 And welcome back to the Creative Life Show from the American Creativity Association's Austin Global Chapter. I'm your host, Phyllis Bleece. Joining me today from Vancouver, Canada, is Dr. Hayley Simons. She has received international acclaim for her talent as a concert pianist, for her travel around the world with her musical talent, and she has achieved a doctorate of music and certifications as a life coach and arbitrator. What brings her here today is her long-standing and deep dive into the world of creativity. She co-founded Creative Alberta, and she coaches people on accessing their own creative code. Her first show with us at the Creative Life was on the topic of protecting what she terms the prodigal creative. That creative spirit that we believe resides in all of us. In today's show, Hayley draws more directly on her career as a concert pianist for her lessons learned on how to resurrect our inner creative. And the title of today's show is The Beethoven Betrayal. More about that soon. Let's meet Dr. Hayley Simons. Aloha, Hayley. Aloha, Phyllis. Well, we're very happy to have you back and I want you to talk, please, a little bit about that. We touched on your journey as a prodigal creative and how we'd like to know how this relates to where we are today in the development of the Beethoven Betrayal and how to resurrect our inner creative spirit. Right. Well, thank you for having me back. This is, of course, my favorite topic to talk about is creativity and to maybe give a bit of the backstory. It's almost like a prequel to our first conversation. Where did all of this come from and where did this yearning to explore this subject of creativity and that path that we talked about the first time? And I thought it would be a little insightful maybe to look at where it all began and my training as a pianist for decades. And from very, very early on, I think I started playing piano when I was about three years old. So it does actually have an origin story. I guess you could say this is the origin story. Well, and I've had several people follow up from that show and they want to know all about how do you become a concert pianist? So we'd love to revisit this. This is not usual. And you invite us into a very special life. So please, how would you like to do this? Well, there is a recording that we have dragged from the past. And it is a recording. It's probably one of the first classical music videos back in the day when MTV was was all the rage. When music videos were just starting out, there weren't any or very few classical music videos. And we wanted to take the a really standard, wonderful classical piece and make it accessible visually for people for contemporary audiences. So this recording is actually an etude of Chopin. And it's known by its popular title of Winter Wind. And we're going to watch it next? We're going to watch it next. Okay. Thank you, Hailey. That was very profound to me to have you sitting here and having produced that level of classical music. Bring us now full circle into what this did for you to shift you into becoming a coach for our own creative code. Well, it's always awkward watching your own videos. Um, the process getting to that point, I mean, of course, was the result of years of studying with with real masters, real musical geniuses. I was privileged, really astoundingly, humblingly privileged to work with all those years. And the common thread for myself and all musicians working toward that level of artistic expression is a combination of inspiration and discipline. We talked about this briefly in preparation for this. And watching that video, actually in hindsight, it brought up a lot of past memories and and homages I wanted to pay to the people who were involved in that. Actually, the producer of that video, which I thought was very creatively done all the candles and the the the process of recording that I thought was an amazingly creative venture and the producer who was in charge of that, Michael Ham recently passed. He was an Edmonton filmmaker, very talented and was saddened to to hear of his passing. Because there were a lot of creative minds and hearts and and a lot of inspiration went into a recording like that, not just the performance aspect. And and for myself, I brought my own craft, everyone brought their craft. And it really gets me thinking about the the discipline that's involved in all of this creative talk. And sometimes we we get to that point where we're talking about creativity as though it's a it's a playful little whim that we want to we want to nourish and and we want to to have flourishing in our lives as something enjoyable. But but the flip side of that is creativity is actually a discipline. It's a tool that we work on perfecting. And it's for any artist, I'm speaking not just from for myself, I know it's it's almost like an oath of craftsmanship. When I had the privilege of working with these these masters like, like John Perry, who is is still teaching at the age of 80 80, still teaching in New York and throughout throughout the world. And this artistry doesn't retire, it keeps going and going. And even if the actual physical part, the physical component of performing and preparing for concerts, I've I've not done that for a while. But the creative spirit keeps going. And we were going to talk about this brings into into play the title of our our show's topic today, The Beethoven Betrayal. And I know we just heard Chopin. But I I routinely performed the the standard classical composers that everybody would know Beethoven and Chopin and Rachmaninoff and and all of those pieces because I loved playing those pieces and people I thought