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Muscle Memory in Music

  Muscle Memory in Music  by Sara Penny      Imagine you are at the piano ready to play a Mozart Concerto with an orchestra. You are in front of 2000 people and they start a different concerto than you prepared. Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires was in Amsterdam when this happened at an open rehearsal. She panicked, the conductor leaned over and said you can do this, and she played beautifully. She prepared #23 and the orchestra started playing #20. Details matter. It had been perhaps 11 months since she’d last played the piece. She said, “that’s the moment where you start losing the memory of the details. That’s how the memory functions, you know. And when people see this panic, they perhaps don’t know that the reality is, we lose our memories after just a couple of months.” In the Open Culture article they explain, "The eleventh-hour call Pires received asking her to take the gig was part of the problem, but so was a misheard number. According to the Köchel ...
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Bit by Bit to Create Art - column for Iron County Today, Jan. 2026

  Bit by Bit to Create Art  By Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President       “With a big task, we don’t get overwhelmed. We break it down, and those become our milestones. That is the engineering mindset,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO. This struck me because in violin teaching we strive for “one point lessons” where we focus on just one technical challenge such as posture or bow hold or getting the second finger in tune. This is more effective instead of expecting the student to make multiple corrections all at once. Learning something like vibrato takes months for many students. We have to balance the violin on the shoulder so the left hand can be relaxed. We have to feel the motion of the undulations to mimic the vibrato of the singing voice. We have to adjust the width depending on the intensity of the musical phrase. The same for notereading. This takes a dedicated step by step procedure and lots of repetition. Sometimes the math brain skills need to develop be...
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Learning Survival Through Reading

by Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President for Iron County Today Authors create worlds to explore, and in some cases, survive. An older book that has stuck in my mind is the adventures of a ship crew that got stranded in Antarctica in 1915. The leader Sir Edgar Shakleton has become a case study in business schools for leadership in crisis. He had unwavering optimism with a heavy dose of reality. He prioritized his crew over the mission and the 27 men managed to survive in brutal conditions. My favorite part was when they sailed to the wrong side of the island to find rescuers and had to sled down a mountain. When things were going badly he suggested the "Need to put the footprint of courage into the stirrup of patience."  Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage  by Alfred Lansing will make you appreciate your warm home and hot meals that are much better than boiled seal.  A more recent book is the  Wild Dark Shore  by Charlotte McConaghy. Layers of myst...
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Art Conjures Magical Moments

by Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President       The arts can conjure all kinds of magic.  The character Hecate is usually left out of  Macbeth . The play will never seem complete without this superwitch in future productions. Her entrance with a huge set of wings that need a team of helpers to navigate is an ultimate diva moment. The wings reminded me of the puppet animals in  Lion King , but on a grander and more diabolical scale.      Arts leadership workshops stress creating a memorable experience for the audience. That is part of the programming decisions for art museums, theaters, concerts, and dance companies. How can you add the sizzle that makes the audience sit up and take notice? Even better, how can you make it so good they share with their friends or come for a second performance?      The children attending the Utah Shakespeare Festival Greenshows have obviously found performances they want t...
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Conducting Icons with Utah Connections (for Iron County Today)

By Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President          Abravanel and Alsop are internationally recognized orchestral conductors who shared Utah connections.  Marin Alsop recently received a “Golden Baton” at Abravanel Hall  in Salt Lake City from the League of American Orchestras for her dynamic leadership at the Baltimore Symphony, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other orchestras.      Her father Keith Lamar Alsop was born in Murray, Utah and was hired by Utah Symphony Director Maurice Abravanel to play violin and bass clarinet at age 17. “Maurice also gave my dad the courage to pursue his musical dreams, and decades later, Maurice became my mentor, alongside Bernstein at Tanglewood,” Alsop said. “One couldn’t hope for a greater role model than Maurice, a profound musician and compassionate human being.”      She was one of the first women to lead a major American orchestra. She sees the current upheaval in th...
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Savoring the Details (for Iron County Today)

  Savoring the Details By Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President       It is hard to see every detail. That ability to hear the nuance of pitch or see the exact details for painting a scene is valued in making art. Choosing the exact word for a poem or the precise dance movement moves art from the mundane to the exquisite.        "People rarely look closely," said Arthur Brooks. "They glance -- and let their brains fill in the rest."  His mother was a professional artist and she taught him to "Look again. Really look." This skill improved his art as he focused on the details, but also his later work as a behavioral scientist.      Savoring "means holding a moment long enough for it to leave a mark," said Brooks. I have thought of that word as enjoying food, as in savoring a garden fresh tomato or strawberry.  The idea of savoring the details for artistic pursuit or for other aspects of life seems useful to me.  ...
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Art of Listening (for Iron County Today)

  Art of Listening  by Sara Penny, CCAC Vice President      "When people talk, listen completely. Don’t be thinking about what you’re going to say. Most people never listen," said Ernest Hemingway. A large part of any art form is the art of communication, but that also means the art of listening. What are you as an artist trying to communicate? When you go to a museum or a play what message do you hear from the artist?      One of the reasons former students still come up to me about both my husband and mother's teaching impact is because they were both gifted listeners. They made their students and friends feel important because they were intently listening. It was obvious they valued what was being said and their responses demonstrated understanding. They were also both avid readers and were always trying to learn something new.      It is sometimes hard for me to concentrate fully. An art gallery can be overwhelming to ...
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