Lower your expectations for the illustrations, dear reader: the salad is pretty, but my visual imagination completely ran out and then I just drew all those airplane seats. I think this might have happened either during or soon after a long plane ride.

Still, I'm amused to see that even then, I liked to get out of doing the dishes, and I had a sweet tooth, and I wanted to make something creative that would bring people joy (oh, and also have people praise me and hire me).

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I’ve been thinking about that lately because there’s so much cognitive dissonance between opposite true things. The world is on fire but my little life is good. The country is so scary but I’m really happy with our local school board. The patriarchy is nauseating but I’m blissful about a 19c woman composer. My house and my office are unbelievably cluttered but I’m being meticulous with editing. I’m proud of my hard work but I’m also not doing enough.

Maybe that’s the experience of the modern era: I can tell myself I’m doing so much and I can tell myself I’m not doing nearly enough. Both things are true. I’m editing and recording Agnes’s piano music, yes, and I’m dreaming about her opera and symphonic music, but I’m way behind on publishing the songs. I’m a pollworker but I don’t go to enough protests. I take my seniors out at the end of the spring semester but I don’t take all my students to lunch like my lovely organ teacher colleague does.

I don’t litter but I sometimes I walk by trash without picking it up. I want to be the person who picks it up.

(Today I walked by trash without picking it up.)

I’m working hard, but I’m also taking breaks. On Saturday I didn’t touch the piano: I went to the farmers market, then spent the rest of the rainy day and night napping, reading two novels, and watching two movies. I needed to rest. I’ve been realizing that I need to be alert and energized to do a good job at most of my tasks: editing, practicing, writing, teaching, parenting. It doesn’t work to power through when I’m tired.

I knew that but now the proof is in the, well, proofs.

I was so careful proofreading the final version of Agnes’s etudes, and I took so long that my poor patient publisher had to write and say “can you get those corrections back soon?” It wasn’t easy to decide I was done. I went through with different color marks every time, and went through every etude at least three times: red, green, purple, yellow. The green round was backwards line by line, one hand at a time, to make sure I was seeing what was there, not what I know should be there. I did send in the corrections (you can see them if you scroll to the bottom) and I really do think the printed version will be beautiful.

Tonight I was so excited to sit down and practice from the files of my gorgeous printed scores. I’ve enjoyed practicing from Agnes’s handwriting but I’ve been looking forward to relearning the music from this printed version that I’ve made. And it felt good to practice, to try my hardest to make exactly the sounds I want, to think about how to use my body differently when it doesn’t quite work. I love practicing. I love it way more than I love editing.

But I just had exactly the experience I’ve heard about so much from my friends who publish: the VERY FIRST TIME I sat down to practice etude no 7, the one in tenths, lo and behold I found a mistake I had missed before.

There was a mistake I had missed in three separate careful run-throughs!?! Are you kidding me? I guarantee that I missed that mistake before because I was tired. Yes, all three times. Dang it.

Fortunately they haven’t gone to press yet so I sent an email right away. But I know what will happen: I’ll get the printed version in the mail, and I’ll open it up, and I’ll immediately see a new mistake.

I hope there aren’t too many, and I hope they’re easy for other pianists to figure out. But just so I don’t get too mad about them, I might need to tend to my narrative voice. So here’s one story I’ll tell myself about the mistakes I know I’ll find: Navajo weavers deliberately put flaws into their beautiful intricate rugs, because only the gods are perfect.

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And that’s it for this essay; the images below are the edits I sent in. You can see most of my marks are red (first pass) or green (second, line-by-line, backwards, one hand at at time pass)—but not all. Thanks so much for reading!

Every time I take one of those introvert/extrovert quizzes I’m right in the middle, and I was in full ambivert mode at this conference, getting lots of energy from being around other people and also spending lots of time recharging by myself.

Most of that alone time was tinkering with my presentation, like deciding the morning of my session to change all the fonts in my talk to make them more legible. That kind of thing. Perhaps obsessive.

But it worked: I memorized the words to my talk and said them exactly as I wanted to, and I played how I wanted to, and that felt really good. That’s maybe my biggest takeaway from the conference.

