Imagining an alternate reality

I suppose musicians everywhere have been reflecting on the year that we have lived in a musical reality that has mostly happened through communication through microphones, recording devices, and screens. It was not the way I expected things to be. I did a search on this blog for posts that I have made that contain the phrase "live music," because I recall I pretty much stopped listening to recordings after I stopped writing CD reviews for the American Record Guide. Looking back at this year I wonder how I would have survived without the technology (any and all of it) that I used to disparage.

I am fortunate that I can hear music in its natural state (i.e. not translated into impulses and played through speakers) when I practice by myself or when I play with Michael. I feel fortunate that when the weather was still warm I was able to play a little bit of chamber music outside.

The most intimate indoor musical connections I have been able to make with people outside of my two-person household this year have been with my students (giving lessons through FaceTime) and working with people via Zoom (mostly) who are performing music I have written. The kind of contact I have had with performing musicians this year has been amazing. Before the Pandemic I rarely had this kind of contact. But now that we are all working from our homes it happens all the time. I never before imagined sitting, for example, in on a rehearsal in London in order to hear a rehearsal of a piece I wrote intended to be performed over the internet.

Would all this have happened anyway? Absolutely not. Would I have spent the year writing so much solo music? Probably not. Would I even have considered writing duets that could be played remotely? I wouldn't have had a good reason to.

I also understand more about the intimate communication that happens between a composer and a person playing a piece of music. It is truly a magical form of communication where marks on a page can translate something I make at my end into something that comes out sounding pretty much the same when played by another person I have never met who lives somewhere else. And there are no electronics involved in the communication. Just an eloquent system of musical notation that transcends time, space, and language.

I wonder how musical life will look when enough of the people on the planet have been vaccinated, and when life goes back to that new normal we are looking at somewhere along the horizon through different sets of binoculars (some more rose-colored than others). I hope that high school orchestra teachers will still let me into their rehearsals. I hope that what musicians have learned about supporting one another will stay with us, because times are always difficult for musicians. Egos are fragile in our business, and they are also omnipresent. So is hierarchy and the resulting marginalization.

We have been able to discuss sexism, racism, and other forms of bigotry in the world of "classical" music with relative ease from behind a screen, but when we are "back" in real time and real space, will people continue to speak out when they observe behavior that is discriminatory?

I hope that the fortunate people who live in cities and have busy rehearsal and concert schedules will remember that there are dedicated composers (like me) who live outside of major metropolitan areas, and I hope that people who write on social media about how much they love hearing live music will come to concerts in more rural communities (like mine). I hope that my neighbors will come out to the concerts that my musical partners and I are so very eager to play.

We musicians (who by necessity spend a large amount of time in isolation anyway) really miss playing for people. It is in playing for people that we feel connected, and, if all goes well, we can help the people listening to one another. 

Music happens in (real) time and in (physical) space. Music travels in the air, and vibrates in the spaces between people. Playing music for people is not about the affirmation of ability (which is really the result of hard work). It is about the sharing the experience of air that is enriched with vibration. It is about the people who are listening hearing phrases and feeling rhythm at the same time as the people setting the sound in motion.

I wonder what it will be like to play concerts again?

March 13th marks one year of isolation for me. In 2020 it was a Friday. I played for a funeral that afternoon, and then played for Shabbat services that night. The first case in our county was reported that day, and one of the first people to get sick from Covid-19 was a member of the family holding the funeral. It feels like it was such a long time ago, but I remember that afternoon and evening so very well.