A Musical Journey Towards Becoming An Educator

By: Alejandro Sepulveda Department of Intergrated Studies in Education McGill University, Montreal

Submission date: August/09

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the

degree of Masters in Arts.

1

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Table of Contents

Abstract: 3 Acknowledgments: 5 Introduction: 6

Section 1: Cultural Experience

 Chapter 1: Coming to Canada 9  Chapter 2: Fielding Drive Public School 13  Chapter 4: Guitar Lessons 17  Chapter 5: Love Lessons 20  Chapter 6: Criminality 26

Section 2: Musical Experience  Chapter 7: Musical Refuge 30  Chapter 8: Brookfield High School 32  Chapter 9: Punk Rock in Penatanguishine 35  Chapter 10: Muddling through Modulation 37  Chapter 11: Taking the Stage 40

Section 3: Educational Experience  Chapter 12: Coming to Montreal 42  Chapter 13: Return to the Andes 45  Chapter 14: Becoming a Teacher 51  Chapter 15: Academic Adversity 55  Chapter 16 Teaching in High School 60

Section 4: Alternative Education  Chapter 17: Nomadic Massive 67  Chapter 18: Cultural Exchange 75  Chapter 19: Using Music in Education 80  Chapter 20: International Initiatives 85  Chapter 21: Conclusion 87

Appendix A: Quotes for Teaching 90 Appendix B: The CD Compilation 94

2 Abstract

This dissertation is an autobiographical account of the author‟s experience as a musician and as an educator. The author takes us on a journey from his childhood through his adult life, starting with the arrival of his parents as immigrants to Canada. In the first section, he explores the difficulties that second generation children face in the Canadian public school system. Through self-analysis and concrete examples, he demonstrates the struggles that he faced when trying to assimilate to Canadian Culture. In section 2, he examines the way music guided his development and contributed to his changing identity. This section includes the discovery of different music genres and sub cultures. In section 3, the author explores his life as a young adult and his quest for truth through cultural exploration and formal education. In the last section, he concludes with the concrete projects that were made possible by the merger between his musical and educational career. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the two fields in order to inform the creation of alternative educational programs in Quebec.

3 Résumé

Ce projet est un compte autobiographique provenant des expériences de l'auteur, entant que musicien et éducateur. L'auteur nous raconte sont vécu, commençant avec l'immigration de ses parents au Canada. Dans la première section, il explore les difficultés subis par des enfants d‟immigrants, dans le système scolaire canadien. Par l'analyse de soi il démontre les luttes auxquelles il a fait face en essayant de s'assimiler à la culture canadienne. Dans la deuxième section, il examine comment la musique a guidée son développement et a contribuée à une identité changeante. Cette section inclut la découverte de différents genres de musique et de cultures. Dans la troisième section, l'auteur fait le parcours de sa vie de jeune adulte où la quête de son identité s‟est fait entre l'exploration culturelle et l'éducation formelle. Dans la quatrième section, il finit avec les projets concrets; né de la fusion entre la musique et l'éducation. Le but de la thèse est d'explorer les deux champs professionels, pour informer la création de programmes d‟éducation alternative au Québec.

4 Acknowledgments

I could not have completed this thesis without the help of many individuals inside and outside the field of education. My first teachers were my parents who struggled through adversity after arriving in North America. Their teachings came from their experiences in Latin America as well as lessons that they learned in their respective fields. I have learned a tremendous amount from their example and I truly believe that my sister and I were fortunate to be born into a family that practiced what they preached. Their example has been fundamental in my development as a teacher and their support has allowed me to pursue my passion with confidence.

In the field of education, I would like to thank Shirley Steinberg for giving me a space to explore my identity in an educational context. She has given me the academic support that I needed to develop all aspects of my teaching potential. I would also like to thank Joe Kincheloe for his relentless pursuit of righteousness through education. He was a true example of what is possible when love and respect are integral parts of education. Finally, I would like to thank someone that I never had the pleasure to meet, but who has been instrumental in my professional development. I would like to thank Paulo Freire for his revolutionary approach to education. His books on education and his involvement with marginalized communities have been inspirational to me and have significantly contributed to my personal and academic growth.

5 Introduction:

In this autobiographical thesis I seek to explore my life experiences as a teacher and as a musician in order to concretize a creative approach towards alternative education. Being self-taught in any discipline allows us to develop skills in an imaginative way. As an independent learner of music I watched and studied videos of great guitar players. I isolated myself, to listen to their songs repeatedly and then imitated the sounds without looking at the fret board. This period of independent study also included playing with other guitarists in my family as well as accompanying my sister in traditional Chilean songs. There was never a classroom, but I had set up learning goals and I was diligently pursuing music as an Art. I opened myself up to different styles of music, and different techniques until finally developing my own style. I have been very fortunate to travel extensively through music. I am a co-founder of the group Nomadic Massive that has initiated many cultural exchanges across the Americas. We have opened international dialogues with youth leaders and artists through Hip Hop music. Music has also allowed me to connect with other cultures and it has enabled an understanding about these cultures that goes far beyond the stereotypical. This international experience has enriched my teaching enormously, as it has made me aware of what it is to be a learner.

I also teach ESL in an Arts High school and I have seen that the biggest obstacle to learning a second language is lack of self-confidence. Even the most learned individuals sound silly when they are speaking a foreign language. The fear of appearing ridiculous can paralyze people from taking risks that will enhance their educational experience. In music we can develop our ear for music and the same is possible in language learning.

6 We must familiarize ourselves with new sounds and experiment putting these sounds in a sequence, in order to create meaning. The starting point for this type of learning could be in a classroom context, but there are many other places where learning can occur. In my case, the acquisition of language and music occurred outside of the classroom and this does not make the experience any less valid. My challenge now is to try to bring what I have learned independently back into my classroom.

I have been profoundly influenced by the teachings of Brazilian Pedagogue, Paulo Freire.

After reading the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I became inspired by his insistence on dialogue and cooperative learning. I started to see that formal education was inherently oppressive and that Paulo‟s pedagogy had only become more relevant in light of globalization. As teachers, we can no longer pretend to be all knowing because access to information has become limitless in the West. As a result, we must assume the role of facilitator and thus enable our own continuous learning experience. With humility, we can bring our knowledge and experience to the table, as well as open ourselves to the education that takes place organically through the exchange with our students.

Concretely, this means that we have to share more of ourselves with our students; spend less time planning our disciplinary action and more time making our lessons authentic and interesting. The more we bring our personal experience to the classroom, the more that we humanize the environment and thus, make it appropriate for erudition. Unless we can demonstrate to our students that making mistakes is part of the learning process, our role will be reduced to that of an evaluator who passes judgment on what the system deems relevant. This creates a false sense of power that limits us from seeing what

7 exactly limits our students, in their own interpersonal development. This development is actually more important than the subject itself because it determines the readiness of the individual to receive instruction.

The following dissertation includes a collection of my experiences from cultural to musical to educational. I have attempted to include the most relevant experiences along with anecdotes that show that I am human beyond any title or position that I may hold in the field of music or education. My experiences as a troubled adolescent have informed my teaching as much as my study of pedagogy and grammar. My passionate pursuit of music has opened doors to learning that would never have been possible through theoretical analysis. I am interested in learning through action as much as through instruction and I believe that the two need not remain mutually exclusive. I have included a CD with this dissertation that demonstrates the connections that can be made through concrete projects. This CD is a collection of my work with international artists who are working towards creating change in their respective communities through music.

The creation of this music has been a spiritual experience for me and the performance of this music has brought together people from different generations, races and socio economic backgrounds.

8 Cultural Experience

Coming to Canada:

As the bullets from the airplanes, flew into the Chilean Presidential Palace, president

Allende was heard on the radio, advising people to stay indoors. My father hid in a manhole; designated for the extension of the subway, across the street from the Palace.

He crouched inside, motionlessly watching the bullets ricochet off the pavement. He worked at the Ministry of Public Affairs downtown and was walking to his office, when he was caught in the crossfire of a military coup. My father participated in politics in his spare time, and had dreams of climbing the political ladder after finishing school. He was lighting a cigarette when he suddenly saw the people running hysterically towards him. President Allende allowed his staff to leave the national building but he remained inside, defiantly. Hours later, he was found dead in his office brandishing an Ak-47, given to him by Fidel Castro. This day would mark the end of the democracy that allowed the Unidad Popular; a leftist coalition, to govern Chile for 3 short years. It was

September 11, 1973 and an otherwise peaceful Chile saw its democracy defied by the detention of every man, woman and child, found in the street on that day.

In the years that followed, allegiance to any socialist party became illegal and punishable by death and even torture. Nationalism took on a new face as military ideals were imposed in the lives of citizens. Teenagers were given buzz cuts if their hair was deemed rebellious or untidy. A soldier once held my mother at gunpoint because she was walking on a University campus during the country‟s national anthem. Couples were burned with gasoline for writing slanderous slogans against the dictatorship. The scene was extremely

9 volatile and people were detained, tortured and killed for participating in any political activity that was contrary to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

My grandmother used to babysit the children of a Carleton University professor; working in Santiago. My father befriended this man and he is the reason that he ended up in

Ottawa, Canada. The situation in Chile was so tense that my parents could only be married by the Church. The state was extremely suspicious and everyone was a potential suspect. Consequently, it was not wise to be wed before any government official if one was previously involved in politics for social justice. From one day to another, it became illegal to participate in politics democratically. I thought that surely some citizens would have surrendered themselves to the soldiers, offering excuses to save their families if not themselves. My father said that many of the people who volunteered themselves were never seen again. He arrived in Ottawa alone in 1974 and eventually used the marriage contract issued by the priest to bring over his wife, my mother.

My father‟s passion was literature. He was raised in a society that revered poets and writers and he fell into a similar subculture in Canada. In 1974, he won an award for a short story competition organized by Chilean exiles in Toronto. The prize was a copy of

Paulo Freire‟s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This book was gaining popularity among exiled Latin Americans and especially in the Chilean community as Paulo Freire had been exiled in Chile. My father believed that art was necessary for the survival of the soul, but realizing that literature was not enough to raise a family; he took a job in computer science. He worked across the street from the parliament buildings in

10 downtown Ottawa. As child; I would visit his office for the annual Christmas party. We toured his floor and I remember we were taken to see the company Computer. At that time, a “Computer” took up an entire room. This one constantly spewed out sheets of code, which have since become obsolete. It was my father‟s job to make sure that there was always enough memory to keep these codes up to date. This is what I understood his job to be, as a child, and my understanding has not grown any deeper with time.

He never talked about his work at home. We would discuss so many different things at the dinner table; history, politics and literature, but never work. It was common for my father to come to the dinner table with a draft of a story he was writing. He would test it out on us to see if we found it funny, or if we understood. Sometimes there were things my sister and I wouldn‟t understand because we were too young to get the references.

Even so, he respected our opinion and would often change a word or phrase that we didn‟t like. Some of the stories we used to hear eventually became a paperback book. In

1990, he published his first book entitled Red Rock. This book was a collection of fictional short stories, which were set in the time of the Chilean coup of 1973. Our family was flown to Chile for the official launch of the book in 1991 at the Casa Canada in Santiago. We stayed in Santiago for two months and by the time we came back my sister and I were speaking Spanish fluently to each other.

I later helped my father translate this book into English. This exercise really got me involved with Spanish grammar at a young age. Since we were translating literature, we had to translate into something that sounded good, not just comprehensible. It was at this

11 time that I began to notice some of the fundamental differences between Spanish and

English. I noticed that in Spanish it was normal to write really long sentences with a lot of punctuation. I found it interesting how this way of writing adapted itself easily to my stream of consciousness writing. I began writing these types of sentences in my English assignments at school and I got terrible marks. I had a dispute with the English teacher because he said that I wrote “run on sentences”. I told him that my father was a writer and that I was his translator. He told me that in English, people preferred that we get to the point. We ultimately agreed to disagree and I started cutting my sentences in half for his classes. This teacher eventually wrote my recommendation letter for my Bachelor‟s in Education. I remember picking it up at his house, sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea and realizing that teachers had completely different lives outside of their jobs; just like my father.

My mother arrived in Canada six months after my father and in the photographs she still looked like a teenager. A young bearded man with a leather jacket and a tobacco pipe is waiting for her, holding a bouquet of flowers. It is hard to believe that this man is my father and I try to imagine what he was like as a young Chilean immigrant. She is wearing bellbottoms and so is everyone else in the background of the photograph. My mother‟s first job was at a retail store selling woman‟s clothing. She worked until she acquired the language skills to move into a profession that she adored. When she was young, she used to dream of becoming a kindergarten teacher. She told me that she would line up her mother‟s chickens in the backyard and pretend to give them lessons.

She would scold the chickens when they were bad and put them in the corner. After a

12 few years working at the retail store, she finally got a job working in a cooperative daycare in downtown Ottawa. At the time, a degree was not required to work as a daycare teacher. Since that time, however, my mother returned to school to complete her degree in Early Childhood Education.

In contrast to my father, my mother always spoke about work. Every aspect of her job was discussed at the dinner table. These discussions inevitably shaped my understanding of what it meant to be a teacher. We talked about the children and their cognitive development. My mother knew all the theories and the different developmental stages.

She taught me about Maslow‟s Hierarchy of Needs, and Piaget‟s Theory of Cognitive

Development. We would discuss the social part of the job, such as how to deal with abusive parents and difficult co-workers. I also learned all about unions and collective agreements at a young age. They were always in negotiations, and there were endless meetings and strikes. These are the issues that affect those in the teaching profession.

When I became a teacher, I began to live out all the experiences I had heard from my mother as a child. It seems now that the career path I have chosen was very much influenced by these dinner table discussions.

Fielding Drive Public School:

My parents were always very adamant about maintaining their Latin American roots. We ate Chilean food and spoke Spanish at home. They hosted many parties where people would sing traditional Latin American songs. Most of the English they knew came from the Beatles‟ Abbey Road album or Hollywood movies they had seen, subtitled in

13 Santiago. As a result, it was natural for them to pass on the language to my sister and I through Chilean music. They were still very involved in the politics from back home; lobbying the Canadian government to condemn human rights violations; helping to organize protests, hunger strikes and the screenings of secretly smuggled videotapes that divulged what was really going on in Chile. These activities were all part of the regular encounters of the community. As an act of solidarity, many socialist Chileans of the seventies actually became passionately involved in the separatist movement of Quebec.

Chileans were thirsty for political change in their country and thus, they were sympathetic to other international political struggles. As children of exiled Chileans we absorbed this tendency towards political involvement. We lived it at the rallies, the manifestations, and the benefit concerts.

We learned about the tradition of our people through their melancholic use of music and poetry. We were taught about iconic Chilean singers like Victor Jara, who was jailed and tortured to death by Pinochets‟s dictatorship and Violetta Parra who committed suicide over a broken heart after writing the song “Gracias A la Vida” or “Give Thanks for Life.”

We heard the poetry of acclaimed writers like Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, who were both awarded Nobel prizes in Literature in 1945 and 1971 respectively. These figures embodied the culture of Chile and they gave us a sense of identity that was clearly different than Canadian. I have frequently encountered people that make reference to these characters once they learn that I am from Chile. Neruda is taught in some literature classes at the post secondary level in Quebec. Victor Jara has become symbolic in Latin

America in a similar way that Che Guevara has been popularized in the Americas, his

14 image appearing on t-shirts and other communist prarfranelia. My sister and I grew up with this folklore, even though we had never really lived in Chile

At Fielding Drive Public School we sang the Canadian national anthem in the morning in both official languages. This was the case from kindergarten all the way up to grade 13.

