Trampin'

20 Year Anniversary <3

April 27 was the 20 year anniversary of my mom and the band’s album called Trampin.’ I wanted to write about this before and post on the actual day, but a mix of life events and emotion around the topic has made it a little late. Of course that concept of lateness doesn’t mean all too much here, and a 20 year anniversary in itself maybe seems insignificant or without need for celebration, but I want to tell you why it’s so special and important to me. The 20 year anniversary of Trampin’ is also the 20 year anniversary of my very first time recording in a studio, as the title track of the album is just my mom and me, piano and voice.

I started taking piano lessons when I was 13, mesmerized by my music teacher playing Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag, visiting her classroom after school to sit on the floor and request to hear it again and again. Realizing I had a special affinity for piano, specifically for ragtime, she called my mom and insisted on piano lessons for me. 

I wasn’t the best student, because I didn’t like the slow and tedious task of reading sheet music. Whenever I pushed myself through it though, the rewards were magnificent, seemingly magic. I realized that patience, focus, and repetition of practice could result in knowing favorite songs, difficult songs, and the pride I felt when just playing through a few bars of music I interpreted on my own was a kind I hadn’t known before. Nonetheless, I continued to be a poor student, and my piano teacher, who was also the director of musical theatre at my school (I loved being in musicals maybe more than anything else), was a perfect blend of patient and tough with me, realizing the limits of where to keep nudging me along, and when to give up because there was no hope. :) 

Interested in travel but needing to feel useful, I started working as a crew member for my mom’s band when I was 14, and her tour manager at the time was the absolute best. He brought me under his wing with full confidence, slowly teaching me everything he knew. I started out as a roadie, with the cases and tasks I was in charge of, and he watched me only enough to make sure I felt confident, and then left me to my own devices, respecting me as one of the team, defending me with force when outsiders on tour didn’t get it. Each year he gave me more duties on top of the ones I had already mastered. I loved those years working with Barre. 

When I was 16, there was a change in the band member lineup, and a need for some support on a few songs. I had taken piano lessons for a few years now, and Barre knew a little bass. We were enlisted to join onstage for 2 songs each to help fill out the sound. Neither of us wanted to do it at first, holding strong on the idea that we were the crew, behind the scenes, not performers. But eventually in solidarity with each other (I’ll do it if you do), we both agreed, lovingly teasing each other as we each took to the stage. 

I had been in school musicals since I was 12, and my very first live performance (a nice story for another day) was at the Free Library of Philadelphia when I was 15. But that summer tour when I was 16 was my first time onstage with a band, and sitting in with them I had to immediately erase and ignore any slight feelings of nerves or embarrassment, to blend in completely, faking it until I felt comfortable. It was an amazing boot camp in stage awareness and presence, communication and listening. It was only two songs throughout each night, and funny enough I remember the moments when Barre was onstage playing bass more than the ones when I played keyboards. I do remember the feeling though in my body, mostly all outdoor festival shows, big crowds, strange and muddy outside sound. It was absolutely intimidating and I’m sure my hands were drenched in sweat. But I survived it all and I learned so much.   

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When my mom got the idea to record Trampin,’ she asked me if I would like to play piano on the title song. At that time she only had a burnt CD with a recording of Marian Anderson singing it from 1941.

I nervously wanted to try, but there was no way I could possibly learn how to play it from the recording. So my piano teacher studied the recording and wrote out sheet music for me to learn. Our piano lessons at that point shifted into some continued exercises but focused mostly on slowly learning how to play the song. Something changed for me in those piano lessons. I suppose because there was a specific task at hand, a goal, a job, a deadline, I was still not a great student, but in my mind I wanted to learn from Julia and do the best I could. 

The biggest thing I remember from those piano lessons in that time, was Julia’s insistence and reminders on timing - to slow down, to pause, to let the voice lead, to let the music breathe. I was still beginning, still learning to understand my own natural rhythm and tempo. It was all instinctual and innately there in my body and soul, but the dangerous mind would take over sometimes, the nerves and impatience, the self doubt and frustration.

