Cliche for a reason

I know I sound like a broken record at times, but it's just true that as a musician, the easiest access I have to understanding myself and the world around me is through studying, making and listening to music. Although it's not currently the way I make my living, I will always consider myself a musician.  

It's been nearly a year since my last big public performance and each time I produce a concert or event, it typically takes me about six months to wind down from the experience.  After that time, I am able to regroup, engage again and move forward with my next idea.  It's a fabulous cycle that I've come to love.  So it was interesting, then, that this year I felt a little differently.  Yes, the usual few months went by as I continued to process, but then, the expected urge to build something large and complex didn't come through.  Instead, I found myself curious about the smaller, more intimate and informal ways that I could share my music OR (gasp), just make it for myself.  

As I noodled around different ideas, I landed on simply beginning again where all things start for me: by myself in a practice room, in front of a piano.  I sang just for the fun of it - nothing fancy, no audience.  Then, as is the natural progression, I wanted to collaborate!  So I reached out to my musical director.  Would she be open to just meeting me once a month, in a room, for fun and just see what happens?  Maybe record, maybe not.  Even though she is so busy, traveling everywhere to help others make music, she agreed to meet me!  So we got it in the cal. 

As the day of the "jam session" approached, I found myself naturally singing throughout my day a bit more.  I also found myself feeling more creative, more curious, more silly, even just knowing that the day was going to come.  

The afternoon came and I had a few pop songs in mind to work through.  One piece was so full of grace notes, trills, incidentals and melismas that you could barely tell what the melody was.  Singing through it was comical, but fun! The experience reminded me of learning the most challenging arias I sang.  In order to learn it, you must zoom out, take things very slowly, break down all the pieces and understand it before putting it all back together and getting it up to speed.  All the great bel canto singers take the same approach.  

Here was a pop song, needing the same attention as Mozart.  Coming from two very different worlds, different times, sounding very different in style, appealing to different audiences; but music nevertheless.  Connection nevertheless.  

As I left the session, walking out of the cocoon of creativity and into the actual madness of Times Square, it dawned on me that there are likely more examples of similarity and connection in music than I know.  Even though I've studied it for decades. Even though I'm certain of what I do know.  

And I wondered, is there a larger lesson here?  A Reminder that, as cliche as it is, we are all like this music?  Perhaps we are all more similar than we are different?  If we were, how might we behave?  How might we approach with curiosity instead of judgement?  If we did all of that with each other, how would the world change?