Canadian nationalism was a predominant theme in the curriculum of the Ottawa School

Board. In class, we were taught to celebrate multiculturalism. In the schoolyard multiculturalism included my sister, a black girl from Nova Scotia and a small group of

Italians. We all had a connection to the music of our culture but in general we listened to

Black and Latino music from the US and the Caribbean. This music was made accessible to us through Canadian and American music stations. We were all allied together because we were different than the status quo and music gave us a cultural identification with being other. It is very interesting to see how different cultures come together when they find themselves in the minority. We spoke different languages and had different customs than the majority so we gravitated towards each other and bonded based on our differences. Interestingly, this is always a shifting paradigm because in a country like

Canada, there are constant arrivals of new immigrants.

Perhaps we did not realize how much we had assimilated to the status quo until the

Somali Civil War. As a result of this war, many Somali refugees arrived in Ottawa in the

1990‟s. The children of this war were placed in public schools, where they were in special classrooms designed to teach them culture and language. At our school, these children were in portables. They did not have any reason to come into the main building.

15 Their jackets were hung in the portables and they ate their lunch there as well. We only saw these students at recess and at lunch hour. Suddenly, we, the children of immigrants, were no longer so different. We spoke English well and understood the general Canadian customs and etiquette. The kids in the portables were arriving from war torn countries.

Some had lost their parents or siblings to soldiers and so they had an understandable contempt for authority.

Even in the face of such differences there was one thing that united all Canadian immigrants and it was soccer. Soccer was universal outside of North America and it was the way that I connected with these new kids in spite of our language barriers. While practicing we would create bonds that transcended the soccer field. Soon these new kids started coming to the local dances at the community center. They destroyed the dance floor with amazing moves that we used to see in the videos. Despite becoming included in this group, I could never have understood the horrors that affected the childhood of these young refugees. I watched many friends struggle and adapt to Canadian culture after many legal and social altercations. Some have since had children of their own and their kids speak English with Ottawa Valley accents. These kids will inevitably feel different than the dominant class because of their home life; however they are not immigrants to Canada. The country where they are raised represents their routine reality and the country where they are from symbolizes an unattainable ideal or identity. Some will negate their origins in order to fit in while others will hold on to their roots and seek identity through them. During our adolescence it seems that my sister and I, switched back and forth depending on the social situation.

16 Guitar Lessons:

My father bought me a classical guitar when I was eleven and he signed me up for lessons at the Ottawa Board of Education. We used a beginner book that showed hand positions, and simple notes. The first song we learned to play was “Mary Had a Little

Lamb” and it was torturous. I found it utterly useless to memorize each note on the staff, when I could play the song just by sounding out the notes in my head. This was infuriating for the teacher. “You have to read every single note,” he would say, visibly agitated. With time, I learned to pretend to read music. I would squint my eyes at the page as if trying to read the notes. I knew the song in my head and I recognized the notes when I played them. Besides I was not interested in learning to play children‟s songs, I wanted to play the Blues.

In Ottawa, there was a late night radio program that played Blues on Saturday nights.

The radio announcer was very knowledgeable about the Blues and I discovered that there were different Blues varieties. Depending on the region of the southern states where the

Blues was played the characteristics of the music differed. I learned to differentiate between Delta Blues, which is characterized by the acoustic guitar and the harmonica, and Chicago Blues, which is characterized by the use of an electric guitar, bass and piano.

A style that I particularly liked was called Piedmont, which originates in the Eastern part of the southern United States. I liked this style of Blues because it incorporated the use of finger picking rather than a plectrum or „pick‟. Since I was brought up on the classical guitar, I was more familiar with the finger picking style. Regardless of the style, what I enjoyed the most about the Blues was the emotion in both the guitar and the voices of the

17 singers. Jimi Hendrix once said: “Blues is easy to play, hard to feel.” I felt that it was music that came straight from the soul and as a result it had the potential to touch any listener, independent of their race or socio economic background.

I don‟t know if it was because the school board offered these guitar lessons that they felt so bland, but they had a methodical way about them that I found uninspiring. There was no relationship to what I wanted to learn and pages of theory squashed every creative idea I had. The only way I was able to make these lessons productive was by offering to teach guitar to a friend. Tom gave me ten dollars a lesson, to show him what I had learned in my class that day. Usually we would end up jamming for hours and I discovered that my passion for the guitar existed well beyond the formal education system. That same year, Tom received an electric guitar for Christmas and it changed our lives forever. There were so many new sounds to explore and electric guitars were much cooler than classical guitars in Ottawa. However, when I asked for an electric guitar, I was met with a lot of resistance from my father. He maintained that I should learn the basics of the classical guitar before moving on to electronics. He told me that electric guitars were very expensive and that I also had to buy an amplifier, which would incur additional costs. None of this really made sense to me at the time. My father was an artist and so I believed that he would support me in my art. The problem was that he didn‟t see electric music as art.

The real reason my father was inventing all these excuses to not buy an electric guitar, was actually based on fear. He said electric guitars were not the same as classical guitars.

18 Classical guitars were symbols of tradition and discipline. I was even scolded once by a

Chilean elder, for improperly stringing my guitar. On the other hand, electric guitars were loud and untamed. They represented rebelliousness and they were symbols of antiestablishment thinking. The people who played electric guitars wore black and had long hair; they sang about the devil and consumed all sorts of drugs in dark basements.

At least this is what my father thought. My grandfather also shared this sentiment and this was by no means an act of solidarity with my father. They hated each other and never really had a close relationship. However, they did agree that music had become nothing more than noise in my generation. They pointed to the national music stations to demonstrate how things had degenerated in popular culture. I knew that I was on my own when it came to purchasing an electric guitar. In a few months, my friend was improving dramatically. I had stopped going to my guitar lessons and hadn‟t told my father. He never found out because I would still take the bus downtown as if I was going to the lessons.

Love Lessons:

“A first love will always enable an emotional experience that is unfathomable in the theoretical world.”

I had my first real girlfriend when I was twelve. She was older than me and although it was only by a year, in school status that meant a lot. Not only was she older, but she was also cooler. She had lots of friends as well as suitors. Not only was she cooler, but also smarter. She wrote poetry and used words that I had never heard of before. Our relationship was an emotional roller coaster. She was so sweet sometimes then she

19 would get unreasonably cold and irritable. This made my life exciting and it was my first real inkling into the world of romantic relationships. I was in pretty deep before I could understand how quickly things can get distorted in the angst and hormonal electricity of teenage love.

My father used to let me drive her home in the family Volvo. He believed in his son and in Volvos and she only lived a few blocks away. I still maintain that this was not an irresponsible decision on his part. Ottawa felt like such a small town back then. My father didn‟t want me to walk back home alone and he realized that driving us was somewhat belittling to me. Also, some kids in the older grades had confronted me because I was dating their classmate. I was safer in the car and on the way home I would drive slowly down back roads singing along to the Blues radio station really loudly. The car made me feel more confident and important. Unfortunately, this confidence turned to arrogance in later adolescence.

Having a Canadian girlfriend made me feel integrated, but culturally we didn‟t really connect. I was often completely oblivious to her expectations or offended as a result of mine. This added an infinite level of complexity to my thought pattern as a youth.

We began a very physical relationship, which ignited an intensity that was not normal for kids our age. We didn‟t even have permission to go on dates so we just drove around our neighborhood adventuring to far off places in our minds and making out. Our imagination guided most of our intimate time together and I fell completely in love. It felt like I had entered another dimension where anything I thought about could manifest

20 itself. I began playing more and more guitar and I excelled in sports and school. I had fallen into an abyss of euphoria without any practical understanding of the soreness of a broken heart.

She was in the Drama program in junior high and was aspiring to go to an Arts School in the fall. At Fielding, we had the choice between Dramatic Arts and Music. I had already decided to take music and I was learning the trumpet. There were 6 months left before she would leave to the school across town, leaving me stuck another year in Junior High.

I wondered how I could change things to be with her. I thought maybe I could ask my parents to consider letting me skip a grade. I wanted to hold on for one more year and find a way to go to the same school. I thought long and hard and this quest became the subject of many long telephone conversations with her. These conversations remained theoretical until one night it hit me. The next morning, I told my trumpet teacher that I was leaving the music program by obligation. I had braces and I said I couldn‟t play the trumpet because it was cutting my lips.

I switched over to the drama program and performed outstandingly by obligation. I needed to get a recommendation from the department in order to get an audition at the

Arts school. I spent the following year reciting monologues, auditioning for plays and competing in the Improv Olympics. At graduation, I was given the Dramatic Arts

Achievement Award. That summer, I passed the audition and was going to the same school as my sweetheart in the fall. I had successfully accomplished the goal of being with her, only sacrificing the opportunity to play in the concert band.

21

It seemed like a simple sacrifice at the time but I have come to view it as a sacrifice of the soul. When you learn to play an instrument you develop a relationship with that instrument and you become accustomed to the sound of your instrument like you become accustomed to the sound of a lover‟s voice. You spend time with that instrument and you communicate with it in a physical and intuitive way. When you play in front of a crowd, the instrument becomes an extension of you, allowing you to express your emotions non- verbally while having the attention of an audience. Really, the relationship you develop with an instrument can be a lifelong commitment that can bring much fulfillment. The same is not always true of a romantic relationship because the dynamic can never be the same.

Usually we discover the love of an instrument at a young age and thus we can approach it with the innocence of a young heart and the openness of a childish mind. Like learning a language, learning to play an instrument is made easier by starting at a young age. Most musicians have become famous because of their love for their art. It motivated them to sacrifice their time and attention far before seeing any material result. When Jimi

Hendrix was asked why he burned his guitar on stage, he replied: “The time I burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar.” I bought a trumpet again when I was twenty-five, assuming I could teach myself. After a year of angry phone calls from the neighbors I resold it on Ebay and bought another guitar with the money. I didn‟t have the time or the freedom to develop this relationship with the

22 trumpet and so I didn‟t fall in love with it and I regret not having given myself the chance. My sacrifice was for romantic love and it fell flat within two months.

By the time I got to grade nine, my girlfriend‟s friends were about 4 years older than her and 5 years older than me. They drove flashy cars and had jobs where they actually made money. They could legally buy beer, in Quebec. There was no way to compete with them at age thirteen. I think my relationship with her ended officially in mid October. I remember being surrounded by five guys in the corner of the cafeteria that was being decorated for the Halloween dance. They told me to lay off her and that she did not want to talk to me anymore. One of them breathed heavily through his nostrils with his fists clenched. In that second I realized that I had lost an enormous part of myself and it was not necessarily the loss of that love. It was the fact that I had foolishly pursued a fleeting enchantment instead of discovering more about myself, through art. As a result of this anger and frustration I turned inward for an entire school year. I spent every day with my head down and my Walkman on. This yellow Sports Walkman became my escape from all the difficulties of High School socialization. I used it to isolate myself and shut out anyone who wanted to get close to me. I walked around angrily to a totally different soundtrack of grunge and gangster rap.

This type of music allowed me to delve into a completely different identity much of which was initially imaginary. Since I spent most of my time listening to angry music it fuelled the angst that I had as a teenager. It justified the ugly feelings I was having inside and it shaped me into a much more hardened individual. Music is such a powerful tool that it can be used positively as well as negatively. In the hippie movement of the 1960‟s

23 music represented a positive horizon for a distraught generation that had become tired of the war machine. In the 1980‟s the music industry had become more stratified into a multitude of genres for commercialization. Angry music like metal, and grunge had developed a more mainstream appeal after experiencing an enormous amount of controversy with religious groups as well as the media. Then rap music came out of the ghettos of the United States and it started becoming more and more popular. As Hip Hop culture spread into the mainstream it also went through a process of commercialization.

The parental advisory label was introduced in 1985 and it only made teenagers want to buy albums more. The first metal album to receive the label was Gun‟s and Roses

Appetite for Destruction and the first Hip Hop album to receive the warning was Ice-T‟s

Rhyme Pays.

I began consuming a lot of music with these labels as a sign of rebelliousness as well as a sign of inquisitiveness. Through this type of music I became aware of certain terminology that I had otherwise never heard. I learned words to describe sexual acts, drugs, women and acts of crime. At this age, it wasn‟t like I had never seen a gangster movie depicting some of the acts described in rap songs, but there is a huge difference between the two mediums. When we watch a movie we are inevitably observers or outsiders to the acts being committed. When we listen to music and especially when we sing along, we are protagonists of the acts described. If the song is written in the first person and the character is not visible, we recite the song as though we are the ones doing these acts. It doesn‟t mean that we will actually do the things that we are singing but it certainly has the potential to change the way we view the world and ourselves.

24

It didn‟t help that I actually looked like one of the rappers from a group called Cypress

Hill, at the time. This LA based group was made up of second generation Latinos that glorified drugs, violence and gang life. Regardless, I emulated their style and I listened to their music constantly. I read an article where the lead singer said that even though they were a Hip Hop band, they actually listened to very little Hip Hop music. He cited the Blues and Latino music as much more influential to their style. I was astonished to learn that we shared the same musical tastes and I started to hear these influences in their samples as well as in some of the metaphors in their rhymes. Unfortunately, I also became consumed with the fantasy world that they presented in their music and I soon found myself in troubling situations as a result.

Criminality:

The phone call from the police officer woke my father from his sleep. He had asked me not to sleepover at my friend‟s house that night because I was sick. He even took me to the walk-in clinic to make sure everything was all right. The doctor said that teenagers were very resilient and my mother told my father to let me go. I guess it was more than just a cold that my father was worried about. He knew that I had been hanging around with a different crowd and he was concerned about some of the decisions I had made since going to high school. I had completely changed my style. I started wearing baggy clothes and I pierced my ear. I wanted to get a tattoo and this enraged him. My father remembered his adolescence in Chile and at that time, earrings and tattoos were criminal fashion symbols. He wanted his son to excel and to be an exemplary student. He wanted

25 his son to exceed the expectations of the system. He said that when he was young, being smart was cool. People looked up to intellectuals and they made it further in life. He was always baffled by the childhood of North Americans. Here it was cool to be shallow and blasé in school. Flaunting intelligence in high school could be perceived as arrogant and there were negative social consequences to being conceited.

In any case, this evening Jay and I took the keys to his mother‟s car and were joyriding around the city with no license and no understanding of the danger we were putting ourselves in. From the time Jay learned that I could drive, we would take his mother‟s car all over the city and sometimes even to other neighboring cities. He would blast this hardcore rap music that was very aggressive and profane. He had contempt for the police and he learned this through listening to these rap artists. He created a reality for himself that reflected the absence of his mother and father by replacing their roles with rap music and gangster movies. He was always defiant of authority and very shocking with his vocabulary and his tone. He was also my best friend and I idolized him. We pretended that we were delinquents and our actions began fulfilling this prophecy. We practiced pulling knives on each other to see how we would defend ourselves in a fight. We would often dare each other to do dangerous things like speed down the highway at 3 am with the lights off. Sometimes we would take the car off a jump behind the local mini mall or spin it around at our school parking lot.

