I so enjoyed working with my fellow performers and meeting artist Janet McKenzie. We met Friday afternoon for our dress rehearsal and then convened Saturday afternoon a talk with the artist.

Janet is soft-spoken, quietly funny and passionate about her art. She explained that her work changed in the mid-90s when her nephew (then a little boy of color) couldn’t see himself in her artwork. And so her work opened.

That opening put her on the path to including people of color and, in particular, women of color in her paintings. She feels it is the work she was put here to do. (Having work you are called to do is an idea I can relate to. *smile*)

During the afternoon she talked about her work, her journey with her painting “Jesus of the People” and answered questions. Mary Lou, Regina and I also presented a preview of the evening’s music and dance.

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In the evening, we gathered at Peace Church to present this eclectic event of offerings inspired by her work. We sang, dance and, important to me, told stories.

A big part of my improvisation journey over the past year has been discovering stories in the music.

I love this story that I “found” during this weekend’s concert. [Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

Here is the image that was projected during the story.

© Janet McKenzie Study #1

The Give Get Sistet: Valandra, Mankwe, me & Libby

It was a busy week leading up to the Give Get Sistet Concert event and I squeezed in more errands, to do lists and rehearsals than seemed possible. The morning of the concert, I rose bright and early to begin prepping the food. (I had wanted to get a start on it Saturday night, but finally made myself go to bed to make sure I was well rested for the singing. *smile*)

My friend K came over around noon and we chopped and chopped (and chopped and chopped *grin*) vegetables for roasted potatoes, bruschetta and stuffed mushrooms. We loaded up the food, the rest of the auction items and my outfit and headed to the concert house (where K did even more chopping. What a trooper!).

The line for the oven.

Then my friends just kept arriving and kept helping. (Thank you, friends!) Some set up the auction, others worked on the food and the Sistet members and my MC (my friend Michele Denise Michaels) arrived to warm up and do sound check. Needless to say, it was wonderful (and a little chaotic!) to have so many helpers.

About an hour before the doors opened, I went upstairs to iron my pants, change into my outfit (discover I had forgotten my shoes. Whoops!) and prepare to sing a concert. I felt a little guilty (and, okay I’m big enough to admit it, a teensy, teensy bit worried) as I escaped upstairs while leaving my friends to finish everything for our guests. The Sistet gathered in our “green room” for some last minute notes and togetherness and then came downstairs to do a sound check.

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My friends told me I'm not allowed to say I don't cook anymore. *smile*

With sound check over, I walked into the kitchen and was so touched by the care and attention everyone had given to everything. The food was excellently completed and beautifully presented. The auction items were all displayed with their corresponding bid sheets (and pens!). My friend photographer friend Patty was taking “behind-the-scene” photos and our guests were arriving — beginning with my landlords. *grin* I was particularly honored by the attendance of so many people with whom I’ve sung in the past.

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Oh right, the concert!

Yes, I baked.

I told Michele (who attended the dress rehearsal Saturday) that I was a little concerned because the Sistet hadn’t ever run our entire sets with the improvised pieces “in place.” We rehearsed songs and we practiced improvising (yes, there is such a thing *smile*), but we never worked on moving in and out of what I put on the set lists as “IMPROV/SOLO MOMENTS.”

(In other words, we hadn’t rehearsed the improvising. Duh. When, when, when will I learn to trust the improv process?)

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

It was so good we hadn’t. The music had a freshness and electricity in it that only comes from inventing in the moment. And even though in the improvs none of us technically knew what we were doing, I was safe in the knowing that we would get where we were going together.

So the concert was …

The concert was all I had hoped it would be. A stirring journey through songs and improvisations with my fantastic and daring fellow Give-Getters in front of an appreciative and participating witnesses. But also fun and playful and silly. (Just the way I like my music!)

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.] (*Note: this “track” is actually from Saturday’s dress rehearsal, but Michele like it so much I promised I’d post it. *smile*)

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It was wonderful to integrate so much of what I have learned over the past year – singing for our listeners, singing with them and having them sing for us. Letting the music take us where we needed to go together. I basked in the joy of a community built by music.

I thank everyone who participated in the event; from those who were in the room to my family, friends and classmates overseas who donated, prayed, wished and hoped for the success of the evening.

I am honored, deeply touched (and still slightly dumbfounded) by the grace which was showered upon me for the night.

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

Bass-playin' Brice

On the third day, our instrumentalists joined us.

Brice (pronounced Breese), a small, soft-spoken and very, very sweet bass player sat on a stool to play his bass, which towered over him.

For all his sweetness, he was a beast on the bass. He began to study the bass at age 18 (I couldn’t even guess how old, or young, he is now?) and also told us how he took a fiberglass bass into the Cameroon Rainforest and lived and made music with the aboriginal people there. (When asked if he had a teacher there, he replied “I had a friend.” *smile*)

His wife and toddler son visited us often throughout the week.

