(no subject)
Every so often if you watch the shows on TV, the ones with the stupid homevideos where people get hurt and people sitting at home laugh, you'll see a musical instrument. Maybe it's a piano, falling out of a truck. All the keys fall out on the ground and the audience just laughs. Maybe you're watching a cartoon, and the character breaks a guitarre or a violin, the stings twanging in his teeth. And the audience laughs, as long as the animation is good.
I can't laugh at that. In real life, when you watch it happen, nobody laughs. During the after-concert group photo at a children's recital, a young boy collapses, falling on top of his violin. It snaps almost in half. In the audience, parents cringe. The sound of the violin breaking echos in everyone's ears like a shot. One of the teachers attends to the boy on the floor. The other picks up the violin and hides it like it's a body, disgraceful and inappropriate to have the audience see.
Sure, it was expensive, but that's not why it's so painful to see a violin or a piano damaged. It's not just an object or a tool. There are hours invested in it, pieces of different people's lives embeded in that wood and string. There were emotions that no person has seen from the musician, but the instrument has.
Like a person, a piano or a guitar knows your faults. It knows that you don't understand how to play a song because you have never experienced anything like the feeling it describes. It knows that your fingers are always cold, even in the middle of summer. It knows that your left ring finger always hurts when it's rainy outside, because you avoid using that finger even if it means you can't play your favorite song. And you know your instrument. You know every sticky key on your piano, every scratch on the neck of your guitar. You know that when it's cold your violin shivers and can't manage to keep its tune.
That instrument becomes like a child to you. Or maybe you're the child. You've spend countless hours with it. You've matured since you first started playing. Even if it's ugly, you know that it's yours and you can't help having some attachment to it. When you play someone else's piano or cello or bass guitar, you can't help comparing it to your own. You learn all of its secrets, its dents and imperfections. How can you laugh when you see an instrument broken on TV?
I can't laugh at that. In real life, when you watch it happen, nobody laughs. During the after-concert group photo at a children's recital, a young boy collapses, falling on top of his violin. It snaps almost in half. In the audience, parents cringe. The sound of the violin breaking echos in everyone's ears like a shot. One of the teachers attends to the boy on the floor. The other picks up the violin and hides it like it's a body, disgraceful and inappropriate to have the audience see.
Sure, it was expensive, but that's not why it's so painful to see a violin or a piano damaged. It's not just an object or a tool. There are hours invested in it, pieces of different people's lives embeded in that wood and string. There were emotions that no person has seen from the musician, but the instrument has.
Like a person, a piano or a guitar knows your faults. It knows that you don't understand how to play a song because you have never experienced anything like the feeling it describes. It knows that your fingers are always cold, even in the middle of summer. It knows that your left ring finger always hurts when it's rainy outside, because you avoid using that finger even if it means you can't play your favorite song. And you know your instrument. You know every sticky key on your piano, every scratch on the neck of your guitar. You know that when it's cold your violin shivers and can't manage to keep its tune.
That instrument becomes like a child to you. Or maybe you're the child. You've spend countless hours with it. You've matured since you first started playing. Even if it's ugly, you know that it's yours and you can't help having some attachment to it. When you play someone else's piano or cello or bass guitar, you can't help comparing it to your own. You learn all of its secrets, its dents and imperfections. How can you laugh when you see an instrument broken on TV?