When Julia felt I was ready to record, and the studio date was set, I went with my mom to The Looking Glass Studios, the recording studio of Philip Glass here in Manhattan. I remember such intense sensations rushing through my body, mostly fear, anxiety, embarrassment, terror. I had only ever played the song alone or with Julia. Nobody else had ever heard it, and my mom and I had never practiced it before.

Everything from the actual experience of performing the song is a complete blur. I know we did only 2 takes and chose one of them, maybe the second one. I know my mom was happy, and I know I was horrified, disappointed, angry at myself. I didn’t think I played it well enough, and I knew that I had rushed it. I was so upset and didn’t have the words to express. If I had a cellphone then I would have called Julia. Or maybe if I was recording it now, I would have had her there with me as a coach, and to sign off on the final take. But she wasn’t there, I couldn’t talk with her, I didn’t have her seal of approval, and I felt that I had already disappointed her, and I had definitely already disappointed myself. My mom was sad and confused, trying to assure me that the take was great, but she wasn’t at all of those piano lessons, she didn’t know that Julia had reminded and insisted that I take time, breathe, slow down. I felt that I had done the opposite, rushing, pushing, which made perfect sense as I was intimidated and nervous, and it was my very first time recording. Imagine the brand of adrenaline that day - the way time was elastic like a shooting band instead of suspended and slow. It was also my first time hearing myself play the song along with a voice, with following a voice, with falling into that flowing world and rhythm that occurs by sonic nature and trust. We literally walked in, sat down, pressed record, and played it together cold for the very first time. 

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In the midst of my post production mental anguish, my mom said she had a present for me. She presented a flat nicely wrapped box, and I was even more mortified in that moment to be receiving a present, not feeling I deserved it whatsoever. But I unwrapped it to find this special box from Mont Blanc, a conductor’s edition pen. I opened the lid of the box to find a special edition booklet with an off-white silk scarf. Picking up the booklet revealed a black Mont Blanc pen with a tiny white conductor’s baton affixed to the cap, little individual piano keys that wrapped all around, and a matching black case to hold it. The case had JPS embossed on the front, and the pen had trampin’ printed along the side, black on black. I hadn’t remembered seeing anything so special, and the juxtaposition of feeling so unworthy and feeling so rewarded was very strange at that moment. I didn’t want to accept this beautiful gift, and I also was amazed at its existence. 

I don’t remember what happened after that. We probably had niceties with the recording engineers, and I probably eventually came back down to a grounded state of acceptance for the work I did. I really can’t remember. But Trampin’ was released on April 27, 2004, my first debut recording, and a wild memory of emotions and learning. The album has my mom’s foot on the front cover, and my hand on the back cover, holding a daisy, a photo she took.

 20 years later, I am still me, but so much has changed. I can still access that feeling of nerves in the recording studio sometimes, but I am not hard on myself like I was back then. It has a lot to do with years of experience, growing and evolving, learning more about life, having failures and successes, and also with deep and intentional work. In 2013 I enrolled in a 9 month program focused on psychoacoustics and therapeutic music and sound. In those months, I totally broke down my entire relationship with music and sound, finding infinity in a single note, and the well of breathing in the space between the notes. One of the instructors was a music therapist who specialized in spotlight terror, performance anxiety, and working through the deeply layered and complex workings of our inner critic to enable us to have a free and easier life. The work I did with her completely changed everything around performance, and I was able to learn now only how to dismantle any of the fears that held me back, and how to help others to do the same. I realized that while I didn’t have any anxiety or fear pre-performance, and was able thankfully to turn my mind off while performing, that I was often rough on myself post-performance. It took a lot of deep exploration and dedication, but I am not that way anymore, and I want to tell anyone who struggles with these natural experiences, that it doesn’t have to be that way, that there is a better experience waiting for you. <3 **Post performance self criticism was one of the themes we explored, though my most intense issue was actually a physically debilitating fear of microphones, and if you know how joyful and free I am now with a mic in my hand, you know that all of the effort and work put into this was worth every ounce of challenging energy. More on this all in the future! **