Once, Jay asked me what would happen if he put the car in reverse while we were speeding down the highway. I told him that this would destroy the transmission and that

26 we would be stuck in the middle of nowhere. One night, while we were cruising around the outskirts of Ottawa, we saw a sign that said Kingston, 175 km. He looked at me mischievously and said: “let‟s go to Kingston” I immediately refused and told him he was crazy. Then he put his hand on the gear changer as if to put it in reverse and repeated:

“We are going to Kingston!” The next thing I knew, we were having breakfast in

Kingston with a credit card that he had stolen from his mother‟s purse. No one seemed to question why two 14 year olds were paying for breakfast with a Visa card at 6 am on a weekday.

I had grown some facial hair and we always made sure to dress older. We bought some leather jackets at the vintage store and we walked around with an attitude that was uncharacteristic of kids our age. We would come back to school after our adventures and tell the kids in our class the stories of how we stole cars and drove out of the city. We never mentioned that we stole the car from our parents. This gave us an edge at school and the stories we told became more and more elaborate. The girls in our classes were all worried about us and the boys feared us. I remember one particular girl saying: “you know if you keep doing this you‟re going to get caught.” This seemed impossible to me at the time. I thought I was a good driver and we never drove around in the daytime when people could see how young we were.

After all our trips outside of the city, we were caught a few blocks from Jay‟s house.

When the police pulled us over Jay was blasting the song Cop Killer by artist Iced Tea, and he refused to lower the volume. Ironically the artist, who wrote this song, now plays

27 a detective in a police drama on NBC. When the officer asked for my identification, I guess he was expecting a driver‟s license or a visa card. All I had in my wallet was the hospital card that was issued when I was born and a library card. The hospital card was issued before I was given my name, and so it read: baby boy Sepulveda. He did not find this amusing and he took me into the police cruiser while my friends waited in the car.

The officer called everyone‟s parents and each had a completely different reaction. Jay‟s mom did not answer the phone. Robbie‟s father said he would meet us at the police station. My father showed up at the scene of the crime with my mother and my sister.

He then followed the cruiser to the police station. I will never forget the way my father looked at me that day. He was so disappointed and it came out as rage. I was lucky that my little sister was there because he would have been more harsh with me had she been left at home. She was in her pajamas and she was telling him to calm down and be nice.

We were all placed in separate rooms and then we were interrogated as criminals.

Everyone was let go and I was given a court date because I was the one driving the car.

My friends‟ mother decided not to press charges but I was still pursued by the Crown

Attorney. It was at least a month before my father talked to me again. It happened when a fellow writer was visiting from out of town. He was a childhood friend of my father‟s and when he found out what had happened he wouldn‟t stop making jokes about it. He said it would be okay for him to have a few drinks because after all I could always drive him home. My father eventually cracked and we started talking about everything that lead to this event. I wrote him a letter explaining the details and asking for his forgiveness. I know that at this moment my father felt responsible because he was the one who had taught me how to drive.

28

The day we went to the courthouse, my father came to pick me up at school. He brought a bag with a dress shirt and a tie and he made me wear it. He had done the same thing when I had a piano recital in grade 4 and I was the only kid with a tie at the performance.

When we showed up at the courthouse, another young offender was getting kicked out of his hearing for reading a magazine while the judge was talking to him. I overheard him arguing with the bailiff and then I realized that he was the older brother of a classmate. I prayed that he would not see me, but he did and he mumbled hello as the bailiff escorted him away violently. My father reprimanded me about my acquaintances and dragged me into courtroom five. All young offenders knew this courtroom, because it was where every juvenile received there sentencing. When we walked in, there were many young offenders sitting with their lawyers or parole officers. Again, I was the only one in there wearing a tie. It looked like I was the only one in there with my father as well.

When the judge called my name my father stood up to speak for me. The judge lectured him for speaking out of turn and he postponed my court date because I was not adequately represented. This was an embarrassment for him but things seem to work out as a result of this exchange. We were sitting in the courthouse cafeteria when a parole officer came to speak to us. He said that he could represent me for free and that it didn‟t seem like I belonged in the criminal justice system. We sat down with the crown attorney and my father showed them the letter I had given him along with a copy of my school report card. Finally, it was a combination of these documents and probably the tie that contributed to them dropping the charges. The crown looked me straight in the eyes

29 and said: “don‟t take this the wrong way son, but I never want to see your face here again. If I do I will prosecute you to the maximum degree.” I have never been to court since that day and I was not allowed out much after this event.

Musical Experience

Musical Refuge

I spent the rest of the school year lost in my headphones, listening to bands like Pearl Jam and N.W.A. At a time when I should have been socializing and meeting new friends, I was sulking in seclusion and shutting the world out. At home, I spent a lot of time watching videos of the great guitar masters. I watched Eric Clapton‟s famous unplugged album over and over. In this video he talks about losing his son and how his only way to cope was by channeling his pain through music. I studied Carlos Santana and Jimi

Hendrix performances from Woodstock. I was fascinates with the way they were able to translate and transform emotion into music. I started reading their biographies to understand their musical evolution. Each artist had a unique story about how they became virtuosos.

Eric Clapton had been in a number of famous bands including Cream, Derek and the

Dominos and the Yardbirds. Despite all his success as a guitarist, he was also addicted to heroin for several years. As a result, he spent many months in seclusion, making money by recording soundtracks for British television dramas.

30 Jimi Hendrix didn‟t have enough money for a guitar so he played on a Eukele his father had found while working as a cleaner. He was actually a big fan of Elvis Presley and he saw him in concert in Seattle in 1957. Hendrix was also caught in stolen vehicles as a young man and he was given the choice between going to prison and joining the Army.

Santana‟s father was a mariachi violinist and Carlos‟ first instrument was also the violin.

He was a street musician in San Francisco before making his debut at Woodstock. He was only 22 years old when he took the stage with his band whose original name was the

Santana Blues Band.

As I studied these masters, I began to realize that they too had studied masters at a young age. Each great guitarist of the 70‟s had grown up with the music of the 1950‟s and had somehow innovated with the influence of their predecessors. So I started looking further backwards for inspiration. Every time I would hear a name mentioned by one of my idols, I would go to the library or the music store and research them. Using this investigative method, I discovered one of Jimi Hendrix‟s more obscure albums, entitled

Jimi Hendrix Blues. The album cover displays the silhouette of Jimi‟s face. In the silhouette we see images of all the great blues men: BB King, Albert King, Chuck Berry,

Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and so on. The album cover alone is enough to send anyone on a musical exploration of the Blues legends. On the album, we hear Jimi‟s interpretation of Albert King‟s “Born Under a Bad Sign” as well as many classics recorded by the aforementioned artists.

31 As I researched more and more biographies I began to discover that many of the

“legends” were never formally educated in music. They were street poets who used music to communicate a message to their audience. I began to compile quotes from these artists and incorporate the teachings into my playing. I refer to them when I am lost for inspiration or when someone tells me they are learning to play guitar. I have included these quotes at the end of the thesis so that they may be referred to for musical inspiration.

Brookfield High School:

In the fall of 1995 I changed schools. I left the art school to go to the local high school where I knew many students from my childhood. When I arrived, I wasn‟t quite sure how to fit in. This school had little appreciation for the arts and it was more sports oriented. The cool kids were not actors or musicians. They were Football players, and beer drinkers. The football team was nicknamed the Blues and the players were all honorary members of the Brookfield drinking Team. I never wanted to go to Brookfield because I knew it would have kept me boxed into the same identity I had in elementary school. Many rumors circulated about my return to this school. Some said I was kicked out of my old school for drugs. Others believed that I was kicked out for fighting. I remained silent and reclusive and this behavior kept people guessing. I never answered questions directly and was often aloof and alone. This furthered speculation about my year away. Fortunately, no one thought that it had been a broken heart that caused my retreat. The rumor about being involved with the police only created more rumors that I never refuted.

32

It was the perfect way to forget. I just decided to become someone else. Although most of the rumors were untrue, many became true by virtue of this new identity. The reality was that I had never tried drugs and was never involved in any violent activity until coming to this school where I felt so out of place. I was starved for attention but unsure about how to get it. I joined the soccer team and spent most of my time sitting on the bench. At this school, winning was everything. There was a long tradition of victories and no coach was about to risk that with some rookies. I started smoking to try to fit in with the gang that didn‟t play sports. Slowly, I built a reputation on an image that was imaginary. This image fit perfectly with the stereotypes about Mexican Americans that we saw in American movies and heard in rap music.

One day, I was leaving school early while listening to a band called Delinquent Habits in my earphones. I saw a poster on the wall announcing tryouts for the football team. I bitterly lit a corner of the poster with my lighter and walked towards the parking lot of the school. I was outside for about 5 minutes before hearing the fire alarm. All the students evacuated the building and the fire department arrived quickly. Suddenly, I saw the Janitor in the courtyard trying to stamp out a garbage can that was on fire. When it was all over, everyone walked back into the school. A girl tapped me on the shoulder and said: “don‟t worry, I won‟t tell anyone”. It was at that moment that I realized that the poster I had lit, actually continued burning and fell into the garbage can causing the fire.

After this event, I was untouchable at my high school. People were easily intimidated by

33 the thought that you will use fire as a weapon. People thought that I was so ruthless and I went with it.

The following year I became one of the popular kids by virtue of being initially feared. I had a circle of friends and a new girlfriend. Things were looking up for me and I went from being a total nobody to a “somebody” in six months. My new friends were into bands I had never really listened to before. We used to drive around in a big orange

Volkswagen bus listening to the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and Pink

Floyd. I guess I had always been fascinated with solo artists and my investigations into their lives never lead me to these particular bands. However, they were all famous for the same reasons that my idols were famous. They stepped out of the conventional chains and created cult like followings associated with their unique style. Even today, we see adolescents walking around wearing Zeppelin T-shirts. These bands have come to represent a time in history where music was more experimental and less commercial.

Young kids can point to this period and idealize the good old days that they never lived.

I loved listening to the synergy between the musicians. They were so connected that they could extend songs well beyond the predictable 4 minutes of Pop music. They defied musical boundaries defined by the industry. Pop can be described as music with words that are easily digestible accompanied with predictable chord changes and repetitive melodies. It gives the impression of familiarity to the listener and this is what makes the songs popular and recognizable. This new music I had discovered allowed for a lot more musical improvisation. These musical tangents drove fans wild and it was not

34 uncommon to see songs exceeding the ten-minute mark. There was room to let your mind wander to this music. Solos were elaborate and the songs would change keys taking the listener on a musical journey into unknown territory. This music was clearly influenced by the Blues, but it broke the moulds of this genre by extending itself beyond what was expected. I still remember high school dances where the last song would be Stairway to

Heaven. It was hilarious to watch people try to dance to this song because it begins as a slow ballad but eventually culminates into a rock marathon. After a few attempts I learned that it was far more entertaining to watch others try to dance to this classic song than to try dancing with someone.

Punk Rock in Penatanguishine:

That summer a friend of mine invited me to his cottage in Ontario. The cottage was located in the small town of Penatanguishine. This town is relatively unknown expect for the fact that it is home to one of the biggest detention centers in the province of Ontario.

The city center is very small and I was amazed at the demographics of the town. The town had an astonishing number of elderly people contrasted with scores of punk rock kids. While we were there, the infamous Warped Tour was passing through a nearby town. The punks of the city managed to organise themselves to make the trip to go see their idols. NoFX, Pennywise, Propaghandi, and Fishbone were among the headliners. It seemed as though every youth in the city was making the trip, including my friend. I didn‟t like punk rock music; I found the solos really busy and the lyrics unintelligible.

Yet, I had no choice but to jump on this caravan and go see my first punk rock show. It was either that or stay in the town with the Senior Citizens.

35

We drove to the show listening to Punk Rock music and eating potato chips. I felt awkward in the car and even more so when we arrived. There was only one Hip Hop band on the whole tour called “The Alkaholics”. They were promoting their album entitled Coast to Coast. I had heard of them but the crowd seemed to disperse when they went on. Their emblem was a giant toilet and they invited fans on stage to play drinking games as the bouncers checked ID. A relatively new band called Unwritten Law came on and fans slowly gravitated towards the stage. Before long, people were moshing and crowd surfing, just like I had seen in the punk rock videos. I stood back and really tried to listen to this music that my ears usually rejected entirely. I watched the intensity of the musicians. They were completely in synch with one another and this kept the crowd enthralled. As much as I had discounted punk music as being just noise, I had to acknowledge that it was an astounding demonstration of precise timing. It seemed effortless and this is what made them an excellent band. On the drive back I was more attentive to the music in the car. I stopped listening to the melody and focused on the drumming.

When I went home, I went back to my CD collection. I pulled out cds that I had listened to a million times, from Reggae to Alternative. This time, however, I tried listening to what was in the background: the bass line, the drums, the back up vocals and the rhythm guitar. It seemed as though I was listening to something completely new. For the first time, I realised the relationship between all the elements of a song. I also discovered how horrible I was at following rhythm guitar. It seems that this is the case for many young

36 musicians when they are starting out. They go straight for the solos or they learn songs by heart. This approach doesn‟t really help us work on the internal clock. It is the guys who play solos that get all the attention so when we play rhythm guitar we are usually not the star of the band. Yet, to play good solos, it is essential that a guitarist develop an understanding of rhythm.

Muddling through Modulation:

The next four years of high school were riddled with anecdotes that are best left for another book. As my group of friends grew older we grew much closer. We all learned to play different instruments and jammed every chance we had. This pastime was not very celebrated at our school but we didn‟t care. We would spend hours in the park playing guitars and congas. We made up funny songs about people at our school and organized barbecues where we would sing these songs for fun. In our group, there was one trained musician. His parents were very strict and they would ground him if he didn‟t practice playing the piano. He wrote elaborate musical pieces that no one could ever follow in a jam session. We would all just stop and look at each other and then start banging on countertops and bottles. His songs were stories that changed moods and tones and this made the pieces very dramatic.

I remember when trying to jam with him, I would find myself completely lost. The reason is that he played modulations. This means that he changed keys within a song.

Usually popular songs stay in the same key and that is what makes popular music predictable and familiar. For example the song “Let It Be” by the Beatles is in the key of

37 C. The chords in the key of C are: C/Dm/ Em/ F/ G/ Am/ Bdim. This means that any song that is in the key of C needs to make use of these chords. Songs in C can be composed using a different chord order but they must contain at least two of the chords mentioned above. Other songs in the key of C include: My Girl (The Temptations),

Hound Dog (Elvis Priestly), Respect (Aretha Franklin), Imagine (John Lennon), Natural

Mystic (Bob Marley), Give It Away (Red Hot Chilli Peppers), and La Bamba (Ritchie

Valens). Once another chord is added that is not from the progression it is called a modulation and the effect is not pop sounding at all.

Modulations occur commonly in Jazz music as well as in Soundtracks when it is desired to drastically change the mood of a scene. In Jazz, these modulations are indicated on a chart. This way every player can improvise over a changing framework that is previously established. In Blues we learn to play within a specific framework that is more or less predictable. What is unpredictable is the emotion derived from the lyrics or from the solos. We started calling out the keys as he would change and I would situate myself on the neck of the guitar. We were able to rehearse and then surprise our friends when playing together. He was an exceptional creator and today he makes his living writing soundtracks. However, this well trained musician had a weakness in his playing.

Although he astonished other musicians, his greatest difficulty was actually playing with other musicians.

