Play Music!!

Dear Readers

Just three hours after his competition ended, theokwek has sent us a brand new essay about his preparation for the competition. Comments are welcome and this means... theokwek's writing is revived once more!!

The Straight Times Editor

Play Music

As part of the fatherly routine of pre-competition pep talk, Dad asked me to imagine any violinist whose playing I’d like to emulate.

Strangely enough, the picture that popped into mind wasn’t exactly your typical violinist. Not Heifetz, not Kreisler, not Kennedy, not Shaham, but a lean figure in 18th-Century garb, with a worse-than-Einstein hairstyle, comically huge walrus moustaches and amazingly skinny arms, standing atop a grand sofa and brandishing a fiddle, with mischievous glints in both dark, ebony eyes.

No I’m not going crazy as a result of all my practice. Not yet, at least. That image was one I’d been formulating for days after my mom popped the question of who was the first to attach the verb ‘play’ to musical pursuits. As I reflected on the question, I began to realize that whoever it was, whether a wizened sage with an encyclopedic mind or a playful child who’d tapped out a tune on his Grandmother’s keyboard, this enlightened person had truly grasped the meaning of music – he was the first, to describe in lasting English terms, his ability to enjoy his music so much that making it was play to him.

Music, as I’ve realized in my preparation for the competition, is not meant to win awards with, is not meant to impress, and is not meant to provide exercise for withered fingers and stagnant imaginations. Music, be it performed to the eager eyes of the entire arts arena or indulged in the lonely stillness of a rainy stay-home afternoon, is to be played, and to be enjoyed – to be sampled and savored, to be appraised and absorbed, to be replayed and remembered.

I’ve always had a problem with stage fright. When I practice – in my room, in the corridor, in the balcony, in the kitchen (to the loving ears of my wonderful Mom) – the music flows freely and bountifully, springing from my fingers. True enough, my craft has definitely not reached the flawless perfection of the greats, but even mistakes can be reflected upon, corrected, and engrafted into the music.

But the moment my shoes step onto that shiny stage, when the limelight inflicts its full power on my violin and me, the musicality in me is nowhere to be found, and I am left with a stiff statue of technical fingerings, without a shadow of my music, that forgone best friend of mine.

When I asked my accompanist about this, he replied with a simple yet thought-provoking answer. When I performed, I was only, in technical terms, drawing a taut bunch of horsehairs over four metallic wires suspended by handmade wooden pegs. I wasn’t playing the music – playing as a toddler would shake his rattle in glee, playing as an old granddad would sing the blues of the 50’s with that special touch of emotion.

I realized: I needed to enjoy my own music more. I needed to love my violin and cherish the God-given opportunities to express myself with it. I needed to become one with the violin, and allow the brilliant maple leaves of autumn and the delicate rosebuds of spring to yes, spring from my fingers. I needed, in the words of Miss Pocahontas of Walt Disney’s imagination, “sing with the voices of the mountain and paint with all the colours of the wind”. I needed – and I still need – to play my music.