This is all to say, that all these years later, when I listen to Trampin,’ I am so proud of myself, and so amazed at what I was able to do on that recording. It might seem funny, but I have no idea how to play that song now, and it would probably take a similar amount of practice that I did with Julia in those piano lessons 20 years ago. I love to listen to Trampin’ because it reminds me of so many things. Listening to it takes me on such a long trip through time. The song is sweet and beautiful, the lyrics meaningful. It reminds me of Marian Anderson and that original recording, and my mom accessing the spirituality, the strong and tender spirit. It makes me think of practice and dedication, of learning how to read sheet music and how to play piano with intention. It reminds me of the horrors of my first recording studio experience, how that studio doesn’t exist anymore but the songs recorded there in those rooms, help the sound of the space to live on and on. It reminds me of the unique and strange experience of mother and daughter, the strange and unique experiences of my mom and me, of teachers and students, of engineers and studio owners, of the different roles we find ourselves in through life. It makes me think of the passage of time, the lessons we learn, the ways we grow and evolve, the ways we find ourselves when we were there all along. I want to visit my 16 year old self and tell her she did a great job, to hold her hand and say that everything is okay, but I also want to let her exist as she needs to, to feel the pain she’s meant to feel, to let her exist and breathe as she’s meant to.  

The journey of 1 song is incredible, and this song reminds me of the magic and power of process, that in listening to a finished song, or seeing a completed painting, reading a published book or poem, we are only experiencing a tiny sliver of what went into its creation, just the final act of a long and winding odyssey. Whenever we look at anything at all, let’s remember that. There is so much we’re not seeing, not hearing, not knowing. It’s the same when we share anything we created ourselves. There’s a grief to it, a bittersweetness to it all. You want to share the thing you made, but there’s so much more to it. That’s the part that is just for you, the process belongs to the artist, the story belongs to our lives.

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Some of you might remember in a previous post, a conversation I had with Lyle Lovett about the recording studio. He has always been so kind to me since I met him, and he said something that has stuck with me so near and dear to my heart. He asked if I had recorded my solo album yet, and I told him I had to access some extra bold courage and confidence to make solid choices and take things to the next level. I talked about some of my hesitations around feeling unnatural and intimidated sometimes in recording situations and I said to him, ‘I know I know, I have to be tough,’ to which he responded, ‘you don’t have to be tough, you just have to be definite.’ I think about this nearly every day. He also reminded me not to wait until I am ready. Another line that stays with me around this topic is something Tony Shanahan said to me some years ago. I was feeling nervous about recording and filming one of my songs in a studio where many engineers and production people were present. I expressed my fears to him in a private way and he waved it off like that was an old part of me I didn’t need anymore, and nonchalantly said without even looking up at me, ‘oh no, no, forget about that, just stay focused and do your thing,’ and I realized the power in that simple idea. We know what our missions are. So let’s decide what we need to do and be definite about it, let’s stay focused and do our work, let’s be kind and encouraging to each other, and most definite and importantly, let’s be encouraging and kind to ourselves.

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***I also want to share one last thing. The pen that my mom gave me that day became such an important and valued sacred object in my life. I didn’t use it too often because it was so special, I was terrified of anything happening to it. Some years ago, it disappeared. I searched everywhere, and have continued to search and keep hope for these years, but it hasn’t turned up. I still have the case though, and I keep my pens and pencils in it. I still have the original box and the silk scarf and booklet. I still have the sheet music from Julia, I still have the notes she made in my practice book during those lessons. I still get a feeling of anticipation when I see a black pen of a similar shape and size, but it never is my Trampin’ pen. It’s just a little added message to say, if an object is special to you and makes you happy, please enjoy it and use it. You don’t have to save it for special occasions only, you can have it as a companion for your day whenever you like. And if it does get lost, and if it never turns up again, it might feel super sad, it might feel gut wrenching, but we can remember the joy these items brought us, we can share stories in a Lost Items support circle, and everything always will be okay. <3 

Happy Anniversary to Trampin,’ to all of the songs on the album, and to everyone who made it possible. <3