Triumph of The Average

(Claude Monet: The Magpie, 1868-1869)

When I was in 8^th grade in San Diego I had a Social Studies teacher named Mr. Sheridan who I remember as an exceptionally un-engaging instructor. I remember stewing with regret that I hadn’t been assigned to the other Social Studies class in my grade, where all my best friends were and who seemed to be having a great time, (judging by the talk at lunch time).

I suffered through those months comforted by the two girls I sat with, Lisa and Sherra. We would share our secret crushes with each other, and sometimes they would campaign on my behalf, a favor that I was deeply grateful for.

Some time towards the end of the year Mr. Sheridan broke the monotony by surprising us with an oil painting he had been working on. He explained that he had no inclination to paint from a technical point of view, but had decided to take a painting class to see how he did.

He walked us through the steps, showing us how the art teacher had demonstrated perspective, beginning by penciling the layout and then adding the oils, enhancing depth.

The part that made an impression on me was seeing Mr. Sheridan’s limited skills as an illustrator in the early sketches of his accompanying notebook. I could see he would have been fairly hopeless if left to his own devices. But the nearly finished oil was unexpectedly convincing. It showed a very cliché scene of snow over a farm landscape. But I believed it.

This memory of an amateur prevailing over his art returned to me many times over my life, and has recently become a private analogy as I explore my own singing capabilities.

This year I became a fan of local folk singer Maria Quiles and her partner Rory Cloud. When I hear Maria sing, it must be like Andrew Wyeth was to Mr. Sheridan. Her voice reminds me of how a painting feels when it hits you perfectly, like how I have felt in the presence of a Monet for example.

If I had lived in late 19^th century France and had been shown a Monet at the time he was painting, I might have missed his innovative beauty, possibly being one of his doubters if I was in some kind of hurry and was used to more conventional styles popular at the time.

Music can be that way; it might require a relaxed listening environment to let it take hold. People at the Clinical Lab where I work put on the radio and they have certain listening needs to get through their day. In the main technical area, there is no time or patience for anything but what they’ve heard the day or week before. But if you go into the quieter Blood Bank, some of those Techs have a taste for subtlety.

Quiles and Cloud’s Folk/Americana flavored music can be called a common style in the SF Bay Area music scene. And yet Maria’s voice won me over in an uncommon way the very first time I heard her.

What I didn’t expect was to experience the healing feeling that can come from repeated listenings to something great. I needed to hear Maria’s songs more than once in a reasonably quiet environment to get to that level.

That might be the ideal I am looking for in my own art, to warrant more than one listening and to discover that my music took someone somewhere they wanted to go but didn’t expect.

As a musician, when I hear Maria and Rory sing, I feel like Mr. Sheridan. I think of his nearly finished painting of the snowscape and how I believed it.

This week I will listen to the unfinished recordings of my own voice and ask myself if it works like that painting worked, and whether I believe it.

And I will let the rest take care of itself.