![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageI was thinking today about some of the experiences that formed me as a musician. They are actually relatively few, but their very rarity was a large part of their power.
The first happened when I was about six weeks shy of my eleventh birthday. I am very sure about that, because it was the day my grandfather died. After I had cried until I had no more tears, I went downstairs and played one piece over and over again. It was from the grade 4 Royal Conservatory book, and if I had the book in front of me I could turn to it; it was in list C, near the back. It was by Tchaikovosky. I could hum the melody right now.
I had been taking piano lessons for nearly three years at that point. It was the first time I had used music as an outlet for something I couldn't talk about. For years thereafter, I would go back and play that piece every time I thought of my grandfather. I doubt he ever heard me play it; in fact, I doubt he ever heard me play at all. That wasn't the point. For the first time, my feelings had fuelled my music, and music became a powerful force in my life.
The second time I really remember happened about four years later. We were living in Toronto by then, specifically in Don Mills. My brother and I took music lessons, piano for me, cornet for him, from a music teacher who belonged to the Salvation Army. Our teacher lived in what was then the outer reaches of Scarborough, at Finch and Morningside, in a brand-new subdivision. It was a good half-hour drive at the time of day when we were making the trip, though it was often shorter coming home.
My father has always been a classical music buff. For his birthday, which I think had just passed, those of us with a bit of money (read: myself, and two bucks each from each sibling) had bought him a quite decent Montreal Symphony recording of Tchaikovosky. Entirely by accident, we had managed to purchase a recording which, at the time, was the standard of comparison for those works. On that day, I remember it was pouring so hard that my dad was driving rather slower than usual. He popped into the car stereo the brand-new cassette of the fifth symphony. Most of it passed almost without notice, though I enjoyed it. I still love the waltz from that symphony, but the waltz was not the part that drew us in that night. It was the final movement, the march. Dad cranked the stereo, to the point where the noise of the rain was just a backdrop. The music filled that car in a way I've never been able to match. I think all three of us had the same reaction to it, and I think that if Tchaikovosky had been aware of our reaction just before he died, he would have passed on satisfied with his work in life. We were entranced. From that time on, I was able to stop whatever I was doing and play that march back in my head, note-perfect, the way I heard it that day. It was the true birth of my love of Tchaikovosky, who is still my favourite composer. Ever since, I have been trying to recapture the magic of that first experience. I've never been able to do it. And yet, fifteen years later, the power of that memory has me listening to Tchaikovosky every few weeks, with every atom in my soul.
The third time was when I was seventeen. I had temporarily left the Salvation Army, and was attending another church in Hamilton. This church had a youth choir called Unison, in which I sang mezzo soprano when there was one, and lead soprano when there wasn't. The choir only had 16 people in it. Every single one of them was capable of carrying a part on their own. The piece we were to sing in church that day was called "O Sifuni Mungu", a Swahili rendition of "All Creatures of Our God and King." At its widest point, there were ten parts. Ten parts, and sixteen singers. There were even two solos. Not only did we manage it, we sang it better than I have ever heard it sung. It flowed in a way music often doesn't in larger groups. We were so attuned to it, I doubt any of us looked at out music at all.
But it wasn't "O Sifuni Mungu" that was the deep musical experience of that day. No, that happened before the service, during the sound check. Philpott Memorial is a large church, and the sound system was nearly new at that time. We got there and assembled a bit late, after people had started to come in, and our leader decided we shouldn't do the sound check with the song we were actually going to sing. Someone, I think my ex-boyfriend (then my future boyfriend, Rodney, one of the basses), suggested we sing Amazing Grace instead. The leader played one chord on the piano, counted us in, and we sang. We sang in six-part, spontaneous harmony, four verses, in perfect tune when we started and when we ended. I took a descant line that I'd learned somewhere, the other two sopranos took the melody, and everyone else found a note somewhere in the middle. By the time we got to the fourth verse, people had come in from the foyer to listen. When we finished, there was not a single sound in that sanctuary. It was a good ten seconds before someone coughed and broke the spell. It was one of the deeper religious experiences of my life, as well as a deep musical one.
Those three experiences have formed everything I love about music. There have been other powerful ones, and thousands of mundane interactions between me and my aural world, but those three have been the backdrop and benchmarks for all the others.
