I keep forgetting I was recently tagged by Ashish. I am rarely tagged, my blog is more like a journal of sorts and hides in the backwaters of the blogging world with an occasional random reader, so I am not too aware of tagging protocol.
I suppose it calls for me to list six of the weirdest things about me. That's a tough one! Only six? That is oh-so limiting! Here's an attempt then:
1. I firmly believe approximate is good enough and I routinely ignore the devil that lies in details.
2. I can wiggle my ears.
3. I am delicious mosquito food.
4. I can sing songs backwards.
5. I'd rather eat my hat (if I owned one) than go to a party of any kind.
6. My brain doesn't work sometimes...like when I got entangled with a blind man's stick instead of anticipating the range of his long stick and skirting around it. I suppose I thought the stick would sense me and the blind man would go around. Well that's what happened...his stick found me!
And I suppose now I am supposed to tag 6 (?) people and tell them they've been tagged? Ok, so I think I'll tag Ranjini, Jyotsna, Ratna, Richa, Smita and Sruthi. Forgive me ladies!
Pragya
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
How Is It Possible?
I sat at the piano keyboard this morning practicing the notes of Raag Bilawal, the first raag that my Indian classical teacher taught me since I started the lessons two weeks ago. I practiced the notes on the piano keyboard and the violin, making every attempt to make it sound pleasing to the ear. But there was only so much of it I could do. I wanted to see if I could try some things on my own.
The song from Shor - इक प्यार का नगमा है - was playing in my head so I decided to try and see if I could figure out how to play it on the piano and I could!! And I still don't understand how I was able to, with such ease and with no prior knowledge. I am amazed and in a strange state of excitement. Child's play to many but it's like learning to walk, or read, or write, for me! I see how excited my daughter gets when she can read a difficult word or spell it unassisted. My level of excitement is comparable. I couldn't have imagined being able to do something like this a couple of weeks ago!
Last week I was able to piece together all the notes to the Do-Re-Mi song from Sound of Music
Although it is easier there, it is more like filling in the blanks.
Makes me wonder what's next and if my teachers can lend some direction to my unstructured experimentation.
Just the other day I was conversing with a friend and telling him how lonely this state is. I don't have anyone around me who can share my excitement or be proud of my achievements (such as they are). Most people my age will wonder at what would seem to be a madness of sorts because they will see it as a futile exercise with no results waiting at the end of the journey. But it isn't a results-oriented exercise for me, it is simply fulfilling and satisfying in a way that nothing else has ever been. But one can't explain that to anyone or hope to meet someone who understands what I am talking about.
Then again, why worry about that? Most of our quests are lonely ones.
The song from Shor - इक प्यार का नगमा है - was playing in my head so I decided to try and see if I could figure out how to play it on the piano and I could!! And I still don't understand how I was able to, with such ease and with no prior knowledge. I am amazed and in a strange state of excitement. Child's play to many but it's like learning to walk, or read, or write, for me! I see how excited my daughter gets when she can read a difficult word or spell it unassisted. My level of excitement is comparable. I couldn't have imagined being able to do something like this a couple of weeks ago!
Last week I was able to piece together all the notes to the Do-Re-Mi song from Sound of Music
Although it is easier there, it is more like filling in the blanks.
Makes me wonder what's next and if my teachers can lend some direction to my unstructured experimentation.
Just the other day I was conversing with a friend and telling him how lonely this state is. I don't have anyone around me who can share my excitement or be proud of my achievements (such as they are). Most people my age will wonder at what would seem to be a madness of sorts because they will see it as a futile exercise with no results waiting at the end of the journey. But it isn't a results-oriented exercise for me, it is simply fulfilling and satisfying in a way that nothing else has ever been. But one can't explain that to anyone or hope to meet someone who understands what I am talking about.
Then again, why worry about that? Most of our quests are lonely ones.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Humming Bourrée
The title of this post has nothing to do with what I am going to write here today. I am just humming bourrée because it is an irresistible tune. I thought it was Jethro Tull's and what a surprise...it was originally Bach's.
Must keep slashing at the musical cobwebs.
Speaking of Bach...it has been a year since I read this passage in Daniel Mason's book Piano Tuner.
The piece began low, in the bass strings, and as it increased in complexity, soprano voices entered, and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard, I am like the puppets moving on their stage in Mandalay. More confident now, he played and the song slowed, and when at last he finished he had almost forgotten that others were watching.
