Practice! The dread of it was real. I was an 11-year-old dreamy-eyed girl when Mama signed me up for piano lessons with our neighbor. I got off the bus on Thursday afternoons, waited at Elsie's house for my turn, then went into a tiny back room to learn the piano. Elsie was amazing. When she played, the world began to swirl around my head. It was like peering into the Milky Way, seeing things I had never seen before. Something in my heart opened and the music seeped in like honey. She loved classical music, which I had recently discovered from two albums Mama bought me at a yard sale, Beethoven's Fifth and the Pastoral Symphony. After I learned a few basics, Elsie put me on a book with lots of little Mozart pieces --wiggly, happy forays that made you think of sprites and fairies in springtime.
I have ever been a busy girl, easily distracted and in need of various, tortuous types of accountability. What else does an 11-year-old need in order to practice? But it was, and is, the challenge of my life. There were fields and kittens to explore, my sister and the neighbor girls to ride bikes with, basketballs and softballs to throw, grass to be mown. A week would go by so very quickly and Thursday's bus ride was filled with sad contemplation of a poor lesson, all because I had failed to practice enough. "You have promise!" she said. I knew it was true. The notes flew easily from my long fingers, the interpretation flowed like a river from my heart. But when the mundane reality of scales and consistency broached my life, I fell short much of the time. Why be humdrum, when there were so many sparkles elsewhere? Six years of lessons can only take you so far, when you don't apply yourself. Basketball, high school band and my new flute, track team, clubs, socializing and the ever-circling spectre of boys kept a lid on any serious piano goals. Fired by two good teachers, I missed the gold that was there under my phalanges.
Here we are, how many decades later? I somehow stuck with the flute all these years. It's simpler, sings with a voice and is super portable. I've kept up the practice, though without much real knowledge and no lessons. I finally bit the bullet and paid for lessons during the plandemic, with a wonderful lady from Los Angeles. Whoever knew we'd be Zooming instructions from across the other side of the world? I realized, for the first time in my life, that scales were indeed the magic sauce. And that all the workaday parts that I dreaded were the very thing that laid a foundation for everything else. If you do your scales, the other stuff is easy. Who knew?
I play with the Carrollton Wind Ensemble every Tuesday night. We do multiple concerts all year (fall concert is October 13th at the Carrollton Fine Arts center, ya'll), difficult pieces that make my head swim. I complain every semester about the level of impossibility that our conductor, Terry Lowry, hoists upon us. I mumble "how am I supposed to do my day job?" pretty much every time the new music is introduced. I agonize over my distractions...very real, important ones... grandchildren, children, husband (the hunky one that still circles) , job(s), church, friends (socializing is good for your soul) and of course my Mama and siblings. Every turn of the seasons, I question whether I should continue to try to hang with this ensemble, constantly forcing myself to do the requisite practicing and treks to rehearsals and performances, when I have so many other noble obligations. Some weeks I practice nearly every day, then others I might get one session in. The agony weighs on me sometimes. Or often.
In stressful duty mode, I pick up my flute and begin the banal scales. I sound like a rusty tin whistle. The playing starts to clear out my throat and sinuses. I begin to breathe deeper, opening up my head and lungs. The fingers relax and move, remembering patterns. Before you know it, I've worked through the scales and arpeggios and everything begins to flow. Then comes a lovely etude and the sound starts to warm, the rich silver of the flute coming alive. The deep, sonorous tones from this lovely instrument (that I sold a house for) are like liquid gold. I stop and thank God for it, even though I often feel guilty for having bought something so expensive. Then I remember that I really did work hard for it and maybe it's okay. For God so loved the world (and me)... Then the honey seeps in and I recall why I do this and what music does for my soul. Besides, it's all over the scriptures, about singing, instruments, even God's ideas about it. Heaven is gonna be full of music, the expression of the heights of the glory of God. I'm so happy we get to go ahead and start early, down here.
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