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 7th 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.