….And so he began again, now D major, now D minor, and forward through each scale, moving up, each tune a variation on its beginnings, structure giving rise to possibilities. He played into the remoter scales, as his old master had called them, and Edgar thought how fitting a name this was for a piece played into the night of the jungle.
That book had moved me beyond words and so had this passage within the book. My knowledge of music was even more rudimentary a year ago than it is now; if one can imagine such a lack of knowledge possible. But this passage where the protagonist is playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in the jungles of Burma was appealing for some strange reasons.
Soon after reading this book I remember investing in an iPod and the first thing I downloaded to it was Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Since then I have listened to it with some regularity and have even been humming some of it (even though this work is often criticized for being a technical masterpiece with zero hummability). But humming it doesn't mean one understands what is going on.
A year ago the only thing I knew about music was the Indian solfege. I didn't understand the configuration of the keys of the piano keyboard and had no idea what anyone meant when they said C major or D major and so on. It was dark and impenetrable terrain. Now there appears to be a tiny clearing in the woods. I know about scales and octaves and major and minor scales, I can attempt them on the piano keyboard and the violin and the Well-Tempered Clavier is as clear as clear can be! I usually let it stream into my ears through the iPod and never know which one's playing and today, for the first time I noticed it started with C Major moved on to C Sharp Major then C Sharp Minor and I could predict that the next one would be D Major!! I was beyond thrilled at the realization! I stumbled a bit when where the D sharp major was supposed to be next but the title said "E flat major" but the stumble wasn't long-lived as soon as I remembered that D sharp and E flat were one and the same.
Now I know what Daniel Mason was referring to in the passage above when he said, "...and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard..."
Now I wonder why I didn't start exploring music sooner...maybe there is a time for everything. Even though all conventional wisdom suggests five is the right age to start exploring music.
When I read Daniel Mason's book any interest in music was still over a year away. But now that I usually have a violin in my hand at least for a half hour every evening, all my bookstore adventures lead me to books on the violin.
The first such book I read was Eugene Drucker's - The Savior. Eugene Drucker is a violinist of renown but The Savior is his debut novel and an amazing one at that. One feels no compassion or sympathy for the protagonist here. His every action, leading up to the primary events of the novel, and as shown through reflective recollections, are laced with deep-seated cowardice in the face of evil. One wonders if he will ever act with conviction. But he is also an accomplished violinist, one who is conscripted for service within a concentration camp to be a part of a cold-blooded experiment...something akin to a predator playing with the prey before administering the lethal blow. As any retelling of the holocaust the inhumanity leaves one stunned and speechless, but the novel takes this one step further by showing how even something like music could be perverted.
Drucker uses the following Shakespearean lines from Richard II, Act 5, Scene 5 as an epigraph to set the tone for his work:
How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
Saying anymore about the novel would make this a spoiler, so I won't.
But the reflections and associations that the novel sparked in me left me staggered with the realization that if one had music in ones life then one would need very little else to get by. There would be no moments of indescribable loneliness, no depression, no desire to seek any other forms of distraction. We would move onward from "Aum" and strive for every fractional representation of that one sound and its various combinations and representations as notes swirled and came together, rich with meaning.
Must keep slashing at the musical cobwebs.
Speaking of Bach...it has been a year since I read this passage in Daniel Mason's book Piano Tuner.
The piece began low, in the bass strings, and as it increased in complexity, soprano voices entered, and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard, I am like the puppets moving on their stage in Mandalay. More confident now, he played and the song slowed, and when at last he finished he had almost forgotten that others were watching.
….And so he began again, now D major, now D minor, and forward through each scale, moving up, each tune a variation on its beginnings, structure giving rise to possibilities. He played into the remoter scales, as his old master had called them, and Edgar thought how fitting a name this was for a piece played into the night of the jungle.
That book had moved me beyond words and so had this passage within the book. My knowledge of music was even more rudimentary a year ago than it is now; if one can imagine such a lack of knowledge possible. But this passage where the protagonist is playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in the jungles of Burma was appealing for some strange reasons.
Soon after reading this book I remember investing in an iPod and the first thing I downloaded to it was Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Since then I have listened to it with some regularity and have even been humming some of it (even though this work is often criticized for being a technical masterpiece with zero hummability). But humming it doesn't mean one understands what is going on.
