This article was inspired by David Barstow's persistent request
that I write something based on my experiences with music. I am
grateful to him for pushing me to think about the things expressed
here. I also wish to thank for following individuals for helpful
comments made on previous drafts of this article or other work eventually
incorporated in writing it: Phyllis Bronstein, Norma Davies, and
Christine Holbo. Correspondence regarding the paper may be addressed
to the author at Rosselrob @ AOL. Com or to Robert D. Rossel, Ph.D.,
Mansfield Psychotherapy Associates, 3 Main Street, Suite 216, Burlington,
VT 05401.
Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My
dad was a composer and music teacher and my mother a singer. My dad
would rise around 5:00 a.m. every morning to sit at the piano for
two to three hours working on his latest composition—a choral
piece, a bit of chamber music, a trumpet or violin solo for student
musicians, a symphony or opera. My mother would frequently go over
the solo she was preparing to sing the next Sunday at church. One
of my sisters played the cello and the other the violin. The sounds
of people practicing, impromptu gatherings of family friends for an
evening of chamber music, music listened to on the radio or phonograph,
and my father's unwavering morning compositional ritual were the most
constant and familiar experiences of my early life. Looking back,
it all seems rather idyllic. How lucky to grow up in such a rich and
stimulating musical environment. How fortunate to have such a sound
introduction to one of the truly great traditions of artistic expression.
Unfortunately at the time I did not look at it that way. In my early
years music was more torment than treasure—something to be endured
rather than truly enjoyed. One of my great regrets is that I didn't
appreciate it more. Although I loved it that my father conducted the
local town and high school band—it meant I could see him march
in parades and stay out extra late on the summer nights when there
was a band concert— it was not the music I enjoyed, it was the
freedom and the fact that I could stay up past my bedtime. Often in
an attempt to teach me to read music my father would invite me to
sit in his lap and follow the score of a symphony or opera he was
listening to on the radio. I enjoyed these rare moments of close contact
with my dad but, in part because I was dyslexic and in part because
I also wanted to be outside playing with my friends, I was unable
to appreciate or benefit from these early attempts to expose me to
music. To this day I detest opera, mostly because of the harshly enforced
rule that there were to be no loud noises—fighting, running,
shrieking, shouting, or door slamming—on Saturday afternoon during
the time my father was listening to the Metropolitan Opera.
My dad attempted to introduce me to the piano when I was six or seven
years of age. When it became clear to both my parents that I could
not read music and was struggling with the piano (but had a very good
ear for pitch), they decided to introduce me to be violin. I was about
9 at the time and in the fourth grade. My hands were big enough and
arms long enough for a full sized violin, so my dad gave me an old
instrument that had once belonged to my grandfather. It was not a
very good violin but served me well enough to start out. It had a
large crack on the back, gut strings that were quite old and had to
be replaced, and ornate perpling front and back. Like most beginners
in the violin, I had a terrible time at first twisting my hands and
fingers in those unnatural and awkward positions violin players must
assume to play scales and draw the bow across the strings. But I had
a strong and quite pleasant tone almost from the first. I quickly
learned to use my good ear to listen carefully and play in tune. Because
I showed some promise, my grandfather's violin was quickly replaced
with another violin that became available when my parents purchased
a new violin for my older sister. This shift to a new violin also
resulted in improvement in my playing. I actually began to enjoy the
sounds I could make and would practice longer before protesting that
I wanted to go outside to be with my friends. I played by ear and
could memorize and belt out most of the melodies I was taught at school.
This precocity impressed others and allowed me to hide the fact that
I continued to be almost totally unable to read music. This theme
of visibility and hiding, pride and perceived defectiveness, became
a central one in the development of my identity and my relationship
to music over time.
As I grew older, I began to enjoy music more for its own sake. After
a couple of years of giving me violin lessons and getting in constant
fights with me, my dad wisely decided to let someone else teach me
privately while continuing to be my instructor at school where he
conduced the orchestra. As I got better, I slowly began to enjoy the
violin and appreciate what I could do when playing it. At the same
time, practicing was boring; performing was terrifying; and attending
orchestra rehearsals meant being singled out as the conductor's kid—a
marked man as I saw it. Besides, playing the violin could be physically
dangerous. It was Pittsburg, Kansas in the 1950s, and boys were supposed
to play baseball or football, not the violin. I got into a few fights
with other boys who mocked my playing, and though I often as not came
off well in these skirmishes, I secretly shared my opponents' conviction
that a fellow who played the violin must not be worth much. I was
so ashamed, in fact, that my parents finally bought me a second violin
so that I could keep one at home and one at school, and avoid being
caught in public with the offending instrument. I asked my dad to
make me the principle second violin, rather than concertmaster, so
I could more easily hide in the middle of the orchestra and not as
easily be seen by my peers during concerts and school assemblies.