Scott Yoo, the keynote speaker, told a moving story about practicing as a teenager and said something like (I’m paraphrasing):

“A lot of the time, nerves are just guilt for not preparing enough.

And not preparing enough is a horrible thing to do to yourself. It’s like telling yourself that getting to have it be the way it really should be, that’s for someone else, not for me, and I don’t get to have that.”

I love that. I haven’t yet played the Agnes Etudes and Idylls program completely to my satisfaction in concert. I’ve gotten close, and it gets better and better, but there have been a couple of glitches every time. I’m mostly the only one who knows, but still. There are a few particular spots in the music that need more attention—as I tell my students, “give that spot some extra love.”

But there’s also another issue: it’s harder for me to play well when I also talk. I think talking to the audience is really important, and people always tell me it really helps them connect with the music. And I love how it makes me feel like I’m playing for friendly ears. So I have to do it. But.

I’ve had this feeling, for a long time, that I play better when I don’t talk. I’ve been mildly agonizing about that for a while.

But there’s a solution, such an obvious one.

It’s my main light bulb from the conference: I have to memorize my concert patter.

I usually don’t memorize exactly what I’m going to say word-for-word, and I definitely don’t practice saying it enough. And then, onstage, thinking about the talking—what I said or what I’m about to say—interferes with my concentration for the playing. Giving this presentation, knowing every word and exactly how I wanted to say it, was a good reminder that I love how I feel onstage when I’ve done hard-core preparation for all of it, not just the playing.

And I owe it to myself—and to Agnes—to do the work.

I have to write out and memorize the talking. I must point out that my friend Daria had just made this point the week before, when we were curled around wineglasses on her couch and I was complaining that talking makes it harder for me to play well: “Oh, that’s just preparation. You can do THAT.” But hearing it twice in a week, and then experiencing how good it feels to know my words and not just my notes, made it really sink in.

This prompts a little talk with myself:

Am I really in my fifties and having an epiphany about how working *harder* is the key to happiness and fulfillment?

Maybe. Dammit.

But also giving myself space and time to rest alone, charging up my energy to be onstage, is equally important, and I did that at the conference. I felt like a diva but I did it. And sometimes the work and the introvert recharging can be the same: I just need to make sure I have time by myself to get my energy up for a performance. That insight is a little friendlier.

The response to my session was enthusiastic: I got some nice compliments on my playing and people kept telling me “the music is so beautiful!”

A tiny old lady from London—I think she said 83—made me feel like a star by saying “dahling, you are a breath of fresh air and you must come and present at the European Piano Teachers Association conference in London.” We had breakfast the next morning and she was a few minutes late for the best possible reason: she went for a run and went farther than she intended. So cheers to Nadia Lasserson!

She was an inspiring companion: her mother founded the European music teachers association, and she’s very active as a performer and teacher and reviewer. A lifetime of experience and artistry and unbelievable energy. I’ll be doing a webinar with her group in June and I’m going to apply to present at their conference in London in 2027.

I had two other exciting conversations with fancy high-profile people about Agnes. I can’t say much now, but I really think both will lead to the music getting more attention. So later when I say “remember that oblique hint?” this is it.

I kept thinking about how “conference” shares a root with “confer,” and how talking with people was the most important part of the trip.

I feel so grateful for the conversations where you haven’t seen each other for years but it feels like minutes.

We pianists spend so much time alone in the practice room, but we’re sure convivial when we get together. Lots of talking about our repertoire and our practicing and our students and our teachers and our kids and our parents and our lives (and yes, heaven help us, the state of the world).

I also felt steeped in nostalgia. That’s partly because my sister has been heroically overseeing the renovation of our childhood home, and she’s been sending me photos.

It’s also because the last time I went to MTNA nationals, the last time I saw lots of these exact people, it was 12 years ago, in the very same hotel. I kept having flashbacks to my life then: I was in a complicated medical and personal moment, and I was touring with the Chopin etudes, and every day felt hard.

So some memories are bittersweet. But the conversations about them can be great.

