courting music

My relationship with music has always been slightly unrequited. Throughout my childhood I flirted with a multitude of instruments: violin, piano, guitar, ukulele. But I always gave up when the going got tough, when the practice became a drag or a chore or, most often, non-existent. I have strong memories of sitting in piano lessons waiting for the moment that Mrs Silvey would notice I hadn’t gone over what we’d done since last week as guilt lined the back of my aesophagus, running down into the pits of my insides.

I did love being able to play piano, however mediocre I was. Once I had learnt a piece, I would record myself playing. And then I’d play the 3 or 4 pieces I knew over and over and over and feel very please about my achievements. But my joy came from my success, and not from the process that got me there.

The same thing happened with guitar and ukulele, once I could play something I didn’t need to play anything else.

Then in clomped the tuba. The big, deep, tuba that I picked off a year 7 band application because if I put it as my first preference, I knew I’d get it, and the success of getting my first preference outweighed any actual interest I had in playing the instrument. It was kind of funny. Kind of quirky. Fun to say “I play the tuba.”

But I hated band in year 7. I hated it, and I’d never bring my music so I couldn’t play, and I hated it, and I’d sit in the back row and “forget” my mouth piece, and I hated it. Stupid big cold hunk of metal that sounds bad and smells worse.

You see, music didn’t love me back. It didn’t come to me in the depths of night and whisper harmonies in my ear, it didn’t hold my hand, or sing out to me in crowds. As someone who has always prided herself on getting things, I didn’t get music. It was hard. I wasn’t good. I couldn’t hear what everyone else could hear. Pitch, tone, rhythm – they were on the other side of the valley I gazed across, and I had myopia.

So, I said, I’m quitting, I’m out of here. Sorry Year 8 Concert Band, I’m not your girl.  

You know when you’re eating something and you’re at a good point - you’re feeling pretty satiated. You’re ready to stop, finish on a high. But there’s more left, so you just have one more serving…

I did that with band. After our year 7 band camp, which was a whole lot of fun, I sighed and told myself “Okay, maybe one more year.” And in truth – it was because I wanted to go on the next camp, which was worth enduring another year of this strained relationship of mine.

Then suddenly the world shifted and band burst onto the scene of year 8 as my favourite class. Before I knew it, it became one of those classes that I could go to in any mood and come out feeling strong and refreshed and ready to take on the world. Maybe it was the change in conductor, maybe it was the complexity of the pieces – or maybe it was that for the first time, despite my reluctance, I brought my music and mouthpiece and just tried my best.

For the next three years, my constant refrain was “I’m pretty terrible at it, but I just like being a part of an ensemble.” Which was half true. I wasn’t the best in the band by a long-shot, but I absolutely adored the feeling of making one piece of music with 70 other people. Praise be to the Debbie Maslings of the world who establish community bands that allow people like me to experience that ridiculous sense of collaborative fulfilment, without the pressure to be able to recite two octaves of a melodic G minor scales from memory.

I am now in my 7^th year of playing the tuba – which is a) something I never imagined and b) the longest I’ve consistently stuck with one instrument. And I’ve been surprising myself. Nowadays I don’t always fumble through a sight-reading completely lost on the rhythm of the piece. I can hear when I’m pitching wrong (most of the time).  I know when I’m in tone with the other tubas (I think). Slowly, very slowly, my brain is adapting to the music. My years of telling myself “Not perfect, but that’s fine!” and “Getting the song right isn’t even the main reason you’re here.” have resulted in a steady improvement in my playing that’s crept into my life like a spider into a boot.

Music has never loved me back, I will never be Mozart or Nat King Cole or Taylor Swift, but we are getting there. Because I still adore to be able to sit down and play something, and all the times of nearly and almost and my fingers just don't stretch that far, are worth the end product. 

More than that, music has reminded me you don’t need to stick to the things you're naturally good at. If you keep at anything long enough, you’ll get there. The trick is in the trying.

Let's Talk About March!

1. It's bizarre to come back to this spot, after more than two years of inactivity. I suppose my interest in the online world of blogging/vlogging diminished somewhat in the blur and bluster of years 11 and 12. I wouldn't even be here were it not for a lost battery charger for my camera - videos are my preferred domain for the odd occasion that inspiration strikes me and I wish to Document My Life. But alas, the camera is dead and the blog post is re-born!