The first happened when I was about six weeks shy of my eleventh birthday. I am very sure about that, because it was the day my grandfather died. After I had cried until I had no more tears, I went downstairs and played one piece over and over again. It was from the grade 4 Royal Conservatory book, and if I had the book in front of me I could turn to it; it was in list C, near the back. It was by Tchaikovosky. I could hum the melody right now.
I had been taking piano lessons for nearly three years at that point. It was the first time I had used music as an outlet for something I couldn't talk about. For years thereafter, I would go back and play that piece every time I thought of my grandfather. I doubt he ever heard me play it; in fact, I doubt he ever heard me play at all. That wasn't the point. For the first time, my feelings had fuelled my music, and music became a powerful force in my life.
The second time I really remember happened about four years later. We were living in Toronto by then, specifically in Don Mills. My brother and I took music lessons, piano for me, cornet for him, from a music teacher who belonged to the Salvation Army. Our teacher lived in what was then the outer reaches of Scarborough, at Finch and Morningside, in a brand-new subdivision. It was a good half-hour drive at the time of day when we were making the trip, though it was often shorter coming home.
My father has always been a classical music buff. For his birthday, which I think had just passed, those of us with a bit of money (read: myself, and two bucks each from each sibling) had bought him a quite decent Montreal Symphony recording of Tchaikovosky. Entirely by accident, we had managed to purchase a recording which, at the time, was the standard of comparison for those works. On that day, I remember it was pouring so hard that my dad was driving rather slower than usual. He popped into the car stereo the brand-new cassette of the fifth symphony. Most of it passed almost without notice, though I enjoyed it. I still love the waltz from that symphony, but the waltz was not the part that drew us in that night. It was the final movement, the march. Dad cranked the stereo, to the point where the noise of the rain was just a backdrop. The music filled that car in a way I've never been able to match. I think all three of us had the same reaction to it, and I think that if Tchaikovosky had been aware of our reaction just before he died, he would have passed on satisfied with his work in life. We were entranced. From that time on, I was able to stop whatever I was doing and play that march back in my head, note-perfect, the way I heard it that day. It was the true birth of my love of Tchaikovosky, who is still my favourite composer. Ever since, I have been trying to recapture the magic of that first experience. I've never been able to do it. And yet, fifteen years later, the power of that memory has me listening to Tchaikovosky every few weeks, with every atom in my soul.
The third time was when I was seventeen. I had temporarily left the Salvation Army, and was attending another church in Hamilton. This church had a youth choir called Unison, in which I sang mezzo soprano when there was one, and lead soprano when there wasn't. The choir only had 16 people in it. Every single one of them was capable of carrying a part on their own. The piece we were to sing in church that day was called "O Sifuni Mungu", a Swahili rendition of "All Creatures of Our God and King." At its widest point, there were ten parts. Ten parts, and sixteen singers. There were even two solos. Not only did we manage it, we sang it better than I have ever heard it sung. It flowed in a way music often doesn't in larger groups. We were so attuned to it, I doubt any of us looked at out music at all.
But it wasn't "O Sifuni Mungu" that was the deep musical experience of that day. No, that happened before the service, during the sound check. Philpott Memorial is a large church, and the sound system was nearly new at that time. We got there and assembled a bit late, after people had started to come in, and our leader decided we shouldn't do the sound check with the song we were actually going to sing. Someone, I think my ex-boyfriend (then my future boyfriend, Rodney, one of the basses), suggested we sing Amazing Grace instead. The leader played one chord on the piano, counted us in, and we sang. We sang in six-part, spontaneous harmony, four verses, in perfect tune when we started and when we ended. I took a descant line that I'd learned somewhere, the other two sopranos took the melody, and everyone else found a note somewhere in the middle. By the time we got to the fourth verse, people had come in from the foyer to listen. When we finished, there was not a single sound in that sanctuary. It was a good ten seconds before someone coughed and broke the spell. It was one of the deeper religious experiences of my life, as well as a deep musical one.
Those three experiences have formed everything I love about music. There have been other powerful ones, and thousands of mundane interactions between me and my aural world, but those three have been the backdrop and benchmarks for all the others.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-11 09:01 am (UTC)I think I'm gonna skip Profiler this morning.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-11 08:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-12 06:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-11 04:10 pm (UTC)