I did well in regional and state music contests but found the nervousness
prior to performance so unbearable that it completely offset any feelings
of pride in my accomplishments or over the gold medals I won.
It is easy to see why I might argue that my relationship with the
violin and music is both meaningful and messy. Music was my father's
passion and his profession; inevitably, it became the site of bitter
conflict between us as I went through the normal rebellion of adolescence.
Now, as I look back over my life, I feel sad that I didn't value both
more. It angers me that my peers robbed me of many potentially gratifying
experiences with the violin. It also frustrates me that when my peers
weren't around, my own shame robbed me of the same enjoyment. I often
wonder how far I would have gone, had I not felt such shame and internalized
such absurd messages about music. At the same time, I realize I can't
go back and change the past. The parameters of my ability are partly
determined by what I learned and refused to learn 50 years ago. To
pick up the violin is, for me, to take up the complexities of my past.
I have been writing this article with the strains of Beethoven's
string quartets playing in the background. Right now I am listening
to a favorite of mine, Opus 95 in F Minor, called the "Serioso."
This quartet, perhaps more than any others in his "middle"
period presages the intense struggle Beethoven had with musical forms
of the late—classical period—a struggle that we see even
more starkly and powerfully manifest in his later quartets. It has
often been characterized as a "hinge" quartet in his change
of style, a true turning point in his ongoing struggle with the classical
period. Fiercely self-absorbed and uncompromising, throughout the
quartet one senses Beethoven's impatience with all the forms, conventions
and cadential passages of the classical style.
I have listened to this and his other quartets countless times. I
find them inexhaustible and always fresh, continually revealing new
secrets. To play one of his quartets (badly, I am afraid) is an utterly
transcendent experience for me—as close to a spiritual awakening
as I can have. I feel privileged to be able to participate in something
I consider to be among the most profound expressions of the human
creativity in existence. Each time I play or listen to his quartets,
I feel blessed to partake in something that gives me hope for humanity.
For all the pain, suffering, foolishness and brutality that characterizes
our race, at least, I say to myself, there is Beethoven's art.
In his late quartets, Beethoven carried his experimentation with the
fugue—Bach's form, the form of the Well-Tempered Clavier—to
an extraordinary level. In Op. 133, the Grosse Fuge, for example,
we see Beethoven taking the fugue to entirely new levels of complexity
and power. To this day, Op. 133 remains an enigma. The effect is not
just of formal mastery. Rather, as Milan Kundera has noted, the interlocked
patterns of statement, repetition, and inversion at the heart of the
Grosse Fuge are expressive of the eternal tension between order and
chaos, of the necessity to confront and embrace Fate, a longing for
stillness while remaining constantly—sometimes frantically—in
motion. Here, in an extreme form, we find a statement found repeatedly
in Beethoven's late works, namely, the tension between struggle and
resignation, and a relentless sense of the passage of time.
It is a curious fact, in connection with the Beethoven quartets, that
they remained virtually un-played for many years after he died. They
were widely viewed as the perverse scribblings of a madman. In some
ways this reaction is understandable. In testing the limits of the
quartet, Beethoven also tested the limits of musical coherence. Although
the quartets as a whole were highly organized, the elements in the
music seem quite autonomous, even disjointed. Each instrument's voice
moves independently, almost as if unaware of the presence of the others.
The number of styles used (the fugue was only one of many) and rapid
shifting of mood in the quartets can be unsettling. One can understand
how listeners in Beethoven's time, like those of many other composers
in other times, found it difficult to decide whether they were listening
pure music or utter noise appropriately dismissed with a riot.
But how is it that Beethoven's first listeners did not recognize even
the formal integrity, much less the meaningfulness, of these works?
The notes on the page haven't changed. Yet somehow the music has changed.
Or, more likely, the audience—as if we had "grown up"
as audiences, the adult embracing what the fourteen-year-old rejected
as meaningless.