A good band passes the spotlight around to create something that is dynamic. They all play at the same time but each artist is highlighted by the nuances. It‟s like watching

38 good actors perform. They pass the power back and forth and this keeps the audience engaged. Sometimes it is through their tone of voice, other times it could be related to their positioning on stage. In other cases, it is an object that they hold in their hands that gives them power. There are times when you create the dynamic by pulling back and there are other times when you have to step into the spotlight. This is a skill that my friend had not developed with all the time he spent studying music theory.

That is because this skill cannot be developed theoretically. It is a practical skill like conversation. In order to develop this skill you must find yourself on stage, in front of people. You must feel uncomfortable for a moment and then nervous. You have to listen to the musicians around you and communicate with your facial expressions. It‟s the difference between studying a new language and finding yourself in a country where this language is spoken. You will not succeed if your goal is to conjugate a verb. You will only succeed if you are able to get your message across. If you are a musician, this message is non-verbal. It is either rhythmic or melodic and it is a type of communication that is intuitive rather than methodical.

Taking the Stage:

The end of high school came rapidly and we were all making decisions about what to do next. It seemed that our youth was escaping us and we had spent most of our high school career as outcasts. We never played on any sports teams or joined any school clubs. We never went to school dances or gym class but we wanted to do something memorable for the end of the year. We wanted to leave our mark and show people that there were more

39 than just sports at this school. We decided to write a song and perform it at the graduation ceremony. Since no one was a great singer, we decided to do an instrumental piece. We spent countless hours making a collage of all the songs we had invented throughout the years. It was more of a musical story that started soft and reached a musical pinnacle before resolving into an exciting finale, something like Stairway to

Heaven. Every lunch hour, we went to someone else‟s house to practice. We found ways of incorporating key changes and at each practice; we added new parts to the song.

The least talented musicians played tambourines and they had their specific parts predetermined.

When the day of the show came, we were all huddled in the parking lot going through the motions of our musical masterpiece. Another student drove up in a jeep and asked what we were talking about. We had all the musical parts ironed out but we hadn‟t thought too much about our actual performance. We were not sure how to set up a stage: Who would be in front? Where would we set up the amplifiers and the piano? Suddenly we were all getting nervous. It wasn‟t the same to play music in someone‟s garage, as it was to play for an auditorium full of peers. While everyone was talking, I noticed something furry in the back of the jeep. “What is that?” I asked. “Oh that‟s for this weekend, I was invited to this costume party and I this crazy monkey suit”. We all agreed that the monkey suit was the perfect way to distract the crowd from our shyness. We convinced this student to put on the monkey suit and hype up the crowd at the intense part of the song. He agreed and the effect was unforgettable.

40 When people saw the monkey man come out they went bananas. They screamed, they cheered and they actually got up to dance. It was at this moment that I learned an important lesson about stage presence. When artists are on stage, people are looking to them for entertainment. They are expecting them to do something interesting; something strange or to lead them in some way. We had to do something to justify these people looking at us. It was not enough to just know the parts and come in at the right times, that was only fine for a recital, not a show. When we moved and made faces as well as play the music, it became a performance. I am not so sure that the people in that audience remember the song we played or the clothes we were wearing, but everyone remembers the part of the song when the monkey man came out. I remember that his effect on the audience had a reciprocal effect on the musicians. When we saw that the spectators were engaged with the theatrics, we played better. We fed off the energy of the crowd. I realize that there won‟t always be a guy in a monkey suit to animate the audience and it is for this reason that all people on stage need to think about theatre when they are playing music on stage.

41 Educational Experience

Coming to Montreal:

During the last year of high school I decided I wanted to go study in Montreal. The idea of moving to a big city always intrigued me and Montreal was a metropolis that was full of life. Every time I visited the city I felt like I was destined to live there. My friends were not so sure about what they wanted to do with their lives, so five of them followed and we lived in a rustic Montreal apartment with six rooms. It was one of those long apartments where the dining room had been converted into another bedroom. We drew straws for rooms and I ended up with the second smallest room. It was bright yellow and it had a view of a brick wall. The smallest room had been given to the guy that was tree planting when we drew straws.

This first year away from home proved to be one of the most difficult years of my life.

If going to high school was like swimming in a big pond, going to University in Montreal was like swimming in an ocean. The language was different, the culture was new and there were no obvious links to be made when meeting new people like: “what high school did you go to”. As a result, we drank beer and played Super Nintendo as we had done back home. We recreated a little Ottawa in the middle of what is probably the coolest city in Canada. We spoke English and ate microwaved meals while watching the Simpson‟s religiously. Although we were all friends, we struggled to make our blended family work.

Everyone had their own notions about how things should be in a household. Some did dishes every day and resented those who did them weekly. Some slept in on Sundays, while others thought of it as cleaning day. All of a sudden, we came face to face with all

42 the responsibilities that were otherwise allocated to our parents. It seemed like such a good idea to move with a group of friends but it quickly became suffocating. We did everything together: movies, groceries, parties, and board games. We weren‟t meeting any Montrealers and so we remained ignorant to Quebec culture.

My high school girlfriend didn‟t move with me and we tried to keep things going by telephone and frequent visits. With time, the visits grew less frequent and we spent most of the time arguing on the phone. Every time she visited I felt like I recognized her less.

One of my best friends had also stayed back and his relationship with my girlfriend grew more intense as they seemed to be the only ones left behind. The day I found out they were actually dating each other, I felt like it had been coming for a long time. I just never had the courage to ask either of them if it was true. Friends had suggested it to me and they were constantly disappearing together. They had inside jokes and she always lent him her car. When I found out for sure, I went to confront her at her house. I rang the doorbell and my heart beat loudly in my throat. I was expecting her to answer and instead he opened the door. I wanted to grab him by the hair but I remained calm. I asked him why he had betrayed our friendship and he replied that he saw an opportunity and went for it. I turned around and left.

I went to my parents‟ house, where my mother was having a meeting with her colleagues from the daycare. I stormed in angrily, swearing and muttering that I wanted to beat up my friend. They talked me down, and like good daycare teachers they instructed me to use my words instead of my fists. I felt like I had thrown everything away and I had

43 nothing to show for it. In Montreal, I was insignificant. I hadn‟t made any new friends and I hadn‟t played music at all. I was empty and really lonely despite living with these friends. By this time, two of the housemates were not talking to each other and another two only communicated through insults.

That evening I waited for my friend outside his house. He showed up around midnight with her and they stumbled to his front door. I acted in a way that I had only seen in the movies. I had prepared myself the entire day by listening to gangster music. I was listening to a song by Cypress Hill called: “Whadya know”. The song talks about seeking revenge on a friend turned enemy. I ran up to him and tapped him on the shoulder as he put the key into the door. He had not seen me coming but she screamed as she saw me running with fury in my eyes. When he turned to look at me, I punched him in the face. He jabbed me in the face with his keys, but when he realized who it was, he fell to the ground and covered his head. He pleaded with me in Spanish, but I continued kicking him until the neighbors started coming out of their houses. I had completely lost control of myself and I felt as though I was living in a movie. As I scrambled away, she ran to comfort him. I walked home, with adrenaline rushing and somehow feeling proud of what I had done. This sense of pride was very short lived and

I woke up the next morning with a heavy feeling on my chest and a pounding headache.

I don‟t know whether I felt guilty or sad, maybe it was a combination of both. All I know is that is was the beginning of a long depression that would last for months. I was completely devastated and my friends weren‟t able to help. They quickly grew tired of the sulking and I spent most of my time locked in my room listening to Wyclef Jean‟s the

44 Carnival. I liked the way he incorporated traditional Haitian music into Hip Hop. It made me want to look back into my own traditional music in order to regain a sense of self that I lost in the chaos of my fist year away from home.

Return to the Andes:

After everything that happened, I wanted to flee the country completely. I imagined that

I would return to Chile, and start a new life. I started to romanticize about the idea of living in Spanish. Spanish was a very romantic language and it was full of rhythm and nuances that spoke of unknown worlds. I became drawn to South America through the music of the Andes. I was determined to return to my roots and I started reading Che

Guevara‟s Motorcycle Diaries. This book gave be a thirst for adventure and I hoped that this trip would change the course of my life. The thought of such a journey, at age 18, allowed me to disconnect from the problems of the present moment. The idea of the challenge propelled me into the future and I did everything to make it happen.

I made sure to speak Spanish at every family function. I changed all the CD‟s in my car, and not just to Salsa or Merengue music. Most of all, I listened to Andean music and somehow it sounded so familiar to me. I found a sense of identity in it and thus, I began reading about Andean Music intensively. I liked the term Andean because it was not specific to any nationality. In fact, Andean music is born out of the relationship between the Inca and Spanish cultures. No instrument demonstrates this marriage better than the

Charango. The Charango is a stringed instrument, inspired by the Lute and made out of

45 the carcass of an Armadillo. I had received one as a birthday gift from my uncle that year. He gave it to me along with a book on how to play it. The card read in Spanish:

“If you can get through this book by your birthday next year, you get to keep the

Charango!” I played this little instrument all the time and even found someone who sold strings. I became fascinated with a Chilean group called Inti-Illimani who had left Chile in 1973, to live in exile in Italy. As a result of living in Europe, their sound evolved by incorporating the traditional music of the region. I have been extremely influenced by their fusion of Andean music with other international genres.

As the days grew closer, I began looking at my Canadian life with nostalgia. Suddenly, I realized that I had some good friends and a stable family. I began to doubt my decision to go to Chile for one year. I thought maybe two months would be better but I had told everyone I was moving there. So I went back to live with my parents, took a leave from

Political Science at Concordia University and saved up enough money in 4 months to go to South America to live. I know that my concept of money was very limited at age 18.

It felt like 4 thousand dollars was a lot of money and it was, considering that my expenses were 49-cent pizza slices in Montreal. In Chile, I resigned to live with my family and accepted some extra money from dad to help pay for the groceries.

There is no time difference between Montreal and Santiago, but culturally, they are worlds apart. It was interesting that in my quest for independence and freedom I found myself extremely dependant and much less free. My mother had spoken to everyone in

Chile and she told them to take care of her little boy. I think that everyone took this very

46 literally and they treated me like I was a child. My aunt advised me to stay in the house while she was at work. In the evenings she would take me to different religious celebrations. She was fascinated by the religions of the World to the point where she was a member of all of them. On Tuesdays‟ we would go to the Sai Centre. This centre was a small congregation of Chileans who followed the teachings of an Indian Guru named

Sai Baba. My aunt would show me videos where this man would levitate and make magic dust appear in an empty vase. My cousin attended all the religious ceremonies with his mother and even played Indian drums called Tablas, in the Sai Baba choir. It was the first I had ever heard of this religion but my aunt was thoroughly convinced by the teachings of this Eastern Guru.

On Thursdays we would get picked up by Huan, who my Aunt called “Juan”. He was part of the Taoist faith. Juan would arrive in a mini van with seats that were always covered with plastic. Huan did not speak Spanish and neither did many of the elders at the Taoist Temple. At this centre, the elders gave the sermons while teenagers translated into Spanish for the Spanish guests. The men and the women sat on different sides of the center and so I was sitting away from my Aunt with her son.

It is interesting to be thrust into multiple religions when you are in the middle of an identity crisis. It seems that truth becomes fleeting and nothing is absolute. Before long, I found myself wondering if I was on the right spiritual path. I began to believe that

I might have come to Chile to learn about some other cultures than my own. After having spent months in Santiago, I realized that I had to keep on moving. The romantic

47 view I had created in my mind clashed heavily with the materialism that had engulfed

Chile after 17 years of dictatorship and American style capitalism. The skyscrapers were bigger in Chile, the shopping malls more modern and all this was slowly replacing the culture that I had grown up believing in. In Chile, people actually believed the signs that said “final sale” and they fought over refrigerators and other household appliances at the department stores. I was in search of inspiration and all I was encountering in Chile was religious extremism and blind consumerism. I decided to leave. I traveled north on a bus that took 30 hours. The bus was air-conditioned and there was a host who played bingo with us and served us meals and drinks.

The north of Chile was much more relaxed than the capital city. The landscape was arid and it never rained. The idea of talking about the weather seemed ridiculous because everyday the weather was exactly the same. My family in Iquique had lived in Canada for about 10 years before returning to Chile. They spoke English and thus were still connected to Canadian Culture. In Iquique, I had more personal space. I had my own room and I did not have any religious visits on my schedule. I was free to explore the city as long as I was home before sundown. I searched to find people playing Andean music, but Chile had swallowed up American music to the point where traditional music was scarce. Everyone I asked said that if I wanted to hear this type of music I would have to cross the border into Peru.

As much as my family had traveled the world, they had never visited Peru. They seemed to have many misconceptions about their neighbors, most of which justified a feeling of

48 superiority. It seems that rivalry with ones neighbor is a common feature of

Nationalism. Countries do not have to be at war in order for them to have contempt for their geographical neighbor. I have seen this between Dominicans and Haitians,

Canadians and Americans and on this occasion Chileans and Peruvians. I wanted desperately to continue visiting Latin America. I wanted to cross the border into every country I could get into to learn through experience. Instead of telling me that they did not want me to go, my family just planned excursions everyday. They would say, you‟ll go tomorrow but today we have to go visit your uncle or your cousin. When I realized that this would go on eternally I planned my exit. It had to leave before sunrise, when my aunt would get up to make breakfast and prepare the dining room. I filled a knapsack with some clothes and some small instruments and headed for the bus station.

Crossing the border into Peru was like crossing into another realm. The desert slowly changed into a tapestry of different greens and the people that I met were extremely friendly. When I arrived at my destination I was overwhelmed with emotion. I had reached the lost city of Macchu Picchu and this place was full of the musical inspiration I had been seeking. In Peru, people were very in touch with their indigenous heritage.

Carlos Santana has suggested that Hendrix's music may have been influenced by his

Native American heritage. I noticed that Peruvians knew the folklore behind their traditional dishes and dances. I visited an area where they make and sell traditional instruments. I mingled with the local people who were eager to teach me some traditional songs in exchange for teaching them Hotel California by the Eagles or Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I finally felt that I had arrived at a place that I

49 was not eager to leave. My mind was so clear because I was far away from all frames of reference. In this place I was just another human being in the world. My dreams were legitimate, my pain was valid and I did not need anyone to confirm this to me. I got in touch with the inner me and I spent hours writing, drawing and playing music. I found work teaching English privately and it did not pay enormously but I was at peace. I started reading the Celestine Prophecy and I began to feel that I was on a new spiritual path that could only be made possible through solitude.

Had I never gone to Peru, I would never have known what it was like to be truly alone. I was unreachable to anyone that knew me and I had to develop an internal dialogue to seek truth. I realized in my time alone that all my problems were a result of my own decisions. I remained bound to these problems by my daily interactions and routine.

Once I removed myself completely, life still went on. I continued to think, breathe and interact with my immediate surroundings. Identity became something that was less rigid because it was not dependant on the expectations of my family or friends. I enjoyed this sense of freedom because it gave me the opportunity to dream once again. I managed to stay for a few months before returning to Chile and then back to Canada with a renewed sense of faith and a desire to create change in my life.

