Writing is my first and greatest passion, the thing I can’t imagine not doing whether I’m ever able to make a career of it or not. I’m pursuing publication because I want to share my work with a wide audience (and, let’s be honest, just a teensy bit for the validation) but I write because nothing brings me more joy than creating a story, shaping a world, crafting scenes and characters and chasing the ever-elusive dream of distilling the ineffable into words.
But obviously I don’t spend every waking moment on writing. There is family time (hooray!) and the inescapable tasks of housework (boo), but if we’re talking about hobbies, the pastime that comes next after writing is music. It’s always been an important part of my life, another source of joy that I love to share with others. Since I’m currently working on a fantasy world with a music-based system, I thought it might be fun to detail my history in music and why it matters so much to me.
My first musical instrument was a recorder. This isn’t very unusual for anyone who attended music class at an elementary school, but mine actually came from my grandmother. My father’s mother was wonderfully doting, and showered us grandkids with so many presents that we would have a separate gift-opening session on Christmas Eve just for her presents. For some reason I received several music-related gifts from her, as if she knew I would develop a penchant for it. Since she passed away before I turned eight, I didn’t have to chance to thank her for possibly sparking/fostering my interest, but I’ve always felt like pursuing musical interests is a way I can connect with her.
There are other family connections as well. My maternal grandmother was a highly accomplished pianist and organist who gave lessons to just about every kid who grew up in her neighborhood. My dad plays the guitar, my mom plays the clarinet. When I become old enough for the free string lessons that our school offered, there was no question that I’d want to take advantage of them. No, I couldn’t really play any instruments before then, noodlings on the recorder notwithstanding. So my first instrument was the violin, starting in fourth grade. That was when I learned how to read music and other basics, skills that I have carried ever since.
As for the violin itself, I’m afraid I still play it rather like a fourth-grader. Three years of group lessons in elementary school were hardly enough to make a maestro out of me, even if I had the inherent talent and discipline for excellence in string instruments (which I did not) but I stubbornly continued to participate in orchestra throughout junior high and high school. I could pull out my old violin now and, after spending a half hour or so tuning it, maybe squeak out a respectable rendition of Twinkle Twinkle.
But shortly after violin came the piano. My dad had a coworker whose wife was an accomplished musician and teacher, trained in Russia. After they gave us their old piano, my parents decided to start me on lessons with Nellie. I loved it from the start, and discovered a natural aptitude that helped me progress much faster than with the violin. I continued my lessons all the way till the end of high school, and perhaps just as importantly, I crossed that line where playing becomes more of a pleasure than a drudgery. I can’t say when that happens; it’s different for everyone and for some it never happens. For my brother, it was his discovery of classical music as well as his predilection for composing his own music. Mine might have been connected more to the ability to play familiar pieces like Disney or Broadway songs, though I would happily attempt most genres of music.
There was something so joyful and miraculous about the process. From mere marks printed on a staff, the music is translated in my mind, then transmitted into the motion of my fingers against keys, hammers against strings, a song springing to life. Creating something afresh every time I play a song, with my own interpretation and feeling. I don’t have the gift of composing like my brother, but it’s creation nonetheless. And performing for an audience! That is something positively electric. I know very well the feeling of stage fright; it has been my close friend since age nine. And I’ve learned how to take it by the hand, welcoming that nervous energy as the force that can energize me through the whole performance. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still burned with humiliation through awful mistakes, but overall the experience is so invigorating that I can’t get enough of it. I desperately miss the opportunities to perform live that were so much more abundant during my school days.
Speaking of that, I picked up the clarinet in fifth grade, like my mom and older sister, and kept up with band the same as orchestra. Sometimes my lessons coincided and I would have to carry two instruments to school on the same day. I remember all too well the kids on the bus asking me why I played two instruments, in a tone that seemed quite derisive. I was a deeply insecure child and couldn’t provide an answer with the boundless confidence I wished for (“Actually, I play three!”) but I just murmured, “Because I want to,” and had to put up with their mocking repetition of that phrase for some time afterward. Kids are weirdly cruel, aren’t they? Still I loved my instruments. I took to woodwinds much better than strings, and by the time we learned recorders in music class in sixth grade, I could play circles around every one else. Not that I did, since my grandmother’s gift was a bright, unapologetic yellow in contrast to the dull beige of everyone else’s, and I wasn’t about to bring any more attention upon myself than was already earned by that oddity.
But the clarinet is an excellent wind instrument to start with. It has two separate registers with unique fingerings, which means that if you learn it well, you can play almost any wind instrument with C or F-based fingerings. And I did. I borrowed the bassoon from our high school’s instrument office and taught myself the basics, particularly the challenge of playing a double-reed. Oh, I miss that bassoon. Do you know how much those glorious behemoths cost? Too much. But I adore its mighty foghorn sound.
In high school I also took organ lessons from one of our church organists, building on my piano skills to explore another keyboard instrument. It requires somewhat different technique than the piano, and I enjoyed branching out a bit. I learned how to accompany congregations of singers, which a very different experience than solo performance. And I made my share of embarrassing mistakes such as playing entirely the wrong hymn. Nowadays this might be the instrument that’s proven of the most frequent practical use, as I’m part of the organist rotation at church.
In college my sister recruited me to the Musicians Guild, part of the medieval club that she belonged to. At first I played the recorder, but she convinced me to try out the tenor krumhorn (fine, crumhorn, but I prefer the German spelling). I cannot even begin to describe how delightful this instrument is. I’ve yet to know anyone who hears it for the first time without bursting into laughter. It sounds like a deranged duck. It has a double-reed, but it’s inside of something called a windcap. This produces a distinctive buzzing, duckish tone and I firmly believe that any medieval music is incomplete without it.
Other than Musicians Guild, I sang in the German choir in college, one of my rare forays into vocal performance because no auditions were required. I have a decent singing voice but no formal training, so my talent is best used in groups that allow me to blend in, or solos in my own private home where I can belt it out and pretend I’m perfectly on key. Since college I’ve unfortunately had little opportunity to learn new instruments, as I don’t have access to an instrument office and, as I’ve previously mentioned, they can be insanely expensive.
But I’ve kept up with whatever I do have access to, primarily the piano. My dear mother-in-law gave us an old piano that she had herself gotten for free, and that kept me happy for years in spite of its clunkiness. Then I had the wonderful fortune to receive a baby grand piano, again for free, from a generous friend who had inherited it with her house and wanted an actual pianist to have it. Since our house was bought with a schoolteacher’s salary, it’s not exactly enormous. But we make room for the piano. When I open up the top, the music fills the entire house.
My oldest child is nonverbal. He has a very few words, plus a decent lexicon of signs and an electronic communication device. Language in the traditional sense is very challenging for him. But he responds to music. It’s been clinically proven that music activates a different part of the brain than language. And it is absolutely a universally human response. What culture doesn’t have a musical tradition? The style and instrument types vary greatly, but they all have some connection to the act of making music and sharing it together. We memorize things better when they’re put to music. We respond better to films and television when they have soundtracks. I believe in the power of words, of course, how could I not? Still there are some things that transcend language, and music can speak for them. I could describe the notes of a song, the movement up and down a scale, the crescendos and ritardandos, but it would not convey what the actual music does. Music is the other language.
And now, since I recognize the irony of a post about music full of nothing but words, here is some of my music. It makes me feel feelings, and I hope it does the same for you.
cynthiaailshie 