On picking up my viola again after 20 years, part 2. Guest post by Black Bear
So when we left this saga, my viola was sitting in the corner of my dining room, gathering dust. Things looked bleak–yet not quite bleak enough to finally admit defeat and take it over to the instrument shop for a re-sell. Then this spring, through an odd set of circumstances, I found myself in contact with my old music teacher Mr. S again. (Thank you, Facebook.) He mentioned that some years ago he’d started another volunteer orchestra—a combination of retirees and his students, current and former, much smaller than the Turners’ orchestra but out of much the same mold. I said, “I haven’t played in nearly 20 years.” He said, “Come anyway. Play the notes you like, skip the ones you don’t. We’re all volunteers, after all—just come and play.”
Well. Hmm. All right, I thought. I got my viola out and dusted it off; I went to get my old bow re-haired, discovered that I could get a reasonably decent new bow for the price of re-hairing the old one, and the guy at the music store pronounced my viola sound and in remarkably good shape considering the years of neglect. I decided to ease into it at first, so I went to my first practice to just get some music from Mr. S, intending to re-learn to read alto clef in the privacy of my home. I got there, not having seen the man in years, he glanced up from his conductor stand and said, “Hi, so where’s your viola?” I said, “I left it at home; I’ve got an awful cold, and I don’t remember how to read music, so I thought I’d just—”
He ignored me. Flat out ignored me, and tossed a folder of viola music onto a stand. “I’ll get you a viola,” he said. “I’ve got plenty.” Of course he did. The practice is in the band room at the school where he teaches now, and in under 30 seconds I found myself holding a smallish, well-used student viola* and bow while staring at the opening notes of Mozart’s Jupiter symphony. $#%@, I thought to myself. I have NO idea what these notes are. They might as well be French. Or Chinese. Or Cunieform. I grabbed Mr. S as he walked by on the way back to the conductor’s stand. “What’s that note?” I asked, pointing at the first one in the first measure. “B,” he said. “Second finger on the G string.” “Right,” I said, and thought to myself, if nothing else, I now know “B.” Everything else will follow. And amazingly enough, it kind of did! By the time we played a few concerts in June, my fingers had remembered the notes, even if my brain hadn’t, and I held up my end of the viola section (currently, the only end of the viola section) with gusto. One of the trombonists made a point of saying to me, “Sure is nice to hear a viola in there again!” Which I think was his way of saying, “Sure is nice to not have to play all those viola cues anymore.” But still, it was kind of him to say. It’s nice for me to hear a viola in there, too!
I was never a great violist, and I’m still not. I am a serviceable orchestral performer at best—but I’m doing exactly what I’d been saving that viola for. I’m playing some great music, with nice people who try hard and love what they’re doing. Most of them are decent musicians. A couple of them are kinda terrible. But we have fun, and we play concerts for folks at retirement homes—folks who are as happy to hear our music as we are to be playing it, and if we’re not perfect they don’t much care. Before we knocked off for a few weeks for the summer, Mr. S mentioned to me that a former student violist of his might be coming to join us in the fall. He asked if I might be willing to help her out a bit, because since graduating high school, she’s gone almost completely deaf due to a medical condition. “I told her she should come play anyway,” he said. “She’s nervous about how she’ll sound; but once she’s got some practice in, she’ll be able to feel if the notes are right. She loves music. So she’ll just need a little help at first, if you don’t mind.” No…. I don’t mind at all. I’ll just remind her right off the bat—play the notes you like. Skip the ones you don’t. And above all, love the music.
* * *
* It lacked a shoulder rest—in desperation I used my pocket pack of tissues to jack it up a bit, but since I still had a streaming cold my improvised shoulder rest kept getting smaller and smaller over the course of the hour. That’ll teach me to leave my viola at home.
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.