On Brice’s first (or was it second) day with us, we broke into smaller groups — mine had 5 of us in it — and got to create duets with him. Here is an excerpt of the piece I created with him. (You can hear some of the “accompaniment” provided by the city — and nearby construction workers — in it. *smile*)

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

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Gunga with some of his instruments

Gunga is a percussionist who has lived in Amsterdam for over a decade, but still speaks with a thick Scottish brogue. Rhiannon labeled him the “trickster,” and he certainly put us through our paces.

Take the exercise where I had to harmonize with him as he played whistling tubes as an example. Gunga played them beautifully and with much more subtlety than you might imagine would be possible. He displayed incredible musicality while playing all these instruments he has constructed mainly from children’s toys and what we might consider “non-musical” items.

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

As the week progressed, he joined us often and became more and more tender with our group and vice versa. (I even got a smooch on the cheek during our final concert Friday. *smile*)

On our fourth day (Wednesday), my small group (the same 5 singers) worked on duets with Gunga. Here is a snippet from that duet.

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

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Both Gunga and Brice (and our dance instructors, too) were incredibly generous in the time they gave to us. They came for extra sessions and added so much to the rest of our week. I really enjoyed improvising with them and now I am thinking about how I might work with instrumentalists in my own projects.

Inside De Roos (The Rose)

On Sunday (7/1), my week of classes began. We met for our daily singing sessions in a lovely space called De Roos (The Rose).

My roommate Sarah and I walked to the park the first day and only got a little bit lost because it turns out De Roos is located in the Vondelpark. (The Vondelpark is a 120-acre park within the city).

De Roos has several rooms (we had our assigned space for the week), as well as a cafe, gift shop and lovely outdoor patio. (I ate lunch on the patio almost every day. *smile*)

My new friend Ruben. I just loved his face (and told him so!)

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The staff were very kind to us (even when we were boisterous), from my front desk buddy Ruben to the lovely and efficient young woman (whose name I never learned *frown*) who worked in the cafe and told me on the day of our concert, “Good luck! You look beautiful.”

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We spent the first day getting musically reacquainted by working in duets, trios and quartets. Here’s a short excerpt from a quartet I created with Rahel, Juerg and Paula.

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

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Henk, Kees and Costanza unwinding after our first day. (Notice what they're wearing. It was not hot in Amsterdam.)

Afterwords, we went into the Vondelpark for an impromptu (dare I say improvised? *grin*) picnic of take-out Thai food — Holland is geographically close to a lot of Indonesian countries so they have a lot of Asian food there — and afterwords headed to Vertigo Cafe (also in the park) for a nightcap. It stays light until after 10pm so it was easy to be out quite late without really knowing it. *smile*)

Lucky for us, Vertigo was situated conveniently between De Roos and the Vondelkerk, our performance venue. (Especially since the two days it rained during the week were the days of our public community singing event and our showcase performance.)

As I hope you know, dear reader, I take the promises I make to you in this blog seriously. Probably more seriously than you require. *smile*

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(Before I digress, here is your audio.)

[Oops! You\'ll have to visit songtaneous.com/blog to listen.]

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled blog post …

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Since I was already posting on Monday (rather than Sunday night), I decided to “bang out” an audio post from my rehearsal recordings before moving onto my other web tasks for today — backing up my blog and web site files, updating my blog software, designing my student newsletter (more info on that soon), and updating my facebook fan page. A short and sweet update and then onto the rest of my day.

Hah!

I spent nearly three hours editing a 4-1/2-minute segment of audio! Not to mention the time writing about it and sending the email.

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Please understand, I absolutely think you are worth every minute of the time it took to write and edit this post, including the time I spent editing the audio.

But the experience of writing this post and editing the audio got me thinking about the 80-20 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle) and how I’d failed to follow it.

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In my case, I’m using the variation of Pareto’s principle that states that 80% of the value of this audio clip for you, came from 20% of the time I spent on it.

Maybe 10% of the time spent was recording the rehearsals in the first place and archiving them on my computer. Another couple percent to convert the files into a format small enough for you to stream on the web.

The bulk of the time I spent came from my decision to edit the audio for you. Presto-change-o, a 20-minute project became a three-hour project just like that.

(While I like to think I added value for you, I’m not sure it three hours’ worth. *smile*)

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So I have decided to use the 80-20 rule as a “good enough” rule. (My apologies to Signore Pareto.)

In other words …

Once you do 20% of the work, it’s a good idea to stop and evaluate how much of the remaining 80% of work you should do to make whatever you’re doing good enough.

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Not excellent. Not perfect. Not superior to all blog posts with audio clips that have ever been or ever will be written.

Just finished, complete.

You know, good enough.

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When you are in school, your level of effort and the quality of the finished product matter. (Okay, it mattered to me. *grin*)

There is A work and there is C work.

(And F’s for no work or really bad work.)

Guess what?

In the “real” world, most of the work is pass/fail.

You get credit for doing it. You get labeled lame for not.

80% of the time (*smile*), good enough gets the job done.

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How about you? Are you spending 80 to get 20?

Striving for an A+ when the assigment is pass/fail?

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P.S. I’m headed out of town for the holiday weekend so I’ll post again June 3.