After completing a year in Latin America, I was convinced that I needed to change career paths. I decided to become a teacher and switched my major in University. I seemed to have a better understanding of what I wanted and I was used to being alone and making my own decisions. I was no longer accustomed to asking for advice and I was able to

50 change my mind without consultation. I became completely engaged in education and music all over again. I began performing at local bars and cafes. While I was away I learned many modern Latin American songs. I played these covers at poetry readings and house parties and everyone thought I had written them. I moved in with a High

School friend and she helped me reintegrate into Montreal society by introducing me to other musicians and artist from the Plateau neighborhood.

Becoming a Teacher:

The process of becoming a teacher was not easy and that was probably a good thing. I started working as a volunteer in a daycare in downtown Montreal. At first, it was a way to gain experience in a reputable field. Up until that point, the only jobs available for

English speakers in Montreal were in call centers. The call centers varied in legitimacy and as I remember one of my employers was actually sued by the state of New York for making false claims to customers. By this time many of my friends had left the city, realizing that they could not climb the economic ladder being unilingual. I ended up really enjoying my experience as a childcare worker. It was the first time in my life that I was happy to go to work. I found that working with young children brought a consciousness that was uncontaminated. I became aware of my language, my gestures, and my habits. Having worked in so many shady jobs I realized that the social environment of the workplace could have an adverse effect on the worker. When we are subordinate to crooked bosses and supervisors we live with an internal conflict if we disagree with their practices. Children are so honest that it is difficult to uphold facades in their presence. They do not have the same filters as adults and thus they will ask

51 impertinent questions and freely display their emotions. Eventually one of the teachers decided to work abroad and I was given her position as a full time early childhood educator.

If it were not for the ridiculous salaries that daycare teachers received, I would probably still be a daycare teacher today. I believe that it is one of the most important jobs in education and to date it is also one of the most undervalued professions in the world; so many of the patterns that are lived in the adult world, come from childhood experiences.

The development of language and fine motor skills takes place in this phase and yet our society seems to reduce the responsibility to babysitting. Also, this is a position that has been traditionally occupied by women and this has contributed to the marginalization of the profession. As a result, I always had mixed reactions when I told people what I was doing for a living. It seemed as though people didn‟t believe it was what I really wanted to do. Some of the parents of the young children were also uneasy about having a male teacher care for their young children. One parent even requested that I not change her little girl‟s diaper. I had to respect the wishes of the parents and eventually I did gain their trust. I felt that all eyes were on me and this made me strive to become an excellent teacher. I often called my mother for advice and I read many of her college textbooks on

Early Childhood Education.

My father told me that I had had a horrible time at daycare when I was a child. When I started going to daycare I did not speak or understand English. Since I had been taken care of by my grandmother I was never exposed to English. My father would try to

52 comfort me by saying that he would be back to get me at 3:30, not realizing that toddlers have no idea about time. They are conditioned by their routine, not by the clock. I have since learned that it is much more effective to tell children that daddy will be back after naptime or after lunch. As an educator I had to deal with a similar situation in my classroom with a little girl from Romania. She didn‟t understand English and she did not want to cooperate with anyone who spoke to her in this language. When we would ask her to come to eat she would throw her lunch and herself onto the floor screaming as though we were going to kidnap her. The teachers tried every approach possible with her.

They tried being firm with her and this completely backfired. They tried ignoring her and she didn‟t care. One volunteer was extremely gentle with her, using soft tones and slow hand gestures and the result was the same. After nothing worked, the teachers started asking themselves if this child had some other learning disabilities. I disagreed completely because of what I had lived in my own childhood. We tend to measure students understanding of language by their ability to reproduce language. Yet long before children are able to reproduce the sounds they hear they have come to understand what we say. The same is true for adults, and Canada‟s bilingual system is a perfect example of this. So many children who studied French in English Canada claim that they understand French but are incapable of producing it.

This little girl had not yet had the experience that she needed in order to understand

English. She was also taken care of her grandmother who only spoke Romanian. When grandma would come to pick her up, the little girl would run desperately to her and speak to her in Romanian with no difficulty. I called in the girl‟s mother to ask her if she would

53 agree to try something different with her daughter. The real problem that was being felt in our classroom was that the little girls‟ tantrums happened at every transition. This distracted the other children who were slowly realizing that they did not have to follow the routine. The teachers were losing their patience with the little girl and she was feeling the rejection. I told her mother that I was going to restrain the little girl and make her sit at the table. I knew that the girl was going to freak-out but this would have happened, regardless. The next day I prepared myself mentally for the intervention. I told the other teachers what I was going to do they agreed to let me focus exclusively on the little girl during lunchtime.

When lunchtime came, I made sure she was already sitting at the table. I had arranged some colorings books before lunch knowing that she enjoyed coloring. I figured she could not refuse to come to the table if she was already there. I placed a mirror across from her at so that she could see herself coloring. She became intrigued by her reflection and watched herself as she colored. I placed a lager chair behind the chair she was sitting on so that she could run away. I started to make faces in the mirror and while we were doing this the other kids came to sit at the table. Her initial reaction was to run away as she had always done. Realizing that she could not get up from her chair she began to throw a seated tantrum. Only this time, she got a glimpse of herself having the tantrum in the mirror. She found herself so funny that she started laughing and so did the other children. After their laugh attack it didn‟t make sense to continue the tantrum. She opened her lunch and started eating and it was no longer necessary for me to restrain her.

54 After that day she always came to the table to eat with the others. She would take me by the hand and show me that she wanted me to sit at the table with her.

Academic Adversity:

I had gained confidence as a teacher and had successfully completed my preliminary internships in University. I became obsessed with doing things in a creative way as I had done in the daycare. Although I had read the literature, I felt limited by the labels and the tendency towards judging children based on these labels. I felt as though my teachers were stuck in a theoretical world that did not reflect the reality of the classroom. I was specializing in ESL and so I had taken courses in Grammar, Phonetics and Linguistics.

Although I found these courses incredibly interesting, they did not address the real issues plaguing teachers in the workforce. Quebec was in the process of going through educational reform and teachers were having trouble adjusting to the different forms of evaluation. Even the professors were not so sure about how the reform really worked in practice. Nevertheless, we were placed in different schools for our internships. I did my first placement at a primary school that had a concentration in the arts.

The day of my evaluation came and I had met previously with my evaluator. He was known for being rigid and strict. He spoke some Spanish and said a few words to me before scheduling my evaluation. I was quite nervous and so I spent a lot of time preparing my lesson. It was a lesson designed to teach the months in English and it revolved around the children‟s birthdays. I was most afraid about the unruliness of certain children. I thought about the different ways I could control them and what

55 consequences I would impose if they were impolite and uncooperative. When the day of the lesson came, I did my best and things were going relatively smoothly. At some point

I asked a little boy to come up to the front of the class to write the months on the board.

He did so with difficulty and I knew there were other kids who could have done it easily.

Regardless, I felt that it would be good for him to show himself that he could do it, even with difficulty. While he hesitated, the class became chaotic and some students became distracted while others were yelling out the answers. I saw the lesson fall apart in the last

10 minutes of the class.

The supervisor met with me after the class and told me that he was going to fail me because my lesson was not successful. He gave me a D and this was really serious. In the TESL program we could only repeat one evaluation. If any student failed a second time they would automatically fail out of the program. I decided that my imaginative approach would not be successful with this supervisor so I went back to see him in his office. This time I tried to pay attention to exactly what he wanted. I changed my lesson completely and tailored it to what he asked for. I made sure that all the students I called to the front would be able to perform. After the second evaluation had ended I was sure that I had done better than the first time. The supervisor waited for the children to leave and then he told me that unfortunately I had failed again. This time he had given me a D minus and I was furious. I was so mad, that I told him that I could not stay for the debriefing. I knew that I would have said something regrettable so I opted to gather my thoughts and call a meeting with a mediator.

56 I requested a meeting with a third party and when we all met, the ambiance was extremely tense. We sat at opposite sides of the table separated by our briefcases. The mediator tried to find common ground and it was impossible. I pleaded my case citing that I had organized my lesson to his standards even though it was not the way I would have done things. I could not understand why this supervisor was so convinced that I was on the wrong path. I asked him the question directly in front of the mediator. He said that he believed that I just was just not qualified to be a teacher. I was certain that he had a personal problem with me. I was not sure if it was racial and I was raised not to use this as an argument. My father had always said that injustice was injustice regardless of one‟s race. He said that I should speak about justice as something universal instead of playing the victim. I asserted myself at that moment and I said that I was prepared to take the issue to the highest level in the department. To this, the supervisor replied that this was the highest level in the department. I felt cornered and so I changed my tone. I told the mediator that I had a feeling that the professor had a personal problem with me.

He was quick to defend himself, saying that my accusation was preposterous. He reminded me that when I had gone to his office he had spoken to me in Spanish.

He was protecting himself from what he believed to be an accusation of racism.

However, I had never actually used the word racism and so his response seemed exaggerated. For this reason, I reiterated what I had said originally: “I never said that you had a racial problem with me sir, I said that you had a personal problem with me… as an individual…” He was left without words and he simply closed his briefcase and exited the room angrily. There was no handshake, no compromise and it was clear that the

57 matter had not been resolved. I knew that technically I was out of the program. I had failed two evaluations and this was the criterion for being dismissed. The only hope I had was to argue that it was unjust to be evaluated twice by the same person. Since the meeting had been so tumultuous the department agreed to give me one more chance and send a different evaluator.

The day before my third evaluation the evaluator called me at home. She told me that she had heard about what happened and that she understood that I was nervous. She gave me a few words of advice that I still find relevant in my teaching today. She said that many new teachers spend more time on their discipline than on the lessons themselves.

She instructed me to focus on the lesson, to really ask myself what I wanted the students to be doing at every step. She said that if a teacher knew exactly what she/he expected of their students it made it easier to keep them on task. I looked over my lesson plan again and I wrote down explicitly what I expected from them. I wondered why the previous evaluator had not given me such practical advice. The following morning I showed up early and arranged the classroom to suit the lesson. I wrote everything I needed to write on the board and I made the necessary photocopies. Overall, the lesson was a success and I was positive that I passed. The evaluator gave me some more constructive comments and then she gave me my mark, a C+. I know that the lesson was worth more than a C+ but I said nothing. A C+ was a passing grade and I understood that she could not have given me more. This would have undermined the other evaluator and essentially the whole department. After this experience I kept my head down and did my

58 best not to stand out for being too unconventional. I handed in my work early and refrained from outlandish comments in classroom discussions.

One thing that always bothered me about the teacher-training program was that we never practiced our lessons on our peers. Teachers were shy about teaching their classmates and as a result we remained in the theoretical world for far too long. Even when we did our internships, the classroom teacher would often intervene, compromising our authority. I suggested that we practice our lessons on our peers to see how the lesson would flow. Some of our peers could even act up during our lesson to see how we would react. When I was training to become a flight attendant we used to simulate plane crashes. One team would be the crew while the rest would act as passengers and the whole event would be filmed. Sometimes the cabin would fill up with smoke and other times we would land in the water. Regardless of the situation, the passengers were instructed to act as though the situation was real. Some would be instructed to panic and not move from their seat; others would be instructed to hide in the lavatory. Once we had evacuated the plane completely and we thought that we had done an excellent job.

Then our instructor took us through the video and showed us that one of the passengers was holding a small baby when she entered the plane. I had noticed the plastic doll in the mother‟s arms when she boarded the plane, and I assumed that she took the baby with her when she left. The instructor took us back onto the simulator to show us that the baby was left under the seat. He looked at us sternly and said that if the situation were real, the baby would be dead.

59 This type of psychological training was intense but it made it so that our reactions in a real time of crisis would be automatic. In this situation we have the lives our passengers in our hands for the duration of the flight. In the classroom we have the lives of our students in our hands for months and sometimes years. That is why I strongly believe that the training should be as practical as possible and it should focus on the issues that truly affect developing minds rather than the theory in the textbook. The process of socialization, bullying, drug abuse, eating disorders, sexual abuse are just a few of the issues that will make it nearly impossible to apply the theoretical knowledge from the textbooks and yet these issues are not part of teacher training. As a result teachers have a tendency to blame the child when they do not perform as expected by the curriculum.

We feel that that the sensitive issues are the responsibility of the parents or the guidance counselor but as teachers we spend more time with these kids than anyone else. If we refuse this responsibility we choose to deny that we are working with real people and thus we treat our students as subjects.

Teaching in High School:

When I finally graduated from the teaching program I had a plan to teach abroad. I had looked into teaching in South America but the pay was insufficient and I had already had the cultural experience. I decided to go to Japan and began making the necessary arrangements to spend a year in a city called Fukuoka. I had met a young woman in the teaching program and was slowly falling in love with her despite many complications.

She had been recently divorced and had a two year old daughter. We started off as friends and she got me a summer job working at a call center selling beauty products to

60 Spanish Americans. Since she also worked at this call center we began spending a lot of time together. Slowly our lunch dates turned into dinner dates and then excursions outside of the city. Once she invited me to her house and I met her daughter. We played and laughed and I knew many children songs from my time at the daycare. We had to keep our relationship a secret because her family did not approve of her dating anyone without the promise of marriage. I slowly convinced myself that this was a

Romeo and Juliet story and the relationship grew in intensity. However, I was still moving forward with my travel plans. It was July and I had planned to leave in

September. My lease was up on July 31st so she invited me to stay with her for a month.

I agreed to move in and it was one of the most memorable months of my life. I had finally left the University lifestyle with its late night parties and promiscuity. Suddenly, I was living a family life in the suburbs of Montreal where my leisure time was spent going out for ice cream instead of drinks.

I had printed out my resume to drop off at the Japanese Embassy for my work visa. On my way to the Embassy, I accompanied my girlfriend to the local school board where she had a job interview. I waited in the lobby, looking at magazines and wondering what it would be like to actually be a teacher in Quebec. I had always been into traveling and this was the inspiration for becoming a teacher. I dreamt that I would get into the music scene in Japan; I heard they were into Bossa Nova and foreigners. I figured I would play some Bossa covers in the cafes to make some extra money. Just then she came out of her interview smiling. It looked as though things had gone well and she told me that the interviewer said they were really short on English teachers. She suggested that I give in

61 my resume just to see if I would get a call. Since I already had a copy of my resume in the car, I went to get it and handed it to the secretary. This act would completely change the course of my life as I got a job at a local high school and never actually went to

Japan.

In one summer I had gone from being a bachelor to a husband, from an adolescent to a father and from a student to a teacher. It was as though I had stepped into these gigantic shoes that I was not sure I could fill. I remember walking to work the first day. I did not know how to act or how to dress. I carried a briefcase because I thought it made me look older. I let my beard grow and I wore a button shirt that I would never wear otherwise. This look was in complete contrast to the enormous earphones I was wearing as I walked up to the school. I was listening to music that was probably inappropriate for a teacher and I became conscious of this the closer I got to the school. I certainly knew how to fit in as a student, but I had no idea how to fit in as a teacher. In my youth I had learned the unwritten codes of being cool. I knew what to say and what to do to not be taken advantage of. I looked at the little cliques in the parking lot and realized that not too much had changed. There were skater kids, punks, hip hoppers, athletic types and so on. Yet it was not my job to fit in with any of these crowds, it was my job to control them.

The day before I had spoken to my father on the phone and he told me the following joke that he had heard on the radio.

62 The morning before the first day of school Tomas was arguing with his mother:

-“Mom, I don‟t wanna go to school.” Said Tomas.

-“Why not” his mother replied.

-“Noboby likes me.”

