Manhattan School of Music (again)

So, after I sent Jim off to Toronto, I was sitting here wondering what to do. Not that there isn't always another song to write, or another arrangement to put together, but I kept thinking about my time at Manhattan School of Music a couple of weeks ago, and how much I enjoyed the students.

Not just because they have spectacular voices -- they do, and that's no joke -- but I just love the whole academic atmosphere. It probably comes from having negligible formal training, myself. Two years at a Baptist college doesn't impress people much, especially those who've graduated from places like Julliard with doctorates, etc.

But, all my life I've been an inveterate learner. I always want to know more. I am always seeking a way to educate myself, especially if I can do it by trading out favors for mentoring.

So, I called Mark Janas and asked if I could just sit in again on his class. I knew they were putting together a cabaret show, to be performed this coming Monday, and I wanted to see how they were doing.

Well, when I walked into the room, wearing my new hat, of course, they all applauded spontaneously! I felt so honored!

Mark's curriculum, as I stated before, is to get them out of their comfort zone as opera singers and teach them to bring those skills to popular music, such as the American songbook in a special community outreach program.

He's brought in the great Andy Gale to direct and coach. Usually, opera singers have a great deal of trouble "down-shifting" into pop music. It's a completely different technique, to turn window-rattling power into the more conversational art form that cabaret and pop singing demands.

Well, unbeknownst to me, two of the singers, a male and female, Brad and Maren, decided to sing "How Do You Fall Back In Love." Somehow, through links that I thought were long dead, they got a copy of the song in a much lower key -- probably one I had thrown together for someone else -- and were already learning it.

Unfortunately, the piano part is all wrong because, down about a 3rd, the piano part needed to be re-voiced to make any sense. It was all too muddy. Mark, being the musician that he is, was figuring it out on the fly, but that motivated me to come home and see if I could re-voice this thing and get it into better shape. A tedious, time-consuming act. But one that needed to be done.

For one thing, the piano part that was on there was basically a directly transposed transcription of what I improvised six years ago, when I wasn't sure how to write out score. The part itself was already messy and inconsistent. Also, some of it was just plain wrong. For instance, I had copy/pasted some of one of the verses into the wrong measure, so everything was off by one measure about halfway through. If Mark didn't know the song, he'd have been totally lost.

So, I began rewriting yesterday afternoon. Fell asleep. Woke up early and kept at it, finally finishing about 10 AM.

I got on the subway and took the 2 train up to 96th, then the 1 local to the 120 block of Broadway, back to the school. Mark had already signed me in, so I raced up to the room 607, which was a much larger studio, with a Bechstein piano. They were already in the midst of rehearsal -- Andy doing the staging and directing.

Andy Gale directing.

Got there just in time to deliver the new arrangement, but not in time to hear it. Luckily, tonight, Friday, they are going to do a full rehearsal. (I would go again this morning, but I have a doctor's appt.).

For those in the NY area, I think the Monday night performance is open to the public. I don't have the details as I'm writing this. But please let me know if you'd like to come. I think it may even be free. You will not find a better collection of singers on a single stage (esp. at this price).

What I wanted to tell all the students in this class is that I've rarely seen the combination of extraordinary voices combined with a willingness to learn, and an openness to being molded, devoid of diva-ism, that I've seen in this group. I want to sit them down and say, "Hey, look around. This only happens a few times in one's lifetime. Mark it. Grab it. Remember it."

Thanks to Mark and Andy, who are coaching them to performances far beyond their years of experience. And, because they're put in those thousands of hours of learning how to sing, learning the mechanics of their vocal instruments, they'll be able to audition and get work immediately. I'm so thrilled to be a part of it.

Theater District NY. 7 FEB 2012

Talk about a cast.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is possibly the greatest living American actor.
Andrew Garfield, one of the hottest. 

This is a trimmed down version for Broadway. The original opera is 4 hours.
They use most of the songs, but turn the recitatives into connecting dialogue.
It's worth it just to see Audra.

And on the same street, this new production is opening.
It's apparently a new musical using lots of Gershwin music.

She works a lot. 

Ricky Martin is the reason this is happening.
Ricky Martin as Che Guevara? Gotta love Broadway.

A musical version of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is here at the Palace.
Coming soon: Ghost, the musical.
Back to the left, Phantom is still running, but the new color is blue.
Godspell just reopened with a Glee-like production.

