Staying Young at Heart
I just got back from an orchestra rehearsal for a concert tomorrow that I'm pretty excited about. We're playing an all-Russian program and I have family coming, so it will be really fun. I enjoy playing in this orchestra, and I'm grateful for the chance it gives me to get my cello out at least once a week. All the same, after tonight's rehearsal I couldn't help but dwell on one observation.
We sound, well ... old.
This post isn't meant to be a soapbox rant--I say it observationally... and affectionately. It sounds a bit like we've all been working our full-time jobs all day and have too many things to do and not enough time to do them, and like we're all pretty tired. Why is that? Oh, I guess it's because it's all true. When we come to rehearsal, we are so worried about staying together and hitting the right notes that there's no time to rehearse the expression. I think we also consider ourselves "experienced musicians" so maybe we think we're already expressing when we're not. Or we expect the piece to do it for us.
I remember being in orchestras during summer camps where our conductors would talk about how great it was working with "young people." They said we were full of life and energy. I didn't really know what they were talking about. Now I know that it's totally true. What is it about being a young musician? Is it that you're playing your best because you're trying to one-up your stand partner? Or impress the conductor? Is it that you just have more time to practice? (I don't remember there ever being enough time to practice...) Or is it that young people are actually more in tune with what a new piece of music has to offer? I think that because they're still discovering their own musicality, they pick up more on the expressiveness that's
written into the piece. They also don't have the problem of thinking they've already "arrived," so they're still
trying to be expressive.
The problem with playing like the above-depicted "experienced musician" is this: Music-making is not just about the notes. I know we say that a lot, but all too often we forget that the notes on that page are really just a tool for the composer to communicate something fantastic. He/she wants you to express something to the audience. Once we forget that, and we make "hitting the notes" or "staying together" our primary objective, we are missing the point. Don't get me wrong--hitting the notes is important. But I am a firm believer that the audience will forgive a few wrong notes if they are made to
feel something. Without the expression though,
what's the point?I know this post is full of sterotypes, and we all fall somewhere different on the spectrum, but I think we "old musicians" would benefit from playing like we're a little younger, like we still have energy. We may not we have the energy, but if we can create the illusion, we'll probably get a lot more out of the music. And the audience will, too.
But besides being around a newborn, it's been so fun thinking of things to do with her older kids. Actually, I haven't been the one thinking of the ideas. It's more fun going along with the ideas they come up with. For example, the morning after we arrived, Gilbert (her 11-year-old) said, "Hey, I really want to take the little kids to Cabelas and show them the fish tanks there." Huh. We all considered that for awhile, and we figured, why not? We thought we looked pretty funny parading 8 kids past all the burly hunting men since we weren't there to buy anything, but besides that, it was really fun. I had never been in that store before and it was really cool! There was tons of stuff for little kids to look at, and there was even a place to feed the fish. (So I take it back about not buying anything...we spent .25 for fish food!) Here are some pictures:
The three buds. 