It seems to me that this maturing of music is not unique to Beethoven's
quartets, but occurs as a central aspect of musical experience. Music
is composed as a system of notes on paper, but that is only the beginning.
(Imagine reading a score in order to enjoy the music!) Like Ariel
freed from the witch's tree, music comes to life and takes on new
dimensions when it is released from the page: when it is heard and
interpreted, practiced and performed. My appreciation of a piece of
music changes as my perspectives change. My understanding of it depends
on whether I am listening to it "live" or on CD, or whether
I am hearing it for the first time or the thousandth, on whether I
have played it myself.
I recently revisited Beethoven's "Spring" sonata, Op. 24,
a piece I first learned 50 years ago when still in high school. It
was interesting to take it up again after all these years because
it gave me a sense of this "maturing" of musical experience
with continued exposure. Though I had lost much of my "finger
memory" as I practiced on the piece and struggled with many of
the passages that came more easily to me earlier, I still could hear
the way the music is supposed to sound as I struggled to get it right.
What I lacked in technical facility I felt I made up for in interpretive
"depth" and in an appreciation of the composition that can
only come with exposure and greater maturity. I wondered how much
I "understood" Beethoven and appreciated his genius when
I was first introduced to the "Spring" sonata. I hadn't
played anything else Beethoven had written at the time. I knew little
about his life, his culture, or his personal struggles; he was just
the next assignment my violin teacher had given me. What was my experience
of playing this sonata? I remember little about it now. I know I was
still somewhat ashamed of the violin and resented its incursions into
my time and social life? How did the experience then compare to my
experience now after having played so much of his music, having read
so many books about him, and learned so much about his life? How has
my identification with Beethoven changed now that his struggle with
deafness becomes increasingly real to me as I begin to struggle with
my own hearing loss. Now, as I grow older, I can see, feel, and identify
with the drama, the tension between struggle and surrender in his
music, and his sense of the relentless press of time, in a way I could
not fully appreciate in my youth. The notes I played then and now
are the same but the experience of playing them entirely different.
Part of the change in my relationship to music is a growing knowledge
of the physicality of musical expression. The awakening of my senses
and a growing awareness of my mortality has definitely deepened my
appreciation of music even as it has heightened my sensitivity to
the aches and pains felt when I practice—aches and pains I could
more easily ignore when I was younger.
And indeed, music is an extraordinarily physical art. Commonly, musicians
spend more time doing exercises or working through sticky passages
than they do performing or even playing whole pieces. As I discovered
when I was fourteen, this process is neither aesthetically nor intellectually
stimulating. It is generally just boring and repetitive. And yet practice
is the means through which an artist grows in his or her ability to
participate fully and find meaning in artistic expression. Playing
the violin, I develop a relationship with my instrument—my hands,
arms, neck, fingers become an extension of the instrument and the
instrument a vehicle of expression intimately melded with my body.
My shoulders, arms and hands "know" my instrument in an
almost unconscious way. And this physical knowledge of the instrument,
along with the physical basis in technique—acquired through years
of scales, arpeggios, and bowing exercises—have a deeply subtle
relationship to my knowledge of the music. Being able to play a difficult
passage correctly, of course, is not the same thing as being able
to interpret it. But the two are caught up with each other and grow
on each other.
Though practicing is boring and repetitive, I learn a great deal about
myself while doing it. Some time ago Susan, my teacher, noticed that
my bow arm was stiff. I was tensing up while I played, she said. This
awkwardness was extremely difficult to fix because it had been relegated
to habit and was an automatic and largely unconscious response. But
it proved extremely rewarding to work on it. As I practiced, I discovered
there was a relationship between the tension in my bow arm, my breathing,
and the way I shifted my weight from my left side to my right side
while drawing the bow. I also learned there was a relationship between
relaxation, pressure relayed through the bow arm, and the quality
of sound I was able to produce. I had had no idea that my movements
were so interconnected, or that this rich tone had been—as it
were—inside me all the time, waiting to get out.
Susan is not the only person who has helped lead me to such realizations.
My experience as a musician has been enhanced by many people, both
present and past, dead and alive, composers, players, conductors,
music teachers, and others who have in various ways touched me through
some kind of shared involvement with and through music. Music, indeed,
is a thoroughly social activity. It involves many complex conventions
and expectations that are essential to make it meaningful and orderly.
