A small degree of success is no small thing

Many children dream of fame. They want the world to appreciate their talents, and they want to be rewarded for that appreciation.

I was pretty well known in the elite musical circles of Boston when I was a kid, simply because I was the daughter of a prominent Boston musician. That legacy got me into Juilliard, and helped "buffer" my musical life for decades after I graduated. It gave me access to excellent musicians and chances to play with them. It even gave me some international clout since my father was the principal violist of an orchestra that was respected all over the world. My association with Julius Baker, during my days as a flutist, also helped (even though he didn't do anything personally to help me, even while I was studying with him).

A few years after I moved to a small college town in the Midwest, I transformed myself into a string player. I have also come to enjoy living in the rural Midwest, and have found a great deal of happiness here.

My first experience as a violist was in a string quartet with professional players that had decades more experience than I did. I'm pretty sure that they might have played with me partly because of who my father was. I worked VERY hard to give the impression that I could play, but I was huffing, puffing, and guessing every step of the way. I practiced like crazy, and made slow progress. Because I played in this quartet, I played principal viola in an orchestra (along with my quartet colleagues) when I hadn't had enough experience as a section player to tell a good bowing from a bad one. I shudder to think about the poor people in the viola sections I tried to lead. I knew so little about how to be a leader or how to be an orchestral violist. Now I know better, but it has taken me a good twenty-five years to get here.

Now that I have acquired enough technique to play the viola (and the violin) well enough to keep pace with my (now mostly younger) colleagues, and now that most of my younger colleagues have no idea who my once-famous (and now retired) father is, I feel like I have achieved a small degree of success as a string player on my own merits. That small degree of success is a big thing for me. The small degree of success I have achieved as a composer is a big thing for me as well, because I have done it on my own, and on my own terms.

As a child I never dreamed of fame. I dreamed of being taken seriously because of my ideas and accomplishments. Because I don't make a point of "tooting my horn" (aside from keeping this blog) and selling my "wares," (aside from the pieces that I have published that other people sell) I sometimes feel lost in the fame-seeking society that has developed during the half century that separates me from my childhood. But I believe that I have gotten to a point in my musical and my personal life where people do take me and my ideas seriously.

I know how to choose good fingerings and bowings, and I can play in tune. I can also play with the kind of sound, phrasing, and expression I want to play with, which is no small accomplishment. I’m also confident that I can develop my ideas and solve all the difficulties I encounter when I’m writing or arranging a piece of music. And I'm proud of the body of music I have written during the past twenty years.

I just need to keep reminding my self that a small degree of success is, indeed, no small thing.