loved hearing those pieces. Always no matter how frequently they were played, there's always something in a piece of music like that that is either very awe inspiring or or very moving. Hopefully that that's the goal of a performance and working up to that that kind of state on from all avenues. And the the there was I'll take you back a little story about the time when this was recorded. I was also a performer in a contemporary ensemble called the Hammerhead Consort. We were an ensemble of two pianos, two percussionists. We were a very oddball group. And we toured performing pieces that were written by contemporary, meaning living composers. There was one composer that we had who was no longer with us. And that was Bartok. And he made that particular grouping. And he was the the originator of the two piano, two percussion model. And I thought it would be interesting because I had always channeled these voices of the past, whether it's Chopin or Beethoven, I wanted to get to the level of competency where I could authentically or feel like I was bringing their voice to life today. So I was a conduit, I was just channeling. And I thought it would be interesting to explore the mind of the composer and what was Beethoven thinking? What was his everyday life? And this performance ensemble gave me the opportunity to do that, because we worked only with living composers. We were our group was responsible for the commissioning of over 40 works by 40 living composers. Hopefully they'll live in in perpetuity today. Some it was like having a slice of what was happening in musical centuries in the past. And it'll be interesting to see what actually survives this test of time. One of those composers while I was in the midst of preparation for another recording, which included a Beethoven Sonata and this Chopin that that we just heard, asked me how many times do we really need to hear another Beethoven Sonata? And I didn't have a reply. Well actually at the time I replied, hopefully at least one because I was working on it. But I didn't have a reply. And in hindsight, I can see that was the pivotal moment which set into motion this what turned out to be this existential crisis. Well, maybe as a conduit or as a channeler of these voices, my role was actually very almost insignificant. And was I really creative? I mean, all musicians and artists like to think of themselves I like to I used to like to think of myself as as creative. And that was challenging on such a heartfelt level. I didn't know if I played a role anymore. I was just the recording device, essentially. And it threw me off for a long time. It made me really examine what is the purpose of music and performance and creation and creating music. And what went into that I was no composer. I hadn't created anything. I was just the the instrument. I was the tool. I was the technology behind it. And of course, these days we have this this AI, this artificial intelligence, this new technology that can play anything. So what was my role? Was it really significant? Well, what was your answer? And and how many years did it take? I mean, it sounds to me like that was probably a troublesome, but not not real question that you had for yourself, that you knew you were creative, but you weren't demonstrating it and practicing. You know, you started out this whole show saying that creativity is sort of a combination of creativity and discipline. And you so is it a rhetorical question for yourself to say, have I lost my creative spirit? Has it disappeared? Do I now we're talking about the show reclaiming the creative spirit today? Did you feel like it got lost, silenced in the discipline part and overshadowed? Because you weren't using your own, you know, you were your, your metric was you're playing someone else's music. And is that a fair metric? And how does someone else's music differ from the fact that music touches a creative spark in us? That that alchemically becomes something new because we're hearing it. And we're either playing it or dancing it or listening to it or in just receiving it. All of that seems to me there's alchemy in there that brings the human being into the music and the music into the human being. So I've thrown something. It felt like it was a rhetorical question, but you said you were having an existential crisis around it. And so play with some of those themes, if you would, to help us reclaim our own creative spirit. I love that word, Phyllis, when you said it's alchemy. It is, it's literally alchemy. I don't think I recognize that at the time. I didn't really recognize that there was an actual energetic exchange. And the metric that you spoke of actually in the classical field became not just, not just that metric, but you had to perform the best. And it was very competitive. Perfectionism was pervasive and ultimately really destructive. It overshadowed the beauty of that alchemy, that exchange that was the high for me and the origin of all of it. And the existential crisis became a little less ego involved, I have to admit. I mean, my ego was damaged. It was bruised a lot with that one comment. And the taking a few steps back, and of course, as our last show talked about it, I took some steps back and sideways and a few leaps here and there as well. But when it comes down to it, it's that question of, well, what is our purpose? Do we actually collectively know and individually do we know our sense of purpose? Are we really tuned in? Or are we out of tune? Like I was. The dissonance I felt was extraordinary. And then when I segued into my new chapter, my new career that we spoke of last time, including working in the legal field, that dissonance