Living Unapologetically

I'm not the first expatriate, immigrant, or tourist to find myself treading carefully in a new culture. The last thing I want to do is offend the people that are my neighbors, no matter how long I intend to stay in a certain place. Whether a week in India, a year in Busan, or a lifetime in the states, I have always tried to live my life in a way that is harmonious to the lives of others around me. Courtesy. Empathy. Compassion. I don't want to make someone feel uncomfortable because of something I have said or done.

This mindset has never before bubbled so close to the surface with such consistency as it has the last six months here in Korea. I've been careful about how I eat, what I eat, what I wear, where I put my chopsticks after my meal, how I greet people. Almost every element of daily life that I take for granted when home I have been hypersensitive to as I find myself in such a drastically different place.

I'm not saying that is not a bad thing. That is how I have learned to live in the Korean way (or as close to it as a non-Korean speaking foreigner can).

However, at some point I have let this sensitivity to these cultural differences stop me from living my life. I have let my new city stop me from doing the things I want to do to live forward and work ahead in my career.

As this page is titled, I am a wandering musician. I play the flute. I am a classically trained orchestral musician. With this title comes a huge responsibility: practicing. Practicing daily. Practicing when you don't want to. Practicing the things that sound terrible. Running drills, scales, arpeggios. Technical work that I love. Long tones that are low. Long tones that are high. Long tones that seem like they will never end. Breathing exercises. Yoga. Meditation.

The first six months in Korea I barely touched my flute. I felt a bit lost. I was caught up trying to figure out my future career because I was ignoring the one that I truly loved. I was trying to change who I am into something I'm not.

This is not Koreas fault. I am not blaming my location.

Instead it was a complex culmination of countless different factors that have been building since before I finished my Masters degree. But therein lies a different blogpost.

Right now I'm looking forward. I've stopped being afraid of offending my neighbors and have picked up my instrument again. I'm applying for festivals, masterclasses, and orchestral auditions. I'm practicing (within decent hours), I'm exercising (outside of those decent hours), and I'm living my life in the truest form that I can.

You see I'm still being sensitive to my neighbors. I don't play my flute before 8 am or after 9 pm. I refrain from high piccolo work in my apartment (because really, nobody deserves that torture). I'm still conscious of cultural difference and carry myself in a way that resonates with these new cultural norms. But I am no longer changing all of who I am to make sure that others are happy. This was never my intention, but it was essentially what was happening.

It's time for me to do me. It's time for me to live shamelessly because that is who I am.

It's time to live unapologetically.

Some thoughts.

I know it's been a while since I have posted, but lots of things have happened in the last few months. Here is a little taste of some of the things I am going through right now.

After devoting six years of my life to the study of music and philosophy, achieving a Bachelors degree, philosophy minor, and Masters degree in flute performance, and now attempting to enter the professional world I have encountered many a raised eyebrow. Most people simply ask how I, a semi-professional musician, expect to be able to repay my student loans. They wonder why I would waste six years of my life on degrees that are unmarketable except to very specific positions: orchestral musician, collegiate music educator, freelancing musician, or private teacher. They argue that none of these positions have job security, high pay rates, or the potential to support me, my student loans, and on top of it all a car payment, insurance, rent, a phone bill, and food. What a mess I have placed myself in, they exclaim.

And lately I can’t say I haven’t had moments where I agree with them. Everyone suffers from moments of self-doubt, uncertainty, and to be completely frank fear. As a classically trained musician who is questioning whether that is the future she wants, I have definitely experienced many new doubts and worries in the last few weeks. But through this turbulence I can feel myself getting closer to my destination.

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I have recently started hiking and “climbing” at Vedauwoo, an awesome rock formation near Laramie. I put climbing in quotes because I haven’t been throwing on a harness and climbing up sheer rock faces, but I also haven’t simply been walking around the awesome rocky outcrops. Instead I have been hiking up them, climbing over and under massive boulders, and fighting to reach the tops of the formations.

This is extremely rewarding both physically and mentally. Knowing that I’m capable of pulling myself up and over a giant boulder, climbing up a tiny crack and crevice, crawling under a huge rock, and essentially just exploring and having a good time at 8000 feet above sea level is a rewarding physical activity. But the mental rewards almost outweigh these physical ones. In my time at Vedauwoo I have learned that sometimes to reach the top you need to descend down the mountain, in order to get from point A to point B you have to walk in a roundabout manner and land at point C first. I have learned that you need to creatively assess the situation in front of you and sometimes, often in fact, take what looks like the more difficult path in order to reach the top. Sure the easy looking line might make it to the top, but it often hits a dead end at a cliff or sheer rock face, so rather than take that path, one might need to take the scary and impossible looking route instead.