A year ago the only thing I knew about music was the Indian solfege. I didn't understand the configuration of the keys of the piano keyboard and had no idea what anyone meant when they said C major or D major and so on. It was dark and impenetrable terrain. Now there appears to be a tiny clearing in the woods. I know about scales and octaves and major and minor scales, I can attempt them on the piano keyboard and the violin and the Well-Tempered Clavier is as clear as clear can be! I usually let it stream into my ears through the iPod and never know which one's playing and today, for the first time I noticed it started with C Major moved on to C Sharp Major then C Sharp Minor and I could predict that the next one would be D Major!! I was beyond thrilled at the realization! I stumbled a bit when where the D sharp major was supposed to be next but the title said "E flat major" but the stumble wasn't long-lived as soon as I remembered that D sharp and E flat were one and the same.
Now I know what Daniel Mason was referring to in the passage above when he said, "...and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard..."
Now I wonder why I didn't start exploring music sooner...maybe there is a time for everything. Even though all conventional wisdom suggests five is the right age to start exploring music.
When I read Daniel Mason's book any interest in music was still over a year away. But now that I usually have a violin in my hand at least for a half hour every evening, all my bookstore adventures lead me to books on the violin.
The first such book I read was Eugene Drucker's - The Savior. Eugene Drucker is a violinist of renown but The Savior is his debut novel and an amazing one at that. One feels no compassion or sympathy for the protagonist here. His every action, leading up to the primary events of the novel, and as shown through reflective recollections, are laced with deep-seated cowardice in the face of evil. One wonders if he will ever act with conviction. But he is also an accomplished violinist, one who is conscripted for service within a concentration camp to be a part of a cold-blooded experiment...something akin to a predator playing with the prey before administering the lethal blow. As any retelling of the holocaust the inhumanity leaves one stunned and speechless, but the novel takes this one step further by showing how even something like music could be perverted.
Drucker uses the following Shakespearean lines from Richard II, Act 5, Scene 5 as an epigraph to set the tone for his work:
How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
Saying anymore about the novel would make this a spoiler, so I won't.
But the reflections and associations that the novel sparked in me left me staggered with the realization that if one had music in ones life then one would need very little else to get by. There would be no moments of indescribable loneliness, no depression, no desire to seek any other forms of distraction. We would move onward from "Aum" and strive for every fractional representation of that one sound and its various combinations and representations as notes swirled and came together, rich with meaning.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Sound of Creaking Bones in C Minor
Today was my eighth violin lesson. A session that made me forget all my woes from the previous week – the brutal relentlessness of work pressures, the maniacal working habits with results or resolutions nowhere in sight and a rather severe allergic reaction to stress. My fellow student wasn’t with me, summer vacations and grandparental pampering having proven too tempting; the temptation outweighing any interest in producing music.
So I was soldiering on alone.
When I chose this title for the piece it was a random decision, reflecting a certain fascination with the alliterative element. Little did I know it was more appropriate than I imagined; for if bones were to creak as a sad old person sawed away at a violin then it is quite plausible someone could be inspired to compose a musical tribute to this brave soul written in a minor scale!
Funereal music, sadness, depression, wistfulness are all emotional elements for which the minor scale in various keys is the scale of choice: just sharing another little tidbit to further underscore my musical illiteracy and my complete fascination with the things I am learning that I never knew before. I can’t resist documenting my sense of awe even as I picture anyone who stops by to read what I’ve written rolling their wise eyes and saying, “Oh brother, what a nitwit!”
I wasn’t very comfortable at my last violin lesson. The first eight lessons had gone well as I learnt:
The names of each string
How to hold the violin
How to bow
How to tune a violin
How to play a scale
How to play – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play – Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
These are the things that the teacher taught me and my daughter. I did some playing around with the instrument myself and I was able to figure out how to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb and got up to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star…how I wonder what you are. My excitement knew no bounds when I realized I had just completed the song without being taught how to.
I have been trying to supplement my classroom learning with readings and practice sessions of my own where I regularly try to go beyond what I have been taught (I wonder why I never thought of doing this during my student days with things like Physics or Chemistry or Sanskrit for that matter!!)
So, getting back to the last class, I mentioned being uncomfortable. It was as if I had hit a solid wall, an insurmountable mental block. I had taught myself the rudiments of reading music. So when the teacher asked me to open up to the song “Lightly Row” in Anoushka’s Suzuki Violin Book 1 and he started explaining what the ‘#’ sign on a staff meant I thought I would do well with it.