became deafening. And so it morphed into this, it's like a reflective process. The most impactful moments I had, whether it was teaching or performing, and I was teaching concurrently, was always about that alchemy, that exchange of energy, that communication, that connection with somebody else, with another living, breathing human being. If you can connect and impact with someone, I thought that's the real creativity. That's our role. And that's when everything took this pivot to where I am today. You know, there's so much invested in what you have just shared with us, I mean, including your performance, top of your game, concert pianist. There are other videos that viewers could find of you or your center stage with an entire symphonic orchestra. And what one of those embedded ideas that come up for me is this, this gap between being so perfect that you channel almost as though you were that other original artist. And when we fall short, are those the shadow sides of all of that work? Is that where suicide comes in? I think Vincent Van Gogh, and being out in the sunflower fields and shooting himself when he has had some of his most productive two or three years of painting, 60, 70% of all of his art happened in maybe a three year period of his life, three to five years of his life. And he dies in his 30s. But he shot himself. And you talked last time in the legal profession, we have judges who are outside of ourselves evaluating the quality of our work, whether it be as a lawyer, your client, whether you win or lose, or whether it's a senior partner, or whether the judge gives you a hard time. And if you feel that you haven't lived up to that, their definition of what is it? Is it perfection? Is it creativity? Do we lose our soul to that to the point where we want to lose our life? And so you're you're really calling last time for the prodigal creative to come out for us to to revivify what the connection is to our creative juices. And you were right there on stage. I mean, could you have spiraled down to where you were alcoholic or doing drugs? I mean, our artists go that way. And then I don't know that we'll cover it all today. I want to you're the very one who could speak to the the angst of the creative spirit of being so stellar and falling so short of that in your own in your own estimation that we go into drugs, suicide, self destruction. So I, how do we re, how do we not do that? That so many layers there so so big a question. My my question that that arose out of that, certainly, there are there are depths of despair when when you feel the depths of joy, and you experience the depth of beauty, and that that taste of being able to the the immense power the rush to that you feel communicating and being able to to hold an entire audience captive that's that's like the power of mass communication. We're doing that through the creativity to to have that cut off, I think, can bring on this despair. And even without having that pinnacle of artistic performance, if our creative essence is cut off or stifled in any way, I think the the opportunity for despair is is rife. And we become subject to this this judging this metric, I mean, we all have this metric, this self doubt, this voice that can be completely debilitating at times, what happens if you take that self doubt, and you couple that with what's the point. And that's the ultimate arrival to to that despair that that, you know, maybe we feel occasionally, but if we feel it for an extended period of time, that's when it becomes really, really damaging and and potentially fatally damaging. And we saw that even with our examination of those in the legal profession, who have such enormously high standards, and high pressure and stresses on them, and talk about a real life judge situation, when you are judged constantly, and you feel that that dissonance. Well, what what's the point if you haven't even gotten in touch with your creative self or your essence, which is the point and that would be what I underscore the entire time is our creative essence is the point. That's why we're here on this planet to connect with other people. And anything we do can be an oath of craft craftsmanship, like I experienced as an artist, or you can experience as a lawyer, you can experience as a film producer, that oath of craftsmanship to what we do is our own homage to creativity. And I wanted to bring in something that we didn't get a chance to talk about last time. And I think I wore this last time as well. I wear this little trinket, this little necklace. And what it is, it's encased in silver, but it's actually a Malakate. And a Malakate was a spinning world. It was used as a tool by a teenage girl in the 15th century in Aztec. And this was her communication device with everyone. And I wear that to remind us. I love that that world is spiral. And that we aren't on a straight line, but that we're spiraling in and out of being in tune with our creative spirit. But we don't have enough time. We clearly need more time with you just to develop, first of all, the strength of this conversation takes us some time. So we'd love to have you back, Haley, but we'll have to leave it there for now. And I want to let the audience know that you've been watching The Creative Life from the American Creativity Association's Austin Global Chapter on Think Tech Hawaii. And today, we've been talking with our guest, Dr. Haley Simons, to learn about the Beethoven betrayal and how to resurrect our inner creative. Mahalo, Haley, for joining us. And mahalo to our viewers for tuning in on Phyllis Bleece. And we will be back in two weeks for another edition of The Creative Life. Aloha.