Today I learned a new dimension of panic.
For the past two weeks, I have played for a new musical production: Tokio Confidential. It is a story about a widow who travels to Japan in 1879, in order to experience an art and culture that was quickly fading from the country, and which had been promised to her by her late husband. She meets a tattoo artist, and in celebration of his art, allows him to draw a work of Ukiyo-E art on her back, in the process putting her own life in danger through unforeseen reasons.
Throughout the production, I had made it a point to reach the theater an hour before curtain, but today I left with the intention of arriving only a half hour early. Turns out, it was a bad day to leave so small a window.
For those of us living in Brooklyn, today was a difficult day to travel to Manhattan. The A,C, and F trains were all rerouted along the F line, and this made for extreme delays on that line. The last two stops in Brooklyn found the trains waiting for 10-15 minutes at each station, then again in-between stations. In the tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan, my train sat for 25 minutes while train traffic ahead of us was delayed. By the time I reached the first stop in Manhattan, I had 15 minutes until the top of the show.
I got off the train as soon as it reached Manhattan (not looking like it was leaving any time soon), and went upstairs to hail a cab. Fortunately, there was one waiting for me to stuff the bass in the backseat and drive to 16th and 7th. We arrived at the corner at exactly 2:59pm, 1 minute to start. For a $7 fare, I threw $10 at the driver and grabbed my bass.
Where was the theater? Suddenly, I had no memory of its exact location.
The panic and fear consumed me; I ran across the street, then across the avenue, desperately searching for signs of the theater. Was I even at the right place? I discovered that extreme anxiety can affect us physically and mentally in very palpable ways: my memory turned to jelly, my throat went completely dry, my breathing turned harsh, and on one crossing of 16th St, I came very close to fainting. Even as I write this, I can feel my heartbeat increasing just at the recollection of my nerves in that moment.
After a few minutes of this painful experience, I had to stop walking, close my eyes, and desperately attempt to access a memory that my fear had stolen from me. When I opened my eyes, I was staring directly at the sign of the theater, half a city block away. In this, arguably the most anxious moment of my life up until now, I had unconsciously convinced myself that I was standing in the middle of an alien city, at a place I had never visited before, when in reality, I was only looking at friendly street from a different angle.
I reached the theater at 3:03pm, dove backstage, unpacked my bass and set the mic in place within 30 seconds, while the audience was still being seated. The show started at 3:05pm, traditionally late. Everything went well, although I admit, I again came dangerously close to swooning during the opening number as my body struggled for oxygen, forcing it in through a dry throat.
In between shows, the band got dinner at a Mexican spot in Chelsea, and more than one round of drinks. I don't normally recommend drinking between concerts of chamber music, but today it helped my state of mind immensely.
Tonight we had the best show of the run (an opinion of which the composer agreed). I didn't get fired, although I am sure that scenario is not unheard of during the penultimate show of a run. It was a great show, and I look forward to working more in the theaters of NY.
I got home and watched a peaceful anime about a man who spent five years giving chase to a natural phenomena. It was a friendly reminder to me about the importance of recognizing elements in our lives out of our control, and making peace with ourselves when we are sent either in an undesired direction, or at an undesired pace.
And what better place to make that peace than here?
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Cornered
When I was 8 years old, my Mom told me to pick out a musical instrument, and they would give me one. She didn't care which one I chose. My parents took me to a big convention of musical instruments, and I saw a violin. Ironically, the reason why I chose the violin would become the only reason for buying my current upright bass before playing a note: it looked amazing. The choice of whether or not to have music in my life was never mine to make.
With the violin came the mandatory lessons and practice time. My mother assured me that I would practice 30 min a day. She never regulated the content of my practice routine, but she made personally sure that I did not leave that room until my time was up.
Do I have a memory of being locked in the practice room? Possibly. I do remember one very clear confrontation between myself and Mom: my refusal to get in that practice room drove her to cancel some appointment so that she could be a quiet sentinel next to the door of the room while I first snarled and foamed, like some cornered wild game, and finally after 15 min, picked up the damn thing and began to make horrible stomach-twisting sounds (a quality of my violin playing that I never seemed to champion in 10 years of playing).
Maybe I wanted the sounds to be horrible, so that Mom would give up on this silly crusade and see how disinterested I really was in learning how to make music. However, she never made a sour face while I practiced, never told me to try making the violin sound less than a rabid bat in it's death throes. As long as I had that thin piece of wood between my shoulder and chin, she was content.
