Cello (1)

Until now, I haven't blogged very much about my musicianship. This is because I've felt that I need a space in my life that is not about me being a cellist. For the next eight weeks, I'll be working a job that has very little to do with me being a cellist, so I figured I'd try to write something -- maybe a few posts -- about how I became a cellist, what being a cellist means to me, and what it gives me that I can't find anywhere else. This is an ongoing conversation that I've been having with myself for a few years, as I've become more self-aware and have started wondering if someone who's as mentally ill as I am and who makes as many excuses for themself as I do should really be making art.

Of course, I can't talk about myself as a cellist without talking about myself as a person.

I was a difficult child in several ways. I hid things from my parents; I bullied my younger sister; I didn't learn to hold myself accountable until I almost wasn't a teenager anymore. I was lazy. I didn't like working hard, because a lot of things came easy to me, and because when they didn't, I was yelled at. (Side effect of homeschooling: your teacher's emotional investment in you is much higher than average.) In some ways, I was held to a very high standard, and in other ways, I created the standard to which my sister was subsequently held. There's potential for vast resentment between and among all four members of my immediate family, and that's a story for another post (or perhaps only for my future therapist).

My first instrument was the flutophone, a plastic recorder-like tube with holes that I played for all of two years. My parents then taught me the piano; I was, I think, seven or eight when this happened, although much of my childhood blends together and I don't have any actual memories, just stories that feel like they happened to someone else. I became, eventually, quite good at the piano. (My first paid gig as a performer was as the pianist for a children's theatre production of Red Riding Hood when I was twelve? thirteen?) I could have become even better, but I didn't know how to practice, and by the time I might have considered finding a professional pianist to study with, I'd decided that the cello would be my primary instrument.

I began cello lessons a month or two before my twelfth birthday. My parents had asked me when I was ten if I wanted to play another instrument, and it hadn't occurred to me to say no. It also hadn't occurred to me to choose an instrument outside the string family. My mother had been a flutist in high school and in college before she switched her major to musicology (a choice much derided by my father in earlier years, before she eventually revealed that she'd faced sexual harassment and an administration unwilling to support her), and we had always listened to classical music in the house, mainly symphonic works. I liked the violin for its brilliance, and I liked the cello for its depth.

The summer before I turned twelve, we visited my mother's parents in Vermont. One evening, while my sister watched the Beijing Olympics (had to google that), I was taken to a concert at the Marlboro Festival. This was one of my first times -- possibly my first time -- seeing chamber music performed live, and I went home afterward and told my parents that I wanted to play the cello. I don't remember what piece I heard that night, nor do I remember why I was drawn to the cello; I only know that every time I've thought about quitting, something intangible and impossible to name has stopped me.

So I began lessons. A year later, I auditioned into a local youth orchestra (my sister, who had recently started trumpet lessons, joined in the spring), and the year after that the conductor made me principal. What would have been my second year as principal (I think I'm getting the years right) ended up as half a year because not enough people auditioned in the fall, so I joined another, larger youth symphony, and my sister followed. I switched teachers a few times, mostly because of their reputations and also because I've always been the kind of student who picks up on things quickly. I may not think of things myself -- something I continue to struggle with -- but as soon as I'm reminded of them, or when I'm asked to do something a little different or a little new, I'm able to alter my playing quite quickly.

I knew that my lessons were important, and I knew that my relationships with my teachers were important, but I didn't know how to have relationships with adults who weren't my parents (and I didn't know how to have healthy relationships with adults, period). I knew that I was an individual capable of my own musical expression, but when almost everything musical I did was with my sister and she was two years younger and (in some cases) receiving more praise than I was, I didn't know how to motivate myself. I'm not here to speak about her issues with me, because I don't know them; for a while I resented her ability to learn from my mistakes without making the same ones. I definitely resented my parents holding her up in front of me as an example of what I should be like. That hurt us both in musical and non-musical ways.

For many reasons, then, DePaul has represented freedom for me. I could figure out who I was musically and personally without being as reactionary (although I think that art is inherently reactionary in some ways, as a form of entertainment and as a form of communication). For the first time, I had the opportunity to develop an identity outside my family unit. It's been overwhelming. It's been eye-opening. It's presented me with so many artistic options that I don't know what to choose. I don't know what will be most fulfilling for me, and I think that's partly because I'm frightened that, ultimately, none of it will be fulfilling on its own. I have to give in order to receive, and that's scary.