A couple summers ago I saw previews on TV for the movie The Soloist. I thought it looked interesting, but never actively made an effort to watch the movie once it came out. This fall, while looking through old documents on my computer, I found a random list of movies I wanted to watch someday. The Soloist was on the list. When Jonathan said he was sending a package to me, I asked him to add a few movies, including The Soloist. I got my package more than two months after he sent it, while he was visiting, actually. Tonight the power was off, but our generator was running. There was nothing much to do, but I wasn't ready to go to bed yet. So I got out my external hard drive, plugged it in and scrolled through my movies. The Soloist caught my eye. I didn't know what it was about, other than the few short clips I'd seen a year and a half earlier. I knew one of the characters played cello and I had got an impression that there was a reporter involved. I decided to watch it. It was haunting.
(Warning: Parents, grandparents, anyone else who wishes I was more committed to music, maybe now is a good time to stop reading this post.)
To be perfectly honest, I think one of my better decisions about this year was my choice to not bring my violin along with me to Tanzania. This past summer when people asked me if I was going to, I'd say a definite no. My parents asked me quite a few times during the months leading up to my departure. I said no. When Bryn left for Egypt in June she walked through security at the Kelowna airport with her computer case slung over one shoulder and her violin case dangling from the other. I thought about that while I packed to leave. Jonathan was helping me decide what to bring. I asked him if I should reconsider, if my violin should come along. He said it was up to me. I stuck with my earlier conviction. When the car rolled away from my house last August, my violin was safely lying in its case tucked away in a corner of our music room. I thoroughly enjoyed traveling through airports without the bulky case banging against my legs. And from the first week of being in Tanzania on, I've never regretted my decision to leave my violin at home. I know Bryn used her violin a lot in Egypt, at church, at campmeeting, even at a wedding. But (a) she has a degree in music while I struggled to stay excited about being in orchestra during the whole three years at SAU, and (b) TZ is different. Here people don't really play instruments, they sing. And I've really enjoyed experiencing that part of the culture without bringing in my western instrument and disturbing the African heritage.
I've fought my relationship with the violin ever since my mother tricked me into choosing it when I was four. There were days I hated going to lessons instead of being able to go over to my friends houses to play. Days I told my mum I wanted to retire (of course, she recorded these humourous-to-her/serious-to-me instances on the inside cover of my Suzuki music books). Days of standing alone in the music room tears rolling down my cheeks and onto the dark wood of the chin rest as I finished my practicing late at night after neglecting it all day. There were weeks of music institutes during summer. Of learning to sing entire pieces in solfege (not true solfege, the kind where C is always do, D is always re and so on). Of memorizing pages of music. Of preparing for spring music festivals. There were months of scales, arpeggios, double stop thirds, sixths and octaves. Picking studies, orchestral excerpts and unaccompanieds. Choosing List A, B and C pieces (concerto, sonata, show piece). Endless lessons with teachers and appointments with accompanists. Never-ending listening to tapes of ear tests, identifying intervals, clap-backs, play-backs. Whole years of music preparation just to take the Royal Conservatory of Music exams to pass into the next music grade. There were other obligations. Piano lessons, required theory classes, group practices, chamber orchestras, master classes and weekend music workshops. There were struggles to attempt to sight-read, arguments about whether I could or not. There were disappointing festival marks and unsatisfactory RCM exam grades. There were choices to be made: improve my skill, get more musical experience or keep the Sabbath? The latter always won out.
But there were also good memories. Completing a piece satisfactorily and moving on to a new one. Winning first place at festivals. Inventing new versions of hymns to play for church special music. Finding an amazing teacher who I looked up to and respected. Making friends with her other students. Driving with my mum and younger siblings to a town 40-minutes away two or three times a week for lessons and talking about everything under the sun on the trips there and back. Treats after lessons if we'd done well. Eating suppers in the car on the drive home. The annual Vernon Community Music School country fair with face painting, a petting zoo, pie auctions, a cake walk and mini-concerts from all the VCMS student groups. Getting out of school for several days to travel to music festivals in cities several hours ago, Penticton, Kamloops. Everyone staying together at motels, music floating down the halls in the evenings before and after racing to the pool and water slide for a quick reprieve in our rigorous schedules. Sprawled out on the floor or on pews with the other music students in the church balcony, listening to peers performing while working on homework from the days of school we missed. Running our fingers down the list of participants in the program, realizing our turn was coming soon, rushing to the bathroom to change into dress clothes, brush hair and do last-minute warm-ups before it was our turn to perform while others listened from the balcony. Feelings of friendship and support from the other students, even if we competed against each other. Cheering for those who went on to Provincials.
I watched The Soloist expecting to be intrigued by the journalism portrayed in the film. I was, but mostly because I noticed things the reporter did that we were taught in school not to do. (Don't take gifts from your sources {reporter accepted a soda}. Don't give gifts to your sources {source was given a cello, an apartment and private lessons with the first cellist of the LA philharmonic}. But, to be fair, he was a columnist, maybe those rules don't apply to them... Also, some of the gifts were given from column-readers, so I guess that doesn't break the rules.) But it was the music in the story that really drew me in. Nathaniel Anthony Ayers loved music more than anything else in the world. Lived for it. Breathed for it.
I almost understand Mr. Ayers. While I can't honestly say that I ever lived or breathed for music during the 22 years I've played violin, while I'm thoroughly enjoying this year of not being 'Alison, the oldest member of the Quiring trio,' I realized I do miss a part of it. I miss the disobedient thrill of holing up in my room with a classical CD of my piece playing, pretending to practice while really lounging on my bed reading a book behind my music. Although many times it was a pain, I miss unpacking my violin alongside my siblings and trying to come up with a suitable piece for special music the next morning at church, arguing with each other about bowings and who got to play the harmony part. I miss the nervous excitement of sitting in a half-empty church in the middle of a school day waiting for the current performer to finish, the adjudicator to scrawl out notes and advice for improvements and the secretary to call out my name so I could walk to the stage, announce my piece, place my violin under my chin, and draw the bow across the strings so the notes could escape the instrument, escape my brain.
Last year, in my last semester of university, I was absolutely sick of orchestra. I didn't like the pieces. I wasn't impressed that we only went on one short day tour the whole year. I had nothing to say to my stand partner. I wanted out. Now I'm out and I'm enjoy it. But, if I'm completely honest, I also miss it. The camaraderie in rehearsals, the frantic flipping of a page in the middle of an important passage, the hustle of dressing in black and rushing to the church in time for pre-performance last-minute run-throughs. The grinning after the last note, the applause from the audience after seconds of post-completion silence, the simultaneous rise to our feet at a motion from our conductor who whirled around to thank those listening with a series of bows. Moving your chair to part the orchestra like Moses did the Red Sea so she could leave the stage. I don't really miss playing the violin. I don't really miss playing in the Quiring trio. I don't really miss playing in orchestra. But I do miss the feeling of performing, of knowing the piece backwards and forwards, of being part of the rhythm of the piece without even trying.
That being said, I think I'd be quite fine to leave my violin in my case for a while longer yet. I know, I make no sense...
Is this whole musical autobiography one big oxymoron??