‘#’ means that the key it appears on is played sharp. I could read the staff and tell that the C and F notes were to be played sharp, however I had no idea what string and what finger placement on the violin produced C Sharp! I kept asking my teacher but I felt as if I wasn't clearly stating my concerns, as if he just couldn’t understand my question. I was more than distressed.
I kept practicing at home, starting with the G major scale and then repeating the finger placements on each string. I mistakenly believed that the G that was actually an octave higher was perhaps G Sharp… I had no one to correct me, quite the musical moron.
But these doubts vanished in today’s class and were replaced by ecstasy mingled with fright. I now know that while the piano can get a sharp or flat note by striking an adjacent black key, the violin achieves that effect by playing a natural note higher or lower; by sliding the finger slightly higher or lower than the natural note - altering the pitch very slightly. The ecstasy then, is about understanding the concept, the fright and utter stupefaction comes from contemplating the enormity of this insight. If a piece of music calls for a C sharp how will I ever know where the sharp is and how it’s supposed to sound until I can get the C natural finger position worked out?? The teacher assures me that it will come with ease soon. I say to myself, “Yeah right!”
I learnt how to play the scale in two octaves. I had learnt how to do this on my own but the thing I had been doing now had a name. He also had me practice the G major, D major and C major scales.
I don’t have the words to describe the thrill of learning just a tiny little bit more at each class. The thrill remains even as I realize how roughly cobbled together each new bit of musical learning is in my brain; how it’s coming together - but not seamlessly. Each fresh insight seems brilliant in itself like points of light flashing without any recognizable pattern. I wonder if things will ever really come together for me or if I’ll ever develop any kind of musical intuition but if I don’t it won’t be for lack of trying.
Perhaps it will come with a relaxed stance, a stance that isn’t reminiscent of rigor-mortis-violin-in-hand-warmed-over. My teacher commented on my tense face, pursed lips, a claw like grip on the bow and a short range of motion in the last class. He wanted to know why I was so tense! Is there any way for old bones to not be tense while thinking through the notes that need to be played and where each finger needs to be? It might be a little like walking and chewing gum at the same time and many of us have trouble with that little bit of coordination!
But in today’s class I was complimented on a marked improvement in my stance, my bowing and the development of some ease. Perhaps there’s hope for my creaking bones yet. If the slight improvements and minor adjustments in fingering, bowing and intuitive leaps continue unchecked perhaps the next piece will be about the Gleeful Gliding of the Bow in G Major.
So I was soldiering on alone.
When I chose this title for the piece it was a random decision, reflecting a certain fascination with the alliterative element. Little did I know it was more appropriate than I imagined; for if bones were to creak as a sad old person sawed away at a violin then it is quite plausible someone could be inspired to compose a musical tribute to this brave soul written in a minor scale!
Funereal music, sadness, depression, wistfulness are all emotional elements for which the minor scale in various keys is the scale of choice: just sharing another little tidbit to further underscore my musical illiteracy and my complete fascination with the things I am learning that I never knew before. I can’t resist documenting my sense of awe even as I picture anyone who stops by to read what I’ve written rolling their wise eyes and saying, “Oh brother, what a nitwit!”
I wasn’t very comfortable at my last violin lesson. The first eight lessons had gone well as I learnt:
The names of each string
How to hold the violin
How to bow
How to tune a violin
How to play a scale
How to play – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play – Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
These are the things that the teacher taught me and my daughter. I did some playing around with the instrument myself and I was able to figure out how to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb and got up to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star…how I wonder what you are. My excitement knew no bounds when I realized I had just completed the song without being taught how to.
I have been trying to supplement my classroom learning with readings and practice sessions of my own where I regularly try to go beyond what I have been taught (I wonder why I never thought of doing this during my student days with things like Physics or Chemistry or Sanskrit for that matter!!)
So, getting back to the last class, I mentioned being uncomfortable. It was as if I had hit a solid wall, an insurmountable mental block. I had taught myself the rudiments of reading music. So when the teacher asked me to open up to the song “Lightly Row” in Anoushka’s Suzuki Violin Book 1 and he started explaining what the ‘#’ sign on a staff meant I thought I would do well with it.
‘#’ means that the key it appears on is played sharp. I could read the staff and tell that the C and F notes were to be played sharp, however I had no idea what string and what finger placement on the violin produced C Sharp! I kept asking my teacher but I felt as if I wasn't clearly stating my concerns, as if he just couldn’t understand my question. I was more than distressed.
