It’s interesting how music can teach us some intriguing and enlightening lessons. Here are several of them….
At one point this weekend (I want to keep this fairly vague, because of privacy concerns) I encountered a little boy who is autistic. It was a music rehearsal and although I first noticed this boy because of the very colorful outfit he was wearing, my attention was drawn after that by his continuous, restless wandering all over the room….. barely aware of the singing that was going on around him. I tend to be a rather heavy-handed law & order in such situations, but I am well aware that autistic children might not be capable of the attentiveness and obedience you might demand from other children, so I was hoping that his behavior wouldn’t get out of hand. Just when I was about to somehow remove him from the room, he suddenly became utterly transfixed by the grand piano I was playing, and more specifically the inner workings of it. He stood in the crook of the piano, but instead of facing outward, he was looking inside the piano…. at the strings, hammers, and dampers….. as though he were watching the most wonderful, intricate machine ever made. A few minutes later, he planted himself next to me on the piano bench, watching my fingers dance over the keys….. and actually moving his little hands in similar fashion, although just above the keys rather than actually playing them. It was an extraordinary moment when music made a connection that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Lesson Learned: MUSIC CAN DEFY OUR EXPECTATIONS IN AMAZING WAYS.
I played organ for a funeral this afternoon at Holy Communion – and also sang the Lord’s Prayer – but I strongly suspect that the only music most people will come away remembering was the playing of bagpipes for the processional and recessional. I hadn’t heard bagpipes in quite some time, and especially had forgotten what the pipes sound like when air is first blown into them. I don’t know what to call that initial sound, but there is nothing musical about it at all; it’s more like the sound of air leaking out of a very strange, noisy tire…. or the wrenching last moans of some dying extraterrestrial beast. But then that sharp, penetrating melodic line begins sailing forth, and there is something about it which cuts right to the core of everyone who hears it. Maybe it’s the fact that there is something so unvarnished, so untempered, so unrestrained about that sound that gives it such a potent, primeval sort of effect. The piper played “Amazing Grace” for the processional, and I feel like all these hours later, that sound is still throbbing somewhere deep inside me. Lesson Learned: DO NOT DISMISS THAT WHICH AT FIRST MIGHT SEEM TO BE UGLY. IT MIGHT JUST BE A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF BEAUTIFUL.
Late yesterday afternoon, as I got to Carthage for a recital rehearsal, I heard some powerful, beautiful trombone playing coming from one of the practice rooms right around the corner from my office. I snuck a peak through the window, and there was Austin Pancer, one of our finest young instrumentalists. Seeing him in a practice room is generally not a surprise; Austin has a marvelous work ethic. What made this surprising to me is that Austin’s own recital was less than a week ago, and my distinct impression is that when most young musicians don’t go near a practice room – don’t even think about going near a practice room – in the week after their recital. Heck, it feels like some of them take a month off or more! (And I count myself among them, I’m embarrassed to say.) It sort of the musical corollary of Cramming For A Test, and then laying low until it’s time to frantically cram for the next exam. That is not the way to be a scholar – nor to be a fine musician. Seeing Austin in the practice room yesterday afternoon reminded me of the hardest working singer I knew at Luther, Lisa Narveson, who practiced each and every morning without fail- at the same time, in the same practice room. It’s why she was so good- and it’s why she won NATS both her freshman and sophomore years. The morning after her senior recital, Marshall and I were dying of curiosity. Would she get up early, like she always did, and practice? We made a point of swinging by the practice room building- which was largely deserted that early in the day (between 8 and 9 a.m.)…. and there she was, practicing, like it was any other day. Too bad whatever gave Lisa such drive and determination couldn’t somehow be injected into other young musicians (and old musicians, for that matter) who don’t have a clue about what it means to be that kind of musician. Lesson learned: GOOD MUSICIANS DO NOT TAKE A WEEK OFF. THE WORK OF A GOOD MUSICIAN IS NEVER DONE. . . AND FOR A GOOD MUSICIAN, IT ISN’T WORK. IT’S A JOY.
Finally, yesterday evening I had the pleasure of gathering with most of my colleagues from the Carthage music department at the home of Woody and Carol Hodges. Carol recently had to retire from her elementary music teaching position because of her health, and in their front parlor is a wonderful quilt which was crafted by each of the classes in her school….. each one with their own message for Carol. The bright colors caught my attention, but it was only when I took a closer look that I realized what a precious outpouring of love and support and encouragement this quilt represented. I couldn’t stop looking at it….. and found myself just basking in the love which radiated from it. And for all that Carol is contending with, right now (so bravely) I am so grateful that she has been told in such unequivocal terms by her students how much she is missed and loved and appreciated. Lesson Learned: MUSIC LEAVES A FAR DEEPER MARK THAN WE MIGHT EVER IMAGINE.