Coda
I took clarinet lessons in seventh grade. I had developed a fervent desire to be musical, to produce something lyrical and take back my young childhood or whatever nonsense I told myself, having realized that we could now afford it. My dad bought me a top-of-the-line clarinet, and I was proud of it. I took good care of it, wiping down its hollows and crevices, neglect never even occuring to me. I think he was proud of it too, knowing in a way I couldn't that it was a passing fancy, but maybe it gave him his dreams back, his manhood, his vindication for changes I wouldn't have the strength to make with such equanimity.
I was pretty terrible at music. Part of it was my expectations, part genetics and part unavoidable reality. Even then, I remember liking the notation, as if 3/4 time was a mathematical proof that I could write into a brilliant realization.
The coda symbol may have been my favorite. It said, 'Hey, you've done this before! You can kick its butt a second time around.' The difficulty with a more life-like coda is remembering the notes in the middle without the score. The beginning is easy to fall into: you practice it a million times, and it's the part you most paid attention to when you got the sheet music all new and spiffy. But suddenly, you're somewhere in the middle, between the familiar and the destination, and all you can do is hope your fingers remember the motions. You hope that the first time around taught your mechanical memory how to get there. And you hope even more that if you falter, you'll rememember just the snippet you need to push forward. It's something no amount of practice can guarantee and no paucity of musical skill can predict. Part of me used to mentally hold my breath to see if I could make it through. Hope is the last to die, I suppose.
Hope begins in the dark: the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~Anne Lamott
I was pretty terrible at music. Part of it was my expectations, part genetics and part unavoidable reality. Even then, I remember liking the notation, as if 3/4 time was a mathematical proof that I could write into a brilliant realization.
The coda symbol may have been my favorite. It said, 'Hey, you've done this before! You can kick its butt a second time around.' The difficulty with a more life-like coda is remembering the notes in the middle without the score. The beginning is easy to fall into: you practice it a million times, and it's the part you most paid attention to when you got the sheet music all new and spiffy. But suddenly, you're somewhere in the middle, between the familiar and the destination, and all you can do is hope your fingers remember the motions. You hope that the first time around taught your mechanical memory how to get there. And you hope even more that if you falter, you'll rememember just the snippet you need to push forward. It's something no amount of practice can guarantee and no paucity of musical skill can predict. Part of me used to mentally hold my breath to see if I could make it through. Hope is the last to die, I suppose.
Hope begins in the dark: the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~Anne Lamott