Music

(originally written on May 10, 2011)

Some time ago I saw a treble clef pendant in a catalog with the phrase “Music is what feelings sound like” engraved on it. I had to have it. I fell in love with this phrase as I’ve been in love with music since childhood. Few things move me more than music. I wonder why that is. I wonder what is it about music that is so important to me.

I come from a somewhat musical family. From my mother’s side comes the love of singing. My uncle, a famous Latin American singer and guitarist, was awarded two Gold Records and was inducted posthumously into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame. His son, singer, composer and guitarist who followed in his father's footsteps, has acquired much fame all over Latin America and is still actively making music. And boy, you give my mother a microphone and she’ll eat it up until she loses her voice.

From my father’s side comes the love of instruments. My uncle had an orchestra when I was growing up – the same orchestra that played at my “quinceañero” in our house. I remember seeing him on tv when I was a little girl, with his then wife as the lead singer, and I recall hearing about how he played in night clubs. That kind of life took the best of him and, many years later, he decided to devote his gift to his church instead, which he does to this day along with his current wife. I believe he plays saxophone, piano, and guitar, while his wife plays bass and I think guitar as well. Fairly recently I reconnected with a cousin on Facebook who is a musician in a band. Even my dad has toyed with the Spanish guitar as an adult. He has taken lessons on and off and enjoys it. Another cousin has been a dance instructor her whole life which, while not qualifying you as one who creates music, makes you one who has "la musica por dentro" (the music inside) as we say back home.

The first instrument I ever played was the organ. My parents owned the gift department in a department store and the music department offered organ classes. My parents enrolled me and I enjoyed it, though I don't recall it lasting a very long time. I thought it was a lot of fun, with the two tiers and bajillion pedals. You had to pay attention to so much - it was complicated, and fun, but it did feel a little nerdy, even for me. We never owned one at home. Though I didn't get any in-depth instruction on reading music and such, it did give me a good technical basis for the piano. Indeed, that was the whole point - if you wanted to learn piano, it was a good idea to start with the organ.

I started taking piano lessons when I was around seven. My first teacher was this strict Cuban lady who taught me everything I know about how to read music - everything in Spanish, of course. Much to my amusement when I first came to the States I learned that here notes are letters instead of do, re, mi, etc… I thought B, C and F were grades you got at school! To this day it's extremely difficult for me to think of notes as anything other than do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. The teacher would always start class with ‘solfège’ – bless that woman for having taught me the art of solmization, rudimentary as her version might have been (after all, she wasn’t teaching me how to sing). It felt so boring to a seven year old, but a class could not start without it. After the solfège lesson came the writing lesson, with every note and clef having to be drawn perfectly on the staff.  She was such a perfectionist. Then finally we’d hit the bench, where she would select the piece to work on, and she’d patiently watch as I stumbled, fumbled and grumbled over the keys. To this day I don’t know how she got me to that first recital.

I was such a nervous wreck. I had two individual pieces – one by Chopin and a Clementi Sonatina which I adored. I could practice that one all day and all night. Then the ‘pièce de résistance’, Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers – a duet with a boy as nerdy and nervous as I was. I don’t know whose glasses were thicker. I’ll never forget my mom taking me to that boy’s house to practice – awkward! Then the little mistake that I made during my Chopin piece at the recital that probably no one in the audience caught but which, of course, resonated inside my head like bombs exploding during World War II. I walked off that stage with curtains of tears streaming down my face because I had made that little mistake. Oh was I distraught.  My parents, aunt, grandma, all kept saying “but no one could tell!”, but I knew. And it was categorically the end of the world.

My second piano teacher wasn’t as great. I didn’t care for her piano with smelly, sticky, dirty keys. She wasn’t as strict as the first one and I don’t recall solfège lessons from her. I did one recital with her but it says a lot about her impact on me the fact that I cannot even remember what my pieces were from this second recital.

I’ve always adored the piano. When college time drew near I recall throwing the name Juilliard around – not that I would have ever made it in. My dad said I probably wouldn’t make much of a serious living out of music, and that was that.

There’s a certain regal serenity and beauty in the sound from those 88 keys. I love how you can produce both delicately innocent and majestic sound from it. And so much range for harmony! It’s pure, exquisite beauty.