There are rules regarding stopping and starting. There are conventions
about keeping time, and about the meaning of specific notations for
tempo, dynamics, expression, and interpretation. Though apparently
peripheral to music making, personal interactions and agreement about
social conventions are central to the expressive quality of the music
produced. Just as athletic teams at times "click" and individual
members find themselves drawn into something greater than themselves,
distinctly felt but hard to describe, similarly, members of musical
groups at times feel deeply connected in the shared experience of
making music. There is a strong sense of togetherness that enhances
the playing. At other times, the opposite occurs. There is no felt
connection between the people and it shows in the quality of the music
making. Like the proverbial wedding rehearsal jitters, dress rehearsals
are notoriously difficult social encounters. Such rehearsals are often
very rough leaving participants doubtful regarding their ability to
do well in performance. Usually the performance exceeds the expectations
of all involved, a testimony to the power of intangible social factors
that click in and draw out be best in the individuals and their social
relationships.
In this sense, it is not just "practicing" music which makes
it meaningful, but—broadly speaking—the "practice"
of music: all of the different ways in which music is rehearsed, performed,
studied, heard. If my involvement in music has taught me anything,
it is that full enjoyment and meaningful participation requires that
one learn to balance joy and sadness, boredom and excitement, hard
work and play, social and solitary activities, order and risky abandon.
The process is inexhaustible and the learning can last a lifetime.
What, then, can we conclude from this brief snapshot of my experience
growing up with music? Music is one of those domains of experience
that becomes increasingly rich, complex, and meaningful as one takes
the time and makes the sacrifices necessary to learn about it. Often
other areas of our life—relationships, leisure activities, other
involvements—suffer because of the time we invest in something
we find meaningful. We live it, breathe it, learn about it, and are
deeply absorbed in exploring its many dimensions. This gives us great
pleasure and enriches our life but it also contributes to its tendency
to get messy and difficult. It takes time to train our bodies—the
ears, eyes, hands, sense organs—to express ourselves in a meaningful
way. Mind, body, and spirit are drawn together intimately when we
are deeply absorbed in creative expression. This developing relationship
with the body—its training, working with its limits–is an
important part of the discipline through which meaning is embodied.
It is also the relationship within which we “grow up” or
mature in our understanding and enjoyment of a meaningful activity.
It is through the body that we experience both the constraint, frustration,
sadness, and limitation, as well as the joy, exultation, pride, and
satisfaction of creative expression. Full participation in a meaningful
domain invariably requires the awakening of the body, and a growing
appreciation of the relationship between mind, body, and spirit. The
embodiment of meaning is done through “practice.” Practice
always involves time, effort, discipline, and the comparison of oneself
against some ideal or standard of excellence. The embodiment of a
practice involves a process of learning to work with limits. Pushing
against limits—limits of form, limits of endurance, limits of
understanding, limits of expression—is at the heart of the learning
process that creates meaning in a practice.
These general principles can be applied in considering how we “grow
up” in relationship to any meaningful domain of involvement.
In my own life I have found that they apply not only to music, but
to my marriage, my involvement in yoga and meditation, my life as
a writer, any my practice as a psychotherapist. They are also highly
relevant as we think about the process of “growing up” in
relation to the world within which we live. The earth is the “body”
within which we live. It constrains us and provides us an almost infinite
range of avenues for expression. As we live within the world and its
constraints we become more and more aware of both its limits and possibilities.
It is calling upon us to put in the time and practice the kind of
awareness that is embodied in the arts—a growing sensitivity
to the constraints of our instrument and a willingness to work within
those constraints with sensitivity and awareness to create a meaningful
world.
Robert D. Rossel, Ph.D
September 5, 2004
Biographical statement: Robert Rossel, Ph.D.
continues to grow in his meaningful connection to these and many other
loves of his life. He is a husband, father, grandfather, musician,
writer, and psychotherapist in Burlington, Vermont where he continues
to try to strike a meaningful balance between the joys and challenge
of staying alive and involved in each.
We do thank Robert for his other articles, which we were happy to
publish on our site:
 Foundations:
The Ericksonian Legacy and Self-relations Psychotherapy
The
Paradox of Surrender:
Finding Strength and Wisdom in the Struggle
The
Expansion and Contraction of Being
Liminal
Spaces and Transformation
Emptiness
and the Relational-self
Our
Clients, Our Teachers
Growing
Up With Music
Things that Last
Mirror
Work
|
