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.