Thanks to the piano I had a wonderful introduction to classical music and grew up to think of it as one more type of music and not as "music for the snobs" as so many people think of it. By learning the nuances of how to play it - learning how to achieve the andantes, the fortes, the staccatos, learning about the styles of the different composers...  I grew to understand it. This was and still is an immense gift. I feel extremely lucky to have received it. To this day I wish I had at least minored in music in college. Alas, one more regret to add to the list.

A keyboard is nothing more than a very expensive guitar tuner.  I don't even like to call it an electric piano as this still brings the word 'piano' in too close proximity to it. Mine was a gift and budget and space allow me no more at the time. I can still maintain the skill of reading and playing with it, so not all is lost. But you cannot play classical the way it was intended on a keyboard. The notes may be played, and it doesn't go out of tune which is a plus, but the interpretation cannot be achieved to the level of the real thing. Whoever thinks otherwise should be institutionalized.

I did always have a secret desire to play the guitar as well. Being Hispanic, the Spanish guitar plays a prominent role in my culture. Classic guitar is breathtaking to me. The sound is mesmerizing, hypnotic and so deliciously sensual. Plus I just thought it would be great to play a portable instrument for a change. It wouldn’t be until my adulthood when I decided I was going to teach myself how to play the guitar. My father, together with his brother and wife selected my Spanish guitar for me as a Christmas gift five years ago. I named her ‘Margarita’ because her sound is beautifully sweet, and a margarita - Spanish for daisy - is a beautifully sweet flower. The electric guitar that followed, a Fender Stratocaster, is ‘Sunshine’ because she brightened my life. They joined my Casio keyboard, ‘Buddy’ - named so because the piano has always felt like a comfortable pair of slippers, like an old pal and, while not a real piano, it was the next best thing I could have at the time. I started to learn the guitar first through lessons and then by getting a couple of books and learning on my own. It’s still a work in progress.

As childish as naming my instruments may seem, I do have my reason. Guitarists will tell you that every Spanish guitar - or every acoustic, or every electric - has its own distinctive sound. The same certainly goes for pianos - even keyboards won't all sound the same. It's as if each one is an individual. So while my instruments may lack flesh and blood, I feel each one has its own heart and soul. That’s why I named them.

It’s interesting, the memories we keep from our past relationships. Whether they knew it or not, I received a gift of music from every relationship I’ve had. Short or long-lived, every significant other influenced me musically, and this I truly do cherish. In college it was the boyfriend who introduced me to Art Garfunkel, my first time hearing “American Pie”, all things Windham Hill, and in particular a pianist I simply worship: George Winston. To this day, his song “Thanksgiving” is one of the most sublime pieces of music on Earth. Then the guy junior year that lived down the hall who, besides having told me he was infatuated with me, introduced me to The Kinks and T. Rex - thank you! Then the next boyfriend who was crazy about Kate Bush – I’ll pass. One can also learn what not to like. Then came grad school, the first serious boyfriend, and the introduction to all things classic and Southern rock, and blues – another big thank you! The influence has sort of dwindled after that.  Few human beings could ever move me the way music does.

It’s so true, that phrase, “Music is what feelings sound like”. Music can both create and depict feelings inside of me. I can feel sad and a song can perfectly reinforce that. I can feel depressed and a happy song can completely change that. What is it about Jimmy Cliff’s “I Can See Clearly Now” that can instantly turn any feelings of depression in me into spring sunshine? That’s power. I hear music and enter a sort of wonderful trance. Violins, flutes, cellos, piano, bass, my brain automatically starts dissecting it all. I get pulled by harmonies, melodies, key changes, chords, arpeggios, powerful voices of those so gifted with the instrument. I am completely dissecting the music in my head. I can be at the grocery store and stop in mid-aisle to listen to a song. I’m at a coffee shop and approach the cashier to ask what that song is and grab my notepad in my purse to write it down. I can be at a table with people at a restaurant and temporarily be pulled from the conversation because something about the music yanked me away and made me enter the trance. I hear songs that grab me and have to study the lyrics. I love sitting at home just listening to music with my eyes closed, in that ‘music trance’ dissecting everything in my head, analyzing and absorbing every note. I can mark moments of my life based on a song, listen to that song and burst into laughter or tears remembering the moment thanks to that song.

The power of music is intrinsic to life. It can shake us to the core. Love, fear, anger, passion, all can be communicated musically. If feelings made a sound, what else could be expected but for it to be musical.

"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought." -- E.Y. Harburg