I kept practicing at home, starting with the G major scale and then repeating the finger placements on each string. I mistakenly believed that the G that was actually an octave higher was perhaps G Sharp… I had no one to correct me, quite the musical moron.
But these doubts vanished in today’s class and were replaced by ecstasy mingled with fright. I now know that while the piano can get a sharp or flat note by striking an adjacent black key, the violin achieves that effect by playing a natural note higher or lower; by sliding the finger slightly higher or lower than the natural note - altering the pitch very slightly. The ecstasy then, is about understanding the concept, the fright and utter stupefaction comes from contemplating the enormity of this insight. If a piece of music calls for a C sharp how will I ever know where the sharp is and how it’s supposed to sound until I can get the C natural finger position worked out?? The teacher assures me that it will come with ease soon. I say to myself, “Yeah right!”
I learnt how to play the scale in two octaves. I had learnt how to do this on my own but the thing I had been doing now had a name. He also had me practice the G major, D major and C major scales.
I don’t have the words to describe the thrill of learning just a tiny little bit more at each class. The thrill remains even as I realize how roughly cobbled together each new bit of musical learning is in my brain; how it’s coming together - but not seamlessly. Each fresh insight seems brilliant in itself like points of light flashing without any recognizable pattern. I wonder if things will ever really come together for me or if I’ll ever develop any kind of musical intuition but if I don’t it won’t be for lack of trying.
Perhaps it will come with a relaxed stance, a stance that isn’t reminiscent of rigor-mortis-violin-in-hand-warmed-over. My teacher commented on my tense face, pursed lips, a claw like grip on the bow and a short range of motion in the last class. He wanted to know why I was so tense! Is there any way for old bones to not be tense while thinking through the notes that need to be played and where each finger needs to be? It might be a little like walking and chewing gum at the same time and many of us have trouble with that little bit of coordination!
But in today’s class I was complimented on a marked improvement in my stance, my bowing and the development of some ease. Perhaps there’s hope for my creaking bones yet. If the slight improvements and minor adjustments in fingering, bowing and intuitive leaps continue unchecked perhaps the next piece will be about the Gleeful Gliding of the Bow in G Major.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Coming Up for Air
Last week I worked like a maniac. I have never spent so many hours on the job. I was working round the clock and every milestone I thought I achieved ended up being a mirage, an illusion. The powers that be changed their minds constantly and the work I was doing appeared to possess a built in obsolescence. I didn’t see how I would ever get ahead and I was seriously questioning my decisions and the choices that have led me here.
Reading this, one might notice the past tense. My near and dear ones, those who are sympathetic to me or have missed me while I had my head buried in the sand would be relieved at the use of the past tense in this writing. But it’s the optimist in me that has chosen to relate it in this manner.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I am trying hard to believe it won’t be more of the same. I am hoping a prickly sensation won’t spread underneath my skin at the sound of a word like “scenario”. I have to tell myself it is just work, nothing more, nothing less and it shouldn’t under any circumstances suck the joy out of life…like a dementor!
Monday, June 25, 2007
Before The Fiddlers Have Fled...1
A friend insists that my pursuit of musical literacy is an experience worth documenting, so here’s the beginning of a documentary.
My daughter, who is five, can carry a tune and shows an avid interest in music. Five is the right age to start musical training, I hear. So when a friend does an Internet search for a violin teacher in my neighborhood and finds me a number to call, after tolerating my whining about how far I live from anywhere and how impossible it is for me to sign my daughter up for any extracurricular activities, I am left with no excuse but to call up said teacher. I do want her to acquire the musical literacy that I have always craved.
Except, as I am discussing her lessons with her teacher, something makes me inquire if the teacher will take me on as well, my question is couched within a nervous giggle and an intention of sounding as if I was only joking. In reality, although I doubt I knew it myself, I was dead serious. The teacher assured me that it was possible to learn at any age while the cynic within taunted with a quip that a tutor’s optimism is perhaps directly proportional to the promise of income.
The next step was the renting of violins, the short and sweet one required the tiniest violin I’ve ever seen – an eighth size. This is the only size that allowed her to touch the scroll of the violin with a ninety degree bend in her elbow. The taller musical troglodyte required a full size violin.
