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Clarity Loon
Jun. 25th, 2002 02:20 pm[I'm going to start this with a story I've probably told before.]
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a pianist. I wanted to be a lot of things, including an astronaut, a formula one race car driver, an architect, a fashion designer, a fighter pilot, and a superhero, but pianist was fairly high on the list because among other things I did know how to play, and play well. I'm dexterous; I'm from a musical family; I have equal gifts for mathematics and expression. It seemed logical.
I was not brilliant. I was never a genius. I also didn't practice very much, because I didn't really have to; sight-reading, I could play a piece better than my peers could with months of rehearsal. When I competed, I tended to win.
In hindsight, I didn't actually enjoy it all that much. Certainly, I like being the best at things -- much more so than I am generally willing to admit -- and being a person who struggles with my emotions, the ability to play music is an invaluable outlet. I do love the piano; I love the way it sounds, the way it feels under my fingers, and the way the strings subtly reinforce or cancel ringing overtones. However, it never gave me the same joy as singing, or writing, or improving a scene.
I can only suppose that it was expected of me, like college or sweetness or . . . well, a lot of things. It seemed to make sense; I was good at it, I liked it, and it wasn't so subjective that every asshole believed he could do it.
[Me: (snatching a drumstick from the hand of another eighth grader) What the hell are you doing? I don't try to play your flute; clear off.]
Anyway, I didn't know whether I was a genius or not, although I suspected I wasn't. On the one hand, I knew people who practiced infinitely more often than I did and therefore didn't miss notes; on the other hand, I often played better than they did.
[This is where we get to the extremely familiar part of the story.]
When I was . . . fourteen? . . . I auditioned for Arts Magnet. I'd always known I would go there, arguably from before the time I was born. My mother taught there while pregnant with me, when it had just opened; art students painted the walls of my nursery with Magritte recreations; there are photos of me at three years old dancing around in the arts-mag t-shirt I still wear. Arguably, it is the only educational institution at which I've ever been truly happy, and the only place I've felt surrounded by my peers.
It was at this time that I met Chris Blacker. While I was waiting for the third phase of my audition, I heard him through the walls, playing Debussy's Clair de Lune.
It was then that I realized with a final certainty that I was not a musical genius.
I'd heard the piece a thousand times before -- it's one of those that piano teachers are fond of distributing left, right, and center -- but I'd never heard it played right. This, though, was trancendent. The runs blurred into clouds of emotion. The notes floated. It was not simply music; it was complete transportation in the way that only the best compositions performed by the best musicians can be.
"Well," I said. "Guess I'm not going to call myself a pianist anymore."
Fortunately, I'd finished the performance part of my audition before hearing Chris and making my paradigm shift, and I did get into Arts Magnet -- where in true Salieri form, I became Chris's best friend and made him play Clair de Lune for me every day in the practice rooms. The piano teacher despaired of my complete and total lack of ambition and/or interest in any of her lessons, and I changed to being a synth major after a year. A short while afterward, I stopped taking lessons all together -- although not before Chris had moved to Venezuela and I had picked up my own copy of Clair de Lune to play to myself when I missed him entirely too much.
Later, when his parents divorced, he had a nervous breakdown and stopped playing because he'd spent too many years practicing six hours a day to avoid having to talk them. We both picked up the guitar, at which he was also better -- although this is partly because my hands are too small for a lot of bar chords. We co-authored dozens of absurdist plays, dated, fought over music and drug culture, didn't speak for a year, reconciled in Boston, didn't speak for a year, and both took up piano again, in a more low-key and experimental way.
I still play Clair de Lune. A lot. In fact, I would say I've played it more times than I've played any other piece. I've tried a number of different interpretations; I got extremely touchy while watching Oceans 11 because I felt that they were playing it entirely wrong. There are points in the music, in the silences between chords, that I still feel very close to Chris even if we haven't spoken in nine months and I'm not entirely sure where he is right now -- although I think it may be Oregon.
I missed him very much yesterday, which is neither particularly abnormal nor particularly unpleasant.
As a result, I played Clair de Lune with Johnny asleep on the floor and Valancy ensconced in the shower.
[This is the part that is hard to express.]
With everyone present and nobody listening, I played it right. Sure, I missed a few notes, a few rhythms, but it was . . . the way that piece was written to sound. The same kind of powerful it had that time I heard it back in the orchestra room at the Arts Mag auditions. It was the best I had ever played.
And as I hit that last note, I realized that I'd been wrong all those years. I didn't give up on piano because I wasn't Chris Blacker--
--I gave up on piano because I am not Claude Debussy.
