Racer Session #544 | Andrew Olmstead | Sunday June 19th, 2022
Hello, improvisers and listeners alike!
We’re feeling well-rested after a short spring break, and excited to jump into a summer full of great Racer Sessions! You’ll see new faces as well as some old friends of the session, and how better to kick things off than to welcome back our dear pal and longtime Racer Session mover and shaker, Andrew Olmstead?
Many in the Racer Sessions community will remember Andrew from his time spent working on presenting Racer Sessions and his involvement in Table & Chairs as a record label, or even more likely his founding of the Racer Sessions double dutch team. In addition to writing and performing in his own solo project, Andrew plays regularly as a sideman in several other bands. In recent years he has relocated to Chicago, and more recently to Ontario. This Sunday, he will be presenting a set of music as well as a discussion on non-musical communication, something he is particularly great at and spent many hours sharing with the Seattle community through Table & Chairs’ Improvisation Is For Everyone series!
Andrew has a great blog post for you below, so take some time to catch up with him and his plans for the session, and do not do not do not miss this opportunity to give him a big hug and do some musical hanging and double dutching!
Andrew Olmstead
“It's wonderful to return to the Racer Sessions, the series which refined who I am as a musician, educator, and person.
I moved away from Seattle several years ago, and even aside from quarantine, I started performing less... or rather, not at all. Instead, I found myself engaging more deeply with my teaching practice. Students are sort of like an audience: I want to keep them engaged, but I also want my performance / lesson to leave them with something they can think about for a while. I love that interaction is inherent in music lessons, and I enjoy watching the audience / my students grow over time. They contribute to each lesson as much as I do! I'm fascinated by that idea, perpetually trying to tease apart what that means for my journey as a musician / educator.
"In order to be a better magician, you must be a better person."
- Juan Tamariz, author of many educational books on magic and psychology
Many basic life skills also happen to be the building blocks for high-quality performance arts. Chief among these are empathy, and communication skills more generally. Empathy and open communication are critical for improvisation and collaboration. And teaching is a great way to practice these skills, even if you're teaching something unrelated to your art. Choose something simple, like sharing how to play your favorite card game, or how to cook a meal. Something you'll find in teaching little things, is not only will your "student" learn a lot, you'll learn a lot, too.
I'm taking my own advice this week. I recently noticed I haven't taught anyone how to play original music I've written. That's a little odd, since as a performer, I mostly play original music written by myself or my friends. This Sunday, I'll present some of my own music. I'll share how it was made, and how to enjoy playing it.
Until then, here are two big ideas I've found, which concern roadblocks to educational communication. Whether you're an educator, or a student, I hope an awareness of these common pitfalls - and ways to combat them - will be useful to you.
See you Sunday! - Andrew
The Teacher's Fallacy: What worked for me will work for my students.
The piano virtuoso Frédéric Chopin once wrote to a student: "Music, rich, full of feeling, not soulless, is like a crystal on which the sun falls and brings forth from it a whole rainbow." However beautiful and aspirational that sentiment is, it wasn't always actionable by his students. Chopin's natural virtuosity meant he couldn't always relate to the physical and technical limitations his students were encountering.
Similarly: the primary challenge of a teacher is to know that your own education path is not necessarily the same one your student can travel. Understanding a challenge your student is encountering is difficult, but is always worth pursuing.
The Student's Fallacy: I haven't improved.
This is never true. We often forget how far we've come. You're better than you used to be, and as long as you keep playing, you will continue to get better. Even if you're making a mistake on a note which you used to play perfectly every time, that is improvement. Failure is the first step to success, so congrats, you're well on your way to achieving your goal. (Cheesy, but true.)”