-“What do you mean, nobody?”

-“The teachers don‟t like me, the students don‟t like me, nobody…”

-“But Tomas you have to go to school….

- I don‟t want to!

-You don‟t have a choice Tomas…You‟re the principal!”

I met briefly with the principal who then escorted me to my classroom. Along the way, I peeked into other classrooms and saw students sitting properly listening to their teachers.

Usually this is the case on the first day when students don‟t really know their teacher yet.

I have come to understand that this is just a period where students are studying the teacher to see how strict they are. Slowly they will push limits until they know how far they can go. Once they know, this creates a precedent for the rest of the year. It is important that as teachers we not be fooled by this calm and let our guard down. At this time there was such a shortage in the school board where I was teaching that they were hiring people without teaching certificates. One such teacher had his class next to mine and the ambiance was really quite chaotic. As I walked by, I saw projectiles flying everywhere. Paper airplanes and erasers were among the least dangerous that I had seen zooming past. The teacher was standing at the door as if to block the students from a mass exodus. I was truly afraid at this point and I began to fantasize about Japan. I told

63 myself that I could still go to Japan and that the students would be more respectful there.

This fantasy was quickly shattered by a room full of rowdy adolescents waiting, for me to say something.

The principal had briefly introduced me to the class and then she left me standing there, alone. I wished that I could sit in one of their seats. I wished that I could slouch in my chair chewing gum and doodling on my textbook but it was impossible. So I started to introduce myself and tell some jokes. The kids laughed and I felt that things were going to be all right. Meanwhile, these kids were just telling themselves that this teacher was going to be a pushover. I started to see the dynamic shift, as I became aware of how many rules they were breaking. Some students were listening to their mp3‟s others were eating and I didn‟t really feel that I had the authority to stop them. They felt that I was uneasy and so they kept pushing the limits. One girl was listening to her music so loudly that I had to say something. I told her to change seats and she refused. This is one of the most awkward situations a new teacher can face. It is the moment when the teacher has finally decided to take action and they are faced with complete insubordination. The way one reacts to this insubordination will determine the teacher‟s level of authority from then on. I was taught in University that if a child did not pay attention we could move them closer to us or away from their friends. I was not taught what to do if that child boldly refused in front of a room full of watching eyes. I became agitated and hollered:

“Either you change seats or you get out!”

64 I turned back to the blackboard not wanting to argue anymore and expecting her to comply with my request. When I turned back around the girl was gone and I was vexed.

I didn‟t know if I should have chased her or gone to the principal. I sweated for the next thirty minutes until the bell rang. I paced back and forth in the empty classroom and then finally decided to go see the principal. She was busy and referred me to the vice principal. She seemed very serious and I was afraid that she would hold me responsible for what had happened. When she called me into her office her serious demeanor softened and she asked me to explain what had happened. I told her that the student had not listened to what I had said. She disagreed with me and I was taken aback. She said that I could not really reprimand her for the choice that she made because I had given it to her as an option. I told her to change places or to leave, and she simply chose the second option. The VP told me that the problem was in the choices that I had given her because one of the choices was not possible. On top of giving her these choices, I had challenged her in front of her peers. This almost always causes the situation to escalate negatively.

I remembered a technique that I used to get my girlfriends daughter to go to sleep. It was the same technique my parents used with me when I was a child. I would ask her if she wanted to go to sleep with the light on or off or if she wanted to wear the blue or the yellow pajamas. Regardless of her choice, she was going to go to bed. This technique could equally be applied to adolescents in that I could have given the girl two different options that would have kept her in the class. I dreaded the next day because I knew that

I would have to face this student and if I did not say anything the class would have the impression that I was weak. As the students were entering the classroom, the girl tried to

65 avoid eye contact with me. I asked her not to go in the classroom and to wait at the door.

The students went in the room and I spoke to her in the hallway. I told her that I was unhappy about what she had done the day before but that there was nothing that could be done about the situation. I told her that she was not allowed to leave even though I had given her the option to do so. She seemed more receptive without the others watching. I told her that we had a chance to start anew, provided that she accepted to sit in the seat that I had assigned to her. In exchange, I would pretend as though we had never had a confrontation and I would not address it in front of the class. She accepted and went to sit at her assigned seat. The students realized that she had complied and this prevented things from getting as chaotic as they were in the adjacent classroom.

After this event, I began to realize how much the social part of school influences the behavior of the individuals in that environment. Teenagers are especially sensitive to the judgment of their peers and thus they put up many walls to protect themselves. It ended up that this student had many other problems that affected her behavior at school and if I never gave her a chance to save face, we probably would have remained in this antagonistic relationship for the rest of the year. Although I was the teacher, I also learned a valuable lesson on that first day of school and this lesson is about confrontation.

Sometimes the issue itself becomes the confrontation and as teachers we avoid learning about our students by always putting them in subordinate situations.

66 Alternative Education

Nomadic Massive:

In the years that followed I had many altercations with my woman‟s family. They were not interested in accepting a catholic into their family and they were not in favor of me living with her out of wedlock. At this point, I had resigned to making the relationship work by any means necessary. I had read about Islam and started going to the mosque to try to understand the religion. I did the Ramadan one year and found that I had many misconceptions about the religion. I liked the fraternal aspect of the religion and I enjoyed the sense of purpose that the religion gave me. My mother said that as long as I was happy it was not important what religion I followed. My father really questioned my motives and he was not in favor of converting just to be accepted by her family.

Regardless of my efforts, I was never accepted and this was causing more and more arguments at home. I had to hide whenever we would see family members because rumors traveled really fast within the community. I was beginning to feel like a second- class citizen in my own home. I felt confused because I had changed so many plans to be in this relationship and I was watching myself get older and more miserable. I had given up my dreams of teaching abroad and I was not really playing music except at home. I desperately wanted a change and wishing for it made it happen.

I received a call from an old friend that I used to jam with in the city. We would visit house parties with a guitar and flip old Latin songs into hip hop beats. We were once given thirty minutes to play at a small club on St Laurent Boulevard. That night we had met a producer from France and on this occasion he was organizing a collaborative art

67 show called Hold Up Mental. The idea was to bring together local artists of the Hip Hop community for a show with live music, painting, dancing and spoken word. He had received a grant and was looking to put together a Hip Hop band. I instantly agreed to participate in this show, as I was hungry for a transformation in my life. At the first rehearsal, I met the other musicians and singers that would be collaborating for the show.

I was really nervous to play with other skilled musicians but the experience would put into practice all the musical ideas I had developed in my head. I worked with rappers, poets, dancers and this helped me elaborate different musical styles for the performance.

We rehearsed on a regular basis, slowly getting to know each other until finally the day of the show came. I could not believe how much I had learned in such a short time. We had to decide the name of the band that night, right before we were introduced to go on stage. We decided to call ourselves “Aces High” and this was the only time we ever performed under that name. The show was an amazing success, bringing together the

Montreal Hip Hop community with positive vibrations and a new vision for what could be produced in the city.

When I received the cheque at my house I could not believe that I could actually get paid for playing music. I was inspired once again to do music so I began calling old friends to jam and I bought a recording program for the computer. I spent months recording loops on my PC and collaborating on other artists‟ albums. I started playing in small cafes again and I felt a light go on inside my soul. The same producer who had organized Hold

Up Mental called me again to participate in a Hip Hop Festival in Havana, Cuba. He was putting together a group with some of the same members from the first show. He

68 said that we would be staying with local musicians and that we would fundraise for the tickets to Havana. We all met in a coffee shop to discuss and plan our journey. At this meeting it was revealed that a documentary team would follow us. They wanted to film us in Montreal first and then follow us to Havana. The first thing that we needed to do was decide on a new name for this band. After a brainstorming session we decided that the group would be called Nomadic Massive. We rehearsed incessantly and planned some local appearances to raise money for our trip. This constant rehearsing began to take its toll on my home life. All of a sudden I was back in the music scene and this meant that I was getting invited to shows, parties and events all over again. People were calling my house at all hours and I was coming home very late. At the same time, I was really enjoying myself and I had become close friends with the people I was rehearsing with. By the time we left for Cuba I was fighting with my partner all the time. She suddenly became very jealous and my new lifestyle no longer accommodated her vision of a family.

While we were in Cuba we stayed in a neighborhood called Regla that was accessible by a small ferry. This town was known for having a Church with a black Virgin Mary.

Otherwise, it was where the Cuban Hip Hop group Obsession resided. We all stayed at their house, sleeping on sofas and sharing single beds. In retrospect, this experience really solidified the bonds between the members of the group. We had all the time in the world to talk, to write and to play music. The cameras were always on us but this became normal after a few days and we forgot we were being filmed. Another thing that brought the group closer together was a natural disaster. While we were there, Cuba was hit by

69 hurricane Charlie. This hurricane caused the cancellation of the festival we were going to play and instead, we found ourselves boarding up the windows of the apartment. That night the hurricane came and it knocked out the power in the whole city. We stayed huddled throughout the night as we heard debris crashing all around us. The windows rattled violently and this kept us up all night. The following day we helped move the debris along with the citizens of the city. We had practiced so much for the festival and now we were going home without the chance to even play. We were feeling quite disappointed until receiving a phone call from a local Dj. He had a regular event in a private garden and he offered to have us perform with him the following day. We finally got a chance to play for a small crowd and this event became our first music video.

Although we had invested all our energy towards the festival it is clear now that Cuba was only the beginning of a more important musical journey. When we returned from

Cuba, people wanted to know what was happening with Nomadic Massive. The shows we had done before leaving had inspired people and we had developed a small fan base.

The radios were calling us for interviews and we made the cover of the Arts section in the

Montreal Gazette. Nowadays when journalists ask where the group began we always say that it was born in Havana, Cuba. It was the place where these random artists became a family. From this point on we have had shows every single month. With every show came more contacts and more media attention. The activity was too much for my relationship to handle and my common law family dissolved in September of 2004. I went to live with my sister and her boyfriend. She was also into music and had recorded a demo that she entered in a contest. As a result of this contest, she was invited to play

70 in one of the largest music festivals in Latin America. “El Festival de Vina del Mar,” is an international music festival held every February in Chile. Columbian artist Shakira, actually performed at the same competition in 1993 and lost, before becoming an international pop sensation.

Although there was no guitar on the song that had been chosen, my sister added a guitar part so that I could play with her at the festival. I was feeling so conflicted about the breakup that I felt it was a blessing to be able to get out of the city for awhile. I asked for a temporary leave from my job and left for Chile with my sister. At this point, I thought that maybe if I left the country, my ex would want to reconcile when I returned. I called her from the airport and someone else answered the phone. A man‟s voice answered and when I asked for her, I was expecting him to say that I had the wrong number. Instead he told me she was busy and asked who was calling. I told him who I was and he told me that he was her new boyfriend. I should have just hung up the phone and swallowed my emotions into my stomach, but instead I asked questions that only worsened the sting of this discovery. I walked back to the waiting area and sat beside my sister. She got up to go to the bathroom and while I waited for her a beautiful woman sat across from me. I decided to start up a conversation to distract myself from all the thoughts in my head. I asked her where she was going and she said Oklahoma. We chatted briefly but in the short exchange I had made her smile and I was feeling a little better. I told her about the band and I gave her the address to our website that I was working on. I told her to take a look at it and email me to give me some comments.

71 In Chile I got to know two very different worlds. I discovered that the festival was like a

Chilean Hollywood. It was complete with paparazzi, superficial smiles and hard drugs.

On the other hand, my sister had accepted to perform for free at local charity events where we met local Chileans all struggling to better their society. Although we were lodged in a luxurious hotel, this place was full of opportunists and sharks so I did my best to venture outside of this environment, choosing to wander the city and meet other artists working on collaborative projects. I recorded with some local hip-hop artists and I began to realize that the music that had become so commercialized in the US, was serving a different purpose elsewhere. Hip Hop was giving a voice to the marginalized youth all over Latin America. It made me think of bringing Nomadic to Chile and I began to consider new creative ideas of international collaboration. The whole time I was in Chile

I did not check my emails. I did not want to face any of the potential emails that my ex would have sent trying to justify what had happened. The day before I left, I went to an

Internet café to check everything at once. I read through apologies, explanations and accusations until becoming emotionally exhausted. Then I saw an email whose subject read: do you remember me? It was the girl from the airport and she wrote that she had liked the music she had heard on the website. I wrote back telling her that I would be in town the following day if she wanted to go out for dinner.

The following day, we met in the mall and hung out for nine straight hours talking about every subject imaginable. At this point, I was really vibrating with new ideas and she listened to me attentively. I started to really like her but I had no idea at the time that she would eventually become the mother of my son. Since she came into my life while I was

72 already a musician this was not a source of conflict in our relationship. She was really supportive and she gave me a sense of security that I have never felt before. As a result, I became ultra productive in every facet of my life. The band was getting more and more gigs and one of these gigs put me back in line with my desire to pursue higher education.

Nomadic had organized a different type of Hip Hop show in a theatre. The purpose of this show was to highlight the different cultures in the band in a sort of musical. The setting made it accessible to an older more sophisticated crowd that might otherwise not see the group in a smoky club. We were scheduled to give three performances and the evening of the first performance arrived quickly. I felt that we had become overconfident in our rehearsals and I was becoming frustrated that we were not taking ourselves seriously enough.

To this point, I had not really asserted myself as a leader in the group. Everyone always looked to the producer for leadership but we had never really appointed a leader to our group. This had worked until then but I was feeling that the lack of leadership was affecting our progress. The months of confusion over the break up had caused me to question myself intensely and my self-esteem had taken a beating. Two days before the show we had a meeting and I decided to assert myself on that day. I declared that I would be heading the meeting and that I would be giving people the right to speak as well as cutting others off when we were turning around in circles. The disorganization of our meetings had become chaotic and unproductive. As a teacher, I had participated in many staff meetings headed by different leaders. Inspired by some of the better facilitators, I lead the meeting in a positive direction and at the end my fellow band members

73 congratulated me. Now, this has become a typical way of running a meeting in Nomadic

Massive. I am not always the leader of the meeting; a different leader is appointed for every show. Their job is to run the meeting efficiently, call for votes, and put an end to redundant discussions. I felt really empowered that day and I realized that I could act as a leader when it was required of me. Nomadic Massive is not just a band but also a forum for cultural exchange through creativity. It has offered young artists the opportunity to present themselves in all artistic areas of Hip Hop.

The performance tested our acting skills as well as our musical abilities and it was very well received by the audience. The second evening I met a professor from McGill

University who was researching the Hip Hop movement for its pedagogical applications.

I told her that I was actually a teacher and that I was interested in going back to

University to learn more about alternative pedagogy. She suggested that I apply to

McGill because there was an opportunity to make the connection between music and education. Until this moment I had always viewed the two domains as independent of one another. I never told my students that I played in a band and I rarely told other musicians what I did in the day. I was accepted into the program in the fall and began to look at education from a completely different perspective. I began a new journey where I would investigate the workings of my own band from the inside. Through this reflection

I have learned an enormous amount about the modern Hip Hop culture and even more about my own process of socialization.

