The Question and the Answer

Eleanore is off.  So is Jeff.  Same with Francie. 

This is Carolyn writing tonight. Lucky, lucky me.

                                

I get to pay a small tribute to Marc Cornelissen, our music teacher. 

The first day we met him in his home studio he said this:

Music is questions and answers.

Questions...tension...suspense...

and then answers, the breath, home. 

We need both. 

I couldn't find a pen fast enough.
This was life. Not just music.

And, so, over the next three months,

sometimes twice a week,

I wrote down nearly everything he said...

using his black pen and his blank yellow music sheets.

Marc earned a Master's degree in Music Pedagogy.

He wrote a book on how to teach.

He plays the violin, piano, flute, banjo, guitar and more.

He writes songs for his band.

Performs.

Teaches in schools.

Teaches privately (remember Camille, the young pianist?).

 Music is everything to Marc.
 He refers to "it" as a "she."

I think he would even if he were speaking english.

As Marc himself said last night at dinner at his house,
"I teach music for the life, not for the test."

Cath has been a guide for us on this adventure since Day One,
and the other day she emailed some wonderful advice:
Bring home music from France!
I thought and thought about what we would take home.
Inventory: 1 creole accordian CD.
Then I realized that most of what we'll be bringing home is music.
Because of Marc.

For starters,  
France (for us) will always equal Bach.
Marc loves Bach.
Now, so do we.
And thanks to Frances, we hear him a LOT!

Along with teaching Eleanore about harmonics
And Frances how to build chords,
his priority was to teach the girls how to

invent, to play together, to be free and to be fearless.
Music lessons.
Life lessons.

Below each photo
are Marc's own words...

"Don't use too much energy to play. Only what you need."

"Just imagine...and you can."
(On the art, Eleanore wrote these words)

"The world needs musicians.

There aren't enough people who play."

"Music is so nice with you. Be nice with her.

Sing with your best voice."

"Use your weight...go inside the piano."

"Bach is a funny guy. He always wants to make us work."

"We all do the same mistake with music:

when it’s easy, we go fast;

when it’s hard, we go slow, like a motorcycle that drives on the road
and then into the ditch and then back onto the road."

"Say it to yourself, 'I did it, so I can do it again.' "

"Like everybody, you want to push too hard."

"When you play the saxophone or the flute, you have to breathe.

With the violin and the piano ...

you have to remember to breathe."

"Music is bigger than us.
We must play music with humility."

"Music has reason. Like a father, it knows."

"Bach is communion, intensity and love."

"The best fingering is when your hand works less...no tension."

"We breathe music. The world is music. Vibrations.
Molecules of oxygen vibrating together."

"The world without music is sad and poor.

With music, the world is rich."

"You spend too much energy trying to play.

You need to have energy to have FUN playing."

"You are a bit shy with your violin. Party Time!"

"We only learn by mistake.

When you don't want to make a mistake, you don't learn."
(Besides, Marc says if Frances makes a mistake playing her music,
only her teeth will fall out. That's all. No death, no falling sky,
just a few lost teeth!)

"With music, you have possibilities...don't panic."

"In the sky (when your hands are up off the keys),

you have to imagine what you do...and then do it."

"Try to extract the best of yourself."

"You will be sad and happy in your life

but music will make it easy for you to EXPRESS without words

and this will fill you up."

"Life is so nice. So, so nice."
(Frances's art for Marc)

"You don’t want to leave.

You want to stay here forever.

It breaks the feeling to leave."

(Teaching Frances how to play the last notes of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier)

"You have to learn what’s inside you first

then you grab what is outside of you and you learn that."

(Eleanore with her inner-elephant; Frances with her inner-platypus;

Marc's wife Odile's home-sculpted presents to the girls;
Marc's daughter taught them the french names!
Someday, ask Frances to say platypus in french!)

"Invent games and then music becomes a part of you –

not just a part of the sheet of music."

"The musician’s brain has something different than others—

a bigger connection between the right and left brain.
But the life is not to GROW this connection.
The life is to be happy, yes?"

"You make people happy with your music."

(Marc walked us part way home from dinner, blowing moonlit bubbles)

"Be as free as you can be. Free in your big movements."

"Know Bach, Glenn Gould and John Coltrane.
And Pythagoras."

"Control your dogs."
(Your fingers want to move FAST on the piano,
but your brain is in charge!)

Next Monday, instead of walking to Marc's studio for our lesson,

we'll drive away from Uzes.

 And Marc will be, suddenly, too far away.

I've been preparing the girls for that day. 
The other day, Frances cried and asked,

"What will we do without Marc?"

It was a good question.

Full of sincerity, tension, suspense.

I think we already have our answer. 

We'll find our breath and our home

in the love of music he gave us,
in the love he showed us.

And because of this,

Marc will always be nearer than we think. 

Last two photos taken by Marc's daughter, Alice