The thing I notice the most, walking around, is that most everyone you run into is a tourist. The atmosphere is like a carnival. The created a big plaza in Times Square, and now everyone goes there. All the Broadway theaters are within walking distance of Times Square.

I believe they had a big successful run in London.

This is new.

Oh my lord. Look at THAT cast!

Another new musical adaptation of a movie.

Meanwhile, after Daniel Radcliffe's long, successful run,
they put hot boy Darren Criss from GLEE into this.
The girls were stacked up for blocks.
Now, Nick Joans has settled in for a long run.

This is where you get the discounted Broadway tickets.

New World Waking. Miami. April 28, 2012.

Miami Men's Chorus select group, Insignia, will be performing New World Waking at the spectacular Aventura Arts and Cultural Center on April 28, 2012. Click here for more information.

The Last Session Call-Out.

I've been asked to put together a little history of The Last Session. It's for an upcoming project that I cannot discuss officially, but can discuss privately. And I'm looking to verify some facts. So, people who were around back then, especially 1996 and 1997, will ya be a witness?!

The Green Gunk.

I know it when it hits, and every time it hits, I go into denial. And I chase it off with tea and soup, victorious.

Until I finally give up and call the doctor.

So, I have my meds. I'm resting.

And Steinbeck loves it when I feed him the wet food. Which I did this morning.

All is well.

Dear Harvey... A Call For Submissions.

Two Sold-Out Shows at TRADITIONS FAIR TRADE Cafe.

I'm about to get on a plane, but I wanted to thank PFLAG-Olympia for the chance to sing with the hilarious and talented Righteous Mothers (warning: link automatically plays music) this weekend. The Traditions Fair Trade was packed to the rafters for both shows, and I don't think I've ever experienced a more moving and loving concert than we had this night. And when the Righteous Mothers joined me for my three finale songs, we KILLED. Wow, did we sound good.

TRADITIONS FAIR TRADE Cafe and gift shop from the outside at night.
"Fair Trade" means clothing and crafts from poor, indigenous peoples all over the world,
bought directly from the makers and not through a middle man.
This way more money goes to the ones who make the items.

Peeking in the window of TRADITIONS in Olympia, Washington.

The Righteous Mothers and I played this room.
They have music and food every night.

The pianos was beautiful. And in tune!
More indigenous folk art on the walls for sale.

Here's a poster explaining "Fair Trade."
It's a creative way to use capitalism, isn't it?
On this page is a selection of items they feature.

Here's the "kitchen."

I loved the big pot of soup boiling. You order there at the counter.
They bring you your order.
It has a great turkey sandwich, but they also have vegan and vegetarian offerings that were quite tasty.
The black bean enchiladas were savory and delicious.

Gabi threatened to sing.

Tibetan singing bowls.
Cup one in your hand, Then use the mallet to create a ringing sound.
Many massage therapists use this to kind of clear the mind,
using music to create a healing environment.

The Righteous Mothers do a sound check.

We did a show together two nights. I'll describe them in another entry. They've been singing together for 30 years, I think. Their folk sounding songs use a lot of narrative and usually comment on social issues.

I found them on Spotify this morning. Check The Righteous Mothers – Louise And Roger  I tweeted it this morning under #SongsIWishIHadWritten.

This clothing lasts forever. Nothing shoddy or worn.
It may not look fashionable, but it's as couture, in its own way, as anything
else hand stitched.
There's an idea for the TV show, Project Accessory.
Design a look using only Fair Trade clothing.

You could spend hours in this store and still not see everything.

I saw this stack of hats.
I've never worn a hat -- or, if I did, it was for short periods of time.
I'm so tall, that hats just look stupid on me, usually.
Also, my head is very big, so most hats don't fit.
But when I see a stack of hats...

I don't know. I might be rockin' this hat.

Hmmm.

Q likes it!

The brown one fits a little better.
Maybe the black one is a little too Herman Cain.

That's one of the Righteous Mothers, Clare Meeker.

I was walking all over Hell's Kitchen last night after I got home and I was wearing at least one of these hats. I saw myself in a mirror and I think I look like a hillbilly but my friend said it looked dashing, very Indiana Jones.

Hmm. A Hillbilly Indiana Jones. I can do that.

Article in The Olympian.

Wonderful article by Molly Gilmore about my close relationship with Olympia, Washington.

“I have a special emotional connection to Olympia,” said Schalchlin, a lyricist, composer, pianist and actor who’ll perform this weekend at two benefit performances for Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays.
Read more here: 

Tonight in Olympia.

