I just had an unexpected passionate conversation about classical music

I never published this blog, which I wrote during my stem cell therapy. I was uncertain about it. But reading it again I think I actually wrote a good piece. Here it is:
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I just had an unexpected passionate and coherent conversation about classical music with one of my nurses in the hospital where I am residing while my resistance is too low to be outside due to my stem cell transplant.

It all began two months ago. I realized that there is so much lying going on in classical music. A lot of times it's too much about persons, about personalities, anything, but not about the music itself. I got cynical. I wanted to get out of the music world. I didn't want to join in anymore. Maybe do a different study and find a different profession. This lasted a week. The realization that I could just stop and do something else set me free and made me not think about it anymore.

But this period left something in me. Something I hope to be able to use when I come back again in 2018. I am not sure how yet. But I know my vision on music has broadened yet again.

The nurse came in and asked me why I wasn't watching Maestro, a popular television in which famous Dutch people try to conduct a professional orchestra, judged by three musical experts. With sometimes hilarious results and sometimes touching beautiful moments where you would least expect them.

But the thing is. I don't watch it, I zapp by it, and go on. This program has an obvious good side. It invites people to find out about classical music, music that they might not know and broaden their horizon. But t's really not about the music. It's entertainment with the goal to get people to listen to a seemingly dying art form. And that's fine. But I need music. The aficionado maestros study their music with a conducting teacher (the magnificent Bas Pollard! Someone that is 200% about music!) and perform their theater show for the jury and the orchestra. The jury gives them marks based on how well they lead the orchestra. And some people are remarkably musical, I have to admit!

But is this it? Is this classical music? At least 100 year old music performed in clothing that is the same age with an orchestra. No, of course not. I am a 'classical' musician as well. I largely gave up performing in orchestras when I was asked one time to play 'less musical' to not stick out so much.

Classical music is so much more. It is 500 years of music history. And it consists of so much more than just orchestras, operas and old (genius) composers. 5 years ago I started a Twitter thing to find a different name for classical music. Like Floris Kortie last week in Podium Witteman I think the term is not good enough. It refers to old music, a stuffy, boring, and old-fashioned scene. But in the end I couldn't find a new term. I think it's best to refer to music in general. Now that I think about it. Maybe classical music should just die, finally! And then incorporate it in the music world as a whole. Could you imagine? Stages where one evening the popular rockband De Staat performs, the next night a saxophone orchestra plays Bach and the following week there's a Beethoven Festival. Wouldn't that be fantastic? No more labels. Just music.

Don't get me wrong. Classical music as entertainment is fine. Of course. I read Dan Brown. Good books, easy reading, short chapters. But I also read Reve and Grunberg. There are also radio and tv shows that focus mostly on substance. But it's less likely that these shows will have a substantial audience.

And that is for the most part because of education. When I brought my kids to school for the first time, the principal thought it was a good thing when he told us that their education focusses on social skills, mathematics and language. And of course these are important things, but there's so much more. When I was in school we got very thorough literature education. Now I know why Dan brown is entertainment (and it is excellent entertainment!) and why Reve is true literature.

But we never learned this with music. When is music entertainment, and when is it 'art music'....?

Dangerous things to ask, especially in these days. In a time when low art becomes high art and the other way around. And that's all fine. But there is music that is just music, honest music.

"Hastings cop holding bone marrow drive in memory of his dad, jazz legend Michael Brecker"

All of a sudden this is so much closer to me than it ever was:

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/greenburgh/2017/09/16/hastings-cop-holding-bone-marrow-drive-memory-his-dad-jazz-legend-michael-brecker/659218001/

The son of Michael Brecker, Sam Brecker (a police officer) will do a bone marrow drive. People can test their bone marrow with a simple swab of the cheek. If there is a match they will be asked to donate.

Michael Brecker is one of the reasons I play saxophone. Because of his music I felt like I knew him. I met him once when I was in puberty at the North Sea Jazz. I was a huge fan. For me Brecker was like Michael Jackson or Madonna to my class mates.

And then he died in 2007 from a form of leukemia. He needed a stem cell transplant but couldn't find a suitable donor.

