So I’ve held back. But this is a comparatively new part of me, supplementing an earlier life in journalism, marriage, RAF national service, six years in the USA, menacing illness, novel writing, a love affair with French, wine snobbery and – as Avus points out – being blunt.
I’m at the end of my life and yet there are magic moments when V directs me to a new score. Gradually the tadpoles dancing on five-barred gates break away from their printed form and become available to me. As sounds then, hanging together, as songs. And I reproduce these songs. Imperfectly, true; but better than I would have done a year ago.
And in doing so, wrestling with difficulties where some tadpoles hold back their beauty, I arrive at the far edge of how and why this musical form was created. Hmm. That was harder because there’s a switch to a minor key in the repetition. But not just because the composer was dissatisfied with a bald repeat. A new note influences those that surround it. They become a new phrase. And so there’s a new beauty which echoes – differently – the beauty that went before.
I’m not pretending this is unique. I suspect carpenters experience something similar, as do other craftsmen. I’ve felt it when writing but this is music, something I never thought I’d understand. To be insufferably grandiose I imagine myself as part of the flow that, say, started in Salzburg in the mid-eighteenth century. A cork bobbling in that river. Old but not yet dead.
I am so delighted that you have found this joy in music. I cannot hold a tune and reduce my daughters to hysterics when I try to sing, so I am also a little envious of your abilities. It must feel wonderful.
ReplyDeleteGarden: I have to admit, it does feel wonderful. As to your saying you can't hold a tune, I have discussed this with V, my teacher, more than once. Contrary to popular opinion a total inability to sing in tune is fairly rare; almost always, she says, the problem can be solved by a patient teacher. Should you wish to reduce the level of hysteria in the family you could (secretly) give this a shot.
ReplyDeleteTo this day I only have a vague idea of why I suddenly decided - aged eighty - to take lessons, nor what my expectations were. Fortunately V was far more certain. It's an oft- told tale. After an interview about my musical interests and some practical scales with V singing and playing the piano, she abruptly handed me the score of Sarastro's aria, O Isis und Osiris, from The Magic Flute and said, in effect, follow me. I'd seen the opera more than once and knew what the aria sounded like. But I'd never looked at a score before. But by the third or fourth run-through, and helped by the shape of the music on the score, I was singing in some way or another.
Then I stopped and burst into tears. The rest is history.
You are wrong in thinking your readers are not interested in singing simply because we don't respond. I always read your work, and I love reading about your late-in-life passion for learning to sing. I just don't know what to say. I imagine you will scold me for that statement. Oh well. I might learn something from that, too.
ReplyDelete"not interested in your singing" I should have said. Actually, I should have read this before I posted it.
DeleteColette: I cannot possibly scold you; you are one of the faithful, The Alligator Woman with many more pots on the boil.
DeleteThe situation is this: there is inevitably a gulf of interest between me grinding out the lessons (7½ years at approx. 45 weekly lessons a year = 337 1-hr lessons, more recently 1 hr 30 min.) and those condemned to read about my progress. Especially since many of the lessons are devoted to repetition and the close examination of tinier and tinier detail.
It might have been more interesting had I been able to offer sung recordings of my progress but the acoustics of my mancave are terrible and not everyone in the outside world is comfortable judging a cappella (unaccompanied) singing. Nor is my repertoire to everyone's taste. On top of this quite a large percentage of this period has been concerned with the pursuit of my "true" singing voice and some of the interim voices were not exactly congenial.
All of us listen to music, only a tiny number make music. And progress in making it is more likely to be best appreciated by the singer rather than the listener.
That said, what I do is thrilling - but, to me! I communicate with composers whose work has endured for hundreds of years. In doing so I get to understand what they were attempting. It's a marvellous way of ending one's life.
As I say, a wide gulf. I grumble but it's my fault, no one else's.
I am at one with Colette. I really admire the way you found a new interest in life at the age of 80 and have followed your progress in voice training with your excellent and empathetic instructor "V". Shall she be less impersonal and mysterious one day please?
ReplyDeleteLike Colette, I haven't always felt I could comment as someone who is less passionately involved with singing. Although I do remember, with gratitude, how you once offered to finance me when I mentioned my interest in singing Gregorian Chant. Unfortunately my passion did not match yours and individual teachers did not seem to be available for such - you needed to already be in a choir.
So lack of comment does not mean lack of interest on my part. I really enjoy another's progress to overcome our joint descent into senility. Long may you continue to "rage against the dark".
Avus: I had completely forgotten my offer to finance your Gregorian Chant training and am trying to imagine the outcome had you found a teacher (A monk?) and taken up lessons. On immediate reflection it seems so unlike me; after a minute or two I find it is more like the new Oughties me. Not so much to do with music in your case, rather that you - an octogenarian like me - should face a new turn in life that might have the power to cause you forget being an octogenarian.
DeleteWhen I ponder how a certain musical phrase works I cease to be the shambling hulk with the distorted face and am concentrated on an age-free problem common to all who've tackled that particular song. And it's more than likely I will - with V's help - find the answer.
A triumph at 87! How many of those crop up in the average month? A success that acts as a transfusion of spirit, never mind how evanescent. How could I NOT sing?
As to V's identity. I decided early on it was not mine to publicise. The relationship between singer and song can be complex and may depend on obscure aspects of personality and experience. Why do we like certain songs while being antipathetic to others? As you may have found out, these are matters that are difficult to express in words. And when one moves on to interpretation things become even more complex. A personal revelation may be just around the corner. During that first lesson V instinctively knew how to cut through my doubts about my own potential; to some extent she threw me in at the deep end with all the attendant risks. And was proved right in minutes. A sort of magic. Better I should look into myself than wonder how she did it.
The first para of the post was I suppose provocative. But after all that has been part of my trade. And that's something I still practice.
Interesting that you brought up altered-repetitions. I almost always had a tape/disc or the classical radio station on when I threw pots. So much of potting is repetition---mugs need to be close to duplicates in order to sell sets as are dishes and cereal/salad bowls. But, it was the one of 'a-kinds' that were fun to do. And, often inspired by the music that was playing.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of a long day of repetitious work, I could let loose and throw some 'fun'. So must it have been for composers, especially those restricted by current conventions to 'let loose' and play a little. Enjoyed your observations!