Lost motivation

Cold. Lifeless. Hopeless. The cello sat in its case looking so beautiful. Soft amber hues. Each grain gliding, slightly curving from shoulder to tail. Bridge standing tall. Silvery strings taut and attentive. Everything about the instrument invites me, begs me to take her out and practice until I can't get anything I do, wrong. The music swirls inside my head. All the years of study and listening. I can name almost any piece, that comes on the radio, within a few notes or if not sure a few seconds worth of listening. If I can't name the piece I go for the composer based on the use of harmony, sonority, instrumentation.

I love music. It invigorates me just to hear the music that I have known since I was a child come singing through the speakers in a public space or store unexpectedly. There is nothing I know better than how better than to play music on a cello. That's what I studied the longest and most diligently for 15 years straight. All those cello lessons from my beginner moments when I was 8 and 9 years old--having to relearn posture on the cello, compared to the violin, was not as easy as I my young mind had imagined.

The struggle was real. Sitting and holding something that was touching the floor at one point didn't allow me to move like I had been able to with the violin. This would be a great disability until my masters degree nearly 15 years later. There seemed to be no way that I could get comfortable and therefore I played with tension throughout my back, arms, and hands. Fortunately, I overcame much of that problem. Now, the problem is quite different. It lies not partially, but completely within my brain, my thoughts as though they were permanent fixtures attached to a building.

Progress in cello had been slow. Progress in career had been even slower. Nothing I did could help me overcome my greatest blockade; my belief that I was incapable. And even after some small victories I struggle to advance my career. Now, it is more to the affect that it seems like too much effort. Finding a suitable audition or rounding up students or practicing with a regular musical partner, it all requires so much moving, organizing, and the most agonizing one of all is the necessity of money to get where I want to go. The efforts are real and enormous--in my head.

Well into my 30's I have little to say for what I have invested and shrink back from diving into new territory, expending the energy to get where I think I'd like to be seems to great a task. The unknowns swirling inside my head ever suggesting that the risks are great and the rewards to small. Perhaps it is better to eke out the living I have always done, dependent on others to get me one student here, wait for the call that will pay me enough to buy a week's worth of groceries (or two if I am lucky).

Scared. It's scary. That's what I have always thought. I don't know how I came to that conclusion. I have always decided before I experienced it that it must be scary. How does that work? How does one think it scary before even going through it? The human experience is so strange. The mind confusedly winds in and out of negative thoughts with the occasional ray of sunlight to keep my going. Unfortunately, the underlying thought pattern has been to defeat any progress before any attempt has been made.

Even now, writing this blog is a defeat. (Practice, post videos, direct traffic to your efforts, send out CV's, let people know you are available for work...)

Halloween Concert

The one thing you expect from a concert is that is goes off without a hitch. No interruptions, no mistakes, no stopping in the middle of a piece, these are all things that aren't supposed to be a part of concertizing. However, for the fist time that I can remember something happened during the middle of our performance in Battle Creek tonight. It was enough to cause the conductor to stop the orchestra and look around for some explanation or help to put a stop to the cause of the irritation. And what was this stirring the ire (not really ire I guess, but more of a befuddlement)? Nothing short of a lovely performance of The March of the Marionettes by Gounod from his opera Faust played by the illustrious PA system in Kellogg Auditorium.

The incredulous look from the conductor's face as she strained to search out the sound technician to no avail was priceless. Then she muttered something about ghosts and walked off stage to find a way to switch off the music herself. A minute or so later she walked triumphantly back on stage after having conquered the intruding sounds.

In all my performances I have never before stopped right in the middle of piece no matter the problems. Whether my own or from another source. Normally I am embarrassed by this kind of thing, but tonight I found it amusing. No, truthfully I was laughing so hard that I wanted to burst out but thought better since I was on stage in the outside chair this cycle. Wish I had been able to video this whole thing. Alas, I was playing my cello during the whole ordeal, or sitting with it anyways.