From her unique style of stoic nurturing, I learned a great deal about what it really meant to insist on the presence of music in someone's life. How many parents shy away from teaching children the importance of appreciating fine art because they're afraid they might not be good at it? Michelle tells me that when she practiced violin at a young age, her dad would ask her if she could make it sound less bad? Be the question productive or not, I could never hold it against someone who didn't grow up around music. How could they ever understand the discipline required at any age - much less a young age where deep focus is close to impossible - in order to put in the time required to make an instrument sing?
I do, however, get very annoyed when I hear people talk to me about my innate musical talents. Are you shitting me? If you could hear me play violin at the age of 8, you wouldn't think I had a musical bone in my body. I hated playing music, I hated making horrible sounds, and I hated Mom for making me reproduce this shining example of my failure.
And then someone will say to me: "Well, I played piano for two years, but I was never really good at it, so I gave it up" Let me guess: your parents grew impatient when you didn't start sounding like Chico Marx after two months of expensive piano lessons? I remember a bass student I had in San Diego once, a 16-year-old girl who's father supervised our lessons for obvious and understandable reasons. By our third lesson, this girl had developed numerous walking bass lines, several scales, and the courage to attempt an improvised solo. While I saw this as an amazing growth, her father asked me after every lesson: "is she actually getting better?"
Almost a decade before I ever touched a bass, I had learned a handful of priceless lessons about being a good artist:
1) Be patient with yourself, more so than with anyone else.
2) Painful as it is, spend personal time working on weaknesses, rather than embellishing strengths.
3) True greatness takes time, commitment, and love.
4) Innate musical aptitude is negligible. Exposure (as early as possible) is the lifeblood of a child's appreciation and execution of art.
Next time I'll pick up on how a bass came into my life, but all this talk about practicing is making me antsy. I'm going to put on a fresh pot of coffee and run some scales.
With the violin came the mandatory lessons and practice time. My mother assured me that I would practice 30 min a day. She never regulated the content of my practice routine, but she made personally sure that I did not leave that room until my time was up.
Do I have a memory of being locked in the practice room? Possibly. I do remember one very clear confrontation between myself and Mom: my refusal to get in that practice room drove her to cancel some appointment so that she could be a quiet sentinel next to the door of the room while I first snarled and foamed, like some cornered wild game, and finally after 15 min, picked up the damn thing and began to make horrible stomach-twisting sounds (a quality of my violin playing that I never seemed to champion in 10 years of playing).
Maybe I wanted the sounds to be horrible, so that Mom would give up on this silly crusade and see how disinterested I really was in learning how to make music. However, she never made a sour face while I practiced, never told me to try making the violin sound less than a rabid bat in it's death throes. As long as I had that thin piece of wood between my shoulder and chin, she was content.
From her unique style of stoic nurturing, I learned a great deal about what it really meant to insist on the presence of music in someone's life. How many parents shy away from teaching children the importance of appreciating fine art because they're afraid they might not be good at it? Michelle tells me that when she practiced violin at a young age, her dad would ask her if she could make it sound less bad? Be the question productive or not, I could never hold it against someone who didn't grow up around music. How could they ever understand the discipline required at any age - much less a young age where deep focus is close to impossible - in order to put in the time required to make an instrument sing?
I do, however, get very annoyed when I hear people talk to me about my innate musical talents. Are you shitting me? If you could hear me play violin at the age of 8, you wouldn't think I had a musical bone in my body. I hated playing music, I hated making horrible sounds, and I hated Mom for making me reproduce this shining example of my failure.
And then someone will say to me: "Well, I played piano for two years, but I was never really good at it, so I gave it up" Let me guess: your parents grew impatient when you didn't start sounding like Chico Marx after two months of expensive piano lessons? I remember a bass student I had in San Diego once, a 16-year-old girl who's father supervised our lessons for obvious and understandable reasons. By our third lesson, this girl had developed numerous walking bass lines, several scales, and the courage to attempt an improvised solo. While I saw this as an amazing growth, her father asked me after every lesson: "is she actually getting better?"
Almost a decade before I ever touched a bass, I had learned a handful of priceless lessons about being a good artist:
1) Be patient with yourself, more so than with anyone else.
2) Painful as it is, spend personal time working on weaknesses, rather than embellishing strengths.
3) True greatness takes time, commitment, and love.
4) Innate musical aptitude is negligible. Exposure (as early as possible) is the lifeblood of a child's appreciation and execution of art.
Next time I'll pick up on how a bass came into my life, but all this talk about practicing is making me antsy. I'm going to put on a fresh pot of coffee and run some scales.
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