Reflections on life during the pandemic

As the larger world is aiming towards a post-pandemic mindset, I find myself thinking back over how I spent the past couple of years, and the way the early months of what some people referred to as "lockdown" gave me a great deal of incentive to work hard at my various musical crafts. Even though my local musical activities came to a virtual standstill, I felt like I had a lot of meaningful musical contact with people online, and I got a taste of how important musical communication is, even if it is not happening in real time.

Our university library asked people in the commmunity to keep a diary for the six months between March 13, 2020 when the first cases of Covid came to downstate Illinois, and the end of November 2020.

I was a pretty faithful writer, and my journal (all seventeen pages of it) is available to read through the university website. I am both surprised and not surprised that out of the whole university community only five people submitted journals. Four of them were students (and one is a violinist).

I posted some of the entries I made in this journal in "real time" as blogposts, so I haven't duplicated them in this series of posts:

April 3, 2020

By the academic year of 2019, musical life in Central Illinois had finally lost the shackles of the Great Recession, and concert attendance was up, participation in music ensembles was up, and the number of young people studying stringed instruments was up. In Charleston we were at a kind of “golden” spot where the performing organizations connected with Eastern were increasing in quality. The concert series at Doudna, which included excellent out-of-town musicians and excellent faculty musicians (finally, we have a faculty filled with people who really can play—and sing), was impressive. Between playing with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony, the Eastern Symphony, and the new Eastern Camarata, my schedule of orchestral playing in March and April was packed. I play in a Renaissance and Medieval ensemble, the Charleston Consort, that was planning on playing a concert of Senfl in June, and play in a string quartet, the Wild Indigo Quartet, that was planning a concert of Haydn Quartets in April. It was going to be our first concert together. My viola and piano duo with John David Moore had a concert of Irish music scheduled on St. Patrick’s day, and another concert on May 29th of music by Smyth, Bosmans, and Barns as part of Women’s History and Awareness Month.

On Friday afternoon, March 13th I played with a student at her grandfather’s funeral. We were already wary that the virus might be lurking, but since no cases had been reported in the county, people were still hugging one another. I kept my distance, but observed a rather loud man in his 60s proclaiming, as he hugged the widow, “Everyone’s going to get it anyway.”

Later that evening the first case of Covid-19 was reported at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center. The infected person, who lived in Cumberland County, was told to stay isolated at home. The next morning John David Moore and I thought it would be best to postpone our March 17th concert.

By the middle of the next week all concerts had been cancelled. Spring break was extended for an extra week, and then university students were told not to return to campus. Our governor closed all the public schools.

Restaurants were only open for take out. Banks did all their business through drive-up windows.

I started teaching all my lessons via FaceTime on March 15th. My students, who didn’t have any activities outside of schoolwork that they were doing at home had time to practice. The struggles I have with remote teaching (having to evaluate sound through computer microphones, having the signal cut out from time to time, not being able to play with my students, having to rely on them to write fingerings and bowings in their music) are kind of balanced by the fact that they are all spending serious time with their instruments, and are making improvement.

It is hard to plan for the future musically. Our Summer Strings orchestra, which was going to begin the last week in May, will not be happening this year. People of all ages from all over the area (some drive more than an hour to Charleston) look forward to Summer Strings as a way to play music together. Terry Coulton and I always enjoy having the chance for our students to play together with other people for fun, without the pressures of performing in solo recitals. This is the first time in more than ten years that Summer Strings will not be happening.

There were also concerts scheduled around the world of pieces I have written. One was a premiere in Chicago of “Nuit de Vielle” played by the people I wrote it for. I was also supposed to be given an award for things I have done in the community musically by the Coles County Arts Council. Everything was cancelled.

My Downstate Strings Quartet has weddings scheduled for July, September, and October. We don’t know if any of these will be possible.

I have been spending my time doing what I normally do, but with some modifications. I don’t have the heart to practice viola, so I have been practicing violin. I have been fairly disciplined in my practice, working on solo Bach, Rode Etudes, and the first violin parts of the Beethoven Opus 18 Quartets. I have written one piece for string quartet, and, at the request of a friend in Italy, made an arrangement of the Finale of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony for string sextet. I made arrangements for solo viola of “Amazing Grace” and “Scarborough Fair,” for the March 13th funeral, and I made those, along with the string quartet piece and Tchaikovsky arrangement, available in the IMSLP. Michael and I continue to read together every day. We see our children and grandchildren via FaceTime. We take a two or three mile walk every day. Michael talks to his mother on the phone every day, does the crosswords, and makes daily posts on his Orange Crate Art blog. We watch movies together, and try to only watch a little of the news on television. We both read the New York Times and spend more time online than we normally would. Many members of our family live in areas that are densely populated, and, in spite of the fact that they are diligent about remaining safe, we still worry.

The actions of our federal government are shameful. We feel helpless to have the fate of so many in the hands of people who stretch the meaning of incompetence and personal greed to new lengths. And they seem to do it daily.

The Illinois map of Covid-19 activity is filling up quickly, but Coles County is still free of the virus. It is probably because (for the most part) people have been keeping their distance when outside, and staying home as much as possible. Michael and I have the leisure to do so since we are both retired and our expenses are low. It is strange to observe just how little money we spend these days. We have gone to the grocery store once since March 13th, and spent $250.00 or so on groceries. We have a full tank of gas in our car, and will need to get some gas to fill our mower soon. We get take-out once a week from the Thai restaurant, and are planning to get take-out form El Rancherito on Sunday. We hope that we can help keep these businesses solvent. We give them big tips.

I made some face masks for Michael and me to wear next time we go to the store, which might happen in the coming week, and I made one for our son Ben in Boston, which I put in the mail today.

So I’m up to speed for the day. I started working on the Bach Chaconne this morning, so I think I’ll go back to it this afternoon.

April 4, 2020

It’s odd the way you look at objects in a time of crisis. Last night I saw a video about how to make a very simple face mask out of a normal bandana and two rubber bands. I showed Ben how to do it (Michael made a video) so that if he wanted to go out this weekend, before the mask I sent to him yesterday arrived, he could. Today I noticed that one of my favorite linen shirts had sprouted holes. I immediately thought about using it as mask material, but the weave of linen is to loose to be effective. I threw it away. Yesterday the president made an announcement about the CDC recommendations for everyone wearing masks, whether they feel sick or not. He said that he wasn’t going to wear one. I will wear mine proudly in defiance of him.

Practicing the Bach C major solo sonata this morning was very rewarding. So often, in times of playing concerts, practicing is about learning a specific set of pieces in order to play it, at a minimum, correctly and at a maximum beautifully. Sometimes it means staying in shape between concerts and rehearsals so that when the onslaught of work comes, you don’t injure yourself.

But practicing in a time where there are no concerts in the foreseeable future is different. Practicing becomes more of a means to a personal end. A chance to have some satisfaction and personal/musical happiness. A chance to accomplish something—to finally actually practice passages that have bothered me for years. A chance to feel the pleasure of being able to play Bach, and have it sound good—as if all the years I have spent practicing have brought me to this time and this moment.

I heard a comedian on the radio today who said that really dark comedy about the Coronavirus is healing for a lot of people, because it makes them laugh, and thus gives them some “dopamine squirts.” Watching someone laugh is not the same as laughing yourself. Watching or listening to someone play, no matter how beautiful it is, does not give me the same pleasure as playing myself. I am so thankful to Bach for giving us musicians this way to make daily affirmations about how valuable for our sanity his music is.