The mother and daughter duo have now been taking lessons for six weeks. We have learnt to play a scale and the nursery rhyme – Mary Had a Little Lamb. We practice the tune religiously at home. Thank God for our remoteness and unshared walls with neighbors; although we are probably sending many a deer from the woods all around us scampering away to their doom.
When I am done with my daily chores for the evening, and have finished practicing what little I know of violin playing so far - the one nursery rhyme - and when it is time to get online again, I check message boards and hunt and peck on the keyboard till the early morning hours, trying to find some assurance that it is indeed possible for a creaky jointed person to learn to play an instrument that needs the dedication of a lifetime. No such assurances are forthcoming. There are concerned eighteen year olds on these message boards, imploring, asking if they can hope to be respectable violin players one day. They are bluntly told that they have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being any good. One is up against people who picked up the instrument when they were barely out of diapers! How is it possible to hold ones own against someone who has been doing it since they were in kindergarten? “Holding one’s own” should really be the last thing on the mind of an old person trying to learn. The wizened ones need to be doing it for the love of music alone!
So there appears to be some hope for my kindergartener and I need to tell myself that it should all be about her now; that I need to stop feeding the hungry monster that keeps pushing me towards a quixotic quest for “I-don’t-know-what”. I need to find indescribable joy in teaching, guiding and shaping a young person who can face the world with knowledge that I didn’t possess. Anyway, that is what should be happening. But it isn’t. It helps to have an “upper limit” – something to “tend to” as one learnt in Calculus. Doesn’t mean it is going to happen. Instead it seems like I have found the entrance to a cave of treasures similar to the one Ali Baba found.
In the past few weeks I have hungrily scoured every musical resource on the net, every book I could lay my hands on and tapped every person who possesses the tiniest bit of musical knowledge to help me feel less lost in the world of flats and sharps and majors and minors.
My five year old goes around saying. “Mommy, I think I know how to spell ‘STOP’ as we stop the car at a stop sign, she can also read ‘NO TURNS’ or ‘EXIT’ or ‘DEER CROSSING’ or almost anything that she can sound out phonetically and register sense. I feel like I am musically at the same level as she is with her alphabets…I can be found exclaiming, “Hey that curly sign that looks like and ampersand is a treble clef!” I now know the differences between the black and white keys on a piano and am developing a vague understanding of pitches and octaves, of equal temperament and just intonation, of the circle of fifths which anti-clockwise is also a circle of fourths.
I am thrilled that I can read music now; that is if I stare at a staff for 15 – 20 minutes while feeling the onset of a headache and red-rimmed eyes, but I can do it! It was a mysteriously alien thing just two weeks ago and now it’s getting demystified.
Whether my ear will ever learn to follow along trippingly and transcribe what I learn to the strings of the violin remains to be seen. The hope is that the different pieces of the musical jigsaw will come together someday and culminate in an “aha” moment of sorts. After all if one sets out on a path it is bound to lead somewhere. How my friend’s bow seemed to magically hover over the strings, producing the most delicate of notes and how our violin teacher’s hands move so swiftly over the strings remains something from the realm of fantasy, a mystery that seems so out of reach. A mystery that I am sure my fellow student will have better luck resolving if I can do my job of sustaining her interest.
In the meantime I’ll keep plodding away at torturing some form of consonant notes out of my instrument while taking baby steps toward the all important CORRECT note - the one that seems to be so conspicuously lacking from nearly all aspects of life; the one exception being the one she uses when she calls out my name and asks me if it time for us to practice what we’ve learnt.
I wonder what makes me think of her luscious tones as ‘plummy’. Have I ever heard a sound described that way or is it my own invention? I am not sure. We collect impressions and sometimes it’s difficult to tell acquired thoughts apart from original ones…but when she calls out my name I picture a round, juicy plum and I sense richness…it’s as if I can hear, taste and see the rich outlines and hues of all her words. When she calls it seems like the only correct note I recognize is the sound of her voice. It travels through my inner reaches and hits the spot where it can give me utmost satisfaction.
Perhaps one day we’ll both come close to producing a similar note from our instruments, or perhaps we already have.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
A Dream!
A dream! Finally a dream I remember!
There are familiar characters - like my very sweet,very cloyingly insistent and driven boss. She has a chart with her that needs to be diligently maintained. The maintenance of this chart, which seems to be nothing more than a recording of the daily sunset and sunrise timings, is to be our highest priority for the upcoming weeks. It has to be updated and analyzed at all costs.
