Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Music as Work
A fellow pianist and U Scholar was talking to me. He had an accordion strapped to himself, and was doodling on it as we spoke.
“I just enjoy music so much.” He played a few notes. “I don’t want to major in it, because I feel like if I majored in it, it would become work to me, and I like it too much to want it to become work.” A few more notes. “I had a friend who was a music major and it happened to him. Music will always be a big part of my life, but I don’t want it to be my life. I don’t want it to be my career.”
I do know how he feels—I enjoy many things, that if I had to do for a living, I would hate them after a year.
But when my friend said these words, I thought to myself– it already is work to me.
Music is work. Sometimes I sit down at the piano and I have to force myself to put my slothful fingers on the keys. Sometimes I come out of a practice session so angry with my tremulous, messy fingers that I never want to go back. Sometimes in the midst of a choir rehearsal, we do my least favorite song, and the director picks it to pieces, and all the while I am tiredly inside-screaming to be done.
When I play, when I sing, I am keenly aware of my own shortcomings. My sight-reading difficulties, my flat wrists, my muddy pedaling, my shallow breath control. I despair, sometimes.
Music is hard, hard work. My Music Theory professor said on our first day, “They (non-musicians) don’t know what we have to do to get that (our performance).” She’s right. Practice and discipline are thankless tasks until performance. No one knows how many hours go into a three-minute song.
And yet…
While music is sometimes tedious, there are just enough flashes of the glorious to keep me bound to it. Some practices are deadly dull, yes, but some have moments of flight. Aerial swooping, brilliant colors, sonic bliss. Performing well is a thing of beauty, and hearing a brilliant performance is better. Sometimes a set of chords makes me want to cry, or to dance in overwhelming joy. Oh the music, the music! The “music of the spheres,” pointing to heaven, to the Creator. These moments are worth the work.
Most of the time the heights are not so high, and the depths are not so low. I usually come out of practice liking playing and singing, pleased with the pieces I am doing. During practice, I’ll play a new phrase and dig it. And I know that for every high and pure, light-bursting moment, there is an equal low. I am hoping that in time, the flights will carry me past the drudgery.
I have to work and plug away at something. This is far and away the best thing I could possibly do.
“I just enjoy music so much.” He played a few notes. “I don’t want to major in it, because I feel like if I majored in it, it would become work to me, and I like it too much to want it to become work.” A few more notes. “I had a friend who was a music major and it happened to him. Music will always be a big part of my life, but I don’t want it to be my life. I don’t want it to be my career.”
I do know how he feels—I enjoy many things, that if I had to do for a living, I would hate them after a year.
But when my friend said these words, I thought to myself– it already is work to me.
Music is work. Sometimes I sit down at the piano and I have to force myself to put my slothful fingers on the keys. Sometimes I come out of a practice session so angry with my tremulous, messy fingers that I never want to go back. Sometimes in the midst of a choir rehearsal, we do my least favorite song, and the director picks it to pieces, and all the while I am tiredly inside-screaming to be done.
When I play, when I sing, I am keenly aware of my own shortcomings. My sight-reading difficulties, my flat wrists, my muddy pedaling, my shallow breath control. I despair, sometimes.
Music is hard, hard work. My Music Theory professor said on our first day, “They (non-musicians) don’t know what we have to do to get that (our performance).” She’s right. Practice and discipline are thankless tasks until performance. No one knows how many hours go into a three-minute song.
And yet…
While music is sometimes tedious, there are just enough flashes of the glorious to keep me bound to it. Some practices are deadly dull, yes, but some have moments of flight. Aerial swooping, brilliant colors, sonic bliss. Performing well is a thing of beauty, and hearing a brilliant performance is better. Sometimes a set of chords makes me want to cry, or to dance in overwhelming joy. Oh the music, the music! The “music of the spheres,” pointing to heaven, to the Creator. These moments are worth the work.
Most of the time the heights are not so high, and the depths are not so low. I usually come out of practice liking playing and singing, pleased with the pieces I am doing. During practice, I’ll play a new phrase and dig it. And I know that for every high and pure, light-bursting moment, there is an equal low. I am hoping that in time, the flights will carry me past the drudgery.
I have to work and plug away at something. This is far and away the best thing I could possibly do.