Had a great rehearsal yesterday with the Righteous Mothers. Am feeling a bit under the weather, though. So, some to the show if you're in the Olympia area and we'll see if my froggy throat will survive!

My Day At Manhattan School of Music.

Yesterday, I witnessed a number of impromptu mini-cabaret performances that left me riveted in my seat, tears just streaming down my cheeks.

It was the birth of something remarkable. Sadly, I do not have video.

Oh, I brought the camera. It was lying on the turned-around piano, fired up and ready to go. But it I had turned it on, the magical things that happened wouldn’t, and couldn’t, have happened.

When I say impromptu I mean that I didn’t know it was going to happen, and neither did the singers, themselves.

It wasn’t some cabaret convention with ladies in gowns and men in tuxes. I went to that, and it was great and all, but this was not that. It was on the sixth floor of a faded-mansion Manhattan school room on the west side “in the hundreds.” Something called the Manhattan School of Music, and I was the guest “lecturer.” I even wore my good suit and pretty red tie, decorated with music staffs. A man in the elevator tried to sing it.

“This used to be Julliard, you know. Until they built Lincoln Center. The people who have walked these halls.” Mark Janas, escorting me down the hallway lined with framed pictures of men in tuxes and women in gowns, all playing cellos or violins or pianos. Or singing. Did that say Toscanini?

We pass a room where the door is open. I peer in and I’m looking at an orchestra tuning up.

Mark says, “It always it thrills me to see that.” I immediately thought of those old cartoons where someone opens a door, and whole city appears. I wondered how big is that room and what it must sound like to sit and listen to your own private orchestra.

We get into an ancient elevator. At first, it won’t move, so Mark forces the doors open and lets them shut again. It moves. 6th floor (the top floor).

The room is large and airy. Walls bare and aged. Tall windows. Shades drawn halfway down. Chandeliers with tiny lights, glaring. Outside, it was gray and cold. A beautiful church spire, probably Episcopal, was near.

Mark again, “You’re gonna like this piano. It’s big.”

At the other end, a concert sized Steinway on a small stage, elevated just a foot above the main floor. Parquet. Facing sideways.

We piled our coats beneath the piano to dampen the sound a bit.

“Let’s turn the piano,” he says, “and put the students around you.”

I recall another time when I was invited to a class, where the students were there, mostly, because it was an easy credit they could report to their parole officers.

Young people are tricky.

Sometimes they look bored at you, or like you’re going to tell them their family just died in a car crash.

But when they’re open and available, when they’re eager and responsive, when they look hungry and curious, it all has to happen so spontaneously and unselfconsciously, that you don’t know it’s happening until it’s happening.

A few of them are already there. 9:30 class.



They don’t know I’m coming. Mark didn’t invite me until yesterday morning. I had performed a song Sunday morning in church that I had worked on with him and Andy Gale this past Saturday in their “Acting the Song” workshop.

“At A Hospice, In The Atrium” is one I had actually sung before, and posted on YouTube. Back then, it was when the song was first written, and I was unsure of the lyrics, stumbling over them a bit, making up the chords as I went along. But the song is so meaningful to me -- one I mulled over for years before finding a way to write, that I posted it anyway. It’s gotten less than a hundred hits, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

(As I write these words, I am preparing to do a concert in Olympia, where I will be singing in a folk cafe. I have always felt like I”m more folk singer than theater or cabaret artist, but really, in an auto-tuned world, these are lines are dissolving.)

I asked Mark what it was that he was teaching, what’s the curriculum? He said the class is a kind of outreach program to the community, but it’s more than that. He’s teaching these opera students to sing jazz and standards, and then do programs for some senior centers, plus they actually write a children’s opera, parodying themes from various operas that teach about opera, and they perform it to school kids. It’s a lot of work.

I’m more than sure there are some students who might feel something like this is a little beneath their dignity, to sing standards? But more than that, as a listener, opera people singing standards can be nails on the blackboard.

Everyone piled their coats under the piano to help muffle the sound. Then we took all the chairs and put them around the piano in an arc.

What Mark wanted from me was simply tell my story and sing some of the songs, illustrating the healing power of music, and the fact that it’s a calling. That lives are changed. Even if you’re cast in the worst show, in the stupidest part, someone will have needed to see that.