74 Cultural Exchange:

Nomadic Massive kept on growing and we were invited to Cuba again for a Hip Hop

Symposium. I borrowed a video camera from McGill to gather information about our experience in this international conference. This time there was no hurricane and when we arrived in Havana we discovered that we actually had Cuban fans. They would yell

Nomadic Massive out of passing cars and many people asked for our autographs. Since we had collaborated with local artists on our initial visit, our music was being played at local events and on radio programs. The symposium was a real eye opener for me as well as for my band mates. It was a platform for many interesting discussions about a variety of different topics. We participated in discussions about the negative aspects of the culture: the depiction of women in videos, the glorification of violence and drug trafficking. The debates lasted hours but it was inspiring to see how engaged people were in these discussions. Often the discussion topics would naturally turn to international issues of Imperialism, Globalization, Slavery and so on. It became obvious to me that the best way to open discussions with youth is by using their own culture and their interests to inspire the dialogue. Then if the dialogue moves in another direction, respect that direction and address the issues that come up because they may be equally important.

At this conference, I learned that Hip Hop had arrived in Cuba after the construction of socialist housing complexes. These building were built higher than the traditional Spanish buildings and thus people were able to capture radio signals from Miami. They gravitated towards the beat of Hip Hop music without understanding the lyrics.

Therefore the music was appropriated into Cuban youth culture but the lyrics were

75 adapted to reflect Cuban issues. It was a way for Cuban youth to communicate about current issues that were otherwise prohibited. The use of metaphors and word play made it difficult for those who were not part of the culture to understand. It was clear to me that I had really underestimated the power of hip-hop culture to create change. Maybe it did not necessarily have to be filled with misogyny and profanity to be appealing to young people. This may have been more a product of the industry that gave birth to this culture. However, like any culture, hip-hop has evolved and transcended borders, transforming itself into a means of communication between international communities.

While in Cuba, we met a Brazilian journalist who was following a break dancing crew.

We exchanged contacts with her and that evening we dreamt about going to Brazil.

There was a shampoo bottle at the house that had been imported from Brazil and so the instructions were in Portuguese. We took turns reading the bottle practicing our

Portuguese accents. The whole evening we worked on developing a Brazilian dialect out of what is commonly known in Latin America as Potugnol. Since both languages have come from the same Latin root it is possible to find an approximation between the two. I was first exposed to this concept while traveling in Europe as a teenager.

When I was sixteen I traveled to Europe to meet a friend whose mother was teaching in

England. We traveled through France, Belgium and Amsterdam by bus. We met a

Brazilian guy in a Café and he claimed that we could have a full conversation in our respective languages as long as we spoke slowly. He spoke Portuguese and I spoke

Spanish and we spoke for hours. After awhile it felt as though we were speaking the

76 same language and it was effortless. I often wonder if this is not the solution to language debates completely. If we learned languages well enough to understand them, everyone could just speak their own language. Nomadic is often an example of this multiplicity, both musically and linguistically. Every member brings something to the table; a language, a melody, an opinion and all things are integrated. It is common for conversations to flow freely back and forth from French to Spanish to English and so on.

Our new brand of Portuguese also became common in our everyday conversations.

Having studied linguistics I knew that there was logic to our invented language. We had adapted the suffixes from Spanish words and in many cases this actually works. For example most of the words ending in „on‟ in Spanish can easily be converted to

Portuguese by changing this ending to „ão‟. It is a systematic change that can be easily applied; the difficulty is in the pronunciation because the sound „ão‟ does not exist in

Spanish. It is a nasal sound which is denoted by the tilde over the letter a. In order to learn how to make this sound, I listened to a lot of Bossa Nova and I studied some You

Tube sites with people speaking Portuguese. The language that we had invented started to take shape, as we incorporated words from other languages, while applying the syntactic rules and adapting the word endings to suit Portuguese. Soon it became a language that only we understood and we spoke it confidently unless there were

Portuguese speakers within earshot. Eventually one of our members contacted the journalist we had met and made a trip to Brazil to investigate the Hip Hop scene over there. When he returned he was speaking real Portuguese much more fluently and he taught us about Brazilian expressions and nuances. This would all come in handy as he

77 later told us that there was a possibility of bringing the group to Brazil for some performances.

When he presented the project it seemed that it would be a struggle. It certainly cost more money to go to Brazil than to go to Cuba. We were in the midst of completing our second album and it had become costly. In any case we were all thrilled with the idea and so we worked towards making it happen. We got a monthly residence at a club and dedicated all the funds towards the trip. We began seriously studying the language and the culture by connecting with Brazilians in Montreal as well as contacts abroad. When my parents had fled Chile my mother‟s brother had gone to Sao Paolo. He eventually returned to Chile where I met him and his two children. He did, however, have another daughter who had married a Brazilian and stayed. I contacted him and he gave me all the necessary contacts for my trip. A few months before leaving to Brazil the journalist along with two artists, Gaspar and Paniquinho, visited us in Montreal. Since neither of the artists spoke English or Spanish we were forced to put our Portuguese into practice.

Fortunately, we discovered that we could make ourselves understood. Unfortunately, we also realized that some of the things that made sense to us were unintelligible to authentic

Portuguese speakers.

I began reading “The Alchemist,” by Brazilian author Paul Coelho, to improve my

Portuguese. This fictional book made me believe that our music was actually a vehicle towards something more. I became amazed at the attractive power of the collective. We had connected with artist from the other side of the globe and more important shows were

78 coming our way. I had always dreamed of playing the Montreal Jazz Fest and we had already played there. The week that the Brazilians arrived we were opening for one of my favorite artists. He is one of my favorite artists because he helped bring Carlos

Santana back into the spotlight. By introducing Carlos Santana to a new generation,

Wyclef Jean made room for the live guitar in Hip Hop. The only time I had heard live guitar in Hip Hop before was when Aerosmith and Run DMC collaborated on the hit

“Walk this Way”.

I played Wyclef‟s album continuously while in first Year University. Through listening to his music, I learned how to incorporate folklore into Hip Hop. As I mentioned before,

Wyclef had borrowed from Hatian traditional music and by doing this he maintained the connection with his roots. As a result he has become an ambassador to Haiti, by bringing international attention to the island and its many causes. I would often imagine jamming with Wyclef or Santana while in my small university apartment. I had forgotten about that vision and years had gone by but somehow I found myself face to face with Wyclef

Jean right before the show. He was warming up and I was standing outside our dressing room. He was reciting a verse and then went into a freestyle in front of me. Then he put on a carnival mask, went up the stairs and started playing a grand piano in front of five thousand fans. He moved from the piano to the electric guitar and the show went on until

3 in the morning. I went to work the following day exhausted and we had to do the whole thing over again that evening. That night I talked to Wyclef briefly and thanked him for bringing the guitar into Hip Hop. After the show, I recognized that this was the realization of a dream I had had almost ten years prior.

79 Using Music in Education:

We performed a few shows in Montreal and then we headed to Ottawa for a show at the

Mercury Lounge with Gaspar and Paniquinho. The three Brazilians stayed with me at my parent‟s house in Ottawa and the morning after the show we all sat at the breakfast table exchanging stories. It turned out that one of the singers was also a youth worker.

He told us about the work he had been doing with Brazilian youth. He was trying to empower the youngsters by bringing culture and education to their communities. One of his main projects was in a juvenile detention center where he helped keep the kids connected to art and literature while they served time for a variety of infractions. My mother was fascinated by this man‟s approach to alternative education and she asked him what motivated him to follow this career path. He said that he was a devoted student of

Brazilian Pedagogue Paulo Freire. Hearing this, my father went to get Pedagogy of the

Opressed, the book that he had one so many years before. This opened a huge discussion about Freire‟s work and it was so fascinating to hear about his legacy from someone who has applying his teachings. It seemed as though I had never really heard about Paulo Freire and then suddenly I was hearing about him from everyone. I was taking a night class at McGill and our teacher was just talking about a visit from his wife,

Nita Freire.

The following day the Brazilians left to Sao Paolo and we returned to Montreal to do a show at a University luncheon. When we got there I was not sure whom the event was for. I was not in charge of organizing the gig so I just showed up and asked whom the guest of honor was. When I realized it was Nita Freire I was sure that this was all

80 happening for a reason. I spoke to her after the show and she told me about the late Paolo

Freire, and the time that he had spent in Chile. That evening my class went to hear Nita

Freire give a talk about Freire‟s life and his work. I learned that the Paulo and Nita Freire

Project was opening at McGill University under the direction of Shirley Steinberg and

Joe Kincheloe. I had already been inspired by their book entitled 19 Urban Questions:

Teaching in the City and I was anxious to take more courses with these professors. That summer I took two intensive courses dedicated to the pedagogy of Paulo Freire at

McGill. In Joe‟s class, we discussed the theory behind Paulo Freire and in Shirley‟s class we talked about the practical application of his work. In these classes, I heard insightful comments from other educators, principals, parents and international students. I became fascinated with the different approaches to education that were possible. It was this idea of dialogue that I found extremely revolutionary in education. I felt that passion could be just as much a part of teaching as it was a part of music. In fact I began to contemplate whether it was really necessary to keep these two worlds separate.

In November Nomadic left for Sao Paolo on a ten-day intensive tour. Every single day was booked with activities and we were able to cover a vast terrain while in Brazil through the help of careful planning. By now we were more seasoned travelers and we had accounted for any unforeseen expenses in our budget. We realized it would be easier to hire a driver than to have cabs chase each other in the city. This also gave everyone a chance to rest after some long nights. Sometimes when members of the band are also drivers it has an effect on their temperament. We all stayed in a big house owned by a

Brazilian artist who worked in the restoration of wood. His art was about restoring wood

81 that had been used to make furniture into pieces of art that resembled the natural origin from where the wood was taken. He had been hired to do an exhibit in a park that was frequented by many tourists. He had decided to do pieces that reflected certain injustices in Brazil, namely the mistreatment of Natives and Blacks. His message was deemed too controversial and he was removed from the project leaving him without an income for a month. He gave us a very reasonable price and it felt as though we had arrived at the house a family member. He educated us about Brazilian Arts and Culture and he connected us with key people in the Arts community of Sao Paulo.

Whilst in Brazil, we visited the youth detention center that Paniquinho had talked about at my parents‟ house. We went through security bag checks and weapons searches until getting through to the inside. It was an eerie feeling to know that we were on the inside and that we had to perform for kids that had never heard of us. The sound system was not very powerful and there was no stage. We were in a gymnasium and it did not matter because we connected through poetry, music and break dancing. One youth discretely gave a poem that he wanted us to read without divulging his identity. The poem talked about life in the prison and the mistakes that lead people there. Afterwards we each spoke to the youth in Spanish, English and French with the help of translators. I decided to try my best to express myself in Portuguese. I told myself that the words would come to me if they were sincere. With minor discrepancies I managed to tell these kids that art had brought us in connection with them and that it would allow us to tell their story outside the jail. It was so powerful to see how happy our visit had made them. It wasn‟t the quality of the music that was so amazing on that day, just the gesture of visiting kids that

82 rarely receive guests. When we left they hugged us as though we had known each other for years. From the very first day we were impacted by arts‟ ability to transform communication among the youth.

In the following days, we visited a Hip Hop school that had created an entire curriculum around Hip Hop culture. Students specialized in one of the elements of Hip Hop and then they pursued it by learning about the History of Hip Hop while perfecting their craft with the help of knowledgeable staff. In the same way that the Cubans had encouraged dialogue through Hip Hop culture, the Brazilians were building alternative schools around this notion. According to the schools founder Nino Brown, the school had had an encouraging effect on the community. The opportunity to create art empowered the youth and their performances gave local kids a safe place to hang out and become involved with the movement. Projects such as this were going on all around Sao Paolo and it seemed from the testimonials that they were working.

We went to perform in a Favela and as soon as we rolled up to the neighborhood it became obvious that we were outsiders. I walked to the corner store to buy some gum and the storekeeper asked me whom I was with. It was the middle of the day and he said it was not safe to walk around if I was alone. There was definitely a tense feeling in the air and I wondered if we were the cause of it. We were escorted to a rooftop terrace where we could see the stage. We decided to go down and mingle with the people that were watching the show. Our host allowed us to go down but he sent a bodyguard with us. When it was finally time to go on, the whole mood changed. We were able to

83 communicate in Portuguese and we played some covers of Brazilian songs with English lyrics. After the show the tension had disappeared. People invited us into their homes and they let their guard down. We obviously are incapable of transforming an environment permanently with one show, but I accept that the moments we share with our brothers and sisters in good faith are valuable in showing that this type of globalization is also a possibility. It is the process of international understanding that happens on a social level as a result of the world becoming smaller.

Today it is possible to have access to information 24 hrs a day through the Internet. For the first time in our history we have the chance to learn whatever we want to learn through access. We can maintain communication with contacts and advertise across all continents. We have the opportunity to communicate with people that are completely outside of our cultural circle. Since the introduction of You Tube, individuals have become a part of the media. This has diluted the impact of just being on TV, but at the same time it has opened up avenues where real people can connect. Faced with this opportunity, we often become indecisive about which avenue to take. It is daunting to think that truth could become a series of endless contradictions. The fear of having our ideas challenged and our notions of truth distorted make us stay complacent. As a result we develop prejudicial notions about people we have never met and places we have never been to.

After returning from Brazil I became conscious of how much time I was wasting in

Montreal. We had done so much in a short span of time I realized that more initiative needed to be taken in all aspects of my life. I needed to become proactive about my

84 teaching, my learning and my music. I organized a music workshop at school and participated in the talent show with some of the students. I began to open myself up to the possibility that music could also serve a purpose in my ESL classroom. I realized that part of my frustration about the system could be resolved by initiating projects that were rewarding for the students as well as for me. I didn‟t have to like the music that my students were listening to and they didn‟t have to like the music that I played. What was important was to help them move away from the passive process of listening to music to the active process of creation. In order to communicate this process I thought it might be effective to put myself in the position of student all over again.

International Initiatives:

On an international scale, music can be used as a way of bringing cultures closer together. We did not know it at the time, but that initial trip to Cuba would become a model for many other projects initiated by Nomadic Massive as well as by other organizations. In the Fall of 2007 we were invited to attend a youth conference at her

Excellency Michael Jean‟s residence in Ottawa. At the time Nomadic Massive was very much involved in working with Montreal Youth in the area of Cotes des Neiges. One of our members is the director of a Youth Center in this area and many of us have participated in different youth activities involving music and other performance arts. On the occasion of our visit we invited her Excellency to come and visit our Youth center and she graciously accepted. By the following summer, the streets of Cotes Des Neiges were riddled with secret service agents for the arrival of Michael Jean. The Youth center had been transformed for her arrival and the visit really gave the local youth a sense of

85 pride. Michael Jean gave an inspiring talk to the youth and their parents and remained after her speech to participate in the festivities and the musical performances.

The following year she invited us to perform at an international youth conference in

Toronto called Ignite the Americas. The purpose of these conferences was to initiate a dialogue among international youth and youth leaders. On our visit to Toronto we visited a local youth center turned alternative school. The program was pioneered by a young entrepreneur named Gavin Sheppard who sought alternative ways of empowering disenfranchised youth. The school‟s slogan was “get money, make change.” His school offered youth the opportunity to manifest their goals by giving them the tools to make and sell art. The government funded facility offered youth the chance to work with expensive audiovisual equipment as well as educating them on the different businesses related to the arts. This visit offered us a concrete example of what can be accomplished through alternative music education.

