Public Practice at the Disney Concert Hall Garden

Its one thing to sit inside the elegant Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall--as we did last night--and feel the rapture and excitement of sounds made by world class musicians. Its quite another to pick a tune--as I did today on my guitar--just outside, in the garden. Both experiences were thrilling.

Active Arts at the Los Angeles Music Center is wrapping up its spring Public Practice program for amateur instrumentalists at its campus downtown--at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The debate about the value of investing public funds for the arts always seems to heat up in tough economic times. We are hearing more about how a community can become more vital, even spur economic growth, by keeping it arts programs alive. And on the level of the individual, we are told that music can improve the mind, raise test scores and make us better learners, young and old, alike.

But, as reported in March 1, 2010 edition of the L.A. Times,( Beyond the Mozart Effect) you have to be a hands-on participant, not just a listener to gain these individual benefits. Said another way, engaged creativity trumps detached connoisseurship. This does not mean we should value any less sitting back and enjoying a fine performance. But it does point to where we should be putting our public and private dollars, and investing our own time.

Compared to most European countries, we in the United States invest a paltry amount of public funds in the arts. Usually the big concert halls, the symphony orchestras, the opera are dependent upon charitable contributions made by wealthy patrons. Public and non-profit organizations will team up with many of these same patrons to minimally fund hands-on arts programs--but those mostly are limited to children.

The times, they are a changin'. And a perfect storm's a brewin'. We are better understanding the value of the arts both to the individual--of any age--and the community. At the same time, performing arts centers like the Music Center--along with museums, historic sites, and live music performances in general--are on a long-term slide down, in terms of attendance. In this high-tech, user-generated, YouTube world of the 21st Century, it is not enough to bring in exciting young geniuses like Gustavo Dudamel, and expect the slide to reverse itself.

Performing arts centers are searching for a new, transformative model, and Active Arts at the Music Center is a leading scout on the search. Public Practice is one of its more innovative programs.

(Scroll down for two more posts on Active arts.)

-- RCH

Seeing

I seldom go directly

To the thing itself;

All mere fancy dancing.

Until Kay Ryan reminds me

To see the mother-daughter

Walking hand in hand to school.

-- RCH

"Tree Terrorists Attack Signal Hill"

Hyperbole ranks right up there with porn as something the Web needs less of. But I couldn't resist passing on a little hyperbole, myself.

Signal Hill Petroleum is offering a $2,500 reward for the arrest and conviction of "Tree Terrorists" who have sawn through or injected poison into about ten eucalyptus trees on the north slope of Signal Hill.

"We are sickened by these horrible acts of destruction and for the loss of these beautiful trees," said Craig Barto, SHP's president. The Signal Hill Tribune reported that the trees are 30 to 40 feet tall, and two could be more than 70 years old.

The largely undeveloped north slope, sprinkled with oil pumpers, has been basically open for hikers, joggers and people walking their dogs, according to one SHP official. The City of Signal Hill and the local Sierra Club have expressed interest in purchasing the 32-acre site for a natural preserve or a park.

The costly removal of the dying trees is necessary to protect hikers. A SHP official noted that "aside from the danger to human life, the trees add beauty to the hill and their root system prevent mudslides during heavy rainfall."

The Signal Hill Police is investigating. A common-sense lead would point to the new homes on the hilltop whose views may be compromised by the trees. City Planning staff, in the past, has noted that when view properties come up for sale, their owners are particularly insistent about tree removal or topping to enhance views and thus property values. The police would be wise to pursue this line of thinking in their investigations.

Here are a few more pictures. The damaged trees have been identified with a red ribbon.

http://bit.ly/90pewg

--- RCH

Public Practice at the LA Music Center

This month more than 30 adult amateur musicians of all skill levels, playing various instruments--from harp to harmonium-- will help animate the outdoor spaces of the LA Music Center. They will be practicing--not performing--their instruments there, as part of the Music Center's Public Practice program. (Click on link.)

I chose to practice my guitar in the program--I'm learning a Villa-Lobos piece--for several reasons:

1. It is a thrill to practice at the Music Center, and to be somehow connected to the creativity that this great institution has promoted and shared for so many years. But, more importantly, the institution is changing. It is transforming itself from a performing arts center to a civic cultural center, using participatory arts and its public spaces to build community. I want to support that transformation.

2. Music is more than a product--a performance or a CD. It is a process, (See Process Philosophy for a synopsis of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy.) and an important part of that process is practice. Practice is disciplined preparation to achieve a performance goal, or it may be a heart-felt letting go to simply enjoy the sound and the process of learning. I want to experience that.

3. Music is RELATIONSHIP. It explores affirms and celebrates one's link with the Great Pattern that connects the whole living world. The late composer John Cage had a very expansive understanding of music. He urged us to fully listen to our soundscape, where we might find music in what may be formerly considered cacophonous noise. Public Practice offers me the opportunity to be in, and contribute to, the downtown LA soundscape.

4. Finally, the West Coast, and Los Angeles and the Music Center in particular, are known for their spirit and promotion of experimentation in the arts. I feel fortunate to be able to participate--in some small way--in that experiment.

Seen from this perspective, Public Practice is at the heart of arts promotion for building community. I look forward to my time next week of practicing in public, along with the sounds of the Peace Fountain (see photo) and the City.

-- RCH

Active Arts in Signal Hill and Long Beach ?

There was a period in America when music was played live, frequently in parlors and on dusty porches. Creative expression reigned; and the term "amateur musician" was something to be proud of, a lover (to use the term's French origin) of music not a bungler of music, that seems to be a derisive and dismissive use of the term in common use today.

Since then, recorded and commercialized music and has turned us into "passive and detached connoisseurs, " rather than citizens engaged in creative expression that is so vital to a healthy and thriving community.

The Los Angeles Music Center--through its Active Arts program (watch the video)-- is transforming itself from principally a performance art center to a civic cultural center, using participatory arts and its public spaces to build community. This is a complex task that challenges our assumptions about the meaning of art, as well as our own personal and institutional roles in that.

I've been fortunate to be involved with this transformation the last four years. I will be posting here developments at the Music Center, with the hope of creating a dialogue among interested arts and culture advocates in the Signal Hill-Long Beach area, to see if there may be something to be learned and applied locally. Stay tuned; engage in the dialogue!

-- RCH

Another Pleasant Encounter on Signal Hill

Glen and Mary pose in front of a stone pillar manufactured to look like old stone walls of the Denny Mansion, on the hill before oil was discovered in the early 1920s.

Mary--a terrier-chihuahua mix--gets her way; taken out daily for a walk on the Hilltop. Glen is very patient with her.

(Click on slide show at right for entire project to date.)

--- RCH