Music and Fear: you'd think there's no connection, unless you happen to study at a conservatory. Beauty of sound? love of music? care for expression? submergence of self in the art? instead, try daunting competition, relentless reminders about the "need" for perfection, and constant looming shadows of judgment, whether from within the school or from the professional world awaiting us outside.

When I was in music school, the jolt of fear surprised me at my first jury. Shaking hands impeded shifting and control of intonation on the violin. Afterwards, I was counselled to leave the department. But I persisted, and eventually emerged, five years later (I had to work my way through school and I had a double major, "just in case") as one of only two students in my year to win an audition. See? I can't help myself, even now; I must tell you how I won my way to the coveted pinnacle of all our music-school struggles, the Professional Career. So I'll add two caveats, in order of importance: my professional career resulted from a change in my playing brought about by a response from God to a prayer I uttered in my fourth year of study. And after several years of my professional career, I fell victim to my own fears and poor judgment, tried to quit music, and only after a great deal of pain and failure, returned to musical life. Every so often I rehearse these details to myself, hoping to avoid any similar mistake in my thinking.

The prevalent egotism fostered in students by the violin department at my music school didn't help: your identity was comprised of your performance. You're only as good as your latest performance, we were told. Sneering mention was made of those graduates who ended up "working for Sears Roebuck". If you failed, it was because you were lacking, as a person. Ingesting this atmosphere, I fell prey to fear. I forgot my love of the art, and I forgot to submerge myself in it, forgot to focus on the music instead of on my self, my fears, my technique, my teachers and fellow students. My hands shook, and all my technique went out the window, or wherever technique goes for a fright-stricken violinist.

A compassionate teacher told me about Inderal and Valium. Determined to pursue music, with the muddle of fear and love choking my heart, I tried them both. Valium worked for me, and with it I played well enough to play in master classes and recitals, solo as concertmaster, and win auditions. Years later--after I'd stopped practicing, tried to quit, been miserable, and been dragged back to music by God (who always works through love)--I could finally play without shaking, and without Valium.

Love is the only solution to fear, I guess.

Violin, Technique and the Spirit:

Here's the odd thing about being a violinist, from my perspective. The way you play, the notes you produce, the sound you make, have almost nothing to do with your spiritual condition. Yes, your spiritual condition can affect how you prepare, how you approach music, how you dedicate yourself to the music you play, how you seek to channel spirit into the music. However, there's a reason for all that old mythology about how the devil played the violin, about how Paganini channeled the devil to achieve virtuosity: the reason is that you can, if you so choose, divorce your spirit from your fingers and your technical equipment. Not that this is desireable, nor efficacious, nor good. It's merely possible.

To play music on the violin, or on any instrument, you must first acquire enough technique so that the technical aspects of playing fade into the background as you approach the music and make music. For those of you non-musicians out there: imagine that when you start to type on a computer, you have to hunt for each letter, then push the key producing the letter, then think of the whole word, then push the next key for the next letter, and imagine that you have no idea which finger to use for each letter, so you're making it up as you go. That's analogous to the situation of a musician who has no technique. Now imagine that you can type; you arch your fingers over the qwerty keyboard (assuming you're not a dvorak user!) and you type words effortlessly, as a whole, not letter-by-letter; you can think in sentences if you have the technique to type this way. Perhaps you can type fast enough so that you can send your thoughts directly onto page or screen. That's something like how it feels to be a technically=proficient musician.

Now, back to the idea of spiritual condition: of course I think that my spiritual condition actually has a significant effect on everything I do, including technical operations like typing and playing the violin. And I can see subtle effects of my spiritual focus and approach in almost everything technical, now that I've been spiritually-focused for awhile. How does this manifest itself? by an urge to do things right. What does doing things right have to do with the glory of God? I'm not sure, but I may soon find out.

Quote for the day: Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. (Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes--not sure!)

Trumpet and spirit, part II:

First, a disclaimer: I don't play the trumpet!

The trumpet demands an integrity, a thoughtfulness about breathing, that's more intense than for some other instruments, simply because the trumpet is audible. It's a signifier for the audible, everywhere. To "trumpet": a verb for making audible. How you start breathing, how you stop, how to speed the air or slow it--all this is audible in the sound of the trumpet.

This is a metaphor for the state of mind necessary in the world. Most people have two choices: to be careful or careless, thinking or thoughtless, making attempts to create or attempts to destroy. The daily choice is for many of us not even a choice but a thoughtless slip down a slope. For others, who choose to engage with the world and the Lord, every moment brings its choice. And it's no more difficult to choose one path than the other, I think.

I heard this integrity for the first time when I was twelve years old. Then when the year 2002 arrived, the precise nature of this integrity came to my attention for the first time. As a result, my approach to music changed. I developed a more intent focus. My attention was returned to the Lord. The memory of my first encounter with the spirit and music was recalled to mind.