It's formidible, this difference between being jealous of your best friend and in awe of the greatest composer who ever lived.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a pianist. I wanted to be a lot of things, including an astronaut, a formula one race car driver, an architect, a fashion designer, a fighter pilot, and a superhero, but pianist was fairly high on the list because among other things I did know how to play, and play well. I'm dexterous; I'm from a musical family; I have equal gifts for mathematics and expression. It seemed logical.
I was not brilliant. I was never a genius. I also didn't practice very much, because I didn't really have to; sight-reading, I could play a piece better than my peers could with months of rehearsal. When I competed, I tended to win.
In hindsight, I didn't actually enjoy it all that much. Certainly, I like being the best at things -- much more so than I am generally willing to admit -- and being a person who struggles with my emotions, the ability to play music is an invaluable outlet. I do love the piano; I love the way it sounds, the way it feels under my fingers, and the way the strings subtly reinforce or cancel ringing overtones. However, it never gave me the same joy as singing, or writing, or improving a scene.
I can only suppose that it was expected of me, like college or sweetness or . . . well, a lot of things. It seemed to make sense; I was good at it, I liked it, and it wasn't so subjective that every asshole believed he could do it.
[Me: (snatching a drumstick from the hand of another eighth grader) What the hell are you doing? I don't try to play your flute; clear off.]
Anyway, I didn't know whether I was a genius or not, although I suspected I wasn't. On the one hand, I knew people who practiced infinitely more often than I did and therefore didn't miss notes; on the other hand, I often played better than they did.
[This is where we get to the extremely familiar part of the story.]
When I was . . . fourteen? . . . I auditioned for Arts Magnet. I'd always known I would go there, arguably from before the time I was born. My mother taught there while pregnant with me, when it had just opened; art students painted the walls of my nursery with Magritte recreations; there are photos of me at three years old dancing around in the arts-mag t-shirt I still wear. Arguably, it is the only educational institution at which I've ever been truly happy, and the only place I've felt surrounded by my peers.
It was at this time that I met Chris Blacker. While I was waiting for the third phase of my audition, I heard him through the walls, playing Debussy's Clair de Lune.
It was then that I realized with a final certainty that I was not a musical genius.
I'd heard the piece a thousand times before -- it's one of those that piano teachers are fond of distributing left, right, and center -- but I'd never heard it played right. This, though, was trancendent. The runs blurred into clouds of emotion. The notes floated. It was not simply music; it was complete transportation in the way that only the best compositions performed by the best musicians can be.
"Well," I said. "Guess I'm not going to call myself a pianist anymore."
Fortunately, I'd finished the performance part of my audition before hearing Chris and making my paradigm shift, and I did get into Arts Magnet -- where in true Salieri form, I became Chris's best friend and made him play Clair de Lune for me every day in the practice rooms. The piano teacher despaired of my complete and total lack of ambition and/or interest in any of her lessons, and I changed to being a synth major after a year. A short while afterward, I stopped taking lessons all together -- although not before Chris had moved to Venezuela and I had picked up my own copy of Clair de Lune to play to myself when I missed him entirely too much.
Later, when his parents divorced, he had a nervous breakdown and stopped playing because he'd spent too many years practicing six hours a day to avoid having to talk them. We both picked up the guitar, at which he was also better -- although this is partly because my hands are too small for a lot of bar chords. We co-authored dozens of absurdist plays, dated, fought over music and drug culture, didn't speak for a year, reconciled in Boston, didn't speak for a year, and both took up piano again, in a more low-key and experimental way.
I still play Clair de Lune. A lot. In fact, I would say I've played it more times than I've played any other piece. I've tried a number of different interpretations; I got extremely touchy while watching Oceans 11 because I felt that they were playing it entirely wrong. There are points in the music, in the silences between chords, that I still feel very close to Chris even if we haven't spoken in nine months and I'm not entirely sure where he is right now -- although I think it may be Oregon.
I missed him very much yesterday, which is neither particularly abnormal nor particularly unpleasant.
As a result, I played Clair de Lune with Johnny asleep on the floor and Valancy ensconced in the shower.
[This is the part that is hard to express.]
With everyone present and nobody listening, I played it right. Sure, I missed a few notes, a few rhythms, but it was . . . the way that piece was written to sound. The same kind of powerful it had that time I heard it back in the orchestra room at the Arts Mag auditions. It was the best I had ever played.
And as I hit that last note, I realized that I'd been wrong all those years. I didn't give up on piano because I wasn't Chris Blacker--
--I gave up on piano because I am not Claude Debussy.
It's formidible, this difference between being jealous of your best friend and in awe of the greatest composer who ever lived.