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I didn’t start climbing (yes we will call what I’m doing climbing despite the linguistic complications of the word) with the intention of finding some cliched sensation of inner peace, but this is exactly what I have found. I have realized that, despite taking one path up until this point there is exactly nothing holding me onto this path. I’m not saying music is a dead end, or a fatal drop to the rocks below, but I have realized that I can stray from this path and still make it to the final destination at the top.

My studies of music and philosophy have made me a complex and unique person with many different marketable skill sets. My 8+ years in the fields of customer service as a cashier at Fleet Farm, a cook, a server, and ultimately a bartender have given me invaluable insights and life skills that are essential for every field. All of the work I have devoted in the last quarter of my life has brought me to an interesting new place and I can go many places from here.

I have no regrets with what I have done with my life so far and I am definitely not limiting myself in any way to this field. I will continue to pursue music because I love it and maybe someday this will take me somewhere extraordinary and unexpected. But I will also start to pursue my passions in other fields: humanitarian efforts, cultural exchange and discovery, and environmental concerns are all things that I have been passionate about my whole life, so perhaps now is the time to tap into that passion and try to find a career where I can have an impact on these elements of the world.

Being a musician, a bartender, a teacher, and a student of philosophy all have one main thing in common: the desire to alter the experiences of others in a positive and impactful way. I have always wanted to make others happy whether through my music, my service, or my educational approach to students, and this desire is going to continue to mold my approach to the world.

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So for now I’m going to make a list of what I have to offer potential employers. This is a first draft and will continue to grow as I reflect on my experiences so far, but it has been an intellectual exercise that has helped me find peace with my current situation. I have been blessed to be given the opportunities in life that I have and it is time to recognize what I have to offer the world.

Here it is:

·      Minor in Philosophy

o   critical thinking and the ability to take complex texts and reduce them down to easily understandable, less complex increments

o   openness to different ideas especially ones that conflict with my own, to analyze and understand them in order to either agree or find specific elements with which to disagree

§  creative and flexible mentality: able to suspend my own beliefs for a period of time as I attempt to first understand the other ideology and second to incorporate elements that I agree with into my own and to have clear, explicit reasons for disagreeing with the other elements

o   writing and editing skills: the study of complex texts, unique philosophical discourses, and other elements of philosophy such as the study of logic all combine to give me a unique voice informed by many different styles

§  also the ability to edit comes from writing dozens of large scale papers that need to be cohesive and clear while simultaneously expounding upon often complex philosophical ideas

§  the ability to point out inconsistencies and lack of clarity in my own papers is directly applicable to the editing and revision of other texts

o   the drive to understand different cultures and the willingness to acknowledge that my own perspectives and beliefs may be flawed

§  in our global world we are consistently confronted with differing cultural beliefs and ideas and it is essential for us to be able to not only understand and listen to others, but really make an effort to understand their viewpoints and question our own

§  to avoid narcissistic and ignorant conceptions of the world I think it is necessary to be able to question ourselves as well as others

·      Major in Flute Performance

o   Studying music has many benefits in terms of creativity, teamwork, organization, time management, cooperation, communication, and the ability to take a large complex task and break it down into doable smaller increments

o   The self-discipline required to succeed in music, working for hours behind the scenes for one brief moment of acknowledgement in a recital/concert situation, is directly applicable to the type of work that one needs to do in different facets of life

§  having the ability to see the future benefits of the hard work your putting in now—often work isn’t instantly rewarding so one needs to be able to look to the future where the hard work being put in now will pay off

§  the individual self-discipline to hold yourself to an extremely high standard in the music world has obvious applications to ones work environment

·      the advanced musician can’t simply expect their teacher and colleagues to hold them to a higher musical standard, instead she needs to force herself to continue to work hard in order to obtain her goals.

o   Teamwork is essential for all facets of music performance, except for the occasional solo instrument/voice piece

§  The construction of an orchestra or large ensemble piece is really a unique and extraordinary social phenomenon: taking dozens of individually talented and focused musicians and molding them all to the pursuit of one specific interpretation and task, which many of them may not agree with or have personally sought after, is an interesting social phenomenon

