On Not Being First Violin
When I was ten the whole school did a test of musical ability. It was very high-tech and we found it all most exciting. Each of us in turn was connected to a tape recorder – one of those reel to reel ones the size of a Star Wars mothership – and we had to listen through headphones, which was thrilling in itself. They played lots of different notes and sequences of notes and then asked us questions about them. Which note is higher, that kind of thing. Lots of the notes were very similar in pitch and took a bit of listening to, hence the headphones.
Then we waited until the results came back. As expected, the most musical child in the school was Gareth Price, an earnest young man of Welsh extraction who played about five instruments and was never seen without a clarinet in his hand.
The second most musical child in the school was – modest cough – me. A bit of a fuss erupted. Gareth Price, the No. 1 plus the No. 3, 4 and 5 were all children whose first lisping sentence was “Mummy, please may I learn the violin?” From this test of musical ability they were all put forward to get financial help with music lessons and they are all now, no doubt, the First Violins of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
And then there was me. Serious Musical Gentlemen came to talk to me. Did I play any instruments? Well, yes, actually. I played the following:
the descant recorder (very well indeed)
the clarinet (extremely badly)
the piano (like an elephant dancing the polka)
The area where this Test of Musicality fell down was that it may have picked up the ability with pitch that was inside my head, but it never noticed that I have Russian Peasant Hands, which I inherited from a long line of Russian Peasants. Very good if you want the top of a jar opening, very bad if you want anything delicate doing, such as playing an instrument.
The clarinet teachers that I had were not inspirational. I learned the clarinet for several years without knowing what it should sound like: without knowing that all the nasty squeaks were not an intrinsic part of the instrument and that it could in fact play Stranger on the Shore in the hands of Acker Bilk.
It didn’t help that all the time I played the clarinet I assumed that you always had to blow as hard as you could to get any sound out of it at all, as though you were blowing up a lilo. It was only many years later that I found out that the reeds came in different thicknesses and that the ones I had been using were the thickest. Too late!
But because I was supposed to be Musical, I joined Leeds Schools Junior Orchestra. I don’t know why – I don’t remember anyone ever asking me if I wanted to do any such thing.
We played lots of classical music, some of it very tricky, such as Vltava by Smetana. We gave terrible concerts in Leeds Town Hall, watched by our admiring parents. I knew I couldn’t play well enough and I hated every tedious minute of it and it went on every bloody Saturday morning for years and years. The only enjoyable moment I remember was when, one day, a girl had left her cello lying on its back just inside the door. Somebody opened the door and trampled right through the cello with a loud, deeply satisfying splintering noise.
The girl who sat next to me had an artificial leg in a lovely shade of salmon pink. It didn’t bend in the middle properly and people were always tripping over it as they edged through the forest of music stands. I stared at it, fascinated by its pinkness, as I puffed and blew and squeaked my way through Mozart and Handel, bored to death.
I never told anyone how I felt or how much I resented the loss of my Saturday mornings. I felt it my duty to be there, because I was supposed to be Musical.
Finally I spotted an escape hatch and leaped through it. “I’m really sorry everyone, but I need the time on Saturday mornings to do my homework, because I have O-levels coming up.” Goodbyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I was out of there.
I still have the clarinet. I’ve never played it since.
Then we waited until the results came back. As expected, the most musical child in the school was Gareth Price, an earnest young man of Welsh extraction who played about five instruments and was never seen without a clarinet in his hand.
The second most musical child in the school was – modest cough – me. A bit of a fuss erupted. Gareth Price, the No. 1 plus the No. 3, 4 and 5 were all children whose first lisping sentence was “Mummy, please may I learn the violin?” From this test of musical ability they were all put forward to get financial help with music lessons and they are all now, no doubt, the First Violins of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
And then there was me. Serious Musical Gentlemen came to talk to me. Did I play any instruments? Well, yes, actually. I played the following:
the descant recorder (very well indeed)
the clarinet (extremely badly)
the piano (like an elephant dancing the polka)
The area where this Test of Musicality fell down was that it may have picked up the ability with pitch that was inside my head, but it never noticed that I have Russian Peasant Hands, which I inherited from a long line of Russian Peasants. Very good if you want the top of a jar opening, very bad if you want anything delicate doing, such as playing an instrument.
The clarinet teachers that I had were not inspirational. I learned the clarinet for several years without knowing what it should sound like: without knowing that all the nasty squeaks were not an intrinsic part of the instrument and that it could in fact play Stranger on the Shore in the hands of Acker Bilk.
It didn’t help that all the time I played the clarinet I assumed that you always had to blow as hard as you could to get any sound out of it at all, as though you were blowing up a lilo. It was only many years later that I found out that the reeds came in different thicknesses and that the ones I had been using were the thickest. Too late!
But because I was supposed to be Musical, I joined Leeds Schools Junior Orchestra. I don’t know why – I don’t remember anyone ever asking me if I wanted to do any such thing.
We played lots of classical music, some of it very tricky, such as Vltava by Smetana. We gave terrible concerts in Leeds Town Hall, watched by our admiring parents. I knew I couldn’t play well enough and I hated every tedious minute of it and it went on every bloody Saturday morning for years and years. The only enjoyable moment I remember was when, one day, a girl had left her cello lying on its back just inside the door. Somebody opened the door and trampled right through the cello with a loud, deeply satisfying splintering noise.
The girl who sat next to me had an artificial leg in a lovely shade of salmon pink. It didn’t bend in the middle properly and people were always tripping over it as they edged through the forest of music stands. I stared at it, fascinated by its pinkness, as I puffed and blew and squeaked my way through Mozart and Handel, bored to death.
I never told anyone how I felt or how much I resented the loss of my Saturday mornings. I felt it my duty to be there, because I was supposed to be Musical.
Finally I spotted an escape hatch and leaped through it. “I’m really sorry everyone, but I need the time on Saturday mornings to do my homework, because I have O-levels coming up.” Goodbyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I was out of there.
I still have the clarinet. I’ve never played it since.
posted by Daphne at 10:10 pm
1 Comments:
THE SHAME OF ARTS EDUCATION
Just think if you'd had an inspirational clarinet teacher you too could be living in Vienna [very nice at this time of year I'm told].
I was lucky, in about my fourth year at school I had a Young Inspirational Art Teacher [Mrs Robinson] who replaced the charcoal and sugar paper tired teacher and gave us permission to try New Things.
Mind you I don't live in Vienna, probably because no Important Men came to our school, put glasses on our eyes and showed us paintings to see if we could tell the difference between a Picasso and a Matisse.
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