I began with “Connected,” the song that saved my life. The song that gave birth to The Last Session. The score that kept me alive. I told them about my online diary, among the first of its kind, about performing with an IV port stuck in my arm.

Then, I started “Lazarus.” I wanted to hear them sing. And, frankly, if I were one of them, I’d be wanting to sing, too. They caught on pretty quickly, with Mark’s help. But it felt only okay. I think we were all just feeling each other out, trying to figure out what it was we were trying to learn from another.

At one point, though, as I was singing “Going It Alone,” one of the girls bounded out of the room in tears. She told me later that it had to do with her mother and cancer, and needing to be strong.

Finally, after about an hour, we took a break and Mark had the idea to tell them to think of a story from their own lives, and then tell that story as an intro to a song.

Well, they came back. One girl got up and told a story about wanting to find her birth mom. How she had registered her name and was hoping someone from the family was also registered. And then she opened her mouth and sang... “Skylark, have you anything to say to me.”

And I was done.

Tears streaming down my face. And then, to top it off -- how well we can be moved by performers with nice intentions but no real singing skills -- she could sing. She could really, really sing. So, I couldn’t escape. She had me in her thrall.

Then, another girl. She remembered being a young girl, in the car. Her mom tells her that she’s pregnant and that this girl will have a brother. She remembered being angry and petulant at the intruder who would take her place. But when the baby brother came, he became the number one person in her life. Then she started singing, “There were birds on the hill but I never heard them singing...”

And, once again, I totally lost it.

And on THAT SONG? Geez, I’ve heard that song so much in my life, if you had told me what she was going to sing, I would have exited the room. A chestnut!

After a few notes, though, Mark stopped her. It was very operatic sounding in the original key. He said, “Let’s lower it and put it in a conversational key.”

Now, that was a term I had never heard before. Maybe he made it up on the spot.

A conversational key.

And, whoa. Phenomenal. Moving. Gut wrenching.

Lesson learned. Any song can work if you give it context. And great cabaret singing is really about telling a very real, personal story. The truth.

I had said to them earlier, “You live in a world that is filled with bullshit. Everything runs on bullshit. Tell the truth, sing the truth, and heads will snap in your direction.

Well, next it was one of the boys. Then another. Each one more emotional and amazing than the last, but all equal on their own terms, if you know what I mean.

One girl, a blond, very pretty. Raises her hand. I feel that I don’t have anything special to say. I mean, especially compared with your story.

“Well,” I told her. “Feelings aren’t facts. You are enough. What you’re experiencing is what everyone experiences who tries to get into the arts. ‘Who would care about me or my story?’” Mark told her she could stand up and use that feeling as an intro to a song.

The experience of the whole morning was so singular and, frankly, transcendent, that I never thought to pick up a camera, not even to just do a group shot. That’s when you know you’ve had a special time, like when audiences would let “Going It Alone” fade into silence.

At the end, I told them, very honestly, that what I heard that morning was as good as anything I have ever heard on a New York City stage. And that’s saying a lot. And I meant it. And I’m so grateful that Mark gave me the opportunity.

I believe all of their performances this year are going to be more or less open to the public. And I believe they’ll be singing at the open mic at Mark Janas The Salon on Sunday nights. I honestly cannot wait to hear them sing again.

But that birth. Yesterday morning. While it was unique, and couldn’t be replicated exactly, it will happen again. As Mark and I both emphasized, nothing they did was hard or complicated. In fact, the idea of stepping onto a stage and being honest is as obvious a notion as drinking water.

But, from experience, he and I knew that the ease with which these students made that transition was both remarkable and inevitable.

Like life should be. Remarkable and inevitable.

At A Hospice.

The Wikipedia Definition of an Actor.

Jim's agent called the other day and said, "Go to Wikipedia and do a search on the word 'actor.' See what you find."

Naturally, our thought was that there would be the standard definition and history, as well as some examples of great actors, such as Edwin Booth or Lawrence Olivier, Merle Streep or Liz Taylor.

Instead, there was this:

I swear I had nothing to do with it and I have no idea how it got there. But there we are, the Wikipedia definition of "actor."

Our actor friends here keep asking, "How did you pull that off?"

But then, my friend, Linda, reminded me that we had actually seen this page before, years ago. But I guess it just didn't register with me at the time. And, of course, anyone can change Wikipedia. So, maybe it will be gone tomorrow. Who knows?

But, how "universe is trying to tell you something" is that?