2. I'm 4 months into my gap year and I'm very worried that when I look back at it I'm going to ask myself "what did I even do with all that time?" so I need to write it down for future reference.

3. I say 4 months, but I'm going to discount January and February as I consider those still my 'holiday months' in which I allowed myself to do nothing! Huzzah! That being said - I went to Bali!It was gorgeous, and now my mum's a little obsessed. Aren't we just classic Aussies? In Feb I also moved my room around, chucked many bags of things out, and cleaned and sorted (it's still an ongoing process - never complete!) Anyway, the month I really wanted to talk about was:

4. MARCH!

I'm 20 days into April now (when did that happen) but I really wanted to have a little word vom about the third month of this year. I definitely feel like it was the first hump I had to overcome in terms of making this year off school worthwhile. This is how I imagined my gap year last year:

"I want to work a lot and save loads of money and also do all sorts of cool creative projects and volunteer with cool things and do all the stuff I want to do but can't when school's on."

Yeah, really specific Indy. Good one. That's totally gonna be really achievable and easy to do. *rolls eyes at past self*.

March started off well, I went to Mardis Gras in Sydney with Patrick (brilliant),  saw a gorgeous play at the opera house, and then was headed back home for an audition for a play! Unfortunately I loaded the gun and aimed it at my foot by learning my monologue on the bus back, and as I dropped all (and I mean all) of my lines in front of the three panel members I could hear the gunshot ringing in the back of my mind. I began to walk with a limp - this was not how my gap year was meant to be going.

So basically I found myself in the midst of March, with 2/5 my friends working their butts off to go to Europe and 2/5 my friends still at school, and 1/5 at uni being stressed out of their minds doing their law degrees. And I was somewhere in the middle - celebrating my 4 year anniversary at McDonald's while working two other casual jobs, not at school, not travelling, not able to plan anything more than a week out because of rosters that aren't announced until the week before, and not doing all the cool and creative projects I'd promised myself.

One day in the shower as I was doing all my deep thinking and singing songs from Les Mis, I pronounced myself in a state of limbo - an awful purposeless void of failed auditions and greasy uniforms. I needed to shake things up - open up my life for something new.

Now, throughout this period of ugh what i am doing with my life I was madly applying for jobs. Many a cover letter was typed up late at night, hoping to secure something with regular part-time hours that I could make a priority in my life. I got one interview for one job that sounded pretty sweet - an admin role working 27 hours a week at an performing arts based non-profit organisation, located a 5 minute bike ride away from me. But it was a bit out of my experience range, and they'd advertised on Facebook so I was sure they'd be receiving lots of applications.

On the morning 29th March before I headed off to work at McDonald's, I bit the bullet and decided to book in to get my hair cut. A fringe had been on my mind for a while, and maybe it was time to make a change since nothing else was really working for me (I mean, I say that from a life of privilege. Not working for me in a white middle-class my life is already infinitely lucky sort of way. I shouldn't complain, but I was feeling pretty bummed.)

Literally as I was sitting in the chair for my haircut that afternoon – I kid you not, the timing was insane – I get a call from the man who interviewed me, they want me to start on Thursday if possible, I'd gotten the job! Chop went the hair, and the pain in my foot was gone.

Things started falling into place a bit more after that. I began filming a short film for a year 12 media project, I put my hand up to be a camera assistant on another film project (about zombies, hella cool), and I became committee secretary of my recently incorporated choir.

I'm sure I'll have more humps and struggles as the year goes on, but for now I'm feeling pretty awesome about life again. My job is fantastic, it's challenging and exciting and can make tea any time I want (I can't even believe how much I lucked out with that one). I'm motivated to make things, I sing all the time, I'm finding time for friends, my room is getting more and more organised (one drawer at a time!) and I've stopped eating meat. Life is busy again, but it's the kind of busy where I'm enthralled in all the things I do.

So, future me if and when you look back at this - the moral is: if you feel like you're a bit stuck, change one thing, and eventually others will follow.

Now, I have to go and quit McDonald's (ahh), wish me luck!