I remember offering a slight resistance and expressing some barely concealed annoyance at the idea. I'm telling her how difficult it is to actually be awake at the precise moment of sunrise. I ask her if she really expects me to be awake and ready with pen, paper and clock to observe the break of dawn and she answers in the affirmative.
I switch to my ‘reasonable’ mode and tell her that it wouldn’t be that difficult to record the precise time of sunset but that she needs to bring in some other experts or consultants to do the recording of the sunrise.
I even comment on how unreasonable the whole project is and she answers by saying she has something to share with me. She then tells me that the company is planning a softball event in which participation is mandatory. She says she has been assigned the task of picking the team and ensuring practice sessions. Therefore, she says, it becomes important to keep track of exactly how many hours of daylight we have in which to work effectively.
I react by saying, “Wow! Ok! That makes complete sense! I get it now!” She reacts by looking pleased and telling me how she always wants me to express myself freely so that she can share things with me so I don’t get a sense of being left floundering in the dark.
I tell her then that since we were talking freely she would need to know that I have never been good at baseball or softball and that she shouldn’t have high expectations. She looks surprised and asks me why I think I can’t play well. I tell her about my school where students were required to play baseball, starting with Grade 5. I remember being told to hit the ball with a bat that wasn’t flat like a cricket bat! I didn’t see how it was possible. And that I could never connect ball with bat. She reassures me that I would do fine.
My dream takes me home then as I ponder the problem of the recording of dawn, now that I know what it’s for. The problem keeps me awake half the night (yes, I seem to be an insomniac even in my dreams!) and then I have a “Eureka” moment where I decide that it’s really so easy, that there is no problem at all: there are a million sites on the web that offer us sunrise and sunset timings. I kick myself for not thinking of it sooner.
I fall asleep in the dream then as I wake up in the real world, relieved that there isn’t such a project afoot.
Not only did I dream but I was actually blessed with one whose precedents are so easy to trace back to two things: JJ’s poem “Discourse” and recent interactions with the boss!
Or are they really? Is something else going on that isn't so obvious?
There are familiar characters - like my very sweet,very cloyingly insistent and driven boss. She has a chart with her that needs to be diligently maintained. The maintenance of this chart, which seems to be nothing more than a recording of the daily sunset and sunrise timings, is to be our highest priority for the upcoming weeks. It has to be updated and analyzed at all costs.
I remember offering a slight resistance and expressing some barely concealed annoyance at the idea. I'm telling her how difficult it is to actually be awake at the precise moment of sunrise. I ask her if she really expects me to be awake and ready with pen, paper and clock to observe the break of dawn and she answers in the affirmative.
I switch to my ‘reasonable’ mode and tell her that it wouldn’t be that difficult to record the precise time of sunset but that she needs to bring in some other experts or consultants to do the recording of the sunrise.
I even comment on how unreasonable the whole project is and she answers by saying she has something to share with me. She then tells me that the company is planning a softball event in which participation is mandatory. She says she has been assigned the task of picking the team and ensuring practice sessions. Therefore, she says, it becomes important to keep track of exactly how many hours of daylight we have in which to work effectively.
I react by saying, “Wow! Ok! That makes complete sense! I get it now!” She reacts by looking pleased and telling me how she always wants me to express myself freely so that she can share things with me so I don’t get a sense of being left floundering in the dark.
I tell her then that since we were talking freely she would need to know that I have never been good at baseball or softball and that she shouldn’t have high expectations. She looks surprised and asks me why I think I can’t play well. I tell her about my school where students were required to play baseball, starting with Grade 5. I remember being told to hit the ball with a bat that wasn’t flat like a cricket bat! I didn’t see how it was possible. And that I could never connect ball with bat. She reassures me that I would do fine.
My dream takes me home then as I ponder the problem of the recording of dawn, now that I know what it’s for. The problem keeps me awake half the night (yes, I seem to be an insomniac even in my dreams!) and then I have a “Eureka” moment where I decide that it’s really so easy, that there is no problem at all: there are a million sites on the web that offer us sunrise and sunset timings. I kick myself for not thinking of it sooner.
I fall asleep in the dream then as I wake up in the real world, relieved that there isn’t such a project afoot.
Not only did I dream but I was actually blessed with one whose precedents are so easy to trace back to two things: JJ’s poem “Discourse” and recent interactions with the boss!
Or are they really? Is something else going on that isn't so obvious?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)