·      we are trained to have our own musical interpretations, we all have different musical experiences and goals, and yet when we are in an ensemble setting we are not only able but also willing to set our personal inclinations aside for the work of the whole shows a level of teamwork and emotional maturity that isn’t often awarded to such individually focused people

·      this teamwork is also present on the small ensemble (2-5 players) level and requires clarity of communication and willingness to listen and understand the perspective of the other musicians

o   Passion. Musicians are extremely passionate about what they do and what they are pursuing- this passion can be applied to many different facets of life, not simply music, and makes a musician an excellent employee for organizations with causes that the musician can resonate with and feel strongly about

§  this might also be why I, as a musician, am loathe to enter a workplace that doesn’t have a mission that I believe in or agree with. Working for a bank or something of that nature does not appeal to me nearly as much as working for a humanitarian organization such as the UN or UNESCO.

o   Education! As a student of music I have been effectively studying how to educate future generations of musicians while also studying music as a student myself. Music pedagogy courses, understanding creativity, and writing my Plan B paper for my masters degree on education and the ways in which to teach young students of flute have all enabled me to understand the complexities of music education

·      Working in customer service

o   I have spent the last 8 years of my life in the food service industry, thanks to my wonderful family and the purchase of a resort and the construction of a bar and restaurant. This means I have been in a semi-public eye for most of my life and have had to represent the family business in front of customers and strangers

o   Working as a cook, server, and bartender instills customer service skills of epic proportions: one must do the best that one can do in order to keep the customer happy and satisfied.

§  not only do we have to, but after so many years in the industry, we want to. Seeing a customer satisfied, making sure that they are happier when they leave than when they arrive, and doing your best to have a positive impact on the lives of strangers are all personal characteristics that are cultivated in the food service industry

o   Multi-tasking! One simply does not cut it as a server/bartender or as a cook without the ability to multi-task.

§  A cook needs to understand how different foods cook in different ways and balance out the timing, assembly, and presentation of many different meals in order to have them reach the customer at the same time and in a satisfying way

§  A server needs to be able to gauge each customer and be able to anticipate who will need something at certain times. The efficient server will make herself available when the customer needs her but leave him alone when he doesn’t need anything. When balancing multiple different tables at once this requires complex multi-tasking abilities: understanding who exactly was given what at what time from each table and making sure that each table has exactly what they needs is a complex process

§  A bartender often needs to balance all of these things, making sure each customer has the drink they want, mixing it to their specifications and to a high quality, being aware of all of the customers present as well as the new ones that come in. There is nothing worse than a bartender who is unaware of her surroundings and who doesn’t acknowledge you when you are a new customer at the bar: effective bartenders are extremely aware of their surroundings and capable of balancing the needs of everyone present.

long tones are like spot shots

As a graduate student studying flute performance I don’t have a lot of time for, well, anything. Taking three classes, working on my thesis, helping teach four classes, building up a studio, and the never-ending stream of rehearsals, practicing, and audition prep, all combines together to create a busy and hectic lifestyle. But despite all of this, and the constant needs of sleep, food, and gym time, I still manage to find the time to play pool, to work on my game, to watch matches and learn more about the sport.

But why? How do you balance out these two passions that take so much time? What do I get out of pool in the world of music, and how does music help my pool game? Because it is not a parasitic relationship- studying the flute doesn’t not directly impede my pool game and vice versa. There are so many commonalities between the structures of both activities that doing one directly affect the other.

Long tones are like spot shots.

When I’m in my office playing long tones it’s really easy for my mind to wonder, my focus to leave, and my work ethic to lag. Who cares if that Eb doesn’t sound as clear as the D or C below it? Why does it matter? Well it matters because of the level I’m at, if I want to make a living off of music than it is the little things like this that I need to focus on. Miniscule little elements of music that the average listener wouldn’t even regard or notice are the focus of intense hours of repetition in the practice room. I like to start my flute sessions with these long tones, to remind myself of how to play each note on the instrument, where to place the air stream, and how to keep the notes sounding good. Sometimes I wander and don’t want to do that, but then I remind myself of the spont shots that I love to start my pool sessions off with. I place a ball (usually the 9 or 8 ball, or 10 ball—depending one what game I’m focusing on that day) on the spot, put the cue one diamond in on the short rail and two diamonds up on the long rail and shoot the target ball into the corner. I alternate from each side of the table in groups of 5, and don’t stop until I’ve made the shot and put the cue where I wanted it 5/5 times on each side three times. But after shooting this shot so many times what’s the point, there are harder shots for me to focus on. I use the spot shot to remind myself how to stroke, I focus on any hitches in my stroke, I analyze my bridge, I check in on my stance and my shoulders, all of the little things that need to stay the same for every shot I make sure are the same on every spot shot. Just like I want my Eb to sound the same as my C, I want my stroke on that tight cut to be the same as on my bank. I’m new to pool, so maybe that isn’t necessarily what the pros want, but it’s what I want. When I keep my stroke long and even I make shots more consistently and with more ease than when I worry and chop the shot.

