a dream. With every work piece or part, they push their limits – emotional and physical – taking the critics and judgment of society and yet seeing people of their age achieving the predicted goals of a normal lifestyle – the car, the family, the house, the earning some amount of money. And why? Because artists are willing to give their lives for a moment – for that verse, that smile, that gesture that will excite the soul of the audience. Artists are the ones who taste life's nectar in the crystal moment when they spill their creative spirit and touch other people’s heart. In that instant, they are closer to magic, to God and to perfection than anyone could be. And in their hearts, they know that dedicating to this moment worth a thousand lives.

David Ackert

The 10 Commandments of the Artist

1-      Don’t say “fuck it” for really important things

2-    Say “fuck it” for useless and unimportant things

3-     Don’t stop living for you art because of excuses and/or because of other people charges

4-    Believe that your art is truly important, more than any material (and immaterial) asset

5-    Live in a constant self sacrifice: sacrifice relations and some times your body

6-    Don’t castrate yourself

7-     Don’t let yourself be castrated

8-     Avoid bureaucracy and the system, specially castrating sources of creativity

 9-     Never give up on dreaming

10-   Be a free spirit

Rio and Me

A love story

It was love at first sight, I was dazzled by such beauty, culture, pulsating life. No one could take the desire and drive to move to the Marvelous City out of my head. It was something powerful that was pulsing in me. I just knew this was the place where I needed to live. Dad and mom were worried about the decision, since Rio’s “too violent,” trying to convince me of the ease of getting closer, in the city of Campinas or even Ribeirão. My dad even promised me a car. But no, I put it in my head that Rio was my next destination. That at 17 years of age.

I took the entrance exams and passed. I couldn’t be happier. Expectations were racing. From the beginning, I was sure I chose the right degree and profession for my life. The connection with musical learning was powerful, I identified myself with it immediately.

The first impression for a 17-year-old teenager, who had never left her parents’ home, was that of freedom. In fact, the false freedom that we think we have at that age. It was an adventure; music college in Lapa (a bohemian neighborhood), living by myself in the Brazilian sin city, at 17. Rio's bohemian life was contagious to me.

Of course, it didn’t take long for me to start to “get real” and see that not everything is a bed of roses. The hostile reality of the city began to show itself. The naive child from inland São Paulo started to realize that one cannot trust and open up to anyone, not everything they promise and say is true, people are self-serving most of the time. The naughty side of the city began to emerge. From that shock, I went through my first “crisis.”

The search for overcoming led me to learn about the modus operandi that changed my life forever: yoga. In that sense, I am totally grateful for my dark phase. Today I can understand what Prof. Hermógenes (a late Brazilian renowned yogi) had preached: “If you are in crisis, thank it.” It’s from the obstacles that we take the experiences of overcoming and, consequently, maturing.

I lived through false friendships, evictions, false loves, envies. But I think worst of all was the lonely Sundays. Only those who live far from their family, alone, in a typical “every-man-for-himself” city, know the sadness of not having the prospect of lunch at mom’s/grandma’s/aunt’s house. That’s why I say, appreciate your families, those magical Sunday moments. Lord, how I miss having an Aunt Rose here, my dad...

And how about the quest for survival in a violent and expensive city like Rio? Moreover, making a living on music? It’s challenging, incredibly challenging. Hence comes the time to lean on our purpose, our greater cause. When we have a cause, we have no obstacle that prevents us from dreaming.

But Rio, the Marvelous City, also brought me loves, friendships, the love for music and art, the appreciation of family, and most importantly: my personal maturity. I’d not be who I am today if I had stayed in my comfort zone, having that little car, at mommy and daddy’s house, in my native culture. I wouldn’t have known the vibrant culture of Rio, the so many gringos that this city provides us, yoga, Buddhism, Ayurveda, Buddhist nun Coen Roshi, my friends, the loves I lived, the trails, the beaches, the bohemia, the Arts, the high-stakes life,...

Really, Rio, we have a typical love relationship, with leaps and bounds, but also with a lot of affection and learning. What is a love relationship if not the love vs. hate constant?

After ten years of relationship, that smile there (in the photo) is my response to our relationship, the gratitude to it for changing my life for the better!