This past weekend, The Magic Flute in San Rafael threw an event to connect teachers and students and the community with a celebration of live music and workshops, and I was flying from my quarantine hideaway in the mountains to give in-person clinics and have my students perform. My remote studio, DRIFTSONG, had always been structured to be a hybrid learning experience—online weekly private lessons and creative distance collaborations paired with in-person workshops, recording sessions, clinics, and student performances—but the in-person half of that structure had been on hold until we could do it safely again. I was doing two workshops at the event; five of my students were performing, and I was taking one of my songwriting students to her first open mic in Richmond. It would be a whirlwind of a weekend.

One of my songwriters, Parker, picked me up from the airport (yes, it was our first time meeting in person, and yes, we freaked out). We drove straight from the SFO terminal into Richmond to the charming and eclectic artist-owned Bazaar Café, where she would play her very first open mic. Parker found DRIFTSONG at the onset of the pandemic, and she and I had been writing and creating together for a year and a half now. It was my first chance to introduce her to other musicians in San Francisco and witness the magic as she shared her music live. She was nervous at the start, but all that fell away when she started to sing. There’s a dimension I’m convinced only artists can enter, and she went in deep and held us there with her. When the last chord faded, she shook herself out of the trance and grinned with so much surprise that I had to laugh—I haven’t stopped smiling since.

(Above is a clip from Parker’s open mic)

The next two days were a glorious blur. We sang together and spent hours on Chopin and played for strangers at Steiner Park underneath mammoth eucalyptus trees and hunted down recording studios and climbed street after steep street straight into the blue sky and then turned back down towards the blue of the ocean and lost track of time in the buzz of creativity. We met up with friends and more musicians and attended a house show in Pacific Heights that was straight out of an indie film with hipsters dancing with guitars in a circle, singing “Lil’ Liza Jane” at the top of their lungs. It felt so good to be home.

Saturday, I drove into the fog over the Golden Gate Bridge, past Sausalito, into the rolling hills of San Rafael to The Magic Flute. This place is the kind of business that continually feeds the soul and well-being of Marin County. Give them all the business and then give them more—you could not be supporting bigger-hearted people. Today, the store was bustling with kids and families and excited students toting their instruments and music while trying to recognize their masked teachers. I met twelve of my students that day for the first time in-person, all with their kids and parents and siblings in tow. Every time I turned around there was another familiar voice saying, “Miss Willa…?” and I felt lit up all over again.

At my workshops, we broke down beats and played Djembes together and talked about what sound was, and learned techniques to make the ukulele sing. My students played piano and ukulele sang without a nerve in sight, as if they’d been doing it for years, and I was immeasurably proud of each of them. Afterward, everyone mingled and chatted and congratulated each other and lingered, talking eagerly about next time and what we would play then and how fun it would all be and the parents told me yet again how surprised they were at how well this online format was working.

My studio is full now, 33 strong; I’ve had to start a waitlist for private lessons and I’ve been dreaming up where and when the next workshop will be and reveling in how beautifully this continues to build. We are all ages and levels at DRIFTSONG—songwriters, composers, pianists, uke players, singers—living in the Bay Area and across the country and outside the US, all weathering life and the pandemic with music, all belonging and learning together and finding ways to thrive. This studio has been the best of journeys and I am so grateful to be in the center of this dream and privileged to mentor such an extraordinary group of musicians. I left the event and the city with more radiance and joy than one person could possibly contain—so I’ll share it with you…the music, the joy, the love, the inspiration, everything…

Until next time :)

Hybrid Magic