Practice is practice and it means intelligent, focused work:

Anyone can sit down, or stand up, in a small room and play the flute for three hours every day. It’s really just a matter of scheduling that time and going to the room. But not everyone uses that time wisely. Rather than running every piece from start to finish, the acute musician will focus on the elements of their sound, technique, and repertoire that they are struggling with. They will run long tones for hours evening out their tone, play every single type of scale at every possible rhythm and articulation, they will do breathing exercises and work out, all before even looking at their repertoire. The savvy musicians understands that it’s not a matter of playing each individual piece of music thousands of time, but rather of playing the scales, long tones, and articulation exercises that are applied to all different pieces of music. If you know scales then you know that section of your piece where the flute is just playing broken thirds of a major scale. It’s the same with pool, pattern play is important (running the rack), but first you need to be able to do a spot shot. You need to have a good stance, an even stroke, and a good eye. Practicing the individual shots that you struggle with and that constantly come up in your game is like practicing scales, it’s a mindset of work on miniscule elements of the game and of the instrument. I would never have played pool like this if I wasn’t first and foremost a musician.

You only live once, time:

It doesn’t matter how focused your practice time is, you need to put in the time itself. Pool and music both require consistent work, daily practice, and lots of it. You can’t skip a day of music and expect to pick up your flute sounding the same as you did before the break. It’s unfortunate. I always hoped that when I got better I could take time off and still come back to the same level as before, but it’s the other way around. The more finesse and sophistication there is to your sound the more you need to work every day to keep it. It’s the same with pool, as I build up my cue control, my speed control, and my pattern play, I find that skipping a few weekdays really pushes me back to square one again. Music is no fickle mistress, and pool is just as demanding. But there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week, one can schedule the time in if one wants to. Flute practice takes up three hours of my day, pool takes one to two, and everything else fits in that 19-20 hour time period of consciousness. When I finish my masters degree I will have more time for pool, but until then it gets the backburner, as far as time goes at the table.

But the time I spend in the practice room and the time I spend in the pool hall build off of each other: my music focus alters my pool focus, the joy I get from pool has been reflected in the joy I get from the flute, the work ethic, time, focus, and dedication from both parts of me have grown to a feverish pitch and I will continue to work on both pool and music.

Being a musician does not mean I can’t be a pool player, and shooting pool does not detract from my role as a musician. With a little energy and focus I have been able to do both, so far, and we’ll see where it takes me in the future.

High Desert Shoot Out

“And they say don’t forget where you come from, don’t die holding onto your words. Cuz you know that you’ve got the whole world to change, but understand who you’ve gotta change first.”

So this last weekend I spent all of my time in Rawlins Wyoming shooting pool and hanging out with friends. As you may know my time in Saratoga last year at an extremely similar tournament was a turning point for me in terms of the role that billiards plays in my life, and Rawlins was a continuation of that. Shooting in the Sportsman bracket I was able to play some good, and some very bad, pool—with poor timing for each of these moments. That is, when playing the young man (who I give props to for participating in the adult tournament as well as the youth tournament this year), I was breaking and running and shooting extremely well. I needn’t have done that, I could have just coasted through there and been fine. But then when moving on to the next match against an older woman (older than me, not old as in elderly) I was making stupid errors and missing important shots—i.e. the eight ball… but in a race to three, down 0-2 I managed to pull my head out of my proverbial ass and start shooting, winning up to hill-hill. But, alas, I lost the match due to a poorly controlled cue ball scratching when my opponent only had two balls left on the table. Saddest of days.