I will receive a stem cell transplant in November, from my own bone marrow, which will be harvested in October.

Round one of the second level

Dear friends,

I am at home right now. Watching the worst movie ever probably 'Ghost in a shell'. I figured while I have the time I might as well watch some movies and catch up. I wasn't going to write. I wanted to share my thoughts when I had something positive. A new reason for all of this. But this movie is just so bad that I wanted to do something worthwhile.

The first time I got lymphoma I used this period of chemo and recovery to go into new directions, to think about what I had been doing and if I wanted to continue on this path.

Last Wednesday I started immunotherapy, and until Saturday I had chemotherapy. Now I am recovering and waiting for my body to get into a good enough shape for the next chemo. In the mean time I have been on the look out for a new reason. But I can't find one. I have to wait until this is all finished and keep an open mind. Even more than before. Because my body might change too much because of the chemo. Or not... I can't tell.

All I know is that I have to deal with this treatment day by day. Deal with the nerve and ear damage that might take place. Deal with the overwhelming nausea, the muscle loss and cramps. Trying to exercise, eat and sleep.

I will try to keep playing the saxophone. But at the same time, I am not sure whether I will still play sax in one year.

To be continued....

All the best,
Ties

Now what?

I have watched all of Netflix. Well, at least all the shows that interested me. But with ups and downs I have been wanting to find some substance in my life. Netflix doesn't give that. 

Some days ago I discovered this musician, Omer Avital. I have been fascinated by his albums these past days. After months of watching Netflix, my unconscious quest for substance finally found some ground again.

http://omeravital.com/

My relationship to (saxophone) music is somewhat deformed. I studied classical music on saxophone. Once every so many years I wondered why I did not study jazz. Erik-Jan, my colleague and friend, told me if he studied jazz he couldn't have done what he did so far. It's the same with me. I have a set of skills that one hardly finds in jazz music. Although I love jazz, it's what listen to a lot.

I am glad I did what I did in the end. I love what I got to do, I met great musicians and people, and made great friends. And it's not about boxes, about categorizing.

When I started chemo I didn't want to play. I decided to do what I did in 2008 and only start playing when and if the sax would call me again. But my fysiotherapist told me to play to train and maintain my muscles. So I had to play. I did technique only for about six weeks. Like a sort of meditation. Then I started studying Ibert Concertino again. To play some actual music and find some substance in playing. But after some weeks this wasn't enough. Than came jazz pianist Rembrandt Frerichs who asked me to play transcribed jazz solos with him. He wanted to explore jazz music as classical music. Now we have a program ready and some halls interested. And why did I go along with this? There are so many examples of classical saxophonists playing jazz and failing miserably. I need inspiration and energy, and doing this gave me a lot. Maybe the experiment will fail, and that's ok as well.

And of course I have some projects to look out for that give me more stability. The Denisow concerto with Arjen Tien and a project with the USCantorij, a chorus, with works by Kagel, Manneke and van Merwijk. These will be my pillars while coming back. Great notes that are on paper and that I can study in a way that I am used to. Discovering all the colours that these pieces have to offer.

But to what am I coming back the coming months? I don't know. This makes me anxious sometimes. Especially now, rounding off a period of physical and mental breakdown. One of my best friends Niels Bijl told me that this cancer is a part of my life now. I cannot escape it. I will not go back to 'normal', whatever that may be. I have to reinvent my life. Will I have the same focus and determination? I found out that I love being at home with the kids. I love to have free time and free-styling. But as I write this it makes me anxious. As a true Calvinist I do not want waste time. I want to have purpose. And then I realize that although I always had purpose I wasted a lot of time already, procrastinating, doubting myself, ....

One of the worst things, mentally, about chemo therapy is the fact that my life emptied itself. All of a sudden it was only me and my body. Not being able to concentrate, run, tie my shoelaces without losing my breath. My life is an almost empty bottle at this moment. I can fill it with whatever I want, or with whatever crosses my path. In the end my life might be more or less the same, or not....

I have some months to go before I recover to my potential 100%. These are some of the things I am struggling with at this moment. My advice to you: f you recognize some of these things, do not wait until you get sick to deal with them.