A Soprano on Her Head: Right-side-up Reflections on Life and Other Performances

(Foreword, by Lorin Hollander, concert pianist)

Eloise Ristad deals here with complex problems which torment and cripple so many of our most creative and talented people, and she does so with compassion, wisdom, and wit. The problem of stage fright, for instance, is a suffering of epidemic proportions in our society, and involves modalities of thought and projections that rob spontaneity and enthusiasm in artistic performance.

Those interested in creative education have long felt that an entirely new, holistic and nurturing process of allowing individuals to discover and express themselves is needed if our educational system is to avoid the neuroses and creative blocks of the past generation. This book illuminates through its conversational style the destructive inhibitions, fears, and guilt experienced by all of us as we fail to break through to creativity. This story is told to me day after day in conservatories and college campuses around the world. Indeed I felt at times that she was telling of my own most petty and debilitating fears.

But what is important, A Soprano on Her Head supplies answers and methods for overcoming these universal psychological blocks--methods that have not only been proven in her own studio, but which trace back through history to the oldest and wisest systems of understanding the integration of mind and body. The work bears scrutiny both scientifically and holistically.

This is a wonderful book. Read it. You are not alone.

Eric Jacobson, a talented high school student who had recently won a national award in composition, was working on a set of pieces for woodwind quintet while studying with me. Five of the pieces had almost written themselves, with Eric coasting on the ego boost from his recent award. Not over-endowed with patience, he struggled for a couple of weeks trying to manufacture clever ideas for the last two pieces. He came in discouraged and tired of his unproductive efforts.

We talked a bit about the qualities of each of the first five pieces he had already written. One was frantic, one was playful, and so on. Together we brainstormed a list of adjectives that might stimulate ideas for the remaining two. It was great fun, but did not spark his composing skills the following week.

Eric was unwilling to settle for five pieces in the suite and go on to a new project, so something needed to happen to end the deadlock. This was near the time that I discovered the value of visualizing in my skiing, and I had an inspiration. Why limit this to skiing? Why not apply it to composing?

"Close your eyes," I told Eric. "Put yourself in a concert hall and imagine that your set of pieces is being performed.

Together we created imaginary details about the musicians in his woodwind quintet--a freckled bassoonist with red hair, an oversized oboist who made the oboe look like a toy, an undersized flutist with blond hair piled on top of her head, a box-shouldered horn player with a lavender tie, and a fastidious-looking clarinetist. Eric chuckled as he watched his characters walk onstage and heard them play the pieces he had already composed.

"Hang on," I said. "The clarinetist is checking his reed and the horn player is dumping the moisture out of his horn. Okay, they're all set, ready to start number six. Are you ready?" Number six, of course, was not yet composed.

Eric listened intently, then opened his eyes and grabbed a pencil. "Unbelievable! I could really hear them playing it. What a great piece!" He scribbled down some quick ideas, then went back to his imaginary concert hall to see if his quintet would produce a finale to his suite. They obliged, and he grabbed his pencil again.

I was as excited as Eric--perhaps even more so--because the implications of what had happened were far-reaching. When I visualized a ski turn, I also felt the turn in my whole body. The term "visualize" is inadequate, of course, because it implies only seeing, while the sense of actual muscular impulses was stronger and more important than my visual image. When Eric visualized his quintet, his imaging again involved more than sight; in this case the sense of hearing was the key factor. While my image of the ski turn produced muscular sensations, his image of his quintet produced auditory sensations. In either case, we could follow the image with action.