Lent III by Lucy Joy

I’ve decided to speak today about my study and work, and how my faith intertwines with it.

I’m currently studying Jazz at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama and I’m halfway through my third of four years there, (four year courses are standard at conservatoires in the UK that offer jazz). Whilst you study, the aim is to simultaneously build a sustainable freelance career so the drop off after graduation isn’t too severe. The first and second years are extremely busy with a significant amount of contact hours (more than double that of my friends are conventional universities). The third and fourth years work differently, you get more 1-2-1 hours, but less classes, and more projects.

In terms of my own freelance career, I split my time between writing and performing I’m a composer/arranger, which means that I write music and also take it and adapt it for different ensembles or genres from which it was originally written for (I’m one of those people who prefer to have the choice to do lots of different things rather than having to choose one of them!). I’m a singer, so I’ve sung commercial backing vocals, I’ve sung on other people’s music when they’ve wanted a singer in the band, and I’ve also sung in a variety of jazz vocal ensembles, larger gospel choir style groups as well as tight harmony groups and some acapella music as well.

I also have my own band, which plays my original music and a piano voice duo project which focuses on a combination of jazz standards and mine and his original music.

The writing I do largely focuses around songwriting rather than instrumental music. I co-write songs with pop, soul and jazz artists, and then write songs for my own projects from jazz to a weird little electronic music thing I’ve got going on with a friend at the moment.

The arranging work I do is much more broad and often involves taking on more of a musical director role as well. Most of it has involved taking music written for small groups, from jazz small groups of 4 or 5 people to string quartets to sparsely written indie pop music, and blowing it up so large ensembles can play it. These larger ensembles have varied from big band to 60 piece studio ensembles with classical winds and strings alongside jazz horns and rhythm sections of guitar, piano, bass and drums.

So that’s a brief explanation of the work I do, as I said, it’s varied and requires a lot of task switching, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. As for how it shows up alongside my faith, I thought I’d share something that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently

A big thing that’s emphasised within the jazz tradition, as well as all professional music performance I suppose, is constant improvement. When I put it like that, it sounds really healthy, and it is in so many ways. It’s good for us to self examine, listen back to how we’ve played, and compassionately and honestly identify both strengths and flaws. It’s good for us to listen to people who’s playing we idolise and aspire to, and notice where the gaps are between where they were and where we are. But it also has a weird obsessive quality to it too.

The great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins release a landmark small-band album in the mid-50s: Saxophone Colossus, where he was described by musicologists as “possibly the most incisive and influential jazz instrumentalist since Charlie Parker”. His dissatisfaction with his playing still led him to retreating to Williamsburg Bridge to practice every day for hours, sometimes 15 hours at a time. He took a two year retirement practicing in this way before releasing The Bridge in the early 60s, an album still revered now.

I was told that anecdote in a class in my second year, and my teacher, who I greatly respect, to be clear, told us this in a hushed, awe struck tone. All I could think of was how dysfunctional it sounded. But I also really understood how you could get to that point. Practicing how to improvise is complicated and convoluted. It requires dedication to style, tradition, lineage and understanding harmony, chord changes, melody, rhythm to a really high level. And then to REALLY improvise, you have to learn how to take the things you spend hours in a room with no windows practicing and throwing it away so you can just listen to what the other musicians are doing in the moment and respond to it. And when you can’t do it, or you perceive yourself to be failing at it, it’s vulnerable and its upsetting. Combining that with an environment where you’re paying nearly 10 grand a year to be told how you’re doing it badly, and how to improve at it, surrounded by young adults who are also in that same environment, it can be hard.

The most important piece of advice that was given to me in dealing with that was from one of my one-to-one teachers. She looked at me dead on and said “Lucy, you will never be happy with how you sound”. It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. Once I knew that the thing I was working towards - this eureka moment of “oh! I’m finally happy with what I’m singing or writing” was totally unattainable, I started to create a new goal. This was to be less happy with, and more happy. If I was enjoying my practice, or at the very least, enjoying the physical sensation of singing, or enjoying the satisfaction of feeling myself get better at something, then that became the new checklist. And it changed my practice and work ethic completely.

In Ecclesiastes, it says that “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?”There are lots of things the Christian faith as taught me I won’t find happiness in, but achievement has been probably the most crucial one. So in the same way as I’m trying to just enjoy listening to and partaking in the music that I practice, I am trying to orientate every day just a little closer to the one who sustains us, and find joy and satisfaction in turning my face towards the sun and to him whenever I remember to. We will never be complete when separated from what we were originally created to be right next to. But we have an opportunity to be like Jesus in the way he delighted in his humanness when he was here. He ate good food and one can only presume enjoyed good music, like I’m lucky to every day. So I’m thinking, maybe that’s enough for me at the moment right now too.