During my time spent living in Kanab, Utah, I heard plenty of music, but none of it was classical. I missed the beauty of orchestral music, but I did gain an appreciation for the types of music I did hear: mostly country-type stuff. I know that's vague, but it's so unfamiliar to me, that I don't even know how to classify all of what I heard. All I know is that I was lucky enough to live with and listen to an incredibly talented couple play guitar and sing together and it brought me to tears nearly every time. Their voices are perfect complements to one another and they are both passionate about music. It made me really want to play guitar!
Since I've been home, I have had a fair amount of time on my hands. My future is so up in the air that, aside from applying for jobs, I don't really know where I'm headed. But I know music is always going to be a part of my life. I've started playing the piano again just for fun. I'm trying to work on some non-classical songs, and I'm attempting to sing and play at the same time. That is something everyone I met in Utah who played guitar could do and something I've never been able to do. I feel like it's hard enough to play an instrument, but to be able to sing at the same time? That takes major brain power if you ask me. So I'm starting with an instrument I already know (piano), and trying to add in singing along. It's not going very well yet. I'll keep at it and be glad that no one is home to have to suffer through my experiment!
I was talking on the phone last night to my host family from back in Kanab and it got me itching to play guitar again. Today I remembered that my dad has one here at the house, so I found it, along with a book about teaching yourself to play guitar. So far I'm just learning the strings and single notes, but eventually the book gets to reading guitar tabs and playing chords, improvising, and strumming techniques. It's a totally different world of music for me. I've never been good at improvising and I've never been good at singing while I play. I'm a classical musician: these are things I just never have to do! But I actually think it's going to do wonders for my viola playing. It's pushing me to re-learn some music theory, spend lots of time thinking about chords, and try coordinating many things at once. I want to be able to apply the flexibility and knowledge that I gain on other instruments to the viola. Maybe some day, I'll break out of my strictly orchestral shell and be able to improvise with a band on viola! You just never know where life will lead you, musically!
To me, orchestral music is still the most passionate genre and the one with which I feel the deepest connection. There's no way to really describe the feeling I get when I relate to a piece of music that I really love. I literally feel it in my body. It's an experience unlike anything else I've ever felt, a connection so strong that I am actually part of the music and the music is part of me, and there's no tearing us apart. I feel like the music understands me. I feel the dissonance and resolutions in my heart and in my muscles. It truly is a full-body, visceral, cerebral experience. I know I'm lucky to have something that I feel so passionate about and that fulfills me so much. I know that not every orchestral musician feels that same level of intensity when they play, nor do I feel it every single time I play. I certainly don't feel warm and fuzzy when I'm practicing scales and etudes! But I do know there are other people out there who get that feeling that I'm trying to describe. Music touches something in them too. I just usually thought of these people as classical musicians. I mean, could anybody actually get that intense of a feeling from listening to today's Top 40 pop music? Maybe that just makes me sound like a music snob. And maybe I am, a little bit. But I'm becoming less of one, because I realized in Utah that the people I was listening to were feeling very deeply the songs they were playing. I could hear the emotion in the tone of the guitar or the ache in the voice.
It was incredibly moving for me to be surrounded by a different kind of music. Though it may sound as far from classical music as you might imagine, it has the same effect on different people. It evokes passion. It picks up where words leave off. There are just some things in life that can't be described, but can only be felt with the right music, and when that happens, it's a very special moment. So as I broaden my musical horizons, struggle to sing and play at once, and fumble through my first piece of music on the guitar (of course it was the theme from Ode to Joy, a Beethoven composition!), I just want to pay respect to musicians of all kinds. The ones who "get it." The ones who feel so deeply about music that they just can't describe it. We are very lucky to feel that, no matter what our instrument or genre happens to be.
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