Or maybe not. Pool is such a mental game that it is very common for you to get trapped inside of your own head, become to cerebral and nervous, and miss out on simple shots that you can usually do in your sleep. I once heard a pro say that pool is easy, all you have to do is make your shot. There are no hard shots, there are just shots to make. When you have the mentality, and the experience to back it up, that each shot is something you’ve made in the past and is easy enough, then you will start winning games, matches, and tournaments.

I experienced a similar mentality on Sunday morning when I was entered in the “Hard Luck 9 Ball” tournament for those players that had lost out of their original tourneys. This handicapped tournament (race to 4, 6, and 8 for the sportsman, classics, and experts, respectively) was much more to my liking. Barbox 9 ball is much easier than big table 9 ball, for me personally, and it’s something that I thoroughly enjoy playing. I got a fortunate draw for this tournament, set to play an expert who decided not to show up I got a bye for my first round. The second round I shot against a classic player in a match that I am by no means proud of. I should have ran those four games easily, but instead I made stupid errors and barely scratched by with a match score of 4-4 (the classic player needed to run 6 games). I was playing on tables outside of the main tourney area in the Eagles that were much slower, less reliable as far as table roll and rail responsiveness went, and that had a bright glare from the car outside the main door reflecting the sunlight into our eyes. Needless to say, that wasn’t a great match.

Immediately after that match though I had to go up against Shane, an expert player from the Fort Collins area. I lost this match 7-1 because, quite honestly, I am awful at the 9 ball “push” shot, which I avoided to my detriment, giving up ball in hand in two games on racks that were easy run-outs. That being said, when I walked up to the table with my three cues (one breaker, one shooter, and one jump cue) some of the guys were giving me shit about having a jump cue, so I told them it was just a present and that I just carry it around for funzies. Not quite the truth. I used that jump cue successively two or three times in that match, getting myself out of predicaments that were the result of poor cue control. My break was one point, I dropped two or three balls on every break, popping the cue ball up in the air on contact with the rack and dropping it down directly in the middle of the table. This is a break that I’ve learned from watching Shane van Boening shoot countless matches on youtube, and it’s something I’m quite proud of. That being said I had so many unfortunate rolls on the break that despite stopping the cue where it needs to be in the middle, often a wing ball would roll up right next to it and block my next shot on the one. Angst. So obviously I lost that match, taking 5-8^th place and leaving a mere $60 richer.

While in Rawlins I got to spend more time with my buddy Jim Calderon and all the other players I met in Saratoga last year. I was surprised at how many of them remembered me, many approached me within the first hour of being at the tournament to ask how I was doing and see what bracket I was shooting in. You meet so many awesome people in these pool tournaments and this year I had the awesome opportunity to meet Rodney “The Rocket” Morris. But, being the painfully shy person that I am, I didn’t spend too much time with him and Raj Hundal, instead I just focused on pool the whole weekend—which was, in fact, the only reason why I was there. Kimberly and Marc Griffiths from Str8 Shots were in attendance to run the youth tournament on Sunday, and they kindly treated Jim and me to a dinner on Saturday night. I love talking with these two as they are just as passionate about pool and as hopeful and dedicated to the future of the sport as I am. They are supportive of all levels, especially the youth and collegiate levels, of the game and are working hard to advance billiards into something more respectable and visible to the public eye, and I fully support all of their endeavors.

Billiards has gone from a passing fancy that I participated in at my home bar when drinking with my family and friends, to something serious that I am dedicated to on a serious level. Like music, where I spend three hours a day practicing my flute and piccolo on a variety of repertoire and technical passages, I can easily get to a table and play pool for hours on end. I lack a comprehensive knowledge of the game as far as cue control, English, and pattern play go, and in terms of this I seriously miss having a coach that I could meet consistently to work through these portions of my game. Unlike music where I have been studying with teachers for the past six years, pool is something that I just picked up on the way through my life. I have a good, long stroke and a great break (or so I am told) which means that I have a great foundation to go off of, but until I get a bit more cerebral about my cue control and position play I am afraid I will always be stuck at the level I am currently at. Which means that now is the time to start researching, reading, and studying DVD’s about the sport, and applying my intellectual rigor and fortitude to the game that I love.

Being a musician has taught me dedication, passion, and focus; being a billiards player has effected my personality, sense of humor, and physical abilities at the table; and being a bartender has transformed my self into an easy-going, talkative, and expressive individual. Combining all of these things together into who I am, Krystle Jane, means that I have the places to go, people to see, and the world to change.