I recognized one name on a name tag as someone I had crossed paths with decades ago, in poignant circumstances that aren’t my story to tell; it was thrilling to see that she is happy and vibrant and doing well.

Then my friend Donna showed me photos of us as teenagers at music camp—her 80s hair was fantastic—and we talked about how that summer had actually been a hard one for both of us.

She said “I thought you weren’t hanging around with us in the dorm much because you were away practicing and doing cool things” and I said “no, I was in the public library listening to Billy Joel’s The Stranger on vinyl and crying.”

On a lighter note, one of my favorite encounters was on the elevator:

Random friendly fellow not wearing a conference lanyard: “YOU look like a piano teacher!”

Me: “Um, thank you?”

(I did then proceed to tell him there’s lots of research that piano lessons are great for beginner adults and he should definitely take lessons).

I’m so glad I got to bring Agnes to the conference.

Since coming home I’ve been busy, doing final edits on the etudes (they’re coming out soon, promise!) and teaching lessons and hanging out with my kid and being in my regular piano teacher life, not the out-of-my-life moment that’s traveling. I LOVE traveling, and I want to travel with Agnes more.

But I’m incredibly grateful for my regular piano teacher life.

A few days after I came back, a student played his senior recital (beautifully), including the Chopin 1st Ballade and Beethoven Op. 109. He wrote me this note:

Learning piano with you for the past almost-4 years has been an amazing joy. For every semester, each lesson has been the highlight of my week, and I’m going to miss them a ton. You’ve helped me navigate college, made me laugh lots, and have taught me things that will stick with me the rest of my piano-playing life. Thank you so much for helping me better understand the music I love!

I’ve also been working on editing the final proofs of the Agnes etudes, which is extremely exciting and also making me despair, because I’m still finding a few errors even after many many revisions, and that means that the published score will be imperfect. Dang it. So I’m wrestling with that. I also played three concerts last week, oh and I have that full-time teaching job and also a kid. Lots is happening. I’m happy to be living a full life! But I do sometimes drop some balls, and here’s one: I missed an anniversary. I’ve been thinking so much in the last week about a March anniversary, but I had the date completely wrong. I thought it was today but it was the 18th.

Two years ago I wrote:

Two years ago, this week, I found Agnes. I have a five-year journal, a little yellow book with a paragraph for each day, and I can see that on March 18 2022 I wrote:

I read through some Agnes Tyrrell pieces today and I’m excited about them—sort of Brahmsian. All I want to do is practice. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this exact kind of purpose.

Then on the 21st I wrote:

The Kapralova Society sent me Agnes’s Grand Sonata. I think it might be really good—I’ve only read through it once.

I didn’t keep a record of when I first found Agnes’s name; I didn’t know it was important at the time. And I know memories are constructed, not trustworthy. But I have a very clear recollection of standing in the Interlochen library, taking a look at the reference section, and picking up the Dictionary of Women Composers and flipping through it. The Tyrrell entry caught my eye, and the detail about Liszt suggesting fingerings for her etudes really made me think she probably had interesting piano writing. Something made me remember her name and keep googling her every once in a while, even though nothing was published, and there was nothing, and there was nothing, till Kyra Steckeweh published the piano collection in December 2021. Last year at Interlochen I went to the library stacks and the book was right where I remembered it.

There’s another anniversary this week, a sadder one; my brilliant beautiful artistic hilarious quirky loving mother died on this day fourteen years ago. She would love Agnes’s music and she would be so thrilled that I’m acting as her champion.

In fact, I have an unshakable thought (to be clear, not something I declare to be factually true, but something that feels sort of truth-in-art-true).

It’s easy to imagine my mom running into Agnes in some afterlife situation and saying “oh, you’ve got to meet my daughter Jocelyn! Let’s make sure she finds your music!” In this scenario my mom made the book catch my eye and made it open to that page, and then reminded me to google Agnes once in a while. If that’s how the afterlife works—and my position on that is a staunch what-do-I-know—that’s definitely something my mom would do. And here’s a thing I love about this particular idea: it IS how my mom believed the afterlife worked. She felt like her beloved ancestors were watching over us, and sometimes she’d ask them to intercede.