The following year we were invited to a similar conference in Edmonton where we were able to connect with youth workers that had been initiating hip hop programs with the

Inuit. In one of the workshops, youth worker Buddha, said “when you feel that you have no control over anything in your life, at least you can have control over your body.” Her

Excellency, Michael Jean not only realized that music had the ability to heal but she put this theory into action by bringing together the people who were already using music in this way. After this concert we were asked to help put together a similar initiative in

Montreal. This has become our mission and it is the culmination of many years of hard work in the field of music.

86 Conclusion:

After twenty years of playing music by ear, I decided to take some lessons in music theory. My teacher and I have exactly the same number of years of experience, yet our musical journey has been dramatically different. He comes from a traditional school of thought and he possesses all the skills to back up an elitist commentary about music. For him, playing music without understanding the theory is like babbling using words you do not understand. When I told him that I was an intuitive player he said this was just an excuse for laziness. “People have been studying this stuff for hundreds of years and you think you will just come about it by accident,” he said. I can sense a mentality that supposes that unless you are formally trained you are worthless. It is the same mentality that says that rap is not poetry because the grammar is incorrect. It is the same mentality that says graffiti is not art because it is not painted with a brush on a canvas. For my teacher, theoretical knowledge is the measure of a real musician. However, music existed long before all these conventional notions of theory. Rhythm exists in ones‟ breathing and if we listen closely, we will notice that the vibration of different sounds surrounds us.

From lights buzzing to birds chirping, different frequencies enter our realm of perception on a daily basis. Sometimes we are completely aware of it, like when a police cruiser passes us with sirens blaring. Other times it is subtler, like when we are alone at home and we hear the refrigerator humming. Music gives us the ability to use these frequencies to communicate something meaningful to an audience. In fact, every art medium has its own particular non-verbal language.

87 As much as theory can label the things that we see in the arts, it can never truly explain the significance of what we experience when we become engaged in it. In my life, music has facilitated the transition between different life stages. It has allowed me to express myself and to interact with people in a human way. It is this very experience that is necessary in the classroom, particularly in cases where students are victims of abuse, poverty and rejection. A curriculum does not need to be based on a tradition of textbooks in order to be relevant. Furthermore, students‟ productivity does not need to be measured based on the completion of these textbooks. All school subjects can be taught using material that is pertinent to youth culture. We can allow our students to teach themselves and each other without losing our credibility as teachers. The secret lies in becoming open to a different approach to education. It begins with the process of humanization whereby the teacher acknowledges that they are never done learning and that their experiences are a part of the learning process. This is the only way that we can inspire our students to search for knowledge from within. Once this desire to become educated becomes intrinsic and students realize that they can come to the same truths by different paths, then we can truly fulfill our role as guides. We can create projects that are relevant to their realities and current with respect to the society in which they live.

My tangible intentions as a musician are to continue to expose myself to the music of different cultures in order to continue making connections with the international community. I will advance my learning through observation, dialogue as well as reading. This way, I will avoid being consumed by my own culture, to the point where it blinds me to the cultural richness of our planet. I will become a more inclusive educator,

88 demonstrating a cursory knowledge of people‟s culture through their music and traditions. I will involve myself in many musical projects in order to enrich my playing ability and remain innovative in the music industry.

My concrete goals as an educator are to help develop programs that will address the needs of marginalized youth in Montreal. I will become involved in cultural exchange programs that will help the youth develop an understanding of themselves through the creation of collaborative art projects. In the long term, I want to create an alternative school for those who do not fit into the formal model. Eventually, I would like to participate in teacher training, so that some of these methods could be incorporated into the public school system. This will be the path that I will take towards legitimatization in education through music. By being on the front lines, I will explore the true complexities of the field of education and follow in the footsteps of revolutionary thinkers in education, like Paulo Freire, Joe Kincheloe and Shirley Steinberg.

89 Quotes for Teaching:

B.B. King

“We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing so.” B.B. King

B.B. King plays very few notes in his solos and yet he is very difficult to imitate. When studying his music I learned the importance of silence in solos. The notes that are implied allow us to perceive timing. It is about giving the listener something and then taking it away. It is about alluding to a note and then going somewhere else. Within the framework of a song, listeners expect resolution and tension. Silence can create a sense of peace as well as a sense of anticipation. According to Edward M. Komara, B. B King

"introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that would influence virtually every electric blues guitarist that followed.

(Edward M. Komara, Encyclopedia of the Blues, Routledge, 2006, p. 385)

Muddy Waters

“Saturday night is your big night. Everybody used to fry up fish and have one hell of a time. Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich. And be glad of it. And they really liked the low-down blues.”

Before the Blues, it was considered unconventional to bend strings. Classical musicians still frown upon this technique. Yet, as rudimentary as this technique is considered it does require great skill to perform properly. Now people bend strings in rock, grunge, heavy metal and so on. Different types of bends have been labeled in order to describe

90 what a player is doing. One of my favorites is called a ghost bend. This is where the string is bent without being played. It is only played as the string returns to its original position. It creates the effect of hearing the note approaching from a distance. It has a mysterious appeal that cannot really be quantified with words.

Jimi Hendrix

“I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.” Jimi Hendrix

Freedom is something to remember when you are playing solos. Jimi Hendrix was known for breaking the barriers of conventional music. One of the ways he was able to transcend his influences was with the use of effects. Jimi mastered the use of such effects as the Fuzz, the Wah and Distortion. To some the sound was cacophonic, as the Blues probably was to classical musicians. Regardless, Jimi Hendrix influenced a whole generation as well as the children of that generation. The world of modeling pedals has grown exponentially since Jimi‟s appearance at Woodstock. Freedom lies in stepping out of the box. Creativity is born out of our influences but it exists in our ability to transform what we know into something unknown. Hendrix is widely considered to be the greatest guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry. Hendrix, popularized the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos. Hendrix, played and recorded with Little

Richard's band in the mid 1960‟s, and was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice.

91 Carlos Santana

“Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.”

If you watch Santana in concert, his whole body is engaged when he plays. When he bends a string his knees bend with it. When BB King bends a string, his whole face contract. Great players have their own unique way of feeling the music. When an audience sees the artist put their whole body into a solo, they react with emotion. Carlos

Santana was born in Mexico. Carlos followed in his father's musical footsteps by taking up the violin at the age of five. When his family moved to Tijuana, Santana began his lifelong love affair with the electric guitar. He began emulating John Lee Hooker, T.

Bone Walker, and B.B. King, who he heard on powerful American radio stations when their signals crossed the border. I first saw Santana in concert the year before moving to

Montreal. His energy on stage is magnetic and he makes the guitar come alive by playing every show as though it was his first. Remaining in the moment is important when playing before an audience because it is the only way to connect with them.

Robert Johnson

“A man will treat a woman almost exactly the way he treats his own interior feminine. In fact, he hasn't the ability to see a woman, objectively speaking, until he has made some kind of peace with his interior woman.”

Johnson‟s vocal phrasing, original songs, and guitar style have influenced a broad range of musicians, including Muddy Waters, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton. He got in touch

92 with his feminine side by singing the notes that he played on his guitar. Singing what you play is useful when constructing melodies and solos. Often if you cannot sing what you play it is difficult to anticipate where you are going with a solo. You may know all the notes in a key but you run through them mechanically. If you can sing what you play, then you can hear where you‟re going in your head well before you translate that sound for the audience. Eric Clapton called Robert Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived". (Booklet accompanying the Complete Recordings box set, Stephen

LaVere, Sony Music Entertainment, 1990, Clapton quote on p. 26)

93 The Cd Compilation

Art Work: The original photograph was taken by Montreal photographer Coey Kerr.

The concept for the cover of this album was conceived by Montreal artist Chopin Joseph.

He has helped Nomadic Massive create several flyers as well as a life size model of the bus that appears on both our albums. This model was used at the launch of our second album and was destined to be used in other applications such as puppet shows and plays for youth concerts.

Production: The compilation was originally mixed by producer Lou Piensa at his Cote

Des Neiges studio in Montreal. The compilation was then mastered by Cristobal Urbina at his studio in the Plateau, Montreal.

Sounds So Sweet: This track is an example of a Nomadic Massive creation. It was originally recorded in Cuba and then edited and mastered in Montreal at DNA studios.

This song exemplifies the multiplicity of the band and shows the different styles and languages that have influenced the group. It is this dynamic sound that has allowed us to reach out to the international hip-hop community. It appears on the album entitled:

Nomadic Massive. (DNA Studios, Montreal, 2008)

Un Amor: This track was recorded with Sayen Sepulveda, my sister and Butta Beats from Argentina. It is a cover of a Gypsy Kings song that has been interpreted in a hip- hop style. The song appears on the demo that my sister sent to the Festival de Vina where we eventually performed for a crowd of 10,000. This song was produced by Karl

94 Wolf, a well known Montreal producer turned pop star in recent years. The drums in this song are done completely by Butta Beats beat boxing. (Karl Wolf Studios, 2005)

Desert Drop: This track was written in collaboration with Meryem Saci, an Algerian singer. It has received over 10,000 hits on our My Space page and appears on the album entitled Nomad‟s Land. It is an interesting recording because it is only made up of two elements that have been overdubbed. There is no bass or drums in this song only a voice and a guitar. Meryem has overdubbed her own harmonies and I play both rhythm and lead guitar. (Lou Piensa Studio, 2006)

Todo Para Mi: This track was recorded with Haitian vocalist Vox Sambou. It is the only song on the compilation where I am singing as well as playing the guitar. The intention of this song was to bridge the gap between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. This is why the song is recorded in Spanish and Creole. The song talks about two guys that are in love with the same girl but ultimately the girl is just a figment of both their imaginations. A video for this song was filmed in the summer of 2009 and will be released in January 2010. (Tim Doyle Studio, 2009)

Everyday: This track was also recorded with Vox Sambou and appears on his album entitled Lakay. The chorus and back up vocals are recorded by Maya Petrovick from

Ottawa. This is one of the first songs I recorded and it is obvious in the quality of the guitar sound. After having been in the studio a few times I have learned some recording

95 tricks to make the sound jump out more. At the same time it is one of my favourite arrangements in terms of melody. (Think Twice Studio, 2005)

Interludes:

The interludes on this album are all named after the city where they were conceived.

Campinhas is a small city outside of Sao Paolo, Brazil; Iquique is a city in the Atacama

Desert of Chile; Santiago is the capital city of Chile; Machu Picchu is an ancient Inca city in Peru. These loops represent fragments of emotions or thoughts that I had in these particular places. Often they have been recorded in the early morning hours with rudimentary techniques. In Nomadic, these loops are often the birth of new songs.

When the other musicians hear these loops they are inspired to add their own sound and thus the original loop becomes something completely different. The loop is the raw emotion before the song becomes orchestrated and produced. The last loop on the album is an example of the evolution of a song. It was created by sampling a section of the first interlude and then adding percussion and keys. Once this process is completed the singers in the band will add their independent lyrics based on a coherent theme. After the singers have laid down their parts solos are added and the song is completed. Since the final creation is so far from the original idea that I thought it would be interesting to add some of these naked arrangements on the compilation

96 References

Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist: A Fable about Following Your Dream. San Francisco: Harper, 1995.

Edward M. Komara, Encyclopedia of the Blues, Routledge, 2006, p. 385.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007.

Guevara, Ernesto. Motorcycle Diaries. New York: Ocean Press, 2003

Kincheloe, J. & Steinber, S. 19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City. New York: Lang, Peter Publishing, Inc., 2004.

Maslow, A.H. A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4) (1943):370- 96.

Piaget, Jean. The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International University Press, 1952.

Neruda, Pablo. Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

LaVere, Stephen. Booklet accompanying the Complete Recordings Box Set of Robert. Johnson, Sony Music Entertainment, 1990, Clapton quote on p. 26)

Mistral, Gabriela. Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral. New Mexico: University of New Mexico: 2003.

Redfield, James. Celestibe Prophecy. Grand Central Publishing, 1995

Sepulveda, Ramon. Red Rock. Ottawa: Split Quotation, 1990.

Sepulveda Ramon. Red Rock (English Version). Ottawa: Split Quotation, 1991.

97 Discography

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Albert King. “Born Under a Bad Sign”. Born Under A Bad Sign. Stax Records, 1967.

The Alkaholics. Coast to Coast. Loud Records, 1995

Aretha Franklin. “Respect”. Aretha‟s Greatest Hits. Atlantic, 1971

BB King. King Of Tthe Blues. MCA, 1992

Beatles. “Let it Be.” Let it Be. Apple records, 1970

Beatles. Abbey Road. Apple Records, 1969

Bob Marley. “Natural Mystic.” Exodus. Tuff Gong, 1977.

Cream. Disraeli Gears. Atco, 1967.

Cypress Hill. Temples of Boom. Columbia, 1995.

Derek and the Dominos. Layla and other assorted Love Songs. Atco, 1970

Delinquent Habits. Delinquent Habits. RCA, 1996

The Doors. Strange Days. Elektra, 1967.

Elvis Prestley. “Hound Dog.” Elvis. RCA, 1956.

Fishbone. Give a Monkey a Brain and He'll Swear He's the Center of the Universe. Columbia, 1993

The Eagles. “Hotel California.” Hotel California. Asylum, 1977.

Eric Clapton. Unplugged. Reprise, 1992

Grateful Dead. Grateful Dead: Skull and Roses. Warner Bros, 1971.

Inti Illimani. Cantos de un Pueblo Andino. Inti Illimani, 1975.

Ice-T. “Cop Killer.” Body Count. Warner Bros, 1992.

Jimi Hendrix. “Born Under a Bad Sign.” Jimi Hendrix: Blues. MCA, 1994.

John Lennon. “Imagine.” Imagine. Apple, 1971.

98 Led Zepplin. “Stairway to Heaven”. Led Zepplin IV. Atlantic, 1971.

Muddy Waters. I‟m Ready. Blue Sky records, 1978.

NOFX. Punk in Drublic. Epitaph, 1994.

Nomadic Massive. “Desert Drop”. Nomad‟s Land. Independent, 2005.

Nomadic Massive. “Sounds So Sweet”. Nomadic Massive. Independent, 2008.

N.W.A. Straight Outta Compton. Ruthless/Priority, 1988.

Penny Wise. About Time. Epitaph, 1995.

Pearl Jam. Ten. Epic, 1991.

Pink Floyd. The Wall. Columbia, 1979.

Propagahndi. How to Clean Up a Couple „O‟ Things. Fat Wreck records, 1993.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers. “Give it Away”. Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Warner Bros, 1991.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers. “Under The Bridge”. Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Warner, 1991.

Ritchie Valens. “La Bamba.” Ritchie Valens. Del-Fi records, 1959.

Robert Johnson. Cross Road Blues. Vocalion, 1937.

Run D.M.C. “Walk this Way” featuring Steven Tyler. Raising Hell. Profile/Artista Records, 1986

Santana. Sacred Fire: Live in Latin America. Polydor, 1993

The Temptations. “My Girl”. The Temptations Sing Smokey. Gordy, 1964.

Unwritten Law. Unwritten Law. Interscope, 1998.

Victor Jara. Canto Libre. Warner, 1970.

Violetta Parra. “Gracias A La Vida.” Las Ultimas Composiciones. Ans records, 1966.

Vox Sambou. “Everyday.” Lakay. Independent, 2006.

Wyclef Jean. “Jaspora.” The Carnival. Columbia Records, 1997.

The Yardbirds. Yardbirds. Capitol Records, 1966.

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