So if Mom was the one to introduce me to Agnes, I’m grateful. And I love feeling like she’s part of this project.

Here’s a picture of Mom and me in about 1975, probably eating oranges, probably in Berlin.

1 
       Teasing Winds
              Czechered Past
                 Pepe le Peu
 The Bossy                    
                Shadows
Running from Day to Night
        The Whispering Wind

2 
The Ornate
                 The Favorite
        Caterwaul
             Almost chaotic—but not
The Bouncing Ball
             Starlings Flocking
Escape from the Zoo

3
The Resolute
                    The Swagger
Miracle Memory
                 Spring Awakening
                             Steps and Ladders
Sounds like German beer hall music, 
        certainly a dance or theatre piece
The Music Box Ballerina and the Puppy Dog
It can be exhausting every day.

4 
Sharp surprises!
                Spinning around
Heavy drops of rain sound the loudest
    Water Play
            Fűr Jocelyn
 Double cappuccino 
        Tea and Passion
The Battle of Oscar and his Tight Jacket
            
5 
Tumbling Rocks
         The Rolling River
       My Favorite Gay Waiter
Silent Movie Chase Music
You think you know where I’m going
          The Hurricane
                Squiggles
          Roller Coaster at Night
       Toothache

6 
        Evening Song
Moving On
        The Shimmerer
                      The Sorceress
    The Heroic
        Sweet Victory
  Profile in the Corner
            Raveling, Unraveling

7 
Ripples and Waves
           The Cats
       Tag You’re It
Diamond/Prism (Reflected Light)
       Ten-vous 
                Tenzies
     Before the Waves
     
8 
Wiggles
     Hummingbirds
Butterflies
     Busy Bees
Dart & Hover
     Marble Run

9 
Stage Fright
    Opposites Attract
   Charlie Chaplin
At the Circus (NOT like circus music but the feeling of watching a circus with constantly shifting things to see including a flying trapeze)
      Opposing Forces
                Up and Down
         Insistent Persistent
Naked Mole Rats
Strudel

10 
Cloudburst
Prim and Proper
Madame Butterfly
Alice down the Rabbit Hole
Peonies go to War and Win
Fireflies

11 
Stormy Weather
Hurry, Wesley!
A Round Round
Up and Down
The Moth and the Gown
Sisters

12 
The Grandiose
        VIP
I’ll be the King and You Be the Queen
         Victory
The March—Stately music gone off the rails
      Finding Grace
  March Procession
                   Wingspan

As usual, the voting for favorite etude was very close.

The winner was Etude 2 in B major, with 1, 8 and 10 tied for second place.

Thanks so much to last night’s creative listeners!

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At my Agnes Etudes & Idylls concerts I ask audiences to come up with nicknames for the etudes, and when I play I feel like I’m collaborating with the audience and their imaginations.

Here are the nicknames from the audience at Su…

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1       bubbles
                  profound         light          airy          very textural

2      Wow! 
                        Cascade

3       River running over rocks

4      Sun shades
          Stormy
                    The way snow melts and swells the streams and creeks in spring. 
                     The gentle spill over rocks gaining pow…

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Is it a stretch to connect Agnes Tyrrell the composer with Saint Agnes? Yes, yes it is. But celebrating saint name days was common in the late 19c, and I…

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“ Music theory is nothing but ‘hey lookit.’ ”

I’ve always been so happy I didn’t get that job, so glad I ended up where I am instead. Last fall I got to hear Anne Lamott speak and, as always, she said it perfectly: “…

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I used to host a podcast where I’d give myself a piano lesson every week. Since stopping in 2020, I’ve missed having a community of “practice buddies” to share my practice struggles and triumphs with. I’m excited about this Substack as a place where I can bring some of that back.

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I’m smitten with the composer Agnes Tyrrell (1846-1883).

We need beautiful music now.

And I find that I especially need this beautiful music now, by this genius 19c woman composer.

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Ever since the first time I sight-read Agnes Tyrrell’s music, and kept swearing because it was so good, I’ve been obsessed. Her music has changed my life. This project is taking…

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